Open Chronicles The Grand Tournament of Tides

[Afanas]

Sam looked and her brows larked as she found the man looking right at them, "Damnit Ane, I told you not to stare. You're bothering him."

Xeraphine Yldore
Samantha Black

Afanas raised a finger in response to Xeraphina's words, a gesture meant to temporarily hush her. His head remained turned, his neck twisted to a degree that no human neck could have possibly achieved without going 'SNAP-POP-CRUNCH'. This, of course, because his spine had long ago come to an arrangement with the rest of his body that involved certain liberties being taken that transcended the limitations of conventional anatomy.

He quirked an eyebrow at the older girl, Samantha, his ears had informed him earlier, along with the younger one's name, Anja. It saved him the trouble of asking. Afanas appreciated efficiency, particularly when it came from organs that did their job without requiring supervision.

"Bother," he began, "is a strong word."

He tilted his chin, just a smidge, enough for the midday sun to finally reach his face. The light revealed impossibly smooth skin the color of bleached bone and the sculpted, statuesque features of his countenance, the sort of face that sculptors would have killed to capture, and sell, definitely sell.

"However," he continued, and there was something almost conversational about it now, as if they were ventilating on today's weather rather than the fact that she'd just compared him to municipal building, "I do prefer being spoken to directly. If you've something to say, I implore you to say it to my face, rather than gossiping about it behind my back."

He paused.

"I assure you, I don't bite."

This was, at best, a partial truth. Afanas did bite. He had bitten people on several occasions, some of them quite deserving of it. But he didn't bite everyone, and certainly not without what he considered reasonable provocation. A remark about his height hardly qualified, if he took offense every time someone mentioned it, he'd have depopulated half the city by now.

 

[Sir Dwendare Castlegrip]

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip swung mightily and heroically. Through air. His opponent -- gone.

What?

Boots landed behind him, crunching sand. Pain lanced in his hamstrings and he took the knee.

WHAT?

And then, his mother and heraldry were thoroughly insulted.

"WHAT?!"

The outcry within him finally found escape through his mouth. Indeed, just as Marek had hoped for, furious outrage overtook his better senses, and he rose, lifting his sword to lance through this mouthy, airborne guttersnipe. However, his greaves met resistance, and the motion that had taken him back up to his feet through twenty-odd years of life now sent him hammering back down on the ground, the back of his breastplate and gamberson pounding against the dirt.

He was now staring up at the bright, blue sky through the slit in his visor; breath roaring within the kettle of his helmet.

Impossible.

The crowd exclaimed their surprise and sucked their teeth -- not with any sympathy, but more accurately with glee at seeing someone else bite the dust than them. That snapped his attention away from the sky to earthly matters.

Where had that little bastard gone--

Marek

 

[Marek]

Marek moved with the fall. Not away from it, but through it. As the armored bulk crashed down, Marek flowed past the trajectory, boots skidding once in the sand before he turned and stepped in close.

The sky vanished for Sir Cuttlefish.

Marek stood over the knight, framed against the sun, blotting it out entirely. Smoke curled from his right hand, skin blistered and raw where the lightning had burned him, fingers trembling faintly with aftershock, but his grip did not fail. The blade held true, unwavering, its edge slid with cruel precision beneath the rim of the knight’s helmet, wedged into the narrow, lethal space where armor gave way to flesh and breath.

Every rise of the knight’s chest pressed him closer to the steel.

Marek didn’t grin. Didn’t sneer. There was no triumph in his face at all, only focus, cold and absolute, the storm in him finally stilled into something far more dangerous.

“Yield,” he said quietly.

The arena went dead silent.

No drums. No cheers. No horns. Thousands of people held their breath as one, eyes fixed on the sight of a fallen champion staring up at a burned-handed nobody.

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip

 

[Sir Dwendare Castlegrip]

Spoiler: Music

A helmet such as his might not be much good for slinging back verbal ripostes and repartees in the heat of battle.

But it was useful for covering up muttered incantations -- along with nasty, excited smirks.

By all accounts, in a regular battle of arms, a fall such as his meant a loss. But this was a battle of both blade and spell. Despite the swordtip pressed dangerously close to his throat, he allowed his smile to widen behind the helmet. The faintest flutter of pages overhead scarcely reached the ears. The crackle of energy from his palm muffled by digging his gauntlet into the sand.

"Now why . . . should I . . . yield . . ." In the silence and proximity, his low, posh tones slithered through his gorget, before erupting into a sudden lion's roar: ". . . to a street rat!"

Everything happened at breakneck speed. The flying tome, near forgotten in their battle, flew straight for Marek like a battering ram. In the same token, and by the end of his spell, Sir Dwendare's form dissipated into a gaseous, purple cloud cracked by azure veins. As vapor, he drifted up within the pages of the book, all but vanishing from crowd and enemy, whether the hefty tome had struck its target or not.

Yes, he thought, directing the tome and his own essence upward, hovering above Marek. No doubt this sort of magic would convolute a simple brute like Marek, unable to identify the tenuous tether between Dwendare and his grimoire. So long as the pages remain open, I can materialise myself. And then . . .

There would be a certain poetic justice to hammering down on top of Marek from above, letting either his blade or the sheer bulk of his armour crush him like a bug.

Marek

 

[Marek]

For one fatal moment, Marek believed. Believed that a man with banners, titles, and a watching crowd would choose honor above all, especially in front of such a huge crowd. Believed that a knight with a legacy to uphold would meet steel with steel, or spit defiance and die standing rather than take underhanded shots. The same things Marek always criticized. That was the mistake, thinking his opponent would play by the rules Marek himself had never followed.

The sound came first.

A rush of air. Pages flapping overhead, a violent whuff like wings snapping open. Marek’s instincts screamed a warning a fraction too late. There was no time to turn, no space to dive away. Only the cold certainty that something was coming for him fast.

So he did the only thing left. Marek drove his blade in.

Not a careful thrust. Not a measured press. A vicious, desperate carve under the rim of the gorget, steel biting where breath and blood shared space, fueled by pain and fury and the sheer refusal to yield.

At the same time, the flying tome struck him like a siege stone. Impact cracked through his skull, white-hot and absolute. His vision imploded into darkness, sound shearing away as if the arena itself had been swallowed whole. Marek’s body went slack, blade slipping free as he collapsed into the sand.

Nothing. No sky. No crowd.

Just black.

He hit the ground hard and did not move. He was knocked out cold and completely at the mercy of a potentially wounded knight.

Sir Dwendare Castlegrip

 

[Sir Dwendare Castlegrip]

Upon witnessing the effect of his tome, Sir Dwendare would have laughed. Chortled even, in full abandon -- if he hadn't been a floating cloud of magic, that was.

The crowd roared in their surprise. This was even better! Oh, the bards would sing about this, for certain. How he had allowed himself to seem defeated, only to come out on top. A bit of theatrics, really, why, he couldn't let them get used to him winning all the time. Yes. Yes, that would work quite well.

But he wanted a physical form to gloat in, his laugh to travel down his belly and to rip off his helmet and receive the adoration of the crowd. So on in a jiffy he popped back out of his book, in a dashing swirl of purple-and-blue mist. The ladies would surely swoon once he showed off his chiseled jaw after this.

He materialised. Something hot and liquid ran down his gorget. He ripped off his helmet, letting his luscious, golden locks fly free.

"I aghhGHH--!"

Hold on, why didn't any words come out? He looked down himself and saw a carpet of crimson streaming out from below his helmet, covering his surcoat in oozing red. At about that time, he could start to feel life flowing out of him; delayed by the amorphous nature of his spell.

Oh. Oohh . . . Bollocks.

Consequently, the knight crumpled soon after his opponent, falling face-first with a dull thump of steel against sand. The helmet clanked and rolled off, plume dipped in the pool of blood like some infernal quill.

At lightning speed, healers rushed into the battleground -- one to save the knight from bleeding out, the other to ensure Marek's skull hadn't cracked. The tome lay uselessly by the side, now as inert as its master.

"And the winner is . . . um . . . hold now, let's see."

Healer near Marek made a negatory gesture. Same was repeated by the other; bright healing magic closing the knight's throat.

"It's . . . well, gods above, I do think it's a draw." The crowd clamoured in their awestruck captivity to the action; this had been some of the best entertainment all day, sure to reach far into many a tavern and inn as a relayed story. How the richling and the pauper shared an equal end. At the end of the day, no matter how much coin one might have, a competition boiled down to skill and quick thinking. The lesson of the day for the crowds. The herald gained some confidence in his own proclamation, especially when both Marek and Sir Dwendare were dragged off to their separate corners.

"It's a DRAW!! Incredible!!!"

 

[Darkweaver]

Spoiler: Music

On a grand balcony in the keep, high above the crowds and with an aerial view of the spellsword battleground, the Merchant Council perched. They had watched this pitched, brief battle unfold below them, with the same mild curiosity that well-fed eagles might afford a battle between mice. The blood of the knight seemed to smear a small, indecipherable letter on the sands, marking the bloody baptism of their entertainment.

"Well," said Tel'vore of Phlogis, making a punctuation of sipping from his golden goblet of wine. "I shall hope future fighters will demonstrate more grace and skill."

The words of the oldest councillor broke the spell of silence that had hovered between them. That spell rippled with a peal of laughter from Estrenna Mardos, pulling up next to him like a gentle wave against a stony shore.

"My dear Tel'vore, you are never satisfied with any displays. How will you ever find entertainment in the flailings of mortals, if you cannot appreciate their clumsy efforts? I thought it was highly amusing."

"You find it amusing to watch knights bleed, then?"

The third voice -- measured, quiet, and hard as sculpted rock. where Estrenna's was fluttering and silky like a frilled dress -- struck a lunge against her assertations. It belonged to Nerod Yrd, a man seeming carved from the same alabaster that marked much of Allir Keep; curious veins of navy blue crawling up his neck and bald head like errant colours in marble. His gold-flecked eyes took in both of his compatriots, betraying little except mild exasperation, such as might be found with a parent watching children misbehave.

"Oh, come off it, Nerod. Let her enjoy the show," This fourth member, Ormvel, wolfed through his words like he ate his mince pies, sucking his fat thumbs and brushing crumbs out of his brown beard. The sun shone on his bald scalp like an egg surrounded by a bird's nest of hair, and the voluminous furs and velvets framing him only added to his corpulent form. "If we're not here to laugh and cry at some tourney jockeys, then what are we here for?"

"To show our faces to the public?" This fifth voice belonged to Catherine Ulwool, clear, light and piercing like a needle. It brought an unwilling silence over the others, as if they didn't much care for this inevitable truth. "The people must know who rules them, after all. How can we rule behind desks and walls alone; faceless to our peers?"

Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Beatrice Orabela

 

[Samantha Black]

Sam sighed into a hand over her face as the almost impossibly tall man decided to engage with her sister rather than simply ignore her as she was hoping he would do.

Anje, much to the Dreadlord's surprise, was not shying away from him, either. Sheltered though she had been for a good majority of her life, Sam had noticed more and more lately that the younger woman had an affinity for the... odd.

The weird.

The abnormal.

A handsome noble fellow approaching? Absolutely not.

This clock-tower behemoth in a jaunty hat and cape? Enthralling.

The younger of the two sisters continued to watch him with marked interest, her posture affecting someone studious, "Do you often find doorways tall enough to permit you without bowing beyond churches and barnyards?" The question seemed to be asked in earnest and not out of some form of jest.

Afanas

 

[Afanas]

The younger of the two sisters continued to watch him with marked interest, her posture affecting someone studious, "Do you often find doorways tall enough to permit you without bowing beyond churches and barnyards?" The question seemed to be asked in earnest and not out of some form of jest.

Afanas

Samantha Black

"Seldom," he said, and finally turned the rest of his body to face her.
It was an odd thing to observe, like watching a huge drawing compass pivot. His neck remained twisted in a fixed position while his body rotated around it until the direction of his face matched the direction in which the rest of him was pointing. The movement possessed the mechanical grace of a lighthouse beam sweeping across dark water, smooth, inevitable, and slightly ominous.


"Aside from my office and personal quarters, I very much doubt there's more than a handful of dwellings in Alliria constructed with consideration for people taller than seven feet."

He removed the wide-brimmed hat from his head and held it against his chest. Chestnut-colored locs, long and wavy, spilled over his broad shoulders.

His large, batlike ears became more evident, batlike, for they were far too large, broad and robust to be mistaken for an elf's ears. An elf's ears suggested elegance, heritage and a possible penchant for excessive tree-hugging. Afanas's suggested that their owner could hear a mouse plotting sedition three streets away or call out a liar on the grounds that they could detect changes in ones heartbeat.


"I am of slightly above average height for my age and species," Afanas continued, with the tonal calmness of a man who had explained this many times before and learned to ignore the awkwardness of it all. "My people simply happen to be tall."

Coming from Afanas, it was the sort of statement that carried the same weight as calling the ocean "a smidge wet" and referring to dragons as "large, moderately flammable chickens".

He extended his free hand in Anje's direction.

It was huge, the size of a serving platter, impossibly pale. The flesh looked almost like polished alabaster in its unnatural smoothness, each fingertip graced by a lacquered black claw that only served to accentuate Afanas's overall paleness.

The claws weren't filed to points, that would have been theatrical. They were simply what grew there, as natural as fingernails and infinitely more useful at removing stubborn corkscrews and fiddling with letters without having to resort to a knife.

"I am Afanas, son of Vlakhos, Lord Commander and chief of the city's security. And you are...?"

 

[Marek]

Marek came back to the world with sand in his mouth, a ringing skull, and the overwhelming conviction that he had just lost a fight to stationery.

He staggered to his feet, swaying once before catching himself. The ache set in all at once, head pounding, shoulder screaming, right hand a mess of blistered, blackened skin. He stared at it, flexed his fingers carefully. They worked. Barely. Sparks crackled weakly, then fizzled out.

“Fantastic,” he grumbled. “Knocked out by a fucking book.”

He dragged himself toward the barrier, gave the arena one last irritated look, then hopped the fence in an ungainly vault that lacked all the earlier grace of his fighting. The crowd barely noticed; their attention was already locked on fresh blood and cleaner bouts.

Marek landed among the spectators, scowling. “I am never going to hear the end of this,” he muttered. “Felled by literature.”

He leaned against the railing, arms crossed, jaw tight. It should’ve felt like a victory. He’d toppled a champion. Forced him to cheat. Walked away alive. But it sat wrong in his gut, sour and unresolved.

As he shifted, he caught sight of someone beside him, that tall city commander flanked by two women deep in conversation.

Marek squinted at them, then sniffed and turned back to the arena. He stayed scowling, simmering, already replaying the moment in his head because draws were worse than losses.

 

[Blackburn Fane]

He had been making a carving as they traveled in the carriage.

Just him, a knife, a piece of rough wood and his grumpy betrothed.

Bliss, truly.

The wood carving was steadily gaining in progress. Shaping itself up into a horse with his patience and effort, but it was paused as Lorelei Darke spoke up. He himself glanced up, a little smirk playing there, which was caught by Lorelei.

As if she could read his mind or as if she knew where his mind could wander.

"You don't even know what I was about to say." Fane said with a laugh, crossing one leg over the other as he glanced out of the window.

"Perhaps I was going to remark on the weather, or perhaps I was going to ask you if you'd like a shoulder massage." Innocently his eyes returned to her.

"You do not wish for a shoulder massage, my Lady?"

 

[Xeraphine Yldore]

Spoiler: Music

The nun arched her neck after the battle, and then, she saw them. The Merchant Council, far above, glancing down upon them all from their vantage point of stone.

Something entered her eye that was anything but piety or philosophical curiosity. A fire flared within her, as hot and devouring as that of any daemon. Its coal only needed the sight of them to be stoked, even but the distant glimpse of them was enough to feed this flame. She might burn alive from within if she lingered -- if she kept nourishing it.

Afanas was distracted. By a little girl and her stern-looking mother, it appeared; someone of martial posture and strength, dark hair braided into a single, severe braid. Whether this was to interact with the hoy polloy to increase his public persona and to dodge her uncomfortable question, or if someone had genuinely caught his interest, it mattered little. This was her brief window to leave; before her facade crumpled into unrelenting hatred.

The crowd surged forward at the end of the battle, everyone pushing to the front to see its conclusion. She saw an opportunity in that — and while everyone else pushed forward, she pulled back. Her tombstone smile and black-hooded visage submerged below a sea of joy and colour, vanishing among them like a stone thrown into a glittering lake.

The seed had been sown. Whether it would take root and grow only time would tell. But she had delivered the question that she had sought to ask. She had looked him in the eye, taken the stock and measure of him. She could see why the council might enjoy his gloomy presence. A naive soul with a grim ledger of experience, someone who wouldn't shirk from sordid deeds that needed doing -- and wouldn't ask too many questions in the process. A seeker of purpose and duty, perhaps, which the councillors would be more than happy to supply. And to exploit.

Rumour had it he was invulnerable. That he could grow back limbs like others grew flowers in their pots. Well, in that case . . . it was time to test if his loyal spirit remained as endurant as his long corpus.

Meanwhile, the dragon-motifed casket ended on a desk deep within the keep, flanked by two mages. They subjected it to various detection spells, even sought to penetrate its wood with arcane sight. Nothing. Disturbingly nothing. One theorised that it was inlaid with lead — not an uncommon technique to deny the use of divination magic for its contents. At the same time, they couldn't detect any engravings or runes on the outside of it. But they did spot that it had a mechanism that would activate upon using the key, and that its bottom interior rattled gently, as if full of coin.

Afanas
Samantha Black
Marek
Blackburn Fane

 

[Samantha Black]

Attention annoyingly split between watching the tail end of the match and ensuring this uniquely tall stranger meant no ill-will toward her ward, Sam managed only a terse sigh as she shifted her focus completely from the fight and to the interaction beside her. These fights were a copper a dozen, though she'd always reveled in watching others duel under unique circumstance. It paid to see their tricks and strategies.

She'd used more than enough of them on the battle field, herself.

Turkey leg near half-finished, she spied a hungry looking child... or was it a goblin? Hard to tell the difference, apparently, and handed it out to them. The snatch and run took the remainder of her lunch out of sight quicker than a greased hog. Brows raised, she wiped her face and then her hands on her kerchief before stuffing it back into a leather pouch.

"I am Afanas, son of Vlakhos, Lord Commander and chief of the city's security. And you are...?"

The look of considerate empathy for the tall one's plight quickly dissolved from the younger woman's face as hand encroached upon the space between them. Anja eyed it the same way a horse eyed a raised whip.

Another hand took that of Afanas instead: gloved, firm, confident.

"Lieutenant Black of the Anirian Knights, Leader of the Dragonsbane Special Forces Squadron," Sam moved to insert herself between the man and her sister in the way a blade inserted itself between two pieces of armor, "and this is my ward. Excuse my interruption, the young Lady does not like to be touched."

Anja's gaze dropped in a mixture of shame and bewilderment.

Sam briefly glanced back at her, the edge of her gaze softening, "Would you like to introduce yourself?"

"Lady Anja of Oban," she replied, barely audible over the crowds to any but the one with bat-ears. She offered it with a hurried and practiced curtsy. Anja did not look back at Afanas.

"I apologize on her behalf if her words brought any insult, she is still learning the ways of public etiquette beyond Oban."

 

[Afanas]

Samantha Black

Afanas knew when the nun departed, or, more precisely, began her departure, not because he troubled himself to watch her go, but because he heard it and felt her scent diminishing. She smelled peculiar, of iron and coal and smoke and a trace of crude oil. She smelled like a forge. Nuns do not smell like that. They smell of incense, beeswax and sacramental wine gone slightly vinegary with age. Nuns also do not hurriedly vanish into crowds when one's attention wanders elsewhere.

He was, suddenly, relieved that he hadn't delivered the casket she'd pressed upon him. Relieved that he had instructed it to remain sealed until he gave explicit orders otherwise. A small voice in the recesses of his skull whispered: It's a bomb, Afanas. That thing is going to go kablowie the instant you unlock it. Melt half your face off in the process.
The thought settled over him like a damp cloak. His face would probably grow back. It usually did. But it was never pleasant, and the intervening period made appearing in public exceedingly difficult.

He blinked, hauled back to the present when Samantha's hand, gloved, confident, and possessing the grip of someone who'd held swords more than any other implement, wrapped around his own. He gazed at the woman's face properly now. She didn't seem that much older than her ward, though there was a quality to her eyes that suggested she'd seen considerably more of the world, and much of it unpleasant.

He shook her hand, carefully modulating his grip. Breaking bones by accident was an occupational hazard he'd learned to guard against. He'd fractured metacarpals before during what should have been perfectly cordial greetings, and the lengthy apologies had been exhausting to compose.

"It is fine. Handshakes are merely what my line of work has conditioned me into deeming acceptable. Call it professional deformation, Lieutenant Black."

Though gloomy in mien, Afanas maintained scrupulous attention to hygiene. The air around him carried notes of spearmint and lemongrass, deliberate choices. He'd discovered that smelling pleasant tended to offset his otherwise uninviting appearance (which wasn't the result of his being ugly, mind you, just the fact he had a severe case of 'resting cunt face') without venturing into the treacherous territory of excessive cologne. There existed a precarious line between "acceptably refined" and "looking like a ceremonial peacock" and he had no intention of being the latter.

"And worry not. I take no offense to Lady Anja's words." His ears had caught her introduction despite the cacophony of the crowd. "Curiosity is admirable. I believe it should be encouraged. It is a potent rectifier against ignorance, prejudice and small-mindedness."

 

[Lorelei Darke]

"You don't even know what I was about to say." Fane said with a laugh, crossing one leg over the other as he glanced out of the window.

She pinned him with narrow and suspicious green, "I don't need to..." before eyeing his current little project, gaze softening just faintly. He'd picked up some curious hobbies since they'd come to their agreement. All potential things considered, whittling was the least disruptive.

Both for her and for the city at large. He wasn't bungling about, trashing bars and inns night by night anymore.

No, now she was finding little carved figurines in random places within the manor and warehouses. He was actually quite good at it and she rather liked the little bird she'd found hidden within her stacks of parchment and notes in her study.

If only she could get him to stop leaving tiny wood chips and litter like a child leaving cookie crumbs everywhere he went...

"Perhaps I was going to remark on the weather, or perhaps I was going to ask you if you'd like a shoulder massage." Innocently his eyes returned to her.

"You do not wish for a shoulder massage, my Lady?"

"You already know the answer."

Whatever it is, the answer is no.

The carriage came to a stop abrupt enough to faintly raise the hackles of annoyance within her gaze. Her hand moved to open the sliding plate that looked out from beneath the carriage driver's seat, just between his boots and through the ears of the horses. There seemed to be some sort of road block ahead by the city guard.

"What is it?" she called to the driver.

"Parade of Flags, m'Lady," he answered her back, "this will be a while. We won't get through until it's over."

"Fabulous." There was nothing else for it. She'd either have to walk the crowds to get to her work, or sit here and bake in the carriage for the entire afternoon. Neither option were particularly appealing, but at the very least walking meant progress and she was loathe to remain stagnant when there was so much to be done.

The sigh that followed was the same sort a dragon might make when faced with a hoard of angry guardsmen for the tenth time in one day.

"We will walk the rest of the way."

"Yes, Lady Darke."

The door swung open by the attendant moments later and Lorelei's great red mane of hair slipped out into the daylight like a live fireball in a green dress.

 

[Beatrice Orabela]

Arriving perhaps more than was fashionably late, or perhaps on time, was Beatrice.
At her side only a singular veiled maid. No guards, no grand carriage, despite the silk and finery she was draped in she seemed content to let the hem of her dress gather dirt and mud.
She had walked through the tourney grounds with a lightly amused smile. Alliria being a large, diverse City of much coin had quite a few long standing festivals. Among these, the tournament held a special place in Beatrice's heart. It was one of the few festivals that House Orabela attended in any official capacity. In past years the house had even offered rewards to the extent of marriage offers for exceptional showings in the duals of wizardry and spellswords.
This year their contributions to the rewards were of mere monetary value.

Perhaps this one seemed all the more quaint after her years of absence shut away. With this much excitement and so many visitors she was able to walk among the crowds largely unnoticed.
There was a rare hint of nostalgia in the sounds and sights. It put her in an unusually good mood. If boredom was the bane to house Orabela then an event such as this was a salve highly cherished.
She peaked in at merchant stalls, she stopped to watch a drunken brawl, she stopped to listen to a bard singing a shrill ballad, and so it was with great meandering delay that she finally arrived at the balcony allotted for the council.

"Indeed Lady Ulwood, If there is any better place to let the people gaze upon the brightness of the sun it is here in the mud." She gave a sharp sounding cackle and fanned herself lightly. "Really I find it an excellent gauge of our little commoners, how pleased I am to see our City can still produce such spectacles."

Darkweaver

 

[Darkweaver]

Ormvel cackled in support of Orabela, slapping his protruding belly -- much to the fright of his fanning attendant, who was as used to that hand sawing out punishment as praise.

"Ah, delightful, there she is! Well, if Lady Orabela is pleased, I am pleased." He hardly masked his leer at the Golden Witch, only mitigated somewhat by an amiable grin and flashing eyebrows. "Anything to lure them out. I'd hate to see our golden House disappear below its shadowed canopies again."

Nerod only shook his head at Ormvel's uncouth familiarity and glanced down to the grounds below. Catherine bit her lower lip, looking uncomfortable at partaking in Beatrice's blatant display of superiority over commoners. Estrenna Mardos slithered up between them, her voice a low tone of conspiracy.

"Wait until you see the final show, then. I hear the tournament has something quite in store for us. A faithful recreation of the Siege of Alliria--"

Tel'vore's voice cut the air like a drawn sword.

"Do not spoil the surprise, Estrenna. You may have aided in its preparation, but you should not rob the others of their anticipation."

He punctuated this declaration with another sip of his wine, eyes never leaving the field. A flash of indignation crossed Estrenna's features at this interruption; and for a held breath, it looked like she could snap Tel'vore's neck. But smiles and pleasant manners quickly breathed through her features again, her dark ire brief as an eclipse.

"I would never dream of it. But a little tease never hurt anyone." Of course, she couldn't resist a stab of her own at his insufferable pride: "You must be truly excited about this surprise, Master Phlogis. Nervous, perhaps? I could always call one of my courtesans to help ease your, ah, tension."

Tel'vore's wrinkled face looked sharp with contempt; fit to carve diamonds. Mercifully, before he could bite out a reply, a servant whisked up on the balcony, rushing over to whisper in Nerod's ear. Nerod leaned in, curious, before he turned to the assembled council.

"Well, it appears as if the Lord Commander has confiscated a gift for our pleasure. It is being investigated by our finest magi."

"A gift?" Ormvel frowned. "Foul play, then?"

Nerod could only shrug.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Beatrice Orabela

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Emerging from within the Keep and far from late Petrus would stride with slow, heavy, even steps to the balcony his other Councilors reclined upon. Already their bickering had begun. Bickering that could, at the most generous, be called dysfunctionaly familial. At worst like lounging amidst a nest of large vipers. Familiarity and hostility mixing just a tad more successfully than oil and water placed within the same glass. Petrus had been.... preparing... his own surprise within the keep.

He arrived precisely when he meant to, as druids and wizards were oft to do, as Estrenna set herself to plucking Tel'vore's metaphorical strings. The old elf tended to take bait such as hers fairly easily though age and perspective made his reactions to said bait hard to precisely parse. He always seemed to know more than he should and, earning begrudging respect from every new member of the Council, Petrus included, for his tenure, it made everyone a curious mix of wary and respectful of him. Though obviously not at all unwilling to test the old elf.

Ormvel's lecherous leering at Beatrice was noted and, while quite the open secret, Petrus did find some twisted amusement in the idea of the flesh-fencer witling down Beatrice with pure insistence to take her hand in marriage. Perhaps if he bent his mind more toward ambition and tearing her down rather than leering and fawning from the sidelines? In any case Petrus had as much respect and consideration for Ormvel and his pursuit of Beatrice as he did a particularly stubborn slug trying to court a horse with a horn tied to its head that thought itself a unicorn. A fable that the slug in question fully believed.

Nerod, on the other hand, had a grudging personal respect from Petrus. Moving in to markets he and his family had gripped in tight fist for years had proven difficult, if not impossible, and there was always a demand for housing, judicial buildings, and more. In the growing organism that was a city like Alliria being the one to set the 'bones' as it were made one nearly invaluable.

Estrenna, for her fault and hostility, held no personal respect from Petrus but instead a purely pragmatic sense of acceptance and business acumen allowed her to tolerate her. As entwined as their enterprises often were. Beyond that? He communicated with the woman more through intermediaries and paperwork as he did any other singular being in Alliria. Her signature able to be recalled in his mind's eye with ease from the myriad of documents bearing it that had crossed his desk.

Lastly, and nearly forgotten, was Catherine. A strange thing considering once upon a time an arranged marriage had been considered between the two of them. But they had mixed as well as water and oil and, while not the most hostile to one another, likely held as disparate views as possible on the council. Perhaps. Whereas she championed *hand outs* and *equality* on a ridiculously broad scale Petrus instead saw to the elevation of those with skill and capability. Much like taking Srivani , Feyrith and Virdalia Deuxstrom under his wing as opposed to two dozen apprentices. Still, her deformed interpretation of merit had seen her some success and, so, Petrus held her no active vitriol. Misguided and more dangerous than she seemed but they hardly interacted anymore outside of circumstances such as these.

Only when the shadow of the keep began to fade off his person did Petrus speak up, voice low and steady in response to Nerod's unknowing shrug.

"If this gift from some unknown entity delivered directly into the arms of our Lord Commander does not arouse more suspicion in you, my Lords, then why not proceed to open it... personally."

There was just the smallest amount of bite behind that last word as Petrus approached the balcony proper, arms laced behind his back, staring down at Beatrice with a near tangible weight behind his gaze. Only for him to resume speaking. His voice continuing to keep it's level, firm, but not angry, cadence.

"In case you have all forgotten it was not all that long ago that insurgents within our very walls pressed the Lord Commander, a band of mercenaries and some of my own forces dearly."

Those deep, amber eyes would stray to Estrenna pointedly.

"As well as the same group attempting a kidnapping within one of our shared ventures. Thankfully publicity of that embarrassment has been *snuffed out.*"

Drawing in a long, slow breathe through his nose Petrus would turn now to face the other Counselors more fully and let out a sigh. His voice taking on a tone that was now more tired than firm, as if he was reciting an old oath or some memorized script.

"I, of course, have every confidence in the Lord Commander's capabilities. I merely wish to staunch any attempt to stymie him on our end."

A pregnant pause that lasted only a heartbeat.

"As for the recreation of the Siege I have my own addition making preparations as we speak. After all, what is a dragon without it's flame?"

Something approaching a ghost of a smile would almost cause the corner of Petrus's mouth to twitch, almost.

"And I believe I have found quite the dazzling flame for our performance...."

Afanas Darkweaver Beatrice Orabela​

 

[Forces of Iskandar]

Spoiler: Drystan

Clad in a considerably nicer version of a standard House Iskandar uniform Drystan would deftly weave through the crowd. His clothing all deep, abyssal blacks highlighted with gold and underset by soft whites. The look was completed with a single, glimmering golden sash that ran from his left shoulder to his right hip and the very ornate stylized golden sun of House Iskandar upon his back. Normally Petrus's messenger avoided attention like the plague but today, he supposed, he was tasked with an altogether similar but no less uncomfortable burden.

Even so the messenger was loyal to his Lord and, flashing a disarmingly charming grin at nearly all passerby Drystan would approach the Lord Commander and, politely waiting for a break in the towering man's conversation, perhaps by now Drystan would be slightly recognizable to the Lord Commander as he bowed and offered a sealed bit of parchment.

"A missive for you, Lord Commander, your eyes only."

The frankly stunningly handsome human would turn his golden eyes to Samantha and Anja, an easy smile adding lines to the young man's features in a way that hardly made him seem any older.

"Pardon me Lieutenant Black, Lady Anja, loathe as I am to interrupt a good conversation duty demands otherwise."

Turning his gaze back to Afanas with the formality given Drystan would calmly wait to be dismissed. If nothing else the messenger seemed to have an air of odd professionalism about him. Somewhere between a soldier used to thinking on their feet and a wholly odd quality to the precision of his movements. The way he stood perfectly to heel, waiting, watching.

Spoiler: Missive

Lord Commander,

Through means best kept free from even ink we have reason to suspect foul play afoot amidst the tourney grounds. While this missive is in no way an accusation of lacking preparation or competency on the part of you or your men it is instead a reminder of the insurgent, unruly factors that have personally assailed your person within the city's walls. My messenger can return your reply to my person at your convenience, should you wish to give one, elsewise be appraised of the insurgent's proclivity for abduction and the capturing of high profile individuals even within crowded spaces.

Sincerely,

Counselor Petrus Iskandar

Afanas Samantha Black​

 

[Samantha Black]

"And worry not. I take no offense to Lady Anja's words." His ears had caught her introduction despite the cacophony of the crowd. "Curiosity is admirable. I believe it should be encouraged. It is a potent rectifier against ignorance, prejudice and small-mindedness."

"Couldn't agree more," Sam returned with a half-smirk at the man's colorful lexicon. Wasn't often she came across his type in her line of work. He faintly reminded her of someone from the Academy, but she didn't linger on the thought.

"A missive for you, Lord Commander, your eyes only."

The frankly stunningly handsome human would turn his golden eyes to Samantha and Anja, an easy smile adding lines to the young man's features in a way that hardly made him seem any older.

"Pardon me Lieutenant Black, Lady Anja, loathe as I am to interrupt a good conversation duty demands otherwise."

It was less the man's face that caught Sam's attention and more the marks of his uniform. One she wasn't especially familiar with, but she didn't spend enough time in Alliria to have any need to. Either way, she'd never be offended by the interruption of duty. The Lieutenant nodded at the Lord Commander, "We'll let you to your work then..." and tossed a glance back at the younger woman behind her with a gentle clearing of her throat.

Anja, presently enthralled by the passing of a parade of horses each dressed and adorned to resemble creatures of yore, blinked with a startle at the nudge she received by way of the Lieutenant's elbow.

"Oh - a pleasure, Lord Afanas," Anja gave the walking clock-tower of a man a curtsy.

"Let's go, I need to get a drink..." That turkey leg was making her thirsty. Sam guided her younger sister through a crowd of people who now pushed to the ringside for the next match, pausing as her gaze caught sight of Marek looking pitifully sorry for himself, "... and so does he, by the looks of it. Hey!" Sam called to him with an upward nod, "that's enough grousing. C'mon, I'll buy you a drink."

 

[Afanas]

Darkweaver
Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Samantha Black


Afanas broke the wax seal on the parchment, unrolled it, laid his eyes on the writing.

His gaze moved swiftly, yet with that particular attention one finds in those who have spent much of their lives on battlefields, where a misread word in a hastily scrawled order could mean the difference between victory and its opposite, bitter defeat. It was the reading of a man for whom documents had once been dispatches, mostly dispatches, really.

His body language remained unchanged. Laconic, even. One might have thought he was reading a grocer's inventory, a list of turnips and salt-pork. He quirked an eyebrow, satisfied, perhaps, with the level of comprehension he had achieved, or simply acknowledging that the message contained precisely what he had expected it to contain. There was, after all, a certain predictability to warnings. They came late, or they came unnecessary, or they came both.

From a pocket he produced a small, crude, wooden pencil.

It was not an elegant thing. It had been whittled by hand, probably his own, and the graphite core was slightly off-center. But it wrote, and that was what mattered. Afanas had never been one for instruments that required excessive gentleness. A pencil wrote. A sword cut. A thing either did what it was meant to do, or it did not, and no amount of ornamentation could remedy the latter.

He pressed the parchment flat against the nearest wall, making sure to shield its contents with his broad back. He wanted none other to read it, not out of paranoia, necessarily, but out of habit. Secrecy was a courtesy one extended to correspondence even when the contents were banal. One never knew when banality might curdle into significance, and by then it was too late to have been discreet.

He located a small strip of empty space, empty paper below the initial text. He began to scribble.

His handwriting was by no means beautiful. There was nothing calligraphic about it, no flourishes, no elegant loops suggesting a classical education or aristocratic pretension. But it was even. It was clear. It possessed a certain democratic legibility, the sort of script that a beggar with the lowest levels of literacy might parse without stumbling, that an aristocrat could read without squinting or complaint.

Once satisfied, he rolled the paper up and handed it back to Drystan.

"Deliver my response to Lord Petrus. Tell him to share my words with the rest of the council."

Spoiler: Reply

"A woman claiming to be, I quote, "Sister Lilette of Ragash" approached me with an unusual gift intended for the council. However, nothing about her seemed particularly Kalitian or nun-like. Based on her appearance, I suspect she is of local stock. As for the gift itself, I have a creeping suspicion it is meant to do you great harm. I have therefore instructed two of our court mages to inspect and open it somewhere it can hurt no one. I implore you to entertain no audience with any woman matching the following description: tall, pale, black-haired, with grey-blue eyes, high cheekbones, and dressed in a nun's attire."

Then his eyes swiveled to Samantha and Anja.

The older one had already begun her departure. The younger one had offered him a curtsy. It was a small thing, that curtsy. A gesture learned by rote, executed with the slightly mechanical precision of the recently instructed. But there had been something genuine beneath it, some flicker of actual regard, and Afanas found himself, not moved, for that would imply a greater degree of emotional investment than he was familiar with, but aware of having been addressed as a person rather than a station or a curiosity.

It was a small kindness. He was clever enough not to dismiss small kindnesses.

"Should you find yourself desiring a longer conversation," he said, "feel free to find me. I'll be on the perimeter till sunrise. Duty's burden."

There was something in the way he said it, a warmth, or at least an absence of coldness, that implied the statement was... unfeigned.


Somewhere else, in the depths beneath Allir Keep where torchlight fought a losing war against the dark, two mages huddled behind a wall of stone. They were observing a wooden box adorned with metal ornaments, which they had placed with considerable forethought in one of the cells. The walls were thick. Five feet of solid granite, they had reasoned, as had the Lord Commander Afanas, who had set them to this task. Thick walls made for good neighbors, particularly when one's neighbor might be inclined toward sudden and violent expansion.

The first mage was a well-dressed man with ginger hair and a close-cut moustache that gave him the appearance of someone who took grooming seriously and most other things somewhat less so. He held up a key for his colleague's inspection, turning it in the dim light as though it were a specimen of particular scientific interest.

"So, this goes in the lock. We give it a twist. Something happens. Hopefully nothing too extreme, and we all get to go home."

"But... what if it blows up?" The other man, bald, his scalp and face marked with tattooed sigils that shifted like living things in the flickering torchlight, posed the question with the cadence of someone who had learned to expect the worst and was oftentimes rewarded with it.

"The walls are five feet of solid granite," the ginger mage replied, patient as a teacher with a slow student. "Even if it is a bomb, the box isn't big enough to house a quantity of explosive material that would level the wall shielding us. And besides, we already ran a magic check on it. Nothing magical about the box, so we don't have to worry about getting warped out of existence or anything similarly exotic."

"I love your optimism," the bald man retorted. The sarcasm lay thick upon the words, undisguised.

"Optimism for you. Realism for me."

The ginger mage muttered something, words that were not quite words, sounds that bent the air in ways the ear could not follow but reality somehow understood. Before him, a spectral hand materialized: disembodied, translucent, glowing the soft blue of summer skies. He placed the key in its palm.

Together, the two mages retreated. A good two dozen steps they took, measured, for their lives might've depended on being twenty four feet from the wall as opposed to say, twenty three, before crouching and covering their ears with their palms. The hand drifted forward, unhurried, purposeful. It cut the corner, then entered the cell. It approached the box. With fingers that cast no shadow (because, obviously, funky magic constructs had no shadows, common knowledge, really), it inserted the key into the lock.

It twisted.

 

[Marek]

"Let's go, I need to get a drink..." That turkey leg was making her thirsty. Sam guided her younger sister through a crowd of people who now pushed to the ringside for the next match, pausing as her gaze caught sight of Marek looking pitifully sorry for himself, "... and so does he, by the looks of it. Hey!" Sam called to him with an upward nod, "that's enough grousing. C'mon, I'll buy you a drink."

He blinked, glanced over, and squinted. The two women from earlier, one older, confident, already tugging someone smaller through the press of bodies. Marek straightened a fraction, eyes narrowing on instinct more than irritation.

“Grousing?” he shot back, dry as dust. “That’s just my face, thank you.”

He shifted his weight, lips twitching as if considering something ruder. His hand even twitched like he might offer a very specific gesture, then stalled.

A drink. A drink sounded… exceptional.

He pushed off the railing and vaulted it in one smooth, lazy motion, landing on the sand-strewn stone with a soft crunch. The movement tugged at the burns on his hand, and he hissed quietly, flexing his fingers once before moving the injured hand out of sight.

As he approached, his gaze flicked briefly to the younger girl, lingered for a moment, then settled back on the older woman, brow lifting.

“So,” he said, voice lighter now, crooked humor creeping back in, “What’d I do to earn the pleasure?”

Samantha Black