Chapter Two:
At some point she dozed off, once she had finally gotten used to the putrid smell that lingered in the swamp. She couldn't remember when she had fallen asleep, but she certainly remembered when she woke up. There was the distant sound of a snapped twig that drifted into her dream, which was quickly shattered there after by her hippogriff's piercing peacock-like scream. She sat bolt upright on the log and scrambled to her feet, her hands held out in front of her like deadly weapons. "Jeremiah," she cried out shrilly as she side-stepped towards her griff, who pulled vainly on his tie and reared on his back legs in a dead panic. At the sound of her scream her companion had come running back, his pale leather breeches covered up to his waist in mud and muck, and his crossbow, one she hadn't even known he had brought, pulled and ready to be fired. He looked determined, although he was paler than death. "We're in trouble aren't we?" She asked him shakily as little electrical sparks driven on by anxiety rolled up the palms of her hands to branch out between her fingers. Jeremiah, not the best known speaker under pressure, only nodded.
"Great," she squeaked as her pale eyes skittered madly around their camp looking for whatever would have caused her griff to scream so in the night. There were splashes and clatters to accompany the very alien sounding screams and shouts enclosing them more and more with each passing second. Eventually they stepped into the light, long thin pointed noses and gnarled bat like ears suddenly thrown into sharp relief by the waning firelight. Many of them were hunched over and carried everything from stick to bows to things that resembled rudimentary pitchforks. "A raiding party?" She asked quietly, her back now pressed up against his as they stared down a circle that had them trapped where they were. "Mm...most likely working for that crazy guy everyone's so terrified these days," Jeremiah confirmed with a nod. Somewhere in the back of the circle was the one that had to start the downhill battle, that one guy who always broke the standoff by screaming or shouting something insulting as they ran forward to meet their doom.
This one met his fate at Shiirai's hand, as a sharp white bolt of electrical energy leapt from her hand and struck him in the chest, the shock enough to knock him back through his brothers and throw his system off track enough to stop his heart and kill him. Things carried on this way for a short while, but violently. At some point the meager defense they put up became too weak to stop the swarm of goblins, a point they realized when one leapt through and pounced Jeremiah to the ground. Shiirai became so involved with trying to bandy the goblin about the head enough that it would release its hold on her friend that she failed to notice that the others were encroaching quickly on them. She latched her hand onto the back of the goblin's head in the end and sent a shock through the back of his skull, and thus rendered the troublesome creature immobile, to say the very least.
She scrambled to help Jeremiah stand, her keen mind already convinced that they were, in fact, doomed. Oh, what attractive animals, she thought privately, they drool AND they smell. Great. Death by tooth decay. She was nearly resigned to the fact they there were going to be fodder for the smelly, disfigured attackers when there was a sharp crack and a hideous rumbling. It caused the swamp water to leap up and the marshy ground underfoot to groan miserably. It also distracted the goblins, who turned to look over their collectively grey green shoulders at the source of the disturbance, a slender woman in a long white cloak. She had her hood pulled up over her face and a long gnarled stick in her hands, which she had thrust downwards into the murk. Her hands were wrapped up in white silk that went up her arms further and disappeared into the confines of her sleeves. With her stick firmly in the mud she released her hold on the rod, her hands cupped and held out before her like she was offering the goblins something.
This seemed to disturb everyone but Shiirai and Jeremiah, who were simply confused by the woman. Their animals however, began to buck and pull on their ties in an attempt to flee the area, and the goblins began to slowly back away from her, as though she had some contagious disease that she was going to spread simply by being in their proximity. Her hands began to fill with a wavering purple black light that began to get brighter and larger and threatened to simply spill out of her hands more than once. All at once it did simply spill from her hands and it hit the water with a deafening crack. The water shuddered and threw itself outwards, away from the impact, and carried an atrocious squeal with it, like something corrosive on Styrofoam. Everything that it touched shuddered in the same manner and simply fell over, in the case of the goblins, with their eyes wide and a look of abject horror on their faces. It splashed almost calmly against the other sparse outcroppings of land and dispersed the magick upon impact.
The woman looked around her calmly and upon seeing that all of the goblins were dead and the two that were under attack were well, she pulled her stick up from the murk, took her cloak in hand, and wandered up onto the piece of ground they had camp on. Shiirai was breathless, both with thanks and awe at the power the woman had commanded just moments before, and yet all she could manage was, "Who are you?" The woman smiled under her hood and pulled it back to reveal a youthful and distinctively elfin face. "Taelia, and yourselves?" Her hair was jet black and nothing but a myriad of braids and strands with tied in beads. Her outfit was entirely white and hidden beneath that white cloak. She had the same short breeches that Shiirai wore, but hers had a thin strip of silken material that hung down the front and the back. There was a stiff sort of soft leather that ran up her sides from her pants and connected to her top, a form fitting, but comfortable piece of white leather that buckled directly up the center. Said top covered her ribs to her collarbone quite successfully, but left her back completely unguarded, as that was nothing more than ties of white silk that crisscrossed over her broad back.
Shiirai all but stumbled forward and took the woman's hand in her own, "Shiirai, and this is Jeremiah. He doesn't say much." Jeremiah only waved and tried vainly not to stare at the elf's slender face. She had high cheekbones and pale tan skin that only augmented the vivid green gold eyes under the dark hair that framed her face. Her lips parted in an almost smirking smile. "You're from High City, young girl. What did you study?" Shiirai looked stunned that the woman had pegged her so easily and her shock at the entire situation completely blotted out the shape of the large animal that was slowly walking up behind Taelia. Jeremiah's however, did not. He made a noise of surprise and grabbed for his crossbow, which caught Shiirai's attention and turned it towards the creature. It towered over Taelia, at least eight foot high at the shoulder. It had three sets of narrowed, spider like eyes and tusks that stuck out and began to curve up towards its face. The teeth behind these tusks interlocked and only added to the animal's already sinister appearance. It was shaggy all over and had a heavy ruff of hyena spotted fur around its neck and shoulders, which eventually faded into a thin trail that led down to its overly long and whip-like tail. Its feet were the size of dinner platters and armed with nasty looking claws that dug into the ground each time it put a foot down. Taelia flailed a hand at both of them and reached back to lay a hand on the animal's sloping, bull terrier type snout. "No! No, this is my pet! His name is Imam, he won't hurt you."
Jeremiah looked highly like he didn't believe that at all, but dropped his crossbow to his side anyway. "What is that thing!?" Shiirai cried out as she backtracked away from the two of them. "Imam? He's a chimera, or, as most books will label him, a hellbeast. I raised him myself." Taelia turned towards the creature's face and lightly kissed it on the nose, something that made Jeremiah curl his lip slightly. "I ride him." Imam turned from them and padded over near the other animals, something neither of them minded and laid down, resting his heavy head on his two front feet, much like a cat. Shiirai's griff, whom no one had bothered to ask about a name for, wandered over and lay down next to the large creature, moving over so that their shoulders were pressed together, a thing that made Taelia laugh. "What is the name of your pet, Shiirai?" She paused to think here. She had never had much call to name him; she had always called him 'animal' or 'pet' when she was calling for him. "Reynaud." She finally spat out and nodded, as though that made it final. Jeremiah sniggered softly and looked over to her lamely. ''You just made that up didn't you?" Shiirai blushed furiously and glared at him, "I most certainly did not!" This only made Taelia laugh again and she patted the girl's arm lightly. "Regardless, it is a good name. Reynaud it is."