An Offer She Couldn't Refuse [Exalted]
- Thread starter Pale Wolf
- Start date
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I thought the rule was, "you can only summon them once a year (at sunset of any day during Calibration)", not "you can only summon one of them per year". In theory, you can summon up to five Third Circles per Calibration, though you'd better have plenty of chalcanth on hand to replenish your Essence reserves between summonings.
Part 4: Failure
X X X X X X X X X X
Aindriu awoke to a pounding on her door. "Mrrg?" She looked up, but it was still night, and she'd banked the fire down to coals before going to sleep, so there wasn't a lot of light to be had.
The muzziness in her brain was torn apart quickly enough by the note that the pounding seemed unable to decide if they were knocking or trying to break her door down. That was not good news - someone that determined to get the local physician up indicated very bad things about someone's health.
Ealu felt the tension in her body, and grumpily slipped out of Aindriu's arms with a half-muttered "Mrw", freeing her up to grope around near where she'd laid out her blanket. The lamp was somewhere... ah, there! Aindriu slipped her fingers into the handle, and swung the lamp around to touch the wick against the coals. The oil-fed wick lit up quickly enough, spreading a dim light through the house's single room, and Aindriu set the lamp down as she shoved the blanket off her body and rose to stand up.
There was another flurry of pounding. "I'm coming!" Clothes, clothes... she spotted a dress that was probably blue and dove into it, wriggling her arms and head out the appropriate holes. She reached back to tug her long mass of hair out along with her head, but shrugged and gave up on that after she couldn't see her hair ribbon - Ealu had probably picked it up in her mouth and walked off with it somewhere again. "I'm gonna need those on occasion, big girl," she chuckled.
Ealu looked up at her with wide blue eyes taking up almost half her face, and mowed.
"Yes, you." Aindriu ducked down to give the cat a couple strokes before heading off.
Aindriu picked up the lamp again, covered a yawn, and reached for her sheathed dagger with her left hand(she'd saved up a lot to get that, back before the War, it was a Lyric-style dagger, with a stout, broad triangular blade of Bloody River steel, a handspan-wide triangle narrowing to a slim point), moving to slip it into the loop at her hip she kept it in. The project was slightly impeded by the discovery that she'd put the dress on inside-out, but Aindriu didn't really see value in delaying addressing a medical emergency to fix her clothes, so she shrugged and just kept it in her hands.
Hopefully she didn't need it, but there was always just enough concern that it wasn't really wise to be going around unarmed.
Ealu trotted at her heels as Aindriu strode to the door, supporting her dagger in the other fingers of her lamp-hand while she crouched down and fiddled with the key - there hadn't been pounding for a while, so they must have heard her.
The lock unlatched, and Aindriu switched the dagger back to her left hand as the door swung open. "What's wr-?"
She felt it was reasonable to posit that there was no medical emergency, since the moment the door had cracked open, a beefy hand had reached out and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her through - the lamp caught on the edge of the door and was knocked out of her hand, burning oil spilling across her doorstep and into her father's herb garden. "Ah?!"
Ealu wailed.
The man grabbing at her didn't seem very prone to conversation, so she grabbed for the hilt of her dagger. It came out with the hiss of steel on leather, accompanying the angry hiss she could hear from Ealu, but the second man got his hands on her wrist before she could bring its business end around.
Aindriu folded her elbow around the grasping hands and slammed it into that man's breastbone, shaking the dagger loose and sending him gasping back under the blow just in time for the hand on her hair to tug her back with a shriek.
She still had a knife in play, and sent it right at the offending arm with a growl.
She cursed herself for wasting the action as soon as she launched it - the men were wearing thick linen, and while their tunics were armless, they'd added thick, quilted sleeve/bracers. Not extensive protection, but enough that while her knife got through, she didn't think it actually got much done with the slice across his arm.
The man retaliated with a punch to her face as his other hand used her hair to drag her onto it, but she got her left arm up in time to shield herself, and continued the motion of her failed slash down to her hip, chambering the knife to stab forward again.
Wait wasn't this one of the merchants that had been in town today? The light was dim and flickering but the bearded face and long brown hair looked familiar.
Never mind. Irrelevant.
She twisted her hip to power a thrust into his gut, but before she could get far with it the second man locked her dagger arm alongside her body in a bear hug from behind.
Not just two. There was a woman a little past them, holding up a coiled rope. Man and woman past that, each with staves, and three more at a mule-carried wagon on the edge of the pathway into the next orchard farm.
Aindriu strained to get out, gasping for breath as the woman with rope moved in, before remembering she had legs and swinging her knee into the groin of the man hanging onto her hair.
His eyes bulged out and he stopped trying to punch her for a minute, hand loosening on her hair, so her left arm was freed-up to claw back behind her at the neck of the man who had her wrapped up in his grip, scrabbling for one of the pressure points in his neck to dig her fingers into.
She found the one behind the jaw, but before she could dig into it, the man dropped to the ground, dragging her with him and rolling them so he was on top, her face pressed into the grass.
She tried to use her fingers to reverse the grip on her dagger and plunge it into the man's thigh, but before that got anywhere, a moccasined foot stomped down on her hand.
She squeaked in pain, but more than that, her fingers fiddling with the dagger didn't have a strong enough grip, it fell out and was dragged away from her by the foot.
Aindriu bucked and wriggled to try and get out from the grip, but she'd never been nearly fit enough to do that much wrestling on the ground - she knew standing grappling well enough, but in war she hadn't had much use to learn how to wrestle on the ground when the first one on the ground got their throat stepped on - and the man probably weighed twice as much as her, giving him just the slightest edge in this sort of situation.
Ealu gave another angry hiss, bounding over the burning oil on the doorstep, and pouncing on the ankle of the man pinning Aindriu, biting and clawing.
"Gah! Get it off, Diarmait!" The man kicked out, Aindriu didn't have a wonderful view with her cheek pressed into the grass, but it didn't seem to be getting Ealu off his leg, the cat grimly hanging on as the leg moved every which way to try and get rid of her.
The other man grabbed for the blue-gray cat with a series of curses, and after taking a few scratches, had his hands around her small body and hoisted her up off his ally.
Ealu yowled and hissed, hind claws raking at his arm - apparently she managed to find the cut Aindriu had made in his sleeve, because the man winced in pain.
"Useless little-!" Holding Ealu out on the one hand, his other hand came back up from his waist, filled with a long-bladed bronze dagger.
Aindriu's eyes widened in horror. "No, please!" Don't please don't she's my best friend please please please... Aindriu had a lot more to say than her mouth could get out that fast.
At that moment, eyes welling with tears, Aindriu wanted more than anything else to hurt that man as much as it took to stop him from hurting Ealu. And a little bit - okay a lot - extra for even daring to put a blade near her. But... she was just another irrelevant face in the crowd. That wasn't in her power. She'd dreamed of doing valuable, wonderful things as a child, and accomplished none of them, she... she'd fail at this too, but... maybe if she begged and didn't anger him...
"... please... I'll do anything..." she sobbed.
The man sneered down at her. "You were already going to."
The knife came down.
And Ealu turned from a sweet, affectionate, loving cat, into a bundle of carved meat.
The fight went out of Aindriu at that point.
X X X X X X X X X X
Aindriu awoke to a pounding on her door. "Mrrg?" She looked up, but it was still night, and she'd banked the fire down to coals before going to sleep, so there wasn't a lot of light to be had.
The muzziness in her brain was torn apart quickly enough by the note that the pounding seemed unable to decide if they were knocking or trying to break her door down. That was not good news - someone that determined to get the local physician up indicated very bad things about someone's health.
Ealu felt the tension in her body, and grumpily slipped out of Aindriu's arms with a half-muttered "Mrw", freeing her up to grope around near where she'd laid out her blanket. The lamp was somewhere... ah, there! Aindriu slipped her fingers into the handle, and swung the lamp around to touch the wick against the coals. The oil-fed wick lit up quickly enough, spreading a dim light through the house's single room, and Aindriu set the lamp down as she shoved the blanket off her body and rose to stand up.
There was another flurry of pounding. "I'm coming!" Clothes, clothes... she spotted a dress that was probably blue and dove into it, wriggling her arms and head out the appropriate holes. She reached back to tug her long mass of hair out along with her head, but shrugged and gave up on that after she couldn't see her hair ribbon - Ealu had probably picked it up in her mouth and walked off with it somewhere again. "I'm gonna need those on occasion, big girl," she chuckled.
Ealu looked up at her with wide blue eyes taking up almost half her face, and mowed.
"Yes, you." Aindriu ducked down to give the cat a couple strokes before heading off.
Aindriu picked up the lamp again, covered a yawn, and reached for her sheathed dagger with her left hand(she'd saved up a lot to get that, back before the War, it was a Lyric-style dagger, with a stout, broad triangular blade of Bloody River steel, a handspan-wide triangle narrowing to a slim point), moving to slip it into the loop at her hip she kept it in. The project was slightly impeded by the discovery that she'd put the dress on inside-out, but Aindriu didn't really see value in delaying addressing a medical emergency to fix her clothes, so she shrugged and just kept it in her hands.
Hopefully she didn't need it, but there was always just enough concern that it wasn't really wise to be going around unarmed.
Ealu trotted at her heels as Aindriu strode to the door, supporting her dagger in the other fingers of her lamp-hand while she crouched down and fiddled with the key - there hadn't been pounding for a while, so they must have heard her.
The lock unlatched, and Aindriu switched the dagger back to her left hand as the door swung open. "What's wr-?"
She felt it was reasonable to posit that there was no medical emergency, since the moment the door had cracked open, a beefy hand had reached out and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her through - the lamp caught on the edge of the door and was knocked out of her hand, burning oil spilling across her doorstep and into her father's herb garden. "Ah?!"
Ealu wailed.
The man grabbing at her didn't seem very prone to conversation, so she grabbed for the hilt of her dagger. It came out with the hiss of steel on leather, accompanying the angry hiss she could hear from Ealu, but the second man got his hands on her wrist before she could bring its business end around.
Aindriu folded her elbow around the grasping hands and slammed it into that man's breastbone, shaking the dagger loose and sending him gasping back under the blow just in time for the hand on her hair to tug her back with a shriek.
She still had a knife in play, and sent it right at the offending arm with a growl.
She cursed herself for wasting the action as soon as she launched it - the men were wearing thick linen, and while their tunics were armless, they'd added thick, quilted sleeve/bracers. Not extensive protection, but enough that while her knife got through, she didn't think it actually got much done with the slice across his arm.
The man retaliated with a punch to her face as his other hand used her hair to drag her onto it, but she got her left arm up in time to shield herself, and continued the motion of her failed slash down to her hip, chambering the knife to stab forward again.
Wait wasn't this one of the merchants that had been in town today? The light was dim and flickering but the bearded face and long brown hair looked familiar.
Never mind. Irrelevant.
She twisted her hip to power a thrust into his gut, but before she could get far with it the second man locked her dagger arm alongside her body in a bear hug from behind.
Not just two. There was a woman a little past them, holding up a coiled rope. Man and woman past that, each with staves, and three more at a mule-carried wagon on the edge of the pathway into the next orchard farm.
Aindriu strained to get out, gasping for breath as the woman with rope moved in, before remembering she had legs and swinging her knee into the groin of the man hanging onto her hair.
His eyes bulged out and he stopped trying to punch her for a minute, hand loosening on her hair, so her left arm was freed-up to claw back behind her at the neck of the man who had her wrapped up in his grip, scrabbling for one of the pressure points in his neck to dig her fingers into.
She found the one behind the jaw, but before she could dig into it, the man dropped to the ground, dragging her with him and rolling them so he was on top, her face pressed into the grass.
She tried to use her fingers to reverse the grip on her dagger and plunge it into the man's thigh, but before that got anywhere, a moccasined foot stomped down on her hand.
She squeaked in pain, but more than that, her fingers fiddling with the dagger didn't have a strong enough grip, it fell out and was dragged away from her by the foot.
Aindriu bucked and wriggled to try and get out from the grip, but she'd never been nearly fit enough to do that much wrestling on the ground - she knew standing grappling well enough, but in war she hadn't had much use to learn how to wrestle on the ground when the first one on the ground got their throat stepped on - and the man probably weighed twice as much as her, giving him just the slightest edge in this sort of situation.
Ealu gave another angry hiss, bounding over the burning oil on the doorstep, and pouncing on the ankle of the man pinning Aindriu, biting and clawing.
"Gah! Get it off, Diarmait!" The man kicked out, Aindriu didn't have a wonderful view with her cheek pressed into the grass, but it didn't seem to be getting Ealu off his leg, the cat grimly hanging on as the leg moved every which way to try and get rid of her.
The other man grabbed for the blue-gray cat with a series of curses, and after taking a few scratches, had his hands around her small body and hoisted her up off his ally.
Ealu yowled and hissed, hind claws raking at his arm - apparently she managed to find the cut Aindriu had made in his sleeve, because the man winced in pain.
"Useless little-!" Holding Ealu out on the one hand, his other hand came back up from his waist, filled with a long-bladed bronze dagger.
Aindriu's eyes widened in horror. "No, please!" Don't please don't she's my best friend please please please... Aindriu had a lot more to say than her mouth could get out that fast.
At that moment, eyes welling with tears, Aindriu wanted more than anything else to hurt that man as much as it took to stop him from hurting Ealu. And a little bit - okay a lot - extra for even daring to put a blade near her. But... she was just another irrelevant face in the crowd. That wasn't in her power. She'd dreamed of doing valuable, wonderful things as a child, and accomplished none of them, she... she'd fail at this too, but... maybe if she begged and didn't anger him...
"... please... I'll do anything..." she sobbed.
The man sneered down at her. "You were already going to."
The knife came down.
And Ealu turned from a sweet, affectionate, loving cat, into a bundle of carved meat.
The fight went out of Aindriu at that point.
X X X X X X X X X X
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Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
This place? I'd do it anyways. The Scavenger Lands would probably like being a bit more Pyrian.
Seems like a perfectly reasonable decision to me.
Part 5: Sympathy For the Devil
X X X X X X X X X X
Aindriu wasn't unaware of the details, as she was tied up, dragged to the merchants' canvas-roofed wagon, and stuffed in the back with another dozen Aldertref locals and visitors. Some of the more valuable things in her house were tossed into a storage compartment below the main one, and the wagon set out again.
She wasn't unaware. She just didn't care.
Ealu was gone. Her only real friend, a warm, soft, slightly cowardly little girl who'd been so happy just to be near her, was gone. Gone because Aindriu had been too pathetic to fight for her.
So why should she care that they were being taken south, over the border of the Talinin lands at the Scathceil river? Her life hadn't been going anywhere meaningful or desirable in the first place, and the friend that had made it bearable was gone.
Most of the other prisoners didn't look like they felt particularly conversational either. Probably more worried about their future - bandits took people on occasion, usually to sell to slave traders from Nexus. Or other places, but Nexus was the one everyone remembered.
There was a young woman - not as young as Aindriu but young, early-twenties, with red hair hacked short to about jaw-length, far shorter than was normal for Pretannians - who talked to her and tried to make sure she was okay, and Aindriu responded as necessary so the woman would accept it and leave her alone.
She could have just tried. It... wouldn't have saved her, but at least she'd have tried. Ealu had always been there for her with a soothing purr and Aindriu hadn't even tried.
Their captors did actually give them food in the morning, Aindriu just didn't have any appetite or energy, so she didn't touch it.
The redhead didn't either, glaring down at the hard bread they'd been offered. It wasn't hard to tell why she hadn't partaken, but there weren't any drugs in it, not if the bandits had half a wit between them. None of the 'merchants' knew how to read - they'd packed her unbound writing papers right alongside her and her father's books, unable to tell the difference in content between the actual proper books and her useless scrawl. Which meant none of them were educated professionals - in other words, no physicians or alchemists. No one with the skills to regulate a dose of opiates to get any desired sedation effect without risking the health of the people they'd gone to so much effort to capture.
But it was long and complicated to explain, so Aindriu didn't bother.
She wasn't being particularly active, but it wasn't all that restful. Nose was all stuffy from crying. Hard to breathe through it. Breathing was a little bit of labour on its own, even aside from the inherent discomfort in trying to rest on hard wood and surrounded by strangers.
She wanted Ealu back.
All she got was the redhead, though, sitting down next to her - there wasn't a lot of slack in the ropes binding them to the wagon floor but there was enough to pick places on the bench - and speaking in low tones.
"We're probably going to be sold to slavers," she began with the obvious.
Aindriu nodded. "... probably." Why wouldn't people just leave her be?
"The Rokan-jin have been restocking after the Bull tore through, and not too particular about where the stock comes from. But they're mostly looking for workers, so the less hardy ones probably aren't going to be sold that close to home."
Aindriu was a small girl, but a lot stronger than she looked, thanks to how she'd learned to move alongside the Realm legions, to use every bit of strength and every gram in her body as one unified force. But whoever had decided to capture her, specifically, had probably not known the details of her military service. So she nodded, knowing exactly what was implied - her fate was unlikely to be remaining in Pretannia.
"... Don't know how far you've travelled, but slavery's different down south. It's-"
"Not just local kings who can hold them. Not just for criminals and public service. No longer human beings, no rights, just property. No manumission, children won't be freed. If not just dream-eaten by the fae," Aindriu cut her off so she wouldn't have to sit through an explanation of things she already knew. There were some very lurid tales she might find herself subjected to if she didn't. Some of them were probably true, too.
She wasn't really fond of the Pretannic practice, even, let alone how the Tepet had gone about it - she just didn't really like people being unhappy, there wasn't a great principle beyond that, and it was hard to argue criminals shouldn't have to do something to make up for their crimes - but it wasn't like her opinion mattered or would ever change anything, so she tried not to think about it.
The redhead nodded. "Guess you know. Don't know about you but I'm not looking forward to it."
Aindriu shrugged. She wasn't, really, but she hadn't really been looking forward to anything so it wasn't all that terrifying. Her future had only really been more marking time - earning money doing things she didn't really care about to sustain a living while the world fell apart around her. She'd liked writing but she hadn't been writing anything important, meaningful, or particularly good, and now she got to occupy that long stretch of time doing nothing of relevance with her best friend dead, instead of cradled in her arms.
Slavery didn't really bother her much, because it wasn't taking her away from a particularly meaningful life, or taking anything more away from her. It was kind of annoying that the people who'd hurt Ealu would benefit from it but she couldn't do anything about that, either.
She'd accomplished basically nothing in her entire life, so it was honestly a little moot who she was useless for.
The red-haired woman frowned at that reaction, leaning in closer with her voice low. "Look. I'll cut to it - I want to escape. Are you with me?"
Aindriu was spared the need to answer when a sword lightly touched the woman's throat, forcing her to back away, eyes wide.
The man at the front of the wagon - the 'merchant' - was leaning in under the canvas flap, sword extended, with a smug grin that made Aindriu's arm twitch with the reflex to punch it. "You know I can hear you, right?"
"Good ears," the redhead commented, tone rather light for someone with a sword pressed to their larynx.
"The best." He looked around the wagon-bed at the other prisoners, looking up at him. "So, here's the deal, Red. You're pretty enough I can sell you as a toy instead of a labourer, and you don't need to be able to walk for that. The next word I hear out of you that sounds even a little like 'escape', I'm cutting your hamstrings. Deal?"
The woman glared at him, and if she were able to kill people with a look he and the last ten generations of his ancestors would have disappeared right there.
The man's grin widened, and the sword pressed against the redhead's throat. "Deal?"
"... deal." The word was dragged out of her throat, and she slumped as it was forced out of her.
The raider pulled back and out of the wagon with a smile that made Aindriu want to punch him even more.
The redhead brought her rope-bound hands up and rubbed her throat, checking to make sure he hadn't cut her, and sighed. "Guess I should have expected that." She didn't move away - it wasn't like there was a lot of space to go to - but she lowered her eyes and stopped talking.
Aindriu just slumped forward. ... Sunstrike it. Strike them. Strike herself.
It wasn't like she didn't want to carve a way into their living entrails, stick her hands in, and twist, but... she'd fuck it up again. She'd fucked up and lost Ealu.
The fight had been winnable. Outnumbered eight to one, but she could have won. That was the worst part.
If she'd been able to break free and get back inside her house, she'd have won. She had a spear and she'd have been able to hold the door and wound everyone trying to crouch down and get through the door. She probably couldn't hold against a concerted push, but she simply wasn't worth the injury, they had better things to do with their bodies than get them broken trying to take one captive.
If she just hadn't fucked up with her dagger she might have been able to save Ealu. Maybe slashing the throat? Or never going for it, instead attacking the arm grabbing onto her? So many options and she'd picked the one that didn't work.
Or she could have just given up sooner. It hadn't gotten her anything.
She felt a sudden weight against her back - she would have yelped if she had the energy, but as it was her only reaction was a slight 'Oh' and a slow turn of her head.
She caught a glimpse of an off-white mass on the wagon wall, hidden behind her, before there was a chill against her ear, and a sour-toned voice whispering. "Relax."
Aindriu sighed and slumped back into the weight, shivering slightly as the chill crept along her jawline and towards her mouth. She recognized it, of course - she'd never managed to finish druid training but perroneles weren't very obscure, as demons went. Children of the Guardian of Sleep, demon summoners usually called them to wear the oozes over their body as armour.
Ordinarily she might be a bit more concerned at having a demon sitting right behind her, but right now she just sighed and added it to the tally of things going wrong. At least it wasn't crawling all the way down her dress, and perroneles didn't tend to be particularly violent. A pity, she'd kind of like if it killed the bandits, even if it killed her first. Maybe it had an erymanthus friend around? She despised erymanthoi on principle but this was a situation for them.
'What do you want?' She didn't even whisper it, just moving her mouth as if she'd said the words and refraining from giving breath to them. It had a tendril across her lips, so it could read what she was not-saying anyway.
"Plenty of things," it whispered bitterly. "Not as many that matter though. But what I'm here for is you."
Dragging her off to Hell? 'Whatever, just get it over with.' Her life was not looking up enough for her to really care which horrible place she ended up in, she was going to one anyway. At least Hell meant the bandits who'd killed Ealu wouldn't benefit from it. She was still hoping for the erymanthus.
The ooze shifted restlessly against her. "... Okay, look. Technically that's enough, but seriously. This is actually important."
Aindriu sighed. She didn't actually care but it was easier to just go with the flow. 'Will you at least do something horrible to my captors?'
"I won't be able to," the voice growled. "But you will. The creators of all want me to deliver their power to you, in exchange for your assistance."
'You don't mean the gods, do you?' According to the myths, the gods had not created the world - they had found it, covered in darkness and demons, and the gods had waged war to liberate the small humans of Creation, banishing the Fomorians that had created it and their legions of demons, to a twisted realm forever-distant from Creation.
The perronele didn't waste its time responding to a rhetorical question.
Aindriu wasn't the most pious girl but swearing her service to the forces of Hell was still a bit much. She'd seen a lot in the War, and she didn't think demons were innately evil after watching the Tepet bound demons boozing up - just innately dangerous - but the thing to keep in mind was that the Fomorians they served were not friends of gods or man. 'Not interested.'
The soft body behind her roiled. "Ugggggh. Seriously? You're going to end up in chains here, and you'd prefer that to ultimate cosmic power?"
Aindriu shrugged. 'Trading slavery to humans for slavery to the Fomorians isn't really much of an improvement,' she mouthed.
There was a pinch on her cheek as the demon's body drew taut. "You melodramatic, Orabilis-tossed-! You'd be a peer. You'd have respect and genuine authority and plenty of time to use your powers for yourself, in exchange for a quart of help! You could question the Unquestionable! You want slavery, ask all the serfs that never get asked whether they actually want to have the power of the Yozis shoved into them to deliver to some stubborn mortal girl!"
"... Sorry," Aindriu whispered, looking down at the wagon floor. The redhead looked at her strangely when she heard that, but Aindriu ignored her. 'I just…'
The voice calmed slightly. "Look, what have the gods done for you anyway? You don't really seem to be benefiting much from the way the world is right now."
Aindriu gritted her teeth, remembering strains of music, and a city that wept itself to death. 'Not many people are.'
"Right! And you know, the world can change. That's what the Yozi seek. To make the world right again."
Aindriu didn't really believe that - the Bull and the Tepet had both claimed the same thing and mostly ended up slaughtering millions of innocents - but, 'You didn't choose this mission.' The perronele didn't sound like he believed what he was saying either.
The perronele's slight 'Tch' confirmed it.
'So why are you so determined for me to accept?' she asked wordlessly. 'It doesn't matter to you.'
"You severely overestimate how well-off a serf that fails the Unquestionable gets to be," the perronele sullenly pointed out. "Peers and citizens get plenty of leeway. Serfs don't get to refuse, and if I fail again I won't have time to find another, so the power I'm here to hand you will probably melt me from the inside out while I try. Since you were curious."
Aindriu brought her bound hands up and rubbed her eyes. 'Okay. All right.'
"... what?" The perronele seemed taken aback. He'd probably assumed a failure and just vented a bit before he died.
There wasn't really a good choice, the forces of Hell weren't exactly nice and trustworthy people, but at least this way she'd be able to do something useful. She didn't want to be responsible for this perronele's death on top of all her other failures. 'All right. I accept.' That was about all the good she could ever do.
"Seriously?!" The perronele didn't pause for an answer upon receiving consent, though - the off-white ooze swelled, prompting screams from the other prisoners (and Aindriu herself) as they caught sight of the demon as it grew and then crashed down over Aindriu like a breaking wave, smashing the wagon wall and floor into splinters, before solidifying, submerging her in darkness, within a clay-like off-white sphere of blinking eyes, lit from within by a flickering green light.
The wagon came to a sudden halt as the slavers started to realize that a demon had just appeared in their midst and turned into an unbreakable chrysalis around one of their products.
Aindriu herself was a little too busy to explain the details, though.
X X X X X X X X X X
Aindriu wasn't unaware of the details, as she was tied up, dragged to the merchants' canvas-roofed wagon, and stuffed in the back with another dozen Aldertref locals and visitors. Some of the more valuable things in her house were tossed into a storage compartment below the main one, and the wagon set out again.
She wasn't unaware. She just didn't care.
Ealu was gone. Her only real friend, a warm, soft, slightly cowardly little girl who'd been so happy just to be near her, was gone. Gone because Aindriu had been too pathetic to fight for her.
So why should she care that they were being taken south, over the border of the Talinin lands at the Scathceil river? Her life hadn't been going anywhere meaningful or desirable in the first place, and the friend that had made it bearable was gone.
Most of the other prisoners didn't look like they felt particularly conversational either. Probably more worried about their future - bandits took people on occasion, usually to sell to slave traders from Nexus. Or other places, but Nexus was the one everyone remembered.
There was a young woman - not as young as Aindriu but young, early-twenties, with red hair hacked short to about jaw-length, far shorter than was normal for Pretannians - who talked to her and tried to make sure she was okay, and Aindriu responded as necessary so the woman would accept it and leave her alone.
She could have just tried. It... wouldn't have saved her, but at least she'd have tried. Ealu had always been there for her with a soothing purr and Aindriu hadn't even tried.
Their captors did actually give them food in the morning, Aindriu just didn't have any appetite or energy, so she didn't touch it.
The redhead didn't either, glaring down at the hard bread they'd been offered. It wasn't hard to tell why she hadn't partaken, but there weren't any drugs in it, not if the bandits had half a wit between them. None of the 'merchants' knew how to read - they'd packed her unbound writing papers right alongside her and her father's books, unable to tell the difference in content between the actual proper books and her useless scrawl. Which meant none of them were educated professionals - in other words, no physicians or alchemists. No one with the skills to regulate a dose of opiates to get any desired sedation effect without risking the health of the people they'd gone to so much effort to capture.
But it was long and complicated to explain, so Aindriu didn't bother.
She wasn't being particularly active, but it wasn't all that restful. Nose was all stuffy from crying. Hard to breathe through it. Breathing was a little bit of labour on its own, even aside from the inherent discomfort in trying to rest on hard wood and surrounded by strangers.
She wanted Ealu back.
All she got was the redhead, though, sitting down next to her - there wasn't a lot of slack in the ropes binding them to the wagon floor but there was enough to pick places on the bench - and speaking in low tones.
"We're probably going to be sold to slavers," she began with the obvious.
Aindriu nodded. "... probably." Why wouldn't people just leave her be?
"The Rokan-jin have been restocking after the Bull tore through, and not too particular about where the stock comes from. But they're mostly looking for workers, so the less hardy ones probably aren't going to be sold that close to home."
Aindriu was a small girl, but a lot stronger than she looked, thanks to how she'd learned to move alongside the Realm legions, to use every bit of strength and every gram in her body as one unified force. But whoever had decided to capture her, specifically, had probably not known the details of her military service. So she nodded, knowing exactly what was implied - her fate was unlikely to be remaining in Pretannia.
"... Don't know how far you've travelled, but slavery's different down south. It's-"
"Not just local kings who can hold them. Not just for criminals and public service. No longer human beings, no rights, just property. No manumission, children won't be freed. If not just dream-eaten by the fae," Aindriu cut her off so she wouldn't have to sit through an explanation of things she already knew. There were some very lurid tales she might find herself subjected to if she didn't. Some of them were probably true, too.
She wasn't really fond of the Pretannic practice, even, let alone how the Tepet had gone about it - she just didn't really like people being unhappy, there wasn't a great principle beyond that, and it was hard to argue criminals shouldn't have to do something to make up for their crimes - but it wasn't like her opinion mattered or would ever change anything, so she tried not to think about it.
The redhead nodded. "Guess you know. Don't know about you but I'm not looking forward to it."
Aindriu shrugged. She wasn't, really, but she hadn't really been looking forward to anything so it wasn't all that terrifying. Her future had only really been more marking time - earning money doing things she didn't really care about to sustain a living while the world fell apart around her. She'd liked writing but she hadn't been writing anything important, meaningful, or particularly good, and now she got to occupy that long stretch of time doing nothing of relevance with her best friend dead, instead of cradled in her arms.
Slavery didn't really bother her much, because it wasn't taking her away from a particularly meaningful life, or taking anything more away from her. It was kind of annoying that the people who'd hurt Ealu would benefit from it but she couldn't do anything about that, either.
She'd accomplished basically nothing in her entire life, so it was honestly a little moot who she was useless for.
The red-haired woman frowned at that reaction, leaning in closer with her voice low. "Look. I'll cut to it - I want to escape. Are you with me?"
Aindriu was spared the need to answer when a sword lightly touched the woman's throat, forcing her to back away, eyes wide.
The man at the front of the wagon - the 'merchant' - was leaning in under the canvas flap, sword extended, with a smug grin that made Aindriu's arm twitch with the reflex to punch it. "You know I can hear you, right?"
"Good ears," the redhead commented, tone rather light for someone with a sword pressed to their larynx.
"The best." He looked around the wagon-bed at the other prisoners, looking up at him. "So, here's the deal, Red. You're pretty enough I can sell you as a toy instead of a labourer, and you don't need to be able to walk for that. The next word I hear out of you that sounds even a little like 'escape', I'm cutting your hamstrings. Deal?"
The woman glared at him, and if she were able to kill people with a look he and the last ten generations of his ancestors would have disappeared right there.
The man's grin widened, and the sword pressed against the redhead's throat. "Deal?"
"... deal." The word was dragged out of her throat, and she slumped as it was forced out of her.
The raider pulled back and out of the wagon with a smile that made Aindriu want to punch him even more.
The redhead brought her rope-bound hands up and rubbed her throat, checking to make sure he hadn't cut her, and sighed. "Guess I should have expected that." She didn't move away - it wasn't like there was a lot of space to go to - but she lowered her eyes and stopped talking.
Aindriu just slumped forward. ... Sunstrike it. Strike them. Strike herself.
It wasn't like she didn't want to carve a way into their living entrails, stick her hands in, and twist, but... she'd fuck it up again. She'd fucked up and lost Ealu.
The fight had been winnable. Outnumbered eight to one, but she could have won. That was the worst part.
If she'd been able to break free and get back inside her house, she'd have won. She had a spear and she'd have been able to hold the door and wound everyone trying to crouch down and get through the door. She probably couldn't hold against a concerted push, but she simply wasn't worth the injury, they had better things to do with their bodies than get them broken trying to take one captive.
If she just hadn't fucked up with her dagger she might have been able to save Ealu. Maybe slashing the throat? Or never going for it, instead attacking the arm grabbing onto her? So many options and she'd picked the one that didn't work.
Or she could have just given up sooner. It hadn't gotten her anything.
She felt a sudden weight against her back - she would have yelped if she had the energy, but as it was her only reaction was a slight 'Oh' and a slow turn of her head.
She caught a glimpse of an off-white mass on the wagon wall, hidden behind her, before there was a chill against her ear, and a sour-toned voice whispering. "Relax."
Aindriu sighed and slumped back into the weight, shivering slightly as the chill crept along her jawline and towards her mouth. She recognized it, of course - she'd never managed to finish druid training but perroneles weren't very obscure, as demons went. Children of the Guardian of Sleep, demon summoners usually called them to wear the oozes over their body as armour.
Ordinarily she might be a bit more concerned at having a demon sitting right behind her, but right now she just sighed and added it to the tally of things going wrong. At least it wasn't crawling all the way down her dress, and perroneles didn't tend to be particularly violent. A pity, she'd kind of like if it killed the bandits, even if it killed her first. Maybe it had an erymanthus friend around? She despised erymanthoi on principle but this was a situation for them.
'What do you want?' She didn't even whisper it, just moving her mouth as if she'd said the words and refraining from giving breath to them. It had a tendril across her lips, so it could read what she was not-saying anyway.
"Plenty of things," it whispered bitterly. "Not as many that matter though. But what I'm here for is you."
Dragging her off to Hell? 'Whatever, just get it over with.' Her life was not looking up enough for her to really care which horrible place she ended up in, she was going to one anyway. At least Hell meant the bandits who'd killed Ealu wouldn't benefit from it. She was still hoping for the erymanthus.
The ooze shifted restlessly against her. "... Okay, look. Technically that's enough, but seriously. This is actually important."
Aindriu sighed. She didn't actually care but it was easier to just go with the flow. 'Will you at least do something horrible to my captors?'
"I won't be able to," the voice growled. "But you will. The creators of all want me to deliver their power to you, in exchange for your assistance."
'You don't mean the gods, do you?' According to the myths, the gods had not created the world - they had found it, covered in darkness and demons, and the gods had waged war to liberate the small humans of Creation, banishing the Fomorians that had created it and their legions of demons, to a twisted realm forever-distant from Creation.
The perronele didn't waste its time responding to a rhetorical question.
Aindriu wasn't the most pious girl but swearing her service to the forces of Hell was still a bit much. She'd seen a lot in the War, and she didn't think demons were innately evil after watching the Tepet bound demons boozing up - just innately dangerous - but the thing to keep in mind was that the Fomorians they served were not friends of gods or man. 'Not interested.'
The soft body behind her roiled. "Ugggggh. Seriously? You're going to end up in chains here, and you'd prefer that to ultimate cosmic power?"
Aindriu shrugged. 'Trading slavery to humans for slavery to the Fomorians isn't really much of an improvement,' she mouthed.
There was a pinch on her cheek as the demon's body drew taut. "You melodramatic, Orabilis-tossed-! You'd be a peer. You'd have respect and genuine authority and plenty of time to use your powers for yourself, in exchange for a quart of help! You could question the Unquestionable! You want slavery, ask all the serfs that never get asked whether they actually want to have the power of the Yozis shoved into them to deliver to some stubborn mortal girl!"
"... Sorry," Aindriu whispered, looking down at the wagon floor. The redhead looked at her strangely when she heard that, but Aindriu ignored her. 'I just…'
The voice calmed slightly. "Look, what have the gods done for you anyway? You don't really seem to be benefiting much from the way the world is right now."
Aindriu gritted her teeth, remembering strains of music, and a city that wept itself to death. 'Not many people are.'
"Right! And you know, the world can change. That's what the Yozi seek. To make the world right again."
Aindriu didn't really believe that - the Bull and the Tepet had both claimed the same thing and mostly ended up slaughtering millions of innocents - but, 'You didn't choose this mission.' The perronele didn't sound like he believed what he was saying either.
The perronele's slight 'Tch' confirmed it.
'So why are you so determined for me to accept?' she asked wordlessly. 'It doesn't matter to you.'
"You severely overestimate how well-off a serf that fails the Unquestionable gets to be," the perronele sullenly pointed out. "Peers and citizens get plenty of leeway. Serfs don't get to refuse, and if I fail again I won't have time to find another, so the power I'm here to hand you will probably melt me from the inside out while I try. Since you were curious."
Aindriu brought her bound hands up and rubbed her eyes. 'Okay. All right.'
"... what?" The perronele seemed taken aback. He'd probably assumed a failure and just vented a bit before he died.
There wasn't really a good choice, the forces of Hell weren't exactly nice and trustworthy people, but at least this way she'd be able to do something useful. She didn't want to be responsible for this perronele's death on top of all her other failures. 'All right. I accept.' That was about all the good she could ever do.
"Seriously?!" The perronele didn't pause for an answer upon receiving consent, though - the off-white ooze swelled, prompting screams from the other prisoners (and Aindriu herself) as they caught sight of the demon as it grew and then crashed down over Aindriu like a breaking wave, smashing the wagon wall and floor into splinters, before solidifying, submerging her in darkness, within a clay-like off-white sphere of blinking eyes, lit from within by a flickering green light.
The wagon came to a sudden halt as the slavers started to realize that a demon had just appeared in their midst and turned into an unbreakable chrysalis around one of their products.
Aindriu herself was a little too busy to explain the details, though.
X X X X X X X X X X
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- Location
- Illinois
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Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
FTFY
Someone get this girl a therapist, she's clearly suffering from Major Depression.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Hm... I remember the transformation to Infernal Exalted taking a few days. I wonder what the hell the Slavers are going to be doing with this large, nearly indestructible Chrysalis in the mean-time?
If they're smart, they'll just dump it and run, though that wouldn't save them from a proactive Infernal it might save them from this horribly depressed one (though I'm hoping she saves the slaves and gets revenge for her cat).
If they're smart, they'll just dump it and run, though that wouldn't save them from a proactive Infernal it might save them from this horribly depressed one (though I'm hoping she saves the slaves and gets revenge for her cat).
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Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It actually would have been enough. She'd have Exalted as a Solar, and that'd be more than enough. Oh well.
Five days, to be exact. And it won't really matter what the slavers do; the Yozis are bound to have some agents of theirs stop by to pick up the Chrysalis.
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
Funnily enough, that's Pale's AU of this fic where Aindriu ends up the Dawn.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
It rather does. It makes a difference as to whether or not she would need to track them down.
If they run fast enough, it might buy them time or even their lives if she's too busy with Infernal stuff (and too depressed) to follow. I doubt any agents sent to retrieve her are going to prioritize slaughtering them, though you never know.
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Bingo. She was already suffering from depression after the War, and Ealu's death basically pulled the rug out from under her.
Panicking is definitely on the list.
It probably wouldn't have been. There are many, many more acts of heroism per hour in Creation than there are free Exaltations to get for them. She certainly could have, but the most likely outcome is gg no re.
The Reclamation'll dispatch agents if Aindriu takes substantially too long to turn up, but they're pretty comfortable leaving newborn Infernals to their own devices for a while, to get a sense of their powers, wrap up personal business, and such, and just generally get ready to do their job with a clear head. They do have worshippers around, but Creation is big and land travel is slow, and communication between Hell and Creation is also slow.
The Reclamation knows where she Exalted, but it'll be five days before any kind of message to any cult arrives, and upon receiving the message, they would still have to organize to travel - they were not on a hair trigger to gogogogogo, the Reclamation has minimal idea exactly where the Exaltations are going to go and can vector it to broad geographical regions at best - and get to her. There are a fair amount of demons scattered through the Pretannic region (mostly leftovers from the War), but it still takes time for them to get places - the largest nearby concentration of demons is about thirty kilometers north.
And if she moves at all from this point, then they're going to have to find her.
Part 6: Five Days
X X X X X X X X X X
Fionola had no real warning when the great white mass swelled up around the girl next to her and came crashing down into the wagon floor.
So for at least a few seconds as the wagon shattered and she and her fellow prisoners came rolling to the ground, she was understandably just staring and screaming as the girl vanished into a soft white sphere covered in sightless blue eyes.
It wasn't a surprise the blonde didn't recognize her and she certainly hadn't been in the mood for reminders after being suddenly enslaved, but Fionola had almost died at the second half of the battle of Krellen Ford, when the wolf-headed demon lord had torn through the lines. She certainly remembered the medic that had patched up her seeping wounds and dragged her back from death, even if she'd apparently been covered in too much blood for her own face to be that memorable.
So Fionola actually did regret it when she overcame her screaming and staring and immediately abandoned the younger girl to seize this one desperate chance for escape, now that the pole in the wagon floor they'd been tied to had shattered. Hopefully she'd still be there and it was vaguely possible to rescue her from the blinking mass of demon flesh, but despite the debt she owed, that was nowhere near the forefront of her mind.
There was one chance, and she took it, leaping toward the front of the splintered mass of wood, where the leader of these raiders slowly shook his head, and looped her bound arms over his head and around his throat, flopping to the ground since it was hard to make a landing with her feet tied together and dragging him down with her. "Get the sword!" she barked at the nearest prisoner, an older man with a long shock of white hair. One of the Aldertref villagers, she didn't know them well, she'd just been passing through.
His response wasn't immediate, since he was still screaming at the demon-thing in the middle of the wagon like the more reasonable people, but the stout woman sitting at the front with the leader was a little more aware of the fact that Fionola had just dragged him to the ground with her arms around his throat.
The leader was scrabbling at her hands, but Fionola was well set in and not very easy to remove, despite the man's size and strength. Given time she might be able to strangle him to death, but there wasn't a whole lot of time to spare with seven more raiders around and armed.
The woman next to him was already rounding on Fionola and drawing a long knife from her waist, moonlight shining off the bronze edge.
"Get the sword!" she shrieked at the older man, desperate to draw his attention. She couldn't do this alone, someone needed to hold the raider down for the other to get the sword, but the prisoners were just as distracted as the raiders were...
In a moment of inspiration, Fionola jackknifed her legs, swinging the rope that tied them, and the spar of broken wood tied to that, around towards the approaching woman.
Seeing it bounce off her head, blood spraying from the woman's nose, was the second most beautiful thing Fionola had ever seen.
Even that only bought her seconds, though - it was a burst of pain and surprise, the woman wasn't actually down, and she was already shaking her head clear.
"The sword! Please!" Fionola screamed. Someone had to hear her. She wasn't the only one who wanted out of this.
At least most of the bandits were as distracted by the demon-blob in the middle of the wreckage as the other prisoners.
The woman was already stomping towards her again, blood trickling down across her mouth and fury in her eyes. "You moonish little-"
She didn't get to finish, because a heavyset man, hair long and dark and hands calloused with years of labour, slammed into her shoulder-first, shoving her away as best he could with his hands bound.
And finally, Fionola felt hands reaching past her, grabbing at the sword sheathed at the leader's waist. He tried to grab the sword before anyone else could, but Fionola yanked on his throat to dissuade him from doing anything other than reducing how much she could strangle him.
And the sword was up and free, the old man fumbling with his bound hands to bring it to the rope holding hers together - that also brought it very, very close to the bandit leader, so his struggles calmed down significantly at that threat.
The stout bandit woman was back on her feet, wobbling a little, with a bruise forming on her cheek and more blood splattered on her chest. The man who'd tackled her was flat on the ground and wasn't moving.
Fionola's hands came free under the old man's efforts, and with a growl she grabbed the sword, cut the rope binding her feet, shot to a standing position, and charged the woman, leaving the old man to handle the prone leader.
She was almost there when the woman threw her dagger at her, forcing Fionola to leap aside and buying herself enough time to pull an axe from her waist. The axe was in the beginnings of a guard once Fionola arrived, sword biting into the weapon's shaft.
Too long. This would take too long, there were still six more bandits, and possibly more demons coming.
Fionola backpedalled out of the fight with a few quick cuts to dissuade anyone from following, stomping on the leader's chest to keep him on the ground and carefully lowering the blade to the older man's wrists.
The woman didn't pursue Fionola - instead she was backing out in a circle, towards one of the quarterstaff-armed guards who'd been walking alongside the wagon, and was now shaken out of his screaming at the demon attack. That was bad.
In an instant the blade caught and the rope was sawed through, freeing the man's hands. He immediately reached for the bandit leader's knife while she cut the loops of rope binding his feet together.
Fionola and he could get away right now. There was a chance for that - no one was close enough to stop them and if they ran off into the woods, they stood decent chances of not being pursued in this havoc, not being caught up with, and not running into wherever exactly the demon or demons were coming from.
She did consider it, but instead she turned back to the other prisoners, dreading what she might see - more demons?
If there were any active demons around gnawing on anyone she was going to have to run, she didn't stand a chance unless there was only one and its attention was fully on the blonde girl.
Thank Luna, there was still only the one, swollen white mass lying on the ground amid the shattered wood of the wagon. Bandits were starting to get their act together - two looking out into the forest, two more advancing on the prisoners as some struggled with their bonds, some did their best to crawl or hop away from the blinking white flesh in the center, and some just wailed. The mules that had been carrying the wagon were edging away towards some of the bandits, clearly uncertain and nervous at all the violence going on.
"Free the others!" Fionola barked to the old man as she charged in to do the same herself, hoping he'd listen. This was possible, it was still possible.
She reached the nearest struggling prisoner and crouched down, one hand pressing down against the tall woman's arms to make her stop moving while she cut the ropes holding her wrists, then moving down to cut the ankle ropes.
The advancing bandits caught sight of the sword in her hand and ceased advancing - the brown-haired woman in front already had a quarterstaff and brought it up and ready, covering for the other one as he rooted in the broken wagon's storage compartment for a staff of his own.
Fionola had one more pair of arms, now she needed weapons - that was the best bet right there, and she absolutely did not want them any more ready than they already were. So she closed in.
That quarterstaff could beat her black and blue if she danced around at its range, so she gritted her teeth and plowed in as fast as she could, trying to get into her own range before she took too many hits.
A sharp, whippy blow cracked a rib, drawing a gasp from her and almost knocking her to her feet.
Honestly she did stumble, but she clamped her left arm down over the staff as she slumped, binding it up and buying herself some time to continue closing in.
Then her right side cracked, and she staggered up into the white mass of demonflesh. A bubble of white flesh popped open, revealing a blinking eye as steel-blue as the girl's, staring sightlessly into her own.
Fionola turned away, both to not look at that anymore and to see the bandits - the second one had obtained the staff he'd been looking for, and had presumably just hit her with it. He was closing in on her, while the brown-haired woman rounded on the old man and the woman Fionola had just freed, sweeping his legs out from under him with the staff.
Fionola tightened her quivering hand on the sword, and prepared to dash in again. If she could just-
The woman turned back towards her for a moment, heaving the quarterstaff over her shoulders, before flinging it straight at Fionola's chest like an unsharpened javelin.
Fionola doubled over in pain as it hit her in the gut, and that was all the opportunity the man needed to close in and smash the sword from her hand.
That was it.
Fionola was unable to straighten up to resist as the man came in to grab her.
The woman who'd thrown her staff had drawn an axe and had no trouble in enticing the unarmed and lightly armed prisoners Fionola had freed to sit down and be very calm.
The bandit leader was assisted in rising to his feet by one of the other bandits, rubbing his throat, Fionola's footprint on his tunic.
Seconds passed, and then minutes. No more demons came, and the one that had eaten the blonde girl simply... remained there, a perfect white sphere looking out over everything, and seeing nothing.
Slowly, calm prevailed, and order was restored - armed bandits focused on the prisoners, quelling any further opportunities for resistance, leaving only sniffles, tears, and hateful glares.
Fionola was in the latter camp, tied up again and forced to her knees next to the old man, a bandit standing behind them and occasionally tapping them with his quarterstaff to remind them that they were under direct guard.
The leader looked around the wreckage of his wagon, shaking his head. "We're moving, double-time. The demon wants her, it can have her - secure the merchandise, grab as many goods as you can make them carry, and we're getting out of here. I don't want to be anywhere near here when this thing wakes up again."
A man nodded. "Got it."
The leader turned on the prisoners. "And all of you, pay attention! I am out of patience and if you give me any more trouble, this is what's happening to you!"
Fionola swallowed, keeping her glare focused on the man as he stepped towards her, drawing his reclaimed sword.
"The rest of you will be carrying these two." The leader sighed. "I'm a man of my word. A bard and a plaything. Neither of those needs to walk."
He crouched down, looking directly into Fionola's horror-filled eyes as he pressed his sword up against the back of her thighs.
She struggled. She tried to headbutt him away, not even thinking about what he'd do in response to that. She tried to bite him, to spit in his face, anything to stop him for even a second.
None of it worked.
She tried not to scream, either. It still echoed out across the forest.
X X X X X X X X X X
Fionola had no real warning when the great white mass swelled up around the girl next to her and came crashing down into the wagon floor.
So for at least a few seconds as the wagon shattered and she and her fellow prisoners came rolling to the ground, she was understandably just staring and screaming as the girl vanished into a soft white sphere covered in sightless blue eyes.
It wasn't a surprise the blonde didn't recognize her and she certainly hadn't been in the mood for reminders after being suddenly enslaved, but Fionola had almost died at the second half of the battle of Krellen Ford, when the wolf-headed demon lord had torn through the lines. She certainly remembered the medic that had patched up her seeping wounds and dragged her back from death, even if she'd apparently been covered in too much blood for her own face to be that memorable.
So Fionola actually did regret it when she overcame her screaming and staring and immediately abandoned the younger girl to seize this one desperate chance for escape, now that the pole in the wagon floor they'd been tied to had shattered. Hopefully she'd still be there and it was vaguely possible to rescue her from the blinking mass of demon flesh, but despite the debt she owed, that was nowhere near the forefront of her mind.
There was one chance, and she took it, leaping toward the front of the splintered mass of wood, where the leader of these raiders slowly shook his head, and looped her bound arms over his head and around his throat, flopping to the ground since it was hard to make a landing with her feet tied together and dragging him down with her. "Get the sword!" she barked at the nearest prisoner, an older man with a long shock of white hair. One of the Aldertref villagers, she didn't know them well, she'd just been passing through.
His response wasn't immediate, since he was still screaming at the demon-thing in the middle of the wagon like the more reasonable people, but the stout woman sitting at the front with the leader was a little more aware of the fact that Fionola had just dragged him to the ground with her arms around his throat.
The leader was scrabbling at her hands, but Fionola was well set in and not very easy to remove, despite the man's size and strength. Given time she might be able to strangle him to death, but there wasn't a whole lot of time to spare with seven more raiders around and armed.
The woman next to him was already rounding on Fionola and drawing a long knife from her waist, moonlight shining off the bronze edge.
"Get the sword!" she shrieked at the older man, desperate to draw his attention. She couldn't do this alone, someone needed to hold the raider down for the other to get the sword, but the prisoners were just as distracted as the raiders were...
In a moment of inspiration, Fionola jackknifed her legs, swinging the rope that tied them, and the spar of broken wood tied to that, around towards the approaching woman.
Seeing it bounce off her head, blood spraying from the woman's nose, was the second most beautiful thing Fionola had ever seen.
Even that only bought her seconds, though - it was a burst of pain and surprise, the woman wasn't actually down, and she was already shaking her head clear.
"The sword! Please!" Fionola screamed. Someone had to hear her. She wasn't the only one who wanted out of this.
At least most of the bandits were as distracted by the demon-blob in the middle of the wreckage as the other prisoners.
The woman was already stomping towards her again, blood trickling down across her mouth and fury in her eyes. "You moonish little-"
She didn't get to finish, because a heavyset man, hair long and dark and hands calloused with years of labour, slammed into her shoulder-first, shoving her away as best he could with his hands bound.
And finally, Fionola felt hands reaching past her, grabbing at the sword sheathed at the leader's waist. He tried to grab the sword before anyone else could, but Fionola yanked on his throat to dissuade him from doing anything other than reducing how much she could strangle him.
And the sword was up and free, the old man fumbling with his bound hands to bring it to the rope holding hers together - that also brought it very, very close to the bandit leader, so his struggles calmed down significantly at that threat.
The stout bandit woman was back on her feet, wobbling a little, with a bruise forming on her cheek and more blood splattered on her chest. The man who'd tackled her was flat on the ground and wasn't moving.
Fionola's hands came free under the old man's efforts, and with a growl she grabbed the sword, cut the rope binding her feet, shot to a standing position, and charged the woman, leaving the old man to handle the prone leader.
She was almost there when the woman threw her dagger at her, forcing Fionola to leap aside and buying herself enough time to pull an axe from her waist. The axe was in the beginnings of a guard once Fionola arrived, sword biting into the weapon's shaft.
Too long. This would take too long, there were still six more bandits, and possibly more demons coming.
Fionola backpedalled out of the fight with a few quick cuts to dissuade anyone from following, stomping on the leader's chest to keep him on the ground and carefully lowering the blade to the older man's wrists.
The woman didn't pursue Fionola - instead she was backing out in a circle, towards one of the quarterstaff-armed guards who'd been walking alongside the wagon, and was now shaken out of his screaming at the demon attack. That was bad.
In an instant the blade caught and the rope was sawed through, freeing the man's hands. He immediately reached for the bandit leader's knife while she cut the loops of rope binding his feet together.
Fionola and he could get away right now. There was a chance for that - no one was close enough to stop them and if they ran off into the woods, they stood decent chances of not being pursued in this havoc, not being caught up with, and not running into wherever exactly the demon or demons were coming from.
She did consider it, but instead she turned back to the other prisoners, dreading what she might see - more demons?
If there were any active demons around gnawing on anyone she was going to have to run, she didn't stand a chance unless there was only one and its attention was fully on the blonde girl.
Thank Luna, there was still only the one, swollen white mass lying on the ground amid the shattered wood of the wagon. Bandits were starting to get their act together - two looking out into the forest, two more advancing on the prisoners as some struggled with their bonds, some did their best to crawl or hop away from the blinking white flesh in the center, and some just wailed. The mules that had been carrying the wagon were edging away towards some of the bandits, clearly uncertain and nervous at all the violence going on.
"Free the others!" Fionola barked to the old man as she charged in to do the same herself, hoping he'd listen. This was possible, it was still possible.
She reached the nearest struggling prisoner and crouched down, one hand pressing down against the tall woman's arms to make her stop moving while she cut the ropes holding her wrists, then moving down to cut the ankle ropes.
The advancing bandits caught sight of the sword in her hand and ceased advancing - the brown-haired woman in front already had a quarterstaff and brought it up and ready, covering for the other one as he rooted in the broken wagon's storage compartment for a staff of his own.
Fionola had one more pair of arms, now she needed weapons - that was the best bet right there, and she absolutely did not want them any more ready than they already were. So she closed in.
That quarterstaff could beat her black and blue if she danced around at its range, so she gritted her teeth and plowed in as fast as she could, trying to get into her own range before she took too many hits.
A sharp, whippy blow cracked a rib, drawing a gasp from her and almost knocking her to her feet.
Honestly she did stumble, but she clamped her left arm down over the staff as she slumped, binding it up and buying herself some time to continue closing in.
Then her right side cracked, and she staggered up into the white mass of demonflesh. A bubble of white flesh popped open, revealing a blinking eye as steel-blue as the girl's, staring sightlessly into her own.
Fionola turned away, both to not look at that anymore and to see the bandits - the second one had obtained the staff he'd been looking for, and had presumably just hit her with it. He was closing in on her, while the brown-haired woman rounded on the old man and the woman Fionola had just freed, sweeping his legs out from under him with the staff.
Fionola tightened her quivering hand on the sword, and prepared to dash in again. If she could just-
The woman turned back towards her for a moment, heaving the quarterstaff over her shoulders, before flinging it straight at Fionola's chest like an unsharpened javelin.
Fionola doubled over in pain as it hit her in the gut, and that was all the opportunity the man needed to close in and smash the sword from her hand.
That was it.
Fionola was unable to straighten up to resist as the man came in to grab her.
The woman who'd thrown her staff had drawn an axe and had no trouble in enticing the unarmed and lightly armed prisoners Fionola had freed to sit down and be very calm.
The bandit leader was assisted in rising to his feet by one of the other bandits, rubbing his throat, Fionola's footprint on his tunic.
Seconds passed, and then minutes. No more demons came, and the one that had eaten the blonde girl simply... remained there, a perfect white sphere looking out over everything, and seeing nothing.
Slowly, calm prevailed, and order was restored - armed bandits focused on the prisoners, quelling any further opportunities for resistance, leaving only sniffles, tears, and hateful glares.
Fionola was in the latter camp, tied up again and forced to her knees next to the old man, a bandit standing behind them and occasionally tapping them with his quarterstaff to remind them that they were under direct guard.
The leader looked around the wreckage of his wagon, shaking his head. "We're moving, double-time. The demon wants her, it can have her - secure the merchandise, grab as many goods as you can make them carry, and we're getting out of here. I don't want to be anywhere near here when this thing wakes up again."
A man nodded. "Got it."
The leader turned on the prisoners. "And all of you, pay attention! I am out of patience and if you give me any more trouble, this is what's happening to you!"
Fionola swallowed, keeping her glare focused on the man as he stepped towards her, drawing his reclaimed sword.
"The rest of you will be carrying these two." The leader sighed. "I'm a man of my word. A bard and a plaything. Neither of those needs to walk."
He crouched down, looking directly into Fionola's horror-filled eyes as he pressed his sword up against the back of her thighs.
She struggled. She tried to headbutt him away, not even thinking about what he'd do in response to that. She tried to bite him, to spit in his face, anything to stop him for even a second.
None of it worked.
She tried not to scream, either. It still echoed out across the forest.
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Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
No, you really don't. The official rulebook states "Enemy seems invincible, fighting is suicide" for mortals vs. Celestial Exalted. Esp. when the Exalt is riding the temporary power boost from drawing the Second Breath.
Honestly they don't even know how bad it'd be. This is RY766, no one knows what Infernals are and they don't even know enough occult to know whether this is actually unusual behaviour for a demon.
Though it's a good thing for them they don't know, because if they did know it was a perronele, they probably wouldn't be all that concerned, perroneles are not particularly fighty demons.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Well... I was afraid of that.
Now I really she won't be too hideously depressed to track them down. And that her coadjutor knows the route to healing charms.
Now I really she won't be too hideously depressed to track them down. And that her coadjutor knows the route to healing charms.
Finagle007
[Verified Great Old One]
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Cecelyne and SWLIHN both have powerful healing Charms. Malfeas himself has some capacity to heal, as do some of the others, but those two are the main ones.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
The real answer, as always, lies in Adorjan. FLG EVERYTHING.