Search, Rescue, Destroy (MATURE)

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:28 pm

Soran looked at Blade and attempted to look more convinced than he was. "It's our best shot, so let's try it," he said. Soran and Sid both edged closer to Blade, bracing themselves for whatever magic the angel wound up casting.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:19 pm

Noventia gave a crooked smile. 'This will be easier than I thought,' she thought to herself.

"Little one," she said in a convincing tone of concern. "I only do as Queen Shea bids me." She paused to let the child think on it, then continued, "But, with your help, I can stop all of this. Give you back your mother... and your real parents, if you let me."

"We... need four large branches." Blade said while thinking. "Two long ones, and two short ones. We're going to make a mirror."

Post by **Emora Deen** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:23 pm

Rai narrowed her eyes at the woman for a moment and then glanced away. "No one can do that..." she said softly, disbelievingly. "Besides, you aren't a nice lady. You work for that mean lady... Not nice. And I can't help you. I'm just a kid..."

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:26 pm

"You wont be if you help me." She gently pressed a finger to Rai's chest. "You have a power deep inside you that the Queen wanted, but it was stopped, was it not? Well... it's still there, but you have to grow up in order to attain that power." When the child still didn't look convinced she added, "With that power, I can bring back your parents."

...Back as zombies, anyway.

Post by **Emora Deen** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:30 pm

Rai didn't feel comfortable. In fact, she even went to move away, but since she was in the corner she couldn't go anywhere. She eyed the woman carefully. Rai wasn't a full, and she had never been a very gullible child. However, she had always wanted to grow up and though she hardly remembered what her parents looked like... she knew she loved them very much.

"Can you really?" she asked, tilting her head at the woman. "Can you really bring them back?"

Why did she even want them back? Mizuki and Soran was her mother and father now. What would happen if her real parents came back? Rai didn't even consider what the woman was saying about power. That was totally over Rai's head. At the moment she was too confused and awed to care. At the moment she just wanted to grow up and see her parents again.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:05 pm

"Of course little one!" she said it as if it was something she did on a daily basis. Necromancy didn't bring back the dead though, it only animated the flesh to do the bidding of the necromancer. "And I need your help to do it. What do you say? Do you want to grow up?"

The fist came down hard on her back, right between her shoulder blades. Mizuki coughed and gasped, wincing from the X mantel she was tied to, dangling down towards the floor at an angle, she winced from the bruises too.

"What do you want of me?!" she yelled for the second time. The general laugh and held her chin between his fingers.

"To ease my curiosity." he said mockingly. "The seer who had kept the key hidden away from our Queen, the seer who our Queen wants to predict the future... and yet you cannot." He mused and let go of her chin. He stood up. A tall man, well built and wearing the Arken armor a general would wear. Red, silver, and black clashing together in a dangerous array to express the exact danger someone would be in had they come across him. Long dark brown hair tied back loosely, and cruel amusement sparkling in his dark eyes. "Mizuki Ryoko, the half elf who possess an earthly beauty, like she was the earth's incarnation, and a spirit full of life and determination. A fighter's spirit, a nurturing spirit." He turned back to her and grinned.

"Luc may have been right to be so obsessive over you." Mizuki's eyes widened in shock a she stared up at the general who beat her, and talked of Luc like he knew him. Luc... the first man she had come to love, and the one she had killed. "...and even though he wanted you so much, you killed him. How ironic."

"How do you know of him?! How do you know any of that? Who are you!" she screamed, tears falling from her eyes at the pain-filled memory. He leaned down close in front of her battered face and said,

"I'm the one who trained him."

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:24 pm

Soran gave Blade a perturbed stare as if he couldn't quite believe he'd just proposed the idea, but swallowed whatever he was about to say in favor of turning toward the woods. The trees were sparse in this area, as the lush forests of Ighten gave way to the barren crags that formed the foothills of the Border's rough peaks. Looking up at the Border reminded Soran how unlikely they were to make it across the terrain alive. It was designed to be impassible, and though it stood for hundred of years, it still nearly was.

"I'll be back," he said, running out to a stand of denser foliage to hunt for what Blade had requested. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to find what he thought Blade was asking for - two sturdy limbs that were easily Sid's height, if not taller, and another pair about three feet wide that Soran had actually broken from the same fallen branch. He returned at last with the long sticks in one hand and the short in the other and watched Blade for his reactioin. He was struck again by a sense of bafflement at how Blade intended to use these as described. No matter how you looked at it, they were just sticks. Nothing solid, let alone reflective as a mirror would be, but Soran understood little to nothing about magic. He noticed that Sid was stifling a grin, possibly thinking the same thing. "Will these work?" he asked Blade humorlessly.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:28 pm

Without thinking much on the ridiculousness of what he had just proposed, Blade took the sticks and laid them out on the ground. He made the rough frame of the "mirror". Turning to Sid he said, "We need binding. In order for this to work the sticks need to be held tightly together before I can implement the dark magic."

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:31 pm

Sid smirked. "Sorry, kid, I'm not carrying any rope," he scoffed. "Can we just use our imagination?" He was half in jest and half genuinely baffled.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:34 pm

Blade narrowed his eyes and then smacked Sid upside the head. "Find some plant stems and make stripes out of them! Oh gods... I need to be here to concentrate on the magic." Pressing his fingers to his temples, Blade turned to his father. "Dad, help him will you?"

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:43 pm

Soran raised his eyebrows, sensing what Sid was going to do next. The man's strong hand found the back of Blade's collar and tugged him up just off the ground. "Bit of a brat, isn't he?" Sid speculated, holding Blade to one side so he could cast a skeptical look at Soran. "Is this a rescue mission or a scavenger hunt?"

"Leave it be," Soran sighed. "If he says he needs hemp, we apparently need it," he said, but frustration showed in his voice too. He turned to find some sort of substitute. Surprisingly, Sid cooperated, dropping the boy back to his feet and walking past him to catch up with Soran.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 8:54 pm

Blade stared after them on the ground, debating whether or not he should kill the man now or later. Did he have any idea how important it was to bring them back? How important this spell is to get it right? No! He is a Arken soldier, a sadistic bast*rd by default. Blade closed his eyes, his frustration and rage getting the better of him, making it hard to concentrate. But he had too, for his mother, for Rai.

Using his anger for more meaningful means, Blade focused it on the spell. He was successful in under a minute. The mass of dark magic glowed in his hands, within it, he could vaguely see where they would land, the tent they needed to go to was already out of the way from the rest of the encampment. They would land only a few yards away from the tent where Rai was prisoner. Now they needed the makeshift mirror to be complete before he could put the magic inside it.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:24 pm

Soran and Sid didn't speak as they walked among the higher trees in the forest. There was a tension there between them that was caused by too many things to sort out at the moment. Finally, Soran stopped under a tall, thick tree and looked up. Sid followed his gaze. The upper branches were draped with various leafy vines that twisted into soft ropelike bundles.

"Even if you sit on my shoulders, we're not reaching th...." Sid said, breaking off when Soran dropped his coat to the ground and leapt up onto the heavy trunk. The rogue shimmied up the trunk until he reached the first limb, then began pulling up between branches. "Good Gods, quit being such an elf," Sid breathed as Soran started walking out onto a nearly level branch like it was nothing but a low street curb. "I'm not catching you!" he shouted up into the branches, barely able to make out Soran's form in the foliage.

Sid shielded his face as a heavy vine flung loose from above and flopped directly over him. "Very funny, fine, now get down!" Sid demanded. Soran slid down among the branches on another vine until it ended about 8 feet overhead, and let go, landing in a crouch a few yards from Sid.

"Didn't know you were so nimble," Sid said grudgingly, regaining his composure.

"I'm not. The landing hurt like hell," Soran grouched, slowly straightening the muscles in his frazzled legs. He limped to his coat and snatched it up.

Sid shook his head and collected the vine. "Need me to carry you?" he teased as they made their way back to Blade.

"No, I just need to walk it out," Soran said tensely.

Sid shrugged. He could tell the elf was too distracted with thoughts of his family to react to or even notice his jokes, and it made the worry spread to him in earnest for the first time.

When they finally got back to Blade, Sid held the vine out to the angel, looking serious this time.

Mizuki · Post by **Mizuki** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:30 pm

Without looking Blade said, "I cannot move my hands from the dark magic. Bind the sticks together. Tightly." He was concentrating hard to keep the sphere of magic together. Sweat trickled from his brow, but his face was calm, almost serene is not for the deadly purposefulness of his gaze.

Post by **Soran Nightblade** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:36 pm

Sid observed the boy's condition cautiously, but turned and quickly began binding the corners of the branches with the hemp from the vine. He'd once been a fisherman, and his hands knew their work well. The knots were tied and secured, and two minutes later, the frame of the 'mirror' was as sturdy and secure as it ever would be. Soran straightened up after rubbing the last few stitches of tension out of his calves. He didn't know how to help Blade, who seemed to be struggling with the effort of the enormous spell he was casting. "It's ready," he said steadily, wary of startling or distracting the boy.