(no subject)

[forest_born]

The problem with being clearly fairly skilled, even if you remembered very little, was that sometimes, it meant the jobs nobody else would be idiotic enough to take fell to you with a "Well... you should be able to handle it?". Morbols were incredibly tetchy, angry, aggressive things on a good day, and he didn't doubt it was no coincidence that they tended to show up around wounds or things that didn't belong in the forest, or things people had no business going near. Unfortunately, Quarrymill was a short ride from one of the aforementioned Things. He knew little of what it actually was - something long-buried where mortals had done something exceptionally stupid and destructive; the Elemental's narration of it tended to garble badly, the memory of suffering and destruction still "recent" by their scale, bits and fearful fragments about rents in reality and waking nightmares.

Things the Elementals were afraid of meant more morbols, and more morbols meant more likelihood of one straying out of where it should be and becoming a threat to villages; Their control over the creatures was hazy past an ability to sort of paint targets, and the Elementals were apologetic about the whole thing with a larger stroper looming near Quarrymill.

Apologetic, but weakened enough that they were having no luck getting it to turn away, and his attempts at convincing it to go had worked about as well as every other time he'd tried to communicate with a morbol - a lot of hungry and angry and it getting more angry that something that it thought smelled like food was trying to talk to it.

The only reason he didn't think the damn fool of a lancer had gotten distracted and wandered off from the Heavenspillar they'd agreed on as "run to here if it argues" was that the Pillar itself corrected his brief mental curse that no, the lancer hadn't left, but it couldn't give him enough detail to tell where the man was; he kept running - being chased by an angry morbol was not a time to stop and try to locate where your backup WAS when they weren't where you could see them. He could see the moogle that had been tagging along, waving frantically at a spot just ahead of him as if signalling.

Just ahead of the morbol passing under the Heavenspillar, there was an entirely too gleeful howl from higher up than any Spoken had a right to be; it slowed, confused by the sudden noise, and he scrambled to a stop, hoping it stayed in place for - whatever the lunatic was doing.

A flashing blur from above dropping onto the morbol proved that his first guess was probably right, as much as he hated being right sometimes. There was a blur of a bit of power behind the attack, enough that the lance and lancer hit the morbol from above in a spray of plant-bits and milky ichor.

He had a half-second waiting to see if he'd need to deal with injuries, didn't see the lancer, and felt all the more of a need for alcohol at the realization that yes, he had just managed to plant himself inside a morbol; the blade of the lance was sticking through the roof of the mouth inside the thing's maw, and it was already twitching in death throes.

"...Are you alive in there?"

The moogle drifted over to hover just over his shoulder; the reply was a burst of laughter that sounded ... wobbly.

Isaudorel shared a long-suffering look with the moogle.

Diving into a morbol meant diving into morbol sap.

"How much of the ichor did you swallow." It was a very tired question, already not looking forward to looking after someone off their ass on milkroot.

"Dunno!" There were a few wet noises and an "oop!" as the lance head suddenly broke free of the morbol after some fighting, a squishing thud from inside the corpse. Isaudorel strongly suspected that the lance getting tossed out of the corpse was actually an attempt at using it for leverage out, judging by the short "Aw, damnitall" that followed. There were a lot of awkward noises and a few minutes of grumbling and apparent struggling before the lancer managed to get a hand up on one of the upper vines and flounder his way out of the corpse.

He tried to hop down smoothly; instead there was a drunken tumble to laying flat out on the ground, coated in milky white sap and bits of dead morbol, giggling like a madman.

"When did it cloud over?" Carvellain waved a hand uncertainly at the sky over the tree.

"It didn't. Morbol sap is a hallucinogen."

"Ah." There was another hazy wave up before the man just went back to staying flopped out flat on the ground. "It's a nice hallucinathi-...halluci-n....'s a city.... white spires in snow."

Isaudorel sighed, shaking his head and walking over; at least it was apparently a pleasant hallucination. "There's a river not far off that way; we need to get that washed off."

For a half moment he was fairly sure Carvellain had gone completely out of it from the milkroot; then there was the telltale sense of something too high pitched to hear, the warning sign of an incredibly badly-timed vision; he managed to help Carvellain to his feet, an arm awkwardly draped over his shoulder for support before it took over.

The forest was gone, replaced by a large city, much more built-up and close than anything in Gridania. It wasn't snowing, but there were ominous clouds overhead.

There were more than clouds - dark metal shapes with gleaming lights, and now that he got a better look up, the clouds were partly smoke; the sounds of gunfire, fighting, and screams echoed through the streets.

An Elezen man in some kind of uniform, loose armor over it, ran by with a lance; he was clean-shaven and a little older, but there was similar black hair and just enough of the face similar to give Isaudorel a pause glancing to double-check that it wasn't some kind of vision of Carvellain's past. Five others in similar uniform and patchy armor followed. Isaudorel kept by the walls, helping Carvellain walk and following; knowing it wasn't real didn't make him feel any more like walking where it'd be visible.

There was someone in the square the group stopped at; a young Hyur man barely grown, two short blades that were already bloodied kept loose in his hands, clearly on the jumpy side, with odd tattoos on either side of his neck - a figure that got an odd sense from both that he should be familiar, but nothing more than that.

"-sent what I could out the side gate before it closed, but some of the poor folk took longer to find - some of the children and younger folk had gone to ground, they're in a root cellar just down that way."

There was a retort of gunfire entirely too close that got both the Elezen and the younger one snapping attention that way with weapons at the ready.

"...Can you buy me long enough for a teleport?"

The Elezen looked down, disbelieving. "There's nearly twenty people there, most of them children, and I doubt any of them have a strong enough grasp of aetheric manipulation to contribute."

"Well, I am an Archon; have some faith." The young man's smile was grim, but there.

"...We'll do what we can."

The 'Archon' darted off for the direction the man had indicated; there were loud, mechanical footsteps heard just ahead of other voices and footfalls - five Imperial soldiers and a Magitek.

The vision faded out as the armed party they'd followed charged the Imperial group; it didn't really need to go further to know what was coming - it was a suicide charge, intent on doing enough damage to slow them down so the civilians could escape.

The moogle was hovering in front of their faces, and looked a short distance from poking Isaudorel to check.

"...We're still here."

"...Should I go tell Raya-o-Senna everything's clear?" There was a tiny paw gesturing to the still-dazed lancer, an implication of an informal all-clear while Isaudorel was seeing to that.

"If you would - thank you."

The moogle looked to Carvellain, gave a shrug, and fluttered off.

Carvellain was staggering along and needed the help walking, but he was quiet and subdued while they meandered to the stream; at the edge of it, he slipped off Isaudorel's shoulder, sitting down heavily on the bank.

"I think... I think that was my father.", he said, dazed.

Isaudorel nodded, working at the straps of the man's light armor.