Fable - Ask In The Rubble[Dreadlords]

A roleplay which may be open to join but you must ask the creator first
Eleanor had helped finish off the creatures while Noel had taken care of Kristen. Now Kristen was apologizing and Ella was getting a headache. Kristen was going to get them all killed and the other initiates didn't deserve that. They had worked hard for years to be the best and she had worked hard for years on how to dress the nicest. Bullshit, all of it.

"Sable's right. Let's go. We don't have time for whining."

Ella was stalking towards the table behind Sable. She watched as he gathered the pages. "What is all this?" She followed Sable and the floating light deeper into the cavern. She had a bad feeling growing in the pit of her stomach, but they were prepared for anything...well...at least three of the four were.
 
Well, this was becoming stressful. All they had to do was play naive and dumb, and they'd probably have been shown out.

Instead, the other three decided to get defensive, Henk taking a demanding tone with the Dreadlord.

Dorian moved behind Edric, who may be able to feel as the white-haired apprentice began to call upon the power of a spirit whose dominion is over wind.

"We don't know how many others there are," the boy whispered behind Edric's back to the others, "but if we have to fight, I'm ready."
 
Davi hadn't even thought about the others and what they might think about his actions. So, it was with mounting surprise that not only Henk but Edric also joined him in defending the young girl who was quietly soaking through the back of his shirt with her tears. He kept one hand on her side to keep her tightly pressed against him whilst the other curled around the hilt of his blade properly.

Because that fucking answer didn't sound dark as hell at all.

"We'll take her from here," he announced again, in that flat voice bordering on the edge of disinterest. "The Proctor sent us for the new recruits so I suppose this is what he meant," they were making dreadlords? Did this man even know about the revolution or was this one of the dark veins that had been too thick to cut off?
 
The elderly fellow's claim rang in Henk's skull with a deafening echo, the gravity of his claim bearing down on his shoulders like a tremendous weight lain across his back. Making Dreadlords? Creating custom made magic-bearing children as if they were weapons to be forged from scratch? It was heinous enough what they did in Vel Anir, scooping the talented off the streets by force, stealing any semblance of a normal life from countless unsuspecting youths.

The nerve it took to extend that to mundane children, who'd done nothing to garner attention? It made the usually peaceful-minded Henk's blood boil. When would they stop? When would it be enough? It was all the boy could do to stop from setting his own arms ablaze with the heat building within him. "A new low, even for the Pre-Revolution..." He muttered to Davi and Edric. "Ridding the world of such wretched work would be a kindness..."

It was quite possibly the first time either of them had heard Henk recommend killing somebody. The scene unfolding before the slightly elder initiate seemed to have affected him greatly. "Listen to him, he's mad. Hardly knows where he is. I doubt this is anything that the current structure of Vel Anir is supported by. There's no place for this madness. None at all."
 
The old man seemed to frown for a moment, stopping in place just in front of Edric as they stood in front of the girl. Confusion flickered over his features, his head shaking for a moment as though he didn't quite understand what was going on.

"Take her? but Gilram..."

A wondering went over his features.

"Well. I suppose this was the troubles he mentioned. Yes. It makes sense. Of course of course. You'll want the others then..."

Edric heard Henk whisper his recommendation, and...he couldn't help but agree. This man had been making dreadlords? How long? How had he...who...the Archon at the very least, that much was clear, but who else was involved?

What were they supposed to do with this? "Ho-how?"

Edric muttered quietly.

"Every magic has it's use, young man. Even mine. Even Mine. They knew that. I was weak, but there was potential. All it takes is a little bit, a remnant, and I can grow the rest. Enough...enough to make it strong. It just takes time."

The old man glanced around.

His eyes flickered around the room. He looked at Davi. He looked at Henk. He stared at Edric. Then finally he came to Dorian.

A laugh, decrepit and old filled the room.

"I wish I could tell, but its so hard."

The old man hardly seemed to hear Henk as he called him mad.

"Come come. You'll want the others."

He shifted, turning on his heel and slowly waddling towards the door that he had come from.
 
Gilram. Gilram. Fucking hell, what was Gilram famous for? And that Davis, Dorian had never even heard of them. But two Archons were around here?

They were in over their heads.

"Ed," lacking the normal sarcastic lilt, he whispered to the taller lad, "This is fucked."

But what choice did they have? Dorian willed himself to step forward first, following the old man. He spared a single glance back at the others.

"Does it take a lot of time, sir?" he asked as a curious, ignorant child would. The old man didn't seem too aware of what was going on but seemed all too keen to talk about his work. These kinds of people were like sieves of information.
 
"P-please don't make me go back there."
Davi almost jumped when the girl spoke. He'd known she was there of course but it was another thing to hear someone who looked like a corpse speak.

"He keeps monsters back there," the small voice continued in a tearful manner.
Davi glanced over his shoulder as she peered up at him with watery green eyes. She couldn't be more than six, perhaps seven at a push. He pursed his lips and looked back at the others. Dreadlords wouldn't let her sway them they would just grip her by the arm and hurl her after them. But he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Gritting his jaw he turned and crouched down in front of the girl.

"We'll be right here, just stay behind us. There's no such thing as monsters," the girl didn't look at all convinced but she gave a wobbly nod and then latched herself onto Davi's side when he straightened.
 
Archons.

It was a title that Henk had only heard in passing, from Proctors and members of the Guard, but he knew what they were. Archons were the elite, the best of the best when it came to Dreadlords. To be an Archon was to be a walking weapon of mass destruction, an unstoppable force, and an immovable object.

Despite Henk's general disdain for the system that Vel Anir had wrought, this world of Dreadlords and Proctors and the like... Henk had always held some level of reverence for such a lofty label.

His disappointment was immeasurable at the revelation that such a crime against nature was done on their watch. They were just like the rest, worse even. Is that what he was training to be? A monster? Was it his destiny to be somebody with so little value for life that they were willing to steal others for their own gain?

The thought made him feel sick to his stomach, and it didn't help that it seemed his contemporaries had decided to play along for now.

Henk knew he couldn't rightfully blame them. Who were they to interfere in the business of an Archon? Gods, that didn't mean he didn't wish to with every fiber of his being. Casting his glance down to the young girl clinging to Davi, his gaze softened, the lines of anger fading ever so slightly. No, he would not become such a monster, not so long as he held onto his humanity. The angry light enveloping his hands dissipated gently, and with a silent glance to Edric, Henk reluctantly followed Davi and Dorian.

"How long have you been doing this? How many have been made?" Despite his best attempts to remain calm, he could hear his voice shaking. "Who else knows about this?"
 
"Completely fucked." Edric said in a whisper, his lips thinning as he heard the little girl speak to Davi. His gaze flickered for a moment as the old man set off down the corridor. He looked to Henk, then to Dorian.

They should just kill the man and be done with it, but it was foolish. Lips thinned for a brief moment, and he wondered what the others had found. "Stay behind me."

He told Davi, moving quickly to put himself between the old man and his fellow Initiate. Offering only one quick glance to the girl as they began to walk. He kept Henk and Dorian to his sides, fully intending to never break his step with them.

"It depends on the magic, my boy, and the subject."

The old man seemed more enthused talking about his work.

"Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. A few times there were even years...but well that one was special."

He smiled to himself, clearly more than pleased. Edric felt his stomach churn somewhat, questions reaching the back of his mind as the man continued to speak. The hallway here was well lit, those strange flickering lights illuminating a sterile white corridor. Up ahead he could see another door. This one undecorated.

Edric steeled himself, half reaching towards the blade on the small of his back.

"It goes faster when they're younger, easier...adults don't work...never once."

The old man shook his head.

"Took some time to fi-"

He stopped for a second as Henk asked his question, a frown flickering over his features. He rubbed at his beard for a moment and his hand resting on the door in front of him. There was no small amount of consideration to the question, as if he had to piece things together in his head.

"Fifty years, give or take, and over them...oh there's been so many. A thousand, maybe more!"

There was pride in his voice as he opened the door.

Beyond it was a room much larger than the one the Initiates had lead behind. It held the same sort of atmosphere, sterile, medical, but on one wall there were half a dozen other doors all labeled, and directly opposite them was another set of double doors. To their right was an open corridor from which Edric could see a flickering light.

In the midst of the room stood a man, tall, his shoulders square. There was an age to him, but he wore it far better than the old man who had been guiding Edric and his companion.

"I don't think very many people know what I do, I was first brought here b-"

"I think that's quite enough of a history lesson, Ydrill."

"Gilram!

The old man sounded cheerful, happy.

"The Initiates you sent to fetch the Children are here. Lovely of you to send help, I'm not as spry as you in my old age."

An amused smile flickered over the Archon's features. His eyes, oddly, looked kind. A light blue that could have matched Edric's own. He gazed at the Initiates arrayed behind the old man, staring at each of them in turn as if each of them were some sort of puzzle.

"Is that what I did?"

As the Archon's eyes landed on Edric, something ran along his spine.

Fear.

It wasn't any sort of magic, it wasn't a press on his mind or something evoked by force. It was the confidence which the man held in his gaze. The fact that he knew something, everything. That very thought sent a chill racing through Edric's entire body.

In that moment, when Edric found himself staring back at the Archon. Noel, Sable, Kristen, and Eleanor finally stepped out of the corridor. They would see Edric, and his companions standing in the doorway, a young girl clutching Davi's side. They would see an old man shuffling through the room, and in the midst of it all one of the most Powerful Dreadlords in all of Vel Anir.
 
Kristen followed in an ashamed, embarrassed blur, the tide of terror and horror having receded for now. This had been her first actual combat encounter, what all of the training sessions had been trying to prepare her for and what all of the sparring matches had been trying to simulate. Yet the real thing had been leagues more harrowing than anything in the Academy. And the fact was: the initiates who all experienced and survived the torturous rigors of the old Academy did not falter. Not in the slightest.

Kristen had. She had faltered. And she would have died if not for Sable, for Noel, and for Ella.

Only when they reached the sterile room did Kristen lift her head. Minor befuddlement became her. The other half of their group was here--within this underground labyrinth they'd somehow manage to loop around. And not only their fellow initiates were present.

An old man was there, Kristen's first thought being: a librarian?

A young girl holding onto Davi. An initiate from a younger class? But weren't they the only class out in Vel Acan?

And a tall man with a kind blue eyes, a reassuring sight. Oh. One of the Proctors, certainly. Here to extricate us and get us back onto our properly assigned duty.

Kristen glanced up to Sable from behind. He was leading the way, but it seemed that his stalwart defensive magics wouldn't be needed here. And, she had to admit, even through her shame, what a relief!

Sable Pembroke Noel Eleanor Edric Davi Dorian Henk
 
Dorian calmly listened to Ydrill. But then, there was despair.

At least the other group was kind enough to rejoin them.


Stop.

STOP.

DANGER.

Hand at his side, Dorian urgently flashed signs to Sable and those behind him, desperate for anyone to catch on.

It was all he could muster, as he was utterly frozen in place. Gilram's presence was suffocating, his aura of confidence and invincibility oppressive. The intensity of the man sobering.

This was an Archon.

One wrong move from any of them meant certain death.

The corner of Dorian's mouth twitched.
 
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Noel was more than a little relieved as they rejoined the other group of initiates. Kristen was a complete liability so if there was more danger in this place she'd have preferred literally any of the other students from the second group to replace her.

When she saw what they were dealing with though a silent fury ran through her.

They'd been in a creepy library with one of Henk's fading lights, subjecting to a sinister voice which caused her ears to feel like they were being scrapped out with a spoon, and then forced to fight inky offspring from a violent owl-monster-thing.

The other group was picking up strays and hanging out with father time.

"Are we babysitting now?" her words rang out with a slight annoyance. "Because I can tell you that," she stopped mid-sentence.

Dorian was, as per usual, the last person she paid any attention to. But then she saw it, his subtle hand gestures. It was the sign language all Dreadlords had learned at the academy, useful in a myriad of situations. What he was signaling was bad enough but then she looked at the behemoth who was locking eyes with Edric.

He was the image of terror. Even the way he stood radiated strength. The only thing Noel was thankful for was the presence of Ed, Dorian, Henk, Davi, and the pipsqueak they'd picked up. But she doubted five human shields would do much against whatever their foe was capable of.
 
Eleanor stepped to the side of Sable when they reached the other group. She wanted to see what was happening and she immediately wished she had stayed hidden. Child, old man, Edric staring the old man down, and Dorian signing. Ella grabbed Noel's arm at the same time she finally stopped speaking, she had seen the signs too.

They were all silent as her groups attention settled on the old man.

The old man who seemed familiar. Those blue eyes. She knew those eyes. Ella shook her head, took her hand off Noel's arm, and brought her hand up to rub her forehead. This whole place had that eerie de ja vu feeling and it sent chills running up Ella's arms.

Why did it feel like she had been here before?
 
As the second group marched further in and eventually made contact with their contemporaries, Sable stopped cold in his tracks. He could hardly believe what he was looking at, standing among the odd test tubes and lab equipment, in this horrible place. Someone that could only have been qualified as a living legend, a walking demigod among Anirians and Dreadlords alike. Books had described and depicted him. Sable hoped he was mistaken, that perhaps he was under some hallucination courtesy of the owl creature from before.

Dorian's frantic signing dispelled that hope. An archon stood before the initiates, they being little more than insects before a monster in human form. Sable had heard of how many full-fledged Dreadlords had thrown themselves against Archon Isbrand, how many had died in bringing him down. The sacrifice of the hero, Sloan. The near deaths of Captain Talus, Zana the Liberator, and the Dreadlord Slayer, Thorne.

It was known that the archons were yet faithful to the old regime. If legends like Talus, Zana, Thorne and Sloan had barely stood a chance...then what could eight initiates hope to do?

Sable's mouth ran dry, his breath caught in his throat. As Kristen peered around him, he simply raised a hand to keep her from moving past him. He dared not move further. What could he do? He'd be little more than a speed bump in the path of a roaring chariot.

And so he waited, silently, sweat dripping down his brow, and waited to see what would happen next.
 
Noel’s elbow slammed into Kristen’s gut, stifling her word’s midsentence. A free hand rushed upwards and firmly clamped over the foolish noble girl’s mouth, muffling any grunt that would follow her strike.

Chocolate-colored eyes bore into the taller girl’s face. She hadn’t been at the academy long enough to learn the Dreadlord sign language. Or she was simply too stupid, too unobservant, to recognize the clear and present danger.

Noel’s glare continued. An unflinching look that remained fixed on Kristen’s pupils. Some said the eyes were the gateway to the soul, if true then Noel was getting a better glimpse into the Pirian’s soul than anyone ever had before. I will kill you, she thought to herself, her glower likely conveying that sentiment directly to the other initiate.
 

Edric's eyes shot towards Kristen the moment she spoke, his lips thinning and fury flickering over his features. The Archon's attention drew towards the Pirian girl as well. A smile flickering over the old man's lips. If Edric could have crossed the room and strangled her to death he would have done it in an instant.

Thankfully, he didn't have to.

Noel instantly grabbed the girl, throwing an elbow into her gut and silencing any objection that she might offer before it could ever come. Thank fuck for that. Edric through. He could have kissed Noel on the lips.

Not that it mattered.

"It seems I was right about the state of the Academy."

The Archon said, his full attention now on the students in front of him, gaze flickering over all of them with a slight hint of amusement. After a few seconds more of studying them, he finally spoke.

"Ydril. Fetch the children. It's time to go."

There was a pause from the old man, his lips thinning, but then slowly he nodded his head and turned to walk towards the six doors at the other end of the room. As he moved Edric frowned, glancing at him, then to the little girl behind Davi.

Shit. He thought to himself as a realization dawned.

"I will be taking the girl, please."

Noel | Eleanor | Davi | Dorian | Sable Pembroke | Kristen Pirian | Henk
 
The stench of dread, of raw fear hung in the air of the buried chamber of horrors. Henk knew not the name Gilram, not of his accolades or legend, but the status of an Archon only came with mountains of death and despair left in your wake. This scarred visage before him had ruined the lives of many, both deserving and otherwise, and he could do so to each and every one of them at the drop of a hat, on a whim.

So why was it that Henk didn't feel that same fear as the others?

Dorian's frantic signaling only gave him the desire to spit on the ground at Gilram's feet. That smug, confident aura that seeped from every pore of the Archon made him sick to his stomach, filled him with anger and disdain.

Fight. Henk wanted to fight, knowing full well it would end in his death. If he could inflict just the smallest amount of pain on him in return for the pain he'd passed on to others, it would be worth dying. Gritting his teeth to the point of pain was all he could do to stop his rage from showing through his powers; he cared not for his own death, but attacking would put the others in danger, and Henk could not make that decision for them.

It was when he demanded they hand over the girl that he would step forward, perhaps sealing his own fate.

"And what of us? We hand you the child and you what, let us go? Somehow I doubt that."
 
Davi felt the girls fingers dig into his very flesh and press herself so tight against the back of his leg he didn't think he could move even if he had wanted to. An odd sense of... what? Morals...? Consciousness? Had the lessons they had all been subjected to in 'humanity' and 'empathy' finally decided to click into place when it might mean his life? Well that would be an irony wouldn't it.

He was relieved to hear Henk say the words he himself had been thinking and the steady increase of his heartbeat as adrenaline begun to fire up the blood. It wasn't just Henk either. There was a shift among several of the initiates and a few of them just as confused or irate at their sudden appearance of righteousness as he was. In the old world he would have thrown the girl without a thought to the wolf before them but now he found himself taking a step back.

In a quiet voice so low only the girl could hear he murmured.

"When I say so, you run."
 

Gilram's attention slowly turned towards Henk, the amused smile gone from his face. He stared at him with all the authority of an Emperor. A wolf looking down not on a pup, but a lamb.

"If I intended to kill you boy..."

The Archon's voice seemed to ring within the room, resounding.

To their left Edric could hear the opening of heavy doors, and he glanced to see the Old Man quickly walking down the line of the hall. He opened the marked cells quickly, and ushered a child from each of them. Five in total, the sixth room likely having been meant for the girl.

"...You would already have been dead. Now give me the girl, and you can return to your new happy little lives."

Gilram said as he stepped forward, his boot somehow echoing within the room as Ydril and the five children began to make their way towards him. None of the other kids seemed afraid, in fact, they almost seemed to cling to the old man.

As Ydril and the other children stepped behind the Archon, the ancient Dreadlord seemed to stop for a moment. His gaze swept the room, then he looked directly at Eleanor.

"Ella, come come. It's time to go. Gilram is taking us somewhere safe."

The told man waved, smiling happily, his gaze seemingly lost in time.

Noel | Eleanor | Davi | Dorian | Sable Pembroke | Kristen Pirian | Henk
 
Noel finally relented and let her hand slip from Kristen's mouth. At this point if the Pirian girl wanted to get herself killed she was free to. Maybe it'd serve as a good enough distraction for the rest of them to get away.

Gilram gave his demands and Noel found herself second-guessing the other students who apparently were fine with sheltering some girl they'd just met. Regardless, the decision had apparently been made and Noel wasn't going to show herself to be a coward. Nor was she going to betray the intentions of her classmates.

They wanted to keep the kid safe. So, apparently, that is what they were doing.

"Ella isn't going anywhere." Noel stated clearly and confidently despite a heartbeat that wouldn't stop racing. "And neither is she," her head gestured towards the child hiding behind Davi.

Hairs stood on Noel's neck. Her breathing was restrained despite the mounting danger of their situation. Her gaze stayed fixed on the Archon before them. Noel didn't want to die. She didn't want her classmates to die. Which meant she didn't want them to fight this 'Gilram' that stood in their way.

But they'd decided they were going to play at heroes and Noel understood enough about the world to know that at least the appearance of strength could go a long way.

"Turn around. Leave."
 
Eleanor watched as the old man opened the cells and the children came out to stand by his side. This whole situation was weird as fuck but Eleanor stayed silent. The other group had picked this fight by trying to protect the girl so she was just here for back up.

Then within a few seconds, her entire world imploded when the old man looked at her and spoke three sentences.

"Ella, come come. It's time to go. Gilram is taking us somewhere safe."

The room seemed to grow small as she looked from the old man to the children to the Archon. She felt the bile rising in her throat as she realized that she was once one of those kids. She had not been born with magic.

She vaguely heard Noel speak but she didn’t hear the words. She wanted answers. She needed answers. In this weird state that she was feeling, Ella stepped forward to follow.
 
Edric tensed as Noel spoke, his gaze flickered to her, then to the others, and then a decision was made. He moved to step forward, his fingers folding into fists, every muscle in his body tensing as he drew upon his reserve.

He ran. Dashed forward towards the Archon.

"Commendable, but it seems the Academy has failed already."

The word seemed to echo out, louder, stronger than it had any right to be. The Archon raised his hand, palm towards the ceiling. Something sparked into being within the midst of curled fingers, a ball of black, an utter abyss that seemed to hang within nothingness.

Edric saw it, his eyes seeming to de-focus as he caught sight of it, and then suddenly as Gilram spoke the sphere seemed to explode outward.

"Perhaps I will teach a lesson of my own."

Within the span of a breath, that odd black sphere exploded outward into and throughout the entirety of the room.

It spread like a plague, erupting not like an explosion, but reaching out and covering everything that it swept over. As Edric continued to move, he didn't have time to draw away, didn't have time to pull away from the inky surface of the sphere. His foot struck the eternal blackness...and then passed through it.

In an instant he was no longer in that great sterile white room. In a heart beat he was no longer charging forward.

No.

Edric stood instead within an abyss. An ethereal darkness on which it was impossible to focus. Nothingness stretched all around him, and at the center of it stood the Archon. No magic flowed through him, nothing. No amount of strain moved his muscles. He tried to scream, and yet found that his mouth would not open.

The others who fell into the inky mass of the expanding sphere would find the same fate. Caught. Trapped in a magic none of them could begin to understand.

Noel | Eleanor | Davi | Dorian | Sable Pembroke | Kristen Pirian | Henk
 
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It sure was a lot to swallow, like a Sable-sized plate of information. Dorian's frigid blues darted around at everyone, settled on Eleanor a bit longer than the others, then frantically switched to Edric as he exploded into action.

"Spixel!" Dorian was the quickest to act after Edric. Before black overtook anything in the span of that breath, the slightly built Apprentice invoked one of his spirits. Much like Sable's ability, Spixel was Dorian's single defensive-natured spirit that would form a domed barrier around him. It was a handy trick against all kinds of magic but did fuck all to stop physical things.

The blackness covered the barrier, and immediately an odd sensation in the back of Dorian's mind warned him that it wouldn't stay up for long.

"Edric!" he shouted into the void before him. Then, a panic as he considered everyone may be dead, "Davi, Henk!"

Though he'd try, his voice would never reach those caught in Gilram's magic. And given he couldn't see into it, he was cut off from the others.
 
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Paralyzed.

By the physical: the elbow to her gut and the hand to her mouth. By the mental: by the fear of Noel and by the confusion of what was happening.

Kristen was as a doll, inert, propped up to observe with placid eyes some spectacle of which she was both a part and strangely distant from.

The man whom she had thought was a Proctor lifted a hand, and darkness destroyed the world.

There was fear, yes. Yet she had felt far more terror facing those monsters of ink than in becoming victim to the old man's magic. There was fear, yes. Fear. But also wonder. Awe.

Kristen stood enraptured, as if she'd experienced the touch of the Divine.

A single, quiet thought captured her mind.

This is true power.