03-21-2017, 11:27 PM
Jade was taken aback when she heard a shout from somewhere further along the tunnel, the sound ricocheting off the rugged mineral walls with scarcely an echo left behind. Her ears swiveled forward, a surge of alertness straightening her spine and setting every nerve-ending on edge as if by an electric shock. What the heck was that?
“Did you hear that, Captain Tell? That sounded like Sir Roland!” Selena whispered breathlessly, an undercurrent of worry to her words. Brandon stood next to her, hands cupped around the steadily glowing green star piece, shades of vibrant lime and emerald shifting across its surface even in the darkness.
Tell’s voice murmured real quiet from an uncertain, dark space to Jade’s right. “I see something up ahead, where the light from the cave entrance falls. There’s the shadow of a little fellow cast on the wall.”
Amber’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. “That’s one of those punks who attacked us earlier— I recognize the throwing axes hanging loose in his hands. There must be another one; it sounds like he’s kicking Roland around awful good.” She winced in sympathy at another pained cry, her expression hardening.
As they watched, the stocky shadow slid across the stretch of ground beneath the natural archway of the tunnel entrance, dithering and shifting with what might have been unease before slowly moving on. Jade held her breath until dwarf’s dark silhouette had fully disappeared, eyes welling up with distractingly watery tears because of her refusal to spare even a second to blink. Finally, the shadow at last slipped out of sight and only the cracked stones of the floor remained, cast in pale bluish light stemming from the cavern entrance.
They proceeded along the passage silent as a pack of wraiths, the dim light shrouding their movements in silken shadow until they reached the mouth of the tunnel. From there, crouched behind a cluster of jagged stalagmites jutting out from the floor of the cave, they could see all that was happening in the softly lit grotto spread before them, white glimmers of moisture glistening like salt crystals and frilly bulbs of fungus spotting the walls. Jade gasped, blood running both hot and cold at the same time, icy fear mixing with the sudden and unbridled rage boiling inside her veins.
A dwarf with a grizzly, tangled beard had one boot propped up on an injured Roland’s chest, the wild mass of hair concealing his features so thoroughly that only his grinning white teeth and two shiny eyes glinted through the dirty strands. He began to press down with increasing severity as he leaned forward and spat in the man’s face, sour breath fogging in the cold air. “I’ll not ask ye again. Speak now, or bit by bleeding bit, I’ll slice ye up nice and slow. Tell me where the astronomer’s gone.”
Blood dribbling from his chin, Roland only leaned his head back to stare up at the dwarf, a string of garbled nonsense leaving his lips as he tried to slip off into blissful unconsciousness. He hissed when a coarse hand tangled in his hair and jerked his skull up, letting it fall back to crack painfully against the cold stone floor, molars crunching as they ground together at the back of his jaw.
Smith and Burgess unhappily watched all of this take place from where they were backed into a corner, Piers slumped against the rocks behind them and plainly unconscious. Another dwarf with reddish hair and a funnily-braided beard stood before them, twin axes brandished threateningly to counter Smith’s upraised sabre, but it was clear that he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the situation. This dwarf cast slow, concern-filled glances over his shoulder, openly vexed by his partner-in-crime’s actions.
“Sheron, are you sure we shouldn’t just leave ‘em be and move on? The astronomer’s gotta be in those caves somewhere,” he tried, a frown set into his brow as if by a toymaker’s tiny hammer.
Sheron-bhar glanced across at the other dwarf in annoyance, but the insane enthusiastic twinkle in his eyes just couldn’t be dimmed. “Shuddap, Brennon,” he retorted, and turned back towards his victim. “Now, what were you saying? I didn’t quite catch that.”
Roland glared back with all the ire he could muster from where he was pinned to the floor, defiance blazing bright in his eyes. When he remained tight-lipped and silent, the dwarf applied pressure by shoving all of his weight onto the leg atop Roland’s chest. The resulting crack was sickening, splintering like the snapping of dry branches for firewood— it was the sound of his ribs breaking beneath the dwarf’s solid boot, possibly having already punctured a lung judging by the wet rasps following Roland’s every breath. Even in the low light Jade could see the dark blood burbling past his lips when a yell was ripped from his chest, the veiny whites of his eyes showing as they rolled back in their sockets from the pain. He writhed like a creature being skinned alive.
Wrenching her attention away from the horrors before her, Jade glanced at Captain Tell. The fingers of his right hand were toying with the sword at his hip, and there was a coolly detached expression on his face that she found she could see right through, the underlying anger clear as day when she knew where to look for it.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Amber, licking her lips in anticipation of a battle. Jade felt just as eager to leap into action— despite her injuries, it would be just plain awful to let one of their friends suffer! It would probably be a short fight, too— two dwarves against the five of them weren’t very good odds for the dwarves, no matter how fatigued the company was from their previous adventures.
Tell glanced at the two of them out of the corner of his eye. “You’re injured, so you should hang back with Jade and Rebecca for the moment. Selena, Brandon, try to handle the one giving Smith and Burgess trouble. He seems reasonable enough, maybe you can talk him down. If that fails, restrain him, but don’t keep him alive if it would risk too much injury to yourselves,” he clasped each of them on the shoulder in turn as they passed, nodding, “Good luck.”
“What about you?” Jade demanded of Tell without thinking as Selena began to creep silently along the wall, a bit testy about being left outside of the fray. But the captain only smiled at her, even if it wasn’t a very nice smile.
“There’s a coward that needs to be dealt with,” he replied with a minute shrug of his shoulders, his voice matter-of-fact and entirely devoid of uncertainty. “I can handle him on my own, so don’t come rushing in guns blazing unless there’s a damn good reason for it.”
Nodding, Jade shuffled until Rebecca was tucked behind her and out of sight. She frowned up at the captain, crossing her arms over her chest and giving him her best no-nonsense look. “Okay, but don’t let him get the drop on you or I’ll have to make fun of you for it later!”
Seemingly despite himself, the captain gave her a solemn nod in return. “I’ll do my best not to, then.”
With that being said, he turned and strolled out into the open, boots treading with surprising stealth over the dust and rubble. It was strange, too, because with the way he walked so casually— well, he made it seem almost accidental that he was walking so friggin’ quietly, and Jade thought that was too awesome for words, seriously. He only became even awesome-er in her eyes when he spoke to the dwarf, voice ringing loud and clear in the small space of the grotto.
“Tough one, aren’t you? Picking on someone who can’t defend himself.” The half-lidded grey eyes of Captain Tell settled on Sheron-bhar, his expression calm and flat.
The dwarf jerked in surprise at first, eyes widening in fear as he turned around, but quickly recovered his decorum and sneered at the human captain, teeth bared like a tiger standing over its kill. “What’s that, windbag? Keep talking; maybe it’ll sting less when my axe-blade cleaves through your neck!” He whapped the pole of his axe against his hand, the steady thump-whump betraying the impressive heft of the weapon.
Tell’s eyes didn’t stray from the dwarf’s face. He tutted softly, shaking his head. “You’re all talk. You wouldn’t try your luck against a real warrior. No, no… a coward such as yourself has to go after the weak, like nothing more than a common schoolyard bully.”
He paused to draw his sword, letting a metallic gleam slide along its edge as he held it aloft. He eyed it for a moment, letting the sword’s weight compress the nerves of his wrist, and then whisked it down in a wide, crescent moon arc. With a swish that was very nearly invisible to the naked eye, the sword had scratched a crisp, dark line in the shallow dirt just before the toes of his boots. Tell took a step back, considering his handiwork with a tilted head, and then again refocused his attention on the dwarf.
“Cross this line when you’re prepared for a real fight,” he said, his loose stance and devil-may-care attitude visibly infuriating the dwarf assassin.
With a harsh battle cry the dwarf charged forward, the hefty axe in his hands expertly raised as he sank into a crouch. The chainmail crusting over his shoulders and torso slowed his steps somewhat, the bulging muscles of his arms and short legs working double-time to make up for it, but his eyes remained dark and focused on the hunt.
Tell watched until his opponent was almost a couple paces away. He watched as the axe swung right for his throat, the blade siphoning with a sharp hiss through the stale air. He watched, and then stepped aside at the last moment to let the dwarf hurtle past, neck turning leisurely to watch the axe-blade whistle past.
Of course, any warrior worth their salt would expect a move like that, so the dwarf was quick to twist his hips and swing his axe down low, hoping to take out the captain’s legs. But by then the human had already backed off a few paces and his axe met empty air, clanging off the stone floor and sending a shooting pain up the dwarf’s arms. He tried twice more and met similar results—two more times his hasty swipes missed the captain by a landslide, swinging wide and slamming into the ground more often than not as he tried to cleave the man in two. Soon enough the dwarf slid to a halt with an awkward, hopping jig, red-faced and seething in his frustration.
There was another roar as the dwarf barreled forward, and Jade hastily glanced over towards where Selena and Brandon were, feeling guilty for only sparing a second just then to see how they were faring. Amber was watching the entire goings-ons, as well, observing with rapt attention as Selena tucked the red bearded dwarf into a chokehold and urged Brandon to disarm him. The astronomer did so with some hesitancy, which gave the dwarf plenty of an opportunity to swing at Brandon with one of his smaller hatchets, the blow swinging wide and just narrowly cutting at the edges of the man’s coat.
“Brandon!” Selena hissed, rolling her eyes even as the dwarf struggled wildly and elbowed her in the stomach. “Brandon, I swear—!”
“Sorry, sorry,” said Brandon, finally managing to snatch one of the hatchets out of the dwarf’s death grip. Before he could go in for the other one, though, Smith had already swept in and taken it, drawing the sleeve of his coat over his face with a world-weary sigh.
“Oi!” barked the red-haired dwarf, Brennon, if Jade recalled correctly. “Give that back, ya slimy bastard!”
Suddenly, Amber was tugging urgently at Jade's arm, her disshelved and bruised appearance making her seem super-duper frantic in the half-darkness. At Jade's silent, 'What?', she pointed towards where Tell and Sheron-bhar were throwing down, grunts and the sounds of clashing metal pealing out to bound off the cavern walls.
While the captain and the assassin were pretty caught up with viciously murder-killing each other, Roland was left to his own devices off on the side-lines, nearly getting trampled in the chaos. As bloody and beaten as he was, the man dragged himself across the ground-- progress interspersed with numerous gasps of pain-- to where his sword lay discarded and forgotten on the ground, probably with every intention of using it. Jade's eyes widened in understanding, flicking back to meet Amber's.
"We have to get him out of there before he gets hurt even more," the faunus said, a resolute shine in her eyes.
"Right!" Jade's head jerked in a nod and, after making sure Bec and Rebecca were safe, they were off!
“Did you hear that, Captain Tell? That sounded like Sir Roland!” Selena whispered breathlessly, an undercurrent of worry to her words. Brandon stood next to her, hands cupped around the steadily glowing green star piece, shades of vibrant lime and emerald shifting across its surface even in the darkness.
Tell’s voice murmured real quiet from an uncertain, dark space to Jade’s right. “I see something up ahead, where the light from the cave entrance falls. There’s the shadow of a little fellow cast on the wall.”
Amber’s eyes narrowed into angry slits. “That’s one of those punks who attacked us earlier— I recognize the throwing axes hanging loose in his hands. There must be another one; it sounds like he’s kicking Roland around awful good.” She winced in sympathy at another pained cry, her expression hardening.
As they watched, the stocky shadow slid across the stretch of ground beneath the natural archway of the tunnel entrance, dithering and shifting with what might have been unease before slowly moving on. Jade held her breath until dwarf’s dark silhouette had fully disappeared, eyes welling up with distractingly watery tears because of her refusal to spare even a second to blink. Finally, the shadow at last slipped out of sight and only the cracked stones of the floor remained, cast in pale bluish light stemming from the cavern entrance.
They proceeded along the passage silent as a pack of wraiths, the dim light shrouding their movements in silken shadow until they reached the mouth of the tunnel. From there, crouched behind a cluster of jagged stalagmites jutting out from the floor of the cave, they could see all that was happening in the softly lit grotto spread before them, white glimmers of moisture glistening like salt crystals and frilly bulbs of fungus spotting the walls. Jade gasped, blood running both hot and cold at the same time, icy fear mixing with the sudden and unbridled rage boiling inside her veins.
A dwarf with a grizzly, tangled beard had one boot propped up on an injured Roland’s chest, the wild mass of hair concealing his features so thoroughly that only his grinning white teeth and two shiny eyes glinted through the dirty strands. He began to press down with increasing severity as he leaned forward and spat in the man’s face, sour breath fogging in the cold air. “I’ll not ask ye again. Speak now, or bit by bleeding bit, I’ll slice ye up nice and slow. Tell me where the astronomer’s gone.”
Blood dribbling from his chin, Roland only leaned his head back to stare up at the dwarf, a string of garbled nonsense leaving his lips as he tried to slip off into blissful unconsciousness. He hissed when a coarse hand tangled in his hair and jerked his skull up, letting it fall back to crack painfully against the cold stone floor, molars crunching as they ground together at the back of his jaw.
Smith and Burgess unhappily watched all of this take place from where they were backed into a corner, Piers slumped against the rocks behind them and plainly unconscious. Another dwarf with reddish hair and a funnily-braided beard stood before them, twin axes brandished threateningly to counter Smith’s upraised sabre, but it was clear that he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the situation. This dwarf cast slow, concern-filled glances over his shoulder, openly vexed by his partner-in-crime’s actions.
“Sheron, are you sure we shouldn’t just leave ‘em be and move on? The astronomer’s gotta be in those caves somewhere,” he tried, a frown set into his brow as if by a toymaker’s tiny hammer.
Sheron-bhar glanced across at the other dwarf in annoyance, but the insane enthusiastic twinkle in his eyes just couldn’t be dimmed. “Shuddap, Brennon,” he retorted, and turned back towards his victim. “Now, what were you saying? I didn’t quite catch that.”
Roland glared back with all the ire he could muster from where he was pinned to the floor, defiance blazing bright in his eyes. When he remained tight-lipped and silent, the dwarf applied pressure by shoving all of his weight onto the leg atop Roland’s chest. The resulting crack was sickening, splintering like the snapping of dry branches for firewood— it was the sound of his ribs breaking beneath the dwarf’s solid boot, possibly having already punctured a lung judging by the wet rasps following Roland’s every breath. Even in the low light Jade could see the dark blood burbling past his lips when a yell was ripped from his chest, the veiny whites of his eyes showing as they rolled back in their sockets from the pain. He writhed like a creature being skinned alive.
Wrenching her attention away from the horrors before her, Jade glanced at Captain Tell. The fingers of his right hand were toying with the sword at his hip, and there was a coolly detached expression on his face that she found she could see right through, the underlying anger clear as day when she knew where to look for it.
“What do you want us to do?” asked Amber, licking her lips in anticipation of a battle. Jade felt just as eager to leap into action— despite her injuries, it would be just plain awful to let one of their friends suffer! It would probably be a short fight, too— two dwarves against the five of them weren’t very good odds for the dwarves, no matter how fatigued the company was from their previous adventures.
Tell glanced at the two of them out of the corner of his eye. “You’re injured, so you should hang back with Jade and Rebecca for the moment. Selena, Brandon, try to handle the one giving Smith and Burgess trouble. He seems reasonable enough, maybe you can talk him down. If that fails, restrain him, but don’t keep him alive if it would risk too much injury to yourselves,” he clasped each of them on the shoulder in turn as they passed, nodding, “Good luck.”
“What about you?” Jade demanded of Tell without thinking as Selena began to creep silently along the wall, a bit testy about being left outside of the fray. But the captain only smiled at her, even if it wasn’t a very nice smile.
“There’s a coward that needs to be dealt with,” he replied with a minute shrug of his shoulders, his voice matter-of-fact and entirely devoid of uncertainty. “I can handle him on my own, so don’t come rushing in guns blazing unless there’s a damn good reason for it.”
Nodding, Jade shuffled until Rebecca was tucked behind her and out of sight. She frowned up at the captain, crossing her arms over her chest and giving him her best no-nonsense look. “Okay, but don’t let him get the drop on you or I’ll have to make fun of you for it later!”
Seemingly despite himself, the captain gave her a solemn nod in return. “I’ll do my best not to, then.”
With that being said, he turned and strolled out into the open, boots treading with surprising stealth over the dust and rubble. It was strange, too, because with the way he walked so casually— well, he made it seem almost accidental that he was walking so friggin’ quietly, and Jade thought that was too awesome for words, seriously. He only became even awesome-er in her eyes when he spoke to the dwarf, voice ringing loud and clear in the small space of the grotto.
“Tough one, aren’t you? Picking on someone who can’t defend himself.” The half-lidded grey eyes of Captain Tell settled on Sheron-bhar, his expression calm and flat.
The dwarf jerked in surprise at first, eyes widening in fear as he turned around, but quickly recovered his decorum and sneered at the human captain, teeth bared like a tiger standing over its kill. “What’s that, windbag? Keep talking; maybe it’ll sting less when my axe-blade cleaves through your neck!” He whapped the pole of his axe against his hand, the steady thump-whump betraying the impressive heft of the weapon.
Tell’s eyes didn’t stray from the dwarf’s face. He tutted softly, shaking his head. “You’re all talk. You wouldn’t try your luck against a real warrior. No, no… a coward such as yourself has to go after the weak, like nothing more than a common schoolyard bully.”
He paused to draw his sword, letting a metallic gleam slide along its edge as he held it aloft. He eyed it for a moment, letting the sword’s weight compress the nerves of his wrist, and then whisked it down in a wide, crescent moon arc. With a swish that was very nearly invisible to the naked eye, the sword had scratched a crisp, dark line in the shallow dirt just before the toes of his boots. Tell took a step back, considering his handiwork with a tilted head, and then again refocused his attention on the dwarf.
“Cross this line when you’re prepared for a real fight,” he said, his loose stance and devil-may-care attitude visibly infuriating the dwarf assassin.
With a harsh battle cry the dwarf charged forward, the hefty axe in his hands expertly raised as he sank into a crouch. The chainmail crusting over his shoulders and torso slowed his steps somewhat, the bulging muscles of his arms and short legs working double-time to make up for it, but his eyes remained dark and focused on the hunt.
Tell watched until his opponent was almost a couple paces away. He watched as the axe swung right for his throat, the blade siphoning with a sharp hiss through the stale air. He watched, and then stepped aside at the last moment to let the dwarf hurtle past, neck turning leisurely to watch the axe-blade whistle past.
Of course, any warrior worth their salt would expect a move like that, so the dwarf was quick to twist his hips and swing his axe down low, hoping to take out the captain’s legs. But by then the human had already backed off a few paces and his axe met empty air, clanging off the stone floor and sending a shooting pain up the dwarf’s arms. He tried twice more and met similar results—two more times his hasty swipes missed the captain by a landslide, swinging wide and slamming into the ground more often than not as he tried to cleave the man in two. Soon enough the dwarf slid to a halt with an awkward, hopping jig, red-faced and seething in his frustration.
There was another roar as the dwarf barreled forward, and Jade hastily glanced over towards where Selena and Brandon were, feeling guilty for only sparing a second just then to see how they were faring. Amber was watching the entire goings-ons, as well, observing with rapt attention as Selena tucked the red bearded dwarf into a chokehold and urged Brandon to disarm him. The astronomer did so with some hesitancy, which gave the dwarf plenty of an opportunity to swing at Brandon with one of his smaller hatchets, the blow swinging wide and just narrowly cutting at the edges of the man’s coat.
“Brandon!” Selena hissed, rolling her eyes even as the dwarf struggled wildly and elbowed her in the stomach. “Brandon, I swear—!”
“Sorry, sorry,” said Brandon, finally managing to snatch one of the hatchets out of the dwarf’s death grip. Before he could go in for the other one, though, Smith had already swept in and taken it, drawing the sleeve of his coat over his face with a world-weary sigh.
“Oi!” barked the red-haired dwarf, Brennon, if Jade recalled correctly. “Give that back, ya slimy bastard!”
Suddenly, Amber was tugging urgently at Jade's arm, her disshelved and bruised appearance making her seem super-duper frantic in the half-darkness. At Jade's silent, 'What?', she pointed towards where Tell and Sheron-bhar were throwing down, grunts and the sounds of clashing metal pealing out to bound off the cavern walls.
While the captain and the assassin were pretty caught up with viciously murder-killing each other, Roland was left to his own devices off on the side-lines, nearly getting trampled in the chaos. As bloody and beaten as he was, the man dragged himself across the ground-- progress interspersed with numerous gasps of pain-- to where his sword lay discarded and forgotten on the ground, probably with every intention of using it. Jade's eyes widened in understanding, flicking back to meet Amber's.
"We have to get him out of there before he gets hurt even more," the faunus said, a resolute shine in her eyes.
"Right!" Jade's head jerked in a nod and, after making sure Bec and Rebecca were safe, they were off!
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.