morally dubious dirt man ๐ weir dredger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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finalflight2023-06-26 11:54 am
fossick) wrote in finalflight2023-06-26 11:54 amEntry tags:
fossick) wrote in finalflight2023-06-26 11:54 am
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[Sardonic right back 'atcha, Weir. Lucinda pushes herself off of the mare with a small impact on the ground.]
But go ahead. Once again, I can only depend on your capable hands.
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The trees are very close to each other, the branches needing to be swept out of the way by hand to pass. He assumes she's following, though that much is verified easily by the sound of her footsteps behind him.
But then, quite suddenly, the forest opens up into a wide clearing, utterly carpeted in Vale Sapphires. It's an open space, shuddering in the breeze, though if Lucinda takes the time to observe, it isn't all blue flowers.
There's a hole in the ground. A huge, gaping hole, cavernous and yawning -- something ominous about its blackness.
Weir moves towards it.]
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As Weir moves towards it, she's about to take a step forward until her friends make her stop in her tracks.]
... Weir.
[Lucinda tilts her head as she listens to her friends.]
You didn't know the forest, but you know this place?
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Weir moves to the former, not looking back at Lucinda. He turns the lever that draws up a rope hanging deep inside the pit. Impossible to tell what he's heaving up with the winch right now, though.]
I'm very familiar with this place, yes. I used to delve down deep in there, rooting around for anything that might be of use, bringing it back to the surface for this blasted town.
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Flora... [She moves to stand next to Weir.]
... Is having quite the fit about it. Just from standing nearby, she and Feather find it foul.
But you did it to survive. [She gazes down at the hole.]
It shaped you, didn't it? Not the town that's here now.
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It is foul. Down there, you may find the most baffling things. Old relics from an age no one quite understands. Plants with impossibly potent healing properties, or magical ones, that proper magic-wielders used to fight over in the city. Old structures of strange architecture. Stones that hold odd energies. Creatures in which you might carve off their parts for enchanted trinkets, or even plates of armor.
Youโre right. That world is more my home than the one youโve stepped foot in.
[And for a flash of a moment, he actually soundsโฆ bitter about that. Like being dealt the wrong hand in life twice over. Like having contentedness thrown into his arms, and not feeling content at all.
But his expression doesnโt change. Eventually, the rope gives way to whatโs finally being hefted up: a small wooden platform with something large wrapped up in thick, frayed burlap set on top of it. Clearly, Weir had already prepared whatever it is prior to now โ maybe yesterday, maybe the day before. He locks the lever in place and stands up straight, moving over to fetch it.
Itโs big enough, whatever it is, that he has to sling it over his shoulder to carry it away from the edge of the hole in the ground. Andโฆ well.
It stinks.
It smells like sulfur and rot.]
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[Flora hates this. Feather waits. Fang is silent but he's the most ready of them all.
Lucinda covers her nose with her cloak and watches as Weir carries his package away from the hole with narrowed eyes.]
Weir.
[Her voice is calm and cold. She's a woman of contrasts who feels so much and carries deep wounds but can look at what's in front of her and change accordingly.]
What does this have to do with us being guests?
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Youโre going to help me to decide what to do with you. As guests.
[A relatively unhelpful answer. For now, he crouches down and unwraps the item from the burlap, layer by layer. He doesnโt balk from the smell, utterly unaffected. Slowly, Lucinda will see the slow reveal of a tail. Than the pad of a paw. The strange, moist flesh of something that must have been decaying for who-knows-how-long. The tip of a fetid snout.]
This is your chance to prove that youโre not just an inconvenience. Orโฆ [He shrugs a shoulder.] Perhaps I mean the opposite: that youโre too large of an inconvenience, one that I canโt just throw away when it gets too troublesome for me.
[Eventually, whatโs been wrapped up becomes fully exposed: itโs an awful-looking monster, very much dead, shaped a bit like a canid but if you added a few too many extra, wiggling bits.
Even as a corpse, splayed out on the burlap, it looks like something that doesnโt truly belong in this forest, in this town. Like a bit of darkness plucked up from the deep โ because thatโs exactly what it is.]
I hardly think it needs any introduction, but this is one of the monsters you can find prowling down there.
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Without having to ask, she surmises that no one in the Vale knows this hole, not like Weir does from the life he knew before. Inexplicably, this part of the world did revolve around him and the medium is not certain how that makes her feel, especially now that he's made it clear that she's an inconvenience.
A large one at that.
Well.
Depending on what he's planning, Lucinda should think she'll have to show how inconvenient she can be if he crosses the line.
Without that thought displayed across her face, she glances at Weir again.]
As we both know, I've been nothing but helpful during my stay here. So why stop now? I'm wide awake out of anticipation.
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But other than that? They don't care about it beyond it acting as a passing novelty in their minds.
And that is the main difference between this world and the one before.]
Are you?
[He says, and he's already taking one of his knives out of its sheath. Lucinda will see that this one is not a normal knife made of steel; its blade is ebony, so dark that it seems to reflect no light. He doesn't appear to be brandishing it at her, but rather points its tip down at the corpse at his feet, the blade teasing at rotted flesh.]
"Helpful" is generous, Lucinda. I hardly see how you've been helpful to me at all. There is a part of me that's starting to wonder if you'd just be better off gone. Do you agree with that?
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[Her eyes track the knife that he wields and how he points it at the creature, not her. Past experience informs her that whatever he's about to do, the monster won't stay down for long. She turns and takes a few casual steps away, readjusting her cloak (loosening it rather) before continuing to speak.]
I would like to be gone. Gone from here and back to home. You and Turner's Vale would become an odd and distant memory. This would have just been a detour from my usual life as a particularly burdened esper.
[As she was speaking, a sweet scent emits from her body. Flora detests the putrid stink of the dead monster. Rather than rotten flesh, sweet overripe floral fruit is much preferable.
And it's a warning sign from Lucinda herself.]
So I think it's time to cut the pretense. It's not like you Weir. I'm the one who should be dancing around the main point, not you.
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No, he supposes it wouldn't be, given her work back home.]
You're right. Straight to it, then.
[He pushes the ebony knife into the wolf-monster, and the blade slides in easily as though it were cutting through nothing tougher than vellum. The curve of its sharp edge buries itself into flesh, unseen; but it is the hilt that begins to glow along the etched carvings, coiling in a sickly green glow.
That same glow, a strange essence of energy, glides down the knife handle, presumably lowering itself into the blade. And by way of that, the corpse itself.]
You're either going to die here or you're going to prove too difficult to kill and remain my problem for however fucking long you're stuck in this world. If it's the latter, well, we'll cross that bridge if we get there. And if it's the former...
[He yanks out the knife, slick with fleshy rot. Something in the corpse stirs, a gutteral breath rattling in neglected lungs.]
Then I will throw you in the Pit and be done with you. Not my problem any more. I think that's fair, don't you?
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[It sounds simple as a solution on the surface. Lucinda will always be their main priority over everything else and that's why she needs to be the one who is able to clearly see the larger picture. She can't just make use of her friends so recklessly. There is something to this world in regard to Weir's involvement a misfit of a puzzle piece. No, she can't kill him here, not yet, not now. It is quite possible that Lucinda will have to overturn a few more stones in order to find a way home.
As breath returns to the monster's lungs, Lucinda replies pleasantly to Weir with that dissonant serenity she applies when her life is in danger.]
You aren't the first person to threaten my life. And I'd hardly want you to be the last if it means drawing my final breath here and having my corpse thrown into that hole.
[She carries no weapons, nothing that can be weaponized. All she has are the clothes on her back and her friends in her body.
And really, if it's just Weir and a fiend of dead flesh, she might not need much else.]
Alright. Let me just make some room here before it tries to take a bite...
[Just a few more steps, crushing some Sapphires beneath her feet, nothing more. No running start, no visible panic. She's more than ready.]
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The voice in his head deigns to burst out in static-laughter.]
Yes, well, how terrible for you. [His reply is to the awful god-thing in his head, not Lucinda. And yet he doesnโt make this clear, uncaring if he leaves her confused.] No, Iโm not sure. Thatโs why Iโm doing this in the first place.
[He stands, hitching his knife back into its sheath. Weir makes no other moves for now, choosing to cross his arms and eye Lucinda from where he stands. Almost too unaffected for whatโs about to happen: his eyes, for one, already naturally dark green, take on an eerier sickly glow, ringed around his irises. It matches the energy that had been exuded by his knife hilt.
And the monster? It twitches, writhes. Lifts itself up, back raising first as though it were pulled up by a marionetteโs strings, before its four legs follow suit, finding purchase on the ground. Its head lifts and its eyes focus on Lucinda, maw opening and closing, opening and closing, flashing teeth. Too many teeth, embedded across odd angles in its body. Too many coiling tendrils of flesh lashing from its middle and lurching forward, now given โlife.โ It growls, gnashing its fangs.
Itโs far from the worst thing in the Pit. But itโll do for now.]
No dallying, now. Letโs make it quick.
[Was that to her or the monster?
Doesnโt matter.
The creature leaps forward, leaving trails of shadow in its wake, dashing straight towards her.]
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Lucinda removes her cloak and tosses it aside. Underneath she wears her low-cut white blouse, the one from home. Across her collarbone and her chest, the peony flower tattoos, Flora, rustle across her chest, leaves and petals shuddering. She is no use against a dead creature but her sweet aroma can at least soothe dear Huyen's senses. As for the others...]
Feather.
[The moment the monster is mere inches away from her with its open maw ready to tear her apart, Lucinda jumps and leaps over it in a backward arch. She lands on her feet behind it but doesn't stop there. Feather makes her hover a few yards off of the ground and the medium starts to travel between trees without leaving the vicinity of Weir and the Pit, to see if it will give chase.
Fang can wait.]
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So, then, not an issue. That leaves them with Feather and Fang.
Fang can be handled with later -- likely the trickiest of the lot. But Feather, he expects Lucinda to use nigh immediately, and Weir is not at all disappointed when she uses her spirit to gain quickness and ease of traversal through the trees. And he is sure this creature can match it. He's seen it hunt down prey in the Pit, knows the extent of its dexterity. And he'll show her, too.
The monster does give chase, running on limbs in a way that looks like it is indeed being puppeted by an outside force, yet never so stilted to not move at a frighteningly dexterous pace. The shadows along its form whip out and latch onto the shadows cast by the trees, and for a moment, it is nothing but an inkly black void of gnashing teeth and eyes, following and then lurching upwards, slowly reforming on a branch that hangs right above her head.
It leaps down, turning once again into the shape of a wolf-hound, starting with a huge, sharp set of teeth first, while the rest of it melds itself behind it, forepaws flung forward to pounce on her.
Weir, for now, really will do nothing more than watch. He has the audacity to move over and lean up against the winch, arms still crossed, while this takes place. With how crowded the forest is with trees beyond the clearing itself, it's safe to assume that he can still at least somewhat through the monster's eyes during this whole ordeal.]
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... You're right. If I don't take this seriously, I'd just be proving him correct. So...
[She keeps her eye on the corpse hound and Feather makes her fly higher to create more distance and more room for what's about to happen next. Her dark eyes gaze at it with little fear and incredible serenity.
Mediums aren't known for any combat ability. Lucinda herself is a woman of above average strength though otherwise is as frail as any other human who only has enough endurance to be possessed by ghosts and three mysterious deities.
But the Esper Collective knew they had struck gold when they realized what Lucinda Huyen Tran carried within her.]
Rip and tear, Fang.
[Through the monster's eyes, something akin to smoke emits from Lucinda's back. The smoke forms into an outline and as its visage becomes clearer two giant glowing eyes emerge becoming brighter and brighter until it shines in the wolf-hound's face.
Fang is enormous. His serpentine body that snakes around Lucinda and the trees oscillates between corporeal and not. Though his being is transparent, his presence is overwhelming and domineering with heat radiating off of his scales, hinted to be obsidian with a sheen of vermillion to match his beard and fur that lines around him. And that's not even his full size, but it's more than enough for now.
When he opens his jaws and roars the force of the sound echoes throughout the forest, shaking the trees, making the Vale Sapphires tremble until their petals burst and fly all around them.]
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The dragon's roar is a force unto itself, the reverb of sound cascading through the clearing, jittering the petals clean off the blossoming Sapphires nearby. Weir's definitely not keeping his casual lean against the winch now; between viewing the emergence of the dragon from the monster's eyes and his own bones feeling as though they might shake under the pressure of that roar, he straightens and digs his heels into the ground, his mind assessing.
Well. Fang's already made his appearance, it would seem, and though it's earlier than Weir expectedโand the blasted ghost is so much bigger than he expected, but perhaps that was his own folly; damn thing is a dragonโat least this information is out in the wild now. At least he has an idea moving forward of what heโs dealing with, one of the bigger mysteries finally unearthed. Sacrificing an undead monster is a small price to pay.
The wolf is still snarling, but it pauses in its pursuit in the face of the dragon, not out of fear (it does not feel fear any longer), but simply because Weir has taken the time to assess what to do next with it. Finally, though, it snaps its jaws rather fruitlessly and leaps forward again.]
Thereโs a reason I chose a corpse for the chopping block and not myself.
Well, the wolf is a fine enough of a distraction to find out, is it not?
[Speaking of the wolfโฆ Its shadowy form lashes with its tendrils, trying to wrap them around Fangโs maw, as though that would somehow help it from biting it in twain. It becomes amorphous again, just a vague outline of a canid, while the rest of its tries to slip past its scales and aim its many teeth, many mouths, at Lucindaโs soft flesh.]
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Lucinda's smiling all the while and lands on a sturdy branch to watch her dear friend do his job.
The dragon opens its mouth and traps the animated corpse within and starts flying downwards to make sure it has no room to struggle.
The medium calls out to Weir.]
I only have to deal with one of those right? Is it too much work to pull up another body?
[just checkin' bestie]
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[Weir barbs right back, glowing eyes cutting over to where Lucinda stands atop a sturdy branch. The canid, at this point, is a very lost cause and he knows it โ but he can still make it a thorn in the side before he loses it completely. In Fangโs mouth, the creature turns into inky black, receding into the dragonโs maw fully, and its reams and reams of teeth gnash and try to cut at the interior โ if such a thing is even possible.
As Weir had said, itโs more distraction than anything. Heโs more concerned with this little experiment, now: reaching out a hand to see how much of Lucindaโs life energy he can grasp in his figurative fingers, and compelling her forward closer to him.
Itโs not a pleasant sensation, no matter how successful (or not) it is, like having oneโs bones and muscles gripped tight and moved against oneโs will. To boot, Weir eases himself into her head, filling it with a cascading wave of awful static, and the blossoming focal point of little more than his will:]
Come closer, Lucinda.
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It will be up to the other two to keep him out.
He spits out the wolf's inky mass and body slams it into the ground. The length and size of him will prevent it from trying to reach Lucinda's body.
Speaking of, Lucinda frowns as she feels the innate pressure in her bones and muscles. Feather fights against the compulsion; though the esper takes a step off the branch, the winged spirit keeps her grounded and drags her opposite of Weir. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to inflict a type of mind control on Lucinda.
But what those people, now including Weir, soon find out, is it's not done without a fight; because when that happens, it's Flora who has full permission.
Lucinda's nostrils fill with the flowery scent emitting from her skin. The static finds itself being washed away by a more saccharine and coquettish voice.]
[Feather keeps Lucinda in place while Flora claims her mind-space. Lucinda's eyes are half-lidded as if she's about to fall asleep on the spot. One can hear the smile in the flower spirit's voice as she speaks to Weir.]
[Flora giggles as in the background, Fang roars as he takes care of the reanimated hound, soon to be deceased once again.]
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[Gods be. Weir's answer is telepathic, for once, now ricocheting between two voices in his head. His eyes glow brighter as a result.]
Will you shut up? I can't deal with two of you in my skull.
[He wrenches the "strings" of Lucinda's energy harder, uncaring for how he treats her body in these few moments. How strong is your hold on her, Feather?]
Perhaps I was just going to draw her close enough to slit her throat.
[With a free hand, he unearths his regular hunting knife from its sheath, and with a practiced throw of a huntsman, tosses it with a deftness that sends it careening in a spin right towards Lucinda's chest, hoping to meet its target without any fanfare at all, bastard that he is.
One more opportunity to be clever enough, or fast enough, to get out of this one, girl! Weir isn't shy about backstabbing... or front-stabbing, for that matter!]
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[While Flora taunts, calm and collected Feather makes Lucinda stand firm. And if she can gently wake her up, she can also act swiftly to grab the knife by the blade with the tip barely grazing her chest. Her palm is cut making blood drip down the blade and onto the dirt.
Fang is finished with the hound. He didn't need to be precise, but its bones are completely broken, its head completely smashed โ there is no body left to be useful for a third time.
As Feather throws the knife on the ground and steps on it, Fang unwinds himself around the trees to make his way back to Lucinda. His waving body blinks in and out of Weir's view but his fierce glowing eyes remain and are focused on him. He hovers over the medium and then winds himself around her. There's a rumbling growl, signaling that he's more than ready to make short work of Weir as well.
Flora speaks for them all, sweetly, threateningly.]
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But, generally? Heโs far from surprised. Were Lucinda alone, no doubt it would have been a simple matter to take control of her mind and body, kill her outright in that way without the need for a creature from the Pit. But no, she has her spirit friends latched onto her like lesions โ and they might as well add three more minds to contend with, three more founts of energy that he cannot, with his own single mind, untangle and control all at once.
No, her powers basically have loopholed his own to find victory and thatโs rightly annoying.]
Are you proud to be a โguestโ of the Vale by way of being only a thorn in my side? By being unwanted, yet too much trouble to toss away? How flattering for you and your precious Lucinda.
[Weirโs no fool. Heโs not fighting a fucking dragon. Heโs killed a god before, but that was with far more resources on hand, and this is just him, alone, standing in a forest with another god nattering in his head. A buzz of laughing static, so very amused at this turn of events.
His eyes revert back to normal. The hold on Lucindaโs mind and body disappears unkindly, like a snapped string. Thatโs his answer.]
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Flora, the vain and prideful spirit that she is, gets the last word in.]
[The flower's voice softens just a touch, sharing a rare moment of compassion that's normally just for Lucinda.]
[Her voice fades away. Fang dissipates into smoke that snakes down Huyen's spine. Feather takes Lucinda's hands and pats her awake one more time. Lucinda's eyes fully open and she sighs, rolls her shoulders, and smiles at Weir as if she just woke up from a pleasant dream.]
So.
[The cloak she threw on the ground at the beginning of the fight is right at her feet. Lucy picks it up and wraps it around her shoulders and checks her wounded palm, wiping off the residual blood.]
Dinner?
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