Days in the Life of a Half-Dragon

[Drache]

The dragoness grimaced derisively at the fanatical ravings, having no use for they way they never really answered her questions. She would agree that there was something to be said for righteous anger and the purity of the flame, how could she not?, but she was in no mood to tell this one so. She did not like the look in his eyes at all, nor that stiffening of his prostrate form, nor the way he struggled and bled when she hadn't done anything to damage him that much, yet.

The bone-snapping lurch of Slayne's upper body as he bared his squared human teeth against her dirt, blood, and urine-covered talons almost seemed to happen in slow motion as she watched, so unexpected was it. All it did was pinch harshly, but the madness of it and the evil little cackle earned a vicious kick, deep lines cutting across his face as she pressed in.

"Xsio!" she cursed in her native tongue, a spark of flame billowing from her snout as the flung the hatchet away to spark as it struck a stone wall. "Foolish! I would have let you live, but now you have killed yourssself!" She had too much experience tearing carcasses apart to think that, even with her help, he'd survive now. Not that she had much of a reason to, especially now that she felt like there was someone else staring out at her from behind his eyes.

Her claws dug into his collarbone and she hoisted his broken body up. She snapped her maw under his chin to tear out his throat and put him out of his misery. The hot tang of his blood blossomed over her tongue and she had to throw Slayne's body down to keep herself from feeding on his remains. The sour stench of urine helped in overcoming the temptation.

She growled to herself as she surveryed her handiwork and then set about looting the bodies for anything of value or interest, especially when it came to identifying them or their cult. The hatchet and the sabre she recovered, tucking them in her belt.

[Vanidor]

08/12/211 - Late.

There had been silence in the deeps since the destruction of the foraging party. As if the powers that be there in the darker silence knew that their time of hiding was coming slowly to an end. Only once more did a trio of cultists try to make for the light of day, though they became lost and had to return. Their leader should have led them out himself but he... He was busy with his ritual. It did not matter in any case, there was enough energy contained within the jar. And he had enough other reagents to finish the task. The loss of the other party, and the ineptitude of the second was irrelevant.

Late. It is late, and the chanting in the darkness begins once again. There is energy in the darkness now, filtering through the still air of the cavern. Dead things that had been left to moulder and decompose lose the last of their viability, collapsing inwards on themselves and seeming to almost... Almost flow down the dark corridors. It is not something that can be helped. But it does not matter. For the Patriarch knows.

It is almost time.

[Drache]

Drache swept purposefully about her chamber, gathering items into a pile on the large upthrust of dark stone in the middle of the space. The Belt of Many Pockets had been completely emptied and re-packed, a feat in itself considering the ridiculous amount of stuff it could hold, and she fastened it around her hips. The armour buckled to her form was studded leather and well-used, fitting very snugly over her taught belly. Soon she would have to get more fitted, or else hire others to do her dirty work. She ran her fingertips longingly over her gleaming custom-made platemail, but it would not serve her well underground, no matter how impressive she looked in it.

There was much to do to prepare for an excursion towards the source of the eerie chanting, not least of which was checking all the protections she had laid about her territory. It had taken a few days. There were also arrangements to be made in town for the continued repair and refurbishing of the tower, and making sure someone was going to be around to feed her cat. There was no telling how long she might be gone, and she wouldn't deny that there was always the chance she wouldn't come back at all.

She dug around in a large gold-encrusted trunk until she found a small cedar box buried within. It had Kira's name burned into the lid. Something that sounded like paper and metal rattled inside. She set it in plain sight, a ritual she had taken up years before. It was the plan for when all of her other plans failed. Even though the mercenary would be coming with her, Drache knew that it was more in her own nature than the human's to get herself into trouble.

The swordbelt of her falchion joined the pouches around her waist. A keen-edged curve of the tail-barb weapon she buckled over her spade. The jewelry she wore on a daily basis was all replaced, sometimes by similar items, but the ones she chose now all had special traits.

Once she was ready, she turned to wait for the others. When they were similarly prepared, she simply reached out to touch each of them at the same time and disappeared in a swirl of flame. She was surprised that Zilliah had decided to come along, and she wished Kira hadn't come home at just the right moment to catch her trying to leave. But in the end she had finally admitted she needed, and wanted, the help.

She reappeared on the spot she had slain the trespassing trio and dropped into a crouch, vision blurring momentarily as her darkvision took over.

[Vanidor]

There is little here, where the dragon-kin and the brothers had their duel with death. The scent of blood, the lingering smell of stale piss. The heady taste of burnt flesh. There is the ever present charge of energy to the air. And the slow hum of a number of voices chanting in unison. There was a rythem to the air, a pulse that filled everything with power.

It even seemed as if the markings etched into the wall shone with power. A residual display of the aether, now that more of it was filling the cavern complex. They would blaze brilliantly had one the talent, though give off no true light of their own, the coroposant energies bleeding into the dark and leaving nothing in their wake.

In the dark, the first of the chanters would fall forward. Face planting into the roughly hewn stone. He was exhausted from lack of food and sleep. But this did not bother the Patriarch, who fed off of the remaining spirit left in the one who fell. It was helpful that things between the veil and reality seemed to be blurred. It made the leeching easier. It made the resurrection faster.

Perhaps. Perhaps he would be able to finish this task before the last of the other cultists fell. Hopefully before they noticed they were falling. For truth, only he mattered. Him, and the deity he was attempting to bring back into the world.

[Kira]

Kira quickly gathered the weapons she had strewn about only a few minutes before. Her timing was nearly perfect. It had been a very long time since she had accompanied Drache on anything resembling a quest, as it were, and a grin spread across her face as she cinched her belt around her waist. This was going to be a good fight.

Her swordbelt was still mostly full. Her twin blessed longswords, which she could twirl faster than any man she had ever met, hung on either hip. A pouch containing two dozen bolts dangled next to a clip where she hooked her crossbow. The rest of the belt was nearly covered in daggers of varying sizes, most designed for throwing. Under her cloak, a leather strap with more knives, a pair of them larger than the rest and curved menacingly inward, all resting in individual holsters was strapped across her back so that most of the knives sat under her arms for easy reach. Finally, she slipped a bow and a quiver of arrows over her head.

There would be one last thing she needed before joining the half-dragon and the fae. She opened a drawer on a small table next to her bed and picked out a small, blue, suede-wrapped box. She removed the lid and withdrew a thin silver band holding a small violet stone. The ring looked very delicate, but she slipped it over the middle finger of her right hand without ceremony. Drache had taken the mercenary down into the depths of the caverns a few times before, and the silver ring allowed her to see clearly in anything but complete darkness.

She double-checked all her weapons with a practiced patting down, then spun on her heel and clomped back. She took Drache's hand and closed her eyes as they all vanished together.

Gorram feckin' pitch feckin' dark ah kinnae see shi'e, she swore to herself as they reappeared in the cavern. Her nose curled at the stench of stale urine and old blood. She hissed very quietly, a noise Drache would recognize as a sign that there was not enough light for her to see.

[Pantha]

~~~~~ Zilliah ~~~~~

While the other two busied themselves with preparations, getting ration, weapons, and the such, the fae was doing just the opposite. He was stripping down and removing all of his gaudy jewelry and clothing. He left a single ring on each of his middle fingers, both made of gold and jasper with a hidden blade sharp as a razor beneath the stones. He did not like the idea of having to use his blood magic to heal the other two should they become injured but as it was, it looked like he would be the default cleric of sorts if things got rough. Drache would just have to accept him spilling his own blood for her if it comes to it. He wears only his green silken pants, his feet, arms, and chest bare for the blood letting. There is enough time for a little meditation while the other two gather their items.

It was likely a good thing that he had not been given much time to think about the situation he was about to put himself in. Once they were ready, he rises and takes hold of Drache's clawed hand. A flash of flame and then he felt the chill down his spine. Darkness was illuminated in violet light from the gem on his forehead and his pale marble eyes reflect the dim light the way those of nocturnal predators do, making it clear that he actually wasn't blind in them at all. All three eyes search the cave, taking in the carnage and smell of death with out a single twitch of lips. He lets go of Drache's hand and flick his thumbs over the jasper stones to activate the mechanism that snaps out his blades. His mind is roaming ahead of them, listening for voices both spoken and internal, for the whisperings of cultists in the claustrophobic darkness. He waits for the two larger women to lead the way.

[Drache]

The fire-drake peered up and down the gently sloping tunnel, eying what little remained of the carnage she had left behind the last time she was here. It didn't look like much. Her horned head turned automatically to face the direction the trespassers had come before, and the faint buzz of chanting voices and the crackle of the power they were raising reached up out of the darkness like creeping fingers.

She felt strange with her hands both held by people she cared about and wanted to scream at the two of them to flee so she could handle this herself. But she doubted either of them would listen. She freed herself from both Kira and Zill's grasp and touched her claws along the markings on the wall, understanding nothing about the coruscating things except that Slayne had been using them to find his way out, so reason dictated she could use them to find the way down. Kira's frustrated intake of breath was loud in her ears and she turned to face the blind human and nodded grimly, mostly to herself.

"Jussst a moment," she breathed, summoning the power for a tiny mage-light. The tiny globe of reddish light flickered into being and hovered down near their feet, just enough that Kira would be able to move forward and follow the others without clattering through the darkness like some noisy Gnomish machine. She looked the others over and folded her wings more tightly to her back, wondering if she was supposed to deliver some sort of pep talk. Some words of wisdom or warning. But she wasn't a leader and eventually said simply, "If I die, jussst make sure you get all of my hoard out before anyone elssse does. We try to ssstop them if we can, and I want one alive at the end, if posssible."

With a swish of her bladed tail she turned to lead the way, her adroit talons carrying her down into the deep. She paused occasionally, especially before venturing into larger caverns or turning sharp corners, knowing that cultists were not their only concern down here. It wouldn't do to get slaughtered by hook horrors or something before ever finding the source of so much vile magic.

[Vanidor]

It was a trail that would not take long, at least for a group of such intrepid adventurers such as this. The path was wide enough for two abreast, though the markings upon the wall were down and low. Hip height. And it would seem that their way was... made clear. Or at least clearer than it should have been for being so deep into the darker environs of the world. The bodies of the slain were missing, something having drug them down into the recesses.

For Zilliah, there is naught to ward away his roaming mind. The knowledge of the caverns he has, however, would eventually fail him the deeper they would go. It was as if these passageways were... New. New, but old at the same time. An older network of trails and passages that had not been attached to the original complex used by the other Cultists. Something massive had shifted the rock, moving the ways into an alignment that had not been five years ago.

And it was there, in those particular tunnels, that he would find it... Oppressive. Nothing would truly stop a mind-wrought journey, but ah... It would be, perhaps, like trying to move through slime. Doable. But not particularly quick... Something. Someone was exuding an almost negligible mental defense. But there certainly was something there in the dark. Multiple signs of life, though many were weakening... And something. Someone. Was getting stronger.

[Kira]

Kira held still until the dim magelight appeared, giving her just enough light to see the shapes of her companions around her. She reached down and hooked her crossbow to a loop on her pantleg to keep it from making noise. She took note of the markings on the walls as well, but with such low light, she couldn't really make out any details. Her hearing was equally useless in the caverns due to the injury that gave her the scar on the left side of her face. Echoes had her turning her head every direction to make use of her good ear.

Drache spoke, and Kira frowned, shaking her head. "Yer ain' gonna do no dyin' if'n ah'm still aboo'," she retorted. "Qui' dat finkin'. We's all gonna gi' oo' aloive."

She followed the half-dragon closely, and kept amazingly quiet considering how many weapons she was carrying. The familiar heavy thumping of her leather boots was, even on the solid rock, nothing more than a quiet pattering.

[Pantha]

~~~~~ Zilliah ~~~~~

The was a wrongness about everything. Granted, he wasn't used to traipsing about in caverns, but even he could tell this was not normal. The weighty gloom that filled his mind would typically have been enough to make him shut himself to it completely, but he would not do it this time. He could be patient, vigilant even, when he needed to be. His defenses were up and he stayed close to Drache and Kira so that he could deflect any projectiles should they come flying at them from the darkness. Any mental attacks would be blocked as well and he only lets in the unconscious thoughts, tuning into them as they flowed from the cultists. It made it harder to understand, listening to an endless thought pattern instead of probing for exact answers, but he was safer this way.

He was somewhat irritated that the mental map he had memorized from the parchments Glenn had given him were incorrect or obsolete and he set about adjusting those in his head so that he could make those corrections when they got back. There is a sick feeling in his gut and the blood lust that had been growing inside him suddenly withered away. It occurred to him that whatever it is might be feeding off the dead. He stops and takes hold of Kira's arm, motioning for them to stop. Where were the guards? Why was no one stopping them? He didn't have anywhere near the combat experience of either female, but he did have his instinct and intuition and all of it was screaming at him now.

He has to open himself more than he'd like to find his answer, but he searches for it, his mind's eye trudging through the thickness and trying to pry out information. What were they doing? Where there blood sacrifices involved? Despite his youthful looks he was old enough to recall a time when such things were more commonplace. Having some knowledge of blood magic himself, it made him weary. Killing a man was easy. Preventing a man from killing himself to feed an abomination to give it power was something else entirely.

[Drache]

Of course things weren't normal. That's why they were down here in the first place, was it not? Even the half-dragon, who -was- used to traipsing around in caverns, had sensed the wrongness many weeks ago. She wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Glenn's maps were no longer accurate. He didn't have the knowledge of -her- caverns either, now that she had changed many of them herself.

Zilliah's attempts to get them to stop would be unwarranted. Drache was pausing regularly, using both mundane and arcane methods to search the area up ahead for the presence of traps or guards.

[Vanidor]

There is something now. A largish antechamber of roughly hewn stone, stone benches carved out of the living bedrock. This is close. Indeed, the heart of the oppressive and malignant mental aura was just beyond the chamber. Yet there was something here. And it was large.

A creature that stood at the far end of the chamber, venomous eyes focused upon the archway that led into its domain. Behind it is another arch, this one barred by a door of marred wood and iron. The beast moves forward, cloven hooves stamping into the stone as it did. The things tread is heavy, as is the horned head that twists and peers in every direction. Bipedal and robust, the creature shifts again into the pallid light produced by the ghostly corporasant created by the psychic defenses.

It is muscular and garbed in a shirt of dirty chain with leather pauldrons. A necklace dangles from its neck, a swaying image of a many pointed cross. The moose-like snout snorts. A wet sound that is accompanied by the a splatter of drool and phlegm. The beast raises a humongous glaive, the edge glinting icily. It is waiting.

And behind it. There is a rumble. A tremble of the earth that says something is coming into being. Perhaps, here, Zilliah can sense it, if he can sense anything other than the raw hatred oozing from the moose-creature in the antechamber. Another mind has been snuffed out, their essence chained to the whorl of energy behind that iron-bound door.

[Kira]

Finally, Kira had enough light to see clearly with the aid of her magical ring, and what a sight. The door did not concern her. She could not sense any magical powers. The beastie was all that mattered. A huge, menacing beastie which was clearly armed and clearly aggressive.

Now she could finally be of some use instead of fumbling around in the half light of the magelight. She quickly brought her bow up, already armed with an arrow. The bowstring thrummed thrice in quick succession. The mercenary fighter sent three arrows flying toward the beast, two at its head and one toward its neck.

She did not want to meet a moosey fate in these deep caverns.

[Pantha]

~~~~~ Zilliah ~~~~~

He was given very little time to digest what he saw and heard and felt. He was compelled to keep moving, to keep up with the others. He flicks his thumbs over the dotted orange and green orbicular jasper stones set into each ring on his middle fingers, the hidden blades springing out. He draws the razor tip over each of his palms, drawing forth his own blood which he then traces along his arms and chest in a series of runes, a low chanting coming from his throat. Drache had chastised him last time he had dared to spill his own blood in the depths, warned him that it might draw attention from the things that crept in the shadows. Too late for that! His wide eyes focus on the beastly monstrosity before them, lips tugging in raw amusement and disgust.

Arrows whir through the air towards the thing! No turning back now! The icy mist from the massive glaive draws his attention first, fearing for the damage the cold could inflict on his dragoness. A crimson wetted hand raises, finger pointing at the gruesome thing. The blade on his other hand is brought to his mouth and drawn over his tongue. With the tip of it, he draws runes on the roof of his mouth. The light from the gem takes over the paleness of his eyes and they too begin to glow brightly with inner violet light. From his throat comes the word of power, an attempt to paralyze the muscles of the hulking thing so that it cannot move, let alone swing its weapon at them.

[Drache]

Drache crept slowly towards the lighted cavern, moving expertly ahead of the others through the darkness she was more familiar with. She kept her wings tight to her back and all her muscles coiled like a large serpent, ready to strike or flee, whichever seemed most appropriate. She may be territorial, but she was too pragmatic to be suicidal.

The amber of her eyes was almost completely obscured by her wide pupils, until the vertical slits contracted slightly in the growing light. She was pleased to see that the stone benches ringing the walls were not occupied by a host of the unsavoury, though she didn't have much time to appreciate that small amount of relief before her attention was riveted on the hulking figure guarding the archway beyond.

She'd never seen anything quite like that before! She'd seen minotaurs. She'd seen warriors mounted on the backs of massive moose. She ate moose on a semi-regular basis But she'd never seen a moose-taur. Clearly they needed to get past the thing to stop whatever was going on behind that archway. Drache's main concern was that battling the creature was going to alert others to their presence.

In the middle of attempting to formulate the most advantageous plan of attack, Kira moved and the hum of her bowstring thudded thrice in the dragonkin's ear-frill. Drache's lip pulled back in a grimacing sneer as the human thoroughly broke whatever cover they may have still enjoyed. The tang of fresh blood hit her nostrils and a quick glance informed her of what the fae was up to. Smoke coiled up from her snout and her eyes began to gleam hotly.

The dragoness flicked her tail and quickly started to the left, stalking swiftly around the chamber so she could attack at a different angle, and so that, huddled in the entryway as they were, the trio wouldn't provide such a convenient target for whatever powers this beast may wield.