Post by Joliette Thorne on Feb 11, 2009 23:27:27 GMT -5
-- Somewhere Out To Sea, Past A Rocky Shore--
Strewn all across the coast are a multitude of small jagged rocks and an assemblage of sandy seaweed, brought in just the night before as the higher tides came in, surely they will be washed out and new ones will replace them this night. The sand is soft and very fine grained and would feel rather nice on bare foot bottoms were it not for the random flanges of rock.
The water sways inward slowly, breaking upon the darker, moist sands and rough collections of rock before suddenly dropping back and seeming calm and serene once again. Just along one edge of the shore you see a single dwelling. To your north is much the same, only much less jagged. To your south the rocks prevent further passage, making the only other exit from this scenery west, towards the fish market.
However, the rocks are not so much an obstacle to any person with determination. They merely hold the path of the ocean, which froths up and down in timeless rhythm. Only now, feathers gather upon the shore, decorating the rock pools. They are not healthy feathers, however, and their blackened tips and the stench of decay permeates the area. There is a ship that has impaled itself upon the coral reefs. The feathers - and upon close inspection, dead birds - lead to it. There are many, many, many dead birds and they are not fresh, nor pleasant. An able body can swim or fly out to that ship, but caution is a necessity. Above, the skies are black and pregnant. They pause in the breath before fury, but a wind chill with readiness takes to blowing about. It smells of rain above the death-scent.
__
Tenebrae's crow, still clutched to the railing, still clacks it beak in regular time, like a bony heart opening and closing some grim valve over and over, a ceaseless sound the mangy bird had kept up all through the long eve and for hours of the pale-clad dark, and which now... stops.
Diiroehn lies still in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], still naked and shivering 'pon the floor. The ebony form of the Drow, stark against the contrasting color of darkened mahogany and even more blatant shimmering of his white tresses, stirs slightly.
Tenebrae was still below, her shoulder wrapped in a rough and blood-soaked bandage, and in her rum-soaked dreams heard a sound and heard it cease, and smiled. Meanwhile, the oddly lopsided and bent-winged crow flopped from off the railing to land with a soggy plop to the boards, and waddled across the main deck, toward to the Underbelly, clearly intent on some mission or other.
Dergious sits meditating, his face and beard still smeared with blood from the previous night's exertions.
Caedan thinks she might be in the [ crow's nest ], but she's not entirely sure. But chances are, she's there, or close to there. Or in a dinghy.
Satoshi is lost in her own meditations, cross-legged beside the starboard railing, intent on refreshing her poorly sapped magical supply.
Tenebrae's crow gave Dergious a dull peck to the knee as it passed on it feather-shedding and tragic way toward the necromancer.
Dergious opens one eye and spies the crow, mumbles something about "Dinner" and then returns to his meditations.
Diiroehn tries to move from his position in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], groggily attempting to slide away from the door by the use of those dark arms. Each inch is met with a groan and moan of pain, stifled by the trapping of the room, isolation to an extent of chaos.
Tenebrae was dreaming, and those dreams were bloody and fraught with screams, dire portents of murder, and the sky was crimson with the smoke of burning towns. On her tower's parapet, she stood pale sentinel to the destruction below. At her feet was a cowled goblin, his blue-black hands wringing at the end of ragged sleeves. "Maladroit, you'll do as I tell you, or I'll toss you bodily to the dogs. Alive." Tene's tone was sere and crisp, imperious. The goblin cringed, nodded. In the [Underbelly], a mangled, undead crow bobbed its head toward a sleeping woman.
Leoxander had conveniently disappeared, for good reason, sometime after he’d forfeit a wounded Tenebrae to the Alpha. Whether it was humiliation or rage that tilted the scales of his control, the pirate captain sought his privacy somewhere in the ship.
Diiroehn lays his head upon the ground in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], losing consciousness. However, the dreams of his cabalist leader, or whom he once knew as the Lady of Shadows, a brief visage would flicker to life amidst the stone sentinels of a tower's forsaken parapet. It morphed from sheer and utter darkness to cloth of a hellish garb, blackened like the source it originated; mercurial transfixing itself to a solid figure that bears malevolence like a flag, and a death's head grin for greeting.
Dergious opens his eyes, stands and stretches. Pops and cracks sound as the dwarf moves through a series of rather complicated steps and movements before finally straightening and expelling gas loudly. He scowls and the crew seems to work a bit faster.
Dergious said, "Where be dat stinkin corpse? Dat un dat dun got herself hurt?"
Rowen peeks out from under a tarpaulin where she is pretending to be asleep, lest anyone find any work for her to do.
Satoshi cracks an eye open at the sounding of an odd noise, nose wrinkling in distaste as the odor finds its way to her on the wind. With a groan the mage is back on her own feet. No use trying to meditate further anyway. There was something in the air that left her feeling too unsettled to find solace in rest.
Tenebrae, in her dreams, still bore her shroud of writhing shadows for a cloak, was still fanged and pale, and shifted green eyes toward the uncorpulant Lich. Her head tilted, her lips pursing in a sweetly prim smile. "Diiroehn. It's been an age. Come, see what I have done." Below the ship'd upper decks, Maladroit's rolling gait, caused by two bent toes and the natural ship's sway, took him back toward the painful climb of the stairs, intent now gaining a place under the mainmast, atop which was fixed his former abode.
Tenebrae's crow paused to peck Dergious on the foot as he passed.
Diiroehn , in Tenebrae's dreams, becomes corporeal within them, a paradox to the reality of the situation yet nonetheless awe-inspiring, standing before the Vampire Queen as if death's own reaper. That smile, ever aloof and enthralled, follows the trail of tombstone visage, which bears neither pupil nor iris. 'Pon the companion rests this desolate gaze, waked and altogether fluidly graceful in the most funereal of senses by the subtle 'clicks' of marrow feet striking the smooth obsidian of the parapet flooring, approach darkness with darkness. "Let us see what you've wrought, Lady Tenebrae." The words are a cadence to a hellish chorus of grim and infallible sadness, mourning the dead, mourning forsook; mourning the inabilities of life.
Leoxander usually didn’t made a lot of noise when he finally approached into view on the [Lower Deck]. On the contrary, he had this silencing effect over at least some of the crew, particularly when several turned their heads to notice the stumble in his gait, the way hard treads dropped heavily for every step. His exhale vibrated a growl in his throat, jaw slightly swollen to threaten some kind of transformation and edged with a bit of sandy face fur to confirm it. Eyes stained pale yellow and fairly glowing through that sepulchral atmosphere shifted among the pick of victims trapped on his boat, but the wolf wasn’t looking altogether lupine, yet. He looked like a beat up, bruised and hairy human, with the tips of fangs stuck elongated on his lower row of teeth. Ironically, his wounds were healed, but the process only made him more eager for that unpredictable lycanthrope form.
Anshera remains aloof and distantly suspicious of the crew she rides with, the polymorph having refused to allow anyone near her without the growling threat of disembowelment - not even to give her clothes to replace the ones torn to shreds from battling a zombie octopus...thing. Regardless, she stands now, naked, and precariously balanced upon the very tip of the ship's bow, quietly (for once) waiting.
Dergious reaches into a pouch and produces a small, round object that he squints at for a moment. He turns this way and that and then tosses the item to the deck with a "Bah!" and a scowl.
Tenebrae's dreaming hand swung in a smooth arc toward the destruction below, to demonstrate her achievement. "I have set the world ablaze, consumed and consumed it until all is bled dry. I have pillaged its very marrow and now..." Her icy gaze shifted toward a white-cloaked figure approaching from around the parapet's western cornice. "...we... shall rule it, as none before us have ruled." She paused, stepped back to study the Lich, and the white-cloaked male unhooded himself to reveal a shock of unruly, pale hair, and took her side. "Me, the Admiral...and Lucien." Those eyed returned to the lad, her fingers tucking a strand of white hair behind one of his shell-like ears before addressing the lordly undead once more. "You, however. The heralds tell me you have met with some ...misfortune." As if in accordance to her words, the skies abruptly darkened. In the [Underbelly] of the ship, Tene shifted in her sleep. On the [Main deck], Tenebrae's flightless crow peered with eyes the colour of a fishbelly up at the crow's nest, and clacked its beak.
Satoshi , at the captain's scruffy new look, fought a sudden instinct to jump ship and make the long trek home on a path of ice. The feline is careful to keep out of Leoxander's direct path and her head downcast to avoid those disturbing feral eyes; her agitation apparent with a tail fiercely switching back and forth as she stuck to the perimeter of the ship.
Leoxander was eerily quiet, using only his eyes to strike some note of fear of a few faces below crimson bandanas - those that weren’t used to his wild side. Tense and looking entirely prepared to maul someone, with unnaturally broad shoulders hunched up toward his lowered skull, Leo cut a path through what inanimate carcasses that hadn’t been swept off the deck, yanking a cutlass roughly from the ribs of a body. When he finally did speak, he was purposefully calm about it, now. A guttural, wolfish voice that croaked out an order for the crew, to the most capable hand: Dergious. “All hands on deck.”
Dergious snaps out of his musings and begins bellowing, "Avast! All hands topside! Now!" He sends his whip into the air, letting it crack loudly to get their attention. Those moving too slowly for his taste get a frosty ass, as the whip's magic turns the air to sub zero behind them. "Move move MOVE!" He stomps about as the crew finally assembles, and he gives dirty looks to the last to arrive, promising a few words (at least) later.
Dergious said to Leoxander, "All reddy fer ye, cap'n!"
Diiroehn, in such a hellish dream, would keep enthralled his death's head grin, those marrow bones and teeth set like the refugees readied for slaughter. It conveys the cynicism, the power once bereft from his body; a hellish thing of death; of damned; forsaken; the very halls of the abyss itself! O', those eyes! Those eyes! Warped as if twin sentinels of tombstones, granite and slated like the ashen pits they are, pools awaiting the etching of their epitaph; her sins forgotten! Forgotten? They must've been, ruling this world in the fires of hell and chaos under the guise of tyrannical fist -is this some sort of test? Order against chaos? Sanity against insanity? Plans begin to formulate within that long-deceased mind, working the inner-trappings like the clockwork rails of ticking hands. "You've bled the world to death. You've encompassed it in my essence, alongside fire and brimstone. Rule it?" That grin cants now, by the motion of a grotesque cranium, mocking her efforts with the realism of what she's done. "You rule a world of barren wastes now. You, the Admiral..." Wretched optics, wrenched their path from Tenebrae to Lucien in the intent of not murderous but possessive fashion. He is not alive. He never was. "...And Lucien. Lucien, dear Lucien." Her demand of misfortune is gone unheeded, wordless response neither confirming what seems to be either accusation, or contempt, instead returning his grim, sad eyes toward her. O', those eyes; O', that grin! Woven together in the extremities of antagonizing sorrow, laughing and crying; laughing and crying! How dare she. How dare he! "What you have done, you have not needed me for, Lady Tenebrae. Yet, you've damned this world to my realm." He would play the part of death, in this tragic tale. "I've come to take it. You must live; life is love, Lady Tenebrae. It is about time you've learned this."
Caedan has not assembled with the rest of the crew. Instead, she is peering downward at a crow, who stares just as intently up at her. To the naked eye, it might look very much like the two were having some enthralling conversation.
Leoxander waited for the time being, crossing his arms over his chest to hide the blood touched tips of his fingers, recovering from becoming claws. Rather than look down upon the crew from the upper deck, Leo remained upon the [Lower Deck], trusting most would give him a wide berth of space, like Satoshi wisely chose to do. Feral eyes roamed this makeshift ‘pack’ of seamen, land lubbers and experienced surviving in an awkward balance, thus far. A glance up and he regards the ghost in her nest, but after further inspection he finally comes to speak to the first that will answer. “We’re missing several.”
Dergious looks about, then turns to Rowen and Satoshi. "Find who be missin! Now."
Caedan reaches for Tenebrae's familiar, who clumsily perches on her shoulder after a prolonged shuffle up her arm to get there. A few more words are exchanged, which ultimately results in the psychic tch'ing under her breath, and a cautious descent from above. The fog is thick and rich with dark arcane energy, permeating the very air she breathes. She can't see the Labyrinth, but she can feel it, or rather, the same chaotic energy present in the Eldritch Hall. The undead crow clacks in her ear, and upon the [Upperdeck], Caedan pauses to search the mist again. She gingerly makes her way atop the railing of the ship, eyes the color of a storm piercing through the clouds until lashes flutter closed to cheekbones turned rosy from the elements, and her head tilts silently, as if listening for something. The crow is deadly still upon her shoulder.
Satoshi throws a salute toward Dergious before turning on her heel and heading to the [underbelly] in search of the missing folk.
Tenebrae, or rather the [dreaming] version of that woman, would prevent her never-born son from lashing a clawed fist out at the Lich, grasping the boy's hand cruelly. "Stop it, Luc!" Cold fury dwelled in her gaze, soothing away to a gentler mien as she laid her attention back upon the Lord of the Dead. "Only -our- lands still remain pristine, Lord Diiroehn. The triumvirate is strong, and with it we shall make a world of our fondest desires." She sniffed, released her scowling son's hand. The boy showed his teeth, small fangs nestled in his grimace. "And of course, you were of vast help, you great bone-headed fool...have you forgotten...?" The skies shook as though some vast hand had rumpled the dark sheet of the sky. "But we have one last enemy to vanquish. It comes, Diiroehn. It comes for us." If there was fear in her arctic stare, it was subsumed by the apparition of a single white butterfly that flapped an erratic path between Vampire and Lich.
Rowen said to Dergious, "They're probably dead dad, aint no use searching for dead folk… not unless the necromancer want's em...and she's asleep still."
Dergious said to Rowen, "I dun told ye to look... so ye best be lookin er mebbe ye be goin fer a swim."
Rhian sat in the (mess hall in the underbelly of the ship) arms crossed about a table and supporting her head. A small trail of spittle from her lips ran into a puddle that dampened the table and her breathing was steady in apparent sleep.
Dergious gave 1 ether-of-vigor to Rowen.
Dergious said to Rowen, "Break dat under dat un's nose an let er take a whiff.”
Leoxander turned his head to look back at the teenager performing a balancing act on the railing. Only he knew that fierce look to be no show, but determination. A deep breath of the ocean air was taken to try to clear the red from his vision, but as it was laced with the ever present scent of death, it did nothing to help him relax. Leo knew one thing, and shared this with the Navigator of his ship. “We need to move.” And then with a gruff look at the dwarf. "Leave the boy alone."
Leoxander didn't realize the two were related, just like he didn't seem to realize his cabin boy was a girl.
Dergious chuckles and shrugs, but gives Rowen a dark look before turning his attention back to the captain.
Diiroehn would attempt to reach out for the butterfly, attempt to grasp it within those bone hands of death itself; but his visage flickers, waning before vanishing from her dream-world altogether. For in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], the Drow awakens to the threshold of pain.
Rowen grumbles " I have to do every bloody thing around here…”, then heads over and breaks the vial open under Tenebrae's nose as her father had demanded.
Cuki detaches himself from his kitchen. He was finished for the day. The toils of day, thirty-five delicately made meat pies, sat lined up neatly on shelves. They were not really going to go anywhere unless it boat tipped over. With the shepherd's pies out of his mind, Cuki follows the one who brought his attention away from them. Quickly the Human latches onto Satoshi. From behind he wraps his arms around her. They had both been working more than hard enough.
Anshera remains upon the bow's tip, arms languidly raising to stretch out to her sides, white hair shifting and slithering over her shoulders and back. A backwards leaps pulls her up into a twisting backflip that leaves her facing in towards the ship, as opposed to out to sea. She remains only a scant second, pallid, naked woman bolting forward, center of gravity kept low. She appears to be tearing towards Leoxander, though it's quite possible she's dashing for anyone of the crew members beyond him.
Tenebrae, still [dreaming], watched the Lich attempt to snatch the ivory insect from the air, only to fade like a shadow with light shone upon it, and she let out a soft cry, "No... I need..." Wildly, her eyes turned to Lucien, who resembled nobody more than her husband now he was half-grown, the boy holding that same feral look in his blacker-than-black eyes. "Go. Tell your father I will meet him on the...." SNAP. In the Underbelly, Tenebrae woke to the throb of her wounded shoulder, and some god-awful stench waved under her nose.
Rowen jumps back rather nervously as the necromancer awakes spilling the rest of the liquid.
Tenebrae retched slightly, glaring at the human. "Gerroff, with y'stinky... where..." She sat up, groggily, blinking a half-remembered vision away. "... where's Leo?"
Leoxander took up a second cutlass once his arms dropped from that uncomfortable cross, pulling it from a loose crate to drag it along dangerously at his side. So now he was an unsettled lycan with two fast swords - take note. “Let’s move!” That was all he would yell before a twitch in his neck caused him to look for someone for yelling out orders. Where was..? Grabbing McCoy’s shoulder, he spoke even as he saw Anshera… naked, running toward him. He doesn’t appear to fear her assault. "I want that loose cargo roped down. Man the oars and save the sails, we're gonna need a quick retreat. Let’s be ready for it."
Rowen wordlessly gestures towards the captain with the hand holding the - now empty - bottle.
Satoshi let's out a startled sound very much like a mew at the monk's sudden appearance but offers him a smile and quick nudge from her head. In her peripheral vision she spots the sleeping Rhian in the [mess hall].
Dergious turns to the crew, "Ye herd da man! Fasten da cargo!" he screams to a group of men. He turns to some others, "Get ready on dem oars!" He spares the whip, and yells to all who might hear, "Ye knows yer jobs... get yerselfs te station! Fer da captain!"
Satoshi said to Cuki, "Captain wants everyone above deck. Care to wake that one?"
Tenebrae said to Rowen, "Help me up... I need my armours." Her eyes had turned to the boards above, at Rowen's gesture. ".. I need to see him.""
Dergious realizes he is too short for rowing, but he makes himself useful. He begins placing weapons for ready use, starting with long spears that are pulled from a pouch much too shallow to hold them.
Anshera 's assault is curiously restrained, Leoxander her target after all. Celerity presses her leap forward, polymorph barrelling into the Captain's chest, clutching at him with one hand, while the other uselessly balls, rising and falling to throw feeble, harmless strikes at him. She seemed almost like a confused, upset child, begging through tears and feeble actions for something precious back.
Dergious making sure the spears were securely fashioned but easy to free if needed, he stomps around shouting encouragement to the men. "Dats da way te do er!" he shouts to some men as they hurry to make the ship ready.
Rowen offers a -four fingered- hand to help the woman rise. "Where is your armour?"
Caedan hears Leoxander's soft command, and the stoic urgency attached to it, but for once, his directive goes completely unheeded. The crow shifts restlessly on her shoulder, and the psychic paces on the bobbing railing just as uneasily. All of a sudden, there is a great flapping of wings, and movement in the mist -- only then will Caedan cast a very pointed stare over her shoulder and half-murmur, half-psychically project to the captain, "It's time." The dark mist will coil about her, like a blanket from well-meaning Steadman back home. Soon, she is altogether gone, except for one pale hand that extends from the darkness, and a tiny white butterfly that seeks out Tenebrae like it were magnetized. Whether Leo follows is his own choice, but if he does, she'll instruct him, the great brawling pirate rogue to stay close. The mist unfolds into a staircase-like structure as it closes behind her, concealing both ships now as she begins a harrowing trek towards the Labyrinth seemingly only walking on a smoky black staircase that looks to be a more misty version of the Obsidian Pool's consistency. Maladroit, meanwhile, squawks upon her shoulder, and share a few thoughts with her, while anyone else's company will only be a thousand terrible whispers as they draw close.
Cuki simply nods. However he has never been the most polite sort of person when it came to this sort of thing. Instead he simply grabs her cloak and promptly yanks Rhian to standing position.
Tenebrae nodded to a pile of black stuff slung over the chair of the desk, stained with rusted fluid. "There." She swung her legs off the couch, and groaned softly. "Blasted... my sword... I lost it."
Dergious stomps belowdeck to find his daughter. Soon he finds the two women and does not look away. He notes that there is no sword present and grins, "Mebbe ye can be usin dis." he says, and tosses a few spare blades to Tenebrae.
Rowen hands to each piece of armour to Tenebrae in turn. "I'll find you a better weapon shortly milady."
Leoxander turned to catch Anshera with an audible snarl that represented a feral wolf trying to be pet. He stumbled back several steps from the impact, but prevented them from falling by digging the heel of his boot into the planks. Reflexes triggered defenses, and he caught that flailing hand by the wrist, after maybe one scratch of her claws - somewhere. (Shoulder, or arm, perhaps). Tiny gashes that should heal in mere seconds, because of his tainted, boiling blood. In the midst of all this, the psychic tries to get his attention, and he made a great attempt to see what she was talking about. He wasn’t all that inclined to follow that ugly crow along a path of magic, anyhow. Yet. “Get the hell off me!!”
Rhian 's black eyes darted open, the dark skinned woman murmuring a few indeterminable things before looking about the mess with half lidded eyes and wiping her chin with her arm. A cutlass lay on the table, perhaps something she'd carried with her the night before. The woman reaches out and takes it, stumbling along past Satoshi and the monk as her ears pick up the varied sounds of bustle that made her manner uneasy.
Tenebrae covered herself demurely with the edge of her blanket, and grinned back at the dwarf, as best she could through her pain. "Thanks. Now bugger off, y'perv, and let a girl dress in peace."
Dergious does not dawdle, and turns to leave. To both women he says, "Get yerself's up an on da deck... der be sumthin afoot."
Leoxander attempted to throw Anshera back with enough force that tractioned claws might rip his tattooed skin, or the mast might prevent her from being forced overboard.
Cuki said to Satoshi, "That work for you?"
Tenebrae said to Rowen, "Best you do as he says and..." She lowers her gaze to the wounded hand of the 'cabin boy'. "... thanks to you also."
Satoshi allows Rhian to pass before the feline hurries back above deck with Cuki's hand clamped firmly in her's. From ear tips to tail her fur was standing on end and her eyes were dilated to near solid black. The queer somethin' in the air was stronger now and it put the cat on edge. Small hisses came from between clenched fangs as she stepped onto the [main deck].
Dergious is now among the crew, once again encouraging their best effort.
The [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's] is something hellish at this time, the sound of zombies cut down like the forestry amidst logging companies resonates throughout the cabin, crimson eyes of the Drow cast over-shoulder to stare upon the door. It opens, after a protesting screech and groan, revealing the taut figure of that renewed, and somehow different Darrien.
Rhian stumbled along after Cuki and Satoshi onto the (lower deck).
Rowen nods and heads back to join the rest of the crew on board, She has decided she quite likes the necromancer after the way the woman spoke to her dad.
Tenebrae spent long moments struggling into soiled black armours, the weapons gifted her by the dwarf clumsily secured to her back with a stray bit of rope; they clanked together dully when she finally trudged the steps to the [lower deck].
Diiroehn said to Darrien, "I know your face. You didn't come here to rescue me. You've always been here.".
Rowen arms herself with one of her father's spears.
Anshera takes the toss with the manner of one who was beyond caring of whether harm would come or not, lack of resistance evidence to the growing state of despondent anxiety she sported. The faint scent of blood speaks of the whispering claw marks left on Leoxander's skin, the hard 'thud' crying the polymorph's impact with the mast. The mixture of a gurgling whine and a growl bubbles from her throat as she slides to a landing, Lich's Creation remaining at rest for a moment. Perhaps because of seeing Diiroehn's image speaking to the Cap'n before, the polymorph refuses to leave Leoxander fully alone. Save for lacking the guise of a cat, just as the first night of this expedition, she stalks him, remaining at a slight distance.
Cuki was happy to move along. However he completely lacked the perception abilities of his mate. It was just fog. Not even strangely colored fog. From her hostile reaction he half expected it to be orange or blood red or something. Cuki knew to trust her judgement though. "What is it?" A pretty simple question.
Dergious stomps over to Rhian, "Ere, be usin dis! It be faster den dat great thing ye be usin now."
Caedan , realizing her hand is empty, lets it fall to her side, where it will ball around the hilt of her own brand and remain there, taut, white-knuckled. The mist curls into itself, creating a kink that rolls along the path it's created, causing the psychic to bob a few times, then press her free hand to her temple. Audibly, she tells Maladroit, "Getting worse. Not contained like the Pool." She presses her hand against the viscous fog, and it flinches, retracting and doubling upon itself before darting forward again, swallowing her hand until she withdraws it. A few lepidoptera are released in the same instant, carried back towards the Eternity by a brisk wind, even though the air stands stagnant. And ahead, the Labyrinth looms.
[Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's]:: Darrien moves taut muscles to step gracefully across the threshold, clasping his hands to rest their backs 'pon the small of his back and scrutinizing the beaten and broken figure of the naked Drow before him. Those words bring their own melody, yet something is aloof within them, a maddened sense betrayed not by urgency, but rather by the almost sinister charm underlying them. "Correct, and correct. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon, in fact. There's quite a bit of power here, for the taking..." Those mismatched eyes dart toward crimson opposites in an almost seductive manner; the words, mind you, not for the flesh of body. Greed for power, ambition, and the like -undertaking a suicidal task for essentially, nothing.
Tenebrae batted at a moth that had circled her head from the moment she left the ship's underbelly, the insistent insect dipping and circling about her as though she were a lamp. The creature fluttered to avoid her slap, and peridot eyes sought among the milling crew for a sign of her Cap'n.
Leoxander snarled out his last order. “Keep that bi--(Well, she wasn’t canine, but who knew what she was.) OFF me.” An arm shaking off blood after he motions toward Anshera, not caring at this point whether she is imprisoned in the hold for her trespasses. Between her and the other, they’ve only succeeded in wasting more of his time and materials on the voyage. As though he wasn’t making the effort, here. “Get back to work!” Yelled at every gawking fool that wasn’t doing something useful or beneficial to their progress. Because so much time has in fact passed, the moment he sees his ‘First Mate’ stumble onto the deck, he motions toward the upper deck where whatever pathway Caedan had created was collapsing. “Go through after her!” There isn’t much choice, even if it means he’s risking his necromancer’s life.
Dergious moves towards the captain, "Ahl be goin!" he says simply, though there is an eager gleam in his eyes.
Tenebrae paused only a second to take it all in -- the phantom stairway, her half-feral lover, the little swarm of butterflies wending a singular breeze that circled the rogue before joining the one she'd shooed away... oddly, things were starting to make sense. Her wounded right shoulder throbbed again, its pains ignored in favour of the adrenaline that surged her forward to do the Cap'n's bidding, a white train of butterflies in tow.
Rowen follows her dad, she knows from experience that when he gets that look in his eyes, she usually gets someone to torture, pretty soon.
Satoshi said to Dergious, "Oi! Take these!" The feline tosses a satchel toward the dwarf. "Lob at some nasties. If there's no interfering magic, you'll make icicles of 'em!"
Diiroehn turns upon his back in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], the movement without haste and bearing the multitude of pain and throbbing hurts that make his body scream in frustration and protest at his desired movements. 'Neath tresses of stark, white hair peers those crimson pools, before shaking his head. "You're imprisoned here... They need to save you, too..."
Leoxander was only relying on their ability, that they had to reach the Labyrinth in mere moments. In response to the dwarf, he only barely resisted the urge to swipe a hook at the helpful Boatswain. “You’ll be getting this damn ship movin’ or you’ll be the one feedin’ the fish!” In truth, for as cruel as he’d treat Dergious, he needed that more reliable sailor to run that vessel smoothly. The whip bearer had a knack for keeping that crew in line. “Boy, beat those bilge suckers blue till they learn to row!”
Anshera is not about to be left behind, imprisoned or held back until she can follow no longer. The polymorph pulls a dirty trick, making it nigh impossible for grasping hands to find purchase on her body by turning fluid - and remaining that way. Of course possessed of a will of it's own, the silver fluid acts in highly unnatural ways, writhing and rippling a moment before it pushes forward with incredible speed; a silver blur sweeping over the deck. By the looks of it, she's going to make it and head after Tenebrae, Leo and Caed, if barely.
Leoxander would not make the portal, courtesy of Anshera's tantrum. So he would have to prepare the crew for the moment the ships lined up, and he was able to board the doomed Labyrinth.
Tenebrae paused at some point on that smoky staircase, the hand of her good arm held out in whatever direction Leo was in, her fingers spread, as if asking for his proximity.
Dergious grins still wider and spins on his heel, "Ah be thinkin ye slobs can be werkin faster!" he shouts as he unfurls his whip once again. "Mebbe I been a bit too lax wit yer saggy hides... " the whip flies true, striking a young crewman across the shoulders. He cries out, but all around him move at double time. "Dat be me only warnin! Get dem sails ready te roll! Secure dem barrels! Ready da cannon! It be yer lives yer messin wit! MOVE!"
Rowen also stays on the ship with her father and the captain.
Dergious said to Satoshi, "Get dat un *nods to Anshera* under control!"
Tenebrae let out a soft sound of dismay, as the steps faded under her feet, unsure purchase forcing her toward the Labyrinth, the butterflies forming a white line as if it were a trail of airborne breadcrumbs to follow.
Dergious said to Rowen, "*nodding to Anshera and Satoshi* Help er!"
Dergious said to Cuki, "Dat shape changer be mussin up da werks! Hit er wit yer fryin pan er sumthin!"
Satoshi seems to appear from out of nowhere, spontaneously generating next to you.
Diiroehn [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's]:: Darrien purses his lips together at the Lich's words, moving toward him and promptly, gracefully kneeling beside his fallen body. "Tch. I don't plan on leaving here. Or letting you."
Leoxander , at this rate, would reach the Labyrinth before those in Caedan’s wonderland tunnel might. The Eternity was one of the faster ships on the seas, it spliced through the corpse ridden waters smoothly, and the fog - for as thick as it was - would part in compliance to gangway. Sails only fluttered and waved at their edges, lined down and waiting for their fantastic moment. Oars moved in unison at either sides of the ship, perhaps Rowen would have something to do with that. Both Cutlass taken in arm once more, he prowled the front of his ship and waited for the moment he would see the grim silhouette of their enemy ship in the distance. He knew the direction Caedan had been staring, for so long.
Caedan approaches the hull of the Labyrinth, and raps loudly, wood giving way to shadows and fog, a permeable, living thing. "Ahoy!" She's shouting at it, still rapping away with seemingly ink-stained knuckles. "Permission to come aboard!" The dark ship issues a guttural response, a sudden lurch causing an immense creaking and groaning of haunted stairwells and passages. The response seems to be the ship chortling at her. She confers with Maladroit and frowns at the fog propelling her around the base of the ship. "Up, please." Reluctantly, the stuff obeys, and drops her rather unceremoniously on the [Main Deck of the Labyrinth], where she'll sort out where she is and exactly what to do before venturing inside. The fragmented, unceasing whispers echoing in her mind is interfering somewhat with coherent thought; two more butterflies are released, encircling the girl's head before moving away.
Tenebrae disappeared into the fog.
Rowen is a little afraid of the polymorph, but even more afraid of her father, so she at least pretends to be heading over to Anshera with the intent of doing something to restrain the silver fluid woman- thing.
Leoxander shouted, "You lot below, arm yourselves or hold the ship."
Tenebrae is deposited with a like lack of courtesy to the boards, her own journey less defined. On the deck, she rubbed her eyes, glancing around the [Labyrinth's Main Deck], confusedly. Somewhere, a beak clacked.
Diiroehn lies across the floor of the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], a hand searching along the floor before grasping subtly the hold of a candlestick. As Darrien leans close, the Lich strikes, swinging that arm around in a wide arc and promptly striking the man on the head. The force of the blow knocks the man immediately unconscious, and the two lie there. One, an ebon-skinned man from torture, the other, his captive; the son of his Creation.
Dergious sees Rowen's hesitation and sighs before sending his freezing whip at the liquid woman. It cracks only inches from her form, but she is suddenly enveloped in temperatures low enough to freeze water in seconds.
Satoshi let's Rowen be the one to go after Anshera, the mage not wanting a form of confrontation with the shapechanger. Rather, she sets about placing piles of snowballs at various intervals throughout the ship. The packed snow glistened unnaturally with the feline's magic and any who choose to take some would find that the items gave off an almost audible demand to be thrown. The bewitched snowballs were crafted to spread and freeze on any surface they were thrown and broken against. Magical weapons for any of the sword-clumsy members of the crew.
Dergious shouts to the crew, "Ah want dis tub reddy te move! Be reddy at dat anchor! Get dem sails ready te be movin us flat out!" He moves to the entrance to the lower decks and shouts down, "If Ah be seein a single loose anythin down der ahl be rippin yer flesh frum yer backs and havin da cook fry me up some bacon!"
Caedan is having a hard time keeping a hold of Maladroit, but she's got one floppy wing in a death-grip and is holding him up like a lantern as she approaches the stairwell towards the [Underbelly]. The familiar is trying to get back to Tenebrae, who has vastly more experience with this sort of thing, but the psychic is on a mission and her death grip on the bird might rivals Tenebrae's unseen version. "Come, come," she breathes. "Time to say hello." The shadows part, and she is swallowed into the bowels of the ship.
Dergious turns to Satoshi, "If ah be givin ye dat staff again... cud ye be conjurin us up sum winds te be gettin us out o' here?
Anshera sure is helpful! ...If your name is Diiroehn. Sorry Leo! That mercurial blur is frozen just as the portal wavers and vanishes, leaving her to have to stay with those she wished not to be with. The jagged, silver chunk of polymorph remains still upon the Deck, however the Lich's Creation was hardly felled so easily. An ethereal cry of absolute rage echoes all around the ship, icy polymorph beginning to rock and rumble violently on the [Lower Deck], until the ice encompassing her shatters, liquid growing and expanding back into her 'natural' form. Lips already drawn back with a growl, she tensely awaits, for the time being, further confrontation.
Satoshi said to Dergious, "I've got no power over wind, and I doubt the captain wants me to drop a blizzard on our heads to slow us further..."
---The Eternity drifts through the fog toward the Labyrinth. --
Once to the ship - a huge three-masted affair with the fat belly of a merchant ship - there is a rope that has fallen off the tilted deck. Secured above, it is a convenient way to climb aboard. And once aboard, the storm will close. Belowdecks, that is a good option for any one. The ship is made of sturdy ironwood, and though it is pierced, it has come to a rest upon the reefs. It is safe, it is good. Yet once below, things would be discovered. Not all is as it seems. For within the bowels of the ship lies chaos.
Shown as an ivory-walled labyrinth to some, eternal darkness to others it holds the possibility to change the traveler into a person-that-could-have-been... where the insane become sane and the peaceful turn bloody. It welcomes you, traveler, and it promises safety within the heart of chaos, and in return you will give it a soul-that-could-have-been- for it must be fed. If you deny it, you will face eternity...
_______
Tenebrae followed disgruntled clacks and butterflies and whispers into the maw of the Labyrinth, the ship's hold seeming to gladly swallow her into its darkness. But while the midnight atmosphere enclosed her she could make out shapes in the dark, as if it was somehow penetrable even with her mortal's eyes, or perhaps it was the persistent butterflies lending some odd luminescence.. In any case, she'd hurry as fast as weighty swords and wounds permitted. "Caedan.. ?" How the crow came to be in the psychic's company she could only guess.
Leoxander would not offer the same pleasant greeting or inquiry Caedan had. They’d hired a pirate for this mission, and they had come to take what they were after by force. At the wheel on the [Upper Deck] now, Leo would steer the ship into treacherous waters, right up along side the Labyrinth with the momentum carried by oars already brought in below the gunwales. A locking peg fixed the ship wheel in place at that angle while he went below, ordering crew on the [Lower Deck] to drop a port side anchor, but be ready and prepared to weigh it back to deck, soon. Trudging around piles of snow balls, to which he spared a brief glance and eyed the feline suspiciously, he was pleased to hear Dergious quick on the commands, but also unwilling to leave the dwarf along on his ship. “You. Bosun.” A point at the dwarf, then when he went to look for one of his better fighters, he figured the cook would likely still be in the galley, fixing pies. Not that he would leave the cat behind, anyhow. “You …” With a growl and a glare directed on Anshera. “The hell is your problem? Can’t you see I’m -trying- to get this over with?” Whether she decided to pull herself together or not, he rallied his band and moved to one side of the ship, where the crew prepared planks for boarding what appeared to be a shipwreck, still miraculously afloat.
Dergious eyes a crewman watching the captain, and stomps over and knocks him flat on his ass with an uppercut. "He be doin whut he be doin... ye do whut I be tellin ye te do! " He says, standing over the man. The dwarf watches the man climb to his feet and moves to continue his duties.
Caedan is reaching for a door, fingers clasped around the handle when all of a sudden the wood warps into a face that sneers, and in a booming voice declares war upon any who enter. Of course, this would be heard upon the Eternity, sounding simultaneously like a menacing whisper and thunderclap to any who heeded the Labyrinth's call. Then, the ship falls oddly silent, even the creaking and groaning still in the darkness. This quiet is disrupted by a bird throwing a veritable temper tantrum in her hand and practically sending her reeling back to Tenebrae, though she'll fight him the whole way. "No, you codpiece of a eunuch. Bastardizing son of a motherless goat. Stop that ruttin -- Oh, it's you. You've found my flutters." She's still clinging to the flapping bird, who's wing is all but detached at this point. "The ship is toying with us. We should hurry." Apparently, and without being told, she knows what to do and she'll spin on heel and march back down the opposite way of the corridor, bird in tow, who has Tenebrae in tow with its beak.
Anshera remains a dishevelled, naked and growling mess, Leoxander's words taking time to sink through the ever shifting labyrinth of her own mind, laid heavy with a crimson fog. Eventually the goal is met, and the polymorph's growl drops into an anxious whine, Leoxander afforded an apologetic, despairing expression. She wouldn't speak an apology, no, she hadn't properly spoken since being parted from Darrien, nor was it in her nature to do so on such a blatant level. Her body language is animalistic, shoulders dropping just slightly to show an ounce of submission - and if luck held out, she might be kept reigned in for a decent spell. It was a tenuous spell though, tightly wound impatience growing with each step closer - something else to prod at her restraing. She drifts towards Leoxander, polymorph quite possibly possessing the least threatening manner she -ever- has.
"Gerroff, y'manky..." The once-goblin wasn't letting go, though, and persistently clung to Tenebrae as the psychic forged onward into the dank timber [Hold/belly] of the ship she'd fought once.. and only partially beaten. "Caedan..." Tene had no hand to swipe the insects from her eyes, as the bird had hold of the sleeve of her good hand, the wounded arm in a rough sling made of the inside of her undershirt. Weapons clanked on her back as she hurried to keep pace. "It want us." It always had, and she knew the psychic knew it. That redundancy spoken, she continued, "They have given up on me, you know. There's to be a new Unmaker. So they don't really care if I live or..." Speaking of dying, here come the skeletons. The necromancer let out a sharp cry, shaking Maladroit free, to reach for her sword.
Meanwhile, a pale boy in white cloak was thudding across the deck toward Leoxander, out of that darkness below, his face lit up like a Yule tree, his expression one of awe and joy combined. "Dad!" The kid, all of thirteen and gangly, stood before the pirate, grinning with a mouth that was very much like Leo's. "I was looking for you." Tenebrae's son gave Anshera a sharp glance, before turning wholly black eyes back to his father.
Leoxander afford Anshera a neutral glance, but nothing in the way of conversation. There were more important matters at hand. Stabbing that stolen weapon into his belt, he crossed the gap between the railings in a jump and landed silently on the [Main Deck of the Labyrinth]. The fog was thicker here, but he heard the approach from the opposite side of the deck. The sleek, engraved sword drawn from his side came from a fitted scabbard, altering from a rusty pirate’s cutlass as it was drawn. He didn’t know which to be shocked about more: the fact that this enemy was a boy calling him ‘Dad’, or the fact that he held a Mariner’s weapon, something of a Royal navy make, with two words cut into the shining silver blade. Turning a quick glance over his shoulder, Leo would first look back to see if anyone else was witnessing this.
Rowen stares in wonder at a butterfly, laughing with childlike joy and innocence.
Leoxander looked back at the boy.
Caedan lets go of Maladroit too, though he had been useful. Of course, his first order of business is to get all up in Tene's face while Caedan's feathers appear not the slightest bit ruffled at the sight of a brigade of skeletons clacking towards them. The psychic leaves the ex-vampire to fend them off as she makes her way to the walls and listens intently to each rotting panel. She responds as she goes along the corridor, "You. Me. Us. We're the same. Maker. Unmaker. Light. Dark. It's all the same. There isn't one without the other, so of course it wants both." There are tendrils of black snaking along the floorboards, wrapping around boots and slithering up legs before receding again. "Ship's toying. Hunting. Cap'n must not come below." She turns, curbing Tenebrae a very pointed and prolonged stare. "He must not follow." She's well aware that Tenebrae will be contending with rabid skeletons at this point, but her point needs to be made nevertheless. After some poking and prodding, she'll mumble a quiet, "About ruttin' time," as something gives way.
Anshera was witnessing it, surely, lithe woman making her way after the Captain, following closer to her goal. She frowns lightly at the boy, studying him with a silent, clinical manner before she shrugs, turning to instead observe something flickering in the corner of her eye. What she finds is very image of her twin sons, children still, birthed of her, and Vuryal's flesh. They were a testament to Diiroehn's power, that he had created a life, in turn capable of producing life herself! Death, had created Life! Her expression brightens, gaining that faint air of true expression usually reserved for Diiroehn. The Children. Oh how long have they been gone? She could scarcely recall. Her expression falters, however, falling back into guarded blankness. They feared her. Hated her! Their own mother.
Tenebrae was pretty busy, at that point, shoving Maladroit out of her way in a flurry of loose black pinions, before cleaving a rotting skull and side-stepping a half-rusted-away blade that hit her, only to bend and crumble uselessly against tough leather armours. "Ngghh!" was the reply the psychic got for her efforts-- though there'd be a few more sounds left for future conversation, words were pushed aside as Tene battled a skeleton crew with one hand tied. Feet were more useful against the small and mindless horde of guards, this one kicked to smithereens, that one suffering an ungraceful roundhouse kick that sent its bony pate skittering against timber, to a soft implosion of bone and dust. Once she'd laid the three low, Tene peered into the gloom, where sat her crow, clacking. "Cae...dan...?"
Leoxander held the weapon right for the boy’s head, but the youth dodged it wearing that grin and stepped in to slip his arms around the rogue’s belted waist, leaving the criminal bewildered and speechless. A higher pitch voice piped up for him. “Give me a break!” The kid laughed, looking up through the straight strands of blonde that hung over his eyes; eye so dark it was impossible not to see that knowing stare through it. Leo dropped what must be a cursed weapon to push at the boy’s shoulders, at once. “Knock it off, I’m here on business.” A thief, he guessed, or some undead assuming a vision that would put the rogue in a vulnerable position. And he wasn’t going to fall for it. But as he separated the child from his waist and saw the sad look washing over ghostly pale features, he thought maybe… he recognized that face from somewhere.
Caedan is invisible. Or rather, most of her is, aside from the hand that reaches out from behind a false panel to abruptly and unceremoniously yank Tenebrae in with her. They are inside another small corridor -- this one much different than the one previous. This one smacks of sincerity, truth -- but in that truth is a great deal of danger. It's almost as if this hall were built for safe passage, for those working on the ship, its seamen or builders, to go about their errands before being driven mad (which they must have all undoubtedly been soon thereafter). A half second later, a bald-patched bird would be tugged in with the duo, and the plank allowed to fall back in place. "We've got to hurry. You can say hello, but we mustn't stay for tea." It's dark and she's digging in her pockets for a match while already striding forward down the narrow, moldy corridor.
Leoxander turned away from the boy decisively once he remembered where he’d seen that sorrowful expression before. He shouldered open a stubborn door with a crack of timber, and went inside that ghost-ship maze to find his bride, led by the insane.
Leoxander vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.
Tenebrae trotted after Caedan like a kid at a funhouse park, and sheathed her sword in order to free her one hand to remove a skeleton-remnant's grip appending the hem of her vest. The bony fist fell free to rank boards, and when she'd caught the psychic's side, Tene turned to the girl. Maladroit waddled uneasily at their feet, silent now. "Got to be careful. Place plays with your mind, like the other-- " she stopped, feeling foolish of a sudden for her un-needful blather. "Anyway, you should be careful." No ill-effects here in the [Safe Corridor], it seemed. Her gaze flicked ahead. "You know where we're going?" Another stupid question, her frown illumined by a match's flare.
Caedan loses her match and hisses as it burns her fingers. By the time Tenebrae's eyes might adjust to the dark, she's gone without explanation.
Tenebrae blinked her eyes until pitch-dark brightened to bare visibility again, to find .. no Caedan. Bewildered, she'd follow a few steps until meeting what seemed a dead end, doorless. Turning her back to it, she sighed and sank to her heels. What could anyone expect of a place like this? Maladroit waddled close, a baleful gaze set upon the necromancer. The bird's beak opened, then, odd sound emerging. "You're imprisoned here. They need to save you, too." Tene gaped a little. That voice... the mute bird-throat was no tool for mimicry. And she -knew- that voice..
Anshera barely heard the words Ingham and Sandrim were shrieking at her; saw only the hatred in their eyes and manner, and the fear causing their limbs to tremble as they clutched to each other. There was turmoil roiling in her mind, rage and anguish wavering and melding until they're practically indistinguishable to her in that very instant. She lashes out, arm swinging, morphing with such rapidity, that the transformation strikes only just before her polymorphed arm strikes at Sandrim's neck, cleaving clear through, decapitating both he and Ingham. Her arm returns to normal barely a second before her children's heads tumble to the ground, blood spurting in a gruesome, twin fountain. Her voice rises mournfully, but she has no time to waste. She had to find him. She had to find Diiroehn, his existence more important to her than /anyone/ else's. Still, a tear lingered at the corner of an eye; she'd never forget what she'd done to her children. -Her- children. Never.
Having left the sundered bones of the First Guard in her wake, Tene remained sitting with her back against the featureless wall of the apparently [Safe Corridor] that led to .. nowhere.. but presumably held an entrance at some point to whatever mayhemic maze Caedan had disappeared into. She sunk her head to rest on one knee, her functioning arm draped over the other. In this oddly quiet space, after an indeterminable amount of time, thoughts of the morning's dreams came back to her-- any hey, they were a step up from worrying about what lay beyond.
Tene smiled wryly, thinking of Leo as an Admiral, of herself as some powerful Queen. And of Lucien... Her smile faded, mind drifting back to the eight years she'd spent with Castellian in the obsidian Pool, ostensibly as a happy family until.. Until Leo and the others came looking for her, tore her from that delirious fantasy which ended, ultimately, in the Drow Lord's death. And now there was a new and more hideous scar to add to her guilty wounds-- the issue of Lucien's parentage. It was this thought that roused her from such maudlin indulgence-- after all, Lucien did not really exist... there was this no such damning evidence of betrayal, of infidelity... she had never really borne a child. A bitter laugh escaped the woman, at the irony of it all, at her own stupidity. Yet even now, a vision of Lucien, her own pale progeny, persisted in her mind. Tenebrae made a chiding noise at herself, and stood up in order to better study the walls. No time for such thoughts. There had to be a way out of here...
Strewn all across the coast are a multitude of small jagged rocks and an assemblage of sandy seaweed, brought in just the night before as the higher tides came in, surely they will be washed out and new ones will replace them this night. The sand is soft and very fine grained and would feel rather nice on bare foot bottoms were it not for the random flanges of rock.
The water sways inward slowly, breaking upon the darker, moist sands and rough collections of rock before suddenly dropping back and seeming calm and serene once again. Just along one edge of the shore you see a single dwelling. To your north is much the same, only much less jagged. To your south the rocks prevent further passage, making the only other exit from this scenery west, towards the fish market.
However, the rocks are not so much an obstacle to any person with determination. They merely hold the path of the ocean, which froths up and down in timeless rhythm. Only now, feathers gather upon the shore, decorating the rock pools. They are not healthy feathers, however, and their blackened tips and the stench of decay permeates the area. There is a ship that has impaled itself upon the coral reefs. The feathers - and upon close inspection, dead birds - lead to it. There are many, many, many dead birds and they are not fresh, nor pleasant. An able body can swim or fly out to that ship, but caution is a necessity. Above, the skies are black and pregnant. They pause in the breath before fury, but a wind chill with readiness takes to blowing about. It smells of rain above the death-scent.
__
Tenebrae's crow, still clutched to the railing, still clacks it beak in regular time, like a bony heart opening and closing some grim valve over and over, a ceaseless sound the mangy bird had kept up all through the long eve and for hours of the pale-clad dark, and which now... stops.
Diiroehn lies still in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], still naked and shivering 'pon the floor. The ebony form of the Drow, stark against the contrasting color of darkened mahogany and even more blatant shimmering of his white tresses, stirs slightly.
Tenebrae was still below, her shoulder wrapped in a rough and blood-soaked bandage, and in her rum-soaked dreams heard a sound and heard it cease, and smiled. Meanwhile, the oddly lopsided and bent-winged crow flopped from off the railing to land with a soggy plop to the boards, and waddled across the main deck, toward to the Underbelly, clearly intent on some mission or other.
Dergious sits meditating, his face and beard still smeared with blood from the previous night's exertions.
Caedan thinks she might be in the [ crow's nest ], but she's not entirely sure. But chances are, she's there, or close to there. Or in a dinghy.
Satoshi is lost in her own meditations, cross-legged beside the starboard railing, intent on refreshing her poorly sapped magical supply.
Tenebrae's crow gave Dergious a dull peck to the knee as it passed on it feather-shedding and tragic way toward the necromancer.
Dergious opens one eye and spies the crow, mumbles something about "Dinner" and then returns to his meditations.
Diiroehn tries to move from his position in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], groggily attempting to slide away from the door by the use of those dark arms. Each inch is met with a groan and moan of pain, stifled by the trapping of the room, isolation to an extent of chaos.
Tenebrae was dreaming, and those dreams were bloody and fraught with screams, dire portents of murder, and the sky was crimson with the smoke of burning towns. On her tower's parapet, she stood pale sentinel to the destruction below. At her feet was a cowled goblin, his blue-black hands wringing at the end of ragged sleeves. "Maladroit, you'll do as I tell you, or I'll toss you bodily to the dogs. Alive." Tene's tone was sere and crisp, imperious. The goblin cringed, nodded. In the [Underbelly], a mangled, undead crow bobbed its head toward a sleeping woman.
Leoxander had conveniently disappeared, for good reason, sometime after he’d forfeit a wounded Tenebrae to the Alpha. Whether it was humiliation or rage that tilted the scales of his control, the pirate captain sought his privacy somewhere in the ship.
Diiroehn lays his head upon the ground in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], losing consciousness. However, the dreams of his cabalist leader, or whom he once knew as the Lady of Shadows, a brief visage would flicker to life amidst the stone sentinels of a tower's forsaken parapet. It morphed from sheer and utter darkness to cloth of a hellish garb, blackened like the source it originated; mercurial transfixing itself to a solid figure that bears malevolence like a flag, and a death's head grin for greeting.
Dergious opens his eyes, stands and stretches. Pops and cracks sound as the dwarf moves through a series of rather complicated steps and movements before finally straightening and expelling gas loudly. He scowls and the crew seems to work a bit faster.
Dergious said, "Where be dat stinkin corpse? Dat un dat dun got herself hurt?"
Rowen peeks out from under a tarpaulin where she is pretending to be asleep, lest anyone find any work for her to do.
Satoshi cracks an eye open at the sounding of an odd noise, nose wrinkling in distaste as the odor finds its way to her on the wind. With a groan the mage is back on her own feet. No use trying to meditate further anyway. There was something in the air that left her feeling too unsettled to find solace in rest.
Tenebrae, in her dreams, still bore her shroud of writhing shadows for a cloak, was still fanged and pale, and shifted green eyes toward the uncorpulant Lich. Her head tilted, her lips pursing in a sweetly prim smile. "Diiroehn. It's been an age. Come, see what I have done." Below the ship'd upper decks, Maladroit's rolling gait, caused by two bent toes and the natural ship's sway, took him back toward the painful climb of the stairs, intent now gaining a place under the mainmast, atop which was fixed his former abode.
Tenebrae's crow paused to peck Dergious on the foot as he passed.
Diiroehn , in Tenebrae's dreams, becomes corporeal within them, a paradox to the reality of the situation yet nonetheless awe-inspiring, standing before the Vampire Queen as if death's own reaper. That smile, ever aloof and enthralled, follows the trail of tombstone visage, which bears neither pupil nor iris. 'Pon the companion rests this desolate gaze, waked and altogether fluidly graceful in the most funereal of senses by the subtle 'clicks' of marrow feet striking the smooth obsidian of the parapet flooring, approach darkness with darkness. "Let us see what you've wrought, Lady Tenebrae." The words are a cadence to a hellish chorus of grim and infallible sadness, mourning the dead, mourning forsook; mourning the inabilities of life.
Leoxander usually didn’t made a lot of noise when he finally approached into view on the [Lower Deck]. On the contrary, he had this silencing effect over at least some of the crew, particularly when several turned their heads to notice the stumble in his gait, the way hard treads dropped heavily for every step. His exhale vibrated a growl in his throat, jaw slightly swollen to threaten some kind of transformation and edged with a bit of sandy face fur to confirm it. Eyes stained pale yellow and fairly glowing through that sepulchral atmosphere shifted among the pick of victims trapped on his boat, but the wolf wasn’t looking altogether lupine, yet. He looked like a beat up, bruised and hairy human, with the tips of fangs stuck elongated on his lower row of teeth. Ironically, his wounds were healed, but the process only made him more eager for that unpredictable lycanthrope form.
Anshera remains aloof and distantly suspicious of the crew she rides with, the polymorph having refused to allow anyone near her without the growling threat of disembowelment - not even to give her clothes to replace the ones torn to shreds from battling a zombie octopus...thing. Regardless, she stands now, naked, and precariously balanced upon the very tip of the ship's bow, quietly (for once) waiting.
Dergious reaches into a pouch and produces a small, round object that he squints at for a moment. He turns this way and that and then tosses the item to the deck with a "Bah!" and a scowl.
Tenebrae's dreaming hand swung in a smooth arc toward the destruction below, to demonstrate her achievement. "I have set the world ablaze, consumed and consumed it until all is bled dry. I have pillaged its very marrow and now..." Her icy gaze shifted toward a white-cloaked figure approaching from around the parapet's western cornice. "...we... shall rule it, as none before us have ruled." She paused, stepped back to study the Lich, and the white-cloaked male unhooded himself to reveal a shock of unruly, pale hair, and took her side. "Me, the Admiral...and Lucien." Those eyed returned to the lad, her fingers tucking a strand of white hair behind one of his shell-like ears before addressing the lordly undead once more. "You, however. The heralds tell me you have met with some ...misfortune." As if in accordance to her words, the skies abruptly darkened. In the [Underbelly] of the ship, Tene shifted in her sleep. On the [Main deck], Tenebrae's flightless crow peered with eyes the colour of a fishbelly up at the crow's nest, and clacked its beak.
Satoshi , at the captain's scruffy new look, fought a sudden instinct to jump ship and make the long trek home on a path of ice. The feline is careful to keep out of Leoxander's direct path and her head downcast to avoid those disturbing feral eyes; her agitation apparent with a tail fiercely switching back and forth as she stuck to the perimeter of the ship.
Leoxander was eerily quiet, using only his eyes to strike some note of fear of a few faces below crimson bandanas - those that weren’t used to his wild side. Tense and looking entirely prepared to maul someone, with unnaturally broad shoulders hunched up toward his lowered skull, Leo cut a path through what inanimate carcasses that hadn’t been swept off the deck, yanking a cutlass roughly from the ribs of a body. When he finally did speak, he was purposefully calm about it, now. A guttural, wolfish voice that croaked out an order for the crew, to the most capable hand: Dergious. “All hands on deck.”
Dergious snaps out of his musings and begins bellowing, "Avast! All hands topside! Now!" He sends his whip into the air, letting it crack loudly to get their attention. Those moving too slowly for his taste get a frosty ass, as the whip's magic turns the air to sub zero behind them. "Move move MOVE!" He stomps about as the crew finally assembles, and he gives dirty looks to the last to arrive, promising a few words (at least) later.
Dergious said to Leoxander, "All reddy fer ye, cap'n!"
Diiroehn, in such a hellish dream, would keep enthralled his death's head grin, those marrow bones and teeth set like the refugees readied for slaughter. It conveys the cynicism, the power once bereft from his body; a hellish thing of death; of damned; forsaken; the very halls of the abyss itself! O', those eyes! Those eyes! Warped as if twin sentinels of tombstones, granite and slated like the ashen pits they are, pools awaiting the etching of their epitaph; her sins forgotten! Forgotten? They must've been, ruling this world in the fires of hell and chaos under the guise of tyrannical fist -is this some sort of test? Order against chaos? Sanity against insanity? Plans begin to formulate within that long-deceased mind, working the inner-trappings like the clockwork rails of ticking hands. "You've bled the world to death. You've encompassed it in my essence, alongside fire and brimstone. Rule it?" That grin cants now, by the motion of a grotesque cranium, mocking her efforts with the realism of what she's done. "You rule a world of barren wastes now. You, the Admiral..." Wretched optics, wrenched their path from Tenebrae to Lucien in the intent of not murderous but possessive fashion. He is not alive. He never was. "...And Lucien. Lucien, dear Lucien." Her demand of misfortune is gone unheeded, wordless response neither confirming what seems to be either accusation, or contempt, instead returning his grim, sad eyes toward her. O', those eyes; O', that grin! Woven together in the extremities of antagonizing sorrow, laughing and crying; laughing and crying! How dare she. How dare he! "What you have done, you have not needed me for, Lady Tenebrae. Yet, you've damned this world to my realm." He would play the part of death, in this tragic tale. "I've come to take it. You must live; life is love, Lady Tenebrae. It is about time you've learned this."
Caedan has not assembled with the rest of the crew. Instead, she is peering downward at a crow, who stares just as intently up at her. To the naked eye, it might look very much like the two were having some enthralling conversation.
Leoxander waited for the time being, crossing his arms over his chest to hide the blood touched tips of his fingers, recovering from becoming claws. Rather than look down upon the crew from the upper deck, Leo remained upon the [Lower Deck], trusting most would give him a wide berth of space, like Satoshi wisely chose to do. Feral eyes roamed this makeshift ‘pack’ of seamen, land lubbers and experienced surviving in an awkward balance, thus far. A glance up and he regards the ghost in her nest, but after further inspection he finally comes to speak to the first that will answer. “We’re missing several.”
Dergious looks about, then turns to Rowen and Satoshi. "Find who be missin! Now."
Caedan reaches for Tenebrae's familiar, who clumsily perches on her shoulder after a prolonged shuffle up her arm to get there. A few more words are exchanged, which ultimately results in the psychic tch'ing under her breath, and a cautious descent from above. The fog is thick and rich with dark arcane energy, permeating the very air she breathes. She can't see the Labyrinth, but she can feel it, or rather, the same chaotic energy present in the Eldritch Hall. The undead crow clacks in her ear, and upon the [Upperdeck], Caedan pauses to search the mist again. She gingerly makes her way atop the railing of the ship, eyes the color of a storm piercing through the clouds until lashes flutter closed to cheekbones turned rosy from the elements, and her head tilts silently, as if listening for something. The crow is deadly still upon her shoulder.
Satoshi throws a salute toward Dergious before turning on her heel and heading to the [underbelly] in search of the missing folk.
Tenebrae, or rather the [dreaming] version of that woman, would prevent her never-born son from lashing a clawed fist out at the Lich, grasping the boy's hand cruelly. "Stop it, Luc!" Cold fury dwelled in her gaze, soothing away to a gentler mien as she laid her attention back upon the Lord of the Dead. "Only -our- lands still remain pristine, Lord Diiroehn. The triumvirate is strong, and with it we shall make a world of our fondest desires." She sniffed, released her scowling son's hand. The boy showed his teeth, small fangs nestled in his grimace. "And of course, you were of vast help, you great bone-headed fool...have you forgotten...?" The skies shook as though some vast hand had rumpled the dark sheet of the sky. "But we have one last enemy to vanquish. It comes, Diiroehn. It comes for us." If there was fear in her arctic stare, it was subsumed by the apparition of a single white butterfly that flapped an erratic path between Vampire and Lich.
Rowen said to Dergious, "They're probably dead dad, aint no use searching for dead folk… not unless the necromancer want's em...and she's asleep still."
Dergious said to Rowen, "I dun told ye to look... so ye best be lookin er mebbe ye be goin fer a swim."
Rhian sat in the (mess hall in the underbelly of the ship) arms crossed about a table and supporting her head. A small trail of spittle from her lips ran into a puddle that dampened the table and her breathing was steady in apparent sleep.
Dergious gave 1 ether-of-vigor to Rowen.
Dergious said to Rowen, "Break dat under dat un's nose an let er take a whiff.”
Leoxander turned his head to look back at the teenager performing a balancing act on the railing. Only he knew that fierce look to be no show, but determination. A deep breath of the ocean air was taken to try to clear the red from his vision, but as it was laced with the ever present scent of death, it did nothing to help him relax. Leo knew one thing, and shared this with the Navigator of his ship. “We need to move.” And then with a gruff look at the dwarf. "Leave the boy alone."
Leoxander didn't realize the two were related, just like he didn't seem to realize his cabin boy was a girl.
Dergious chuckles and shrugs, but gives Rowen a dark look before turning his attention back to the captain.
Diiroehn would attempt to reach out for the butterfly, attempt to grasp it within those bone hands of death itself; but his visage flickers, waning before vanishing from her dream-world altogether. For in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], the Drow awakens to the threshold of pain.
Rowen grumbles " I have to do every bloody thing around here…”, then heads over and breaks the vial open under Tenebrae's nose as her father had demanded.
Cuki detaches himself from his kitchen. He was finished for the day. The toils of day, thirty-five delicately made meat pies, sat lined up neatly on shelves. They were not really going to go anywhere unless it boat tipped over. With the shepherd's pies out of his mind, Cuki follows the one who brought his attention away from them. Quickly the Human latches onto Satoshi. From behind he wraps his arms around her. They had both been working more than hard enough.
Anshera remains upon the bow's tip, arms languidly raising to stretch out to her sides, white hair shifting and slithering over her shoulders and back. A backwards leaps pulls her up into a twisting backflip that leaves her facing in towards the ship, as opposed to out to sea. She remains only a scant second, pallid, naked woman bolting forward, center of gravity kept low. She appears to be tearing towards Leoxander, though it's quite possible she's dashing for anyone of the crew members beyond him.
Tenebrae, still [dreaming], watched the Lich attempt to snatch the ivory insect from the air, only to fade like a shadow with light shone upon it, and she let out a soft cry, "No... I need..." Wildly, her eyes turned to Lucien, who resembled nobody more than her husband now he was half-grown, the boy holding that same feral look in his blacker-than-black eyes. "Go. Tell your father I will meet him on the...." SNAP. In the Underbelly, Tenebrae woke to the throb of her wounded shoulder, and some god-awful stench waved under her nose.
Rowen jumps back rather nervously as the necromancer awakes spilling the rest of the liquid.
Tenebrae retched slightly, glaring at the human. "Gerroff, with y'stinky... where..." She sat up, groggily, blinking a half-remembered vision away. "... where's Leo?"
Leoxander took up a second cutlass once his arms dropped from that uncomfortable cross, pulling it from a loose crate to drag it along dangerously at his side. So now he was an unsettled lycan with two fast swords - take note. “Let’s move!” That was all he would yell before a twitch in his neck caused him to look for someone for yelling out orders. Where was..? Grabbing McCoy’s shoulder, he spoke even as he saw Anshera… naked, running toward him. He doesn’t appear to fear her assault. "I want that loose cargo roped down. Man the oars and save the sails, we're gonna need a quick retreat. Let’s be ready for it."
Rowen wordlessly gestures towards the captain with the hand holding the - now empty - bottle.
Satoshi let's out a startled sound very much like a mew at the monk's sudden appearance but offers him a smile and quick nudge from her head. In her peripheral vision she spots the sleeping Rhian in the [mess hall].
Dergious turns to the crew, "Ye herd da man! Fasten da cargo!" he screams to a group of men. He turns to some others, "Get ready on dem oars!" He spares the whip, and yells to all who might hear, "Ye knows yer jobs... get yerselfs te station! Fer da captain!"
Satoshi said to Cuki, "Captain wants everyone above deck. Care to wake that one?"
Tenebrae said to Rowen, "Help me up... I need my armours." Her eyes had turned to the boards above, at Rowen's gesture. ".. I need to see him.""
Dergious realizes he is too short for rowing, but he makes himself useful. He begins placing weapons for ready use, starting with long spears that are pulled from a pouch much too shallow to hold them.
Anshera 's assault is curiously restrained, Leoxander her target after all. Celerity presses her leap forward, polymorph barrelling into the Captain's chest, clutching at him with one hand, while the other uselessly balls, rising and falling to throw feeble, harmless strikes at him. She seemed almost like a confused, upset child, begging through tears and feeble actions for something precious back.
Dergious making sure the spears were securely fashioned but easy to free if needed, he stomps around shouting encouragement to the men. "Dats da way te do er!" he shouts to some men as they hurry to make the ship ready.
Rowen offers a -four fingered- hand to help the woman rise. "Where is your armour?"
Caedan hears Leoxander's soft command, and the stoic urgency attached to it, but for once, his directive goes completely unheeded. The crow shifts restlessly on her shoulder, and the psychic paces on the bobbing railing just as uneasily. All of a sudden, there is a great flapping of wings, and movement in the mist -- only then will Caedan cast a very pointed stare over her shoulder and half-murmur, half-psychically project to the captain, "It's time." The dark mist will coil about her, like a blanket from well-meaning Steadman back home. Soon, she is altogether gone, except for one pale hand that extends from the darkness, and a tiny white butterfly that seeks out Tenebrae like it were magnetized. Whether Leo follows is his own choice, but if he does, she'll instruct him, the great brawling pirate rogue to stay close. The mist unfolds into a staircase-like structure as it closes behind her, concealing both ships now as she begins a harrowing trek towards the Labyrinth seemingly only walking on a smoky black staircase that looks to be a more misty version of the Obsidian Pool's consistency. Maladroit, meanwhile, squawks upon her shoulder, and share a few thoughts with her, while anyone else's company will only be a thousand terrible whispers as they draw close.
Cuki simply nods. However he has never been the most polite sort of person when it came to this sort of thing. Instead he simply grabs her cloak and promptly yanks Rhian to standing position.
Tenebrae nodded to a pile of black stuff slung over the chair of the desk, stained with rusted fluid. "There." She swung her legs off the couch, and groaned softly. "Blasted... my sword... I lost it."
Dergious stomps belowdeck to find his daughter. Soon he finds the two women and does not look away. He notes that there is no sword present and grins, "Mebbe ye can be usin dis." he says, and tosses a few spare blades to Tenebrae.
Rowen hands to each piece of armour to Tenebrae in turn. "I'll find you a better weapon shortly milady."
Leoxander turned to catch Anshera with an audible snarl that represented a feral wolf trying to be pet. He stumbled back several steps from the impact, but prevented them from falling by digging the heel of his boot into the planks. Reflexes triggered defenses, and he caught that flailing hand by the wrist, after maybe one scratch of her claws - somewhere. (Shoulder, or arm, perhaps). Tiny gashes that should heal in mere seconds, because of his tainted, boiling blood. In the midst of all this, the psychic tries to get his attention, and he made a great attempt to see what she was talking about. He wasn’t all that inclined to follow that ugly crow along a path of magic, anyhow. Yet. “Get the hell off me!!”
Rhian 's black eyes darted open, the dark skinned woman murmuring a few indeterminable things before looking about the mess with half lidded eyes and wiping her chin with her arm. A cutlass lay on the table, perhaps something she'd carried with her the night before. The woman reaches out and takes it, stumbling along past Satoshi and the monk as her ears pick up the varied sounds of bustle that made her manner uneasy.
Tenebrae covered herself demurely with the edge of her blanket, and grinned back at the dwarf, as best she could through her pain. "Thanks. Now bugger off, y'perv, and let a girl dress in peace."
Dergious does not dawdle, and turns to leave. To both women he says, "Get yerself's up an on da deck... der be sumthin afoot."
Leoxander attempted to throw Anshera back with enough force that tractioned claws might rip his tattooed skin, or the mast might prevent her from being forced overboard.
Cuki said to Satoshi, "That work for you?"
Tenebrae said to Rowen, "Best you do as he says and..." She lowers her gaze to the wounded hand of the 'cabin boy'. "... thanks to you also."
Satoshi allows Rhian to pass before the feline hurries back above deck with Cuki's hand clamped firmly in her's. From ear tips to tail her fur was standing on end and her eyes were dilated to near solid black. The queer somethin' in the air was stronger now and it put the cat on edge. Small hisses came from between clenched fangs as she stepped onto the [main deck].
Dergious is now among the crew, once again encouraging their best effort.
The [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's] is something hellish at this time, the sound of zombies cut down like the forestry amidst logging companies resonates throughout the cabin, crimson eyes of the Drow cast over-shoulder to stare upon the door. It opens, after a protesting screech and groan, revealing the taut figure of that renewed, and somehow different Darrien.
Rhian stumbled along after Cuki and Satoshi onto the (lower deck).
Rowen nods and heads back to join the rest of the crew on board, She has decided she quite likes the necromancer after the way the woman spoke to her dad.
Tenebrae spent long moments struggling into soiled black armours, the weapons gifted her by the dwarf clumsily secured to her back with a stray bit of rope; they clanked together dully when she finally trudged the steps to the [lower deck].
Diiroehn said to Darrien, "I know your face. You didn't come here to rescue me. You've always been here.".
Rowen arms herself with one of her father's spears.
Anshera takes the toss with the manner of one who was beyond caring of whether harm would come or not, lack of resistance evidence to the growing state of despondent anxiety she sported. The faint scent of blood speaks of the whispering claw marks left on Leoxander's skin, the hard 'thud' crying the polymorph's impact with the mast. The mixture of a gurgling whine and a growl bubbles from her throat as she slides to a landing, Lich's Creation remaining at rest for a moment. Perhaps because of seeing Diiroehn's image speaking to the Cap'n before, the polymorph refuses to leave Leoxander fully alone. Save for lacking the guise of a cat, just as the first night of this expedition, she stalks him, remaining at a slight distance.
Cuki was happy to move along. However he completely lacked the perception abilities of his mate. It was just fog. Not even strangely colored fog. From her hostile reaction he half expected it to be orange or blood red or something. Cuki knew to trust her judgement though. "What is it?" A pretty simple question.
Dergious stomps over to Rhian, "Ere, be usin dis! It be faster den dat great thing ye be usin now."
Caedan , realizing her hand is empty, lets it fall to her side, where it will ball around the hilt of her own brand and remain there, taut, white-knuckled. The mist curls into itself, creating a kink that rolls along the path it's created, causing the psychic to bob a few times, then press her free hand to her temple. Audibly, she tells Maladroit, "Getting worse. Not contained like the Pool." She presses her hand against the viscous fog, and it flinches, retracting and doubling upon itself before darting forward again, swallowing her hand until she withdraws it. A few lepidoptera are released in the same instant, carried back towards the Eternity by a brisk wind, even though the air stands stagnant. And ahead, the Labyrinth looms.
[Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's]:: Darrien moves taut muscles to step gracefully across the threshold, clasping his hands to rest their backs 'pon the small of his back and scrutinizing the beaten and broken figure of the naked Drow before him. Those words bring their own melody, yet something is aloof within them, a maddened sense betrayed not by urgency, but rather by the almost sinister charm underlying them. "Correct, and correct. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon, in fact. There's quite a bit of power here, for the taking..." Those mismatched eyes dart toward crimson opposites in an almost seductive manner; the words, mind you, not for the flesh of body. Greed for power, ambition, and the like -undertaking a suicidal task for essentially, nothing.
Tenebrae batted at a moth that had circled her head from the moment she left the ship's underbelly, the insistent insect dipping and circling about her as though she were a lamp. The creature fluttered to avoid her slap, and peridot eyes sought among the milling crew for a sign of her Cap'n.
Leoxander snarled out his last order. “Keep that bi--(Well, she wasn’t canine, but who knew what she was.) OFF me.” An arm shaking off blood after he motions toward Anshera, not caring at this point whether she is imprisoned in the hold for her trespasses. Between her and the other, they’ve only succeeded in wasting more of his time and materials on the voyage. As though he wasn’t making the effort, here. “Get back to work!” Yelled at every gawking fool that wasn’t doing something useful or beneficial to their progress. Because so much time has in fact passed, the moment he sees his ‘First Mate’ stumble onto the deck, he motions toward the upper deck where whatever pathway Caedan had created was collapsing. “Go through after her!” There isn’t much choice, even if it means he’s risking his necromancer’s life.
Dergious moves towards the captain, "Ahl be goin!" he says simply, though there is an eager gleam in his eyes.
Tenebrae paused only a second to take it all in -- the phantom stairway, her half-feral lover, the little swarm of butterflies wending a singular breeze that circled the rogue before joining the one she'd shooed away... oddly, things were starting to make sense. Her wounded right shoulder throbbed again, its pains ignored in favour of the adrenaline that surged her forward to do the Cap'n's bidding, a white train of butterflies in tow.
Rowen follows her dad, she knows from experience that when he gets that look in his eyes, she usually gets someone to torture, pretty soon.
Satoshi said to Dergious, "Oi! Take these!" The feline tosses a satchel toward the dwarf. "Lob at some nasties. If there's no interfering magic, you'll make icicles of 'em!"
Diiroehn turns upon his back in the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], the movement without haste and bearing the multitude of pain and throbbing hurts that make his body scream in frustration and protest at his desired movements. 'Neath tresses of stark, white hair peers those crimson pools, before shaking his head. "You're imprisoned here... They need to save you, too..."
Leoxander was only relying on their ability, that they had to reach the Labyrinth in mere moments. In response to the dwarf, he only barely resisted the urge to swipe a hook at the helpful Boatswain. “You’ll be getting this damn ship movin’ or you’ll be the one feedin’ the fish!” In truth, for as cruel as he’d treat Dergious, he needed that more reliable sailor to run that vessel smoothly. The whip bearer had a knack for keeping that crew in line. “Boy, beat those bilge suckers blue till they learn to row!”
Anshera is not about to be left behind, imprisoned or held back until she can follow no longer. The polymorph pulls a dirty trick, making it nigh impossible for grasping hands to find purchase on her body by turning fluid - and remaining that way. Of course possessed of a will of it's own, the silver fluid acts in highly unnatural ways, writhing and rippling a moment before it pushes forward with incredible speed; a silver blur sweeping over the deck. By the looks of it, she's going to make it and head after Tenebrae, Leo and Caed, if barely.
Leoxander would not make the portal, courtesy of Anshera's tantrum. So he would have to prepare the crew for the moment the ships lined up, and he was able to board the doomed Labyrinth.
Tenebrae paused at some point on that smoky staircase, the hand of her good arm held out in whatever direction Leo was in, her fingers spread, as if asking for his proximity.
Dergious grins still wider and spins on his heel, "Ah be thinkin ye slobs can be werkin faster!" he shouts as he unfurls his whip once again. "Mebbe I been a bit too lax wit yer saggy hides... " the whip flies true, striking a young crewman across the shoulders. He cries out, but all around him move at double time. "Dat be me only warnin! Get dem sails ready te roll! Secure dem barrels! Ready da cannon! It be yer lives yer messin wit! MOVE!"
Rowen also stays on the ship with her father and the captain.
Dergious said to Satoshi, "Get dat un *nods to Anshera* under control!"
Tenebrae let out a soft sound of dismay, as the steps faded under her feet, unsure purchase forcing her toward the Labyrinth, the butterflies forming a white line as if it were a trail of airborne breadcrumbs to follow.
Dergious said to Rowen, "*nodding to Anshera and Satoshi* Help er!"
Dergious said to Cuki, "Dat shape changer be mussin up da werks! Hit er wit yer fryin pan er sumthin!"
Satoshi seems to appear from out of nowhere, spontaneously generating next to you.
Diiroehn [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's]:: Darrien purses his lips together at the Lich's words, moving toward him and promptly, gracefully kneeling beside his fallen body. "Tch. I don't plan on leaving here. Or letting you."
Leoxander , at this rate, would reach the Labyrinth before those in Caedan’s wonderland tunnel might. The Eternity was one of the faster ships on the seas, it spliced through the corpse ridden waters smoothly, and the fog - for as thick as it was - would part in compliance to gangway. Sails only fluttered and waved at their edges, lined down and waiting for their fantastic moment. Oars moved in unison at either sides of the ship, perhaps Rowen would have something to do with that. Both Cutlass taken in arm once more, he prowled the front of his ship and waited for the moment he would see the grim silhouette of their enemy ship in the distance. He knew the direction Caedan had been staring, for so long.
Caedan approaches the hull of the Labyrinth, and raps loudly, wood giving way to shadows and fog, a permeable, living thing. "Ahoy!" She's shouting at it, still rapping away with seemingly ink-stained knuckles. "Permission to come aboard!" The dark ship issues a guttural response, a sudden lurch causing an immense creaking and groaning of haunted stairwells and passages. The response seems to be the ship chortling at her. She confers with Maladroit and frowns at the fog propelling her around the base of the ship. "Up, please." Reluctantly, the stuff obeys, and drops her rather unceremoniously on the [Main Deck of the Labyrinth], where she'll sort out where she is and exactly what to do before venturing inside. The fragmented, unceasing whispers echoing in her mind is interfering somewhat with coherent thought; two more butterflies are released, encircling the girl's head before moving away.
Tenebrae disappeared into the fog.
Rowen is a little afraid of the polymorph, but even more afraid of her father, so she at least pretends to be heading over to Anshera with the intent of doing something to restrain the silver fluid woman- thing.
Leoxander shouted, "You lot below, arm yourselves or hold the ship."
Tenebrae is deposited with a like lack of courtesy to the boards, her own journey less defined. On the deck, she rubbed her eyes, glancing around the [Labyrinth's Main Deck], confusedly. Somewhere, a beak clacked.
Diiroehn lies across the floor of the [Labyrinth, Captain's Quarter's], a hand searching along the floor before grasping subtly the hold of a candlestick. As Darrien leans close, the Lich strikes, swinging that arm around in a wide arc and promptly striking the man on the head. The force of the blow knocks the man immediately unconscious, and the two lie there. One, an ebon-skinned man from torture, the other, his captive; the son of his Creation.
Dergious sees Rowen's hesitation and sighs before sending his freezing whip at the liquid woman. It cracks only inches from her form, but she is suddenly enveloped in temperatures low enough to freeze water in seconds.
Satoshi let's Rowen be the one to go after Anshera, the mage not wanting a form of confrontation with the shapechanger. Rather, she sets about placing piles of snowballs at various intervals throughout the ship. The packed snow glistened unnaturally with the feline's magic and any who choose to take some would find that the items gave off an almost audible demand to be thrown. The bewitched snowballs were crafted to spread and freeze on any surface they were thrown and broken against. Magical weapons for any of the sword-clumsy members of the crew.
Dergious shouts to the crew, "Ah want dis tub reddy te move! Be reddy at dat anchor! Get dem sails ready te be movin us flat out!" He moves to the entrance to the lower decks and shouts down, "If Ah be seein a single loose anythin down der ahl be rippin yer flesh frum yer backs and havin da cook fry me up some bacon!"
Caedan is having a hard time keeping a hold of Maladroit, but she's got one floppy wing in a death-grip and is holding him up like a lantern as she approaches the stairwell towards the [Underbelly]. The familiar is trying to get back to Tenebrae, who has vastly more experience with this sort of thing, but the psychic is on a mission and her death grip on the bird might rivals Tenebrae's unseen version. "Come, come," she breathes. "Time to say hello." The shadows part, and she is swallowed into the bowels of the ship.
Dergious turns to Satoshi, "If ah be givin ye dat staff again... cud ye be conjurin us up sum winds te be gettin us out o' here?
Anshera sure is helpful! ...If your name is Diiroehn. Sorry Leo! That mercurial blur is frozen just as the portal wavers and vanishes, leaving her to have to stay with those she wished not to be with. The jagged, silver chunk of polymorph remains still upon the Deck, however the Lich's Creation was hardly felled so easily. An ethereal cry of absolute rage echoes all around the ship, icy polymorph beginning to rock and rumble violently on the [Lower Deck], until the ice encompassing her shatters, liquid growing and expanding back into her 'natural' form. Lips already drawn back with a growl, she tensely awaits, for the time being, further confrontation.
Satoshi said to Dergious, "I've got no power over wind, and I doubt the captain wants me to drop a blizzard on our heads to slow us further..."
---The Eternity drifts through the fog toward the Labyrinth. --
Once to the ship - a huge three-masted affair with the fat belly of a merchant ship - there is a rope that has fallen off the tilted deck. Secured above, it is a convenient way to climb aboard. And once aboard, the storm will close. Belowdecks, that is a good option for any one. The ship is made of sturdy ironwood, and though it is pierced, it has come to a rest upon the reefs. It is safe, it is good. Yet once below, things would be discovered. Not all is as it seems. For within the bowels of the ship lies chaos.
Shown as an ivory-walled labyrinth to some, eternal darkness to others it holds the possibility to change the traveler into a person-that-could-have-been... where the insane become sane and the peaceful turn bloody. It welcomes you, traveler, and it promises safety within the heart of chaos, and in return you will give it a soul-that-could-have-been- for it must be fed. If you deny it, you will face eternity...
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Tenebrae followed disgruntled clacks and butterflies and whispers into the maw of the Labyrinth, the ship's hold seeming to gladly swallow her into its darkness. But while the midnight atmosphere enclosed her she could make out shapes in the dark, as if it was somehow penetrable even with her mortal's eyes, or perhaps it was the persistent butterflies lending some odd luminescence.. In any case, she'd hurry as fast as weighty swords and wounds permitted. "Caedan.. ?" How the crow came to be in the psychic's company she could only guess.
Leoxander would not offer the same pleasant greeting or inquiry Caedan had. They’d hired a pirate for this mission, and they had come to take what they were after by force. At the wheel on the [Upper Deck] now, Leo would steer the ship into treacherous waters, right up along side the Labyrinth with the momentum carried by oars already brought in below the gunwales. A locking peg fixed the ship wheel in place at that angle while he went below, ordering crew on the [Lower Deck] to drop a port side anchor, but be ready and prepared to weigh it back to deck, soon. Trudging around piles of snow balls, to which he spared a brief glance and eyed the feline suspiciously, he was pleased to hear Dergious quick on the commands, but also unwilling to leave the dwarf along on his ship. “You. Bosun.” A point at the dwarf, then when he went to look for one of his better fighters, he figured the cook would likely still be in the galley, fixing pies. Not that he would leave the cat behind, anyhow. “You …” With a growl and a glare directed on Anshera. “The hell is your problem? Can’t you see I’m -trying- to get this over with?” Whether she decided to pull herself together or not, he rallied his band and moved to one side of the ship, where the crew prepared planks for boarding what appeared to be a shipwreck, still miraculously afloat.
Dergious eyes a crewman watching the captain, and stomps over and knocks him flat on his ass with an uppercut. "He be doin whut he be doin... ye do whut I be tellin ye te do! " He says, standing over the man. The dwarf watches the man climb to his feet and moves to continue his duties.
Caedan is reaching for a door, fingers clasped around the handle when all of a sudden the wood warps into a face that sneers, and in a booming voice declares war upon any who enter. Of course, this would be heard upon the Eternity, sounding simultaneously like a menacing whisper and thunderclap to any who heeded the Labyrinth's call. Then, the ship falls oddly silent, even the creaking and groaning still in the darkness. This quiet is disrupted by a bird throwing a veritable temper tantrum in her hand and practically sending her reeling back to Tenebrae, though she'll fight him the whole way. "No, you codpiece of a eunuch. Bastardizing son of a motherless goat. Stop that ruttin -- Oh, it's you. You've found my flutters." She's still clinging to the flapping bird, who's wing is all but detached at this point. "The ship is toying with us. We should hurry." Apparently, and without being told, she knows what to do and she'll spin on heel and march back down the opposite way of the corridor, bird in tow, who has Tenebrae in tow with its beak.
Anshera remains a dishevelled, naked and growling mess, Leoxander's words taking time to sink through the ever shifting labyrinth of her own mind, laid heavy with a crimson fog. Eventually the goal is met, and the polymorph's growl drops into an anxious whine, Leoxander afforded an apologetic, despairing expression. She wouldn't speak an apology, no, she hadn't properly spoken since being parted from Darrien, nor was it in her nature to do so on such a blatant level. Her body language is animalistic, shoulders dropping just slightly to show an ounce of submission - and if luck held out, she might be kept reigned in for a decent spell. It was a tenuous spell though, tightly wound impatience growing with each step closer - something else to prod at her restraing. She drifts towards Leoxander, polymorph quite possibly possessing the least threatening manner she -ever- has.
"Gerroff, y'manky..." The once-goblin wasn't letting go, though, and persistently clung to Tenebrae as the psychic forged onward into the dank timber [Hold/belly] of the ship she'd fought once.. and only partially beaten. "Caedan..." Tene had no hand to swipe the insects from her eyes, as the bird had hold of the sleeve of her good hand, the wounded arm in a rough sling made of the inside of her undershirt. Weapons clanked on her back as she hurried to keep pace. "It want us." It always had, and she knew the psychic knew it. That redundancy spoken, she continued, "They have given up on me, you know. There's to be a new Unmaker. So they don't really care if I live or..." Speaking of dying, here come the skeletons. The necromancer let out a sharp cry, shaking Maladroit free, to reach for her sword.
Meanwhile, a pale boy in white cloak was thudding across the deck toward Leoxander, out of that darkness below, his face lit up like a Yule tree, his expression one of awe and joy combined. "Dad!" The kid, all of thirteen and gangly, stood before the pirate, grinning with a mouth that was very much like Leo's. "I was looking for you." Tenebrae's son gave Anshera a sharp glance, before turning wholly black eyes back to his father.
Leoxander afford Anshera a neutral glance, but nothing in the way of conversation. There were more important matters at hand. Stabbing that stolen weapon into his belt, he crossed the gap between the railings in a jump and landed silently on the [Main Deck of the Labyrinth]. The fog was thicker here, but he heard the approach from the opposite side of the deck. The sleek, engraved sword drawn from his side came from a fitted scabbard, altering from a rusty pirate’s cutlass as it was drawn. He didn’t know which to be shocked about more: the fact that this enemy was a boy calling him ‘Dad’, or the fact that he held a Mariner’s weapon, something of a Royal navy make, with two words cut into the shining silver blade. Turning a quick glance over his shoulder, Leo would first look back to see if anyone else was witnessing this.
Rowen stares in wonder at a butterfly, laughing with childlike joy and innocence.
Leoxander looked back at the boy.
Caedan lets go of Maladroit too, though he had been useful. Of course, his first order of business is to get all up in Tene's face while Caedan's feathers appear not the slightest bit ruffled at the sight of a brigade of skeletons clacking towards them. The psychic leaves the ex-vampire to fend them off as she makes her way to the walls and listens intently to each rotting panel. She responds as she goes along the corridor, "You. Me. Us. We're the same. Maker. Unmaker. Light. Dark. It's all the same. There isn't one without the other, so of course it wants both." There are tendrils of black snaking along the floorboards, wrapping around boots and slithering up legs before receding again. "Ship's toying. Hunting. Cap'n must not come below." She turns, curbing Tenebrae a very pointed and prolonged stare. "He must not follow." She's well aware that Tenebrae will be contending with rabid skeletons at this point, but her point needs to be made nevertheless. After some poking and prodding, she'll mumble a quiet, "About ruttin' time," as something gives way.
Anshera was witnessing it, surely, lithe woman making her way after the Captain, following closer to her goal. She frowns lightly at the boy, studying him with a silent, clinical manner before she shrugs, turning to instead observe something flickering in the corner of her eye. What she finds is very image of her twin sons, children still, birthed of her, and Vuryal's flesh. They were a testament to Diiroehn's power, that he had created a life, in turn capable of producing life herself! Death, had created Life! Her expression brightens, gaining that faint air of true expression usually reserved for Diiroehn. The Children. Oh how long have they been gone? She could scarcely recall. Her expression falters, however, falling back into guarded blankness. They feared her. Hated her! Their own mother.
Tenebrae was pretty busy, at that point, shoving Maladroit out of her way in a flurry of loose black pinions, before cleaving a rotting skull and side-stepping a half-rusted-away blade that hit her, only to bend and crumble uselessly against tough leather armours. "Ngghh!" was the reply the psychic got for her efforts-- though there'd be a few more sounds left for future conversation, words were pushed aside as Tene battled a skeleton crew with one hand tied. Feet were more useful against the small and mindless horde of guards, this one kicked to smithereens, that one suffering an ungraceful roundhouse kick that sent its bony pate skittering against timber, to a soft implosion of bone and dust. Once she'd laid the three low, Tene peered into the gloom, where sat her crow, clacking. "Cae...dan...?"
Leoxander held the weapon right for the boy’s head, but the youth dodged it wearing that grin and stepped in to slip his arms around the rogue’s belted waist, leaving the criminal bewildered and speechless. A higher pitch voice piped up for him. “Give me a break!” The kid laughed, looking up through the straight strands of blonde that hung over his eyes; eye so dark it was impossible not to see that knowing stare through it. Leo dropped what must be a cursed weapon to push at the boy’s shoulders, at once. “Knock it off, I’m here on business.” A thief, he guessed, or some undead assuming a vision that would put the rogue in a vulnerable position. And he wasn’t going to fall for it. But as he separated the child from his waist and saw the sad look washing over ghostly pale features, he thought maybe… he recognized that face from somewhere.
Caedan is invisible. Or rather, most of her is, aside from the hand that reaches out from behind a false panel to abruptly and unceremoniously yank Tenebrae in with her. They are inside another small corridor -- this one much different than the one previous. This one smacks of sincerity, truth -- but in that truth is a great deal of danger. It's almost as if this hall were built for safe passage, for those working on the ship, its seamen or builders, to go about their errands before being driven mad (which they must have all undoubtedly been soon thereafter). A half second later, a bald-patched bird would be tugged in with the duo, and the plank allowed to fall back in place. "We've got to hurry. You can say hello, but we mustn't stay for tea." It's dark and she's digging in her pockets for a match while already striding forward down the narrow, moldy corridor.
Leoxander turned away from the boy decisively once he remembered where he’d seen that sorrowful expression before. He shouldered open a stubborn door with a crack of timber, and went inside that ghost-ship maze to find his bride, led by the insane.
Leoxander vanished before your eyes, perhaps never to be seen again.
Tenebrae trotted after Caedan like a kid at a funhouse park, and sheathed her sword in order to free her one hand to remove a skeleton-remnant's grip appending the hem of her vest. The bony fist fell free to rank boards, and when she'd caught the psychic's side, Tene turned to the girl. Maladroit waddled uneasily at their feet, silent now. "Got to be careful. Place plays with your mind, like the other-- " she stopped, feeling foolish of a sudden for her un-needful blather. "Anyway, you should be careful." No ill-effects here in the [Safe Corridor], it seemed. Her gaze flicked ahead. "You know where we're going?" Another stupid question, her frown illumined by a match's flare.
Caedan loses her match and hisses as it burns her fingers. By the time Tenebrae's eyes might adjust to the dark, she's gone without explanation.
Tenebrae blinked her eyes until pitch-dark brightened to bare visibility again, to find .. no Caedan. Bewildered, she'd follow a few steps until meeting what seemed a dead end, doorless. Turning her back to it, she sighed and sank to her heels. What could anyone expect of a place like this? Maladroit waddled close, a baleful gaze set upon the necromancer. The bird's beak opened, then, odd sound emerging. "You're imprisoned here. They need to save you, too." Tene gaped a little. That voice... the mute bird-throat was no tool for mimicry. And she -knew- that voice..
Anshera barely heard the words Ingham and Sandrim were shrieking at her; saw only the hatred in their eyes and manner, and the fear causing their limbs to tremble as they clutched to each other. There was turmoil roiling in her mind, rage and anguish wavering and melding until they're practically indistinguishable to her in that very instant. She lashes out, arm swinging, morphing with such rapidity, that the transformation strikes only just before her polymorphed arm strikes at Sandrim's neck, cleaving clear through, decapitating both he and Ingham. Her arm returns to normal barely a second before her children's heads tumble to the ground, blood spurting in a gruesome, twin fountain. Her voice rises mournfully, but she has no time to waste. She had to find him. She had to find Diiroehn, his existence more important to her than /anyone/ else's. Still, a tear lingered at the corner of an eye; she'd never forget what she'd done to her children. -Her- children. Never.
Having left the sundered bones of the First Guard in her wake, Tene remained sitting with her back against the featureless wall of the apparently [Safe Corridor] that led to .. nowhere.. but presumably held an entrance at some point to whatever mayhemic maze Caedan had disappeared into. She sunk her head to rest on one knee, her functioning arm draped over the other. In this oddly quiet space, after an indeterminable amount of time, thoughts of the morning's dreams came back to her-- any hey, they were a step up from worrying about what lay beyond.
Tene smiled wryly, thinking of Leo as an Admiral, of herself as some powerful Queen. And of Lucien... Her smile faded, mind drifting back to the eight years she'd spent with Castellian in the obsidian Pool, ostensibly as a happy family until.. Until Leo and the others came looking for her, tore her from that delirious fantasy which ended, ultimately, in the Drow Lord's death. And now there was a new and more hideous scar to add to her guilty wounds-- the issue of Lucien's parentage. It was this thought that roused her from such maudlin indulgence-- after all, Lucien did not really exist... there was this no such damning evidence of betrayal, of infidelity... she had never really borne a child. A bitter laugh escaped the woman, at the irony of it all, at her own stupidity. Yet even now, a vision of Lucien, her own pale progeny, persisted in her mind. Tenebrae made a chiding noise at herself, and stood up in order to better study the walls. No time for such thoughts. There had to be a way out of here...