Martial Tourism Pt.14

She looked over at me briefly before collapsing back into a seated position. She took an extra second to kick Calum’s leg then sighed and rested her arm on her knee. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes and the lines etched into her face had stopped glowing, as if she had gone dormant.

~~Previously~~

I hadn’t moved; my arm still shaking as I held it up, pointed at where my target’s face had once been. My eyes shifted from my would-be partner to the man she had just knocked out. Or perhaps he was dead. I finally allowed my arm to drop with the release of a heavy breath, and I slumped back on my elbow, awkwardly lying on my side with my wounded leg splayed in front of me. My mind barely had time to drift toward curiosity before the shooting pain from my thigh reminded me of my own wounds. Still, I needed to help her. I needed her…

“Hey,” I turned my head towards my would-be-companion. What was her name? Had I gotten one?

My eyes flew to her bleeding arm, her wrist flopped onto the dirt and her hand splayed out. Blood trickled down from several deep gashes down her shoulder, bicep, and forearm, and a small pool of red was expanding beneath where her hand rested on the rough mountain soil.

Fuckin’ great. I gritted my teeth, twisting myself enough to be able to shimmy myself along the ground toward her. From the looks of it, she had already passed out from blood loss; hell, it was a wonder she had managed to stumble her way through the forest to get back to me while she was losing that much blood. I positioned myself next to her so that I could get a better look at her wounds.

No surprise; deep lacerations. Like massive claws. Wrap it. Pressure. My sleeves would do. Moving around the way I wanted with my leg lagging behind me was the problem. And I didn’t have my damned kit on me either!

Her bloody arm lay in my lap while I attempted my best at pulling the makeshift tourniquets as taut as I could.

“Hey!”

Nothing. Probably dead…or slowly dying. I took in a deep breath and sighed only to remind me of my own wound that needed treating. I turned my head down and tenderly reached for the knife lodged in my thigh. My entire leg screamed as soon as my fingers nudged it.

“Fuck!” I grumbled between clinched teeth, followed by a heavy sigh.

As if on cue, my would-be-companion opened her eyes, grumbling similarly. She lurched immediately, reasonably, but flinched as she tried to move her arm away from my grip.

I let her go, but she could barely move her arm. I frowned; I’d seen enough wounds like it, “we’ve a long way to go. That–“

She held up her unwounded arm, “yeah. I need stitches. There’s wire in my staff. Barrel end up, compartment on the left, a third of the way down.” She paused and sighed, “I’ll get it, though. Your leg’s fucked.

It’s not like I could do much to stop her; I could only watch her. She was moving fine, but her arm hung limp; at least it wasn’t dripping blood everywhere like before, but I could tell it pained her to even move it. She went to grab her staff and then further still to pick up the rest of what she had dropped before ascending the cliff-side, barely able to get it all back on with one functioning arm. As she came back, I looked up at her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be killing me?”

“Pfft,” she made her way back over and tucked her legs under my own wounded one. I groaned as it moved, “not until you stop being useful.” Even without her mask, it was hard to tell if she was joking. She managed some sort of vial from her pouches, “you’re gonna want this.”

I tilted my head, but took it. “Do I..drink it?”

“Oh, no. You’re gonna pour it on your leg in a bit.” She said casually as she eyeballed my wound. “Might as well and go ahead and pop that open.”

I started working the cork out, “fine, but what the hell are you–“

Unceremoniously, she grabbed and pulled the knife out of my thigh in one swift motion. The searing pain was enough for me to half-assed unconsciously pour whatever the voids was in the vial on the wound. There was a moment of agonizing pain before it soothed over, and I glared at her, “somebody needs to work on your bedside manner!”

“Yuuup.” She stated. Sometime when I was delirious from pain she had worked a needle and wire together and was now holding it in her teeth. She held the end of the wire out to me. “Gonna have to hold this. I’ll start. I know it’s a lot easier when you don’t have to do it yourself.”

I flinched inherently but took the end of the wire. It took three of our hands and her teeth to seal the wound. The muscle damage was just going to take time to get over. From there, we moved onto her arm, which she had an extra vial on her to pour over. The damage to her arm took a lot longer to stitch up, and I had to re-bandage it. By the time we were finished, it was nightfall. By my calculations, it was going to be morning by the time we got back.

She stood, taking her staff and handed it to me.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Martial Tourism Pt.13

I reached around to my back where my pistol was holstered only to swipe at air.

~~Previously~~

I turned my eyes on my assailant and then scoured the ground for my weapon. My pistol lie between us in the dirt, not but three meters and some from where the staff lie, but our struggles had put me in closer proximity to the staff.

I looked up again and we locked eyes. The cocksure grin on his face never changed as he shifted and lifted his bloodied hand. The wound had since stopped bleeding but now was slowly leaking an ichor which seemed to shimmer even in the waning light and reaching shadows of the emerging night.

“Go ahead,” he urged, motioning with his head toward the firearm but never tearing his stare away from me.

That brief lull drew my attention firmly to the pain shooting through my thigh and I flicked my eyes toward my blood-soaked leg and the blade that now rested at an even more awkward angle than before. Anything that I could think to do for the wound now would only make it worse. Wresting it free would only lead, almost assuredly, to me bleeding out. I made to shift my weight, to test the damage, and sure enough, a shooting pain reinforced what I was dreading.

Whether he had followed my gaze or was simply relishing in my anguish, Calum chuckled and stood up. “All tuckered out? Shame that. A bleedin’ shame,” to which I gritted my teeth as he continued while meandering toward the vacant firearm.

A rustling at the treeline and a prolonged sigh seized our attention.

“Calum!” her voice exploded forth through the trees, though the way she walked toward us didn’t match. She spoke with an extreme confidence that did not reflect the clear damage to her right arm which seemed to be hanging, was definitely clawed, and dripping blood. I could finally see her face clearly which was splattered with freckles and etched with intricate lines. Her eyes were a deep purple, and it seemed to bleed into the lines embedding her skin.

His head whipped in her direction, and I used that moment to scramble toward my gun. The moment distraction of him looking back my way was all it took for her to be on him – a flying knee to his chin sent his head reeling back, and he practically flipped over from the force. I’m almost sure I heard his neck snap. Or his skull crack? By the time I had my gun pointed and ready, she was standing over him.

She looked over at me briefly before collapsing back into a seated position. She took an extra second to kick Calum’s leg then sighed and rested her arm on her knee. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes and the lines etched into her face had stopped glowing, as if she had gone dormant.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Premonitions

Montarius, last of the first Pilgrims, sits immersed in a black and purple smoke, the world around him nothing but a meandering haze of shapes swirling and twisting around each other, some gravitating toward each other while some pushed aggressively away, all creating new patterns. He was perfectly still, his form shades of browns and crimson, even the swirling colours around him conformed to his perfect calm when they touched him until they broke away once more.

Across from him, a new concentration of colours began to waft together creating a tall flowing shape like a hanging sheet. The colours seemed to collect more intensely into two orbs near the height of the sheet creating two glowing reddish oranges.

The once perfectly still form began to twist until managing to etch out a vague impression of a face, its mouth downturned.

A voice flowed from the tall sheet, a deep, though clearly feminine, resonation that seemed to sigh with each word, “you must have known that I would come,” she spoke then paused, inviting response. Nothing. She sighed in earnest this time. “We could all feel it. Like we’d suddenly regained a distantly silenced part of ourselves.” Another pause before the tall sheet drifted slightly slower toward the sitting calm before her. “Any reason I’m getting the hate treatment?”

“I do not hate you,” his voice low and grounded as his form.

“Good to hear..,” the sheet tilted her head. “You could have easily disappeared again – popped in, got whatever it is you needed, and sulked off again.” Her orange orbs drifted, looking around, “You’ve been at it for quite some time,” and then her eyes back to him, “and your connection is…impressive. Is there some kind of threat?”

He finally sighed, his form wavering slightly, and two orbs formed on his face, their colour much more amber than the rest of him. “I do not know. The Sprites are being…confusing. Hope, desire, fear, uncertainty – all formed around a singular subject, but they cannot seem to agree as to what the subject even is. A someone, I believe.”

“Or something. We never did manage to find her. There’s no telling what she became.”

He shook his head, “no. They recognize her differently. She is no ‘someone’ to them. Nor a something. We know this.”

“You, know.” She started to shift around again, slowly looking here and there. “They always spoke differently to you. A shame, really. To imagine any ‘someone’ could hide from you.” As she went on, Montarius’s eyes followed her closely, almost glaring. She continued, “and now that you’re back…”

“I’ve told you that I am not helping you with that.”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to train them, but there have been more and more appearing all the time. They do need training, you can’t deny that; if it’s even remotely connected to this degree of concern you are showing it only makes sense for you to at least help track them down. You can think what you want about me, but there is a problem snowballing out of control. Is The Path really to watch everything crumble around it?”

Montarius grumbled. Sighed. Mused. And sighed again.

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Her orbs froze on him.

“Isullah. Why did you take your title?”

Her orbs tilted again, “you know why. That…place changed us. All of us. It’s not a title, it is my name now. There is no Isullah. I become more. We are Magnus Grey.”

A long pause was shared between them. The swirling and twisting shapes seemed to have vaguely collected around them. Montarius’s orbs disappeared, and his form began to become still once more.

“I suppose I’ll be needing a new name too, then.”

Masks

You are an assasin tasked to kill the crowned prince. So when you find yourself in his arms, cuddling, you wonder how did things get out of your hands.

– r/WritingPrompts post by u/fanominus99

~~~~~

The first and most important step for any doppelganger: disassociate; that is if you were going to make a living of being an “abomination of life.”

“As long as you spend admiring yourself, I’d think you conceited,” the Prince’s trill reached, his scantily clad form filling the doorway behind me.

My gaze drifted from the reflection of my all-too-familiar greens eyes and onto his warming browns twinkling at me and I couldn’t help but return the longing smile that rested on his face. An instant passed before I quickly forced myself to blink away, grabbing a rag at the counter side to wipe away the dripping water from my assumed face.

“Not to hurry you off, peri, but–“

“Oh the rumours that would ravage these halls.” I interrupted with a grin and peered into the mirror again in time to catch the roll of his eyes as he stepped further into the washroom. He tenderly wrapped his arms around my waist and I eased against him, resting the back of my head against the top of his.

“It’s a secret best kept,” he mulled. I scoffed in response, but he spoke and squeezed my sides before I could muster a word. “Don’t laugh! You know they would jump at the chance to get at me somehow.”

The Prince was meticulous. Smart enough to know that someone wanted him out of the picture. That’s why said someone hired me; an inscrutable knife in the back.

“Besides,” he continued after a brief pause, “your face would be posted up everywhere, and I doubt they’d get the important details right.”

~~~~~

WoTD: peri

WoTDC: inscrutable

Against All

They eat eight of us every year- in their SLEEP! The carnage they would leave behind if they ever woke… Life wouldn’t be the same.

– r/WritingPrompts post by u/Wise_Mulberry3568

~~~~~

The words dripped with venom as they flew from her mouth. Cecivine, Archkeeper of the Arimolis Planar Trammel, glared down and across the main hall from her elevated seat backdropped by an intricate stained window. The rest of the Keepers, eight in total including myself, sat on either side of her at a marginally lower elevation forming a semicircle opening toward the rest of the sparsely decorated hall. Still lower and standing in the center of the hall was a well-traveled man who, even in that motionless and vapid temple interior, seemed like a reed in the wind. Even the chastising rebuke from the Archkeeper simply whisked over him.

“Precisely, life wouldn’t be the same; but carnage, madam?” He started his next sentence with a flippant wave of his hand, “they’d kill less than you lot condemn to death in ignorance.”

“You would stand there and declare her Excellency ignorant?” Keeper Joren challenged, sitting forward in his seat.

“Not her, but you for implicit compliance.”

Keeper Joren’s retort was drowned out by the Archkeeper’s elevated voice, “we did not grant you audience to entertain fallacy, Senier Mervic. What you suggest is a dangerous theory at best, and you would do well to curb your criticism; we do not gamble our responsibilities on heinous speculation. The sacrifices endured are a heavy weight we all shoulder for the sake of the Commonality and the world beyond its walls.” The Archkeeper paused, her silent gaze challenging opposition to which Mervic offered a silent sigh.

“What you call ignorance is our trust in her Excellency’s wisdom and power that has facilitated our survival. This gathering does not abide such contrary rhetoric and your proposition is hereby rejected. This hearing is concluded.”

The man’s eyes hovered over each of the Keepers, lingering individually, until his steely gaze met my own wandering contemplation. I narrowed my brow, suddenly feeling uneasy at the center of his silent scrutiny. A long moment passed before he broke away with a bow, slightly bending at the waist.

“How expected. Very well,” he offered in curt response before turning on his heel. His tattered long coat whipped dramatically following his movements and was the last of him to disappear through the grand doors of the main hall and down the adjoining temple corridor.

Varying degrees of disgruntled grumblings broke out between the Keepers, at which point I was happy to excuse myself to tend to the latest duty that had been passed onto me. Unfortunately, duty was in direct relation to the gathering’s point of subject and would not allow me to simply bury my head and busy myself to keep from lingering in futility.

My shallow footsteps meandered along with my thoughts, echoing gently down the pristine and delicately decorated temple corridor of infused metals and stone, the sound only sparingly interrupted by the heavy boots of diligent guards and the weary bustling of custodians. I passed through the hall until exiting through a set of thick doors leading out unto a lavish courtyard and I relished in the temporary abatement brought on by rustling leaves in the chilling breeze and the wistful goings-on of chittering and whistling fauna. I allowed myself a moment’s solace before pressing on fearing I would be later than I already was.

“Majestiar Pilphire!” A handful of voices greeted me as I crested the flight of wide stairs leading up to a circular landing. Beyond it’s edge, one could see the sleepy village of Arimolis peeking through the rolling fog of the valley below.

I greeted my students, remembering to smile, the boldest of the few joining in jest about my tardiness. They had gathered around in a circle waiting for me, the eight of them each with a meaningful item placed on the ground in front of them along with an inert rough stone, clear on its surface but filled with a milky fog, and a smattering of other Planar paraphernalia such as incense, candles, and small bowls.

Once everyone had settled down with me standing at the center of the circle, a match was passed around and everything lit. An odourless haze quickly enveloped the landing and formed a loose barrier as if bound in by uneven walls.

~~ToBeContinued~~

WoTD: sklent (01/18)

WoTDChallenge: futility (01/18)

[Book Review] The Wizard’s Package: A Spellbinding Anthology

This collection of books is an unabashed parody of the romance/smut genre and was produced by a Dungeons&Dragons (D&D) dungeon master after a player made a joke about finding something for their character to read. What was initially just a brief description quickly turned into a running joke that, some might say, got a little out of control. Fueled by Reddit shenanigans, the first novella, The Wizard’s Staff was produced to be the beginning of a satirical adventure following a young half-demon and her romantic desires. The real author (not the fake one presented as the in-universe producer of these ideas) is forthcoming about the nature of these books and maintains a light-hearted tone which starts from the opening blurb just beyond the book’s cover.

From the outset, the D&D influences are obvious but not obnoxious. Common tropes riddle the tale such as the contentious chainmail bikini, cheesy names for locations and characters alike, party formation logic that any RPG player would be familiar with, and borderline fourth wall breaking with characters referencing classes, stats, and roles like players struggling to remain in-character. The prose clearly knows what it is and manages to handle itself with a degree of grace which more often than not draws a light eye-roll and smile. That said, the story itself unravels as a series of tropes as well which serves to make it rather predictable and an easy read. Overall, it comes off as a one-off D&D session; character motivations are simple, dialogue is brief and mostly full of puns or bickering, events happen quickly and tend not to linger longer than it takes to have a brief conversation, and the end of the book doesn’t do much to wrap up the story.

Now, I know, most of that sounded like negative criticism despite me framing it as positive. The majority of the qualities described would be a reason to not like a piece of writing. In fact, that would be enough to label something as not well written. And that’s part of the beauty of it.

This leads me into addressing the second book, The Wizard’s Tower. This book picks up right were the first left off and seems to try and make up for the later book’s lack of a finite ending. Very unfortunately, this book tells the tale of the two protagonists as they are forced to support each other in order to escape the novella’s namesake. After a rather dramatic falling out, their relationship is understandably tense and this manifests as a slew of petty dialogue and unfortunate innuendos that stand out significantly where they were mostly tolerable in the last installment. The Wizard’s Tower suffers from this one-on-one scenario due to the characters’ lack of complexity where in The Wizard’s Staff this was serviceable simply because of the cast.

As a piece of writing meant to expand the world-building of a D&D campaign, I am impressed with the authors work and dedicated to produce these tales and I believe that they are enjoyable short reads that can draw out a few chuckles while appealing to D&D players and role-playing game enthusiasts. The Wizard’s Staff and The Wizard’s Tower are the first two books in The Macy Blush Collection and have piqued my curiosity toward reading the proceeding two books which further explore the lives of the unlikely lovers.

~~~~~

You can find these books in eBook, audiobook, and paperback forms in Amazon.

Martial Tourism Pt.12

~~Previously~~

“I willed it that the Pilgrim remove the filth from my home,” he turned his eyes unto me and it was then that I recognized Calum’s face…“and yet here you are.” Something about his tone was far from what I remembered, like a completely other voice all together. Or multiple voices.

“On the bright side,” he allowed a chilling smile to take his, “I get to kill you myself.”

~~~~~

A creeping smog began to pour out from the forest from behind Calum where I had not noticed it before. It slowly rolled past his shoulders and legs and with it a beaked face and singular glowing eye pushed out from the miasma next to his head – its cracked bill from the altercation prior misaligned and oozing ichor.

“Calum?” My voice shot forth in what I could only hope was a much more tempered tone than how I felt and did not betray the terror surging through me. “We– I thought–” I started, glancing upward toward the ledge which my circumstantial partner had disappeared. I took one step backward, brushing my foot against her discarded gear. If Calum was here, what the hell was taking her so long to come back down?

“Yes. I had been convinced that I was to die, as well.” He explained, taking slow steps forward, his face arrested by an inimical grin. The creature behind him remained where it was, peering at me unblinking. “In a way, I did; in a way, I am.” He stopped then and lifted his hand to examine it as though pondering. “Or rather, I’ve transcended natural life – shed the shackles, if you will.”

The creature behind him lifted its head abruptly, looking skyward, and our eyes followed its gaze. Overhead, a flash of light erupted from the rock protrusion against the duskening sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the creature shift its posture and push off from the ground propelling itself with one preternatural leap aided by its massive-feathered arms. With seemingly little effort, it clambered up and over the rocky edge above and disappeared.

My eyes shot back down to level with Calum just as I heard his feet shift in the loose dirt and silt. I twisted my body to meet his lunge just in time to catch one of his outstretched arms at the wrist while I stabbed forward with my dagger. The trailing point blade pushed effortlessly through bare flesh as Calum met my stab with an open palm allowing the weapon to push through right down to the dagger’s front bolster. I could feel the warm blood of his hand spilling onto mine. Unflinching, he wrapped his fingers around and latched onto my weapon wielding hand, his eyes nor face betrayed any pain but instead held a mocking determination.

In my shock I was too slow to react to what came next. Calum launched his head forward, crashing his cranium into my exposed nose with surprising force enough to cause me to lose my grip and to send me tumbling backward abandoning my dagger lodged into the man’s hand. The wave of pain screamed through the entirety of my skull temporarily washing my vision in dazzling light and disorienting me. In my moments of reorientation, I felt my foot push down against the masked woman’s staff and I made a near blind scramble to retrieve the tool from the ground and brandished it in front of me.

A nervy chuckle caught my ear as my vision cleared and I could see Calum standing just beyond the end of the staff, pulling my dagger calmly from his hand. Blood slowly trickled over my lips as I adjusted my grip on my newly found weapon attempting to adapt to its cumbersome heft. It was no more heavy than it appeared but its balance was offset by its various adornments and the added weight of the barrel attached to its length.

The mountain beside us quaked and I could feel the reverberations in the ground below us. A shower of loose rock cascaded from above and I spared a fleeting glance skyward in time to see a vague mass shoot out from and away from the rock ridge and crash through the treetops.

As soon as Calum took a step forward, I matched it and jabbed the tapered tip of the staff into his abdomen to stop him from moving any closer then followed with a quick rounding strike to his jaw. What looked like a solid strike I could tell was shallow and Calum had rolled with it, tumbling to one side and away from the attack. In a flurry of motion scooped and flung a handful of rock, sediments, and blood toward me which I endeavored to ignore but it served its purpose, distracting me from his true intent of throwing my own dagger at me.

The bloodied blade buried itself at an awkward angle into my thigh. I bit back a holler just as Calum lunged for me once more and managed to get a hand on the staff as well as a hand against my throat. He pushed against me, and I struggled to maintain my footing against the blaring pain in my leg, still I shifted my weight enough and caught his leg with my own to send us both tumbling onto the rocky ground.

We both abandoned our respective grips on the staff. I attempted to grapple with Calum, vying for control over the situation, but inexplicably he was able to overpower me in spite of his much smaller frame. I was forced onto my back and defending myself against blows from above until I was able to push him up and kick him over me. Scrambling, I turned and made it to my knees, reaching for my pistol ready to end it there.

My eyes were locked ahead on Calum who was already crouched just a short couple meters away from me, propped up on his hands and feet and eyeing me wildly, clearly drunk on whatever forbidden sorcery that had warped him into something beyond human. I reached around to my back where my pistol was holstered only to swipe at air.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Word of the Day Challenge: forbidden

Your Daily Word Prompt: nervy

Martial Tourism Pt.11

~~Previously~~

I furrowed my brow and looked between her and the beast who was still padding along the barriers edge following her. Eventually I too picked up following in her wake driven by my seemingly irrepressible compulsion.

~~~~~

Backtracking where the creature had come from was a particularly simple task. We followed large and deep tracks as well as the impossible to miss swath of parted trees and trampled underbrush, not to mention the sporadic trail of large feathers that littered the path before us. The Paladin had allowed me to take the lead once again, falling slightly behind me while she burned incense to “cleanse the residual energy” that was apparently left behind by the creature’s passing. I was surprised to see her pull yet another miniature burner from her plethora of pockets, pouches, and pokes and began to wonder how much she was carrying with her. While she was doing this, I noticed that she had begun to collect the fallen feathers from the forest floor or wherever else they may have rested, and she added them to the assortment of various other oddities she had hidden away.

Our trek continued in silence for some time before I was reminded of my growing hunger; the lull in excitement seemingly having caused it to return. Had I planned for such an extended excursion into the wilderness I would have had the sense to bring rations along with me, but more importantly I would have taken the time to eat breakfast when I had the chance instead of allowing my morning to be dictated by anxiety and the presence of a new arrival. I silently cursed myself in time for my stomach to voice a particularly long and agitated mandate. I was not sure what kind of time frame we were working on, but I assumed any deviation from our current task was ill advised.

Our task? The thought lingered on my mind. Yes, our task; surely it was related to being rid of the monster we had left behind.

A tap on my shoulder startled me. I had been completely unaware that she had walked up so close behind me. I half turned my head to her just as she outstretched her hand beside me and in it she held a palm sized block wrapped in hide.

“Here. Don’t eat the whole thing, though.” She warned.

After a moment’s hesitation, I took the foodstuff from her and unwrapped it to reveal a mottled jerky coloured cuboid. It was a firm yet malleable substance able to be separated into bite sized chunks with minimal effort. I lifted a portion to my nose only to notice that it had little smell besides the faint hint of the dried leather it had been wrapped in.

“Really?” She started in a dry tone. “I promise that’s not what’s going to kill you.”

I took the chunk into my mouth and chewed on it. It was dense but neither tough nor rubbery. Surprisingly, it was not dry either but that was about the extent of the pleasant things that could be said about it. In fact, that was the extent of anything to be said about it for even to call it bad would have been an overstatement. It was just kind of…it just was.

“Thanks.” I said, taking another bite.

“Sure. Seriously though, don’t eat all of that. Your body’ll reject it.”

I narrowed my brow and cast her a wary glance to which she seemed to pay little mind, continuing to occupy herself with gathering nearby feathers.

I cautiously rewrapped ration of which I had barely eaten one-fourth of and tucked it away in my pocket. I was not convinced that such a small portion would completely relieve my hunger but to my surprise after a few moments I began to feel sufficiently nourished.

We pressed on for some time, pushing into the beginnings of the mountainous regions that the forest extended in to. The tracks trail we were following appeared to lead up and toward a large outcropping jutting out over the trees.

“All right. I gotta ask: what’s it the feathers’re for? More mystical dust?” I slightly enunciated the word mystical.

The woman offered a short scoff, “You know, this morning when I said you could question me all you want, I didn’t exactly mean for it to be an all-day thing.” A moment passed before she continued, “What can I say? They make a surprisingly good blend for tea. Gives a bit of an otherworldly punch to it.”

I furrowed my brow and slightly rolled my eyes at her blatant chicanery. “Right…”

“You’ll see what they’re for when we get there. Should be just up here.” She motioned up the mountain and walked ahead of me. “The simalcrite probably trapped Calum around here waiting for the poor fool to grace death’s door.”

She led us to the base of a rock wall overshadowed by a large rock protrusion to which she looked up at with a sigh, placing her hands on her hips. “Well, the energy’s strongest here.” She stated with unimpeded irritation.

I had turned back a few paces in order to look for any immediate way that might lead around to a slope or a cave entrance that might lead us upward. “We might have to cart around to the other side of the– what the hell are you doing?” I questioned when I turned back around to see that she had set her staff and unfasted the bulk of her strapped-on pouches.

“Watch my things for a spell.” She instructed just as she found the first of what was to be many precarious handholds and foothold along a long ascension. “Catch me if I fall.” Hopefully she was not serious.

I watched her ascend with admittedly impressive technique. My mind raced considered what I would do if she did fall – surely there would be no saving her. But then I began to wonder why I cared as much as I did. With every hand over hand, foot from one hold to the next, I could feel more and more tension building and it was not until she reached the top and disappeared over the edge that I felt a hint of relief.

“Funny, that.”

I pulled he dagger from my side and spun around in one quick motion. Up from the path we had taken to reach the base of the rock wall, a weather-and-travel scarred man strode up toward me, glancing upward to where the woman had gone.

“I willed it that the Pilgrim remove the filth from my home,” he turned his eyes unto me and it was then that I recognized Calum’s face. His eyes were abnormally bloodshot– no. It was far beyond that. The entirety of his eyes were glossed over with a undulating vermilion pigment.

“and yet here you are.” Something about his tone was far from what I remembered, like a completely other voice all together. Or multiple voices.

“On the bright side,” he allowed a chilling smile to take his, “I get to kill you myself.”

~~ToBeContinued~~~

Word of the Day: vermilion

Word of the Day Challenge: technique

Your Daily Word Prompt: chicanery

Martial Tourism Pt.10

~~Previously~~

Slowly, the corners of it’s sharply curved beak began to stretch until its countenance began to resemble a smile exposing a row of serrated teeth.

I froze in fear. In awe. My entire body screamed but I could not bring myself to move.

~~~~~

“Where’s the man?” the Masked Paladin demanded from the beast. She had begun to take slow steps away from the huge creature.

Its singular eye bore down on her and followed her movements while its tooth filled grin stretching farther as it opened its mouth. From its craw a grating sound immitted like a chorus of howling winds clashing with a mass of buzzing insects.

“Yeah. I figured that.” She continued to back up, drawing nearer and nearer to the tree line. The monstrous nightmare of avian and ursine like features lowered itself to stand on all fours again; the nearby trees shook prompting a shower of leaves to fall. Slowly, the creature stalked forward encroaching on the woman before it.

“Guess that means we’re at something of an impasse, huh?” To which it replied with a shallow snort I could only assume was some form of laughter. “Saves me the trouble of playing nice. I wasn’t planning to let you live regardless.”

She whirled her staff in a flash of motion causing the flint on its end to strike sharply against a plate fixed to the heel of her boot. A series of sparks shot forth and set alight a substance scattered over the forest floor just as the creature lunged forward with tooth and claw. The masked woman tumbled backward across a rapidly expanding line of white flames, like terpsichorean veins of light, sprouting inches up from the ground, and just as it would seem as though the creature was a hair’s breadth away from tearing her apart it slammed full force into an otherwise indiscernible obstruction. A resounding thud followed, and I was sure that I had heard the beast’s beak crack.

The sound the creature made bordered on a rumbling hiss as it crumpled into the dirt only to waveringly claw its way back to its feet all the while growling and snorting. When it stood once more, it erupted into a roar of screeching and wailing which drove goosebumps across my skin.

The Masked Paladin seemed satisfied with herself, apparent by a grin peeking out from below the beak of her half mask. Around the edges of the shimmering circle that had formed around the clearing, small stones immerged slowly from holes in the dirt and began to float, each of them gradually adopting a glow until resembling an orb of light.

The woman began to round the circles edge, the creature following in her wake but carefully remaining way from the invisible wall the imprisoned it. I stared on in wonder, completely absentminded to the original intent of my having returned to the site in the first place. My eyes were glued onto the lumbering abomination until I noticed it drawing nearer to where I had hidden myself and my eyes shot over and up to the masked woman standing just paces away from my cover.

“Foolishness appears to be a trend around here.” There was no mistaking she was looking directly at me. Still, I did not move, I only stared back.

She turned her staff over, returning the stopper she had removed from the barrel end to its place. “Am I to wonder what it is you aimed to accomplish? If it was simple curiosity, you might had just said so. I would have been more than happy to introduce you to.”

I finally pushed myself to my feet, emerging from the brush in which I sat. “I, uh,” was hoping that the altercation with the beast would have at least worn her down some. “How did you–“

She cut me off with a chuckle and returned her staff to a neutral position, leaning slightly against it. “Well, if I hadn’t practically walked on top of you maybe I wouldn’t have.”

While the matter of how she had noticed me was in question, that was not what held my immediate interest. “Sure. But how did you–” I motioned to the circle and the beast who was pacing back and forth within its confines, snorting and growling while its attention was fixated on the woman.

“Oh.” She sighed then. “Sprite Ballast.” She reached passed the collar of her fastened shirt and tugged on a length of twine about her neck which from its end hung a near empty vial. It seemed impossible that she had created a circle that large with what appeared to only be a palm full of opaque dust.

“It’s a pain to make and I’m really not about to take the time to explain the intricacies of mixing it to you, especially not right now. It doesn’t last forever.” She started to walk again. “I’m not going to pretend to understand why you stuck around here but since you are you can either watch ol’ busted beak there or you can help me find Calum’s body.” She offered without stopping.

I furrowed my brow and looked between her and the beast who was still padding along the barriers edge following her. Eventually I too picked up following in her wake driven by my seemingly irrepressible compulsion.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Word of the Day Challenge: trend

Your Daily Word Prompt: twine

Martial Tourism Pt.9

~~Previously~~

“Now he is either dead or possessed.” She stated plainly, glancing around the clearing briefly and then started to reassemble Calum’s ritual. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Yer gonna call it back here?” I narrowly hushed myself from yelling.

“Mm. You can go or stay. I’d recommend the former unless you’d rather die here.”

~~~~~

She did not wait for me to decide one way or the other before she seemingly dismissed my presence all together. The masked woman went on to preoccupy herself with rounding the perimeter of the clearing, just passed the tree line, and periodically kneeled down to dig small holes in the forest floor and drop something inside of them.

I mused over my own curiosity and desire to see the creature for myself as well as what fate had befallen Calum. Admittedly my interest into the matter was for no other reason than to finally confirm with my own eyes what had been nagging at my mind and hounding my sleep over the days past. The other option was the more sane of the two for many reasons. I could return to the village and inform Braxton of the situation so that we could muster a plan for dealing with the Paladin when she returned; hopefully eliminating her before she them.

I consigned to follow through with the latter option, shunning my own foolish desire. Wordlessly, I left the Masked Paladin to her business and began my march back toward the village. Thoughts continued to whirl within me fueled by my once self-shrouded anxiety now exposed to me to confront directly. I could not help but wonder why it was that, if she were planning to kill me and the rest of the raiders anyway, why had she not taken the opportunity to be done with me following the moment my usefulness had ceased. Even if she had wanted to keep up the charade and play nice until she found and opportune moment to pick the other off she could have killed me then and there in the forest and simply decreed I had perished to the very monster we had set out after.

I slowed to a stop and half turned to look in the direction I had come from. The staging site where I had left the masked woman was well out of sight, lost in the wild labyrinth of trees and shrubbery. I could not make sense of why she chose to let me return to the village, but it was a mistake all the same. Perhaps she had thought to drive me to cowardice through fear hoping that I would slink off and abandon the others. Perhaps she had intended that I return to the village and convince my fellow bandits to pack up and yield control of the village back into the hands of its legitimate owners. Either way, I was now at the advantage.

I made a point of creating confusing tracks, walking in circles and at odd angles before carefully veering off wide. I was sure to minimize the tracks I left and embarked on a much less conspicuous route back toward the ritual site while still remaining within reasonable range to monitor the original path I had taken. Even though I was moving at a fraction of the speed I was before, when I arrived at the edge of the ritual site, I was welcomed by the fact that the Masked Paladin had not moved on. She was kneeled near the center, knees touching the ground, and was propped up on the heels of her boots. I twisted my mouth to one side as I passed on another clean opportunity to shoot her while she was none-the-wiser. I reminded myself yet again to be patient and nestled in amongst the base of a tree where I could plainly see the clearing.

Time turned on slowly with the only activity to catch my eye being the occasional forest varmint scampering about. Hours must have passed, I figured, and I was reassured of this by the faint grumbling of my stomach joining the callithumpian cacophony of bird calls and leaves rustling in the wind. I had long grown thirsty, the muggy summer air drawing every ounce of sweat leaving my clothes laden in perspiration. And yet she remained unmoved; statuesque. I was seconds away from risking foraging for food and water until I caught sight of a dark miasma rolling forth from the edges of the tree line into the clearing.

The masked woman stood up in no particular rush and pulled her staff from where it had been imbedded in the dirt. She allowed the incense burner, long since dormant, to fall to the forest floor and she turned the staff up, twisting off its metal tip which had been covering the opening of a barrel. Across from her, a single glowing orb, almost at level height with her, floated forward in the miasma until a beaked face broke through the tree line followed by massive, feathered arms ending in gnarly fingers and jagged talons.

The creature padded forward, staring down the masked woman with one oversized eye, the rest of its body covered in an amalgamation of feathers, roots, moss, and jagged protrusions. When it finally emerged in its entirety from the forest and into the clearing it reared up on its hind legs, towering more than twice over above the masked woman. Slowly, the corners of it’s sharply curved beak began to stretch until its countenance began to resemble a smile exposing a row of serrated teeth.

I froze in fear. In awe. My entire body screamed but I could not bring myself to move.

~~ToBeContinued~~

Word of the Day Challenge: callithumpian

Your Daily Word Prompt: lade