Quest [Regional Quest] Invocation

[Elysium]

Sela’s murmur left her puzzled and Eyaire pursed her lips in confusion, but before she could protest, plans were already being made. ”I am going with you,” she said stubbornly, wresting from Albireo’s arms. ”These women, they are my friends. They are my home. I cannot allow you to seek them all alone. I will go with Sela and the man.” She nodded in Mara’s direction. ”I have long practiced with a blade. You will need my help.” Leaving no room for argument, she moved to the doctor’s side, only to recoil a moment later.

The revelation of his race made her eyes go wide, first with shock and then, bewilderment. ”I do not understand. You are a doctor for these people, but you are a spider like them.” Sharp exhalation whistled from between her clenched teeth. ”I do not normally keep the company of those who would have me dead.” But there was too much desperation, too little time to fight. Svan the Snake had already gone to make some sort of change and time was coming to a close. Who knew what dangers her companions would soon face?

”I need a sword.” She stood unyielding, eyes hard as stone. ”Will any of you lend me steel?

-

Lucilla tore through the woods like a wild hare, feet flying across the earth. Snags in the undergrowth very nearly ended her blind flight, yet she kept her strength, merely staggering on. It was very likely her crashing about would draw predators as Eyaire had often said, but there was little she could do to prevent it. No thought could flourish in the trackless wilderness of her mind as she ran, ran for her life. He was close – she thought she could feel his putrid breath draw near. It was imagination, every hooting cry, every cracking twig sending her into spirals of terror, again and again. Every little sound sent her scurrying faster toward the waiting arms of death.

But then with a lurch her heels dug in, arms wavering just above the crashing roar of a waterfall. She was fifty feet up, maybe more. Memories long passed, eyes of filth-caked slaves in the dim torchlight, flooded back all at once. They were cornered animals, too. Aghast, she turned to face the dark woods behind.

And there he was.

With a slow leap he landed gracefully before her, immediately stalking forward. ”I was wondering when you’d stop. Lucky, bovine aren’t too much trouble to herd.” But Lucilla remembered the press of cold metal against her thigh, her one protection. Taking a tentative step back, her hand traveled to its hilt. ”Come no closer.” Her voice was intended to sound menacing, but instead it rasped forth in a pinched whisper.

He answered with a laugh.

”You little fool. You think to deter me now?”

[Alduin]

oocSorry for the wait. I never get a chance to post as I've been moving around and I end up losing it. Things were progressing a little faster than anticipated. It seems that Eyaire's partner was on the run and they needed to get to her quickly. Suddenly regretting wearing his armor for something a bit more comfortable and less heavy. But he would have to take the good with the bad. What the immediate concern was with her reaction to the one called Svan. Apparently she believed him to be some sort of beast, calling him a snake. Alduin wasn't sure what that was about but it was best to leave it alone for now. Now that she had addressed the party of her own concerns and resolve. She asked for anyone with steel. It looked as if she would fight despite whatever she was afraid of. "I do not have any weapons myself besides my staff." Alduin said. "Perhaps one of us does. However I think we should be moving out immediately. I believe we are short on time."

[Elysium]

She edged away, bewildered. He had a point. She’d fought back before, but it had never ended well. Still, she had to try. Digits curled around the firm wooden handle and her eyes blazed in the swiftly fading light. ”I will try,” she said proudly, the sentiment not reaching her eyes. The Symenestra smiled a tight smile. ”I’ll make this quick.” He sprung up in a spectacular leap, intending to pounce. Lucilla recoiled, falling to the ground and nearly teetering over the edge. She scrambled to her feet, gathering the knife clumsily in her hand just before he landed.

”Ooh, what might that be?” He crooned, stalking his prey. ”A fancy knife from your new sister, Eyaire?” The man smiled a wicked grin. ”You’re pathetic.” Her whole body was trembling and she tasted bile at the base of her throat. ”At least you have the good sense to be scared. You see, I’ve tired of these little games. We never intended to actually take you back to Kalinor. I’m sure you might have guessed.”

She nodded in stupefied horror.

”We’ve been breaking all the rules,” he gestured expansively. ”My comrades and I snatched you up from the wilderness. Fitting, for that’s where you belong. Perhaps you were meant to die here, after all. It would certainly be an ironic twist for all the slaves you once kept.” Her whole body shuddered. ”You did keep slaves, didn’t you? You mentioned being from the city of canals. That is where Rhysol dwells in the hearts of men. They slaughter beings like me… But then again, who doesn’t?”

In a blur she rushed forward, wind whistling in her ears. The sudden assault left her executioner off-balance, enough to land a single slashing blow. ”You petching…” He staggered back, a weeping red line forming across the width of his forearm. Lucilla didn’t relent, continuing to hack at his arms. With a sickening crunch, the knife embedded itself in his flesh.

Was it fight or flight? She looked toward the quickly darkening forest. It was certain death among the trees. Desperate, she glanced back at her assailant, now howling in fury. The idea suddenly presented itself. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? With a great heave, she shoved the Symenestra off into the cascading waters below. ”Take that, you insect!” She bellowed.

Now… What exactly was she supposed to do now? His form retreated, plummeting into the dark water with an enormous splash. She watched, unfeeling, plotting her next move.

[Alses]

Absently, she nodded at Whitevine's explanation, most of her attention focused on the dark, pressing foliage and dense undergrowth. She didn't have the advantage of a Symenestra's night vision, a creature of sunlight and the day rather than the cold and dark night, and was instead relying almost exclusively on him and the occasional bursts of moonlight that flashed through the canopy for vision in a forest that was sinister and wild at the best of times. Eyaire, too, padding alongside, seemed quite at home in the wilds – but for Alses' auristics, she'd have been a total burden. As it was, they were moving slower than was perhaps wise.

There had been little discussion about Eyaire's continued presence – the girl was determined, stubborn and full of fire, and time was pressing, after all. Perhaps it was a coward's choice, but Alses would not turn down a friendly – and skilled - blade nor a friendly face that might calm their target. Minds addled by fear might not respond the best to strangers crashing out of the forest and offering sanctuary, still less if one of them was a Symenestra. Eyaire, then, might be valuable – even if her equilibrium was precarious at best.

No time to think of that now, though, no time. Alduin, the other mage, had been right about that at least.

“Perhaps we should,” Alses agreed, speeding up and matching her pace to the loping stride of the Symenestra and the easy gait of Eyaire as best she could, letting him take the lead and following his jinking path as best she was able through the forest, occasionally slowing to take a quick taste of the auristic impressions of the world, just to check they were on the right track and to adjust their course accordingly. Each flash left her a little weaker, djed trembles starting to build up once more despite the strengthening effect of the rugberry tea, and she knew she was going to pay for all this expenditure sooner or later.

Her hope, and a fervent one at that, was to be able to get back to Lhavit and fall into the arms of the Catholicon healers before anything really serious hit. The place was a godsend for mages, one of the few places that could actually deal with overgiving to an extent, a result of Lhavit's beautiful, open, accepting relationship with magic, and Alses regularly blessed them for their services, having seen their usefulness first-hand in the aftermath of the Djed Storm, and then again as an instructor, with overgiven novices. Being able to have them professionally treated and back on their feet – scared, scarred in some cases, but alive and older and wiser for the experience – was a precious gift indeed.

And it meant that her own chances of surviving into eternity were that much higher.

Barbed-wire sadism, fury and terrible rage, a sickly twisted sense of amusement burst like a firework in her brain, sharp enough to stop her in her tracks with a muffled hiss of mental pain, but only for a few moments. “Whitevine! Eyaire!” she barked, head snapped around to the new direction, the new sensation gnawing at her brain. “This way!”

No time to stop, no time to explain – that ugly throbbing maelstrom which pulsed and hummed a sickly tune in her Sight was too powerful: visible even to her passive senses, a violent bloodtide rush of energy, that meant it was close and immediate and the focus of an entire mind's purpose.

In Alses' mind, as she cursed the darkness all around with vicious abandon, there was but one possible outcome of the clash between a purple-arrowhead predator on a vengeful hunt and the softer, rippling sense of another, twisted into tight and wavering spirals by fear, dragged at by the creeping gray tentacles of exhaustion, a mind confused and twined around itself, held at bay between a rock and a hard place.

The predator – the enemy - they would win, and that sour thought in a prideful head sent fresh supplies of adrenaline coursing through her blood, letting her legs scythe through the underbrush with fresh vigour. What she could actually do when they arrived – there was the sense of Whitevine close by, as ever, a calm gray echo of a hundred hundred voices – she had no idea, but intercession in whatever form might buy the prey another precious few chimes of life, at the very least.

Lungs labouring hard with the clear night air rushing in and out in great gales, heart attempting to smash its way out of her ribcage, she burst out into a small clearing where a tumbling river cut through the dark forests, its blunt thunder warning of its presence in the night rather than the occasional flash of white-water and spray against a stubborn boulder, standing proud in the tumultuous current.

The rescue party, such as it was, were just in time to see a dark, predatory shape lunge forward at what was – at least to Alses – a whitish blob in the pale moonlight, to see a brief struggle and then, suddenly, it was as though the predatory attacker had vanished, the bloody maelstrom in her Sight snapping into its death throes, bright scarlet skeins and lashing bolts of black malice shredding off into the calmer, quieter ambient, the tight knot of violence and death cut quick by Dira's scythe, fading ribbons of a great event unspooling and merging back into the quietitude of Mizahar.

A primal bellow, of mingled rage, victory, disbelief and sheer, unadulterated relief at being alive boomed out over the listening woodlands, and even through the shivers, the chill sweat sluicing over her skin, the creeping coldness in her soul – all of them symptoms of the malady that was magic – Alses smiled at it.

They'd been too late, but miraculously the tables had been turned. The hunter had become the hunted, the predator had become the prey, a change under Leth's pale and limpid light that she would have considered impossible under normal circumstances.

“Kelwyn and Ovek must have watched over you,” Alses murmured, only half-aware she'd spoken aloud as she moved towards the figure trembling on the precipice's edge. Her gait was not liquidly self-assured and graceful, as it had been when first she'd ventured forth from Lhavit. With the strain of heavy magic usage beginning to tell, her control over herself was not entirely all it should have been, bunches of muscles firing out of sync with one another, the signals from her brain being scrambled in the torrent of information pouring in from all around, resulting in a jerky, slightly uncoordinated walk and a distant, abstracted gaze with pupils unnaturally wide even for the night, the green irises a tiny sliver around the great, black pit.

“Are you called Lucilla?” she called, Nader-Canoch spilling, instead of Common, from her lips before she realised the mistake and tried again. “Are you called Lucilla? Are you all right?”

Alses turned to Eyaire, the fiery redhead easy to spot in her dancing sight. “Can you talk to her? She knows you. She might attack Whitevine on sight and I'm hardly the most reassuring of visions.” A faint giggle rose out of a detached part of her mind and bubbled to the surface, quickly suppressed. She leaned heavily on her scythe and just breathed, glad not to have to spend any more djed for the time being, afraid to look inside herself and see the perilous state of her reserves and what damage she might do – or, Syna forbid, had already done – to her soul.

[Licearsvansan]

After everyone but Lu left, Svan slithered out into the open. "Lovely day for a hunt is it not?" The Dhani remarked as he looked over the Shinya guard. With a subtle smile on his face and a flick of the tongue Svan went about tasting the scents that the others had left on the ground. First he smelled Eyaire's scent so that he could track her later, then he tasted Whitevine's, and even Alse's for good measure. He logged each of their distinct scents into his memory and smiled. For a novice like him it was difficult to decide what was a permanent part someone's scent like sweat, and what was simply a temporary smell like perfume or antiseptics. Luckily, that didn't matter much tonight. Svan imagined that the others would be a little too busy fighting for their lives to try out any perfume samples on the way there. After Svan finished cataloging the scents of his allies He went over to the last spot he say The Layla girl heading and let his tongue kiss the night air. It only took moments for Svan to pick up on the still fresh scent.

With a proud grin on his face, Svan turned back to the Shinya guard. "I have it. Now follow me." The Dhani pushed his head low to the grounds and began following the scent trail. he had a little difficulty at first as he tried to distinguish which scent was Layla's and which was Lucilla's, but the further they got from the clearing the easier it was to follow. Human's were rarely difficult creatures to follow. Their movements were sluggish, their sweat could be smelled for miles, and even those who tried to mask their scent rarely managed to did it right. Svan laughed silently to himself as he remembered one human who had tried the old "swim upriver" trick on him. The look of shock he made when Svan found him only half a bell later, priceless.

The snake moved through the forest at a jogger's pace, his tongue flicking out periodically to check the trail. Dhani weren't particularly skilled at sprinting, but he could easily maintain a swift slither without wasting any serious energy. The only thing that worried Svan was his partner. Dhani were equipped with a thermal sense that allowed him not only to see easily at night, but also spot any warmblooded creatures or heat sources with ease. Humans however, were not so gifted. Svan hoped that the Shinya would be skilled enough to see using the beams of Leth's light that broke through the trees. To aid the guard Svan occasionally bumped his rattle against the bark of the trees to give the Shinya something to follow since the Dhani's dull brown scales cloaked him from easy sight. Regardless of his intentions the snake couldn't help but feel like some creature out of a fable, slowly guiding the poor guard to his doom with hollow knocks and subtle hisses. The familiar iron-like taste of blood suddenly in the air warned Svan that there might be a little more truth to his fable than he would have liked.

The snake gave himself a few moments to reinforce the morph to his claws and then dug them into the earth. Using his talons, Svan pulled himself forward at a blinding speed and rushed to the scent of blood as fast as he could. It grew stronger with every flick of his tongue and soon the he could taste it clearly. The salty taste in it left no room for speculation.

What he smelled was human blood. As Svan burst into the open he could only pray that he wasn't too late.

[Elysium]

As soon as the words escaped Alses’ lips, Eyaire flew to her. The two women collided with such force that it appeared painful. ”I’m so sorry,” Lucilla blubbered, her beautiful brown eyes overflowing with grief. ”I didn- I know, I shouldn’t have run… I just…” Eyaire cupped her slender chin, smiling. ”You were very brave, my friend. I am just glad that you are safe.” They embraced again, fiercely, hearts awash with joy. It was the best possible outcome they could have hoped for.

-

The sight Svan ran into was not pretty, though it was not without hope. The young woman called Layla sat against the base of a tree, covered in what was surely her own blood. It was caked from elbow to wrist on either side and down each of her legs. She clutched her middle, choking. She was alive. At first, she looked without seeing, wide-eyed and unfeeling. But after a moment, she coughed and spoke:

”Are you real?”

There were great tufts of black and white fur caught on every branch. She’d led the beast back to her pursuer, though not without great injury to herself. Rashkari were excellent climbers, so the trees did not aide the craven Symenestra. In fact, she’d doubled back in order to lure him into a false sense of security. He’d descended from his leafy bower and just as easily as she’d served as the bait, so did he. It was satisfying to hear the beast sate its hunger in the moments before her world went black. The deep, throaty growl in the distance let her know time was wearing thin.

That same rumble echoed through the world once more. Her eyes drooped. ”If you’re real,” she murmured, ”please save me.”

The great striped tiger stalked from the foliage.

-

To all involved, it sounded so far away. It was the cry of an infant, first a distant echo and then louder still, building into an overwhelming cacophony. Every member of their group would hear it, as if several children wept all at once. There was significance to the sound, a plea disguised as the lusty wail of a newborn child. The compulsion hit them all at once, to come to the Wishing Bridge, a hazy image forming in their minds.

The cry sang, ’please please, please,’ over and over again. But Layla was bleeding and the beast growled, ready to strike. Even Eyaire and Lucilla heard the song. They both froze, turning to their newfound companions.

”By the Gods,” Eyaire whispered.

"Be as one," a booming, distinctly female voice rang. "Only through cooperation will you succeed."

[Alses]

e

Alses was very much surplus to requirements as Eyaire dashed towards Lucilla and the pair were caught up in a crushing embrace, assuring by the closest possible physical contact that the other was real, was there, hale and whole and not some hallucination brought on by stress and fear and the wild djed of the dark forests of the wilds.

Nonetheless, Alses was glad to stand off to one side whilst this very human moment played itself out in front of her, doing her best to stabilise her racing mind and clear it of the posions of adrenaline and the gray fatigue that had built up, the result of a disturbed sleep cycle and heavy exercise. Dashing about in the Unforgiving was decidedly not her forte or her idea of a good time, for that matter – but her presence seemed to have been ordained by a higher power and she'd (potentially) saved two lives tonight.

By anyone's reckoning, that was surely a good outcome? Always provided she could get them back to the safety of the skyglass city and the pointy weapons of the vigilant Shinya guards, that was. Hopefully without too much more expenditure, too; the rugberry tea was wearing off, djed trembles back full-force, and there were other, more worrying occurrences than simple shivers, too.

Quite aside from her swimming vision, overly-sensitive to any point of light, Alses' mouth was filled with the taste of steak, for no visible reason. Whilst that might ordinarily have been nice, a blessing, an experience to be hunted out and enjoyed at leisure, right now it signalled damage to the aurist, a hopefully-temporary corruption of the djed of her soul that manifested itself as a block in her senses – this one, as a particular taste - forcing out all other sensations there as a consequence.

“Ohhh...” Alses groaned, quiet but heartfelt. “This wasn't a good idea.” At least with her eyes shut, her swimming, over-sensitive vision winked off – but then she was alone in the dark, with only a surging and rising and falling passive Sight to accompany her, a blooming and bursting fireworks display that was a terrible temptation to dance amongst the colours, to draw deeper on the dregs of her power and banish the creeping blackness.

Down that path lay madness and ruin.

Eyes open it was, therefore, the nauseating movement of tired, dilated eyes playing tricks on the brain scrambling her concentration – a better fate than what awaited a little further down the primrose path of auristic endeavour.

There was no time for further responses or reunion, though, even had her two...charges? Rescuees? Refugees? broken from their tight embrace; the compulsion hit for a second time that night, stronger and harder and clearer now she was awake and charged with the adrenaline of the hunt, the chemical still not having drained away from the lower reaches of her brain.

The siren wail of a newborn: high, wordless and old, keened through the night – or perhaps just Alses' brain, kicking recalcitrant legs into gear and turning her to face its ostensible source even as the shrieking choir became suddenly counterpointed by a commanding voice, an instruction to the body before it even filtered through the mind.

Eyaire and Lucilla evidently felt it too, their embrace breaking as they stood formidably upright – no longer each supporting the other with the release of tension – turning as though on turntables to stare, wide-eyed, at Alses and her companion.

“The Gods are fond of their trials,” Alses hissed, all unaware she'd spoken aloud, the line between physical and mental blurred and becoming fainter. The compulsion seized her legs in a renewed grip; she found herself aching to move, to walk and jog and run until the destination – the Wishing Bridge, she knew with absolute clarity – was reached.

“The path,” she murmured, and then strengthened her voice to carry to her companions. “I recommend we return to the path. The road goes straight to the Bridge. Faster than crashing through the forest. Also might meet up with the others on the way. Safety in numbers.” Her sentences were briefer, more clipped, conserving strength. A pause, but only a brief one with that wailing compulsion humming insistently in her mind, as Alses looked down and away, shaking in the cool night air, and not from the temperature.

Admitting weakness was always hard. “Eyaire. We'll need your eyes. I've used my magic without caution; don't dare try too much more tonight.”
e

[Licearsvansan]

As Svan slithered through the brush he was greeted by to lovely sights. One, the sight of a woman sitting against a tree and presumably bleeding out. The other was the bloody fangs of a Rashkari. Were Svan human he would have gone pale. Luckily, he was a far cry from human and instead of running in terror, he smiled. Having a rough idea of what to do and what not to do with tiger like creatures due to his time with the tiger kelvic, Svan bowwed his head defensively and averted his eyes from the tiger. To look it in the eyes was to challange it, and though Svan waas willing to fight it he had something else to do first. Moving his hands slowly into the side pockets of his pack Svan pulled out the medicine he had taken. Cautiosly to avoid gaining the ire of the Rashkari too soon Svan bent over and placed the medicine on the ground. In a harsh slithering whisper Svan demanded, "I'll handle the beast, you tend to the woman." His words were aimed at Lu but he had no idea if the Shinya would obey him.

However, Svan didn't have time to worry about the woman any longer. The was an angry beast just ahead of them and the Dhani didn't even have so much as a sword to defend himself. Svan though, seemed anything but discouraged. Slowly the snake lifted its head and brought its cold gaze to meet the Rashkari's. Whatever counted as an evil grin for a snake Svan had it. The Dhani let out a cool hiss as he began to approach the Rashkari. "I have been traveling with the worlds most annoying tiger kelvic for entire past season. The first sight I was met with every morning was her smug-arse face. No matter how badly I wanted to kill her, no matter how horribly I wanted to butcher her I had to restrain myself. But now? Now I have some purple colored, long fanged, tiger wannabe petch standing in front of me, and not a single reason to hold back. Do you wanna know what this is mister kitty?" Svan's smile disapeared and he stopped just within pouncing distance of the beast. "This is an oppertunity to vent."

Svan had lost focus of anything but the creature before him. What Lu did, whether on not Layla would be saved, or what the others were doing were all thoughts far from Svan's mind. All he cared about was killing this creature in the most horrific way possible. Would he recieve wounds? Certainly. Would he push his morphed claws to their limit? Possibly.

Would Svan make sure that this Rashkari goes down as the single most mutilated corpse in tiger history? Only gods themselves could stop him.

oocHope this is okay. Just trying to tie up some ends so you can end it better. Thanks for trying to soldier us through this Elysium, I understand why you have to end it though. Better luck on future quests.

[Elysium]

”But, the others,” Eyaire began, Lucilla nipping at her heels. ”They’ll have heard it too. I’ve been hearing it all night, alongside the beating of my heart.” She was clearly desperate to be out of the woods. ”I can feel the bridge. It’s close to the city.” Her accent was peculiar, suffixes twisting up at the end in a curious, almost quizzical way. Eyaire gave her a penetrating look before her resolve crumbled. ”Alright. We will go to this bridge,” she nodded crisply. She held Alses’ eyes suddenly, sternly almost. ”I will be your eyes.” Lowering to a crouch, she stalked forward, checking the bushes before gesturing to them to follow.

”We will go to the road,” she said in a hushed tone. ”Be silent, as I am.” She padded along, feet just brushing the ground before moving onward. Agile as she was, the group made it back just as the moon struck the third bell. They would before long, see the dawn.

-

The tiger snarled, redirected suddenly from the easy prey. It turned molten gold eyes upon Svan, focused and ready to strike. With deliberate slowness, muscles rippling with each step, it crept forward. Corded sinew twitched slightly in the moonlight before the beast struck, both paws striking hard against his chest. It roared proudly, tipping its head back toward the tree line, singing victory to all that could hear.

That was, before it froze, twitched violently and died.

As it fell, a creamy spike glinted from under Leth’s nocturnal gaze. It was ivory, curved. Then suddenly, reality presented itself. It was a bone. Covered in blood, Layla stood just before the prone form of the Symenestra. She’d extracted an exposed bone from his half-eaten corpse. It was impossible to discern where the man’s blood ceased and hers began. With a little gasp, her eyes grew dark and her body fell in a heap against the ground.

The exertions must have cost her a great deal of blood and Svan would find himself suddenly alone, his half of the little expedition conspicuously absent. They were just gone, like shadows disappearing into the lonely night. And there was the wailing, calling him to the bridge.

-

When Eyaire, Lucilla and Alses arrived, they were alone. The infant's call grew thick in the air as they drew near. ”It’s close,” Lucilla said, nearly covering her ears. ”I can’t even think…” It invaded every sense with unrelenting force, engulfing taste, smell and nearly touch with the sonic waves. The siren call bordered on pain, yet drew them closer still.

”I have waited for you,” the phantom voice rang.

[Licearsvansan]

He should have been thankful. He really should have. However, as he saw the bone reveal itself in the moonlight Svan couldn't help but get angry. "You petching little shyke! You stole my kill! Do you have any idea how long I- aaaand you're unconscious." Svan let out a frustrated breath and looked around for Lu who was no where to be found. "Perfect, just petching perfect." Svan uncoiled out of the defensive position he had taken after being shoved and slithered over to the blood soaked woman and tiger. For a good few tick Svan's eyes hovered back and forth between the woman and Rashkari. While Svan knew that tending to the woman was his main goal, the option of releasing his now increased stress was also fairly tempting.

Eventually Svan settled on tending to the woman. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because he feared the consequences should the Shinya guard decide to appear and find Svan ignoring the girl. With a flick of his tail Svan rolled the containers of medicine over to him and picked them up. Reluctantly, Svan let his morphed talons collapse, and with his now less dangerous fingers he began to treat the wound. First he poured water over the cuts to wash out the wound, then with a bit more force than necessary Svan smeared a fair dosage of the tulja medicine onto the cuts. The medicine healed faster than a Krolar paste but it was somewhat limited when it came to larger wounds. For those Svan tied his cloak around and watched as the blood soaked into the cloth. Svan frowned, "Oh just what I needed. More suspicious bloodstains."

Having healed the girl to the best of his ability Svan slowly turned his head to the two nearby corpses and smiled. "Wait here." Svan whispered through a predatory smile as he dragged the bodies a little deeper into the woods. For the next chime or so the sound or what appeared to be a ghastly murder sounded through out the nearby area. When Svan finally returned he was covered head to tail in the Rashkari's blood. In his hand he had what appeared to be part of the Symenestra's broken jaw, complete with fangs, and in the other was a bit of silk from the dead man's clothes with which Svan promptly use to wrap the bloody jaw in. He remembered from his assassination with Durv that the Symenestra had a venom in their bite and Svan hoped to learn more about it...later. As he finished wrapping his prize Svan turned his eyes to the unconscious woman and smiled, "Oh don't give me that look. You're a hunter and you carve what you kill. Not my fault that you aren't in the condition to do it yourself." Placing the jaw into his pack Svan gathered his equipment and lifted the girl off the ground. For a human it might have been a troublesome burden, but for Svan it was like carrying a small sleeping child. In his rage he had stupidly missed the siren's call to the bridge, but with a flick of his tongue he was able to pick up the scent of the others. With a proud smile on his face and the woman in his arms Svan slithered off to find the others.

He only paused once as he realized that he still had a small lump in his throat. I wonder if that woman will notice that I helped myself to some of that Symenestran.