Open Chronicles Metal Thorn

[Gladfrond]

It was at the eastern edge of the Falwood. Amidst a field of lordly conflict. The blood spilled drank in by the soil, and the ancient trees bore witness.

Corpses laid strewn about. Crushed under foot. Left to drown in the mud. Armor had failed. Plate began to rust. Fine steel turned to pockmarked waste. Turned to rubbish.

One half of one man hung from a tree. His legs hung from another. Dangled in the air.

A round thing. A man and a half tall. Broad as a wagon. Its metal shell was bloated and jagged. It lingered there amidst the fresh ruin as fallen standard snapped in the wind. A glaive in its hand, its saw teeth formed from the broken blades of the fallen. A black mist, like sand turned to dust cloud, swirled about the metal thing, as the plates, hammers, and blades of the dead turned to new mass.

Holes where wizard's fire had slagged through slowly reformed. They were mended as iron sand poured across the point of failure. It stayed still. As blood dripped from the teeth of its cruel tool. The Iron Revenant stood before the smoldering corpse of the wizard, whose hand, charred to ash and cinders, still clutched toward its target. The last grains of sand fell into place, and the Revenant went on. West. Toward the Falwood.

So came the wisdom of the woods. Bright across the moonglow of Gladfrond's eyes.

 

[Nelianne Sundrose]

Amastacian wisdom held that no finer harvest could be reaped than from a fresh battlefield. When Nel stumbled across one while passing through the area, she simply had to stop and enjoy its bounty.

Fresh bodies were always a delight under her hands. Working their flesh and bones gave the same sort of satisfaction as pushing against a ripe peach and watching its skin peel smoothly away. Nel had no complaints about their quality. What was difficult was finding bodies without horrific wounds, crushed torsos, or missing limbs. Or missing a skull. While she could repair or reassemble what she wanted, with so much material on hand, it seemed silly to have to put in that kind of effort.

A stroke of luck graced her with two dead men at the edge of the trees, their ends made clean by way of arrows, one through an eye socket and the other through their throat. Nel made a prayer over them and tidied them up. In good time she had herself two brand new bone golems, clad loosely in their same armor and same swords they'd trusted in life.

If trouble came around, they would be her diversion. She hoped she wouldn't need a diversion, but something foul lurked deeper in the woods. She felt its draw as surely as it must have felt hers, one undead to another, almost magnetic in pull, tugging at her very mind. It was impossible to ignore. To try would be like closing her eyes and pretending the sun wasn't there.

The part of Nel that remained a good, responsible soldier muttered that she should follow after it, make sure it didn't push any more of the living to the other side. She did appreciate the current bumper crop, but there had to be a balance to these things.

So she followed slowly after that foul presence at a generous distance. Nel wore her glamour of a pale dark-haired woman with dark eyes, body draped in a heavy cloak with no weapons apparent on her person. Two armored skeletons staggered in tow, so clean their bones fairly gleamed as they passed between the dappled branch-shade.

 

[Vlash]

It had been a wonderful time.

The clash of metal, the smell of smoking ruin, the screams of dying men.

Only servants of darkness could truly appreciate such fine things.
And Vlash was certainly that.

The aftermath was the best part for him. It was when stillness crept over the land and the scavengers came. The only true victors of any conflict. His keen eyes watched a centipede crawl into an empty eye socket.
So pretty.
He stepped among the dead not caring for their sanctity. His feet sunk into wounded flesh and spilled organs.
Flies had begun to swarm, wasps ate at the meat of the slain.

Then a noise, a wimper, the sound of a soul not yet departed from the world. He sought it out a little spark of life yet spent amid the piled mortal meat. When he had found them leaning against a tree impaled by a sword through the shoulder they were barely conscious.

Vlash smiled, he liked seeing them hurt. With all the care of an abusive lover he struck them with the back of his hand to startle them awake.
"Guaagh. Agh. Haha!"
They were one of the lesser seen types. They had a name but it never occured to Vlash to learn what it was. Like all of them this one was of course perfectly irritating to look at so Vlash cupper it's face in a six fingered hand and forced it to look at him. They were terrified which he greatly enjoyed.
"wh, who are you... Help, please."
Vlash had no intention of helping this... Person. Instead he simply watched as the life ebbed from their body, making sure all of their attention was on him as they did so.
When the final gasp left their body he was smiling like he had not done in days.
It was only when he was good and filled with fresh death that he noticed her. The pale creature that wasn't alive moving with certain purpose towards some unknown destination.
Usually the dead just lay there but this one was all up and about.

"Sssssuspicious." He hissed to himself and began to follow her. Three arms resting on three swords in three scabbards. If nothing else this was going to be something new.
"You're not alive. Why aren't you alive?"

Gladfrond Nelianne Sundrose

 

[Andoniel Sharion]

When he was a boy, the idea of answering any call to duty had frightened him. It frightened him when he would watch his father, Castiel Sharion ride off to war against the Anirians time and time again. And for the count of his father's years, certainly, he had done battle with far more powerful and ancient foes. Tales of Revanants and curses sweeping through his homeland was no new thing to him. Nature was good. And all that was good in the universe was meant to suffer so long as good elves did their duty to protect it. It was what his father lived by. It was what Andoniel lived by before the Anirians burned flesh from skin. Before Gladfrond arrived and gaved him a piece of itself. When he become more nature than he had been when he was just an elf Lord's son.

Lord Sharion did not have power over the totality of the Tarnossian military, but when Sharion rode it was a force all the same. His household guard counted twenty elves. Those in command under him would no doubt follow close behind him. The deer that carried them moved swiftly through Falwood's fertility. The smell of smoke filled their nostrils as they approached their quarry. The High Lord Andoniel raised his hand so that they all might halt. The High Lord laid his yellow eyes upon the creature that looked to be made from manish weapons. A curious thing... Had this been more human trickery or was this something else.

No matter.

"My Lord. You dismount. Is it your intention to fight this creature?"

"Breathe kin of my kin. You must remember. We will bleed all the blood we have for the cause if we must. Let us test it's will."

The bark, vines, and branches that covered his right arm began to form up and bloom where his hand was. At the tip was a point made of roots, twigs, and branches while all about the growth, flowers grew. The petals absorbed light and what appeared to be a star formed at the tip made from Gladfrond's blessing. Andoniel waited as the spell prepared, the leaves along his arm drawing in and stealing the light of the day star.

Gladfrond Nelianne Sundrose Vlash ​

 

[Gladfrond]

The Revenant ceased its plodding. Its helmed visage, crowned with spikes, swung from left to right as it scanned across the foliage.

A thing without eyes. Enclouded by black sand.

It found the seed of the day's star. Growing and growing, as light, like petals and pollen, fell toward the flowers and leaves of that elder root wand-turned-weapon, through which the magic of the Falwood flowed.

Gather and gather did that wand, as its bark and branches did grow. The branches turned to roots. The wand-turned-weapon anchored to the soil.

The Revnant did approach the host of Sharion. Step after steady step. Turned to run. Turned to bounding stride, its toothed glaive raised high.

The guard of Tarnossë Sharion formed their ranks. Their Captain quick to call for spears and shield wall. All the good it did them.

Come the glaive and its jagged teeth. Three brave elves chopped through. Shields splintered. Bodies butchered. The spray of their blood mist across the dark plate of the Revenant. Painted the cloud of black sand red. Another swing of its cruel weapon. Better braced for. Four guards of Tarnossë Sharion were blown back and onto the ground.

 

[Nelianne Sundrose]

In the distance, through the trees, echoed a familiar sound. One layered with the clash of metal, shouted commands, and dying screams. It was the sound of battle, and it straightened Nel's ancient spine, alertness sharpening her senses like a blade over a whetstone. The something foul she was drifting after had found its next victims, and it seemed they were having as much trouble with their enemy as that last group out in the fields.

Balance to all things. Should go help, the inner soldier muttered again. Nel jogged towards the rising skirmish.

It was a massive and misshapen thing, horrifying to look at. Nel supposed she should be grateful she didn't look anywhere as ugly, even as a corpse. It was also covered head to toe in armor that any mortal would have struggled to walk in, much less swing a weapon with as much vigor as all that.

Nel had only seen one once, back in her mortal days. A War Echo. She'd thought Serien had been joking about their existence before she watched one surge up from behind the Lindelese front line, rust-stained and angry, and start tearing limbs off.

It wasn't unlike what was happening right now. Nel paused, searching the creature's armor for weaknesses as it fought the elves with extreme prejudice. A few of them had noticed her arrival, she saw, but whether they thought her a friend or a foe was still up in the air. The presence of her two bone golems probably didn't make her any less suspicious.

The golems would not fare well in melee against such a hulking foe. And anyway, she still needed them for that hypothetical diversion. Just in case.

Nel would remain at a distance, flanked by her skeletons at either side. Magic hissed to life in the seat of her right hand, a black flame laced through with shards of crackling turquoise. She flung the corrosive bolt at the War Echo, aiming for center mass. If it struck home, it would quickly eat a hole through the protective shell.

 

[Talyia Sharion-Teriel]

Talyia galloped through the depths of the Falwood, her presence announced by a symphony of crashing leaves and the frenzied whispers of nature. On this day, her arrival was a wrathful one as she rode upon the back of an elk, a magnificent creature formed from the very essence of the forest itself. The elk's body, crafted from intertwining roots, sturdy bark, vibrant vines, and delicate flowers, pulsed with the life force of the Falwood.

Even the elk's eyes were formed from clusters of delicate petals, glowed with a soft, otherworldly light. Its antlers, adorned with twisting vines and blossoms, reached towards the heavens as if seeking the blessings of the celestial realm. Curious, as how Talyia recognized no god but the deity that grew beneath her feet.

Each powerful stride of the elk reverberated through the ground beneath them. Like the drumming of an angry heart.

That rhythm brought them to the edge of the Falwood and emerging from the verdant canopy into a small clearing that was filled with the wretch and smoke and destruction of man.

Amidst the chaos and carnage, Talyia's eyes witnessed the harrowing sight of her people falling one by one to the relentless onslaught of the blasphemous metal construct. Iron spikes pierced their bodies, causing crimson rivers to flow and mingling their life force with the sacred ground of the Falwood. The air was heavy with the stench of blood and the anguished cries of her kin.

Snarling, the dryad noted her stepson, intently focused on weaving a spell of smiting, his hands moving with precision and purpose. But time was running out, and the construct's destructive advance seemed unstoppable. Talyia knew she had to act swiftly, biding him the precious moments he needed to complete his incantation.

Talyia launched her elk forward, and when she was close enough she leapt from its back.

Landing in a powerful crouch, Talyia's hands struck the ground with an earth-shaking impact. The soil trembled beneath her touch as her arms sank deep into the loamy earth, roots entwining around her forearms like living extensions of her will. Her teeth bared in a feral roar and colossal roots erupted from the ground, their gnarled forms twisting and coiling in a wild dance. They tried to entangle the metal construct, attempting to ensnare its limbs and empty spaces. The roots would tighten, constricting and restricting, as if seeking to reclaim the very essence that animated the abomination.

She doubt it would destroy the golem, but slowing it down, that she could do.

Andoniel Sharion Nelianne Sundrose Vlash Gladfrond

 

[Vlash]

"Glorious!"
Vlash barked and hooted as the Dead Thing led him to the hulking mass of metal that killed in great slow strikes. Doubtless this was what crushed those behind him and now he saw it first hand.
But then the Earthed Thing came. It rode a beast that was no beast at all and called on wood and sapling to spoil the fun.

It was as bad as any human without the grace of being boring enough to ignore.
Vlash drew his three swords in his three arms and leaped towards the Earthed Thing screaming like a strangled hawk.
"YEAAAAARGH!"
It was high and sudden as he was. His motion took him past the Dead Thing and its dead slaves and from there made way to hack the Earthed Thing and its fleshless beast into tiny bits. Vlash wanted bits so small they could be lost in the bloody grass beneath them.

Nelianne Sundrose Talyia Sharion-Teriel Andoniel Sharion