Fable - Ask Rebirth

[Matias]

"I am shocked." Matias said, the sarcasm practically exploding out from him in a wave.

This place felt like it was cursed.

He could remember ancient stories about haunted castles and Keeps. Places where evil seemed to lurk and the darkness spread as a matter of fact and being. It was places like this that reminded him of those stories, especially now.

Lips thinned for a moment, and then he motioned towards the nearest tower.

"Window." He pointed out. "I'll make us a ladder."

The Frost Giant said as he began to stalk forward, ice already growing upon his palm.

 

[Harlowe]

"Wait!" Harlowe went from being a good meter or two behind him to in front, her hand on his chest to stop him from taking another step. Her head was twisted to over her shoulder so she could eye up the wall. That diseased smell was was oozing from the brick.

"I don't think you should touch it, even with your magic," it was a gut feeling and she couldn't put her finger on it. Her eyes lifted to the window and then to further down the gardens. "The smell is coming from the stone, like it is the thing sucking the gardens life."

Maybe it was powering a spell...

 

[Matias]

He glanced back at Harlowe for a moment, then to the tower. "Then how do you suggest we get inside?"

The Frost Giant was not mocking her, it was a genuine question.

Magic was not exactly his forte. He didn't know if the same could be said of Harlowe, but his only introduction to Magic prior to his transformation had been the Radiant Church. They had never been...informative, but rather preached about its evils.

Not helpful. "If we can't climb then..."

He shrugged.

"Door won't be much better." At least he assumed.

 

[Harlowe]

In a reluctant tone, Harlowe sighed and glumly said, "Follow me."

She led them around the curve of the wall until they were at the palace's rear. Here were more modest entries made of wood for servants no doubt, judging by the mud on the steps and the way the wood looked a little battered. A small stream of sewage ran out from between a grate. It would be a tight squeeze but... With a well aimed kick the bars splintered like wood and Harlowe dropped to her knees, taking a deep breath of clean air, before proceeding to crawl through the space.

After a while she found she could walk in a crouch and a little way after that she was able to walk stooped, before eventually being able to stand up properly. Her armour was covered in the Saint only knew what but she tried to keep it from her mind as they emerged into the empty bathing suite.

 

[Matias]

"That was. Utterly. Disgusting." Matias said with so much disdain the walls threatened to crumble down around them. He was a noble, a man of privilege. Sure he had mired in the mud of battle, been covered in blood.

Fuck he'd even died.

This was something new though.

"Should burn this place down after." Matias said with a scowl."Especially after tha-."

His fingers tightened as he drew a knife, foosteps echoing down the hall.

 

[Harlowe]

Matias had nothing to complain about with his normal sense of smell. Harlowe wasn't sure if she would be able to breathe for the rest of the mission now she was covered in the muck. She was about to agree with the whole burning idea when the sounds of footsteps reached her ears. In a swift movement she slid into the shadows created by the tunnel and - cursing everything unholy - she took a breath to try and catch their scents.

"There's four of them," she whispered in a volume that would have only been detected by another monster.

Her head cocked to the side as voices began to reach them. Two sounded like women as they splashed into the pool.

 

[Matias]

Matias frowned for a brief moment at the sound of splashing, his head tilting to the side in question as he peered at Harlowe.

For a brief moment his fingers flickered, a shade of ice rushing over them as he considered what their next step would be. Lips thinned, and then he slowly motioned for Harlowe to move a bit closer to him. "Do we kill them?"

He didn't care either way.

Matias figured that if anyone was in this castle then they were an enemy. Beyond that it didn't matter one bit. If they were doing what he thought they were doing then killing them would be as easy as snapping his fingers. At least for him.

"Or no?" He left the decision to her.

She was the one that still had a moral compass after all.

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe scowled at the giant.

"I thought I was meant to be the blood thirsty monster?" she muttered under her breath and then carefully looked around the corner to see who it was they were dealing with.

She had been right; two noble ladies had entered the pool and were lounging at one end talking whilst their maids hovered by the doorway with towels. Their heads were bowed to look at their feet and the women were too caught up in their conversation to be paying any attention to anything but themselves. Her lips pursed as she thought it through. There was no need to kill them and if they were found dead then it would alert others. If it was just her on her own she probably would have been able to get to the door without them seeing anything but the giant... well

"I think I can get us out without being seen," she twirled a bit of hair around her finger. "But I'll need to carry you."

 

[Matias]

Matias shrugged. He was, and never had been a man who denied the talents of women. Cortosi women were strong, powerful, and to tell them they were porcelain dolls was a folly that most men learned to never do twice.

"If you think it's easier than killing them." The Frost Giant said with a shrug.

He did not particularly care. Harlowe was faster than him, by far, but he could just as easily freeze both women and end them before they could even realize what was going on. By his estimation, the fact that they were here already marked them out.

Just because their for was called "The Brotherhood" did not mean there were no women among them.

"Let's just make it quick." He said with a motion. "This place makes me uneasy."

The Frost Giant said with a frown.

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe nodded and then threw the giant over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Try not to vomit," she had wanted to the first time she'd run it had made her head spin so badly. Orin said it got easier with time.

Most of the room was heaped in shadows; it was only the main pool that was lit properly and even then it was dimly, no doubt in order to encourage relaxation. The opposite of what the women were doing by nattering through it all, she thought. Still it meant it would be easier for them to slip by unseen. It wasn't that sneaking out was the easier option at all but... Harlowe couldn't bring herself to kill people who hadn't done anything to her.

With a quick unnecessary breath she shot off. In a blink they were up the stairs which had been on the other side of the room from them and in a hallway instead which looked richly decorated. The vampire set her load down.

"Which way?"

 

[Matias]

Matias felt slightly woozy as the Vampire set him down, though he was not about to vomit. Fingers tightened for a moment and he took a breath.

The sensation of moving so fast had been...unpleasant. "Ugh."

He said with a frown. "To the left."

His finger pointed left. The Baron would likely be in his bed chamber by now, and Matias was willing to bet that would be the easiest place to find him. The Frost Giant pulled himself to his feet, rising up and glancing towards the hall.

"Come on." Matias said through gritted teeth.

Up ahead quiet conversation could be heard, people talking amongst themselves.

 

[Harlowe]

It would be harder and harder to avoid people as they delved deeper into the palace no doubt. The corridors were not wide and shadowed enough like the bathing house below them and there would be no option but to walk straight past those they encountered up here. Not unless she was going to run blindly down every corridor until they stumbled into the Duke.

"Let's try and kill as few as possible, and if we do make it look normal - if anyone finds the bodies and comes looking for intruders hopefully it'll buy us the element of surprise when they stumble on us instead of humans," if they suspected it was monsters coming they would send the brotherhood straight away and only Matias could use magic.

She wasn't sure getting into a fight with a group of them was a scenario where they came out on top.

 

[Matias]

Cut throats and quick slices.

Matias could do that.

Before he'd been a monster he was a soldier. From his belt he pulled out a knife. The blade was serrated at irs base, vicious and curved towards the one edge. He flipped it around in his hand, then glanced over towards Harlowe as they found the edge of the hallway.

Blue eyes slowly tracked over the wall, then he signalled towards Harlowe. "Take the furthest one."

Matias said quietly.

He knew that Harlowe would be able to make it much further and faster than he could. He motioned one more time, his fingers raising to the count of three. Slowly he dipped his fingers, counting down until a fist formed. Then he shifted around the corner.

Three men stood there, all of them conversing with one another. Matias went for the one closest to him, grabbing his shoulder and dragging the blade over his throat in a quick and simple cut.

 

[Harlowe]

Three.

Two.

On--

Harlowe moved for the one at the furthest end of the corridor, her blade already in her hand. The man was still talking when her knife kissed his throat and the blood bubbled down his throat in a waterfall of red. She caught his flailing body and lowered it, spasming, to the floor before moving on to the man now wedged between the two monsters. Her nose crinkled with disgust as a foul smell hit her nose and she realised the man had soiled himself in fright.

"Pl-" she snapped his neck and let him crumple on top of his friend.

 

[Matias]

Matias glanced down at the man who had half his head wrenched the other way. Lips thinned in a frown and he raised an eyebrow at Harlowe. A 'tsk' clicked over his tongue. "Not very 'ordinary'."

A snapped neck was coming enough, but a head practically torn off?

Pushing it.

Not that it really mattered in the end. Matias fully intended for be fully gone and out of this dreadful keep before anyone discovered the body. He squatted down and wiped the blood off his knife, shifting for a moment before he stood and stepped over the corpses.

"This way." He pointed. "There's an anti-chamber before the Barons room."

His voice dropped again. "I suspect we'll find more...interesting company there."

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe grimaced at the state of the man's neck.

"I still don't really know my own strength," she admitted quietly, looking down at her hands as though she had never seen them before. She was much better than she had been. Orin had found it hilarious when the 9ft golem had gone to touch her hair and her instinct had been to slap his hand away. She'd ended up sending him a good five meters into a stone wall.

With more care she moved the bodies into the shadows before following Matias towards the anti-chamber.

It was quiet from within even to her ears but she could still smell a series of different scents.

"Seven," she whispered quietly.

 

[Matias]

He frowned for a brief moment, fingers tightening at his side. "Magic."

It would really be the only way.

They wouldn't be able to kill seven of them quickly enough for no one to act, not with blades. His magic would do a good enough job on ordinary men, but there was no telling exactly what it would do against members of the Brotherhood.

"I'll take out as many as I can." Matias whispered. "Then you come in after, finish off whoever didn't freeze."

That was about the only plan he had.

It was forceful, direct, but also just about the only method that Matias knew. Plus, a part of him was eager to see just what he could do.

 

[Harlowe]

Sometimes, Harlowe wished she had woken up with magic like many of the others had. Being a vampire - in a way - felt like a cop out when she could have been so many things. Orin didn't think so of course and had repeatedly told her how lethal her abilities were, but there was still a part of her that wished she could do something like burst into flames.

Especially when it meant she had to depend on someone else to have her back.

Harlowe rolled her shoulders and rocked onto the balls of her feet. At Matias' nod she bolted into the room.

 

[Matias]

Matias stepped out.

He had never been the fastest, even in his life before. The way he'd fought had been about strength, brutality, overcoming someone with sheer force of will and effort rather than being a speedy blade in the dark. In a way that was why his new life had become so perfect for him.

Fingers flickered.

The room seemed to shift, the air becoming a slight haze, and then a pulse of cold rushed through everything. Frost immediately formed on chairs, the floor, chandeliers. It overcame everything in a sudden wave of desolate Tundra.

"What in the fu-"

The man closest to him cried out in shock, his eyes bugging open as his skin suddenly turned a pale blue.

Two others were caught within the wave of cold, the other five suddenly whirling around and speaking in a quick tongue to summon a strange shield around them. For one more it was not enough, the shield shattering as his body was frozen in an instant.

 

[Harlowe]

Harlowe moved with the blast of ice staying a second ahead of the frosty sheen that began to coat the room in its death grip. Her focus was on the group furthest from the door and she arrived behind them as they began to mutter in their odd tongue.

She tore the head clean off the largest of the five who had been trying to form the shield and his headless body spasmed as it hit the floor. Those either side of him whirled, caught between trying to protect both their fronts and their backs. Before they could recover she managed to grab another of the men and split open his throat.

The shield came down over them a second later and she wiped the blood from her eyes.

 

[Matias]

A pike of ice rose from the chest of another man.

It was a quick, jerking pull that dragged the pike from his chest and pulled it into another man. Blood splattered across the floor, scattering onto the ground as a body fell.

"YOU INSOLENT DOGS!"​

The man's words bellowed out as another of his brothers fell, the odd ritualistic chanting suddenly ceasing as a bright glow washed over his body. It was a spark, a singular burst that rushed over him and pulsed over his form.

Then a wave crashed through the room.

It exploded out from him, crashing through the room and sending Matias and Harlowe flying into the wall hard enough to crack stone.

 

[Harlowe]

There was a split second when the young vampire thought that they might actually pull this off somehow. Seven mages versus two monsters, Matias had been right there was no competition. There was a thrill at the idea and she was about to attempt to break the shield with brute force when the loud voice boomed through the room and the next thing she knew she was flying.

For Harlowe it was more than hard enough to crack stone. It caved in around her leaving a large hole in the wall and the debris fell down upon the vampire in a shower of dust and bricks.

She didn't get up.

 

[Matias]

A slab was tossed to the side, Matias pushing himself up and off the ground as the weight of half the wall was thrown off of him. A grunt escaped his throat, fingers tightening for a few seconds as he slowly looked through the cloud of dust within the air.

"H-how are you still standing."​

It was an unfamiliar voice, the one that had screamed and sent out the pulse. Matias wavered for a moment, frowning as he slowly stepped forward.

Blue blood slipped down his arm, a wave of mist slowly rolling off of it as it began to contact the air. The Frost Giant grimaced, his features paler than usual. A scowl pulled at his lips as he peered at the other man. "Take a second shot."

Matias said.

"I dare you." The man took a step back, then suddenly raised his hand as if he were going to lash out.

Before anything could happen Matias ripped his good arm backwards. The mage suddenly exploded outward. Pikes of frozen blood erupted form his flesh, piercing through his throat, chest, arms, and legs.

 

[Harlowe]

There wasn't a lot that could take down a vampire but Harlowe was still a baby, barely even a month old. Orin had told her though her body had been transformed by the contract it still took time for it to harden and grow stronger. Having a wall fall on you was pretty high up there with the things that could knock her out for a short while.

The three remaining mages in the room had taken the opportunity to scatter when the two monsters had been blasted back. As the man who had sent the shockwave splattered up against the wall, a mage to the left clapped his hands together and then shoved his palms outwards.

Lightning arched towards the giant's chest.

 

[Matias]

Matias was running on his last leg.

He was not immortal, though his stamina was greater than most. The arc of lightning shot forward and almost out reaction a shield of ice suddenly formed in front of him. It sprang into life in an instant, shattering when the lighting struck against it.

Thousands upon thousands of shards of broken ice filled the air as the shield cracked and broke, flipping through the air and turning on end.

Matias tightened his fingers.

For a brief second there was a pause, and then the shards shot forward like a thousand barbs. Blood and gore splattered against the walls as thousands of shards pierced through the mages body, pinning his corpse to the wall as ice ripped through his flesh.