Dreadlords The Long Road

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Last time she felt as of everything went to shit was the time she ran from creatures that could not be fought with magic. Liliana had been there, others had been there, until even they too had fallen.

But she pressed on, running until her muscles screamed for rest, and her lungs burned with breath.

Livia chose to not think of the state Cenric's ankle would be in, as long as she got to the gates...


"Move!" She all but screeched as people moved into her path. The Initiate was fast, sure on her feet, and kept going forward until shadows whipped out at her like roped, coiling around her arm and pulling taut, but Livia's corruption magic bit into the offending magic. It was enough to keep the darkness' claws off her to pass the Gates.

"Hurry! Cenric!" Like a fool, Livia turned her head to see where he lagged behind.
 
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His leg was beginning to deaden.

Cenric could feel the creeping numbness bite into his flesh, fingers clawing into palms as he tried to force himself to keep going. Hobbled steps stopping his run, the tendrils of shadow lashing out. Weaving and shifting between civilians as they grabbed for the Dreadlord.

A grunt escaped his throat as he saw Liv pass through the gates, head turning over his shoulder for just a brief moment as a hiss echoed out. The flames surrounding him, bursting one last time as the sun crept finally beneath the horizon.

Darkness snapping into place...but the tendrils which sprang forth from it vanishing as Cenric practically threw himself through the gates.

His body crashing against the stone wall, but his reprieve short as a soft voice rang out behind them.

"Ah gamble, really." Viviana said, but her voice was not an echo. Instead, just a few feet behind where Livia and her companion stood now walked a woman. Her hair raven black, her eyes pools of onyx. Her clothes a deep blue slashed with colors of red that made her dress appear as a setting sun. Her gait was that of a leisurely stroll, heading directly towards the two Loyalists. "But you were right."

She complemented, cocking her head with a smile. "I won't risk the Sisters..."

Cold dark eyes flickered towards Livia.

"Today." The word came as she stepped directly passed where Cenric leaned, eyes facing forward as she moved on by. "You should get that leg looked at, Cen. I'd hate for Ein to lose it, terrible shame to mar a thing of beauty."
 
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Livia went to help Cenric stand, using the moment to whisper to him. "Any ideas to get the Sisters to notice?"

She gave him a look, intending to unleash whatever corruption her magic would allow if it meant ot would buy them an escape.

To Viviana, Livia gave her an expression that gave away nothing.
"Well then, best you be on your way so that we may attend to his injury." Dismissive. Livia did not want to be stopped by this stranger, but there was something about her that made Liv want to stay. Power had always intrigued her, and Viviana displayed such a great amount of it.
 
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Cenric shook his head, not because he didn't have any ideas, but because letting The Keepers activate the Sister's would probably be folly. Viviana's magic would be neutralized, but so would his own and Livia's. Not a problem, if he were here in his own flesh, but he wasn't. Which meant his ward would be left alone with a woman that was better trained, older, and far more deadly.

Viviana did not stop, did not not look, did not offer even a single flicker of her odd eyes.

It was almost as though Livia hadn't said anything at all.

The Rogue Dreadlord stepped passed her two Loyalist counterparts as though they were lingering street urchins. Things so far beneath her notice that they were hardly worth paying any attention to at all. The only acknowledgement of their existence the pain lancing up Cenric's leg.

"Such a bitch." He murmured, still leaning against the wall and shifting his foot. "I swear she used to be nice."

Though that had been more than a decade ago now. "Well done, we survived the first encounter."

He grimaced, looking down at his leg.
 
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"What was the point of all that?" Livia grumbled, now moving to help Cenric lean onto her so that she could help him across to their lodgings. "I feel as if we were mice being played by a cat."

The darkness was here now, blanketing the city and soon to conquer the skies.

Viviana may even keep tabs on them for hours, striking when it was the darkest hour before dawn.


"Let us return to our rooms and leave this place. It is best we throw her off our scents, no?" Livia asked, concentrating on helping her companion move. "Or, we wait until sunrise and... see what our spoils have brought us."

At that moment, her magic did not tell her a new location. It seemed dormant, as if it were still deciding on where to point. Could it be that this was the artifact? They needed a moment, safety and privacy, and figure out how to open the box that encased what she believed to be the artifact within.
 
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"That was the point." Cenric explained, though in truth he was only guessing at Viviana's motives.

The woman was, infuriatingly, intelligent. Not only that, but she was powerful and knew it. Her magics were more than a match for most, and actually killing her was near impossible. Facts which Viviana herself knew well. This was a game to her.

It was fun.

"Home for now." He said through gritted teeth as they once again began to set off. "Tomorrow we take the curator and get the other piece."

They would have to move fast. Take the man in the morning and then get back onto the ship before night was even beginning to fall. Another confrontation with Viviana would not end so kindly. It would be better to avoid it entirely.

Quickly the pair moved through the city, small lamp-lights guiding their path until they once again entered The Sister's Blessing. Once there, Cenric threw himself into one of the large chairs, his fingers quickly moving to unlace his boot. "I'm fairly certain she could have killed me back there, but she always did like Ein."

The Dreadlord commented, quickly removing his boot and sock to reveal lines of abyssal black drawing across his skin.
 
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Livia's brows did not let up their furrowing, even once they were back to their lodgings. She looked to Cenric's foot as he carefully pried the boot and sock off, and what she saw was worse than any sprain or wound. The stains of Viviana's magic alarmed Livia. She took a few steps forwards and winced. "They look as if they are constricting..." Wound all around his foot and ankle, the skin looked angry and swelling from the disturbed circulation of blood.

"Any of your bodies know how to heal this?" She asked hopefully, but her face was braced for a negative.

Livia was so new to her corruption magic, she had no way of knowing if she were capable of corrupting the flow of a spell's work being done, or even...

She let out a deep exhale,
"Because we cannot go on tomorrow if your foot is looking like that."

Should... she go alone?
 
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"Not any that are close." He commented dryly, inspecting the wound with no small amount of concern. Viviana's magic was...strange to say the least, the black streaking lines embedded in his skin both biting and constricting. Digging in further, but not spreading as he had thought they would.

It did not take him long to realize why.

Viviana didn't want it to. "Getting rid of it might not be the best play anyway."

Gently, with his fingers, he prodded at the black lines. Wincing slightly, though less so as he passed his touch to where the abyssal lines were more dug into his skin.

"She'll use this to track us." He told Livia. "But it may also be a good way to draw her into a trap."

Doubtless Viviana had not forgotten his own magic, but she'd never much given credence to it either. Ein's body was the only one he had here, but that didn't mean he couldn't take more. "You'll have to fetch someone, or several someone's."

Cenric said with a frown.

"Preferably someone strong, or with magic." Though the latter would be rather difficult to find in this city.
 
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"Well, fuck..." She sighed.

It was one thing for Livia to be the tracker, but for the tables to turn and now they were being tracked? She felt useless all over again. It had been spoken as a hypothetical that perhaps with more training and learning of her magic, Livia could potentially block any sort of traceable elements.

Viviana was stronger. It cut Livia like a knife through the ribs, twisting the more she learned of their pursuer.


"Magic?" She piped up, looking a little hopeful. "I... I can certainly try to track someone down with magic." In fact, magical traces were the easiest to get a 'scent' of to follow. Then her eyes fell to his predicament once again. "I will wait until sunrise. You should rest up as much as you can or... finish plotting our escape from here."

Liv gave him a grim smile. She lifted her satchel over her head and opened it on a low table nearby. Disabling the ward she used to conceal it, she lifted the puzzle box out. There was a sense of relief that it was there, in her hands. "I do not know if I should be worried I no longer feel the artifact... or perhaps I have found it, and my magic no longer needs to guide us..."
 
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Cenric shrugged. "We know where this is, we know where it's other piece is."

He had no idea how Livia's magic functioned beyond what he had read in her dossier, but it made sense to him that there wouldn't be any more pull.

"This is probably it, or it's inside of this thing." Cenric nudged the puzzle box. "The other ones weren't exactly any more remarkable."

A chalice, a needle, and the third something Gilram hadn't shown to anyone. The puzzle box likely contained whatever it was they were looking for. Now they just had to open the damned thing and get themselves off of Tel'Ketos.

The latter of which presenting the larger challenge. "Once we get it open, we just have to get you back."

Simple enough, the Ship could take her directly to Vel Luin. From there an entire unit of BlackGuard could protect the Artifact. Then at least the bargain would be done and Gilram wouldn't care. They just had to slip past Viviana.
 
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"The man said this puzzle box matched another in the museum... convinced they were a set." She turned it over and over, inspecting it, but there was something missing in one part. "Right. Find someone for you to... make part of your catalogue of bodies, and then perhaps steal the matching puzzle box. Maybe we can use that missing piece that is on the other box to open this one?"

Liv exhaled, looking to Cenric with a hard expression.

"I can go home soon?"
This felt all too easy. She was an Initiate of the Dreadlord Academy, and already she knew not to trust anything no matter how concrete the path was paved. "After this, there is nothing more I am to do for the artifacts?"

Perhaps she enjoyed this mission. To be of use when for years she felt she was unremarkable. Being chosen to do all of this had made Livia fill the void of importance, to demonstrate just how much she could do.

Then, she was reminded of the night. The candle light in their room flickered, and Livia unwillingly jumped. She half expected Viviana to appear from the very shadows cast from the small flames about the room.
 
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He watched the girl jump, his lips pressing to a thin line as the shutter of fear flickered through her form. Not able to blame her, Cenric tiled his head in a nod. He was almost positive that the other piece was in the museum, and once they had that opening this box would be a cinch. Then it was just a matter of taking what was inside back home.

Something that Livia seemed to almost lament before her small sscare.

"Well, saying you can go home soon would imply that you'll make it there." Cenric didn't bother to sugar coat things.

"We probably won't kill Viviana." Even if Livia somehow found him a mage of great power, he doubted that they could manage it. The woman had graduated as a First Level, and before the Revolution had been well on her way to gaining the title of Archon. "Meaning she will tell Gilram and the others we have the artifact if she hasn't already."

Meaning the trip back to Vel Anir wouldn't be half as easy or simple as their Trek here had been.

He smiled wide. "Fear not, your adventures not even half over yet. Knowing our luck we'll end up having to go the long way."
 
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Livia moved to fall into another seat.

She leaned right back into it, eyes closed as she took a deep inhale through her nose and exhaled shakily through her mouth.


"What she did to you was merely play. Who is to say what else she has in store for us?"

With a heavy sigh, Livia opened her eyes and stared ahead. Her hands held the puzzle box, slowly looking down on her lap to where it stared up at her and the missing piece so obvious now. "Why does she want me?"

Viviana had said those words, but it had not filled her with a sense of duty as Erodin and Amelie's conditions of giving over information.

Give me the girl, and whatever you picked up at that cute little cottage, and I'll let you walk free. Liv had felt genuine fear when she had said those words. She had to hide it then, but now? Every thing was beginning to feel impossible.
"What use am I to..."

To him.
 
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"I do not think she'd kill me, not while I'm in Ein's body anyway." He frowned at the memories that briefly flickered through his head, lips thinning as those days at the Academy crossed his sight.

"And you..." He mused. "Someone who can find anything you want is greater than any map."

"But, I wouldn't worry about Gilram."
There was an immutable truth to the man, one that he was sure the Republic had tried to deny as much as possible. Whatever anyone else said, the Guard, Parliament, even Erodin and Amelie; Gilram wouldn't have killed Liv.

Not until she made her choice anyway.

At his very core, The Archon was a Dreadlord. He did not see Livia as an enemy, he saw her as a victim. A pawn brought up by a family and nation that deceived her. In all this, even now, the danger here was being brought by Viviana.

Not the man she called her leader. "Right now we have to focus on Viviana. She wants you because you're the way to the Artifact."

Right now that was what they needed to focus on.
 
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"And what am I to do? Hide?" She snorted, but it was clear from her voice it was a sarcastic jest. The Initiate sighed, thinking on their situation.

She was quiet, her magic lending to clearing her mind and being able to see the plan ahead.
"We will need to wait until it is light out. She will expect us to stay in, perhaps toy with us... because the moment I step out into that darkness..." Livia would definitely be taken away until her uses were needed. Her own life may be at risk, and that was something she never wanted to experience, nor be responsible for her live being in danger would mean for Erodin. However brief her time was with him, he and Amelie had earned her respect and gratitude.

"You are right, I may not be strong or useful on the battlefield, but what I am able to do is most valuable. For so long I wanted to be useful, to be acknowledged of being so... and I guess it might be more than I bargained it to be."


Livia stood, leaving the puzzle box behind on her vacated seat. "We wait for dawn, I will go to the museum, bring them here to you... but I suppose I should try to get some sleep."
 
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A shrug rolled over his shoulder.

"There's no shame in hiding." Cenric pointed out. Nodding his head at her general plan. Going out in the dark was likely to get her killed, and they needed rest anyway. Their journey so far hadn't exactly been easy. "Proctors are fools, the battlefield doesn't matter."

He told her, reinforcing her own words. "Most armies have already won or lost by the time they arrive, they just don't know it."

That was the value of information.

"Wars aren't decided by battles, Liv, as much as our big strong peers might like to argue they are." Cenric peered around the room for a moment, searching to see if there was a bottle of wine or something of similar sort. "Knowledge is what wins the day, each and every time. The knowledge of where to place your army, or where your enemy keeps his camp, or even where your enemy leader sleeps."

He shrugged his shoulders again as she left her puzzle. Not admonishing her, but almost as though reinforcing his own point. "Gilram knows that, always has./color]

The man wasn't an Archon for no reason.

"It's why he plucked at the grade above yours." Cenric rolled his head towards Liv, giving her pleasant thoughts to mull on over the evening. "Why he'll keep plucking."

One thing could be said for the man, he had an idea for talent.
 
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"Why he'll keep plucking."

Livia watched him search, and the longer he did so, her magic tugged her to a cabinet found in the shared seating area. From it, she produced a bottle of wine, clinking against other bottles as she held it aloft and crossed the room to hand it to him.
"I do not think he would have interest in anyone of my class." A foolish thought, but what more could someone like her say on the matter? There was no way she could be convinced to leave the Republic, nor truly believe in her own worth as a Dreadlord.

And yet she lingered in the room, pensive across her expression.

But if knowledge where that important... Livia was skilled in that, even finding it. An enemy's camp could be so easily glimpse if she were to scry, or perhaps lead an army straight to it.


"Oh, gods..."


The thought was rancid upon her tongue, as if she had spoken it and not popped into her mind.

That was why Livia would be useful. To any side that wished to fight. That was why the Vigilite truly wanted to meet with her. Is that not what she had wanted? To be useful?


"I... I am going to bed." Livia did not meet his gaze as she made to move to the hall, her door left open with light spilling out into the hall.
 
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Cenric offered her a grateful smile as she handed him the bottle of wine, a knife produced from somewhere on his person stabbing into the cork seconds later. Distracted momentarily from Livia's reaction as he fumbled to open the bottle.

As she made her exclamation, the Dreadlord looked up.

For a brief moment, something like pity crossed his face, though the expression did not linger long. "Think of it this way."

Cenric said after she declared that she was going to bed, calling as she moved down the still lit hall. "Now you know everyone is plotting, you can make your own plots."

A laugh echoed from his lips as he brought the bottle to them. Head shaking with bitter amusement as he dulled the pain echoing through his leg. Briefly his eyes flickered down towards the the appendage, watching the dreaded black scrawl across his flesh.

"I'll fix it." Cenric said to himself as he took another sip. "Don't worry Ein."

He continued softly, staring at his reflection in the bottle. "I'll fix it."
 
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Morning had felt more than two nights before that sun rose. She had waited until it washed Tel'Ketos, leaving no room for shadow to ruin her plans she would put into motion in the next hour.

Livia had been in the kitchen, putting together slices of bread, eggs, and bacon on two plates before turning back to the pan and cracking another two eggs into the heated oil. She had learned how to navigate a kitchen because of Houri, learned what meals were best to break their fast from Thraah, and Liv had watched many Dreadlords on mission cook their meals for them. By the mess and chaos she had created, it was clear she did not grow up cooking, that as a minor noble house, the Quinnicks still had plenty of coin to run a full staff on their estate.

She sat down at the table, pulling her plate towards her once she had finished frying the eggs. The quiet morning now deafened her ears, and she thought about calling to Cenric to join her, but was afraid to see his face so soon on this day.

Get to the museum, bring back someone to become a vessel...

Stay away from the shadows.
 
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He should have cut off the leg.

Pain was wracking through him at an unprecedented rate. Lancing through him at every breath he took. The corruption had not spread, but instead taken complete root. Even if they cut the bitches throat it would take days to dissipate.

She had wanted him to hurt for doing to Ein. "Can't blame you, Sweetheart."

Cenric said to himself, hearing the clatter of Livia moving around as he drew himself upright om the couch. He caught sight of her already sitting at the table, glanced around for a moment and then spotted what he was searching for.

Not everyone needed magic to find a bottle of wine.

"Think you know what you have to do today." Cenric said, hobbling over to take a seat opposite, Livia. "At this point, I'd ask you lure the maid in here."

Then at least he could do more than drag himself places.
 
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Livia lifted her gaze, her head not moving to meet Cenric's. Olivine eyes merely stared at him as he spoke, but Liv had been preparing herself to set out those doors alone but the idea of Cenric taking up the body of a maid only humoured her.

"That can be arranged." She quirked a brow, smirking slightly as she took a quick moment away from the table to cross to the front door and flipped the signage that hung from the door handle. A request for services, and Livia blinked at the brightness the sign gave off. As she returned to her seat, and began to pick at her food. "That plate is for you, by the way."

A slice of bread, bacon, and two eggs. It would pair perfectly with his morning drink.

"I have been scrying for someone with magic in hopes something will snare once I make it to the museum." She stated, using the fork to break the orange yolk on her fried egg. Stabbing a cut piece of bacon, she dipped it into the runny yolk and ate it. After chewing and swallowing, she sat up straight and met his gaze again. "Can you even leave that body with what that bitch did to your leg?"