A Journey Onwards Part 2

The blade tore through the air as personal and cultural philosophies consolidated inside her. 'Only death brought such a concept to life in Northend.' It was a foundation of her childhood solidified through her experience.

And already drunk on the Bloodlust of her Path, she had attacked. The runic blade she wielded slashed up and sideways to the heavens. Her left-handed swing was a showing of her dominant; the steel of the blade remaining brilliant against the rays of the celestial sun. Cutting winds were heard as the leader's head flew, and a "splurt" of blood sounded out.

This small burst of blood streamed down from his decapitated body.

No blood touched her, and none spilled onto her; her inner voice said only one thing 'There is no mercy, only death.' Mercy is the sweet dream of the West, her face reflected the conflict of her inner turmoil, the fury she portrayed remaining pointless. Her eyes glistened with water she would not waste, an insane grin taking shape on her face.

Shocked at what had just happened, the bandits remained stunned. Having witnessed their leader's beheading, incomprehension shrouded their thoughts. This gave Alana another opening; which she exploited by ducking past the body that fell to its knees. A pool of blood was formed of it, and she reached the desired position to slash downwards.

Her blade bit deep into the torso of another woman's body. The woman looked down trying to scream, but all that came of it was a "gurgle" of blood that besmirched Alana's ferocious face. She was looking upon the other woman's eyes, which were locked into hers the last throes of life fading from her. Death claimed her as descent took her body to the earth.

During that sequence of events, Godrick had despaired at the loss of life. Yet upon noticing that one of the bandits had gotten into position and taken aim; bow in hand in hopes of wounding the Demonic woman. He knew it was time to act or else his companion's own fallacies would be her undoing.

Alana was laughing furiously after slaughtering the kinsman of the bowman. The archer looked upon her with a hatred so sworn, he could feel a curse engulfing her from his being.

And it did.

Whatever he had felt, had channeled properly unto her. Reducing Alana's once dominating aura and posturing, to a paranoic state of feebleness and self-doubt.

The archer knocked an arrow back as he laughed back at her "Time to get it ya fucken sow." He mocked releasing the string of his bow. Alana remained struggling against the spiritual curse. Her berserk state became somehow, even more enraged. But it was all useless against the curse that had struck her.

This, however, gave Godrick enough time to cast a spell twice over. Arcane Bolt, had finally been perfected to his set of standards, deeming it suitable to be wielded with impunity. Its first recorded usage would be documented by Godrick in his Grimoire. Forever to be remembered, for quelling the life of another.

And as he chanted in the Primect, in its garble of incomprehensible speech patterns and motions, he finished saying the words: "Strike upon him".

Now it was the archer who had received a crippling blow, though this one was less spiritual in nature. Its physical force was of a higher level nonetheless, leaving two arrow-shaped holes behind on the now-dead and standing bandit. One of them was located on his hand; the other upon his head, penetrating cleanly through its front and out the back of the cranium.

The other bandits in the group became outraged yet cautious of the magic-wielding pilgrim. Forcing them to focus on him and leaving another one of their numbers open to the petite warrior of fury that was Alana. She was recovered now after the caster of the curse had been dealt with, so she chose a new enemy to stand before her. Her current opponent was competent enough to block her sword but bounced back due to the force the small warrior had pushed him with.

He was displaced over to Godrick's position, who upon seeing his ricocheting form took out a large tome to smack him as hard as he could on the head. With the weight of the tome being forced upon their head the competent warrior fell unconscious. The maddened laughter of the scarred Amazonian echoed to him gleefully as the fighting ensued. And after three more bandits fell, the battle concluded.

Godrick looked around at the death and despair of his surroundings, a different type of pain took hold of him. This one was known as Sorrow, and he knew of it due to the meaninglessness of the slaughter. So he looked towards his companion approaching the unconscious bandit he had incapacitated.

Her blade was drawn toward the man as she raised and struck hard bouncing off of an invisible force to all but her. It was a sphere of blue energies that rotated ever so slowly in her vision.

"Stop already, enough is enough! Do you not see all the meaningless death that you have invited?" Godrick stated furiously. Anger had replaced the sorrow he felt due to his companion's continuous disregard for life.

She looked at him as she usually would, trying to uncover his reasoning, and once comprehension dawned upon her. Sheathing was heard from the sword, as she paced towards him calmly. A disarming and unhinged smile crested her face, making Godrick lower his guard, believing she had understood her actions. Yet a spontaneous fist landed on his face coming from her innocent form.

His spell was canceled, and he suffered from the feedback, forcing him to excuse his earlier meal onto the ground. Her stare was hard now as he waited for him to finish. Once done, he looked at her from the ground, mad but fearful of her spontaneous personality that waited for a reason or excuse for violence.

"Have ya settled yerself yet? Done pussyfooting about?" She asked unamused.

"You are Hellishly mad! You viperous vixen!" He spat some more vile into the ground, mixed with the blood of the cut from the inside of his cheeks.

"Me?!" She shrieked at him offended. "What about ya? Ya done think we're here on a gods damned camping and business swaree?" Her anger was now high as he noticed unshed tears that would not fold out of her ducts.

"We're in twice Godsdamned Northend. Yer ancestry that be damned and mine that suffer it twice over." Distress was apparent now as she tried resettling her rising passions.

"There is no mercy in Northend, only Death brings the sweet dream of the West upon these lands. Don't ya ever impose yer views and philosophies upon me, Cretin." Alana's last words came with venom so empowered that Godrick acknowledged the intelligence behind their meaning. But he could not condone this without explanation, he needed to know her reasoning if only to settle himself. Alana had many things that he understood, but there was a deeper meaning in all her actions that he would never comprehend as he was not of her.

"You are right." He conceded. "But tell me, why? Why the death, when we could have paid the toll to cease further aggression." A resolution came as she pointed toward a slightly off-course part of the road.

"Look over there Heretic and tell me, what can ya conclude?" His gaze moved with his body as he approached the location. What he saw caused such a reaction of pure and utter horror. That the hatred and misery he felt superseded the fruit's influence, which had slowly calmed down over time. Yet had begun to surge out once more, attempting to push him over an edge he could not recover from.

The bodies of more than twenty-six people were present within this mass grave the bandits had created. Merchants, farmers, women, and children were all present. All of them were from clanless settlements, this he could see from what he had gathered of their society through Alana.

"Wh-wh-why? Even the childer's why?" His voice became high and broken the combined assault of inner and outside influences distorting his patterns.

"Reckon they's the ones who could nu' pay. The women did though sadly." Alana replied standing next to him, noticing more horrible implications upon not only the women.

"Scum." A wad of spit exited her mouth landing on the ground next to her.

Godrick fell to his knees unable to control himself as he raged at the men and women responsible for this.

"Curse you! I curse you all in the name of the light and lord, Hadrian! Damn you all! Sodden excuses of human forms, you demons! I curse you down in the Hells where you will go. I curse your ill-gotten gains and all the pleasures gained from this life! And hope they eternally ensnare you in your perdition! Damn you, damn you, Gods damnit!" His curses were expelled from him but none said would make him feel any better. The hopelessness of the situation was completed and revenge was executed.

There was no more that could be done and that was what bothered him. His distress finally moved Alana, as she crouched down to hold his sobbing head, stopping him from continuously striking at the ground. She soothed to him, in a way that a parent would to their child.

"No more my friend. Enough. It was Ill of me to have done this to you. But we are not in the safety of the West any longer. Here only the strong and prepared will live." Her words moved him but he continued to shout.

"DAMN YOU!!!!" He said finitely as the memory faded back onto a campfire.

----

"Yes, I remember that day with horrid retention as well. My tremors grew worse afterward." A little bit of embarrassment glossed Godrick's face at the statement.

"But I thank you once more, I do not know what I would have done had you not remained there with me." It was Alana's turn, to turn a shade redder. How she had acted that day was certainly a very personal memory.

"Don't ya bother with it." Head turning, she deflected the smile that came her way.

"I wasn't in my best of states either so don't ya worry." The memory of the slaughter came but her mind steeled against them.

"But I would have worried if you had been fine. You saw an injustice and executed it, while it seemed spontaneous and critical. It was necessary, those men and women deserved no better. It was no small wonder, why the Undivining went so smoothly. I had you backing me with that righteousness of yours." A snort escaped her at his praise as she tried to hold it down.

"Ay, but them's not the only thing, what about the poison," She said, remembering the Grendlin spider that bit her, injecting its lethal venom inside of her. It was so toxic it could have ended her right then and there. Her only saving grace was that Godrick had prepared an antidote with his potionry beforehand.

"Or tha infection, and the Guards, and the poison again..." His motto always came back to her ears as 'better to have it and not need it, than not have it when in the dire. Once they arrived in a new area, he would take stock of any necessities that they would require for their pilgrimage.

"Oh, oh! What about the storm, that one was a hard one, ey?" The harrowing memory came upon both of them.

His brown eyes locked on her questioningly, "If by hard you mean life-threatening then yes I concur." He stood up at this statement moving closer to the fire, the cold all-encroaching from the invasive cold of the winter lands.

"How did it even start, did ya fall first or was it me? I can't remember It's all such a blur from the fever." Joining him by the fire she asked, warming her cold hands.

"Oh this is perfect, let us both try and remember this," He grabbed his Grimoire, pulled open its pages, and landed in the accountings sections. His brown eyes were then directed at her in amusement as he spun a charcoal almost expertly and she enjoyed the pleasantness of his stare.

To her, Godrick was not a strong man, he was not courageous, nor heroic. The man was simply true and reliable. Like the most curious of children, excitable by life's most mundane aspects. Yet somehow he seemed to find countless purposes for almost anything that garnered his interest. The prior examples were enough to prove his reliability, although the way he spoke sounded fake to her. She knew from their first of meetings, that he was very much honest and true to his word.

There was a point where she thought he was like all the clergy encountered previously. Heads filled with words they did not understand, repeating speech patterns and vocabulary with no intent or understanding. The route of repetition was clear on their unanswering faces, never revealing anything to their follower's questions --only asking for their faith and donations. Godrick was different in this regard, his every word was true and from the deepest parts of his mind. His every word held purpose in conveying his intent.

She found comfort in his mere presence as he was not a man who would lie to her. Her comfort did not come from something as insignificant as infatuation no; that was not why she would tease him. To her that was just a good way to release the stresses of the road as well as an entertaining nightly activity. But for whatever reason though, all clergy found the act unnecessary unless there was honesty behind it. Inconceivable she believed, as the act was the union for life to propagate and persist it was of nature and they refused it.

Wanting to deliver her owed debt as Northenders did, she sent a letter; crossing the distance with her warrior physique. She would have never remained with him, however, unless the man held the secrets of 'mana'. After awakening this knowledge her views had shifted, and her desire to continue improving as a warrior, even more as a Berserker; told her that the secrets to improving her foundations lay with him.

This was because even though she also received this knowledge she could not comprehend it yet. So she joined him on his pilgrimage, in hopes of unlocking the secrets that mana held, which is why she joined him by the fire as well.

The log found both of them sitting down on it closer to the fire thinking hard Godrick started.

"So I think it started like this..."