PCs: Hope, Karrus

Run by: Cynis Chu (3xp)

NPCs: Blind Crushing River, Fire of the Righteous Arrow

Synopsis: Two memebrs of the Court of Fire appear, to inform Hope in no uncertain terms that they are annoyed with her recent actions and association with Five Days Darkness

It's early evening, along the river Meander. Ascending Fire is fast approaching, and the days are already longer and significantly warmer. Poling along the shallow river is a blind old man with a young child, most likely his grandchild. They slow in their travel, their boat oddly empty, as they draw closer to you. "Greetings, Hope!" the old man calls out. The old man, with the cloth across his eyes, like a blind man.

    Hope was going for a jog, when she's caught off guard. That's a blind man who called her name. She pauses in her tracks, beads of sweat forming on her brow as she peers out towards the old man. "Um..hello.." she says, not quite sure what to say.

The barge is polled to a stop, a few dozen feet out from the road, and the old man stands up, not the least shaking despite the current and the rocking of the boat. "Hope, I am wondering... would you happen to know what time it is?" he asks, waving towards the gathering gloom. "It's a bit hard for me to tell." He raises a hand, tapping the bandage across his eyes.

    "I dont know, sorry, though Ascending Fire is coming soon.." she says, still more than a bit weary at the old man, pursing her lips as she hrmms for a few moments. She continues to watch him suspiciously..

The old man bobs a hand, flash a quick grin. "Oh, good. Then, please, allow me to introduce myself..." He steps off the boat, and instead of splashing as you might expect, walks across the water like dry land. As he passes, dark shapes begin to swarm in the water behind and around him.

    She notices the dark shapes. Her eyes widen. Fortunately, she's never without her armor and her bow and she reaches back,pulling out an arrow readying it. "What trickery is this?" she says, more than a bit annoyed, waiting for anything...

The old man grins hugely at Hope, shifting his stance slightly to accomodate the mvoement of the river. "Oh, these? Just some of my friends. You seem to have done some injury to others of my aquintence, and all in the name of a most brutish sort." The old man gives a sweeping bow, and says, "My name is Blind Crushing River, and in the name of the Court of Ascending Fire, I will have your apology for the harm you have done." With that, he starts to walk back to the barge, while dozens, hundreds of frogs hop out of the river, headed towards Hope. Brightly colored frogs, of a sort anyone soon learns are posion to the touch.

Blind people on river barges.... plagues of frogs moving towards his Solar Mate, like a hopping tide of destruction. Obviously this is a normal day for Hope. Cloven hooved feet move nimbly through the forest as tattoos of glowing silver betray the arrival of a noble, strong elk. With a bounding steps it comes up along side Hope and lowers his neck, as if inviting her to swing up onto his back.

    So this is definitely wierd. Her eyes widen as she looks towards the frogs. They're not spirits, at least as far as she can tell, so it seems the calendar gods are angry. With Karrus at her side, she hops onto his back, motioning for him to run as she shakes her head. "The rest of your court was unwilling to aid me in my quest to find Five Days Darkness to help cleanse these lands. I simply called upon the Mandate of Heaven.." she says firmly and resolutely as she keep sher bow ready, ready to fling an arrow. "You know my abilities are strong with spirits. Do not make me destroy you. I am a priestess of the Unconquered Sun, and I must do what I must to make sure the people of these lands are safe, no matter what you and your court thinks."

The old man half turns, and shakes his head. His smile is gone. "Oh, no, Lawgiver. Not so easily does the Court of Seasons forgive or forget." The frogs continue hoping up, surrounding Hope and the elk. And suddenly, he sinks into the water, without a splash or a sound.

The powerful elk lets his nostrils flair in what could best be described as exaspperation. He looks down at the masses of frogs surrounding them and one hooved foot flails out to stomp one, hoping that might dissuade the others.

    That..was expected. Spirits tend to run away. She screams out in frustration. "Coward! You would send these innocent creatures to do your bidding? They will be squashed" she says angrily, her eyes widening..

-= OOC =- Via use of Spirit Detecting Glance, Hope can tell that River is still in the river.  She also understands that it would take a significant disruption to the river to drive him out.

The elk makes a sound. It's hard to describe the sounds that Elk make... cause well.. they don't make them often. It's something halfway between a yelp and a growl. We'll call it a yowl. Nostrils flair again in annoyance, and Karrus lowers his head and makes a sweeping motion with his neck, trying to use those massive and majestic antlers as a solid frog flinging implement while Hope, he supposes, will be taking aim!

-= OOC =- The trouble caused, and the sickening of her mate from the arrow frog's posion, drives Hope over the edge and into a Limit Break.

The boy in the barge begins to poll down the stream, away from the suddenly very brightly glowing Solar and the hoard of frogs.

    "NO!" Hope is pissed. Her eyes widen as her body flares, at full totemic glory. Her body emits a bright golden holy radiance, surrounded by a variety of phantom prayer strips with various Old realm sigils on it. She pulls out several arrows and squeezes her thighs around Karrus' furry form, as she spies the old man over the river. A wry, almost predatory grin curls onto her features as she lets out a terrible laugh, consumed by an inner fire, an inner rage.

    "You have pushed me too far, Blind Crushing River. I am a priestess of the Unconquered Sun. I invoke the mandate of heaven, and you will not get away with this treachery!" Her own voice booms with self righteous fury as she stares down towards the river. She pulls out two arrows, letting the first one strike the water, hoping to force the spirit out. She knows the boy is fleshy, but it doesnt matter at this point. The Solar is pissed.

    "Face me, you coward! I will kill the boy if you do not come out.." at least she just aimed for the boy's arm.

Ribit! Ribiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!!!! The croaking sounds hang in the air with that almost sickenly sweet smell that poisons frogs always seem to have. With wide sweeps of his massive antlers the little frogs go flying away from the pair. Nostrils flair and Karrus raises his head and he stamps his feet, a little bit dizzy and already a little nauseous from the frog he squished.

An arrow- and not one of Hope's -hisses into a tree near the pair, sitting on the river. The tree almost immediately bursts into flame, a wooden torch that will soon have much of the grove of trees near the riverbank burning brightly. It's not hard to follow the arrow the hundred or so yards off from where it was fired from- and to a beatiful woman, with hair of flame, dressed in golden armor and weilding a jade bow, her head bent back and laughing. And overhead, angry stormclouds begin to gather.

    Her eyes widen as she gasps and sees the fires start to expand. "Karrus, love, you must take care of the fire. Make sure it does not spread. The court of ascending fire means business.." she says as she hops off of the elk and pulls out a few arrows. "Wench! I will strike you down!" she cries out, another golden light flashing from her body as she starts running towards the woman.

    "You think you can compete with a priestess of the Invictus Sol himself? It will be my pleasure to regale your court with your destruction, and your pitiful puny attempts at my life.."

    A horrible laugh escapes from from her lips as she pulls out the arrow and aims towards the woman's head. She wants to end this quick.

The burning haired woman's laughter stops as the golden arrow finds the weak link in her armor, sinking into the meat of her upper arm and hissing. She fixes Hope with a baleful glare and shouts back, "Golden Bull, be it known that Fire of the Righteous Arrow does not tolerate those who would offend the Sisters, or those Lawgivers who would give their bodies to monsters of the night!" She pauses to pull the arrow out, spitting as she does. The ground smokes slightly where her spit hits the dry grass.

Karrus rears up on his hind legs so Hope can slide off his back easily without having loose her shot. With a flash of moonsilver, Karrus stands as seven foot manbeast with a massive crown of antlers. His moonsilver tatoos glow brilliantly as thick patches of bone grow from his flesh beneath them, making them appear to be carved into these raised ridges. Essence surges into his very muscles and strength as he charges foward, his head leaning down and antlers cutting into the ground towards the tree. Karrus growls as he tries to tangle them with the roots of the of the tree trying to uproot it and topple it towards the river....

From out of the river, there's a call, like a voice calling through water. It sounds distorted, but comes across quite loudly. "Arrow! Home! She knows, now. Let her wait..." And with that, the presence disapates from the water.

The burning haired woman briefly raises her bow, then spits again- and vanishes. Clever eyes can see that she is well and trully gone, without a trace.

The tree groans with recalcitrant defiance, but every musscle in Karrus warformed body, surges with essence, his tattoos glow brightly, and the roots pull free of the earth, and Karrus raises up grabbing the burning trunk topples into the river sizzling loudly as it does. He looks around to see where their foes have gone and seeing them gone, suddenly the adrenalin and essence fade and he sags to a wooby knee. "Lets not do that again anytime soon."

    Her eyes widen as she lets out an angry shout as the spirits disappear. She hates it when spirits dematerialize and she's still quite angry, filled with a full rage. She starts unleashing a flurry of arrows, striking down the frogs that remain and her eyes squint as she looks towards the boy trying to move away.

    With that, Hope just starts rushing towards the boy, hopping, skipping and jumping and even swimming if she has to to reach out towards the boat. Once she sees the boy, she'll grab him by his tunic and rip out the arrow that was impaled in his arm, knowing she's causing lots of pain before jumping into the water. She drags him along, the sounds of struggle meaning nothing to her now.

    "Karrus..interrogate the boy." She is angry as she tosses the boy towards the ground where he is.

The boy lays on the ground, limply, cradling his injured arms, eyes wide and terrified. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but nothing comes out except a frightened squek.

Karrus kneels before the boy and places a hand on top of his head. His massive hand palming his head calmly. "Shhhhh" he says for a moment before looking to Hope, "Please will make it happen." He says cooly to Hope.

    She's still angry and raging. However, Karrus' words snaps her out, just a little. Shelooks over towards her mate with an aoplogetic smile and bows her head, "Please..I want to know why this has happened."

The boy's still shivering, hard, as his blood from the arm wound drips rythmically on to the muddy ground. But he's closed his mouth, and staring upwards at Karrus in something more relaxed than mind numbing terror. Pale and shaken and eyes wide, but seemingly more coherent than a moment ago.

Karrus nods to Hope and says, "Much better." He turns and looks down at the boy, a silver flash and he is wearing his human shape again. The Transformations of the Lunar exalted come and go with far less pagentry than some suspect. "Now then, how about you tell me why that spirit came looking for Hope? If you are in some kind of trouble and in their thrall, we might beable to help?"

    Hope is still in a rage. Anything that she sees moving around, she kills. As such, she killed a rabbit, and a few birds, and then a few more frogs. Yes, she's practicing her killingwomanship. And it's good.

The boy shakes his head suddenly. "I don't know," he says in a quiet broken voice. "T- the old man, he just, he said he wanted a ride down the river." His breathing fast and sharp. "He paid... lots, a- and we needed money, since Pa d- died." He fingers the arrow wound, feeling where it had meet his flesh, and whimpers.  He tries to flex the hand of the injured arm but stops after a split second, eyes brimming with tears.

Karrus nods to the boy and says, "Very good. Don't worry about the wound,it hurts but that means your not hurt as bad as it feels." Karrus tossles his hair, "I'll take you home. I have some bushels of grain you can take home to your family that will feed you for quite some time and they'll be very proud of you." He looks then to Hope and says, "You better go let off some steam, and I'll be back to help you do so soon."

    Hope just nods as she runs off. There's thing to kill. Ghosts to maim. Necromancers to torture. Fun!