Worra leads as Bosque follows.
They are more than three miles from the peel castle heading north. Any light from the castle is gone. The night is forms into beautiful swirl of in deep royal blue, purple and black. Various sized pinholes of light in the perforated sky guide and light the way. The chill on the air keeps the pair aware in the quiet woods.
Worra loves the dark vision her people were gifted by the Seedaeri*. Starlight far from hyguier sight can be seen making the night sky more precious than the light of the day. She cannot wait till she is home and it is the long winter. The cold, the snow, the darkness, babbles of light wanding the sky in perfect order.
Worra notices Bosque has finally stopped looking back with longing. She knows he is uncomfortable with her and prefers the company of his party. Yet Bosque is a good partner for this quest. Instinctively quiet, attentive to his surroundings and follows her guidance with no resistances.
Worra stops. Bosque on alert.
They are between the tree line and a sheer rock cliff above them. A stone face so hostal nothing grows the entire way up. She removes a flat round river stone from her satchel. It faintly glows with runes that only a handful on Cross can read. She points in a direction where it looks completely impossible to climb.
Bosque's eye brow says everything. "You're in charge."
Worra walks tightly against base of the cliff. A cold wind slices through them and she can sense Bosque knows her expression is worried. Her fingers are spread, dragging against the rock surface searching for something. Bosque patiently follows with hands resting on his weapons.
Worra stops. Bosque is alert.
Something can be heard over the biting wind. Bosque looks like he knows what it is. Worra whispers something into the stone. Presses cold lips on cold stone. From the kiss, a low luminous burst radiates long the stone. She looks for an echo of light to return. She moves further down the wall.
Worra stops. Bosque is hunting.
She can hear Bosque, faintly. She hears somebody else, clearly. She whispers again and kisses again. The light does not echo along the wall. Something is behind her, growing, black with hate, green with envy.
"What are you doing with this hyguier?" Speaks the shadow.
Worra turning slowly, changing her stance to something frightening and taller than she was.
Menacing Worra speaks in a low choir of her voice multipled, "He is part of my plan. You cannot question me, Shadow King."
"Therefore you are challenged. The hyguier is challenged," the Shadow King replies in the same speak. "I will grant you what you seek because I have taken it from you."
Worra wants to threaten the shadow. It disappears in fire light. Bosque, whom has been thrown, lands were the shadow was. The smell of singe follows the ranger. Bosque catches a glimpse of what could be Worra's true form.
Bosque breaks silence with groans and a few words, "Help me. I saw as you were. You are more formidable than I."
"No," she says in the voice Bosque knows. "My test is to not interfere. Your test is to survive."
Worra is judge of this fight.
She can see Bosque understands this is concerns the toll coins and that she maybe deeper in the Urraedi than she let on. Worra does not want to pick sides though he wishes Bosque to come out whole from his initiation.
Night is a time for prey to be hunted by predators. Packs of wolves, lone tigons**, things that are silent and armed with fangs. In these woods, nothing is more dangerous than Bosque, Worra and the demon of fire burning the woods in front of them. An ellipse of blazing forest pins them against the cliff wall. Bosque reveals the angled blades, baring his fangs.
"Painted wooden sticks!" The monster says loudly finishing with a laugh.
"They are Sunlight Fang and Moonlight Fang," Bosque yells, "and you will extinguish your flame!"
Bosque throws both blades unsure the affect they will have against the being of fire. Angels are know to have radiant magic along with fire. Demons can be of necrotic magic and control infernos. They weave amongst the trees like torches. Bosque is doing the same, trying to find a flank and a weakness in tall walking pyre.
The magical boomerangs are deflected by one swing of the heated metal hammer. The boomerangs fly back into the night toward Bosque. The walking furnaces comes closer to Worra.
"This hyguier is no challenge, Worra!"
She recognizes the voice and smoldering complexion through the inflamed aura of his hair and beard.
"Suteo," Worra calmly says, "It is his first volley and you are always over confident. You mind to watch yourself."
The stout brawny man wreathed in fire laughs, "I order confident because I win." Suteo points one of his near molten hammers at her, "On that, do not forget your bargain."
A whistle is heard in the air. Suteo turns quickly and swings a hammer, sending slag into the air. The two boomerangs are deflected into the night and flames.
Worra hears Suteo laugh as he walks off igniting the trees and brush as he searches for Bosque. The laughing stops as she sees the first chevron shaped voids strike the flaming man, sparks fly as the other two land.
Suteo charges the silhouette of Bosque. Hammers swinging and spraying the ranger each time scorching debris. Bosque dodges narrowly each time.
The ranger wipes his brow, interrupt by two glowing hammers. Bosque rolls through a bush that is ablaze and runs. Suteo is in pursuit. Worra can see glints released from the hyguier and demon stops then howls in pain. Bosque disappears from view.
Suteo, looking confused, dashes in the opposite direction with a limp. He only gets a few paces before something thrown in his way entangles and halts his movement. The demon struggling with a net.
Bosque jumps from the darkness with fangs driven deep into Suteo. Molten blood spraying in the black, fangs with whirling teeth cutting deeper into ensnared monster. The rangers hands and clothes covered in blood and burns. Fangs cutting deeper to the point Bosque cannot push any farther.
In a burning rage Suteo reaches for Bosque and throws him into the inferno that is now the woods before Worra. She can see the smoldering demon heading toward the ranger pinned in the burning branches. Bosque struggling to free himself.
Again Suteo laughs, "My turn to throw something at you!"
The demon wining back sending sparks and slag flying into the already burning canopy, releases his a hammer with a mighty throw. The hammer explodes in millions of embers. Bosque, the branches and the trunk he was pinned against are gone. Suteo calls back his hammer as if flies through the air.
The demon walks slowly toward the onceti. Both hammers resting on his shoulders. In full confidence Suteo says, "I am her to collect my prize! Ha ha!"
Worra bows down. The demon places one of the large warhammers on the ground and she places her check on the burning facet of metal.
"I cannot wait to pull the coin from your shattered skull," the demon barks.
Calm, she has been prepared for this. Pass been the plains and a chance of rest. She imagines Suteo raising his great hammer on high, crashing through her head, meeting the other hammer and ringing like an anvil on the otherside.
Worra feels a change in fate as unnatural bright glow sparks in the distance. She lifts her head in awe watching the dark glowing arc as the hammer strikes hammer. The two boomerangs, black and white pressed together with power ready to tear reality into pieces, strikes the demon in the chest. She sees Bosque with eyes lit bright mix of light and dark boiling over in power. He many steps away making gestures similar to pushing something hard and deep into an other.
In her imagination, she witnesses the twin fangs driving deeper in Suteo. Hot blood gushing, blood spraying meters from the wound as the demon tries to pull the angled blades from his heart. She now feels the sizzling blood on her back and sees it on the ground. The light of fire is dim compared to the energy shining from behind her
Bosque is close now. His voice silences the flames around him as he speaks, "It is time for our paths to diverge, demon."
She can hear energy stacking on itself, cracking and vibrating to a climax. Worra slowly stands up as energy bisects Suteo from head to groin. Light and dark are released. The demon ripped into two and falls smoldering in halves. Molten hammers melt to flat shadows on the ash covered ground.
Worra and Bosque look at each other. Various burns on their flesh and clothing. She sees hyguier much more worst for wear and thankful that he is not bleeding.
A flash takes their attention away from each other. A toll piece appears floating for a moment, the dropping between the halves of Suteo. Bosque walks over and picks it up while admiring the shine from the burning forest.
Bosque asks, "Am I of the Urraedi Arimavor?"
He receives no answer.
Worra's attention now focused on the wall in which she kissed. Her skyskiff is now in its place in a large crevice between the cliff. Released from the shadowy figures grap.
Bosque is now next to her. He says in astonishment, "It floats?"
"She flies," Worra replies.
They both board the skiff, heal then head toward the Nevers under what is left of the starlight.
----------Result----------
Bosque is Level 4 1/2! Almost rveryone is level five.
Treasure
1 Toll piece
----------End---------
*Seedaeri, astralosion travelers that created life on many plains and bubbles of existence and reality.
**Tigon, a tiger-like predator cat with scales.
+Ulall's Tooth and Black Abbess, maybe proper names of magical boomerangs.
