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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emperor Valerian" data-source="post: 1478893" data-attributes="member: 15043">Overprotective Anias... and Underprotected Undead“I cannot believe you all wantonly offered to fight undead to help an evil dragon!” Anias still fumed that night.  “You’ve made my job so much harder, and put Lucius’ life in peril!”“My life has been in peril the last three months... you’ll get used to it,” Luke replied dryly, munching on a tough piece of sandhog rib.  Even after three weeks, it still tasted delicious, he had to admit.  “Bethides,” he said through the meat, “we’b be helpeth thom innocenth loggeth.”Siabrey, for her part, merely rolled her eyes.  She had grown accustomed to merely ignoring the grumpy angel, and now just tuned him out as she began talking quietly to Luke.“We should set double watches,” Tess thought aloud.  “I’m guessing the nasties that are doing these attacks aren’t staying in just one place.”  She snapped her hand back as a string she was tuning came out unexpectedly.“Tess... how about you get Alex to fix that?” Shaun whispered silently at her, his body tensed to dodge the resulting blow.  He failed to guess that Elenya would be the one to administer the rib poke, and his muffled yelp caused the angel to growl again.“Silence!” Anias rumbled.  “Half of the Abyss can probably hear that racket!”  Shaun and Elenya stopped their wrestling, and looked at Anias with downcast faces.  “Oh, its not like we can’t survive that, or anything else that gets thrown at us,” Quin said quietly.  “I mean... I’ve been dead!  Its not too bad... especially considering I came back...”Anias’ annoyance continued well into the next day, with no distraction until mid-afternoon, when far ahead, the angel spotted something odd.Two men, haggard and breathless, running down the side of the road.  Save their run seemed to be more of a weary jog, as if their broken bodies did not have the strength to run anymore.  Their eyes bespoke fear... and once they saw the party... hope.“Help!  Help! For the love of Fharlangn, help us!” they cried as the party galloped up in approach.  As the party reined up beside them, the two stopped, breathless.“What’s wrong?  Can we help?” Luke offered quickly.  The two men, scarcely caring whether they’d been stopped by a Prince or by a Poobah, breathlessly told their tale.Their logging cart last night had pushed into the evening, past dusk... they were behind schedule, and needed to make up for lost time.  Shortly after sunset, they were attacked by “strange people,” who looked like people but smelled of death.   The people dragged one of their friends from the cart, as it careened off the road, into the bushes, before flipping over.  Another of their group was crushed under the cart.  For their part, they ran, as fast as they could... and they’d been running for hours since, towards the south.The party advised them to keep going, and that they’d search the cart and try to ferret out those who did this.  The men went their way, still frightened.The party continued north, now wary.  It was only an hour or two later, in the late afternoon, when they saw strange tracks in the road.Cart tracks... that lead off into the woods, Ania’s eyes followed the deep ruts in the dirt road that suddenly curved into a now flattened lilac bush, and off into the undergrowth.“Whatever that was, it was carrying something heavy,” Tess mused.  “Look how deep those ruts are.”  Only carts carrying bulk goods are weighed down like that... things people wouldn’t bother wanting to steal in normal conditions... coal, iron... ...wood...“I bet those are the tracks of the not so fortunate the loggers talked about,” Tess said as she dismounted.  “If we dismount, we can follow the tracks better, in case they hit some rockier places.”“Woah... what are you now?  Tesseron the ranger?” Quin asked with a grin.  “Your talents never cease to amaze me, sis.”“A bard hears, and thus learns, many many things,” Tess smiled back.The party followed the tracks for some while... eventually ending up several hundred feet into the woods, when the spotted the form of a cart, turned on its side.  Its cargo of logs had been spilled.“Ew,” Elenya recoiled from a bush as they approached, and the party saw the first body.  It was of a young man... his throat had been ripped out, and his skin was a pale pale white, as if all the blood had been drained from his body.“What does such things?” Siabrey asked quietly, looking closely at the neck wound.  While she couldn’t say what did it, she definitely could say it wasn’t caused by a man-made weapon she knew of.“A vampire... or vampire spawn,” Anias said softly.  He could see the itinerant trace whisps of evil on the bodies... residue from when something truly blasphemous touched them.  He’d seen this kind of damage... long long before... and calmly thought that such was below his new station.“V..vampires?” Quin said worriedly, and Anias stooped down, looking at the wounds yet again.“No... decidedly vampire spawn.  This is too brutish for a real vampire.  Look... the neck was almost removed... probably after the blood was sucked out.  These aren’t true vampires thankfully.”“What’s the difference?” Quin said quietly, his voice genuinely frightened.  “I mean... I’ve seen demons... I’ve seen ghouls... but vampires?”“Vampire spawn usually what happens when a vampire bites a victim, but doesn’t elect to kill them.  They are usually servants to their lord... though there are exceptions to this...” Anias rose again, wiping his hands clean after touching the corpse.  “I think this would be one... most vampires... at least from what I know, like urban areas... more targets.  It would be slim pickings here in these woods...”“How do you know so much about this?” Siabrey asked curiously.  He sure can spout off monsters as if he knew them from the back of his hand...“Namely because I’m several millenia old... and I have encountered many many things during my service to the cause of right and justice,” Anias said matter of factly.  “Look,” he pointed towards the pile, “there’s the other body they talked about... his hands coming out of the logs.”Sure enough, the party quickly found after shifting only a few logs the remains of a crushed logger, killed by the very trees he’d undoubtedly helped forest only hours before.  Rather pointedly, Grumki stated that the two bodies needed to be consecrated and buried, to prevent them from becoming abominations themselves.As this grisly work was being done by Grumki, Quin, and Shaun, Luke, Tess, and Anias scoured around the upended cart, looking for tracks.  After searching for a half hour, they finally came up with three tracks... all of which led away from the cart roughly to the north east...further from the road.“They went that way,” Tess pointed towards the tracks.  “Though its getting dark now,” she observed from the rising gloom in the sky.  “We should probably make camp... I know its creepy sleeping by some graves, but at the least there’s ready firewood here, and a small clearing with good fields of view.”“Umhm,” Anias nodded in agreement.  “Though I shan’t sleep tonight... I’ll take all watches, so you may rest.”“Um... don’t angels have to... oh,” Shaun stopped his question as he realized he’d already answered it.  After setting up camp and fixing some dinner, the party members began to lay out their bedrolls, and plan for rest.   Anias had said that his three other guardsmen would rotate watch as well... so there would always be two awake.Before Luke could get his bedroll set up, Anias pulled him aside, and looked down into the young man’s eyes.“Luke.  You will do two things for me tonight,” Anias said simply.  There was no reason to ask, no reason to be polite.  His charge was his responsibility, and his charge would do what was needed to make sure he was protected.  “One, you will sleep close to the log where I will watch from.  Two, you will wear your armor tonight while you rest.”“Anias,” Luke said in exasperation.  “I already told you... I CAN’T sleep in my armor!  It bunches, it hurts my back... and I need to sleep to be able to cast spells!”  His complaint had evidently been loud enough that it attracted Siabrey’s attention, and the fighter came over quickly to reinforce her husband.“Lucius... I would rather you be alive and unable to cast spells than be a dead spellcaster,” Anias said bluntly, till Siabrey interrupted.“Anias... he uses those spells to help defend himself as much as he uses his armor!”  She looked the taller man in the eye, and gave a sigh.  “Look, I know you’re trying to protect him, believe me, I understand it can be hard... but this is one case where he’s right.  Now, if it makes you feel better, I’ll just sleep on top of him.”  Siabrey didn’t have to look at Luke to know he had a surprised look on his face at that moment.  “That way, if someone swings at him, it’ll hit ‘expendable me’ first.”“Mmmm,” Anias’ voice rumbled in thought.  “Not nearly as effective as real armor... but if you agree to it, I suppose you might stop a blade long enough for me to react and take down the assailant.”  Siabrey also didn’t have to look at Luke to know he got an enraged look when Anias said that.  After the angel nodded, and walked back to where he was to be sitting all night, Siabrey turned to Luke, and saw the look in his eye.  “If someone tried to get you,” she said softly, “they’d find my sword in them before his... don’t worry about me,” she grinned.  “Now... Luke... go to bed, so your armor can protect you,” her grin turned into a devilish smile.“Um... you know we really can’t do much... I mean... the angel will be only ten feet away at most... and the others...” Luke stammered, causing Siabrey to laugh.“No, silly!  I meant actually sleep on you.  As in resting.  Entering dreamworld.  No physical activity needed,” she chuckled.  Her snickering grew bigger when she saw a mixture of relief and sorrow in Luke’s eyes.... the proper part of him relieved... while the 17 year old in him...  Siabrey gave a sad smile... it would be unhappy tonight.“Mmph,” Siabrey sleepily raised her head after feeling something bump her side.  It had taken her a second... her body had protested, momentarily not letting her lift her head from the pillow of Luke’s chest.  Her bearly eyes caught the mailed boot of Anias only inches from her left side, and she looked up.“Four... fifty feet thataway,” the angel hissed, never looking down at her.  Within seconds, Siabrey was to her feet, Kelir in her hands. Her movement woke Luke, who then helped her don her armor.  Looking around, the other party members also were finishing preparations, as the shapes Anias had seen slowly, tenatively grew closer.Four of them... man sized... with huge, yellow orbs for eyes...</blockquote>

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