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Thread: [M] Runes

  1. #111
    The Replicant
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    “But I can help with the other burden pressing down on your skin.” Her fingertips moved to the collar around his neck.

    The Teacher flinched a little, as though he were fighting the urge to draw back. He let out a slow breath. “I would be punished if I were to walk outside without it, Wanderer.” he said, sadly. Although, to the Wanderer’s eyes, the man looked barely able to stand, much less leave the grim walls of the hospice.

    “I can remove it...please let me remove it.” Her words were more a plea than a question. “I don’t think you can help with our quest any more. But I can help your days be more comfortable here.”

    The Teacher let out another slow sigh. “Your accent. You come from the City of Ash.”

    His shaking fingers gently probed up Wanderer’s arm, where they found the uneven lines of her old scars.

    “Ah.” he withdrew his hand, and bowed his head in understanding. “You once wore a collar yourself, didn’t you?”

    He did not wait for an answer, only raised his chin to expose his thin, iron-chafed neck.

    “I suppose the chance of me being seen outside in the time left to me is remote.” A sad, but kindly smile deepened the wrinkles lining his face. “If it will ease your conscience, Wanderer, then you may remove it.”

    This time he did not flinch away as Wanderer took hold of the iron collar and, channelling her rune-granted strength, twisted it apart. The Teacher cradled the hinged piece of metal as the static prickle of magic dissipated from the air, running a skeletal thumb silently over his name.

    “You spoke of a quest.” he said in his thin voice. “Not a word I can picture the Immortal using often.”

    With a simple nod of her head, Wanderer beckoned the Illusion over; the one who held the Book in her bag. An idea had formed in her mind when she saw the extent of his blindness. “Can you feel me holding your hand?” She asked the man as the Illusion joined her on the floor.

    “Can you feel the little scars that litter my skin?” She waited a moment before breathing her suggestion. “Could you read letters if I raised them up like the scars on my hand?”


    The Teacher mulled the idea silently for a few moments. “I could try.” he allowed at length. He raised his head again, long hair straggling either side of his face. “What is this book that you’re so keen for me to read for you?”

    “It’s written in Ancient Ash.” Illusion explained, drawing the Book from her satchel. “It’s the Book of Names.”

    The Teacher’s mouth fell open, quivering for a moment before he could reply. “The Book of Names...but even you couldn’t…” He looked towards the door where he had last heard the Immortal’s voice, though Illusion had since set him down on the floor, where the frowning head was keeping his peace.

    “The Ambassador.” the Teacher breathed out as he mentally solved the riddle. “The Mer gave it to you. But who could be enough of a threat for the Mer to intervene?”

    “The Leveler.” Illusion intoned, and thumbed her necklace.

    The Teacher pursed his thin lips. “News reached us a few days ago that her army had taken the City of Light and killed the Enlightened Ones. With no mountains to our south, I am told the governors fear that she may march here next.”

    “Which is why it’s in your interest to let me get back there.” Solar interrupted vehemently. “And kill the bitch.”

    The Teacher was silent for a long moment. “There are old books,” he croaked at last, “In the Ash City library - books that lay out the meanings of Ancient Ash in the newer tongues. It would certainly be faster than trying to teach you those words now. But I will do what I can.” He gestured with a shaking hand. “Do you have a stylus?”

    The group exchanged glances, and shrugged helplessly. After a moment though, Illusion snapped her fingers and rose to go hurrying back downstairs. She returned with the nub of candle from her room, which she prodded gingerly into the brazier until the blunt end was coated with grey ash. She put it into the Teacher’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it.

    The Teacher leaned forward, swept aside a patch of mouldy straw, and began to draw the candle across the floor. His movements were shaky and the ash marks he left on the stone were ragged, but in a few strokes he had scrawled something that looked a little like the mysterious language of the Book.

    One who equalises.” the Teacher whispered. “Leveler. Find these glyphs in the Book and then let me feel the words that come after it.”

    * * * * * *

    “Woman! Water NOW!”

    Red found the nurse on the ground floor with a bundle of fresh straw in her arms, which she nearly dropped in fright at the witch’s harsh command. Still pale and wide-eyed, she pointed without speaking through a small kitchen, beyond which lay a side entrance.

    “U-up street.” the hospice keeper finally managed to say in broken Light. “Turn right. F-f-fountain.”

    The Ambassador blinked at the woman, and smiled before hurrying towards the door without further word. Outside the market was still bustling, but the assassin and the Mer turned away from it back into the rutted street they had walked their horses across. Smells of cooking and wood fires competed with the less pleasant smell of a tannery, and with the sickly-sweet odour of sewage rotting in the gutters. Ragged pigeons pecked and squabbled around the edges of the road, and from an open shop front a skinny cat eyed Red with disinterest. Risemen were coming down from their upper-story apartments to open their workshops for the day, but they were busy enough not to look too closely at the two foreigners as they passed.

    About five hundred metres on there was, as the nurse had said, another effluvia-thick road branching off to the right. It opened out into a courtyard of stone apartment blocks, and in the centre, as promised, was a public fountain. A time-blurred statue of the city’s strange Risen God stood above it, water gushing from the bowl he held triumphantly above his head to splash down into the circular pool below.

    The Ambassador ran forward and pulled down her hood before throwing her whole head into the water. It was fortunate that no-one else was in the courtyard, though Red was keeping a wary eye on the windows above. The Ambassador surfaced with a sigh of relief, water running off the ends of her tangled red dreadlocks to soak her clothes. She cupped some of the fountain water in her hands, and tipped it to her lips before spitting it back into the pool in disgust.

    “No salt.” she said by way of explanation, a disappointed look on her face.

    Sitting by the pool, letting the clean water drip down her ethereal skin, she fixed her black eyes on Red.

    “Why you follow me?” she asked.
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 04-10-2019 at 10:24 PM.
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  2. #112
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    Behind her blindfold Red relied on her sharpened senses and the slits of light slipping through her scarf. She walked slowly over to where the Mer was sitting beside the fountain, and sat down next to her. She gripped the stone beneath her cloak and felt beads of the water sprinkling into the pool jump onto her bare hands. Another blunt reminder of how naked she was in this environment.

    “Well, it would be stupid of me to leave you to walk around here alone. You’ve never been here, and you’re not a fighter.” She angled her face at the ground beneath her feet, and listened to the splashing water behind her. “If someone starts asking too many questions or you make a mistake or even get lost, well it wouldn’t be a good situation.” She let out a slow breath from barely parted lips. “Besides, my master taught me to follow interesting people. Things tend to happen around them. Plus...” she slid one hand along the damp stone to take one of the Mer’s hands. “I’d rather be out here with you, than stay in that depressing death hole surrounded by people who don’t want to be around me, and who I don’t want to be around either. You’re far more fascinating.” One corner of her lips curled slightly up while she gripped the Mer’s hand gently.

  3. #113
    The Scottish Fluff
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    Punishment for holding the power of runes was very familiar to the Wanderer. She had watched many a slave be torn away from the mines when their fingers accidentally scraped over something they were not meant to touch. Their screams for mercy echoed in her ears as the man let out a slow breath, almost as if he was deflating.

    She could not stop herself from flinching back as he had. She let her fingers drop from his collar and instinctively pulled her arms closer to her torso, making herself smaller. The wanderer refused to answer his question but she knew that he already knew the answer.

    With the collar free from his neck, she raised a hand and hovered her fingertips over the scarred tissue that remained. When he raised his head, she let her hand drop to her lap. She could not look the others in the eye, she kept her chin low as the book was lain before them. Shaking fingers drew something on the stone floor. Her eyes dragged over the lines he had drawn. She couldn’t make sense of them. It was a simple. A simple word.

    Curses danced through her skull. How could she be so stupid? She knew she should not be able to read the word. It was from a tongue forgotten long ago...but she couldn’t even read the words that were etched on wooden plaques in her home village. She couldn’t read anything, she had to rely on others for everything. It made her feel like a child. Illusion helped. The woman kneeling beside her and looking as well made the wanderer feel less childlike.

    Dirty thumbs flipped through pages. The lines looked like squiggles, drawings done by children or drunken men. Her attempts felt pitiful but she tried. Some of them matched in small ways. A line here. Or a sharp corner there. But none were 100%. Not until a finger was jabbed onto the paper. Illusion had found something. It looked similar. It looked very similar. Maybe a little bit off here and there but it could have been the shaking hands of the Teacher.


    “There...maybe.” Her words barely brushed her lips as she let them free in a small burst of air. “I...I can raise up the word as well to make sure.” She doubted herself too much at times. They needed to be certain. The wanderer took in a deep breath, feeling it push her ribs against her skin. Her fingers pulled towards her palm. The room was filled with dust. It coated every surface, it floated in the air around them and even clung to the eyelashes of the Immortal.

    Dragging it to herself was easy. Getting the dust to raise over certain lines was more challenging. Her nose nearly brushed the paper as she concentrated. The veins in her forehead raised up as she tried to get every stroke perfect. She did not need them getting this wrong. They could not get a single part of her name wrong or they could all die. Their lives rested on her silly dust.

    “T...There.” She took the teachers hand gently and dragged it to the page. The dust had piled up and was holding place so that his fingertips could drag over the letters. The veins in her forehead did not fade, all her concentration remained on the dust letters.


  4. #114
    The Replicant
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    The young swineherd dug his shovel back into the night’s refuse, already feeling the strain in his limbs even though it was still the first hour of the day. Penned up in the enclosure, the animals seemed more unsettled than usual, squawking and snuffling around agitatedly as he tried to move between them.

    Then he sensed it too. It felt like spiders crawling across his skin, chilling his spine and setting his teeth on edge. He knew exactly what it was, and yet he froze, his brain simply refusing to process the fact.

    The Five Evil Signs...spots before the eyes, a ringing in the ears, blood on the tongue…

    Rune-sign. He realised he had dropped his shovel. Too late, far too late, he scrambled to pick it up and defend himself.

    There was no audible screech or bang, but there was a heavy thrum that curled around his ribcage like a physical force. The pigs went wild, squealing and bolting. One collided with the swineherd’s legs and knocked him down amid the pungent nightsoil.

    From the tilted angle of the floor, he saw them step out of nowhere, as if the air had simply parted like a curtain and let them through. There were seven of them. Four men - one in red, one in white, one in bronze armour and a black-plumed helmet. The fourth was the biggest, with a face ravaged by nightmare scars. One of the women was armoured, with long hair that shimmered even in the sheltered sty. Another carried a long sword at her waist, and her face and body were as hard as the metal of her blade. All of them were collapsing in heaps, weakened by the sorcery that had brought them here. They were stumbling, falling, vomiting...all except one.

    The seventh figure looked down at the swineherd as he struggled to rise, and was knocked flat once again by the stampeding pigs. The figure’s gaze was sapphire blue and sapphire hard - worsened rather than softened by the slash of blue chalk that bisected her face. She was beautiful, terrible; an angel painted from the imagination of demons.

    She spoke words he didn’t understand, and the shadows in the corners of the sty came alive and crawled down the walls to coil around his throat.

    * * * * * *

    “I’d rather be out here with you, than stay in that depressing death hole surrounded by people who don’t want to be around me, and who I don’t want to be around either. You’re far more fascinating.” One corner of her lips curled slightly up while she gripped the Mer’s hand gently.

    The Ambassador looked down at her held hand; as ever, slightly confused by the gesture of intimacy.

    “Sometimes,” the Mer said in her stilted Light, “Must work with people don’t want to be around. Why else Enlightened call Mer? Why else Mer answer?”

    The Ambassador gave one of her impish grins. The hand that Red wasn’t holding trailed absent-mindedly across the fountain pool, sending out ripples to clash with the churning of the water spout.

    “Strange.” the Mer said again after a moment, looking down at Red’s gloved hand folded over her own. “Landwalkers kill Mer...but you look with wonder.”

    She paused, contemplating something behind her black-in-black eyes. Water dripped from her matted hair, smelling faintly of the sea as it leached salt from them.

    “Sometimes Mer miss land. It is...comforting to know that some of you would welcome us.”

    Under the Ambassador’s fingers, the surface of the water suddenly vibrated. Red felt it too, a familiar jerk in the pit of her stomach. Somewhere nearby, someone had cast a powerful rune.

    * * * * * *

    “T...There.” She took the teachers hand gently and dragged it to the page. The dust had piled up and was holding place so that his fingertips could drag over the letters. The veins in her forehead did not fade, all her concentration remained on the dust letters.

    “She’s smarter than she lets on, you know.” the Immortal observed quietly from the floor, speaking to the Wraith who had sat down cross-legged to watch the proceedings.

    The big man grunted agreement. “She’s starting to let on.”

    The Teacher’s sallow brow was furrowed with concentration as he probed the raised lines of dust with his thin, trembling fingers.

    “Such small letters…” he cursed under his breath. “That might be an ee I think...or perhaps an ai. Does the mark have one line across the top, or two?”

    A sudden thumping sound from below was heavy enough to carry all the way up to the attic room.

    Illusion jumped up, nearly scattering the Book and Wanderer’s carefully-laid ashes. “What was that noise?”

    “I’m guessing the door.” Solar snarked.

    Just the door?” Wraith said acidly. “This is the most depressing building in the city. Who’d be sneaking around out there?”

    “Probably someone wanting to know why there’s five horses tied up outside.” Solar rolled his eyes. “I’ll get rid of them.”

    He hurried away down the stairs, and heard voices as he reached the ground floor corridor. They came not from the front door, where he had left the horses, but from the back. An interior door blocked his view, a thick panel of rotting wood held together by the bronze bands that crossed it. There was a lock, but the door stood ajar. Solar put on his most intimidating face and jerked the door open.

    Beyond the door was a kitchen, too small for the number of rooms the hospice held, and as run-down as the the rest of the building - only now a grease of black smoke added to the mustiness of the stone walls. The hearth was still full of old coals, and unwashed bowls were stacked everywhere. The outer door was open, and there were people inside the room.

    He saw the hospice nurse, lying in a broken-doll tangle on the floor. Unconscious or dead, he couldn’t tell. He saw a woman standing over her, a woman who was casting off her riding cloak to free her arms for combat. He saw a flash of red robes and a plumed helmet, and that was all he needed to see.

    “Mother fucker!” he blurted in alarm, and rammed the door closed, intending to sprint back up the stairs and yell at the others that their enemies from the rune mines had somehow tracked them down once more.

    He never got the chance.

    The Leveler ripped her fist back and the door burst off its hinges, shivering to pieces as it was sucked backwards into the kitchen. The splintered boards hung there, spinning in the air. Through them Solar could see the Leveler, her dark eyes boring into his behind a streak of blue chalk. For a moment she held her clenched fist back, and then she threw it forward.

    The shards of wood ripped towards him on a howling wind that scooped him up and flung him back against the corridor wall. And then they plunged into him - his chest, his stomach, his shoulders, his hands - staking him to the wall like a sacrificial bird in the snake-priest’s rituals.

    Solar couldn’t move, he couldn’t even think - it was pure, blinding, freezing agony; as cold as the stakes driven into his flesh, as sharp as their splintered edges. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that poured from his lips was blood.

    “Those were their horses for sure.” Blademaiden said as she stepped into the kitchen.

    Redmoor limped up to Solar and patted down the young man’s bloodied clothes with all the emotion of a hunter stripping a carcass. “He doesn’t have the Book.”

    Solar’s pain-wracked face twisted with a fleeting look of defiance. He tried to speak, but only coughed instead, dribbling another stream of blood down his chin.

    The Leveler growled in irritation, and snapped her fingers. The impaling shards jerked back, sliding free with a sound like a melon being peeled open. They hung in the air for a moment, blood-wet, then clattered to the floor. Solar collapsed with them, shivering and sobbing and vomiting blood.

    “Hole,” Leveler rumbled the command, ignoring the dying wizard. “The side door was open. Scout the area for any more of them. Lightman, you stay down here - cover the windows and make sure no-one else interferes. Blademaiden, clear the lower rooms.” Leveler clenched her fists and a silencing rune pulsed through the building. The air wobbled, and clay bowls began to rattle on the ancient table. She started towards the stairs with long, murderous strides. “The rest of you, with me!”

    The Burning One grinned a hideous grin, flames already cackling around his fingertips. “I’ll flush them out.”

    * * * * * *

    Ee, I’m sure of it.” the Teacher said as Wanderer led him on, Illusion grasping both their shoulders in encouragement. “And then either a soft v or an r...”

    A low thrum shuddered across the attic room, scattering the dust that Wanderer had placed beneath the Teacher’s fingertips. The air around them suddenly felt dense and heavy. When Wanderer looked up she could see motes of dust hanging in the air, spinning in slow circles, glinting like cold smiles as they caught the light.

    “What…?” Illusion began.

    “Silencing rune.” the Immortal snapped. “Someone’s about to make a mess they don’t want the rest of the city hearing.”

    The Wraith rose, dragging his paired blades from their sheathes. “Enemies.”

    No sooner had he said it, then a hissing roar licked up the stairway, dragging an orange glow in its wake. The Teacher let out a cry and fell back onto his hands, as the air around them began to shriek with magic. The glow beneath them became a furious column of fire twisting its way up the stairs, and at its centre was a man, a hideously scarred man who was sweeping his arms like a conductor as the fire curled and boiled around him. He locked his eyes onto the group and let out a bark of triumph.

    “Immortal!” he snarled, throwing a hooked hand out towards the head lying in the middle of the floor. Fire boiled across the space between them.

    “You can fuck right off.” the Immortal snarled back.

    There was a blast of light, and the fire snuffed out as if overwhelmed by a hurricane. The roof beams splintered, and chips of wood were sent blasting across the floor. Wanderer was instantly flash-blinded, but she blinked away the swimming stars just in time to see the fire-blackened corpse on the landing drop to its knees and topple back down the stairs.

    “Seriously.” the Immortal raged. “They were going to try and kill me. The Immortal. THAT was their plan?”

    Angry shouts came from below them, and runic missiles jetted up the stairs to shatter the stones of the landing.

    “Not was, you insufferable bastard.” Wraith growled, scooping up the head, “Still is. We need to go!”

    Illusion was on her feet, snatching up the Book. Unlike the Wraith, her weapons were still downstairs. On the floor the Teacher had slumped onto one elbow, blind eyes staring, open mouth trembling like a landed fish gasping for air.

    “Power…” the crippled mage whimpered, “So much power…”

    * * * * * *

    The wall stones began to groan and creak as the Leveler climbed the stairs, pale frost spreading like a spectral cloak in her wake. The trails of ice swirled into claw-hooked rune shapes, and the air sang with building power.

    The ice was met by fire from above, a flash that spilled red lightning down the stairs. A body came tumbling with it, so badly burned that it was only when it crunched to a stop on the lower landing that the Ashmen realised who it was.

    “No…” the Apprentice gasped, his gaze trapped by the mutilated ruin of the Burning One’s face. The Burning’s own eyes were gone, reduced to red pits that were weeping bubbling streaks of jelly down his blackened cheeks.

    “The Immortal.” Leveler snarled, and threw up a hand to conjure a glowing barrier that made the air around them shriek. “Get behind me!”

    The stairway thrummed, splitting the ice rime as Blademaiden added her own shimmering screen to the Leveler’s defence. The dark-skinned Ashwoman dragged her sword from its scabbard, but spun as she felt a second surge of magic behind and below her.

    Davin was there, red corposant sizzling across his bronze armour. He was stooping beside the Burning’s ruined corpse.

    “What are you doing?” Blademaiden spat. “You were told to guard the door.”

    “That I was.” Davin agreed, rising. In his hand was a blood-red runestone. “And this will help, it will.”

    Blademaiden hissed through her teeth. “Have you no respect for the dead?”

    “I understand you didn’t like him much either.”

    “Regardless, that rune is his!” The air between them prickled with static, as if responding to Blademaiden’s animosity.

    “It became mine when I stole it from him.”

    Blademaiden did not have the time to explain to him how far that was from the way property law worked. Her companions were already pushing up the stairs.

    “Kill them!” Leveler shouted, “Kill them and take the Book!”
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  5. #115
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    Dust drifted from the wooden rafters above them. It danced through the air and landed on the page beside the older man’s gnarled fingers. That wasn’t the door. Unless the door had been flung against a wall. “Try again please.” Her desperate plea gained the teacher's attention once more. Dry fingertips dragged over the raised dust as he concentrated on the same letters. Solar would see what was happening. He’d probably return upstairs with a smug story about how he stopped an intruder when really the sound came from one of the nurses dropping something.

    The letters were too jumbled. What could be an R….could also be a V? The dust she was concentrating on shattered and slid from the page like it was water. A searing headache trembled through her forehead, building upwards as the air seemed to choke them. Everything seemed blurred. Every voice seemed distant. All she could concentrate on was the pain thumping through her forehead. Then a screeching noise followed by a glow. It echoed around her skull, the noise grating on the bone as she tried to pull her vision back together. A man. Heat licked her skin and then he was gone. She could see nothing.

    A harsh curse word left her cracked lips. The man beside her whimpered like a beaten dog and further attacks soared up the stairs.

    “Block the door.” The command was wrenched from her throat as she glared at the Wraith. The man faltered for a second and a deep growl started from her stomach. “Block. The. Fucking. Door.” He moved, that was all she needed to see.

    “They have downstairs. They know we are up here. So the stairs are out.” The book was held tightly to Illusions chest. Beaten shoes scraped against the floor as she stood. A burning gaze scorched the room as if she was expecting an exit to suddenly appear. The window was too small. They would not all survive the fall. They needed every bit of help they could get.

    “Down we go then.” It was as if her body had been taken over by another. The fearful woman who had sat next to the Teacher, trying and failing to read as her hands shook was gone. The woman who bent to grip her axe had a hard shell over her features, her posture took on that of a trapped dog ready to do whatever she had to, she had not come this far to die in an attic.

    Her previous statement had confused the Illusion, who had curled herself around the book. “B...But the stairs…”

    The sentence was swiftly halted by a stern look. The woman was right, the stairs were blocked. “Fine.” Her words a defiant fuck you to those screeching on the other side of the door. Behind her there was a crash as Wraith overturned the brazier. Both of her frail hands gripped her axe, raising it above her head as she slammed it towards the floorboards beneath them.

    A gentle whistle brushed her ears as the axe came sharply downwards. A deep exhale left her chest as a sharp tingling sensation forced itself up from her fingertips. That comfortable pleasing sensation echoed through her arms and forced itself down her back. The axe made contact, splintering the wood as if it were mere paper. It was enough of a break through the wood that the room below could be vaguely seen through glimmers of light flecking upwards. The Teacher remained in a huddled mass as the axe was raised again. “You all need to be ready to jump. We have to move swiftly or they will find us before we get through the next floor.”

    The wood protested loudly, a sickening crack as she easily created an escape for them. “Wraith. You first.” She did not wait for the response she knew was coming. “Illusion is next, we need someone down there with her to protect the book.”

    “Hurry.” Illusion urged her.

    “Go. I have the door.”

    The flimsy door was stiffened by the table Wraith had upended against it, and against that was the toppled brazier, but there was no question of it holding for long. Smouldering coals were scattered from the brazier, blackening the floorboards and sending curls of smoke rising from the dirty straw. Someone was already ramming their booted foot into the door from the other side.

    The axe was swung between her fingers. If she had to go out, she was going out on her feet. She would get blood before the light left her eyes.

    Behind the door she heard a muffled shout to step aside, and then the air around her prickled with cold static as a rune spell began to exert its force on the door. Just as Illusion disappeared down the hole there was a splintering crack, and one of the wooden boards spalled away from the door to skittle across the floor.

    It was followed by a blinding flash - one which did no harm that Wanderer could feel, but which ruined her sight with dancing coloured lights. A simple illumination rune, designed to dazzle and disorientate; one that she had seen before, flashing a signal outside the ruined city wall.

    “Wanderer!” she heard the Apprentice shout in Ash. She heard more splintering wood as the young mage struggled to clamber through the broken door. It was a mistake - instead of striking again he had hesitated, giving her a moment to clear her vision.


    “Move.” she screeched backwards to the huddled whimpering mass of the Teacher. Her sight was gone and she raised her axe holding it straight out before her. If she could, she would push someone back and hope her sight came back before she needed to properly swing. She hadn’t expected to hear her name through the wreckage. It was her name, it was spoken in her tongue. Whoever had spoken was now attempting to come through the door. Her vision steadily returned, a blurred face was all she could see.

    The Wanderer jutted the flat smooth edge of the axe under the chin of the Apprentice. It would harm him but the cold metal would be enough to silence his attempts at speaking. “You do not say my name.” She growled softly at the man. “I am not here. You do not see me.”

    She let her axe drift away from his chin, almost as if she was letting him walk away. But she trusted few in this world. The flat portion of the axe was thrust against his chest, not at full strength but with enough force to topple him backwards. The young mage thumped back against the door, scattering coals and loose wood. A dark-skinned woman trying to climb through after him shouted and fell back. Keeping her axe raised before her, Wanderer risked a glance behind her towards the space that the Teacher had been inhabiting. The crippled mage had groped his way back to the wall and had now flattened himself against it.

    “It doesn’t have to end this way.” the Apprentice warned her through gritted teeth as he pulled himself up. “Just give us the Book!”


    The Teacher had attempted to flattened himself against the wall, like he was trying to blend in amongst the cracked dirty surface. A sharp breath was dragged through her nostrils as she let her gaze return to the Apprentice. The smallest of smirks cracked onto her lips as her fingers tightened around the axe. Flecks of dust dragged themselves from the fallen wood and broken furniture. They hung in the air, dancing gently in the streams of light that crept in from above. The building was covered in dust, every single corner had mountains of it which shook and rose up like the others.

    “What Book?”

    The dust shot forwards towards the Apprentice and the woman behind him. Clinging to every surface they could. Burrowing into open wounds, slinking up nostrils and coating eyes and tongue in a murky grey film. This time, the thrust of her axe did not hold back. It was meant to throw the man off his feet, forcing him backwards as much as she could. Both of her opponents were cursing as they fell back. Apprentice clenched his fist and an undirected tug of force sent the table side-swiping across the floor, narrowly missing Wanderer. The table hit the wall and burst apart with a crunch.

    Time was of the essence. With her axe gripped tightly in her right hand, she spun towards the Teacher. Still he cowered against the wall and her patience was close to breaking...she gave up in tempting him to leave. It was better her to beg his forgiveness later. Gripping his right arm with her left hand, she threw him over her shoulder with the ease of a farmer throwing a bag of feed. Every step had to be perfect, if she faltered at all they would fall. The Wanderer didn’t glance up at her enemies, she leapt through the hole in the floorboards. Her faith was fully put into her runes and her companions.

    She landed with a thud in what had been Illusion’s room, the impact almost buckling her legs. Illusion hauled her up, steadying her.

    Footsteps thumped above, and the two enemy mages appeared at the hole above, only to reel back as Wraith thrust up one of his swords and sent a discouraging blast of fire flaring from its point.

    “Downstairs!” Wanderer heard the female mage shouting. “They’re downstairs!”

    Still gripping the sword in one hand and the Immortal’s head in the other, Wraith shouldered open the door and sprinted along the corridor towards the stairs. “Come on!”


    The man had let out a sharp grunt when her knees gave way beneath her. Catching her breath, she sorted the man on her shoulder. “It’s better that I keep you this way. Trust me.” She told him as she gripped his legs tight to her chest. The Wanderer gestured with a sharp shake of her head to get the Illusion to go in between them. She had the book, she needed to be protected.

    “We...we need to get outside.” If they escaped out to the street, then they would have more protection. The floorboards strained against her new weight but she attempted to move quickly. Her knees and legs felt tender and she prayed that they were not strained or broken.

    The thumping footsteps told all that they were being followed. They would soon be trapped… It was fear that pumped through her veins and kept her moving. She had killed people before, watching the blood dribble from their throat as their grip on her slackened...but this was different. These people had runes, they had power, who knows what they could do to them. They needed to split them up if they had any chance of surviving.

    “Illusion...We need a distraction.” Her voice carried to the woman before them.

    Illusion turned to look back, taking a moment to process the order. Then she smiled, and the smile broke into three as beams of light slid and stretched out of her skin, coalescing into two new Illusions who took off running in opposite directions - one back towards the bedroom, the other up the stairs while the rest of them hurried down. There were shouts, and the bangs of rune magic splitting the air. The din covered the sounds of their footsteps as they tumbled down to the ground floor. The hallway was deserted but littered with stones and broken wood, and Solar lay at the centre of it all, slumped beneath the streaks of blood he had dragged down the wall. His face was turned towards them, crazed with ugly red patterns where the blood had run from his nose and mouth.

    The Teacher’s feet hit the opposite wall, making the old man yelp as Wanderer spun to watch the Illusion run off...well one of her. It took her a moment to realise what had happened and it took the presence of the wraith for the wanderer to determine which Illusion was the right one to follow. Another flight of stairs, the destroyed hallway and their exit was in sight. But so was Solar. The mangled mess of the man who had decided to rush out and defend them. The cocky loudmouth lay dying on the floor. A sharp curse left her lips as she bent down beside him. Her axe rested against his thigh as she placed a hand on his shoulder. It wouldn’t have been enough, but a small sensation of cool water trickled through his veins. A small relief from the pain that was slowly killing him.

    “Solar.” She could see his eyes twitch behind his eyelids when she said his name. There was something that she could not forget about him. The one story he had told that made him seem human and not a walking talking egotistical dickhead. “Give me your brother’s name. I’ll find him and tell him what you did to save him.” He had to be quick. The ruse the Illusion had started would only last so long.

    “Wanderer?” Solar slurred, bloody foam bubbling at his lips.

    “Please.” she asked, the urgency clear in her voice as her rune of healing dissipated into a harsh pain in her chest.

    One of Solar’s eyes half-opened. The other was gummed shut by the blood trickling across his face. “Niall.” he whispered. “His name’s Niall. Run, for fuck’s sake…”

    A bolt of light slashed overhead as Wraith cast a rune towards the stairwell. The dark-skinned woman was there, teeth gritted as she put up a hand that shattered the bolt against an invisible wall. She carried a long sabre, the blade running with actinic light as she raised it to point towards Wraith, marking him.

    The Apprentice was a few steps behind her on the stairway, hands clawed to control the chunks of stone that were drifting above his head, ready to throw.

    “Get back!” the Immortal snapped in warning to the group.

    A dome of white light swept outwards, passing through Wanderer and the others, roaring towards the stairs.

    Where it broke with a sound like a thunderclap, dissolving into stars and vanishing.

    A third figure appeared on the stairs - cloaked, slender, long-haired; with pale skin and dark eyes slashed with a line of blue chalk. The shadows in the staircase began to writhe and crawl down the walls.


    “Oh for fuck’s sake.” The growl came from deep within her chest. Her right hand took the small pouch that Solar had in his hand, tucking the bag into her pocket as she let out a long shaky breath. The Wanderer raised herself from her kneeling position and turned towards the group who stood on the staircase. The Teacher was still over her shoulder and she had her axe once more in her right hand. Her left hand moved from gripping the legs of the Teacher to the shawl of the Illusion. One sharp tug and she pulled the woman towards the door.

    “That the best you can do?” Her words were a playful statement, but they were not aimed at those on the staircase. Her head tilted to her right as she aimed her words at the Immortal. If he was anything like any of the egotistical men she had met in her days...he would not tolerate such a remark.

    The look in her eyes could be described as rage towards those on the stairs, or perhaps it was just gut-wrenching disappointment at the Apprentice. She had thought there might be a shred of light still within him. It was the briefest of glances but she took in their features. She would not miss these faces if they appeared in a crowd. Hoisting the heavy body of the Teacher further onto her shoulder, she turned and followed the Illusion out of the building. Her body was getting slower but she would push herself onwards, they needed to get to safety before she could collapse.

    “Get a horse. Now.”

    Her ears popped as she stepped beyond the door’s threshold, and the oppressive fog of the silencing spell lifted. The world suddenly seemed brighter, more alive. The Risemen market outside still bustled obliviously, under the shadow of the looming government building.

    “Hold it shut!” the Immortal snapped, as loud as he dared, as Wraith heaved the front door of the building closed. Something thumped hard against it from the other side, and Wanderer saw the door vibrate on its hinges. Cradled in Wraith’s hands, the Immortal’s eyes were screwed closed. Smoke was beginning to ooze from between the door’s split planks.

    Illusion vaulted up onto the back of one of the horses, causing the beast to whinny in alarm and tug at the rope tethering it to the portico. Reaching down towards Wanderer, she hauled the Teacher up behind her. The crippled mage was weakly demanding to know just what the hell was going on.

    Illusion reached down again to jerk free the knot hobbling the horse, only to feel a hand seize her bridle.

    “Hello lovely girls.” Davin smirked as he stepped out from the shadows of the portico. “Where are you off to in such a hurry, like? Why don’t you climb down, and all the fine people around here can go about their day without a scene happening, hmm?”

    He grinned at Wanderer through the T-visor of his helmet, as if daring her to do something in full view of the mage-hating Risemen.


    The shock that had crossed her features for a mere moment was swiftly replaced by rage. Her face near contorted in anger, “Take your hand off the horse.” She growled as she moved closer to the man. The wanderer could only hope that the Wraith could hold the door a little longer. With no response from smug git, she moved closer away from the horse so that he had to choose between her or the Illusion.

    She knew that Davin was aware of Cian’s rune, and he should have been wary of it. But instead of pulling away from her, he held up his hand. For the briefest moment, flames glinted and licked around his fingers.

    “Ah ah ah, strong girl.” the mercenary leered. “We’re on an even footing now, I think.”

    Illusion glanced down at Wanderer for some kind of signal. Beside them Wraith was still holding the door, which was still smoking and creaking as the Immortal’s magic wrestled against whatever horrendous runecraft was battering it from the opposite side.


    The wanderer tried her hardest to disguise her surprise but it flickered across her dull green eyes. Even footing. “Are we?” She replied softly. She could feel Illusions eyes on her, waiting for a sign. What sign? How could they get out of this? They were trapped between those causing the door to scream in protest and this dickhead. People were stuck in their own little worlds, the briefest of glances was given their way but their attention was gone as soon as it had arrived. He didn’t want a scene….She’d give him a scene then.

    Raising her left hand, she let her eyes go wide. She let his smile grow as fear covered her features. Creeping up around the feet of Davin was a small wind tunnel of dust. Spinning around him and congregating around his upright hand. A blood curdling scream left her lips. It was louder than expected but her mother had always said she had the lungs of a grown man at age four.

    “MAGE!”

    The word left her lungs and hung around them. She had memorised the word in the correct tongue after Wraith had said it, she wanted to be able to know if someone had found her out. The wanderer moved backwards, immediately taking on the role of a frightened meek woman.

    Too late, Davin’s smile melted into a look of alarm. He shook his arm fiercely, trying to throw off the small vortex of dust, but it only drew more attention from the market patrons who had spun towards Wanderer’s sudden scream. They echoed it, and some began to run. Others rushed towards the dust-shrouded Lightman.

    Everything happened at once. Illusion, seeing Wanderer’s plan, kicked her horse as soon as Davin let go of the reins to punch a Riseman who had tried to grab his arm. Wraith abandoned the door and bolted for a horse of his own, trusting that in the confusion no-one would look too closely at his sheathed swords or the severed head under his arm. Davin had drawn his own sword now, and was cursing another aspiring Riseman hero as he re-sheathed the blade in the man’s belly. Now almost everyone was screaming, and the armed guards at the other end of the square were fighting their way through the crowd.

    Wanderer caught a flash of dust-stained white as the Apprentice came pelting round the side of the hospice, the Ash mages seemingly having abandoned the rune-barred door for the kitchen exit just a few seconds too late. She saw the tawny-skinned mage skid to a halt as in front of them Davin made possibly the worst decision he could have chosen. Surrounded and panicking, he used his ill-gotten runes.

    There was a sharp roar of displaced air, and three of the Risemen thrashed away screaming, their clothes and hair ablaze. A guard hurled his spear, which smacked heavily into Davin’s armoured shoulder.

    The Apprentice started forward. The Blademaiden’s hand on his shoulder dragged him back.

    “Leave him!” the Ashwoman warned.

    The Apprentice looked to the Leveler as she came striding down the narrow alley towards them, fists clenched, teeth bared. She wasn’t looking at Davin. She wasn’t even looking at Wanderer and the others. She was looking over her Apprentice’s head towards the flat-roofed buildings ringing the square, and with a whisper of wind, she vanished.


    The Wanderer did not stay to see the outcome, but the smell of burning flesh and screams told her it had ended badly for Davin. Too many people were coming her way for her to suddenly clamber onto a horse, so she ran. As fast as she could in her current condition. It was as if she were a newborn foal, her legs stumbling over each other. People flung themselves past her, fear coursing through their veins at the sight of rune power.

    Her vision was doubling as the heaviness began in her chest. “W.. Wait..” Her pleas were lost in the sea of screams. Everything slowed down, she needed to find somewhere to hide or she would collapse in full view of the screaming masses. The Wanderer was easily jostled from side to side by the fleeing citizens. Her breathing grew laboured when a hand wrapped itself around her forearm. Wraith hauled her swiftly onto his horse, depositing her behind him. She slumped forward and pressed her forehead into the thick material of his tunic as he pushed down the alley.


  6. #116
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    Wanderer slumped forward and pressed her forehead into the thick material of Wraith’s tunic as he pushed down the alley.

    “Left!” the Immortal was calling from under the big man’s arm as they clattered back onto the main street, “Go left you big ape! We need to head for the north gate!”

    Step aside!” Wraith barked in Rise, swerving their horse down another side street to avoid running right over a family who were huddled paralysed in the middle of the road. Another man in their way yelped and reeled aside, straight into the brown filth of a gutter. His cart overturned, scattering its cargo of street food.

    Wraith cursed as he urged their panting horse onward. “Where the fuck did the others go?”

    * * * * * *

    Illusion clung on with a white-knuckle grip. She had given up on the flapping reins and was lying almost flat against the horse’s neck, her fingers viced around the bridle. She could hear the horse blowing in loud snorts, and behind her the Teacher was clutching at her with desperate, bony hands.

    “Where are we?” the blind man wailed.

    “Being chased!”

    “Who’s chasing us?”

    “The Leveler!”

    “Oh, Risen God…”

    People screamed as they scrambled out of the way of Illusion’s onrushing horse. She felt the Teacher clinging desperately to her as he nearly slipped out of the saddle.

    “The translations I was telling you about!” the Teacher blurted, “In the great library, in Ash! I’ve seen them!”

    “Great!” Illusion shouted ironically, “But tell me later!”

    The air whipped by, clawing at her hair and roaring in her ears.

    “Listen!” the Teacher implored her, “You have to listen…”

    It was all Illusion could do to keep them both mounted, never mind pay attention to the Teacher’s words. She was no horseman, and found herself simply holding on for dear life as her mare swerved her own way around the milling pedestrians, twitching left before plunging down a side street where the the close-pressed buildings were joined by rickety overpasses. Illusion had to duck and pull the Teacher down with her, lest they both lose their heads to the rotting wooden beams as they swiped past.

    “A scroll!” The Teacher insisted, grabbing her wrist. “A vellum scroll in a golden case, kept in the section with the crab mosaic on the floor. You can use it!”

    The air around her, already screaming, suddenly fizzled with static. A crawling sensation prickled up Illusion’s arms, and the yelling of the Risemen shrank away into a single, high-pitched, keening note.

    She looked up just in time to see a shadow slither down across the walls of a tenement, coiling and inky black. It lashed around the chest of the Teacher and became suddenly, horribly solid. Illusion felt his weak grip clawing at her back for a desperate second before he was yanked backwards and up. The old man let out a cry as he left the saddle and was snatched away, vanishing from sight.

    “No!” Illusion screamed, looking around her frantically as her horse galloped on through the fleeing, scattering crowd. “Teacher!”

    She turned forward again just in time to see another bridge spar rushing up to meet her. It struck her in the face with a white flash that turned blood red, and Illusion felt herself falling from her saddle, before a heavy thud turned everything black.

    * * * * * *

    She wasn’t sure how long she blacked out for, but it couldn’t have been long because there was still running and screaming going on all around her. She could hear it, although she couldn’t see it. Her world was night black, shot through with frizzons of white corpse-light every time a misfiring nerve sent another twitch through her abused muscles.

    “Sage.”

    It was her name. Her real name, not the shameful one she had taken in service to a false goddess. Her father had been so proud.

    How quickly that pride had soured the moment she and her mother showed a glimmer of doubt. She felt sad that she would now never be able to avenge her mother’s murder. Her father’s face floated before her, grinning because he knew he had won.

    “Sage.”

    Her name again. Who could know it, she wondered. No mage willingly gave up the one thing that rendered them helpless. Then she remembered - the sea, the exchange. Their names for the Book. Fucking Mer, Solar had complained.

    He was dead now. That made her sad too. He would never know if his parents and brother were alive or not. Wanderer had made a promise though. She liked Wanderer. She hoped that the other Ashwoman would succeed where she had so comprehensively failed.

    Sage.

    It was the Fucking Mer who was speaking to her, she realised. With an effort, she forced her eyes open. It hurt, but only a little compared to the rest of his body. Just one miserable stanza amid a whole symphony of pain. The Ambassador was kneeling over her, a hood pulled up over her salt-crusted dreadlocks. Her dark, liquid eyes stared down from within the shadows. She looked drained; shaken.

    “Ambie…” Illusion burbled, and then remembered when she had last seen the Mer. “Where’s Red?”

    The Mer’s pallid face smoothed out, until it showed no expression at all. “Fighting so I escape. Where Teacher?”

    Illusion felt a solid rock settle in her stomach, one that had nothing to do with the impact that had thumped the breath out of her lungs. “I’m sorry...I...I think he’s gone.”

    The Ambassador locked her with a wide-eyed stare. “Still have Book?”

    Illusion flopped an uncooperative hand around her belt until she found her satchel. The rest of her saddlebags might be gone with her horse, but the Book was still there, a reassuring weight against her hip.

    The Book. The realisation gave her a new resolve. She had to get it back to the others, along with the Teacher’s final words, or their cause was worse than doomed. She grasped blearily upward until she managed to seize a handful of the Ambassador’s cloak.

    “Wraith and Wanderer.” she croaked, the urgency of her mission lending clarity to her voice. “Which way did they go?”

    “Ride by.” the Ambassador motioned with a pale hand. “That way.”

    Illusion sat up groggily, and tried to orientate herself by the shadows spilling across the grey buildings. “North.” she decided. “They’re heading for the north gate. Come on.”

    * * * * * *

    Below was chaos, but on the roof all that could be heard was the rasping breath of the Teacher. People never thought to look up - especially people who were panicking to evade rushing horses and the fire-blasts of a surrounded, dying wizard. Leveler had not seen which direction the traitor Illusion had ridden off in, because her head was splitting with blinding pain; it was all she had been able to do to dump the old man down on the roof, where he now slumped helpless against the balustrade.

    The old man wheezed through cracked ribs, a painful accompaniment to the fever-pitch screaming and shouting that drifted up from below. The Leveler groaned, grinding the heel of her hand into her eye in an attempt to clear the painful lights swimming across her vision.

    “That’s how it starts, you know.” the old man rasped, in passable Ash. “One day you’ll be as blind as I am. You need to use force to maintain your power, but how much longer can you keep it up?”

    “I have the Moonstone.” the Leveler rounded on him angrily. “I don’t have your limits, Teacher. I can change my form. I can undo any damage the runes do to me.”

    “And yet, I can hear that you are in pain.”

    In spite of herself, the Leveler flexed her dead right arm. She pushed her nails one by one into the ball of her thumb, and felt nothing.

    “Where is the Book?” she growled.

    “With the Ashwoman, I expect. I’m afraid you have snared the wrong prisoner.”

    The Leveler’s numb hand became a fist. She began to pace, back and forth across the roof. The glaring sun did nothing for her headache.

    “I’m disappointed in you, old man. You’ve got more cause than most to hate the slavers, and yet you stand in my way.”

    The Teacher coughed, cuffed at his lips, and sighed. “I have heard of your deeds, Leveler. I applaud you for freeing the Ash slaves. I do not agree with you putting their masters in chains.”

    “They must suffer, as we suffered.” Leveler responded curtly.

    “That’s where you have it all wrong. A true revolutionary would want to see that none suffered as they did ever again.”

    The Leveler flexed her jaw, lips peeling back over pale teeth. “A child’s view of the world. You think my army of freed slaves would allow me to simply let them go, after all they’d done?”

    The Teacher bowed his head sadly. “Learn from history, Leveler, or you’ll be doomed to repeat it. And learn it properly, or you’re simply doomed.”

    “The only thing doomed is the old order.”

    The Teacher sighed again. “I’m glad I’m blind. I don’t want to see the kind of new order you’re going to create.”

    A mottled pattern pushed up through the skin around the Leveler’s eyes as flesh became scales. Her eyes yellowed, the pupils stretching into slashes of black. “Then look away.” she hissed.

    The Leveler opened her mouth, teeth hinging forward as they lengthened into hooked fangs, jaw distending down and down and down.

    * * * * * *

    The fact that dozens of Risemen were fleeing alongside them helped, but all the same Wraith slowed from their attention-drawing gallop as soon as he dared, dismounting and pulling them all under a stone arch that led to a weedy courtyard between three crumbling tenements. In the main road, collared battle mages with sword-armed handlers at their heels were running towards the crack and boom of rune casts; Davin’s last stand.

    Breathing hard, Wraith groped for his satchel and visibly relaxed as he found his iron mask still there.

    “Are you alright?” he asked Wanderer.

    But then running footsteps echoed in the archway and he tensed again, dragging one of his paired swords from its scabbard.

    “Shit!” Illusion cursed as she nearly ran into the grinning blade-point. The Ambassador was behind her, bundled up in a cloak and limping on her bare feet.

    Wraith exhaled sharply and returned his blade to its sheath.

    “Red?” he asked after their missing companion.

    “The Teacher?” Immortal undercut him sharply, from his position cradled under the big man’s other arm.

    “Red stayed to fight.” Illusion panted. Her eyes began to brim with tears. “The Teacher, he...I’m sorry…”
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 05-14-2019 at 01:03 PM.
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  7. #117
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    Every twist and turn could have been the tipping point for the Wanderer. Her body slowly slipping from the saddle and she would have fallen to the cobbles. The crowd was thick as people fled, they would never have found her corpse. She would have been lost to the City of Rise. Not bloody likely, this was not her final resting place. A limp grip was all that kept her on the horse, a handful of the soft tunic that Wraith wore was in her fist.

    The saddle before was emptied when the Wraith moved to the cobbles, dragging them under an archway to a small opening. Her body sighed forward, her chest resting against the saddle. For any passerby, it looked like a fallen citizen was draped over the back of a horse. Her movements so small that she barely registered as alive. It was taking all of her concentration to keep her eyes open. To keep herself vaguely functioning until they were safe. Wraith’s question was answered with a soft grunt and a slight raise of her head.


    Red, The teacher, Solar. Were they lost souls now? Solar was. His body lay back where this had all began. Red was at least alive when Illusion left her...The Teacher. The Wanderer could no longer keep herself up on the saddle, viewing the conversation for an awkward sideways angle. Her drop to the ground was harsh. Her feet tried to support her but failed. Ultimately crumpling to her hands and knees. She no longer could maintain that wall of stoicness within her. Her hands tried to steady her body as deep breaths shook through her body. Small drops of water hit the sandy cobbles beside her fingertips. The others, if dead, had died fighting. They would have died on their feet, refusing to submit and brought down by violence. The teacher could barely raise his head himself...He couldn’t walk more than a few steps. The man was weak and now he had been taken. Killed or worse...but he had no defence. They were his only defence...and they failed him.

    “H...He must have been seen as a threat.” Her words cracked, her body trembling as it begged her to just rest. Just lay down for a short while. The wanderer knew if she gave in to it’s wishes, she would collapse...She would be a dead weight for them in their escape. She trusted them to haul her half conscious body around, would they haul her if she was unconscious and of no use?

    “The book?” Her head was raised slowly to Illusion. Tears dribbled down her cheeks and she looked decades older. The small nod gave her a moment of relief. “We..We need that name. There must be another way?”

    Illusion seemed struck by something. Something that had been screamed in amongst the chaos. “He...The teacher said something about the Great Library...and a scroll.” Her gaze snapped to the Immortal, viewing him (unfortunately) as the fountain of all knowledge. “Could that help us?” The Wanderer let out a deep sigh, “We don’t have time to discuss it. If the Teacher said the great library...that is where we go.” Her shoulders swivelled as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Tears had made paths through the dirt on her cheeks but she had stopped crying. “You. Loaf. Lead us.” They had only a short amount of time before the city was overrun by Ash warriors. They needed to move now.


  8. #118
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    “Could that help us?”

    Illusion looked at Wanderer as if concerned that she needed to rest, but the other woman’s determined tone seemed to silence her unspoken question. “He said it’s in a gold case, somewhere with a crab mosaic.”

    “Not a lot to go on for such a big place.” the Immortal put in doubtfully.

    “We don’t have time to discuss it. If the Teacher said the great library...that is where we go.” Her shoulders swivelled as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Tears had made paths through the dirt on her cheeks but she had stopped crying. “You. Loaf. Lead us.”

    The Immortal narrowed his eyes. “Call me Loaf again and I’ll bake you into one.”

    Wraith cleared his throat in pointed support of Wanderer’s request for urgency. The Immortal exhaled.

    Fine. Back out into the road and turn right.”

    The distant thunder had quietened now, and though many faces had appeared at windows and many Risemen were staring towards the city centre, exchanging urgent bursts of questions, none were looking at the group as they slunk away. News didn’t seem to have reached the northernmost districts, for the gates were all still open as they approached. Unlike the armed provosts who were busy inspecting and taking money from the people funnelling into the city, no-one spared the group much more than a glance as they pushed their way through in the other direction.

    Past the gatehouse the road led to a stone bridge over the Tributary, beyond which it fractured into a dozen trackways leading east and west and up into the hills. They peeled off the road as soon as they crossed the bridge and struck out east, following the Tributary back under the frowning gaze of the Barrier mountains. The slopes were clothed in summer cloaks of olive and orange trees, though to the west the mountains were bleaker and greyer, sliding up behind the receding smudge of the Risemen city to form the edge of the known world. All the way they saw nothing of the Leveler’s men - nor of their dubious ally Red.

    The mountains to their backs turned pink, and then black as the sun sank behind them. As the light failed they were forced to stop, and unroll their blankets on a small hillock overlooking the road. Goats bleated intermittently up in the hills, but otherwise they seemed to be alone. The Ambassador drifted silently away from the group and sat down by the river’s edge, her back to them as she gazed into the water.

    Illusion let out a despondent sigh and slumped down next to their tethered pack-horse, as if the whole weight of the preceding day had finally caught up with her and driven her into the ground.

    “Well.” Wraith said, motionless as he rested his forehead on the horse’s flank. It was the first word that any one of them had spoken since leaving the road. “That blew up in our faces...spectacularly.”

    “Everything I do is spectacular.” the Immortal countered, but this time even his commentary sounded forced. Perched amid the blankets slung over the horse’s neck, he regarded Wraith with an apathetic gaze. “So on a scale of one to fucked, where are we?”

    Wraith wearily rummaged through their remaining saddlebags. “A pretty solid eight, I would say.” He pulled out a crust of stale bread, and cracked it into three pieces to offer to Illusion and Wanderer.

    “Where in the gods’ name is Red?” Illusion complained, half rising onto one elbow and gazing back along the darkening road as if in the forlorn hope that their missing companion would appear.

    “She’ll guess which way we’re going or she won’t.” Immortal offered, twisting his mouth in the bodiless equivalent of a shrug. “We’ll have to bring her up to speed if and when she finds us again.”

    Wraith made a halfhearted noise. “Red has no convictions. There’s no speed slow enough to bring her up to.”

    “Oh she’s not so bad.” Immortal said. “Underneath all that malignant narcissism…”

    “Is a stone cold bitch.” Wraith finished for him.

    “Which is sometimes useful,” Immortal argued. “When there’s wars and disagreements going on. Anyway, we need to go on with or without her. At first light if not before.”

    “Are you joking?” Illusion groaned, flopping back and covering her eyes.

    “Sometimes,” Immortal admitted. “But not right now. Do you want to Name this Leveler bitch or what?”

    “Easy for you when you don’t have to walk.” Illusion mumbled.

    Wraith lowered himself to the ground, his padded armour rustling quietly. “We go. The Leveler ground the city of Light beneath her heel. She killed innocents here in the Risen city, just to get to us. Sins require punishment.”

    Illusion was quiet for a moment, a complex stream of emotions dominoing across her face. She sighed in defeat, but when she looked up her face was set. “My sin was not stopping her sooner. Now the Teacher...Solar...Raven...my mother...they’re all dead. No more.”

    She glanced at the Wanderer - easily the most exhausted among them after all the runecraft she had exerted to enable their escape.

    Wraith followed her gaze, giving Wanderer the unfortunate impression that somehow in the last few days she had become the group’s decision maker. “Wanderer?” he prompted.
    Spoiler: My RP links 

    PM me for novelised versions of any of my RPs, or ones that I have participated in. Set by the awesome Karma.


  9. #119
    The Scottish Fluff
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    “I’d like to see you.” A harsh chuckle left her as she attempted to pull herself up to her feet. The directions were given and she required help to get up on the horse. Wraith hauled her up and she let herself slip into her mind. Her body limp as her forehead rested on Wraith’s back.

    The journey blurred past her. The cobbles soon became a beaten track. The screams grew distant and the air grew silent. She hadn’t felt this drained for a long time. Rarely did she use her most powerful rune for long without resting. Each limb felt like it was made of rock, her joints felt loose and tight at the same time and her head was far too heavy for her neck. The worst was her hands. Her knuckles burned, like fire was bubbling under her skin.

    -----

    Her bottom lip shook violently as pain shot through her hands. Blood covered every inch of her skin and the axe was tight in her fist. A deep shaking breath attempted to leave her clenched teeth. Tears had dribbled down her cheeks but it was rage burning through her veins. A rage that she had never felt before. Another body lay at her feet, another man attempting to breathe through the blood that pooled in his mouth. Wide fearful eyes stared up at her. She had never felt like this before.

    Powerful.

    She was no longer a weak woman to be trodden on. She was no longer a slave who had to bow to all. She was no longer a...She was no longer a mother. They had unwittingly taken the only thing keeping her sane. The only person who kept her quiet and made her bite her tongue. She had nothing now. Except that rage within her chest. The burning pain in her chest that was only soothed by watching them fall. Another screech of anger was sent her way. She could hear his heavy footsteps towards her, something raised to bring her down.

    The heavy iron around her neck reminded her of what she should do. She should fall to her knees and beg for mercy. But. They had taken someone from her that was beyond precious. The reason for her to wake.When her gaze snapped to her soon to be attacker, it was not fear that echoed deep in her dull green eyes. Pure unadulterated rage made her eyes sparkle. Her lips rolled back over her teeth and a deep growl was spat at the man. Never had he encountered such a sight, he faltered and it was all she needed.

    Blunt metal forced its way into his throat. Sliding through flesh and muscle. Drenching her face with blood. Heavy metal was lodged into a wooden structure. Each breath was filled with blood as chunks of flesh shed to the floor. Her foot pressed against his chest. Blood soaked metal was dragged from the wood, from the wound. Weak fingers attempted to grip her foot. Clawing at a worn sandal. Seconds was all it took. The grip became limp and the body dropped before her.

    Her knuckles were turning white, the strain was becoming too much. That old feeling was drifting back. It was only a short while ahead. Green was just ahead. If she could reach there...It hit her violently. That horrible feeling.

    Weakness.

    Her vision drifted in and out. Her legs failed her and she dropped to all fours. Dragging her body along as distant screams and shouts floated to her. A sharp drop caught her by surprise. She fell hard. Her body striking every rock it could. Her head hit something and darkness crept in. The last image she had was him. His body limp under her grip. His green eyes wide and staring through her. Blood slowly trickling from his lips.

    ----

    A voice called her out of the smog. But it was not the group she had been travelling that she could see before. The harsh image appeared again and a deep breath was torn from her lungs. Frantically, she moved herself away from the image and fell. Hard. Her back hit the ground as she fell from the horse.

    “Fuck.”

    The word was small as she lay on her back for a moment. The sky was blue, there were animals nearby and water. Water, that helped. The rest had done her good, she was not 100% as of yet. But she was better than before. Pushing herself to sitting, she let a long breath leave her nose. Pin prickles danced over her skin as she felt the others attention on her. “What?” She said bluntly to Wraith as he watched her. The next few moments would be hilarious to anyone...except Wanderer. Watching her force herself to her feet, looking like a baby learning to walk. Rolling herself over until she could plant her feet properly and gripping anything nearby to clamber herself up.

    Finally, she stood. She rolled her shoulders back and took just one step before her knees buckled underneath her. Another harsh word and she used anything she could to support herself as she neared the water. Wraith repeated himself and she paused for a moment. “You are right. We do need to go. But we are not at fault. She would have brought that city down with or without our presence.”


    “Everywhere that woman touches...dies. We all know that. People follow her or die. We have chosen as a group not to follow but to stand and stop her. So we go. Simple as.” Collapsing into the cool water was the best thing she could have asked for. The pain in her hands was slowly numbed by the water. “At first light then.”


  10. #120
    PREACH FORGIVE ME PLEASE I BEG OF YOU!
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    The Hole had been yet one of many stewards to The Leveler’s agenda of liberation. Beside her, the mixed fighter was unfazed by the bloody cost to freedom, stepping over the new body of Leveler’s recent kill.

    “As the Leveler would have me do!” Eager to be the servant to change, her footsteps distanced from her commander and followed the trail left behind the enemy rune casters. Leather boots gave her movements heavy thuds over stone stairs and infrastructure. The windows to others homes were empty or shut, the sparkling crusader keeping with the open thoroughfares as she expected them to still be at the height of their run.

    The landmark of the Risen God fountain came into sight, narrow residential channels gave way to a courtyard where an unlikely duo was in the process of standing. The swordswoman, in red dress and a Mer whose visible skin was a touch blue in the open world of the walking were people Hole recognized by word of the Leveler.

    They too seemed to either recognize her or see her as a threat for the woman of deep black hair and bright red clothes drew her sword carefully. The redheaded Mer cautiously kept behind.

    Cara yanked a bundle of cosmic locks from her head, producing the fatal spear she was famed for using. Red held tighter to the mundane handle of her sword. The Mer behind the red colored warrior yanked on her elbow. Cara observed the taller woman lean down for the blue tinted watery beauty to whisper something into her ear. During this, Cara shouted at them.

    “Your ideas have lost! Freedom has come to the world!” the eagerness of her belief bounced off the surfaces of the closed off buildings nearby. Red had the slightest taunting smirk on her lips and flicked her blade.
    “And if I say no? Am I still free?” The mixed rune warrior pondered this for a moment and wiggled her nose.

    “Death is a type of fre-ah!” Interrupting her light hearted reply among baldeswomen a harrowing sense began creeping. Coming from nowhere the Hole’s thoughts turned to the depths of space, zooming swiftly past many stars a great distance away from Earth. She could still see the red fighter, and yet the heart raced with the false sense of wayward speed her mental vision flew at.

    Cautiously stepping back, trying to mirror the act in her brain Cara was stopped in front of a dark swirling void. The Great Hole sat empty, a shadowy swirl with an abyssal center compelling her to stare deeper. The center of the cosmic body towered over her, a hole the size of a world.

    Fingers the size of nations, skin slick as the ocean and palm as vast than her imaginings poked through gradually with gripping awe. How minute her life, her power, a fraction of insignificance to the true powers in space.

    In the courtyard Cara wasn’t the first to scream. It was the Mer, who was also taken by the same hellish truth of universal power. To worry about the Leveler was only a shard of concern in the expanse of all power. The Ambassador’s telepathic control had taken her to a place in the Hole’s mind that sucked her in. The madness which changed Cara irreversibly struck the watery diplomat with the intensity of a lightning strike.

    Tripping into the fountain, the Hole simultaneously gripped her head in panic. Red was caught briefly looking to the downed women, diving for the Ambassador who splashed in the water with a frenzy Red couldn’t understand.

    Activating a rune, Cara set free the starry, clouded, animalistic figure that charged directly to its destined target. The powerful rush of the long-armed creature was quiet in its encroachment. Red reached to pull the Ambassador out of the fountain, but the simple act became almost impossible with the Mermaid kicking and shaking in hysteria. The swordswoman missed seeing the beast coming and only noticed when the corner of her eyes saw the bright light of stars against a moving black cloud in the shape resembling a large beast.

    Teeth threatened to chomp into her arm, until she activated her rune. The space around the cloud shaped creature brightened and swirled, creating the bubble which encompassed the combatants. Seconds continued and twinkling teeth gradually moved in their attempt to bite down, but Red pulled back and spun into a cutting slice. The blade moved at speeds which the creation was incapable, breaking apart the spawn from head to torso. The rune faded and with it the airy body quickly broke apart. Through its spreading mist a series of acidic needles jumped, landing into Red’s chest and with loud hisses began to eat at her clothes.

    In a frenzy Cara approached, pike’s end shaking with no discipline. Her zealous strike fueled only opened her to a spry parry, Red slapping aside the tip with her blade. This close to Hole was daunting for her face was heavily lined with the hysteria holding onto Ambassador. The yelling, wide eyed panic threatened to be contagious but Red held firm and edged her blade down the side of the supernatural pike, ready to cut at Hole’s fingers.

    “Ha!” Hole was running on adrenaline and undeniable fear her actions were entirely senseless and primal. She spat out a hazy mist into her opponent’s eyes as her fingers were moments from being cut. Red screamed with the stinging sensation like fire littering her face, burning in her nostrils and blinding the eyes.

    The hissing at her chest continued, the acid starting to touch her skin. All three women screamed in pain or terror, but Red had the most sane grip and grabbed the back of Cara’s head. Slamming her face into the acid burns Hole screamed as parts of her face too began to feel the corrosive effect of her rune magic.

    Kicked behind the knee and headbutting into the fountain, Red swirled her blade in a downward aim and thrust only for the metal point to impale shadowy water. Hole teleported away. Despratley falling to her knees and watering her eyes, Red took seconds more before she ripped the part of the cloth damaged by acid and exposed the raw, bloodied parts of the upper chest.

    The Ambassador still in a fit was slapped by Red and the beautiful sea women came back to a degree. Red stared her straight in the eyes. “You run now. I don’t know what happened to you but it’s obvious you can’t stay here and she’ll be back, or another of them.” The offending hand caressed the Mermaid’s cheek and helped her out of the water.

    In passing the fearsome sight still lingering in her mind, Ambassador pushed aside red hair and looked to the swordswoman who saved her life. “Thank…you…” was all she could manage, fleeing.
    Thank you MayhemsCurse <3


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