by LawOhki » Tue Nov 11, 2014 9:01 am
I had almost forgot about poor Kuno. Revised portion of the loot and the finishing of the scene.
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Kuno Tatewaki fell heavily against a moss covered tree and slid lifelessly to the forest floor. How long had he been searching for his Goddess? Weeks? Months? It was impossible to tell, the sun never set here, instead it made a wide circular arc in the sky. The shadows were always dancing, making him weary of any darkness that would stretch too close. (1)
He hated to question her, but he could not fathom why Mico had tasked him with finding her in such a bleak and dark landscape. An endless maze of trees that he felt no closer to exiting then when he had arrived. If that wasn’t bad enough, the only sounds that filled the air was the rustling of leaves, and the creak of trees. Rarely he would catch sight of one of Mico’s attendants, fairies made of various colored light flittering about, beyond reach, and vanished before he could get closer.
He couldn’t keep his eyes open and only realized that he had dozed off when he awoke with a jerk. Calming down, he tried to get himself more comfortable before getting some sleep. Rubbing his arms together, he felt the results of his lack of food and water. When he had arrived he had been the picture of youth and manly vitality. Not now though, he was a weak and shriveled thing, kept alive by Mico’s mercy as he sought her out.
His hunger and thirst were cruel temptations that gnawed at him constantly but he dare not drink from the many ponds and streams that he came across. Kuno’s magical knowledge was quite limited outside of the spells Mico had given him but even he could tell that every drop of water was saturated with something he wanted no part of. Some time ago he had been ready to brave the consequences up until he had seen his reflection change in the water, becoming a grizzlybear.
‘Transformation magic.’ He would have laughed at the irony of facing the same danger that his brave friend Ranma had come across if he wasn’t dying from it.
zx
Ranma landed from her long flight heavily in a crouch, at the same time letting Kasumi out of her arms. 'I forgot how much that took out of me.' She grinned cockily at her former cargo to try and stave off any questions about how she was doing. It was easy to fly by herself but the added burden of carrying Kasumi had nearly made her drop from the sky.
"I'm tired, too." Pepa gasped and wheezed, collapsing onto a ledge of rock nearby. The fairy had decided to fly all the way by herself.
"But I'm not tired." She protested weakly, feeling the cool wind as it attempted to freeze the layer of sweat glistening on her face.
And then there was the harsh extremely hot winds that came down from the volcano along with all the noxious fumes it produced. Even with her enchanted cloak helping to regulate her temperature, she was stuck for the moment alternating between uncomfortably warm and dreadfully cold.
"Thank you, Ranma. That was amazing." Kasumi sighed and looked back the way they had come. "The airship was wonderful but that was--." The larger tiefling trailed off, unable to choose a word to describe her feelings.
"I do like having wings." She admitted with only the tiniest feeling of shame.
"Why did you want to come here, though?" Kasumi asked, looking around their place on the side of the volcano doubtfully. "It doesn't feel right at all."
"I know." Ranma nodded, feeling the lingering pressure of all the evil magic that had been concentrated in this one area. It would be a long time before Ladon's influence ever truly vanished, if it could be removed at all.
Pepa appeared at the corner of her vision to land on her shoulder, looking uncomfortable being so deep into the infernal aura, her bodies brightness fluctuating more than normal. Ranma pulled up her hood slightly to help with the wind, and to subtly create a little alcove for the fairy.
"I think its around here." She indicated an outcropping just a short distance away where the cave should be. There had been no time to leave a marker or memorize the way it looked in her desperate flight away from the volcano back to Lutansk. Easily finding spots to step, she made her way quickly to where only a small human sized tunnel was burrowed through the rock, its opening hidden underneath an overhang of sharp black stone. "Ah! Here!" She announced, looking back to see that Kasumi was having a far more difficult time with the crossing.
"Ooh! What's in there?" Pepa asked with intense curiosity, fluttering around the entrance without ever going inside.
"You doing alright, Kasumi?" Ranma tried to raise her voice but still couldn't get it much past her normal speaking level. 'Ugh! This is annoying!'
"I'm fine. I'm just not as-- sure footed as you are." The dragon tiefling smiled genially but Ranma caught her glance down at her hooves.
"Um, right." She nodded, shuffling her feet in the dirt somewhat embarrassed for even that amount of attention being given to their deformity. Holding out her hand, she helped Kasumi up onto the tiny platform just outside of the tunnel. “Maybe I should have had you change into something else. Forgot that we have to crawl a bit.”
“You’ve seen me gardening, I’m not afraid to get my hands and knees a little dirty.” The golden haired tiefling turned back toward the city far across the open plane covered in a fresh layer of snow. It was hard to see the damage to the exterior wall from this distance over the bright gleam of sunlight reflected off the white painted stone. “It really is pretty to look at.”
“Is it?” Pepa asked, back to hovering near Ranma’s shoulder. “There’s only one color, though.”
“How many colors doesn’t matter, Pepa.” Kasumi told the fairy patiently.
“Too bad it’s run by a bunch of morons.” Ranma answered, seeing nothing but the rot of corruption. That Dorik and several of his flunkies had met their ends at the hands of Ladon’s assassins during the siege was a small consolation after what he had done to her.
Ranma felt a tiny shiver run down her tail and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, feeling like someone was watching from nearby. Her eyes quickly darted around the near vertical face of the mountain, searching for any signs of movement.
“Ranma, are you alright? You’re not having any problems breathing are you?” Kasumi asked worriedly and moved closer.
“I’m good-- just got the feeling like someone was watching.” Shrugging away the ridiculous thought, Ranma stuffed the front corners of her cloak into her pants so it would stay out of the way. “Ready?”
“Are you sure that it’s just a feeling? We still don’t know what happened to the last of Ladon’s children.” Kasumi’s golden eyes scanned the rocks as well. “Call out and see if they’ll give themselves up.”
“What?” Ranma looked at her former fiancee like she had grown a second head.
“Don’t they deserve a chance? Maybe they’re reasonable?” The blonde tieflings jaw was set tight, desperate for her statement to be true.
“Sorry, Kasumi. But his eldest hated him and she still chose to kill me over helping me against him.” She pointed out sadly, the nameless woman’s last moments flashing in front of her vision again. “Sides, If they were in any way sane they wouldn’t be skulking around here.” As if to punctuate her statement, the volcano rumbled loudly, and sent a tremor vibrating through the ground.
“Maybe we should talk about this later?” Ranma looked doubtfully up at the collapsed volcano, noticing Pepa nodding enthusiastically out of the corner of her eye.
“Agreed. So what do we do first? I’ve never been on an adventure before.” Kasumi asked eagerly, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet in excitement.
‘We were on an adventure just to get to Lutansk.’ Ranma mentally shrugged having long ago explained to Kasumi that the majority of an adventurer's life was boring travel. “Just follow me, at the end there’s a drop so I’ll need to carry you down.” Casting a light spell to hover in front of her, she crawled inside.
The tunnel was large enough to easily fit through but she still had to crawl on her hands and knees across the sharp stones, and her wings would occasionally bump against the sides. After approximately five meters the tunnel made a sharp downward angle that led to a drop down to the room fifteen meters below. Shuffling herself to sit on the edge, Ranma let Kasumi squeeze in next to her.
“Ready?” She asked and put an arm around Kasumi. The other Tiefling nodded somewhat hesitantly, eyes never leaving the floor below. “Hang on.” She instructed and pulled her over the lip. There was a brief moment of freefall before she could spread her wings and Kasumi nearly crushed her in panic before Ranma could begin to glide them gently to the floor. Landing she immediately cast a much larger light spell in the center of the room to illuminate the massive amount of precious metals and gemstones contained within.
"You can let go now." Ranma gently placed a hand on Kasumi's own when the larger girl remained locked onto her. The blonde nodded but didn't take her eyes off the gleaming treasure stretched out before them.
"This is--." Kasumi gasped, staggering from shock to lean on her shoulders.
"Ladon's hoard." Ranma summarized as Pepa left the inside of her cloak to float nearby.
"Neat." Pepa added and zipped forward and to the ground to poke at a blue gemstone nestled between coins. "What's a hoard do?" She asked cluelessly.
"It's money-- a lot of money." Ranma answered, her eyes lingering on several book shelves she had missed before hidden in a small alcove to the side. "And ancient knowledge which is even better than money." She left Kasumi's side, opening her wings to leap forward clearing the distance to the small library in a single bound. Feeling strongly that this was where something very important was kept. Something that she needed to have right now.
"Ranma, what's over there?" Kasumi called out in concern.
"Lots of books." She answered quickly and hastily dug out an empty bag of holding to start shoving the ancient tomes inside. As she was busy putting them away, she heard the jingling of Kasumi's steps as the older Tiefling made her way across the sea of gold.
"What are we going to do with all this?" The blonde asked, opening a smaller book bound in thick leather to pick through the pages. Pepa peaked over her shoulder to look as well. "Spells, but it's all in some weird language."
"I think grabbing as much as we can before the volcano gets any more unstable is a pretty good thing to do first off." Ranma answered giddily. She would be able to pay off any outstanding debts hanging over her head or her old man's. She could afford to speak to the most knowledgeable magic users out there.
"But there's so much." Kasumi stared doubtfully at her. "Nobody could need all this."
"I know, that's why I want you to have some, and then we'll give the rest to the Phoenix-- even Kiima if she apologizes." Ranma explained, having been thinking about what to do with all this wealth since waking up in the hospital. "The city can have some to help rebuild, your family, and I guess my Pop too."
“Do I get anything?” Pepa asked hopefully, having been quiet since her earlier question.
Ranma paused and regarded the spell creature, having completely forgotten that she may feel left out, or would even care. “Sure, what did you want?”
“I don’t know.” Pepa crossed her arms and put a single finger to her lips. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course.” Kasumi answered with an amused smile before turning to her. "You're really not thinking to keep it all for yourself?" The blonde Tiefling asked her incredulously, kneeling down to pick up handfuls of gold to let run through her fingers.
"That thought crossed my mind." She admitted and felt her cheeks heat up, feeling shame at being so monumentally selfish.
"Oh that's good, it's not just me." Kasumi sighed in relief before laughing nervously.
"Oh?" Ranma knelt down and glanced slyly over towards the taller girl.
"Well, I am descended from a dragon." She laughed even more awkwardly, tail swishing side to side through coins, and burrowing down as though to bury itself. Picking up a single coin, the blonde held it up to her ear in confusion.
“What is it?” Ranma looked at Kasumi quizzically.
“Can you hear that?” She held the coin out to her with one hand and picked up a second to hold to her ear with the other. “It’s like someone is singing. This one is doing it too. So pretty--.” The dragon tiefling sighed.
“Ooh, what is?” Pepa swung around next to Kasumi’s ear to try and hear.
“Hmm, guess it’s true what they say about dragons and gold.” Ranma chuckled, hearing nothing from the coin Kasumi was insistently shoving at her.
“They say what?” Kasumi asked quickly in irritation, finding offense at the comparison.
“I just meant--.” Ranma stuttered, realizing her faux pas, and how similar it was to Kiima’s earlier remarks. “It’s-- said that dragons hear gold singing. And since you have some dragon ancestry-- maybe that’s why you hear something. That’s all-- sorry.” She bowed her head in shame at her careless comment.
“I didn’t know that.” The blonde patted her on the shoulder before hesitantly putting one of the coins in a pocket of her skirt. “Sorry I snapped at you. I was always too embarrassed and scared to learn anything about Dragons.”
“I should have said it better.” She admitted and reached up to grab Kasumi’s hand. "Let’s find some more good stuff."
“Sure." Kasumi nodded eagerly.