O Witches, O Misery [Carina] [Memory] [Pt 2]

[Imogen]

Glade 55th, 121

In the first layer of the Warrens, there is a long, square tunnel. It is made of amethyst, and consists of four sides, each at a perfect 90 degree angle from the next. It is as though a giant had reached in and extracted a perfectly rectangular section of the wall.

It has had various names on various maps; the Distortion Hallway (because it's very shiny and some people get dizzy walking through), the Violet Path (because of the purple, though that's not quite the right hue); the Luminous Way (because if you take a lantern in, the whole thing lights up and it's very pretty). One particular traveler even called it the "Where the fuck is- ah fuck, they're coming...!", though he died very shortly thereafter and it never made it on to any maps.

Just now, though, it might have been called the "stinking fog everywhere path", because after Imogen Ward ran her flaming Sunsinger's blade through the weird shade she had unleashed, it had exploded. Into stinking fog.

And the stinking fog was everywhere.

“Angie-" Imogen coughed, trying to shield her nose and mouth with one arm while she dragged her zweihander across the stone floor in the other, insensible to the obnoxious squealing noises it made as it cut a rivet into the stone, “L-lady Kindred, c'mon, blow this way please."

Angela coughed, looking out-of-her-mind freaked. "Fairos says it won't budge! This fog's not even real! Cut it with your sword, Immy!"

“I can't cut a fucking cloud!"

The two witches fled down the narrow corridor, illuminated mostly by the steady silver light of Imogen's pact weapon. In truth, though Imogen wouldn't come to understand this for many years, the strange feeling of pressure and panic was perfectly natural. A ghost, after all, is nothing more than an astral body, separated for too long from physical tether and much-abused by the aetheric currents. While the Spellbreaker flames of Imogen's sword were perfectly capable of cleaving aether apart, the suppressed emotions and will binding the ghost together were not susceptible to flame, holy or otherwise. The specter's own confusion and pain filled the hallway, brushing against their minds in a way raw and unfamiliar to either of the young women.

Thankfully, just as there is only so much blood in a body, there is only so much aether in a soul. The ectoplasmic miasma thinned and faded even before the witches got to the doorway at the far end of the... the purple hallway. Once free of the cloud, Imogen stopped, leaning against the smooth wall and pausing to catch her breath. She was a strong young swordswoman, but her build was all wrong for a sprinter, and she wasn't exactly a practitioner of cardio.

“Hooooo." the Orkhan witch let out a long breath, “What was that? Was that a ghost? Shit, did I kill it?"

[Carina]

.

Carina had sprinted, too, but she had a much better build for a sprinter, and her cardio was very well practiced. However, she could also teleport, and that small expenditure of aether to blink into the doorway was even easier and less energy-consuming than simply running that far. As such, she was waiting for Imogen when the Orkhan finally made it a few seconds later. She leaned her back against the wall. "No, actually, I think your firey swordskills hurt the ghost." With her runic eye she peered at the ghost, whose aura indicated that it was, in fact, hurt a bit from her stabbing its prison.

"Shit, I dropped my cigarette again. I can't see where it dropped with all that ghost-fog." She sighed, and pulled her bag to her side so she could reach in and pull another one from the case. "These cigarettes cost me a fortune in bribes to get back into Zaichaer, you know? They're all like, why are you bringing in cases of cigarettes, and I have to offer them a case and then suddenly they're hooked and now they're somehow always in customs when I come back." Carina paused and lit the cigarette, now resting in her mouth.

"I don't think you killed it," she said, though it was a bit muffled by the cigarette in her mouth while she put the case and lighter back in her bag. "Oh, I forgot I brought a waterskin and some snacks." She remarked, and then proceeded not to get anything out of her bag. Carina looked back down the hallway, which was far less Luminous Way and far more Foggy Path. "D'you think it's bad that was released?" She looked over at Angela. "Why'd they imprison a ghost instead of just killing it?"

And then, a pause. "What were you looking for, anyway? Do you think all that commotion—" A shuffling sound outside the doorway she leaned against, and Carina was on high alert. She looked behind her only to see a few shamblers that were attracted by all the yelling and crashing. She took a few steps back into the hallway. "Imogen, I think this is what you're here for."

.

[Imogen]

The Sunsinger apprentice leaned back against the wall, catching her breath as Carina spoke. She'd been assigned exercises to train jogging and distance running, sure- but to herself, at least, she should admit that she'd mostly blown that off in favor of swordplay. Hell, that built stamina too, didn't it? Nothing wrong with doing the fun exercises first, except she had to admit right now, gasping for breath, that perhaps a warrior did need strength in every part of their life. "Holistic strength", Master Gerhard had always said, with that damned look of his.

"What was that all about, anyway?" Angela demanded, looking at Imogen as though she were concealing something. "That wall looked like it was burned open. What were the Sunsingers doing there?"

"Don't look at me!" Imogen objected, "I'm not on the... secret Warrens projects committee! If there even is such a thing, which I also don't know!"

For all that the Sunsingers prided themselves on honesty, there was absolutely no focus on institutional transparency. This was probably to be expected in a coven, where you lived and died based on your secret knowledge and a single word to the wrong person could be the death of the entire group, but it was very annoying too. The family Ward prided themselves on a certain amount of Ecithian spirit, which valued forthright manner to an extent where it became almost rudeness, but this was not the practice of Gregoire or his Captains.

The Coven had spent quite a bit of time exploring the Warrens beneath Zaichaer, especially before the tragedy at Sunstar. It didn't really surprise Imogen that they would have left some secrets down here, but Grymalka magic? Ghost-binding? It certainly didn't strike her as in the usual practice of her organization.

"...well, I've only studied a little necromancy." Angela conceded to Carina, ignoring Imogen's outburst, "Ghosts aren't easy to destroy, but I think if you can bind it, you could probably kill--well, not kill, but--you could get rid of it. Maybe it's sustaining something, or guarding something? They don't make very good guards, really. Not a lot of substance. Now if he were a phantom-"

Imogen's sulk as she listened to Angela go on was suddenly broken as Carina suddenly called out the shamblers. Her sour mood reversed by the chance for a bit of brawling against a fleshy enemy, the young Orkhan woman summoned forth her zweihander again, assuming an aggressive stance as she willed the nova-fire to blossom in her blade. The Sunsinger stalked lightly forward to the doorframe, her blazing weapon at the ready behind her, and waited for the first of the Warrens monsters to emerge. When, after several seconds, the shambling thing first poked its head out-

SHING!

The Ork brought her weapon up, around, and down, the edge hitting the shambler's shoulder before it had even noticed her presence. The weapon dug a foot into the creature before Imogen kicked it in its soft, fleshy belly, tearing her sword out and leaving its arm dangling like putty. But for all the massive weapon's physical toll on the creature, it seemed almost more pained by the silver fire creeping across its flesh. It let out a series of strange noises as it rolled on the ground, its wounds oozing.

The other shamblers in the hall stopped, stunned by the sudden assault, and Imogen pressed forward, grasping the hilt and cage of her sword like it was a jousting lance and thrusting it directly into the chest of a second shambler. The huge sword didn't sink in far, being more of a heavy weapon than a sharp one, but the blow broke something in the creature's ribcage, and it collapsed, vomiting some sort of black liquid.

Her assault concluded, Imogen immediately began to swing the sword in a wide figure-eight arc around her shoulders, the flashing silver fire forcing back another shambler which had recovered its momentum and seemed intent on finding an opening to strike.

"I've got them!" Imogen called down the hallway, her voice once again replete with the easy confidence which came from being able to beat up anyone you met at any time. "Give me just a second, I'll wrap this guy up!"

[Carina]

.

"Go Immy!" She called, peeking around the corner, and then she tilted her head towards Angela who was also cowering behind her. "She's good with a sword, you know? Those shamblers are nothing to her." She tried to be reassuring — she knew that the Ork could handle them, of course. Imogen was a far more capable Sunsinger and swordswoman than her earlier totem-destruction made her seem. If Angela's confidence had wavered, it wasn't a good vote towards Imogen's capabilities as a guard, and that was the entire point of being a Sunsinger.

"What were you looking for, again? Have we passed any of it?" She was casual, as if her friend wasn't slaughtering monsters a few yards away. Her attention was on the cavernous First Deep, though as she scanned the walls with her Semblance, she wasn't sure if she could reach the ceiling with what aether she was willing to expend. Carina had heard once that one of the most vital skills when traversing the First Deep was to keep your emotions in check; vile spirits haunted the caverns and crevices and reaches of the deep, and feasted on pain, paranoia, anger, and fear. It was difficult to keep herself in check, but Angela was a rather experienced traveler of the Warrens from what she understood.

She hoped the further sound of combat and the light from Imogen's sword didn't further attract any nasty beasts. A fog had rolled into the majority of the cavern that she could see in the dim light — she was not knowledgeable of how a fog rolled into a cavern like this — and a chill ran down Carina's spine as it crept closer.

"Where are we going now, Angela?" She whispered to the Kindred, hoping it was something along the lines of "anywhere but here" and "far away from the cold, encroaching mists". Carina had never considered herself easily scared, but she had the overactive, paranoid instincts of a mouse and would flee from any sign of being cornered. It was what made her a good Railrunner. She was pooling aether in her runed eye, scanning the mist for anything that seemed particularly out of place. It was no trifling task, however, when everything seemed weird in the Warrens. She had crouched when Imogen had started fighting, but she slowly stood up, Angela following suit.

"Immy?" She hissed into the hallway, a poor attempt at staying quiet. She still had to speak loud enough for Imogen to hear her, though, which meant it was far closer to her speaking voice than she'd have liked if she wished for the Ork to perceive her words over the sound of flames and the shuffling of nasty beasties.

.

[Imogen]

The sounds of fighting--of wet "thuds" and shuffling feet and falling bodies--took some time to die down. Imogen was a young Sunsinger, which was certainly enough to handle a handful of shamblers but not enough to tear them to part in seconds like one of the officers might have. For the time being, Imogen's beautiful greatsword was confined to her hands, and this limited the speed and efficacy with which she could actually dispatch the enemies. Thankfully, it seemed that Carina's vote of confidence was well-placed; there was not a sound which might indicate that the other girl had taken any serious wounds, nor did she cry out or scream anything.

(In fact, when Imogen heard Carina distantly praising her, her cheeks turned bright red and she did not trust herself to say anything at all. Thankfully, a focus on dismantling the remaining shambler and ensuring that the first two were really dead kept her away from embarrassment.)

"Ah." Angela responded, trying to regain the customary serenity for which the Kindred were renowned, "Dragonshards, raw ones. We haven't been deep enough to see any outcroppings, but we should find some soon. Um..."

Angela peered into the foggy caverns as though looking at a map, her eyes strangely distant. The Kindred were spiritualists, but Angela had told Carina and Imogen on the way in that the spirits of the Warrens were strange even among the spirit courts, and that she would not make pact with them unless there were no other options. Still, neither of the other two witches had seen Angela's Aidolon; perhaps it could only be seen by its master? It did seem as though she were watching the movements of something invisible.

"...the torpor of the spirits-below-the-earth is passing soon." the Kindred witch concluded, her voice echoing faintly in the cavern, "The longer we stay, the more they will work on us to confuse our path. All we need is aetherite, enough to fill this pouch." Angela dutifully produced the leather pouch, the size of a large coinpurse. The bag wasn't runeforged, but Carina's eye made out the symbols of Scrivening which invoked protection and stability. A temporary container for the least-dangerous type of dragonshard.

...however, now that Carina was looking at it, Angela was wearing a second pouch she hadn't commented on, and this one bore a runeforged charm woven into the satchel. Even without her sight, Carina would have noticed that this container was prepared to hold something much more dangerous. Some secret weapon Angela was holding back, perhaps? Or did she mean to take something other than aetherite alone?

"And done!" Imogen declared, stalking out of the hallway. One pant leg was stained black from exposure to the ooze from one Shambler or another, but it seemed to fade as Imogen grew closer. The poisons and corruption of the Warrens were famously vulnerable to the Sunsingers' strange magic, but it seemed that they couldn't so much as keep her clothes dirty. "And I think Carina's question is pretty good. Where are we going now?"

Angela examined Imogen's sword for a moment, clearly curious about its purifying properties, then tore her gaze away. "We could reach the Grassnest Point within an hour if we go that way." the witch indicated another corridor, behind the slowly-billowing fog, "But there's an even closer site. However... it's a little too close to a passage to the Second Deep.
I don't know if you could handle that..."

The Orkhan girl fell for the obvious bait in an instant, bristling. "I can handle anything down here, Angela. Don't worry about me. If it's closer and we're running short on time, we should go there. We'll... just be extra careful."

Angela smiled, then pointed towards a bend in the cavern on the other end of the fog. She said nothing, but her message was clear- lead on.