middaeg | [Closed] April Catchall

[ Felix immediately goes on high alert, ears straight up and angled forward toward the source of the snarl. He holds a hand up, a warning to stop, and stay silent.

It's just far enough he can't easily pick out the sounds, but there's subtle evidence of something moving through the trees—the heavy breathing of some enormous beast, the occasional muffled footfall that sounds like a horse's hoof in the mossy forest floor.

The smell of a mix of large animals is far more powerful here. ]

I hear it. How long can you keep that spell up? If we can keep the beast distracted with the wisp, we can sneak up on it.

It's. inside him. So.

[Sypha, in a fit of annoyance, forces more magic through the link she has with the spell.

And outlines the insides of the creature that's trying to stalk closer. It pulses with a harsh light and makes a yelping noise, perhaps fifty feet off, up in the lower branches of a tree.]

Go get him.

[ Felix doesn't have to be told twice—he nods, and splits from Sypha, going after the snarling beast now illuminated in bright white up in the trees, all its innards lit up like the cathedral fires at night.

It snarls. Felix snarls back.

Then it leaps to the ground, twice his height and thrashing with beating wings, and Felix doesn't have time to focus on much else beside bringing his blade up to catch the razor claws slashing at his face.

There is one thing.

A second scent, a disparate sound from another angle.

His eyes fly wide. He whips around— ]

Sypha! There's two of th—

[ —and gets swatted against a tree trunk by the first for his troubles. ]

[Sypha doesn't need to be told twice. She's already moving, her fingers up and lips working through the wording of a spell.

The second leaps at her, and she releases the magic, blasting upwards into a tree and landing neatly on a branch, propelled by a blustering gale. The wind sends it tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle into the undergrowth and giving her a moment to take stock.]

Felix!

[Is her initial thought, and a jet of flame roars from her fingertip into the one bearing down on his prone form. The stench of burned hair and meat fills the forest, but she's not done yet. A lance of magic jerks towards Felix and surrounds his blade with a deadly frost.]

That'll help!

[It's not just magic frost. It's magic that will extend his range, a beam of frost that will radiate from his sword-point to give him more reach.]

[ Felix stumbles to his feet, wheezing as he tries to catch his breath. He's used to working around mages, so scorching flames being hurtled over his head don't phase him so much, but the sudden bitter cold bleeding through the glove of his blade hand does give him pause.

Then he's taking another arcing slash at the beast running him down, and even as it whips out of range of his blade, Felix watches crackling hoarfrost blast across its chest, curling up its neck, drawing the shrill scream of a horse from its throat.

His eyes drop to his blade, brows crawling up his forehead. ]

Oh, this is perfect.

[ He flashes Sypha a toothy grin that doubles as a chance to check she's holding her own, and then he surges after his own devil, which rounds on him once more, dragging claws down a tree trunk.

A slash of his blade and those claws end up frozen to the tree trunk, giving him the chance to duck in close and cleanly slice through the beast's arm at the joint.

As it howls, spitting blood from the socket of its missing arm, Felix spares Sypha another glance, a shout over his shoulder. ]

How are you holding up?

All well and good.

[Sypha is utterly confident, her fingers working through the motions of another deadly spell. Fighting strange creatures is nothing new to her, and in a way it's refreshing to be back in her element. She's at range, she has a meathead between her and one foe, and the creature she's got to tangle with is currently attempting to scrabbling up the tree after her.]

This is almost too easy.

[The odd monster, this...Dorchacht Devil...is gaining altitude quickly enough, but she's conjuring a dozen small spears of ice. They spiral in a ring around her, and one by one she looses them. One is dodged, and then another, and then she catches the beast in it's back leg, pinning it to a branch.]

I believe the expression is "shooting fish in a barrel."

[And with a grim smile, she drives an ice-shard through the creature's eye. And then five more through it's flank, killing it instantly.]

You?

[ Felix doesn't answer immediately, all of his attention focused on the deadly precision required to finish off his own opponent. Already wounded, in pain, the devil is distracted enough for Felix to slash his blade in a semicircle arc in front of himself, scoring the earth and sending crackling ice scattering across the ground to trap its cloven hooves.

Then, darting forward and under the long reach of the beast's arms, he drives his blade into what should be the weak point between armpit and torso, straight into soft flesh and a beating heart.

In its death throes, the creature thrashes and tries to throw itself down on top of him. He barely managed to get free, stumbling as the ground shakes when it falls.

He straightens, shooting Sypha a look. ]

Tch. Showoff.

[ But she's taken care of her own quarry easily enough, and Felix cannot help but take a moment to glance over her work in admiration.

Only a moment. Then the frown settles back in on his face, the furrow between his brows. ]

Thought there was only supposed to be one of these things.

Is it showing off if I just do what comes naturally and you watch?

[She leaps clear of the branch, catching herself on a gale and landing neatly beside the butchered monster. Snapping her fingers, her remaining ice-lances coalesce into a new form...a little pixie...and it flits off into the wilderness back the way the creatures had come.]

There were. Meaning...there could be a nest. So I'm going to send out another scout. If I find it, we can burn it out, make sure there aren't any more.

[She pauses, looking at his handiwork.]

...And that was not bad. You're a real handy boy with that blade.

[ He laughs a short, dry laugh in spite of himself. He may not be able to float gently on the wind or cast spells of creeping ice on his own, but he does one thing well, and he'll put his confidence in that. ]

From you? I'll take not bad.

[ He traces the path of the pixie with his eyes, and takes off after it at a jog, keeping pace but allowing it to stay far enough ahead to provide a distraction should it draw more unwanted attention. ]

You aren't a show-off, not really. Your skill is unquestionable. You'd have easily kept pace in a fight with any of the talented mages I knew back home.

Oh-ho, a compliment from you, Felix. Truly I must have impressed.

[She moves along at a trot, as well. No worries about keeping up, she's pretty hearty. #NomadLyfe.]

You know a lot of mages, then?

I know enough of them to know what to look for. You might— [ Apparently that's a big might in Felix's book...] be able to match up to Annette.

[ As they travel deeper into the woods, the stink of the same beasts from before grows stronger, and he wrinkles his nose. ]

Tread lightly. I think we're close.

If she shows up, then perhaps we'll see.

[And yet she won't. Thankfully.

She stops the moment he speaks, trusting the turnskin nose.]

You smell them?

[She immediately flashes her hands through yet another spell, a blurring one that makes the two of them seem to shimmer and fuzz out at the edges, making them hard to see.]

[ Felix blinks, surrounded suddenly by the effects of her spell. It's like an odd static at the edge of his vision, but otherwise he feels no different. Her? He can barely see her, but he knows she's still there by her scent. ]

...Useful. [ He's dropped his voice to a whisper. ] Just ahead, maybe slightly to the left, beyond that bent pine. Same scent, but concentrated as hell. What does your scout see?

It...

[Sypha shakes her head.]

Just a hollow at the base of a hill. There's not much else to see up ahead, but the hill seems to give way to a creek. I think that might be the place.

[A lair. Though, admittedly it doesn't look like a deep one.]

I'll send it inside, and see if we can spook anything else out.

[ Felix nods—and then, not knowing for certain if she can see him do that through the spell, he adds a verbal confirmation. ]

Count to twenty, and then do it. I'll wait at the top of the rise for whatever you find.

[ Deep breath. They're close to being done with this. ]

With any luck, we'll take whatever's in there by surprise.

Got it.

[Sypha narrows her focus, and waits. She gives a count of twenty, and then sends the spirit inside.

Immediately a roar splits the air, a wordless shriek of surprise...so she starts releasing magic through the pixie. Mostly? Chilling blasts of cold to force them out of the cave.

Two more!]

[ By the time she hits twenty, Felix is cresting the rise as intended, keeping low and out of sight of the cavern entrance.

It works, surprisingly, perfectly.

Felix gives the beasts long enough to flush out of the cave, gives himself long enough to gauge what he's up against—two again, fine—and then he bolts out of his hiding place, catching the first with a darting blow to the back of the leg before it knows he's there.

Then he just snarls, loud and all wolf, drawing both of the beasts' attention to himself—and giving Sypha an opening to spring her own ambush. ]

[Sypha abandons the pixie, instead choosing to come in like the jaws of a trap. The monsters barrel out of the cave and right into a moving wall of flame that hems them in. Tendrils of it lash out like vines, whipping at them and leaving sizzling whelps all over their fur and skin.]

No more of you!

[This shit ends, now, if she can help it. No more monster attacks.]

[ Damn, Sypha. Just try not to singe his brows off or anything.

Working in the center of a wall of flame isn't pleasant, by any means—the heat is just nigh of unbearable and he can feel the sweat beginning to overtake him as a result—but he's done it before. He just has to trust her not to set him on fire.

With one of the beasts crippled, Felix leaves off for the other one, now enraged and trapped and feverishly whirling toward him, backed into a corner and ready to fight.

The next few moments are a blur of talon and blade clashing, and Felix has to dart beneath blows that would tear him open otherwise. A few graze him, drawing blood. But eventually, he finds his opening, and ducks in, cleaving the beast's head from its neck in a single bloody blow.

Which is about the moment the other, crippled one sinks its teeth into his shoulder ( his pauldron, but damn if a couple of those teeth in a horse-shaped mouth don't find him ) and tries to wrench him down to the ground. ]

Sypha—!

I got you!

[Sypha, having taken the interim time to get herself into a tree with a burst of wind, settles into a sniping position. The creature grabbing Felix yowls in pain when a whip of flame snaps out and snatches it by the throat, ripping it free and shaking it. The magical fire hardens into something almost jelly-like, with surprising firmness, and then begins to throttle the beastie.]

Focus on the other. Cut the head off.

[ Felix doesn't waste time—it's his neck on the line, after all, and a moment wasted is the difference between making it out of here alive or not at all.

So he twists, whirling back around on the back of one heel, and swings his blade upward in a one-handed arc, biting deep into the beast's neck—but not deep enough.

He seizes it by the ear, drawing the blade back in one, swift motion that finishes the job. The body, severed from the neck, drops, convulsing faintly with the last lingering ghosts of life left in it.

He lets the head fall from stiff fingers, sword arm dropping to his side—and then sags, winded and bloodied, to his knees.

So long as the beasts are dead and the job is finished, that's all that matters. No one else gets hurt, or loses their livelihoods. ]

Are we done? Is that all of them?

[The one in Sypha's clutches doesn't last much longer. She doesn't waste effort on anything showy, instead simply willing her spell to twist sharply to the side and snap its neck with a firm jerk. That seems to do the trick as the beast convulses once, then sags down in her magical grip.

Letting it drop, she approaches Felix, reaching into her belt to draw out a small vial.]

Drink this. It will heal you, and give you energy.

[A combination of roots and spellwrought liquid she'd gathered up with Dimitri, of all people.]

[ Felix does not protest, and probably wouldn't even if she told him Dimitri helped her gather up the herbs for this. He's that tired. He knocks the bottle back, draining it in one swig, and then sucks in a breath when he's done. ]

Tastes like shit.

[ But the effects move quickly, diffusing through him, knitting together the cuts and tooth marks etched into his skin and filling him with a pleasant, low-grade energy. Like taking a warm bath, which he's not getting for another hour or two at least, so this will have to do. ]

But... effective. [ Propping himself up on the hilt of his sword, Felix climbs to his feet, wrinkling his nose at the stink of gore already setting in. ] Thank you, for that, by the way. Now let's get out of here before scavengers come looking for the bodies.

Absolutely.

[To...both the taste and getting out of here.]

I think we can safely claim the reward. And I really need some stew.

[Like, whoa.]

[Closed] April Catchall

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject