aicen Qoal
Back Story:
“Get back ‘ere, you STINKING BETCH!” roared the huge Ogre in its guttural tongue, nursing the part of his forearm that had recently lost some of its structural integrity.
The small feral creature, dark in the corner of the dank cell, snarled and spat the missing flesh back at the previous owner hitting it squarely in its’ left eye.
Roaring furiously, the Ogre charged forward striking at the nimble but filthy creature as it ducked, dodged and weaved for all it was worth. Mad eyes and flashing teeth darted here and there in the darkness of the room while the hulking pursuer did its best to corner the feral creature within the confines of the cell.
For all its bulk the Ogre was fast and, more than once, the tiny, dirty figure took glancing blows that forced air and curses from between clenched teeth.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll rip your piss-eating throat out!” snarled the tiny form of pure viciousness and rage in a high pitched voice, ducking under a fist the size of a human head. Behind him, the Ogre felt a pitiful strike at its hip.
The Ogre chuckled deeply and bellowed, turning,
“Stop movin’, PISS-ANT! Yerr no fo’ the pot!”
“The pox take you, monster!” But the voice was uncertain expecting a trick.
Expecting the slight pause in the dirt, muck and rag covered target, the Ogre lashed out and grabbed it by the neck. Enraged screams and dark curses spewed from the dervish’s mouth as it struggled furiously but in vain.
“If ye weren’t so scrawny yer would be fo’it.” The Ogre muttered to the slight, raging form in its grip. The other great fist came over and struck it squarely on the side of the head. Dirt, muck and rag crumpled in its’ grip with a small grunt as all went dark.
Sunlight streamed in through the open doorway amidst the sounds of men in soldiering gear forming up outside the house. A shadow paused in the doorway as a tiny figure darted out and collided with the larger, forcing him to take a step back.
“Father! Don’t leave us!” the young girl cried as she help tight to his, burying her face into his tunica.
“There, there, little Aicen [pronounced Aishen], you’ll do.” He said, patting her head compassionately.
“Your brother is strong and sound and he’ll mind ye’ both while I’m gone.”
The dulcet tones of a military commander ordering men to form ranks shattered the moment, startling the small girl. Aicen sniffed and looked up at her father.
“I’ve got to go Aicen, Tib’ come get her, son.” The elder boy, standing alongside his mother darted forward obediently. Her father patted her hair once more and darkened the doorway no longer.
“Keep them both safe for me Tiberius,” his voice wafted in as he hurried to join the ranks.
The commander barked orders and immediately the sounds of marching feet began to fade from hearing.
“FA-“
In the dark room, the creature lying in the corner whimpers then cries out.
“-THER!!!”
A grubby child-like hand places itself gently on her as if in comfort and the small form whimpers and eases back into unconsciousness.
“Get your sister to safety!” screamed Dorienne to Tiberius
“They’re coming! Mother, you must come with us!” he screamed, pulling her to the door at the back of the house.
Screams of panicked, terrified and tortured villagers pierced the night as the sky reddened with light from newly raging fires. Horses whinnied in panic and reared, straining against their tether. Wooden rails fell on each other as horses finally broke free and trampled anything in their path to be free. Then, deciding and following him to the door, she nodded.
“Right. Let’s go!”
Tiberius bolted through the door, Aicen cradled protectively in his arms and out into the field at the back. He turned around just in time to see his mother, face set in determination, say,
“Get her out of here!” and slam the door shut, driving the bolt home.
“NOOOO!!!”
He raced back to the window, casting about for something to throw through it. Finally finding a hoe, he aimed the farming tool at the window and very nearly let go his breeches. He saw, from the inside, the front door fly suddenly from its hinges. He also saw the huge form of an Ogre ducking inside, advancing on his mother.
“Tiberious! DO AS I BID!” she screamed at swung at the Ogre. Not expecting such a furious assault Ogre was taken aback and glanced at Tiberious through the window. It grinned. Then it advanced again on his mother.
“Mother, NOOOO!!” Tiberius screamed, fighting against the locked door.
“This one’s fo’th’ pot!” It bellowed over its shoulder.
Two heavy footfalls and his mother was in the Ogre’s grasp and she was whimpering in fear. Falling back in fear and uncertainty, almost dropping Aicen, he stumbled to the ground. Then he heard the piercing scream of his mother that was cut suddenly short with a wet thump. He vainly tried to scramble to his feet.
He had just gotten up when shards from the burst door flew at and past him as the Ogre came crashing out. It charged him and he was a limp sack of dead meat as it collided with him, Aicen flying from his still twitching grasp. He was dead from the collision before he even realised a large chunk of the door had impaled him on his left side.
Grunting, the hulking shape of the Ogre trudged over to the scrambling form of the tiny girl, huffing noisily. It filled her view. Raising a meaty fist, it said,
“Boduk won’t eat you. Yer too scrawny.” And her lights were put out.
Starting bolt upright, the small feral girl groaned, her head aching both within and without. She cursed loudly.
“Fucking Ogre pig! I’ll rip its fucking throat out!” then cursed again, more quietly this time to abate the incredible pain in her head.
The grubby child-like hand once more reached out and touched her shoulder compassionately.
“Aicen. Are you ok?”
She jumped, startled. Then cried out in pain holding her head between her knees. Quietly she said,
“Donk. Do that again and I’ll rip your throat out too.”
“S-s-s-sorry” a small boy’s voice said from the darkness, “I was worried. You were out for ages this time! I thought you dead.”
“I wish I was” Aicen muttered. “I hate it when it plays with you”, Donk said quietly, subdued.
“It was worth it though.” she said grinning darkly in the darkness, bringing forth a dull object barely discernable in the poor light.
“You got it!” Donk exclaimed sidling forward careful so as to not disturb his injured friend.
“The keys!”
“When that other one takes us to the drains for cleaning, we’ll move then.” She said, still cradling her head. “You sleep. If I sleep I think I’ll not wake up. I’ll sleep after you.” Donk nodded, forgetting in the darkness that she could barely see him, and settled down for as much sleep as the damp cold stone floor would allow. Aicen sat hunched, still in pain, against the wall. Eyes shining with malicious intent and hatred.
“GET UP Scrawnies!! Work!” the terrible voice of the other Ogre bellowed through the small window in the cell door. Both Aicen and Donk started bolt upright in shock and fear.
Quickly they huddled to the far side of the room to await the inevitable. Aicen taking care to quiet the noise of the keys she had recently obtained. She looked at Donk who looked back encouragingly.
“Soon”, she whispered.
The Ogre advanced, reaching out two massive, meaty fists. They huddled into themselves. For years this had been the routine but still they cowered, afraid.
“CLEAN!” bellowed the Ogre, picking them each in one fist by the scruff of the neck, shaking them roughly. Head still throbbing in pain, and now spinning, Aicen groaned quietly at both the pain in her head and with the knowledge of where she knew she must go.
Both Aicen and Donk could walk the passageway to the ‘cleaning room’, as they called it, in their sleep. The room was more like a central hub with one main, locked, exit to the rest of the complex with small vertical tubes surrounding the perimeter of the large circular room. These tubes were enterable by a small hatch far too small for the Ogres or Orcs to enter. They were the privy chutes for the eating hall above. And they had to be cleaned when they became blocked and there was no other creature here small enough in statue bar these two. They knew full well that obstructions had to be .. dislodged or there would be consequences. Painful consequences. They were locked in the room and while the Ogre sat outside supposedly on guard but all involved knew there would be no escape.
These exits were no real exits. For they knew. They had tried to escape through them many times. From the hub these chutes travelled upwards to near the main eating hall of the stone complex and far, far below to a massive dark and empty space with naught air and a stiff breeze beneath them. They had each shimmied with small and it had taken eons for the sound of the rock hitting the surface below to reach their ears. Upwards lay Ogres and an army of Hob-Goblins and certain death. Below lay nothing whatsoever. And certain death.
But they were both very stealthy and had decided upon an extremely dangerous plan involving another route. Going out the front door. Well, out the side door leastways. In their travels up and down the chutes, the pair had discovered cracks in the chute walls and had managed to, over time, break them down so they could wiggle through. They had consequently found crawlspaces directly under the stone floors of a lot of the main rooms and hallways. Excited, they had gotten most of the way to an old iron door. Aicen, climbing on the shoulders of Donk, had seen a large pit filled with bones and half eaten bodies and the iron door overlooked this pit. Thinking that this was obviously their refuse pit it made for the perfect escape route. If only the door could be unlocked. If only miracles happened. They had both decided that the attempt was worth it.
Boduk had always been the angriest when he had been given refuse duty and had to carry all the cracked and discarded bones and body parts out while everyone else sat in raucous delight snapping their filthy teeth cracking human and elf bones for their marrow. Boduk must have been very angry yesterday as he had kept muttering “Bones! Bones! Bones!” in their play session, fingering his keys. That was when the idea had struck her, just before great ham fist had. She’d ducked behind him and feinted an obviously ineffectual kidney punch as she lifted his keys. She had just secreted them about her person with she was caught and hammered into unconsciousness.
Gritting her teeth in remembrance she stopped, a dark look on her grubby face. Donk, crawling directly behind her stopped, his pudgy nose and face pushed hard against her feet.
“I have to kill it” she whispered, mad with rage. “I have to kill Boduk”
Donk gasped in the darkness. “That’s madness! You can’t!”
“We’ll get the door open, then I can go back. I have to! It needs to die!” And with that she crawled further to the spot where the drain run into, raised her arms and lifted it up and out of its setting. Stopping to listen, then quickly popping her head up to scan for threats, she then reached down and helped Donk up and out of the drain.
“Quick! The door!” he said excitedly but she was already there. As luck would have it, the first key she tried turned the tumblers in the lock and the door swung open easily.
“Yes! She exclaimed in triumph, looking over at Donk. His face was pale and he shook terribly. She glanced where he was looking, fearful. At the open doorway stood Boduk, purple rage mottling its’ already disgusting face.
In a rare moment of intelligence, Boduk had obviously realised that his keys were missing and that the two Scrawnies were going for the refuse door and trying to escape. He bellowed in rage, crashing down the hallway to the refuse door.
“Quick, jump!” She said and he did not waste a moment.
Reaching them just has Donk leapt down to freedom, Beduk snatched him out of thin air and smashed him against the stone wall, blood covering Aicen with its hot sticky thickness. He crumbled sickly, large portions of cracked skull and grey matter sliding down the wall to rest on the floor with a soft plop.
“You fucking filthy MONSTER !!” screams Aicen then as she advances on the huge Ogre before her. Rage unlike anything she has ever felt fills her and she draws complete and dreadful bestial fury into herself. Raising her bloody arms to the ceiling she mixes it with the strength and very essence of her own blood, her life, and condemns herself to death, willing hers to oblivion in return for complete, utter and bloody vengeance upon all those that slew hers.
Dark eyes growing darker by degrees, the crackling of crimson energy fills her mad eyes. Irises changing. Snarling, her vision washed with red, Boduk backs up against his will, the beginnings of fear forming in his wide, staring eyes. Her skin tingling with power, her whole being filled with blood and rage. She feels power. She feels fury. She feels incredible strength. Never before had she been so enraged. Never before had she been under its power. Now, however, it owns her. She is its’ vessel. She has surrendered completely and the totality of the rage-essence courses through her, blinding her in a red mist. From somewhere far distant she hears the incensed shouting and screams of more hob-goblins guards.
She feels a massive throat crunch under her incredibly sharp teeth as she rips it out. With it coming an incredible sense of satisfaction as the foul blood flows down her bestial throat. Flashes of a multitude of screaming faces, and the terrified dead face of Donk, flit across her steadily darkening vision. Throughout her haze she catches fleeting glimpses of a large jet black monstrosity of wicked claws and fierce jaws cyclone throughout the room obliterating all within it. Tearing flesh, making the blood flow. It passes swiftly out of sight and she sees Donk, walking toward her, oblivious to the destruction around him. Her friend, her dead friend, smiles at her. He is calm, happy and grateful as her vision of him slowly finally fades completely as her height seems to change. Eyes with changed irises closing slowly.
Meeting the Party:
"And that’s the end of YOU, you great bag of..!" Aradec grunts, ducking under the final swing of the now dying, and rather ugly, Dwarf. Pausing to recapture his breath and gather his wits he looked around the ruins of the stone tower the dead dwarf and his compatriots had previously occupied.
“What a shit hole.” Remarked Alaricus, doing the same. “Alright, lets clean up.”
Sometime later and just on dark, Aradec finishes stowing both loot and equipment, his eye catching the amulet they had come looking for.
“Well, those new friends of yours will be happy, having gotten their trinket back for them. Don’t supposed they could have done it themselves.”
Alaricus grunted in agreement, “Then we would’ve have to find something else to do.”
Following Aradec outside, intent on making way back to the recently purchased estate, Alaricus suddenly paused mid stride and mid scan. He looked at the wall strangely. Coming up behind, hands rearranging pouches on his belt, Vincenzo looked up.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Alaricus trailed off, thinking of the combat just done with, beginning to suspect that one had gotten away.
“There’s something over there,” he said, pointing. Directly at the wall not three paces from him.
Vincenzo and Aradec, who had popped his head back in, exchanged glances. It had been odd becoming used to Alaricus’ new ability of seeming to ‘see’ anything living within a certain radius. Or more accurately, and according to Alaricus, anything of intelligence. Whatever that meant.
Aradec ducked back outside with both Alaricus and Vincenzo following both behind, the latter’s oddly shaped staff still bearing the tell-tale marks of Aradec’s latest attempt at carving.
“Shit! What is that!” came the exclamation from Aradec, quickly taking up his bow, “What’s a black panther doing this close to a city?” He quickly nocked a bow and raised it, pulling back.
Alaricus and Vincenzo both cornered the building, now seeing the dark shape not forty feet away from where they stood. It just stood there. Eyes intently on them, wary.
“.. proper name is a melanistic jaguar, actually..” Vincenzo muttered absently keeping a watchful on the large creature in front of them. Aradec slowly took aim. It began to draw down in an aggressive crouch, sharp back in a snarl. Then it looked at Alaricus and paused, eyes burning with intelligence and pain.
“Wait!” came the voice of Alaricus as he quietly pushed past them to approach the creature, which remained standing, eyeing them suspiciously.
“It’s injured,” Vincenzo said, finally noticing the shaft of an arrow protrude through the area just above that which would have been the knee on a human. There was another, embedded deep into the front of its shoulder.
“It took two. That chest shot was a good one.” Aradec noted, noticing some arrows of similar make on the ground near where he stood.
As if reminded of its injuries the jaguar seems to sway and it growled. Almost human in its pain. Without hesitation Alaricus, reached out his mind to the creature, calming it with soothing images and thoughts. He slowly walked towards it with it still eyeing him with suspicion.
EasyHereletme… <emotion:calmnessTrustCompassion>
rageDEATHbloodyKillingyouDirtyTwo-Legs[looping]PAIN
..helpYou <emotion:calmnessTrust>
PAIN!!GetitOUT!KillItbeforeIt..<image/emotion: arrow shooting. Thunk:RageAndPain>
IcanRemoveIt<calmbessTrust>
..Attacks!!
Suddenly, in a burst of muscle and pure blinding speed, it lunged towards Alaricus and snarled viciously at the consequent increase in pain from both the arrow in its chest and the one in its knee. Just as it reached Alaricus, its eyes glazed over and it fell to the ground at his feet with a heavy thud. As it lost consciousness, he quickly followed it deep down to within itself. Into its darkness and sentience
<rapid fire montage image of a girl being beaten by an Ogre, escaping.
the death of a friend and the subsequent slaughter of everything>
Darkness.
There is no warmth in the icy darkness. Floating on endless streams of molasses. No needs. No desires. The body is dormant and irrelevant. Drifting idly. A niggling awareness creeps in somewhere behind. This strikes as odd. An occurrence out of place. Continental plates of cognition gather extremely slowly and form around it. “Behind’ implies an object to which the adjective refers. Behind .. me. Me.
Attending to that concept and narrowing upon it. It grows. And thus do I, or my sense. Awareness increases exponentially such that it develops a name. Sensation. What sensation? A feeling of weight upon an object. Sensation occurs and bursts into my reality. Knowledge sparks sentience, of a variety. Gravity. And the texture of that which I lay upon.
Awareness informs me of the olfactory world. And sound. The dank and musty smell of the substance I lay upon mingles with the sound of water trickling over the rough granite walls in a myriad of clear liquid veins.
Light breaks through tiny slits in the universe as both sides horizontally separate and depart. All I see is a myriad of blurred outlines. Senseless. Muscles contract to bring this new corporality into clear and pristine existence. A sense of encumbrance invades sluggish thought processes. My body slowly responds, stretching languidly, energising powerful strength concealed beneath the jet of my covering. The world crashes towards me in a rush. Shattering my languish.
Alaricus gasped kneeling then, fortifying his own sentience, Delved deeper.
Something tears and stabs below me and I feel pain. In the gut that I have. Which, I find, is also me. Heavy boulders rumble down a mountain. I crave. Stabbing again, more insistent. I crave what? St-Stab and I am bundled upon in pain. Some ceaseless, insubstantial nemesis paralysing my core. Driving me. It will not be denied.
Thick, corded bunches of my great neck ripple, and the world shifts. It tilts and is now looked upon from a higher plane. Muscles bunch and are released into a burst of speed. The earth is set in motion, passing swiftly beneath the pangs and the roar of pregnant silence. Rocking gently in a smooth flowing gait I move, cool wind rushing thick over jet. Breezing past sensitive ears.
Scents are instantly encountered though not recognised. They are discarded. I pass, not bothering with their insignificance. My hunger is large. A subtle touch; a scent, caught in the thick underbrush. Silent, swift as death I stop, waiting expectantly in hunger. Crouching. The scent again, and now this time, sight.
A sleek beast passes the ring of long yellow grass and tall trees creating the dark haven of the forest. It is beautiful, tall and majestic with a proud uplifted head. The dying rays of the sun burnish the red brown splashes of its coat, making the white blaze. It bends to graze again, oblivious to me. Concealed, past the shadows. The dark holds black secrets, but the grass is sweet.
Inadvertently, carelessly, it moves four steps closer to the shadows and into the night. Feeding. Muscles tense, rippling energetically beneath jet in preparation for the burst of speed. The desire so real, the hunger inevitable and all consuming. My vision awash with red. I smell its heart pumping. The taste of its blood. Salivating, I wait.
I slink forward, feral, untamed, low to the ground. A pulse hammers in my head. My eyes narrow, readying for the kill. My breath jagged and torn from my chest. The grass explodes.
As an arrow I launch. A primal force of pure darkness slams into the side of the grazing animal. Knocking it down. It struggles to right itself. I notice I have claws. Long jagged black claws tear brutally through soft hide like vicious serrated daggers. Blood streams, hot and thick.
The animal, brown eyes dimming, struggles still while life remains. Its beautiful coat now frayed, broken, and bloody. A thin keening sounds through the cool air of dusk until lightning strikes again in the form of jagged black claws. Its throat torn out and bloody upon the ground. The fatal sound rings into the night air. Both I and the night are symbiotic.
Rippling intensity, under a smooth covering of jet, propels me forward into the deeper shadows of the trees. My prey light in my sharp and bloody grip. Hanging from me. Lucid silence instantly invades the glade. I leap onto a high branch; my prey scattering its crimson essence in my path. I feed; my sharp incisors rending bloody flesh as I eat of its body.
Hunger abated a little I land lithely upon the wet earth, claws swift and lethal. From shadow to deep shadow I flitter, the deer carcass as a feather in my grip. Heart pounding, blood alight like liquid fire through bursting veins.
I scream my triumph into the night. The sound shatters the pregnant silence and gives bloody birth to true fear. Small terrified animals hide shivering from the scream. I am oblivious to their insignificance.
I reach my lair and enter, assuaging my terrible hunger on the bloody flesh of the carcass. The forest sleeps in pregnant fear until next I hunger.
Alaricus looked very strangely at the form on the ground. He vaguely noticed that the pelt was not completely black at all, rather covered in small rings with two or three distinct spots contained within, giving an impression of patterns printed on silk.
Its’ breath was raspy and ragged. Blood continued to seep forth despite the many rags he had surrounded the shaft of the arrow with. He had pushed the arrow through and now it protruded from the creature’s upper dorsal region. Gently, and absently, he gripped the shaft of the arrow near the arrowhead. Gritting his teeth, he bunched his muscles and snapped the head off. Then he repeated the process with the lesser injury. The large dark form convulsed and, as their minds were linked, his was pulled under, deeper into its own and its’ horror.
Blood drips thickly from her fingers. Running in rivulets between the webbing of her fingers, warming her hands against the already sweltering jungle nights. Outside crickets make noise and beasts of the thick foliage gnash and thrash about. Almost in response to the gruesome events that recently took place.
Viscous red substance drips thickly from her hands. On her hands. On her face. Splattered over the bodice of her rags. Down her left leg. Holding her slim arms before her and slowly rotating her outstretched hands she gazes almost idly at the scarlet rivulets. She watches them as they ooze their way down to gather at her elbows and drip onto the large granite tiles of the floor. Pooling in the grout between the tiles the blood begins to form a slick matrix of scarlet, criss-crossing the floor where she stands.
The thought swirls in his mind like some dark and twisted alien creature trying to find a place to hide. Eventually it spirals off into the darkness along with his vanishing sense of her. Her. It is female and a human one! He Delves deeper, frantically searching as it flits from his grasp.
She watches the lines form and idly she wonders what lines of power could be made from them. Blood is the matrix of life, she wonders, holding his dripping fingers close before his. It is not life. It holds life. The body is the vessel that holds the blood, the blood is the vessel that holds the life and both are therefore sacred things. Blood is also therefore a crucial element of all offerings as much power can be pulled from the blood of the willing. From the unwilling too, power can be pulled but more so from the willing for some reason.
Tracing the slow and thickly moving path of blood down her arms Aicen idly wonders where the blood is coming from. She can feel nothing so she doubts it is from her. But then, she has no real feeling in her that she can tell
Aicen. A name.
“What are you doing?” queries Aradec, looking over Alaricus’ shoulder. “It’s just a… “
Aicen! Come Forth! <IMPERATIVE: Summoning>
The beast screamed in pain, great head arched back, straining. Suddenly the form wavered. Fur covered fore-limbs lengthened, rapidly lost their fur and became very human in appearance. The great head, arched back in pain, rapidly lost its feline appearance. Ears shortened, sharp incisors receding and squaring off, jaw thinning. The thick darkly ringed tail lost its length and seemed to merge back into the spine and disappear. For a brief moment the creature lying there writhing in pain approximated the form of a young human girl.
WhattheHELLwasthat?!? Alaricus’ hand jerks back from the twitching form of the jaguar. His mouth popped open as his jaw hit the floor. The skein through which the vision was relayed was dark and menacing. And very alien. It reeked of tendrils and flagellae and dark things that hide in the shadows. He slides a little further along his own skein to the form before his and feels the faltering beat of Aicen’s heart. Unexpectedly, the girl convulsed and the almost immediately the jaguar was back, its snarl broken and keening.
A soft moan of instant and unexpected pain escapes her full red lips as she inadvertently touches the left side of her abdomen. Sticky wetness covers her hand and daggers throb deep within the wound. Deftly tearing the hem of her ragged dress up she sees two, inch deep adjacent claw marks gaping open and bleeding. The raw flesh of the wound interspersed with stomach viscera. They lie just above what looks to be a puncture wound caused by some form of stabbing weapon. A soft moan escapes her lips. Pain swamps her with such unbearable agony that the world escapes her in a cascading, lethal rush.
Aicen! Come back! Again Alaricus summons forth his will and channels it down the skein to the jaguar form, energising it. Follow ME! <IMPERATIVE: Summoning>. He sifts through the thoughts that are associated with Aicen’s current cognitive event and all he can find is pure abject fear and sporadic, uncontrolled movements that seem to be related to the incredible desire that she feels to flee. Flashing images of dark uncontrollable beasts pervade her every unconscious thought and they are all out to get her. Aicen’s skin becomes noticeably cooler and her breath comes small and fast. He quickly checks her pulse.
Oily, fluid darkness seeps around and pervades her. It is warm and thick like the blood it could very well be. A presence, evilly vicious, behind her. As suddenly as the thought is thought reality alters and then there is. Dim light. She was right. Dim red light. Her vision is awash with thick blood that assails her eyes as the pungent odour assails her smell.
A swift stirring, a cancerous, bulbous growth begins on the surface as if suddenly, inevitably pregnant. Vicious ripple. Liquid crimson congeals and then bursts forth releasing its molten self over her. It would cover her had she essence. She has none and so it passes through her. She is frozen in fear. In dread. Her pulse quickens and the essence that is her races through her, quickening everything. There is something infinitely malevolent before her in the inky redness and still she feels the compulsion to fearfully glance behind.
Nothing. And beast form of Aicen is failing rapidly. Dark eyes squint involuntarily as Alaricus sends tendrils of thought down deep into hers. Running his touch first along her shivering skin he gauges its temperature. Toolow. Delving deeper he feels the capillaries pervade it. They are constricted in an attempt to preserve rapidly falling body heat. Sparking an idea in his own mind to restore balance, he shifts his focus and enters the physical brain of the rigorous form before his. Stimulating the system of structures begins a cascade of events that result in the release of powerful chemicals into the blood. This substance, this qua, and its interaction on various bodily organs thus cause the pupils to dilate, the sense of time to slow and the heart to race. It also causes the insatiable urge to either flee or fight.
The jettisoned red drips quickly from her view and the shape reveals its menacing self. Two giant teats, fur lined throbbing filthy spinnerets. Poking, seeking. Throbbing and twitching before her seeking. To cover her with their sticky, inevitable filth. Piercing pain from both shoulders shocks her cold as something long and viciously terrible pierces them. She is picked up effortlessly and tossed about as a bone. Wailing permeates the thick slick oil and it is her that is screaming. She screams, she thrashes. She abandons all thought to screaming and thrashing. She cries in pain and horror at being held impossibly painful by impossible anatomy. Angry snapping mandibles the size of her legs snap viciously. Grinning. Mucus drips sickeningly from them as does venom from the arm length and wickedly curved and pointed fangs seeking to pierce her again and drain her scarlet essence.
The image of the ivory teeth amongst the slick black fur and jade green slitted eyes of a great black cat superimposes itself forcefully over the image of Aicen’s inner workings and for a moment he is pale as death as he falters. Skin now pale and clammy, though for completely different reasons, Alaricus focuses his formidable will and throws off the invasion of the darkness within Aicen. The time it took to do so, though only the tiniest fragment of a fragment of time, was enough for the racing heart to race drastically out of control. Faster and faster it races, thwarting every attempt to slow it.
I am risen. I am risen up and toward my end. SnapSnapTwitchDrip shake the mandibles and fangs spastically in eagerness as my name is whispered to me, “Aiiicccen …” The mandibles close in and I feel soft flesh tearing. Mine. The fangs pierce me heavy and bloodily and then, sundered and plundered, I am dead.
In that exact instant Aicen’s heart stops. So does that of the Alaricus. Luckily for the latter, his starts again, merely skipping a beat in shock. Very close to panicking and swiftly readjusting his senses he notes that the heart had not stopped but to all extents and purposes that is the effect. It flutters so fast and so randomly that the life pump of the body pumps nothing. Dark-eyed and panicked Alaricus slaps his left hand on the jaguar form’s right upper chest and his right hard against the upper ribs of her left side. Feeling briefly through his hands, the rapid contraction and de-contraction of heart muscle, he energises his hands and delivers a jolt of energy out through his left hand and silently prays to some god he knows does not exist. He waits. Nothing. No beat, no rhythm. Nothing. No god either to provide aid. If time weren’t of the essence, he’d take the time to smile sardonically.
Again he shoots the charge through his left hand, into the cooling body before his, and out into his right hand. Again nothing. Tiring from both the previous work and this latest development he summons reserves of strength he was only barely aware he had and pours that into the next, higher charge. Aicen’s body convulses as the incredible amount of energy surges through her. Her back arcing, heels drumming on the ground. Bestial face contorted, slack jawed with spittle. Her dark muscular jaguar form straining against the pressure Alaricus was exerting to hold her down.
There is nothing for a fraction of a second and then, on cue, the heart beats its beat anew. Lubdub lubdub lubdub. The beat is regular and well-paced. It is also the correct rate. Life begins being pumped throughout his body as blood is pumped from non-vital organs to those crucial to body’s perception of survival. Aicen warms as the heat generated by the increased metabolism finds an outlet; through the skin and out into the cooler atmosphere. Small wisps of air escape his mouth as his rate of breathing increases to meet the demand of the qua-cha; the stuff of the blood that carries the air from the lungs to the organs of the body.
Aicen’s previously cooling form automatically reasserts the balance so delicate and vital to the sustenance of life. His limbs and joints lose the rigidity from their convulsions and the sentience he had detected initially rises once more to the fore. As her sentience comes forth, so too does her form, settling once again into the image of a young, be-draggled girl. Settling also into the calm, measured peace of sleep.
Aicen lies slumbering all coma like while Alaricus breathes multiple sighs of relief and those of slight apprehension. WhatWASthatthing?!? His mind and mouth still agape at the sheer magnitude of the creature from the depths of Aicen’s depths. His own mind being all a-shadow and dark as it was, it made even his seem a brilliant shining light of warmth, compassion and goodness in comparison. suchVISCIOUSNESS!!
Discarding the two now broken arrows and binding first the wound in her chest, then the leg, he wonders as to the image-creature’s origin. Is it a creature of the mind? Or is it a creature of her mind? Either answer fitting, it was still something to be concerned with once she awakens.
"..panther, isn't it?" Aradec finishes as Alaricus, easing an aching back, slowly gets to his feet.
"No." Alaricus said, stepping back from the wounded animal. "She is far from normal even if she was just a panther.”
A pause.
“But she is much more than that.”
“Get back ‘ere, you STINKING BETCH!” roared the huge Ogre in its guttural tongue, nursing the part of his forearm that had recently lost some of its structural integrity.
The small feral creature, dark in the corner of the dank cell, snarled and spat the missing flesh back at the previous owner hitting it squarely in its’ left eye.
Roaring furiously, the Ogre charged forward striking at the nimble but filthy creature as it ducked, dodged and weaved for all it was worth. Mad eyes and flashing teeth darted here and there in the darkness of the room while the hulking pursuer did its best to corner the feral creature within the confines of the cell.
For all its bulk the Ogre was fast and, more than once, the tiny, dirty figure took glancing blows that forced air and curses from between clenched teeth.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll rip your piss-eating throat out!” snarled the tiny form of pure viciousness and rage in a high pitched voice, ducking under a fist the size of a human head. Behind him, the Ogre felt a pitiful strike at its hip.
The Ogre chuckled deeply and bellowed, turning,
“Stop movin’, PISS-ANT! Yerr no fo’ the pot!”
“The pox take you, monster!” But the voice was uncertain expecting a trick.
Expecting the slight pause in the dirt, muck and rag covered target, the Ogre lashed out and grabbed it by the neck. Enraged screams and dark curses spewed from the dervish’s mouth as it struggled furiously but in vain.
“If ye weren’t so scrawny yer would be fo’it.” The Ogre muttered to the slight, raging form in its grip. The other great fist came over and struck it squarely on the side of the head. Dirt, muck and rag crumpled in its’ grip with a small grunt as all went dark.
Sunlight streamed in through the open doorway amidst the sounds of men in soldiering gear forming up outside the house. A shadow paused in the doorway as a tiny figure darted out and collided with the larger, forcing him to take a step back.
“Father! Don’t leave us!” the young girl cried as she help tight to his, burying her face into his tunica.
“There, there, little Aicen [pronounced Aishen], you’ll do.” He said, patting her head compassionately.
“Your brother is strong and sound and he’ll mind ye’ both while I’m gone.”
The dulcet tones of a military commander ordering men to form ranks shattered the moment, startling the small girl. Aicen sniffed and looked up at her father.
“I’ve got to go Aicen, Tib’ come get her, son.” The elder boy, standing alongside his mother darted forward obediently. Her father patted her hair once more and darkened the doorway no longer.
“Keep them both safe for me Tiberius,” his voice wafted in as he hurried to join the ranks.
The commander barked orders and immediately the sounds of marching feet began to fade from hearing.
“FA-“
In the dark room, the creature lying in the corner whimpers then cries out.
“-THER!!!”
A grubby child-like hand places itself gently on her as if in comfort and the small form whimpers and eases back into unconsciousness.
“Get your sister to safety!” screamed Dorienne to Tiberius
“They’re coming! Mother, you must come with us!” he screamed, pulling her to the door at the back of the house.
Screams of panicked, terrified and tortured villagers pierced the night as the sky reddened with light from newly raging fires. Horses whinnied in panic and reared, straining against their tether. Wooden rails fell on each other as horses finally broke free and trampled anything in their path to be free. Then, deciding and following him to the door, she nodded.
“Right. Let’s go!”
Tiberius bolted through the door, Aicen cradled protectively in his arms and out into the field at the back. He turned around just in time to see his mother, face set in determination, say,
“Get her out of here!” and slam the door shut, driving the bolt home.
“NOOOO!!!”
He raced back to the window, casting about for something to throw through it. Finally finding a hoe, he aimed the farming tool at the window and very nearly let go his breeches. He saw, from the inside, the front door fly suddenly from its hinges. He also saw the huge form of an Ogre ducking inside, advancing on his mother.
“Tiberious! DO AS I BID!” she screamed at swung at the Ogre. Not expecting such a furious assault Ogre was taken aback and glanced at Tiberious through the window. It grinned. Then it advanced again on his mother.
“Mother, NOOOO!!” Tiberius screamed, fighting against the locked door.
“This one’s fo’th’ pot!” It bellowed over its shoulder.
Two heavy footfalls and his mother was in the Ogre’s grasp and she was whimpering in fear. Falling back in fear and uncertainty, almost dropping Aicen, he stumbled to the ground. Then he heard the piercing scream of his mother that was cut suddenly short with a wet thump. He vainly tried to scramble to his feet.
He had just gotten up when shards from the burst door flew at and past him as the Ogre came crashing out. It charged him and he was a limp sack of dead meat as it collided with him, Aicen flying from his still twitching grasp. He was dead from the collision before he even realised a large chunk of the door had impaled him on his left side.
Grunting, the hulking shape of the Ogre trudged over to the scrambling form of the tiny girl, huffing noisily. It filled her view. Raising a meaty fist, it said,
“Boduk won’t eat you. Yer too scrawny.” And her lights were put out.
Starting bolt upright, the small feral girl groaned, her head aching both within and without. She cursed loudly.
“Fucking Ogre pig! I’ll rip its fucking throat out!” then cursed again, more quietly this time to abate the incredible pain in her head.
The grubby child-like hand once more reached out and touched her shoulder compassionately.
“Aicen. Are you ok?”
She jumped, startled. Then cried out in pain holding her head between her knees. Quietly she said,
“Donk. Do that again and I’ll rip your throat out too.”
“S-s-s-sorry” a small boy’s voice said from the darkness, “I was worried. You were out for ages this time! I thought you dead.”
“I wish I was” Aicen muttered. “I hate it when it plays with you”, Donk said quietly, subdued.
“It was worth it though.” she said grinning darkly in the darkness, bringing forth a dull object barely discernable in the poor light.
“You got it!” Donk exclaimed sidling forward careful so as to not disturb his injured friend.
“The keys!”
“When that other one takes us to the drains for cleaning, we’ll move then.” She said, still cradling her head. “You sleep. If I sleep I think I’ll not wake up. I’ll sleep after you.” Donk nodded, forgetting in the darkness that she could barely see him, and settled down for as much sleep as the damp cold stone floor would allow. Aicen sat hunched, still in pain, against the wall. Eyes shining with malicious intent and hatred.
“GET UP Scrawnies!! Work!” the terrible voice of the other Ogre bellowed through the small window in the cell door. Both Aicen and Donk started bolt upright in shock and fear.
Quickly they huddled to the far side of the room to await the inevitable. Aicen taking care to quiet the noise of the keys she had recently obtained. She looked at Donk who looked back encouragingly.
“Soon”, she whispered.
The Ogre advanced, reaching out two massive, meaty fists. They huddled into themselves. For years this had been the routine but still they cowered, afraid.
“CLEAN!” bellowed the Ogre, picking them each in one fist by the scruff of the neck, shaking them roughly. Head still throbbing in pain, and now spinning, Aicen groaned quietly at both the pain in her head and with the knowledge of where she knew she must go.
Both Aicen and Donk could walk the passageway to the ‘cleaning room’, as they called it, in their sleep. The room was more like a central hub with one main, locked, exit to the rest of the complex with small vertical tubes surrounding the perimeter of the large circular room. These tubes were enterable by a small hatch far too small for the Ogres or Orcs to enter. They were the privy chutes for the eating hall above. And they had to be cleaned when they became blocked and there was no other creature here small enough in statue bar these two. They knew full well that obstructions had to be .. dislodged or there would be consequences. Painful consequences. They were locked in the room and while the Ogre sat outside supposedly on guard but all involved knew there would be no escape.
These exits were no real exits. For they knew. They had tried to escape through them many times. From the hub these chutes travelled upwards to near the main eating hall of the stone complex and far, far below to a massive dark and empty space with naught air and a stiff breeze beneath them. They had each shimmied with small and it had taken eons for the sound of the rock hitting the surface below to reach their ears. Upwards lay Ogres and an army of Hob-Goblins and certain death. Below lay nothing whatsoever. And certain death.
But they were both very stealthy and had decided upon an extremely dangerous plan involving another route. Going out the front door. Well, out the side door leastways. In their travels up and down the chutes, the pair had discovered cracks in the chute walls and had managed to, over time, break them down so they could wiggle through. They had consequently found crawlspaces directly under the stone floors of a lot of the main rooms and hallways. Excited, they had gotten most of the way to an old iron door. Aicen, climbing on the shoulders of Donk, had seen a large pit filled with bones and half eaten bodies and the iron door overlooked this pit. Thinking that this was obviously their refuse pit it made for the perfect escape route. If only the door could be unlocked. If only miracles happened. They had both decided that the attempt was worth it.
Boduk had always been the angriest when he had been given refuse duty and had to carry all the cracked and discarded bones and body parts out while everyone else sat in raucous delight snapping their filthy teeth cracking human and elf bones for their marrow. Boduk must have been very angry yesterday as he had kept muttering “Bones! Bones! Bones!” in their play session, fingering his keys. That was when the idea had struck her, just before great ham fist had. She’d ducked behind him and feinted an obviously ineffectual kidney punch as she lifted his keys. She had just secreted them about her person with she was caught and hammered into unconsciousness.
Gritting her teeth in remembrance she stopped, a dark look on her grubby face. Donk, crawling directly behind her stopped, his pudgy nose and face pushed hard against her feet.
“I have to kill it” she whispered, mad with rage. “I have to kill Boduk”
Donk gasped in the darkness. “That’s madness! You can’t!”
“We’ll get the door open, then I can go back. I have to! It needs to die!” And with that she crawled further to the spot where the drain run into, raised her arms and lifted it up and out of its setting. Stopping to listen, then quickly popping her head up to scan for threats, she then reached down and helped Donk up and out of the drain.
“Quick! The door!” he said excitedly but she was already there. As luck would have it, the first key she tried turned the tumblers in the lock and the door swung open easily.
“Yes! She exclaimed in triumph, looking over at Donk. His face was pale and he shook terribly. She glanced where he was looking, fearful. At the open doorway stood Boduk, purple rage mottling its’ already disgusting face.
In a rare moment of intelligence, Boduk had obviously realised that his keys were missing and that the two Scrawnies were going for the refuse door and trying to escape. He bellowed in rage, crashing down the hallway to the refuse door.
“Quick, jump!” She said and he did not waste a moment.
Reaching them just has Donk leapt down to freedom, Beduk snatched him out of thin air and smashed him against the stone wall, blood covering Aicen with its hot sticky thickness. He crumbled sickly, large portions of cracked skull and grey matter sliding down the wall to rest on the floor with a soft plop.
“You fucking filthy MONSTER !!” screams Aicen then as she advances on the huge Ogre before her. Rage unlike anything she has ever felt fills her and she draws complete and dreadful bestial fury into herself. Raising her bloody arms to the ceiling she mixes it with the strength and very essence of her own blood, her life, and condemns herself to death, willing hers to oblivion in return for complete, utter and bloody vengeance upon all those that slew hers.
Dark eyes growing darker by degrees, the crackling of crimson energy fills her mad eyes. Irises changing. Snarling, her vision washed with red, Boduk backs up against his will, the beginnings of fear forming in his wide, staring eyes. Her skin tingling with power, her whole being filled with blood and rage. She feels power. She feels fury. She feels incredible strength. Never before had she been so enraged. Never before had she been under its power. Now, however, it owns her. She is its’ vessel. She has surrendered completely and the totality of the rage-essence courses through her, blinding her in a red mist. From somewhere far distant she hears the incensed shouting and screams of more hob-goblins guards.
She feels a massive throat crunch under her incredibly sharp teeth as she rips it out. With it coming an incredible sense of satisfaction as the foul blood flows down her bestial throat. Flashes of a multitude of screaming faces, and the terrified dead face of Donk, flit across her steadily darkening vision. Throughout her haze she catches fleeting glimpses of a large jet black monstrosity of wicked claws and fierce jaws cyclone throughout the room obliterating all within it. Tearing flesh, making the blood flow. It passes swiftly out of sight and she sees Donk, walking toward her, oblivious to the destruction around him. Her friend, her dead friend, smiles at her. He is calm, happy and grateful as her vision of him slowly finally fades completely as her height seems to change. Eyes with changed irises closing slowly.
Meeting the Party:
"And that’s the end of YOU, you great bag of..!" Aradec grunts, ducking under the final swing of the now dying, and rather ugly, Dwarf. Pausing to recapture his breath and gather his wits he looked around the ruins of the stone tower the dead dwarf and his compatriots had previously occupied.
“What a shit hole.” Remarked Alaricus, doing the same. “Alright, lets clean up.”
Sometime later and just on dark, Aradec finishes stowing both loot and equipment, his eye catching the amulet they had come looking for.
“Well, those new friends of yours will be happy, having gotten their trinket back for them. Don’t supposed they could have done it themselves.”
Alaricus grunted in agreement, “Then we would’ve have to find something else to do.”
Following Aradec outside, intent on making way back to the recently purchased estate, Alaricus suddenly paused mid stride and mid scan. He looked at the wall strangely. Coming up behind, hands rearranging pouches on his belt, Vincenzo looked up.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Alaricus trailed off, thinking of the combat just done with, beginning to suspect that one had gotten away.
“There’s something over there,” he said, pointing. Directly at the wall not three paces from him.
Vincenzo and Aradec, who had popped his head back in, exchanged glances. It had been odd becoming used to Alaricus’ new ability of seeming to ‘see’ anything living within a certain radius. Or more accurately, and according to Alaricus, anything of intelligence. Whatever that meant.
Aradec ducked back outside with both Alaricus and Vincenzo following both behind, the latter’s oddly shaped staff still bearing the tell-tale marks of Aradec’s latest attempt at carving.
“Shit! What is that!” came the exclamation from Aradec, quickly taking up his bow, “What’s a black panther doing this close to a city?” He quickly nocked a bow and raised it, pulling back.
Alaricus and Vincenzo both cornered the building, now seeing the dark shape not forty feet away from where they stood. It just stood there. Eyes intently on them, wary.
“.. proper name is a melanistic jaguar, actually..” Vincenzo muttered absently keeping a watchful on the large creature in front of them. Aradec slowly took aim. It began to draw down in an aggressive crouch, sharp back in a snarl. Then it looked at Alaricus and paused, eyes burning with intelligence and pain.
“Wait!” came the voice of Alaricus as he quietly pushed past them to approach the creature, which remained standing, eyeing them suspiciously.
“It’s injured,” Vincenzo said, finally noticing the shaft of an arrow protrude through the area just above that which would have been the knee on a human. There was another, embedded deep into the front of its shoulder.
“It took two. That chest shot was a good one.” Aradec noted, noticing some arrows of similar make on the ground near where he stood.
As if reminded of its injuries the jaguar seems to sway and it growled. Almost human in its pain. Without hesitation Alaricus, reached out his mind to the creature, calming it with soothing images and thoughts. He slowly walked towards it with it still eyeing him with suspicion.
EasyHereletme… <emotion:calmnessTrustCompassion>
rageDEATHbloodyKillingyouDirtyTwo-Legs[looping]PAIN
..helpYou <emotion:calmnessTrust>
PAIN!!GetitOUT!KillItbeforeIt..<image/emotion: arrow shooting. Thunk:RageAndPain>
IcanRemoveIt<calmbessTrust>
..Attacks!!
Suddenly, in a burst of muscle and pure blinding speed, it lunged towards Alaricus and snarled viciously at the consequent increase in pain from both the arrow in its chest and the one in its knee. Just as it reached Alaricus, its eyes glazed over and it fell to the ground at his feet with a heavy thud. As it lost consciousness, he quickly followed it deep down to within itself. Into its darkness and sentience
<rapid fire montage image of a girl being beaten by an Ogre, escaping.
the death of a friend and the subsequent slaughter of everything>
Darkness.
There is no warmth in the icy darkness. Floating on endless streams of molasses. No needs. No desires. The body is dormant and irrelevant. Drifting idly. A niggling awareness creeps in somewhere behind. This strikes as odd. An occurrence out of place. Continental plates of cognition gather extremely slowly and form around it. “Behind’ implies an object to which the adjective refers. Behind .. me. Me.
Attending to that concept and narrowing upon it. It grows. And thus do I, or my sense. Awareness increases exponentially such that it develops a name. Sensation. What sensation? A feeling of weight upon an object. Sensation occurs and bursts into my reality. Knowledge sparks sentience, of a variety. Gravity. And the texture of that which I lay upon.
Awareness informs me of the olfactory world. And sound. The dank and musty smell of the substance I lay upon mingles with the sound of water trickling over the rough granite walls in a myriad of clear liquid veins.
Light breaks through tiny slits in the universe as both sides horizontally separate and depart. All I see is a myriad of blurred outlines. Senseless. Muscles contract to bring this new corporality into clear and pristine existence. A sense of encumbrance invades sluggish thought processes. My body slowly responds, stretching languidly, energising powerful strength concealed beneath the jet of my covering. The world crashes towards me in a rush. Shattering my languish.
Alaricus gasped kneeling then, fortifying his own sentience, Delved deeper.
Something tears and stabs below me and I feel pain. In the gut that I have. Which, I find, is also me. Heavy boulders rumble down a mountain. I crave. Stabbing again, more insistent. I crave what? St-Stab and I am bundled upon in pain. Some ceaseless, insubstantial nemesis paralysing my core. Driving me. It will not be denied.
Thick, corded bunches of my great neck ripple, and the world shifts. It tilts and is now looked upon from a higher plane. Muscles bunch and are released into a burst of speed. The earth is set in motion, passing swiftly beneath the pangs and the roar of pregnant silence. Rocking gently in a smooth flowing gait I move, cool wind rushing thick over jet. Breezing past sensitive ears.
Scents are instantly encountered though not recognised. They are discarded. I pass, not bothering with their insignificance. My hunger is large. A subtle touch; a scent, caught in the thick underbrush. Silent, swift as death I stop, waiting expectantly in hunger. Crouching. The scent again, and now this time, sight.
A sleek beast passes the ring of long yellow grass and tall trees creating the dark haven of the forest. It is beautiful, tall and majestic with a proud uplifted head. The dying rays of the sun burnish the red brown splashes of its coat, making the white blaze. It bends to graze again, oblivious to me. Concealed, past the shadows. The dark holds black secrets, but the grass is sweet.
Inadvertently, carelessly, it moves four steps closer to the shadows and into the night. Feeding. Muscles tense, rippling energetically beneath jet in preparation for the burst of speed. The desire so real, the hunger inevitable and all consuming. My vision awash with red. I smell its heart pumping. The taste of its blood. Salivating, I wait.
I slink forward, feral, untamed, low to the ground. A pulse hammers in my head. My eyes narrow, readying for the kill. My breath jagged and torn from my chest. The grass explodes.
As an arrow I launch. A primal force of pure darkness slams into the side of the grazing animal. Knocking it down. It struggles to right itself. I notice I have claws. Long jagged black claws tear brutally through soft hide like vicious serrated daggers. Blood streams, hot and thick.
The animal, brown eyes dimming, struggles still while life remains. Its beautiful coat now frayed, broken, and bloody. A thin keening sounds through the cool air of dusk until lightning strikes again in the form of jagged black claws. Its throat torn out and bloody upon the ground. The fatal sound rings into the night air. Both I and the night are symbiotic.
Rippling intensity, under a smooth covering of jet, propels me forward into the deeper shadows of the trees. My prey light in my sharp and bloody grip. Hanging from me. Lucid silence instantly invades the glade. I leap onto a high branch; my prey scattering its crimson essence in my path. I feed; my sharp incisors rending bloody flesh as I eat of its body.
Hunger abated a little I land lithely upon the wet earth, claws swift and lethal. From shadow to deep shadow I flitter, the deer carcass as a feather in my grip. Heart pounding, blood alight like liquid fire through bursting veins.
I scream my triumph into the night. The sound shatters the pregnant silence and gives bloody birth to true fear. Small terrified animals hide shivering from the scream. I am oblivious to their insignificance.
I reach my lair and enter, assuaging my terrible hunger on the bloody flesh of the carcass. The forest sleeps in pregnant fear until next I hunger.
Alaricus looked very strangely at the form on the ground. He vaguely noticed that the pelt was not completely black at all, rather covered in small rings with two or three distinct spots contained within, giving an impression of patterns printed on silk.
Its’ breath was raspy and ragged. Blood continued to seep forth despite the many rags he had surrounded the shaft of the arrow with. He had pushed the arrow through and now it protruded from the creature’s upper dorsal region. Gently, and absently, he gripped the shaft of the arrow near the arrowhead. Gritting his teeth, he bunched his muscles and snapped the head off. Then he repeated the process with the lesser injury. The large dark form convulsed and, as their minds were linked, his was pulled under, deeper into its own and its’ horror.
Blood drips thickly from her fingers. Running in rivulets between the webbing of her fingers, warming her hands against the already sweltering jungle nights. Outside crickets make noise and beasts of the thick foliage gnash and thrash about. Almost in response to the gruesome events that recently took place.
Viscous red substance drips thickly from her hands. On her hands. On her face. Splattered over the bodice of her rags. Down her left leg. Holding her slim arms before her and slowly rotating her outstretched hands she gazes almost idly at the scarlet rivulets. She watches them as they ooze their way down to gather at her elbows and drip onto the large granite tiles of the floor. Pooling in the grout between the tiles the blood begins to form a slick matrix of scarlet, criss-crossing the floor where she stands.
The thought swirls in his mind like some dark and twisted alien creature trying to find a place to hide. Eventually it spirals off into the darkness along with his vanishing sense of her. Her. It is female and a human one! He Delves deeper, frantically searching as it flits from his grasp.
She watches the lines form and idly she wonders what lines of power could be made from them. Blood is the matrix of life, she wonders, holding his dripping fingers close before his. It is not life. It holds life. The body is the vessel that holds the blood, the blood is the vessel that holds the life and both are therefore sacred things. Blood is also therefore a crucial element of all offerings as much power can be pulled from the blood of the willing. From the unwilling too, power can be pulled but more so from the willing for some reason.
Tracing the slow and thickly moving path of blood down her arms Aicen idly wonders where the blood is coming from. She can feel nothing so she doubts it is from her. But then, she has no real feeling in her that she can tell
Aicen. A name.
“What are you doing?” queries Aradec, looking over Alaricus’ shoulder. “It’s just a… “
Aicen! Come Forth! <IMPERATIVE: Summoning>
The beast screamed in pain, great head arched back, straining. Suddenly the form wavered. Fur covered fore-limbs lengthened, rapidly lost their fur and became very human in appearance. The great head, arched back in pain, rapidly lost its feline appearance. Ears shortened, sharp incisors receding and squaring off, jaw thinning. The thick darkly ringed tail lost its length and seemed to merge back into the spine and disappear. For a brief moment the creature lying there writhing in pain approximated the form of a young human girl.
WhattheHELLwasthat?!? Alaricus’ hand jerks back from the twitching form of the jaguar. His mouth popped open as his jaw hit the floor. The skein through which the vision was relayed was dark and menacing. And very alien. It reeked of tendrils and flagellae and dark things that hide in the shadows. He slides a little further along his own skein to the form before his and feels the faltering beat of Aicen’s heart. Unexpectedly, the girl convulsed and the almost immediately the jaguar was back, its snarl broken and keening.
A soft moan of instant and unexpected pain escapes her full red lips as she inadvertently touches the left side of her abdomen. Sticky wetness covers her hand and daggers throb deep within the wound. Deftly tearing the hem of her ragged dress up she sees two, inch deep adjacent claw marks gaping open and bleeding. The raw flesh of the wound interspersed with stomach viscera. They lie just above what looks to be a puncture wound caused by some form of stabbing weapon. A soft moan escapes her lips. Pain swamps her with such unbearable agony that the world escapes her in a cascading, lethal rush.
Aicen! Come back! Again Alaricus summons forth his will and channels it down the skein to the jaguar form, energising it. Follow ME! <IMPERATIVE: Summoning>. He sifts through the thoughts that are associated with Aicen’s current cognitive event and all he can find is pure abject fear and sporadic, uncontrolled movements that seem to be related to the incredible desire that she feels to flee. Flashing images of dark uncontrollable beasts pervade her every unconscious thought and they are all out to get her. Aicen’s skin becomes noticeably cooler and her breath comes small and fast. He quickly checks her pulse.
Oily, fluid darkness seeps around and pervades her. It is warm and thick like the blood it could very well be. A presence, evilly vicious, behind her. As suddenly as the thought is thought reality alters and then there is. Dim light. She was right. Dim red light. Her vision is awash with thick blood that assails her eyes as the pungent odour assails her smell.
A swift stirring, a cancerous, bulbous growth begins on the surface as if suddenly, inevitably pregnant. Vicious ripple. Liquid crimson congeals and then bursts forth releasing its molten self over her. It would cover her had she essence. She has none and so it passes through her. She is frozen in fear. In dread. Her pulse quickens and the essence that is her races through her, quickening everything. There is something infinitely malevolent before her in the inky redness and still she feels the compulsion to fearfully glance behind.
Nothing. And beast form of Aicen is failing rapidly. Dark eyes squint involuntarily as Alaricus sends tendrils of thought down deep into hers. Running his touch first along her shivering skin he gauges its temperature. Toolow. Delving deeper he feels the capillaries pervade it. They are constricted in an attempt to preserve rapidly falling body heat. Sparking an idea in his own mind to restore balance, he shifts his focus and enters the physical brain of the rigorous form before his. Stimulating the system of structures begins a cascade of events that result in the release of powerful chemicals into the blood. This substance, this qua, and its interaction on various bodily organs thus cause the pupils to dilate, the sense of time to slow and the heart to race. It also causes the insatiable urge to either flee or fight.
The jettisoned red drips quickly from her view and the shape reveals its menacing self. Two giant teats, fur lined throbbing filthy spinnerets. Poking, seeking. Throbbing and twitching before her seeking. To cover her with their sticky, inevitable filth. Piercing pain from both shoulders shocks her cold as something long and viciously terrible pierces them. She is picked up effortlessly and tossed about as a bone. Wailing permeates the thick slick oil and it is her that is screaming. She screams, she thrashes. She abandons all thought to screaming and thrashing. She cries in pain and horror at being held impossibly painful by impossible anatomy. Angry snapping mandibles the size of her legs snap viciously. Grinning. Mucus drips sickeningly from them as does venom from the arm length and wickedly curved and pointed fangs seeking to pierce her again and drain her scarlet essence.
The image of the ivory teeth amongst the slick black fur and jade green slitted eyes of a great black cat superimposes itself forcefully over the image of Aicen’s inner workings and for a moment he is pale as death as he falters. Skin now pale and clammy, though for completely different reasons, Alaricus focuses his formidable will and throws off the invasion of the darkness within Aicen. The time it took to do so, though only the tiniest fragment of a fragment of time, was enough for the racing heart to race drastically out of control. Faster and faster it races, thwarting every attempt to slow it.
I am risen. I am risen up and toward my end. SnapSnapTwitchDrip shake the mandibles and fangs spastically in eagerness as my name is whispered to me, “Aiiicccen …” The mandibles close in and I feel soft flesh tearing. Mine. The fangs pierce me heavy and bloodily and then, sundered and plundered, I am dead.
In that exact instant Aicen’s heart stops. So does that of the Alaricus. Luckily for the latter, his starts again, merely skipping a beat in shock. Very close to panicking and swiftly readjusting his senses he notes that the heart had not stopped but to all extents and purposes that is the effect. It flutters so fast and so randomly that the life pump of the body pumps nothing. Dark-eyed and panicked Alaricus slaps his left hand on the jaguar form’s right upper chest and his right hard against the upper ribs of her left side. Feeling briefly through his hands, the rapid contraction and de-contraction of heart muscle, he energises his hands and delivers a jolt of energy out through his left hand and silently prays to some god he knows does not exist. He waits. Nothing. No beat, no rhythm. Nothing. No god either to provide aid. If time weren’t of the essence, he’d take the time to smile sardonically.
Again he shoots the charge through his left hand, into the cooling body before his, and out into his right hand. Again nothing. Tiring from both the previous work and this latest development he summons reserves of strength he was only barely aware he had and pours that into the next, higher charge. Aicen’s body convulses as the incredible amount of energy surges through her. Her back arcing, heels drumming on the ground. Bestial face contorted, slack jawed with spittle. Her dark muscular jaguar form straining against the pressure Alaricus was exerting to hold her down.
There is nothing for a fraction of a second and then, on cue, the heart beats its beat anew. Lubdub lubdub lubdub. The beat is regular and well-paced. It is also the correct rate. Life begins being pumped throughout his body as blood is pumped from non-vital organs to those crucial to body’s perception of survival. Aicen warms as the heat generated by the increased metabolism finds an outlet; through the skin and out into the cooler atmosphere. Small wisps of air escape his mouth as his rate of breathing increases to meet the demand of the qua-cha; the stuff of the blood that carries the air from the lungs to the organs of the body.
Aicen’s previously cooling form automatically reasserts the balance so delicate and vital to the sustenance of life. His limbs and joints lose the rigidity from their convulsions and the sentience he had detected initially rises once more to the fore. As her sentience comes forth, so too does her form, settling once again into the image of a young, be-draggled girl. Settling also into the calm, measured peace of sleep.
Aicen lies slumbering all coma like while Alaricus breathes multiple sighs of relief and those of slight apprehension. WhatWASthatthing?!? His mind and mouth still agape at the sheer magnitude of the creature from the depths of Aicen’s depths. His own mind being all a-shadow and dark as it was, it made even his seem a brilliant shining light of warmth, compassion and goodness in comparison. suchVISCIOUSNESS!!
Discarding the two now broken arrows and binding first the wound in her chest, then the leg, he wonders as to the image-creature’s origin. Is it a creature of the mind? Or is it a creature of her mind? Either answer fitting, it was still something to be concerned with once she awakens.
"..panther, isn't it?" Aradec finishes as Alaricus, easing an aching back, slowly gets to his feet.
"No." Alaricus said, stepping back from the wounded animal. "She is far from normal even if she was just a panther.”
A pause.
“But she is much more than that.”