My Warden (COMPLETED)

The Fade

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The blade sliced off three of the front legs, the spider screaming as only they could in a high pitched chitter approaching a whine. Lana rolled her shoulder back and drove her staff deep through its thorax. Ichor bubbled out of the hole washing across its twitching hairs. The damn things never died easy and this was no exception as it skittered back and forth on its remaining legs, trying to spit poison in her face. But she kept her head thrown back, the spider's venom only dripping across her breastplate.

As the death throes quieted down, Lana yanked her staff out, her foot knocking the spider off the blade. It wasn't the biggest she'd killed but it was a nice enough size for the day. Placing her staff against the ruined wall, she uncorked the pride demon bladder and dumped its contents across the spider's corpse. Acid, gathered out of pools scattered across the fade, hissed as it chewed apart the creature's hair. The scent was atrocious, like vinegar poured into an open wound, but she barely smelled it anymore.

Watching the last of the acid drizzle away what hair it could, Lana closed up her homemade water skin and returned it to dangle with the others off her back. What remained of her robes hung in tatters off her shoulders, pieces scavenged out of the fade from the creatures she tore through or whatever was somehow left behind covering her now. The jet black breastplate, not metallic but made of something thicker than leather, she pried from a corpse found dangling upside down off a cliff. A red hand adorned the middle, but she could not recognize the symbol. More than likely whoever would have known it or used it was dead for ages past. At least the original owners weren't likely to stumble upon her anytime soon.

With the spider's carcass as cleared of hair as she could manage, Lana dug her foot in the dirt clearing a circle around it. With a bit of a break, she drew forth from her mana and wrapped the spider in fire. Hotter than a typical hearth, the spider's chitin cracked and knotted up from the flames licking deep inside its guts. The legs curled deeper inward as she watched it cook.

"Not a bad haul if I do say so myself."

Lana sighed. She knew he'd be near but she hoped for a reprieve. "I expected better," she answered her eyes on the flames. If she didn't control her spell, the spider would char to ash and it would all be for naught.

Jowan dropped down to a knee, his face practically intersecting with the flames as he prodded at the spider. She used to be bothered by him not reacting right to pain, but now it was little more than a nuisance. "Don't go blaming me, I found what I could. You chose to come here," Jowan gestured to the newest part of the fade.

She'd walked for...Lana had no way of knowing. Distance was an illusion. A five day march could put her upside down from where she began. Remaining in one place didn't work either. Some mornings she'd wake to find the entire world itself had shifted, dragging her into crumbling ruins she'd never seen before. At the moment they stood upon the edge of a precipice with a waterfall that traveled upward. It was a bit unsettling if she stopped to think about it, but it did provide fresh water and easier bathing than the norma fetid ponds.

The spider corpse cracked again from the heat, this time its innards popping in half. Lana shrugged away her flames and gently tapped the top of the curled in leg, one of the ones she didn't slice off. Not terribly warm to the touch, she gripped her hand around it and pulled. Chitin shattered at the mid-joint, the leg popping free into her palm. With her fingers, Lana dug into the spider's leg sloughing out the cooked meat inside. When she first began she pretended it was an oversized crab, the spider's meat surprisingly tender with a slight but not overpowering gamey and acidic flavor. Now she didn't care. Food was food.

Moving onto the second leg, she glanced over at Jowan, "Where's the other one?"

"Is it my job to keep track of all your little friends? You do put everything on me, don't you Lana?"