Fable - Ask The Hand of Flame

[The Pilgrim]

It trudged along the wide, cart-worn path, a mass of shifting black cloth beneath a large and heavy burden. The being known only as "the Pilgrim" was pitiful to behold: bent over, dragging each footstep, seeming as though the weight of his pack would crush him at any moment. Despite the pain of each step, he continued on gray, withered feet. His cowl hung low around a maw of utter darkness, twisting upon a neck of unnatural proportions.

He heard a commotion from ahead. His conscious senses were worn, but an unnatural presence inhabited him and assisted his interpretation of the world. There were people ahead, along with agitation and fear. Something else, too, a small speck of possibility. A seed that might grow with the right cultivation. He continued on.

The commotion was from behind a carriage: overturned and broken. A trio of highwaymen stood over the previous occupants of said carriage, three dead and one living. The commotion had been screams, the Pilgrim now realized, and recent ones at that, for the blood still pooled at the criminals' feet. The living person was a woman, young and pretty, which the men remarked upon. These compliments did not make the woman smile. One man stepped over a corpse towards her, and she shrieked (or so the presence told him).

That spark of possibility was nearby. Who was it?

Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

The road was oft a dangerous place. Far betwixt the comfort of civilization, with but the wild to keep one company. That and the dark of ones own mind. Whatever lived in there run free.

Oh so cruel, Oh Bearer Mine, oh so unfair. The demon that did reside within his gauntlet teased with sharply sweet tone. Voice like the ring and scrape of pointed dagger being honed. What have I done to you for you to mistrust me so? I protect you. I aid you. And all I ask is... Oh~ How curious.

There was a commotion in the near distance, and Garrod looked up from the flickering bonfire by which he rested his bones. Encased in his black iron armor, and with the bone-white gauntlet fastened to his right hand, he could hardly make out the scene. A carriage, beset upon by bandits.

You will help, Oh Bearer Mine, and with small luck, you may feed me something new. Something fresh.

He marched forward, and found himself to help most, for the killing was done, but one still drew breath.

"Aye," one of scoundrels said as he straightened up, eyes squinting as he looked at the lone figure that stood by the road, watching them. "We have company, lads," he said with greasy grin.

Garrod grinned back, and raised his bone-white armored hand. Claw like middle finger pressed together with thumb, pointing at the man who had noticed him. He snapped. And a flame sparked to life upon his greasy scalp.

The Pilgrim

 

[The Pilgrim]

The howl that escaped from the newly ignited brigand was enough to stir the birds from their roost. As the crows took flight the Pilgrim felt a pulse of intrigue from his pack. The other two cretins stepped back from their companion, and their fear turned to confusion, which skipped right past understanding and moved on to anger.

“You!” Ejaculated from a yellow mustachioed face. He pointed a short curved blade at Garrod, the blood on it not yet dry.

The flaming cretin had fallen, clawing and beating at his newly exposed skull while his friends did nothing to help. To the contrary, one of them leapt over his writhing figure to charge at Garrod holding steel claws. As he did so, two arrows came whistling from the tree line, and three more highwaymen emerged from the undergrowth.

The Pilgrim went ignored, and he watched with interest the unfolding scene. The young woman’s face could not grow any paler when she saw him approach, but he held up a desiccated hand to signal that he was here to help.


Garrod Arlette

 

[Garrod Arlette]

A laugh left the swordsman's lips, as he swung his heavy bladed great sword over his shoulder, held long and point down across his frame, its thick monster killing blade shielded his head from the flit of streaking missiles. One arrow pinged off its flat and angular surface, another off the chitinous shell of the relic.

He hissed a breath out through his teeth. Wind stirred about his feet and motes of green danced about him as the winds pushed him forward.

The treeline was far. The carriage was cover.

Forward. Garrod ran forward with his heavy blade angled on line.

The first man's blade came down swift, but Garrod was fast. Windswept. With an outward step he twist his hips and brought the long blade of his sword up with a wrathful cut that ran across the man's chest.

His leathers did little, and he was carved open like a goose.

The second, wide eyed, thought better of it, tried to step back. Make space.

Garrod's blade hung high. A cruel peak of black steel. Its line of runes glowed with spring zephyrs' green. His eye, harlequin, fixed on the man and he brought the big blade down with a sick crunch.

The archers at the trees stared on, and let arrows fly. One pinged off Garrod's pauldron, the other caught him in a gap just below his chestplate. He felt the arrowhead sink inches into his flesh as it transferred its fierce strike of energy.

The one who's head had lit on fire was back peddling. Head pink and raw. He blubbered. Picked up a waepon and felt braver for it.

Garrod quick stepped behind the carriage for cover, and pressed himself to it. Arrows rattled and hissed under the way. Zipped through the wide wheels. Garrod's eye found the man whose hair had burned off. He grinned.

"You want more?" he said with sharp toothed smile. Let his bloodied sword rest on his shoulder, and raised his white armored hand up again.

The Pilgrim

 

[The Pilgrim]

The young woman had taken her chance to scramble away from the carriage and get to her feet. The bandits did not seem interested in her anymore, not with the armored pyromancer upon them. She ducked and tried to keep as small as possible against the arrows. They were not aiming for her, but their aim was clumsy at best.

"Come," the Pilgrim intoned in a voice like shuffling paper, "Stay behind." He continued his slow plod towards the carriage. At long last it seemed the archers in the brush had noticed him. They were no longer taking chances, and a fraction of the arrows whistled towards the pair.

Without any movement from the Pilgrim a barrier of orange warmth sprang to life. A screen of fire, thin as a pane of glass, curved into a delicate and protective bubble around him and the young woman. The arrows were incinerated immediately on contact, flaring into nothing but dust on the muddy path. The Pilgrim continued on to the carriage, and the woman kept close behind so as to remain within the shield.

You want more?

The brigand could not decide if he were more angry or afraid, but the sound of crackling arrows drew his attention to the approaching Pilgrim, wreathed in flickering haze. "What... are you people?" He stepped back from the carriage, blade in hand, trying to keep all three of them in sight at once.

Four

A powerful voice rang in the pitiful Pilgrim's mind.

There is another hiding within sight. The Pilgrim found his attention tugged rather roughly to Garrod's armor.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

It was with wide eyed wonder that Garrod saw the sphere of flame approaching. Such mastery. Control. Arrows turned to ash. Useless against the shimmering wash of fire.

Spell-blade that he was, a part of him could not help but to fall into respect and admiration over the weave of an element he felt so drawn to.

Yes. Oh Bearer Mine. Yes, we can learn from this one. His demon grinned hungry in the black space of his mind.

What are you people? Came the quavering voice of the bandit.

Garrod's eye fell on him again, the pain in his side, only just there still between his breaths.

His green eye looked on at the scared man with excitement. "Your end," he said matter of fact, and raised his white armored hand up once more. Snapped his fingers, and a mote of flame sparked to life there above the bent digits that gleamed like white hungry teeth in the gold-orange glow of the hissing tongue of fire. "Less you run,"

The man turned and high tailed it out of there.

Garrod's eye turned to the creature wreathed in flame. How it guarded the woman. He huffed, and smiled at them both as the three crossbowmen shouted out their plan.

"Fan out, they can't hold that flame up forever!"

"Strange, and stranger still," Garrod said with wicked smirk and happy glint in his eye. He looked down at his wound, and the shaft that still grew out of its red pooled roots. Nothing too deep. The mail shirt and ping of plate helped keep it shallow. "Leave the lady, here," Garrod said, nodding at the carriage. "You think you can maybe," he grinned. "Draw their eyes to you, stranger?"

 

[The Pilgrim]

Your end.

Something extremely peculiar occurred at those words. The Pilgrim was a willing vessel, hollowed out ever-more by his master (O, glorious are the consumed). Of all the thoughts and emotions that projected through his putrid flesh, joviality was nigh unheard. Yet, there it was, for the briefest of moments.

The bottomless hood lingered after the fleeing bandit for a beat before turning back to Garrod. It then turned, too far, to look at the woman. She returned the look for a moment, but averted her eyes from the blank, inky depths of the hood.

“You will be safe,” he said in a coarse, breathy rasp. The pilgrim extended a shaking arm and the paper-thin sphere of fire opened before it, allowing her to duck quickly to Garrod’s side. The Pilgrim then leaned a bit more heavily on his walking stick. “I will… distract.” The last word seemed to take a good deal more effort than the first. He started to move, and strangely, dropped the shield of fire. The first crossbow bolts flew the moment he came around the carriage.

The Pilgrim wondered what his master would do. A demonstration, perhaps? To entice the spark of possibility? A murmuring in his mind told him no. Ahh, we would make the armored one prove himself?

The whistle of bolts was met with a quick pop pop pop as each one ignited once it came too close. The steel head of one of them had not entirely melted away, however, and it nicked hot and angry at The Pilgrim’s calf. He took a knee with a pitiful moan. Of course, he reasoned, the arbalests would pay him more mind if they thought they could strike him.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod nod at the carriage behind him. "I'd say hop on, but," another bolt rattled on by, he laughed, and gathered his breath. The strange hobbled one croaked his agreement. Garrod nod.

Timing. Timing always made the difference, didn't it?

He could feel his heart racing. No slower for having had a moment to breath. His eye, wide and alert, watched as the strange person turned the corner, saw the flit of missile shafts zip just wide. Three strange pops.

He had seen how the strange one's shield ate the bolts. The moan though. The moan was new.

"Aye! Downed one!"

"fill em with feathers boys!"

Garrod drew in magicked breath, eye closed, he placed his hand upon the rune of wind, that ran along the road of his greatsword. Motes of spring wind green fluttered and danced about him, and the young woman gasped as his white hair flared with the swell and rush of zephyr's boon.

The Yaegir's eye came open, and he stepped out, blade down in steel tail.

"Swordsman!" a crossbowman called out.

Garrod saw how close they had come. Only ten, or twelve strides out. Half that with his wind step.

Two trained onto him. His whole body had already bent forward. Wind gust behind him. Carried him forward. Faster than any normal man so loaded with great weapon and plate. A click of metal work. A snap of iron arms. A flit of iron head that pinged off pauldron.

He raised his sword, let the blade run long before him like a cruel and merciless beak.

A second bolt pinged off the great blade's wide span. Its runes glowed a pastel green. Distance closed quick. The monster-killing blade run the first man clean through his leather jerkin, the weapon's cruel peak popped out the other end, darkened by the ichor and vitae. He gasped for breath, ragged and rattled with one lung done in.

With a growl, Garrod ripped the sword down, its heavy cleaving blade jerked, then cracked through ribs like a giant butcher's knife. The others just stared in horror as their compatriot spilled out of the horrid wound and fell in bloody mess.

Garrod grinned a mad grin at them. And they remembered to shoot. He raised his sword long before his head, angled with threat as it guarded. A bolt skate off it edge, another pinged off his chest plate as he whispered smoldering verse. The runes of his sword glowed a burning red.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The Pilgrim existed in a state of pain, but he was not numb to it. To suffer was to highlight his devotion, and there was nothing he would not endure for the Great One. He could feel blood on his leg, though the sensation was muted. Rising was a great effort, and one that would take some time.

The arbalests moved closer, as had been planned, and the sounds of clashing metal and soft, gurgling death indicated Garrod’s location. Another hot flame flared in front of the Pilgrim’s empty face to incinerate the bolt that had been aimed at his brain. Though his Master would use him as bait, He did not want him dead just yet.

Seemingly frustrated by their inability to hit the Pilgrim, one of the bandits drew a dagger and charged. He came within six feet of his goal before a spear of earth and stone projected from the ground and skewered him. His last breath rattled out as he fell limp and suspended like meat on a butcher’s hook.

A second stalagmite lunged for the final bandit that Garrod had not slain, the one that was trying to sneak behind the Pilgrim. This one was caught in the leg, and though he howled, he did not stop his advance, tearing his bloodied calf from the jagged stone and limping towards his sedentary target. No fire or stone lashed out at him as he approached the Pilgrim, but there was a shrill scream of searing rage as the bandit was brought face-down into the dirt, knife in his back, with the young woman standing over him wild-eyed.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Enemies Slain ​

Garrod shut his lone eye, let his left hand come flat against the width of his weapon, a long exhalation let the magick energies dissipate once more, his pull of breath through his lungs drawing in some of those energies that still swirled about him.

You know, Oh Bearer Mine, if you would just but let me... feast on them. Yes, now would be a good time, they are still warm after all, and I, well. The demon laughed in his mind.

The Yaegir frowned, let his big bladed sword rest against his shoulder, held its handle loose as he turned toward the strange being and the young woman they had helped. "You two alright?" he asked as he strode back to them.

The bandit on the ground was still alive. Growning as his life left him. "Please," he begged, "Please help me, I'm, we were just," he groveled. "Starved is all, famine,"

See. This one. Just let me eat, this one. His demon said all too eager.

Garrod stared down at the man, his green eye looked to the young woman, then to the cowled stranger. He rolled his shoulder, and his heavy blade glint with what fires licked at still burning cloth and vegetation. He was never felt too keen on putting the dying out of their misery. But he'd seen what happens when things like infection set in.

"Could be he lives," he said absently, "If the maggots get to him before the infection gets too deep," he went on. Checked the expressions of his momentary allies.

Soft. Belephus hissed. Always so soft when the excitement wears down. Oh Bearer Mine.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The Pilgrim was still on his knees, and he felt a tremor in his wounded leg. It was distant, as were all earthly sensations these days. It was as though his body were growing further from his mind, and the feelings needed time to cross the distance.

Except for pain. Pain always came through. He slowly shuffled himself to face the false trio.

"Could be he lives, if the maggots get to him before the infection gets too deep."

Mercy. Unexpected from one so brutal. Perhaps they had misjudged him. O, but such an interesting thing has happened! The woman, young and full of promise, felt her face sour at the proposition. She was looking down at the man, seeing his blood well from the knife she had placed in his back. The Pilgrim turned his snaking neck to look at her.

"You find this... unsatisfactory?"

The woman started, looking down the fathomless hood for a moment before averting her eyes with a flushed face. It was not shame that had colored it, though. Her eyes glanced from the dying man to the ground and back, and there was nothing but hatred in them.

The Pilgrim felt a warm glow at his back, and his voice was compelled. "Do speak."

The woman opened her mouth, found it dry and coughed, then closed it. She did not seem to want to voice her thoughts. Morality, perhaps, and a false one at that. The Pilgrim waited.

"He's a murderer," the woman whispered, clearing her throat. A vein in her forehead throbbed, and she eyed the knife in the bandit's back. The Pilgrim had noted how very similar she had looked to the bodies that had been thrown lifeless from the carriage. His pack laughed in his mind.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod stared at the strange being who had helped them so. Who had commanded flame with such unnatural mastery. So great their ability, that the golden wash of that most insatiable element, ate away metal and wood in an instant.

From that stranger's abyssal visage had croaked the voice.

Do speak

It bade.

And so she spoke.

My, my. The demon within the hunter sounded. Amusement clear in the crackle of its voice. She wants to take the life, Garrod. Why not give it to me instead, hmm? Why let it go to waste.

His eye narrowed, and he grumbled. "Right then," he hefted the blade up from where it rest across his frame, moved toward the still dying man.

"No, no, please," the man blubbered.

The flames went on, hissing their sounds. Crackling their thoughts. More. More. They all seemed to say.

More. Belephus begged. Just let me have a little more.

Eye wide and open, the Hunter looked down at the fallen man, knife still in his back. He tried to crawl away. Turned when Garrod stood over him, raised a hand that was kicked away. Down came the greatsword's pointed peak. Punched through bone and flesh and ended him in single clean stroke.

Garrod's eye watched the man's last breath. The bits of strength that tried to resist the slab of metal that ran him through, chest through shoulder plate. A sword for killing monsters.

Now just, reach down... and give me his last moments, Oh Bearer Mine.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The young woman watched as Garrod executed the criminal. She did not recoil from the blood this time, even when flecks of it colored her traveling cloak. Her lips may have paled a shade listening to the wet, crunching path of the sword, but still the fires of hate glowed behind her eyes.

The Pilgrim stood, relying heavily on his walking stick and stepping gingerly on the injured leg. There was an eerie quiet on the road now, accented only by dying flames. The three of them were a strange bunch, to be sure. A cripple, and maiden, and a warrior of titan's strength. Wielding a blade of that size could not be natural ability... could it?

A gentle stirring of his thoughts bade him speak again. "Knight," he addressed Garrod, "Is there shelter that way?" There was nothing for miles the way the Pilgrim had come. He had no doubt that the large, armored, pyromantic man would be fine on his own, but the fires of possibility were burning brighter than ever before, and he knew he could not part ways so quickly lest they wane and die.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod's eye was fixed on the dying man. His right hand trembled, his fingers gripped tight around the handle of his weapon.

Just reach down, and take it, Oh Barer Mine, let me take it...

The blade drove in deeper. More bones cracked as Garrod leaned his weight against the weapon. Its road the distance between him and the

Knight came the strange voice from the strange traveler.

A lone green eye came up to view the cowled wanderer. "Shelter," he repeated, though his voice sounded distant, nad his eye looked beyond. To what, not even the bearer could say.

"He is wounded," the maiden stated.

A shift of his weight, and another wet sound came from the fresh corpse. With a pull and a heft, th blade came loose, and rested against Garrod's shoulder, run red with blood.

"A village, not too far," he looked to the carriage. The horses had long ran off. he jerked his head to the thushes off the road. The feint white trail of smoke that still rose above the line. "I made camp just there, we can tend our wounds, then make for the village," he offered, and started off toward the rising wisp of smoke.

How cruel of you. How unkind. His demond whispered in his ears. To leave me, hungry again.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The Pilgrim made a small noise of affirmation as he began to hobble after Garrod. It was difficult to tell if he were moving with more effort or simply the same strained gate he had always had.

"Wait!" The woman said with surprising sharpness. "What... about them?" She glanced back at the carriage, behind which the fallen bodies of its occupants lay lifeless on the ground. "We can't just leave them."

The Pilgrim regarded her. Sentimentality was not without merit, for a moral compass could be tilted, especially for one in which fires of hatred burned so brightly. "Offer them up to flame," he suggested. "The crows and rats will take them otherwise, but in fire... there can be salvation."

Quietly, and without apparent movement from the decrepit figure, small balls of flame came into being above him. They flickered warmly, one light for each friendly body on in the dirt. Then he waited.

The woman, far too young to have endured the past ten minutes, stared back at him. Her lips were held tight. She had to push through a great many feelings in too short a time.

"Do it."

The five lights darted away from the Pilgrim, swooping around the carriage and immolating the bodies upon contact. The bandits would be left for the worms, but the woman's family had been Saved. "Their souls rise on the smoke."

Without another word, he and the maiden followed after Garrod.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Garrod's stride stilled upon hearing the maiden's voice.

He looked to the dead and lain about. Those slain by the brigands.

Offer them to flame,

The hunter blinked at that.

Belephus laughed, cruel and long and smiling within the darkness of the hunter's mind. This one knows, this one understands, Oh Bearer Mine, the old demon near crunched that phrase it liked so much. Oh Bearer Mine. It feeds the Flame, for it understands what it means to Bear the Weight.

The five flames lit upon the young woman's command, and with the bodies turned to dust, the hermit strode after.

What an oddity. Best not think too much on it. The Yaegir turned, sword still upon his shoulder, and he led them back to his camp.

The wood still warm, embers glowed low in the pit. He snapped his hand, and a glob of flame spit up from the fuel that still crackled and hissed.

A wash of gold and orange and red painted their faces as the embers danced up. Garrod moved to a heavy pack rested by a downed log. Layed his sword down next to it and knelt as he dug throuhg its confines. Pulled a clay pot from it, and moved back to the hermit.

"Here, pyromancer," he offered the jar, undid the hemp tie that held down its lid, and revealed a clean buttery wax. "A salve, oak bark and bees wax," he looked down at the wound. "Should probably get that dressed before we walk on,"

Belephus cooed. How generous you are, Oh Bearer Mine. Today, at least. To them, at least.

The Pilgrim

 

[The Pilgrim]

The walk back to the camp was no doubt slow to his companions, but they did not abandon the Pilgrim as he hobbled. A courtesy that was appreciated, for the weight of his pack felt especially burdensome after the fight. The young woman had again fallen to silence, but he sensed a rising tension from her direction.

The embers lit with a sinister flame, its heat bearing traces of its maker. This was still an unknown, but he felt a gentle reassurance come through him as his thoughts were sifted through. There would be time to plumb those depths. There would be time.

Regardless of origin, the fire was soothing, and the Pilgrim took a stance at its edge, leaning upon his gnarled walking stick. The ragged hood turned towards Garrod's words. This was unexpected. "I'm not..." he began, before a hush took him. Not more than a gentle moment passed before he corrected, "Thank you."

He extended a trembling hand to the salve and took a small portion upon withered fingers. It was cool and pleasant to the touch. Still some part of him recoiled at the sensation, but it kept itself buried. With effort, he bent to apply the salve to his leg. The wound had stopped bleeding, indeed it was unclear if there had been enough flesh present to bleed much at all. All the same, the Pilgrim dabbed the gauged flesh with only a quiet grunt of stinging pain.

He took a seat, the act had exhausted him. Across the fire the young woman sat, staring into its churning heat with a stony face.

"What is your journey in these woods?" he asked of Garrod, laying his gnarled walking stick across his lap.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Whatever the pyromancer was, it certainly was not human. Yet Garrod's eye watched it administer the salve. Watched as the concoction smeared across the wound. That looked more like the same gnarled wood that twisted along its staff than any person's flesh.

No human. Not quite a monster either.

Yet it had intervened. Acted upon things in a way that brought about change.

Just as you do, Oh Bearer Mine. His Demon hissed along with the pop and spark of fire. A bringer of change.

Just a hunter. A Noct Yaegir. Nothing so grandiose. A killer of monsters. Who wore a monster. A grin cracked across his face.

The stranger, the pyromancer, settled down with a whimper.

The young woman stared, cold and wordless as the fire danced between the three of them. Their shadows, stretched, strange, and twisted behind them.

What is your journey in these woods?

Garrod's eye scrolled up and fixed onto the pyromancer. Stared into the darkness of his hood. Thought not of the strangeness of the long neck. Or the nobby limbs. Or the great pack that was upon his back like a turtle's shell.

"Between jobs," he said, with a sharpness to the smile that lingered on his lips. "Hear there is something praying on the people of Tornobran, further east," he looked back to the flame. "Corrupted beast, most like," he said dismissively. "Blight touches much and more, closer one gets to the Spine, and the Tree," his eye glanced up to the young woman. He whistled sharp to her, a single note that grabbed the attention. "How you holding up?" he asked her.

She seeks, the Truth. Belephus laughed.

 

[The Pilgrim]

The young woman startled at Garrod's whistle, then flushed. The color in her cheeks could have been embarrassment or anger, or more likely both. She looked back at the fire. "I am angry."

The Pilgrim lifted his eldritch neck at this.

"I should feel sad... but I just am so, so angry." The lines in her face were made deeper by the glowing fire, adding years to her features and fierceness to her gaze.

The hunched figure thought on her words, and on what Garrod had said. A corrupted beast. Preying on the people. Anger in this one's heart...

"You had something precious taken away," he rasped, his words only half his own. "You are entitled to rage."

The fire cracked, reflected in the woman's eyes. "What is you name?"

"Brea."

"Brea." The repetition had an extra tone, resonating well beneath what mortals could hear from a source merely borrowing the Pilgrim's vocal cords.

"I want to kill them again. Those... beasts that attacked us. I wish I could kill them a thousand times." She clenched her hands into fists so hard that her knuckles turned white.

The Pilgrim looked back to Garrod. "If Tornobran suffers... perhaps one could put their ire to work." He addressed Brea again, "You cannot kill men more than once, but you can destroy other evils. New evils."

The dark and endless hood swept back to Garrod, fixing him in its blind stare. "What can you tell us of the Blight?"

 

[Garrod Arlette]

Angry.

It almost sounded like hungry to the hunter.

Something you know all too well, Oh Bearer Mine.

Still, he but listened on. Gave a nod as the young woman pressed her feelings into words.

Sorrow. Rage. How oft the two did cross. Threads, twined to the same fate. Till the blade came cut.

Come the Pyromancer with his voice of smoke. as if pushed through ragged pipe. A question, an answer. A voice too strange did repeat.

A voice that had the Yaegir's hairs stand on end, and set his demon to laugh. Dark with interest. Darker with delight.

With lone green eye, Garrod looked to the Pyromancer. "Your ire is welcome," he said flatly. "Reward splits fine, two ways," he cast his eye toward Brea. A faraway light there in, as the fire flicked and danced across the surface of his stare. Almost a warning.

Come the second question, and Garrod shift his eye unto the Pyromancer. "Twisted, mangled things come of it," he let his eye down to the white armor strapped against his flesh and bone.

Its fingers, claws. The jewel at the center of its strange metal plate, silvery as a bone-white beetle's shell, gleamed. As if it too, watched those gathered round the fire.

"They say it is a poison," he went on. "Some thing left behind from the time of ancient gods, and their wars with the mortals of this realm," the fire popped. Hissed. Spat fresh embers into the sky. "A made from hate," to that, he smiled.

The Pilgrim

 

[The Pilgrim]

The Pilgrim sighed. It was the most motion his body had made since they had sat, and it seemed ill-suited to the action. Every angle of his body was close to what it should be... but not quite there. Brea had taken notice, even if subconsciously, for her gaze did not linger upon him for more than a moment. Her eyes slipped off his shape like rain from a swan's back.

She kept her gaze on Garrod, though, as he described the blight. Warped creatures, evil poisons and old gods, these would have turned her legs to water only hours ago. Perhaps her heart was still numb, still reeling from the senseless loss on the highway. Perhaps she was incapable of feeling any more fear tonight... or maybe ever.

But then a new expression crossed her face. "I... I don't know how to fight," she admitted. Whatever emotion had flitted through her was quickly consumed by the rage. "Teach me." It was not a question, and she looked between Garrod to the Pilgrim and back.

Now.

Suppressing a shudder, the Pilgrim propped his walking stick upon the ground. He didn't stand yet, that would take preparation. "I have not skill with sword or arrow..." he tilted his hood to Garrod to indicate that, if anyone, the knight could assist with that. "...but there are other ways I can help."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brea

She was feeling too much and nothing whatsoever, all at the same time. She felt like she was falling, along with everything she had ever accomplished, everything that had brought her to this point. What had it all been for? Her entire life, what good had it been if everything was ending tonight? It was too much to think about, too much to bear. Within the maelstrom of emotion was a lone place of solace, a fragile eye within the storm, a place where she didn't have to hear the howling winds of sorrow and doubt. Brea rooted herself there, using anger as an anchor to keep from falling back into chaos.

She had almost slipped, almost gave way back to sorrow when remembering she could hardly hold the weight of a sword let alone wield one. No, cling fast to rage, use anything as fuel for its fire. You are weak, you are useless. That is not discouraging, that is infuriating.

The hooded figure was grotesque, but he had come to her aid. Though his voice was unpleasant to listen to it had a strange... beckoning in its tone. Did that make sense? It didn't matter.


"What are your names?" she blurted to her two rescuers. If she could call them that. No, she would not entertain any thoughts that were not of revenge.

The hooded figure was motionless, in that gut-curling way of his where he appeared more stone than flesh. "I am merely a Pilgrim."

That would have to do for now.

 

[Garrod Arlette]

"Garrod," the Yaegir said, round as old embers, well kept.

His green eye stayed fixed upon the flicker of the flame that burned between them. Watched it's tongue wave and shift. Each peek a path traced in the wind.

A log of kindling gave to the fire. A split in the fibers of the limb turned lumber.

"You've plenty of fire," he looked up to the young soul. "Plenty of hate," he grinned to the younger soul. Wolfish. "But even steel gives, Brea," he held close his terrible blade.

Old and runed and black beneath the pale white of his strange sharp claws. The pale eye, the jewel upon his arm, gleamed with glee.

"What are you willing to give," he said behind sword, behind arm. "When the flame comes to collect?"

 

[The Pilgrim]

Brea

She didn’t know what he meant. She didn’t know what either of them meant. Good, that made her angry, and it was better than feeling sorry for herself.

“I will give them whatever they need, if they will help me kill more monsters like that.” She refused to call her family’s murderers men. They were beasts. They were lower than beasts. They were worms.

The hooded person made that horrible rattling moan he had done before. She did not listening to him, or hearing him… or “it.” Nevertheless he held some sort of power, as did Garrod. Surely they could each teach her something.

~*~

The Pilgrim had felt a pulse of joy move through him. A cruel joy, a selfish joy, a joy not his own. As the physical world harmed his body, the powerful thoughts ached his mind, but he persevered. He must.

When Garrod spoke, though, the Pilgrim again felt that there was something unseen and unwelcome in his words. His master had made a count before… a count of five.

Suddenly there was anger in place of that joy. No… not anger… frustration? A third emotion swept across him, this time annoyance, and he knew it was directed at him.

Competition, fool.

”A bargain, then,” he said suddenly towards the young woman. ”Power, and the guidance to use it…” It seemed as though there were more he was going to say, but his words stopped there.