[color=a8a8a8]The journey to the 𝙻𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚋𝚛𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚗 range from Saarbrücken was eventful. The distance was fair; a conservative twenty days by way of foot. An estimate not accounting for the dim nature of Purgatory and the Stygian sentiments of its inhabitants. The actual journey itself had taken an amount of time, nevermind exactly how long, approaching a Kalpa - not only in what had been felt and endured along the way, but also in the intensity of how nebulous and uncertain the journey had been in the quaint dimensions of time and space. In perpetuity, Amaign had held within his heart the fear the call of their labors would precede them, only to be constantly - endlessly derided and chastised in turn by the unchanging assurance:[/color]

"We shall arrive in the fullness of time; as it is willed things be in their proper place we trespass widdershinwise across the currents. Victory is preordained, and so we must be there."

[color=a8a8a8]An assurance as bleak in its incredulity as it was bleak in its daunting immensity. They had stopped, countless times, to permit the Questor to hare off on some other allegedly fated errand. Twice were they beset upon by men who held malign will upon their hearts. Once did the shadows themselves shudder and writhe, clawing like blades of earth to claim them. Twice, to inspect upon the wholeness or else the riven tapestry of a settlement. Four times in what must have been as many weeks - months? Years? - they waged battle against gruesome and appalling standard-bearers.

Once, in an encounter that had stolen away Amaign's awe and breath, an enormity of both light and dark - a singular being of ineffable power had lightly trod through the air, forcing them to bask in its presence and either yield or perish, as certain as sorrow.

Yet the Questor had done neither. She had planted the haft of her partisan into the earth, stood in open defiance of that chthonian being, and said the same thing she might have flung at the faces of any of the damned, great and small.[/color]

"Our victory is preordained! Our rendezvous is greater still than ye, stand aside lest I be forced to upbraid and find you wanting."

[color=a8a8a8]The trembling of the whole of the world as the sky itself fragmented to pieces and bled starlight, Amaign was certain, must have been that principality's laughter. 

But it had passed them by, like a glacier screaming.

When Amaign had ventured to ask why she had not insisted on confronting it, she spoke in a manner he rarely saw her demonstrate. A seemingly rational and collected mind, far departed from the all-too-zealous crusader and warrior he often bore witness to.[/color]

"Bear in mind, our quest is not to bring war to the adversary. Our quest is to find the Herald of Light. There shall come a day when we array and present ourselves before the end, but this is not that day. It is possible that we might have prevailed had we been forced to confront that grave fiend, but while our ultimate victory is preordained...I admit I am not wholly certain it was due here. To fall at this juncture would have been a travesty, and so we shall continue as planned."

[color=a8a8a8]But that moment of lucidity was brief. As long as those individual journeys had taken, as far abroad their chosen path as they strayed, still did the Questor insist that they would arrive on time, as certain as steel. Madness. 

They risked sanity and haleness camping out in the open, for the Questor would insist they were not common vagrants or blackguards who would lurk in the dark. They risked being hunted and prosecuted by agents of the adversary, for the Questor brazenly bore an illuminated Emblem of the Seekers upon the face of their plate armor, softly alight with a faint glow by way of some nameless ritual she had evoked. They risked theft and needless confrontation, for the Questor insisted he openly carry their arms and kit rather than endeavor to conceal it. At some point in their journey, Amaign had been stabbed in the thigh by some wretched, ragged being that attempted to make off with his purse and his shortsword, though thankfully the Questor had smote the thief upon the stark road before it could flee through the shadows.

The Questor, they could see now, was mad. Their senses had taken leave, departed to some forgotten land. They would fight and die in pursuit of their goal. They [i]had[/i] fought and died in pursuit of their goal. They threw their defiance against the endless, ravenous clutching shadows of Purgatory despite the futility of doing so, all in service of a single forlorn hope. He had known that was the case, of course. He had been warned his choice would bring him nothing but grief and misery. The naysayers and doubters had been right, Amaign was now certain. This was a fruitless, damned, and futile endeavor. Naught but death and anguish awaited him, and he had every cause to know that his demise would be as slow as it would be gruesome.

But he had given his word.

And at times, in the occasional moments of Purgatory's twilight as the Questor marched on, head held high, emblem of the Seekers brightly shining upon her breast, unafraid and full of certitude - Amaign felt something other than despair and the grim tedium that had plagued his former life. For the briefest of moments, he knew that salvation was not only possible, but entirely at his own hands. These moments were fleeting and in his many moments of introspection upon the road he would cynically curse himself for such foolishness, but in the secret, sacred depths of his heart did he find himself changed for the better.[/color]

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[color=a8a8a8]"There is nothing but death in there." Amaign said with some disgust as they approached the wall of the forest between them and the mountains. A morass of dead wood, muck, swamp and countless horrors writhing in the damp.[/color]

"No different than the remainder of purgatory. The forest is simply less deceitful in its appearance." [color=a8a8a8]Levia replied.[/color] "You may cover the kit, bind it all tightly against the damp but keep the javelins at-hand. While you do that...I shall prepare to light our way through the murk. Hand me one of the whetstones and bottles." [color=a8a8a8]She set down upon a nearby bolder, and once Amaign had fetched her a a small pocket-stone from one of his bags and a small tin bottle with a top that was corked and tied with cloth she began to hum, faintly. The ritual she was about to perform was not a hymn, but the familiar practice assisted with her concentration as she wove an occult force upon her partisan's blade.

"Are you certain that is wise? The inhabitants will be drawn to the light..." Amaign protested, albeit not with gravity.[/color]

"If the choice is to blunder head-first into them in the dark or to work our way through a maze of their thronging hordes in the light, I choose the light." [color=a8a8a8]Levia muttered back in reply.[/color] "We need not remain therein for long. We shall rush through to the mountains, and hopefully outpace and outmaneuver the remnant denizens."

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[color=a8a8a8]Thankfully, the gleaming, empyrean starlight shining from the blade of Levia's partisan proved to be less a danger to them as Amaign had anticipated. The decayed were present in great number, yes - but not so great as he imagined. They would arise from the mud and sodden earth sluggishly by the dozen, not by the hundreds as he had imagined. Illuminating the forest and casting away the shadows as though day had visited them, the two were able to clearly find their way around the monstrosities where they were encountered - and in the one instance where it would have been too dangerous to go around, the Questor made short work of the dregs, her blade cresting through the air like a trace of lightning as the glowing weapon cut down the ravenous dead, their dulled senses flinching and recoursing from the brilliance of the light in close proximity. The two did not stay to permit for the decayed to rise again where they had been maimed, simply cutting through the gap in their numbers and trailing off at speed, leaving the dreck behind.

They were making good time, with suspiciously few mishaps - until, in the far distance, accompanied by a scream, a ring of fire appeared. It was obscured by the maze of intersecting trees and boughs, but the wavering flecks of its light and wavering shape could be made out as the two moved through the brush.[/color]

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[quote=Corbric][color=a8a8a8]“We will have died just as well without the fire, as with it. Unless thy useless tongue hath some brilliant plan to save us then still it, and let me think!”[/color][/quote]
[color=a8a8a8]Not but a moment later, as his mind raced to formulate an escape or tactic of some kind, he spotted a bobbing light, dancing in the distance. Like a will-o-wisp, but less ephemeral. The light was more [i]solid[/i] somehow, and clear, like gleaming starligh - and it was rapidly approaching. As it wove between the many trees, he caught sight of two figures.

One was a man-at-arms, wearing full plate armor and bearing a long partisan, which was the source of the starlight. The blade was aglow by means of some occult hymn, casting the knight's surroundings in a bright, discerning light. Emblazoned upon the breast of their armor was the emblem of the Seekers, wrought in crimson. Just behind the armored figure was what clearly must have been their squire, a young man of perhaps fifteen or sixteen summers wearing light chainmail and burdened with several packs of gear and a long leather and cloth bolt filled with what appeared to be, of all things, [i]javelins.[/i]

The knight appeared to have appraised Corbric and Nimson's situation, for having come within twenty meters he heard a feminine voice shout and call out in Latin to the thronging hordes of Decayed that had started to arise and throng about the ring of fire.[/color]

"Hark and behold, nameless curs of the wanton and filthy earth! Behold fabled starlight! Come and have at ye, I shall laxen and ease your suffering forevermore!" [color=a8a8a8]Using their offhand, the knight reached into the bolt their squire clutched between their arms and hefted one of the javelins aloft.[/color]

"Come hither, and be smote to return to this world untainted once more! Follow the light! Come unto me, stray away from the fires of damnation!"

[color=a8a8a8]By now, most of the Decayed had turned away from the flames - unable to clearly discern the two men within the ring with their dulled senses - and paid heed to the brighter, farther-cast light source and the shouting figure calling to them all. They began to shamble towards her, though some remained behind out of listless confusion.[/color]

"Ye shall abandon your savage ways and be returned, pure and hale, nevermore to cast ill upon your fellow man! For victory..."

[color=a8a8a8]The knight cast the javelin through the air, the weapon arcing through the span of trees with a perfect trajectory.[/color]

"...is preordained!" [color=a8a8a8]The javelin flew over the heads of the first row of Decayed and bit into the body of one who stood in the second, who stumbled back from the force, knocking over their neighbors and those immediately behind them. Now fully interested in the attacker that had assailed them from their circle of light, the throng of Decayed began to swarm towards the knight and their squire.

Continuing to shout promises of castigation and rebirth, the knight waved their partisan in the air as they started to retreat, pulling the horde of Decayed away from the ring of fire. More Decayed also appeared to be closing in on them from the opposite direction, but the light from their spear let them see most of the threats coming, and the knight seemed to have an escape route planned as they gestured to their squire to follow. 

Escape through the dark of the woods was still not certain for Corbric and Nimson, but the odds looked ever-so-faintly better than they had a moment before.[/color]