Into the Woods [CLOSED]

[Capoeirista]

Not understanding the conversation at all, Alina watched her friend’s body language. When it became clear that the singer was comfortable with the lizard-kin’s presence, the dancer ceased her mesmerizing movement. She’d nearly charged enough energy to land a knockout blow, and had been prepared to use it on the little fellow. As they all gathered round the fire, Alina felt like a giant. Most Coronians were considerably larger than her, but among present company she stood the tallest by a considerable amount.

The Fallieni woman wondered what was going on. Had the lizard-kin or his bird friend emitted the telepathic cry? Likely not. If they could have communicated with her in a way she understood, surely they would have done so. She hoped that they did not intend to go chasing after whoever had cried help. By night, the woods presented a considerable danger for Moonstrider’s legs. Alina did not wish to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with an injured steed.

Beyond the fire’s reach, Moonstrider munched on the long grass that grew plentifully. The mare was a great comfort to the dancer in this strange, foreign land.

“Alina,” the Fallieni woman said, pressing a hand to her chest. “Melaina,” she added, touching her traveling companion’s arm. “You?”

[VarWenn]

Grateful that he was unscathed, warm, and invited to a moment’s rest, Varin hunched over at the fire’s edge and listened to the other two intently. It was nice to warm his feet.

His new… acquaintances were odd company, to be sure. Lovely in guise, but strange. Trust was not yet a word he would use, but he was fairly confident enough that they were not of the kind to attack without reason, and that set him more at ease. The foreign woman -- Alina -- was not particularly gifted with the traveler’s tongue of tradespeak. He assumed that she must not have had the same study of it that he did. Perhaps the thing with the dancing earlier was some attempt to communicate? It could be, for all he knew.

“Varin,” he stated plainly, pointing to himself. The brown bird leaned into his neck to pointedly remind him of her presence. “Arie,” he gestured to her with a snort. “Nuisance, but friend. Good pet.” She accepted this designation with a cheerful puff of her chest, the same way she had puffed when dubbed a “valiant protector” by Melaina. “That tavern does not sound to be a hospitable establishment to dine at. It is a shock that such a place would stay in business for very long. Then again, I am not very well acquainted with the workings of this nation, nor its culture. We ourselves fled away from people who…”

He pondered a moment, poking at the edge of the campfire with his cold toes. How to put this lightly without incurring a waterfall of prodding inquiry?

“...consider me an object that needs returning to its owner. I do not agree.”

Alina spoke up, and it was thankfully a bit off topic. “Fire,” she said softly, staring into the distance.

“Yes, yes,” Varin said agreeably, taking on the same tone he did when speaking to Arie. “I know that we are at a fire. It is cozy indeed.”

“No,” the woman said insistently, not sounding terribly pleased by his dismissal. She motioned into the trees. Varin flustered and glanced up in the direction she had waved. “Fire there.” Sure enough, there was a light bobbing amid the trees that was definitely not a firefly.

(Let me know if the bunnies work!)

[Sage]

Lost, that was his current situation, lost in a forest on what he assumed to be somewhere on the island of corone. For all the good that information did him, he may as well take a right and be plodding over soft sand dunes in Fallien. The boy hoisted his light further up as he stepped over a root of a tree. All things considered, the day could have ended much better than it had, the highlight had been convincing the wizard to take him on as an apprentice. But since then the day had took a nose dive in expectations.

“Foreboding forest, meet Sage. Sage, meet the foreboding forest” He scoffed in contempt. “I’m sure you two will become quite acquainted with each other”

The boy openly sighed at the tone of his own snarky wit. Complaining would solve nothing. If anything his whining would only attract unwanted attention. Like his light spell, that was bound to alert someone or something.

Calming himself, he stopped to listen to the wind brush across the top of the tree’s rustling the leaves. He could hear the sounds of wildlife rummage through the dark, sounding so close and yet always staying on the edge of the
shadows. Sage shivered at the thought of running across a pack of wolves, he would be nigh defenceless.

Well not entirely defenceless. He still had that obsidian dagger that woman had given to him and the others. That had to count for something right.

He continued to move on regardless of the wind sending a chill down his spine. It was starting to get quite cold at this point and his tunic had only so much warmth to bear. Crossing his arms and clenching his jaw tightly was all
he could do. His spell gave off no warmth, even if he could hear the sound of an open fire crackle on the wind.
And for a moment, the boy dared to hope “That would be nice.”

Wait, that noise, his spell did not make a sound either. Had he imagined it? Closing his eyes and tilting his ear to the wind, he listened as carefully as he could. Just of the edge of his hearing, he heard it again, the sound of wood
popping under the heat of a flame. Actually, was that a light in the distance?
Is that a camp?

Elated, the boy quickly change his course towards the direction of the strange light, passing the tree’s with a hasty and quickened step. He only considered that they may not have been nice people, and that anyone from bandits to poachers could have been camping in the forest. His place began to slow, as he chewed on the possibility.

Was it really wise to rush towards a stranger’s camp in the middle of the night?

No, not really, but he had little choice in the matter. His options were far too limited, and he would pray that he would be alive to regret it later.

Stepping into the small little clearing, the first thing that Sage saw was the stranger with the wings. "By the gods, what was he?" Sage had read about a fair number of creatures and beings that could trace their ancestry to a dragon. But to see someone who actually looked like they had blended with a dragon? “What kind of chimera is this?” he asked with a voiceless whisper.

He was close enough to the fire that Sage could also make out other details about him. His dark hued skin and coal black hair glowed under the fires radiance. And dare he say that even from this distance that his eyes were glowing with a golden hue. But that may have just been a trick of the light.

The boy was unsettled enough to heed his instinctive flight command, to turn around and put as much distance between him and the camp as he physically could. And with any luck the stranger would not give Chace. He legs were just about to turn and bolt, but that was when he saw the other two occupants of the campfire and stood rooted to the spot.

“I…What, what are you two doing here?” He openly asked confused as to what the two women he had met in the tavern were doing here. Only to realise soon after that he should really be the one offering an answer to that question.

[Wander]

Melaina cursed herself for not paying better attention to her surroundings when Alina announced the arrival of a fire in the forest. She turned quickly, but it wasn't the blazing consumption of woodlife that she had expected. A light bobbed lightly, growing steadily closer.

A lantern. Her hands flickered toward her dagger hilt again and froze when she realized she had turned her back on the draconian. She whipped her head around to see where he was, but he hadn't moved. In fact, he looked mildly concerned himself.

The idea had briefly entered her mind that his story about being an object had been something meant to draw sympathy from them, especially if she faced the lantern in the forest and turned her back to an enemy. Perhaps it was because the story had struck so close to home for her. She still remembered clearly how her mother was a thing to the tribe, a birthing canal and not a person whose life was worth anything but what she could give them. And though it made no sense that someone would know her story, as she had told no one, it worried her still that someone was somehow using it, trying to make her sympathize with them so they could get closer and hurt her.

But no, the dragon-like creature was still resting by their campfire, watching the light bobbing closer and closer, and Melaina forced herself to relax. His attention was completely on the lantern, not on her or Alina.

The three of them sat there, watching as the light bobbed and drew closer. Melaina felt herself tensing every second that the light grew nearer and she wondered if the others were the same.

And then the light broke through the trees surrounded their small clearing and for a moment, Melaina could only stare.

“I…What, what are you two doing here?” the boy asked.

"Sage?" she asked in confusion. "Why are you wandering around the woods in the dark?" She stood up and moved to go over, freezing after taking only a single step. She had meant to go check on him, to see if he was all right, and the realization of her own plans startled her. Why... did she care?

She shuffled in place a moment, then grabbed a couple sticks from her small pile of wood and threw it on the fire. That's what she had intended all along. Obviously.

"Come over here and sit down where it's warm." Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. She sat back down and crossed her arms over her chest, like that would hold in her words.

[Arthropleura]

Arther awoke only a few minutes into his sleep cycle. It wasn’t clear right away what had awoken him but after a quick look around he noticed that a man had entered his cage. One look at the man’s right hand told Arther that it was the man who that had cut the giant centipede. Arther reared up to look bigger and clapped his mandibles together.

“Back off burned one!” Arther projected into the man’s mind. Then just laughed as he got closer. “I’m warning you, I will take you out.” The man just kept on coming. Finally, the man got into striking distance Arther struck as he projected, “I warned you.” Arther’s mandibles clamped down on the man’s right leg and cut through it. The man cried out and held what was left of his leg. The cry alerted a few of the mercenaries that was near by to the struggle. They quickly ran in and held Arther at spear point until they got him out then closed the cage behind them. Arther then gathered energy and sent out another psychic wave with the word “Help!” on it.

However, before he could fall asleep a heavily decorated man came up to the cage's door.

“You are a beautiful specimen,” the man said with a smile. “Large, fierce, defensive, and smart. You will make me and my men extremely rich.” Arther clacked his mandibles together in a threatening manner. But the man let out a boisterous laugh. “You do not scare me creature for you are in a cage and I am not. And you will be sold tomorrow as planned. Send out as many distress calls as you want, no one will save you. No one can save you. No one comes to this forest so no one will hear you. Have a good night, creature.” The man then let out a laugh as he walked away.

After the man left, Arther laid back down and thought, ‘We will see bandit.’ Then he gathered his mental energy and sent out another psychic wave with the words, “Bandits”, “Cage”, “Help!” and started to send it out repeatedly in the hope that someone would hear and find him.

[Capoeirista]

Bandits... cage... help... bandits... cage... help!

The repeated message struck Alina as she struggled to understand the conversation around the fire. As much as words, she received images... metal bars, leering faces, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Suddenly she wanted to help whoever was crying for aid, for she had felt what they felt. Of course, it would need to wait until morning... she would not risk Moonstrider foundering in the dark.

“You hear?” The Fallieni woman asked her companions, pointing at her temple. She’d been shocked to see the soft-featured boy Sage again, but supposed she should not be. Corone was not an overly large place, and they had not journeyed very far from the tavern where they first met.

Alina’s two friends and the lizard-kin all seemed to nod their agreement, and the dancer held up both tiny palms to regain their attention.

“No walk before sun,” she said, stringing together what passed for a sentence, “Moonstrider…” she trailed off, and then mimed breaking something and pointed at her ankle. “Not safe,” she said, and then spread her hands to indicate all four of them. “Some sleep,” she said, “others watch.”

For in a land as strange as Corone, who knew what dangers lurked within the forest’s darkened fringe.

[VarWenn]

To Varin’s utter relief -- praise Chalazae for her protection -- the light wielder that emerged from the darkened trees was not, indeed, a fey being intent on deceiving and devouring them.

Instead it was a brunette human whom the other two seemed to already know. Their eyes snapped up in recognition of her. If Varin was comfortable with the idea of mixing blood with humans, and stable enough to pursue romance, he might have been smitten with her. Her features were soft and pleasant, strikingly attractive for a non-Drakari. As it was, he merely relaxed and studied her features in hope of memorizing enough of them for a good sketch later. Arie, who was bumping her head against Varin’s cheek and making sultry chirps, was soundly shushed with a tap on the beak. Hush you.

The woman, too, had stared at him as if he were some sort of eldritch creature. Evidently, someone hadn't met a Drakari before. With Melaina’s invitation, this “Sage” dissipated her little spell of light to take a grateful spot at the blazing fire.

Before before Varin had a chance to utter a proper greeting, an unsettling cry echoed faintly through the woods again. And again. And again, deeply startling the four. At first Varin startled at the sound, wrapping his wings around himself as if to drown it out, forgetting momentarily that it was a mental force rather than physical sound.

“Bandits… cage… help!”

Well, that was a little more specific than the first outburst. Cage was a particularly concerning word to the tired Drakari.

Bright-eyed as ever, Arie scampered to the other side of the fire to beep excitedly in the direction of the disturbance before returning to Varin. Her master merely hunched over, listening, as he peered out from the flimsy protection of his wings. The calls were still coming, bleeding into one’s thoughts a little even as they were brushed aside. Varin very nearly missed Alina’s suggestions.

“...not safe. Some sleep, others watch,” she said sensibly to the whole of the group. Her horse, a dun creature folded over in sleep, snored as if in some agreement.

”Not safe” indeed.” Varin nodded quietly and spoke up after her. “I agree with this notion. Ah, who should be the first to take watch?” Arie unsurprisingly bounced up as if to volunteer herself immediately, her tail twitching.

It wasn’t likely to be him, he guessed. Out of all present, Varin was the one least acquainted with anyone, and the most suspicious in appearance in human lands. Melaina still gave him trustless, semi-predatory looks out of the corner of her eyes. She was a stern figure. It made for a steely portrait.

“And,” he added just above the snap of the fire, Arie’s joyous volunteerism, and the lingering whispers of the call, “if I may dare to suggest such a thing, perhaps we should investigate the source of this psychic racket in the morning. If only for the peace of our minds?”

[Sage]

Sage felt elated at the welcome he had received. After fearing that he would be forced to wonder the forest at night and alone, the mere prospect of coming across a camp fire –Complete with his new best friends- and he was willing to say all was right with the world. The warmth of the fire that kissed his skin was a pleasant contrast to the chill of the night.

But his good fortune also seemed a little suspicious. On one hand, it was either by chance that his new part time mentor had dropped him off in the wrong location. And it was by complete accident that he would be able to come across a couple of people he was sure were agreeable company.

Either his luck was really something to behold or the old man knew exactly where he was dropping him off. ‘But why would he? He could not possibly have known that these people were here’
Sage brushed the paranoid conjecture aside as he allowed Melaina to usher him to the camp and he settled down with a warm smile. He felt unable to say “Thank you” enough times to truly convey how thankful he was for their hospitality and their generosity.

“Thank you” He repeated with a sheepish smile and brushed his locks of hair away from his face once more. “You have no idea how much I-”

~Bandits … Cage … Help!~

“-Gyahh!”

Startled at the sudden mental cry not his own. Sage was back on his knees in a flash, awkwardly preparing to intercept any possible danger. Wide eyed like a startled doe and more than a little panicked, the boy stared out into the darkness of the forest fearing that something was now lurking just out of sight.

His heart pounded in his chest as his hand sought out the obsidian dagger he kept tucked in his belt in the small of his back. When he saw nothing suspicious he swallowed heavily and cautiously scanned the shadows suspiciously.

He turned to the others to see if they were also taking up a defensive posture, and proceeded to halt in with his own defence when he saw that they appeared to be relatively more resigned to the mental plea than he was.

Perplexed, the boy dropped his guard in favour of watching Alina mill around as though the psychic cry was little more than an annoyance at this point. The boy blinked in confusion when the Dragon-person asked who would be taking the first watch. He seemed to pause for only a moment before asking casually if they should investigate the source of the mental projections first thing in the morning.

But was it not a cry for help? It was a broken message, but the tone that had echoed in his mind was clear enough for sage to fill in the blanks on his own, ‘Bandits have me in a cage, please someone, help!’

“Is that wise?” he wondered in concern, a frown beginning to form on his features. Hugging his legs close to his chest, the would-be-mage turned to his fellow campers and enquired “Is this something that has been going on only recently?”

‘Had to be’ with the way they were seemingly treating the plea for help, it stood to reason that this was not the first time they had heard it. “I have only just got back to Corone rather recently. I’ve been, eh, elsewhere.” He said idly wiping away the last few grains of sand that had been clinging to his boot.

“But whoever or whatever is making that mental projection is coming across as rather desperate” He clarified while tapping the side of his head. The boy paused, realising that he was all but suggesting they run off into the dark forest to try and rescue someone from a group of bandits. Not only that, but the mental projection was soundless, leaving no hint of a clue as to which direction they would even need to go in.

Sage openly frowned, it did not sit well with him that something was openly crying for help and he was unable to do anything. “I’m not in favour of actions made in haste… but. By the morning light it may be already too late to save them.”

[Wander]

Melaina's mouth twisted downward in a grimace. Sage made a fair point. She would readily admit to herself that she had planned to leave their camp the moment the sun began to lighten the horizon. Cages, physically or not, were a point of contention with her and she couldn't abide a helpless creature being trapped within one without cause. She could give no reason to the thought, but the plea for help hurled into her mind evoked a feeling of innocence being shredded away by unfair captivity. Granted, she knew better than most how that could easily be a trick, but it bore investigating nonetheless.

"We can't risk Moonstrider wandering the forest in the dark." She nodded toward Alina's horse, who she didn't think Sage had met yet. "If we trip, we might well break a nose, but a horse could well be lamed for life, or not live long past an accident." She tilted her head to the side. "Asides from that, we wouldn't be able to sneak up on any bandits with a horse clopping around us. And I doubt you know the woods here well enough, Alina, to lead her through at a gallop for a rescue." She hesitated, realized that she was probably confusing the other woman more than anything, and said, "Moonstrider can not go fast in trees, sun or moon."

At Alina's nod, she sighed. "I don't know how smart she is, but I wouldn't want to leave her by her lonesome with bandits wandering around, anyway. Alina will have to stay with her." Left unspoken but no doubt heard was that she wouldn't trust their newest companion to watch the horse while Alina came with them. For all she knew, the draconian creature considered horse a delicacy. Maybe he considered siren a delicacy, too. She felt her shoulders tense at the thought of her new human companions being eaten by a creature she didn't know and resisted the urge to bare her teeth at him.

Instead, she looked at Sage. "But you're right. Morning is far enough off that the danger might well be past by then, and our chance to help, as well." She looked down, frowning. "Alina will have to stay with Moonstrider, but if we can perform some reconnaissance, get an idea of where these bandits are and their captive, and how many of them there are, we could make a plan." She eyed the dragon creature. "We'll need to discuss what we can bring to the table as far as offensive and defensive measures, though." She personally didn't like that idea much. She disliked giving away any information that could make herself more vulnerable. If it were just Sage, she would feel better. The boy was so openly enamored with magic, she couldn't imagine him using it against her. More likely, he would grill her for all the information she had on her species' capabilities, if she were to reveal to him what she was. Not that she had any intention of doing that.

She sat back and eyed her companions, waiting for their thoughts. It occurred to her that this was the most that she had spoken to any of them and it was leading into a discussion of tactics.

Since when did she play on a team?

[Arthropleura]

As the call for help was sent out continuously, Arthur began to fear that his efforts would be useless. However, on the outer edge of his mental wave, elves had just received his message and have already discovered which direction it came from. Easy to do when you can see the curvature of the outer edge of the mental ripple just by looking at there group. The elves, with the belief that it was a human psychic or even possibly one of their own, headed off in the direction that the mental wave came from.