Sarila - The Story 1

Sarila woke in a place she had never seen before, it was, the ground was hard, and the smell was nearly intolerable. It was day from what she could tell, it certainly was bright. There were large rocks around, she sensed some vasaki not too far away, and she moved towards the shade of a rock formation they were camped in. Well more climbed than walked, but mostly just tried to get out of the hot sun as fast she could.

When she got there she found quite the number of vasaki, most of them looking as confused as she did. "Anyone know what this place is?" She asked them. A few shock their head no or actually said it, mostly they were just to upset or too shocked to do much. She turned to look out at were she had come from: there was blood and parts of dead bodies. She had missed something, and figured the ones who were shocked hadn't, and the upset vasaki were mourning their loses. She then turned to pay more attention to herself, there was still some blood in her stomach and she wasn't thirsty yet, and figured her recent binge would hold her over for a few days at least. She tried to check what she still had on herself, since she still had her clothes. A bottle of dempire blood and a knife wasn't much, but in this waste land it was better than nothing.

Her body was sore and ached, some of it she was sure was from laying on something so rough and rocky, but it felt like there was more to it than that. She tried to think back to the last thing she remembered... she was in one of the local taverns, she had a few drinks, but not enough to get her that drunk. She think she remembered walking home, no she had finally managed to find a dempire blood dealer in the village she was living in and had gone to his house. She was interested in joining him, obviously. They talked her into trying to out drink them in dempire blood, and being a bit drunk her competitive side got the better of her. With her high tolerance to the stuff, she of course won... she thought. Then she might have gotten violent, she might have gone to sleep, she couldn't really remember.

"Ok, does anyone know how we all got to this place?"

One of the guys, looking a bit older than Sarila spoke up, "No one knows how, we all remember the same thing." He was trying to imply that they knew no more than she did.

"The last thing I remember is passing out drunk. What do you remember?" a slight lie, but it was close enough.

He gave her a bit of a surprised look, "You mean you missed the whole thing?"

"I guess. I remember being a in a tavern, passing out some place, and then waking over there." She point mostly in the direction she came from. He seemed a bit thick to her, like as if he wasn't getting that the last thing she remembered wasn't what he remembered, but they all had obviously been through something, so she was trying to be patient. That and if she let her anger flare they probably wouldn't talk to her, and they knew more about was going on that she did.

Turns out they didn't know much, and had only seen what had happened. This light almost grabbing them, what if felt like, then finding themselves here. Some of them said they were from her current village, but some said they had been living in ones she had never heard of. Once the light thing had gone away, they found themselves here... with some dempire. They and the dead had fought them off and chased them away, and then retreated here for shelter from the sun/light/heat. Since Sarila had been in a crevice, she had been missed when they looked for any surviver to bring out of sun. It was still pretty hot in the shade, and at this rate would need water before they needed blood. They had a few wounded, and asked if she could spare any blood for them or the young ones, but Sarila told them no.

"Any would help them you know, it doesn't have to be much. We need to work together to survive out here." He quietly told her. It was kinda rude for her to refuse to help other vasaki, since their norm was to help each other, but in the long run her blood would do more harm than good.

"I know, but there must be other ways I can help, you said we need water right? We aren't going to find anything just sitting here."

"It's too hot out in the sun, we can't leave the shade for too long. We've been trying to at least around here, but it's hard. We just got here, everyone is still a bit shaken."

Sarila nodded, even she could see that much. "Then I'll keep watch for dempire." She decided.

He just shrugged, "Ok I guess." He said and she walked off.

Sarila tried to find the highest spot she could that was still in shade, and pulled her now sweaty blindfold down to her eyes from her forehead. Her senses took time and her focusing to really get a feel for what was around was hard, but soon would give her a better idea of what was around than just looking out into the sun would. Being so hot only made it harder for her to focus, but it was still do-able.

Sarila reacted out around herself, trying to get some idea of what this place was, it was nothing like the villages she had been to before. She sensed no humans, no angels, nothing alive but vasaki and maybe some dempire in the distance, but they too far away to worry about. So much rock was around them, but tried to feel for water, since it would be everyone's next need. This situation to her felt more like a dream than something that was actually happening, and was pretty over whelming, but survival was more important. It was pretty scary that the dempire were just out there and how there was nothing protecting their group from random dempire, but dempire liked sun light even less than she did. She also knew the extreme heat in the sun would get to them too, they were used to being in forests at night, much cooler than this rocky place.

She pushed her sense until she picked up a water source, checking to make sure they could get their without problem. It was pretty far and had them out in the open for part of the reip. She would suggested it come night fall, even she had to go by herself. She could load up her pouch that had contained dempire blood in it the night she left for the tavern, and keep searching for something. She waited until it was nearly night before returning to where the others were, keeping her sense at the minimum level to detect any dempire coming, or something important happening with one of the wounded.

When she came back, the guy from before approached her. "So you're back?"

"What? I was sensing for dempire."

"You coming to get some rest?"

"No, I'm leaving, you gonna join me?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, there's water out there. I'm not gonna just sit around here and die."

"Then I'm coming with you, I'll see who we can get to join us."

Sarila found out his name was Taski, and he had become the unofficial leader of the group under this rock formation after the dempire attacked them all. As they traveled, it was slow progress, since the wounded and small ones had to be carried, and while there were areas where the could walk, there were also parts where they had to climb. It was annoying Sarila that they were moving so slowly, but she used the extra time to check for dempire and where the water was so they could take the best of the shorter routes there. The amount of dempire blood in her was affecting her temper, but she was trying to keep it in check. In the game of survival, there was strength in numbers, and she didn't want to go solo because of her temper. The dempire formed traveling groups all the time, you needed numbers to face them, and someone to watch your back when you rested. Not to mention she didn't think she'd find a way out of here by herself.

Suddenly Sarila got a hit on her senses, it was some dempire. She stopped still and pulled down her blindfold.

"What are you doing?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to focus."

Taski just made this confused face. "Is there a reason we should be stopping?"

It only took Sarila a moment to get clear info on them. "In bound dempire," she pointed towards the direction they were coming from.

Taski looked around for some where for part of the group to hide, "Everyone take cover over here," he was running.

"There's a better spot over here come on." Without moving her blindfold Sarila quickly lead the way to somewhere that was harder to see the entry point to.

"But I don't feel any dempire around here." One of the adults told Sarila.

"They're coming, now go, get in there!" She said basically ignoring him. She knew it they were still too far away from vasaki to feel them, which was why they were moving in so fast.

"Anyone who can fight, stay out in the open! Other wise hide yourself the best you can!" Taski yelled heading over to Sarila, the quieter to just her, "That spot is almost impossible to see and you're blindfolded, how the heck did you know it was there?"

"I could sense it now shut up, I'm trying to get a better read on the dempire, they're coming fast."

The fighters moved a bit away from the entrance, standing ready when the dempire showed up. For Sarila it was a good chance to let out all her pent-up frustration, but she did have to be careful to not get hurt that badly; this wasn't like living in a human house where she could just sleep for two or three days. She also did what she could to drink some blood from the ones she fought without anyone else seeing, but she couldn't sneak much blood.

When it was over Taski sat next to her. "You know you didn't have to just yell that out like that, it could have caused a panic."

"They were coming fast, it was the quickest way to get everyone to move." She noticed he seemed to favor softer approaches that took into account how shocked and stressed the group was, but Sarila always favored fast blunt methods when it came to dealing with dempire, because she had seen to many time that when you're being targeted by them, every seconded counted.

"I guess." Taski didn't agree with her methods, but she was clearly a strong experienced fighter who could could keep her cool even when things got bad. Plus either some how knew the place or had senses he thought were impossible for vasaki. He was looking out for the group as a whole and she clearly was an asset, as long as she didn't prove to be a liability. He sighed, "This is completely different from living in villages, sometimes it's hard to know how a group this size will react."

"It is different, it's more like being out in the woods."

"You were a trader?"

"Only for a very short time, but I've made countless trips out into the woods, where their is nothing to protect you from those blood thirsty monsters."

Taski nodded, assuming that's why she was able to stay so calm, this was all new to him, but not to her. "So you know how they act in cases like this. Well, mind checking for more of them? I'll go see how quickly everyone can get moving again." He was expecting them to have more wounded now.

Sarila couldn't use her sense too much, but made a quick sweep, which came up mostly ok. They did make it to the water without too much more getting in their way. It was down a little ways, so Sarila lead some on a rock climb down to it. It was ruled to dangerous for taking the wounded down there, so Sarila also helped find a good spot to spend the long, hot day coming up while some members climbed down to fill out any empty containers or bottles the vasaki had. They couldn't carry much back, so it was reserved to being only for those who couldn't climb down there.

Later Taski was talking to Sarila, he wanted to know how in the heck Sarila knew there would be water down here, because there was no way she just saw it or something. "You said you don't know this place, so how could you have known?"

"I told you, I sensed it. Since you fallowed me, don't you trust that?"

"I didn't, but it was something, like you said better than stay there until we died. Vasaki can't sense water, we can only sense living things with light or dark powers. There's no way you could have known unless you know this place, is this where you're from? What are you?" He kept his voice down and level/calm, he didn't want the group to find out she might not be the same as them, groups don't do well with that.

"What?" It caught her completely off guard, "What do you mean? I'm a vasaki." Sarila hadn't thought he come to any type of conclusion like that.

"Then why did you know this was here?"

"My senses aren't like other vasaki's senses, they're better."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's been a while, but something happened and they changed."

"What happened?" He wasn't buying it.

"It's a long story," Sarila would have to get creative at some points if she told him about the whole thing with that girl. "It doesn't even make much sense anyway."

"You also fight a bit too well for someone who lacks any scars."

"Yeah most people don't believe I'm a rank 6 fighter until they see for their own eyes." Sarila had to admit it was pretty hard to pass for your average vasaki for her, because she wasn't. And since that girl, there was no explaining her senses, she knew neither of her parents had been capiable of anything like that. "Look, if you don't want to trust me, then don't. Rather or not you do, you could use my abilities." Sarila told him, and if she got too thirsty, it was better they didn't trust her. "But I am vasaki." She insisted on the age old lie.

Taski knew if she was something else she was likely a spy or something, which could be a big problem, but she was right that they could use her skills. "Alright then."