Color of Madness - Adrift

[black379]

Baignard jolted upright in a fit of coughing. His eyes were screwed shut as he clasped his throat, struggling to breathe. His ankles and wrists were wracked with pain, as though bound in shackles. Finally regaining his composure, though with shallow and raspy breaths, he wrenched an eye open to survey the bleak surroundings. The dark, fungal, grove was instantly foreign. Not only unrecognizable, but starkly different from where he was before. He put a palm to his forehead to soothe a rising ache.

He was sat between two bulky trees, speckled with shelves and stalks of spores. The dark tendrils of roots snaked through gravel and fallen leaves towards him. Beyond the trees were more of the same, a dense and twisted forest. The foliage was thick enough to inhibit Baignard's vision more than thirty or so feet. Though dimly lit, sparks of aqua pierced through the canopy.

The bounty hunter pulled himself up against the nearest tree to gain his footing. He patted down his vest and belt to check his supplies and found his axe was missing. He had no helmet either. Unlatching the rope and hook from his belt, Baignard pushed off of the tree with a grunt. There was no way to tell which direction to go to return to the hamlet, but a sense of urgency spurned him on regardless. Still he moved cautiously and quietly as possible while he looked for some semblance of a path.

[orwelles]

He wouldn’t have to look far. As Baignard righted himself, several facts became apparent about his new surroundings. Though this forest bore many similarities to the Weald, the air seemed far cleaner. The spores contented themselves with clinging to the fungal canopy, rather than relentlessly hunt for new flesh to infect. What force halted this growth, none could say. Around 20 feet away from the hunter’s location, the forest floor was coated in what appeared to be glowing, electric-blue sand, forming a relatively straight line north.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

Amidst the tenebris shadows of the Weald, virulent spark flared to life amidst a deathly miasma.
With once broken hands, she pushed herself up from shards of metal and mud that swirled in fantastical designs.

There was a fight... she knew that much, there were still signs of it in the way the mud was molded around boots and dropped rifles. Familiar claw marks on the insides of a pallisade that ran about a camp of sticks and tent's cloth. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply, and then coughed; the air was sharp, sharper than winter's bite, she expected blood to pool at the back of her throat but there was only stark dryness. The Night, she remembered, had been dark... But it was bright now. Relatively. It was like home...

She wondered if she'd fallen into a dream, but... She ran her hands down her chest, the maille and leathers loose. Was this The End?

It was a bitter thought that curled her thin ashen lips to a frown, casting her eye upwards in hope. Though, she only spied a pulsating aurora of light. Just like home. It sent shivers up her spine, and she backed aimlessly from the sky.

She tripped, and fell onto her haunches. The mud looked wet but it didn't deform; in the mud, there were ashen corpses. Mercenaries, she remembered... Deserters. Their colorful brigade of white, gold, and red had all turned to a grim ash... Most were face down, most missing limbs but still clutching rifles or smallswords.
She counted eight... Eight; was that all she'd managed?

What did she expect? Suddenly, as her knees had begun to curl in towards herself and she felt tears behind her eye, she reached out and felt in the mud, amidst the bluish glow of Home's-sky, she searched for a familiar glimmer. A glint of amber, or silver, something... Anything. She was nothing without it... Nothing but--
Her fingers curled around a familiar oaken shaft, she gave a startled exhale in surprise, and smiled as she pulled up her ax and curled it under one arm; presenting the base of the pole to her, she saw the amber embedded in the skull trinket bound there and pressed her brow to it.

She wept from one eye, the eye of Taas. It was all she could spare, as she struggled to remember; she'd been taken, it wasn't surprising but it churned her gut like a spiteful murderer. She'd fought but... her amber eye looked over the corpses, then the mud beyond. A row of footprints, a firing line.
She ran a hand over her chest again, and felt eight holes punched through her maille and gambeson. Deeper, even.
Even then... she couldn't believe it. Sadness turned to frustration and anger, it was fuel to move, to rise.

The teal aurora in the sky warbled and waned, sending queer glints like stars amidst the now vacant camp. It inspired curiosity in Taas, now, as she ran her hands across the familiar grips of her splitting ax.
"Where am I..." She asked the glimmering steel of rifles and pots, and small swords and armors. The only reply came from behind her, a rustling like stone chafing against stone; sixteen limbs ground against eachother... Taas didn't even bother to look as her nostrils flared and the anger came again.

With a natural spite and flow, she took a step back, towards the eight corpses, and swung her ax at the noise behind her. There was a sound like steel being pulled apart, as her ax smashed into stone. Shards flew out and Taas' amber eye beheld a Corpse... A golem of stone, of slate not marble.
She'd slain worse, she knew, as one ax-swing followed another. With a wolf's roar, she found herself in every chunk she cleaved from the golem of slate; its eyes alight in cerulean crystal, which melted like wax with every impact. A final swing clove its head in twain, and the glow turned to smoke.

Seven still stood; their limbs stiff, clutching weaponry at odd angles. Their wounds were alight with cuprorivaite shards, growing and melting in a grossly organic yet mineralistic means.
With reckless and confused abandon, Taas set herself upon the Risen with vitriol and frustration; her end was of Ash and Flame, not this paltry realm of Slate and Refractions.

[black379]

The hunter only took a step before catching the tree again to keep from collapsing. Worse than just soreness, Baignard felt a fiery pang at his throat. Rubbing his neck, he felt no wounds or scars, but as his hand withdrew it was coated with blood. His eyes screwed shut, in vain effort to remember where he was before and how he came to be in the woods. He took a breather and guzzled down the last water from his canteen to soothe his parched throat.

Someone had to be nearby, but if he called for help he was just as likely to attract unwanted attention from the fungal shamblers, or rabid dogs that stalked the Weald. Even bandits, he was in no shape to fight alone, and without his axe for that matter. Instead he kept quiet. Knowing he had to move, he was drawn to the strange trail of light ahead. The path glowed like some spectral footprint. He had only to hope that it didn't lure him into worse.

As he reached the translucent blue track, Baignard heard a distant growl, likened to a battle cry. It gave him pause. If they were a possible ally, or even if they were a foe, he was inclined to keep a keen sense of them. Cautiously, albeit with due haste, he chased the sound, leaving behind the blue trail if he had to.

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Taas/

Strike by strike, Taas sent the obsidian shells of the reanimated corpses of her captors into the cosmic fog which grew ever denser in the amygdala of her mind. A deep unsettling realization brought forth from the womb of her psyche. A Primordial, rooted natural impulse, a twitch against the unknown.
She was trapped. A wolf in a cage, pinned by her--

Black shards struck her shoulder with more force than she'd anticipated; her shoulder dislocated with a wet crunch and she lost her breath. Lost with her mind, as she fell to the ground. The glittering gore of these corpses made mobile cut into her palms and snuck into the gaps of her armor.
She'd brought low six now. Worse than before.

Taas pushed herself up with force and a grunt; driving the end of her Ax's shaft through the chest of the offending fiend. It gave a startled gasp and what miasma induced its locomotion faded like a comet in the sky; billowing up to the twinkling stars overhead... She wondered if that was another blessing of the Wolf, or just the reality of this wyrd realm.

The stock of a rifle struck her upside the head, sending her mind reeling as she brought her ax up to parry a bayonet that glinted like flint. The blade exploded as it struck the hard wood, sending the bitter black shards over Taas' face, cutting deep and blinding her for a moment. But she felt the kick of a boot push her back, but the impact was warded by her thick tunic and leathers. She gave a small grunt and a blind jab with the head of her ax, making contact with a shell of cosmic ink which cracked under the pressure.

Her teeth ground against eachother as she got to her knees and sighed, her features forced to neutrality; she let her instincts guide her, it pleased the Wolf within.
Three were left, and they'd caught up to eachother... their blows were unorganized, forgotten was their training, for better or worse, as they swung with reckless abandon and strength which rivalled her own.

But they did not surpass; she heard the whistle of a blade cutting through the air, narrowly missing her brow. Taas grabbed the wrist and pulled hard, using what resistance the corpse made to pull herself up.
She forced her eye open, a droplet of blood fled from it but she saw the next strike clearly; the barrel of a rifle aimed to strike her dislocated shoulder. Instead, it went askew as she batted it aside with the head of her ax and pushed herself up to strike the face of the beast with her padded knee; the force sent its frozen complexion of terror scattering into the breeze.
By now, she'd learned the otherworldly odour of these creatures...

It weighed upon her mind, for a moment, to ponder on just what that odor was bidden to... But her guts knew, and it knew the flux and wan of its inspiring action; the last risen corpse rushed forward with a bayonet which did bite deep into the flank of Taas, but the creature had close the gap without a care for a riposte.
With her ax at her side, she felt her feet strike the ground as the ax head flew straight and true in an uppercut towards the jaw of the corpse. It sheared the face clean from the golem of black, and familiar wisps scattered out from its skull as that first corpse finally struck the ground, and Taas let steam flare from her clenched teeth and flared nostrils.

She took three steps back, stumbling as she took a breath and tried to collect herself, to ignore the pain as the Wolf left her and she tossed her ax aside to pull out the jagged and black bayonet plunged into her flank.
There was one last Corpse, its head stuck in the ground... she had time.

With an exhausted huff, she fell onto her rear with the weight of mountains on her shoulders, as she removed one of the fur pad greaves from her left leg to cover the wound later, as she looked down to the ragged hole with a sneer. It was only by experience that she bit back a wail of pain, and instead, only wimpered as she stuck two fingers into her mouth and made them slick with saliva before she plunged them deep into the wound... Hoping that the Wolf inside would not let her bleed out from such a trivial wound.
She would welcome a newfound life of a Teetotaler if it meant she could find some way out of this damnable wood... If it meant answers. She'd give the world.

[black379]

Chasing through the gloomy thicket, Baignard noted the debris of long-ruined mausoleums and overgrown headstones. There were masses of fungus sprouting from hollowed and decayed trunks. The flora was sick and dead, a maze of writhing limbs, trunks, and bramble. No doubt he was on the outskirts of the hamlet, how near he couldn't tell. He half wished that he had woken up someplace else, far from the Darkest Hamlet's dread.

The terrain was nowhere near familiar, however. Even if he had ever crossed this path before, the eerie cerulean cast made the whole woods seem foreign. Perhaps it was near twilight, but in the back of his mind, Baignard suspected something more dire or strange. If he wasn't lost before, his pondering stole more attention from his surroundings. He knew the glowing blue track was behind him, but continued toward the sounds of a skirmish.

Soon enough, the hunter found a clearing, more or less. A camp had been set up, surrounded by a fence of stakes, which seemed mostly in tact. But the camp itself looked torn apart. There wasn't much of a breeze, but enough to make the cloth tent appear to breath anxiously. Around ten bodies, blackened like slate, were strewn about with severed limbs and shattered faces. They looked like destroyed sculptures. In the middle, sat next to an over-sized axe, was the critic.

Baignard remained at the edge of the clearing for now, carefully watching the fighter. She was clearly injured. The obsidian corpses lying about were some horror of the Hamlet, but that didn't mean the woman was an ally of the estate.

The hunter couldn't do much with only his hook. He strutted into the desecrated camp and quickly snatched up a rifle from one of the stone bodies and trained it on Taas. Though she seemed well enough disarmed, Baignard kept a few feet away. She could have been a brigand, or some mercenary gone mad, but his gut told him differently.

"Are you lost? You woke up here, didn't you? Not sure where here is."

[Bloodtrailkiller]

/Taas/

Her gilded eye had been tiredly watching, focusing, on the wound healing over... the flesh knitting together like a bubbling stew before the skin, too, pulled together with all the comfort that might entail. She growled as the deed was done and bowed her head, chewing the pain away as she massaged that newfound scar. The first of many, she didn't doubt, in this azure realm of black statues and queer fates.

The hairs on her neck stiffened at the sound of a rifle being taken up; and she viciously turned around to see a Bounty Hunter of some sort, based off his gear and hook... meant to slay beasts as well as man.
The fact he didn't fire immediately was reassuring, but Taas slowly raised her hands and made to stand and face him all the same.

"Not particularly lost, chum..." She looked down to her bared calf and the pinkish scar, "... But aye, I woke up here not too long ago; reckon we're not sharin' the same trip on shrooms, eh?" Taas chuckled and cocked her head to the side before motioning to her leg,
"Mind if I tuck up? Hate to die with my ankles bared."

[black379]

Baignard knit his brow at the woman as she stood and spoke up. Had he been drugged?

"I don't remember." He admitted before lowering the rifle. He couldn't be sure that the same thing had happened to them both, or even if that meant she could be trusted. But if she was a fellow mercenary, he didn't want to test that respect at the end of a gun. Baignard waved his hand at her, allowing the woman to do as she liked. He wouldn't hold her at gunpoint, though he didn't let his guard down either.

"Do you know the way back to town then?" As he questioned her, he nudged a piece of clobbered statue with the toe of his boot. It was clear he didn't want to be at odds with the ashen-haired merc.