|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 8, 2018 9:42:14 GMT -8
Alphonse:
He didn't know it, but he was trembling as he watched the woman be so haphazardly discarded into the luck.
So pale, with hair as black as night, she reminded Alphonse of the moon.
He stood still for a moment, looking between Adeney and Audrey.
"Senor, I... won't leave her here." He spoke softly, but there was some confidence and steel behind his words.
He hung his sword off his belt, then bent and made to lift Audrey's body onto his shoulder.
She was so much lighter than he had expected. He felt sick.
"We will find Celeste, and then we will bury Audrey rightly. We can't leave her to the pigs."
Ariana:
Nearing closer, then, Ariana could make out more telling details. The two figures were men, one bearing a crow's mask-- a doctor, by the looks of it-- and another boyish-looking character with only a single arm.
She would spy the doctor cradling the woman, before making some undiscernable movement, and then dropping her. She could see the boy praying, and then picking up the woman and lifting her onto his shoulder. The two had a lantern.
They were, thankfully, within shouting distance if she chose to do so. They seemed not to have seen her yet.
|
|
|
|
Post by black379 on Mar 8, 2018 10:40:59 GMT -8
Adeney glowered at him, though the mask couldn't portray his ire. He grit his teeth to subdue an outburst. Alphonse had no merit to handle her, let alone speak her name.
"She's gone." He inhaled a measured breath, struggling to hold his temper, to keep from stressing fragile emotions to the point of shattering. "That... carcass... rots either way."
|
|
|
|
Post by porkylabrador on Mar 8, 2018 13:07:09 GMT -8
Was the mask... fetishistic? Sacrificial? Practical? Anything was possible in this place. Her mind screamed in hope, calling out for the medical attention her body craved. Instinctively her trigger finger tightened as the hanging corpse was slung over the shoulder of of one of them. Could'a been me... The thought sent a cloud of vomity butterflies into taking flight within her stomach.
"Shows over cocksuckers." The Arbalest said spitting into the air and gnashing her teeth as she pushed herself towards the lamplight in increasing speed, brandishing Verona that she might drive her tooth through the cultists. It didn't matter that she was giving herself away, people didn't have the same hardiness Swine did anyway.
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 8, 2018 13:31:03 GMT -8
"Not... here. Not to feed These monsters." Alphonse shook his head, heart racing; he never wanted to quarrel with his compatriots in a place like this, but every bone in his body refused to just let the woman alone there to become some swine's lunch.
No one deserves to die in this pit. I won't leave you, senorita.
The sudden appearance, then, of Ariana and her bayonet prompted a startled scream from Alphonse. Audrey, on his shoulder, slumped as he readied to set her gently down to grasp at his sword, and all the while he spoke rapidly,
"ESPERA! Espera! Cuidadoso!!" He took two deep breaths as he righted the woman on his shoulder, taking in the sight of the woman: all steel, and injured. Nearly the opposite of how Celeste was described to him, and not the cultist-women he'd seen earlier.
"Don't--! We're here to rescue the kidnapped people! You!"
|
|
|
|
Post by black379 on Mar 8, 2018 13:44:21 GMT -8
He was ready to snap at Alphonse when another figure burst from the shadows. Adeney swiveled the lantern in her direction and drew his dagger simultaneously. But in the sudden eruption of movement, he tripped and fell flat on his back in the muck.
The doctor laid there in defeat, still except for his quivering. A low blubbering whine came from his mask.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Mar 9, 2018 8:38:55 GMT -8
/Arnulf/
"GAAAH!!!"
The sudden motion, the whistling through the air was enough to send the Hunter up to his feet, scrambling backwards as he snarled and seemed to barely hold back a barking fit as his neck tensed and his head looked about, peering in the dark as he sneered.
"Toss the fucking torch, Quack. Right-- Right there!" He pointed with as much guesswork as he could muster to the sound of the hooves.
Meanwhile, with his other hand, he shrugged off his bow and let it slip down his arm and into his hand with clear practice.
\\
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 9, 2018 8:52:52 GMT -8
Florence:
She was almost unnervingly calm in the face of the sudden ambush, holding the torch out with a stiff arm. Her beak pointed to the spear as it whistled past, and she observed it with all the alarm of one noting mold on a petri dish.
Her masked face swiveled to follow Arnulf's pointing finger.
"Hmm..." Said Florence thoughtfully, raising the torch in the air.
She flung it in the general direction of the creature...
Buddy:
It had a spear poised and ready to throw when the flame of the torch smacked it square in the forehead and lodged into the crevice where its arms protruded out from.
The beast took a moment to register this, but in that moment, its filth-caked body burst into flames.
It screeched loudly, enough to pain those with sensitive ears as it echoed throughout the tunnels. And then it carreened mindlessly around the room in some primitive, but ineffective, way of dousing the flames.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Mar 9, 2018 8:59:36 GMT -8
/Arnulf/
For once in a long week, the scraggly hunter's lips pulled back into the closest semblence to a smile he could muster in the vile miasma of the room. And, though he winced at the screeching, he brought his bow up and pointed it at the monstrosity of flesh and metal and jagged bits.
He let out one breath, and slipped an arrow free from his quiver; his eyes zeroing in on what might have counted as a hip on the senseless abomination. Whatever connected those legs to the body, the joint, he aimed there. Basing it more off of the movements of the flame than anything as he nocked the arrow and pointed the metal broadhead at the creature.
Finally, he took in a breath. What felt like years were passing in moments as his brows furrowed and he pulled back the string; he heard the chord tense and go taut as it strained against the wooden hitches at the top and bottom of the bow, the wood creaking as it bent.
With another exhale, he loosed the arrow and made to draw another, already drawing a bead on the center of the wailing flames. He moved, as well, after loosing the arrow to position himself away from one of the corpse piles and from Florence.
\\
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 9, 2018 9:17:35 GMT -8
Florence:
"Oh dear."
She marveled with much satisfaction at the destruction she had created, though her joy was only evident in the way she tapped the gloved pads of her fingertips together with glee.
The feeling wanted, however, when she realized that the creature being burned to a crisp would make a dissection all the more difficulty, but there was a simple joy in avoiding impalement so hard that the assailant catches on fire.
Buddy:
The arrow lodged right in its vile armpit, one of four, and it did not seem to notice it-- until the pure mechanics of the injury caused the creature to faceplant into the filthy ground.
It twitched and shrieked there, on the ground, scrabbling with its hooves to get up as the fire burned on.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Mar 9, 2018 9:32:24 GMT -8
/Arnulf/
"Neh... Nice toss." He sighed, though he relaxed a touch mentally as the creature hit the bloody turf, his arms were still tense and the bow was half-drawn. His smile drew into a sneer as he felt the scents slip back into his psyche and abuse his tongue.
Arnulf hazarded a few steps closer, his head cocked to one side then the other; sizing up the burning prey, before he pulled back the bow and aimed for its center, just past the armpit he'd lugged an arrow into. He aimed for the point above the armpit now, however; hoping to strike something in the center of the beast.
Lazily, he drew another arrow,
"Keep your distance-- Do you have another torch?"
|
|
|
|
Post by porkylabrador on Mar 10, 2018 14:00:58 GMT -8
There was a moment when Ariana came a gnat's pube's width from unleashing a torrent of ammunition into the pair, almost gratuitously, tired as she was, one fellow's outburst and the other's near-pathetic grovelling caused her to pause.
"You're the fucking rescue-brigade?!" She spoke through sheer surprise and depression snorting obnoxiously as it dawned upon her just how far up the proverbial creek she'd sailed. "I am so unbearably fucked." Genuine pain and exhaustion crossed her facial features and a rattling sigh past through the Arbalest's cracked lips as her body slammed weakly against the wall.
"Some fucking help you are... saved her, did you?" The armoured lass jutted a finger to the recent cadaver, it was unclear in this light to the extent of Rania's injuries and yet... the dim light revealed she was a very, very sorry state.
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 10, 2018 14:42:06 GMT -8
Alphonse held his breath and gave Adeney a concerned glance; so bold before, now cowering-- from doctor to boy.
He could not rightly blame him. If he had a hand to spare, he would have helped the good doctor up.
He let go of the breath, like clouds parting to unveil the sun.
They couldn't stay here-- not with this dead woman, or this other, armored lady who seemed to be wilting before his very eyes. His arm still bled freely and would prove ripe to rot if he couldn't get anywhere less evil than this dungeon.
He stared into the dark, and thought on Florence; she should have been here by now. Celeste, too, was likely dead.
Alphonse blinked and shivered, feeling the blood of the woman's body trickle down his shoulder. They needed to leave.
As if he hadn't registered Ariana's surprise and contempt, the boy stooped to bow, as much as he could with the corpse he was carrying. His accent was blatantly Spanish, though he spoke clearly, confidently, in spite of his shaking voice.
"My name is Alphonse Escarra, and this is my partner, Doctor... Adeney. We await supplies from a woman-doctor, Florence Novel, b-but she hasn't arrived yet."
He gave an anxious look back behind him, into the dark.
"We were hired by a woman, Tilly, to recover a lost nurse... Celeste Devereux-- but there is so much evil here. We... c-can't find her. And there are many more people than we thought were kidnapped..." He seemed to follow his fear, and he straightened his back with new purpose.
"We need to get you out of here-- the way out is just that way. We can escort you!"
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 10, 2018 14:56:54 GMT -8
Buddy:
In one last squeal and twitch, it died as the arrow struck something terribly important in its core.
The fire burned on.
Florence:
"I thank you. I pride myself on my aim." Florence nodded humbly, plodding over to where the beast was.
She bent severely at the waist, almost touching the flame by the nose-tip. The doctor watched the flames consume the creature-- and all knowledge it could have offered.
Florence sighed sadly and turned to look at the torch, which still burned... along with the handle of it.
"I do not have any other torches." She cocked her head at the torch as she considered putting it out, if only to use the stick...
Pile Room:
It was lit up, completely, and the room in all its horror was revealed in the light.
It was about twice as it was long, spanning no more than eight feet in length. At the walls, corpses were piled up, as though pushed aside. Maggots dug in and out of the meat, but luckily none of it seemed to be wholly human.
Revealed in the light was a small glimmer, shining out of the muck for those with a stomach steely enough for them to grasp it.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bloodtrailkiller on Mar 10, 2018 16:56:44 GMT -8
/Arnulf/
"Nah-ah-ah-ah!"
He called out, holding the arrow with the hand that held is bow so he could use a freehand to grab the queer doctor before she got any closer to the beast.
"I say: stay away from the corpse, you moron..." He gruffed and made to shove her aside as Arnulf focused his attentions elsewhere
"... So stay away." He punctuated as he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose at both the scent and sight of the illuminated gorepile.
It was a far cry from any butchery he'd ever seen, by the hands of man and beast alike. It was a proper granary of meat, a grist mill. It made him shudder and keep his head bowed as he tried to focus on the small glimmer in the distance. He couldn't waste that torch's precious light...
... Thinking on the combats, he couldn't help but think on how far that screeching must have travelled. If there were more... If there was something worse.
Again, he shook his head and tried to examine the shiny bit amidst the muck...
\\
|
|
|
|
Post by Vanitypirate on Mar 10, 2018 18:16:48 GMT -8
Florence:
The mask stared at him for a long while. Bereft of any emotion, it made her look utterly vacant.
And then she slumped and turned away, examining the piles of corpses opposite Arnulf.
"...It is useless, anyway." She grumbled, squishing a corner of meat with her boot. Scientifically, of course.
Pile Room:
In the muck of bone and tissue, lodged inside a tube-like apparatus that appeared disgustingly esophageal, was a knife.
It was long, almost as long as a forearm, and either made of silver, or silver-plated at the very least. It shined as beautiful as the moon did, and seemed to be almost alien among all the muck and filth of the room.
It was there for the taking.
|
|
