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Post by Adelaide Nastase on May 5, 2023 12:22:00 GMT -5
The earthquakes that had been plaguing Charon had caused a bit of damage to the crumbling ruins of Braddok's Castle. One of the towers that had been stubbornly clinging to their place in the sky had fallen and a chasm had opened up on the grounds giving sudden access to the lost catacombs below. Academics and archeologists, seizing the chance at new insights into the past, had come together to build a expedition of sorts to delve into this opportunity. Scholars, archeologists, and hired adventurers have camped outside the ruins in a large tent colony as they slowly try to extract artifacts from the depths.
The first group that repelled down into the dark has yet to return, five strong souls that haven't checked in for days. Anxiety has begun to build in the basecamp, unsure if more people should go down and try to find the original force.
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Post by Arlette Noir on May 12, 2023 20:32:46 GMT -5
At the very depth of a chasm, where the morning sun struggles to shine between the torn soil and stone, the lone thud of boots on the dirt stirs dust into the air. It fills the already-choked crevice like pus in a narrow wound and shines with a muted light, almost enshrouding the rising figure clothed in fabrics of white -- an innocent colour, oblivious to the promise that it will be stained before it feels the sun again. Here, at the penumbra, someone steps forward with an elegance unfitting for this decrepit place. Behind her, the rope squirms as it's pulled up and out of reach, but she pays it no mind; she'd already consigned herself to this task from the moment she raised her silk hood and donned the owl mask. Arlette Noir: mercenary. And she stands tall, ready to descend into the darkness before her.
She takes a muffled breath, smelling the dust and the recently disturbed stagnancy. In front of her, the chasm leads into an artificial abyss, hewn from stone, weathered from millennia of neglect and long-submerged beneath a sea of dirt. The catacombs; five entered, but none returned. And now she's been sent to find them, whether they're alive or having joined the countless entombed below. Above her, over the crest where the hem of the rope just now vanishes, she can yet hear calls and discourse amongst the camp. But even here, it is distant; and soon, it -- and the sunlight that nary trickles down -- will be a memory.
Dirt over soil, over stone... Sedimentary earth outlines the path, leading her eyes to the darkness that's now taken five. It is like a wall, in itself, where the sunlight doesn't dare to pass. What could have imprisoned or concluded these scholars, in the catacombs of Braddock? In this place, sealed for millennia untold... what evil was left to be disturbed?
Arlette holds, close, her sole armament: a cane of ebony, carved to smoothness that she will not find elsewhere in this place. She traces fingers over its surface, to the handle at whose arch is a loop -- and, like a gently curling hair...
"Clair de lune, éclaire mon chemin."
She clutches, and pulls at the trigger. Sparks, for but a moment, illuminate the depths of the chasm. The handle is pulled away from the haft, and metal glints as a blade[1] is drawn out of the cane with a sibilant keen. Thin, elegant and sharp beyond perception: she holds this weapon firmly, still bearing the cane-scabbard in her other. She is ready. Step after step takes her further down the path of dirt, weathering away to soil and then to ancient stone. Behind her, the sounds decrescendo and the colours desaturate into silence and darkness. Not long after, there is only shadow -- and she breathes among myriad breathless husks. She does not know the quarry, but she can feel it nonetheless: the hunt has begun.
Darkness. Silence. Stillness. In a place so long-forsaken, every movement feels as if erring; and every sound uttered feels as if blasphemous; and every moment spent in the light feels as if being seen. It's for this reason that the delver called Arlette is both slow and silent wherever she is able, and it is why she does not mind the darkness -- it is preferable, when the alternative is to be so naively illuminated. Although this place is truly tenebrous, and she must graze her shoulder along the wall so that she knows where she has yet to be, she would prefer to accept the blindness as reality and rely on other, less vulnerable senses.
For one, she hears. It is faint -- so very faint, like a memory of a thought -- so faint that she cannot discern it, but there is something. For as long as she's followed it, still she's unable to know if it is truly something with a source and meaning or simply any of countless phenomena for which she doesn't know a name. But, with or without meaning, it is something. It is anything, and such a precept is more valuable in a place like this than can be understood anywhere that knows the sun. She is cautious, she is quiet, and she is unseen, but she proceeds in pursuance.
She trods on steps of unweathered stone, leading deeper downward along a curving path. Every step entreats fate, and so she is polite, so delicately tracing a toe over the corner and gently touching the next stair before lowering her weight. All the while, her right shoulder grazes the wall. There might be anything to her left; she knows not the width or even height of this hall. There might be another chasm, or even a beast, or simply a second wall; but, to disqualify any such possibility she would abandon her only anchor in the deep. A wall -- anywhere is, it would seem silly to think so intimately of a thing so mundane. But here, it is constant, and consistency is a gift.
That sound...
It's a voice. A woman's voice. Crying. And it comes from further down, ricocheting from the hewn rock...
Someone's down here -- someone alive. Such a thing had always been the hope, but never the expectation. And for it to be realized here, beneath tonnes of gravel and dirt -- it does change the mercenary's state. It tells her many things: that there is urgency, that she will need to escort someone back, and that whatever entrapped them may be nearby. It is a fortunate discovery, but one that makes many baleful promises. They are promises she cannot deny.
With a hurried pace that's abandoned much of before's caution, she follows the sound as it echoes around corners and through chambers of breadth unseen. There is not a complete absence of evidence from a prior excursion: she discovered an unlit torch where she stepped with her boot; and, in a place where a pit seemed unnavigable, she spent minutes sans progress before discovering a provisional ladder to descend. But no evidence is so strong -- nor so welcome, nor so nostalgic -- as Arlette's first glimpse of light since delving into this forsaken place. It wavers, as if terrified, from around a corner, illuminating the countless barrows that line the narrow hall. And it's from around that same corner that the mournful voice weeps, louder and clearer than ever before.
Like the burning that one feels as they come in from the cold, the mercenary called Arlette feels that developed numbness weathering harshly away. She feels compelled to come closer -- to the light, and to whatever unfortunate soul would emanate those sobs. Her pace quickens, as if the shadows were now nipping at her heels; but perhaps it is only fear, finally catching up to her. Warmth graces her cloth as she passes into the penumbra. The hall continues forward, but she turns here, releasing a breath as she turns the corner and sees...
Corpses. Two of them -- a human and a dwarf -- splayed unceremoniously on the cold, stone ground. They are some of the researchers that were sent below; at least, Arlette knows no others that should be here. The light came from a single, measly torch ensconced. And the voice came from a human woman who now leans, slumped, against a wall, crying into the palms of her dirtied hands.
Arlette does not waste a moment. Perhaps it is the intoxicating warmth in contrast to the grave's cold, but she spends no caution in the step she takes into the tiny, half-collapsed chamber. She pays the corpses no mind for the time, stopping herself only so that she does not startle the poor woman, and then tests her voice for the first time in near an hour -- a short time, in any other place.
"Miss...?"
It's as if her voice was a spider, or some other cryptic pest crawling toward the woman; the response is a sudden, visceral lurch and sidle away from Arlette. It's sudden enough for even Arlette to be startled, and she steps back as well. But she understands, once she considers it. This woman has been stranded here for days. She's likely starved, parched, delusional and terrified. Arlette's own bravery to reach this point would pale in comparison to what this poor woman must've experienced. She'll need to be as delicate as the morning sun, and perhaps this poor woman could then remember such a thing.
Arlette stows her blade back into its place, waiting for the telltale click before she takes a calm step forward and kneels. The woman's brown hair entangles a week's worth in detritus, and she carries a foul stench -- both blameless flaws for the desolate. Dirt and filth take shelter beneath her nails, and her are thin and malnourished. Arlette can imagine few a more piteous sight.
"Miss, you're alright now. Come with me; I'll bring you to safety."
At first, there's no answer but the continued mourning whose despair echoes into the halls. But even this absence shows progress; the woman does not recoil or start. And in fact, little by little, the woman does begin to calm. Her sobs become less frequent, and Arlette can just glimpse a glint of blue irises whose beauty is beauty is tarnished by a war of terror and hope. Finally, a voice struggles through the tears.
"You... You're from the camp?" It's like a melody through shattered glass: broken sonder. For beauty to be flensed in such a way... Arlette feels a pale heat inside her. An evil such as this cannot go unpunished.
But for now, must help this poor woman.
"I am."
The woman still leans away, crooking along the detritus with a posture that's abandoned the thought of comfort. Her muscles must ache beyond feeling.
"And you'll... bring me back to them?"
...Why does that question ring so ominously?
"Of course I will. It is my promise, upon the moonlight." She does not trust that a human would understand such an oath, but she trusts that the certainty in her tone might carry its meaning.
Gently, she holds a hand forward, waiting for it to be taken. And, though it does take time, the woman does reach forward at last, removing the hand that'd so long covered her face.
But when the woman unveils her face, Arlette cannot maintain the offer. She rises and steps back, with one hand clutching the haft of her cane while the other hovers at the trigger.
Red. Red stains the woman's chin, cheeks, lips and teeth. There's no injury in sight, not even the scars that an acolyte's magic would leave. Just dried blood.
It's with great trepidation that Arlette turns to see one of the corpses, making an observation long-overdue. The dwarf and human, both, have had their skin devoid of all colour. Pale as the moon, but without the naturalness of her own hue; instead, they are as gaunt and white as exsanguinated pigs. And upon their neck, just below the skull, are two punctures on either cadaver.
She looks back to the woman, ready to draw her blade and face a demon down... But sees no threat. The woman still kneels there, now wearing an expression of worry that's all but innocent to her own atrocity.
"What's wrong? You're going to help me, right?" She rises, and Arlette steps back. "Please! Please... It's so cold here. I want to see the sun..."
Arlette is lost for words and direction alike. The woman's innocence does not seem to be an illusion -- not that Arlette can tell. She seems to not even be aware of the blood that slathers her jaw like paint. In the torchlight, it is an image of paradox: the crimson face of a demon below the nose, but the pure and terrified eyes of a child glinting above, silently pleading...
Does she know what she did? Does she know what she is?
What does it mean if she doesn't?
The woman begins another step toward. But Arlette won't permit it.
"Stay back!" And she does: frightened and confused, the woman retreats until her back is to the rubble again. She is as scared as any mortal would be, and none the wiser.
How could Arlette reveal to her, in a way without wounding, that the sun she recalls would no longer welcome her? That she will never that warmth again?
The mosaïque demands that Arlette cut such an abomination down where it stands. Those that pervert life itself should be returned to their grave. But before her, Arlette sees a person and a demon, and she cannot slay one without the other falling as well...
The woman stays in place, not daring to move unbidden. But with dried tears staining her cheeks, she utters in a voice as piteous as a mewl.
"Are you going to help me?"
Arlette cannot admit that she asked this question to herself, before it was voiced. Is she? Can she? Is help possible for a being so accursed?
Perhaps it is. Arlette knows no such salvation; but, if she can deliver this woman to a church of Lunala, perhaps their magic could avail her. But it is a risk, and a grave one...
...
Arlette draws a deep breath. The air is fetid; but, even here, the faintest scent of a breeze can be detected.
"Of course I will." At those words, the woman smiles beneath crimson stains, likely for the first time in days. The statement seems to raise her in entirety, as if a physical weight were lifted from her -- but only the weight she knows of. But before she can stand, Arlette raises a hand. "First, however, I need you to tell me what you remember."
1. Hidden Blossom Blade
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Post by Adelaide Nastase on May 15, 2023 20:33:45 GMT -5
The imbrued woman’s face falls and her eyes fix firmly on the floor. She seems to almost cave into herself, arms and legs pulled tight against her body. For a strained moment the silence hangs between them expectantly, awaiting the grisly tale with morbid fascination. When the waif speaks, her voice comes in an unsure and stilted canter.
“We came down here to survey and map the ruins… Tordin the geologist to be sure that the place wouldn’t cave in,” She motions vaguely towards the dead dwarf, “Viktor and Leslie, a h–husband and wife duo tha-that specialized in the old kingdom of Braddok, Ellunara a hired hand to help guide us down here and m-me, Telestia. I-I studied at the Academy in mainly utilitarian magics for research purposes. I was apprenticing under Viktor…”
Her eyes cast a distraught glance at the human man laying dead on the ground beside the dwarf and she sniffles a little before continuing.
“We had come down here on a rope… Tordin first and then the rest of us following after. He said it was safe, it was supposed to be safe!”
Her voice rises into a rueful shout as she reminisces on the wanton adventure that led her here. She quiets and continues her story softly.
“The upper levels were not terribly interesting, just the ruins of the former castle’s foundations and cellars. Most of the stairs had been damaged in the quake so we had to be very careful. Tordin lead the way deeper until we finally broke into the catacombs themselves. It appeared that when the castle fell to ruin the catacombs had become sealed and forgotten, undisturbed for centuries. Tordin broke through some fallen rocks and allowed us past the greater obstacles and into the old crypts. The d-deeper you go the more bodies there are. We found ancient funerary artifiacts, sarcophagus that had the names of ancient royalty lost to time and when we got even deeper we even discovered a more archaic dialect of the written language of the fallen kingdom… It was momentous discovery after momentous discovery, so much we could only marvel and record myriad notes on what we had seen before a proper excavation and preservation team could come and take over…”
Telestia’s gaze had grown distant, straying back to the day everything went wrong. As she continues about the research and discoveries they had made, her voice takes on a more academic and even tone.
“We had made it pretty low, to some of the deepest crypts where the bodies were stuffed closed together and piles of bones, likely of the servants, towered over us. That’s when we heard it. At first, it sounded like the whisper of wind, a breeze from deep within the earth, and then it was upon us. A mist as fine and cold as winter in Sol City snaked its way through the passage, twisting around us. Tordin shouted for everyone to hold their breath as it might be some toxic gas released during the quake. But it wasn’t. It was far worse. In an instant, the mist cleared and an emaciated figure appeared before us. No, emaciated isn’t the right word… Shriveled. It was like a skeleton wearing only the thinnest veneer of skin. Long, matter hair of indiscernible color fell around its shoulders and it wore nothing else. Ellunara raised the pick she had, ready to fight whatever this was, but before any of us could even move it attacked.”
Her breath catches and she starts to tremble.
“Like a viper in the desert of Zeinav the creature struck with incredible speed, leaping onto Ellunara and knocking her to the ground. I screamed and backed away and-and… It tore her throat out. The gurgling… It was horrific. Viktor tried to pry the monster off Ellunara but it threw him against a wall like he was made of paper. It was chaos. There was blood everywhere. I thought I was going to die. Leslie ran to Viktor’s side and I ran back the way we’d come but then…”
She grew still and quiet, her voice coming out as no more than a whisper.
“I felt it. A weight on my back no more than that of a child. I tripped and fell and felt its teeth dig into me and I screamed. Then Viktor hit it with something and it left me there and turned on him. There was so much blood… It was everywhere. I could feel it draining out of me, it was so cold… There was screaming but I couldn’t stay awake… I had never felt so tired in my life… I just wanted to rest. The blood was the only warmth between me and the icy stone floor and I passed out…”
She looks at Arlette with tears trailing rivulets in the dried blood on her face. A pitiful and pitiable creature.
“Then I felt hungry… So hungry I couldn’t stand it. It was stronger than anything I’d felt before in my life…” Her tongue idly traces the corner of her lips, “I woke up and I saw them on the ground… And I-I… I couldn’t help it… I had to… They were almost gone anyway. But you can get me out of here, help me, can’t you?”
The feverish hope burns in her eyes, but there’s something else too. Something feral and primal. Hunger. She slowly unfolds herself from the ball she’d rolled into and reaches towards Arlette, pleading with her eyes for help, for succor, for freedom from this abyss.
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Post by Arlette Noir on Jun 6, 2023 6:57:42 GMT -5
And her hand is met with another -- the gloved hand of Arlette. It clasps hers from above, leather-bound fingers gliding over dorsal skin. It would be the first warmth, aside the torch's unloving heat, that she'd felt since extinguishing the others. She stares with irises that are each a sea of hope and fear and madness and the chaos between, to be met by the heart-veiling saucers of the mercenary's owl-mask. It is an expression more cold than Arlette would hope, but not more honest than she wishes.
There's no movement of lips, or eyes or tongue; only the faintest nod of her head is any indication of Arlette's life. But a voice endeavours out, nonetheless, hushed and gentle but firm.
"I will. But if we are both to escape this place, then I will need you to do everything that I say. Do you understand?"
Between wavering inhalations and whistling puffs, the woman nods.
"Good. Now: there were five of you. Two lay here, and you said that the others ran. Do you have even the faintest clue where they went?"
The focus in the woman's eyes wavers as she struggles to break free from what's before her, and back into memory. In her expression and in the subtle movements of her hand, one can clearly see the soft struggle against the numb chaos in her mind. It is longer-waiting, and it is more hesitant, but an answer does come in heavy breathings.
"I don't know... I saw them running through a hall, but then I... I woke up here..."
'Then she doesn't know how she came to be here.' Arlette completes the thought where the woman struggles to do so. 'She would not know how to find them.'
It is no use. She will have to return for them; she cannot risk bringing a monster to them.
Arlette looks out to the chamber's entrance, where the torchlight reaches pitifully into the shadows with its flittering light. Such an abyss, Arlette has never known. It offers no choice; it must be braved, now or later. It only waits, patiently yawning. If not for the woman's ragged breaths and the torch's faint crackles, it would be all but silent.
"Alright. Come with me. Stay close, and be silent." she whispers; and the woman nods, shivering. With one hand still firmly grasping the woman's wrist, Arlette stows the cane-blade at her hip and carefully takes the torch off its rusted sconce. It wavers timidly at her touch, but she is glad to have its heat so near. And while light was a burden before, she fears it will be a necessary evil for the trials ahead.
Together, they step forward, and the torch reaches further with unbidden light. It burns the darkness away, even as that tenebrous murk regenerates behind them to reclaim that half-ruined chamber. With light now brought upon them, graves can be seen carved into the walls. The light creeps over their petrified corticals, over their gaping jaws and into the abysses of empty sockets. Only now does Arlette behold the residents she's disturbed: a kingdom's twice-dead; first corpses, and then forgotten.
But she does not tarry or give the remains a second consideration. Their grim countenances, holding the impressions of life with none of its vigour, should be frightful. But she knows the true danger. And as it squeezes her hand with feeble strength, she steps briskly down the dusted stone, with the firelight endeavouring, with the ragged-breathed woman behind her, and with the shadows lapping at their heels.
Minutes pass, though in silence and without any such token, and they pass graves by the hundred-fold. It is the same path Arlette had tread before; the recollection of her kin is not to be doubted. What has changed, in quality if not material, has brought nothing true: there is light where there was darkness, but still absent of clarity; there is heat where there was cold, but yet absent of warmth; there is companionship where there was desolation, but it brings no comfort. No; it clutches Arlette's hand with an unnatural strength that acknowledges grim truths, and grants constant reminder that the true danger here does not lie in any grave.
There is one revelation, however, that Arlette had neither witnessed or even dreamt. This place -- this sacred, silent place -- has been invaded not just by her and the expedition, but by penetrating, burrowing roots, as overgrown as the fortress above... And this, however strangely, does grant her a modicum of ease, to know that her actions alone were not that which tarnished this sanctity.
But this ease is not enough. She can hear the woman's breathing behind her: fearful, quivering whistles. Even toward such a creature, Arlette cannot smother her pity, and she wonders what could be done...
Distraction. Anything at all.
As the torchlight crawls over a set of ascending stairs, Arlette looks upon the ancient stonework -- masonry laid centuries if not millennia ago, perhaps by some of the very men and women now entombed. She can feel the sacrilege skittering across her skin. But it is not without its fascination.
"What else did you find in your expedition?" Her voice is little more than a murmur, but a murmur in silence is clear enough. And though she can't see the woman, she can hear an answer struggling to cohere on her lips.
"We... We found scripture, in two of the sepulchres. The words were f-... fa-... gone. But the pages were..."
By the tightness in the woman's grip, Arlette can feel the struggle in the woman's thoughts. It is true depravity, when even the simplest recollections are so tenuous.
"They were what? Had something been done to them?" Aid in her remembering, however slight, as they ascend the weathered steps.
"...N-No. They'd... rotten. There was little of them left. But they weren't paper!"
It's her own memory, and yet she utters it with all the inspired mirth of an epiphany. It's a balm to Arlette, to be able to offer some levity in this tenebrous realm of uncertainty. 'A little more.' she promises herself.
"What were they, then?"
"Papyrus," she answers, sudden and succinct, "bound in foreign leathers. And some of the clothes we found, too, they... N-Not from here. The make shared similarities with artifacts recovered from the tomb of Sultan Ziev in... in Zeinav..."
The wear, the sorrow in her decrescendoing whisper, pulls down upon Arlette's soul. She risks a glance back at the woman, and glimpses distant, absent eyes that wander across the stone.
"It's... It's warm, in Zeinav..." like words from the brink of sleep -- the throes of a dream not-yet forgotten. "Can we go there?"
Arlette knows not what to feel. Sympathy? Disgust? It's strange, but there's something else -- something pulsing beneath as she looks into the woman's pleading, tear-sparkled eyes between strands of soft umber. The legends are true, it seems... She will have to hold firm; no readiness can avail her if her mind is not her own.
"Someday." another balm of hope, however unlikely. "You'll be able to see the white towers, and bathe on the Scorched Coast; feel the sand between your toes, and watch the sun set over Sol." She can feel the woman's grip softening more and more, its clasp not so constrictive. Her breathing gradualizes and her pulse slows, as if lulling into slumber, even as they reach the crest of the staircase and proceed into the dark corridor beyond. "You'll be able to walk through the High Market, and see-"
A falter in rhythm is intrinsically perturbing. For reality to fail expectation is disarming of one's resolve, whether by a word mis-spoken or a step mis-placed. Here, it is the latter; Arlette is brought to a stop as she feels the strange and unnerving sensation of her forefoot sinking down, down, where she'd been so trusting of the stone's forbearance.
And there's a sound: stone, grinding on stone.
She turns her gaze down on reflex, but it's an act unnecessary to know that the floor had sunk beneath her step -- ten millimetres, perhaps, but an indent enough. Her blood freezes with her cognizance. Her mind becomes a nexus of unchallenged sensations: the feeling of the woman's hand tightening around her own; the viscera of her breath catching in her throat; and the sound of a click, click, click from within the stone; and then a distant thack from in front of her, down the corridor.
She's familiar enough with the sound, and she's familiar enough with the piercing agony that is to follow.
Time slows from the adrenal rush. One second, maybe less. At any other time, she should be throwing herself to the side, doing anything to remove herself from the quarrel's path. But she can't; the woman is behind her. To save herself here would be to sacrifice another's life, however accursed that life may be. There is only one thing she could even attempt to save them both: it is the bolt that must be swayed from its course.
A fifth-second has passed already when Arlette lets go of the torch. And as it falls, flames spasming upward like the hands of the drowned, she grasps the handle of her stowed and ebony cane. The trigger is pulled, and sparks leap onto the stone. By the time the steel of her blade glints in the torchlight, so too comes a similar glint from the darkness ahead. And it's just as the torch's base first clats on the cold stone that the steel is drawn forth in a singular arc of desperation!
...
Silence -- silence, but her throbbing heart. She stands frozen, blade still in-hand, breaths heavy in the afterglow of adrenaline. She can feel cold beads of sweat collecting beneath her mask. Was she struck?
No. She knows the feeling, but no gasp has escaped her lungs and her stance remains unbroken. She releases a breath; by what was near-certainly fortune, if not providence, she knocked the deadly bolt aside. They are, both of them, safe from the projectile.
She sheathes the blade that saved her life, and steps aside to watch the dust-covered tile rise back into place and into the light whose source still flits pathetically on the floor. For a moment, she's inclined to wonder; this is the very same corridor down which she tread on her entry, but she discovered and activated no traps then. And she has to wonder why. But she realizes the answer, with little deliberation: on her entry, she'd been without a light. And so to travel, she'd leant against the wall and charted her path only in this way. She would have simply walked past this plate. But now, with torch in hand, they carve their path through the hall's centre. It's only natural that they would discover something new -- new and unwelcome.
Perhaps it is in thanks to the glow of fear, but Arlette is able to see the humour even in this umbral depth. For light -- that which should illuminate -- the guide them into danger... The irony is not lost on her. But it is no matter any more; if memory serves her, as it is so loyal, then they are not far from the entrance. And if they remain close to the wall, as Arlette did on arrival, then they would avoid any further dangers. Yes; soon they will both be free. What happens thereafter... will be a challenge still. But it is one that Arlette has taken upon herself -- a promise she made in earnest. So long as hope radiates its silver rays, she will fight to keep that promise. Such is her honour. Such is her resolve.
But then she feels something. It's an uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar sensation. Yes, she's felt it before, more times than she'd care to recall. It is warm and wet, and she can feel it on her shoulder. Calmly, she feels there with a hand; tracing a gloved finger along the white linen of her coat, she feels there a rift where hewn strands reach toward one-another. Within that rift, she finds another, this one of the black charmeuse beneath. And further in... another; this one not of fabric, but in her own flesh. A laceration bleeds there, but not heavily so. And she realizes that she must've only partially diverted the quarrel's path. It should not matter; it is far preferable to the deadly wound she might've received. It will not hinder her so long as she cleans it; in time, the bleeding should staunch itself.
...And then epiphany grips her heart with fingers of crimson ice, and she hears a voice drone from just behind her.
"Oh... Oh, you're hurt... You're bleeding."
It sends the sensation of skittering insects along Arlette's skin. She turns around, and there she sees the woman crooked. The woman stands like a child, ignorant of even her own innocence. But in her eyes -- her wide, ecliptic eyes that glimmer in the firelight -- there is a void of all emotion but the most singular of fascinations. She doesn't meet Arlette's gaze; she looks down, to the scarlet rift in Arlette's shoulder, transfixed.
"Here... let me see it."
Arlette steps back, only for the woman to step in pursuance. The woman's movements are lulling and careless, as if drunken. And yet so very focused is her gaze. She reaches a hand forward, but the such demeanour is one that blurs between an offer and a plea. Arlette holds her cane -- a weapon of bare necessity -- close.
"Stay back!" she repeats her command from before, but with none of the effect. The woman continues; she produces not even the most reflexive of responses. It's as if she truly did not hear the command, numb to the voice of concern.
Arlette finds herself backing away, but only for every step to be matched as if in dance. And she's to back away from the torch's light, pushed into the penumbra. And the woman's shadow creeps along the wall in lurching steps, until she steps over the discarded torch and it is Arlette that the shadow falls upon. The woman's face and all its innocence is enshrouded in umbra. But her eyes, in the darkness, they gleam... like a predator's.
In all of an instant, sanity is forsaken and the woman leaps forward like some starved beast. With fingers that are hooked claws, she grasps at Arlette! Shocked, it is only on reflex that Arlette raises the cane to hold this savage and flailing and screaming monster back! A feeble, battered woman assaults her; and yet such ferocity[1] she's never known in a person - ! Arlette is faltering -- she is faltering; and the gaping jaws of a beast draw closer!
Possessed of an instant of fear-begotten strength, Arlette twists the cane to wrench the monster aside. With the very same force that it endeavoured upon Arlette, it -- in all meanings but intent -- dives into one of many alcovic graves; and the remains sepulchred therein are scattered to the floor, as if in grim augury.
Arlette is little more graceful; the force of her resistance, too, launches her to the opposing side so she must brace herself on the bare masonry. It is a reprieve, but one of panic and throbbing temples. This is as she feared. It is all as she feared!
The feeling of a tap on her boot draws her eyes down, to a near-petrified femur that'd rolled across the floor, and then fore. There, she expects to witness those crystalline spheres once more, but she does not anticipate them to be so close that she can feel the monster's lustful breath slithering into the orifices of her masque! Strands of umber, adhered to its skin by sweat, she glimpses just before an unholy force pushes against her front and her back is slammed against the unforgiving stone! A groan escapes her -- such is the force -- and she slumps and slides on the masonry, but only for a downward foot before the creature pins her there!
Two hands press against her chest, so fiercely that she might feel the cracking of a rib were it not for the glint that demands all her attention. For now, in the firelight, she can see fully the gaping jaws and isoscelic fangs that bear toward her! And she owes another chance at life to sheer reflex as raises the cane directly before her face! Like a rabid dog, the creature does not hesitate to bite into the ebony -- truly to its animalism.
It rears back, but not in any remorse; instead, it raises a fist and brings it hurtling...!
There is a CRASH! And then a gravelline tumbling. Arlette was swift enough to tilt her head aside, and the result hints ominously at the evaded consequence; its fist had punctured the very masonry on which she's slumped.
The assault continues. With the creature's face mere inches from Arlette's visage, she can only endeavour to hold it back with a gloved hand as its jaw snaps and slavers! It is a desperate struggle, accentuated with dire uncertainty. Arlette wants not to fight; she wants not to harm this creature when it would entail harm to the innocent woman whose form is indentured! But if this assault continues...
"Stop this...!"
But there's not a drop of recognition's balm. Its reply is a blind man's response to light, and a stone's response to pain: nothing, no pause or alteration in its onslaught, only the ever-waning strength that permits the approach of those piercing incisors. It is a pointless endeavour, and fruitless, and hopeless...
And in that moment, Arlette feels something. It is as peculiar as it is unexpected, and as dreadful as it is disorienting. As under the force of the remorseless onslaught, there is a shift, and then a crack, and then a movement as the bricks behind her give way.
And then, all balance is lost, and she and the monster plummet into darkness.
1. Raw Speed (Researcher)
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