Private Tales The Last Resort

[Draedamyr]

"A little?" he asked rhetorically. He already had his sword drawn a few inches at the threat of the rider. He had expected Seska to despatch him, but not with quite so much gusto.

He drew his blade and gave a testing swipe of the air. He could feel her magic flowing through him. Starting slow, he moved ahead of Seska towards the command group. He needed to get a sense of what she had provided him. Speed and strength were of no use of balance didn't keep them linked together.

Carrying a heavy ornate halberd, one of the group stepped forward to block his path. They looked confused, unsure if this was a challenge or an assassination.

The halberd came around in a horizontal swipe. Draedamyr backed beyond the sharp spike. Reverie came down and across in such a ferocious swipe that the air cried out in protest. The blade cracked through the wooden haft just behind the metal reinforcements.

The owner of the halberd looked bemused for the fraction of a second it took Draedamyr to step last the broken weapon and take his head from his shoulders.

Another swipe of Reverie and the blood was a red stripe across the ground and no longer on the blade.

He grinned from ear to ear, despite not feeling even the slightest humour at the situation.

"Are you willing to listen now?" he called out. It didn't sound as intimidating as he had hoped. He had always been judged more by his actions than his words.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The look on her face was absolutely terrifying, especially to those that knew the darker, more sinister side of the ancient sorceress. "Their consent is not required," she purred in a low voice that carried much further than it should. "The Great Lord cares little for their lives, or that of their false gods."

She was utterly fearless of these people, as she would have been in the past. She had been ostensibly dead already at that point, her heart secreted somewhere else to protect her 'life' as it were. It was just unfortunate that she had left that in the hands of the Great Lord himself, what would ultimately be a terrible mistake.

"What is the meaning of this?" Came an angry voice from within the milling crowd of soldiers, and one finally stepped free of the crowd. Effectively singled out, the people round him stepped away slowly and warily - expecting magefire to consume him on the spot. It was clear that the soldier carried authority.

"What are you doing in lands I claim?" She retorted, words a silken and sweet caress. "You deliver Firestorms to my lands, and then question me?" The look of shock on his face was delightful. "Oh, I am quite sorry. Did you expect that your false priests could overcome me with their heretical sorcery? I turned that aside by myself."

She grinned. It was not pleasant, and drove the point home rather succinctly. I am so far above you that you cannot comprehend the difference, it said. She didn't need to say anything else. The claim was neither bragging nor bravado - simple fact. They had walked out of the devastation unscathed, after all.

The soldier - a commander, likely - opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. "Where is your owner," she asked in hard tones. "I would speak with them." The man bristled at the accusation of being little more than chattel slave to the Lord or Lady that commanded him, but dared not offer any further offense to her.

"She is here," he said in a guarded tone.

She started walking forward, motioning absently for Draedamyr to follow. "Then let us go meet her," she said for all the world as if this were her own force and every single one of them had no desire to skewer her. Reputation alone was her armor right now. Well, not entirely - she could quite easily deal with individual threats. Those that Draedamyr did not take care of himself, anyway.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr had been holding his breath. The air had crackled with menace, not magic. He knew that for all her skill that there was some bluffing going on here. If the entire army had decided to swallow them, then it would have done so quite quickly.

They bristled at her new demands. They were afraid of their own master. Draedamyr opened his hand, ready to reach for his sword. If they called down this entire army upon them then he would take some of them with him.

"Follow me," the leader said reluctantly. Even fearing the consequences he would not send a lackey in his stead.

They had marched down the slope towards the force, now they were led upwards to the slope behind them. Beyond the ridge was a guard force in fine livery. A tent set out that was far more luxurious than anything the other force had possessed.

Draedamyr was allowed to keep his sword and they went inside. Almost immediately he froze under the icy glare of the woman inside. As if she had expected them, se stood watching the entrance from the center of the space. She stood a whole two hands taller than him, lithe and angular. As different to an elf as he was to a human.

She barely looked at him, before her gaze settled on Seska.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Despite being the shorter of the two of them by a wide margin, the ancient sidhe nevertheless filled the space with her presence alone. The woman for which all this swirled round stood in the center of the stage, a stage of her own making. Dark of hair, light of eye, Lia was as unchanged as she herself was. For some, the passage of time was harsh; for others, subtle and gentle.

For they, fae of and from a different realm, time passed them by without touching a single hair on their head.

"Why," she statuesque woman began in a lilting soprano, "are you here?"

"A question I should ask you, Lia," she replied. The escort had retreated from the tent as soon as the pair had entered; there was little concern, apparently, of assassins. Appropriate, given the fearsome power of the women that now stood in the tent. "To awake one day, and find one of our own missing...and an enemy army marching where none should be."

Eyes that seemed to shift from icy blue to watery hazel shifted from Seska to the elf, a derisive sneer cutting briefly across lovely, timeless features. "We awake to find things missing all the time, do we not?" The cadence of her voice was a mesmerizing flow, almost as if it possessed some magic of its own. Some glam that threatened to snare the weak-willed, enthrall them to her bidding. It was not an ability she remembered the former Warguard to possess, but the span of time since those days beggared belief. "Many an army where it should not be." The duannan finally moved from her place, and gestured to a table set with tea and place for three.

A trick of the mind or not, Seska was not sure it had been there a moment ago. There was no sense of magic, the subtle flow of the prim raising not one hair on her head. "Come, and have a spot of tea. Let us speak of times gone by, you and your...elfin friend," she said. The pleasant flow seemed to crack on mentioning Draedamyr, but it was but a moment. "We can discuss the depredations of your fellow faithful in civility," she added. "Someone has to," she said as an afterthought with a decided edge to it.

"Why-" the ancient sorceress began, but then she found herself seated at the table, Draedamyr beside her. Lia in front, a kettle in hand. The vague notion that they had chosen to accept the invitation floated in her mind...but something in her rebelled at the thought. The glam. Whatever it was this was.

She cast the elf a sidelong look, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her...or if their host was. And if he was seeing or feeling what she was, too.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr was less subtle in airing his surprise. He sat bolt upright with a jerk and lifted himself an inch from his seat.

The elf looked around, getting his bearings. He slowly lowered back down and offered a slight frown towards Seska.

There was no magic like this, he told himself. He touched a finger to the ward Seska had given him. There was nothing that could do this except perhaps an illusion that an entirely overwhelmed his senses.

If he was stuck in a world of illusion then somehow Seska had been brought along too and connected to him. The elves had created dreamspheres, but never as a trap but as a shared experience. It made him question what could be real.

"Do you want to speak of times gone by or of what is happening here?" Draedamyr asked. He managed to keep any note of challenge from his voice, tone even and polite.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"Yes," she said of Draedamyr's question. A manic light glowed in the duannan's eyes, the feverish light of madness. Seska remained quiet, staring at the woman. Never friends, never really enemies, she had no idea where they stood now. The world had moved on from their time, moved so far on that there was no longer a frame of reference for her to rely on.

She suddenly dropped the kettle, an accusatory finger stabbing in Seska's direction as the thing hit the table and splattered scalding water everywhere. Steam rose as the statuesque woman practically vibrated in sudden rage. "You betrayed us all," she hissed at the ancient sorceress, and then turned that burning gaze on Draedamyr with equal ferocity. "You and your sylvan friends! Turned against the Chaos Lord and tore everything to pieces! All of it! All of it gone!"

Seska stirred at last. "You are clearly unwell, Lia," she said in a measured tone, but the calm voice only seemed to stir the woman to further rage. "Perhaps you should tak-"

"Still thy tongue, heathen," Lia shrieked suddenly. The accusation hung in the air for a moment, the woman the picture of insanity...

...and then it was not so. She smiled and poured tea for the both of them, smiling as though nothing had happened a moment before, offering a cup to first Draedamyr and then the sorceress. "Such a vibrant world," she said by way of small talk. The wild light still burned in her eyes, but that manic manifestation seemed to have vanished without a trace.

For now.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr had a hand against his midriff. The smallest movement would put Reverie in his hand. This place, this situation, it was pure chaos. It was beyond his comprehension.

In this maelstrom he had two things. First of all, he had Seska's support and - he hoped - some of her insight into what was going on.

Secondly, he had the very thing that fae so despised: the inmutability of iron. His people, and the dwarves after them, had learned the secrets of imbuing steel with power. For the fae it was an otherworldly, impenetrable material. He wanted his sword in his hand.

"A vibrant world," he echoed. "Why is there war here?" he asked. A war that had supposedly ended long ago. Seperate from them by both time and the void between worlds.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"Why is there war anywhere," she answered by way of asking another question. There was no pause for a a response, though; she provided an answer to both his and her questions both.

"Because there is only room for one God to rule this world, of course." It sounded as if she were speaking the most obvious of truths, and that to an unruly child who wouldn't eat their veggies. "All others are charlatans, and pretenders. That is why their faith is too weak to protect them from Leto's fury."

"The massacres are their own reason for more massacres," Seska said, quite suddenly. She looked to Draedamyr with none of the contempt Lia held for him. "The slain from the last battle are the martyrs that spur on the next battle and the next slaughter. Thus it has been for thousands of years," the ancient Sidhe said.

"You lot started it!" Lia shrieked in response. Seska simply shrugged.

"No one knows who started it. The war has continued in perpetuity for thousands of years. Each and every one of us nothing more than pawns to the will of the deified aspects of humanity." She sneered at the idea. "Angelique and her Justice. Barnabas and his Fury. Leto and his Chaos. Oleana and her Tranqulity. All cast upon the altar of indignant rage, burned to ashes along with millions of their followers."

Lia glowered at her.

"And for what?"

There was no immediate answer forthcoming.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr sagged into his chair. He didn't reach for his tea. He didn't reach for his sword.

He was quite convinced by now that Lia wanted Seska to suffer for what they had been through. That this was some kind of faerie illusion to make her relive the worst of it.

He didn't have a question for Lia this time. He slowly turned to Seska.

"How long were you in this constant cycle of war?" he asked her quietly.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"There is a...are several creation myths," she said by way of answer. The simple statement should impart enough information about the seemingly endless and eternal war of the heavens, but Lia shrieked before any further elaboration could come.

"Myths! Myths! Myths!?" The woman stood tall, a thunderous look on her face. "The only myths belong to the heathens. Heathens like you two!"

"Myths," the ancient Sidhe began again quite calmly. "The only one I was alive to bear witness to - and thus give veracity to - is the ascension of Oleana." The look on Lia's face became even further enraged; the subject of Oleana's rise to godhead was definitely a sore subject among the faithful of the First Three. "She who became the head of a faction tired of the endless wars, the ceaseless bloodshed. She who, seeing no end in sight, became a martyr to the masses and - in being slain for standing against the various churches - rose to the heavens."

She smiled a little, remembering it. The arrival of a fourth to the celestial realm had shattered the precarious balance that had existed. The Oleanites had almost achieved their goal. Almost...but it had fallen apart due to treachery.

She still remembered when they - the whole of an entire faith - had conducted a mass ritual of terrifying power. And left the realm of Mo'pri, mere months before the lack of Her balancing presence brought and end to that continent and all the rest of the world.

"She was a false goddess. A pretender. She got exactly what she deserved," Lia hissed. Seska simply shrugged.

"This war has gone on long enough. Before I was born. But it is over, Lia. Its over. There is no one left to fight over. There are no deities to hear your supplica-"

"Lies! Lies, lies, lies!" The tall Duannan clutched at her head, tearing at her hair, and the world flickered in a sickening fashion. "My Lord still reigns! He reigns!"

Everything blinked out.

The table was gone, the grass and the trees. All of it gone, and replaced by overcast, grey skies. Seska blinked, standing again, but upon which she stood was a grisly end made manifest.

...Inverness...

The bastion of Angelique for years beyond counting. Standing - for a given value of the word - round them were the remnants of greatness. Burned out buildings, half collapsed into the streets, surrounded them. The charred bones of the fallen lie everywhere. Hundreds. Thousands.

Tens of thousands. The apocalyptic end of the capital of the great guild had been sudden and sure, and had slain every last living soul within it. The charred parapets of the keep itself stood tall and surprisingly unbroken, but the burned banners and the soot-stained walls heralded not one soul. The air was silent. Nothing grew, nothing lived; the air was dead and dry, the weeds choking the paving stones longs since dead despite the warmth in the air.

This was a dead world. This was a necropolis, and this is what she had been running from for a hundred thousand years. This very image that had been seared into her mind.

Wild laughter echoed through the ruins, but Seska stood silent.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr stood in silence beside her. As he allowed the calamity to wash over him, he thought to reach out for Seska.

For him, there was merely the visceral death and destruction. For her this was memory. The kind she had tried to deliberately fence off, or merely allowed to fade with time. This was going to hurt her.

Draedamyr held her hand. He had faith in her. He had faith in steel, too. Which led him to the one question that mattered.

"Can she be saved?"

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She took that hand, and gripped it hard. Had she been other than who she was, it might have been painful.

"Can I be saved?" The answer to either question was the same. No. No amount of atonement would make up for this; this one place among thousands, and all of them the same. A countryside scorched bare, mountains tumbled to the seas and plains. Such deliberate, careful, and calculating destruction they had wrought upon one another. "She has lost what little bit of her mind that had survived this," she said, gesturing round them with her free hand.

She very much wanted to embrace him, and feel the presence of living flesh to dispel the death all round them. But she did not. She contented herself to just hold his hand, and share that connection.

"This world is not real," she said suddenly. After a moment, she continued, explained. "There is a world like this, but this one is not real. This is all a dream. We are trapped in Lia's nightmare."

It was difficult to understand how that could be, but then...slipping into the dreams of others was a thing she knew of, but did not necessarily know much about. Perhaps Draedamyr did, though. Her specific area of expertise was subtle and efficient use of magic. She wasn't even entirely certain this was magic in the usua; sense.

Fae magic, her mind supplied. Lia was Duannan, and while she disagreed in their self-proclaimed superiority among the fae, they did have their own brand of magic.

"We must find a way from this dream, and then decide what to do."

 

[Draedamyr]

"You don't need saving," he said quietly. "You carry this burden with you. That you only need a little wine per week to manage is remarkable."

He let a breath out slowly. Did he breathe in the real world at the same time? Would it help? He hadn't been a part of elven culture for so long that his knowledge of this kind of magic was sparse. No one had ever sent him to hunt down the rogue mage giving people weird dreams.

"I worry that we have to decide what to do about Lia to get away from this place. And I worry that I have no power here to act at all."

The full extent of his feeling of helplessness unfolded against her mind. He knew of steel and how to use it in the real world, even in the face of dangerous magic.

"But I am here for you."

Not to fight Lia, but to face the demons from her past. In a way, he supposed that was fighting Lia - or at least fighting the weapon she had decided to deploy against Seska.

"Let's stay together and...look for a way out?" he suggested with a shrug.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She squeezed his hand harder, but said nothing immediately. The weight of all those souls, the chains binding each to her, dragged her back into the past. It wasn't, she reflected to herself, that she needed saving. It was that she was beyond salvation. There existed no being that could grant her absolution.

All she could do is prevent the mistakes of the past from being repeated.

"The mind is a labyrinthine thing," she said finally. "But because we are inside something created by another does not mean we are without power. Will is the key," she said with a confidence she did not really feel. She had no idea how the attacks would come, or what shape they would take...but she was certain that they would come. Lia was lost to the world.

The terrible thing was that she and the Duannan were not so different. Well...the other might have been far less twisted by greed for power, long ago.

Haunting laughter drifted on the lifeless wind, cackles and muttered words that meant little and less to them or anyone else. Seska closed her eyes, and steeled her will. Her will to live, despite millennia after millennia looking back on her failures. Straightening, she released the elfin hand. "Let us go, then," she said, and started forward into the unknown. The past, the present, the future - in a dream, all were one.

 

[Draedamyr]

Draedamyr imagined that Reverie was a real sword by his side. He imagined hardening his own will into the steel of his blade. Perhaps if he thought like the thrust of its point, he could make a difference here.

He marched ahead. There was a wall within the city. Curved and split by short, squat turrets. He made for this, as if it might have been a barrier between them and another part of this realm.

Draedamyr found a heavy door, still attached to its hinges. He twisted the heavy ring, pushed and stepped inside.

The air changed, stilled. There was a more acrid taste on the air. It was dark, the sound of chains faintly rattling. A place of hedonism or torture. The light had become so faint that he couldn't tell.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

She moved like a wraith just a step behind him, head awash in memories of this place. There were certainly good memories to be had of Mo'pri - it was not a place entirely consumed by war and the unending desire for power at any and all cost.

It had just evolved into that undesired, fetid swamp of corruption given enough centuries.

All round them, the ruins of greatness rose and crumbled. One day, Arethil would look something like this. It was a chilling truth, and one that was as undeniable as life and death itself. Arethil was, after all, built mostly upon the ashes of itself. All world with sentient life were. And one day, all life would end. And when it did...

...tall buildings, roofs caved in over the course of centuries, the wood rotted away. Crumbling masonry spilling into the streets. Empty doorways filled with darkness, black windows peering into the lives of peoples long, long gone. The eerie silence of the captial - a name she could no longer remember - haunted her. It couldn't be much better for Draedamyr, but the wonderful man did not understand the deep truth of the world. A couple thousand years was not enough to really drink in the truth.

Nor ten thousand. A hundred? Long enough to see the rise and fall, the complete dissolution of not one but many societies? Certainly the horror of the things she had done in her life led to drinking, but they were not the only things that hit so close to home.

Completely unaware that she was doing so, her hand found Draedamyrs and gripped it with uncommon strength. And so they walked through the ruins of greatness, and into ruins of a different kind.

A smell hung in the dead air, something not altogether pleasant. The gate should have led to a hall, but instead it led into the dank underbelly of a castle. The traces of past horrors, delivered unto their victims, hung in the air like unfinished business. Specters in truth, left to wander a dead world so long that their individuality had eroded and now all they represented with concepts; regrets, rage, sorrow, anguish. The people these specters had once been had long since faded.

"This...this is the reality of the world," she said quite suddenly. Wispy shapes moved in the not-darkness. Ghosts that had existed passed their time. "The only enduring truth of every world." She sounded hollowed out, stricken by pathos so deep it could swallow the sun.

 

[Draedamyr]

His confidence to press on was eroded by the shapes that moved through the shadows. It was hard to tell what was real - or as real as this illusion - and what was simly the darkness lurking in the periphery of his mind.

Draedamyr had been born into exile from a world that was rapidly being worn away. The elven kingdoms of old were mostly gone. That still didn't allow him to relate to what Seska experienced in the brutal ending of this place.

He gripped her hand tightly and pressed on. Nothing stepped forward to block their path. Lia, it seemed, wanted to torture Seska with visions of their past for now.

"This feels like the right direction," he said, turning another rusted ring handle. This time the other side was much brighter. The door clattered shut behind them and suddenly there was nothing but a brick wall at their backs. Noise, voices. Perhaps an earlier moment from this world.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Draedamyr practically had to pull the slight figure behind him; Lia's intention to cause any kind of pain that she could was as accurate as a marksman. The smell of death and the formless wraiths left behind should have proven to be a blessing.

But they were not.

Voices. The brick wall at their back formed a central wall to some building - an inn, as it turned out. The voices, those of patrons long, long dead and consumed by a conversation that had the hallmarks of something that had been carried on for far longer than this day alone.

"Elpis is gone," said one, an elderly voice that belonged to an elfin man of considerable age. Despite that, as they walked into a room that had a hearth crackling merrily away on one end and a narrow counter for queued up food on the other, the old fellow thrust a thumb behind him indicating some place that none here could see. "E'n now, her restless bones shiver 'way," he said, and spit on the floor for good measure.

There were a dozen people round the table, mostly older and all of them worn. They looked up from their cups long enough to mark the entrance of the two new faces, to look them up and down and then sneer dismissively at both of them.

"Your ilk and their sorcery," one of them said in a gravelly voice, this directed at Seska. "And shouldn't you be out fighting, youngin'," he asked of Draedamyr. The absence of anything remotely appearing young here was marked, and Draedamyr, however old he might be, was younger than these scruff old coots by half.

 

[Draedamyr]

"Young'in," he muttered under his breath. He had been living around humans for most of his life and was used to being treated as much younger than he was. Much, much younger.

"I would be out fighting, but some fae brought me here for some personal business," he replied. "In fact, I would be quite happy if that business could be concluded."

Draedamyr didn't know the rules of this place and he didn't know if Lia could hear him. They had galvanised around seeing this through to the end and he was feeling emboldened.

"Everyone is out fighting wars for your gods?" Draedamyr asked, looking for a way forwards.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

"'Our gods', the whelp says," one of them snarked, and shook his head. "Was a time when such heresy would result in being spiked to a tree along a road, or worse."

"The Three are all as real as each other, son," another said as if explaining it to a child. "Only one can sit on Olanders' throne, though. Only Leto has the right to sit that throne." He nodded with satisfaction. Neither he, nor the other seemed inclined to acknowledge the unspoken question in Draedamyr's words. Whether Lia was listening or not was anyone's guess. Whether she answered or not, another altogether.

"My sorcery," she said flatly, "has aided in the destruction of countless heretics." She huffed at them. She was not telling an untrue word, at that; the heretics in this case not needing to be identified in any way.

"Bleeding the world dry, more like," another spat. "Yes, they are out fighting. The wars never end, they simply ebb and flow. The last year has been worse than any in memory - ours, others, makes no difference. I wonder if the whole world will drown in the blood of heretic and believer alike."

If only you knew. If only, she thought.

"Regardless, if you speak of 'our gods', then you must adhere to another. Or at least, not to our Lord." There was a dangerous edge to the old man's words. He did not rise, though. "Well, we've shed enough blood, son, and had enough of ours spilled for a lifetime. For two. Ten. When the inquisitors come round, we won't be bashful...but we will not seek them, all the same."

 

[Draedamyr]

What was Lia trying to achieve? Was this all simply to draw out Seska's suffering? If she was drawing it out, then what was the end goal?

It worried Draedamyr that his newfound resolve could have been driving them closer to the final piece of the trap, rather than their salvation.

"Well then, we'd best move on before these inquisitors arrive," Draedamyr replied. He gave a mockery of a bow and started walking around the table.

"When did you know that this world was doomed?" he asked Seska.

He didn't know why that was the question that came to mind. He didn't want to shine a light on her past any more than Lia already was, but he couldn't help himself.

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

The old men round the table raised their drinks, but said nothing further. They returned to their animated conversation, but now that the focus was no longer on them, the words seemed to be in some foreign language. Or, perhaps, simply gibberish; there was no further information to impart to them.

Seska trailed along behind Draedamyr. Bleeding the world dry. A fitting observation from specters that had lived through the final days. She herself believed it was true, of course; it was part of the reason behind contrition and self-enforced penance stretching back more years than could reasonably be counted.

"First gradually, then suddenly," she replied to Draedamyr. "The destruction wrought upon the land and her people...that was the first sign. Birth rates plummeted, fields went barren - and still the sorcerous onslaught continued." It was not men with swords and bows that brought about the final end. She had always believed, in her heart, that they had helped, but that the slow inward spiral would have been nearly eternal if not for the magics cast about by the warring triad. "In the end, the sorcery we unleashed upon each other - the sheer volume - brought about great earthquakes, tidal waves, wildfires beyond the ken nature. Scholarly sorts - unlike myself - postulated that the souls of the dead were ultimately the fuel of our titanic sorcery, and that ultimately we interrupted the natural cycle so that it could not recover."

A world full of cities with no people in them, broken and decaying as the world they were built on rocked in its death throes. Fields bare of life, forests nothing more than skeletal fingers reaching towards ash-filled skies.

They stepped from the common room.

"What is the point?"

They were not outside, and the words were spoken in the hollow tones of utter despair. This was a cold place, cold stone walls unadorned by art or decor, cold stone floors worn smooth by the endless passage of time. A lonely window was the sole break in the black stone, and it looked out upon an endless plain of black sand glittering in the cold starlight of a cloudless sky.

Lia sat upon a throne in this cold place, chin resting upon her hand. Dark, unreadable eyes regarded both of the trespassers. "What is the point of all of this," she asked again, gesturing at the tower and the world beyond.

Seska looked to Draedamyr. She did not have an answer to that question, either; she had been searching for it for tens of thousands of years and still it eluded her. She wanted to say the point was to live...but what was the point of that? To suffer, to watch everything you knew and love fade into obscurity? Standing beside Draedamyr, she could feel the fragility of that connection. The man was limited in his life, and she was not.

What was the point?

 

[Draedamyr]

There was the softest whisper as Draedamyr drew his sword.

Years of studying the blade and by far the most pertinent lesson he had to pass on to his students was that choosing the right moment to draw a blade was as important as your opening gambit.

He hadn't taken on any students for some time. Not since his great protégé, his attempt at leaving a mark on the world, had turned out to be rotten to the core.

Perhaps he had never been meant to teach. He had lost track of his own children, even Desmene.

Regardless of his failings, this truth was real. Strong and as immutable as the steel itself. His focus was honed as sharp as the blade and he forced himself to believe that it had strength here too.

Nothing whispered of death quite like a blade ready to be used.

"I had been wondering what the point of all this was myself," Draedamyr said. Six steps. Eight if he wanted to keep his balance in the face of a counter attack, and he would. This time he was fully mentally committed to action if nothing was going to be resolved with words.

"Let us out of this place."

 

[Seska the Dragonslayer]

Lia leaned forward as Draedamyr drew his blade, and a queer fey light suddenly burned in her eyes as she regarded the man and the weapon. The smile that graced her lips was thing and...expectant.

"You are chained here by your own conceit," she whispered in a sultry tone, and then her face twisted into a parody of mirth. "As are we all." Lia's head snapped to the side as Seska made to step forward, as she made to draw upon the power of the prim, and an accusatory finger stabbed in her direction.

"You stay out of this!" she shrieked, and a flash of arcane power wrapped round the duannan. Fingers splayed on one hand, and a staff of ancient wood suddenly in the other, Seska cried out as something powerful slammed into her, sending her rolling back into the wall hard enough to stun her. The glow of the Art faded from her, and Lia's wild eyes turned to Draedamyr.

"You are not a part of this story, ancient witch. You had your chance...and now it is his turn!" She stood suddenly, and as quickly became an imposing, threatening figure out of legend. A glamour, perhaps, but a convincing one. "Bring me your iron, child, and let us see if you have the answer!"

 

[Draedamyr]

My turn

What did that even mean? He was tired of riddles. The sound of Seska crying out had killed off the last of his will to try and unravel this mystery.

"If you hurt her again, I cannot promise you a quick end," Draedamyr stated. He stated, he did not threaten.

He was not a shining beacon of light in this world. He had made his way by spilling blood, by earning respect the hard way.

Now that he was backed into a wall, watching a sorceress attack his Seska he was reduced down. Down to the keen edge of a blade and the will to use it.

Eight steps. Keeping his stride length short to allow him to change direction if he needed to. Reverie held out to the side, there was no chance of a parry, only maneuvering for the single strike that would end this.