Cecily van Laarstin growled under her breath, as she stepped to the side to avoid the claws of the beast behind her. The weight of the suppressive nature of the beasts pressed down on her like an anvil, which made it hard to utilise even the simplest of magic. Paying careful attention to the beasts with her sense of presence, she positioned herself between them and the woman she had been hired to protect, deflecting a blow with her blade.
Ever since she had met Lucy, life had been rather complicated. The woman had a knack for getting them into trouble, as their current situation so deftly evidenced. A pack of Grunloks would normally be little trouble to someone like Cecily. She wasn’t exactly the most experienced adventurer out there, but she regarded herself as competent enough that such a fight shouldn’t pose much of a threat to her.
She dodged to the side, only accelerating a little bit to stay ahead of the beasts. Lucy was running down the road at a breakneck pace, but she wasn’t really that much faster than the pack on their heels. Cecily was also very aware that the woman wasn’t a combatant and not exactly used to the panic of combat. At least she was enduring, given her occupation of a courier, so perhaps they could eventually outlast the beasts.
The thought only remained for a moment. If these beasts were your typical pack of Grunloks then maybe they had a chance to lose them eventually. But something about these things was different. Not really surprising, given the one that found them was the overly energetic Catgirl she had been paid to protect. Just being near the monsters made it almost impossible to use any sort of magic. Suppression magic itself was relatively rare, even more so suppression magic that was capable of shutting down her family’s unique style of casting.
And that was the primary crux of the situation. Without her spells and techniques, she couldn’t just steamroll the things.
Before them the forest was slowly coming to an end. That could be both good and bad. Good, because it would allow them to pour on some more speed, if Lucy was capable of such, and bad, because the same was true for the beasts. Not to mention that it would be quite hard to hide from them in an open area, although truth be told, Cecily didn’t hold out much hope for that to begin with. The Grunloks noses were far too sharp for that.
The thing that unnerved the adventurer the most was the fact that their little escapade had pushed them directly into the cursed lands. Very little was known of the place, since everyone, even monsters, seemed to instinctively avoid the area, so she had absolutely no clue what she could expect.
She grimaced at the thought. Their reason for fleeing here had been the hope that the Grunloks would leave them be, too scared to rush into this part of the country. But that was, evidently, not the case. In fact, they seemed entirely unbothered by the perpetual twilight. If they felt the same unease creeping up their spine that Cecily felt, then they didn’t show any signs of it. Which was certainly not normal monster behaviour. Not that they were normal by any metric, apart from their size.
Jumping forwards, Cecily managed to avoid another jab, just as the group broke through the edge of the forest and into the open fields. Not far ahead she could see the ruins of a city, and a quite sizable one at that. Questions about the city's history played at the edge of her mind, as she had never heard of a city located in the cursed lands, but she quickly ignored those. They weren’t relevant. More relevant was the possibility of perhaps using it to her advantage. Maybe they could utilise the narrow streets to lose the monsters? At the very least they might be able to build up some distance.
Given the obvious disrepair of the place she was a bit worried that they might get stuck in dead ends, but really, they didn’t have much of a choice at the moment. It could hardly get worse from here. She cursed herself for not insisting on at least one other guard, if only so that she didn’t need to do everything herself.
A movement from behind her caught her attention, and she dodged, already aware as she moved that this would put her in a very bad spot. One of the beasts had tried to pin her between itself and one of its packmates, leaving her with very little ways out. Normally she would simply counter the attempted pincer, relying on her Voidcalling, but even that wasn’t possible right now–her hand still smarted at the memory of her first attempt.
She managed to avoid the attack, deftly stepping out of the way as questions about just what would be able to suppress void magic played in her mind. The maneuver did give one of the monsters the opportunity to rush past her, though, and there simply was nothing she could do to stop it. Now it was between her and Lucy, which was just about the worst case scenario. If she were to pour on more speed to try and catch up, that would allow the monsters behind her to also close in. Distance was the only thing her charge had for defence, so reducing that seemed like the worst possible course of action.
Cecily tried to quickly come up with a plan, but there was nothing she could do without access to her magic. This close to the beasts that felt borderline impossible. In addition to that, she was noticing that Lucy was quickly approaching her limits. The woman was certainly enduring, but she wasn’t used to long sprints. Her usual pace was far slower than that. A slow fear began to creep into Cecily, fear that they might not even be able to manage to reach the city ruins in the distance.
“We could really use one of your insane miracles right about now!” Cecily hissed, more to herself than anyone else, before she drew upon all her willpower to attempt another spell.
Given the difficulties, she stuck to her most familiar domain, drawing upon her essence to leave a sharp metallic spike in her wake. It was just about the best she could do right now, given the suppressive forces smothering her and turning her essence flows into tar.
The spell formed with an excruciating slowness, and she grunted at the effort and the pain quickly shooting up from her fingertips. In front she saw the beast that had caught up with her companion try to bite the woman, which Lucy only barely managed to avoid. Finally the magic snapped into place, the essence rushing out of her with an almost painful intensity, and the metallic spike formed right under the paw of the lead monstrosity.
It howled as the serrated edge buried itself into the beast's front right paw, the form of the metal far not as controlled as Cecily had wanted, tearing at the flesh, then got ripped out of the ground like an oversized caltrop. The beast slowed immediately, much to the dismay of its packmates who weren’t quite that fast on the uptake. Multiple monsters smashed into each other, crashing to the ground, and getting entangled in a mess of limbs. It was only a momentary reprieve, but it was at least something.
Cecily didn’t let the moment go to waste, quickly falling to one side where one of the monsters who hadn’t gotten overwhelmed tried to adjust its course. Thanks to suppression she couldn’t draw upon her physical reinforcements, but her blade was masterfully crafted and quite potent even without such magic. Aiming for the tendons in the front leg, she slashed at the thing. The cut wasn’t as deep as she had hoped for–their pelt and skin far tougher than she had expected–but it was enough to make the beast yelp and growl, before it tried to retaliate.
Something she had sort of expected, or, at the very least, hoped for. Grunloks weren’t known for their smarts, being the more brawn over brain sort of pack hunter, and for all the weirdness of these beasts, that, thankfully, hadn’t changed.
She ducked underneath the massive paw, drawing upon all her training to not lose too much momentum with the motion, before she stabbed her blade right into its now exposed throat. Again, the wound wasn’t as deep as she had hoped for, but she had to have nipped something important, because blood came rushing and the beast immediately aborted any further attempts at attack or pursuit.
Just in time for Cecily to turn her attention back to the monster at the front. Her eyes went wide in horror as she saw the massive claws closing in on Lucy, with little she or the other woman could do to stop it.
Even if, by some divine miracle, the strike didn’t outright kill the Catkin, it would bring the pursuit to a definitive stop.
For the briefest of moments a fleeting feeling of presence washed over Cecily. The experience was so short that she didn’t even have the time to move her head to search for the source. Then the shadows came to life, right between the Grunloks massive claws and Lucy’s unprotected back.
The sound of metal meeting metal rang out loud enough to drown out nearly everything. With amazement she watched as the shadows behind Lucy coalesced into the shape of a young woman, an ornate weapon held casually in one hand, blocking the massive weight and momentum of the creature that had tried to maul Lucy with supernatural ease, bringing it to a surprised and uncontrolled halt.
Lucy didn’t stop, either not having noticed the intervention, or having the good sense to keep running regardless, while the Grunlok, who had just been stopped dead, fell over itself and collapsed as the rest of its momentum carried its weight further.
Cecily blinked. The woman who had appeared blinked, seeming just as surprised as Cecily felt. She stood there, watching her own weapon, then turned to look at the beast scrambling off the ground behind her. The rest of the pack seemed to suddenly slow down in a panic, just about the same time a new presence settled onto the battlefield.
Cecily van Laarstin was not an inexperienced adventurer. She had experienced both people and monsters whose presence alone were enough to terrify someone to the core. Given her family history, and her rank within the guild, she had even been present during noble house disputes, where presence control was the primary weapon of choice. So, of course, she had learned to keep herself safe from such things, utilising her own sense of presence to shield herself from the worst of the effects.
But right now it felt like she was trying to move a mountain with a teaspoon made of wood.
It was vast–impossibly so–and ancient, powerful beyond belief, and seemed to expand forever. There was a rigidity to the presence that she had never felt before, even in the rare cases she had been in the presence of people who had their own myths and legends. And the only reason she didn’t turn to run was the fact that it didn’t feel hostile to her at all. It was quite hard to properly describe, but despite the overbearing nature, she felt protected. Like the darkness of the night coalesced around her in a comforting blanket.
A small part of her was quite disappointed with herself at the realisation that that truly was the only reason that kept her here. As much as she wanted to promise herself that she’d remain steadfast even in the face of death, she knew that this was far beyond her ability to endure.
The pack of Grunloks didn’t seem to share her opinion. The moment the new presence appeared, they seemed to lose any and all interest in Cecily and Lucy, caring only to get away as fast as possible.
Cecily was more than happy to let them. Her concern was the safety of Lucy and nothing else. To that end she shook herself out of her funk, even if it had only lasted for perhaps a moment or two–the creature that had been stopped dead hadn’t even yet managed to get back to its feet–and turned to rush after Lucy.
Whomever had come to their rescue was someone she had no interest in interacting with. And more to the point, she had to find Lucy in case things went sideways and she had to protect the woman from the new threat.
Not that she had any illusions about her ability to win. The only hope she had in that regard was the quickly diminishing feel of the suppressive forces as the beasts began to run for their lives. Perhaps her void magic would be enough to at least give her a single shot at survival, if she played her hands right. A worst case scenario that she was hoping to not have to put to the test.
Lucy had stopped not far, hiding behind a small boulder a little further down the road. She was rasping, utterly exhausted, and was watching the display with panic on her face. Cecily quickly ran over, sliding to a halt, and taking cover herself, her weapon at the ready.
“Are you alright?” She hissed to the beastkin, not turning her attention away from the figure who still stood dumbfounded in the middle of the road where she had blocked the creatures attack.
The beasts were already fast retreating, and for a moment the adventurer was wondering just what the woman was doing standing there like she’d seen a fey. Then, without warning, the woman started to move, snapping around and focusing her attention on the fleeing monsters.
“Oh, for the love of… Ugh!” And with that, she disappeared just as quickly as she had first shown up, vanishing into the darkness.
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