IceAndWave/TheHorrorOfMistyIsland

The Horror of Misty Island

In which ancient ruins appear, an older creature lurks, and flight is reluctantly chosen...

The 6th Day of Descending Wood, Realm Year 763

The sun rose on the island on which the stricken barge, Jaunty Rose, landed last night and with it the majority of the storm departed, leaving behind a thick fog and a damp chill. Captain Rook requested that Sian stay with the ship to help with the repairs, his ability to operate extensively underwater probably able to speed repairs, and so that left Cassia & Venia at loose ends, unable to help much.

At the mention of armed parties heading off the barge to scout the island, hunt for food, and possibly discover where last night's assailants came from, both of the beautiful Exalts leapt at the chance to come along - albeit for different reasons.

Venia, of course, doesn't explain her reasons, but she doesn't need to.

Armed groups of sailors, five to six strong group near the port side of the barge, getting ropes ready for their excursion onto the, apparently hostile, island that they found themselves forcibly docked with.

Cassia is glad for a chance to get off the ship, not liking being cooped up, especially not with Venia teasing her so.

The parties clamber down the side of the barge, the cause of a certain degree of cursing from the sailors due to the icy cold water on that side of the vessel, albeit only a foot deep.

Venia is too ladylike to curse, but it's certain that if anything does get in their way, it is going to have a far worse time.

Cassia contents herself to shivering, and a quickened pace, her shoes drying as soon as she reaches the land.

The groups mill around in the fog, the crew of the barge barely visible on the deck from the ground, except as indistinct grey shapes.

Cassia glances back towards the ship, then around her, looking at the tracks the strange beasts left in the mud.

Venia watches the fog instead, trusting Cassia for the tracking.

"They came from that way, Venia." Cassia points. "The tracks don't look that hard to follow... if we wanted to."

"I think we want to."

Cassia nods and sets off through the mist after the tracks, listening carefully as she does so, and glancing about on occasion too.

Venia follows after Cassia, thumbing the latch on the case containing her swords. "Sorry about last night... if I'd known Sian wouldn't let me take watch, I'd have stayed."

The tracks, for there are many of them, all head in more-or-less the same direction, away from the ship and towards the interior of the island. In fairly short order the vessel disappears into the fog behind the pair, leaving them in a featureless grey bubble, with only sparse grass and occasional rocks to provide landmarks.

In fog ahead, however, a strange and irregular shape can be seen. Unmoving, probably, and fairly large.

"It's OK, Venia... there will be other nights, right?" she whispers, then looks up at the large shape, curious and a little wary

Venia nods, motioning for Cassia to keep moving, but slowly.

Cassia nods and keeps on moving forward, her footsteps falling much quieter now.

The Dragon-Blooded and the sailors creep slowly through the mist towards the strange shape seen ahead. As they close in it resolves into several large piles of stones, strangely regular in alignment, and also on the direct route that the once-men took as they retreated from their assault the previous night.

The stones are, in contrast to those all around, black with flecks of blue and gold scattered through them, although they have been mostly worn smooth by the action of centuries of wind and rain.

"What strange stones.." Cassia whispers, creeping closer and looking all around them

Venia nods. "Interesting..."

"Do you have any idea what they are?"

"Beyond something religiously significant? No."

"Some kind of building... I think..."

"Very very old." Venia nods, "And moved here."

"How old is very very?"

"Pre-Contagion, from the looks of it..."

"...wow."

The sailors creep forwards, knives and boathooks ready. One of them whispers, "I don't like this place..."

Venia nods in agreement. "Can we press on, Cassia?"

Cassia nods, and sets herself to tracking again, following the tracks beyond the stones and further from the ship.

The tracks lead on through the ruins and out towards the island. The sounds of the sea, already faint, fade into silence, leaving everyone in a soundless, featureless void. The sailors begin to murmur amongst themselves, obviously agitated.

Venia ponders. "Maybe we should wait for Sian for this..."

Ahead, the ground suddenly stops at a sheer cliff-face which drops beyond visual range and, presumably, far below. Some distance away down... wherever, there is a light source of some kind, a bright eerie blue light that fills the fog below with an azure radiance.

Cassia tilts her head "Maybe... though this way we can leave sometime soon, rather than having to spend more nights here."

"Hrm... true. See what the light is."

Cassia nods and slips over the egde of the cliff, quickly and silently descending, as she moves from handhold to handhold, her feet twisting to fit into the smallest cracks.

The sailors look down at the light and pale visibly, "We'll... uh, we'll wait here. Keep watch."

Venia stays at the edge of the cliff, balancing ever so precariously on the first pair of handholds.

When she reaches the bottom, Cassia starts to creep forward, until the azure light resolves itself, alert for any noises or signs of movement

At the bottom of the cliff, which was by Cassia's guess some 100' in height, she lands on a paved surface of some kind. Hundreds, if not thousands, of tightly fitted cobblestones cover the ground, while in the direction of the light ruins can be seen through the fog - this time built from native stone.

"...how odd." Cassia thinks to herself, slipping away from the base off the cliff and towards the light, keeping low, her footfalls the merest whisper.

The ruins form an ancient town, with narrow streets and shattered houses, although any wreckage appears to have been carried away long since. The ground inside the town is covered with a thin slime, its smell unfortunately reminiscent of the unwelcome visitors of last night.

Cassia picks her way from house to house, a low blur in the thick mist.

Venia gives it a while, then goes over to one of the sailors and gets some rope, beginning the long process of linking ropes together down the cliff.

The light is getting brighter, the fog above Cassia now tinged with its hue in all directions. Also, the silence that filled the ruins has gone, instead a low, sussuration can be heard in the air, coming from the same direction.

Cassia slows her pace and starts to circle slightly, though she continues to close with the light, trying to decipher the noises.

Venia finally, finally, lands softly on the cobblestones, and heads out to try to find Cassia.

In an amphitheatre, set where the land meets the sea, Cassia sees the source of the light. A large, brightly shining crystal, its radiance obscuring its shape, sits at the bottom, on a raised dais. All around on the land side sit scores of the tentacled once-men, and other worse things, on the rows of seats, the strange noises coming from these creatures.

At the far end of the depression, in the water, sits a vast tentacled beast, a dozen or more of the fleshy limbs waving in the air while six eyes on stalks protrude from its disgusting body. It hisses and grumbles and growls, its strange language directed at its followers (children/creations).

Cassia watches for a brief while, then sets back off through the fog to find Venia.

Venia is not that difficult to find, since she is looking for Cassia. They bump into each other while looking elsewhere.

"...Venia!" Cassia says in suprised whisper.

"Yes. Me. What's going on?"

"The tentacled things... and other... really weird...things are all around the light we saw. And there is something in the pool." she pauses "It's large, with so many tentacles, and six eyes on weird little stalks."

Venia grimaces, "We definitely need Sian now..."

The sussurating noise coming from the amphitheatre has faded the two women realise, to be replaced with the sound of lots of bare feet slapping onto wet stone. While these sounds are of indeterminate direction, they are getting closer to the pair.

Cassia looks at Venia, to see if she has heard, then draws her knife.

Venia just lets the blades slide out of the case, tucking it into the small of her back and taking her stance. "I let a rope down the cliff when we need to run."

Cassia nods.

The slap-slapping gets closer and louder and then, out of the fog, through a long-ruined archway, rushes a group of the same tentacled creatures that were fought last night. The mockeries that are their faces are agape as they attack, the only sounds a strange hissing...

Cassia tumbles as they run toward her, red jade dagger glowing with inner fire as it carves out arcs in the fog, sizzling sounds raising as it reaches the flesh.

Venia follows Cassia at a steady pace, whirling around one of their assailants and trapping its neck between her blade and arm. She stabs another pair of attackers before spinning forwards again, slitting the first beast's throat and blinding the next attacker with the spray of blood, one more slice to put it down before moving again, the grey fog concealing everything.

The pair of Exalts rush forwards, their flashing blades leaving seven dead in their wake, their green blood spilling out onto the ground. Their companions, apparently heedless of the losses, press the attack.

Cassia twists in the mists, brilliant flashes betraying her position momentarily as she flickers, stacatto bursts in the fog.

Venia uses the fog against her attackers, each step forward closer to them distorting her position as it swirls, leaving faint afterimages torn in two by the great swings of the tentacles, but leaving Venia herself unharmed.

Enraged by their inability to strike at the interlopers, the once-men continue to press the attack, their numbers swelling with every passing heartbeat.

Venia looks back towards the cliff, "Maybe now we should run?"

Cassia looks at the oncoming shapes and their numbers and very reluctantly nods "...we run." She turns tail and runs through the mists, drawing it up behind her as she does, perfectly retracing her steps. When she reaches the cliffs near the rope, she leaps, a brief burst of flame carrying her a fifth of the way up the cliff, catching onto two handholds then starting to climb

Venia is far more subdued, and probably not quite so fast, but performs an awe-inspiring leap, just floating through the air and performing a half spin and half roll, catching the rope and twisting to draw it out of reach of the beasts, hauling herself up.

The pair climb the cliff rapidly, arriving at the top so quickly that they appear to leap up to the sailors still waiting there. "What's going on?"

Venia smirks, "We are waiting for you to run from the horde of monsters following us."

The eyes of the sailors bug out a little at that comment, to say the least, "What?"

"There are more of the tentacled things that attacked the ship. They chased us. Run!" Cassia lets the flames of her heritage wash over her as she speaks, emphasizing her words

Venia nods, and takes a deep breath. "After we survive this, come hell or high water, I am finding the time for us."

The sailors, perhaps unsurprisingly, obey the commands and run off, following the pair of Exalted women through the fog. One of the sailors looks back and screams, the shapes of the creatures just visible in the fog behind him,

Cassia takes the lead, stepping with surity through the dense mist, easily retracing their steps with nary a downward glance at the tracks they followed out here.

Venia tugs a sharp dart out of her sleeve, hurling it back without a second look, fog splitting open in the wake of it as it whirrs past the crewman and embeds itself in the tentacle man's eye.

The creatures disappear behind, as the hell-bent run across the island and back towards the Rose continues, unchecked.

After a journey that seems far longer than the other direction, despite it being conducted at a sprint, the Dragon-Bloods and sailors arrive at the side of the barge. Ropes are not immediately visible.

"Cassia? Jump up there and get us a ladder, would you, dear?"

Cassia doesnt pause in her running, but pushes off from the shoreline, another burst of flames propelling her leap, lighting her skin as she does to let the crew know it is her coming aboard. "We need some ropes here."

The crew on-watch, understandably surprised, reach for their weapons in the second before comprehension sets in. Several lines of ropes are immediately lowered over the side of the barge.

Venia wraps one around her wrist, and settles down to wait while the remaining sailors get aboard. Her blades shine eerily in the gloom as they sweep slowly back and forth, hypnotic flashes as she waits.

Cassia watches from the deck of the ship, out into the mists.

The fog, swirling closely around the barge, glitters in the light from Venia's blades. But no tentacled creatures emerges from the swirling greyness to challenge her skill with the swords. At least not right now.

Venia lets herself be hauled up when the others are done, twisting easily out of the knot and fixing her hair. "Remind me never to come here again."

Cassia nods, still watching the mists. She still seems a little unhappy at the fleeing, though the sprint was exhilarating enough.

"You don't do anyone any good dead, Cassia. Even I and Asura look a bit amiss at that." She smiles at the bad joke.

Cassia nods, still reluctant, though she sees the wisdom of Venia's words