Eolan Kalris's Story

Nobody had expected Eolan to leave the wagons, and he had not expected it himself. After all, the mission itself was no concern of his; he had insisted that the only service required of him for the job was maintenance on the deadmen. An opportunity had arisen, however, and if there was anything worth the disturbance it was a fresh dune serpent corpse.

Unnoticed by those who had exited the second wagon before him, Eolan approached the back of the group and pulled back his hood, looking past them at the scene below. There was indeed a young serpent lying across the ruins of the aqueduct, a pack of reapers surrounding it. Even from a distance, he could see they had already picked the monster clean. All six eyes had been removed, its horns smashed to powder or claimed as trophies; the tentacles were nowhere to be seen. Most of the valuable parts were taken; it was now his priority that these creatures not be allowed to escape. He examined the group of reapers one by one, his gaze settling on a particularly decorated specimen as the most likely culprit. A shaman, perhaps? He stood out in front of his pack, trading shouted obscenities with the deadmen from the first wagon, taking no notice of the fall of water beside him gradually slowing to a drip.

Before long, there was a disturbance, a lone warrior sowing chaos in their ranks. Scarcely had the chieftain turned away from their group to look when an enormous torrent of water was abruptly let loose from the mouth of the canal and plummeted to the ground with a deafening crash. The force of the blow extinguished the reaper in the blink of an eye, and both parties froze, shocked into dumfounded silence.

Kryssis scrunched her face in disgust at the sight of the sand reapers. The Sidheghul had competed with them in the past over territory and prey. They made for exciting opponents. Fearless and powerful. In order to defeat them, the tribe had always resorted to shadier tactics. Laying traps or splitting the enemy up before surprising them. Here they did not have such a luxury. No wonder the DMD needed all the help they could get, she thought to herself. They were absolutely worthless. As much as they prided themselves in being more "civilized" than the Sidheghul and others like them, they did not seem to understand the nature of combat quite so well. Or, maybe it was just because it was the DMD and all their soldiers were already dead. She would have preferred to think it was the former, but the latter felt closer to the truth of the issue.

Pushing her way to the front of the party and observing the wretched beasts, the Wyvernjack drew her sabres, clutching her fingers tight around the leather-bound hilts. She longed to feel her heart pounding, rushing adrenaline-rich blood to her brain. She would get no satisfaction out of a kill, not really. It would only be a meager pastiche of the glorious rush! Every time she remembered this fact it only served to enrich her wrath, which admittedly was psyching her up for the fight. That fuel burned brighter than a solitary torch in the desert night- a waypoint for a weary traveler. The blast of water smote the chieftain in an instant, and she assumed this was as good a time as any to start the bloodletting. She stood beside Trista and, without looking at the girl, she said, "Who do you send first? Yourself, or your inferiors?" Spitting into the sand, Kryssis dug her feet into the ground, pushed out her chest, angled her head back and sucked in a deep breath which she released in the form of a hideous scream. Had she been alive, this would have been the selling point of her adrenaline high. As it were, she had to rely on a clear head. That.. was not entirely a good thing.

With the Deadmean charging the reapers, Kryssis remained at the head and entered the clash between the two groups where it was at its most violent. She hardly paid mind to the man who had already began attacking the reapers beforehand. As long as he did not turn his ire on her, she would not strike at him. The sand reapers, obviously, were fair game. There was no point in trying to beat them out in strength, even as a Deadman she would be crushed had she attempted to meet steel with them. Instead, Kryssis tucked and rolled between two who barred her path- already forced to look out for her comrades. Uncurling from her ball, her sabres lashed out to either side and bit deep into the backs of their knees, bringing them down in screams of pain. Before even their first breaths were spent she was on her feet, blades slitting their throats.

The next few moments went by in a flurry. The Wyvernjack would remember hearing a mangled roar from behind and twirling around to both meet and dodge this foe, and then a deep gash along her waist. Numb streaks of pain arced through her body, but the wound hardly inhibited her. She'd taken just a hairsbreadth of the blade, but it was sobering nonetheless. Ducking and diving under heavy blows from the beast's weapon, she finally managed a mark of her own on a patch of unprotected skin along the reaper's stomach, spilling internal organs onto the hot sand. It screamed, and then it died. Just as soon as its soul - if it had one - took flight, she was already in another two engagements simultaneously.

Perhaps.. being a Deadman was more difficult than her pride had initially led her to believe.

It wasn't long before the fighting had died down to the point where Eolan considered it safe to enter the battlefield. There had only been a few dozen reapers in the first place, and at least half of them had been defeated by those two alone. A few remained, most surrounded by small groups of deadmen trying to kill them from a safe distance; they had suffered enough casualties as it was. He walked down the hill and looked over at the broken canal with resignation. It was hard to be disappointed when he hadn't expected anything but a mundane cause for the problem in the first place, but he was getting nowhere at this rate.
The reaper he had killed did nothing to mitigate that, as it was carrying nothing but trophies and his weapons. Eolan supposed it had not been a shaman after all, but the tribe's champion, considering its size was comparable to that of their half-ogre. He glanced around him for clues, and his eyes quickly fell upon the outsider he had seen enter the fray earlier. The man's aim had been unclear at the time, but it seemed he was aligned with the reapers, as he was currently engaged in combat with one of Trista's company. Was he the one? He did seem to be using a form of shamanistic magic.
Eolan stood and took several steps toward the fight, putting himself between the duo and the water, then curved its trajectory, sending the spray toward the two at a speed sufficient to throw any man to the ground.

The annoyance was back. But this time it had promoted itself to 'pest'.

The behemoth snarled as the stranger clambered onto it's back and started kicking it in the back of the head. It's balance wobbled slightly under the sudden assault. However it was used to others trying such attacks and soon regained it's footing and started thrashing and bucking in an attempt to dislodge the fool from it's back. It brought it's free hand up to try and grab at the man, to pull him off so it would be easier to smash him into paste.

Then they both were struck by a large stream of water, and the giant found itself toppling onto it's back.

David could feel the beast buckle in place and had grinned a wide smile as he thought the thing was gonna collapse but that hope soon disappeared when the half-ogre didn't and straightened itself. The rage from the spirits still fueled the shepherd's persistence as he took out a knife and tried to stab through the armor but to avail, the blade snapping in half, the strikes meaningless against the armor. The hopelessness of the situation hadn't dawned on the enraged man and the beast's hand coming towards him remained unknown to him, blinded by anger and frustration as he smacked the broken knife atop the beast's helmet.

It happened so quickly, he could barely comprehend what had happened until he was on the ground, his back aching as it hit the sand, his body wet, and coughing out water as he tried to get up. All the fiery rage that burned in his soul was put out and his consciousness came back as he examined the water around him staining the sand. Water? Like the sudden attack on the leader on the reaper side of combat. The water spirits of the desert spoke of the man that had manipulated them and the shepherd turned his attention to the robed man that was a bit far away, looking at the flock of sheep guarded by Abe in the far distance for a brief moment before glancing back at the wizard.

Something didn't make sense here. At first, the shepherd had thought both sides were hostiles, one side confirmed when they eagerly attacked him. The other side operated in almost a military fashion, the combination of arrow volleys and foot soldiers, and now magic, yet the inclusion of the beast he'd been fighting...something didn't make sense. Too plentiful to be bandits,
"Iki?"
The water spirits had no problem with the suggestion, rising up from the sand, and floating behind the shaman as he walked a couple of steps toward the wizard, the battlefield seemingly picked of most enemies.
"Draugų ir skandinti didelis vienas."
Some of the liquid floated off to the beast on the ground and started to form a sphere of water around his helmet.

"Who are you people?" The shepherd shouted at the wizard, at the ready to fight if need be, despite the pain that seemed to be everywhere.

Eolan started walking toward them immediately following the attack, and lifted the water off the half-ogre's head. Deadmen had no need to breath, as he recalled, but it could anger him regardless. "The Deadman division," Eolan replied without slowing down as a twist of his hand sent the sphere flying in a tight arc, and straight into the shaman's chest with the force of a strong punch.

Trista was just about getting ready to intervene when a call from behind turned her attention away from the scene. A Deadman stood at her side, gesturing and pointing to the bow-wielding woman she had spotted earlier, who was now heading toward the wagons. Figuring that the problem would work itself out eventually, she left the three men to their own devices and began walking back, sheathing her blade and dusting off her gloved hands. As the scent of blood quickly began to fade away from her senses, she felt the wind begin to pick up, and with it the dry, bitter taste of the desert.

"Good work out there," Trista commended, looking up at the woman as she approached her. "You look like you could use a hand. We've got men on standby that can patch you up and I'm willing to offer you a ride to Gaudis if you're interested." This kind of thing didn't happen too often and she decided it was as good a time as any to display a little hospitality every now and then. "Wouldn't mind getting you a drink when we get back either. Unless you're not the drinking type, of course."

Her hands shifted around the hilts of her sabres, eyes steady locked onto the battle between the giant and the two men of magic. Something inside her wanted to get in on the skirmish, but as it seemed it was already dying down that urge dwindled and disappeared. She cast her gaze about - side to side - and slid one of her swords into its scabbard, turning and heading back toward the wagons. The slaughter was done with, nothing more demanded her attention. Nothing more interested her, to be blunt. Absorbing the sight of the dead and dying littering the sand - soaked with water and blood - was the next best thing to a fight. The heavy scent of iron in the air had her lips curling softly into a smile for a few moments, her eyes sparkling at the butchered humans and reapers, both. She envied the Deadmen who'd been killed, truthfully. She hated this stiffening prison more than she could ever express in word - and not for any lack of intelligence. This abhorrence went beyond description, it could only be known by its bearer alone.

As she neared the train of covered transports, she noticed the girl from earlier.. the one she'd saved. Trista was speaking to her. Kryssis paused, her expression muddled between interest and confusion. Why had she saved this person? It wasn't as if she cared. So many had been killed by her side in the battle, and she hadn't so much as tried to help them. But she had gone out of her way to rush to this girl's aid, and she could not figure out the reason behind this act if her life depended on her. It had been a split decision, something vague- undefined. Spiritual was not the right word, because Kryssis lacked any religious side these days. Of course, beforehand the nearest interpretation of "spiritual" as far as she was personally concerned was much different than it was for most others.

Gathering herself together, the Wyvernjack's eyes darkened to indifference. This was not something she could let take root. She may be dead, but she was still herself inside. She was a warrior, forged through pain, anger, death and hardship! She cared only for herself, and involved herself with others only so far as how to hurt them the most. She sheathed her second sword and walked around one of the wagons, climbing in and laying down atop one of the benches, crossing her arms over her chest. Her eyes stayed open, glued to the canvas overhead.

Goddammit, it still bothered her.

The mere shock the name he had heard stopped him in place as he repeated the name to himself. "The Deadman Division? Bull-"

The water that hit David in the chest pushed the man back a bit, pressure forcing his chest back before suddenly letting go, a light bruise bound to let it's mark. The memory of the man who refused to give him a ride on his wagon suddenly came ringing through his ears again. "Yeah, but I heard they're sending in the Deadmen."

The so-called "attack" was more like something of a warning. "How do I even know you're deadman at all? Where's that-"

And just then, David spotted it, hanging on the cloth of the mage, that little, tiny lapel. He had to squint. It has been a long time since the shepherd had saw one.

"Oh. My apologies?" He started to walk back towards the direction of his sheep, his eyes still on the two of them "So...I'll just go...back to my flock." David said, motioning to the direction, before holding the bloody wound on his side.

The giant coughed slightly as it raised itself back up to a sitting position. Having been the one to bare the majority of the waters earlier furry, the armor it wore was now waterlogged.

The stranger had stopped attacking him. Why he had attacked in the first the giant didn't know and quite frankly didn't care. What mattered to the giant was that the man had attacked which, to the brute, meant that the man was an enemy. He had started talking with the enforcer. But the brute didn't care about that. The little fool wasn't going to get off that easily.

Rising to its feet, the beast growled and stalked towards the impudent stranger. It raised it's sword up, let out a loud howl, and brought it back down to crush the impudent man.

This was terrible.

Since this thing was a part of the DMD, if David had killed it who's to say he won't endure their forces, assuming killing this thing was even possible. Worst of all, his half-hearted apology simply wasn't appreciated, and it's not like he can keep fighting the beast.

That beast swung it's blade and the shepherd swung off to the side in an attempt to dodge it.

Maybe it was because he was exhausted from the heat of the sun, cold from the water. Maybe tired from the clash.

Maybe tired from fighting all-together.

Like a thousand knives ripping through the body all at once. Like having all one's skin peeled off the flesh in a quick pull. The pain was indescribable and any attempt to describe it otherwise would be useless, no matter how many poets or writers gather together and try.

David screamed, louder then he had ever screamed in his life, and it echoed. The surreal sight of his left arm layed on the sand ground from the shoulder down, still gripping the broken knife, caused him to question his sanity for a moment before he looked to his side, to the tearing cut from his shoulder, the entire half of his body covered in blood. His grip on the shepherd's crook in his right hand, loosened before falling softly on the sand, sight blurred and head spinning. It was too hard to think, to concentrate, to even conceive and to stand. He fell on his right side, straining to breathe, the thoughts in his own head flooded and finally overpowering the spirits he communed with.

There was no way to fix the arm. Healers, good people they are, drew the lines at limbs. He's seen it for himself while waiting for treatment, some poor man hobbling on a leg and a stick, and the look of horror on his face when told it was impossible to attach his leg back to the other one. It was something rotten and maggots crawled in and out the flesh like they ran a convoluted series of a flesh maze.

This was pathetic. His last thought would have been the misery of a stranger he hardly knew and if he hadn't realized it was pathetic, he wouldn't have tried to stand up with the crook in his hand again before failing and looking at the mage.

Please... David croaked. "J-just stop the bleeding. Burn it."

David fought the urge to pick up his left arm. He didn't have hopes of anything miraculous. Just to live.

Double post. Ignore this.

The behemoth hissed. Freshly bloodied. That would teach the whelp. But that wouldn't slate the brutes ire, and his mother never taught him to show mercy to those who attacked him.

The beast released one hand from it's massive blade, and reach down to grab the stranger by the throat. He hoisted him up to eye level and growled.

A reverberating scream filled the air and Trista felt her fingers twitch at the noise. Spinning around, she located the sound at its source. "Stay here," she quietly said to Venir without turning to him. "Come with me, Agnes," she said as she passed by one of the wagons. "Bring the half-ogre's keepers with you." A girl with sharp crimson hair leaped out enthusiastically, the sound of crunching sand under her feet satisfying to her ears.

"The metal man's got to be put down!" she shouted out to the two enforcers that had accompanied him in chains, walking backwards as she talked. "Make it quick!" Trista unsheathed her sword for good measure and held her shield firmly in hand, swiftly approaching the scene. Agnes rushed past her in a blinding dash, the sand kicking up in billowing waves of grains and desert smoke.

She drew back her sleeve as she ran, the runes engraved into arm glowing a brilliant red as she chanted under her breath: "Acht'ji vahk zau eras." She tackled the half-ogre plate and all, a massive wave of force crashing in after her - The surrounding area exploded upwards in a flurry of spraying sand and blood as if to force a crater into the ground below them. When the dust settled, Agnes was sitting on top of the armored beast. "Move an inch and I'll rip off your arms and legs," she whispered, though she wondered if he could even register her words.

Usually when hit with that kind of force, most Deadmen would whimper and cower in fear fairly quickly so Agnes was not expecting a retaliation immediately after she had issued her threat. Flung from the giant of a man as though she were weightless, she tumbled through the sand with enough force to make the bones in her body shake. Disoriented, she scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could, noticing that the runes on her arm were beginning to fade away.

"A little help here?" The girl grit her teeth, eyes scanning the rest of the Deadmen and enforcers at the scene for some kind of acknowledgement. Trista held her shield up and advanced slowly, nodding in Eolan's direction for him to get ready for a tussle.

"Stand down," Trista said, lowering herself into a combat stance. "That's an order."

Eolan spared a moment to pull back on the soaked sand beneath the half-ogre before turning to the shaman. It seemed he was expected to help reign the beast in, but there was little to do about it now, with him so far from the source of water. He laid a hand on the shoulder to stem the bleeding and pulled the severed arm close. He had watched the wizard restore a limb before, but was never allowed to attempt it himself. True, the task as a whole was beyond him as he was now, but he could at least go halfway. Most healers would close the wound immediately, or cauterize it as had been suggested; this was because they could only heal the skin and bone, but Eolan had something they did not. Placing his fingers over each side of the wound, he began to sense the blood nearby, to feel and control it as if it were his own. He pulled, and as if attracted by magnet, the veins straightened and stretched to meet in the middle, ends closing around each other with the application of some simple healing magic. The bone and skin were quickly reattached in a less unorthodox manner. All in all a sloppy, temporary solution, but the arm would live for the time being, albeit without function, if treated gently. He would have to see a master as soon as possible, and was told as much.

The thing had him by the throat and the shepherd could feel him crushing it with the grip, desperately trying to speak incantations, but only letting out silence, it's blood red eyes peering through him as it let out an animal growl. David fumbled his right hand for the knife on his hip, despite the pain that surged through every fibre of his body, the blade being thin enough to stab right through those eyes and reclaim victory. then...something. Like a resounding boom, it caused him to fly back a few feet from the thing's grip, and tumble back onto the hot desert sand.

David couldn't remember much, the pain causing him to blackout in one moment but his consciousness coming back in another. First the sight of the beast on the ground. Darkness. The eyelids opened again.

"Stand down," The woman in armor spoke these words to the beast as if she was her superior, which she probably was. "That's an order." Darkness. The fierce roar of the thing rang in his ears. Something landed right next to him. Eyes open. It was a pale hand.

He turned his head left and right, for some reason his arm nowhere to be found, the mage somewhat too close until he realized he was putting his arm back together.

But it wasn't.

Sure, it may have seemed like it if someone was just looking at it, but it felt like someone just squished a lump of clay to another piece of clay. Sure, it was there, looked there, but it didn't feel there and worst of all: David still couldn't move it, his bloody arm. His voice reduced to something of a mere raspy wisp as he tried to speak.
"It's not..." the word wasn't coming to mind in a moment and then doing so. "-moving. It's...useless". The dismembered hand near him had it's fingers clenched lightly by his right hand. His erratic breathing suddenly slowed and calmed. David blinked a couple of times as his strength started to come back, his grip tightening on the dismembered hand, and when he looked back unto himself, his robes were suddenly free of blood. The mage's work was true and the man breathed in a breath of air and gave short laugh of incredulity towards the mage, a wide grin plastered on his face as he hugged the man tight with his working arm, too happy for words in that moment before he still saw the two deadmen still trying to restrain the beast.

It was thanks to them the beast could be distracted while the mage healed him. the hug loosened and was let go of the man, words unknown to tell the man, while he saw one of the warriors taking the beast on without her hand. David looked to the pale hand still in his right hand and pocketed it in his cloak before focusing his attention back on the beast, who was distracted enough.

The least he could do was pay them back.

"Nuskandinti žvėrį!", the desert spirits, impressed by David's adversity and lack of self-preservation, sunk the sand beneath the beast's other foot three feet down, not wanting to help too much because they were as eager to know how the battle would match.

The remaining Deadmen were back on the wagons, some relieved that it would be less cramped on the return trip, others worried that on the next assignment, they would be the ones to make wagons lighter. Trista sat with her hands at her sides, back hunched and eyes weary. The Deadman she had talked to on the way to the aqueduct was no longer with them, and though it wasn't a rare occurrence, it was always an uneasy one. They'd give their reports and put themselves on standby until some other disaster wound up at their doorstep. For a division of soldiers tasked with fixing problems, they could use a good deal of fixing themselves.

The wagon stopped. Trista was the first to disembark, standing by the back as she watched the rest of the men pour out. The guard captains approached the caravans to hear the details of the mission, which they would then relay to their superiors. There was no reward or compensation involved. Only a dreary wait for their next job. But until then, they were free to do as they pleased as long as they didn't cause any trouble and showed up at the outpost headquarters every morning to check in.

Eolan had been paying little attention to the scene in front of him from where he sat on the back of the wagon, in the shade of its cover. However, he looked up suddenly from his reading at the sound of a vaguely familiar form of speech. The dialect itself was unknown to him, but might it be...?
He regarded the young woman with a cool stare. "You are Abarran?" he asked, interrupting the altercation between her and Darkus as if wholly unaware of what was taking place.

Nimba's attention was pulled away by another voice. This man looked be a wizard himself, after a fashion, but.. something about him seemed far less bigoted and belligerent. She turned to face him directly, her head shifting to the side a little in a quizzical examination of him. "Yi Aba, yeah. I don't think anyone's called us 'Abarran' since the Carthim dissolved Abarra," she said with a hoarse chuckle, the raging buffoon nearby slipping from her mind. "Didn't really expect anyone to my notice ethnicity this far from Abbedon, especially not by our old name," she admitted with a shrug. Before he could reply, her attention was pulled back to Adrian and the Deadmen. She nodded to the wizard and chased after her comrade waving his cloak at him. He finally took it off her hand, and she stood a few feet behind him silently, until he tried - at least - to make friends with the soldiers. She scoffed at his attempt, rolling her eyes incredulously. This was going nowhere fast, and she was losing interest, at least up until one of the Deadmen addressed her directly. Her head snapped around, eyes fastening coldly onto the girl. "She must think I'm a proper idiot who goes around starting fights," she said, but speaking to Adrian and not the soldier. "I don't throw the first punch," this to the girl, "But your friend the old fool there seems like the kind who might," she snickered.