RP:A Trap Divided

From HollowWiki

Part of the The Most Dangerous Game Arc




(Continued from where Satoshi and Svilfon split from the group.)


Beyond the trail of blood, broken branches, and flattened shrubs is a break in the trees, not large enough to qualify as a clearing or even a small meadow, but open enough to the sky to have allowed a thick blanket of snow to settle undisturbed. Or it had been undisturbed until a short time ago, before it was struck by a low flying meteor and an icy comet close on its tail. Where the ball of fire strikes the earth, it skids for a distance and furrows ground and snow alike on either side before it finally halts, a smoking, steaming heap that eventually reveals itself to be the pyro-mage. Which can only mean the comet, with its sparkling trail of frost, must be Satoshi, who comes to a bouncing, skipping stop yards away from her enemy. Both lie unmoving where they've torn into the ground, lost in smoke, fog, pain, and possibly even death.


A groan comes from the mage-turned-meteor as he lifts a shaking hand to his forehead, both of which are so thickly caked in burnt blood as to make his skin invisible. The resulting sound of palm to face is thus a sickly wet rasp instead of the typically light slap of flesh. Dumbly the man massages aching temples in an attempt to bring his scrambled thoughts into order, so that his brain can better assess his injuries. Either his brain is keener than the typical human, or his injuries are not as severe as one would think, for it isn't long before he's struggling to his feet, a hint unsteady and shaken but otherwise in one piece--save for a part of his left arm missing, from hand to elbow. He regards this loss with a numb stare. The stump doesn't bleed, having been cauterized by the same fiery explosion that had torn it off in the first place, and numbed from pain by the general battering his body has received.


"Huh," the mage remarks intelligently. He might have lingered longer on his dismemberment, if Satoshi hadn't taken this moment to move. It's a small motion, no more than the sleek, if blood-drenched, shoulders of the fox shifting painfully. But it's enough to snap the pyro-mage's attention back to where it belongs. He still has a job to do. This queen, this fox, this... whatever the hell she is, is the cause of his lost arm, his sister's death, and the entrapment of his clansmen.


The mage, Victorio Il'sanerius, is a relatively accomplished tamer of fire. During his training and schooling, he naturally came across the stories about the glacial magus, but he had never fully believed them. As is typical of those of the magecraft, they exaggerate stories about themselves and doubt the stories of others for the same reason. It is a world as powered by pride as it is actual skill. And so, Victorio has plenty such doubts about Satoshi as he approaches her now.


Lying in the icy crater her landing has caused, Satoshi remains unmoving save for that earlier twitch. The fox's once pristine fur is matted with blood and gore, patches singed, and some still smouldering with tiny embers. Victorio can't tell where gashes end and burns begin on the chaotic mess that is the magus-turned-beast. In fact, he's not even certain she's still alive, as he can see no signs of breathing coming from that slender chest--the front of which seems to have concaved where the brunt of the explosion struck her. Victorio is no healer, but neither is he a fool. Surely ribs broken so heavily have pierced her lungs. If she's survived that, it's only because she hasn't finished dying yet.


Satoshi proves this, when again her form twitches, a low, wet groan coming from deep in her throat as her snout wrinkles in a vulpine frown. Yes, Victorio is certain of it. The supposed 'greatest cryomancer of our time' is dying at his feet, likely choking on her own blood.


"Then it's only proper I help you along to the End, don't you think?" The words are said with a sneer. He may have lost an arm, but he'll forever be known as the mage who felled Frostmaw's queen. With a gleeful expression on his face, Victorio clumsily searches his robes for the half-stave he always carries with him. He might not be formally trained in using the staff as a weapon, but this is hardly a fight that requires finesse. All he needs to do is plunge the short staff's sharpened end into the fox's heart and he'll have a new story to tell beside the campfire. With only one hand to hold the weapon, his grip isn't precise yet he still lifts it high and into position, prepared to strike down with all his strength and end Lady Frostmaw.


Svilfon continues half-jogging back to the battle. His leg still leaks blood where it was wounded by Hildegarde in their tournament battle... a fight which seems an age ago to the wizard now. The trail behind him is paved in sanguine; his battered face doing more to stain the pristine snow than even his injured leg. But he doesn't care – it's not like he was pretty to begin with, and he knew... deep down he knew... that this fight with the poachers would not be easy. Too wise they were, too clever. They were hidden in shadows, they took down Emiur... such prey deserves respect, be it begrudgingly offered or not.


Upon the frozen air, Svilfon can sense his Coterie brethren. But he doesn't really worry about Kirien, for he has Hildegarde – those two would protect each other. It was to the ice queen the wizard shifts his path... he doesn't know how badly she is injured, but he needed to find out before he could continue this insane path towards vengeance... he would not be stopped; his body, exhausted and pained, would fight on until the last, of that alone he is sure.


So he weaves through the streets until he encounters once again the outer reaches of Frostmaw's frozen tundra... the devilish place which screams in silence that only the strong can survive... and Svilfon does not feel strong right now. But with gritted... well, not teeth... gaps, fangs and the occasional tooth, the wizard carries on through the trees, following like the most dogged hound the prize he seeks... and there he sees her.


Satoshi, laying so broken upon the ground – a one armed mage about to crush her prone body beneath the odious edge of his half-stave.. and Svilfon is too far away to stop him. He can sense the spice of the man's fires from even here, and knows no quick spell he could cast – majority of which are pyromantically inclined – would destroy him... but Svilfon can help Satoshi, in a way perhaps only he would think of. He screams, “By the hairy balls of Sven himself, you better not fail!” Before he snaps his blood-covered hands before his body and sends forth two fireballs, each one flying directly at Satoshi... yes, he is attacking her while she lays there broken upon the snow... but there is a twisted logic behind is words and actions.


Both himself and the glacial magus have put themselves in all kinds of states while fighting each other in Frostmaw... Svilfon has burned, beaten, bloodied and bruised the powerful queen, yet never once has he truly gotten the best of her... so he throws forth his fire with the words, spoken such a way to rekindle within whatever is left of her that fighting spirit he knows so well. He hopes... oh, how he hopes... that her natural defences of ice against his fire-balls will spring into life, with the added effect of stopping the force of the stave... for if not, she will not only be facing a one-armed man's weapon, but also the two balls of fire the wizard.. perhaps foolishly... sent.


Like fiery arrows, Svilfon's words dive through the magus' clouded subconscious, through the haze of pain, through the smoke of doubt and wavering strength, to bury themselves in heart of her wintry essence. And once there, the words burst into flame to ignite the kit from core outward. She will not fail. She will not fail, when Frostmaw surrounds her, its snows embrace her, its skies blanket her, and its trees stand over her. She will not-- no, she -cannot- fail. Like a wildfire, Svilfon's words pour through her veins to revitalize a waning lifeforce and to call back the frigid light that keeps the eidolon going.


The first visible sign of this return is when the fox's whiskered muzzle draws back over her fangs in a grimace of disgust. Sven's hairy balls are not an image one wishes to be called back to the living with. Thanks a lot, Svilfon.


Victorio spots this snarl at the same time that his shredded wards detect the approaching flames. Without thinking, the pyro-mage changes the trajectory of his attack from the downward plunge of the staff to a backhanded swing, batting side both balls of fire--which he'd mistook for a pathetic attack on himself. He turns to face his attacker, a sneer spread across his otherwise fine features. Ah, the wizard of the Guild. He'd heard about the bumbling antics of the man, and should have guessed he'd use such a weak technique.


"Hah! You're a fool to use fire on a pyromanc-" Never again will Victorio boast or brag, never again will his voice give life to fire, never again will he even manage to utter a strangled scream of pain. All sound is cut off with ruthless efficiency by Satoshi's fangs, as the large fox clamps her jaws over the entirety of Victorio's neck and crushes it flat with a wet pop. Blood spills sluggishly where it's forced from between the foxkin's teeth from the sheer force of her bite as the dying fire mage is dragged to the ground beneath her weight. Eyes wide and uncomprehending stare at Satoshi even as they dim with his rapidly evaporating life. It's almost literal, for with each passing second the man looks further and further drained of vitality, cheeks growing sunken, skin turning a pale parchment yellow, lips becoming chapped and cracked, body shrinking in on itself. Every drop of his life departs him to be passed onto Satoshi so that the fox seems to slowly be regenerating. Beneath the blood, wounds begin to knit closed, burns begin to heal over, and limbs regain their prior strength. With a stomach-churning series of cracks and pops, even her crushed ribcage begins to bell out and take on its proper shape until she is whole again, and once again in the form of the magus.


Despite the grimy layer of blood, dirty, ice, and soot, despite the shaky, weary nature of her stance, and despite the fresh sanguine liquid coursing gruesomely down her chin, Satoshi is whole and alive once more. The eidolon of ice and death renewed by feeding upon the dying fires of the mage, the light of his passing life burning like rekindled embers in her eyes. These same smouldering eyes are turned toward Svilfon then, the gaze alien and for a moment not seeming to recognize him, before the elemental force is pushed aside for the whimsical kit beneath. It's then that the ghost of a smirk twitches across her bloody lips. "Wizard. You were right. You're always right. We will not fail." She doesn't need to say the rest, it's easily read in her eyes, 'We can't fail. Frostmaw and Emiur are counting on us.'


Svilfon watches the fireballs he cast be battered aside; both strike against snow-laden trees, yet neither does much damage to the hard, strong wood which makes up Frostmaw's forests. He shifts his gaze back to Victorio, just in time to watch the firemage's last few moments of life... devoured as he is by that ferocious fox in a such a satisfyingly brutal fashion. “Fool I may be, but dead I am not... at least, not entirely.” With a hat tip to the corpse, one steeped in feral irony, the wizard spends a moment scanning the woods, before taking stock of his own injuries. He allows Satoshi privacy through the time she takes to feed – not that it is needed. More, he has little desire to have his mind further clouded by images of her broken body. It causes more than just rage to swirl within him, and though anger is power, he would rather it is sourced from elsewhere, other than the sight of a battered and bleeding lady icicle.


As she finishes at last and stands again, he looks over, locking his pale gaze upon the smouldering eyes of the magus, even as they freeze him in his spot, burning as they are without any hint of Satoshi's light within them. But soon it shifts, and there is a sigh born of relief the moment that twisted smirk briefly ghosts across her lips. To her words, he merely echoes them. “We will not fail,” the rest, like her own, not spoken; there is no need, there never was between magus and wizard.


For a moment he remains where he is, before he limps over to her and just briefly rests his hand upon her shoulder, ignoring the blood, soot and snow which stains it, before he moves forward and retrieves the weapon the former-firemage used. It's tucked into his robes, even as he speaks again. “Are you ready again, lady icicle? Ready to teach those foolish enough to trespass on our land the price such folly holds?” He grins, then. Despite everything; the blood, the pain, the destruction... there are few places he would rather be than right here; beside the snow queen, enemies all around, justice to be delivered and the unspoken words between them which shout as loudly as any roaring giant that nothing, nothing at all, could stand between them and that which they will claim... vengeance... it was time for them to continue the hunt.


But the wizard doesn't realize that he is not alone in that thought. They have been divided, this powerful group; split so their power is no longer concentrated, and these dastardly poachers would endeavor to keep it as such. They are canny; behind their own lines the same thoughts the wizard has are echoed aloud. 'Oh yes, it is time to hunt..' and fast is coming the time when the truth of which group is truly prey will be made clear.


Not for a second will Satoshi ever think she is the prey in this hunt. The very idea is utterly alien and impossible in her mind. If the suggestion was ever made to her she'd scoff and call the commenter insane. Not even in this can the idea be mustered. The poachers are nothing more than especially clever prey, as far as she is concerned. Sure, it had been the reason why she'd broken her body so badly in her attack, when she foolishly threw aside her plans to improvise--normally, that works so very well for the magus. She doesn't seem the slightest bit remorseful, however. In fact, she looks gleeful at the turn of events, and the eager light in her eye says she's ready for more.


But first, she puts out a hand to halt the wizard, saying simply, "You're hurt." As if this explains everything, Satoshi then produces a pendant from within her coat, a chunk of amber carved into the flowery form of a daisy. Clearly the gem has been hollowed out, for within can be seen a dark liquid sloshing thickly as it's offered to Svilfon. "Use a few drops on the worst of your wounds. It is healing magic safe for the undead, courtesy of our little kitten druid and her lovely dark unicorn." The stubborn set of Satoshi's face says very clearly that she's not going any farther until the wizard is a bit more fighting fit. The poachers might be prey in her eyes, but that doesn't mean she's going to underestimate a rabbit's bite and kick.


Svilfon would immediately have responded that his wounds are light and he is fine, but there is something within Satoshi's gaze which steals the words from his throat. He knows that stubborn look so well, it's one he himself wears. So instead, he merely nods and takes the pendant. It's held up under his inspection for a moment, he even goes as far to give a quick sniff, before he applies a small amount of the liquid to the worse of his wounds; primarily the heavily bleeding cut in his leg, and also a touch to his face, which is starting to look like a herd of Frostmaw's mammoths spent a few days running across it. He can feel the effects almost immediately; the wounds, while not healed, no longer burn with such fierce agony, nor does his leg any longer feel like it's about to give out beneath him.


When done, he smiles at Satoshi, the look a shade crooked. “I prefer your way.” He motions to the husk of Victorio, “but thank you... I'll be sure to thank the druid, also. Useful, she is... I'm glad such people are attracted to this kingdom.” With a nod, he returns the pendant to Satoshi, before tipping his hat with a crooked grin. “Even if their use is nothing more than food for us.” With that, and a quick look at the corpse beside them, Svilfon takes in a deep, unneeded breath. He closes his eyes and seeks his magic, preparing himself more carefully than he was earlier, until at last his pale gaze once again falls upon Satoshi. He offers her the briefest of nods... he was ready. It was time to hunt.


Another look is given to the shriveled corpse of Victorio, along with a quietly murmured, "I didn't know I could -do- that." The nature of an eidolon is one Satoshi is still exploring, it'd seem. Still, it's a matter to dwell on at a later time, and so the magus shakes her head and matches Svilfon's gaze. She smirks, the quirk of lips spreading to reveal fangs stained with blood, as she lifts a hand to dangle a pair of necklaces--one clawed off the female pyro-mage in passing, and the other taken from the twin brother's corpse. They're simple objects by appearance, a matching set of knotwork pieces made from worthless bronze hammered and folded over itself to create the basic design. Within the lines of twisting metal is the sense of magic, yet it is so small and so vague as to be nearly invisible to even keen arcane eyes. These are the keys to enter the den of the poachers, unassuming trinkets no corpse-looter would bother to take or mage would detect. Yet they are vital.


"If nothing else, our rabbits are very, very good about hiding their burrows, so I've found. They've been here in Frostmaw for I don't know how long, and yet even I couldn't sense them. Right under my nose and I was blind to it. All my searches physically and magically revealed nothing, until I was fortunate enough to find one of the bunnies straying too far from home." It had taken every ounce of willpower Satoshi had to resist killing the man, and it had paid off, when she'd followed him back to the hideout. ...and it had nearly killed her. "These whiskers you gave me saved me, wizard." A hand brushes across said whiskers, causing their silver lengths to quiver. It had been a very near thing, for even while Satoshi's whiskers are highly sensitive to the presence of magic, they had only detected the barrier's presence when they'd brushed against it. Instinct had stilled Satoshi's feet not a moment too soon. Another inch and she would have stepped across the invisible line and been destroyed on the spot.


Satoshi shakes her head at the memory. "They're good, wizard, they're very, very good. I've never seen a series of weaves like what they created. So elaborate, so complex, so -powerful-, and yet nearly impossible to sense. Because there is nothing -to- sense. The area is void of... everything. You can't sense life, death, the elements, magic, nature, emotions. -Anything-. It is as if the area quite simply doesn't exist. And I think that's precisely what the barrier does, if you cross it without the key: it wipes you from existence." Naturally, after finding the barrier, Satoshi had spent hours inspecting the design, tracing its pattern and trying to unweave the tapestry. But like smoke, it slipped from her fingers each time, and she dared not try to grasp it more firmly lest it trigger an alarm ward. All this and more she tells to Svilfon now, trying to set aside her pride in having to admit a magical construct had eluded her abilities to inspect, remove, or understand. "I learned the most from Emiur," she finally says, the words heavy as they're spoken, "he spent so long in there that he found chances to learn some of their workings. The only trap is the barrier, they consider it foolproof. No one but themselves know about the keys. Themselves, and Emiur. There was more, but whatever it was, he could not bring himself to say it. He only said that we cannot enter angry or afraid. ...No. -Must not-, was what he said. Must not, over and over, he wouldn't stop saying that, and begging me to promise I would listen, before he died."


With eyes hard and cold as Frostmawian Black Ice, Satoshi lifts the necklace keys once more. She needs no more words by this point. The gesture is all there is left: It is time to hunt.


Svilfon remains patient and quiet as Satoshi speaks, the wizard listening with concentration born of a certain admiration. Be it against him or not, he is a student of magic, and can appreciate the power behind what the queen of frost and snow describes. As she speaks of the whiskers, he cannot help but let a fleeting smile brush across his lips; the ways of wizards are ever convoluted, but he is sure deep down she was given those whiskers for precisely this reason; to save her life. Whether or not this is true, or merely happy coincidence (though, the two are often the same when it comes to wizards), Svil neither knows nor cares. It is not the time to dwell on the capricious nature of fate, nor the world itself. So with his concentration focused he listens to both the words she says, and the ones she does not. Praise given to those who she hates... it must be true. Throughout this all he is still, only occasionally nodding, until at the last she speaks of Emiur. Invisible to most, even perhaps to Satoshi, the air around Svil wavers for a moment as her words are spoken. It takes all of the wizard's formidable will-power not to unleash his magic in some kind of fiery blast... but he wouldn't... not failing is more than just slaying these foolish poachers who killed his friend... it is about himself, also. He would not entirely give in to his anger just yet - it would be directed at those most deserving.


So at the last, he finally replies, his voice dangerously quiet in the frozen forest. "Since he was taken from us, lady icicle, not a moment has passed when I have not been angry... Even throughout the battles in the tournament... nothing but anger. I am not sure I can release it now." He is honest in this, now was not the time for deceit. "Even at the wishes of our friend. But I will try." His hand lifts, then, and he runs a finger across one of the necklaces. He closes his eyes and attempts through his magic to seek out its purpose, but he finds nothing. There are few magic items in the world beyond his ability to sense; some, of course, but not many. Yet these keys... had the wizard found one laying on the ground, he'd have stepped over like it were nothing but a bauble, lost by some errant child.


"Had we more time, I would ask you to take me to this barrier of theirs, but if you cannot divine its secrets, I do not think I could either. We must respect such power, lady icicle." Not that he really needed to tell her that. "We must respect those who control it." He nods, then, as if his mind was made up. "There are some things which are better left unknown... the weavings of this, I feel, are one of them." A final nod, before his gaze shifts from the necklaces to the queen. His own look is almost a mirror of her own, albeit a far less pretty one. Hard... cold... nothing else needed to be said. It was time.




(Continues with Brother's Keeper)