Episode 6: Monsters!
20th of Cassus
The camp was still as they picked up after breakfast, and the quiet was driving Odd mad. He was getting antsy as he waited for someone, anyone, in the group to begin speaking, but they all remained stubbornly silent. So rather than just calmly break the silence, he decided then that he would make his own fun. He sized up his friends and after evaluating who was most likely to drop what they were doing to have fun, Odd prepared a snowball and threw it at Aelita. She yelped when it struck the back of her neck, exploding and sending icy crystals down her coat, and she glared at Odd. Aelita lifted the snow from the ground and collected it into a snowball that was easily twice the size of Odd's head.
Cursing himself for having forgotten she was a mage, Odd sprinted away from her. She raised her snowball magically over her head and chased after him. He shot up a nearby tree and perched on a branch out of the way. She stopped at the base of the tree, looking up at Odd. She rolled her eyes and began to drop the snowball. It froze in midair, and she flicked her wrist. The snowball defied gravity and shot straight up, pausing just long enough for Odd to scold himself for thinking a tree would stop her. It struck him with such force to knock him out of the tree, sending him down to the snowy earth below. Aelita smirked as she stood over him. "I believe the saying goes, 'revenge is a dish best served cold'."
"I'll serve you cold," Odd hissed as he knocked snow from his face.
She laughed loudly at him, but she jumped when she turned and saw Yumi. "Lethallan, you scared me. I didn't hear you approach." Aelita admitted.
Yumi offered her hand to Odd. "You shouldn't be playing in the snow. You should be saving your energy for the trip into town. It'll take us a long time to get there." She said seriously.
Aelita almost looked hurt. "I was just… he had already…"
The Colonist held up her hand. "Enough. We're moving out soon." She said flatly as she walked away, a strange quality to her stride. Aelita and Odd both watched her with great concern.
"Do you know if Yumi is feeling alright? She's acting strangely and I didn't see her eat anything this morning." Aelita said.
Odd shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's something in the water."
She rolled her eyes and rushed back to help the others finish picking up camp.
The sky was crystal-clear, and Odd looked up to the moon. Or he would have, if the moon had been present. That night on the eve of the solstice the moon was new. Yet he felt his wolf-blood stir within him, as if the moon were full. It felt strange, not quite like a transformation but like everything around him was fuzzy and unreal.
His veins boiled and pulsed, and he started to sweat. He removed his bear-skin cloak and walked out into the open air. The snow that twisted up from the strong icy winds melted as soon as it brushed his burning skin. Things started to fade in and out. Sometimes he was in Aria, the name of the town the Heroes were staying in, and other times he was in the middle of a dark depressing forest where the full moon constantly beat down on him.
Odd rushed through that forest happily, for there it felt like he was invincible. When the forest gave way to Aria, he felt lost and very confused. He convinced himself that the forest was what was real and Aria was the dream.
Night showed no signs of waning and he was hungry, so he searched the forest for food. He spotted a large deer in the brush, and smirking, he leapt upon it. It was only now he realized he had his moonborn strength without his monstrous form, and he took advantage of it to snap the deer's neck. Looking around, Odd could find no way to cook the deer, and being a werewolf, he decided to simply eat it raw.
The forest gave way to Aria, and while the forest usually returned after a couple of minutes, this time it remained the small farming village. Odd thought nothing of it until he moved to take another bite out of the deer's leg, as that's when he noticed he was not eating a deer. His eyes widened in horror when he saw the mangled and half-eaten corpse of a young man not much older than himself lying in the snow.
Odd jumped up, and, feeling afraid, he washed his bloody hands and face in the snow. He was so afraid of what had happened; he could only hope that it was a dream. And like a dream the path he took back to the tavern was unclear, twisty and long like a labyrinth in an ancient legend. When he found his way back he found a common mirror and examined his reflection. The Scout washed the remaining blood from his hands, clothes and face before he looked closer at his reflection. His eyes had turned bright orange, like they were in his wolf form.
Peculiarly all he could manage to do was cackle like a mad hyena. He didn't understand why he was laughing, because he wasn't amused and there was nothing funny about what he had done, but hard as he tried, his laughter would not stop.
21st of Cassus
The group had left Aria behind, much to Odd's relief. Aelita expressed her unease at travelling on the solstice but she admitted that they didn't have much of a choice. Jeremie simply urged the Heroes to be cautious, as slavers had been known to take advantage of the rebellion in Replika to increase the number of slaves they had.
Yumi pointed up to a tree, and when the others looked, not even Odd could see what she pointed at. She tied her rabbit mask behind her ears, disappearing from sight and not even leaving footprints or making a 'crunch' as she rushed across the snow.
Yumi had spotted a man in that tree, and after studying him for a while, she concluded that he was, in fact, a slaver. She bent her knees and jumped as high as she could, landing softly on the high branch the slaver sat on. As she reached to take his dagger, the sun reached high noon and the invisibility given to Yumi by her mask faded. The slaver turned and shouted, but Yumi was too quick for him. The Colonist snatched his dagger and slashed at his throat.
Before she jumped down, she found a map that detailed the ambush location. She smiled beneath her mask as she walked back towards the Heroes. "A scout for a group of slavers. This is their ambush location. I don't know if you want to ambush them or go around, but here it is." She explained as she gave the map to Jeremie.
Yumi deftly untied the string on the back of her mask, and she held her face down in anticipation for it to fall. It didn't.
Confused, she pulled on it, but the more she pulled the tighter it seemed to become. Ulrich was the first to pick up on her dilemma, and he dug his nails under the mask to try to pry it off. The others excluding Aelita held onto Ulrich to offer their strength, but nothing worked. Aelita blew a note on her flute to summon Samahlin, and she used the smaller curved blade to dig under it. The Outcast channeled a lot of magic into the end of the staff, and eventually she had collected enough to force the mask from Yumi's face.
This presented only more problems. The mask cracked as it struck Ulrich's skull, and Yumi started to scream bloody murder. From her body rose tiny amounts of smoke, as if she burned in the sun. Ulrich ignored his splitting headache as he ripped off his coat and threw it over Yumi, and while she still screamed and burned, it was not as intense.
The Heroes rushed inside of the aravel, trying their best to shield Yumi from the sun. As soon as Yumi had sat down on one of the cots, Laura tried to heal her burns. None of her healing spells worked. Jeremie held back, covering his mouth and nose. "Gods, Yumi. You're a vampire. I can feel it."
Yumi looked at him with glowing orange eyes. "What?!"
Odd looked at Jeremie. "That must be what changed about you. You can sense vampires now, can't you?" He asked.
"I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I can only tell because I'm psychically linked to all of you. We may never know." Jeremie shrugged.
Odd laughed, though what Jeremie had said was not humorous. "Anyway, Belpois is right. You're a vampire. I can smell it on you."
Ulrich shook his head. "I don't understand. How did this happen?" He asked.
Jeremie tilted his head. "I don't know. Perhaps the mask was cursed?"
"I did notice… strange things when I put it on." Yumi admitted.
Laura folded her arms. "It explains a lot though. Why my healing spells don't work on you anymore, why you haven't been sleeping well, why you haven't eaten anything recently…"
"How do we cure it?" Ulrich asked, fear obvious in his voice.
Aelita seemed uncomfortable. "The only way I know of is to kill the forebear, but Yumi was turned by the mask. I'd suggest breaking it to see what happens, but it's already broken and that appears to be what triggered the vampirism." She drew her dagger and cut open her own wrist, presenting it to Yumi. "Drink this. It should heal your wounds."
Yumi seemed apprehensive, but Aelita shot her a reassuring smile. She bit down on Aelita's wrist, drinking her blood. Indeed, her wounds healed, but she was filled with this sense of corruption that would not fade.
Laura looked at Jeremie. "Perhaps we should contact the magistrates? They deal with vampires a lot."
Jeremie seemed almost offended. "What? Are you mad?"
Ulrich agreed with the Wise Man. "We have a werewolf, a blood mage and now a vampire in our company. We'd all end up dangling from the hangman's noose or burned at the stake before we were given a cure!"
"We must do something!" Laura argued. "Maybe you could contact Patrick? The Eluvian showed us that he is still alive, correct?"
Jeremie admitted that it was true Patrick was alive. Odd smiled weakly at him. "It would be nice to see him again."
"I'll write to him. But I'll be vague." Jeremie admitted defeat.
Aelita stood straighter. "I'll get to work on creating a way for Yumi to remain with us during the day. I know some embroidery that should help." She took a needle, silver thread and Yumi's dark blue cloak.
Odd looked at Yumi. She was paler now, and her eyes showed fear. He hated vampires, but this was Yumi. Surely she would be different.
Yumi tried to cry as the Heroes excluding Ulrich and Jeremie left the aravel. It jerked into motion, and she started whimpering. No tears would come. The Mercenary took her hand and squeezed it. "It's okay, Yumi. Everything will be alright."
"How can you tell?" She asked.
"Because I won't let anything happen to you," he said firmly.
Jeremie smiled, but then he coughed. "We're walking on thin ice now, you know. We'll have to be extra careful."
Ulrich groaned sarcastically. "I thought we were already being extra careful. Does this mean we have to be extra, extra careful?" Jeremie nodded with a smile. "Damn."