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summer 15, year 115 of the third age
continued from here.
Not all of the Ældar'i were prodigious individuals in their younger years. Nyyrikki was one who had to put in substantially more effort than most to build his repertoire of skills. A long life and the right combination of tenacity and stubbornness can do wonders, though, as the man is currently lauded as being the nation's best hunter; an apex predator with myriad skills in both conventional weaponry and arcana. But he was never one to be boastful, always preferring to demonstrate such things rather than state them.
Still, that didn't mean Nyyrikki wanted to go into much detail about how poor a hunter he once was…or for precisely how long he struggled with a bow.
When Cælum addressed Slátra, the elder turned his head to eye his fellow dragon curiously. "A pleasure to finally meet you– my flight has kept an eye on you since your mother first brought you into Ælheim. Full glad we are to see one of you stayed behind," he began.
"...but yes. The scales of an elder are proper resilient…although, that certainly does not make the sensation of being electrocuted any less unpleasant," the beast chuckled before swallowing the last of the Trow. He looked disappointed, beginning to eye some of the other corpses.
When Cælum admitted his poor melee combat skills, Nyyrikki shrugged. "Think of this as training, then; your goal is to survive. If you do, you'll be better for it– we all will, really. A rising tide raises all ships, 'n all that…" from the way the huntsman parroted that last phrase, it was clear he'd taken that from somebody else and was, to some degree, lightly mocking them– though he did believe in the sentiment.
When both entered the cave's mouth, Nyyrikki manifested melee weaponry; two aerodynamic chakrams, one for each hand. He was a combination of surprised and annoyed at how entrenched the Vokhai were within it. They must've been here, concealed, for at least a few months. Figures they'd get away with it here of all places, though…Ælheim's best scouts, the Wisps, weren't fans of wandering Veiðrbrand and the underlings of Vitæ were quite flammable in these climes.
"Ah…I don't know, but that's why we're here. I might've been told just to scout, but Freyre isn't stupid enough to think that's all I'd do," he said with a laugh, looking over the dead and the dying. Very much a bloodhound when following the trail of something, Nyyrikki was.
The younger dragon's second question caused him to turn his head to look, immediately recognizing the body of an Inari of all things. "They didn't do anything; that's an Inari. They're fox-like faefolk; can use Seeming to change their shape, like Boggarts. Bizarre to see one here with the Vokhai, but…I've seen stranger things," he offered in explanation.
Right as those words left his mouth, though, a stone projectile shot right past the huntsman's head. Immediately, he shifted to a far more alert, reactive stance, and moved to retaliate against the mage who'd attempted to harm him. Throwing one of his weapons, he guided it through the air with wind, decapitating that particular Orc before carrying the blade back to his hand on that same zephyr of air.
At the same time, he was then forced to dodge another mage, a Fulguri, tossing bolts of fire his way. His evasive maneuvers were elegant, maintaining a dancer's sort of grace and alacrity– but his Lifesight keyed him into the fact that part of the wall was, in fact, a Terrari trying to blend in.
"Cælum! Contend with these shamans for the moment, will ya?" He called out, referring to the Fulguri and the others outside of the wall.
He himself squatted down to place both of his palms on the floor and, if one watched, they'd see the earth below him bloom with life. Provided Cælum served as a good enough distraction, after a moment, the lurking Terrari would be forced out of the wall and entrapped within a column of vines. Still, mages were also not the only threat, as a Gnoll and a Trow with melee armaments also attempted to rush the both of them.
Caelum didn't know how to feel about knowing that dragons had been keeping an eye on him. He'd purposefully separated himself from dragons to fully immerse himself with the aelves and humans. It wasn't like he disliked dragons though. It was only a matter of time before he would start mingling with them again.
(In the cave)
Caelum allowed himself a small smile at Nyyrikki's admission that he was just supposed to scout. He liked the aelf's attitude, though he could see now why his superiors held information from him. The young dragon also took interest in what the aelf had said about the inari, though he didn't exactly have time to inspect it closely. His mother had never done a great job of explaining all the races to him. Most of their time together was simply learning how to survive as a dragon.
Caelum dropped low when the violence started up again. He held up his shield not a moment too soon and staggered backwards as something slammed into it, cracking it and scraping his forearm. It was immediately clear that the group that had welcomed them outside was only a taste of what they were getting into.
The dragon caught an image of the aelf twisting his body gracefully as fire seared past him. "Focus" he told himself as he dragged his eyes back to the people still streaming into the room. He'd been told to deal with the shamans but he didn't know how. All he could manage was to keep fortify his wooden shield that had turned into a veritable tower shield that he was bracing his whole body against.
It wasn't as if he were doing nothing – he had been focusing saol into his throat once more – but there was a lot less time to act when people were actively attacking at close range. When he was ready, he tossed his projectile-laden shield aside and opened his mouth, letting out a light that was so intense that it would surely blind everyone in front of him.
He kept his mouth open for a few moments, looking as people started covering their eyes. Caelum was basically immune to his own element so he could see clear as day. He then closed his mouth and charged towards the shamans, taking care to slash as many people in the throat as he could along the way while they were blinded.
Unfortunately, Caelum hadn't even noticed the terrari and couldn't exactly get close to the fulgari who conjured a wall of protective flames in front of him while his vision recovered. Caleum stopped several yards away, kneeling to brace himself while sending sharp roots from each of his hands that poked through the flames. The roots couldn't last more than a handful of seconds in the flames, but his objective was to impale the mage and, to that end, he was successful... but the fulgari merely staggered back and cauterized his wound before turning his sights on Caelum.
summer 15, year 115 of the third age
continued from here.
Of the Vokhai, their mages were their greatest martial assets in closed spaces like this. They had some strange, hobbled together magitechnology enough to build sort of 'siege weapon' styled machines, but those would never fit into a cave like this, and Nyyrikki didn't quite respect the ones that were only armed mundanely. Therefore, his focus was primarily isolated to the shamans among their number.
After forcing the Terrari out of the wall, he'd compel the vines to crush them before advancing forward. Cælum proved a good enough distraction, as his effulgent breath had pulled focus for the moment. Now able to help the dragon-man himself, Nyyrikki would throw one of his chakrams, carefully aiming it with Zephyr. The blade would fly past him and, heated by the mage's own flames, cut right through his throat. He was decapitated, though the flesh was burned enough to prevent excessive bleeding. The huntsman would manipulate the currents of the air in order to retract his weapon much like the pathing of a frisbee of sorts before finally catching up to Cælum on foot.
"Step back a bit, I don't want this to affect you–..." was all the huntsman would say next before he himself would take a deep inhale.
And on his exhale, what came out was the same hypnotic cloud that Slátra had utilized– Somnium. Through their Dragonbound, Nyyrikki, too, could wield it. It rapidly filled the corridor before them, and unless Cælum ignored his warning and ran forward, he would remain unaffected. The Vokhai, however? Not so much.
The remaining Zephyri immediately reacted with a primal sort of fear and shot a blade of wind forward at…well, nothing in particular. The Trow was clearly seeing things. And as the cloud spread down the darkened cavern corridor, it would become evident that others were affected by it as well.
"Wait a moment before we advance– the effect on them lasts longer than the cloud lingers, but I wouldn't want to risk you going mad, too," he said with a small chuckle despite the chaos that surrounded them.
Caelum stood there, staring at the Fulgari who, by all rights, owed the dragon every bit of pain that was coming to him. He'd stepped forward and thrust his palms at Caelum, washing his whole body in flames. Caelum screamed in shock and threw himself to the side, but to his surprise he didn't actually feel any pain.
"Huh?" he asked himself as he stood. His clothes and wooden armor were burning, nearly to crisp… but his body was completely fine. Being immune to fire seemed like a given, but he'd always thought that he'd need his scales to achieve the effect and he'd never actually bothered to test it. By the time he looked back at the Fulgari, his head was lying on the floor.
Shortly afterwards, Caelum flew himself back a ways to get out of range of the aelf's, or rather the dragon's, breath weapon. It was a strange thing for Caelum to see a humanoid wield the power of a dragon with such effectiveness. The cloud did exactly what was intended, sending quite literally all of the reinforcements into a strange state that made Caelum wish he could have done the same with fire. He was far too drained to attempt something so fantastical as that, however.
"Now?" he'd ask the aelf after the cloud dispersed. Once the signal was given, he'd make his way around the cave, slashing awkwardly with his sword as he did so. He felt kind of bad for the people he attacked because his kills were not clean or quick. Most of them were fatally wounded and left to bleed out on the floor.
By the time he made it to the area where the cave started to branch off, Caelum was dead tired. His body ached and he knew his natural reserves of life force were getting low. Not so much that he couldn't afford to fly away in an emergency, but he wasn't expecting to use his breath weapon again unless his life was on the line. He'd drop to one knee and wipe sweat off his brow, doing his best to catch his breath.
There were still people in the branched off areas, Caelum could hear them struggling with the effects of the breath weapon… but beyond that he didn't think anyone else was going to be coming to fight.
"Shame that the enemy mages had to die," he said between breaths. "Don't you aelves have a way of harvesting them? Sundering, I believe it's called?" Caelum didn't like crafting at all and had never shown an interest in it, aside from learning how to do some woodworking but that was purely to be able to use druidism properly.
summer 15, year 115 of the third age
continued from here.
Nyyrikki nodded when Cælum asked whether it was safe to move or not; the mist had adequately dispersed. The two of them worked together to cut down the violently confused remnants of the Vokhai force in the cavern immediately before them, and eventually, they'd come across a split path.
With his own Terra, Nyyrikki put a hand to the cavern wall and was able to tell that the two paths would eventually meet again– they encircled a large, hollowed out space in the middle, likely being utilized for some purpose or another. And beyond that there was another room, more than likely a barracks for all these forces from what he could tell.
But as he did this, Cælum posed another question.
"Fair enough point. The ones who aren't quite dead I might stabilize on our way out and bind with vines, then send word to have them retrieved–" he laughed awkwardly.
"It's just that being bound to Slátra, I somewhat share what he Seeks…which is slaughter. Hard to spare folks when my very blood lusts for their deaths," he explained with a fairly laissez-faire attitude about it.
"I do have Terra myself, I just prefer to fight with wind. The reason I say that, though, is that I was able to discern the general layout for this place, finally. These two caverns are wrapped around a large, circular room and beyond that is a barracks. Doubtful that many remain in the barracks…so we ought to enter that chamber– I feel that's where we'll find out why exactly they're here," he informed Cælum.
"...and no need to look for a door," he added before the earth began to rumble slightly beneath their feet.
Using his own Terra, the huntsman broke away a chunk of the wall large enough for both he and Cælum to walk through before dissolving it to dust. The room itself was empty save one mage– an old, gnarled looking Gnoll who appeared to be in the middle of a Summoning ritual of sorts. In all likelihood, her guards or assistants had run out of the open door in the back to try and fend off Nyyrikki and Cælum– being that they'd failed, the Summoner was now, effectively, defenseless.
Not wanting to give her any chance to tear open a portal to another plane, the huntsman very quickly grew a large swathe of vines from one of his arms and slung them at the Gnoll, wrapping her in a cocoon thereof.
"We…probably shouldn't kill her," much as he wanted to, "...Freyre would appreciate being able to question this one, I think."
"Slaughter?" Caelum said with a surprised look on his face. "Well… that explains a lot." He tried to think about what it must be like to seek something so violent. Standing there among all the bodies must have felt positively dreamy, if the feeling was anything like how Caelum felt when he was around fertile humans.
It was at that point that Caelum noticed that he was more or less naked, so he used a sharp nail to slice off someone's shirt and wrap it around his waist. Afterwards, he followed Nyyrikki through the wall he'd made. They came across a mage that the aelf took care of before he'd been able to finish whatever it was she was doing.
"Any chance they could still cast like that?" Caelum asked as he cautiously walked clockwise around the cocoon. If he'd been wrapped it would have only taken a second before he would have simply burned his way out. Then again, the mages they'd encountered so far had not been particularly impressive.
The shamans seemingly possessed only one magic each and were probably no better than he was at druidism. Their defenses had been plenty to ward off someone like himself, but perhaps not an aelf who was hell bent on slaughter.
"Must be convenient to be able to manipulate earth like that," he said as he wandered around the barracks. There weren't any other passages he could see, though he supposed that didn't mean much if a terrari could simply open and close walls on a whim. "Never took an interest in Galdr, really. The power sounds incredible but I don't wish to roll my dice with an initiation. If I were an aelf with an unlimited life span… I'd probably be even more hesitant."
There was only one thing that Caelum saw in the room that really struck him as interesting. There was a chest in the room, away from most of the beds. There was a desk next to the chest which looked to have a map on it with a rough sketch of the surrounding landscape. There were markings on the map, but none of it made sense to the dragon. He grabbed it and would hand it to Nyyriki, "this was all I could find."
summer 15, year 115 of the third age
continued from here.
Nyyrikki giggled a bit at Cælum's surprise. "It probably does, doesn't it?"
Once they were both in the inner sanctum, the huntsman did not appear concerned about the Summoner escaping.
"She might still be able to, depending on what other Arcana she possesses– that is, if she were conscious," he explained.
Cælum would notice that the cocoon of vines was stone still.
Nyyrikki continued, "...and mind, she isn't dead. She is simply…sleeping. I'm bound to a fun little flower whose pollen knocks you right out in the right quantities, and the inner parts of the vines are inlaid with quite a few of them at the moment."
And regarding Galdr, the huntsman grinned. "You're not alone with that mindset, but in my youth? My philosophy was reckless: live fast, die young– I didn't care," he laughed in a tone distinctly sardonic.
"...now granted, I am glad my recklessness did not result in my death and am a fair bit toned back in that regard now. It is prudent to have some semblance of self preservation, that much is certain," the ælf admitted.
When he was presented with the map, he unfurled it and appeared to stare at it with some modicum of scrutiny. "Fascinating!" He said, though it wouldn't be clear whether or not he'd gotten much out of the Vokhai scrawl either. "Freyre'll want to see this, at least."
With those words, he seemed to fabricate a sort of scroll case out of wood and vines and threw it over his shoulder. And with that done, he moved to approach the chest. Locked…but he didn't really care. Utilizing ætumetal, he made a set of lockpicks and picked it.
Housed within the chest was an array of bizarre items that might've been valuable to the Vokhai, but Nyyrikki himself wasn't quite sure of their worth. He supposed that those sent to clean up this mess would maybe be able to value them properly?
"Well, I suppose our job here is done. You used quite a bit of your Saol, no? You can fly back with me 'an Slátra, if you'd like," he offered, meandering over to the vine-cocooned Gnoll.
He lifted her over his shoulder with ease, his strength emboldened by his Dragonbound. Nyyrikki was ready to leave if Cælum was.
"Oh? That sounds like quite a useful plant to have bound to," he said at the mention of the knock-out pollen. "You've actually used a wide variety of plants today, now that I think about it. There was one that even looked metal? Or that's what I thought before I learned that you were a terrari as well. Perhaps you were actually forming metal from your body... As for myself, I've only bound to the AElheim Sequoia and some vines."
"Heh, I think most make reckless decisions in their youth. I think most dragons would look at the form I've chosen and laugh. More often than not I find that I'd be better off in a fight if I were several thousand pounds bigger."
He watched as the aelf went over to investigate the chest. Caelum had noticed the lock and hadn't bothered but it seemed that his multitalented companion had little issue with it.
"Yes, I am quite exhausted, though more physically than magically. I would appreciate a ride, at least to the nearest town. I just need some rest then I would be able to fly home easily enough. Where are you headed, if you don't mind me asking?"
Caelum walked back through the opening in the wall and used some saol to send a vine out from each hand. The vines wrapped around a still-living body each and pulled them out for the elder dragon to feast on. "There's a lot more inside," Caelum said to the dragon, "shall I fetch more?" The younger dragon was tired but if he wasn't going to have to fly then he wouldn't mind spending his last bits of energy rewarding his elder for his help.
summer 15, year 115 of the third age
continued from here.
"Ah, the metallic substance is indeed a plant– ætumetal. Funny little quirk of that is that you can actually bind to it with either Terra or Draoidh, or both. I've bound it to both, mostly because that way, I can expend either Aether or Saol to use it, depending on which one it'd be more efficient to use at the moment," Nyyrikki explained. Very versatile little plant, that one.
He continued, "vines and sequoia are good choices…dunno if we've the same vines, but as you saw, I have both of those as well."
"With regards to size, I suppose there's pros and cons to both. Slátra couldn't really come with us because he's so large, for one," the huntsman offered in an attempt to be reassuring.
"We will be heading to the nearest city. Will stop to inform the local branch of the Emerald Vigil so that they may clean up and gather ah…information? Evidence? I guess?" He wasn't quite sure how to describe their processes. "...but then we'll meet with an Exodii we're acquainted with to teleport directly to Ælfiríki and speak with Freyre."
Cælum's offerings to Slátra did not go unnoticed– Nyyrikki appeared amused whereas the elder dragon looked delighted. He lifted off from the ground with a gust of wind and flew quickly over to them, the force of the breeze nearly knocking the huntsman down.
"Oh relax, would you? The bodies aren't going anywhere," he commented, sounding sarcastic.
Slátra squinted at his partner before shifting his draconic gaze onto Cælum. "Thank you," he said simply, then began the rather grotesque process of eating the bodies piece by piece.
When he was finished and all were set to go, the trio would take off to a small city on the outskirts of Graentún.
