Fable - Ask From The Ashes

[Azrakar]

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.

 

[Slaine Aylwin]

Theceran YOU FECKIN IDIOT! Is what she should have said, if she were not being thoroughly dissected by the Queen's acid blades. Her glaive's blade dissolved at contact with the acid, falling as if it were skin made necrotic by a viper's sting.

Theceran's antics were expected - he had insisted on using the concentrated power of the sun in the Underrealm since before she was born. It didn't make the sting of the light any less bright. However, the nova of the explosion happened behind her - lessening the impact of the light's sting upon her eyes.

She saw the blurred outline of the Queen reaction. Slaine retracted her halberd's blade, pulling it free from the acid blades. She choked up on the blade, gripping tight to send the glaive's butt swinging like a bat into Vyx'aria's now-exposed ribs. It was slowed by Theceran's attack, but this moment was Slaine's final, only opening.

Vyx'aria Theceran

 

[Vyx'aria]

The blow slammed into her ribs like a siege ram. Something cracked, but she made no sound save a guttural grunt that twisted between clenched teeth. One blade slipped from her grasp, clattering against the stone.

But Vyx’aria did not fall. Her fingers snapped around the glaive’s haft before it could withdraw, just above the blade’s ruined stump, and pulled.

With brutal precision and physical strength, she yanked Slaine toward her. Her remaining sword carved through the air, not in flourish, but in vengeance, driving straight for Slaine’s shoulder. A soldier’s strike. A butcher’s follow-through.

Slaine Aylwin

 

[Xunari Auceus]

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]

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

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

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

 

[Slaine Aylwin]

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

 

[Vyx'aria]

Flames began to coil around them. But there was a column open for others to see as Zathria had interjected.

Vyx’aria looked down upon Slaine Aylwin, kneeling, broken, her house’s pride dissolving into ash and blood beneath her gaze. For a long moment, she said nothing.

Her eyes were cold. “You sought to face me,” she said at last, her voice carrying effortlessly through the square. “For that, I will not kill you.”

Vyx’aria’s hand drifted to her belt. A slim dagger slid free, its edge catching the firelight like a sliver of night made sharp.

She stepped forward. There was no hesitation. No ceremony.

When she straightened, Slaine’s scream would be muffled by shock and blood. In her hand was Slaine’s severed tongue.

“You will never speak insolence in my presence again,” she said, her tone conversational, almost bored. “Nor will your house forget what happens when hunters mistake themselves for queens.”

She walked through the opening in the flames, indifferent to the chaos between Theceran and Zathria behind her.

She lifted her hand. In her fingers, a small, terrible trophy.

Her gaze found Theceran.

“Stand down.”

The words were soft. Final.

“Or I will feed this back to you and make you choke on every defiant syllable your sister thought she was entitled to.”

The firelight danced across her eyes.

The city did not breathe.

Slaine Aylwin
Theceran