Knights of Anathaeum Lost and Found

[Castor Vega]

"Oh hells," he managed to mutter as the dragon began its ascent. Castor knew logically this was the best option but he still didn't give a damn. He did his best to grip the saddle tightly but his body remained weak from the previous spell. Honestly he'd half a mind to just slip back into unconsciousness and hope for the best. The ever-growing shrieks, however, brought him back to his senses. He couldn't see any of the fellbeasts just yet but clearly they had no intention of giving up.

And so the dragon continued to climb. Rain and wind battered their bodies, accompanied by the ever-so-close arc of lightning. They seemed to empower Norvyk. Castor doubted the effect on his body would be quite the same.

"Incoming!" The Sworn yelled up to Petra just as dark bolt raced past the side of him, barely missing the dragon's head. Even in this maelstrom, Castor could vaguely sense the cultists' vile magiks. He turned to see a single fellbeasts desperately attempting to gain ground. It had been badly marred by the storm but neither the mount nor rider seemed to care. Their purpose was singular. Final. Unflinching.

Castor's hands were already in motion, body before brain; the age-old formula preceding doing something properly stupid. Lightning flashed. He began to count. A dagger in hand, he spoke elemental words of power. Twelve breaths, lightning flashed again. He waited for four breaths, muttered a final arcane phrase, and flung the blade downward. Imbued with sorcery, it flew straight and true.

Then the twelfth breath came again. This time the lightning arced with hungry purpose to the dagger of enhanced metallic properties. The small blade which crested just before the cultist's blinded view. Rider and beast screamed as their bodies became unwilling conduits before falling from the sky as charred husks. He was ready to praise himself but was instead met with the telltale sound of leather snapping. Even the most well-made harnesses had their limits apparently.

The knight clung to the remaining leather tighter than his first love.

Petra Darthinian Margot Triss

 

[Petra Darthinian]

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me." Petra snarled through her teeth, twisting in her saddle to track the returned fellbeast, Norvyk roared goadingly in its diving wake, the fellbeast shooting just outside of his snapping jaws.

The freezing rain had plastered her curls to her head, but adrenaline was racing too hot in her blood and she felt nothing but the thrill of the chase and battle and the electric dance of rage contained in the dragon beneath her. She half-listened to Syr Vega casting curses at the advancing cultists. The dawnling just prayed that it was enough.

Suddenly, Norvyk found a thermal within the tempest and the leather of his wings snapped where they caught the gale, hurtling them sharply skyward at the same time that a crack of lightning struck below them, the charred keening of a fellbeast fading with the wind. Petra went to look behind them when she felt part of her saddle lurch backwards, sending icy stabs of panic into her heart.

"Cast-?!" She began to yell, but then she felt the rest of his leather harness give and break and she screamed through the pain as her arm wrenched painfully backwards, twisted as it was to death grip the side of his tunic. She would not let him fall. She couldn't.

"Grab onto me! We're just going to have to outrun them!" Her grip transferred to his forearm that she wrapped strongly around her middle. They would lose the cover fire, but Petra would rather that, than lose Castor entirely.

They hurtled closer to the blue of the sky above, like the light at the end of a dark tunnel. The rabid screams of more fellbeasts crying out beneath them, chasing them down like hounds on the heels of a bleeding stag. Just a little more, please, please, they could make it.

Cloistering clouds whipped past them, shrouding them in flickering darkness. A flash of red light speared her vision and Norvyk jolted and roared. A moment more and they broke through the cloud cover, the open blue sky all around them.

"NOW, NORVYK!" Petra yelled and even the wind seemed to quiet for a gathered breath. A high keening sound rang out around them, teetering on the edge of their hearing, causing all the hair on Petra's arm to raise and she grit her teeth as a too bright blue light snaked a path up her dragon's neck. A crackling energy charged the air around them and Norvyk aimed his head down, facing the writhing black tendrils of the storm just as the flock of fellbeasts finally broke through the top.

Norvyk shuddered beneath them and roared at the same time that a sonorous boom split the air and great bolts of frenetic blue lightning hurtled from his maw. Arcing down with a lethal vengeance until it hit the mob of fellbeasts. The beasts and cultists made no sound, but their jaws were open in silent screams as their bodies contorted with savage energy that danced in sparks between them. The air flaring with the stink of burnt ozone and hot metal.

Raw power continued to torrent out of Norvyk's body, until each one, fell, blackened and limp from the sky like marionettes whose puppeteer had cut their strings.

Castor Vega Margot

 

[Margot Triss]

Their skyward dance did not mean they were safe, that was all too apparent as heavy wing thrusts worked to bring them higher. The screeches of fell beasts below them filled the air with spite and menace. Margot pressed her hands to her ears at the sever change of air pressure, barely able to hear the encroaching enemy as her ears tried to adjust.

She shut her eyes tight at the bright flash of lightening that hit the fell beast, knocking it burnt and silent from the air. It must have Castor that sent that, she wished she could have seen him in action. There was yelling from Petra, frantic, though impossible for Margot to make the words out. She heard nothing from Castor, and her heart began to race as she strained to hear the low tones of his voice.

In her panic, she began to try and extricate herself from the grip of the storm dragon, wanting to help her friends, but her unsound mind giving her poor instructions on appropriate actions. Blue skies briefly stopped her clawing, her heart beating fast, her eyes wide. The shudder of Norvyk, and the light that came next was blinding. Every hair on her body stood on end as if she herself had gotten struck, so powerful was he. She rubbed her eyes as the singed flesh of the enemy beneath them filled the air with their acrid smell. It was soon gone, the smell of the dead. The smell of the storm was still stronger, with the help of Norvyk and his lightening.

Beats later, Margot was back at her plan of extraction. She needed to know that they were safe, that Castor was okay. This was all her fault. This was all her fault. They would be okay if I had just died like i was supposed to.

Petra Darthinian Castor Vega

 

[Castor Vega]

Leather snapped. Once, twice, then nothing. Silence found him in the squall. A lack of sound terrifyingly followed by weightlessness.

Oh, he thought as recognition became reality. He was falling. Like if someone tipped your seat. Except he'd have a touch longer to think about his mistakes before hitting the ground. Castor supposed it wasn't all bad. He'd made good account himself. Few could ask for more. Well, other than living.

His mind struggled for answers, but sometimes the storm just took you.

A jolt. Castor's body lurched. "Fu-" He didn't hear her words but latched onto Petra' strong forearm. Between the two, he wasn't sure whose effort was more responsible for bringing him back to saddle. The Sworn wasn't going to argue the point as he held to his companion as best he could.

Sky. Storm. Sky. His consciousness faded in and out with each subsequent movement.

The stench of char caught him before passing into oblivion yet again. A habit he was apparently developing.

"Please tell me I'm dead this time," groaned the knight as he stirred to lucidity.

Petra Darthinian Margot Triss