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Paralyzing fear strikes through Nisha's heart as she stares up at the projection and sees the Tus'Felnis through Lavern's eyes. Naomi covers her mouth with her hands as she gasps and turns to look at Evgenia with a panicked gaze. Malachi frowns and his face hardens as he also faces the Tribe Leader.
"I thought they were safe. How did the spies get into the crypts?" he demands, too distracted by the situation to bother with formalities.
Evgenia sighs and looks at the projection as she thinks. "Hm... Galian did report that th' stragglers got away by sneaking through th' auld supply routes. Which used tae be connected with th' crypts, but we used magic tae seal those tunnels off from th' crypt they're in. Ah nae ken how they could have gotten through," she says.
"...Tus'Felnis warding magic," Nisha shudders. "We all saw that there is at least one Mar with these spies. She closed the paths, which means she must have also been able to open them..." she shakes her head and her ears fold back.
Naomi looks amongst all of them. "But why are they after Lavern and Nesosa? I thought they were after information on the tribes," she questions.
Malachi shrugs with a low grumble. "My guess would be the fragment Nesosa still has on her. They've tried to get it from us before, after all," he says.
Nisha takes a step away from them and the wall. "We have to go help them," she states.
Evgenia sighs and holds up her hand to the Tus'Felnis. "We cannae dae that," she says. "We cannae interrupt th' test. Nesosa must finish th' last trial before we can dae anythin' tae help. She is a warrior. She can hold her own against a few measly cats," her eyes dodge to Nisha's ears and tail.
"Wait... how dae ah ken yer nae one o' these spies?" Evgenia slowly brings her hand back down and narrows her eyes sharply at the girl.
Nisha clenches her fists and returns the glare with her own. "I'm just trying to save Aramora like all of us. I'm doing my part, so don't take my role as being obsolete simply because of my race. Last I checked, centaurs aren't exactly smiled upon in Aramora, either. Yet here you are," she snaps and crosses her arms.
Evgenia growls and goes to draw her sword, but Malachi steps between her and Nisha. "We can't turn against each other. Nisha is a trusted agent of the Dev'al Ordon who has been serving Athemar for over two years now. These spies just showed up within these past few days, and she's been with us the entire time. She's not one of them," he speaks as calmly as he can manage with the gravity of this entire situation.
Evgenia sighs and forces herself to stand down and break her distrustful glare from Nisha to return her gaze to the projection on the wall. "We will wait. Nesosa just has tae finish th' trial 'n' then they can get out," she says.
Nisha has to force herself to loosen up as well, but her tension doesn't ease as she also goes back to watching the scene play out and hoping she's right and Nesosa can do this on her own.
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Nesosa's eyes dart from one spy to the next, getting a count on exactly how many are in the room. She still counts six, but Lavern notices what she's doing and points to the shadowed corners at the back of the grand hall.
"Archers. Two of them," he says.
Nesosa squints her eyes as she tries to see what he's talking about, but her focus is quickly interrupted and her suspicion is answered as an arrow soars at her head and narrowly misses her shoulder.
She ducks out of the way and rushes down the steps to clash her blade against Val'Ruzzar's dual short swords. She ignores his confident smirk and glances to her right to see two of the Tus'Felnis approaching. One of them has a broadsword and the other has his hands raised as he prepares to cast an Elemental spell.
"Gansheer siloth!" the Elemental Tus'Felnis hisses.
Val'Ruzzar nods and glances back at him. "Soreth, faanar!" he shouts and pushes Nesosa back before rolling out of the way in time for a gout of fire to fly at Nesosa.
She manages to raise her shield just in time to deflect a good portion of the flames, but her shoulder got a little burned. She brings her shield back down and looks to her left now and sees two more spies. One is the one who sealed the entrance, and Nesosa can tell that she also has Summoning Magic by the ethereal shield glowing on her arm. Then there's two Tus'Felnis, a male and a female, who are mimicking each other's fighting style and both wielding sets of daggers.
"Joreen seer!" the woman shouts to the man.
He nods and they don't even need to look at each other before the woman does a twisting flip through the air towards Nesosa and the man rolls under her. They try to strike Nesosa at the same time, but she manages to kick the man back before he can stab her side and she turns her body in time to avoid the woman's dagger from piercing her, but she does leave a cut on her flank.
Nesosa hisses and swings her greatsword towards the woman, but she grabs onto the blade and lets it throw her through the air, landing her further up the stairs and she starts sprinting for Lavern.
Lavern flinches as she gets near and he jumps to the side as he prepares for her to take a stab at him, but instead she just tries to grab his arm, but he kicks her back and rushes around her to put some distance between them.
The woman glances over to the man who she seems to fight in unison with and they nod to each other. "Siloth!" she calls out.
He nods. "Soreth!" he goes to start sprinting up the stairs, but Nesosa charges at him and shoves him down before he can get to Lavern and once he's on the ground, she lifts her greatsword and prepares to stab it down on him.
The man glances back towards the shadows. "Icarri nan!" he shouts.
Nesosa starts to plunge the sword down on him, but she suddenly feels an arrow pierce her shoulder. She recoils back and grips her arm with a stinging hiss, trying to gather herself.
The man resumes his sprint towards Lavern and the woman, but the Adaliaen swiftly rolls out of the way and moves down a few steps before turning to Nesosa.
"Just finish the trial!" he calls out.
Nesosa remembers the question and tries desperately to think of the answer.
'What is the true price of honor?'
She isn't given a chance to stop and think as another arrow soars her way, but she ducks out of the way and charges at Val'Ruzzar. He leaps to the side just as she would have made contact and he perches atop a stone pillar with a gleaming smile on his face.
"Come on, Nesosa. This one knows you can do better than that," he snides and holds his blades ready as he lunges down at her.
She spins around and bashes him back with her shield, yelping against the pain in her shoulder but her adrenalin covers it up enough to make it at least somewhat bearable. She recalls the last time she fought these spies and how they got the advantage over her by jumping on her back, so she quickly backs herself into a corner where no one can run up behind her.
She expected Val'Ruzzar to follow her to continue their stand-off, but he merely snickers and turns to also rush towards Lavern.
Nesosa growls and leaves her corner to pursue him and knock him away before he can successfully get to Lavern. Val'Ruzzar flips back and holds his swords ready, then nods to the twin fighters who are also at the top of the stairs near Lavern.
"Reneeja!" he shouts.
The pair nods back and they both charge at Nesosa. The man grabs her arm and lunges to the side just as the woman holds onto his shoulders and leaps up, doing a flip through the air and landing on Nesosa's back as she had been afraid of.
Nesosa grunts and tries bashing her against the wall, but the woman remains firm and places her hands over Nesosa's eyes.
It doesn't take much to shake her hands away, but in her split-second of blindness, the man managed to slice his dagger across her knee, which makes her cry out in both pain and rage as she momentarily feels her legs give out and she drops forward to crash down the stairs.
The woman leaps from her back before she falls and she lands in the center of the stairs. Val'Ruzzar nods to the Summoning Mar.
"Desethri!" he calls to her.
The Mar nods and holds her hands up. A light blue and violet glow glimmers around her, drawing energy up through her body and pushing it out to the stone floor in front of her. The magical energy rises and takes on the shape of an ethereal dire wolf that turns its hungered gaze to Nesosa.
It's too much. She needs to start taking some heads soon or else there's no chance in hell she's going to win this. The Elemental Mar is hanging back a bit, seemingly waiting for something to happen. As Nesosa looks around, that's what all of the spies seem to be doing while Val'Ruzzar continues making attempts at grabbing Lavern, but being the Cle he is, he succeeds in evading him thus far.
These spies act as a unit, so like a chain, she needs to start breaking the links. She decides to start with the Elemental Mar, as he is in the most branched off position of all of them. She charges at him and swings her greatsword through the air in his direction. He gasps and leaps out of the way, nearly stumbling as he was seemingly caught off-guard.
Perhaps they weren't anticipating that she would figure out their little system.
The summoned dire wolf bounds towards her, but she turns and grabs the ethereal beast by its front legs and she spins and throws it as hard as she can at the Elemental Mar. He falls face-first to the stone floor and the dire wolf gets up in a daze.
Nesosa runs at the Elemental Mar again and while he's down, she takes the opportunity to plunge her sword through the back of his skull.
One down, seven to go.
The Summoning Mar gasps and she looks a little pale, her ears slightly lower but she doesn't make any advances on Nesosa. Instead, she looks to her summoned wolf and narrows her eyes. The beast sprints at Nesosa and jumps up to bite her arm, but the centaur slices her greatsword at it which makes it reel back and growl.
Val'Ruzzar looks to the archers again. "Icarri nan!"
Once again, Nesosa has to dodge a pair of arrows flying past her head. These archers are really pissing her off, so she charges at the shadows next before they have enough time to notch their arrows again. As she gets close enough to one of the shadows, a Tus'Felnis woman dives out of the way and swiftly turns to ready another arrow.
Nesosa glances at her shield and shrugs before taking it and throwing it as hard as she can at the woman. It spins through the air and hits her square in the face, seemingly breaking her nose. Once she's in a daze, Nesosa gallops at her and runs her blade through her chest as she retrieves her shield from the ground.
Another arrow flies at Nesosa and it hits her flank, but it doesn't pierce her skin and merely leaves a deep cut. She utilizes this window and charges at the next archer and he rolls out of the way. Nesosa throws a quick glance at the dire wolf and sees that it's running at her with its teeth bared, preparing to take a bite.
Swiftly, Nesosa grabs the archer by his arm and pulls him in front of her, just as the wolf would have bitten her, and instead, it sinks its teeth into the man's throat.
Five left.
She notices that the man with the broadsword has been inactive, and now looking at him and the Summoner Mar, she notices that they're looking a little scared of her.
Good. Nesosa charges at the Summoning Mar and prepares to swing her sword down at her, but the man with the broadsword steps in the way and blocks the attack with his blade. Nesosa begins to understand what the link here is. The Summoner must not be able to fight, so the broadsword guy must be here to protect her.
The question that crosses Nesosa's mind is why bring the Summoner if she can't fight. Unless she has some kind of important role in whatever they're doing here.
But still, the Summoner isn't acting without orders from Val'Ruzzar and the same goes for the broadsword guy and the twin fighters. Val'Ruzzar is commanding this attack, so she needs to take care of him first to make this whole thing fall apart.
She shoves the broadsword guy back and turns to sprint up the steps towards Val'Ruzzar, the twins, and Lavern. The twins are still trying to get the jump on Lavern, but he keeps narrowly evading them. She can see that Lavern is growing weary from having to run and dodge so much, and if this goes on too much longer then he may actually get caught.
She momentarily turns her focus away from Val'Ruzzar and onto the twins. While they're distracted with Lavern, she manages to grab the woman by her arm and pull her back which disrupts whatever attack she and the man were about to do.
Nesosa slices her blade across the woman's throat and throws her body down the stairs just as the dire wolf dashes past and charges at Lavern.
As he sees it, he tries to hold up his hands as a show of peace to the creature, but it seems he doesn't have the same effect on summoned wolves that he does on real ones. The wolf bites his raised arm and he yelps. The Summoning Mar whistles and the wolf instantly sprints back to her side without letting go of Lavern.
Nesosa tries to chase after it, but the remaining twin lashes at her with fury in his tear-filled eyes. He stabs one of his daggers into her other shoulder and she cries out. With a furious growl, she grabs his wrist and pulls his hand off her along with the dagger. She throws the man with all her strength at a stone pillar and the rock cracks, along with his spine.
Nesosa tries to take a deep breath, but she sees that Lavern is now on the ground at the Summoner's feet and with magic ethereal bindings wrapped around him.
She manages to take a single step towards the stairs before a blade runs through her back.
Her vision goes dark for a moment, and when it returns she's laying on the stone floor atop the stairs, watching through hazy eyes as Val'Ruzzar walks away from her and puts his short swords back in their sheaths.
He approaches Lavern and kneels in front of him, grabbing his face and forcing him to look up to meet his gaze.
Lavern growls and his pupils narrow into slivers. "What are you after?! Why are you doing this?!" he barks and feels his anger boiling in his veins.
Val'Ruzzar chuckles and rolls his eyes. "It is not what we are after. But rather, you are reaping the consequences of another's actions. Now, be a good dog and pipe down," he hisses and rises to his feet.
He nods to the Summoner. "Sevekan dal Narvadin," he utters.
The Summoner nods back and more magic swirls up around her, but now it also engulfs the broadsword guy, Val'Ruzzar, and Lavern.
Nesosa can feel her consciousness slipping fast, but she manages to meet Lavern's eyes for a moment. Just a moment and she can see his fear and desperation. But above all else she sees with just that single glance; the one thing that sticks with her the most.
His trust.
Just as her vision almost completely darkens, she sees the three remaining spies and Lavern all become engulfed in a magical burst, and when the magic fades away, they are all gone.
And Nesosa goes still once everything becomes dark.
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"What is the true price of honor?"
Nesosa kneels with her head down. She feels small. Alone.
Afraid.
"...Pride?" she guesses.
Silence fills the void. She can feel the weight of her failure pulling her down. Dragging her deeper and deeper into the dark emptiness that reaches out to her, just waiting for her to give in and let herself fall.
"Close, but not quite. Think, Nesosa. What is it that's holding you back from seeing what you could have if only you would open your eyes and see it?"
Nesosa shakes her head and closes her eyes once she feels her body prepare to cry, but she resists. She won't let herself be weak, but the more she fights her tears, the closer the tendrils of the void get to wrapping her in their cold embrace. "...Ah don't know..." she whispers.
"What is your greatest fear?"
Nesosa opens her eyes again and stares down in shame of the answer. "...Selflessness."
"That's right. You are afraid of dying for something greater than yourself. But understand why this is. Know what is holding you back from your destiny."
Nesosa tries to think. Desperate to free her from this emptiness.
She just wants to understand. Everything she's done that has led her to this point. What was it all for? Why did she end up in the position she's in? What led her on this path in the first place?
What is it that makes her so desperate to save Aramora?
She figures it out.
She slowly lifts her head to see the cloaked figure standing over her.
The tendrils retreat back into the darkness, and light fills the void, beckoning her to finally wake up for the first time in her life.
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"...Wake up," the voice whispers.
Nesosa feels her body ache. Her back and chest sting and every movement hurts. But she ignores the pain and weakly stares up at the cloaked figure kneeling in front of her and holding a bloody cloth to her chest.
She can't see their face. She can't see any of their features, but just from the voice, she can tell this person is a woman. Her soft voice managed to reach out to her, even in the void.
Nesosa tries to speak, but she feels too weak to do even that. So she just lays there on the stone floor and watches the cloaked woman tend to her wounds.
"Have you figured it out, Nesosa?" the woman asks.
Nesosa feebly nods her head.
The woman stops pressing the cloth to her chest and stands up. "Then heed the answer. Understand it. Take it to heart," she says. "Tell me, Nesosa," she stares down at her from behind her dark hood.
"What is the true price of honor?"
Nesosa closes her eyes and listens to her own heart beating. She feels her steady breathing. She's still alive. Somehow. She doesn't understand it, but neither does she wish to question it. This whole thought of her 'destiny' terrifies her, but she can't run now. Not now that she has found the answer.
"...Fear," she breathes the word out.
This all started because she was afraid of possibly dying on the battlefield for her tribe. She ran away but ended up being tasked with helping to save Aramora. But seeing where she is now, she realizes that if she truly wishes to save something greater than herself, she needs to let go of her worst fear.
She blinks her eyes back open, only to see that the woman is gone.
She can see a light behind her and hear the sound of sliding stone as moonlight breaks through the door and she falls unconscious once again.
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"Come on, Nesosa... Stay with me," Nisha mutters as she keeps her glowing hands over the wounds on Nesosa's chest and back. Naomi is kneeled at her side, watching with tears in her eyes as she holds Nesosa's hand.
After a few minutes of dead silence making everyone uneasy and fearful that they may have been too late, Nesosa slowly opens her eyes to see Naomi and Nisha filling her view.
Naomi's eyes light up and she carefully gives Nesosa a hug as she minds her wounds. "You're okay!" she exclaims joyously and feels her body shaking as she comes down from her adrenalin rush.
Nesosa weakly looks around and notices that the pain in her chest and back feel much better. As well as her shoulder where she had been shot by one of the archers, she can't remember which one but she doesn't bother to. It doesn't matter now.
Carefully, she pushes herself to sit up. She isn't in her centaur form, but she doesn't pay it any mind as she stares down the stone stairs at the last place she saw Lavern. Malachi is down there and she sees him approach a pedestal that wasn't in the room from what Nesosa remembers. Sitting on the pedestal is the Schism Fragment and Malachi takes it before returning to the group.
Nesosa frantically looks between all three of them, when she also notices that Evgenia and Galian are standing behind them.
"W... Where is Lav?" she chokes out and has to catch her breath as she struggles to find a steady pace with her breathing.
Malachi sighs and looks down. "Gone... Those spies used teleportation magic to get out of this crypt and they took him with. But this was hours ago. They're likely long gone by now," he explains mournfully.
Nesosa shifts her body to allow her to stand up with some help from Naomi and Nisha and she walks past them to the open door of the crypt, seeing the night sky dotted with stars and the dark clouds rolling in from the east.
She looks back at the group. "Where did they take him?" she asks, trying to find her voice again.
Naomi sighs and shrugs. "We don't know... The spell that let us see through his eyes was cut off. I don't know if it was something the spies did or if he just got out of range... I just... I don't know..." she looks away to bite her quivering lip and shuts her eyes tight.
Nisha looks down, her tail anxiously swaying across the dusty stone of the mountain edge. She clenches her shaking fists and takes a deep breath.
"...Narvadin," she says quietly which grabs everyone's attention. She lifts her head to meet their eyes. "...They took him to Narvadin," her ears lower some more.
Evgenia narrows her eyes at the Tus'Felnis. "And how dae ye ken that?" she questions.
Nisha takes another deep breath. "Before we lost the connection, we heard that spy, Val'Ruzzar, say 'Sevekan dal Narvadin' which is N'Fel for 'send us to Narvadin.' N'Fel is the language of the Tus'Felnis," she explains.
"So we're going to Narvadin," Naomi states. "We've gotta get him back."
Malachi looks away. "If he isn't dead already..." he mutters grimly.
Nisha shakes her head. "If they wanted him dead, they would have just killed him in the crypt. I think they got exactly what they were hoping for," she says.
Naomi looks to Malachi. "You got the fragment, right?" she asks.
He nods. "I do. And that makes three."
"Sae let's go back tae Ecrin, give Athemar th' damned fragments, then go get Lavern," Nesosa says and steps up to Evgenia. "Could ye have a ship bring us from 'ere tae Ecrin before sunrise?" she asks. Something about her voice seems different. They didn't think it was possible for Nesosa to sound stronger than she already does. But this seems to go beyond just what she is physically capable of.
The Tribe Leader nods, her eyes checking Nesosa's with silent admiration. "Aye. If ye take a ship across th' pocket o' th' Recharn Sea between Kilead 'n' Ecrin, ye should arrive in just a few hours."
"Good. Have th' ship prepared 'n' we are ready tae set out," Nesosa says and closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath and focuses, feeling as her body begins to glow and her legs change shape as she shifts back into her centaur form.
Galian places his hand on Nesosa's shoulder. "There's a storm coming, Nesosa, 'n' ah don't just mean th' darkened clouds. A'm sure a'm nae th' only one who can feel it. Something feels wrong in th' air. Whatever happens, please," he meets her gaze.
"Be th' warrior we all know ye are," he smiles.
Nesosa firmly nods and turns back towards her group. Nothing is said before they all start making their way back to Kilead so they can break for Ecrin when the time comes.
There's a storm coming indeed.