End Game: Witch Hunt.

In which intrepid volunteers seek out the monster in the mountains.

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A village cut off from the rest of Mizahar by the Valterrian, slowly reestablishing contact with the outside world.

End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Lucette on April 13th, 2012, 6:39 am

Lucette’s uncharacteristic aggression was palpable in the close confines of Suwor’s home. The drive to protect her new master was paramount, though she waited, ready on the couch for his wise direction. His words flowed in her brain… Kill him… Kill him… Suwor did not approve of Talen! Lucette’s nose wrinkled as her head lifted to smell the Denval’s soldier’s scent. The Kelvic’s own experiences with the man mattered not, for the song of words played hypnotically in her mind and urged her to do that dark bidding. But before she could act, something forcefully ripped Suwor’s crown from her head, taking with it a small chunk of her soft hair. Lucette cried loudly at the pain and at the suddenness of the broken connection with the old man. Immediately the Kelvic was lost, without direction. Frightened by the immediate aloneness, and immobilized as the magic tendrils of Suwor’s work were pulled from her mind, with the flinging of the crown. Lucette recoiled from the onslaught of sensation, but pain and confusion left her unable to react as Suwor pulled her close.

Lucette leaned willingly against him, seeking solace, until she heard his words and the prick at her neck. Oh! He would hurt her! And thought came unbidden - the baby! She wished it safe! But fear rolled across her mind then, so heavily that she yowled, her body unmoving and afraid. Her eyes rolled, showing the whites, helplessly, pathetically Lucette looked upon the others – fear marked them, she could smell theirs as well as her own. Confusion reigned in Lucette’s mind… who was friend and who was foe? Why had Suwor betrayed her? But with the ring pressed against her long neck and Lucette knew the man no longer cared for her… and the crown lay at Siwa’s feet. Understanding was slow to come to the Kelvic.

Still the Kelvic couldn’t act - not now… the baby had to be protected. The only way to do that was to remain still. Almost she wanted to cry as her human hand lay upon the protruding belly… she would protect Veldrys baby! If she got free… and the collar upon her neck was released…
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Caelum on April 27th, 2012, 1:19 am

Fear crashed nameless through him, hollowing out his limbs and washing the daylight within him to the earthen gutters of this cave. Superimposed upon the images eyes absorbed, relaying to his brain in mechanical service, was a streak of star shine swamped by storm clouds and the not so distant stab of the Black City's horizon against the curve of the world.

It was but the first of many remembered fears to flash and flutter in him not unlike what brigands and soldiers both claimed happened in the last gasp -- a hyper swift flash of your life in all gruesome detail, streaking like a death rattle while you relinquished your final exhale.

Sondra was shouting, pale lips framing bright flames, and her demand of Suwor struck against him and caused him to wince though later he would be incapable of saying why. Here and now he was trembling, wracked by a terror for which a dozen reasons resided in this hole alone. A bead of sweat slid from his hairline, cold.

"Fuck," he breathed, head turning to take in the troop cowering with him. He was nothing but another child hiding from the dark, from a lightless night swollen with the unknown for surely so scrawny and aged a man, even a wizard, could not in and of himself summon such fear from the stalwart Denvali.

Save for Lucette, perhaps. That thought twisted even while he, too, remained inactive beneath the flood. Lucette, heavy with child, collared and uncrowned with death a pinch from her throat.

It was the Chain that hauled him again from his daze. The words of a goddess rung out from his core, turning the trembling of him into a churn of a different sort.

He has no control. Show him.

Control. Yes, control. The thought coalesced with a sense of finality, arm still tingling with spider crabs of agony, useless at his side.

"Control," he echoed Her, fear vanquished by brutal clarity, and he looked to Sondra, to Zaital.

He almost smiled.

There was grace inherent in him, leftovers from the Ukalas, and though one arm remained boneless the rest of him moved to the rattle of chains and the bright notes of a sun faded song. There were faster, strong and far more skilled; but none had spent the past nine years in an insurmountable nightmare, controlling their fear by the ceaseless beating of fists against the walls of philosophy and science and an interminable race across an unforgiving earth.

He had, however. Syna knew, he had.

The slaves crown was found this time by fleshly fingers, lifted from the floor with an unraveling as he had half crawled there. Sunburned eyes met the madness of Suwor's as he stood before him, inches from the trembling cheetah. The poison might have already been needled into her fair skin, but he knew he could heal it. The gods were with them in this place, and They were angry.

The bone crown flipped in his good hand a single,slow cycle before he raised it higher, leaving his torso and all of those weak spots wide open, and then sunk it with distilled ceremony on the wizard's grizzled head.

"Stop," he echoed Suwor's own command in a voice very quiet, very certain.

Pray the gods he was right.
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Cryos Bladebane on May 5th, 2012, 11:36 pm

Cryos was about to break down the door when Caelum alerted them that Siwa was inside, and so Cryos stopped, and just followed them inside through the doorway. Once inside, and upon witnessing the events unfolding, Cryos didn't know what to think. He gripped his battle axe carefully, but when the man before them yelled stop, he felt a great fear in him, and nearly dropped his battle axe as his green hued eyes watched carefully as to what was happening. These emotions, are not natural, he thought, feeling the fear seeping within his body as he started to back away a bit from the main of the group.

He didn't know what to expect, but thought that perhaps this magic happened to be what all Zagary had been speaking of, the hypnotism and animations. Perhaps that was what was inducing the fear into the isur. Well, he wasn't going to let it affect him, or at least try not to let it affect him if he could. He felt afraid, but at the same time, didn't know what exactly to do when the man threatened the kelvic with the needle upon his ring. Poison, thought Cryos. No way to neutralize it, I suspect, he thought, the fear still within him, so he didn't move forwards at all. Not much for the isur to do at the moment, but cower in a corner due to the fear that had been instilled in him. Even so, though, Cryos tried his hardest to work through it, and stand his ground against the man that was causing all of this trouble for them...

OOCSorry for the delays
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Sondra on May 12th, 2012, 8:39 pm

The wash of hypnotic power rattled the Konti's burning cage. It was fear and that abundantly. She half choked, as if her gills were her only pair of lungs and the hammer shook in her hands.

But then she had been afraid most her life. Exposed to terrors bred by the lowermost parts of men and beasts, and swimming in her own vast fears of a life moldering into uselessness. She knew this painful pulse as it made her limbs lurch. She also knew it was not the end of all things.

The mage still burned in her, Sondra was obscured in smoke fumbling for her own will. When their purposes made a rough alliance, she acted. One sought knowledge, the other safety for the rest.

With little kindness, Sondra yanked Siwa by the wrist trying to drag her from the heart of the conflict and to the ground. Guilt and shame could twist a woman against her better instincts. Instead of pity, Sondra felt caution. The daughter could not bar them from the father in a fit of love. The Konti would happily stand watch over the woman, while Zaital waited to wrench knowledge from her lips.

All the while fear twisted her blood with its cold.

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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Tabarnac on May 28th, 2012, 6:04 pm

It was all happening so quickly: a wave of emotion, this shout, that feint. But while Lucette writhed in a sick paroxysm of the tangled behavior Justus sought to unravel, Sondra hauled Siwa out of the way, the slave crown flipped into the air, and one intrepid Denvali launched herself from Suwor's blind side.

"NO!" he screamed in a voice that verged on the animal, his hand swiping down to shove that needle into Lucette's belly, the poison shot directly into her womb. The Denvali soldier's heavy knife dug its way into his kidney from behind, and his own pain was transmuted into bolts of hypnotic power that shared the agony with all those present until the crown clawed its way to a place atop his head, leaving streaks of red, and the Sunsinger ordered him still.

Suwor staggered against the soldier, who, bereft of pity now, shoved him to the floor. His pain was his own again, and Siwa struggled against Sondra's iron grip. The twisted magus did not cower, but he seemed diminished somehow, his malevolent power snuffed like a candle, but not before it had done its damage to their raw emotions and to the unborn thing that clenched like a fist within Lucette's guts.

"Your will, master," he whispered as he bled out onto the floor.

"Please, mercy!" Siwa whimpered.

"Stand down," Zagary ordered, his voice rough but firm. With Suwor capitulating, he looked around, as did many of the others, wondering what marvels and what terrors he had wrought here. They were all around. But while they were allowed their curiosity, Caelum was pulled apart by two compulsions, even though they demanded the same response.


OOCOkay, folks. I'm thinking one, maybe two more rounds. Let's make it count! :)
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Lucette on May 31st, 2012, 5:42 am

It seemed that fighting surrounded the Kelvic, chaos filled the small space. With Suwor’s emotions in her head, Lucette could not see order or reason in the madness. All was confusion for the terrified slave. Her beautiful crown was tossed about, and a flash of jealousy raced in her veins. It was hers! Master had given the crown to her... yet… Lucette hated the man! He had betrayed her! And would hurt her and through her, the cub. But strangely, no longer was he Master… the compulsion to serve him was gone.

Sewor screamed and Lucette’s voice entwined around his, as his needle punctured her swollen belly. Forcefully it pushed through skin and tissue. Snarling, loudly and angrily, the Kelvic jerked away. Legs scrambled beneath her to stand, hands clutching her abdomen. A wave of the old man’s hypnotic agony assaulted her mind, and disoriented, Lucette fell to her knees. But the pain subsided when the crown rested atop Sewor’s head and the Kelvic could breathe again… Inhaling deeply, she was pleased he bled upon the floor and her eyes watched the patterns of blood with interest. But as all calmed around her, a flutter began in her belly. It was a small thing. She paid it no mind at first, but sweat broke out on her forehead and beneath her full breasts soon after. Long fingers rounded to explore the spot that Sewor had struck. A ripple trilled deep within. The baby! The flutter grew and spread; a spasm raced across her abdomen and she sobbed at its sudden intensity. Each flutter and movement grew worse. Lucette knew no god to pray to.

Throwing herself upon Sewor’s splayed and bleeding form, she howled desperately into his face, “What did you do!” The fingers of one hand twisted in his shirt, as pain wracked her body again. Lucette clutched her convulsing stomach tightly. “T-Tell me! Oh please…” she begged. But she could not hold onto him for long, or demand anything more. Heavily she sat, doubled over - the pain was too encompassing. Something was at war within. Even Roland at his worst had never hurt her so. Nothing helped, nothing lessoned the pain. “Make it stop!” she shrieked to the room, to anyone who might listen or help. “It hurts… it hurts so much!” Lucette writhed on the floor near Sewor, her hair tangled and already sweaty. Her hands pawed at her belly; she needed to protect the baby… but she didn’t know how.
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Caelum on June 19th, 2012, 11:29 pm

The Sunsinger wasted nothing. With respect to Tanroa, he flung out a hand to Sondra with finger curving in desperate beckon.

"Bring Siwa here," he requested, but there was somewhat in his tone that rang of Denval authority.

He dropped, star swift, and a knee cracked to the floor of the cave between the writhing Lucette and the capitulating Suwor who was now reduced to the rotten sum of sins.

It was a thing, Caelum felt, the Sinspeaker would well understand.

"Lie still," he ordered Suwor, burnished eyes awful and bright, refusing to allow the threatening tugs of two divine compulsions sunder his soul again. "And tell me where the antidote to the poison is."

He would meet them with a reconciliation while shrugging out of his jacket. The winged serpents emblazoned on the back of his hand flared when he flattened his palm to the mad wizard's knife wound, funneling Rak'keli's healing grace toward sterilization and what sealing it might do despite the siege laid against them all.

Even as he did so, he was sliding his other hand over Lucette's hands, tangling his fingers with her pain knotted joints, feeling the pulse and writhe of the unborn through the fabric of her shift and the prison of her human flesh.

All of their heartbeats seemed to drum within him, slapping like war hardened palms on lambskin for the fallen soldiers of mighty empires gone ahead.

"Siwa," he demanded and jerked his chin. "Use my jacket. Try to slow your father's bleeding. Zagary! My kit," it had fallen to the cave floor what felt now like eons gone. "Sondra," and here he sought out her eyes. "Help me with Lucette."

And if they moved, if they stepped to the tune of the heartbeats he was hearing, he thought maybe in their steps grace might fall upon Denval again.

Later, perhaps, when not but ash blew here he would think he ought to have let the warring compulsions rip him apart.
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Sondra on June 20th, 2012, 7:15 am

Disregarding Lucette's pain, all seemed as it should be as the mage slumped forward. Sondra didn't flinch when he struck the ground, but rather hardened as the screeching sound of fear diminished. Her hold on Siwa tightened for no apparent reason.

She did nothing to help the mage. If there was a path to him, she might have pressed her foot on the wound and used his pain to encourage his divulging of the antidote. What burned to white brightness behind her eyes was not so easily dimmed.

Caelum was speaking to her, asking, no, insisting on something. He had already clamored over the bleeding mage and was trying to mend the deserved wound.

"Godsdammit, what the petch are you doing?" she asked with unnerving evenness. She sniffed derisively and answered her own query.
"I'll tell you what. You're healing a snake so it can bite you again."

She understood sin, but not in the manner Caelum would hope. In a just world, evil brought consequence. Suwor's possible survival paired with Lucette's suffering only reminded Sondra of the persistent indifference of the world. It rained on the just and the unjust.
Siwa wasn't so much released, as dropped beside the idiotically merciful heap.

If she couldn't stop Caelum from mending the scorpion, she could endeavor to lessen its sting. She wasn't one of Rak'keli's Konti. How she could help Lucette was beyond her. Even still, she sat on the ground beside the Kelvic and tried to calm her. Sondra's version of care was a little more direct than most, she was not beyond a firm grip to keep the thrashing Lucette from hurting herself.

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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Cryos Bladebane on June 20th, 2012, 12:28 pm

"What the?" said Cryos as the hypnotic power washed over him, and he fell to his knees, the pain and agony coursing through his body. He was still unsure of what was happening, but knew that that man was the cause of his pain right now. Grunting, and forcing himself to stand firm, he pushed himself off the ground, and looked towards Zagary for some inkling of what to do next. He hadn't proved very helpful in this endeavor, and that was something that was weighing upon his mind this entire time. What could he do to make himself more useful? He didn't know what was going on, but certainly didn't want to feel unuseful as he had been the past few moments.

Once the waves of hypnotic pain finished washing over him, and he was himself again, Cryos looked towards Sondra and then Caelum, noting how Caelum was going to try and heal the man that had just wracked their bodies with pain. "Perhaps it is best to let him bleed out upon the floor... but first allow him to tell us where this antidote is... perhaps heal him enough to answer that question," he said, his emerald hued eyes showing no trace of comfort in the fact that Caelum wanted to heal a man whom had caused a lot of suffering...
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End Game: Witch Hunt.

Postby Tabarnac on June 22nd, 2012, 9:11 pm

Suwor was compliant now, and didn't even whimper at the pain he must have been feeling. There was something pathetic and small about him now. The Denvali remembered when he was a great man, that greatness the reason they had respected his hermitage when things just went wrong and wrong, why they did not question Siwa's visits to him, why Theo sent food, why the occasional matron, wishing one last child, had sent him small gifts to catch his favor.

Whatever had happened, he was a monster now, but a monster on a leash. That was an important distinction.

His wound was not healed entirely, but it cleaned itself, the blood flushing out things that would cause it to go septic, and the blood slowed under his ministrations, but did not cease. Siwa did as she was bidden without the necessity of the slave crown, taking Caelum's jacket to staunch the wound. Between them, they made some progress there.

"See to Lucette," she said quietly, her eyes intent on her father, her hands firm. There was a strength to her that few ever saw, distracted by her submission, by her more apparent weaknesses, but she was a daughter of Denval too.

"Rock adder venom," the slave whispered hoarsely, bound to Caelum's will. "Get the child out of her and she might live." His eyes fell upon the mark on Caelum's hand, but if he would have corrected himself, it was lost in a shudder of pain. But then the compulsion of the crown forced him to speak.

"Or your grace might stop it, but the babe is doomed. It will come out of her dead."

Zagary's eyes widened as he heard this just as he set the kit down next to Caelum. That was just too much.

"Cryos," he said. "Loot." It was an order, and there was a leather knapsack nearby where the Isur could collect the various oddities that Suwor had either created in his solitude or, perhaps, stolen from Denval. Zagary knew about the Arsenal even if these others did not.
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