RP:Pay No Heed to Gethsemane

Part of the Dissonance Theory Arc

Summary: Rilla's fierce determination is tested to the brink when the Demon Archipelago subjects her to all manners of torment. Amid the terrors both physical and psychological, a peculiar elvish voice is overheard -- a voice that Lionel and many of those closest to him would have recognized...

Rynvale

Rilla || The soft creaking of wood under her feet gave Rilla away as she dropped down onto the familiar dock. In her time with the navy she’d seen more than a few boats disappear from here, although judging by the relative emptiness of the warf it had been many years since this was the crime hub to be wary of. The rain cleared the way for her, men caught in the downpour scattered while she emerged, having hopped down from atop yet another roof where she’d waited for the path to clear. It took longer than expected, even with the black cloak pulled around her thin form, she was soaked down to the bone. Very much an issue for later. She pulled her bag over her shoulder, heavy with supplies that she thought might be helpful, a couple of easy meals, and the book Khitti had lent her. With her hood drawn up over her head, she moved quickly through the rain – set on finding a dry place, and on that being inside the smaller boat that she’d been eyeing since it docked. Two levels and with a sail, but not so big that she needed a crew to man it. She did not stop moving, although she could feel a set of eyes on her from within the Jolly Roger – likely one of the boat owners. Rilla paid it no mind, head down as she approached the mid dock. Finally, she glanced back over her shoulder, and through the rain she could see him, a man watching her from inside. She shot him a dirty look and he shrunk back, watching out of the corner of his eye rather than outright through the window. “Nosey” she mumbled to herself, this was the easy part. In a flash lowered herself, disappeared onto the deck of the smaller boat that she assumed was empty from the lack of sounds down below and the sound of a chair scraping from inside. A smirk pulled over her features and she stayed low, pulled a dagger from its sheath at her thigh to cut the tie-off as a door opened and she pushed away from the wharf. Her smile spread into a toothy grin back at the man who yelled and cursed as he started the trek towards her. She unfurled the sail and the wind caught it, pulling her forward as she waved at the man on the dock who now stood just where the boat had previously been, tied off the sail and let it take her from the wharf she’d been staking out on and off for days. “Too easy.” She laughed to herself as she pulled away, it was echoed in fading laughter from inside – imagine being Big and Tough and getting your boat stolen by a *girl*.

At Sea

Lionel || The rain followed Rilla like a bad rash. The storm clouds just so happened to be moving in the same direction that the vampire knew she needed to go. There wasn't any lightning, at least, but visibility was shot not much farther than thirty yards in any direction. It was going to take the best of the woman's abilities if she was to keep to her course. Time seemed to pass quickly when danger was afoot, and it didn't seem like hours had passed when the rain finally ended and the first stars began lighting up the night sky. Constellations were visible, three in all; the Left Hand, the Dying Ember, and Solaris' Slumber. Hollow's twin moons were both mere crescents this time of the month, but the scenic strands of nebulae colored azure blue, poppy pink, and deep purple lit the way in their stead. If Rilla were skilled enough, she would be guided by the familiar stars straight on until morning. If she chose to rest, the calm seas wouldn't bid her too much trouble at all. Out here in the black, anything could happen. But nothing did. The lonely ocean was only joined come daytime by the occasional ship far upon the eastern horizon; keen eyesight might inform Rilla that most were simple merchant vessels. One ship stood out above the rest -- a frigate by the looks of it, large but fast. It was only visible for a scant ten minutes before disappearing far away into the west, where distant orange skies foretold eventual sunset.

Rilla was, for a time, extremely busy manning the boat. The wind and rain fought her as she navigated West, hugging just close enough to the coast not to lose her bearings. Between the waves that battered at the boat and the winds that shifted and threatened to capsize the vessel she had her work cut out for her. No time to think, there was only doing as Rilla gave herself arguably the highest stakes refresher that she could have asked for. The change from getting consistently drenched to calmer waters was welcomed, Rilla wasn’t even sure when it calmed down – by then she’d lost sight of Rynvale’s shore and was headed straight West, guided by a compass and her best guess. She breathed a sigh of relief when she did find a moment to consider her success, bursting into laughter as she dropped back to the deck to sit, legs stretched out in front of her. A brief moment of rest, perhaps the dissipation of an adrenaline rush that she’d never quite been able to escape from. She pulled her rain-soaked cloak from around her shoulders and wrung it out the best she could. Beneath it – also very much soaked – was a quiver of arrows and a bow, throwing knives were fixed to a leather strap around her waist. In fact, much of her form was criss-crossed with straps and buckles and their corresponding blades of varying sizes. Once she was satisfied with her break (was it 5 minutes or an hour, time is relative when you’re sailing), she stood again, directed the sail back into the wind at a 45 degree angle. The boat would be faster when the wind picked up in the daytime, but for then she continued on, undeterred by her distinctly human desire for rest. She leaned against the wheel when the sailing started to get too easy and adjustments were less frequent, hummed a tune to herself to break the silence, maybe even pass the time. Soon enough the darkness started to give way to bright pinks and golds at her back. She laid her wet things out for drying purposes along the deck, weighed down with the heavier objects in her bag to keep them from flying away. It was lonely business, but what more noble cause did the young vampire have than going after the great hero she’d been reading about since his disappearance came up? Her reverie was broken when the horizon was by a boat larger than hers in much the right direction. Brows furrowed as she considered and recalculated. It happened automatically, she turned towards them, adjusted her sail once more and was off in the direction of the other boat. Hers was slower, but until she lost sight of it she followed, the leisure of her dry-off-time long forgotten, although her things were still strewn out in the sun for her to get – eventually.

Lionel || Night fell, but not before Rilla managed to catch sight of the frigate one more time. It had slowed significantly and changed course slightly toward the southwest. Depending on her vision, the vampire may have been capable of espying just what exactly the crew was doing, not by seeing its distant crew but by noticing something bigger than any of them. It was a small fishing boat, likely meant to fit five to six people, that had detached from the frigate. If Rilla couldn't see the fishing boat from a considerable range, she would at least be able to denote that this was probably no archipelago-bound vessel, and if it were, it surely wasn't the Demon Archipelago. So that was it, then -- it was mere happenstance that the ship had been heading west when Rilla had initially seen it. At least she still had a good idea which direction to take. As the stars returned, and the crescent moons seemed ever-so-slightly thicker, a glowing red light appeared farther west. It was periodically joined by a green light, and collectively they blocked out nocturne's abyss, encompassing the entirety of where Rilla was determined to reach. The eerie glow would occasionally vanish and then flare up from the horizon. Whether this foretold land or choppy, bizarre seas could not be discerned quite yet. But it was odd and unlikely to have been akin to anything the woman had ever previously encountered. Next to these lights, even the strands of nebulae all over the northern, southern, and eastern skies seemed insignificant. If she persevered, Rilla was soon destined to learn that her simple scouting mission might just be far more perilous than she had anticipated.

Rilla || After hours of chasing she caught up to the boat again, the sight was disappointing. Rilla cursed under her breath, the perils of looking for an archipelago that others actively tried to avoid or at least that normal, sane individuals wouldn’t usually seek out. At least she could stay her course, headed due West, or as close as she could get to it. She took the opportunity as the dusk fell and the winds died down to rummage through her bag for a bottle of bloodwine. A deep drink and it was back in the bag again. It wasn’t as good as the real thing, but Rilla wasn’t expecting a lot of humans that she could eat on this particular journey. As night fell her course got clearer, the stars she’d expected to navigate by proven unnecessary by the strange glow that had her squinting off into the distance trying to determine what she was looking at. It didn’t deter the young vampire, she angled herself towards the strange bright lights that peeked in and out of visibility. For a moment she watched with a tilted head, one hand on the wheel of the boat as she calculated her next step. There was a moment where she considered powering ahead, safety be damned. With pursed lips, she decided against it while the seas were still calm. Instead, she replaced her belongings into her bag, the cloak that had been laid out to dry during the day included, and once that was secured beneath the shallow deck, she followed in search of another sail. There wasn’t a lot of space to move around, the lower level was more storage than true boat space. From a little leather pouch at her side the produced a large stone akin to a ruby that, when touched by her, came to life with light. A leftover party trick that had less to do with her and more to do with the stone. She used the gentle glow to light her way as she rummaged through the attached bags and supplies, the rocking of the boat stilled slightly beneath the deck although the sound of the water against the hull was too loud in the enclosed space. Finally, she pulled out another sail, smaller than the mainsail and re-emerged victorious, slipping the stone back into its pouch. Kail would have her head if he knew that was all she used it for, but if he’d wanted to know what she was doing, he wouldn’t have left. She adjusted the tack pennant and used a spare halyard to raise the storm jib to be safe, and once it place she stretched the rope to where it would be tied, used a blade to cut a marker into the wood before letting the sail loose for later use as she approached the strange lights that guided her way through the otherwise directionless ocean.

Lionel || It was wise to be cautious now. The closer Rilla came to the source of the lights, the more vivid they appeared to be. Beyond their considerable width and range, the sky seemed to blacken. It was as if each and every star in the night sky had been plucked out and eaten by the western glow. The water was choppier here, though far from untenable. Yet. Up ahead after a while, a small island dominated by a wide-mouthed cave came into view, unmistakable in this brightness. It was difficult to tell, even with a map, but it looked at least passingly akin to the Cave of Regrets -- the very place that Lionel had warned Iintahquohae to head straight to and never pass. Never continue north along what was swiftly becoming apparent: that Rilla had in all likelihood found the Demon Archipelago, and a chain of islands of many sizes stretched out farther than the eye could see, even with all the light. The northern horizon was covered in islands and from here the nearest of them seemed covered in wind. A cyclone? It was hard to say. But it did not move, and no rain accompanied it. The island that it swirled over was completely engulfed in the wind. Edging too closely to its shores would surely cause considerable damage to sailboat and sailor alike. In the distance, a larger island seemed strangely serene; the tops of tropical trees swayed in a far gentler wind, and beautiful sand stretched as far as the eye could see. But the cave -- the Cave of Regrets -- may have been closeby. Its yawning mouth was as dark as the starless sky behind Rilla.

Rilla was acutely aware of the dimming of light behind her – at first she assumed the stars were drowned out by the brighter lights ahead, but as she approached it seemed to close in on her. Before the waters could pick up too much, she retrieved her cloak and belongings save the book – if the boat sank it would be ruined either way. If she was separated from the boat, she wanted the bag with her. She focused on steering, the rising winds tugging at her cloak and stray curls. Brows furrowed and she squinted into the distance as she began to make out shapes and forms in the distance, and before long one morphed into many and she knew that whatever this place was, she had found it. She locked the wheel and stepped away to trim the mainsail, no longer looking to move fast as she came up on the strange islands. “What in gods’ name?” Rilla breathed, studying the choices laid out before her, though it was already made for her by virtue of Khitti’s only real request. She stopped, locked the wheel once more to retrieve the map from between the pages of the book she’d left tucked away under the deck, and coming above board again she paused to study it. Rilla nodded silently to herself when she was certain she understood what exactly she was looking at. Although it was strange that she seemed to be missing an entire piece of land. Once more she disappeared into the storage, deposited the map back in it’s presumptively safe place. Above board for the last time, she took over steering once more. It was harder against the waves, but she headed carefully towards the cave just as Khitti had asked. The calmer island was tempting, but seemed too good to be true given the absolute chaos of her surroundings.

Cave of Regrets

Lionel || The cave was now in full view. It was, perhaps, even wider in truth than it looked from farther away. As Rilla dropped anchor and came ashore, a thick though short mist swam beneath her, obscuring her feet up to knees. The ground felt loamy. And then came the rain. The pitch-black sky above offered no clue as to from whence it came, and the vivid lights soaking up the vastness beyond weren't going to be helpful on such matters either. The rain purely fell, fell to the mist, fell into the loamy earth, fell from nowhere, and soon drenched the young vampire head to toe. A cacophony of voices, different with every syllable, spoken by someone new, someone youthful, someone old, someone healthy, someone frail, someone kind, someone wicked, always another voice, called out from the depths of the cave. "Alone? Weak? Helpless? Desperate? Changed." The final word was emphasized, spoken by a voice all too familiar -- it was Rilla's. "Changed," it repeated. 'Changed." All around Rilla, the mist swirled higher and higher, joining with the rain, watering the world.

Lionel || Years within Hollow left Rilla empty. She caved underneath overwhelming pressure and loss. Nothing good could ever stay for her, but she never backed down from a fight. Not until the stakes were so high that running away could change the tides of power for the port of Rynvale. How dare she run off with that man, lured by the chance just to be left 'not-alone.' Despite being what she was told she would do all her life, the married life was never for her. The once honourable woman fell down a slippery slope, played the part of a trophy wife by day and assassin by night. Her fascination with blades ever-presesnt since her childhood rough-housing with all the boys until she could no longer pretend she was like them. Guided by a twisted sense of right and wrong and the need for an adrenaline rush, Rilla felt almost alive again by cover of night.

Lionel || "Caved," yet another voice snapped. "Running away. How dare you?" Still more voices came, and now they were joining together like an unholy chorus. "Not-alone. Slippery slope." The loamy earth was suddenly so moist that it became almost impossible to stand up straight, and the ground seemed to tilt into a slope. "Cover of night." The distant glowing lights were vanquished. The entire realm surrounding Rilla was as dark as the abyss, but the rain did not yield. Seconds later, the abyss remained, but it was punctuated at times by corpses. The corpses of men. The corpses of women. The corpses of children. All of them Rynvale-born, all of them in different parts of the city, the city that was just barely visible through this darkness. And then came the corpses of those Rilla would surely never have seen, piled up like refuse. "A trophy wife, a woman who ran," the chorus echoed hauntingly. "How many lives might have been spared had you stayed?" Could any of this have been true? How could so many lives have been lost merely because one woman ventured elsewhere? It was impossible to say when one's skin was crawling with maggots and one's footing was fighting a harsh battle with the slippery slope below. One last corpse appeared: her husband's, upstairs, early one autumn morning.

Lionel || Rilla ran, and ran, and ran until the forests gave way to familiar ground underneath her feet. Running from an enemy she had never laid eyes on left her wild, unfocused, little more than an animal in the midst of a two-year adrenaline rush. A life in ruins, she returned to the lands she had already let down once in search of stability, and perhaps a chance at redemption.

Lionel || "You shouldn't be here," the voices growled with the flourish of a crescendo. "Not-alone. Not-alone. Not-alone. You should not be here alone." They rasped and taunted her, judging her for daring to come here without the others. The sense would overwhelm even the staunchest soul: the knowledge, inexplicably hers now, that whoever was speaking to her was passing sentence, and that to rectify her crime, she would need to leave at once and wait for Khitti's mission to begin. Did that mean that the mission would be a success? Or would these vile voices play tricks on them all? There was no telling; the feeling she received simply did not say. "

Lionel || Years within Hollow left Rilla empty, she caved underneath overwhelming pressure and loss. Nothing good could ever stay for her, but she never backed down from a fight. Not until the stakes were so high that running away could change the tides of power for the port of Rynvale. How dare she run off with that man, lured off by the chance to just be not-alone. "A life in ruins, she returned to the lands she had already let down once in search of stability, and perhaps a chance at redemption," the voices said. And then, in the blink of an eye, the stars returned. The ground was solid. The glowing lights were gone. The cave was gone. The island was gone. The boat was gone. Everything was gone. Yet she was enveloped by the familiar. A wharf. A dock. Rynvale. Rilla… was back.

Rilla wasn’t great at following instructions. Khitti had warned her not to get off the boat, but get off the boat she did. She couldn’t help herself. Curiosity drove her closer to the disembodied voices, her steps slow and silent on the soft, soaked ground beneath her feet. She kept her head down, hood pulled up to keep the rain off of her at least partly, although it wasn’t particularly effective and despite her best effort she was soon soaked to the skin and extremely grateful not to be human anymore. She trekked forward regardless, towards the voices that got only got louder, clearer. Rilla froze when she recognized her own, though it seemed wrong in her ears like this, she whirled around her only to find herself enveloped in mist, rain, everything in between. She was chilled to her core, a familiar feeling that she’d been unable to shake when she was first turned. Her fingers shook, but she closed them around the hilt of a blade all the same. Drawing a sense of security from it’s presence however flawed the logic behind it was. Tendons in her neck stood out from her skin as her breath caught, shoulders tensed at the words being hurled at her. Her jaw clenched, this was by far the loudest thing she’d heard since her turning, every voice drew her in another direction and no direction at all and beneath her, her legs felt unsteady. She lowered herself slightly, knees bent to help her remain upright, although the trembling that adrenaline brought threatened to take over. And then it was dark, she couldn’t run, her breath caught all the same as if she was in her throat as her body screamed at her to move.

Rilla || Answering these voices, voices that used to belong to her seemed a fruitless endeavor. How many times had she had those conversations with herself? Crystalline gaze flashed around, desperately searching for a source of light or anything to indicate this was something other than a dream. The blade was abandoned in favour of the stone from the little pouch, when her fingers touched it, it sparked to life. Tied to her, the anger that rose in her almost habitually. The light was kept beneath her cloak, a simple reassurance that it existed as she glanced down to confirm the ruby glow that it cast little more than a split second. Then there was something else, the feeling of something touching her, the light gave her just enough context to spot the bugs. Little and white, crawling from her. She swatted at them, nearly losing her balance in the process which forced her to take another step, stabilizing herself wider before she did, eventually fall into the damp ground – too soft for her to spring up from, but staying down was never an option. Rilla pulled herself back up, her legs covered in mud and debris and the bugs. The bodies she could handle, the bugs she could handle, but her husband made her bit her tongue, close her eyes and look away. He was dead, Jaylen was alive, it was her fault. She drew a shaking breath, this wasn’t real – couldn’t be – and when she opened them again the world was familiar, the ground no longer soft beneath her feet.

Rynvale, Again

Rilla || “What the fu-“ She cut herself off because this is a PG-13 show, kids, and her first order of business was checking for those bugs, but after examining her arms, Rilla determined that it too had disappeared. Just like the cave, just like the voices, just like she had all those years ago. She whipped her head around then, the sights and smells were the same as she remembered, but Rilla focused a moment longer, found the change. The scent of jasmine from the oil Lita had given her, something to confirm what she already half-knew – that she was back despite days of travel and a literal boat that she’d left in the middle of the ocean. With still-shaking legs, she marched straight into the first building and up to a desk, despite the protest of the sailors behind it. “I don’t have time for this.” She cut him off as he spluttered, her hair pasted to her face, blue eyes wild with an unnamable emotion, something between anger and determination. Now it was personal, no cluster of islands was going to talk to her that way. She grabbed a pen and paper and scrawled a message on it reading ‘Khitti, don’t go in the cave. – Ri’ she folded it and handed it to the shocked man. “Find Khitti, give her this. Tell her I went back.” When he didn’t take it right away she took his other hand, the pulse in his wrist pounding against her fingers as she closed his hand around the paper finally, turned on her heel and marched right back out.

At Sea, Again

Rilla wasted no time scoping out the docks again, waiting until the hurried crew of another sailing vessel vacated to once again just walk up and take it, once again despite the loud protests of men from inside one of the buildings and across the dock. No one dared to stop her. She sailed the all-too-familiar route quicker this time, the day turned into night and the waters turned rougher as she chased down the strange lights once more. Finally she spotted the islands again, once again by shroud of night as she sailed aside the boat she’d left there, anchored down and hopped carefully boat to boat. The trick was to not look down at the gap and move quickly. She cursed under her breath the whole time as she ducked beneath the deck in search of the map and book, determined not to set food on land here lest she be swept away.

Soulscrush

Lionel || The cave was gone. The Cave of Regrets, its entire island, vanished into thin air. Only open water remained. "You won't be needing that," a cold voice spoke. It wasn't like any of the others, and unlike them, it was positively singular. It sounded faintly elvish, though if it did belong to an elf, it was an elf from someplace other than Lithrydel; the Lithrydelian elven lilt was not quite there, replaced with something minutely harsher. "Nor that," it continued, still unseen, words spoken from every direction. The boat that Rilla had returned on was suddenly set aflame -- a green fire that tore it apart bow to stern in a deadly flash. Embers flew up and fell, some closer to Rilla's first boat than others. "Your will is strong. Almost… Ishaarite." An image appeared far ahead, above the calm ocean. Light flooded it, this odd form, this silhouette of a man, slender and tall and elven-eared. Details -- a face, attire, anything definitive -- did not appear, leaving the stark silhouette immersed in shining golden shades of light. The elven image did not speak again. It did not move. It did nothing at all. But before Rilla could entertain any notions of resistance or rebuttal, she was gone, transported once more into another place entirely.

Lionel || It was cold. So very cold. The earth was covered in fallen snow; frozen corpses, human and hobbit, and a dozen other races lay sprawled out across the blanketing whiteness with bloody lacerations and mouths agape in forever-fear. Rilla would find herself surrounded by dead pine trees, with ravens and crows soaring overhead by the thousands, whispering something between themselves in a language she would not understand. At least the night sky felt right for a change. The stars shone strongly, and an emerald green aurora flickered to the north. "Soulscrush," a sign read -- a sign almost comically placed directly to the vampire's left, a wooden sign in pristine condition when everything else had gone through hell.

Lionel || A thing with a hundred tentacles, ten times the height of any tower Lithrydelians had ever built, emerged from the eastern thicket of dead pines. It was a sickening color of green, with an oversized eyeball at the end of every tentacle and a mouth filled with so many razor-sharp teeth that it would never completely close. From the western thicket, a fell creature arrived even taller and even wider, carrying a claymore of a mammoth enough length to cover Larket's entire civilian district. Its body was made of muscle and sinew, but none of that mattered next to the fact that the faces and arms of cruel warrior-like men protruded from its flesh, numbering so many that to count them would be to court death. They each wielded a weapon of their own -- an ax, a scimitar, a hammer, a lance -- and they screeched something so high-pitched that it would threaten to pop the ears of any who listened unless they possessed some sort of aural safeguard. As soon as the two monsters reached the snow, both of them rushed toward Rilla, the tentacled one leaping on its powerful 'limbs' and ready to gorge while the one with so many faces drew its claymore mid-sprint and prepared to slash.

Rilla wasn’t sure exactly what she expected when she emerged from beneath the deck of the boat, but it was not for the cave to be outright missing. She took a beat, sat back in the boat she’d stolen initially, frozen in surprise and generally put off balance by the sudden changes in scenery. Her mouth hung agape, momentarily frozen until the fire erupted. She dropped to the deck of her vessel, hood drawn up over her head to protect her from the falling embers. Bright gaze cast up to the vague form that appeared before her, she couldn’t make words. This whole trip was going to be a lot to unpack when she had a moment to stop and breathe, but for now she was back to being swept away from the cold and wet, and into just cold. She lay sprawled out in the snow in a forest of evergreens – a moment of grounding, the scent of jasmine told her she was still in her version of reality, whatever that meant – and without a second thought the young vampire pushed herself up and to her feet, tucked the book she’d held against her chest into the bag she carried. Her jaw chattered instinctively, though body heat hadn’t been something that she’d needed to think about in years. She looked around wildly, chest heaving as she got her bearings once more. ‘Soulscrush’ was a name she’d seen before, delicate brows pulled together – but wasn’t this the other end of the archipelago? Rilla didn’t get a chance to stop and consider it. She heard the creatures before she saw them, spun on her heel and her head whipped around. Her heart – still as it was – dropped into the pit of her stomach. Don’t think. Just do. Easier said than done when the screeching of countless voices was piercing her ears. There was one in the back of her head that she was able to bring into focus as the creatures rushed her, an urgent reminder to move and move she did. She pushed off with one boot, for a moment it would appear she planned to attempt to outrun the monsters that rushed her, but rather she ran for the trees in a burst of adrenaline and instinct. It happened faster than she knew what to do with, a throwing knife was retrieved from her waist as she pulled herself one handed into the branches. She stabilized herself against the trunk, step one: make the screaming stop. The blade was thrown in one smooth motion, launched towards the screaming beast in a moment of stillness where she didn’t even breathe. The branches shook as she pulled her thin frame up one-armed onto the next branch, the other hand preoccupied with finding another little blade. It caught the light, gave her away – as if she was subtle, a flash of black cloth, porcelain skin, auburn hair within snowy pines – but she froze again, eyes fixed on the monster with all of it’s eyes for just long enough to send the next blade flying with a reflexive flick of the arm. Rilla didn’t wait to find out if she made her mark, clambering across to the next tree, and then the next, counting on a physical barrier to at least slow the much larger monsters. Alone she wasn’t likely to kill them, but if she could at least be an unappealing meal. A few trees down the line, she finally turned, another smooth-handled blade in hand. Up close she stood little chance against two of them, but Rilla wasn’t going down without a fight.

Lionel || The first blade struck true and a single face was silenced among the horde spread out across the flesh of the claymore-wielding abomination. The rest, oh so many of them, seethed and continued screeching; the monster then used its lunatically large blade to chop down tree after tree. It gave chase, dauntless at the loss of what amounted to the loss of a fingernail at most. With every swing, it carved the previous tree that Rilla had so nimbly bounced across, just seconds behind her swiftness. Rilla's second blade also hit its mark. The many-tentacled beast suffered sharp metal to the eyeball, but it didn't as much as flinch. Why should it when each tentacle contained its very own nervous system, and it had so many tentacles to spare? Opening its mouth somewhat more, it made a hideous swallowing sound before spitting out poisonous purple muck from its throat. The muck flew over Rilla in her mad dash, missing her by meters. This slowed the tentacled thing enough for Rilla to come to a temporarily safe distance from it, but that was cold comfort when the cleaving thing was ever behind her, ever-looming, always so close to slicing her into pieces.

Lionel || Maybe the relatively diminutive vampire could have outran the monsters. Even the one with the muscles and their many faces. Maybe her keen vampiric abilities could have outplayed it, outmaneuvered it, outlasted it. Maybe. Such a shame, then, that a being which could only be described as scaly, greyish-green whale, as ridiculously colossal as Rilla's other foes, leapt out from an icy lake adjacent to the evergreen forest and dove down into the snow right in front of her as she ran. Like a subterranean menace, it shoved its way, so many tons of scales and fins, deeply into terra firma until it was completely beneath the earth. The thunderous sounds of its seemingly impossible feat drowned out even the screeches from so many faces, and the impact sent entire pieces of landmass up, up, and away. Each piece was enormous, and each gave way to one of the most basic truths about the universe: what goes up must come down.

Lionel || Avalanches occurred when layers of snow collapsed and slid downhill. Typically, this involved mountains. A reptilian whale-like entity was seldom the cause. But when chunks of the world, snow and soil and trees and rock and stone, came crashing down from on-high, it was not unlike an avalanche exploding from an epicenter and sending a killer flurry in every direction. The tentacled monster could not withstand it. The claymore-wielding monster fared no better. Both were submerged in the weather's worst mood. The icy eruption would have killed Rilla. It should have killed Rilla. "Not yet," the elvish voice spoke firmly. The initial volley of snow and debris collided with her for a fraction of a second, the outermost layer of catastrophe, crushing the bones in both arms. Whoever this mysterious and enigmatic quasi-benefactor was, evidently they weren't quite fast enough to stop that. But then she was elsewhere. Again.

Venturil

Lionel || The rocky ground was dusty and dry, but Rilla did not land with a thud. Instead, she had been deposited gently, with a clear view of a pending sunrise. The world was wide open, and canyons could be spotted closeby. A settlement was a mere half-kilometer to her west; a settlement called Venturil. It was real, it was far from the Demon Archipelago, and not for the first time the woman was forced to recognize that.

Rilla || A losing battle would have been an understatement. When Rilla turned to see the damage she had or had not inflicted, it was near impossible to even determine what was different on the rushing monsters. If the Guild wanted to pass through this place, they would have to stick together. No one person stood a chance. She jumped tree to tree, letting herself fall before catching herself on a lower branch, out of the way of the slime. Rilla swung herself up, and continued her wild attempt at escape. The screaming was all she could focus on, the more she ran, the more the adrenaline rose, and the quieter her teacher’s voice was in the back of her head. It made it hard to predict where they were, but before the problem could escalate further there was a new one threatening to squash her. She froze, came tumbling down from a tree at the edge of the forest as she missed her hold on the branch above her, her footing slipped. The young vampire grasped at branches, catching herself on one and swinging herself back up, desperate to continue her escape. As she ran, the world around her turned to absolute chaos. As a human it would have been an indistinguishable blur, she’d have disappeared into the snow and never resurfaced. As a vampire, moved quickly enough to avoid the worst of it. There was that voice again, she cursed under her breath defiantly, but there was nothing to be done. Her own scream was deafening to her own ears, it had been a long time since anything had hurt as badly as the bones in her arms breaking all at once. As it happened she was aware of it, aware of the blinding, shooting, burning pain that took over her whole body. She could only assume that this was the end of whatever story she’d been trying desperately to tell by coming back for more at every challenge. And then it wasn’t.

Rilla groaned, eyes squeezed shut and face contorted in pain as her boots sought purchase on the ground, finding rock and sand rather than snow and ice, and she hissed curses under her breath at the predicament. When she’d gone running into battle as a human there had been someone to pick up the pieces that she got herself put into. This time Keturah was not going to find her just in time, Kail wouldn’t drag her back to safety. But something else had looked after her, and that was even more curious. With another groan, she gingerly rolled onto her side and unsteadily she righted herself. The weight of her arms sent a flash of pain through her, the shock of being transported through space for the second time far outweighed by it. Her knees shook, but once righted Rilla found her bearings and started the walk towards the settlement that she’d only been inside of a handful of times. Perhaps to lick her wounds, more likely to get the pieces put together so she could go back for more.