World Tree MUSH

The arsonists plaguing Anchordeep have not ceased their campaign, despite its pace. They don't strike every night, nor in an easy-to-predict pattern. Yet at least once a week, there's a fire in a building somewhere in the old city, somehow leaving the oldest buildings untouched, yet gutting the new. It was not so long ago that the gang discovered who was behind it all: A band of followers of the god Zehir, led by a high cleric who challenged Neviah to go along or get lost.

Neviah did neither. She retreated into the Library of Deneir and started doing math and pattern-matching. It's led her here - in the dead of night, hiding out in an old storefront near a closed and empty commercial building of newer vintage.

"They must've found some kind of list of heritage buildings," Neviah murmurs as she shelters near a mostly-closed window, peering out through a crack in the shutters to watch the street beyond. "They've been going by age, with some room for error, starting from the oldest to the newest they can find dates for. That would mean this one's probably next."

There's no flashy armour for Neviah this time. She's put on a black vest over a white blouse and dark slacks, and she's got her old Tranter pistol tucked into her vest. The switch back to the humble attire has coincided with something Lether probably noticed: It's been weeks since Neviah has cast a spell at all.

     Is wandering waiting for someone to show up in her view, dressed strangely for the area but not too strangely. She spots a familiar red jacket and just barefootedly pads towards him to greet him. "What are you drinking? It smells sharp." She exclaims, stretching out a little. "Also thank you for the pumpukin advice. So what did you need from me exactly?" she asks, chipperly.

    Arsonists are certainly persistent. Dante has been poking around here and there, doing his best gumshoe in the process. WHen threatened, Dante tends to meet such things with laughter and snark, as he refuses to back down to some punkass sparklers.

    "It'd explain a lot, but losers are about to have a real bad night." He says, while popping the cork out of a whiskey bottle and pouring himself a glass. Siiiiip.

    The city is burning. Building by building, week, by week, anothe building in the old city burns. This is not good, and Lether is more than well aware of the ramifications of an evil cult running around causing havoc, considering it's in the news every week.
    But her focus has no been on the fires or the evil cult.
    It has been on Neviah.
    Oh she's noticed the lack of spells, and she hasn't commented on it, yet, figuring it to potentially be a point of soreness for MYRIAD reasons.
    "So... If this is likely their next stop..." The 'gator girl murmurs while playing with a knife in her fingers, "We're gonna shank 'em before they light the place up, right?"
    She's dressed in her leather and denim 'armor' for the most part and is bristling with more knives than she can count in case Zehir's minions come knocking next door. But she does cast a concerned eye Neviah's way.
    "And are *you* gonna be okay?" She asks as she nabs Dante's whiskey bottle and steals a nip.
    For courage.

    Meanwhile, the swordswoman known as 'Crimson Wind' is wearing the same thing she's always wearing, but that's probably no surprise. She's never been seen wearing anything different. "So they're trashing heritage buildings that ain't their specific definition of 'heritage'. Somehow that ain't a surprise." Those who know her will probably not be surprised that her voice comes, not from anywhere around, but from above - she's 'standing' horizontally on the wall, directly above and to one side of the front door of the storefront. It's a perfect position to counter-ambush anyone foolhardy enough to come through the front door.

    The redhead glances between Lether and Dante with an arched eyebrow, but doesn't comment on the whiskey war. Instead, she asks of Neviah, "How we playing this? It's your plan."

Neviah presses her lips together, Dante's confident appraisal of the situation hitting the back of her head and seemingly not penetrating. "A bad night, yeah," she murmurs. She's tense, and not doing a good job of hiding it.

Looking down to Lether, she nods and brings her hand down to her thigh. "We're going to shank them before they start the place up, yes," she confirms, glancing first from Lether and then to Kanna. But it's the little lizardgirl's question that gives her pause.

She doesn't really answer. Her eyes move to the window, and she presses her lips together. The hand she left on the sill tightens for a moment.

"They're here," she says instead, and rises. Indeed, a peek through the gap in the shutters reveals a small procession of hooded figures filtering down the alley and into a side door of the building the group's been watching. All of them move with an unnatural fluidity, like they're not so much walking as slithering across the earth.

"Let's go," Neviah says quietly, loading her pistol. Eyes flinty, she ducks down a side stair, out into the alley, then crosses, following the procession of hooded cultists into the darkened building across the way.

    Dante places a hand on Neviah's shoulder, "We'll be fine." The arsonists however, will be less than fortunate. Dante gives Neviah a reassuring grin before perking up when it's go-time. "Finally." Dante mutters as he downs his whiskey shot in one gulp.

    For courage.

    "Alright, let's go ruin someone's night." Dante peers through the gap before following Neviah with Ebony and Ivory in hand, keeping close to her and moving with the lithe grace of a leopard on the hunt.

    Kanna is standing on the wall.
    Dang.
    And it's not so much a whiskey war as it is Lether being a fast-handed little sneak.
    But... Neviah's non-answer is as much an answer as she might not intend it to be.
    "Mmmmh..." Lether murmurs, blinking side-ways once with a flat expression on her face. She sees those subtle signs. Lips pursing, fingers tightening, gaze averting.
    Lether watches Neviah in the same manner as a predator appraising a potential threat, doing her best to size up her own friend for what's about to go down.
    Especially when hooded cultists so brazenly start proceeding in a procession into the building across the way.
    Lether slinks out the door after Neviah and considers her strategy.
    Sticking to the shadows she moves in silence, boots making no noise on the pavement as she sliiiiiides into place in the back of the line of cultists.
    The last cultist in line then gets the surprise of a hand suddenly covering their mouth and one of Lether's daggers going for the throat.
    Now if this works... She quietly brings down the larger cultist to the ground and starts dragging them into an alley.
    Before a much SMALLER cultist in cult-y cult robes comes out and resumes taking their place at the back of the procession walking into the building.
    Just a little short for a stormtrooper.

    Kanna meets Neviah's gaze for a moment, and her eyes seem to sharpen a little. "Got it."

    Unlike Neviah, the windswept ronin doesn't go out a side door. No, she takes a step or two down, and then reaches out to just open the front door right up. And then, feather-light, she drops to the ground- and she's out the door in a blur of motion so fast it's hard to follow.

    Her plan is simple enough. The others are moving up behind? She's going to circle around in front. Specifically, the Crimson Wind runs up onto the walls of the target building, and starts dashing all around the outside of it, looking for a higher-floor window she'll easily be able to open and duck in. From there? She'll just head downstairs, planning to intercept in front while the others come up behind.

A thought flits through Neviah's consciousness. It settles in grimly; she can't shove it aside. /What can I even DO to them when we encounter them?/ She has precious few milliseconds to brood about it before Lether just shanks a dude and creeps inside, in disguise. Good thinking, little gator.

Neviah gives Lether a minute or so. She counts down the seconds. Then she nods, puts h she pushes the door open - and immediately comes face-to-face with a snake-headed man in a robe standing just inside like a sentry.

Neviah and the Yuan-ti watchman stare at each other in surprise for a couple of blinks before she squares her jaw, bunches her shoulder and pistol-whips him right in the snoot. The Yuan-ti recoils from the boop with a hiss, slams into the back wall, and kicks off a flurry of startled shouts from deeper in the building. So much for the element of surprise.

Kanna will find the building about three storeys high. Inside an upper-floor window, there's a single serpentine Yuan-ti with a large mace in hand. He's simply watching... the door, not the street. If he's there to burn anything down, he's in no hurry.

    ---

Lether joins the procession just before the fighting breaks out. By the time Neviah breaks in, the little lizardgirl has followed four remaining Yuan-ti into an old storeroom in the building's rear, accessible only through a single door. One of the snake-men pushes his hood back with a rasp. "They are here," he reports tersely. "They will come in any second, I think."

"Good, good." The voice comes from the shadows, low, sibilant, but rich with a quiet certainty. From that direction emerges a figure who could pass for human in shape, yet with snakelike features - skin like blue scales, reptilian eyes, glossy dark hair, no shirt, flowing red and silver slacks. He'd shown himself once before - a priest of Zehir, the apparent mastermind behind the attacks. His eyes drift across the small group.

They settle on Lether. "You didn't think we would know someone wasn't our own, of course," he says dully before crooking a finger. "Nevertheless, you'll do nicely. Take her."

The four other Yuan-ti immediately turn and reach for Lether with clawed hands, bent on snagging and pinning her down.

    It was quick thinking!
    It was not necessarily smart thinking.
    See Lether may have very high ranks in selight of hand, stealth and acrobatics.
    ... Disguise and performance though? ... Not so much.
    So she follows the procession into the storeroom. When hoods come off, Lether... does not take off her hood.
    This doesn't help.
    To her credit one priest is VERY fucking dead in an alley, corpse getting nice and cold.
    Not to her credit, the others KNOW she's not one of them.
    No sooner than the high priest looks at her, a shortsword and dagger slide out of the sleeves of her robe.
    "Yeah well... I guess I goofed."
    Oh the priests will likely get her and pin her.
    But Lether WILL slash, stab, and BITE the whole way down before she's incapacitated.

    When Kanna's eyes fall on one of the cultists, she comes to a stop for a moment, watching him. Armed, potentially expecting trouble... what's he doing here? He must've gotten there ahead of them, to be this high up this fast. Is he some kind of mole? One of the building's employees, yet working for them? This might be a planned meeting point.

    But, ultimately, it doesn't matter, she decides.

    What matters is how to play this. With her speed and her skill, she could easily take his head or put her blade through his heart from behind, before he can even do anything. But as willing as she is to solve this encounter in a very permanent way, backstabbing just doesn't feel right. It isn't her.

    So the window slides open with no pretense of stealth, and the Crimson Wind slings herself through, landing in an easy stance with her hands on her blade, ready to draw. "You get one shot. Make it count."

    Dante is about to strike when Neviah handles the Yuan-ti. He rushes the snake-man when Neviah strikes him, shoving one of his pistols in the Yuan-ti's face, "How you doin'?" He says casualy, "Where are your friends hiding? MIght wanna answer while we're still feeling nice."

    The sound of trouble ahead does get Dante's attention, and he shoves the snake-man towards Neviah before rushing towards the chatter.

Almost immediately, Yuan-ti begin to burst out of rooms in the building. On the lower level, five of them are about to get right in Dante and Neviah's faces. Then there's the one she just pistol-whipped, who is recoiling from Dante's shove and pulling out a curved sword.

Neviah hesitates for a half-second before pulling the trigger and burying a bullet centre-of-mass in the snakeman's torso. The cultist goes down with a sickening gurgle before the others are on them in a flash. Dante, at least, is present enough that he's able to take out the lead of the reinforcements quickly - the Yuan-ti simply collapses under whatever Dante throws at him. Behind him, Neviah is hastily reloading her pistol.

"Dante, be careful, there are a lot of them!" she calls. Not that it matters to someone like him.
    Upstairs, the Yuan-ti turns towards the opening window, brandishing his mace. The snake-man flicks his tongue a moment. "...Very well."

Then he grabs a nearby chair in one hand and throws it straight at the window, trying to hit Kanna and knock her outside.

    ---

There are better situations to be in than Lether's. She slashes, she stabs, she bites. One of the four Yuan-ti goons goes down with a slash across his face and eye, shrieking in pain and bleeding profusely. Another recoils as the little lizardlady bites into his arm. The other two reach out with firm claws, coming from the sides and circling around back to avoid the worst of the stabbing and biting.

The blue man steps forward and holds out a hand. Necrotic light dances between sharp nails as he reaches out, but doesn't touch Lether - merely letting the hand hover there. The power radiating from that hand is unsettling - like noxious fumes that tease the edges of the soul.

"Younger's quite fond of you, isn't she? Hmph. Some people have no standards. I wonder what she'd do for the sake of your life, little egg?"

He wets his lips with the quick pass of a forked tongue. "Let's find out."

    "Yeah, I know!" Dante says with childlike excitement, "I'm gonna go beat 'em up!" He says with a huge laugh, dodging a cultist before smacking him right on the snoot with the butt of Ebony, then kicks backwards at another before lashing out with a roundhouse. His kicks alone can dent solid steel, so anybody who Dante hits is gonna have a very bad day indeed.

    All the while, Dante's chuckling and grinning like a kid on the playground.

    Once again, to Lether's credit, she has horrifically maimed, likely blinded someone for life.
    This pleases her vicious little soul.
    Do not the gator.
    Gnashing her teeth, she probably broke bone with that bite too, but...
    The little lizard only has so much fight in her before she ends up subdued.
    Pinned, snarling, snapping her bloody teeth, the little lizardfolk squirms as she tries to wriggle free to no avail.
    "She's got better standards than *you* that's for sure." She spits.
    ... She really doesn't want to get touched by that hand. It's got literal bad juju emanating from it.

    As soon as the snakeman's hand wraps around the chair, the Crimson Wind is already moving. Straight forward, not even bothering to dodge, the swordswoman charges in a blur of red and white. There's a gleam of moonlight off steel, and the chair splits in half mid-air; and then she moves right through, towards the cultist that threw it. The upward quickdraw slice rebounds into a downward slash, aimed at cleaving from one shoulder to the other hip - with a blade so supernaturally sharp even stone can't stop it.

"Oh, Dante," Neviah sighs.

Truly, there's not much to stop Dante from doing what Dante does. One of the cultists is booped squarely on the snoot, recoiling with a hiss and a rapid blink; another is karate-kicked straight through a door. A third attempts to skewer the devil-man with a big spear, only to get a boot to the face and tumble into a wall, snakelike lower half flailing wildly. Neviah just blinks before one of the remaining cultists trains a crossbow on her and opens fire. She dives away from the bolt with a gasp, hitting the floor and firing up to nail him in the shoulder; he coils away with a hiss, trailing blood.

Upstairs, the chair is severed neatly. Kanna moves like a beam of light. She comes down on the other side of the snakeman. For a heartbeat - a beat that hangs for longer than time could ever truly concede - there is silence.

The Yuan-ti begins to slide apart. Horizontally. Then the two halves divide into three neat vertical chunks each before collapsing to the floor in a pile of meat.
    There is nothing Kanna Ouji cannot cut.

    ---

The blue priest lowers his eyelids contemptuously and lifts his chin. "Her standards are what got her in trouble. But that can be solved." He nods to the remaining goons. "Take her."

The Yuan-ti restraining Lether take her in tow - trapping her arms and head with their limbs to ensure she can't wriggle free - and move from the back room. The senior priest follows along, guiding through a corridor not yet awash with fighting. Two remaining cultists not yet engaged fall into formation, one aiming a crossbow at the back of Lether's head and the last one hanging back. As a unit, they troop into an open space at the front of the building, a foyer, two storeys high, closed for the night, but spacious.

The blue-scaled man pushes his hair back with a free hand, keeping the other trained on Lether. "Would /Doctor/ Younger /kindly/ report to the lobby," he calls, voice ringing through the building. "Leave your weapon. We have something you might not want to die."

    ---

Caught reloading her rifle, Neviah immediately seizes up at the voice. Her blood turns to ice as she realizes what must have happened. /Lether./

Pressing her lips tightly together, the professor sets her rifle down and holds her hands up, beginning to move forward. She gives Dante a quick look.

"Do what he says," she urges, voice tight in her throat.

    When Kanna comes to a stop, she holds her posture, her stance. Complete stillness, for just a scant couple of seconds, waiting for any reprisals, any hint that her foe has survived her initial strike.

    But then he comes apart, and the redhead flourishes her weapon, then returns it to its sheath. Quietly, she opens the door, and darts outside.

    She hasn't gotten much further into the building before the cultist leader yells loud enough to be heard anywhere in the building. It brings her to a stop, face drawing into a frown, and her direction changes. Down to the second floor, where she rapidly darts through the halls until she finds some manner of balcony looking out on the foyer. Assuming she can find a spot that overlooks where they have Lether prisoner, the Crimson Wind will huddle down and watch from hiding... unless she can spot an opening.

    If there's even a heartbeat where cultist eyes aren't on the walls, she's going to dash out onto them, running around the upper half of the foyer until she can find a spot above-and-behind all of them.

    Dante only shoots to disarm and disable, shots to the shoulders or to destroy weapons entirely. These guys are hardly worth Dante's real effort, and he knocks them around like a Three Stooges routine. "You guys -really- should've rethought this whole arson thing, at some point you were gonna piss off the wrong guys. And guess what? You did!"

    It's only when he sees Lether held hostage that Dante actually stops mid-jump, and he glares up at the man, not quite saying anything yet.

    He does drop his pistols. Whether or not they go off on impact with the ground is up to fate.

    So hah hah...
    Yeah Lether is in a pinch.
    Dragged out squirming and growling, but she's about wiggled as much as she can and she's not getting free. With a crossbow to the back of her head and that hand looming over her, Lether still spits defiance as she's paraded out for the others to see.
    Not her finest moment.

Sure enough, out in the foyer, the cultists are there - the leader, and the group holding Lether hostage, a crossbow to the back of her head, a hand of necrotic energy leveled at the front of it. As Neviah steps out into the open, the colour slowly drains from her cheeks. Her eyes darken with barely suppressed frustration and anger, and she clenches her teeth before sucking in a slow breath.

Kanna can find a balcony opening up from some office space on the second floor. The fourth cultist in the mix, however, is attentive; he looks up with a flick of his tongue, seemingly tasting the air and spotting that someone else is there. "No tricks," the snakeman rasps.

Dante lowers his pistols to the floor. They hit the ground - and go off. Bullets rocket towards the leader -

Who whips his free hand out diffidently. There's a surge of magic in the air - something viscerally /poisonous,/ /malicious./ It's the same energy Neviah used to draw on, but more concentrated, more vile. And it manifests as a circle of necrotic energy surrounding the group of Yuan-ti and Lether. The bullets lose momentum as they cross the perimeter of it until they finally drop to the ground a few inches in front of the lead priest, who looks down at them for a second, then up again.

"That was unwise. If you try it again, someone might get startled. They might even put a crossbow bolt in your little friend's skull in the confusion. Wouldn't that be a shame?"

Neviah clenches her jaw again before stepping forward. Her shoulders sag. "You've made your point, what's-your-name. Now tell me what you want."

The priest shrugs one shoulder smoothly. "What's my name is Issertha," he deadpans. "And what I want is you. Or rather, what Zehir wants. You knew - or should very well have known - the price of displeasing the God of Destruction, Neviah."

Neviah's eyes begin to lower as a great dark weight settles upon her thoughts.

"You will come along with us," Issertha continues coolly, "and submit to the penalty you owe. In return, we will spare this one -" He gestures at Lether with his energized talons - "and allow the others to leave here alive."

    "Damn it." Dante grumbles. He was REALLY hoping those bullets would do something.

    He looks towards Neviah, uncertain if she's actually gonna take the deal. Either way, Dante has her back. And like hell is he gonna let Lether get hurt.

    Up on the balcony, Kanna grimaces. Even if she wasn't seen directly, they're definitely aware of her presence. The ronin grits her teeth, frustration writing itself all over her face, but for the time being, doesn't move, only muttering to herself, "Cowardly shits." She does, however, settle her left hand on Shinsatsufuu's scabbard, and her right hand on the grip, entire body tense with readiness.

    And, just faintly, the air in the foyer stirs into a subtle current.

    Well it was a nice attempt on Dante's part.
    Issertha, though.
    [Lether will remember that]
    "Don't do it, Neviah. He's just gonna have me killed anyway." Lether spits.
    "And then what's worse is he's gonna do the same to you."

As Issertha lays out the terms, Neviah stews in her own thoughts - marinates in the memory of throwing herself into the arms of the first divinity she came across in a fit of rage and anguish, of falling into a poisonous well she couldn't truly live with, only to find no handholds with which to climb out. Through it all, a thought comes through most clearly of all. That her mistakes have already cost lives, and now they might cost Lether's, and Dante's, and Kanna's.

Lether calls out to her. Neviah closes her eyes for a moment, then shakes her head before looking up at Issertha. "We do it at the same time," she decides, voice sullen, but heavy with defeat. "You let Lether go, and I'll take her place, and then we leave."

The priest flicks his tongue out briefly, as if tasting the sincerity in the air. "Then we have a deal."

As she steps forward, Neviah's eyes fix on Lether. There are tears beginning to well there. "It'll be alright," she assures, her voice quieter. "Everything will be alright."

Behind Lether, one of the Yuan-ti gives a shove. All of a sudden, Lether is being pushed forward - and in the same heartbeat, Issertha sweeps his free arm out to drape it around Neviah's shoulders. His eyes cast up towards Kanna, then back down.

"If you come after them once I'm dead, I swear I will haunt you," Neviah mutters.

The priest just rolls his eyes. "What do I look like, /chaotic/ evil? Our business with the others is concluded."

    That is... Not how Lether expected this would go. The shove sends her stumbling forward as Issertha makes good on a promise she did not expect to be kept.
    But that means...
    That means he's taking Neviah.
    "..."
    Lether is not happy about this situation as she stumbles towards Dante.
    "... If you hurt her." The lizardfolk girl snarls.
    "First I'm going to kill you."
    "Then I'm going to have Crimson cook you."
    "Then I'm going to eat you."
    Having Kanna cook them is very important here.
    It'll be delicious that way.

    Dante says nothing, but the glare he gives the priest says that this ain't over by a long shot. He _will_ come back for Neviah, one way or another.

    "...they ain't worthy of my skillet," comes a quiet, tense reply from the balcony.

    Slowly, the red-haired samurai stands. They know she's there, and even if she were completely hidden, she doesn't have the speed to cross that distance and terminate Issertha reliably. Not without drawing in enough power to make it obvious she's doing something. So, she simply stands; and though her sword is drawn, it's not to ready any attack, it's simply to level the weapon straight at the man taking Neviah.

    "I am the Crimson Wind. I am the champion of Kaminagi-no-Tachi Kiri-no-Musume, the Goddess of Storms and Just War. In my hand lies the God-Slaying Gale, a blade that will slay even a divinity if they get in my way."

    The words are entirely more formal than anything anyone has heard her speak to date, with no trace of her usual casualness.

    "I warn you here and now, Issertha. You had best not consider your business with me done. I will come for you. No one and nothing will stand in my way. Not even your god."

Issertha casts a look back up towards the balcony and arches both eyebrows shallowly. "If you choose to void the deal, that is up to you. But the consequences lie on your own head, Crimson Wind."

Neviah looks back over her shoulder as Lether makes her threat, which Issertha shrugs off with a glance away. The once and former priestess just offers up a faint, sad smile. There are tears standing in her eyes, beginning to trace down her cheeks.

"Lether," she calls back, "it'll be alright. I deserve this fate. You'll find better people who love you.

        "Please... just forget about me."

Then Issertha utters a word of power, and there's a surge of magic, and Issertha and the cultists vanish in a surge of shadow-light. It passes, and the building is left standing, empty of all but the group of three. Dante, Kanna, and Lether.

    Deal's off.
    The deal is off as of *right now*. At least as far as Lether is concerned...
    See that's the thing. She just can't forget about Neviah. Not now. Not after everything.
    A dagger slides out of Lether's sleeve as Issertha issues that word.
    Likely the last thing Neviah gets to see before she's taken is that dagger ripping through the air on a course for the Zehir high priest.
    In the end it ineffectually sails through the air and embeds in a nearby wall.
    What Neviah will likely be gone for is the gator dropping into a crouch and clutching her own head with a laser-pistol chirp of dismay.
    This all happened on Lether's fuckup.
    This is all her fault and she knows it.

    Dante wants to rush in and save the day, try and leap after the cultists and save Neviah. But somehow, he feels rooted in place. Why he has no idea. It's when they leave that Dante rushes towards Lether, and he kneels down in front of her.

    "Hey. We'll get her back. Count on it." He says softly.

    And then Dante places a hand on Lether's shoulder in silent comfort.

    A pair of wooden geta gently touch down on the ground floor. The Crimson Wind's descent is so light that it's better described as 'gliding' than 'falling'. And when she lands, those same sandals softly clack-clack across the floor, the redhead walking until she stands beside Lether and Dante. She doesn't bend down to comfort the lizard, but she does start talking softly.

    "...I fucked up."

    Staring into the spot where the cultists disappeared, her expression is a mix of cold ire and self-directed, frustrated anguish. "I ran into a guy upstairs. Stopped for just a moment. Screwed around. With my speed, if I'd been here even a couple seconds sooner, I coulda made a difference. Saved you. Saved her. /Something/. But I didn't. And a couple extra seconds screwed us."

    The leather around Shinsatsufuu's grip creaks faintly under her tense grip. "...My blade's yours. Until this is over. Until they're in the ground." There's a brief, quiet pause. "And one thing I owe you. After this, you deserve to know. Just don't use it anywhere other ears can hear. Anywhere, anyone. Outside your head, I'm still Crimson Wind. Not..."

    "... not Kanna."