Snippet #2027796

Belen lay on the floor where he had fallen. In his mad dash, the archer had tripped and tumbled on to the cobbles, saved from being crushed only by Ea's explosive burst of power. The sky spread out before him, and as each ragged breath came, Belen tried to muster up the strength to stand. It would not come so easily...not after what he'd witnessed. Belen squinted against the glare of the sun and decided to close his eyes as he contemplated.

First of all, why did Ea's race not rule the planet? If all it took was a corpse to bring them to the level of a demigod, the cannibal-people should have conquered Silvera and all beyond it centuries ago. He could see Ea tearing through a small army on her own, so why did she decide to live life as a sellsword?

Grunting with effort, Belen brought his battered form up from the ground. After getting his feet under him and dusting himself off, the archer glanced at Beleth. He had a million things he could say to her at the moment. Sarcastic comments, an angry outburst, maybe even a punch to the face, although Belen was not one for striking women. All of it, however, could be traced back to the woman dispersing the energy of her own spell as Belen practically begged for her aid. He'd watched the glow that suffused her hands fizzle out and the look of quiet contemplation on her face wax in the face of such a hardy foe. Beleth had been ready to watch him die simply because she did not think the beast a surmountable obstacle, or whatever reason she could conjure for her lack of action. Oddly enough, Belen walked right on by her.

He passed Chaos along the way. That warped little weasel was as much to blame as Beleth. Not acting at all was just as bad as doing something and then giving up halfway through in Belen's book. What made things worse, was that they were supposedly the two best offensive magic-users of the group, for miles even. The fact that they were next to useless irked Belen to no end. Yauz helped, but draining life one iota at a time was not quite as visceral as a flaming sphere to the chest. Belen spat and moved to retrieve Zenin's armor and weapons, still stained with chunks of the changeling's viscera.

It did not take long to find Ea's mess. She'd blasted the beast in to a depression in the town square. Belen scoffed; she was mindful of property damage? He stopped near Yauz and Aurora, trying to catch Ea's eye as she wailed on the monster.

"So," Belen said, flipping one of Zenin's daggers, "You knew then. That fire would burn it down?" it was more of a statement than anything. There was no room for dispute in his tone, as he figured the situation was plain enough to piece together, even for the child-minded Aurora and Chaos. "So you could have gave the order for fireballs, firebolts, lightning blasts, heat waves, fel-flames, bloodfire, any of the thousand-thousand fire spells that Chaos and Beleth could muster between themselves from the very beginning. You could have...but that wouldn't have been fun. Is that it?" Belen absently wiped off some of Zenin's blood that had rubbed on to his tunic. "You needed an excuse to eat someone, so you conveniently left that part out."

A stare, dark and accusing, was all that passed between Belen and Ea for a moment. He looked askance at Aurora, but he had no words for her. It would have been easy to admonish her for her blatant tardiness, but she was was easily the weakest magician of their party. He doubted she would have done much of anything anyway.

Carrying what he could of Zenin's remains and gear, Belen made for the local church of Nakal. It would take everything he earned from the mission, but Belen was dead set on getting Zenin resurrected by the best the town had to offer. Belen cringed. Zenin had more courage than he...there was always a great chance that the Gods would not allow your soul to return to the physical plane...resurrection would be a far more commonly used service if it were otherwise.

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Symbols drawn in the blood of the fallen adorned a runic circle near the center of the church. Men in blue and black robes chanted so softly that Belen could not make out the words, but the power behind them was enough to make his teeth itch. In only a few minutes, the spell was complete, and light poured from the dias, bleeding in to what little was left of Zenin.

Belen leaned forward in his seat, eager to see if his ally would return from the Nether in one piece.