In Search of Necromancers...

[Aeric Ecrai]

Venn, as much as he disliked the Ranger's Guild, was anticipating working together with Strider. There was no doubt that Strider had surpassed his abilities, but not by far. This was his chance to catch up...

"So, shall we head for the ruins or search for, ah, 'birds with their eyes sewn shut?'" He asked.

A ridiculous notion in his opinion. Necromancer had to do with the Spark and not the physical aspects of the target. And he sincerely doubted that the Necromancers would be stupid enough to just leave evidence lying on the ground.

[Lan]

"Skiestyrm is suerstitious.." Strider said, "i doubt we will find any of those birds..those kind are only made by amateurs, fools dabbling in the black arts..no, whoever did this was much more...efficient."

[Aeric Ecrai]

Venn nodded. He had taken down many Necromancers in his time serving as the head of the Ranged Division, but none had ever been able to take the life of an Inquisitor. Generally they were concentrated in small groups, few even knowing what they were dabbling in. Offensive magii aside, they weren't all that powerful. This was turning out to be quite the mystery.

"Lead the way. You know these woods better than I do." Venn said under his breath. He and Strider had already begun to move as Rangers did, weaving between trees and around underbrush. Venn put a hand around the crystal on his breastplate and sent a brief pulse of magii into it. His was green, but magii aside, they all did the same thing. His yellow cloak and armor began to subtly shift colors until they seemed to mirror the forest around them. Besides, it would be stupid if the Inquisition romped around in the forest in their yellow cloaks.

[Lan]

Every time Strider stepped into a shadow, it seemed that he became a part of it, slipping in between the real world and some other made of shadows. After a while he held up his hand. "There." With this he unslung his bow and reached into his boot, retracting and arrow with a dark barbed tip. "the first one belongs to me." he rasped.

[Aeric Ecrai]

"Aye." Venn nodded, as Strider let fly the first arrow. Sounding like nothing but a whisper, the arrow streaked towards its target from where the two stood. Impacting the necromancer below the arm and in the side, he dropped like a sack of rocks. That is to say, awkwardly and loudly. Venn cursed.

"Did this one have a habit of carrying rocks? Blast..." He looked at Strider, who once again seemed to be half shadow. If this was some kind of magii, Venn had never seen the like. If it was magii, its application in infiltration and stealth must be invaluable.

"I wouldn't worry. They won't be able to find up, even if they were looking right at us." Strider rasped that voice of his. Did he sandpaper his throat on a regular basis? Venn looked in astonishment as the arrow that had hit the Necromancer began to turn black from the head up, then float to the ground and become a shadow. This shadow slid back across the ground to where they stood, floated in the air, and reappeared as an arrow in Strider's hand. Polymerite crossed with his innate magii, Venn decided.

A few other necromancers had gathered around the corpse of the first. Venn could tell by their body language that astonishingly, they were not worried. In fact, they seemed to have an air of confidence about them.

"These can't be what took down my men." he breathed to Strider, "they're just amatuers. Perhaps the adepts are further in..."

This time it was his turn to show off. Strider wasn't the only one with polymerite. Stringing an arrow of his own, he aimed and let it fly. Halfway to its target it ignited into a golden light, split into three beams and dropped all three of the necromancers, straight through the heart.
A smug sideways glance at Strider, who just rolled his eyes in mock disdain, and they were moving towards the ruin.

[Aeric Ecrai]

It seemed as if the Necromancers never stopped coming. With the help of Strider, Venn had managed to put down at least a dozen of them, and yet more of their acolytes poured forth from the inner chambers of the ruin like dark waters from a flooded river. Over the throng of magic being hurling their way, Venn thundered at Strider, "We need to take at least one alive! Perhaps one of them can give us some answers!"

Strider just cast him a grim look and returned to launching arrows from his massive longbow. Venn did the same, occasionally loosing a bolt of Gold Magii, or a blast of his own Green. As an archer, he was familiar with Green, the Magii essence of wind, and as such, as able to use it in many different ways; from blunty knocking men backwards to precisely cutting limbs or weapons. This proved invaluable on the battlefield, as he was sometimes able to even redirect arrows that were fired his way. In this case, wind would do nothing against Black Magii.
The black robed Necromancers just kept pouring forth, chanting in some guttural language, loosing bolts of black lightning that made a sound akin to screaming as it ripped through the air, the Black Magii appearing to tear a void in the world. Venn realized that his shoulder was bleeding, probably a wound inflicted from flying shrapnel that had been blasted off the walls of the ruin as he and Strider made their advance. Channeling a flow of Gold into his fingers, he pulled back on his bowstring and loosed the shot, which expanded into a net of light that intercepted and disembered at least four of the Necromancers. Venn had noticed, on occasion, that Strider would simply strike aside the bolts of Black thrown at them; probably to do with his own Spark, Venn hypothesized.

One by one, the continual stream of Necomancers began to dwindle. Soon enough, there were only three left standing, and only one had the robes of a Necromancer Adept, the leader of the cult. As Venn loosed two arrows in quick succession, Strider flowed forward with purpose, grasping the Adept by the throat just as Venn's arrows found the hearts of the other two. Venn realized that he was drenched with sweat and blood, from not only his shoulder, but other smaller puncture wounds. He thanked the spirits that a bolt of Black had not struck him.

Strider, with deadly grace, broke both of the Adept's hands and slammed him against the stone wall of the ruin. In that raspy voice of his, he hissed, "Stay still stranger, or you'll never move again."

[Lan]

[[ Grr ]]

At this moment, from down a passageway, loud cursing could be heard. Two shapes appeared in the light: It was Kay, supporting Jenoveve on one muscular arm. He saw what was happening and stood still. Strider, without turning from the Necromancer, called out "Kay! So nice of you to join us. We are in need of your explosive expertise."

[Aeric Ecrai]

The necromancer's eyes widened at this, and Venn laughed inwardly. He probably thought they were going to use explosives to interrogate him, or something equally heinous. Venn's eyes shifted to Strider once again. That man was uncanny. Not turning around to get a look at this Kay fellow, Venn glared at their captive.

"You'd best answer what he asks. He's not a very cheerful person." With that comment, Venn gestured to the necromancer's broken hands. If he didn't talk soon, Strider was liable to break his arm. Then, he did.

The Necromancer cried out in pain, but it quickly died down and indignation flashed in his eyes for only an instant to be replaced by fear. Strider's voice was coarse and angry.

"What are you doing here, boy? Answer, or something else breaks." And he wasn't joking. If the necromancer didn't talk soon, he wouldn't have any body parts left to move.

"I-I can't tell you, they'll kill me, he'll kill me..." Before he could finish, Strider's knee slammed into his gut. The air left him in a single, forceful rush and he coughed up blood.
"...the-they're using this place as a...."

A scream ripped from the man's lungs. An otherworldy scream, so loud Venn staggered back and nearly clapped his hands over his ears. The necromancer's pupils swelled until his eyes were completely black, the scream growing in intensity.

Then, his eyes began to bleed.

[Lan]

Strider stepped back and eyed the screaming man for a second. "Kay, the explosives. Now." He pulled up his dust guard, and quickly drew an arrow, pulled back his massive longbow, and shot an arrow through the man's head at point blank range.
"What do you think they are using it as?" spoke up Jenoveve.
Strider eyed the body coldly, "I don't know, but whatever they are trying to use it for, it wont be much use to them as a pile of rubble."
Kay tossed three spheres to strider, who proceeded to place them at the bottom of the pillars. He always wondered how Kay managed to carry so many explosives on him.

[Gwydion Nefarine]

Nearby, Gwydion materialized out of thin air, back from the previous dimension of the demon. He fell to the ground, hitting his head hard on a boulder. He became unconscious.

((If this doesn't make sense Hudson, read the vampire-password thread. This is my way of starting over I suppose.....))

[Aeric Ecrai]

((sounds an awful like that I'll have to. Demons don't exist, soo.. ))

Venn addressed Strider, "I guess whatever you had going on here isn't worth the trouble of...this. I'll be sure to notify the Commandant about this strange occurance so he can notify his scholars to search for an occurance like this in the histories..."

Venn took another glimpse at the corpse, the eyes solid red. The scream still hung in the air, otherworldy and haunting. Hopefully it had just been the side effect of whatever they were drawing that immense power from, but Venn was still cautious. If something living - or undead, for that matter - had caused this and killed his men, he didn't want to cross it.

Casting another glance further into the ruins, he muttered under his breath, "let's get out of here..."

[Gwydion Nefarine]

((demon=vampire - Gwydion thinks vampire is some sort of demon since he doesn't know anything about vampires because they technically don't exist. don't demons exist in lore or something or as an "underworld denizen" so to speak?))

[Lan]

Somewhere in the woods, a panel on the ground flipped open, revealing a ladder that led down into the darkness. Two cloaked figures made their way out into the dense foliage. They both wore longbows, and black cloaks. They wordlessly made their way into the woods.

Strider nodded to Kay. The Rangers, if any had survived, would have made it out by now. He motioned to Venn, "Follow me." He made his way to a ladder, "Let's get out of here."

Kay lit the fuses, " we have a minute, Strider." They quickly made their way up the ladder. They emerged in the woods, in the middle of a clearing. Strider turned, "We should leave." He took off in a sprint into the woods, followed by Venn ,jenoveve, and Kay. (And possibly Gwydion? like wtc?) They stopped at a stream, about 300 feet away.

The ground shook with a tremendous rumble, and not ten feet away from where the group was standing, the ground collapsed, making a crater in the ground at least 1000 feet around and thirty feet deep. Strider glanced at Kay, reminding himself to never be near the man while he was smoking a pipe.

[Gwydion Nefarine]

((sorry Lan. like I said, my way of starting over - cleaning up))

Gwydion sat up abruptly. The explosion had snapped him out of his unconscious state. What was he doing here? The last thing he remembered was following Skiestyrm into the forest in search of the necromancers, then... He couldn't remember anything past that. He got up with a little difficulty. He heard a few voices in the distance that he recognized and ran to catch up with them.

[Lan]

((It's fine it's just a little random.))