Fable - Ask From The Ashes

Azrakar would have been dissapointed if her drow had fought in her stead.

Vyx'aria hadn't exactly stolen his power, but something of his essence had been taken by their trap and remolded for her to use. Perhaps a boon from their goddess.

He remained ambivalent to whether their gods existed or it was just a proxy for describing which houses waned and waxes as the power games played out. Perhaps it made them feel better about eliminating a house that had fallen from favour.

Magical orbs flew overhead and a wall of acid rose to separate combatants.

He shielded his eyes from the burst of light and tried to watch the fight play out.

Its master did not call it back.

Jumping back to avoid its desperate swing of claws even as gravity crushed at its skull from multiple angles, Xunari let out a soft and quiet sigh.

And clicked her fingers, flaring her magic as she overloaded the runes with power.

A sickening sound would follow, a crunching sound that quickly tapered off into a wet-sounding squelch as the sabertooth's skull was compressed from multiple angles into a mess of condensed flesh in a rough approximation of a sphere. The force behind its last, desperate, attempt at a strike had the now-dead body come to a halt near Xunari's feet.

Some of the creature's blood got on Xunari, splashing down her front, but she found herself not really bothered by the blood so much as the death itself. Stepping back and away from the ongoing fights, Xunari would watch as the other fights gathered momentum, cursing in several languages at the bright blast of sunlight from Theceran.

Only her time on the actual surface, under the actual sun, helped her with some knowledge of what to do. Immediately she began blinking rapidly as she shaded her eyes, looking to adjust her vision.

It was enough that by the time her vision was usable again, injuries had been taken on both sides. Scowling, Xunari began to once again trace runes, this time using her right foot, dipped in the sabertooth's blood and viscera as she smeared it in complex patterns on the ground in front of her, runes of earth-shaping.

She might not be willing to intercede on behalf of her queen, yet, but she would be damned if she was caught lacking when more shenanigans were pulled.

Theceran tried stepping back cleanly to gain the distance he needed. Yet, the quick reaction of his foe garnered the burning sensation of a slice along flesh. A couple slashes were bleeding from his torso as he stumble back, then the kinetic force slammed into him.

He went back a few feet from the telekinetic blast, skidding along the paved surface. He was now out of daggers, guess he had to show off his fire magic. His hand swept in a shape along the ground and flames speared up, encircling him, Slaine Aylwin and Vyx'aria from the rest of the group. He slowly deepened them, making the wall of fire thicker.

Flaming orbs came to his hands as he eyed the two dueling, Pyromancy wasn’t known for its precision. He’d have to get an opening to be able to aid Slaine Aylwin

Zathria At'Arel Slaine Aylwin Vyx'aria Xunari Auceus

The swords were like an extension of Zathria's arms, every twitch and movement of them was drilled into her mind on a dozen battlefields. She felt her blades bite into flesh and heard the sound of him skidding back and with her vision clearing enough to make out shapes, she lunged forward again.

She was quick and had always relied on speed and agility over brute force. It was probably the main reason she managed to clear the wall of fire just before he finished casting it into place.

Even so, she didn't make it through entirely unscathed as flames licked at the back of her leather armor and she could feel the scalding even through her clothes. She cried out in pain but didn't stop, exploiting the distraction of the pyromaniac on his spell to thrust out with her right hand and likely manage a stab through the torso that should put him out of the fight even if it didn't kill him. With his focus on the spell and the expectation that he would be unimpeded in a 2v1, it was unlikely he would manage to evade or defend the blow in time.

Theceran Slaine Aylwin Vyx'aria

Flames rolled to life in the arena around them, coating the duelists in the bright glow of orange fire. Ribs cracked. A blade clattered to the ground. But it wasn’t enough - coated in deadly magics, a single strike from Vyx’aria’s blade would be enough to end the duel.

And her blade found purchase.

Dragged by Vyx'aria's powerful grip, Slaine was forced to adjust, moving what she could control of her spear to intercept her poisoned sword as it came it.

It wasn't enough.

Vyx'aria's enchanted sword cleaved through the shaft of the glaive like a knife through warm spiderbutter, splitting Slaine's weapon in twain. Both ends of the weapon fell to the ground, hissing like venomous serpents from the acid that consumed them.

Slaine was barely able to avoid the worst of the attack. But, still, it wasn't enough. The poisoned blade bit through her shoulder plate and into her violet skinned tricep, the wound disintegrating and cauterizing at the acid's bite.

She cried out, a deep bellow, as her body tensed against the acid that devoured her skin.

She fell to one knee before Vyx'aria, like a commoner come to beg before an uncaring god. The pain consumed her every thought - she was in no position to bargain, or even to beg for mercy.

No, all she could feel was the pain; all she could see was the flame-wrapped form of Vyx'aria, stood aloft like the goddess of war. And now, House Aylin would fall like countless minor Drow houses before it: Powerlessly, adrift in the wind.

The duel was over; to Vyx'aria went the spoils.

Vyx'aria

The light blinded him like all his fellow drow, even from his high perch. As white light engulfed his vision, Nimruil snarled in frustration. Less from his impeded sight, and more from it what it exposed of his own development.

He had worked for centuries to undermine the power of the sun. Centuries. And this blatant display reminded him that he still suffered the same weakness as his kin. That his grand work had hardly yielded any results thus far.

It filled him with deep, seething rage.

Furiously rubbing his eyes to regain his sight, by the time he could see again, a terrible vision presented itself.


While they had fought, a cohort of distant priestesses now hovered above his wall of acid in ominous unison. A chanted chorus sprung from their throats, their hands weaving together a complex and obscure pattern of purple magic; like amethysts transformed into gaseous wreaths, reflecting a ribcage of forming arcana; spreading like the wings of a giant, horrific butterfly.

Eldritch writing seared into the flagstones before Vyx'aria. That writing spat out a column of purple and crimson ribbons, wrapping around one another to form a gargantuan chrysalis, near matching the height and size of the statue of Maelzafan. Indeed, the eyes of the goddess watched on impassively as a creation born from Her magic and the powers beyond Pandemonium unveiled a fusion that should never have been.

Magic gained flesh. Words acquired form. The chrysalis turned fleshy and pale, leeched of colour except for a few exposed lungs and crimson organs; leathery, moist and dripping with viscuous fluids. Then, it unfurled in a grand spectacle of wings, showing a set of eight, bone-white appendages knit together, separated by gnarly tendons. The inside of the wings looked like a cosmos in their own right, glittering, living swirl of phantasmagoria, staring back at its victims with thousands of eyes and patterns. Eight arms curled out, twitching, flexing, anticipating, preparing to grasp and tear into tender flesh and rich bone. Crimson lights glowed like ovens from its chest and maw, fuming the same purple-and-red smoke from the priestesses before, spewing cloying heat that strangled the very air of those nearby. A smell like rotting, burnt bones penetrated the square; a sickening and wrong presence, even in the heart of Zar'Ahal.

Nimruil stared at the thing, for a moment caught between primal horror and eerie fascination. It looked . . . it looked like a giant moth; but unlike any such creature he had ever seen. Its humanoid angularity and measured movement hinted at a dangerous intelligence behind its giant size. Its wings, he could quickly gauge, sought to ensnare the eyes and the mind, weaving a hypnotic pattern much akin to that of an umber hulk. He quickly averted his gaze, and droned a spell of his own, pressing his back behind the stony head of Maelzafan. Sparks of blue lightning and particles of ice evoked between his hands; a storm and a blizzard condensing and concentrating into one ball of volatile energy.

Beksesha walked forward upon hearing the expected youthful scream of defeat. The acid and fire before her snuffed themselves from her path. She approached Vyx’aria, wrinkling her nose distastefully at the bloody tongue prominently clutched in the queen’s hand. Her voice, clear but unforced, broke the silence.

“Maelzafan’s most favored daughter has returned to Zar’Ahal in victory. Beksesha, Ilharess Suulet’jabar, stands ready to once again serve you, Valsharess.”

She bowed to Vyx’aria with a graceful flourish, then turned to face the phalanx behind her. She awaited the certain clamor, a haughty sneer tugging the corners of her thin lips, eyes calm yet cold. Maelzafan’s fell aura washed over her anew, as she prepared to unleash her goddess’s wrath upon the first to contradict her proclamation.

Hearing the crackle in the floor behind her, she turned back to face the forming demon. Uncertainty flashed across her eyes - was the goddess supporting another challenge? Her side was chosen, though. Events would now play out how the goddess willed. Her cruel whims were ever fickle.

Meanwhile, in the grand temple of Maelzafan, Vyx’aria’s declaration and acts were the words on every drow’s lips.

The priesthood was fracturing. Debates over Vyx’aria’s right to rule were heated and turning to bloodshed at the drop of a pin. Few corners were spared this chaos, save for one chamber that all knew not to enter unannounced.

“…And those were the words Vyx’aria Tor’Rahel spoke as she stood victorious before the masses, high priestess.”

A young drow dressed in the plain robes of a junior priestess kneeled in silence before a tall thin curtain. She had just finished recounting the events that had just transpired at the obsidian square.

The young priestess did not raise her head though she knew that beyond the curtain was a figure only viewable in silhouette. Gazing intently, filling out the large chamber with its tremendous scale.

“How unlike this age…”. The silhouette mused. “For a new queen to proclaim her ascension in public drenched in enemy blood, and not behind closed doors with the sound of whispers and the administering of poisons.”

The figure shifted, tapping something sharp and heavy against stone. As she heard this, the young priestess shuttered but stayed kneeling and silent.

“Yes. I do like the sound of that very much. The squabbling of house does in many ways please our dark mother, but perhaps there has been too much for too long. In fact—”

— the door to the chamber shot open as several priestesses with blood stained robes hurried in before the curtain.

“High priestess Hebemarri!” One of the women shouted. “You must join the other high priestesses in denouncing this traitor who now claims the throne! Were you not the one who taught us that the onyx throne was founded on the dark mother’s will. A will that you always said was absolute. You must—”

The young kneeling priestess heard her holy sister stop talking suddenly, followed shortly by the sounds of many wet objects tumbling to the ground.

“In fact…” Hebemarri continued. “The only part of this that I take umbrage with is this belief that the ‘old ways’ are what is being thrown out. As it seems that I alone recall when the ‘old ways’ were the words of bloodshed and glory that gave us this empire. But what do you think, my child?”

The young priestess flinched. She kept her kneeling pose as she felt a warm liquid spread to her feet and to her knees, while the scent of iron slowly overpowered the smell of wildflowers that always filled this chamber.

“I think nothing, high priestess.” She replied “It is not yet my place”

“Well said, my child. But take heed to yet listen well. So that when your time and place does come, you do not think foolishly.”

Beksesha's eyes sought now her brother. He would be alit at a point of high vantage... there. Given celerity by her malice toward the matrons who had taken this foolish action contrary to her proclamation, her whispered command magically sped from her lips to Nimruil's ear:

Vallabha-dalninuk, we shall now punish the summoners of this aberration. The idiot scions of Ilharess Tuin'Znar who dared to accost and injure you in the street? Now they cower, mother and daughters together, huddled there behind the far corner of your acid wall. I shall relish witnessing all the deranged excesses of your arcane imagination in taking your revenge...

The venerable matron then turned back to her ranks, to the vigilant eyes of her second-daughter. Her braceleted hands flew briskly: <<Send forward a healer: any will do. Turn spears and spells now against House Tuin'Znar. Maelzafan wills it.>>

A young battlemage darted forward through the gap Beksesha had made. She nodded him curtly toward the broken young warrior half drowning in the blood dribbling steadily from her mouth and signed to him: <<Stop her bleeding. Do not restore what she has lost.>>

Then, as dozens of spears swung sidelong followed by a barrage of hold spells, silence spells, and faerie fire, her gaze turned back to the corner she had indicated, curiously anticipating the delightful hellscape her brother was undoubtedly just about to create.

Slaine Aylwin
Nimruil

Oh.

Well... that was unsettling to say the least.

Deadened as some of her emotions had been since the grey thoughts had invaded her mind after her mother's death, even she wasn't able to fully look upon the creature being summoned with calm and poise. Still, she could pretend very well indeed and she could work through said horror and gnawing dread pooling in her gut like a lead weight.

Her foot never stopped moving, runes taking shape and granting her power over the ground beneath her feet within a couple dozen feet. Chunks of rock and stone rose as she stomped her foot, each the size of a fully-grown Drow. A trio of them formed into floating shields that she sent hurtling at the creature, directing them with both hands to slam into arms to knock them off course.

To break open its guard and redirect its own counter attacks as her Queen launched her assault.

At the same time she was moving, trying to avoid being targeted for retaliation while keeping an eye-line on her own shields/weapons.

Her consciousness faded when the searing blade cut her tongue. Before she fell unconscious, she gave a single wave to Theceran: Stand down. This would not be a genocide. It was all she could muster before the pain seared her eyes shut.

Moments later, she was awoken by the gauntleted fist of a battlemage healer. She was...alive? Distantly, as if on another plane, she heard the words of the would-be Queen. She shed blood in the old way. That earns her life.

Life? Not just her own life - the life of her clan. Her arms and legs were uninjured. She went to speak, and her mouth caught only air. She nearly choked on her own blood, spitting it cleanly out.

Clan Aylwin had lost. But this would not be their end. Even in failure, she would prove valuable to her new Queen.

In the chaos of the appearing demon, Slaine only just overheard the Queen's commands. Find the summoners. Bring their bones.

Slaine slowly rose to her feet - unsteady. From the ground, she grabbed the broken blade of her glaive. And then, she disappeared into the shadows - the heir of Aylwin preparing for another hunt, under the guidance of the Drow's new Empress.

Vyx'aria

The battle came to an end as Vyx'aria cast the tongue of the challenger at The Can, ending her fight as well as the Queen's. Her hands gripped tighter around the hilt of her sword as she slipped them away into their shared scabbard. Her vision was clear and it was all she could do not to punch The Can in the face, but her Queen had called the fight at an end, and that was that.

She reached down to her belt and pulled free an elixir before downing it in a single, foul-tasting and bitter gulp, the sensation of burning in her back beginning to diminish as the healing magics took their hold.

That was when she spotted her: the face of her sister that she hadn't seen now in decades. Hovering with the other traitor matrons and as soon as she saw it, her blood ran cold. Quiet, silent rage that uncharacteristically for her, suddenly saw nothing but red.

Her feet began to move without even thinking, cutting unseen under the hovering threat. A barrage of artillery magic spells was unleashed by Nimruil and Beksesha Suulet’jabar, more spells from the matriarchs returning to slam into the mages of the Third House.

Amidst the chaos, Zathria made her move. She saw her sister, wounded and struck by a spell, her leg scorched and twisted at a bizzarre, broken angle, the bone sticking free as she tried to limp away.

Zathria pounced on her, throwing the entirety of her body into her sister and knocking her to the street. The sounds of the screams and dying around her suddenly melted away, the scent of burning flesh in the air was a distant memory because there was only she and her sister.

TRAITOR! she screamed, her voice cracking as she said the word. She grabbed her sister's head down against the stone with a thud over and over.

YOU BETRAYED ME. BETRAYED OUR MOTHER. OUR FAMILY. I TRUSTED YOU! she said, tears streaming down her face freely.

I... trusted you, she said, the words almost choked out now. You are... unfit... she said, sniffing and blinking her eyes clear. The blow to the head had dazed her sister, too frazzled to really know what was happening or to cast a spell of her own.

Zath... she whispered from beyond bleeding lips. I did it... for our family, she muttered.

All the memories came flooding back. The revelation that her own sister had turned against her. That she had murdered their mother and seized the House, backing the traitor Queen against Vyx'aria. Driving Zathria from her home and betraying everything they had been growing up.

But she remembered the days before that, too. The days when they were growing up. it would be a lie to say that they had been close or even friends, but she had loved her sister. She remembered the days when they had snuck away from their home to soak in the hot springs. The times they had snuck the "clairvoyant" mushrooms from mother's room to eat them together.

Never again.

The tears were flowing in rivers down her face now.

Lead us... to greatness, she whispered as Zathria drew the knife from her belt.

For At'Arel, she choked, slipping the knife into her sister's gut and through diaphragm and heart. A final few gasped breaths and it was done.

Her sister was dead. The blemish was cleaned. Zathria was the Matriarch of House At'Arel. Long live the Matriarch.

Vyx'aria Theceran

His sister's voice entered his skull like needles smoothly sinking into a pincushion; piercing and from all directions at once. Indeed, he had not forgotten the injury or insult inflicted to him by Tuin'Znar. He acknowledged her reminder simply.

I shall relish it too, malla dalninil.

Arcs of lightning, laced with cold energy, seared through the air like blue scars. Heat and cold, impossibly entwined. A deafening thunderclap followed a split second after the blinding glare, cutting through the creature and hovering priestesses behind.

Up here, he could unleash elemental wrath without striking those below.

The demon, whatever it was, had closed its wings around itself like a shield. Rocks and shadow spear tore into its outer shell, injuries that already re-knitted themselves, while lightning and cold swatted off its shell with minimal effect. Spears and bolts sunk into it, faerie coated the square in glowing pixie dust, adding a brilliant sheen to its shell and strange silence swallowed the whole onslought.

They might as well have thrown grains of rice at it.

But the lightning travelled through it and struck some of the priestesses behind. Most were quick enough to shield themselves. Some weren't.

One priestess raised a small object in her hand -- a rod. And the creature's wings unfurled violently, throwing back any before it. His eyes widened. And he remembered. He had helped craft this rod. An idea hastily formed in his mind.

He caught sight of his sister and Vyx'aria, pointing towards it, bellowing:

"The priestess with the rod controls it! If we claim it, we may use it against them!"

He didn't manage to utter more. Not before the creature charged. Prismatic wings enclosed his world like great, colourful coffin lids. Those on the ground? It sought to trample, stomp, crush and grasp with its lower arms. The rest of its massive body barreled into the statue of Maelzafan, reaching for the irritating mage flinging spells at it.

Nimruil leapt back from the statue and concentrated, employing his natural levitation to drift down to the square on the other side. Maelzafan's stony statue took the brunt of the assault.

His robes fluttered and billowed around him, like a butterfly having forgotten how to use its wings. When his feet touched flagstone, a resounding crack roared -- and Maelzafan's statue tumbled aside like a rockslide, torn by the demonic titan. A great cloud of dust, mixed with faerie fire, engulfed square.

He exposed his teeth in a silent snarl, anticipating the monster shooting out from that spraying carnage of dust and rock. His acid spells served little purpose now; so he summoned his three foci back, the split simulcra of his mind that allowed him to concentrate on multiple spells at once. They shot through the chaos like wisps, allowing him glimpses of the battlefield. He let the wall of acid collapse like a wave, in the direction of the earthbound regiment.

Distant screams and cries of pain reached him from here. His snarl turned into a cruel smile, and his foci hovered around him in rapid, circular patterns, mirroring his own twisted excitement and fear.

He hadn't been this fired up for ages.

Beksesha, he reached out through their psychic connection. This creature scorns the elements of our world. I doubt we could touch it with anything but Emril steel -- or an entirely new element, if I could study it and concoct such a substance. Neither time nor circumstance is on our side for such an endeavour.




A scattered, buzzing voice intruded upon their mental conversation. Nimruil's smile withered, and he clasped a hand to his scalp, gritting his teeth at its poisonous presence. It groped and tore at words like it ripped apart the material world; a child first learning how to play with its toys by shredding them.

He adored the carnage. He adored watching her meet the enemy in battle. Azrakar had bound himself to Vyx'aria. She had marked him as her own. Despite his feelings, he would not even look away as she faced the challenge head on.

He watched Vyx’aria command the fray. She was exalted, divine.

Then the creature emerged. An abomination born from his stolen essence. Azrakar was glamoured once more as the tall drow male, white hair unbound, crimson eyes half-lidded. But his eyes burned with rage.

A low growl rumbled in his chest. He could feel the tether: his fire woven into it. He was no longer chained. Not anymore. But it called. Pulled. Reminded him of his time in chains.

He moved closer, unseen for now, watching her rally her allies.

Beksesha filled herself full with Maelzafan’s wrath, then reached out towards the three dead Tuin’Znar daughters who had succumbed to her brother’s onslaught, channeling her own rage and righteousness into twisting their dead features, pulling out their fingernails into hooked claws, their smoking, blood-dripping mouths yanked into jagged, fang-filled maws, their once-jeweled eyes sinking into foul, hungry pits of blackness. The acrid stench of death permeated around them, overpowering a couple of their surviving sisters into retching violently on the ground.

Beksesha then pointed toward the first-daughter, and the trio of sister-ghouls leapt up, grabbing onto the levitating priestess’s legs and robes, gnashing, slashing, biting, and rending her lustfully. Her shrieks of agony pierced the chaotic din, as the rod fell to the ground. The three ghouls scrabbled now after the rest of their former sisters, who found to their terror that they were too close to get spells off.

Ilharess Phaeliss Tuin’Znar was just about to rebuke the closest ghoul-daughter when she saw the all-important rod kicked right into the acid wall with a hiss. She hurriedly wrapped her arms and head in her cloak, then dove after it, screaming in pain as she crawled through the merciless sheet of acid.

The demon wrenched this way and that, the nascent bond fading, turning his gaze toward the cluster of priestesses beyond the wall, the smoldering, hissing rod rolling toward his dark form, and the partially melting matron clambering desperately after it, the skin of her back nearly sloughing off.

Amidst the chaos of combat and a rightful coup, Zathria's pain and grief was shoved down deep into her heart, pressed aside as she reached down to close her sister's eyes and wipe the tears from her own. She had a duty to still perform, and she wouldn't allow even a beloved death to infringe upon her honor.

She heard her name ring out over the city, the voice of her Queen summoning her to take the gate, and she didn't hesitate. She drew one of her twin sabers and moved to the gate.

You! With me! she shouted at a squad of soldiers in Vyx'aria's markings who immediately fell into line at the command of the Rahi.

No one crosses this gate without my blessing, she said. Her eyes cut across to Slaine Aylwin, a woman she didn't trust to hold at her back. The scowl of contempt was unmistakable, but Zathria said nothing.

She didn't have time. A bolt of acid slapped the stone where Zathria had been standing only moments ago before she had pushed off with her right foot to avoid its spray.

Target! she shouted, bringing alert to the others who may not have seen it. It was one of the traitor matron priestesses, no doubt a powerful magic user in her own right and desperate. Desperate to escape here alive.

Vyx'aria Slaine Aylwin