Arcturus nodded as Bane explained. He chuckled quietly to himself when the hound felt the need to explain why he was reaching for his hand.
The restaraunt confused him a bit, but the dungeon made a bit more sense. He didn't like it, but it made sense.
The ghostly Elf braced as Bane was knocked away from him. He spun, tendrils of mist rising and waving slightly, making him look like some tentacled beast. He stepped over Bane and stood there, protectively. The tendrils lengthened and spread, ready to fend off any attack.
"We come for counsel. Speak."
He tried to make his voice as smooth as he could, not wanting to give off threatening vibes so much as calm the situation.
Bane coughed. It was a grisly cough with a dry grit behind it. He looked up at Arcturus, getting to his knees, and secured his bag. He had expected to get attacked by nothing. It was strange. The hound waved his hand, and his umbra sword appeared. The blade reaped of shadow, the cold cascade flowing from it. A low growl came from the dark when Arcturus asked for counsel. Sounds of claws and paw pads tapping across the ground of stone echoed about. Bane looked down at his hands, noticing the small scrapes stitching themselves together. Loud footsteps clacked in the shadows, and Bane lifted his head. Someone was coming. Something dangerous. He could practically smell the blood. Two hellhounds appeared, baring their fangs and snottily snarling. A low voice spoke in another language, and the hounds sat, huffing at one another. A thin figure with a sunken face emerged from the shadows. His hair fell to his shoulders. This man seemed fragile, his black robes almost too big for him. It was as if he hadn't seen the sun. "Sorry about my hounds. I don't get visitors often." The man's voice was slow and calculated. His smile pushed skin over his exposed cheekbones.
Bane growled when he saw the figure. The grip on his hilt tightened. The man glanced over to Arcturus, his smile turning into a frown. "You." He hissed. "You dumb elves. When will you learn to die? Relax, maybe catch a break." Bane stood up. This guy meant trouble. He held the blade in front of himself, his eyes dead set on the man. The ominous man stifled a laugh. "Your blade doesn't scare me, boy. I've seen your kind use it. I have felt it on my skin." He lifted two fingers in the air beside him, motioning for the hounds to stand. They stood, creeping closer.
That cough was worrying, but Bane seemed otherwise ok. He was aware enough to arm himself, and the umbra sword seemed to whisper to Arcturus. The Elf might not have ever heard it if he were alive, but in this ghostly form, certain things were so much clearer to him.
The hellhounds were an unwelcome sight, but they seemed obedient enough when their thin master emerged. His voice was enough to set off Arcturus's instincts, and the Elf stayed tensed, standing in front of Bane with tendrils of mist waving slightly all around them.
Bane's reaction to the man, and the man's reaction to Arcturus, made the situation worse. The hounds standing was definitely a bad sign, and Arcturus flaired the tentacles around him, their ends sharpening and coming to razer thin points.
"We don't want to fight you, but I'll put down the hounds like mongrels if I have to." he said evenly. He remembered what Bane had told him about the mist and its lethality to hellhounds, and he was fully prepared to use it.
(Sorry it's pretty short. I have a bad headache)
Bane braced himself, standing in a battle stance. The hounds crept forward, snapping their large jowls at Arcturus' form. They sounded like rottweilers, a snotty growl coming from their throats. Bane slashed his sword through the side of one hound, making their master frown. "Do you enjoy killing your own?" The man turned his head to Arcturus and narrowed his eyes. "Mongrels? Come on, they're not mongrels. That's like calling your friend here a mongrel." Bane growled at him, pointing his weapon at the guy. "Don't even try hound. I can and will kill you."
(Youre ok, I've been under a little black cloud the last couple weeks, so my responses have been short and sporadic. Hope you feel better)
Arcturus shrugged, the tendrils sharpening further, pointing towards the hounds. "I don't care what you'd like me to call them, you call them off or they'll be called corpses." He jabbed both hounds in the side, just lightly, not enough for them to feel more than a pinprick, but enough to make his point.
The man was threatening Bane, and Arcturus wasn't here for that. Nobody was going to touch the Hellhound, not while the ghostly Elf could do something about it. He stepped over between Bane and the hounds again, locking eyes with the man. In life he'd been a steely-eyed warrior, brought down in the end by numbers, poison, and magic. In death, he retained the steely-eyed quality, and now that he could fight back, it wasn't empty posturing.
"Your move."
The man laughed. It was high-pitched. Such an awful sound to echo in a dungeon. "I don't care what you call them either, but mongrels is far from it." The hounds snapped at Arcturus' mist, growling at the elf. Bane tensed, blocking out the words of such a lunatic. The hounds turned their heads, growling at the other hound. One dared to leap at Arcturus and the other stayed loyal to its leader. The man, however, wasn't affected by the elf's glare. He was just another warrior to bring down. Many didn't deserve the right to live. "My move?" The man spoke. "Me? Fighting back. You wish. I don't bestow that luxury on many. Instead, I have others do my work." He lifted two fingers in the air and jerked his arm down. A creature attacked the dead elf from behind. Bane, on the other hand, was slashing and hacking the best he could. He could only handle so many opponents at once.
Arcturus smiled. Any person who could be baited into combat wasn't worth his salt in a fight.
The hound that lunged at him found itself skewered on a long mist spike. The creature that attacked hom from behind would have been a surprised, except the man commanding it had monologued and telegraphed the whole time. Arcturus didn't even bother turning around, he just stabbed the attacker wit three different mist spikes, each of them moving independently like the tentacles of some monstrous squid-beast.
In life, Arcturus had fought this way with metal. He'd often used spiked metal cables and darts to take out multiple enemies at once. So the method he was using with the mist was a well-practiced habit.
He also immediately skewered Bane's attackers. All of them. The fight was over before the hellhound could get hurt, which was the thing Arcturus was trying to avoid.
He stepped towards the shadowy man. "I believe you were getting ready to answer some questions…" He looked at Bane, wondering why the hound had brought the here exactly.
(I forgot to reply, whoops)
The hound yelped, the spike going through its stomach and poking out on its dorsal side. Its jaws gaped open, and its eyes became glassy. Its thick, dark purple blood spilled down the misty spike. The other attacker, which was a vicious dark fae, made a pleading, blood-curdling sound before its body folded over itself. Bane was busy with his attackers, slashing each one through the stomach. He was largely unharmed but was covered in blood from other creatures. He huffed. He wanted to fight some more off before the elf murdered all his enemies. Bane wasn't too concerned about getting hurt. It wasn't a problem. He could just heal like normal. He found the elf made a big deal out of everything.
The ominous man watched Arcturus slaughter all of his footmen. He raised an eyebrow. "No, I wasn't. You do not need answers to those questions of yours, elf." With a quick speed, the man knocked Bane to the ground and place a deadly dagger on the hound's neck. Silver. The man's hand was holding the butt of the dagger, far from the actual blade. Bane howled like a puppy as the silver burned his neck. "These adorable little creatures seem to be attracted to me… or rather I attract them." He smiled. "And when I heard there was a free-roaming soul around— Well, I just had to get a good look at it myself." He pushed the blade down further. "And once your protector is killed off, I can have you for myself… to torture."
(You're ok, no worries)
Arcturus did have a tendency to blow everything up to a big issue, but this was exactly why. Angry enemy with silver knife held to his… friend? ally? 's throat.
Not ideal. he thought to himself.
That silver would be bad for Bane, on several levels, and Arcturus formulated his plan in a split second on that premise.
Tendrils of mist shot forward at the speed of thought, 3 of them skewering the man's arm. One at the elbow, one at the wrist, and one right through the palm. They pulled taut, wrenching the arm back, away from Bane, even as another tendril snaked out and wrapped tightly around the silver knife, tearing it from his weakened grasp.
Arcturus tossed him backwards, into the stone wall, and stood between the man and Bane, spiked tendrils pinning the man against the wall by his shoulders and legs. The ghostly Elf kept the silver knife in his tendrils, out of reach but visible.
"You were saying?"
(Thanks. This weekend was just rough)
Bane gasped for air, scratching at his burning throat. The silver spread red blotches around his neck, the initial contact sight burning his skin. One could swear they could see the inside of his throat, but it was a bundle of flesh. He howled from the pain. This silver would start to look sickly, almost infected. Little speaks of purple powder lining the wounds.
The man laughed at the hound's misfortune. Being skewered by the mist didn't seem to phase him. It didn't seem to hurt him. No blood dripped out of the puncture sites, nor did he cry out in pain. "Please. You think these little misty tendrils of you can stop me?" The man's body became translucent. He fell to the ground as he phased through the spikes. Poking his head up, he became solid again. "I would worry more about that hound." He flicked a gaze over to Bane, whose movement had become lethargic. "Wolfbane slows the body and kills all vital organs. It'll be either quick or slow. Who knows." The man smiled, staring into Arcturus' eyes. "And you might as well become my prized possession."
Arcturus noted Bane's issues, but also knew there was nothing he could personally do about it just yet.
If they had time to focus, however, he and Bane could get out of here and he xouls treat the wound.
So time it was. The mas wasn't hurt by the mist, but he could be moved by it, so that was good.
Arcturus spun, lashing out with multiple tebsruls at once, trying to bludgeon instead of stab this time. He was trying to knock the man back through the open door he'd come in through.
The man hissed. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" He was being knocked around, but not knocked inside. "You look like a giant squid! Stop that. I haven't done what I wanted to go with you yet." A low growl came from the darkness, obscuring what was beyond the open doors. "Goddamn it." Something grabbed onto his black robs, pulling him back through the doors. Bane whined, scratching at the wounds. His movements grew slower, his breathing grew slower, and his muscles started to spasm. The deadly power had seeped into his bloodstream. To most humans' knowledge, there was no cure. But there was a cure, it only depended on if the elf knew it. (The cure is an antidote containing the ashes of the wolfsbane/monkshood plant or smoking out the wound. The antidote would be most desirable in this situation.)
"Giant effective squid." Arcturus corrected, as the man was pulled back through the doors and away from them.
He turned to Bane and rolled his eyes. For a hound who consistently acted like he was tough and brooding and intense, the kids was… a bit of a wimp.
"You got us in here, you're gonna have to get us out. I've got the herbs to treat you, but you insisted on going somewhere, so you get us back to where we left them." He spoke gently, knowing Bane was slipping, but he didn't have the power to just zip them around, that was the Hound's thing.
Bane wasn’t in the condition to teleport the elf and himself. It was a slim chance he could do it at all. It could honestly kill him. Bane grabbed Arcturus’ wrist, holding onto the elf tightly. This grip was weaker than usual. He tried his best to teleport. The shadows flicked around them, but that was also weaker. It flickered between teleportation and an unstable mess. He managed to teleport him to Bane’s hideout where he promptly coughed up blood from the poisoning.
Arcturus moved over to the pile of herbs he'd gathered earlier, digging through till he found what he needed, and crushing them into a poultice which he promptly placed over the wound. It was a bit difficult, knowing if he touched the Hound, his mist would hurt him and Bane would likely yowl and flinch, but he managed it.
It struck him that this was twice today that he'd had to rescue the Hound, and some part of him wondered who was doing favors for whom here.
Bane was in a world of pain. The poison spread throughout his body quick, weakening his form. He twitched when Arcturus applied the poultice to the wound, crying out in pain as it seeped into the opening. It stung, burned, and tingled as it tried to kill the poison that spread though his body. The herbs helped heal the nasty, infected wound, though. It healed up nicely. Bane whined as the elf healed him, his mind drifting in between conscious and unconsciousness. "It stings." He muttered quietly. He closed his eyes for a split second, falling asleep almost immediatly.
Arcturus watched the poultice do its job, watched the Hound whimpering, and made a couple decisions.
Next time, they were walking. Forget his shadow travel thing, it clearly did not work, or he didn't have enough control of it to get them where they needed to be.
And also next time, he was keeping Bane behind him. Where the puppy couldn't get hurt. Because this rinse and repeat cycle was already slowing them down.
He had to wonder how many fights the Hound got into regularly, and how many times he'd nearly died of similar things. And who was there to dig him out, since the Elf had only known him a short time.
An interesting thought experiment, but ultimately fruitless.
Bane blinked his eyes open. It had been a rough few days for him. He's grown weaker over the past few days and it irked him greatly. He needed to get his strength back up. It pained him. He felt at his neck where the wound was, but it seemed to have healed. At his age, he shouldn't be as clumsy as an 8-year-old. Sitting up, a grumpy looked soured his face. "That was a disaster." He hissed. "I hate that demons can do that. They shouldn't be able to mess with a hellhound's teleportation." Bane crossed his arms, shaking his head. "I need to start up my training again. This is not doing us any good."
Arcturus nodded slowly. "I'm sorry it's been difficult." Clearly the Hound was used to being able to operate at a higher level, which was a good sign.
"Question for you: What happens if I leave you alone? You seemed to be doing just fine without me…"
Not strictly true, but Arcturus didn't want Bane getting into problems on his account.
Bane sighed. “It has been awhile since I’ve been on my own. It’s like I have an entire army on my back. I’m not used to being the weak one.” He snarled. He fluffed up his hair with his hand. Standing up, Bane grabbed a knife and threw it at the door of his cabin. It went straight through. “No. Nothing will change if you leave me alone. You will no longer be able to save… your people or something. Whatever you mumble about. I’ll probably end up mulled. It’s not a good idea, elf.”
Arcturus nodded. "Just thought I'd ask. I don't want to be the thing that drags you down, but… how can I help?" So far, he'd defended Bane as much as he could, but the Hound kept ending up hurt, and despite the fact they barely knew each other, Arcturus wanted good things for the young hellhound.
Bane sighed. He sat back down on the ground, his back to the wall of the cabin. "You are not the thing that is dragging me down, rest assured." He stared at the elf, turning his head away almost in shame. He felt weak. He felt useless. Many emotions were going through his head. Bane played with the beaded neckless around his neck. "Maybe you could help with training. Something to help get my strength up, please. I feel pretty useless since a dead man is protecting me more than myself."
Arcturus plopped down next to him, or at least sat. There was no plopping when you didn't really have a body.
"I wouldn't know how to train you, other than to get you up and moving. But the only reason I'm doing any better than you is because I don't have a body, I'm kind of hard to hurt at the moment. Otherwise we'd likely be in the same boat."
He didn't want Bane to feel shame at the situation they were in, though he did find it odd that the Hound seemed… uninitiated.
"Have you never had any training from your own kind on how to use your powers to max effect?"
Bane's ear twitched. His eyes looked slightly red, but he drew his knees to his chest and placed his head on top of them. "Well, I need to get up and moving. I don't need any hellhound training, I already know how to use my abilities. It's a little hard to manage when you're a huge target and haven't trained in a few weeks to a month." He whistled and shrugged. "I have had formal training from them. Day and night. Beaten and bruised. I know how to use my abilities to the max. Some I haven't used in a while, but my teleportation mistake was…" He paused. "Not a mistake. Demons can interrupt my teleportation and bring me to them. I can also be controlled by demons."
Ah. Well.
"That's… not good." Arcturus had no clue what to say to that. The interplay of demons and Hellhounds was not a topic he was versed in, and understanding that Bane getting them places was a serious danger at all times, out of no fault of the hound's, was concerning.
"I can tell you've been trained in some ways, it just… we seem to have run into a lot of enemies that have been overtly difficult for you." Arcturus gave him a gentle look. "Are you in particular trouble at the moment?"
Bane lifted his head. He tried to speak, but couldn't. It was a subject he didn't want to speak about. He was in a lot of trouble and one hound could only take on so many. He drew in a heavy breath. "Look, many of the enemies are of my own. They are trained the same as I, all hellhounds are. But fighting more than one can prove difficult. They can match my skill, match my strength… It makes no difference." He turned his head to face the elf, his eyes rounded with stress and worry. "Particular trouble? Does it count if my dad has it out for my neck? Does it count if all of hell wants me dead?" He laughed nervously.
Arcturus nodded slowly. "Those things count, Bane. Why are they true?"
If his friend was in trouble, and it was in Arcturus's power to help, he'd try. There was only so much he could do, and especially if Bane wouldn't be open with him.
Bane bit the inside of his cheek, drawing his knees in as close as he could. "Why would that be true? Because I failed. I failed to be a good son. I failed to be the strongest hellhound. I failed to be a cold, hard killer and became soft. I ran away to escape my father's-" He swallowed, not speaking any further about his father. "And in turn, I betrayed everyone. I betrayed my father, and he is furious." The hound was shaking. He didn't like being so vulnerable toward another person. No one understood hell's harsh rules. No one believed him and thought of him as dramatic.
Arcturus listened, trying to understand.
"How did you betray them all?"
As best he could tell, being a good son and being a good person weren't the same for Bane, and he'd chosen to be a good person, which made him a pariah amongst his people.
Bane sighed. The meanings were jumbled in his head. He let his father’s words go to his head, and now, he couldn’t bring up a good answer. “Father said I did when I left hell for good. That’s the last I heard from him. I was trying to escape the pain. I never conformed to the standards… even by looks.” Bane looked defeated. He didn’t know what to do, nor could he go back. His face twisted into an unknown emotion.
.jpg)