Boredom

What few people on the roads or sidewalks that saw the steed dash by looked on with curiosity, especially seeing Cebra doubled on top of the creature.

Cebra nodded to Rai, she certainly had the right instincts about her so he trusted her to know what to do. He walks over to the man who is visibly relieved to see the two of the arriving. "Darcy you alright?" As though this was a common occurrence Cebra reaches for the old mans arm to help him down. "Yeah, yeah no I'm not hurt but the howls are get'n closer Cebra." Cebra looks at Darcy knowingly, having faced these fiends before whatever they could be. "Alright then get yourself against the wall there with your herd, gotta use your truck for this one, no choice." There was a bit of a pained look on the old mans face for a moment when he understood what Cebra meant, never the less he complied and moved himself and the herd into the small groove in the wall.

Cebra placed his hands on the pick up truck as a surge of Saxon energy in the likeness of blue electrical energy flowed into it. The vehicle shimmered before it's form shifted looking now like it was made out of liquid. Cebra reached into the vehicle and it began to cling to his skin and engulf his body completely, all of this happening in rapid succession. The liquid metal solidified around him as a cybernetic armor chassis. A stream of different coloured bright silver liquid seemed to be making some electronics and wiring directly onto the suit as well as a variety of weapons. It was all of three seconds before Cebra dawned the Dragoon-22 combat armor, equipped with an ion bolt combat rifle and a nano perfect spear sharp down to a single molecule along with kite shield. The vehicle was all but used up for material, the rest of the metal Cebra could only make into a flimsy barrier for Darcy and his herd. Strategically they were now in a more easily defended position which was good.

The baying of the creatures was at the very edges of the forest below the ridge where they stood guard, the sound of climbing claws could be heard over the side. The first creature came into the line of sight and snarled hungrily... As it's floppy bunny ears twitched. Behind it crawled up a bushy tailed fox, a deer, a pig, a rooster and indeed a whole mix of animals that should not be together. Despite the seemingly non threatening display Cebra seemed tense has he looked around counting them all coming over the side. Cebra's already drawn rifle starts to fire off high energy blue bolts that whistle violently and splatter the head of one creature. It's then that the true menace comes to light. A squirrel stands on its hind legs and quivers as it's gut bulges and rips oven in a screech. It's muscular intestines form tentacle like legs and more bio mass begins to grow. All the animals start to writhe and squirm and quiver gainfully. Bursting open at various point and seems in their body to reveal their mutated innards, and it was not as it looked.

When the mutation finished the origin of the mutation was clearer, the final part was the sickly green and slightly canine looking Venus flytrap head that commanded the host. Even the organ tentacles bore a greenish red look and thorn like boney protrusions. They leaked a clear but pungent liquid from their mouths with oddly enough human teeth. And it wasn't long before those teeth were smiling at the feast before them and sprinting at the group with ravenous drooling hunger.

Rai watches the horizon of the woods, drawing in breath only to smell the faint scent of death and rot. It was subtle, so subtle she was sure humans couldn’t smell it, but the scent of death was a stench reavers knew from day one. She shifts grimorrah to block the herd from the treeline as Cebra seemed to almost absorb the truck sitting there. She didn’t have time to ask about it as movement caught her eye.

Her elven ears perk as a little set of bunny ears twitch at her. She squints to differentiate from its background as it is joined by many, equally dead counterparts. Cebra seemed happy to immediately start blasting, however Rai wasn’t so keen on immediately engaging just yet. Undead were particularly hard to fight in an engage due to her inability to distinguish what they were when they sat still against a background. Once the mutations started, she settled back into a more comfortable position. This one had at least some remnants of a soul. It was fuzzy and rather corrupted, but she could at least see it.

She noticed the ropeish and viney outline of it, its large jaws and crevices the maw left. She could make out enough of it to see what the danger was as it was barreling closer. “This far, but no further.” She growls under her breath, standing in her saddle. Both scythes are drawn at her sides as it continues to rush closer.

When it is less than ten feet from her she leaps forward, one scythe dipping to try and catch the creature under the jaw as it ran, the other poised for a follow up attack from the left side of the head and her foot positioned to plant squarely onto the front of the creatures nose to push off it in an escape. She wanted it’s focused on her, and she knew no better way than to get in it’s face.

While Rai went with the heavy engage, Grimorah turns tail, trotting a safe distance away toward the creature’s side, hooves carrying him, with grace as he seemed to be waiting for something.

Cebra took a kneeling position allowing him to tighten his aim and snap from one shot to the next. "Rai! watch out for the venom! It's a paralytic!" He shouted out taking a second to stop shooting so she could hear.

The plant abominations gurgled and snapped their teeth, the meaty vines of various creatures lashed out towards Rai though missing her by a wide margin. They were not the most accurate or strong of creatures, but that venom was particularly worrying. Cebra was sure the venom would not leak through his insulated armor less it be damaged first, Rai's armor at first sight didn't appear to prevent that. Cebra popped off a few more bolts nailing the slow moving horde as they relentlessly closed in, seemingly unphased by the prospect of dying.

As Rai slashed the creature its gash splashed out a mix of fluids, upon hitting the ground the fluid turned the ground from a worn out dirt road to deep dark fertile soil. They split their attention as they closed in now also trying to move around the heroes to get to Darcy and his herd, even targeting the large steed undaunted by it's arcane presence. Cebra did his best firing single shots in such rapid succession he looked like an automated machine gun turret. Behind the bark blue visor of his armor his S.E.M program worked in unison with the helmets targeting system. His precision was infinitely close to mathematically perfect as possible hitting every target in its main nerve stem.

The issue was Cebra only had so much ammunition's left and was draining it fast, having to go into melee might leave the herd vulnerable. Hopefully Rai or her companion could cover that...



BOOM!... CRASH!... In the distance the sound of a tree falling pierces even the noise of energy weapons, gurgling plants and swinging scythes. Cebra sighs with a tone of stress "Fuck."

Rai’s ears twitched back at the mention of paralytic venom. Her mind processed it as quickly as it could and then registered venom as not a problem. Reavers could be pumped full of toxin and be perfectly fine. Her main concern was not to get so injured she had to regenerate before these monsters weren’t a threat anymore. Having to regenerate would likely take her out of the fight for at least five full minutes.

Luckily the heavy strike from the front seemed to take care of the grotesque creature in front of her as her scythe cleaved through on the first upswing and then again on the follow up. She lands, venom steaming off her armor and off her painted skin but not really doing anything to harm her it seemed. “I’m alright. Poisons don’t affect me.” She calls back, her voice having a clear ring to it that seemed to cut through chaos like accented church bells. No matter how loud the chaos, her voice carried as if she were next to anyone who needed to hear it.

Her boots plant firmly onto the ground as she throws each scythe in a different direction, one about 10 feet to the left and one up a tree a good 30 feet in the air. She reaches to the whip at her hip, snapping it forward once into the oncoming horde and clearing a good section of it. From there she took large sweeping movements, clearing as much space as she could through cracks and sweeps with the range it provided to keep the hoard off Darcy’s herd. This was working great but a coyote and a dog managed to get around Rai’s wide range. The dog leaps for her but loses her silhouette in the cloak and skirts and finds itself getting popped by the whip, The coyote managed to find her left knee and sink it’s teeth in deep before Rai could also pop it in the head. She growls, standing despite her now mangled leg, shaking her head and pushing through anyway.

Meanwhile Grimorra squealed seeing he was being pursued… what an odd change of pace for him. Rai whistles at the stallion as he circles, pulling in tight with the herd so Rai could push the horde or mindless whelps off him. The mean spirited stallion turned around, backing his rear up toward the incoming thinned out swarm beasts Rai had missed and absolutely rails a possessed bunny with his hooves and sending it scattering into pieces. Rai’s area of effect against the horde was effective, but only really in a ten foot radius around her.

However the promise of a larger opponent echoes in the back of Rai’s mind. She couldn’t help but let out a low, rolling growl at the thought of something bigger and even more dangerous incoming. The reaver dashes upward into the trees, pulling her scythe from the wood.. “Hold these off. I’m going to find where that is.” She calls down to Cebra, having cleared out some of the onslaught with the whip. At least it was slow, she could blink back to her other scythe quickly enough to catch it before it hit the herd of panicking cattle.

“This could be a problem.”

The panicked mooing of the cows mixed with the disgusting gurgling and hisses coming from the host creatures and their plant like parasite. Cebra had picked off a wolf, a few deer and otters that had closed in far too much. A doe with tentacles like vines and a human spine coming from a breach in her belly lunges out at Cebra from his right flank. S.E.M catches the sudden movement and Cebra's body reacts with pin point precision as he grabs the vine and yanks the creature hard. It flies and hits the ground before him with a brutal thud, Cebra quickly smashes the plant like mouth area with his foot before firing a few rounds into it's nerve stem.

Cebra manages to catch a glimpse of Rai and her leg getting injured. He'd prefer to go over to her and give some back up. It was fortunate she had some defense against the paralytic as an antidote would take some time if they survived. Cebra had problems of his own, seems the bear had a mate, a mate that was looking equally as grotesque and plant infused as her mate. Cebra aims at the creature and click "...Fuck me." Clearly out of ammo he quickly remakes the rifle into a longsword.

The bear goes for a swing of its massive paw and vines proceed it in a fan of strikes, Cebra blocks many of them but then is blindsided by a rabbit leaping at his helm. The creatures tries its best to crack the visor and only manages to drool and scrape at it before being tossed off the ridge like a football. It was enough distraction however for the bear to rear up in all its mutant strength and claw Cebra like a bulldozer. He's sent flying back and skids across the ground with a few shards of armor flying off. He hits a boulder hard with a sickening crunch and a loud. "FUCK ME BETTY-ANNE!"

Cebra braces against the rock and hauls himself to his feet, he holds his right arm and grips tight. With a hard slam against the boulder he pops it back into place with a pissed off grunt. "Yeah come on then asshole." S.E.M had not caught the presence of the small creature but now mapped out the entire combat area, it was finished its solution. Cebra darted at the bear and dodged it's flurry of strikes sliding low to slice off a leg. The big bear lost its balance as Cebra stop his slide and leapt up, coming down hard on its skull as to splatter it. The blade was buried into the spine as he clove it open to its neck. Cebra backed up taking a more defensive stance around the herd now as the horde thinned.

Cebra nods towards Rai "Rai these things all come from a mother, be careful!" and holds off the smaller creatures with no shortness of endurance he cuts on. Like the machine he is, he might get injured but is rarely made tired by combat.

Approaching ever closer and now coming into view was a monstrous thing of flesh and nature. Twisted human and animal parts mutated and brought into the form of a twenty five foot tall leech with dual heads. One head contained rows of what could be teeth or thorns with bubbling purple liquid. The other head had no teeth but a large flower that covered the face with black and yellow petals that shimmered in the sunlight and shifted colors. Halfway down the body it turned from a slimy worm like flesh and into a harder carapace that was like wood.

“Who’s Betty-Anne?” Rai couldn’t help but ask, momentarily distracted by the incredibly random outburst. Her ears twitched as she glanced down from her tree, spaded tail swishing like a confused house cat.

She smelt blood on Cebra… but it didn’t gleam in her vision like blood. Human blood lit up a bright silvery color to a reaver, in a world of black and white, blood was like a beacon to them. It smelt coppery like blood, but didn’t register on her vision. “You hurt?” She asks, as if looking for the injury.

It was a momentary distraction before the crashing of the aforementioned mother came barreling into view. She couldn’t really make out exactly what it was, but she could see it’s horrible outline and it was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Was it a giant slug? Or maybe a snail? Where was it’s face?

No time for thought on that now, she had to figure out how to take it down before it got to the cattle. “Found mother. She looks slow. If we go for her, will the rest of the horde follow?” She asks, blinking down to her scythe she’d staked into the dirt and slashing through a few more mindless beasts to try to clean up a bit before starting a big fight. “I’d rather not have to divide my attention between guardian cattle and fighting a monster.”

Rai whistles to Grimmorah to come as she throws her leg over his withers. Retrieving her bow, she knocks a sickly green arrow from a hidden quiver under her right leg. The thing glowed an emerald color and didn’t seem to be made of wood. The closest conceivable thing it resembled was jade on the shaft and some thin green glass for a head. As the smoke around it glimmered and glowed, it attached to the horn of Rai’s saddle. “I can pull a body part away if you can hack it off.”

Reavers hunted best in groups, and reaver squads with a scythe wielder were known behemoth slayers. Scythe reavers dealt death by a thousand cuts, which was the only way to hack apart large beasts. She kicks Grimorah into a gallop, veering to the left to try and hit the shimmering flower head.

She leaps up onto her saddle, one foot pressed hard onto the swell and one onto the pommel, each seemed to be made for this kind of stance. She crouches similarly to when she was preparing to leap from her saddle, except this time she knocks the nasty looking arrow to the bow, overdrawing for extra power. She was a lousy shot with it, but a target that big was hard to miss. She looses, arrow staking down into the sunflower’s side. She settles back into her saddle as Grimorah suddenly veers right, trying to pull the head out to the side and put it in a bad position to defend. The line to her saddle puls taught with magical energy, however it was only useful for a short amount of time, too hard of a pull would snap the lead so she just had to pray she’d caught it off guard.

Cebra shakes his head keeping his focus "It it's no one Rai, just a saying." As he parries a wild cat then cleaves in in two. Already the nanobots worked on repairing his fractured ribs as his breathing stopped being so sharp and painful, unfortunately Cebra had little time to prepare for this fight. If he had then he would have ingested the metal and reinforced his internal structure, as it was his strength and resilience to damage was lower than usual. He would be of more use now giving Rai back up seeing what she was capable of.

"It has a psionic link with the rest of the mutants er monsters that keeps them slave to its will. If it dies then the rest of these monsters will revert to their most base instinct. They'll turn on each other and tear themselves apart."

The arrow strike makes the creature hiss and gurgle in a similar way to it's underlings save for much more loud and disgusting. The flower like head that the arrow hit begins to shimmer and react greatly to the sun light. The massive leech directs its attention towards Rai now, seeing her as the primary threat. This gives Cebra an idea, a bit risky and would leave him vulnerable. But he was not one to care for such trifling things.

A stream of silverish liquid crept from his armor and soon the whole helm came off, it twisted and molded into a small device no bigger than an apple. He began to back up and lure the mutants to the edge of the cliff. Just when they had him surrounded he proved that he always had a few tricks up his sleeve. He drops the device on the ground and from the back of his armor from two jet like exhausts a burst of fuel send Cebra up high. The device explodes taking out a large chunk of the creatures and sending the rest tumbling down the side of the mountain as the road gave way. Cebra landed gently as the jump jets softened his landing, he turned his attention to the big one now that Rai was fighting.

Mother fires a shotgun blast of beam energy from its flower like mouth, it devastates the area and lights fires that are held back by the harsh rain. A few are directed right towards Rai.

Thus was forever the theme in Rai’s life: Kill the beast.

Rai continues to pull with Grimorrah, trailing the lead with her to try and pull the flower head away from his body. The hellish stallion does his best to avoid the incoming beams of flame, leaping through fires as he passes them. Rai knows he cannot keep up forever.

She stands in her saddle, heel firmly planted against the seat as she steels herself, eyes trailing up the massive creature. It had to turn it’s massive head to keep up with Grimorrah, so she drops a scythe as they run. She waited about thirty seconds, until the creature's head had turned almost a full 90 degrees from where she’d dropped the scythe.

In an instant, the Reaver was back at the discarded scythe just as Grimorah failed to dodge an incoming blast, sending him shattering into sulfur, dust and glass. However, Rai was already airborne into the side of mother’s head, scythe digging in harshly as she focuses all her momentum into hitting it. She hits in pairs, a swipe up and a swipe left. Her foot hits the base of it’s stalk and she gives another double hit, up and to the right, throwing her scythe to stake down into the other head.

Slaying a behemoth was death by a thousand precise cuts. She’d have to cleave this thing to pieces, one slice at a time.

Once she was to the other head, she gives another two slashes into it and dashes back to the ground, choosing to reposition from a distance and see what the other head would do once she’d agitated it.

The creature flailed around feeling the sting of those cuts, it thrashed at trees leveling them and sending them flying in all directions including towards Rai. For a moment it's inane screeches sounded vaguely like a screaming woman. Cebra fought hard ripping and tearing apart the mutant plants with absurd cybernetic precision, he worked down the numbers but more just kept coming. They must have been waiting for this opportunity to target a large amount of prey.

Darcy was trying to lead the herd out of the area of the fight by way of a small gap between the mountain side and Cebra, but they were far too frightened simply mooing loudly and scrambling back into the fold. It was more like strenuous gardening than an actual swordfight, but some of the creatures became distracted at the sound of their mothers wailing and screeching. A fair amount turned from Cebra and the herd to go back to Rai. Cebra rolled his eyes in frustration and groaned "Fuck me, fine I'll come after you then." As he moves around the horde and cleaves as many as he can, now bound towards Rai again.

The mother mutant was raging about swinging at Rai and firing off that solar shotgun weapon, at the same time the more ugly fang filled mouth went in to bite and swallow her whole. Vile blood from all the various cuts spewing out but at the same time spreading more lush greenery around like potent fertilizer.

Rai’s eyes narrow at the womanly screams of the beast before her. Her ears level back like an angry dog, Scythe dipping down to prepare for a forward dash, only to find herself dashing straight forward into a flying tree branch she hadn’t noticed being flung through the air.

The foliage splinters into pieces upon impact with other trees, sending a volley of wooden shrapnel into the dashing Reaver. Large branches punched their way through her left thigh, into her side, one went straight through her ribs and one right through her throat. Her windpipe severed, but she didn’t gasp or struggle for breath. She did however spit the mouth full of blood that’d pooled behind her teeth.

She was fading fast, there wasn’t much time to really look for a counter attack. Instead she chose to dash to the left, grimacing at her impaled thigh She landed 60 feet to the left of the gaping maw that moved to swallow her whole. Rai yanks the stake from her throat, ribs and side and throws them into the ground as blood spills freely from the many different punctures she’d been peppered with. She could fill the empty caverns that would be her lungs filling, but that didn’t necessarily perturb her. Any attempt to breathe resulted in a raspy, burning cough.

Her legs gave out as her head started swirling. It was like she tried to say something, eyes glancing toward Cebra as he approached, but without an intact windpipe, any kind of speech was impossible. It didn’t matter anyway because mere moments later she was down, the world blotted out into a muted blur. For all witnesses, she appeared dead in every way. However, her wounds began to slowly stitch themselves closed. The smaller wood pieces push themselves from her flesh, however the stake through her thigh remains, her flesh sealing around it slowly.

With the distraction of the mothers cries the road along the ridge was clear of any living mutants, just quickly decomposing corpses and bodily fluids. The fluid causing lush green, bushes and saplings to grow in the middle of the road ultimately ruining it. Darcy hurried his cattle along the road as they finally grew some courage, enough to skirt along close to the side of the mountain keeping to one side of the road in single file. They made it out of the area and down the road in spite of the rain and plant growth.

Seeing Rai injured put some wind in Cebra's step, the dust trail leaving the mutant creatures in a cloud as those legs pumped rivaling a gazelle. He skidded to a harsh stop beside Rai and put his hands on her shoulder and back as to prop her up. The rain washed her flowing blood into the dirt and pooled it with water "How bad are you hurt? Are you able to still move Rai?" His stern voice not quite undercut by his concern, even knowing one can regenerate damage, Cebra knew how it could wear someone down and drain their stamina as it happened to him. This fight was going to be a hell of a slog if he had to go it alone already outnumbered and with little weaponry for taking on giants.

His S.E.M had calculated the optimal attack pattern for eliminating the minion like creatures, was still working out the solution for taking out the giant mother. His best estimate was the targeting of that flower looking part of this abomination of man and plant. "We can do this, it's likely a matter of hitting that flowery section with enough force. I can give it a rather nasty shock if I can reach that flower part." He tells Rai through heavy breathing.

Rai was completely unresponsive on the outside, blood spilling from her nose and flooding onto the ground from her healing throat. The wind in her lungs escapes as Cebra set her up which really only resulted in a bubbling exhale typical of a corpse. Her hair falls into her face, smoke effect having died down as she regenerated.

On the inside Cebra’s voice was so muffled she could barely understand what he was saying. She was barely even aware she’d been moved at all. It took a while for all the wounds to seal however a minute or two later, Rai coughs up the blood left in her lungs, hair resuming it’s ghostly smoke effect as glimmering blue eyes glance open.

“I’m alright. Happens.” She coughs, managing to clear the last bit of blood from her system. Cold skin brushed against Cebra as she stood, faltering just a bit as she realized she missed a stake through her thigh. With a sigh she yanks it out too with a short groan.

“I didn’t hear much of what you said. But I can get you up there if we can get close enough.” She takes his hand tightly. “Don’t let go or you’ll fall.”

Teleporting with a companion wasn’t an option, however she could dash with someone else theoretically. But god help them should they let go of her, otherwise the magic keeping her going in any cardinal direction would drop said person off going at rather insane speeds.

She takes her first dash, 60 feet straight forward putting her right under one of the flower’s massive heads. She then takes a dash straight up, right onto the back of the flowered head. Rai staggers, losing her balance for a moment on her wounded leg but catches herself before falling to the ground.

Well it certainly wasn't something Cebra was expecting, but he held on none the less as the two of them speed towards the great mutant beast and right upwards to the back of its head. The mother barely has time to react before Cebra is plummeting downward onto its head, not a particularly great area to be as it would seem. The creature began to buck and flail while at the same time firing more beams of that solar based energy. Cebra now felt the disgusting flesh and plant this thing was made from and how it shifted beneath him. "Ugh, come on just let me up there."

Cebra struggles and nearly falls off twice dangling from a petal on its head, he nearly gets eaten by the other head as it sees him hanging. Cebra crawl up to the flower with it noticing him and readies to fire another blast with Cebra at point blank range. "Oh no you dont!" The sound of cracking and overwhelming buzzing energy fills the air around the creature. From Cebra's body surges outward a torrent of blue electrical energy in a ten meter area, it envelopes him and the mutant as it releases a cringe inducing screech as it is electrocuted. It's makeshift flesh begins to boil and blister forming huge bubbles under the skin, paralyzed in place it can do nothing but feel all this happening when finally... SPLAT! It explodes into bile and viscera all over the forest floor. Cebra falls from the top of the creature, he almost has a nasty landing but manages to put out of a tumble and land on all fours. He's drained of virtually all his energy and only has the bare amount to stay conscious right now, even that landing was painful without his recoil implants.

He rises to his feet and looks over his body seeing the disgusting mess all over him. "Uck... Vile." He makes his way over to Rai to check on how she's doing.

Rai was even kind of amazed this worked at all. She’d only ever heard of a reaver doing that kind of dash successfully once. All others ended up with the companion ground into paste along whatever path they were travelling along when they stopped so suddenly… or they passed out due to the G-force.

The flailing did send Rai off it with a rather unceremonious tip of the leaf as her ability to balance had been severely crippled due to a useless leg. She flips mid-fall tossing her scythe end, over end into a tree trunk and dashes to it, perching herself upon the shaft. There wasn’t much she could do to help Cebra out by falling off mother and knocking herself down again. She’d have to wait it out and see if he needed help from afar.

Luckily Cebra didn’t have too much of a struggle climbing the gargantuan thing and soon enough the splatter has sprayed Rai down from 20 feet away. She gave a light groan, shaking as much of the filth from her cloak as she could before hopping back down onto the ground.

She walked with a harsh limp, left leg essentially useless at holding her weight as the wood had splintered through her femur. “Well that was eventful.” She deadpans, rather amazed Cebra had not only survived the swarm, but the fall as well. “Cebra and Rai, saviors of cows, slayers of flowers.” she shrugged with a light twirl of her scythe as the reholstered it against her hip.

“We should find a creek. This smells like month-old demon shite.” She winces as she experimentally sniffed her cloak. Perhaps she’d get lucky and find some soapwort of buffalo berries to wash it with and get the smell out.

Cebra gave Rai a chuckle "Ah this was just another Tuesday for me." The smell was undeniably foul, at the same time the flora and fauna had grown quite lush in the area around the great creatures corpse as its blood spilled out. Cebra knew he'd have to burn the corpse later to dispose of any evidence, having media attention in the area was to his detriment usually. "I'm sure Darcy is plenty greatful we came when we did, he's a good man and does good work for the people here."

Cebra was a bit taken back by the idea of bathing outdoors, he began to wonder about the sanitation conditions in her world. "Rai... we can bathe indoors you know. I came out of my shower earlier when we met." The rain helped to wash some of the gunk away but wasn't nearly enough to free them of the stench.

"You deserve a little hospitality after all of that mess, if you don't have any place to stay tonight then you're welcome to my home." Cebra felt deeply ingratiated to Rai, as he would anyone who gave help to the people in his small community. He put his arm around her to help her upright... Though really his body was pretty banged up as well, especially his legs after that fall. He didn't make it far until he began to stagger. "Oh geez, damn legs."

“I’m sure his cows are even more grateful.” Rai smirks as she unclasps the hooks holding her cloak onto her pauldron. She folds it over, tucking it over the belt loop that held one of her scythes. “You can? Can you wash clothes inside too? I have some lye but buffalo berries work better. Lye leaves it smelling almost worse.” As if that were possible. Rai did notice humans around here didn’t have as strong of a scent as they did in Dis. Perhaps it was due to the availability of running water that they didn’t also have to drink?

“In Dis, Reavers are given one ration of Lye per week. However, we end up having to fight at least one demon every two days, sometimes more. So that one vial of lye doesn’t go very far. But finding Billberries or soapweed is always an option. I’m not very good at finding it myself, but a white cloak named Dante is. I end up trading taking over his livestock duty shift for some at least once or twice a week… I’m beginning to suspect the bastard is growing them in secret.” Rai suddenly realizes that’d make a lot of sense. How could she not have thought of that before?

She was, however, rambling. The opportunity to speak freely was not one she was awarded often, so she found herself capitalizing on it. The arm around her shoulder was a very unfamiliar feeling. She didn’t exactly know how to feel about it, people never dared to touch humanity’s bastard children. Her skin felt cold to the touch and the flesh beneath felt like granite covered in velvet soft skin. “I’ll stay with you for the night. I don’t really stop moving at night very often.” She thought it interesting to not only be able to see how a house ran, but to actually be in one for the night.

She let out a little wince as the weight began to shift Cebra was also buckling. That landing didn’t look too clean, it would have been enough to shatter the ankles of a normal person easily. “Here, Grimmorah should be free by now.” She offers, shifting to find another of her many pockets and tossing the glass figurine into the ground.

Once again the surge of sulfur and hellfire surged forth the angry steed, barreling into the world like a bat out of hell. He stares blankly at the two for a moment, gnashing his glass teeth.

“Oh boo, you’ll get over it.” Rai grumbles as she hauls herself into the saddle best she could with a shattered femur before extending a hand to Cebra. However Grimmorah voiced his discontentment once again with a snort.

“Ass.” She retaliates, giving her own irritated snort.