User:Arrow Quivershaft/Out of the Darkness
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"Aw fuck," Alex groaned softly, saying what was on everyone’s mind as we approached. I watched the beast closely, not sure if we were going to have to fight again here. It watched us, but it didn’t get up to move. This one was a fair bit smaller, and lighter colored, than the one we encountered previously. Blossom dug into her robe and pulled out the familiar flask, but she was behind me, so the cerberus didn’t see it.
I stood there for a moment, evaluating. The riverbank here was only about 20 feet wide, and we already knew that the river wasn’t a safe option, so running seemed to be out of the question. That said, it didn’t seem to even be getting up, just watching us with curiousity at the moment...though that didn’t mean I was going to let my guard down.
"We need to be ready to fight if needed,” I said. “But let's see if we can get by without one." We were all pretty hurting by this point; Alex and Dawn were also exhausted from walking all the time. So any conflict we could avoid...
"Alright, then let us continue." Blossom said, putting the flask away, and looking at the soul. She’d really gotten more risk averse on the way up...I was glad for that. Then she looked back to the cerberus. "It looks odd.." she commented.
I started up. "It's a different one, I think."
"What happened to the other?" she asked, her and the rest following me.
"I guess it lost it's job." Alex said. Timmy grunted, looking ready for a fight. I had my sword in my hand, in case it tried something, but I wasn’t very confident I’d be good in close quarters against something this big. Still...better than nothing. That said, the thing just sat there watching us with two of the three heads. Blossom waved to the thing as we got close.
"Ey," said the two heads watching us, in unison.
"Hello." I said, turning on the diplomacy again.
"Greetings," Blossom said, turning on the cute.
"Are we permitted to pass?" I asked carefully.
"Go for it,” said the left head. “I'm here to keep people out, not in."
"Oh, ok..." I said, not really having expected that kind of easy outcome. I wasn’t going to question it, though. “Thanks.” I started out.
"Have a good run?" said the center head.
"Well, no we are just travelling," Blossom said, probably misinterpreting the realmwalker slang.
"Hmm, pretty good, I think." Alex said with a nod. Easy for him to say, he was probably the least hurt of any of us.
"Yes." I agreed. We didn’t need to show weakness. I headed through the gate with the others, and looked up at the moon as everyone else followed through. It was...refreshing to have overhead light again. Even the relative darkness of the moon seemed impossibly bright after 3 days underground.
They all followed me through, Blossom giving a polite wave as she did.
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We had to break for camp after we got up out of the blast crater the castle was in, but it was a relatively quick stop. We ate, slept, and got back on our way. We were running kinda low on supplies, and we all wanted to get out of the underworld, so we were all pushing ourselves just a bit harder. The morale was better too.
We spent the next day getting back to the tributary river and following it up. Some things I’d noticed had shifted, but not much. We had a few fights, but nothing noteworthy. Nobody was dead. We had to take it slower for the injuries, and because we were going uphill, but having Dawn and Alex back in the sky again really helped.
Towards the ‘evening’, we were heading up the last half-mile to the mirror. It was still dark, but things were looking familiar. Blossom was mumbling something to the soul, which wasn’t responding. But it seemed to comfort her to talk to it, so I saw no harm in it. I noticed Dawn circling around, probably looking for bat-creatures, since she didn’t want another of those fights, and then she circled down towards a lower orbit. Alex followed along with her.
“Mirror ho!” she called down to me. I looked up at her at that and nodded, signalling with my hand. We’d made it!
We pushed on towards the mirror, everyone’s energy seemed to be a bit higher. Dawn landed near us, starting to hop along, Alex mirroring the action a bit farther away to avoid salad-shooting anyone.
"I'm... actually surprised we pulled this off," Dawn said as we got near the top of the hill that the mirror was on. Alex chuckled, though I didn’t find it as funny. Sure, jinx it at the finish line. That said, it was the same thing I was thinking, so I wasn’t going to say anything about it.
As we got up to the top of the hill to crest the ridge in front of the mirror, I looked forward at the mirror...but I wasn’t expecting what I saw there. There were four people there, looking like they were getting their bearings. Had they just come through? I quickly sized up the situation. There were two skoll marked to Fenrir, a hemt marked to Horus, and...a sphinx, marked to Bast. Though she’s the only god that does sphinx, so that was obvious.
Shit. There was no way they hadn’t seen us, and Bast of course would’ve wanted Nick’s soul back herself. So it was fight with us in the depleted state we were in, or try diplomacy. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, hoping that there was going to be some peaceful resolution to this.
“Hello?” I stepped forward, calling out to the other group. I raised my lightstick up, and took the front position of my group, keeping them behind me. I was kicking myself mentally, mind racing. We’d just given Bast a week to catch up, and we hadn’t been subtle about our hiring reasons. It probably had been easy as pie for them to find us. Did they know where the body was? If they did, would they need us alive?
Hell, for that matter, how had they even gotten through the Athene temple? I could feel the distaste Athene had for Fenrir and Bast through my marksense. I wasn’t sure I’d like the answer to my question.
"Hi," one of the skoll said blandly, scrutinizing us. Skoll are like anthropomorphic wolves, except they’re plantigrade. Now that I could see him better, it was clear he was male, along with the hemt (short, scorpion-tailed fennec fox anthro). The other skoll looked like she was female, though they were all armed for bear.
“Hello.” Blossom said shyly, uncertainly. Good, even she knew this wasn’t a great situation.
I looked back to the skoll. "Can we assist you, or may we pass?" Just get past them and into the mirror and we were safe. Unless they’d fought their way through the temple or something, but then how’d they get through the mirror...it didn’t make any sense to me.
"We're lookin' fer wherever souls on their way t' th' afterlife'd go." the male skoll said. His mark had an odd ‘flavor’. Like he was in the direct displeasure of Fenrir himself. I’d heard of Shame-Marks before, but I’d never encountered one.
Dawn held up a wing as a wave, as she moved to my side. "Just head for water and follow it downstre-"
Blossom suddenly cut her off, levelling a finger at the male skoll angrily and shouting, “YOU!” I looked back at her. SHIT. Now this was going to go off the rails...Alex was suspiciously quiet at that.
"What'd I do now?" the skoll asked, not entirely surprised, just...like he wasn’t sure which of many actions it was.
Blossom looked at us, and then back. “This is Aaron, yes?” she asked. Hell if I knew, it was dark, he was silhouetted by the mirror, and his fur was all black.
"I is me, yeah," the skoll said, seemingly intentionally mangling the sentence. He was clearly the leader in that group by the way the others looked at him. The hemt glanced around, tail curled up behind him. I looked to Blossom, not sure if I should interrupt her. No one had made a move yet, so at least that was encouraging.
"You killed Nkosi..." Blossom accused, narrowing her eyes at Aaron.
"Yeah, he did. Why?" the female skoll said, looking a bit confused. Her mark didn’t have the same “Shame” feeling that Aaron’s did.
"When someone tries t' kill ya, you usually hafta kill'em right back." Aaron said. Was this the same one from the news? If so, he wasn’t a skoll...but I couldn’t tell any difference readily.
"You killed Nick too!" Blossom shouted in rage. So this WAS the one from the news.
I started briefly. We needed damage control, NOW. "Blossom. Please let me handle this, thank you."
"..and that's why I'm down in fuckin' spookyland, alright?" Aaron shot back.
"You intend to retrieve Nkosi's soul?" I said, trying to calm the situation down.
"Don't bother..." Blossom growled threateningly. Gods, she was interesting, but a total liability in most negotiations.
"Pussywillow can blow himself.” Aaron spat. “I'm here fer Nick."
"Easy, hon," the other skoll said in a low voice, stepping over to gently scratch Aaron’s back. He calmed a bit, but didn’t seem to like Blossom’s attitude. So they were a couple, too.
"Blossom, let me handle this." I said, raising my voice a bit to make it clear this wasn’t up for debate. She glared at me, but shut up for the moment.
"They are one and the same..." the sphinx said, continuing to stare at Blossom.
"We have the soul and intend to return it to the body." I said, trying to reach a middle ground.
"Well good. We walked all th' fuckin' way fer nothin'." Aaron said angrily.
"Have I... missed something?" the hemt said to Aaron.
"I don't know. People here think I \know\ what's goin' on,” Aaron muttered in anger.
"... Wait. You guys already got him?" the female skoll said, looking a bit surprised.
"That's the fox Nkosi kicked out of Tel Aviv,” the sphinx said. “He didn't want Bast to get her, so I got to play taxi."
Blossom stopped glaring at me and aimed it back at Aaron. “Nick’s right here.” She pointed at the soul-ball that had been following her the last few days.
I nodded in agreement. “We did get him,” I confirmed.
"... Well, that makes things simple." the female said.
"..an' here I thought I was gonna hafta reenact a few levels of Doom." Aaron said, seeming slightly disappointed.
"You are Mr. Aaron Dowrey, correct?" I said, trying to reach a common ground.
"Yeh. I am." Aaron said. Good. Now we could get to business.
I nodded back to him. "I’m Nathan Renfrew, professional Realm Walker. I have been the guide of Blossom and Alex for the last month and a half...if you desire, you may accompany us to the body to restore the soul."
"Th' body? Still got his own?" Aaron said. So they didn’t know where the body was...good, we had leverage.
Blossom seemed to calm down, looking at Aaron "I know you had no choice...I am sorry for my anger." she apologized. I’m not sure if it was sincere, but the gesture was at least welcome. "The body is back in the grove." And there went our leverage.
"Good. Th' guy's been through \way\ too many bodies," Aaron said. There was something here I didn’t know, but it wasn’t my concern at the moment.
The hemt gestured to me, speaking in a light arabic accent. Maybe a forcemark. "I like the way this fellow thinks." He said.
"Storytelling can wait, as for taking the soul back to the body that isn't happening." the sphinx said, ominously. She got a few glances from both groups from that, but backed up.
"Wait, I thought these were exactly the people we couldn't trust, hon?" Dawn said to me, trying to be quiet. I shot her a “SHUT UP” look. I didn’t need this.