Private Tales Havoc on the Isles of Cortosi

[Talus]

Talus pulled some of the rocks. "I thought I was supposed to pretend to be not good."

He said with a frown, shaking his head as he tried to think of a better distraction.

The work they did was harsh, moving stone and rock for what seemed like hours. Working together they managed to uncover three people, one of them dead and the two others injured in such a way that they would likely not be able to fight.

A success really.

Just a few hours later night was beginning to fall, torches had been lit in the Keep and cleanup from the explosion was still ongoing. Sierra and Talus sat on a small bench, a cup of watered down mulled wine in each of their hands as a reward for doing good work.

"More than we get back home." He commented quietly to his friend.

 

[Sierra]

Gray-blues flickered to Talus, his face cast in a strange flickering light of the torches. Her fingers were cut and bruised from moving all those rocks and debris. She had to be careful not to siphon off too many of the swirling emotions around camp. There was a lot of sadness and grief. Her shoulders curved downward, feeling the weight of those feelings.

She took a sip of the wine, grimacing and bringing the cup back down.

"Yeah," she agreed quietly, eyes looking back into the bustling night. Medical tents were already set-up. The reserve had a few healers who were tirelessly at work. It would be a long night. Sierra could already feel the ripples of fear and panic spreading into the surrounding villages.

It would only grow once she did her thing.

"You ever wondered what our life would've been like if we'd grown up somewhere else?"

 

[Talus]

Talus contemplated the quesiton quietly for a few moments, wondering if he should share with Sierra at all. There was still a lingering thought that he may have to kill her or one of the others in the end.

The Proctors were known to do things like that. "I did."

He said quietly, finally. If he had to kill her, then he would just have to kill her. There was no other way around it, nothing he could do. Whether he face Sierra, Hal, Luther, or any of the others. Talus was determined to survive.

Determined to make it out of the Academy.

"During that tournament." He admitted. "When we met those students from Elbion."

Talus grimaced. "That lot could have been us."

 

[Sierra]

"Could've been." Thoughts drifted to the half-orc she'd shot. Would she have been taken out so easily if she'd been raised by those...weaker?

Sierra wondered.

Unlike Talus, she didn't think about having to kill him. That thought was far from her mind, if ever there at all. That's where they were vastly different. She was a survivor. But she wouldn't sacrifice who she was to survive. Perhaps like Hal, she put more weight on these friendships. She didn't have family anymore and she counted these boys as her family.

Some would argue that made her weaker. And some would argue it made her stronger. It was who she was.

"After I work the magic, I'll be weak. Vulnerable. Can I count on you to get me back to our hideout?"

 

[Talus]

That he didn't even need to think about. "Of course."

For a brief moment after he remained silent, then something hit him. He remembered the conversation between the two cataphracts.

"I overheard something." He blurted out. "Between those Knights."

Lips thinned. "They plan to run when VelAnir gets here, along with most of the nobility."

It was cowardice, plain and simple.

"I think we can use that somehow." Though just how he wasn't sure quite yet.

 

[Sierra]

Head turned sharply in his direction.

Auburn brows went high along her dirt-streaked forehead. "I can't say I'm surprised." She took another sip of the spiced wine, letting it warm through her system. Hand swirled the remaining liquid in the cup, eyes turning downward.

"Do you think we could tell the Archon and get some extra credit or something?"

 

[Talus]

Talus let out a dry chuckle. ”Maybe.”

The truth of it was he had absolutely no idea. Had they more resources he would say they should get a printing press and make leaflets. Let the commoners know that they were to be abandoned.

But he doubted that was possible.

”We don’t even know if Crane is running all of this.” He said quietly, making sure not to get too heated. ”For all we know it’s one of the others.”

Still, it was a nice thought. Getting something extra out of this mission, some decent treatment for once in their lives.

 

[Sierra]

Lips pressed together. She hadn’t even mentioned Crane. She wondered if the man was on Talus’ mind as much as her own. They’d just killed Igot a few weeks ago. And framed another apprentice who’d been swiftly executed.

“Talus,” Sierra whispered, sure that no one was around to hear.

“Are you okay?”

 

[Talus]

It was a question that Talus was pretty sure no one had ever asked him over the course of his entire life. Kindness, caring, even looking out for someone else was a way to end up dead in their world. It was something they all knew, something that they all feared.

There were no friendships for Dreadlords like them, not really anyway. They could pretend and act all they wanted, but the truth of it was that they would all end up betraying each other.

Just like he'd betrayed Alloi. "No."

He said softly, gripping the cup a bit more tightly. His fingers began to strain, but he did not really notice it. The stress of the moment overbearing him just the slightest bit. Sierra would be able to feel pain in him, deep, broken pain.

"I don't think I am." Slowly the Apprentice pushed himself up and off the bench, beginning to walk away to cause her second distraction.

 

[Sierra]

And this was the reality of their situation. The empath could feel his pain. Brokenness. It mirrored her own. And if she wasn’t careful, she’d drown in it.

She finished off the wine. It left a bitter taste in her mouth as Talus walked away. Eyes watched his retreating form before pulling away to look at the side of the wall still intact.

What if she has to face Talus in the final challenge? Could she kill him?

Yes.

Would she want to kill him?

No.

Discarding her cup, she stood and lightly jogged to a set of outside stairs, taking them two at a time. Sticking to the shadows. She often thought the Academy wasn’t wise. Wasting so many potential recruits.

 

[Talus]

Talus did not want to think.

His mind was racing at a thousand miles a minute. Jumping from place to place. He had never wanted Alloi dead, had never wanted to hurt her, yet she'd left him little choice.

It was a small trist, a toe into caring about someone, a way to form a connection in a world where it was just about the most dangerous thing you could have. They'd both known it then, they both acknowledged it and even talked about it. The risks had been worth it, or so they had thought.

Both of them had been wrong.

One tiny crack, one fissure, and her hatred for him had become worse than anything. It was the agony of seeing something you could not have and letting it dangle before you day by day.

It was why she'd wanted to kill him.

Talus had known, he'd known before the tournament. The plan she'd hatched, the knife she'd retrieved. A simple glance into her journal had given her all the details. It was why he'd acted before she could, why he'd used the others to do his dirty work.

Two birds, one stone.

He tried not to think about it, tried not to wonder what could have been had he agreed to run with her, but his mind was plagued as he walked into the mess hall and opened his mouth. "YOU!"

Talus pointed at a man in black armor, one of the cataphracts.

"You're the one I saw!" He let his rage fall into the lie, hoping to sell it better as heads began to turn.

 

[Sierra]

Sierra perched atop the wall. The sea breeze was easily felt here. She crouched low in a small nook. The briny wind tore through her hair and against her face. Squatting, her hands pressed into the cement.

Eyes settled on the tiny pricks of fires through the surrounding village. Kids closed as she centered herself and slowly opened the door to her feelings. She felt Talus right away. His anger. His emotions were so strong they almost pulled her in. Threatening to drown her.

“No,” she breathed and pulled away.

Focus shifted to the village, weaving her magic through the masses. Taking in the students behind her as well. Head pounded as she began pushing her magic to the limits, releasing the stored up emotions she’d leeched from earlier.

Fear.

Anger.

Helplessness.

Surrender.

These people NEEDED Vel Anir. They NEEDED their protection. Give in.

Give up.

Blood began dripping down Sierra’s nose. Her body began to tremble. As quickly as she sent the emotions out, she felt them growing. Growing. An endless cycle she could become entrapped in.

Eating and dispensing.

Her outward wave only grew even as her body swayed. They were her puppets. She could make them cry. Grovel. Her power could take down entire kingdoms.

 

[Talus]

The man stood up from his seat almost immediately. A puzzle expression was already presented on his face, confusion about what was going on clear.

"What are you ta-"​

"Don't lie! I saw you!" Talus raised his voice loud enough to cut the man off before he could even speak. He knew that he was young, knew that his accusation had no merit. Yet he'd been there during the explosion and he knew something others did not. "Black armor! Black cloak! It was you!"

People began to gather around them now. "You did this on purpose! You're trying to sabotage the city so you can run away while the Anirian slaughter us!"

Technically it wasn't exactly like that, but part of the story was at least true.

He needed to convince the others all around them. Needed them To take the situation out of his hands and into their own. It was the only way that he could actually get out of this, and the only way that the distraction would be big enough for Sierra.

"Look kid I don't know what you're on abou-"​

"They're going to abandon us!" He cut the man off again. "Leave us to die!"

Rumblings began to run through the crowd.

 

[Sierra]

There were shouts down in the city below. People were scrambling. The chaos was growing. People were gathering things and fleeing. An angry mob started, marching toward the training center.

More blood dripped from her nose.

The power surging through her was like being intoxicated. Like a sweet, heady drug. She wanted more.

Those in with Talus would grab that man in black cloak and armor, demanding answers. A wild, unnatural look would form in their eyes. Those in the cities below were beginning to loot the shops. Fires were being set to buildings a Sierra only fed the chaos. The fear.

She wanted to control them all. Break them all.

She couldn't stop.

Even as the mage with the matching stormy eyes approached her on the wall.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP THIS MADNESS BEFORE I HAVE TO MAKE YOU!" He took a staggering step forward. Then another, before crumpling to his knees, tears falling down his cheeks. Sierra's empty gaze of rolled back white-eyes turned silently to the mage.

The grown man curled up into a ball, lost in the torrent of torture from Sierra. His screams echoed into the night.

 

[Talus]

Talus took slow, deliberate steps back as the crowd began to tear into the Cataphract.

A wall of raw fear and anger gripped those around him. They sank into it, embraced it without a second thought. Talus knew it for what it was, Sierra. This was her magic, Empathy. The full potential of it wrapped in a torrent of power.

Suddenly he felt very small.

His fingers tightened as he looked into the crowd, watching as they quite literally tore into the armored man and ripped him to pieces.

The Apprentice turned on his heel, fingers digging into his palms as he broke out into a sprint and rushed directly towards where he knew his friend was.

 

[Sierra]

"Please, please," the grown man whimpered as Sierra passively stared at him. She was draining him only to fill him up with what she wanted him to feel. Feed and drain. Feed and drain.

Like Hal with the ice-field, she lost control. She couldn't stop.

Like a cord snapping, the man suddenly stood, a blank look on his face and pitched himself over the wall. Blood started dripping from the other side of her nose. She didn't even know where she was anymore. Who she was. She was no one. She was everyone.

 

[Talus]

It was there and then that Talus appeared.

The distance between them had been closed faster than most would have thought possible. His own magic was nowhere near as powerful as Sierra's. Nowhere near as expansive of terrifying, but if there was one thing he could do it was move fast.

He'd dashed across the training yard, phase-walked through walls and bounded up the wall in a single leap.

As the mage jumped to his death Talus appeared behind Sierra. His form was ghostly, his entire body little more than a spirit as he rushed towards her.

One might have mistaken him for a ghost, a form not truly seen. He thought it was the only way he could approach her, the only way that her magic would not set into him as well. He phase-walked across the top of the wall, dashing and closing the distance between them with no air or wind to give him pause.

Then he returned to reality, his foot kicking him off the ground as he tackled Sierra to the ground in an attempt to snap her back into reality.

 

[Sierra]

She didn't feel it at first. How could she feel anything when she was feeling everything already? But Talus tackled her just right. Her head cracked against the stone flooring of the tower.

Pain. Physical pain frayed some of the tether that held her. Snap-snap-snap went the magic's grip on her. Went the headiness of drunken wine. The whites of her eyes slowly dissolved into something more like a fog, then like the blue sky as clouds slowly began to lift free.

She blinked, as if trying to come out of a daze. Trying to throw off the disorienting weight.

"Talus?" She whispered before everything went black and her eyes rolled back into her skull. The weight she'd been trying to claw free from settled across her chest, demanding a toll.

 

[Talus]

"Shit." Talus said as Sierra passed out and faded from consciousness.

For a brief second he stared at her, glancing around before looking back down at her. The Apprentice gave his friend a light slap in the face, then another. When she did not move save for a small twitch her let out another curse.

"Alright." He said to himself as he crawled to his feet and grasped her. "Guess I'll carry you."

With a slight grunt Talus pulled Sierra off the cobbles of the wall and onto his shoulder, dragging her up and hefting her weight.

She wasn't heavy, but getting her across the city wouldn't be easy.

Still, he'd made a promise, and if he left her behind...who knew what kind of Chaos could happen.

 

[Sierra]

She hung as limply as if he were carrying a sack of flour home from the baker’s. As he traveled the streets of the city below the walls, he would t have to worry about being stopped. He would have to worry about being trampled or mobbed. He’d see the chaos she started. People were fleeing. Fighting. Running around wildly. A group was already at the guards’ gates, trying to tear it down.

She and Talus would have to portal a message or send a carrier pigeon that now was the time for the Vel Anir army to strike. The city was ripe for the picking.

Sierra stirred lightly on Talus’ shoulder. Auburn hair hanging wildly beneath her. “Did you love her?” She breathed as part of a fevered stupor. She’d felt Talus’ emotions earlier. About Alloi. But it was hard to say how coherent the empath was at the moment.

 

[Talus]

Talus moved quickly, carrying Sierra in the best way he knew how.

Luckily, no one was paying them any attention anymore. Coraliv had all but fallen into utter chaos now, Sierra's magic having truly taken hold. They were just two more people in the chaos, nothing to pay attention to.

Nothing worth noting. They moved quickly, and as Talus turned a corner onto an abandoned street her felt Sierra stir. Her voice was quiet, but she still heard the whisper in his ear. "I don't know."

He said honestly.

"I don't even know what love is." Did any of them? Could they? It seemed impossible to say.

 

[Sierra]

"I think I knew what it was once," she murmured, then passed out again. Talus would find that their safe-house lay untouched save for a broken glass window from a rock. The armor they'd hidden still remained inside.

No looters yet.

Sierra would wake-up several hours later with a splitting headache. She'd find herself placed on the lower bunk, blanket thrown over her. Eyes cracked open. Fresh morning light was filtering through the curtains.

"Did it work?" Voice was raspy and worn.

 

[Talus]

"It did." Talus answered slowly, still looking out the window.

He'd positioned himself there hours ago, concerned that someone would either break in or try to go after them in some way. Surprisingly, no one ever came for them, no one even tried to make a single move down at the docks.

Instead it was all concentrated on the richer areas of the city. Riots of fear gripping those who had nothing left to give.

"I sent a pidgeon a few hours ago." He told Sierra quietly. "The Fleet will be here soon I think."

His stomach was in knots. "Rest. We'll have plenty of fighting ahead of us."

 

[Sierra]

Sierra turned on her side. She felt like she could sleep for days. Sleepy blue-grays looked at Talus from across the room, knowing it was no small thing he did. Knowing, it'd be just as easy for one of them to kill the other. There was a small cup of water on the bedside table.

She reached for it and took a sip, settling back down on the bed.

"Thank you for sticking to your promise."

Had he slept with Alloi? She wondered.