Tuujaimaa

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Deo’Irah

“Any ideas on how you’ll spend all of this energy before you move, then?” Irah replied to Caleb, curious to get a glimpse into his creative process, as she weighed what Freagon said. It was the Withering, then… well, at least they knew. Irah couldn’t help but smile at Kinder’s warm response and Freagon’s utter dismissal of it–he was eminently pragmatic, Kinder was compassionate and kind, and Irah was somewhere between. She always had been one to see two paths and make a third in the middle, she supposed.

“I see… that puts certain events in a different light, then, doesn’t it? There’s little to be done for you but making you comfortable when the decline truly begins–the patchwork nature of your soul does indeed seem to be the most reasonable explanation for it taking more time. I’ve some questions for you, more for my records than anything else, but there’s no rush–it can wait if you’re not in the mood… though I suppose if we wait until you are in the mood, it’ll never happen.” Irah said, her tone solemn aside from a slight chuckle at the end after she’d finished speaking.

Freagon shrugged. "Ask."

“Do you remember when you first noticed it?”

"Eight days ago, in the morning as I was getting dressed."

“Had you encountered anyone with the Withering in the day or two prior to that?”

Again he shrugged. "Of course. We had just left Wenal City, and they are almost unavoidable there."

Irah nodded. “Indeed. Have you noticed any symptoms other than the discoloration?”

At this, he just stared at her for a second. "Pain."

“How bad, on a scale of 1-10? Localised to the affected areas or anywhere else?”

He cocked his head. "Isn't a scale useless if it's just the numbers? What is 1? What is 10?" He sighed. "And no, not localized. Everywhere."

Irah nodded again, albeit more gravely this time. “1 being trivial, 10 being the worst you can imagine. It's a clumsy tool, I know, but what alternative is there?”

There was just the faintest twitch in the right corner of Freagon's mouth, though its meaning was ambiguous. "2."

“Alright. Please let me know when it gets worse. That's about the most useful information I can really record, and even that is just... hoping some pattern emerges. Ordinarily I'd ask if your affairs are in order and if there's anything I can do to help... but you've surely already thought of that. Your worldly possessions will go to Jaelnec, of course... but... it strikes me that he will be left somewhat directionless. What do you want for him?”

Freagon's eye narrowed slightly, but whatever he was thinking it seemed he decided to keep it to himself. "That's why we're here; I'm hoping that if we join up with some skilled and conscientious adventurers, I can just dump him on them when I die. He'll know what is expected of him."

“Mm... You were resurrected for a reason, tasked with something by the Archangel. Which god were they affiliated with? What was your task? That feeling I mentioned to you before--about being Fatebound... Fate's influence is normally subtle, I suspect, but this is anything but. All of us converging upon Lady Bor at Borstown's time of need, it almost beggars belief, no?”

"I don't think fate works like that," he grumbled impatiently. "Bor has had adventurers coming and going ever since she called for them, so I suppose it was actually inevitable. Fate has nothing to do with it. If it hadn't been you lot, it'd have been someone else. As for the rest... there was no task, and he was a fallen archangel, so he had no god. We just bonded over shared hatred."

“And yet it was us, all of us, right after they'd been attacked. Right when we could help, if we made the right choices. That, I think, is fate... shared hatred of what? I can spend all day asking you increasingly specific questions, Sir Freagon--if you want this conversation to be over sooner, you need only divulge what you know I am going to ask about.” Irah replied, raising an eyebrow.

"The Grand Master," he sighed. "If there is one thing I wish I could accomplish before dying again, it would be to make sure that fiend was cast back into Stupor where he came from." He turned and looked away. "I am who I am because of the Grand Master. My father unintentionally sold me to him before I was born, and though no one else knew, I saw and heard the Grand Master from the day I was born to the day I died."

Irah nodded along contemplatively as Freagon spoke, glad to be getting to the heart of things. "I understand your hatred, I think. Chief among my principles is that we should be free to make our own choices and to understand and accept the consequences--in this, it seems you and your father were both wronged quite terribly. If it is your wish, and frankly even if it isn't, I swear to you that I will look after Jaelnec and aid him on his task... consequences and all." Irah spoke softly, giving Freagon a grimly determined look.

Freagon scoffed. "I wonder how he would feel if he knew you thought he needed to be 'looked after'?" he mused, then shook his head. "But save the swearing of oaths for later. I'm not dying just yet, and if everyone else with the Withering is anything to go by I'm not going to be dying anytime too soon."

“Hah. I think he'd be grateful.” Irah quipped back before continuing, “You're right, of course--plenty of time to meet and judge the other hopefuls. We won't take any more of your brooding time, then.” she smiled, giving Freagon a slight nod of her head before gesturing for Kinder to leave with her and laughing softly at the odd waddling motions she made. “If I've cause to summon you into another vessel, I'll see that it's better constructed next time...” she laughed as they began to walk away.

Kinder sighed. "I miss my wings... and my knees..."

“I can carry you, if you like? It's not much, but...” Irah offered.

There was a long, contemplative silence before Kinder sullenly replied: "Yes please."

Irah gladly picked up the little construct containing the essence of her friend and held it in front of her, sneaking a quick look back at Freagon before returning to join the main group. She looked for an opportunity to meet Sir Yanin’s gaze in order to give him a grim nod as she did, but otherwise waited near Lady Bor for everyone to finish up their business and reassemble.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

As Ophelia began to run she scanned the immediate area in front of her very briefly, just to be sure it was free of obstacles (and it was), and turned her head to look over her shoulder to see what Arrayah was doing as she ran. She could see in her periphery and through the movement of long overcast shadows that Arrayah was moving all three of her arms in unison--which meant some manoeuvre with the Profane blade was guaranteed, and not likely to be the same attack she'd used last time but the first one she'd showed them--that with an almost uncanny sense of timing Ophelia quickstepped another full five meters to her north-east-east, very luckily managing to dodge the attack Arrayah intended to skewer her and continuing to run towards the clump of her allies--Farren in particular. His warning came too late, after she'd quickstepped, but she appreciated it nevertheless and shouted back to him:

"Sands! I need them!" she shouted back, specific enough for him to meet her request but vague enough that even if the twin blades were to translate her speech into Pthumerian that Arrayah could comprehend it, the plan would not be obvious to her. There was much more she wanted to say to Farren in that moment, of course, a swath of words summoned by her mind ready to spill out of her mouth if not for the dire urgency of their situation and need for that breath to be spent not being skewered by horrific shadow blades--but she refrained and let that be enough. Arrayah was getting desperate, and that was perfect--she just needed a brief enough opening to steal away the sword and deny Arrayah her most effective weapon. After that... she would be nothing, no match at all for five Hunters, renewed by Adelaide's energy or not.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Deo’Irah

“Ah, yes, I rather had forgotten…” Irah began, somewhat sheepishly, “recent events had rather overtaken me. That seems sensible to me–something has been bothering me: too many horses. I’ve not the exact numbers to hand, it looks like a proper count is being done, but it feels… off. ” Irah responded to Caleb mentally, all the while surveying everything that was going on as the two squires worked on freeing the bodies from the tree and Sir Yanin and Lhirin went about searching the bodies–and counting them, more importantly. Once they’d finished and began to head back over towards the main grouping of people, Irah moved over to join them and remembered upon having Sirs Yanin and Freagon in her line of sight together that the former had wanted her to speak to the latter about something with some urgency–a thought that she kept at the forefront of her mind as she went about her other bits of business. Yanin came back and announced for everyone the exact disparity in numbers, which Irah relayed to Caleb through their telepathic link.

“Hm, one left. With all that accumulated power I’m sure you could make a fairly convincing illusion that all is well here, and perhaps glean some information should they return? I’m afraid I have far less creativity with your power than you, but you seemed to produce a good quality of illusion earlier.” Irah spoke mentally to Caleb as she did, then turned her attention to Sir Freagon once more and walked over, beckoning what was left of Kinder’s vessel too.

“Sir Yanin thought there was something urgent we should discuss…” she began, expectantly waiting for Freagon to continue the conversation. She could guess that it was some sort of medical issue, by how insistent Yanin had been that it be one of the healers and the Iriao specifically, but the specifics seemed to elude her somewhat. Yanin had mentioned that time was running out, so it was something of an emergency, and there were very few things Irah could think of that would require immediate attention and not be very obvious… chief among them one of the reasons she’d taken this trip to Rodoria in the first place: the Withering.

She earnestly hoped it wasn’t so, though he’d been wise to keep it quiet if it was the case. As best as the pair had been able to tell dealing with the infected on their travels here from Kirkin there was no obvious method of transmission, and none of the data she’d gathered even began to point towards any sort of pattern. Every healer and favoured one of Reina she’d spoken to along the way had offered something similar: nothing could be done, and exceedingly little could be learned about it. Kinder had concluded that it was extremely resistant to any form of magical healing or alteration of any kind, which left Irah rather stumped about it. Some mechanisms of infection were quite obvious: plenty of diseases travelled through water, or through exposure to an infected person in some capacity, and there were theories about miasma–bad air–or some other intermediary between infector and infectee… and the Withering seemed to defy explanation on every count. She did not believe someone having the Withering posed that much of a danger to anyone else, given how random it was, but that was a particularly enlightened view few others would share… and the fact that she’d exposed her raw soul to him earlier suddenly sent something of a shudder through her feathers and her spine. She bristled for a moment and ran her hands through the feathers at the back of her head, letting out a heavy sigh, and waited for Freagon’s reply. There was no use fretting if it was something else, after all.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia witnessed the unleashed light with a hint of a smirk--she knew from before that the power was indiscriminate, that it would heal Arrayah too, but to lose anyone in this pivotal moment would have been worse than letting Arrayah recover some of her vitality--vitality they'd not even come close to depleting in her awakened form. This fight was no longer about wounds, the wretched vitality of beasts that sustained them all--it was about a single instance of time. A free moment where she would be the champion to unite the two halves of their blade, and in depriving Arrayah of her weapon they would immediately win the fight--a moment that would come to pass through strategy and not savagery. Ophelia herself was no fighter--before the night began she could not even walk, let alone run--but her mind had taken all of that unused energy and grown mighty indeed, nurtured by her tutelage under the witches. She was still getting accustomed to everything the Old Blood now allowed her to do, it was true, but strategy... that was something she knew well. One did not get abandoned by one's parents at a small and tender age and survive if one was not pragmatic and ruthless--qualities that no doubt had endeared her to her mentors. Perhaps, many moons ago, she'd even have sacrificed Gerlinde and Torquil to get closer to her goal... but that was not strategy, that was folly--they were expendable, in a sense, but only if their deaths would serve a grander purpose. Sacrificing them at this stage would do nothing but leave them without the numbers to distract their foe and seize the moment when the light of opportunity shone upon it.

With Arrayah hurtling towards her, Ophelia reckoned she should have felt fear. The champion of darkness' full attention finally turned to her should have caused her knees to tremble and buckle, caused her to flee for her life, but fear... fear felt like a distant memory. The playful sprites of gentle guidance warded all of it away, left her clear-headed and ready for whatever would happen next: and with their foe headed straight to her, Ophelia knew well what she had to do. She let Arrayah get close, primed and tensed and charged to quickstep away, and let Arrayah begin her motion of grappling before Ophelia quickstepped a full five meters to her left, ducking and weaving under and through Arrayah's stronger arm to get clear of the danger and give her the most time possible before Arrayah could change course. Her sudden burst of reflexes over, Ophelia exited the quickstep into an immediate and full sprint arcing towards the cluster of her allies still recovering.

She kept in mind Arrayah's various modes of attack now revealed to them: she needed to ensure she could quickstep to get the full ten meters away from Arrayah should she repeat her previous attack, and was still unsure if Arrayah could target her with one of the ranged attacks through shadows--surely if that were an option, Arrayah would have done so relentlessly from the beginning? With that in mind, the arc she made was fairly shallow, but enough that if she were to quickstep the fullest distance to her left she would at least have a chance (with the necessary wind-up taking time) to get out of distance of any of Arrayah's attacks. "Farren, to me!" she shouted as she began to move, continuously scanning and assessing the battlefield to be sure of his relative position and Arrayah's--getting close to him was key to her plans, after all, and if Arrayah focused on them she would leave herself vulnerable to attacks from the others. Ophelia only hoped the beast could not ignore the threat that three powerful Hunters posed and give Ophelia enough breathing room to fill Farren in.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia watched as Arrayah dodged the blast of energy--expected, really, given how small a target she was trying to hit--and in the same motion unleashed another of the Profane Abyssal Blade's powers. She watched as Arrayah stabbed herself and shadow began to creep from her, and she quickstepped a full five meters back as soon as she saw the encroaching darkness shooting out towards her. She couldn't help but notice how even the refulgent aura of her own holy blade did nothing to stay its advance, and even with a full movement back she barely managed to escape the massive circle of shadow before a torrent of shadowy spears erupted from it and impaled everyone but her. She breathed a slight sigh of relief at having escaped it, but grimaced at the thought of what it would do to the others given Torquil's earlier description of what being impaled by the shadowy blades before.

"Snakey?" Ophelia called out, figuring Gerlinde would understand but Arrayah wouldn't, and seeing as the three were all clumped together it seemed like there would be no better time to use that concentrated burst of healing. Ophelia noticed Farren recover separately and move outwards, beginning to circle his way towards her general direction, and she suddenly got to thinking: Farren had the hourglass of sand that could halt time briefly, didn't he? Knowing that the transformation would be instant if she managed to find an opportune moment, that they could effectively end this fight immediately and complete their goal... Ophelia beckoned Farren towards her with her free hand, though kept most of her attention on Arrayah to be ready to avoid an attack. If Farren got close enough that they could whisper, Ophelia would say the following:

"Give me the hourglass, love? I can end this if an opportunity arises."

Knowing Gerlinde--and to a lesser extent the Moonborn--Ophelia was quite certain that even being impaled would not stop them from attacking. Ophelia hoped the constant aggression would keep enough of Arrayah's attention that this little exchange could be kept secret from her, but reckoned there wasn't enough information for a mad beast like Arrayah to act on her burgeoning plans... though she wasn't sure about the Profane blade, and what it surely whispered to Arrayah.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia was much surer that this attempt would work, though she was not discouraged when it failed to do so. Reasons as to why flashed before her mind's eye, but they were gone as quickly as they came in the face of the immediacy of the the task ahead of them--though Ophelia did permit herself a moment to attempt to commune with the Holy Moonlight Sword once more: Reuniting you... can I do it while Arrayah lives? Is it instant? Should we slay her first?

The barrage of questions was hurried, though confident: they'd made it this far without losing anyone, and Arrayah seemed to be on the back foot. If there was an opportunity to simply end the fight Ophelia felt inclined to take it, figuring the Moonborn would absorb all of the echoes if they did kill Arrayah while they were still here and the true prize--especially after what they'd seen--was the blade.

Recognising the fear and panic within Arrayah, Ophelia saw fit to test another of her theories: she reloaded her Evelyn, stowed it temporarily, fed her own blade another quicksilver bullet and moved back a step, amd then as Arrayah went to punch for Torquil and Gerlinde was hacking away Ophelia fired another slice of coruscating cosmic energy scything up towards Arrayah's thinnest arm at the wrist, hoping to either cause her to drop it owing to the damage (which she found unlikely) or causing Arrayah to panic and make a clumsy and enraged overhead attack with her weapon. In such an eventuality Ophelia was ready to try and parry it again, though her primary focus was still not getting hit and she braced herself to quickstep out of the way of danger and interrupt anything she was doing to do so.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

When Ophelia's shot missed she suddenly got a sense for how difficult the task she'd attempted was, that this truly was not as easy as "point and aim", and that there was a knack Farren had for it (as well as some amount of luck) that she had an immediate and profound respect for. The briefest instant of time she was afforded to dwell on this feeling immediately over, she attempted to parry Arrayah's reverse swing with a much more sensible quicksilver shot to her centre of mass, figuring the thing that made these bullets effective was simply a delivery of mercury-infused Old Blood. The moment of timing was tense, but her focus was still drawn taut from the earlier shot and this one she was determined to at least hit her target--she aimed and she she fired just before she could see the apex of the swing coming and the momentum beginning to shift. Farren would presumably try to escape still--wisely--but perhaps this could lend them a moment. Gerlinde would certainly appreciate an opening for a visceral attack, of that Ophelia was certain.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Seeing Arrayah begin to crash down at Farren, Ophelia eyed an opportunity to test some of her theories and perhaps offer some measure of protection to Farren too. She quickstepped to her east by five feet, withdrawing the effigial Evelyn from her side and loading it with a quicksilver bullet from her tube. Arrayah had made a similar maneouvre a little before she made a large attack earlier, before she'd transformed, and Ophelia suspected she would do the same again. She aimed carefully at the easiest of Arrayah's eyes--its largest--and timed her shot the way she'd seen done before to coincide with the moment the strike began. Not only would this be a good test of the qualities of her blood, it would help her work out what precisely the weapon she'd been given was--the Shopkeeper manifested it from nothing, in the same way they had for one of Farren's blades, and there were physical, real weapons from the Waking World stored in the chest in the workshop... though she would struggle to determine whether or not it was an arcane implement, given that she was still uncertain of Arrayah's resistance to the Arcane in her transformed state.

Ophelia would otherwise keep a healing vial handy, stowing the Evelyn, and prepare herself to dash in to administer healing to Farren if he needed it--Torquil's earlier prompt was still fresh in her mind, and if it had some sort of stunning or enervating effect (though that may have been specific to the queer way that Arrayah had used her weapon) she would like to be in position to heal Farren to avoid losing him. She recalled how Arrayah's blade had slipped through the Moonborn's own shadow to skewer them the last time it was used, and then to how Arrayah had looked at her, focused for a beat, and then switched her focus to Farren... could Arrayah not strike at her or people within her blade's light with that attack? Ophelia resolved to look for anything that might provide some clarification on that thought, and would continue to study Arrayah's blade keenly. If Farren did not need her assistance and there was a good opening, she'd fire a scintillating blast of light from her blade at Arrayah to test her Arcane resistance in this form--and remain vigilant of Arrayah's strikes in order to dodge them.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia scarcely had time to be impressed at the ludicrous shot Farren had made, given that she'd just finished ringing the bell to try and summon the Moonborn Hunter once more. Their familiar form began to step through into this world, and Ophelia sighed a quick breath of relief that the Moonborn could be summoned multiple times. A part of her lusted for the strength of echoes Arrayah would surely wield, but that was a distant and dim secondary to the prospect of her true prize: but it was an observation worth noting, so she did. She also wondered whether Farren could shoot her quicksilver bullets--being half-Cainhurst by birth and having drank of Queen Annalise's blood, she reckoned the bullets she made would be rather powerful indeed. She scarcely understood this particular aspect of Hunting, however, and had not the time to put such a plan into motion now.

Ophelia withdrew another blood vial and readied herself to quickstep, not wanting to get involved with Arrayah in melee if she could help it but being prepared to rush in and administer healing to Farren if he needed it. She would not launch herself into imminent danger without another means of immediately saving herself, however, so much of what she was willing to risk would be determined by what happened after the proverbial and literal dust settled--to say nothing of the deepened darkness constricting her vision. Thankfully even with the Mask rune the glow of her blade was enough for just her, as though she were drawing down a shaft of Mother Moon's light into this dank and dismal cavern even now.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

Ophelia

Ophelia's vigil over Arrayah's movements--what she could make out of them owing to the increased darkness, at least--had borne some fruit as she witnessed the first half of the attack that Arrayah had made. Her eyebrows furrowed and her pulse quickened as the expected sound of metal hitting stone simply did not come, and for the briefest instant she wondered if that too were another layer of illusion before concluding it could not be owing to the Mask rune, but her attention was instead directed to Torquil behind her who had been impaled by the very same length of blade that had disappeared in the shadows surrounding the pillar Arrayah was curled upon. Ophelia was already primed for action and quickstepped over to Torquil, withdrawing the blood vial she'd stowed recently during the motion, and would immediately stab it into him while her stance shifted and her neck craned to ensure she could keep Arrayah in her vision.

She pondered in that brief window of time whether the Holy Moonlight Sword gave her any resistance to the arcane (something she had not yet really been able to test, owing to a lack of foes that had summoned its power against her while she'd been wielding it) or whether that was simply something inherent to Arrayah herself. She wondered whether that immunity had faded now, and whether the light of her own blade would be sufficient to counteract the deepened darkness of the shadows that had gathered since Arrayah awakened her half of Ophelia's blade. She could test the resistance easily enough, but did not want to waste the motion until Arrayah had attacked again--in this empowered state, Ophelia wasn't certain if even a single hit might remove her from the fight with her frail constitution. She decided she would have to wait until Arrayah had just made another attack, as there seemed to be some amount of a wind-up necessary before she could strike from a distance. She ignored Farren's directive to run, hoping to bait such an attack on herself (knowing that her now rather exceptional endurance and lack of battle fatigue would likely give her the best chance of both dodging and capitalising on the movement), but urged Torquil to spring into action with a quick "Go!" while she stayed trained on Arrayah and coiled like a spring. She considered moving over to one of the eerie sconces on the wall, figuring that having no source of shadow nearby with which to allow a weapon to pass through might be beneficial in dodging it (or seeing it coming enough to dodge)... but that could wait until after she measured Arrayah's resistance to her blade's destructive blasts. Even through the effects of the Mask rune she made her will known to her blade, asking it whether it had any more insights into what they faced now that it was so close to its awakened twin... and waited for a response while she focused intently upon Arrayah, ready to quickstep as the blade began to plunge into shadow or to avoid a different attack as best as she could with limited information.