Private Tales A Pair of Survivors

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
The woman moved in and struck hard and fast. Volker knew to be cautious of female fighters in particular; women weren’t as well built as men for pugilism. He’d win in a contest of strength. But speed? Speed she definitely had him out on. He could take the brunt of most of her punches, and had the benefit of experience. He didn’t shy away from pain and had been specifically trained to stand it. He just needed a few strikes.

Volker held his ground and made two specific strikes. One to her inner thigh and the other along the inside of her left arm. He broke away and put distance between them, snorting blood. She’d pummeled him, and now that the blows had stopped raining down he took stock of the damage. Broken nose, bruised ribs, and from the muscle aches along his sides she’d damaged some of the muscle.

The spearman was another issue. He came to the fray and jabbed, keeping distance between them while trying to drive Volker off his mark. He had to close that distance and get the spearman moving oppositely. Volker had to shave that distance incrementally, knocking the spear aside and stepping forward. To have an effective jab the spearman would have to move backwards.

Volker had no intention of letting them get near Maranae.

Maranae
 
Hunger.

Maranae could recover from anything other than an immediately fatal blow, and it already took a significant deal more force to actually cause those kinds of wounds to her anyway. But nothing in the world was free. Nothing.

"...will never be able to use magic," said one figure, indistinct through the haze of pain. "A definitive disadvantage in a soldier."

"What does it matter? The trade off is acceptable." The semiconscious creature, a mass of pain, could feel its creators poking and prodding it with fingers or sticks. It didn't matter; it could not move, could not think. "The only draw back will be the requirement for sustenance. Latent magical ability can force-heal, but the strength has to come from somewhere..."

"Well. Just another convenient means of control, then,"...

Hunger. The wound in her back was completely gone, now; unblemished skin showed through the hole in her clothing, although the blood had dried and flaked away when she moved to hands and knees, wobbling a bit as she did. The hunger was so intense, was too intense; like a hole was being driven through her guts. She needed to eat, and to eat now.

Only...there was nothing to eat. Only, there was fighting. She could smell the sharp bite of blood in the air, and pick up the quickened heartbeats of the three combatants. Heartbeats. Her mind was a haze, devolved from the human thing it had been before. The creature that rode behind her eyes could no longer control the beast within, not when it was driven by hunger as it was now.

She panted, a low sound in her throat even as the brawler backed away, hand slapped to thigh where blood tried to spurt between fingers, ran down her arm where Volker had managed to score both hits. The wounds would likely heal as quickly as before, but for now she gave the strange man a grim smile.

"....hunnnggggrrrry..." Mara growled loud enough to be heard. She remained on all fours a moment, and then got back up on her feet, wavering where she stood with her head down and hair covering her face. She trembled, out of weakness or hunger it was difficult to say.
 
The wound to both arteries wouldn’t do her any good. A man would bleed out in thirty seconds from a wound to the femoral artery. Add the other wound in? She was losing her life’s blood through those fingers. Volker risked glancing at Maranae. He nodded to the dying brawler. “There is meat aplenty child.” He told her. The brawler would be dead soon. Even if she managed to heal...she would feel drunken. Volker moved toward her to strike her again, and deliver the fatal blow to her throat that would put her firmly in the ground.

“There is food here. Reach out and take it.” Volker told Maranae quietly, slowly moving to engage the spearman again. He had warned him to leave. Now he was about to watch his sister be torn apart before she was fully dead. Maranae could glut herself on the female. This man could feed them for a few days.

Maranae
 
He was mistaken, though; he had clipped one artery and missed the other, not that the effect wouldn't ultimately be the same. The brawler backed away, sidestepping closer to her brother. She pulled her hand away from her thigh, and rather than the arterial spurt, blood simply flowed, visibly slowing as one watched. Loss of blood was not doing her any favors, but it hardly seemed to matter.

"No," Mara whined. She would not eat human flesh; the thought of it was appalling to a great degree. There were plenty of other things to eat. "Mara does not waaaaant..."

"So they weren't lying," the spearman grunted. "Such incredible abilities but no will to fight." he looked to his sister, and shook his head. "You going to make it, girl?"

"Yes," she said. She was pale, but still standing. "This thing they did to me...it is amazing. I...I should be dead..."

And yet she was not. Her color was already improving, inch by inch. All they need do was hold out long enough for her to recover fully, and the greater reach of the spear gave them the time they needed. if the red-headed beast wasn't going to fight, then Volker was in very serious trouble whether or not he knew it.

"Just give up the girl," the woman said again. The blood had ceased flowing entirely from her arm, and only a dribble flowed from the hole in her thigh, which was rapidly closing.
 
Volker growled at the girl. He needed her help. These two were healing quite a great deal, and if the woman could recover from a slashed artery he was going to be in trouble. The spearman could keep him at a distance long enough for both to recover, and his strength wasn’t infinite. “Do you want to return to that hole? To a cage? That is their aim!” Volker snapped at Maranae. “If you are going to lie there you are not worth the broken bones!”

He kept them back from Maranae, but creatures who could heal so fast would outlast him. Volker was an ambush predator, and a good one, but he was outnumbered and already wounded. He roared defiantly at the two, and forced them back enough to recover the knives he’d thrown.

Maranae
 
Every fiber of her being screamed out against what it was she knew was going to happen. She hated fighting, hated killing worst of all. But the demand of her flesh for something to fuel it was too great, and would ultimately overpower any reason she had. She needed to be away from here, to hunt...

...and yet, the man was not wrong. They would not stop, as none of the others that had come after her had.

Mara stood up, clutching her head. The pounding was fierce, but not as great as the fire that burned through her body. The need.

"Whats this?" The man replied, and turned his attention toward her without forgetting the more clear and present danger represented by the man with his knives. He knew the time to strike was coming, watched as Mara let her arms dangle at her sides, her whole thin frame shivering as though cold. A low sound came from her throat, menacing.

"It...it hurts...." she said in a strangled growl, but she still did not move. She did not want to fight. Fortunately for Volker, though, the option was taken away from her to avoid it. The woman darted back in towards Volker, and the spearman took the opportunity to spin and thrust at his target again...

...who caught the spear by the foot long steel tip. Blood splattered from Maranae's hands as she gripped it, and it stopped just below the spearhead, splinters of wood digging into her lacerated palms and fingers.

"No....no ... more..." She stammered the words out, barely intelligable...and then snapped the spearhead from the haft.
 
Volker bared his teeth, stained in blood, at the woman. He had to keep distance between them while he recovered, and keep away from that spear. He saw Maranae grab the weapon, but was instantly on his guard with the other. He decided aggression was the best way to deal with an unarmed opponent. For every body blow a stab at a critical artery. He attempted a wide slash across her belly, with the goal of spilling her intestines. Even if she did heal, it would take a while for the body to rearrange itself at that level.

Volker could only hope Maranae would move to engage the man with the spear. Removing the weapon from the game helped him, however. Distracting him so Volker had a fair shot at the girl was even better. Volker closed the distance with the woman and his head shot forward. He attempted to distract her with blades aimed at her stomach and kidneys, while his mouth went for her eyes.

If he could pull her into the Well, the tides would turn quite quickly. While he guarded guests closely in the Well and removed them if things got tense, if he failed to do so...the body couldn’t live if the mind was torn to shreds by angry spirits.

Maranae
 
There was no time for the tides to turn, at least not in the manner that Volker was expecting them to. Maranae went from standing there, blood pouring for lacerated hands, to striking the woman in the middle of her sinuous dance to avoid Volkers knives, and she was fast. The woman was still quick enough to get a blow to her face in, sending blood flying from her mouth and nose.

The next blow was not anything like a trained hit, and had none of the form or finesse that the fistfighter had. Did not really matter, though; Mara lashed out with a hand that was now tipped in claws, and ripped a great tear in the woman's thigh. The crunch of breaking bone was clearly audible, and she sagged just in time to meet Volker's knife. That blow left little hope of recovery.

The girl was letting out a low, angry sound as she spun to face the other, bare feet now tipped in claws as well. Her eyes were very much yellow, wide and with the vertical slash that were her pupils narrow and fixed on the spearman, who was even now tossing aside his staff and making a gesture. The coarse feel of feel of magic building. The look in his eyes was grim, mixed with pain at the loss of his sister.
 
Volker saw Maranae move, and she was blindingly fast. As fast as his father. He saw the crunch of a thigh breaking, and took his opportunity. One knife for the heart, and his teeth around her throat. He ripped and tore at her until there was no sign of life left. If Maranae was hungry, they had food aplenty. He eyed the spearman, getting to his feet and taking a moment to fix his nose with a crunch and a few tearful blinks. Even so, he snorted blood out of his nose and saw Maranae squaring up with him.

Volker circled wide to flank him, or get him to turn away from Maranae. If he succeeded at distracting him, that left him wide open for a blow and might interrupt his magic. “Who gave you this contract?” He asked. “Maranae, wound but let him live. We need answers.”

Knees and elbows. He would disable very easily.

Maranae
 
"Why, her owners did of cour-" the man began, but was abruptly cut off. With a feral scream, the redheaded child darted forward with terrifying speed. She did not have any tactics, she did not have any particular skill...only brutal strength and speed, and she used both to her advantage.

Surprisingly, the spearguy was quick with his staff, and managed to strike her with all of his strength with it. It struck her full on in the side of the head, and the wood splintered and snapped over her heard, spilling yet more of her blood as it mashed her ear and tore her scalp, lacerating her eye as the pieces flew past. She staggered as she dove in, went limp for a split second, the tore at the ground and barreled into him. Her mouth closed on his thigh, and she bit down hard enough to send a spurt of blood flying.

Her eyes were nearly blank, now; a feral animal was in control, while the child riding behind its eyes could only watch helplessly as the chimera for into the flesh of his lower leg, breaking bone as she did. His squealing scream only seemed to spur her own, and she felt a knife suddenly plunging into her flesh again and again as she tried to ward her off, tried to kill her.
 
Her owners.

Volker had already felt a small amount of kinship with her, but now he definitely felt it. He had an owner as well. Did she resent hers as much as he did his? Clearly, if they had been the ones to destroy and rebuild her so completely. There was no fixing her that he could see, but he could help her succeed where he had failed.

The spearman was still dangerous even without the nasty metal point, and he demonstrated that fact as Maranae flew at him. The blow staggered the girl for a scant few minutes before she returned to seize the man’s leg. As the man turned toward her to stab her, Volker rushed in.

He’d had to become some sort of small expert on anatomy, and he exploited it well. He rammed a knife not into the artery, but into the rotator cuff of the arm that held the blade. A swift turn, and tendons were shredded. To even make a fist with that hand would be agonizing.

“Stop.” Volker growled at him. “Before she destroys you, who are her owners? Where are they? I need names. This job is not worth your life.” He leaned a bit more heavily on the blade, but he wouldn’t hesitate to beat Maranae back a bit if she went for anything lethal. She clearly couldn’t hear him, lost in bloodlust.

Maranae
 
Exquisite pain was not enough to make the fellow speak, though; either he was beyond that point or he knew that there was no point. He was a dead man, and knew he was a dead man whatever the knife wielding villain might say or think.

"You can find...." he began, and gasped as clawed hands found his soft belly. Despite his best efforts, Volker was not able to deter the girl from continuing to savage the man.

In fact...

...the red haze controlled everything. She could not see anything, really, nor feel anything other than the burning pain of her healing. The wounds picked up from the knife had only served to enrage her more, to slow her down for a moment. Her strength was slipping, but not because of anything so crass as wounds or bloodloss; too much of her energy had been poured into healing the wounds she'd taken. Her speed slowed, her strength ebbed, but her ferocious, vicious temper did not.

When Volker went to try and stop her from killing the spearman, she mindlessly attacked him, as well, snapping and striking out with claw-tipped hands. She was lost to a sea of animalistic rage, and no words he could speak would penetrate through to her core. Not, at least, until she had recovered some of what she had lost.
 
Volker didn’t hesitate. He flipped the knife in his hand and backhanded Maranae across the temple. The hard bone cudgel on the end of the blade had knocked many a man unconscious. He roared at her, claiming his kill and his dominance over it. If she struck the man again, so he would strike her. He meant her no ill will; this was business and the only lead they had. He rapped her sharply between the eyes to drive her backward or just knock her unconscious, and turned back to his victim.

“I will either let her eat you alive, or you will have a quick death. Speak, and swiftly. Where can I find these men? Who exactly hired you? I need names.” Volker told him coldly. He kept an eye on Maranae. He needed her to back off and calm down. She could release her rage on the men who had done this to her.

Maranae
 
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