Everyone stood on edge as they made their way closer to the cave's exit, it had been their sole protector from the poisonous jungle ahead of them for the past ten hours or so. With their camp equipment all stored up back in the princess' ring, they were ready for an attempt.
Elyenora turned to each of her companions, looking at them one at a time. She took a breath of the still fresh air sitting in the cave, then readied herself for the outside. "Alright then, here goes nothing..."
With a wave of her rapier, she began gathering whatever wind there was in the surroundings, granted, not much, but a decent amount for an underground world.
"Namir! Do your thing!" she shouted whilst spinning her hand in a circular motion, with the blade raised high and weaving air like thread.
"Aye! Aye!" Namir nodded with his hands crossed in an X formation, he grinned widely as hurricane winds began to bubble up amidst the magical energy surrounding the environment. Each
The throngs of winged creatures circled above like a plague of grasshoppers. Their heads were round and yellow, their beady eyes small and cast the brightest of glows, like the fire in a blazing torch, their eyes glowed red like wards of a devil.It was a flock of harpies, enormous and menacing. They glided through the treetops like a hurricane of feathers. Their crowns of green, black, and white feathers drew in the light as if they were part of the sun itself. With their beaks, claws, and armored talons pointed down at the ground. Fringed wings and leathery skin replaced their human arms and hands with talons covered in razor sharp feathers. These harpies do not speak, their language is a deafening cry to the prey they relish.And now, as it seemed, they had taken an interest in the windy sphere below them. As well as the creatures moving within it, our party."Danger birds is definitely a good synonym..." Samuel grimaced in reply to Mon'Ter's previous comment
Total utter silence.Mon'Ter didn't dare to croak as much as to speak in this situation. His eye stood wide open as a bead of cold sweat started gently streaming down the side of his cheek. He balled his hand into a fist, suppressing the urge to bite his own lip in an effort of self calming."Well," the feminine voice spoke again, digging its nail further into Mon'Ter's neck. The blood started spurting out like a fountain and painting the chimera's white mane in crimson. She continued. "Your answer? Little man?"He stood almost petrified, without taking a single breath or doing anything to stop his bleeding. It wouldn't stop on its own either, there didn't seem to be any innate regeneration happening at this moment. Instead, a searing pain crept all across his upper body, as the place where the unknown enemy’s nail had dug itself melted into mush.Mon'Ter quickly opened his left eye to reveal an auburn brown colored iris, the griffon's eye. 'If I mo
The Runes which Samuel drew glowed with a bluish luminosity, creating a gate right in front of the two warriors who readily rushed through. Sereia and Lanos hopped out of the other end, just a hundred meters above the Harpy Queen, as they readied their individual attacks.Of course, she noticed them first and looked up at them. "Hoh? Trying to take the height from me? Fools."Her wings expanded as her grin erased any beauty she might have possessed prior to the smile. It was ominous, bringing fear to even the most hardened of warriors with just a glance. But despite that horrific look on her visage, a sudden surprise took her off guard and ruined her advance."Huh?" the harpy queen took her gaze to the side, where yet another portal had manifested itself."This is all on you, Sereia!" Samuel bellowed from underneath, having created two portals on each side of the Harpy queen. The last set of runes he'd written activated and formed a torrent of water that
“Unforgivable...” Mumbles amidst ashes sounded, the jungle trees nearby burned down to nothing, crumbling as if made from sand. The surroundings all darkened, becoming a murky black color which liquified everything as if turning it to ink. “Unforgivable!” the harpy queen roared into the distance. “Do they dare?! Do these vermin dare?!” her throat almost ached from her screeching. “Do they dare fling me away like that?! I’ll have their intestines paint my canopies!” Her saliva dripped down from her razor filled maw, her breathing ragged from pure anger rather than exhaustion, and her nails grew out to the length of a foot long in a matter of moments. “They’ll pay for this... All six of them will perish on this floor if it’s the last thing I do...!” As she seethed, her dark pupils began to emanate with more and more black light. It pulsated, slowly shimmering as the boiling oil over her wings began to expand to her body, covering her skin down to the so
As the noble lady knight walked to the front of her friends, her eyes not moving an inch away from those of their foe, Elyenora couldn’t help but stare at her comrade and mumbled.“Sereia… That’s…” her eyes widened as brutal memories from not too long ago came back. ‘It’s the same as that assassin girl…’In that next moment, Sereia brandished her sword and pointed it at the harpy queen, grinning with her other hand at her hip. “Alright bird brains, let’s duke it out! Me and you, one versus one!” she rested her blade onto her shoulder. “That’s my usual shtick I love, anyways.”Still taken aback, the queen mumbled in a defensive state. “...That attitude will get you killed… Little girl…”“Guess we’ll see which of us is right on their statement then?” Sereia took a stance, right leg forward, while her left leaned back
The party tended to Sereia after she’d finished her battle, Namir made sure to cast his healing magic on her too, albeit it didn’t seem to have any effect. Elyenora, on the other hand, took care of patching up the surrounding barrier. She made sure there were no holes or deformities present while Samuel simply looked over the unconscious Mon’Ter. Namir couldn’t find any way of waking him up quite yet, it appeared that the harpy queen had inflicted him with something bad, and his body was still fighting it back.“I’m sorry guys,” Namir downcast his gaze as he healed Sereia. “My healing was supposed to be useful, and yet…”Sereia looked at the child who was doing his best at getting her back to her feet. “It’s completely alright, Namir! Just let me rest up and I’ll be fine later, okay?”“Okay…” he stood up and went to walk around in their tiny safe area.
Shadows swirled in the air, covering the party members in a vast cocoon of black. The surrounding fog submerged them like a thick blanket, they almost couldn’t tell they were falling even with all the wind pressure at their backs.It should have been… Unsettling, by all accounts.And yet...The more time that passed, as they watched the little ray of light on the top slowly close up, the more they relaxed. Felt drowsy. And even began to succumb into the notion of closing their eyelids.Sereia became the first to fall prey to this hollow nap, her ragged breathing and will to shout, instantly overpowered by a strong urge for sleep.Namir followed shortly, his frame going face first downward through the hole as his consciousness left him, undoubtedly, he must have been feeling as if floating amidst beautiful clouds of white, not this tar like fog.Lanos mustered the strength to yell into the darkness, but for naught, his voice felt
As Elyenora stared at the soulless foe, the fog began returning to surround everything yet again, blurring out her sight fully once more.‘No wonder I can’t find this thing with my soul vision…’ she clicked her tongue, even more wary than before. ‘How can there be a living creature without a soul? This makes little to no sense!’“My dear,” the soulless one spoke, “won’t you take a quick nap alongside your friends as we all fall?”“No…” Elyenora put her guard up towards where the voice still came from, it didn’t seem like the thing had moved since she last saw it, other than going downward along with her and the party, of course.“Why not?” it asked, “don’t you see how blissfully your comrades are sleeping? Wouldn’t you want to join them?”She scoffed. “I’d rather wake them up, thank you very much.”