There was a grunt from Vernon as he acknowledges his words, but does nothing as he tilts his head, listening to the winds blowing over and through the trees in this small copse. As the wind stops, he looks to Ian, and then slowly blinked, realizing that was a request for his aid. "Huh. Follow me." Whether that was an agreement to his request was uncertain, but he seemed to be following the path that he had indicated earlier.
A bit of a detour brought them to a tree, and before any questions could be asked, Vernon set about removing his boots and setting them in the crook of a branch about ten feet up. As he ascends and descends quite easily, the two of you notice that he also left his pack up there, save for the coil of rope which was draped across his body. Once he reached the ground, and his feet touched earth, he sighed, relaxing a little more. At their no doubt curious looks, he shrugged, "I hate explaning."
The two of you do notice that his hands and feet are weathered and worn, callused and toughened. It looked like he traveled and roamed these forests with barely any equipment, if this was not some prank.
Tilting his head into the breeze when it blew again, he set off at a pace that was not difficult, but would make any unsecured items a mild inconvenience as he was followed.
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Aska will follow silently. Vernon clearly preferred it that way, and this had as good a chance of finding their quarry as any. She stays alert in case she spots something Vernon or Ian doesn't.
Ian looks at Vernon then back at Aska and shrugs. Fair enough. Seeing things first hand was always better anyway. Ian un-slings his axe once he sees the pace Vernon sets, preferring it not hit him in the back constantly. He can no longer keep focus the aura of all things evil so he relies on his eyes for now.
The figure is seen before anything else. What makes it stand out is that instead of moving as one would expect, it was just standing there. At the pace that Vernon had been setting, which could almost be called a "lope" provided that they could keep up. When Vernon pulls up short, it would either be a relief or a cause for curiosity, provided that they were not out of breath. The grass rises to mid-thigh in the afternoon sun, and the air was warm from the direct sun, the day continuing to be pleasant.
At the sight of the standing figure, Vernon drops into a crouch, almost hidden by the thigh-high grass, peering across the tops of the grass to the distant figure that remained standing in the grass.
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Ian breaths heavily as Vernon comes to a stop. He needed to get out of the city more. When their guide crouches low, Ian senses the tension in the man and looks around. He notices the figure in the distance and crouches too, attempting to quiet his breathing by taking slow deep breaths through his nose. For now he watches, waiting to see what the figure is or is doing.
Aska keeps up with Vernon almost easily, surprising even herself with how light her steps were. I must be in good condition today. Ian to her side doesn't seem to be doing as well, but he keeps up. She stops along with Vernon, but is a half second late dropping to the ground. Vernon and Ian are looking towards the lone figure, so Aska starts carefully examining the rest of their surroundings. If it really is a ghoul there may be more and doesn't want to get ambushed.
There was something that was not right about the creature. Something about its stance was not right, too slack, heedless, too disconnected. Its arms hung, its head was tilted, and the mouth was open with the jaw at an unnatural angle. There was a slight scent on the wind, the hint of it too sweet, cloying... There was no personality, seemingly held up by invisible strings.
There's a low growl of distaste from Vernon, but there's no reaction from the figure, not at the distance that was between them.
Aska, being careful, takes some time to examine the area that they were in, though there seemed to be nothing immediately visible that was threatening. The green stalks of thigh-high grasses basked in one of the rare sunny days that were uncommon in this region. The grasses were certainly indicative of the state of the weather, their green color being faded slightly, more a wan green-yellow than anything else. The very sparse trees were like the grasses, thin and seemingly brittle, though some of the larger, older ones are gnarled and twisted.
"Black," Ian says gently enough for the others to hear. It would likely mean nothing to Vernon but Aska knew. It was a sort of code word that they were dealing with something evil. She knew he could see the the moral leanings of anything within sight and black usually meant something bad. "Vernon. Please do not attack me. I also hate explaining things," he says as well. Ian's face then turns far more bearlike than Vernon could hope to accomplish. Brown hair erupts across Ian's face and hands. His nose and mouth also become more pronounced and animal-like.
Ian shifts away from his companions and stands. He would draw its attention, whatever it was, and what for Aska to disable it.
Aska will draw her Guisarme and start circling around in the opposite direction from Ian. The idea being, to catch it off guard while it focuses on Ian, trip it and let Ian rip it to pieces. Not a great tactic for group battles, but hard to beat when there was only one target.
The grass parts for either of them as they begin their approach towards the standing figure, Vernon looking uncertain as they approach to deal with the evil that they had seen. Ian's shift left him a little uncertain, but not as uncertain as the standing figure in the field made him, it appeared. As they spread out, each covering the span of almost two lengths carefully, there was no movement from the figure, still standing there for reasons unknown.
Nothing had yet shown itself, though Vernon's head was barely distinguishable over the top of the grass. There came no sudden attack or any other hostile movement as they came nearer the figure, just slightly shifting, swaying stance of something that was no longer alive. Your noses tell you that as you move closer, the cloyingly sweet scent revealing more of itself as carrion rot. The figure had to be a zombie.
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Ian realized that by now, a ghoul probably would have attacked or fled. It seemed they were dealing with the weakest of the undead, a zombie. But not just one, a trio. There were two other sources of evil nearby. Ian makes some subtle hand motions behind his back to indicate all he had learned to Aska. He wanted her to lead them off and flush out the two hidden ones with bombs while he approached the standing one.
Ian's motions weren't sufficient to tell her the exact location of the hidden threat, and given that Aska could not SEE the hidden undead, she could chuck bombs and hope to hit something, but it was more prudent to wait for them to reveal themselves and strike the moment they do. Deciding this, she slowly sheathed her weapon and signaled back to Ian.
She will move into range(if she wasn't already) and when he looked ready to spring this trap, she would ready an action to throw an Entangling bomb. Even if the undead survived, if it was entangled it shouldn't be an immediate threat. If they were lucky, this might even catch the second one hidden in the grass.
Advancing, Aska executes the throw towards the zombie with deceptive ease, the container breaking and the contents mixing with a curious-sounding effect that sounded like a jar of honey being dropped. In a coordinated attack following just after, Ian heaves his family's weapon in an arc that nearly severs the animated corpse from shoulder to hip, returning it back to death.
As the body falls, there are sounds coming from the grass in the area around where the zombie had stood, more corpses rising from their place on the ground where they had been concealed by the grass. There were two more than they had noticed before, though they looked to be the same kind of dead
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Aska draws her guisarme while dashing to the side. She swings her weapon at the nearest zombie intent on toppling her foe and preventing Ian from getting surrounded.
Round 2
Ian yanks the axe from the fallen undead. Using the momentum, he spins the weapon vertically in full circle. Once it has reached full speed he brings it down on the fallen zombie next to Aska.
"Save the bombs. Just some zombies." Ian moves a little closer and gets ready. Zombies were slow until they attacked.
A hook and pull from Aska took the Zombie's legs out from under it, and a couple of seconds later, Ian finishes the Zombie off, it's body going inert as it is disabled.
It takes a couple of seconds for the dead eyes and faces of the Zombies to find the closest thing that they would attack and shambled their way over towards Ian, the high grass hampering them somewhat as they moved. Some sounds can be heard from them, lingering vestiges of their sentience displayed in sounds that are more the byproduct of their motion than any conscious choice. Moving to crowd Ian, decayed hands maliciously reaching out for him.
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Ian had said to save her bombs, but with such clustered targets she could hardly resist. She grinned as she dropped her weapon and quickly assembled her explosive. She hesitated for a moment as she hadn't mastered hitting her target in such a melee, but decided Ian could take it if she screwed up. She would apologize and it would be fine. She let her "special" explosive fly through the air.
Round 3
As the zombies close in on him, Ian decides to switch things up. He shifts towards the redead zombie he just slayed and collapses the the shaft into a shorter, more devastating greatax. He then yanks it from the corpse and uses the force to take a swipe at the zombies closing in.
Following little more than their undead urgings, a wide cleave from Ian severed the animating magic from two of the zombies, their bodies collapsing as they fell from the blow. Only one zombie remained, and that one raised a hand to let it fall upon Ian, as if trying to claim a life that it no longer had. Decay and motion took its toll, and the attack that it had attempted was barely more than a swing at something that was not there, the motion from the swing having moved Ian out of the arc of its attack.
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Ian was ready to slam home the final attack when he noticed the zombie's pathetic swing. This one had been dead a long time and the negative energy holding it together seemed to be fading. With a contemptuous kick he knocks the fragile undead over. I breaks apart upon landing. Ian sweeps for any more threats. When he is satisfied there is nothing left he stands before each undead, one at a time. He closes his eyes, says a prayer under his breath, and makes some hand signs. When he opens his eyes they are glowing. As they look over the corpse, black smoke begins to waft away from it as if his sight was burning it to ashes. In reality, they were during no such thing. In fact, the body was staying intact. The smoke lofts off the corpse and into Ian's mouth. The process takes only a few seconds and neither corpse nor man seems worse for wear.
"Well. No ghouls here," Ian says, looking over the carnage. He pulls a weird device out of his backpack and begins to twist, turn and move things about but it takes no recognizable shape. He scratches his head and hands it to Aska. "Can you make it a shovel?" While she handles the complex tool, he goes about gathering the corpses into a pile. He then digs a shallow grave to bury them. He then turns to Vernon and says, "So, is there a place nearby these guys might be coming from? Or a dark place a ghoul might hide during the day?" He is heedless of the fact that he is still transformed and of what his previous actions with eating the sin of the dead might look like to others.
The look on Vernon's face was something between "amazed" and "unsettled". His eyes were wide, possibly more at the nonchalant actions of Ian after seeing him consume the smoke. For a few seconds he looks between Ian and Aska, gauging what sort of reaction he should be having. When Aska does not react significantly, he relaxes slightly, straightening out of the crouch he was in.
With a wary look to Ian, he squints in thought, "A barrow." After that, however, he can only cast about, trying to ascertain perhaps the direction relative to their position, but ends up shaking his head. "Very old, mostly forgotten."
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Aska grumbles to herself as she fiddles with the Anytool, but she doesn't say anything out loud.
At the mention of a barrow, Aska perks up immediately. "I hate to ask as you've already taken us this far, but could you show us to this barrow as well? We like to be thorough."
"Sounds like a good hunting ground."
Another shake of his head preceded his words, "Forgotten. I haven't found it."
In the distance, it looked like the fog was taking a long time to burn off, the haze in the sun showing a bank of fog that refused to move. Not so very unsurprising in this land, at all. Per superstition, many did not brave the fog, whether day or night. As for Aska and Ian, they had seen some of the things that can hide in the fog, but sometimes fog was just that: fog. The spring rains often contributed to that low-lying moisture, leading to fog that did not let up for days at times.
While the two of them set to digging, he began looking around the area, knowing that they were going to want to look for more clues.
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Once the dead are re-buried, Ian puts the tool back in his pack as a shovel. It was an efficient tool but he had yet to figure out what all it could do and how to make it do it. He stands tall and looks around, trying to decide on a place to start looking. The fog catches his eye. "Why do I get the feeling that isn't natural? I hope the barrow isn't there."
"You know as well as I do we're going in there one way or another." Aksa says dusting herself off. "Why bother complaining about it?"
Aska gives her gear a once over and then turns to Vernon, "Thank you for all of your assistance thus far, but it may be best for you to turn back here. If there's something powerful enough to be causing that fog, this is probably going to get dangerous."
Ian sighs in defeat. Should have got that fan token the last time he was in Alexander's Novelties. He hated low visibility areas. "I have plenty to complain about. You're going to be almost useless in there," he says, indicating her reach weapon. Poor choice when you couldn't see 5 feet in front of you. "Which means I will be doing all the work."
Ian keeps his weapon out and in its shortened form as they move towards the fog. Aska mentioned this might have been conjured so he checks before entering.
"Kick a girl while she's down." Aska recoils in mock offense, but stows her weapon. "I'll take your complaints under advisement for later, but my bombs can still be useful as long as I avoid trying to target something directly." Aska argues halfheartedly, as she triple checks her extracts and bomb making supplies. Any trace of levity is dropped as they enter the fog.
"The fog even seems to muffle sound..."
Vernon departs quickly, once he is given leave to do so, vaguely uncomfortable at what had transpired.
As the digging and burying concluded, both notice that the fog had definitely moved closer. At their feet, though it was difficult to see, there seemed to be some sort of movement from the smaller animals in this area. It takes a few seconds of paying attention, but both of you grasp that they are moving away from the fog. In fact, now that it has moved closer, there seems to be a dull orange glow from the ground the fog is over, not creeping in along the ground like you were expecting.
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"Fog doesn't move like that," Ian comments but he has no idea why.
"Ian. That's not fog, it's fire. and spreading quickly by the look of it. We running away from it, or into it?" Aska relays to Ian as quickly as she can, but never takes her eyes of the rolling smoke/fog.
"Run. Definitely run. We have to warn the town in case this gets of of control." Ian turns and begins moving away from the fire, pushing Aska before him. If they find Vernon along the way they warn him as well.
With the fire behind them, the two hunters set out at a run back towards the town. Soon to be on their heels was something that was not a fog bank, but a grass fire. Running with them were many of the smaller animals that lived on the plains, familiar with the primal force of nature that was fire, and deep down, understanding what it was capable of. Whether or not they could make it to safety before the fire could reach them was a matter of circumstance, and possibly some prayer.
This time, they were not spurred by keeping up with their guide, it was a healthy dose of fear that kept their legs moving, pushing their fatigue further away from now. They would run, because they had to. If they could make it towards the trees they had passed through, or the walls of the city that they had departed from some hours past, they could be fine.
As they ran, with little thought given to why they noticed, the both of them picked out what looked like a flame, racing just along the edges of their sight, past them at a speed that only a flame could. Unnatural. What was evident was the smoke that began to rise behind it, and the path it was taking was going to intersect with the direction that they were running.
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"Is the fire...trying to cut us off?!..." Aska manages to get out between breaths.
At this point, Ian was sorely regretting picking the heavier armor for today. Should have bought the chainshirt. "No. It's not." He may be huffing in exertion just to keep up but he wasn't letting whatever that was trap them. He pauses for a moment and falls behind. Then, with an extreme burst of speed, shoots ahead of everyone.
Could it be this thing that caused the fire that you are currently fleeing from?
Aska shouts ahead to Ian "Ian, it's an elemental!" Then she redoubles her efforts to get ahead of the elemental and stop it.
But instead starts coughing on smoke.
Ian speeds ahead and into the elemental's path. He comes to a stop, hunter axe extended before him, clearly ready to strike if the elemental didn't stop its destructive run. "Cease now," he commands.
Perhaps it was the posture that so clearly communicated his intent, perhaps it was the sudden appearance of someone in front of it, or perhaps it was the weapon that was brandished in front of it... Whichever it was, the small being made entirely of flame stopped short, its face having the barest suggestion of features. The area that it stopped in caught fire, naturally, but at least it had halted its active burning of the grass.
Meanwhile, the fire that had caught their attention continued to burn, not quite racing along, but moving along fast enough that running would keep aska ahead of its edge- barely. A shift in the wind brought a moment of respite, as the air was clear enough to gain a breath, but the danger had not passed.
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Really wishing she had studied how to make frost bombs, Aska steadies her breathing and tries again to pick up her pace.
Ian remains in front of the elemental and periodically looks over his shoulder, waiting for Aska and Vernon to pass out of the encircling flames. He makes no move to attack unless it continues or attacks.
Just barely, Aska managed to make it to Ian before the fire reached them. She saw the elemental, held at bay by his threat of violence, a small flaming figure that was perhaps vaguely humanoid shaped. With the elemental stalled, that at least removed the chance of them being encircled by flames, though that did not quite remove the threat of the fire itself. A dilemma.
The small elemental seems to say something, but the words sounded something like the fire that was already nearby, not a language that either of you have any familiarity with.
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"We are seriously not equipped to deal with this..." Aska grumbles. They may be able to fight the elemental if need be, but neither of them can deal with the fire. But, since it seems to be speaking, the fire elemental should intelligent and may not intentionally be violent.
"Ian, I'm going to TRY and calm it down. Gods help me..." Aska is going to step in front of Ian, and drop her weapon in clear view of the elemental. Trying to remain as calm as possible she's going to try and gesture to to the elemental that they are not a threat.
If she can get it calmed down enough, maybe Ask You or one of the other pixies could translate for it. There was too much weirdness going on and she hoped this elemental might have some answers.
Ian points to his ear and shakes his head at the elemental, trying to communicate that he didn't understand it but he wasn't confident that would help.
"We are seriously not equipped to deal with this..." Aska grumbles. They may be able to fight the elemental if need be, but neither of them can deal with the fire. But, since it seems to be speaking, the fire elemental should intelligent and may not intentionally be violent.
"I know that. Why do think I haven't attacked. Where's Vernon?"
"Ian, I'm going to TRY and calm it down. Gods help me..." Aska is going to step in front of Ian, and drop her weapon in clear view of the elemental. Trying to remain as calm as possible she's going to try and gesture to to the elemental that they are not a threat.
Ian knew Aska pretty well. They had been partners for a while. But not even he understood what she was trying to do right now. And the fire was getting closer."Doubt even the gods even know what you are doing. I was just buying you and Vernon time to get ahead of the fire. So let's go." Once the two of them are past, Ian backs away and then runs after them.
The best guess either of you have is that Vernon is somewhere ahead of the two of you, significantly enough that getting caught by the fire is not a real concern for him.
Aska's actions at attempting to calm down the elemental seems to have no effect on calming it, though it is difficult to read its mood.
For Ian, still under the effect of the spell that he cast, staying ahead of the fire is not a problem. Aska is still having to work to move fast enough to not get caught.
The smoke from the spreading fire has created a great cloud in the sky, and the sound of the flames is something between a hiss and a roar, ever approaching. All of the animals that were able to flee have, with some of the slower ones still evacuating, but at least it looks like the fire may be tapering off in some places, unable to properly catch and burn. The small form that was halted by Ian seemed to not follow, and aside from the fire that was still behind them, no other threats seemed to present themselves. There seems to be no sign of Vernon immediately.
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Aska runs as hard as she can, feeling the flames lick at her heels every step of the way, but manages to keep one step ahead.