Operation: BUTTERKNIFE (Part 15)
darthcourt10
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Yellowhammer
Operation: BUTTERKNIFE (Part XV)
The Mountain of Flint
7 February 1942
Spoiler: A Step Along the Path
"After you, Travelers," Ghulah's sweet soprano sounded in Colombe's ears as their guide spoke.
Colombe looked at the paired statues ahead and shrugged. She tapped a finger against her chin as she took a step along the white flagstone path between them; her boot crunching on the stones. Her eyes flickered to the causeway across the brackish moat that Ghulah had just summoned, and gave a low, impressed whistle.
Another step, then she turned, tapping a finger against her rapier's hilt as her hand moved to it from her chin and the ghost of a smug smile appeared on her face. Her eyes flickered to the mist shrouded trees that she had journeyed through, and the smile grew. Next her eyes alighted on Delilah, crystal sapphire meeting warm emerald in a moment of unspoken sisterly communion as the smile got smugger. Finally her eyes found the masked and shrouded form of her guide, and the smile grew even more, her teeth showing.
"Non." Colombe's voice was calmly conversational as the memories of something dark flickered in her eyes. "You see, I wondered why the purification before we came here. Now I know. You need to face your Dead..."
Spoiler: Steel Is Drawn
Her blade flashed like lightning out of her sheath as she flash-stepped in a lunge at Ghulah - scattering the Wulfen bones that she had been standing on that had been cracked for their marrow - and her eyes blazed with sapphire fire. Ghulah's mask flew away from her as the rapier blurred into combat, her voice dropping to a venomous, savage, joyful snarl as she finished her statement.
"TO SEE THE FACE OF THE WALKING DEAD!"
Spoiler: The Guide Revealed
As Colombe moved into close combat with the revealed monstrosity, Delilah blurred past her sister in the same instant, drawing her rifle from her hidden holster as she did and taking a firing stance with her back to Colombe's fight.
Ghulah screamed in anger as its concealing cloth tore to reveal the misshapen form underneath and a pair of massive bone scimitars formed in its hands as it swelled to double a man's height.
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH SO WE MAY FEAST!!"
Bone and steel clashed as once again, Colombe found herself in a fight for her life against something dark and foul, and a fey joy caused her heart to pound like a war drum.
-------------------------------
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH SO WE MAY FEAST!!"
Spoiler: Delilah Hunts
With that, the 'causeway' reared up to stare at Delilah as massive jaws opened.
Spoiler: Delilah's New Boots
Delilah's eyes were chips of frozen verdant ice as her favorite rifle's stock found her shoulder and she took aim, ignoring her sniper scope. Anything within five hundred meters was effectively point-blank to her after all with it in her hands.
CRACK
The massive draconic serpent hissed in pain as its left eye exploded and Delilah worked the bolt on her rifle. The revolver's voice was ice cold as her lips curled back from her teeth.
"You should be aware. I killed the Horned Serpent whose hide I'm wearing right now. And I'm in the market for new boots and a purse."
A spray of venom answered her and she flash-stepped out of the blast. One drop scored a trail along her upper left arm leaving a nasty gash as her avatar's flesh was scoured away.
CRACK
The other eye exploded, blinding the serpent.
A second enchanted .30-06 Springfield bullet's casing tumbled to the bones stripped clean of all flesh by fang, venom, and tooth as Delilah loaded her next round and calmly, coldly, continued as she took aim again.
"That hurt. But not as much as what I'm about to do to you will."
CRACK
--------------------------------
Spoiler: A Muramasa's Steel
Colombe parried a scimitar blow aimed at her head and in the same motion lashed out with a flat footed kick. Her eyes blazed sapphire with fury and revulsion and her voice was filled with sarcastic glee as her blade caused a foul green ichor to flow from a cut the length of the creature's gangly arm.
"You know, I knew you from the beginning. You thought this infidel couldn't speak Arabic. I've been fluent for two centuries. Ghulah. Ghūla. She who seizes. Corpse-eater. Dead-defiler. Ghoul. That was your first mistake of many."
CRACK
An inhuman howl of pain and a bone scimitar clattered to the ground as the rapier pushed the evil spirit back, more ichor flowing. Colombe's voice was murderously polite and filled with steel-deep loathing.
"You really shouldn't have tried to do this to me and my sister, you know. I first fought your lesser kin in 1743 on Lesbos. Some of them were hunting the locals to get 'warm flesh' for their feasts. Turned out that the village elder used to ward off your kin until he fell ill and couldn't do it for several months. He taught me a little something that your kind don't like in gratitude for saving his youngest granddaughter."
CRACK
"Ηλιακή φωτιά!"
Colombe's sword suddenly caught fire with a pure golden flame, and the undead cowered from her, swinging wildly in panic, as Colombe pressed her advantage mercilessly.
CRACK
The rapier's smug smirk turned even nastier and Hell itself danced in her blue eyes. Her voice lowered an ocatave, revulsion lacing every syllable of her aristocratic French suitable for a King's court.
"I still remember what it was like in that warren as I followed the terrified screams of that little girl. I told the creatures there that I sent back to Hell what I'm going to tell you. Your kind hungers endlessly for flesh, especially the flesh of the pure and innocent. You face Muramasa steel now, and if you want to taste it..."
CRACK
The pained scream of something dark and foul that was old when Rome was young sounded through the woods as a severed hand crashed to the forest floor and began to burn with solar fires.
"...Μολών λαβέ! Eat your fill, glutton, I'll give you a belly full that you'll never forget!"
CRACK
-------------------------------
Delilah surveyed the corpse of the serpent-dragon with smug satisfaction as the massive head crashed to the ground, the bones of its victims flying. She then turned and raised an eyebrow at her sister looking at the still-twitching dismembered pieces of the Ghoul as they burned with golden flame.
"Was that really necessary, Sis?"
Colombe nodded as she walked over to the mask and picked it up. "Actually, yes. Greater Ghouls like her are evil spirits given form. Give her a century or five and she will reform gradually. Unless you happen to have a priest handy for an exorcism. How's the arm?"
"Healing spell's cleaning it up, snake got lucky with some acid." Delilah smugged. "I have holy water blessed by the vicar. What's with the mask?"
Colombe frowned thoughtfully as she examined it. "Not quite sure. It's magical, and reminds me of a few spirit masks I saw in the North-Eastern Congo. Shamans there wear them to amplify their powers, become one with the spirits that they summon. That kind of thing. Odd design, and I wonder if she picked it for the four eyes. If they are meant to be eyes; I'm not sure if they are."
Delilah shrugged as she pulled out a vial of holy water and began to sprinkle it on the pieces. "Beats me. You are the expert on African magics here, Sis."
Colombe shrugged. "I'll hang onto it, put it in my trophy collection back home. I think I know a nice suitable spot in my study alongside the Zulu spears, battle-axes, and tolla throwing-knives I got from that bunch that had the tribal 'succession dispute' in Kukuanaland during 1901. Fun times."
Delilah smirked at her sister as she finished sprinkling the remains with holy water. "Not just sleeping with a Potter, but infected with their Pottering. Guess being a magpie is sexually transmitted."
"DELILAH!"
Colombe glared at Delilah as her lips unwillingly curled in a fond smile.
The revolver was the picture of wounded innocence. "What? It's true." She then sobered. "Any sign of Zamarad's ring?"
Colombe examined the bones. "No. Which is troubling. The werewolves are all new and fresh. None of the human bones are. Five gets you ten that she took those two Nazis to her larder. She will have trinkets looted from her feast there too. Bet it's the Sleeper's tomb; if not we scour the woods. Assuming the curse-work the trees radiate doesn't kill us or anything."
Delilah nodded and put her rifle back into the holster that it came from. "Logical. You're the expert on Arabian ghouls and the nasty cannibalistic habits thereof. All I know of them is from Poe and the Burton translation of the Arabian Nights. Oh yes, and Gothic fiction written by batty fuckers like that twitchy nut-bag from Providence, Rhode Island, who was all about 'things man is not meant to know'. He was a crank, but an entertaining harmless crank until he died... five years ago now. Boy, time flies."
"Truth, Del. Nice work killing the overgrown snake in such a way to give us a sort of bridge with some jumping." Colombe leapt from coil to coil of the dead serpent as she crossed the moat.
Delilah giggled as she drew her wand and revolver before following her big sister. "I aim to please."
"Going to tell that to your fiery-hot girlfriend when she gives you the traditional 'hero's reward'?" The rapier smugged suggestively at the revolver as she leapt to the island in the middle of the lake
"SIS! TAKE THAT BACK!! NO FAIR!"
Delilah, Colombe noted, was rather cute when she was blushing and flustered like that.
With that though the sisters turned the search for an entrance as behind them the trees stood silent sentinel, save for the rustling of the odd leaves in the wind and the howl of the sandstorm overhead.
Operation: BUTTERKNIFE (Part XV)
The Mountain of Flint
7 February 1942
Spoiler: A Step Along the Path
"After you, Travelers," Ghulah's sweet soprano sounded in Colombe's ears as their guide spoke.
Colombe looked at the paired statues ahead and shrugged. She tapped a finger against her chin as she took a step along the white flagstone path between them; her boot crunching on the stones. Her eyes flickered to the causeway across the brackish moat that Ghulah had just summoned, and gave a low, impressed whistle.
Another step, then she turned, tapping a finger against her rapier's hilt as her hand moved to it from her chin and the ghost of a smug smile appeared on her face. Her eyes flickered to the mist shrouded trees that she had journeyed through, and the smile grew. Next her eyes alighted on Delilah, crystal sapphire meeting warm emerald in a moment of unspoken sisterly communion as the smile got smugger. Finally her eyes found the masked and shrouded form of her guide, and the smile grew even more, her teeth showing.
"Non." Colombe's voice was calmly conversational as the memories of something dark flickered in her eyes. "You see, I wondered why the purification before we came here. Now I know. You need to face your Dead..."
Spoiler: Steel Is Drawn
Her blade flashed like lightning out of her sheath as she flash-stepped in a lunge at Ghulah - scattering the Wulfen bones that she had been standing on that had been cracked for their marrow - and her eyes blazed with sapphire fire. Ghulah's mask flew away from her as the rapier blurred into combat, her voice dropping to a venomous, savage, joyful snarl as she finished her statement.
"TO SEE THE FACE OF THE WALKING DEAD!"
Spoiler: The Guide Revealed
As Colombe moved into close combat with the revealed monstrosity, Delilah blurred past her sister in the same instant, drawing her rifle from her hidden holster as she did and taking a firing stance with her back to Colombe's fight.
Ghulah screamed in anger as its concealing cloth tore to reveal the misshapen form underneath and a pair of massive bone scimitars formed in its hands as it swelled to double a man's height.
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH SO WE MAY FEAST!!"
Bone and steel clashed as once again, Colombe found herself in a fight for her life against something dark and foul, and a fey joy caused her heart to pound like a war drum.
-------------------------------
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM BOTH SO WE MAY FEAST!!"
Spoiler: Delilah Hunts
With that, the 'causeway' reared up to stare at Delilah as massive jaws opened.
Spoiler: Delilah's New Boots
Delilah's eyes were chips of frozen verdant ice as her favorite rifle's stock found her shoulder and she took aim, ignoring her sniper scope. Anything within five hundred meters was effectively point-blank to her after all with it in her hands.
CRACK
The massive draconic serpent hissed in pain as its left eye exploded and Delilah worked the bolt on her rifle. The revolver's voice was ice cold as her lips curled back from her teeth.
"You should be aware. I killed the Horned Serpent whose hide I'm wearing right now. And I'm in the market for new boots and a purse."
A spray of venom answered her and she flash-stepped out of the blast. One drop scored a trail along her upper left arm leaving a nasty gash as her avatar's flesh was scoured away.
CRACK
The other eye exploded, blinding the serpent.
A second enchanted .30-06 Springfield bullet's casing tumbled to the bones stripped clean of all flesh by fang, venom, and tooth as Delilah loaded her next round and calmly, coldly, continued as she took aim again.
"That hurt. But not as much as what I'm about to do to you will."
CRACK
--------------------------------
Spoiler: A Muramasa's Steel
Colombe parried a scimitar blow aimed at her head and in the same motion lashed out with a flat footed kick. Her eyes blazed sapphire with fury and revulsion and her voice was filled with sarcastic glee as her blade caused a foul green ichor to flow from a cut the length of the creature's gangly arm.
"You know, I knew you from the beginning. You thought this infidel couldn't speak Arabic. I've been fluent for two centuries. Ghulah. Ghūla. She who seizes. Corpse-eater. Dead-defiler. Ghoul. That was your first mistake of many."
CRACK
An inhuman howl of pain and a bone scimitar clattered to the ground as the rapier pushed the evil spirit back, more ichor flowing. Colombe's voice was murderously polite and filled with steel-deep loathing.
"You really shouldn't have tried to do this to me and my sister, you know. I first fought your lesser kin in 1743 on Lesbos. Some of them were hunting the locals to get 'warm flesh' for their feasts. Turned out that the village elder used to ward off your kin until he fell ill and couldn't do it for several months. He taught me a little something that your kind don't like in gratitude for saving his youngest granddaughter."
CRACK
"Ηλιακή φωτιά!"
Colombe's sword suddenly caught fire with a pure golden flame, and the undead cowered from her, swinging wildly in panic, as Colombe pressed her advantage mercilessly.
CRACK
The rapier's smug smirk turned even nastier and Hell itself danced in her blue eyes. Her voice lowered an ocatave, revulsion lacing every syllable of her aristocratic French suitable for a King's court.
"I still remember what it was like in that warren as I followed the terrified screams of that little girl. I told the creatures there that I sent back to Hell what I'm going to tell you. Your kind hungers endlessly for flesh, especially the flesh of the pure and innocent. You face Muramasa steel now, and if you want to taste it..."
CRACK
The pained scream of something dark and foul that was old when Rome was young sounded through the woods as a severed hand crashed to the forest floor and began to burn with solar fires.
"...Μολών λαβέ! Eat your fill, glutton, I'll give you a belly full that you'll never forget!"
CRACK
-------------------------------
Delilah surveyed the corpse of the serpent-dragon with smug satisfaction as the massive head crashed to the ground, the bones of its victims flying. She then turned and raised an eyebrow at her sister looking at the still-twitching dismembered pieces of the Ghoul as they burned with golden flame.
"Was that really necessary, Sis?"
Colombe nodded as she walked over to the mask and picked it up. "Actually, yes. Greater Ghouls like her are evil spirits given form. Give her a century or five and she will reform gradually. Unless you happen to have a priest handy for an exorcism. How's the arm?"
"Healing spell's cleaning it up, snake got lucky with some acid." Delilah smugged. "I have holy water blessed by the vicar. What's with the mask?"
Colombe frowned thoughtfully as she examined it. "Not quite sure. It's magical, and reminds me of a few spirit masks I saw in the North-Eastern Congo. Shamans there wear them to amplify their powers, become one with the spirits that they summon. That kind of thing. Odd design, and I wonder if she picked it for the four eyes. If they are meant to be eyes; I'm not sure if they are."
Delilah shrugged as she pulled out a vial of holy water and began to sprinkle it on the pieces. "Beats me. You are the expert on African magics here, Sis."
Colombe shrugged. "I'll hang onto it, put it in my trophy collection back home. I think I know a nice suitable spot in my study alongside the Zulu spears, battle-axes, and tolla throwing-knives I got from that bunch that had the tribal 'succession dispute' in Kukuanaland during 1901. Fun times."
Delilah smirked at her sister as she finished sprinkling the remains with holy water. "Not just sleeping with a Potter, but infected with their Pottering. Guess being a magpie is sexually transmitted."
"DELILAH!"
Colombe glared at Delilah as her lips unwillingly curled in a fond smile.
The revolver was the picture of wounded innocence. "What? It's true." She then sobered. "Any sign of Zamarad's ring?"
Colombe examined the bones. "No. Which is troubling. The werewolves are all new and fresh. None of the human bones are. Five gets you ten that she took those two Nazis to her larder. She will have trinkets looted from her feast there too. Bet it's the Sleeper's tomb; if not we scour the woods. Assuming the curse-work the trees radiate doesn't kill us or anything."
Delilah nodded and put her rifle back into the holster that it came from. "Logical. You're the expert on Arabian ghouls and the nasty cannibalistic habits thereof. All I know of them is from Poe and the Burton translation of the Arabian Nights. Oh yes, and Gothic fiction written by batty fuckers like that twitchy nut-bag from Providence, Rhode Island, who was all about 'things man is not meant to know'. He was a crank, but an entertaining harmless crank until he died... five years ago now. Boy, time flies."
"Truth, Del. Nice work killing the overgrown snake in such a way to give us a sort of bridge with some jumping." Colombe leapt from coil to coil of the dead serpent as she crossed the moat.
Delilah giggled as she drew her wand and revolver before following her big sister. "I aim to please."
"Going to tell that to your fiery-hot girlfriend when she gives you the traditional 'hero's reward'?" The rapier smugged suggestively at the revolver as she leapt to the island in the middle of the lake
"SIS! TAKE THAT BACK!! NO FAIR!"
Delilah, Colombe noted, was rather cute when she was blushing and flustered like that.
With that though the sisters turned the search for an entrance as behind them the trees stood silent sentinel, save for the rustling of the odd leaves in the wind and the howl of the sandstorm overhead.