Legacy of the Silver Dragon: Chapter 1 (Chickens, Demons, and a Missing Girl)

[Toric_Arthendain]

Myst takes up a protective position in front of the girl as they attempt to retrace their steps to the exit. "You are Anna, yes?" he asks the girl as they walk.

 

[Binder Fred]

either way he seems eager to get out.

Antares is not.

"Why did you have to kill her?" he cries to his supposed friends. "What was the gain besides anger and malice?" He is suddenly overcome by sadness: "I even offered coin if you would desist..."

Looking down, he drops to his knees by the fallen girl, propping her up, uncaring, for now, of the blood randomly staining fingers, palms and robes (his sword clinks to the floor nearby, forgotten). In a hushed whisper, brushing aside hair that has not been there for untold eons as he looks into her dead eyes... "You only wanted a friend like you, didn't you?"

<Response any?>

OOC: Antares is not moving from the cave.

 

[Voda Vosa]

"The elf lost it already. We all knew it was goin' to happen sooner or later." the dwarf shakes his head. "Its dead Antares, leave it. Whatever secrets it held, they are gone forever. Now move before that strange shimmering liquid touches you and you become even more annoying." The dwarf grin mentally, his lord would be pleased. And even better, he himself didn't actually kill the creature, but it was Bosco, Myst and Stellan. His wishes to erradicate it would be concealed by those facts.

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

"That thing was unnatural and what it was trying to do to this girl was equally unnatural. We couldn't leave it alive to snatch others from the surface in the future in an attempt to convert them or whatever it was trying to do here. It wanting a friend is none of my concern. The well-being of this girl is." Myst turns to leave without another word.

 

[Binder Fred]

The elven mage doesn't immediately look up. When he does, there are tears shimmering at the corners of his eyes, so far unshed. "Your precious Anna would have been exactly as 'unnatural' in a little while, had we not come, yes -- and probably with as much choice in the matter as this poor soul. Would you have killed her too then?" His voice is somewhat chocked up as well. "Is that really all that the Light Bringer is willing to do to light this darkening world, oh brother to none? Save only those that require no more than the slightest effort, no more than the least sliver of compassion, imagination or deep thought?"

One tear does fall then, quietly trailing down his long face.

 

[Voda Vosa]

The dwarf shrugs. "Ye did hit it with your sword." he adds "And yes, I would have killed her as well, if she had turned into that monstrosity. Heck, I hope you would have killed me if I turned into that."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

he cries to his supposed friends. "What was the gain besides anger and malice?" He is suddenly overcome by sadness: "I even offered coin if you would desist..."

"We need to smash the house down, set it on fire, pour coal onto the ruins, set THAT on fire and kill anything that comes out. Those things are dangerous. If you want to join them, I suggest you not wear anything flammable.

"Now, let's get out of here before we and this girl transform."

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

"I am done arguing with you, elf. If you want to try to save every abomination you come across, be my guest. I was down here for her and her alone," he says with a nod to Anna.

 

[Binder Fred]

"We need to smash the house down, set it on fire, pour coal onto the ruins, set THAT on fire and kill anything that comes out. Those things are dangerous. If you want to join them, I suggest you not wear anything flammable.

"Now, let's get out of here before we and this girl transform."

"No looting?" blinks Antares, almost... shocked. (Bosco must really have been... scared? (what a strange concept!)). He shakes most of that away -- though it does merit some reflection in future. Looking to each of the four armed and armored men (and hafling), then down to the single naked female form cooling in his arms.... "And yes. Dangerous. I can now see how we were truly and completely outmatched, there at the last," he states, tasting the bitterness of those words. (For in truth a fair share of that shame is his to bear: *he* was in deed utterly outmatched, quite inadequate. Why oh why must he have been so successful in avoiding his sire's seemingly pointless lessons in arts martial? If he could only have landed that single stunning blow, or even just kept his eyes open as he struck...)

"I am done arguing with you, elf. If you want to try to save every abomination you come across, be my guest. I was down here for her and her alone," he says with a nod to Anna.

"You are an abomination yourself then," replies the other with some sadness at not having seen it sooner -- and still hoping, somewhere, somehow, that it isn't really true: "A man without a heart." He turns his face away, unable to bear it: "Go, and hope *she* doesn't see you for what you are - becoming," also with a gesture towards the so recently freed maiden. (What a strange, waking nightmare this has turned out to be!)

Gazing back to the still face down in the crook of his arm, ignoring the other's activities for now... "Though I think I shall 'be your guest' after all," he finally says, talking mostly to himself. A brush of that imaginary hair again, "I did nothing for you, yet I can do something now and onwards from now." An indrawn breath, feeling like it's the first he's taken in a while, "Fire is all well and good, Bo, and perhaps a sensible conclusion to these caves; yet it does not prevent the coming of rot if one does not know how rot lays its seed or how far they might be scattered by the blaze." The young mage looks up, life's glow slowly returning to his emerald eyes, "Pray look around you, my sometimes friends. These walls are carved with symbols and meaning. This water - all of you have shouted it most strongly - is no thing from our natural world. This water *comes* from somewhere, was perhaps even a deliberate creation... that, in either case, may go hence to places other than here. If we burn it now in the fires of ignorance and it already exists elsewhere... If we choose to close our eyes and it comes back, even a hundred years from now..."

He settles back down, his long, expiration draining him of something, and yet also seemingly like the tempering of a slim, yet enduring blade. "The choice is of course ultimately up to each individual to make." And then he waits, the dead girl now somehow resting almost comfortably his arms...

 

[Voda Vosa]

"Actually, it's the city guard choice." The dwarf states matter of factly. He knows the elf's words are true. The water, the sigils, all point out to something or someone who had placed these structures and the water itself. Perhaps even the gelatinous cube was that same water interacting with the flora of the cave. The unanswered questions were almost delightful.