Feiticeira

[Slayer of the Rot]

The demon's eyes slowly adjusted to the heavy gloom.

A grainy veil irritated and itched his sight, as his arms lay limp and motionless at either side of his body. A sound emanating from the east side of the chamber allowed him to groggily piece together where he had awoken on this morning. A shifting hiss, fluctuating in it's tones; sediment and plaster drifting down from a cracked ceiling that hung overhead, heavily stained with water damage. With a grunt, he lifted his hand off the stolen mattress, and slid it over it's rough blue surface, eventually resting the limb on something cold, soft. Farther up, his fingers found a tangled nest of something even softer, in strands, though it did not stick like the strings of a cobweb. Farther to the left, his hand fell on something else with the same texture. Wordlessly, he turned his head to look into the whites of the dead eyes of one of the two nubile young women from the night before.

He lay in one of the run down dressing rooms of an aging, lifeless theater on the outskirts of Radasanth, originally scheduled for demolition days ago. However, a few broken bones in the arms and legs of the right people insured that his impromptu home would remain standing, rotting on it's feet like the monsters he'd once vowed to destroy. Unpleasant memories were pressed to the back of his mind and gobbled into oblivion as he grasped one of the arms of the dead girls, and removed it with a sharp tug and something sounded best described as a wet splock. Silently, he rose to his feet and snatched up his clothes, messily strewn about the room, as his sharp teeth ripped a mouthful of congealed meat from the severed limb.

"Sir, I got something that might prove interesting to you, yeah?" Brendeth was a small man with bad posture and some self esteem issues, but even his voice echoed in the expanse of the auditorium, despite lowering a few octaves as he watched his employer rip a mouthful of flesh and muscle from the arm he held as he sluggishly dressed himself. "I've been keeping my ear to the ground, yeah? Looking around for people you could use. I got wind of some rumors of this woman named Witchblade, haunts the Citadel, yeah? Some of the drow call her Vlos Valsharess, she's so damn brutal. Kinda reminds me of a female version of you, yeah?" Brendeth began to chuckle, but it quickly tapered off when he realized Dan wasn't amused in the slightest.

"Blood queen, hmm? Curious. Most women about these parts often play at being a warrior, because they think they'll net a husband by being exotic." Satisfied, the demon dropped the remainder of the arm on the dust caked floor, pushing past the mousy thief as he moved down the aisle of seats. "And her where abouts?"

"Most witnesses say either the Citadel or Concordia. They say the smart ones don't look into it much, though..." Dan spun quickly on his heel as he bound the veil over his face, his hand falling away from under it slick with the blood that had ringed his lips in a morbidly comic fashion. His dark eyes were full of a harsh fire, one that withered Brendeth at the sight of it. "Excuse me? I don't believe I qualify as most people." Flicking his wrist, blood spattered across the floor, relieving most of his glove of the mess. "Luc!" His cape billowing about him like an ominous cloud foretelling an eruption, Dan strode briskly into the center of the aisle. "Luc!!" His bellow rippled through the auditorium, as though it possessed some hefty force of it's own, and a small section of roof crumbled away, a shaft of light cutting through the dusk of the theater to illuminate the geomancer. "Immolate that whore from last night and gather your things. We've business to attend to."


((Closed))

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc awoke to find the brunette still dazed, locked in a submissive, lifeless stare by his spell. She must have been dumber than a goblin, based on how fully the effect held her. He was still naked, having fallen asleep after he was finished with her, and found that the morning brought eagerness to a part of his body.

A few whispered words had her anxious to have him, the spell making her his slave. She was still wet from the night before, but he didn’t care. She was quiet, still seeming lifeless, but she did all the right things to satisfy him. Why not? He’d told her exactly what he wanted.

Not long after, he was done with her. Dan was impatient anyhow, evidenced by the bellow which shook the building. The demanding howl broke the brunette from her daze, but gave her no clarity. She looked about, baffled, realizing all at once why she was wet, why she was tired.

Luc saw that she was awake, turned to her and waved a hand. A blade of wind took her throat from her neck, ending her confusion for good. Her shell of a body collapsed down to the mattress, a pool of blood seeping through the thin fabric.

“Can’t risk you bringing my child into this world, bitch,” he said, eyes cold.

He dressed quickly and gathered his weapons, an enchanted sword of flame and some wands. In two minutes he was climbing the ramp upward to meet Dan, who waited on high. Luc was in the process of strapping on his cape when he met up with the juggernaut and his strange, seemingly worthless twit of a helper.

“Immolation takes time,” he muttered. “What business do we have but to rape and pillage as much as we please?”

[Witchblade]

It was another day in the life of Witchblade. Oh how wonderfully exciting the great world of Althanas was in all its fictitious glory. By everything evil in this world, she really needed to find something to do. Ever since coming back from Alerar to get that ridiculously heavy and large sword she hadn’t had much in the way of excitement. She would have thought that that little creator bitch of hers would be undermining some kind of plain to entertain herself with in the wee hours of the day when she wasn’t doing…whatever else she did with her time. Honestly, the halfling could care less. But without Megan around fucking things up in a way it did get rather boring. Then again, she was free to do as she pleased now and she didn’t have to listen to a thing that freak said to her, or more or less wrote on strange parchment that ninjas gave to her for crying out loud! Honestly, who used ninjas as messengers? They had more advantageous things to do with their skills than hand deliver messages, like gee, kill people!

Maybe that was what she needed, a quick trip back to The Citadel so she could listen to the pathetic cries and screams of the dying at her own hands. She could yes, but that required being in Radasanth and she hated Radasanth. Too many humans. The Malice tended to act up the more she was around humans and the less she listened to that the better chance she had of keeping some semblance of sanity, not that it had ever been very high on her list. Still, she preferred being the one in control of her body and not that thing, who knew what it would make her do while she was trapped within the cage of her mind and it had free reign.

Sighing, the halfling rose to her feet and stretched out stiff muscles and tendons. Bones cracked and popped and relocated themselves in their respective places. Too many hours of sitting in the same place had made them cramp and long for use. In all honestly she should be training with that giant of a sword and figuring out how to exactly use the thing but she didn’t feel like it. Not now, perhaps it was just plain laziness, but training was never a high on her list of things needing accomplishment, especially when it came to training with a sword she just considered ridiculously large. How her creator thought she was going to use it was lost to her. She was a melee fighter and her arsenal spoke very clearly of this. A six-foot sword just did not fit in too well with the rest of what she owned. There was nothing she could do about it now though, the sword was hers and with it she could slay the rot she supposed.

“Rot Slayer… how fitting a name.”

“I suppose, if you consider vampires and demons rot, the man was after all a slayer. Not exactly something you should be congratulating.”

Damn Malice.

“Oh, I didn’t know that…

“Yeah, there’s a lot of shit you don’t now. Now fuck off.”

Stepping off from her position, Witch quickly fell the twenty feet to the forest floor beneath her. Her black cloak a shadow that billowed and followed her all the way down, partially concealing the massive sword strapped to her back. When she hit the ground she instinctively went into a crouch to lesson the impact on her ankles and knees and the tip of the blade dug deep into the soft soil beneath her feet, leaving a rather large gash in the forest floor, one she could easily imagine on the body of some human instead. How humorous, that a slayer used this sword to protect people and destroy the evil vampires and demons that roamed the world of Althanas and now she planned on using it destroy those humans. Oh the irony of this world.

Grabbing her rucksack from the forest floor, Witch slung it over her shoulders and began her trek Southeast through the woods. The meandering trees were her guide, she knew the paths of Concordia so well and where the paths ended she knew the trees, the bushes, streams and rocks. It was a home if she’d ever had one and she felt more at peace here than any other place in all of Althanas. It was her haunt in a sense. Any human that dared come too close to her paid the price.

When she reached a formation of rocks that jutted out from the forest floor covered in deep green moss and dead leaves she turned and continued on going South. The sun above her filtered in through the canopy of leaves and left areas of the forest floor glowing with it’s light while leaving the rest in shadows. Small plants struggled against much larger and older trees to survive that what food they could absorb from the soil and what light happened to find it’s way to them. Within ten minutes, the halfling found herself at a familiar river; it’s water slow running, deep and cold. Here, she dropped her rucksack and quickly began removing items from her person, starting with her weaponry and ending with her clothing. A leisurely swim sounded like the best way to pass the rest of the afternoon.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"She's dead enough, I suppose," Dan replied, his tone obviously disappointed, hinting shamelessly that he simply wanted to smell that thick stink of human flesh burning. "The business that needs to be taken care of today is nothing so simple as our usual delinquencies. It is indeed true that we as a team can wipe small armies from the face of this earth. We may do as we wish in this city for there is none possessing the strength to lift so much as an able finger to stop us. However, Audeamus stands for far greater wrongs than what we've taken pleasure in. We strive for the greatest power, so that one day, we may hold this entire planet in our grasp. Therefore. we need to acquire more members sympathetic to our cause."

Dan was silent for a moment, as though lost in thought, and then moved past the geomancer's, down to the man's makeshift bed, and to the dead woman that lay in. "Brendeth has told me that there is a woman thing named Witchblade that lurks through Concordia. Apparently, she has impressed some drow warriors, and it is no small feat to impress the drow." Driving the spike that peaked the index finger of his glove down in between socket and eye, the demon popped the orb out of the dead woman's skull and thrust it greedily into his mouth, biting into it eagerly. He shivered as a taste most sane men could go their whole lives without knowing filled his mouth. "Mass murderers, master thieves, power hungry mages, and emotionless warriors, these are all indeed valuable assets to our organization," he continued between bouts of chewing as he retrieved the other eye. "And this Witchblade certainly sounds like she could be useful," he mumbled, as he brought the slick green eye up to his own.
_____

Aside from the occasional bird or squirrel, skittering off the unbeaten path in abject terror for the monstrosity that was powering his way steadily through their precious home, Concordia was silent and motionless as he reached the fifteenth mile in his search. 'Wildlife only tends to be quiet when it senses danger, crawling back into their holes on their bellies just like the humans do. If this woman is as vicious as the rumors hint, certainly this is a sign that I'm closing in on her whereabouts.' Scowling beneath the veil that hid his change from simple human to devil, Dan reached out and snapped another thick bough out of his path as though it were nothing but a branchling.

"I hate nature," he growled, squinting up at the sun that filtered through the canopy, tattooing his face with designs that equated to nothing more than visual gibberish. "Once we've killed the governing body of this country, I'm going to burn this entire god damn forest straight to the ground. I'd imagine some resistance would try to hide itself in this horrible mess of nature, so I suppose it would make sense, in the end." Batting away a mess of leaves, Dan found himself on the crooked shore of a meandering river, it's flow easy and pleasant. Perfect for bathing in certainly, which was a custom for most people, this early in the morning. "Luc, take to the wind and follow this river up stream. I'll follow close behind."

[Cyrus the virus]

A smile crossed the mage’s face, a brief show of amusement for Dan’s longing of power. It seemed to reflect his own, though of course Luc never cared for any physical, brute force. As little faith as he put into physical strength, he could never deny Dan’s sheer force – it was something he respected, a match for the magical strengths that he held. If nothing else, Dan’s strength was the only kind besides his own that Luc could trust. It never seemed to yield.

Audeamus, he thought as Dan mentioned it. Luc lifted his own fist toward his face, examining the ring he wore over his glove.

As distracted as he was, Luc couldn’t suppress a shudder as Dan consumed the beautiful eyes of last night’s corpse.

==========

Dan’s massive, broad form provided some decent shade for the mage, who hovered atop a circular, earthen platform a few feet behind the man. Luc’s eyes were closed, his legs crossed as he sat in comfort. He hummed lowly a tune about an elven bard, some twat named such-and-such and their tragic tale of lust and death. As much as he tried to, he couldn’t recall where he’d learned it.

“The country, Dan? I would not dare label us as mere men, but… That goal is a ways off. Though perhaps Underwood would be a good starting point, or we could sink Scara Brae as practice.”

He stopped, listened, and took a quick look around. “A good idea is a good idea,” he commentated.

In one instant, the platform before him melted to mud that fell to the pathway. In the same moment, a gust of wind erupted under the mage and carried him to the sky, effortlessly plucking him upward like a feather. The river ran Northward through Concordia, and Luc took his time flying above it, searching for a form anywhere along the water. After only a few minutes, he found one. Whether or not it was whom they were searching for, he didn’t know.

At Dan’s level, a few feet in front of his large frame, a glob of dirt rose from the ground. It manifested itself into the shape of a hand that pointed upward. Should Dan look up, he would see Luc, indicating the river and nodding his head. Someone was there. Rather than lower himself down to Dan, he stayed in the sky, watching closely until the Slayer made contact.

[Witchblade]

The water cleared her mind. It awoke the sleeping muscles as the cool liquid stole whatever heat emitted from her form. As she floated along the surface and stared up into a clear blue sky she lost herself to the moment as she was want to do when swimming. There were no thoughts brimming below the surface of her mind, no memories scratching at the surface and no worries, just the sky above her, the warm sun beaming down on her exposed skin and the cool water supporting her. For a while that was how she remained, she had nothing better to do with her time but eventually she felt like moving again. So she turned herself over and dove down into the depths of the crystal clear liquid.

After more than a minute she resurfaced and drew in a deep breath of air to satiate her burning lungs. Her heart was fluttering within the cage of her ribs, reminding herself that she had just pushed a physical limit that all creatures shared. Even to her body there was a need to breathe where there wasn’t one for food or drink like any other. Shame that she found such limitations.

Looking towards the bank of the river, Witch easily spotted her black clothing where she had discarded it and her rucksack lying untouched. Apparently, the creature that slept within still did not feel the need to wake like the rest of the world and enjoy exploring a world outside of the safety of that damn leather bag. She didn’t really care that much, she was just growing tired of him staying the same size and was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with him. After all, he hadn’t grown at all since he’d hatched and the last thing she needed was some kind of defective dragon. He wouldn’t be of much good to her then, though that was a lie. He kept her company when the rest of the world fled from her or she from it since she really wasn’t too sure which it was these days.

The halfling was about to swim back farther out into the river when she got the feeling of two people heading in her direction. Two very powerful people at that and they weren’t far from her either and coming closer by the second. One of them was actually in the air. Arching her brow, she shielded her sensitive eyes from the sun and glanced up into the air, noting what looked like a person just kind of floating there. She couldn’t make much of anything out, not even if it was male or female, human or otherwise. From that height, no scent drifted down to meet her, but the person on the ground certainly left a unique smell in the air.

He was human and something completely and utterly not human. She thought it might be demon but she really wasn’t too sure. Even his energy gave off a feeling of something not entirely human.

Intrigued, the halfling began to swim back towards the bank. Not many people ventured this deep into Concordia and two people that powerful would have to have sensed her. Either that or they were complete idiots. About ten feet from the edge of the river the riverbed rose high enough for her to begin walking towards the shore instead of swimming, but by this time she could already see the stranger. He was only about ten or so feet from where she’d dumped all of her stuff haphazardly not thinking that she would be interrupted.

She couldn’t see much of him. He truly appeared to be a behemoth of a man and beneath the cloak he wore she was sure it wasn’t cloth giving him the façade of a build. That was all muscle underneath, she was rather certain of it. His face was mostly covered though as his wore some kind of wrap that concealed everything below the bridge of his nose.

Pushing her wet hair away from her face and leaving it to drip down her back, Witch took the last few steps out of the river and moved towards her discarded items. She didn’t move to pick any of them up, if he got any bright ideas she wouldn’t need to. She didn’t say anything to him though, conversation was not her forte. She would wait until he spoke to her first, him and his floating companion.

[Slayer of the Rot]

'She certainly presents herself boldly enough.' Beneath his veil, the demon grinned as each of his advancing steps sank into the mushy shore of the river. 'I'd bet that this is most assuredly who we've been seeking,' he thought, glancing into the air towards Luc, his entire wardrobe in motion with the wind he was manipulating, a simple yet impressive of his power. 'It is either that this woman has guts, a lack of fear that does not send her dashing down the river bank in absolute terror, or she is simply a whore who's used to men staring at her at her most vulnerable, where no secrets can be hidden.' Pausing a few feet from her, his gaze wandered across her body, wondering briefly what she'd look like pinned and squirming beneath him, and what expression would grace her face before her neck was snapped in two.

With a grunt, he suppressed his simple minded urge and turned his eyes towards her possessions, cast carelessly on the ground -- and then his eyes snagged upon the glare of the sun upon rough titanium. "Impossible," he smirked, one hand reaching up to his cheek and removing the veil to reveal the sardonic sneer that graced his face. "What an unexpected and pleasant surprise." Approaching her, he moved past her, barely paying any attention to the stitch-lipped nude, and gently caressed the hilt of the massive blade. He shuddered as a spark of excitement shot through him, and when he grasped the sword, it was as though lightning was flowing through his body. With a simple tug, he freed the six foot blade from the ground, not fearing it's new owner, and spun on his heel, thrusting the sword forward in a whirl of black cloth. The motion was effortless, and so was the motions that followed; spinning the Rotslayer fluidly with his wrist, he let that familiar weight rest calmly against his shoulders. Smiling lightly, he glanced towards Luc, knowing without a doubt he'd remember the blade that had pierced him and began their odd relationship.

"This clears up any remaining doubts. No normal person could retrieve this blade, much less lug it about the face of Althanas. I hadn't thought it even possible for a woman." His form shifted, and the huge sword arced out, in a decapitating stroke, but paused before it so much as nicked her pretty little neck. Resting on the flat of the blade was a fairly plain looking gray steel band, with a dark purple glass stud set in it's center. The odd character expertly inlaid within was 'Vrashtae', sky or void in common, one of the things that the Saraelians yearned for all their years to one day see. He moved away from her, tossing the ring up into the air before flipping the huge blade over, and repeating the process as though it were nothing more than a toy.

"Put your clothes on. As much as I regret to say that, we've business to discuss and it's easier to do so in some form of attire. Too many crooked businessmen have been tricked in strip clubs." Dan snatched the ring from the air and held it close to his face, smiling a bit as he turned it end over end as though appraising it. His other hand remained busy fiddling with the Rotslayer. "Meanwhile, allow me a bit of time with my old sword. I'd like to rekindle a few memories."

[Cyrus the virus]

In the moments before Dan and Witchblade met, Luc examined his ring once more. Jusron, Drow for wrath. On the glass ornament was a symbol, some sort of letter he could not place in his mind, behind it a wall of flames. He only examined it a moment, before looking down to see that the two had made contact.

“Interesting,” mused the mage as he descended, swiftly coming into contact with the muddy shore by the water, making no effort whatsoever to disguise his stare along Witchblade’s body.

Luc’s eyes moved, but not for long, to watch Dan as he swung Rotslayer once more. With an amused smirk, the mage considered what the massive blade had felt like inside him – though he couldn’t remember exactly what it had been like. Probably better off that way. “Mm,” he muttered, well aware that Dan’s memory would be at least as vivid as his own. “Fortuitous. You could crush a skull with your hand, but insist on swinging metal around. I’ve a sword for magical purposes, but you and your motivation, I’ll never quite understand. Why use a tool to do your dirty work, I wonder, when I know how much you love the feel of blood on your hands?”

His eyes, his focus, returned to Witchblade. Not her eyes or her face, stitched up as it was, but her body. “No matter. Is this pretty thing our potential new partner? I don’t sense much magic in you, bitch. Are you of the metal-swinging people?”

Luc gave her little time to answer, lifted his eyes to hers for but a moment. Not liking them quite so much as her other qualities, the emerald orbs lowered once again. “Can’t say I’d mind if she came along, though, I feel some kind of force in her delicious frame. I’ll travel behind her, definitely better scenery than these fucking trees.”

[Witchblade]

She hated orders. She hated them being given to her and she hated having to follow them. People did not give her orders and expect to live after the words left their mouths. The only reason she didn’t blatantly attack the half demon thing was because in a way he was right. She probably should put her clothes on, not that nudity was such a big thing to her. After all, humans were one of the few races on this planet so obsessed with covering their bodies. Personally, she didn’t understand their need to. It was only skin and unless they were battling and needed armour or something to shield them from the elements it wasn’t that big of a deal.

The half demon was someone she thought she’d never run into, or had hoped not to in her lifetime. Dan Lagh’ratham, of course he was slightly different than she expected. For someone who hunted vampires and demons she didn’t expect him to be one himself. And that mouth of his, it made a mockery of her own stitched lips the way his lips pulled back to reveal the rows and rows or sharp, jagged teeth. He could probably tear through flesh, muscle and tendon rather easily with a set of teeth like that. The man before her, swinging around his old sword as if it weighed nothing was still half human though. She could smell it on him, his demonic side was just the more dominant of the two and a good thing at that because if there was something she hated more than being given orders it was being given them by a human. Or, having a smart mouthed human think he could he could get away with talking to her with such disrespect as the one who just floated down behind her.

Witch had just finished putting on her undergarments and tying the strings of her shirt closed when he decided to open his rather large mouth and say something he was going to regret in about two seconds. At first she gave off the look that she didn’t care or hadn’t even heard him though that would be impossible, he spoke loud enough. But when she crouched down to retrieve her pants she tensed her leg muscles and leapt at him instead. He was only a few feet away with her and with her reflexes and speed it would take a second or two to reach him, but he was quick as well. Instead of tackling the human fuck to the ground the halfling was hit head on by a powerful gust of wind. It flung her back a foot or two and prevented her from moving any closer to him.

Snarling and pulling her lips back to reveal unnaturally white teeth and the long canines associated with vampires, Witch changed her tactics. She could attack him head on. Fucking human was a mage, could even pick up a real weapon to defend himself with. No he used magic in all its glorifying nature not to get the hands of the practitioner dirty or covered in blood.

“Fucking human scum.”

The words were a growl that was never spoken; instead they were on a telepathic link she quickly formed with him. Nothing hindered her progress within the passages of his consciousness, not a single mental barrier. How pathetic. She would think a mage of all people would know about telepaths and just how dangerous they would be. But he hadn’t taken a single precaution to guard his mind against her. He might not even know she was in there. Of course that wouldn't last for too much longer.

Once she reached a certain depth, Witch took a deep breath and allowed a smirk to raise the corners of her mouth. With a quick thought she lashed out at his mind like a hot knife cutting through flesh. She shoved at some areas and stabbed against others, adding to the pressure building within his skull, knowing that if she attacked him enough she just might be able to knock him unconscious. Then she could kill him as slowly as she wanted to.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Of all the reactions predicted, Dan couldn't have expected more or less, be pleased with the actions taken nor irritated more than he had been in perhaps weeks. With a great heave, a sigh smelling of old meat burst from the bladed trap he called his jaw, and the Rotslayer slowly came to a halt, resting comfortably at his side. Through half lidded eyes, crowned with a knitted brow, Dan watched as the woman assaulted Luc innefectively, pushed aside by a summoned violent gale, and scowled, hand tightening about the simple hilt of the Rotslayer, "Stop it, it's the first and last time I warn you decently. You do not want to raise my ire." His words, however seemed to fall on deaf ears, and he briefly wondered if the stitches ran a circuit through her cheeks and into her ears. Shifting his stance, his boots scraped across the river broken rocks on the shore as water lapped and flowed past his left foot.

For one morbidly curious moment, Dan merely waited to see what she would do when faced with such a powerful and versatile adversary. "You know, one of my favorite memories was seeing my sword drenched with blood."

With a growl roiling up from the foul depths of his throat, the demon darted forward, Rotslayer raising above his head in one fluid motion, coming down to the ground in a tremendous cleave. Stone, the great bone and structure of the planet, was severed and crushed beneath the full brunt of Dan's unrestrained strength, the huge sword carving a giant gash in the ground and causing it to shudder in awe at their feet. Loose sediment and fractured stone and all manners of debris were thrown helplessly into the air, and through that filthy haze, his powerful hands snapped out, the spikes capping the fingers of his gloves scissoring in the air as they snapped shut, mere inches from their throats. The world gave a gasp and the haze settled to reveal something perhaps even more unsettling than his incredible, brutish strength.

"If you keep up with this, I will kill and eat the both of you."

That a fraction of human blood flowed in his veins was completely inevident at that exact moment. He looked like some sort of odd beast, hunched in a position that seemed almost natural at the moment. His mouth hung slightly ajar, sharp teeth slick with saliva. But his eyes, they rivaled the savagery of any monster that the Thayne had ever chosen to create. They were filled with a violent fire, one that ripped through a pillaged village and turned what remained to ash. There wasn't even the single sparkle of amusement apparent in those wide, hateful eyes. "I've eaten breakfast today, but I can chance to gorge myself just this once. And I won't allow you the leisure of being dead first." Chaos hummed heavily in the air, shivering his vision and drilling deep into his temple; Luc was about to explode. "Now after this sideshow, we will discuss our business with civility."

[Cyrus the virus]

Her reaction was easy enough to predict, though her timing was not. It was fortunate for Luc that with just a thought, he could create a current of wind more than strong enough to hold her at bay. When it seemed she had given up, he chuckled and let it die. “There’s something so quaint about the metal-swinger way, charging recklessly and all that. Cute!”

A voice came into his head. Minutely shocked, Luc let it show. It had been years since he was the subject of any kind of telepathy, and even then it had only been a minor communication across planes. It tickled his mind in a way that made the earth below him shiver visibly.

As he considered it, Witchblade was working, keeping the tingle in his mind. Dan was moving, reacting to their strife, but Luc somehow found he couldn’t focus on a single word the man said. Even when Dan moved, approached both their throats, Luc couldn’t even flinch. He felt removed from it all.

The wind picked up, and water from the river started to bubble. As Witchblade prodded forth, Luc felt a pain he’d never experienced before, like an icepick through his eye and scraping against the back of the socket. In one moment, three things happened. The Sword of Slykrit erupted within its sheath, burning the protective case to ash; the earth beneath and around Luc’s feet rose in a splash, whirling about him in a blindingly fast spin; and the wind roared to life, turning thick and green with magical energy, moving so fast it created a sound like a creature’s deep roar. Despite the sound of the wind, Luc’s scream was loud enough to be heard over it.

It seemed to end as quickly as it had begun, though, and Luc caught himself before he fell. His face was coated in slick sweat, hair draped over his face, shielding his embarrassment.

“Well,” he said when he was able, “at least I know we haven’t wasted our time in this forest. Telekenisis, was it? It has a bite to it. Almost worse than the Hex Mage’s fuckery,” he commented, a watchful eye drifting to Dan.

Slykrit was extinguished again, thankfully for Luc’s leg. A current of wind swirled about him, restoring his elegance by straightening his clothes, drying his sweat, fixing his hair. Like a personal maid, the element whirled about and repaired that damaged dignity. To Luc, it was almost like Witchblade had never hurt him at all.

“A good trick -- very, very good, but if you do it again I’ll burn the eyes from your skull.”

As real a threat as it was, Luc threw a lighthearted look her way. Then his eyes drifted down again and he frowned, as she was newly dressed. His respect for power prevented him from insulting her again, at least for the time being.

“So, united as we are, what say we break the champagne?” With that, a bottle of the bubbly drink appeared in his hand, summoned from a realm not even Luc knew of. He tossed it toward Dan. “When the stream widens into a river, it continues and runs down the center of a village. Greenacre, or some insipid thing. The three of us should spend some time there, bonding. What say you, woman?”

[Witchblade]

The mind attack worked just like she wanted it to, cutting through his psyche and creating a pain that was unlike anything else a human could experience. The only problem with the whole thing was that barbarian of a fuck Dan decided to screw it all up and break her concentration. The fact that he was a hairsbreadth away from snapping her neck like a twig didn’t bother her one bit. He didn’t want her dead. Witch was not stupid, if he wanted her dead, she was pretty damn sure she’d be dead by now, either that or at least halfway there. The amount of power that emanated from him was like nothing she’d ever come across before.

Her attack still produced somewhat of the desired effect before Dan pulled her away from it. The reaction from the mage was not something she’d ever seen before though. It appeared that messing with his mind produced a very interesting reaction in which he completely lost control on his abilities. Magic permeated the air to a point where it became a thick fog that she could almost choke on, but just as the sweet sound of his screaming lifted to her ears it all stopped and everything died down. He caught himself before he could fall to his feet and quickly put himself back together as if nothing had ever happened. Even his sharp little tongue remained in tact after she’d shown him what she could do to him.

“I dare you to try, human trash.”

She turned from him and walked back from her belongings. Once there, she quickly slipped into her pants and boots, put on her armguards and added all of her weapons and sheaths to each of their placements along her body. The only thing missing was The Rotslayer, still within the hands of its old master. With the harness she used to strap it to her back in her hand, she walked over to Dan and with as much respect as she could muster for the bastard she asked for it back.

“Give me my fucking sword back.”

Truthfully, she could care less if he kept it or not. She didn’t even know how to properly use the damn thing and had a much harder time swinging it around than he did, but now that she was pissed off she just wanted the fucking thing back.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Having witnessed the geomancer's powers many times first hand, the demon could see the detonation coming from perhaps a mile away. Althanas itself raged with the man's suffering, the elements creating a vehement whirling dervish about the screaming man. Clamping his jaw shut, Dan simply waited out Luc's tantrum; he had been caught in the middle of the hellish winds, and even as the earth shifted and slithered under him, he refused to budge so much as an inch. When it passed, and Luc lay on the ground, the stoic beast remained in the same manner as he'd been moments before. "Next time you'll do well to watch your tone," Dan snarled, staring down at the geomancer, "Of course we weren't wasting our time. I am recruiting a force to destroy kingdoms, not teach a kindergarten.

"And on that note, to the business I am here to conduct." The demon's head swiveled to the violent, impulsive woman, a breeze passing by to rustle the leaves on nearby trees, and tug at his loose veil and cape. "Myself and the man you just mind-fucked, for lack of a better term, form thus far an organization I have come to call the Audeamus. We stand for taking that which is not our's, regardless of the cost it may inflict upon us. Our's is an asylum for madmen and monsters, and you certainly fit into one of those categories." Straightening his posture as he regained his composure, Dan began to return to some semblance of civility (or at most, as much as he could muster), and thrust Rotslayer into the ground before him. Seated upon the simple ball pommel of the huge blade was the ring he had been toying with earlier, it's deep violet stud shining in the daylight.

Luc had finally gathered himself as well, and Dan effortlessly caught the green glass bottle thrown to him. He said nothing for a moment, his attention briefly distracted, eyes lingering not to the sudsing beverage clutched in hand, but to the white stone set on the ring on his left thumb. 'I can feel it now, it's beginning to react. I did everything the texts called for, but I didn't expect it to take this long. I wonder if Luc's is stirring yet? If it doesn't soon, despite his usefulness, I'll have to kill him and seek out another prospect.' With a swipe of his free hand, he cleanly sliced the neck of the bottle away, and eagerly drained the contents, tossing the remainder into the river.

"You've passed the first portion of your admittance. You are exceptionally ruthless and obviously, life is cheap to you. It's an excellent quality to possess." To his left hand he summoned a heavy axe with a bright mythril blade, either of it's faces enscrawled with rambling black texts that was surely indecipherable to the other two. Letting a sigh of pleasure escape, he slowly caressed a finger down the edge of the blade. "And now, the next step is the destruction of the...Greenacre, that Luc has mentioned." With long, loping strides, the demon set off down the riverbank, a new goal asserting itself in his one track mind. "And if you falter once, I will kill you and withdraw my proposition."

((Spoils: Nothing yet save for exp, save for the satisfaction that I've finished something.))

[Atzar]

You accomplished what you set out to accomplish. What more can I say?

STORY

Continuity: 7 – I had the information that I needed, and I have a basic idea of where it’s going. Well done in this category.

Setting: 8 – Good job on the setting from all three of you. I always had a picture of what was around you, and Slayer’s antics were quite gruesome.

Pacing: 5 – Nothing really happened. “You met Witchblade and decided to eviscerate a town.” That’s basically the content of this quest, summed up in ten words or less.

CHARACTER

Dialogue: 5 –Fitting to your characters, but predictable. More on that in persona.

Action: 4 – Predictable. Again, more on that in persona. Also, while this quest achieved its goal, I felt that something more should have happened here. I was left a little disappointed by the lack of action in this thread.

Persona: 4 – I’m going to be blunt here. I wasn’t particularly impressed by any of the personalities displayed in this quest. It’s one thing to be completely evil and desiccate everything in a brutal display of wanton carnage. It’s a whole different game to actually do it in a way that’s riveting to read. I didn’t really see anything to separate your characters from the stereotypical bad guy. Instead of seeing unique characters here, I saw three cuts from the same stock – all three seemed interested in nothing more than flamboyant displays of power and violence. Your challenge is to find a way to make the personalities of each of your characters unique. In this quest, I just saw three copies of the same mentality, each with a different claim to power and badassery.

WRITING STYLE

Mechanics: 6 – No huge complaints. Slayer, make sure that you never have more than one person speaking in a single paragraph. Witchblade, watch the run-ons – although there seemed to be fewer of them here than I’ve seen from you in the past. Cyrus, no complaints here.

Technique: 7 – The graphic imagery stood out in this category. Sickening, but well done.

Clarity: 7 – Good. No further comments.



Wild Card: 6 – What can I say? You did what you wanted to do. I really hope that the personalities of the three characters in this quest come out in the future… but other than that, the Audeamus should be quite an entertaining PG. Just don’t eat me…

Final Score: 59

Slayer of the Rot gains 1440 EXP and 120 GP.
Cyrus the Virus gains 1380 EXP and 95 GP.
Witchblade gains 1270 EXP and 95 GP.

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP and gold added!