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Tweak says, "Moose."

Caeleste Mods (caeleste_mods) wrote in caeleste,
@ 2011-01-25 18:24:00

Entry tags:

close to home, npc

No Way But Sideways [ Vargis ]
"Is that whiskey?"

Elden tucked the bottle back into his sleeve at the accusatory question. Hasna. He might as well have been turning to face a Drow for all the murder that was in her eyes. Ever since he came to the aide of the White Riders, he noticed that the women among them had a fine talent for catching him drink at the worst possible times. And he couldn't seem to wring a bit of sympathy from any of them. Elden could not exactly explain to Hasna what stressed him so about doing battle (other than the very obvious fear of dying in an old man's skin), so he often defaulted to saying that he was a drunk and that he thought more clearly if he had his whiskey. He opened his mouth to say this to the viper behind the mask but...luckily, Elden had a brief moment to lose his idiocy.

No, he'd rather die by the blade of a Grey Rider than whatever hellish way Hasna was picturing in her head.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Elden said instead. "Do you think we should put out this fire soon?"

The rafters had become quite bright with flame and he was fairly sure the thatched roof was completely ash now. Elden was crouched with Hasna a short distance away from the stables, which were probably quite an efficient place when their owner was in the city. Now it was a dead building that was surrounded by Greys. He'd been afraid that they would kill all of the horses inside, but they seemed more content to steal them at the moment. This wasn't the first fire that Hasna and Elden had visited. In fact, most of their journeys outside of the Castel so far involved something burning down. After the initial wave of fighting, the Captain consolidated most of the Riders into a single group to defend the Castel. Everyone else was given another task. The Captain had been very clear on what he wanted them to do -- the Grey Riders were going to work their way inward and try to break through the Castel wall. It was up to teams like the one he was on right now to work their way outward.

"Pick them off, I don't care how you do it," the Captain said to the small room of volunteers. "Help anyone you can find still in Simanel. Buy us all some more damned time."

There was an Army waiting off to the west. Captain Agrippa seemed to think Lady Seca was among them, supervising from afar. She was waiting to swoop in when this place was ash. Captain Agrippa seemed more worried about that than the Grey Riders, although Elden was half certain those foul cloaked men were going to make the good Captain lose his hair.

Elden was never a master of strategy, but he thought he understood politics. If the Grey Riders did the dirty work, the Army could clean up the rest. The Army could arrest or kill whoever they wanted. Threaten or bribe witnesses. In the end, the Army would make everyone believe they were the stabilizers, the protection. But the Grey Riders were the invisible knife. They would disappear with the smoke.

Ugly business, this was. Ugly business.

Many Riders had been uncomfortable doing the shady sort of work that he, Hasna and Vargis were doing, so they were back defending the wall of the Castel. This was how he used to defend his homeland. Elden felt more comfortable with the work than Hasna seemed to.

She snatched the whiskey from him. Elden frowned.

"It's burning very fast," he said, sourly.

Most of the time, Elden managed to put out the fire. Or at the very least, stop structures from being completely destroyed. Hasna didn't seem to want to stop this one.

"I know," she said. "There are eight of them."

"Nine. One's hiding on the roof of the house," Elden said, cheerily. "Oh. Wait. Nevermind, your fellow got to him."

"My fellow?"

"Yes, you know, Vargis, your...well, you mean to tell me you two never..."

"Shut up. Just shut up and do whatever magic it is that you do. Let's knock them into the flames they've made."

She might have been a killjoy when it came to his drinking, but Elden couldn't complain about how that wonderful mind of hers worked. He rolled up his sleeves and put his hands against the earth. The ground rippled outward in a tightly controlled wave -- the force of it knocked many of the Riders by the burning stable from their feet. One sunk into the earth, the other was made to choke on dirt when he fell face down and the earth wouldn't release him.

Hasna gripped his shoulders to keep her balance. Vargis should have been fine on the roof. If not, then he'd still come out of a shadow somewhere. Elden was convinced that man had more lives than a cat.

He moved with Hasna the second she drew her blade. Out into the square, bold as brass. This part was the part that made Elden long for his whiskey. But it was also his favorite.

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proscribed
2011-01-26 12:59 am UTC (link)

Hanging as he was, with a pair of Grey Rider searching the second floor for him while the fellow on the roof remained blissfully unaware of his presence, Vargis had a measure of time to think about how it was that he'd ended in these circumstances. The Path of Fire was not for children. It was meant to keep your body in peak physical condition. He was as fit as a man his age could be, but he also traveled light, which was part of the reason his bony hands hadn't yet failed him in his desperate clutch. There was a fire, somewhere, and it was billowing out of the windows as though fueled by the will of Tyr. He had perhaps five minutes before the whole structure collapsed beneath him. Less, perhaps, if the wood was of poor quality. There'd been only one person in the house. She'd tried to resist. And she'd begged him to let her die when he'd finally found her.

Whatever they'd done... well, that was why he was here, wasn't it? Not to arrest them. Not to have them tried. This was a fight to the death. They had tricks, these Grey Riders, some of them that he couldn't believe. Men who turned to stone. Men who could vanish and reappear just as he could. Men who threw fire from their swords. That one, he'd seen the boy do on occasion, but he'd assumed foolishly that it was just something Eragos could do. Now everyone who wanted Vargis dead could do it, and they were not shy about showing it.

She was still waiting for him. He was running out of time. He also didn't want to die as he came out of the house.

One foot hooked over the side of the roof. Vargis pulled himself up, flat on his stomach, peering over his mask with bright eyes. There was one archer on the roof. He'd apparently found something he liked down below, because he was watching. Watching and facing away from Vargis. There was that grey cloak over his shoulders, thrown back so that he could hold his longbow with two hands. Vargis slid across the roof as though he were born to crawl in ash and hot shingle. There was an abysmal black stain upon the front of his tunic, but that would have to wait. White was not a good color for sneaking about. As he crawled, he managed to tuck one of those slender knives from his belt between his teeth. The breathing which he managed to do was labored and desperate.

This was not as easy as it sounded.

There it was. A whisper of sound. The spotter was present, after all, and he was starting to suspect they weren't alone. The orange glow from below was making it hard to see, for the both of them. Vargis supposed he'd picked up so much smoke and ash that he seemed a part of the roof, with its plain shingles. If the fire went much longer without collapsing, the tar was going to start boiling. Then they'd be in trouble.

For the last ten feet, there was no time for subtlety. He could see the outline of the spotter coming closer. Vargis shoved hard with his palms flat, bringing his feet up beneath him, and got a running start. One heel was planted, hard, at the last second. The other slammed into the small of the Grey Rider's back. With a surprised and panicked cry he sailed over the edge of the roof, and toward the burning stable below.

Let him see how fire suited. Vargis turned in time to hurl the needle-thin knife with all of his might. Through the eye of the spotter, also wreathed in grey.

Beneath his feet, the building gave a massive heave, as though summoning the last of its soul to stave off death. By now the men on the second floor had given up looking. Either that, or they were going to catch him as soon as he returned. It didn't matter. He was on the wrong side of the house, now, and whatever magic they were working below didn't bode well for him. Vargis left the knife behind - he started running, toward the spot where he'd climbed up in the first place.

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caeleste_mods
2011-02-03 02:27 am UTC (link)

Hasna thought the heat from the stables might melt the mask to her face even as she breathed heavily through it. She shoved her blade into the first grey-cloaked man she came across - still on the ground from Elden's magic - and did not stop to watch him die. She and Elden were no secret now and Hasna was not sure if she preferred it this way.

The earth shifted again and she did not look to see if Elden was alright. She had begun to trust the dirty drunk half of the way to Simanel. He was a strange sort of magician. He never read books when they made camp. He claimed to be taught everything he knew by either a tree or a whore, depending on when she asked him the question. She would have called him a fake, if she'd met him in the street. Now he was watching her back.

And Vargis. Vargis was...there wasn't much time to guess where he was. It was always so hard to tell. She'd gotten another of the Greys through the throat. Blood was on her uniform to prove it. Strange, that Conlan would be there at the Castel to forgive her for this. He wouldn't ask after the blood, for once. He'd asked this task of her. Where were the lectures on the merits of a trial and the strengths of respecting the law? She missed those lectures.

Hasna thought of Conlan's eyes now whenever she killed these gray cloaked mercenaries. They reminded her of the way he was in his youth, when you could never guess where his mind was headed next. She used to be jealous of Conlan back then. But now that they were all older, she knew she never wanted that sort of mind. That sort of job.

Her arms were having a hard time keeping their speed. Hasna blamed her age. Five dead and three to go, and even if not all of them used dragon scales, the one directly across from her seemed to be ready to. She was too far away to strike him first -- she had no magic.

Hasna bit hard on her lip beneath her mask and adjusted her grip on the sword. It was a stupid thing to do, but the only thing she could do. She used all of her strength to hurl her blade -- a trick she learned in her youth, used mostly at drunken parties and to scare bandits out of a fight. Her arm and aim was still as good as it was then. The sword ended up embedded in the Grey's chest. The surprised look as he fell back into the burning stables almost made up for the fact that she'd thrown her best weapon.

Another Grey was headed toward her. Knives were not her strong suit. Neither were dragon scales. Whichever he had, she would have to find a weapon. Something she could lift and use without dying.

There was a corpse five feet away. What weapon did he have? Could she get there fast enough?

"Elden!" she called out, feeling too winded. The damn heat. The screaming horses. "Vargis!"

"Working on it!" Elden called.

"Faster!" Hasna yelled back.

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proscribed
2011-02-04 05:08 am UTC (link)

Smoke could not be breathed in through this mask. Yet it stung his eyes as he flung himself further and further into the burning structure. In one of these rooms lurked a woman, and it was that woman for whom he searched. Regardless of the danger to himself. Well, not entirely regardless. He would have to rethink his position on the youngsters and their full-face masks, provided he lived through this incident and saw one of them again. The young ones were dying at an alarming rate. Vargis did not know precisely what was waiting for him, assuming they got away.

The old Rider whipped around a corner. There was a fellow in grey, and he had murder on his mind. That sword extended like a wizard's staff. Half a second. Vargis made no outward movement - yet the lightning snapped, and seared the air between them with a tremendous clap of thunder. Just when it seemed ready to strike Vargis the bolt stopped short, spraying outward as it struck something forcible and invisible. All of those alchemists had been right, after all. Lightning traveled through air - it did not displace it. If there was no air through which it could travel, it would not strike him.

Incredible. He'd somehow survived.

"Impossible," the Grey Rider said.

As the house heaved violently beneath them Vargis hurled himself forward. One vicious stab of the knife, just below the shoulder, into the arm pit. A second. A third. A hard and arrogant slap against the Grey Rider's sword arm. The fourth stab of the knife went into the fellow's neck. He was dead before he hit the ground. Vargis was running again, trying to stay low, trying to ignore the creaking of beams above his head. Knives were shoved into his belt.

She was there, waiting, but someone had found her. At the end of the hall, near a window. She'd probably stuck her head outside to try and get air. Call for help. The one Vargis had just killed must have been the one. She was stabbed through the chest. Face fixed in horror, trying to scream. Vargis' lip curled beneath his mask. She'd had just enough to feel intense agony before she died. One last second spent in sympathy for the dead, and then he was on his way. The rope around the Grey Rider's shoulder was uncoiled with all possible haste. Vargis tied it tight around the Grey Rider's waist. As tight as he could. The other end was looped twice through Vargis' belt. Then the White RIder began to drag the corpse down the hall.

When he arrived at the large window, Vargis took a moment to tie the rope tightly to a collapsed beam. It was necessary to slap down the fire on the thing - probably another minute before it burned through the rope. Why had this fellow brought rope in the first place? It didn't matter. One, two hard jerks on the rope. The beam held. He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," was what he said.

The Grey Rider's body soared out of the window as if a giant had hurled it. In reality, it was thrown using the power of the mind alone, and Vargis was already scrambling out on the rope. For just a moment the rope was suspended over the stables, the force of the Grey Rider's trajectory such that the rope was pulling taut. Three seconds. Vargis began to slid across the rope, one gloved hand over the other and slipping where he could. Now the Grey Rider's body was falling down. Yet the White RIder had, in his desperate climb, cleared most of the heat of the flames.

He let go, and crashed to the ground with a tumbling shoulder roll designed to keep him from breaking his ankles. He would see precisely how well it had worked when the pain died down. He ended in an ungainly sprawl, steam and smoke rising from his shoulders in equal measure.

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caeleste_mods
2011-02-20 12:36 am UTC (link)

Elden could see where Vargis had come down from the burning house and was surprised that there was more steam than smoke coming off the man's uniform. They would have to check him when there was a moment to breathe. He wasn't dead. But there was a good chance Hasna would be if Elden didn't do what she said.

This fight would have been much easier if Elden did not have to wear this robe, this skin. Elden came from a youth with vicious roots. He could still battle in the way of his people if his form permitted it. Magic was an excellent tool, but there were times when it did not move as fast as a body could. Or perhaps it wasn't the magic that was the problem. Maybe too much drink, he thought, was the cause for all his sweating.

Earth magic involved a lot of knowledge, but not the sort that came from books. A good mage went around pressing his hands against the ground and testing soil. A good earth mage paid attention to what grew where and for how long. A lucky mage went visiting Dwarves in what mountains still stood. Elden's history with the Free Cities was very long, so he knew this ground well. It was why the earth before Hasna's feet could crumble like bread and fall away into an abyss that only Elden knew the end to.

Underground springs were quite numerous in Simanel. The Grey Rider that screamed on the way down may or may not have appreciated what water and jagged rock he found. He could have been engulfed in flame, which seemed a far worse death to Elden.

Elden flexed his fingers before he hid them in his sleeve. There was no one left in the square that was not dead or dying. His first instinct was to go start checking the dead Greys for dragon scales, which he had every intention of throwing into the fire. Lady Vera defended that Eragos Feareborne and his ways very strongly, but Elden viewed the whole lot of Dragon Knights as a threat. No one else needed to come across such scales, and no one certainly had the right to wear them again after all that had been done.

Before he could do that, however, there was the steaming body of their comrade on the ground. Elden moved toward Vargis first. Hasna was not far behind. She had picked up a sword from one of the corpses on her way.

He knelt down beside Vargis.

"Need help, friend?"

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proscribed
2011-03-04 03:28 pm UTC (link)

He was violently coughing into a gloved fist when Elden approached him. There was something strange about the wizard. How he seemed not to be there when he was needed and was always present when he wasn't. Vargis might have taken issue with that, if he did not know what it meant. People with secrets were the ones who did not always appear as they were needed. Vargis certainly could think of dozens of times that Conlan could have used the help of his best friend. Yet that best friend was nowhere to be found. Vargis shoved off the ground with his palms flat, brought his knees under his stomach and managed to lurch to his feet. The experience was somewhere between total agony and mere brutal pain. He wondered at the difference, and why he'd never before thought that such things could be calculated.

He ought to be dead ten times over today.

"I'll let you know," he seethed.

Shoulders were fine. Ankles were not broken. Aches in his hips told him that a few hours from now he'd have a very difficult time of the walking or running, unless someone healed him. He might just let himself die in peace somewhere, given how difficult it was to keep the healers even at half-strength. Mask was cracked. Ought to be able to get it patched. There was a good man in the main district who... who probably was dead.

Vargis laughed behind that cracked mask.

"They're all dead," the White Rider said next. "I suppose that means we should be on our way."

It was the thundering of hooves that cut him short. There, in the hazed smoke, they were. A pair of riders cloaked in gray. Ordinarily Vargis would have suggested dealing with them. Yet the protests of his weary body gave him pause. Could he be fast enough or accurate enough to fight, feeling as he did? An experimental limping, lurching advance told him everything he needed to know. It was time to withdraw to the Castel, though he wouldn't make them come along, and then he would get busy with the trying to stay alive though injured.

"I think it's time to go," he finished.

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