Open Chronicles Too Late

[Naser]

Cortos - Kallea Forest

"Shit." Naser said as he slowed his gait, boots carefully avoiding the pools of blood which he had been too busy looking afar to notice. Hand grasping one of the larger trees to not step upon one of the corpses he did see coming. Lips quirking beneath his mask as he peered at what seemed to be the remnants of the entire Fourth Regiment.

"This was probably a thousand men." He said, frowning as some of the crows squawked. He and some of the Initiate's had been sent after the army. Only given their assignments after the 4th was already due to be encamped. That was a week ago. "This was probabl-"

"Shut up, Nas." A familar voice quieted him. Kaya always was the squeamish sort. She didn't want to know the details, preferred to live in the fiction. Truth was though if they hadn't been held up by two days they would probably be among the dead here. Nas had already seen more than one Dreadlord coat among the dead. More than one of them an actual Dreadlord.

Someone had really hit them hard.

It had been three weeks since the war started, and Dreadlords moved around more than most. Never attached to an army unless specifically requested. Initiates didn't get to ask of course. They were just sent to where they were needed. That had been here with the 4th, though he wasn't entirely sure that they really could have helped much here.

Now it was probably better to just get back alive. "We should head back?"

Kaya helpfully suggested.

"We're in enemy territory now." Nas said, unhelpfully. Then added. "And they killed three Dreadlords."

 

[Colt Pirian]

Colt really, really wanted a cigar right now. He was smart enough to know that adding the light of a fire and scent of smoke weren’t going to help their livelihood, but the sight of this much blood was not something he was prepared for. As he awkwardly moved his legs over the dead, he found a familiar sight. Colt made his way to the blonde hair and knelt down.

The woman was perhaps early thirties as she passed. A dreadlord that swore to his house over a decade ago. Before Colt’s magic was known, and he could observe such things. Before the revolution made the house swearing a relic of an old time. Colt pulled out a pair of fingers and draped her eyelids down, then came to a stand.


“Beatrice Maerune.” He said. “Specialty in strength enhancement.” If he remembered correctly she could pull a tree out of the ground. “She was no slouch. We need to figure out whatever force did this and report it.” Colt said to Naser and other the gathering initiates.

“Or kill it.”

 

[Vittoria Larrainth]

Vittoria was quiet as her eyes went to eavh face she could see. Many of them stared up into the sky, unseeing and long gone. They probably did not realise where they were looking when Death came to claim them.

She heard Naser and Colt speak, had looked to where their attentions went.

A glint caught her eye.

"Never report back without sufficient information." She set forward, stepping around the mess of bodies and came to a stop a distance away. She stooped, plucking something silver and half coated in blood. It was a part of a blade, the iron well forged given how clean of a break it was.

"Not Anirian. The steel has a blue shade to it, whereas Anirian steel has a periwinkle hue." Almost grey, silver.

Vittoria was uncuffed, magic channelling through her freely and readily. "We should be searching bodies."

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

He had expected not to receive any summons whatsoever once word of war surpassed rumor.

He had expected to be told he would go nowhere near the battlezones, especially not with his lunar cycle ticking ever closer.

What he had expected and what reality had befallen him were mutually exclusive. His life would shift to either A or B, but never somewhere in between. Kilien Basmarc currently stood so deep into circle B he wasn't sure he'd ever get the bloodstains or smell of death out of his clothes. Not that either of those things were anything new to an Academy Initiate.

He'd just sort of hoped he wouldn't have to face this sort of scene again before Graduation ... or his re-imprisonment and/or death, whichever came first really. No such luck on that yet.

Lingering at the back of the group as he picked his way across the field of dead, Kilien couldn't help but notice that there seemed to be a strong lack of something. While he couldn't speak for the others of his class, his own deep dive into the theory, practice, and use of College Magic and the countless spells he'd learned over the years had given him a very keen sixth sense for magic in a general sense of the terms.

He could smell it on the air. On bodies. On objects.

He could sometimes see the remnant ether of magic from spells cast by others.

Given enough time around someone, he could usually sense if they held magical power or potential. Sometimes he could pick up on the kind, but that was rare and the skill wasn't one he'd made much effort to hone.

This entire area felt bereft of magic for all the devastation and death that had happened. Aside from that used by the attending and fallen Dreadlords, he couldn't pin any specific instance that should have or would have given another the upper hand.

Unless...

Eyes narrowing, Kilien slowly reached into the inner pockets of his long dustcoat and withdrew his wand. It was difficult to say just where the epicenter of it all was, but he felt that was less important to know the further on he walked. With a gently swish of the wand, the tip lit like a small blue flame and issued forth a faint, billowing fog of similar blue. He began to move, stepping once more over bodies and through the others of his team, a second swish of his wand sent the fog furling to his right, and another to his left, then another behind him until the entire area fell still with the lingering cloud.

When it seemed to settle across the broad spread of the area, he uttered a single word under his breath.

Within the fog flashes of light shifted and moved, clinging to tree trunks or within foliage. Hunkering in areas of cover, lying in wait.

Kilien blinked as he looked around, seeing things through his magic that the others would not and watching as a vague ghosting of the magic that took place here over the last sun cycle played out before and around him.

"They were ambushed," he said finally to the others, "by people hidden and masked by illusion magic."

 

[Naser]

"They're dead." Nas commented, eyes flickering over the corpses. "Really dead."

What good would searching them do? "The Cortosi did it. What's the fucking mystery."

Honestly, it's like they were looking for more work.

What the fuck was Proctors going to do to them if they just turned back? Ground them? Send them into a warzone? Not like they hadn't already done that shit.

His fellow Initiate's apparently wanted to get themselves killed, but Nas had absolutely no intention of dying here. "There's a thousand dead men here."

And women, he supposed.

"A handful of them Dreadlords." Nas argued. "Whoever did this can probably kill four Initiates, oh and apparently probably hide our bodies."

If they had illusion magic.

Not that even that task was an easy one. This was meant to be the forward army, which meant now they were the forward army. One that didn't look all that impressive. "You guys can investigate and get yourselves killed."

If you wanted laurels, you investigate. If you wanted to live, you go the fuck home. "I'm just going to fuck off and go home."

Simple math for him. Course, he didn't really care about any of this nonsense, nor did he really care to follow the trail the Cortosi army had left behind.

 

[Colt Pirian]

"Agreed." Colt said to Vittoria Larrainth . They needed to find more info. How did Cortos bring about such a decisive victory. Colt began moving through the woods, looking for any signs of what and how. He didn't have the skills of magic detection that Kilien Basmarc did. Mostly because he didn't study.

When wandy announced his findings Colt clenched his fists in anger, then let out a deep breath. The woods weren't a great place for such magics, but the initiates would begin to feel the wind pulling towards an epicenter, Colt Pirian. Initiate Kaya's hair would flow aggressively towards him, as would the long hairs of Vitt and Kil. Less so depending on arrangement of course, but however they prepared it would certainly disrupted.

The Aero Vaquero would circle around the area, feeling what wind hit him and what wind didn't, paying careful attention to the trees and initiates around him. He would largely ignore Naser 's advice, as Colt was simply too prideful to run. Not without taking blood. It was four seconds later when a playing card fell from his sleeve to his hand. The pull of the wind stopped, and Colt threw the card. Propelled by the wind it flew out at unheard of speeds before it stopped in mid-air. The card would soak into a blood red, before the body of a Cortosi appeared and fell to the ground.

"At least three more." Colt said, pulling another card and launching it south.

 

[Vittoria Larrainth]

"Oh!" Vittoria delighted, her sea green eyes delighting in the discovery Colt made to them. "By all means, Naser, run back home. This has turned out to be quite exciting..."

Vittoria wore no cuffs to null her magic to a lick of her power. She had it all, a safety measure trusted to her to kill as many Cortosi as she could.

Passing Naser, then brushing a hand to Kilien's arm, Vittoria looked back and her eyes fell on Kaya. "Allow me."

By the time he face forward, phantom yelps and screams met their ears. Vittoria had not even made a move besides pausing in the middle clearing, the layers of death and blood at her feet. She inhaled, listening to them all struggle to fight the sensations of flesh stripping from muscle and sinew. All that hid from them struggled to keep their illusions up and active, consumed by pain they could not fight back against.

"Shall we take them alive? Ask questions? We all went through the interrogations training, we know what to do to get information..." She turned to look at the group, face falling back into that void expression. "Well?"

 

[Kilien Basmarc]

He never really knew his purpose on group missions like this. He wasn't the hammer or the blade. Wasn't the sneak or the healer. He sat somewhere between scout and shield, given the current assortment he stood among, and it left him feeling a bit out of sorts as he watched both Vittoria and Colt do their thing.

Naser, of course, and his earnest appraisals were always welcome. He just said what a lot of people were already thinking. Kilien would be lying if he proclaimed to be thinking anything other than exactly his words.

This situation was fucked ten ways to Amesday. Unfortunately for him he was sort of stuck being responsible for a change. Vittoria was here and he sure as shit wasn't going to leave without her. Admittedly despite the outlook of their efforts, Illusionists were pretty interesting. He briefly wondered if Norah were here would she have some insight?

"You know," Kilien thought aloud as he moved to where Vittoria had paused before them, awaiting their answer, "there's probably a pretty good bounty on these guys and their leader. They usually like 'em to come in warm."

Norah was driven by coin. Was Naser?

"Can't hurt to do a little bit of sniffin' around."

 

[Naser]

Naser didn't care about a bounty.

Gold was easy enough to lift off any noble fool by his experience, but he did care about the dozen hazy visions of his death he saw as he tried to step away. A part of the little scoundrel appreciated Kilien's efforts to keep him here, but he was too sick of the Academy and the rest of the class to care.

Tilting his head towards the sky even as blood spilled onto the ground, Nas let out a string of curses.

He knew that he would die if he tried to run, tried to leave them behind.

Nas had already seen as much. It was rare that his sight offered him more than a few seconds, but when it came to his own death the glimpses came further and further. These had spoken of no pleasant end to come, and so his choice had been easy.

The odd too-long dagger slipped from his back as he turned, rushing forward. "Yeah yeah, sniff all you want."

He called to Kilien.

"Look at me, I'm so enthusiastic." Nas called, dry as Vittoria permanently seemed to be.

 

[Colt Pirian]

The card flew forward and was deflected in mid air by something before falling to the ground. Lucky for that something it had stopped the card from slicing through it, but unluckily it revealed its location while doing so. Another burst of the wind threw the hidden being to the ground. There was an audible thunk as head hit the ground, and the Cortosi illusionist appeared. He had hoped the woman alive, as he wanted to learn something about this attack. Something to bring back to Vel Anir.

Vittoria Larrainth ‘s words brought Colt out of the fog of his bloodlust. He was a Pirian. Pirian’s didn’t delight in excess, they did what was necessary. No more. Kress he was so close to losing that.

“We keep as many alive as we can and bring them back. We leave information extraction to those trained in it, not just surviving it.” Colt countered. He did not buy getting through his own personal hell made him an expert on torture, or judging the results of it. And he didn’t want Vitt doing any such thing if he could manage it.

“Can either of you keep them from using more illusion magic? In practice or just in theory?” Colt asked the love birds Vitt and Kilien Basmarc . He figured Kil might just from him seemingly having a greater breadth of college magic than most initiates. Vitt also hid little magic tricks like a racoon with gemstones.

“Nas, you’ve got one north east!” Colt yelled, feeling the illusionist break his flow of the wind. He hoped Naser knew his current cardinal orientation, and wished there was a more natural way to communicate the information.

 

[Vittoria Larrainth]

Vittoria lifted a brow, amused at such an inquiry. "I am trained. I can increase their pain enough to keep them from channeling magic, if that pleases you, Pirian."

As if to prove her point, one of the Cortosi mere feet from them flickered into view as he fell to his knees and cried in anguish. It was all in vain, him writhing to alleviate his symptoms, but to no avail. Not when Vittoria plucked at his strings like a puppeteer. "We cannot keep all of those we find alive. Two should suffice. We kill the rest."

This was war. There was no time in being pacifists and leaving their enemy alive while they ran, not when they stood amongst the earth stained in Anirian blood.

She looked to Kilien, her expression not changing. He knew her nature, he knew by now how she operated. Her stare seemed to be a challenge to him, to see what he would do now he got to witness her in wartime.

"If I were Nas, I would kill the fourth."

 

[Naser]

Nas didn't kill the fourth.

He never had the chance to.

Back at the Academy he'd always been known as one of the fastest Initiate's. Not a boon of his magic, but simple practice. He knew when something was about to happen, and when you knew, you had to be quick enough to actually act on it.

Most of his training had always pertained to that, being quick, speeding himself up, moving in a way that no one could stop him or see him coming.

The way he moved across the clearing no one could blame any of his companions for thinking he would succeed in his goal, and as he came closer and closer to one of the Illusionists the blade in his hand suddenly flickered forward. "One more de-"

Before he could finish his sentence, something happened that he didn't see coming. That he couldn't see coming. A hand suddenly burst from the ground, earth and leaves exploding upward as fingers gnarled grayish-black fingers reached up and seized Naser's leg.

The Initiate's eyes opened wide, but before he could even let out a scream he suddenly found his body twisted and hurled to the side. A loud crack ringing out through the clearing as his body struck a nearby tree, the sound of shattering bones echoing just beneath the yelp of pain which left the Initiate. Blood spewing from his lips as the impact reverberated through the whole of his body.

Nas' head swimming, and his vision blurring as he tried to focus on what it was that attacked him.

Pain lancing through every form of his body, his eyes could barely focus on the creature which now made itself known. It didn't stand, but instead seemed hunched like a gorilla. Flesh black and gray, his stature that of a human but...more, as though twisted and forced to grow. Bones jutted from it's back and arms, hands thrice the size of a grown man's.

As Nas lay on the ground, he tried to focus, tried to use his magics to see where the creature would go. If it would come to finish him off or jump towards the others but he-he simply couldn't.

It didn't work.

He didn't see anything.

Had the injury...his eyes flickered towards Colt, and there he saw the possibilities surrounding the boy. His lips turned to a frown, and then a realization struck him. It was then that he realized.

It wasn't his magic that wasn't working. Magic didn't work on it. "RUN!"

The shout sent a lance of pain through his chest, the agony of it more than useless as by the time he called the beast was already on the move once more. It darted forward, far faster than Nas had moved, far faster than anyone should have been capable of moving.

Within the span of two heartbeats the beast, no it was no beast. The creature reached Kilien Basmarc. It pounced forward like a rabid dog, no thought of what injury it might sustain, no sense of self-preservation. It tackled the Initiate, taking him with it as it rushed and barrelled across the earth. It's huge claws flailing and slashing as it threw the boy into the nearest tree.