>>5598740Stealth has never been your forte, but it hardly matters—not in these conditions. The acrid smoke of your earlier incubus immolation permeates the darkness, confounding the dim light of the humans’ torches; hampered as they are by their reliance on light to see, this is enough. The three of you easily escape the Hawksong authorities unseen—in fact, of the three of you, you undoubtedly are the loudest, compared to a trained and experienced urban infiltrator and a being of shadow and dark desire given flesh.
Together, your terrible trio seek your father and your friend for a long-delayed reunion. It is almost dawn by the time you approach their hiding-place, which fills you with some consternation. You are able to manifest some pants from the shoggoth-cuirass (an uncomfortable feeling, with your current guide’s external genitals bare against the shifting abomination), but as an obvious foreigner in strange armour, you are still rather conspicuous. It is entirely possible someone caught distance glimpses of you in you battle against the demon-cult, and the city will be on high alert after such an event even if they do not know the culprits or motives. Further, Halle is obviously injured, clutching an oozing puncture to her side as she slinks after you, and Irinnile is… Rather obvious.
“Relaaax baby,” Irinnile coos reassuringly when your raise the issue, and quickly transmogrifies her attire to include a leathery cape to wrap around her costume-armour and exposed skin. “I got this! This ain’t my first go ‘round the bloc, ya ‘know?”
“Or mine,” Halle points out, snagging an ill-fitting men’s tunic from a nearby drying-line and pulling it over her head to conceal her bloodied attire beneath; a second shirt serves as tourniquet, staunching the blood-flow and preventing it from immediately seeping through. “I need this wound looked at, though. May we PROCEED, Superior One?”
You’re not sure you like her tone, but you ARE almost at your destination and she IS likely in quite some pain, so you let the matter lie for the moment.
You find your destination closer to Hawksong’s port. You pause for a moment despite the urgency to watch the dawnlight dance across the light ripples of the waves, sparkling across what almost looks like an infinite expanse of water. Your <aquaphobia> taints your enjoyment a little—you automatically take a few steps back to keep distance between yourself and the unknowable depths of the ocean—but it is still undeniably beautiful. If Blodorise and its famed sunrises were a wondrous thing to behold, well… This something altogether GREATER. You have NEVER seen so much open area, never even could have IMAGIEND such an unbroken vista before this moment.
“First time?” Halle whispers, standing beside you.
“Yess,” you admit.
“It is something, isn’t it?”
“It ccertainly isss,” you agree.
The moment passes. The mission takes precedence. Your allies await.
