A Rafael Interlude
Rafael felt like a useless coward.
It wasn't the first time. He was getting used to getting over it, as it was probably never going to go away now that he was engaged to the most capable, dangerous, and beautiful woman in Sorcier.
He turned and left behind the woman he loved to face a monster out of myth and nightmare as he ran for the door, useless sword flopping at his waist. He burst out the door from the inferno inside the cabin into the cool dark night. The ground before him was lit by the light shining from the door at his back, and he was forcibly reminded there was a dead ogre and piles of ogre filth just outside.
Behind him, there was a roar of pain and rage, and then a crash.
Careful with his step, he circled the cabin in time to see someone climbing out a window on the upper floor, more than thirty feet up.
"Larna!" he called up.
His former director looked down at him, straddling the lip of the window, and reached inside, pulling out her pack. "Catch!" she said, throwing her pack at him. It was heavy, but he was proud to say he didn't fall over from it as he worried he might. He set it down in time to see Larna leaping down with a much cleaner Alice Campbell in her arms covered by a clean blanket. Wind roared under her feet, catching her and slowing her fall, allowing her to land on her feet.
There was a crack as an ankle broke. Larna hissed in pain but didn't drop her passenger. Rafael hurriedly took Alice from her, carrying her over his shoulderas Larna leaned against the cabin's wall, gasping in pain. "I'm all right," she said, breathing through her teeth.
"turn around and raise up your foot so I can touch it," Rafael said, adjusting Alice slightly as he reached for–
There was a roar and whoosh, and roof of the cabin blasted upward in a pillar of flame. Lowering herself down from the window, Anne let out a cry as she let herself drop just before a hand smashe through the wall next to it and set it on fire. Anne hit the wall on her way down, and was deflected away before landing on her feet and, by the sound of it, cracking both ankles and more besides.
"Ow…" she said blandly, plainly trying not to move. Her shoulder was at a strange angle, clearly dislocated.
"I told you to wait!" Larna said as Rafael, put his hand on her ankle and called his Light Magic, letting the blessing of the sun heal her injury. While not as powerful as Maria, he wasn't weak and Larna was gingerly, then more firmly, putting weight on her foot.
"I've been in one burning building," Anne said, still on the ground. From the sound of it, she was also trying to breathe through her teeth. "I'd rather not repeat the experience."
Rafael passed Alice to Larna, who had to take a moment to make sure the unconscious woman was still covered up properly before carrying her, and went over to Anne to heal her.
Behind them, there was a roar, soon followed by an enormous fist punching through the wall of the cabin, sending pieces of burning planks flying. Then another crash as a whole wall broke, and the giant, horned, flabby, flaming monster erupted from the opening, leaping through the air gracelessly and crashed out into the woods, Maria hanging from the monster by her sword stabbed into its neck. They crashed into trees, which broke like twigs and immediately caught fire, lighting up the night and cast flickering shadows all through the woods.
As the monster screamed in rage and pain once more, this time Rafael heard it being met with Maria's cry of rage and fury. They tumbled down the slope towards the lake amidst more crashing trees, which of course caught fire.
Rafael felt slightly less guilty about leaving Maria alone. Slightly.
"Larna," Rafael said, still healing Anne, who was breathing easier now, "Any ogres?"
"Doesn't look like it, but I couldn't go far," Larna said, laying Alice down again so she could use her magic to make Maria's mother float.
"And Maria has the gehrmans," Rafael sighed. "Larna, when we get back, you're to build handheld a magic tool that can kill an ogre in one hit, preferably from a long way away. That's an order."
"Yes, vice-director," Larna said, sounding surprisingly serious as she made Alice rise up a few hand-widths above the ground. This would at least help them move faster. "How's the maid?"
"In pain, but healing," Anne said, even as Rafael insisted on feeling her ankles first to make sure they'd healed up straight. "Let's go. That monster wants to hurt Alice again– ARGH!"
"Sorry," Rafael said as he finished setting her dislocated shoulder into place and killing the pain with Light Magic. "Better?"
Anne rotated her shoulder. "Much."
Taking a few burning bits of cabin as torches, they ran through the night back to Hinderstap, hoping they didn't run into any ogres. As they ran, Rafael had to wonder: where had the Dark Magic-user gone?
Despite how quiescent it was now, Maria didn't dare let go of the darkness in her hand, crushed into her fist as it was. She could still feel it there, a tranquil dark like the oblivion behind your eyelids as you drifted to sleep after a long day.
But it was still darkness, and it had still been killing her mother.
So she kept it in her fist, lest it… well, any number of horrible things. Become part of this beast and make it stronger, become a second nightmare out of myth, become a dragon for all she knew. She was not letting it out of her fist.
It was a decision she was really regretting staying with as she was unable to use her left hand to draw one of her pistols. No matter the size of the beast, a well-timed pistol shot was all you needed to give yourself an opening to tear at it. The beast that had been Estella Almera was a thing of fire and darkness, a primordial parody of a woman. Its size and the days of rain worked to Maria's advantage, in a way. The ground was too sodden, and it's weight too great, to allow it to scramble back up the slope. Her mother was safe… until they reached the bottom and the beast could circle around and find a gentler slope to climb.
Given that such a slope would go through Hinderstap, she had added incentive to kill it before them.
As if she needed any more.
She slid, the ground only slightly less treacherous beneath her feet, lit by the beast's fiery glow. It was trying to climb it the slope, grasping at trees it had slammed into and broken as it tried to pull itself up, lighting them on fire as a result. Maria didn't let it, charging up the slope despite the treacherous ground, her saber glowing dully as she hacked repeatedly at the thing's thick, blubbery posterior. It roared, immediately whirling in place, tearing the trees around it and causing it to slide downslope again as frantically dodged its tail, its foot that tried to stomp at her even as it slid, and the enormous, flaming arms. She attacked its face once more, slashing at the vaguely feminine, shriveled, corpse-like features. Despite doing minimal harm, attacking its face drove the beast into a rage, causing it to focus on Maria, allowing her to lead it back and forth along the slope, it's wild swings and falls slowly bringing them lower and lower.
Away from the cabin.
Away from Maria's mother and beloved.
It had cost her. The shifting terrain had been a threat even to her, and she while she'd managed to avoid direct hits from the beast's appendages, unexpected falls, slamming into trees, being slammed by trees, and once having a ball of fire slamming into her back had taken its toll. Thankfully her powder hadn't gone off, but she hadn't had time to heal herself since she was busy avoiding getting hurt even more, and her injuries were taking their toll.
She'd dropped the bottles of oil. Something that was already on fire was unlikely to care about being set even more on fire.
And then they stopped sliding down.
The beast stumbled at the sudden change, slamming into trees and clearing a small space at instantly caught on fire as fallen wood burned. They were on a small ledge that ended in another slope. It was narrow, and had the beast stumbled a little father it would have hit the continuing slope and continued downward. Now, however, on ground that was level enough that it wouldn't slip despite the mud, it turned burning, hateful eyes at Maria, who had just managed to stop on the slope. She was completely exposed, surrounded by torn ground and fallen trees that shifted treacherously on the soft ground and each other.
Maria got ready to run, to move, to fight.
With a roar, the beast grabbed a burning tree at its feet, causing the whole length of the tree to come alight, and threw the tree at Maria.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
Fire, and heavy trees on fire, fell from the sky as Maria scrambled to dodge out of the way. She evaded the first, and the second and the third.
And then there were too many to count and dodge, and something heavy and on fire slammed into her from uphill. She went rolling, tumbling gracelessly down the slope. She stabbed her sword into the ground to slow herself, her feet sliding downwards as she–
The large, burning arm seemed to come out of nowhere as it swung in a wide, painful arc, and the wind was knocked out of her as Maria was sent flying through the air, slammed into a burning tree, and then into another tree that was still upright and intact.
It was a small blessing the impact put out the parts of her clothes that were on fire as Maria fell to the ground.
The beast roared. Did she imagine the tone of triumph in its cry?
Familiar pain wracked her body as Maria struggled to her feet. Her sword hand glowed with eldritch light as she tried to heal what she could while the beast roared.
And then it was charging at in her the little space, and Maria was rushing to meat as she leapt, spinning, into the air, her sword arcing as she moved to slam down into the beast with all the force she could muster.
Estella Almera, The Covetous Demon of Hatred
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Lady Maria Campbell, The Daughter of Alice
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A Katarina Interlude
"Ah, I'm glad it didn't rain today!" Katarina said to her mother as they stepped down from the carriage. "It was so much less gloomy!"
"We made good time because of it," her mother agreed.
Laughing gaily, the mother and daughter entered the inn they would be staying in for the night.