[Exalted] Protectors of the River Province

[Marcao]

The effect of the weapon he had deployed against the ship of their adversary was all but impossible to miss. Now that was more what he had in mind when he had fired on his target the first time. Still, as elation washed over him he realized that the ship was quickly sinking.

How many people are inside the holds of that ship?

He frowned as the ship began to topple, its motions hiding his target from his immediate line of sight and making any further attacks from his position difficult at best. He watched as villagers cried out and fell into the water and took pause. His primary concern was dealing with the death knight, but he could hardly keep firing on a ship that was already on its way under. Furthermore, he knew that he lacked the skill to adequately target the death knight itself.

He owed the villagers little and yet he had said that he would do all that he could to save them. Did they not deserve saving? They had friends and family, they were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. It was then that Orduin emerged from beneath the water and began to assist some of the villagers as they struggled to remain afloat. If there was no need for him to continue firing on the enemy ship then he could at least make efficient use of his time.

“Assist the Gunzosha with the villagers.â€

[The Nomad]

The inky cloud reached Yevela very fast, like a torrent of tar poised to engulf him. As it spread, Yevela's anima flared briefly, his daiklave became translucent, and the fabric of Creation twisted swoftly, as his blade seemed to intercept the liquid shadow everywhere at once around the Solar, and it rebounded harmlessly.... Before coalescing again, and attacking, mindlessly, relentlessly...

Teamhair and Kolth landed smoothly on the riverbank, mere inches away from the water. But the sight of a nine foot tall killing machine seen through a huge bonfire of kaleidoscopic silver sent the few villagers who had kept their wits fleeing in terror.

[LadyTevar]

Teamhair heaved a deep sigh and ended the charm that gave her the beastial war-form. She shrank back down to normal, although her anima was still flaring from the power she'd spent and her tattoos were shining brightly in the darkness.

"Man. That's akin to begging for an ass-beating in the future. Running away, and trying to make a witty getaway line and failing miserably? It's like he wants that skeleton-boat he's riding on stuffed up his ass."

"When we catch up to him, I'll hold him down and you can see if it will fit."

[rhoenix]

"When we catch up to him, I'll hold him down and you can see if it will fit," said Teamhair, returning to how she looked normally - though with the still-glowing moonsilver tattoos. She was looking off into the distance at the Deathknight drifted away into the night, with the same expression on her face as Kolth: irritation, and a promise of nothing very pleasant in the future.

Though Kilth smirked at this, and even chuckled a little, he didn't take his eyes off the Deathknight for a moment. "Didn't you see me packing, Teamhair? I'm very good about packing a lot into a small space. Trust me - I'll make it fit if you hold his pale emo whining goth ass down."

After the Deathknight disappeared into the distance even to Kolth's keen senses, he made a "hmph" noise, and began dropping his weapon and coat onto the shore again. "I'll be right back. We need proof we found the other ship, so I'll get the wheel and the rudder."

With that, he leapt into the water, swum strongly for a few paces, and then abruptly dove into the water, right around where the great dark ship had been moments before.

[SirNitram]

Orduin walked over to Teamhair, his own anima dimmer but shining and the Twilight emblem on his forehead glittering like a day coming to a close. A hand held to his gut, where the blade had gone in. "Coulda gone better. We saved most of the villagers, though, and that ship is definitely neutralized."

[The Nomad]

Over in the distance, the flare of Yevela's Heavenly Guardian Defense illuminated the night, and all could see the struggle that took place near the edge of the mist, where the deathknight had disappeared, between the Bronze Tiger and the darkness that threatened to swallow him.

Kolth could perceive the flash from the corner of his eye, though he would have been hard-pressed to make it out against his own anima, which illuminated the riverbed, where the Black Ship, now broken into two parts by its ordeal, lay like a gutted whale. Bodies floated around there; Yevela could make out the nemissaries walking away underwater, unaffected by the lack of air, some of them now possessing the bodies of villagers killed on the ship.

[Marcao]

This is new.

He had never before dealt with such an attack. He frowned for a moment as his heavenly guardian defense dispersed the cloud for a moment before it managed to reform and continue its attack. The darkness sought to swallow him and he had no intention of allowing it to happen. His body shifted, the sword that had moments later batted aside the cloud redirected as he tapped into his stores of essence.

The hungry tiger technique was his most common offensive attack, allowing for remarkable damage to occur for a relatively small expenditure of essence. His daiklave darted forward in an essence fed thrust designed to allow him greater insight into the cloud's strength and toughness. He was very much aware that while he dealt with this construct he was effectively neutralized, but at the moment his hands were tied. It seemed likely that they would fail their objective and that their prey would get away...

[SirNitram]

Orduin saw it, and swore. A new attack, on Yvela? And one compromised of no ordinary attack. Still hurting from the wound in his side, he sprinted as best he can, running towards the Storm Herald and trying to leap across the distance back aboard. There was no way it was going to enable a regular boarding in this fiasco.

[LadyTevar]

"Orduin!" But the Solar was already running for the ship, despite his wound. "Stupid idiot... KOLTH! Get the villagers ashore!" Teamhair called out, sprinting after Orduin to the ship.

She was unwounded, and could run much faster than her Solarmate. She caught up to him easily. "Help the Villagers!" she ordered him. And then, just to make her point, she leapt into the air, landing briefly upon the Gunzosha's shoulders and using him as a sprintboard to somersault into the air and cross the distance to the Storm Herald's deck, drawing her fans as she landed and attacking the darkness surrounding Yvela.

[The Nomad]

Yevela connected with the cloud, his daiklave ripping sizzling chunks of dark matter which fell emitting fumes of acrid smoke. The dark cloud itself retaliated, lunging at Yevela, but stayed clear of the daiklave whose gleaming Essence-infused blade had hurt it.

Teamhair, using her beloved, the man she had sworn to cherish and protect, as a trampoline, reached the deck, her fans trying to carve into the cloud but meeting only a liquid mass, unable to truly hurt the thing.

[Marcao]

He allowed himself a small smile as his enhanced thrust connected with the cloud and ripped sizzling chunks of dark matter from it. It was abundantly clear that it did not like his actions but that had been expected. The thrust had been a relatively cautious one meant to discern if he was indeed capable of harming the construct. Now that it was no longer in question that he could indeed remove the foul construct from creation he acted.

It was not a second move so much as an extension of the first. As his daiklaive ripped sizzling chunks of dark matter from his target, his body moved forward following the thrust. His left leg led and was followed by his right. A normal human being would have been skewered, and would have stepped back in order to maintain distance between himself and his attacker. He had no intention of letting the gap widen and he was aware that time was an issue. He had to take a chance.

He had not expected an attack, a human would have been far more concerned with seperation to attack so quickly but it was not out of the real of possibility. As the dark cloud lunged at him, he began a half spin to his left. The goal was two fold, the first was to present a smaller target to the cloud as it lunged towards him. The second, was to build momentum as his daiklaive once more drank from his essence. He was not anywhere near as graceful as a dancer, let alone someone like Kolth. However, he had mastered the blade and this motion was one that he had practiced again and again.

Hungry Tiger Technique!


He thought as he finished his spin and his daiklaive sang through the air with surprising vigor. If he had timed it right, he knew where the cloud would be...

[The Nomad]

The boiling black cloud was not so easily stymied the second time, and rolled around Yevela's blow to strike directly at his throat, constricting it in an iron grip that cut the Solar's breath as it coiled around his arms and legs, pinning him to the deck of the Storm Herald.

The rudder was probably lying under the debris of the ship, but Kolth could make out the wheel, probably just a sharp pull away from detaching altogether.

[rhoenix]

Beneath the soundless water, Kolth grinned as he found the parts he'd been looking for. Swimming strongly up to the surface for air, he took in another deep breath when he heard the commotion from the Storm Herald.

Sighing, he swam quickly to shore, grabbed his Golden Dragon's Tooth, and darted at high speed toward the black cloud currently menacing Yvela. Calling on all his martial artist training, he prepared to show this shadowy thing just what exactly a good grapple was.

[LadyTevar]

Teamhair snarled as the cloud ignored her and pinned Yvela to the deck of the Storm Herald. Closing her fans, she stabbed them both deep into the cloud's mass, then channeled a touch of her own power into the moonsilver artifacts before flicking them open -- a move that would slice a mortal in half.

[Academia Nut]

Ake sat in the small fishing ship he had stolen, at great necessity, to flee from the Wyld Hunt across the Yellow River. He was actually shaking his head in morbid disgust at the fact that even though he had never really seen a significant boat before coming to the Confederacy the Hunt had still not caught him. What sort of incompetents did they have running things these days? His memories of the First Age were blurry at best, but he felt a deep seated professional shame for his foes over the fact that they hadn't caught up to him yet.

Sighing, Ake considered the night sky above. At least in his week with fighting with this ship he had spent the most time he had ever known out in the warm embrace of the sun, its golden rays on his woody brown skin and dark black hair. If there was one little thing that could be improved in his home, it was that not enough sunlight reached the ground through the trees.

However, his attention was diverted from the sky as he started to notice something on the horizon. Flashes of gold and silver revealed the presence of the shore he had been looking for. Other Exalted! Other Celestial Exalted!

As Ake watched with bated breathe, wondering what the displays of light heralded, he wondered what to do. On the one hand, it could be a fierce battle with another Wyld Hunt, although he had only seen Celestial anima banners so far, and with at least two, maybe three Solars and one or two Lunars, he should see some Terrestrial banners if it were such a sufficiently powerful hunt to challenge them. What was happening?

Eventually though Ake heard a splash and he glanced about to notice dark hands emerging out of the water, grasping at the sides of the ship, crawling up them.

"So this is it then?" He noted quietly as he ensured that his top knot was securely in place and he picked up his dire lance and held it firmly in place, waiting for the enemy to come to him.

Smirking slightly, he glanced over to where the animas still burned like bonfires and said, "Wait for me brothers or sisters, I will be with you once I finish up here."

[The Nomad]

While Kolth was still running on the riverbank, Yevela managed to break free, through a surge of might assisted by Teamhair frantic's slashing which, if it did not seem to burn the cloud the same way the Dawn caste's attack had done, nonetheless cut the tendrils that tried to maintain Yevela pinned down, freeing the Solar's limbs.

Meanwhile, on the other side the quickly receding supernatural mist, Ake could see a handful of pale men climbing aboard his ship, some of them still gripping chopping swords. Some of them looked decayed, which made their undead nature pretty apparent...
Their lungs filled with water, which did not seem to hinder them except for talking, they visibly decided to forego politeness and charged Ake... Before spotting the orichalcum on him, too late.

[Academia Nut]

Grinning, Ake set his stance to properly give him the balance to maneuver his lance to both strike and block with the sort of lightning quickness that only an Exalted could achieve. He then lunged forward, the deadly orichalcum head of his lance flashing out for the vitals of the undead creatures, seeking to severe limbs and heads and cut apart torsos until they could no longer support the enemy. As his lance moved, white gold fire began to glow from it as essence flowed through his limbs and into the orichalcum of his weapon to push it faster and hard, creating an almost magnetic attraction for the enemy. So much energy was pushed through Ake's frame that a bright gold disc of light exploded outward from his brow, marking him as a Zenith.

[Activating combo so I can use First Excellency to even out my flurry as I strike at three targets at -2, -2, -2 with the option to assume a Bulwark Stance if anything survives to attack me and Solar Counter to counter attack the first thing I parry]

[The Nomad]

Ake's dire lance flashed bright light as it narrowly missed the first nemissary, but scored deep hits into the flesh of a second, and bit into the shoulder of a third. The dodging nemissary took advantage of Ake's overextension to swing at him a downward blow of its chopping sword, but Ake's stance corrected as if he had stood still, waiting for the onslaught, and in the blink of an eye it opened a deep gash on the creature's thigh, severing muscles and tendons. Ake likewise deflected blows from the two other closest nemissaries.

Kolth, meanwhile managed to jump onboard within reach of Yevela and Teamhair.

[Academia Nut]

Ake was burning with light, and he could probably be seen on the shore of the river... the opposite shore on the other side of two hundred miles of water. Grinning enthusiastically, he struck out at the undead creature that had escaped his initial flurry but not his counter attack and sought to finish it by driving his lance through its chest. If he finished it here then his defences would be quite secure against the other two, if not then he could still block their attacks quite nicely and counter if the opportunity arose. He doubted though that they would be able to effectively press him in their current state.

[Regular attack, will use Solar Counterattack against last opponent to attack (if I block the attack anyway)]

[rhoenix]

After gaining aboard the ship, Kolth viciously attacked the black..shadowy...thing without hesitation. He struck with both ends of his blade and chain, punctuated with attempts to bind the thing up like a pretzel.

"We'd better hurry, we have Wild Hunt bait over yonder!" Kolth grumbled, indicating the newcomer's anima in the distance, shining brilliantly in the night.

[LadyTevar]

"I go thirty years without ever seeing a solar, and now you're everywhere," Teamhair griped, her anima banner still flickering around her flashing on and off in dizzying patterns. "We'll deal with him later." Although she did have to admit the liight made fighting easier

[The Nomad]

Kolth's chain daiklave pierced through the dark cloud without meeting any resistance, but it found no purchase and inflicted no visible damage. The thing was poised to grapple Yevela once again.

[rhoenix]

Gumbling, Kolth quickly realized that because he couldn't strike the incorporeal, he couldn't help Yevela and Teamhair as he wanted. He kicked once at the black cloud out of spite, and then raced off in the opposite direction - toward the newcomer Solar's blazing anima, calling as he did.

"I can't hit ghosts yet, so I'll leave that thing in your hands - I'll take care of our newcomer friend's problem, so he'll stop being Wild Hunt bait!"

Leaping nimbly around obstacles when he couldn't run flat-out, Kolth made his way over to the luminous stranger as quickly as he could.

[Marcao]

It should have worked.

That was the thought that danced in his mind when he completed his half spin and his orichalcum blade sailed through the air where a human’s body, more specifically his neck would have been. The cloud was not a human however, and its reaction time was far more impressive than he had expected. It took mere seconds for him to feel the pressure at his throat and found himself on his back while unfamiliar pressure squeezed itself around him.

This is bad.

It was akin to having an enormous snake wrapped around him, his golden armor protected his torso but his throat was not so fortunate. He did not have a lot of time. As such, he prepared to lash out with a move of desperation. He was not used to being treated like this, until this moment he could not recall finding himself in his back before an enemy. It was then that Teamhair struck and he took the moment to try and break free with mixed success.

It was enough for now. He did not plan on losing the opportunity that Teamhair’s efforts had presented to him and as such he touched his personal essence and channeled it. His skill with the blade was already impressive in its own right, with the blessing of the sun it was more so. He sought to cut at those tendrils that sought to snare him still, while simultaneously trying to roll away from the cloud and get on his feet even as his caste mark fiercely glowed in his forehead. The floor was not a suitable place for a child of the sun.

“I am getting very tired of this…thing!â€

[The Nomad]

Yevela's pretenaturally accurate blow cut the cloud in two - it started to sizzle, and fell apart in small pellets of stinking, burning goo, which mercifully died down before the ship could catch fire. The crewmember on cleaning chore would utter yet another curse on the deathknight the following day, though.


Ake struck the nemissary squarely in the chest, the force of the blow and the size of the dire lance ripping the torso in half, leaving the undead's parts to tumble in the with a splash.
But he couldn't move his dire lance in time to intercept the low arcing blow from another nemissary's chopping sword, which grazed his orichalcum breastplate and left a shallow wound on his hip.
Another nemissary took the place of the one who had just fallen. The two remaining nemissaries attacked; the newcomer gave two quick strikes, the first of which was parried, and the second one, grazing against the dire lance's shaft, hit Ake one the shoulder, biting the flesh just aside the orichalcum armor. Ake however managed to parry the last nemissary's blow, and reacted with Essence-fueled speed and accuracy, retaliating inside his opponent's guard by rotating his lance in a deadly swing that cut the nemissary in two, sending one half to join his brethren at the bottom of the river, and the legs twitched uselessly on the ground. There was little blood pouring from the gaping wound.