Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Bloodied Shards IC (CLOSED!)

Let it straffe him? No, not worth it.

Victi backflips off the shriker, landing before quipping, "Hi, I'm raising money to hunt down evil aritfacts. Mind if I take all of yours? Oh, and do you have a map? I could steal one of those, too. No idea where I'm going."

The shriker brings itself to a stop and turns around as she performs her dramatic dismount.

Drake had his suspicions since he heard the Shriker barreling through the woods, and the vixen’s snide introduction confirms all of them.

It’s her.

The sorceress.

He meets her gaze, looks down, then slowly follows her body’s contours up until he again look her in the eyes. Not only is he sizing her up for a fight, but the man is also admiring her lean figure.

She’s pretty, but Drake thinks he understands why the Magistrate sounded so afraid of her. There’s something about the way Victi carries herself. The way she speaks. Her eyes...she’s dangerous and definitely wants him to know it.

Refusing to let her under his skin, Drake completely changes his demeanor by offering a pleasant smile. He tells himself that he’s not in that much danger, at least not yet. She doesn’t seem to know he has a bit of what she’s looking for, despite the fact that the shard is dangling in plain view around his throat.

Fighting the urge to tuck the makeshift charm behind his collar, he lets out a small chuckle. “No map, but I’ll trade you all the money I’ve got for that nice mount there.” He jerks his head toward the Shriker, mostly joking.

"HA! Not a chance!" she replies, emphasizing the word with a dash forward, seeming to skate over the ground.

Once she's close enough, one of her long, well-toned legs lashes out in a chest-height kick, the foot carrying a kinetic blast. A simple spell by her standards, it's essentially a suspended shockwave, ready to leap forth on contact and send a target flying.

The kick connects below the collar-bone and Drake does go flying. Although surprised by the force of the blast, he rights himself in the air and lands on his feet before stumbling and falling to his knees. His sword clatters some feet away in the tall grass. That's fine. He suspects he'll be better off resorting to other tricks than scrambling to grab it, anyways. The vixen's pretty fast.

He rises, stumbling a little. The chimera tucks one arm behind his back while the other goes from laying over his bruised chest to curling its fingers around the shard as if to make it's still there.

His lips curl. "You know, someone like you can get money in so many easier ways." And he lets the comment hang there for her to interpret however she wants. In his mind, she'll either charge him again or snap another clever retort. Actually, she strikes him as the type to do both. He braces himself, preparing for anything.

She catches the scent of someone else, and something else, still clinging to him... which leads her to interpret it in the way he probably expects.

"What, giving hope to people who can't actually find someone who wants them?" she snarks back, giving him a look that clearly states that she's referring to him. She lets it stew for half a second before stomping and unleashing a blast of force upward from the ground under his feet, hoping to bounce him in the air. If he goes up, she'll jump, pivot, and have one of her tails whip another kinetic bolt at him.

The forest was mythical, magic beings lived there. It wasn't just the fantastic that took the legendary rainforest in the common mans gossip, but horrifying creatures of incredible might. The things of nightmares, the objects and ideas of one's fascination, and the answer to one's questions. These were the things the largest rainforest on the planet were deemed with. The depths had not been completely penetrated, and while many claimed to have journeyed there and returned with their own tales, many cast doubt on the stories they brought back. The depth of the forest held secrets, society was sure of it, and true or false, the experiences many claimed to have there fell on unbelieving ears.

The reality of things would be something harder to believe than the stories told about it. The Vynym, a sentient evolution of plant based life forms, had called a section deep in the forest their home for a very long time. The outside world, that lying beyond the treeline, could be equally as fascinating for them as well, and while they were certainly odd little creatures compared to the many other things the world had to offer, there was, in fact, nothing magical about them. In fact, magic was not something they were even terribly familiar with. Sure some had seen it, and stories were told of the bareland's magic in a likewise manner to which those from the 'barelands', or those outside of the forest, would tell of the forest itself.

Vee was only one of the Vynym living in a village set intentionally on the banks of a large lake. They walked away from the village, at this point a considerable distance from their home. The forest bottom had no obvious path to it, tree limbs had given up and dropped to the ground, entire trees had been defeated by their own neighbors, and bushes and underbrush grew amongst the wooden graveyards as well. Despite the difficult terrain, Vee traversed the area with great ease. They vaulted, hopped, and even stepped around, over, and through many things like they hadn't been an obstacle to begin with.

Vee's slight smile showed their pleased mood. Exploring was enjoyable, and as young as Vee was, it felt like a playful thing even. Despite this youth, however, they were quite intelligent, as most of their kind were. They held a level of maturity which was average for any 136 year old Vynym, something more blended for another race of quicker growth.

So when they landed on bare ground after heaving themselves over a long collapsed tree trunk, it gave them pause. Staring between the last two trees in front of them was a discovery. Vee walked slowly between them into a large clearing, and as they looked around, their eyes widened. Their jaw dropped, revealing an open toothless mouth in their expression of fascination.

Stone pillars stood in a large circle around a strange looking altar. The pillars looked as though they once had connections, stone slabs which were mounted at the top and passed from the top of one to the other. Everything looked like it had been there for years, eons even. The stones were cracked, run down, and most of the stone slabs had fallen and broken, or broken then fallen, leaving them in defeated piles or crashlanded positions near the weathered stone pillars. The alter was just as worn, and had a strange shape, offering an almost spigot off the side for what Vee assumed would have to have been used for pouring water.

Standing there taking the scene in for a moment, Vee felt a sudden chill. It wasn't from the rain, nor was it cold, in fact it was quite warm this day. The entire scene was....creepy, and while there wasn't an outright fear in Vee, the apprehension of the strange discovery kept them stationary several moments. Finally, the small translucent wings beneath the small flowering pods attached to Vee's body began fluttering in curiosity. Two on their chest buzzed suddenly, and the vae within lifted themselves airborn, turning to look at the scene as well. They were very good replica's of Vee, with the exception of keeping the small white and yellow flowers attached to their backs.

Vee stood and without a motion to their vae, each took off into the air in separate directions. They held themselves high in the air to avoid any dangers they might find, and otherwise flew above the discovered ruins, giving Vee an aerial view of the area below through their eyes. Vee took a tentative step forward, then another. By the third step, two more vae buzzed to life and ascended out of their pods on Vee's lower back. One flew next to Vee's face, and floated along as they walked forward, the other turned backwards and sat on Vee's right shoulder, holding a deeply green leaflike appendage most would recognize as hair for balance while keeping an eye on something that may try taking Vee by surprise.

Vee walked slowly up to the ruins, tensely and with a now serious face.

Drake blinks. Then he cracks another roguish smile and laughs. “Hah! That’s actually-” He sees her raise her foot, and on a hunch, he shuts his trap and ducks low, dashing to the side, the kinetic blast bouncing him farther than he'd like to go, but not so much up in the air. He digs his feet into the ground at the end of his leap to stop another fall. His eyes narrow as he focuses, honing in on a short-term attack plan. She likes those invisible blasts of force. Now it’s time to see how she uses them when she defends herself, or will she have a different trick up her sleeve?

He lunges forward. If he gets close to Victi, he feigns the act of drawing a blade from under his coat with his left hand, then swings his right fist in a sharp hook.

Standing before that piece of clay, Lisa unsheathes her blade and brings it to the palm of her hand. She takes a deep breath. Hands shaking, She draws the blade across her palm. Her breath escapes in a quick, pained hiss through gritted teeth. As the sting dulls into a low, incessant throb, she holds her bleeding hand out over the base and lets drops of blood splatter on its smooth, hungry surface.

And she feels it. The connection. The string of magic tied to the item wrapping around her fingers, slipping into the cut and coursing through her veins. A shuddering gasp escapes her lips and her eyes go wide. From her corner, Raven sits up and stares, worried.

Lisa is a magic creature, but she’s never messed with arcane forces that come from anywhere aside from within. Her shapeshifting powers are, and have always been, a part of her. To her, they’re natural. They’re good. This, on the other hand, feels like an invasion, a violation of her privacy, somehow. She hates it.

She cries out and backs away, tripping over their empty fireplace and hitting the ground. She’d hoped getting the hell away from that thing would break the connection, but it’s still there at the tips of her fingers. She doesn’t move until finally, finally, the last vestiges of external magic fade away.

Raven creeps to her side, “So…?”

“We have to get rid of it.”

“What?”

“Like you said, smash it. Bury it six feet under. I don’t care. I’m not dying to hold onto that piece of rubble.”

“But then you said-”

“Forget that; we’ll try destroying it first.” Lisa stands, leaning against the wall for support. Clutching her bleeding hand, she stumbles toward the shelves resting above and to the left of the desk. Bandages first, actually. But Raven, hearing the fear in the girl’s voice, dashes outside to look for a good, hefty rock.

Victi rolls to her left, making it so that, were he actually drawing a blade, she would pass under it before it got out of the sheath, putting her to his right as she stands, and probably making the punch awkward.

"Oh, a feint! I like the boldness!" she says, her body facing him side on. She takes a moment to stretch slightly, showing off her figure from profile in an attempt to distract his eyes while she sweeps at his legs with her tails.