Fire Emblem on the Forums: Sea of Crossroads [IC]

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

"Belros!" Emilee notices the thief awake, in the cell next to hers. "Belros are you awake? Did they heal your wounds? Are you okay, you took a really hard beating. Goddess, I don't have my staff right now..." She breathed in and out and brought her hands close to her chest. She whispered a few prayers and concentrated making a faint orange light shine on her hands. "Here, hold my hands" She reached out through the bars as far as she could trying to touch Belros. "It can't heal, but this prayer should help comfort you. Come on reach out as well!"

[Aurorix]

Belros glaces up at the faintly glowing hand. He couldn't understand why the priest was helping him. If anything she should be yelling at him, or at least a little bit wary. What has he done for the group so far? Sure he's killed a few pirates and bandits but compared to dragging them in his mess it's nothing. If he wasn't here, they probably wouldn't be in this cell. They wouldn't have gotten ambushed in the manor nor attacked at the docks of that town. Yet the first thing she does when he awakes is offer him aid, even after all of that. 

 

"A prayer, huh." He chuckled wryly.  "What's the point? We're all trapped down here, caged like animals for the slaughter. I'm sorry, but I don't think praying is worth the time or effort. If all the words problems could be solved like that, maybe. But as that Selia lady said before, it's better if we just give up and accept our fate."

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

"Then why haven't they killed us yet?" Emilee puffed out her cheeks, not wanting to get mad. This wasn't the time to fight. "We can still live, we can still escape. The Goddess still has plans for us I know it. So just hold on to my hands, I want you to be in fighting shape!" Her hands shook for a moment, but she re-affirmed her resolve. She had to be strong, "Believe in me Belros, we'll get out of this alive."

[Aurorix]

Belros stayed silent for a moment. It seems Emilee is very adamant about doing this. He let out a sigh before slowly making his way over to the bars. I guess it wouldn't kill him to humor her a bit, and if it does he'll be dead soon anyways. Once at the bars he reached his hand out and grabbed Emilee's.

 

"Alright, so I'm holding your hand through cell doors." He spoke begrudgingly,  "Now what?"

[Bfroger6]

"...ghhhhhhhh..."

A low humming grunt sounded from one of the cells. Cross legged within it, what little rays of light there were painted a silhuette of the group's bard stripped of all his bardhood. Arms intertwined together, gripping each other so tightly nails were already piercing the man's skin. Head down and looking at his feet, he only grumbled. One could assume the source of it being the annoyance of them getting caught, and they wouldn't be wrong, yet there was more. Sure, a vein had popped up on his forehead and his face was as red as his hair, but there was deffinitely not only frustration in the subtle voicing. It was also the reason he wasn't up there with Myrdwyn yelling his lungs off and bashing his forehead against the cell.

 

On top of all that, the aforedmentioned wyverns rider has been making one hella noice which really wasn't helping him concentrate.

What was Cass trying to concentrate on, you might wonder?

Well...it was quite simple...yet also not really...

"Try bashing with your head, Myrd. Maybe the cell'll break down that way if yer pumpkin's hard enough." A sentence broke the grumbling as he sighed and looked up. Belros and Emilee seemed to be doing whatever, so he glanced at whoever it was who was imprisoned there with them. "And ye're here for what, eh? False fortunes? Angered the higher ups?" He asked the woman as his stomach churned uncomfortably and he winced to place his hand and push it as hard as he could. "Urk...can't I at least go take a dump somewhere......"

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Emilee focused all of her energy into her hands, trying to pass on any traces of magic she had. If any of her staff usage stayed with her, if any of her healing was actually her own power and not just sheer luck or the Goddess' help, she wanted to pass it on and heal Belros. Her hands became warm and she held his hands tight. "We're going to make it out of this. And when we do, you owe me a strawberry cupcake."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"l... don't know. l don't really know what's happening. l was just helping my friends. We ended up in a trap... thought we'd be..." she didn't finish the thought. She'd rather not think about the alternative right now. She stumbled for the words but she was having trouble finding them.

"But... l've got someone out there relying on me. They are all alone right now. l told them they never would be again. l can't be stuck here. l'm not allowed to be." Rayne stopped for a moment and thought to herself. "You know for a fortune teller... you're rather grim. That how you got here?"

[Swordstar]

 

"Mmm... I suppose I am a tad grim. Mostly because I'm not trying to tell your fortunes and because unlike you all, I do know what's waiting for me after all of this. Hopefully you'll be able to return to your friend and things will be ok. For me though... Well to answer your bathroom seeking friend over there, who by the way should notice that there's a pot in his cell for that sort of thing, I'm in here because I told the truth. Unlike many of the fortune tellers you run into, I see the truth. And strangely, often those who want to know their fortune are not actually looking for the truth. I told our host the truth. A truth he had no interesting in hearing. And so I wait here for my execution, not eventual freedom."

The woman was very matter a fact about her impending death, simply continuing to shuffle the cards in her hands with seemingly no care, her true emotions betrayed only by the shaking hands performing the motions.

[Zetaark]

With the recent commotion and chatter, Madante and Helena both regained consciousness, and took a brief look around.

 

"Ughh...I feel terrible. What happened?"

 

"Well, seems that we're not dead...I think," Helena responds, looking around as if she were trying to find someone.

[Aurorix]

"A strawberry cupcake huh?" He chuckled  "Should you really be thinking about sweets at a time like this?" He could feel some sort of warmth emanating from Emilee's hand. He felt tingles near his hand and up his arm but he had no idea if anything else was happening.  "But fine, if you want that cupcake that badly, if we get out of here I'll get you one."

[Bfroger6]

"Shut up!" Cass shrugged the fortune teller's words with immediate fervor. 

 

"I ain't an idiot, I know we have that 'ere. Not the first time in this kinda situation, but usually *urp* it was with people I couldna give less of a crap-" He cringed. "-about. There's folks 'ere I'd rather not subject to any more...pleasant odours. This dump already smells bad as is." And yet again.

 

Regardless, she was here to wait for death, eh? Better than not knowing what was going to become of them, in any case. The bard grinned slightly, shining his teeth in the dark. "Heh, I actually quite like that, ya know? People always wanna hear the sweet talk, never the real deal. Gotta be hard having an actual gift in yer kinda profession, I'd s'ppose."

[rokubiraijuu]

After a while, the confusion from the troubadour's spell had worn off. But his own uneasiness hadn't. It had been hard to tell where one had begun and the other ended. Did one's emotional state influence magic like that, make it worse? What does he know.

 

He has nothing to do with his hands — no arrows to fletch or even twirl between his fingers. No bow to polish or restring. His hands itch for something to do, and so he's been sitting near the back of his own cell, breathing through his mouth and picking absentmindedly at a callous on his knuckle. The space is only just big enough for him to take a few steps and turn around in, enclosed by dank stone and cold iron. It feels like it's been a lifetime since he's seen the open sky, felt a breeze on his face or the ground give under his footsteps.

 

When the soldiers had confiscated his weapons, they'd taken Kite with them, too. No small feat, that, with such a testy stallion, but whatever pride he could have felt in the hope that Kite would bite or kick a few of them on the way out is dampened by the fear that they'll choose to kill him rather than deal with the trouble. 

 

As others begin to awaken and talk amongst themselves, Idei remains still, a half-shadowed figure sitting cross-legged and staring at the silhouettes of bars. Myrdwyn's screaming and clanging, Emilee's earnest voice, Cass' rumbling complaints — it all comes together into a backdrop of white noise that fills the hollow of his skull.

[Sutoratosu]

Cadence awoke to the chatter of the others beyond the bars, eyes being met with nothing but the dim, damp ceiling just a few feet above her. The palpable rage from earlier was gone, replaced by nothing but the chilling tranquility before a storm coiled in her gut like a serpent ready to strike, running through her very veins at the mere thought of the fucks who had disregarded, mocked, and overwhelmed her through sheer virtue of their numbers.

Quote

"I have to say, you made a pretty big showing earlier, and while you may have the strength to back it up, sometimes things don't work out for you"

There was no fire, no brimstone, no boiling of the blood. She was naught but ice, solid and pure. 

 

She pushed herself up off the grimy floor, her hand still trembling and useless but the rest of her mostly fine. Even before she heard the chatter of the spirits, she knew it was their handiwork, as it always had been. She didn't have to check herself to know from the difference in weight, that her arms had been confiscated.

 

But it did not matter to her, so much as the ones had taken them. Her bare hands and the spirits constantly chattering in the background of her mind would suffice, should they need to. Not even the reminder of her useless her left hand had become was enough to shake her thoughts...

 

There would be retribution for this, all of this, of that much was absolute. 

Spoiler

 

"Quite the fate you've met with. Though not as terrible as what it could've been...its disappointing nevertheless." Cadence did not so much as utter a word in response. A sidelong glance at where the apparition stood behind her, then her attention was right back on the lame hand "The problem is deeper than flesh and bone, my dear."

"Come again?"

"The hand. You're staring at the bloody thing as if you're about to tear it off and beat one of the guards to death with if they ever come down here. The problem is deeper than you might think though- do you realize how much raw animus was coursing through you when that bolt hit? Surely, such a powerful blow had to circulated a massive amount of arcane force, and well, you of all people should already know how.... troublesome Anima can be. The flesh itself may heal yes, but the connections of the soul to that new flesh? At least, that was always my theory, back in the day, and it wasn't particularly restricted to anima-induced injuries. Twas always quite the rare thing though, never saw more than a few instances over many years, but... well as we both know, Fate is not you're friend my dear."

"So you're really going to sit there and tell me some Thunder Mage hit me hard enough that it actually wrecked not just my body, but part of my soul too, and that's whats causing this mess with my hand?"

"Do you have any better explanation for why that hand still doesn't function properly, even after the worst of your wounds were tended to by a trained staff wielder, and the rest of them by the very spirits themselves?"

"N-no, but... gah, fine, whatever, maybe you're right."

"How do you propose I fix this then, if gnawing it off and using it as a club is off the table? At least that way, it would've still been useful for something"

"In all honesty? I've no clue. But if the flesh can heal, perhaps the spirit can as well. Give it time maybe? or perhaps consult with the little jesters who are constantly by your side- after all, it is their kind who made up the forces which inflicted the damage to begin with. Hmph, you know its almost adorable, they always do their best to make themselves scarce when we talk, yet I can sense them peaking out like children behind a curtain. They know more than they ever tell you..."

 

And with that bit of not-so-helpful discussion, she was gone.

Cadence returned her ears to the conversations from down the way. She couldn't see any of them in her immediate vision but from the sounds of it, the rest of them couldn't have been but a few cells down, at the very most. It seemed from the banter going on that no one was dead at least. So that was... good she guessed. 

 

For now, she set her back against the wall, continuing to listen to them to them chat as she gazed on the lame hand. Until something about the voices down the hall bothered her... and once more, she felt herself become pure ice as the the thought of their captors crossed her mind, focus honing in like a razor's edge. Her voice was taciturn as she called out, clearly hiding something just beyond the glacial abyss...

 

"I haven't heard Karik's voice with you guys this entire time. Where is he?"

[Chevaleresse]

Myrdwyn didn't seem to appreciate the advice given to her by the others in the dungeon.

"So you want me to quiet down, huh!? Just lay down and mope? Well Eirlys didn't raise no gods-damned quitter, and I'm not gonna stop making a racket until I get out of here or they take my head off!" As if to punctuate this, she drove her shoulder into the door once again. "You hear that, you bastards!? I won't quit! Come and let me out of this damned box and I'll tell you what I think of it!" She charged the door again. "If I've gotta be the guts for the whole team, I'll do it, just quit your damn whining at me for it!"

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"No one should face such a thing because of the truth. lt's not right." However in such a common platitude, Rayne noticed something. As airheaded as she was... that didn't mean she wasn't observant. She could see her hands shaking. Her emotions about as well hidden as Rayne's own. But, Rayne wasn't really attempting to hide her emotion at all. 

 

Spoiler

 

"However if the truth is your domain... why don't you tell me how you really feel? Why put up this facade? No one wants to die. lt further this is no just sentence. l will not see you lose your life cause of some madman who take offense to something he refuses to accept. You should not have to pay for that. l'm getting you out of here. For this isn't justice, it's a sick twisted visage of it. Petty revenge... from a tiny man. l am a hero of justice, l will not stand for such blasphemy. l'd not be a Marigold otherwise. We may be but simple tailors! BUT DOESN'T MEAN WE DON'T UNDERSTAND HONOR! On name of the Marigolds, l swear. l must be bright as the sunflower, and not let shadow corrupt. lt is my duty to eradicate such blemishes from the world. "


"So, Ms. Fortuneteller, you're coming with me and my friends." 
 

[Zetaark]

Hearing Cadence's comment, Madante responds to her.

"Karik is still around, though he's being a bit quiet. Probably thinking about things if I had to guess."

[Bfroger6]

"Friggen' purple haired chump-!" Something in Cass just snapped when Myrdwyn just kept at it and he got up to his feet in order to smash his chest straight into the metal bars of the cell and start wildly kicking and slamming his fists into it in a maddened tantrumized fit brought forth by the immense pressures on both ends of his body-head and the other thing, grunting in pain with each strike but his determination to crush the wyvern rider barely waning.

 

"Oh you'll be da team's guts when I get ya and friggen' tear them out of ya, argkh-!" He pounced a bit more before hitting his big toe against the metal so hard he yelped and jumped back. "Screw it I'm doing it now I can't keep it with the noise. Goodbye."

 

And so Cass retreated deeper into his cell and stayed there for quite some time, doing god's work.

[Sutoratosu]

 

29 minutes ago, Zetaark said:

Hearing Cadence's comment, Madante responds to her.

"Karik is still around, though he's being a bit quiet. Probably thinking about things if I had to guess."

"Good..."

And of course, then the fighting started, like cats and dogs as the bard suddenly shouted. Cadence didn't even bother sighing. She was so past sighing at this point... 

"If any of you are going to tear someone's innards out, make it our captors at the very least. There's no point getting at each other's throats. The ones who put us here will be back soon enough, they spared us instead of doing the job their boss paid them for, that means they probably think it could be worth more for them if they use us as hostages.  If they're smart, one of them will be on duty to come down here every once in a while to make sure nothing's happened. Even if they haven't done it so far, eventually, they'll have to feed us if they intend to use us as bargaining chips. All of you, calm down, wait. You're wasting energy shouting and banging on the bars. Just put your anger away for now, and when they come, we'll make them regret ever fucking with the royal guard."

[Swordstar]

Selia stared at the blue haired girl for a few long seconds before laughing cynically.

 

 

"You're cute, really. But from what I heard when those guards brought you in here, you all already got beaten pretty soundly by those guards when you had your weapons. You expect me to believe that you're going to break out of these cells with your bare hands, then beat up all the guards, and escape? You're dreaming."

 

She stuffed the cards back into an inner pocket of her cloak angrily, ignoring the shaking hands, and folded her arms across her chest with a huff.

 

"But you are right. It isn't just. But that's how the world is. Things aren't fair. Some people get everything. Others get nothing. Better get used to it now rather than later."

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

"Certainly will be the case if we don't try. We'll never get anywhere sitting around waiting to die. Why bother givin' up? That's easy. Trust me... l know this is all the stupid stuff they say in fairy tales and stories of grand good versus evil. l know the world doesn't work that way. l'm not stupid. l know very well how it works. My mother taught me very well. Her life was hard. She made a name for herself in this world... she carved a place for herself and her children. She fought for me as a single mother, all on her own while running a guild so renowned all around the world knew it's name. She didn't get there giving up. She didn't get there, thinking "well, The Tailor's Association has tried to buy me out yet again today". She buckled her bootstraps and went out there and kicked ass, all the while raisin' me to kick ass too. l don't have a family to protect... a household, or a business. The only things for me to protect are my friends and the world. Sometimes life don't work out. Sometimes it just throws everything in your face and nothing sticks. But, if you give up you deserve the nothing you get. lf you don't strive for anything... You will never get anything. l'd rather die knowing l actually tried then live longer in despair and melancholy." She took a deep breath.

"Life, justice, romance... Fate. lt's what you make of it. Perhaps my ideals may seem naive... or childish to you, but... l don't really care. l believe them. That's the only person who needs to. Do you believe in anything? And l don't mean that you are doomed to rot here, that this is your end. Do you believe in the truths you see through your fortune telling? Got your answer? lf so good. Don't tell it to me.~ lt's not something l need to know. Only you need to know what you believe. Now... lf you don't mind you can come along if we find a way out of this place. But l'm not going to beg you. lf you wish to die here, you may. l will not live your life, lt's yours."

 

"l however, have a friend to find. He saved my life once, l still owe him one. Until then... dying is on hold until further notice.~"

[Chevaleresse]

Myrdwyn paused her ranting and raving.

"Good to see there's at least someone in this sorry excuse for a squad of royal guards who knows what it's about! Ya didn't get picked for this job to start mopin' and whinin' as soon as shit went south, you took this job because yer supposed to be the best of the best! And the best don't stop fighting until three hours past when they couldn't do it any more, you got it? And you with the cards, you might not be one of us, but the same thing applies to ya. Now quit your mopin', all of you, or I'll wring your neck after I get done with the bastards that took away Ecquis." 

[Swordstar]

 

"You're crazy, all of you. Feel free to think what you want, but I'll not chase after false comfort just to be disappointed. Better to just accept reality and do the best you can with it."

 

Pulling the cards back out, she slowly started flipping through them again, this time slowly infusing them with a pale pure white glow. Flipping them around in her hands, those that were paying attention would notice that while the backs had intricate designs on them, the fronts were completely blank.

[Sutoratosu]

"Yeh, it's crazy, but crazy is kinda how you survive in our line of work," Cade suddenly cut in "but here's what I don't get is after listening to all this- maybe you don't buy into what Rayne's trying to convince you of, that we can break out of here, fine. But if you're so convinced the deck is stacked against you and you're dead either way, why sit in these cells and wait? You say you have to make do with what you have- well what you have is a shitty situation with us as company.

    Why not take your own advice and choose to die on your feet instead of your knees? Why let them decide when and where your final moments are gonna be? You stick around here, rot a little more, eventually they come for you, they kill you, the end. You go out on their terms not your own. You come with us and help in our little revolt though, yeh, you might die, we all might die. But you'll at least die making the most you could out of this mess. And who knows, you might even manage to take out a few bastards out with you."

[Swordstar]

 

"Ah, you misunderstand. I have no objection to dying on my feet. But I can't even reach that. Your friend there in the armor has been banging away at the cell bars for a good while now. And exactly how much of a difference has that made? And if she's not made any difference with all of her strength, what exactly am I supposed to do? My tome was taken away from me and the only magic I have left is just enough to imbue these cards with a bit of magic for my fortunes. Not enough to form a fully realized offensive spell. Would I take the chance if given? Of course. I would be crazy not to. But why leave my body bruised and bleeding to make no change to my predicament?"

[Sutoratosu]

"Inveniam viam aut faciam." She uttered quickly in some archaic tongue "Either find a way, or make one. If I misunderstand, then help me clear up that ignorance, and maybe you'll find the path to escaping this hell hole won't be as elusive as you have convinced yourself. I take it you've been down here at least for a little while, from your demeanor. Do you have any idea when or how often they bring the food? How many of them usually come down here, just one grunt, a pair, more?"

 

Though none of them could actually see it, she was busying herself untying with the Dancer's Ribbon holding her hair back as she asked the question...