[Uthaldria] Unholy War VI: But I Can't Walk Away

[Faith Augustin]

10th Ymiden, 719

Unholy War
From the start of life
To my dying day
In the dark of night
And the burning light of day
It's a Bloody Fight
But I can't walk away

They'd followed the intelligence they'd been given and gotten here. This was, apparently, an abandoned base of the Coven's here in Uthaldria. Faith was with Alissa, her bodyguard and friend and the two of them were making their way to where they'd been informed this base was. Faith was quiet, as was her tendency these trials, and she focused on getting where they were going, nothing more. Alissa glanced over at Faith more than once and then spoke, quietly. "I'm worried about you," she said. Faith didn't answer for a moment, just kept walking, and then she breathed in and let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry," it was her instinct to apologise first, Faith knew that. "I don't mean to make you worry." Alissa shook her head, her eyes swirling colours. "That's not the problem, Faith. I'm worried about you because this is too much." Faith shook her head stubbornly. "You said that about the Docks, too. And the abolition of slavery on Scalvoris." Alissa couldn't argue with that, in fairness, she had said that about those things. "Just because you did it, doesn't mean that it wasn't too much. Like this is, and this is much bigger than those things."

"What do you want me to say, Alissa?" Faith snapped. Immediately, she closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. "I'm sorry, but people keep telling me that I should be doing this, that it's too much, that I can't, and I shouldn't, and it makes no difference to the fact that I am doing it, other than to make me doubt myself even more." Alissa sighed slightly and she looked at Faith with more concern, not less. "I don't think I've ever heard you so stressed, Faith. I know why, I do. But this is..." Alissa waved her hand and then, Faith spoke.

"I am stressed. Of course I am. But I need to focus, and do." Alissa frowned slightly as Faith spoke and that frown deepened as Faith continued. "If I'm going to do this right, then I need to stop leading with my heart. I need to focus on logic, and tactics, and all sorts of things which are not my usual focus. That's just what I've got to do." Alissa shook her head. "No, Faith," she said, "that's not right. Famula recruited you for you. Not to be someone else." Faith glanced at Alissa and let that thought permeate awhile. But then, there was the door in front of them, hidden in the place that the intelligence had said and she sighed. "Alright, so we need to...just keep constantly vigilant, alright? Because I'm sure that they left behind traps." Alissa nodded and the pair of them checked the door thoroughly.

When they were both confident that there had been no tampering or traps laid, Faith walked in first. As she did, she felt a cold trickle down her back and she realised that she was shivering. That was impossible, of course, as she didn't feel the cold - but cold was exactly what she was. Turning back to look at Alissa, Faith knew before she spoke that something was wrong. "Why are you still out there?" Alissa looked at her and there was confusion, and frustration in the biqaj's eyes. "I can't step through," Alissa said and Faith's eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry, it's just.. it's like there's a wall or.. something."

Faith sighed. Well, at least things were behaving normally. Alissa looked at her. "We need to get you out of there, Faith. You look dreadful, are you alright?" Faith shook her head, stubbornly. "We're here. I'm going to explore," Alissa looked ready to argue and then Faith spoke the stark and rather terrifying truth which she had realised as they conversed, and in response to Alissa's question.

"I can't walk away from here," she said, softly. "My heart isn't beating any more."

[Faith Augustin]

Alissa did not do panic, as a rule, but when Faith said that, the colour drained from the biqaj woman's face. "WHAT?" Faith looked at her and raised a hand which was, in fairness, trembling. "It's alright. There must have been a trap of some kind, I'm going to solve it." Alissa breathed carefully, forcing herself to calm down. "What are you going to do, Faith?"

"Well," Faith said with a slight smile. "I'm going to find out what's going on here, find out what I can from the place. There must be something to be done," Faith deliberately sounded as chipper as she could. Alissa looked worried and, frankly, Faith felt it. There was no doubt that whatever was happening to her was an immediate thing, but equally, she had a feeling of... draining energy, and that wasn't something that Faith was going to share. So, she looked at Alissa and smiled, shouldering her Domain Bag. "I'll be back. Stay there, don't panic. Alright? I'll be back. We can echo scroll communicate, it's fine. It's fine." The biqaj nodded and Faith knew that she didn't believe her.

Which was alright, for a moment, Faith wasn't entirely sure she believed herself.

Still, she made her way down the corridor, her hand on her sword hilt. It was cold, and getting colder. There was a distinct feeling of pins and needles in her fingers and she knew that this wasn't right - not at all. So, she got on. Faith hurried on, making sure that she quickly moved down the corridor and turned the corner, ensuring that she was out of Alissa's sight. As she did, as she turned the corner, Faith was hit with a barrage. There were hundreds, thousands of them. Ghosts, screaming and swirling around her - it was unlike anything Faith had ever experienced, there were just so many of them, so many and they were all so loud, so angry. They swirled around and in front of her and she felt them, their cold touch very apparent to the Zuuda; Faith's shivering intensified as she felt them swarming all over her, and she had a moment of stark terror as she felt one literally oozing into her eyes, flowing and cold.

No.. "No!" Faith spoke what she was thinking, and she frowned deeply. As a Bellinos, she was also uncomfortable to ghosts but they didn't seem to notice, or care. Faith forced herself by sheer rugged determination to continue walking forward, praying that the discomfort would kick in. It was like wading through treacle as she felt them pulling on her, continuing to swarm around, and around her.

It was like she was drowning.

She clenched her teeth together, determined not to make another sound, slowly lifting one foot up and then moving her leg, fighting for each muscle to do what she needed it to do. But there were more and more of them by the trill and they were surrounding her, enveloping her.... wrapping her in her death shroud, Faith thought. A whimpering sound escaped her as she realised that she could no longer move and, as she opened her mouth and screamed, she felt them rushing into her.

[Faith Augustin]

She didn't know how long it was that she'd been unconscious ~ was that what she was, Faith wondered, could a dead person be unconscious? Was she now conscious? .... oh, Faith, stop it she thought. But as she lifted her hand to her head, she saw that it was starting the process. Her skin was cold, much colder than it ever was. Of course it was, though, because she was dead. Faith knew it. She could not hear the beating of her heart, nor could she feel the blood in her veins. Usually, she could do both of those things. Yet now, it was silent. The ghosts were gone, Faith frowned as she realised and she sighed. Why wasn't she a ghost? Where were the twins? Maybe she'd annoyed them so much in her last meeting with them, they'd decided that she wasn't worth judging again. Faith sighed again and realised that the sound was a strange one. But not an unknown sound to her. "Great. I'm doing the death rattle. Gosh." It was not even her voice, she realised. But then, Faith knew death and knew what her body was experiencing. "I have to hurry," she grumbled and tried to stand.

It was difficult, what with being dead and all, but Faith managed to pull herself to a standing position. She was swaying somewhat on her legs, but that was because her joints were seizing. Rigour mortis appeared to be setting in and that, Faith knew, meant that she'd been out cold a while. Stiff movements, then, were her norm as she began to shuffle forward. There was a door at the end of this corridor, a large wooden one and, now that she was dead, the ghosts had lost interest in her. It was strange, eerie really, how she knew that. But she did know it. They couldn't feed on her any more, they had sucked everything out of her.

Maybe this was how Rey'na felt. Probably was. How odd.

She could hear that one foot was dragging more than the other and she looked down. It didn't look any different, but Faith knew that something was injured. Of course, that was one of the perks of being dead, she though, there was no pain. So, she just kept moving forward. Soon, she got to the door. This was a strange base, she thought, it was lit, yet it was underground. She hadn't paid attention to that before, because she was able to see in the dark, but surely her Immortal blessings didn't work now she was dead? Faith would have assumed not, but there it was. She could see, there was no light and so, it must still be working. Briefly, she considered trying to resurrect herself, but she didn't really think there was a point. This main corridor was the way in, it seemed and through that door, there would be the answers.

Although, she was having trouble remembering the question.

One cold hand reached out and, carefully, Faith opened the door. There was a laboratory through there and she slowly shambled in to the room. Her eyes were blurry but there, on the autopsy table, was Padraig. That wasn't right, surely? Maybe death made you hallucinate, she thought. But there he was, and she wondered why she didn't feel anything - she was sure that she would have. Damien Noch and Alistair Venora were cutting him.

"You shouldn't do that," Faith said, her voice gravelly as one of her teeth literally fell out of her mouth. "Stop it."

"But Ellasin wants it. She's ordered it. You have to weigh his organs." Alistair Venora spoke and Faith slowly, carefully, shook her head.

"I don't want to," she whispered, but then she realised that she was moving forward and holding out her hands. "What's happening?"

"You're undead, Faith. I had thought you were more clever than that, surely you worked that out?" Alistair sounded disappointed in her.

"But.. I don't want to," she said as she picked up the weighing scales and put them in front of her. "I don't want to be here, but .." she held out her hands and took the still-beating heart of her husband. "but I can't walk away."

Alistair Venora smiled, and Faith's body obeyed.

Then, she felt it all go dark once again and this time, she found it almost welcome.

[Nursia]

The insight on Faith's psyche at the beginning is very much welcome. It helps set the stage, making this something that stands on its own, which is rather impressive. The imagery of Faith quite literally falling apart and actively dying was quite well written as well. I'm very impressed at your talent at writing dark subject matter without getting too gratuitous.

This vision makes me want to set aside some time to reach the whole set that this thread belongs to! Might just get to that after my set of reviews.

Faith

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Player #2

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