as written by Script and Sentry
Josephine nodded, satisfied, and stepped forwards to place the shackles on Yanni's hands. They pulsed with light as they closed, beginning to emit the same power that had been keeping her gems suppressed. The woman then turned and scanned the area with a scowl, yelling something in her own language. She lifted her weapon and pointed it at Yanni threateningly.
"Adrian!" she called, recalling his name from when Yanni had used it, as well as back at the farm.
After a moment, Adrian reappeared with a scowl on his face. He was just at the side of the road, still holding his arm. The woman nodded, sheathing her weapon and walking over to him as she said something to her men. One of them walked over to Yanni and took a hold of her arm, pulling her towards one of the horses. If she complied, he would help her mount before taking up a position in front of her.
Josephine paused as she noted Adrian's injury, then made her way over to her horse and began to rummage in one of her saddle bags. After a moment she pulled out a roll of bandages and some other medical supplies, gesturing for him to come over.
Though he hesitated, the pain in his arm won out over his desire to do nothing that the bitch wanted him to, and he complied. Within a few minutes, his injury was dressed and bandaged and the bullet had been extracted. She gave her other subordinate instructions and he led Adrian over to his horse to help him on in the same manner as Yanni.
____
"I'm sorry," Yanni called to Adrian. "This could have gone differently."
"Not your fault." Adrian replied through gritted teeth, "You aren't the bitch that shot me. Talk about a fucking lucky shot. Suppose I should be glad she didn't hit anything important."
"That's the spirit," the witch said darkly. "I'll get us out of here. If it was just me and the bitch I'd have won, believe you me."
Josephine snapped a command at the pair of them, and despite the language barrier, it was likely clear that she wanted them to stop talking. A few more words, and the man carrying Yanni rode forwards to take the lead, separating them.
Adrian scowled furiously at the back of the woman's head as she mounted her horse and they started along the road again.
Yanni grunted like a wild animal caught in a cage, but she held onto the back of the guard's armor to steady herself. She could skip rooftops, but she hated horses.
____
They rode on in silence, then. Despite the lack of speech, there was a tangible tension in the air. Adrian could feel the guard he sat behind was like a coiled spring, ready to react to ... something, at a moment's notice. After a few minutes, Josephine called them to a halt, stopping to scan the tops of the hills that rose up on both sides of the road for a few moments before they carried on. She did it again not a minute later, muttering something that sounded like a curse as they started moving again for the second time.
He felt like he was waiting for something to happen. For a storm to break, as inevitable as though there were black clouds circling overhead.
When the arrow came, he almost wasn't surprised.
It hit the guard sat in front of Yanni in the neck, finding the gap between his helmet and pauldrons. With a strangled cry, he fell from the horse. Even as Josephine drew her sword, yelling something to the guard behind her, Adrian felt the impact of the second arrow in his chest plate as he was shoved backwards into him. Half a second later a second one hit the man in the face, toppling him from the horse - and Adrian with him.
On the floor now, he heard Josephine yelling something, and as he was bringing his head up to look he saw her leaping from her horse, light blazing from her palm. A ray of light shot out into the brush where she pointed it.
Yanni had slipped from the horse down to the corpse below, and pulled it up to shield herself from any more arrows that wanted to slaughter them. She looked for Adrian first, and once she spotted him, she trudged over with the body over her shoulder, looking back at Josephine briefly.
Another arrow shot from the opposite side of the road. Reacting with almost inhuman speed, Josephine whirled, slashing it out of the air with her blade. Then another came, and she deflected it with a burst of light. She held her hand in the air, glowing power surrounding her in a protective aura that caught several arrows.
She shouted in her language angrily, her gaze sweeping from bush to bush.
Adrian glanced at Yanni as she made her way over, grimacing. "What now? Do we ... do anything? Should we try and run for it?"
"You wanna get shot?" Yanni asked seriously. "Again?"
"You think sitting here and hoping for the best is a better deal?" he retorted. "Wait, look."
Adrian pointed, as at the top of the rises to either side of the road, figures began to emerge from the bushes. It looked like half a dozen of them in all, men and women carrying bows. All wore red armbands or headbands under their cloaks. Adrian noticed that a number of them had pointed ears, like elves.
Josephine looked around, taking in their numbers, and she seemed to deflate. The aura around her faded, and she slowly lowered her sword, dropping it to the ground before raising her hands, palms spread, in surrender.
It was then that a final figure stepped out of hiding. He wore a long cloak entirely of crimson, his face masked with a red bandana and cast in shadows from his hood. In one hand he held an exquisite-looking bow. The other arm was encased entirely in a black gauntlet formed of jagged metal.
He spoke - his voice surprisingly youthful for his menacing visage - pulling an arrow from his quiver. His tone was cold and hateful, and it sent a shiver down Adrian's spine. "This is bad." he muttered.
"Is it? I mean-" She reached around the corpse at her back and, with a grunt and a tug, freed the arrow from his neck. She showed it to Adrian. "They're really good shots, and they avoided us for a reason." She watched Josephine surrender, then pushed the corpse off of her.
Yanni stood up and assumed the same position as Josephine, looking up at the army before them.
Josephine spoke again, her voice now lacking the authority from before. She was speaking slowly, calmly - to Adrian, it was obvious that she was trying desperately to make herself calm by doing so.
The man with the gauntlet replied, now at a yell. She tried to speak again but he interrupted her with the same shouted command.
Slowly, Josephine lowered herself down onto her knees. It seemed as though the archers were ignoring Yanni entirely - though some of their eyes did flick to her, their leader's remained fixed on the kneeling woman.
He nocked the arrow to his bow.
Josephine abandoned the pretence of calm. She began to speak hastily, stumbling over her words, her voice pleading.
He pulled it back.
She was begging, now. Adrian didn't need to understand her to be able to tell that.
The arrow flew. It struck her between the eyes, snapping her neck back, and she fell to the ground dead.
____
Yanni's breath caught in her throat. She dropped her hands and stared up at what she guessed were the bandits the blonde girl was speaking of. Bows, arrows, the whole deal. She did note, however, their considerable lack of care for her person... and Adrian's.
"I think... we can walk away... and they won't give a damn."
____
As if to prove her wrong, the man then turned his gaze onto Yanni. He called out something in the same language as Josephine had been speaking. Adrian got to his feet and walked up next to her, gritting his teeth. "We don't speak... your language." he called, sounding a lot more confident than he felt after watching Josephine's execution. The woman might have attacked them, but she'd not killed them, and she'd bandaged his wounds. And she'd surrendered. Surely that had to have meant something?
The man made a grunted noise of acknowledgement, before turning away from them. He spoke a few commands to one of the other archers, a young looking blonde woman with pointed ears. She nodded, putting her bow on her back before starting to call out her own instructions to the others as the man disappeared back into the bushes. The bandits moved into action, descending to the road and beginning to collect Josephine's and the men's equipment, including their horses.
The blonde woman herself approached Yanni, placing a hand on her chest. "Anaiya." she said, smiling before turning to the man that was going through Josephine's belongings and calling a question. A few moments later, the man pulled a key out of her belt pouch and tossed it over to the elf, who moved to unlock Yanni's shackles.
She seemed to think for a moment, before pointing at her. "You..." she said, before pointing to herself... "F... follow?"
"Holy crap, someone that speaks two words of our language." Adrian remarked. "I guess we don't have much of a choice."
____
"... we've gotta be on Volare," breathed Yanni with a laugh. "Right? I mean, there's elves on Volare. Have you ever seen elves on Hera Prime? Because I haven't! We might actually be home!"
She turned to the blonde elven woman and nodded. "Yes. We'll follow."
Yanni was almost too eager. She had lost hope to ever see Kazen again, to see the scarce friends she'd made in Westeria again. This, however, gave her hope.
____
Once the bandits had looted the bodies of Josephine and her men, they left them in the road where they had fallen. Anaiya led Yanni and Adrian up from the road and into the bushes. They pushed their way through the undergrowth for a time before emerging out into the open.
From there they walked for several miles. The men and women of the group talked and joked amongst themselves... or at least Adrian assumed they were joking by the laughter. A few times, Anaiya attempted to communicate with them further, but it quickly became apparent she didn't know much of their language beyond a few basic phrases and words.
The man with the full cloak of crimson didn't speak at all as they travelled. He was continually watching their surroundings, as though an enemy might jump out of any clump of grass or out from behind any rock. They were a long way from the road, and by the looks of things any sort of civilisation, by now. Maybe he was right to be wary. Adrian didn't know how dangerous this place was.
He didn't know jack shit, because nobody here could talk to them and he had no clue where they were. If this was Valore, why was everyone still so ... primitive, for lack of a kinder word? He hadn't been aware of any living medieval kingdoms. Even insular Losenji had electricity, cars and radio.
Their destination caught him by surprise. He'd clued in on the fact that they were getting close, as they began to pass by what he'd guessed were scouts or perimeter guards that hailed them as they walked past their hiding spots. But it still startled him when one moment there was nothing ahead, and then suddenly a sprawling campsite was laid out before them. It was perfectly nestled between two steep rises so that you had to practically be upon it before you saw it.
It was ringed by walls of sharpened wooden logs, clearly a hasty construction but one that was very much defensible. One with an eye for such things might have noted that its poor tactical positioning - with high ground on all sides - indicated that it was not intended for defensive purposes except as a last resort, and the fairly rudimentary nature of the structures meant they would be easy to tear down and move off with, or abandon. It was a camp that was easy to flee from.
The group led them into the camp's main body through a wooden gate, and some of them dispersed to the tents. The camp was filled with more men and women, many of them adorned with the same red regalia as their travelling companions. There seemed to be as many elves as their were humans, as well as some more exotic races that Adrian didn't recognise. There was a woman with pale blue skin and insectoid wings sprouting from her back, and a pair of large catfolk with bulky builds and fearsome lion-like faces. He was even fairly certain he caught a glimpse of a centaur. The man at their head turned to say a few words to Anaiya, who saluted, before he too made his way off. A number of the inhabitants of the camp hurried up to him as he walked, clamouring to speak - some were holding papers that were apparently either very important, or impromptu flags, by the way they were waving them.
Anaiya turned to the pair of them, then. "Close. Stay." she instructed warningly, before turning and moving further into the camp.
"This is ... a lot bigger than I imagined a bandit camp would be." Adrian murmured to Yanni as they walked.
____
"It's more like a war camp," Yanni said as she marveled. "This scene is very familiar."
Blue-skinned fairies and bipedal creatures. Horsemen. The whole variety in this environment flashed memories behind glazed eyes. Though she had never seen any of these races specifically in Sozo, they carried that same air. She stared ahead at the man who everyone flocked around. "I don't think I need to point out who's the leader of this whole camp and not just the group who found us. He looks like he's seen quite a lot of shit. I wonder what they're fighting for."
____
"Hopefully not the slaughter of innocent women and children." Adrian remarked dryly. "Or at least impartial women and children. It's prob'ly a stretch to say either of us are innocents."
Anaiya led them through the camp, passing by makeshift smithies, tanners and training yards. She seemed not to have a specific destination in mind, but rather kept scanning the groups of people they passed by. Eventually, she let out an 'ahah' of success, as they were approaching a large tent equipped with a number of cages containing what appeared to be messenger birds.
A beautiful woman with bright red hair was emerging from the tent. She seemed almost excessively well armed, clad in leather armour and wearing a belt of small daggers. A longsword hung sheathed at her side, and a quiver containing a shortbow and arrows was strapped upon her back alongside a pair of longer knives.
"Aliana!" Anaiya called, drawing the woman's attention. She raised an eyebrow to see the blonde elf approaching with Yanni and Adrian in tow. She answered the greeting with a question, glancing at the pair of them as she did so.
The two exchanged conversation briefly, before Anaiya could be heard saying the word 'Terran'.
Aliana raised her eyebrows again, before turning to face them fully. "Does Anaiya speak the truth? You two speak Terran?" she asked. Though she was thickly accented like Josephine and the farm girl (interestingly, Anaiya and the man who had led the bandits had a different accent, despite speaking the same language), she spoke fluently. "Who are you, and what were you doing in the custody of an Inquisitor?"
____
Yanni blinked. To hear Terran spoken so fluently by someone other than herself and Adrian was a breath of fresh air and at the same time, jarring. She nodded in shock. "Yes! We're from Terra. We came here... out of nowhere. We're really not sure how. We were trying to get around and got-" She gestured to the direction of the road, "-swept up in all of this commotion. I don't know why she singled us out."
____
"Did you use magic while she was present?" Aliana inquired, "The people of this land treat magic with great suspicion, and seek to contain all its practitioners."
She sighed, turning her gaze on Anaiya and saying something in their language. Anaiya saluted, then strode off into the camp. Once she was gone, Aliana turned and gestured for the pair to follow her as she stepped back inside the tent behind her. "This land is called Orlesia, and it is ... was my home, once. I ended up on Terra in a similar fashion to how you ended up here, and lived there for a time. Upon my return here I discovered a thousand years had passed, and much was different."
Inside the tent was a large wooden table with an equally sizeable map laid upon it - presumably a map of the land they were in. Numerous tokens were scattered around it. Piles of papers sat stacked around the perimeter of the tent on smaller tables. There were two other people in the tent, a woman and a man, going through those papers and writing their own. Neither looked up from their work.
The redhead woman shook her head. "But you are not here to learn history. I expect you want to go home, no?"
Adrian glanced at Yanni, shrugging his shoulders.
"I would send men with you to get you to the border, but I fear I cannot spare them. We stand on the brink of war here and I need all my scouts reporting the movements of our enemies. You are lucky we had planned a strike on Inquisitor Josephine today."
She gestured to a point on the map near the centre-north where a red circle was positioned. "We are here." she said, before drawing her hand across the map to gesture at the north-eastern border. "That is the border of Amarathia. It is there you can find a route home, if that is what you wish. The journey is dangerous, however. The Inquisition aside, void beasts, remnants of the blight still prowl the outskirts of civilisation between lands. I must be honest, with just the two of you, I would not rate your chances of survival highly."
____
"Magic? Nooo..." Yanni mumbled, a hand reaching over to scratch her arm nervously.
She followed Aliana into the tent, glancing around it and holding her need to touch everything back. She peered closely at the map instead, heaving a sigh. "So... not Valore. But there is a way." She glanced at Adrian, mouth thinning into a line.
He would move on. Kroger, that is. Yanni wanted to believe he would.
"Looks like... we're stuck here for a while, huh, Adrian?"
