Open Chronicles Thirst of the Ascended

[Alicia Blackbolt]

Spoiler: Music

“Perhaps I can,”

Alicia turned her head in surprise. Another one?

“Play whatever part you wish but don’t get in my way like those cultists did.” At that, the drow darted, trying to draw his enemy’s attention as much as search for an opportunity to sever a wrist.

"Noted," Alicia barked, fishing out a raven-feathered bolt from her quiver.

Staying away from this creature, leaving these dark elves to handle things?

That, she could do.

The obscuring of her smokestick had run its course. While it rendered her dangerously visible, it did make it much easier to locate the final gem. Loading her crossbow, she made her way to it, then whirled to the creature, her cloak snapping in a dark arc.

That bastard had nearly blessed her with his ritual kris. A nasty gift, to be sure. She didn't like to leave debts unpaid.

The butt of her weapon snapped to her shoulder, taking aim. She pulled the trigger with grim satisfaction. Sending the broadhead bolt right into his ugly mouth.

The creature moved strangely. Not like a regular beast or human. Fluid, like some strange deepwater creature washed into the cistern, arms slicing through the air, fingers stretching and testing their claws. It stared at its own drifting arms for a moment, as if in fascination.

This languid, snarling meditation snapped when a bolt flew through its open mouth and sunk into its palate. It barely reacted, didn't even utter a cry of pain. But it did turn its head in a rapid jerk, noting the trajectory - and crunched the bolt between its teeth.

Like a snapping crustacean, it suddenly swiped at both Feyrith and Zyndyrr, mowing forward, three claws for each. Its remaining hands traced the outlines of a silent spell: a spinning, six-pointed star of white flame forming there, drawn from the forge of its white-burning ribcage and eyes. This arcane energy whirled in Alicia's direction, and she rolled aside as long as she were, narrowly avoiding it.

It carved more than a few inches through stone and the tail end of Alicia's cloak before dissipating, white cinders still flickering in the heated scar. Alicia gasped sharply at this destructive magic and the mess it made of her cloak, but soon her eyes found a much worse sight - the last ruby on the floor, sliced in half. Now a cut sphere of red, its one side still smoking and glaring with cinders. It seemed the flagstones weren't the only casualties of the spell.

Her worried gasp turned into a groan of dismay. Quickly enough, her mind went from imagining scorched limbs to the waterfall of coins clattering out of this gem's value.

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

“AND SO THE HUNTER’S MARK FINALLY SHOWS ITS HIDE!”

Karskgorak charge through the remaining wraiths, towards the many armed demon. To the side he noticed a tall dark figure he recognized as that foul blooded swordsman Afanas. Karsk had heard the quasi-vampire had returned to hunting after a stint of book reading in Elbion

though catching up with a man he swore to kill was hardly pressing, as the many armed demon glanced over at Karsk with empty eye sockets.

The old orc stopped in his tracks with a stomp that shook the cistern to the same extent as the flagstone destroying the altar.

The demon wound back one of its arms as Karsk readied and drew his blade from its heavy wooden scabbard.

The blade was wrapped in a tempestuous pale light, growing to the size of a zweihander as Karsk muttered Mantras in Orcish.

The demon swung down with its claws but was deflected in a flash of light by Karskgorak’s sword.

The sword left no cuts on the demon’s hand but it seared in pain after coming into contact with the pale light.

“a spirit blade stings with more than just cuts!” Karsk shouted, as he drove his sword into the ground, driving up a wave of stone that launched into the fiend as it briefly recoiled.

 

[Feyrith]

What her blade form held in power and swiftness was truly ailed by a lack of control. Feyrith's head cleared momentarily to find her blade sunk threw the cultist. It hadn't been her intention none of it. She had certainly felt some small desire to halt the woman being sacrificed but that had been a passing compassion. What she had really hoped to do was nip the madness of the ritual in the bud before it could blossom into further chaos. In that she had failed spectacularly.

bolts found another cultist who lunged for their hired ally. Piercing his chest and safeguarding Feyrith, one even motioning to the mercenary that she could take shelter within their phalanx should she wish.

It was no small relief to know that reinforcements had arrived. For in her blunder they would surely need it.

In the time it took her to pull her blade free the sputtering man had already incanted some such to finish the deed. Silently she grumbled all manner of curses in her thoughts. It might have done her some good to hear the thanks of the would be sacrifice begrudging or not. It might have softened the blow a little.....but she had little time to process it had even been said.

“And who are you!?”

Zyndyrr beckoned the other figure with a quick flourish from one of his weapons. Purple-skinned. Female. Drow like him. Didn’t matter anyhow. He was a bit sick of these interruptions in his business.

Nor did she have time to reply to the Drow. Not that she would have answered even if he had asked more politely instead of waving a weapon.
No before anything else the woman had called to attention the rising form that Feyrith was staring down with a similar dread.

Alicia paled, then hissed almost as vehemently to Feyrith:

"Could you kill him again?"

As if to cosmically mock her, the arcane being transformed garishly into a skeletal form of many more arms than those she had failed to clip.
The male Drow called for an assault on the arms. She couldn't agree more and especially had no intention of 'getting in the way' she was more than happy to leave such a monstrosity to him and the assembled hunters.

In her hesitance to advance on the eldritch creatures Feyrith had found herself nearly caught in it's swiping claws. Between the Arcane attacks and the Orc carving up the ground beneath them Feyrith was doing more dodging than anything else. Amidst the keeping out of steps of the cracks in the marble she caught sight of the would be sacrifice lamenting the broken ruby. Perhaps she was devout.....or perhaps she had simply tried to take a consolation prize only to be swiftly misfortuned. Feyrith stood a step behind the phalanx of the sun emblem guards, her sword reflexively up.

Alicia Blackbolt
Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emma caught Feyrith’s valiant effort to free Alicia from the corner of her eye and found solace in the woman’s movements, content to focus her own efforst elsewhere in the battle that unfolded before them. The shattered altar was enough to spare the woman’s life from immediate danger, but only that. Still stunned from the guard’s bashing, the injured swordswoman and then her blade was cut free at the hilt. The warning heeded.

It was an unusual need, almost familial… almost feral. It was the sort of need that had brought her onto the watch long before she’d ever joined Noct Yaegir. That hunger drove her to pick up a sword in the first place, when she was but a youth herself.

“I am here only to see that life is not loss unnecessarily,” the woman returned, and it was the first time she’d spat venom back at another so coldly. Her lips twisted bitterly, the sundered blade released to clatter to the ground. “Gut me, if you wish. But that woman needs assistance and you’re a damned fool if you think the danger has passed.”

With one less blade to rely on, the woman twisted around her newest assailant, ducking forward toward Alicia once more. There was something wild in those pale green eyes, as if the Noct Yaegir woman saw a ghost of her own past amongst the cultists that they’d picked off. And she had—the siren song that brought them all to this altar sang a different tune to the swordswoman than it did to the others, and for Emmeline she simply needed to see that Alicia still drew breath.

Then, the cultist completed his ritual and Emmeline cursed. Her fingers tightened around her remaining blade, pale green gaze fixed on the abomination that towered in front of the woman whose blood became the final ingredient in the madman’s macabre incantation.

Emmeline said nothing, though one might think she could perceive Iskander’s anger and surprise at her actions by the way she hesitated just briefly at the creature. She’d seen things of its nature before, and she knew the damage it could do. “We don’t have time to bicker now. Your man isn’t dead. If he can fight still, now is the time.”

It was only after these words that the madness in her eyes finally seemed to calm; whatever insanity the cultists had beckoned seemed to falter with the shattering of the altar. The consummation of the ritual meant its litany’s hold on the would-be heros weakened. She lifted her chin and charged forward again, this time toward the creature, her gaze seeking any sign of weakness upon its magicked body.

 

[Afanas]

Feyrith
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Alicia Blackbolt
Emmeline Hildebrandt

Afanas scoffed—a sound sharp as flint struck steel.

“Scatter!” he roared. “Behind the pillars, all of you! Drag the broken clear! If they breathe, they fight another day. If they can’t walk, carry them!”

The order flew like a thrown axe, no time for questions.

He turned then, slow and deliberate, his black eyes locked on the demon. A sneer split his face, peeling back lips to bare fangs, the flesh behind them dark and slick as wet tar.

Without looking, he reached and clamped Karsk’s shoulder.

A sword dropped into his waiting hand. It did not fall—it came, like a hound to heel. His fingers wrapped the hilt, and the blade settled along his shoulder like a resting vulture.

"I’ve got a plan," he said.

"But I need you to keep that thing in place. Take its legs. One, both, I don’t care. Hobble it. Cripple it. If steel fails, bury the bastard—snare it in the stone. Don’t waste breath or blade on the arms. Let it swing. Just see it doesn’t run.”

One of the red-plated knights seized a fallen comrade, blood ran from the man’s side where silver had found flesh. Without pause, they dragged him behind the nearest pillar.

Another knight broke from cover, his crimson armor catching firelight in jagged glints. Only his eyes showed, bright yellow and steady, beneath a visor wrought in the shape of a snarling dragon’s snout.

He raised one hand toward Feyrith.

“Back,” he said. His voice was flat, metallic through the helm. “Lord Commander’s orders. Put distance between us and that thing.”

He turned to Alicia, gaze unreadable behind the visor.

“Take your friend. Move fast. It’s already seen too much of us.”

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Scatter. Stand back. Get behind the pillars. Take cover. It didn’t matter. The words of others pierced like daggers in Zyndyrr’s ears but that was just because of his adrenaline. Otherwise he ignored them and focused on what his eyes told him amid the rush of blood.

There was some undead soul before his sight and, when all was said and done, the tall twisted thing with eight long arms sailing on a sea of blood was just a contract to an assassin. No more or less and forget the legs.

So the K’yoshin transformed, not into a macabre monstrosity to match the monster, but into a shuriken. He whipped like the wind, cut across the distance, dodging, flipping over the limbs that swiped toward him. Those claws were sharp. So were his swords. They could carve as much as roar.

The drow’s feet found ground while his target was busy launching a shuriken of white fire for another person. That kept its other limbs distracted. After Zyndyrr landed, with no cinders on his cloak that would mean absolutely nothing in the end, he continued the dance.

“Thanks.”

It was all the assassin expressed as the orc moved forth. His sword tore toward the creature, zweihander or otherwise, repelling the attack and yelling. At that very second, Zyn sprung into action. He had been biding his time, waiting for the right moment, and this orcish oaf provided the perfect opening.

As the horned beast’s limb began to retract from the orc’s swing, Zyndyrr leaped, hacking and slashing. He ripped his blades this way and that way, became a whirlwind, and watched how steel enchanted with a drow’s deep magic peeled a hand from a wrist.

There was a hiss, and the hiss became a roar, and Zyn could feel the anguish and the anger in his target. “Maintain your distance if you wish,” he beckoned this makeshift alliance. “Orc!”

Twirling his scimitars, flourishing his swords for no other reason than to taunt the demon, the son of K’yoshin grinned something vicious. He would take his target’s head before the end. “AGAIN!”

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Alicia Blackbolt Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

The demon continually roared at the severance of its hand, its eyes flaring wide. The severed hand bled star-white liquid and seared the stones, potent as any acid. A sea of swords surrounded the creature, but Alicia could swear it only looked affronted by this imminent doom - if any emotion could be read in the skin stretched taut over its malformed skull.

The roar transmuted back into the defensive hiss of a giant snake, snorting through the hole where its nose should have been, bending low, protecting itself. The wave of broken stones and spiritual agony from Karskgorak had disturbed its balance, forcing it to rely on its arms to steady itself. It flung back the advancing drow, the Noct Yaegir and the crimson guards with a mighty swipe of a claw, buying itself precious seconds . . . to leap off their little island, now strewn with broken bodies, smashed stone and scattered candles.

Like some pale spider, it caught a nearby column with four, backward-stretching arms, hanging from on high in the ceiling. With this distance earned, it pointed down at its enemies with the limb that Zyndyrr had robbed of a hand - and as if in mockery of their efforts, black spines began to push through the bleeding wrist.

A terrible scream shredded the air. Unnatural and discordant, it pained the living, while summoning the undead. What remained of weakened wraiths flooded the island, attacking anything in sight. And while these minions could buy it time, an unearthly voice droned a long, sinister evocation of words, its remaining, three hands shaping a ball of jet-coloured energy, arcing and spitting with amethyst lightning, contracting and expanding erratically . . .

As for Alicia, she had had quite enough of this. A woman with pale green eyes had reached out for her, and while Emmeline Hildebrandt had meant to save her, Alicia mistook her efforts for someone trying to capture her.

Time to leave.

She sneered at the white cinders that kept devouring her cloak and flung off the dark calle from her shoulders, revealing a lithe, leather-bound body armed to the teeth with strange straps, potions and mechanical gadgets, dark-brown hair whirling wildly as if struggling to keep up with her rapid movements. Snatching the last ruby, she rushed for the edge and leapt - straight through an ascending wraith, coming out of nowhere.

Burning agony, all at once. Like jumping through scalding mists from a hot kettle, only magnified hundredfold.

She broke her fall in the waters with a wounded tumble. The waters, at least, had lost most of their heat. But as she dragged herself up to her feet, the wraith pursued her, smelling blood. Or perhaps more accurately, crisp skin.

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Spoiler: Soldiers

Shields thick enough to serve as the walls of a whorehouse would envelope Feyrith and shield her from the jet-black foulness the creature unleashed. The worked metal being scarred and marred by the fel magicks on display. The phalanx abiding by the Lord Commander Afanas 's words and pulling the Drow mercenary back into their tightly-coordinated ranks. The sergeant would pull up his visor, a middle-aged human with a scar on his left cheek and a very impressive broom-handle moustache would raise his enchanted sword and, intoning a word, magic would begin to flood from the blade with vine-like motifs down the length of it's bevel.

A soft song to nature would act as a bulwark against the creature's darkness, though weaker and at a disadvantage it would nonetheless spread an invigorating sensation to those nearby and even begin to slowly knit wounds upon their person. It was, of course, a slow regeneration. Not something to let them stand toe to toe with the foul beast, but enough to give them a reprieve should they so wish it. As the sergeant held his blade aloft like a tuning fork resonating with it's own magical song he would duck down to speak to Feyrith in a hushed, coarse whisper.

"Well now Miss, seems this routine patrol has turned into something much more interesting..."

A wry, not-at-all amused grin split his features even as the phalanx loosed another volley of four crossbow bolts at the offend abomination. Long spears prodding and keeping it at bay as the soldiers of House Iskandar set to their work.

Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Emmeline Hildebrandt
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher​

 

[Feyrith]

"Understood!" she called back to the Crimson knight.
She gladly allowed herself to be pulled within the rank of house Iskandar they tightened their formation.
'get some distance' was a welcome order. She was well aware that her choice to join the guard might call her to truly put her life on the line. Still she hadn't been quite prepared mind or body to do so this night in particular.

Even within their wall of enchanted shield the arcane shriek resounding off the marble walls set her teeth clenching. It was painful enough that, had she been of lesser discipline, she might have abandoned her sword to clamp her hand over her ears. Luckily before she could make such an embarrassing blunder another melody rang out. It's softer tones chasing away the pain and dread, easing a few aches she hadn't noticed.

Calmed her eyes met the sergeant with her most courteous frown. Or rather her eyes met his mustache first.
That sort of thing was still an unusual sight to Feyrith, Male Drow didn't seem to have the knack for growing them. Impressive indeed.
"I hasten to think I shall be reminded of it every lament of a slow night here forth. "
She replied with a tone just as wry. Feyrith had the feeling that the other soldiers at the guard post weren't going to believe a word of her report on this.

She caught a glimpse of the fleeing cultist?.. unfortunate bystander?..gem enthusiast? whoever she was she was scrambling about quite unfortunately. One of the Noct Yaeger seemed to have reached out a hand but the woman fled like a frightened rabbit chased by a rogue wraith. If she could just skirt the flank of shields to make a run fot eh exit she would be home free but Feyrith wasn't sure the woman could see that in her panicked state.

Her eyes moved back to the assault on the creature her stance renewed, ready to move should either advance or retreat be called for.

Afanas
Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Alicia Blackbolt

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

Karsk tumbled across the dusty floor as the blow from the demon had sent him flying several yards. A moment of distraction had let the monster land on him, as his attention was stolen by that murderous drow.

That scrawny elf was starting to become an annoyance besides just being a despicable murderer!

“But I have not the time for such distractions!” Karskgorak blurted out. Though he knew that if the drow again drew near, the orc would strike swiftly with his blade. Any more consideration, Karsk could not spare the scum.

Karsk dashed over to a nearby stone pillar, cleaving a section free of the floor and ceiling with rapid strikes of his glowing blade. Then, with a powerful kick, he sent the massive chunk of pillar flying straight towards the four armed demon.

Landing back on the Cistern floor, Karsk himself didn’t waste even a moment to charge back in. He trailed behind the pillar and rushed back towards the demon.

“That blasted Afanas better have a worthwhile plan, else I might just be forced to bury this terror under the city above.”

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emmeline had, most definitely, been among those confused by the wraiths and battle that ensued below. The madness that overtook the woman passed to reveal clarity and fault in her actions even as the new battle unfolded, and it settled on her face in the form of a thin-lipped frown and tensing of her jaw. She danced carefully betwixt the others, a spray of acidic blood eating away at her own cloak as she too narrowly dodged the flailing creature.

When the swordswoman fell back, her blade slid from her hand to rest in the murky water a few inches from her fingertips and she groped for it, Alicia’s sneer and defensive maneuver enough to let Emma know that the other woman was more than capable of taking care of herself; she was not, in fact, the defenseless victim that the Yaeger woman mistook her for.

Twisting a bruised and battered body, the woman’s fingers found the hilt of her sword and she curled them around the blade’s pommel with familiarity before rising to her feet once more. It was the fresh wave of wraiths that came this time, and it was to this marionette show that Emmaline was now forced to dance. It wasn't until the Lord Commander's own volley launched and the reprieve offered the fallen that the woman finally dared step close enough to speak.

"I will pay my dues for injuring your man," she said gruffly a glance cast in Afanas's direction wherever he'd gotten to in the clash, "But that creature..."

Emmeline didn't feel the need to finish; instead, the injured woman simply darted away once more to fling her blade into the fray.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar Alicia Blackbolt Afanas

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

The stone from Karskgorak smashed into the creature - and it swatted off the block with its remaining arm not dedicated to gripping the column or working its spell, breaking bone. It snarled wetly as the stone crashed into the bottom of the cistern. The creature slipped down the column a little further, it's balance teetering. The three arms kept maintaining its building spell, though, now reaching a zenith, causing hairs to rise and spines to tingle. A chance for someone to strike? Someone who would have to reach twenty feet above ground. Death loomed above. But there was a chance . . .

Alicia crawled away from the pursuing wraith, her clothes soaked. Her hand fished down to a set of yellow vials, groping for a solution. Hissing steam descended. But a small chance . . .

 

[Afanas]

The silence before the movement was a silence not of absence, but of tension, as if the air itself waited, braced in knowledge of what must come. Afanas crouched, and the stillness around him seemed to press inward, drawn toward his form like threads pulled into a knot. His legs gathered themselves beneath him, coiled not like a spring, but like a thought becoming a decision.

Then, without resistance, without flourish, he leapt.

The air screamed against him as he ascended, bitter and biting, scraping at his skin with invisible claws. The world around him bled to watercolor, walls and torchlight smearing into a single, streaking veil of color and movement.

He hung there, suspended, poised, between gravity’s call and the will that defied it. His blade rose, not like a weapon, but like a gesture older than language.

And from its edge unfurled a shape that was not flame, not shadow, but both, a crescent of night unfurling from his swing. The energy was black, but not void: it moved like spilled ink in water, edged in luminous blue, trailing tendrils that curled and unravelled like forgotten writing. It hissed through the air, not with sound, but with a pressure that memory alone might retain.

Where it passed, the stone ceiling shrieked and parted, riven open like the flesh of a fruit too long ripened in the sun.

Afanas began to fall.

And the thing he had summoned, that arc of midnight, alive with unspoken hunger, flew down ahead of him.

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Zyndyrr braced himself for the hell that waited for him, a sword hilt in either hand, and determined to not part from this pit until the dance was finished and his target’s head was bagged. Man. Beast. It didn’t matter. He had the flexibility.

“ORC!” The drow called once more. Zyndyrr turned his head toward him. What was he waiting for? At that moment, something hit him, striking his side, and he went flying. He struck a pillar, hard and fast, and ended up beside some crimson guards at his flank.

“Thanks,” Zyndyrr offered as one of them offered their hands to bring him to his feet. He would remember that. That was if this beast didn’t take their heads, at least.

It screamed. Wraiths swept into the scene, shrieking as if sharing their master’s anger and agony. Zyndyrr? “I’m getting pretty fucking frustrated with these things.” He hissed through his teeth, too annoyed to flourish his swords before he tore forth.

His blades sang. Whispered. Rang. Glimmered. Steel flashed, married with magic, peeling undead flesh as a softer song spread to reinvigorate his senses. He wasn’t particularly injured. However, Zyndyrr appreciated the addition of bloodlust to quench his thirst.

Eyes wide and wild, as crazed as a bloodhound, he rampaged. Kaskgorak would have to watch his back because the orc had nothing on the savage madness of a drow unshrouded. Storming back for his contract, the assassin witnessed the crash of a pillar, courtesy of his friendly enemy, as the orc ripped stone from stone with a sword-blow.

“YES!” Zyn expressed, his gladness matched with his own sword-hands as he wrenched them from the dead and went for the head. The creature slipped down from the pillar, its hurricane of limbs taken by its magic as it maintained its spell in one hand and balanced with its other.

“SOLDIERS OF ISKANDAR!” The drow roared as he dashed toward this ungodly fiend. “A VOLLEY!” Hopefully those arrows would distract the demon’s front. At that moment, Zyn had a different direction.

Just then, there was a flash of light from the sky. The ceiling, technically, as the vampire crashed back down to the ground, bringing his black fire with him. The creature cried, blinded by the midnight, and the wraiths parted like waves as the drow came for his target, and climbed.

“Thanks,” Zyndyrr offered Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher. The drow had about twenty feet to reach so he decided to leap off of the seven-feet-something orc for the horned devilry, planting a boot on his head to shoot, arms spread, never mind any resentment.

His enemy readied its own spell, ready to turn this cistern to hell, but was suddenly hit with another interruption. As the drow soared, purple fire ignited in his wake, dancing lights beside his companion, blinding the eyes of the skulls from groin to shoulders, surrounding it in violet and the same chaos it sought to create with its blind violence.

Zyn twisted, summoning energy into his momentum, spinning round and round. Then, when the drow reached his vantage, his blades arced downward, became one sword, and rived down the spine of his foe to open its back.

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Alicia Blackbolt Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

Living darkness sheared through the pale flesh of the monster, separating clavicle from ribcage, three arms from their shoulders and half the creature's face. As Afanas' heavy boots crashed on stone, dislodged limbs plopped into the waters around him. Its string of magical words ended on a high, ghastly howl - while black, inky tendrils spread through the veins in its new wounds.

Now with only two arms to keep it aloft, it sagged further down the column - allowing Zyndyrr to reach it by the strength of his own legs and the height of his orcish ally. Enchanted drow blades ripped into its back, adding a cursive, elvish stroke to the epitaph that Afanas had etched into its body.

But in its fall, it launched the malformed fetus of its spell, crackling with doom. Roughly in the direction of its target of emnity - the lord commander of Alliria's guard, rising from his crouch on the island of stone. Possible to dodge - but behind him, a mixed host of Iskandar guards, crimson soldiers and a smattering of Noct Yaegir. It would surely impact and explode with a mixture of fiery and necrotic energy, claiming many lives, should their sole bulwark decide to preserve himself.

Howling and bleeding fountains of unholy blood, corrupting the waters intended for luxurious baths, it landed on the bottom, its remaining arms no longer dedicated to keeping it aloft. It brought to mind a white spider missing several limbs, curling into a ball of agony. Its remaining arms went to snatch the drow from its back, like one might pinch off a sucking leech.

But just as it reached for its tormentor, a burst of light blinded the cistern to the tune of smashing glass. Alicia curled away from the impact of her Sunburst Vial, hearing with dark satisfaction the crooning screech of the wraith above her. She had gambled that light would be their enemy - and luck had finally favoured her.

This flash of light not only blinded her assailant, but that of the greater demon as well, flailing its arms, smashing into a pillar, causing cracks to split through stone, all while the drow assassin rode it like it was a stampeding bull.

This orb of light and the orb of darkness burst simultaneously. A distant guardsman might be able to see the two explosions from afar between the columns, like two celestial bodies crashing together and grinding out new materia.

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

As Karsk worked to keep the demon at bay and in place, he felt a boot collide with the top of his balding head. Without a moment’s hesitation he realized it was the drow assassin! The orc swung his sword with incredible speed, but only managed to gash the villain’s cloak as the drow lept out out of reach and onto the demon.

“Gah! The cur insults me?! With bloodied hands and cowardly tactics he uses my head as a stepping stone and denies me a cut to his vile neck?! What a horrid creature second only to that demonic fiend!”

Just then the demon was struck and began to thrash in the throes of death. Karsk wished to try again and attack the drow who was now riding on the demon’s back. However, pieces of pillar were being strewn around the Cistern and threatening to flatten several of those that had rallied to the cities defense.

Split between his desires to punish the wicked and protect the righteous, Karsk decided to smash and divert the falling flag stone to protect those who were down on the ground.


This included a particularly large boulder that threatened to crush the wounded Afanas and several of his retinue that had rushed to his aid.

Karsk shattered the boulder with his body and landed next to the wounded man shouting

“Bleed out at your own leisure vileblood! I will not see one such as you crushed carelessly like a bug!”

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

Spoiler: The Sergeant

A volley was called for and a volley was delivered. As Zyndyrr K'yoshin made his gambit to slay the beast the Sergeant of the squad of soldiers would motion with a hand, holding fire until just right the moment before four bolts thudded into the demon to draw it's ire and aid in giving the Drow the opening he needed. The blows were struck, the spell was loosed, and the sergeant would grit his teeth before throwing a cloaked arm about Feyrith as he called out.

"Brace!"

The soldiers braced, thick shields held aloft, and the Sergeant would pull Feyrith down and cover her with his body. Just able to grunt out a rushed apology by way of.

"Apologies for this Miss....."

Whether Afanas moved or no, sense of chivalry misguided or no, between Feyrith and the imploding ball of malevolent magic would be a thick wall of towering shields, bodies clad in platemail, and the Sergeant's own form tucking her protectively behind and beneath himself. In truth he hardly had time to think about the decision, for better and worse, he was here to serve and protect.... and he would fulfill his duty.

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Alicia Blackbolt
​

 

[Afanas]

Alicia Blackbolt
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Feyrith
Petrus Ritus Iskandar

Afanas did not weigh the odds. He did not think at all. He moved.

The daemon’s half-born star screamed across the cistern, a skein of corpse-light and malice. Afanas stepped into its path as a man steps into cold surf, without flinch or prayer. His hand clamped the pommel—flat of the palm braced like a stamp on a death-writ—while his other hand crushed the hilt until his knuckles bleached. He drove the point forward, a black lance meeting a pallid sun.

Darkness woke on the blade—living shadow uncoiling like ink in a storm-vat, threads winding, tightening, drawn hungrily along the fuller toward the tip. When steel kissed sorcery, the night upon that edge knotted to a single bead of absolute black. For the span of a heartbeat the world held its breath. Then the knot burst.

Spider-fine fissures of umbra shot through the white beam, cracking it as frost splits glass. Light curdled. Sound flattened to a pressure in the bones. What followed was not the storming thunder of an honest blast, but a murder of boundaries: a swelling globe of ashen grey that pushed outward in perfect, merciless calm. It drank color as it grew. It shaved the ground as it passed; stone and mortal and metal came away like chalk under a damp cloth. Where it touched, the fact of things ceased, no shards, no smoke, only absence given a shape. Where the grey had spent itself, it left behind a circle as clean and plain as a monk’s bowl: perfectly smooth, perfectly round, the earth pared to silence.

Only then did the body report its accounting. Afanas reached for the ache that was not yet pain, fingers seeking the old geography of himself. His hand met air. It closed, confused, on nothing—the grasp a child makes in a dream for a step that isn’t there. The mind, slow to believe what flesh already knew, tried the map again: ribs and a lung that should have been, muscle that should have answered. There was no answer. He felt the wind move through him where wind had never had a right, a coolness like riverwater running the wrong channel. He drew his hand back and there was blood on it, yes, but more terrible than blood was the emptiness his palm remembered: a hollow with the shape of his name missing from it.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

It was under Afanas’s arc of midnight that Emmeline danced, her remaining blade sweeping through wraith after wraith with a metallic hiss that sizzled when silver met undeath. She moved carefully, ensuring none of her companions (especially the new ones) would meet her blade’s bite this time. It was behind her fellow Noct Yaegir and the drow that used him as a steppingstone to the daemon that she popped up.

“I’m sure there’s worse creatures than he,” Emma assured the orc, though there was no grin upon her thin lips. She did not follow the lithe assassin’s usage of her companion, instead darting around him just as the half-formed spell arced across the water.

Seeking to dodge the orc’s own blade, the swordswoman dipped away from him and shielded her gaze as a bright flash lit the room briefly from Alicia's sunvial. It was a dangerous maneuver, and one that saw Emma nearly lose her footing, before she launched herself up alongside the wounded demon.

And then she stopped. There was too much assault already upon the creature, and Emma knew her own boundaries had been met. Weakened by her own foolishness and madness, the single-bladed woman retreated from the fight with the daemon itself to instead continue aiding against what straggling wraiths remained whilst she avoided the arcing magicks that might cause her further injury.

Afanas Zyndyrr K'yoshin Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Alicia Blackbolt

 

[Zyndyrr K'yoshin]

Spoiler: Music OOC

Magic over here. Magick over there. For Zyndyrr K’yoshin, a mystery man in this establishment and a drow of the underground, he was not so alien to such machinations with his enchanted blades and powers. Yet he paid less attention to the execution from those in his midst with their own spells against this hell than he did scraping the back of his foe.

Whether witches or wizards, soldiers or men-at-arms, knights blazoned with sigils and signets, sellswords or spellswords, drow or orcs and otherwise, every single figure that glimmered in the firelight of this cistern served the same purpose in their united efforts.

They all came together and became a boulder to beat back their brazen enemy and blazen it with wrath, with vigor, with a shared blast to its malignant soul that would make any gravedigger’s work cut out as its blood shouted and the flood drowned its curses, surrounded as it was with the verses of its victors in the water, no longer so proud.

Once a fiend with so many arms, hands and fingers to reach and pry. Now it cried. Once a demon with so many teeth to bite with. How they chanted now with its reckless abandon. Once a beast whose bangles dangled from its wrists, suddenly severed, its glow broken in the heat of battle, to know only death the next moment.

Wondrously, Zyndyrr rode his enemy, followed its descent with his twin swords wedged within its back as the stone swallowed its hollow form. Yet, for all his arrogance which figured his was a spectacle to revel in amid the rubble, he was humbled the next instant.

The hands that attempted to snatch him missed, the creature’s eyes blinded by the light. Zyndyrr dipped his head, bent his knees, held on tight, riding the beast like some kind of surfer on the torrents of a sea. A horrendous monster, it was, however he had witnessed worse. Then again, maybe that was just his imagination getting the better of him within this win.

Pillars ruptured, rendered asunder like dead flesh and stricken skin, crashing to the floor with thunder under light bright as lightning, shadows flashing in a deathblow. Yet, as he rode, grinning boastfully, Zyn was thrown unceremoniously from the spine he had opened, scimitars carved into bone, and landed into a line of those Iskandar folk for a second time.

“Shit,” the drow whispered with awkward deliverance in his hissed tone. “I think I’ve broken somethin’.” He reached behind his back and found a severed hand, pallid, like bleached bone. “Ha,” Zyndyrr snickered. “Fancy that.”

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Alicia Blackbolt Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas Petrus Ritus Iskandar

 

[Feyrith]

A strange assortment of swords all fought in earnest. Their efforts an intensity that brought about a sort of co-ordination in the chaos. The crack and rumble of marble, the dashing about of the other Drow, and the two of noct yeager, then a flash.
She followed only so much of it with her eyes before a cloak obscured her vision.
Feyrith saw only a split second of the lord Commander stepping into the path of the spell. They the Sergeant was atop her shielding her from the impact or indeed even knowing the result. Feyrith was too taken aback by such a gesture to respond. She allowed the house Iskandar guard to shield her as the very cistern itself made noises that made her wonder if they were all about to be entombed in a marble death.

Luckily she needn't contemplate it for long. There was a clattered noise, she pushed aside the Sergeant's cloak to see the other Drow had crashed down amongst the formation. Hissing and sputtering but in one piece. She peered beyond the line of shields to find the lord commander still standing, albeit injured in a way no human or Drow would have survived. Beyond him the creature, grounded.
It seemed at least that the other Drow had brought with him a souvenir.
"Is it -?" She refrained from asking if the creature was finished. These things had a way of biting you as soon as you let your guard down.
Instinctively her gaze flickered looking for the Crimson knights. The lord commander must have been in a daze, barely flinching as a boulder nearly landed atop him. She turned to the Sergeant in earnest "Another volley. "
Can never be too sure.
Then she pushed past the line of shields to advance forth to the lord commander and the momentarily not rampaging Orc.
The woman from Noct Yeager had thinned the wraiths considerably.
A few hops to avoid the tainted water to stand beside him on the island. "Lord Commander!" She spoke as if prompting an order or a call to reality at the very least. It seemed to her that perhaps he ought to pull back and let the volley finished whatever scraps might remain.

Petrus Ritus Iskandar
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Afanas

 

[Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher]

Standing amongst the cut and pulverized rubble near Afanas and his tainted order, Karskgorak felt the exertion of the evening catching up with him.

“Bah! a taste of the glory then for these younger folks, time has placed a cost of rest upon my spirit.”

The old orc sheathed his glowing blade and sat amongst upon the dusty floor, breathing calmly as the demon let out sounds of desperation just in the distance. He could also though here the rallying of House Ikandar’s men, which gave Karsk the sense that it was fine to take a breath for himself.

“A shame what age does to us. To think there was once a time when I could go for days, enacting justice upon that which threatened the beauty of our world. You should hurry up and die vileblood, before I have to leave dealing with you to my successor!”

Then she pushed past the line of shields to advance forth to the lord commander and the momentarily not rampaging Orc.
The woman from Noct Yeager had thinned the wraiths considerably.
A few hops to avoid the tainted water to stand beside him on the island. "Lord Commander!" She spoke as if prompting an order or a call to reality at the very least. It seemed to her that perhaps he ought to pull back and let the volley finished whatever scraps might remain.

“Ah, the guard I bade deal with the murderer. You failed that task evidentially, though the chaos of the battlefield is hardly somewhere one should expect perfection. Your “Lord commander” still draws breath, though I doubt that even matters for a rotten abomination such as him.”

 

[Alicia Blackbolt]

With the demon slain, lying in pale pieces and bleeding out its horrible, glowing puss into the cistern, the sounds of violent combat receded. The last of the wraiths were being fought down by the mixed group of Yaegirs, city guard and Iskandar soldiery.

Alicia saw her cue to leave.

She bolted up from her prone position, leaving the blinded wraith to be cut down by the other intruders. Her cloak she discarded, now a wet and soggy load on her shoulders.

A rapid patter of a single pair of feet echoed, as Alicia bolted for the hidden exit she had entered from, discarding stealth for speed. All she left behind were disturbed ripples in the water and a single, black cloak, soaked in the corrupted basin.

If she could make it back up to the castellum . . . she could find her rope and crawl up to the safety of the aqueduct.

Perhaps she would be mistaken for an escaping cultist - but a fleet-footed individual could take up the pursuit, following in her wake.

Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher Emmeline Hildebrandt Feyrith Afanas Petrus Ritus Iskandar Zyndyrr K'yoshin

 

[Petrus Ritus Iskandar]

As Feyrith stepped away after urging the sergeant in earnest to loose another volley at the dying creature it was a volley that never came. The demon would expend the last of it's life and, not a few moments later, a human just a hair taller than Feyrith would seem to just appear beside her. Not a drop of water disturbed around here, not even the gentlest sound of footfalls signaling his approach or hinting at the use of any sort of camouflaging magic. He simply.... was. Of course he did not teleport but as to what exact tricks he used to so effectively enter the scene were his own secrets.

Spoiler: Drystan

Dressed in finery more fit for a ball or gala than a miniature warzone the man, also clad in the gold-on-black of House Iskandar, would give a genial smile to the drow woman as he bowed his head ever so slightly and then glanced back at the sergeant and his troops.

"Secure the perimeter if you please, we will make do with only one miscreant slipping their bonds tonight."

Drystan idly watched a leather clad figure beat feet to try and escape and, for a moment, his near-gold hazel eyes would focus like a cat that had just narrowed onto a fleeing mouse.... before he sighed and turned to Feyrith.

"As for you, Miss, while these good and brave men go about their work what say you to accompanying me in delivering a report on the happenings here, hmm?"

He would then add after a moment so as to not seem callous or unconcerned.

"Our Lord Commander has recovered from worse and I am certain his knights will recover him to allow him to convalesce in peace."

Alicia Blackbolt
Karskgorak Fiend-Crusher
Zyndyrr K'yoshin
Emmeline Hildebrandt​