middaeg | [Open] The Catch-all log, Alucard edition

It is. The three of us learned that in the worst possible way.

[Alucard pauses after the words leave his mouth. It's the first time he's remarked upon everything since it happened, and to a stranger. That feels like an accomplishment of sorts. Some kind of step in dealing with the grief.]

The word witch is a death sentence there.

Sorry to hear that.

[ He's been saying that a lot lately, to various people. And he is, generally; it'd be nice if there was at least one world out there that could get everything right. But that's a fairy tale. The world is inescapable. You learn the hard way or a harder way, and that's just how shit is. ]

Mm.

[ It has been, at different times in Geralt's world. Different places; it certainly has been in Redania, in recent years. He's not thinking too hard on it, though, sensing something out there creeping closer - and not a petalwolf. Something shifting through the earth. ]

Tree, [ he murmurs. ] Wilder called them 'ents'. Corrupted.

[Alucard doesn't say much more. He's already made a big step, and maybe it's better that Geralt is...well, he practically doesn't react. For better or worse. At least Alucard can speak and know that there won't be overwrought reactions, and that's something, he supposes.

But then--

--he doesn't look back to the man. Just ahead.]

How close to us?

[ Geralt isn't deliberately cruel or dismissive, but he's also not inclined to make an effort to seem otherwise. It just doesn't occur to him, most of the time.

Things to consider some other time. ]

Half a mile. [ Geralt tilts his head, listening, watching the ripples the sound makes, experiencing it like a dot in the distance, wriggling away. ] It knows we're here. Not sure what nearby it's connected to.

[ Plants. Doesn't matter what its roots are linked with, but they should keep moving, and away from the ent. ]

Worth trying to destroy, or smarter to avoid?

[Alucard's question is barely a whisper. Moreover, it's thrumming with tension, the desire to do something if it's safe enough to do so.]

I can only bow to experience right now.

Avoid. The shade creatures out here are infected. You don't want to get tagged.

[ Cwyld exposure is not automatic Cwyld infection, and just the infection isn't a death sentence - plenty of people in the walls are infected to some degree, and managing, working towards remission research - but there best prevention is no contact. ]

Let's watch what the wolves do first.

Mmmm.

[Alucard can do that. He's careful to step aside, because he can hear something moving in the brushes. Going statue-still, an older petalwolf pokes it's head out, taking a moment to sniff the air. And then, it retreats into the thicker forest again, movement heading away from the ents.

Keen gold eyes settle on Geralt, asking if they ought to follow.]

[ Geralt considers. The wolves have accepted their presence, though if they begin to move after them, they might not appreciate it; the last thing he wants is for them to end up pinched between well-meaning idiots and an infected creature.

So instead he leads them in the opposite direction, giving the petalwolves a wide berth, angling to keep the ent in the 'middle'. He's just about silent when he moves, and knows by now Alucard will be the same, but he hasn't quite figured out just how the plague-ridden beings track. It always seems random. Drawn to life through some mechanic he can't puzzle out.

Half his attention on the creature, half on the wolves, he observes as the wolves move lightly over the earth, their plant-like bodies barely disrupting the terrain. ]

[Alucard understands Geralt's choice of path only a few moments in. The wolves can go one way. They go the other. The ent moves between them all, and hopefully the presence of so much life will confuse it.

Or it'll go for them both instead of the wolves. They're better armed, after all.

His own movements are light, although not as feather-light as they would be at home. Nor as fast, because he's still without the natural abilities inherited from his father. Still, Alucard moves without a sound, always to the slight right of Geralt. Always within seeing distance, so if something happens, the other man knows it immediately.

Even as they're running though, Alucard finds himself caught up in the wolves and their movements. How they glide over the terrain, almost flying. They're beautiful creatures. It makes the place seem slightly less awful.]

[ It's nearly nice. Without the violet-hued gloom encompassing the planet, it might be picturesque; the petalwolves might not be thriving, but they're existing despite all odds, and they need to be given room to grow and carve a home into this hostile realm.

Snap. A trap springs. Shriek. A wolf caught. Thud. The end shifts its movement in a split-second, zooming with a low roar of disturbed earth towards the pack. ]

Ah, fuck.

[ Geralt skids to a halt and looses his silver blade from his back, then darts off towards the ent. This isn't natural selection, that's cheating. ]

[Fuck indeed.

Alucard has his own sword, and it goes from hanging at his side to being in his hand just as quickly. He's flying blind now, engaging in a fight without knowing how dulled his senses truly are in battle, but it's worth it.

So he stays right behind Geralt, aware that whatever they're about to do, they need to move quickly.]

Ever fought them before?

Yeah. Roots are the big problem. Fast, long range. They're frozen-over but pretty resistant to fire.

[ So it's hack-and-slash. (And dodge. Don't forget to dodge. Nobody wants to get infected.)

Geralt flings a spell, a warped shield, making a loud impact in the ground. The bulk of the tree shifts, turning towards the sound, roots slithering around. Huge things, spear-like tips, diving in and out of the soil like water. ]

Understood. Do you want to focus on the wolf or the ent?

[Alucard watches how the tree shifts, but his eyes? They're on the roots. Accounting for the length, memorizing the movement. They're what need to be destablized, and he thinks there's a path or two forward in that mission.]

I don't have my typical speed anymore, but I still move faster than the average man.

You can see to the wolf.

[ Geralt is less attune with the animals, and has more confidence in being able to fell the ent. He's taken several in the past - though he does make a note to pace himself, because the ones they'd been pitted against in Wilder training had, presumably, been tracked and monitored. This one is a rogue agent, and may well be worse.

The witcher stops abruptly and sinks his sword into the ground. Something thrashes violently, a strange, dull scream rumbling through the air. The ent's focus is definitely over this way, now. ]

[No more words, only action.

Alucard can tell where the wolf is, even without his superhuman hearing. The thing is panicking, and that means it is loud. Loud and directly behind where Geralt has sunk his sword into the ground, making the placement of the weapon a greater boon than expected.

Getting from point A to B is made harder by the ent itself, because as Alucard moves, great branches from below ground rise, trying their best to grab at him as well. It suggests that the thing can hunt by it's own form of echolocation or other vibration detection, and so Alucard does his damndest to walk lightly.

He gets whalloped back a few times, and others he leaps up onto the thing's roots, using them as moving pathways to get where he must be.

The petal wolf hasn't been snared as Alucard anticipated. No, a large cage of roots has grown around it, making it clear that the ent is a too clever thing. But there's an advantage in the terror, and that is the cage is made of only two roots.

He pinpoints one. In that moment, Alucard drives his sword cleanly through. Disrupting one might do the same to the other, allowing for the wolf to flee.]

[ Well, alright, maybe its focus isn't over this way after all. Much older and larger than the ones Geralt has seen before, the main body of the ent itself is further back than the witcher initially noted; sending out a gnarled mass of upright roots to fool hunters, the primary tree is some yards away, ropelike tentacles spread out like a spider's web beneath the ground. Decaying matter flakes off each root, chilling the air every time they leap up. The wolf in its trap is no doubt doomed to infection.

Geralt severs the roots nearest him and loudly moves to the puppet body of the ent, blasting it with a concussive spell that sends its fibrous matter flying and causing the large knot of roots to withdraw in an apparent panic. ]

Come on, [ he mutters, following the trail, his senses outstretched. ] Don't be such a pain in the fucking ass.

[ The roots map back to the real ent, which he treks towards, sword ready. Roots fly from the ground at him, their ends pointed like spears, and Geralt darts this way and that, dodging them and slicing bits off. Most cringe and withdraw when hit, but some plow on, chasing him. It's a lot like a very shitty leshen, which is at least familiar. He lets himself slip into a work mindset, and everything becomes easy. ]

[Alucard can't tell what's going on with Geralt's end of things, not with his hearing at human levels. All he knows is that his own gambit failed. There's still one horrible root that's refusing to let the wolf out.

He can't pull the remaining cage apart with bear hands, in spite of wanting to do so very badly. Alucard instead struggles to pinpoint where the root sinks into the ground, and that? That becomes too complicated in an instant, as new roots jut out to try and grab his feet. Anchor him. Make him into tree food, ideally.

There's a lot of jumping, a little slashing, and at one point Alucard just lands on the cage itself, giving the wolf a fright and causing it to bite at the dhampir by pure instinct. But Alucard gets up again, and there.

He's found the other root, and he drives his sword into the ground. The ent recoils. Tries to roar, and in that moment the wolf escapes and the full attention of the ent turns to Alucard himself.]

Plan?!

[Alucard bellows the question.]

[ Plan? Geralt's doing the plan, the plan is to kill it. What are you on about, kiddo. The ent is far enough away from Alucard that at this point it doesn't matter much where the thing's attention is, he's either going to get himself out of those roots or he's not.

The witcher can't do anything about the other man now. So he just forges ahead until he's finally face-to-tree with the heart of it, and blasts it with a concussive spell to destablize it before lighting the fucker on fire. It yields to experience, the fire not purging it like it might do with weaker infected monsters, but at least it makes it shriek in anger, a shudder of pain running through all the roots.

Geralt leaps forward, close enough that the ent has a hard time getting its roots to aim at him, and rams his sword into the center knot. It trashes, throwing him. He rolls into an upright position and darts back again, grabbing the hole with one hand and casting another spell inside of it, horrible, overpowered fire. If there's any benefit to being overloaded with magic, it's being able to go overkill. The furthest-away roots shudder and go limp, dead. ]

[Right then.

Alucard knows he needs to help, but unable to have a sight line on Geralt makes that much harder. He moves quickly to fix that, rounding out at what seems to be the edge of the ent's roots. Or so he's guessing, unsurprised when a new and rather thick one springs up and throws the dhampir clean across and over the ent itself.

He doesn't land gracefully. Alucard rolls and tumbles and smacks his head hard (he knows there's going to be a concussion from this), but gets up all the same. At the very least he can see Geralt now, and he lands just in time to see what happens when Geralt's sword stabs into the center knot. It's awful. It's effective, and the spellcasting is nothing if not Sypha-levels of impressive.

But it also means Geralt has the whole thing under control, and that the dhampir is better suited to hanging back where he is, waiting to see if something goes awry at the last minute. To do otherwise might give the ent a final moment to inflict damage.]

[ Geralt isn't expecting to see his companion go flying like a Looney Lutes character up and over his head, and so Alucard gets a front row seat to Geralt being slammed into by a giant knot of wood and root that sends him onto his ass, a full-color spectacle of clumsy idiocy.

The witcher mutters something profane as he rolls away, launching back onto his feet and shaking dirt and plant matter out of his face. He can feel the unearthly chill of the Cwyld skim past his skin, intangible bit activating his senses anyway. Close call, moron, he thinks.

Geralt has to dive and roll out of the way, and finds himself practically sinking into disturbed earth. Like quicksand, the pit the ent lives in. Just past it he can see Alucard. Ey, sup.

Huh.

An explosion of overpowered magic snaps in and sends the ent flying not unlike the dhampir moments before, on fire, roots fluttering the wind like kite strings. It sails away over a living tree then thuds to the ground and lies there, motionless. ]

[Shit.

Out of instinct, Alucard starts to move forward when Geralt is slammed by the knot. It is only the knowledge that the action would cause more harm than good that stops him, and oh. The thing's still moving, Geralt's almost in the earth and...

...and in a flash of motion and madness, the thing is dead.

Carefully, so carefully, Alucard walks over to where Geralt is. Offers the man a hand upright.]

The wolf's safe. What about you?

[ There's just a grumble of resentment from the huddled person-like form of armor and dirt before he raises his head and gropes for Alucard's hand. Which might not be as easy as he anticipates; the witcher is unnaturally dense, and heavy. No wonder he can take hits like he does. ]

Just got dirt up my nose, is all.

[ Which he snorts and spits out. Hhurrk. ]

You in one piece?

[Geralt's a little bit weighter than Alucard expected, but what Alucard expected also includes not reacting to weight at all so he's incredibly biased. At any rate, Alucard bears the witcher easily, ignoring the additional warmth that suddenly sinks in.]

I am, yes.

[What are you supposed to even say after these kinds of fights???]

These things are solitary predators, yes?

[Nailed it.]

[ He is very warm, enjoy that. Great for winter nights, very annoying in summer afternoons. That mutant life, yo. He snorts again, clearing dirt from his sinuses, but he sounds like he might be saying 'good', even as he gracefully spits out more gross soily snot. ]

Dunno. We should probably leave.

Agreed.

[The warm is damn nice ~~and Alucard's not going to say anything else about it.~~

Alucard pauses, then reaches into the pocket of his trousers. There's a very small first aid kit in there, and he pulls out a bit of white cloth. Easy enough to offer it to the man in place of any other tissue.]

Here. Easier to blow than let it get stuffed up.

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niespodzianka - 2019-12-05 01:56 (UTC) - Expand