Dyss would similar stop when Attis did, his own endurance and willpower linked inextricably to the man beside him. Dyss wasn't as hardy as any of his friends, really. He was scrappy, perhaps, but if Attis wasn't moving, Dyss certainly wasn't going to be forging ahead...

"I don't know... Do you recognize this...?"

Dyss would temporarily increase the light coming from the strange weapon, so Attis would see exactly what he was talking about. He certainly didn't want to go forward and retrieve it. The weight was just unbearable, and while it didn't register as light, it was somehow affecting Dyss' sight...

"This . . .?" Attis asked as he started ahead of Dyss, towards the object in question.

It was buried a little, but it didn't seem purposeful. Dirt just collected on the path a lot of the time, and some trees were starting to shed their leaves. It only seemed like it had been deserted just an hour or two ago, though.

Though, it was kind of a relief to focus on something else, in any case. "This-- is a farming scythe?"

Actually, it might be something handy to have around. With gravity pounding down on them like this, something to walk with would have been helpful. That's what Attis thought, at least. He in no way considered the possibility that something was drawing him towards it. He lifted it up, off of the ground and out of the dirt. Indeed, it was a farming scythe. He held it up in the air a bit, blade first, looking it over briefly, before bouncing the bottom of it off of the ground to test how sturdy it was. Seemed it was made out of good wood, too. It really could double as a walking stick.

"Yes, it is," he answered his own question; it wasn't like Dyss would know what a farming scythe was, after all. "Farmers use these kinds of things to cut wheat in fields; it swings easy, so it's more efficient in reaping . . . . crop . . ." Attis suddenly trailed off, though.

And then he stopped talking altogether. Attis's brow had furrowed and he took a very thoughtful expression--yet seemingly petrified in it, not in a literal sense, but as if he had gone somewhere else, somewhere out of his mind, somewhere else where he didn't even think about breathing. No. He didn't seem to be breathing at all, nor was he listening or paying attention to his immediate surroundings.

And in the air, Dyss would hear something. Something . . . ominous. Something inhuman. Something not of a dog or man or beast of any sort, something foreboding, chilling--

Dyss wasn't sure what to think as everything seemed to be slowing down. Attis was lost, perhaps, but Dyss... He was more aware, but didn't understand what was going on. And all over a tool for... Reaping...

"Attis? Are you okay?"

Dyss wouldn't wait for a response as he worked the longsword loose of its makeshift scabbard, the cloth falling away from the blade. The weapon wasn't extremely polished, nor of a particularly good make; a simple weapon not even really intended for war...

"Is someone there?"

Dyss would ask as he stood, blindfolded with sword in hand, scanning all the local area with his unseen senses...

Attis didn't respond to Dyss. His hand was tight around the polearm, and his eyes staring now at the ground. He wasn't completely out of it, though. His eyes were moving. He may not have been breathing, but his eyes were moving, and rapidly at that, as if he were trying to focus on something every fraction of a second, yet never could. It didn't even seem like he heard the growl.

The "growl" continued. It sounded much like wind passing through a thin strip for a long tunnel, reverberating a low growl that almost sounded natural--yet far from anything that should ever be.

Dyss would see it, but it wasn't conventional. He wouldn't find it in the woods, behind them, in front of them, anywhere around them. It wasn't in the trees, on the path, anywhere distant at all. No, it was closer. So close, one might even be able to step on it, the source of a growl so faint that one might call it just the wind-- but one who might do so would very well find himself at the hands of a monster.

Attis's shadow.

Dyss could perceive light, of course, and shadows were likely to be a blight to his ability, or perhaps a detail he could perceive easier. But either way, in this state, where the only colors he could possibly perceive were between white and black, a pair of reds would likely stand out like a sore thumb. A pair of reds within Attis's shadow, reds shaped like eyes . . .

Dyss looked frantically around, trying to figure out what was making the noise, until finally, he noticed it. Shadows were something Dyss typically didn't pay attention to; the types of light missing from shadows were so insignificant as to not be worth paying attention to. Until... Eyes?

"Attis! Under you!"

As Dyss spoke, he would coat the area around and between them with ambient light. He didn't know what the nature of the shadow was, but Dyss's coating of light was enough to eliminate any sort of normal shadow. He even went to the trouble of creating light beneath their feet so as to eliminate any darkness there. He wasn't sure what could live in what was frankly, just an absence of some light, but he didn't want to take chances with it...

It was physically impossible to eliminate all shadows. In all things, there was a gap, at least one small enough to exist at a molecular, if not atomic, level. In a general area, there would always be shadows cast. Neither light nor shadow were possible of being pierced to any significant, considerable degree. If an area was lit 99.9%, the, 0.1% of the area was still not lit. For people, there were folds of clothing, there were gaps between clothes and skin, there were locales within the body that light didn't penetrate-- locales where an excessive degree of light may have even been harmful to a person's well being.

Casting light around them sent shadows everywhere. They were slight, dim enough to barely be seen, but the effect of shadows casting in multiple parts when in the presence of numerous light sources remained, and rather than only a single set of red eyes, there were almost a dozen surrounding Attis, who now seemed to be coming out of what looked like a trance, but in a weary, almost woozy way--as if he were about to collapse at any given moment.

But casting light beneath of them would force the shadows, and the eyes, elsewhere--where there were more shadows, that might have been dangerous. Folds of clothes, gaps between clothes and skin, where it was difficult to place light. Setting light below them may very well be much more dangerous than leaving the shadows do as they please with only a singular light source.

It might have been best to not do that . . .

Seeing the results of dissipating the shadows, Dyss was highly disappointed, not to mention extremely worried. How many of those things were there? And what were they going to do? Rather than try to eliminate the shadows, he would try to go the other way. He would dim all the lights around, including the natural ones, and create a light behind himself, sweeping it around quickly and leaving it between himself and Attis, leaving two deep shadows for them to use to their heart's content...

"Attis!"

Dyss would step forward to hold up his friend with his free hand, the sword already starting to feel heavy in his hand. He had started tired and hadn't fared much better since the multiple hour walk to get here...

Touch. Physical touch. Attis would feel cold to Dyss-- at first. Dangerously cold. But the instant he touched him, Attis's temperature spiked up, up to something healthy.

Attis let out a loud gasp as his eyes snapped open, his face ghostly white, and nerves frayed--muscles tensed and all the like--as if he had just woken from a horrible nightmare. It wasn't a pleasant awakening, either. It wasn't just a second following his gasp that Attis realized his surroundings, and how much light sources had changed. It was almost like they were under a spotlight of some sort. Attis was facing it, unfortunately, and it nearly blinded him. He instantly threw his free arm up over his face, doing all he could to try and block it out. Dyss didn't quite know the limits of other people just yet, unfortunately . . .

"Dyss . . ." Attis strained to speak, "What's-- what's going on . . .?"

He seemed oblivious to the events of the last minute, and with his back facing his shadow, the only thing he could see was the light--and it was obviously painful for him to look at.

But Dyss would be able to see something else, something Attis could not, with his back facing it. Something in Attis's shadow-- it was . . . moving. Crawling, even, squirming like some sort of living creature, like a worm or a snake; a deep, inky blackness that was losing the shape of a two dimensional object, that was coming out of itself, that was being born into the world of light-- birthed from a shadow-- an arm, reaching, shakily protruding from the darkness and slowly grasping for the back of Attis, a bony arm, a long arm, seemingly devoid of muscle and fat, just dark "skin" air tight against bone, dripping an oily substance, staining the ground, as it twitchingly reached for the man's back . . .

To Dyss, it would be a blight. The exact opposite of what he knew. Shadows were not entirely devoid of light, just the light generally visible to the normal human eye-- yet this . . . would be absolutely devoid of all light. Not a single type of light that Dyss could perceive penetrated it. It was a dark, inky existence, perhaps somewhere in the realm of a physical impossibility. A living shadow.

Dyss was highly disgusted by the creature that was spawning from behind Attis... It reminded him too much of his only recently removed blindness, and the way it was so devoid of light... It was unnatural, really. Nothing was that dark...

"Watch out!"

Dyss would pull Attis slightly away from his shadow, tilting the sword tip downwards, and stabbing downwards into whatever thing was coming out of his shadow. The weight of the sword would do much of the work, which was good, since Dyss didn't have the energy for a lot of swinging... However, once the sword was inside the shade, it would suddenly light up with a huge intensity, though there was little heat. Dyss's powers would hopefully do more inside the creature's physical substance...

Attis let out a surprised cough as Dyss grabbed him and pulled him away. He still couldn't see well, and had no idea what Dyss was doing exactly, or why, for that matter. He could only stumbled to his side and dig the bottom of the scythe into the ground, to perhaps stall himself from falling over, which briefly seemed inevitable.

To Dyss, it would feel like he was stabbing the ground. His blade didn't go through the shadow. However the creature was emerging from it, or where it was coming from, but if Attis's shadow was a portal in, then the portal clearly wasn't two ways . . .

Perhaps for the best.

Another burst of light, for a brief moment, cast two shadows on both of Attis's sides. The location of the creature Dyss stabbed changed instantly--but not to just any one of the two options. Rather, it was within both. While within one person's shadow, splitting them up seemed to duplicate its existence. In that brief moment, both grabbed at the ground instead, and pulled with a horrible burst of strength. But even as two individual clones tore themselves from out of Attis's shadows and into the world of the light, it would be evident that they were, at the very least, slowed.

The two of them were tall, and comprised a bony structure with minimal muscle and fat. Their arms reached the ground, and their bodies hunched over. They had long skulls with small facial features, all scrunched together, and maws that took up almost the entirety of their heads.

And unless Attis could see, Dyss might well be on his own . . .

On seeing his light have little effect on the creatures, Dyss would simply release his control over all the nearby light, allowing the area to revert to its normal levels of light. So far, despite the creatures being made of shadow, they seemed mostly impervious to anything light-based...

"Attis, how many are there?"

Until the creatures were up, separate, and moving around, Dyss would have trouble spotting them. His vision made it difficult to pick out fine details such as eyes in a group of shadow. Fortunately, there were now two that could be accessed, and with that, Dyss would lift the sword over his head, bringing it down with both hands on the closest one's head and shoulders...

Once Dyss's added light sources faded, Attis was able to move his arm from over his face. Finally, he could see. It couldn't have happened sooner, too, for as soon as he could see again, he came to the realization that they weren't alone. So, this was the source of Dyss's urgency. At first, Attis was disoriented by the light and the existence of these creatures, his eyes still hurt a bit and it was a little hard to concentrate, but not nearly as bad as it had been. In a way, Dyss was lucky. He didn't have to deal with residual glare . . .

"T-- two . . .?" He replied as he looked back to Dyss, his uncertainty audible.

He didn't even know there had been one to begin with. There was little explanation for what was going on, but in the end, there probably didn't need to be. Dyss had probably been just as surprised as Attis was right now. Creatures crawling up from the shadows? How was one supposed to anticipate something like that?

With Dyss attacking one of them, Attis felt that he, too, should have been doing something. Unfortunately, just as he took his attention from Dyss and the creature he was slashing down at, the free one to Attis's left charged him. With arms outstretched, it grabbed onto Attis's shoulders and attempted to draw him in closer. Attis strained and dug his feet in, but it did little good . . .

It was a problem Dyss faced almost simultaneously: the creature took a downward slash at its left shoulder, effectively removing all use of its left arm, but it still had its right. The tar-like substance that it dripped during its birth into the world of light slathered Dyss's blade and flooded the front and back of its body, gushing from the deep wound Dyss inflicted-- but other than a low growl, the beast didn't seem fazed by it at all. With a quick upward swipe from the ground, it would attempt to latch onto Dyss's armpit, and draw him forward--closer to an open maw and rows upon rows of needle point teeth . . .

Dyss was very focused on the shade in front of him, and as a result, he was able to see better than normal and from all sides. He had more warning than usual, seeing all the angles, and he would somewhat clumsily lift the blade, pulling the handle close to his hip and angling the sword across his body.

"Only two? They come from shadows!"

Dyss could see two himself, but he wasn't able to see into the shadows very well. Even so, he could see the attack against Attis occuring, though he couldn't do much about it. He was too busy trying to impale the shade in the throat as it lunged for his armpit...

Lacking the use of one arm didn't appear to hinder the clone Dyss fought all that much. It continued to pull at him, armpit first, to drag him closer and closer to its open maw, and even with one arm, it pulled with a significant deal of strength. Even if Dyss weren't already fatigued, he'd probably have wound up being dragged along if the creature had use of both of its arms. With one, though, Dyss needed to be fatigued before he could be moved-- which was, unfortunately, the case.

Stabbing it straight through the gut didn't seem to effect the situation all that much. Just like cutting through its shoulder, though, it was an easy job. Dyss didn't need to be fairly strong or not weakened by fatigue to cut through it. Its bones had been brittle enough under the previous downward slash, and its skin was even more vulnerable. Dyss stabbed straight through, instilling a low growl of pain from the monster, but it didn't seem to recognize the pain as a viable reason to cease and desist.

Rather, it continued to pull on Dyss, trying even more to close the gap without actually taking a step towards him.

Attis and Dyss were having equal problems, it looked like. The creature could have lunged at Attis at any time, but it seemed like it would have preferred to drag him closer, much like the creature Dyss was fighting. It opened its mouth wide as Attis faltered in trying to stay his position. They looked like they had no muscle structure at all, but the creatures were strong. They could drag Dyss and Attis closer, no matter how much either of them tried to fight against it. It was a matter of getting the creatures to release them, or killing them before it was too late . .

And Attis, unlike Dyss, was ill equipped for such a . . .

Oh! The . . . the scythe!

He was still holding onto it, having just recently used it to try and steady himself, before inevitably being grabbed by this monster. But what could he do with it? Unlike Dyss's sword, it didn't seem like a stabbing weapon, and anything too close simply could not be cut by it, not if it was being held one handed-- like Attis's current predicament.

And so he changed that around, and went with his intuition, bringing the polearm to hit perpendicular to the beast's elbows, and forcing it to set straight against the bottom of its arms, twisted so that the tip of the blade faced the sky. Attis strained as he tried to remain standing all the while, and with one quick lunge to the right, bashed the blade against the beast's left elbow, severing it instantly, and continuing the side-ways slash, removed the beast's right arm at the elbow all the same. It let out a pained growl, much like that of Dyss's antagonist, as it stumbled back, equipped with only a set of stumps.

Dyss's attack had been very ineffective, and at this point, he was becoming very worried about the impending maw. Attis, unfortunately, was essentially out of his sphere of awareness at the moment. If something major happened, he could see it, perhaps, but he was in no position to help...

"Get back!"

Dyss would rotate the sword somewhat, way too close for any effective bearing. Instead, he used the sword in a defensive maneuver. He would move the blade across the thing's jaw, flat edge facing the beast and himself, one hand on the handle and the other palm against the flat of the blade, pushing the shade backwards with the force of the weapon. He couldn't use the blade in this way, as his left hand would be destroyed by pushing against the bladed edge. As he tried to push the creature's mouth back, he would raise his far leg, kicking or smashing the shade in whatever way possible to stop it...