Round 2 Team 5

[Silence Sei]

The team is Rayleigh and Whispers. Round starts at Midnight tonight, CST, and lasts for two weeks. Good luck!

[Rayleigh]

Lindequalme was alive with sound. Doomed creatures of all walks of life roamed the fog-drenched forest, their soft footfalls on the leaf-littered ground often the only evidence of their presence. An undead soldier, lost in the opening exchanges of the Corpse War, continued his eternal shamble amongst the blood-stained trees. A lone Dur'Taigen sprang upon its unsuspecting prey, teeth bared in a twisted snarl as a low growl rumbled from its stomach. From the darkness came the noise of distant battles; the clang of weapons and the victorious shouts suggested that the various parties were advancing on the Forgotten One. Even the Red Witch herself let loose the occasional cry of anguish, knowing that her own death was nearly upon her.

In one particular corner of the Red Forest, however, there was quiet. Two figures stood alone, unmoving, with no words passed between them. The first's face was bereft of color. Beads of sweat clung to her temples, pasting a few damp tendrils of brown hair to her forehead. Though the air held no chill, and no breeze unsettled the leaves at her feet, her small frame trembled uncontrollably. Holding herself tightly, the young human drew shallow, desperate gasps of air, forced to stop and rest for the second time in ten minutes.

"We have to keep moving," came the voice of the second, shattering the still that had enveloped them. Though she was clearly worried about her companion, her tone also carried notes of frustration. A woman of the shadows herself, Alydia recognized the dangers that lurked just out of sight. She did not wish to remain in one place any longer than necessary.

Rayleigh's response was soft and strained. "I know. I'm sorry. But I don't think I can go any further."

The corners of the dark elf's red lips turned downward at the girl's refusal, but also the realization that she was probably right. Rayleigh's initial run-in with the Soul Blossom had taken a lot out of her, and she had continued to weaken as their journey continued. A woman pushed so close to the brink of death, only to be rudely yanked back again, required rest if she hoped to recover. While Alydia wished that she could ignore her fellow Alerian's worsening state, she understood that they simply could not go on like this any longer. In fact, Ray's physical ailments were just as dangerous as anything that lived within the forest; in forcing her to keep walking, Alydia was returning the girl to the death she had prevented only an hour before.

But a safe haven such as the mechanic required was nearly impossible to find in a place such as Lindequalme. Even as she spoke, Aly's icy blue eyes swept their surroundings for a suitable hideout. "Alright. We'll find somewhere to rest for a while."

Relief crippled the already weak human, and as Rayleigh uttered a soft sigh, her shoulders sagged further. "Thank you," she managed.

The thief nodded, but every line of her body revealed the concern that plagued her. After rescuing the mousy woman, Alydia felt that she was now responsible for her well-being. Furthermore, something about Rayleigh fascinated the elf; whether it was their similar nationalities, or the girl’s charming innocence, Alydia could not be certain. Despite that, camping out was the last thing that she cared to do. She could sense that Pode's death was drawing nearer, meaning that she, too, had little time to collect the items that she sought. If she were to use the Forgotten One as a distraction, she would have to move quickly. A short glance toward Rayleigh reaffirmed the fact that the human would be completely unable to accompany her on her errands.

"There are some large trees over that way." Alydia directed Rayleigh's gaze with a lithe finger, before adding, "we'll stop there. Will you make it that far?"

"I think so."

"Good. Come on." The dark elf's hand closed about Ray's thin wrist, and with a gentle tug, she led her deeper into the forest.

[Whispers of Abyssion]

The gaunt swordsman emerged from void into high noon shadow, closing the portal behind him with a suppurating pop. Inhaling of the muggy loam – so tasteless compared to the crisp clean air of the Atlas Peaks he had just left behind – he oriented himself to the southwest and peered upon the horizon. Somewhere beyond his vision, but in truth not so distant now, lay the delta of the Alye Duina where the combined rivers of Raiaera flowed into the Stormy Sea. There, amidst the deep swamp and treacherous marsh and crimson-tainted mist, Pode awaited.

With every passing day the noose tightened around her neck. Gouts of searing flame purged clusters of vampiric Ruilserk blood vines. Rituals of cleansing eradicated the soul-leeching Fealote flowers. Packs of Dur’Taigen fled their nests before the combined onslaught of sword and sorcery. Crimson-crowned boughs shivered beneath the invisible touch of their mistress’s agony. Every now and again the earth itself quaked at the thought of the inevitable finale to come.

The swordsman, known in these parts as the mercenary Kaburagi, dropped to an uncouth squat and allowed himself a knowing half-smile. Gnarled bloodoak roots formed a thick ceiling of wood over his head, and the dirt beneath his sandals felt dry and hard to the touch. His slim fingers toyed with an unlit kiseru, its bowl whistling as it tasted the Witch’s taint. He basked for a moment in his little corner of peace within the Lindequalme, preparing himself for the punishing day that lay ahead.

He knew that the greatest danger lay not in Fealote, or Ruilserk, or Dur’Taigen. It lay neither in Pode’s scheming curses, nor in the Xem’zund’s necromantic legacy. Even the hundreds of other adventurers combing the Red Forest in support of the Raiaeran purification effort troubled him not. Instead the threat lay in himself, and in particular the consequences of spending hundreds of hours roaming the hostile environment. Slower reaction times, impaired concentration, bad decision-making; a single mistake would cost him his life. A skilled operative could survive a day in the Lindequalme. Only the best survived a week.

So he cheated, or rather, he approached the problem with common sense rather than brute force or blind intelligence. Every night he would retreat by arcane portal to the safety of his distant headquarters, and by doing so he kept himself sharper than any of his so-called compatriots. But that would count for nothing if he failed to confront Pode on his own terms.

Which meant that he had to avoid altercation, and make best use of any distractions he found along the way. His original company – the Dog, the Ditz, the Ape – had served their purpose well, and he had made good time since. But somehow he didn’t think that the Crimson Witch would let him be for much longer. No matter how many other brushfires she had on her hands.

At length, mind settled, he stood up once more and emerged from the earthen hollow. Stray roots brushed his brow like the fingers of a long-buried hand, accompanied by a shower of dry sand. Tendrils of mist muffled his steps as he ventured onto the carpet of fallen red leaves, and tickled his hollow cheeks as he cast a serpentine gaze about him.

Only then did he spy the two adventurers creeping up the shallow slope, the smaller leaning on the lean frame of the larger as if wounded. Instinctive reaction had his hand to the hilt at the hip, but then he realised where he’d seen that petite figure, long black hair, and dirtied white robes before. He forced back the leap that could have taken him within range, the stroke that could have carved head from neck.

Kayu? the thought whispered unbidden into his mind. What are you… why…?

The taller of the two met his eyes, lips curled in contempt, and the veil lifted from his mind. The smaller woman had brown hair, like waves upon a shore rather than the cascades of a waterfall. She wore not the distinctive white robes of the Academy spellweavers, but rather utilitarian tunic and leggings. She was not Kayu. He did not know this woman.

But he had no illusions as to the identity of the larger figure. Not in a thousand years could he mistake the sheer red of the coat she wore, even when it made such perversely effective camouflage.

“Alydia del Ettermire.” Baring his teeth in a challenging snarl, he blew away any anonymity she might have presumed. “The least inconspicuous thief from here to Ninedrakes.”

“Kamikaji Touma.” She wasted no time in a brittle reply, piercing the layers of falsehood he wore like a stiletto through silk. “The worst Akashiman sellsword in recorded history.”

[Rayleigh]

Almost against his will, the man’s whiskey eyes flickered between Alydia and the small human who used her as a crutch. Nostalgia continued to gnaw at his stomach, uncomfortable and strange in spite of the knowledge it was only an illusion.

Banishing such thoughts, Touma returned his attention to the woman in red. "Ah," he began, tone adopting a cold, sarcastic edge. "I see that you have brought along a friend."

Alydia's features hardened. In her weakened state, Rayleigh did not notice the subtle shift in her companion's demeanor. The action was not lost on Touma, however. A single eyebrow cocked as he added, "This is no place for a little girl, especially one so sick. Shame on you, Ettermire."

At this, Alydia could not stand his taunting any longer. "Do you think I'm not aware?" she retorted, her voice a low growl through clenched teeth. "She stumbled upon a Soul Blossom. I'm trying to get her to safety."

"Safety," repeated the Serpent Tamer, "is that way." With a short nod of his head, Touma gestured into the curling crimson mists from which the pair had just emerged. "Either Alerar's finest is hopelessly lost, or you are not, in fact, taking her to safety."

Around the small party that had formed in the depths of the Red Forest, a silence as heavy as the murky fog hung like a thick curtain. Alydia's cool blue eyes bore into the Nipponese, her jaw working as she considered his words. At the other end of her gaze, Touma waited in quiet anticipation, his curiosity whetted by the unusual situation he found the famed thief in. A small breeze tumbled about their feet, unsettling the dead vegetation that lay scattered beside their boots. A leaf on a nearby tree trembled, clinging to its final threads of life. Beside Alydia, Rayleigh Aston did the same.

"I still have business here," came the elf's eventual answer, her tone cold and detached; though she had been caught in a lie, she refused to give off the impression she was ready to explain herself fully. "I was hoping to find somewhere for her to rest until I return."

"You were going to leave her alone like this?" Alydia's gaze finally dipped, and the man's eyes widened. "You are going to leave her alone like this," he corrected, before emitting a short whistle. "It seems you are truly as heartless as they say. Or does she not merit the same loyalty as the rest of your coterie?"

His jab fell on deaf ears, honey-dipped venom swallowed like bitter medicine. The raven-haired Alerian was still focused on what Touma had stated prior to that. "No," she began slowly, voice trailing as her mind whirred to formulate a plan. Perhaps this was the opportunity that she had so desperately needed. "No, she won't be alone. She will have you to look after her."

Even Touma had a difficult time hiding his shock as her suggestion struck from the blue. His brow furrowed, and his lips parted as a soft sound of confusion slipped past. He recovered a heartbeat later, but that did not stop him from asking the obvious. "I beg your pardon?"

Alydia wasted no time; if she hoped to keep Rayleigh safe and tend to her own needs, she would have to be convincing. "There are things that I must do in the forest, but Rayleigh needs to rest. If you watch over her until I return, I will be indebted to you."

The gravity of Alydia's statement did not go unnoticed. A favor from such an accomplished thief was incredibly valuable, and more than enough to pique Touma's interest. Cerulean eyes narrowed, and she watched the lines across the man's brow deepen as he considered her offer.

As if encouraging Touma to hurry in his decision, Rayleigh let slip a soft groan, sliding further down Alydia's arm.

[Whispers of Abyssion]

“A favour from Alydia del Ettermire,” Touma decided at length, his own mind working at an equally furious rate, “is not an accolade to be lightly turned down.”

The mists parted before his outstretched arm as he indicated the hollow behind him. Dry and sheltered against the dangers of the Red Forest, she would find no better place to rest within a day’s walk. He stepped aside to let the two women past, his sandals squelching into the mulch of the forest floor. His left hand never left the scabbard at his waist.

“But I have my own errands to run, as you might have surmised. Even I can spare no more than a few hours to mind your charge. You will find me in that time?”

The thief set her companion down in the shadows, with the same care she might have extended to a trophy from one of her infamous heists. A trick of the light carved deep lines of worry in her face as she adjusted the brim of her jaunty headwear. The smaller woman slumped against the knotted roots and sighed, in relief and in respite. They dug into her back, uncomfortable and bony, but far more solid than the spinning whirling world about her.

“Yes,” she said, grinding the word like grit from a millstone. “Understand, Serpent Tamer. If you survive the forest, and this little moth does not, there is nowhere in time or in space you will be able to hide from my wrath.”

Her eyes settled upon his, hard with promise. Her voice snapped like a whip through the humid tension.

“Nowhere at all.”

“Is that a threat, Ettermire?” A mocking half-smile made light of the question. But he gave no ground before his crimson-clad client. “I will head southwest as soon as this mist lifts. If you cannot find us here when you return, make towards the Alye Duina. I trust I will leave enough clues for you to be able to follow.”

She held her glare for an eternity longer, driving the point home until even Touma could not fail to take note. Only when she felt certain it had pierced his façade of smirks did she relent.

“In which case, Kamikaji Touma, consider me in your debt.”

With one last glance at her charge, Alydia tipped her cap and disappeared into the swirling fog. Touma watched the world settle in her wake, a crimson hell bloodied but not beaten and all the hungrier for its foes forcing it into retreat. Then he turned back to the young woman left behind.

On third glance, he had no idea of how he had mistaken her for Kayu. She had none of the refined grace, none of the quiet calm that he had so valued in his erstwhile comrade. She was of similar height and build, but the physical similarities ended there as well. So how should he explain that elusive tickle in the pit of his belly? Why did his instincts tell him to stay with her, rather than push on towards Pode? What was it that made her more important than saving the world from certain doom?

He thought a moment longer, then nodded in decision. Leaving a bamboo flask of barley tea and a leaf-wrapped riceball at her side, he returned to the entrance to the hollow. Left hand still on his katana’s scabbard, Touma let the arch of bloodoak roots take his weight and cast a wary gaze out upon his surroundings. It would not do for a stray Dur’Taigen to ambush them now.

But all the while, he continued to scheme.

[Rayleigh]

As Touma's mind raced with possibilities, his small charge fought instead to rid herself of all thoughts. The pounding between her temples only intensified as she tried to make sense of her situation; it was easier, and far less painful, to simply focus on the rise and fall of her chest beneath her dirtied tunic. With each deep breath she drew, she imagined her lungs growing heavy with air. In, out. The act worked to calm her body, and assure Rayleigh that, if only for the moment, life still pulsed through her.

Curiosity prompted the Nipponese to chance a look over his shoulder. The small brunette lay slumped in the corner where the thief had left her, emerald eyes hidden behind closed eyelids, ashen skin a stark contrast to the crimson mists surrounding them. Even in the short time that she had been resting, her breathing had begun to stabilize. It now rushed past her lips with a soft hiss, filling the earthen hollow with the eerie sound. Before returning his gaze to their small hideaway's entrance, the man silently wondered if she was at peace.

In, out. She imagined that the air she drew burned with a warm red glow. In her mind, she followed the heat as it worked its way over every limb, reaching to the end of every digit. Just as she had calmed her thoughts, she worked to still her trembling body. Here, in this solitude she had created for herself, silent peace seeped into her wounded soul and stitched it whole. When at last she could exhale without the need to release the pain, she knew that she could relax. Rayleigh sensed the strength trickling back into her muscles. She felt the warm sensation of color returning to her freckled cheeks.

All at once, the heat intensified. Her skin prickled uncomfortably beneath heavy air that was far too warm for the depths of the Red Forest, and she opened her eyes to locate the source.

The Alerian's urgent whimpers attracted the attention of her keeper. At first, Touma assumed they were simply the sounds of a restless slumber. But when he turned to her, and noticed the terror etched across her features, his body grew rigid with concern. The fingers of his free hand found the hilt of his katana as he asked, "What is it?"

"The flames." This was the first time that Touma had heard Rayleigh's voice, and the fear contained in the two simple words raised the fine hairs on his forearms.

The faintest traces of a frown tugged at the corners of the man's lips as he studied the petite woman. "The flames?" She nodded, and he found himself trying to make sense of her words. Was she delusional? Given her current physical state, that was certainly a possibility. Perhaps these were merely side effects of her time within the Fealote's grasp. Still, he could not refrain from nudging her further. "What flames?"

Her voice climbed an octave, growing shrill and more panicked. "You don't see them?"

Bloodoak roots groaned beneath his weight as he turned to follow her gaze. Brittle, blood-red leaves rested undisturbed in a heap a few feet from the pair, and though there was nothing usual about what he saw, Rayleigh's worry caused him to take a second, harder look.

Slowly, fire took shape before his eyes. It did not grow from the pile of leaves, but rather materialised from nothing to lick hungrily at the crimson mist. Its edges were hazy, and if Touma looked closely enough, he could see through them to the roots on the other side. With each passing second that he watched, the fire grew more clear to him.

"I see them," came the man's slow, thoughtful reply. The full flames now danced, throwing light to each corner of the hollow, and filling the space with pleasant warmth. Rayleigh, however, regarded the blaze as if Xem'zund's deadliest abominations loitered in its embrace.

"It’s an illusion," Touma continued, brown eyes moving from the vision to the frightened young woman. Her reaction to the small fire made no sense to him. It was not large enough to put them in danger, and surely even the Alerar native would have been exposed to magic before. More surprising was the soft sob she emitted when he spoke again. He had hoped that knowing the flames were not real might put her at ease. Instead, it had only distressed her further. "There is no need to worry."

"Of course there is." A heavy silence blanketed the pair as Touma waited patiently for the words Ray dreaded to speak. Finally, "I've seen those visions before. I've seen those flames."

Spurred by a mixture of sympathy and curiosity, her companion's features softened. "The visions are not the same," he assured her gently. "I am certain that what you are seeing is the work of Pode."

Uncertainty danced with the flames in her eyes as she asked, "How do you know?"

"I know about illusions."

Rayleigh heaved a small sigh. "You're very fortunate. I have so many visions, and I don't know what any of them mean, or why I'm having them at all."

"Really?" With a small wave of his hand, Touma urged her to elaborate. "What sort of visions?"

She needed no further encouragement, and her story since her father's death tumbled unbridled from her lips. With each chapter that she shared with him, the weary mechanic's words grew more personal; she was eager to pass the immense burden of her journey to another. The Serpent Tamer remained engaged throughout, offering only the occasional nod or soft sound of agreement. Carmel eyes never left her emerald ones, and as she confessed each sin, the man absorbed more precious information.

[Whispers of Abyssion]

His fingers drummed a silent staccato on the ebony of his scabbard. A thin veneer of interest masked the cogs of his dispassionate logic as he analyzed her tale. Every nuance, every detail, he filed away in the expectation that it would be worth something in the future. One never knew when the vaguest piece of information would fetch the most ridiculous of prices.

Her story he had heard before, one of a thousand different variations on the same central theme. A journey of discovery, a quest for self, spurred by a personal tragedy that Althanas witnessed a hundred times every day. What had driven her into the Lindequalme, the perils of which deterred even the most experienced of warriors? Only misguided duty, and misplaced determination, and misjudged daring. A Moth, as Alydia del Ettermire had said, drawn to danger as though it were flame. Or rather, a Silkworm, struggling to achieve even that. No wonder she had fallen prey to the Soul Blossom.

But though he froze his features in the very portrait of composure, unfamiliar emotion continued to tug at his mind, nagging and insistent. She was no Kayu, but still he could not shake the feeling that he had seen her before? Why did she seem so familiar?

Then she brushed her hair from her eyes for a closer look at the flaming foliage, and he remembered. Unbidden, an image sprung behind his eyes, overlaid upon the Silkworm hunched in the lee of the bloodoak. A scrawny bespectacled Scholar peered at an untidy pile of calligraphic parchment, his frail shadow dancing in the light of a lone lantern. The nameless. The half-breed bastard.

Misguided duty, and misplaced determination, and misjudged daring: words fitting that boy as well as they did her. She even possessed the same thirst for knowledge, the same drive to learn. No wonder Touma’s mind wandered.

One by one the darkness spawned further faces, faces that he had not seen for years but in his darkest nightmares. The Tomboy who’d charmed half the class with her gap-toothed smile. The serious Lordling with the brooding brow. The bandage-wrapped Runt. The thin-faced Bully. The Trickster and the Thinker, the Barbarian and the Beauty, and others besides, twenty-six in all. Including himself, the snake-eyed Schemer who knew what their futures held.

“And you did nothing to prevent it.”

He breathed of loamy petrichor, tinged with cinder and ash. The darkness dampened his vision, until he could see only the abyssal oblivion of the Night of Nefarious Flame.

One by one the faces flickered from existence: speared by cackling goblins, or consumed by hungry flame, or torn apart by daemonic claws. In a matter of heartbeats they had all disappeared: twenty lives, extinguished almost as one. None had lived to see their fourteenth year. Save the Scholar, the Tomboy, the Lordling, the Runt, the Bully, and the Schemer himself.

“You watched them all die. And you did nothing to save them.”

He tracked the stormy rustle of the wind through the trees. One by one the children aged beneath his gaze, a dozen years in the space of days. Their faces shifted, until he relived in their eyes the paralytic fear of the typhoon-hindered retreat from Choson.

The Scholar faded, gazing in forlorn longing towards the Tomboy. The Bully clung to the Lordling for support, and the Runt looked to the Schemer for leadership. Then the Scholar disappeared, and the Bully perished in ghostly ice, and the Runt fell to the floor wracked by leprous pain. Only three now remained: the Tomboy, a Spellweaver in the prime of her powers; the Lordling, embracing his dragon’s blood; and the Schemer himself, who had manipulated them all like puppets on his strings.

“You toyed with our lives. And you did nothing to help us.”

He tasted hellfire and brimstone on the back of his tongue, and the acidic taint of undeath. His memories led him through Haidia and Raiaera, and the funeral pall that hung over both foreign lands.

One by one the puppets danced to his will, starry lights behind his closed eyelids. The Spellweaver and the Runt followed his lead, though the dark path he walked lay beyond any hope of salvation. The Dragonlord dragged the Scholar from the shadows, only to cast him in the same movement into the hungry fires of war. The Schemer smiled, content that everything proceeded as he had foreseen. Only the strong survived, only those who would serve him well in the coming war. Only those he had approved.

But even he, master of fates with a dozen marionettes at his beck and his call, could not read the future as though it were some grimoire left open before him. Touma blinked away the last of the faces that clouded his thoughts, and saw again the Silkworm as she sat mesmerized by the fiery leaves. She hadn’t noticed the tautness of his knuckles upon the hilt of his blade, nor even the food and drink he’d left at her side. But she professed to see something of the future in those wavering flames.

Could she really?

Dared he believe?

[Rayleigh]

Rayleigh's skin prickled beneath her companion's gaze, and she finally turned away from the flames to face him. His expression was difficult to read, lips drawn in a thin line, brow furrowed in thought. He did not react to her movement, and she realized that he gazed through her, not at her; his mind had wandered elsewhere as she was sharing.

"Sorry about that." The Silkworm's voice, heavy with embarrassment, brought Touma back to the present. Her petite frame shifted uncomfortably against the sharp bloodoak roots, casting long, eerie shadows up the earthen walls.

Running a hand through his unkempt chestnut hair, the man frowned. "What are you apologizing for?" Had he missed something?

“My rambling. I did not mean to bore you. There is just so much about my visions that I don’t understand, and you said you knew illusions, so I thought maybe you could help.”

“No, you did not bore me,” came his answer, almost too quickly. Shaking his head to provide further reassurance, he added, “I find the whole thing very fascinating.” Though perhaps she misconstrued his words, and found genuine concern where there was none, what he told her was not far from the truth. A great amount of knowledge had been provided by the girl who claimed to have none, and as a soft smile unfurled on the man’s lips, he once again found himself reflecting on the strange fortune that had found him.

The brunette, however, remained unconvinced. Doubt-shadowed eyes remained transfixed on his, and her words came soft and slow. “You’re sure? I don’t usually do this. Some of this stuff I haven’t told anyone yet.” Not Alyssa, not Tobias, not even Vincent. So why Touma? Why was it that she felt compelled to confide in him?

Every word that she said, every move that she made, exposed the young woman’s vulnerability. She spoke in hushed tones, voice carrying like the wind across forest’s dense foliage. In the flickering light, Touma watched her bite at her thumbnail, a sign that even a stranger could recognize as discomfort. Though his basic humanity left him with some genuine concern for her well-being, a deeper-rooted hunger for valuable knowledge left him pleased with the situation he found himself in.

The Serpent Tamer’s hand cut the thick fog as he reached for her, his palm pressed gently to her shoulder, his lips parted as he moved to impart warm words into her ear. If he wished to sink his fangs into the untested Alerian, and gain more leverage over her notorious friend, he would need to test her limits. Just how far could he push his small pawn?

Once again, the young woman reacted in a most unusual way. As the comforting gesture found her, her small body deflated beneath his hand, the response Touma had been hoping for. That moment of calm, however, lasted only for a heartbeat. All at once, Rayleigh felt an all too familiar pressure on her arms; a sharp, sustained squeeze that left her arms throbbing with pain almost immediately. It was not until she ventured a glance into her lap that she let forth a soft whimper. Silver cords had wrapped themselves about her arms, and with each frightened breath that she took, they tightened their hold on her.

Those cords. The flames. The magic that had suffocated her, and the demon she had set free. Te memories assaulted her, and she screwed her eyes closed, face contorted in pain. In the quiet of the forest, and in the depths of her mind, she swore she heard Darigaaz’s voice once more.

”Vengeance.”

In one swift, violent motion, she tore herself away from Touma’s grasp, and halted the illusion that his touch had brought. The memories, however, still burned white-hot in the back of her mind. Her small frame trembled once more, as she settled into a spot out of the man’s reach.

[Whispers of Abyssion]

I'm terribly sorry, Rayleigh. My internet died on me for most of the afternoon, and I couldn't post in time ><.

She recoiled with enough force to rock him back on the balls of his feet, and to knock over the bamboo flask forgotten at her side. The slow trickle and pungent aroma of spilt barley tea infiltrated his senses, soon drank dry by the thirsty roots that wove the ceiling and floor of their shelter. He withdrew in genuine if grudging regret, though he did not regret forcing the issue. The dangers of the Lindequalme left him without the time he might otherwise have savoured to worm his way into her confidence. If his gamble had failed, so be it. He would treat her like an unreliable tool, a wildcard that he dared not trust.

”Like you treat us, you mean?”

The Runt’s slouched form materialised in the sapling opposite the hollow entrance. Tendrils of his dirty bandages floated in its willowy branches, and the scarred mahogany of his palanquin hovered in the parasitic shrubbery at its base. Feverish pinpricks of bright crimson burnt in accusation from the shadowy bark where his face might be. He was Touma’s Minister of the Left, a valued voice of determination and purpose within his tight-knit organisation.

The Serpent Tamer withdrew the thin kiseru from the folds of his robes once more, twirling it through the muggy mist as he questioned the veiled shadow.

”We are your Fraternity.”

“Your brothers-in-arms in this war against the darkness.”

“Your pieces in this game with the fate of the world at stake.”

One after another the bloodoaks of the Red Forest, or at least those he could make out from his seated vantage, gave voice. The silence of the gathering storm draped through their branches, obscuring their features like hooded cloaks. But Touma could still identify which voice belonged to which figure. His Minister of the Right, subtle and shifting like a prism of many colours. His General of the Left, straight-backed and true; his General of the Right, dutiful and dangerous. Together they formed the beating heart of Touma’s Fraternity, the core of those who fought the oncoming doom.

His basilisk gaze narrowed, hooded and inscrutable. The slender pipe in his fingers whistled as it tasted the undercurrent of anger flowing beneath their words.

“Do you believe that I would treat you poorly?”

”Like an unreliable tool.”

“A weapon, to be discarded when no longer sharp.”

“A resource, to be wrung dry and abandoned.”

“Would you ever risk your skin on our behalf?”

Fiery chill caught in his throat, clogging his airways as though an unseen deity had cast a heavy blanket over his face. A dozen years of honed purpose stabbed him through the heart like icicles from the depths of Berevar. The ghosts of a hundred mourning mothers howled past his ears. The Runt bent close, and Touma dared not flinch.

He breathed deep, of rotting flesh sloughing from brittle bone, and gave no ground. The kiseru continued to sing, keeping the ringing indictments at bay.

“Do you believe that I would leave you to die?”

”Would you hesitate if we did not live up to your expectations?”

“If we became less than useful?”

“Would you shed any tears upon our incapacitation?”

“Upon our demise?”

Laughter barked from Touma’s mouth, and his kiseru stabbed forth with the certainty of a dagger into flesh. His Fraternity would never ask such pointless questions. The hooded figures wavered, and the frigid weight lifted from his chest. Illusion shattered with the tinkle of broken glass, returning him to his world of a misty hollow and a shivering Silkworm seated opposite. He left but one scornful word in his wake.

“No.”

[Lye]

Per the rules, Whispers of Abyssion is disqualified for not meeting the 24 hour deadline.

Per discussion in chat, Rayleigh is withdrawing from the tournament to continue this thread outside the competition.

Continued story can be found here: http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29141

Silence Sei will post to confirm this announcement.