Light in the Darkness [Althea/Donovan]

[Althea]

Okay. Good. He was fine. More or less. Aside from the dislocated shoulde- "that is the OPPOSITE of okay!" she fired back a little more shrilly than she had planned, still somewhat out of it, too tired and stressed and frustrated to keep her emotions under control. And what in the bloody hell was he doing with... what WAS he doing? There was some kind of wooshing sound, then the house started groaning, which sounded especially not good as far as architectural stability went.

...It was surprisingly easy to come back with something very sarcastic about light magic when the best she could do was Luna some extra holes in the house, but the dour dark mage managed to keep her temper in check with the realization that he might actually be in real trouble, and that she didn't have many friends, nor was she eager to lose any she had. "...I have torches! In my pack. Don't go anywhere."

It wasn't until she was halfway back to the lovely abandoned lot that she had collapsed overnight that the irony of that statement occurred to her.

Althea returned significantly more subdued, now with a lit torch, but also burdened with additional concern about his arm. She could make him out tolerably in the flickering glare of orange, but little of his surroundings. "Hold on. I'm going to-" Where was she even supposed to put this damn thing? Muttering curses that would have set an Etrurian priest aflame on the spot, she leaned over the edge, suddenly wishing she had taken her upper body strength a little more seriously recently. But unless he wanted to sit down there for a few months for her to practice cutting down a tree in a single stroke, or... whatever one did to train their strength, she was gonna have to do this the old fashioned way.

"I'm - coming down to heal you!" Deep breaths, he didn't look THAT far down, if she could just... lower herself most of the way and then drop a few feet it would probably be fine. If there was a basement here, there had to be stairs up, but he wouldn't be able to find them in the dark. And what WAS that racket? The slender woman lowered herself over the edge with a grimace, grunting as she realized her own weight was still too much for her very slender arms, and was spared the trouble of figuring out how to get the rest of the way down when the board she was hanging on to split and sent her there posthaste, butt-first.

At least she still had the torch.

[Donovan]

Pain seared through Donovan’s left arm as he tried to raise it to take his shield off of his back. A pained growl erupted from his lips, “In all fairness, I never actually said I was ‘Okay’,” he tried to joke through gritted teeth. He heard Althea hurry off to their campsite to grab him some torches so he could see anything besides the slim column of light in which he stood.

And in the moment he heard her leave, the flapping of shoeless, undead feet tore across the basement and a shoulder slammed Donovan out from the safety of the light with surprising force. He stumbled forward stabbing Fragarach into the ground to keep himself from falling onto his side. A flash of a rusted sword swung dog toward him, but now it was the Mercenary’s turn to surprise his opponent. Pulling the leaf bladed sword from the basement dirt floor, he shot a gust of air just in time to push back the creature he found himself trapped with.

Skeletal feet slid backward across the floor, bits of tightened, leathery skin tearing away and left in tatters on the floor. Before him in the pool of light stood the long dead body of an enormous man, nearly 6 and a half feet tall. It’s skin clung tight to it’s head, as if it had been mummified by the dry desert sun. A single rotten eye sat in its socket, useless as old jelly. It’s patchwork armor was barely holding on and added little protection, but such creatures weren’t held together by the natural order of things. Simply cutting into what was left of its flesh wasn’t enough to kill what was holding it together.

The Wight looked up as the ceiling behind it rustled and dirt fell loose. Althea was coming back. It’s jaw broke into a rotten terrible sort of smile, and it backed away into the shadow before the slender woman had a chance to see it. “Just my luck…” He muttered. It’s intelligent. He moved cautiously back into the light and saw Althea standing at the mouth of the hole in the floor and holding a lit torch. The pain in his shoulder spiked for a moment and for the first time he actually mustered the courage to look at it directly. It was… not the best look, to put it bluntly. He wasn’t sure, but even with healing magic, he assumed that it would need to be set. Over his analysis of the state of his shoulder he almost didn’t hear the lithe mage say, "I'm - coming down to heal you!" And before he had the chance to warn her she had started to lower herself down into the basement.

“Wait! Don’t -” He said, too late as a crack in the board she was dangling from sent her falling to the ground. “Althea! Are you okay?” He asked, offering her his sword arm to pull her as quickly as he could to her feet. “There’s something down here. A Wight. It’s fast, so we’ll need to be careful.”

A wry grin broke through the dread he was feeling, through the pervasive sense of being trapped like a rat encaged with a cat. “Thanks for coming to save me this time. Very heroic of you.” You would do well to cut the witty banter, Liar, and focus on the infernal monster aiming to cut you both to pieces. “You never let me have any fun, Fragarach, you know that?” The mercenary responded aloud, quite unaware of that fact, himself.