Air Castles

[Greener]

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An arc of fire burnt on the rim of the horizon.

The sun sharpened the broken walls of splendid ruins – crumbling archways, toppled columns, cracked domes; through curtains of cloud -- pyres of brilliant silver -- a blood-red glare set endless, open galleries aflame with light. Long ago, an earthquake of war jarred these battlements and towers; its colossal strides crushed the hundred courts of a shining palace. Now the crystalline floors were cracked with gold dust, and the sweet melodies of bards from better times were carried along by dusty, ghostly zephyrs.

Dark birds were nervous in a long arcade. Off they flew like a fling of seed, and a body in streaming bronze raced across the place where the flock of screeching shadow dispersed.

He stopped fast on an uneasy shelf of shattered pavilion and looked down at a crater of rock and tree-root skeletons. Winds pulled on briny robes. A winged bauble sparkled between his hands, and he looked backward into the light.

The treasure's ancient guardians scraped their scythes and spears across uneven marble. Half rot and half rust, the armoured creatures spilled around a fallen rib of pillarstone in pursuit.

[Akamar]

"Don't STOP!" his companions voice screeched through the shattered scape, a flurry of limbs and fabric coming up shortly behind him as he glanced back. It barreled forward, a slight form colliding with his abruptly stopped back. Slight as she was, she didn't quite manage to send him toppling over the precarious precipice, but she seemed determined on this particular course of action.

Toes dug into the stones cracked surface, and she heaved forward, wrapping her arms about her brothers middle, and pushing them both over the edge, the murmured words of a spell quick on her lips. Successful, powered enveloped them both and slowed what would otherwise surely be a rapid decent with a very painful stop on the rocks below. As it were, the decent was a bit slower, and the landing likely to be considerably less painful.

[Greener]

The strong and slender stalk of youth resisted the forward momentum of the initial collision. Pebbles scattered from the cliff and echoed off the rock-toothed walls of scaffolding shadow. With a white-faced 'hssst' of anger, he tightened his threatened grip on the glistening treasure.

"Careful!" he snarled.

Beasts clambered and crawled over one another with dripping fangs, crowding toward them with poisoned spears and fiery eyes.

The birds beat the air; the birds beat the air with strong wings and rose.

The girl anchored his waist; the girl shoved with desperate strength and fell.

"No! Have you lost -- "

A stream of enchantment slowed their fall into the gloom and fitful light of the gashed red earth; bones and branches were scattered down the sloping world, and screaming beasts blindly threw their spears and selves after them -- their rotten bodies and rusted armour smashing to the rocks below.

[Greener]

Twined bodies drifted down into the misleading mouth of rock until the cries of deadlife creatures were but echoes. The magic cocooned them with the lightness of feathers until they touched the ground. There was a thin passageway of downward sloping rock, yellow mountain flowers budding from impossible, dry cracks.

A shadow seemed to pass before the sun.

"We must hurry," he hissed at her with subdued anger. "You know what happens.."

A glance at the sky revealed that the clouds were now a turbulent purple. He grabbed her small hand and rushed along the narrow path, just as a brooding fog -- like a thing that hangs sadly over a moor -- rolled down from the high, broken pavilion and darkened the air in their wake.

Jaws of cold mist and tongues of lapping shadow breathed at their heels.

The path was so small that they could not run side by side.

[Akamar]

"I hate this part!" she screamed over the developing cacophony that swelled before the heliotrope haze. She dared a glance back, and nearly stumbled in the alarming revelation of just how close the danger had grown. "WHY can't you just leave well enough alone, anyway?!"

Her sibling gave a rough jerk on her arm as he suddenly diverted their direction down another narrow lane of broken and scattered cobble. The fog roared past, lavender tendrils jingling and chiming as they collided with the walls and pillars that surrounded the siblings current venue. It swirled, and seemed to temporarily retract before swelling down the alley, thick and roiling as if it were far too much for the contained area.

Ben had once had the honor of watching their mother decorate cake.. lightly beaten cream and sugar has been placed into a small, bag, at the end of which was a small hole. Pressure had been applied to the hole, and this forced the confection out in a manner that allowed their mother to create some rather enjoyable designs. At present, their danger rather reminded her of just that... it seemed that the fog were being squeezed through the opening of a bag, it's speed seeming to increase, and threatening to overtake them

The young woman screamed, closing her eyes and simply letting her brother lead the way. Fingers moved to a necklace of beads at her neck, and locked around one of the largest. It pulled free easily, and a large dark "5" appeared on it's amberish surface. This quickly changed to a four, and if it had stayed in her hand rather than get tossed at the fog behind them, and if her eyes had remained open, she would have seen the number change to a three. Two, and One followed quickly enough, then the sound of a loud explosion. Then the whizzing debris of a large explosion...

Benna would have uttered a quiet "yes" at this point, with appropriate hand gestures, in any other situation. At present, she wasn't quiet certain that this had done a great deal of good, so she naturally reached for another bead....

[Greener]

"Do you not comprehend the worth of this thing?!"

Three!

Measure its worth against the swelling storm of shadow; dragon talons made of mist raked the air, and hundreds of eyes flashed in the land-crawling cloud of furious black quintessence.

Two!

Benna's bead bounced off the walls of rock like the echo of her screams and rolled into the devouring tentacles of hungry darkness.

One!

A whirlwind of flame blasted upward, and large fragments of rock shot through the air with tails of smoke and clinging shreds of shadowstuff. An avalanche of mountainside crashed down behind them and temporarily dammed the bulging river with a smoking rubble. It immediately found cracks and eye-holes to whisper through, quick as smoke; the main mass rose for the top, tatters of nightmare heaving over the edge.

Benna's limb may as well have been a leash for how harshly she was yanked to the left; there was a break in the wall through which they'd have to bow their heads -- and the false posture of prayer brought them out from the mountain's eastern side.

[Akamar]

"AAAAAAAHHH!!! Oh, dear gods, it's still alive!"

She kept screaming, though this seemed to have little more effect than making Greener very irrate, another yank on her arm nearly sending her to her face as he diverted their direction once again. At this she risked opening her eyes, the greenish orbs turning on her brother.

"... Are we there yet?"

An angry, high pitched, and incredibly frightening shriek pierced the air behind them at this, earning a surprised squeak from Ben.. She planted her free hand against Greeners shoulder, and attempted to push him to a faster pace... at least until he actually picked his up and threatened to begin moving faster than she could handle.

"Go go go go go!" another bead was ripped from her neck, then a third after a count to three. Her fingers closed on a fourth as the portal they were moving for came to view, and the second bead burst into another fireball. The third exploded into a frigid blast, freezing even the flames of the still expanding bomb.

She glanced back at the strange sound, and arched a brow, "... Huh.. well, that's interesting.. " A tug on her arm pulled her forward again, "hey!"

[Greener]

"Push me again, and I will thrash the flesh from your bones," his hiss was an astonishingly audible undercurrent to the screams of volcanic horror erupting blackly from the mountain left behind.

The fury of this thing had his fist tightening around her delicate wrist. Otherwise, there were no vocal answers to her questions; her reply was in his haste, in his increasing momentum, in grimly tightened features.

A circle of shimmering light was on the horizon, resting just above a dark, green lake's hemline of cattails. This thing was their destination; it had been their destination all along.

"Almost!" His ambition, which included both treasure and escape, suddenly shone as bright as the portal in their midst.

[Akamar]

"Oh, Alice, you always DID like to talk all big and strong like," she swatted at his shoulder in a manner that was a little too fierce to be simply playful. She continued to jog towards their escape, sending an occassional glance back at the briefly stopped, impending doom behind them.

Rushes bowed and rustled furiously as they ran the the shallows of the marshes lining the emerald lake beside them, and she briefly thought how a bouquet of them might look in her room. This was a rather quickly squelched whim, when she remembered her tendency towards horrid allergies, and a subsequent dislike of actually having bouquets. She would have breathed a resigned sigh, if she weren't currently trying to gulp air IN at the time.

Ah, yes... Air... She'd almost forgotten that vital need, and suddenly thinking on it made it seem even more scarce. Her lungs and legs burned, and she felt like she'd been running forever. This caused a sudden lag in her running, a mumbled "gotta stop" and a slight awareness of Greeners eyes stabbing dagger after dagger into the top of her head.

Then... the noises started again. Deep, throaty chirrups from the marshes that made her think of a particularly fat cat known to linger around home from time to time. It never did seem to be able to purr properly, and instead relied on what sounded like burped commands that had been mutilated by it's innards. It was as enduring a creature as it was disturbing, and it was plenty disturbing.

Greener apparently caught wind of the noise too, and pulled her forward again, "Run! Now!"

She was about to protest when a squat little froglike creature popped up through the marshes nearby. It would have been comical and cute, if not for the wicked, slimy little spear it carried, the fisheads strung about it's neck, and varied little shells comprised into to a crude manner of armor.

.. Alright, so that would have been fairly comical, if it hadn't appeared so suddenly (she had to admit, she'd squeaked in surprise), peered at her with freakishly large, wet, gross eyes... then the appearance of that fat tongue on the toothless, lipless rim of a mouth that spanned the entire width of it's head...

She promptly started running, more than a little freaked out by the frogman, and as a result missed it's little butt waggling dance and frantic pointing. This was just as well, given it was basically a "GET THEM NOW, Stab, stabbity!" command, and numerous other little frogmen promptly appeared on the scene to give chase and issue more of the ribbiting warcries. Another of her frequent glances back revealed that little bit of information, however...

"ALISSANDER! I'm going to KILL YOU for getting us into this!"

[Greener]

".. ALICE?!"

He roared at her in the moments before the assault of the frogmen. These aristocratic features were always inclined to dour and displeased expressions; his current expression was enough to turn away a man's eyes, render the womenfolk to faintness, and squeeze the tears from babies. His sister, he'd decided, was in none of these categories. She was some rare, wretched breed of pure stupid.

"Get to the portal!"

He could not hold onto her long enough to throttle her for the name-calling, and as she screamingly zig-zagged away from their queer attackers -- Alissander turned to them with darkened features. Robe cloth and hair were drifting in invisible winds, and crackling energy gathered in his hands.

Something acidic hissed from his lips: a quiet growl of dark craft. There was a nauseating ripple in the air, a pulse of gathering quintessence. Nearby shadows seemed to crowd him -- distant shadows seemed to hungrily reach out for him.

Oblivious frogmen raced towards this coelescing cloud of crackling sorcery.

[Akamar]

The girl grinned weakly, even as that cold chill ran down her spine. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Alissander was supposed to be scary. He sure tried hard, the poor boy.

Instead of scurrying along, like a good sister, she grounded herself and raised her hands towards the mans back. As he went about gathering his power, she decided to give him a hand, tapping into her own reserves, and feeding them by her own Will into Alissanders