joining the pile of MM floon posts
How Omi entered MM. :) Kinda long.
It was a cold winter night, and her chest burned with every breath she took. Omi deliberately slowed her pace to a fast walk, trying to look in all directions at once. She’d killed the last three undead who’d caught up to her, but several miles back she’d reached the farm where she’d planned to spend the night, only to find it a burned husk. Not much sign of what had happened to the family that lived there, and the only bones she was able to find belonged to animals. No blood traces either, which meant that the family had probably not been killed there, though that was not much of a comfort.
She was going to need to tell someone... probably the Viscountess... about the missing family... but first she needed to find some place to hide for the rest of the night. Myanthea two years after the crowning of King Vincent was safer than it used to be... the ground was solid, now, for one thing. That didn’t mean it was anything like safe.
It had been a very busy few years for her, splitting her time between helping in the forests of Taur Qual’kelek and traveling to various settlements around Myanthea trying to rebuild the guilds. The good news is that there was all sorts of building happening all around Myanthea, and most settlements were happy enough to devote a building, or a room (or a permanent tent, though she was going to fix those) to housing a permanent circle, and *every* settlement that didn’t already have healers was more than happy to have someone there trained in at least the basics. But there was *so* much work to be done. There were barely any cities left after the war, no people in most of the country, most of the roads were nothing more than pitted paths... there was just a lot to be done.
She heard a slight shuffle on the path behind her and picked up her pace to a run again. She’d been running for a long time, too long, actually. The Tome could help her with that, for a while, but there were limits to that, too. Either way the energy was coming from her, and she couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She looked up at the trees lining the path, but they were mostly without low hanging branches she could use to climb, and in any case, she’d freeze to death trying to stay up in a tree all night. Briefly she regretted giving the talisman back to Karusuko, since that would have kept her alive overnight, but it was something her parents had given her and Omi had returned it after the first couple of visits to the Icewood, once she and the elves had gotten used to each other and they realized that if she was going to be out all day in sub-zero temperatures that it wasn’t enough to have a bed waiting for her (piled high with so many blankets it was barely recognizable as a bed), she needed to get warm during the day, too. But there hadn’t been any problems like that in months, so she’d given it back, so that was no help.
Suddenly a skeleton lunged at her from the darkness under the trees. She blocked with her sword and threw an undead-killing spell at it, one of her last. It crumbled, and she tried to increase her speed. And resolved that if she died here, she was going to resurrect somewhere other than the circle in the Icewood, because they’d offered an escort, which she’d declined because they were having a problem with some dryders and she didn’t want to take away one of their defenders away from the border of the wood. But she didn’t want them to feel guilty about her dying after traveling to their wood, and she was pretty sure they would. Well, some of them. Lallikeisha definitely. She was pretty sure. They were a bit hard to read sometimes.
A bit of a darker patch in darkness of the forest caught her attention, and she turned towards it. The patch resolved itself to be a streambed gully that cut through the hills. There might be some culvert or something she could hide in somewhere along here. At any case, it was better than continuing along the path with undead lunging out at her from the darkness. And the wind would be less.
A few hundred feet down the gully, she found a crack in the side of the gully that looked narrow enough to squeeze through, so she did. Even if it went nowhere, the undead might not be able to find her in there. She squeezed through, acquiring several scrapes along the way, then suddenly stumbled into a larger space. She conjured up a light, squinting at the sudden brightness, and looked around a stone cave. Odd to find this off of a gully. She really hoped that she hadn’t actually stumbled into the network of caves under Myanthea, those still had some unfriendly things in them.
An odd hint of sound caught her attention, and she moved deeper into the cave. It sounded like... flute music? Coming from a random cave? She followed the sound, and it grew louder. At the back of the cave, there was a pool of.. some liquid. It was hard to tell with the tiny light she had, but it didn’t seem to be water. The light was reflecting oddly off of it, almost mirror-like. And the music seemed to be coming from the bottom of the liquid. She called out once, and the music stopped.
The cessation of the music allowed her to hear what she hadn’t before... more footsteps in the cave, behind her. She spun, and found three undead in front of her. She tried to bring her sword up to block, and for a few seconds succeeded at holding them off. Then they all seemed to come at her at once, and she frantically threw herself backwards trying to avoid a sword-thrust. The heel of her boot caught on a rock and suddenly she was falling backwards into the pool.
There was no splash.
It was a cold winter night, and her chest burned with every breath she took. Omi deliberately slowed her pace to a fast walk, trying to look in all directions at once. She’d killed the last three undead who’d caught up to her, but several miles back she’d reached the farm where she’d planned to spend the night, only to find it a burned husk. Not much sign of what had happened to the family that lived there, and the only bones she was able to find belonged to animals. No blood traces either, which meant that the family had probably not been killed there, though that was not much of a comfort.
She was going to need to tell someone... probably the Viscountess... about the missing family... but first she needed to find some place to hide for the rest of the night. Myanthea two years after the crowning of King Vincent was safer than it used to be... the ground was solid, now, for one thing. That didn’t mean it was anything like safe.
It had been a very busy few years for her, splitting her time between helping in the forests of Taur Qual’kelek and traveling to various settlements around Myanthea trying to rebuild the guilds. The good news is that there was all sorts of building happening all around Myanthea, and most settlements were happy enough to devote a building, or a room (or a permanent tent, though she was going to fix those) to housing a permanent circle, and *every* settlement that didn’t already have healers was more than happy to have someone there trained in at least the basics. But there was *so* much work to be done. There were barely any cities left after the war, no people in most of the country, most of the roads were nothing more than pitted paths... there was just a lot to be done.
She heard a slight shuffle on the path behind her and picked up her pace to a run again. She’d been running for a long time, too long, actually. The Tome could help her with that, for a while, but there were limits to that, too. Either way the energy was coming from her, and she couldn’t keep this up for much longer. She looked up at the trees lining the path, but they were mostly without low hanging branches she could use to climb, and in any case, she’d freeze to death trying to stay up in a tree all night. Briefly she regretted giving the talisman back to Karusuko, since that would have kept her alive overnight, but it was something her parents had given her and Omi had returned it after the first couple of visits to the Icewood, once she and the elves had gotten used to each other and they realized that if she was going to be out all day in sub-zero temperatures that it wasn’t enough to have a bed waiting for her (piled high with so many blankets it was barely recognizable as a bed), she needed to get warm during the day, too. But there hadn’t been any problems like that in months, so she’d given it back, so that was no help.
Suddenly a skeleton lunged at her from the darkness under the trees. She blocked with her sword and threw an undead-killing spell at it, one of her last. It crumbled, and she tried to increase her speed. And resolved that if she died here, she was going to resurrect somewhere other than the circle in the Icewood, because they’d offered an escort, which she’d declined because they were having a problem with some dryders and she didn’t want to take away one of their defenders away from the border of the wood. But she didn’t want them to feel guilty about her dying after traveling to their wood, and she was pretty sure they would. Well, some of them. Lallikeisha definitely. She was pretty sure. They were a bit hard to read sometimes.
A bit of a darker patch in darkness of the forest caught her attention, and she turned towards it. The patch resolved itself to be a streambed gully that cut through the hills. There might be some culvert or something she could hide in somewhere along here. At any case, it was better than continuing along the path with undead lunging out at her from the darkness. And the wind would be less.
A few hundred feet down the gully, she found a crack in the side of the gully that looked narrow enough to squeeze through, so she did. Even if it went nowhere, the undead might not be able to find her in there. She squeezed through, acquiring several scrapes along the way, then suddenly stumbled into a larger space. She conjured up a light, squinting at the sudden brightness, and looked around a stone cave. Odd to find this off of a gully. She really hoped that she hadn’t actually stumbled into the network of caves under Myanthea, those still had some unfriendly things in them.
An odd hint of sound caught her attention, and she moved deeper into the cave. It sounded like... flute music? Coming from a random cave? She followed the sound, and it grew louder. At the back of the cave, there was a pool of.. some liquid. It was hard to tell with the tiny light she had, but it didn’t seem to be water. The light was reflecting oddly off of it, almost mirror-like. And the music seemed to be coming from the bottom of the liquid. She called out once, and the music stopped.
The cessation of the music allowed her to hear what she hadn’t before... more footsteps in the cave, behind her. She spun, and found three undead in front of her. She tried to bring her sword up to block, and for a few seconds succeeded at holding them off. Then they all seemed to come at her at once, and she frantically threw herself backwards trying to avoid a sword-thrust. The heel of her boot caught on a rock and suddenly she was falling backwards into the pool.
There was no splash.