.o2 :: Dead People Smell.
"Oh," she had been saying for the past three hours, and now Lysia was starting to get annoyed with her, "it's so very green here."
"I am so glad you've finally taken notice," muttered the impatient archer as she plucked at her bowstring impatiently. Fall's comments on the flora of Payon's forests had made this a very, very long journey indeed. Thank goodness now they were on the last leg of it. She and the other archer, a frail looking blond boy by the name of Irian, had accompanied Fall on her assignment to Payon along with a knight and his apprenticed swordsman. Well, Takraf was a swords-boy as far as Fall was concerned. He couldn't have been any older than her, and he certainly didn't act older.
"I've heard," he had sneered as they pushed through the dense foliage, "Your mother was a dancing girl from the west deserts. A whore."
"Nobody knows who my mother was. You better shut up about her." Her fists shook, "Or else I'mma' get you good, right in your ugly face."
"And what kinds of words are these for a child of God?" the supervising knight said coolly, ruffling her hair harshly so that she flinched under his strong hands. He said nothing of reprimand to his young apprentice. In all honesty she hadn't thought much about it. If she thought speaking graciously won you God's favors, she'd have expected the priestesses to all live much longer than they often did. Instead they – and their male counterparts too of course - seemed to die by the dozens in various ways, but most related to Glast Heim somehow. Fall was not too worried that a bit of "lip" every now and then should affect her longevity so very greatly. Besides, if He was anything like they said He was, she supposed He'd forgive her.
"A- at any rate," Irian stuttered in an attempt to break the tension "We'll be there soon. Look, I can almost see the mouth of the cave."
"I don't see anything," Takraf announced irritably. Fall graciously informed him, "That's because you don't have an archer's eyes."
"And I suppose a runt like you would?"
"Yes," she said with a flip of her hair, "because I'm amazing and a prodigy child."
"Hmmph!" He folded his arms and looked critically at her. "Isn't pride supposed to be a sin, aco'?"
"You just be glad stupidity isn't, else you'd be damned for sure." Lysia couldn't contain a giggle at this, and the joke improved as Takraf began to yell futile retorts, with bad grammar. All fell silent at the disapproving grunt of the knight behind them and remained so until they reached the entrance to their destination. They hovered on the doorstep of something undoubtedly sinister, peering in. Not even Lysia or Irian could see into the darkness from outside.
"So," the knight muttered in a gravely tone, "are we all clear on what we do in here?"
"We shoot," Lysia confirmed.
"I slice things."
"And I -" cover everyone's ass. "Heal."
"Very good." He edged them forward, and slowly each figure slipped into the darkness. "In you go now."
Stepping in was almost like going though a vale that sucked light away. Though the entrance glowed brightly behind her, it seemed all light was lost after that. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and see Lysia ready with her bow waiting, Irian standing behind her and Takraf still rubbing his eyes. The air was considerably colder and harder to breathe, it was thicker. Strange sounds signaled that something moved in the darkness, which was slowly becoming more and more clear as her eyes were able to catch a subtle glow from somewhere farther in the cave. "What was that?" she wondered softly, her bravado fading.
"Didn't you bother to read the report on what's in these caverns?"
"No," she admitted.
"Poporings."
"Familiars."
"Zombies."
"Zombies...?"
"Dead people," Lysia said. "Corpses who have come alive again." Well, she knew that, but nobody had told her there would actually be any in here.
Irian laughed a little, "that would explain the smell."
"Smell? Dead people? I don't want to." Fall yelped when the knight pushed her forward roughly. "You lot are wasting time. We only have so long before nightfall and we'll have to return to Payon village. Get going."
"There are zombies in Glast Heim, too..."
So she and Aaviel would be fighting the same thing. Fall wondered if she was ready for that. But of course the church wouldn't send her somewhere she couldn't survive already, and if anyone was going to get killed she was sure God would make the right decision and kill Takraf first. But Aaviel… he must've come back already. It'd taken them the better half of a month to travel to Payon, even if he and the others were late coming back from Glast Heim he'd have arrived by now. Or did he not come back at all? The thought chilled her more than the thick, stale air of the caves.
No, of course he...
Skritch skritch.
"Stop." Fall recognized Lysia's voice even as the echoes of the cave distorted its sound, though her figure and Irian's were merely shadows. "What? What is it?" Takraf shoved her aside to move to the back of their group. "I don't hear or see anything."
"No," the acolyte breathed. "Listen."
Scratching, yes. She could hear it now, and so could he.
"Light, Acolyte."
"Oh, um..." her mind stumbled over the words to the proper spell. She summoned it with the final word of the incantation as it played in her head, "Ruwatch."
Like spirits, two glowing balls of blue shot out from around her, circling her and illuminating the cave. They were in one of the smaller passageways, surrounded by damp walls and ahead of them loomed an eerie figure with discolored skin and at times visible bones. Though Fall only had a second to gasp at it, Lysia had reacted immediately and sent her first arrow into its shoulder. The zombie groaned but did not seem to react otherwise and Irian quickly followed the other archer's lead. When it was successfully 'pin-cushioned' with arrows Fall at last found her voice and cast heal, watching the decomposing body crumble away with the final attack. She could swear she saw something bright escape from the decrepit husk as it sank to the ground.
"Well that's over with." Takraf said in a relieved tone.
"You didn't do anything at all!" Lysia scolded, as she and Irian turned around to face him, though hr seemed to be looking past the swordsman. "You're supposed to be here at the front!"
Oh, Fall was grinning like a madwoman now as Takraf stuttered nonsense, preparing a reply.
"Guys," Irian said with a sort of nervous lilt in his voice. "Where's Sir Dhar'el?"
"Who's that?" Fall muttered, barely finishing her question before Lysia cut in with "Oh dear god, girl..."
"Dhar'el," he said again with a nervous smile, the darkness closing in now. "Our knight. Where is our knight?"
