Open Chronicles The Raid On Hollowmere Crossing

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria ground her teeth as she silently reflected on her fall from grace. Her victories at Dhunbor, her leadership of Drow, all of that shattered by a rival House snatching it away from her. Leaving her disgraced and fleeing to the surface permanently. Humiliation was too small a word for the depth of her contempt. She had managed to take her most loyal coterie of followers, along with petty thieves, crooks, and vagabonds, along the way.

It was the dead of night when Vyx’aria crouched on a low ridge overlooking the lonely frontier town of Hollowmere Crossing, a scrap of wooden palisades and torchlit streets nested within the Ixchel Wilds.

It was a sanctuary for travelers, hunters, lost merchants. Her red eyes glowed like coals in the dark as she studied it. The fools had no idea what watched them.

Behind her, her small strike party of drow fanned out in a crescent, their meticulous discipline entirely out of place in contrast to the idiots Vyx’aria picked up from the Surface. They had followed her from camp to camp, through hunger and dust and exile. Tonight, they would feast again.

Vyx’aria lifted two fingers, then curled them. Move.

The Drow rose to her full height, the moonlight glinting off her pale hair. Her expression was carved from cruelty, her lips curling into something almost pleased as she surveyed the sleeping town.

“Our objective,” she murmured, voice low and venomous, “is the granary stores. Hollowmere Crossing feeds three other settlements. Take their food, and the region will bleed for us for months.” A wicked smile split her face. “And if they resist…” Her fingers brushed the hilt of her blade. “Show them what the Underrealm taught us about mercy.”

She gave a final hand signal that was sharp and decisive.

Strike.

Her raiders surged forward into the darkness, and Vyx’aria followed, a shadow descending upon a town that would not live to see dawn.

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

The fall of Vyx'aria from power had meant the fall of Zathria as well. The Drow Commander had been loyal to the Queen through the fall and had sworn violent vengeance on the House that had cast them down, but survival had to come first. You couldn't strike back at those you hated if you were dead.

Her eyes flicked over to one of the degenerate male vagabonds they had picked up on the surface, his lecherous gaze constantly following her and somehow his presence never too far away. She made a note to run him through on this raid if she got a chance. Or maybe just leave him out as the person who could be cut down if they found themselves in conflict.

Her hand came to rest against the hilt of one of her sabers, its weight at her side a reassurance even amidst this accursed human settlement. The moon in the sky and these infernal torches were already more light than she wanted but the blackness of her Drow-weaved armor let her blend into the shadows left behind seamlessly.

It wasn't her saber, though, that she pulled as Vyx'aria urged them forward but her knife. The weapon slipped from its sheathe - its blade laced with a poison before she had set out on this raid - and she fell upon the nearest human, another drunkard who was nearly unconscious already. He opened his mouth to call out only for a gloved hand to smother his yelp the knife plunged through flesh and poured blood free into the dirt.

"Scouting reports point to a heavier guard presence on the other side of town. If we take the town before alerting them we can throw them off guard and drive them from their positions of strength on the walls," she said.

 

[J'rell]

Spoiler: Music

Light. First there was stone, and then, there was light. Voices that echoed in that crystalline cave. Voices from a thousand different pasts; voices of family, friends, lovers -- all strangers now, and yet, he knew them, deeper than he knew himself. They tugged at him, urging him to come back to them, to relive his moments with them; moments that were all but scattered into piles of fractured glass, no longer coherent, no longer making sense.

The light reflected it all and consumed all. A great, prismatic tunnel of it, one that he journeyed through at impossible speeds, outmatched by any steed, bird or man. Too fast. Too sudden. Too real. He wasn't ready. The light blazed through him, tore him apart, reforged him, blinded him and then . . .

J'rell opened his eyes with a hitch, breath catching, drenched in sweat. Slowly, he raised his head, glancing down at the pearls of sweat glistening on his own chest. His breathing roared in his ears; slowly, slowly calming down. It was near dark. No bright glare. The darkness layered over him like a comforting blanket, soothing him.

"You are awake," a voice purred from the darkness.

He sighed and lay back his hairless head on his mat. His mind carefully picked up the few pieces of glass it had left from its bowl of memory and put them back together. Eyes found the thatched roof, circled the rickety walls, reconstructing the hut he was in again. Hollowmere Crossing. The voice: he connected it to the medicine woman that had brought him here. Nishka. He recalled now. Her name was an anchor in a sea of infinity.

"I am awake," he agreed. Slowly, he pushed himself up, rediscovering the long, white loincloth that covered his legs. The golden tattoos that swirled across his jet-black skin. He used his deep, slow voice again, to test if it truly belonged to him: "And so are you."

Nishka cackled warmly.

"An astute observation. And I have been for some time. You talk in your sleep."

"What did I say?"

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria advanced at the head of the column, her movements unhurried and predatory with each step measured. The murmur of Zathria At'Arel 's scouting report reached her ear, and she inclined her head once in approval. Despite being nested in the wilds, the most this town had contended with in the past was wild animals.

The formation slid forward through torch-shadow and timbered alleys, drow armor drinking in the light rather than reflecting it. Everything was going as planned and then..

One of the surface-bred strays she had permitted to run with them, a rookie vagabond, broke from cover a moment too soon. A civilian’s shocked cry cut the night sharp as a snapped string.

The man spotted the front line and immediately bolted.

The vagabond froze.

Vyx’aria did not.

A curse slipped from her lips in the harsh syllables of the underrealm. Her hand moved in one fluid, practiced arc. Steel sang once through the air, invisible until it was already too late. The knife struck home at the base of the shouting man’s neck. He collapsed mid-step, voice severed as cleanly as his breath, body crumpling into the dirt with a wet finality.

For a breathless moment, she tensed, drawn tight like a bowstring. She was not naive, and she knew what such a minor interaction could cost.

Soon enough, there were shouts. A lantern clattered to the ground. Somewhere, a bell began to ring ragged, desperate, uneven.

“Fuck,” She growled under her breath, one of her favored words in the surface tongues. Vyx’aria’s red eyes burned brighter as she bared her teeth in a snarl that promised exquisite punishment later. She turned sharply on her warband, voice cutting through the rising panic like a blade.

“Hold formation,” she hissed. “We do not scatter. We take the Crossing as planned. Stick to the shadows."

She strode to the corpse to retrieve her knife with a wet squelch, not sparing a glance at who may have been a father, a brother, or perhaps even a key figure in the town. With a sharp, commanding gesture, she surged forward, and her drow followed, shadows given lethal purpose as they charged into the streets in disciplined fury.

Behind shuttered doors and thin walls, the town began to wake, not gently, but violently. Footsteps thundered past huts. Voices rose in panic. All now within earshot of J'rell .

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

No plan survived contact with the enemy, sure, but Zathria thought that it should be "no plan survives contact with the idiot surfacer allies." She missed the discipline of the Underrealm. Those few veteran fighters who had fled the darkness with her were often picked for scouting teams and the like but they lacked the combat strength and numbers needed to actually sack a town or fight a battle.

"My Queen, I will draw their attention away with a trio of our scouts," she said, knowing that she could easily take a trio of Drow and lead the locals on a merry chase through the darkness of the town. She could have them swiping at shadows only to come up empty and that would mean the remaining fighters - and more importantly the idiot surfacers - would have less to deal with.

Zathria slipped her sabers out of their sheathes and pointed at a trio of the Drow, trusted scouts who she knew would not fail her, and motioned for them to come with her.

She flung herself from the darkness, falling upon one of the militiamen like a feral animal but each strike was precise. Three hits in just over a second to the neck, thigh, and sternum that sent him falling backwards.

Although most in this town were not real combatants, the same could not be said for the captain of the guard. A veteran of multiple campaigns, he emerged from his house with sword and shield in hand, silvery chest plate catching faint rays of moonlight as his voice bellowed over the town.

"Rally to me, my brothers! We will drive these heathen back into the night!" he shouted and already people were beginning to gather to him, starting to form an actual defense rather than act like the scattered and frightened sheep they were.

 

[J'rell]

Spoiler: Music

"Rally to me, my brothers! We will drive these heathen back into the night!"

Before the medicine woman ever got the chance to answer, a rallying cry splintered the night. Confusion and fear tore Hollowmere Crossing apart. Furor wandered the village. It was a sound he knew well; a sound he had heard many times before.

While animalistic anger stirred outside, J'rell's head only lowered with sorrow. He thought he had found solace in the night. But the night proved him wrong; it proved to have teeth. And once again, he would have to kill.

"Do you have a weapon?" he muttered, barely wanting to say the words.

"Behind the wicker baskets. There's a blade."

Her words had drained of warmth, cold with fear. J'rell rose in one, fluid motion and clenched and unclenched his hands before his face, as if confirming for himself that they were his own. Rippling muscle marked his arms, chest, abdomen, and he could feel the strength of his thighs and calves beneath the cloth.

This would do.

Pushing through the wicker baskets, he found the long blade and pulled it free. A dented, mangled piece of metal, with a brass crossguard and pommel. It looked the brutish size of an orcish weapon. Probably barely sharp.

Adequate.

He stepped through the tent, slow and methodical, like a wave cresting over the sea, waiting its turn before it would crash against shore. All around him, lights winked and shadows danced and people ran to and fro, committing the first mistake on any battlefield. Giving in to confusion.

While others ran, J'rell kept still, grand blade resting on his shoulder. Now standing outside the hut on tall supports, his ebony eyes surveyed Hollowmere Crossing. They squinted slightly, taking his time to locate any sign of the enemy, before committing himself to action.

Vyx'aria
Zathria At'Arel

 

[Vyx'aria]

The first scream died beneath her blades before the victim knew what happened. Shadow answered her call as breath answers a lung with drow magick, old and ceremonial, spilling from her. A black fog welled outward, dense and swallowing, a living shroud that devoured torchlight and courage alike. Within it, she moved with honed purpose.

She moved as the Underrealm had taught her to move, not as a soldier, but as a dervish made flesh. Twin blades wheeled and crossed, precise and cruel. Civilians scattered and were culled all the same. Some fell without ever seeing her face. Others glimpsed white hair and red eyes a moment before death claimed them. It mattered little. All were equal beneath her contempt.

The fog turned with her, a revolving veil, and inside it she became whirlwind and executioner both as she spun, cut and vanished. Blood struck the cobbles and steamed. Bodies folded. The night learned to recoil.

She emerged from the black veil like a wraith stepping from myth, blades slick, posture immaculate.

Ahead, a pathetic line had formed of townsfolk clutching spears and borrowed courage, a captain barking orders with a voice already cracking. Vyx’aria slowed, savoring the sight. The urge to laugh coiled sharp and dangerous in her chest. It took effort not to indulge it.

Her gaze slid past them to spot a male figure (J'rell ) stood apart, tall, composed, a blade resting upon his shoulder as though this were an inconvenience rather than calamity. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled, tasting the air around him. He did not smell like the cowering humans and his scent did not indulge her like the rest.

She tilted her head, smile carving itself into something elegant and obscene.

“What are you?” she asked, her voice carrying easily across the ruin. “A hero? A butcher playing at restraint?”

Her eyes gleamed, hungry and amused.

“Perhaps,” she continued softly, “you are wise enough to command these rats to kneel and spare us some effort."

Her grin widened, predatory, sovereign.

“Speak, then,” the fallen queen purred.

Zathria At'Arel

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Somewhere amidst the panic, a candle had been dropped in the village and one of the huts was now fully ablaze, casting irregular flickers of light across the entire village. It seemed someone had taken up to answer the call to defend the village, or perhaps more than one someone.

Zathria's eyes pierced the darkness to see the man who had risen in challenge, a single sword in hand. A part of her wanted to scoff at the idea, knowing well that the Queen could dance lethal circles around him, and yet there was a confidence in his stride that spoke of something dangerous. It wasn't the bumblings of a terrified villager but the stance of a warrior.

She couldn't move to interfere, though, instead moving to track down this captain who had risen to rally the people.

One of her scouts sent a poisoned handbow bolt at the man who deftly blocked it with his shield, bellowing further defiance.

"Come from the darkness and fight me, cowards!" he yelled, but Zathria didn't rise to the taunt. Pride was the undoing of many a warrior, and she was a victor. She would not be so easily baited into open confrontation with an unknown enemy.

J'rell
Vyx'aria

 

[Lorinna Astarel]

The sharp tolling of the town bell shattered the quiet of the night, pulling Ser Lorinna Asterel from a light sleep. She had been staying at the only inn at Hollowmere.

It was still dark beyond the shutters
For a moment she lay still, senses alert as shouts began to echo faintly from the streets below. The bell was ringing.

She jerked upright as her brain caught up.

Then the door burst open, admitting a gust of chill air and her squire, young Elias. His typically pale face was flushed and his eyes wide with alarm.

"Ser Asterel!" he gasped, lantern in hand.

She often forgot she had a squire now. She had spent so long as one herself before earning her knighthood.

"Raid! The bell's calling all to arms!"

Lorinna was on her feet, bare feet touching the cold wooden floor as the clamour grew. She looked to her armour. It was exceptional plate. She was as mobile as ever and almost invincible when wearing it.

"We should be ready to go and fetch help," Elias hissed.

Her full armour was set on a stand in the corner. Polished plate etched with protective runes, mail hauberk beneath. Her gambeson was in the cupboard.

"Start dressing me," she said. "We fight."

Lights danced in the window. Something was burning.

Buckling it all properly, even with Elias's help, would steal precious minutes. Minutes while villagers died.

"Just the cuirass, pauldrona and helmet."

Lorinna pulled a leather jerkin over her nightshirt and went for her padded gambeson.

There had been other travellers at the inn. Some had been armed.

As she emerged, visor up to afford her some vision in the dark, she heard shouting.

"Where are they?" she called, stepping in the path of a panicked villager.

"Elves! That way!"

"Elias, get the horses, be ready."

She wouldn't run right away, but there was a chance they needed to warn others if the village was being overrun by an army.

The shouting was a captain of the guard. He had people formed up around him. Lorinna couldn't even see what he was yelling at.