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Song of Shattered Blades
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<blockquote data-quote="Arcturion" data-source="post: 3820379" data-attributes="member: 54632"><p><strong>1.2 Hommes Optare</strong></p><p></p><p>The old crone gave a feral hiss as she fell upon the last surviving mariner, helpless as the man was lying prone over the bodies of his slain crewmates. He cried out in terror and tried to crawl away but the hag’s unnatural strength was much too great. She grasped the sailor from behind at both shoulders, digging into his flesh with sharp talons that glinted silver in the pale moonlight as he squealed like a stuck pig. Pulled backward and then flipped over bodily as if he weighed nothing, the hag bared her teeth in a snarl and planted her mouth over his in a hideous lover’s kiss.</p><p></p><p>The mariner’s shrieks came muffled and desperate then, his fists beating against the assailant futilely while his feet kicked the air with wild abandon. Eyes wide with fear and panic, blood began to pool out from the corner of the sailor’s lips, dark ribbons of crimson trailing against bronzed skin. The old crone jerked away violently as a spray of blood came up, the man’s tongue torn from his mouth and now gnashed between her teeth. Choking, the sailor could only writhe upon the deck helplessly and watch as the hag ate his tongue. It wasn’t long before the man ceased his struggling, drowned in his own blood.</p><p></p><p>The banging at the forecastle door grew more fiercely, the wood shuddering against the force of the unseen mariner’s kicks and shoulder-thrown blows. However, the crystallized mercury continued to hold fast against the door, its hinge frozen into the frame. Eltera admired the fact that his crewmate’s cries for help spurred the man into furious action but knew that there was precious little any normal mortal could do against such unnatural foes.</p><p></p><p>Shuffling toward the dark aelf, the peasant wench’s own movements seemed stiffer and slower than they had been. Wordlessly, the abomination struggled not to trip over the body of the sailor whose skull she herself had crushed just moments before, her torn abdomen trailing black viscera covered in a film of silvery hoarfrost. Each motion she made sounded like ice scraping against rock as flecks of frozen mercury flaked off from her broken body, accompanied by a cold mist that flowed from the gaping wounds. Shedding tears of quicksilver from lifeless golden eyes, the wench lunged at Eltera, her remaining hand flying toward the dark aelf’s neck. Icy fingers wrapped themselves over the naked flesh of her throat as she was slammed back against the cabin wall, the mere touch of them so cold as to burn and forcing a gasp from Eltera’s lips as it chilled her very blood.</p><p></p><p>“Kill me,” the abomination whispered, her hollow voice sounding as if it came from the depths of some frozen glacier. Her repeated words were spoken in the same strangely lilting human language from before, sounding almost musical to the dark aelf’s ears even while the breath was being squeezed from her lungs by the wench’s iron grip.</p><p></p><p>Her chattering teeth clenched against the cold, Eltera tried to push the wench’s arm away with her own free hand, without avail. Amurisil was about to fly up, the blade intent on taking away her assailant’s other hand when the dark aelf felt tiny clawed fingers dig into her sword arm painfully. Looking down, Eltera saw the young girl gripping her forearm, holding it fast with a frightening strength that belied her small stature. The child looked up long enough with seemingly guileless golden eyes to give the dark aelf an innocent smile, showing off blood-stained, silvery teeth when her mouth went impossibly wide with the intent of sinking her growing fangs into flesh.</p><p></p><p>Summoning the innate ability of her wicked kin, Eltera sought to gather the darkening night’s gloom around herself. Instead, a pale glow like faint moonlight began to suffuse her ebony skin, flickering with all the fragility of a candle’s flame before it grew in brightness and intensity. Wailing, the wench withdrew her hand from the dark aelf’s throat, leaving visible marks upon her neck where frozen fingers had tightened around it as a vice. Crying out, the child too was repelled back a step, shielding her face with small arms whose flesh began to hiss and sizzle at the light’s gentle touch. Eltera felt rather than saw Awino’s severed hand release her ankle and fall to the deck, the gruesome thing smoking palm up with twitching fingers as some dying bug roasting in the sun. Snarling, the old crone had thrown up her spindly arms as well, spewing incoherent curses toward the source of the radiance.</p><p></p><p>The pure silver light spread out nearly fifteen feet from where the dark aelf stood, causing the wench to stumble away backward. Rather than shield herself from the illumination like the other two abominations, she seemed to force herself to take it all in as her body trembled and trailed tendrils of putrid mist that rose from countless tears that had erupted all over her blackened skin. Liquid mercury wept freely from the terrible wounds while a strange crackling filled the air, the quicksilver crystallizing in the chill night wind. As quickly as the beautiful radiance had appeared, it began to recede before fading away altogether.</p><p></p><p>Her ebony skin still smoking, the girl lowered her seared hands and stared at Eltera with eyes that shone like molten gold before laughing again as a child would in play. She began to advance forward once more but was stopped when a metallic click sounded from within the cabin. Turning, the girl and dark aelf both saw Terwase standing not far off near the latticed windows, Rentiki’s flintlock pistol held in both of his gaunt hands. The aged shaman aimed the ornate weapon’s barrel toward the direction of the girl and, hesitating for only a split second, squeezed the trigger and fired. A loud bang rang out, accompanied by an acrid cloud of black smoke and a bright flash as the flint hammer struck sparks and ignited the powder. Terwase was thrown back a step by the pistol’s recoil just as the roundball projectile struck the girl through the left eye and exploded out the back of her head, hurling her bodily through the air.</p><p></p><p>Eltera gaze grew wide when the girl landed with a thud not far from where Rentiki lay upon the deck, her limbs strewn about like some forgotten ragdoll. She had fallen face up, her remaining eye staring unseeing into the sky while her other was a ghastly hollow ruin. Rivulets of quicksilver streamed from underneath her matted white hair to stain the maindeck in an ever growing pool that glistened in the pale moonlight. A queer expression of delighted surprise graced her youthful features as she lay still as death.</p><p></p><p>The flintlock pistol fell from Terwase’s shaking hands, clattering heavily to the floor just as he sank to his knees. Shocked horror over what he had just done was etched across his weathered face, wisps of smoke still trailing from the barrel of the fired weapon.</p><p></p><p>Eltera whirled when the wench, seeing the girl fall, began to wail anew as a mother crying out for her dead child, raising a trembling hand toward the small corpse, imploring. Every movement she made was stiff as ice, brittle pieces of her skin and flesh breaking off from her body like flakes of fallen snow.</p><p></p><p>The grieving abomination gave a final scream when suddenly she was thrown off her feet by some unseen hand, hurtling backward toward the forecastle with surprising velocity. Her body struck both the wall and door with violent force, shattering into a thousand pieces as if her flesh was wholly carved of ice statuary. Shards of frozen mercury exploded over the maindeck of the Argus and rained down over Eltera, forcing her to raise both her arms to shield her face from the flying debris. When she lowered them, she saw the abomination’s remains strewn all over the planks, each piece glittering like broken glass. A chunk of the woman’s face and eye still in its socket lay at her feet, frozen in time where a silvered tear had streamed down the cheek.</p><p></p><p>Eltera saw slight movement from the right corner of her eye and turned to look down. Gasping with heavy breaths and straining with the effort, Rentiki had his right arm outstretched before him as he lay on the deck. A sheen of sweat glistened over his bare skin despite the night’s chill, his left shoulder and collarbone still torn and bleeding where the child abomination had bitten and savaged his flesh. Shifting his weight upon his stomach, the Daoshan Captain lowered his hand and regarded Eltera with an expression that bespoke of exhaustion mixed with triumph.</p><p></p><p>Their moment of victory was shattered when the hag snarled her fury, baring her teeth while her golden eyes blazed with unmasked hatred. She took a step toward Eltera as if she meant to lunge at her but stopped in her tracks when shouts of alarm were raised in the distance, accompanied by myriad footsteps that echoed over the cobblestone streets. Whirling, the crone hissed one final time before turning and leaping over the deck toward the direction of the child. She flew past Eltera and the reach of her sword, landing next to the girl’s corpse. Without pausing, the hag snatched up the limp body in the crook of one arm and a piece of the wench’s shattered remains in the other before dashing across the maindeck with a startingly speed that matched the dark aelf’s own. Leaping the rail, she sailed away from the Argus and vanished into the thick white fog. There was no splash of water as one would expect from hitting the water, as if the abomination had been completely swallowed up by the night.</p><p></p><p>Even now, Eltera felt her frozen wounds beginning to close up and heal over themselves, bits of mercury flaking off from her skin as a rush of warmth emanated from Amurisil.</p><p></p><p>Rentiki rasped a single word when the last of the enemy had fled from sight, his voice hoarse and sounding almost rueful. “Rasavatam . . .”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arcturion, post: 3820379, member: 54632"] [b]1.2 Hommes Optare[/b] The old crone gave a feral hiss as she fell upon the last surviving mariner, helpless as the man was lying prone over the bodies of his slain crewmates. He cried out in terror and tried to crawl away but the hag’s unnatural strength was much too great. She grasped the sailor from behind at both shoulders, digging into his flesh with sharp talons that glinted silver in the pale moonlight as he squealed like a stuck pig. Pulled backward and then flipped over bodily as if he weighed nothing, the hag bared her teeth in a snarl and planted her mouth over his in a hideous lover’s kiss. The mariner’s shrieks came muffled and desperate then, his fists beating against the assailant futilely while his feet kicked the air with wild abandon. Eyes wide with fear and panic, blood began to pool out from the corner of the sailor’s lips, dark ribbons of crimson trailing against bronzed skin. The old crone jerked away violently as a spray of blood came up, the man’s tongue torn from his mouth and now gnashed between her teeth. Choking, the sailor could only writhe upon the deck helplessly and watch as the hag ate his tongue. It wasn’t long before the man ceased his struggling, drowned in his own blood. The banging at the forecastle door grew more fiercely, the wood shuddering against the force of the unseen mariner’s kicks and shoulder-thrown blows. However, the crystallized mercury continued to hold fast against the door, its hinge frozen into the frame. Eltera admired the fact that his crewmate’s cries for help spurred the man into furious action but knew that there was precious little any normal mortal could do against such unnatural foes. Shuffling toward the dark aelf, the peasant wench’s own movements seemed stiffer and slower than they had been. Wordlessly, the abomination struggled not to trip over the body of the sailor whose skull she herself had crushed just moments before, her torn abdomen trailing black viscera covered in a film of silvery hoarfrost. Each motion she made sounded like ice scraping against rock as flecks of frozen mercury flaked off from her broken body, accompanied by a cold mist that flowed from the gaping wounds. Shedding tears of quicksilver from lifeless golden eyes, the wench lunged at Eltera, her remaining hand flying toward the dark aelf’s neck. Icy fingers wrapped themselves over the naked flesh of her throat as she was slammed back against the cabin wall, the mere touch of them so cold as to burn and forcing a gasp from Eltera’s lips as it chilled her very blood. “Kill me,” the abomination whispered, her hollow voice sounding as if it came from the depths of some frozen glacier. Her repeated words were spoken in the same strangely lilting human language from before, sounding almost musical to the dark aelf’s ears even while the breath was being squeezed from her lungs by the wench’s iron grip. Her chattering teeth clenched against the cold, Eltera tried to push the wench’s arm away with her own free hand, without avail. Amurisil was about to fly up, the blade intent on taking away her assailant’s other hand when the dark aelf felt tiny clawed fingers dig into her sword arm painfully. Looking down, Eltera saw the young girl gripping her forearm, holding it fast with a frightening strength that belied her small stature. The child looked up long enough with seemingly guileless golden eyes to give the dark aelf an innocent smile, showing off blood-stained, silvery teeth when her mouth went impossibly wide with the intent of sinking her growing fangs into flesh. Summoning the innate ability of her wicked kin, Eltera sought to gather the darkening night’s gloom around herself. Instead, a pale glow like faint moonlight began to suffuse her ebony skin, flickering with all the fragility of a candle’s flame before it grew in brightness and intensity. Wailing, the wench withdrew her hand from the dark aelf’s throat, leaving visible marks upon her neck where frozen fingers had tightened around it as a vice. Crying out, the child too was repelled back a step, shielding her face with small arms whose flesh began to hiss and sizzle at the light’s gentle touch. Eltera felt rather than saw Awino’s severed hand release her ankle and fall to the deck, the gruesome thing smoking palm up with twitching fingers as some dying bug roasting in the sun. Snarling, the old crone had thrown up her spindly arms as well, spewing incoherent curses toward the source of the radiance. The pure silver light spread out nearly fifteen feet from where the dark aelf stood, causing the wench to stumble away backward. Rather than shield herself from the illumination like the other two abominations, she seemed to force herself to take it all in as her body trembled and trailed tendrils of putrid mist that rose from countless tears that had erupted all over her blackened skin. Liquid mercury wept freely from the terrible wounds while a strange crackling filled the air, the quicksilver crystallizing in the chill night wind. As quickly as the beautiful radiance had appeared, it began to recede before fading away altogether. Her ebony skin still smoking, the girl lowered her seared hands and stared at Eltera with eyes that shone like molten gold before laughing again as a child would in play. She began to advance forward once more but was stopped when a metallic click sounded from within the cabin. Turning, the girl and dark aelf both saw Terwase standing not far off near the latticed windows, Rentiki’s flintlock pistol held in both of his gaunt hands. The aged shaman aimed the ornate weapon’s barrel toward the direction of the girl and, hesitating for only a split second, squeezed the trigger and fired. A loud bang rang out, accompanied by an acrid cloud of black smoke and a bright flash as the flint hammer struck sparks and ignited the powder. Terwase was thrown back a step by the pistol’s recoil just as the roundball projectile struck the girl through the left eye and exploded out the back of her head, hurling her bodily through the air. Eltera gaze grew wide when the girl landed with a thud not far from where Rentiki lay upon the deck, her limbs strewn about like some forgotten ragdoll. She had fallen face up, her remaining eye staring unseeing into the sky while her other was a ghastly hollow ruin. Rivulets of quicksilver streamed from underneath her matted white hair to stain the maindeck in an ever growing pool that glistened in the pale moonlight. A queer expression of delighted surprise graced her youthful features as she lay still as death. The flintlock pistol fell from Terwase’s shaking hands, clattering heavily to the floor just as he sank to his knees. Shocked horror over what he had just done was etched across his weathered face, wisps of smoke still trailing from the barrel of the fired weapon. Eltera whirled when the wench, seeing the girl fall, began to wail anew as a mother crying out for her dead child, raising a trembling hand toward the small corpse, imploring. Every movement she made was stiff as ice, brittle pieces of her skin and flesh breaking off from her body like flakes of fallen snow. The grieving abomination gave a final scream when suddenly she was thrown off her feet by some unseen hand, hurtling backward toward the forecastle with surprising velocity. Her body struck both the wall and door with violent force, shattering into a thousand pieces as if her flesh was wholly carved of ice statuary. Shards of frozen mercury exploded over the maindeck of the Argus and rained down over Eltera, forcing her to raise both her arms to shield her face from the flying debris. When she lowered them, she saw the abomination’s remains strewn all over the planks, each piece glittering like broken glass. A chunk of the woman’s face and eye still in its socket lay at her feet, frozen in time where a silvered tear had streamed down the cheek. Eltera saw slight movement from the right corner of her eye and turned to look down. Gasping with heavy breaths and straining with the effort, Rentiki had his right arm outstretched before him as he lay on the deck. A sheen of sweat glistened over his bare skin despite the night’s chill, his left shoulder and collarbone still torn and bleeding where the child abomination had bitten and savaged his flesh. Shifting his weight upon his stomach, the Daoshan Captain lowered his hand and regarded Eltera with an expression that bespoke of exhaustion mixed with triumph. Their moment of victory was shattered when the hag snarled her fury, baring her teeth while her golden eyes blazed with unmasked hatred. She took a step toward Eltera as if she meant to lunge at her but stopped in her tracks when shouts of alarm were raised in the distance, accompanied by myriad footsteps that echoed over the cobblestone streets. Whirling, the crone hissed one final time before turning and leaping over the deck toward the direction of the child. She flew past Eltera and the reach of her sword, landing next to the girl’s corpse. Without pausing, the hag snatched up the limp body in the crook of one arm and a piece of the wench’s shattered remains in the other before dashing across the maindeck with a startingly speed that matched the dark aelf’s own. Leaping the rail, she sailed away from the Argus and vanished into the thick white fog. There was no splash of water as one would expect from hitting the water, as if the abomination had been completely swallowed up by the night. Even now, Eltera felt her frozen wounds beginning to close up and heal over themselves, bits of mercury flaking off from her skin as a rush of warmth emanated from Amurisil. Rentiki rasped a single word when the last of the enemy had fled from sight, his voice hoarse and sounding almost rueful. “Rasavatam . . .” [/QUOTE]
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