[Mkguild] Prepared for Sacrifice pt 5

[Radioactive Toast]

Day 5, June 3rd 703 CR


 “I ain’t the type to believe in what some call ‘collateral damage.’”

 “Why not, Lum?” Zyn asked, brushing aside a particularly annoying fern leaf from his path.  “Some argue that people will die no matter what.”  Somehow, after being tasked with exploring parts of the island around the summit, Zyn and Lum had gotten into a discussion about politics and warfare.  Invariably the conversation had drifted head on into the siege of Sisard nearly a hundred years before where the attacking general had, in a bid to deal a crushing blow to the city’s defenders, killed several hundred civilians.  The massacre had been immortalized in tales, at least in the Southlands, and to this day even your average sailor knew about it.

 “A bunch of scribes, scholars and such have been arguing that for a hundred years.  And they do it because no matter how horrible or wrong it was for a previous generation or foreign nation to cross the line, when the time comes that their kingdoms have to go into a war [i]they[/i] magically have leeway to do ‘whatever it takes.’”

 “So if one innocent person’s death was all that it cost to stop a war, you’d be opposed,” Zyn asked, going for broke to see just how far Lum’s convictions went.

 The sailor laughed for a moment.  “Say what you want about sailors, Zyn, but don’t count us all as lovin’ senseless, pointless violence.  Sure I like to have my fun every now and then, but not if it’s gonna cost lives.  One would think with all the times the Canticles talk about the sanctity of life we’d have gotten the message.”

 That took Zyn for a loop; a hoarse, washed up promiscuous sailor talking about the Scriptures?  “What, got nothing to say to that one?” Lum asked smiling.

 “No... it’s just I’ve got a hard time thinking that it’s absolutely and utterly set in stone that one course of action is completely applicable in every situation that life throws at you.”

 “I thought that was the point of it all,” Lum said “that we measly little humans can’t be trusted with ourselves.  Why do you think they make priests swear to celibacy?  Granted that’s somethin’ I could [i]never[/i] do in a thousand years, but then I was never called to a priest, was I?”

 Zyn shook his head, not sure of what to say.  He didn’t quite believe in blanket statements, it was one of the things that Lorian had repeatedly drilled into him.  Once upon a time he had believed that swearing was something that bad or undisciplined people did.  He even went so far as to view it as an indicator of an individual’s strength of character.  One of the first things Lorian had shown him after taking him under his wing, however, was an “honest trader” they had come upon in Pyralis.  Lorian let Zyn get a good talk with the man, let him get a thorough first impression of him which left Zyn quite impressed, maybe even a bit enamored.  The trader was well spoken, courteous, kind, and didn’t swear and inch and reacted negatively when some random passerby took the Lord’s name in vain (Later he learned that Lorian had purposefully arranged this passerby for Zyn’s benefit so that he might see the trader’s reaction).  Zyn’s new mentor had merely given one of those heavy, knowing smiles, but then stayed quiet about it the rest of the day.  That night however, the trader was arrested, and word throughout the city was that he had been one of the head honchos in a notorious prostitution ring that also engaged in sexual slave trading.  Lorian just gave another one of his smiles to a rather shocked Zyn afterward.

 Lum continued.  “Besides, I got my own ‘innocents’ back home, though sometimes they ain’t quite such,” he grinned mischievously.  “A nice, loud, stubborn wife and a demonically energetic son and newborn daughter; I love em all to death, and being a husband and a father... well, let’s just say it really changes things.  I look at everyone one I meet nowadays wondering who’s son or daughter they are, who’s brother or sister, father or mother.  Everyone’s got a family, and talkin about ‘innocents’ and ‘civilians’ is just another way of gettin around the fact that anyone on this earth is another human being who’s part of a family.”

 Zyn again said nothing in response; though there were things he could say, he wasn’t sure if they would make the conversation go anywhere it needed to go.

 As he stepped over a fallen tree, Zyn looked up and saw a large rockface.  In fact it was all part of the small mountain that dominated the island, of which the western half (which they were passing by now) was quite steep and sheer rock most of the way up.  Two thirds of the way to the top Zyn noticed a large cave opening right into the side of the mountain, though there was no way to reach it except by what was an utterly impossible climb.  Quite a shame, considering that the cave would have made an excellent shelter for the six castaways.  

 Up ahead, however, they saw another opening into the rock, though this one was nearly at ground level.  “I wonder if this is connected to that big cave that we just passed,” Zyn wondered aloud.

 Peering into the darkness of the cave, Lum’s curiosity was hooked.  “Let’s see if we can find out.”
 
 “Wait, what about light?  It’s going to be nearly pitch black if it bores into this mountain to any significant degree”

 Frowning, Lum continued to gaze into the cave.  “We can explore just a tiny ways in, see what it’s like.  Then if we don’t find anything we can simply head back and get that nerdy little mage to light a few torches for us.”  With that, the two of them carefully crept inside, watching their footing as the ground trust up quite unevenly and unpredictably.  The light faded away behind them, and the passage ahead of them quickly took a dive downwards, which had the added effect of magnifying the darkness tenfold as they travelled deeper into the underbelly of the island.  

 “I don’t think this links up with that other cave, at least not for a long while,” Zyn said.

 “Eh, we aren’t going to find out then,” Lum said mildly dejected.  “I can barely see in fron-“

 A clash, a thunderous roar assailed them both, though it took Zyn a long while to realize it wasn’t something he was literally hearing.  It was a dark, screeching wave that rushed over them more powerfully than any he had felt the ocean deal him in the past few days.  It felt like... death, clutching and trying to drag everything down into its unfathomable maw.  

 Staggering back, both Zyn and Lum bolted and scrambled back to cave entrance, adrenaline pumping their every footstep out of that accursed cave.  They didn’t stop until they emerged into the daylight and then some, ceasing to put distance between themselves and that horrid clutching only when they passed into a small clearing completely out of sight of the cave entrance.

 “That... that wasn’t normal,” Zyn declared, panting frantically, the terror only now beginning to recede.

 “Normal?  That sure as Hell wasn’t normal!  I’ve got no idea [i]what[/i] that was, I just knew I was damn well getting my ass outta there!”

 Zyn turned back and stared in the direction of the cave, wary and watchful for the slightest disturbance that entered his vision.  Unsurprisingly, there was nothing, just heavy suspicion, fear, and the oppressive weight of the unknown.  He was no expert in that sort of thing, but if he had to guess he’d guess that something very magical had just happened.  Something involving evil magic.  And somehow he knew it was something involving a very violent death.  


* * *


 Zyn and Lum staggered back into camp, trepidation never completely hidden in their movements.  The others were standing around trying to improve the shelter when they noticed the pair.  Lorian was the first to pick up that something was amiss.  “What?”

 “There’s a cave nestled into the base of the mountain back there,” Lum explained, pointing behind them.  “We ventured inside ways, and then...”

 “We got hit by something, [i]hard[/i],” Zyn finished for him.

 Grumiah looked more confused than worried.  “Hit by something?  I don’t see any bruises on you; you aren’t favoring anything.”

 “It... wasn’t something physical,” Zyn said.  With those four words a pall was cast over the group, and all hint of lightheartedness or joviality ceased.  

 Parn was the most visible shaken.  “Y-you mean something magical?”

 “Magic nothing,” Lum declared, “this was black magic, blacker than a demon worshipper’s piss.”

 “Where exactly is this cave?” Lorian had the presence of mind to ask.

 Turning around, Zyn pointed back at the island dominating summit.  “West side, just past a big cave entrance way up the side of the rockface.”

 Grumiah nodded.  “We saw it on out trip to the summit yesterday.  We’ll just have to make sure we know to stay clear of it.”

 “I take it for granted that no one is in favor of exploring this cave,” Lorian probed.
 
 “Uh, you got a death wish or something old man?” Zyn asked incredulously.

 “No, but it will make things more complicated seeing that we won’t know what’s actually in that cave since none of us want to go in.  We have no idea what could be in store for us.”

 More silence.  “I wonder what it eats,” Pols mused, unsettled even as he was sitting against a tree.

 “Who says it’s anything that needs food?” Lum responded.  “Who said it’s anything [i]physical[/i]?”

 “What if the [i]it[/i] is a [i]them[/i]?” Parn added, building the atmosphere of fear.  

 “That’s speculation,” Zyn countered, annoyed by the direction this discussion was starting to head in.

 “Speculation?” Lum asked.  “You felt what was in that cave; you wanna tell that thing what it can and can’t do?”

 Zyn shock his head, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Lum, hoping that he’d at least mellow a bit.  “No, I want to not get carried away in a bunch of rashly conceived worst case scenarios.”

 “Alright, calm down,” Lorian declared.  “Let’s not get too testy with each other,” he said, fixing a brief warning glance at Zyn, letting him know that he knew the younger man was on the verge of making things explosive.

 Pols shifted nervously.  “What about that other spot we could have picked for a campsite; the one on the beach?  It’s got a better view and it’s a lot less enclosed by all the trees and brush.”

 “Yeah, who says we need to stay here after all?” Lum joined his friend.

 “Uh, yes, why could we not move to some place... better?” Parn jumped on the bandwagon.  

 Zyn shifted his gaze between the growing proponents of moving camp, eyes slowly hardening as he did.  The herd mentality was on the move, a prospect which caused him to roll his eyes.  “Look, we saw something nasty down there; that doesn’t mean we should just pack up and relocate in a panic.”

 Pols fixed him with a hard stare.  “Why not?”

  “Supplies, for one,” Grumiah declared, pushing against the tide of the underlings.  “We’ve got stone and wood within sight of the camp, and we’ve already set up our shelter here [i]and[/i] starting building water collectors.”

 Pols and Lum snorted in unison, quite unconvinced.  “That stuff ain’t much reason to stick around; we could just move all of it,” the former declared.

 “Look,” Zyn said, ”if we want to best ensure our chances of survival we need to get set up and established.  Running off because we saw some kind of boogieman isn’t the best way to do that.”

 Lum’s gaze could have frozen Hell itself.  “That wasn’t any ‘boogieman’ and you know it.  That thing was pure [i]evil[/i] and it could do anything [i]anything[/i] at all that it wants to.”

 “Yeah,” Pols joined in, “Maybe it could come out and get us.”

 “Maybe it could come and shut you up,” Zyn muttered, though not low enough.

 “What was that?” Pols shot.

 “Who cares?” Zyn said, “The point is-“

 “I care if you’re being an arrogant little-“ Pols interrupted only to be interrupted himself.  

 “Enough!” Grumiah shouted.  Lorian grabbed Zyn and pulled him aside.  Fearing another pointless lecture, Zyn braced himself, which Lorian must have noticed as he did not provide fuel to Zyn’s fire of annoyance.  Instead he just stared at him, barreling into his face the message to shut his mouth now.  Suppressing a sharp retort, Zyn brushed his mentor off and turned back to the group, trying to hide his private fuming.  

 “Alright, we’re all a bit on edge,” Lorian said, returning his attention to the group though standing uncomfortably close to Zyn, no doubt reminding him of his “temper.”  “Let’s not be hasty with any of this.  Right now we don’t really know what you saw in that cave; you said it was magical?”

 Zyn nodded.  “Yeah, like some kind of wave of blackness, or a scream that you couldn’t actually hear.”  Parn visibly shuddered at the description.

 Lorian’s countenance mellowed.  “Now, that’s all you felt?  You didn’t see or hear anything?”  Upon Zyn’s negative answer, Lorian probed further.  “Did it feel like it was near you or deeper into the cave?”

 “Definitely deeper,” Lum answered, “I got the distinct impression that there was something evil further down that tunnel.”

 “Well then, it sounds to me that it seems like something residual, like a curse or an echo of something that passed.  Now don’t get all worked up, such things usually affect a given space or area, and caves are among the foremost areas to be inhabited by such dreadful things.  Fortunately, that also means that it is unlikely that whatever it is will leave its haunting grounds.”

 “Yeah, but can we be sure about that?” Pols asked.

 “No,” Zyn spoke up, “but what’s the point of running all the way to the Moon with this?  We don’t know what that was in there.”

 “But... but surely we should take every precaution, shouldn’t we?” Parn interjected.

 “If it really is that bad what’s to guarantee that moving camp will make a difference?” Grumiah voiced the worst case scenario.  It certainly did not improve the mood all that much, but it had the desired effect of silencing the now pointless debate.  Pols, Lum and Parn reluctantly fell into line, and they all went back to their business.   

 Some of them went to continue improving the shelter, while Zyn set about to fashion a spear to help catch fish or crabs.  Mostly, however, it was an exercise in getting away from the others.

 Zyn was about halfway through sharpening the point a good nine inch long stick he had found when Lum hustled up behind him.  “You’re for staying here even after what we saw?”

 Shrugging, Zyn continued with his sharpening trying not to make eye contact.  “It makes sense, we are somewhat established already, and what good would another campsite do for us anyway?”

 There was no respite, however, as Lum put him self squarely in Zyn’s line of sight, making avoiding eye contact all but impossible.  Zyn struggled against the urge to tell the sailor to get lost in less than kind terms.  “You [i]can’t[i/] tell me you’re not worried about the cave.”

 “Who says I’m not?” Zyn responded, breaking his gaze and trying to focus on crafting the spears.  

 This gave the sailor pause.  “Then why were you getting so testy back there?”

 His simple question was met with silence.  “Zyn?” he asked after a moment.

 Putting the spear down with some force, Zyn grunted.  “What?” he then asked, almost as if Lum hadn’t said anything in the first place.  

 The bearded sailor didn’t say anything, just shaking his head.  Just standing there for a minute or two, he decided to make himself useful and positioned himself next to Zyn, a stick in hand to turn into a spear too.  “I figure a couple spears are useful for catching fish [i]and[/i] stopping monsters if some come out.”

 Brush rustled behind them, but when they snapped their heads back they saw it was just Parn ambling through, doing whatever pointless thing he was doing.  They had tried numerous times since they landed to put him to good use other than lighting fires, but he seemed to be resoundingly incapable of doing anything but stand or sit around looking helpless.  An idea popped into Zyn’s head, and despite the hard feelings that had just been foremost in his mind, he gave Lum a wry smile, indicating to Parn with his head.  The sailor caught sight of the mage quickly, and grinned back.

 The next two hours were spent on a jolly romp through the woods where the two men proceeded to scare the living piss out of Parn, who, being the dimwit that he was, failed to notice the two unwashed hooligans shadowing him through the woods.  They whispered loudly enough to catch his attention, made odd animal noises, and threw rocks in front of his face.  This predictably resulted in the panicking mage running back to camp, claiming he was being chased by spirits.  But they had already thought of that, and Lum was already waiting behind ready to dismiss Parn’s delusion just as fast as they came out of his mouth.  Lum, having been the most adamant about paying heed to the danger presented by the evil cave, played his role perfectly as his (of all people) denial that anything serious was going on lent serious credence that in fact nothing was going on, and the terribly confused mage putzed around camp for about fifteen minutes before starting to pace around the fire pit.  Zyn by this point had quietly crept back into camp with no one none the wiser.  

 Eventually Parn grew discontent with his limited pacing and announced his intention to go relieve himself.  Again Zyn snuck after him while the mage squatted taking his dump, oblivious to the mischievous menace that crept up beside him.  Aw, if only they had face paint or something, that way Zyn could make himself out to be a ghost or some crazy native ready to spill Parn’s guts.  As it was if he wanted to do anything Parn wouldn’t be able to see him anyway...  

 Sneaking behind his quarry, Zyn pondered the fact that Parn was in fact a mage, although from what he had seen not a very impressive one.  Everything they had prodded him to try was “not his specialty,” so just what was his freaking specialty?  The way he nervously looked about all the time, the manner he met every new experience so far with anxiety...  He was definitely more of the scholarly bent.  Shrugging, Zyn figured that would make this all the better as he inched up to the squatting form of Parn and lunged, one hand wrapping around his eyes while the other grabbing his mouth.  

 A startled cry tried to lurch its way from Parn, but Zyn’s hand stifled such cries before they could begin.  The mage tried to struggle for several moments, but Zyn’s grip held firm, not to mention that Parn was incredibly weak.  Instead of going into a threatening speech about how this was going to be the end like Lum had suggested, Zyn remained utterly quiet, banking on the guess that Parn having a “captor” who said nothing and refused to announce his intentions would be even more terrifying to the mage.  Perhaps it was fortunate for the mage that he had just relieved himself as the ashen white tone of his face revealed plenty about just how terrified he was.  No doubt that Parn would be nervously asking what his captor wanted non stop by now were his mouth free to speak, and the fact that he couldn’t even open his mouth to do so  was another element that caused him to be literally trembling in fear by the time Lum came along.  The sailor had to suppress a laugh at how terrified Parn was before grabbing his legs just like he had planned with Zyn.  Swiftly they hoisted him up with Zyn finally letting go of Parn’s head, but before any revealing glances could be taken Zyn growled in a distorted guttural voice, “Don’t open your eyes or else...”  Terrified, the mage was forced to comply.

 And thus the subsequent trip to the beach went along quite smoothly, right up to where they tossed him into the lagoon at which point Parn wiggled through the air like a cat undergoing a seizure.  The rude immersion into the seawater instantly sent him thrusting up to the surface as soon as he went under, screaming bloody murder.  His first sight, other than the panicked rush of water everywhere, was Zyn and Lum rolling on the beach laughing hysterically.

 The noise predictably attracted the attention of the others, who were merely greeted with the sight of a soaked Parn ambling his way back onto dry land and his two tormentors cracking up.  While there was the obligatory eye rolling from Lorian, the others let their own chuckles at the somewhat pathetic scene.  Poor Parn didn’t get an ounce of sympathy or help though, but when he plopped down near the tree line in an overdone “woe is me” state, he got the usual macho slaps on the backs and the “it’s all in good fun” speeches from the sailors; Zyn just kept laughing at the whole time.
 
 
* * *


 Night came upon them rather quickly, and not to much welcome either.  The incident with the cave still left an unpleasant tinge to the air, to the point that no one could breathe a completely relaxed breath.  Lum and Pols as usual coped with it with the standard mutual jeering, with Pols insulting Lum’s mother and Lum pointing out that Pols was a socially retarded asshole with the charm of a lobster who picked up a new whore disease at every port.  

 Still, even the jeering couldn’t completely purge the undercurrent of fear in the six men and once the insults stopped uneasy silence descended.  Zyn tried to force himself to sleep, but had very little luck as his ears sought out every disturbance and twitch like an alcoholic sought out drink.  

 An hour of nothing conclusive did have the effect of wearying him out, to the point where he could almost taste the sleep in his eyes, but his imminent encounter with blissful rest was snapped by the rustling of leaves.  Eyes snapped open, but no one snapped up, seemingly afraid that sudden movements were not in the best interests to their health.  And the others were up, all of them.  They all shot each others concerned looks, silently asking what that noise just was, but all were caught in the same paralysis.  Even their breathing was kept low and soft.  

 Another rustling followed.  Now several breaths could be heard, though Zyn fervently hoped that they could only be heard within the immediate campsite and not the brush beyond.  Then something snapped in the woods.  More silence and white knuckles followed.  Another rustling.  

 By now it was painfully obvious that [i]something[/i] was out there; they were most definitely not alone on this island.  

 Then... silence.  For a good five minutes nothing moved at all except the waves on the beach.  

 The calm was shattered with a crash as an entire tree came tumbling down, slamming into the ground not twenty five feet away.  Instantly the six of them bolted from the camp and were surging to the beach as fast as their adrenaline could take them.  

 “It’s coming to get us, it’s after us!” Pols shouted as they frantically scrambled to a small peninsula of sand that jutted out from the main beach.  “We’re screwed, we are so totally screwed!”  No one even had the presence of mind to tell Pols to shut up, so frightened were they all.  

 However, that didn’t stop Pols from casting a brief [i]I told you so[/i] glance.  

 They all stood on the sand, totally alert and showing absolutely no signs of sleeping, and stayed that way until the sun came creeping over the horizon.  By that point their adrenaline had long since been spent, and they all plopped down one by one onto the sand, drifting into sleep beneath the comforting security of daylight once it seemed clear that whatever it was had fled with the night.  The brush was still not their friend; anything that could remotely provide cover to whatever curse had come out to get them was something to be avoided, so they fell asleep where they were.  Even so, Zyn couldn’t help but cast a watchful glance at Pols every now and again, waiting for the next smug glance shot his way.

 		 	   		  

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