forum Fantasy O/O? // Closed

Started April 11, 2020 by @MarDeColores this is not it kids

tune

(Itzal is being quite the relatable lad lol)
He smiled when he felt Itzal squeeze his hand and he copied the motion in return, focused on the cars and buildings that were slowly turning into woods and hills that surrounded the city. They still had a few more minutes until they reached the park, or at least that's what Cole guessed. But that didn't matter to him. The longer he got to hold Itzal's hand the better, even if he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to be falling for a litertal god. He pushed that thought aside though, it would be easier to deal with the problem of his growing crush later.

(Ha, yeah. :)
Itzal watched the scenery melt from buildings to nature, and for a little while, the mission he and Cole were racing towards had disappeared from his mind. He let out a small breath and let his eyes close for a second. Now all he was aware of was the soft hum of the taxi and the warmth of Cole's hand. Mmm, this worked too. It was very relaxing, and he could have stayed there forever. It would probably be even better if he could lean his head against Cole's shoulder– he opened one eye and peered over at Cole for a second with a bit of longing– but this was just fine. Too bad they would probably be getting to the park soon.

With the soft radio station that the taxi driver was playing, and the calm he felt holding Itzal's hand, Cole could've stayed in the moment forever. He looked out at the trees calmly, his chin resting in his free hand as his arm rested on his leg. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but he didn't care. He was more invested in the scenery and holding Itzal's hand. As his mind wandered, he thought of the cave. What could possibly be in there? What would he have to prepare for? More beings sounded likely, but he didn't exactly want to go about murdering them, though he would to keep himself and Itzal safe.

The car breaking brought Itzal out of his almost meditative state. "Oh, are we there already?" Itzal sighed, eyes opening slowly. If he didn't need all his strength for the inevitable fight with the beings, he would have paused time for just a little, to let this soft moment last a little longer. He glanced out the window at the park, somehow frozen. He wanted to find the cave and the secrets inside it, but he didn't want to face the beings and put Cole in danger. "I guess… I guess it's time to go?" Itzal looked at Cole, trying not to let the uncertainty in his eyes show too much.

He glanced up as the taxi rolled to a stop and sighed, nodding to Cole before turning to talk to the driver. With only a little haggling, he agreed to stay for an hour, but after that he was leaving and they would have to find a ride back. Cole paid then sighed, turning to Itzal and slowly letting go of his hand, "I suppose it is…let's go face us some beings." Somehow, he mustered up a tiny smile and slipped out of the taxi, wondering how he felt so much colder just without the warmth of Itzal's hand in his own.

"Oh, joy." Itzal climbed out of the taxi, already missing having Cole's hand in his. Nothing that he could see was remotely familiar, which probably meant they would have to wander around a lot to find the cave. Itzal took a few steps down the nearest path, then paused. Was it this way? Hmm… yes. Something about it felt familiar. Probably farther along, though. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Cole was following, then continued down the path into the trees. His hand was wrapped tight around the hilt of the sword, knuckles almost white. The anticipation of finding a being was almost too much.

Cole followed after Itzal, glancing around the park before walking to his side. He seemed to have more of an idea of where to go than Cole did, and so he was just going to follow along. At least he could help now by searching for more of those beings. His gut was still telling him that this was going to be a bad situation, and he hoped it was wrong, but there was no way to be sure. They just had to survive this interaction with whatever beings came after them. That and finding whatever Itzal was searching for.

Of course, he found beings around the first corner he turned. It was a blind corner, but Itzal wasn't really expecting things to be around it. That was obviously a mistake. The being was just standing in the middle of the path, and Itzal's heart stopped the second he saw it. He tried to back up, but it had already seen him.
"There you are, traitorous god." The being sounded quite excited to see Itzal. "Trying to stop us?" Itzal took a deep breath and moved to hand the sword to Cole so he could focus on freezing the being.
"How did you get here so fast?"
"We are everywhere." The being started towards the pair, sword gleaming dangerously. "Did you really think you could escape us?"

Looking around, Cole almost ran into the back of Itzal as he stopped, his eyes immediately shooting upward at the sound of another being. No. No. They were supposed to face the beings at the cave, not here. He was thrown into a panic in seconds, taking the sword from Itzal with shaking hands. There was no time to worry though, he had to focus. And so focus he did. He positioned the sword in his hands the easiest he could to swing at the being, though he waited to do so. The last thing he wanted was to try to take on the thing while it was still aware of his movements.

"I can try." Itzal threw his hands towards the creature, freezing it in place. Now that the being was temporarily out of action, Itzal was able to look past it. Something about the path beyond seemed familiar– maybe that meant they were almost there! Hopefully that was the case, because he really didn't want to deal with another being before they got there. If he needed to do any godly things in order to get them in there, he probably wouldn't be able to after freezing a second being.
"You–" The being managed to say, indicating that Itzal had let it slip forward a few seconds. He quickly turned his full attention back onto freezing time. He'd have time to worry about all that stuff after it was dead.

Cole shuddered as he stared at the being, finally mustering up the courage to swing the sword and do like he always did to end the beings. It was getting easier in the motion, but he could tell he would never be used to killing the things. He held onto the sword again as he sighed, shaking his head, "It's dead Itzal, now we should probably hurry on this journey…or we'll have to deal with more of these things."

"Ah, good." Itzal dropped his hands, the being dropping with them to thud onto the ground. "I think we're nearly there." He stepped around the being and continued down the path. After a few minutes of walking– it turned out that they weren't as close as he'd thought they were– they came to a fork in the path. Itzal inspected each of the paths, hit by another burst of familiarity. The cave should be right in front of them, past the wall of thick bushes that separated the two paths "Through here," he said, pushing through the branches. They scratched at him, but that was the worst of it. Behind them loomed a huge rock wall, a hole barely the size of Itzal carved into it. "That's it! Finally."

Cole followed close behind Itzal, not thinking about what had just happened, only focusing on watching their surroundings and holding onto his sword. "Do you think there will be enough light to see in there?" He asked as he stepped alongside the god, pushing a branch out of his way to look at the hole in the wall, "Otherwise…I have a little bit of battery in my phone…we can use the flashlight there to help look." Cole didn't want to be in the dark in there, who knew how many beings there could be, but he also didn't want to use up the remaining battery. There would be no time to charge the phone again in the near future from what he could tell.

"I don't know…" Itzal peered into the hole. It looked rather dark, but he really didn't want to make Cole's phone die. "Let me look. If we're lucky, it'll have some sort of motion-activated magic lighting. If not… we'll figure it out." He squeezed though the hole and took a few steps forward, until he was at the very edge of the light coming from the entrance. Nothing lit up, but he did see a shape that might be a torch on the wall next to the hole. Itzal lit up the tip of his finger and pointed at the maybe-torch. The light proved that it was actually a torch. That would work. The light on his finger turned to fire and he flicked it at the torch. "Alright, we have a torch." He crossed to the torch and picked it up, turning towards the darkness in front of him. It illuminated a long, roughly-hewn corridor, snaking out of the circle of light.

Cole was a little more hesitant as he stepped inside, glancing around the entirety of the corridor before following. Some sinking feeling was settling in his chest and he didn't like it, but he also didn't want to bring it up. They had to get whatever Itzal was looking for, worries he had or not. So, he picked up the sword and started in, a tight lipped smile settling on his face, "Let's get going then. Who knows when the next of those beings is going to show up?" He didn't stop glancing around as he walked to Itzal, sticking close to him and the light from the torch.

Itzal led Cole down the hallway, heart beating faster and faster. He anticipated something terrible around every corner, but it was just more rock. After five minutes of walking, Itzal was feeling like they were going in circles. "Have we seen this rock before?" He asked Cole, gesturing to a vaguely familiar stone. He glanced over at the man, but a flash of light caught his attention. "What was that?" Itzal turned towards the source of the light, and took a few steps around the corner. A silver door appeared, set at the very end of the hallway. "Well, that looks promising."

(Happy late holidays!)
Cole was jumpier than ever as he walked down the hallway, the sword clenched tightly in his hand. There wasn't a minute that he was further than a few steps behind Itzal, and he figured everyone could hear how fast his heart was beating. If fighting the beings was stressful and nerve-wracking, this was fighting ten at once. Just the drawn-out silence as they walked was enough to make him nervous. Everything sounded like beings. everything but Itzal's voice when he finally spoke that was. "Well…I suppose that's our door?" He replied slowly as he glanced down the hallway, glancing up at the god.

(Happy late holidays! :)
"Yeah, I suppose." Itzal glanced at Cole, then started towards the door. His chest was a mess of emotions, fear and hope tangling together. As he got closer, it became clear that the door had no handle and no obvious way to open it. "Hmm…" Itzal sighed, stopping in front of the door and looking it over again. He hadn't seen any other passages, which meant that this was where they were supposed to go. But how were they supposed to get through the door? "This… why." Itzal took a breath, then reached out and tapped the door. Honestly, in hindsight, he should have expected something bad to happen. But there was nothing else to do, so it had to happen. Itzal's fingertips brushed the door– which was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time– but there suddenly wasn't anything solid there. The door seemed to grab him, pulling his hand in up to his wrist.

Cole followed behind Itzal, studying the mystery door with curiosity and fear as they got closer. The fact that it didn't have a handle made him wonder if they should even mess with it, but he held in his questions. Clearly, Itzal would know better. He watched the other touch the door, jolting with shock as he saw that it had sucked in his hand up to his wrist. Without thinking, he grabbed Itzal's other hand, holding it tightly in a feeble attempt to tug him away from the strange door or to even just get his hand loose.

Itzal was too shocked to react at first, and it was only Cole grabbing onto his hand that make him realize he should probably do something. He pulled back, but his hand was quite stuck. Thankfully, it stayed grabbing only his hand and didn't pull him in further. It was still a rather awkward situation to be in. "Um… I probably shouldn't have done that." Itzal glances back at Cole, his lips pressed together. A sharp pain in his thumb made him gasp, mostly in surprise. Another one came from his pointer finger, and then his middle finger. He tried to pull his hand out of the door again, but it didn't budge. The grip around his wrist only let go when all five of his fingers had been… pricked, maybe? Itzal quickly tugged his hand out of the door and inspected his hand. Each fingertip was bloody. The door made a couple of whirring noises, then swung inward with a soft click.

Cole somehow laughed halfheartedly at Itzal's comment, not once even thinking of letting him go. He jumped when he heard the following gasp though, eyes locking on the strange doorway faster than he realized. Something in him told him that it couldn't have been one of those beings, but every bone in his body told him to be wary. Cole didn't let go of the other's hand until he was sure that Itzal was out of the door. "Are you alright?" He asked, looking to the blood on his fingertips with obvious worry, "What was that?" His question was left unanswered as the door swung open and he frowned, looking past it nervously, and he wished he was holding onto Itzal's hand again.

"Yeah, I think so. It just pricked me." Itzal pressed two fingers together, hoping that it had just pricked him and not poisoned him as well. That would be quite unfortunate. He looked up, feeling a slight wave of doom wash out from the empty, very dark space behind the door. Or maybe that was just him. "I really, really hope that's going to be the end of the surprises," Itzal muttered, glancing over at Cole. "Are you ready?" His eyes darted towards the doorway, then back to Cole's face.

"I hope so too," Cole mumbled as he stared at the darkness, the twisting feeling of fear threatening to grow. Slowly though, he nodded his head, pulling his hands behind his back to hide the trembling. The sword never once left his grip either, if anything, he held onto it tighter as he looked to Itzal, setting his mouth in a thin line and nodding again. He had to be strong, for Itzal. Fear wasn't going to get the god home after all. "Let's go see what waits for us in the spooky unknown."

(Sorry this is so late, life has been interesting lately.)
This time, the lights came on automatically. The second Itzal crossed the threshold, a loud whooshing sound came from all around them, and a dozen touches blazed to life. The room illuminated by the flickering light was round and of medium size. In the center was some sort of fancy table, and sitting on the table was something shiny. As Itzal drew closer, he saw that the thing was a simple-looking amulet hanging on a silver chain. The amulet was black and circular, slightly larger than a quarter. It was quite unfamiliar, as well.
"Huh." Itzal stopped in front of the table, staring at the amulet. "This must be it?"

(I totally get it…life is hell on wheels for me atm)
Cole stayed hesitantly outside of the doorway to start, only crossing it when Itzal was getting too far away for comfort. "This is what you were looking for?" He questioned as he stared at the amulet. A confused look crossed his face and he looked to Itzal, "A necklace is going to help us get you home?" Temporary frustration washed over him as he looked at the amulet, unsure of how it would help them. It wasn't something they could use like a sword, that would've been much more useful. Unless it had powers to help Itzal, or warn them of nearby beings. He shook his head as he sorted through his thoughts, looking around the newly discovered room for anything else that could help them.

"I… I guess so?" Itzal inspected the amulet from all sides, not wanting to pick it up just yet. "It doesn't look very impressive, that's for sure. But maybe it has some sort of hidden power?" So far, he didn't see any traps or inscriptions that would make picking up the amulet unsafe, so he took his chances and lifted it up. It felt exactly like a normal, totally un-magical amulet. Not a good sign, for once. "Uh…" Maybe it needed to be woken up? It had probably been there for a while. Itzal carefully sent the tiniest bit of magic into the amulet and waited. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then the amulet started giving off a pulsing, tiny light. Itzal moved it closer to his face, trying to see what it was. The next second, his consciousness was sucked out of himself and into the amulet. His body collapsed, still clutching the amulet, and Itzal was taken to the past.