Muttonhawk — Roleplayer Guild

Fendros' expression did not change from concerned sympathy as he listened on. He had to make an effort to keep his composure, for every fear Ahnasha had was one he fully understood. Even if Ahnasha was acting out of character, he knew she had limits. He did not feel shocked. He only felt empathy.

As much to comfort himself as his wife, Fendros lifted his arms and drew Ahnasha into hug, holding her head gently to his shoulder. "If I knew how to make that happen now, I would do so in a heartbeat," Fendros murmured.

He stayed holding Ahnasha for at least another half a minute. It was only after taking some time to calm down that Fendros realised how much the pair of them had grown and changed. It was curious to reflect on who they used to be, but Fendros accepted it. Reflecting on particular episodes of their life gave Fendros an idea for something to say.

"You know...back after the Xanmeer. With the nightmares and Rhazii's fresh burns," he barely voiced. "I had similar thoughts. I thought everything was falling apart. That we wouldn't recover. I kept...ruminating, over and over. Life was getting too hard to bear because I thought there would be something that did suddenly take one of our lives, or Rhazii's." Fendros' face was limp. "But once we reached the Bruma clan and got help, once things started to turn around, I think I must have convinced myself to keep going without realising it. Now I look back and wonder how we got through it at all. But...I would put it down to more than just luck."

Fendros breathed in deeply. "If I had lost you, I do not think my being would recover. I would have a void beside me for the rest of my life. But I would have to keep going; I owe it to Rhazii, and I owe it to everyone now that we're apparently saving the world. If it was you that survived..." Fendros lifted his chin and held Ahnasha closer. A smile cracked his blank face, as did his eyes welling. "Well, you have always been more stubborn than me."

...
You sensed it, too.
It is no trick of the ashes.
Another divine presence.
It is not the same as the others. It is weak.
It may be a mere gambit of one of the generals.
There are two presences.
If they are weak, it is inconsequential.
...
You wish to see them closer.

Consciousness flew into Cinead's mouth a second behind the burnt dust. He showed his teeth and coughed violently, pressing the crook of his arm against his face. His next breath in dragged in rough and slow, producing more coughs before the sustaining air could fully prosper in his lungs. He held his breath to hawk and spit the stuff from his dry feline mouth.

Finally breathing slower, he propped himself up on one hand and wiped the grit from his eyes. He felt around the bone dry dusty floor and found what appeared to be a rag. He shook it clean and pressed it to his face to breathe. Only a little dust was on the inward side. He finally opened his eyes.

Everything was made of grey powder on an unceasing wind. He laid on his side on what felt like a stone floor, carpeted with a disturbed inch of grey powder. Around him were the burnt, yet still standing, wood and stone foundations of a small rectangular building, also encrusted in grey. More dust swirled in through the empty doorway and small window gaps. Above, he saw as he craned his neck, was nothing but the open air, choked with uncountable flights of the same dust.

He shook his upper body, clearing a cloud of the dust from his fur. He batted at his beard fur three times to knock off more dust.

The alien world he woke up in brought Cinead's panicking mind to only one thought.

"Inga!" He called out to the dust-choked sky. He had to cover his face again. The walls around him allowed barely an echo.

He stood up. The gritty dust itched at his armpits and legs. It tasted like ash. "Inga!" He tried again. "Where is she?"

Cinead stumbled to the doorway as his leg only partially obeyed him. He had pinched a nerve in his previous position. Shielding his eyes from the ashen wind, he shouted again. "Inga!"

A guttural shout in the distance made Cinead's yellow eyes and ears light up. He threw himself out to run through the swirling ash storm towards the sound. The dust slid like sand under his feet, piled up to the point of slowing his high-legged sprint. He lost his sense of speed as the dust obscured his vision.

"Inga! Where are you!?"

Another deep roar shouted out back to him. She was scared. Cinead threw his free arm forward and back harder to redouble his pace, pushing through the dust below. He ran by a blackened stone wall. He knew of no place where the brightness of the sky touched the dwellings of people. Everything was scaled an arm higher. It was not dwarves that lived in this ruin.

A deep yelp echoed close by.

"Inga!" Cinead shouted. He stopped at a ledge and, looking into the trench before him, finally found her.

Three lanky humanoid beasts in pungent and tattered rags, each nearly twice as tall as Cinead, raised clubs and stones against a creature on the floor between them. The creature had a gryphon's tail curling out between the group's feet. They stopped their beating to turn their animalistic faces to Cinead.

Cinead was a warrior, but only pure panicked fight tightened his fists. "Get away from my sister!" Cinead screamed. Whether they understood or not, the beastly creatures snarled back as Cinead charged into the trench unarmed and unarmoured.

He shot forward intending to deflect and strike the first. He was there in a blink. The first beast was so slow that Cinead's fist ripped into its abdomen with a snap. Its voice broke into a pained squeal. Cinead didn't process the power of his strike until he batted away the incoming club of the second hard enough to strike it from its hands. His torso swung across to whip the back of his fist against the side of the creature's jaw. It stopped, dazed. Cinead took the opening; he jumped and bit into its exposed throat. The blood that poured onto his pallet was hot enough to burn. He hardly felt it. The third and final beast threw its stone square into Cinead's head.

White shapes flared in Cinead's vision on impact. He let go of the second beast's throat and staggered back, clutching his head. He opened his eyes and looked at his fingers. Deep red soaked into the ever-present ash on his hand. He couldn't regain his balance before the final standing beast howled up into the sky.

The howl abruptly stopped with a shadow. The beast's head was engulfed by gryphon's teeth and crackled with a twist. Inga swung her head to throw the limp beast aside. She had apparently stood up during Cinead's interruption -- and gained ten times more strength since the last he remembered her for no apparent reason. All the same, the beating had left her bleeding and bruised. Her wing jutted notably at an unfamiliar angle.

Cinead lost his rag in all the confusion. The trench was sheltered from the wind, at least. That meant he could speak.

"How in the Empress' name did you do that?" Cinead breathed.

Inga stepped to turn and winced. A pained trill bubbled from her throat. She lowered her head to touch Cinead's forehead and brought her arms forward. Cinead closed his eyes and embraced her tightly. Cinead almost drew tears. The initial shock of the encounter was washed away in reunited relief.

Inga trilled.

"I don't know," Cinead said. "I don't know where we are, what these things are, or what's going on." His eyes turned to catch Inga's. "But if we can find our way out of this storm, we might..."

Inga's big yellow eyes were avoiding Cinead's. He turned and realised what she was looking at. The first beast he struck lay lifeless on the ground. The side of its chest was caved in and its mouth oozed red blood. The beast he bit was bulging at the eyes and completely torn at the throat.

"...I can't have done that. That's impossible."

Inga clacked her teeth and growled. Her eyes and ears scanned around impatiently.

"Huh?" Cinead let his arms slip free and stepped back. "What do you hear?"

Ear's flattening, Inga squat her head down and bared her teeth in one direction of the trench. Cinead followed her gaze and balled his fists again.

The beastly creatures would have been stealthy as wolves if it weren't for their shouts, barks, and bays of hungry fury. There were more than a few of them. Cinead saw at least five charging over one another in the direction he was looking. 

"That last one must have raised the alarm," Cinead remarked. He realised that the bead of sweat running down his head was blood from the rock.

More beasts flew out of the flying ashes. Some had gleaming black crescents in their hands. Most others held a bludgeon of some description. Some were sprinting on all fours.

"There are too many!" Cinead tapped Inga on the neck and turned into a sprint through the trench, away from the incoming beasts. The thud of Inga's larger following footsteps lifted ash into a low cloud behind them.

Some shapes emerged from the ash ahead. Cinead and Inga slid to a stop. "Damn it!" Another crowd of yipping and barking beasts cut off their egress.

The walls of the trench were too high to climb without allowing the creatures to catch up. There was no escape.

Inga whined.

"What?"

She shuffled and whined again.

"If you can't fly, we'll have to fight."

Inga's ears pinned back she lowered towards the enemy and growled, eyes wide with fear. Cinead turned to face the other incoming crowd. His breathing quickened and his legs quivered.

"Inga, sister," Cinead said. "Remember what Douglas said. Need not die afraid; Fate seals us all in the end."

A high-pitched yowl of protest sounded from Inga. She snapped her jaw at Cinead.

"Fine, I'll shut up."

The beastly creatures with black bladed weapons trampled in around them. Closer and closer. There were strategies in his studies of warfare for all manner of situations. Not for this. Nothing but a prayer to Lazarus and the fight of one's life. Cinead bared his pointed teeth and let his mouth slowly open in a defiant yell. Inga threw open her mouth in a roaring screech. The beasts didn't flinch.

Cinead jumped forward to throw a punch at the first beast closing in.

He would be cut by the other five closing behind.

A resigned relief of sure mortality drove any compunctions away.

And yet.

As if such a thing signalled a choice by the gods, the scrape of taut chains snapped and Cinead was pulled up by the ankles. The ground fell away. All his blood pressed against his face as the crowd of beasts below clawed and jumped to snatch at his ascending body. They disappeared behind the ashen winds below in a heartbeat.

Something snaked up Cinead's chest, around his neck. He couldn't move. His eyes caught Inga's panicked visage beside him as gleaming white chains tightened around her neck. He couldn't breathe either.

His mind dully reaccepted his death. Sparkling black swallowed his vision.

...
Report.
The divine presences have been secured. They are mutated dwarves. Father showed me through his eyes; they are twins of the warrior caste.
Inconsistent. Lazarus and the Dwarves have no stake in Xerxes.
Yet they appeared.
What is their divine nature?
Further mutations. Godly essences are grafted to them. Vestec and Lazarus. Jvan remains with vestigial influences but only in caste biology.
Their risk?
Inconsequential.
Then stand by. Xerxes has become inaccessible.
Inaccessible?
The battle has been abducted by Vestec. I shall continue the mission.
...
Is there a problem?
No.

Cinead squirmed. The crisp blankets were pleasant against his fur. Strange piping songs tweeted into his ears from outside, but they were pleasant enough. He wanted to stay in bed, dipped halfway into a dream. Training could wait this morning. Inga would wake him up before he slept in too late. As usual.

A time passed. The soft cacophony piped on, with its high-pitched chirps. The artisans must have invented a new musical instrument for a festival. They were better with the arksynth than he ever was.

He could keep sleeping. All the cooking normally finished later in the day anyway. He licked both sides of his jaw as the thought of celebratory baked trout and fungus sauce tickled his anticipation. He did love festivals.

That was always Inga's favourite, too. He made the fish for her when she was sick or injured. She probably would appreciate it with her broken wing.

Those beasts must have been strong to break her. But they died so quickly. But there were more. That was no dream.

Cinead's mind rose from his dream into the cool morning air. Those songs were not from dwarves at all. He opened his eyes.

He was in a bed of soft furs. He sat up to behold a room hewn from stone and orange clay. Beyond the door was a blindingly bright yellow light producing the distant songs. As the top blanket slid off his chest, the cool draft touched his body -- bare-furred but for a cloth bandage tightly wrapped around his head where a small, painful bruise bulged. His brown spotted fur was completely clean -- no dirt, sweat, not even any of that ashen dust.

"Where am I now?" Cinead mumbled to himself.

A chain tinkled lightly from the corner. Cinead jolted as a lithe figure stepped into view, illuminated by the yellow light at the door. It looked like a warrior dwarf, like him. A woman of the lynx and leopard. The brightness and symmetry of her black markings on her soft yellow fur granted her an exotic beauty. She wore a set of white, red-trimmed trousers, a buttoned up jacket, and a doublet. While its colours were different, the pattern was identical to Cinead's own uniform back home. Her footsteps made no sound at all. Indeed, she did not have the physique of a trained warrior at all.

"Thank the gods, you were asleep some time." The warrior said evenly. She clasped her hands and her lips spread in a warm smile.

"Who are you?" Cinead asked.

The warrior quirked one ear. "You may call be Mira. What is your name?"

"...Cinead." Cinead looked at her with a lowered brow and his head slightly turned. "Where is your twin?" he asked slowly.

There was a pause. Mira stared. "On a mission," She answered tersely. She tilted her head. "You are fortunate that I was able to get you out of the city. You surely would have fallen-"

"Where is Inga?" Cinead interrupted.

Mira's head levelled. "Your twin? She is sleeping in the next room. Her wing was broken by the dagons."

"Dagons?" Cinead huffed out an exasperated breath. "I have to make sure Inga is well."

Cinead roughly twisted to throw his legs over the bed and tried to stand up, pulling the fur blanket with him to preserve his modesty. He stood halfway up before a pain lanced into his temple. He sucked in a breath and pressed a hand to his skull. "Ah! What...!?"

Mira's face dropped with concern and she gestured forward. "Do not overexert yourself. You do not have as much blood as normal."

"And why is that!?" Cinead growled.

"You tasted Dagon blood," Mira continued. She glanced around the room nervously. "I had to bleed you to make sure it did not overwhelm you. Amartia's curse spreads in the city and you and Inga will both require further treatment."

"None of what you just said made any sense..." Cinead relaxed his jaw and took a slow breath. "Look, Inga and I have to get back to Citadel Dundee." He sat back down. "Where are we?"

Mira looked out of the door. "It does not exactly have a name, as far as I am aware. I am told that Empress Lazarus resided here for some time before moving south."

"Does that mean we're close to Dundee?"

"Uh...we are about three-quarters of the way up the Ironhearts here. Far north of Dundee."

Cinead's brow lowered. He shook his head and pouted his lips to mouth a confused question that didn't come. The bruise under the bandage kept throbbing. "Three quarters? That would mean we're halfway across the world."

"Correct." Mira nodded and curled her lips between her teeth.

"I don't understand." Cinead lowered his head. His subconscious mind wished in that moment for multiple mouths, for he could not pin one to ask amongst the tumult. He eventually managed, one that sounded important. "You mentioned something about treatment, what do you mean?"

"You and your twin bit into dagons. Their blood is tainted with Amartia's curse, that transforms intelligent beings into creatures driven by the extremes of their base instincts and desires. You may have been given power, but it will overtake you if it is not treated."

Did she have that line memorised? Cinead sighed. "What will you have to do?"

"I will have to take you to the Rovaick tribe closest to us. They have remedies for Amartia's affliction."

"Rovaick!?" Cinead bared his teeth. "Those savage creatures from the north and their clay god?"

Mira winced and turned her head. "I would not say such things when we find them. You need them to save your life."

"They are our enemies!"

"Have you met one?"

Cinead breathed in to shout and then held his tongue. He ran a hand over his head and sighed. "No," he reluctantly admitted. "But I have heard enough about them."

"The ones this far up north are friendlier, I promise." Mira gave another smile. She was far too warm for a stranger.

With greater care to avoid a head rush this time, Cinead stood up. "Can I at least see my sister?"

"Of course, Cinead." She finally moved, gesturing elegantly at the folded clothing at the foot of Cinead's bed. They had either appeared when he wasn't looking or he had not spotted them in the first place. "Those are tailored to you and you may make use of them to dress. Please take your time."

Her preempting Cinead's question about clothing was strange. Cinead glanced between Mira and carefully reached for the garments. They were uncannily identical to the brown and beige loincloth, tunic, breeches, and jerkin that he normally wore off-duty. If a little newer.

Mira cleared her throat. "On this part of Galbar, away from the far south, the sun rises and sets fully on a basis of several hours instead of on the seasons. We will leave tomorrow when the sun rises. The journey will take four weeks by foot and we have no access to flight. I will leave to source provisions. And I shall give you privacy for now." Mira took gliding footsteps into the yellow light of the door.

"Hey, I haven't finished asking you questions!" Cinead reassured his grip on his blanket and reached out. His head swam on the first step forward and he scrunched his eyes shut in frustration.

Mira paused, looking back to show Cinead a wincing face. "Do try not to exert yourself. I would not forgive myself for letting you get hurt." She raised a hand. "There will be time for more questions later. I shall return soon, just try not to wander too far in the meantime."

As Mira walked out into the yellow light, Cinead watched her gait. Her balance was that of something more than a warrior. It was too even. Too elegant. She was unnatural.

Errant thoughts were distracted in Cinead's mind as his eyes adjusted to what the bright light had obscured.

Beyond the door were rolling hills, covered in a soft, shining green. He took careful paces to the door. "Ah!" He hissed and covered the exposed sun as it his eyes. The sky was a clear blue. The ground was the greenest he had ever seen. Dirt carpeted by sticky blades of green hay. The piping sounds incessantly repeating were not musical instruments but small, feathered creatures that fluttered away on sight.

Mira was nowhere to be seen.

Dressing and looking for Inga's shelter did not take too long. As Mira promised, Inga was resting in her own bedding, similar to Cinead's, with tight bandages holding splints to her wing and covering other wounds. Whatever painful process of resetting the bones there was, they had taken place before Cinead awoke.

Mira had to have associates around. No gryphon would allow resetting their bones without injuring the doctor attempting it. Especially without their twin around to comfort them.

Where was everyone else? Cinead thought. Where exactly did Mira go? Who was Mira? It was all to say nothing of the ruined city in ashes. And those beastly men. Those dagons.

Cinead knelt down near Inga's large head. He placed a palm gently on her neck. "Inga," he murmured. "Wake up."

A grumbling purr announced Inga's eyes peeling open and looking at Cinead.

"How are you feeling?"

Inga partly opened her jaw and elicited a nasal groan.

Cinead breathed a laugh and grinned broadly. "Well, being alive is always a good sign."

As if only realising herself, Inga lifted her head to peer around the stone room. She gave a confused trill.

Cinead looked around as well. "I don't know. I just woke up in another shelter nearby. There was this warrior woman dressed in white and red, she said her name was Mira."

All of a sudden, Inga showed her teeth and hissed in a way that made Cinead's ears twitch. His face turned to attention.

"You met her?"

Inga snapped at the air and droned a low, quiet yowl. The protest ascended for a short crescendo and droned further, like a recount of a child sitting to get her teeth checked if she could only make the sounds of a large feline.

Cinead eyed the splints on Inga's wing and he realised. "So it was just her?"

Inga hummed angrily.

"If she could do that without help, she's hiding something. I don't trust her, either." Cinead caught Inga's eyes. "We'll keep on our toes. We have still to find out if that strength back in that dusty place is still in us, and how we got here in the first place." He sighed. "If only I had some arksynth. I could make something to fix your wing and we could fly home. Or maybe find out more about this strange situation."

Cinead blinked as Inga blew a breeze in his face. He smiled and leaned down to hug her neck. "It's good to see you, too, sister."

When Cinead pulled away, his smile faded and he stood up. "Careful getting up. Let's explore this place and I can tell you what Mira told me, whether it's true or not."

The final count of demons slain to protect the warring armies amounted to one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven. Their full numbers made a sealed defence impossible, resulting in casualties in the armies exceeding those inflicted by the opposing sides on one another.
And the objectives?
Amartia remains neutralised, presumed dead. He could not be spared with the demons distracting my attention. Lifprasil was weakened by the anti-divine artefact, is still living. Keriss was defeated, is still living. Though higher than a demideity, Logos' appearance did preclude his retreat, was unharmed. The Tauga anomaly was defeated, was abducted by Lifprasil's army, was still living upon her last appearance. Summary: Amartia objective failed. All other primary objectives complete.
...Father will not be happy.
His emotional reaction is inconsequential.
And the other divine presences?
All other divinities above objective threshold consideration remain alive.
Understood.
You have received your objective for the entities you found before the battle?
Yes. I am in the process of establishing rapport.
When shall you begin transit?
Dawn.

Majus and Minus notice something strange appear near the outer edge of Xerxes before the big battle. It's got a divine touch, but it's not quite a deity. Neither is it something belonging to Amartia or Lifprasil.

Minus opts to investigate.

Enter Cinead. He is one of the empowered dwarves made my Lazarus and lollerported around the globe by Vestec. He is a warrior caste dwarf and therefore has the countenance of a large temperate and/or jungle feline. On top of that, he has had some practice with arksynth, but that's not really relevant to this post.

Cinead wakes up in a gutted building, thoroughly confused in the ash storm. His first thought goes to finding his gryphon twin sister Inga.

Some shouting and wandering results in Inga replying through the wind. She's freaking out.

Cinead picks up the pace through the ash. And comes to a trench where some dagons got the jump on Inga and are beating her up. Inga's wing is broken, so they couldn't fly away, even if there wasn't a vision-obscuring storm.

Cinead goes full anime protagonist and charges the fuckers, unwittingly using his newfound strength and speed to make quick work of two of the three dagons.

The third dagon clocks him in the head with a large rock. This survivor raises the alarm by howling, but Inga gets up and bites his head, breaking his neck.

The twins share a quick reunion and are confused by their sudden power, but they are swiftly surrounded by loads more dagons before they can stop to think.

They resign themselves to their fate.

Lo and behold! Tounus ex Machina in the form of Minus pulls them away in the nick of time and gives them the Vulcan nerve grip.

Minus reports back. The fuck are a pair of dwarves doing here???

Majus says that he's trapped in Vestec's arena with the armies. Oops.

Skip to later, Cinead wakes up in a strange bed, cleaned and wounds treated, with the sun shining in through the door. This place happens to be Laz's old pad, back when she was a simple guarana fiend with a ponos and a tinfoil hat.

He is confronted by a warrior dwarf woman, named Mira, who gives him a partial lowdown on the situation.

Apparently, Cinead and Inga both caught the sin-herpes from tasting dagon blood (mostly a lie) and need to go to a rovaick tribe nearby for a cure. Mira is going to lead them there. Before fully informing him (as Mutton does not want to bore the audience with a bigger and more contrived info dump) Mira skives off to get supplies for their journey to the rovaick.

Cinead is amazed at seeing a not-tundra landscape. He also reunites with Inga, whose wounds have also been treated. It's implied that Mira single-handedly and forcefully set Inga's bones in her broken wing without getting hurt in the process, which is a mighty feat for a single warrior who doesn't seem to have the gainz that are normally expected of the caste. They both agree that something's up with Mira and do not trust her.

Skipping over to the tail end of Majus' report on the battle, it turns out he spent most of his time standing around or killing scores of demons to prevent them from overwhelming the demigods. However, even he could not repel them all at once. Amartia 'dying' is marked as a failed objective amongst a number of objectives.

Minus drops a strangely unrobotic comment before reporting that she'll be on the move with Cinead and Inga on the morrow. The exact objectives and motives remain obscured by the author because he needs to build some kind of suspense around the start of this arc to distract from the fact that Cinead and Inga haven't shown an awful lot of depth so far-I mean, what? Shh.

Go away. Shoo. You guys have your own posts to write.

Muttonhawk Member

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