Fated (Chapter Forty-Nine)
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mindcrackloveChapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
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Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Forty-Nine
Skettisren tunnels under Traz’madar, Minecraftia. October 26, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
Iirkolav charged into the main room, moving faster than he had in years as his new metal foot clanked and moved against the stone floor.
"Shred! Where the fuck is Shred?"
"I'm here." Shred got to her feet, frowning slightly. "What's wrong?"
Iirkolav practically slid to a stop, the other three following him not far behind. He looked into Shred's eyes as he spoke, watching her reaction, subconsciously comparing her to another Ashenhorn he knew.
"Kalt'on forces march on Sunspire. They'll be there in five days."
Shred's eyes widened and she didn't react for a brief moment before springing into action. "Do they know?"
"The skettisren don't think so."
"We have to warn them. Right now. Without warning, the Sunspines could suffer heavy losses. But if they're ready..."
"I agree." Iirkolav nodded. "And..." He hesitated. "One scout reported seeing a large stone dragon with them. That sounds like Spalor to me."
Everyone who had paused to listen now stared. "You mean that Kalt'on fights with the Hostiles?" Marcus asked finally.
"Yep." Tarsen's voice was grim. "Looks like we're being dragged into a war."
"Gather your things. We're going topside." Iirkolav called, and everyone immediately scurried to do as he said. Marcus growled softly.
"We're waiting until nightfall. I-"
"No time, but don't worry, the jungle will protect your delicate vampire skin."
Marcus stared. "How did...I mean...what, how dare-"
"Skip it, Fangs, we know." Tarsen rolled his eyes. "We've known for ages. You could have awoken me before biting, though. I might have bitten back..."
Marcus made a face at the purr in his voice. "Gross. No." The vampire paused before understanding dawned on his face, then anger. "Wait one fucking minute! You assholes knew? All those things you said that made me nervous that you'd find out...that was intentional?!"
The Tirisk and Valdrar groups both burst into hysterical laughter, watching how pissed the vampire got. "I hate all of you." He mumbled.
A groupwide trick, played on one of the more unpleasant members of the team as a morale booster.
Iirkolav cleared his throat. "Focus. We need to find Mitven and get going. Has anyone seen her?"
Niel cautiously raised a hand. "I think she was looking for her brother?"
Nia swore softly. “We need her to lead us out of here, plus she’s one of the descendants too.” She crossed her arms. “Any skettisren around that we can ask?”
“Doesn’t matter. No one speaks their language.” Adrian mumbled. “But they are kinda everywhere…”
“Oh! Oh! I do! Pick me!” Tranpar bounced up and down, waving a hand. Samuel looked at him and sighed quietly, motioning for him to follow. He led the way down the tunnel to where a couple of skettisren were whispering quietly. One of them, a female, jumped a little upon seeing them and pointed vaguely.
“Kassen! Ssak sor dras?” Tranpar asked her, and she slowly blinked before responding.
“Kassor? Vaksen, mor?”
“Mitven. Voks plez mos.”
“Ko! Mitven esseth kalresh semissen.”
Tranpar thanked her and then turned to Samuel as the other skettisren left, her friend close behind her. “She said she’ll find Mitven.” He said cheerfully, practically skipping back into the main room.
As everyone gathered their things, Shred paced anxiously, glancing at the tunnel mouth occasionally as if hoping to see Mitven round the corner. She didn’t respond to people asking if she was okay and even swatted at Iirkolav when he tried to get her attention.
Eventually Mitven skidded into the room, almost slamming into Trymdas. She apologized before turning to the group at large. “Sorry! We haven’t seen my brother since yesterday and I was looking for him because I’m really, really worried.”
“He’ll turn up.” Samuel assured. “Can you take us to the surface? We need to warn the Sunspines.”
“I know, I know, come on!” She motioned for the group to follow her before turning around and running back down the tunnel. She was forced to slow down at a growl from Iirkolav- while he could move faster now, he wasn’t yet used to his new metal leg.
As they traveled, Adrian shivered as his blood itched.
Not again…
~~~
Two hours later, Mitven opened the entrance to an exit that none of them had been to before, opening up at the outskirts of the jungle. She crawled out of what was essentially a ladder with a trapdoor and moved to let the other descendants follow. Getting Iirkolav up the ladder involved a lot of swearing and arguing and eventually Marcus just used his vampiric strength to lift Iirkolav out.
“You should take the lead from here.” Iirkolav suggested to Shred as he kicked the trapdoor shut and helped Mitven hide it again. “You’re the only one that’s been here.”
“And they’ll trust me.” Shred gently nudged Mira to get her attention before leading the way deeper into the jungle. Marcus seemed nervous at first but eventually relaxed as the jungle was relatively dark. He looked somewhat uncomfortable and skirted any patches of brighter light, but he wasn’t burning, which was a plus.
It wasn’t long until eleven Sunspines appeared out of seemingly nowhere, dropping from the trees all equipped with swords and shields. One of them, who had four sets of ribs on his armor marking him as the oldest, stepped forward to speak to Shred.
“What is going on? Why have you brought outsiders to within the borders of Sunspire? Who even are you?”
“My name is Shred the Mainframe. I’m the caretaker of the valk’vanor.” She motioned at Mira, who squeaked ‘Shred!’ helpfully. “I’ve brought word of a coming invasion by the Kalt’onian forces. They march here with the Hostiles and will arrive in five days.”
News of despair brought by the one who looked after their greatest hope.
The Sunspines muttered amongst themselves before the eldest slammed his sword on his shield to silence them. “This is grave news, but we are honored to have you here, Caretaker. We thank you for the warning- you have saved countless lives.” He turned to one of the others and ordered her to bring the news to the clanlord. She sheathed her sword and set out immediately, racing along the jungle floor and leaping expertly over roots.
The Sunspine motioned vaguely at the others behind her. “Why are they here?”
“We’re here to help fight.” Nia told him. “We’re destined to destroy the Hostiles, and that means we’re supposed to be here to help.”
The Sunspine hesitated for a few brief moments before nodding. “Very well. You travel with the Caretaker.” He ordered for the other nine Sunspines to resume their patrols before motioning silently for the group to follow him.
“Where are we going?” Iirkolav asked quietly.
“Likely to the main encampment. We’re not far from here- only a few hours at this pace.” Shred told him.
“Fantastic.”
-~-
“No, no, no, no, no!” Vechs protested, following Blame to his room. “That orb is a bad, bad thing, Blame!”
“We need to know what they’re up to!” Blame snapped, opening the drawer and picking up the cracked object. “I won’t use it for long, but, dammit, we need to know!” He sat on his bed and flipped to Kyilld, frowning. Vechs sighed and sat beside him, leaning over his shoulder to see.
Kyilld, in the form of the Kalt’onian king, was seated in a luxuriant bedroom and speaking with a golden-winged woman sitting opposite of her. This second woman had gray hair, like cobwebs, as well as claws at the ends of her fingers and toes. She had two horns growing out of her head and eyes as red and angry as the rest of the Hostiles’. A golden orb made of pure magical energy hovered beside her, ready for use at any time.
“Remind me one more time why we’re bothering to attack Sunspire.” Paw’zelta said, crossing her arms.
Kyilld sighed. “Look. The Skullblades are very powerful, very stubborn, and very dangerous. We need to crush them before we let them live to bite us in the ass later. Plus Iirkolav and those ridiculous descendants are around there, and they’re bound to help the Sunspines. Specterveil wants them dead, so they’re going to die. Get it now?”
Paw’zelta sighed. “It seems like such a waste of time. Why not just burn down the jungle, like we did last time?”
“Oh, yeah, and that worked so well.” Kyilld growled. “We’ve lost most of our firepower, anyway. Like, let’s see, who works with fire? You and I kind of can, Arcbiter, sometimes Arcvain…who else? Oh. No. That’s it. Saltar’vesque and Draemae are dead.”
“You act like that was my fault.”
“Oh, it wasn’t. It was theirs. Especially Draemae. What an idiot. He got his head chopped off, did you hear that?”
Paw’zelta groaned. “Kyilld, I was locked in the Shattered Zone with all nine of you idiots for two hundred years. I know everything.”
Kyilld groaned as well. “Don’t remind me. I’ve had more pranks pulled on me than I care to count.”
A wicked grin spread across Paw’zelta’s face. “Oh, yes. Did I tell you about that that time where I got Specterveil’s-“
At that moment, the purple shade himself glided through an open window into the room, arms crossed. Paw’zelta squeaked quietly in surprise as he spoke. “Got my…what?”
“Um…nothing?”
“I thought not.” He turned his gaze towards Kyilld. “Somehow the descendants discovered our attack on Sunspire and have warned the Skullblades. They’ll be prepared.”
Kyilld frowned. “Do you want me to cancel the attack?”
“No. Continue as planned. Just be sure you’re ready for them. From what Altair managed to see, they’re almost as good as the Mindcrackers.”
Paw’zelta laughed. “They were nothing to worry about.”
“We lost eleven of our number to them due to being overconfident.” He swooped forward, his face inches from hers and making her shrink back. “Don’t. Do so. Again.”
He began giving them orders, the details of which Blame didn’t care too much about as he threw the orb back into the drawer and shut it.
“So they don’t get along very well.” He mumbled. “That’s reassuring, I guess.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. It means that they won’t work together so well.” Blame crossed his arms. “Unlike us.”
“Unlike us.” Vechs agreed, and they lapsed into silence.
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Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 12:57 am (UTC)-Anon Cami
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Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 03:03 pm (UTC)You know what would be a massive deathcount booster?
Messing with Valkan and watching as he injuries people and leaves them for the Hostiles, which he totally would do. :P
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Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2015 04:05 am (UTC)-Anon Cami
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Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 05:48 am (UTC)And oh good grief, Kyilld has taken the form of the king. I was wondering why Kalt'on would march on Sunspire. Now I know and I don't feel any better. I almost enjoyed the banter between the Hostiles, though.
I liked this chapter! (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
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Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2015 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2015 06:48 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2015 06:49 am (UTC)-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Saturday, October 31st, 2015 04:31 pm (UTC)I'm sorry, this sounds like a really complicated math problem. I just didn't want you to have to deal with spoilers if you decided to watch it.
G.C. (@) (::) - Sierra Winters
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Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2015 11:52 pm (UTC)G.C. (::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
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Date: Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015 12:26 pm (UTC)