AmongHeroes

Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

Thomas smirked at Jax, the gesture making his swollen cheek smart painfully. “Aye, I had a feeling my luck was to change, so I suppose I should thank the brigand,” He said, kicking at the corpse at his feet. “That doesn’t mean I won’t make you suffer for every peso you swindle from me, sea-artist. Another time indeed.”

The helmsman walked off, leaving Thomas alone beneath the hawkish stare of Commander Murray. The soldier moved to stand beside the pirate captain, and joined Thomas in viewing the body.

“Your penchant for bringing trouble will be the death of you, Thomas,” Murray whispered, not looking up.

“Perhaps.”

“With utmost certainty, you mean. Providence has only granted you so many pardons my friend. Will you not save any for a life beyond sailing beneath black sails?”

Thomas gave the soldier a sideways glance. He had fought beside Thomas several times during Spanish attacks against Port Royal, and had even sailed with the man once during an expedition for the legendary Henry Morgan. Murray was the antithesis to Thomas in many ways, and in truth they should’ve been bitter enemies. In spite of their differences, it was their similarities that had proven to be more paramount to the nature of their association. They were both rigorously loyal, and though their individual definitions were most often opposing, they both lived by a code of honor. Or in Thomas’ case, some semblance of one.

“I pray,” Thomas replied. “That I will never have a life without the wind in my face, and the yearning press of adventure in my gut.”

Murray nodded sagely, conceding the discussion. The soldier noticed the approach of a man whose elegant dress and attractive countenance brought a furrow of confusion to his brow. “You keep strange bedfellows, Thomas Lightfoot.”

As Murray slipped away to return to his men, Thomas spoke after him in a soft voice. “You have no idea.”

Antonia, or the man who the rogue was pretending to be, spoke his name and came to stand beside him. Thomas nodded his acknowledgement about the meeting at the Parakeet. Her mention of the First Mate wiping the floor with him in gleek brought a smile to his face that once again morphed into a wince.

“Your concern is ever appreciated, my good man,” he said with a twinkle in his chestnut eyes.

She turned to leave, and Thomas hand shot out to clutch her by the wrist. Her attention returned to him fractionally, and in that moment he slipped the stiletto knife into a pocket of her lavish coat.

”I thank you,” he spoke to her in buccaneer French, ”For everything.” The import of his meaning was plain, and he needed no more words to express his gratitude. Such sentiment was an unusual thing for Thomas, and even as he dwelled upon that, he realized that Nicolette also deserved such attentions. The women amongst his crew were proving to have inestimable worth.

He released her hand, and watched Antonia walk away to join with the woman Madeliene. Thomas looked about the Black Boar and saw that both his First Mate and the sea-artist were preoccupied with their own tasks, so he resolved to use the time before he was to meet them at the Parakeet to take care of some of his own.

Thomas gave Murray a slight nod as he departed the tavern. Turning towards the waterfront, and the North Docks beyond, he began to reload and prime his spent pistols. He was a pirate captain walking the streets of Port Royal alone after having killed several members of a rival crew, and though Thomas was not fearful, he was ever mindful of the reality of the world in which he lived.

With his pistols reloaded and stowed once again in their holsters, Thomas wound his way through the stinking alleys and rough streets until he was at the wharf where the Dusk Skate was moored. The sentries guarding the great ship instantly stepped aside to let him pass, and Thomas climbed the gangway onto the main deck. The ship was mostly empty, save for several more sentries that patrolled the fore and aft castles, and those amongst the crew that had no desire to lay their head in the port. It was one of these men that Thomas sought.

He found the man snoring loudly in a hammock suspended between two cannon on the gun deck. Thomas whistled lightly, and the man awoke instantly.

“Cap’n?” the man said, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“Aye, Dujo. I have work for you.”

Dujo sat up. “Name it.”

Thomas nodded to the Dusk Skate’s quartermaster. Dujo, a short man of only five foot two, was the progeny of a French rascal and a whore of Carib Indian descent. His appearance reflected his mixed parentage, as his skin was a reddish-brown, while his hair was a matted tangle of bright blond strands set into broad dreadlocks, and interwoven with sea-shells and turtle bones. Through his sharp nose was set a ring of jade, and his ears were pierced with the small beaks of a sparrow. The man’s voice was a high mix of French and Carib inflections, and his eyes were dark and deep-set into a face with high cheek bones.

“We must prepare to sail, within the next two days.” Thomas said to Dujo.

“Two days?” Dujo whispered excitedly. “So soon Cap’n? Grim work, will it be?”

“Aye, but the prize is too great to miss.”

Dujo nodded, his jaw setting and unsetting as he thought. “Shall I prepare the Skate for iron, sir?” The man indicated the need to outfit the ship for the possibility of a rough sea engagement.

Thomas nodded. “We will be poking the Don most stringently, Dujo. Make her ready for such.”

“With pleasure, Cap’n.” The quartermaster’s ebony eyes narrowed. “There will be questions, and much excitement in the town. You know I cannot keep such preparations silent for long.”

Thomas shrugged. “There is nothing for it, and all the more reason for haste. Time is not on our side in this venture, Dujo. I trust that you will have her ready by the day after next.”

“Ne’er you worry, Cap’n. She’ll be ready with bells on ‘er toes.”

With that, Dujo stalked off to begin his work, leaving Thomas alone with the cannon. For several minutes he set next to the massive bronze instruments of destruction, his mind wandering over the voyage to come. It would be a great miracle to find the lost Spanish galleon, and even if they found nothing, the journey into such a heavily traveled Spanish sea lane bordered on insanity. Thomas scratched at his beard and sighed, thinking back to Murray’s words about him tempting Providence. “’Tis the way of things,” he said to himself.

Thomas stood, resolved to tell his compatriots at the Parakeet of the coming adventure, and made his way once again into the fetid avenues of Port Royal. As he stepped into the dim tavern for the second time that night, he looked about for the figures of his First Mate, the sea-artist, or the rogue Antonia.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Hey all, sorry I've been a little absent in the OOC. Real life has had me full up. I won't be free to post until Tuesday.

It's been fun reading all the great posts you all have written, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Just a note to everyone:

Dead Cruiser is no longer an active participant in this RP. His character will no longer be used or referenced.

Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

With the recoil of his second pistol shot still shivering in his hand, Thomas spun the weapons in his hand to brandish the brass-capped butts like clubs. Without a word he plunged into the crowd of corsairs who were still cringing from the shot. The impromptu bludgeons swung with deadly effect; smashing jaws, cracking noses, and crushing throats. Screams and cries of pain filled the Black Boar, and through his drunkenness Thomas felt a surge of pleasant adrenaline.

Thomas method of combat was a fluid dance of chaos, perfected and taught by none other than hard experience and the occasional word of wisdom from a fellow brigand. Fighting was something that had been a part of his life since Lightfoot had saved Thomas as a boy, and the first hard lesson the legendary pirate had taught him was that the man that fights without limits, fights upon the side of victory. In Thomas’ estimation, a gentleman who saves his virtue in combat will just as soon lose his life.

Thomas spat into the eyes of a burly pirate raising a hatchet above his head. Blinded, the pirate wavered in his motion, and Thomas struck him hard across the temple with the butt of a pistol. Instantly the man crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and Thomas spun to engage the next of the corsairs.

In this briefest of lulls, Thomas called back to Jax, who was in the process of plowing through a group of seaman with a chair. “I’ll save the balls…” Thomas ducked beneath a wild haymaker from his left, “…you save the rum!” The now off-balance corsair that had thrown the punch received a cruel stomp to the back of his knee, then a second to kick to the head as he fell. The man lay unconscious or dead, Thomas could not tell, and truly he did not care a whit for the man’s disposition.

A pistol report from off to his right drew Thomas’ attention, and he spun just in time to see his First Mate deftly toss the assailant onto the floor, knocking him out cold. Somewhere in the back of his drunken mind he made a mental note of the woman’s composure and skill. He would recall it later, and dwell upon its deadly efficacy. In the middle of the bedlam, even though it had taken only mere seconds to observe, Thomas had let his attention become singularly focused upon the sight of Nicolette dispatching the corsair. He failed to perceive the second pistol, this one held by the Feather’s own First Mate, being trained upon him.

Thomas felt himself being grabbed, and before he could even consider a response he was being flung backwards. He heard yet another blast of powder, accompanied by the hiss-snap of a lead ball as it flew past his head. Then, like a spring being released, he was standing again. Still wholly disoriented, Thomas was met with a caramel face with delicate features and grey eyes filled with a demonic fury. His mind had only time to complete one thought before the man who had saved his life spoke. Those eyes…

Then the man spoke, saying words of admonishment for drinking piss water, and then beckoning death’s embrace. Even in the midst of the still roiling fight, Thomas could not but stand stunned as he viewed the slim, cat-like man in the dandified clothing stalk away from him. The man spat something about retrieving his knife, and Thomas tracked the man’s gaze back to the dying corsair with the hilt of a stiletto blade protruding from his throat.

Still in a thin trance of bewilderment, Thomas looked back. His blank expression at last brightened as realization struck him. Antonia!?

The next thing to strike him was a fist, and it caught him high upon his left cheek. Thomas lurched to his right, stumbled, and fell atop the body of the hemorrhaging First Mate. Stars burst before his vision, and only his innate skill allowed him to roll to safety as a boot-heel landed where his neck had just been. The roll had taken him over the top of the now dead First Mate, and as he completed the roll, his right hand clutched around the bloody hilt of the knife.

Using his remaining momentum, Thomas came up on one knee facing the man that had struck him. In a flash the small knife came up, burying itself into the soft flesh near the man’s groin. With a resounding scream from the stabbed corsair, Thomas removed the blade. A river of blood from the wound followed with it. As the man began to collapse into his own pool of blood, Thomas stood.

Disoriented from the blow though he was, Thomas pulled the dagger from the strap at his back, and wielded in a reverse grip in his right hand. The smaller stiletto he had acquired was held in his left. With a ferocity that belied his injury and sobriety, Thomas moved to kill yet another pirate of the Crimson Feather.

A gunshot, insanely loud in the confines of the Boar, halted him in his tracks. It was not the sound of a pistol shot, no, it had the unmistakable roar of a long-musket. With the noise ringing in his ears, Thomas heard the hoarse cry of “Avast! Avast, damn you, in the name of His Excellency, the Governor!”

Through the cloud of smoke, Thomas made out Commander Robert Murray, the officer of the garrison at Fort Charles. Beside him stood a dozen men, armed with muskets trained indiscriminately into the crowd of pirates. The fighting in the Black Boar ceased instantly, and all eyes affixed upon the red-coated soldiers lining the walls of the tavern.

The handsome and ridgid commander looked about the crowd, his expression sour and disapproving. “You will all disperse at once, or be locked in Fort Charles on pain of penalty!”

In the lull, Thomas could see that the crew of the Skate had laid waste to those of the Feather. Many of the corsairs lay dead, dying, or severely wounded about the tavern. Those that remained saw the reality of their situation, and they were quick to take the commander up on his offer of a safe escape. Slowly, the tavern began to empty, the watchful eyes of the garrison soldiers never leaving the crowd.

With his chest still heaving from exertion, Thomas sheathed his dagger. There was nothing for it now. The governor was careful to provide a safe harbor for the pirates in Port Royal, for indeed it was the pirates that kept the Spanish at bay, and in turn kept gold flowing into the coffers of both the governor and the king himself. Still, the pirates of the Caribbean would be foolish to cast away the hospitality and legitimacy—paper thin though it was—afforded by the Crown.

The buzz of adrenaline began to fade as Thomas retrieved his pistols from the floor, and jammed them into their leather holsters. Pain throbbed with staccato heat upon his cheek, and even now he could feel the flesh swelling around his eye. He began to step towards the door, rubbing gingerly at his cheek when he came to the corpse of the corsair that had first held the knife to his back. Thomas stopped, staring down at the faceless bloody pulp of the head.

He fished into his pocket and removed a silver reale. Kneeling, he placed it almost reverently upon the man’s still chest. “For the boatman,” he said quietly.

Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

Captain Thomas Lightfoot was drunk, and no mistake. As he stared at the cards in his hand, he had to squint one eye to make the collage of numbers and suits cease to double in his vision. After a time, he tossed more coins into the pot and placed his bid. His one open eye looked around to the two other men around the table, and his expression was one of overt challenge, his smog of grog notwithstanding.

“Well? What’ll it be you tottering swine-bred louts?” Thomas said, looking down his nose at the two seamen.

Begrudgingly, the two men finally declared their hands, and Thomas found he had yet again won the lion’s share of the pot. “By God’s bones!” Thomas yelled, much too loud, a lopsided smile splitting his face. He began to rake the coins towards his lap when he saw the figures of Nicolette and Jax enter the Black Boar. The winnings were forgotten, and he stood and waived an arm at his first mate, and the accompanying sea-artist.

“Ahoy!” He called out, “finally you’ve made it.” Thomas looked back down to the two men who were still sitting at the table, eyeing the pile of coins hungrily. His palms slammed down on the table, and Thomas passed his face before each of the rough men. “Ne’er you worry, my dear friends. I shall watch over the safety of your lost coinage.” Thomas expression shifted to a sour one. “Now piss off.”

With apparent anger in their faces, the two men stood, and stalked off into the still large crowd. They were instantly forgotten to Thomas, and he thudded himself back into his chair, motioning for Jax and Nicolette to take the recently vacated seats. As he waited for the two to join him, his eyebrows raised as he looked about the tavern. Even in his drunken stupor, he could see that the Boar was now filled with members of another privateer crew, as well as his own. To Thomas’ eyes, they looked to be from the Crimson Feather, a most notoriously cruel and barbaric ship of corsairs that had recently moved into the Caribbean from the Mediterranean Sea.

What Thomas failed to notice, was that the two men he had most recently relieved of their coins were gunners aboard the Feather, and they were now moving throughout their churlish brethren, and speaking in hushed tones.

With the grin returned to his face, Thomas began shuffling the cards once more. He looked between the two members of his crew as they sat, and he was just about to reiterate his greeting when he felt a strong hand land upon his shoulder, and lift him from his seat. In his current state of mind, Thomas’ body followed organically, and provided little resistance to the maneuver. He stood a moment, dazed and slightly confused, until the press of a knife against the side of his belly brought the reality of his situation into sharp and blinding focus.

Though still drunk, Thomas’ mind fought and won the battle with his senses, and in an instant the pirate captain was calculating his next move.

A rough and thickly accented voice spoke into his ear. “You cheated me, dam’ you. Han o’er the purse, Cap’n sir, or you’ll fin’ you’sef breavin thru ye belly.”

Anger was the first emotion that surfaced in Thomas’ mind. Anger that he had been taken by surprise by such a buffoon, and even more so that the man had accused him of cheating. Thomas Lightfoot never cheated at cards. In that moment, Thomas also had a decisive moment of clarity. His eyes flitted between Nicolette and Jax. A man could learn a lot about those who he served with by how they played a hand of cards, but in truth he learned even more by watching how they fought.

A wicked smile, unseen by the pirate at his back, narrowed his eyes. He danced his copper gaze to Jax and Nicolette, and then they scanned across the Black Boar, alighting upon the members of his crew, before once again returning to the faces of the first mate and helmsman.

“Care for a fight?” He said softly to them, before spinning on his heels with remarkable swiftness. In that motion Thomas brought his right hand up to one of the pistols that hung across his chest. His left arm lifted, and before the pirate could move to stab at his now moving captive, a pistol ball exploded full into his face. The impact knocked the pirate back, slamming him into a table, and spilling the now faceless body onto the floor some five feet away.

Amidst the thick smoke of the discharged pistol, Thomas drew the second, and trained it into the crowd of crewmen from the Crimson Feather. His voice rose clear above the now silent tavern. “You’ve cast your lot in blood you fen-sucked dandies, now play the hand you were dealt!” And then he fired, and all hell broke loose.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

^ This made me lol.

Tides of Dusk: A Piratical Tale of Fantasy

Thomas watched Antonia appear like a ghost out of the darkness of the Parakeet. The exotic woman, ravishing in her layered azure skirts and plunging neckline, was a sight to behold, and the captain marveled at how such a creature could disappear so completely when she so desired. He smirked at the thought of just how close he had come to waking up with a crimson smile being drawn upon the flesh of his neck that fateful night seemingly a lifetime ago. Thankfully I’m just that damnably charming, even when piss-drunk.

As Antonia came to his table, Thomas made no effort to hide the path of his eyes. A gentleman he was not, and he made no bones about his admiration for the female form. In response to the creole woman’s teasing, his eyes narrowed with a smile.

“I’ll take my drink how I wish, my dear rogue.” His eyes at last moved up to Antonia’s face, and he was surprised at how salacious the woman’s gaze was, even when compared to the divine curve of her bodice. In spite of his words, he took a drink of the spicy, sweet liquor she offered before pulling away a hunk of bread and cheese. With his mouth filled, Thomas said nothing as she bent around his shoulders, and her piquant words danced across his ears.

She spoke of Jax, and his eyebrow raised a fraction. He swallowed his food. “Our helmsman is a man of the times, and no mistake. I shan’t fault him for such worries though, for the female can be a most dangerous creature. In my estimation he is worth his own weight in gold behind the tiller.”

Thomas wondered if Jax had felt just how close to a knife being thrust between the space of his ribs he had come this very night, had of course the man been found guilty in the eyes of Antonia. Judging by Thomas’ own first meeting with Antonia, he guessed that Jax had not, and he probably never would. Thomas certainly had not foreseen the spider. Luckily for him his only lingering evidence of her bite had been the red brand of rouge upon his cheek, and a lighter purse.

Her words turned to talk of a more serious matter, and though his face was a mask of drunken detachment, his ears hung upon every word. A Spanish galleon was rumored to be lost from its treasure fleet during its voyage from Veracruz to Havana. Her cargo had been of inestimable value, and now alone, she presented an opportunity too precious to pass up. Thomas did not dwell upon the fate of the captain whom Antonia had pried this information, for truly he cared not at all. The calling of Spanish gold was all he heard, and in that moment he decided that they must sail again. The turnaround time from the last voyage was unheard of, and it would take effort to outfit the Skate for another long excursion in such a short period of time. Still, Thomas would be damned before he would pass up an opportunity to deprive the Don of such a haul of bullion.

His mind was brought from the warmth of gold to thoughts of a very different kind of warmth as Antonia’s hands pressed the parchment beneath the band of his belt. Thomas closed his eyes and swallowed several gulps of grog to repress the desirous gurgle in his throat. He had never tasted the delicacy that Antonia most certainly was, and his will to maintain the elaborate game of tension between them was becoming perilously thin.

She spoke of gleek, she spoke of his recklessness, and she spoke of a bare back. He relished her silky speech, and he pressed his cheek against her lips as she kissed him. Thomas smiled up into her deep, kohl rimmed eyes. He said nothing at first, deciding to down the remaining mouthfuls of the bumbo. Still silent, he stood, his eyes ever affixed upon hers. With an air of sensuality that matched her own, Thomas leaned down until his lips were a mere finger’s breadth away from hers. His right hand snaked down beneath her skirts, tracing up the smooth skin of her calf until he encountered the knife he knew she kept there.

With a quick movement that he hoped would impress the deft thief, he brought the knife up to the straining laces of her bodice, and with a twinkle in his copper eyes, he cut the lowermost cord. As the garment loosened mightily, Thomas planted the blade of the knife into the wooden table, and gave Antonia a wink.

“All risk, indeed,” he whispered into her ear before he spun on his heels, and began to make his way out of the Parakeet. As he made it to the door, he tossed the servant-boy a gold piece, and called back to Antonia. “I look forward to our next meeting, my dear.”

* * *

Thomas, still drunk with the fantasy spurned by his meeting with Antonia, walked through the streets of Port Royal. His path meandered through the raucous avenues, until at last he returned to the waterfront, and the bustling and boisterous interior of the Black Boar.

Many of his crew were already there, deep in their cups, and they greeted him with a rough cacophony of yelled exultations. His hand was filled with a tankard of strong grog, and he planted himself down at one of the many gambling tables. With a hearty laugh, and a smile lubricated with a haze of drink, he tossed several coins into the pile upon the rough wooden table, and took up the deck of cards. As he shuffled the deck, his eyes passed around the rough men at the table.

“Mark me, you’ll be begging for mercy, you surly bastards, and it’ll be the Devil’s own work for you to get it!” To a chorus of laughs and drunken “aye’s” Thomas dealt the cards, intent on passing the time until the rest of his guests arrived.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Atticus was the last of his colleagues to react, and it allowed him to view the full, violent fury of their retort. The Nixie that was holding the knife was immediately impaled upon Raleigh’s antlers, moments before Henry—in all his natural glory—fully removed the water spirit from the realm of the living. Her body, still skewered upon the antlers of the dryad, began to wilt, and then subsequently disintegrate into a vast pool of acrid water, as if her body were a giant sponge being wrung dry by unseen hands. Her voice carried an ear-splitting wail throughout the cavern until, in mere moments, she died.

The other Nixie, the one that had been whispering her honeyed-sorcery into Aislinn’s ear, faired little better as Siya struck her like a tiny fanged bullet. She flew back, striking the wall with enough force to send a spider web of cracks in the granite walls. Atticus could see that though mortally wounded, the Nixie was not yet dead. Her breath game in agonal gasps accompanied with dark blood oozing from her mouth.

Atticus had a thought, and he began to move towards the injured Nixie when Dr. Blair called to him, speaking about the need for his own life-force to aid the dying werewolf. Reginald Hoyle answered for him, anticipating what Atticus was intending to do.

“Get what you can from that bitch, Atticus,” Hoyle said, moving to kneel beside his sister and the Doctor. He looked to the supernatural physician, “Take what you need from me, all of it if necessary. Do what needs to be done to save her.”

With a pit of hateful sadness in his gut, Atticus turned away to leave Hoyle and the Doctor to their grim work. He covered the distance to the wounded Nixie quickly, and planted a firm grip upon her shoulders. Bending to look into her eyes, eyes that seemed to be crystalized oceans ensconced in white, Atticus let the full force of his own magic build within him. What he was about to attempt he feared would not work against a being so magical as the Nixie, but he had to try.

“Heed my words, you rotten, soggy bitch,” Atticus said, his voice filled with malice, but equally laced with the lustful power inherent to his kind. “Who sent you here, how did you find this place, and what was your full intent? Speak quickly!”

The actual phrasing of Atticus’ words meant nothing when fueled by the flames of his magical ability. To the Nixie, all she would truly hear was an overwhelming tug of lust and dark desire, enough so that hopefully Atticus could draw from her the answers he desired.

“I…” the creature began, her expression eerily carnal despite the river of blood flowing from her mouth. “We…were sent by the Lady of Ice…” The Nixie bent forward, as if trying to kiss the incubus. Atticus thrust her back against the wall.

“Go on.”

“We were told…told that there was a she-wolf that needed to be culled…and…and,” the Nixie broke her speech for a moment to cough up another flood of black blood. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and her breaths gasped even louder.

“No!” Atticus roared, his magic at its most intense. “How did you find her?!”

For a long moment Atticus thought the water spirit had finally died. Her breathing had stopped, and her blue irises were just barely visible beneath her upper eyelids. Then, as if pulled back from the gates of hell, she came to life once more, just enough to gasp out six more words.

“The mark, we followed the mark.”

Then, as her sister had done, the Nixie died. She diminished into a puddle of watery filth, leaving nothing but questions in her wake, and Atticus raging for lost answers.

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

Alrighty, well I'm working on my post for those with Mr. Hoyle. Great responses so far to the situation in the library!

Pieces of 8: Bones of the North

The Library of Alexandria

The Library of Alexandria reverberated with the roaring sounds of otherworldly combat; sounds that had not been heard inside of its walls for hundreds of years. Isis, sterilized from her power by the very essence of the library, hovered above the battle upon her wings. She rejoiced with a sharp trill when the first Anubi fell into a cascading heap of onyx shards, only to have her fears renewed as the second withdrew to send a wave of fire and rock across the library.

White hot chunks of stone shot out from the wave, igniting books, demolishing shelves, and cracking several of the great columns that supported the ceiling. Clouds of dust and ash fell to meet the rising tendrils of smoke and burning pieces of papyrus. Screams and cries of the other patrons of library added to the symphony of destruction, until a much more sobering sound met Isis’ ears.

She shifted her eyes to the walls where the sound had emanated, banking her wings to bring her within just mere feet of the relief-cut stone. As she flew, she noticed that human-sized depictions of scarab beetles lined the base of the walls, and they extended in all directions into the vastness of the library. These scarabs could be seen shuddering even now, quaking amidst the stone like small volcanoes before eruption.

The guardians! she thought.

One of the beetles broke away from their stone haven, then another, and still another. Isis had to take her flight path away from the wall’s surface to avoid the bodies of the emerging guardians. They chittered and cried, their ethereal, insect-like sounds rising in a crescendo until it was almost as loud as the sounds of combat that had heralded them. As they emerged their thick carapaces split, revealing gossamer wings and humanoid arms and legs outfitted with razor-sharp protrusions. They moved everywhere now, crawling upon the walls and floors, in the air and upon the ceiling. Their sheer number formed a living wave that undulated and rose; descending with fatal intent upon those that threatened the library.

Isis let out a cry of warning to the B&H agents embroiled with the Anubi. Time was no longer on their side. She banked away, beating her wings to propel her back towards the gargantuan onyx creature. Though she had no powers, nothing to aid in frontal assault to her companions own efforts, she was a goddess of Egypt, and though she may be destroyed in this form, she could never truly die. It was time for her to do something, to save Max, to save the ankh.

With a screech she dove, tucking her wings to her side, and in a flash she was before the blinded Anubi. Her talons came up to claw at the creatures face and deformed eyes. Faced with the disorientation of being attacked on all sides, the Anubi roared in rage and confusion. His arms swung the sword in wild, ineffectual arcs.

“You must go!” Isis' voice filled the minds of the company. “The guardians have been awoken, and they will smash all of you to dust.” She dived away from a cluster of guardians that appeared before her, picking up speed as she descended before pumping her wings to set her up for another pass at the Anubi’s face.

“Please,” Isis said again, “the doorway to the vaults is unguarded. Go! Find the ankh, and return your friend. The guardians will finish off this stone demon.”

And with that, she tucked her wings, let out another shrill cry, and thrust herself back into the fray.