Phaedra Mithalvarin's Story

Time was always somewhat of a problem for Callion. Considering he would slip in and out of consciousness at the drop of the hat and sometimes never know it, he couldn't tell if they had been riding for days or simply a couple of hours. They had set up camp a few times, during which he had scoured the landscape to find any kind of alchemical reagents he might be able to use for potions or healing salves later on. The nights passed as they usually did, either incredibly slowly or with what appeared to be a snapshot to sunrise. His hallucinations and dreams weren't always elaborate affairs, sometimes he would fall asleep into nothing and simply wake up with an unknown amount of time having passed. Still, for whatever it was worth, the group seemed to meld together well enough that there weren't any outbursts or arguments during the few...days worth of riding? Regardless, Callion had been relying on his horse to simply stay with the group as his hands combed over one of his books again. With the threat of death and undeath surrounding their target location, he had taken the time to look through his spell list to deal with such afflictions. Granted, there were more powerful options at his disposal, but if he had the choice he wouldn't use them. He didn't bother to look up from his notes until he had taken notice that his horse had stopped of its own accord. Were they setting up camp again? Looking up, he saw that Ragnar was talking with a villager of sorts who appeared to be gathering a herb. Blane's Tongue? Made a decent tea, minor medicinal properties. Had Callion more time, he would have grabbed a few for himself, but it seemed like they had gotten whatever information was worth getting out of the man and were moving on.

Now that his head wasn't stuck in his book, Callion's eyes drifted upwards and forwards, towards their destination and the sky which had slight billows of smoke protruding through it. The temperature seemed to drop, and for Callion, he could feel the slight twinge of magical essence. Of what, he couldn't discern, but it was clear something unnatural had happened here. Callion closed his book and placed it into his satchel as his eyes scanned the horizon for any hint or sign of what this could possibly be.

---

A short time later and they arrived at a literal crossroads. As the Soldier hooked his horse to the post, Callion did the same, peering towards the village. As Ragnar spoke, indicating he would be taking the middle road with one other person and they should split up to cover more ground, Callion agreed as he started walking towards the left most street. "A solid enough start." Callion stated before walking towards the left road, his staff in hand. "Be sure to take in whatever information you can, but be cautious." Callion looked to the others for a moment. "Magic lingers in the air, potentially a curse but I can't be certain. If you do notice anything unusual happening to you, be sure to find me immediately, I'll want to take notes as whatever the spell is slowly overtakes your body." Callion turned towards the left road once more, taking confident strides in that direction. "If anyone wishes to join me, they are more than welcome." Without waiting for any kind of response, Callion continued walking until he had hit the outskirts of the village proper.

The buildings were partially burned, the road (if it could be called that) was little more than a mud pile fit only for a pig's bath. Smoke rose absentmindedly from a couple of the hovels as a number of bodies appeared to litter the area ahead of him. He couldn't tell what had killed them from this distance, but he was noticing that blood seemed to be absent from much of his surroundings. If it had been as violent as the decor would suggest, he had been expecting a veritable river of crimson to be flowing. Instead he was left with a mystery. That was perfect, after so many days...one day of travelling? Bah, after so much time spent on a horse with only his books he had read a dozen times to keep his mind preoccupied, he was excited for the chance to stretch his mental muscles. It was then that a presence was felt behind him, and he turned to notice a meek little Mara standing there as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "What are you doing all the way back there child? Come, let us walk the road once travelled together.". Child? He was not that much older, hell to many other priests and wizards, he was practically a child himself. Old habits from his days as a priest die hard he supposed.

Mara seemed to move even more slowly than usual.

It was clear she had heard Callion as she gave him a strangely wide-eyed expression and nodded at his voice. Yet, she still trailed behind. She had never seen a village this destroyed before. As if walking through a graveyard (and possibly she was, as surely corpses rested here, trapped beneath rubble.) Mara gingerly walked after Callion. Cautious of footing. Ears straining for any sounds of life. She too had heard the elder on the road, explaining that this would be what they would find. Still, she had never thought it would be...quite this awful.

There was a smell about the air she couldn't place. Mara sniffed deeply, almost like an animal might, as she tried to pinpoint the scent. She knew the smell of death, as she had often helped her father slaughter animals for dinner..but somehow this was different.

"Callion...do you smell that?" She asked softly. "It's death..but...something else too...something...strange..." anxiously Mara picked at her apron. "Also...do you suppose that smoke is from the blue fires we were told about?"

"Magical essence lingers on the wind." Callion answered as his hand scraped up against a burnt piece of wood, feeling the brittle nature of it and noticing a lack of heat. The flames that had burned it had long since died, yet the smoke remained. The ash died his skin a dark grey as he rubbed his fingers, bringing it up to his nose and sniffing it. He could apply a scrying spell, but there was no telling what kind of magical interference was happening in this village. He would prefer not to use his abilities until he had a clearer picture as to what was going on. Remembering that Mara had asked a secondary question, he swiped his hand in the air to get rid of the ash still clinging to his skin. "It's possible. It's also possible a normal fire caused this damage as there are no indications of magical tampering yet...well aside from the aforementioned essence." Callion continued forward, and was almost drawn into a trance of figuring out a puzzle before stopping and looking behind him once more. "I realize I'm no muscle bound soldier clad in white armor, but I require you to walk closer to myself Mara. There were reports of the walking dead, and I would hate for one of them to grab you while I was otherwise preoccupied."

Mara's expression was something between frightened and harassed. She was well aware of reports, she had heard the king as well. But it seemed imprudent to hurry across the wreckage. She didn't want to trip over something..or worse..someone..

"Yes..but..the footing is a little unst--"

As she began to lean across a burnt out board, her fear seemed to come to life. There was a snapping sound and some of the rubble that had smoldered nearby collapsed beneath her. Mara threw out her arms to steady herself, hobbling backwards to avoid the new gaping hole, some burned out cellar..it seemed. She stepped unsteadily backwards and felt something soft and fleshy under her boots. She yelped, falling backwards onto her rear in her surprise and scrambled backwards away from whatever had tripped her. What was it?! The undead? A corpse?

To some relief, she realized it was an arm...an arm still gracefully attached to a woman. She was mostly covered by rubble, but it seemed somehow she was not crushed. A small, unstable cave, of sorts, had been formed over the woman. Cautiously, Mara inched forward, slowly reaching out a finger. Was she dead? She poked the womans hand, trembling, expecting the hard coldness of death to greet her touch. Instead, it was warm and still soft. Mara's eyes went wide and she crawled closer.

"Callion....?" She called out to the wizard. "I..I think this woman is still living..."

Mara leaned over the woman's face, noting the obvious bump on her head. A bit of blood. Quickly, the girl's eyes scanned the woman's body, seeking any other obvious wounds..but could see none. She also could not feel breath though or see her chest rising and falling..as one asleep would do.

"M..miss? Hello?" Mara said softly to the woman. Hoping she would stir. She did not.

Mara sat on her knees beside the woman, putting her head to her chest, listening. It was a little tougher than she expected though as the woman's..ample bosom...made Mara have to shift awkwardly..they were practically smothering her. Ah! But there. Yes, there was a heart beat. Slow. Very slow. And breathing..very shallow. She may be near death.

She lifted her head to call the wizard again.

"She's breathing! She's got a bump on her head, but she's still alive...but her heart is slow.."

Mara fumbled in her satchel, pulling out some herbs and bandages. Gingerly, she squeezed the herbs til the juices ran, smelling strongly of the earth, and began to tend to the woman's head wound. She had only ever done this on herself before...and she knew if it was not gently done, then it would sting.

It would have almost been comical if the situation weren't nearly as serious as it had the potential to be. On cue, there was some sort of snapping followed by a yelp, and Callion looked back to see Mara fall over something. Callion paused in his forward stride to keep watch long enough to make certain that there wasn't something more sinister waiting for the nearly prone form of Mara, before she seemed to get curious and call out to the wizard. A survivor? That would make things so much easier towards figuring out exactly what had happened here. He strolled forward as Mara did her best nurse impression and went about seeing to the woman's health. As he got closer, and managed to get a better look at the wounded party, he was pleased to see that she didn't appear to be too severely injured. In fact, comparable to the building that threatened to squish her, she was relatively unharmed. Why was she out cold then? Did whatever magical entity that had passed through this place cause this? It was at this point that Callion was really regretting his internal promise to not overtly use magic here in case there were other factors in play. Regardless, he stood over Mara, either like a cold teacher or domineering statue depending on your point of view before a slight twitch of his nose broke the facade. "Good, she appears to be well...relatively speaking. We should be able to get the story as to what happened here in short order."

Mara gently tied off the bandage around the woman's forehead, not too tightly and in a neat bow beside her left ear. She nodded to Callion's suggestion.

"I suppose she may have answers...maybe.."

Mara said softly, still focused on the woman. Mara knelt behind the woman's head, pulling the unconscious lady's head into her lap, like a pillow. She griped the woman's sleeve and tugged at her arm, bringing it in closer to her body so she wouldn't be overly sore when she woke. That was when she noticed her wrist..

"Oh...she's like us..." Mara murmured softly staring at the marking on the lady's wrist in surprise. "Look, Callion. It's the same, isn't it?" Mara said putting her mark beside the one she found on the woman.

"It would seem that way..." Callion noted absentmindedly as he bent down to get a closer look. Grabbing the unconscious woman's hand, he turned it over as if he was inspecting some kind of dangerous vial filled with something that might explode. He rubbed a finger against it, confirming that it was indeed some form of tattoo or marking. "Doesn't appear to be painted or drawn on... I believe it's safe to assume that she is as we are." Callion nodded as he spoke, standing to look at the town once more. "If that's the case...and we're supposedly the heralds of the apocalypse..." Callion let the thought slip as he peered through the devastation that was most likely wrought by magical means on a scale that was not small. His eyes narrowed as he started pouring through his own mind, attempting to collect his thoughts into a coherent picture for him to start working from.

It was only a moment later that he heard what sounded like scraping, and peered over to see an arm reaching out from the hole in the ground. Callion stared at it for a moment, noticing the skin was peeling off in places, replaced with a dull white sheen of bone and murkey red of rotting meat. "I was wondering how long it would take for them to notice our presence." Callion stated, as if he had expected this from the very beginning. True, he was told that the dead walked this village sized graveyard, but he had no idea of telling where they were. Callion wandered closer as the zombie managed to pull its severely burned and rotting head past the lip of the hole leading to...what Callion could only assume was some sort of basement or cellar. It chomped slightly, its entire jawline a mixture of bone and dried blood, with empty eyeball sockets and seared flesh where applicable. "Interesting." He knelt down just out of arm's reach of the zombie, which continued its slow climb upwards, snarling at the wizard as he took his staff and poked at the flesh. "Decay, flesh was cooked...burn marks on the bone...the heat must have been intense or it was burning far longer than we believed." Callion seemed to lose himself in his thoughts once more, forgetting that Mara and the woman were right behind him. "Standard fare really, shame. I was hoping for something slightly more interesting than your typical corpse monkey." Callion stated as he took the bottom of his staff and tapped the deadman on the forhead. There was a slight pause filled by a 'pop' as the back of the zombie's head burst outwards and it fell back into the hole. Standing up and peering over the metaphorical abyss, Callion looked down to see that was only the first of what appeared to be several deadmen peering up at him, each one without eyes and missing flesh in several different places. "Must have gotten trapped, turned the cellar into a steamhouse."

Callion turned back towards Mara and the woman, pausing for a moment before remembering they had been there the entire time. He wanted to push forward and investigate, but now they had a wounded party and the best course of action would be to take her out of the village, but he couldn't send Mara alone in case there were more of those creatures hiding just out of view. A compromise would be to take the woman with them to the center, meet with the rest after having gathered whatever clues they could get. "Are you capable of carrying her?"

Mara had taken on the frozen rabbit form again. Clutching the prone woman tightly,her mouth slightly a gape with fear, she was aware only of the small, high pitched rasping that was inexplicably escaping her mouth. Not really a scream. More like a trapped scream.

Until Callion directed a question at her, she thought she may be stuck that way forever until these..walking corpses got her...

Watching the wizard easily take one of the creatures out brought feeling back into her legs. She nodded vigorously at his words and with a strength born of back-breaking labor, hauling wood and stone, she hefted the unconscious woman onto her back, as if the woman were no heavier than a sack of grain.

"I...I can carry her..." she croaked, her voice dry with fright. "But I can't fight this way.." or at all, she thought...but did not voice.

She imagined that she might look astounding with this woman riding piggyback. Easily, Mara was half this woman's size. Like watching a grown adult ride a miniature pony.

"W..what do we do?"

"We can't take her back, because no one is there to take care of her and I'm not giving up the opportunity to investigate the potential of this place. We can't leave her here, because it was already a miracle that the dead hadn't found her, so the only option left is to take her with us and hope she wakes up along the way." Callion stated, not bothering to address the portion of her being able to fight, mainly because she had made it evident several times prior that she was simply not a fighter. He understood and in some ways was sympathetic, but he was caught at a crossroad of understanding a moral obligation and the intense urge of his professional curiosity. With Mara carrying a body through the streets, there would be no option for remaining somewhat stealthy and avoiding unnecessary conflict. Callion gave a sigh and flicked his fingers. A small red orb appeared hovering in his hands. "Come, we'll need to make our way to the village center, where we'll meet the others." Callion tossed the orange ball into the cellar, walking back towards Mara before snapping his fingers and turning back towards Mara.

At the same moment, the cellar exploded, heaving slight flames and debris into the air. "Oh, and I mean it this time now Mara...stay close." Callion stated, taking his staff and tapping it into the ground. With a slight glow from the orbs inside the staff, a white translucent dome surrounded the two of them, and as Callion started to walk, the dome moved with him.

Phaedra was in a lethargic haze as the murmurs of movement and talking seemed far in the distance, coming back to her like reliving the moments of unconsciousness before she woke. Were people approaching? Should she hide? She tried to will her body to move. Get up. Get out of sight, she told herself, but her body did not cooperate. Maybe it was a dream? Or was she paralyzed? Her mind felt conscious but her eyelids were lead.

At one moment she felt a weight on her chest, not heavy like it was trying to suffocate her, but gentle. The sent of feint roses, travel and sweat softly overwhelmed her senses. Something about it was comforting and innocent. A woman? Then there was a grasp of her wrist. Callused fingers touched the soft skin where Phaedra remembered the strange mark appearing. And then her head was cradled, resting upon a soft surface that made her wonder if this was the kind of comfort a mother would give their child. It was a foreign feeling that made her nostalgic for something she never experienced.

Then Phaedra had an odd sensation of weightlessness. Was she dead? Something carried her but she couldn’t tell if it was to death or beyond, or someone moved her body while her mind was away. She felt a breeze sweep rose scented hair across her face. As a reflex she wanted to brush it away, yet her body did not listen… Though a finger twitched. Then a loud explosion startled her awake, jolting her body as her mind and consciousness coincided.

Sensory overload washed over her in a tidal wave. Where was she? Who was this woman carrying Phaedra on her back? And who was the wizard? She raised her head from the brunette’s shoulder, her eyes wide as she took in her environment. Her gaze fixated on the surrounding ruins and it all came back to her, knocking the wind out of her in an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. At the shock, Phaedra sat herself up from the woman’s back, yanking up her sleeve to stair down at the fresh mark that plagued her skin. It wasn’t a dream?

Phaedra’s body was thrown off balance at her sudden movements. Her legs were still held in the woman’s grasp but her body tipped backwards until her back slammed into the ground with a slight thud.

Mara suddenly felt the weight on her back shift. The muscles of the woman that had before been limp like a sleeping child, went stiff. Then the weight pulled backwards, knocking her into the now struggling woman. Mara yelped in fright, tightening her grip in fear they would flounder into the cellar or the living dead.

"Wait! Wait!" Mara rasped.

Still in slight disbelief, Phae tugged the sleeve over the mark and closed her eyes for a long moment. She pulled back the fabric again to see it still staring back at her. ”Fuck,” she cursed under her breath as her left hand quickly covered the damned mark.

Images of everything before her blackout flashed through Phaedra’s mind until it all came back to the strange tablet she found. She had questions… Too many to count between the mark, the village and the convenient people who just happened to find her. But if she wanted to be any closer to some semblance of answers she needed that damned thing. Phaedra quickly tore into her satchel, sifting her hand through the contents but it wasn’t there. She slipped her feet from the woman’s hold, trying to be quick but gentle enough not to hurt her.

Mara felt the woman tugging her feet from her grip. She didn't fight her. And Mara watched in vague horror as she fled.

"C..callion?! She's awake..and running away..." Mara said to the wizard as she scrambled to her feet. Still, she minded his words. Freed from her burden, she inched closer to Callion. A trembling hand gingerly gripping the back of his robe, like a lost child.

"It's dangerous...shouldn't we go help her? I didn't feel any weapons on her..." Mara whispered, looking anxiously in the direction the woman fled. "Please?" Mara asked turning round eyes to Callion. She knew he could probably feel her trembling, but with her other hand, she fished an arrow from her satchel. She was too shaken to fire it...but she could still hold it and strike. Her eyes flashed with a small determination. Callion looked back, seeing the pleading Mara and the makeshift weapon she had in her hand. With a calm movement, he lightly brushed her weapon hand down and made a slight swat at the hand that gripped the robe, momentarily forgetting about the woman currently running from them.

"It will be fine...and don't touch the robes, I would prefer to keep them as clean as possible...despite our current predicament."

Mara winced away from Callion's swatting hand as if she'd been burned. She drew both hands together, gripping the arrow that had also been pushed aside and looked down. She should know better than to touch someone unbidden.

"Y..yes...sorry...I didn't intend to offend you..."
She suddenly felt smaller.

Phaedra hopped and skipped through the rubble trying to keep her footing light. Every few steps, she’d lose her balance as she grew dizzy from her head wound. Whenever she stumbled over, Phaedra would flounder back to her feet. She didn’t spare a glance backwards toward the other two to see if they were chasing after her, watching or leaving her behind. And honestly, she didn’t care.

When Phaedra saw the scorched shoe she lent Rebekka, she skid onto the ground. Her hands quickly started to sift through the debris. She froze where she was when she heard rustling in the rubble near by. As quietly as she could manage, Phae continued to search until she found the tablet and slid it into her sack. Regardless of the other two helping her, she didn’t know them and something made her apprehensive about sharing the weird tablet that gave her her mark. So to quickly cover up why she went back, she picked up the burnt shoe in her hand and stood up. The head rush made her sway before gaining some bit of control over her balance and started back toward the others.

With the new strangers in view, Phaedra adjusted her satchel on her shoulder, stepping through the remnants of the village. They both seemed quite on edge, which she didn’t understand. The place looked like hell but so far she hadn’t seen anything to warrant so much caution as a barrier and whatever the woman was holding. She moved passed the smoked cellar, paying it no mind. That was until there was a shifting noise behind her and before she could turn around something grabbed a hold of her ankle, pulling her to the ground.

Phaedra extended her hands to catch her weight as she fell. She rolled onto her back and became frozen in shock as… well, a dead man began to climb on top of her making grotesque guttural noises. She kicked and tried to break free but nothing made the thing budge. Her left forearm pressed against the undead’s chest, pushing back against it to keep their chomping teeth away from her face. Her right hand grabbed a hold of a small knife tucked in her corset and slammed it up through its jaw. And while that would stop any man, it was unfazed coming at her crazed and stronger.

a bolt of what appeared to be fire slammed into the creature's head, causing bits of bone, rotted flesh and what was left of the creature's brain to spray out the other side as it went limp on the stranger's body. Callion lowered his hand, a small red sigil disappearing as he did so, walking closer to the woman and making sure Mara was keeping in step with him. Eventually the barrier encompassed all of them, roughly ten feet in diameter as Callion knelt down to the woman. "Well if she's strong enough to struggle, then maybe she's strong enough to tell us what happened here..." Callion semi-asked, as if he was both talking to the women around him and himself at the same time while one of his hands reached towards hers and pointed at the mark that she had tried to cover up. "And why she's marked like us."

Mara followed Callion like a birdish shadow. Shyly, she began to offer a hand to the woman to assist her, but thinking better of it, she slowly withdrew it again. Instead, she clutched the arrow, looking meekly at her shoes.

"Are you ok, miss?" She murmured softly, though couldn't bring herself to look up from her feet again.