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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 4:37:21 GMT
Anzhela lowered her eyelids at Lorina as she squirmed. The look did not seem to be of concern.
"Are you... well?"
-
As the raven raked its talons across Vigr's chest, its companion received a savage, reflexive kick, launching it away. The varul rose with a bellow, arm sweeping in a huge arc at the bird on his torso..!
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 5:03:33 GMT
Lorina struggled to breath. The pain... it was excruciating for her. The entire left side of her face wracked with agony, as if her brain and skull were trying to burst out of her skin. Her teeth gritted tight, and her nails started to dig into the skin.
"I'm... I'm fine." She lied, quite obviously at that. "Don't worry about me. Just a headache from the sea water. Nothing too... serious."
_______________
The kicked raven tumbled and sprawled across the sand, before it stopped as a disheaved mess. The one on Vigr's chest tried to leap up over the arm, but it was just a hair too slow, and the arm connected, knocking it down to the earth as well.
Both the first raven and the one that hadn't been attacked hissed, their tainted eyes glaring daggers at the creature, and their forked tongues slithered between their toothy maws...
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 5:45:34 GMT
Anzhela wrung one of her wrist. Her blue eyes were boring hard into Lorina.
"Okay," she replied eventually.
She was tempted to push the woman off now, while she was distracted, but she could likely reach shore from here and she did not want her to make amends with Vigr to jointly target her instead.
Besides, she no longer felt as threatened by the ghostly, assumably older woman. Her pain was obvious and it made the young woman pity her, even if it worked to her advantage at the moment.
-
Rising to his feet as if lifted by the hot rage billowing in his lungs, Vigr snarled and glared down at the ravens, surprised at their size, but unconcerned. Their bones would break all the same.
But, illuminated by the moonlight, something caught his eye that made him ignore the avian fiends: the fiery outline of the redheaded sable. And besides her, the ghostly woman. On his raft.
"Neiionn!" the varul howled, his hoarse voice echoing across the waves.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 5:58:29 GMT
Lorina's one visible eye widened as the voice of the varul reached her ears. He was awake now... and clearly enraged.
The dark mist continued to move the raft forward, further away from the shoreline. Lorina turned her head back toward the varul, and just as quietly turned her head back forward. It was all she could do at the moment, as anything else would have been too much.
"We're... We're too far out for him to get us... We should be s-safe." She winced again.
_____________________
All the while, the Hell Ravens cawed as the raft flowed away. Their caws began to change, however. That was once a deep, if not still clearly avian sound quickly lightened in tone, and became more human.
It was laughter that escaped from their beaks, very clearly human laughter. And it was directed at the varul. Even the one that had been knocked aside by the arm was up, and chuckling with laughter.
"Betrayed, are we?" A feminine, dark voice slithered from the raven's maws..."Humans for you... Rotten to the core and pathogenic backstabbers."
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 6:12:06 GMT
Vigr, who had been torn between entering the sea to give chase and mauling these birds to vent his anger, paused at the speaking raven. Ignoring the fact it was a talking bird, it surprised him by using Second Speak.
"<What are you?>" the varul growled. The patience it had earned was brief, so he hoped it answered curly.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 6:21:37 GMT
The lead raven, the one that was speaking, hopped closer. "I am someone like you, someone who's been betrayed, lied to, beaten around and mocked. I'm someone who was given a greater purpose in life, a purpose to lay waste to the enemies of my god and my master. You can call me Circe.. well, once you meet me in the flesh instead of through my servants."
The raven's many eyes peered into Vigr's own. "Perhaps... I can be of assistance? First getting you off this island and where we can speak face to face, and then... we can chat, have tea, play some games, or I can help you out with whatever else you need... unless you have your own way off this island."
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 7:11:47 GMT
"<You want something,>" Vigr growled. "<There is no free help. I have learned that today. As have I the power of mistrust. If you can truly help me leave this place, do so now. But not yet to you.>"
He could not allow himself to be taken to the home of some unknown being. For all he knew, there could be hundreds of birds waiting for him. He also needed to find his brother.
"<Send me to Matta. We can discuss further arrangements when I know you both have the powers you claim and can be trusted. Is this agreeable?>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 7:45:40 GMT
The Hell Raven's eyes seemed to darken. For what appeared to be several moments, the raven, nor its companions, said anything or did anything but stare back at Vigr. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the raven's eyes focused back on the varul.
"Matta? I... I admit, I do not know where that is in this world. I am a foreigner like you, one stuck so very far away but.... I do have a map of this continent and its surrounding islands with no names, but..."
The raven's head tilted. "I can come over to where you are at, or you can briefly come here, and I can send you there once I know where Matta is. And yes, There is something I would like help in return for, but that's your choice. I won't deceive or lie to you like your... raft stealers did."
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 7:56:19 GMT
"<You will come here,>" Vigr huffed. "<If we are practicing transparency, then I will tell you I cannot trust you not to disadvantage me. These... avatars of yours. This number would be easy to deal with. But you could control hundreds more.>"
The golden eyes of the varul moved about. A thoughtful rumble rose from his deep chest. "<If you feel threatened by me, I can retreat to a distance you are satisfied with before you arrive. Or the forest. It has vast trees. We could still hear one another from opposite sides of a truck, but its girth would separate us even if I were to pursue.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 8:27:14 GMT
"Me, threatened of you?" The raven hissed, fangs bared in the moonlight. " No need for any of your suggestions. I can speak to you on this beach."
From behind the ravens, a rift formed, a crackling maelstrom of dark energy on which the other side Vigr could not see. A hand reached through the rift, followed by a cloaked female body. The cloak covered the woman's frame, but what little could be seem, especially of her bare hands, was a ghastly sickly grey, more extreme than what Lorina had been. In her right hand was a scroll, no doubt the map she had spoken off. The hood of the cloak shrouded her face, but bits of long black hair could be seen dangling down. She wasn't particularly tall, in fact over a full head shorter than Lorina had been, yet the air around her was far heavier.
The ravens at once flew back to their master's side, and the lead one landed on her shoulder, which seemed almost too small to support a bird of that size. "Here I am, in the flesh. Surprised, amused perhaps?" She hissed. It was abundantly clear now that the words Vigr heard did not match the way her lips moved. Somehow, her words were being changed to fit what he understood.
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 8:35:32 GMT
The yellow light from the varul's eyes narrowed. "<Confused. By your hypocrisy. You are human.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 8:55:54 GMT
"Human... Me? HUMAN... ME?!" The woman snapped. She began to chuckle, lowly at first, before it grew into snorts and finally into full blown laughter. Her head lung back, and she laughed up into the night sky. This caused her hood to fall off, so as she looked back at Vigr, she covered it up again. "This frame, this vessel is human indeed... but I am not. My master, my god, he found a vessel for me to make my own, and planted me within here. I will be the first to admit, this human body is far from my preference... but I will not deny what my master has done for me. I am no more human than you are a dog!"
Her right hand held out the scroll. "But, that's besides the point. I'll gladly drop you off at your special place once I know where it is."
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Post by Stage on Aug 1, 2018 9:28:34 GMT
"<We varuls have a god,>" Vigr rumbled as he approached the woman. "<He is... disappointing. I hope you prove yourself better.>"
One of the varul's claws tapped the bottom of the map. An island, large and southerly, was beneath it.
"<This is Matta.>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 1, 2018 20:27:57 GMT
"I don't doubt that." Circe leaned over to examine the spot on the map Vigr had pointed out. A new scent hit the varul's sensitive nostrils when she got near.... the scent of rotten flesh. "Many would be gods and creators are just as flawed, if not moreso than their creations, no matter the world or timeline."
She peeled her face away from the map. "So that's Matta... I can drop you off somewhere on the island, hopefully not inside of a hill or a thousand feet above the ground..."
She turned, and held out an arm. "SQUMRDAQ KIBUSEIM!" She proclaimed. From the tips of her hand dark bolts of crackled and flew forward, before intercepting several feet ahead. The bolts collided, and turned into another rift.
"Next stop, your special island home..." Circe said...
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Post by Stage on Aug 2, 2018 5:13:31 GMT
Vigr did not hesitate to walk through the rift. He would rather go through first to survey what he found than let the woman go ahead and potentially prepare an ambush force for his arrival.
The scenery on the other side was indeed that of Matta. The tropical foliage surrounding him lacked the sheer height of that on Lall, but it was dense. So dense it might as well have been a wall to the varul.
There was, however, a clearing before him. He seemed to have arrived at the edge of a village of some sort. A crude statue of a giant serpent with the head of a bird stood like a pillar in the center of the settlement, and he could see the fair shapes of Pientans fleeing to the cover of their shanties. They were the taller, paler strain of Pientans. They were called lebra if he recalled correctly.
Locking eyes on one's shelter as it ducked out of sight, Vigr began to march towards it, intent on knocking it down and demanding to known if the lebra inside had seen Sven.
Something displayed in the entrance to the village glued him to the spot however.
It was the charred skull and spine of a varul balanced on top of a wooden spear. A pile of blackened bones laid beneath them as if they were sloughed off as easily as a coat. Beneath an ashy femur, something Vigr recognized as one of the pointless decorative trinkets his brother insisted wasting their money on glittered, its edges melted and laced into the hard ground.
The sound that fell from Vigr's slack jaw as he dropped to his knees was not a word or a sob or a yell, but a sound that wanted to be all three and stumbled over itself.
"<My brother!>" he cried when words finally returned to him. "<What did they do to my brother?>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 2, 2018 5:28:45 GMT
From the rift, Circe emerged as well with her ravens. Yet, she stopped when she noticed the scene that was playing out.
She weighed her options, and decided to stay silent and still for now. It was better than focusing the varul's wrath upon herself. And yet, the grisly sight of the varul's remains made her hands twitch and veins grow.
The cruelty of life, of civilization as a whole, on full display.
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 4:09:51 GMT
Vigr's eyes grew damp as he felt bile rise in his throat. Or at least he thought he felt it. His chest was so hot it was impossible to be sure. The varul tried to swallow, but could not. A hoarse, raged breath escaped his cracked jaws.
"<C... Can you speak their language?>" he rasped at last. His normally thunderous voice was weak.
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 4:21:37 GMT
Circe stepped forward. It wasn't the loud triumphant walk she had made when leaving the first rift, but a softer, more subdued step. "Of course. I can speak their tongue. The magic my master grants me... it allows anything I say to manifest in the hearer's native language, and vice versa. What might you want me to say to them? Issue a warning of death and desecration?"
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Post by Stage on Aug 3, 2018 4:24:51 GMT
"<Who?>" Vigr wheezed. "<Who did this to my brother?>"
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Post by Executus Gira on Aug 3, 2018 4:30:15 GMT
Circe pondered this request for a few moments. She slowly paced back and forth, a hand up to her exposed pale chin. "Alright. If you wish..."
She turned, and cleared her throat. When she spoke, the three ravens that had been with her flew out, and her voice carried out from their mouths through the entire village: " The skull of this creature here at the entrance... Who was it that slew this beast and placed it here? May this animal's hunter step out so I may see them. I promise, as a guest, I will not bite..."
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