Fate - First Reply Twice Bitten

"Blight Cairn?" Emmeline echoed, the phrase outside of her known vernacular. She wasn't a scholar, and her knowledge of magic was limited to what one might encounter in a city, not those that required massacres. The howling cries of the monstrous vampires echoed again, closer.

Emmeline was already holding a dying girl when the other two encountered the horrific scene. The woman was there prior to the attack, for the attack, and it was clear then that she was tired. She was following the trail of her missing brother, but now it was lost.

Her gaze simmered as she turned back toward the door. As before, she figured their best chance of survival would be to ensure they weren't over run. And that meant limiting the ways in which the monsters could break through to them--though hopefully a fire wouldn't be needed this time. There were less of the creatures this time and they had better odds, if one took fatigue out of the equation.

"Barricade?" she said, the suggestion barely in the air before she moved, leaning her blade against one of the walls as she began to move furniture. There were better options in the estate than there were in the inn, larger objects to push in front of doors and windows. The furniture scraped the floor, but soon it was drowned out by the creatures outside. They were loud, upon the home and then... gone. They moved beyond, their cries growing softer as they moved closer to town.

A puzzled expression crossed the woman's blood-spattered face. "Is that normal for these kinds?"

"What do monsters seek?" The way in which Emmeline spoke was almost rhetorical, but she didn't linger around them long enough for an answer anyway. She sought to assist the hunters with barricading the larger entry room they were in to the small manse. As she moved, her mind grasped uselessly at straws she couldn't quite see. Monstrous rampages weren't common in the city, and certainly none had occurred since... well, her family's slaughter, actually. Her brow furrowed, lips pressing into a thin line as she returned to where the other two were.

Then something seemed to click, and what little color the pale woman had drained from her face. She came here to find someone. What if they sought the same person, or something that person carried? And if so, was that person still alive somewhere in the village? Or the item merely an ornament upon their corpse?

Emmeline moved nearer the door, to where Njall inspected it as he had worked to reinforce it moments before. Finally, her lips parted and she softly voiced her thoughts, trying her best to conceal the disheartened tone her words took. "Or who?"

Emmeline said little else as she picked up her gait to follow after Njall as they sought Turos. Her own mind kept weaving through the possibilities; through the fact that she'd come here in search of someone just as much as the monstrous vampires had. And she was so damned terrified of what the next few hours might bring. When the other met them and Njall relayed her suspicion, Emmeline's gaze turned toward Turos.

Njall asked the important question, and then Emmeline followed it with one of her own. "Would blood help? I am here because I seek my brother, and I fear he may have sought these beasts or others like it himself in his desire to find answers. He and I operate quite differently but..."

Her voice drifted off for a long, quiet moment. "He was fond of toying with dark magics. I was not so gifted."

The warrior's features shifted, darkening a bit more than the stoic one she normally wore when dealing with others. This had become personal, more so than she wanted it to, and while she could say little for her companions, she was aware of what her brother sought: the power to avenge their parents, and other, more worse things.

She'd heard of some places that tracked magic users that way, but as far as Emmeline was aware, none of the trio had that capability.