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A Rose In The Wind: A Saga of the Halmae -- Updated June 19, 2014
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<blockquote data-quote="Ilex" data-source="post: 6170230" data-attributes="member: 82687"><p><strong>34x04</strong></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">The thorny branches of the thing that had been Orchid slammed into Tavi, Twiggy, and Kormick, throwing them aside into the rocks, creating a gap in the wall of protection around Rose. The ease and speed with which that gap appeared scared Mena to her core—<em>So fast. Just like that, it happens so fast</em>—and two more limbs snaked forward, ensnared Rose, and began dragging her forward. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Mena’s fear flashed into colossal terrifying despair (<em>It’s over, Rose is gone</em>) so quickly that it threatened to consume her soul.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Kormick struck out at one of those limbs and missed. Savina cast a zone of <em>Consecrated Ground</em>, but Rose was beyond it, and now Rose writhed as a beam of light arrowed from the tree’s trunk and burned her skin. Nyoko shot one of the tree’s limbs, but it lashed back in an eyeblink, its thorns racking across Nyoko’s body. Arden flung a dagger into one of the thing’s bulging eyes… and it screamed.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">It screamed a wordless plea—to powers beyond their comprehension—for strength, for forgiveness, for mercy, while knowing that mercy was impossible.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Dimly, Mena was aware that Kormick, Arden, Twiggy, and Unsuku were wilting beneath the agony of that scream. Mostly, she heard it reverberate in her own heart: it was the sound of someone doing an evil that must be done.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">And Mena thought: <em>No. That is <strong>my</strong> scream. I promised Rose, if anyone had to do this evil, it would be me. Not you.</em></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">She bit down, clenched her fist on her sword, and drove all the despair back down.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">“STAND. YOUR. GROUND.” she roared to her companions. “STAND!”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">She strode into Orchid’s whirling branches as thorns raked Arden and a limb came thundering toward Kormick. Mena lopped off that limb and grabbed Arden’s arm, steadying her and shaking the lost, scream-stunned expression off her face in one quick move. Tavi’s flaming blade whirled into view and gashed the tree-creature on its other side.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Orchid dropped Rose. Arden, Twiggy, and Nyoko kept up an assault on the tree as Mena dodged in, threw an arm around Rose, and helped the girl limp away. They only got a few feet before Mena felt an impact and found herself flying: a limb had swept into her ribs and she landed, hard, on the cave’s rocky floor. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">As Mena rolled to her feet, she saw Rose retreating farther, behind Twiggy, while the rest of the group threw everything they had at Orchid. It was working. Severed limbs littered the floor, the trunk dripped a sappy ichor from many gashes, and Mena didn’t think she was imagining that the tree’s movements were ever so slightly slower now. She stepped forward to join Tavi, who was dueling one large limb, and Kormick, who was hammering at another.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Then, of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something large and white in the darkness at the back of the cave. There was a grunt and a thump as the last surviving white ape came up behind Rose and punched her to the ground.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Orchid seized the moment to press forward, her roots propelling her across the ground like countless crooked limbs, fingers, toes, her remaining branches brushing everyone aside with renewed vigor, until she towered over Rose. Mena saw Rose’s wide eyes as she looked up at the monstrosity, one look before Orchid’s roots snaked up around Rose’s neck and clenched, and the tree’s strange lightning blazed into Rose’s face, burning her, and Mena saw—they all saw—Rose’s body first stiffen and then go limp.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">For one split second, Mena’s heart stopped. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Then her armor screamed a battle cry, she raised her sword, and they all moved as one. Twiggy and Tavi threw light and flame. Nyoko shot arrow after arrow, ducking and weaving under the thrashing limbs. Arden sprang onto a branch near Mena and hung on long enough to jam a dagger straight into the point where the lightning seemed to emerge: the blazing light flared and went dark, while Arden was flung backwards and landed in a roll. Kormick, meanwhile, took it upon himself to deal with the ape: “Why! Won’t! You! Die!” he bellowed, punctuating each word with a hammer stroke, until on the final word the ape keeled over and was still. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Mena saw Savina attempting to reach Rose, but a lithe figure got there first: Unsuku. The Adept uncorked a healing potion, lifted Rose’s unconscious head, and tipped the potion down her throat. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">The instant Rose’s eyes blinked, Mena yelled at her, “Teleport behind Kormick! NOW!”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"><em>Flash</em>. Rose appeared huddled behind Kormick, next to the ape’s corpse. In the same moment, Mena saw the tree quake all over as a pulse of light rippled across the earth beneath it: it was standing in the zone of <em>Consecrated Ground</em> that Savina had cast, and this weakened it.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">“Surround Orchid!” Mena yelled. “Don’t let her move!” The others caught on quickly, moving to confine the creature to the prayer-touched ground. Savina’s eyes were nearly closed as she concentrated intently, keeping the zone’s power intact. Everyone else piled on, hitting the tree with all the strength they had left. It thrashed and jabbed in return, but Mena was certain that it couldn’t last much longer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">With a terrible <em>crack</em>, the tree launched one more massive bolt of energy over their heads, arcing down straight toward Rose. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Kormick threw himself in its path. The light slammed into his body, burning him, but Rose was spared. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Kormick came to his feet and, in the same motion, began to stride toward the tree, his eyes—two glints beneath his lowered brow—locked onto the tree-creature. He threw aside one warhammer and raised the other in both hands. Then, like a logger felling an oak, he smashed the warhammer into the side of Orchid’s trunk. The hammer hit with a pulpy, wet thud, and the trunk collapsed like long-rotted wood, the hammer sinking into its heart. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Something deep within the tree screamed—not in pain, but in sorrow. The tree-creature that had been Orchid keeled over onto the ground Savina had blessed and lay still.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Around them, the birds, bats, and insects fluttered away into the night.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Silence fell, but for the endless wind in the trees outside.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Savina picked her way through the mass of dead branches toward one inhuman eye that still stared sightlessly upward. Murmuring words of Alirrian comfort, Savina closed the eye. “She took on an aspect of the goddess,” Savina said softly. “Not an angel, but a power that was more than she could hope to handle. She must have died as the tree came into being. She gave her life for—for this.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">They said little else as Twiggy re-set Orchid’s teleport circle in the back of the cave. Savina healed Rose and Kormick with what energy she had left, and then they gathered in the circle to teleport back to Overlook and resume their journey to Divine Mark.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'verdana'"><span style="color: #000000">Rose never said a word. And Mena never left her side.</span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ilex, post: 6170230, member: 82687"] [b]34x04[/b] [FONT=verdana][COLOR=#000000]The thorny branches of the thing that had been Orchid slammed into Tavi, Twiggy, and Kormick, throwing them aside into the rocks, creating a gap in the wall of protection around Rose. The ease and speed with which that gap appeared scared Mena to her core—[I]So fast. Just like that, it happens so fast[/I]—and two more limbs snaked forward, ensnared Rose, and began dragging her forward. Mena’s fear flashed into colossal terrifying despair ([I]It’s over, Rose is gone[/I]) so quickly that it threatened to consume her soul. Kormick struck out at one of those limbs and missed. Savina cast a zone of [I]Consecrated Ground[/I], but Rose was beyond it, and now Rose writhed as a beam of light arrowed from the tree’s trunk and burned her skin. Nyoko shot one of the tree’s limbs, but it lashed back in an eyeblink, its thorns racking across Nyoko’s body. Arden flung a dagger into one of the thing’s bulging eyes… and it screamed. It screamed a wordless plea—to powers beyond their comprehension—for strength, for forgiveness, for mercy, while knowing that mercy was impossible. Dimly, Mena was aware that Kormick, Arden, Twiggy, and Unsuku were wilting beneath the agony of that scream. Mostly, she heard it reverberate in her own heart: it was the sound of someone doing an evil that must be done. And Mena thought: [I]No. That is [B]my[/B] scream. I promised Rose, if anyone had to do this evil, it would be me. Not you.[/I] She bit down, clenched her fist on her sword, and drove all the despair back down. “STAND. YOUR. GROUND.” she roared to her companions. “STAND!” She strode into Orchid’s whirling branches as thorns raked Arden and a limb came thundering toward Kormick. Mena lopped off that limb and grabbed Arden’s arm, steadying her and shaking the lost, scream-stunned expression off her face in one quick move. Tavi’s flaming blade whirled into view and gashed the tree-creature on its other side. Orchid dropped Rose. Arden, Twiggy, and Nyoko kept up an assault on the tree as Mena dodged in, threw an arm around Rose, and helped the girl limp away. They only got a few feet before Mena felt an impact and found herself flying: a limb had swept into her ribs and she landed, hard, on the cave’s rocky floor. As Mena rolled to her feet, she saw Rose retreating farther, behind Twiggy, while the rest of the group threw everything they had at Orchid. It was working. Severed limbs littered the floor, the trunk dripped a sappy ichor from many gashes, and Mena didn’t think she was imagining that the tree’s movements were ever so slightly slower now. She stepped forward to join Tavi, who was dueling one large limb, and Kormick, who was hammering at another. Then, of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed something large and white in the darkness at the back of the cave. There was a grunt and a thump as the last surviving white ape came up behind Rose and punched her to the ground. Orchid seized the moment to press forward, her roots propelling her across the ground like countless crooked limbs, fingers, toes, her remaining branches brushing everyone aside with renewed vigor, until she towered over Rose. Mena saw Rose’s wide eyes as she looked up at the monstrosity, one look before Orchid’s roots snaked up around Rose’s neck and clenched, and the tree’s strange lightning blazed into Rose’s face, burning her, and Mena saw—they all saw—Rose’s body first stiffen and then go limp. For one split second, Mena’s heart stopped. Then her armor screamed a battle cry, she raised her sword, and they all moved as one. Twiggy and Tavi threw light and flame. Nyoko shot arrow after arrow, ducking and weaving under the thrashing limbs. Arden sprang onto a branch near Mena and hung on long enough to jam a dagger straight into the point where the lightning seemed to emerge: the blazing light flared and went dark, while Arden was flung backwards and landed in a roll. Kormick, meanwhile, took it upon himself to deal with the ape: “Why! Won’t! You! Die!” he bellowed, punctuating each word with a hammer stroke, until on the final word the ape keeled over and was still. Mena saw Savina attempting to reach Rose, but a lithe figure got there first: Unsuku. The Adept uncorked a healing potion, lifted Rose’s unconscious head, and tipped the potion down her throat. The instant Rose’s eyes blinked, Mena yelled at her, “Teleport behind Kormick! NOW!” [I]Flash[/I]. Rose appeared huddled behind Kormick, next to the ape’s corpse. In the same moment, Mena saw the tree quake all over as a pulse of light rippled across the earth beneath it: it was standing in the zone of [I]Consecrated Ground[/I] that Savina had cast, and this weakened it. “Surround Orchid!” Mena yelled. “Don’t let her move!” The others caught on quickly, moving to confine the creature to the prayer-touched ground. Savina’s eyes were nearly closed as she concentrated intently, keeping the zone’s power intact. Everyone else piled on, hitting the tree with all the strength they had left. It thrashed and jabbed in return, but Mena was certain that it couldn’t last much longer. With a terrible [I]crack[/I], the tree launched one more massive bolt of energy over their heads, arcing down straight toward Rose. Kormick threw himself in its path. The light slammed into his body, burning him, but Rose was spared. Kormick came to his feet and, in the same motion, began to stride toward the tree, his eyes—two glints beneath his lowered brow—locked onto the tree-creature. He threw aside one warhammer and raised the other in both hands. Then, like a logger felling an oak, he smashed the warhammer into the side of Orchid’s trunk. The hammer hit with a pulpy, wet thud, and the trunk collapsed like long-rotted wood, the hammer sinking into its heart. Something deep within the tree screamed—not in pain, but in sorrow. The tree-creature that had been Orchid keeled over onto the ground Savina had blessed and lay still. Around them, the birds, bats, and insects fluttered away into the night. Silence fell, but for the endless wind in the trees outside. Savina picked her way through the mass of dead branches toward one inhuman eye that still stared sightlessly upward. Murmuring words of Alirrian comfort, Savina closed the eye. “She took on an aspect of the goddess,” Savina said softly. “Not an angel, but a power that was more than she could hope to handle. She must have died as the tree came into being. She gave her life for—for this.” They said little else as Twiggy re-set Orchid’s teleport circle in the back of the cave. Savina healed Rose and Kormick with what energy she had left, and then they gathered in the circle to teleport back to Overlook and resume their journey to Divine Mark. Rose never said a word. And Mena never left her side.[/COLOR][/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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A Rose In The Wind: A Saga of the Halmae -- Updated June 19, 2014
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