Firekeeper's World: The Day After The Plague
It would be nice if the Nexus Islands would respect that people trying to recover from plague could really only handle one calamity at a time, but no. The morning brought reports from Plik and Harjeedian, and the knowledge that they had a problem: Ynamynet and Lachen were missing.
Well, perhaps 'missing' was the wrong word. Reports from the Wise Beasts indicated that the last two Once Dead of any real power had been seen at mealtimes, but there were long stretches of the day where they could not be accounted for.
"But they have been watched since we take charge here. Kept in one building. How could they act against us?" Firekeeper asked. "We inspect it before we placed them there, and taked everything that could be used as a weapon."
Arthur
Arthur's mouth echoed the frown on his face quite obviously. "Is there a cellar?" he asked. "Did you see anything in the floor while you were inspecting it?"
He tended to run a lot of searches, all right? Back home.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper realized almost immediately what he meant. "A cellar," she said flatly, feeling foolish in missing it herself. "The building is guarded mostly by beasts, they would not think of such things."
Merlin
Of course it would be in the cellar. Most things happened there, after all.
"Then we ought to go looking for them before they do any more harm."
Isende
"Not us," Isende put in even as her brother began to step forward. "If those two can still take us over, we might suddenly become the enemy."
Francine
Francine cut in on any argument Tiniel might have been about to make. "I'm coming with you." She couldn't even say why, just that there was something.
Now, though -- even if she hadn't properly explained it to anyone else yet -- Francine couldn't deny that if she thought there was something... maybe there was.
Truth
Truth's tail twitched at this assertion, but oddly she seemed less bothered overall by the presence of the outworlders now than she had before querinalo had changed her.
"The humans in the building are quiet now," she reported via Firekeeper, "if they are not sleeping within their night lairs, then they are feigning such sleep. Now is the best time for you to go."
Firekeeper
This advice in mind, Firekeeper wasted no time leading them from the cottage to the building where the Once Dead had been quartered. The large building was comparatively still, and they crept in with no trouble.
Firekeeper cast her eyes about until she found the dusty double-sided door that led to the lower reaches of the building. Carefully, she unlatched it, revealing a staircase carved from rock.
"Quickly," she spoke quietly, allowing Blind Seer, with his superior night vision, to step inside first.
Arthur
Dark and dank, most likely, much like the catacombs underneath Camelot. Arthur's fingers searched for and found the wall as soon as he entered, his other hand once again placed upon his scabbard. You never knew when you might need your sword, after all.
He didn't say anything. He was listening, and doing his best to keep his step.
Francine
Someone had the questionably brilliant idea of providing Francine with a weapon, though at least they were smart enough not to make it a sharp object. She sneaked along after them gripping one of the sort of clubs the Twice Dead had carried - essentially a slightly larger, slightly deadlier version of a baseball bat, which at least she could be fairly sure of swinging without harming herself. And possibly her friends.
Merlin
Merlin peered down into the dark for a moment before starting in. A torch would have been lovely about now, but that would have to wait for another time.
"Like being home again," he muttered gloomily under his breath.
Firekeeper
"Blind Seer scents beeswax and lamp oil at bottom," Firekeeper offered, once the door closed and they were left with no light but the soft glow from small blocks set in the wall at foot level. "When we reach there, I can provide more light."
Arthur
"They could have done with providing us a torch," Arthur murmured. Not that he was ready to jump at the slightest flicker of a sound that didn't come from either of them. "Does Blind Seer scent anything else?"
... Yes. His father would never hear of this, and that was a very good thing.
Firekeeper
"Blood- not in great amount, but there. Fresh earth and broken stone. Familiar human scents: Ynamynet, Skea, Lachen, Verul. A few others. None here now," Firekeeper reported.
They'd reached the bottom of the staircase, and she had Blind Seer lead her towards where he'd scented the lamp oil. Taking the bag from her neck where she wore her fire-making tools, she struck spark to tinder and lit the lamp.
Francine
Francine's hand traced over the wall as they moved, the better to... not fall over on people, mostly. A few steps from the bottom of the stairs, the surface changed under her fingers, though she couldn't describe how until Firekeeper's lamp lit up the darkness.
Away from the stairs, the cellar wasn't so much a cellar. You only used that word for man-made places. Nobody's hands hand carved out the large, irregularly shaped room they stood in. "It's like they built the house over a cave," she said quietly, peering around.
Merlin
"Or something more important," Merlin added, pointing toward what appeared to be a doorway in the stone. Even in the dim light, that was obvious.
Blind Seer
"Another gate," Firekeeper realized. The rocks around it on the ground showed well what had happened: something long-buried had been quietly, painstakingly unearthed by the Once Dead and whoever else had been working in the celler.
"The blood I smell seems to have mostly come from where rock cut or crushed, not spilled for spellcasting," Blind Seer reported, with Firekeeper translating. "This thing is not yet alive."
...
It was then that the sound of footfalls, leather scraping against stone, could be heard coming from the direction of the stairwell.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper froze and moved to the shadows, out of the direct line of sight of anyone coming down the stairwell, gesturing for her companions to do the same. She considered for a moment striking out the lamp, but realized it had likely already been seen. Perhaps they would assume whoever'd been down here last had left it burning.
Merlin
They could always hope that, yes.
Merlin crept to join her, using his ninja skills honed in the corridors of Camelot. It was... better than expected, but he really was no ninja.
Francine
Francine... didn't kick anything over or set anything on fire as she ducked into the darkness with them. Given she was still a little wobbly from plague, this could be counted as pretty damn ninjatastic on her part.
Lachen
"Who left a lamp burning?" came Lachen's voice, sounding accusatory.
Ynamynet
"It's turned pretty low," Ynamynet spoke as she inspected the lamp. "It's possible there was a spark in the wick that slowly kindled the oil. I'll take a look around."
She did just that, casting the lamp around as she stalked through the cavern. Unfortunately, that light happened to catch Blind Seer's eyes. Eyes that, in low light, would absorb and reflect said light.
She did the only sensible thing one could do in such a situation. She screamed, alerting her companions to her predicament.
Skea (and Verul)
The men swiftly came to her aid, wielding makeshift clubs fashioned from what was probably the house's furniture.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper saw little reason to stay hidden then, and leapt out, choosing Verul as her target. She grabbed at his leg, tripping him.
Arthur
Arthur similarly went after Skea, cornering the much larger Twice Dead.
Firekeeper
While Verul was still on the ground, Firekeeper struck out with her Fang, slicing the tendon at the back of his ankle. This done, she turned her eyes to Ynamynet. She hesitated, because she couldn't bring herself to kill an unarmed opponent, and in that moment of hesitation, Ynamynet said something very strange:
Ynamynet
"Skea and I have a daughter," she said, her tone carefully conversational. "Do you have any children?"
Firekeeper
"No." Firekeeper was completely confused.
Ynamynet
"Then perhaps you will not understand when I tell you I could not trust my daughter to the mercies of you and your allies. Especially you, given how I betrayed our agreement back at the Setting Sun Stronghold. I must do what I could to escape."
Francine
"None of us is going to hurt a little girl!" Way to stealth in the shadows there, Francine. If you'd actually been about to bonk her over the head with that club instead of just sounding appalled, you'd be shit out of luck. Good thing you weren't.
Firekeeper
"I do not want your daughter." Firekeeper shook her head, confirming Francine's statement. "I do not want you or this place or anything else, but having them, I must deal with them."
Ynamynet
"If I order Skea to surrender, will your friend kill him?" she asked, again in that conversational voice. At another shake of Firekeeper's head, she nodded and raised her voice. "Skea. Surrender."
Skea
There was the dull thud of wood on stone as the big man dropped his club -- followed by a cra-ack as Blind Seer broke the piece of wood in his jaw.
Lachen
"No! No! No! No!" Screaming on a rising note. "NO!" The voice came from Lachen, rolling on the floor and deliberately soaking himself in the blood that had flowed from Verul's cut leg.
Verul
Verul, both hands gripping the makeshift bandage he'd wound around his leg, was staring at him in horror, which grew to terror as Lachen began to claw at Verul's hands, trying to force them away from the wound. He kicked out at Lachen with his sound leg, and the noise of bones breaking- probably in Lachen's hand- echoed throughout the cavern.
Lachen
Lachen, though, seemed to be beyond pain, staring at his own hand with blood dripping from broken skin and seeming more pleased than otherwise. He raised his hands, muttering something as steam began to rise around him, steam the rusty red of blood.
Francine
Hands raised like black shadows against a dark fog. Francine... had seen that before. "Somebody stop him!" she called out. "And don't let that mist touch you - it'll kill you if it does!"
Merlin
That was Merlin's cue, it would seem. Looking at the stones scattered about from the excavation, he raised the larger ones up into the air. Just a moment after a good amount was lifted, they all went hurtling at the man in a rather focused sort of rockslide.
Arthur
...Well. That mist had looked inviting, in the way that it entirely didn't.
Arthur had started backing away from it when it was raised--
--and then that happened. Rocks. Seriously. Rocks. "Well," he opined, his steady course backwards coming to a sudden and somewhat ungraceful halt, "Or I suppose that works."
Firekeeper
Firekeeper's wish to prevent needless death had had her reaching for Verul, to pull him out of the way of the mist since he seemed incapable of doing so under his own power when- well, rocks fell, taking care of the Lachen problem rather neatly.
She could not bring herself to feel sorry about his death, honestly.
Francine
The proper mental reaction to your boyfriend dropping a large pile of rocks on a bad guy's head was probably not That was kind of confusingly hot. Right? Right. Just checking. That'd be Francine gripping her club like she'd ever had any likelihood of using it, and... sort of feeling like she'd actually helped, for once.
Merlin
"I think I'd rather like to go home now," Merlin said, sagging just a bit as the strain so soon after the plague caught up with him.
[ooc: preplayed with the magically delicious bigdamndestiny, grrrreat bitch_prince and the irrezzzzistable thatsamilkshake. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome.]
Well, perhaps 'missing' was the wrong word. Reports from the Wise Beasts indicated that the last two Once Dead of any real power had been seen at mealtimes, but there were long stretches of the day where they could not be accounted for.
"But they have been watched since we take charge here. Kept in one building. How could they act against us?" Firekeeper asked. "We inspect it before we placed them there, and taked everything that could be used as a weapon."
Arthur
Arthur's mouth echoed the frown on his face quite obviously. "Is there a cellar?" he asked. "Did you see anything in the floor while you were inspecting it?"
He tended to run a lot of searches, all right? Back home.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper realized almost immediately what he meant. "A cellar," she said flatly, feeling foolish in missing it herself. "The building is guarded mostly by beasts, they would not think of such things."
Merlin
Of course it would be in the cellar. Most things happened there, after all.
"Then we ought to go looking for them before they do any more harm."
Isende
"Not us," Isende put in even as her brother began to step forward. "If those two can still take us over, we might suddenly become the enemy."
Francine
Francine cut in on any argument Tiniel might have been about to make. "I'm coming with you." She couldn't even say why, just that there was something.
Now, though -- even if she hadn't properly explained it to anyone else yet -- Francine couldn't deny that if she thought there was something... maybe there was.
Truth
Truth's tail twitched at this assertion, but oddly she seemed less bothered overall by the presence of the outworlders now than she had before querinalo had changed her.
"The humans in the building are quiet now," she reported via Firekeeper, "if they are not sleeping within their night lairs, then they are feigning such sleep. Now is the best time for you to go."
Firekeeper
This advice in mind, Firekeeper wasted no time leading them from the cottage to the building where the Once Dead had been quartered. The large building was comparatively still, and they crept in with no trouble.
Firekeeper cast her eyes about until she found the dusty double-sided door that led to the lower reaches of the building. Carefully, she unlatched it, revealing a staircase carved from rock.
"Quickly," she spoke quietly, allowing Blind Seer, with his superior night vision, to step inside first.
Arthur
Dark and dank, most likely, much like the catacombs underneath Camelot. Arthur's fingers searched for and found the wall as soon as he entered, his other hand once again placed upon his scabbard. You never knew when you might need your sword, after all.
He didn't say anything. He was listening, and doing his best to keep his step.
Francine
Someone had the questionably brilliant idea of providing Francine with a weapon, though at least they were smart enough not to make it a sharp object. She sneaked along after them gripping one of the sort of clubs the Twice Dead had carried - essentially a slightly larger, slightly deadlier version of a baseball bat, which at least she could be fairly sure of swinging without harming herself. And possibly her friends.
Merlin
Merlin peered down into the dark for a moment before starting in. A torch would have been lovely about now, but that would have to wait for another time.
"Like being home again," he muttered gloomily under his breath.
Firekeeper
"Blind Seer scents beeswax and lamp oil at bottom," Firekeeper offered, once the door closed and they were left with no light but the soft glow from small blocks set in the wall at foot level. "When we reach there, I can provide more light."
Arthur
"They could have done with providing us a torch," Arthur murmured. Not that he was ready to jump at the slightest flicker of a sound that didn't come from either of them. "Does Blind Seer scent anything else?"
... Yes. His father would never hear of this, and that was a very good thing.
Firekeeper
"Blood- not in great amount, but there. Fresh earth and broken stone. Familiar human scents: Ynamynet, Skea, Lachen, Verul. A few others. None here now," Firekeeper reported.
They'd reached the bottom of the staircase, and she had Blind Seer lead her towards where he'd scented the lamp oil. Taking the bag from her neck where she wore her fire-making tools, she struck spark to tinder and lit the lamp.
Francine
Francine's hand traced over the wall as they moved, the better to... not fall over on people, mostly. A few steps from the bottom of the stairs, the surface changed under her fingers, though she couldn't describe how until Firekeeper's lamp lit up the darkness.
Away from the stairs, the cellar wasn't so much a cellar. You only used that word for man-made places. Nobody's hands hand carved out the large, irregularly shaped room they stood in. "It's like they built the house over a cave," she said quietly, peering around.
Merlin
"Or something more important," Merlin added, pointing toward what appeared to be a doorway in the stone. Even in the dim light, that was obvious.
Blind Seer
"Another gate," Firekeeper realized. The rocks around it on the ground showed well what had happened: something long-buried had been quietly, painstakingly unearthed by the Once Dead and whoever else had been working in the celler.
"The blood I smell seems to have mostly come from where rock cut or crushed, not spilled for spellcasting," Blind Seer reported, with Firekeeper translating. "This thing is not yet alive."
...
It was then that the sound of footfalls, leather scraping against stone, could be heard coming from the direction of the stairwell.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper froze and moved to the shadows, out of the direct line of sight of anyone coming down the stairwell, gesturing for her companions to do the same. She considered for a moment striking out the lamp, but realized it had likely already been seen. Perhaps they would assume whoever'd been down here last had left it burning.
Merlin
They could always hope that, yes.
Merlin crept to join her, using his ninja skills honed in the corridors of Camelot. It was... better than expected, but he really was no ninja.
Francine
Francine... didn't kick anything over or set anything on fire as she ducked into the darkness with them. Given she was still a little wobbly from plague, this could be counted as pretty damn ninjatastic on her part.
Lachen
"Who left a lamp burning?" came Lachen's voice, sounding accusatory.
Ynamynet
"It's turned pretty low," Ynamynet spoke as she inspected the lamp. "It's possible there was a spark in the wick that slowly kindled the oil. I'll take a look around."
She did just that, casting the lamp around as she stalked through the cavern. Unfortunately, that light happened to catch Blind Seer's eyes. Eyes that, in low light, would absorb and reflect said light.
She did the only sensible thing one could do in such a situation. She screamed, alerting her companions to her predicament.
Skea (and Verul)
The men swiftly came to her aid, wielding makeshift clubs fashioned from what was probably the house's furniture.
Firekeeper
Firekeeper saw little reason to stay hidden then, and leapt out, choosing Verul as her target. She grabbed at his leg, tripping him.
Arthur
Arthur similarly went after Skea, cornering the much larger Twice Dead.
Firekeeper
While Verul was still on the ground, Firekeeper struck out with her Fang, slicing the tendon at the back of his ankle. This done, she turned her eyes to Ynamynet. She hesitated, because she couldn't bring herself to kill an unarmed opponent, and in that moment of hesitation, Ynamynet said something very strange:
Ynamynet
"Skea and I have a daughter," she said, her tone carefully conversational. "Do you have any children?"
Firekeeper
"No." Firekeeper was completely confused.
Ynamynet
"Then perhaps you will not understand when I tell you I could not trust my daughter to the mercies of you and your allies. Especially you, given how I betrayed our agreement back at the Setting Sun Stronghold. I must do what I could to escape."
Francine
"None of us is going to hurt a little girl!" Way to stealth in the shadows there, Francine. If you'd actually been about to bonk her over the head with that club instead of just sounding appalled, you'd be shit out of luck. Good thing you weren't.
Firekeeper
"I do not want your daughter." Firekeeper shook her head, confirming Francine's statement. "I do not want you or this place or anything else, but having them, I must deal with them."
Ynamynet
"If I order Skea to surrender, will your friend kill him?" she asked, again in that conversational voice. At another shake of Firekeeper's head, she nodded and raised her voice. "Skea. Surrender."
Skea
There was the dull thud of wood on stone as the big man dropped his club -- followed by a cra-ack as Blind Seer broke the piece of wood in his jaw.
Lachen
"No! No! No! No!" Screaming on a rising note. "NO!" The voice came from Lachen, rolling on the floor and deliberately soaking himself in the blood that had flowed from Verul's cut leg.
Verul
Verul, both hands gripping the makeshift bandage he'd wound around his leg, was staring at him in horror, which grew to terror as Lachen began to claw at Verul's hands, trying to force them away from the wound. He kicked out at Lachen with his sound leg, and the noise of bones breaking- probably in Lachen's hand- echoed throughout the cavern.
Lachen
Lachen, though, seemed to be beyond pain, staring at his own hand with blood dripping from broken skin and seeming more pleased than otherwise. He raised his hands, muttering something as steam began to rise around him, steam the rusty red of blood.
Francine
Hands raised like black shadows against a dark fog. Francine... had seen that before. "Somebody stop him!" she called out. "And don't let that mist touch you - it'll kill you if it does!"
Merlin
That was Merlin's cue, it would seem. Looking at the stones scattered about from the excavation, he raised the larger ones up into the air. Just a moment after a good amount was lifted, they all went hurtling at the man in a rather focused sort of rockslide.
Arthur
...Well. That mist had looked inviting, in the way that it entirely didn't.
Arthur had started backing away from it when it was raised--
--and then that happened. Rocks. Seriously. Rocks. "Well," he opined, his steady course backwards coming to a sudden and somewhat ungraceful halt, "Or I suppose that works."
Firekeeper
Firekeeper's wish to prevent needless death had had her reaching for Verul, to pull him out of the way of the mist since he seemed incapable of doing so under his own power when- well, rocks fell, taking care of the Lachen problem rather neatly.
She could not bring herself to feel sorry about his death, honestly.
Francine
The proper mental reaction to your boyfriend dropping a large pile of rocks on a bad guy's head was probably not That was kind of confusingly hot. Right? Right. Just checking. That'd be Francine gripping her club like she'd ever had any likelihood of using it, and... sort of feeling like she'd actually helped, for once.
Merlin
"I think I'd rather like to go home now," Merlin said, sagging just a bit as the strain so soon after the plague caught up with him.
[ooc: preplayed with the magically delicious bigdamndestiny, grrrreat bitch_prince and the irrezzzzistable thatsamilkshake. NFB, NFI, OOC welcome.]