2021-10-29: Growing Misfortune
- Log: Growing Misfortune
- Cast: Seraph Boudicca, Ida Everstead-Rey, Riley Arwell, Xander Lovell
- Where: Plains of the Goddess
- Date: October 29, 2021
- Summary: In which the Fangs try to ambush what they believe is a lone and vulnerable traveler, and instead everyone invovled has a no good very traumatizing bad day.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Give us your gald, or you're sprawled!!"
"Er, I am not precisely sure that meter is correct..."
Tragically, the bandits currently taking position on the Plains of the Goddess didn't have the ears to hear Boudicca's confusion. While the main roads are well-travelled by the Guard, these paths which lead deeper into the breadbasket of Meribus aren't quite so popular. Supposedly, this road is a shortcut to Vane. Except...
Today, there's a surprise on the road! It's bandits!
AND --
"They are in possession of an ARM!", is the last thing Boudicca yells, before she jumps right into the path of it. Of course, Boudicca is a wind spirit, and is not possessed of great resistances against ARMS. She's at least capable of disabling the device before it can blow anything else up, leaving Ida free to disable the rest of the bandits before they get any more bright ideas.
Tragically, by the time the victory theme played, Boudicca's physical form is all tuckered out. Retreating to her ribbon, she drifts around Ida, to settle down. The wind s i g h s.
"Well," that overlong green ribbon, who is currently Boudicca, remarks. "At least we have disrupted the malignant forces on the road this day. We have made life safer for those who shall come." Luckily, there's only one random encounter per trip between towns. Right?
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"You would think," Ida says, as a long, green ribbon drapes across her shoulders, "that I would be used to you doing things like this." She's seen worse. She's seen worse happen to Boudicca. But as the bandits beat their hasty retreat--limping and cursing and glancing about for an invisible threat--Ida reaches down and entwines the ribbon in her fingers, because she can't give Boudicca a proper hug right now. "I should report them to... someone." Not the Guard. But if not the Guard, then who?
Ida looks down at the ARM that caused this mess, lying in a wagon-rut in the middle of the road. It's the sort of sawed-off shotgun used by people who don't care much about accuracy, or safety--just filling people with buckshot, or blowing gory holes in them. She raises a foot, takes a breath, and brings it down on the ARM. Metal bends. Wood splinters. Ida bends down to pick up the pieces, scooping them into her pack for safekeeping. "Is there anything I can do for you?" Ida asks the wind.
And she might as well be talking to the wind. With Boudicca temporarily indisposed, all anyone will see is a lone traveler, wearing trail-worn boots, a backpack, and a long, warm cloak. Ida's face has been on fewer wanted posters in this region, but there is always the chance someone will take a shot. Even with the bandits gone, she hasn't completely relaxed.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
The Fangs are not affiliated with those particular bandits in any way. But they have also been hunting along this road, and they have a preference for what they perceive to be easy prey. Ida, walking seemingly alone, and visibly carring some of the weariness of her battle, seems to fit that bill.
Riley is heard before he is seen -- he approaches slowly, carrying a strange, stringed instrument, made from darkened wood in an organic shape, overgrown with red flowers. It looks almost as if it was grown from the ground. On this odd guitar, he plays a slow and somber melody. The notes seem to carry almost a physical weight to them, bringing a heaviness and a temptation to simply close your eyes, lay down your burdens, and sleep.
It seems to Riley that it's kinder this way. Maybe it's only kinder to himself.
He draws close enough to catch her speaking to the air, asking how she can help. Is she talking to him?
"You look like you've already done enough today," he says. "You might want to think about a rest."
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Sing You to Sleep! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action. GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Repeat and Fade.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Perhaps it would have been luckier if they'd been the ones attacked by bandits. Not for the bandits, mind. But instead, what they find along the roads while trying to avoid the Guard themselves is... a traveler, who seems for all the world alone.
Good. He promised Riley only one this time. And if there's only one, he doesn't have to walk the precarious line of choking the curse back and giving into it. Every day, Xander's holding his breath, body begging to inhale before he suffocates, but with a craving for vitality instead of oxygen.
Xander doesn't like the plan of Riley introducing himself first. Each step for Riley is painful right now, he knows. This round needs to end swiftly, or they may end up in a scenario where Riley can no longer walk at all. But Xander has to keep back for another reason: his own manifestation of the curse this time is highly visible, with thorny, flowering vines protruding from his right brow. A warm trickle down the side of his face lets him know it's still weeping despite all his efforts to stop the bleeding. But as long as it stays out of his eye, he can live with it. It's the headache it gives him that's more insufferable.
As Riley's music hopefully lulls the traveler toward sleep and provides a distraction, he tries to make his approach from behind, launching himself the last bit of distance with a swing toward her.
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Repeat and Fade! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey fully evades Riley Arwell's Sing You to Sleep for 0 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Beyond the Veil for 113 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
...A swing of a scythe, the weapon appearing in his grasp in an instant. It looms over her with a sudden, oppressive aura of chilling darkness as its chief warning before Xander sweeps it down to cleave into Ida, having every intent to make this the long song she ever hears.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The ribbon laughs, a shade nervously. "Ah... forgive me, only, I did not think overmuch in the moment." One might get the impression that Boudicca has made that apology many times before. For being an immortal spirit, sometimes she sure doesn't look before she leaps!
"Perhaps the librarians of Vane should like to know there are predators near the roads which come to them..?" Boudicca sounds just as baffled about who to report bandits to outside of Althena's Guard. The ARM is swiftly disarmed, with a light breeze around them.
"I will be well," the wind, speaking from a ribbon, which is where Boudicca is resting, says. "Only, physically, it was quite taxing... I think, perhaps, I ought retire a while. Might I impose upon you to carry me?" Her ribbon is long, but it's no more heavy than anything else Ida is carrying along right now.
Like that weariness...
The man from before appears, strumming low. Boudicca remembers the look of him, even if the feeling isn't mutual. Boudicca does not have eyes to see; regardless she sees, beyond the story of her sight, as Riley draws in.
And the wind speaks thus: "Ida... be cautious!"
The wind picks up around her, a headwind against blows, a tailwind for her heels. It's well she suspected Riley -- because the other man, she knew there were two, he comes from nowhere and he comes to kill. His scythe will at least have two layers to fight through before it can score blood: both Ida's defences, and the swirling breeze which seeks to push him away.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fortifying Tailwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
"Vane might be able to help, if they can spare the people." That's a big 'if'. The matter of carrying Boudicca's vessel is much simpler. "Of course," Ida says. She plucks the ribbon off her shoulders, and ties it in a double loop around her bun. The ends trail behind her, giving Boudicca plenty of space to enjoy blowing in the wind. As she makes the second careful knot, she feels herself struggling, like her fingers aren't quite as coordinated as they should be...
Ida's head tilts to the side as something filters through the breeze and birdsong. It's music, slow and sonorous, and it's come out of nowhere. The adrenaline has run its course, and it's left behind a vague, lingering weariness--but the more Ida hears of that music, the wearier she gets. She blinks at the redheaded man--once, twice--and reaches out a hand to brace against a tree that isn't there. She wobbles.
'You might want to think about a rest.'
There's no time to think. More bandits? Something worse? All Ida knows is that her deepest instincts start screaming at her to wake up, and her blood alights with adrenal flame. Her teeth sharpen ever-so-slightly; she grits them, bites the inside of her cheek. A coppery-sweet taste flows onto her tongue. Her eyes close. Her whole body tenses. When her eyes open again, she is staring at Riley, her face the very image of rage. "Like hell," Ida says, and crimson and quicksilver gleam on her teeth.
'Ida... be cautious!'
Of course, Ida thinks, as the world slows down around her. He's not the only one here. Ida spins on her heels, raising both arms; something silvery-red starts to bubble out from beneath her sleeves, but she's still processing the second attacker, the man with the scythe. Boudicca's sorcery buys her precious time. The wind seems to take on a mind of its own, and it's testament to Xander's relentlessness that he's able to push through that headwind, driving the blade down at Ida's chest.
Ida sees--remembers--Lady Harken. She snaps both arms up, grabbing the base of the scythe's blade with her right hand, and thrusting her left forearm to absorb the rest. Metal cuts through flesh, but it takes more effort than it should. Finally, Xander's weapon hits something solid--not bone, because human bone doesn't emit a horrible, metal-on-metal screech when you grind a blade against it. Ida steps to the side, lets go of the blade, twists her bloodied forearm away as the weapon keeps falling. The strange silver-red solidifies, hardening into fractals, then thick, biometal plates, all gold and blue. Ida drives her armored right palm for Xander's face, aiming straight for his nose. Even as she does, she starts to circle around him, stepping to the side. Her wounded left arm retreats into her cloak and comes up holding a little metal sphere. Ida ignites the cotton wick, and throws it fastball-style at Riley. "You're going to WISH you'd joined your friends!" Ida spits.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Water Dragon Form! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Stoic stance! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Riley Arwell with Flare Grenade! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Water Dragon Form for 46 hit points! GS: Charge!! You gain 35 FP! GS: Riley Arwell takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Flare Grenade for 0 hit points! GS: Blind applied to Riley Arwell! GS: Riley Arwell activates Guard bonus and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
There's no visible signs of the curse on Riley -- the thorns growing in his legs are hidden beneath his clothing. There wouldn't be much to see anyway -- at least nothing so shocking as the tangle of thorny vines sprouted from Xander's brow. Unfortunately for Riley, that's because the thorns have been growing inward, digging their way into the muscle. He can still walk. But moving around is painful, and it's more than just misguided 'kindness' that had him wanting to immobilize their target before starting a fight.
But it's not to be-- Ida shakes off the effect of the slumbering song and fixes him with a glare that says she knows.
Riley recoils a little -- that moment always cuts him, whenever and however it happens. The look of betrayal.
But that happens in a flash -- then there's Xander springing with his scythe -- the second voice, where is it coming from?? -- and some sort of strange fluid bubbling off of their would-be sacrifice.
A flash of memory comes to him of Xander warning him--
Riley, listen to me, he whispers, We need to be ready this time. We need to not freak out if we try to stab someone and they turn out to carry ancient unfathomable power or are in love with someone we've met. Or both. Got it?
Riley sputters with helpless, rueful laughter as the substance bubbling out from Ida's body turns to armored plates.
"Oh, I can't believe it really happened twice... Xander, it happened twice! Are you also in love with someone we know?" The next thing he knows, she's winging a granade at him and light is exploding in his face.
"Oh, shit!" He cringes, staggering back and covering his eyes, his steps sending bolts of pain shooting through him. "--What friends? And who's that with you?!" Never mind. This is going sideways again, and he can't leave Xander to pick up all his slack. Eyes still closed against the glare lingering in his vision, he slides his guitar to his back and, perhaps a bit inexplicably, picks up his bow, nocking a shadow arrow with practiced grace and absolutely careless aim.
Valmar will help it find the target. Probably.
"Scream if I hit you accidentally, Xander!"
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Homing Arrow! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The anticipation of blade rending flesh to spill blood over the ground is only matched by Xander's nausea. Perfume sits on his collar, prepared for this, and Ida may get a brief waft of citrus while he gets the scent of her blood. It's more metallic than he's used to, mixing haunting red with unfamiliar silver, but it's still blood. Xander growls, fangs bared as she holds his scythe in place by both shaft and blade with what is a most unnatural happening.
As if he wasn't one himself.
Ida lets the blade fall, and Xander moves with the weight and momentum with his own grace despite the animal look in his eye. But he's not fast enough to keep her hand from brutally colliding with his face. He reels off balance, his blood splattering on ground with the impact. Wiping the blood from his nose with a white sleeve, Xander draws in a ragged break as his one eyed gaze lands back on Ida with all the intensity of a beast on the hunt.
It's possible his movements might have helped guard him from the full force of the blow. It's possible his nose is broken under the blood and swelling and he just doesn't care.
Damn, his head hurts, and that isn't helping.
"What did I tell you?" Xander says, his voice rough with exhaustion. "Maybe we can crash their wedding."
He doesn't wait for a response from either of them, leaping back into the fray with Ida with a whirl of his scythe around his body to distract and discourage hand-to-hand proximity before making an upwards slice at Ida that cuts through the ground, throwing dirt and grass into the air (and... petals? those are cursed petals) on its way to strike.
"You're fine! Just keep shooting!"
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Hellbent! GS: Xander Lovell enters a Counter stance! GS: Xander Lovell enters the stance! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Riley Arwell's Homing Arrow for 73 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Power Burst! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Hellbent for 50 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Power Burst! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Those two did not like to stab Boudicca, she reflects, because she was not flesh and blood. Would they be sufficiently deterred by Ida's dual nature..? "These are no common bandits," the wind warns Ida, on the heel of her retort. "They thirst for red over gold. They did not find me a suitable target, but..." But it doesn't seem that Ida's particular shade is unpleasant enough to turn them away.
"What has become of you..?" A voice eminates from near Ida, as Xander reels momentarily away.
The breeze billows around Ida, sending her cloak and that ribbon fluttering; those biometal plates may find themselves gleaming a little brighter, even in the face of the Fang's assault. The wind itself, it seems, is making Ida healthier.
"They are possessed of ill intent," Boudicca warns her, concerned in the face of such dangerous foes. "Perhaps... we ought egress!"
GS: Seraph Boudicca spends 1 Combo on Reload! GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Soothing Breeze! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Seraph Boudicca heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 125 temporary hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Seraph Boudicca's Reload!!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
For a moment, Ida and Xander struggle over the scythe, Ida's steely-blue gaze meeting her foe's. It's then that she notices that what she thought was some sort of jewelry is organic--actual thorns, breaking his skin and forming a half-crown around his brow. A sickening noise throbs and pulses in the back of her mind, too low for unaugmented human ears to hear. The throbbing intensifies as she glances at Riley, sees that look of betrayal as it fades. Is it--could it be--?
"Valmar," Ida says, and her lips peel free from her teeth. Xander rushes her again, comes in low; Ida takes a half-step back, and bends like a reed in the wind. The scythe-blade trails up her body, coming close enough for her to feel the deadly intent boiling off it. It nicks the base of her cowl, and looks to be ready to tear into her chin when her head whips back, neck bending further. She can almost see her heels. Clods of earth slam into her. Petals of evil energy blow over her, leaving ghostly little burn marks beneath her clothes.
Of course, while all this is happening, Riley has an opening. Ida can't dodge in this state; more armor pours from her flesh, solidifying into plates across her right shoulder. Riley's shadow arrow flies true, slamming into the exoskeleton with a CLANG, and a spray of two-tone blood.
"No common bandits," Ida growls. She whips upright suddenly, like a lash uncoiling, and snaps off the arrow's shaft. She throws it into the dirt at Xander's feet. "Xander, is it? Did Parringer send you two?" Her voice is cold. She'll have time to panic, and to worry about what this Part is, if it even is a Part, and how she can seal it, once she's no longer in mortal danger. "They won't just let me go, Boudicca! And besides--" Ida meets Xander's eyes again, and tries, oh so desperately, to call his bluff.
"I'm the one you want." Ida presses her fingers together, drives her right hand in a classic knife-strike aimed for Xander's throat. Her other hand darts in lower, crackling with the force of Ida's Breath; wind engulfs that hand as Seraphic sorcery empowers her. Ida barely has to communicate with her partner--they've been fighting together so long they just work. The bleeding is already slowing. The wind is whipping about her unpredictably, making Riley's shots that much more difficult.
And if that second strike hits, Xander is going to experience the full force of Ida's inner flame as it rushes into him, burning as it tries to overpower his own.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Searing Ember Strike! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Stoic stance ends. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Spared...?! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell critically guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Searing Ember Strike for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Xander Lovell activates Guard bonus! GS: Xander Lovell loses 0 THP from Disease! GS: COUNTER! Xander Lovell counterattacks Ida Everstead-Rey with Counter Attack! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Ida Everstead-Rey's attack becomes clear! GS: Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Ida Everstead-Rey's Devil's Draw for 224 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Charge!! You gain 55 FP! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Xander Lovell receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Xander Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
That first strike? That's a feint. With her arm pointed at him, Xander is in the perfect position to see human flesh sliding open, bloodlessly, surrounded by a webwork of silvery-blue Hyadean filaments. Something gleams the colors of Demonbone as it slides out of Ida's forearm, dropping into her hand. It's a gun, equal parts Hyadean tech and salvaged Day of Collapse materials. It could easily be--and probably is--a rifle sawed down and modified into a heavy pistol. Ida lowers the gun at Xander's breastbone, and pulls the trigger. It's force of habit.
In the back of her mind, though, she remembers what the Pope told her, and about how these things--if they are Parts--need hosts. Kill one, and they'll seek another.
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley tries to blink his eyes open, though the light stings and his vision is still marred by spots.
"It sounds like you... two...?" Where is the other one? "Know all about us. Except nobody sent us. The Fangs just need to eat."
In the limited haze of his vision, he sees Ida draw a strange gun from within her body and level it at Xander at point blank range.
"Xander!" Riley rushes toward him, but he isn't going to outrun a gunshot, even if he didn't have thorns in his legs.
As it is, he's too late, but keeps going, stumbling toward them unsteadily and lunging for Ida, trying to grasp at her and pull her away from Xander.
A sudden riot of thorned vines burst from his own arms, growing from his body to tangle around hers at great speed. Flowers bud and unfurl, releasing strange, sweet toxins. He doesn't even know what he summoned, just that he called for something cruel. "We haven't got time for you to to be unfathomable," he hisses. "Now please, just die."
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with See What Blooms! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Counter Attack for 42 hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Riley Arwell's See What Blooms for 124 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Disease and Jam applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey loses 0 THP from Disease! GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Desperation.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Xander hears that other voice, his flowered brow twitching with another low growl. Is he hallucinating again? He can't pinpoint Boudicca's voice well enough to know it's her, though maybe his subconscious does.
Ida speaks the name of Xander's lead favorite person. "Oh, have you met?" he says of Valmar, and there's no humor in it. But not having any humor is Xander's sense of humor. It doesn't make him hesitate at all in his assault.
The mention of Parringer does. Everything about Xander seizes up, and his stance is low and ready to spring forward in aggression, grip on his scythe shaken until it tightens. "No one sent us," he growls. "Like he said. We feed or we die. That's it."
Ida keeps talking to herself, and then Xander finally does realize who. His eye widens. "Seriously?!" He calls over toward Riley. "She's in love with the hallucination!"
A significant misunderstanding, Xander. Also, rude, you know Boudicca is real now! (It's the thick of battle, what do you want from him?)
But if Ida wants to focus on him over Riley, all the better. Xander charges her in his pursuit of violence, his pupil becoming a slit in his grey iris. Even as her strikes make for him, he counters with wild, brutal strikes of his own, pushing through pain to finish the arc of his weapon even as she makes contact.
Make contract she does. The Breath. The inner flame. Xander does not know these word, but he knows that it hurts. It collides with the corruption hosted in his soul, and feels like she's shredding both. Xander's entire body is alight with a new pain, vision going white. He doesn't hear himself screaming.
He hasn't a single hope of avoiding that shot. It explodes against him, and Xander's body -- so much smaller than it might have seemed while lunging in bloodlust for Ida's throat -- is thrown from the sheer force of it, smashing into the ground and leaving behind a smear of blood from the short distance he slides.
Once he can hear again, he makes out the tail end of his name. Xander's arm moves first, hand slamming against dirt to try and pull himself up. His other grips at the wound on his chest... and a tangle of thorny branches that were all that stood between him and a shattered rib cage.
"I'm fine," he says, spitting blood to the side. "Riley, don't -- stay back!" This target of theirs is too dangerous for Riley to try taking in melee, god damn it. Xander curses under his breath, squeezing into his wound as if he could physically hold it shut. Eye pinched shut, head throbbing, chest aching, he forces himself from the ground in a burst of energy, charging wildly and making a swing at Ida.
Whatever happens with that, he loses his balance, smashing back into the ground at the other side of her with a frustrated growl.
GS: Xander Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Desperation! GS: Xander Lovell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Bitter End for 156 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey activates Power Burst!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
... A 'wild swing' with a curiously well aimed dagger for her back that he didn't appear to be armed with when he got here.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"You will find no mice here," Xander's hallucination tells him. "I am aware of your requirements, but I would ask you desist. You find me untenable, do you not?"
The wind says, "I do not bleed, and this blood you draw is silvered."
But even if it seems Riley can hear her, now...
Ida seems to have the right of it, Boudicca thinks. They shan't simply desist. "Hold on!" She cries, as the attacks pile on. Riley calls for something cruel --
-- and the wind blows against it, billowing out from Ida to blow Riley and his vines away, in a breeze he'll have to struggle through. Can he hear her? Perhaps, then, he will hear: "I will not allow it!"
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Riley Arwell with Beaufort's Prediction! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Riley Arwell partially guards Seraph Boudicca's Beaufort's Prediction for 73 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Seraph Boudicca! GS: Riley Arwell activates Guard bonus, Arcane Font, and Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Smoke wafts from the barrel of Ida's ARM as it slides back into her forearm, smooth and natural and distressingly devoid of blood. "There," Ida says, "we're--"
She turns to run, but Riley's closing, a riot of thorny foliage bursting from his skin. The Fangs, Ida thinks, distantly. They must be bearers of a Part, then. That's the only thing that explains this feeling.
The first vine wraps around Ida's left forearm, thorns scraping against exoskeleton. The tendril pulls tight, snakes up her shoulder. The wind tears at it, but the unholy magic empowering it holds it together. Ida wears no armor beyond that which she summoned, and her clothes offer no resistance. Thorns lacerate her skin. Her vision skews sideways as flame swims through her veins. Her head twists back, and a scream of agony tears from her throat.
But Xander and Riley have made their intentions clear. Ida does not have the luxury of pain, much less unconsciousness. "I won't let you," she says, her voice like ice. The wind blows back the ribbon in her hair. A few stray locks break free of her bun, fall back over her bloodied shoulder. Silver seeps down Ida's fingers, and quite suddenly, the limb Riley's entangled sprouts blades of its own--long, sturdy, made of biometal. Ida clenches her fist and twists her arm, bringing blades to bear. It may be too late to stop the toxins, but the branch gives way with a sound too disconcerting to be made by any natural wood.
thunk
Ida had wheeled free of Xander's wild-looking attack--focused on freeing herself from Riley--only to take that knife straight in the shoulderblade. Bicolored blood drips from the wound. "Clever," Ida rasps. "You would've--" Ida's whole body twitches as the poison works its way into her muscles. "Ghhk--" she chokes out, but she's felt worse, she's felt so much worse--she has to have felt so much worse. Survive. Survive. "--done this to someone else, if not me. I don't--don't know how you came by this curse--" Boudicca's pleading for her, she realizes, distantly. The wind's picking up. What will happen to her friend if she dies here?
"But you've made an enemy today."
Ida reaches into her cloak. Bloodied, armored fingers clasp a chunk of granite, remarkable only for the fiery tinge of its component minerals and the symbol engraved on it. Ida says no words--just a silent plea to her patron, her god. Help her. Help them halt this sickness.
Phantasmal fire erupts a good ten feet above Ida's head, shaping itself into the silhouette of a great bird. The image of Moor Gault swoops down, trailing feathers in its wake--feathers that sink into Ida's skin, touching her with a tiny sliver of the Guardian's power. With a shift of flesh and bone, Devil's Due comes to rest in her hand again.
Ida pulls the trigger. The Dragon Filament within ignites. A wave of brilliant blue-white roars out at Xander, filling the air with boiling heat-haze and scorching the dirt of the path. Ida twists towards Riley, raking the gun like a flamethrower. Her lips have peeled back from her teeth. Her vision swims.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Boss Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Material - Inner Flame! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Material - Inner Flame for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Mighty and Riposte applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated a Boss Action! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 4 Combo on Poison and Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Riley Arwell with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Breath Of The Fire Dragon! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey assumes the Avenger stance! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield expired! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Riley Arwell solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 104 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Riley Arwell! GS: Riley Arwell activates Guard bonus and Sufferer! GS: Riley Arwell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Blind expired! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Ida Everstead-Rey's Breath Of The Fire Dragon for 253 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Xander Lovell activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Thorned vines crawl across Xander's chest, feeding on his blood while he hisses. But it keeps him mostly together, and it's going to have to mostly hold until he can get himself more focused medical attention. Wouldn't be the first time he had to stitch himself up.
But if his head could stop throbbing that would be great.
"Silver works just fine," he manages to Boudicca. At least this isn't someone they already befriended, Xander thinks dimply. At least if he can sink a knife in deep enough, Riley won't be left despairing and guilty. ... Not as despairing and guilty, anyway.
You've made an enemy today.
"The curse isn't real useful for making friends."
Xander has to get up and keep fighting. His body still won't listen quite the way he wants when Ida pulls the trigger, and Xander claws into his own wound with a grimace as the blood spills and sends thick vines curling around him like a wall. Blue-white flame eats through it, tearing across thorns and singing red blossoms... white? Xander doesn't have time to appreciate the oddity of it, heat and bloodless and a power he doesn't understand making his vision white again and his skin crawl with new agony.
His tongue squirms in his drying mouth, hitting against the fangs, that constant reminder of what he needs to do. The sacrifices Valmar demands. The heat around him feels like it's needling into his flesh. It needs blood, it doesn't need this.
And his head fucking hurts. Xander gathers up his strength for a inhuman snarl, resummoning that cold, cursed scythe and cleaving through his own shield of thorns to charge Ida, raising his weapon and swinging brutally down for her.
...The weapon flies from his grip, spinning through the air to embed harmlessly beside Ida as the pressure in Xander's skull erupts. Pain brands red into his vision. Agony seizes his body with such force that even his scream is choked into a broken sound as petals and blood arc into the air. He staggers back, trembling hand over his right eye -- the good eye.
What was the good eye.
A bud sprouts from it, blooming open into a large flower as leafy vines crawl down Xander's cheek, joined by blood where tears should be. He goes deathly still save for the quiver of his fingers as they dare to brush against the unfolded, velvety petals.
The disbelief dwindles each passing moment Xander's sight remains a terrifying palette of smeared reds and a ghostly sense of flashing lights. He's already failing, and Valmar wants him to do it blindfolded?!
There is no halting this sickness. One way or another, the Fangs take the blood they crave.
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Xander Lovell with Curse of the Fangs! GS: Xander Lovell assumes the Sage stance! GS: Xander Lovell takes 29 damage from Poison! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Xander Lovell accepts Xander Lovell's Curse of the Fangs for 122 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell activates Sufferer!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
She's in love with the hallucination!'
Riley squints. "What are you talking about, Xander!" That was a string of words that made sense individually and grammatically, but he can't fathom what Xander is trying to say with them.
"Are there invisible people again?! I thought I could see them now! Maybe our mind melt is wearing off...!"
But any such banter is cut short by the fury of the gunshot, with Xander blasted away in a smear of blood and Riley rushing Ida and entangling her in a snarl of thorny, poisonous vines.
The winds lash at him, but he unfurls more vines to wind in ever-tightening coils to hold himself in place, even as the winds pull him against his own thorns, soaking his sleeves in blood.
More and larger flowers open up along the vines ensnaring Ida to release their noxious fumes, before she finally bursts blades from her arm and cuts her way free.
I'm fine.
"No you aren't!" Riley yells back at him. But it's a relief to hear his voice. "Stay still and try to keep your blood on the inside!"
The mystery voice of Boudicca, meanwhile, tries to warn them that Ida's blood isn't the kind they need.
While there are some beings -- like the Seraphim -- who don't resonate with the bloodlust, Ida is no such exception. He can feel the impulse--which for him always manifested something like curiosity--to crack her open and see what's inside.
"Sorry. It seems like she's close enough for Valmar's tastes."
But you've made an enemy today.
Riley's lips curl into a pained smile. "Of course we have. We're trying to kill you." They don't know the first thing about her. Maybe he would love to be friends and to crash her wedding later. But he can't afford to care.
She drives them back with flame. Riley gives a startled yell, shielding his upper body behind his arms and weaving together the remains of the vines he summoned into a makeshift shield. That shield ultimately blackens and crumbles, but it buys him time to draw back from the worst of the blaze.
...He can hear Xander screaming. He turns and finds him shuddering with a fresh flower blooming from what had been his one good eye.
No. Oh, no.
Riley stumbles toward him, reaching out like there's something he could do about it, but it was never anything he could fix, he was the one who caused this pain.
"Why did I do this to you?" he says. His voice is quiet, but frantic, as he repeats the same thing again and again. "Why did I do this to you, why did I do this to you...?"
The ground stirs with Riley's panicked murmuring -- something in him resonating with the deeper, more difficult to control well of Valmar's power that the Fangs rarely touch.
Enormous flowers and writhing vines begin to lurch up from the ground in the surrounding area, releasing dizzying clouds of strange pollen and fumes.
GS: Riley Arwell spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Gift from the Blood Garden! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 3 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell takes 34 damage from Poison! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action. GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Riley Arwell's Gift from the Blood Garden for 69 hit points! GS: Poison applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"We need not be friends, only -- do not kill her!" Boudicca's demand is strained with her desperation. They did explain, last they met; Boudicca ran, then, with no answer to the quandry they posed her.
She is not someone who dwells in the darkness of humanity's heart. Frank murder, the desire to end another's life, is not something Boudicca knows well. Certainly she knows death, and yet...
There are some things too cruel for her comfort.
Xander is staggered to a standstill, and perhaps Ida's inner flame can ward off Riley enough for him to reach out to his companion, instead. "Cease... cease this horrible task!" The wind cries, over Riley's murmurs. "Ere we die, you will..!"
But there's no talking them down, is there..?
The wind picks up at Ida's heels again, a tailwind to lend her fleetness of foot; it swirls around her, frustrating the attempts of that dizzying pollen. "We must away," she urges her companion, quietly. "Please, afore they recoup their losses. I -- I do not know if I can... let us go!" What would happen to Ida, if Boudicca's strength gave out? She daren't think.
GS: Seraph Boudicca has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Fortifying Tailwind! GS: Seraph Boudicca has gained 1 Combo! GS: Seraph Boudicca has completed her action. GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Seraph Boudicca's Fortifying Tailwind for 0 hit points! GS: Burst, Quick, and Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
'The curse isn't real useful for making friends.'
They know. It's both reassuring and horrifying. Xander seems to know the full extent of what he's become, and maybe Riley does, too, but they're willing--desperate?--to kill, regardless. If Xander speaks truth, they're trading blood for their own survival. Ida could stop this, if she were prepared, and if she could manage to kill both of them. Now is not that time.
Riley does something, and blood-red blooms burst open in Ida's face, a parody of the natural, law-abiding flowers she finds so calming. Her first breath sucks poison into her lungs, and heat rises in her chest--the Hyadean components of her bronchi seem to recognize a toxic threat, deploy countermeasures. It's all that keeps her from sinking to her knees, in agony.
Xander charges. Ida raises both arms, prepares to sidestep and grab her foe, to fling him to the ground. She doesn't need to. Something horrific happens, instead.
"Granas," Ida breathes. She presses bloodied hands to her bloodied chest--hell, there's barely a spot on her that isn't bloodied--and stares in mute horror as the sickness spreads.
But Boudicca urges her to leave, and she's got the right of it. Ida turns away from the gruesome scene, and starts to run, her limbs shaky, but functional. Adrenaline surges through her again, boosted by Boudicca's timely sorcery. If not for her friend's aid, this could've ended very differently. For now, they just have to make it to Vane.
Then, and only then, will Ida have the luxury of a breakdown.
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
No no no no NO Xander can't deal with this right now. He doesn't have time to adjust. He doesn't need time to adjust if he can get the killing blow. He hisses through the pain as he claws uselessly at his eye. Even if he can't see, he can hear, he can feel, he can --
The bloodlust. Xander chokes out a laugh. Yes, of course that would be in full force. Neriah tells them Valmar's an instinct, not a thought, but if it were Xander would swear it's trying to tell him something. Nothing he wants to hear, but something he has to listen to if he doesn't want to die.
He doesn't.
Riley's losing it and Xander's laughing instead of doing anything more useful. An exhausted, broken laugh. Maybe he'd cry if he had either of his stupid eyes. Xander bends down, pawing for his scythe before pulling it in his grasp and charging forward in a completely futile, savage swing into some of the blood Ida left behind.
Because Ida and Bou are already long gone.
But they can probably still hear him scream in rage and desperation as he sinks back to the ground.