Camp Half-Blood Role Playing Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Camp Half-Blood Role Playing Wiki
Index > Roleplay Forum > Main Forum/General/Love, Death, Sleep


The Shrike

Blair: Begging and screaming were drowned out by the howls of the cold mountain winds. Somewhere, in a valley between the peaks, a vast mile-high tree shook and swayed. Snow settled on it and hung there for precious seconds, then were scattered again. The banks far below were stained a deep red that never seemed to fade, as ever new were the tree's tender's victims. Hundreds were dead. Their bodies were transfixed through the chest upon the tree's many sharp branches. Hundreds more were still alive.

Blake: Blake found himself sitting high up on one of the branches his feet dangling over one side while he ignores the screaming happening around him. Something like this would happen to him more often than not, he would find himself in a dream world like this full of people he doesn't know, faces he has not seen, and lives he has not lived. This particular setting has become unique among them all, he hasn't seen a nightmare like this in a long time and it has his curiosity piqued. He looks down at the banks and stares at the mounds of snow, now a deep red slush after colliding with the blood that drips from the tree in a constant pitter patter of gruesome rain. "I wonder whose dream this is," he ponders out loud.

Blair: It was then that the entire tree shook, beckoning forth a new wave of wailing and a crimson veil of falling blood. Far above, near the top of the tree, a new victim had been forcefully slammed onto an open branch and left unceremoniously transfixed on several feet of thick wood. This new prey barely lasted seconds before death took hold. Blake would feel her life waver, and then, suddenly and unusually... nothing. Each live body on the tree was very much real. The massive dark figure that had carried the new arrival to the tree, and given it its gruesome fate, spread a pair of impossibly large wings and took off. The sky overhead was itself unearthly; black as night despite a deep red sun burning on the horizon.

Blake: As the tree shook, Blake held onto the trunk of the tree. Now covered in more blood, he started to make his way to the top of the tree. He felt a disturbance, as if somebody had actually died. He shouldn't be able to feel life in dreams, he usually never could as no dreamt life is real. He climbed in silence, no further thoughts, he was ready to attack if need be once he reached the top, if he ever did.

Blair: A few timeless moments passed, filled with nothing but the roaring of the winds. The tree was impossibly large in a way that only a construct of dreams could be. After what should have been minutes, Blake found himself passing through the same few branches - recognizable by the suffering souls trasfixed upon them - again and again.

Blake: After having passed by the same souls, he realized there was no getting to the top. He pondered if he should stay on the tree's branches for as long as the dream lasts, but the possibility came to him that this may not be a normal dream as life exists within. He sighs and makes his way downward; he could shadow travel but if he is caught at an inopportune moment, it may go wrong. So down he goes.

Blair: Blake finally reached what seemed to be a new portion of the tree. The dream seemed to actively oppose almost every step he took, as if determined to remain a mystery. Even for one with his abilities, and natural affinity for this world, progress was slow. It didn't help that the miles-wide valley that engulfed the tree was constantly assailed with nearly galeforce winds that threatened to throw him loose. Suddenly, during a brief lull in the winds, Blake was covered by a massive shadow - the winged creature from before, cresting the mountains and eclipsing the dim glow of the sun. Its return was heralded by an ear-splitting screech.

Blake: His head ached from the sound of the creature's call, he stopped descending as soon as its shadow came upon him. Despite the overwhelming advantage the creature had against him, he materialized one of his swords and stood at the ready. "If this isn't much of a dream, I may die here." He thought, an indifferent feeling traveling through him at this revelation.

Blair:  The creature's approach could have been minutes, but as surreal and meaningless as everything else in this place, time held no meaning. Blake's weapon had barely the chance to appear before the beast was upon him, driving a woman's body through the thick branch he stood on with such ferocity that it was split open and severed in half. The creature's first arrival had shook the whole tree even from a hundred meters away. At point blank, the sheer force of its movements struck Blake with a blast of wind that could easily splatter him red against the tree trunk., and the bisected corpse did exactly that. It was finally close enough to see clearly: what appeared to be a bird was in fact hundreds. Countless small, contorted, eviscerated birds suspended inside the beams and wires of a terrible metal skeleton. It was a hollow, broken automaton of rusted steel and exposed wires that scraped against the bones and sinews of very real stripped flesh within. Viscera bulged out of its empty metal eyesockets and sparse tufts of bloody feathers speckled out from gaps in its gears.

Blake: The appearance of the bird didn't surprise him. He had gotten used to the gruesome nature of this dream and its annoying ability to impede his progress. There was no more time to think, in a gambit to avoid being splattered like that woman's corpse he crossed his arms and threw them aside in a grand sweeping motion in order to divert the wind. Dreams were not his forte, he found it easier to use his powers as he could remember and perfectly visualize their effects on him or the surrounding area. This was different, his enemy moved fast and he couldn't risk losing sight or spending time waiting for the undead, he concentrated intensely to make the dream move to his will, a feat that was starting to pull on his energy.

Blair: The horrible monstrosity beat its wings several times, stopping itself and briefly hanging in the air despite its massive size. It wasn't clear at first if was even aware of Blake's presence. It turned sideways and perched by its jagged talons on the branch, then began... pruning itself as a real bird might its feathers, digging its metal beak into the scraps of flesh caught in its wing.

Blake: He leans against the trunk of the tree in order to catch his breath. He was curious about the creature, he knew something was off about it but couldn't tell what. It was alive but not alive at the same time and the idea of that irked him. He visualized another of his abilities, he focused on the bodies pinned to the branches above him and willed them to move toward the bird in a hail of flesh and blood. At the same time he manifested his most dangerous weapon, which had taken the form of a katana, and set it ablaze with hellfire.

Blair: A barrage of tattered limbs and flesh battered against the creature's metal frame ineffectually, staining the rusted steel a brighter red. It froze as Blake readied his weapon and viscera slid from its body. Somehow, in that tense moment, the very winds that seemed to so permanently assail the valley fell still. Then the monster stirred. Its bulging dead flesh pulsed in unison as if with some deep heartbeat and its head twisted toward him with a deafening screech.

Blake: Blake stood his ground despite wanting to press his hands against his ears until the bird stopped. The sheer volume of the screech threatened to burst his eardrums and make his ears bleed, he was already tired of this bird but the repeated screeches made it worse. He envisioned a sleeker way to his combat style, a way to ambush his enemies without having to lose a significant amount to force opportunities. "This is a dream. I can do anything I want." He said to himself. He could fly, he could gain super-speed, he could even manipulate the very landscape, but there was always one thing he wanted to do without failure; He disappeared and reappeared behind the bird, flaming sword in hand, and aimed slash it along its back.

Blair: The burning blade carved violently through the monstrosity's back, snapping unseen wires beneath its dead-flesh body, before biting fast into a solid piece of steel somewhere inside. The jarring clash of metal on metal vibrated up through the sword, and with it, the dream itself shuddered. Blake, the bird, the tree, the transfixed bodies, and the wind itself all seemed to slow and grow heavy, as if moving through water. Flames gradually spread from the wound before Blake's eyes. Embers licked from the gaps in its form and from its empty eye sockets as time slowly resumed and the monster craned around to see him again. Throughout the tree, several of the bird's victims spontaneously caught fire.

Blake: His sword caught in the back of the bird, he hung on, one hand wrapped tightly around the handle. He heard the screams of the burning victims in the back of his mind as he contemplated what else he could possibly do. At this point he was well within the bird's range of attack and he was also aware that this bird knows how to manipulate the dream far more skillfully than he could. He reached his other hand up to the handle of the sword and held tight before entering a state of intense focus in an attempt to channel a stronger surge of hellfire through the blade.

Blair: The licks of flame seeping from the monster's body erupted into a full-blown inferno, and with it, so too did the rest of the poor souls scattered across the tree. It buckled in agony and slumped onto the tree branch for a moment, desperately trying and failing to keep its hold while the dead birds caught in its frame began to char black. In some grotesque frenzy, many of the dismembered corpses began screeching themselves, and lurching outward as if trying to escape the flames. Clumps of half-cooked bird corpse dislodged and tumbled into the snowy abyss. Somewhere above, a human soul winked out and the lower half of its immolated body sloughed free of its branch, smacking onto the monster's back right next to Blake with a bloody thump. After several pained tries, the giant creature managed to get back onto its talons and heave upward, violently thrashing sideways to buck Blake free.

Blake: He kept a tight grip on his sword. Willing more flames to surge out until the bird is nothing but a charred mess. The body that landed next to him left him with a face splattered with blood. His eyes stung and his mouth tasted disgustingly of something akin to rusted iron but he held on, knuckles white from his grip.

Blair: The mechanical beast threw itself from the branch with an ear-splitting shriek, taking Blake with it into a dizzying freefall. The two reeled end over end for a moment in a mess of wind, steel, blood and fire. The red banks below, the black sky above, and the white snow all around swirled together, and the monster flailed its wings in agony and hatred all the while.

Blake: "Fucking finally." He cursed the bird under his breath as they enter the freefall. He pulls his sword out of the bird and gets yanked into the air, letting himself fall at a rapid pace above the bird so that he can make sure it is entirely in his sight as well as dead.

Blair: In its thrashing, yet more grotesquely charred bird corpses inside the creature slipped loose, streaking through the air past Blake - many of them barely recognizable chunks of meat and bone, many others flying free on tattered wings. For several tense moments, he was surrounded on all sides by squawking undead birds that threatened to peck at his flesh, nothing visible past them but the torrent of feathers.

Advertisement