Post by goblingirl on Mar 22, 2007 17:28:17 GMT -5
Ta daaa...
I woke again, drowsily to voices.
‘Are we going to kill her or not?’
‘Is shooting fish in a barrel a hobby of yours?’
‘Oh look, it’s awake.’
Five pale faces turned to stare at her, before reverting to their conversation.
‘Maybe we can-’
‘What, hold her hostage? That's SO LAME.’
‘Yes, but they're 'HEROES', of course they'll come rescue her.’
‘Yes, but... there's no style in it.’
I decided to make myself known. ‘LET ME GO, YOU HEARTLESS FIENDS!’
They blinked.
‘Um….no?’
I tried to stand up, but found that my foot had been tethered to a tree like an animal.
‘Hey!’
They ignored me. ‘HEY!’
‘What?!’
‘Let me go!’
‘Shut up, Mummy and Daddy are talking.’
‘About EATING me?’
‘No, about drinking your blood. Distinct difference.’
‘Never liked eating people. Get stuck in the teeth.’
‘Really? I liked it. Kind of like….champagne truffles.’
I blinked this time. ‘I don’t THINK I taste like champagne truffles…’
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘NO!’
The one I took to be leader turned to the one talking about champagne truffles. ‘Don’t take anything vital. A finger, maybe?’
I yelled, ‘YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO EAT MY FINGERS!’
He chuckled. ‘She must be new. She’s attempting resistance. Seriously kid, any time you think about being defiant? Remember you’re not dead.’
I glared at him. ‘I’d rather DIE than submit to you. Or have my finger bitten off. I’m a young heroine, new to the world, and travelling with a bunch of new friends. I think the odds are on my side. You REALLY think you’re going to get away with kidnapping me?’
‘…yes, rather.’
‘And it wasn’t so much a kidnapping, but a…collection. You weren’t exactly running away.’
I swallowed. ‘Oh.’
‘if we'd been going to kill you, you'd have been dead before you even knew we were there. We're not exactly keeping you alive out of consideration.’
‘Or your scintillating conversation. Can’t we at least eat her tongue?’
‘Oh, the tongue’s a nice bit…’
‘NO! Don’t eat my tongue!’ I licked my lips in nervousness. ‘Can’t we make some kind of deal?’
‘..... oh gods... now would be when we'd cackle.’
‘Yes. If we weren't above that by now.’
‘.... I'm not sure I'm above it, can I cackle?’
‘No.’
‘Spoilsport.’
‘My friends will save me!’
‘Yes, I have no doubt they will. They're rather predictable like that.’
I blinked again at this, and settled for muttering mutinously. ‘They WILL.’
‘Isn’t that what I just said?’
‘I believe so.’
I tried a new approach. ‘If I shut up for a while…will you please let me go?’
‘Oh, for Vivamort’s sake…Spirit, by the power of my voice I command thee, SHUSH!’
My whole jaw locked up, and I began to thrash my limbs around in anger and impotent rage.
‘You used your powers just to shut her up? That’s low. That’s reeeeal low.’
‘Her voice was bugging me.’ He replied defensively.
‘At least she’s quiet,’ pointed out the leader.
‘Yes…but my soul cries for you.’
‘Do we even have souls now?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Well, SOMETHING’S crying.’
The one who had spelled me because now said, ‘OBEY! Stop thrashing.’
Now my whole was paralysed, and I could only glower at them.
‘STOP USING YOUR POWER!’
‘I couldn’t help it, it was like watching a three-legged puppy trying to run!’
One met my eyes. ‘Stop complaining. You’ll like us eventually. In fact, by the power of Vivamort, I am the embodiment of all your revere.’
Suddenly, I was freed from the spell, but overcome with a powerful love of the one who had spoken. Before my sanity could reassert itself, I rushed forward to glomp him.
‘AHH! Get it off me!’
‘You brought this on yourself.’
‘Help me!’
‘..nah. Voice of Power, Obey. Sing a song about how much you love him.’
Again, I felt entirely compelled by the vampire’s voice, and, to my shame, I began to sing loudly and out of tune, an on-the-spot song about the struggling vampire I had my arms wrapped around.
‘What did I ever to do you!’ he yelled unhappily.
‘You wouldn’t let me cackle. And now you suffer the consequences. IN fact, now would be a good time for cackling. MWAHAHA!’
The vampire trying to get away from suddenly stopped, and said, ‘Little girl? You know you love me? You want to go and attack him.’
Immediately I turned to flying tackle the cackling vampire. For the next few moments I tried ineffectually to scratch and claw him, but was restrained by one of the others.
‘Can you feel that?’
‘I’m BLEEDING. Look at that scratch, she actually managed to dig deep even to hit VEINS…’
‘Shut up, and use your sense. Can you feel it coming?’
The sucker lifted his head, and then jumped with surprise. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know-‘ but he did not manage to finish his sentence, because then my friends burst in and attacked them.
The spell broke as soon as the vampires’ concentration was broken, and I was thrown aside in the rush to assail Tav and the others. From the floor, I saw the leader slink into the bushes, Lucius holding one off with a nifty spell, Tav & Hunak taking on another one, and Zak coming towards me, the last two dead at his feet. I stared from them to him in absolute horror, before he grabbed my hand and snarled ‘Run, you idiot!’
This time I took his advice and fled for my life. I ran into the undergrowth, and waited for about a minute, but when no one followed I went back as quietly as possible. Through the trees I saw that Tav and Hunak were continuing fighting, Lucius was still holding off a vampire, but looking dangerously faint, and Zak was lying prone on the floor. I raced to Zak’s side, avoiding the two fighting pairs, and shook him. ‘Wake up! ZAK! WAKE UP!’
He grunted, and I noticed his eyes flutter. There was a large contusion on his head, and I saw he had been knocked out by something.
A shout from behind me made me turned quickly, and with a stab of dismay, I saw Lucius also fall, and be swooped on by the vampire. I screamed, and Tav and Hunak, who had finally slain their foes, fell on the sucker feeding off Lucius.
But they were too late. When Tav tried to sit the mage up, he just slumped lifelessly.
Before we could do anything else, the vampire who had escaped erupted back into the clearing with back-up, and we ran for it.
When we finally reached the edge of the woods, the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, and we all huddled together in a knot of grief. Zak hovered around, unable to share our sorrow.
Thoughts of Lucius kept popping into my head; his laugh, the twinkle in his eyes, the way he had saved us all so many times with a spell at the last minute. I felt sadder than when my father had died, and when Zak eventually took me in his arms and let my sob on his shoulder, I was transported back to the funeral, where he and Kax had done the same.
When I’d run out of tears, I looked around at Hunak and Tav, who sat slumped against a tree and staring at the skyline, and felt even more guilty than I ever had in my life.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Zak lied to comfort me.
I shook me head. ‘Yes it was. I was stupid, and Lucius died.’
He couldn’t answer this, but said, ‘We can’t stop now. We need to carry on; Kax is in danger.’
Angrily, I pulled away from him, ‘What? We need time to rest – to grieve. Oh,’ I sighed, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never lost anyone.’
‘Well, I’ve lost Kax now, and we need to go and save her!’
‘You don’t even know where she is!’
Tav and Hunak joined us. Tav looked bleak, but said, ‘Zak’s right. We should pull ourselves together and get on. Lucius was our friend, but he wouldn’t want us to risk Kax to stand around and weep.’
I gasped. ‘But don’t we need time to grieve? We can’t just carry on as normal.’
‘We have to.’ Hunak said his first sentence in a long while.
‘You made us promise not to treat you like a weak and feeble girl, so stop acting like one. Lucius is dead, and we can’t change that. We can stop to mourn when we’ve saved Kax, but for now we have to work out where we go from here.’
I held onto my temper with a firm grip but saw I was outnumbered. ‘Fine then.’
‘Thank you,’ Zak held out his violet stone. ‘Look, this is the only thing I could find at Benerine. I wasn’t going to follow it up, because it seemed so blatent, but now I’m inclined to go to the North-Eastern mines and see what we can find there.’
Hunak raised an eyebrow. ‘With all due respect, we’re probably not going to find much with that one stone. It’s not ornate, and doesn’t have anything that tells what it might have come from. How do you think it will help? Did it come from your sister’s jewellery?’
Zak flushed. ‘It didn’t come from anything Kax wears – it came from a long sword with a chip in the blade, and a lot of missing stones in the hilt.’
We all blinked at him. ‘How do you know that; if you found only the stone?’ asked Tav suspiciously.
‘Because I, ah, own the sword as well.’ He pulled it from his baldric.
‘Why didn’t you tell us!’ I yelled.
‘Because…it’s my sword.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Tav. ‘Your sword was at the scene of your sister’s abduction?’
‘No,’ said Zak. ‘A stone from my sword was at the scene of my sister’s abduction.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘Okay. I got this sword when I was young from a pedlar. It was very cheap, pretty knackered, but I fell in love with it. It used to have a lot of stones in the hilt, but they’ve been prised out to sell or fallen out, and when I tried this stone in one of the gaps, it fitted perfectly.’
‘…this is making no sense. A stone, from your sword, which had been missing from before you bought it, was found at the scene of your sister’s abduction?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is this helpful? And how do you it’s from your sword?’
‘I…just know, alright? And it means…someone was sending me a message. This gemstone is from the North-Eastern mines, so I have to go there to find my sister.’
I sighed. ‘So…you’re saying someone has tracked down a stone that used to be in your sword years and years ago, and deliberately left it for you, so they could lead you into an obvious trap in the North-East?’
‘….Yes?’
‘That makes no sense on any level you know that?’
‘Yes. But it’s the only way to keep the plot moving at a good speed, so just smile and nod.’
We all did.
I may scratch the last bit, and re-paint the plot a bit. Next, I WILL post a bit about Kax.
BTW, most of the vampires' conversation was written by Katie. And when I say most, I mean practically all of it.
I woke again, drowsily to voices.
‘Are we going to kill her or not?’
‘Is shooting fish in a barrel a hobby of yours?’
‘Oh look, it’s awake.’
Five pale faces turned to stare at her, before reverting to their conversation.
‘Maybe we can-’
‘What, hold her hostage? That's SO LAME.’
‘Yes, but they're 'HEROES', of course they'll come rescue her.’
‘Yes, but... there's no style in it.’
I decided to make myself known. ‘LET ME GO, YOU HEARTLESS FIENDS!’
They blinked.
‘Um….no?’
I tried to stand up, but found that my foot had been tethered to a tree like an animal.
‘Hey!’
They ignored me. ‘HEY!’
‘What?!’
‘Let me go!’
‘Shut up, Mummy and Daddy are talking.’
‘About EATING me?’
‘No, about drinking your blood. Distinct difference.’
‘Never liked eating people. Get stuck in the teeth.’
‘Really? I liked it. Kind of like….champagne truffles.’
I blinked this time. ‘I don’t THINK I taste like champagne truffles…’
‘Is that an invitation?’
‘NO!’
The one I took to be leader turned to the one talking about champagne truffles. ‘Don’t take anything vital. A finger, maybe?’
I yelled, ‘YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO EAT MY FINGERS!’
He chuckled. ‘She must be new. She’s attempting resistance. Seriously kid, any time you think about being defiant? Remember you’re not dead.’
I glared at him. ‘I’d rather DIE than submit to you. Or have my finger bitten off. I’m a young heroine, new to the world, and travelling with a bunch of new friends. I think the odds are on my side. You REALLY think you’re going to get away with kidnapping me?’
‘…yes, rather.’
‘And it wasn’t so much a kidnapping, but a…collection. You weren’t exactly running away.’
I swallowed. ‘Oh.’
‘if we'd been going to kill you, you'd have been dead before you even knew we were there. We're not exactly keeping you alive out of consideration.’
‘Or your scintillating conversation. Can’t we at least eat her tongue?’
‘Oh, the tongue’s a nice bit…’
‘NO! Don’t eat my tongue!’ I licked my lips in nervousness. ‘Can’t we make some kind of deal?’
‘..... oh gods... now would be when we'd cackle.’
‘Yes. If we weren't above that by now.’
‘.... I'm not sure I'm above it, can I cackle?’
‘No.’
‘Spoilsport.’
‘My friends will save me!’
‘Yes, I have no doubt they will. They're rather predictable like that.’
I blinked again at this, and settled for muttering mutinously. ‘They WILL.’
‘Isn’t that what I just said?’
‘I believe so.’
I tried a new approach. ‘If I shut up for a while…will you please let me go?’
‘Oh, for Vivamort’s sake…Spirit, by the power of my voice I command thee, SHUSH!’
My whole jaw locked up, and I began to thrash my limbs around in anger and impotent rage.
‘You used your powers just to shut her up? That’s low. That’s reeeeal low.’
‘Her voice was bugging me.’ He replied defensively.
‘At least she’s quiet,’ pointed out the leader.
‘Yes…but my soul cries for you.’
‘Do we even have souls now?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Well, SOMETHING’S crying.’
The one who had spelled me because now said, ‘OBEY! Stop thrashing.’
Now my whole was paralysed, and I could only glower at them.
‘STOP USING YOUR POWER!’
‘I couldn’t help it, it was like watching a three-legged puppy trying to run!’
One met my eyes. ‘Stop complaining. You’ll like us eventually. In fact, by the power of Vivamort, I am the embodiment of all your revere.’
Suddenly, I was freed from the spell, but overcome with a powerful love of the one who had spoken. Before my sanity could reassert itself, I rushed forward to glomp him.
‘AHH! Get it off me!’
‘You brought this on yourself.’
‘Help me!’
‘..nah. Voice of Power, Obey. Sing a song about how much you love him.’
Again, I felt entirely compelled by the vampire’s voice, and, to my shame, I began to sing loudly and out of tune, an on-the-spot song about the struggling vampire I had my arms wrapped around.
‘What did I ever to do you!’ he yelled unhappily.
‘You wouldn’t let me cackle. And now you suffer the consequences. IN fact, now would be a good time for cackling. MWAHAHA!’
The vampire trying to get away from suddenly stopped, and said, ‘Little girl? You know you love me? You want to go and attack him.’
Immediately I turned to flying tackle the cackling vampire. For the next few moments I tried ineffectually to scratch and claw him, but was restrained by one of the others.
‘Can you feel that?’
‘I’m BLEEDING. Look at that scratch, she actually managed to dig deep even to hit VEINS…’
‘Shut up, and use your sense. Can you feel it coming?’
The sucker lifted his head, and then jumped with surprise. ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know-‘ but he did not manage to finish his sentence, because then my friends burst in and attacked them.
The spell broke as soon as the vampires’ concentration was broken, and I was thrown aside in the rush to assail Tav and the others. From the floor, I saw the leader slink into the bushes, Lucius holding one off with a nifty spell, Tav & Hunak taking on another one, and Zak coming towards me, the last two dead at his feet. I stared from them to him in absolute horror, before he grabbed my hand and snarled ‘Run, you idiot!’
This time I took his advice and fled for my life. I ran into the undergrowth, and waited for about a minute, but when no one followed I went back as quietly as possible. Through the trees I saw that Tav and Hunak were continuing fighting, Lucius was still holding off a vampire, but looking dangerously faint, and Zak was lying prone on the floor. I raced to Zak’s side, avoiding the two fighting pairs, and shook him. ‘Wake up! ZAK! WAKE UP!’
He grunted, and I noticed his eyes flutter. There was a large contusion on his head, and I saw he had been knocked out by something.
A shout from behind me made me turned quickly, and with a stab of dismay, I saw Lucius also fall, and be swooped on by the vampire. I screamed, and Tav and Hunak, who had finally slain their foes, fell on the sucker feeding off Lucius.
But they were too late. When Tav tried to sit the mage up, he just slumped lifelessly.
Before we could do anything else, the vampire who had escaped erupted back into the clearing with back-up, and we ran for it.
When we finally reached the edge of the woods, the sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, and we all huddled together in a knot of grief. Zak hovered around, unable to share our sorrow.
Thoughts of Lucius kept popping into my head; his laugh, the twinkle in his eyes, the way he had saved us all so many times with a spell at the last minute. I felt sadder than when my father had died, and when Zak eventually took me in his arms and let my sob on his shoulder, I was transported back to the funeral, where he and Kax had done the same.
When I’d run out of tears, I looked around at Hunak and Tav, who sat slumped against a tree and staring at the skyline, and felt even more guilty than I ever had in my life.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Zak lied to comfort me.
I shook me head. ‘Yes it was. I was stupid, and Lucius died.’
He couldn’t answer this, but said, ‘We can’t stop now. We need to carry on; Kax is in danger.’
Angrily, I pulled away from him, ‘What? We need time to rest – to grieve. Oh,’ I sighed, ‘You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never lost anyone.’
‘Well, I’ve lost Kax now, and we need to go and save her!’
‘You don’t even know where she is!’
Tav and Hunak joined us. Tav looked bleak, but said, ‘Zak’s right. We should pull ourselves together and get on. Lucius was our friend, but he wouldn’t want us to risk Kax to stand around and weep.’
I gasped. ‘But don’t we need time to grieve? We can’t just carry on as normal.’
‘We have to.’ Hunak said his first sentence in a long while.
‘You made us promise not to treat you like a weak and feeble girl, so stop acting like one. Lucius is dead, and we can’t change that. We can stop to mourn when we’ve saved Kax, but for now we have to work out where we go from here.’
I held onto my temper with a firm grip but saw I was outnumbered. ‘Fine then.’
‘Thank you,’ Zak held out his violet stone. ‘Look, this is the only thing I could find at Benerine. I wasn’t going to follow it up, because it seemed so blatent, but now I’m inclined to go to the North-Eastern mines and see what we can find there.’
Hunak raised an eyebrow. ‘With all due respect, we’re probably not going to find much with that one stone. It’s not ornate, and doesn’t have anything that tells what it might have come from. How do you think it will help? Did it come from your sister’s jewellery?’
Zak flushed. ‘It didn’t come from anything Kax wears – it came from a long sword with a chip in the blade, and a lot of missing stones in the hilt.’
We all blinked at him. ‘How do you know that; if you found only the stone?’ asked Tav suspiciously.
‘Because I, ah, own the sword as well.’ He pulled it from his baldric.
‘Why didn’t you tell us!’ I yelled.
‘Because…it’s my sword.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Tav. ‘Your sword was at the scene of your sister’s abduction?’
‘No,’ said Zak. ‘A stone from my sword was at the scene of my sister’s abduction.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘Okay. I got this sword when I was young from a pedlar. It was very cheap, pretty knackered, but I fell in love with it. It used to have a lot of stones in the hilt, but they’ve been prised out to sell or fallen out, and when I tried this stone in one of the gaps, it fitted perfectly.’
‘…this is making no sense. A stone, from your sword, which had been missing from before you bought it, was found at the scene of your sister’s abduction?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is this helpful? And how do you it’s from your sword?’
‘I…just know, alright? And it means…someone was sending me a message. This gemstone is from the North-Eastern mines, so I have to go there to find my sister.’
I sighed. ‘So…you’re saying someone has tracked down a stone that used to be in your sword years and years ago, and deliberately left it for you, so they could lead you into an obvious trap in the North-East?’
‘….Yes?’
‘That makes no sense on any level you know that?’
‘Yes. But it’s the only way to keep the plot moving at a good speed, so just smile and nod.’
We all did.
I may scratch the last bit, and re-paint the plot a bit. Next, I WILL post a bit about Kax.
BTW, most of the vampires' conversation was written by Katie. And when I say most, I mean practically all of it.