RP:Accursed Fallout: Marra's Demise
The Southernmost Reaches of Cenril
Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc
Mcracken was on the wharf, surveying the southern beach as he contemplated the various threads of information he'd gathered concerning the Coral Castle's curse. The human-shaped kraken, himself affected profoundly by Vakmatharas' evil geis. had been fortunate enough to find healers and holy women soon after, and this combined with his own innate resilience ensured that he was now only left with the inability to shift back into his natural form. Other, weaker creatures had not been so lucky, and they –with the bodies of their victims - littered the far southern beaches, along with the drained and dry remains of local wildlife, shrivelled and decaying plants, washed-up carcasses of dolphins and other sea-life... It was as if the curse drew creatures in like a malevolent lure, making sure those it touched caused as much death and suffering as possible before they finally succumbed and died. Standing on the timber decking at the wharf's end, Mac had a good view of the southern beach and cliffs where the accursed ruin loomed, and some way to the north as well, and had taken to leaning on a mooring-post there as he pondered ways to rid the sacred castle of the horror Gevurah and her foul god have inflicted on it.
Marra was not right in the head, normally this woman would never have been slaughtering so many much less any, but her thoughts were that of her past life, in a battle beyond Hollow, and as she took out the left and right eyes of her enemies she heard only voices in her head of intangible people.
Momipo soon appeared, surfacing up by the dock and peering up at Mcracken with onyx eyes. Her raven hair was wet and clung to her dark skin. Beneath the waves, her talisman of Selene hung between bare breasts, and her ebon-scaled tail swished about as she tread water. "Hello, Honored Elder. Any news of the--" She stopped as her eyes alighted on the emerald-skinned woman and her vicious murders of the innocent bystanders. "Look, over there!" She could do nothing, unequipped for land as she was, or else Marra would be on the receiving end of a thorough ass-whooping.
Xzavior wasn't really sure why he was even around this place. He wasn't a big fan of the man who had recently take up residence. Well, had taken it but now was locked in some cage somewhere. Nonetheless he was here and what he found was a very curious sight. The woman who had been firing off arrows near his house running around killing people without a thought. With a raised brow he carefully made his way to the edge of the beach and watched her go to town on the people for a moment before slithering through the sand and asking aloud. "I thought when I said to pick your places carefully you would pick somewhere silent. But you seem to be doing fine."
Mcracken had turned away but for a moment, sensing the dusky mermaid’s approach, and in that scant time Marra came raging along the beach, unfortunate victims falling to her insane violence, one after another. Mac had warned the locals, and warned them again – but stubborn fishermen would not give up their catches, and too many believed that Mac was just a crazy hobo having some kind of delusional episode. Perhaps, in the face of this damage, they’d believe him now… “Sea-Maiden,” he said to Momipo, as he slipped off the wharf and into the water, swimming over to her, “Mayhap, if I can lure the crazed one into the water, thy holy prayer might cleanse her..” Glancing to Marra on the shore, where she was mutilating someone’s eyes, he shook his head, “Though I fear ‘tis too late. Still her victims will need thine aid.” With that, he surged through the waves, heading for the crazed naga-like woman, praying to Selene that she didn't run for the castle, where no-one could reach her…and survive.
Marra’s mind flowed over with memories as she relived the battles she had faced however three new figures were in her memory and she knew she needed to take them down but now with her quiver empty she had but her knives and throwing knives. Sending one toward the noodle she bounced it off a wall so that it would be harder to see coming and the other she tosses at the one coming towards her.
Momipo nodded. "Go, quickly!" She needn't have said it, for already Mcracken was on his way. She began to do the only thing she could. She began to pray. "Sacred Mother, our Lady of the Sea, shine thy light down upon thy children and lend us thy strength. I beseech thee, Holy Selene, in the name of thine oceans, to offer us healing in this desperate hour." While not yet a priestess, Momipo was blessed with a mite of divine magic, which began to flow through the air while she prayed.
Mcracken may be stuck in human form – but he’s still a kraken. Marra’s hurtling knife finds a sudden, fleshy sheath in Mac’s right shoulder, opposite to the healing scar of his last knife-wound. But unlike Gevurah’s damned blade, this was just a knife.. Mac would not waste any time to pause and pluck it out, so he’d lurch out for the water at a run with the blade still embedded there. He’d spotted the naga standing by Marra, attempting to speak with her and called to Xzavior, “Keep back! She’s crazed!” If the bloody wrecks she’s left dead or writhing in pain behind her were not warning enough. However, as his feet pounded the sand toward the pair, he could see the male naga was well-prepared to defend himself.. Mac looked to Xzavior, and then to the victims… and back again, before his deep voice boomed across the beach, “Mayhap she can be saved, sirrah! If we could just bring her close to the water..” The aquamarine gem hanging in its little cloth bag around his neck released a sudden wave of strength through him, then- perhaps charged by the Sea-Maiden’s fervent prayers. Hoping Xzavior could handle the crazy green-skinned female by himself for a time, Mac headed for the last of Marra’s victims, dragging the poor man toward the briny shoreline.
Her vision shifting, Marra found herself back in her uncle’s target practice. Aiming with her knife, she hurls it in the direction of the bird in the air, only to see the knife returning to her by another’s hand. Ducking, she grabs another knife and tosses it at the noodle.
Momipo swam up to the shore, as close as she could get without beaching herself, and took hold of the bleeding man. She laid him on his back and let him float in the water, buoyed in her arms, and she prayed again to Selene for healing. Her eyes moved between the naga of ice and the crazed woman before focusing back on the man.
Xzavior knocked the knife aside, looking at the confused woman in a mocking manner for choosing an obvious attack before arking his blade in a vertical fashion to have the blade extend and clear the distance between them. Essentially turning into a whip with threaded sides. Designed to cut through bone and flesh. Aiming right for her throwing arm. He wasn't playing nice. She chose to piss him off at the worst place at the worst time. The man who had gave him warning and asked for Xzavior's assistance was cast only the quickest of looks. He wasn't going to do a priest's work or whoever he was just because the woman was curse addled. She thought she could take him, clear minded or not. He was going to show her how wrong she was.
Mcracken said to Momipo, “Bless thee, Child…”, a low and hasty murmur of gratitude as she took the injured man into her care. But this was not the only survivor left bleeding on that beach.. Women, children.. families often come for a swim at this locally popular spot for beach-picnics..and still do, despite his attempts to warn citizens off. Wounded, screaming, horrified.. if not dead. Half a dozen at least were left alive, maybe half their number likely to live if they received prompt attention. He ran for the children first while their mother, her throat slashed, gurgled a plea for Mac to save them.. He’d do his best. Scooping the little boys up, one under each arm, he dashed back to the water. As he went Mac cast a concerned look to the battling pair.. The male naga didn’t seem too concerned with helping the cursed woman, but the children needed saving first...and at least Xzavior was preventing any more innocents coming to harm.
Marra felt the blade more than she saw it, her mind overlapping memories with old skills, as soon as the noodle she did what she did best, surprise. Ducking the whip she leapt into the air backflipping onto the noodle’s tail dropping a knife in before rolling to the side and drawing her bow and ripping an arrow from a victim and unleashing it upon him from his left
The man in the water began to heal, and came to his senses to find his head pillowed between Momipo's breasts. He grinned like a dope, still partially out of it, and Momipo decided he was well and returned him to the beach just in time to take the boys from Mac. She took care not to submerge their heads under water, and renewed her prayers. Like the man, the boys slowly were rejuvenated, brought back from the brink, and promptly began crying for their mother. Momipo did her best to soothe them, but she was out of her depth when it came to children.
Xzavior hissed when she jumped his attack. Some how. She literally leapt right into it. When she stabbed him all he did was bring his whip around to wrap around her leg this time. He was going to put her down one way or another. If caught he would yank hard on it, effectively separating her leg from the rest of her. She really chose poorly. The arrow was stopped with a simple ice growth over the side of his body. Thick enough to stop it.
The mother of the two boys was dead by the time Mac reached her, bled out on the sand. Stepping over her, the kraken hastened further up-beach toward a young woman with a badly mutilated arm. Sweeping the screaming female up in his arms, he was heading back to Momipo and the children when he witnessed the madwoman dodging Xzavior’s deft attack and launching yet another of her own. If the naga could not or would not herd the afflicted toward help soon, there would be no help for her at all.. In moments, he’d left the wounded girl in Momipo’s care, and was treading back toward the battling serpent-people. The mermaid’s divine prayers, combined with the holy gem he bore, empowered him to the point where Mac could barely contain it… A great sound gathered in his throat, a deadly song comprised of a single, shrill note capable of shattering both bone and ice. But should he stop Xzavior, and save the mad-woman from having her limbs torn off? Or assist the naga by breaking Marra’s arm, or her skull… In a split second he decided it may be best to simply stun them both… His mouth opened, his throat convulsed, and immediately all who stood before him would be battered by an ear-splitting, mind-numbing barrage of noise. . If it did stun the pair, Mac would have a short time to decide whether to save the woman or give her a more merciful death than the naga likely would… unless either proved resistant to a kraken’s power.
The sound stunned Marra and as it did her leg tore from her body. Falling to the sand, she bumped her head on the rock, the visions changed to smoke, all she could see was smoke. Her voice however said, "Please kill me now, better to die the live burning, accursed to be turned into a snake!'
Momipo returned the children to the sand to retrieve the injured girl. The boys ran to their mother and fell to weeping upon her still breast. The young woman Momipo was attending to, seeing that she was in the company of a mermaid, began to beg for her life. Momipo, knowing the atrocities her sea-sisters had wrought, tried to assure the woman she was only there to help, calling on Selene's power again to heal the horrid wound. The two women winced as the kraken's voice boomed. "What was that?" The injured woman asked. "A taste of the power of the ancients," Momipo returned.
Xzavior gritted his teeth as the noise sounded and the ice shattered a little more gracefully. Turning to a powder rather then shards. Though the deed had been done and unless the other got to her quickly she would bleed out in moments. Snarling he hazily turned to the kraken, "You heard the woman. She wishes to die than become my kind." He hadn't a clue what she meant but it was insult enough to stir him some more. "If she wants to die give her the death she wants."
Mcracken frowned as ice shattered, the solidified water having obviously protected Xzavior from the brunt of the sonic blast. Mismatched gaze dropping to the wounded mad-woman, he grimaced.. for he’d not managed to stop the fight before she was injured so badly. There was clearly nothing anyone could do for her now, so Mac lifted his eyes to the naga, calling across the sand, “Thou art nearest. Give her the death she hath begged for, and make it swift, for she is as much a victim as the ones she hath wounded. One merciful blow, lest a kraken’s wrath fall upon thee!” Faint cries for help summoned his attention then, as the last of the survivors begged for someone to aid them.
Xzavior glared over at the kraken for a moment before making his way over to the woman and wrapping a hand around her throat. In a hiss he said, "Be thankful I have to be swift. Otherwise this would drag on for a bit longer." Ice shot from the hand and severed her spinal column. Killing her instantly. Dropping her body he flicked his hand of any blood before twisting around to pull the knife from his tail and tossing it aside. With a look over to Mcracken, "Next time, either be quicker or don't get involved. I'd help those who are dying."
Marra smiled wickedly as the deed soon finished. Her last words on her lips were, "So its true, all killers go to... damn your here too." Her smile turning to a scowl which froze on her dead face.
Mcracken heard Xzavior’s disgruntled demand, but only cast a bleak glance the naga’s way before hastening to the side of an elderly fisherman cut almost to ribbons by Marra’s slashing knives. The old man’s eyes were gone, his face a ruin, his pleas for help garbled with the blood he was soon to drown in. The kraken turned his bearded face toward the old sailor, and despite that proximity to Vakmatharas’ awful power was diminishing his own, he still had it in him to summon one more song of mercy…. He opened his mouth, and the man’s head split open like a ripe melon, spilling brain and broken bone on the sand. He mumbled a brief prayer to Selene to take the sailor’s soul to a worthy seaman’s paradise and trudged back toward Xzavior, on his way to the shoreline where Momipo tended the injured woman. Pausing not far from the naga, he spared a few words, “If thou dost truly wish to be of aid, then warn the people from this foul place, for she…” he looked at Marra’s pitiful remains, “.. was not the first to fall to its curse and I fear will not be the last.” Whether Xzavior would choose to follow him or not, Mac then continued over to the holy monk with soft inquiry as to the young victim's welfare.
Momipo was feeling drained by her work. Prayer had never caused her fatigue before. Then again, her prayers had never had such fast, tangible results before. Could it be that she was channeling Selene's divine power after all? Was her training nearly complete? The injured woman looked at Mcracken with wide, scared eyes. She was in awe and terror of his power. "He is a kind man, a good man, you need not worry," Momipo assured her. The injury was mostly healed now, and Momipo released the maiden, who walked out of the surf and barreled towards the city, calling for the guards. The mermaid sighed. "Are there any others I can help? Besides you," she said, eyeing that wound in his shoulder. She reached out as if to pluck the knife from him.
Xzavior didn't bother stopping or looking back. He wasn't in such a mood to go wandering anymore. As for giving warning? The scene before them should be warning enough to keep people away, whether fear of death or the unknown threat that lurked here. He was retiring for the evening. That was it.
Mcracken stooped to allow the Sea-Maiden access to knife’s hilt, the blade being buried deep in hyper-resilient kraken flesh. As she pulled, however, the sides of the wound smoothly closed together, and while there was a mark surrounded by a faint smear of blue blood, the injury leaked no more. “Thou art weary, Child,” he said, “And hast done the Mother proud this day.” His webbed hand rose to clutch the little pouch that hung in the hollow of his throat, its surging power now abated. The sound of wailing children reached them then, from further along the beach where the little newly motherless boys were being gathered up by city guards, others of whim who appeared to be ready to storm over to the seaborn pair. Mac eyed Xzavior’s distant, retreating form and turned to Momipo – he had no desire to tangle with any more panicked land-walkers this day. “Mayhap it be best that we too take our leave…”
Momipo smiled at his compliment. "I try." Her eyes turned to see the children being scooped up by guards, and she nodded at Mac's assessment. "Good plan. Let's get out of here." She swam away from the shore slowly, waiting on Mac's accompaniment, before diving beneath the waves, out of reach of the guard.