[Memory] Carry On or Carrion pt III

[Thomas]

Thomas did not quite pick comprehend was Velx was saying, at least at first. As a Griscian, even one who had left home quite some time ago, magic just did not come to mind as quickly as it normally would. As she disrobed, he wondered if she were mentally competent. If wasn't until she spoke that Thomas realized that she was alluding to some kind of magic. Maybe the one that atomized the body and then, if all went well, reconstructed the bodies in their respective forms. Hopefully, with no atoms switched about -- he wanted to keep his body parts where they were, thank you. As it stood, though, it sounded like Velx was fairly certain she could create an advantage for the two of them, and if it would lessen the risk of injury, Thomas was willing to take a chance on potentially ending up with an extra finger.

"I'm not sure how this works, but if your intent is to transport me with you, I am willing to come along for the ride. How does it work? Do I have to disrobe, as you did?"

He wasn't entirely sure what the rules were. He looked down at his clothes: worn leather boots, loose fitting linen trousers over fitted linen small clothes, a linen shift and a wool sweater, then his coat. He didn't have armor to wear, but with the covered torch in one hand, the bottles of perfume in a small bag, his gun in its holster, and some spare ammunition in his coat pocket, he was ready as he was going to be. If anything needed to be modified, he'd comply as he was able. He had no intention of having Velx accidentally explode him, or put his left foot on his right hand, or whatever else her magic was capable of.

[Velx]

The lack of understanding Isidro seemed to radiate confirmed her suspicion that he was at the very least unitiated when it came to resonance. She had seen an uncle perform a joint blink decades past, but it seemed like a bad idea with the lack of understanding she still held for his frequency. No. It would be burst or nothing at all. The question remained whether she could keep a firm hold on him lest he skid across the ground at terrible speed. She had only used it on herself offensively once and it was a really bad way to go.

How quickly they went from hiding and pondering running to ready for murder. Were there any truly good people left in the world? She knew the answer today, but hoped it would change in the coming cycles.

“It isn’t about disrobing, it’s about removing imbalances” she pondered how to word it, adding “Everything must be anchored somewhere or held dearly, lest the turbulence break or lose it” she wasn’t about to lecture him on the details of it. She saw the wave of the loose coat, and the fragility of the perfumes. She turned her back to him, making sure Horse was fastened tightly. It didn’t enjoy the initial disturbance of burst.

“Put some cloth between the perfumes, the jolt will break them” she still squeezed out, worried she sounded like her mother.

“We will move swiftly, both starting and stopping abruptly” she weighed her answers, unsure how much to share. “This will not exactly be quiet, but we should be among them in less than seven ticks of a fine watch” it was enough.

“You will need to lose or fasten the lantern, you’ll need both your hands to hold on lest the turbulence lose you too” she hugged herself, palms tapping around her shoulders. “Your legs would best be wrapped around my waist and away from the knees” she knew it wouldn’t be a magnificent sight, but it would’ve been a really quick one. He was about her size, and she wasn’t about to die attempting to carry him and skidding into a hard stop.

She was tempted to echo out a melody again in hopes of seeing which of their number were attentive, but decided to be frugal instead.

Perhaps she should have taken up guns like her companion, then she wouldn’t have to worry about expenditure too much. They would need to kill these people, as hurt simply wasn’t enough. Hurt remembered you, and hurt could track you still. Hurt enough to not be a bother was as good as dead anyway.


“Ready” she said it half a question and half her own affirmation.

[Thomas]

Thomas listened carefully to the cartographer's instructions. It sounded like packing things for shipping, so he caught on decently quick. He snuffed out the torch and made a firelighter instead so he could relight it quickly when the time came. Then he wrapped the torch and the perfume each in scraps of cloth. His first impulse was to put them back in their partitioned wooden box. The boxes were expensive, but they made transporting glass bottles convenient, and considering he was doing that more or less constantly, they were worth the expense. Plus, they made decent makeshift stools in the wagon when the bed was put away. But he needed his hands free, Velx had said. So instead, he retrieved two of the bottles and put one in each coat pocket, then cinched his coat tight to his body so it would swoop about and maybe break his delicate cargo. He swapped out the dark lantern for two firelighters and his flint. He was decent at catching them on the first or second try, and enemies being covered in burning oil made for enough of a distraction that it was worth all this preparation. Or so he hoped.

It did mean he had to leave behind the rest of his supply in the wagon, but they were trading this out for a positional advantage. Hopefully, it would be worth it.

If Thomas were more at ease with dangerous situations, he would have bantered a bit at the command that he wrap his legs around her. Buy a guy dinner first, har har, etc. He was too terrified to make that joke, though. They were about to maybe die, and his verbal skills were no help here. Instead he just followed her instructions regarding his wardrobe. When he was ready, he wrapped his legs around hers as indicated.

"Your pardon, Doña," he said. He wasn't embarrassed by the position, exactly -- they were both just trying to survive out here -- but it was far more intimate than he'd normally get with a stranger like Velx. Normally, if he were this close to someone, he was trying to scam them out of something, he'd been paid to do it, or he loved them. In this case, it was just mutual self-interest. There were worse reasons, he mused, to entwine one's legs with a stranger's.

"So -- how does it work? Should I close my eyes?"

[Velx]

She found some comfort in Isidro’s resignation and obedience. It was almost expected to have him panic on her at any of the suggestions. She got calm preparation instead. Summoning of any kind was still best kept under wraps, as it was far easier to accept speed and sound than an alien overlord commanding nightmare material. Velx would refrain as best she could, but in the end, she knew that it was her life and not fear that took priority.
It had been some time since she’d killed anyone, defending herself or otherwise. It echoed in her mind as a twisted melody, out of tune and erratic.
He got into position and she realized he might be lighter than she was. Surprising. It was difficult to judge these parameters appropriately at a glance. Perhaps she should use echo to better understand his own form as well. “You will need your eyes to be fast enough” she wondered if the oscillation in the waves would bother him differently. “Smirking might help them from tearing up at the pushback” she let the familiar feel wash over her as she imbued her own flesh with the kinetics of the air. Tapping her nails against each other, she used the byproduct sound as a focal point of her power. The resonance took upon her skin, as it rippled with the testing of the waves. Synchronicity grew as they dug deeper. Speed of skin became speed of muscle became speed of bone, all failing just short of the speed of sound. With so much resonance within her form, even her voice was distorted “Don’t bite your tongue” she chose to forgo any intonation expenditure, words hollow and echoing, almost breaking over each other to stay in the same melody.

As she pushed off, nails were no longer needed to conduct force. The movement itself produced a crack in the air, the displacement sounding like thunder’s younger sibling. Tick. Her own eyes teared up. Tick. Every hair stood up. Tick. Surroundings became difficult to observe, peripheral vision becoming an afterthought. Tick. The bend came up a tick earlier than intended. Tick. She focused on slowing herself down, burden on her back making it a balancing action. Tick. Her own feet going from a gallop to a trot, she used their rhythm to help push herself back into the pace of the world. Before the final tick could be felt, they were already in sight.

Edging just around the bend, she would see them and finally ascribe details to their shapes. What were once silhouettes had become true people. Two of them meddling with the wheeled apparatus Isidro tried explaining to her, another three huddled over their things and the final two keeping watch. Luckier of the watchers was on the far side from them, but his colleague was almost crashed into by the duo. Focusing on the arrows in her hand, she tried to expel the force of her feet into the cracking of the knees, transferring further into a twisting of the hips and shaking of the ribs, all forced to condense down her arm, and into her hand. What was supposed to be a single arrow leaving her hand reflected in triplicate. The butts sticking out of the man’s chest, shoulder and face – missing at this distance wasn’t a possibility.

Was she losing control?

Momentum spent, her feeling catching up with the world she tried to outrun, a slow pain climbed up her left leg. The pulsation in her left ankle was a tune of its own.

All Bel was about to break loose.

[Thomas]

Thomas wasn't sure what to expect. he closed his eyes and touched his tongue to the bottom of his mouth, keeping his teeth together but not clenched. He tried to do something similar with every muscle: keeping it locked but not rigid, ready to receive some kind of kinetic jolt. As the tapping started, then quickly intensified, he felt it in his skin, muscles, and then bones, each one buzzing and thrumming inside of him in a way that he'd only ever felt around some factory machinery back in Grisic once or twice. Sometimes, the sounds they produced while machining were felt in the body in this way. It was not pleasant, far from it, but this was more intense, and everywhere at once, and worse.

Then, it was over, and they were somewhere else.

It was dark, but he could see his wagon in the distance, and see that Velx had been correct: this was meant to be an ambush, only now they had an opportunity to ambush their ambushers. The positional advantage wouldn't last long, though. He disentangled himself from Velx, took a deep breath and made sure all his limbs were still in the rigth place, and got to work doing what he did best: causing a flashy distraction.

He struck his flint to the fire lighter, lit his makeshift scrap of cloth sealed in the perfume bottle as a fuse, and then flung it at the trio squatting by all of their worldly possessions. Some of those would be flammable, and they might waste time trying to put the fire out. With any luck, the fire might make a few of them panic, and they'd be more likely to make errors in combat because of it.

The downside with makeshift bombs, though, was that they were not subtle, and anyone with a pair of eyes could follow the arc of a thrown object back to their approximate source, so as soon as he threw the bomb, he was already dashing off in the opposite direction. The visibility wasn't the best, but he'd spied a darker shadow that he thought to be a boulder but turned out to be a squat, thorny plant instead. Still, some cover was better than no cover. He squatted behind it, aiming his gun at one of their attackers, and lining up a shot before discharging his weapon with a loud crack. From the cry of pain, it had definitely hit the man, but between the poor visibility and his cover behind the cactus, he couldn't quite say where.

Still, though, this was going better than it would have if they'd waited for their pursuers in the wagon. Maybe they'd survive this one.

[Velx]

As the man before her expired, it felt almost as an underwater apparition due to how much slower it occurred than her own actions a moment prior. All things considered Isidro had taken this very well. Understanding finally what the perfumes were for, she saw him flinging the combustible mix towards the hunched three. She heard a gunshot from somewhere behind her, and when her leg was the only timpani of pain that followed, Velx knew it was Isidro who fired. It was impossible to miss at this distance. With this thought at the forefront, she would grab the waisted gun the dead man never had a chance to pull. Seeing how the hunched ones were focused on the would-be grenade, she lifted the foreign weapon and pressed onto the trigger awkwardly. While it felt like a finished action, it took her an additional click before the thing actually fired. Aiming for the man which was reaching for Isidro’s toy, she realized her own fallacy.

Instead of the intended target, she hit the man next to him, missing by a full foot at not even ten times the distance. Before she could be shocked by missing the unmissable, she could feel the recoil of the weapon. The force pushing the still smoking metal deeper into her hand and then her wrist. The burning sensation causing her to drop both the used gun and the rest of her arrows. Her position not being one of envy, she did find a silver lining. Between the throbbing of her ankle and the burning of her flesh, her distractions distracted each other.

The shock of the initial injuries was washing away and while her perception was far from perfect, she did see that the one she had mistakenly shot had fallen backwards. The figure was still moving, but it was hard to judge whether it was purposeful. Whoever Isidro shot; it didn’t seem to be the man aiming to grab his grenade.

As he recovered from the fear of the shot that missed him, he reached back for the grenade as she tried to dive for the arrows she dropped. The person on the far side was no longer in her vision, but she could notice the two which tinkered standing up and turning their way. The third hunched man turned out to be a woman and was most definitely turned their way and standing up.

[Thomas]

There was something simple about gunslinging that Thomas rather appreciated. Enemies presented themselves, you found them down the barrel through the sight, you shot. He'd never been great with close range weapons -- he'd bottled people a time or two, and used a shiv to escape a particularly nasty client who tried to shortchange him and then started to strangle him when he'd protested, but he'd never liked close range. At close range, the simple truth that many people were bigger, stronger, and more skilled at hurting others started to loom large. At range, though, they were no different than the bottles Ned had patiently taught him to aim at, his strong arms keeping Thomas from feeling the recoil too keenly.

He felt the recoil now, but he was older and stronger, and Ned was dead.

He hated using his gun, but at least he was no slouch at it. The faraway target of the woman trying to put out the fire would normally be a bit challenging for him, but she was illuminated quite clearly by the fire, and her movements, erratic though they were, were on the same plane as his. He couldn't guarantee that he'd get a killshot, but injuring her would give them one more problem to handle, and hopefully distract the rest of their assailtants a bit as he changed his position and moved in closer.

So he fired, and just as the last shot had been a bit unlucky, this was a bit lucky: he hit her right above the collar bone. He knew, because he saw a burst of blood and heard a bloodcurdling screech of pain. He wished he could credit his aim, but he wasn't that good.

As soon as his good fortune arrived, it departed. The nearest attacker had triangulated his position from his latest shot, and was advancing on him, sword in hand.

"Doña!" He cried out, not at all too proud to beg for assistance, "some help, please!"

[Velx]

Unsure whether her perception was warped with power or the consumption of it, she was able to lunge for her things without interruption. The closest obstacle was shot to the middle and leaned into the fire. The smell sweet with roast and hideous with hair, she was making noise, but it was more gurgling than vocals. It appeared Isidro had done some damage to the lungs as well. It was safe to say that she too was out for the count. It was late for the fire to be turned away from the pyre which was forming, and so the hunched man lost interest as well. He used his time to les than gently kick the woman out of the flames, no time for decorum.

Her eyes firmly on the man in front of her, her ears were distracted by Isidro’s cries for help – likely the watchman no longer on the far end. Splitting the leftover arrows between her hands, she wasn’t risking anything in attempts to be accurate. Hands full with her ammo and the accompanying dirt she never bothered sifting away, she flung them towards the man who had given up on the firefighting. Shafts knocked into each other and were disturbed with the dirt between them. As the ether infused between them, the rattling of the objects expedited into projected force. Even though she threw at least three sharp objects at the man, the strike made a mostly blunt noise as it squared onto his chest and pushed him back to sitting. It was hard to tell how much damage translated from it. Not wasting time, she’d use her loosened hand to push herself in Isidro’s direction and fanned out the arrows of the other hand. Breathing doing its best to match the pressure in her ears, they double drummed as the projectiles panned out. She realized she was pushing four of them, spreading in a diagonal crescent shape – up and right. One of them dug its head into the ankle, biting the flesh properly. The middles of the crescent both missed. The final arrow flew straight through the man’s hair, his stature dropping slightly from the ankle wound.

Her attention a tunnel, she was not ready when a hard force connected with the side of her body. Producing a crunch normally reserved for sweets and potatoes, her ribs were far from grateful. As she more flew than rolled away, she thought her glances caught one of the last two who were yet to engage. She should’ve waited until her companion slept. She should’ve sat atop the bend and poured forth a horde of monstrosities upon them. There were many things she could’ve done better, but her cruelty still lacked logic, even after these many years. She was certain Valanox would’ve killed them all faster and with less of a cost. Any further thought was lost as her body made full contact with the packed ground. The thud knocked the air out of her lungs. Prone and with footpads in her sight approaching, it wasn’t the best of positions.

Hopefully Isidro would make an advantage of the opening she provided.

It felt like she preserved some morality in not slaughtering them with eldritch horrors, but at that moment it was the mortality she worried after. If they pushed her any further, she would have no choice. Intercising the Sixth was the last of resorts, but at this distance not even their innards would survive the force of impact. Distance being both a blessing and a boon, she wondered if she even could orchestrate the force away from her companion.

[Thomas]

Thomas called for help far before he actually needed it, but he was not a brave man and was in fact something of a coward. Brave men died when they were barely more than boys in his experience. Good men, too. He had no intention of dying. The moral conditions necessary to keep living were less relevant than surviving this encounter, this day, this trip, this year. He also asked for far more than he needed.

He'd hoped Velx would come over and level the guy closing in on his position, but she didn't. She did enough, though, to distract him and slow him down. Make him worried that if he spent all of his attention on rushing Thomas he may end up with an arrow in his back for his trouble. Which gave Thomas enough time to reload his gun and then aim a shot at the man's head. At this distance, even an amateur wouldn't miss, and Thomas was no amateur. He didn't use his weapon often, but he'd been trained well.

The man went down, sword clattering over the rocks and sand as he gasped for breath in the mess of where his throat had been.

That bit of nasty business handled, he made his way to Velx's position, readying the second bottle of perfume as he did so. When he got to her position, he offered it to her.

"You're great with those arrows, Doña. Why not try something with a bit more oomph?" He stretches out his hand to her, perfume bottle and fire lighter offered. If she wants to hurl it at their remaining enemies with high velocity, it's hers for the taking. If she has something else in mind, though, he's find to preserve his supply and sell it as a simple bottle of perfume in Lorien after the conclusion of this trip. Its future owner need not know about its alternate life as an improvised incendiary device.

[Velx]

A shot. Shuffled footsteps. Her eyes still teary from the thud, she heard little besides the ringing in her ears – unsure whether it was the hit or the expenditure which was affecting her. Another of the men scraping at what was left of his life on the ground, and Isidro beside her still rising form. She found her scratched hands and aching ankle to be poor supports, maintaining a shaky crouch with uneven weight distribution. He was pushing one of the perfumes in her face. It wasn’t clear where the man that struck her went.

Arrows? He was saying something about arrows. She was out.

Finally, being able to perceive the scene around her, she’d notice the remaining two men going for their two-wheeled mounts. Fear was a logical response. They had seen five of their number fall down dying or incapacitated within moments. A kinder person would’ve let them get away, proving their point. She was not one of those people.

Grabbing the perfume from Isidro, she’d lean into him for support, still untrusting that her legs could carry the brunt of the weight. Once the spark was lit and her focus crystalized, she wouldn’t miss. This wasn’t the cockiness of guns she didn’t know about. It was a clear understanding of the limits of her ability. She would need rest and help following this ordeal, but for the moment she only needed them to burn.

Her grip rattled as the investiture readied for a burst of speed. She felt the singing of her flesh as she held the bomb through the rattles. Once enough force had been generated, she flicked her finger onto the surface of the explosive, the silent feedback used as a guiding note. After this, it was as simple as extending her arm in what was barely a nudge.

The projectile flew even faster than she thought it would, speed poorly tempered by her current state. It struck one of them in the back, contents spilling across him, both of the machines, as well as the hand of the other man.

“No escape” unsure whether she was telling that to herself or Isidro.