RP:Bulls to the Slaughter

At the Entrance To the Dead Forest, Vailkrin

Kuyeix was outside the great gate, humming to herself as she held a dead rabbit up by its forelimbs and studied the mess that had been let out by the long gash down its belly. She crouched, worn blanket draped around her shoulders just shy of touching the ground. The bluish ritual tattoos of her forearms were barely visible against her dark skin, and the ochre smeared over half her face was a darker shadow. She was smiling faintly, her other hand holding something else within the blanket and close to her heart. She muttered something in a strange language that sounded like it belonged to nature, and gave the bunny a good shake. She reached inside the cavity and scraped, flinging remnant bits out over what she'd displaced and that free hand went back inside the blanket.

Jolie pushed through the portal, the usual shiver taking her spine in hand, and trod toward the Hanging Corpse. The necromancer had an air of vast weariness about her, though her strides were purposeful, and the pack on her shoulder larger than a woman her size ought to be able to bear so easily. It wasn't unusual to see any of Vailkrin's various denizens along the path. The one before her, apparently about to feast on a rabbit, had her attention though - for the impoverished hunter was too close to the Dark Forest for her own good, and Jolie felt compelled to spare her a word of warning. "Excuse me - Miss?" Come to a stop not far from Kuyeix, she jerked a thumb toward the gloomy path into the woods. "'Ware of the webs. There's some odd beasts in the forest of late." That Jolie herself was responsible for said beasts was neither here not there, so went unmentioned.

Kuyeix turned her face up to Jolie with a squint and a smile. Her eyes were small, black, and glittered merrily. "Maybe then they've taken my family." She said in a thick and slow accent. "They're around here somewhere." She gestured towards the guts on the ground. She was travel stained, and the smell of that travel rose up around her as she stood and smiled at Jolie. "You know this place?"

Jolie followed the woman's rise, taking in such details as was necessary to ascertain potential threat. Finding none, she slung her pack off and nodded. "Like the back of my hand. And.. if your family are wont to wander in the dark, well.. " she looked toward the forest dubiously, ".. it's possible. You look to have come from afar."

Kuyeix had a brief change of expression, something inward facing that admitted the seeming foolhardy nature of her quest. "I was sent by my people. Young men get ideas in their heads." She shook her own, opinion clear. "This has gone on longer than I'd like. There's strangeness here." And, her smile and look continued, it was yet to be determined if Jolie herself would be included.

Jolie wasn't sure whether the woman was speaking of Jolie herself or not, regarding the 'strangeness' Kuyeix had sensed, and took a moment to think about it before shaking her head, "Strange is as strange does. People here get by as all people do. In their own way..." Another glance to the forest. "There's old den in there. Probably infested by.. other things. But worth a look, just in case your family did travel that way." She'd picked up Kuyeix's scent clearly enough, mingled with the delicious scent of bloody rabbit. "If you like."

Lahk takes shape from wisps of darkness and shadow between the barrier of trees, resolving to the form of a hulking wolf with slick ebon fur, the ridgeline of his ribs barely visible. He approaches, hackles raised, looking somewhat wild-eyed and with movements a shade quicker and more brittle than would look otherwise natural. He has clearly seen Jolie since stepping into view, and silently regards her as he comes to a twitching halt, listening to her words.

Kuyeix wiped her forehead with the back of a bloodied hand and considered. She was not so young to rush headlong into potential battles. The thought of it made her sigh, shift from foot to foot, and look down at her inwardly facing toes. "Odd beasts. I think not tonight. I must prepare." She hefted the rabbit towards Jolie. "I will trade you for talk."

Jolie's hand was already upon the poisoned blade resting in a dark curve against her hip - she'd heard him moving before glimpsing those raised hackles. But the wolf that stepped into view carried a scent she knew, vaguely, and that cautious grip on the hilt relaxed. The beast was offered a slight nod. "Lahk."

Kuyeix was tired, and did not notice the wolf until it stood too close for comfort. Her expression stiffened as she looked at the beast. She made no move to welcome the wolf, but she was not immediately frightened for her life. Wary. Always wary.

Lahk seems on the verge of forming words, his lupine jaws opening and his long lips pulling back from his teeth in movements not unlike a snarl, but without the glint of danger in his eyes. He catches, making nothing more than a guttural sound as the scent of the hare washes over him and his neck twists mechanically, canting his angular head to one side. His eyes, showing their whites, tear themselves from the slaughtered animal to the two live, limbed beasts before him.

Jolie was looking expectantly at that rabbit, though did not miss the hungry gleam in Lahk's eye, nor the predatory stance of his four-legged frame.

Kuyeix offered the rabbit to Jolie. She stood her ground, multiple earrings clicking and swaying as she tilted her own head to mirror that of the wolf. Maybe she was mocking him as she stared, but she was careful to not look him in the eyes. "This is not Wolf's cousin." She said to Jolie.

Jolie took the offering with a dip of head, never quite forgetting her manners. The animal was abruptly torn in three parts, two half-haunches and the rest. One hindquarter was tossed toward Lahk. The other handed back to Kuyeix. "Eat," she said, and tore a little strip of belly off for herself, this quickly chewed and gulped. Then she said to Kuyeix, "That is Lahk. I'm ... you can call me Tene. Most do. I own the tavern here, and..." she glanced about. "I know most of what goes on in the Dark Lands. Ask anything you wish."

Lahk lifts a forepaw mindlessly and places it down a half-step in advance of his position, then drops his head, lidding his eyes for several beats of a heart. His jowls close as his throat works in a pained swallow, those eyes dancing under finely furred covers at every chime and gong of Kuyeix's jewelry. With slow recovery, and eyes yet shut, his teeth part again, harsh words tortured with the snarl of his current form cutting on them as they leave his tongue, "a moment... hard to... think." His eyes smoothly unlid as his head raises, the motions looking more natural, with a cooler intelligence behind them, and again he speaks, "My thoughts return." His composure is enough to hold himself still as the hunk of rabbit stops at his feet, and he takes it in mouth, to feed.

Kuyeix had some regret in her at the waste of good fur, but took the hindquarter back without question. She knew what it was to hunger with a pinched belly. Food was not her concern at the moment as she looked at Lahk. "Call me Kuyeix. Where did this wolf come from?" She did not use his name, and she didn't acknowledge his apparent intelligence.

Jolie.. didn't know. She looked to Lahk and shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted, hating to have to admit it, as she liked to believe she knew everything. "I met him recently... Oh. Speaking of creatures you might encounter in the forest, here..." her arm swept toward the trees, a summoning given. "They are my own creatures, and won't harm you. Unless I tell them to. But be wary of hunting in the deepr forest, where they nest, the need to refuel thier bodies comes hard upon them sometimes." And she left it that, waiting for Alexis to emerge.

Jolie said aside to the bestial Lahk, "There is no threat in this one."

Lahk snaps down the remainder of his gamey meal, his tongue snaking round the contours of his mouth to clean away streaks of blood. He pads forward, remaining at a stone's-throw from the party before him, and studies those new to him: Kuyeix and Alex, drinking their scent and listening to the dance of their frames. His bark claps out as a bestial laugh, but with true mirth, to Kuyeix, "This wolf came from the wild, the dark, the fires of the sun and the quench of the moon." He dips his head, "And from a bitch that, though having no words of her own, knew to address those present by name." His attention turns to the treeline, directed there by Jolie's body language.

Valentin is tromping along the road out of Vailkrin, large cleaver rested on his shoulder. There is no stealth in his movements, and no hurry in the burly butcher's steps.

Jolie said to Lahk, "The den, in the forest. I have it in my mind to explore it, perhaps clear it out. Would you come with... " The butcher's arrival was greeted with a wave. "Scleratus."

Alex did just that. Having been stalking on the edge of the forest's wicked edge, she'd silently obey commadn without hesitation. Eight jagged legs closed the distance between her and the small group within seconds, leaving her to inspect the trio. Eerie clicks, and occasional crunches was the only sound she made.

Jolie smiled upon the thing she'd melded together from parts - human torso with spider's lower body, a frightful thing to behold. "There she is." Her voice was redolent with pride.

Kuyeix scratched at something that had a high probability of being alive within her hair. She was about to tease the wolf when the monstrosity loomed up before her. She could hardly have imagined the thing, whatever it was, in her nightmares; no such thing existed even within the darkest parts of her culture. Her everpresent, shifting smile faltered, and she took a step away from the invisible border. She could only hope that the members of her moiety had not gone in there. Young men killed bears and boasted, but one of those. . ."Raven's bloody claws, they are dead."

Jolie said to Kuyeix, "Mostly, yes. But sentient, in their own way, and not quite so dead as some things that shamble about the city."

Lahk notes the entrance of others as they pass along the dusty path, his head swiveling on his shoulders to take them in view even as he awaits developments from the depths of the forest. He rises to all fours as the spider-thing spindles into the clear, surprised at the seeming command the woman has over the arachnid. Looking to the side at her as Jolie speaks, he responds, "Exploration is in your mind? Then how can I refuse my curiosity, for this twisted monstrosity clearly was dreamed up in those same confines."

Jolie found Lahk's words, as ever, most pleasing. "Then we explore. Perhaps.. we hunt. I've no idea what might've crawled into that den while it's lain fallow of use."

Kuyeix looked almost stricken, but she could not turn away from the spider hybrid even in confusion. "What?" Head awhirl with thoughts, she paid no heed to the suddenly mundane presences around her, be they vampire or lycanthrope.

Valentin continues his unhurried approach, and when closer would tip his hat in greeting to the Thanatos Domina "Mam'selle. Lovely day for it, innit." The bloodstains on his apron seem fresher than when they had last met, and the Lycan's powerful olfactories would no doubt recognise the blood as human. The butcher's shadow seems to be skipping along by comparison to Valentin's resolute stride.

Jolie said to Kuyeix, "You are in the Dark Lands, stranger. Where the dead do not always lie down. No need for alarm, however. Most are about the business of their masters, and unless you've upset one of those, you'll likely be alright."

Alex tipped her head to the side, eight eyes all glowing violently. Clicking, she'd lean in, mimicing the body language you'd only see in a horror film. With the upper half of a woman's torso, carried by a pony sized spider's body, it was hard -not- to be such an unsettling sight. A thick spiders' carapace covered what little 'womanly' parts she had left, the rest anatomically correct to the fitting species. Eight legs reared up, and carried her around in a wide circle, both in curiosity and habit.

Kuyeix took a step back from Alex. "My young men are -that-?" She had taken entirely the wrong idea.

Nemisis was on his way towards the Hanging Corpse when he saw a gathered crowd within view. Honor was walking fairly fast, slightly pissed off from Desparrows actions in the Kelay Tavern. However, as he spots these people, his movements slow down almost to a halt wondering exactly what was going on. He was still a bit far from them but if one looked his way they would be able to see his still flaring red eyes as he attempted to calm down.

Lahk is assailed by the soup of scents surrounding the cleaver carrier as he approaches and greets her Paleness. Buried in that thick haze is the whiff of one who is a friend, perhaps, at least to her, so he is content to await introductions. He continues to watch the eight-legged dance of the creation and Kuyeix's questioning.

Jolie sniffed Valentin's way and her lips curled at the thought of how he might've ended up stinking of human. "Will you come with us, Valentin." She gestured to the dark wolf, "That is Lahk. Alexis, there, you know.. I don't know this one's name.." her gaze was on Kuyeix, by then, to whom she replied, "Probably not. None of them smelled of wolf."

Lahk bobs his head at Valentin as Jolie completes his thought.

The vampiric butcher's eyes alight on Alex, and he seems to brighten a bit. "Th'spider-lady-thing. Was lookin' for you, guv." Valentin reaches into an apron pocket and pulls out a small packet. He unwraps it, and produces a neatly sliced and prepared steak of gravewyrm. Jolie at least would recognise that smell. Valentin holds the meat out to Alex "D'you like Gravewyrm, mam'selle?" He would then turn to Jolie to say "Sure thing, guv. What's the job?" The butcher's shadow, in the meanwhile, pantomimes closely examining the rest of the congregation.

Kuyeix muttered, but she regained a rather sickly smile. She took time turning to look again at Lahk, at Valentin. She'd gotten a good eyeful of Alex, and needed to regain a sense of composure, of the self-assured humor she was known for. "You will go into . . .there? I am not. . ." She paused. "I would follow you. I will keep to myself."

Valentin touches the brim of his bowler in greeting to all.

Jolie recoiled at the scent of the deathly wyrm, and perhaps the sharper-sensed among them would note the odour of fear emanating from her. "Ugh! Valentin!" was all she said, her crinkled nose yet more evidence of her loathing. Glancing about as though the butcher may have brought along a swarm of the hated creatures, she said, "Clearing out an old den. Must you...?"

Kuyeix offered a twitchy smile to Valentin.

Lahk ruminates on the sharing of food, grotesque or game, that has been passed about the clearing in so many ways as the troupe assembles, thinking, /Dinner, and a show./ The odd cast of the meatcutter's shade pulls at the periphery of his vision, but he slates it's strangeness for another time.

Alex had plenty to feast on in the forest. The 'big-bad' critters that once roamed the forest, were more or less play toys. That she ate. Still didn't stop her from leaning in, human hands extended for the vile slab of meat that seemed to disgruntle the creator. If she did have a mind of her own, it would most likely only care about eating.

Jolie nodded to Kuyeix, "As you like." Ripping free a morsel more of the rabbity offering, she ate quickly and tossed the rest to Alexis. "Fuel," she said, and then, "Are we ready?" A sharp glance went to where another scent rose, Nemisis' direction. He was not greeted, the necromancer unsure of whether he'd wish presence announced.

Valentin smiles as he lets the Arachnotaur take the gravewyrm steak. He had an almost endless supply of the damn things, really, and having at least one source to get rid of them would be wonderful.

Jolie didn't watch the arachnotaur's meal. She moved toward the forest, muttering something about vampires and coffin nails. Jolie said to Kuyeix, as they travelled on, "There's a few ravens about, usually. It's all the death that brings them.." spoken almost cheerily."

Lahk swishes the bracken that his is tail once in assent of readiness, and follows.

Kuyeix shook her head, but the humor in it appealed to her. "Ayah." She said, and walked carefully after the others.

Jolie paused at the forest's lip, looking around her at the motley company. "I'll go ahead, I know this place well, and scout for immediate dangers. If you hear me shout.." she shrugged. Likely, if it came to that, she would not shout again.

Alex took both offerings in hand, that of Jolie's, and of the Butcher's. Thin lips seem to grow, if not split. Almost as if someone had taken a blade to her cheeks, opening her up from the corner of her grin, to the bottom of her ear. Her jaw's looked as if they unhinged, while a row of violent, jagged teeth rolled out. Corrosive saliva more or less melted the meal into a goopy liqued, in which she simply swallowed. Most likely something anyone here didn't really want to watch. Ever again. Quietly, she followed behind the creator.

Lahk slips between the dark knurled towers of the forest verge, remaining carefully but unobtrusively upwind of the arachnotaur and her... secretions.

Valentin looks almost cheerful, which would be a first for the taciturn butcher "Knew I'd find a use for the blimmin' things." With business taken care of, he nods to the others present and says "Don't worry 'bout her. She's right indigestible, is the guildmistress. Sure she'll get in more'n one scream, innit."

Kuyeix huffed half a laugh. "If she has time to scream twice, what odds would five young men be given? Black-eyed fools."

Deeper in the Dark Forest

Most forests of this type are silent, for the most part, but this one was deathly so, and the crunch of leaves under the necromancer's boots was to be, for a time, loud proof of the direction she'd taken. Lifting her humanoid head to the stilly air, she frowned. No chill and lackluster breeze blew this day to bring her distant news, this being for the lycaness a state akin to walking into the forest blind. Her stated 'intention' of scouting ahead had been half a lie. Jolie made very sure she was alone before finding a thick trunk to hide behind and quickly was divested of clothing. The potion she'd been taking to repress the inner wolf that she'd come to see as a symbol for failure had worn off - these times demanded practicality over pride, to her chagrin - and thus only the forest and its occasional owlish eyes might spy the woman's slow and painful shift. Her eyes were wet at the end of it, the wetness brushed away with irritation against the furred forelimb of what was a demi-wolven body, anthropomorphic and rangy of limb, taller than her human shape and black as a moonless night, skin and fur both. Lifting her lip against residual discomfort, she scraped a few leaves over her belongings and loped into the trees, ears swivelling for sign of the exploration party behind, no doubt not too far now.

Lahk lopes along through the twists of forest unblazed, losing sight of Jolie despite some effort to keep her always in view. Her scent never fades, but when she is next in view he covers a double take at her shifted form.

Valentin had developed, over the years, an impassive and inscrutable tendency when it came to facial expressions. As such, it was hard to tell at times if he was listening or ignoring a person. Or if he was engaged in deep concentration manipulating the umbral tides. As the butcher slowly trudges in the wake of the others, it is the latter which is on the burly Scleratus' mind, as his shadow sprouts half a dozen eyes on tendrils of darkness which stretch out to scout the forest's own shadows. Creating the eyes was the easy part. Actually being able to handle the multiple streams of hazy sensory information was the hard part, and so the butcher falls into a silence those who know him would call 'habitual'.

Kuyeix settled her blanket more securely about her shoulders. She was quiet as she walked, well versed in hunting for survival in a forest. She held out the rabbit haunch uncertainly before her, and within the curling sense of pending doom she realized that it would likely be attracting foulness her way. She sidled closer to Lahk and offered it. The forest was offputting to the woman, whose life up to the present had not prepared her for dark and deadly mysterious. She saw things, except Raven, touched them and knew them. The wolves she knew were begotten from Wolf, as she was from Raven, but this. . . The guts from the rabbit had told her that those she sought were close, were under her nose. Could it be the forest had ingested them? She could only laugh at them for their stupidity in winding up in such a nasty place. She watched the people she followed closely -- sans Alex, whose behavior was best left forgotten and unseen -- trusting to them to alert her to dangers and keep her own skin intact. If she was not careful she would die, and Raven would be oh-so-unimpressed with her then.

Jolie paused long enough to allow Lahk's approach, her shifted form offering sight, smell and wariness even greater range. Canine maw dropping open, her tongue lolled - was it the equivalent of a necromancer's snicker? - in greeting to the wolven male. Her own nape bristled naturally, but drew up into black quills as a faint odor reached her, at last, on a slow sluice of moving air from the north. Eyes like green lanterns shone back toward the emerging group. Her voice was rough, sibilant over wolfish jaws. "She is not like us," was spoken to Lahk, who might by now hold the same knowledge of the nameless shifter they'd met on the road. Alex was placed with another tilt of head, and the butcher could be heard a mile away, she inwardly grinned. Perhaps he and his bloody wyrm-meat might be the first to be eaten, should danger present itself.

Alex had came to make this dark place her home over the last few days. For a creature so horrid and obscene, what better place than the dark forest of Vailkrin. Eight jagged legs stretched wide bringing the woman down to eye level with the rest of the group, making it far too easy to move over the terrain. Over the large roots, up and around the trunks of the trees, and even from branch to branch. She scurried across the forest with the ease only an arachnid could master. Cautious and quiet, however. Even if she saw most things as a meal, there were still unspeakable horrors that pulled her back.

Lahk accepts the gift of meat from Kuyeix, though his appetites have slaked. Regarding the woman as his fangs rend flesh, his gaze unfocuses and he seems to look at a point past her, the fine softness of black feathers, then a stretched wing, forming in his mind. She is one of which to learn more. His eyes still with Kuyeix, his words for Jolie, "Her color is black. As ours, yet at once her own." His attention is distracted by shadows, again at the corners of his sight, marveling at Valentin's dark side.

Tylastus flitted in from the south. The moonlight occasionally peeking through the trees makes his wings seem to glow.

Jolie was proud of the apprentice necromancer's bourgeoning skill, and would show it with a lift of chin, when she looked his way. The speck of light that was Tylastus caught the periphery of her gaze, and he too was acknowledged, Jolie's thick tail giving a single thump to the forest floor to express her pleasure at his joining them. Thinking, too, that the illusionist had best stay clear of the webs... "North," she said, gutturally. There was no sign yet of any of those monsters. Not yet.

Tylastus lighted softly on the spot between and behind Jolie's ears.

Jolie was tempted to shake her head, dog-like, but did not.

Valentin has one of his roaming eyes accompany the movements of the guildmistress. Precedent indicated that trouble would likely come to himself, on account of not giving a damn for stealth, or to the guildmistress on account of being a lodestone for trouble. The burly butcher tromps on, grotesquely oversized cleaver resting on his shoulder, his other five shadow eyes stretching out in a broad circuit, creating a confusing and compelling kaleidoscope of visions which only long practice had allowed him to make any sense of. The headaches, however, never went away.

Kuyeix doubted. The longer a time she spent traveling through strange lands, the more she wondered why she had not been sent scouting before. Had there been one of the chosen, out in strange lands? Why had she not been told? Had Raven wanted her to come, to see, to experience? Each step brought the conviction that the laughing barely-men who had gone out to seek fame amongst the People had found their fame back in the mud, and without a single story to cement their place in the legends. But if they were dead, the signs would have kept her home. So why? She kept pace with the others, her body corded with lean muscles built by constant use. She did not belong. Maybe she had displeased Raven. Maybe she would die.

Tylastus looked around warily. "This place isn't ominous at all," he said ironically.

Lahk is vigilant aside from the deviations his companions provide, and ever ready to clear his throat should an unspeakable horror rear its nameless head. Idly, he is watching motes of pixie dust accumulate on Jolie's ears, and smirks at the fey's remark.

Jolie had given herself over to all fours, her demi-wolven hands and feet protected by leathern pads that took more silently across logs and roots, along leafy gullies. She turned aside to Lahk, as Tylastus made his perch on her head, "Kin then, of a kind.." And that would be all of her opinion on Kuyeix, for now. As shadows streamed and webs gossamered among the trees, arachnid trails, Jolie kept her wits focussed on the forest ahead until her snout lowered almost of its own volition, and she nearly tripped up on herself. Poor Tylastus.. A loud sniff, and she circled the spot. "Bull men passed here. Two days ago. Scent masked, but I can smell underneath." Her eyes slivered greenly. "More than one."

Kuyeix 's own expression was sardonic. "This is a place the brave tell stories in, backs to the night." She spoke to Tylastus, though she was surprised to see him. She did not react to Jolie's words; Alex had served to desensitize Kuyeix.

Alex would fall from the group from time to time, only to merge from one odd location to the next. It could have been from behind a tree. It could have been from on top a tree. Her movement was swift and unpredictable, something she realized was vital to surviving this dark place. She'd halt her stride however, spider legs keeping her attached to a near by tree trunk like a refrigerator magnet.

Jolie glanced up to the ever-scurrying spider-woman, some silent impulse passing between them.

Lahk lends his own snout to the investigation and nods his assent, "Tauren." Looking to the black boughs above and their gilt of gossamer web, he muses, "Were they predators or prey."

Jolie said to Lahk, "I smell iron. And fear. Both."

Valentin grunted as Jolie's words reach him. Minotaurs, huh. "Lot o'meat on one o'them." The butcher narrows his eyes, recalling the semi-frequent times his twisted sire had pitted his burgeoning vampiric and necromantic powers against various creatures in the name of 'research'. With what passes as taciturn humour, he gives the old Gualon bullfighter's shout in a gravelly tone "Olé..." as his shadows press outwards with his will, to ensure the butcher has time to respond to ambush or assault.

Tylastus tightened his grip on Jolie's fur, steadying himself. He was all eyes and ears, alert and focused on his surroundings, yet not uncomfortable. Unlike many of his breathren, darkness did not unsettle him. Long years spent in the shadows working nefarious deals had given him a taste for it, in fact.

Alex stopped for two reasons; The queer presence of something ahead, and the silent order to scout it out. Leaning off the tree, she'd tip her head to the side, those 8 glowing eyes dancing around, watching every part of the forest around her. Quickly, she'd move herself from tree to tree, disappearing out of sight up ahead.

Jolie gave Valentin a somewhat laconic look. "They are strong, for that meat." Speech was hard, in her present form, and gravelly. Lahk was spoken to next, "My creature will scout. We wait here, for word." And her rump was parked on a patch of grey moss, her hackles rising enough to tickle the pixie's nose. She would speak next to the stranger. "You have a name?"

Lahk looks sidelong at Valentin and remarks wryly with a nod towards Jolie, "Our Mata Hari may have sought to become Mata-dori." Sobering, he continues, "However, we will be fortunate I think if it is only the band of bulls we face."

Tylastus smirked at Lahk. "I'll scare 'em off with a really convincing illusion of a giant meat grinder. Always does the trick."

Kuyeix was left to her discomfort, and she considered what role she would play should the group come to blows. Those chosen were the tools of Raven and the People. Unless she was ordered to war by clan council, she was to stay out of skirmishes and protect herself. But a monster like Alex, what was that? She heaved a sigh, and pulled out her admittedly puny looking knife from beneath her blanket, just in time to seem a response to Jolie's question. So, in Raven form, she saluted the other woman with it and a lopsided grin to boot. "Kuyeix." The word was low and guttural, two syllables at odds with the normal cadences of the language the others spoke to her in.

Jolie snorted softly, through leathery nostrils, at the wolf's comment but added to his last, "The spider-beings take care of the main paths, as ordered. It's the fathest corners where danger lies now."

Valentin catches up a few moments after Jolie stops, and his shadow develops a head momentarily, seemingly for the sole purpose of pantomiming laughter at Lahk's witticism. Valentin, however, is using the stillness to properly sift through the information his shadow eyes are feeding him, and barely responds with an appreciative nod.

Jolie attempted to repeat the name. "Kuyei..sh?" She gave up on it. "Black One." said with another huff.

Kuyeix shrugged. "You would think me powerful?" This, she finds funny, funnier than the mention of a meat grinder. The only experience she has with 'meat grinders' are sharp teeth.

Jolie said to Kuyeix, "I would think you strange." The lycan's tongue lolled again, and licked her lips after, her gaze returned to the path ahead.

Alex returned, although not as calm and quiet as before. Her movement jittered, and body language stressed. That once smooth and fluid movement now rough and tankish. She had been walking down the length of a trunk, stopping midway to relay the message silenty to Jolie. Legs raised and tapped against the wood, almost the same as someone drumming fingers against a table. It would seem something of interest was found, perhaps.

Jolie's head jerked toward the arachnotaur - hold on there, Tylastus - and she listened to the barrage of mental images splotched madly across her mind's eye, trying to make sense of an eight-eyed point of view. Finally, she turned to the others. "There are five, armed heavily. Three women with them, none a threat." Her body lifted to all fours again, and then reared to two hind legs, approximating human stance for a time as she breathed air clean of bovine scent. "Too far to catch a scent." And then she was quadrupedal once more, stalking more cautiously ahead, sticking to shadows that sometimes belonged to the trees. At the word 'five', Kuleix flinched. A product of her weariness, no doubt. She followed gamely, quietly, unconsciously using what noise the others made to cover her own passage. Not that it was hard, with Valentin strolling casual as a chieftan's son through crunchy snow.

Alex crawled along the canopy once more, the stealthy arachnid doing her best to lead the group, and pinpoint the camp.

Jolie kept her gaze up, where she could, to glimpse the pale and bulbous spider-body moving overhead.

Lahk shakes a bit of web from his paw.

Valentin sets one of his eyes to follow Alexis as he lets a smile reach his grizzled, muttonchopped face. Five of them. Perhaps a different approach was needed. He starts to prepare himself mentally for the effort of incanting his favourite and signature binding of the cryumbral tides.

Kuyeix thought to herself that she was going to need a bigger knife.

Jolie slowed her advance, enough to bring her to Lahk's side, as she murmured, "There was an exodus from the westerlands.. the Parasite.." It would likely be all she needed to say to explain the tauren's presence here. "I saw axes. A spear." Her eyes now and then still flickered glances upward as they moved.

Jolie said to Tylastus, "I may have need of you, when we know we where they are."

Lahk snarls with distaste, "I've half a mind to let them rot in whatever rancid hole they dug themselves." Snaking his rough-maned neck to look back over his shoulders at the cities beyond the bounds of the wald, he considers, "Their filth will fester and spread, though, and spill over the wound they have torn in these woods to Vailkrin beyond." Looking to Jolie's eyes, "It is your home. Speak and they lose theirs."

Kuyeix muttered, "They are a people who dip their nets plenty but with holes too large."

Jolie said to Lahk, "They may yet be open to reason." Odd thing for a wolf to think, but then Jolie was both more and less than a wolf. "Though it's not thier nature. Best be prepared for the lack of it."

Alex sped ahead, the eight legged abomination blasting Jolie with another mental warning. They were close enough. The scent was easy enough for the lycans to find on their own. Syping from atop another tree, hidden well behind the dead branches, she'd eye the camp with all eight eyes. She made no further advancement till ordered otherwise.

Valentin grins as the shadow eye sent after Alex reveals the minotaur encampment to him. "Five of 'em a'right"

Lahk said to Jolie, "Smiles first then. If not, bare fangs."

Kuyeix said to Lahk, "Isn't that the same thing, not-Wolf-cousin?"

Lahk turns a friendly eye on Kuyeix, saying thickly, "I shall present both for your comparison, some day."

Kuyeix said to Lahk, "And I will tell you the health of your teeth, in return."

Jolie halted when the arachnotaur did, one paw-like hand raised to both still and hush the group, her own tone near a whisper as she said to Tylastus, "An illusion, to test the waters..." Her nose twitched, the reek of bullmen close and stifling, mingled with human fear.. the women they'd dragged with them from somewhere, the grease of their low-burning fire. She said to Alexis, "Go to your brethren. Search the west f the forest and bring down any intruders there." Unlike this portion of the woods, the west held secrets Jolie did not wish discovered, and her compassion as always ended where her own needs began.

Jolie swiped at the pixie atop her head, making her request more of an order.

Valentin releases four of his shadow eyes, and sends the second one remaining to join its brother in observing the minotaurs. As swiftly as a light extinguished, the second eye zips silently off into the forest.

Jolie said to Tylastus, "Do your stuff. If they attack...” She turned to the rest, "We charge in. Keep yourselves sharp."

Tylastus concentrated, quieting his mind and blocking out his surroundings. He concentrated and summoning a visual and aural illusion of a fully-formed minotaur male.

Jolie said to Tylastus, "One not of their own kind would be a better test, mayhap."

Jolie squinted at the illusion. Damn, the Squirt had gotten good.

Tylastus said to Jolie, "I was going to have it turn into some kind of hideous beast when they saw it."

Lahk awaits the nightmares woven by the pixie and the further scouting of Alex. "If it is in your tolerances to permit the cows some grazing in these forests, they may yet be common allies against those forces that drove them here." Thinking on the women mayhap enslaved, he says, "It seems thus far their intentions are malevolent, and I am well prepared to wash out the stains of their crimes with their own blood."

Kuyeix couldn't help but laugh at the illusion that appeared from nowhere. "Of course, of course, as if strange beasts weren't enough."

Jolie used the illusion as a demonstration to Kuyeix, "That is what we face." She could not blush under black fur and skin, but was suitably chastened for telling an illusionist his own job. Her furry head dipped, "Of course, Tylastus."

Kuyeix eyed it, taking a few steps back. She tried to control her fear, but she could only take so much in a day. "And bears are such a trophy to bring home."

Tylastus said, "Lead on. I'll have the illusion walk ahead of us. When the bull-folk catch sight of it, I'll have it transform into...something else."

Tylastus grinned wickedly.

Jolie said to Lahk, letting the heat in her face fade, "Not all the malevolent are fit for slaughter.." Gods knew what he'd think of her trade.. But the pixie was her focus now, and the result of his woven visions.

Into the Minotaur’s Camp

Jolie led on, recognising the campsite as somewhere close to the very place she'd come to explore. Perhaps the tauren had found the abandoned den to their liking...

Tylastus said, "This way we'll have the element of surprise on our side."

Tylastus whispered to Jolie, "Say the word, and I'll work my magic."

Jolie said to Tylastus, "Word."

Valentin follows at a much slower pace, not needing to keep up to know where the minotaurs were, care of the pair of shadow eyes even now watching the encampment. In fact, it was time to 'conduct an experiment' as the twisted bastard who had sired him used to put it before inflicting horrendous tortures on sundry sentient beings - Valentin included. He starts running through the incantations mentally, checking and double checking the order of release and binding.

Tylastus closed his eyes, concentrating. The image of the bull-man walked forward, in sight of it's more realistic brethren. For a moment all was still. Then, with a piercing cry that shook the surrounding forest, the illusion erupted into a writhing mass of shadowy tendrils. Its horns elongated, its eyes burned like flaming pitch, and from its gullet it belched streams of fire. Its broad, muscled back ripped open and bone-white wings strung with bits of blood and sinew stretched out with grotesque snapping sounds. Its hooves burst into flames, and it left scorch marks on the ground as it moved toward the bull-men. It howled an unearthly keen like the sound of so many screaming people.

Jolie's animalised brain had not the focus for magic, and in her current shape would rely on sheer brute force. Her hand-paws flexed, cruel claws extending, and fur-tipped ears would lie back on her skull.

Kuyeix hung back. She was witness. She would defend, but she would not attack. She had no wish to be trapped in an animal body for the rest of her life, and she knew better than to test Raven's will. She witnessed the horror that was . . .illusion. No time to question what illusion truly was. It seemed real enough, conjured smoke. The noise was overwhelming, and the minotaur's answering cries blended together until it was nothing, a blend of mindless sound. Her eyes rounded, and she circled to stay out of the way, to keep everyone in view. To watch. To learn.

Lahk observes coolly the responses of the minotaurs to the writhing fantasy Ty has dreamt for them. His pale eyes glaze as he looks beyond them, his senses coming alive beyond those of sight, sound and the all-pervading smell. Their armor and arms become things known to him, and wisps of uncolor cling to his pelt and jaw as the interface between wolf and world shifts slightly, favoring the edge of skin, tooth and nail over smelted steel and spearhead barb.

Tylastus said to Jolie, “If you want a chance of peace, turn on the beast I've summoned. It'll appear as if we've been hunting it, and these friendly bullmen are rushing to our aid. Either way, the element of surprise is on our side."

Jolie winced at the illusory shriek, the pixies magic spilling over to taint her own mind, and she surged forward, tilting Tylastus a look laden with terrible hilarity.

The five bull-headed warriors sprang up from their rest, grappling for weapons. Two held axes, one a spear. The other two made do with stout branch-segments for clubs, one charred and glowing at its end where it had rested too close to the dim campfire. The women, unlike their captors being not at all used to battle, squealed and made fast retreat to that broken-down den. Scraping furrows in the damp earth with one massive hoof, the leader of the tauren party let out a mighty bellow, his axe raised high to call charge upon Tylastus’ illusory monster, and the party who appeared now its wake.

Jolie bellowed in return, a half-howled bark, her jaw slinging open to a wide-mouthed snarl, body twisting around the campsite as she sought an opening amid the bull-headed clump of aggression in which to launch an attack.

The butcher, having dropped quite a distance behind the rest of the party, starts to whisper out the first cantatus of binding as the illusion makes enough noise to cover his own, the sibilants oozing over his tongue with a steady cadence of lowering pitch and timbre, a dissonant decrescendo which matches the Scleratus' form as Valentin sinks into his own shadow with each binding section of the incantation. The hazy pool of shadow which replaced Valentin's physical form contracts, and sweeps through the forest with ease, drawing in along the tendrils of the two shadow eyes. Now at the encampment's edge in incorporeal shadowform the Scleratus prepares for the next section of the 'experiment'

Lahk calls out in a snarl to his companions, "Divide the minions, then fall upon their lord!" The lines of his frame become ink on the air, as he flys to battle.

Jolie might apologise to Tylastus later for not being more sneaky. Right now, her blood was up, and she wanted nothing more than the taste of fresh death in her mouth.

Ridiculous, what she saw. Awkward, unreasonable looking beast men on two legs went toe to toe with outlandish nightmares. She might accuse a child for being silly, if even one were to approach her with tales of horrors in the night. She, used to bloodshed and the reactions it provoked, used to coolly observing and sorting out what went on -- like a raven over the battlefield -- was taken aback by the mix of shredding colors. Wolf would sweep up these two as his, given the choice, and Raven would hop from branch to branch, cawing laughter. They would have better luck than she.

Kuyeix spotted blood drawn, and she almost felt warmed by that single familiarity. Ahh, even monsters bled. That was a relief.

Jolie chuffed a rabbit-scented, hot breath at the pixie as he fluttered about her head, her gaze barely resembling that of a creature possessed of reason. "Kill them all," she snarled, and bolted for the hamstring of a tauren already occupied in trying to club the illusory beast.

Tylastus shrugged a little pixie shrug. "So be it. He lighted on a nearby branch, the better to focus on the illusion. So that the bullmen might not too soon realize the trick, he directed the illusion to take to the skies, soaring above the assembled battle, howling in rage occasionally. His companions would know it wasn't real, but the bullmen would fear the gouts of flame it breathed.

Valentin had been hearing whispers since the pressure of the Haruspex' ritual had cracked and reformed sections of his psyche. And, as time passed, the Scleratus had been finding that he could whisper too - without the need for lips or larynx or lungs. And so Valentin 'whispered' now the words to the next cantatus of binding, his once-latent but now-awakened talent letting his mind project the words onto physical reality without the assistance of corporeal flesh. From everywhere, and nowhere, cracked syllables hiss and rub against each other like angry serpents, and Valentin extends long clawed arms from his shadow as he shifts into the invocation of the cryumbral tides. A chill would pass through anything in contact with, or crossing, Valentin's shadow form as those horrific arms appear to take on the physical form of inky ice. He would choose the minotaur furthest from the others, and those arms would reach out to sink chilled claws as sharp as daggers and cold as death into the tauren's neck, intending to tear out its throat. Valentin could feel a metaphysical migraine rapidly developing - the cost of delving too swiftly into the unknown depths of his own talent without due caution.

Lahk is a beast upon the fold of the bovine slavers, leaping from rock to ridge to the bounds of their camp. Singling out a guard literally brandishing a brand, the crude minotaur club smoldering from the fire, he is upon the man-bull in a swath of fur and teeth. Where his paws land on armor, prints are left with a strange sheen, the metal beneath losing its cohesion, becoming quicksilver in stages, melting from the body it once adorned. In his furor, the club catches him on the ear, bringing forth a yelp as he tumbles briefly away. Scrabbling for purchase as he spins in the dirt, he kicks of clouds of dust which changes as it floats to ground glass, creating whorls of white on the ground amidst developing streaks of blood. Then his flanks extend again, the bound bringing him, head ringing, maw to maw with his chosen foe. The minotaur is in backswing for another blow of his branch, when Lahk's jaws close on his face in a flood of scarlet, sinking through flesh, muscle and bone with a flare of the color-without-light about his fangs. The bull-thing screams a bellow, his hands spasming and dropping his brand, as he claws at the wolf, trying to tear the beast from his body.

Kuyeix 's thoughts devolved into a background chatter that meant nothing but comforting, distracting prattle. She stayed well out of the way, though with her knife held ready should anything come at her with a deadly intent. She'd still likely run; there was no point in taking chances she didn't need to. Between the people she'd followed and herself, she thought it likely that she would just be in the way. And if she was in the way, she couldn't stand back and watch. She saw no signs of the men she'd been sent after, but this was where she was supposed to be. Blood and death. Raven's right to witness it, and pick among the remains after. Chaos seethed before her, and she tipped her head to it.

Jolie had a mouthful of minion-hock in no time, slinking low to the ground even as the illusion rose above the bewildered, angry minotaurs so that her mark was not watching the rear of the camp nor his own.. Fangs snapped around that sinewed fetlock, Jolie's weight wholly hauling back upon it as her head shook violently to rend the flesh in her mouth's daggered grip. The bullman let out a roar of pain and shock, crippled enough to fall but already twisting his club around to strike head or spine, for the satisfying crack of bone that would exact revenge for his wound. The weapon swooshed by the wolfess, glancing hard off her shoulder and sending her into a painful, lupine roll, legs tangling until she swiftly regained them. The hamstring minotaur was down, crawling toward her, furious, his hock welling blood, its torn skin dangling, the club still in his humanoid fist raised for another blow should the lupine sineater come barrelling back for another bite - which course, she did. Like a black-furred bullet, the svelte shape of her dived toward her victim until it seemed she planned to suffer a clubbing for the sake of minotaur blood, but claws would grip the earth and she swerved in a feint that saw only her paw-prints beaten to death. As the club landed, she sprang upon the warrior's back and drove her maw toward his unprotected nape. A snap, another spray of crimson and rent flesh, and the great body slumped.. Jolie had, thus occupied, not seen a second tauren raise his vengeful axe behind her.

Valentin causes his shadowice arms to clench in, and Jolie might feel a rush of air as the axe descending misses her as the minotaur wielding it is hauled back slightly in the grasp of Valentin's manipulation of the cryumbral tides. Blood sprays as the minotaur's neck and throat are ripped out in fleshy chunks.

Lahk is dragged from the bull's body, half the snout and jaw of the slaver ripped from its head in a sickening display of torn bone and exposed, rotten teeth. Blood pounds from the creature's terrible wound as it chokes on its own life. Lahk spits the foul flesh as the guard crashes to his knees and elbows, clutching at its ruined face. To dispatch the suffering minotaur, onyx claws flare darkly, splitting the now bare ribs of the bull, who spills the remainder of his breath amidst a knot of purple-violet entrails and gore. Bleeding now from one ear, and streaked with dark wetness and dirt on his ebon pelt, he is atop, over and beyond the body of his fallen foe. Noting 'Tins dispatch of the guard threatening Jolie, and looking about to ensure his companions otherwise fare well, he readies for the assault on the minotaur lord.

The clearing is filled with what seems to be an echo of someone growling in pain. Valentin, his mind feeling as if it has also been pierced by icy daggers, is forced to release all of his bindings, his shadowform swiftly contracting to leave the butcher outstretched by a tree on the edge of the clearing with cleaver in hand. The penalty over pushing his mystical limits too far recoils on him in something much more misery-inducing than the worst of hangovers.

Jolie put thanking the butcher on her list of things to do later, or would have had she not been so very driven to seek out that one remaining minion - the second axe-bearer, who was slinking toward the den perhaps hoping to retrieve the women while chaos ensued and make a hasty exit. Upon him now green eye alit, narrowing as they slid a quick glance to Valentin. That blow to her shoulder throbbed dully, and it would be less speed that took off after the last of the bull-lord's crew, a slight limp developing where bone and flesh throbbed.

Lahk circles the retreating remaining member of the band of horned slavers, its eyes bulging red in rage, and mucus splattering from its snout about the oversized bronze ring held there as jewelry, as it vents its displeasure at the party's success. He shoots a look at Jolie and awaits their attack into the den.

Tylastus directed the illusion to land between the final bullman and the entrance to the den. It flared its wings, and hissed a scathing series of insults at the coward, its tongue working around searing flames.

Lahk snaps his jaws, snarling at the last member as it recoils from Ty's illusion, driving its back into the waiting monstrous arms of Jolie.

The bovine warrior, none too smart and barely out of calf-hood was still a hundred pounds of muscle over the weight of either wolf, and his axe was sharp, his greed sharper.. That arm had to suffer, before the weapon it bore could be used to decrease their own number and thus Jolie bolted, a little crookedly for her limp, to leap for the bull-man's elbow and clamp on, effectively rendering the axe useless. But she had not entirely counted on its strength - the sineater was lifted clear of ground and swung about like a black rag on a wash-line, pegged to the meat of it by her unforgiving teeth.

Lahk bolts for the exposed legs of the minotaur, who is otherwise distracted with waving the flag of a anthropomorphic wolf about over his head. His tackle finds purchase and they totter towards collapse in a heap of rending claws. On the fall, an errant swipe of the axe grazes Lahk's flank, splitting a crooked gash there from which fresh crimson flows. The female wolf is nearer the head, and will likely quell the life of their prey.

Valentin groans "Blimmin' 'ell. My bloody 'eads on fire. In ice. Bein' hit by a blimmin' smith's hammer." He hauls himself into a kneeling position to begin with, taking stock of the situation.

A faint crashing, vanishing into the distance, would tell a tale of escape for one of the hoofed slavers. He was headed west, though, and his doom would fall to a dozen spider-bodied undeads and their powerful webs, their venomous mandibles. Perhaps his husk would be found on the morrow, slung in a cocoon from a tree.

Lahk limps away from the bodies strewn like cordwood about the clearing, the cowering slaves forgotten, towards the collapsed form of Valentin, so recently fallen into and out of shadow. A last paw print of glass trails behind the wolf, fading quickly to indistinguishable dust, leaving only spatters of blood. Once over the kneeling butcher, he tilts his head, wondering if the muttonchopped King of cleavers needs aid from the hound dog.

Jolie's snout, already soaked in wet gore, only grew bloodier now and she snapped at a wide, lily-shaped ear, ripping it clean off. Claws gouged at eyes, as she drove her body around to bring her face near enough to the arteries of the bullman's thick neck. Spitting the ear out, she lunged, tore, maimed.. and would swallow a chunk or two, lost in the joy of the hunt, even as the warrior died. Her own wounds, a cracked rib, another bruise laid atop already-sore muscle, were ignored for now.

Tylastus finally released his hold on the illusion and the whole terrifying monstrosity seemed to burn away into nothingness. Exhausted at having maintained so complicated an illusion, Tylastus dropped to a knee on the branch to catch his breath.

Valentin drags himself upright, obstinate to the last "I'm a'right. Jus' got a hangover is all"

Jolie was roused from her kill at length, her snout dripping sanguine. Her throat convulsed as she ate down a final chunk before words that sounded harsher than they were meant were offered to the pixie. "The women.."

Jolie turned her sleek, bloodied head toward the mouth of the den.

Lahk nods and turns from the shadowcaller, falling to sit on his haunches and lick at his wounds. His eyes still jumping from the concussive blow, his maw splits in a grin, "None of us left in a cart." He nods at Jolie and juts his chin to the den, "By rights, they were property, and now are yours by conquest. What will you have of them?" He pauses to nip at his wound, watching the other wolf from the corners of his eyes.

Jolie's breaths were shallow by necessity, her side heaving painfully to draw breath. The wolf was an odd one... he had some code to follow, she supposed, and one that she herself did not subscribe to. Still, as a sign of thanks for his aid the necromantic wolfess replied, "Freedom." She flopped down atop the dead minotaur, regretting the stab of pain the action caused.

Tylastus flits into the den, to check on the women.

Jolie busied herself licking at a mauled tauren cheek, probably rendering it useless for butcher's wares. She’d eventually crawled off that carcass, and limp toward the den.

Valentin would trudge after Jolie, his cleaver in his hand, and his shadow just a typical, lifeless shadow.

Lycan's Den

Tylastus checked the women for obvious wounds or signs of maltreatment.

Jolie was a nightmare on four legs as she pushed into that neglected space, finding the pixie tending to the terrified slaves. A fresh slew of screams resulted, and the wolfess cast a slightly hopeless look toward Valentin.

Valentin sighs with a wince. The screaming -hurt- with the damn migraine of magical backlash pounding his skull "Would you bloody women -Shut Up-?! We can't save you if you're assaultin' our bloody ears with your blimmin' caterwaulin'"

Tylastus reprimanded Valentin. "How do you think you'd respond if you were in their position?”

Jolie sighed, which hurt her lung where the cracked rib pressed in on it. "Go," she snapped to the females, a baring of her fangs offering them incentive.

The much-abused slaves froze, eyes flitting between the gruff butcher and his.. talking dog?

Valentin casts a dour glare at the diminutive illusionist, whose voice was just as much a catalyst for discomfort as the wailing irritants "Y'bloody Cenril banker. I wouldn't be in their blimmin' position. I'd 'ave killed or been killed long 'fore it got t'that point, innit."

Tylastus was not in the mood to argue with someone who was, basically, a stranger to him, so instead he focused on getting the women up and mobilized and ready to go.

Jolie observed how they clutched their meager belongings. "Somebody needs to take them to the tavern.." she said, low enough not to cause the poor females any more fright. The lycaness' thoughts were with the wounded Lahk, whom she'd seek before donning humanoid shape and the clothing she'd left buried under a tree. A moment passed in which she looked around the den. "Needs work." was all she said, before turning toward the exit, bloody paw-prints left in her wake.

Valentin nods to his guildmistress, then looks at the pixie "Well, guv, since you're the one with a sympathetic bone an' all, I guess you've been volunteered to guide the women t'the inn." Besides, chances are the butcher was not going to be the most reassuring of presences for the women.