Private Tales Champion of the Perished

[Lechies Delrio]

Krait!

Just the word alone was enough for Lechies to quickly tamp down on the flow of her magic. The dark light at the end of her staff went out as she cast an alarmed look around the water. Indeed, there was unusual movement by the shoreline, something like large snakes winding a direct path for their boat, moths drawn unerringly towards flame.

Lechies gnawed her lower lip. She'd had the misfortune of running across these creatures only a few times during her travels, but each encounter had been hair-raising, due in no small part to her own reliance on the arcane arts. If not for the presence of stout-hearted and stouter-bodied companions who'd had nothing to fear from anti-magic, she likely would have fallen prey to them by now.

Nere declared that she would provide a distraction. "Wait-" Lechies started, but the other woman had already slipped into the water. All Lechies could do was watch her with deep worry. Could she swim faster than the kraits? Being swarmed on land was already awful enough, but if they should catch Nere in the water...

What was Lechies to do? Her staff could double as a cudgel in a pinch, if only an awkward one, but a single misstep would leave her open to being swarmed. And as had been so handily proven earlier, her balance on a boat was not to be trusted where combat was concerned.

"I'm no good like this. We need to make it to shore, first," she said to Garrod. Lechies steadied her staff in the crook of her arm. With both hands free to grip the setting pole, she began to push them towards the edge of the lake, where water gave way to mud and tree.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod growled. "What?!" and watched hopelessly as the local sailor hopped into the brackish. the slithering shapes of the krait darting toward her, like sharks drawn to blood.

"Gods damn it," he grumbled, and scoured his head for options.

Lechies called out that she needed to make landfall. Siegfried just watched with silver eyed confusion, and the Frohoggins smartly made off in the opposite direction of all the trouble.

"We have to trust she'll be alright," Garrod said to himself, just as much as he said it to Lechies and Siegfried. He just hoped he wasn't about to watch this young sailor get ripped apart by magick eaters. Garrod found a spare oar, and helped paddle their craft onto the shore.

He hopped out, splashed into the shallows and felt his armored boots sink in the soft mud. He trudged forward, both hands along the side of the craft as he helped guide it to a full stop.

Something stirred in the rushes. A familiar screech and a hiss.

"Fuck," Garrod cursed, drawing his big knife from its sheath on his waist with his gauntleted hand. With three magick targets on shore, Garrod thought he'd narrow the choices, snapping the fingers of his left hand, and a fat ball of flame whoomfed to life, floating just above his open palm.

A hungry screech, and out came the crate, skittering mad across the sand and running right for Garrod. The Hunter let the fire go out, and hunched low with a wild grin. He tossed the knife over ot his left hand, and splayed the clawed fingers of his gauntlet like a wild animal might.

The thing leapt at him, and he caught it against the spiked plate of Belephus' shell. Its tongue whipped around him, tried to punch into his back, but only found steel backplate to glance off of, its prehensile tail whipped again, needle point unseathed as it scratched and prod for a gap. Garrod dug his knife into its side with a growl, and raked his spiney relic across its weird flesh.

The krait hissed and screched but went on thrashing at Garrod, teeth gnashing for his face, even when Garrod ripped his knife out and stuck it into the side of its neck. Black arterial spray gushed out in globs and pumps.

Siegfried grabbed up his greatsword.

Lechies Delrio Nere Ashorn

 

[Nere Ashorn]

Meanwhile, back in the water, Nere Ashorn was facing down a problem of her own creation.

Her eyes open in the murky depths; she could see the krait that trailed her fast approaching. It was a beautiful creature. Lanky limbs folded against its body, sleek exoskeleton barely making a wake as it cut forward with powerful strokes of its long tail. The pondweed rippled around it, parting gently to let the beast through.

Slowly, and with purpose, Nere ran her fingers along a line of runes on her opposite forearm. A simple longsword would do for this, which Nere had no issue unsheathing from herself, since the krait were already on her trail. The water obscured the heat and the sizzle of the weapon. Everything was slower under the surface. Her head didn't get so hot.

Now, why had she yelled at Lechies, earlier?

The first krait reached her. It lunged for the sword, that locus of magic, its beak trying to find purchase against slick metal. Claws reached out imploringly to rake at her flesh. With a downstroke, Nere shifted her body underneath the beast. She crouched low in the muck as it twisted above her, reorienting itself for another bite.

Lechies hadn't meant any harm. Sure, her spell had called a pack of krait to them, but nobody really knew that would happen.

Nere put one palm flat against the pommel of her sword, and thrust upwards. The blade pushed through the back of the krait's long head. They both surfaced from the shallow water in a spray of green foliage and grey blood. The beast shrieked and twitched and scrambled weakly at Nere, until the last bit of life escaped it.

Then, the second krait launched from the water behind her. Nere felt claws rake at her back. Its weight pressed down on top of her, and she lost her footing in the muddy water. As the krait pulled her under, Nere took another breath and held it in her lungs.

She ought to apologize to the other woman when she got back.

Garrod Arlette Lechies Delrio

 

[Lechies Delrio]

With Garrod's help, their craft reached the edge of the lake quickly, though even that brief stretch of time seemed far too long. Lechies couldn't help but glance back towards Nere's position between strokes from the push pole, brow drawn with concern. The other woman was no longer in view. Lechies could see that the water rippled in odd patterns here and there, but she had no idea if they were from Nere or more kraits. At the very least, Nere had done good on her promise to distract their foes.

As the boat met land, the immediate area around them seemed free of the horrible creatures. At least, at first.

As Lechies flung the pole aside, grateful for the mercy of solid ground, a singular krait burst from the marsh grass. Its cry pushed her to the back of the boat. She clutched her staff defensively in front of her, teeth clenched as she firmly denied the instinct to summon magic in response to the threat.

As Garrod wrestled with it, a familiar sensation brushed against her mind--that of boiling steam, the low light of glowing hot metal. Nere's work. Lechies looked again across the water. Two beats later, Nere erupted from the lake, grimly triumphant, one of the krait at the end of her blade.

Any relief Lechies felt was overtaken by horror when a second dark shape latched onto Nere from behind, and both of them disappeared again beneath the surface, lost to churning foam and darkening water.

"No!"

Lechies tightened her grip on her staff. Nere was strong, yes, but in the water, outnumbered, facing an enemy wickedly designed to feed on magic... Would she be alright? Never mind surviving any mana loss, would Nere even be able to make it out of the lake?

If nothing else, Lechies had to try to improve Nere's chances of winning. She had to try.

With fear and determination thrumming in her chest, Lechies called up power in her palm, condensing magic into a tightly packed orb before flinging it across the water. She didn't expect to hit anything; indeed, the projectile sank into the lake with a harmless splash. No, let it be a lure, something to entice whatever krait lurked out there to abandon Nere and instead come for Lechies, where she waited firm-footed on land with allies at her back.

Almost immediately, a screech echoed from the tall rushes beside her, and out rushed a krait, slick-skinned and terrifying. Lechies twisted, throwing her whole body behind the movement as she swung her staff at the creature's head. The blow connected with a thud like she'd struck rock. The krait tumbled back with an irritated sort of sound. It was quick to recover, however, and retreated into the foliage for another ambush.

Behind her, another snarl had her pulse spike. Lechies glanced back, catching the glimpse of a krait in graceful, deadly mid-leap.

Then Siegfried was there, filling her vision. Siegfried, and his sword. The ancient weapon slammed into the krait's ribs more like a club than a sword. The krait hit the mud, torso bent and bleeding. Though it thrashed, it lacked the strength to get up, and another swing crushed it to stillness.

Lechies exchanged a look with the undead man. Gratitude in hers; something fearsome and once-absent in his milky eyes. Then Siegfried surged forward with speed and purpose. A putrid glove landed on her shoulder, shoving Lechies behind him. The earlier krait hurled itself out of hiding, teeth chomping down onto the jagged edge of Siegfried's blade.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Black blood spurt across the left of Garrod's face. Warm, near electric, it felt a-tingle across his skin. He huffed a hard breath through his nose. Held his lips pressed tight. He dug his knife in deeper. Deeper, and ripped it out the back of the neck.

The krait struggled to keep its head up. To keep its head on. Thrashed wilder and wilder, until Garrod plunged the knife in again, felt the spine, wiggled the point, felt it slot into the joint. He bared his teeth and growled as he drove it in. Felt a pop. The creature thrashed, twitched. Died.

The Yaegir shoved the creature off of himself with a hot grunt and a kick. Sloshed through the sand, drenched in ichor, he saw Siegfried crush down one of the whip tails, saw another one moving toward Lecies and the undead warrior. His eye went wide. But Siegfried caught the creature's jaw against his sword. Unholy strength seemed to surge through him.

Garrod's eye glanced back to the water. Still save for the gurgles and soft thrashes of something going on, underneath the surface.

She's likely dead, Oh Bearer Mine. Belephus laughed. But you could have stopped it. You can stop so much... if you just... FEED ME.

His teeth bared mad, he turned his eye back to the krait on Siegfried, saw its tail raising up.

"Fuck it," he cursed, looked to the decapitated krait corpse, kneeled over it, raised his white hand up and back with its hungry teeth like claws bared as his fingers flexed, and he ripped into the beasts chest with a sickly crunch.

Sloshed in black gew and chunks of bone and flesh as Garrod went on. Tearing. The jewel of his gauntlet gleamed. Overjoyed as the mess sank into its chitinous shell, and its jewel gleamed bright.

Magick swirled around Garrod. And he thurst his hand into the open husk of the krait's chest. Grabbed something soft, and crushed it in his palm. The mage winds flared.

Nere Ashorn Lechies Delrio

 

[Nere Ashorn]

Under the water, claws and hands scrabbled and thrashed. Nere twisted with a kick, and the krait dove with a gnash of its ragged teeth. They both missed each other, dragged down by the weight of the water. Then, the krait did something strange. With a whip of its cordlike tail, it turned and swam away.

Not only that, but there was something really intense happening along the shore. Nere felt it even under the muting pressure of the water, an acrid tinge to whole world that made her runes itch.

She pushed out of the water with an allaying gasp. Above the surface, a warm wind blew, but it still felt chilly against her wet skin. With a snort and shudder, she cleared the murky drip out of her eyes. Some distance away, the sleek grey-black body of the krait splashed and snapped at a glowing ball of congealed mana, wholly occupied with it.

The red-bellied boat of the Frohoggin drifted towards her as fast as a boat of that nature could. The brown-speckled sir deftly steered the craft, and the blue fellow reached a hand out to Nere.

"Come on, get in!" he called out to her.

"I really shouldn't, its not safe," Nere called back.

"We insist!" He reached his hand out further. The boat angled closer to her.

Reluctant as she was, Nere grabbed on to the offered hand. The little frohoggin gave his mightiest tug, but she ended up doing most of the heaving into the boat. Nere quickly righted herself, standing up amongst the baskets of fish, and got her eyes back on the krait in the distance.

"We are feelin' partially responsible for the circumstances, because we have been feeding these kraits for some time now," the other frohoggin explained.

Nere reached an arm around towards her back. The boat rocked as her weight shifted, and a long spear was drawn through the air by her outstretched hand. She hefted it above her head, squinting at the beast still gnawing on the ball of magic in the distance.

She paused when the frohoggin's words struck her. "Wait, you feed em?" That would explain why there was so many.

"They keep nastier things away from the village. Like sorcerers an' undead." The blue one nodded his head in agreement, his froggy throat wobbling with the movement. "No offense to that other sir who was with ya."

"Uh." Nere hazarded a glance back to shore. Garrod was arm deep in the chest of one krait, and Seigfried was wrestling with another at the end of his greatsword. She wondered which one of them was responsible for the foul wind she'd felt earlier. "I think he'll be alright..."

Right, the lure. It would get drained soon.

Nere wound her arm back, thrust her other hand forward as a counterbalance, and hurled the spear across the water. It hit the krait's back, and the beast shrieked, falling into the water.

Lechies Delrio Garrod Arlette

 

[Lechies Delrio]

Could krait feed off the undead? Lechies honestly didn't remember, but in this moment, all that mattered was that the krait certainly thought it could feed off the undead. Up whipped that deadly tail, and down swung Lechies's staff. The end of it slammed into the creature's head for the second time, loosening its bite-grip on Siegfried's sword. It shook its head as if tossing off drops of water, rounding on Lechies with a hateful snarl, but a kick from Siegfried shoved it away before it could lunge again, and his downstroke painted the side of the boat with dark, stinking ichor.

"Thank you," Lechies began to say, but had to stop, for an uncomfortable pressure was building deep in her belly, and fast. The grasses danced, tossed by a foreign breeze, flyaway wisps of magic shining in her second sight like moonglow over night-dark water.

Garrod. Garrod, the source. He dug into the chest of the krait he'd bested with a hound's determination. And the further he clawed, the higher that pressure built, until the weight of that terrible gravity had Lechies hunching over, one hand pressed over her heart.

A strange void grew within her. An emptiness, almost, yawning and painful. Wanting something to fill that space, satisfy that hunger...

Foliage snapped. A telltale hiss scratched the air as a black shape burst from the rushes. Lechies, distracted by the oppressive aura of Garrod's magic, was slow to turn.

Siegfried was not. Once more he pushed Lechies away, his sword coming up in her place. But though he stopped the krait's charge, the cut was not deep enough to draw its foul blood. The krait's long fingers clutched onto Siegfried's arms, grappling with him like a skeletal, leathery monkey. The tail punched forward, sinking past ancient clothes. From this angle, Lechies only had a view of his broad back, covered by his coat; she couldn't tell if the krait had managed to puncture Siegfried's flesh, or merely glanced off undead bone.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

A laughter. Low as curling smoke, come heavy off the flame.

Feed me, Oh Bearer Mine, yes, the familiar voice of his demon cried out. FEED ME.

Garrod grinned, his eye wide and wild as the white hand tore and raked and crushed the krait flesh in the palm of his opalescent gauntlet. The slick ichor run off its wings and spikes that drank it up, as if gills were there betwixt the demonic geometry of the armor, to breath in the carnage.

Magic. Hot and white. Seared and sparked about the Hunter. His eye, wide and green, snapped to find the krait that scrabbled and scratched at Siegfried, its whip like tale, lashed and its needle point end stabbed and prod at the undead warrior. Garrod's hand, clutched into a tight armored fist at his side, his fingers splayed wided, and a wicked energy pooled there amidst the uptorned grasp of the demonic gauntlet, long clawed, and run with strangely colored blood.

Show them my power. He could see the toothy grin spread in the black of his mind. Feel the licks of the wicked green flame. Oh Bearer Mine.

Garrod's whole body lurched forward, as his white arm struck down, fins and spines wide and fanned, as if a creature showing the world its threat. The chitonous plate spread, up Garrod's arm. Pauldron and gauntlet fused into a single piece of living armor, and it crept over his chest, like barnacle and carapace.

Garrod grunt through gritted teeth. His mind still his own, his grin, a joyful agony. He whipped his hand up, cocked it back, and ran forward with brandished claws.

The Krait slithering on Siegfried was slammed into by the armored hunter. With dagger-point fingers, Garrod tore into the creature. Its leathery skin rent open, its blood spilled out. With his left hand, Garrod drove his knife into its exposed flesh. His demon's hand nailed down its pointed grip, and its fingers punched through. It shrieked in horrid agony, and Garrod ripped it off of Siegfried.

The undead warrior cleaved down on the tail that whipped and thrashed and tried to find purchase in them again, and Garrod tore the creature's throat out with rabid hand.

More of the krait gathered round him, four or five circled. Drawn like moths to a flame.

Belephus but laughed. Garrod but grinned. He clutched his hand into a fist, felt lightning arc up from his palm and through his bones. A krait lunged forward, another followed. The Hunter struck his hand forward, open palm aimed at one beast, and a bolt of green plasma ripped in forked fire forward.

It ripped through the first Krait, and blew back the second.

Thunder clapped after.

Siegfried stared on. As if in wonder.

Nere Ashorn Lechies Delrio

 

[Nere Ashorn]

All the krait upon the shore decided that whatever was wafting out of Garrod and that gauntlet of his was far more enticing than anything anyone else had to offer. Nere watched with grim set expression as they circled him, frozen by the sight of it. Green flashed upon the shore, and the force of it rippled the water, rock the boat ever so.

The larger frohoggin pole-pushed the boat towards shore at the quickest pace they could manage. The smaller puffed his blue throat big and let all that air go into a wooden whistle. A long, thin sound cut through the air.

The krait immediately reacted to the pitch. They writhed at the sound, and whimpered. The ones remaining would abandon the morsels they snapped at, and turned their backs to flee into the tall grass of the swampland.

"Augh, that's an awful sound!" Nere reacted, too. She hunched over and pressed her palms firm against her ears, but that didn't stop the high pitch from crawling into her skull. If mana was the parchment that spells were writ upon, it felt like someone was tearing her whole book apart, page by page.

The blue frohoggin let the whistle fall from his lips, and the high pitch fell silent. "Sorry," he apologized. "Krait don't like the sound. Some mages neither, though. Makes it hard to concentrate."

"That's an understatement. You've really made quite the artifact, there." With the sound gone, Nere could think again. She let go of her ears, and tilted her head sideways to try and shake some of the water out of them. From her angled view, she saw again the bone white of the gauntlet, the green flash of a wicked fire. Black viscera of the kraits torn apart.

"Wait," she said. Nere stood up straight. She waved a hand backwards to stop the pole-frog's push. "Don't go to shore yet. Something's not right."

Lechies Delrio Garrod Arlette

 

[Lechies Delrio]

Siegfried made not a sound, not even a grunt. Lechies couldn't be sure if it was just the krait's weight that had him staggering, or if he was actually hurt. All the same, she scrambled out of the boat and began to circle around to Siegfried's front, her staff clutched like the ignoble bludgeoning weapon it had become.

Before she could swing, the strange gravity coming from Garrod's location shifted, and the mud shook as he lunged. Lechies froze, eyes wide. Blade and claw rose and fell with violent cadence, movements more like a rabid beast's than a proud warrior's, krait blood quick to paint the white armor a lumpy black. Malevolent energy writhed around him, its hungry tremors echoing in the pit of her own stomach.

She was hardly surprised when more krait emerged from the swamp. Even as sweat dried cold and clammy on the back of her neck, Lechies found it in her to be mildly annoyed. What had been the point of avoiding magic, if things still came to this in the end? Better then, to also showcase her own might, if only for the chance to beat back their foe.

But hardly had Lechies lifted her hand, the murky waters around them only just awakening to her authority, when a painful whistle cut through the air. Lechies flinched, focus broken. Her hand flew to her ear in a useless attempt to stop the awful sound, almost expecting to find it wet with hemorrhaging brain fluid.

Through teary eyes she spotted the frohoggins' boat coming for the shore. Atop it was a figure who, by the colors of their splotches, could only be Nere. Relief trickled through Lechies, strengthening to a full flood as the krait miraculously turned tail and fled.

But there was still Garrod. The alien aura about him continued to seethe and snap, a storm that refused to quiet. From where she stood, she couldn't see what sort of expression was on his face. Couldn't tell which was in control.

"Garrod. Garrod?" She reached out her hand, but stopped short of touching, unsure if it was safe to do so.

Siegfried proved braver. He clapped a rotted glove onto the man's left shoulder, and made a inquisitive groan.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

A laugh, dark as curling smoke, echoed in Garrod's throat.

Yes, quite good, quit delicate, his demon tittered gleefully. The flesh of the mage eaters, Oh Bearer Mine. What gore and viscera was still betwixt the clutched white fist, spattered and coated in ichorous pitch, seeped into those pores and crevices where the plate did join. Where the pale eye opened wide and gleamed bright against the mess.

Garrod grinned all the while. Felt the fire flicker inside him. Twist. Spout. A wicked green that wanted only to go on.

The strange wings that had sprout from the side of the gauntlet fanned and buzzed, almost happy to be amidst such slaughter.

Till the whistle pierced the air. The strange sound shrieked through the hunter, his knife fell from his left, and the pain went pins and needles through his arm, that wriggled like a wild fish out of water.

The arm thrashed, shook, as Garrod growled through his teeth and tried to hold it down at his side. Got a grip of it. Bone-white fingers flared. Strained wide as the fin-like wings slipped back into the strange carapace.

A thump on his shoulder. A groan. Garrod turned, wild eyed. Exhausted. His breaths drew in and out in heavy pants. His eye on Siegfried. Shift to Lechies, then the boat. Back to the wizard. A weird grin on his face.

"The fight... is over.... peace now... hunter..."

Another deep breath as muck dripped from his claws. His eye drift down to his hands. To the clawed digits that stil flared like dagger teeth. He closed that strange fist. The gauntlet, back to its old self again.

"Yeah," Garrod agreed. Opened his hand, and found the glint of his knife in the muck. "You two alright?" he asked.

A long groan from Siegrfied.

Garrod smirked as he picked up the knife. "Guess that's a yes,"

 

[Nere Ashorn]

The mood changed. Nere let the tension roll out of her shoulders, and the frohoggin behind her did the same.

"Well, that's that. Think I'll head back to shore, now." The frohoggin's boat rocked some as Nere jumped out of it, the waters coming up to her waist. The larger frohoggin began to pole-push their vessel back into the deeper currents.

"Oyee!" The blue-throated frohoggin called out after her, waving the reed whistle high above his head. "We are heading to the markets now!" He swung his arm back, and pitched the whistle high through the air. It splashed near to where Nere stood, bobbing up to float. She reached out, and plucked it out of the water before the currents could wash it away. "Take this, in case of more kraits!"

Nere waved back. "Thank you!" Examining the whistle more closely, she frowned down at it. Not enchanted by the feel of it, just cleverly carved wood. "Not that I'll be able to use such a wretched thing..." she said more quietly to herself, as she pocketed the gift.

Perhaps Siegfreid could use it? Well, no... he did not have the lungs for it, and the skin around the undead's cheeks was looking awfully permeable.

The water sloshed around Nere's legs as she trudged back to the shore. The fabric of her clothes stuck to themselves, and she was blotched with the oily blood of the monsters. She shed the most offensive articles as she walked, until she was in her last layers - frayed leggings and a short vest.

She should have asked after everyone when she arrived, but there was something on Nere's mind.

"Lechies, I'm sorry I lost my temper back there," she said, stopping near the other woman. "I shouldn't have yelled at you about using magic, you were only defending those people." She waved her hands at the surrounding carnage. "And it turned out alright, mostly."

Garrod Arlette Lechies Delrio

 

[Lechies Delrio]

Garrod turned, chest pumping with labored breaths, eye wide and overbright. Not with madness or corruption or worse, just the simple exhaustion of a man after a chaotic fight. Lechies, too, relinquished the breath wound tight in her lungs. She tested the air again as she straightened. There was no more storm, no more wildness snapping and clawing at the edge of her senses.

Thank the gods.

"Alright," she echoed. "How about you?"

Lechies glanced over him for wounds, eyes skipping over the pale gauntlet, but honestly with so much blood and mud on him, it was hard to tell. And proud warrior that he was, perhaps he would have hidden an injury from them anyway, as proud warriors often did? Lechies resolved to watch Garrod more closely as they continued their journey.

For injuries, that is.

A boisterous cry called Lechies's attention to the frohoggins' departing boat. She waved after them, shouting out a "Thank you! Safe travels!"

As Nere reached the shore, Lechies also looked her over for wounds. Though all had been fine in the end, she would not soon forget the horror of thinking Nere had been drowned or gnawed to death by the kraits. Before she could ask after Nere's health however, the other woman spoke first.

Lechies blinked, momentarily surprised, before embarrassment took over. "Ah, no. No. You were... you were right to be upset. Had they asked for help first, it might've been different, but I was the one who interfered. For that, I'm sorry. And, I admit..." her brow creased with guilt, "I hadn't given any thought as to what my ice would do to the fish..."

She offered Nere a wan smile as she went to retrieve the push pole from the bushes where she'd flung it during the battle. "I will follow your lead. You know the bayou best, after all."

Nere Ashorn Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

A nod.

"Good," he said. Lost in the ash of the incident. The feeling in his right hand still tingled back from whatever blazing numbness overtook it.

An obsession, burrowing into the back of his mind. Remove the gauntlet. It seemed to scratch. Remove your arm.

He huffed another breath as Lechies and Nere spoke to one another. Made some sort of peace between them.

The blood was starting to crust about him.

A shallow breath pulled through long decayed lungs. A compulsory act, Garrod imagined, as he stared at the undead warrior, who seemed to stare so keenly back at him. Silver eyes, bright beneath the shade of his proud hat.

"You... are... troubled," Siegfried intoned.

Garrod frowned. His eye narrowed, unamused. "I must be, to have a deadman telling me,"

A groan from Siegfried. It almost sounded like understanding. And, was that a nod?

Nere Ashorn Lechies Delrio

 

[Nere Ashorn]

The resolution that came with Nere's accepted apology was tentative. A thin smile from Lechies, and a sheepish titter from Nere in response. Not so strange, considering how early it still was in the day, and their alliance was only the day long.

Lechies offered the lead to her, a sign of trust Nere quietly vowed not to misuse. She crossed her arms in thought. Blood, diluted from the wet of the bayou, dripped pink down her left bicep. Fresher and more human than the black stuff that oozed out the kraits. Claw marks, shallow but numerous, were raked across Nere's back, the source of the blood. She didn't seem to notice.

"Hmm," Nere pondered. She squinted up at the sky as she weighted their options. Overcast, but still bright. It was going to be a muggy day. "Garrod and I can't support you very well in the water. And I don't think those kraits will be a problem again, now we've scared 'em off so thoroughly. Let's go the rest of the way by land."

Nere lost no time in dragging their flat-bottomed boat all the way onto shore. She turned away to do the work, and Siegfried, too, ambled over to help, leaving Lechies and Garrod alone a moment.

"Hey Seigfried," she said to the dead man as the two of them heaved the boat into some nearby bushes. "What do you plan on doing when we get there?"

"I will free them," Seigfried responded. "The other souls Magnus chained to undeath. Some, like me. Others, mindless. All made to labor. I can hear them, louder now. Asking to rest."

"Such a simple thing to ask for." Nere was tying her wet clothes to the outside of her pack. She stopped her work, somber suddenly. She patted the hulking undead on the shoulder with a reassuring hand. "We'll help 'em out, Seigfried. The world would be too cruel a place, if we couldn't even do that much."

Lechies Delrio Garrod Arlette