"No, no, no, no, NO!" Allune screamed as she saw the vision of her village burning. With the worse part being, a dark version of herself. Smiling as she killed her mother. The moment she woke up, she felt cold sweat drip down her face, while her lower body felt warm. Allune breathed deeply while looking around the camp, and the forest. "Haah... haaah." She panted, her breasts rising up, then down. Yet, despite her horrifying experience. Allune could still feel the arousal... even the one near the end, where her mother was raped. Taking a few more deep breaths, she decided to quickly change her clothes, and undergatments. Hoping no one would see.
“Hmm. Roughly that size is probably doable..” Larisa didn’t explain what she was thinking as she let loose her spell. Small-medium things were a step up. Larisa was fairly confident that would be possible. She certainly had a long way to go before creating entire houses and maybe even a whole city one day, if she was that determined to pursue it that much. But she had already came farther along in actually using her magic than she expected. And the more her reputation developed, the more dangerous the threats were going to become....she had to get stronger to fight stronger enemies who were only picking fights because she was getting stronger... The logistics were maddening. But she choose not to focus on it and just test out the newest step up in her bettered skills. She had pictured it, so she made it. With a flourish of bringing her arm upward, she gestures for the illusion of a rose bush to sprout upwards from the warehouse floor.
The two guardsmen remain fast asleep, allowing Allune to change in peace. She feels the spirits again, the feeling comforting after the isolation of her dream. At first, they seem content, but begin to become alarmed at something, leading her away from the campsite.
The amber heats up again, and she feels the magic flowing through her, casting the illusion. The rose bush springs up from the ground, petals colourful and rich, though not exactly how she'd imagined, a bit more twisted than one would find in nature. Benacio goes to pick one, and experimentally touches a thorn, pulling his hand away. "Ah, that actually stings." He rubs his finger. "That's so bizarre. There's no bush there, but because I see it, I feel pain when I touch the thorns." Larisa feels that maintaining the illusion would be more difficult without the necklace. Unlike what Benacio said, the trinket isn't making the illusion more powerful, but it's making it more stable.
Larisa takes a moment to muse over her findings, a slight smile of amusement breaking out. “It’s likely due to your gift playing a role in hammering out structural details. It still seems somewhat complex to make more intricate things such as this, but within my eventual grasp. Admittedly, these spells would take a lot longer to master if I didn’t already have so much of the theory behind them memorized. But my practical experience is still a little less than a month of actually applying any learnt knowledge. Some of the things I can do surprise even me. It’s interesting to wonder where the line between illusion and outright conjuration lies, anyway. Real enough. Perhaps that’s the best definition.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, as she managed to change without being seen. However, her relief was short lived as the spirits become alarmed. Recalling they only felt this way due to the tatars, and the black knight. Allune takes her bow, and a quiver of arrows as she follows the spirit's directions.
Angelo carried a bundle of branches, when he heard the voices. 'Looks like we are not alone out here,' the monk said. He went a little closer to the source and listened carefully, hoping to hear them more clearly.
@moonblack Benacio nods, interested. "I wonder if-" There's the sound of a twig snapping behind them, and he turns around, hand on his sword hilt. Following Benacio's gaze, Larisa and Ophelia see three members of the catholic clergy, a handsome young man in his early twenties, a pretty redheaded woman a little older, and a bookish looking scribe in his late teens. The trio have a Mediterranean look, with dusky skin. The first man has an elegant mace strapped to the side of his monks robes. Volenca and Robert follow, and Angelo hears bits and pieces of a conversation about magic, seeing three figures through the trees. Robert audibly steps on a twig, snapping it, and the three figures turn to look at him. They're clearly nobles, a man and two women. All of them are highly attractive, and Angelo has to ignore a stirring as he gazes upon the large bust of a dark haired woman, and the beautiful face of a girl, perhaps slavic in origin. The young nobleman nearly unsheathes his sword, but relaxes when he sees that Angelo is a monk. "Oh, brother, you scared me. I thought you were a tatar or a demon!" He smiles good naturedly.
As she moves quietly, she begins to hear hushed voices. Moving a little closer, she sees Darius and Lukas talking in low tones as they stand guard. Straining her ears, Allune begins to pick up what they're saying. Lukas looks to his uncle. "I'm not... I'm not sure I can do this." Darius gives him a look of distaste. "You fucked the mother against my orders, but you can't fuck the daughter?" Lukas looks back. "Her mother wanted me, Allune clearly doesn't. I-, I don't want to do that to her. I can't." There's a sharp smack, as Darius backhands his nephew with an armoured gauntlet, sending the younger man reeling. "You little shit." His voice seethes with disgust. "Do you seriously not understand the situation we're in? The Balkus family has twice our numbers! If our lands are to remain ours, we need the support of the girl's father. The only way we get that support is by a marriage to his daughter. The only way to get the man to accept the marriage is if his daughter is already pregnant." He points towards the camp, not seeing Allune in the bushes. "If you can't do it, I will. I'll plow and marry the girl, and I'll take your father's lands for myself. Out of respect for your father, I'll give you one more day to man up. Then, she's mine." Lukas stands up to his uncle. "She fought with us against the tatars. Does that mean nothing? And now we... we rape her? How is that just, or honorable?" Darius looks away. "Midnight tomorrow, boy. If you haven't had her by midnight tomorrow, I'll make her mine. Now piss off, I'll take the watch alone." Lukas looks at the knight for a moment, before walking towards the camp.
Guess we're not the only people here... “Hello and good day,” Ophelia greeted the trio politely “we did not expect to meet other people in the woods. Who might you be and what brings you here?” She inquired, curious who they were and where they had come from.
Angelo was surprised to see them, and he had trouble understanding them. He looked at the busty, raven-haired noble, doing his best to keep his eyes abover her shoulders. 'Ähm, hallo? Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut? ... Ich bin Angelo. Das sind Volenca und Robert. Wir kommen aus Italien mit der Inquisistion.'
Allune was about to call out to them, when she overheard what they were talking about. Her blue eyes widened as she hid in the bush. She covered her mouth to keep silent, while she continued to listen to them. Allune couldn't believe her ears, were they just using her? Did her father even want to meet her, or was that part of Darius' plan too? No, better yet, was Lukas actually the honorable one? No, it's not the time for that. For now, she needs to decide if she can actually trust them or not. When their chat was over, Allune takes the chance to head back before Lukas.
@moonblack Larisa had to be naturally a bit tense. She refused to accept she could already be on the radar of some order, but this was the worst kind of tendency and she wasn’t thrilled to hear the words the man had. “Oh, the Inquisition...” Her tone came with obvious forced politeness, but it would probably make things worse just to try and leave. Thus, she had to stand there as the Germans made conversation and she was left watching warily at what she had to assume was another band of hypocritical monks dedicated to wiping out different opinions already wondering why the hell they were poking around here of all places to begin with.
Angelo nodded to the Slavic-looking woman, straining his rudimentary German, 'Yes, there's an expidition to these lands. I think it's got something to do with increased sightings of Hellspawn and disappearances. We've run into Hellhounds ourselves on the way here.' 'Are you out for a stroll? We are just gathering some firewood for the camp, as you can see.'
@Auraicide @unisol_gr44 The Inquisition. Just great. Ophelia sighed mentally. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition... or the Italian, as the case may be. She listened quietly to the short exchange between Larisa and the new arrivals. While Angelo's German could use some work it was understandable enough. The mention of Hellspawn caught her attention and she joined the conversation. “Yes, all three of us arrived recently and we are now getting familiar with the area. What was that about Hellspawn? Tell us more about these Hellhous you encountered, please.” She requested, smiling at Angelo. If there were any Hellspawn in the area they needed to know so that they could warn Miroslava, as well as their own men.
'We were still on the other side of the Alps, when we encountered those beasts,' Angelo explained to the noblewoman, 'The Inquisitors call them Sharak, big dogs with massive maws full of razor sharp teeth. The most gruesome part is... they have no skin, you can see their bare muscle.and bone. They massacred a small hamlet, before we got there. And we only barely managed to survive our encounter with them. We haven't met any more on the road and I'm not sure they are here in Tarsovie as well.'
@moonblack @unisol_gr44 Hellhound did seem like an actually dangerous enemy and it forced Larisa to raise an eyebrow in surprise. Not just out of amazement they survived such an encounter, but also do to the fact the inquisition actually came across as doing something marginally meaningful and actually helpful to people other than themselves. “Demon presence has definitely increased. There was a particularly bothersome group of imps.” Larisa paused to check her nails, treating the memory with disdain. “Of course, they’re all dead now. The little ring leader was a succubus who was a bit of trouble...couldn’t finish that one off. But as it turns out, demon killing is actually pretty easy.”
“They destroyed an entire, albeit small, hamlet? Hopefully most of the villagers managed to get away. May God have mercy on the souls of the ones who did not.” Ophelia crossed herself and looked down in silence for a few moments before speaking again. “Thank you for the warning, I'm sure we will all stay alert from now on – no matter how easy demon slaying may seem.” She looked at Larisa as she said the last part.
'Not many survived, they were lucky that the hounds didn't run them down,' Angelo crossed himself, joining the prayer. He turned to the other noble, 'Demon-slaying is easy, is it? I'll be sure to inform the Inquisitors that all is under control here and we can go home,' Angelo looked at the woman disapprovingly, and also surprised that a young noblewoman would be so non-chalant about an encounter with demons, 'You must be an excellent swordsman if you are so dismissive of a group of imps.'
"Swordmanship...no It's much worse than that. I'm a school teacher." Larisa taking a proper look at the inquisition and Ophelia possibly urging her to be quiet, softened somewhat towards the man. She had natural distaste for any traces of inquisition presence, and she didn't love the idea that in their own minds they had naturally assumed to be fully welcomed under the prospect if you be really, really good, they MIGHT not impale you. The man didn't have much of a sadistic look to him, so Larisa made the conjecture in her own mind that he was either incredibly naive or possibly aspiring to make a name for himself in the order. "Not that we weren't without a few injuries, but nothing serious. It could have been much worse. It just so happens that, I'm also something of a demonologist." Larisa went with something that was half true. She was quite well studied in dark arts, but she didn't see the need to fully explain the reason why. The easiest way to throw off any accusations to how much she understood about it was too fall back into her life of a scholar. People just naturally expected her to have something to contribute to any field of study, and demons were hardly any different. "The best way to counter the enemy is to understand how the enemy works, don't you think?"
