• Mature • On The Beaten Path

[Max]

4th of Vhalar 722
Early Morning



There was no light when Maxine first awoke. She never really slept to begin with, and rarely did she right before the sort of task she was undertaking. The end of her joint, burning bright orange in the dark when she sucked the Ambrosia into her lungs, was the only small brightness in her dark world. The nights had gotten colder now that the sun set in Idalos again. Despite the new shiver, she knew better than to build even a tiny fire. The Old Man resting nearby would've stomped it to its death if she tried anyways.

Maxine's body was warm from the hike down from their makeshift camp toward the road. The caravan they were hunting had turned off the main trek to make camp before the sun had set the trial prior, and still the guards had their horses hitched, fires lit, and tents pitched around the wagon carrying its trunk of true value.

Alice's information had been good. She counted about two dozen men, give or take. The men headed for their new assignments with the organization in Etzos had attached to the original travel party just as the slave woman had said, doubling the size of their guard and providing better assurance the coin would return to The Dorricks to even their coffers. They were down to their shirts and trousers as they slept but most had leathers and weapons to boast.

It's a good thing I've a volunteer to play distraction after all...

Kasoria had been right, as much as she loathed to admit it. Taking on two dozen men was a fool's errand. If he could at least split the odds, she'd take them. She wagered the coin in the trunk was stashed in the large wagon the men seemed to congregate around even as they slept. That would have to be her point of focus.

Maxine exhaled a plume of Ambrosia smoke thoughtfully, enjoying the necessary vice now that her morning scouting was finished. She felt the drug rushing in her brain, energizing her and unclouding her thoughts. More importantly, she could feel the possibilities open wide in her synapses. Her thoughts grew wheels and her body itched for action. For now she lounged, indulging her in addiction like it was a meditative session. Only when the joint was finished did she adjust her focus wholly to the task at hand. Her expression hardened to stone.

"Hey," the Rusalka gave Kasoria a tap with her foot from where she sat. "It's time."

She didn't wait for him. She knew he had his internal clock well versed for this. If nothing else he had surely been waiting on her, to feel the timing as he did and come to agreement. They'd reached that harmony and she set to rolling her neck and shrugging the cold from the muscles of her shoulders. For now her sword slumbered in its holster.

In a break or so the men in the caravan would've awoken themselves. They would've yawned, stretched, and sat about the fire a brief moment before fitting themselves and stomping out the flames. Men would've groaned as they pulled themselves up onto saddles and great wooden wheels would've squealed at the first slow turn. A few more trials and they'd reach Etzos. In a few breaks they anticipated passing another patrol of soldiers. What should be an easy, predictable trial would not be. The Rusalka would see to it.

As Maxine worked to erase proof of their resting place, she tried to avoid the eyes of the Old Man. She knew he must've scratched his head at her insistence that they attack when it was daylight, rather than the cover of darkness she loved so much more. Her business with Chrien, an agonizing experience she couldn't forget as much as she wished she could, had disrupted Famula's hold. These were the only breaks she didn't have to fear being commanded by a stranger against her will. They needed every advantage they could muster.

"I found a place I can sneak to," Max offered. "There's enough cover between embankments and brush that I can get pretty close and bed down until your signal. There's about two dozen. Most of them are still out cold. If we hit them now, they'll be slow to wits." She extended her arm for him to take it. "Once you do...whatever it is you do...don't stay an extra trill. Not for me."

The first rays of light just began to breathe over the horizon.

"This you give is already too much, and you have no debts to me."

[Kasoria]

The smell awoke him. Stinging in his nostrils but with the hint of past pleasures ad breaks spent in seedy bars, dirty Oh'Pee watering holes. Ambrosia. He was hardly a stranger to it, and his senses had not forgotten. The sweet aroma paired with burning plant matter invaded his dreams. Wherever he was in the Emea, that intervention was marked and noticed and slowly, inexorably, reality dragged him away.

Kasoria's eyes snapped open a moment before the the foot touched him. Smell was first. Hearing was second, and the ground was dry and rustled and crunched and cracked even under careful feet. One after another, his senses were coming back to him, snapping back into focus.

Now get your wits and be about it, old man. Long fucking trial ahead.

He rose and did as he was told without a word. Bones cracked and crunched as he twisted and stretched the sleep out of his body. Fates. Wasn't so long ago he could have leaped up, pissed out his post-sleep weariness, and been good to run or fuck or fight in a trill. Now he had to go through this whole... ritual.

The clothes helped. They were loose and filthy. The chill of the new cycle was a promise in the crisp air, but the suns would burn it off soon. The trial promised heat... yet it was darkness they work to. The last gasp of it before twilight. His mind still half-dreaming, half-remembering, Kasoria couldn't help but smile with a predator's eager, knowing edge.

Night. Darkness. Shadows. Always did our best work there...

They moved, hunched and furtive, to the spot Maxine had already picked out. It was the work of a trill to destroy traces of their night. Just three patches of trampled grass and weeds: one for each of them, another for their packs. No fire, no piss-pit, no animals. He doubted any investigators would get this far out, or that there'd even be any... but it never hurt to be cautious. For the first time in arcs, he had something to lose, if he was caught. Which explained the thing tucked into his pocket.

As they moved, he awoke his Sparks. They were alerted with far more alacrity than his mortal form. One growling, hissing, untrusting and insular. The other chattering, wandering, curious. The first, the oldest, concerned solely with protecting him... and it, he assumed. The younger, wanting to explore, to touch and manipulate and destroy and reform. Both would find work this morning... and both were eager for it.

I know, lads. It's been too long.

"Woulda' been better inna' fuckin' dark."

He knew what he sounded like: a grouchy old fart who was mopey his plan hadn't been listened to. But he didn't care, and Maxine had been insistent. For whatever reason, they wouldn't attack in the dark. It would be down to him to distract and occupy... which he was fine with, but who didn't like as many dark places to slip into if they needed it? He'd said as much but the girl's expression had been... implacable. It was impressive, really. He suspected it was something to do with the Morty cunt that had marked her, made her a slave arcs before. He was in no mood to question, but now, looking down...

The caravan was a sleeping serpent of carts and wagons, curled in on itself, hugging the fires and tens and gear piled within its coils. Horses snuffled in the pasture beyond, secured on a long line running between two trees. They were awake; most of the humans were not. Just a circling handful of guards, now without their torches as the sun was starting to dirty the pristine blackness with light. Kasoria ran his eyes over the spot, cool and practiced.

Not far off the road. Easier for a man to jump on a horse and bolt. Open ground cut and trampled around it. Easier to see danger coming. But the guards... they're not in sight of each other. Take out one or two, there'll be a gap. That means time she'll need. And you have to do the rest.

"Once you do...whatever it is you do...don't stay an extra trill. Not for me."

The old man grunted and reached into his pocket. Without taking his eyes off their target, he put on the rag he'd brought with him. The one that covered his face and he tied securely behind his head. Eyes carved into it for his eyes and mouth alone. He spoke as he finished tying the knot.

"Yeh know where yeh goin'? Good. Get down there, close as yeh can. I'll come in from the road. They won't miss me, an' I'll put in a show for 'em. All dat magic an' monstrosity the mummers speak of, eh? I'll count to a hundred, then yeh'll see me start. Once I do, youse go to it." His eyes flashed to her, seeming blacker and colder now that was all she could see of his face. "Keep the bodies to a minimum, but don't stop. Once you got what yeh need, bolt. On foot or hoof, dun' matter which. I'll make me own way home."

Light, faint but undeniable, bleached over the horizon. Now that formless ink had shapes, contours, distant trees and far mountains. The smudge of a town even further away. Westguard. The place he called home. The reason he wore the mask now, and these ratty clothes none had ever seen him wear. Cloak and pants and tunic that had been carefully disheveled and despoiled over the years, so the Raggedy Man could move better in the guise of a leprous worm. Kasoria had slid into them so easily, once he'd dug them up from under Victus' water trough.

He'd never thrown them away. He asked himself why. Now he knew.

You were never done with them.

"This you give is already too much, and you have no debts to me."

"Shaddup wi' that shite," he said, looking away, unwilling to take his mind off the job. They could wax poetical after. "Ain't the time, an' I've started counting."

[Max]

Once Kasoria had peeled his eyes open, unraveled his tight muscles and joints, and gathered his gear they moved like specters in the forest. Minimal leaves and twigs were crunched. Tracks were limited and swept. There would be little left behind to prove they'd been there at all. Cautiously, without the sloppy rush of amateur raiders, Maxine and Kasoria made their way to their final staging point before they were to part ways.

The Old Man did something she didn't recall him doing before. He took out his rag and covered his face, much like she had when she choked the man escorting Alice through Westguard from behind in broad daylight. Gone long behind him were the days Vorund's Hound thrived on the infamy each of his acts granted him. Rather than hide the portion of his life that held fatherhood and love for someone else, he had donned a disguise to protect Martyn from the dirty secret he promised was behind him. Maxine knew better. Just as she could not outrun the riots, Slags Deep, and Faldrass, Kasoria could not shed every bit of him that made up the Raggedy Man.

We are what we are.

She adjusted her cloak on her shoulders but made no move to follow his clever lead in hiding her face. She waited though as he secured the cloth to his face with a tight knot, listening to his part all the while. The Rusalka didn't find herself analyzing his every gesture and micro-expression as she did other partners. She knew Kasoria and well enough that she trusted him with just about every bit of her being. She never knew the man to possess so much as a drop of cowardice, and she did not fear betrayal from him even now that she expected it from virtually everyone. Maxine only nodded her agreement and understanding.

Get in my spot. Wait for the count. Use his show to my advantage. Get it done.

Kasoria knew the deal. Better still he seemed to know his path out once his portion of this task was over. It gave her some relief, and more still when she noted the light of the earliest breath of morning emerge. She made a note of the silhouette of Westguard over the trees and oriented herself to its direction. When this was over she expected the road to be a less than a viable escape option. The quicker this was done the better.

Maxine rolled her eyes when Kasoria scolded her and informed her he had already started counting. Her hard mask never slipped off her naked face, and though she always carried a steadfast, firm tone when he heard her talk about her intentions against the Dorricks, this was...different. She wasn't any less focused or determined. Her demeanor hadn't softened to the cause. She voiced no change in plan and was surprisingly not absolutely reeking with booze, Ambrosia, and whatever drug she could mix to indicate an alarming precursor. He might've just noted, in little subtle ways, that something had changed.

Three...Four...Five...

The Rusalka made her way carefully down into the ravine she'd scouted earlier. In her mind she was counting. She knew the Old Man's cadence from the exhausting breaks of training in his yard. She followed the concealment offered by the earth, the brush, and the trees along the road. Around the count of seventy, Maxine had settled behind a giant boulder across the road, hiding deep in the wood line. The nodding guards rightfully had their attention predominantly toward the road at this point, and none had positioned themselves in a way that made them savvy to the way Max had used the bend ahead to duck behind their camp.

By eighty, she had observed with confidence enough of the sleeping tents and guards that she maneuvered closer into the camp behind a stack of supplies. At ninety she had her eyes firmly on the wagon in the center of the camp. Inside would be her prize, the reason she had planned this so long ago, patiently waiting for the caravan to move and the information to reach her to make the opportunity present itself. Only the two of the five guards had their armor on and a weapon resting nearby. By the time the two insurgents made they way down from camp, the rest had meandered toward their fire to start a pot of coffee or change into new clothes at their tent in anticipation of the born trial. At the count of ninety, Maxine sunk her left hand deep into the mud at her boots, smearing it thickly over her features.

One Hundred.

The only thing off-script Kasoria might've noticed was the whinny of frightened horses, freed off lead and stamping deep into the pasture and the cover of the woods. Beyond that it appeared there was naught but obedient silence from the bedded down Maxine waiting his intervention.

"For fuck's sake!" One of the guards threw up his hands as he watched the horses run off from the camp well beyond reach. "Randall, you worthless bastard!" Another guard by the fire tending to the coffee cursed when the craning of his neck resulted in an accidental bump into the pot, spilling the hot water on his pants.
"Someone wake the idiot up!"
"Aye, make him sort the mistake! I ain't wettin' my feet this early for his fuck up!"

The gripes of the guards only started to elicit some groans and protests from the bunch still aiming to catch the last half break of sleep afforded to them. The Rusalka watched where a couple tents stirred and the new paths of the guards as they observed the morning tragedy upon them. Her eyes went back to the target wagon.

You're on, Old Man.

[Kasoria]

Nice touch.

Behind his mask, Kasoria half-smiled at the sound of horses, hooves, and shouting men. That line had been cut, he was sure of it. An extra dash of chaos into the mix, and more importantly, harder for the caravan to wrangle any mounts swiftly to go tracking them down with. Clearly the girl had learned to think ahead since last they'd met.

Think ahead. See the angles. Know your weaknesses. Never take shortcuts.

The list on how to remember was almost as long as the list itself. Kasoria knew that was what made a real asset in their world, and he'd told her as much. The ability not to just kill, or kill well, but bear in mind all the factors and facets around the act. To monitor a target, research them, sketch a plan, think it through, then execute it... with naught to show for it. Kasoria relished a fight, but there was some special, sinful thrill in knowing a boarded and barred building would wake up one morning... but one man would not. Because of him. And though no evidence would ever be produced nor witness found, that's what the world would know.

Only difference now is, you really do have to keep it quiet.

He had his weapons, but he didn't want to use them. Magic only, he hoped. He didn't want anyone seeing him fight and risk being recognized for it. He'd marked men before from a distance or while masked by how they moved, how they struck, what styles and preferences. He doubted anyone in the caravan that morn would be of that skill, but...

Exactly. Just like you told the girl.

He'd moved low, and slow, through the tallest grass. In the shadows of the trees and scrubs. Dirtying his feet and knees with muddy patches so the crispy crunch of dry ground wouldn't give him away. Counting all the while, and getting into position between the caravan and the road twenty numbers or so before he heard Maxine's little trick with the horses. That would put here... yes... opposite him, pretty much.

Perfect. They rush towards me, or flank me. She comes in from the back.

Kasoria breathed in deep, and awoke his Sparks again. He looked down at his palms, visible through his gloves. He didn't want to take them off and reveal the eyes on the back of his hands, but needed contact with whatever he was Transmuting... so he'd cut the palms out of them. Now his mutations were covered along with his face, but he could still work his magic.

Always angles. Always things you can forget.

Kasoria cleared his throat and pressed his hands to the ground. His Transmutation Spark eagerly plunged into the soil, telling him in a babbling blurb about grass, dirt, soil, wood, sticks, stones, rocks... and as he did so, he summoned his Abrogation. Older and closer to him, it was a touch easier to command. He cast a Mute upon himself, feeling the sizzle of ether messing and muddling the invisible "scent" of his magic. Now no-one would be able to discern him with Attunement or anything else. Once that was done and his Transmutation was still spreading, he closed his eyes and pulsed a thought-

"Replicate."

-layer after layer of Replicative ether was formed over him. Making his outline look queer and smudged, as if he were a painting splashed with water to the eyes of others. He could feel the Transmutation moving now. Spreading. Flowing out from him... under the ground... under the caravan.

Okay. Time to fucking embarrass yourself.

What came out of his mouth next, was not Common. Nor was it any other recognizable language of Idalos. It was a hellish, ugly, grinding, snarling sound, that children would assume daemons spoke. He rose as he spoke it, hood up, mask on, hands spread. He shouted the strange words, screamed them so loud all in the caravan would hear him. Raised his arms so they would see, so the handful of guards would all have their eyes on him when-

-he slammed his hands back down and-

GRRRRRUMMMMMM

The ground shook and his and dust flew up as two vast, grasping hands exploded out from the ground. Fair facsimiles of the real thing, only the were four-fingered and clawed... and each finger was the length of a man. They rose up ten feet into the air, as if reaching for the distant and fading stars, and as he kept screeching his gibberish, playing up his role of the Mad Mage or Spirit of the Wastelands for all it was worth he sent a new order through the ground-

-Pathway of Transmutation plowing through the ground and once it was under one of the carts he'd seen earlier and knew to be empty, loaded only with stores-

Up!

-a spike thick as a barrel ripped up and sent the cart spinning into the air. Tossed high as if kicked by a child, and a dozen chattering, terrified humans went scattering in all directions to escape when it-

CRASH

-smashed down on top of another, smaller wagon, crushing both of them under the weight. Now there was no going back. Kasoria rose again and walked between the two vast hands he'd created. Already men were jogging his way through the grass. Swords trembling in their hands but still willing to give it a go. His eyes snapped to them and he raised a hand high. Screaming out arcane words (well, for all they knew) before slamming it down onto the ground. Two of the guards closest to him came to a stumbling stop as they saw the flash and felt the ground rumble, but before they could move-

Now!

-a pair of pillars made of dirt and studded with stone erupted diagonally from the ground in front of them, and punted them back like they were kittens. They went flying back with thin, trailing screeches in their wake, and Kasoria grinned. Oh, how he had so much to try out. All of it useful, and effective... and flashy. All eyes were on him now, he was sure of it... yet he could feel the toll his Transmutation Spark was enduring. He straightened back up, removing his connection to the earth and giving it some respite. He looked out through the slight have of Replicative armor as more guards appeared, one of them leveling a crossbow and firing-

BANG

Kasoria grunted as the layer of ether exploded and vanished... but the arrow hadn't pierced it. And he had half a dozen more behind that, from head to toe. He let out a booming, ridiculous, theatrical laugh as the bowman gawped in shocked terror, along with his friends. Fear was dripping from them now, thick and pungent as piss and puke. Kasoria started walking again, summoning Brilliance into his hands so they looked aflame and roaring in his gibberish tongue.

Move it, girl, he thought, as the first pricking of a nosebleed alerted him to just where his boundaries were. Can't do this all morning...

[Max]

The sounds that came from the opposite side of the camp and just beyond it were that of a raving lunatic. Maxine blinked at the guttural roars, head rearing in a moment of surprise before she stifled a laugh. She wasn't sure what she was expecting the Old Man to do, but just the start of this performance caught her oddly off guard. The Guardians jogging after the horses stopped mid-run with wide, bewildered eyes. They froze in the pasture while the animals continued their flight with more haste. When they turned and ran back into the camp toward the disturbance, Maxine slowly edged out from her cover to observe the pandemonium for herself.

That's...

The Rusalka's brow rose at the giant hands, far taller than she, waggled toward the sky like Kasoria had summoned a forbidden god as his thrall from an earthen grave. The confusing, jarring chanting continued and men seemed torn between duty-bound honor and the raw instinct calling for self preservation. A few switched on, more experienced foot soldiers made quick for their armor and weapons to don against this uncertain manifestation.

Yeah...that'll do.

The business with the Cultists in Scalvoris hadn't made a Defiance mage any friend to Max. Attunement and Rupturing were more familiar, benign magics and her perception of them had softened due to proximity with a mage ally skilled in both. Confined to Level Seven of Slags Deep, a prison tier filled to the brim with blessed, cursed, and ether-poisoned criminals, Max had run into mages of a variety of disciplines. The unholy arcane that Kasoria unleashed was new to her. It felt grotesque and alien, more alien than any other unnatural ether trick thus far. She didn't understand it. Every piece of her recoiled at its presence.

Max shook her head and steadied back to her task. Her eyes scanned the camp, noting virtually all the sleeping bodies had spilled from tents, carts, and wagons to find the Old Man and his harassing antics. She slipped her knife from her waist and into her grip. Like a wraith she exited her hiding place in a low crouch and made toward her target. A guard, young and dumbfounded by a freeze stress response, didn't know she was there until she tugged him down from behind. The knife was in his windpipe before he ever had a chance to conceive of making a noise. There was so much commotion elsewhere, no one heard his stifled gagging on the grass where the Rusalka left him.

Remember why you're here.

Kasoria would understand that kill, she knew. He asked her to keep killing to a minimum, not to swear off it altogether. The guard was in her way and at some point she needed to carve her path of least resistance. She darted between tents and flinched when the airborne cart smashed another when it returned with gravity to the ground. A guard racing from behind a stack of supplies surprised her. He had one arm sliding his leather armor on when he bumped into her, sending them both spinning to the grass. Strong arm still battling the arm hole, she defeated his other arm and buried her knife in his eye. She freed her weapon from the corpse and moved with purpose.

Just get the coin. Just get the coin and we're done.

There was one Guardian clever enough to remember his purpose. Rather than rush the Mad Mage in a bunch like majority of his caravan, an older hire with a grey beard remained with the wagon. He held his longsword in front of him, tip against the grass and hands resting on the pommel. His lips were murmuring something. A prayer? A curse? Maxine didn't know. His attention was squarely on the obvious threat, waiting for the powerful mage to defeat his peers and engage him in a final stand to protect this cargo. He neither heard or anticipated the second smile awarded to him until Maxine's knife had already raced the length of his throat.

Three crucial obstacles were removed. For the most part, she'd done it and done it cleanly with relative silence. Ahead all she could see were the backs of frightened men inching with weapons bared toward the Old Man, hoping their bolts could penetrate a defense they likely didn't comprehend. She remained undetected even now as she reached the wagon with no more contest. Max hopped inside the wagon with ease, throwing the cover aside and finding the large trunk she expected sitting within.

Gotcha.

The Rusalka gave the cargo a firm kick. The sizeable amount of coins for fine gems and jewelry sold sung their muffled song within. The corners of her lips twitched with satisfaction. This loss would hurt The Dorricks. Badly. All had come to fruition. The unintentional lead Emily had given her in asking her to free her close friend, Alice, should she come across her made the unintended connection. A brush with Alice created an opportunity for Max to have a confederate within The Guardians to feed her valuable information, the price for the exchange merely being assistance in freeing Alice and the other girls in a strangely contracted captivity.

Illiterate and without the ability to get as close as she wanted to the inner workings of the Dorricks and The Guardians, Alice bridged the gap to give Max this chance to deliver this blow. The information the slave girl had delivered was accurate just as promised. This victory came only with her doing. Alice had kept her end of the bargain with fierce honor and courage. It was Maxine who had not, arriving later than promised when it came time to execute their liberation plan. Instead of being punctual, she went sniffing for drugs to stave off the feeling of doom associated with impending withdrawal symptoms. Now Alice was dead. She'd felt the life leave her when she showed up in time only to hold her as she passed. It was all Maxine's fault.

But it's also theirs...

The remaining men were building up the gumption and acceptance of their fates. They knew they had to face this mage who seemed to wish harm upon them. The first bolt that was fired did not find purchase, stunted by a magic that defeated their attempt on addressing him before he could do true harm. The failure did not deter them. Powerless mortals, their instincts howled that a reluctance to press the threat before them would sow their deaths. A leader emerged to snarl his encouragement and stir to bravery over the mad ravings of the mage.

Out of no where a great wind erupted upon the camp. Stakes loosened from the ground, tethers, whipped free, and entire tents blew loose to be lost to the violent air. Supplies screeched as crates tumbled off supply carts and tin cups of coffee spilled and scuttled along the ground. The wagon was rocked by the onslaught of sudden debris until its cover tattered and billowed. It was then that Maxine leaped down from the safety of the wagon. Her face was still covered in mud, a better distortion of her features than a rag to be stolen in the wind. Cloak left behind with the coin trunk, Maxine bore the sleek armor of her Chrien Blessed Catsuit. In her gloved hand she'd traded her knife for her gladius.

The man-sized twister continued its path of destruction on a violent tear, racing into the space between Kasoria and The Guardians to disrupt the brave charge the armed men had mustered. They cried out their surprised and stumbled back away from the mage, turning on their heels before the twister swallowed the slowest of them. The screaming pikeman spun about the winds before being unceremoniously hurled back toward the camp with a brutal thud to the ground.

In silence to perfectly contrast the loud display, Maxine started her deliberate pacing toward her enemy who only just realized something was deeply, deeply wrong now. Winds seemed to start collecting around the Rusalka, spinning and enveloping her with gathering speed. Rain miraculously began to dance with the unruly air. A couple guards turned and spied her aggressive posturing with thundering hearts. The pair with raised swords raced toward her with battle cries, their charge one of panic and fear-based belligerence. A third raised his crossbow toward her. The trigger launched a bolt straight for her chest. Lightning cracked within her Manifestation of Storm as the tip of the bolt reached the exoskeleton, finding no purchase before being tossed like a twig by the defensive winds surrounding Max.

The first swordsman swung with all his might. Maxine let it come, eyes emblazoned while he diminished the moment he felt the jarring rebound of his edge against her defenses. Her hand reached through the localized hurricane to catch him by the back of the neck. Max tugged him toward her and put her sword through his pelvic girdle, driving the edge upward into his abdomen behind his leather armor. His grip on his sword loosen as his peer followed up.

Max turned and shoved the man on the end of her sword into his compatriot, pushing both the new attacker back and freeing the body from her gladius. When the wounded man fell out of her way she quickly crossed the short space remaining between herself and the stumbling second attacker. After a parry of a desperate stab, his body fell to its knees. His head flopped unnaturally atop his corpse on the way to the ground, throat exposed and spinal column subtly visible in the wake of the nearly complete decapitation.

Expression dominated by a strange mix of passionate rage and inhuman apathy, the Old Man might've understood the change in the feel of her demeanor and focus now. Something had changed: her mind. Another man-made twister thundered across the ground to catch the crossbow wielder as he aimed his weapon toward her again. This one didn't throw the man wantonly like the first. It held him there instead, pinning him in place while he gasped against the whirling air. Maxine was fixated on him now even as the other guards worked to recompose themselves to decide how to act. Blood dripped from the end of her unkind gladius. Lightning cracked about her exoskeleton.

"For Alice..."

[Kasoria]

Contrary to what many believed, Kasoria was indeed fazed by many things. They just weren't the usual things people ran into. Death didn't even quicken his heart beat, regardless of the scale. He'd walked through literal charnel houses, some of which he'd created. But when he'd stared down a Leviathan on the Orm'del? When he'd marched into the Domain of Lissira and seen what he was sure was her end? Then he had paused. Then even his cynical mask had cracked and something like awe had shuddered through him.

"Fuckin' Fates, girl..."

He whispered the words and felt that again as Maxine let loose with the powers her patron had given her. Clearly not all of what the fucking Morties had done to her had been negative. She was a storm, a hurricane, a cyclone lashed to the ground and all its fury whipped out and around. Around her cloth and woolen garments now was some sort of armor, part skeleton and part metal and part... something else, deflecting blows, protecting her. The force she was throwing out was enough to make him squint against the wind, even from a hundred paces away. Tents went flying off like laundry picked up by a gale, wagons overturned, horses screamed and bolted as every natural sense they bore told them to flee. Kasoria's own Sparks seemed to quieten for a moment as they beheld as he did.

And then, after the flurry of steel and sprays of blood had fully broken the spell, Kasoria growled.

Oh, for fuck's sake-!

Whatever she'd found in that guarded wagon they'd both spied the previous night, she was no longer thinking about it. Nor on escape. She was striding through falling bodies and blades that had no hope of scratching her. Kasoria saw his own lessons in her movements, along with plenty more flourishes she'd since picked up. But that wasn't the point. This was not the job, and he didn't care how righteous or justified she felt in her bloodlust.

We all think we're right. Doesn't mean we piss away the job.

Just as Maxine spoke her words to the man lifted into the air, Kasoria slammed his hands down to the ground and swallowed a mouthful of blood. His Transmutation Spark was... not as voluble as it had been earlier. Now it was tired and spent and needed to rest. But overstepping or not, he still had work for it. Devoting half of his mind to keeping his Shields fed, he forced the rest into the ground, and just as Maxine's sword arm drew back-

-Kasoria roared and sent his command through the ground, earth heaving, shaking, quaking, splitting-

-as a ten foot wall of dirt rose in front of Maxine, cutting off her vision from the pinned, helpless guard. Nearly fifty feet long, the wall cut her off from half the caravan... and happily enough, most of the surviving guards. The ones who weren't scattering into the woods, anyway. Travelers, merchants, and a handful of limping, shouting, fleeing men in armor were scattering now. Against one mad bastard with magic, they had a hope, but two at once? One apparently marked by whatever twisted Morty controlled storms?! They weren't getting paid for that.

"OI?!"

It was the only word that sounded anything like Common he'd spoken so far. Kasoria didn't even know if it would reach her through that hurricane whipping around her. If it did, he would lock eyes with her... or as much he could, with that shite she was wearing now, and without any more ado hurl his arm towards the tree-line. Pointing. While cocking his head subtly to one side.

A fairly universal caricature for "Get your shit, get fucking gone, and stop wasting our time!"

Something sour and bitter and burning threatening to spill from his mouth. Kasoria choked it down and some more blood besides. The wall would hold for a break, like everything else he'd made so far, but like all Shapecrafted works, then it would crumble. But right now? He put his Transmutation to rest like one would a tired dog into a kennel. His Abrogation was still snarling and snapping, but even that was becoming... unfocused.

Can't push this forever. Unlike her apparently.

Fucking Fates. He'd never thought that even magic would be a factor in getting old.

He filled his lungs, lips flecked with blood, and bellowed a last string of gibberish arcana into the air. Throwing out his arms, he snapped Shackles around one man getting almost within charging range, holding him in the air but five feet away, lunging forwards-

-seeing he crossbow bolt on the ground, and flicking it up vertically with his toe-

-snatching it up-

-disengaging the Shackle just before slamming the point of the thing into the man's shoulder like a dagger, immediately yanking it back-

-doing the same to his forearm, sword dropping to the ground from a limb now afire and spewing blood-

-before dropping down to one knee, under the wild haymaker from the man's free arm-

-and impaling his foot to the ground.

The guard howled and Kasoria gave him a businesslike uppercut to the chin as he straightened back up. The howling stopped by the time the man hit the ground. As did consciousness. Content with his work, Kasoria looked to make sure Maxine was already running with her booty. Once she was, he would do the same, before the suns had finished rising properly and their escape routes were bathed in light and not to easily vanished into. If not, well...

You get help, and one warning. After that, every man for himself.

[Max]

The earth itself turned against her and the fire heightened in Maxine's eyes. Her swing paused before it came to deadly fruition, and her sights broke from the crossbow holder when the wall of dirt roared up between them. The Rusalka stepped a few paces backward with her lip curled. Earth Mask back in Scalvoris had used this sort of magic on her, and she loathed the feeling of juxtaposition with it coming now from Kasoria. Ten by fifty, he denied her of her quarry. She sucked her teeth and snapped her head to stare at him through narrowed eyes.

The wallop you would've given me had I the strength to do what you've done here arcs ago...

Even if she hadn't heard him, she could see the Old Man's lips moving in a holler of disagreement. She adjusted her jaw and glanced down the length of the dirt wall he'd erected. She did some mental math, sorting how long she thought it would take them to race its length into the safety of the trees to vanish. A growl rolled in her throat. While he was pointing, head cocked she did another complete flip.

Sword roughly sheathed and visage as stormy as the elements surrounding her, she turned toward the mage performer and quickened her pace. A guard too stupid to see the distraction bought for him raced at her from her flank. He had a dagger in his hand, his sword somewhere still tucked away sleeping wherever he'd laid.

He came down at her with an ice-pick grip, and Maxine caught him by the wrist. Her other hand moved to his face where acid spit into his eyes. She dragged him along for a couple paces, his free hand clawing at his burning skin, before she ended his screams with the dagger she pried from his hand. His body and discarded weapon laid behind her.

When she turned she found Kasoria taking care of a similar fool. She smashed the heel of her boot with all her weight behind it into his features, and then stepped over him. She kept her firm exterior through his ether props as she approached him.

"This was always the fucking job," Maxine implored, the hardness in her eyes softening for but a moment. "You're not him anymore, but I'm still her. Do you understand?" She nodded over her shoulder at the wagon. "The lock is brittle, and the coin sounds bagged. You know an honest use for it, something good for all this." She pulled up her sleeve, briefly flashing the track marks on her skin. "I can't hold something like this. I can't be trusted with it..." She shrugged, recovering quickly from the purposely exposed vulnerability. "Or leave it for the monsters. You can wash your hands of this either way you like."

Max unsheathed and gave her sword a little twirl. She turned away from him. Perhaps their roles had reversed now. Or perhaps not. In any case she had made up her mind. Someone had to answer for Alice's fate. The slain slave had made her promise not to take her ire out on the others like her, the ones who skewered and abandoned her to die when it came time to decide whether to break free. She would keep her promise. Most of these men were Guardians or associates, and that was close enough to the source for her. They would not receive Alice's mercy.

Two more guards nodded at themselves and rushed at Maxine in tandem, hoping their recklessness would give their brethren a chance. The trio of warring swords sang but it was a short verse. They fell, clutching themselves and sputtering blood in a manner that they knew they weren't long for this world. Maxine extended her hand and summoned another twister. This one raced along the tree line, corralling and funneling the fleeing men down into a ravine further from the road. She'd rather hunt the pack than singular runners.

Camp of the caravan empty save for debris and the wagon, Maxine abandoned their place of ambush. She broke into a light jog past the dirt wall to make a play for the tree line. The guards remaining had a good head start and she could feel the drain of repeated use of her twisters giving warning. Kasoria had played his part as he promised and remained steadfast in his desire to not wet his blade. The Rusalka was dismayed but she did not let the emotion fester. She was grateful for what he was willing to do to aid her.

This hunt that remained was her vendetta alone.

[Kasoria]

She couldn't see his face, but if she could, Maxine would likely not have said all she did. Once she was round halfway done, Kasoria's jaw clicked open again and it was not in awe, that time. Not in a good way. Something like dumbstruck surprised married to professional disgust congealed on his face and bled solely from his eyes, yet that alone was stark enough to be read by one caring to look.

But that was the problem. She wasn't looking, or listening, and didn't want to. No matter what excuses she gave him now, it was clear to him she never truly agreed to his plan. He was always the distraction, the second pair of hands, and this was always to be a massacre. Even with a chest of coins and jewels (behind a weak lock) literally feet away, a robbery to cripple her Dorrick enemies, still she focused on the blood. On revenge.

"Are youse fuckin' cracked, woman?!"

She didn't hear him, or simply ignored him if she did. Kasoria stared at her for a moment, anger rising to eclipse his confusion and another emotion he refused to recognize. She had her back to him again, summoning a fucking tornado before his eyes, corralling and herding the rest of the guards into a neat, orderly rout. Packed close, one direction, easy for her to tear into them from the back. Slashing and gutting and stabbing and impaling through spines and lungs and kidneys until they were gone.

It's what he would do, after all, and he'd trained her well.

Oh, fuck this-

"Enough!"

He threw out his hand and the air on front of Maxine pulsed and flashed into a Shield twice her height. He'd already seen her athleticism; he wasn't about to give her something easy to vault over. He threw out his other hands then whipped them apart, extending the Shield almost the length of the pasture. Everything beyond it went from brilliant in the morning light to hazy and muddled, like looking at the world through smoked glass. The effort of such distance made him cough again and he struggled not to take his mask off. Even as he felt blood dribbling into his mouth. The moment she turned around, likely furious at his interference, he would speak.

"Enough wiv' yer fuckin' vengeance, woman! Youse go on like this, yeh ain't an avenger, yeh ain't a hero, yer just another murderin' cunt murderin' a buncha' sellswords an' lackeys for some other pack a' murderin' cunts! We got 'em scattered an' runnin'! No-one to mark us fer the law, no names nor voices heard! We smash that lock an' take the coin an' between us, move fast an' bolt and you-"

Here he stopped, coughing, face shaking and racking. As she watched he lifted the bottom of his mask... and spat a mouthful of red onto the ground in front of her.

He was still casting. Still training his Spark. And she knew that as he did that, so it did for him. But still, he went on. For her sake. For what he had not done before.

"S... Stop, thinkin' wiv' just yer fuckin' sword!"

He plowed on, pausing but a moment as his vision swam. Around him the fury of her mark, her magic, her raw, howling grief whipped through his hair and tossed around what debris of the caravan was left.

"No-one knows better how... how fuckin' bad yer blood screams fer revenge! An' where did it get me?! No-one you know, unnderstans what it costs to live every trial, every arc, every moment by the fuckin' blade! An' what did it gain me?"

He took a step closer, eyes boring into hers. Lungs seizing up even as he spoke, beating down the snarling Abrogation Spark that warned him, pleaded with him to relent, to protect himself, and them. He snapped back at it and clenched his hands to fists, empowering the Barrier yet more. Refusing to let it fall until he had said his piece.

"What did I lose?! What did I lose cuz I was so busy tryin' t'get?! Everything!"

Silence. Short but deafening. The next sound was his knee crunching down onto once dry grass, now wet with mud and blood and shit. He wheezed, mask half off his face now. Blood on his chin visible to her. But he did not fall. For a moment, one small man in the tempest she had made was the Old Man she knew as a child. Even as she had outgrown and outstripped him in so many ways, he would not fall. Would not relent. Would rather die than fail her again.

"Ain't... ain't gonna let yeh do it..."

[Max]

Once again she was denied what should’ve been rightfully hers to pursue. One moment he was shouting at her back, asking a disparaging question that he should’ve been able to answer himself within the plethora of context clues available to him. In the next the air in front of her changed with used ether into some sort of massive shield. Again, Max stepped back from the magical barrier between her and her prey. Her knuckles were white with tension.

The barrier went from a nuisance to something like a village wall, cutting her advance off decisively and completely. Through the hazy, shimmering film of sturdy air she watched through narrowed eyes as the guards began to blend with the foliage. She heard the hacking and coughing behind her. Her back remained turned.

Eyes moved from the shield to the tree line where she could make the men out less and less. Her aversion to magic prevented her from testing its make-up with touch. If it was like a portal, she had some semblance of understanding of it: it had to be sustained. To conquer it, she needed him to yield to her will. Or be destroyed.

Maxine turned when he started directing his ire with more pointed words. Her immediate response was a mocking, scoffing laugh that lacked vitality. If Kasoria thought she saw herself as anything to even be mistaken as a hero, he hadn’t been paying much attention. She wasn’t that little girl incapable of bleeding another person anymore. It was time for the rose colored glasses of willful ignorance to come off.

There was nearly no point standing beside the shield anymore. The Rusalka approached him once more as he shook and coughed like he’d suddenly taken a great illness. Spittle mixed with blood globbed the ground where he spat it. She observed him with her lip curled, head tilted slightly; watched him with a critical gaze as he begged her to be a woman of a different sort of action.

This vengeance wasn’t just for Alice, who hadn’t deserved to die the way she had. This too was for her. If she hadn’t been so taken with withdrawal that she showed up at the agreed upon break, rather than spend an extra couple sniffing out a fix, her brief ally would still be alive…and free. This was also a correction of Maxine’s wrong. This was how she made it right.

Kasoria stepped forward while he continued his heartfelt, passionate reasoning with her. She gripped her sword tighter in response. It was painfully obvious that the Raggedy Man was not the character that followed her into the woods. This was the shell he left behind, the broken, aging man desperately trying to sweep up and stick the pieces of a life he damaged himself back together.

The Immortals had been right about her. Chrien saw straight through her skin into her marred, selfish core and witnessed a mirror. Audrae saw a similar darkness. Even Famula, as much as Max wanted to punish her, was probably onto something when she spoke on her name.

Faith, the Scalvoris Militant, that feckless guide on Faldrass, the general body of Scalvoris: the partial list of those with strong and likely accurate opinions on the Rusalka’s nature. Maxine had already decided to be everything everyone already thought she was. She had already lost everything. There was no reason to turn back now. She was Chrien’s Exalted Storm and little else now.

Maxine’s shadow fell over Kasoria where he dropped to a knee. To oppose her in all his insufferable defiance, he had withered himself before her very eyes. He wheezed like a man more than a decade beyond his age. Blood that filled his mouth spilled over his face, down his chin. The Rusalka knew what she was looking at.

In Rynmere, when she had stupidly agreed to go on a suicide mission to retrieve the Portal Stone for Scalvoris, she’d seen first hand the toll magic could take on a mage. Blackwood had fallen to a knee before her, just like this, gasping and blood pouring from her nose. She’s been destroying herself bit by bit to sustain the cast of ether; to do what she believed was right and save Rey’na, someone she cared greatly for. Kasoria was doing the same now.

You stupid old fuck.

Maxine’s expression twisted into a new ire that came with higher understanding. Her frame shook with energy, even as she had expended it to summon the elements to aid in her violence. She jammed her bloodied sword back into its prison with eyes alight. Her gloved hand active, her fist suddenly sought to smash her knuckles into his side.

With any luck, it landed and her Stun Glove disrupted his casting of ether, ending his magic and with it his suffering.

"You said it yourself!” The Rusalka shouted at him, finger pointed. "You are not my father. You have a son, and I am not your blood!”

She ran her hand down her face, pacing away a few steps before aggressively turning back around with more fire.

"You don’t get to do this! You don’t get to push me in this direction, to try to make me do things just like this that I never wanted to do, when I was just a fucking kid!” She fought the urge to strike him with different intention. "You don’t get to put me on the path to all of this, after all you were and all you taught me, and then point the finger at me as some murdering cunt! No. How dare you!”

Max shook her head. She knew in the back of her mind, the part still counting, that the guards had an ample head start into the woods now. Even if the barriers were down, the quick pursuit had passed her by. He’d made her chosen between him and her bloodlusting desires. Her blood boiled.

"I’m so fucking tired of fucking everyone manipulating me, for one reason or another, with my affections for people!”

[Kasoria]

He heard her words. He felt her anger. He couldn't fault her for any of it. His hypocrisy, his projection, his guilt and his stupid, dogged desire to protect her. A pathetic notion, considering when she'd needed it he'd been far away and now she certainly did not. He was barely conscious with his Sparks starting to eat him alive, and for all her efforts and tricks and manipulations of air and fire, she as still standing tall. He preferred not to dwell too much on why that was.

Yet despite that, Kasoria felt a gurgling, bubbling grunt of satisfaction cough its way from his throat.

She ranted. She snarled. She spat. She even hit him and bam, in that instant of pain, his Sparks went howling back... and there was silence again. An immediate, hollow emptiness. As if his Sparks had been by his side, his ether at his fingers, and now all of it had been punted to some distant corner of the map. He knew they were there, could call them back, but it was just... so far away.

Yet he welcomed the respite. The silence. The relief it brought to a body already racked with Overstepping. Now there was no ether casting fuddling his thoughts, Kasoria felt the sheer, stubborn, bloody-minded endurance he'd built up over decade reassert itself. He spat blood and hauled himself upright. Consigned that pointless pain to a distant corner of his mind and yanked back that immortal desire to just rest. For a moment or two. Just sleep.

Kasoria did not. He rose, and he stared her down as she made her final accusation.

"I... am the only one... who can tell yeh... what this path is. Cuz I put yeh on it. Cuz I set yer feet t'movin' an' never stayed fer the rest." His voice seemed stronger already, now there was no ether crawling over him, sucking at his very fires to sustain itself. His eyes flashed to those fingerless gloves and he made a mental note to be watchful of those next time. Quite a trick. "An' when did youse know me to give a cat's cunt about darin' fuckin' anythin'?"

They were alone. Even the animals had bolted. Crashes echoed around them from the woods, where cart horses and oxen had gone pelting away from the unnatural nightmare they'd been trapped in. The humans hadn't reacted much better, paying customers or hired thugs. They all assumed everyone else was dead, swallowed up by these two monsters who walked like mortal men, wielding the elements like weapons and controlling the very ground to assail them. Kasoria looked around at the wreckage they'd caused, and inclined his head a little.

"Then why'd yeh stay? Hmm? Why're yeh tellin' me all this, girl? Hmm?"

He swept closer to her in a single step, right before she started to answer. Black eyes like carved and polished obsidian boring into her. Fates, she'd done him a fucking favor, expelling his Sparks in that moment. Now he was... shite, more himself than he'd been before. No reliance on magic to help him, no Sparks whispering in his ears (well, no more than usual: his ether may have been gone, but his mutations weren't fucking off anytime soon).

He was the man she remembered. Just a man. Flesh and blood and steel and hate and savagery and so much roiling anger he hid behind his coldness.

"I ain't lookin' t'be redeemed, girl. I ain't fixin' to mend what was broken or whatever the fuck yeh think my game is. I'm an old bastard who's fucked up everythin' he ever tried an' let down everyone who ever cared fer him. Now I see one a' the last a those folk left alive, walkin' the path I walked, an' I know where it ends. Dun' matter what Morty cunt yeh got marked by, it ends the same way. Alone. Empty. Lookin' back at all the ashes."

He was close enough for her to smell the stink of those old clothes he'd never thrown away. The smells of Etzos in a bouquet she would know from him alone. Smoke and sewer water. Coal and gravel dust. Food stains and cat piss. All of it congealed into a beggar's robe that he'd cloaked himself in when he was on the job, and she'd been the poor wee girl leading the blind man along.

Kasoria half-smiled at the memory. The Fates were absolute cunts when it came to irony.

"Yeh stayed. Yeh listened. Yeh could a' fought an' bolted an' got yer pint a blood. But yeh didn't. Cuz some corner of yeh knows I'm right... an' knows it ain't all manipulatin'."

His hand flexed, and almost raised. Then he saw her face and thought better of it. Instead he just sighed, took another swift look around them, and took his mask off.

"I don't give a shite if yeh hate me, girl. Like I dun' care me son does. I care, an' like it or not, I fuckin' know better. So what I can do t'keep yeh from fuckin' up like I did, I'm gonna do. An'-"

She could see the change come over him in an instant. Less than the time it took to blink. Something moved behind her and caught his eyes. The sound of something... metal sliding on wood... debris shifting. Before she could even turn Kasoria was moving, left arm flung out and jerking her out the way-

-right arm snapping under his left armpit-

-and by the time he'd knocked her to the side it had exploded back outwards, throwing knife flung from his outstretched fingers-

SHUNK

-crashing into the throat of the man who'd come stumbling up and out from under an upturned wagon. He'd locked eyes with Kasoria long enough to commit his face to memory, the strange sight of man and woman arguing amidst utter carnage, and as he opened his mouth to shout or curse or beg through a face bloody and battered, well...

"Shite," Kasoria muttered, "Kid saw me face."

Ruined my fucking moment, too.

"Chest. Lock. Loot. Run. Shall we?"