< Hellborn Rescue (unfinished) | Ex Pulplogs | Sunlight For Darkness >
ST While Carmine and Corve remained at the pass into the glacier with Sun the other three members of the Circle left with the newly-met Hunter to gather Ice Worm eggs from a nest near the closest gate of the Frozen City. Oteki was acting rather distracted as he wandered along with them, eventually meandering off on his own when they got close to the gate. Hunter tried to convince Oteki to stay, warning him it was dangerous to wander alone...
ST but the pirate-captain simply smiled and waved as he headed off to do something on his own. Leaving Xar and Myrrh with Hunter to collect the Ice Worm eggs.
Xar`Rex "How do you fight the Worms?"
ST "Well, I try not to. No sense, really. Less worms, less eggs, less money..."
Xar`Rex "How do you make sure they are not near the nest then?"
ST "I check for giant mile-long serpents before I walk up to the nest. They're not very sneaky." He grins and starts scrambling up the black walls of the Frozen City. It's fairly easy going, even with the ice. He drops himself down and slides onto the ground with a THUMP.
Xar`Rex lifts Myrrh over with a prodigious leap assisted by his wings
ST Hunter, true to his word, makes very certain there are no mature Ice Worms near the nest before starting to approach..
Myrrh lands quietly with Xar's assistance.
Myrrh silently sneaks along with the hunter, wondering how they'll be able to escape something a mile long if it comes to that...
ST "Careful, now. Don't be using any kind of magic, the Worms will smell it."
Xar`Rex nods. "Thank you for warning us."
ST "Now, lets start gathering the eggs.." He gestures at the furry oblongs ahead
Xar`Rex eyes the eggs warily, then heads forward and inspects one before picking it up
ST The eggs are large, about two feet long, and vaguely shaped like lumpy, cancerous chicken eggs of unusual size. Their creamy color comes in large part from the yellow-transparent fur that covers their surface. Currently they are nestled in a bank of crushed and powdered ice, carefully layered over them to protect and insulate them.
ST "C'mon, we haven't got long a'fore sunrise."
Myrrh nods and starts gathering up eggs. Rather odd something so small comes from something so big.
Xar`Rex gathers more eggs
Hunter` gathers some eggs of his own, stowing them in a heavily padded sack, which he lays on the ground for the others to put their eggs in as well. He grabs Myrrh's arm when the Twilight would have started lifting eggs from the bottom of the nest and glares at Myrrh, his blue eyes narrowed. Myrrh feels a cold knot in his stomach as the Northerner stares him down.
Hunter "Don't touch the bottom. They'll notice."
Myrrh just stares, still as a statue.
Myrrh continues to stare.
Hunter` lets Myrrh's wrist go and glances at Xar before putting another egg in the bag.
Xar`Rex makes sure not to touch the bottom
Hunter` nods, satisfied with the number of eggs collected now. "That should be enough of that. Gotta thank you for the help."
Xar`Rex "Now we go back?"
Hunter "Well," He grins "Not quite."
Xar`Rex cocks his head to one side. "Then what?"
Hunter "We need to get into one of the jails here. I hear there's something worth a shiny silver in the one closest here."
Xar`Rex looks at Myrrh, "We don't have a lot of time, we have to leave soon."
Myrrh "Yes we wouldn't want to be stuck here and have to spend ANOTHER night here."
Hunter` sighs and pushes back his parka hood, running a hand through his hair. He looks extremely unhappy and possibly on the edge of dispair. "Let me level with you, I'm not just here to gather Ice Worm eggs."
Xar`Rex "What do you want then?"
Hunter "I've not got a lot of prospects at the moment, so I made a rather regretable deal. I'm supposed to keep you here until the next night. If I do, they'll give me enough to get myself started again. And release my wife and kids from the hostage situation. Please...I just need you to stay until sundown. If you escape after that..well, no skin off my nose, you see?"
Xar`Rex "Sun must leave."
Hunter "I don't have to keep the couple and the kid. Just you two!...and that pirate friend of yours, but I can find him later. Please? I...I don't have any other choices here!"
Xar`Rex snorts. "You wish to trade their lives for ours? So that later ours can be traded for someone else's?"
Hunter "...just the second part mostly."
Myrrh "Well where are they? We can just go and rescue them."
Xar`Rex "What do they want?"
Hunter "I don't know where my family is or what They want. They just told me I'd have my money and their freedom if I kept you here till nightfall. Please, you have to help me."
Xar`Rex "I am getting awfully tired of being imprisoned."
Hunter "You came all this way to the North and risked your lives to save your friend's daughter. Can you not give me a few hours to save mine?"
Xar`Rex "This trip has been a distraction from our mission - and staying here longer will only help the Cult. Besides, you tried to trick us." He says, frowning.
Hunter` glowers at Xar "Sorry bout that, didn't think "hey, can I capture you for a few hours?" would work."
Myrrh frowns. "I am starting to hate that mummy."
Myrrh "Who took your family exactly?
Hunter "The Black Viper Coils cult."
Myrrh "Seems to be a running theme with them..."
Myrrh sighs. "Alright...let's go."
Xar`Rex eyes Myrrh, "Doing this will make everything harder later. Our mission is to save all of Brume. How many wives and children are there?"
Myrrh "I know but...we can't just leave him. We can fight our way out if things go badly."
Myrrh "I've already been to Malfeas to save one family, a few ghosts is going to be easy."
Xar`Rex snorts
Xar`Rex "Falling Darkness will be using us as bait for Corve."
Myrrh "Well of course he is. And I've put two rather large holes in him before. I'm sure we can work something out now."
Xar`Rex "Well did you bring the rope and the chains, or are we to give you those from our packs?"
Hunter "Actually I had planned to beat you until you pass out and bury you in ice."
Xar`Rex "If you can beat us until we pass out, why are you not strong enough to free your own family?"
Hunter "I don't know where they are. Else I would be there, saving them."
Xar`Rex "Well, we need to tell the others to leave without us."
Hunter "You will help me, then?"
Myrrh "Yes we will help you."
Xar`Rex "If the world does not get saved it's YOUR FAULT."
Xar`Rex crosses his arms.
Myrrh "I know, I know..."
Hunter` smiles at his new friends....and then, almost faster then even Xar can follow, a heavy grey axe is pulled from inside Hunter's parka and aimed at Xar's head. The axe blurs as Hunter throws it with his fairly considerable strength and skill. Xar has enough time to wonder if Hunter is good enough that he aimed the blunt part....before the axe is at his face!!!
Hunter "Sorry, you were taking too long."
Myrrh "That wasn't necessary!"
Xar`Rex growls, rubbing his head. "Ow."
Art Badger peers at the reptile. "That was somewhat less effective then I had hoped for."
Xar`Rex lights Hunter's clothes on fire!
Hunter "Hey!" He yelps and pats at himself as the fire burns away his parka...revealing light, flexible armor fashioned from spade-shaped scales of Soulsteel. He glares at the big reptile, spitting out a mouthful of ashes from his burned-up scarf. The handsome Northerner is not only wearing Soulsteel armor that groans as he moves, but he's carrying a number of grey-steel axes in addition to a larger, vicious-looking Soulsteel Grimcleaver st
Hunter Soulsteel Grimcleaver strapped to his back.
Xar`Rex "You're an Abyssal? Do you even HAVE a wife and children?"
Myrrh "Oh that was just underhanded!"
Hunter` smiles "I do. My beautiful wife is a priestess, my son's a priest and my little girl trains serpents to do her bidding. And I really don't know where they are right now. They're on vacation in the South."
Hunter "And I really WILL get paid well for keeping you here long enough for Falling Darkness to deal with your friends. They might dock the price a bit since I let that other one get away...but, like I said, I can always track him down after I finish with you."
Myrrh "I think you're overestimating yourself just a tad..."
Xar`Rex roars and his shape bulges and blurs in a disturbing fashion as his stony form nigh doubles in size, while he charges forward, slashing at Hunter with a massive, iron claw.
Hunter` makes a fumbling attempt to knock Xar's claws away from him with his free hand and is forced to dodge backwards, temporarily losing his footing and his advantage. The desperate nature of his dodge and the flash of Essence from his brow at least tells Myrrh and Xar that, unlike Falling Darkness, Hunter is not magically protected at all times.
Hunter` drops to one knee and throws the Soulsteel Grimcleaver from his left hand. The blade smashes into the wall next to him, cutting deep into the ice, leaving a bloody gash in the frozen skin of the city. It bounces from the wall, laughing in a ghastly voice! In a blur of motion, the laughing axe strikes Xar and Myrrh, recovering from each attack with a laugh and rebounding from the icy surroundings to attack again!
Myrrh "Well if you like burying people in ice maybe you'd like some of your own?" Myrrhs anima flares to life, he cups his hands around an odd glow before releasing it at Hunter in the form of hundreds of ice needles shooting towards him!
Xar`Rex swats ineffectually at the axe as it comes close to him, knocking it aside the first time, but the blade draws blood, which only enrages him further. Jaws the size of the man's torso close on his axe-throwing arm and scythe closed.
Hunter` jumps back from the snapping jaws, his fist closing around one of Xar's fangs and attempting to rip it from the dinosaur's mouth and take it with him! How dare he!
Xar`Rex barely pauses as the hand closes over his fang, and instead just eats it, with a sickening crunch.
Hunter` does not respond well to Xar eating his arm. As the giant lizard is crunching down on the last bits of Hunter's elbow he finds that Hunter is apparently equally well versed in fighting with his right hand as the Abyssal's laughing axe is jammed into his throat with considerable force. Hunter drags himself onto Xar's back, pulling the axe tighter against the dinosaur's neck and putting Xar between Myrrh and Hunter.
Hunter` succeeds only in putting a small and fairly pointless slice in Xar's stony neck. The Abyssal seems understandably frustrated that his revenge was so ineffective.
Myrrh finishes shaping the spell and releases it into the world. sending a wave of tiny homing ice darts at the abyssal!
Hunter The bleeding, arm-eaten Abyssal flickers and disappears, only to reappear a few feet away, panting and staining the ice beneath his feet red as blood drips steadily from his gnawed-off arm.
Myrrh "Now might be a good time to run away."
Xar`Rex "Or you can surrender"
Hunter "Not to you!"
Xar`Rex charges forward again, not waiting for the man to reply. His claws dig long gouges in the ice, a foreshadowing of what will happen to Hunter's flesh. A shadow crosses Hunter's face, then the massive jaws close.
Hunter` smacks Xar's jaws away with his arm-stump, dodging backwards just in case...he looks ready to flee, but instead he throws his laughing axe one more, hurling it at the wall beside Myrrh where it performs an intricate series of high-pitched laughter-inducing bounces, striking Myrrh from each direction!
Hunter` stares in angry disbelief as, even cursed by entropic Essence, the Solar parries each and every one of the attacks.
Myrrh stands still, holding his arms free while the flame at his left shoulder roars to life and lashes out at the axe, parrying it where it can while Myrrh's hearthstone blows it off track.
Myrrh "Now quit it or we'll kill you."
Hunter` pauses for a moment and considers tossing off a fancy one-liner, but decides not to. Instead he takes off, running down the ice-covered road towards a multiple intersection where he can loose himself in the Frozen City's sprawling maze.
Myrrh "Well...I don't know about you buy I could do with some nice time around the fire."
Xar`Rex leaps into the air with two great beats of his wings, and follows Hunter, from above, his vantage making it easy to follow the man.
Xar`Rex opens his jaws and breathes forth a bolt of flame, which flies down to strike Hunter as he flees
Hunter` grunts as the fire scorches his back, but he still keeps on fleeing!
Xar`Rex follows with a roar, folding his wings and swooping down to snatch the fleeing man in his claws!
Hunter` tries to duck the flying dinosaur, but his wounds and the ice work against him. Hunter struggles as Xar picks him up and swoops away, but he is unable to free himself.
Xar`Rex squishes him a little, just because he can, and flies back to where he left Myrrh
Hunter` is, apparently, not entirely powerless. As Xar drags the wounded Hunter back to Myrrh, the first greeting Myrrh gets from the captured Abyssal is a hateful stare. He can feel the same cold chill digging into him that he did last time Hunter's gaze caught his that way and starts to feel his will slipping away as the Abyssal tries to dominate Myrrh's mind.
Hunter "Tell him to let me go! Solar! I have to be gone before sunrise!"
Xar`Rex grunts, "Shut up."
Myrrh "Let him go Xar. Falling Darkness will probably kill him for failing anyway."
Xar`Rex "No, we'll take him with us. Use HIM as bait. Or information."
Myrrh "Doesn't that make us just as bad as him?"
Xar`Rex "No. We are taking a prisoner in a fight. He tried to trap us."
Myrrh "But you did bite his arm off, isn't that punishment enough?"
Xar`Rex "We will let him go later. Come on, let us go back to the others." He starts off in that direction, "And grab the eggs."
< Hellborn Rescue (unfinished) | Ex Pulplogs | Sunlight For Darkness >
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