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Adoramus [FIN]; [P] Hakon
Topic Started: Thu Mar 7, 2013 10:07 pm (1,109 Views)
Hakon
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Hakon knelt and pulled his pitiful table knife from Jeb’s skull, bracing his boot against the man’s slack face to gain some leverage. The blade came free and the northman wiped a bit of obstinate slime and gore on the innkeeper’s tunic. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a slow breath.

Blood for face, sweat for tears...

“Where are our weapons?!” he screamed at the gathered townspeople as he stood. Behind him, Hakon noted Keelin was piling overturned furniture in front of the door. Probably hoping to contain whatever voice threatened them from outside. The northman stalked toward a sandy-haired villager, a boy barely old enough to work the fields let alone hold a blade, and seized him by the collar. He gestured at the short knife in his hand and howled at the gathered crowd. “Fetch us our weapons now!” he roared, “or little Tommy-boy here will be shy one head!”

Tactless, to be sure, but Keelin’s panic was infecting him and he would no doubt share her fate if things went ugly.

Guilt, by association and by deed...

A rail-thin farmer with matching sandy-brown hair stepped forward, brandishing a thick wooden cudgel. “Now... now you see here, you northern savage! You let my boy go!”

A chorus of ‘yays’ accompanied the man’s idle threat and Hakon couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Listen, peasant, you’ve seen my blade work on ol’ Jeb there. I don’t want to carve your son up, I just want my sword. Give it to me!”

A short, broad women with copper braids began to snivel and weep, the hatchet in her hand forgotten.

“I know the weapons are in this building, fetch them!” the northman ordered. He was losing patience, fingers itching to act. Hakon could feel sweat slickening the grip on the cutlery in his fist as the villagers stared back at him with wide eyes. The boy in his other hand stood motionless, too scared even to try to squirm away.

What the hell is wrong with these peasants? It’s like they can’t retrieve my blade and the girl’s weapons... what is going on in this village?

With a snarl of disgust, Hakon tossed the child away and pushed through the frozen cluster of farmers. The inn was small, only two stories with but a handful of side rooms on the main level. He noticed a heavy door in the back, probably leading down to storage areas underground. Might as well start there. In a few short footsteps, Hakon was at the door with a hand on the knob. It was locked.

“Don’t go down there... please!” pleaded one of the nameless cowards behind him.

Hakon turned back to them, lip curled in distaste. Then he aimed a few stout kicks and the splintered wood fell away from the frame. A rickety set of stairs angled sharply downwards as a draft of musty, cool air sped upwards. Seemed as good of place as any, and so without further preamble the northman sauntered down into the inn’s cellar.
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Keelin
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Keelin turned on a heel, longcoat giving a weak flourish behind her. The cellar door slammed closed and her feet stayed a step behind Hakon's. She didn't say anything, but her presence alone got across a lot of what she was thinking and feeling. They hit the floor fast. When squinting in the darkness wasn't going to cut it, Keelin opened her palm and spoke a soft word in an ancient language. A mote of burning light blossomed to life, spiraling into a full-fledged sphere within a second or two. It revealed nothing of immediate interest. "But I feel something..." It was just a little tug right at the edge of her consciousness. A feeling of wholeness hiding from her. Tracking her weapons felt more like following a desire than any kind of reasoning or deduction.

Instead of poking around the small cellar, Keelin made a beeline for a stack of crates near the back and dismissed her lighting. The moment she threw aside the mostly empty crates, a huge feeling of triumph flooded her instincts. Her searching turned more fervent. She even kicked an old shelving unit out of the way to get at the wall behind that mess. And there it was: an alcove in the stone that was hastily boarded over. Without even thinking, Keelin punched straight through the wood. Her fingers wrapped around an object inside. Something changed about the way she carried herself. Breaking into a grin, Keelin ripped her paired hook-swords out of their hiding place with a single violent motion, shredding her hand on the wood splinters around the rim. The elf took a half-step backward to give herself some room; her hooks were bound together flatwise by a thick ribbon-like covering. As soon as she pulled their handles away from one another, the covering slackened and unfurled. The steel beneath the covering had an arcane, pale sheen to it.

Before letting Hakon at the alcove, Keelin did him a favor by using one of her hooks to wrench the hole wider. The ground trembled above them. She spoke rapidly, urgently as she stood guard near the bottom of the staircase. Her back was pressed to the wall just around the corner of it. "What you need to know is that Kaphovah has a voice that is... it convinces people too well. I noticed it immediately, but I don't think the townspeople or the angel herself know it. Resist her orders."

What's taking her so long? Keelin thought, daring to peek around the corner at the cellar door. At least she had her hooks now. She was whole again. Everything was perfect now, as long as they could avoid dying via scary angel vengeance. "Oh, and don't be surprised if the building is no longer up there."

No time to explain that little tidbit as the cellar door flung open and a huge gout of holy flame engulfed the staircase and several feet beyond it. Keelin instinctively twisted so her back was facing the fire, which didn't even leave a scratch on her longcoat despite its proximity.

Rhaich rhaich rhaich rhaich

This was a pretty terrible place to be cornered, she realized.
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Hakon
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Hakon ducked as a tongue of flame belched into the cellar from above. He hastily pulled his blade and shield from the jumble of broken boards while muttering a string of choice words to the Dead God.

No time for armor now...

From the inferno upstairs, a lone figure descended wreathed in a smokeless, glowing pyre. Her eyes were like lightning, countenance bathed in writhing, iridescent fire. Hakon took an involuntary step backwards. Heat radiated off the burning form in buffeting waves. Its anger was terrible to behold and when it spoke, peels of thunder echoed through the northman’s ears, threatening to rend him asunder.

Uncouth deceivers!” it screamed, resonating voice echoing heavily in the enclosed basement. “No longer will you lead my flock astray!

A snakelike stole of electric white twittered about in the flames, somehow unsinged despite its submersion in the vitriolic furnace. A tiny thought niggled at Hakon’s mind, that this being of fire and rage was not, could not, be the priest from the chapel above. But the evidence was irrefutable. He tried to formulate a plan, roared at himself to simply raise Durenthal or Augan or even take a step, but her voice kept him rooted to the spot. The priest’s displeasure was a palpable, suffocating weight atop his shoulders. The northman felt the holy blade in his fist grow heavy, so heavy, and slowly its tip sank to the floor. Ever so slowly his shield dropped to his side. And then even his mind betrayed him, screaming at him to kneel! It took his entire effort to suppress the almost overwhelming urge to meekly accept his fate. If he was to die, it would be upon his feet.

A resounding crack made him start, somehow broke whatever hold the priest had on him. He snatched a glance upward as the timbers of the floor above began to stretch and twist in the heat. Another disgruntled groan and a split shot across the boards like a broken jolt of lightning. It splintered off into a thousand smaller twigs, grasping about the whole of the ceiling, reaching and groping and rumbling obstinately.

No longer will your impiety be tolerated!

A streak of white-hot fire lanced through the air beside Hakon’s head and slammed into a jumbled heap of crates. They exploded in a shower of slivers and twisted metal, sent out a shockwave that blew the northman to his knees. He drew to his feet as the angelic being descended the final stair. It was only a half dozen paces away and radiated bright as the noontime sun. Brighter.

I am your judge!” it screamed, one burning fist raised high in the air, the shimmering outline of a scepter in hand.

Hakon squeezed his fingers around Durenthal’s hilt. A steady stream of sweat drenched his face in wet, his back, his chest. Might’ve been from the heat. Or that terrible clenching feeling in his bowels, wheedling and needling and threatening to evacuate of their own stubborn will.

I am your jury!”

The flames cloaking it billowed outward, singing Hakon’s beard and eyebrows and face. He felt his skin prickling, crackling, roasting under the heat.

And now I am your EXECUTIONER!!

Tongues of fire spit forth as if to accentuate the angel’s terrible sentence. They flickered upward like two great wings, roaring like a starving firestorm. Hakon’s mouth was dry, throat raw from the heat, sweat evaporated and leaving a rime of salt upon his hardened brow. He pulled Augan in front of his face, tried to block the waves of heat pummeling his body but they arched and twisted and pulled at him, relentless. The priest raised her scepter high into the shimmering air.

To hell with this!

Hakon crouched behind his grandfather’s shield and surged forward toward the angel, holy steel raised in protest, a silent battle cry issuing from his numb lips. One step, the heat ripping at him, threatening to devour him. The next, he was charging into the waiting maw of a volcano. A third, and he swung Durenthal in a short arc, snake-fast. Too close to miss. Too close to parry.
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Keelin
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An angel presenting itself as friendly and down-to-earth was always deceiving. Keelin appreciated the reveal of the truth, but cursed its inconvenient circumstances. The monster of smokeless golden flame marched down the cellar steps and wouldn't shut up. She was so focused on her unfortunate enemy before her that she walked entirely past the angel hunter. Back to the heat, she hurriedly rushed through the motions and wheezed verses of a spell. Keelin concentrated past the noise and burning heat. Dark blue threads on her orarion, which she pinned with her arm to keep from billowing too much, glowed dimly.

In the excitement of the moment, she guessed she had enough time and breath to cast a single spell. She had to make it count.

Barking the last word at the top of her available lungs, Keelin whipped her hook-sword to point at Kaphovah. Celestial penitence sigils seared through the carpet of flames as Hakon took his second brave, reckless step forward. The angel stopped her diatribe in its tracks as both attacks converged. The spell had caused no pain, but the outcome of Keelin's plan made itself obvious a split-second after. Kaphovah's silence broke again, but not to throw boasts and insults. It was a pained scream so blood-curdling and laden with magic that Keelin had to pause her approach. She took a moment to force back her body's protests, the weakness in her knees that made her want to just give up and fall to a kneel.

If she had cast the spell in time, the damage of Hakon's single attack would have magnified. Holy silver blood dripped out of the wound in her chest. Keelin tensed. She took the last stretch between them at a run. Her face, her hands, and any other exposed skin went angry red, started to blister. It didn't matter to her. This was the only way to kill the angel in these confines. She pounced, burying one hook into the flesh somewhere deep beneath the flames of Kaphovah's shoulder. Wrenching the weapon back with all her might, she used the sole of her boot to kick the back of her leg forward.

Powerful, but not a fighter, Keelin thought as the monster's hit the ground back-first. Squinting through her burns, the angel hunter proceeded to ravage her face and neck. Kaphovah screamed, holding up her scepter to try to knock the weapons away, a sea of fire licking across the floor and creating billowing thermals so powerful they blew the ends of Keelin's coat and orarion upward. Each cut inflicted by the elf's hook-swords left agonizing open gashes that were magnified even more by the penitence sigils she'd crafted earlier. The steel of the weapons were forged with an undying hatred for Celestia, and it showed in the cuts they made.

As Kaphovah died, her flames retreated toward herself. Keelin's chest rose and fell quickly despite the pain of taking in breaths. The gruesome sight had Kaphovah lying limp on the floor, her throat ripped out, neck almost severed from the head, face ruined, chest open, not dead yet. The angel hunter's attacks slowed down. Every movement looked laborious. Patches of her skin were outright gone at this point, lines of char covering her face, hands and legs. Holes had opened up in her longcoat, too. Even swallowing her nonexistent saliva was painful. No matter how bad she felt, there was no way she was in more pain than the pitiful creature she was hacking at. It helped that her worst wounds didn't even hurt.

There were no witty one-liners exchanged -- Keelin couldn't even come up with one. Kaphovah simply stared at the ceiling, jaw slack, breathing shallow and slow until it simply stopped. Keelin dropped her hook-swords and slumped. All her strength went to staying standing. Nevertheless, her legs crumpled from underneath her and she collapsed onto her side.

I'm going to die, aren't I.

She didn't want to, but it felt like such an inevitability at this point that Keelin didn't bother to be emotional about it. The angel hunter lay there for a time, considering her options. She was prone in the middle of hostile territory, bearing severe burns. If only she could speak, then she'd be able to heal herself just enough to get out of town. Maybe heal Hakon, too. Keelin swallowed deliberately and, failing that, worked her mouth. No sound came out. What if the villagers came downstairs to finish them off? She struggled faster, hoping her worry would propel a miracle.

"Come forth, my shadow," she whispered, "erase the impurity. Repair the damage of living." Just the tiny spell she managed to get going off that verse was like a cool drink of water. The film of slowly repairing flesh felt so good on her third-degree burns that Keelin could have cried with relief. She slid her arm across the floor to point at Hakon, who likely wasn't doing very well either. "I have survived these trials. Emerging into the light is my duty and my right." That casting was directed at him, hopefully letting him recover some of his worst injuries. Keelin whispered another verse to herself, and another. She could hear the floorboards above them creaking with steps. More and more feet joined the group up above. The angel hunter turned her worst burns into ugly blistery things that were going to scar like no other.

After succeeding in clambering to her feet, she picked up her hook-swords that rested near the smoldering corpse of Kaphovah. Her eye fell on the cellar stairway.

Nowhere to go but up.
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