diatu | Bird is the Word [closed]

Bird is the Word [closed]

Who: Dust, Jude, and Kazuma
What: Infiltrating the Palace Garden!
Where: The Palace Garden
When: pre-bodyswap shenanigans probably
Warnings: N/A

She’s waiting for both of them at the entrance to the Palace Garden -- or rather, an entrance, namely a spot where the iron-wrought railing and carved stonework have given way to climbing vines and overgrown bushes. It’s the easiest opening to climb through, and it’s not very far from where she intends on going.

She’s prepared: Nightfell is strapped to her hip, as usual, and she’s dressed in a sensible, dark-coloured ensemble of pants, boots, and coat. Over her shoulder is a length of rope, and a bag full of other supplies is slung across her back.

Her arms are crossed, and she’s tapping her gloved fingers on her sleeve, restlessly. Or maybe it just looks restless; maybe it even looks like nothing at all. Almost like someone is conjuring up the illusion of nothing where there should be a girl.

Every now and then, she'll check the sky to gauge the position of the sun. She's early, but her companions should be here soon.

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Dust. Dust never changes.

No, really. Jude might be dressed for success, but Dust wore his usual, inevitable outfit. The main difference between now and normal was that when he paced up, he held both Ahrah and Furae, both weapons held reverse-grip. He looked a lot more comfortable that way than when he had them at his side.

"So the party's all here then, yeah?" Kazuma asks a bit nonchalantly as he stands up from the shadowed corner he'd been lurking in for some time.

As for his own get-up, it's his usual adventurer's outfit. In addition, he's got a coil of rope of his own around one shoulder, and a short bow hanging off the other. On his back is a quiver, full of with both normal arrows and grappling-hook tipped ones, as well as his short sword and its sheath at the small of his back.

Good; they're both here and they both look ready (her appreciative gaze lingers on Dust's blades and Kazuma's arrows both). She dismisses her illusion with a brief tap of her heel against the stone, then pushes off.

"Thank you both for coming. Dust, Kazuma -- have you met?"

Always good to know whom you're heading into the unknown with.

"We're mortal enemies," Dust said, one hand lifted as his fingers slowly curled. "Destined to battle eternally, only putting our quarrel at bay long enough to aid you."

He was in a good mood today. He was joking around.

"Oh, uh... Yes, my constant nemesis and rival..."

Kazuma is quick to assume a pose of his own, one arm awkwardly crossed over his body akin to some muscle-bound bizzare adventure villian. His opposite hand's fingers are splayed out over his face, two fingers together to cover and maintain the seal over his apparently cursed, evil eye of power.

"Yes, my mortal enemy... Dirt."

The snort escapes her without meaning to; in fact, she looks surprised at her own laughter. She ducks her head to hide her smile -- feeling oddly awkward about being caught off guard.

"...well, I'm grateful." That sounds stupid. She clears her throat, and gestures towards the hole in the fence. "We should go before anyone sees us."

She's scaled this particular spot at least a dozen times already; it might be obvious from the fact that it takes her no time at all.

Edited (grammar) 2019-08-03 23:32 (UTC)

A smile and a laugh out of Jude. They'd done well, and somehow Dust felt like he'd already completed an important mission here.

Dust less scaled the wall and more jumped -- vaulting up to the top to grab onto the vines, waiting just a moment for his feet to settle and his balance to come back, then flipping neatly over to land on the other side. This was pretty much his life back in Falana, after all.

"Frickin flying blue furries, what the hell?" Kazuma mumbles to himself as he scales up the ruins after his companions.

His own climbing performance isn't even close to as practiced as the former, nor a quarter as fleet as the latter.

While attempting to pass through the hole in the fencing, he somehow manages to lose his footing, leaving him to tumble down the rest of the way, although at least on the side of wall they want to be on.

He lands flat on his face in a cloud of dust (the non-furry kind), a mass of broken vines, and falling last, his now unraveled rope. The grapple hook on the end of it lands on top of pile with a metallic thunk.

"I'm okay! Yup, just fine!" A thumbs up extends out from the mess of tangled ivy and coiled cord.

"You're--"

A truly spectacular sight for all the wrong reasons. Still, she's by his side in a flash, kneeling down so she can pull him up.

"You're sure you're up for this?" It's probably not the most tactful way to ask, but by the time she realizes that she's already said it.

(He did mention dying more than once; she's assumed someone had killed him, but now she's sort of wondering whether it was by stumbling off a ledge.)

The hat hid most of Dust's wince, though nothing could disguise the way he flinched at the heavy and uncomfortable sound of impact. Yipe. One thing's for sure: Kazuma definitely hadn't gone on a grand adventure that required insane amounts of leaping and climbing.

While Jude helped pick him up, Dust instead turned his attention to their surroundings, watching for any trouble that might come their way. Not that he expected any yet, but if it DID show up, now would be a terrible time.

"Y-yeah, I'm still good to go!" Kazuma insists while his face reddens with embarrassement. "Those vines are slipperier than they look, okay!?"

With help from Jude he untagles himself and is back on his feet, patting off the dirt from his fall.

"Not any damage but my pride! Could have been a lot worse, last time I broke my neck and died..." His declaration was more him talking to himself than the others while he re-coils his strewn about rope, but his blush deepens as he realizes the thought was said aloud.

"D-don't worry, though! That time was from higher up, and it totally wasn't my fault!"

One day, Kazuma, she's going to get you really really drunk and grill you about that dying multiple times thing.

But today is not that day. They've got business to attend to, after all. She rises as well, dusting herself off. A glance at Dust shows him on alert, which doesn't surprise her.

"It's pretty deserted here, unless you count the birds. And animals, sometimes." She casts a glance at Kazuma. "Plus the ghosts of old vine victims, maybe."

With that said, she'll shoulder her bag and start moving. There is a path -- it's hard to see, and indeed almost nonexistent in places, but the keen observer will notice some recently broken branches and trampled foliage here and there. The garden is beautiful, in its own way, overgrown as it is: clearly it was grand once upon a time, full of fruit trees and flower beds, statues and stagnant ponds populated by massive lily pads.

It's a bit of a walk. Jude clearly knows exactly where she's going, though, and every now and then she'll call out warnings about slippery path stones or especially thorny flora. Eventually, she'll duck through a cracked, sunken marble arch which opens up onto a small clearing and the crumbling wall of a massive building. A complex network of vines leads to a balcony some ways above their heads.

She stops, waiting for them to come through before she speaks.

"This is the place."

Good plan, Jude. Even Dust had only died once up till now.

"When there was one person, yeah. Now there's three. Or five, depending on how you count these things."

Still, Dust trusted her; he followed behind, minding her warnings when necessary but generally just treating this like another trip across Falana. He wasn't deliberately causing any avalanches or avoiding lava out here, so this is hardly the worst trip he's ever had.

That balcony, though... "You haven't been up there, right? Even to peek."

She shakes her head.

"Stonework's too decrepit. Even for me. I figured I'd need a spotter at least."

She's a fast climber, and she might be able to make it -- but a fall from that height would almost certainly result in broken bones, and she'd rather not die in an overgrown palace garden of all places.

She'll size up the balcony herself; it still looks the same as when she'd first found it, except that the vine is flowering. A sign of some sort, probably.

"What do you think?"

Dust nodded. "Go for it. If you fall, I'll get you."

Simple as that, really. Dust wasn't one to sit around worrying about possibilities when the only choice was really simple and straightforward.

She sizes him up one last time, as if confirming that she does indeed trust him, and then nods.

The rope slung around her shoulder is attached to a grappling hook; she stands back to aim and throw it over the balcony railing. A preliminary tug doesn't reveal anything too immediately alarming, and so up on the rope she goes.

She's clearly done this before, but that doesn't mean much if the balcony doesn't hold.

Dust can't complain about her technique. Better than his would be if he were climbing the rope. Jude seemed to be the pretty competent type, which was all to the good.

Though even competent people can suffer from the environment, so Dust moved underneath her as she climbed, watching her progress carefully.

However great her technique, luck is not on Jude's side.

She can feel the hook wobble a split second before it loses its grip on the balcony in a shower of crumbling stone.

"--heads!"

Just barely enough time to shout her warning and then shut her eyes, bracing herself for impact as she falls.

One of the great things about wearing a hat like Dust's was not needing to wince away from a shower of gravel and stone shrapnel as it rained down on you. Instead, Dust judged his moment -- then held out his arms and dropped to one knee as Jude fell into them, decelerating her as gently as he could.

"Gotcha!"

The impact is much softer and more... controlled than she anticipates (despite putting her trust in Dust, she's eternally preparing herself for the worst), but it still knocks the breath out of her a little. She recovers quickly, however, opening her eyes and scrambling up. Nothing feels injured, which is good news.

"Are you hurt?"

He looks like he's got it under control, but you never know where an errant elbow might have ended up.

"I'm fine." Dust straightened himself up -- she didn't exactly weigh a ton to his perspective -- and set her back on her feet as he did. "What about you?"

"No harm done. Thank you." He's as good as his word -- not that she had any reason to doubt that. In the time she's known Dust, he has never been anything but dependable, and honourable to a fault.

"I know what went wrong," she ventures, leaning down to pick up her grappling hook. It, too, seems unscathed, if a little dusty. "There's a section that looks much sturdier -- I could see it once I was higher."

Which means she's going to wind up her throwing arm and try again. Stubbornness is the key to success, as far as she's concerned.

"That ought to work, then. I've got your back." Literally, if he has to catch her again. Unless she manages to turn in midair, which would in and of itself be a feat. But for now, Dust stepped back to give her room for her toss.

As it turns out, she does not need his catching prowess a second time. The ancient railing holds, and soon she's pulling herself over the edge of the balcony.

That's when the sounds make themselves known. She peers into the darkness of the entrance, but can't make out much -- yet. It sounds a ways away, still.

She frowns, and motions for him to come up, not wanting to make too much sound. It's riskier, since there's no one to catch him, but the rock the rope is anchored in seems solid.

A rustle, then a second, of cloth in the air, and then Dust landed nearly on the balcony -- having just plain jumped up. When he rose, both his swords were in hand, though both they and he were quiet.

She... does not expect that, as her flinch may indicate. To her credit, aside from a sharp intake of breath, she doesn't make noise. His speed shouldn't be surprising by now, but the height of that jump...

Her own sword isn't out quite yet, but her wand is. She holds up a hand for Dust to wait as she pulls in the rope and throws it into her bag with silent haste. Then it's time for sigils and a quiet, under-her-breath incantation, which produces a single, floating sphere of light to illuminate their way.

Then, and only then, does she move towards the entrance, drawing her own sword meanwhile.

He twitched a bit as she took the lead. He was used to working alone, and being the hero, so having someone else go first felt weird to him. But that was purely his problem and he knew it, so he suppressed that thought and followed close on her heels.

And so it goes: sword/wand in hand, the light sphere hovering above them, until they come up on the turtle statue. Here, Jude stops -- a respectable distance away.

This is... different, but not so different, in a way. It's definitely like something out of Faerie, which makes her wonder.

"Think we need to pay the gatekeeper?"

That's how it usually works, in her world. That, or tricking them.

"I'm used to things like this only taking one form of currency." Dust dropped into a slight crouche, the Blade of Ahrah held behind him at the ready, while his left arm crossed his face and Furae pointed at the creature.

In a way it's probably ironic that Jude is the one to advance the idea of restraint -- it's an irony that might escape Dust, granted, since her reputation for violence hasn't followed her here. Still.

Regardless, she holds out a placating arm in front of him. "Hold on-- not yet."

Instead she steps forward, just enough for her light to shine on the golem's (?) nose. It's a massive turtle -- even if it attacks her, how speedy could it be?

"Will you grant us entry, gatekeeper?"

She does her best to channel authority into the request, but it's not particularly easy when she's feeling so... dwarfed.

Dust had to wonder what Jude had been through to expect this to work. Not that he thought she was being foolish, mind -- just in his experience, this sort of thing only ended one way.

But he'd let her try. Maybe it would work.

As it turns out, they're both somewhat right.

Jude listens to the turtle's explanation tersely, though a muscle in her jaw jumps at the mention of a Trial of Kings. Still, once the guardian has relayed its message she bows, politely, before unsheathing her own sword.

Truth be told, the task of fighting a giant golem is daunting. But the turtle didn't say they had to win -- only that they had to prove their strength. In Faerie, at least, that sort of feather-thin difference was usually critical...

Either way, she moves in for the first strike. Dust is strong, and very fast, and they have sparred often enough to know each other's styles. Between the two of them, they might just have a chance.

Dust, meanwhile, didn't consider not winning to be an option. Jude might be heading in first, but he was on her tail with barely more than a heartbeat to spare. Which put him in perfect position to intercept the creature's first swipe at the pair of them.

The collision of stone against steel reverberated thunderously through the room, knocking both Dust and the statue back -- but he was the first to recover, blades whirling through the air as he capitalized on its moment off-balance.

She ducks instinctively at the clash, rolling to avoid the dust and debris which gets thrown up in the bang. Dust seems intent on taking the golem head on, but Jude is thinking through alternatives, even as she rolls onto her feet. This cannot be a test of pure strength; who could possibly win? But then she's used to thinking of everything as a trick, as a puzzle to be solved only when you apply the right pressure to the right points...

An idea flashes in her head, and in the same breath she steps back, off to the side, trying to get out of the turtle's sight-line. Her wand is in her non-dominant hand; what she's thinking of will require magic. She'll have to sheathe her sword to draw any sigils, which means trusting Dust's ability to keep the turtle busy and away from her.

...ability and willingness. She can't tell him her plan, not without shouting it across the room, which would make her attempts at subterfuge pointless. He'll have to trust her, too.

If Dust didn't trust her... Okay, to be honest, if Dust didn't trust her literally nothing would have changed, from coming along to catching her to getting in this fight. He ran according to his own principles, after all, which had very little room for treating someone poorly under these circumstances. But he did trust her, so no worry, Jude.

Really no worry. Dust in combat was a very different beast than Dust in a spar; he whirled around the statue like a gust of wind, massive sweeping strikes combined with athletic displays. The special blades bit into the stone with each slash, and he had the statue's full attention thanks to that.

So far, so good; it occurs to her that it's possible Dust could take the turtle on all by himself. Not that it matters -- she is as determined to prove herself as he is.

So she concentrates, her wand moving as she draws the sigils, chanting just under her breath. Time is precious; still, she takes as much as she can to ensure that her hand is steady, her pronunciation correct, and perhaps most importantly -- that her focus is sharp, specific, channeling her intent as fiercely as possible.

If she's lucky -- or skilled enough -- the spell should result in a massive stone column erupting from the ground, just off-center from under the guardian. In other words: she intends on trying to flip the turtle onto its enormous back.

If she asked Dust, he would say "almost certainly"; destroying monsters was almost literally a footnote to the Sen-Mithrarin's existence. But then again, that was 'almost'; why even take the risk when she can add her own power to make it a certainty?

The column erupted just as Dust was parrying another blow, though he darted backwards in time for it to sweep past him and flip the giant turtle over with surprising speed. The crunch when it landed made the room shake, though the floor held.

The turtle kicked its stone legs a few times, testing to see just how thoroughly it was stuck. When it didn't so much as rock, it sort of slumped in dismay.

"Well, you've beaten me," it said, not particularly gracious no matter how it tried.

As far as Jude is concerned, the turtle has been gracious enough by allowing them to fight it without fearing for their lives. That, and she's still sort of giddy from seeing the spell work -- it's one thing imagining and hoping for magic to happen, and another to see it have direct effect.

It never really gets old.

She bows to the turtle with a word of thanks, managing to keep a straight face despite how comical the upside-down golem looks. Then she turns to the now unguarded entryway.

And tenses.

"That doesn't look too friendly," she mutters to Dust, her hand on her sword again. She's trying to think of protection spells, but none of the ones she knows seem sufficient, especially not against a... ghost? It doesn't seem corporeal, anyway.

"Any ideas?"

Hmm. Dust couldn't kill the last spirit he'd fought -- it was a ghost with a more complicated means of dealing with it, and one of the few things that had ever terrified him. This thing seemed a lot simpler, if only because it was in the circle.

Hmmmmm.

"We can creep around it," Dust said, pointing to the side. A circle in a square room that gave them enough room to stand? There was at least a little space to either side.

That makes sense. She considers, for a moment, whether they might benefit from a Fantastics spell for extra cloaking, but there is the pesky matter of having to create music -- sound -- in order to facilitate an illusion.

Better to trust both their slyfooting and its silence. She gives Dust a silent nod of agreement, takes a breath, and proceeds through the doorway.

Dust took a couple quick steps to get ahead out of pure reflex. He still wasn't used to working with people anywhere near his size, nor an ally who could stand up on the ground as well as he could. Sorry, Jude, he didn't mean anything by it.

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Bird is the Word [closed]

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