Finding the Lost

"Is that all of them?!" Jacob shouted above the din, his axe ripping through the greyed flesh of another of the Risen. He was referring to the survivors that were making their way out of the gate behind him. James, Terris, Torvald, and the triplets were holding them back beyond the town's gate while the group of villagers gathered behind them.

"That's all we've been able to find!" Alaine shouted back before snarling at the Risen before her, "No you don't, you bastard!" Her icy blade lashed out as the mercenary began to attack relentlessly. The radiant frost began to slow the Risen down, and Alaine was able to cut the head off in a stroke or two.

"Hey, miss?"

"Hm?" The mercenary quickly checked her surroundings. That was the last Risen within twenty feet of her. The redhead looked and saw that it was a seven-year-old girl. Her deep green hair was cut short and she was looking at Alaine with big silver eyes in awe. She was a rather cute child. "Yes?"

"C-can you find my d-daddy? Please! He's not with mommy or the others. He said he had to do something and then he ran into town that way!" the girl pointed, her eyes beginning to tear up. Alaine looked in the general direction she'd been pointed.

I can see only Risen through the smoke..., she thought, cursing mentally. "I'll find him, girl. Jacob!"

"Aye, captain?"

"Take this girl with you and lead all of the survivors out of here! I'm gonna stick around for a bit, see if I can't find anyone else," Alaine ordered him. He looked about to protest, but she continued, overriding him. "Now go! Get out of here. Osney's going to meet you halfway, and you're going to take them to Riverton, understood?!"

Her lieutenant hesitated, but then nodded, saying, "Sure. Upsy-daisy...," then picking up the girl and setting her on his shoulder. "Make sure you come back." Then he rejoined the group and they began picking their way across the battlefield the road had become.

"What does he think, it's my first day?" she muttered, swearing absently as she headed down the path.

Alaine picked and sneaked her way deeper into the town following the little girl's direction. More buildings were on fire here, but still the Risen abounded. Townsfolk lay dead in the streets, but the bodies of Risen accompanied them. The folk had met the Risen here first to fight en masse. However, she saw more of the dead littering the ground than the undead. "Hello?! Anybody still alive out there?!" she called.

Well, speaking of undead, three of them were in the plaza, all of whom had heard her calling out. "Oh, great," she muttered, slumping her shoulders for a second. "A bit of help would be pretty useful right about now..."

She ran at the one on her right that held a morningstar. She always hated the weapon, and when she got in range, tore through his arm with her sword before removing his head. The other two were soon attacking her, however. One with a long spear, and the other with arrows.

"Gwaaaaaah!!!"

A disturbing cried came out of the risen as the blade ran through its head. The thing fell down and began to melted, giving her sign that she needed not worry about this one anymore.

Lilithe, a dark mistress of Plegian army, had just arrived this Ylisse's border town just to find out that it was on fire, and the ones working as receptionists turned to be the risen. She hoped this was no fancy event held by the townspeople in order to get more guests. She turned about in order to find a city hall. If nothing else, she hoped that there will be the alive gathering there who could give her some information. She was not a heroic type, though it would be good to know the state of these undead nowadays.

"!"

A sound of people fighting reached her ear. Lilithe turned to the origin of it, before walking over piles of debris to see who was out there. Probably, her help was no need here, that would be nice.

A lady, whose hair was as reddish as fire, was swinging her mace-liked weapon to bring down a risen, one of the trio. She accomplished one, but didn't seem to keep well with the rest. The undead archer had already aimed at her and was about to release its arrow, and it did eventually.

A frigid wind gust flied out of her hand, heading to the flying arrow, before it froze the thing. The arrow became heavy and missed its intended target. The undead bowman prepared for another shot, however, Lilithe's sword cut down at its right collarbone. It murmured something before the mistress implanted an orb of dark energy into its body and backed off before the thing exploded inside out, crumbling down to ashes.

((ooc: killed the risen archer.))

Alaine rolled out of the way of the thrust spear, quickly standing and turning to face the Risen. She threw her sword arm up, knocking the swung spear upwards before rushing forward and stabbing down. Looking at the undead face, she spat at it, growling, "Eat that, you son of a bitch."

The mercenary stumbled back when the Risen kicked her, producing an "Oof!" from the redhead. It stalked towards her with her sword stuck in its gut, the triumph of a predator in its gaze. Alaine backed away until she kicked the morningstar of the other Risen with her ankle. Grabbing that, Alaine charged forward as it was raising its lance to stab at her again. She sidestepped, knocked the arm away with the morningstar, and smashed the thing into its side.

The spreading ice from her blade had hardened the flesh, and the blow from the mace broke it. The torso tumbled off to her right and the mercenary grabbed her sword before the lower half fell. She looked at the mace, considering it, and then tossed it over to her right. Like I have training with that thing.

She looked over and noticed that the Risen Archer, who she'd been so careless as to forget about, had already been taken care of. Gesturing to the rapidly deteriorating Risen, she asked the elegant woman, "I take it you're not with these fools, then?"

Off on the other side of town, in the general direction that the little girl had pointed earlier, a battle all its own was taking place. A small cloaked figure, not even five feet in height, was being stalked by a couple of Risen, one with a hammer, one with a spear. The cloaked figure seemed to know it was being stalked, as its steps were rather hurried and frantic, as if trying to run away.

At least, it seemed that way for a while, before the cloaked figure spun about on its heels, thrusting a small hand toward the Risen following it and muttering something incomprehensible. The result of such mutterings were less difficult to understand. An enormous black sphere crackling with lightning formed between the two Risen before engulfing them both in a torrent of powerful magic. The small figure continued slowly backing away while the sphere remained, and once the sphere faded, made a quick downward motion with its left hand, sending a green wind blade hurtling along the ground before colliding with the hammer-using Risen, severing its right arm at the shoulder.

Whirling about to do the same to the lancer Risen, the figure spooked quite a bit when it noticed something right behind it that wasn't there before. In a fit of panic, the cloaked figure took a hurried deep breath and let loose an intense, sustained burst of black flame, forcing the surprise assailant back before slowly turning it to ash from the outside in.

Feeling rather light-headed after sustaining the unholy blaze for that long, the cloaked figure basically tripped over its own feet and fell on its rear, breathing heavily and erratically, trying to re-orient itself to the situation and having some trouble doing so. Not the best times to be in such a state, then, as the two improperly finished off Risen from before were closing in. The cloaked figure cringed, frantically trying to recite an incantation, but a combination of panic and lack of breath made such a thing difficult.

A grisly death probably would have been the end result there if not for the timely intervention of a swordsman, one old enough that he could probably pass for the cloaked figure's father, going by the cloaked figure's height. Taking advantage of the hammer-Risen's missing arm and general weakened integrity from the black lightning sphere, he disabled it entirely with two swift cuts to the remaining arm before two more to the heart and neck took it down for good, and a head-strike with the sword met in timing with a half-hearted wind blade from the other side snapped the lancer-Risen in a way that was not exactly conducive to it standing up again.

Both swordsman and cloaked figure took a moment to make sure no more Risen were coming after them, then the former offered the latter a hand to help stand up. The cloaked figure silently refused the aid, though, slowly but shakily standing up on its own. That said, despite refusing aid in standing up, it did choose to stand behind the swordsman as the two made their way slowly through the town. Help was fine. It's touching that was off-limits.

OOC (open) OOC (close)

Cleared entry with Knight of G. He knows who the swordsman is; gave me the suggestion for it over AIM.

"I'd be very worried if my appearance resembles the undead, Ms."

Lilithe answered as she cleaned her slim sword before putting it back into the sheath. She turned to the red haired one again before she approached the person, with caution. This one, while she was in a suit of armor, did not appear to be some knight of this country, or at least the mistress hoped she wasn't. However still, she did not intend to reveal her origin to anyone so easily. She simply asked when she was in a more appropriate range to speak.

"Should I assume that you know what happened to this town before I've arrived?" The dark lady looked around to the ruins, ruins everywhere and no survivor in sight except the person she was talking with. ",aside from being heavily raided by the risen, that is."

"I live up there," Alaine pointed to a mountain half a day's march away. "I and my company saw the smoke. Something was wrong, and it'd be a shame to lose the customer base we have. So we're protecting them for free." She looked around the square. "If I had to guess, some of the townsfolk tried to fight the Risen here. Poor bastards. From there on, the Risen have been hunting down any other survivors." The mercenary didn't say why she said there were more survivors, but she had a feeling that the little girl's father was still alive.

"Let's stick together. Two of us together are better than one on her own, eh? I'm Alaine," the mercenary introduced herself, holding out her hand for a handshake.

#
The swordsman peered out from the alley. There were perhaps five Risen scattered up and down the street. He cursed and ducked behind the alley. "Damn! I know that bastard stuffed the cellar full of people, but we can't get them out before we're seen... What to do...?"

"Let the Risen see me." The cloaked figure finally spoke clearly as it adjusted its cloak tighter around itself, its voice feminine and fairly young. "I'll keep them busy. Do what you must." Without waiting for an answer, she began another short sequence of incomprehensible mutterings, resulting in a crackling dark shell coming into existence around her body; looking at it would probably be a bad idea, as staring too long might cause one to see soul-searing emptiness and gruesome bloody carnage within its black depths.

Next after that strange shell was a complex magical rune inscribing itself on her back, layered over the shell. "Go." Leaning out from behind the corner of the wall, she wove another spell, sprouting dark chains up from beneath the nearest of the five Risen, restraining it at least somewhat. This drew their attention, but at the same time lined three of them up nicely to be wracked by an alleyway-friendly verson of the black lightning sphere from before.

Evidently restraining spell areas of effect was not one of the cloaked figure's strong suits, as she slumped in her posture slightly following the sphere's disappearance, flailing her left hand around a bit as if it had fallen asleep and she was trying to wake it up. Three half-down, two unharmed, four of the five closing in, one more with its feet stuck to the ground with magical chains. A good start, but given her performance in the last clash, enemies at point-blank would result in a lot of not fun. How would this turn out?

Alright. The woman was a local mercenary, who came down to the town to rescue the townspeople. Even though it was partially for their own benefit, it was still good to know that not all mercenaries were so money hungry. It was agreeable that she will be safer sticking with this person.

"This one is called Lilithe," Hesitantly, the dark mistress took the mercenary's hand and shook a bit. "a passerby."

Suddenly, Lilithe turned to another direction, apparently the other side of the town. She felt it, a magic source. Someone, if not some risen mage, had just cast a spell around the area. Actually, the fact that a spell is used could be summarized easily that a battle was going on.

"Someone is fighting over that direction." The mistress told Alaine as she pointed over. "Your company is a magician, no?"

Alaine heard it, at the same time Lilithe must've felt it. "Yeah, we've got two. But they're not here right now. They're helping lead the townspeople to safety in Riverton," Alaine replied, gripping her sword tighter. "C'mon!" The mercenary took off running towards the sound. She noticed that Risen were along this way. In fact, they were headed toward the sound. "Can't be good...," she muttered, grabbing one by the hair and stabbing it in the neck.

#
"Of all the... well, whatever," the man muttered as the apparently Dark Mage girl cast a shell of living shadow about herself. "They needed to go, in any case." Hopefully there were humans in the town who had heard those spells and would come to their aid.

Chaining three dark spells in a row, one of them incredibly noisy, was probably not the best idea. That said, the cloaked figure had been taught magic, not tactics or politics. The problems with the situation just didn't come to mind. Watching the approaching Risen carefully as she incanted another spell, even taking a couple steps toward them, her casting methodology differed slightly in its execution. Instead of using only her left hand to shape the spell, she first formed the black lightning orb between both hands, seemingly experimenting with something.

Experimentation in the middle of a battlefield is liable to get one killed, but that might have been what she was gambling on to begin with. A fraction of a second before one of the Risen managed to stab her with a relatively heavy lance, she pressed her hands together, crushing and collapsing the orb between them. The resulting energy pulse exploded outwards, generating another noisy sphere of pain and electricity, but this time she had opted to center it on herself as an anti-melee defensive measure.

As one would expect, that hurt. A lot. The cloaked figure was definitely strained trying not to scream in pain, and even then not entirely managing to stifle herself. Strangely, when the lance struck her and forced its way through the black shell, her pain actually seemed to lessen momentarily, and the Risen holding the lance simply fell over, presumably dead.

When the third black lightning sphere of the day finally vanished, the cloaked figure dropped to one knee, her breathing turning erratic and labored once more. Two more of the Risen had dropped even further than just to their knees along with her, though, and one of the remaining two was still mostly stuck to the ground with chains, though starting to figure out how to move with them. That didn't mean the last one wasn't looming over her with an axe about to descend, probably quite pissed off if Risen were even capable of such a thing... or that there weren't more approaching the source of all this noise.

Either she was really stupid with her tactics, had a penchant for getting into risky situations, or just had terrible luck, but once again, she had practically walked into a scenario that could stand to kill her, barring intervention. Not a good trait in a caster. Not at all.

"Oh, wait..."

The word didn't reach her audience as Alaine already dashed off, fast. Sighing a little, the dark mistress followed her sellsword companion carefully, mind each step as though anything can jump out to harm her.

Some risen were in sight, and she suspected that they were heading the same way. The noise she heard earlier probably attracted them. Now that was becoming like a zombie novel she read before, the fact that this imagination was getting real scared her a bit.

Unsheathing her sword, Lilithe slashed at the nearby risen fighter that didn't notice her at all. Twisting her wrist by little, in order to add some more damage, she pulled it out and struck it with a spell.

Turning back to her direction, Lilithe still spotted Alaine's red head in distance. Though they were still in the same direction, she hoped whoever were there would still be alive by the time her merc friend arrived the scene.

Alaine kept running forward, sword held close. A Risen leaped out at her from the side. She swung the blade, stunning the Risen with a hit to the head. A swift kick in the knee and Alaine moved to the side, bringing her blade down on its neck. She turned and kept heading for the focal point these monsters were heading for. She saw what looked like a blob of darkness with a Risen standing over it, axe raised.

However, a man with a sword came forward from behind the blob, knocking the axe-wielding Risen away before taking his arms off at the elbows. Next he lobbed the head off the undead creature and took up a defensive stance as more of the creatures appeared, exiting from alleys and side streets.

However, as they began to surround the two, Alaine broke the ring, dead-legging one so she could stab it through the heart, and kicking a second before leaping to stand in front of the dark-covered girl. "Hope that Lilithe gets here soon," she muttered, facing the circle of Risen. "So, what are we thinking? Kill them all here and now, or retreat and draw them out to kill them in small numbers?"

Someone had shown up to save her just in time. The girl cloaked in darkness shakily stood up again, taking stock of the situation. Two sword-users had arrived, presumably to back her up, not to kill her. If they had intended to kill her, the axe-using Risen could have done that just fine. One of the two, the red-haired swordswoman about a decade her senior, inquired about tactics, and she hesitated, thinking it over for a few seconds.

"...here." She didn't expect anyone to take her seriously on that opinion, though. It's not like she had any ability to make them stay that wouldn't involve chains that would be a bad idea to put on people who saved her, and given the black shell, the only thing distinguishable for sure right now would be her voice, one that pretty clearly belonged to a girl in her early teens.

Perhaps it was for the better that they couldn't see the puncture wound from the lance or the lightning burns from herself, then. No sense letting them draw conclusions they didn't need to make right now. Seeing the ring closing in on them did give her an idea, at least, and she began incanting something; a much more complicated incantation than the ones she had been using earlier, though only she would really know that unless the swordsman had been paying close attention earlier where he shouldn't have been.

Improvising magic in the midst of battle is typically a bad idea. That's why the incantation is longer -- to compensate for the innate difficulties with superior shaping ability.

"Here you are, Ms.Alaine."

Finally, the panting dark mistress caught up with her red haired companion. She checked the surrounding once more before approaching them. Lilithe noticed the two strangers whom she assumed they were allies of Alaine. One of them was a man with sword, while the other appeared to be a magician of sort. The mana she noticed came from this person. Seeing from the vaporizing corpses of the risen, these two handled quite a number of those undead. They were quite skilled at least.

She glanced at each of them uncertainty whether she should trust them or not. The fact that she gave little trust to Alaine didn't mean she was okay with other mercenaries. She wondered how long she will be able to stand them if it turns out they were the bad ones.

"I see you've regrouped with your friends," Lilithe turned to the red swordswoman, asking. "what's next?"

Ah, good, she was here. That was a relief. Alaine swiped her sword at the nearest Risen before looking at her and saying, "Now we finish off these creeps." The mercenary returned her attention to the creature she'd swiped at, too late to block his lance from piercing her outer thigh. She stabbed the walking corpse, downing it, but jostling her wounded leg. "Agh, shit, shit...," Alaine's voice faded to inaudible curses as she broke the shaft off the lance, her vision going white with the pain.

As if that wasn't enough, her leg started to burn. Not the normal heat of her lifeblood running down her leg, but the burning, searing heat of hidden acid. "Aaaagh! F--" Alaine bit on her tongue, forcing herself to look around her. Her weight was shifted onto her uninjured right leg, and as the circle of risen closed around them, the mercenary found herself wondering, through the pain, if her luck had finally run out...

The cloaked girl didn't seem to pay all that much attention to the red-haired woman's injuries, though that was more a matter of being preoccupied than anything else. Perhaps her single-minded focus was for the best, as just as the circle began closing in, the cloaked girl slammed both hands down on the ground, summoning a vicious tornado around the foursome. Around the foursome, with them at its abnormally large eye. If the Risen wanted to come in and challenge the humans inside, they'd have to wade through the cutting winds.

Of course, some of them did. A sparse few were torn apart by the winds alone, but those were the weakest among them. The buildings more likely than not got clipped by the tornado as well, but that was not her concern at the moment. Realizing a lack of good methods for mass-targeting those who did break through without a potentially risky backlash to what looked like allies (and herself -- another self-centric lightning sphere could kill her!) and no time to try another improvised spell, the cloaked girl incanted a different spell, summoning up dirt and dust from the street, and possibly bits of Risen corpses as well. Her attention shifted to the oncoming Risen, and to suppressing any vulnerable angles of attack upon herself and her allies.

If she didn't have any useful ways to contribute on offense, she'd just have to put up an overwhelming defense instead.

OOC (open) OOC (close)

Pandora's on protection duty using a shield of dirt, sand, and other random debris to smack attacks aside. If you're familiar with Gaara from the show Naruto, it's a lot like his sand shield. Feel free to bunny the shielding in your posts as you wish.

What a unfortunate turn of event that was.

Lilithe pondered to herself while looking at the barrier made of sands dirt and debris. The last one would surely hit hard. She looked at the magician who cast it, wondering how long her spell will last. No matter how strong it was, it wouldn’t be forever. She then turned to Alaine. The mercenary was thrust at her leg, upper, which made it difficult for her to run, not as fast as before at least. She wouldn’t going to make it through by herself, being a still target and all.

Pessimistically, the dark mistress almost gave up in her mind while pretending to stay calm. She thought back. No matter how hopeless her life was, she somehow managed to survive and live until the present day. Surrendering in her mind was one thing, but doing that in practical would actually kill her and made her fail her mission assigned by Grima. Whether it was her fear for the dragon’s punishment or responsibility for her missions, that never failed to drive her to come up with solutions.

Lilithe asked the swordsman. "Mister, can you carry her? We need to move away from this open area."

“Excuse me,” The black mistress didn't wait for the man's answer and turned to the tiny cloaked man, or woman, she had no idea as long as the cloak was there. Probably the voice will give out. "do you think you can move this barrier as he move further to… a shelter?"

"No!" Alaine growled, spitting a gob of blood out of her mouth. Her tongue hurt, but biting it was helping. The burning, while still there, was becoming less significant. She was getting used to it, though it still burned with the same intensity. "No, we fight here," she insisted stubbornly. She swung Mournfrost through the tornado as a Risen got too close and sheared a hole in his cloth armor and a rather large slice into his flesh.

"I'm with that lady on this," the swordsman said. "We've gotta stay here. Once we're done here, there's a cellar a few feet away with some two dozen other people. I'm not leaving them."

Meanwhile, Alaine struck out at her opponent's left shoulder through the wind, shearing the arm off. She saw a floating pile of dirt and detritus rise up on her right side. Turning to see it clearly, she noticed that it was holding back the blade of a longsword. Alaine thrust at the animal, and it went down easily.

Turning further, she noticed a Risen through the wind that was aiming at Lilithe's turned back. "Lilithe!" she called out in warning.

Its ax descended through the shield...

The cloaked girl was about to answer the black-haired woman, but her response was more or less taken from her mouth when the red-haired woman insisted on fighting here. Just as well, as the tornado spell was unrefined and improvisational, and moving it would be impractical if not impossible at this point. Besides, her attention was better served making sure attacks wouldn't be getting through.

A sword-using Risen had opted to go after her, and she moved to interpose the dusty wall between herself and the blade, holding it back through force of magic. She lacked any way to strike back at it without dropping the shield, but she didn't need to, as the red-haired woman took advantage of that opening and cut her attacker down.

Her attentions thus freed once more, she turned to try and stymie an axe headed for the black-haired woman's back. Her defense had to be hurried to get there in time, though, so its tensile strength was a bit subpar, and the axe pushed its way through. It wouldn't be quite full strength as a hit, but one doesn't need to hit at full power to hurt someone with an axe... and no time existed for the girl cloaked in darkness to do anything else to stop it. Couldn't recapture the axe with the dirt shield, couldn't cast another spell to smack it aside, couldn't even dive in the way of it bodily if she wanted to (which, in the interests of self-preservation, she didn't particularly)...

Hopefully the black-haired woman had a good reaction time.

"Fear not" Lilithe already reacted before Alaine shouted at her, a few seconds faster when the mercenary's eyes locked at something behind her. With that much information, she recalled the risen of that position and remembered that its weapon was an axe, and an axe cleaving would be most possible danger. It happened so fast that she had no idea how to explain in word. "I always expect the worst."

The dark mistress glanced back, just to witness that the axe was making its way through the barrier. However, from the look of it, the barrier itself was pushing back the weapon as well which resulted in slowing down the overall attack. Lilithe chanted her spell quickly before summoning a shielding spell that bounced back the axe to the outside of the barrier. The barrier then closed the gap and continued protecting the group.

"Whatever your plan is, make it quick." said Lilithe. "We may not be lucky next time."