RP:The Corpse Tearer Tree, and other nasty creatures

"Please to be keeping close," The musical tones drifted ahead, nipping at the heels of the frantic gentleman shouldering through the forests ahead of her. To his defense, he did spare a partial glance back at her before continuing at his previous too-quick pace up and over a fallen log. His efforts clambering over the rotted wood, had him taking a short drop straight through the middle of the trunk. Keturah winced, hurrying forward to help him. The staff she'd been holding so tightly too was set aside, both hands grasping his own to aid him in disentangling himself from the rot. She understood why he was frenzied. Jacob, was his name, had been part of a group of five. Something in the forest had cut that down to two. The healer had managed to get both men walking again, though Jacob had been determined to return to the forests in search of his younger brother. Keturah had been unable to allow him to go alone. She almost regretted that decision now. As a druidess her ties with the Divine were strong, and she had the ability to sense to flow of life regardless of where she went. Or.. that should have been the case. Here, there were only faint blotches of life amongst the choking stench of rot. Had Jacob not been so keen on running ahead without her, she would have stopped already. The stumbling of his larger frame against hers when she finally managed to pull him out broke her from her thoughts, and she only smiled weakly at him as he straightened his tattered clothing. With a mumbled apology he was on the move again, and Keturah was stooping over to reclaim her staff. Her grip would have bruised it, if wood could bruise. In silence she followed after the man, ever aware of whatever had attacked the group earlier.. or whatever new dangers awaited in the dead forest.

Nymh teleported through the forest in his regal attire, Sinnea at his side... when he appeared from his short ethereal jaunts. The Corpse Tearer Tree... it wasn't far, but Nymh felt foolish for even daring to approach it without Sinnea in the proper state of mind... too much depended on her for handling these monsters, Nymh had only begun to grasp the complexities of the magic to create then... Sinnea picked her nose as she flew, and Nymh wondered at what sort of incredible, prodigious genius she had been before her death and reanimation. LIke him, she was undead, an Animus to his Cambion. Her head snapped up as the illusions enveloped them, subtle coercions that led all life to where the tree lay in wait, barely even awake in it's passive killing. The roiling mass of flesh beneath it, entangled within it's roots... Nymh shivered. He clenched his left fist, dozens of razors wrapped around it, a razor whip with a blue glow, his arm bloody from putting on the weapon. No undead patrolled the Tree's grounds... hopefully, this meant it was young. Nymh stopped Sinnea suddenly with a raised arm, sensing other presences in the forest... nature magic, of all things, in this place. Not enough of it though... oh, what Nymh would give for an entire Circle to aid in taking down this accursed tree! The finger talon on his left index finger burned brightly, and he pointed it ahead... scrying out the dark magic of the tree... it turned out that there was little need, as the nature magic user was being led directly to it, through ever churning forestry, no matter what direction she picked... she would end up in an empty clearing, where only the Corpse Tearer Tree stood... A massive, hundred foot tree thirteen feet thick at it's base, it looked more like dozens of dead trees that grew spiraling around eachother... no fruit nor leaf adorned its branches, but the reak of dark magic, blood, rotting flesh and death of the soul permeated the air around it, instilling waking nightmares in fools who got close.... Nymh almost cried when the vivid memory of his mother pinning him to the table and tearing his wings off with large gouges of flesh shot through his mind, accompanied with a maniacal cackle that had not been there before.... Sinnea at his side gritted her teeth, seeming in a rage... The tree goaded her, and with teh monsters in her past... it made an enemy it may not defeat.

Keturah followed the male diligently. The forest made her uncomfortable, more than she would allow to show upon those calmly composed features. If anything the man ambling ahead of her would have thought her to be almost emotionless, given the situation. That was fine. Her senses were awry within the forest, and death was doing a fantastic job of clouding over the living. Her staff tipped forward, knocking once against the ground as the druidess walked, "Listen.. if we are not finding him soon-" Jacob cut her off with a chill glare. Meeting it thoughtfully, the druidess swallowed back her warning. It would be dark soon, and after that she would not risk staying in such a place. Jacob pointed suddenly, and began to rush ahead. "It was just over here!" His call was almost lost through the rotted boughs. "Gods bloody damn, you are as incorrigible as Kumori was- Wait for-" Of course whatever she had been meaning to say was lost in a sudden memory of a dream. She was on Cenril again, walking among the empty streets and blood runes. She was under a roiling sky and surrounded by corpses. No, no. That was a dream. A bad dream, a nightmare. One hand left her staff to go flying to her face, in a fool hearty attempt to cover her eyes from the vision. It served her little good; the dream was in her mind. "Shyte," she cursed, and smacked the butt of her staff against the ground. Something had to be creating the illusions, something hidden away in the forest- and she was still in the forest, wasn't she? Divine magic trickled from her staff at the contact, breaking into what energy remained in the earth beneath it. At the drop of an ancient word, the spell flung a shelf of rock upward and ahead of her. The stone rocketed ahead of her, jutting to a sharper point so as to ram whatever her assailant had been. Of course, the chances of her actually hitting the damned tree had been slim to begin with; she hadn't even know what or where it was. She backpedaled, bumping into rotted wood she had not known was behind her. The jarring broke through the memory long enough that she caught a glimpse of the.. thing, that she /had/ missed, and that Jacob was holding his head in his hands, standing far too close to the things roots. She swung her staff in an arch, summoning a burst of wind. Again, she'd miss the tree entirely. But Jacob would be knocked back.. to what she hoped was a safe distance.

Nymh was closing in on them... and the tree was stirring. Whether or not the two knew it, they were now in a clearing, the nearest woodline a good ten paces behind them. The tree stood, imposing and impressive, as a rock tumbled before it, and landed aside. The gust of wind stirred it's boughs, and it rustled eerily... then stood still once more. Nymh came into the clearing, him and Sinnea endowed with preternatural speed, and happened to make it before the tree awoke. Nymh was surprised to find another man with the druidess... he had sensed no other power... and sensed none still. The man was a fool to come to such a place, a fool or desperate... He would not likely survive this day. The woman, however, gave Nymh hope... nature magic was a thoughtful gift from whatever god was watching when he came upon the Corpse Tearer Tree. Nymh was about to make his presence known, about to tell her to prepare herself, that the illusions hadn't even been an active assualt, not even magic... just an affect of the power radiating from the tree more than anything, but he didn't have a chance, as a gigantic hand of red, torn, bloody flesh grabbed him from under ground, shooting into the air with a bone chilling roar, and pulled his whole body under before he could utter a sound. Sinnea screamed and ripped her gown to shreds, until it covered only her bosom and her loins, then began an Elder Magic dance... swaying her hips hypnotically and dancing slowly, even to a human eye.... but power swirled around her in more and more copious amounts every second. The tree opened... the base of it spreading wide like a gaping maw, and spewing out rotten blood.... hundreds of gallons of it. And with the blood, charged undead monsters.... Slitherers, Renders, Banshees swirled around overhead screaming with soul piercing cries, the Blood Hulk that had Nymh in hand burst up form the ground, 4 tons of brutish, roaring bloody muscle. It's hand was shredding from the inside of it's clenched fist out, but it squeezed and slammed the fist upon the ground, determined to crush it's tiny foe... the hand could have easily picked up and slammed down a large horse thusly, perhaps Nymh's miniscule size would save him from the worst of the pressure, if it's grip was as poor as it's equilibrium. Sinnea finished her first dance, and more roars could be heard as deathly spirits rushed to her aid.... glowing, flying purple serpents of ethereal hue, and faceless souls that tangled with the banshees above in a weave of pitched struggle, a maelstrom of deathly energy that crackled with dark charge, sending random bolts of dark, purplish energy forking across the ground like lightning, but seeking conduits with less prejudice than electricity...

Keturah was still in the process of recovering from a relieved nightmare. The soldier in her was already admonishing her for the instants wasted gathering herself. They were precious, and the enemy was.. terribly unknown. Inhaling sharply, the druidess ducked around the decaying trunk of the tree, palms flattened and sinking against the rotted bark. It could not serve the purpose of a barrier, but it made her feel quite a bit better as she glanced back toward the tree-thing in the center of the clearing. She had no plans to heroically fight off a tree, but for the man she'd left trying to pick himself up to his feet a distance away, she could not run off. She exhaled a curse before she was even aware of the other two, the murmured word almost in time with the roar and screams. Nails clawed into the wood grain, and the woman began saving her breath for something far more useful; spell weaving. How many of the damned things were there? Mana flowed smoothly across her tongue with each chant of verse until she had a spell resting at the ready upon her lips. Eyes found the pixie woman, and she mistook her for an enemy rather than an ally. She lifted her fingers to her lips, tasting the bark and pungent earth that stuck to them from the tree. But the taste was not what distracted her from activating her own spell. A new assault on her senses began with the opening of the tree, and in that moment the druidess was quite sure she had never felt so much death in her life. It was worse than the nightmare. She whistled. Pulling herself away from her haven, the woman lifted a hand, spilling forth druidic flame across the dead things that poured from the tree. Nymh might have thought her clumsy, given how little mind she paid to where the Divine flame went, but she was only aiming to save the human pulling himself to his feet. The two newcomers may as well have been undead monsters themselves in her eyes.

Nymh was flung aside, and hit a tree hard as the giant monster roared at the flames licking it's back... it hurt the thing, being divine magic of nature. But at it's size and calibre, it would take a bit for the fire to kill it... though once caught with divinely wrought fire, the thing would burn until it was gone, as the fire clashed with the dark magic's making it's unnatural life possible. The fire swept over the field, and only the monsters using the blood for shielding were left unnaffected, along with those not in ti's range... still monsters spewed from it, among the dozens 2 more blood hulks, a lich, and a death knight. Nymh gawked... once he had come back to his senses... he watched as the divine fire swept over Sinnea, and the ethereal snakes swept through the minions, carrying off screaming Flesh Renders and Slithers... when one clashed with the lich, the snake simply guttered out. Nymh screamed to Sinnea, who's magical shielding had protected her from the divine attack, better than Nymh would have taken it. The flaming blood hulk roared and bore down on Keturah, along with a motley assortment of the other undead, attacking in an oddly coordinated fashion... claws and acid would take her fist, then the fists that could crush their way through a castle... the other blood hulks where roaring now, arms wide, testosterone and adrenaline pumping within them... The death knight laughed, and swung a massive blade atop it's deathly steed. The lich cast magic to destroy the fallen souls tangling with the Banshees, and a roof of roots started closing overhead, blotting out the sky... twining above the battlefield. The Corpse Tearer Tree was awake, and would feed... Nymh screamed to Sinnea two words, that she would recognize... "Sinnea! Rapture, Whisper!" She began the dance immediately, darting through the battlefield, avoiding claws and bile and sweeping spirits. Nymh drew his strings, and looked towards the soon to be ill fated Keturah... He would lay all his might upon her. Strings stretched from bicep to forearm, and he played them with the black burning finger talon... Strings in his own flesh. His whip uncoiled and encircled him, raising him off the ground and growing, encircling the trees around him, preparing his extremely light defense... he would be still, helpless almost. The song he played was one of Rapture, and was one of his greatest amplifications. It was designed to induce the affected with extraordinary wisdom and insight, into the Divine, into the World, and the speed to use that wisdom with vast efficiency, as it would not last long. Sinnea danced the Whisper across the battlefield, throwing off the enemies senses, and granting Keturah and Nymh and the helpless man synergy, allowing them to feel and know and sense for each other, to work in perfect harmony, as one finger with the next. Nymh was screaming with his song, echoing in tones that drowned out the roaring maelstrom of the battlefield, and when bolts of purple lightning stuck him, they exploded around and behind him. The enemies bore down on Keturah, and Nymh, and Sinnea, as Keturah's senses came to a life unknown... in a capacity that transcended mortal boundaries. She would see Sinnea and Nymh for what they were with her wisdom and knowing, would see the devastating nature of the Tree that consumed all, would know her enemies in all their might all around her, and she would be able to cast magic's normally far, far beyond her.

Keturah was on the move the moment after a path had been cut through the.. horde? Could she call it a horde? Whatever it was called, her fire had barely had an effect. What she had managed to burn was quickly replaced as slitherers began to dart into the open area.. and directly into Ket's path. Gripping the staff in both hands, she swung in a downward arc, smashing the wood against the humanoid skull. She was lucky to incapacitated the creature before its mouth had opened any wider. She was not so fortunate with the second in her path. Jaw cranked open, acidic bile spewing forth. Keturah caught herself on her heel, changing direction with a well placed pivot. Grace did not save her from the acid entirely. Corrosion ate away at her staff, bubbling the wood where the bile had spewed until a piece of it broke away. The druidess cried out-- not for loss of her staff, but for the damage being rent over her arm. Nerves screamed beneath the acid that had burned through her shirt and begun to eat away at her limb. Biting down on the breath that seethed past her lips, The desert-born bashed the butt of her staff into the thing's mouth. The weapon was as good as lost anyway. Gaze flitted across the field, finding Jacob as he scrambled away from the undead that chased him. Keturah raced forward, slipper'd feet carrying her around and in between the dead and lightening that closed in on her with a dancer's grace; still she suffered the bruising, burns and cuts. They were.. sheparding her, it seemed. She was headed for Jacob, yes, but she had also managed to find herself in the shadow of a flaming blood hulk. The fist was dodged, by an almost desperate dive through the creature's legs. The woman twisted at her hip, drawing the curved blade of her dagger, and jumped back onto the things back all in one fluid motion. Her own Flame would not harm her, but the flailing fists of the shrieking beast might have as she burrowed the blade time after time again into its seared flesh. Before it fell the druidess would find the other creatures atop her and already clinging to the blood hulk for dear life, she was almost hard pressed to scramble onto its shoulder and jump to safety. Catching herself in a roll, Keturah was barely to her feet again before the song reached her ears. That.. understanding, that a mortal should not have known flooded through her, all but erasing the panic that had begun to manifest itself. Then she was aware of Jacob and the pixie, and somehow she knew the Tree. Hands ignited with Divine flame that took only a drop of a whistle note to call forth. This time it was not a wild barrage of fire, but a much more concentrated, and much more deadly burst of flame that skimmed through the enemies. Several of them would burn away to nothing.

Nymh watched as the rapture took her, drowning the rest of the world out... the downside of this, she would be able to see many of his secrets in the profundity of her wisdom, and perhaps even the horrors of Sinnea's past... if her mind could pierce through the layers of psychosis. The fires burst in a supernova of targeted fury, a beauteous explosion of Nature's Divine might, with all the austere, deadly beauty of an erupting volcano, the twinkle of a star, the fury of a tempest. Nymh caught it in his music, expounding upon the magical attack, hoping that he could contain the Rapture and enhance her attack all at once... His ears, nose, and eyes bled with the effort, putting out magic from the font that clasped his soul to his torn body. Undead bore down upon him, held back only by writhing chains of razors, which eviscerated, but caused the undead no pain. The fires that exploded from the druidess consumed them all, disintegrating banshees, shriveling the roots that sought to close overhead, drowning out the roar of the Blood Hulks as they fell, their blood boiling in their veins. The lich survived, for a while, but gave way under the assault, the death knight charging at Keturah only to become ash before he could even reach her... the greater enchanted pieces of armor and his cursed blade falling around her. The tree took a huge brunt of the assault its self, but acted quickly as it reared up in pain... the tree unraveled, dark, purple energy protecting it in large part... to Keturah's profound wisdom, the connection to Sinnea's magic would be obvious. The tops of the tree came down, the bough's stretching as no tree should, and like several legs, they lifted the root mass out of the ground, bringing a screaming flesh being, crawling with undead like those they had destroyed... It lifted its self out of the ground, the tree "legs" like spider legs from around it's back... it was the Gigant, the heart of a grown Corpse Tearer... it pulled its self out of the ground, a monster as tall as three great dragons stretched, able to topple a mountain, pulling up forestry, whole trees where it rose above them. It screamed pain, the noise concussion and noise alone enough to knock away and kill. Sinnea summoned the Death Knight's blade to her, as well as two other swords and a holy blade, and telekinetically shot them into the Gigant, dancing a new Elder magic and breaking the Whisper... the blades glowed, cursed, holy, and mundane with magically conductive metal, and the sword's blew a giant hole through the thing, coursing magical destruction of dual holy and unholy natures through it... the Legs came down, crashing to the ground and trying to crush a dancing Sinnea as the Gigant climbed about, humanoid, but ending at the waist, dragging its self with the help of the spidery tree "legs"... hundreds of undead screamed and fell from it as it moved, and Nymh vowed to hold onto the Rapture long enough... Keturah and Sinnea had to finish this. The Gigant roared again, and bellowed torrents of bile and maggot infested blood upon the motley crew... a tidal wave of putrescent, corruptive fluid that carried more minions with it, ready to jump up and rend their foes asunder...

There was a trick she had learned long ago, when her teacher was first instructing her in healing. To block everything else out, to settle into focus. Despite this, she could feel the consciousness of all three skittering across the edge of her psyche- images she forced herself not to decipher. However deep the connection she now shared with those others, the druidess was.. attempting not to lose herself to their secrets. It did not matter. Somewhere along the lines of that spell, Keturah had been lost all the same, if only for a while. She was something else, someone else, fighting to destroy the corpse tearer, rather than a mother fighting to return to her daughter.. or a healer trying to protect the man she had followed into the darkness. Still. It was a human that ran between the legs that had erupted beneath the tree, and human muscles and joints that threatened to break with each pivot and roll that nearly pushed her body too far. She'd begin to tear right at her seams if the battle were not over soon. Fingers fell to the canvas bag tied at her side, opposite hand tugging upon the string that sealed it closed. The spells she had whispered over the glass spheres she began to drop as she moved were months old, but that did not make them any less powerful. And with each brush of her fingertips over the containers, the magic only grew in power. Somewhere beneath the tree's footfalls, she felt a life go out, and suddenly Jacob.. whose brother had likely already been lost to the forest was no more in her mind. She could not even bring herself to grieve. Backpedaling beneath the tree's roots, and narrowly avoiding the undead that dropped, the druidess continued to scatter her spheres upon the ground, bloodied and sweat covered hands raising to her mouth as she let go of the last. The call was somewhere between note of a song and a shout, but as the verse fell the druid's spell burst to life. Glass shattered on the field beneath the creature's 'legs' roots expanding and burrowing deep into the torn earth of the crater left by the tree. From each of these rose countless vines, dagger sharp thorns tearing through unfortunate undead left upon the ground as they slithered skyward. The moment one had a hold of the tree, they all began to grasp, thorns rooting themselves into the creature in what seemed to be a simple maneuver to hold it to place. Again, the druid's fingers lifted to her mouth, and she whistled a few notes onto the pungent wind. Flowers began to blossom over the length of the vines, steadily growing larger. The vines were a parasite, drawing upon the trees energies to create the blooms. They were merely a marker for how quickly the tendril began to feed upon the tree.

Nymh watched the tendrils spread across the gigant, power amplified by the Rapture upon Keturah. It had only been moments, but he was dizzying to unconsciousness... Suddenly, the claws of a Flesh Render reached through his razored defenses, slicing him open in a swing that sent him skittering across the forest floor... his chest cavity torn open, blood pumping out... The wound closed its self with agonizing slowness, the dark magic's animating him stretched to their limit... he was about done in this battle. The Gigant reeled under the assaults, tree trunk legs and arms ripping and tearing at thorny tendrils, the thing screaming in anger... the undead that fell got caught in the maelstrom of vines, and the flowers bloomed copiously, able to absorb even the dark energies of the undead with the after effects of the rapture... though the power would fade fast now that the Rapture had ended... Hopefully, Keturah or Sinnea had something else in store to finish the gruesome task. The Gigant roared and tore, and slapped and raked the ground with massive claws, even killing a Blood Hulk and dozens of other undead in an effort to kill those that threatened it. Sinnea rose, dancing in the air and gathering magic in herself, preparing for one final blow... she was chanting, and the look on her face, if one could see it, was as fearsome as the wrath of any God. Nymh's spark of consciousness faded as he bled to the brink of Death... and Sinnea unleashed her magic, diving at the Gigant like an arrow shot. She became a glowing purple weapon, diving through and out the back of the Gigant too fast for the eye to follow... the swords and the seal they made exploding with the energy she dragged through it, an arm falling off as half it's body blew to stinking bits. It roared, the ground shuddering the wake of it's agony, and the trunks flailed wildly, thrashing to gain a foothold...

Keturah should have been as good as broken, now that she was fading back into herself. She had raised her hand for another whistle, a spell to burst the petals to flame, but now even maintaining the massive vines was dizzying. She wavered, legs buckling beneath her. She landed on the ground, staring up at the creature and her vines with momentary wonder. Only momentary wonder. Gaze found the undead still writhing upon the ground, and exhausted and bloody as the druidess was, she was scraping back along the broken earth, attempting to push herself back to her feet. Now when the undead came her way, she'd no defense for it save to lay there and hope for a quick death. "Shyte.." another soft curse, spoken when they began to writhe her way. She'd another canvas satchel, another bag of tricks, and not enough magic or hope to even pray that it would work. She reached for it anyway, gaze leaving the mass of creatures to the purple light that shot above. Something had her leg, claws piercing her flesh until she gave out a barely contained screech. It would have dragged her off, perhaps, had the ensuing explosion above not sent shards of rotted wood boring down upon those below. Keturah felt it too, in the sensation of something digging into her belly, and the flickers of pain that made white lilies bloom behind her eyes. What undead had not been halted by the shrapnel soon found themselves crushed beneath the weight of the trunks as they thrashed about. The druidess lay, bleeding and staring up at monstrosity. Fingers slowly found their way to her lips. She whistled again. The sound was short and sweet, barely reaching the uppermost vines. It activated the spell though. Brown and purple blossoms that had heard her spell plumed and exploded into great petals, each catching aflame and burning into the remains of the tree. What petals did not latch onto the Corpse Tearer floated almost gently to the ground, where any remaining undead caught beneath the flower would suffer the same fate. Gods.. she hoped that was enough.. sooty lashes fluttered closed as the darkness poured in. She could have sworn she saw a face staring over her, but then.. it didn't really matter.

Nymh The monstrosity fell, defeated, with none of those who fought the battle awake or alive enough to see it crumble... the Corpse Tearer Tree no more, it's undead floundering without it's guidance. Nymh lay bloody, he may survive his wounds, if he got help. They had closed, but his magic couldn't replace all the blood alone. Sienna was laying next to Nymh, holding his head in her lap... She was exhausted mentally and physically, enough so that she had a moment of lucidity, enough of her own mind free to have Nymh for a few precious seconds, she was crying to whispering to him, "It's me, it's me, you haven't met me, wake up and meet me, Nymh..." She couldn't heal him anymore than he her, and whether he would survive having been eviscerated was up to chance at this point... she pleaded and pleaded with him to open his eyes.

It was a robed figure leaning over the body of the druidess, the billowing white of the fabric that clothed it contrasting starkly to the destruction and death hanging in the air about. The being seemed solid enough, much as a human standing there. The hand that reached out from the robes, betrayed the strange body beneath. The flesh was defined by tiny, constantly moving symbols, with nothing between them but empty air. Two fingers rested atop Keturah's forehead, before the being fell still once more. The air around them rippled, droplets of light peppering both the being's and the woman's forms, until it cloaked them. The suddenly light broke away, fluttering through wind and trees, deeper into the trees. They had both disappeared; leaving the forest as dark and filled with death as before.

The magic and disturbances had attracted more than just the druid spirits within the forests. The figure that approached upon the being's departure lingered upon a rotting log, feet leaving not even an imprint within the soggy material. The creature, male or female it was difficult to tell through the shrouds that covered it, hopped lightly to the ground. It strolled forward at an almost leisurely pace, sapphire eyes taking in the destruction about, and the weapons tossed upon the ground. It did not speak, merely hovered over the remaining pair, before finally stretching a lengthy arm down, palm flat against the earth.

Fallen angels are enigmatic beings... Tossed from the graces of whatever Haven they shepherded, they were turned into unholy being to match their previous holy might... and thus, the magics of this angel rang within Nymh's undead magic bound soul... the dark font of supernatural power animating him flaring to life. Outwardly, little happened.... he opened his eyes, to find Sienna above him, staring in the distance... her mind the cloud it always was when he saw her. Would he ever know the truly beautiful thing she once was? It seemed doubtful... The enigmatic being that had saved him was nowhere to be seen, though undoubtedly watching still. Random acts of kindness were not in the nature of an Angel, fallen or no. It had it's reasons, whether through an arbitrary but long winded curiosity, or something more.