The Syzygy The Syzygy: Rise of the Abyssal

[Jensen]

Jensen managed to stifle his side as his commander urged them on. Valthor's reluctance was obvious to him but would surely look as though he were just tender from the fall. He could hear his twin's voice in the back of his mind as though she were there beside him; oh yes, walk into the mysterious door of light. Has he never read Beasleys Horror Tales? Danika probably would have had the good sense to tell Draxton to - politely - go fuck himself.

If only he had an ounce of her courage.

In to the literally belly of the beast they rode and Jensen eased the sword in his scabbard. He had nightmarish visions of the scuttling creatures falling from the vast ceiling like spiders and attempting to smother them. Nothing leapt out of them as the wandered through, there was no searing pain or feeling of otherness. It was in fact, blissfully mundane. Like stepping into a cave behind a waterfall. If only what came to greet them was just as mundane.

Valthor snarled, flames flickering through his razor sharp teeth in a clear threat.

"Peace? You come to our shores uninvited."

 

[Aderyn Verchtegid]

Virspoke

---

"I don't care what a dead man thinks," Aderyn growled, kicking sand into the brineborn's face. She quickly recovered her senses, however, and slipped back into the far more usual calm, kind countenance. She refused to allow any further taint into her aura.

"I'm sorry," she told him as he slipped into death's embrace, feeling a twinge of guilt over letting a wounded person die in front of her. It was counter to everything she had been taught... but then, how many of these things had she killed by her own will? Was all of it self-defense?

She couldn't pin down any justification in her head, and so instead did what she imagined everyone else did: she shook it away from her thoughts, and focused purely on the present and the situation at hand.

She sighed. "I can't just let any of you die, so whatever you choose, I'll help."

Her mind raced for how to help, though. Without her healer's kit, she had only a handful of crystals to use, and no certainty that she could activate all of their abilities. The part of her that stored her Avarice was empty, and the void there pulled at her, whispering in the back of her mind for more. Of what, she couldn't name; it was an animal instinct begging for her attention, pulling her toward rapacity, taunting her with the knowledge that she could never be fulfilled.

Dingo Gruki Isander

 

[Isander]

The Village of Virspoke​

Isander breathed, gaze locked on the spire. Its peak crested high, where an astral soup illuminated an empty sky. Cowled full in anathema dusk, occluding the once lustrous moons. Bereft their somber dance, desperate for a kiss of normalcy on this frenetic eve, the knight stood haggard. His shoulders slumped, a weight of exhaustion dragging him deeper into the murk. Blood and mud and corpse lent clarity, focus.

He scanned their party, they four few: a knight, a squire, a mystic, and a guarde capitan. Remnants of a remnant, those who survived and yet maintained cognizance within the trill of encroaching madness. Bloodied, bruised, drenched from coat to boot. A motley crew. But they congregated around him, sung true the oath which bound him to this cursed place. The stir of responsibility hung taut from him. Their safety was his to ensure; and yet, they sought to cement his own.

That settled it.

"On me," he said, rallying a cry from his chest. Repetition found him, and he called out louder, drove purpose into a bounding step; he leapt onto the shore, haste following an approach to the nearby ship.

"We make for the ship! Let none impede our way. Know me by name. I am Isander, and this do I swear: we will return, us four, alive and with as many of the villagers as can be saved. Mystic! Secure our boarding. Gruki, Ser guarsman, on me. We carve our way onto the deck, one creature at a time."

He made manifest his word, blade arcing ahead in sickened danse. Each step clove closer to the ship, closer to the looming spire beyond. Determination swathed his stride.


Dingo Gruki Aderyn Verchtegid