Fated (Chapter Seven)
Thursday, July 16th, 2015 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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 Seven
Kingdom of Illian, Minecraftia. September 10, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
They had been traveling north for two days and were nearing Ashwatch when Shred motioned for the group to stop. She had heard footsteps and drew her blades, looking closely in the direction of the footsteps. “Who’s there?” She called warily.
Two figures, weapons drawn, appeared from behind the trees. Nia noted that they both wore skull masks, but neither were quite like Shred’s- one had a white mask that looked like a regular human skull, while the other had a black mask with fangs, and both lacked horns. The two were about the same height and a little taller than Shred, and both possessed one set of ribs each. The one with the white mask held a sword in his right hand with a shield on his left arm. The figure with the black mask held a bow with an arrow half-drawn back.
Skullblades.
Shred lowered her swords. “My apologies. I did not recognize you as Skullblades.” The others lowered their weapons as well. “On your way to Ashwatch for the hatching of the valk’vanor?”
“Yes.” The one in the white mask responded, before shaking his head as though somewhat confused. “We are….. Wait, why are you bringing outsiders?”
“Seer of Pathways instructed me to bring the Davions. The others I’m unsure of, but I feel like I must bring them.” Shred hesitated. “I am Shred the Mainframe.” She sheathed her swords.
The man in the white mask sheathed his weapon as well. “I am Ragebent Blade.”
“I’m Fatewriter.” The girl in the dark mask added, putting the arrow back in her quiver. “Shall we travel the rest of the way together? It’s not far.”
Ragebent Blade shot her a look as if trying to communicate that he would rather not, but she ignored it in favor of Shred’s nod of agreement. They two groups set off together after Shred warned the ‘outsiders’ not to pester the other Skullblades.
Nia looked curiously at the two but heeded Shred’s warning, knowing that if they were anything like Shred that she didn’t want to mess with them.
They had only been walking about five minutes before Ragebent Blade whipped around and drew his sword. “I knew it. We’re being followed.” Fatewriter reacted immediately, turning around and readying an arrow on her bow.
He had a suspicion from the beginning.
“I see you in there.” Blade growled, moving to get a better angle. “Come on out.”
After a brief pause, the figure stepped out into the open.
~~~
Nebris’s descendant was sure that she was screwed. One of the Skullblades, the Sunspine, had somehow managed to notice her where the entire group previously had not.
She raised her hands in a defeated gesture, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to fight them off even if she tried, and stepped out into the open. She allowed her camouflage cloak to unwrap from her and hang behind her, revealing her dark gray and black clothing. Her brown hair went a bit past shoulder length, now freed as she pushed the hood back off of her head. Her purple eyes looked between the figures before her, carefully analyzing them.
She noticed that both Fatewriter and Nia had their arrows aimed at her chest, and she gulped quietly. Don’t make a wrong move.
“Who are you?” Ragebent Blade demanded, eyes narrowed.
“My name is Nessy. I don’t mean any harm.”
“Why have you been following us? For how long?” Shred growled.
“I’ve been following you for several days, and I had this dream-“
The group groaned in sync.
“All this bullshit about dreams.” Adrian muttered. “Lovely. We’re gonna pick up half of Minecraftia at this rate.”
“Why not just show yourself?” Nia asked her. “Why follow us?”
“I was afraid of getting weapons aimed at me.” Nessy said pointedly. “And of being rejected. Plus I wanted to make sure that you were the right people and also not evil or something.”
“How could we be evil? We have a unicorn!” Adrian demanded.
Incarnations of good.
“I wasn’t-“
“AHK!” Nessy was cut off by a surprised shriek from Fatewriter as a spider suddenly fell on her face. Her jump made her release the bowstring, sending the arrow flying at the girl.
Nessy reacted instantly, bringing one of her raised hands down in a slashing motion. The arrow suddenly jerked and turned midflight, changing its direction to slam into a tree about four feet away from the girl.
Spatial manipulation.
Everyone stared.
“And, um.” Nessy looked back and forth between them. “That. I, uh…”
“That’s so cool!” Niel said immediately. “You can just…move stuff?”
“Well…yeah.” Nessy laughed nervously. “It’s called spatial manipulation. I can just…do stuff.” She hesitated. “I was afraid you wouldn’t accept me if you knew. Um…”
Shred sighed, ignoring Blade lecturing an embarrassed Fate on weapon discipline and not being freaked out by spiders. “We’re a weird enough group that we’d accept anything. What I don’t accept, however, is how you were following us.”
“She’s explained her reasons and they seem perfectly valid.” Nia protested. “I wouldn’t show myself immediately either. Besides, Teramelle doesn’t dislike her.” The unicorn had drawn near and sniffed Nessy carefully, but didn’t seem to find anything wrong with her.
“And you need another competent person on your team.” Blade put in, looking back at them. “You have three, maybe four.”
“Three.” Fate confirmed.
“I was being generous.”
“If so, then you should have said five.”
“Fine. Three.”
The group exchanged looks.
“Come along, then.” Shred sighed. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”
Nessy grinned widely and bounced a little. “Really?”
Shred ignored her and got back to walking, sheathing her swords.
Nessy trailed along a little behind the group, but was surprised to find the silver-haired boy sticking with her.
“What else can you do with that spatial manipulation stuff? Oh, and I’m Niel.”
“Niel.” Nessy repeated, then answered his question. “A lot of stuff. I can pull items out of other places, or teleport, or move things. It takes a lot of energy, though, and there are limits.”
“Teleport?!”
“Yes. I’m not very good at it, though. I’ve only managed it once, and I almost left an arm behind.” Nessy quickly got quiet when Adrian drew closer, clearly protective over his friend but not unfriendly.
“That sounds pretty cool.” He admitted, clearly having overheard them. “How do you do that?”
“It’s…just something I was born with.” Nessy shrugged. “It’s how I am.”
~~~
They had been walking for about fifteen minutes when Shred noticed Tarsen being a creep.
Again.
He appeared to be targeting Fatewriter, saying the same things that he had been saying to Shred. She was about to speak up when Blade turned around and drew back his fist to punch Tarsen. He stopped himself, though, lowering his fist momentarily only to move and grab Tarsen to hold him still.
Fate grinned and punched him herself. Blade shoved him away as he yelped from the blow to the jaw. Tarsen stumbled back, rubbing the impact site.
“Get away from me.” Fate growled.
“You get within ten feet of either of us and you’ll get more than punched.” Blade said darkly.
“Maybe don’t fuck around with Skullblades.” Shred snarled as Tarsen moved back in the group.
Skullblades: more casual about death than most people.
“You’re going to lose your entire face at this rate.” Samuel informed him.
“I think the broken nose makes me look dashing.” Tarsen remarked.
“I think it makes you look stupid.” Nia muttered, earning some laughs, particularly from the Skullblades.
-~-
“Spatial manipulation?” Nebris mumbled under his breath. “Why have we never heard of that?”
“I don’t know.” Vechs confessed. “And who are those two Skullblades?”
“No one important, as far as I can tell.” Blame said, shrugging. “A Sunspine and a Shadefang traveling together, though, is odd. I’d say that they ran into each other on the way, but they seem like close friends. Perhaps they met in the past…” He trailed off, thinking.
“My descendant needs to figure out who to hit on and who to avoid.” Bdoubleo muttered. “He’s gonna get his face messed up at this rate.”
“I don’t think he cares.” Etho grumbled. “He seemed to like the broken nose.”
“Adrian’s been so nice to everyone.” Aureylian remarked. “Look, he’s been friendly to even Tarsen despite not spending a lot of time talking to him. He’s kind of a creep- sorry, Bdoubleo.”
“It’s true, no harm done.”
“My descendant is as interesting as a plank of wood balanced on a boulder.” Millbee complained. “Can I get a refund?”
“I like mine.” Blame said quietly.
“Which one?” Vechs asked, laughing. “You’re bound to have hundreds. She’s just the chosen one, I guess.”
Blame glared at him until he stopped laughing. “I wonder who they’ll run into next.” The Skullblade said once the room had fallen silent.
“Hopefully someone interesting.” Millbee grumbled.
“What hasn’t been interesting?” Nebris demanded.
“Well…nothing except for Baltbee. I just hope it stays interesting.”
“Oh, it’ll get interesting.” Vechs assured him. “Just wait until the Bloodshadow covers the moon. It’ll get really interesting then…”
-~-
“So let me get this straight. You were chased across the forest into a chasm by an earth elementalist, who just…collapsed it and gave up?” Nessy asked.
“Pretty much.” Nia leaned back and stretched her arms. It was night and the group was resting. Nia and Adrian were telling the two Skullblades, Samuel, Tranpar, and Nessy about how they had found Kaen no Mai and how this adventure had started in the first place.
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Blade protested. “Look, no one has that bad of aim, and he could have just…torn up the ground beneath you. Or blocked your escape. Or caused an avalanche rather than throwing single boulders. Or even, I don’t know, moved in the chasm walls to crush you two! Him doing most of that makes zero sense, especially with how easily he could have killed you in other ways.”
Fate, who had been writing all this down, gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe he was intentionally missing. Maybe he was intentionally driving you towards the bow.”
“How would he know where it is?” Nia demanded. “He just seemed like some random earth elementalist.”
“Some random earth elementalist that decided to throw rocks at you for…some reason?” Blade shook his head. “No. That’s not coincidental. He was driving you towards the bow.”
Nia frowned, looking into the flames of their campfire.
If that was the case, then that raised the questions of who he was, how did he know about the bow, and how did he know that Nia needed to find it?
She sighed quietly.
This really wasn’t getting any less complicated, and she had the awful feeling that all hell was going to break loose soon.
- fanfiction,
- fiction length: multiple chapters,
- former mindcracker: bdubs,
- former mindcracker: btc,
- former mindcracker: etho,
- former mindcracker: paul soares,
- mindcracker: aureylian,
- mindcracker: millbee,
- mindcracker: nebris,
- mindcracker: sethbling,
- mindcracker: vetches,
- mindcracker: zistykins,
- warning: mention of/ character death
no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:01 pm (UTC)But more importantly, Tarsen is literally my spirit animal right now xD
no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:16 pm (UTC)THIS IS TOTAL BULLSHIT
DAMMIT SCOTT XD
no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 11:18 pm (UTC)Also, random earth elementalist appears again. Surely we shall beet this magical person of magical magicalness.
In other news: Blame sounds kind of happy. That can only mean one thing: THE HAMMER OF NOPE SHALL CRASH DOWN UPON SHRED.
This really wasn’t getting any less complicated, and she had the awful feeling that all hell was going to break loose soon.
Why yes, yes it will.
no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:14 am (UTC)Tarsen get a grip on yourself you piece of trash XD
~and Adrian isn't wrong about picking up half of minecraftia, considering there's 30 of them plus a unicorn lol
no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 12:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 10:58 am (UTC)And Tarsen, stop being a unicornhead pls
no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, July 17th, 2015 04:53 pm (UTC)