Dreadlords The Long Road

[Livia Quinnick]

Last time she felt as of everything went to shit was the time she ran from creatures that could not be fought with magic. Liliana had been there, others had been there, until even they too had fallen.

But she pressed on, running until her muscles screamed for rest, and her lungs burned with breath.

Livia chose to not think of the state Cenric's ankle would be in, as long as she got to the gates...

"Move!" She all but screeched as people moved into her path. The Initiate was fast, sure on her feet, and kept going forward until shadows whipped out at her like roped, coiling around her arm and pulling taut, but Livia's corruption magic bit into the offending magic. It was enough to keep the darkness' claws off her to pass the Gates.

"Hurry! Cenric!" Like a fool, Livia turned her head to see where he lagged behind.

 

[Cenric]

His leg was beginning to deaden.

Cenric could feel the creeping numbness bite into his flesh, fingers clawing into palms as he tried to force himself to keep going. Hobbled steps stopping his run, the tendrils of shadow lashing out. Weaving and shifting between civilians as they grabbed for the Dreadlord.

A grunt escaped his throat as he saw Liv pass through the gates, head turning over his shoulder for just a brief moment as a hiss echoed out. The flames surrounding him, bursting one last time as the sun crept finally beneath the horizon.

Darkness snapping into place...but the tendrils which sprang forth from it vanishing as Cenric practically threw himself through the gates.

His body crashing against the stone wall, but his reprieve short as a soft voice rang out behind them.

"Ah gamble, really." Viviana said, but her voice was not an echo. Instead, just a few feet behind where Livia and her companion stood now walked a woman. Her hair raven black, her eyes pools of onyx. Her clothes a deep blue slashed with colors of red that made her dress appear as a setting sun. Her gait was that of a leisurely stroll, heading directly towards the two Loyalists. "But you were right."

She complemented, cocking her head with a smile. "I won't risk the Sisters..."

Cold dark eyes flickered towards Livia.

"Today." The word came as she stepped directly passed where Cenric leaned, eyes facing forward as she moved on by. "You should get that leg looked at, Cen. I'd hate for Ein to lose it, terrible shame to mar a thing of beauty."

 

[Livia Quinnick]

Livia went to help Cenric stand, using the moment to whisper to him. "Any ideas to get the Sisters to notice?"

She gave him a look, intending to unleash whatever corruption her magic would allow if it meant ot would buy them an escape.

To Viviana, Livia gave her an expression that gave away nothing. "Well then, best you be on your way so that we may attend to his injury." Dismissive. Livia did not want to be stopped by this stranger, but there was something about her that made Liv want to stay. Power had always intrigued her, and Viviana displayed such a great amount of it.

 

[Cenric]

Cenric shook his head, not because he didn't have any ideas, but because letting The Keepers activate the Sister's would probably be folly. Viviana's magic would be neutralized, but so would his own and Livia's. Not a problem, if he were here in his own flesh, but he wasn't. Which meant his ward would be left alone with a woman that was better trained, older, and far more deadly.

Viviana did not stop, did not not look, did not offer even a single flicker of her odd eyes.

It was almost as though Livia hadn't said anything at all.

The Rogue Dreadlord stepped passed her two Loyalist counterparts as though they were lingering street urchins. Things so far beneath her notice that they were hardly worth paying any attention to at all. The only acknowledgement of their existence the pain lancing up Cenric's leg.

"Such a bitch." He murmured, still leaning against the wall and shifting his foot. "I swear she used to be nice."

Though that had been more than a decade ago now. "Well done, we survived the first encounter."

He grimaced, looking down at his leg.

 

[Livia Quinnick]

"What was the point of all that?" Livia grumbled, now moving to help Cenric lean onto her so that she could help him across to their lodgings. "I feel as if we were mice being played by a cat."

The darkness was here now, blanketing the city and soon to conquer the skies.

Viviana may even keep tabs on them for hours, striking when it was the darkest hour before dawn.

"Let us return to our rooms and leave this place. It is best we throw her off our scents, no?" Livia asked, concentrating on helping her companion move. "Or, we wait until sunrise and... see what our spoils have brought us."

At that moment, her magic did not tell her a new location. It seemed dormant, as if it were still deciding on where to point. Could it be that this was the artifact? They needed a moment, safety and privacy, and figure out how to open the box that encased what she believed to be the artifact within.

 

[Cenric]

"That was the point." Cenric explained, though in truth he was only guessing at Viviana's motives.

The woman was, infuriatingly, intelligent. Not only that, but she was powerful and knew it. Her magics were more than a match for most, and actually killing her was near impossible. Facts which Viviana herself knew well. This was a game to her.

It was fun.

"Home for now." He said through gritted teeth as they once again began to set off. "Tomorrow we take the curator and get the other piece."

They would have to move fast. Take the man in the morning and then get back onto the ship before night was even beginning to fall. Another confrontation with Viviana would not end so kindly. It would be better to avoid it entirely.

Quickly the pair moved through the city, small lamp-lights guiding their path until they once again entered The Sister's Blessing. Once there, Cenric threw himself into one of the large chairs, his fingers quickly moving to unlace his boot. "I'm fairly certain she could have killed me back there, but she always did like Ein."

The Dreadlord commented, quickly removing his boot and sock to reveal lines of abyssal black drawing across his skin.

 

[Livia Quinnick]

Livia's brows did not let up their furrowing, even once they were back to their lodgings. She looked to Cenric's foot as he carefully pried the boot and sock off, and what she saw was worse than any sprain or wound. The stains of Viviana's magic alarmed Livia. She took a few steps forwards and winced. "They look as if they are constricting..." Wound all around his foot and ankle, the skin looked angry and swelling from the disturbed circulation of blood.

"Any of your bodies know how to heal this?" She asked hopefully, but her face was braced for a negative.

Livia was so new to her corruption magic, she had no way of knowing if she were capable of corrupting the flow of a spell's work being done, or even...

She let out a deep exhale, "Because we cannot go on tomorrow if your foot is looking like that."

Should... she go alone?

 

[Cenric]

"Not any that are close." He commented dryly, inspecting the wound with no small amount of concern. Viviana's magic was...strange to say the least, the black streaking lines embedded in his skin both biting and constricting. Digging in further, but not spreading as he had thought they would.

It did not take him long to realize why.

Viviana didn't want it to. "Getting rid of it might not be the best play anyway."

Gently, with his fingers, he prodded at the black lines. Wincing slightly, though less so as he passed his touch to where the abyssal lines were more dug into his skin.

"She'll use this to track us." He told Livia. "But it may also be a good way to draw her into a trap."

Doubtless Viviana had not forgotten his own magic, but she'd never much given credence to it either. Ein's body was the only one he had here, but that didn't mean he couldn't take more. "You'll have to fetch someone, or several someone's."

Cenric said with a frown.

"Preferably someone strong, or with magic." Though the latter would be rather difficult to find in this city.

 

[Livia Quinnick]

"Well, fuck..." She sighed.

It was one thing for Livia to be the tracker, but for the tables to turn and now they were being tracked? She felt useless all over again. It had been spoken as a hypothetical that perhaps with more training and learning of her magic, Livia could potentially block any sort of traceable elements.

Viviana was stronger. It cut Livia like a knife through the ribs, twisting the more she learned of their pursuer.

"Magic?" She piped up, looking a little hopeful. "I... I can certainly try to track someone down with magic." In fact, magical traces were the easiest to get a 'scent' of to follow. Then her eyes fell to his predicament once again. "I will wait until sunrise. You should rest up as much as you can or... finish plotting our escape from here."

Liv gave him a grim smile. She lifted her satchel over her head and opened it on a low table nearby. Disabling the ward she used to conceal it, she lifted the puzzle box out. There was a sense of relief that it was there, in her hands. "I do not know if I should be worried I no longer feel the artifact... or perhaps I have found it, and my magic no longer needs to guide us..."