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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2014 21:34:16 GMT -6
"I-it's fine," Vergil hesitantly returned, not sure why Zach had backed off of his question so fast. He really had to get better at reading people if he was going to try to do this whole mercenary thing, being a clueless idiot was only gonna work for so long. Not knowing why Zach had backed off made it harder though. Was the mage worried about offending him? Had he thought of something? Was he actually an assassin looking for proof that Vergil was connected to Aria to take him hostage to capture Aria?
...Nah, probably not.
Clearing his throat awkwardly, he tried to figure out an actual response, and realized that since he had no idea why Zach had backed off, he might as well just try going for it since he sort of had the feeling Zach didn't have any better idea than he did. It was kind of reassuring to think that they were both clueless idiots. Even if it probably wasn't true, and Zach was smarter than he looked was acting right now.
"I'm not ashamed of her or anything. I just... I'm trying not to think about her all the time. I dunno where she is, so I kinda have to try to live my own life now." It was sort of a jumbled explanation, his words hesitant and mingled together in an unintentionally-clear showing of his difficulty actually explaining it, but at least it didn't come out quite as pathetic as it might well have.
The school itself was sombre and imposing, a monument to the sins of the civil war ripping Bern apart. The hollow echo of lingering moans suffused the air, a none-too-subtle reminder of what they would likely have to face inside. The Risen might not be intelligent or even individually strong, but he had seen them before - never actually fought one, but had enough run-ins with them to know how intimidating they could be despite not being as individually dangerous as the bandits and neer'do'wells he had faced more recently. Fighting a monster sustained by magic and hatred, rather than a fellow man that could perhaps be reasoned with, took its toll on the mind.
He decided not to tell Zach about how bad his first meeting with the stupid things had scared him out of his wits. That was, uh, completely irrelevant to the current situation. "Do you have a key or are we just... yanno... breaking in?" Vergil walked up to the building after his quiet question, experimentally jostling some of the boards covering the nearest window as he got thinking about alternate routes of entry - Zach had thrown away something that looked a whole lot like a key, so it was probably wise to start thinking about that.
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Oct 12, 2014 13:28:41 GMT -6
The mage anxiously scratched the back of his head. "I just... you seemed a little hesitant and I didn't want to step on toes or anything." He could definitely understand if Vergil was reluctant to talk about someone he knew for so long that just up and left. "Although I can kind of relate to that sentiment, about trying to live your own life." Of the things he was deciding to say that was probably the least awkward among them. This making friends business was just as difficult as he remembered it being after all. "We should come back to talking about this later, maybe tomorrow." The awkward tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Still, there was something that was slightly reassuring about not being the only pathetic one around. Whatever feeling it was, he certainly couldn't put it into anything cohesively resembling a sentence. Maybe it was pity? Pity was probably the closest Zach would get to describing it.
He hadn't heard the moans right till he put his head up against the wall. The groans and grunts were faint and weak-sounding, a mixture of sadness and anger. It sounded more like slow crying than anything else. A noise like that sounded nothing like the all-too-familiar angry groans and yelps of the revenants the Rebels had taken down. Regardless, the back of his neck tingled with goosebumps as he pulled his head from the brick and mortar wall. The doors and windows were barricaded tighter than he had thought on first sighting, with nails and sandbags and the whole package. Boryn and his men were nothing if not thorough. And that made Zacharia wonder why they hadn't simply destroyed the school in the first place. The old geezer did do almost everything he did for a reason, after all. But surely he didn't condemn an entire village just for a book? No, no, Zach was being absurd.
He tested his weight on the front door's bottom level of barricades. "Well," he explained as he tried climbing a step higher. "It would take a while to clear these boards and not just--" the crack of dry-rotted wood and a scream that would put Elesia to shame and he was looking up at the moon, flat on his back. So much for the element of surprise. He dusted his clothes off with his face hung low. "Let me try that one again," he grumbled to neither himself or Vergil. In a flash he was at it again, taking care to gingerly allocate his weight this time instead of rushing up and falling like a total tool this time. And a minute he was up on top of the main entrance. "We should probably enter from up here, so that we know what we're getting into. Who knows what we could accidentally walk into if we just waltzed in after clearing a huge barricade like that? Here, I can help you up if you want." He finished his explanation by kneeling down from the rooftop and holding out his hand. He certainly didn't need to find out how good Vergil's vocal chords were in a repeat of his mistakes, although he had a sinking feeling the novice was more agile than the shaman's legs could ever hope to be.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2014 12:22:55 GMT -6
Well, they certainly weren't gonna get anywhere stammering at each other like they were choking on their tongues. Uh, their own tongues. Not each other's tongues. That would be - ANYWAYS undead. Risen. Vergil coughed and wished he had some brain bleach handy as he assessed the situation as best he could; not nearly as quickly or with as much certainty as he would have liked, but he still had a lot to learn. As did Zach, apparently. First rule of climbing on rotted wood: don't do that. As he had learned the hard way while 'sploring with Jaden, several times, with Zach absolutely and completely did not need to know, at all, ever.
The young swordsman stifled a knowing smile as he approached Zach, his companion making a better run of it the second try as he ascended the tower to heaven. Or hell. Or... Vergil was a little fuzzy on all that religious stuff, he remembered something about purgatory and nirvana but wasn't really sure which was which. Point was that it was probably a bad place inside, but they were ascending, so - it was just ironic. ANYWAYS. Almost as if actively trying to shame Zach for his little display, Vergil clambered up the barricade with no issue and hopped up after Zach, making use of the outstretched hand but with the implication that he probably hadn't really needed it.
Not intentionally, of course. That would just rude. But dammit he was supposed to be this lightning quick super-fit sword guy, not an immobile mage, he couldn't very well follow Zach's example. ...Man it was pretty dark in there. And the moaning was a bit louder. It was strange, though... "...It sounds kinda sad. Usally they're... angrier-sounding." Or maybe he was just hearing things. It wasn't until after he said that that it finally sorta clicked that Zach had very possibly known at least some of these people - might even have had friends here. If Vergil thought the moaning was sad, what might the Bernese boy make of it besides simply more depressing?
Look before you leap might also apply to speaking, he decided. "Sorry." It was a single short word, almost curt, but subdued enough to hopefully convey a bit of respectful distance if Zach needed a moment. Orrrr he was overthinking things. As usual. Since he was sort of the bodyguard of the group - a little part of Vergil's brain rankled at the wording but was beaten down and had its lunch money stolen by the rest of hsi brain - he decided to man the hell up and hop down inside the building first after confirming there was nothing particularly nightmarish waiting for them right inside, not that he could see more than a few feet ahead of him, so for all he knew the Demon King was waiting four steps away, along with his million - soon to be million and two - favorite undead buddies.
...Vergil drew his sword just in case, a tiny glimmer of light in the darkness for a mere instant, one so short and small that a blink might have missed it or it could well have been mistaken for a spark as it cleared the sheath, but then it was back to the exact same inert blade it had been ever since its original display when he received it. Even Zach's little explanation had done nothing to actually give him the solution on how to make it do anything fancy. "What's the route," Vergil asked softly, trying to keep his voice down but loud enough to hear but quiet enough to not carry, with an unknown degree of success.
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Oct 15, 2014 19:14:38 GMT -6
He grimaced awkwardly as played his gesture off goodwill off by rubbing his hand on the roof sill instead. Truly, Zacharia was a master of smoothness. He turned towards a hole - crater seemed more appropriate - behind them with a starchy, thick rope left to the side. The end of it had been cut off in a hurry, which would've been glaringly obvious in the morning light. Zach knew the place almost inside and out; a rope wouldn't be necessary for such a meager drop. Fortunately, he wasn't crazy enough to not toss it down before the pair went down as well. A five, six foot drop wouldn't be a problem. Not even the spooniest bard could jump up to that height, let alone Vergil or Zacharia. The rope would be imperative to their escape...probably. In the best case scenario they would just blow the barricade over the front door to bits and not even need the rope 'cause all the zombies would be dead.
Vergil did end up leading the way down into the entrance room, thankfully. That rope sure was sturdy to hold them with such a light weight keeping it anchored. No slip-ups met either one of them as they entered the mausoleum. He couldn't see the innards, but he remembered its cozy splendor like yesterday. It was similar that of an Illian blueblood's cabin. He couldn't agree with their methods, but the loghouses some owned in the far northern reaches were quite something. The only off-set to those memories was the sad siren's song that droned on and on. It seemed to echo, only adding to the effect. He never remembered the school's walls letting that happen. "Please don't worry about it," he finally responded. Forming a sentence that didn't de-humanize the studen-- "I don't really know any of them." god dammit
The soft, familiar hiss of metal on wool and leather padding spurred him out of the resulting silence. "It's, well...It's a roundabout way through the halls to downstairs, which is where we're going. That's where the thing I'm looking for is. Um...It should be in its own room down in there, labeled something like, eh... "Headmaster" or "Headmeister". It's a spellbook, even though it's kind of pointless to tell you. There's pretty much a million and two books lying around here that look like spellbooks. I..I'll know it when I see it, I'm sure." The building complex was a series of long, low gymnasium-style "classrooms", while they were connected by a tiny interworking of offices and corridors between said offices. Classroom was used very loosely, since training mainly consisted of hands-on exercises and studying the meager library available.
After that spiel he lit a dull burst of fire in his palm, now that he finally realized they were still whispering to each other in the dark like the greenhorns they were. He almost wished he hadn't when the dull brown - though purple in his magic's light - stains on the walls and floor were apparent. He took a deep breath before nudging another door open. Nothing, thank Gaea, save for the smell of magic, blood, and the ever-present monsters' chorus. The room felt so empty as he trodded through with nothing but books scattered about. No more falsetto voices improperly chanting, or the scent of singed hair. They were admittedly dumb things to feel for but it was really what made this place 'this place'. He had a feeling Boryn would agree. "It's so lifeless now without the people." he brought up a piece of his thoughts aloud. "But it would feel the same for any place that taught." Though it was the kids that brought the school to its knees, the root of the problem was the rebellion raging. The thought made him want to keep going through the rank halls, the monsters' singing, and the paranoia that was beginning to stack in his throat. Why hadn't they found anything, like a corpse? If all the walkers just packed up and moved to Nabata before he got here, they should've at least left a note on the door.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2014 0:01:06 GMT -6
Vergil had the inexplicable urge to yell OHHHHHHHHHHHHH at Zach's initial response to the kids - as though there was some need for a third degree trauma burn center. Which was weird, because it was really more like an avalanche and also a glacier of ice had replaced Zach, because that was COLD AS... HECK. Yeah. "Nailed it," the novice mumbled to himself.
Yeah... anyways. Zach's explanation was definitely in normal human language, and the individual words made sense, but the overall thing didn't mean much of anything to Vergil. So... they were going down, and Zach couldn't explain what they were looking for except to say he knew exactly what it was. Which really raised a few questions about why he couldn't explain it. Maybe the mage (was he a mage? Vergil wasn't really sure what differentiated the types of magic and which schools of magic used fire - or fire ish stuff - they all could to some degree he thought - maybe) was trying to keep it secret so he didn't make off with it.
Thanks for the note of trust, bro was that Vergil thought. His actual response was "Lead the way, boss man." Very safe. Maybe the slightest hint of flippancy in his words, one that died a horrible screaming death when he saw what Zach was now revealing. In retrospect, 'everyone in school was murdered and turned into flesh eating monsters' had sort of implied there would be some blood and bits and stuff lying around, but in the dark he had almost been able to pretend there wasn't. Now... eugh.
Wasn't the worst smell he had ever had to deal with, though. Fresh massacres, or those a few days old, were much worse. The rot wasn't a whole lot better, though. Vergil swallowed, trying to push the ugly memories out of his head. Didn't need a flashback to cut in and distract him while ten million zombaboes snuck up behind him and ate his brain. He had to focus. "...The only thing we can do for them now is put them to rest. We should get moving. Maybe the book will help with that."
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Dec 11, 2014 19:50:35 GMT -6
The mage took a deep breath, and realized he made a fatal error when his nostrils flared in agony. On the list of worst smells he'd ever experienced, rotty death and decay was a contender for first prize. Zombies were at least somewhat tolerable out in fresh air - here, stuffed instead a sealed building, eeugh. The stale magic in the air didn't help one bit either; it made it worse, if that was possible.
It couldn't have stunk this bad all the way up to that point. The air was rot-free in the previous corridor! A small voice piped up in his thoughts: We're getting closer to whatever happened to the others. ...Crapbaskets. The odor had made him completely blank for a moment there. Thankfully the orb of light in his palm was minimal effort to maintain, or he would've left the both of them in the dark again. That seriously sounded like a bad idea. As a pre-cautionary measure he inflated his spell to a volatile degree, lighting the entire room.
"Uh oh, yeah! Book. Right." Vergil was definitely not in the magical "know". He didn't have the heart to say a spell tome was only as good as its caster. If he didn't know how to use a spell properly there was no telling what could happen. "Ah, I'm sure we'll -hah- be -" his sentence petered out and flopped over dead while his face scrunched into something that could go toe to toe with any ghost or ghoul on Elibe. "huuUAAAARCK-CHOOU" his knees buckled as a gust of wind exploded from his face, the light following suit and annihilating the doorway. Here they were in the dark again.
He almost forgot how...empty his sinuses felt when he left the school for the countryside. Or how dusty the place really was, even when it wasn't such a dungeon. Whoopsie. "My bad," he sheepishly sniffed as he re-lit their surroundings. There was a bright side to his nose re-clogging itself, thankfully. He couldn't smell any of the gross stuff anymore. As for seeing it, well.
Whilest they traveled farther into the building, the air was stagnating further and further. The moaning and groaning had climaxed into a silence that sent a chill down Zacharia's neck. When an animal went unnaturally quiet it most often meant that the animal was hunting. Revenants didn't have the conscious capability of stalking like those other monsters outside, right? At least, they had never shown anything outside of primal instincts when he battled them out in the open.
His apprehension grew further when he concluded that they were the ones being hunted, and not vice versa. The question was: from where? The student glanced over his shoulder to find nothing but a silhouette of the pair's former location. Nothing he could see up ahead, neither. And judging from past memories, they were closing in on the old man's office with every step. The book gallery they were entering was directly above his office, with a rickety set of stairs to join the two. Turning back now would be cowardly, even if his every orifice was nearly screaming at him that "hey man this could be bad for your health". Gee, thanks brain, why don'tcha tell me something I don't know. Gosh, he must look like a nervous wreck by now.
Without prompt, the strange howl resumed like it had never gone away, albeit louder this time. He wasn't as scared now that there was noise to fill the gaps between his and Vergil's back-and-forth. Now that it was fully audible, the tone shifted to more of a goading taunt. "B-be on your guard, it - they could appear at any moment." Whatever he said before he took it all back. He was so not ready for this. What if something happened to Vergil? He couldn't face Grimm again - no, what if something happened to him? What would Aidan think? What would Boryn think?? What would - "eh?" Splis-splush-splissplussplish - "Aw yuck, am I stepping in blood?!" Impossible. Zach expanded the spell of light until it fully lit their corner of space, and the theory of anything fluid was diposed of. A good inch of something fleshy stood between them and the floorboards. He tentatively pushed a boot farther into it; it had the substance of fresh mud but what WAS it? It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2015 15:07:18 GMT -6
On the list of superpowers Vergil was wishing he had, 'not breathing' was currently holding steady at the top spot. Granted, a superpower that could also be granted by being dead was maybe a little underwhelming to wish for - laser vision might be smarter - but the aroma of death and decay was both gut-wrenching and all too familiar. Honestly, as ironic as it might be, while having a childhood interspersed with random zombie attacks was sort of a crappy backstory to impress girls with - not that he had any idea why anyone would want to impress girls - it was also probably the only reason he wasn't a blubbering mess of cowardice and...
Vergil's train of thought derailed and crashed into a dragon as he realized he couldn't really thinking of a fitting word starting with C to complete the alliteration. Cows... coughing... caltrops... if Zach hadn't sneezed and violently extinguished the light, Vergil might well have mentally blanked out and continued thinking about cows coughing up caltrops until the zombabos found him. Instead, he gave a girlish-MANLY little squeak that was so manly it grew bears on the walls. Also beards. Bears with beards. By the time Zach had re-lit the light, Vergil was casually calm again, looking for all the world as if nothing had happened and they were just out for an evening stroll. "No problem." Nooo problem at all. God dammit. Not that Zach was bad company - maybe a little - but he would feel a lot more secure of Jaden was here too. But then they wouldn't have light... hmm.
It might be a little petty of him, but in the brutal honesty of his own mind, Vergil was vaguely aware that he was sort of grateful that Zach was obviously not doing so hot either in terms of unrelenting courage and willpower. Sort of made him feel like less of a raging wuss, and in some backasswards way, helped fuel his own courage to try to make up for Zach's - or help the mage, he wasn't sure, Vergil did a lot of thinking but wasn't exactly an expert at being brave. Most of the non-cowardly stuff he did was just on the spur of the moment because someone needed help, not 'cuz he was a juggernaut of mental and moral supremacy.
Vergil caressed the hilt of his sword gently - something sounded wrong with that sentence but he wasn't sure why - for a moment, in a partially successful attempt to ground himself and focus on the matter at hand. He wasn't really sure what this... mud stuff was, but it wasn't blood. To his eternal gratitude, when Vergil spoke up, he managed to keep his voice relatively calm and matter-of-fact, as compared to sounding like the whiny little girl he had a distinct feeling he was about ready to act like. "If it's not blood, and it's not mud... in a school full of dead guys... uh, I don't think that's very hygienic. Also it's probably human flesh."
NAILED IT.
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Jan 10, 2015 16:41:00 GMT -6
Human flesh was the last thing Zach expected, and most certainly the last thing he wanted to hear from Vergil's suggestion. Despite dabbling in Nether magic, he couldn't bring himself to deal with macabre stuff like this. Cadaverizing adversaries was about where he drew the line. So the mage was grateful when he managed to hold back a Vergil-esque squeal when he got a closer look at the fleshy substance. It even rippled when he stuck his foot in it, aw eeeeughg - another sound Zacharia managed not to replicate for his audience. What really grossed him out the most was how it had just been sitting here all this time. It might've been his less than decent lighting, but the skin was all greenish-blue and moldy.
All of the warning bells in his head were going off at that exact moment. Bells so loud in fact, that Zach didn't notice when the fleshy substance wrapped a tendril of itself around his leg. A distinct "kkrrrrrIIIP" and a draft on his ankle keyed him in that whatever they were looking for found them first. For a moment, he didn't respond and stood there like an absolute tool. The shaman gulped down the bile rising in his throat and practically dove backwards when he felt that cold tentacle copping a feel on his calve. It was difficult to resist the urge to scream again, but his throat settled for a manly crack while his magic revealed the face of their enemy.
No, faces. Every last one of the horrid gnashing things.
What Zacharia and Vergil gazed at wasn't a hoarde of monsters, and it certainly wasn't just one revenant. A moldy, rotten flesh pile awaited them at the stairwell to Boryn's office, and it seemed stuck. The wriggling mass gave off a continual, pitiful moan and yet at the same time a roar of anguish. It was like the different protruding heads and hands were a choir of demons, competing against each other. And every last one a face not even a mother could love. But as the boy stepped off the disgusting goo pile, every last beady little eye turned towards the duo. It was big and huge and scary and it made every last one of his primal fears curl into a ball screaming "GET IT AWAY NO PLEASE" Zach had never read of anything like this even existing before, much less heard of it. Did it even have a name? "This... this - I - this THING is what became of all the corpses?"
As if in answer, the beast(s?) shrieked, struggling to get at its new foes. "I can't...believe - Vergil.." Oh dear sweet Gaea, it was in the way to Boryn's office. The thing barely fit through the doorframe, how were they going to get past such a monster? Defeat it? It might be plausible, but at the moment he was too unnerved to consider the option. Getting here and getting the book was the primary goal. He couldn't just leave an awful beast like this to terrorize the others back at the inn, though! This would be a good learning experience for the both of them, taking on the monster. They couldn't do anything else besides run away, and he wasn't leaving with nothing to show for it.
First, he and Vergil needed a plan. "L-Let's gather our wits here. It's in the way to the stairs; that's where I'm heading. This must be the only one too, since there haven't been any others attacking us yet. How about this: I'll blast it out of the way, first. The momentum from the spell should be enough to push it aside, or at least, destroy the door. we rush down the stairs while it's dazed, and you distract the thing as best you can while I grab the book I was talking about back there. Then we'll regroup and take it on together. There's a bit of space down below, so if we pincer attack, with you from the left and me from the right, we should take it down no sweat." Fortunately, the stairs were made of solid rock and wouldn't break if push came to shove. To think that they would come all this way and die from getting stuck in a hole... he didn't want to imagine how humiliating that would be.
"It's not going anywhere, s-so. Let me know when you're prepared, and we'll go on three!" Zach willed his fire to grow larger and swirl faster, until he was looking at a twisting cloud of pure energy. It would sink into the floor when he commanded, and sucker punch the beast with a magic tentacle. But would wait for Vergil's command to release, so that the swordsman wouldn't be caught with his pants down when they attacked.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2015 18:59:55 GMT -6
"Yes. Our wits. That will help us SO MUCH against the giant mud flesh corpse monster," Vergil squeaked back in what was maybe not quite his most manly voice ever, one that would actually sound pretty much at home on a panicking princess rather than a strapping young lad. What the heck else was he supposed to respond with, anyways? That thing had obviously beaten everyone else it ran into, and then eaten them, probably, maybe.
Unfortunately, his brain was not very good at being smart, and when he started thinking about the logistics of this whole stupid venture, he forgot to be appropriately scared in favor of just being confused. "Wait... how the heck did that thing even get stuck there? If it was vacuuming up corpses from throughout the school, and got big enough to not fit through doors, shouldn't it be stuck on our side? Or did it find the last single corpse to get TOO big on that side of the door, and it's been stuck ever since?"
That didn't even make SENSE, man. "And why is it there? Was it looking for the book too and it just decided to take a nap?" There was a slightly hysterical edge to the teenager's voice, mostly because he wasn't really sure about whether he was supposed to be panicking or confused about the mechanics of this encounter, and ended up doing both at once. On the bright side, the weirdness of the whole situation was enough to distract him from panicking, so at least he had that going for him.
Actually, now that he thought about it, he had panicked so hard he had kinda looped back around into being calm again. That was, uh, weird. "So... you're really sure this is gonna-" oh god Zach was already doing the magic stuff "oh god you're doing the magic stuff?!"
Something finally snapped in his tiny brain and Vergil just gave up on understanding or caring, charging forwards with an inarticulate yell and a complete omission of that thing where he was supposed to warn Zach ahead of time before going. On the bright side, he did remember to swing his sword, which was actually gleaming a little bit in the darkness for absolutely no reason and he didn't really notice, at the thing's face. Err... one of its faces.
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Feb 2, 2015 14:37:55 GMT -6
"Vergil, no!" Despite his misgivings about not sticking to the plan, Vergil's slice rang true and cut through the gnashing mouth like it was made of butter. Rather than spray blood and brain matter everywhere, it fell to the floor like he had sliced through gelatin. What? "What? That's not how y -" The beast hardly flinched before lunging towards them unhindered. Vergil was right, even though his hysterical mind made it sound like gibberish to most people: There were too many questions unanswered. But he barely had time to touch on that before sidestepping out of harm's way. From what he could tell, Vergil wasn't dead either, but when Zach dodged the magic he'd been storing up had gone to waste and fizzled out of existence. Confound it! At least it gave him another clue to how the beast functioned. Considering it hadn't just backed up into the doorway, the thing could pilot in any direction it so choosed. Meddling human bodies with magic was a dreadful thing.
It only occurred to him that he missed his chance to hustle down the stairs when the beast came back with a vengeance, knocking Zach over as it crashed through the frame, destroying it, and hurdling down the stairwell. He wasn't injured, save for a nasty blow to his head from smacking the floor. The boy would be fine. "Vergil, are you alright?" he called out in the darkness before lighting another spell up. "Phew, that was too close... I was almost a Zach sandwich back there." Down below, he could hear the beast thrashing about as it tried climbing the stairs again. Its amorphous body could likely adapt to most any situation. But stairways? Not one of them. Another anomaly to put on the checklist of things that made no sense about this monster tonight. If Zach just had a little more time, he could have studied the blob of mass Vergil cut from it... or at least, would have if the beast hadn't re-attached itself to the body again as it rolled by. Unless of course, Verg was secretly a flesh hoar-- ew. No.
Figuring that Vergil was just going to charge again, he reasoned the only thing to do was let the mercenary handle it and make a beeline for the book. He scraped his body and his dignity off the floor and, using his current spell, blew the debris blocking the door outwards and into the abyss below. The "squish" as it landed on the monster below made him gag, but he steeled his courage and hightailed it down the steps with a fresh charge already in hand. These constant wastes of magic were really starting to take their toll on his stamina, he soon found out when he tripped forward and nearly lost his light source. Next time he saw Boryn, he HAD to ask how the old fogey could climb up and down these all day.
It was only thanks to sheer luck that the monster reaching for him didn't get a mouthful of Zach's foot when the shaman clambered down. With a yelp Zacharia pushed off and over the monster by channeling the Nether energy downwards, landing with a stumble behind the amalgamation of a monster. There it was - Boryn's office! He was so close, he could almost taste the fresh mountain air outside of the school. But pretty quickly, he was lying face down, tasting the dusty floor. With his back turned and the room pitch black again, he couldn't see the monster pinning him, but my god, he could feel it. Feel its panting, shivering, gelatinous self. Feel it sink a row of teeth into his calf - oh gaea that smarts
Willing himself to concentrate, he shrieked at the beast - who shrieked back in a chorus - while willing the stale, malicious energies around him to combust into a usable state. No equivalent exchange necessary, just a flash of blue light and the beast was shoved backwards off of the mage. Seizing his chance he left the beast for Vergil to fight, limping into the office and slamming the door shut. Verg could handle this, right?
[OOC: Feel free to control the monster as you please in your posts]
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2015 15:45:12 GMT -6
"I'm fine! Just fighting for my life with a nightmarish monster barfed out of the gaping pustules of hell," Vergil responded as he bounded down the stairs after Zach and the monster, severely regretting his lifestyle choices and also not bringing a small army. On the bright side, it was kinda funny to see the ungainly creature waddle off into the abyss like a really clumsy bull... made out of dead bulls... ok that was probably a bad simile.
Also, Zach had just completely ditched him and locked him outside of the office.
"...Not really feeling the trust here." He wasn't really talking to Zach, but more to the probably confused but starting to notice him monster. Vergil found that at this point he was so thoroughly overloading on a combination of anger, terror, and confusion that he was possessed of a calm akin to being in the eye of the hurricane, continuing to address the monster in a calmly conversational tone. "You see what I have to deal with? Grimm friggin' SLEPT IN through all of this while Zach and I went into nightmare hell school-"
His tirade was interrupted as the creature moaned a response that sounded suspiciously like I don't care, shut up and let me eat you but it obviously couldn't talk ha ha that was just his imagination, and started sliding in his general direction with that same obnoxious squishing slurping sound. Vergil continued relentlessly anyways. "And now, Zach, my best friend in the world and most trusted compatriot, just LOCKED ME OUT OF THE ROOM in the pursuit of phenomenal cosmic power."
It groaned at him again and sent a wave of feet at him. Oh god that was some stank. Vergil managed to avoid making any girlish sounds as he dived to the side to avoid the blobby mess - he couldn't even tell if it was a projectile or a composite limb dammit. "Really, I'm starting to feel like he took the meatshield idea a bit too literally." Anguished groaning. "And would you stop interrupting me? It's very rude."
Awkward silence.
"ThanksAUGH!" Vergil tripped over what might be another foot and swung his sword blindly, the dim glow barely brightening the area enough to see by, but unfortunately not having any particularly useful and/or cool abilities. Oh. That was TWO feet, not just one. And was that a thumb sticking out? Ew. "You uhh... you aren't big on personal hygiene, huh?"
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Feb 12, 2015 20:05:08 GMT -6
Right as the locks's tumblers gave a soft 'clik', Zacharia slid to the ground in a sneezing, heaving, terrible fit. The dust in the the room, as well as overusing his magic in the past two weeks had finally overcome his will. The student could do nothing but lie there in tears, accepting the pain pounding his ribs as if they were drums. He wasn't sure if a minute or a millenium had passed as his aches receded into low tide again, but he could tell Vergil was still out there - fighting for him. He had to get up. There was no time.
Through blurry eyes and deafened ears he could make out just how much garbage was left in the room. Even with no light source, it was clear how one of his old masters valued memories. Stacks on stacks of dusty old books, baubles, a water skin and bowl, and anything that in another circumstance a magic enthusiast like Zach would jump for joy at. That old bag... He hadn't planned this fetch quest out from the start, had he? Would he? COULD he? Whatever the case, last year when he came to visit the wise man in his quarters it wasn't nearly so cluttered. Quite clean, in fact.
Zacharia wobbled to his feet and feebly hawked gunk from his nostrils. Boryn never struck him as especially underhanded; was the poor old soul really just unable to destroy so many memories and so abandoned them here? Zacharia would've stood there with tears in his eyes and pondered it longer, had he not heard the muffled screams of his best friend in the world and most trusted compatriot from afar and remembered just what he came in here for.
"Books, books, books!! Where do I even begin?" remorsed the mage. "No, no, come on me, you can't panic. Think! If you were Boryn like him, where would you leave a spell to be found...? Somewhere I'd know to look, surely." Another orb was created to light his surroundings further. "He wouldn't... he wouldn't lead me all this way to turn his office upside down." Wait a second.
Zach ran through his mental notes a second time; something seemed out of place. Slinking towards Boryn's wooden desk, he examined what he originally thought he had made out in the dark: a bowl. And a waterskin, which revealed itself full of something when he gave it a gentle nudge. Boryn never had these out before, that Zacharia was sure of. In fact, he could only recall Boryn using them for his benefit, several years before. "For my benefit. Huh..." He ran the words over his tongue, once, twice, three times. Resting a hand on the desk he ran his fingertips over the spot where he picked up the scrying implements, and found - or rather, struck by chance - precisely what he was getting at.
A hairline crack in the structure of the desk. And another adjacent. And another. And another! He couldn't bust this open by himself if he tried, however. The mage took a deep breath despite the dust, and morphed the sphere in his hand hand into its most composite state of appendage-like tendrils that would peel the woode block out from its cubby. Lo and behold, after weeks of venturing, there it was sitting smack dab in the center of a wooden desk, underground, in a backstreet village ignored by the hands of its reigning country. Time had weathered its cover and its title from the front, but he didn't need to know what it did to speak it forth. Thank you so very much, master.
"Vergil!! I'm coming!"
His luck and pluck had gotten him far lately but his next few shots of magic would have to count. Zach could feel his limbs, once fleshy and soft, now deadweight holding him down with every step he took towards the door. Sooner or later the control over the magic power he channeled like a river would wane. And things would get dangerous for all parties if he had no energy to sacrifice for control. Of course, he took no mind of this as he blasted the door open gung-ho, ignoring cramps and wounds alike.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2015 22:40:43 GMT -6
"Stupid... glorified stick!" His patience was starting to run thin. For all the glowing the dumb sword had a tendency to do, it didn't seem to actually have any special powers whatsoever, which left Vergil not sure if he just hadn't figured out how to use it, or if Aria had actually literally just sent him a sword that glowed every so often as a gift, and that was the entire joke.
In which case, seriously, f*** him, but especially life, the universe, and everything.
The worst part of all this - more than the part where Zach ditched him, more than the part where Grimm ditched him, more than the part where he was literally fighting a horrible eldritch horror comprised of assorted body parts, was that Vergil had the sinking feeling that this whole thing was his fault. Not the school visit, but that the sword was actually a test he was currently failing. Like he was just supposed to find the 'magic' switch and it would catch fire or consume the world or something. And now it was dimming, again, because EXACTLY what he needed was to fight tall, dumb, and stupid over there in the dark.
Dimming...
He felt like there was something to that word, like the answer was hiding in it, but it didn't really -go- anywhere from there. Ok, so the sword was dimming, what did that have to do with phenomenal cosmic power? These things needed to come with an instruction manual. 'Do not operate while under the influence of alcohol.' 'Do not operate while pregnant.' Well... he had the first two sorted, anyways, last time he checked.
Vergil searched his memories, looking for either a hint from Aria or a hint from the blade, but the former was unhelpful - she always was when she wanted him to figure something out for himself - and the latter wasn't much better. The sword had glowed a bit when he'd first drawn it, then dimmed a bit... did it again this time too...
Did it have something to do with drawing?
The novice swordsman stared down morosely at his sword, in all its fading glory, trying to puzzle out the riddle before darkness consumed the room - and him - entirely. Aria lectures about sword styles... she'd never really tried to teach him an advanced blade style, more focused on teaching him the basics, but she had talked a lot about different approaches to swordsmanship. Everything from the differences between defensive and offensive styles, how the weight and length of your sword changed what styles you were suited for, all that stuff, but... ugh, this wasn't getting him anywhere. There weren't any secret truths he could think of, no special hints about how to unleash his true power or whatever, and he didn't know enough about magic weapons to figure it out.
But there was... something tickling the corners of his mind, the same thing that had been at the edge of reason since he'd started fighting during their little adventure, that was getting harder to ignore. Almost like - like - a voice that was not a voice, which didn't even make sense, but he had the weird feeling that he was supposed to respond. WHich didn't even make sense, it was a goddamn sword not a person.
There was an unmistakable and overwhelming sense of annoyance for some reason, one replaced a moment later by a dim sense of... understanding? Vergil had no idea what the hell was going on, but he had a weird sense of something he was... supposed to do, more a broken series of mental images than an actual scenario, but at this point the sword's glow was nearly gone, the creature was starting to close in, and honestly he didn't have any better ideas anyways, so what the hell, why not give in to the hallucinations?
For a moment it almost felt as if a phantasmal grasp guided his hand, rotating the sword from its facing towards the creature towards the sheath, and sliding it back in with a scraping keen that was the only real sense of existence he held in the grim darkness - a world of shadows broken only by the physical sense of warm metal in his hand and the dying sound of his last recourse.
Now!
It was as much a voice - harsh, strident, overwhelming and masculine - as a feeling, a momentary feeling of absolute invincibility and courage that washed over him as the sword leapt from its sheath and light and sound filled the room, a blinding eruption of light and sound that illuminated the horrific visage of the nearer-than-expected creature - and the violence of its own reaction. It loosed a horrible, grating screech and tumbled backwards into itself; his own vision was filled with spots but Vergil couldn't see any real damage on it, more like the light had pushed it back, but his ears were ringing from the dual assault. "DAMMIT."
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Zacharia
Shaman
Kingmaker
"You fight for the promise of a better tomorrow for this country."
Posts: 172
Bern Fame: 3
Illia Fame: -2
Profession: Advisor
Affiliation: Bernese Senate
Affinity: Thunder
Profile: Link
OoC Alias: Zach
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Post by Zacharia on Feb 16, 2015 19:40:20 GMT -6
Zacharia literally crashed through the door, although upon arrival he wished he hadn't opened it to begin with. Of all the times to realize your friend was carrying a macguffin that shot laser lights, finding out about it via full brunt in a dark room was the last way he wanted to be told of it. Coupled with the hideous monster's equally awful screech, Zacharia crumpled to the ground for a moment, just as stunned and confused as the monster and more than a little peeved after being sensually crippled. Light magic was the bane of any shaman worth his salt, so it was only natural for him to retch after that.
Lighting the tiniest spark of magic he could muster, the mage hastily flipped through the pages of his new book(still kneeling down, mind you) "V-Vergil," he muttered as if he was alone. "Please, warn me when you're gonna do that again. I had no idea that you could taste light magic until today - or light magic HAD a taste... eeughhhg."
The thought of running was completely out of Zacharia's head, now that he had a supplement to his strength in his hands. But there was just oooone techinical difficulty with his plans. The first few pages were easy to grasp, simple constructs of summoning - it called them 'arthropods' - but every page afterwards was written in an archaic language he had never seen before. Or at least, never in such a quantifiable amount. It could've been the dark aftereffects of the sudden adjust to pitch black, but the runes seemed to dance across the page in shadowed rituals. There was no more time left to contemplate if he suffered dementia in the past hour, however, as the beast reared its ugly heads again. It was time for a crash course on advanced dark magic.
Page 3, Paragraph 2, Section 2: "To truly learn the art technique published within the pages of this codex, you must call them forth and prove your heritage. That is the first key to controlling the magic you currently possess."
There was little else that could tell him how to properly summon what the book went on to describe as not one, but a multitude of energy deposits gleaned from the Nether. "Alone they are tiny, but they can influence acts of greatness should sufficient strength be provided."
He knew a few failsafe lines of ritual text should none be provided - at the very least he wasn't going on just nothing here. A trail of breadcrumbs in the first few pages would give him enough reference to craft his own version of a spell. And if he died like a tool doing it, at least Vergil would think he looked cool dying.
"Jes suis Zacharia, la Sjord. Annulos sommes! No tr'aider motis, les group de maelefis - ...Swarm, lunaissez!"
At first, nothing happened save for a very confused Zacharia kneeling in a dark room with a monster coming towards him. Then as if a mental switch was thrown, the light came back. But it wasn't alone, no. Another tiny flame joined it, and another, and another, multiplied by two, four, six... dozens of tiny arthropod-like magical creations, orbiting his free hand. It stung at first, using so much energy. But he soon found the inner will to stand again and face the fully recovered threat.
The lights flickered when he sidestepped to get a better angle on the monstrous thing whilest avoiding a grabby appendage that slid across the floor to him. Was it such high concentration that maintaining it took up his free actions? Perhaps it was like one of those spells that he'd read of before - one that was most effective at long range, preventing counterattack. Great, of all the weapons to get he was stuck with one that left him wide open. On the plus side it was likely that a good clean shot or two would pierce the thick carcass wall that comprised the outer shell.
Was he overthinking this? Maybe. But Zach had to keep thinking about it or he would lose focus on the magic storming around his hand.
"Vergil! I need you to distract it just a little longer!" He cried, lobbing his small swarm of into the air, where it lazily drifted to and fro in search of its master's target. "If we can't touch the outside we'll have to break through to the inside! This spell ought to open the hide for a little bit, and we can rush in quick to attack it! ...I hope." Zach was able to tack his last misgivings on before the monster thrusted towards him with a gruesome appendage. He would've lost an arm if the monster's aim wasn't so poor - it impaled the stone next to him.
This beast could hold its own against more than one person simultaneously, with its other half squaring off with his swordsman friend, not to mention its other latent abilities. So were there any MORE tricks underneath that armor made of flesh?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2015 4:25:33 GMT -6
"Oh, I'm SORRY," Vergil fired back with the caustic tone of a man boy sorely aggrieved by fate and circumstance, "I didn't realize you were planning on coming back after ditching me!" He might well have continued had he not tripped over his own feet - which seemed to be happening a lot today, he absentmindedly thought to himself as he flopped to the ground like a limbless retard, embracing the stale and smelly wood with a lover's caress. And also with his face.
"...If you think about it, this is really your fault," he grumbled while pulling himself up with his free hand plastered firmly on his abused nose, hoping it wasn't broken or bleeding. The sword was still glowing, brighter than it had been - did that signify something? - but not doing the laser disco light show of a moment ago, and he wasn't sure he could replicate it. Whatever he had done, it was... with the help of the sword, not... really on his own merits.
Vergil wasn't entirely sure how he knew it, but it was as certain as if it had been shouted from the rooftops. The presence of a moment ago seemed to have evaporated, leaving him feeling almost... alone in his own body, as strange as it seemed. As if he had touched something, touched someone, and then they had left for parts unknown. It also felt like someone else had been inside of him... which sounded REALLY euphemistic now, and also made it awkward that it had felt entirely too harsh and almost masculine to be a chick. ALso, he felt slightly emasculated now.
Unfortunately, Vergil didn't have time to think too much about swords and men being inside of him given the situation, with Zach doing some fancy magic mumbo-jumbo in a language that sounded... incredibly stupid, like what the hell? If he was gonna cast magic it would be in an awesome language that sounded powerful, like the words themselves held power, not like he was asking the book for a soft towel to cry into. ...Zach HAD looked kinda cool while doing it, though, and the buzzing magic stuff was midway between 'acid trip' and 'really cool.'
Unfortunately, a bunch of magic bees flying around didn't really help them kill the seemingly-immortal regenerating flesh beast thing, and being completely clueless about dark magic and even more clueless about whatever the hell spell Zach was casting, Vergil was even less prepared to understand Zach's plan. At least the last time it was just generic dark magic. But if Zach had a plan, mmmmmaybe it would work out.
He was suddenly reminded of Zach's door adventure.
"...If you leave me here to die, I WILL come back as an angry ghost and haunt you forever." His tone was surprisingly even, up front, full of an honesty and sincerity usually held behind bars of fragile glass. The sort of tone that suggested that Vergil was actually petty and vengeful enough to figure out how to do it. Which was true, as it happened. Alright sword, he thought to his... sword... only momentarily questioning his own sanity. It's just you and me. And Zach. And his bees. ...That seemed like a really bad set of mental last words, in retrospect. Huh.
Vergil took a deep breath, trying to steel his nerves, and succeeded in more or less convincing the rational part of his brain to shut off - not difficult, since it was long since past the point where it should have. "Fine! Shoot the stupid magic bees or whatever!" ALSO terrible last words, he dispassionately thought to himself as he dropped his free hand from his nose to his sword, gripping it two handed and low, his blade hanging to the left as he started running towards the creature at an angle, trying to make himself a hard target - but a target nonetheless - so Zach could do his... stuff. "NO RUSH OR ANYTHING."
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