Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

"That would be great." Some of the tension coiled in Vix's shoulders loosened a little, but she didn't let herself feel entirely relieved just yet. She glanced up at Rowan, who had rested her chin on her forearms, reading over Andruil's shoulder.

The older woman remarked without looking up, "But of course it doesn't end there. So what have you and Arsenic been planning?"

'No plans, not yet,' Arsenic was quick to clarify, leaning forward to set his elbows on his knees. 'All I said was I need more to work from, if I'm to copy those carvings. A memory of a memory and sketches of rubble aren't enough.'

Rowan was silent for a long moment. "Do we even know where to start looking?" she asked, finally tearing her gaze from the journal. She glanced from Vix to Arsenic and back, wondering if they were about to take off on a whim.

Vix hesitated and bit her lip. "Not...exactly." She studied her hands as though finding them suddenly fascinating.

[The Kingpin]

Andruil was silent for a moment, giving it some thought. "You didn't by chance check the library in the Riverdale Palace, did you?" he asked after a while. He had to admit, if it wasn't there, he had no idea where to start, aside from reading through the journal itself.

He was tempted to suggest speaking to Septimus. Now that he had the ring, he could, in theory, get in touch with the dragon. There were two things that kept him from bringing it up. The first was that the purpose of the Eye was to do his duty to his people. It would be in bad taste to use such a powerful artefact to do a favour for a friend. The greater concern was that in addition to that, Septimus's method of knowing this was through Vix's grandfather. He remembered very clearly what happened last time. He had no intention of putting her through that again. Not unless she asked.

It was in hindsight that he realised Arsenic was probably listening in, even with his efforts to mute his thoughts over the past few months. He doubted he was quite proficient enough to keep his thoughts from the Assassin just yet. Not that it mattered in this case. All things considered, he would probably agree on this line of action. Would you not?

[Hopeflower]

Arsenic gave Andruil a sidelong look, chewing on that information. He hadn't been aware that it was even an option to get in contact with Septimus, and so hadn't considered the toll Lusio's memories might have taken on Vix. Given the circumstances, the logic was sound, even if leaving those memories untapped would make their task that much harder. Best not to mention it, he agreed.

Vix started to open her mouth and closed it without saying anything, glancing at Rowan sheepishly.

The older woman rolled her eyes. "She rushed us out of the city as soon as she made up her mind to steal that, so no. Not thoroughly." Rowan stood upright to stretch, wincing when a few vertebrae popped. "First-timers," she sighed. "So skittish."

[The Kingpin]

The Knight laughed at that, handing the book back to Vix. "There's no need to be a critic, Rowan," he chimed. "Not everyone was stealing as an urchin. It takes a certain...mischievous spirit to justify it," he added with a hint of a smirk. He absently noted that Shiryaz hadn't budged, instead being a big ball of feathery fluff staring unmovingly at the Mute Assassin. It was almost funny how the bird was making himself seem as big as possible, to make Arsenic uncomfortable.

[Hopeflower]

'With a quick hand and a spine of steel to back it up,' Arsenic pointed out, an edge of amusement to his tone. He kept an eye on Shiryaz, but otherwise left the bird to his posturing, being very used to dealing with much bigger predators.

"I'm so thrilled that you all find my inexperience funny," Vix said, but there was no bite to her words and she couldn't quite hide a smile. She set the journal back in her lap, her hand on the cover almost protectively.

Rowan snickered and braced her hip against the back of Andruil's chair, folding her arms. "You're adorable, sunshine."

[C S]

A terror boasting jaws full of razors ambled on gangly limbs. It all but dragged its head on the ground, misshapen as it was, lusting after that aroma of its own. A brown matting coated its stretched body, thickest on its elongated back. Hard-packed muscle rippled along the underbelly of the beast, covered by deep grayish skin that flaked away in the cold. The arms and legs were bent outwards from underneath the creature's frame, a mimicry of the insect-like with something that could be vaguely called mammalian.

The head of the beast tapered, a long snout that ended in a pointed nose, wrinkled and bristling with whiskers. Its cheek pushed against the snow as the creature went on, one milky eye staring forwards from a brow dotted with boils filled with an equally disgusting humor. Unable to lift its head from the forest floor, the fiend's snout was constantly dragging to one side, and its lips were torn apart by crowded, overlapping yellow teeth. A short tail covered in wiry fur swished to and fro as it hunted down the hunter.

As the unnatural creature pulled itself through the snow, upper body heaving while its forelimbs flailed and pulled at the ground, it was being observed by something also misplaced in this world. Its body was unlike its quarry. Sleek metal plates comprised its skin, arranged so deliberately and perfectly as to leave nary a gap in the joints. Its paws all had four toes, one talon pointed forwards, two on the sides and one pointed backwards. It stalked along on four limbs as well, but it looked the part of a hunter, more so than this bulk of muscle, claws and teeth.

It pushed the upper limits of the size range of large hounds, and moved like one too. It strode with a confidence of a living being, though this automaton was anything but living. The only thing a bloodhound had in common with a bloodfiend was that its entire body was a weapon. Plates around its shoulders and hips were riddled with short spikes. The armor around the lengths of its legs had beveled edges, functional blades. The tail ended with a long ray-like weapon as effective as any other sword. The triangular head of the bloodhound was flat, one large jewel-like eye set in the middle and several smaller ones arranged around it. The jade hunter patterned by yellow and blue stalked the fiend with a gaze of orange.

It did not think, its motivations were as basic as the blood-thirster's. Instinct drove it, though no experience taught it as much. Its instinct was the Experimentalist's will, and though this thing was not what it was meant to combat expressly, its course of action was clear. It was the bloodhound's service to eliminate aberrant dangers. The green automaton worked its way out of the cover of trees silently and crept up on the dark fiend, body held low as it approached.

Rutgers, taken by his psychopathy, would not know what ensued between metal and flesh.

But it was a clash for the ages.

The hound's triangular head split down the middle of the point, sideways. Inside this housing were tiny bits of metal in motion within sleeves of more metal. The sliding sheets were sharper than the teeth and claws of the fiend, and they were put to bear on its tail. The metal incisors cut through flesh, bone and sinew without as much as a snag. Thick globs of sickly excess splattered against the armor and the snow.

Just like that, the bloodfiend pushed against the ground with its forelimbs and spun to swing its bundle of claws into its attacker. It droned a dry, diseased sound as it did so. The hound was as quick, if not quicker, turning on itself and whipping its tail around with a swing so precise it lopped off the bloodfiend's killer weapons at the wrist.

Another spin and the metal marauder lunged into the underbelly of the creature with enough force to knock it onto its back. Sprawling and writhing, the bloodfiend was beset by this construct of blades. The snow turned dark with a corruption that reeked as flesh tore noisily, and metal scraped against metal. The hound's mouth of knives made quick work of the monster's neck, stripping away skin and muscle until bone was exposed and only the tiniest strands of tissue spanned the cavity that the beast's throat had become.

And then it was off, the hound leaving the gurgling, broken mass, cleaved apart, to rot. Its bloodied tracks disappeared into the woods.

In pursuit of the others.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"You've missed quite a show," the red woman replied, smiling her usual smile. Although the man - who would have appeared out of nowhere, if not for his distinctive scent - seemed well and truly gone to all reason, the battle that had taken place not far away had not gone unobserved.

"Friends of yours?" she asked, her smile widening.

[C S]

Rutgers set down his bag without answering. He ran a sleeve across his face as she stood straight again.

His hands found the handles of his axes.

And in the next instant, one was sent twirling through the air, end over end, towards the red woman.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

The red woman waited, unmoving, until the whirling weapon was mere inches from bisecting her nose. In that moment, her hand shot up and struck the side of the axe palm-first.

The sound that was made when limb met axe was not that of flesh on metal, but metal on metal; the woman's hand gleamed ominously as the weapon slammed into the ground a few feet away, her palm itself giving off a metallic sheen.

"Not much for words. A pity. I find you quite interesting."

[The Kingpin]

Yes, yes she is," said Andruil amusedly. "And we don't fault you for it," he added as he took another sip from his tea.

Shiryaz, realising the Assassin wasn't going to give him a reaction, proceeded to climb up the back of the chair, hopping over to Andruil's a moment later staring Rowan in the eyes in hopes of getting more of a response. Or at least, that was what Andruil guessed was going on, looking at the raptor over his shoulder.

"I suppose," he started after a few moments of thought, "... that we are going to be spending a few quiet days reading what we can and figuring out where to go next. I will send a letter home this evening to ask Valadrian if he could dig up any more books on Elvish history and Illyria in our library. I can have him send a few to me with the next supply shipment. Perhaps, if we're lucky, one of them will have what we need," he offered.

[C S]

"It was but a test," said the axeman. His voice had a bite to it, begrudging to speak to such a thing as this figure in the woods. "You insist on words when I could be dead already. State your terms, creature."

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Pamela made a thoughtful noise, folding her arms. As she did, the metal sheen on her hand faded, replaced once again by ordinary skin.

"I have no terms to speak of. I was tending to my own business and merely found your scent quite...peculiar," the red woman explained. Her smile returned. "It seems I was not the only one, though."

[C S]

"You're one to talk. About..." Rutgers huffed and snorted like a bull with a slow-burning rage and then growled, "Smells."

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"I've been getting that a lot lately," the red woman replied with a shrug. "There seems to be a lot of individuals around that are sensitive to the smell of blood. Quite troublesome, really. I'm just trying to mind my own business."

The woman's words appeared sincere, but her usual calm, almost indifferent, tone made it difficult to be certain.

[C S]

Rutgers clenched his fists.

So this must have been what the mute felt when he found himself against the snake.

What a horrible feeling. But there was something else in him battling the fury, something that recognized that he was speaking to another sapient being, and one that wished for more than violence. A ruse? Perhaps. He could not lose himself to this blood-tinged thought, though. To do so would put him over his edge, to go too far.

The instinct to demolish a threat met full force with his desire to be good. It left him feeling almost hollow inside. Slowly, he willed himself to extend his hand, and open his fist. "May I have my axe back?" he asked the stranger, though he continued eying her with murderous intent.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

Pamela looked from the man to the weapon. After a moment, she shrugged.

"I don't see why not."

The red woman took a few steps over to the discarded axe, grasping its handle and wrenching it out of the snow. Turning back to the man, she tossed the weapon in an almost lazy fashion, giving it just enough force to get it roughly within his reach.

[C S]

The axe landed as the red woman intended, just short of the ex-ranger, but reasonably close so that all he had to do was lean over and reach for the handle. Despite this, the only expression he had for the stranger was that of loathing. He bent over and took his axe from the snow and returned it to its holster.

"I know what that's like," he said after a tense quiet. "Just trying to mind my own business, while having something... off about me. I guess I know it all too well. So what's your name... kin?" He could have sworn, the word almost made him gag.

[Hopeflower]

Rowan's hand found the back of Shiryaz's head and settled there, scratching absently. With the way her attention didn't leave the conversation, it almost came off as similar to the way she might have patted a kid's head and sent them off to play while the adults talked. "It's as good a place to start as any," she agreed. "A few calm days will do us all good, I think."

The innkeeper looked almost doubtful, even with the lingering blush dusting her cheeks over being called cute, but she nodded. "Especially with the heart attack I gave Rowan," she put in, just to tease the scarred assassin.

"Hey, it was a normal reaction to you acting like the city watch was going to come down on our heads," Rowan shot back good-naturedly. "I thought you stole a nobleman's baby or something."

"How would I have hidden a baby in my bag?" Out of the corner of her eye, Vix saw Arsenic lower his head, shoulders shaking with silent snickers.

Rowan shrugged. "I'm sure there are ways."

[The Kingpin]

"You'd be surprised how small babies can be," said the Knight matter-of-factly, though he decided not to go into detail as to how he would know, instead sipping more of his tea. Shiryaz, pleased he was finally given some attention, tilted his head forward to give Rowan easier access to his neck, the feathers fluffing up as little, pleased chirps escaped him. For a moment, one could mistake the sounds for a small songbird, rather than a massive bird of prey.

[Hopeflower]

"But not by how loud they can be," Vix retorted, just as matter-of-factly.

Rowan winced, reminded of her brother waking up at all hours of the night. "Yeah, that's fair." She went on petting Shiryaz, letting a faintly affectionate smile curve her lips. Some nameless feeling that wasn't quite uneasiness and wasn't anger loosened its tight grip on her insides, just a little. Rowan hadn't even noticed how hard it had been to keep breathing evenly until then. She was home, and her family - her real family - was safe. The world had righted itself under her feet again, even if only for the moment.