Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Posted: **Fri Nov 29, 2019 9:31 pm**

"Fuck me, what now?"

Kasoria snapped off a Top Tier Glare to shut Thief Brand up; strong enough for the effect to spread about the patch of men he was in nominal command of. Keeping track of Blocks and Wings was becoming more difficult by the bit. Too many men were dying and being replaced and vanishing and returning... although quite frankly, the lack of numbers they now possessed was something of a benefit to logistics. Less people, less time, less fuss.

Exactly what you don't want in this bloody place, though.

The Raggedy Man had to admit, he understood the boy's mood. They;d jumped through more hoops than a bidden dog and what had they got for it? Nothing but another fucking ring dangled before them, and corpses in their wake. Every room, every expanse, every portal and battle left more men and ghosts dead. Lissira didn't seem to be suffered from that issue. But the Highmark shook the defeatism from his mind and stood his ground next to the Commander. His men were watching, and he had to be the example.

No weakness. No doubt. Steel and grit and balls that leave dents in the cobbles. Let them believe that.

"Shite..."

He couldn't help but breath the words as the ground started to move. At first he thought the whole landscape was changing, like it would in the Emea, but then he saw the effects were narrow. Localized. Something was tunneling under the ground, pushing up grass and dirt as its massive body powered under it. A very large something-

"More n' one of 'em, sir."

Thief's Brand pointed a trembling finger at another shifting mass, then another, and another. Kasoria barely had time to give the order to hold before music split the air. Actual music, from an actual instrument. He turned and saw the Aukari playing her damned fiddle again, up against the Commander's sword. The notes trembled through wood and steel and into the ground, and then-

"S-Stand fast!"

Fates, nearly shit myself.

However terrifying and abominable the atrocities in the Underground were, they were naught but babes compared to these creatures. Kasoria and a handful of likewise wretches had ruined those two beasts. True, him and Fur had been the only survivors, but they went down easily enough. But these things... they were the warriors, the mounted knights to the peasant conscripts that Lissira had sent to infiltrate and scout the sewers of Etzos. They cast great, shaking shadows over the ranks of the Etzori, undulating into the sky like great glistening trees. Arms like pike poles jutted out of slime-covered and armor-encrusted segments. Vast, dripping mandibles snapped and clacked together. Bulbous eyes staring unblinking and tendrils like those of a Leviathan whipped and shivered but... did nothing.

"They're... They're just-"

"I got fuckin' eyes, boy!" Kasoria rasped under his breath, watching the four giant insects sway peacefully in front of them. He nodded as Velora gave him a silent order, starting to direct his irregulars around the monsters. "Jus' get movin' an' keep qui-"

CRASH

The sound wasn't quite that, but for what followed, it might as well have been. First it was a boy tripping. Then a rush of his fellows tramping the dirt to get him up. Finally, and fatally, the ghosts mistook the purpose of the noise. Tendrils lashed out towards the insects and with a hideous wail one of them turned from the violin and its fellows did likewise-

"Bugger. OUT THE FUCKIN' WAY, LADS!"

Hardly the most martial of orders bellowed in the history of Etzori martial works, but it suited his chosen company perfectly. The irregulars were brawlers, gangers, scratchers, stabbers, and convicts. They were good at killing, not necessarily fighting, and throwing them into a meat-grinder was not how best to spend their lives. Kasoria saw them melt into the shield-and-pole-covered ranks of the main Etzori host, bows of all kinds in half their hands. The rest shuffled and ran to the sides, ready to strike the flanks of the monsters as they-

"HOOOOOOOOOLD!"

-slammed into the shield-wall like a natural disaster given claws and venom and whipping, flying poisons. The front rank was almost obliterated by sheer impact alone, hundreds of kilograms of unholy mass smashing them aside. The second rank, too. But not the third. Not the fourth. And these were men who'd suffered and survived and witnessed every horror Lissira could summon. They did not run screaming from the monstrous as they had when first the Horde poured into their homeland. They screamed their defiance and their hatred. They jammed their pikes and swords into the gaps between armor plates. They loosed arrows and bolts and within trills the monsters were screaming in agony alongside the mortals.

Kasoria knew it was his job to inspire his men. He'd never thought they might do the same to him. Yet again, they held the fucking line. They swallowed down blood and ichor and terror and did not step back. The beasts slammed and slashed and swept and hurtled poisoned barbs but fresh bodies flooded into the breaches. Ghosts and men hurled themselves onto insectile bodies that melted flesh by contact alone. He watched grieving fathers and maddened daughters hack away at uncaring chitin until their hands melted away.

He stared, for a brief moment. He stared and gawped and he was... renewed, in a way.

Make this worthy of them, an unfamiliar voice whispered in his mind, and his hands clenched into blazing white light.

The Raggedy Man's growl became a bellow as he threw up his hands and-

-a Shield thick as oak flashed before Velora, Cooley, and the remnants of her command-cum-bodyguard. The centi-beast in front of them reeled in confusion, its slashing legs and whipping tendrils suddenly smashing uselessly against a barrier that glowed and pulsed with every blow... but did not give way. Kasoria closed his eyes briefly and adjusted the Shield. The Commander saw him for an instant, understood what the little man was doing. She pointed to the monster rearing up behind the Shield, and ordered the bowmen behind her to fire-

-and the bolts flew through the Shield from their side, even as curved legs and flesh-darts crashed harmlessly against it. The centi-beast threw back its head and roared as a bolt burst one of its eyes, shirking away from a direct attack. Kasoria's arm shook but he waited until it turned away before he let go the Shield, only to hear-

"Highmark! KAS, FER FUCK'S SAKE?!"

-Thief's Brand and a clutch of his men being forced back by another of the monsters. Pitted and bleeding and scarred by missiles and pikes and swords, it was only angrier now. Furious and mad with pain, it surged forwards and crushed men with every step. Speared them like fish and didn't both to wipe them off as it continued. Dying, doomed men screeched as they were stuck to it, but it cared not. His irregulars fired what missiles they had left and bolts for cover. The centi-beast started to shudder and shake... nodes about its legs pulsing... and Kasoria knew it was about to-

So do something!

He only had the one idea. Something stupid and dangerous and... well... was it? It was all just scale. Much like pain. All pain was the same; the intensity was all that mattered. Just like casting spells. Lighting a candle or splitting a continent, it was all just a matter of vision, will, and power. Especially the last one.

You have all three, his Spark murmured, as Kasoria drew deep enough from it that he felt energy crackle across his skin. Now do it. Use them. NOW!

The Raggedy Man let out a savage cry as he brought his hands up and then down-

-and the centi-beast made a strangled, disbelieving sound as it seemed every cubic foot of air around it suddenly became heavy as lead bricks. The Shackle ability, writ large and enhanced to cover it from antennae to tip. The air around it hardened, thickened, gained mass and truculence in an instant. Lissira's monster was crushed down to the ground by the weight, and yet when it tried to rise-

-Kasoria staggered, and fell to his knees. Blood dribbled from his lips, and his nose. It burned him. His blood. His muscles. The Spark screamed inside him, roiling so hard it was like snakes fighting in his guts. But still he raised his hands. Cast his spell and kept the monster literally pinned. His men stared in shock and he actually managed to roll his eyes. His words were roared with blood spitting along with froth-

"Wot the fuckre ya WAITING FOR?!"

Thief's Brand was first to snap out of it. He grabbed a spear from the nearest pikeman, charging forwards and leveling it in the same moment. With a yell he plunged it into the side of the centi-beast, burying the tip a solid foot between two slabs of armor. The beast shuddered but did not, could not rise. One of those nodes started to pulse again, looking to fire blind-

-and another irregular shoved a sword into it, popping and bursting it before it could fire-

Now the murder began in earnest. Soldiers and cutthroats alight swarmed over the thing like ants over a scorpion. Stabbing, slashing, battering, firing crossbow bolts and arrows point blank, bring tree-felling axes down onto and through organic armor. The centi-beast wailed for what seemed like forever, and Kasoria stayed there. On his knees. Swaying. Eyes starting to roll back, but he had to... he had to-

"Kas? KAS?! Kas, stop-"

The Raggedy Man fell forwards, and sheer instinct saw him lunge out with his hands to stop his face smacking into the ground. The Shackle was banished, and his Spark went sobbing back into the heart of him. He couldn't bare to feel it anymore, let alone find it. His body was wracked and hissing with pain. Ether soaking into his muscles and leeching strength from them. Thief's Brand flung one of the old man's arms over his broad shoulders and hauled him upright. Kasoria wiped the blood... fuck there was a lot of it... from his face and looked around. Looked back...

"We got the cunt, Highmark."

That was an understatement. Kasoria couldn't even see the creature's head for the amount of killing steel that had been shot and shoved into it. Both eyes, the mouth, the thick skull, two entire links behind it... the Etzori had killed it so thoroughly that nothing could bring it back. A twitching leg here and there was the only sign it had ever even been alive.

"Kas, yer bleeding, you gotta-"

"No," Kasoria growled, shoving the boy away before the words could be spoken. "Not... Not yet."

He spat blood and swallowed the rest. Let those long arcs of pain and stubbornness flesh the agony from his limbs. He knew exhaustion. He knew Overstepping, and this was it, in fucking spades. But he knew endurance, too. He knew discipline. No more magic for him, it seemed... but that didn't mean he was out of the fight. He drew his gladius and started to stagger towards where Commander Velora was holding back one of the monsters, fiddle-wielding soldier and a tall, gaunt man with no armor at her flanks. He knew he should have been afraid; even casting a single Shield to stop one of those fucking darts would be agony. But it was pain he could bear, and keep bearing.

Because of those fighting and dying around him. Because his men needed to see he would not falter or run. Because the Commander would carry them past this place. He saw Lissira flee, grinning like some evil parody of a mischievous child, yet he did not rage or scream or curse.

Go ahead. Run. He thought as he limped back into line. Blood spread across his face, eyes impossibly tired, sweat smearing all the places blood wasn't leaking. It doesn't matter. We'll come after you. You can't escape us.

Posted: **Sat Nov 30, 2019 7:22 am**

8 Saun 719 | Ulric

The dynamic ghost and sellsword duo that was Ulric and Arthur waited for the command to move forward through the field towards the cursed Immortal subject of their hunt. But it did not immediately come, instead the blocks around Ulric and Arthur were given the order so Ulric waited as patiently as the vengeance thirsty specter could. He'd have been pacing in place had he not understood the need for silence though part of him wanted to simply rush across the field towards the smirking Lisirra. When Sintra and Commander Velora call out to Coaley and ask for her musical aid, Ulric turned a curious eye to them. Ulric had never put much value in music as anything more than a hobby in life but he was beginning to think that had been a mistake. Perhaps he would force Arthur to learn an instrument if they survived the hell to come.

The thought was fleeting- replaced by a mix of horror and surprise as the massive torso of some type of bug reared up in front of the commander. Ulric shifted into a plow guard with his blade- thinking little of the monstrosity passed how he'd kill it and Arthur backed away in a little more fear which he seemed to suddenly overcome because he rejoined Ulric not a few bits later as their rank began moving across the field. Arthur watched the monumental beasts swaying back and forth to the sound of Coaley's music but not Ulric. His eyes were trained across the field on the bastard they meant to behead. Whatever beasts she put between them and her death would merely add to the legend.

There was a key difference between Arthur and Ulric that colored all their decisions as their rank moved from one end of the field slowly to the other undercover of Coaley and the Commander's music. Arthur wanted to live to see tomorrow and Ulric was already dead. He moved with a ignorant, or perhaps naive, confidence that her instruments could not hurt him. What had Lisirra's diseases done to the dead? What could she do to them now? She put more and more obstacles in their way but she hadn't stopped them yet. She wouldn't. Now Arthur was not as confident. He did not benefit from Ulric's ignorance to danger. For Arthur, any step forward might suddenly become his last and so he tread lightly with the rank as they moved.

The commander of the ghost horde lead the dead with him to syphon the emotions from the insects in some hope of lulling them into passivity, Ulric did not go with them. He moved, as materialized as he could maintain while manifesting four tendrils from his back, among the living rank. Holding the tendrils meant he could not maintain a full body, and so Ulric let his feet fade. They were nothing but an impediment here anyways. Ulric wanted to be with the living, fighting, and more importantly he could not leave Arthur alone for such a risky ask. So Ulric resolved to keep moving with the men when the other ghosts began to syphon the creatures.

Then the fool slipped.

Ulric didn't know who had done it exactly or the names of those who had tried to help the fool, but the damage was done. The sudden rattling of armor undid the peace Maude had played her heart out to win them. The ghosts did their bests but their tendrils failed to fell the beast, something Ulric noted when the beast nearest to his rank began to sway more aggressively. He faintly heard Sintra scream- not an encouraging sound in the slightest, and then the creature was upon his group. Immediately the man beside Ulric was impaled by three of the twenty spear-like legs the horrifying creature brandished and another two lashed out at Ulric. The shield-less specter parried the blow with both his longsword and his four tendrils to counter the beast superior force and to Ulric's right, Arthur leaped backwards to avoid the blow coming his way.

Yet the beast surged on and Ulric was not nearly a skilled enough swordsman to parry every strike that came his way. Ulric parried the beasts leg only for a venomous spike to cut through his side and impale a soldier behind him. The shot hadn't been meant for Ulric but it grazed him along the path and sent pain rippling through Ulric's ectoplasm. It felt as it always did, like his side had been lit aflame. His left hand dropped to the gash in his side and he began to stumble backwards. The soldiers around him began to assemble a shield wall but they were no where near as well composed as the Irregulars a little distance from them were. The beast broke the first attempt to form the wall and then the second, but the third wall held against the insects crashing blows until they stopped.

The Raggedy Man's magic pulled the deformed and bestial centipede to the ground and as soon as the living realized what was happening their attack began. As the breathing to his left and right ran in to hack away at the centipede, and Ulric was certain Arthur was among them- Ulric turned and crossed the field to get as close to the ghost horde as he could. Kas had set the example that they'd need to follow to kill the beasts. Ulric moved across the battlefield towards the ghost horde where he tried to recruit as many as he could to his cause.

"Pin it with your tendrils! Hold it down for the others!" Ulric shouted to the other ghosts around him as his tendrils lashed out to wrap around the monster nearest to him. His tendrils wrenched the beast downwards and for the first dozen bits the task felt impossible. Ulric pulled against what felt like a mountain- his ectoplasm shrieking for him to stop but Ulric held and pulled. When the ghosts to his side realized his game they latched their tendrils onto the beast and began pulling it down as well until finally enough of them tugged the beast low enough that the living soldiers began to strike true with their spears and blades. The beast writhed beneath the collective of the Ulric's small ghost horde's tendrils- firing it's venomous spikes and lashing out it's lethal legs in any direction it could. Some men fell, but not enough and for every man and woman who the beast killed, another blade was driven through it.

The beast Ulric had engaged was dead soon after the one the Raggedy Man had pinned and the horde moved on with the Commander to the last one. Ulric moved with them as well but now he moved slower. The searing pain in his ectoplasm beginning to take a toll. Ulric could see the Commander with a few others ahead and he moved towards them. His eyes scanned briefly for Arthur but he'd long since lost him in the ranks of the Etzori army. He'd move forward on his own... so long as he held his sword in his hand everything would be fine... Ulric convinced himself of that. He convinced himself it didn't hurt every time his blade deflected a blow.

Ulric joined the line again just in time to see Lisirra disappear and a small smile spread over his crudely manifested face. She was running.

Posted: **Sat Dec 07, 2019 6:22 am**

Doorways and Domains

The sight of each other's faces may have convinced both Maude and Kasoria that the army had halted, stretched out as they both were on the ground among the many other wounded. The sight of so much injury might have initially been disheartening; but the realization that it was mostly just injuries, some admittedly quite severe, and not shrouded corpses, would restore a good measure of hope.

Both soldiers had portions of their bodies wrapped in tight bandages, for lack of better medical casts. Kasoria would be shocked to find that he'd been unconscious for an entire trial; a trial he would learn was spent with him on a travois, being dragged along as the army pursued their quarry.

"Saved ya was! And by that monster yet! Would'ja believe it?" One of his fellow irregulars spouted cheerfully, obviously enjoying the look of distaste that crossed his immediate superior's face. He chuckled, knowing that the Raggedy man would be demanding an explanation; knowing that the killer would never accept the notion that the giant insect had purposefully saved its enemy.

The man crouched down beside Kas, flesh wounds not worthy of serious medical attention showing through the rents in leather armor that had occurred along with them. "Ya overspent on the magic, Boss. I think the last couple bits you weren't even really in yer own head there. Then ya just fell, flat on yer kisser. But the weird thing was this...sort of...distortion that built around ya."

A passing mage hobbled by, offering the terms "Misshapen Shielding" and "Replicative Warping" as clarification. The thug just looked blankly for a moment and shrugged, "Yeah, what he said, I guess." directing a thumb in the departing magic-user's direction. "And ya wasn't breathing, neither! I tell ya, if'n I could o' found a gem the color o' blue to match yer face right then, I'd'a proposed to sweet Annie with it!"

He waved off his amusement as his captive audience glared, "Anyway, we all figured ya ta be a goner. Now don't be that way! We was in the middle of that fight! Could'na hardly took the time to try'n work a tube through your shield and down yer damned throat, Boss, could we! Anyway the bug did it for us!"

It appeared that the facial response on the assassin's face was exactly what he was hoping for. A variety of rough guffaws sounded from all around as the man went on to explain that the impact of the massive bug's fall and bounce upon his body had shattered the suffocating shield, allowing the raggedy officer to regain his breath. "Course, the backlash, the replica-....Abrogity-...whatever backlash busted some ribs...and a few hand bones, plus sprained one o' yer knees. Hey! Yer lucky it weren't yer head, am I right?"

Everyone agreed with that last sentiment, some going on to say that they had ALL been lucky that the Immortal lady had been there to save the Commander. A number of thumbs pointed as well to the musician, who was also bandaged extensively, but was now up and moving about with no crutches. "She sure did her part." heads nodded unanimously.

It had been more than just the playing of the soothing music. When the shit had hit the fan, the girl had set aside her fiddle and faced the beast's attacking mandibles, erupting in fire as the mouth closed on her. No doubt the initial crush of the great maw delivered the bulk of her injuries, but Kas had to admit he would have liked to have seen the burst of flame jetting from the beast's face, through its shrieking maw and near every gap in its cranial carapace.

Oohs and aaahs and slaps on the back were awarded every teller that gave an account of the fiery spectacle. "Like fireworks it was. The head rocking back and forth, howling like a Nightmare, leaving a trail of flame in its wake, the Commander throwing vials of oil all over it. Lit the whole damn place up! The Lady laughing like a maniac, until the next beast came chargin' in, that is."

At a questioning look from Kasoria, another one of the soldiers acknowledged that the burning insect had spit the Fiddler back out, which was probably what gave her the rest of her injuries. "Commander ran to her, wrapped her in a tarp to put her out. Held her out of the way, real close, like shielding her with her own body while the Spider Lady fought the two creatures off. Had the burnt one pinned by the neck with a pincher, same one it had burnt with its spike. Held that one down whilst she fought t'other one. Eventually snipped that first head right off. Fire must'a weakened its armor some."

One of the men called for the storyteller to talk about the fight between Sintra and the beast, a clamor of agreement left no option. "That fight with the other one was fer the ages though. Never seen so many writhing claws and legs and hisses and screaming. All twisting each other and jabbing leg tips like spears, biting and tearing. Stabbing through the back end to pin it to the front, stealin' its movement. Our Lady ripping the spikes out of its hide before it could jab her with 'em. Gougin' its eyes! Snippin' off the tentacles, and Antennas...legs alike!

Cheers punctuated the story as the man described the grim claw-to-claw fight; the very sort that any experienced soldier knows to be the most brutal and savage of all. "Finally got hold of its tail, with both pinchers, and just beat that thing on the ground like a wife beating the dirt out of a rug!" A few of the fellows were beating the ground with maces and clubs for emphasis as others cheered them on.

The account ended for the most part with a remark on how sad it was that the Lady Sintra had to hold back, so's Lisirra wouldn't gain whatever healing it is from havin' two Immortals too close to each other. Quieter comments showed some concern over how a full-fledged Immortal had nonetheless had trouble with what was really no more than a spawn of another.

Looking at the Spider Queen, there was no doubt that injuries had occurred. There was no actual blood of course. It was really uncertain if the Divine's actually had blood in their veins, or if they even had veins. But there were scars plainly showing. They had an odd "puckered" look to them, as if they'd been taken several trials previously and were already closed up. The tears in her attire were still ragged, but she seemed not to care.

One of the officers came by and overheard the comments. "Men. You have to understand, her domains are not of the combatant sort. She is every bit as strong, in her way, as the Plague Queen. But while spiders DO eat bugs, they do not form destructive hordes that cut swaths of ruin through anything before them. Nor do they spread diseases that cut down men even faster. Faced with a monster like that, she was up to the task. But it really isn't her strength. But take heart from the fact that she did not back down."

Commander Velora sat outside a makeshift tent, her gaze a thousand miles away. When it did focus on the present, it followed the duties of Trooper Coaley, and others like her, still serving good purpose despite her bandages. Like a number of fire Defiers, she was going about, cauterizing wounds, or even stumps of amputated limbs.

Most of these duties stemmed from the zone the army had passed into after killing the four great centipedes. a Zone of thigh-deep water with odd stumps jutting forth. There was a noticeably hand-like structure to the stumps, but there was no way around or through that did not bring equal proximity to them. Figuring to preempt the ambush, Commander Velora ordered weapons drawn and to chop the things down as you came to them.

Of course, it was not so easy, at the first stroke, the stumps would disappear into the water to rise up and attack someone else. It was always as a trio, with two short ones grabbing both ankles, and a third rising up to shove their target in the back and force them face-first into the water. And those that came to the rescue of one in peril of drowning often found themselves likewise assailed.

Somehow, these mobile stumps became as firmly rooted as a normal tree, once they had a victim pinned below the surface. It was sliding the blade between the victim's back, and the stump holding them down, and prying up that saved the most, rather then hacking away at something in two feet of water with a sword.

Many wounds were had from this reckless slashing, and the water was clearly rife with infectious nature. All the wounds taken had to be sterilized quickly, all too many needing amputation to stem the tide of gangrene and worse. The smell of it soured the air, that some took to wearing cloths over their faces, for fear of airborne contamination.

No additional outbreaks confirmed the presence of any contagions in the air, but the Commander was not about to order the practice stopped. Lisirra's distant taunting drove them on to the next zone, a dead rotting forest. The trees attacked with clubbing, whipping limbs once the army was firmly amidst them. Again, anywhere the skin was broken, infection was near-instantaneous.

This time, there was no water to thwart the response of fire against the dead, rotted wood. They went up like bonfires, erupting in burning swarms of ignited bugs, which awaited any that might have breached their core with axes or swords. Once again, Coaley had contributed significantly to the fiery effort, eventually prompting Velora to smother her energy with a blanket, lest she immolate herself permanently.

Now the commander met the eyes of the bandaged musician, nodding her head sideways to invite her over. "Trooper Coaley, I would see you make rank if you like. I don't know if you were a formal member of the army, or a volunteer, but you have been a stalwart part of this force." Though they were words of parise, there was an element of shame in the commander's voice as she said them, as though it pained her somehow.

Looking between her own feet and Coaley's, she continued, "You are an aukari, are you not?" Not exactly waiting for confirmation, she followed the question with another, "Are you wed? Any children?" She looked up with shining eyes to see the shake of the violinist's head. "I did." she said simply. "A strong, loving husband and two beautiful children."

The word "did" made it sadly obvious what was coming next, though the follow up comment may have taken Maude by surprise, "They died last arc. All three of them...Aukari raiders killed them with fire. For those of us that are not aukari, death by fire is about as horrible as it gets."

The effort of restraining sobs wracked her voice with a different kind of strain, but the pain was no less obvious."I would never have believed I could come to trust an aukari as I have come to trust you. But I could not keep this from you. I owe you that honesty. I'd hoped you'd be dead early on, before I was given my present commission. But I have come to know how wrong I was. The only apology I can give is a commission of your own. And even that is not truly an apology. More of a...bribery...to help gain your forgiveness."

The commander's head dropped into her hands, shoulders rocking with guilty tears. After a moment she looked up with red, wet eyes. Perhaps the confession had purged somewhat of the pain, for her voice grew steadier, "I have had an image in my mind these past few trials, of my family glaring at me with disgust for coming to hold you in such esteem. But now I see they were glaring at me for being so narrow-minded. I would ask their forgiveness at the same time I ask yours. If you refuse it, I understand, and my offer will still stand. I have little else to offer you but the acknowledgement of my prejudice, and my self-loathing because of it."

Allowing for whatever response Trooper Coaley felt inclined to give, she stood, wiping her face free of guilt, "In the meantime, we have another confrontation to make. Sintra says Lisirra is growing weak from expending so much power against us. That she can tell somehow. That the last zone was so short-lived. It was based on her powers, but weak, and easily thwarted. She's got power currently functioning in places all over the world, and keeping them up while having to deal with us is draining her. I hope it's true. We can't go on much longer like this."

Off Topic

Awesome fight sequences from everyone last round!

It made sense for exhaustion and overstepping to set in. Kas, you may certainly feel free to decide which underling it was that filled you in in the end of the fight with the big bugs. And Maude, I thought a little back story development with the Commander would be a change of pace to respond to. Sorry Ulric, I don't really have anything specifically aimed at you beyond exhaustion.

But by allowing me to have NPCs recap what you all missed, I can jump far ahead.

Let's get to that final stage, whatta ya say!

Posted: **Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:51 pm**

The experiences during the campaign had numbed Maude’s emotions. This was still how it was. Repeated stays in the fire shape had also affected her. It had burnt away the imaginations about humanity she once had made herself believe in. This too was still true. She was not human, but aukari. How else would she have been able to endure the encounter with the monster? It had tried to eat her but then spit her out when she had blasted its head to pieces from inside. Maude knew that no human would have survived it and come out of it sane. It was only her own capabilities as a kind of monster (as humans saw it) that had enabled her to do so.

In this light, it was no use to plead to Maude’s human feelings, as she wasn’t human and not emotional.

Maude listened to the commander in respectful silence. One more personal disaster among all the personal disasters in Etzos. One more horror and one more sorrow. One more ordeal added to the onslaught of ordeals of the Etzori arc after arc. Habituation made it seem commonplace to Maude. Everybody who was still alive had their dead to mourn. It was only what you could expect. The commander seemed to be no exception.

Maude was no doctor or any other kind of healer professional. She didn’t know how to deal with this unexpected situation. But, her experience as jester told her to shut up. Hinda Velora’s story was the kind of story a listener shouldn’t interrupt. It was the kind of story people needed to get to tell all the way to the end. She would hear it out.

While she listened, thoughts streamed through her mind ...

Maude shook her head when Hinda Velora asked if she was married and had children.

Romance and marriage hadn’t been on Maude’s agenda. She had spent her late teens and early twenties in a city of constant disaster. It wasn’t the kind of environment that inspired her to attach to people. They would soon be gone anyway, so why fall in love with them. And children? Seeing how the children of Etzos suffered it had been easy to abstain from becoming a parent.

Besides ... there was something named race. As Hinda said, Maude was aukari.

The fate of Hinda Velora’s family ...

What was there to say? Should Maude feel guilty on behalf of aukari who had killed the commander’s husband and children? Should she confess to being of an evil race? Should she say something, like for example that she was sad to hear that or that she was sorry for the loss? None of the options seemed appropriate. All felt like false tones to her. Jarring. It would feel like playing the wrong music. It didn’t seem like the commander was asking for pity for herself or blaming Maude. It seemed more like she spoke because she wanted to say this for her own sake. It was possible that she wanted to justify a hard decision to herself and needed to reason aloud.

Maude let Hinda Velora continue without trying to meddle. But, in the end, it came to a point where Maude must answer.

She knew that she had blown her cover as only a red-haired jester with a fiddle. The commander knew that she was aukari and it had seemed like she even knew that Maude was a follower of Zanik. She had said it aloud the first time Maude had played when they had used the music to gather the confused army. There were no secrets anymore.

Maude settled for the only truth she could find in herself. “I don’t know what to say, Commander Velora. May Zanik protect you.” It wasn’t a polite answer. It wasn’t the right words to say. But, there didn’t seem to be any correct words for a situation like this. Her reply was at least honest and her true belief in Zanik, immaterial as it was, was the most precious thing she had.

Parts of what Hinda Velora had told her were things Maude found best to not answer. Her emotions were so numb that she didn't care what people thought of her. What the commander had wished her in their secret thoughts about hate and death wasn’t something they could expect Maude to reply to. Saying that it didn’t matter would seem like telling the commander that their confession was a small thing of no importance to Maude. It could also be seen as if being hostile to Maude based on nothing else than her race was something Maude found okay ... which wasn’t true either. Finally, taking on to say that she forgave the commander for their secret thoughts felt like a self-aggrandizing thing to do.

In short, even though Maude understood that Hinda Velora was serious, she didn’t want to comment on the commander’s feelings and secret thoughts.

I am aukari. We are a kind of monsters, aren’t we? Should the commander be grateful for the forgiveness of an aukari? And should I pay back by being grateful that the commander trusts me despite hating my race? Wouldn’t that be a false and foolish transaction for both of us? Polite lies, partly true, but not the full truth. A sowing of dragon’s teeth ... which I’m not going to do.

Still, the monster and small cog Maude Coaley had to say something. As a jester, she had seen many plays of all kinds at stages, fairs and tavern floors. There had been a lot to learn from that experience. She had seen a plethora of dialogues which had begun by mutual niceties but derailed and went somewhere you didn’t want to go.

Maude wouldn’t enter such a dialogue with the commander. She would take another route.

“There was a highbow I fought alongside. She’s gone now. As she had seen me burn up those bugs at the time of The Rhakros Stomp she knew that I am aukari. Siobhan. She said she wanted me at her side in case we would need to burn something. If we would have to take another route."

Maude tried to explain this in more detail.

"It worried Siobhan that we all were moving forth toward the centre of Rhakros. Siobhan feared that the immortal weakened us only enough to make us believe that we were still winning despite our losses. She feared that we were running like blind animals into a baited trap. Once there, decimated by our losses and gathered in one spot it would be easy to kill us all. She told her superiors this. Still, we walked into the centre of Rhakros. And now, well, here we are, drawn into the domain of the plague queen. She has trapped us here, where the reality we knew doesn’t count anymore. Lisirra’s nightmares lead us on and more of us go down as we continue step by step towards the centre of her domain.”

This was all true facts, as Maude saw it. From her jester point of view, it was like the predictable liturgy of a tragedy played out many times before. This was the backdrop to what she had to say about her own role in the war.

“I’m aukari, but I’m born and raised in Etzos. I signed up to kill Lisirra or die trying. My plan was simple. I was going to burn up and take Lisirra with me. It was a far too simple plan."

Death. That had been her plan. Instead, Maude was still alive and kicking. But, death was still an option and it was possible that she would choose it. Thinking of this, she made a brief pause and adjusted one of her many bandages. She had come out of the giant insect’s maw alive and sane, yes, but not without injuries. She could continue to work and do her duty but it wasn’t comfortable.

Maude continued...

“I’m only a jester, not a soldier. Even if I would rank up, why would other people feel that they should follow me? A title is only a title. It’s an empty word if there’s no real competence and trust to back it up. I’m not one of the regular members of the military. I’m also not one of the “irregulars” who seem to have their own weapons and tactics. I’m not even one of the humans. Jester, fiddler, violinist and living torch, yes, I can play and I can scorch. But, I don’t know anything about how to lead other people in battle, except for how I have seen others do it in this war. ”

Again, her thoughts went to those who were missing in action, assumed dead. “Siobhan who used to lead the group I fought in is gone. She may have taken that other route she spoke about, instead of following the track she feared that Lissira had set up to fool us. I guess someone will need to carry on the roles of those aren’t with us anymore. We need to fill the empty spaces.”

Numbed emotions made wonders for the ability to observe and think. Hinda Velora had changed her mind about Maude now when there were empty spaces to fill. Maude could be a filler. This could also mean that they wanted to put Maude in the first line where the risk for death was highest.

A brief silence followed. Then Maude made up her mind.

“I will do it, commander. It's my duty. I will take on to rank up and fill a space, for a while. But, we can't know if other people will agree to follow someone like me. As an aukari I’m not popular. The Etzori often hate worshippers of Immortals too. You are probably not the only one who has wished me dead. Some may still be waiting for an opportunity to stab me in the back and get rid of me. Some of the smiling faces that praise what I did in the recent battle hide grinning skulls.”

That too was something Maude based on her experience as a jester. She had seen many imaginative plays she had watched during her life. The authors of such plays seemed to think that no story was a good story without deception and treachery. They weren’t real, those stories. Maude still found them realistic.

She bowed to the commander. She would comply with their decision. The encounter with the giant insect had left her emotions even number than before. Her own fate felt less important than ever. She would follow her orders. If she would rank up she would attempt to in turn give orders to others. And if needed she would still burn herself up.

A title, was as Maude had told the commander, only an empty word if there was no real competence and trust to back it up. Title or not, Maude was still only Maude and her abilities were still only the same they had been all the time. Other people yielded way stronger powers. In Maude’s opinion, it was their time to shine.

The only thing that set her apart - to her knowledge - was her irrevocable belief in Zanik. She focused on her immortal now. Deep down, she felt convinced that if he had been there he would have been on the Etzori side. If she would die, she would die in Zanik’s name and with his laugh on her lips. She was his minstrel. And his bomb.

Posted: **Tue Dec 10, 2019 1:54 am**

Of all the fucking shameful bloody...

Not the shame of falling in battle. No, not that. Kasoria wasn't enough of a warrior to consider that much of a dishonor. He'd fought, and if he'd fallen, then so be it. Soldiers died in battles; that was what they were for. Nor was the notion of Overstepping so unpalatable to him, except serving to growl at his traitorous, ebbing Spark in annoyance. It hissed weakly back at him, as spent in ether as his own form was in bruised flesh and battered bones. He was a mage now, and that was one of the risks. Like death was to a soldier, or being killed was to a killer. To die with purpose, though... that mattered to the Etzori far more.

You came here to fight, not to die. But you knew it might happen. A mortal army, marching against an Immortal and her legions. You knew the odds weren't good before you even left the city. You knew it might come to that. But if it had to, if it was required, well... here's as good as anywhere else.

The lie was unseemly even when whispered in his mind, for well he knew better places to lay his bones. Yet nothing more was allowed to transpire before rage overcame them again. His cackling underlings regaled an unwilling and unimpressed audience. They pantomimed the battle as best they could, with their swaddled limbs and bloodied bodies. They filled in the black and fuzzy patches in his mind. His last memory was of casting yet another Shield; not wanting to, but not able to close in to one of the monsters before it could launch a flurry of those damned barbs at him. After that... a blur. Not blackness, so mayhap he was... outside of himself, as Rebus had told him. Maddened by both blood-lust and magical corruption, Spark screaming at him to spare them, to pull back, allow them both time to recuperate.

But the monsters of Lissira had not extended them that courtesy. The blur became blackness. Painful but quiet, away from the fetid grassland soaked with mortal blood and abominable ichor. Then... he awoke. In pain yet again, only this kind dull and throbbing, traveling in waves up and down his body. Rebus had been there, apparently waiting for him to awake. The irregulars were scattered around his tent, some under their own, all of them wounded, too many of them not around at all.

"Sintra," Kasoria finally croaked, voice dry and cracked as ancient parchment. "She... She saved me?"

Rebus nodded, and his smile faltered as The Boss winced. Fates, must have been yet more pain. He reached over and poured him some water, still lukewarm from the now-on-the-break boilings of their supplies. Anger flitted over Kasoria's face a moment later, and Rebus misread that, too. Probably hates being seen as weak, Rebus thought, offering the cup. Well, fucking get used to it.

"Boss, 'ere..."

Kasoria gulped it down and coughed it up and forced it back down his maw again. Rebus grimaced as Kasoria seemed to reverse-vomit the liquid down into him, body shaking with coughs. Fates, but his ribs were a fucking mess. Every breath was like a knife grinding against his lungs. He raised his left hand and instantly it felt as if shoved into a furnace. Bruised, bandaged fingers greeted him, three of them held straight by splints. But it wasn't until he looked down that he felt even a tremor of fear, and flexed his legs-

Hurts like a bastard... but you can walk on it.

"B-Boss? What're yeh-"

The storytelling tapered off as the impossible (or extremely fucking painful) happened in front of the Irregulars. Their little commander swung his legs off the bed... then sat at the edge of it, gripping it with his one good hand... and then with his teeth bared against the pain, rose shakily to his feet.

"Boss, lemme-"

"Do not fuckin' touch me."

The words were not screamed or even snarled. They were delivered with iron and ice and everything unbreakable and implacable to mad. Rebus' concerned proffering was killed before his hands could even come close to his commander. With a grunt and a snarled curse in Ith'ession, Kasoria started to slowly strap his weapons back to his body. His left hand he used more as a guide, unable to use his fingers. He was more and more aware of the growing silence. Laughter and chattering dying away. By the time his gladius was at his hip, he looked around... and saw a sea (well, more like a large pond) of hard, grizzled faces looking at him.

"... fuck're yeh lookin' at? Still godda war t'win."

"Kas, the lads-"

"Me armor," Kasoria said without any preamble, pointing with his battered left hand to the pile of leather and chain-mail in one corner of the tent. "Help me geddit on." He allowed Rebus a pause of maybe a trill before adding. "Tha's a fuckin' order, 'Bus!"

"Hell n' fuck, aright, aright..."

The armor took far longer than the weapons. More than once the Raggedy Man had to learn on Rebus for support, hating every moment of it. But not nearly as much as the notion, the idea, the fact made into history that he, he had been saved by a fucking Morty. At the mercy of a centi-beast spawned by one of the unholy cunts, and snatched from Vri's embrace by another one of them. He cast odd glances out of the tent whenever he saw her towering, slowly skittering form rise above the crowd of mortals. Wishing with every ounce of himself that he could-

"Nah... not yet."

"Boss?"

"Nothin'," Kasoria said, walking gingerly out of the tent. "C'mon."

'Gingerly' did not last long. The pain was sharp, but not crippling. His leg was not stolen from him, made useless by grievous injury and racking pain, better for amputation than recovery. Fates knew he'd suffered sprains before, and not just in his leg. Limping would not aid it, and he'd rather lose a fucking bollock than shuffle forwards in front of his men. He knew these faces, the histories tattoos and brands and distant memories informed him of. They were jackals and vultures in human form. United solely by their love of country that many highborn wankers would scoff at. Bu oh yes, even they could be sons of Etzos. Why else would they be here, after all?

"C'mon," the Raggedy Man said, uncaring if Rebus followed him alone, or with their scant handful of leaders, or the whole damn platoon. His eyes were fixed on the Commander's tent, and that was all. "Been on my fuckin' back long enough..."

Their arrival caused a murmur of alarm amidst the well-to-do of the (surviving) Etzori Army. Kasoria heard something behind the whispers, though. A story. A promise. A woman's voice, cracking under the tension they all felt but still pressing on with painful words. She was a hunted one, apparently. Kasoria frowned and thought he recognized the voice. Then the line of guards parted for a moment and he saw a familiar face. The last time he'd seen it, she'd been carrying a crossbow, and standing with Velora. He half-turned to Rebus.

"That the aukie? Turned t'flame an' torched the bug?"

"Aye, tha's 'er, boss."

Kasoria turned back to the woman. Younger and frailer than he, apparently. But weren't such things always deceiving? There he stood, small and slight and wounded, at the head of a rank of scabrous, cutthroat bastards that every Black Guard in the vengeful army heaped scorn on every damned trial. There had been threats of mutiny at the start, that a force of such blatant gangers would march with them. Slowly, though, the threats had subsided. After the first skirmishes in the jungle, dirty, bloody little battles against Lissira pickets. Then the Raggedy Man himself, risen from the dead and apparently refusing to die a second time, leading them when all others fell.

"Useful one t'have aroun', den," Kasoria muttered, to general agreement from his men. "An' she dun' sound wrong, about the pox-bitch..."

Another murmur, this time far more grim. This place they stood upon, a swamp that smelled of rotting plants and human waste, was... it seemed different to Kasoria. It didn't have quite the overpowering stench of her about it. Every other zone Lissira had led them into, the very air about them has seemed to shudder with her breath, and all that lived there moved to her command. Here was just a swamp. Lifeless and weak. Corrupted and diseased, true, but nothing this tempered and forged army could not suffer through at that point.

She's getting weaker, he thought, nodding to himself as Commander Velora seemed to agree with him. Ran us on for too long. Hasn't whittled up down fast enough, and now she's getting on the back foot.

The Raggedy Man looked down at his mangled left hand and whispered to his Spark. Coaxed it like one would a frightened child, until with invisible hisses of pain he felt in places between his muscles and his soul, he felt drams of ether dribble into his arm. The chains binding it rippled and blackened, until the glowing substance of magic itself started to pour from his forearm. Carefully, gently, he crafted it but slowly into the shape of a shield... or tried to. The edges were jagged, the thickness skewed... but the center of it was solid. Solid enough to ward off a blow, mayhap.

Have to do.

"Yer pardon," he growled lowly at the officer that came up to him, clearly wondering what the hell him and his rabble were playing at. He shook his left arm and hid the pain behind a yellow-toothed smile. The Shield vanished from sight, turning into dust and white smoke with a handful of shakes. "Jus' needed t'see if it was still workin', sir."

"And are you satisfied, Highmark?"

Kasoria sneered at the acid, cultured tones. Instead, he looked back over his shoulder, and did a quick count of his men.

"More like Mastermark, I fink. Given how many a' the lads an' the officers've copped it. Started off at a fe hunned. Now it ain't even two score. An' yeah, I am. When're we goin' after her?"

The officer seemed ready to puff up and explode out of his uniform. "When you are ordered to, Highmark!"

Kasoria blinked, and didn't rise to the bait. Allowed himself to be stone where before him was roiling sea. His eyes slid around the officer and into the command tent. Curious but unwilling to allow such a flagrant breach of the chain of command to continue much longer, Commander Velora straightened up behind her table, hands clasped behind her back. One black eyebrow arched, stiff and immovable as a crossbeam. Kasoria's lip twitched. Aye. Still a commander he'd follow. He nodded to her briefly... and then, to his surprise as much as anyone else's, the Aukari.

"Thank yeh, sir. We'll go back on guard, 'til we're ready t'go."

He saluted like a good soldier, and turned away. As one, as a unit, as the soldiers they'd become and murderers they'd all been, the damned Irregulars followed their diminutive commander back whence they came.

Posted: **Thu Dec 12, 2019 11:08 pm**

8 Saun 719 | Ulric

When they came through the zone of thigh-deep water, Ulric moved through it in Arthur's body. He held Arthur's blade firmly in hand and as he neared one of the hand-like stumps jutting from the water he swung at it. The stump disappeared into the water just as the blade neared it and Ulric pulled his blade into a plow stance to prepare for the stumps return but instead the soldier beside him suddenly hacked at the water beside them. Ulric turned just in time to see the third branch rise and shove the man head-first into the water.

With an arm outstretched, Ulric manifested a tendril and wrapped it around the branch on the man's back- seeing that branch as the most immediate cause of the problem and when he pulled his arm (and by extension the tendril) back to rip the branch away, something wrapped around his ankles. In one moment he'd saved another from drowning an in the next he felt something push against his back. With his ankles pinned his balance betrayed him and Ulric fell face-first into the water where the branch held him there. He flailed wildly for a few seconds as his ectoplasm raged. He manifested four tendrils from his back and shoved them into the ground to try and push himself out of the water. He was strong, but he was also tired and had spent his great feat of strength to pull down a centipede. He couldn't push himself free of the branch's grasp.

Then he remembered he didn't have to.

As the air began to run out in Arthur's lungs, Ulric pushed himself out of Arthur's body. He manifested beside his friend where he could see the full device holding him down. Ulric wedged his tendrils between the branch and Arthur's back and tore Arthur free. Arthur's head whipped out of the water and he gasped wildly for air but the worst of the danger had passed. The worst of it... they still had further to march.

And march they did.

*** *** ***

Ulric had long since forgotten how sore your feet could become after near endless marching, but as he rested from the battle within Arthur's body and felt the weight of Arthur's feet with each step the pain came back to him. When the worst of the combat had ended, Ulric had been weary. His ectoplasm seared and spread thin. Possessing Arthur had seemed the natural choice to help him regain some of himself but with the choice to live in a body, came the aches and pains of the flesh. The trial dragged on, and the Etzori host dragged with it further into the domain of the Plague Queen. Lisirra. After some time Ulric gave control of his body over to Arthur in a vague effort to distance himself from the aching he felt in Arthur's joints. His knees, his ankles, his back... they all seen better days. And Arthur had been injured in the battle. His abdomen and left arm were bandaged and the bleeding had stopped but the pain still lingered in his wounds.

Yet retreating into passivity did not relieve Ulric of the aches and pains, it merely changed the way he felt them. What had been a specific joint pain became an clouded discomfort in his ectoplasm where his legs might have formed it he'd been in his own body. Ulric could not escape the price of war, no matter what form he took. So he rested in Arthur and subtly syphoned away at the man in brief intervals to allow Arthur time to recuperate before being syphoned again. While in control, the older swordsman Arthur wandered the rank to listen to some of the stories being told.

He heard of a brave fiddler, who had taken bold action when her music was sabotaged by the clumsy soldier. He heard of how she'd burst into flame in the maw of one of the beasts and been retched out. Then he heard of how the Immortal accompanying them had dispatched the other two in a great battle that Arthur had been too distracted to witness himself. As he came nearer to the Irregulars the tales turned to that of a brave mage who'd held the line in a way no other mortal could have. He heard the man was gravely injured but that was where Arthur's interest in the tale ended. What curiosity had been aroused was sapped away by Ulric within him.

But it wasn't just his curiosity. Ulric took his fears, his anxiety, and his troubles. Ulric profited off the fear Arthur felt from battle. The fear of sickness or infection. The fear that reaching the end of her domain wouldn't mean the end of the Plague Queen herself. Ulric sapped these from Arthur, not to give Arthur the strength to fight on- though it did, but so that Ulric could fight on. With everything he took from his friend, his own wounds began to feel lighter.

By the time one of the officers spoke up in defense of Sintra's performance- apparently some doubt had arisen as a result of her trouble with Lisirra's minions, Ulric had the strength to materialize beside Arthur in a body almost as solid as the one he'd maintained in his life. Yet his arms and legs were not quite as solid as he'd hoped and consequently formed of softer silk-like ectoplasm. He sat beside Arthur and looked at Lisirra's Domain around them.

"You've done well so far." Ulric commended his only friend.

"I've been lucky. I have a ghost who is very much invested in my survival." Arthur replied solemnly. He stared vacantly off at the injured being tended too by the Defiance mages. Part of that vacant stare hurt Ulric in a way he didn't expect it could. He felt... bad... about how much he'd syphoned from Arthur. He felt regret. He hadn't felt either of those emotions since he'd been murdered but he felt them now. He taken the regret from Arthur and made it his own. He regret bringing Arthur into this danger.

"And I'll keep you alive yet."

Posted: **Mon Dec 23, 2019 8:39 pm**

Doorways and Domains

Treks through the next few chambers of the Plague Queen's domain gave a rise to the spirits of those who pursued, as the words of Sintra were borne out by steadily decreasing details in the Emean landscapes encountered by the Etzori forces. "She is losing power! She has spent herself! We've got her now!" were dominant features of most exchanges.

Where earlier, grassy fields had surface details, in the forms of bushes and weeds, and contours of elevation that did not repeat with plain redundancy, now all was hastily repetitive. Even the prior watery phases had currents that did not suggest machine-like sources of ingress and egress.

Such was no longer the case. Regardless of how many scores of centuries the Immortal had had at her disposal, these extensions of the torture chambers that had greeted the Etzori when first they plunged into Emea, were plainly unfinished. There were still hazards of course, but even they were easily detected and dealt with.

In one, the ground surface was colorless and near transparent, giving good warning of what should have been ambushes by more over-sized insects. And they too, were of steadily decreasing threat. No whips of acid, no stingers of spear size and length No toxins frothing at eager mandibles. At times, a single, well-placed blow shattered the entire creature like glass.

The truest obstacle was that the northerners had to get below this surface to reach the door, which also was left so easy to see that it could not have been by design. The flooring of this plain turned out to be as easily shattered, in one area, as some of the bugs had been, and a large hole was all that was needed to march on to the next chamber.

There, the nature of the trap was shown to have been of a fairly tried-and-true variety, with the entire floor turning on an axis to dump the bulk of the force into a spot that was undoubtedly intended to hold some peril. But apparently, nothing had yet been chosen to occupy this space, after a drop of ten or twelve feet. There were some mild injuries from the fall, but most were of the 'walk-it-off' variety. Admittedly, most everyone rose after the fall, weapon in hand, anticipating some crush of monsters. But all that turned up was the sight of another portal.

This pattern continued for several more chambers until sudden color and detail burst upon the eyes. A massive wall of stone, graced with the appearance of a natural formation, yet too neatly formed to a corner of two magnificent cliffs to have been truly random, stood at the far end. The lower tier of the walls were carved or shaped to have alternating stalagmites and stalactites, giving the impression of a gargantuan fanged mouth.

Two columns of etched stone ran side-by-side up the length of the cliff peak, with no door or portal shown between. Runes in a language no mortal or mortalborn here would recognize ran the length of the columns to become illegible for their height from the eyes below. At the base of where these columns met the ground stood Lisirra, fury and fear showing in equal measure, as it would on any cornered animal.

But she was not alone...

It was not monsters that accompanied her though; but rather a massive sphere of swirling red gas. "Come forth, my sister! Join in the game! I would not see you excluded from the spectacle to which you have led these victims!" she raged, her voice trying to sound confident, but somehow falling short. Sintra was still on the other side of the last portal and made no answer to the taunt.

To those around her though, she said, "I can only hope you will trust that it is just a ploy to sew contention within our ranks at the moment of victory. There should always have been the understanding that she would have some last desperate tactic, and clearly this is it. I do not know what gas that is, but it is surely deadly. I will send in my own army to safeguard you as best I can. But I will need to buy time. I will enter and converse with her, but if it comes to fighting, you know I must withdraw, or she will benefit from my presence."

And so the confrontation began, Lisirra taunting always that the stand-off was precisely what she had intended to accomplish, inviting the Etzori to do their worst, that she was more than prepared to annihilate them all, that all before had been a set-up for this final stroke. It was eventually to Sintra's advantage that her younger sister continued to suggest that she'd been a party to the whole thing, knowingly bringing the Etzori survivors to their doom, because it gave a genuine topic for Sintra to respond to, without it being an obvious stall tactic. Therefore, she was able to draw out the length of the exchange long enough to have her children form a huge web to raise before the Etzori troops like a giant face mask against the gas.

Lisirra just laughed, promising that such a meager defense would only prolong the mortals' suffering. Sintra replied with confidence that she would be proven wrong. More banter and bluster passed, filling the bits until the plague Queen finally shrieked, "ENOUGH! You say you have my defense accounted for. Why then, do you wait? Come then, mortals. You know that my sister will not join your assault. Why then, do you let HER decide when you charge or retreat. She will not be endangering HERself! Why do her work for her? Our animosity does not involve you. Cut your losses, accept that my assault was only righteous vengeance for YOUR siege on MY city three arcs ago. Call it even! Go now! or Charge! Make your choice before I make mine!"

"It is not righteous vengeance when you kill children and non-combatant citizens arbitrarily. Had it been only the Marshalls that gave those orders who died in your attack, perhaps we would not have marched, and accepted your interpretation of what is 'even', you monster!" Velora broke in, trembling with rage, "We only stall to allow you the opportunity to surrender, and for us to make this as painless as we can, for we do not revel in others' misery as you do!"

"Brave words, worm! Come then, embrace your brothers in the Beneath!" the Immortal hissed back. Her eyes gaped in malice as she saw Sintra withdraw, and her accusing finger followed her flight, "There she goes! Running to safety while you die for her cause!....So? What will it be?"

All knew that Sintra's withdrawal signaled the okay for the final attack, and everyone suddenly surged forward.

Time passes differently in Emea than it does in the Above. But sometimes uneven clocks still align for an instant. Even as Oberan lost his grip on the artifact he tried to hold back, that same span of bits transpired to effect all of the layers of existence within the influence of the web of lighted rune bands connected to it. The power opened everything, on all levels, for a span of perhaps a single trill, and all within its area were thrust forward, void of effort or inertia, by a measure of about 125 feet.

Not such a great distance. but it was enough to bring the army close enough to brace for the Plague Queen's unleashing of the gas. They looked about in confusion, knowing they had not actually taken a step. But they saw that the web had come with them, which was also a surprise, given the difference in a spider's pace from that of a human. But more incredible by far was the effect on Lisirra herself. A huge doorway opened behind her, where the cliff walls met, dividing and spreading open the columns of rune-covered stones; and she was pulled in.

Beyond was a passage into a realm that the Plague Queen's expression showed to be entirely unanticipated. The look on Sintra's face showed largely the same thing, the one difference being that where Lisirra was pulled in back-first, Sintra could see the realm beyond, and shocked terror rode her face until the surge passed and the portal closed again. At this point a relief that leaves words scrambling for suitability replaced the fear, and she near wilted with the abatement of terror.

But for those within the forward half of the army, they too saw somewhat of what existed in that realm. Had it not been so freakishly distorted, they may have actually come away with clarified knowledge of how one era of Idalosian history was ended. As it was, they saw the redness of the gas color everything within the doorway, and the terror that had briefly appeared in Sintra's face now drain the color from Lisirra's. True definition of her fate was lost in opaque swellings and crushings of imagery, as one would expect from a steamed-up carnival mirror, but it looked as if two monstrous structures, stricken by the gas, fell upon the Plague Queen, tearing her apart.

It was difficult to tell the nature of the attacking figures, other than their monstrous size. Some may have thought they saw scales, some others leathery hide, some crushed stone or a surplus of fangs, whipping tails or tentacles; or it may have seemed as if a wall of thick liquid rolled over everything. The only thing agreed upon was the certainty of Lisirra being ripped to shreds by it.

But then the door closed and, as a dream, the memory began to fade. Some asked Sintra to explain, feeling a strange anti-climactic disappointment in it all, but she declined, offering only that those who asked need only recall that they did truly see Lisirra dismembered and disemboweled, and to take comfort and satisfaction in it. It would not be surprising to figure some manipulation of facts by the matron of such things. But if any had such power as to see through lies and half-truths, they'd have found none to exist in her words.

Off Topic

I'm looking to end this here. If you guys want to describe some incomplete chamber of your own, feel free. But the mystery of what lies beyond the last membrane will remain unexplained for now. Feel free to do another post. I am willing to allow that you players resist this memory loss to some degree, but only if you give some reason in your next post. If there is some other detail I overlooked that requires further rounds, let me know. Otherwise, I will do one more after yours and call it done.

Posted: **Wed Dec 25, 2019 12:06 am**

There was an order to the world. This he believed. It was not fair or just or caring, but it was there. This he had been taught. Men, Immortals, the other thinking races and the multitudes of beasts and monsters ranging from insects to Leviathans... they all had a place in it. All he had seen and done had no dissuaded him of this belief. He'd seen things unlikely, incredible, and outright impossible. Because he lived in a world replete with magic. Yet despite ether suffocating and infusing creation, he believed there was an order. A hierarchy of power. Most importantly, much as he might chafe at his place within in and the relative weakness of his people, he believed he knew where that order ended.

Kasoria was proved so very, very wrong that trial.

He let out a warcry that was utterly swallowed by the hundreds of screaming voices surrounding him. He charged the singular monster in front of him, hurling himself across the ground for if he was not sprinting, not galloping, he'd have been crushing by the uncaring horde behind him. Singular she was, and not just in the fact she was alone. All of his people's hate, all of Etzos' rage, living and dead, was represented in the sneering, strutting, venomous girl in front of them. The ocean of men and monsters, were all spawned from the mind of this one Immortal. She was not unarmed, of course. Even here, in the final league, she had some disgusting trick up her sleeve.

Gas, Kasoria had thought as the army lined up to face her. Exhausted and stinking and ugly and wounded to every single man and woman. Officers and rankers, nobles and beggars, all equal now in hatred and weariness. He was among the front ranks, with his last score or so of Irregulars. Gonna swamp us with it the moment we get close.

"Kas?" One of them spoke and he turned to a face he didn't recognize. All of the ones he did were gone. "What we do about that stuff?"

Kasoria thought for a few moments. Formulating his answer as Immortals prattled and Velora made them all swell pridefully with her scornful ultimatum. Finally, he pulled his copper-capped gauntlets on a little tighter, and readied sword and ax in each hand.

"Have t'hold yer breath, I guess."

Any other trial, any other battle, that might have got a chuckle. Even if it was one of bemusement, for surely the Raggedy Man was jesting. None stirred. None laughed. None questioned, either. If they had to hold their breath to get close to her, they would. If they died in the attempt, so be it. If the army around and at their backs being butchered and never seeing home again was the price of this abomination being cast from creation for all time... so be it. They were all too tired to think otherwise. The Irregulars listened in stoic silence, words of Lisirra barely even noticed by them. Not until she gave one more challenge, shouted over a vast plain yet clear to them all as if she was barely a dozen steps away.

Kasoria closed his eyes, for a heartbeat. He thought of a boy, leagues away and safe. Safe most of all. He clutched his weapons tighter in that same heartbeat... and then his eyes snapped open.

Okay, then.

He charged. They all charged. Feet pounding on hard ground with wounded feet. Wounds opened up. Bindings slipped. None of them cared. None of them paused. Every face was shining with hatred, sharp and hard as the weapons they carried. Kasoria barely noticed when some trickery dragged them a hundred feet or so closer, view of everything lurching sickeningly in the space of a trill. His feet wobbled under him but with a bound to steady himself, the Raggedy Man kept running. He was slightly ahead, now. Only the fit or young or relatively unhurt were with him. They and Velora, the Aukari, and a handful of ghosts. They, most of all, would be there at the death of it.

It was a good way, and a good trial to die. If such a thing could even exist. Kasoria embraced it, like a falling man must embrace the ground.

And then, gravity stopped working entirely.

A vast gateway taller than the Citadel of Etzos split the cliffs behind Lisirra like an ax cutting a log, from the ground up. Runes carved into ancient stones exploded into light a fraction of a trill before energy, ether, magic, sheer primordial power ripped through them. Hundreds of feet, up and down, were made into blazing light... but in the center, behind the cackling godling, the cliffs actually opened.

Kasoria skidded to a halt and was nearly knocked onto his arse by the mass of Etzori behind him doing the same. His eyes didn't blink. Couldn't. As if they knew he was watching something none of his line nor race had seen before, and to miss even a moment was a terrible waste. So he did naught but stare as energy beyond the paltry Spark of his own body, of any mage, tore that massive edifice in half... and something grabbed Lisirra like a doll.

He did not curse. He did not whisper to the Fates, or to Fuck, or to anyone. Like all others, he was struck dumb. His face going pale as he saw fear, real and wet and impossible to fake, spread across Lisirra's childish face. Then he heard the scream. He didn't even know Immortals could scream like that. Then he saw why she was screaming, what had caused such fear... and Kasoria dropped to his knees.

There was masses of tentacles with eyes and fanged mouths in places no creator would have put them. They were daemons with reptile skin and black shining horns and claws of comets and dead stars. They were every religious mania, they were every haemonculic fantasy, every mutant, monstrous, corrupted atrocity that beast-slayers throughout history had hunted in dark places. They were... they were. They existed, and that alone was more terrible than any pointless attempt to chain them in Common words. THEY were, and THEY came, and THEY took Lisirra, a god and an Immortal and mage of power beyond on mortal that had ever walked, and Kasoria saw what they did to her.

There was an order to things, Kasoria believed. Now that chart was gone, destroyed and irrelevant, as things between the darkness of the cosmos came forth from whatever was behind that gateway.

They were assailed by gas and wrath of an Immortal and Kasoria's occluded gaze could not detect even a shred of effect done to them. Lisirra hurled her power and her gas and her magic and within the time it took her to do so...

Kasoria shuddered as he saw the end of an Immortal. But he felt only a dram of satisfaction. For now he knew they were out there. Just behind the gate. Waiting for someone to open it.

"K... Kas...?"

Time stretched. Things happened in that stretching. He blinked and it seemed the gate had not just closed but never been there. The cliffs were whole and much as the realm they walked was magical, things were... normal. Kasoria got to his feet and felt the cold solidity of the ground under him. The things he had seen... they were faded now, as if dreamed and barely remembered come the dawn. He looked at the weapons in his hands. No blood on them. No battle. So... they had failed? No. No, he'd seen her die. Seen what... they, had done to her. Even Kasoria found himself turning to Sintra, seeking whatever knowledge the hateful creature would give them.

He saw the fear behind her mutant eyes. He saw the terror she had let smear her beautiful face without caring who saw it. She knew what those things were. She, an Immortal, like her dead sister. She knew and the thought of even recollecting them was too much for her. She said they should be happy Lisirra was dead, and Kasoria... he was nodding along. He was agreeing. But as he looked around, he saw the unspoken, hidden fear on every face.
They wanted this to be over. Not because of the plagues or monsters. Not because of the battles or the siege or the endless skirmishes. Not because of the genocide they'd unleashed, the razing of an entire city. None of that. It was because they, none of them... none of them wanted to remember again what they had seen. The chaos beyond the gateway. Mocking the ordered world men like Kasoria believed in.

"Wha... What's next?"

Kasoria sheathed his weapons, and turned away from the cliffs.

"We're goin' home. That's what." He spared a quick glance over his shoulder. A smear, a suggestion of slickness stained the ground where Lisirra had... gone. "Job's done."

Posted: **Wed Dec 25, 2019 11:36 am**

As a professional jester Maude was no stranger to cheap tricks.

She had seen many of those during her working life at markets, taverns and stages. She was always interested in adding more tricks to her repertoire. Unlike most others, she noticed that the red cloud of gas seemed to stay with Lisirra. Proper gas would have spread out into the air instantly. It was maybe not so in the Emea ... but to Maude, it seemed like the gas might be only an illusion. The big-mouthed rhetoric that came with it reminded her a great deal about how jesters used their words to make people believe that what they saw was true. It reminded Maude of the smoke bombs that could be used to spiff up a performance.

Other’s might not react that way, but to Maude, it wasn’t hard to put her impressions together and draw a conclusion. Their efforts had weakened Lisirra. Now, she seemed down to faking it. Afterwards, Maude would always feel convinced that they would have killed her, if not ...

Emea shrugged and the dreams shook. A gap opened and sucked Lisirra into another domain, just like the immortal had sucked them all into her own domain to trap them there and kill them. The fate they had intended for others became their own fate instead. This was what jesters used to call divine justice when it happened in spectacles at work. Having been munched on by a giant worm-like insect and still wearing all the bandages she had earned after that gruesome incident, Maude wasn’t inclined to feel compassion. Lisirra tasted her own medicine. The tentacle beings weren’t so unlike that worm if you asked Maude. She didn't see so much, to be honest, but she was under the impression that they were grotesque to look at and with a lot of winding appendages and sharp teeth.

Being a jester and neither human nor emotional right now, she was cold-blooded enough to memorize the tentacles along with what had seemed like fake gas. You could keep those behind the coulisses and pull them out when it was time to end a show. Other people would probably have been horrified if they had known what Maude was thinking of instead of joining in to share the scare. But, the aukari thought of sensational effects for amazing stories, insane costumes for musical performances and stunning smoke and pyrotechnics.

Would this stay with her as vague dreamlike memories and become a source of inspiration?

Or, would she forget it all like a dream dispersed when the morning comes?

She shot her fellow mummy, the heavily bandaged mage with the copper knuckle gauntlets a glance. Maude bet he’d been as prepared to die as she had been. No cowardice there. There were a few others as well, faces she would recall, living and undead alike.

“Job’s done,” she heard the mage say. “The boss” had spoken. Maude decided to follow their example and leave this place, somehow. It seemed easiest that way.

Posted: **Wed Dec 25, 2019 8:14 pm**

8 Saun 719 | Ulric

As the horde and by extension the specter bound swordsman traversed further into the Plague Queen's domain, they witnessed the world around them slowly lose the detail which made it so treacherous. To Arthur this development did little more than relieve him that the danger before them was not nearly as lethal as the dangers behind them had been. To Ulric, this was a sign that the end was approaching. He didn't know for certain that the dull domain traps were indications that Lisirra was weakening, but he knew it meant something was changing. As the path froward became easier than the path behind, it could only lead to one place- the
Plague Queen herself... and it did.

Cheers went out along the way about how the Plague Queen was weakening but there was little evidence more convincing to Ulric than the appearance of the the Immortal herself and the threat of a looming red gas. Ulric thought the gas a laughable threat to the many undead of Etzos but then he remembered that the Immortal likely had concocted her gas so that it would strike through both the dead and the living and even if it had not, Ulric could not surge forward without Arthur. Sure Ulric held his own blade in his hands, but he could not protect Arthur from the front of the battle if his friend chose to remain further back. So instead the two swordsmen stood side by side to face the Plague Queen with the rest of the Etzori horde.

When Sintra advanced to produce a defense for the horde against Lisirra's gas, Ulric paced impatiently among his rank. He paced where other soldiers stood still. Arthur was standing still. Lisirra shouted questioning why the mortals would stand beside Sintra when Sintra would not stand with them but Ulric was not listening to her. The answer was simple. Whether or not Sintra actually fought beside them, she was the reason they had made it this far. The time finally came where Lisirra called Sintra on her bluff and Ulric braced in a middle guard for the battle to come- only it didn't.

In one moment Ulric was stepping forward with his blade raised overhead and in the next he stood 125 feet closer to the Immortal and her gas than he had been before. Yet he quickly realized he was not the only thing to move. Sintra's web, the other fighters, and Lisirra had all been jettisoned with him. Ulric was not so far forward that he witnessed what transpired with Lisirra, nor was he near enough to Sintra to see the expression of horror on her face as Lisirra was drawn to her demise, but the end result was the same. Ulric saw a doorway open with runes shining through and the rest was distorted. It all happened so fast that Ulric was nearly trampled by the other soldiers coming to a halt with him.

It happened in an instant and Ulric saw almost none of it, but as the rumor began to spread throughout the rank it ultimately reached the specter who could only hear the truth. Lisirra was gone. Dead or otherwise destroyed by whatever had been beyond that gate and even the appearance of the gate seemed to be up for debate. Ulric would turn to Arthur only to find his living companion with even fewer answers for him than those Ulric had gotten from the others. So Ulric ventured further through the rank in his search for knowledge. He would slyly slip a hand onto the shoulder of soldier after soldier as he tried to syphon their emotions. He'd syphoned a memory from a man before and sought to do it again but in the minds of every solider he found only fear and contentment in odd measure. He heard Sintra speak to the soldiers who demanded to know what had happened and he knew the truth to her words. If it had been a lie of any measure he'd have known.

It didn't feel good enough to Ulric. Lisirra's death didn't satisfy him. It was justice. It was right that she meet this fate... but Ulric was a spirit of vengeance. Justice was for the Immortals. He'd return to Arthur and with Arthur and the others he'd leave this battlefield with what memory he could maintain.

Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Doorways and Domains (Graded)

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains

Re: Doorways and Domains