Recent content by Ventress

She scrutinized Alistair when he spoke, recalling his performance in Vel Tenebria. It was satisfactory. He did not hesitate to carry out orders. He did not balk at what was commanded of him. Good. There would be no room for mercy here, if her investigation showed results here in Vel Numera...

—the door opened from the inside. Dreadlord Ventress stood in the doorway. The hand which had opened the door slowly receded behind her, folding there in the small of her back, that firm military stance her wont. "Initiates," she said coolly. And with regard to Alistair: "Dreadlord." Her brow...

Then it's excellent circumstances that I've done both. "Efficient," Ventress said. One of the higher compliments she could give to someone whose surname was not Sirl. The mention of tardiness produced a small furrowing of her brow. Thoughts of a more conspiratorial nature presented themselves...

Ventress's gloved hands slowly and precisely sliced upward to come to rest in the small of her back, and she observed Elias's distraught rage, bearing the sight with deference and patience. Yet her reaction was not completely stolid. She may have watched the violent outburst with an outward...

Ventress stopped. Paused with a gloved hand on the door of a standing wardrobe. Something seemed off about Lord Elias, but Ventress couldn't pinpoint what it could be. She had never known family of any kind. It was a sterile fact to her that she herself had a mother and father, perhaps alive or...

Any distress from Elias Ventress simply did not notice. Not yet, at least. Her mind was not so attuned to the potentially destabilizing content of what she had said, and what she was about to say. If anything, she seemed pleased that Elias had inquired further of her report. "Lorenna said to...

Much had been taken. Much had been left. Ventress was not one for poetic thoughts, but it struck her as an echo of the Rebellion, in a way. It was not so long ago that anyone would dare cross House Sirl, and if in their foolishness they decided to try, their misapprehensions about their chances...

"Familiarity with Castle Sirl has been acquired for a long time." The entry hall flashed golden in a quick and furious series, like a relentless cluster of heat lightning tearing apart a summer sky. Eleven Projections of Ventress flanked the two of them now, and in the short order they all...

"They have not. And it would have been improper to ask." Ventress said this not with any trace of disappointment, but instead with nothing short of a quiet pride. She even tilted her chin slightly as she had spoken. Her eyes were unworthy of gazing upon the Annals, and such as it should be, for...

A singular twitch of her eye, her right eye to be specific, at the mention of the other Initiates. To Ventress there was no fault of Elias for, in his words, plateauing. Rather, the audacity of his peers to think that they could ever match the majesty of the Sirl bloodline magic was what vexed...

Ventress...despised feeling this way. It was similar to the way she felt standing at Isbrand's grave and she loathed it so. The clutching tightness in her chest, the somber thrum of blood in her veins—at least this time she was in no danger of having her emotion overflow from her eyes. She was...

THE BRAUN VIRAK "Have a seat, Dreadlord. Observe," Major Charles Huntington said. He himself was sat upon the deck of the Braun Virak along with a few other high-ranking officers and at least one other elected representative of the Anirian Parliament. Servants attended to them, bringing fresh...

Ventress banished all of the Projections who were scouring the cavern-side homes for the Avian. Contemptible creature. Her original mission had been to kill Cavill, and in that trust she had been well engaged, yet now this episode with the Avian had eclipsed it entirely. In just a few short...

Ventress merely craned her head to stab at the Professor with a reproachful look. Yes, it was shameful that the namesake of the great bastion of strength that was Vel Anir was itself primitive nonsense. Yet that is what separated the Anirians of today from those of yesteryear. Initiate...

Foolishness. Who placed their confidence in beings of supposed divinity? If these "gods" and "goddesses" were as powerful as their adherents claimed, why had they not come to Arethil themselves and conquered it? The answer, Ventress surmised, was simple. Gods were an illusion, and only the...