A Tactical Dance

A Tactical Dance
- Ariel, Level 6 Dark Mage [Blonde Panther]
- Noah Garod, Level 14 Tactician [Unnamed Dude]

The skies were clear, no sandstorms for today. That was a huge relief- the lessened visibility, not to mention the sand hitting them in the face repeatedly, would make it incredibly difficult to find the caravan, let alone catch up with it. Ariel looked back at Noah, who wasn't as brimming with energy as she was, and smiled. "You know," she said, "We're never gonna catch up to them if you keep your face buried in that book all journey."

After taking out the bandits in what had remained of Noah's hometown, Wolfe and Emilia had taken off, just the two of them. Ariel had been too tired to do much of anything, and Noah had stayed with her to ensure nothing would happen to her while she recovered. Fortunately, Ariel was young and flexible and had regained her energy really quickly. To look at her now, no one would think that she'd been ready to collapse, drained of both her magic and her strength, just an hour ago.

After she'd regained her strength, she'd offered Noah to come with her to rejoin her travelling companions. He had nowhere else to really go as far as she knew, after all. He could at least come with them for a while, get an improvised roof over his head and something to eat before he went back on his way. He had agreed, and here they were- following what tracks they could find.

"...No, I suppose not," came Noah's reply, as he shut the book and stowed it away. Truth be told, he was amazed at her vitality; during the battle she'd wilted after unleashing the most of her magic, so to have her so...bubbly seemed almost wrong somehow.

That she had seemingly snapped during the explosion of energy that burned through her reserves also confused him a bit. He had, in general, kept his studies relegated the Magic of Truth; this was the first he'd had any real experience with Dark Magic. Was that some form of side effect...? That was what he would devote his next studies to, at any rate.

"So, tell me more about this troupe of yours. You've told me they're performers, but nothing more than that. Are they all as...surprising as you?" He never made mention of her dark magic, but he hoped that the implication was not lost on her.

Ariel stopped, poking up into the air with one finger. "If by 'surprising,'" she said, suddenly with a serious face, "you mean 'hyperactive, Dark Magic-wielding teenagers...' Nope." She smiled again. "I'm actually one of the younger members, and aside from myself we only have one Dark Mage. He's actually responsible for the predicament I'm in right now." Skipping a few steps, she gave a long pause before she finished. "Most of us have energy to spare, though, so as far as the hyperactive goes... yeah, probably."

Again, she paused, but stopped skipping and let Noah catch up to her. "Like I said," she explained, "We're performers. Song and dance and music and all that jazz. We actually probably do jazz too. Whatever that is," she added, a thoughtful finger at her chin, but quickly got back on track. "At any rate, we didn't really want to be anything other than that, but you know how it goes. Plegia invades Ylisse, Ylisse kicks Plegia out, Ferox gets in on the action and the dead crawl out of their graves." She smiled broadly. "So we took up weapons -mostly magic, though- and we've been hired once or twice as mercenaries. We don't really like it, but it works WONDERS for the food supplies!"

Putting her arms behind her, she looked over Noah. "What about you? I know you were born at that village we just cleared, but that was obviously not recently. What do you do for a living?"

"Me?" Noah asked, unused to such attention. What to say... "Let's start at the beginning, then..."

"You saw what happened to my old home. It ended up that way after the last war." He clutched one arm with another, crossing them and momentarily going silent. He didn't want to go into more detail. Especially given his father's method of death.

"After that, I was taken in by a Wyvern Rider... since then, I've been learning combat under him. Of course, over the years I've also studied magic and strategy... as you saw. If push comes to shove, I can sell out my sword. It should be a good time for it. But," he stopped for a moment, and frowned. "I'd rather it didn't come to that," he finished. It must have been strange indeed to see such a man, the son of a soldier, and then adopted by a wyvern knight, and finally educated in myriad ways of fighting, to hesitate to draw a blade. Still, he couldn't feel justified in drawing it to kill people. The bandits were dangerous; that, he felt little guilt for. But... he saw no justice in beginning another war. He felt that they had no right to create more orphans.

"Anyway," he finally said, "Do you know where exactly we are going?"

"I know how you feel," Ariel said to Noah's wishing he wouldn't have to sell his sword. "I wasn't consciously around when Ylisse invaded but I've heard the horror stories. Why would anyone repeat that? Even if this time it's Plegia doing the invading?" She pouted. "It's stupid is what it is, and it's bad for business." She waited a few seconds, but then beamed at him again. "But you, Noah! Studying strategy is all nice and good but it doesn't explain how you can use both magic AND that sword so well! I mean, Wolfe, Emilia and me, sure, we only have one thing to practice-" and in her case she wasn't even that good with it, "- but where do you find time to spend on three completely different skills?"

When Noah asked about where they were going, Ariel laughed. "I have no idea where we are in relation to the rest, and I've completely forgotten the name of the town. But I do know that we were going to stop by a town not far from here to stock up on food and water, and probably a tome here or there. When they notice I'm missing, they'll either wait until I catch up or send a search party, so we should be fine regardless of where we go. Do you have a map and/or a compass? I saw the map we used to plan our route- it's to the west."

"It's much the same as your dancing, I'd imagine," he mumbled, as he riffled through his bag for the needed supplies. As he handed her the map and drew out a compass, he continued. "It just takes practice. And I've scarcely done anything other than those three things, so..." he shrugged and checked the compass. The way they were heading was northwest at the moment, but... He wasn't certain which town Ariel meant, so he kept it steady for her as she unfolded the map.

"So is there anything that brings you to the west? There's not much out here..." He supposed it could have been an effort to escape the border troubles, but he'd prefer not to make assumptions about it until he had more information.

Ariel cocked her head to one side as she studied the map. "Well, you know," she said, "We're going there precisely because there's nothing out there. Nothing for either army to gain, so we can safely stay there for a while without getting drafted." They'd made a good deal of money renting out their swords closer to the border, so they could afford to lay low for a while.

She studied the map more intently, finally coming across a name she recognized from the group discussions they'd had. "Yeah, here it is. This town." She looked at the compass. "Hm. May want to turn a little bit... but I think we're on the right track." Folding the map again, she walked in the direction of the town.

Some time passed before she felt a sense of dread and stopped to look around, suddenly serious. "Do you sense anything?" she asked Noah. He was a mage too, surely he felt something akin to what she was sensing...

"I see." he said quietly in response to Ariel's explanation. He supposed that was the way it should be... innocents shouldn't get involved in something so dangerous, anyway.

But... after they started with a renewed course, something bothered him. Unease, maybe... and unease soon grew into a deep sense of foreboding as they proceeded. It wasn't from knowing her destination, he knew that much... He'd never known the town before.

"Something feels... very, very, wrong..." He muttered in response to her question. He couldn't put it into words, but there was definitely something that did not belong here. Rather, it was something that he doubted belonged anywhere; some form of magic that disturbed him further than any display, whether of the Magic of Truth or Dark magic.

Wisps of darkness boiled up from the ground around them. "Ariel. If something happens, I want you to stay behind me..." he said as he drew his sword. He'd never seen anything like this. They needed to stay calm, above all...

When Noah drew his sword, Ariel followed suit. She stuffed the compass into her waist pouch, folded the map up as small as she could get it, and drew her tome, stuffing the folded map in the back cover. When she opened her tome, flipping to the page with the spell details, she flexed the fingers of her left hand and took a step back. Noah had a sword, so it made sense that he would stay in front if there was fighting to be done.

"NOAH!" she screamed, pointing to her right with her hand full of tome, "Over there!" She'd heard some obscene growling from under the sands and leapt to the other side, raising her left hand to draw the symbol on the page in front of her. Just in time, she got her Flux spell out. It engulfed the first living corpse to come out of the sands, making it stagger and fall back. Around it, several others were coming to life. "A- are those the Risen people were talking about?" she asked, her voice suddenly high-pitched as she stepped further back.

It was a mistake. She heard another growl behind her and turned around to see another corpse holding a large axe above its head, about to swing it down with her right in its path.

"No!" Noah growled, his voice low and dangerous. A blade caught the creature--Noah dared not call this thing a man, or anything resembling one--mid-swing with a horizontal slice. The tactician did not wait for it to recover, drawing his dagger and cutting it with a high gash to its throat. It fell and dissolved into the same foul wisps from whence it had come. Somehow, that didn't reassure him.

"Dammit!" He snarled. He didn't usually swear, but this situation warranted it. There was no cover, or terrain, or anything that they could use. The best he could do was...

"This way! Ariel, run that way where they're more scarce!" He didn't bother clarifying his own role. He'd just have to hold off the crowds long enough to allow her time to blast them down... if he could manage that. He turned round to face the other unearthly bodies rising from the smoke and tried to get a sense of which he needed to prioritize... ideally, he would strike down any ranged fighters first, then try and detain any close-range combatants before they could cause harm to Ariel...

Another mass of fumes came together, this time giving him a sword-fighter. He grimaced when he looked over the rest of their line-up... he saw a few lance-carrying monsters among their number. That was bad. He couldn't compete with their range...

Noah killed the zombie before the axe could hit her, and she dove into a small ball, dropping her tome and finally screaming. She had NOT signed up to fight living corpses and get split in two in the process today! Normally, she would have needed time to regain her breathing and her senses, but Noah's cursing and bellowing orders snapped her back to reality. She picked up her tome and looked at the axe on the ground not far from her.

Noah had managed to break the wooden shaft of the axe from the heavy head, and Ariel took it. Maybe she could use it along with the spell she had been trying to learn... But for now, she had to move! "Hang in there, Noah!" she called as she ran, "I'll be there in a minute! Well, in a way at least," she mumbled to herself, as she mowed down a bow-toting Risen that had just stood up.

She halted, turned, and raised her free hand to draw. She focused all her might into the drawing, and made sure to make it nice and big, as if she hoped that would increase the power output on it. "Here goes," she muttered, "Let's hope this works... NOAH, -DUCK-!"

Noah immediately bent and rolled at Ariel's cry, feeling rather than seeing a mass of dark energy bursting to life where a Risen once stood. He didn't wait to continue fighting; he took a swipe at one Risen's leg as he stood, then went for the jugular. Along the way into the thrust, he took a rough hit himself from the thing's spear. It dissolved as he staggered back and straightened up.

The tactician grimaced as he surveyed the situation and backed away. He did not like this location or terrain. He did not know whether he and Ariel would be able to fight through their current number. He did not know whether this was even the end of them. Altogether, the worst possible scenario.

He gritted his teeth. "Let's pull back for now! We need to understand the situation better!"

Her spell got the Risen square in the chest, imploding it and causing what remained of it to fall over, and she immediately dropped to one knee, rolling over and pushing herself up before turning a quick pirouette to dodge two incoming arrows. Would they just keep coming, she wondered as hair and cloth fluttered behind her following her movement, only to overcompensate as she put her foot down to stop. She wasn't bothered by the sand, having always been light on her feet and needing to carry around neither armour nor heavy swords.

"I gotcha!" she called out to Noah, casting one final instance of Flux as a distraction and to scare them off, before slamming her tome shut and taking off after Noah, whose heavy coat and sword slowed him down. "I can hang back to hold them off if you like," she said, "So take all the time you need to come up with something, okay?"

Without thinking, Noah reached over to slap her in the face. "Absolutely not. I will not have you needlessly putting yourself in danger, you understand me?" He wracked his brain for useful information. If he recalled, a while back they had passed an abandoned fort... maybe if they could draw these creatures to it, they'd stand a better chance of clearing them from it.

"Do you remember that fort?" It was a bit of a long shot, he had to say. But there wasn't much to work with and there wasn't much time.

Ariel bit her tongue not to cry out when Noah hit her. Was that really necessary..? She wanted to protest that she moved way more quickly than him on this sand, but figured that if he was riled up enough to hit her over something stupid like this, there was no arguing with him. She'd dealt with more than her share of people like him in the past and learnt how to deal with them; smile and nod. Although smiling in this situation wasn't the best course of action, so she settled for just nodding.

"A fort..." she muttered to herself as she ran alongside Noah. "Can't say I do," she admitted. "But if you think it's a good place to make a stand- well, you're the planner here. Lead the way!"