Two Years 'Til Death

[Sage]

The return trip was much less disorienting for Cambria, though he found himself confused when they returned to the mortal world. The tree they entered through was not the same one as before, and the forest around it was much less thick, but there was healthier soil to support it, the smell of sand and salty ocean air coming from much farther away. He could smell the faint, strange smell of death on the air, scorched, like burning corpses. He began to make sense of these details and Sieg reestablished his connection with Cambria, and fed the details of his assignment to him via their mental and visual link.

He was reminded of Amara's earlier question, and how he had failed to answer it. " The bond must be made willingly, and he does take a piece of your soul, to keep with him. If he really wanted, he could go to Pendaran on your behalf, and he could relinquish a piece, but generally if he wants something that hard to obtain...we will simply destroy it out of spite. "

Cambria's head jerked as he sensed the presence of another entity in their immediate vicinity. He recognized the scent immediately, and his bristling quickly settled. At the edge of the clearing stood an exceedingly tall man in an impossibly black robe with green markings littering it's surface. He pulled back his hood, revealing silvery hair similar to Cambria's but several times the length. He held a smug look on his face, and hefted a large brown satchel at his side, which he tossed at their feet wordlessly. Cambria would recognize it as his own, the same gear he had dropped days earlier in the Xexorian desert.

" Dalerem... " he muttered, simply acknowledging the man's presence. But before he could manage even that, the man disappearing into a vacuous black circle which appeared behind him. Cambria walked away from Amara to retrieve the satchel, and spoke matter-of-factly about their task. " We are to steal the Fang of Adriel. It is held within a shrine for some tiny race of sentients known as the Vuri. We are not to alert any of the mortals surrounding the building to our presence, and not to touch anything besides the Fang. "

[Igraine]

Amara grunted as she was told the specifics of the mission. Her eyes flickered slightly as she glanced around before moving to stand with Cambria. She allowed her human façade melt away so that she stood slightly taller than before and met his gaze with her amber eyes. She kept her sharp teeth out of the equation as she kissed him again. Something about him was attractive, and it amused her.

“I know of the Vuri. My King had some issues with that race. Queen Igraine is sibling to two of them. Their temple is near here but I have always avoided it. It feels unclean. Is there any specific way you can feel what you’re looking for so we don’t have to stay in there any longer than possible?” Amara shivered slightly and shook her head, remembering the feel of the Vuri Sanctuary vibrating against her skin.

“I suggest staying to the wooded areas. It will be quicker that way.” Amara moved away from Cambria then and walked into the jungle that grew dense quickly. The more shadowed the wooded area became the more Amara seemed to disappear until all that was visible were her vivid amber eyes.

“Well come on, we’ll need your abilities to get inside.” A soft haunting chuckle came from the shadows. It was often the last thing someone heard before being mauled to death by her teeth and claws.

[Sage]

Cambria stalked alongside a small trail leading toward the smell of decay, no more detectable to any normal mortal senses as Amara would be. During stealth operations, he had trained himself to systematically detach pathways of air, so that any noise he made could not travel to an unseen guard or soldier in his vicinity. His agility allowed him to stay out of sight, and stick mostly in underbrush and low-hanging tree branches, until they reached the edge of the forest where a small detachment could be seen heading across their path, but not directly toward their present location or their objective.

Cambria assessed the men, clad in leather and in the company of a rather disheveled-looking heathen magic user. He could smell the Mana on her, and practiced careful use of his own magic, so as not to be detected if her senses were tuned enough to give away his position. Further scanning the horizon, he discerned the source of the smell that had wafted so far into the woods. A lake of black fire stood ominously to the north of their position. Foreboding as it was, the soldiers seemed to be staying well-clear of it, so he signaled noiselessly to Amara, and began following the treeline closer to the tainted water, where they would make their jump.

Cambria checked the fastening on his mask, and pulled carefully at the manacles that held his wrist-mounted blades in place, before springing from the treeline like a hawk. He flew in a high arc, supporting himself on a turbulent current of air that took him to the roof of the Vuri Sanctuary. He trusted Amara to get to him, and in the meantime he searched the top of the structure for this spots and defining marks that might give clues as to where they should make their drop. On one corner of the roof, the assassin happened across a bumbling archer, taking aim at the treeline to the east with a finely crafted bow. It appeared to be military-issue, and strung much too tightly for the spindly little man to have prepared himself.

The boy sighed, remembering about a lesson he had hard learned about relying on the craftsmanship of a person you had never met, and let fly with two tiny daggers like a whisper, that flew toward the archer and struck the twine of his bow, causing the line to snap, and the tension to release. The sudden surge in the man's hands caused him to drop his arrow and stumble forward, nearly falling off the roof. Striking as quickly as lightning, Cambria was at the man's back, catching him with one hand while placing the palm of his other firmly at the back of the man's neck, rendering him unconscious. He drug the limp body back a few steps and dropped it, disgusted.

" Novice. "

[Igraine]

Amara watched Cambria carefully as he went to work. When he was on the roof of the rundown old Temple, Amara shook herself and stretched her neck to one side letting it pop, and then rolled her shoulders. One of the soldiers on patrol passed perilously close to where Amara was, and his comrades would question his further delay – none of them wanting to get in trouble with their leader Ryothan.

The soldier would be missed only momentarily as he was sucked into the depths of the woods, supposedly to check some noise – or so it seemed. When he re-emerged, if anyone was so inclined to notice, his hair would be a shade or two lighter and his brown eyes would have a slightly deeper amber tint to them. When any of the other soldiers sat down to dinner later in the evening, some might question where the young man was – it wouldn’t be long before they found his body.

Amara scaled the side of the building with ease, a trait that wasn’t normal among humans. She waited for the next patrol to pass before scaling the wall and hauling herself up on the roof. She spotted Cam by the edge of the roof and decided to come to a stop somewhere near the middle of the structure, near an open area of the roof where there was a small forest of strange plants growing in a courtyard below.

“As fun as wiping out parts of this Army might be, we should finish your task.” Amara’s voice came from the image of a man. It might seem a bit strange, but it would show both the power of her transformations and the way she’d managed to scale the building to the roof without any trouble.

[Sage]

Cambria nodded wordlessly as Amara prodded him along. He picked up the limp arm of the knocked-out soldier with one hand, and grabbed the similarly-dressed soldier that was Amara with his other. The trio of them began to sink through the stone beneath them, pouring into the room below as completely ethereal beings. Cambria lined the soldier's body up with a dresser below them and released it, causing the dead weight of the man to fall a short distance and crash headfirst into the dresser. The resulting head injury and damage to the furniture would be necessary for his plan to make robbery look like looting, done by the soldiers themselves.

He turned to Amara, who was now wearing the other soldier's clothing, and savagely unhinged and swung one of his blades at her. He made sure to cut shallow through the straps holding her cloak in place. He watched the thing flutter to the floor, and set about looking around the room.

" Anyone who comes across this room should find the occupying forces to be responsible. I'll get the Fang, gather up anything valuable you see and plant it on the other one, then get out through the courtyard. I'll go sink the bodies after to make them think the one you slew ran away with the weapon. "

Cambria's words were cold, his plan laid out with impressive precision. He'd planned long before he ever set foot back on this plane what steps he'd take to accomplish his mission without throwing suspicion on himself or his Master. It was a task he had performed countless times before, and he had become increasingly efficient at it. It did not take him long, fumbling through Trydian's possessions to find the dagger. It was hidden in plain sight, it's aura masked by the potent magical presence of the sanctuary, placed awkwardly on a bedside table in the boy's room. To think, given the circumstances by which it had come into his possession, Trydian had not even thought to secure the artifact properly in his absence.

Cambria gingerly lifted the gleaming, jet black instrument and held it out before him, admiring it. An emerald sheen gathered on the blades' surface, and a brilliant light erupted momentarily from Cambria's eyes as the blade became attuned to his magical energy. Cambria felt his veins surging beneath his skin as his heart began to race with a new understanding for his magical identity. Simply possessing the object was enough to empower even the most bumbling magician into a powerful sorcerer. This was the very essence of magical amplification, a catalyst unlike any other before it, or since, save one. The air crackled around Cambria momentarily, as he faded into his incorporeal form, and then he disappeared entirely. If she could sense him outside the walls, she would be able to feel him near the body of the soldier she had been imitating, pushing it far enough into the earth that it would not likely be found by the humans.