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Desert Valley Nights

Started by Lion, May 11, 2017, 06:11:53 PM

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Lion

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It was hard to believe sometimes that this entire desert was once under the rule of the Golden City, an empire that spanned miles across and miles wide. It was not a memory that Bhaziell bore from personal experience, but one he suspected was carried on by another bearer of the Black Diamond. And now he could picture the vision of vast wealth, armies marching across sands, and it's gradual crumbling.

He could feel the memories of where he was, lingering in the reeds along the Niafi River, feeling the Diamond as it pulse in his hand. It throbbed a deep dark violet, lush and in the threads of moonlight that came down into the river delta, through the trees, he knew that the soul was near. Only the restless ones found themselves with the will to escape. It was not often, but when it happened, Bhaziell would follow them to the very ends of the earth.

They could not hide.

He could smell it's essence, and while it was not visible to the natural eye, Bhaziell's eyes flickered to take in more of the moonlight, igniting the brightness so that to him it was as clear as day. The river's unnusual calm reflected movement from the corner of his eye, and he whipped his head in that direction, the faint green translucent figure wavered and disappeared behind a palm. Within a blink of an eye, it bounded across the river, floating as a smokey green mass and only gave the slightest brush of movement to the reeds beside it.

Bhaziell blew air forcefully from his nostrils and with a running leap he crossed the width of the river and landed effortlessly onto the opposing embankment with nothing more than a bounce in his step and began after the shifting green shape. At times, it would bear the resemblance of something human-esque. At others, it was simply little more than a bouncing orb, passing though trees, or around stones, moving at an equal speed to him.

Inwardly he cursed, and Bhaziell leapt over gaps made by rocks, reeds, mud, and even between trees. His bare feet found it easier to dig into the ground between each jump. And his body twisted to anticipate the landing. Two palms curved lazily along the embankment, creating a wishbone-like gap. With a grunt, he crouched and flung himself forward and landed with a roll at the edge of the water, and just like that the spirit was nowhere to be found.

Bhaziell pressed his hands into the mud, letting the soil spread in the spaces between them, and missing for a moment the claws he used to have. There were advantages to his lion form, but for now it had no place. A low soft growl rumbled in his throat, one only he could hear, as he ducked into the reeds, carefully crawling through them, mindful of the night crawlers there, and he let his right hand grasp the rings on his saber, to keep them from jingling.

All was quiet, and he could not see the spirit anywhere. It was close, it had to be! The Diamond's pulses did not cease. In fact it was beating much like a heart in the grip of fear. Or was that his own? Bhaziell heard a nearby growl...  And it wasn't his. He was kneeling shin-deep in the water.

And he felt something round in the hand that was deep in the cool water., something round that he felt crack in his palm when he grasped it. Pulling his arm up, he blinked in the darkness, his palm full of cracked egg shell, and the fluid inside it.  Then a rush of water burst up from the surface beside him. The crocodile's jaws opened wide and snapped at him. "SHIIIT!" he hissed, his reflexes surging and he kicked himself backwards out of the way. Almost.

The teeth found their meat in his forearm, and he grit his teeth knowing the crocodile wouldn't be letting him go any time soon, so when the reptile began to pull him into the water, he turned his legs back and threw himself forward, to hug his arms and legs around the croc's large form, thrashing the water in death rolls.

"Well, isn't this just fucking great!"




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Desert Valley Nights
Wrong Turn

"Go into battle determined to die and you will survive.  Go into battle hoping to live and surely you shall not." -Bushido proverb
"Life is a series of dogs." -George Carlin
"We must view with profound respect the infinite capacity of the human mind to resist the introduction of useful knowledge." -Thomas R. Lounsbury
"If a cosmic tree falls in the universal forest and nobody is evolved enough to hear it, does it make a sound?" -Unknown