The creaking and cracking of wood, the clunk and droop of slop, the pooling of mud itself as the very essence of life poured out of it. A single figure rose like a rubble, at first only a mound but soon came shape. Her hair, her face, her shoulders, her arms and fingers. From the ground arose Maja, rising through it as if it were mud- a slow pull.
The chamber she arose in- one of dirt and stone, torches set ablaze.
She stood there in silence, not stirring, not breathing, no movement at all; her sights set to the dirt floor laid out before. It lasted only a short time before her weight shifted, a step taken forward, then another. As if nothing were the matter she moved at the most casual of paces, walking from the room. The next room over housed more torches and more stone walls, a hallway with an actual stone floor. Teeth gritted and fangs bare, her path forward lay unobstructed with a momentum uninterrupted the further she went and instead only picking up briskly.
The forest stood void now as opposed to the moments it had endured prior. No cultists, no undead, no violence. What surrounded however were a handful of corpses scattered round the five entities actually living. The trio of Vampire Knights sat around, or rather some stood and some sat.
Fen Rao leaned his back against a tree, cracked and nearly split to the core by the massive blade strike made to it prior by Rengard. The back of Shree’s head rested against her halberd which stuck from the ground, while well across from her laid Yeager on his side. The crackle of branches from across echoed, signaling the approach of Dante with a couple of weapons swinging in hand. The clammer of an ax blade and some daggers tied to strings as he came up on the group…
“Well I’ve jus’ bout got my gear togetha, think’n muh buzz is ‘bout worn off,” he spoke.
Fen Rao blinked, lowering his crossed arms back to his sides and beginning to straighten up, “What kind of Vampire Hunter- heck what kind of hired guard does his job drunk?”
“A very guud one at ‘at,” Dante laughed.
“… I feel like you’re fucking with us,” Fen replied.
“Could be-”
A shadow bolted down before them, the leafs dancing and twirling with a satisfying crunch as it touched down- the shadow being of course that of Elise, “Nothing.”
“Nothin’ eh? Means they got control of it for fast travel. No way that load about the beacons explains it.”
“Either that mayor lied or they’re using some sort of ability to fast travel. Can’t say that I much care for either explanation,” Elise concluded.
“… in hindsight, it doesn’t make much sense,” Fen Rao spoke, looking up to Elise, “Those villagers, you said that they claimed their little barrier kept the supernatural at bay; but most of those cultists were human. Even the corpses weren’t much till they used Infernal Resurrection.”
“… damn,” she murmured back, turning a step away and looking to the ground, “I was afraid of that, and it makes sensshit!”
“What?”
“We left the convoy unprotected, and we told the Sarzentans to go find that village!”
“Dammit-” Dante croaked, “’Lise we need to get back there. Fen, go get the princess and her lackey. We need to make a quick damn hurry back there!”
“Yes of course! Shree, Yeager, come!”
Maja’s footsteps echoed off of the walls as she stormed through. Step step step step step step step in rapid succession. Her face contorted in a mix of rage and rush. Cultists in the way were plowed through and easily shoved aside with her passing presence, others moving from her way.
“Tchhhh-” she growled as she brushed back several more, speed walking by many.
|
“WHAT?! What do you MEAN that the Trio were defeated? My Trio? I want answers dammit!” came an extreme barrage.
A lone office, standard with an office chair and a huge wood desk alongside the likes of bookshelves and windows and the works. A single man stood behind that desk, his face erupting like a volcano and his hands slammed down. Across from him between the desk and the door a duo of the cultists in robes with the sweats. Blue faces and waterfalls pouring down to the ground off the tops of their heads as this inferno roared before them.
The inferno though came to be practical with the crackle of an open flame. Behind Soreis roared a glowing orange, engulfing his entire backside and his chair. A thud yelled out, one subordinate hitting the ground and the other taking a pace back. The fire danced and screamed behind Soreis, threatening to engulf him, his scowl intensifying greatly.
“I-it happened sir. Sereena came back in pieces, completely gone.”
“Rengard was taken out too. He, he- he had his insides turned to ash. There was nothing there!”
“GAH, where the blood soaked hell is Maja?!” he screamed at the two.
“We- we don’t know. She hasn’t been back ye-”
As if on cue, the door swung open and revealed the battered angry Vampiress. The door slammed into the wall, Maja’s form clear as day in the doorway. From behind the cult leader the flames began to fade away. A huff followed her arrival as she entered the room.
“You two, out,” Maja growled aloud.
“Y-yes sir!” both shouted, bolting from where they were and rushing out of the room, the door slamming behind them.
This left only Maja and Soreis in the room, the latter crossing his arms with that scowl continuing. Maja looked on with no more than a look of seriousness, backed by a layer of tired. Her eyes quivering ever so, her body tingling.
“Maja… what- THE HELL… happened?” Soreis murmured.
Air escaped her, the tensity of her stiff bod minimizing, “We were played.”
SLAM!!
“Played?! You- MY IMMORTAL ELITE… you’re telling me, you GOT PLAYED?!” Soreis screamed, his right fist slammed unto the desk.
“They were stronger than we anticipated!”
“Stronger?! You three are fricken immortal, can’t die. How were you forced back with THAT in mind?!”
“The Lightonian Girl and the Hunter were stronger than their compatriots, a lot stronger. In fact, I question if those three we captured are as weak as we think them to be!”
“What?!” he growled now, eyes intense and narrowing.
Maja said nothing, her head lowering, not daring to make direct eye contact as the flames again danced around Soreis- HIS teeth visible and shaken, his hands as fists and shaking, his rage bubbling right over.
|
Step step step step step. Their footsteps echoed down the hall, bouncing from stone slab to stone slab. The few in the halls aside from them moved all bound in their robes and hoods. Some moved aside in avoidance of the raging storm fast approaching. Slamming through moved Soreis, his black hair flopping about, whilst beside him crept Maja now re-equipped with weapons of her own at her side.
Behind the ground hovered a unit, mostly of undead and a few of the cloaked individuals. Of course the undead carried no expressions of intrigue as death wrapped them well like a blanket around a newborn- for those few cultists however, the obvious look of nervousness from pulled faces and shaken eyes. The flash of flame emerged as the torches lit on their own the very instant that Soreis moved by in his raging huff.
“-and I want both of them restored in preparation. Sereena and Rengard are powerful assets, I will not let them go to waste!” Soreis roared.
“Of course. It shouldn’t take much to get them back up and running. We’re keeping them alive with that technique for now and reconstruction should be quick; though both are unhappy with their current states,” a cultist from behind spoke up.
“BAH! They should have thought about that before letting themselves get torn to bits!”
“… sir, it’s this door here,” Maja spoke.
“Finally, some answers,” he growled, the group halting behind him as he approached the door- placing a hand upon it.
KABAM!!!
Without warning, the door erupted into a firy smokey blast of fragments and flame, completely engulfing Soreis- the smoke drifting into the very hallway itself. The cultists all fell back, all except for Maja who just stood there, glaring a tad.
Drifting smoke and raging fires, that is what laid before them. Home incinerated, the ground broken and left asunder. Yes, the quiet town of the night was dead, burned, and left cremated. Charred bodies scattered around hanging from holes in buildings that still stood or left on the ground, all mostly skeletal with what remained and fragments of what once was.
This site, this site of slaughter and pyro activity, this site so very very dead was the place where the Elise crew found themselves. Not all were together by the current point, as it was the group of three together and the two groups of two scattered around the town and broken off. The trio of knights to one part of the town sticking in close proximity, the duo of hunters close to one another on opposite ends of the town, and then the very beings of apparent royal stature close to the edge of the devastated landscape.
Elise crept along step by step, slow paced while her head moved from left to right at about the same pace. All around were the signs of battle. Be it the cracked ground with the occasional pothole every now and again, be it the still standing buildings despite how burned and still on fire they happened to be with all the holes in the world, be it the literal bones charred like that of overcooked BBQ. It all was the same and yet it was all different.
A couple of the bodies were found near remnants of pitch forks, hoes, knives. What remained of clothes either on their person somehow not burned were no more than simple clothes and fabrics, not a single sign of armor of any sort. No guns, no bows, no swords.
The clunk of wood blocks turning over one another echoed, a single kick by Yeager sending them spinning as he strolled on through the streets, “Alright so- I’m confused. The hell happened here?”
“Death. What else?” Shree responded.
“That is not what I meant and you know that that’s not what I meant.”
“You sure about that bro? Heh heh.”
“Alright cut the crap you two,” Fen Rao grumbled.
“Sorry sir,” both replied in unison.
Fen stood there with his arms crossed, gazing out across the blazing village. The crackle of wood and timbers timbering. Flames erupting harder and stronger all around. Beside approached Dante, not yet looking over to Fen as he kept a small casual distance between themselves.
“Any ideas?” Fen asked.
“No, not one. Looks like a fight; that’s ‘bout all I’ve got. None of the convoy soldiers or Sarzentan folks in sight though.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Ain’t got none of the weapons, no signs of metal or armor. Few bodies still clothed are the villagers. An’ none of the supplies either groups had are ‘ere.”
“Alright so- what, the convoy guards or the soldiers from Sarzento figured out this was a trap and… did this before taking off?”
“Hard ta say but I doubt ‘et. Somethin’ else happened.”
“And that something is?”
“Dunno.”
“It’s hard to say what happened here,” Elise’s voice called out.
Both men turned their focuses left, observing as Elise approached at her casual slow pace wearing a blank expression.
“We’ll have our answers once we hit the enemy’s base.”
“How will we find it though?” Rao questioned.
“We follow the direction that our team mates went off in, hopefully run into it. This forest might loop but it isn’t the biggest thing. We’ll find them, and then we can settle this once and for all.”
