Ashial Grim's Story

Adira Hasidare

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Darkness. She remembered darkness and... a voice. The voice had greeted her- no, a group she was a part of though she'd not actually seen anyone. She'd not seen anything. There'd just been darkness, and a voice. Adira felt that perhaps she ought to be angry or confused. Where was she? What did the voice mean when it said 'taken'? But she couldn't even feel her own limbs in that unravelling darkness, much less anger. Although she was able to feel alarm. She wasn't in her world but in a world called The Rend? What insanity was this voice saying? Unable to speak, Adira could only listen in horror as the voice bid them all farewell and she suddenly felt herself falling.

It was from darkness Adira finally awoke. She was laying on her stomach, her face pressed against the sandy ground of what seemed to be an arena. As her eyes took in the landscape, her mind began racing. Where was she? Had she been taken hostage? The last thing she could recall, before the darkness and the voice, was walking beside Fell in search of shelter for the night. As Fell came to mind Adira sat up suddenly, alarmed. Her head was throbbing in protest, but she ignored this pain. "Fell?" Her question was answered by a puff of air on the back of her neck and she looked up from her sitting-up position to see her faithful companion standing over her protectively. She was still wearing all of her riding armor, except for her helmet which seemed to have fallen off when she collapsed (though she quickly picked it up again, holding it under one arm). He made a soft, crooning sound and nudged her shoulder, drawing a smile from her as she reached up to stroke his muzzle. "I'm alright. Are you?" Fell huffed again reassuringly, then looked up from where she lay to just beyond her and growled softly.

Adira looked up in the direction he was growling and first saw that there was a large bag with her name - Adira - embroidered on it. The second thing she noticed was that she was not alone; there were a handful of others either standing or laying in the sands a short distance from her. Was this some kind of gladiator's arena? Was she to fight these people? Narrowing her eyes she got to her feet, one hand on Fell's side while her other hand moved to grasp Stenr-Jierda's hilt.

Adira's eyes went wide. The sword was gone! Frantically checking her pouch and belt she found that all of her weapons were missing! Turning to Fell she patting his saddle bags and felt nothing. Everything was gone; her bow, arrows, throwing knives... The only thing that seemed to have been left by the thief was the armor she worn. Fell crooned softly, also confused and somewhat uneasy, but she stroked his side comfortingly. "It's okay bud, it's not your fault. Somehow someone managed to sneak all of our supplies out, probably while we were in that accursed darkness." Turning to the others Adira tried to figure out what she could use to defend herself, however the others who'd just awoken seemed as confused as she was. As her eyes traveled from form to form, she took notes of all of her fellow captives / possible opponents. There were many.

Her attention first went to the two figures who seemed to be awake. They where the most normal looking by comparison (but that was a stretch). There was a woman whose hair was as white as snow who gently shook the shoulders of the second figure who was laying under an umbrella. Though Adira could not immediately tell the gender of the second figure, Fell indicated that it was male - and that he smelled of death. Not of murder, but of death itself. The two spoke to each other for a moment before looking up at the rest of the strange looking forms that were starting to stir, and Adira did the same.

The first one she noticed was a woman with large black wings and the second was a man, also with wings (those these were more similar to those of bats). Both of these wings people were still laying upon the ground, unconscious.

The one who'd she'd been laying nearest to (before Fell, judging by the marks in the sand, had dragged her a short distance away from them all) was a creature that Adira would not call human for, though it stood upright and walked with a staff, it appeared to be a strange hybrid between a dragon and a man. He picked up his own bag and walked over to the other two conscious, uh, people.

While wondering how this was possible, her attention was drawn away by another inhuman figure. This one was more distinctly man but... he did not have flesh? His face seemed to be of flesh, in place of flesh for his body he seemed to have metals and light flowing through him. She did not understand, and this made her feel rather uneasy - what kind of thing was this? What magic allowed him to live and move without flesh? There was another who looked similar to the metal-man, but Adira could see that he was merely wearing the metal armor rather than the other way around.

The last unconscious figures lay somewhat close to each other. One of them was dressed entirely in black, and upon his head seemed to be the white polished skull of a wolf or some kind of canine. The other had magenta hair and small black horns as well as gray skin (though she appeared to be perfectly healthy), and Adira could see that not only were her eyes yellow but her teeth were sharpened. This one reminded her keenly of the savage orc tribes that lives in the mountains, however her skin had scales as well as a tail with a pointed tip.

Looking between them all, and then at the bag with her name on it, she had this sense of unease. A warrior never admitted fear, but one would be more a fool than a warrior if they claimed to be totally without it. As much as Adira loathed to admit it, she appeared to be outnumbered and outmatched. How could she hope to compare to a orc/demon, some kind of metal-magic-man, an second metal-man (minus the magic), a dragon/human hybrid, an undead, skull-face, a white-woman and two winged foes? Still, if there wasn't a battle planned, she'd rather not start one. Fell seemed to be in agreement, walking close behind Adira while keeping his head low to the ground in a non-threatening position (similarly to how a canine might), and they both moved slowly moved towards Adira's designated bag which rested beside herself and the small group of conscious humanoids.

Adira Hasidare

A lot of things happened at once.

Then a dragon-man-hybrid charged forward, "No one will fight here so long as I stand!" he called in a thunderous voice between a beam of lightning shot from his mouth and stuck in the center of where they all stood, kicking up smoke and dust as well as punching a half-foot deep crater into the area it landed. At the blast everyone had been knocked back slightly (save for Fell who was bigger and heavier than all of them), and Adira stumbled backwards, but was caught by Fell. The hybrid was perched on his staff in an offensive pose but instead of also assuming a pose of aggression, Adira just shot him an irritated look.

'How ironic for someone who has just declared that he will not tolerated fighting to make the first attack...' she thought, still glaring at him, though she said nothing. "That was completely unnecessary." said the suit of armor, obviously thinking the same thing, and Adira made a sound of agreement. Fell crooned softly and Adira touched his head, assuming him that she was perfectly fine.

"What are you doing?!" came another voice and Adira looked up to see some kind of fairy creature, stiffening slightly as she came closer. She's heard stories of the fae and it was one of the few things that could make her skin crawl. "She's clearly fire bound, and if I know anything about fire, it's that it's volatile. You can't subdue fire with fire! That's how you make it worse!" the fairy woman scolded the hybrid coldly before turning to the rest of them. "Stop showing off. All of you. You, with the black hair and wings. Move from her sight. Miss? Despite their actions, no one wants to hurt you. And we've been transplanted, your old enemies are not here."

Adira made a sound of irritation and sheathed her sword. So much for trying to make friends. Already Adira was feeling crowded. She'd been in this small arena for too long and there was a deep yearning for the open mountain ranges she was used to. And there were so many others at this point, Adira was rather uncomfortable.

A dead man who appeared as a woman.
A true woman with hair white as snow.
A dragon-man-hybrid with lighting and martial arts.
A darkly dressed man with a canine skull as a mask.
A man who seemed to be at least 90% made of metal.
Another man who was wearing a full metal suit.
A girl with black feathered wings,
and Drake with his more serpentine wings.
Khojin (whatever she was supposed to be).
An empty suit of armor that'd just tried to swing at
the enraged red-headed female (who was also on fire still).
A teleporting purple/black dressed girl.
A fairy who apparently thought she was a queen.
And then Adira and Fell.

And these were only the humanoids that Adira had noticed so far. There was a good chance that there were (or at least that there would be) more to come.

It was a drastic understatement saying that Adira was "uncomfortable". There were way too many people who were all way more powerful than she was. What was she even doing here? The only think anyone seemed to have in common was that they'd all been suddenly whisked away from their home worlds. 'What the hell am I doing? I can't leave until Rend allows it, it seems, but staying here will get me killed. And I can't let that happen.' Being so deep in thought Adira didn't notice Khojin's subtle hints, however Fell did and he gently nudged Adira forwards. Fanghur were extremely intelligent creatures, after all.

Adira followed Khojin out of ear shot of the rest of the group. There was still irritation in her expression, though this was to cover up her uncertainty. Absentmindly her hand began stroking Fell's scaly head and he crooned softly, the vibrations slowly calming Adira until she had regained her temperament and was no longer as high-strung as she'd been moment ago.

Adira Hasidare

As Adira stood and moved to walk towards the others, Rend's omnipresent voice rang out, sounding rather flustered (which was odd if this being was trying to play god). However he managed to bumble his say through explaining that not only were they not supposed to kill each other (which was a relief) but that they would be "punished" if they tried. This coming from the being that summoned lava sharks and giant spiders because Adira opened a gate, she was not eager to find out what his concept of "punishment" was.

More than that though, they were all supposed to work together to go on this heroic quests he'd supposedly be assigning them. Looking at the others Adira couldn't help but to wonder exactly how thoroughly Rend had thought this through. If he'd intended for everyone to get along and work together, he probably shouldn't have chosen a group of people from opposite sides of an active war. She also noted that, while everyone else was exceptionally powerful, she was somewhat on the weaker side which would make it rather difficult for her to keep up with them on their missions.

This thought was addressed a moment later when Rend said:

Suddenly, several of the characters found themselves feeling...well, not as absurdly strong. Got to even the playing field and all that, but, eh-hehm. Don’t want to end up causing more trouble, but, uh, the ones with the most skills and powers and magical stuff ended up with less. Like Rasteva, and Eze- mainly because I’m just kind of worried about how far this will, uh, escalate, if they’re so strong...Uhm, and, uh, the other ones who triggered the problems, um, got less strong somewhat, too, and, uh, yeah. Less power. Of course, not planning on, uh, taking away from those who need the power, but yes. Weakened somewhat. This is both punishment and to make sure nobody else escapes.

As he said this a strong gust of wing blew through the arena and past- no, through- the bodies of the characters. She saw many of the more powerful beings sway as the wind blew through them, appearing to have been significantly weakened (especially that fairy who seemed to have just caused a hurricane on a whim). However when the wind reached Adira she felt... well, the same actually. Nothing seemed to have happened to her. Too bad.

However as she glanced over at Fell she could see that he was equally confused, the scales on his back rippling oddly as if his muscles were sore. There were strange lumps under the skin that hadn't been there before. They bore a resemblance to young adult Fanghur who were in the first stages of wing development, however Fell had not reached that age so Adira quickly scratched that off her mental list of explanations. Before she could ponder any further, Rend spoke again.

“Now, I’m going to remove the lava and, uh, other things right now. And open the gate properly. I expect for all of you to get along at this point, or else, you know. Punishment. Have fun!”

At these words the gate did open, the monsters and lava having disappeared. Adira looked at Fell but he stared back at her in equal confusion. "Well, I guess we know why we're here..." she said slowly, still trying to process all of this, "If we're all supposed to work together like some big, happy family then the first step would be to go meet everyone. And not pick a fight this time." Fell bobbed his head in agreement and Adira hesitantly started walking towards the group of now significantly weakened heroes.