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

 

[Gruki]

Virspoke...

The Red One was small in stature but stout of heart. 'Brave of you,' smiled Gruki, 'pledging yourself to a cause that is sure to prove dangerous, if not deadly.' Many had already fallen, and yet still the butcher's bill continued to rise. Nodding, Gruki turned to Isander. 'I suppose we should get on with it, then.'

Taking a few quick breaths to steady her nerves, the tall half-orc followed after her knight as he led them off down the beach.

Surf lapped at her boots as they marched, on, towards the ship. Sand shifted underfoot. Stooping mid-stride, Gruki snatched a cutlass from the clutches of a dead Abyssal. 'Here,' she said, offering it hilt first to Aderyn. 'Just in case you need it.' Better to be armed than unarmed.

Better, still, to be far, far away from here, Gruki thought, slapping her visor down as the Enemy noted their approach.

'Eyes, up, Saers!' She warned, sword levelled at the forecastle where a handful of archers gathered. Through the slit of her visor, she watched as they talked amongst themselves, motioned to the main deck.

The congregation being forced up the gangplank had come to a halt. A moment later, Gruki saw why.

Armed with billhooks and tridents, lashes and blades, a squad of fishmen disembarked to reinforce those still ashore. Get into them, a voice instructed her, seize the initiative whilst it's still for the taking. Hefting her blade, Gruki bellowed a wordless cry as she charged headlong into the massing foe.

Arrows fell around her, a couple pinging off her plate. A whirlwind of steel, Gruki opened up the front rank of fishmen with a wide swing. Strike of wrath, the voice continued, maintain momentum.

Swinging, scything through bodies and armour, the she-orc slew any who opposed her. A human male got underfoot, and she shoved him aside before he could end up on the business end of her blade. 'Run!' She cried. 'All of you! Run or fight!'

Turning, her weapon flowing around her, Gruki decapitated a fishman and sent its body falling into the foamy waters between ship and dock.

Aderyn Verchtegid Isander Dingo

 

[Edward Lorain]

"The spear, Cortosi!" - He called out to the sailor. - "Pierce its eyes!" -

The spear? Yeah, right. Good thing he was asking this Cortosi guy to do that because Ed was not going anywhere near that creature. The Dreadlord could figure that problem out with the Cortosi...Wait, he was looking at Edward. Why was he looking at him?

Unless...

Was he the Cortosi? He didn't even look like a Cortosi, he was way better looking. Well, the answer was still no. He was not a fighter...then why had he grabbed the spearhead in the first place? Maybe, he could just toss the weapon to Ivan, but he was more likely just to accidently stab him.

He took a hesitant step backward when he froze. The voice, it wasn't hers. It had none of the soft caress that came with the wind, instead, it felt like it enveloped him, almost threatening to suffocate him. A weight that threatened to crush him if he did not keep moving.

Before he registered what he was doing, Edward was sprinting across the room. The blade grasped firmly in hand, Ed lept onto the creature's back and plunged the weapon into the small gap that had been shown to him.

The fear in Edward wanted to scream out, but Ed held it in, as he felt like to scream out would be to sacrifice any sort of air he still held a claim too.

Ivan Skender Dingo

 

[Ronja]

The wolven form regained itself, rose from the ground, eclipsed the fire. She watched it through water, a sob caught in the back of her throat as she struggled out a breath, shallow and pained. From some paces yet before her, the one she had braced for disappeared, picked up to arms that wouldn’t tear nor claw. Instead, they embraced tenderly, held on a moment until handing the newborn to another.

An exchange was murmured, barely audible to her, though she had the sense she wouldn’t understand a lick even if she had heard individual words. A warmth had come to hover beside her, the lot of her rousing to it belatedly, meeting that gaze of silver. An urgency was writ to every inch, the large form nudging at her. To get— on?

Sidelong, she spied a figure reached into the flames, picking up a stick that would then be given greater shape by magic. Unbenign. She hadn’t really needed convincing, but it was enough to hurry her along. Hopefully, it’d be enough.

“ Okay— Okay. “ She huffed, supported by her new chance-gotten friend in every movement it took for her to climb upon its back, fingers closed into a death-clutch about the silky fur. With naught else to do, she pressed her forehead against it, breathing into the great beast’s neck as it begun to move.

“ I know of a graveyard. In the woods, far enough from here. To rest in. Can you take us there? “ She breathed out, her tone tense and hollow as she struggled to speak at all. Since when had divinities heeded such dull requests of mortals?

“ Please? I'll accept any debt. “

Farren Lóthlindor Cynefin

 

[Dingo]

​

---

Desperation can be a funny thing.

It can rob a man of air. Turn the blood in their veins to ice. Their arms and legs to lead. Forget which way is up, and which way is down as lungs pull in, push out, panicked for breath.

Just as well.

It can make so much, so clear.

The spearhead sinks into the flush within the strange claw. A gush as something pops there beneath its point. Black water spills across the maw, onto the floor, onto the strange flesh-made floor. It splashes like a thud. Heavy as lead. It gathers there, in a dent.

The armored thing struggles as the claw bleeds and bleeds. It thrashes left, and right, its clawed gauntlet unable to catch any bit of flesh.

A pull from the Deep.

A gravity that draws the son of Teth to the dark water that had fallen from the claw. Something like the winds. Something of currents and streams. Heavy. It wants to be reached. It wants to be guided. Let loose.

The survivors look on, wide eyed with horror. Some grow hot with chance. Possibility. They rush to aid Ivan. A true daughter of Cortos, and an Anirian, slam their weight against the armored one.

It topples. Falls with a hard thump. Something falls from its waist.

A handle. A pearl there where the fuller of a true sword might be.

---

​

---

For the ship you made. Brave souls four. Across the sands, with brine at your boots. At your heels. The salt spray mixed with the rot. The smells of death wash sweet, across the sea, that laps and wanes, laps and wanes against the muddy shore.

You meet them with force. The Fishmen. The Brineborn. Steel edges catch against scales. Crack against bones. Clatter against plate.

Blades find purchase. Bones cleaved clean through.

Some fire lights in the eyes of some of those villagers, there amidst the bound and corralled. But most seem sedated. A wicked trace of red across their forearms, as if a thing with teeth were dragged across the flesh. The look in their eyes is as bottomless as the drink. Their heads low, their backs bent.

Aboard the ship. At the helm, there stands a robed figure. A crest emblazoned upon the yellow of its robes. A sharp claw, spread wide. Hungry. The thing that wears the crest looks unlike any of the other fishmen. Looks like none of the brineborn you have slain.

Pallid. Pulsing. Its massive head throbs. It raises a strange and rippling hand up toward the sunless sky.

Some of the villagers. Those without hope in their eyes. Those with the red marks raked across their flesh. They turn to see the would-be saviors, and rush to attack. A school of enthralled. Greater for their number.

---

​

---

Wicked and strange is the air. Blood pours from the cesarean wound in beats and pulses. Streams of life run from where tattered flesh hangs.

The scent of the raw wound, thick on the air.

Prey and predator grow closer, as the guardian stands with babe in one hand, and spear in the other.

---

​

---

Their eyes communicate no feeling to the riders, but the scent of their fear is thick in the air.

The gilded one, who stands before the gods and their riders, raises its hands the more. Stays their ground as those around them mill about.

Draxton cocks a brow, and looks to the Tsonye’s rider. “Jensen,” he calls out, over the din of the labor, and the deep pulls of breath, pump of heart, and flow of blood of the god beneath him. “You understand this thing?”

Carnifex shifts its head. Snake quick. Snaps its jaws toward one of the fishmen. Teeth like swords come shut in a loud clap.

The fishmen stumble back fall.

A feeling like panic. A sensation of fear, wash over Jensen. The gilded one still stands before his green dragon as its people scrabble to their feet.

Flee comes the word.

Hunters. Comes the word again. Each pulse heavy, like the crash of a wave gainst the rider’s mind.

Scared.

The gilded one motions with its hands. Toward itself. Toward its fellows.

Life.

A hot huff of breath from the great black dragon. Hot steam plumes from its nostrils. It wants to be rid of this place.

“Jensen? What is it saying?” the High Ascendant demands. Aware that something just beyond his perception transpires.

---

As the riders unified, and the winds howled beneath the beat of their wings, the timed blast of wind stabs forward. Punches through the veil of ink, like needle through thread, and tears a thin gash across the mantle of the storm.

Large enough for a rider. Tough the force of the wild magicks, mixed with the gale of winds and mantle of ink, see the window closing, quick.

---

The salve takes effect. What irritations and wounds that afflicted the wounded dragon begin to ease. Their heart steadies. The heavy pound of their life’s engine, calmer.

Yet, the blind dragon’s magicks come harsh. The storm feeds too much through its flesh and bones. Feeds too much to the expression of healing and life. Something is not right after the labor that was so routine to them.