Whisper

[Mesteno]

[OOC: Continues directly from Welcome to Sigil. As usual, heavily adapted from live play.]

Cool water ripple over drenched skin, a blind step into the unknown. There was promise in that sensation, the assurance that their struggling progress had brought them to where they needed to be, and yet when Mesteno opened lucent eyes to the space beyond the portal, he thought for a moment that it had taken them nowhere at all. The pedestal had gone, but the maze still stretched before them.

The differences became obvious rapidly.

Before them was a clear patch of ground. The temperature was a good ten degrees colder and the air almost painfully clear. His skin prickled with goose bumps, teeth clenched against the reflex urge to chatter. The lack of mist revealed in sharp relief the thick, ropy tentacles that reached down from the ceiling toward some space behind them. When Mesteno turned, it was with the wash of relief that they’d arrived at their destination.

Shrouded by clinging shadows that even his nycterent eyes had trouble penetrating, held in the strong grip of writhing tentacles that plunged into the shrouding darkness, slumped the limp, emaciated form of an angel.

He had unearthly, pale skin and long golden hair that that hung limp and utterly still, obscuring a face bowed low. His wings stretched above him out to either side, clutched in the grip of the tentacles. His arms were folded across the front of his chest, hands nothing more than rictus claws, and his toes barely scraped the heavily stained cavern floor beneath his feet.

But there was something wrong with the image. Something off. It was painfully detailed, yet not quite real. And when the head moved, it wasn't really moving at all. Instead, it seemed there were shrivelled muscles moving weakly beneath it as someone...breathed. The angel was nothing more than a remarkably realistic tattoo inked, large as life, into the back of the man chained there, the wings curling around his arms.

Mesteno hadn't met Whisper, and couldn't have identified him if his life depended on it, so he naturally looked to Lexius for identification. Better that he be the one to speak.

Lexius had stopped abruptly when he turned to see the faux image of the angel, eyes narrowing and a frown starting to tug at his lips. He stood and studied the scene for quite some time in silence, his gaze tracking up from the man along those obscenely pulsing tentacles that bound him in place. There was a glimmer for Mesteno to latch onto it. Troubled. The Elf was troubled.

"They're draining him. But those..." he indicated another set of the stretched chains, a little different in shade and shape, "...are feeding him." He dropped his gaze to look directly at Mesteno. "Do not use your magic here, Mesteno. Any form of it." A grave, grave warning.

"Damn good job there's nothing attacking us then," the necromancer murmured quietly. If anything larger than the Minotaur came along, he suspected he wouldn't stand a chance without resorting to those preternatural traits. He did nod his acknowledgment to Lexius though, an assurance he took the warning to heart.

The Elf stepped forward, a crystal at his waist sent zinging into the darkness greedily clutching at Whisper’s form. It was a wise precaution, because when the crystal got close a wall of force shimmered around where the limp figure hung. The shadows shrank back and away from the light’s touch, and the Elf sent two more forth to carve them a path around the shield so they could see the man from the front.

Mesteno followed wordlessly, concern flitting transiently across his sharply angled features before it faded to make way for candid revulsion. That Whisper’s incarceration should be so severe only made him all the more disgusted with the pantheon and their games, and he knew, even now, that holding his tongue when their next confrontation with the Powers ensued was going to be an impossibility.

Whisper looked no better at close range. Gaunt, he would be lucky to weigh in at one hundred and fifty pounds. Much, much too thin for his six foot five inch frame. His head was bowed as well, dark hair grown too long and face shrouded with a bristling beard and moustache that was more grey than black. His eyes were open, but the blue of them was filmed in white and he stared, unblinking and unresponsive even when the Elf spoke his name.

"Aiden Harper."

The prisoner drew a shuddering breath and released it, but that was all.

Mesteno had been thinking they'd come upon a man ready to go striding off to rescue Ares with them, and instead they were denied the mere possibility of getting close enough to free him from his bonds.

"Even if we get him loose of those things, he's so emaciated he ain't gonna be able to stand up," he murmured to the Elf grimly. "Are we sure that cutting him free of those vines isn't going to kill him outright if they're feeding him?" They had a sort of vile, umbilical presence, and even with Lexius' healing skills, he couldn't see him being able to lend enough strength to make much of a difference.

Aiden Harper - Whisper - was not what he'd imagined. Taller, yes, but he'd been expecting someone younger, the way that angelic sorts, or those connected with Powers tended to out of choice. Were those cataracts he saw?

"Can you get the shield down?" he asked of Lexius quietly.

Lexius didn't say out loud what they were surely both thinking. Nothing was attacking them. Yet. The cavern certainly did appear to be completely deserted. But the real problem was there didn't appear to be any way out of it.

The portal they'd used to enter was gone and there was no telling if that single entrance they come into the room by still existed beyond the maze that now stood between where they were and where it had been. Of course, all that was really secondary to the problems Mesteno voiced; how to get past the shield, how to free Aiden from the tentacles (if he could even survive it) and how to take the weak as a new-born kitten man with them should they accomplish the first two things. And take him to the Grey Waste, at that! Yes, they both had good reason to be troubled.

Stopping again, the Elf took a slow, measured breath and set his jaw.

"He'll need another source of nourishment." He hadn't specified what Aiden was being fed, had he? No. And kept it to himself. He knew enough of this man's secrets if only because he'd made it his business to know when Aiden had been with Koyan. The knowledge was certainly going to benefit Whisper now, if not the Elf.

"The feather." He said suddenly, reaching to the satchel under his worse for the wear jacket. From its depths he pulled the single, rotting feather given to them by Hermes, pinching it with a layer of muslin. And as soon as he revealed it, the wings inked into Aiden's arms rippled with subtle, weak light.

"Maybe he needs to free himself from them somehow, rather than us being the ones to do it." Mesteno suggested. But how to get him responsive? He slipped away from Lexius' side to inch nearer to the barrier, but didn't lift a hand to touch it, or move in any manner which might concern the Elf into thinking he intended reckless action. "Maybe the light from those wings’ll make the chains 'n shit disconnect? Try bringing it nearer," he urged, eyes fixed and severe on the still form of the abjectly thin man. "Hey, Whisper, c'mon-- gonna need to help us out a little here if you want to see daylight again." He paused. "Don't you wanna go piss off some Powers f'payback?" He was all too happy to offer incentive.

Lexius didn't like... fucking hell, feelings! He frowned a little more when Mesteno stepped closer to the shield. And it wasn't because of the shield! Or anything that the Sadist did, really. It was simply what Mesteno was that concerned him when it came to the nearly dead man hanging in the chains.

But maybe it was the necromancer's words that cause the faint flick of Aiden’s filmed eyes, the vague twitch of his lids. Or maybe he was dreaming with his eyes wide open.

The Elf bit his tongue and stepped closer as the Sadist bid, because the idea the man had wasn't a bad one at all. And when he held the feather up, thinking to tease another pulse of light from the ones on Aiden's arms some of those tentacles thrashed.

This was when the beads suddenly added their clicking voice to the situation, and the tentacles pulled viciously. Aiden's body got stretched enough it seemed his arms might get ripped right out of their sockets, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream.

"No, no! Shit!" Mesteno exclaimed. He didn't doubt for a moment that the tentacles had the strength to quarter their prisoner should they feel sufficiently threatened.

The Elf stepped back quickly, pulling the feather with him, but his beads (those traitorous fucking beads!) unwound themselves from his belt and flew right into the shield surrounding Aiden.

Mesteno had very nearly reached forward intervene, but threw up a hand in front of his eyes and back-peddled as sparks flew, moving far more clumsily than one might expect him capable of. There was cussing too. Plenty of it.

Lexius was caught absolutely flat-footed and stunned by the beads’ unexpected reaction. Had that really just happened?! He was so stunned that he lost his hold on the feather, and that went flying forward next, into the shower of sparks created by the impact of beads against shield. The entire cavern shook once, hard, and reality rippled around them, this time with gut wrenching fierceness. Then something like an explosion sounded from somewhere miles away. Or maybe it was eons ago.

If that didn't wake up the Powers on this plane, nothing would.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Against the shield barring them from Whisper, the beads were glowing, a writhing snake. A symbol formed, dark beads opposite ashen, drawing the tentacles which bound the prisoner to it. As the feather landed against the shield, the right chain holding Aiden's arm snapped free and lashed toward the beads, pouring out an energy so black that shadows would seem pale by comparison. The left tentacles broke next, spewing forth a pale power that encompassed every color under the sun. It hit the beads on the opposite side.

Pure, untainted magic filled the room. The stuff of life and death and everything in between. Everything beyond. Even Mesteno, usually so numb to such things could feel it. Rich, heady, creation and destruction both. The Chaos of the Void that darkness had tried to lay claim to before there was ever such a thing as light.

Lexius stood stunned, when beyond where the beads formed the symbol, pale, ghostly wings snapped into existence, spread wide and glorious. And then another, darker set appeared, layering into the first. Both apparitions came from where Aiden knelt on the floor, head thrown back and tattooed arms spread wide.

He held that pose for three long seconds and then began to feed. It was the magic he was after. Every speck of it. He fed upon it ravenously, gathered it to himself and sucked it into his being.

Oh how rapidly Mesteno’s cussing had stopped. It was all the necromancer could do to keep his footing, and he didn't even manage that particularly well. He did succeed, somehow, to bring himself alongside Lexius again as if in some vain hope that they'd have a better chance of survival if they didn't get split up as they had in the maze. A hand thrown up to shield his eyes, he watched the whole, unstable show with a grimace, and dared not look away. Still, a smile ghosted about the edges of the necromancer's mouth, a sickle-slim show of teeth.

Any hope of stealth for the remainder of the mission was futile now. Gongs were rung. Trumpets touted. Creation magic loosed and devoured. And all of it rippled across every single Plane in existence and even across the worlds and dimensions of the Prime. How the beads fit into all of that, though, Lexius had no idea.

The Elf stirred when Mesteno stepped closer, snapped back to reality, certain of the same conviction the Sadist held. To stand together would be better. Together enough, in fact, he closed one hand over his shoulder. A solid, real, physical connection that seemed to stabilize everything for him, at least.

Aiden fed as a man starved. His frame filled out, the film left his eyes and those layered wings (dark on light) became even more brilliant. The beads hovered over it all, shining proudly.

Finally, the sense of magic in the air began to dwindle and the tentacles that had been stretched down from the ceiling were no more than withered husks. The ghostly wings flapped forward and sank into Aiden's flesh, disappearing. It seemed to drive the man down until he caught himself with both hands on the rock. And then he laughed, a vibrant sound full of rich humor and dark intentions.

Lifting his head, he pinned Mesteno and Lexius with a dazzling blue eyes, grinned widely and spoke.

"Who the fuck are you two?" The question seemed to amuse him, because he laughed again.

Mesteno straightened, made a deliberate effort to compose himself, no matter how filthy he looked, and twitched a look across from Whisper to the beads. They had their own agenda, but they'd never have succeeded without their intervention. Another faint twitch of a smile might have indicated approval, but it was there and gone, replaced by a look of gravitas as the laughing Aiden finally turned his attention their way.

"Reluctant pawns. Certain Powers sent us to fetch you out," he told him, so he'd be under no false impressions about their purpose there. "I'm Mesteno. This is Lexius." He angled a nod in the Elf's direction when he offered his name without permission.

Aiden certainly looked a healthier than when they'd first discovered him. He all but vibrated with the power he'd just consumed. If one squinted, they might just see ripples of it rising from his body, like waves of heat drifting from black asphalt under a sweltering sun. Olive toned skin moulded over fit muscles and a lean frame, his back, shoulders and arms still decorated by that glorious angel tattoo. He looked capable of not only walking, but sprinting at top speed to wherever they might go next. Even the Angel itself (what little could be glimpsed of it) looked better, the folded pose of it somehow less...defiled, though a dark line of black now edged not only the outline of the pale body, but threaded through the wings that wrapped themselves around Aiden's arms all the way down to the wrists. He was, all in all, quite the specimen.

His laughter drifted into silence as Mesteno spoke, and sharp blue eyes narrowed as he studied the pair of them in return, focus settling on the Elf for a time. But no recognition sparked in that gaze for the name or the face.

"Alright. That means 'Mes sent you. Got any pants?" He meant Hermes, of course. Rather than stay huddled on the ground, he picked himself right up, unashamed of his nudity.

It was the Elf that spoke next, hand sliding free to delve into the bag at his side.

"You do not know who I am." He stated it as he pulled a pair of old, tattered jeans from the satchel. Apparently, he'd thought of this possibility. Those he tossed to Aiden, who caught them up and tugged them on without delay, drawing his gaze back from inspecting the withered tentacles.

"Nope. I take it I should?" Aiden snapped the jeans closed then narrowed another look at the Elf, answering his own question before Lexius could. "Since you're carrying my pants and all, I probably should." He waved a hand, and with the motion of his arm an after-image of feathers seemed to ripple through the air. "We can talk about it later. We need to get outta here before Mr Lightning-Up-His-Holy-Ass can get down here. Come on, both of you."

With that, Aiden just turned and walked right into the maze like he knew where he was going.

As for the beads, they decided it was time to return to the Elf. At least, they were hanging from his belt again, lazy as you please, as if they'd never left.

The necromancer was puzzled, but beyond a faint frown of confusion angled across at Lexius, he made nothing of it. Koyan would have mentioned him, the pictures... If it hadn't been for the fact that Whisper remembered Hermes, he might have wondered as to the state of his memory! Gaps in his mind were not however, their priority, and the collective urgency they all felt would no doubt see them all hastening elsewhere before they could be cornered.

Mesteno went marching after Whisper, still uncomfortably sodden from the dousing he'd received after fighting the Minotaur, but at least no longer suffering the discomfort of his injuries thanks to the healing. He seemed physically capable of keeping up, and didn't doubt the Elf would be too.

"We're not only here for you, Harper. Y'supposed to help us secure the release of a particular member of the pantheon. Wound up incarcerated a couple of years after you were." Just in case he got any bright ideas about skulking off in the wrong direction. "You got any idea how long they've had you chained up?"

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Aiden was stepping barefooted around the fallen minotaurs they’d left behind, moving boldly forward into the maze with the angel on his back seeming to quiver with life of its own as muscles moved beneath it.

"Nice!” He remarked of the corpses, “Bet these were fun to play wi--...what?" Mesteno's words had him spinning back around to face them both, blue eyes blazing hotly with some unidentifiable emotion. He looked up, toward the ceiling of the cave, as if searching for some answer up there.

He might have found something, too, if a colony of giant, golden eagles hadn't suddenly descended on the group of them with a vengeance. They were easily as big as a man, those birds, and their feathery wings rustled like dry thunder as they appeared and swooped down out of nowhere, high pitched shrieks echoing deafeningly off the walls of the maze.

"Shit!" Aiden ducked, raising up a tattooed arm to fend off the raking talons of one bird as it tried to tear at his head. It laid his limb open to the bone in a second-- then the injury healed without trace the next, easy to miss given the sudden clap of thunder and the flash of light that accompanied the attack and wounding.

Unsure whether Aiden knew how to shoot, wield a sword or anything else, Mesteno wasn't about to hand a weapon over, and instead drew his gun in order to aim up at their feathered foes, lips peeled back on a snarl as they came gliding en masse.

"Keep down!" He commanded, nose full of the scent of new blood, but unable to spare attention for the injury Whisper'd taken and ignorant of the immediate healing. He was intently squeezing off shots at the birds - damn shame really since he was likely to have found them fascinating under other circumstances, but when it was a choice between them and him..? The shots were still noisy despite the suppressor, and helped to keep him oblivious to that crack of thunder he might otherwise have considered ominous.

Aiden kept down, didn’t need telling to, his arm still held up to fend off any over exuberant birds. The eagles became decidedly less passionate about going after him for some reason though. Perhaps it was the flash of light from his arm, or the way that one that attacked him now lay twitching on the ground in a pile of smouldering feathers. Most likely it was the fact Mesteno was peppering them full of bullets. It scattered the flock somewhat, making it even harder to tell exactly how many there where as they spun, dove and swirled around each other, looking for a good angle of attack.

"Do not shoot." Came Lexius' calm, commanding voice, close behind the Sadist. The Elf was not idle. The next brave eagle that came streaking down, this time aiming at Mesteno, ran smack into an invisible wall of air that Lexius finishing building into something of a dome around them.

"Give me one of those." Aiden, gesturing to the gun Mesteno held.

Mesteno’s magazine was empty, and muttering viciously about the ill timing, he'd been about to drop it for a new one. "Ain't got a spare," he snapped at Aiden impatiently, his eyes still fixed on the birds as if he thought they were going to take advantage of the lapse. "Just--whoa." The birds couldn't reach them, and that was a far more appealing way of deterring them than unnecessary slaughter!

Aiden didn’t argue it, and was instead suddenly eyeing the Elf as the birds began to beat themselves against nothing at all. "You're doin' that? You have got to teach--"

And then came the voice.

"You DARE," it began in a thunderous tone that shook the cavern and scattered the flock again, "touch what is MINE?" The God finished.

Yeah, that majestic looking old guy behind them with stylish white, wavy hair and a neatly trimmed white beard and moustache? That was Zeus. All three of them turned to look his way. Dressed in tan chinos and a white polo shirt with expensive looking Italian loafers on his feet, he still managed to look Godly. And righteously pissed off.

For just a moment, Aiden stared at Lexius like he was the one looking inside the Elf's skull. And then he murmured. "Keep doing what you're doing."

He clasped a hand to Mesteno's shoulder, a buzz of energy through his fingers making the redhead hiss like an agitated feline, then he stepped without a moment's hesitation, toward the enraged deity, placing himself squarely between Zeus and his rescuers. The Angel on his back had its eyes open and they were glowing an eerie yellow, the pupils slit like a cat's. They stared right at the Sadist and the Elf as Aiden spit a few words back to Zeus.

"I quit being yours the second I left your ball sac, you randy fucking goat. Now stop whinin' and put your affairs in order, cause you ain’t got much longer left."

Zeus roared. And down rained the lightning bolts in a flurry. They Impacted the Elf's shields and filled the cavern air with the stench of ozone.

For the second time in a matter of minutes, Mesteno was aligning himself with the Elf, and letting (Zeus' son? Why had no one mentioned that!?) deal with the fallout.

"Gotta be fucking kidding me," he murmured, but it was almost drowned out by cacophony and assault against Lexius' shields. The lightning branded their light against the back of his retinas, and he turned his head, teeth clenched to wait out the bombardment. "You can keep those up, right?" he managed to bark the Elf's way amidst all the noise.

Aiden seemed to be a self-confident bastard. The kind that pissed off the supreme power of a pantheon, then expected some Elf to keep him safe from reprisal. When he took another step forward, toward the lightning show, it also showed he was somewhat insane!

But Lexius seemed to let him go right through the wards. That or the Elf narrowed them down sharply to cover just Mesteno and himself when the heavenly assault began. He was certainly looking strained all of a sudden. Jaw tight, a fine sheen of sweat dotting his temples and three crystals floating before him that began to grow dim then black out as they cracked, one by one, completely drained.

"Not much longer." His voice was raspy and short. But he was doing it for the moment.

Mesteno was so accustomed to seeing Lexius serene and unflappable that he performed a sharp double take when he realised how much he was being forced to strain in order to maintain the shield. The dull and crack of a crystal only served to deepen his alarm.

"We need to get out of here!" he turned to shout after Aiden.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Aiden spared Lexius the need to continue maintaining the shield. He got hit by one, two, three of those arcing bolts as soon as he stepped from beneath the cover of the shield- and he sucked them in like a vacuum. His wings appeared, ghostly and broad, terrible and wonderful, as, flinging both hands forward, he fed the energy back to Dear old Dad in a thickening bolt that blasted the God right back into a wall.

"Psst! Hey! Getcher monkey asses back here!" Sulphur, behind them, tucked beyond a turn in the maze wall. He waved them over urgently with taloned fingers, then shouted past them toward Aiden. "Bald Dick! Let's go!"

Sulphur's arrival was timely. Mesteno had never expected to be glad about seeing a demon, but he wasted no time in reaching to shove Lexius in the scaled bastard's direction. Of them all, he was probably flagging the most, so the Elf had to suffer the indignity of being herded, though not without the shove eliciting a grunt and a flare of bared teeth for the assault. The beads? They were clicking away rather merrily.

As they hastened around the maze corner, they were confronted with a hellish looking gate. Flames licked red and black about an opening just large enough for a Sulphur-sized demon. That very same demon was urging them through it even as he shouted again toward Aiden. "Whispah! S'time t'go!"

Aiden spun around, beaming a wide, shit eating grin at the demon. "Did you fuckin’ see that?!" he shouted back, but he was sprinting their way without delay as Zeus pulled himself up, attempting to shake off the daze from being struck by his own damn lightning bolts.

"Quit gloating and come on!" Mesteno roared impatiently when he heard Aiden's ebullient shout.

Lexius was through the Hell Gate first, but the beads snapped out to lash around Mesteno's wrist to tug him along after (as if he might need the extra incentive). Hot on their heels came Aiden and then Sulphur, breaching the portal together. It fizzled as they passed through, then dissolved into nothing.

The rumbling ceased. The ground stopped shaking. Stale, underground air was replaced by the fresher air of outdoors.

And they did seem to be outside, standing on a wide, rough wooden plank of some sort that stretched far, far away to east and west. Above and below, but far distant, were more of the rounded shapes of those planks. And sprouting from them were...leaves. They were in a tree. A massive, massive tree.

Mesteno had emerged stumbling, eyes at a half-squint as if he was expecting the flare of flames to worsen the sunspots he already had floating about across his vision. When there was nothing immediately attacking them, and the worst he had to weather was a near collision with the Elf thanks to the beads (the brakes went on just in time.) he was understandably suspicious.

They were in a tree. Trees had birds - things that lived up in the branches that might decide they looked edible. Or apes, some arboreal nasty they needed to be ready to defend against... Yet he saw nothing. His wide ranging gaze made a sweep of the branches stretching below them, and then above. The immensity of them took a moment to dawn on his flustered mind, but by the time he'd calmed, seen the demon and the ex-prisoner emerge through the portal, he was beginning to suspect their whereabouts.

"Yggdrasil?" he asked, a wondering murmur of a question for any with a mind to answer. "Are we in Yggdrasil?"

The beads let Mesteno go, and commenced to snickering amongst themselves where they hung from the Elf's belt and swayed by his thigh.

Lexius himself was sweeping a look about and trying to contain a full-fledged scowl. It was precisely where they needed to go, of course, he just hadn't quite expected to get here the way they had and the Elf certainly didn't seem all that pleased with the route despite the timing. He turned a brief look back to Mesteno, blue-violet eyes snapping hotly, then swept his gaze toward Aiden

The man was bent over, hands braced to thighs and the ghostly wings spread out behind him still as he laughed and tried to catch his breath.

Sulphur was waving at those ethereal wings, trying to bat them away like pesky gnats as he railed.

"Put dem stupid, fluffy things away, ya giant fairy, and stop dat girly wailin'!" And then the demon spun Mesteno's way to verbally assault him. "We aint in d'stupid tree, monkey breath, we're on it! Ya aint got eyes in ya head?”

"In the branches, fuck-wit." Mesteno snapped right back at the agitated demon, who was rapidly reminding him why he'd disliked him on their first meeting, and losing any points he may have earned for providing them with a handy escape route from the maze.

“Will ya shut ya mouth?!" Sulphur bellowed.

The last of course, was directed back at Aiden, who was dashing away tears from his too bright eyes. He looked up...then choked on his next laugh and held up his hands. But he wasn't looking at Sulphur, he was looking at Lexius who was stalking toward him with what might be deadly intent.

"No, no, no." Aiden assured, pushing his hands against the air as if that might push Lexius back. His wings immediately snapped back into his body, propelling him forward one step before he caught himself. "It's all good, Elf Man. Swear it."

"For him ya put dem away?" Sulphur complained, completely disgusted. He pointed a taloned finger at the Elf's beads and sneered. "He's holy." The demon said it like it was the vilest thing in the word. Then he swung that jabbing claw Mesteno's way. "Dat one's more our style. I bet we could..."

"Don't drag me into this mess." A sharp tongued warning for the demon from the angry necromancer.

The demon got no further than that before something slammed into him and send him sailing off to the left, through a thick patch of leaves, to disappear who knew where. Aiden held his hands up higher and choked down another laugh.

"Don't. Don't!" He insisted. "You need me." And the Elf paused a few feet away from the guy who was trying out his most charming grin. "You had my pants, right?" Aiden reasoned. "You must like me."

"Calm!" Mesteno growled at the Elf, using the word Lexius tended to apply whenever he thought a situation, or individual required it. "He's not wrong, we need him. And you!" He shot a dark look (no small feat with eyes which flashed as wildly as his) at Aiden, "Don't push your luck. He's here doin' people favours, not 'cause he owes you anything. Y'might wanna say ‘thank you’ to 'im, or you'd still be stuck in there lookin' like a scarecrow."

Aiden never took his gaze off Lexius, but he was nod, nod, nodding right along with Mesteno's chastising words, hands still held up as if the Elf had him at gunpoint.

Lexius maintained some measure of calm, perhaps because Mesteno (Mesteno!) advised it or perhaps because he was building up to something truly devastating. Whichever the case, Aiden was taking the threat implicit in the Elf's gaze, his body language, his actions, seriously.

"Yeah. You're absolutely right. Thank you. Thank you both." He really was trying for sincere, but the amusement and the sheer amount of energy still coursing through him made vibrate in place and would not let his grin die. "Even with 'Mes' help, I know that couldn't have been easy. But I really need to move or I might explode." He was quivering where he stood, muscles rippling beneath his skin and bare toes bunching and relaxing repeatedly against the rough wood of the tree bar beneath their feet.

The Elf gave a low, soft snort and turned away from him to stalk toward Mesteno again. He spoke just a few soft, clipped words to the Sadist. "I must rest. Fifteen minutes." With that, he stepped further along the branch and folded himself down abruptly into that posture he often took to meditate, leaving the Sadist to deal with the nutcase.

As for Aiden, the Elf turning away was enough to free him from his immobility. He bounced in place for a moment then began to rapidly pace back and forth, rubbing his hands together briskly. "Ok, ok. Tell me what's what, Necro-Man. We got time. Mr High and Mighty can't walk the tree."

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

With the Elf meditating, and Aiden prowling restlessly, Mesteno backed up and leaned his spine into a conveniently placed branch (though it was a twig, if that, on such an enormous tree), the best place from which he could keep an eye on them both. Fifteen minutes. It was going to be a shoddy sort of explanation in such a short span of time.

"Mesteno," he corrected Aiden on the name, not taking the time to interrogate and find out how he knew he was a necromancer. He'd not used any talents associated with that school of magic in front of him! "Your War God buddy" he was getting good at not saying the names of the deities involved! "was imprisoned for reasons we only know a little about. Part of it bein' the release of a titan about a decade back for a couple of mortals who felt like havin' one brought up for a challenge. Fast-forward to present day. Him 'n I," he angled a nod towards Lexius, "are in Rhy'Din's Old Temple District lookin' into the unexpected appearance of Grecian worship. We're hypothesisin' that there's been some kind of split in the Pantheon 'cause only half the Powers you might expect are there, and one lady in particular is lookin' all mournful 'n lovesick."

He'd skipped parts of course, including the fact that he was one of the mortals who'd been wanting to play with titans. Koyan had gone unmentioned too, but he'd reason for that... why make things awkward for Lexius?

"Buncha Furies come along all angry with me, and we wind up getting rescued by Mr Down-Below, who commands that I come out 'n find you. Your buddy 'Mes shows up to intervene when he gets a little rough with his methods of persuasion, and gives us the clues on how to go about a rescue. Turns out you're the key to unlocking the next prison, so really you were a stepping stone on the road to getting my ass out of trouble." Real selfless.

Aiden hadn't stopped pacing as Mesteno spun out the bare bones of the tale. His kept on rubbing his hands, rolling his shoulders, flexing his toes and waggling arms and fingers as he moved, trying to dull the biting edge of the energy that was cutting its way through every cell in his body. His fingers might have even sparked from time to time.

His mind was working just as quickly, piecing together what he could recall of the past, what things he'd already gleaned from the present, and fitting it into the tapestry of the story the Sadist told. The impression of feathers and wings persisted to hover about him when he turned too swiftly or gestured too abruptly and it happened again when he suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed directly at Mesteno's chest.

"That's it!" He declared. "That's why you stink like Crius. You were there when he was banished. That's the only reason 'Mes would choose a mortal. Even one like you." He did seem to know quite a bit about Mesteno despite their short acquaintance.

"I do not smell like some shit-stinking titan," Mesteno growled, the quicksilver flash of teeth particularly bright, shark savage. He easily recalled that particular quality of the colossus brought up to Alvaka, and it hadn't been pleasant. He knew he meant the taint of course, but he was feeling argumentative, perhaps because Aiden had so easily determined that he was one of the ones responsible for it. Even one like you... He wondered what else he could smell on him, and decided that particular question could wait. Maybe just keep right on waiting.

"Naw, Dark Man. Not like that. You do smell like a shit-stinkin' minotaur, though."

Aiden had the gall to wink at Mesteno.

"Next time I come rescue you, I'll be sure to show up smellin' like I just took a bubble bath," the drawled reply, Mesteno peering down at himself without any obvious sign of disgust for everything he'd been covered in over the past couple of days. His clothes had yet to dry out, but at least he wasn't dripping anymore. Thanks to Lexius, the dark, beckoning scent of his own blood was no longer fresh either. Instead it'd grown stale and faint. If anything thought to track them through scent now, it was more likely to think him a wounded Minotaur.

Aiden laughed at Mesteno's comeback about the bubble bath, but forcibly kept himself from responding. He had a feeling they could go back and forth all damn day like that. Instead he picked up the more pressing subject when it seemed argument had been diverted.

"So they got the Boss, too. Shit. That's bad. Still, they put a Temple down, so that's progress. You said a split, right? Who else besides..." he raised one hand, waving the question away. "Not important. Ok, so they got me by surprise. Which means it must have been doubly hard to get him. And that means they had to put him Between if they wanted to keep him." Finally, Aiden paused and speared another look at the peacefully meditating Elf. "Which is why they brought him in. How the fuck did he have my pants?" He looked back at Mesteno with that last question. He still didn't seem to know who Lexius was! And the lack of knowledge made his brow furrow up fiercely.

Mesteno was occasionally casting a look back Lexius' way to see if there were any visible signs of change, of recovery, and when he could discern nothing obvious, back to the incessantly moving Aiden.

"It was years after you vanished that they got him, but he probably knew they were coming for him. And yes, he's ‘Between’. 'Mes sent a portion of the titan horn along with us, so I'm figuring its some kind of key, the same way the feather was for getting you out. There was a set of manacles too, an' a bunch of runes we had to use that let us know where you were bein' held."

Explaining those parts came easy, a series of logical steps that insinuated nothing of personal involvement. The pants were a whole other matter though, and he hadn't really any notion of where Lexius had come by them. Only likely how.

"Koyan," he conceded, finally, because the Turk's name was going to come up at some point. "He's the one I raised the titan with. S'how I met y'boss. And Lexius 'n he were... before you were, I mean." He aimed another furtive look the Elf's way. Maybe he wasn't listening.

If Lexius was listening, there was no sign of a reaction in the looks Mesteno cast his way. He had the beads wound through the fingers of both hands and was absolutely still, staring through narrowed eyes at some point off in the distance, through the leaves and beyond the branches of the tree.

Aiden paused and his brow furrowed again, as if he was trying to recall.

"Koyan. Right. Desert guy." He rubbed his brow, trying to smooth the wrinkles. And the feathers along his arms rippled alternately with light and darkness. "I think I might have lost some of that. I can't quite picture him." He sounded annoyed about it, but not unduly concerned. "If you say so. I guess he's got his reasons. Anyway, not important right now." And just that quick, the matter was dismissed.

Mesteno was truly surprised that he couldn't recall Koyan with any clarity. There Lexius was, still pining after some twelve years, and Aiden, or Whisper as Mesteno had often heard him called, barely able to recall his image. Maybe that explained the bewildered shake of his head, hair gone blood-crispy rasping against his back and shoulders. "I think you definitely lost some of that," he remarked, adding only a "Try not t'talk about him, huh?” with a nod towards the Elf.

Aiden was looking the Sadist over closely. Head to toe and back again, as he did so. He nodded once, twice, three times, thinking over the mention of the horn. "Yeah, that makes sense. You'll need to wield it, though, ‘cause you got the power, baby."

He said those last few words like an evangelist preaching to his faithful, complete with the jazz hands motion. His grin was downright wolfish.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

"I don't know how to wield titan horn,” Mesteno retorted. “When y'boss asked us to retrieve it, we were told under no uncertain circumstances should we handle it. That touching any part of it would probably kill us. There was some kind of cloth it had to be wrapped in, and I don't think that was amongst the shit we were given." At least it hadn't been on the table with the other items they’d examined at Lexius' home. Another thing they’d need to figure out on the move.

Arms folded, he eyed Aiden with some concern. The fugitive was far too relaxed, the grin irritatingly self-assured. But then he'd just been let loose, so he cut him some slack and simply put it down to a freedom high.

"You'll see." Was Aiden's cryptic remark on the horn, before he peered Lexius' way again. "You think he's done yet? We should get movin'. Got a ways to go. In fact," he pointed further along the branch, "I'll scout toward the trunk, just that way. I'll meet you guys there." And off he went at a trot.

“I'll check in on him in a couple of minutes," Mesteno assured as he left.

True to his word, with Aiden out of sight on his energetic scouting mission, Mesteno loitered in typically stealthy silence until he assumed the allotted time had passed. He crouched beside Lexius with a tell-tale crunch from his battered old knees when it was over.

"Gave you a minute extra," he murmured, a knee to the ground and arms folded loosely one atop the other. "How you holdin' up?"

Lexius took that extra minute, but immediately shifted his attention from a distant point in space directly to Mesteno as he crouched beside him. He seemed much more himself. Distant, impassive, controlled. A touch thinner, perhaps; he'd spent quite a bit of energy fending off Zeus' eagles and lightning bolts.

"Well enough." He offered, a certain grimness to his tone. "He is right. We should go." He’d been listening. Unfolding from the ground, he studied Mesteno much as Aiden had. "We shall not sleep from here forward." He advised. "We are close to the base and will soon be in Niflheim."

"T'be honest, I doubt I'd be able to sleep anyway. Not with his mouth goin' a mile a minute and all that pacin' 'round. He's like me come autumn. Maybe worse." How wry Mesteno sounded! Truth be told, he'd probably, in better circumstances, have found Aiden's vitality infectious. Likely have thrived in his company with the opportunity to trade insults and banter. Given all they'd been through though, and all they were expecting, it only served to remind him of his own mounting weariness.

"My thanks...for your assistance." Lexius stated.

There he went, thanking Mesteno again. Twice in one lifetime! He didn't linger over it at least, or ask after the Sadist's health. Instead he turned to walk toward the trunk on the same path Aiden had gone, the beads clicking quietly at his side.

Mesteno only nodded for the thanks, accepting them without ceremony, and didn't lag as they set off in pursuit.

Lexius dug out his last three crystals from the satchel at his side and set them to hovering around waist level where they maintained their position as obediently as pets. Stretching his stride long (but not quite trotting) the Elf travelled at a demanding pace along the thick tree limb. There was not a breath of movement that could be attributed to local wildlife to draw their eyes, and Lexius did not initiate any further conversation. The miles passed swiftly.

When at last they reached the point where the branch met the massive curve of what could only be Yggdrasil’s trunk, they spotted Aiden. Quite as expected, only save for the fact he was standing on the trunk, perpendicular to the branch Lexius and Mesteno were still on, seeming to defy gravity.

Something went scampering away from he stood, scuttling farther around the bend of the trunk, and Aiden turned and waved their way, offering a sideways (literally!) grin.

"Be careful of that first step! It's a doozy!" Funny guy, that Aiden. "The ratatosk said the trunk is clear all the way down. Follow the feathers!" And that said, Aiden hightailed it down the side of the tree toward what must be the ground somewhere way, way, way below.

The Elf shook his head, murmuring absently. "Not everything has changed about him." Thereafter he looked back at Mesteno. "Gravity is always toward the center of what you walk upon. Have a care when you step from the branch to the trunk."

"I was beginning to think he just expected us to be able to defy physics or some sh-- oh fuck me..."

Mesteno had taken that first step without really paying heed to Lexius' warning. Or Aiden's for that matter! It had just looked so easy, and instead he wound up with his spine protesting and what felt like a mild case of whiplash as his body arched over. By a small miracle he didn't overcorrect and end up smacking his jaw into the great tree's bark. He had the good grace to look a little sheepish.

"Don't say anything, I know," he mumbled as he put himself to rights, gesturing Lexius to move ahead as he had before.

Mesteno’s flawed first step seemed to lighten the Elf's mood just a hair. He didn't smile or say anything, but he did watch the Sadist for some few seconds looking like he just might want to say something despite himself. The Elf made the transition more smoothly, as if he'd done it before. He had in fact, though not in this particular location.

The creature that had scuttled away from Aiden was still in the branches above them, peering down with big, dark eyes. It looked somewhat like a flying squirrel...if they grew them about four and a half feet tall. Apparently they got that big here.

"Was he always so... exuberant?" Mesteno asked of Aiden as they descended.

The Elf gave Mesteno one of those mild snorts. "Exuberant is putting it mildly. It is directly related to the type and quantity of energy he has consumed. That some of his memories are gone may be an effect of how they were keeping him prisoner."

"His memories do seem kinda fucked up," Mesteno remarked, frowning severely over those gaps. Having his own experience with mental blanks, he could empathise with anyone experiencing the same, though Aiden appeared disconcertingly unconcerned. "As for the energy, there's big enough shit ahead of us for him to exert a little. I've had a couple of occasions where I had to shed some excess after eating a little too well. Until y'do it's a bit like a kid on a sugar high."

The Elf nodded his agreement with Mesteno's assessment of Aiden's disposition, speaking over his shoulder without turning his gaze from ahead of them. "Yes. It is much like that." Mesteno seemed to understand it perfectly. Which meant he had a couple of things in common with the spastic demi-god!

Lexius pondered things quietly for several minutes when he finally made a confession.

"At the bottom of the tree is a dragon. I am uncertain if we shall have to face it, or can avoid it or its young. It seemed he knows the way, at least."

Mesteno eyed the Elf, then set to peering beyond him in an effort to get a glimpse of said beast before they came upon it. "It's not of the sort that can be reasoned with then? Lexius, how come you forgot to mention there was gonna be a dragon?" Because really, of all the things to forget!

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

"I had thought you might be familiar with the lore." The Elf remarked as they descended, the trunk becoming progressively more obscured by a clinging grey mist which stretched from one barely visible horizon to the other. "And as we should not need to go all the way to the bottom, it is more likely we will face an offspring rather than the dragon itself."

A trail of carved feathers, just visible in the silvery bark of the tree led the pair onward in Aiden’s wake.

"Not everyone's had as many years to study every scrap of lore as you," Mesteno muttered darkly, feeling a little underprepared faced with this new revelation. Adolescent, or even immature dragons could still present a considerable threat. Now he assessed the risk factor critically. Lexius had already utilised a lot of his crystals. Yet Aiden seemed to be positively buzzing with energy, perhaps so much so that they could just sit back and leave him to it. Not that Mesteno would let him of course. The bragging rights were too tempting, and an ugly break-up hadn’t crushed his appetite for violence. "You think we'll have time to save some body parts if we do stumble into one?" He asked, a thread of hope woven into the words. Study had become a passion.

"Perhaps so." Replied the Elf. He recognised the value in passions where they were headed. All too soon such things would get sucked out of them if they lingered overlong in the Grey Wastes, so pausing to scavenge body parts might actually be time well spent. "Do not concentrate on it too strongly, however,” Lexius warned. “That which you want the most will most surely be denied you in the Waste."

Mesteno didn't point out that he was busily denying himself what he most wanted thanks to his own recent actions. Evander. The Grey Wastes couldn't take anything more from him on that account, though he suspected they might well be capable of compounding his feelings and ushering him with ruthless efficiency towards the same crippling despair the Fury had assaulted him with.

He considered asking what the plan was if one of them should succumb, but instead he only frowned faintly, asking "D'you think Aiden might be immune to the place? Or know of some way to avoid being afflicted?" I'm really dreading this, he considered confessing, but Lexius already knew, and he intended to avoid having to be carried mentally like some burden.

"No one is immune but some of those native to the plane." The Elf was just full of good news! "I am hoping he knows the quickest path to our destination. The less time we spend there, the better." Lexius did turn a look over his shoulder to Mesteno, offering his next words seriously. "Tell me if you begin seeing people or things you know should not be there." The necklace he’d given him, rune-carved Labradorite on a simple dark cord, would provide some measure of protection, but only by slowing down the inevitable. That they were already tired and would deny themselves sleep could make them vulnerable more quickly.

Lexius left the conversation there.

By then they were getting closer to that ominous layer of mist. And up ahead, the trunk of the tree developed a massive hole in it, like the opening to a cavern. That gap was just beyond the touch of the grey veil of vapour, Aiden stood at its edge waiting for them. He turned to look their way as they neared and gave them both a toothy grin.

"Ready to face Garm? I forgot my Milkbones." He was making weak jokes again. But also providing information. It seemed he intended to remain with them for this leg of the journey.

"The fuck is a ‘Garm’?" Mesteno asked Aiden eloquently as they neared. Milkbones? "Some kinda big mutt?"

Mesteno's question earned a grin from the demi-god.

"Some kind of big mutt." Aiden confirmed way too cheerfully. Instead of leading them boldly into the cavern (it seemed like a giant knot on the outside of the trunk) he eyed Mesteno, then the Elf. "You didn't happen to bring a shirt, didja?" he inquired of them. "Even a blanket would do. I've got to cover this," he gestured at his tattooed arms, "before we get to the other side."

It was Lexius who produced a thin, folded shirt from his satchel, handing it over without complaint.

Aiden look dubious given their different builds, but pulled it on anyway, and found it fit. Enough, at least, to cover the tattoo along his back, shoulders and arms. "Well ain’t that handy." he murmured. Then he pointed at Mesteno. "You warned him about the colours, right? We'll be out in the open for a little bit if everything goes well." He turned to lead on into the cavern.

Lexius fell in beside Mesteno as he followed. "Where we go is devoid of colour. It will be well. We should also pass Garm easily. His job is to keep people in the Waste, not out."

"Sounds like we're gonna be roaming through an old black 'n white movie," the necromancer mused, wondering how badly it would screw with depth perception. "You think he'll interfere with us gettin' the boss out?" he asked, meaning Garm and Ares of course.

"We won’t have to come back this way." Aiden assured, still Mr Cheerful. He even added a wink. "We just got to get him out and he'll get us out." Aiden seemed to have a lot of faith in his boss

The Elf looked less convinced about it all, but he did not gainsay anything just yet. One could be certain he was making other plans, though, just in case!

Inside the tree...looked like the inside of a tree. Wood grained walls, ceiling and floor, silvery like the outer bark, were rough and uneven. Light came from somewhere, just enough to illuminate their route, yet not so much to create actual shadows. The winding path was wide enough and tall enough to host three giants abreast and the reason for such space became clear only a few minutes after they left the outer trunk behind.

A turn revealed what seemed to be a lair nestled off to one side of the passage, a hollowed out cave filled with bones, refuse and a very, very big dog.

Garm stood a good twenty feet tall, or would have were he standing. Right then, he lay with his massive head resting on paws, gleaming red eyes alertly watching the route that stretched right in front of its nose. The beast resembled a deformed mastiff with a wide, square head and a powerful body. Black hide, the skin cracked and seeping orangeish liquid in more than one location. The animal didn't seem concerned with the wounds. It did, however, suddenly lift its head from its paws and turn its gaze from down the path when Aiden and crew came into view. Nostrils flared at it scented the air and some strange rumbling sound, likes rocks grinding against each other, suddenly filled the cavern.

Aiden immediately grinned and waved to the creature. "Hey Garm!" he greeted it like it was his dog! "How ya doin' buddy? You're looking so good today, yes you are! What a good boy. We're just going in, see? Not trying to get out at all."

Garm stretched his neck, bringing his head closer to inspect the trio as he sniffed the air. The growl came again, before he loosed a single deafening bark.

The noise sent Mesteno’s filthy hair fluttering about his face, and he wrinkled his nose at the stench. Dog breath. It was universally bad. "He doesn't look all that pleased t'see you," he remarked grimly. “Let’s keep moving." Because if he was like any other dog, he was going to be far too interested in the smell of Minotaur blood.

Aiden gestured them on with a wave behind his back. "Awesome idea, Dark Man. Keep on moving." He persisted with the 'good boy' tone going even when he was talking to them, and actually stepped toward the hound as he edged further along the path.

Mesteno made a mental note to persuade Aiden to drop the ‘Dark Man’ name, but it wasn't a great moment for debate. With Garm's breath still burning his nostrils and the demi-God's placating tones at his back, he moved purposefully down the passage, using a grimy palm to massage one aching ear. Their imminent arrived at the Grey Wastes had his heart rate picked up in anticipation of what he’d been dreading, but it would've taken a man who knew well the nuances of his expressions to read it in his face. It sat somewhere under a layer of surly frown which seemed predictably perennial.

Garm watched, sniffed, but he made no move to attack since they were headed in the correct direction. Anyone could go into the Waste, it seemed. The dog finally laid his head back on his paws and Aiden gave him one last "Good boy!" before he moved to catch up with the Elf and the Necromancer and past them. "I'll check ahead for any signs," he declared, trotting off ahead further down the path.

Lexius let him go without complaint, content in his silence. Trying to slow Aiden down at this point would just be more trouble than it was worth. And an advanced scout was certainly handy.

Mesteno made no attempt to lure him into talking. His thoughts were too many to entertain conversation at that point, and the sleeplessness seemed to be coupling with the anxious pressure he endured to leave him travelling in a strangely surreal high.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Two hours on the trail, passing through the outer layers of the tree where the gnarled cavern had permitted entry. The pair passed most of it in weary silence, with Aiden so far ahead they never once caught a glimpse of his rangy frame. Nothing accosted them, though not a great distance from Garm’s lair they came across evidence of the battle which must have left the overgrown dog with its wounds. Body parts mostly. Splintered scales and entrails. Gouges carved deep into the flesh of the tree, the blood of Garm’s victims ingrained. One severed tail tip still writhed, snake-like.

When at last they caught up to Aiden again, he was paused at the exit of the cavern. Here, one massive root sprouted off from the base of the tree trunk. But everything was shrouded in thick grey mist that cut visibility down to just a couple of hundred feet. The air was stale and lifeless, the silence oppressive and complete.

“This'll lead us down to the ground. But keep a sharp ear out for the serpents. They can't gnaw the tree, so they hop on anything that passes along the path. Do not veer from this branch." he warned, waiting until he had a nod from the Elf, then looking expectantly at Mesteno. "And you be careful with your spells, alright?"

The necromancer’s upper lip twitched as if he wanted to snarl, but he schooled his features, albeit inexpertly, into something less savage when he answered. "What happens if I use my spells? And if I can't use 'em, are bullets of any use, or are the scales gonna send 'em ricocheting our way?"

The beads that had been so silent, so long, finally reached out all on their own to thwack the back of Mesteno's hand. Thwack! They startled him (like he hadn't been jumpy enough already) and he actually side-stepped away from Lexius until he realised the cause of the sudden, stinging contact. That was one way to break him from his introspective daze.

It happened just as Aiden was stepping toward the necromancer, which caused Lexius to narrow his eyes fractionally. It was either the Elf's look or the very obvious and independent action of the beads that stopped the demi-god in his tracks to blink at the pair of them rather curiously.

"You guys," he finally said, pointing a finger at each in turn, "so need to tell me your story. But later. Bullets should work. But remember, anything you ‘raise’ here is pretty independent. It's the nature of the Plane. Once we get to the ground, I know some Nightmares that might help us. But you," he pointed at Lexius this time, "will need to tuck those," his finger swung toward the now lax beads, "away while we ride them. Follow the feathers." And off the man went!

"Nightmares y'say?" For the first time in hours Mesteno seemed to find something worthy of attention beyond not falling off the walkway. Aiden had moved on again though with no time for answers, leaving them to follow the breadcrumb-feather trail into the mists. He turned to Lexius instead. "Didn't you used to hang out with a nightmare at the old tavern?" It was one of the few memories he had of the Elf that wasn't connected to the incident at Alvaka with the Draeden. A clear recollection of a large, anthracite black stallion of the Friesian build.

Lexius watched Aiden go a moment before turning to look Mesteno over, expression grave and gaze probing. He kept his commentary to himself, fairly sure whatever he said at this point would be the wrong thing. "Yes." He confirmed as they travelled. "It would visit from time to time." He did glance back briefly then, but only enough to catch a glimpse of Mesteno before he concentrated on the path once more. "Or perhaps you mean Daisy?" He knew two Nightmares! "She is Pharlen's." And he'd known Pharlen since the beginning of time. Close enough, anyway.

They sank into the mist swiftly, and though Aiden wasn't completely out of sight, he was barely more than an outline ahead interrupting the path. Mesteno found the mists uncomfortably oppressive, and the lack of visible space oddly claustrophobic. He skulked, in the manner of a feline intending to remain unseen.

The root crossed others, wound and twisted about as it descended until they were surrounded by dozens of them branching out in every direction. Visibility remained poor, but the feathers Aiden somehow etched into the correct root were easy to see and follow. Nothing bothered them until they’d just begun to see the tops of grey pine trees jutting from the mist below.

When the attack came it was without a single shred of warning.

The serpent was doing a damn good job mimicking the roots it was twisted amongst. Though it had allowed Aiden to pass unmolested, it pounced on the Elf and the Sadist like they were just too juicy and tempting to resist. Scales the same colour as the roots it had been masquerading as, it uncoiled toward Lexius, gaping maw spread wide and body writhing as if it wanted to bite his head and wrap him up in its coils all at the same time.

Mesteno veered sharply sideways to avoid collision, with Lexius leaping smoothly out of range at the same instant. The Elf wasn’t finished there though, and he thrust his will out toward the serpent, which had it abruptly slamming into an invisible wall of air. The creature slid down the root on impact, tail thrashing outward and straight into Lexius’ ankle before he could stave off the assault.

The Elf slid straight off the branch and out of sight into the mists.

Mesteno was intent on the serpent, had his gun already pulled, muzzle tracking the whip-like writhing faithfully as he waited for a clear shot. He hadn’t expected Lexius to get quite that far out of the way, but he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger as soon as he was. The crack of it was mist-muffled, unsatisfying.

"Lexius!" Panic stricken and wide eyed. Yet he couldn’t get to the edge! The serpent was still between him and the drop, maddened now.

Furious, he aimed a sharp-eyed shot at the base of the serpent's skull where it joined the spinal column, with a second and third in the same region where the first had penetrated to make damn sure. Glaser rounds left big, gory holes, and great chunks of meat flew as they impacted.

Mesteno made no attempt to wield any of his more preternatural talents, having been warned off the idea, and loath to waste any bullets when he'd only one magazine left at his belt, he went bounding across to the edge where he'd seen Lexius vanish.

A heavy exhale coupled with a groan of relief.

The Elf was levitating, just atop the few grey pine trees poking their head above the mists and looking mildly displeased. Distantly, Aiden’s barefoot, slapping sprint was audible as he headed back their way, alerted by the gunfire.

Lexius looked up toward the Sadist and gestured. "Go down. Find Aiden." He snapped, before drifting to the left and out of view.

"Deo gratias," Mesteno murmured, though only when the Elf was gone and wouldn’t hear such a thing spoken. After all, the Gods hadn't done much to deserve their thanks of late!

Alarmingly, above any other noise, there was a new sound. A gibbering coming from the tangle of roots somewhere high above which sounded gratingly baboon-like. Whatever it was, it was descending, and starting to shriek. Loudly.

"Oh shit." Aiden as he arrived, ears catching upon the same sound. "C'mon. Where's the Elf? We have to go now."

One palm pressed to the branch, Mesteno shoved himself onto hands and knees. "He went over the side, but don't worry he-hnn!"

Something large, hairy and fanged dropped down from the roots above straight toward Mesteno's head. The baboon resemblance was as physiologically obvious as the sound it made, though a pair of broad, leathery bat-like wings arched over the hunched back, and the tail it stabbed down at its target looked distinctly scorpion.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Mesteno rolled sideways, and avoided getting his head taken off by a matter of inches, boots slithering for purchase against the branch as he attempted to rise. The stabbing tail made that trickier than he'd hoped, cracking down against the wood to leave a great, splintering dent right between his thighs, uncomfortably close to things a little further north. "Fuck no!"

Another shot rang out, the suppressor doing far too little to quiet it when there were doubtless other nasties just waiting to home in on them. The baboon’s face erupted in a splatter of blood, bone and brain, the body floundering forward in a thrashing, battering heap of flailing wings as it died.

Light suddenly exploded to the necromancer's left. A lightning bolt, to be precise, shot from the palm of Aiden's hand. It send another dropping creature sailing and sizzling away. And Aiden whooped, as if surprised at his own success.

"Get up, get up!" He reached down one handed to pull Mesteno to his feet with some ungainly scrambling on the part of the gore drenched man.

Four more of the beasts, shrieking at the top of their lungs, dropped down from the roots above. One of them commenced to stabbing at the remains of the Baboon Thing Mesteno had shot with its barbed tail, leaving the other three to turn their way in hot pursuit, with yet more scrambling down to join the race.

Aiden sprinted away, and down the slippery side of the tree root. "Don't fall!" he advised as they went. But the pack was howling at their heels, exhaling their carrion breath down the back of their necks, making a loud enough procession of it all to bring even more of the things into the fray.

Where the hell was that Elf?!

Aiden’s lightning bolt had left Mesteno with a cluster fuck of sunspots in his eyes again. He’d just enough un-shot vision left to see by, and sprinted off wildly after him.

By the Gods he could run. His boots assured he'd better purchase than bare feet gave to Aiden, and whatever distance the taller man had put between them in those first few moments was hastily reduced to nothing. He ran abreast of him though when he might have passed; one thing he would not do was leave him. For a socially unacceptable, serial killer sort, Mesteno had plenty of scruples, and one of them involved not abandoning allies.

Unless they were buried under heaps of rock while the roof caved in on you.

"C'mon, Flash - pick up those knees!" he harassed Aiden, trying not to listen to the monkey-screeching monsters on their tail.

The root ahead of then veered a sharp left and Aiden barked out a breathless, half laughed comment as he picked up his knees and really started to race despite the curve coming up ahead so quickly.

"Fuckin' half greyhound!" He accused, but gleefully. And then..."Turn!" He said it just as Lexius' thoughts touched Mesteno's mind.

Jump. The Elf advised calmly. He seemed to be assuming he'd built up enough credit with Mesteno by then that he wouldn't hesitate.

Aiden's sharp instruction and Lexius urging were a powerful combination. Even so, it was entirely against instinct for Mesteno to go throwing himself off anything just because someone told him to. Sleek muscle began to tense in reflex, ready to slow him, but the noise at their backs, and Aiden's sudden disappearance in the affectionate embrace of one of their pursuers as it lunged at his back had him finally convinced.

Mesteno jumped. And behind him, there was noise enough to assure him it had been the best thing to do, even if he was rather preoccupied with the business of falling towards those pine trees, arms spread-eagled and a grimace twisting his mouth. A few splinters of wood peppered his back, but between his pack, his hair, and the armour, nothing did more than pelt him. He'd had enough injury for one trip.

Levitating himself was rather easy for Lexius. Catching two bodies mid-air and levitating them, now that was a challenge. Especially simultaneously to destroying tree roots and trying to separate a Baboon Thing from one of those bodies he was catching.

Aiden, at least, helped with the latter. Or rather, his wings did. Those ghostly appendages came bursting off his arms and out of his back as he fell. They were no good for flying, but they seemed excellent at discouraging random creatures from hitchhiking. The creature screeched and jumped (was pulled?) away from its clinging hold, taking its chances with falling into the trees.

So it was that Mesteno fell for a few seconds, uncaught. Long enough, at least, to make it seem the idea of jumping might not have been such a good one, after all! There was nothing graceful about falling, but he was at least man enough not to shriek like a banshee when it appeared he was simply going to plummet. Instead, as the prickling pine trees came nearer, he grit his teeth, ready to try and grab at whatever there was to slow his descent, no matter the risk to arms wrenched from sockets.

Thankfully, as the pine trees rushed closer and a collision looked imminent, the air finally got its act together and seemed to snatch at the falling Sadist, slowing his descent through the warped branches and their grey needles. Then there was the ground, choked with undergrowth in just a slightly different shade of grey as the great trees of the forest around it. Even the rocks were grey.

Aiden fared no better. He landed on his side not too far away from those rocks, but he was laughing about it (of course!) The wings were gone.

Lexius' descent was easier, but once he was on his feet again he leaned to brace his hands on his thighs a moment, gaze still cast up, though the trees were blocking any view of the still screaming Baboon Things. At least none of them seemed to have fallen nearby.

With a bit of a jarring thump, Mesteno landed on the rocks. Here he did manage a little more grace than Aiden at least, keeping his feet, but he staggered and stumbled until he came up against a tree trunk with both palms ahead of him, just barely avoiding cracking his nose into it.

For a moment, he pressed his brow into the rough bark, eyes closed as he caught his breath, but he did not allow himself the luxury of more time than he needed. Instead he turned, decided that Aiden was fine since he was laughing it up like a kid at an amusement park, and then skimmed a look over at Lexius, who seemed to be somewhat depleted from having to exert his will so extensively.

"Impressive work," he told him as he strode across, swiping a few scraps of explosion-tattered wood from his shoulder. "That serpent hit y'hard. Both of you workin' okay? Y'need a few?"

Aiden picked himself up off the ground, his laughter peppered with a few good natured groans and curses. This was better than any amusement park! But at least he finally quieted down and took inventory of both Mesteno and Lexius. "All present and accounted for." He quipped as he stepped their way, a less crazed smile on his lips, but humour still dancing in his dark blue eyes. "No extraneous monkeys detected. Damn good job!" If the monkey had done any damage to him, he'd already healed it. And he wasn't being glib with the praise. He really did mean it.

Lexius dropped his gaze from the treetops to Mesteno and straightened out of his lean, the beads quivering quietly beside his thigh. "I am well." He answered quietly, almost gravely. His demeanour was so markedly different from Aiden's it was a little jarring.

Mesteno slanted a look Lexius' way that suggested he wasn't entirely convinced he was 'well' at all, but he didn't waste time or breath arguing, and nodded acceptance with a grim faced frown. He wasn't sure whether Aiden’s toned down smile that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The Elf assured himself Mesteno looked relatively whole and unharmed before he nodded to them both and made a sort of 'let's get moving' gesture. "We should not linger here." In case any of those creatures managed to survive the fall!

Aiden nodded immediately. "Yeah. Let's hoof it." He looked around them, as if he could distinguish one grey landmark from the next.

There seemed to be no sun, no moon, no stars. The sky, the ground, the plant life, everything, it was all different shades of grey, from ash white to charcoal, with the ubiquitous mist obscuring everything beyond a couple hundred feet. Even their clothing seemed to have taken on a pallor, as if any colour in it whatsoever (even black!) was already beginning to take on that hue.

"Uhh, this way." Aiden decided. He didn't seem bothered to walk barefoot across the ground and he took off with confidence, headed who knew where. It was away from where they were, though!

This time, Lexius gestured Mesteno ahead of him. "Keep him in sight." he advised.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

As ever there was logic to Lexius’ choices, and taking the rear guard position hadn’t been on a whim. It kept Mesteno ahead of him, and as the most vulnerable of their party he’d determined every opportunity be sought to keep his mind from succumbing to the lassitude inflicted by the Wastes. Ill equipped to distract him with small talk, he’d decided Aiden more competent for the task, and himself hung back, his presence marked by a soft, muted click from the beads.

That small noise allowed Mesteno to keep track of his position, a clattering just for him, and sounding more obviously every time he glanced back – which he did frequently, to assure himself Lexius hadn’t been picked off by stragglers from up in the tree.

Aiden (thankfully) kept his voice pitched low as they moved along. The mist muffled sound as it was, so their conversation never carried too far.

"I think we landed on the swamp side." he confided, keeping his pace brisk but not outright jogging. "That means we'll have to make it past some viper trees and maybe some diakk. They're like...part humanoid, part bird. Not friendly." He shrugged nonchalantly though. Just about everything they might run across fit that definition. "Maybe a couple hours to get through the swamp. Then we try and call the Nightmares. We should get through the swamp before we rest."

"Everything down here sounds delightful," Mesteno muttered, sounding distinctly resigned. Even his sarcasm was sub-par.

"Welcome to the Gloom." Aiden bandied back, trying to keep up the good cheer, but even his boundless vivacity was starting to dim given their current surroundings. "It wouldn't be the 'Most Evil Plane in Existence'," yeah, that sounded like a title, "if there were unicorns and puppies. Even the butterflies here have teeth." And didn't look anything at all like butterflies.

Mesteno snapped a look up from where he was setting his feet to eye the back of Aiden's head. "Why d'you think nightmares are gonna help you anyway? You got some previous association with them?"

Aiden nodded. "Yeah. We got a few herd members working in the Harbinger and Firetaker divisions." And then he caught himself, almost frowning. But he rolled his shoulders in another shrug, trying to shake it off. "Anyway, Spiriko retired back down here. He'll remember me. The trick is, calling him."

Not for the first time since learning about the Powers and their odd management structure, Mesteno found himself wondering why they'd chosen to mimic the more mundane planes, but it seemed pointless asking. His curiosity simply wasn't strong enough to string the words together, and that, he realised with a sigh, was probably because of where they were. Apathy was the last thing he wanted to be feeling, the last thing he wanted to be presenting to the others - dragging them all down with his own gloom was unacceptable.

"Well I got faith you'll manage to call him somehow," he told Aiden, squinting into curtaining branches that could've been hiding any number of unpleasant surprises. "S'about the only thing I got to look forward to in this place, so no pressure." It was intended to carry a note of humour, but it was lacking a little something.

"Bring it on, Necro Man." Aiden shot Mesteno a toothy grin over his shoulder as he spoke. "I rock under pressure. When I get it right the first time, you'll owe me a little somethin' somethin'." He waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at the Sadist and gave him a sweeping look of approval despite his bedraggled appearance before looking ahead again.

Mesteno had been about to inform him that he wasn't carrying any money, until he registered the waggle of brows. That alone might not have been enough to arouse suspicion, but the once over he was given afterwards he'd have had to be blind to miss. Fully aware of the fact that he was in haggard and filthy, he assumed it jest verging on mockery, and did nothing more than snort, since the creeping apathy had efficiently drained him of the capacity to offer worthwhile repartee.

Aiden glanced back over his shoulder toward Mesteno and the Elf. "I know it ain’t good to sleep here, but we'll need to rest."

"Not sure I'm gonna be able to," Mesteno warned him. "Lexius mentioned it’s possible to start seein' and hearin' things that aren't supposed t'be here. Not exactly conducive to rest." He needed it. He knew he did, and yet he wasn't about to take it for granted that the Elf was going to help him sink into Morpheus' arms. He sure as hell wasn't comfortable with the idea of a stranger like Aiden watching him sleep, but in this kind of situation, he wasn't fool enough to think he'd get by without making concessions.

"We have to rest." Aiden insisted. "Even shitty rest is better than no rest. I know this place can suck donkey balls when it comes to memories and hallucinations, but if we go in to where I think they're holding the Boss only sucking on fumes, none of us will get out of it. Even your chipper, elven buddy." he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder toward the Elf, as if Mesteno might think he meant someone else.

Mesteno gave Lexius a sharp, assessing sweep of a look. Studied him long enough to take measure of how much the place had managed to seep into him. He'd as little to be happy about, after all, and there was no one making an effort to cheer him up, the way Aiden seemed intent on doing with him. "He'll meditate," he told Aiden after a moment, because he knew Lexius had the common sense not to argue a rest stop.

Aiden paused atop an outcropping of rock that sloped down and away into a minor ravine. The pines and the underbrush beneath them gave way here, and the trees glimpsed at the bottom of the ravine looked different. Willow-like, maybe, with long limbs that draped down toward the ground. The mist layered thickly, shrouding the terrain from easy view. Aiden actually grimaced. "Watch out for the larva here. And if you see a really ugly looking chick with wild hair, just go the opposite direction. The hags collect the larva."

Coming up alongside their guide atop the outcropping, Mesteno lowered himself to a crouch to better see through the soup-thick fog. The air tasted anything but fresh, and he paused to pull a canteen from his hip for a sip of water gone stale. Things even seemed to taste grey! "Let me guess, the larva find ways to burrow into you and make you go nuts or some shit."

Aiden chuckled quietly.

"Naw, naw. The larva are the souls here. They look like big...well, larva. But they got humanoid faces. When your soul comes here, you become a larva and the Hags become your keepers if they find you. They use them like currency. If they're really unlucky, they use them in other, less fun ways. Anyway, a hag has a good chance of turning a body into a larva if she gets pissed off enough." He reached out then, and clapped a companionable hand to Mesteno's shoulder. "We'll be alright." he promised. Mr Optimism! "The Nightmares are going to love you."

Aiden rose, and slipped down to head into the swamp. Whilst there was no obvious danger poised to assault them, it was full of alien sounds emanating from further in. Croaks, groans and whispers of unidentifiable origin. Strange, noxious smells. The place was alive, but completely warped.

The necromancer descended after Aiden, listening for the bead click to make sure Lexius followed. They hadn't gone too far when he slipped up. It wasn't a deliberate error, more a case of apathy taking root, making him less vigilant of his sentient passenger. Instinctively drawn to limitless source of it sensed, it had begun to slither out unheeded with the intent to taste, incautions of the hags overseeing the collection of the damned souls.

Mesteno was already succumbing. Small things began to seem pointless, and the longer they trekked through the swamp, the greater the 'why bother' mentality ingraining itself. Spirit and will leeched away as surely as colour.

There were exceptions in the Wastes of course. Tiny places where bodies banded together and rallied around the guttering spark of some nebulous kind of hope. But such places were few and far between and nowhere near where the three of them walked.

The click of Lexius beads sounded a little closer, the Elf had closing the gap between them. It was he who caught Mesteno's energy wandering first. He who encouraged him mind to mind with a calm Mesteno. Be attentive. The reminder reached a mind which was swayed not with hasty regret, but simply did as it was told - because why not?

Such simple compliance was far from normal, and through the swamp the best Mesteno could manage was not to lag. That alone took a stupendous effort, and not because of the uneven footing, or the ground which sucked at the soles of his armoured boots. There was a certain seduction in the Grey Wastes, the temptation just to sit and do nothing, a drag at the momentum as if he were bound up in a multitude of microscopic webs. Alone they might have done nothing, but the further they went, the more the webs gathered, seizing him up like rust on an engine. It wasn’t entirely different to the comforting numbness a blizzard could cause, tempting a slumber a man might never wake from.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Rather than sever the connection he shared with Mesteno, Lexius left it open, though tightly controlled to guard the nature of his own emotional state. Not the least bit hesitant taking advantage of Mesteno’s growing mental lethargy, he sent several more threads of thought to take root in the necromancer's mind with enough strength to make his 'presence' there felt. A hint of sand dust. A touch of sun. A trace of dry, arid air. A whisper of serenity and peace. And the clatter of the beads, echoing internally and externally.

He did not touch upon his memories, but he was keenly aware of Mesteno’s mental processes. Thoughts scudding through grey matter like clouds had an inclination to stray uncomfortably towards personal things.

Fucking woman. Never had a chance. Should have done it myself...

Whoever the woman was, Mesteno was particularly defeatist in attitude towards her, but he caught himself doing it too, and when he did, his thoughts turned to music to bolster his mood.

Sometimes it was just a few threads of a tune. On other occasions, a full piece, each note clarion clear, an exquisite reproduction of the instrument producing them. More than once it was a tune he'd been playing on the violin during an evening Lexius had appeared, distressed over seeing Koyan again. For a time, they seemed to be helping keep the apathy at bay.

Lexius attended closely to the music. And he recognized it. That, he thought, was a very good thing to concentrate on indeed. The beads agreed. They even hummed somehow, softly, both in Mesteno's mind and in the lifeless air around them.

The swamp resolved into more definition as they progressed. The trees seemed to be the first concern. The ground was softer, almost muddy, but the hanging limbs of the trees were alive, resembling snakes rather than willow branches, with bark possessed of a parity to scales. Aiden endeavoured to pick a path to avoid getting near any of them, but the job was made difficult by hollows filled not with the stagnant water common to swamps, but by teeming, writhing masses of larva. Grey, greasy maggots, as big as a man's arm from shoulder to wrist, with a multitude of tiny legs on their segmented bodies. Each had a miniature, horrifying humanoid face attached to it.

"If that's where people come when they die, better their souls end up with those traders you mentioned," Mesteno murmured to Lexius at one point. He'd stopped, a safe distance from one hollow rippling with the slippery denizens, and watched them with a dim, morbid fascination.

Lexius paused to study the pit alongside him, then he did an unusual thing. He splayed one hand, low along Mesteno's spine, and pushed him lightly back into motion. Fascination was good. Lingering was not.

"Perhaps so." he agreed, mildly. "But if one's soul comes here, they are most likely deserving of their fate. Don't you think?" He asked in an effort to keep the conversation going. Not the greatest subject in the world, but he'd already proven to be a lacklustre conversationalist at best unless he was teaching something.

"Depends on who's doing the judging," Mesteno remarked. "Maybe it's all corrupt. Maybe it's not just the dark hearted. Powers - they probably take a dislike to someone and send 'em here for no more reason than that. Maybe I'll end up down here." It didn't sound like he cared particularly, but there came the music again, and the internal sigh as he caught himself. He let the push usher him back into motion, and stretched his stride a little to try and make up the lost ground.

"That is not impossible." Lexius admitted.

Ahead of them, Aiden barked a soft, soft laugh as he listened.

"But most often, those that end up here do so because of the way their soul is balanced. And that comes through living their life." Lexius asked no further questions, but he did make one more confident comment. "You will not end up here, Mesteno."

"Down, down!" Aiden suddenly whispered, crouching low himself. Ahead, just breaking the mist, were the shadowy shapes of those stork-like humanoid's Aiden had mentioned. They were far enough away they hadn't seen or heard the three yet. And as soon as Lexius crouched, he was bending his Will to mask all three of them in illusion.

Be still, he advised Mesteno, who’d dropped smoothly and low, low with his gloved palms pressed into the muck and shoulder blades wide-splayed. Aiden didn't look like he needed to be told, but one of his shoulders twitched as Lexius extended the mental warning his way too.

The Diakk shuffled near on their harvesting mission, collecting heaps of larva from the pits and stuffing them into sacks as they went along.

As Mesteno held himself poised for combat, the peculiar, warm-sun sensation he’d come to associate with Lexius’ presence in his head grew suddenly stronger. Real enough to tighten his skin and to have him half-convinced it was arid desert air he breathed instead of the stale nothing of the Wastes. Just for a heartbeat it held, and then faded, leaving him with nothing but vivid impressions. Things so ingrained in the Elf, in the very fabric of his existence that the reality of them was precise and potent. He shared them with Mesteno as an anchor, something to accompany the music he seemed to favour.

They will not see us, but they may hear us. That was as close as Lexius got to explaining what he was doing. His concentration had shifted to keeping the illusion in place as well as keeping track of the others threads lest a Hag be somewhere behind this group, driving them along in their task. He dropped a hand to Mesteno's rigid shoulder, encouraging him to remain unmoving when the creatures wandered closer yet. He needn’t have feared. There was not so much as a tension tremor, whilst Aiden, closest to the diakk, seemed to have stopped breathing altogether.

One at the edges swung a look their way, its grotesquely shaped humanoid body topped by a disturbing head that combined the worst traits of human and stork, a long bill jutting out before it. It moved their way in an ungainly waddle, then shuddered and veered to the left and onward as if It hadn’t liked the look of the trees. Soon enough, the small pack was gone into the mists again with no Hag in evidence behind them.

It seems clear, the Elf finally advised.

Too many of those things get in our way and we could be here forever, a mental muttering. Mesteno didn't rise immediately, but even when he did some moments later, it was deliberately slowly, just in case one of the stork-men decided to turn back on a suspicion. He wiped the mud from his gloves onto the thighs of his breeches, checked briefly to be sure nothing living had attached itself to him.

We will manage. It was unusually optimistic of Lexius, but what else was he to say when there was no real choice? He gave Mesteno's shoulder a single pat then slid his touch away and rose. The beads clattered only internally now.

Aiden turned about with a wolfish grin, pointed a finger at the Elf then pointed that finger at his head before he offered a thumbs up of approval. Apparently, he was accepting of his mental talents. He gave that same thumbs up to Mesteno, just for the hell of it, then gestured them along without further delay.

The hours which followed were spent creeping for the most part, skulking along with the occasional stop, drop and still until one threat after another passed. Sometimes it was the Elf that warned them, picking out the danger on those invisible strands of thought before it was visible. Sometimes it was Aiden. Twice they had to turn back when the path Aiden selected led them toward dense stands of trees too tightly packed to safely pass, but as time wore on, Lexius encouraged them through rather than allowing them to retrace their steps. It might be he knew what was behind them and it was far, far more efficient to go forward even if it did require him to expend more of his energy in providing a barrier that the trees slapped uselessly against while they shuffled by.

Each time they'd cause to stop, the music in Mesteno’s head cut off abruptly, attention sharpened on whatever foe they faced. It just made it that little bit more difficult to recall the notes when they moved on though, and the myriad choices seemed to narrow down; Beethoven, Saint Saens and Pachelbel left by the wayside until all that lingered were that tender little violin piece and Holst's Mars, an appropriately warlike monster of a composition. Finally, even those ceased to fill the gaps in his head, and the anchors the Elf had hooked into his mind seemed to inspire less attention.

Lexius was down to only two crystals by the time they reached the far edge of the swamp, and while one still possessed a fairly strong spark, the other had but a dim glow.

"Your lights are going out," Mesteno informed him, tone absent, though the concern was plain via their mental link.

Aiden had paused amid some innocuous looking, but razor edged grey grass that he’d carefully flattened down around his feet (while somehow managing not to cut his toes to ribbons). Peering forward through it, he waited for the pair to catch up to him then murmured softly and pointed.

"That's going to be trouble."

Here the swamp ended, opening up again onto stony ground that climbed toward another strand of pine trees. Between them and the relative safety of the pines stood two Hags. Vicious looking crones stooped creatures with blue-violet skin, wild black hair and sullenly glowing red eyes. Gnarled fingers ended in claws, fangs extended past festering lips.

This seemed the collection point for the working Diakks in the swamp. Massive mounds of larva were piled up in great clumps and the Hags were patrolling the line of them. The mounds seemed to stretch away long into the distance, too broad to avoid.

"We're gonna have to cut between mounds, surely," Mesteno murmured, eyeing up the distance in either direction. "We need a distraction-- Will the shadows work here? I could scrape a little something together to give them prey to chase while we make a break for it."

"No,” Aiden told him. “Shadows here aren't really shadows. There's no access to the Plane, either, to pull some in."

Lexius nodded confirmation of that answer, his eyes narrowed in study of the Hags... Then he swung an ominous look around at Mesteno.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

"We do need a distraction. The Hags will attack Aiden and I on sight." Lexius agreed at last, while Aiden nodded confirmation and offered a semi-apologetic shrug for the fact. Some things he couldn't help! "But you..." The Elf went on, letting the thought trail a moment. "You, they just might bargain with for a few souls."

Aiden smothered a chortle. "That's sneaky. I like it."

Mesteno slanted a resigned look at the Elf. Of course he was going to have to go out there. “It's not like I'm walkin' in there wearin' a sign that says 'Necromancer, free admittance to the party'." Yet he narrowed a look on the nearest of the Hags, trying to deduce how easy it might be to dispatch one based on speed of movement, reach. It was worth a try. "Whatever, I'll do it." He jabbed a finger towards a mound just off to their right where there seemed to be a smaller concentration of Hags. "You guys head on over that way once I have their attention. What do you think they'll accept for currency?"

The endeavour should have daunted. That it didn't probably wasn't a great sign, but at least the Hags wouldn't be able to detect any nervousness since it wasn't there to begin with. Aiden patted Mesteno's shoulder for good luck then began carefully moving toward the position pointed out. The necromancer watched him go, only belatedly noting that Lexius didn't seem to be in any haste to follow. He frowned, barely a furrow etched into an otherwise dispassionate, impassive seeming face.

When Lexius spoke to him, it was mind to mind.

Here, what is inside you is not something that can be hidden from certain eyes. Lexius knew his soul's dark, death seeking energy would be especially interesting to the Hags who dealt in soul currency. Do not try to hide it from them. But do not take until the deal is struck. Be as strong as you are, Mesteno. They will only respect that. You will trade information. The son of a god has been released and now rampages across the Planes. And this.

From that satchel at his side the Elf withdrew a small bundle of muslin. It held some sort of long, slender rod made of pale blue crystal. He only gave the Sadist a glimpse of the contents so he could see what it was before folding the cloth back over it.

It is a dorje crystal. This one will allow the viewing of others at a distance. The Hags would certainly prize it. I will be here. He meant in Mesteno's head.

You don't need t'be concerned, came the smooth reply - Mesteno was starting to sound as if he were channelling Lexius' serenity! - before he reached for the muslin wrapped crystal. I can handle a Hag or two.

He didn't bother to unwrap the item again to better examine it, but instead opened up a slim, rigid leather container at his belt, nestling it inside. You can show me how to make those when we get back, he told him, as if he'd a right to it, and good cause to go snooping on others via its use.

Lexius moved away to join Aiden then, leaving Mesteno to tackle the Hags. So far they hadn't detected them.

Mesteno waited until Lexius had put a fair distance between them, before he pushed through the grasses to approach the nauseating mounds and the creatures tending them. Unhurried, unconcerned, he did so in plain sight so that they'd know he had no intent to flee from them. In fact he made straight for one overseeing new arrivals, footfalls deliberately audible.

That quality the others seemed so sure would buy him some protection, the dark energy of his soul, he let ripple like rising flood waters, spreading through every miniscule thread of flesh until it lay teeming just under the surface of his skin. It was bored, un-primed, and to begin with he kept it that way. It was only as he neared the maggot heap that he let it filter like dark vapour through that thin barrier, just to introduce it to what it hungered for.

The moment he unleashed it, he earned the attention of the Hags.

The one by the mound pierced him with a red eyed look, crusty lips peeling back from fanged teeth. She raised a clawed hand, and energy danced between her fingers, a spell ready for release.

"What do we have here?" She asked with obvious displeasure, the rasp of her voice a terrible thing. "Who let this creature through?!" She swung her gaze toward the diakks, which cowered away from her and the energy coiled in her hand. She didn't blast them into smithereens, but swung her look back to Mesteno. The stork creatures scattered. "What do you want, filthy carp?"

Wolf's gold eyes made a lazy examination of the energy playing between the Hag's clawed fingers, but Mesteno made no move to reach for a weapon of his own, and his energy made no assault on her, or the cowering diakks fleeing her irritation. Instead he kept right on walking, and stopped alongside her to draw her eyes away from any peripheral view of scurrying, furtive figures.

"You have so many of them," he remarked simply, studying the human-faced pile of teeming filth she'd been attending. Of course he offered no answers to her questions. "You don't need them all, surely? One or two can't be worth much to you."

Out came his energy, prodding and poking towards the maggots and the souls trapped in their greasy, pale flesh. Those individuals seemed to make a deliberate attempt to burrow back under their fellows and away from him, as if they could already sense something foul awaited.

"I'm hungry." He told the Hag, bluntly, at last turning his eyes back her way, and letting a little of what he spoke, that voracious appetite, register in his features. Not difficult when there wasn't anything else there.

The Hag was even more hideous up close than she had been from a distance, liquid dripping from her fangs. She continued to stare at Mesteno for several long seconds, hand poised and the energy still sparking between her fingertips. Only one other Hag paused to eye the pair of them when the diakk's went scattering. It wasn't concern as much as rivalry. Why should she get a customer, even one as unexpected as this one?

Finally, the Hag lowered the threat of the spell. While she didn't become more personable, at least she wasn't going to crisp him at any second.
"What do you offer, carp?" She raked her eyes over his body, as filthy a feeling as if she'd done it with her hands. More penetrating, too. She was looking at that energy as much as she was looking at him. "Tut! Don't be getting greedy, necromancer. They're not your souls yet." She rubbed her hands together, warming to the idea of a sale.

The Hag’s attention had the energy which had been busily occupied with tormenting the maggots turning her way, cool and dark and threatening as if it disliked her attention and meant to swat her away.

She sensed it. Grew cautious.

Mesteno narrowed his eyes faintly, the warning plain, but he said nothing to back it up. Words would add nothing, when the reflex reaction had spoken so eloquently for him.

"I'm aware of that, but since you're willing to trade... What would you take for two?" He nudged one specimen with the toe of his swamp-filthy boot. "Is knowledge of worth to you? I've news of terrible mishaps that the Powers are furious about. Things so fresh you'd be waiting weeks to hear, all the way down here."

"Only two? Surely that is not enough to ease your hunger. It is sharp, is it not?" As if she could feel it for herself. Mesteno's offer had her eyes narrowing into fine red slits and her fangs dripping a little more copiously, as if she was drooling over the prospect of the information he offered. But she flicked a clawed hand, almost negligent. "What do I care of the Powers? They play their own games and come to me when they have need." As if the Powers bent to her! Oh, she was full of herself, this one.

"It's always sharp," he told her dully. "But like any vicious thing, it’s easier to control if I feed it sparingly. Too much and it wants for nothing, cooperates only when it's inclined to. Let it beg for scraps."

Have a care. Came the Elf's voice. A mere whisper of sound in Mesteno's mind.

One of the other Hags was suddenly moving their way and the first hissed at her. "This carp is mine."

Mesteno angled a look at the new Hag, and this one he flashed a smile for, one that was vicious and never once touched his glinting, golden eyes.

"Perhaps if you've no interest in what I have to trade, your compatriot might be," he told the Hag he'd been attempting to deal with. "After all, if you're so important that you care nothing for what the Powers are struggling to deal with," oh yes, now they're struggling, he was making the story a little juicier! "She’d welcome the chance to climb the ranks instead."

Stepping away insouciantly towards Hag number two, he listened for protest from the first, buying the others time as best he could. "You'd like to trade with me, wouldn't you? There's such interesting things going on in the planes above."

The Hags stared at each other, lips peeled back from fangs and hisses of some other language exchanged. Hag number one moved a little closer to Mesteno, possessively, even as he stepped toward the second. Whatever they said between them was a mystery, but both of them remained when the first swung back around to face him fully.

"Let us hear this information you think is so important." She demanded. "Then we will decide if it is worthy of a soul." Suddenly they were down to one soul? Or maybe one from each, since they were now both hanging close to him. More diakk's had arrived to drop off maggots, but they hung back, fearful of disturbing a transaction.

And finally, finally, Lexius did murmur more than a warning in his mind. We are clear.

'Bout time, was all Mesteno offered in reply.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

"One a piece," he told the Hags, a finger raised to warn them against further bartering. "Then I'll leave you to your farming." He managed to keep the disgust from his tone, but barely. "One of the Powers, a particularly flashy sort with a penchant for humping anything and everything he takes a fancy to," he'd heard some things over the years, "has a son whom he imprisoned some time ago. Troublesome lad, so I hear, and now not only has he been released, but by mortals! Imagine the embarrassment."

"How do you know such things?" Hag One asked, suddenly suspicious herself.

"Well I--," but they were talking over him, bantering back and forth in a logical succession of points that he was going to find it difficult to talk his way out of.

"Unless you were there, carp?" Hag Two, this time. Now they were eyeing him with a new kind of interest...and wariness.

"No." Said the first Hag. "Take your soul and go." But Hag two protested this plan!

"Perhaps we should keep him." She mused thoughtfully, energy collecting in her hands. "When the ‘flashy’ Power comes looking."

Mesteno’s wariness didn't show, but their accusations had earned the ire of his energy, and it became a challenge to keep it in check. "You ladies would be wise to thank me and give me what I'm owed," he warned, just as one of the heaps collapsed into a landslide of scattering maggots.

Hag Two turned abruptly at the disruption and shrieked something vile toward the cowering diakks. Mesteno made the most of her distraction to aim a sharp look at his primary trader, and silently stooped to pick up one of the maggots, grateful of the glove keeping the slime from his hand. He slipped away with it, around the opposite side of the pile, and left them to it. He didn't run, loath to seem suspicious and confirm their ideas about his identity, but sure as hell he stretched his stride, and it was some minutes later that, with a rather limp looking maggot divested of its occupant, he was stepping into the pines and out of sight, far from the resultant shrieks and flaring lights from the larval mounds.

"Fucking disgusting," he muttered. As much of his consumption of the soul as due to the maggot itself. He tossed the carcass aside and crouched to wipe his glove on a dry patch of ground.

Aiden poked his head from around a tree ahead him, grinning wildly, and gestured him on.

"C'mon!" Not loudly, but with humored urgency. He was, quite frankly, amazed that had worked, but wasn’t about to question a bit of good fortune. "Elf Boy is gonna cover our rear." He added over his shoulder as he booked it swiftly through the trees and the underbrush.

Mesteno didn't simply take Aiden's word for it about Lexius. The Elf had warned him he might see things, and he wasn’t willing to simply trek off with some kind of Wastes induced mirage! Gratias, he sent Lexius' way, testing. He meant it for the aid with the maggot heap.

Lexius didn't answer Mesteno with words. But one of those tunes Mesteno had been playing in his mind as they made their way through the swamp came echoing back to him along the link. It was enough to earn gentle surprise from the weary necromancer, and another grateful slant to his thoughts. Occasionally he joined in the tune so that it seemed somehow amplified, as if it were benefiting from the acoustic architecture of a concert hall rather than the closed space of a man's mind.

Aiden didn't break much of a path, concerned with leaving too much of an obvious trail for anything to follow, but haste was their ally at that moment and he wasn't lingering. There was no obvious sign of Lexius, but it was certain he was out there somewhere, covering their withdrawal. He didn’t appear again until a good half hour later when Aiden finally slowed and turned them from the thickness of the forest toward a small cliff flanking the pines.

"Should be a cave in there somewhere. They're always riddled with caves."

They found one shortly, and Mesteno found himself still harbouring an old spark of hope. "Are the nightmares cave-dwellers?" But it was Lexius there in the cave, looking diminished in a way that had Mesteno flashing his teeth in a grimace. "You look about fucked," he told him eloquently.

Lexius’ features looked tight and sharp and only one crystal remained, hovering low and glittering with a vague spark of light. The Elf’s smile was equally vague for that comment. "I would expect to feel better were that the case." He responded dryly. Very dryly.

That got the bark of a laugh from Aiden, for sure, and though Mesteno didn’t join in, he did smile… or perhaps smirk was a better term, since there was no show of teeth.

"He does have a sense of humor." Aiden exclaimed gleefully. "I knew he couldn't be all bad." He winked to them both then stepped back.

"They sent some diakks searching. I led them elsewhere" Lexius explained.

"I'll wander around outside. You two..." Aiden waved his hands at them and sort of leered, "do your thing. We can probably take a few hours if nothing comes sniffing around." With that, he disappeared outside.

"Be careful," Mesteno told him, before shrugging out of his pack and letting it drop with a thump beside one of the cave walls. He didn’t bite the bait for what Aiden implied about himself and Lexius, begrudging him anything else to laugh about, even if laughter might have been a good antidote to the Grey Waste's draining qualities.

Lexius looked Mesteno over, then nodded, mostly to himself. "I will meditate first." He said it before Mesteno could insist. "You try to conserve the energy you just gleaned."

"Take as long as you need," Mesteno urged, approving of his cooperation. “Here though, I didn't have to hand it over after all. Wasn't about to let them fleece me f'one lousy soul." The dorje crystal, still muslin wrapped, was eased with a wiggle out from the snug fit amongst the vials, and offered back over.

Lexius' smile flickered again, when he took it, then settled on the stony ground to eat and drink, wolfing it down swiftly and leaving the skin out for Mesteno in case he wished to indulge in the water, at least. Finally though, he leaned back into position and closed his eyes, the beads wound through his fingers.

"Two hours. No more." It was half the time he needed, but it would have to be enough. With two of them awake and alert, he didn't bother to set down any ward stones. Or perhaps he hadn’t any left.

Mesteno spent those two hours trying to clean himself up as best he could, using the stagnant water from his canteen to wash away crusts of dried blood and finger-combing some order to matted hair before twisting it into a loose braid. Routine checks on his weapons - the scimitar cleaned, oiled and its edge examined for any weaknesses he might be able to smooth out with his whetstone. He was miserably low on bullets now - eight in the magazine at his belt, but the other in the Colt was probably only half full - and knowing that his magic wouldn’t cooperate left him wondering how much use he was going to be in the next fight they stumbled into. More time spent examining the cave as he waited, and peering from its entrance as if he might glimpse something beyond the cliff edge from there.

The two hours came and went without incident and the Elf opened his eyes precisely as the allotted time arrived. "Have you meditated before?" A question he half expected to be scoffed at.

But Mesteno turned from the cave mouth and nodded. "It was something I had to learn when Simbi was teaching me. I wasn't very good at it. Couldn't empty my mind unless I was away from folks, then once I tried while I was out on the beach, and I lost track of time 'n the tide came in..." Easy to imagine how well that had gone.

The Elf gave Mesteno a long, measuring look for the information, then invited him to the spot where he had been with a gesture. "Come. Sit here and relax.”

Fair warning given, Mesteno conceded and settled cross-legged, looking all the more ungainly for it.

“Do not concentrate on a place or yourself. Concentrate, instead, on the music. Not the composition of it, just the sound and what it is like when you play." Lexius knew Mesteno had been the one playing that violin when he’d come calling so late at night. "I will let you know when it is time to leave."

"Don't be mad with me if I can't do it. ‘Clear your head’..." Oh the sigh!

Trying to clear his head always left him thinking about clearing his head. Silent, he took a slow, deep breath, and let it spill out of his lungs uncontrolled. Then came the tune. Meditation de Thais again, tender-sweet and occasionally melancholy. Memories associated with it thwarted his efforts, slipping surreptitiously in under the music until Lexius finally had to intervene, touching his fingertips lightly, briefly, to Mesteno’s right temple and giving a mental push to those creeping recollections.

"Just the music, Mesteno. Picture the notes, each one leading to the next. Do not think of playing it. Let it play itself and follow along." His kept his voice pitched low and smooth. A hypnotist's cadence, though he wasn't actively trying to do that.

The only thing Lexius actively did was weave a delicate net around Mesteno's conscious mind to separate it from the unconscious, effective at keeping extraneous thoughts from cropping up and a reprieve from the recent exertion and stress. The Elf was a patient and persistent teacher.

It was a good half hour before Mesteno sank into it properly, his chin tucked low towards his clavicle and his eyes closed as if he’d fallen asleep sat up, but his breathing hadn't fallen to the worryingly infrequent pace characteristic of his slumber, and his heart was beat with regularity. Slack in the shoulders, head bowed, he sat there with music in his mind and nothing else.

The Elf ate again and traded places with Aiden once the man finally turned up to report all was relatively quiet without. The demi-god cat napped, catching a couple hours rest himself rather than bothering Mesteno. Outside, the grey grew a little darker for a time, then lightened again as if what passed for night only lasted about an hour or so.

When the Elf's voice finally wove into the music of the notes, it was quiet but insistent.

Mesteno. It is time. He un-wove the net he'd placed, too, letting it dissolve.

The interruption seemed rather rude, after the tune had played so simply, so blissfully... for how long? Certainly he'd lost track of time despite not being unconscious. Grimacing, Mesteno used the heels of his palms to rub some feeling back into his face (and maybe check his chin to make sure he'd not been sat there slack-jawed and open mouthed, drooling like a simpleton with his head down).

Yes, yes, I'm ready, came the monotone reply, though there was determination to it despite the uncharacteristically tuneless quality of his voice.

He raised his head, found no Elf present, but Evander was, smiling as he stared down at him.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Inevitably Evander. The very person he'd been afraid might appear born of the Wastes. The only person capable of crumbling the final steely wall of his will as if it were rot-brittle wood, flaking to naught but splinters. His presence risked the shattering of his sense of purpose – how useless might he leave him?

Mesteno’s initial reaction was to scramble upright, warily watching the smiling figment as if he thought it might attack him, but he didn't reach for a weapon. Didn't even think he could attack an image of his old lover, come to think of it. So he stared instead, with his heart rattling about noisily behind his ribcage, squeezing like someone were trying to wring it dry of blood between grasping fingers.

It was hard not to stare at Evander with every scrap of longing he still harboured, and he failed entirely when desire surfaced. He'd felt so little for too long, thanks to the wastes, that it hit him fiercely, seized him up and held fast. He only hoped Aiden wasn't in there still, to see him staring like that with such carnal intent.

The hallucination was a combined effect of what Lexius had done to Mesteno's mind and how viciously he’d been supressing everything he felt for the man whose image now stood before him. The Waste dealt in things one wanted most, offering it out temptingly before snatching it away. Mesteno might have seen those images in his mind if not for the mental manipulation, instead of seeing them outside it, but Lexius had blocked his subconscious mind off with the net. When he'd unravelled that barrier, it had all come flooding forward to resolve itself in the image he now faced.

But there were inconsistencies. Evander was not six foot five. Nor did he dress in distinctly desert style shirts, as he appeared to Mesteno there in the cave. There should have been a Varvatos leather jacket, clothes that made him sharp as sin. Why were his feet bare and filthy, instead of clad in the many-buckled boots he preferred?

Aiden was there, of course. He didn't realize what Mesteno was seeing wasn't him. He didn’t mind being stared at as if the necromancer wanted to eat him from the top down. It was a plan he could get on board with.

"I like that look." Evander seemed to say in a growling tone of voice not his own.

He stepped in closer.

"Ah shit. Why'd you have to..?" Mesteno faltered. He was supposed to call on Lexius if this happened. He made a half-hearted attempt for attention, something like a mental nudge that didn't want to happen.

Aiden paused a moment, confused over his words, the conflicting way he stared. "Are you alright?" He asked, reaching out a hand to grasp Mesteno's shoulder.

Lexius responded immediately, even though the nudge had been vague. What is it? Came his voice, strong and clear. But he could already detect the daze and tangle of the Sadist's mind. Feel the sharp, hard edge of his want. Mesteno! He snapped it, not quite sure what was happening, but the necromancer had reached out to him however reluctantly, which implied he wasn't liking whatever it was.

Hallucinations couldn't touch. Mesteno could feel this one, the contact solid and warm against his shoulder even through the layers of clothing. Of what import were the inconsistencies?

He clamped a hand over the back of Evander-Aiden's forearm, but said nothing, the blunt edges of his nails biting into skin. The other hand had flattened up against his chest, just south of his collar bone, and found shirt to twist fingers into. Pull him nearer or shove him away? Mesteno couldn't quite shirk that starved look, even if it did look brute vicious, and not the kind of thing any sane man would consider appealing to get near to.

Aiden didn’t find it a turn-off.

"Shut up." Mesteno snapped at him. Maybe if he just tasted him for a moment he'd know. The hand in Aiden’s collar pulled him low.

The inward lean had the Greek convinced, and his free hand found its way to Mesteno’s hip, pulling as he bent towards a seemingly wanton mouth.

Instead, his lean took him straight into snarling, snapping teeth, and a fist right behind them. The hand in the shirt was twisting chokingly tight. For a man so lean, Mesteno hit like a damn truck when he was angry.

It was not the kind of savaging Aiden had expected.

Completely off-guard as Mesteno switched from 'fuck me' mode to 'fuck you' mode in less than the blink of an eye, the first punch broke his nose, sent blood spattering violently across the offending fist, the second landing square in his face.

Shoving backwards, stumbling, Aiden cursed up a storm as the illusion abruptly shattered. "What the fuckin' hell?!"

Lexius tapped in to Mesteno's eyes just in time to see him punching Aiden in the face, though he didn't see the hallucination himself. There might have been the hint of a snarl in his mental voice when he spoke again. Do not try to eat him. He didn't say Mesteno should stop hitting him, though! I am close.

Aiden’s defensive shoving had sent Mesteno back stepping, unbalanced but not dissuaded, and for a moment it had looked like he might renew his attack until the illusion shattered.

Oh. Oh shit.

He stopped a couple of feet away, his bloodied fist raised and ready to lash out again, but his eyes seemed to have lost that killer intensity, replaced by a clarity and sharpening pupils that suggested he hadn't been quite right a moment before. Subtle things. Aiden was likely too busy cursing over his broken nose to pay attention to them. Mesteno offered no explanation for what he'd done, not initially. Instead he was fumbling for the labradorite tucked away beneath his shirt as if he thought it might work to guard him if he got his bloody fingers around it.

Lexius' voice served to reassure, fend off his muddled panic. Don't eat him? He wasn't even thinking about trying to gorge on his soul. There was blood on his face, and it smelled good in all the wrong ways. He was watching where it dripped over the demi-god's upper lip with a predatory sort of fascination.

Of course for Aiden it was the worst of mixed signals. Mesteno really needed to stop looking at him like that, then hitting him!

He caught himself on the far wall of the cave, covering his nose with one hand and raising the other up in a clear 'stop' gesture as he sputtered out some nasally words. "Fuckin' stop already, ya god damn whippet. I get it. No means no." And he’d said ‘no’ with his fist, sure as shit. Aiden remained coiled and tense, ready to defend himself should Mesteno attack again as the bruising bloomed swiftly across his half covered nose and cheeks.

There was a terrible cracking sound as he wrenched his nose back into alignment, another bright burst of blood spilling from his nostrils, though it slowed quickly and stopped, leaving his mouth and chin scarlet. Those sounds and sights that kept Mesteno’s eyes trained on his face for all the wrong reasons, and had him moving another step in pursuit.

Before Aiden could say anything else that might make the situation better or worse, a barrier slammed down between the two of them. Not quite invisible, but solid enough when it clipped Aiden's outstretched hand that he pulled it back with a brief yelp. "Ow. Shit! I wasn't fuckin' touching him!"

That to the Elf who was now at the entrance of the cave, taking in the scene with blue-violet eyes that snapped hotly with power. He tried to silence Aiden with a sharp cut of one hand, his gaze on Mesteno.

"Mesteno." No snarl in his verbal voice. But there was a vague question in there somewhere.

[Mesteno]

[Continued...]

Lexius’ arrival wasn't quite the cold-water shock it should have been, but it did halt Mesteno’s forward progression before he ever came into contact with the barrier that had clipped Aiden's hand. Muscle twitched at the hinge of the necromancer’s jaw as he ground his teeth, a hint of bestial frustration over being deprived, but his faculties were returning to him, little by little, and he'd enough sense of self to reply to the question the Elf had made of his name.

"He was..." He had a hand out, gesturing towards Aiden in a way that made the poor bastard think he was going to start making false accusations for a moment. "You said to call you if I started seein' things I shouldn't. He wasn't... him." After another guilty moment, eyes flicking from the Elf's sharpened, hybrid coloured eyes to Aiden, he added lowly, and a little repentant for a change, "Sorry, I thought it was just in my head. Didn't realise you were under it."

Aiden laughed. Not the humorous, good natured sort, but the pained, oh-fuck, now I understand variety. He slumped more heavily against the wall and shook his head.

"Naw, naw. It's cool. This place can get to a body....a mind. You can hit like a fuckin' truck, though." He grinned a bloody grin at Mesteno, clear approval in the expression, then he pulled at the tail of his shirt to start wiping off his face.

"Yeah," Mesteno agreed quietly with that assessment of the Wastes, still in the process of gathering his tattered composure. "That's putting it mildly. I was okay before, I don't know what happened." Plainly he'd let something slip.

"You gotta stop looking at me like that, though, ok? It's the blood or something, right? You're not just coveting my mouth." Aiden was doing his best to make a joke out of it, and making sure to keep his distance. He didn't need the Elf Wall to make sure that happened.

Mesteno backed up another step (or five) to make it plain he wasn't going to act on his urges, one hand over his eyes, though that only served to smear more of the blood on his face.

Lexius frowned deeply, but gave a single, slow nod of understanding. "A hallucination." he murmured, unravelling the wall as he stepped further into the cave and closer to the Sadist. From his satchel he produced the skin of water and a strip of muslin cloth. Those he tossed to Aiden when the man looked his way. "Clean your face." He ordered. "We will be a moment."

He didn't say 'get out', but Aiden heard it loud and clear. And agreed enough not to complain about being ordered away. "I'll find a way up the cliff and put out the call." He looked toward Mesteno as he stepped toward the cave mouth, voice softening a bit. "We good, Whippet?"

"Sorry, sorry... yeah just get cleaned up, we're good. Won't happen again,” Mesteno promised, and waited until Aiden had gone, before he turned a mildly guilty look Lexius' way. "I fucked up, I know. I was trying, but it was really fucking hard and I'm not very good at…" self-restraint? "things like this."

He was being avoidant though. That bloodied hand was behind his back, locked in the other so that he almost looked penitent and well behaved. The sticky, potent scented fluid was all over his face, maddening.

Lexius watched Aiden go, made sure he went, and then turned back to Mesteno. His frown was lingering. He'd put two and two together enough to know who Aiden had looked like to Mesteno by now. He was picking his words carefully before he spoke so as not to make matters worse.

"Hallucinations," he began in his distinct teacher tone, "are creations of the mind. It may be what I did to help you meditate placed too much pressure on your subconscious and the Waste simply took advantage of what was...squeezed out." So to speak. It was the only explanation that seemed to make sense. "My apologies for that." That sounded less detached, more sincere. Maybe it had just been inevitable, but he'd been the one messing with Mesteno's head, thus he took a portion of the blame.

"You meant well by it," was Mesteno’s distracted reply.

The necromancer’s eyes were fixed on the cave mouth, and his expression seemed to linger somewhere between weary anguish and want. He knew it had been a hallucination, but just for a moment it had been pleasant to see that smile again, to be fooled. Worse, it had been nice to feel something beyond the lassitude from the Wastes, even if it had ended terribly. He was going to have to apologise to Aiden at some point.

Lexius came close enough to offer another strip of muslin, this one dry.

"We will not linger much longer. The Nightmares will take us where we need to be. It is almost done."

Biting back a sigh, Mesteno managed to drag his focus back to Lexius, wrangling his rioting emotions and making a concerted effort to smooth his expression into something less concerning as he took the cloth. "I feel better rested for what you did, and now I’m prepared for what else there might be, further down the line. Better it was here, out of sight, and not near those fuckin' Hags."

The Elf stepped back, the beads clicking gentle murmurs of sound that might well have been for both of them. "I will wait outside." His frown never quite faded away and his expression was more sombre than serene.

Mesteno offered a stiff nod and let him go, the privacy appreciated even if for the few minutes he permitted himself. Just enough time for the adrenaline to fade, for him to feel master of his mind again. Long enough to grimace, cave in on himself unseen and grieve what he’d been so willing to let deceive him.

When he rose from his knees minutes later, numb once more, he sucked the drying blood from knuckles and fingers. The dangers of consuming the blood of a demi-god didn’t seem to concern him, nor did he pause when the first taste hit his tongue like a battery, a flash of energy that woke his own, interest piqued. It was certainly an improvement on the stinking soul that'd been housed in a greasy Hag-maggot.

He slipped out of the cave to join the others, his face wiped off and his gloves on, pack riding snug to his shoulders. "All right, gentleman. Let's cover some ground," he urged.

As if timed to his arrival, the ground suddenly shook. It was a deep, subtle thing, little more than a rock and roll wave. But it still had a few bits of stone raining down from the ceiling. Lexius wasn’t far away, listening to Aiden's explanation.

"Can't help it. It's the only way to make sure they answer. Spiriko ain’t exactly user friendly to folks that randomly summon him. Whippet!" The demi-god shot Mesteno a wide grin. He was all cleaned up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed again. And it seemed he had, indeed, settled on that name.

"You did that?" Mesteno asked Aiden, moving with more caution than he normally might in case the ground shook again.

"I got an explosive personality." Was Aiden's glib response.

"Better damn well come, 'cause after that, everything else in the vicinity is gonna home in on the epicentre to see what caused it. We need to be far away by then."

“We're headed up from here." The Greek reassured, pointing to the cliff face and beginning an ascent without pause for discussion. He spoke over his shoulders as he went. "We should hop to it, like you said."

Lexius looked as if he might serious be considering muting Aiden in some sort of permanent way. But he just shook his head and reached for the wall. "Keep alert." he murmured. As if Mesteno wouldn't remain so anyway.

At least the cliff would be an easy climb. Straight up with plenty of handholds. Only about a hundred feet or so of bland grey stone.

"You don't need to tell me that," Mesteno told Lexius wryly, before offering a brief clasp to his shoulder and adding, "Ain't too far left. Home stretch or whatever, right?" He turned away to tackle the cliff face, gloves off to go about it bare handed.

Lexius didn’t reply, aware the words were a twist of his own reassurances. Hearing them from the other side, he didn't find much to be reassured about. And that was a little of the Waste getting to him. He snorted out a breath and watched the Sadist climb for several moments before heading up after him.