RP:Night of the Living Dead Girls

From HollowWiki

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc


This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.


Summary: The Eternal Tree gets a boo boo. So does the superhuman Krice. No one quite knows who could have done such a terrible thing.


Druid's Eternal Tree

Chills creep through your body the moment you step foot onto this sacred ground. This seems to be a place of great worship, though the object of worship is at first unclear. Your gaze follows the trunk of a large oak tree standing erect in the center of a grassy floor, its mistletoe adorned branches reaching great heights into the deep blue sky above. A small wall of smooth stones surrounds the tree, and walking closer, you notice that this tree seems to float within a pool of clear, tepid liquid, where beautiful white flowers dance about, gracefully. Several faeries fly past, having some sort of enigmatic tie to the druids. The air here is warm and damp, exuding a sense of purity. As you continue to glance around this room constructed of rock, ivy and other various plants climbing the walls, you begin to suspect it may be the force of nature and life which is celebrated and cherished here. Deep in your mind, you can hear a voice, which seems to come from within the tree, as you concentrate, you can hear the words of nature speak clearly. 'I, The Eternal Tree, can teach those the power of nature.'


The forest is still on this night, to the point of perturbing even the fae that normally stand guard to the landmark Druid’s Tree. Whispers on the wind tell of something horrible about to happen, warning those who are able to flee the area. There is no chattering from the local fauna, and no cries from owls making their nightly tribute to the twin lights of Valaane and Arh’Nuk. The silence is slowly broken by the sound of footfalls. Faint at first for those inside the sacred ground, the percussion of what can only be presumed to be an army grows until the flowers resting upon the smooth stone walls of the old chapel begin to tremble. From the sole entrance, cloaked figures begin to pour into the testament to nature, the hoods of which all face downwards. The fae defenders initially move to attack as the first few pour in, but a bolt of lightning to one of the figures seems not to phase it. Rather, they keep moving forward until assuming a position at the furthest wall. Once all the figures have entered the room, should anyone care to count, over three hundred hooded figures occupy the chapel. Three hundred and three, to be exact. Strangely enough, not nearly enough malice seems to emit from this army, despite the sheer volume of them being enough to intimidate most. There is a snap of fingers from somewhere within the army, and a third of the army’s heads rise, revealing bone white theatre masks with the mouths pulled up into unsettling smiles. Another snap, and another third rises, revealing jet black theatre masks, lips pulled down into frowns. A final snap, and the final third rises to attention, revealing glaringly reflective orange masks with no features save for two eyeholes. Beneath the masks, wisps of short black hair can be seen on every soldier peeking out from beneath the hoods. The army appears to be nearly uniform in appearance, save for varying heights and statures. The only exception would be that one of the figures with the masque of comedy wears a cerulean camelia on the brooch of the robe. From somewhere in the horde, a shrill voice, the sound of which could be described as the equivalent of broken glass being smashed with a mortar and pestle, calls out. “Surely, it can’t be this easy, right?”

A blanket of thick fog rolls in to conceal the approaching horde, wrapping around the area and entangling within the trees to create an eerie arena surrounding the Druid’s Eternal Tree. From among the masques of tragedy comes the low wispy voice of a figure slightly taller than the others, their robes rippling in the chilly night wind. “It won’t be, someone will be here to try and stop us. It always seems to be the case.” The wraithlike figure raises up a single hand, the undead that matched them snapping to attention at the simple movements,

With that fog that rolls in comes a frigid chill. One of the figures, shorter than most, moving a bit more fluidly than the majority, and with blonde hair peeking out from her Orange mask gets up on her tiptoes and glances left and right, scanning what she can, “Hmm… Maybe we can get a head start at least. You know?” The mask ruins the experience of whatever cute face this necromancer is making beneath it for everyone else. Beside her is a decidedly skinnier cloaked figure than the rest and it appears to be the source of the sheer cold flowing outward from the hoard, arms hugged around its body, its whole form shivering. Prompted by the actions of the head of the theater troupe, Orange claps her hands together and mouths a silent prayer that causes her third of the ensemble cast to straighten up as well.

Krice had departed the tree only ten minutes earlier, moving with the last guard detail after changeover. The elves broke away to enter the Southern Sage just as they passed the tavern, leaving him on Kelay Way. It had been his intention to return to the Eternal Tree after receiving their detailed report of the events leading up to changeover, so he was already turning when the air shifted, bringing with it clear foreboding. The warrior saw the fog, sensed the magic, and warned those still outside of their homes to retreat to safety. The people in Kelay knew and respected Krice--he had helped them many times over the years--so they listened without delay, though one elderly couple expressed their concern for him. He acknowledged their compassion but ushered them inside regardless, thereafter reaching past his head to withdraw the mythril katana from it's back-mounted scabbard. A hiss of metal foretold of the deadly clash to come. Through unnatural fog, the warrior clad in black was a silent, ominous figure, displacing the atmosphere around each quick-step that veritably teleported him into the horde. Heads remained firmly in place as a swift slice of that katana detached them from connective tissue, rolling to the ground when the enigma shoved his shoulder into one figure so forcefully that it barrelled into it's surrounding partners-in-death. He moved with haste and precision, fifteen robed creatures displaced as he cut and shoved his way directly toward those in leadership, announced to him by not only any movements they performed as differing from the horde, but also by their scents, which he searched for through the masses. Ever closer he traveled toward the tree, a malignant current forcing his way through the undead wave, approaching the as yet unidentified trio in seconds.

There is an audible sigh from Comedy as over a dozen of the undead are taken out in the fog. “Oh, phooey.” The scratchy voice laments as she lets the bodies hit the floor. Despite her being dressed almost identically to her toys, one of few animated figures amongst the crowd gives a tilt of her head. From beneath the shaded eyeholes, summer sky eyes scan the area for movement as the horde that surrounds the tree stands, awaiting orders. Finally, her eyes rest on him and she throws a shoulder out in a flirtatious manner. “Ooh, I wasn’t told you were going to be so cute.” The figure teases as he approaches her and the two contrasting masks on either side of her. “When this is all over, I’d love a taste of you.” The ghoul flirts unabashedly. “Well, so sorry to say, but we kind of have a job to do. Hand in hand with fear and shadows… Crying at the funeral party.” The orange and black masks on either side of her fall away to reveal corpses. The trio had separated upon arrival! A snap of her fingers behind her back, and the undead members of the Comedy troupe surge forward towards Krice. They all emit a scream as they move simultaneously, nearly deafening the arena for all besides those two members already warded against the acoustimancy. The cerulean clip is thrown into the air, and a thick wall of vines spring up from the ground the moment Krice moves forward again. The taunting Comedy mask moves into the crowd of undead bearing the same face, dancing through the swarm and closer to the Druid’s Tree.

Tragedy allows their wispy form to meld into the horde of undead, her aura and scent mixing with the overpowering smell of undeath, making them nearly indistinguishable from one another. Like a twisted, shadowy snake, the wraithlike figure winds through the living dead, drawing the ashen katana concealed under her robes as the hoard follows behind her, an extension of will. Aided by Comedy’s ghouls, Tragedy takes advantage, emerging from the umbra to cut Krice off with a well-aimed upswing for his chin, trying to draw as much of his aggression as she can to give her allies time to infect the tree. Predicting that Krice would avoid such a sneaky attack, Tragedy shifts a step backwards, her zombies filling the gap between herself and the swordsman. “I expected you’d return here,” the voice howls, “You should have let the Dragana girl finish her task; Now you have us to contend with.” Both hands clasp the grip of her katana tightly to bring it up into a ox guard, the pale light from Valaane and Arh’Nuk glimmering from the mithril alloys next to her ebony masque as the identical undead circle around her, creating a first line of defence against his retaliation.

The Oranges closest to Krice at any time simply grab at the interloper, as of yet unsuccessful in ensnaring the lightning quick swordsman, but persistent as hell in their quest. More praying is done by the little necromancer in the vibrant mask and the undead corpses of hers that have lost their heads stand back up and start moving again, but there is a gruesome change happening to them, their flesh bubbles beneath the cloaks and turns a dark black, becoming as tar, making it more difficult for them to move, but also meaning that just a brush up with them (or a sword slice) risks tedious adhesion, an awful fate, Orange assumes, for this man that seems so fond of his own momentum. The teen, her newest prayer answered, starts heading towards the tree as well with her shivering companion, albeit at a different angle from Comedy. She keeps glancing back, trying to keep track of Krice in the hoard, but it is a difficult task from her height. She huffs and just hopes she’ll be able to hear him coming if he decides she’s the next target. Little does she know Tragedy is doing work to keep him occupied.

Krice could have felled the entire horde in just a handful of minutes had it not been for other distractions--not only was he powerful and swift, it was generally easier to kill things that didn't fight back. Thirty more drones fell away from the path he cut through them, forging his way toward Comedy. With another charge of his shoulder, and a follow-up sweep of his katana, he dispersed his foes outward and subsequently enjoyed a moment of inactivity. It was in this moment that Comedy's voice called above the slosh of stumbly feet, her message met with a neutral expression - except for the malice that burned in those crimson eyes. He didn't like people at the best of times, less so bad people. -Least- of all bad people who -talked-. Halfway through Comedy's flirty message, Krice turned his attention back to the surrounding hordes and resumed his unscrupulous murder of them--but was it really murder if they were already dead? Philosophical questions aside, it was the approaching horde's scream that stopped Krice in place, a wince confirming the success of their intent. Head down, he took a moment to fortify his mind, to shut out unnecessary sound, and within a breath overcame the screams to focus anew on the foes that surrounded him. More heads rolled from shoulders, but with the reanimation of previously decapitated foes, the warrior exerted a little more energy to relieve them of their limbs, subtle wrist movements creating an apparently effortless latticework of curved mythril through semi-rotting flesh. Midway through the culling, movement contradictory to the rhythm of the masses drew his eye and he looked toward it just as Tragedy’s sword ascended toward him. Pushing back on his front foot and landing on his right one half a metre back, Krice spared himself the uncomfortable outcome of a gash to his throat - sporting instead the smallest cut on the left side of his chin. Never in one place for long, the enigmatic swordsman left piles of bodies--unmoving and reanimated, to be sure--in his wake, stopped again with the new conjuring of a vine-wall. Following the twisted networks of foliage, an unfamiliar voice curled in toward his ears, filtering through his aural guard to present its message. A god-like warning, it seemed... Hardly new to the warrior. In his thirty-plus years of existence, he had traded blows with dragons, demi-gods, and gods on the battlefields of Lythridel and elsewhere; while he possessed a measure of respect for the power intimated in that voice, he was not afraid. His mission was to protect the tree and by extension, all life connected to it. Just another handful of seconds ticked by from the sprout of that vine-wall and the ominous message, before Krice was moving again into the limbs that grabbed at him, in the opposite direction away from the tree. Would vine walls sprout up there as well, or was it just upon his advancement toward the ringleaders? Once more, efficacy proved him more successful than the creatures who mindlessly sought to keep him at bay, limbs and rot clumping at his feet. He made sure not to touch those bubbling sticky giblets after observing adhesion between body parts that nature’s forces would have otherwise separated. Having previously identified the source of the ominous voice, Krice curved around the group and using a pile of rotting body parts to launch himself across the expanse between that nature-wall and Tragedy, katana pulled into a close-left plow-guard. His shoulders skimmed bodies but it did not halt his progress, closing several metres in the space of a breath. At the last moment, he would divert from Tragedy to drive the curved edge of his mythril blade down through the legs of the line to her right, seeking to incapacitate them in his bid to thereafter rush at those closer to the tree. Orange might hear the collisions of flesh and bone nearing her location, the only announcement she would have of the enigma’s approach - all assuming he had not somehow been slowed by the others.

Comedy manages to twirl around flying body parts, her disguise allowing her to get dangerously close to the tree. As she nears the small stone wall that protects the base of the trunk, she looks at her toys and lets out a quiet tut. The cerulean camelia floats downwards onto the top of one of the vine walls, where the concentrated maleficent energies exude outwards, only enraging the horde further. “That’ll never do.” A wave of the hand, and the stalks of grass and vines curl around the decapitated corpses, the heads of which still gnash at the open air, and the limbs of which still reach out aimlessly with the last of its curse. The flora drags the viscera of bloody limbs into a pile where the most corpses are concentrated. Vines creak and snap as they curl in on one another, and the pile begins to move as one. An amalgamation of what must pass for a golem in the murder-happy bard’s eyes rises its “head” upwards. With the mass of nearly twenty of the corpses, the monstrosity of a puppet stands on eight branches of limbs as Comedy flexes her fingers upwards, a wicked smile reflected in empty eyes devoid of all humanity. With the last of any air in the multiple corpses’ airways, the amalgamation wheezes out, “Surprise!” The mass of corpses rejoins the remainder of the army that promptly turns in unison and seeks out Krice after his launch to continue their quest to feast on the swordsman. The monster moves with jerky movements, but crosses the field with thundering footsteps. Seems Orange may have to wait. As the woman focuses her efforts on the puppet, the ghoul moves backwards until her back is up against the Druid’s Tree itself.

Tragedy is driven by pride more than logic, having something she wishes to prove to herself by taking on Krice in melee combat despite being only a third of the swordsman he was. The silver-haired enigma was faster and stronger than her, and possessed senses that put her own inhuman ones to shame. Still, the sense of failure she endured the first time she lost to him was not something she wanted to see repeated. Her focus is unbroken by the chaos around her, watching Krice’s movements through the gore and viscera that his blade created with each cleave through the undead. Tragedy is ready for his attack when she spots his charging stance, pivoting and dropping the point on her blade downward to deflect an attack for her legs- but the attack never connects. Instead the zombies guarding her right were felled, and Tragedy spins to follow after the swordsman, the magic of her shadow-stepping boots giving a quick pulse before she fades into the darkness. Moving much more quickly then she ever could on foot, the necromancer’s form is pulled through the shadows to emerge nearly upon Krice’s heels, her darkened visage brings her katana downward from a Kirioroshi stance in an attempt to slice a gash in the silver haired man’s back, the power of the swing aided by its heavy Ghroundium core. The wraithlike figure does not relent, following up with a slight twist and upward swing, preserving some of the momentum from her original strike before taking a half step forward and thrusting. A quick, one, two, three succession, hoping this would be enough to hold his attention long enough for Comedy’s Grave Titan to engage. However, these attacks were too aggressive causing Tragedy to leave herself open for a counter-attack as her body extends in a driving motion.

Orange curses a lot when she hears Krice coming her way. She picks up her pace, but the increased speed only means she is knocking into reanimated corpses in her way, netting her no greater distance between her and the approaching swordsman. Once again her hands slap together in front of her, but what comes out of her mouth is more of a barked demand than a prayer to the deity granting her necromantic powers, “Just stop him, damn it!” Two of her corpses dive head first at the approaching pretty boy and in mid-air completely liquefy into that same black tar-like substance, an attempt to literally spill themselves onto Krice and sap away some of his monstrous dexterity. Comedy’s amalgamation of flora and former fauna would be admired if Orange wasn’t so consumed with running towards the tree. If Krice manages to continue his pursuit of the youngest necromancer present, past Tragedy herself and the golem of vines and flesh, he will find that the shivering cloaked figure has been left behind to intercept him. This reanimated being reveals itself to be much faster than the rest of the hoard, though its goal is the same as the other Orange Masks’; to grab or just touch the enigma. The difference here is the type of damage meant to be done. The skeletal fingers that reach out from the cloak are absolutely frigid, just a poke might be enough to freeze the blood in one’s veins… Orange is closing in on the Tree now herself, looking towards Comedy and huffing out a question, “Ready?” while she tires to catch her breath…

Krice halted for a breath at the end of the de-legged zombie line simply because he had reached the limit of -that- particular quick-step. He continued onward as bodies fell behind him, seeking Orange. The unnatural--but really, what -wasn’t- unnatural in this messy encounter?--gathering of fleshy clumps drew his eye but a preternatural awareness alerted him to something more pressing; the sudden warping of space nearby. Something was behind him. As Tragedy emerged from her shadows, the enigma spun to greet her sword with his own, a spark illuminating the space between them as steel clashed with steel. A quiet growl of irritation sat low in the warrior’s throat, accompanying the venom in his eyes - visible when he parried Tragedy’s final attack and spun to send the force of his left heel at her left flank. Whether or not he connected, Krice became aware of another concentrated mass at his back just as his foot found the earth once more. He pivoted into a preemptive, evasive crouch, and most of the slush from those colliding zombies fell toward Tragedy - at least, where she had been when last the warrior engaged her. Some of the inky goo fell across his exposed left forearm--he was wickedly fast but still limited when confronted with several things at once, as any superhuman would be--and he attempted to dislodge it with a quick shake of that limb. Surrounded by various obstacles, though not yet dissuaded from his self-appointed task, Krice forsook pursuit of Orange, and removal of the zombie-gunk in favour of sprinting toward the tree where Comedy had her back pressed, his progress marked by intermittent ‘disappearances’ as quick-steps took him clear of attacking zombies. Still, with the presence of Comedy’s titan firmly established, the warrior could take a hint; cutting up undead things created sticky sludge and massive golems. No more cutting. Thus Krice’s last recourse - for the zombies, at least - was blunt force. He chose displacement in favour of dismemberment, returning his katana to a tight-left plow guard to keep it ready but out of the way. Always moving, always swift, he made sure not to linger in one place to offer an easy target to Tragedy, shouldering squads of undead cretins away from his path as he drew ever closer to the masked figure at the tree.

The assailant bearing the Comedy mask looks out towards the Orange mask that addresses her, giving a nod. Krice’s attempt to bypass the skeleton becomes more and more futile as the masks join forces at the base. “Here, on the other side.” Comedy beckons, helping the young necromancer over the short wall. The amalgamation takes in air as it moves and expels it with screeches of the poor mortals that fell victim to the trio. The druidic woman raises her hand abruptly, and the titan springs into the air with a leap, pointed vines splayed outward in an attempt to impale the swordsman. When the creature inevitably makes its landing, whether the vines connect or not, Comedy’s hand will fall away, and with it, the titan will cease to be. Instead, the corpses’ limbs that make up the mass of the creature burst forth from its collapse in all directions, gnashing and clawing at anything it can gain purchase on. “Alley oop.” The cheerful assailant taunts as she raises a pipe out from beneath her hood. Should anyone have seen the piece long enough to recognize it on sight, no matter how aged it's become, they would see a pan flute on a necklace string that was perhaps once perfectly polished; a token from a school in Schezerade. Disappearing into the smile of the mask, a single high note rings out continuously, soundwaves bouncing across the battlefield to torment the ears of the unwarded. The fae guardians who had insofar disposed of a dozen ghouls between themselves, suddenly collapse to the ground with their ears covered. This is just long enough for the monsters to descend, shedding their masks so that they can feast. The whistle is sustained as Comedy turns her back allowing the bardic magic and the skeleton defender handle the imminent threat. No more time to be wasted. Removing her hands to reveal greyed hands and unusually perfectly tangerine nailpolish, the woman runs her hands along the bark of the tree in search of a weak point in its divine aura. As she does so, a voice rings out in her head, ‘You have forgotten who gave you this gift with which you attack me, child. Is this what Sagaribana would have wanted for you?’ There is a moment’s hesitation; the pan flute falls from her lips as memories from another life flicker before her eyes for just a few brief seconds: Screams as metal met flesh, a kiss upon bark. A scream from another ghoul wipes the memory away as she presses her hand to the trunk of the tree again. “Here. Hand me a vial.” Comedy instructs to the Orange mask.

Tragedy hisses in pain as her over-exposed flank takes a hit from Krice, sending her unbalanced stance toppling over just in time to avoid the spewing black goop from Orange’s abominations. She hits the ground hard, an empty hand moving over to hold the stop on impact as her zombies circle around her, creating a barrier around her prone form. The dark fae fights through the discomfort and springs to her feet, rising above the masked hoard around her to follow after Krice with her gaze, eyes hidden by darkness narrowing in annoyance. Tragedy knew she had to do something unexpected. Something so reckless that nobody would see it coming. Reaching for a very specific glass syringe on her belt, the young necromancer stalks slowly after the swordsman, keeping a wide distance from herself and Orange’s skeleton that loomed in the path to the tree. She was in no rush. Tragedy would wait for the perfect opportunity to strike, an opportunity that might be provided by shooting vines or bardic discord, or the bony undead that blocked the swordsman's path. With her sword in one hand and the mithril-tipped needle syringe in the other, the tallest necromancer among them and her undead attachment form a semicircle around them, ready to pounce the second Krice looked like he had an opening in his defenses.

Orange lifts her mask up slightly, exposing her the lower half of her face as she takes in some fresh air. Well, mildly fresh. Since the arrival of the zombified hoard the pure, fresh smells of the sacred tree and its vital aura have been actively combatting the rotting flesh and sulfurous tar being flung around by the three necromantic ring leaders. The girl gets a boost from Comedy and rushes through the shallow pool of pure water towards the other side of the tree. The tiny fae approach and The Orange Mask looks like she’s about to start another prayer, but the faeries are dropped by the bardic magic before she can even decide what she is going to ask for. Meanwhile the chilly skeleton is dashing, and dipping, and ducking, and diving, and dodging through the hoard to meet up with Krice, just to try and give the enigma a high five or something with the added flavor of frostbite and instant hypothermia. As it moves, the skeletal familiar seems to be growing even colder, so much so that the cloak that covers its bones begins to stiffen with frost and then snap and shatter, revealing the elven skeleton beneath blocking the swordsman’s path, a faint blue glow visible at the back of its ribcage. Back at the tree, Orange is fumbling around inside her cloak until she pulls out a vial of a wicked concoction as requested, “Gwah~!” She reaches out to hand it off and it squeezes out of her fingertips, but reflexes are something that this girl inherited from her celebrity father, so her opposite hand darts out and the falling vessel out of the air before it drops into the pristine pool. She grins and hands it over, flipping her mask back down immediately after. Perhaps she missed the internal struggle the ghoul had there a moment ago because of the mask hiding her features. She’s usually a sweet, sympathetic girl.

Krice was not only moving swiftly to get to the tree before Orange or Comedy could damage it, but he also had to evade the gnashing teeth and crooked fingers of the ravenous undead lest their sickness infect him. During a particularly close-quarter pirouette with one creature in advanced stages of decomposition, the gibleted golem launched itself from the ground and one of its thrusted vines clipped the warrior’s shoulder with enough force to push him off course. He stumbled to the right, slowed just enough for Tragedy to close in, and raised his katana in preemptive defense against the approaching ice-skeleton. Its extended fingers clashed with the mythril of his katana, seemingly impervious to its frost, and he spun away to distance himself from its targeted flailing. So much to watch for, so much to avoid. That high-pitched note emanating from Comedy’s flute fought its way through his mental defences and he winced visibly as his steps faltered, squinting through the resultant discomfort to shoot hasty glances between the ice-skeleton and Tragedy. The tree would have to wait just a little longer. A soundless call spread through the earth, completely undetectable even to Krice. Here the Eternal Tree was in danger, at risk of falling despite Krice’s valiant attempts to defend Her - and she called to her vast constituency for aid. Reacting to this threat, bipedal figures clothed in leather-free light armour and outfitted with a variety of light weapons lined the Way’s southernmost flank, shooting fire-tipped arrows into the dregs of undead who didn’t quite fit into the temple - or had been knocked out during the battle. Their dominant line of offense was a squad of fleet-footed archers, who maintained height by lining the branches of the canopy above the temple. Eternal Tree foliage obscured some of their vision but with enough space between twisted limbs and vines, they loosed their own flammable arrows into the flesh of the undead horde below, including the troupe who encircled Tragedy. Fire spread through rotting arms and torsos, slowing the struck zombies who clambered into others and spread the flame. It was a risk to play pyrotechnics so close to the Eternal Tree, but these vigilant Elvish hunters saw an even greater risk posed by the necromancers working to encircle the majestic trunk. As Krice raised his katana into the outstretched arms of the frosted skeleton for a second deflection, arrows rained down from the overhead boughs to lodge in the icy body of his assailant, their flames spreading throughout its exposed bones. The warrior looked up only fleetingly to acknowledge the origin of those flames and saw the familiar, tattooed elves of The Requital, a deep-south group of Nature’s guardsmen who had come, by proxy, to his aid. Two hunters knocked plain-tipped arrows, no fire, and shot them toward the two necromancers at the base of the Eternal Tree, attempting of course to hit the robed figures but at least hoping to dissuade them away from the large structure. Trusting those elves to protect the tree at least for now, Krice pivoted in the direction of Tragedy’s last known location, raising his sword in preparation to meet her.


Comedy raises her masked face to the Orange mask, taking the syringe with a word of thanks. As she holds the syringe above the Eternal Tree, part of her hesitates. The questions that ran through her head when she initially agreed to help Quintessa, questions that she thought the armored giant had helped her reassure that this was the path needed to regain her humanity… Was it, though? One of the fire-tipped arrows hones in and smashes against the joyful mask as she loses herself in her second-guessing nature. Her grip tightens on the syringe to keep from losing possession on it as her head snaps away with a sickening crunch. Comedy turns her head back with a series of crackles as her curse realigns her spine. Half of her mask is crumbled to bone white shards at her feet, revealing a greyed complexion and sunken ice-blue eyes, revealing the undead bard Quintessa had been housing in Vailkrin. The arrow protrudes from just below Kanna’s eye, from which a black viscera stinking of rotting flowers, similar to that of those of the other Comedy ghouls, flows freely forth as she uses her free hand to roughly pull out the offending weapon. “Don’t fuck with me.” Somewhere high above the treetops, a mountain seagull cries out a beat behind schedule. The woman flexes her free hand out, flexing the muscles until her hand nearly contorts from the strain. Roots from other plants are forcibly pulled upwards from the grassy knoll beneath her and Orange’s feet, and from the water of the shallow pool just paces away. The roots twist towards the pair, creating a waterlogged enclosure that the arrows sink into, only to extinguish quickly. Satisfied with her druidism, Kanna throws an open hand onto the bark of the tree. The wordless pleas emit more frequently, drawing in further ire of the Holy Tree’s protectors. ‘This is a mistake, this must be a mistake!’ She strains with a grunt as magic fights against magic. As if granted power by the poisoned sap in her hands, the fight is short-lived as bark peels away under her command and the heart of the tree is forcibly revealed to the necromantic duo. The voice whispers in her ears, ‘You have to remember. You were not always a cruel creature, Kanna. You must have been--’ Kanna cannot allow herself to let it finish; the vial is stabbed into its heart, and the black liquid drips out for just a moment, before it slithers its way further into the heart. “I just want my memories back.” The bard apologizes quietly for her crime.

Tragedy looks on either side of her as her entourage was slain by the pesky Requital elves, setting the undead ablaze as they shuffled inward. Things were looking dire. She could not drag this out any longer. One-handed, the tallest necromancer rushes forward, escaping a similar fate of her minions as she meets Krice head-on, her rare alloyed weapon slamming down to meet metal against metal, a conflagration of sparks dancing in the air between them as the katanas screech in agonizing opposition to one another. Then the dark fae sees her chance, a momentary divide in Krice’s concentration. Tragedy could not beat the silver-haired enigma on her own, but she could land a decisive blow, one that would give the trio room to escape with their task done. Her off-hand moves up as if she is going to take the hilt of her weapon with both hands, but instead of gripping the katana a sharp needle jabs upward into Krice’s wrist, plunging the curst sap meant for one of the trees into the flesh and blood of the enigma instead. Tragedy has no idea what consequence these actions will have, but at the moment she was short of time to care. Abandoning the glass syringe in his arm, the dark fae’s boots let out another pulse of mana, signalling that another shadow-step was imminent, but instead of pressing a new assault, she fled. Disappearing into the depths of the shadows cast by the many burning fires, her form is caressed by the umbra for a second before she reappears by the tree, the divine aura having been corrupted by their misguided machinations. “Time to go,” The wraithlike woman utters to her allies, her voice still like wind sweeping across the moors, “We cannot win, but they cannot pursue for long either.” An arrow wizzes past her head, cutting a few of the loose strands of black hair from her scalp before she ducks behind the (formerly) Holy Tree. With a nod to Orange, Tragedy gives her the signal. “The skeleton can buy us time. Trigger the spell.”

Orange raises a hand up in front of her face as the arrow meant for her flies towards it. Kanna will feel the sudden, precipitous drop in temperature coming from the girl, and if she isn’t too distracted with being shot, cursing, and injecting the druid tree, she might notice that past the eyeholes of the Orange Mask there are no longer oceanic blue eyes peering out, there are no eyes at all, in their place are black, empty sockets. In reality this is an illusion created by the variant of her family’s curse that the teenage necromancer possesses, but it is a gruesome sight nonetheless. The arrow impacts with her outstretched hand, or rather it would have were the appendage not now encased in about fifteen centimeters of ice. So instead the arrowhead travels through the frozen barrier and embeds itself about halfway to her palm. “Oh… man…” She looks at Kanna, who’s just been shot in the face, with some real concern after she apologizes to a tree… When she rejoined the necromancers guild, the Leralynn reanimated this particular elven skeleton that Krice is engaged with as a practical demonstration of skill. She added her own unique flair by implanting a magical crystal in its spine, the source of the faint blue glow, and has been pouring more and more cold magic into as part of a nightly ritual for the past month or so. Now that her skeletal familiar is blazing with arrows sticking out of its bones and Krice’s reinforcements have arrived, it seems like the perfect time to let all of that magical energy out in spectacular fashion. “I’m doing it!” Orange yells out to Tragedy and Comedy as a final warning before clasping her hands together (or rather one hand and one ice block) and letting out the trigger word; something she has been conditioned to never say out loud and therefore makes for no risk of premature detonation, “Pirates…” It is a whisper from underneath that protective vine canopy, but it is enough to release everything built up in that little magical focus. Water vapor freezes out of the air around the shivering skeleton as frost cracks and spiders along the stone ground, crystallizing plant life as it moves in an initial wave outwards and then ‘crack, crack, -Boom!-’ The spine of the skeleton snaps and an explosion of cold, bone fragments, and icy shrapnel explodes, obliterating the reanimated familiar and threatening to freeze and slice anything even remotely close to it in a wide radius. The reanimated corpses closest to the skeleton are frozen solid and toppled over immediately. Even the archers in the tree boughs aren’t completely safe from some of the farther flung pieces of frozen air flying around… To the unmasked Kanna Orange looks and pats her with an ice block of a hand, “Hey. Is it done? Can you move? We should move. Aye?” Orange herself is still emitting freezing cold, so when she stands up fully and starts to move, the pool beneath her feet starts to freeze so that she is walking on the instantly iced over surface, a little slippery, but she can handle it. Snow is falling from the aftermath of the brutal frostnova thanks to the thick fog that had previously covered their entrance, now in a new form it will serve to cover their escape… “Lets go, lets go~”

The pair of elves attacking Comedy and Orange did not do so with fire-arrows but with arrows devoid of flammable heads, to keep the tree protected. Fire spread through the undead horde, illuminating the cavernous temple in flickering, warm hues - and intensifying the putrid stench of their rotting flesh. As Krice and Tragedy met blade-to-blade, the Requital elves watching the entrance pressed inward, using daggers and dirks to decapitate the aflame undead. One unwitting hunter lost his dagger to the black sludge that burst forth as a result of his attack on a zombie, sticking to the weapon so successfully that he needed to discard it. Further inward the group moved, closing in on the center of the battle. Just as Krice began to withdraw his sword from Tragedy’s in preparation for an attack, a pinch of discomfort shot through his left wrist. For a breath, enough to let the female escape, he forgot all about her in favour of relieving that odd sensation; even the deeper machinations of recognition - the familiarity of Quintessa’s unique sword - dissolved. The warrior shifted away as Tragedy ran for the tree, surrounded by flaming corpses that toppled over one another lacking the integrity of structure required to move with any real efficacy. It took only three seconds from that first stinging sensation for Krice to notice the vial and knock it to the ground, transferring his sword to his right hand to free up his injured arm for a relieving shake. It did little to alleviate his discomfort but he had even less time to work on the problem. The ice-skeleton was still advancing, a flailing mass of fire and frost that posed a continuous threat. As the Requital elves broke through the masses and began felling undead cretins within the temple itself, Krice raised his sword and took a simple sideways step to avoid a thrust from the skeleton’s icy arm, curved steel twitched outward to deflect the bony fingers at the end. His left arm throbbed with dull, deep sensations that pulsed through the limb from the injection site at his wrist and he faltered, the pain so swift and so intense that his vision blurred. He couldn’t even locate the more distant objects on the battlefield, namely Orange and Comedy, so the outcome of their roles was lost to him. Overhead, the elves talked amongst themselves as they continued to shoot their arrows at the druidic warping of the tree’s structures, attempting - with inner apology - to pierce it and stop the pair protected within. Other elves ensured that the incapacitated silver-haired warrior was not swarmed by the few zombies who remained functional, alighting them with fresh fire-arrows before their munitions were depleted and they were forced to switch to generic projectiles. Krice felt an arm at his back and he swung reactively, his instincts still sharp by contrast but slowed as a result of the foreign liquid working its way through his efficient system. It was a taller, older elf, an experienced hunter who had led the squad in their defensive reinforcement. His free hand raised up to catch the warrior’s elbow, negating his instinctive attack. A quiet word was murmured in hasty reassurance that the warrior was with allies, as a second elf rushed in after kicking at the flaming torso of a gurgling undead to separate it from the pair. Others swept the room, moving inward from the edges to clear away the rotting dregs of the battle. There was little that could be done now for the tree. It seemed as though the elves were possessed of some kind of hyper-awareness that things were growing dire despite their dominance over the horde. The movements of the ice-skeleton drew Krice’s attention despite his inability to properly focus on it, and its twitching, clicking form alerted the nearest elves to an impending problem. It was with little warning that the skeleton exploded, shredding the innermost zombies which allowed some Requital elves time to duck behind other flaming bodies. Yet the majority of their numbers - eight of ten - were sliced through by the exploding skeleton’s shards. To protect themselves and Krice from the projectiles, Ilhandril - the squadron leader - maneuvered the solid warrior behind a cluster of zombies who provided sufficient cover to help them avoid certain death. Superficial cuts marked the bodies of the three remaining defenders, who were left in the aftermath to withdraw. Reluctant to leave the tree, the enigma lunged over the supportive arms of both elves who now held him, yelling through his pain at the fog and fire. “ You selfish bitch--I’m going to kill you!” Any further ramblings were muffled by grunts and groans of muted discomfort as sharp heat wound its way up from his arm beneath his shoulder blade and collar bone. Not even aware anymore of where the necromantic trio were, in the midst of all this chaos, the two remaining Requital elves wrestled the injured warrior away from the battlefield with difficulty but devoted haste, Ilhandil’s right guardsman - the one remaining - keeping Krice’s sword close.

Kanna only barely manages to stay standing as the world begins to collapse around her. The silent screams of the Druid’s Tree ring out in her mind, alongside screams of a child. Had the Druid Tree always spoken with this voice, or had the being never spoken to her to begin with? ‘Please, please, please -sob- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong, but I’ll never do it again, so-- so please don’t hurt me.’ Kanna’s eyes lose focus for a moment before she rises back to her feet. Mottled blood from her open palm smears against the exposed heartwood of the tree, becoming dusted with frost before becoming absorbed. Without the sensation of touch or pain, juxtaposition of frost with the chapel burning around them causes her head to tilt slightly in curious wonder as Tragedy crosses the threshold. Around her, the stink of burning and rotting flesh fills the air as she feels a hand pat at her arm. The dazed bard looks back at the Orange mask and the masque of Tragedy before nodding softly for Quintessa to begin their exit. Her eyes suddenly light up with having forgotten something and she darts out from beneath the vine cover that has already begun to smolder. There at the top of a wall of vines used to keep Krice at bay lay her cursed clip. Kanna puts her uncut hand out to command the wall to come down to her height. But nothing happens. Furrowing her brows, the bard concentrates harder, tapping into what little remains of her magic reserves. The wall shudders, then blooms with mushrooms and creeping fungi. The loss of structure tilts the clip forward into her hands as she stares in horror at the decaying flora she’s produced. This has never happened before, right? A scream of her name in impatience draws her attention again, and she runs back towards the women, who would be later referred to witnesses as the Living Dead Girls.

Tragedy lets out a sigh as dark magic pools around the trio, mana drifting from her fingertips as she tries to ignore the baleful cries of the Druid’s Eternal Tree. ‘One last shadow-jump. Just one, you can do this.’ she says to herself, trying to keep her nerve during all this chaos. As the changeling’s aura expands to engulf them, thick, writhing tentacles emerge from her pool of ichor, gripping around Tragedy’s waist and the waists of the other two girls (if they allow it) in order to aid in the challenging shadow-step. ”Cysgod-” her ghostly voice hisses, creating a final pulse of maleficent energy that pulls the Living Dead Girls down into the blackness like quicksand, only to spit them back out on the other side of the back wall and into the thicket of the Sage Forest. Once away from Krice, the dark fae drops her act, her voice returning to normal as she lifts her mask to speak. “Alright, now we delta-split and regroup in the Xalious Mountains. Try to regain as many of your numbers as you can but don’t linger in Kelay and don’t travel on the roads. They’ll be looking for us for a bit, but things will calm down..” Quintessa felt like she should be smiling at this victory, but it didn’t feel right. Nothing about this mission did. “Oh, and good job back there. This was an advanced lesson and you two killed it. Now, let’s move.” If nothing was left to be said, the dark fae would disappear into the foliage, her mark returned to hide her identity and her invisibility cloak pulled over her head.

Orange maybe wasn’t thinking when she made that icy skeleton bomb, or maybe she didn’t think she’d have to use it in such an offensive manner, or maybe she just underestimated the destructive power that ritual, repeated over the course of a month, would imbue. In any case the skeleton explodes and appears to kill multiple elves and the girl behind the mask is in shock to see the bodies of the first people to die by her hands fall to the ground. So much so that her eyes reappear in their sockets, the ice covering her hand slides away, and she is no longer cold to the touch when Tragedy grabs her to escape. She falls a few inches into the pool as the ice under her feet cracks and breaks. Unless her teacher is in complete control, the Black Tides are as unkind to the cursed girl as ever and she’ll emerge on the other side with a few more scrapes and bruises than when she embarked into the shadowy warp with the other Living Dead Girls. She barely hears Quintessa as she debriefs them and gives orders on what to do next, “A-aye…” is all she musters before lifting her own mask and starting off in another direction… Maybe she could find a place to get pancakes…

Krice was outside per manhandling by his two surviving allies by the time the three necromancers escaped into Tragedy's portal, her poison spreading through him rapidly enough that his screams of anger and frustration at the source of this suffering - at the person who had infected the Eternal Tree - died down to tempered whimpers of discomfort. Despite pain incapacitating a lot of his awareness, he seemed possessing of enough presence of mind to maintain some level of dignity in his suffering. Both elves needed to support the solid warrior who seemed incapable of walking unaided, his booted feet intermittently scuffing the dirt path. Before too long, they would be in the safety of the forest, finding other scouts from The Requital to debrief, assist the warrior further, and perhaps plan for the aftermath of the Eternal Tree's poisoning.