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Fever Heat; [P] Rinky 4... IN SPACE!
Topic Started: Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:42 pm (3,795 Views)
Nkiruka
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Nkiruka had been oddly quiet for a while. She had a tendency to stray further from Rin and Orson to poke through parts of the ruined city quarter without explaining what she was looking at. The Istani officer barely listened to Rin's quick exchange with the child-thief, too wrapped up in her thoughts, focused on searching the ruins and combing her memories for useful information.

On one of their largest stopover sites, a komari town called Ilakh-en-Saar, half of the city had been blown away by some unknown past conflict, which was probably why this part of Balefire had reminded her so quickly of it. They never really paid attention to that abandoned part whenever Nkiruka and her family were staying there, though sometimes she would sneak out there to explore and play with her friends. There was one year when it was Chaitaki herself who took Nkiruka out there as a part of her training. She was pretty young, maybe eight or nine years old.

"Awareness of the battlefield is one of the most important skills you can have," she began in her best lecturing tone. "At any moment of the day, someone could be hidden and ready to attack you, or there might be a trap. Tell me, Iru: how many places within your sight could an archer set up with a view on your current position?"

Nkiruka looked away and wrung her fingers, trying to parse through the big Common words her mother was using. Sometimes it was a struggle just to understand what she meant, but she was too afraid to ask. "Khel--"

"Speak Common, girl!" Chaitaki snapped. "We're not buying plantains here. Someday the whole world will be speaking Common, and I don't want my only child unable to adapt."

She hardened up and swallowed her pride. "They could be, er, anywhere," she said, wincing as Chaitaki corrected her pronunciation of the word 'anywhere.' "There is too many places to count. Up on that ledge, ah, around side of that broken wall. Not just archers, traps. That building is perfect for the
okulwi trap or escape tunnel. I would not even go in here."

That made her seem satisfied enough to continue, although her tone sounded like she would revisit that question later. "If you have a higher awareness of the terrain than your opponent, numbers don't mean anything. Now, I'm going to teach you a few things about how to fight in tight urban spaces like this. What to watch out for, how you can use the terrain to your advantage..."


Nkiruka found a building that looked like the perfect place for an escape tunnel -- no, a rathole, more like it -- but not after disarming a hidden side-shoot trap buried in the brush. "Rin," she said in her normal voice, which was more than enough to call her over in this quiet, abandoned part of town. The entrance didn't look like much: it was a hole in the corner of a building's floor, partially covered by black grass and a spindly tree, just big enough for someone to comfortably crawl through. As the two of them approached, Nkiruka pointed out the trap with a gesture. "Are you sure Orson should come with us down here? It's dangerous."
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Rin
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It wasn't long before Nkiruka found one of the entrances to the tunnel they were looking for. Before they could enter, the officer pointed out that it might be safer for Orson if he didn't come with them. Rin turned to the young thief, tilting her head to one side and cocking an eyebrow at him. "Your call. Stay with us or scuttle back home."

"In tha' case, 'm out. Yer both crazy." The youth edged around the corner, eyeing the empty street nervously. He started to work his way back towards the more populous regions of the city, flitting from shadow to shadow like a wraith. The construct waited until he was out of sight before returning her attention to their current task. The trap that Nkiruka had uncovered was cleverly designed and hidden, obviously meant to keep oblivious trespassers from discovering the hidden cell of terrorists hidden under Balefire's streets. She carefully stepped around the disarmed snare, frowning slightly as she eyed the half-hidden hole in the ground.

"Guess we don't have much of a choice." Rin held a hand out, the space around her blurring for a moment. Her whispered words still seemed to echo oddly, reverberating in the tight confines of the small building. "Carnwennan." The small dagger formed in her grasp, its hilt wrought out of carved bone and its blade a dull, matte black. A strip of leather dangled from the pommel, and the girl quickly wrapped the dark fabric around the ivory to hide the brighter colors. She pointed the tip of the blade at Nkiruka first, then at herself. ""Shadows and darkness, powers of night, hide our forms from our enemy's sight."

The shadows in the dilapidated structure responded almost immediately. Tendrils of solid darkness unpeeled from the floor, twisting through the air like serpents and wrapping around the bodies of the berserkers. Soon they were completely covered in a layer of patchy, blurry shadows that would obscure their outline and make them difficult to spot in dark locales. It felt like having a slightly damp towel draped over your body, but Rin thought the unpleasant sensation was worth being able to operate undetected. She spun the dagger numbly, reversing her grip on the blade so that it ran parallel to her forearm. She let Nkiruka enter the tunnel first, hopping through the floor right after the soldier.
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Nkiruka
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The tunnel moved steadily downward, pitch black, until there was a sharp drop-off. Nkiruka warned Rin about it before jumping in. She landed safely about ten feet below and looked around. The tunnel was paved with stone bricks on all sides. Gel lanterns designed to burn forever were fastened at regular intervals to the corners where wall and ceiling met, casting orbs of dim blue light that didn't quite light up everything. Shadows still crept between them, which were difficult for Nkiruka to see into even with her enhanced eyes. The network itself appeared to be some sort of ancient sewage and passageway system, long dried up and decayed: there was a channel built into the center of the passage where presumably water and waste used to go through. Nkiruka recommended they fan out, one taking the left side and one taking the right, and look for obscure offshoots or signs of life.

They didn't come across the first hint of Rainfall presence until a full hour into their tense, silent walk. A corpse rested against the wall. The body was maybe only a week or two old, a lot fresher than the occasional dusty skeletons they'd occasionally come across before this. Curled tightly into a ball, one hand clenched in a fist, the man was peculiar in that he hadn't been stripped of any of his equipment and didn't even look that badly maimed, considering what kind of things could have killed him. Nkiruka stopped in front of him and put her arm out in front of Rin to stop her from moving closer to it.

Nkiruka momentarily recalled another speech from her past. "You might think humans are the toughest creatures to fight, because they possess the gifts of creativity, adaptability, and reason. But man's downfalls are what make him human in the first place. Humans are completely helpless in the face of their more fundamental desires, like food and shelter. But, more importantly, they're curious, selfish, and pay attention to things that are a little out of place."

"Rin, can I borrow one of your polearms?" Nkiruka asked. "One of your longest, please."

The Istani officer took the implement in one hand and backed off considerably from the corpse. Looking it over, she figured the best place to put a tripwire on the guy -- if he was even booby trapped in the first place -- would be his fist, which looked like it was holding something. Whoever found themselves wandering through these tunnels could be curious or desperate enough to try to loot the body. Nkiruka leaned forward and, holding out her arm as far out as she could, jabbed the corpse's fist with the butt end of the weapon. The corpse slipped off a triggerplate.

She was right that it was a booby trap. She was wrong about what kind of booby trap it was. They weren't out of its range.

Something clicked up above. A humongous axe dislodged from a hidden alcove in the ceiling and came swinging down towards them. The passageway was too narrow to simply step aside, and it was going to run too low to duck. Nkiruka instinctively pressed her body into the wall, flattening it as much as she could. The axe passed just a couple inches from her body. It was hard to see if Rin managed to react fast enough, but the Istani officer trusted her ally's reflexes.

The axe kept swinging like a giant pendulum, probably because its mechanisms hadn't detected an impact yet. Nkiruka guessed they needed some heavy-duty traps out here to deal with monsters. "Ye gods, it's that stupid labyrinth all over again..."
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Rin
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Rin absentmindedly twirled Carnwennan in one hand as the explored the tunnel system. It was difficult to ignore the urge to whistle or hum as they searched. She wasn't used to participating in situations where stealth was a necessity, but she managed to keep herself in check so that Nkiruka wouldn't get upset with her. The construct wandered down the right side of the old sewer, peering into smaller side tunnels and passageways with squinted eyes. She couldn't see in the dark, but the gel lanterns plastered to the walls allowed her to see the outline of the tunnels.

After an hour of sneaking along and looming for clues, the girl was closed to bursting from boredom. She had started skipping along to try and alleviate the tedious nature of their job, but it didn't sustain her for long. luckily, Nkiruka discovered a clue soon. Rin bounded over to the soldier's side of the tunnel, cursorily examining the body. It clearly hadn't been there for too long, since the flesh hadn't completely rotted away to reveal the bones underneath. When the Istani asked for a polearm, she quickly summoned Gae Bulg and handed the copper spear to the woman.

Nkiruka prodded the corpse with the weapon, clearly cautious of a trap. Her paranoia soon proved to be founded: a massive, pendulum-like axe swung out of the ceiling, dropping towards the pair of trespassers. The soldier pressed herself against the wall to avoid the blade, but the construct had no room to maneuver and attempt the same. Instead she launched herself into the air, jumping straight up. She rose high enough to almost strike her head on the ceiling of the tunnel, more than sufficient to avoid the blade of the axe. She wrapped her arms and legs around the shaft of the trap when it struck her with enough force to momentarily wind her, clinging to the swinging blade.

"Good memories, right?" Rin hauled herself up the shaft of the axe until the hidden mechanism was within reach. She stabbed the dagger deep into the gears, making the trap grind to a halt. Once that was gone she yanked the blade out of the machinery, dropping to the floor with a small grin. "Too bad no one told them that we're experts at this, right?"
Edited by Rin, Thu Jul 5, 2012 8:13 pm.
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Nkiruka
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Nkiruka inspected the axe a little bit more closely. It was primitive in make, made from some kind of black stone that was probably common around here; she could see the angular marks on it that shaped it. The hilt was still wrapped with tattered linen. The whole thing highly contrasted the mechanisms she saw as she looked up. Even with Carnwennan lodged in them and mostly breaking them, Nkiruka knew what was going on. "It's repurposed," she said suddenly, perhaps stating the obvious. "They took the axe from... something down here, and retooled it. I don't know how they did it. These guys are really good." She dropped Gae Bulg -- having kept a firm hand on it from habit -- and shimmied past the stationary axe.

Ten minutes down the path, they passed through an invisible barrier. The cloaking magic around them fizzled and dissolved, completely peeling off the blankets of darkness as they passed. Well, that was also something Nkiruka had never learned to expect before. She had a feeling that Chaitaki and her goons had picked up a lot of new tricks since the days of her childhood and before. She didn't even know if her knowledge was going to help them or just hinder them more. "Well, I have nothing else that could make us more subtle," she said in her normal volume, which echoed considerably through these tunnels. "I guess our only option is to go in loud." But, Nkiruka leaned in close and whispered in Rin's ear right afterward. "We don't have the numbers to sweep the whole thing. Let them come to us."

This was going to be really risky. A bunch of anti-mages that have been training down here for gods know how long. The entire point of guerrilla warfare was that the guerrillas were supposed to have control over when, where and how a fight happened. Nkiruka knew that they were going to wait until the absolute worst point before springing an ambush, and after the confrontation with Chaitaki, the Istani officer wasn't the most confident in the pair's ability to take on anything, like she used to be. They turned into an even more narrow tunnel, narrow enough that Rin and Nkiruka could just barely walk side-by-side. She became more nervous and paranoid about the whole situation, her eyes constantly scanning for traps in the darkness. She walked a little bit further ahead than Rin, and told her to keep an eye on their back.
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Rin
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The girl kept an eye out for more traps as they continued through the tunnels, banishing Gae Bulg back to the pocket dimension where she stored all of her weapons when they weren't in use. She still kept the matte dagger clutched in one hand, keeping the magical shadows clinging to their bodies in an attempt to keep them hidden. It worked until they passed through an invisible barrier. The construct felt her skin prickle as she passed the boundary, she had been shocked with static electricity. The shadows seemed to melt, dripping off of their features and dribbling to the floor, gathering in their natural shadows and returning to their natural location. Rin frowned and held one hand out, flicking her fingers in a commanding gesture, but no weapon appeared. Nkiruka leaned over and whispered a hasty plan to the girl about drawing the anti-mages to their location in order to eliminate them.

"Just a second... They've locked down this location in reality, no alterations are allowed... I could maybe break through, but it would take an insane amount of power." She hopped back, passing back through the invisible threshold. She made the same movement once more, but this time it was accompanied by the customary distortion in the air that meant she was twisting the fabric of existence. A heavy, curved sword with a single edge formed in her grasp. Three nozzles had been built into the flat side of the blade, with tilted blades like a turbine. Rin grinned and flipped the switch on the pommel of the sword as she tucked Carnwennan into her satchel. The fan blades tilted open and slowly began to spin, making the weapon hum softly as it began to gather trace alchemical elements from the air.

She gripped the hilt of the sword with both hands, holding it tightly as they cautiously edged forward. She was so focused on keeping an eye out for enemies that she wasn't completely paying attention to their surroundings. A thin wire had been extended across the tunnel, so slender it was almost invisible. Rin's eyes widened as soon as she felt her ankle touch the wire, but it was too late to stop her forward momentum: the tripwire snapped, activating the trap. A panel slid open on the wall in front of them, revealing an object that looked suspiciously like a crossbow modified to fire when it was triggered.

She scowled, bringing the Famed Alchemical Blade up in a lightning-fast flurry, her arms moving so quickly they were a blur. The first quarrel struck the flat of the blade, splintering and falling to the floor. Two more bolts were met with the cutting edge of the sword, cleaving them in half. There was a wide, almost manic grin on her face as she deflected the last two projectiles, sending them spiraling away. She was so distracted by the trap that she didn't notice the sound of fabric scuffing on stone from above. A thin figure dropped on her back, a knife flashing towards the construct's neck. Rin let her knees buckle, falling forward so that the assailant was thrown off of her shoulders, their knife cutting across her shoulder instead of her jugular.
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Nkiruka
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Nkiruka instantly regretted this plan. It had drawn the two of them into a classic pincer strike.

She whirled around, scanning behind them while Rin took care of the projectiles. Those were just a typical trap: a distraction. Then she realized she couldn't see; someone had dropped a black smoke bomb that she could hear fizzing. Just trying to pierce the darkness made her lose valuable time that the guerrillas gained in earnest. Nkiruka's arm was jerked back, locked painfully. A knife wrapped around her neck and wasted no time pressing into her throat, starting to cut. She reflexively twisted out of the lock, bent to counter it with her own classic mandak lock that broke the arm simultaneously at the elbow and wrist. Then she reached back, arms over shoulders, and slit the armpits of the second attacker trying to slit her throat. The man gave a pained yelp and dropped it. She stepped back, scraped her boot against his shin and crushed his foot while jamming her elbow into his gut, whirling around and slicing him deep across the neck.

She had no time to prepare for the ones coming out of the smoke. Nkiruka took a crossbow bolt to the abdomen, stepped back so she was almost back-to-back with Rin, who had her own side to worry about. Nine figures total -- five on Rin's side, four on Nkiruka's -- came out of the haze. They were dressed in loose black clothing with Istani influences, hoods up, wielding small fast weapons like knives that were a nightmare to fight against if they were even armed at all. Instead of the decorated wooden masks that Rainfall members often wore, these people were fairly plain except for the blue goggles, which must give them night vision or something. Nkiruka dodged a slicing knife, a stab, while her other hand tried to pry the bolt out of her gut. It came out, but at the cost of taking a nick to the arm and leg. She pressed forward on the offensive, growling as she whirled her blades. They whipped out, caught a few unlucky guerrillas, but they were fast enough to avoid the attacks. At least it made them back up somewhat.
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Black smoke billowed out of a tiny cannister near their feet, filling the corridor with an inky murkiness that was impossible to peer through. Rin took a leap forward, kicking out blindly at the guerilla that had tried to open her throat in the surprise maneuver. The woman had not yet recovered from being thrown off of the construct's back, so she grunted in surprise and pain when the girl's bare heel sank into her gut, sending her tumbling down the tunnel. Rin knew that it wasn't enough to completely knock the guerilla out of the fight, but it would give her time to deal with the rest of the opponents spilling into the subterranean passageway. Smoke wafted around her, dense enough to significantly impact her vision yet no so thick as to render her completely blind. She caught a glimpse of profiles through the smokescreen, wearing loose-fitting black garments with hoods and blue goggles.

The construct's eyes flickered back and forth as she tried to pick out targets. She could see at least four opponents on her side of the corridor, many of them holding small blades that were deadly in close quarters but were light enough to throw easily. Without her ability to summon more weapons, it would put her at a decided disadvantage. Even with the potent offensive abilities of the Famed Alchemical Blade, this would be a tough fight. The girl's lips pressed together into a thin line as she focused, closing her eyes for a moment to prepare herself.

When she heard the scuff of leather on stone to her right, she responded immediately, lunging in that direction with a blinding flurry of slashes that were meant to overwhelm an unwary foes's defenses. The male guerilla couldn't completely suppress a gasp of surprise as she descended on him, forced to use both curved daggers to defend himself. However, without the smoke obscuring her vision Rin was able to use a less obvious tactic, lashing out with one foot and smashing his toes into the bricks with her heel. The following moment of shock was all the opening she needed to slam the Famed Alchemical Blade into his chest, angling the sword so it passed between his ribs and pierced through his heart.

Rin spun as he started to fall, keeping the body on the blade so that it was between her and the nearest guerillas. The corpse shuddered as thrown blades thumped into its back. She tilted her head back, grabbing the strap of his goggled in her teeth and ripping them off of his skull. She pressed one foot against his gut and forcefully kicked it off of her weapon, sending the limp body flying into one of the approaching enemies. The construct took one hand off of the hilt of the blade, fastening the goggles around her own eyes as quickly as possible. A thrown knife lanced across her knee while she was distracted, but the eyewear allowed her to see through the thick black smog effortlessly, revealing the position of the remaining ambushers.

She grinned and danced forward, the return of her sense of sight bolstering her confidence. She quickly came to regret her haste when one of the bricks underneath her feet shifted, the hidden pressure plate activated. A panel in the wall nearby slid up, quickly followed by a nozzle spraying a gout of white-hot flames across the tunnel. Rin threw herself forward with preternatural reflexes, but it wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the trap. Fire licked across her upper left arm and shoulder, charring the skin and filling the air with the sickly sweet odor of burning flesh. Rin ground her teeth together, forcing herself to ignore the pain from the injury and block another dagger hurled in her direction. "Nkiruka! More traps! Step careful!"
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Nkiruka
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Black blood gushed from the nicked part of Nkiruka's neck, where the anti-mage had started the job of slitting her throat but never finished. She didn't have time to heal it, so eventually her entire front was stained with an ugly trail of black that looked almost like ink. There had also been something in that crossbow bolt. Her muscles were weakening, her anger evening out, like the feeling she was about to go to sleep which was obviously inappropriate in this context. Nkiruka fought vehemently against the poison, fending off the remaining two guerrillas on her side with all her might. Then she turned around and bolted after Rin, who had cut a way forward. She yelled something about traps, after Nkiruka almost ran headlong into a stream of white flames that came out of a hidden nozzle. These goddamn anti-mages had really lured them into the perfect place. They must have been down here for decades as a sleeper cell, honing their skills with these ridiculously complex trap systems. Nkiruka felt like a cornered animal, something being hunted, and she couldn't even use those feelings to sink into some rage and get themselves out of this.

Blackness crept into the edges of Nkiruka's vision, and it wasn't just the artificial fog. She was breathing heavy, too. In fact, she realized a little too late how exhausted she was. What the hell kind of cocktail was even in that bolt? Good thing she tore it out, or Nkiruka probably would've been on the floor a few minutes ago, being dragged off into the darkness and separated from her friend. Still, she felt strangely outside of herself; her eyelids were half-closed and her eyes had a sort of glazed, unfocused look about them no matter how hard she pushed through. A throwing knife came buzzing her direction and she acted on instinct, trying to hit it out of the air, but missed badly. The blade embedded hilt-deep into her chest. Nkiruka made a pained noise, coughed, and stopped walking altogether. She listed to the side, leaning against the wall of the corridor. Her knees buckled a little, but she fought to stay standing up.
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Rin
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The construct glanced over her shoulder when she heard a choked gasp of pain, even though it seemed unlikely that the guerillas had managed to harm her companion. She was so shocked when she saw Nkiruka leaning against the wall and bleeding that she stopped attacker her opponent for a moment, giving the terrorist the opportunity to retreat back into the cloud of obsidian smoke. Her lips pulled back in a fierce snarl as she glared at the two guerillas that were descending on the soldier, clearly planning on killing the Istani woman while she was incapacitated. Rin sprinted forward, haphazardly leaping across the last ten feet between her and Nkiruka in order to reach her comrade in time. The Famed Alchemical Blade swooped down just in time to knock aside a serrated short sword, the weapon striking the wall instead of burying itself in the officer's gut.

The girl reached forward with her burnt arm, her anger blocking a fraction of the pain that accompanied the movement. She firmly grasped the side of the woman's head and used all of her strength to slam her head into the stone wall. The guerilla cried out weakly as her skull cracked against the bricks, leaving a smear of blood on its surface. Rin repeated the attack twice more, the splash of blood growing larger with each strike. She she released the guerilla that had tried to eviscerate her friend, the woman collapsed to the ground without a sound, half of her face looking like a tenderized slab of meat. That only left one enemy between the construct and the area of the tunnels where the anti-magic field didn't exist, but the man clearly did not plan on closing the distance, hanging back and throwing a barrage of shuriken towards them.

Rin growled and lifted the Famed Alchemical blade above her head, toggling the switch as she launched her arm foreward. Flames spouted out of the nozzles on the back of the sword in the instant she let go of its handle, sending it flying through the air with a much greater velocity than otherwise would be possible. The sheer speed and force of the alchemical propulsion transformed the blade into a circle of whirling metal that didn't simply cut through its target, but sheared straight through his torso and cut him in half.

Before either piece of the corpse had struck the ground Rin grabbed Nkiruka around the waist, using her good arm to haul the soldier along after her. She rushed up the tunnel, emerging from the crowd of smoke and climbing back towards where she could fully utilize her abilities. More ranged weapons flew in their direction, but Rin constantly dipped and wove and ducked to keep from being struck. By the time she reached the edge of the nullification field she was breathing heavily, sweat beading on her forehead. That didn't stop her from gently depositing Nkiruka on the ground and summoning a weapon with which to defend herself, a long-hafted warhammer whose metal head was carved with interwoven Celtic sigils.

A voice echoed down the tunnel, obviously amplified so that it would carry further. Rin started at the noise, holding Mjolnir across her body in a defensive stance with her one good hand, but she couldn't see any approaching enemies. "Your friend has been poisoned. Surrender and we will provide the antidote. Continue to resist and she will die, and you will follow not long after." The girl tried to keep her surprise and panic off of her face, but she had a feeling she failed miserably. She glanced at Nkiruka, who was looking much worse for wear. If she had been hit with a toxin-laden weapon, it would explain how quickly she had been defeated in the fight. It was almost miraculous that none of the blades that had struck Rin had been poisoned, or maybe none of the blows had been quite serious enough to give her a serious dose of the dangerous substance.

Rin knelt next to the soldier and started to whisper, hoping that she was still coherent enough to understand their situation. "I can't cure poison... We have to let them take us. Don't worry, they won't be able to keep us contained." She grinned in a manner that she hoped was reassuring instead of betraying her nervousness.
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At this point Nkiruka felt oddly detached from her own actions. She found herself not fighting -- or even really feeling pain -- but instead looking down at the wound on her torso, down near her hip. There was something in there, even after she had taken the bolt out. Trying to sheathe her weapons, Nkiruka managed to get one of them into the scabbard while the other shakily pressed behind her belt instead. It would do. What she really needed was to see what was in her wound. She dug into the black blood with her index finger and thumb. Then she felt Rin nearby, maybe taking her off? It was really hard to focus on more than one thing at once without the exhaustion taking over her body. The Istani officer pulled the bolt tip out of her body. It was made of finely shaped glass, a hollow point like a hypodermic needle.

As Nkiruka stared dumbly at this bloody glass object in her fingers, people were talking all around her. She registered that words were being spoken, but was completely uncomprehending. Then suddenly she was on her back on the floor, and that strange bolt tip was gone from her hands. And Rin said something, smiled. Even though Nkiruka's face was wan and expressionless, eyelids heavy, she knew that things would be alright if Rin still had that stupid grin on her face. She stopped fighting the poison, letting herself slip off to sleep a few seconds later.



Nkiruka woke up before she opened her eyes. The first thought that crossed her mind was: I am never going to let that happen to me again. After that, she came to realize where exactly they were. She was in a small holding cell with Rin that was cold and damp. Water dripped every so often somewhere nearby. The place was fairly well-lit with lots of gel lamps. Groaning, the Istani officer rolled onto her back, staring at the stone ceiling. Her empty scabbard had been pressing into her thigh and cutting off her circulation, since they had positioned her on her side in her sleep so she wouldn't choke on vomit or blood.

"Information travels slowly between sleeper cells." True to form, the first thing Nkiruka said out loud was an explanation, rather than acknowledging her poor physical condition at the moment. Thankfully the bleeding had stopped while she was asleep, which was good enough for now. She didn't have the energy to heal her wounds further. "We can use this to our advantage."

The guards brought them to an interrogation room later on. Rin looked pretty terrible in the light, her arm covered in burns, and Nkiruka probably looked even worse. And then they got a stroke of luck. The guards parted to reveal a comparatively well-dressed, middle-aged Istani man shrouded in black cloth. He took off his dark blue goggles and regarded them. "I see the little girl is all grown up," he said in Istani, giving a shallow bow out of politeness more than respect. The man had sharp eyes and a cleanly trimmed beard that stood at odds with the difficult life these people no doubt led down here.

"Who the hell are you?" Nkiruka said in Common, squinting. She already had a guess.

"My name is Nadav. It's a shame you don't remember me, Nkiruka," he said, flipping to the same language for Rin's sake. "We met once, when you were very little." When Nkiruka gave no visible response to this, the Sheikh switched his attention over to Rin. "I'm more curious who you are, miss. Nkiruka's performance was underwhelming, but I received some colorful reports from my men about you. How did you do it? Summon weapons from thin air even inside our barrier? Could you even do it while engulfed by a null field as powerful as the one my body projects?"

Oh, right. Sheikh Nadav was the type of anti-mage who had a whole field of it around him. No wonder the air felt thin and smelled vaguely wrong. Nkiruka was busy looking around, trying to find a good place to stage their escape once they killed this guy.
Edited by Nkiruka, Mon Jul 23, 2012 10:38 pm.
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Unfortunately, Nkiruka did not seem aware enough to understand what she was saying. Rin pursed her lips, slowly standing up and staring down the hallway. She called out towards the unseen guerillas, letting the hefty warhammer fall to her side. "I will allow you to advance. I won't kill you. Even though I could." She giggled in a manner that was incredibly creepy given her apparent age and naivety. She dropped Mjolnir. The hammer dissipated before it could strike the ground, and Rin folded her legs and sat down cross-legged on the floor. "Well, are you going to keep me waiting, or do I need to collapse all of these tunnels to smoke you out?"

"... Could you? It seems impossible that one person could possess so much power." The words were spoken in Common, although they had the slight accent that she had come to recognize as belonging to an Istani native. The man that appeared from the depths of the corridor didn't look that any different from the men and women she had fought earlier. He pulled up the blue goggles to reveal his eyes. He watched her closely, a slight frown on his features. "You killed four of our men tonight."

"You tried to chop me up and immolate me. We're even." She held her wrists up in front of her, blue eyes glimmering. She was quickly shackled and roughly pulled to her feet. Another one of the black-clad terrorists emerged from the shadows with a syringe. She quickly pressed the needle into Nkiruka's inner elbow, depressing the plunger and pumping a vial full of clear liquid into the Istani officer.

"However, we did not guarantee you would be unharmed." A fist descended from her peripheral vision, slamming into her cheek with bruising force. She grunted and stumbled to one side, but didn't lose consciousness. The next blow quickly fixed that, her knees crumpling.



She woke up slightly before Nkiruka, spitting out a wad of blood. The left half of her face felt swollen and sore. Her burnt arm was covered in second-degree burns, with blood oozing from the charred flesh. The first words out of the soldier's mouth was advice, which was so stereotypical that it made the construct lean back and giggle to herself. Before she could respond with a witticism, some guards appeared, which suggested that their chamber was under strict observation. They were led to a cell where a man she hadn't seen yet was waiting. Like everyone else they had seen, he wore dark-colored clothing.

He greeted Nkiruka like they were old friends, although the woman didn't seem to share his enthusiasm. Rin used the opportunity to scope out the room. It was a fairly simply chamber: there was one door and not much else. Their two escorts were in the room as well, with the man who identified himself as Nadav. His attention suddenly switched to her, inquiring as to whether she could summon a weapon in his presence. The construct met his eyes with a crooked smile as she reached out for her Grimoire-given powers. Although it took more effort than usual, she was able to tap into the abilities, gaining an intrinsic sense of the ambient state of the environment.

It was difficult not to notice the nullification field the guerilla had mentioned. It made the air taste different, oily and stale at the same time. Her grin faltered slightly as she pursed her lips together. "I see no reason why to reveal the extent of my abilities to you. You can call me Rinrae Dromigg. I am the Guardian of... No, that's not right." She frowned, glancing at Nkiruka. "I need a new title, don't I? Is Arbiter of Existence too presumptuous?"
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Nkiruka tossed her friend a sidelong glance. "Yes."

The Sheikh only chuckled at the exchange as he wandered over to a simple table pressed into the side of the room. Sitting on top of it was a thin oak case that he unlatched and opened with nimble fingers. Inside of it, Nkiruka could see light reflecting off several metal implements set into shaped indentations within the case. She grimaced. "In any other case I would grow angry as you claim a title so heretical for yourself. Only the Goddess has the power to arbitrate reality, and we can never know Her true will. But -- I understand that you're not quite human, which makes you more predisposed to madness than most. Don't deny it. I can tell that everything about you is wrong and should not exist."

"She gets that a lot," remarked Nkiruka dryly. "I'm more interested in what kind of information you're looking to get out of it. I see you have some tools over there for the job." She jerked her chin over at his open case of edges, screws, and other implements. This was important. By knowing what the guerrillas wanted from them, Nkiruka could learn a few new things about what they were up to. Torture was more of a potential side-note that, while unfortunate, wasn't going to be the end of the world if it came to that.

He was carefully watching her expression. "You must be thinking you can get out of this without much damage done. I'm sorry to say that this won't be the case, for either of you." His hand hovered over the case for a moment until he selected a small, sort of hammer-like object that tapered off into a needle's point on one side. It looked mundane enough to Nkiruka, but she knew by now never to make assumptions. "In front of me sits a pair of abominations. One embodies the sin of artificial creation, false emulation of the Goddess' powers to create life." Nadav nodded to Rin, his expression serene. "The other tore into the pure body and soul she was given, twisting herself into a monster for short-term, material benefits."

"Look, Nadav, we're obviously not here to receive a lecture, and I can tell you that your preaching isn't going to affect either of us at--" She was interrupted by something cracking against her skull, whipping it forward. One of the guards must have gotten tired of her back-talk. It wasn't nearly enough to knock her out, but it sent a clear message. Clenching her jaw in pain, she felt the familiar warmth of blood in her hair.

"To answer your earlier question about what information I want from you: absolutely nothing. I took you in so I could personally purify you both."

Nkiruka shot a fleeting, but extremely urgent look at Rin. Please just wait a little bit longer, her eyes said to the best of their capability.

"The anti-magical technology we have now is groundbreaking." The Sheikh's eyes filled with a sort of fiery mirth, like restrained enthusiasm about testing out whatever that thing was in his hand. "I will start with you, Nkiruka. Rinrae can remain there for a little while longer. People... always thought Chomai witch-warriors were invincible. They never realized that performing amateur surgery on yourself only gives you more weak points. The more you do it, the more ragged you become."

"Sounds like you're not a fan of witch-warriors."

"I support the goals of the Rainfall Rebellion, and Chaitaki Menai is pious in most respects. She'll have to meet her end eventually, of course." He knelt down next to Nkiruka, picking up one of her arms to look closer at the intricate grafting tattoos. "I know now from working with the Choma that a graft of an animal's soul can never be removed once sealed there. Attempts have been made in the past, but only cause an agonizing death. That means..." Nadav ran his fingers all the way down to her wrist, "...all of your weak points are printed right on your skin. Maybe even just disrupting it would be enough to kill you."

Ye gods, this guy was quite the talker. He must have gotten lonely talking to no one but the same crazy cultists for the past two decades. Nadav selected a spot on her arm and pressed his finger there. He started to lift that strange hammer-needle tool of his. Nkiruka was utterly, almost stupidly unphased. "Well, I've heard enough. Go for it, Rin."
Edited by Nkiruka, Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:57 am.
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Rin frowned slightly when Nkiruka told her that the title was too auspicious. "Are you sure? It has such a nice ring to it." She pulled the corners of her lips down in an exaggerated pout, all but ignoring the Sheikh's response to the inquiry. After all, the question had been directed at her friend; she could care less about how the man who had captured them felt about its significance. One of the guards clearly felt that she was being too rude, stepping up behind her and clouting the bruised half of her face. Blinding pain flashed through her skull, tinging her vision with red for a moment as her head cracked to one side. Rin recovered quickly, a grin still curling the corners of her mouth. She had been captured multiple times during her existence, and the Sheikh would have to really work to outdo the Grimoire's savage form of mental torture when she had turned her back on its cause.

She let Nkiruka and Nadav banter for a while, all but ignoring the tools of torture as he drew them out and prepared them. Letting her mouth run freely could potentially elicit another blow from the guards, and she needed a clear head in order to help them escape. The Sheikh clearly thought that his nullification field had completely incapacitated her. He was mistaken, but that didn't mean that it would be easy for her to tap into her reality-warping powers. A more preferable solution would be using her preternatural strength and speed to escape, but with her wrists manacled behind her back that would be difficult. She shifted slightly, getting a feel for the restraints while ignoring the twinge of pain that accompanied every movement of her charred shoulder.

The comment about 'purifying' them worried her, but Nkiruka shot a look at her that was clearly asking her to hold off. Rin nodded almost imperceptibly, making the movement look as natural as possible. Thankfully, Nadav was too busy appreciating his tools to notice her sign of assent. If the Istani officer could stay calm, so could she. Her blue eyes tracked the Sheikh as he talked about the weakness of the Chomai witch-warriors and how their traditions only made it easier to dispose of them. Rin didn't like the sound of that information, but she waited for a signal from Nkiruka, trusting her friend to know the proper time to reveal her retained competency.

The first syllable had barely left Nkiruka's lips before she sprang into action, pressing both feet firmly against the ground and launching herself into the air. Not shackling her ankles together had been a rookie mistake that suggested the guerillas weren't used to keeping prisoners; they probably killed most intruders instead of keeping them for questioning. She folded her knees to her torso and extended her arms as far back as possible, whipping them forward so that the chain between her manacles passed underneath her ribbon-wrapped feet. A captive with their hands behind them was effectively cripples; one with their hands in front of them had plenty of options.

She leaned forward, landing with both palms planted firmly on the ground in a handstand. Rin pushed back with all of her strength, propelling herself towards the two guards. The heels of her feet found both of their chins, cracking their heads back and slamming the back of their skull into the stone wall behind them. They crumpled to the ground without even a murmur of complaint as the construct twisted, glaring directly at the Sheikh. She gestured at him with both hands, her fingers curled like claws. The air around her rippled as she reached out across the fabric of existence, bypassing Nadak's nullification field and grasping the tool he held in one hand. She ripped it out of his grip with a grunt of effort, sweat forming on her brow almost immediately. She mentally whipped the small hammer through the air, lifting it above Nkiruka... and dropping it with blinding speed on her fetters. The instrument of torture was moving with enough force that it shattered, but not before sundering the chain that kept the officer's wrists shackled together.

"To answer your earlier question... your null field means nothing to me. I can arbitrate whatever I want." She grinned at the Skeikh, letting the hammer fall to the floor with a clatter.
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Nkiruka lifted her leg and delivered a straight kick so hard into the Sheikh's gut that he slammed into the opposite wall of the room. That gave Rin a great opportunity to seize the small hammer-like object and use it to break her out of her manacles. Nkiruka bent her head quickly to the side, anticipating a blow from one of the nearby guards. It hit her shoulder instead. She jumped to her feet, grabbing the back of her chair and hurling it over her head with all her strength. The legs came down hard on the Sheikh, smashing into his skull. She hit him twice more with the chair, each blow leaving his body more crushed and bloody. The furniture held out for three full-strength blows before shattering; Nkiruka twisted and flung the remainder at the guards behind her, a leg catching one of them in the skull and knocking him out cold. The movement gave her a view of something Nkiruka wasn't expecting. Rather than outright fighting, the guerrillas were running as fast as they could towards that case full of anti-magical torture tools.

The officer set her jaw. Rin might have broken one of them, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let these cultist-guerrillas get away with the rest. The Sheikh was definitely dead -- albeit unceremoniously -- so she bolted after the one that smacked the case closed and took it running. The exertion reopened all her wounds, but Nkiruka didn't have time to focus on any of that. Her tunnel vision set in. They turned through a convoluted path in the underground. Pupils dilated and she picked up even more speed, pumping her arms or slamming her hands into walls, skidding to make tight turns. Nothing else existed but that man with the case. She passed an entire camp of hidden bivouacks without noticing. A few minutes later, the guerrilla was virtually cornered. His only route was a straightaway, and he must have known that she would be upon him in that case. Still, he ran.

Nkiruka caught up quickly, her sprint taking her even a little faster than what was considered humanly possible. Then he suddenly fell to the ground, tucking into a combat roll. She couldn't stop in time; her only option was to leap over him, twisting in midair like a cat and falling into a low crouch, hands and feet skidding against the stone ground. By the time she was back running in the opposite direction, he already had a good lead on her. The anti-mage should have known that he was simply prolonging the inevitable. He was breathing hard, putting all his effort into getting away, and clearly terrified, but it still wasn't enough. Nkiruka leaped again and collided with him; they both rolled a short ways as the officer wrenched the case out of his hands and cleanly killed him. Fading out of her martial trance, the berserker got up to her feet, dusted herself off and looked around for Rin. They fulfilled their mission and got some extra evidence to analyze, so the last things they needed to do before getting out of here were grab her gear and raid the camp for some kind of map of the underground.
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