Rest. - (Toustain, Roard)

[Kidney]

Rest.

Roard grunted with every step. He felt like a strange wind-chime, each movement a new squeak, rub, scratch, pain. His gaze had not drifted behind him in some time. Roard had done what he had always done, silently move forward, through pain and suffering, through day and night and through life, until death. From dust, to dust. He felt the presence of Toustain behind him, but the presence before his very eyes commanded a great amount of perception.

The smell was what first pushed itself upon the two, that of which settled in the nose after it invaded the nostrils. It felt like sludge in the air, humidity impossibly present, impossibly gross. Beyond the mighty leper, the trees looked soft. Mushed, mashed, pushed together like a child's clay creation, branches wrapped around each other, not like the imposing canopy before, but like a thousand slugs, mating together into one sap-enriched mess. The ground below their feet slushed like snow, like plum-pit, with hardened knobs of semi-ruined wood floating alongside Roard's heels. 

Roard looked back, to Toustain's small form. "Within that thicket." He said simply, pushing a finger in the direction of  the decrepit forest. 

Deeper in, the forest grew grosser, sloppier, stickier. 

Something Roard did not see, but was apparent to Toustain, was that on the stretched trees, below their sticking branches and trunks, some of the roots of these very trees had been stolen, excavated by shovels and taken elsewhere. The trail continued, pushing into this sickened wood. 

[rosallora]

Everything around her was dying.

This part of the forest was dying; the sky, grey and dull and slowly losing brightness was dying; the man walking before her was dying. She did not feel brave as she walked through the path that was thick with the smell of rot and stink, even through the perfumed linen she wore about her head. It was a tangled, gnarled mess, something that was both unfinished and also too far into death to be brought back from its end.

He gives her his command and she follows, pushing forward, even as the mud sucked at the undersides of her boots. Her eyes wander to the trees, trying to find some pattern in their bark, and finds that something had happened here, long before their arrival. It explained the sorry state of much of the flora: without a plentiful root system, the trees would die where they stood and be overtaken from the inside out by insects or mold. Or perhaps she was just trying to reason her way through that which could not be reasoned with.

"Much further?" she asks, voice trembling.

[Kidney]

The forest did not stir as the two took in the surroundings and spoke, though their voices seemed to linger, disembodied, glued to the trees around. Within this shroud of dark, dreamy forest, time seemed to cease as Roard and Toustain stopped, the air stopping, stagnant in the absence of motion. 

"I do not think s-" 

A bolt cut through the air like a sword through greasy flesh, smashing into the breastplate of Roard. Brass yielded to steel, and flesh soon after, a mighty roar coming from the man as he clutched the remaining part of the bolt jutting from his gut. Roard let out a hushed breath, hissed through gritted teeth. Another noise came from the sickened trees, and sprinting towards Toustain came a cloaked man, shortsword in hand. From behind them, another bolt whizzed between the two, thankfully not into the spine of Mighty Ser Roard. 

"GET THEM!" 

[rosallora]

She shrieks at the sound of an arrow sinking into flesh. Toustain turns quickly, white robes flowing out around her as she rips the mace from the leather loop at her side. There is no time to make an appeal, no moment where there was a chance this wouldn't get bloody. The violence was inevitable and already here, as oppressive and undeniable as the absence of fresh sunlight.

The vestal raises her mace, shortsword clanging against studded metal. Toast vibrates from the impact, and when she goes to push back against the man, she finds herself unable to shake him off. The pressure of the sword on her weapon presses down; she's only comforted by the fact he can't see her terrified expression.

[Kidney]

The man in front of Toustain shook to his bones on impact, shortsword digging nicely into the wooden mace. There was a sound from him, like a breath taken through moldy cotton, and a stentch filled the air near Roard and Toustain. 

The face under the hood was like no other. Rotten and decayed, the man's mandible once neatly placed now hung from one side of his head, and the mushroom-sprouting forehead of his expunged a dense mist of spores. 

The face did not linger very long, and as the creature attempted to free the sword from Toustain's mace and bring the heavy slab of sharpened steel down onto her skull, the rotting corpse's entire face was in the grasp of Roard's giant hand. He ripped the monster from its grip on the sword, leaving it buried in Toustain's mace, alongside its hands. The rest of the unholy thing was wrenched free from gravity itself, and thrown by the growling leper, careening through the air before skidding to a stop against a oozing tree. 

The breath that came next was one of pain, and then, a quick shout signaling Roard ripping the quarrel free from his gut, a gout of blood following. 

Another bolt flew past the two, though this next one missing Toustain's cranium by a mere inch or two. 

[rosallora]

She stumbles back when Roard rips away the man, the sword still dug into her mace. She's left breathless by the sight of the man's visage, some moldy-cheese thing that was more fungi than flesh. An arrow shoots by, a lock of her hair peeking out from underneath the white veil severed from her head. She holds in any noise as she quickly presses against Roard's back, ripping the blade from the wood with a strength and sureness that she wasn't aware she possessed.

"Roard, find the archer!" She feels the heat of him behind her, blazing either from adrenaline or fever. The final push. This was it.

[Kidney]

The man lets out a breath of assurance, though followed by an intense groan, his eyes cast on the sticking trees, looking to the crevices and nooks. He could see nothing of note, though, and his terrible vision was something of a hindrance. Roard let out a scream, one that shook the gelatinous covering of the nearby trees. He coughed then, and tasted iron on his tongue. 

The next few moments passed without a stir, and after a few more, Roard relaxed some. The air seemed stale again, without flux. Then, with another hiss, a bolt flew far over the heads of both of them. 

Roard smiled. 

Another cloaked figure sprinted from the treeline, a spear clutched in its bony hands, aimed at the leper once more. Roard pulled forth his blade faster than he had ever done, joints popping as he pulled forth his mighty cleaver and hurled it through the air, the pillar of sharpened metal shattering the figure before he dared touch either of the Two. The sword flew through him, slamming into the murky earth, buried into the mud where the undead figure used to be. 

"I...can't see!"

[rosallora]

"Roard, cover me!" She takes off running before the body has even hit the ground, dashing towards the source of the rotten bandits and the arrows loosed from somewhere. The cloth across her nose is only doing so much for her, the smell of blood all around. It feels like as she runs the ground beneath her feet squelches and the liquid that clings to her boots isn't water or mud at all, but blood, red clay streaked with real human remains. She frantically runs through the clearing and into the thicket, head whipping around as she tries and fails to find the source of the arrow before dropping down, knowing that standing up like that would be asking for a swift execution.

She closes her eyes and tries to think, the salty and unyielding earth below her giving her nothing. She listens. They had to be somewhere nearby, but where?

[Kidney]

Roard lunged as Toustain did, dragging the cleaver behind him, cutting a large groove in the dirt, filling with muddy water as the two careened down the clearing. Roard stayed as close as he could, eyes locked on Toustain's strides, trying to match them before they both impacted into the thicket. Toustain diving to her stomach in what looked like mud, but gave way to murky marsh-like ground, her face and torso sinking into half a foot deep water. 

Roard remained upright, breaking branch and knocking down sapling with his giant self, looking for any more attackers. He found one soon enough, the crossbowman from before running deeper into the wood, not ten feet from Roard, but moving in closer to the trail into the thicket to gain more ground. Roard left his blade, the thing squashing into the muddy water as Roard rushed to meet the brigand halfway. 

The impact sounded like a slab of beef being hit with a floorboard, a mighty smack as Roard took the archer down, throwing his form to the watery ground. And holding him there. 

"Toustain! Continue!" Sounded off Roard, hands pressed to the back of the man's head, smashing it into the watery earth, the very-much alive man thrashing beneath Roard's grip.

[rosallora]

She raises herself up, white garment stained red-brown with clay and water. She is spattered with the earth, the edges of her veil dripping as she continues on, hindered by the weight of wetness. Toast is assualted by the cold, steel and wood gripped in her hands as she passed by Roard.

Her body is gripped with a tiredness and panic, watching the body thrash as Roard held him down with inhuman strength. She steadies herself, hefting up one of her swords to stab into the man's leg. A plunging squelch punctuates the wound, and a scream muddied by water and blood communicating his death throes rattles through the air.

Toustain rips the blade back out, the tip leeching red into the muddy water. "I'm not leaving without, Roard. We'll continue together."

[Kidney]

Roard ceased as Toustain slammed the sword into the man's leg, of which allowed the brigand to escape the water, letting out a bloodcurdling scream that made Roard ascend to his feet. He rubbed his ear, or where it was supposed to be, and looked to Toustain again. "T-thank you Toustain."

Roard wandered back towards the heavy piece of steel that was Wheatcutter, Roard's blade. He hefted it with two hands, grunting and moaning, before placing it over his shoulder. The leper stood then, shuddering from the pain, and shuffling back to the trail, "Come." 

Then, he continued down the path, his massive form pushing through the sticky branches ahead, Roard bowing his head as to not lose his mask to the sap. His attention was set ahead, and he stomped, and he stepped, and he thought. 

"We have more battles ahead."

[rosallora]

"We do?" she says, taken aback by it. She glances back at the distant hamlet; it seemed so far away now, completely unreachable. The vestal's gaze turns back to the hulking man in front of her. He was going to fall apart at the seams, she knew it. It would be too late soon.

The woman adjusts the linen over her nose, taking steps towards what lay beyond. The swamp gave way to pockets of dry land where sour grasses grew, wan and brittle and crunching under their footsteps. "Keep going, then," she states to him, wanting to encourage, wanting him to push. Was this what he wanted? Some endless, final battle? And when he was felled, what was to happen to her?

He was not so selfish, she told herself. But then again, he might be delirious from fever and the raw degrading nature of his flesh.

No. No. She would follow him. To the end of whatever road they were on. Whatever path he saw.

[Kidney]

Again, the leper pushed forward, knocking down another branch with a shoulder, and growling to himself. He turned back to Toustain, "From dust. To dust." With little to no irony, no change in inflection, he offered no comfort. Not now. 

Further ahead, the thicket only grew more oppressive, excavated holes at the base of the trees full of the plum-pit-like liquid. Roard had nothing to say, but he did have much to do, much to see, much to understand. 

The bramble suddenly broke. Stumbling forward, the leper finally pulled apart a net of branches, sticky sap leaving large trails of goop that Roard uncaringly walked into. 

Before the two of them was a clearing, of which was mostly commanded by a large mine entrance. Along its edges grew several large mushrooms, caps as wide as an umbrella, and before the very mouth of it sat a smallish camp. Tarnished and long abandoned, the only think living near it was a single dusty rabbit, of which flung itself away from the bundle of grass it was eating as soon as Roard made landfall into the clearing. 

Roard stared to the entrance on his own, and let out a huff. "This must be the way." 

[rosallora]

It is an exercise in restraint, walking behind him. He clears they way and she follows. She tries not to think about the stench, the look of the world, the terrible way it was starting to get darker, and darker. The mouth of the mine was gaping, a maw ready for sacrifice.

"I..." she swallows. Above, the dark grey clouds have begun to shake out flakes of snow. Toustain looks into the deep dark, and feels at her hip for a torch that isn't there. "Roard, we have no light..."

[Kidney]

The Maw ahead is a chasm with no light within, a virtueless expanse of void beyond ten feet, but that does not shake the Leper from his task. Though, concern raises in him. He extends a solemn look to Toustain, one that tells her that she may leave if she must, but that her presence is the thing he most values. In a slow, deliberate motion, he pulls the wooden mask from his head. 

What's left in its wake is a mashed face, one pale, holed. Like a ghoul, it shies from the light that peers through the dusting of snow, gifted by the clouds above. It's dark, hollow eyesockets nearly swallow any impression of Roard's eyes, bloodshot, hyphema-stricken. Old. His body, bereft of rest for some time now, would carry him this far. He took one deep breath, shockingly cold, it made him whince, like breathing in lakewater in December. He coughed, and blackened tearstreaks grew wet with fresh oily tears. 

He extends a look to Toustain again. Its solid, stone, frozen earth. Determined. 

The fingers wrapped around his mighty blade would not abate their grip, finally, leprosy, or its strange form that afflicted Roard, had taken his hands from him. The other hand was merely a clenching claw. 

"Toustain." He said, sad. 

"I am going within the deep. You may stay here, or go home, or join me. I will not forsake you, should you remain above."  He looked away then, back to the snowy sky, which began to throw more than more snow down upon them. Roard, already like a statue, had been still enough to catch a dusting across his wide shoulders. "Know this." He began, smiling just slightly. "You have been my greatest friend, and I am sorry that in all my years, I never came to meet you until my final one." He looked back to the cave then, and shrugged the snow from his shoulders. "If I am to find longer life within that cave, I hope that we can be friends for many more years. Though, I suppose you are not supposed to be my friend, after what I intend to do." 

He turned to the cave, and walked closer to it, dropping the mask where he once stood, a bastion between the two footprints where he had felt the first snowflakes fall. "You are a treasure."

Ser Roard of Badger's Cross entered the cave.