The Dead Forest (Increased Orc activity due to skirmish)

[Maximos]

Worms were agile creatures, all things considering. They meandered blindly through the dirt, coiling around rocks moving at a pace rather fast for something blind and limbless.

A thing like this, a huge gaping maw with thrashing tentacled limbs, gnashing teeth and fat stubby legs. It should not have been agile. It should not have been dexterous or nimble. Its limbs moved with frightening martial acuity, smacking Damion's sword against its side, slithering along it, by it, missing it by inches. And then a pit opened. A jagged craggy zig-zag in the soil.

A monster like this should not be agile.

And it wasnt, with all the awkward bulky, graceless motion it had, it fell mouth first into the pit. Its maw enveloping the blades at its center like a baby might devour a pacifier. Its limbs thrashed wildly, far too heavy and entirely unsuited for gripping they simply slipped off the soil.

Behind it, Damion would be able to see the silhouette of a Reaper several feet away, his black jacket cut from the night, darker than dark. Uriel's scythe glistening in bisected moonlight as calm, even steps carried him toward the mouth of the pit.

" And Now I say goodnight."

Damion said, and blades began to turn with a wet sickly crunch. The crunch gave wear to tears, and long wet slapping sounds, which in turn rolled into screams that bellowed out for what must have been miles. Chunks, splashes, and rubbery molten rubber robes of viscera leaped from the pit, splashing up and out and then back down, a lurid rain. And soon, all that was left was the sound of well lubricated stone grinding against stone, and silence. And in that silence, the Reaper reached his scythe out over the pit and said.

And it came about that as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them began to be split apart. And the earth proceeded to open its mouth and to swallow up them and their households and all humankind that belonged to Ko′rah and all the goods.

A dull green sheen overtook the scythe blade for a moment. Maximos flipped over his hand, suddenly holding in it a glass ball about the size of a softball, and filled with whirling greenish white smoke.

So down they went, and all who belonged to them, alive into She′ol.

He lowered the scythe, making a slow sweeping motion. Blackness covered pit, a sort of hard shadow to block out the sight and the smell, and to keep the worms in. Soil, could not contain a worm.

And the earth went covering them over...So that they perished, from the midst of the congregation.

There was a cracking sound, as spiderweb lines of glowing green coursed through the glass ball in death's black gloved grip. And then all at one the ball shattered, a sort of wispy smoke drifted upwards from its remains, glass tinkled to the ground but no shards every actually made it to the soul before vanishing.

But the silence was short lived. The Chef's dying outcry had alerted the village proper to his failure. Doors could be heard opening and shutting, feet shuffled, flames were ignited and weapons were armed. Maximos, stepped over the blacktop he had laid on the pit toward Damion, his scythe low in one hand.

This location is not going to be safe for long. I have seen how the heroic stand were the two main characters try and fight off an entire zombie invasions ends. I believe we would be better off taking the high ground...

Maximos gestured with his free hand up, two floors up infact. The roof of the tavern. Then seemed to turn his eyes away, past, and behind Damion. An almost silent way of suggesting the elemental go first.  

[Eternal Dirge]

" Aren't We forgetting something here?" Damion asked, clambering up out of the hole he had made to hide in with Due haste, his body rippling as it changed back to his normal human form. He had missed most of Maximos's visuals, but had caught the speech, and knew his friend was right. But he also wanted to see another daybreak.

" We need to find Nicolai." He said, rubbing his bruised shoulder with a wince, rotating the shoulder joint around alittle. It was usable, but he'd want to keep it light with that arm. The sounds of the villagers coming was not lost on Damion, but he hadn't been able to maintain his other form so long and his desire to live kept him from straight out bolting.

" These guys are small time, he's the important one. I don't like the idea of dying."  

[Maximos]

Aren't We forgetting something here?

Forgetting?

Maximos cocked his head slightly to the side, while only the bottom half of his face was visible, it was the very picture of confusion. As if Damion had just presented a concept Maximos had yet to fathom or factor into this situation.

" We need to find Nicolai."

Maximos was confused. Of course he did. Nikolai was his target. Under Maximos' suspicion, once he was dead and gone the hollowed out carcasses left behind would simply cease to be. The worms would, might, be rendered inert. But what did Damion mean? And unseen eyebrow was cocked.

"These guys are small time, he's the important one. I don't like the idea of dying."

The only sensible conclusion Maximos could come to was immediately spoken.

I dont like the idea of killing you either. But Damion, you cant possibly believe these creatures will tell us where he is.

They were closer now, more than sounds. The villages were blurry shapes darting through the shadows. Piercing jade points of light where eyes should be, drawing lines and paths through the dark wood, around buildings through corners. Rushing, gathering, forming a new sort of deadly life...mob.

Mr. Hedley you'll pardon my frankness, especially when discussing your survival but, when placed against an acolyte of something such as Ysmidon...you are small time. Your life momentarily aside, if Nikolai succeeds many...

Maximos' glance flitted across the bloodied battleground in which they stood.

...many more will die.

There was something about the way Maximos said the word "many" that made it sound different than it should have. Maximos had an unshaken air about him, as if used to this sort of work, but it seemed as if he was discussing not just the dozen or even hundreds that the word "many" might describe but thousands of lives...perhaps even all of them. It could almost be said they were saving the world. A threat that tips the scale of life and death irrevocably is the sort of thing a Reaper is called in for. Nothing less. And the entire populace of this small village, Ysmidon's first victims, were proof of that. Their sacrifice was not enough to warrant action. Death was efficient, not gracious, or heroic.

Besides. He has my creation.

He tapped the side of his hood softly, his right eye ignited bright like a car cigarrette-lighter in white.

From higher ground, that large magical obscenity Nikolai is carrying will stand out like a bonfire at midnight. That means I can track him.

And with that, Maximos spun on his heels, darkness began to pool around the location of his back, odd soft shapes forming from the shadows, like the outlines of something small. And then just as suddenly it was gone, the Reaper turned around, one hand scratching the back of his hood and chuckling embarrassed with the sort of levity that entirely belied the crowd of worm-infested villagers now forming a loose circle around both men. As if trying, through groans and grunts to work out who got which and how, and how many pieces.

I forgot. Hehe, you have no way of getting up there on your own, do you?  

[Eternal Dirge]

" Just Damion." He corrected, having caught the almost ellusive Mr. Hedley in Maximos's words. " And I know that, all the more reason to stop him right? You go up there, I'll...figure out something down here." He said, looking around them at the ring of infected villagers. " Seems like a fair fight to me." Damion said with false confidence, even managing a smile.

" But you know what we need man? Some rope." He added as an afterthought, reaching up to tap his chin with a finger, cupping his elbow in his other hand to assume a thoughtful pose. Damion infact did not feel very confident at all. He was tired, his body ached, and gods help him he was starving. Likely most of this was a side effect of his other form, but he couldn't let it hold him back now. He had a job to do.

" Now...uh....scoot." He finished, making shooing motions at Maximos. Bold eh?  

[Maximos]

" Just Damion."

Maximos blinked, visible only in the fact that the spotlight of white that was his right eye vanished for a moment and returned. He said nothing, leaving questions as to whether or not he even heard the correction.

" And I know that, all the more reason to stop him right? You go up there, I'll...figure out something down here."

The Reaper looked at him, just looked at him. His eyebrow cocked, invisible, more of a felt gesture than a seen one. Damion, against a horde of these monstrosities? Maximos had seen how Damion fared against just three, when he arrived.

"Seems like a fair fight to me."

Damion lied. Maximos had already turned around and taken a step toward the burst open door of the tavern. His boots crunched a few stray planks of debris. He crouched, and against something black seemed to begin forming behind him, forging itself out of the ether. Something wide and shapeless, bordering on the edge of existence and spreading out several feet to either side of him. And then Maximos leaped, and as he leaped his jet black wings seemed to burst into existence in a shower of midnight colored feathers, blown in the breeze like leaves in autumn. The wings, one might note, were not actually attached to the Reaper's back, but hovered close and in one fell swoop launched the hooded man straight up to the roof top. His feet touched down softy with barely a sound, the wings, as if nothing more than piles of dust on a windy day were already blowing away, vanishing into seperate feathers and leaving behind no substance at all. Even the feathers vanished before ever touching the ground.

"But you know what we need man? Some rope."

A villager to Damion's right groaned a bit above the rest. He had rope in his hand, twined around his arms and in a large loop in his opposite hand. At the end of that rope however was a series of rusty jagged hooks. Infact, it soon became quite clear that most of the villagers had come equipped with hooks, knives, sledgehammers, and other weapons of civilian uprising. Damion looked all the world like a man full of bravado, ready for the next fight. But as he well knew, there were other signs prey gave off. Scents, energy and subconscious body language that said, "I'm weak right now." or even "Easy target." Damion was putting off more than a few of those as well...

" Now...uh....scoot." He finished, making shooing motions at Maximos. But the Reaper's silhouette had vanished. He was gone. Damion was alone. The villagers were nasty things, yellow teeth, deathly pale skin. Some had pustules covering parts of their body that bled a sort of yellow ooze. Others sported patches of skin that could be seen visibly squirming as something slithered beneath. Moonlight filled the small clearing, giving Damion would would likely be his last, gruesome sight.

One prey had escaped. They had to moved before the next did. This would not end well.

And then they were charging.

And then they were not charging.

Instead they were stuck, jerking their feet and attempting to trudge through the empty space in front of Damion that he knew to be nothing more than soil. It seemed the more each villager struggled the more stuck they became, and the more they thrashed the more of some sort of black ichor seemed to spread over them like tar. Damion was not just standing on soil. He was standing in a shadow. A very large shadow cast by the tavern itself, against the moon.

That's brave and everything, heroic even, what with having nothing to lose but...

It was a sardonic voice, edged with a sort of morbid humor. It came from a hooded silhouette standing on the tavern roof. It was a voice that belonged to a Reaper, but a Reaper who was first a Shadow. Maximos reached his arm out, sparks dancing along his fingertips. Damion would see five pillars of black rise up behind him, each roughly eight feet tall proportioned to match a hands worth of fingers. And then Maximos' fingers would pinch and his arm would crane up. In cue, the large shadow of the tavern would peel off the ground like a mat. Its enormous fingers would pinch Damion by his collar, and plop him on the roof, as if he were a miniature figurine.

Maximos would point, running down the center street of the village was a man who stood out because of the bright white of his garb. A man holding a staff with a fiercely glowing red gem at its top.

...Nikolai's getting away.

The only obvious issue with this being, that the center street of the village was overrun with villagers. Dozens. And Nikolai calling out commands, works such as "Defend me." or "Attack them.".

Out of the frying pot...  

[Eternal Dirge]

" BRING Iiiittt?" Damion started to yell at the assembled masses, fists clenched at his sides and a now quite puzzled expression on his face. He had been expecting a charge, and now he got nothing. " OH COME ON! I WAS GONNA HIT THEM WITH A ROCK!!" He yelled, turning towards the building upon which Maximos stood, shaking his fist up at him. He had been expecting to put some corpses underground, might do them some good from the looks of things.

" Ugly ********...." He grumbled, watching the shadow rise up with confusion once again, his indignation lost to him once again in the display of shadowy power. " What are....gods thrice damnit!" and up he went, squirming around alittle and glaring at his employer and friend. " Jackass...oh hey look Nicolai." His thoughts were jumping around erratically, he knew, but he wasn't sure out to stop it either. Oh well, one problem at a time!

Damion looked down at where Nicolai reigned for amoment before starting to move along the roof. He had no weapons, no way of safely getting down, running on little sleep and even less real food, and by all the gods that ever were and ever would be he was HUNGRY and this motha' ********' was preventing him getting food. " Get me down Maximos...please?"  

[Maximos]

There was no hiding, Damion's reactions were getting a bit wild. Maximos was unsure if the worms had found their way up into his skull. How much of Damion was still Damion? What would happen if Nikolai exerted his staff's power now?

Damion landed on the roof and would find a look on Maximos' face he had likely seen several times. But a look that fit Maximos, the Shadow and not Uriel the Reaper. Maximos was displaying, sympathy.

The man before him was demon possessed, and elementally touched. But he was also fundamentally something else, something that Maximos could and would never truly be no matter how much of a gentleman he became. Damion was human.

And more over, he was a victim of circumstance. He was a boy, half Maximos' age, tossed into an experience he did not expect. He was supposed to deliver a box. Now he was fighting for his life. And it showed. There was a flicker in the curling wafts of smokey white from his right eye. He read the boy. Tired. Hungry. His body fighting inside and outside against foes. And yet Damion wanted to continue. And in that Maximos admired him...but what if Nikolai tried to use him now? Weakened. How would he truly fair in a race across the busy main street.

"Get me down Maximos...please?"

Damion said. And Maximos' sympathetic gaze slipped into a soft smile. Warmly he said.

Sure Damion.

And in a flash of silver he swiped his scythe, cutting his target wide open without even a hint of resistance.

The floor beneath Damion gave, and down the elemental fell, ten feet, perhaps twelve, crashing through a plywood roof and landing square in an open kitchen inside the Tavern. Surprisingly, while there were several large tubs of gray gruel, there was also a large assortment of actual cooking products. Meat, spices, knives.

Before Damion could look up, Maximos was gone and he was alone in a dimly lit kitchen.  

[Eternal Dirge]

Sure Damion.

The islander smiled, starting to turn around and face his friend until the world quite literally dropped out from under him, eyes going wide as he started falling. His first impact would be in the rooms above the kitchen, the building being two stories after all, legs buckling to deposit him firmly on his back with a grunt. A series of secondary cracks resounded through the small room before the suprised elemental plummeted the rest of the way to the kitchen, dust and wood chips rising into the air.

" *cough* ******** *cough* ******** a**!" Damion yelled upwards, eyes closed as he struggled to breath through the now too dry air. Minor scrapes and bruises covered his back and arms, and he was even dirtier now than he had been before. He started to rise, wincing alittle but getting to his feet with little trouble. " Jack*cough* a**....coulda told me." He muttered, opening his eyes to slits to protect them from the dust as he looked around slowly, taking stock of his surroundings.

" They're right out there...I know they are..." He muttered, pausing as he passed by what looked like normal food, although it was raw meat. The earth elemental turned fully to face it and pick up the slab of meat, examining it for worms and the like. He wasn't going to fall for that one again. Damion could almost forget that just outside those walls was a horde of infected humans thundering for blood and other such things.

" A snack." The islander concluded, biting down on a chunk of the flesh and tearing at it, ripping his head back and fourth as he held on tight with his hands, blood running in small rivults down his chin, dripping onto his clothes and onto the floor. As he ate he walked, going out into the main dining hall and looking around the room slowly with his eyes, footsteps almost silent on the floor.

As He chewed and walked, a sudden though occured to Damion about his bike. There had been no gas inside of it...what had that explosion from earlier come from? surely his vehicle hadn't produced it, maybe it was just how Maximos traveled around? " It's nearly indestructable after absorbing the shield.....maybe it's still out there?" He brightened at this, peeking out one of the front windows to investigate outside.  

[Maximos]

Damion's bike most certainly was outside the window. The entirety of the bike was plain to see. Only, the motorcycle appeared to take up a lot more space than it did when Damion first arrived. Several times the space in fact.

It was there, and it was whole.

But its whole parts were scattered across one or two hundred feet of town square.

However, at least he had chicken. As that was, despite its appearances what Damion was eating. It was raw, but it was untouched. Though, the time to worry about infection was more than past. Unfortunately for Damion, he was eating, and he was getting stronger, but not in the way he might like.

Food was entering his system, but while it was being fed to his bloodstream, it was not by means of his stomach or organs. It was by means of organisms grabbing tunneling around inside him, into his esophagus and eating the food and in turn sharing it with his body. It was a sign of high level infection.

It would also be the entire reason why Damion's entire body would feel it, when a door opened and shut somewhere in the vicinity behind him. And even before turning around, he would know there was someone there, infected, and looking at him.  

[Eternal Dirge]

Damion sighed, hoping his bike had not infact been destroyed, but had obviously been wrong. Some things couldn't be helped it seem. In any case, the feeling of renewal was a welcome one, regardless of how it came to be. Damion wasn't that knowledgeable on the effects of such things. But the arrival of an infected brought him out of his revere, a soft sigh slipping from his mouth. " Go away Ivan." He muttered, guessing at who was behind him simply out of...well...it was just a hunch.

He'd turn though, setting the chicken down on the window and face this new opponent. He didn't look angry, just resigned.  

[Maximos]

Damion's bike was not destroyed. Every piece was perfectly intact. Every screw. Every bolt. Every latch and wire. It was simply scattered, everywhere. If he had magical sights he would even see the remnants of a large magic cast into the soil. It was a rune. It said "Open". Open a portal. Open a passageway. Open a motorcycle. But Damion was turning away now.

"Go away Ivan."

Zhis house is mine, I stay.

That, was a damned good guess. But then again, Ivan did own the tavern. He carried no threat in his voice, no malice, and even less in his posture. Ivan had entered through a side door, wearing his large red and black flannel shirt. He set two duffel bags down on the wooden floor and pulled a chair out from underneath a table, and then sat.

The room was dark at best, no electric lights were functioning, no torches burned, the only illumination spilled from long sheet windows painting everything in silver. The tables, booths, and counters were all still home to plates and cups and dishes, as if every denizen of the small tavern had suddenly left all at once. And now, after germinating long enough, the bowls squirmed with life. Damion's insides squirmed the same.

You stay too, yes?

Burly fingers stirred a bowl of gruel which splashed and twist of its own accord as its residents disagreed with the sudden motion.

We brothers. Iz good.  

[Eternal Dirge]

He doubled over at the sudden squirming, struggling not to vomit and waste needed energy. The thought of those worms squirming through his body was revolting, and the sudden churning of his belly only added to the effect." Son of a....Fine, whatever, stay, but we are not brothers." Damion growled as he straightened, putting a hand on the nearest table, settling his fingers over the handle of a fork, leaving them uncurled.

" Shouldn't you be out there with your master, puppet?" He snarled, alittle more irritated at the intrusion of his planning. Whenever people were around he acted funny, funny to him anyways. " I imagine he'll need all the help in the world shortly."  

[Maximos]

Ivan seemed oddly weary. A creature of his sort one would imagine would not feel weary, but this one was. There was a weight to his gaze, dark gray eyes peered out at Damion and seemed all the world as if they would give anything for an ounce of rest.

But knew they would never get it.

"Shouldn't you be out there with your master, puppet?"

Ivan's hand slipped from the utensil stirring his gray mass as a black worm slithered up it. His fingers gliding away before it touched him and coming to rest around an abandoned mug.

I am not puppet, brother.

He brought the mug up to his face, sniffed it, and then tipped it over into the gruel. Nothing escaped the cup but black flakes. Dried blood of something entirely unnatural.

I am high seed, like you. I am brother, not slave. I make choice.

The empty wooden mug thudded against the table. Ivan's gaze set back on Damion, as he answered the boys second comment as simply as he knew how.

Vhy? You going to fight? You vill lose.  

[Eternal Dirge]

Ivan was not reacting the way Damion expected at all, but he pressed on," I am going to fight, and he is going to lose." He said, with all the surety of youth. " But what do you man you chose this? What kind of existance is this?" He asked, motioning around them with his nonsupporting hand before pointing outside. " I may not understand everything but even I can tell this is wrong." His voice rose as his conviction grew. Faith was it's own strength, and the islanders surety of action gave him energy.

" Now, I'm going to go and fight Nicolai and save my a**." He muttered, voice dropping suddenly as he made for the door, holding onto the fork he had put his hand on. Was he worried about Ivan? Not so much no, but he wasn't about to trust him again. " Just because some people want...to...." And then it dawned on him that what Ivan had done was not far removed from what he himself had done.

" Huh....irony." Damion murmured as he set his hand on the doorhandle, smiling in amusement.  

[Maximos]

It vas not always like this...

Said Ivan with a certain level of pride mixed right along side disgust.

Ve vanted better world, not gods, no monsters...but to make new vorld, old must be eaten avay...

And wasnt that the way of the world anyway? Something always dies to make something new. A woman bleeds for her child. Eggs shatter for hatchlings. Damion really should have been looking, he may, or may not have heard the sound of a zipper opening.

" Now, I'm going to go and fight Nicolai and save my a**."

The sound was akin to a helicopter about to take off. A small "whub whub", and it was punctuated by a loud thud. Damion would find that the tavern door would not open, because a hand axe was buried crossways in it binding frame and door.

I em efraid, I cannet let you to do zhat Damion.