[The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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Kokuten
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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“Pinch your nose.”

That was all Horst had to say, looking less earnest as they pressed into the rightward path. They proceeded forth out of the mushroom vales and entered into a section of the forest where steep hedgerows began to rise. There were breaks in them occasionally, giving brief windows into a flowery, leafy forest with a much higher canopy. It was an almost cavernous feeling as the limited light was overtaken by batches of red and blue flowers that quivered with a primal light.

“This forest doesn’t seem to end,” assessed Curie, acting as a valuable source of light when other sources ran dark, “the longer we go, the more stale the air gets.”

“Ye should try it down here,” chuckled Phyllis. Not catching the context, Curie descended to the Sergeant’s shoulder.

“Is the sweat smell what you’re talking about?” asked the aperture curiously. Phyllis waived her off, her face taking on a redder hue in the dark.

Willow could hear it moving in step with them, each crunching and plodding footfall was matched by its own. It masked its noise by hiding it under the excess generated by the Allomancer’s companions. Yet there was something it couldn’t hide as it got closer.

“Any of ye smell blood?” Phyllis asked.

“Please don’t say something like that without context,” grumbled Helen.

The smell was only vaguely familiar to Willow, but she had taken it in when she had cut the beast earlier in the day.

“Haven’t seen other spriggans in a while,” Bjorn said, checking over his shoulder, “they were passing us until now.”

“Maybe the smell?”

“Horst, what do you have against these guys?” Helen asked, finally.

“You like bad smells?”

During this exchange, Willow felt the creature shift in the woods nearby. It had a strong presence, overwhelming even, when it became close.

A pair of arms came stretching from the canopy, the hands gripped Willow’s shoulders at first, but then they found purchase on Pebbles. These dark limbs tugged forth a wraith from the leaves and screamed, signalling more to descend from tha canopy upon the group. Each had their own wraith, except for Phyllis, who had two.
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Straken
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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With a surge Willow felt the rush of anticipation only for it to have been a feint. Focusing to much on the beast tracking them had given an opening for the wraiths to slip in, and now with one quick move the group was caught by surprise. If Willow were a betting girl, she’d wager the beast would take this opportunity to strike while its prey was off-balance. The wraiths would need to be handled efficiently before that happened. First and foremost was the wraith grabbing Pebbles, and then she needed to decide how to handle the wraiths harrying the group.

Pulling her hand out of her pocket, Willow flicked a coin off her thumb upward. As that coin tumbled upward she tossed a coin off to the side. With a flared Steel Push Willow slammed both coins, sending the first into the face of the wraith above her as the second struck the wraith squared off with Ghyslain.

“Ghyslain! Help Phyllis then clear the rest!” Willow called as she spun to look back the way they had come; her left hand readying another coin as her right began to reach for her saber.
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Kokuten
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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Pebbles slid off Willow’s back, being rattled awake by the scream. Drowsiness hampered her sense of self preservation, dumbly watching a dead wraith flop down to the ground in an oily, wispy mass. Ghyslain had been preoccupied protecting the chair that he had been carrying the whole time, until Willow shot the wraith harrying him. In one fluid motion, he whirled the seat at Helen, who was crouched under a glimmering shield. The heavy, plush piece crushed the wraith she was hiding from into paste against the barrier. Then, he leapt at another wraith that was sinking its teeth into Phyllis’ bracer. He ripped it off with his own teeth, goring apart its neck.

Phyllis brought herself up to catch her other opponent with the safe end of her halberd. She flipped it over, bashing the creature against a rock before dropping the axe on its torso.

Curie weaved throughout with Bjorn, swapping their wraith’s back and forth with knife swipes and lasers. Beneath the flurry, Helen scrambled on all fours, pawing her way over to Pebbles. The little god was just now waking up fully, realizing the danger.

The sensation rose again, in a way that forced every hair on Willow’s body to rise.

A mass of muscle and teeth shot out from behind the Allomancer, leaving a trail of twigs and leave from the dark, bearing down on Pebbles. Helen threw her arms out, sparking a barrier to life. Instead, the beast snatched up the golem in its jaws, and flung her like a skipping stone square into the ground with a loud crack.

The beast turned again, but was halted by a halberd. Phyllis had only the time to react to Helen’s body breaking against the ground to spin around.

Distant shrieks warned of more wraiths coming, and Bronze warned of another, monolithic, presence moving toward them.
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Straken
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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“Clever...”

Body tensed, Willow’s head shifted first to look at the beast with an eye as sharp as her saber; and an intensity rivaling the inferno of metal flares she raised. The beast had played her, and if it wasn’t for her allies... her friends... it would have taken Pebbles again. It’s appearance allowed the growing tension on Willow’s patience to snap, and the coiled spring was shifting into raw kinetic fury. A quick kick started her rotation, and as she spun her leg began to rise. Then, once her booted foot reached the apex and forming a straight line back to the ground, Willow flared Pewter and focused Orichalcum on her boot in tandem with Ivorium. Then she dropped the burn on the remaining metals and burned Duralumin. Her axe kick tore through the air as Willow focused all of her intense emotions into this strike to the beast’s spine.

“... girl!”
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Kokuten
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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A loud pop punctuated the forest, as Willow cleaved her heel into the spine of the beast. She drove into it until its bristling muscles resisted and her boot slipped free, drawing a bit of blood. It let out a yelp, and sputtered, before backing away from the Allomancer. Dark blood spattered into the dark dirt as it withdrew, before collapsing in a heap. It struggled only a few moments more before falling still, dead.

A storm of wraiths came barreling through the canopy, flowing over them like a torrential school of fish. Claws and teeth weaved into the brush and withered briars around them. What wraiths the group hadn’t killed, joined this whirling swarm, circling the them.

“No way back,” muttered Horst, whipping dark blood off of a spear, “No way forward. No paths or holes to crawl into.”

“You’re real choice in what might be ye’r last words,” grunted Phyllis, whipping her polearm one way, and then another, unsure where to aim her weapon with so many targets.

“I wish…” Helen groaned, crumpled in the dirt a foot or two away from what looked like her leg, “... I wish you wouldn’t say things like that…”

“Considering the circumstances,” quipped Curie, glittering, “the best thing we could do is think of something witty to say.”

“Willow,” Bjorn cut through the howling wraiths and mundane banter to speak into her ear, “the hound-monster.”

Encircled in this deathly blockade was the beast’s corpse, but something had sprouted from its wound. A sapling was fast growing, bursting with leaves and flowers and gaining height quickly. The leaves became heavy and thick, draping over the growth as the stem began to expand. Growing taller, it took a less primal, natural form and filled out into a more feminine shape. A waist formed at the base, weaving an hourglass form of a woman’s exposed upper half. A mane of leafy hair draped over her shoulders and occluded her eyes.

Deathly screams fell silent and the wraiths came to a sudden stop. Like a haunted choir, they held their spots deathly still.

The dark-green woman’s lips split open, as if to speak, and the sickly sweet aroma of fresh nectar filled the air. Instead of sound, there was a feeling of warmth and comfort as the smell dulled senses and relaxed the mind and body.

Vengeance,” emanated a whispering murmur of warmth, with a timbre that sounded like warm coals, ”a feeling that transcends death itself. It burns in the heart of so many, but few have the kindling in their chest like mine. He betrayed us. And while he lives a charmed, new life, I am bound to my eternal, crushing duty.”

Leaves fluttered and exposed a burning eye for just a moment, as the woman seemed to regard Willow for the first time.

”A heartbeat,” her chest and volume rose, ”I have not felt the warmth of a heart against mine in so long. What drives you in this path, heart of she who reaches for what she cannot touch.”
Last edited by Kokuten on Tue Dec 31, 2024 7:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Straken
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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The crushing silence struck Willow almost as much as the wave of fatigue that washed over her. As she had figured, with Pewter burning out she now felt the energy debt she had been collecting. Not one to want to show weakness in front of the Big Bad Evil Gal, Willow avoided slumping to her knees by burning Mithril. It didn’t do anything for the tired look in her eyes, but was balanced by Willow floating slightly off the ground as she squared off with... holy actual hell this was her. Mind racing through a fog, she couldn’t help but figure she had summoned the entity after striking the beast. That of course felt like cheating; it had hurt Helen and was threatening the others, but apparently, she had killed it with the wrong vibes.

Slowly Willow took her hand off her saber since, at least for now, it seemed Vengeance was in the chatty phase. Instead, she took the chance to carefully reach into her bandolier to retrieve some fresh beads for her burnt out metals, and she froze momentarily as Vengeance turned her attention towards her. Plus side was that Willow could now put a face to the name rather than imagining her own mother; downside was that she was hot in a druidcore goth kind of way.

Pulling the beads out of a pouch, Willow swallowed them as she regarded Vengeance. A steadying breath later and Willow’s fatigue faded once more, but for effect she decided to remain floating; if nothing else it let her equalize the height difference. She did not answer the question right away as she still processing the fancy frou frou way of speaking. Vengeance had done a bit of a preamble and Willow assumed she had been talking about Caxton. Then when the focus had shifted, Vengeance had called Willow something cryptic, and as curious as she was about what heart of she who reaches for what she cannot touch meant it was probably best to not run a tangent when talking to She-Who-Has-Ended-A-Hundred-Worlds.

“Absolution.”

Willow stopped burning Mithril and landed. Bringing Zinc and Brass to a flare, Willow bolstered feelings of serenity in Vengeance, and soothed her feelings of... well, vengeance.
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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As the Allomancer worked her magic, the heady aroma began to thicken and fill her nose. It was more than sweet, it made the knees weak, and as Willow felt her muscles relax, she saw Vengeance relax in turn. Despite being rooted in the corpse of a shadow beast, she had looked poised to rise, but now she seemed to lounge. Her hands rested in her lap, and she seemed almost welcoming, despite the wraiths in attendance.

”Absolution,” the word was repeated with an earnest desire, ”a goal most noble, heart of she. May I ask, what do you owe that requires absolution? Who levies this debt on you?

“A-ah… N-n-no– No no no,” Helen began to scuttle as roots rose and gripped her prone body, whipping over her discarded leg, “I don– No- I…”

Then, at a flash of green, Helen came tumbling from the brambles. Her emerald eyes looked harried for a passing moment, before she realized she could walk again.

”You owe nothing to this world,” the words were an assertion, and Vengeance seemed to flush, ”or the world beyond. You were mistreated. Left to fend for yourself and grow on your own, none to nurture you. But, as if part of nature’s plan, you became beautiful, heart of she. Evils continue to try and take your happiness from you, or to fit you in their pots or walled gardens. If you seek to absolve yourself, then you are at your journey’s end.”

Willow’s eyes winked closed involuntarily as she took in the perfume-like scent, and opened them to find Vengeance just before her. Instead of growing from the hound, she now sprouted from the ground before her, her lap a bed of moss and stone. Phyllis was to her right, barely holding herself up with her polearm, she kept blinking to keep herself awake. Helen swayed next to Pebbles, who had fallen asleep again.

The shade before the Allomancer was not unlike Caoranach, in presence and shape. Her form was the marriage of a woman who lived free in the wilds, and that of the wilds itself. A horn blast sounded in the distance, but she did not seem to pay attention to it.

”I am this world’s guardian,” Vengeance patted the small space of moss before her, ”this forest is my home. Rest a while with me. Your heart, close to mine. Let them beat together. I would like to know you, heart of she."
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Straken
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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A deep breath in to settle herself, Willow felt the soothing aromas help her forget the strain she had been feeling. Coupled with it, the woman’s words were reassuring and just plain felt good to hear. At last, someone had seen Willow’s buried guilt and didn’t resent her; after all, Willow had been just as much of a victim in the matter, right? For that matter, Vengeance didn’t seem all that bad once she saw past the surface. Surely if Caxton tried harder, he could work something out with her, right? Another deep breath kindled the burn on Pewter higher, and ignited Copper. Pewter focused her mind, and Copper staved off emotional manipulation; at least it was said to work that way between other allomancers. Focus. She needed to focus.

“I was mistreated,” Willow began, holding her position. “But I had become evil myself. I lashed out at others to feel better about myself, and almost caused something terrible to happen; terrible and irreversible. I stopped myself from going down that path. Sure, I still struggle with those urges from time to time, but I’m getting better. That’s the difference. That’s why my heart doesn’t beat the same way as yours. I had caught myself and turned away. You have embraced it. I stopped myself from being the cause of one innocent death. You’ve been the downfall of countless. Despite all of that, I need to believe you can be changed.”

Willow drew her saber and held the grip to her chest in a salute.

“Absolution through redemption.”
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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At the mention of redemption, the wraith-host began to move again, slowly forming the steady circle again.

They have hurt you, left you to drift, to fend for yourself. Where were they when you needed guidance? When you needed hope? Why are you alone?”

The words seemed to stoke the tortured souls of the swirling apparitions, and their choir of silence turned to murmurs.

”You owe them nothing; they only cared to do anything when it affected them.”

Vengeance loomed, her green skin darkening to a muddy brown as her fresh growth began to turn woody.

”Your tormentors have convinced you that they are the victims.”

Her fingers, once gentle and soft, became hardened and sheltered in plate-mail of bark. The bare, open form was now buried in tree-like armor. The song of murmurs around them began to rise into howls.

”One day, you will understand,” Vengeance shook the earth beneath them, shifting trees and stone, drawing a broadsword of gnarled roots and rock from one of the opening ruptures. Something broke under the mossy rocks where Willow had been beckoned, and the shade rose, her mouth dropping open into an ear-piercing scream that frenzied her horde of wraiths.

A horn blasted again in the distance, and another host rattled in the dark. From on high something burst through the wall of wraiths and tumbled at Willow’s feet. It was a spriggan, covered in a heavy cloak of leather and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. It turned, showing a face occluded in a thick, wooden mask of glass lenses for eyes and a long tube for a mouth. A medallion swung from the end of the tube, engraved with the shape of a leaf.

It dropped a large, smoking ball at its feet, and pulled out two pieces of coal. First, it ran the coal over the brow of its mask, drawing furrowed inclines. Then, it screamed something as it burst open the smoking ball with its fists.

“ANGRY EYES!”

The entire clearing filled with an unctuous, yellowish smoke that choked throats and brought tears.
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Straken
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Re: [The Dorms] A Perilous Acquaintance

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Having brought her saber to a ready position while Vengeance spoke again, Willow was suitably surprised to see the peculiar spriggan’s entrance onto the scene. Looking between it, her allies, and Vengeance as it drew on its angry eyes Willow half expected this to finally be the reveal that she was on Punked. Then once the smokeshow started she sighed inwardly as she muttered something about spriggans. With a flick of her wrist, she flicked the saber up into the air to tumble as she brought her hands up to lift her neckerchief over her mouth and goggles into place. Hand outstretched, she caught the saber’s grip as it came down and returned to her readied stance.

Despite the eager thrill that ran through her, Willow needed to curb her enthusiasm. This was neither the time nor the place for this encounter, so as much as she relished the chance to throw herself at the next challenge it was more important that she get everyone out of here. Retrieving her coins again, she squared off as the combatants were in place.

“Bjorn. I don’t know how this is gonna kick off, but I need you to make sure everyone gets hustling again. I’ll try and grab Pebs before taking off myself. Keen?”
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