Searching for Something Forgotten (OPEN)

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien nodded, and reached for the door handle. With only a seconds hesitation, he flung the door open. One man was on his knees, a startled look on his face and lockpicking materials in hand, and another was behind him. It took only a second for them to get over their surprise, then they rushed in.

The first Damien easily took down, just by sticking his foot out. A kick to the head would keep him down, at least for a few minutes. The second was a different story. He was ready, had a knife, and turned to him, lunging out. They grappled for a few moments, until the man stumbled. Damien wrapped his arm around his chest and the other holding the blade to his throat.

The man went still, staring at Aneira with fury. Damien wore a look on his face, one so often present though only during fights, that said he would have no qualms about slitting this mans throat whatsoever, and in fact might enjoy this option. He tried, a bit unsuccessfully, to hide the fact that that little skirmish had taken a ridiculous amount of effort, and his muscles shook with the effort of it. He had no doubt that if he hadn't tripped, Damien might would not have managed to overtake him, and if he didn't have the experience of dealing with people like him he'd have no chance whatsoever.

"Aneira, do you know these people?" he asked, the sudden exhaustion in his voice covered by cold flatness. The captive spit towards her, and he tightened his grip, the blade raising a small line of red where it touched. He thought they might be the men sent after him, but they didn't wear any insignia or anything. Then again, it might be because they were trying to be disguised, but still..

[Lujayn]

Aneira has scarcely muttered a few words to a shielding spell before Damien had managed to subdue their would-be killers. “I... no, I don’t know either of them,” she answered uneasily, clearly unsettled by the hatred displayed towards her by a total stranger. She flinched when the man spat, and she wondered who these men were to hate her so much. Perhaps they knew what she was? In that case, it was far too dangerous to keep them alive... and yet...

She couldn’t hesitate, however. Damien was clearly weak; there hadn’t yet been enough time for him to recover his lost strength. It would take at least a few more days, possibly over a weak, before he was at full strength. He wouldn’t be able to hold onto these guys for long.

“There is a way to find out who they are, but... it’s incredibly invasive, and it involves breaking several incredibly strict laws- penalty of death and all,” she murmured, “A sort of... mind-reading spell, although it goes a little further than that.”

Which was putting it rather mildly, to say the least. The spell she was thinking of was a necromantic one, called legens diabolus... Devil Reader. A spell that examined the very essence of a person, so that not even the strongest of mind barriers could protect the memories of the person. It was also highly dangerous, as it involved shades, which were tricky enough to control on their own, never mind within someone. “If you’re up to a little risk... I can do it,” she said after a moment of silence. “It’s incredibly dangerous though...”Flip a coin on what these guys should be; people after Damien, or people after Aneira. -

[WolfEnchantress]

The man Damien held felt his weakness and struggled momentarily at Aneira's threat. He responded by tilting the angle of the blade he held at his throat so the tip punctured his neck - not enough to harm, but a warning. Immediately the man stopped, not quite realizing just how weak Damien was. The one on the floor moaned, shifting and just beginning to regain consciousness.

"How much risk?" He growled. "I say that if you think they need it, and if you're up to it, go for it. I'm always up for risk. Hell, it's what I do for a living." And if they wasted more time than necessary, the man might just break free and kill them both. "Unless you want to stick to the old - fashioned way of questioning...just torture the answers out of them." Again the man struggled. He took a few steadying breaths, tightening his grip on the man he held, who thought he was being clever by slowly turning so he could get in a position to take Damien out. "If it's too much risk to yourself, though, don't."

[Lujayn]

"A fairly big risk, but I believe that I can do it... and it's more a risk to those it's being done to, not the caster..."

Aneira bit her lip, looking at the man who was slowly gaining consciousness, and then at the one within Damien’s tentative grip. They would not be able to last long like this; Damien just wasn’t up to taking on two at once. There was a way to keep the other man down, and bolster her own strength in the process, which she sorely needed if she were to perform her necromantic chant... but she hated to use it... and she didn’t want Damien to think any less of her, because of it.

But they needed to know who these men had come from... whether it was from Anroth, or some other source. She took a breath, and then let it out with a sigh. Aneira walked over to the man stirring on the floor, and touched her hands to his temples. “Vestri vita, meus vita, she murmured, and the man arched, as if in pain, before slumping back to the floor in stillness.

For a moment, he looked as if he was dead, skin pale and no movement detectable. But then his breathing started anew, and the fear that he was dead evaporated from Aneira. She herself was fine... in fact, more than fine. She looked far better than she normally did, and her chalk-white skin was actually showing some colour. It was fairly obvious what she had done: taken the man’s life force and used it to sustain her own.

She didn’t look at Damien when she rose, going through her packs to bring out the materials she would need for the spell. As she was stronger, he most likely felt a little stronger, too, so his captive would be a bit easier to hold.

Calmly she marked out the pentagram, in white and red, and then pulled out a purple bit of chalk. It was tiny, and in the way she carefully placed the symbols down, so as not to waste any bit of it, suggested that it was rare. Once she was done she lit a few black candles, placing them at each star point, and then standing at a specific spot at the outer edge. “You can put him here,” she said to Damien, finally speaking, as she pointed to the centre. “He will be unable to move out from that spot unless I break the circle.”

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien watched her hesitate, then approached the man regaining consciousness .Right when she finished speaking a few words that he couldn't understand, Damien would have sworn he was dead, but he knew better.

He felt stronger than he had a few seconds ago, and even if that hadn't given it away, he knew that Aneira had taken some of the man's life, or strength, or something. She looked...well, better than she usually did, actually having some color to her complexion. The man he held must have come to this conclusion as well, for he sucked in a breath through his teeth and began to struggle again, for which Damien was intensely grateful for the extra strength.

When Aneira told him what to do, he didn't hesitate. To avoid smearing the symbols so carefully laid down in the most likely rare purple chalk, he lifted the man off of his feet, only a few inched, for that was all he could do with depleted strength and the man writhing like a boa, and plopped him down forcefully enough that the man was forced to his knees. All doubts he had of what Aneira said were erased when he tried to escape and he couldn't.

Damien nodded to Aneira, a sense of wonder and apprehension filling his mind as he retreated to the wall, and eye on the man on the floor though he had no real thought that he would awake any time soon. He took a position leaning against the wall to watch what was going to proceed.

[Lujayn]

Aneira began the spell, a long and complicated process involving many words and obscure hand gestures, and the different symbols drawn in the pentagram began to glow faintly. At the last word, she bit into her finger enough for it to bleed, and allowed a drop of blood to drip onto the symbol before her.

And then, chaos.

A savage wind picked up, and an indecipherable screaming began, whirling around the pentagram and throwing about loose objects. Aneira grit her teeth, her brow furrowing in concentration, and she fought for control. She'd had the unlucky chance of happening upon a very malevolent shade, although given her history she wasn't surprised. She always got those who'd died badly and held grudges and regrets. She managed to subdue it, and the howling eased, although the wind kept up.

Muttering a continuous counter-possession spell, she raised her hands so that they hovered on either side of the captive man's head. He started, and seemed to try and back away, but then his body relaxed some and his eyes went blank. She was within his mind now, searching for the reason behind these two being sent. It was taking some time, since she had to keep on wresting control back from the shade.

Images started to filter in. Someone was talking.... the other man was to the left, but she wasn't sure who this was. The face wasn't clear, but by his attire he was very well off. The image changed, to a bit of parchment with a likeness sketched on it, of Damien. So they had been after Damien, then, not her. Which made sense; Necromancers went after their enemies themselves, more often than not. Another image... it was hard to make out, the shade struggling wildly for control, but she saw a crest, like that of a noble house...

Suddenly, Aneira gave a startled cry, and she backed up out of instinct... and smudged the circle, breaking the protection wards and allowing the shade to run rampant. The first thing it did was to "tear apart" the mind of the man, effectively killing him as it broke free.

As the man collapsed to the ground, an ash-coloured shadow rose up from the body like smoke, forming an indistinct shape that opened its "mouth" and howled in something like anger, whirling around the room, trying to escape from the last of the counter-possession spell Aneira was once again muttering under her breath.

A pounding of footsteps up the stairs and down the hall, and a banging on the door that had been closed and locked earlier. "What's going on in there?" The innkeeper shouted over the noise, distracting Aneira for a brief moment from her spell. A very bad mistake, since the shade chose this moment to fly straight toward her, ramming into her body... but not going through.

The wind and howling ceased, and Aneira stood there for a moment, silent, before collapsing onto the floor in a dead faint. The innkeeper was still banging on the door, however, so Damien wouldn't have much of a chance to figure out what was going on just yet; escaping with Aneira so they didn't both get burned alive for Necromancy would be his primary concern at the moment.

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien watched curiously as she prepared for whatever it was she was going to do. He figured she was going to do some kind of gesturing and say other things he couldn't understand, but what happened next he was completely unprepared for. The howling wind was so sudden he jumped about a foot in the air. He stayed completely tense, even when he howling died.

It was mostly calm as Aneira saw into his mind until she stepped backward. Then all hell broke loose. The man she was reading slumped to the ground, by his looks he was fairly certain he was dead. And the innkeeper came banging on the door, shouting to be let in. He froze for a moment, long enough for whatever it was to slam into Aneira and knock her unconscious. He had no idea what had gone wrong, but he knew he had to act. Now.

Within seconds he had his leather vest thrown on, not bothering with the t-shirt that went under it. He ran to the window and peered down, knowing that would be a suicidal jump, and with all of the people in the square even now that they would be seen and caught. That left only one choice.

He flung the door open and seized the innkeeper who had stumbled forewords, mid-knock. He clamped his hand over his mouth and with a practiced stroke and not a second thought dragged the razor edge of his knife across his throat. He and Aneira had both been seen by the man on the way in, and the innkeeper knew they were in this room. If he let him live and they escaped, they would be hunted. He dropped the lifeless body unceremoniously and dispatched the unconscious man on the ground the same way, blood spraying across his front. He wiped what he could from his face - there were certainly better ways to kill someone, but this might be the fastest.

Everyone who had seen them was now taken care of, but the commotion was bound to attract notice. He grabbed the rest of their meager belongings and gently, if not hurriedly, scooped up Aneira, who was far lighter than the other man. He could tell his strength had shifted again when she got hit by that...whatever it was, and wouldn't be able to go for long. Hopefully long enough to escape.

He followed the shadows and alleyways and then into the woods as far as he could go. He had gotten rather skilled at slinking about unseen. He went until he couldn't any longer before gingerly setting Aneira down and falling to his knees, exhausted and shaking, not exactly sure where they were.

He checked himself over - aside from being covered in blood, there wasn't any injury to his person from whatever happened in the inn.
"Aneira," He said, lightly shaking her shoulder. "Aneira, you have to wake up."

[Lujayn]

At his shaking, Aneira stirred, opening her eyes slowly and staring straight at him. She remained that way for a few moments, before a very uncharacteristic, feral smile crossed her face. “Oh, so this is what you look like,” she murmured, “You look so very different in the other plane; I hadn’t expected someone as cute as you.”

The next instant Damien would find himself on his back, with Aneira on top of him, shoving him down to the ground in a rather... suggestive way. “But, what would someone such as yourself be doing with a necromancer, hmm? Are you lovers? I wouldn’t be surprised; she’s small and cute, something many men go for.” There was something so very off with her, aside from what she was saying. The way she spoke, even the way she held herself, was so unlike she normally was. And there was something odd about her eyes...

She rose an eyebrow. “You seem confused. Well, I’m not surprised, really; she didn’t tell you anything about the spell she was casting, did she? Let me tell you...” She bent closer, and the oddity of her eyes became apparent: Aneira’s eyes were an icy blue... but now, they were a light grey. “With working that particular brand of spell, harnessing a shade to delve into the mind, there’s a very strong chance of...” She grinned. “Possession.”

Well wasn’t that just a wonderful development?

“Well I won’t be in control for long so, I suppose I should introduce myself? You may call me...” She trailed off, tilting her head. “Hmm. It’s been so long that I cannot remember my given name. How sad. I suppose “Grey” can suffice, I remember my eyes were that colour...” She was a strangely chatty sort for a shade, wasn’t she? “Now then, back to you.”

She examined him more closely, touching his face gently with her hand. “You really are a nice looking man, has anyone ever told you such? You know, if you wanted, I could make you very happ--"

Aneira (Or Grey?) jerked back mid-word, and sputtered stream of curses, far more Aneira like this time. Apparently, she was once more in control of her own body. She muttered something while rubbing her head, looking as if she had an incredible headache. Which she did; throwing off a possession was hard work, and the stupid shade was still lurking in the back of her mind, pouting.

She paused mid-ranting, looking up and around with a slightly confused look on her face, before looking down and realising exactly what sort of position she was in: straddled atop of a very confused looking Damien. Her face took on an extremely red colour as her eyes widened with mortified horror, and she scrambled off him while rambling some nonsensical apology.

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien sighed with some relief when Aneira stirred - whatever that...thing was didn't kill her. But it became apparent soon enough that there was something wrong.
"As...What?!" He said as she fairly took him down and pinned him to the ground, straddling him rather suggestively - and it was mostly this that told him this was not Aneira. He wasn't exactly sure how it could be anyone else (shows how much he knows about Necromancy) but he was pretty sure...no, he was positive that Aneira wouldn't act like this.

Not to mention the eyes. They were grey, while Aneiras were blue. Everything was different about Aneira. Or not Aneira. Whoever it was. He was about to demand an explanation, but she started talking again.
So she's been possessed...by what? The thing she summoned earlier? Is that why it rammed into her like that? He asked himself.

Again he was going to speak, but was cut off. As Aneira...Grey, she called herself, continued speaking, he went a shade of red and his eyes widened in surprise. He was about to throw her off of him (which he'd been reluctant to do before seeing as, possessed or not, it was still Aneira's body and throwing her off might cause some sort of injury. Not that he would have been able to given his exhaustion, but he could give it a hell of a shot.) when Grey/Aneira jerked back and hissed profanity that sounded much more like the original host of the body than the imposter.

He sat up with some effort once Aneira came back to herself and realized her positioning, trying to make sense of the situation.
"I...It's fine," He said in reply to her stammered apology (or what sounded like one,) glancing up to meet her gaze for only a second before looking away again. "I-I get the impression that you weren't exactly... yourself .What was that...she? Who was she? What is going on?" He asked, still completely flustered.

[Lujayn]

Aneira was pointedly not looking at Damien, fussing with her pouches and whatnot while she tried to calm her flustered nerves down. "That... uh, that was... me screwing up, very badly," she said, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "That spell... it uses shades... er, that is, the ghostly remnants of spirits, usually malevolent. Um... to explain better, I guess you could say there are two main branches of necromancy... one using the material, that is the corpses, and the other using the immaterial... the actual spirits. That's far harder to control, and most deaths are caused by it... corpses generally can't think, after all..."

Aneira would make a terrible teacher.

"Um... anyways, it did something a little unexpected, catching me off guard, and I smudged the circle... which broke the wards... and it got out. I was casting the counter-possession spell, but the innkeeper distracted me and the shade took that chance..." She rubbed her head again, trying to quell the pounding headache. "And it's really hard to keep her back there..."

She sighed. "Well, I suppose this gives us another reason to seek out a cleric. They're very good at exorcisms. Er, well, necromancers are, too, but we kinda hate each other so they'd just kill me. And use the shade themselves." Goody. "As for WHO that shade is... I don't know. She's been around for a very long time, and has festered a lot of hateful power, but beyond that I don't know..."

Hmmmph. You have no idea how to talk to men, let me out there...

"Oh, shut up," Aneira grumbled under he breath. "I don't suppose you could just leave...?"

Not on your life, honey.

"Damn."

To Damien, it would just look like Aneira was speaking to nothing. Her sanity was already somewhat in question because she was a necromancer, and this did not help.

Aneira sighed. "Well this is a fine mess... I'm weak enough as it is, and now I won't be able to sleep because if I lose consciousness she can take over..." And then she muttered something that was supposed to be inaudible, but Damien would have been able to hear it anyways: "And I don't want to wake up one day as a not-virgin..."

[WolfEnchantress]

So he'd been somewhat right in his guess that somehow it hadn't been Aneira. Her explanation made some sense if he thought about it enough.
I suppose if I'd thought through it a bit more I might have realized something along these lines... he told himself, remembering the explanation of how she'd saved his life. Something about messing with the flow of death. I guess I didn't realize just how much control over the dead she has. To be able to do any of it she can...I can see why it's definitely something that is generally feared.
He didn't know whether this disturbed him or fascinated him.

"Oh, shut up. I don't suppose you could just leave...?" Aneira spoke, seemingly to herself, but likely to the shade that possessed her. Judging by the 'damn' that followed, he figured it had refused.
So it just stays in her being until she gets rid of it? Is it possible for it to take over her and for Aneira not to be able to regain control? What are we supposed to do until we run across a cleric?

"You need to sleep. You can't just stay awake," He reasoned. "No one can go without sleep. And if she does take over, I won't let her do...anything," He said with an edge of awkwardness, hearing Aneira mumble the next bit. Which made him wonder how strong his shade was, and if, in his current state, he could really even put up a fight against the shade should it come to that. He hoped so.

There was a moment of silence and Damien idly fidgeted with a leaf.
"What do you suggest we do until we can find said cleric?" He asked. " We can't go back into town. Once someone finds those bodies there's bound to be suspicion, and we'd be caught." He glanced up. "I had to kill them. If I didn't we'd be caught no matter what town we go to withing miles of here," He added, offering some sort of explanation. "There's bound to be someone in town who will come along and recognize what happened in the room."

[Lujayn]

Aneira let out a long sigh. "More trouble... why is it that, whenever something goes wrong, it goes really wrong, wherever I'm concerned?" Another sigh, and she flopped over onto her side, looking far more exhausted than she had before. "I can't believe that merely one shade was enough to drain me so much... maybe I'm slipping...?" She continued mumbling to herself, words that were either muffled or didn't make much sense.

"I'm sorry that this has been so much trouble for you," she said to Damien quietly. "You have so many of your own troubles to deal with, and I'm just compounding on them even more..." She rolled onto her back and stared up at the slowly lightening sky. "Maybe I should have died that day..." she murmured to herself.

Another sigh, and the she said. "I suppose I should sleep a little... but we need to start moving. Any big city would have a church, with clerics within. Someone there would be able to help... if they would be inclined to help, anyways... I suppose while we go to one we can keep eyes and ears open for any news of what you're looking for. But we need to make the cleric first priority right now. The longer this shade is in me, the less likely it'll be to dislodge it without... without having to kill me..."

On this unhappy note, exhaustion finally won her over, and her eyes closed as she fell asleep.

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien shifted into a more comfortable position, but didn't sleep yet, despite his exhaustion. Instead, he sorted his thoughts.

He hadn't said anything, but he completely disagreed with Aneira. He was irritated at first upon hearing that he'd have to stay close to her or die. But he found that he rather enjoyed her company, despite everything that was going on.

He'd been somewhat startled to learn that if she didn't get the shade out of her it would kill her. Which prompted him to think of where they were and where the next big town was. Which he drew a blank on. He'd never been good with directions, or things relating to directions.

And how were they going to convince a cleric to help a necromancer? He was pretty good with disguises, he had to be. But what about Aneira? Or could he convince them, maybe pay them off?

He didn't remember ever falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes he realized it was just getting light outside. He blinked, then shifted to his knees.
"Aneira," He said somewhat sleepily. "We should get going. They're going to send out search parties looking for us, and I have to say I didn't get us very far from town."

[Lujayn]

Aneira had awoke a few minutes before Damien had, blearily looking around before rubbing her eyes. She was feeling terrible, once again, as if she’d been submerged in a lake full of ice. She was very pale, her lips faintly blue, and most would think she’d gone days without sleep, judging by the dark circles underneath her eyes. The shade had taken far more out of her than she had previously thought; how old was it, that it could drain her so much?

Far older than I can remember, honey, came the response, and Aneira noted a fuzzy sort of awareness in the back of her mind. At the moment, Grey seemed content to stay back there, but she didn’t doubt that it would be easy enough for her to take over.

She sighed, and turned her thoughts towards her companion, who was sleeping close by. Looking at him, she had to agree with Grey; he was rather cute, especially sleeping as he was. She knew he was a killer, and she doubted he minded it much, but that didn’t bother her overmuch. She was no stranger to death; she knew it quite well, having worked with it her whole life.

She reached out, as if to touch him, but then he stirred, and she took her hand back quickly, blushing faintly with embarrassment when she realised what she was doing. He was with her because he had to, nothing more. He wouldn’t enjoy having her touch him more than necessary, she was sure, and she felt that it was a bit creepy of her to try while he was sleeping of all things.

Fussing with her things to calm herself down a bit, it was a moment before Aneira answered him. “I... I suppose we should get going, at that... I think the nearest big city is...” She dug around in her bags once more, pulling out a slightly antiquated compass, although it appeared to be a little more than a compass, with dials and such that didn’t seem to correspond with direction. “Um... a little south-east of here. Although I suppose it isn’t a big city by normal standards... it just happens to be the biggest one in the area...” She was only slightly more sure than Damien was of where they were. “I suppose we can ask around if we can’t figure it out... I’m not very good at using this thing...” She shook the not-compass, frowning at it. “I know for a fact that west is most certainly NOT in that direction; the sun is coming up from over there. Stop changing!”

She was now arguing with inanimate objects. Clearly, her mind wasn’t functioning properly.

Sighing, she put the thing away. “Oh, well...” She stood, and her vision swam as a wave of dizziness crashed over her. She swayed a bit, before falling over and landing on poor Damien.

[WolfEnchantress]

Damien watched as Aneira grew frustrated with her compass...though it looked like it was more than a compass...with a half smile on his lips.
"Well, biggest one or not, we need to get to a town of some kind," He answered, hoping that no one had seen them on the way in or out. He hadn't made sure they weren't watched as they left - careless of him, really - so who knew? Maybe someone has seen him sneaking through the shadows to leave town, carrying an unconscious Aneira. As if it wasn't suspicious enough, he was sprayed with blood. That would look a bit off even to the stupidest of people. In a moment of slight paranoia, he checked their surroundings.

Aneira rose, and he made to follow the example, when she swayed and fell. It caught him off guard, but his reflexes were sharp. He just managed to catch her under her arms and break her fall. Gently he lowered her to a laying position, pillowing her head with his lap.

"Aneira?" He questioned. "Are you all right?" Absently he brushed her hair from her face, which was deathly pale. "We should wait a while..." They couldn't leave if Aneira could scarcely stand. If anyone from town came he could take care of them, probably. They were ordinary citizens, they would be easy enough to dispatch of. If they were soldiers, maybe a bit harder. He frowned.

"We have to stay here with you this bad. Is there anything I can do?" He thought about the array of vials he had, but even though some of them had healing properties, most of them were lethal, and to be honest he wasn't really sure which ones weren't anymore. "You look like you've been through hell," He said, noticing just how bad she looked.