Quest Cult of Calamity

[childish brandino]

The swordsman constantly checked over his shoulder. Goosebumps caused hair on his arms to stand. There was something of a pervasive nature that bothered the mounted man. The disconcerting ambiance of the place made him forget of the cold air and how the village itself was abandoned. A part of him was fearful? No, he was more disturbed. His mind felt boggled, and when he saw two figures in the distance, one quite larger than the other, he led the horse to the left between two nearby structures. Dismounting, he navigated behind the structures to approach the source of the fire and the strangers he saw.

Each step was carefully taken. Under his shawl, the swordsman's left hand gripped under the mouth of his sword's scabbard. He patiently and silently made his way closer to his destination. That vague something that prodded the edge of his consciousness seemed to seize him suddenly. His balance left him, and his right arm, now extended and placed on the wall of a wooden structure, braced him.

His soft breathing became strained from the discomfort of having something invasive forage his thoughts. His head whipped around, making the immediate surroundings appear as a blur. He saw nothing out of place, but felt otherwise. A sudden pressure caused his head to ache. His eyes clamped shut in response.

Vision shrouded in darkness, he could hear the cries of women and children in a language he had not heard since he left his homeland. The memory of heat, the smell of death, and those cries. Such horrid cries.

His eyes open, and in front of him stood a pale-skinned woman. She wore a garment similar to that of the swordsman, yet it was loosely worn, only half of it covering her torso. She was half-exposed, skin exposed to the chilling air of the hills. A crimson river of blood flowed from a long, deep gash that stretched from her shoulder, down between her breasts, and to her abdomen. Her face was gaunt, with dark rings around her eyes and lips stained red from blood. Her face was battered, hair a matted mess.

Kishou’s first reaction was a gasp and a flinch. The structures around him were suddenly lit ablaze, yet he felt no heat. The woman was silent, but reached an unclothed arm out towards him.

The swordsman recoiled, and fell on his backside. As he hit the soft earth, his surroundings returned to normal. His forehead glistened from a minor sweat, and his chest heaved as he struggled to breathe.

He swallowed hard as his breathing settled, and he again scanned his surroundings. All appeared normal. Yet, he still felt the presence of something. That something seemed much too ominous now.

He rose to his feet, remembering those two that he had seen, and thought that they were either the source or would have the answers he sought.

 

[Scythe and Nyght]

Now listen.

Sometimes you just gotta keep going. Annoying some dumbfuck lawman about not actually touching him while covertly touching him and then he's had enough and draws his sword? Gotta keep going. Been holding in a whole tavern's worth of piss and finally its your turn in the outhouse and it suddenly catches on fire? Gotta keep going. Having a bit of an intimate moment and some hotshot bounty hunter kicks open the door right as you're about to finish? Gotta keep going.

And, well, accidentally shot yourself in the foot in some kind of spooky ghost town after seeing your bitch stepmother and then your questionably nicknamed companion is about as hard as you would expect from a mercenary who took his job and himself way more seriously than you and, oh by the way, the "ghost" in ghost town was probably a bit too literal for your taste?

Gotta keep going.

So Scythe and Nyght limped their way back to Captain Aeyliea. Sure, ol' Toothless there had done them a solid by patching up Scythe's body's foot. Him and Willis both, the latter doing the same for Nyght's body. But, you know...Scythe and Nyght had to put in some effort of their own eventually. Were flying carpets real? How much did they cost? Hey, add that to the list. Also, find a wizard to give them the straight deal on whether or not that shit was possible.

And finally. All the way from the notice board in the town back to Cap and Dragonman. Toothless had found some gold on the way, and boy was that shit tempting, but that's also how all the saps in those scary campfire stories got axed. Axed. Ghosted? Spirited? Spookied to death? Whatever the fuck ghosts did. Those details were all terribly nonspecific and depended mostly on the current storyteller.

Gold or no gold, fuck that. It really felt like Leona was still watching them as they limped all the way across town and back to Cap. Fucking jealous and angry as ever. Felt like she wanted to kill Dad a couple hundred more times.

"Hey, Cap," said Scythe as he got close.
"Hey, Cap," said Nyght as she got close.

They glanced from Cap to Dragonman and back to Cap. Weren't they missing a few people? Eh.

"So we may or may not have shot ourselves," said Scythe.
"It's really not as bad as it looks. Honest," said Nyght.

They both winced.

"At least we have Dragonman," said Nyght.
"We do have Dragonman," said Scythe.
"You think ghosts are scared of dragons?"
"I don't know. Hey, Dragonman, are ghosts scared of you?"
"Who the fuck is that up the road there?"

There was a guy. With a sword. He fell on his ass and stood back up. Hey, drunkard, Scythe and Nyght liked him already. Maybe he had the right idea. Maybe the drunker you were the less ghosts could affect you.

Time to get drunk. Sound plan.

 

[Aeyliea]

A knot of tension released in the mercenary's guts as the others came in view. Aeyliea did not like dealing with the supernatural - it was one reason she despised mages, after all. This kind of thing, though, was what a mage was needed for. How did you fight a spook you could not properly face?

But obviously, this spook had some ability to touch the living directly. An empty town and several caravans spoke eloquently to that. It was a mystery even to her.

"Shot in the foot, you did?" She grinned at the pair, but there was an edge to it. "At least disappear you did not. Evil spirits, there are, in this place."

The spirit realm. It belonged to shamans and sorcerors, to the spiritual leaders of her people and not to her. She made the warding gesture again, a charm against influence by the world of spirits, and called upon her ancestors to guard her from the baleful influence of this place. She did not think it would work.

Turning to look up the road, she could see that warrior and, now, recognize him. From an arena floor, not very long ago. She did not know if she should be pleased or not, if he would be happy to see her again or not. At least he had been honorable; many among the city-borne were not.

She held up a hand to the others. "I do not believe this one will bring us trouble," she said. And then, louder: "Hail, stranger!"

She could feel the tension in everyone else, and was not sure if it was due to the stranger, or because of the oppressive nature of this place.

 

[childish brandino]

Being oblivious was rather uncharacteristic of Kishou. Yet, the unnatural vision he had and tension that seemed to pry at his mind had distracted him completely from the group in front. More had arrived. One waved to him, called out, her voice doing well to pull him away from delirium.

He approached with caution, and took his hand away from his sword. He exposed his hands, which lifted his shawl and exposed a set of two swords on his waist, one shorter than the other. A gesture of peace so they did not attack as he approached.

He recognized her the moment she called. He approached in silence and stopped several paces away from the group.

Brows furrowed at the woman as dark eyes sized her up. Memories of joy and excitement flooded him. The scar on his back and thigh throbbed. He maintained that serious demeanor for a moment, but it quickly lightened up as he finally recalled her name.

He lowered his hands and cocked his head, “Stranger? You’ve forgotten me already?”

His chatter carried a comfortable tone, but sharp eyes darted between those that accompanied her. He was grateful that a familiar face was with them.

 

[Szesh]

The twins’ reappearance was broadcast by their incessant banter. Szesh‘s dark eyes turned to them as they approached, and he snorted a whisp of smoke at their questions. How had such cavalier attitudes not gotten them killed already? He could smell the blood from their foot wounds. Identical? That was odd...

Szesh was disinclined to trust Aeyliea when she assured them that this newcomer would do them no harm. Nothing in this place made sense, his head was swimming, and he could scarcely trust his own eyes let alone the judgement of others.

To her credit, the newcomer was not hostile. In fact he seemed to know their captain, and greeted her with familiarity. He made gestures of peace, but was well armed.

A twinge of pain through his head again, a shadowy face. A quiet voice that spoke in words he could not understand. ”We should leave this place,” he said quietly, bringing a clawed hand to his temple and rubbing. Perhaps the smoke in the air was getting to him. ”There are no caravans here.”

Were ghosts scared of him? He would like to think so. The painful truth was that whatever haunted this place worried him greatly, and he wanted to get as far away as possible.

 

[Scythe and Nyght]

Now here's a question for inquiring ladies and gents.

Why were spirits always evil? Did Cap even need to tack that "evil" addendum onto "spirits" for everybody to know that these spirits were assholes. Yeah. They said it. Assholes. Rotten fruit digested and freshly blown out the ass assholes. Side note, don't eat rotten fruit; just starve. Back on track. Spirits. Always evil. Show Scythe and Nyght some orc with an old gray beard that was half-hair and half-bird's nest spouting off about the wonderful and beneficent spirits of the land and Arethil and they'll punch that crusty old bastard square in the face. Pay the birds in his beard to punch him too, because he don't know what the hell he's talking about.

Seriously, Scythe and Nyght heard enough campfire stories about spirits just like these in this fucked up little town. Where were all the good spirits? The atta-boy spirits. The hey, my man spirits. The kind of spirit who'd spot you a crown or two so you could get last mug of ale. The kind of spirit who'd hold your hair back while you puked up said ale because you really had too much didn't you but there you go again just had to get into a losing battle with that smug-ass dwarf who kept on grinnin' and grinnin' and gods that sumbitch might as well be a keg with arms, legs, and a smug-ass head. You know. Those spirits. Hell, why not the kind of spirits who'd aggressively give out handjobs to intruders in their haunted house. Yeah. You better leave, bucko. Don't you make us haunt you with our mouths too, we'll do it, we're crazy. Yeah, those're the kind of spirits Scythe and Nyght would be.

Anyway, Dragon-man was dragon-right. They ought to get the hell outta here. Bring a mage or a priest to do the hard work, casually leaving out details like "some rich noble is paying us, want a cut?"

"Yeah, Cap, I agree with Dragon-man," said Nyght.
"I agree so hard it hurts. Ow," said Scythe.
"I can't shoot something that doesn't give a shit about steel. We ought leave."
"Unless stranger man's got something."
"He owe you any favors, Cap?"

Hmm. Well. Technically all they needed was to recover that noble's shit, the aforementioned caravans. Didn't need to banish ghosts or nothing. See, that'd be nice if they could just get in and get out. But even then they sure as hell didn't want to work with fucking Leona's snarling face leering over at them the whole time, that was whatever else.

So Scythe and Nyght stood, each body favoring their wounded feet a bit, glancing about with hands behind their backs, trying to appear as innocently unaware as possible so as to not get picked for some daring plan. 'Cause they had a feeling one was right around the corner.

 

[Aeyliea]

There was little mirth in her eyes, a distinct absence of friendliness in her face. She had no ill will toward Kishou, not even the slightest scrap...but, the nature of this place was pressing in on her. It was like a vice on her mind, steadily cranking the pressure up minute by minute. She was not entirely certain what she had expected to find when she took this mission up in the first place, but spooks were certainly not included in that relatively short list.

"I get a headache every now and again to remind me of our dance," she replied simply. Hawks eyes regarded him, chilly blue like distant mountains. "Forgive me for wanting something as straight forward as that again."

A breathy whisper on the air, syllables of words that might well have simply been gibberish. Her fingers instinctively made the warding gesture again.

"Abandoning money I do not like," she said in reply to the rest of them with a scowl. "A lot of money. But..."

How to put words to the feeling? The oppressive nature, the haunted touch in the air? "This place, it is cursed. Foul. I...do not like it at all," she admitted reluctantly. It took a great deal to admit any weakness, even something so trite as fear of the supernatural. To her people, though, the supernatural was very much real, and very dangerous beside. People of the cities tended to worry about the occult far less, more concerned with money and material possessions.

The No'rei were keenly aware of the spirit world, after all.

"Nothing I have found. You?" She fervently hoped that they had found little so they could leave this place. There were plenty of other places to search, but this desolate town seemed to stab icicles into her spine, and it was an unaccustomed and an unwelcome feeling.

 

[Szesh]

He was grateful for Aeyliea's brevity, this was not the time for idle talk. The newcomer was not a threat, that much was clear, but unless he would be helping them Szesh did not care to learn more. He, too, felt a twinge of disappointment at the prospect of losing such substantial pay, but he preferred staying alive and of sound mind.

He felt validation at the captain's proclamation. The village was indeed cursed, and he had not been the only one to feel it. "No," he replied. "Nothing."

That was not entirely true, but mirrors that displayed demons were not things he chose to investigate, and the house would be little more than ash within hours. Added to the growing dust of the town. He turned his head to the twins, boring into them with steely black eyes. Aside from their wounds they carried nothing new, but his face dared them to give anyone a reason to stay in this horrid place.

 

[childish brandino]

A desire to smile was contained by the ominous and oppressing sense of dread that pressed on the swordsman's psyche. Onyx eyes gazed back into frigid blues as Aeyliea reminisced on a shared moment between the two. It earned a single throb from the scar on his back. Hairs stood on end and Kishou fought the urge to shiver.

"That sentiment is mutual," He replied with a curt nod.

The woman made a gesture, then conversed with those by her side. Kishou watched on, eyes darting between speakers, only ever taking his eyes off the group to warily scan their surroundings. A hand rose to his chin which he idly stroked as they spoke of findings. If they had indeed found nothing, he had no more time to waste there, especially with the sinister atmosphere within the confines of the village. He thought of parting there, though the threat of the unknown prevented him from fleeing. The swordsman was disposed to make a hasty exit, though he would much prefer to do so with others.

When their discussion concluded, he'd propose joining them. At least for the time being.