Flower Drum Song (Closed) [Archive]

Lillith

02-20-12, 01:24 PM

Yanbo Harbour was alive, resplendent with the sound of drums.

On every street corner, in every doorway, in every temple, a hundred eager musicians rhythmically struck taiko drums. The cacophony rose from the ancient harbour city like a plume of smoke from a roaring hearth, warming the skies with its energy and zeal. As the sun crept up over the oceanic horizon to the east, the cold dew laden streets erupted into a kaleidoscope of gold, jade and crimson colour.

The Festival of Shih-Ho Kuan had begun, and with it, a full day of celebration and mourning combined.

Three centuries ago today, the battle of Three-Oni ended, and with it, the reign of the Greater Oni over the people of Akashima.

Today was a good day.

“Lillith-sama, can you hear it?” Neko–chan jumped for joy, overcome with enthusiasm and excitement as the drums finally rolled down over the ocean. By the time it struck the keel of the small schooner, it was dulled, but still heavenly and invigorating. The ship bobbed back and forth on the soft waves a few hundred feet from the end of Kuei Mei Pier in time with the beat.

With a slow, appreciative nod, the spirit warder comforted her companion with a pat on his fur-covered shoulders. She was a tall woman next to the nekojin, who walked with a perpetual stoop on spring legs. The drums brought a strange sense of foreboding to the woman’s heart, comforted only by the golden corona of the sun as it continued to rise over the watery horizon. Soon, it would be a half moon, a slice of orange on the boundary of the day. They did not have long to enjoy the triumphant taiko before they were made to work for their morning dim-sun and honey wine.

“Oh, it is so good to hear them again,” Neko-chan smiled, but turned on the deck of the vessel to follow his mistresses’ gaze. “What is it, Lillith-sama?”

“<Can you not feel him?>” she reverted to the Akashiman tongue out of reverence for the subject matter. It was only proper to speak in the language of the elders when the topic of gods and demons arose. “<He is calling to me, whispering my name beneath the pallid waves…>”

The nekojin cocked his head, twitched his whiskers, and leant forwards slightly. His stance was as if he were listening to the winds with his enormous white tipped ears.

“No Lillith-sama, I hear nothing.”

“<Do not listen with your ears, Neko-chan, listen with your soul. Feel him with your heart.>”

The spirit warder nodded. He shuffled his claws, which scratched the deck with a spidery rattle and pressed his paws against the black silk of his kimono. It took several moments before he blocked out the heartbeat and the drums, but he finally became aware of a voice in the dark, a terrible dread rising slowly from the abyss.

The Crab had broken free of its chains.

Long ago, when the last survivors of Three-Oni had gathered their strength, they had cast adrift a great tomb to the ocean. Bound in a thousand origami cranes and a hundred I Ching symbols, the Crab drowned in the Ichigo Abyss. The strength of the bonds should have lasted forever. The flurry of flaming arrows had burnt away the bed of ruined and smashed ships they had set him to sea on, and he sunk out of sight. He rested some thousand or so feet from where the prow of their vessel took anchor now.

“Oh Lillith-sama it is so loud, so cruel, so-” the nekojin meowed with a whimper.

“I am sorry to have brought you here Neko-chan, but we can dispense with the civilities now. We are equals, you and I. Lillith and Neko will suffice.” She glanced down at the spirit warder and smiled warmly. He returned the gesture, his shiny nose shining brighter as the sun continues to rise. Lillith admired the plush black fur the creature groomed, and the strange white wisps on his ears and paws. From her limited knowledge of the Comb Mountain tribes, he was of the Hsiao Ch’u, one of the oldest clans of nekojin in Akashima.

They practised the art of the I Ching of the same name, the hexagram that tamed all with even the smallest power.

“Teach me the saying of your kin, Neko.” Lillith less asked and more commanded, and the nekojin stepped away from her compliant to her wishes.

If they were to fight the Crab, they would need to combine their will to contest that of the Greater Oni. To do this, they had to learn one another’s Heart I Ching, the hexagram that best represented their soul. There were some fifty symbols in all, offering a wide breadth of opportunity, and a nightmarish amount of memorisation to recall all the traits, talents and applications of each symbol in the spirit warder discipline.

He began his demonstration in the traditional manner, which was with a bow. When he rose, he traced the kanji for the hexagram in the air. His sharp nail left a white shimmer in its wake. It quickly solidified, leaving a burning, jasmine scented symbol floating in the air. He drew its twin next to it, giving the hex its full form. They shone brightly in harmony before they crumbled to dust. The flecks of light bounced once on the salty wood of the ship before they disappeared.

“Hsiao Ch’u,” Neko began, bowing once more in reverence of his own namesake, “<you are temporarily restrained. It is a time for taking small steps.>” With the same reverence that Lillith had shown the subject matter of the Greater Oni, Neko displayed a similar observance for the trigger words that went with his hex. If he had spoken them when the symbols still glowed, or when he held an origami scroll depicting them, their power would have been unleashed.

“An honourable calling Neko of the Hsiao Ch’u.” Lillith bowed in return, before unfolding her arms to draw her own hex in the air. She turned to face the nekojin, so that like her, he could study the constructing of the kanji carefully. He twitched his nose in anticipation, his green eyes shining with inner light.

Lillith drew the first symbol. It burnt just as brightly as the nekojin, but with a deep vermillion hue. She drew the symbol for fire next to the geometric pattern of the kami for heaven then passed her hand through both. It was warm to the touch, a searing pain without agony, lulling warmth without sleep.

“My hex is Tung Jen, which represents fellowship with others. I am afraid I can never recall the words of conjuring,” she frowned. This only brought a beam of a smile to the nekojin’s youthful features.

“I do Lillith-sa…Lillith. It is <In fellowship with others, embody the principles of the sage.>” In such a sage like manner, he bowed. Lillith could only smile, deeming the words utterly appropriate for her outlook on life. After all, through her kinship with the Tantalum, she had found herself at one not just with her family, but also with the land of Akashima Herself.

“That is an excellent memory you have. I am glad to be your pupil.” She turned back to the horizon, and sure enough, the sun was already a half orange, its shimmering rays piercing the dark grey heavens of the dusk light. As more and more people awoke in Yanbo behind them, more and more great taiko drums began to beat.

“I am hardly your teacher, Lillith. You may not remember the words, but you apply them with just as much heart, just as much spirit, just as much power.” Neko nodded glumly, realising that she was quickly becoming his teacher.

“Ha, we have much to learn from one another. I think a union of minds will be more productive than an exchange of authority.”

“Which begs the question,” he continued, snapping up her point before it lost its poignancy, “how are we to succeed with such unpolished powers? It took four heroes to sway the Crab before, at Three-Oni.” He looked a little lost and longingly over his shoulder at the empty deck, “there are but two here today.”

“There are two here for now,” Lillith corrected.

“Oh?” the spirit warder raised an eyebrow.

Lillith looked over her shoulder to the centre of the ship’s wide, empty deck. There was a large chalk circle scratched onto the wood, depicting elven symbols taught to her by the song elf, Erissa Cadron. Through the portal that was supposed to appear there, some of the self-proclaimed monster hunters of the Ixian Knights would join her. At least, that was the arrangement; she still had doubts about the lines of communication out of her homeland.

The Komodo’s spies were everywhere, and he was ever watchful for his kin.

“We are expecting others,” she was not sure how many would answer her call; “the circle will be kindled when the full sun shines on it.”

The nekojin returned his gaze out to sea, claws cupped together, smile plastered on his face in a serene contemplation. In truth, Lillith knew that Neko-chan would stand by her side no matter the odds. With the flower drum taiko still beating the praise to the dawn behind them, and the soft breeze growing into a mariner’s whirl, they stood side by side and waited.

Lillith’s sense of urgency only continued to grow whilst they waited, obi digging into her chest as it expanded and contracted with heavy, languishing breaths. Their simple, Akashiman garb was light fitting and functional, but would offer no protection in the coming battle. Given the size of the Crab, they needed manoeuvrability, not armour. The great, scything claws could topple entire buildings, so they would not notice their corpses fall in two in their advance if they caught in the melee.

She pursed her lips, and said a silent prayer for the dead.

She prayed for the success of her summons.

She sang in her head along to the flower drum song.

“Do not fail me now…Sei Orlougne…” she said softly, hands tightening in a crack of leather about the hilt of her red silk bound tanto.

Revenant

02-23-12, 08:17 PM

One, two, three ... bump, bump, slap ...

The hard-packed bladder ball crashed into the far wall of the teleportation room, rebounded off the floor, and hurtled back to William across the room.

One, two, three ... bump, bump, slap ...

The monster hunter sighed, whacking the ball nonchalantly with the back of his hand, eyes lazily watching it sail across the cavernous expanse. Large groups of Ixian Knights had to be mobilized for excursions to distant locales, often at short notice. Without a lot of time to transport multiple groups across, the teleportation circle was fashioned overly large so that entire caravans or a small army could be mobilized at once. Even more room was left in the room around the circle's edge for supply and routing purposes. All in all, the carved stone room could be called cavernous. And yet, in his boredom, William's could send the hard ball across sailing across the expanse using only a fraction of his strength. Only the newest and most naieve recruits considered the revenant's human guise as the monster hunter's true form.

Sloft padding footsteps in the hall brought William to a halt. The demonic warrior closed his eyes and let a soft sigh escpae his lips. The lonely echo was not what he was hoping for but, sadly, was what he honestly expected. Still, it was a bit of an annoyance.

"Captain Arcus," the hesitant voice of Johns, Sei's message runner, reached William across the teleportation room.

"Denied, huh?" William grumbled, bursting the bladder ball with an aggrivated twitch of the wrist.

"I'm sorry Captain, but Lord Orlouge regrets to inform you that Lieutenant Vancaserkin has already been assigned to command the rest of your team in your absence."

"They're my team," William snapped, jumping to his feet. Johns visibly shrank from the monster hunter's outburst but continued nonetheless.

"Lord Orlouge actually asked me to remind you that he is the commander of the Ixian Knights and is therefore responsible for the actions of all the Knights' teams. He is under no obligation to give them to you so that you can use them on a personal mission."

"Personal mission?" William spat. "Some giant demon thing is going to take out Akashima's premier city if we don't stop it and just because I got a personal invitation to help out."

Johns, once he figured out that William wasn't about to tear him apart, visibly straightened and offered the revenant his own sigh. "Lord Orlouge also wanted me to tell you that he thinks will be the perfect opportunity for you to strengthen alliances and work on your interpersonal skills."

"Interpersonal skills! I've got great in ... no you know what. Fine. I'll kill this thing without the team he had me personally assemble to deal with this situation." William stepped up and thrust a finger at Johns' chest. "This. Exact. Situation. You tell old high and mighty that."

"Lord Orlouge, also wanted you to know ..."

William cut the messenger off with a snarl and a snap as he tore his black stone warscythe from its perch in the stone floor. He stepped into the teleport circle and made a rude gesture towards Johns as he said, "teleport engage."

Reality bent around William as the teleport circle's magic threw William from the chamber in Ixian Castle to the crude receiving chalk outline on the skiff in Yanbo Port Harbor. With a brief shake of the head to wipe away the disorienting aftereffects of the teleportation, William stepped briskly out of the chalk circle and onto the skiff in which it had been drawn.

"Alright lady," he yelled across the vessel at the waiting Lillith and her companions. William swung the long shaft of the warscythe across the back of his shoulders, resting his arms along either side of its matte black length. "Hopefully this is a bit more of an issue than keeping some seabird eggs from being crushed underfoot, because I'm already in a bad mood and I could use a real challenge."

Paragon

02-24-12, 02:24 AM

Dorian opened his eyes and let the morning sun's rays hit them. He admired the beauty on the Akashiman skiff, standing in the chalk outline, almost forgetting why he was here. He arrived a full minute after William, after having to wait a full minute for the teleporter to recharge after the monster hunter impatiently went ahead without him. He was expecting a voice in his head, and felt his lips move in anticipation of a reply, but there was nothing.

Because Fallow wasn't here with him.

The dragonling had traveled far and wide with Dorian, but he lead a sheltered life with his father. All this time away has made the little guy homesick, a feeling that Dorian understood all too well. Their situations were different, however. While Dorian knows that he felt a village full of happy, friendly people that take care of each other, Fallow left an old patriach by himself. Although the great dragon Malanthar spent centuries, maybe millenia by himself, Fallow still felt guilty. The young man granted the dragonling this reprieve, yet he was surprised at how much this was affecting him. Take something constant out of your daily life, and living without it starts to feel unreal.

He took a step off the skiff and onto the pier, admiring Yanbo even from here. The rhythm of the drums felt like a heartbeat; felt like the whole harbor was alive. He wished he was visiting here under better circumstances. He wanted to explore this part of the country more, but now was not the time. He was on.. a mission? The word gave him a strange sensation. He was here because he wanted to help people, yet he could not deny that it was not his intiative that brought him here.

Walking down the down, it wasn't hard to spot William with that scythe across his back. Dorian had every right to be annoyed, but he wasn't someone who reacted to such small slights. He caught up with the monster hunter and noticed the woman, who had a knowing look in her eyes.

"I'm Dorian, here to help as well," he introduced himself, only acknowledging William with a quick glance. Then, after a momentary pause, he said, "I'm an Ixian Knight." The last line felt forced; unnatural. Is he only saying this because he thinks he's on a mission? He shook off his restlessness. There were more important things to do. He awaited what came next.

Lillith

02-25-12, 11:23 AM

Lillith met her companions to be with a warm smile. Neko joined her in the welcome, though with more enthusiasm and shaking of fists. He twitched his whiskers excitedly.

“William!” she said with surprise. She turned to the second man, who was faintly familiar to her. She had spent many days in the cavernous expanse of Ixian Castle, so he probably had been a part of the vast tapestry of people that made up even a casual stroll through its halls. “I…” he hesitated, struggling to remember, “Dorian?” there was a mental note about a dragon rider tucked somewhere in the back of her mind. “Ah, yes. Sei speaks highly of your skill with enchantments.”

Neko scuttled towards them both, and sniffed them both like a curious cat. “It is pleasing me no, to see you both.” The nekojin’s common was rusty, but he portrayed his happiness in his own unique way.

“I am so glad you came, the both of you.”

She felt a shudder deep within, an earthquake in the groundwork of her soul.

“I am afraid my joy must be short lived. I have called for aid from the Ixian Knights to fight a foe that is,” she pursed her lips, “difficult, to say the least.” She turned on a sharp heel and pointed out to sea, to a spot on the waves beyond the prow of the vessel. “Out there, beneath the waves in the abyss, lies a creature called The Crab.”

“He is much harder to crack than eggs, yes?” Neko’s eyes shone, and he scuttled back with a cantor to Lillith’s side. He joined her in pointing, though the seagulls distracted him. Lillith chuckled.

“You will get your challenge, William, but with such little time…” she swooned.

“Is something wrong, Mistress?” Neko’s joy quickly turned into concern. He rested a paw on her shoulder, steadying her in case she fainted. “What is it?”

“The last seal…”

Neko nodded. He turned and took over the brief introduction to fighting a creature older than Akashima herself. “We must fight Crab beneath the sea. Using I Ching, spirit warder magic, we can walk in water.” He spread his arms wide and started to draw two symbols in the air. They shone bright navy, an inner core of turquoise surrounded by a halo of silver.

As she composed herself, Lillith also began to draw symbols.

“It will not hurt either of you. I cannot say the sensation of walking through water is…easy,” she flicked the first completed symbol towards Neko, who returned her serve with one of his own. The kanji fused together, and quickly joined the remaining two.

A bright light pierced the heavens as a column of energy ascended from the prow of the ship. It rocked on invisible waves of heaven. A melody of koto and shamisen notes danced out over the sea and faded into nothingness on the sun-drenched horizon. As quickly as it formed, the spell was gone.

Lillith and Neko sneezed. They felt lighter, transient, and energetic. The I Ching washed over William and Dorian too, bestowing the power upon them to move through water quite literally as if, it was not there. The seagulls cawed overhead as they moved in land, and swarms of fish and dolphins broke the surface alongside the ship. Whatever was stirring in the deep was so repulsive to Akashima its creatures fled inland to escape it. Lillith pursed her lips.

“Whatever happens, we cannot let the Crab reach the harbour. Its claws will devastate the flood defences and topple the city…casualties,” she glared at William especially as she said her piece, “will not be tolerated here today.”

“No one must die, except Crab,” Neko said re-assuredly, his coarse voice bristling with excitement. He retracted his gloves and fastened steel knifes to his gloves. Whilst it was perhaps ironic to outsiders for a cat man to wear cat claws, he was well versed in their use. They also made it much easier to climb chitinous towers.

“The I Ching also allows you to breathe in water, and to act as you normally would in the open air.” Lillith unsheathed her red handled tanto and spun them slowly in her palms. She got a feel for them before she started to walk to the front of the ship. The salty wood underfoot echoed as she advanced. Neko bounced alongside.

A deep echo hit her in the chest, and then ricocheted to Neko. It bounced along the ship’s structure and touched William and Dorian. The sea churned where they had indicated the Crab rested. The drums on the shore intensified, as if the zeal of the villagers was somehow going to protect them as dark whispers tormented their minds.

From the depths, a pointed column of red chitin rose up from the sea.

“Are there any questions?” Lillith asked, before the spire crashed down through the waves and cracked the bedrock of the harbour. Five others joined it, and in no time at all, The Greater Oni of treachery, trickery and apathy was advancing towards the shore like a limbering red island.

Revenant

02-26-12, 11:59 AM

William was no stranger to the oni spirits of Akashima, having fought and killed a number of them in his time as the Ixian Knights' head monster hunter. Corrupted spirits of nature manifest in the physical realm, an oni's size and power was limited by the strength of the concept which birthed it. As a greater oni, Crab was the embodiment of a great ideal, an entire entity devoted to the twisted ideals and oversight of a rotten, festering wound in nature's skin. Betrayal, falsehoods, sloth. These were concepts that were not only common, but were life-altering. Every land, every political house and king's court were rife with these corrupt ideals. Entire nations had risen and fallen on the backs of the treachery, trickery, and apathy from which Crab drew its form and substance. This, William knew, was not going to be an easy kill.

He was excited about that prospect.

The sea beneath the skiff heaved and bucked like a headstrong bronco as the Crab's massive bulk surged upwards from its murky prison. Columns of water poured off of Crab's toweresque legs as the sea drained from the cracks and folds in the beasts thick carpace, drenching the members of the hunting party with a rain of salty spray. It had been a long time since Sei had given William the direction to destroy something that was truly a challenge for the revenant. Giant sharks, monstrous spiders, and tribal fetishes were nothing but a nusance for a creature who's soul was bound to a spirit of destruction. He was annoyed to hear that Lillith had made a formal request for assistance from the Ixian Knights and that Sei had lied to him about it, though he wasn't surprised.

Sei was always pushing the 'friendly' agenda, trying to get William to be more companionable. Dorian was the only one of the eight other Ixian Captains who had refused to accept William's challenge to one-on-one combat. As a blacksmith, it only made sense for the man not to throw down in a fist fight with the living weapon that was William Arcus, but even the assassain Cassandra Remi had made it a point to accept. Sure she had sent a champion to fight the revenant in her place, and even then had only done so to inflict some form of mental anguish on a third party, but at least she had stepped up in some way. Dorian had never even bothered to acknowledge the challenge, and for that William saw him as nothing but a coward. Sei refusing to sent the rest of the trained monster hunters on this mission and instead having Dorian join was probably just the mute mystic's way of getting the two to bond. Not a terribly likely occurance, William thought.

"Your magic makes it so that the water is effectively not there for us?" William asked, balancing on the rolling floorboards beneath him with practised ease. Seeing the affirming nod from his benefactors, William unshouldered his warscythe and shrugged off his heavy travelling cloak. He glanced around the skiff, ignoring whatever it was that the rest of the group was saying. William didn't know who Neko was or what his capabilities were in a fight, but with the other combatants in this melee being a rail thin actor and a blacksmith, William was taking it upon himself to take the lead. He was, after all, the captain of the Ixian monster hunters. This was his forte.

"I'm just guessing here but I'll bet that the water it too deep here just to jump down?" He recieved an affirmative nod from Neko and Lillith. "Then we'll use the anchor line to get down safetly." Turning to Dorian he added, "hopefully you can climb a rope."

Not waiting for a reply, William leapt to the front of the skiff and grabbed the coiled rope which held the anchor. Using the anchor line to get to the bottom would necessitate dropping the heavy weight, which would make the skiff a sitting target for the massive oni, and William didn't doubt that the vessel would be swamped or smashed to bits within minutes be the heavy waves rolling away from Crab's every move, not that it mattered.

"Wait for the line to finish dropping before you go," he yelled back at the others and then grabbed the anchor in one hand and jumped overboard with it. Sure enough, he slipped through the turbulent waters as if he were jumping into free air, though he still had to remind himself to breathe. The inhuman force of his jump propelled him far from the bow of the skiff, angling him towards the first of the massive talons at the bottom of Crab's front leg.

The sea floor wasn't as far down as William would have thought, but it would still be more likely than not a fatal fall for a normal human. Fortunately, William was far from a normal human. Midway through freefall the revenant let the anchor go, watching the line run out after it as it continued its descent. Free from him and subject once more to the constraints of the waters, the anchor jerked suddenly, causing the line to whip to and fro. William never noticed this event, as he continued his plunge towards Crab's leg.

Lillith

03-03-12, 09:20 AM

Lillith could not help but admire William’s ingenuity. Already, he had undone her opinion of him with a simple, bold statement. She made a mental note not to automatically take Duffy’s word about a man’s character; Sei, Leopold, Drago, William…he had jumped to too many conclusions, too many times. She leant forwards slightly and watched him disappear through the bobbing ocean waves until he was out of sight, then clocked the two brave souls standing furtively behind her.

“Well, Dorian, Neko…what are you waiting for?” she smiled seductively. “No point beating around the bush, we have a god to kill.” Her smile turned devilish, and her teeth flashed white in the mid-morning sun. With a soft rush of air, she fell forwards into the foam at the keel, and clasped onto the rope that William had descended, just as it slacked. Somewhere below, the demon had reached the crab’s leg.

It would not be long before the Oni smashed straight through the ship, oblivious to its presence on merit of its massive size. Lillith only hoped that the schooner would be the only casualty inflicted upon the peaceful resort of Yanbo Harbour, before the sunset, and their ordeals were over. The drums, drifting out over the water, continued to grow louder. By now, Lillith knew, people would be panicking, and chaos would soon spread across her homeland.

Neko approached the front of the ship, whiskers twitching furtively, eyes shining half with fear, and half with excitement. He flexed his claws, tapped them together with a clink, and then climbed up onto the prow. The anchor chain dropped down beneath him, but Neko-chan, the Wind Warder, needed no help. He glanced over his shoulder at the man named Dorian, and cocked his head; his ears flicked, his smile broadened into a grin, then he nodded.

He fell forwards with a pounce, claws first, tail wagging, kimono flapping in the momentary breeze. He dropped out of view, leaving nothing on deck except a beleaguered dragoon, a still glowing magical circle, lingering with ancient spell song, and the salty air of a wild ocean.

Paragon

03-04-12, 06:02 PM

Dorian's expression was serious, his feet moving one step at a time toward the edge of the skiff. He didn't know how to make light of such serious situations like his fellow Ixians, but he shared in that collective calmness and ability to stay focused. None of his three companions had an inkling of doubt, or if they did they were hiding it very well. He understood that determination; that drive that doesn't even consider failure. He looked back at the town behind him one last time, the drums pounding in unison despite the imminent threat. These were a people of hope.

He took a step off the skiff, feeling his body slip and his sense of control fade. He was falling, and instead of hitting the surface of the water he passed right through it. Instinctively, he held his breath. The sunlight grew further away, and his boots transformed into The Greaves and Sabatons of The Dragonet. His speed continued to increase, at which point he realized that he accelerated far faster than he would above ground. If he wasn't wearing these greaves, he would disintegrate upon hitting the ocean floor. As his feet hit the ground, he felt the water around him expand, but the ground below was undisturbed. His landing was completely softened, as if he was merely hopping down.

The ocean floor was barren; nothing but some seaweed and endless rocks and sand. There were no fish in sight. They were smart to avoid this place right now.

He looked up, and saw the massive form of the crab. The legs were unending red columns, and most of the body was obscured by the darkness. The sight was so amazing that he forgot to hold his breath, and took in the strange air that was supposed to be water. He coughed, but found that his breathing down here was the same as above ground. For a moment, he wondered what he could even do against something like that. He pulled out the collapsed spear that was tied to his side and extended it, gripping the shaft with both hands.

He left his crab crackers at home. This will have to make due.

Revenant

03-04-12, 07:14 PM

It was fortunate for the warriors that Crab glowed with its own unearthly energy, illuminating the undersea realm around it with an angry red glow that mingled with the dim light of day which had managed to penetrate the waters of Yanbo Harbor. William locked his eyes on Crab's glow as he fell, using it as a guide to draw him in amongst the murky depths. The black obsidian shaft of the warscythe felt colder than normal in William's warm hands, though the magic of the I Ching kept it free and loose in the water. Excitement poured off the revenant's rippling frame, churning the water around him, and his teeth shone brightly as he grinned in savage delight. Sei could try to fit a round peg into a square hole, Lillith could place trust and faith in William as a source of aid when in need, William himself could try to place a mask of civility over his own features, but the truth of the matter was that William had been fashioned into a living weapon and that's where he was most in his element.

But the time for thought was through. Crab's foreleg loomed large in William's vision, blocking out the sight of everything else. William waited until it was the last possible moment to draw on the molten power within his veins, knowning that his demonic strength could be futher enhanced by the momentum which he had built up. Power, strength, and molten heat poured from the destructive spirit bound to William's soul, but in this case, though the I Ching kept William safe from the water, it couldn't keep the water safe from William. The instant William transformed, the water around the demonic warrior flash boiled, filling his vision with a swirling, bubbling chaos.

Suddenly distracted by his surroundings, William was unable to judge his landing correctly and instead of striking hard at Crab's leg, he crashed into it. The heavy impact knocked the breathe out of the revenant and snapping his body with a heavy blow which not only battered his charred flesh, but lofted him limply away from his target like a child's doll. Instead of making a strong opening strike against his target, William slaped flat on the muddy, overgrown depths of the harbor. Groaning at the pain that the failed attack had caused him, William let his power fall away from him, returning him to his human state. He was less powerful in this form, but at least he would be able to see.

Unfortunately, he realized, the damage had been done. While the bubbling of the water around him had stopped, his heavy fall into the silt at the bottom of the sea had churned up a thick brown cloud which made it all but impossible to see what was around him. William was on his feet in an instant, feeling the aches in his back already beginning to fade as his healing abilities restored him. At least without having to combat the destruction that his own power caused to his body, the regeneration would work faster.

It was of little consolation to the monster hunter because at that exact moment, his warrior's instinct roared to life, propelling him forwards. A thick claw snapped shut in the space where Wiliam had just been standing. Had he not moved, William would surely have been crushed or snapped in half by the claw.

"So you're not alone," William hissed, the words slurred and unintelligable even to him. He rolled to action, leaping at the crab-like creature whose form he could barely make out in the mud churned water. "It would have been nice if she told me that beforehand," he snarled, bringing his warscythe down on top of the claw. William's warscythe was of the finest quality, and even in his human form William was stronger than a group of men combined, but even these things weren't enough to do much damage against the crablings armored shell. The heavy strike of the blade against the shell left a nasty gash, which vented a whitish fluid that William supposed served the creature as blood. The crab's milky blood mixed with the muddy water around the two of them, further obfusating the ground around the combat. It looked bad, and bled freely, but William knew that the wound was only superficial. If he wanted to kill this thing, he would have to strike it where its armor was weak.

Another rushing sound reached William's ears and he ducked, bent almost in half as a second crabling's claw cracked together over his head. It appeared that there were more than one of these things protecting Crab. William idly wondered if the others were just as engaged with these protectors as he was, or if they had managed to make their way to attack Crab directly. It wasn't exactly a pressing matter at this point though. William rolled as the first crab's claw slammed into the mud, sending another cloud of mud into the mater around the combatants. The sharp spines of an urchin stabbed at William as he rolled over the creature, but he ignored the spines as they didn't stab deeply and would heal within a minute. He was more concerned with the two heavily armored crablings bearing down on him.

Lillith

03-06-12, 03:09 PM

As Lillith landed, her geta drove into the seabed with an unceremonious thud. The brunt of the impact caused her to flinch, and every muscle in her body tensed under the pressure. Despite relying on the rope to slow her descent to the ocean floor, she drastically underestimated just how much the I Ching had freed her of the constraints of moving below the waves of Yanbo Harbour. Though she was free of the restraints of water on her progress, she was not able to relinquish her body of the force of gravity, or pain, for that matter. Neko, on the other hand, was already primed and ready to attack; bright eyed and bushy tailed.

<You are a lot smaller than I last remembered>…she mused. With piercing eyes, she traced the outline of the four-foot tall carapace nightmare that was scuttling quickly towards her. For a moment, she almost allowed herself to think that the ruby island they had seen rise up from the abyss was just an illusion. That would have been too easy. Unfortunately, for the Ixian Knights, the smaller crabs were more agile beneath the waves than on the surface, and Lillith knew those claws to be quite capable, even in their small form. They could easily do her an injustice if she was careless. In a split second realisation, she snapped back to reality, and the spirit warder arrived at the conclusion she had woefully under estimated their foe.

Out through the shadows and the half-light veil that emanated from the great hulk of the Crab more appeared. There were a good dozen of them, all scuttling beneath the porous underbelly of the Greater Oni of vanity, pride, and arrogance. Somehow, through its long slumber, the Crab had found a way to pierce the veil between the spirit worlds and call to her embrace the last dwindling and gibbering oni that dwelt beyond. Neko scuttled in front of his mistress and defiantly screamed. A school of bubbles rose from his whiskered maw as he flexed his claws. His tail whipped, whirled, and wavered with a life of its own.

<Oh Lillith…you are such a stupid, stupid meiko!>

The tide swiftly turned against the monster hunters of the Ixian Knights. Undeterred, Neko started forwards, his enlarged paws making easy progress over the silt. There were piles of shells, seaweed crowded rocks, and jagged shapes in the gloom. Lillith could swear she made out the mast of a long sunken ship to the east. Schools of unfazed sea bream, sardine and bloater fish swam amongst the Crab’s toweresque legs, in touching distance of the would be usurpers of Akashima’s oldest enemy. Lillith would have made a sarcastic comment about the stupidity of nature at the strange sight, if nature’s source were not presently trying to obliterate them.

She made after her companion and left slowly rising plumes of sand that mucked the water in her wake. Though they were unaffected by the water, the sea’s chalice was still slow to realise it was being ruined. By the time she broke her stride and turned it into a run, the scene slowly came together. Dorian stood, quite defiant of the monstrosity towering overhead, pole-arm grasped firmly and expertly in his young hands.

Everything was uncertain.

Lillith drew two symbols in the water behind her, which stretched out into long, glowing, vermillion ribbons of searing light. Untouched and unparsed by the water, they formed the kanji that represented inori, prayer, and silently levied all of her hope for the coming trials.

Neko barrel rolled literally paw first into the oncoming crab and drove his claws deep into the eye sockets of the creature.

Though sound travelled well under water, it did not translate into noise in human ears. There was a torrent of bubbles from both Nekojin and oni, and a faint gargle in Lillith’s eardrums. Though she did not hear the creature suffer, she saw it, felt it, and sang along to the melody. The crab glowed with a bright violet radiance for a few brief, final seconds, before Neko withdrew his weapons in a cloud of blood. Without thinking, and with a primal instinct that belief his pious nature, he drove them back into the crab without mercy. His nimble movements and whipping tail ducked, rolled and leapt, whilst still attached to the creature about the scything pincers.

It screamed in the darkness. It cowered for one final moment in the rising peril and then slumped, without grace, to the ocean floor. With Neko’s weight pressing down on it, it was denied an erratic, dramatic, and zeal driven death throe. Lillith could only stop, quite abruptly, and admire her companion’s handy work. There was more to Neko than airs, graces, and hexagrams. She made a mental note, despite all the chaos and confusion spiralling about in her mind to thank him, many times, for his bravery and dedication to the Kazumi tribe. The black straps up her back glowed purple for a few final moments, before her I Ching disappeared.

She would also have to thank him for bestowing an idea upon her through his savagery. An idea could be the most terrible of weapons in the right hands.

<You have to go for the eyes you stupid bitch, the eyes!>

She cursed herself for all the times she had skipped on her elocution and lip reading lessons with her sister. Turning on a raised heel, she made several erratic gestures in the current, a desperate attempt to catch Dorian’s attention. Still in awe of the sudden appearance of the Crab, the young dragon knight gazed through the some four hundred or so feet that now separated them.

Her next few moments would not be the proudest of her long life, but she did her best to mimic the act of stabbing a large demon in the eyes with a sharp spear. With erratic thrusts, she slowly but surely obscured herself from the dragon knight. She slumped when she could no longer see him. She hoped, with all the strength and conviction in her soul, that he had gotten the message. Neither her skill nor her magic could raise her through the water to strike the great glowing spheres that formed the Oni’s eyes. Even if she killed all its young, leapt to heaven itself, and then navigated the great maw and its razor teeth, her tanto, nothing more than toothpicks to the Crab, would not penetrate those spheres of malice.

With a silent prayer, she turned away from Dorian, and ran to Neko’s aid as four more crabs, or various sizes, from small to behemoth like encroached on his location. She jumped, spread her legs, and span her tanto in defiance. If they could kill the Crab’s young, then perhaps her attention would sway from the shore, as its great legs continued to rise and fall with thundering declarations of its intent.

They did not have long before they heard the Flower Drum Song once more, and the chorus of screams that would follow.

Paragon

03-07-12, 11:38 PM

Dorian blinked. Lillith's performance was certainly... illuminating. He could make out the stabbing motions, but did not know what they were for. He looked up at where she was pointing her imaginary weapon, and he could see the great glowing orbs of the Greater Oni's eyes, which were approaching closer and closer. Every time one of Crab's legs would make contact with the sea floor, a great rumbling shook up the sand and rocks and made it hard to see.

Through the blurry water he barely caught the sight of a long, thin object coming at him at great speed. He kicked the sand below his feet, flicking his body backwards and landing softly on the rocks several feet away. Out from the blurry water he saw the clam-like shape of a smaller crab-like creature, with legs that were several meters long. He recognized it as a type of spider crab, but its body was three feet long, and he couldn't see where the legs ended. In front of it were its claw arms, which did not have the huge mandibles of the greater Crab, but they were slick and sharp, and possibly with the strength to cleave right through him. Moreover, the way it moved was fluid and fast, as if the water affected it even less than Dorian. He held his spear out front, putting his left hand on the shaft and his right near the base, and he noticed that this lesser crab had the same eyes as the Greater Oni.

The eyes... that's what she was saying.

Before he could go in for a thrust, several smaller spider crabs clustered around him, their claws like little knives that tried to poke holes into the dragon knight. He jumped to the side, avoiding the attacks and landing once more. Looking around, he checked for more of them before he felt the rumble of the Crab once again taking a step toward the harbor. He didn't have time to deal with its apparent offspring. He charged forward, twirling his spear and batting away the smaller crabs, spinning to avoid the bigger crab's piercing mandibles and then stabbing it in the eye. He pulled the spear out immediately after the strike, jumping back to make distance between them. He saw blood seep out into the sea from its eyes, while it twitched uncontrollably.

After a few moments, its legs slumped and its body collapsed into the sea floor, driving up a torrent of sand. Dorian was breathing through his mouth, a bit tired after straining himself, but noticed that it was suddenly very dark. He looked up, and only had a moment to use his jumping abilities to dodge the monstrous Crab leg that threatened to obliterate him. The suddenness of the jump caused him to land on his side, sliding along the sand and then coming to a stop. He gripped the shaft of his spear as he got up, looking up to see that the outline of the skiff was gone.

By just walking on it, Crab had completely destroyed the boat they were all on. Dorian could only imagine how easily it could flatten the town. He looked for its eyes, which were almost overhead, but noticed many long crab legs surrounding him. More of those little buggers. He bent his knees, getting ready to retreat again, but it was apparent that even without their interruption he would have a hard time jumping up to the Crab and somehow stabbing it in the eyes. Down here in this murky water...

Revenant

03-16-12, 03:32 AM

William’s snarl was swallowed by the water, fading into a dull hum which was subsumed by the scuttling roar of the crablings engaging him. A third had joined its brethren, harrying the monster hunter. William maneuvered as best he could amidst the cloudy environment, but each misstep buried his feet in the thick muck and debris lining the Akashiman sea floor, shaving precious seconds off of his lead from Crab’s spawn. William wasn’t even sure how many of the creatures were lurking just beyond his limited field of vision, making it entirely possible that each step would take him into the claws of some unseen assailant. Harried as he was, he didn’t have time to spare thinking of the others and how they were faring, if they even survived.

Though if she survived, Lillith had a serious scolding coming her way.

William silently cursed as another claw snapped shut just behind him. The crablings were fast, but his inhuman speed put him just a bit ahead of them. Not that it was doing him much good at this point. He had tried looping around on the crablings only to find that the creatures’ armored shells and flexible claws meant that he was at a loss even behind them.

The only safe place seems to be on top of them, he growled to himself, leaping over a sea life encrusted rock wall. Even then, it’d only be for a few seconds. Still, a few seconds was more time than he had now, and being on top of one of the creatures would give him a close enough look that even the muddy cloud surrounding him wouldn’t be able to obfuscate the crablings enough.

And if they catch me, he mused, then at least I can die knowing that a giant crab is going to destroy Yanbo.

Having decided on a new course of action, William reversed his movement, rolling through the muck to avoid a swipe from the lead crabling’s claw. Now covered in rotting muck, William leapt, his inhuman strength enough to propel him atop the carriage sized crab even without having to call upon his transformed power.

The crab’s shell wasn’t as smooth as William had expected, though the slick mud covering his feet meant that he still had a difficult time maintaining balance, especially when the creature began thrashing about in an attempt to dislodge its passenger. William’s cursed eyes furtively scanned the crab’s armored carapace. He traced every black vein, crack, and weak spot that Jomil’s destructive blessing allowed him to see, but the crabs were living creatures and that meant that they were harder to study.

For its part, the crab thrashed and bent its claws back, trying to snap the revenant right off its back. Unfortunately the creature’s limbs, while supple and flexible in a field around it, were not so graceful above the creature and the only difficulty that William had keeping out of reach was keeping his muddy feet under hi m. Once again the monster hunter cursed that he couldn’t transform underwater. At this moment he would have given just about anything for the gripping bone talons which his feet became in his demonic form.

The crabling's friends had joined it in trying to dislodge the undesirable from its back, though their snapping claws were somewhat mitigated by its own massively armored bulk. After narrowly escaping for the fourth time during his examination, William thought better of maintaining his position. Still, the weak point on the living creature's shell was taking time to pin down and he was loathe to just give up. The crab lurched under his feet as one of the other crablings crashing into it after slipping from the muck encrusted seawall.

With his position atop the creature already precarious given the thick mud that was now smeared all over the creature's back, William had no chance to retain his footing when the sudden jarring motion threw him flat onto the crabling's ridged back. His hands scrabbled frantically to find purchase on the slick surface as his body threatened to slide into the crushing space between the crablings' bodies. His warscythe swung loosely, almost falling from his fingers in the mad scramble until the blade caught in a groove between the plates that made up the armor covering the creature's head and body.

"And in one freak moment of coincidence I'm saved," William thought as he grabbed the warscythe and used it as leverage to regain his feet atop the crab. His eyes stung as they were assaulted by the cloud of muddy grit that he had churned up, the I Ching not protecting him quite that far. Still, what his destructive sight saw as he examined the junction in which his blade had caught more than made up for the burning sensation. With nothing else left to try William leaned all of his enhanced strength into jamming the warscythe's blade as deep into the groove as he could.

The action caused the crabling to emit a high pitched shriek which doubled and echoed through the waters, causing its companions to stagger back a step in surprise. Emboldened by the fresh spurt of whitish blood fluid that clouded the water around him from the wound, William heaved everything he had into the warscythe's haft, driving the blade entirely inside the crabling. The creature thrashed like a landlocked shark but William now had a point of leverage onto which he could hang and every shake of the crabling's massive body only seemed to drive the blade deeper into its headspace.

Sensing the danger that their brother was in, the other two crablings charged back in, a kinship frenzy overtaking their senses as they rained blows down at William. Without having the water's pressure to affect him and with the solid fixture of his weapon's haft in hand, William was easily able to dodge around these clumsy attacks. The wounded crab shrieked again in protest as its kin smashed their claws into its shell.

"Time to die!" William roared, lost in his own growing sense of bloodlust. The bloody, mud clouded water entered the revenant's lungs as he yelled, and while the I Ching spell allowed him to breathe the substance, it caused his body to spasm as it filtered into him. He would be coughing up gunk and tasting mud for a week, he knew, but he wasn't exactly the in the most level headed mood.

Corded sinew stood out prominently as William heaved against thewarscythes lodged haft with every ouce of force that he could muster. White blood flooded out of the crabling as it's headplate began to tear off, and the horrific shrieking of the creature boomed underwater, carrying for miles. Rage spent, the other crabs backed away once again, sensing the futility in their actions. The knew on a primal level that their brethren's cry was a death knell and just as surely they knew that there was nothing they could do at this point that would help. Giving once last heave which caused the veins in his head and neck to throb out, WIlliam tore the crabling's armored head shell, and a goodly portion of the creature's head, completely off. Everything around him was obfuscated by the billowing cloud of white that surrounded him, but he could still hear the other crablings next to him, chittering in horror.

Grinning despite the miasma which filled his mouth because of the action, William tore his warscythe free and honed in on the sound of the other crablings. He knew how to kill the things now, and he knew that he didn't need his demonic power. Roaring a war cry which boomed in the underwater environment, William leapt from his perch at the next crabling in line.

They would all die and then it would be mama's turn.

Lillith

03-18-12, 12:04 PM

Lillith humbled by the fervour and dedication with which her three companions fought. Even Neko, the humble, shy, and pious spirit sage from the north had become a bestial whirlwind in the murky depths. As planks of wood, masts and sails rained down in slow motion around them, the crab continued its advance, and chaos continued to churn the sediment of the seabed into peals of earthen mist.

They were perilously close to coming undone, their fervour, though mighty, was wasted on the swarm of the Greater Oni’s spiritual children. As the assassin twirled the red hilted tanto in violent arcs, deflecting the snapping claws of a young crimson crustacean, she could not help but feel beleaguered, fatigued, and increasingly hopeless. The creature screamed in the shadows as the blade pierced its eyes, the one weak spot in the otherwise tanto proof shell, and cowed out of her follow up thrust.

Neko appeared from behind the crab, eyes bright, heart racing, and fur flowing with life. However, the I-Ching protected them from the effects of the ocean; it made a great effort to keep up appearances. With a double thrust, the steel claws of the nekojin raked down across the thick, spiky, and exposed rear of the oni. It screamed again, rushed forwards, but found its attempts to turn hindered by Lillith’s geta. She kicked its right front leg, which buckled with ease under the unhindered movement of the assassin, and it tumbled with a thud. Seizing his opportunity, Neko pounced atop the shell of his flailing victim and rose on his haunches.

“<To the warm sun and winds you go…to the spirit sea and the Kami’s bonds I send thee…>” she mouthed, drawing with a slender finger two familiar I Ching that declared the greater judged, sundered, and unfit to walk on this earth. Seeing his sign, two vermillion symbols of purity and strife, Neko punched his claws down through the canopy of the crustacean.

As the mast of the schooner pierced the sand to the far right of the Greater Oni, and filled the ocean with a thundering roar, the creature screamed a jet of bubbles. Both crab and wood bounced on the sand before toppling sideways, lifeless, spent, and ruined. It did not take Neko long to leap with a feline flip from his trophy and run off into the murky expanse beneath the Greater Oni’s torso. Lillith trailed his disappearance, breathing heavy, painful, and lingering breaths. The glow of her I Ching illuminated her dry satin clothing in the dark for a few precious moments of colour in the gloom, and then vanished in a trail of dust.

Her heart was heavy, her soul was aflame, and her life seemed worthless because of it. She was enjoying the struggle, the fight, and the fame that would come hand in hand with their victory. As the Crab continued to advance, and the many remaining children scuttled about beneath her, they were losing too much ground, too quickly. Lillith stared upwards, and watched the massive torso pass over her.

“<I Ching guides me,>” she said to herself, her lips moving, but nothing more than air passed through them. She clenched her fists tightly around her blades, swore under her breath, and then ran in the direction Neko had disappeared.

It did not take her long to find him perched on another dead crab, claws raised triumphantly, and tail whipping back and forth proudly. She approached from the right, careful not to surprise him into rash action. Her skin would offer no protection against one his feisty blows. He turned to her, noticing her pale skin in the red Basque of the Greater Oni even as it moved on ahead. He shook slightly as its advanced hit soft and hard ground and rattled out a Drum Song of its own.

“Lillith?” he mouthed, cocking his head slightly to the right with a curious stare.

Something in her mind, her memories, and her madness reminded her of a past life. The Jurugumo's poison dwindled as she fought it, and with her fight, came a new determination to make up for her shortcomings.

With elegant handiwork, Lillith drew two I Ching in the water, two feet apart, eyes blazing with a purple fire as she constructed them beautifully. The left was a symbol of heaven, the right, a symbol of fire. Together they formed the I Ching named T’ung Jen, the symbolised form of togetherness, friendship, and receptivity. Neko seemed to recognise it, but from his pained expression, he did not understand its relevance for their somewhat precarious circumstances. He leapt from the corpse and padded forwards, stopping five or so feet from his mistress.

She drew it again, but this time, she pushed them towards her nekojin companion, and they erupted forwards like literary projectiles. They struck him in two places, the heaven on the forehead, the fire on the heart, and together they awakened the power of speech in his mind amongst his companions. Lillith wasted no time in letting him gather his wits about him.

“It took me a long time to remember, but we must share these symbols with the others. We cannot fight The Greater Oni if we are divided, wordless, and hindered by these creatures.” Her voice, a thick accent of Scara Braen and Akashiman fusion rattled about in Neko’s skull. He shook his head, as if to try to shake an itch from his scalp. He blinked, and then his expression turned sour. He half wished he had thought to wield the I Ching in such a manner before they dove into the cold depths.

“Think…Neko…focus your words and push them into my mind…” She took him by the shoulders with a sudden step forwards and rattled some sense into him. He twitched his nose, looked at her coyly, and then wrinkled his forehead.

“I do not like this, I do not like this one bit,” he chided. As the words span between them, both their heads began to spiral along with them. It was an immensely unpleasant sensation, but unavoidable, if they were to take to a united front. She slapped his arms affectionately, and retreated.

“T’ung Jen, it has been a long time since I used it. Centuries, perhaps. Go,” she pointed after the Crab, “find William, and tell him how to speak to us. I will find Dorian, and we shall gather beneath the shell of that bitch,” she nodded at the arse end of the Oni as it threatened to vanish from view.

Neko needed to encouragement to stream off over the settling silt, spiralling, swerving, and leaping over and around the still descending fragments of the schooner that had borne them to the ocean and to their greatest battle yet. Lillith kicked off to the right, where she had last seen the dragoon, in the hopes that this time, she could send the message to him about the eyes with a little more conviction, understanding, and finesse.

“Godspeed Neko,” she said through the red mist. Her voice took a moment to reach his mind.

“Godspeed, Lillith-chan!” came a chirpy reply.

Paragon

03-27-12, 11:06 PM

Whatever didn't end up as flotsam sunk to the bottom of the sea, slowly falling around Dorian as air bubbles rose from the submerged wreckage. He tried to put Fallow into the back of his mind, but it was apparent that he relied on the dragonling to be his eyes at certain times. The lesser oni swarmed around him, knowing that he was a threat and intending to smother him with sheer numbers. They were various types of crabs of many sizes, some as small as his hand, others twice his height. He couldn't see clearly beyond his own hand, the crabs that surrounded him mere shadows in the muddy sea around him. There was no way to know how his companions were faring, but he knew that he was doing no good down here.

It's too late to stop it here. Trying to find the others would be fruitless. He decided that stopping the Greater Oni took priority. Of the team, he felt like the weak link. He felt like maybe he bit off a little more than he could chew with this mission. Now that the skiff was destroyed, he couldn't even go ask for reinforcements. But he wasn't scared. Even if the odds were against him, that was no reason to give up.

His boots transformed back into his regular shoes, and he bent his knees. As the crabs finally charged at him from all sides, he jumped as high as he could, the fate in his boots propelling his body up through the water. As he flew upwards, he saw more and more of Crab, passing by its monstrous body. He broke the water, suddenly feeling very wet as he continued upwards through the open air, higher and higher, until he was far above Crab and the harbor itself.

Meanwhile, Lillith saw the ascending dragoon and tried to call out to him, but he was too far gone for words.

Floating in the sky during the brief moment between flying and falling, Dorian saw the Greater Oni in its full glory, its full terrible form. While on the surface it didn't appear to be too different from a regular crab, he felt this sensation of dread through looking at its glowing eyes. The monster was an embodiment of evil, and Dorian could almost feel its desire to destroy. As he adjusted his trajectory before he started falling again, he changed back into his Dragonet Greaves and aimed for one of the houses that overlooked the harbor. The buildings in this district proved very difficult to land on, as many of them had peaked roofs with clay tiling. He landed on the side of a roof, the angle and smoothness of the tiles making his landing much rockier than he expected. His sabatons made contact with the tiles as he expected, but he immediately felt his footing slip and had to take a few steps to adjust himself, with the tiles clattering below him. He held onto the top of the curved roof, resting his left hand on one of the spikes that ran along the tip of the triangle-shaped structure, while his right hand continued its grip on his spear.

He didn't know what to do, but he had to try something. He collapsed the spear and placed it back on his belt, reaching for the dragon figurine, which transformed into the Hydra Lance. Taking a few steps down, he aimed for the Greater Oni's eye with the lance. The monster was getting dangerously close to the harbor, only a few steps away now. Dorian threw the lance, watching intently as it glided in the air toward Crab's giant, glowing eye. However, life was not so simple. Even though Crab was not particularly paying any attention to Dorian, it recognized the flying object and lifted one of its gigantic claws to intercept the lance. The tip of the lance almost hit the mandible before Dorian willed it back into a figurine and let it fly back into his hand. He almost lost his footing again as he caught it. A twinge of helplessness ran through his body, but giving up wasn't part of his being. He aimed and threw the lance again,

and again,

and again,

repeating the process of returning it to its figurine form before the mandible could damage it. The houses were closely packed together, so he jumped to the next one over a thin alleyway. There had to be a weakness. He kept trying to throw the lance at different angles, not knowing if it was going to work. He kept hoping.

Revenant

03-29-12, 05:49 PM

A half a dozen mutilated crablings filled the water on the sea floor with a thick cloud of murky white. William growled as he pulled the head off the last of the crabs that he could find, cursing that the others had wisely taken to fleeing back into the murky depths beyond Yanbo Port to escape his wrath. Apparently there was only so much that Crab could do to control its offspring when forcing them into the jaws of a grisly, painful death.

Satisfied that the creature under him was fatally wounded and wouldn’t be much harm to him anymore, even if it wasn’t quite dead, William leapt off the back of the creature’s armored shell and into the upper portion of the milky death cloud where the water’s hadn’t been quite so impacted. He sailed through the distilled edge of the occluding field with the help of the I Ching, finally able properly refocus his attention on the massive red shell of the Greater Oni. The armored shells of the crablings had been as hard and resistant as steel, and he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about facing something stronger and tougher without the aid of his demonic strength to help him overcome. If there was a way to manage it his cursed eyesight would show it to him, he knew, but it would take precious time to do so and the ramping shoreline leading up to the port was dangerously close now.

”What in the pyre have those harecat asses been doing?” his mind growled as he landed ankle deep in the muck at the harbor’s floor.

”Like you we’ve been somewhat occupied,” a voice that William recognized as Lillith’s companion Neko replied.

”What the …” William questioned, only to be interrupted by a flutter of movement to his side. The fact that both of the monster hunter’s feet had been stuck into the mire on his descent was the only thing that saved Neko as William, still hyped from his fight with the crablings, twisted towards the movement and lashed out with a sweep of his blade. As he moved towards Neko, blindly attacking, the mud held onto his foot just long enough for the blade of his warscythe to pass harmlessly in front of his unwitting ally rather than splitting him in two.

”Watch it!” Neko’s mind screamed at him as he put his hands up and jumped back. ”I’ve only come to bind you with T’ung Jen. It allows us to communicate as we are doing now.”

William grunted and then formed in his mind the phrase, “I’m so glad you thought of that before we all leapt into the harbor.”

”Well you didn’t exactly leave us with much time to prepare, William.” Lillith’s voice added to the swirling confusion inside the revenant’s head.

”Oh so you’re here too.”

”Of course I am.” William could hear an exasperated laughter in the back of his mind. ”You don’t think Neko would seek you out before binding me with the T’ung Jen? Now if you’re finished, I could use some help here stopping a giant crustacean from destroying Yanbo.”

William supposed he couldn’t argue with that. Neko grabbed the haft of William’s scythe and used it to help free William from the gripping mud. The two of them made their way swiftly towards the colossal pillars that were Crab’s forelegs. William could see Lillith in the distance, darting swiftly to strike out at her enemy, but of his fellow Ixian captain there was no sight.

”Dorian?” he simply asked.

”He leapt away before I could bind him,” Neko answered.

William grunted, which produced a low vibrating whoosh in the water around him. Crab’s hind legs loomed large over him, casting the sea floor in darkness. William broke away from Neko, trusting the creature to finds its way back to Lillith, and leapt upon the rearmost leg’s thick shell. Unlike the crablings, William could feel the ancient strength and power flowing through the Greater Oni as he scrambled up Crab’s spined leg. He was glad that the sharp ridges provided hand and foothold since he was unable to use his claws to climb, but each jarring movement that Crab made meant another scraping drag of carapace across William’s flesh. And if that weren’t bad enough, what little lines of weakness in Crab’s thick shell that his eyes could see sealed and shifted almost as fast as William could track them. Hacking through the carapace here would be a monumentally difficult, as probably useless, task.

From what William could see, he only had one option. While Crab’s leg continued to tower over him, out of the sea and high into the air, the leg joint nearest to Crab’s body remained underwater. He would likely be unable to climb all the way to the top of the leg before Crab crashed into Yanbo, but he might be able to leap from his perch on the leg to the first joint when Crab stepped forward. Hopefully, he thought, the leg wouldn’t be quite so tough there.

He didn’t have to wait long. Despite its bulk, Crab began to shuffle forward with a surprising amount of celerity. Something must have drawn its attention on land, giving it a reason to heave its body high out of the water. Whatever the cause, William was a beneficiary.

It was no effort for the monster hunter to leap atop the joint from his perch on Crab’s leg as it passed. The rough nature of Crab’s shell sanded off a bit of William’s skin as he landed, but otherwise made an excellent surface for gripping. And even the minor wound healed quickly thanks to the supernatural nature of his physique. Unfortunately, William found the same level of resistance on the crab’s joint carapace as he did on the outer shell. If he’d had to guess, he would have said that the ancient oni’s shell’s toughness rivaled that of some of the higher levels of metal that he had encountered, at least damascus of mythril, and many times thicker than even a full suit of plate armor would be.

But even that wasn’t an insurmountable task for William to overcome. He was nothing if not prepared when it came to killing in general, so killing ancient magical demon beasts just required a bit of ingenuity. High as he was, William could feel the waves from the shore beginning to pull against him. Crab was almost out of the water, which meant that Yanbo was in some serious danger. It was time for William to play one of his trump cards.

Gripping a ridge of Crab’s joint for support William raised the warscythe overhead with one hand. A potent weapon in its own right, the warscythe nevertheless possessed another quality that made the weapon downright frightful. William could personally attest to this fact as the creature that had bestowed it upon him had first used it to sever William’s arm without so much as exerting itself. Arcs of green lightning crackled from the weapon’s haft as he activated the weapon, giving the water around William a tingly quality. The blade of the warscythe itself glowed a sickly green light as William brought it down hard on Crab’s joint.

He needn’t have botherd.

Without requiring any sort of effort save to direct it, the blade passed through Crab’s joint like it were air. A horrendous screeching roar rolled through the waves and out into Yanbo as the glow faded from the warscythe and the entirety of the severed leg fell back into the harbor. William held onto his perch above the severed joint, only to find himself awash in a tidal wave of the fluid that served as Crab’s blood. As good as the I Ching had been about keeping him from drowning in the harbor’s water, oni blood wasn’t exactly a part of the equation.

”What … how did you do that?” Neko’s awed voice reached into William’s mind as he struggled both to retain his grip on Crab and on his warscythe. The jettisoning blood pulled against him like a raging river and William knew that to lose his grip would either mean a probably permanent loss of his weapon or a very long and very deadly fall.

”No big deal.” Even in his mind the words felt strained. ”Only had to die to get one.” William’s tenuous grip was made worse as Crab started thrashing about in the surf, flailing his body around like a rag doll. But just as he was about to lose his grip, William felt one of Crab’s massive claws slam into him and send him hurtling out of the bay and into to docks surrounding Yanbo Harbor.

Lillith

03-31-12, 05:27 PM

The rush of turbulent seawater swirled around the spirit warders in a swarm of bubbles, flotsam, and silt. They covered their eyes instinctively, desperately trying to prevent the debris from blinding them where they stood. Still in awe from William’s show of fortitude, strength, and demonic bravado, they could only wait with baited breath. A gibbering, hankering, and withering cry filled the world beyond worlds. In the spirit chasm, a void between mortality and death, the oni trapped in the darkness cried and wept for their mother.

Neko shook his head wildly, as if he were a scared child trying to scream away the monsters. Lillith, finally able to see through the mist of mud and blood reached out for his shoulder. He jolted beneath her grip, turned with claws raised, and then stopped. He appeared like a marble statue, his expression one of ageless terror, and his fangs rocky protrusions of the anger swelling within.

“Neko-chan stop!” Lillith roared in her mind. Her voice echoed through the recesses of mental energy that formed the labyrinthine expanse of the telepathic I Ching. Her words echoed many times before they finally fell silent. She looked just as terrified as he did, though for reasons visible, and not at the whim of phantasms. “Neko…it’s just a whisper in the dark. They cannot hurt you here.” She re-assured him, a silky, motherly, and kind voice forming from the nothingness of her mentality. When she saw that he was calm, she stepped back, rested her hands on her hips, and sighed.

Whilst the formulation of the I Ching to give the gift of speech to the motley trio had been an inspired, if not late idea, it had simply caused more problems than it had aimed to solve. William had severed the Crab’s shell with the ease of a titan smashing chalk. Despite his efforts, however, the Crab was still trundling, now with more ferocity and madness, directly up the slope of the beach towards Yanbo. The spirit warder had no doubt that by now, the upper shell was beginning to lift itself out of the sea and reveal itself in all its horned glory to the celebrating denizens of the harbour town.

“Gods be praised, I heard them scrabbling in my skull!” the Nekojin despaired. Though he was wiser than Lillith in the ways of the I Ching, it was clear to the woman that he was anything but experience in actually fighting them. Then again, this Oni was a million miles away from the faint echoes of malice that fluttered back and forth between the dark tree line of the Akashiman forests. They were echoes of another time, long ago, when men dared not test the will of the Kami. “What do we do now Lillith-sama?” he twitched his ears, and raked furtively at the ribbons of ichor that still spiralled through the water, splashing them in a strange union of magic and adherence to nature. They glowed in crimson lines, as if a katana swung through their fatigued bodies.

The flowing kimono and matted hair of the assassin continued to waver in the oceanic current. She peered through the ethereal expanse of the Yanbo trench and considered their options. Longingly, heartily, and with a defiant expression of impending victory on her delicate features she glanced up to the belly of their opponent. Out on the shore, she had no doubt that William Arcus was plummeting to the ground. She assumed, from Dorian’s show of flight, that the dragoon would be quite all right on his own. When a stray spear pierced the water fifty or so feet ahead with a thunderous descent, her assumptions confirmed.

“It would appear that the fight has left us, Neko-chan. We must return to it, and focus our efforts.” She was starting to feel helpless. Whilst it appeared that the Ixian Knights intended to bring the Crab down, if they did not co-ordinate better, they would only continue to inflict flesh wounds on its behemoth form. She stared at the leg stump wearily, her confidence draining as she tried to apply her conviction to a logical course of action. Despite the loss of one limb, there were still five more legs. Crucially, there were still two immense, guillotines like claws to contest. There was no doubt in the assassin’s mind that she would not survive a blow like the one that had dispensed with the Revenant quite so convincingly.

With a crash, the Crab rose suddenly. Its chest half disappeared out into the soft spring breeze. Lillith steadied herself with splayed arms and leapt on the spot to spread her legs. Neko, already half-stooped, merely dug his claws into the seabed. It did not take either of them long to draw the same conclusion. The Crab’s front legs had reached the motley assortment of stone, wood, and bamboo jetties that protruded like hairs from the back of the commercial heart of Yanbo. However, the red wood temple rises, pagodas, and huddled shacks that made up the centre of the city would fare better against its advance, the descent of wood and ships on the horizon told Lillith all she feared had come true.

“Hurry Neko, to the shore, and with all the speed of the wind!” she did not wait for his acknowledgement. With the same push down into the sand, she jetted herself forwards. Her geta, useless decorative footwear on land leant themselves to the motion. The slope in the cut of wood rocked forth and in no time at all, she was bouncing over the rippling demi-dunes that sloped up to land. “William…” she screamed in her mind. She pushed into the image of the I Ching that burnt in her memories and prayed that the demon could hear her. “William, for the love of Sei’s strawberry candles, we cannot let it reach the Temple!”

Backing up her statement with a motion of her own, she cut her tanto through the phantasmal water, leapt up onto a falling slab of wood, and made her agile ascent up the torrent of debris to the devastation above. The spectacle made possible only by the providence of the ancient spirit magic that made them walk beneath the waves, and the same art that bound their minds as one. She gasped for air as she emerged in the frothy chaos of the surface, her legs and arms flailing as gravity returned to her limbs. With Neko bobbing up behind her, she leap frogged over the stepping stone jetsam and finally landed unceremoniously, but quite dry on the broken harbour of her ancestral home.

When the nekojin joined her by her side, he pointed up to the rooftops and gasped. Lillith looked up from slapping her knees and half puking with strain to see Dorian reigning down lancing strikes of aggression towards the Oni’s facial area. She nodded gratefully. The young, debonair dragoon did not need guidance, it seemed. “Remind me t-” she paused for thought. After a deep breath and an awkward silence, her lungs resumed normal function. “Remind me to thank him immensely when we are done.”

Neko nodded. “Yes Lillith-sama!”

Righting her slowly, the sound of her heart beating drowned out by the terrible cries of the Crab ripping the solitude and drum song of the city apart, Lillith could only scowl at the terrifying sight that rose up from the sea. Revealed in all its horrible glory, she could see now just how monstrous the creature was. It dwarfed every building in Yanbo, even the Great Temple at its centre. “Come on, we have to find William and make weighty suggestions he swings that scythe five more times…” she mused. Though dishevelled, she had emerged unscathed from the sea. Though tired, she riddled with life.

Though Yanbo was in great danger, the Flower Drum Song gave her hope.

“Come on Neko-chan, hurry!” she broke into a run again, and the sound of her companion’s paws padding on the wet, salty, and ancient stone gave her the strength to fly towards their deadliest foe as it finally mounted land. With one final roar, it sundered the rooftops in a half-moon before it. Blood trickled down Lillith’s nose, but she ignored it. “It’s time to show the gods that we reject them, and reject them utterly!” her scream returned the malefic tone back to the Crab, who trundled ahead down the main boulevard that ran through the city.

Seagulls spiralled obliviously overhead the chaos. Screams broke out all across the harbour, joined by more and more reprises of horror, and less and less choral and rhythmic drumming. Flower patterned toms and Tonga drums abandoned in favour of rusty spears, worn armour, and half-scrabbled I Ching. Though many citizens ran screaming away from the titan of caprice that broke the dawn, many more charged the creature foetidly, and Lillith heard gargles of death in the cacophony that overwhelmed her senses.

Spears, shouts, and curses in many different dialects of Akashima joined Dorian’s storm of lances and the encroaching pain caused by Arcus’s scythe.

“Good god William, please will you be okay!”

Paragon

04-07-12, 07:46 PM

As Dorian's lance returned to him one more time in the form of the dragon figurine, he caught it with some apprehension. A strain coursed through his right arm, and he was unable to bend his fingers all the way in. Trying to land an attack and using all his strength to do it was taking its toll, but he could not stop. The lance reformed in his hand. Grunting with visible pain, he threw the lance again, lowering his right arm after the attack as his hand twitched from the strenuous activity. To his surprise, at this moment Crab almost lost its balance, the Greater Oni's body tipping to the side as the weight from one of its legs was lost entirely. Dorian blinked, looking at the water and noticing a huge pool of white extending from one of its legs. He could not see that it was severed under the waves, but it was at least quite an injury. William...

The monster hunter's attack was just what he needed, as Crab's claw missed the lance as it continued on its course. The blade of the lance pierced Crab's eye, and the resulting sound was deep and horrible. A deafening moan ran out through the harbor, everything trembling in the wake of Crab's pain. White liquid poured out from the shell, from its eye inside. Dorian willed the lance to transform back into a figurine, but it was too late. Crab's giant claw rose up and broke off most of the Hydra Lance's base, its shaft flying through the air and landing on the streets of Yanbo. After that, the magic that bound it to Dorian's will was broken. What remained of the broken lance still stuck out of Crab's bloody eye. While it felt like a small victory, the dragon knight knew that this was far from over. Now that his lance was gone, he only had his spear, which meant to strike at the other eye meant jumping into the Greater Oni. Such an action was suicidal at this point.

It was then that he saw William's body come flying out of the water, crashing into a shed on the docks and destroying it with the force of his body. As he was about to jump down to go help him, he noticed a change in Yanbo. The drumming was quieter, and replaced by roars of bravery. Dorian looked down and saw the citizens had taken up arms. He saw Crab finally enter the town, its legs destroying the roads with each step. He wanted to tell the people to stop, to tell them to get away, but he couldn't. They were protecting their homes. A shocked expression crossed his face when he noticed that, unlike Dorian, Crab started to actually target the people. One of its monstrous claws swooped down and cleared a street of its defenders, causing Dorian to immediately jump down and rush over to the scene. He ran up to one of the fallen citizens, but Crab's victim was unmoving, either dead or knocked out from the attack. The citizen's entire right side looked broken, his arm mangled beyond recognition. Crab then brought its claw down hard upon one of the houses, splitting it in two in one motion. Dorian grit his teeth. He could not let this continue, but how could he attack now? Only one of his lance attacks managed to work, and it was only through William's intervention.

It was clear that Dorian needed the Ixian monster hunter's help. He made his way around the Greater Oni to the docks and jumped down near the broken shed.

Revenant

04-19-12, 12:23 PM

It was easy to miss the ominous rumbling coming from the shattered remains of the dockside shed that had become William’s resting place. A dozen similar piles of ruination, leftovers of Crab’s violent spree of destruction, made it easy for the panicked, fleeing individuals to completely overlook the shed’s shifting splinters. Only when the thin stream of smoke started pouring from the cracks did the docks’ fearful residents take notice of the ruins.

“Water,” someone yelled, “There’s a fire here. Bring water.” Even amidst Crab’s rampage, the threat of a fire on the dry, sun beaten docks of Yanbo Harbor was something to dread. The Greater Oni’s fury might tear the port city down, but the damage Crab did could be cleared and the buildings rebuilt. A fire however, especially one on the docks where it could be quick to spread, would leave nothing at all to be rebuilt.

A few brave souls left the safety of their huddled shelters to form a makeshift fire brigade, but though they tossed bucket after bucket of seawater over the pile, their efforts amounted to nothing. Within a handful of minutes the first slip of smoke had turned into a billowing cloud of hot choking ash, accompanied by a physical wave of heat and the unmistakable lick of flame. Urgent cries from the dock’s defenders went drew more attention from the few passerbys that still roamed freely, only to be cut short as the remnants of the shed exploded outwards, downing Yanbo’s defenders in a hail of flaming splinters. And, standing defiantly in the midst of the raging inferno of blood and fire, the black skinned war form of William Arcus roared its rage and pain at the Greater Oni.

Once out of the water, the revenant was free to bring the full strength of his molten power to the fore without incapacitating himself in the process. The freedom hadn’t been purchased without cost however, as searing blood oozed from a dozen different places on William’s body, several with burning shards of wood still embedded within. One of the monster hunter’s arms hung crushed and limp at the side where Crab’s massive claw had struck him and it was clear from the shredded flesh of his face that William had lost an eye and quite a few teeth. Though his regenerative capability was already working to restore his body to proper function, William was torn and appeared to be quite the mess.

Those unfamiliar with the Ixian monster hunter couldn’t be faulted for thinking him out of the fight with such massive injuries, but those select few who were familiar with the similar circumstances that William had been put in knew enough to know that no amount of damage would be able to restrain his vengeance. Not that restraint was even an option that he could choose, drowning as he was in the red tide of his demonic rage. The red tide did a more thorough job of drowning out William’s conscious thought more thoroughly than the waves of Akashima ever could and Neko and Lillith, connected to him with the I Ching’s mental bridge, were suddenly subject to the full unbridled force of the destruction that raged inside William’s mind. The sensation lasted only a second before the connection broke, but in that second the two warriors understood just what it was like to be the revenant.

“Crab!” William roared. “Battle!”

Having issued those poignant words as the best challenge he could manage under the influence of his rage, William hurled himself at Crab with all the force his mindless rage could muster. Each bounding leap tore a divot of wood from the dock planks beneath him, and all the oozing blood from his wounds smoldered and left a trail of fire in his wake, but William paid these things no mind. What was it to him if he burned Yanbo to the ground in order to kill the beast that had wounded him? He was lost to his blood lust and would burn all of Akashima to cinders to sate it.

Lillith

05-07-12, 01:51 PM

Neko, not as used to torment as his colleague, stumbled on his otherwise sure feet as the echo of William’s scream tore at his mind. Lillith shook her head, reeled in the aftermath, and made silent thanks that the I Ching had not been stronger. She dreaded to think what would happen to them, and to Yanbo, if their comrade had undone them. She reached out and pressed a sweaty palm onto his matted shoulder, and waited for him to stop seething.

“Ignore it, Neko-chan. It is only his war cry,” which, Lillith assumed, was not all that far from the truth. Though she would never come to understand the primal rage that resided, and subsequently consumed William Arcus, she was thankful for it now. Yanbo, and its citizens, would be just as grateful. She turned on a heel, letting Neko free, and took in the devastation of their surroundings.

The peaked rooftops of the dojo conclave to the east were now the tallest landmark in the city, besides the Grand Temple itself. The tall towers of the merchant regent’s villa, and all its many wonders had been one of the first ancient strongholds to fall beneath the crab’s emergence onto land. Their mahogany structures were nothing more than spindles cast to the wind now. Behind Lillith, the family barracks, stores, and ruined epitaphs to yesteryear left in the dirt as hallowed out sanctuaries to nothing but the winds.

“I think we need to try a different approach,” she said softly, “now that our young friend has decided to see sense.” She ceased her spiral and set her sights on the enigmatic form of the dragoon. With William, for want of a better word, pent on venting his discrepancies with the Crab in person, she did not want to get remotely close to him whilst he quite literally sucked the life from the air of the flower drum riddled cityscape.

Neko, himself once again, looked over his shoulder, twitched his nose, and smiled. “<Shall we give his lance some guidance from the spirit world, Lillith-sama?>” he seemed to be suggesting something Lillith understand, but in her inexperience, had no knowledge about how to make it so. When he saw her perturbed expression, he began to draw a symbol in the air, as they had done many times before in one another’s company. “<Tell him, Lillith-sama, that the winds are his to command, and with his command, his lance will fly true.>”

As if nature itself was aligning with the beleaguered and ragtag group, the winds began to rush over the pair from behind, and swept along the shattered cobblestones and archaic, moss laden flagstones towards Dorian. They carried with them the scent of ash, jasmine, and desperation. She recognised a smell as fresh death. The symbol Neko drew was that of the winds themselves, the kanji for breath. Some viewed it as a colloquial word for kamikaze, the sacrificial wind, the divine gale – in the throng of the Spirit Warders; however, it gave momentum, motion, and angelic levity to the purest of souls.
Lillith did not wait for the Crab to destroy the world, or for Neko to finish, and sprinted forwards. Her geta, dry, brittle, but well-worn and comfortable shoes slapped against the floor. Her tanto, held in reverse, caught the sun in only the briefest of moments. She roared, atop the lofty scream of her lungs at the dragoon.

“Try that again, Dorian!” she flailed her arms as she wove in and around the Crab’s great, crimson and jagged fore leg. It smashed like a dart into the ground, and the city shook beneath its enraged advance. No sooner than she had finished her plea, a rush of energy erupted from Neko, striking Lillith in the small of her back first, and then rushing towards Dorian’s gleaming form.

No sooner than her voice had died in the winds, she levitated just a few feet from the floor. Her geta slapped against the stone no more. She looked down, surprised, but not bewildered, and took a dainty step forwards. It seemed, as with the water hexagram, that Neko’s providence had bestowed a spring upon her in her step.

“Wind…” she muttered. She threw caution into it, tucked her knees, and then pushed upwards.

She flew like a comet upwards.

She had never screamed so loud in all her life.

Her dagger flashed, she spiralled at the top of her ascent, and as she slowed, she began to fall. Yanbo looked beautiful, even in its death, and the backdrop formed a tapestry of foreboding as the assassin began to fall back to the world. Her tanto held before her, its target the Crab’s back.

Revenant

05-18-12, 04:56 AM

Crab was relentless in its trek towards Yanbo’s High Temple. It wasn’t surprising that the creature’s armored carapace devastated entire building as its bulk heaved through Yanbo’s streets, but not even those buildings managed to slow the greater oni for more than a few brief seconds. Demonic blood tainted everything in the beasts wake from the half clotted wound where Crab’s leg had been severed by the magic of William’s warscythe, but if that had any effect on the creature other than to cause it to lurch forward unceasingly with an uneven gait.

A ringing sound emanated from amidst the crushing snap of wooden buildings, the roar of mounting flames, and wails of fearful despair. It hammered rhythmically, defying Crab’s ever forward progress, daring, demanding that the oni turn its attention aside. It was broken only partially by the movement of one of Crab’s thickly armored legs, but within a matter of seconds of the movement it would start again. Still, none of the determination seemed to matter in the slightest of the Oni of Trickery and Apathy. If anything, it only seemed to serve as a focus for the anger of the burning revenant as he darted from leg to leg, digging grooved furrows in Crab’s armor with his warscythe, each blow ringing as it left yet another meaningless scratch in the armor.

“Crab!” William roared against the oni as the creature moved forward again, pulling its leg once more out of his reach. The mindless fury that had possessed him had worn off as he had hammered time and again at Crab with no effect, but he still possessed more than enough rage that it didn’t matter to him what he had to do to bring his opponent down. It wasn’t that the oni was trying to get away from him, William knew, but rather the creature couldn’t be bothered to waste any time with so minor a nuisance. Unless he could find some way to sever another of the creature’s legs, an unlikely event given the somewhat limiting nature of his weapon, William knew that he was doomed to watch helplessly as the blood red tide of chitin smashed through Yanbo’s holiest of sites.

No! his mind raged against the thought as the burning warrior threw himself against Crab’s next closest leg segment. He wasn’t helpless, he knew as his cursed vision watched the ever shifting morass of spider’s webs that wove throughout Crab’s armor. While it seemed that his attacks were having no real effect on the creature, William’s goddess gifted sight allowed him to see how the lines of weakness gathered and knotted about each crack in Crab’s carapace that his warscythe made. It might take him all day but William knew that he could crack through the oni’s hardened plates, and once through could use the lesser powers in his warscythe to devastate the soft flesh underneath.

Unfortunately for Yanbo, Crab would have destroyed their holiest of holies and worked its way through half their town by the time that happened. In the background of the revenant’s mind William noted a speck twisting in the air above the beast and identified it as Lillith. Even if he managed to claw the beast down and rend it asunder she would hold it against him if Crab managed to destroy her precious temple beforehand. What he would give for the two of them to be able to trade places, he thought, hacking yet another groove in Crab’s armor. Up on top of the beast, closer to the less protected joints, William’s fiery strength would prove much more useful; while down on the ground Lillith would prove just as useful as she currently was.

Which, in William’s mind, wasn’t much.

Well if I can’t get up there to where all the sweet meat is, he snarled to himself in annoyance as Crab once again lifted the leg that he was attacking and moved it forwards, I’m just going to have to find a way to bring all that down here. William paused his relentless attacking long enough to take in the scene before him. He saw Llillith plunge onto the creature, he watched Crab ignore yet another low-slung warehouse as his body crashed through it without stopping, he saw the direct line that the creature was taking towards the ever closer temple.

Wait, that’s it, he thought suddenly, seeing where Crab’s approach would put the side of his carapace with the missing leg. As Crab started mounting the slope up towards the temple the majority of the creature’s weight would be pressed down onto his weak side, and more specifically his back leg. If the creature continued on with its straight-arrow path towards its destination, as it had shown no signs of deviation since it had emerged from the sea, then the creature would be somewhat vulnerable then. If William could muster all of the force available to him, he might be able to buckle the creature’s leg at that point and bring it down. It was the best chance, if not only chance, that he would have to be able to stop the creature in time.

All of Yanbo’s fervor ground to a halt as William gauged his opportunity. He gathered the excess rage boiling within him and allowed it manifest itself as a ball of liquid fire in his hand and gripped it tightly as Crab’s hind leg lifted and began moving towards the ambush spot. William’s magma shot technique could explode with tremendous force and would hopefully be enough to destabilize the creature long enough for William’s body and warscythe to throw it out of balance.

It was then, mere seconds away from executing his plan, that William took notice of the building standing right next to the point where Crab’s claw was coming down. It appeared to be a school building for the peasant children of Yanbo, and from the terrified silhouettes that William could see skittering to and fro within the building, it hadn’t been evacuated. The force of his magma shot would tear through the lower half of the building, putting it in serious danger of collapsing should the fiery explosive detonate. Not only that, but the burning liquid explosive would certainly set the rubble and everything around it on fire even as it tore it apart. And even if the magma shot didn’t destroy the building it was almost certain to be ruined as the greater oni was brought down in a thrashing heap right next to it.

Still, William thought as he held his ball of liquid rage at the ready, burning a building of school children to death and crushing the survivors would mean far less than letting Crab continue on unimpeded.

Paragon

06-08-12, 12:23 AM

The demonic warrior known as the revenant emerged from his wooden cocoon as beastly as ever, returning to the fray, his focus so strong that even Dorian couldn't get a word in edgewise.

You're not the only one trying to stop it, William.

Dorian had heard Lillith's message, but he could not comprehend it. It was then that Neko had made his way to the dragoon, finally bringing him into the I Ching spell that joined their minds as one.

"You must hurry, the lady is giving you another chance to strike!" said little Neko.

Dorian replied, "My lance is broken, unfortunately. All I have left is my spear, and I need to be directly wielding it for it to do enough damage."

"Don't worry! Believe in us, and we will believe in you."

Dorian paused, watching the little creature exhume such confidence. They thought he had a shot at this, and if such a small being could be so hopeful, then so could he. He nodded, turning around and jumping up onto another thatched-roof house. It didn't take him long to once again stare down the vicious Greater Oni. It was getting dangerously close to the temple now, and while he did not know the significance of it, he trusted that there were apocalyptic consequences.

When he caught sight of William, he prepared to send the mental communication that would coordinate his efforts when he saw the revenant was moments away from executing his own attack. Dorian knew what the monster hunter was doing, and only realized the implications when his eyes scanned around Crab's immediate area. The school still had survivors.

He wouldn't... would he?

<"William, don't do it!"> he sent out a telepathic message. Lillith and Neko did not see what was going on. <"That building isn't evacuated!">

<"Don't get in my way,"> came a stern reply. <"It must not reach the temple.">

The monotone nature of the reply bothered the dragoon. The rod was sapping the revenant of his emotions, did that mean he had no empathy either? Or was this cold, calculating William his true self? If the monster hunter really could not stop himself, then someone else would have to. Dorian took out his collapsed spear and lengthened it, tightening his grip. He was no match for the revenant, he knew that, but he had to make William come to his senses. Aiming his spear like he would his lance, he threw it towards William. The weapon landed mere feet in front of the revenant, the blade embedding itself into the ground. Dorian followed up this distraction by jumping down and running towards William.

<"We're not going to kill innocent people! Stop your attack and let's work together!">

Lillith

02-06-13, 03:46 AM

Yanbo, seething with hatred, reached its boiling point. The cacophony of screams, drumbeats, and dwindling madness swarmed the streets. As each tumultuous blow from the Warscythe, spear, and ancient sigil tore into the withered and diamond hide of the Crab, its resolve faded, slowly, but surely, until it could no longer continue its advance inland.

With keen, but distrusting eyes, Lillith took in the scene as it unfolded. She saw Dorian stream towards the demon, but realised his attempts to quell the fires of his wrath would be futile. He was, as Lillith knew all too well from experience, far too gone beyond the pall.

“Neko,” she hissed, “we must do the ordination, now.”

Centuries ago, when the tribes of Spirit Warders that dwelt in the Comb Mountains had first begun to learn ways to trap their gods, the ordination ceremony, the most dangerous ritual of all, was performed only by the High Priestesses, and the Shokuenzens, the priest kings. Times, fortunately enough for Yanbo had changed. The spirit warders had disbanded their ways, much like the Kami and Oni had disbanded their oaths, and with its power, the people of the harbour had a single ray of hope.

“What, here?” the Nekojin snapped, bouncing mid-stride to a halt that spoke psalms about his hesitance. Every black hair on his body stood on end, and every whisker bristled with anticipation. “No…we cannot.”

They could, and Lillith would. “Collateral damage is,” she pointed north to the toppling Crab, who was on, quite literally, his final kneel, “unavoidable.” She clocked Dorian, still attempting to catch William’s eye, and shook her head. “We have gone beyond a clean sweep of the harbour.” She still smelt of charnel crabmeat to stand testament to their efforts. “Now, there is only a swift end.” She glared up to the still glowing eyes of the oni.

“Hundreds…” Neko whispered, shaking his head. “Perhaps more, each one will die a death undeserved by even the most horrible of Junta…” his words, though stern, were full of remorse. To the Nekojin, to die without your soul was to hang in limbo for aeons. It was a dark, nightmarish planescape to inhabit that would forever mar your essence. Some lingered on, for centuries, haunting the places where their bodies fell, but their karma did not.

“Neko, listen to me,” she stepped closer, fatigue setting in, and pressed her hands firmly onto his feline shoulders. “Our task here is to seal the Crab into the soul stone…” she did not offer him a chance to argue. “If the Greater Oni are not stopped, then the War in Heaven shall begin again, and Akashima…” she seethed with hatred at the thought, “if not all of Akashima will know All Soul’s Betrayal…” which, amongst the Spirit Warders, was the name for the end of days.

A great cannonade sounded to the east, a flurry of futile shots launched from long abandoned cannons. Their barrels smoked like dragon’s maws, thundering with an echo that thumped into Lillith’s chest. Somewhere, out in the chaos, the people of Yanbo were fighting back. She nodded with a smile.

“I think Yanbo can survive anything,” and it had, several times, no matter how maddened the Greater Oni or mortal foe had been when they tried to make landfall. “Even this…” without hesitation, she stepped away from Neko, and took both her red-hilted tanto into her hands. They spiralled through several, blood soaked flourishes, until they came to a stop crossed before her, at waist level.

Together, the spirit warders arranged themselves so that they stood ten feet apart, feet wide, and hearts beating in spiritual union. Another cannonade sounded, and this time several of the shells found their mark. The outer shell, knees, and rear end of the Crab burst into clouds of fire and brimstone, smoke and ash. It roared a sound that pierced the very fabric of Akashima, and knocked Lillith and Neko flat on their backs.

The Flower Drum stopped.

“Fuck me,” the assassin spat. Despite her lithe form, she struggled to right herself, and when she did, the drums had restarted, and Neko was upright, bristling, and ready to begin. “Well, at least you’re ready.” She clicked her spine into its normal position. “<Let the shadows reign.>”

Neko placed his palms together, burst into fire of dark olive hue, and bowed.

The Flower Drum burst into life, and with it, Yanbo begin its last aria, a last defiant cry against the gods of old that had once sought to enslave them. With a mental push, Lillith sent one final, poignant, hopefully understood message.

“Dorian…get William away…if you can, hit the Crab in its eyes…just once…” She sighed, and she too conjured fire about her form, though her soul was purple in colour. “Then…”

Her lips turned blue.

“Run!”

Revenant

02-08-13, 03:55 PM

William grudgingly relented, allowing the magma shot to disperse harmlessly between his claws. He was loathe to expend the energy so uselessly while Crab was still a threat but Dorian’s interference had already intruded upon his passion. There had been a moment, as Dorian’s spear had struck the ground in front of the Revenant, where the full attention of his wrath had been turned upon the young general and he had contemplated simply destroying the impudent man so that he could finish his fight with Crab unimpeded. Instead, William gritted his teeth until slips of molten blood ran from the corner of his mouth and forced his mindless rage aside. As much as it galled him to admit it, without free reign to do as he pleased, which Dorian had clearly made unavailable, he would be unable to stop Crab on his own before it wrecked the High Temple.

Still, Yanbo’s defensive cannons, if not actually dangerous to the creature, had stalled it momentarily and had given the trio a second to re-center themselves. Rage still coursed through William’s veins, urging him to renew his assault during this momentary respite but he clamped down on the instinct with an iron grip of will and hauled it away from his consciousness.

“Fucking children,” he hissed at his Ixian counterpart, plucking Dorian’s spear and tossing it at the blacksmith’s feet. “You beg for my help whenever there’s something you can’t handle and then whine about me not playing by your rules. Did you ever think that there’s a reason why you need my help? That sometimes a man’s job in life is to die for the benefit of another?”

A horrid screeching blasted across Yanbo as Crab regained its uneven stance, and gained its first purchase on the steps leading up to the High Temple. Another round of fire trained onto the oni’s carpace, hewing the creature towards it’s injured side, but this time the creature was prepared and weathered the assault.

“Fine then, I’ll play by your rules,” he sneered, his eyes casting up to Lillith’s elevated position. “Whatever cursed magic that the whore is working is going to take time to finish, and you’re going to need a distraction if you’re going to get ahead of that thing as she wants.” William turned back towards Crab only to be stopped as Dorian grabbed his arm.

“You need to back away,” Dorian said, echoing Lillith’s command.

“Or what? That spell of hers will fry me alongside the water bug?” William sneered, tearing his arm free. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Captain?”

“You honestly plan to give your life for the High Temple?” Dorian asked incredulously.

“Don’t be stupid,” William growled, “I plan to kill that bastard.” Not knowing what else to say, Dorian simply nodded and retrieved his spear, unsurprised to see the Revenant’s charred form running once more towards the giant oni, another blast of cannon fire leading his way.

Crab was even less hindered by the third round of fire, having adapted completely to absorb the barrage. With enough time the cannons would have proven a hindrance to the massive beast, but as with William’s earlier blows, the time they needed to punch through the beast’s armored hide was too much. The High Temple’s best chance remained whatever baneful magic but that too needed time.

William was going to make sure she got all that she needed.

He charged the beast, letting everything but his focus fade into the background. This time however, it was not blind fury commanding William’s actions but a cold, purposeful desire to see Crab stopped, see it put down. Summoning the full measure of his strength, William leapt upon Crab’s armored form, climbing the beast like a rough pillar as it staggered lumberingly up the High Temple’s steps. Dark lines webbed across Crab’s carpace in William’s vision, the damage he had already done to the shell compounded by Yanbo’s cannon strikes.

Perhaps he thought as he ascended to the top of Crab’s magnificent height, claws hardened, Perhaps I can do this.

Paragon

02-28-13, 10:14 PM

Dorian took a moment to catch his breath, leaning against his spear for support. He managed to deter the revenant from his attack, but William didn't seem to see anything wrong with his actions. The Crab was nothing more than an opponent to him. The dragon knight decided to drop the matter in his mind, as stopping the Greater Oni took priority.

He jumped up on top of one of the houses, this time making sure to land without sliding off the roof. William was on top of the crab, driving his claws into the Crab's back and cracking through its shell little by little. The Crab's pincers were flailing wildly above its back, trying to knock the revenant off, but he was too fast. Maybe William could have even beaten it by himself, but he didn't have enough time. Dorian readied his spear in both hands, aiming it at the Crab's remaining eyes. One of them still had the severed tip of his lance embedded into it, while the other was still glowing brightly.

He couldn't reach it from here. The second he let go of the spear, it would lose all of its power. He had to keep it in hand after all. He looked around and jumped to a nearby temple, hopping to the top so that he was on the same street as the Crab. The temple was at the edge of a dead end street, so to each of his sides were buildings, and down the street the Crab continued poking holes into the ground. He was convinced that its footsteps would crush adamantine. The day was waning, and smoke lingered in the air from the cannon fire. The drums were drowned out by the commotion below. Dorian readied his spear and closed his eyes. The tiles on the temple were cracking from the force of his sabatons.

The next moment he opened his eyes and jumped. He landed on the side of the first building and skipped off of it after just barely making contact, flying across the street and skipping across the side of that house as well. He continued bouncing along the buildings, gaining momentum until he was soaring full force at the Crab's eye, who noticed him but was too slow to respond due to its pincers being occupied with William. Dorian held the spear's shaft as hard as he could, his hands bruising from the grip, and the tip of the spear pierced through the Crab's remaining eye, with Dorian hanging off of it. The scream and earthquake that came after nearly shattered his ear drums, and he let go of the spear and landed on the cracked streets below.

The sightless Crab felt his presence below and tried to impale him with its legs, but Dorian jumped out of the way and retreated to safety.

<"Now, Lillith!">

Lillith

03-19-13, 06:24 PM

Lillith watched the final death throes of their valiant efforts unfold. To the merit of her companions, they did all that was asked of them, and so much more. When the dragoon’s spear penetrated the Crab’s eye, she felt the world wake. She felt all the Oni in Akashima cry. She felt alive. She rocked on her heels.

“Lillith-sama!” the nekojin roared, every hair on his body standing on end. As a creature born of the land, the spirit-warder would feel the wound much more keenly than the assassin could ever hope to.

They were one, after all. They were of the same blood.

“Yes, yes, hold your horses,” she said wearily. She watched the Crab raise its front pincer, and quite casually, drop it on a nearby building. The ricocheting rubble and tumultuous cavalcade of debris that rained down over the nearby houses caused her to utter a prayer for the dead, dying, and terrorised.

“If we do not act now, then all will be for nought.” He said, cock-sure, and all knowing. He rubbed his paws together gingerly, impatiently conjured the wisps of spiritual energy he would need to draw the kanji of sealing.

“I think William is rather adamant about tearing it limb from limb…,” she said, almost wishing she could watch and wait a little while longer. She watched the flickering flames of ruination smoulder about the demon. He swung his scythe with such fury she felt each blow.

“Let him,” Neko snapped. He punched her jokingly on the arm, to knock her out of her daze, and gestured for her to stand opposite. She did so, legs parsed, and hair eschew in the kicking breeze. “You remember all I taught you I hope?” he raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

Lillith nodded. She began to draw the symbols for life, death, and the ocean in the air. He followed suit, and when each formed, the six symbols burst into life. His were bright red, the colour of the oni. Hers were bright azure, the colour of the kami. Ancient magic, far older than even Akashima herself, began to formulate in their ritual.

She held the symbols in check whilst she reached out, one last time, for the young lancer. “Dorian, you have to listen to me.” She waited for the all too familiar echo of acknowledgement to ring in her head. “What we are going to do will be dangerous. You need to go.” She gave him no time to object. “Draw the symbol I showed you, and slap it across that idiot’s face.” She gave him no room to misinterpret to which idiot she was referring.

Neko stood on his haunches, and twitched his whiskers.

“Thank you…” she added, before severing the connection for a final time. She felt the remnants of the glyph strengthen, and then fade, and strengthen again. It fizzled out, left the scent of cinnamon, chives, and fried cod head in the air.

As Yanbo realised its invader was defeated, the drums returned. The staccato of the early morning celebration returned with gusto. Though much of the population near the harbour had fled, or been killed, people who had merely watched and danced the in the sun’s rise took up whatever they had to beat skins and barrels with. The beat of the Flower Drum Song imprinted in their minds, their hearts, and their souls.

Whips of canon fire turned into plumes of celebratory fire. Triple shots rang out from the north, south, and the west. Lillith waited for the fourth, but when it did not come, she knew it was time.

“<By heart divine,>” she began.

“<By light reclaimed,>” Neko continued. From then on, they together, a common voice united by a common need to survive.

“<Return the child of the Ancient to the stars. Devoid of body, carry his soul on a ray of peace, knowing his deeds be forgiven, and his trials exonerated in your resplendence.>”

They clapped their hands. Warmth filled them. Fear left them.

“<We vow to forever guard the soul of the Crab, his mortal body, and his essence.>” Lillith unsheathed a clean tanto from about her waist, it’s hilt still damp from their ocean arrival, and it’s blade polished with wax, and held it up to the crab’s toppling form. The sound of its claw snapping fustily sounded hollow and dull in her ears.

There was a snap, a crack, and a low rumble. The Crab lurched.

“<Or may the Children of Akashima be damned eternal,>” they said together, twice, and with thrills and exaltations on the tips of their tongues. Both the spirit warders felt elated, to the point of mania, that they were still alive. Less said for thousands, but they would be mourned in due course. Their songs sung by worthy mouths.

From the bloodied eyes emerged a glowing effervescence. It was full of vitriol and poison. It was heaven personified, and corrupted, and left to decay. It streamed down towards Lillith, tapering through ruined rooftops and once profitable harbour restaurants. Neko and Lillith watched it as it snaked towards the tip of the tanto, and in a moment of beauty, they became one.

“<Amen,>” she said, alone, knowing that the malapropism from the secular religion of Scara Brae would not meet the nekojin’s approval.

She felt shortly sick, and then shattered, and then rested again.

She dropped the Crab to her side, and sighed.

Then she slumped forwards, too fatigued to live through Yanbo Harbour’s most resplendent feast in centuries.

Paragon

08-08-13, 06:42 PM

The grandiose corpse of the Greater Oni lay before him, and in its death Dorian could no longer see what was so magical about it. Everything that constituted its mystic presence was gone, leaving behind its mortal body. With each step closer his body ached, sweat rolling down his face and dripping onto the hot street. The first thing he did was pull his weapons out of Crab's eyes, raising a brow at the lance which was shattered in half. He had the means to repair it, but maybe an upgrade was in order. William jumped down off Crab's back near him, shooting him a sideways glance before walking away. He looked disappointed, like a man who had his prey taken from him.

That night, the city was so bright that it could be mistaken for day. Crab had been completely cleared from the street, and in its stead was a festival so loud that street shook with each beat of the drums. While Lillith rested, William, Dorian, and Neko enjoyed the festivities before the two Ixians returned to the castle. It was cultural tradition to celebrate those who were lost instead of mourn, to shout to the heavens their remembrance and show them that they meant to live on. Dorian was a little apprehensive toward the idea of eating something that came so close to destroying the city, but he wanted to join in. This was the Akashiman way of life, after all. Leaning against a wall, he peered into his bowl. Big pieces of Crab's meat floated around in the soup broth, coupled with an array of vegetables. The dragon knight plunged his chopsticks in and fished out a piece, eyeing it for a moment before sticking it into his mouth. To his surprise, it tasted better than anything he had eaten before, the flavor running up and down his spine.

The pleasant sensation did not last however, as he suddenly found himself weak in the knees. His eyes unfocused, and his body felt hot. He dropped the bowl, the Crab meat spilling out into the street. He closed his eyes as a pain surged in his head, and when he opened them he was in realm of darkness, only illuminated by the countless threads that were infinite in height. They flashed many different colors, and he realized that he had inadvertently activated his second sight, the means by which he crafts fate. The Crab meat overpowered him and entered him into this state, although he noticed that this was only happening to him. He was about to close his eyes to try to calm down and return his regular vision, but he noticed a particular strand of fate that was familiar. Images were flashing from it, past, present, and future. He couldn't really see until he got closer, but he knew that such a strong fate was associated with a person, and using fate-crafting on living beings was strictly forbidden, not to mention extremely dangerous.

He somehow knew it was William Arcus, however. If he got a bit closer, if he focused a bit harder, he would have the answer to his mission. Was The Revenant dangerous? Was he a force of benevolence or malevolence? Dorian had never before seen a thread of fate like this before, and his blood boiled with the prospect of touching it, feeling it, living it. He resisted the temptation and closed his eyes, forcing himself to return to his regular sight of the bright streets of Yanbo. It was not his place to ascertain William's fate, nor was it his to judge.

The celebration lasted until wee hours of the morning, and the next day Dorian said his farewell to Lillith and the rest of the city, who decided to donate much of the Crab's hide to the Ixians for research as thanks. William was long gone by this time, opting to return to the castle by himself. This ordeal did little to improve their relations, although Dorian was starting to understand him a bit. Dorian was the only one to not accept William's challenge, but thinking back, they were never around at the same time. The dragon knight saw firsthand the kind of power it took to protect people, maybe he had something to learn.

When he arrived at the castle some time later, he made his report to Sei.

The Ixian Leader was very interested in the matter, but Dorian made it very brief, "I don't know."

"What do you mean?" Sei asked.

"I don't know when, why, or what, but William is going to do something important soon. I don't know if it's in his capacity as a soldier or something else, but I'm not the one to judge him. I believe that he can be a good person, but I can't tell you whether or not he will meet your expectations. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Sei assured. "Thank you for doing this for me. We don't get to meet like this often."

Dorian nodded, and went back to his workshop. He had a lot on his mind, and the strange hide of the Greater Oni filled his head with possibilities. The most important thought however was his dragonling friend Fallow. Without even getting a chance to settle in, he packed his bags and prepared to go to Salvar.

During his travels, he could still hear the beat of the flower drum song.

Spoils:

Hide of The Greater Oni, "Crab".