Running the Gauntlet - Part 2
Dec. 30th, 2015 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rubyrubyrubyThe line of runners, additions upon their head, arms and belts become more a reality with each trot, are the only constant. They are permanent: Islands of reality unto themselves. No matter what trappings their guide attempts to drape onto them, there is a immutable reality to each soul. They are individuals. One might be able to find quite a bit of psychological comfort in that.
The run has gone on for quite a while. With nothing like a trustworthy sun or stars to tell the time, a focused mind might be able to tell just how long the group has been running through sheer smarty-pants. Ruby is starting to huff and puff like a bellows though. Her pits are soaking through with sweat and between her breasts is a rorschach blot of dampness. Relying on strength alone is only taking her so far.
It's telling of how far out they're going that it's taking this long to get there. She couldn't possibly be lost, could she? Maybe she's awful at shifting? Perhaps if mounted animals were involved this would be quicker? Now, every extra bit of encumberance is a hinderance. The sweat has gotten so bad that she's smearing sweat from her goggles and has to push them up atop her head and just let her eyebrows deal. "Don't...worry...Can't be mooch farther. You know't when we smell tha foul burnin..."
Maggie began the run with a measure of light heartedness, despite the strangeness of it all. Once the accessories appeared and Merrisol identified the neck piece as a 'gas mask' however, her manner shifted. Sobering thought, really. And the run continued, over hill and dale, through whispered rememberances of river and forest without the added benefit of wood or water. If they passed Grandma's house, it was long ago and in another Shadow. Stamina? That is not really Maggie's strongest trait so she began to sweat with the exertion long ago. After that, she continued through the force of dogged determination. Somewhere along the way, the scarf she wore around her forehead became soaked through and she shifted another loop to join the first. This was repeated until her crown was covered by a haphazard green and orange turbin, soaked through and plastered to her darkened hair. Her shirt, designed to withstand heat and keep her from being burned by a tropical sun, is wet with sweat and clings to her figure. Trying not to slow the pace, she manages a nod to Ruby's assurance that they must be close to their destination but does not interrupt her ragged breathing to speak.
Merrisol holds on to rearguard position through whatever formation the group takes during the run, making the necessary pace adjustments though it is often more like chasing than pacing. No doubt his companions are all fleeter of foot, yet so long as Ruby is not pushing them into a full-tilt run, he sticks to the line with tenacious soldierly rhythm. The fluctuating scenery helps keep him on task, always a new checkpoint to aim for, and the additional gear adds interest, speculation, anticipation. Of course, these points can only take one so far; when one hour begins to blend into the next, and the vistas become a blur of stimuli, and anticipation turns to impatience. That is when the awareness of joint soreness begins to nag. All the minute chafing of this cuff or that panel builds into irritation. And the jouncing of the gas mask between his collar and chin becomes a blasted thing. His concentration turns grim, focus moving from his bobbing companions to the back of Ruby's head, critically. Can't be much farther? Doesn't she /know/ where they are? His grumble is lost in the push of his now laboured breathing cycle, endurance taxed by the creeping suspicion that under Ruby's leadership they might be running for hours yet before they reach the right place. The battlefield... a destination which he can't recall why he had been looking forward to reaching it. Marshaling his faculties for an even-toned effort, he calls to the front, "The fighting, Ruby! You watched it go on, right? How many sides? Is it the castle they're fighting over? If so we its the defending side we need to identify!"
Liya just runs, doggedly, and step by step. She is totally not at the front, but she keeps up, pushing her poor (not up-phy/6!) body to the max, just to keep up with these crazy people. The wyvern is an additional weight, too tired to keep flying, and so resting on her shoulders. But! Each step is one in the right direction. Liya continues to run, aching, sweaty, even her keen senses are having trouble sensing anything with as tired as she's getting. One step, then the next. How does Kerf even have any breath to talk never mind shout.
Up to this portion of the jaunt, the ground upon which soles pound and pad along has been much like a well-worn path between rural locales. The way ahead has always been clear of obstruction. Now, there's a fluidity to the texture of the dirt paths. It hasn't rained from above, but when the group makes their way around a bend, there is a downward hill that has numerous wagon-wheel ruts carved into its slope. And within sight are depressions filled with grey water. Treacherous for ankles and slippery footing abound. Along either side of the pathway, the trees are all leaning in a singular direction. Like stalks of wheat being blown by a strong breeze and frozen in place. No wind now though, apart from the air that passes the brows of the people in motion. The side of the foliage that is exposed to the sky has been kissed with sparkling frost.
Ruby turns her head just enough to reply and not go running off the path. "Two sides. Two sides tha mattah." She breathes and continues when she's got the lung power, as the run adds in the new incline. "Aye. Castle all tha mattahs. They want't. Too valuable tah fight /in/. Taboooo. Onlah ootside do they waste loife an beggie machines. Didn't see nuthin...nuthin for miles. Bog-blasted land. Everythin else be shite. Loike...Loike stoopid bastards tryin tah wrestling with a valuable vase between them...Always soooo careful not tah bust tha pottery...Back an forth...Weeble-wobble...An they slowly sink while they doo. No defenders in castle...tha...I could...see. So, no defenders. Truth."
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 6. Maggie chooses Resolve. Maggie succeeds.
And so they run on. Maggie, too, is astonished that Kerf has the breath to speak. She darts him an over the shoulder grin and carries on. Turning that corner as she looks back, she hop-skip-jumps a bit to get the rhythm on the newly tilting, rutted and watery track. The firm 'puff' of her bootfalls turn into a splash-squelch instead. It is an unpleasently wet sound too reminiscint of mayhem in marshes for her own comfort. Listening to Ruby's reply to Kerf's query, Maggie frowns just a bit. She draws in a long, harder breath, digging deep into her soul for the fortitude needed to keep going. Mulling over the words, she flashes a glance toward Liya, though does not have Kerf or Ruby's lung capacity, so the look will have to suffice. For now.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 6. Liyandra chooses Resolve and the gift SUK-RH. Liyandra overwhelmingly succeeds.
Liya is holding her own. In fact, she's doing better than one might expect, being an island girl. She digs in, and runs, step after step. She's not talking, no, but she is managing the terrain with a dogged stubbornness that keeps her going, at a pace that she would say she could keep forever. Good thing, because it looks like Ruby is going to run them forever. And ever. Even the squelchsquick of the wet ground doesn't seem to throw her for a loop.
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 6. Merrisol chooses Resolve. Merrisol succeeds.
"Wait - Beggie? A mechanized war.." Curiosity and interest bloom anew, and Merrisol scans the rural horizon as though for the greasy smoke of Progress. His set-jaw grimace relaxes into a briefly warm look for Maggie's glance, and her nimble picking of her way across the treacherous new terrain. Himself, he leaves new deep impressions behind in the churned earth, and takes with him the muck from those washed out shadows, splatter-caking his legs past the knees and stippling everything else it can reach. Slippery conditions don't bother the sailor in him, but the sucking of the puddles and the extraneous weight the clay adds to his limbs is felt with every plodding step. The bloodyminded look reappears on his countenance as his muscles tense to the higher demand and lunge forth. He reaches up, scrubs his forearm across his brow to sluice away sweat and clumps of soaked hair, and inadvertantly paints his face with dribbling mud.
RPG: Ruby challenges a difficulty of 6. Ruby chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Ruby succeeds.
The route to the wartorn land bears additonal scars, some of which are not caused by nature's touch. New ruts in the road almost make it easier to stick to the sides of the rough path. It's harder to maintain a pace with the amount of mushy depressions, gouges caused by wheels and some odd serrated indentations that are too evenly spaced to be natural. Ruby wipes at her forehead and glances behind herself to note the entire group still slogging along. It has her almost tumbling over a heap of discarded refuse that's been abandoned right in the middle of the pathway. At the sides of the trail can be seen dilapidated wooden frames of old structures. Granaries and stables. Things get worse and worse for those on foot. The run becomes an endless slog, lower legs easily collecting a new cold coating of brownish-grey yuck. One must be careful of not trailing each other too closely or else become spattered moreso. A truly glamourous bit of exercise this. Ruby turns her attention fully ahead, eyes focusing on the path that becomes becomes a tougher climb. At the top of a rise, there's an orangy glow. A false dawn that flickers against low-hanging clouds. "Not...far now..." she rasps. "Big climb." A scent of something sulfurous is in the air. Makes it unpleasant to breathe and encourages the bile to rise. Nothing that seems to be making Ruby want to call a halt or use her owlish mask. The incline becomes steeper and worse on footing. There's a faint vibration that occasionally can be felt in the sole. And under the mud seems to be something firmer and flat, though strewn with buried bits of wood and metal. Evenly spaced but cruel and broken. Like the group was trying to run up obscured gridwork. Ruby is doubled over and almost pawing at it to stay upright.
RPG: Ruby challenges a difficulty of 9. Ruby chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Ruby almost succeeds.
The ascent is more troublesome than anticipated. Ruby goes face-planting half the side of her face and torso into the muck, unable to keep to her feet or the pace she's tried to set. She squawks angrily and sends a gout of the cold muddy filth off to the side wide in a goupy wave and kicks out a foot, nearly twisting it against a buried beam. She's interrupted the jaunt, though the shadow they're in has stopped shifting and altering so much. Sights, smells and sounds are stronger. More real.
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 9. Maggie chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Maggie succeeds.
As the terrain gets rougher, their path rising at a steep, then steeper angle, Maggie huffs once before lowering her head to carry forward. Legs coated with clinging, cold mud work merely in the hope of losing some of the muck or getting to where they can just... stop. As the incline gets worse, her feet dig for purchase and find the strange underground grid supporting the mud. Confusion registers, but is cut off when she almost overruns Ruby. Pausing, she does not fall, but does whisper, "Good plan. We should catch our breath before we get to the top. It wouldn't due to be huffing and puffing where we could be seen." Now that she is not concentrating fully on moving, she sniffs at the air. Distaste wrinkles her nose, though her nostrils flare a bit. That confused look returns and she starts to cast about as though seeking a long familiar scent now absent. Lavender? No. Sulpher? No, that is here in plenty... "There... There is no magic here. At all." Worried? You betcha, she is.
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 9. Merrisol chooses Resolve and the gift PHY-ST. Merrisol succeeds.
Rather than feeling the relief and warming down of reaching one's long-awaired destination, Merrisol comes into the final lap with jarring realization, as the far Shadow solidifies in all ways for him. His breath steams through the air in a trail behind him, seen but not heard in the din of ambient noise beyond their own exertions. Crushing impact from the debris-chunky ground radiates up from his boot soles and he is more circumspect with his footing now, even though he broaches the steepness in a linebacker charge. The burst of momentum drives him, equipment, mud, and all, up the footfolds of the slope, only to come upon the kicking tangle of Ruby so abruptly, he comes dangerously close to crashing into her, and thus everyone pausing in between. Whuff! A planned halt? Not just yet for him, all that forward movement bringing him staggering about a dozen paces further after avoiding collision. If there is a pinnacle to the climb in sight, there is an automatic urge to reach it.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 9. Liyandra chooses Resolve and the gift SUK-RH. Liyandra succeeds.
An incline? Of course, there's an incline now, after all the flat and then downhill. Because what goes down must come ... up? The rise is watched with more than a little distrust. Liya's steps come to a halt when the back in front of her does. Right. Do not run over Maggie. She's got clay mud all over her, spatters here and there, and looks exhausted, but that green tinge just does not add to her usual beauty. It's a strange place, this, and it makes her shudder, her expression a little more set than usual, as she slowly realizes she's experienced that upset stomach before. "This is," she starts, working on controlling ehr breathing. The wyvern flaps her wings briefly. "horrible. It's dying. Like it's been sucked dry, the land, that is. And ahead, there is life, but it flicks out and in - like watching lightbugs. I think I will be really glad to get out of here. In some ways it reminds me of old Kitezh."
Ruby slaps her palm angrily into the soggy muck. Blinking away a clod of the stuff from her eye. She spits mud and waves at the crest of the hill. "Van-tage. Destin-ation." She coughs and tries not to suck in the stuff when she breathes in. How odd that the arrival comes on the heels of someone making the group stutter. "I be foine!" she wheezes and waves them onwards. Clearly winded and being in a sprawl of limbs rather than the burn of constant movement, she grips at her lower leg and tries to massage it into compliance. "Don't break your rhythm for me. Get to tha top. We stop there. Stop an peek. Don't stop Maggah...No femme risk pullin somethin..." Half-camoflaged in the brown grey sludge she attempts to get back into motion. "First tah tha top...Nothin for second places...Mount this fookin thing."
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 9. Merrisol chooses Force. Merrisol fails.
With the rhythm of the quick march blown all to hell, Merrisol finds himself scrabbling the incline with only Ruby's haranguing encouragment hounding his heels. Inertia sets into his muscles like a host of gremlins, seizing at every effort to hike the hill to the top until he's reduced to a lumbering pace that is easily overtaken by his team mates. And that's... that's okay. It's not really a race. Shut up Ruby, there's no picnic prize at the top!
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 11. Maggie chooses Resolve. Maggie almost succeeds.
Alright. Maggie nods and sidesteps Ruby to get back in motion. No stopping now, then. Momentum lost, she starts at a heavy trudge. Her muscles are used to moving faster than that, though so she does manage to pick up the pace a bit. Still, there is no way to catch up with Kerf who had the good sense not to stop. Until he does, poor guy. That is when her determination joins with a highly competative nature and she again increases her pace. She is not running, but she is scrabbling, almost spider-like toward the top. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Liya struggling along next to her. It's Maggie ahead by a nose, then Liya ahead by a shoulder and Wybern wing. Then Maggie. Then Liya. Then... Maggie stifles a giggle and reaches for Liya's hand. The two share a grin and Maggie stands straighter. It is friendlier with two, you see. Working together, they make it to the top. Instead of looking over the other side, Maggie turns to look for the rest of their party. Not letting go of Liya yet, she angles back down the side to offer whomever is next a hand up. With luck, this won't cause all three to rumble-tumble back down into Ruby like bowling pins in a very slanted alley.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 11. Liyandra chooses Resolve. Liyandra almost succeeds.
Liya makes a face at Ruby, gasping for breath. But that little stop was enough to at least bring some composure back, some breath back into struggling lungs, and so given marching orders, she too starts off again, feeling double the ache from the muscles that had stopped and now have to start up again. She is taken nearly by surprise when Maggie reaches for her hand, but quickly returns her friend's grin, and easily gets into the spirit of working together to get to the top. Balance here, counterbalance there, and once at the top, she digs in her heels, keeping a firm hold with one hand of Maggie, and with the other, finding a bump, a solid bit of edge, somethign to hold on to, so as to help the others to the top, and not have them all go tumbling down. Resolutely and totally determined. Whatever the reason is, they will all make it to the top of hte hill... only of course to see the other side of the mountain.
At the top of the crest is an overlook that commands a vista best left under a cloud of fog. The reward for the winning pair is the first glance at war that's taken on a life of its own. Part of the hill that Maggie and Liya stand on has been pulverized, and a very steep drop curls down towards a valley that has been mauled into a maze of tortured earth. Visibility is good if one isn't much higher than this hill. Above this, it's smoke and sick clouds of icy green vapour. The kind of green found in a test tube of an unstable alchemist. There are two clearly marked sides in this conflict. There are a mass of combatants to the right within a deeper set valley that is veined by trenches and bunkers that sit like fat black toads...And to the left, a series of hills where a mirroring assortment of guard towers and depots and shreds of camoflage hang limply in the wind. Dull muted sounds of industry ring out from both sides. And in the center, between both groups is no-femmes-land. Blighted and scarred. Craters wounding the earth that's been impaled by wreckage and barbed wire. Grotesque shapes are formed by the mingling of the two and it seeps black fluids and foul chemicals. Farther up along this scar is what must be Ruby's castle. It sits within a space almost completely untouched by war.
There are lots and lots of lights on the formidable looking castle. Not the flickering lights of candles. A constant glow. There are no visible guards, though it's rather hard to make out much at this distance. A large fence surrounds it made of interlocking mesh and illumination from mounted cylinders on high towers. They keep the area around it very well lit. From it's perimeter the devastation increases in magnitude. It's easily the more notable thing for 'miles'.
Ruby claws her way up after the others. She steadfastly refuses a hand, still smarting from her tapping out when it really counted. "Aye...Aye..." She scrambles and sheds a bit of mud in the process. "Look. Not even breakfast yet...Nuthin 'appenin yet. Easy." Her nose wrinkles at a damp stench that's organic and horrid which saturates the place. A hint of it wafts up to nostrils.
Merri clanks and lurches on after Maggie and Liya once they have hiked past, grimace-grinning with pained admiration for the new pace-setters. Each leg set in a deep bend before him burns as he pushes straight again, growling with the effort. As he puts a hand down to the earth occasionally for stability, the rumble of distant machinery runs up his arm in a not unfamiliar sensation that calls out in his bones, however illusory. The chemical stench lifted to their position over the rise sweeps into him through the great huffing breaths he cycles in and out, and sets his mind to analyzing their nature and purpose in the context of war... which only fuels his need to make it to the top. Fixing his eyes on the silhoutted figures of his mate and friend, he notes Maggie's turning back to offer a hand up, and of course he does accept it. But carefully, and following through with a last adrenalized effort to stand straight and steady behind the two women. He turns back to pay forward the kindness, but drops his hand when Ruby rebuffs it to make it All Her Ownself. Then, over the side he looks. And looks. And stares. "Oh, Lir's bloody Gears..." he mutters to Liyandra and Maggie. "You're right, it's.. like.. Begman Ragnarok."
The run has gone on for quite a while. With nothing like a trustworthy sun or stars to tell the time, a focused mind might be able to tell just how long the group has been running through sheer smarty-pants. Ruby is starting to huff and puff like a bellows though. Her pits are soaking through with sweat and between her breasts is a rorschach blot of dampness. Relying on strength alone is only taking her so far.
It's telling of how far out they're going that it's taking this long to get there. She couldn't possibly be lost, could she? Maybe she's awful at shifting? Perhaps if mounted animals were involved this would be quicker? Now, every extra bit of encumberance is a hinderance. The sweat has gotten so bad that she's smearing sweat from her goggles and has to push them up atop her head and just let her eyebrows deal. "Don't...worry...Can't be mooch farther. You know't when we smell tha foul burnin..."
Maggie began the run with a measure of light heartedness, despite the strangeness of it all. Once the accessories appeared and Merrisol identified the neck piece as a 'gas mask' however, her manner shifted. Sobering thought, really. And the run continued, over hill and dale, through whispered rememberances of river and forest without the added benefit of wood or water. If they passed Grandma's house, it was long ago and in another Shadow. Stamina? That is not really Maggie's strongest trait so she began to sweat with the exertion long ago. After that, she continued through the force of dogged determination. Somewhere along the way, the scarf she wore around her forehead became soaked through and she shifted another loop to join the first. This was repeated until her crown was covered by a haphazard green and orange turbin, soaked through and plastered to her darkened hair. Her shirt, designed to withstand heat and keep her from being burned by a tropical sun, is wet with sweat and clings to her figure. Trying not to slow the pace, she manages a nod to Ruby's assurance that they must be close to their destination but does not interrupt her ragged breathing to speak.
Merrisol holds on to rearguard position through whatever formation the group takes during the run, making the necessary pace adjustments though it is often more like chasing than pacing. No doubt his companions are all fleeter of foot, yet so long as Ruby is not pushing them into a full-tilt run, he sticks to the line with tenacious soldierly rhythm. The fluctuating scenery helps keep him on task, always a new checkpoint to aim for, and the additional gear adds interest, speculation, anticipation. Of course, these points can only take one so far; when one hour begins to blend into the next, and the vistas become a blur of stimuli, and anticipation turns to impatience. That is when the awareness of joint soreness begins to nag. All the minute chafing of this cuff or that panel builds into irritation. And the jouncing of the gas mask between his collar and chin becomes a blasted thing. His concentration turns grim, focus moving from his bobbing companions to the back of Ruby's head, critically. Can't be much farther? Doesn't she /know/ where they are? His grumble is lost in the push of his now laboured breathing cycle, endurance taxed by the creeping suspicion that under Ruby's leadership they might be running for hours yet before they reach the right place. The battlefield... a destination which he can't recall why he had been looking forward to reaching it. Marshaling his faculties for an even-toned effort, he calls to the front, "The fighting, Ruby! You watched it go on, right? How many sides? Is it the castle they're fighting over? If so we its the defending side we need to identify!"
Liya just runs, doggedly, and step by step. She is totally not at the front, but she keeps up, pushing her poor (not up-phy/6!) body to the max, just to keep up with these crazy people. The wyvern is an additional weight, too tired to keep flying, and so resting on her shoulders. But! Each step is one in the right direction. Liya continues to run, aching, sweaty, even her keen senses are having trouble sensing anything with as tired as she's getting. One step, then the next. How does Kerf even have any breath to talk never mind shout.
Up to this portion of the jaunt, the ground upon which soles pound and pad along has been much like a well-worn path between rural locales. The way ahead has always been clear of obstruction. Now, there's a fluidity to the texture of the dirt paths. It hasn't rained from above, but when the group makes their way around a bend, there is a downward hill that has numerous wagon-wheel ruts carved into its slope. And within sight are depressions filled with grey water. Treacherous for ankles and slippery footing abound. Along either side of the pathway, the trees are all leaning in a singular direction. Like stalks of wheat being blown by a strong breeze and frozen in place. No wind now though, apart from the air that passes the brows of the people in motion. The side of the foliage that is exposed to the sky has been kissed with sparkling frost.
Ruby turns her head just enough to reply and not go running off the path. "Two sides. Two sides tha mattah." She breathes and continues when she's got the lung power, as the run adds in the new incline. "Aye. Castle all tha mattahs. They want't. Too valuable tah fight /in/. Taboooo. Onlah ootside do they waste loife an beggie machines. Didn't see nuthin...nuthin for miles. Bog-blasted land. Everythin else be shite. Loike...Loike stoopid bastards tryin tah wrestling with a valuable vase between them...Always soooo careful not tah bust tha pottery...Back an forth...Weeble-wobble...An they slowly sink while they doo. No defenders in castle...tha...I could...see. So, no defenders. Truth."
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 6. Maggie chooses Resolve. Maggie succeeds.
And so they run on. Maggie, too, is astonished that Kerf has the breath to speak. She darts him an over the shoulder grin and carries on. Turning that corner as she looks back, she hop-skip-jumps a bit to get the rhythm on the newly tilting, rutted and watery track. The firm 'puff' of her bootfalls turn into a splash-squelch instead. It is an unpleasently wet sound too reminiscint of mayhem in marshes for her own comfort. Listening to Ruby's reply to Kerf's query, Maggie frowns just a bit. She draws in a long, harder breath, digging deep into her soul for the fortitude needed to keep going. Mulling over the words, she flashes a glance toward Liya, though does not have Kerf or Ruby's lung capacity, so the look will have to suffice. For now.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 6. Liyandra chooses Resolve and the gift SUK-RH. Liyandra overwhelmingly succeeds.
Liya is holding her own. In fact, she's doing better than one might expect, being an island girl. She digs in, and runs, step after step. She's not talking, no, but she is managing the terrain with a dogged stubbornness that keeps her going, at a pace that she would say she could keep forever. Good thing, because it looks like Ruby is going to run them forever. And ever. Even the squelchsquick of the wet ground doesn't seem to throw her for a loop.
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 6. Merrisol chooses Resolve. Merrisol succeeds.
"Wait - Beggie? A mechanized war.." Curiosity and interest bloom anew, and Merrisol scans the rural horizon as though for the greasy smoke of Progress. His set-jaw grimace relaxes into a briefly warm look for Maggie's glance, and her nimble picking of her way across the treacherous new terrain. Himself, he leaves new deep impressions behind in the churned earth, and takes with him the muck from those washed out shadows, splatter-caking his legs past the knees and stippling everything else it can reach. Slippery conditions don't bother the sailor in him, but the sucking of the puddles and the extraneous weight the clay adds to his limbs is felt with every plodding step. The bloodyminded look reappears on his countenance as his muscles tense to the higher demand and lunge forth. He reaches up, scrubs his forearm across his brow to sluice away sweat and clumps of soaked hair, and inadvertantly paints his face with dribbling mud.
RPG: Ruby challenges a difficulty of 6. Ruby chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Ruby succeeds.
The route to the wartorn land bears additonal scars, some of which are not caused by nature's touch. New ruts in the road almost make it easier to stick to the sides of the rough path. It's harder to maintain a pace with the amount of mushy depressions, gouges caused by wheels and some odd serrated indentations that are too evenly spaced to be natural. Ruby wipes at her forehead and glances behind herself to note the entire group still slogging along. It has her almost tumbling over a heap of discarded refuse that's been abandoned right in the middle of the pathway. At the sides of the trail can be seen dilapidated wooden frames of old structures. Granaries and stables. Things get worse and worse for those on foot. The run becomes an endless slog, lower legs easily collecting a new cold coating of brownish-grey yuck. One must be careful of not trailing each other too closely or else become spattered moreso. A truly glamourous bit of exercise this. Ruby turns her attention fully ahead, eyes focusing on the path that becomes becomes a tougher climb. At the top of a rise, there's an orangy glow. A false dawn that flickers against low-hanging clouds. "Not...far now..." she rasps. "Big climb." A scent of something sulfurous is in the air. Makes it unpleasant to breathe and encourages the bile to rise. Nothing that seems to be making Ruby want to call a halt or use her owlish mask. The incline becomes steeper and worse on footing. There's a faint vibration that occasionally can be felt in the sole. And under the mud seems to be something firmer and flat, though strewn with buried bits of wood and metal. Evenly spaced but cruel and broken. Like the group was trying to run up obscured gridwork. Ruby is doubled over and almost pawing at it to stay upright.
RPG: Ruby challenges a difficulty of 9. Ruby chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Ruby almost succeeds.
The ascent is more troublesome than anticipated. Ruby goes face-planting half the side of her face and torso into the muck, unable to keep to her feet or the pace she's tried to set. She squawks angrily and sends a gout of the cold muddy filth off to the side wide in a goupy wave and kicks out a foot, nearly twisting it against a buried beam. She's interrupted the jaunt, though the shadow they're in has stopped shifting and altering so much. Sights, smells and sounds are stronger. More real.
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 9. Maggie chooses Resolve and the gift BLD-OB. Maggie succeeds.
As the terrain gets rougher, their path rising at a steep, then steeper angle, Maggie huffs once before lowering her head to carry forward. Legs coated with clinging, cold mud work merely in the hope of losing some of the muck or getting to where they can just... stop. As the incline gets worse, her feet dig for purchase and find the strange underground grid supporting the mud. Confusion registers, but is cut off when she almost overruns Ruby. Pausing, she does not fall, but does whisper, "Good plan. We should catch our breath before we get to the top. It wouldn't due to be huffing and puffing where we could be seen." Now that she is not concentrating fully on moving, she sniffs at the air. Distaste wrinkles her nose, though her nostrils flare a bit. That confused look returns and she starts to cast about as though seeking a long familiar scent now absent. Lavender? No. Sulpher? No, that is here in plenty... "There... There is no magic here. At all." Worried? You betcha, she is.
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 9. Merrisol chooses Resolve and the gift PHY-ST. Merrisol succeeds.
Rather than feeling the relief and warming down of reaching one's long-awaired destination, Merrisol comes into the final lap with jarring realization, as the far Shadow solidifies in all ways for him. His breath steams through the air in a trail behind him, seen but not heard in the din of ambient noise beyond their own exertions. Crushing impact from the debris-chunky ground radiates up from his boot soles and he is more circumspect with his footing now, even though he broaches the steepness in a linebacker charge. The burst of momentum drives him, equipment, mud, and all, up the footfolds of the slope, only to come upon the kicking tangle of Ruby so abruptly, he comes dangerously close to crashing into her, and thus everyone pausing in between. Whuff! A planned halt? Not just yet for him, all that forward movement bringing him staggering about a dozen paces further after avoiding collision. If there is a pinnacle to the climb in sight, there is an automatic urge to reach it.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 9. Liyandra chooses Resolve and the gift SUK-RH. Liyandra succeeds.
An incline? Of course, there's an incline now, after all the flat and then downhill. Because what goes down must come ... up? The rise is watched with more than a little distrust. Liya's steps come to a halt when the back in front of her does. Right. Do not run over Maggie. She's got clay mud all over her, spatters here and there, and looks exhausted, but that green tinge just does not add to her usual beauty. It's a strange place, this, and it makes her shudder, her expression a little more set than usual, as she slowly realizes she's experienced that upset stomach before. "This is," she starts, working on controlling ehr breathing. The wyvern flaps her wings briefly. "horrible. It's dying. Like it's been sucked dry, the land, that is. And ahead, there is life, but it flicks out and in - like watching lightbugs. I think I will be really glad to get out of here. In some ways it reminds me of old Kitezh."
Ruby slaps her palm angrily into the soggy muck. Blinking away a clod of the stuff from her eye. She spits mud and waves at the crest of the hill. "Van-tage. Destin-ation." She coughs and tries not to suck in the stuff when she breathes in. How odd that the arrival comes on the heels of someone making the group stutter. "I be foine!" she wheezes and waves them onwards. Clearly winded and being in a sprawl of limbs rather than the burn of constant movement, she grips at her lower leg and tries to massage it into compliance. "Don't break your rhythm for me. Get to tha top. We stop there. Stop an peek. Don't stop Maggah...No femme risk pullin somethin..." Half-camoflaged in the brown grey sludge she attempts to get back into motion. "First tah tha top...Nothin for second places...Mount this fookin thing."
RPG: Merrisol challenges a difficulty of 9. Merrisol chooses Force. Merrisol fails.
With the rhythm of the quick march blown all to hell, Merrisol finds himself scrabbling the incline with only Ruby's haranguing encouragment hounding his heels. Inertia sets into his muscles like a host of gremlins, seizing at every effort to hike the hill to the top until he's reduced to a lumbering pace that is easily overtaken by his team mates. And that's... that's okay. It's not really a race. Shut up Ruby, there's no picnic prize at the top!
RPG: Maggie challenges a difficulty of 11. Maggie chooses Resolve. Maggie almost succeeds.
Alright. Maggie nods and sidesteps Ruby to get back in motion. No stopping now, then. Momentum lost, she starts at a heavy trudge. Her muscles are used to moving faster than that, though so she does manage to pick up the pace a bit. Still, there is no way to catch up with Kerf who had the good sense not to stop. Until he does, poor guy. That is when her determination joins with a highly competative nature and she again increases her pace. She is not running, but she is scrabbling, almost spider-like toward the top. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Liya struggling along next to her. It's Maggie ahead by a nose, then Liya ahead by a shoulder and Wybern wing. Then Maggie. Then Liya. Then... Maggie stifles a giggle and reaches for Liya's hand. The two share a grin and Maggie stands straighter. It is friendlier with two, you see. Working together, they make it to the top. Instead of looking over the other side, Maggie turns to look for the rest of their party. Not letting go of Liya yet, she angles back down the side to offer whomever is next a hand up. With luck, this won't cause all three to rumble-tumble back down into Ruby like bowling pins in a very slanted alley.
RPG: Liyandra challenges a difficulty of 11. Liyandra chooses Resolve. Liyandra almost succeeds.
Liya makes a face at Ruby, gasping for breath. But that little stop was enough to at least bring some composure back, some breath back into struggling lungs, and so given marching orders, she too starts off again, feeling double the ache from the muscles that had stopped and now have to start up again. She is taken nearly by surprise when Maggie reaches for her hand, but quickly returns her friend's grin, and easily gets into the spirit of working together to get to the top. Balance here, counterbalance there, and once at the top, she digs in her heels, keeping a firm hold with one hand of Maggie, and with the other, finding a bump, a solid bit of edge, somethign to hold on to, so as to help the others to the top, and not have them all go tumbling down. Resolutely and totally determined. Whatever the reason is, they will all make it to the top of hte hill... only of course to see the other side of the mountain.
At the top of the crest is an overlook that commands a vista best left under a cloud of fog. The reward for the winning pair is the first glance at war that's taken on a life of its own. Part of the hill that Maggie and Liya stand on has been pulverized, and a very steep drop curls down towards a valley that has been mauled into a maze of tortured earth. Visibility is good if one isn't much higher than this hill. Above this, it's smoke and sick clouds of icy green vapour. The kind of green found in a test tube of an unstable alchemist. There are two clearly marked sides in this conflict. There are a mass of combatants to the right within a deeper set valley that is veined by trenches and bunkers that sit like fat black toads...And to the left, a series of hills where a mirroring assortment of guard towers and depots and shreds of camoflage hang limply in the wind. Dull muted sounds of industry ring out from both sides. And in the center, between both groups is no-femmes-land. Blighted and scarred. Craters wounding the earth that's been impaled by wreckage and barbed wire. Grotesque shapes are formed by the mingling of the two and it seeps black fluids and foul chemicals. Farther up along this scar is what must be Ruby's castle. It sits within a space almost completely untouched by war.
There are lots and lots of lights on the formidable looking castle. Not the flickering lights of candles. A constant glow. There are no visible guards, though it's rather hard to make out much at this distance. A large fence surrounds it made of interlocking mesh and illumination from mounted cylinders on high towers. They keep the area around it very well lit. From it's perimeter the devastation increases in magnitude. It's easily the more notable thing for 'miles'.
Ruby claws her way up after the others. She steadfastly refuses a hand, still smarting from her tapping out when it really counted. "Aye...Aye..." She scrambles and sheds a bit of mud in the process. "Look. Not even breakfast yet...Nuthin 'appenin yet. Easy." Her nose wrinkles at a damp stench that's organic and horrid which saturates the place. A hint of it wafts up to nostrils.
Merri clanks and lurches on after Maggie and Liya once they have hiked past, grimace-grinning with pained admiration for the new pace-setters. Each leg set in a deep bend before him burns as he pushes straight again, growling with the effort. As he puts a hand down to the earth occasionally for stability, the rumble of distant machinery runs up his arm in a not unfamiliar sensation that calls out in his bones, however illusory. The chemical stench lifted to their position over the rise sweeps into him through the great huffing breaths he cycles in and out, and sets his mind to analyzing their nature and purpose in the context of war... which only fuels his need to make it to the top. Fixing his eyes on the silhoutted figures of his mate and friend, he notes Maggie's turning back to offer a hand up, and of course he does accept it. But carefully, and following through with a last adrenalized effort to stand straight and steady behind the two women. He turns back to pay forward the kindness, but drops his hand when Ruby rebuffs it to make it All Her Ownself. Then, over the side he looks. And looks. And stares. "Oh, Lir's bloody Gears..." he mutters to Liyandra and Maggie. "You're right, it's.. like.. Begman Ragnarok."
