Day 23:
Rip
He looked to Cass. “So why send me along?”
Cass glanced at the other two men, visibly confused. “Are you sure he doesn’t have memory loss?” She looked at him again before they could answer. “Do you not remember what you did?”
Was this a trick question? “What do you mean?”
“You took out the majority of the Ilnu in a show of crafting that I have never seen and that hasn’t been seen in generations.”
His gaze snapped to Elias and gained a sharp pulse of pain for his endeavor. The man’s expression tightened. “She’s not lying. I only know two other people that can levitate their creations but neither of them can handle more than three let alone throw them without actually touching them with such pinpoint accuracy.”
It was like trying to recall a half remembered dream. He remembered the spear he had summoned and he could recall what he knew now were the cores of all the Ilnu being pierced by the things he had crafted but anything around that wouldn’t stick. There was the faint echo of worry - of not having made the right amount - but he couldn’t remember how to replicate whatever it was that he had done. He looked back to Cass, stating as much. “I don’t know how I did that, Ma’am, much less replicating the action.”
She shook her head. “Even if it was a one off thing, you’ll be of more use with them than with me.”
He looked down at Dlmor finding that he had been running his fingers through the long fur at the back of its neck without realizing it. “Is that why Dlmor’s out for the count?”
Elias let out a sigh that was almost a growl. “After the number of cores they consumed? Not a chance. Why and how they are unconscious is still to be determined.”
He frowned, turning his gaze back to Elias. “So there could be something seriously wrong with it?”
Cass placed a hand on his shoulder, gaining his attention. “There’s probably nothing wrong. They’re probably just tired.”
“Come on, Cass,” Tolnoran cut in, expression pained. “Don’t lie to him like that.”
“How am I lying?” Cass challenged, flabbergasted. He let his gaze drift from the older adults down to Dlmor, running his hand over the creature’s head, rubbing at an ear. “The Dlmor really could just be exhausted. I don’t know any creature that can sustain that kind of creation without passing out, core consumption aside.”
“But the core consumption would have kept them awake regardless,” Elias replied, words sharp.
That was the last of the conversation he registered. Exhaustion pulled at his every being in a way he was not familiar with. There was a weight there that pressed on his shoulders and on his chest that seemed unrelenting. He curled forward, wrapping his arms around Dlmor.
It dawned on him a minute or so later that it was from Transference. The exhaustion, the unrelenting weight, all of it was from Dlmor. Or, well, the worst of it was. A strange determination that was all his own filled him as he sat up enough to run his hands down Dlmor’s body from snout to tail tip. He didn’t gain a physical response but the Transference stopped. The weight of it all didn’t really leave and he still felt rather exhausted, but it didn’t feel like he needed to sleep for three days straight anymore.
“So why are we in the middle of a battlefield waiting for a healer instead of moving to some room?” Whatever argument they had settled into stopped abruptly at his words. He brought his gaze up, looking at each of them in turn. “Weren’t there more Ilnu anyways?”
Elias came out of his stupore first. “What remained of the Ilnu have fled further into the compound making what had been a clear cut fight into some twisted game of hide-and-seek.” The man’s gaze fell away. “Moving you, on the other hand...”
For a moment, he expected it to just be left at that but Tolnoran took over. “It wasn’t an option. You hit the ground screaming. None of the creatures would let anyone close.”
Confusion shot through him. “What? Why?”
“We’re not sure.” Elias met his gaze again gesturing to what he now realized was Trevak’s body. “I couldn’t even get Trevak to unwind from around you. We had to climb over it to even get in here.”
He looked up, noticing that there was a wing stretched over their heads.
“Ylse bolted from me as soon as the scream made it to us,” Tolnoran offered, voice low and heavy with confusion. “I’ve never had them ignore an order to return like that before.”
“Chief can’t even get in here,” Cass added. She shrugged when he looked at her. “Elias’s Tor is a stubborn one but whatever’s got the creatures all guarding you’s got Chief ignoring my directions to even try and get over the Tor.”
He frowned, looking down at Dlmor; conversation started back up over his head almost immediately with Elias making some comment. Dlmor was watching him, eyes half lidded and still limp in his lap. He ran his hand over Dlmor’s head, curious if Dlmor knew what had happened.
The wariness and the push back of telling him washed over him but the exhaustion and pain that came with it was suffocating. He gained a much gentler brush of an apology and a reiterated wariness.
But he wanted to know. If it was something serious, they needed to know. Or, at minimum, it was something he had to be aware of.
He watched Dlmor’s side rise with the heavy sigh as the creature - surprisingly - gave in.
For a second he didn’t understand. He blinked a few times before his brain seemed to decipher what he was seeing. He watched as Ilnu forms turned to smoke.
The cores bouncing off of the floor and any other surface they hit sounded like little bells perfectly pitched to resonate deep in his chest. Something primal rolled through him and all he could focus on was getting to as many of the freed cores as he could manage. Biting through each one sent a thrill of power down his back that was addictive and he started hunting harder so as not to miss any.
There was a whisper in his mind that this wasn’t right, that the draw for the cores was wrong. The power ripple was too strong. There was something wrong.
A scream filled the air, filled his head, and the primal drive was immediately replaced with one far more powerful. He turned, the desire to protect and defend coaxing his body into a shape that was stronger, that was faster.
His gaze landed on something that sent a chill down his spine that turned his veins to ice. A creature he had only seen once before but knew instinctively was standing over a human body - the same human body that was screaming. The creature turned its head slowly before locking its gaze on him. Excruciating pain bit into his mind and he lost hold on the stronger form. With a snarl, he kicked off the ground despite the pain and launched himself towards the creature. He had to protect the screaming human. He had to protect them from the Olnvorox.
The creature swiped at him, throwing him into something solid. Pain flared in his side but it was nothing compared to his head. He pushed himself back onto his feet. Other creatures were coming to the human’s aid against the Olnvorox, attacking it - or at least trying to - but the thing only had eyes for him. Even as it batted the other creatures away, the creature kept staring at him, attacking him mind. So he held on and kept its focus. One of those that were on his side would manage enough damage to take the blasted thing out.
The assault on his mind suddenly ceased and he blinked his vision clear to see Trevak rip into the damn thing with half of it in its mouth. Trevak pulled back from an Olnvorox missing everything from the waist up. What remained turned to a strange sludge and splattered to the ground. Trevak opened its mouth, expelling the same strange sludge.
There wasn’t a core to be found.
Fear shot through him; he was sure it did for every creature there. A glance around - and a painful group Transference later - it was decided that the human had to be protected until one of the human helpers came and tended to the human’s injuries. Echoed in remnants of the Transference were concerns about him and a guttural fear of what a single Olnvorox meant for them all. He couldn’t respond, couldn’t send back that he didn’t matter as much as the human did. They all knew how important the human was. They had to protect the human even if it cost them their life.
The world slipped sideways and it jarred him back to his own body. There was a low roll of nausea but it was overshadowed by the throbbing headache and the sudden dread that filled him. Now outside of the memory he could distinguish the human as himself, could pull himself out of Dlmor’s experience enough to not be caught up in it, but he still felt the weight of the emotions, the different driven behaviors.
Elias’s words started to register in his ear. “… something from the Crell. The Kret? Sure, they’re stupid enough to force a cluster of Kret out of their home south. Wouldn’t surprise me. Even that scout that had the Olnvorox had called the cluster a trap.”
“But we still don’t know to what extent,” Tolnoran countered. “Corax won’t let any of his scouts delve deeper into the situation enough to know if there even is anything other than just the Crell and Kret to worry about.”
“Corax won’t have a choice,” Cass cut in, voice sharp and angry. “He may lay claim to the best scouts in the compound but he still answers to me. I’ll get the scouts we’ll need to delve deeper as well as the man power to keep them safe.” There was a pause, a rather significant one if he read the tension right around his pounding head. “Only one I trust to lead them, though, is you, Elias.”
Another pause before Elias muttered softly. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“I’m not asking you to be. Escort Corax and his people back and you’ll leave from here. But I need Tolnoran to stay behind to help forces here.”
Tolnoran piped in. “Then what of Artemis?”
“He still goes with you.”
“To collect Corax, sure,” Elias spoke on the tail of her words. “But he stays here with Tolnoran when we return.”
“You can’t decide-”
“You’re already putting him out onto the field injured!” Elias barked. The rage coaxed Artemis’s head to come up and he looked over at the older man. No one even noticed his movement. “I am not taking him into hostile territory where his protection will be a scattering of people in the middle of a desert!”
Something dark and thin moved out of the corner of his and the terror that pulsed through him set every nerve on end. It drew Dlmor’s attention but all he got was a - painful - soft Transference of concerned inquiry. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to actually confirm what he had seen, but he knew if he didn’t look it would only make things worse. He could feel whatever it was standing so close behind him, he could almost feel it on his back. Whatever it was loomed over him.
Slowly - slower than he intended but couldn’t manage to do faster - he tipped his head back until he could make out the form standing over him. White eyes on a not so solid, shadow like form met his gaze. The mouth pulled apart into a too white toothy grin as it raised a claw filled hand.
Cass glanced at the other two men, visibly confused. “Are you sure he doesn’t have memory loss?” She looked at him again before they could answer. “Do you not remember what you did?”
Was this a trick question? “What do you mean?”
“You took out the majority of the Ilnu in a show of crafting that I have never seen and that hasn’t been seen in generations.”
His gaze snapped to Elias and gained a sharp pulse of pain for his endeavor. The man’s expression tightened. “She’s not lying. I only know two other people that can levitate their creations but neither of them can handle more than three let alone throw them without actually touching them with such pinpoint accuracy.”
It was like trying to recall a half remembered dream. He remembered the spear he had summoned and he could recall what he knew now were the cores of all the Ilnu being pierced by the things he had crafted but anything around that wouldn’t stick. There was the faint echo of worry - of not having made the right amount - but he couldn’t remember how to replicate whatever it was that he had done. He looked back to Cass, stating as much. “I don’t know how I did that, Ma’am, much less replicating the action.”
She shook her head. “Even if it was a one off thing, you’ll be of more use with them than with me.”
He looked down at Dlmor finding that he had been running his fingers through the long fur at the back of its neck without realizing it. “Is that why Dlmor’s out for the count?”
Elias let out a sigh that was almost a growl. “After the number of cores they consumed? Not a chance. Why and how they are unconscious is still to be determined.”
He frowned, turning his gaze back to Elias. “So there could be something seriously wrong with it?”
Cass placed a hand on his shoulder, gaining his attention. “There’s probably nothing wrong. They’re probably just tired.”
“Come on, Cass,” Tolnoran cut in, expression pained. “Don’t lie to him like that.”
“How am I lying?” Cass challenged, flabbergasted. He let his gaze drift from the older adults down to Dlmor, running his hand over the creature’s head, rubbing at an ear. “The Dlmor really could just be exhausted. I don’t know any creature that can sustain that kind of creation without passing out, core consumption aside.”
“But the core consumption would have kept them awake regardless,” Elias replied, words sharp.
That was the last of the conversation he registered. Exhaustion pulled at his every being in a way he was not familiar with. There was a weight there that pressed on his shoulders and on his chest that seemed unrelenting. He curled forward, wrapping his arms around Dlmor.
It dawned on him a minute or so later that it was from Transference. The exhaustion, the unrelenting weight, all of it was from Dlmor. Or, well, the worst of it was. A strange determination that was all his own filled him as he sat up enough to run his hands down Dlmor’s body from snout to tail tip. He didn’t gain a physical response but the Transference stopped. The weight of it all didn’t really leave and he still felt rather exhausted, but it didn’t feel like he needed to sleep for three days straight anymore.
“So why are we in the middle of a battlefield waiting for a healer instead of moving to some room?” Whatever argument they had settled into stopped abruptly at his words. He brought his gaze up, looking at each of them in turn. “Weren’t there more Ilnu anyways?”
Elias came out of his stupore first. “What remained of the Ilnu have fled further into the compound making what had been a clear cut fight into some twisted game of hide-and-seek.” The man’s gaze fell away. “Moving you, on the other hand...”
For a moment, he expected it to just be left at that but Tolnoran took over. “It wasn’t an option. You hit the ground screaming. None of the creatures would let anyone close.”
Confusion shot through him. “What? Why?”
“We’re not sure.” Elias met his gaze again gesturing to what he now realized was Trevak’s body. “I couldn’t even get Trevak to unwind from around you. We had to climb over it to even get in here.”
He looked up, noticing that there was a wing stretched over their heads.
“Ylse bolted from me as soon as the scream made it to us,” Tolnoran offered, voice low and heavy with confusion. “I’ve never had them ignore an order to return like that before.”
“Chief can’t even get in here,” Cass added. She shrugged when he looked at her. “Elias’s Tor is a stubborn one but whatever’s got the creatures all guarding you’s got Chief ignoring my directions to even try and get over the Tor.”
He frowned, looking down at Dlmor; conversation started back up over his head almost immediately with Elias making some comment. Dlmor was watching him, eyes half lidded and still limp in his lap. He ran his hand over Dlmor’s head, curious if Dlmor knew what had happened.
The wariness and the push back of telling him washed over him but the exhaustion and pain that came with it was suffocating. He gained a much gentler brush of an apology and a reiterated wariness.
But he wanted to know. If it was something serious, they needed to know. Or, at minimum, it was something he had to be aware of.
He watched Dlmor’s side rise with the heavy sigh as the creature - surprisingly - gave in.
For a second he didn’t understand. He blinked a few times before his brain seemed to decipher what he was seeing. He watched as Ilnu forms turned to smoke.
The cores bouncing off of the floor and any other surface they hit sounded like little bells perfectly pitched to resonate deep in his chest. Something primal rolled through him and all he could focus on was getting to as many of the freed cores as he could manage. Biting through each one sent a thrill of power down his back that was addictive and he started hunting harder so as not to miss any.
There was a whisper in his mind that this wasn’t right, that the draw for the cores was wrong. The power ripple was too strong. There was something wrong.
A scream filled the air, filled his head, and the primal drive was immediately replaced with one far more powerful. He turned, the desire to protect and defend coaxing his body into a shape that was stronger, that was faster.
His gaze landed on something that sent a chill down his spine that turned his veins to ice. A creature he had only seen once before but knew instinctively was standing over a human body - the same human body that was screaming. The creature turned its head slowly before locking its gaze on him. Excruciating pain bit into his mind and he lost hold on the stronger form. With a snarl, he kicked off the ground despite the pain and launched himself towards the creature. He had to protect the screaming human. He had to protect them from the Olnvorox.
The creature swiped at him, throwing him into something solid. Pain flared in his side but it was nothing compared to his head. He pushed himself back onto his feet. Other creatures were coming to the human’s aid against the Olnvorox, attacking it - or at least trying to - but the thing only had eyes for him. Even as it batted the other creatures away, the creature kept staring at him, attacking him mind. So he held on and kept its focus. One of those that were on his side would manage enough damage to take the blasted thing out.
The assault on his mind suddenly ceased and he blinked his vision clear to see Trevak rip into the damn thing with half of it in its mouth. Trevak pulled back from an Olnvorox missing everything from the waist up. What remained turned to a strange sludge and splattered to the ground. Trevak opened its mouth, expelling the same strange sludge.
There wasn’t a core to be found.
Fear shot through him; he was sure it did for every creature there. A glance around - and a painful group Transference later - it was decided that the human had to be protected until one of the human helpers came and tended to the human’s injuries. Echoed in remnants of the Transference were concerns about him and a guttural fear of what a single Olnvorox meant for them all. He couldn’t respond, couldn’t send back that he didn’t matter as much as the human did. They all knew how important the human was. They had to protect the human even if it cost them their life.
The world slipped sideways and it jarred him back to his own body. There was a low roll of nausea but it was overshadowed by the throbbing headache and the sudden dread that filled him. Now outside of the memory he could distinguish the human as himself, could pull himself out of Dlmor’s experience enough to not be caught up in it, but he still felt the weight of the emotions, the different driven behaviors.
Elias’s words started to register in his ear. “… something from the Crell. The Kret? Sure, they’re stupid enough to force a cluster of Kret out of their home south. Wouldn’t surprise me. Even that scout that had the Olnvorox had called the cluster a trap.”
“But we still don’t know to what extent,” Tolnoran countered. “Corax won’t let any of his scouts delve deeper into the situation enough to know if there even is anything other than just the Crell and Kret to worry about.”
“Corax won’t have a choice,” Cass cut in, voice sharp and angry. “He may lay claim to the best scouts in the compound but he still answers to me. I’ll get the scouts we’ll need to delve deeper as well as the man power to keep them safe.” There was a pause, a rather significant one if he read the tension right around his pounding head. “Only one I trust to lead them, though, is you, Elias.”
Another pause before Elias muttered softly. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“I’m not asking you to be. Escort Corax and his people back and you’ll leave from here. But I need Tolnoran to stay behind to help forces here.”
Tolnoran piped in. “Then what of Artemis?”
“He still goes with you.”
“To collect Corax, sure,” Elias spoke on the tail of her words. “But he stays here with Tolnoran when we return.”
“You can’t decide-”
“You’re already putting him out onto the field injured!” Elias barked. The rage coaxed Artemis’s head to come up and he looked over at the older man. No one even noticed his movement. “I am not taking him into hostile territory where his protection will be a scattering of people in the middle of a desert!”
Something dark and thin moved out of the corner of his and the terror that pulsed through him set every nerve on end. It drew Dlmor’s attention but all he got was a - painful - soft Transference of concerned inquiry. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to actually confirm what he had seen, but he knew if he didn’t look it would only make things worse. He could feel whatever it was standing so close behind him, he could almost feel it on his back. Whatever it was loomed over him.
Slowly - slower than he intended but couldn’t manage to do faster - he tipped his head back until he could make out the form standing over him. White eyes on a not so solid, shadow like form met his gaze. The mouth pulled apart into a too white toothy grin as it raised a claw filled hand.