Age of Warriors

[Joa-Boo]

“It is hard to tell if everything is fine. They have run off too far for me to reach. Nothing I can touch senses them. I have faith though. Crux is the hardest thing there is. He will survive anything or die trying to keep Dalia alive. She won’t get lost either. Not with her navigation skills.” Muez was thinking of the best of situations but truthfully feared the worst. He couldn’t get a read on Crux and that hasn’t happened since the two met.


“This is an easy choice.” Crux thought to himself as he screeched to a halt. The tank spun around and moved back for Dalia. He was worried and confused all at the same time. There was no way a trap would have still worked after he ran through it. Those sisters were some skilled trap makers. They probably planned for all of this.

“No what are you doing. Go get Ethet. I am fine by myself.”Dalia yelled. There was a lot of blood along the lines of the wire. It hurt her to yell but she wanted to save her little Ethet.

“Dalia be reasonable, I need you with me. I can’t leave you like this.”

“Some good your doing with me?” Dalia yelled rhetorically. Crux’s eyes dropped into his chest. He couldn’t look up at her. He failed to protect her just like he couldn’t reach Ethet.

“Look Dalia I am going to get you out of here and we will try again. You don’t leave me next time or get to far behind. We will get Ethet back.” Crux found the tree holding everything up and then cut it. Dalia would fall but it wans’t anything she could handle. “Play yourself a healing song and then let’s go.” They were good in minuets, running back in the same direction as before.

“Hey Buckle, any chance you could make me some badass puppets?” Muez asked.  

[Dugan195]

Crux and Dalia ran for an hour but never saw hide nor hair of Margo or the others. Finally the sun was starting to go down and they realized that they were lost. Margo's true plan all along had been to lure them away from their camp and separate them. With night falling the two realized their chase was a failure, leaving them the goal of finding out what to do know.

Buckle looked at Muez, "I can once we return to civilization ,not here in these wretched woods that have nothing holy in them." The two chatted for a couple of hours while they waited, but no one ever returned. Buckle got up and walked the perimeter before returning, "No signs of anyone coming or going. I think that they are either in trouble or lost. Should we move on and search for either the two, Ethet, or Artimus Finn ourselfs?"  

[Joa-Boo]

“No keep moving. We have to find her!” Dalia cried out with tears filling her eyes. She looked into Cruxes eyes but he wasn’t going to fall for that again. He had a natural defense against things used on him more than once. Crux looked away, not because he didn’t want her pushing memories in him but because he couldn’t bear to see her so upset.

“Dalia there is no use. We need to get back to Muse and Buckle and end this hunt.” Crux motioned back the direction they came. He was sure that was the direction he came. “When we finish off Artimus then we finish it all. We will be able to find Ethet and stop fighting.”

“Stop fighting. Don’t you get it Crux? That is all we are good for; fighting. How is any of this ever supposed to end?”

“We will end this Dalia. We will end this and find Ethet. I enjoyed the league because it made sense. Without it we can just run away and let the world eat itself whole. For now, we fight to rid the world of a real threat. We can’t do that unless we head back.” Crux was ready to drag her back if he had to. Finally, with much anger and disapproval, Dalia agreed to lose the chase and head back.


“Do you know anything about tracking Buckle? Unless you do I think it is a bad idea that we even enter the brush. Let’s just stay hidden ourselves and wait. They will eventually be back.” Muez said to Buckle. He sat down and focused on the puppets manning the perimeter.  

[Dugan195]

Buckle looked back at Iniac unconscious body and then at Muez's deformed body and then towards the woods. "I do know how to track in the woods some. Despite my destestment for wooded areas, I do still retain some of my abilities to navigate nature due to my being as a golem." Buckle said in a neutral voice, "Perhaps we ought to stay here though as you are useless in a fight physically, and so is Iniac. to protect Iniac would require your control leaving your abilities useless. I concur with your analysis of the situation," Buckle said in a highly logical unemotional voice. He went around the priemter and started to make turrets to guard them while they waited.

As Crux and Dalia moved through the woods they found nothing but more trees. Everywhere they looked was the same, and Margo hadn't lead them on a straight path. Neither of the two knew much of tracking in dense woods; Crux being from the barren north and Dalia a captive. Finally they found themselves by a waterfall and released their immense thrist. Perhaps this would be a good resting place for the night...(please take this romance opportunity lol)...The trees did not grow up to the river giving them room from being snuck up on while they rested and a perfect view of the night sky and full moon.  

[Joa-Boo]

“Oh so you can build yourself turrets but you can’t build me puppets. I see how it is.” Muez joked as he watched Buckle along the coast of their camp site from a small puppet he made. “Hey what do you think that is Buckle?” Muez asked as he motioned toward the small pillar of smoke that came from the middle of the forest. “Is it more bandits?”  

[Joa-Boo]

“Dalia, slow down.” Crux Had already relaxed his jog and strayed to one side from their path. He watched Dalia as she too came to a stop and turned to face him. She looked at him; worry filled her face as if she had just received grave news of a test result from her doctor. Moving forward was the only thing keeping her together, keeping her mind off of the dreadful fact that Ethet was gone. Crux struggled for the right words. He could read people very well and seeing Dalia so upset tore at his insides. He wanted to shout, whisper if that would work. He would do whatever it would take to replace that look of defeat shadowing her figure. Crux moved toward her. He was sure some type of comfort would be better than allowing her to wallow endlessly. “Dalia I am sure everything will be alright. It may be difficult to see right now but these things always end well.” Crux wasn’t sure what to say so he offered what sounded the best. His words would not enough be enough and he sensed that. He pulled Dalia closer to him and into a hugging embrace. As soon as Dalia hit his chest s the tears began to roll.

“I told her I would keep her safe. She was so scared and I wanted to help her. It reminded me of my past.” Dalia coughed through waves of tears. Crux held her closer to himself, holding her in a comfortable and warm manner. “She was younger then I when I first knew what it was to be that scared.”

“Ethet will be fine Dalia. I am sure she is alright this very moment. I can’t imagine what you have been through but I know Ethet isn’t experiencing any of that right now.”

“How can you be so sure?” Dalia lifted herself enough that she could look Crux in the eye. Crux had no fear in facing her back. She could try to implant a memory or thought but Crux had built up a strong enough defense against it by now. No, he wanted to see her eyes. They were like none other. Crux’s cold strong earthly blend of an eye met the almost pulsating purple bolt like eyes of Dalia’s. She faintly smiled. She could tell it in Crux’s eyes that he was being sincere.

“I just have a feeling you know. Listen Dalia, I am not giving up hope that Ethet is fine and e will find her hiding somewhere in the forest. Right now we need to make a camp for the night. It is going to be way to cold to travel.” Crux suggested as he wiped away apart of the river that was finally drying up on one side of Dalia’s face.

“I guess you are right. As long as we get up early tomorrow morning and head back to the others.” Dalia ordered with a pout that worked towards convincing Crux more so than her actual words. She gave him another big head as he nodded. The two wasted no time in gathering what was nearby to make a makeshift place to lie down and small stack of wood for a fire. Once the wood was set up Dalia played into her flute a long and steady note. The reactive sound waves hit the wood and set it ablaze. They laid near the fire shivering with attempts to get some rest. There was a long dead silence other than the voices of the woodland mountains.

“Dalia can I tell you something?”

“If it will make me warmer sure.”

“Well if all you needed was some warmth all you had to do was ask.” Crux responded with a quick new level of energy. He rolled from his grass bead over to Dalia taking just long enough to transform into his armored self. Once he was to her he lifted himself into the upright position of a push up and hung there like a rock wall blanket. Surprisingly it worked pretty well at shielding her from the cold. Crux beamed a big smile searching for approval. Dalia giggled a bit until her eyes met with his again. She slowly moved her arms around his neck and pulled him downward. His armor melted away the closer he got to touching her.

“This is much better.” Dalia smiled. “I feel warmer already.” Crux smiled even bigger. The two snuggled the cold away.

“I hate the sand!” Crux jumped right back into what he was saying.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The sand…I hate it.. it is course and rough. T gets all over the place and you have to work so hard to get it to go away.”

“Crux what are you talking about.”

“But I think the thing I hate the most about sand is that it used to be a rock. How can something so strong, so solid, be reduced to a simple grain of worthlessness.”

“You really don’t like sand do you.” Dalia lifted her head from Crux’s chest to look at him more directly. Her interest had been peaked.

“It makes me wonder if one day I will eventually be degraded into sand.”

“I am not sure if that is how it works Crux.” She laughed along with him. “But I think I know one way to break you down…” Without another word Dalia slipped in closer to Crux’s face and kissed him. Different parts of him bounced between armored and melted forms. “Thank you for choosing me Crux  

[Dugan195]

As dawn broke the heroes woke up.

Buckle stood up from resting and noticed something was wrong immediately. In the woods he thought he vaguely made out the shape of a bull in the foliage. As his mind woke up he realized too late it wasn't a false image or mistooken shape , nor a bull, but a Minotaur. It was none other than Nair, The Walker of the Labyrinth. The Walker stormed through the trees as he realized that he was spotted and rushed into Buckle throwing him a tree a couple of feet away. "Muez take Iniac and run!" Buckle cried as he drew one blade and one pistol. He shot at the Walker who yelled as the lead ball glanced his shoulder. Puffing steam out his nose he snorted and charged again, but Buckle was ready this time. "Why do you fight for the monster Artimus Finn Nair?"

Nair laughed as hamstrung him on his neck charge knocking him back to the ground, "Because he will turn me back into a man. I will be a human once again and not a monster. To escape a monster I will serve one."

Buckle looked up at him as he stabbed at Nair's ankle slicing it a bit, "Why are my turrets not firing on you? My brother Cron already took care of them."

"Cron?" Buckle said with a wavering voice, "Yes he was circling the air waiting to ambush, but if you wanted to separate he would be glad to oblige and chase the puny broken man for us."  

[Dugan195]

(Cron is the dragonoid brother of Nair, he was circling in the air and is now ambushing Muez who is runinng with Iniac from Nair)  

[Joa-Boo]

The sound of a huge hoofed creature barreling through the camp woke Muez from his slumber. It was hard to tell when the man was asleep or awake because nothing about him changed aside from movement and move he did. The small ventriloquist was lifted by his strongest puppet from out of Muez’s pack and quickly ran him to a safer location. He was not ready to just leave Buckle behind. The Walker couldn’t be that difficult of a foe. It complicated things knowing his dragon counterpart was near but they could still win and stay together.

“I am not leaving you Buckle. We must stay together. If we hold them off and then get into the Forest they won’t be able to follow us as easy.” Muez spoke through his puppet that returned. The larger puppet had a revolving blade along the top and two clamp-like arms that sat on top of a wheel. The bot charged in after Nair to distract him or deal some damage.

From a safe distance, overlooking Iniac, Muez controlled his puppet with most of his connections but readied to redirect them if needed. He had built a camouflaged cover made into a cage out of trees over Iniac the night before. He built it hopping that no one would attempt to attack their defenseless friend.



Dalia woke as the day rose to her. When she came to she jumped as soon as she noticed she was alone. Crux was not there; holding on to her, and it worried her. She glanced around to see if she had been moved but to her surprise she was still next to the camp they built the night before. Dalia rose to her feet, adjusted her slim fit battle dress, and pulled out her flute. She was worried something happened to Crux and feared something would happen to her soon. She blew a soft note threw her magical flute to get a sonar view of her surroundings. She picked up two moving targets. The blade on her flute shot out.

Dalia moved around back behind the direction of motion from one of the objects, She blew in her flute a slightly different note that would throw off her noise as if it came from a different spot. She couldn’t see the figure but knew it was just on the other side of the brush and not moving. She pulled back her flute/sword and then dove through like a pouncing feline. Crux quickly picked up on the moving disturbance before he was in any danger. He turned, armor ignited, and then caught the attacker into a rool along the ground.

“Dalia?” A perplex look shifted along Crux’s face. “What are you doing?” He could tell she was relieved. This made him smile. The other target Dalia picked up on with her sonar squawked and flew away.

“Crux what are you doing out here?”

“Me…I WAS trying to catch breakfast but you just scared it away.”

“Opps sorry. Well no harm done because you are the worst hunter there is.”

“What makes you say that.” Dalia never answered. She sat up onto of Crux chest and began to play her flute. It was an upbeat joyful song that matched the tempo and excitement of the morning forests. After long a few animals were drawn to the area. They came all the way up to Dalai, mesmerized by the music. Once close enough she slit there throat with the edge of her flute. “You are creepy.” Crux added with another smile. Dalia stuck her tongue out at him.  

[Dugan195]

Nair laughed as Muez's puppet came running at him, "The cripple wants to play with a titan like me?" he bellowed grabbing the puppet and flung it off into a tree. While he was distracted Buckle came in and slashed at Nair. The blade cut into his stomach and Nair shouted and bashed Buckle in the head with the butt of his ax. Buckle went tumbling to the ground. Laughing Nair raised his ax in the air to swing on Buckle went Buckle shot his pistol at Nair, gracing him Nair jumped back as a red blurr came crashing down into Buckle breaking the ground around him.

As Muez's puppet looked at Buckle it saw that Cron had crashed down into Buckle. Buckle tried throwing off Cron, but the weight of the Dragonoid was too much. Instead Buckle called out to Muez, "Run Muez, run.get out of here. The two are too strong for us." Buckle finally got to roll Cron off, but as he did he noticed Nair rushing at the direction that Muez's puppet had come from. Buckle shot a couple more of his pistols at Nair to draw his attention when Cron bashed a shoulder into Buckle, though Cron's shoulder bounced off of Buckle's hard brass armor.  

[Joa-Boo]

Muez saw the defeat from Buckles end. The puppet he controlled did it’s best to fight in the crowd but with two champions it was no use. He initiated the self destruct on it and then brought his focus to Iniac. While the puppet exploded Muez quickly broke down the cage as each part lifted off as an individual puppet. Each one he launched into the fray and exploded like the rest. Once they were all gone he possessed Iniac and ran into the woods. The whole time he was repeating goodbye Buckle, I’m sorry buckle. Now all there was left to do was find Crux.  

[Dugan195]

Buckle was being assailed on by the two brothers and was taking some heavy damage. Thinking quickly he started to shot oil, his version of blood, onto the faces of the brothers, blinding them to get away. Stumbling through the woods he tried to evade capture from the brothers. The two chased him for about 10 minutes before giving up and returning to their base at the top of the mountain. They hadn't captured or killed any of the party, but they had separated them even more, which was still a good outcome.

((Crux and Dalia are still on there date, Muez has no puppets and a useless body. Ethet is captured and possibly being tortured. Buckle is wounded limping through the woods on his own. Oh snap you are going to have a fun time with this.))  

[Joa-Boo]

“What was that?” Dalia shook from her lean cut and cooked deer. The startle came from the sounds of explosions going off in the distance. Crux lifted from his tree root chair and looked off in the distance the noise generated from. Another one went off a few seconds later. Crux launched into his armor form and motioned from them to move in that direction.

“Sounds as though it was coming from that direction,” Crux pointed with his blade. “My guess is that was back towards our camp. I hope Muez and Buckle are alright?” The two hurried off in the direction of the explosions with such urgency they didn’t even stop to think of a plan.


Muez moved himself into the brush of the trees. He would be able to make the nearby forest come to life at his whim so he felt safe enough to slow down and let the limbs carry Iniac. His worry for Buckle made it so complicated from him to just run off. He wasn’t even sure if Iniac was alive or even useful. Buckle was at least someone alive, functioning, and accountable. He regretted the decision to leave Buckle behind. His main goal at this point was to just stay quiet and go unnoticed. He would have to find the others before moving on at all.  

[Dugan195]

As Crux and Dalia moved through the forest towards the sound they came upon the empty campsite. They saw the broken tree Buckle was thrown into, the holes in the ground, a mix of oil and blood from the fighting, and the smell of gunpowder. But no one was there. The sight worried the two champions as they called out for their friends but received no answer. AS they called and searched they eventually heard a russling in the woods.

As they readied themseleves to fight they saw Buckle walk from the woods with patchwork metal over his wounds. "Where the hell have you two been? It's been quite a party without you here. Muez and I took out another band of bandits, the Wallker of the Labyrinth and The Dragoon attack us. Did a number on me, but Muez took Iniac and ran. Where's Ethet?" A hint of worry entering his mechanical voice as he noticed the little fairy missing, "Don't tell me you didn't find her." He said slumping to the ground as he set back to working on his wounds to distract himself. After a moment of silence he spoke up again, "I think we should move on. Continue our assualt of Finn's base. Muez can protect Iniac, and that's probably where Ethet is by now."  

[Joa-Boo]

“Ethet is…” Dalia had a hard time finishing the sentence.

“We didn’t find her but we did come into contact with the Juna sisters, well, just one of them at least.” Crux assisted as he watched Dalia with worry. That subject was still sensitive. Crux took another look at their surroundings for any clue of what happened. There was shrapnel and brunt mark all over. Just a few paces away was one of Muez’s destructed puppet. “I’m sorry Buckle but we can’t go on without Muez. This is his fight more so than any of ours and we will need him. Do you have any idea what happened to him? Which way did he go? He at least knows not to go far. He may even know to come back here after one night.” The worry in Crux’s voice was now forming. He couldn’t imagine losing his one good friend in all of this. Crux began yelling out for Muez before Buckle could even answer.

“Crux you are sure we can find him? What if Ethet is hurt and back with Artimus? I don’t want something to happen to her because we wasted time looking for Muez. He is probably safe anyway.” Dalia moved forward to comfort Crux.

“You don’t know that. Muez could be in danger. I am his shield. He needs me and I…I need him. It is not a waste Dalia. I know we can find him.” Dalia wasn’t sure what else to do. She looked to Buckle to see what he thought.