Part II: The Challenges

Evynne looked over at Seth's blurry figure. She couldn't shake the familiarity she felt, not one borne of the Seer's sense, but of physical meeting. She had seen him once before, somewhere. She had no desire to remember when or where, because it most certainly wasn't a pretty memory.

And while she was contemplating that being alone with this terrifying creature could may well spell death, especially if the rest of the Seelie did not return, Evynne was abruptly not afraid of him. What difference would it make? Nothing she did could possible save her.

Clutching the stone on her forehead, she grasped where she supposed his forearm was briefly. The contact made the visions flare up stronger in her mind's eye, and she was intrigued by the convoluted past.

"You liked chocolate, too?"

((Yeah, that's what she got out of it. =P))
--------------------

Calantha huffed in relief when she heard the voices of the two Seelie. Relief? No, she had forgotten that emotion. Right?
"I'm over here," she called out. "Let's get out of the water, quickly!" With powerful strokes, she propelled herself towards them and oriented herself towards shore, looking around for the maker of the illusion. Glamour-based Unseelie were always especially slippery. She should know; she was one.

The girl was trying to make conversation with him! How quaint. He might as well amuse her, as the dinner conversation would be rather quiet, which he didn't really mind. "Quite possibly," Seth replied nonchalantly, intrigued by the Seer's visions into him. She would certainly find some interesting bits and pieces of memories floating around inside him if she looked long enough. Many of which he didn't remember, nor did he care to, since if his past was worthwhile at all he'd surely have remembered it. "You could also be reading that others' physical tastes are quite appealing to me, something I do know firmly.

---

Hawthorne reached out for the two, grasping at what he assumed to be Calantha and Vythica and tugging towards his last glimpse of land, which was most likely entirely incorrect by now.

((Loved the first line of Calantha's thing!))

Evynne pursed her lips in thought.
"I see." She stared off into the mist of the lake, looking dazed. "When you take sustenance from others, are they in much pain? I only want to know now because someone will eventually ask a favor of you. They will ask you to take a life, and you must say no."
The Seer turned to stare into the blurry eyes without flinching, for once. Her gaze was intense and unreadable.

"Pain? I've always looked upon that as irrelevant, as death was quite often the final result, making the emotions of the dying purposeless and vastly profitless to myself. Of course, if I prefer a more tender meal, I often take the pain functions out first, as to keep the meat from callousing over, but leaving at least a little agony gives an often desirable and slightly gamey taste. The senses are much like the physical sustenance your kind uses, yet infinitely more sublime," Seth chatted. He had the preparation of the human mind down to a science. "And must seems an awfully strong word for you to be using with me, doesn't it?" An obviously faux look of concern appeared on his mask. "Why, exactly, must I refuse a meal? I'm not one for fasting, you know." She seemed to be catching onto the windows of the soul idea, noticing how a purposefully inflicted gaze can be quite effective at getting answers, and giving them, if not careful. Luckily his were frosted glass.

"My apologies if I offended," she said quietly, turning away. She wandered to the shore's edge, and called out feebly, hoping the Seelie could hear her, if not see her.
----------------------------
Calantha felt a hand on her shoulder, and whipped around, treading water, to see Hawthorne.
"Go--Come on." She clenched her teeth. Nearby, she saw Vythica. So far so good. "Before she traps one of you with another illusion." Hearing the faint sounds of the Seer's voice, she paddled towards it with the others.

Vythica swam towards the others, the burning sensation of the water shoved to the back of her mind. It wasn't important, then. Vythica was relieved that the others were so close. Shore wasn't very far, either.

Yes, run away little Nixie, the woman taunted with a grin. Escape before your time runs out. It does not matter. We're going to see each other again before this is all over.

Vythica ignored her words. Like the pain, they weren't important. The nearing shore was important. Finding the Akribis was important. Avenging Octavian was important.

Hawthorne was beyond happy when his felt his feet brush against the ground, and saw sunlight through the thinning mist. When he finally burst onto the shore, he collapsed out of pure relief, panting and smiling despite that the pain was still slightly present, receding and fading with each water droplet that rolled off of his skin.

---

Seth strolled over to the shore, grinning at the Seelie. "And did we enjoy our little swim?" he asked, bitterly pleasant.

Vythica dragged herself up onto shore, her fingers digging into the grass to pull herself up. Never was she so happy to be on solid ground. She crawled as far away from the edge of the water as she could. Once she felt she was a safe distance away she sat and began wringing the water out of her hair.

Vythica gazed out at the water. The mist appeared to be thinning to the point of nonexistance. Then, the pond itself faded and vanished like a mirage. A small patch of damp grass was the only reminded that a pond had even been there in the first place.

Vythica gave a sigh. One enemy down, but how many remained? Only time could tell.

-----------

"Another failure." Raine muttered to himself. He reclined in his chair, his fingers interlaced behind his head. Before him was a table and on it was a crude map. He gazed down at it and stared at certain places in which he circled in bright red ink. He sat forward and reached over to his quill, dipped it in the ink well twice, and drew an "X" in one of the circles. "Another wasted wish. What do you have to say for yourself?"

He glanced over his shoulder. The black-haired, red-eyed Unseelie woman stood before him. She backed up a few steps towards the opening on the tent. "I'm sorry, I was unaware that one of them was a water Seelie. It won't happen again."

Bang! Raine slammed his hand onto his desk. The woman visibly winced. "You have one wish left. I'm not an idiot; I know what you're trying to do. You're working with them, aren't you? Aren't you?" He jumped to his feet and faced her. "You're planning on killing me. Tell me, what are they paying you? I'll double it! No, I'll triple it. Answer me!"

The woman shook her head slowly. "There's no plot, I swear it. I would never betray you."

Raine exhaled slowly and closed his copper eyes. "It must be someone else then." Slowly he sank back into his chair. "I know someone's out to get me. Anterran told me."

"I see." The woman said. She reached into her pocket. She produced a small, golden band. "Would you like me to use my last wish now?"

Raine shook his head. "Not yet. I need a few moments to plan something out. Something that won't fail." He grinned and looked back at the map. "The Akribis is mine."

Evynne gasped when the Seelie emerged from the mist, her hands fluttering around her mouth like lost birds. Carefully, she approached the one called Vythica and stood by her side as the lake transmogrified into nothing but a clump of dewy grass.

"Are you alright?" she asked meekly, reading--rather hesitantly--what had happened behind the curtain of the mist in the Nixie's thoughts.

---

Calantha drew her knees up to her chest and tried to suppress violent coughs. She could still feel the acid in her lungs, burning its way up her throat, making her tongue feel scratchy and swollen.

"Where is the woman?" she managed to choke out. "No one killed her." An angry furrow appeared between her brows. Her vanishing was no good. What if she was not working alone? What if someone already knew the nature of their quest?

"Bloody wonderful," Hawthorne replied to the Blurr's comment, pulling himself up to a sitting position, and more slowly to standing. He shook some of the water out of his hair and after retrieving his bag from where the shore used to be, he dug around until he found a washcloth. Wiping off what bitter water he could, he left the cloth by Vythica and headed for the woods, muttering something about a new set of clothes.

---

Seth was beginning to get bored by the Dhampyr's remarks, torturing him already becoming routine. He would need to find a way to evict new kinds of responses out of him, and out of the others soon, too.

"I'm fine, thank you." Vythica said and collapsed backwards into the grass. "Are you okay?" She sent a suspicious glance in the Blur's direction.

Whatever energy Vythica had before going into the water was completely gone. She was exhausted, so she was very content just lying there as the burning water evaporated. She wiped her brow with the cloth Hawthorne gave her.

"It looks like the woman got away..." Vythica shivered. Her words replayed in her mind like a broken record. There was something very dark about her words. Vythica could just feel it...

------------

Raine neatly wrote on a parchment into front of him. "We have a Nixie, a Dhampyr, a Sidhe, a human, and a Blur...what are we going to do, Anterran?"

"Whatever you see fit, Friend."

Raine looked over and smiled at the nothingness. There was no one there, but in his mind's eye he saw the smiling face of his one and only friend. "But I'm doing this for you. Everything is for you. Soon we shall have the Seelie Court kneeling at our feet. And we shall rule as kings!"

"You seem worried." The empty space said. "You're dripping ink everywhere."

Raine gasped and looked down at the parchment. A large splotch of red ink stained the milky page like blood. He cursed to himself and cast the quill aside. He folded up the paper and threw it in a basket at his feet. He took a fresh page from a pile and placed it in front of him. "Adrienna has one wish remaining. I'm running out of minions."

"You'll be fine." His deceased friend told him. "It'll be over before you know it and you'll look back and laugh at yourself for being so nervous."

"I hope you're right, Anterran."

Evynne heard the dark undertones of what Vythica murmured. In her mind's eye, she saw translucent strings controlling an army of strangers, and a puppeteer with copper eyes.

She shivered with apprehension, at the crushing feeling of the aura this man emanated. He was like a wavy distortion in summer heat, unreal and too pliable. This disturbed her because, though time had no prominent, clean order, it listed toward its own pattern. In approaching entropy, and leaving all traces of predictability behind, it created a normally indecipherable maze out of unpredictability, indecipherable to all but Seers. This man did not fit into any of the categories. He was not defined by time, by himself or his own choices, but by a different kind of chronological currency that befuddled her vision.

"I do not know if he knows what we seek; but he knows we are here; and he will come for us."

---

Calantha grinned with annoyance, and the expression felt rancid on her face. "No time to waste then. We should get going. Whoever is after us will have an easy time of it if we're sitting ducks."

"Back to the door then," Hawthorne said, coming back out of the woods in new clothes practically identical to his old ones, as he turned back up the hill they came down and began the short trek.

---

"And so it really begins," stated Seth, moving up beside and just slightly ahead of Hawthorne. Couldn't have them forgetting who was really leading the group, navigation-wise at least.

Vythica grumbled as she pulled herself back up into a sitting posistion and followed after Hawthorne. A chill ran up her spine. She felt as if a million eyes were on her, watching her from the shadows. They were coming.

"You don't think...no..." Vythica stopped herself. But it made sense. It was very possible. Just a little too possible. "You don't think she was connected with the incubus, do you?" She gulped, remembering his threat.

---

"There!" Raine smiled down at his notes in front of him. There, he had written his plan. His plan to defeat the little group that dared go after the Akribis, which was rightfully his. He chuckled. "Sometimes I wonder why I ever doubt you, Anterran!"

There was no answer.

Raine sighed. "Left me again, have you? Fine, I'll finish this myself." He got to his feet. "They're going to love the labyrinth..."

Calantha fell in step with the crowd, warily watching the Seer trail at the back, trying to keep up with her short legs. Calantha found her canteen and played idly with the strap. It was only half-full now, even though she'd filled it, almost like the water from the lake had evaporated right out of it.

"Here." She placed it in the Seer's hands. Evynne looked up at her in outright astonishment, with Owl's eyes. Calantha snorted. "You humans are so weak," she said, feeling uncomfortable. "Try to keep up."

Vythica tried to suppress the knowing smile growing on her lips at Calantha and Evynne's exchange. For some reason, it made her mood just a little brighter.

She squinted her eyes. In the distance, she could see something. It was a giant, stone wall of some sort in the horizon. From where she was, she could see an opening. "What's that?"

---

"Let's go." Raine said idly to a small group of his minions. Five Unseelie stood before him. "We must get to the labyrinth before they do. That way we can leave a few goodies for them along the way." He smiled in a sickening way. "Let us paint the labyrinth with their blood!"

For such a small group, they let out a thunderous cheer.

They were back at the point where they foolishly decided to veer towards the water in what seemed like moments. "Is that the cave entrance, from before?" Hawthorne was still a bit thrown off kilter by the experience ((perfect setup for a mental breakdown, hmm?)), but most of his tiredness had been thrown off with the old garments. The door still looked as ominous as it did before. "What, exactly, are we looking for?" he asked Seth.

((Also thinking Her and Haley by Lydia may be Hawthorne's character song for now, not totally satisfied with the general theme but has a few good references.))

---

"A key, portkey, other random item of choice," Seth mused. "Something generally essential to our journey. I just know to go here first and find something. I'll know that it's the correct object when we find it, but that's pretty much the limits of my knowledge for now." He was getting bored again. "So shall we delve immediately?" He went down the hill and directly to the large clearing around the cave without waiting for an answer.

((Interesting choice of song))

Calantha went after the Blur, shrugging off a shiver as she passed through the Labyrinth's entrance and into shadow. Immediately, she dimmed her glamour, so that she was faintly the neutral colors of lightlessness. She couldn't turn herself invisible, but she was adept at camouflage.

The stone ceiling soared up into darkness, so that it was impossible to see where it ended, but it wasn't pitch black inside. There was an eerie grayness to everything.

"If we're looking for some sort of undefined bobble, the search will go faster if we split up, don't you think?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned to go. Concealing her movements, she spread a clear liquid across the length of the labyrinth's passage, so the rest would be sure to step in it. When they did, it would coat the soles of their shoes, and they would leave special tracks that only the maker of the potion could see. She made sure to step in it herself, so she could retrace her own steps, and then sped off down the blustery passage, going left at the first fork.

"Certainly. But bring anything interesting you find to me! Oh, but try not to make flesh contact with it," Seth agreed, taking the path opposite Calantha, pausing for a second at its entrance. "Unless anyone would care to travel with me?" he asked, internally laughing a bit.

---

"Nope," Hawthorne replied. "But it may be wiser if we do not separate," he directed at Vythica, as even though they were on a quest, he was still her bodyguard.

Vythica blinked rapidly as Calantha disappeared. But she was right: everything would go faster if they split up. Even though Vythica could see, it was still fairly dark and the thought of being alone in said darkness gave Vythica the chills. And Hawthrone didn't want them to split up. And yet...You'll be out of this place sooner if you split up. She told to herself, trying to bring up her courage.

She turned back and looked at the others. "If I find anything, I'll grab it." She smiled and turned away. "Sorry!" She took a deep breath and charged into the darkness.

---

Raine and his five minions paused for a moment. A grin split across Raine's face. "They're here."

"Are you ready for my final wish?" The red-eyed Unseelie asked.

Raine hummed for a moment as he thought. "Yes...make your wish."

She cleared her throat. Carefully she slid the golden band onto her finger. "I wish for their greatest fears to be realized within the Labyrinth."

((Is that good? I could change her wish to something else, or reword it.))

((No, I love it!!!))
Apparently her views of position versus situation differed from his. Hawthorne split off on his own path.

Evynne found herself standing alone before she could squeak out a protest, not that she would have.
"Hello?"
No answer. Swallowing bile, she bit in whimpers and shuffled on until she reached the fork, taking a path at random.

---

Calantha glanced behind her, smiling in triumph at the neon glow of the potion. Getting around would be no trouble, she thought with smugness. Even the Narissan Labyrinth wasn't fool-proof.

Turning a sharp bend in the tunnel, she came upon a wide, rounded room. Her first instinct was to curse because she'd hit a dead end, but it was an ideal place to search for an object, so she set to work.

In the room was a tiny waterfall, trickling down the east side of the wall into a shallow depression. Green and blue gems glittered beneath the water, but Calantha was repulsed by the idea of taking any, as if it were a booby-trap. The rest of the room was completely barren, except for the skeletons of dead rodents shoved up against the stone wall. It was a large area, so she circled around a few times to make sure, but there was nothing out of the ordinary.

The third time around, she heard a distinct splash, and looked up to see a figure sitting at the edge of the gemstone pool. He was stirring up the water with his hands and the curve of his neck as he bent low was familiar.

"Faring well, I see," came his accented words.

Her reply was breathless: "Andrei?"

((Already kind of long, so going to save the rest of her "fear" for another post))

((Don't worry about making it long, it's good so far! I'm only putting Hawthorne in this post, still trying to decide what Seth's fear is. All he really 'fears' is boredom, but I'm thinking of something along the lines of turning back to real Fae? Since that would also clear up his past some.))
Before Hawthorne had even traveled twenty yards, it seemed as if any light from the entrance had faded like the pond. He held the right side of the maze, one having heard that staying steadfast to a wall will guarantee a way out when needed, or even passage to the center. Despite his confidence in the tactic, a feeling of dread was growing in him by the minute. He considered searching his bag for torch or lantern, but decided perhaps darkness would help calm him, as it was one of his natural elements, even if he often chose not to acknowledge it.

After he had lost count of how many turns he had made, he saw what appeared to be a moonlit courtyard, perhaps a garden, further down in the passage. Ahead could be a test or the answer, the item of choice. His gut was telling him it was a tragedy, but he had learned from experience to push those feelings away until any real sign was given. Taking a deep breath and steeling himself for whatever lay ahead, he stepped into the courtyard.

The moment his foot hit the ground, torches positioned on surrounding Greek pillars sprung to life, illuminating the form that lay on a cold marble. An unmoving woman, strikingly black hair, and mortal in every aspect. The image stirred no memories, and only as he approached more closely could he see two things- very faint signs of life, more closely resembling signs of a life ending, and a falcon-head tattoo on the right ankle, which barely stuck out of her blood red robe. He recoiled at these, symbols of the Agents of Sanguine, a mercenary organization that plagued his monastery. However, his attention could not rest on this for long, as a cut off "Hawth-!" came in from the left, a voice he would recognize anywhere, a voice he thought he would never hear call him again. A flash of light brown hair confirmed his fears, and at the hiss of a Wadjet in a red robe it was gone. He had dealt with Wadjets before, they were notoriously fast, and he could never catch one in his condition, however...

It is a possibility. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

He promised himself he would never drink again, under any circumstances, after what happened last time, but this could right the past! The woman there was an enemy, and a dying one at that, what harm could be done? And the good to be gained was surely well worth the risk! He could already feel his fangs expanding from his human canines, the slight inward curve forcing him to partially open his mouth. Before he could back down, or even consider what voice was justifying his thoughts, he pierced into the woman's neck, the fierce and soothing sensation of a red liquid already flowing down his throat. The body was drained within ten seconds, and he was on the trail of the Wadjet with a speed he had forgotten, its neck clear in his sights already despite the distance and darkness. If he only drained it, too, then vowed off again, he could be out of there in an instant, no damage done, out of the wretched maze he and his brother unscathed.

((And you thought yours was long! xD))
((If it actually does end up being his brother (from the monastery or a real brother, meaning not limited to a Damphyr) this could be an easy opportunity for Josh or Courtney to add a character! If either of them want to.))

((What is a Wadjet and a Spriggan?))

((Spriggan was a mess-up, meant to write Wadjet (I was originally deciding between those two types). And the origin of my idea for a Wadjet came from here, but my idea is more of just a man or woman with a snake's or snakelike head, maybe covered in scales. It can be edited if we end up using more later.))