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=EC 2024= Final Arena

 
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8/19/2024 22:31:56   
  Starflame13
Moderator


Wind cried and screamed - and laughed. Pure night reigned, neither land nor light visible to anchor the contestants now suspended in the ether. Curtains of nothing brushed against them, soft trembling tendrils that mended wounds and restored strength before pulling back to leave only emptiness in their wake. Emptiness that swelled to - Nothing. Neither Light nor Darkness. Neither Ice nor Fire. Neither Energy nor Water. Not Earth…

Only the laughing Wind.

Then - sunlight, stark against the blackness, the noonday sun suspended directly overhead, though the sky responded naught to its arrival. Sand, warm beneath their feet, the crimson expanse pooling upwards from the droplets of blood to subsume the stone, the crimson motes cascading outwards to fall endlessly over the edge into the voice. The laughter quieted, a strange presence - a single mind formed of many notes - taking precedence over the Wind to penetrate deep into the minds of the remaining combatants. Fights of glory and deceit, acts of mercy and cruelty, moments of hope, despair, and fury; all have been witnessed by the Arena on this day! Paragon you are not - but Chosen you have gained. For the Lords you fight not - but in the Arena you remain. Judgment shall still be passed. A boon may yet be won. Witness the selected heroes. Witness the Arena’s Choice!”

Sands swirled, encircling the combatants as the presence turned its attention on each in turn, declaring their names for all to hear:

Of memories lost, of bonds tried and tested, of Darkness declared. Witness Camellia Dictaria, Chosen!

Of painful betrayal, of blessings torn asunder, of Wind declared. Witness Lunara Song, Chosen!

Of melody drowned, of words tossed and taken, of Energy declared. Witness Epithet, Chosen!

Of voices silenced, of future twisted and changed, of Fire declared. Witness Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii, Chosen!


Laughter surged back across the sands, cackling as it kicked the motes into blood-stained eddies. The growing breeze caught the last loose scraps of shrapnel, pulling the debris into a twister that swallowed the fuel hungrily even as its growing reach scoured at exposed skin for more. The cyclone gave a blood-chilling screech, then collapsed inwards, a plinth of silver rising upwards from the carnage. At its center emerged a giant of a woman, broad muscles and scared visage on full display as she glowered at those before her. The last vestiges of wind caught her remaining braids, entwining them through twigs and leaves to weave a nest across her brow before smoothing downward into an expressionless mask. A single eye glinted hungrily from its surface. The Pillar of Wind alone stood to witness the bloodshed brought before it today.

No expectant spectators leaning forward with bated breath. No Callers braced to announce the start of the trial. Only the Will of the Arena, ever present and ever hungry, with its single-minded intent calling forth a fight upon its swirling sands. Let the Judgement of the Arena begin.


< Message edited by Starflame13 -- 8/19/2024 22:45:11 >
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 1
8/22/2024 23:13:13   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


Camellia clung to the wisps of consciousness like a lifeline, certain that if her grip ever loosened, if she ever gave in to the call to sleep, she would not wake. She distantly recognized Olivier having slipped from her gaze, though had no concept of how or when. Through thin slits she saw the sky darken as a weak voice spoke at her side, incomprehensible beneath the unceasing tide of Venus’ calls. The Infinite chilled around her, cold snapping at her lips and face but biting fruitlessly against The Family’s gifts. She couldn’t feel it upon her bare arm, for better or for worse. The cold deepened, temperature falling lower and lower until ice played casket to her discarded form and drove away all feeling, overpowering even Family’s flesh. A gong crashed, the distant sound rapidly crossing space until it broke the ground itself and scattered every echoing word and memory within Camellia’s mind. Crying, screaming, laughing wind pulled at Camellia, tugging at her form beneath the ice, dragging at her spirit and her flesh. She felt her scales begin to tear, begin to peel, until-

The world tore Camellia in two.

Cami.


Words grasped her instantly, phantoms and wisps of letters and songs and memories caressing her, kissing her, reminding her of every day and night spent in a dead woman’s arms. Her world of one, invaded and forced to hold every part of another. Beneath their cries Camellia could barely hear the second crash of a gong, barely see the world she’d been torn from as it ascended to the heavens.

A phantom of language took her limp arm and knelt before her. With a dozen cries of her name it kissed her hand, inviting her, forcing her to return. With a snap, her legs broke. With a pop, her arm dislocated. With a scream, steel plunged into her ribcage.




A Page drags her shattered body through the ornate doorway. The voice, its tenor forgettable, unimportant, calls into the house, beckoning someone unseen. “Though you are Brother no more, Mother still requests you do a duty.”

Through fluttering eyelids Camellia sees pieces of her. Flashes of green robes, dark hair, a veil of silver. She speaks, and Camellia listens. At this woman’s command, blood flows backwards, flesh knits closed, bones mend and realign. Camellia sees her not this day, instead falling to slumber, a voice tickling her ears and begging her to rest.

It is the next that they truly meet. “Venus,” the woman says. Her eyes are a deep emerald, laced with the rare flowing silver of one who declined the honor of Fatherhood. She speaks again, and Camellia listens. Camellia replies. And Camellia falls, lost in Venus’ eyes, wrapped in Venus’ speech even when no magic bolsters the woman’s words. From now until that day, every wound will take her back to this house, back to this woman, back to this voice.




Returned, remade, restored. Camellia staggered at the first memory’s weight, her tongue still tasting the tea offered to her, her back still feeling the luscious cushions of Venus’ chambers even here in her world of one. Dozens of moments rushed forth and overwhelmed her, crying out to be remembered, to be heard and reminisced upon.

Cami.

…mine.

…need you…

…of our own.

Don’t forget me.


No. That one, right before the last. There was more weight to that. It stung at her somewhere deep, somewhere precious. What was it?

Camellia extended a hand out, inviting the phantom of words to take it, to kiss it, to lead her into memory. The phantom knelt, lifted her hand, then leapt. A mess of words and letters gripped her chin, pulling it aside. A mouth lunged forwards. Teeth of echoing time and sharpened moments plunged into her neck. Her scream would have shook the world, had it ever left her lungs.



Mother and Father place the envelope in Camellia’s hand together. Their eyes —pairs of silver and gold— are cold, inscrutable. They watch her, waiting for obedience. She drags a single nail along its edge, breaking the seal and leaving the ornate coating to drift silently to the floor. She unfolds the paper within, eyes scanning it. A single name, scrawled in a pristine, unshaking hand.

Venus.


Camellia refolds the paper. She offers it back. Father accepts it. His silver eyes lock on her violets. The silver gaze asks, as always, if The Sister needs any extra details. The golden gaze asks, as always, if The Sister has any questions about her duty.

To the end, Camellia never asked a single one.




Grief clung to Camellia’s throat like a noose, tightening her ragged breath. A tear threatened to fall from her eye, but she blinked it away. Scrawled memories clawed questions from her mind, yearning to taste answers she could not give. Had she truly held no doubts? Had she been so desperate to remain Sister that she’d slay her amore without even asking why?

No. The answer had just torn open her neck, but refused to show her the true words it held within. That phantom now stood an eternity away from her, countless other memories between them desperate to take its place, to assure Camellia that her silence had been a mistake. She plunged into the thick of them, charging across the distance. Denying this horde of memories took more strength than any blow Camellia had struck, any battle through which she’d reigned victorious. Claws tore pleasant words to shreds, fangs pierced inviting lips through and spit out the letters of moments she had no time to relive. Her quarry turned away as she approached, trembling pitifully yet unable to resist her demands. She lunged, eager to know what part of her hid within this ocean of forced words.

Another phantom, memory undeniable, closed a steel grip upon her wrist and froze her in place. It flung her down with ease, her back striking a soft surface and sinking deep into it. The words leaned over her, dripping onto her face, seeping into her mind. Ah. Her old companion—the first from the wall—that plagued her nights and haunted her days for the past week. It leaned forwards and planted a kiss upon her forehead. This singular moment’s grip upon her loosened, and as it crept up her wrist, her-



-blade weighs heavy in her hand, its bloodied edge just barely kissing the room’s worn wooden floor. The chain wrapped ‘round her right gauntlet slips off, retreating to its sheath’s coiled nest aboard her back. One blow. Ever so rarely was her work one blow.

She does not pray, nor does she recite the slaying-words of The Family’s rite.

She glances down, staring at the-

At Venus’ face. The woman’s emerald eyes are shut, her dark-as-night hair painted beautifully with her own crimson life. A subtle smile plays upon her lips even in death. Venus had spoken, as Camellia had entered the room, as Camellia had spoken her vow and unsheathed her blade. Camellia knew she shouldn’t have listened but… she’d had to. This was this songbird’s last chance to sing, and thus Camellia’s last chance to listen. Never could she drown out the call of her amore.

“Listen to me, Cami, my love, my own. You can bury this moment. You can lock me beneath, cover your scars, and plunge everything we are into the depths of your beautiful mind, if that is what you need to stay whole.

But please, love. Let me be with you when no one else can be, when you force yourself to be alone, when you retreat to your own world. I, all of me, will be there.

Cami. Don’t forget me.”




Camellia shot up. The phantom of memory that had been upon her was gone—vanished to somewhere unknown. Another cowered, just within reach, but it failed to capture Camellia’s attention. Nothing but grief, nothing but that moment ruled her mind. A mournful wail echoed in her world, and it took a moment for her to recognize the cry as her own. Wordmade memories cried with her, bolstering her, reminding her. She was at fault. Yes, she had betrayed Venus. She had slain her amore for… for…

For nothing, the phantoms offered. For a familial “love” that was squalid under the weight of Venus’ words.

Cami.


Fury melded into Camellia’s cry, molding it into a maddened scream.

Cami.


She would tear the world apart. She would rend The Family to bits for forcing her to slay her amore, for offering her nothing in return.

Cami.


The wind cried and screamed - and laughed at her resolve. The noonday sun witnessed her foolish oath. The sands swirled and danced beside her, rising and falling with her rapid heartbeat.

Cam-




-ellia Dictari, Chosen!

The presence's call echoed within her, overpowering the words that raged in her mind, silencing the desperate memories that ruled over her consciousness. Camellia woke with a start and allowed her eyes to adjust to the new light. Her mind seized on this new voice, while her amore’s cries hushed at the edge of thought, not daring to challenge a might far more ancient and powerful than any magic.

It spoke of Lunara Song. Of Epithet. Of Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii. All chosen. All foes to her new purpose. Wind returned when it ceased, tossing shrapnel to the void and retreating to the heart of the arena. At its epicenter rose a silver statue, a monument to a warrior grand yet unnamed.

The voice returned one final time. Let the Judgement of the Arena begin.

Camellia advanced, hot sand pressing against her boots, memories tugging at her mind for attention. She could indulge them later, once this place was empty, once enough blood had been spilled. For now she examined herself, body remade within that frozen casket while her soul re-lived a hundred moments. Her chin still ached, likely bruised from the officer’s vicious blow, and she spied faint sparks licking across her scarred scales. Remnants of Olivier’s storm, a parting gift from an Adversary unbested. Blazing, searing heat still raged within her palm.

She thanked the Lords for not taking these gifts from her, for letting her remain a painting of her trials.

Camellia paused as she reached the statue’s base. Silently, she slung her blade from her back and plunged its sheath deep into the sands. There were words to be spoken, challenges to be made. She’d begin with the words Venus spoke before every healing, the words that so enraptured herself. None in this arena would deny her.

“Listen to me!”

How odd, that the words tasted vile under her breath, that they made her recoil and curl her hand to a fist. The phantoms urged her to ignore the feeling, urged her to continue her speech.

“I am Camellia.” There was another word, a name ingrained in habit, that yearned to grace her lips, but the memories bid her with all their might to ignore it. She closed her freed hand upon her weapon’s hilt. At her touch, the sheath glowed with eerie violet light, the multicolored chains that wrapped it shut shuddering with power.

“I declare you Sinners all. For the crime of obstruction, of daring to bar my path, you will be slain.”

The chains leapt to her wrist, a band of gold, silver, and emerald links wrapping tight upon her and binding her hand to the weapon’s hilt. Her own purple chain stayed stagnant, glowing with energy yet wrapped still ‘round the blade’s sheath. A single grunt of effort slipped from her lips as the ever-sharp blade screamed forth from the sheath. Noonday sun lit its brilliance, playing along the four twisting, meshed curls of its steel. Yet it burned through empty space upon the base and the tip, where steel was torn off by a furious hand. Word-clouded memory applauded her, displaying the moment of her resolve as a triumphant victory. But… a dull ache pulled at her heart, a tear freely rolling down her face. The weapon felt so perfect in her hand. The cool steel of the hilt kissed at her burnt palm, the weight was comfortable and familiar yet… unbalanced now, tarnished by her act. She forced down the welling feelings and finished her call, blade held high.

“I give you this one opportunity to announce yourselves, before I cleave you apart.”

Post #: 2
8/23/2024 23:06:17   
Dragonknight315
Member

Wake up—

A groan escapes Lunara’s lips as the ranger stirs from her deep slumber. She gently opens her eyes only to shut them the next instant.

<What...?>

The ranger shields her sight as she tries again. Her eyes adjust, and for her effort the half-elf finds... nothing.

Lunara tenses as she pulls herself to her feet, an indescribable dread filling her veins. Looking around, there is nothing. Nothing but searing white in all directions. Time and distance feel meaningless in this place— if it could even be called a place. The half-elf’s breath grows more rapid as she takes a step forward, her mind twisting in confusion with empty space supporting her steps.

<Where... !?>

Wide open yet suffocating, deafening silence fills Lunara’s ears— an embodiment of pure, uniform absence. Wherever she is, it’s killing her.

<... Need to get out. Need to get out—>

The ranger breaks into a full sprint towards the horizonless deep. It did not matter which direction; Lunara simply needed to move otherwise the absence might claim her. Desperately looking for something to latch onto, her mind recalls the last thing she can remember.

<This one... was fighting. In Bren’s arena—>

The thought strikes Lunara like lightning, and her pace slows to a stop.

“We were fighting, the fey and this one... she died. This one died.

Instinctually, her hand reaches for her chest only to gasp as she finds a hole in it. Lunara looks down, the sight confirming her memories. A strike to the heart, the wound perfectly fitting a dagger, her dagger— frantically, the half-elf sweeps her hands across her body to check for the other wounds. A slash across her shoulder, a cut across her face, a whole chunk just missing from her side. The truth is plain, her body broken by combat, but the ranger feels no warmth nor pain.

“Is this one really dead?”

As the realization hits her, Lunara falls to her knees, head buried into palms as tears stream like a flood.

<Torture. This is torture.>

A second death— even here, Lunara cannot feel her, forever torn from her other half. The darkness was comforting, she realizes, that briefest moment without consciousness. A better fate than what she experiences now, trapped in an eternal instant with no one to comfort her. The half-elf cries out, but her screams disappear without a trace into the endlessness. With nothing else to do, Lunara’s mind wanders to what brought her here.

A young girl, orphaned and scarred by an onyx owl, unable to contain herself.

An officer, his arms open in an act of mercy towards a wild beast. He takes her in under his wing.

A mercenary, their relationship a matter of business before turning to love.

A war, ended. Their vows, fulfilled. Trust broken and homeland scourged. A competition, a promise of a wish—

“... A failure!” Lunara slams fist against her leg. “This one did everything she could, but it was not enough!”

She screams with every fiber of her being, her shout filling the void with anguish. Yet the noise dies all the same, swallowed by the apathetic nothingness. But she continues regardless.

“It’s not fair! You should be dead, Mallory! You should be the one suffering here, not this one... !” Her voice trails off into a melancholy laugh. “... No, that’s not right.”

As much as it pains her to admit it, Lunara knows that Mallory and her were one and the same. Just how many people died by the ranger’s hands in the name of keeping the peace? For protecting Alevia? No, Lunara couldn’t care less about that. All she ever desired was a purpose. A home. In her youth, the company was her family. Their goals were her goals. And when Lunara had found April? She hung up her cloak and her bow until something threatened their happiness. Perhaps that was why Mallory had betrayed her? For his own happiness. Would Lunara have done the same?

“April...” The name leaves a bittersweet taste on the ranger’s tongue. So many things left said, so many things Lunara wishes she could have done. She had sacrificed so much for a chance to make everything right again. Was her dreams simply out of reach for the ranger? Just how much further did she have to go?

“You are lost, aren’t you?...” Her thoughts dwell on the fey’s poisoned words, the memory exposing her very core. “Willing to kill every single one of us to repair whatever small thing it is?”

<... You’re right.>

Her answer remains the same. It doesn't matter who she has to cut down, the ranger reminds herself. Nothing would stop Lunara from claiming her revenge. Nothing could keep her, the real her, away from her beloved wife. Not betrayal, not failure, not even death.

“If only there was a way to escape...”

As the smallest flicker of resolve burns within the ranger’s chest, a familiar sound pierces through the nothingness. A gentle cry— the ranger turns her head only to find the most unexpected thing: Hope.

A barn owl—

Sitting amidst the white, open expanse, the brown and white checkered bird stares at the ranger. Its body glows with a faint green hue, its plumage blowing as though caught by a breeze.

“... Who are you?”

The half-elf asks the question, but deep in her heart she already knows the answer. The winds—

She feels the specter beckoning forward, and just as Lunara takes the first step forward, she plummets through the floor. Fear takes over the half-elf as she claws at the air, her whole body shaking as she falls faster and faster though the white expanse until...

Freedom—

Pale white turns to brilliant blue as Lunara breaks through the cloudline. The sight captures the ranger’s heart, relief and nostalgia filling her veins as she feels the frigid air brush against her. She’s high in the sky, far higher than her moon-touched wings have ever carried the half-elf. But as the ranger’s eyes drift down, reality sets in again and doubt claws at Lunara’s mind.The sea of sand sits far below the ranger, still distant for now, but without wings her fate is inevitable.

<No. It can’t end like this...>

Just as she is about to give up hope again, a cry cuts through the howling wind, the same cry from before. Just as it hits the ranger’s ears, she can see an emerald hue shimmering from the corner of her eyes.

<... My wings?!>

Tears flow from the ranger’s eyes as she examines the source of the glow only to find it surrounding her. Phantom feathers sprout from her arms, and as the harpy-like wings take shape, she can feel them.

<Perhaps this one can still believe... >

As the wind brushes against her ethereal form, Lunara extends her arms, and the wings catch the air.

<... Flying. This one is flying!?—>

Old instincts rise to the surface as Lunara shifts in the air. Within moments, the ranger steadies herself and glides through the air. Though the feeling isn’t exactly as she remembers it, that doesn’t matter. It is enough.

With her survival ensured, the ranger takes a moment to indulge herself. Flapping her wings, she spins through the air, picking up speed as the magic propels her forward. Tears wet the ranger’s eyes, but they are not tears of grief. For the first time in years, Lunara feels free. She feels like herself again. It had been so long since she last took flight; the half-elf had almost forgotten what it felt like....

Just as the ranger finds herself settling in the moment, something catches her sight in the horizon. She feels something drawing every fiber of her being towards it. And as she glides towards it, everything suddenly makes sense.

Bren. She’s flying towards Bren. She is Chosen.

<Perhaps this one can still believe!>

A warm sensation sweeps across the ranger as she descends towards the city. Hope, once a small flicker, now ignites into a blaze of passion. She feels the wind sinking into her wounds, knitting them closed and making them whole as if the injuries never happened.

A second chance. Another attempt to prove herself—

<Hold nothing back.>

Like a shooting star in daylight, the ranger closes her eyes and dives towards the heart of the city. And as she crosses Bren’s threshold, she vanishes—


Red sand dances in the air as the ranger appears in a flash of wind. As the half-elf opens her eyes, she finds herself standing in an otherworldly place. Like the previous arena, a suspended platform holds the ranger aloft. But instead of black marble, a sea of shimmering crimson sand took its place. Furthermore, the spectators are nowhere to be seen.

<Is this really the fabled arena?>

Though the ranger feels repulsed by the thought of so many eyes on her, the crowd’s absence as well as the absence of any walls makes her ill, the emptiness from earlier still fresh in her mind. Before she can take in the sight any further, a voice rings out from across the sands, the whole arena trembling from its presence.

“... Judgment shall still be passed. A boon may yet be won. Witness the selected heroes. Witness the Arena’s Choice!”

A tempest whirls across the arena as the motes of sand spring into the air. Lunara pulls the ceramic mask to her face. Though the winds buffet her, she stands her ground. No storm can rival the tempest that rages within her.

The voice echoes again. It calls out the names of the Chosen, her competitors—

“Witness Camellia Dictaria, Chosen!”

Through the red-stained haze, Lunara peers through her visor to find the first chosen. An imposing figure of pale flesh and royal purple scales. A draconoid, seemingly one with the jagged armor that binds them. Though Lunara prefers the company of other beastkin, she makes an exception for this one. Only a fool would willingly cross their path...

“Witness Lunara Song, Chosen!”

The severed songbird shudders as she hears her earthly name called out loud. To be given a second chance—

<Thank you, spirit of the winds, for giving this one a second chance. For letting this one taste the sky and feel whole again... Nothing will stop me from victory.>

“Witness Epithet, Chosen!”

As the fey peers across, her heart sinks in her chest.

<Epithet... The fey!>

The second scar burns across the half-elf’s face at the sight of the fey. Of course. If Lunara was granted a second chance, then why not the child? Having experienced the fey’s magic first hand, the ranger fears her true name being known, but at least it is mutual. She had killed Epithet once; she will just have to kill her again.

“Witness Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii, Chosen”

Her head peers over towards the final combatant, the dark elf. The ranger hadn’t interacted much with the figure in the previous round. If they are Chosen, however, that is all Lunara needs to know.

<Beware the magic fire...>

With all combatants accounted for, the arena shifts again. Without warning, a statue rises from the center, laughter and debris swirling around its form.

<A champion.>

Then, a final announcement—

“Let the Judgement of the Arena begin!”

“... No turning back.”

Once again, instincts take over the ranger as she puts her training to use. She paces to the side to try and find a decent sightline. But before she can find her place, the dragonoid makes a bold move.

“Listen to me!”

The figure takes their place next to the statue, their voice bellowing for all to hear.

“I am Camellia. I declare you Sinners all—

<... Say something this one doesn’t know.>

“For the crime of obstruction, of daring to bar my path, you will be slain.”

The ranger scoffs at the prestigious ceremony of it all. She could barely stomach the princess’s relentless preaching; she simply did not have time for this.

As the draconic figure draws their weapon, a wicked instrument of metal and chains, they make their demands known.

“I give you this one opportunity to announce yourselves, before I cleave you apart.”

“Guess this one has little choice...”

The ranger sighs beneath her mask as her gaze shifts Camellia. She can still make out the sight of the fey in the distance...

A cruel idea strikes the ranger. With the dragon’s scaled armor, only their head and arm are exposed. Though Lunara trusts her aim, she could only do so much damage. But what if the half-elf wasn’t aiming for Camellia?

With bow in hand, Lunara takes a step forward and calls out to the draconoid.

“Lunara Song—”

Her hand shifts down to her quiver. As she feels for one of her were-touched arrows, she pauses in disbelief.

<... All three. Even the one I used up?>

Another blessing, one she hadn’t expected— the ranger puts the thought aside and focuses on the task before her.

“... Ranger General of Alevia.”

Answering Camellia’s declaration, she knocks her bow and trains her arrow onto the dragon’s pale face. And as a faint glow curls around the bolt, the half-elf responds with a declaration of her own.

“... and today both of us will die.”

At the last moment, her aim shifts slightly to the side before releasing the bolt. It hisses through the air as it flies towards its intended prey—

<We’ll settle this later, fey>

The bolt rushes past Camellia, just barely missing the draconic figure’s face. Instead, its path is trained on Epithet.

Before she can witness the fruit of her labors, Lunara finds Camellia’s gaze fixed to hers. Their intent all but certain, the draconoid charges towards the ranger.

<Bring it on.>
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 3
8/24/2024 1:57:49   
Anastira
Member

In sleep, a person dreams, and in dreaming, they wake.

Death is a heavy thing; and yet, somehow, Epithet feels light as a feather. Soaring. Free. She has always known she was a wild thing, a creature more than a woman: ruthless - sometimes, and reckless - always. But now, in the gentle embrace of the End, all her edges soften. She might as well be a babe in a womb, cradled by a lullaby.

This freedom has no edges; this flight has no bite. It is not wild; but it is limitless.

The Hearthlake is cool and warm around her. The sound of the water is a gentle rhythm lulling her to sleep; her limbs feel weighed down, but in a good way, like a stack of blankets in winter. The splitting pain of her mangled left hand, even the ferocious agony of her own blade sunk deep in her chest - they feel faraway, as though they happened in another life. If she tries hard enough, she can barely remember the black marble floor of the arena, the shooting stars, the silver asteroids settled in the center; they are like a mirage suspended over her vision. But even as she tries to remember, the vision shatters, the arena cracking…

Epithet is falling…

…falling…

…falling. She sinks deeper through the water, like a feather fluttering lazily through the air. The Hearthlake itself holds her within gentle hands; words and song trace tender fingertips against her skin, across her ruined body. The pain in her hand and her chest recede further, a tide washed back into the furthest depths of the sea. Light splinters through the lake, dancing like twinkling stars against her skin.

She breathes.

It’s strange to notice it: breathing, something so second-nature, something Epithet has never noticed before. But she breathes, and it’s wrong. She breathes, but she doesn’t inhale water; she inhales oxygen, pure and invigorating. Her feather-fall turns into a flail, her legs kicking against the downwards pull, her body struggling to find a rhythm. There’s a muscle memory hidden there somewhere, a part of her that feels as though swimming should be second nature, but she doesn’t understand it and, for now, it is out of reach.

She panics and gasps in breath faster, desperately, her brain expecting to feel the water choking her throat and filling her lungs. But instead she only gets more oxygen, so much it makes her feel dizzy -

Captain,” she hears, and arms reach down, impossibly - she is far below the surface, too far for any person to reach her - and tugs her out of the water, onto the deck of a boat.

Her boat.

Epithet blinks. When has she ever had a boat?

For a long minute, her body is wracked with hacking coughs, and she doubles over on the deck, her knees chafing against the wood. Then she turns back to look at her savior - and, in doing so, realizes she can only see out one eye.

Her rescuer is a slender creature, neither boy nor girl, with ruddy hair and a jaunty posture, dressed in leathers so dirty and stained Epithet’s shocked they’re still in one piece.

“Eyepatch,” they say, nodding their chin at Epithet’s bad eye.

She frowns, her hand going to it and plucking. …sure enough, an eyepatch. As soon as it’s off she realizes she can see again. She blinks at them, confused. “Why would I…”

“I don’t know.” The person shrugs. “By the way, I am Wister. A pleasure to meet you…yet again.”

She blinks again. This Wister is holding a guitar in their hands - a guitar she recognizes. The same one that -

“Oh,” Wister says, noticing her look. “I don’t know how to play. I just found it on board.”

She narrows her eyes.

“No need to be so distrustful,” Wister says, eyes sparkling. “You know me. Or - you will, when you wake up. Eventually.” They wink, perching against the banister, one foot planted boyishly atop a crate. “After all, I’m your best mate.” They whistle, tossing a glittering blade in the shape of a - snowflake? - into the air and catching it casually. “Well, go on. You’re not done yet, are you?”

Epithet opens her mouth to ask what they mean; but at the same moment the ships rocks wildly, and just as she begins to second-guess all of this, an Insult forming on her tongue, the water washes up onto the deck - more than she ever would have imagined, and she is dragged down, down…

Someone is laughing -

...witness Epithet, chosen!...

Laughing at her? Surely not -

There is no audience. Why is there no audience? Epithet hisses, feral, crouching low in the blood-red sand with blades in either hand, searching.

She catches sight of the archer.

This is no dream; it is a nightmare.

Either they are both dead - as they must be; Epithet heard the death rattle, felt her own mortality slip away into the Hearthlake, where all souls find their peace. Or they are resurrected, against every rule of the natural world, in defiance of death, and that is even worse, because that means Epithet will have to kill the archer again.

It’s not a challenge if she’s already done it before.

Still - she can feel the urge drawing her in, instinct tugging at her blades, moving her feet. She takes a step, her eyes locked on the archer. Let me take you. Let me cut you apart, flesh from blood. Let me take your corpse and -

An arrow spits in her direction, green-tipped and guided by wind, and Epithet flinches away from it, lightning-fast; its point nearly grazing her skin as Epithet hisses and tenses, ready to launch herself at the archer.

And yet - a sound catches at her ears, and Epithet whips around abruptly, caught off guard; her cheek still stinging from the arrow’s flight.

An elf stares her down, a flaming spear embedded in the sands between them.

Epithet blinks once and rushes forward, Criticism to one side and Advice - the betrayer - to the other, words already forming on her lips.

The archer will have to wait. First - she must eliminate this distraction.
AQW  Post #: 4
8/24/2024 8:22:19   
roseleaf320
Creative!


Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii was many things.

He was one of the Al’darii, the small group of underearth elves that Vashiryn loved with a fire fiercer than any beast. He was a son, a brother, a nephew, his family such a vast webthat Vashiryn could hardly trace where blood relations ended and community began. He was advisor to King Aurcinis, his childhood friend, who bestowed a love and loyalty like an endless waterfall that flowed from every heartfelt action, every whispered word. Vashiryn loved, and was loved.

Vashiryn was also the Hearth. Est’de Al’darii; “of the people.” He had been chosen to take their sacred flame within himself to protect it and his people. Whatever it took. So Vashiryn would become Al’dar Incarnate, a claim to a godhood the Al’dar should not grant. He would become monster to control his people, because their alternative was worse. Because at least, under his control, they would live.

But that was the future; that was a plan for the Hearth to formulate on his long journey home. For now, Vashiryn was simply a candidate, fighting for the fading hope that the Fire Lord would grant him what he needed to save his people. He was foeto any other competitors who wished to take his place. And in this breath, as Vashiryn plunged his dagger into the dark-skinned woman who dubbed herself a Goddess, he was betrayer.

Counsel drove into the side of his ally’s throat with a clean pierce. Vashiryn let the blade guide its removal as he stepped forward, drawing his body past the Queen’s. Her crimson painted the night-black of his armor as his own trickled from his lips and a chill shook his body. Light’s last breath faded alongside his kill’s, plunging Vashiryn’s world into familiar reds and blues.

And for one precious, hanging moment, there was

just

silence.



BONG

A clanging gong disrupted Vashiryn’s peace, rippling through his ears and the floor beneath his feet. He braced his stance, looking beneath him to watch cracks rip across the arena’s floor. It must be time. Vashiryn sheathed Counsel on his hip and pulled his limbs inwards, allowing the arena to rip his weight from under him. Perhaps the Fire Lord had seen him; would answer his call. As wind screamed, louder than the monsters he had slain, louder than even that woman’s infernal screech, Vashiryn closed his eyes and prayed.

Make me Al’dar Incarnate.



Vashiryn was cold.

Even next to the Al’dar, its bonfire larger than he’d ever seen it, Vashiryn was shivering. Wind had been a problem for the Al’darii recently; Vashiryn had ordered most of their entrances sealed to protect them from outside influence, and the ones remaining formed a strong current on stormy nights. Vashiryn cast a glance at the Al’dar’s flames, burning in the center of the small circular space. They barely seemed bothered by the gusts, fed as they were by the gas pipes his people had built solely for this tower. The Al’dar had once been a small thing; a hint of flame fed only by the well it came from, surrounded by rocks and life and elves. How dangerous it had been, Vashiryn now realized. One breath, one mistimed step, one carelessly thrown toy, and their Flame would perish; it had shown him visions of that alone on sixteen different occasions. No-- it was better here, in his towering home of stone, where no one could endanger it. Vashiryn glanced down at the Al’dar’s former home, their city’s center. Where the Al’dar had once burned was a visage of metal and stone, silver curls of fire catching the light of the true Al’dar’s flame above.

Vashiryn heard footsteps from behind, their familiar metal clank flipping Vashiryn’s stomach several times over. Aurcinis. Trust and loyalty had kept the former king by his side, but Vashiryn felt his displeasure like a newly opened wound every time they met. Heated altercations had long since cooled to resigned silence; Vashiryn wasn’t sure which one he took more comfort in.

“Another two caught harboring unauthorized weapons, Al’dar.” Aurcinis’ voice was almost unrecognizable now, the passionate honey Vashiryn loved traded for an exhausted roughness that had nothing to do with sleep. Vashiryn looked out at the world below him, unable to meet Cin’s eyes, lest they reveal the pain that hung upon him like chains. Another two Al’darii dead, then. Vashiryn had written that punishment in his own script. He glanced towards the smithing district, its open roofs allowing Vashiryn full sight into the workshops. They were empty, as they should be, since the soil had chilled enough to designate work’s end and the passing of their curfew. Vashiryn let out a heavy breath. His work would never cease.

Thank you, Vashiryn signed, an open palm folding downwards, held out from his side so Aurcinis could see. He sensed his guard moving forward until he stood beside him, a respectful distance that made Vashiryn’s heart ache. Unauthorized weapons means a criminal smith. We will investigate them all at first-warmth tomorrow.

“Of course, Your Most Holy.” The titles, all the titles, all Vashiryn wanted was to hear one more Vash, one more partner. But that was not his role to play. “Our patrols did find one more subject of note, at the edge of the city.”

At this, Vashiryn’s eyebrows furrowed. Aurcinis was normally more to the point than this-- especially to Vashiryn now, and especially when speaking. What? he signed impatiently, his hand flicking sideways with perhaps more emotion than he meant it to.

“It seems there’s been an unauthorized dig.”

Vashiryn’s stomach plummeted. His stillness was a sign of its own, and Aurcinis picked up on it and continued. “It's in the far stretch, past the quarantine zone. It seems like they may have reached a cave system.”

Was Aurcinis’ voice getting higher?

Vashiryn let his confusion paint his face, giving into a vulnerability he hadn’t shown the former king in years. Something was wrong, very wrong. Why was Aurcinis still speaking? Vashiryn finally turned his head to face his estranged friend--

“I think someTHING--”

Horror flooded Vashiryn as his partner’s voice devolved into a high pitched, clacking screech. Aurcinis stood on the other side of Al’dar’s bonfire, his body distorted within its bright rippling. Aurcinis’ eyes met Vashiryn’s through the flames, a pleading terror flickering within them before two eyes became four, six, twelve, eyes too large for Aurcinis’ face, eyes Vashiryn recognized from every nightmare he’d had since Al’dar had first shown him the Al’darii’s doom. He watched, frozen, as spider-like limbs sprouted, reflecting within the flames and finding footing outside of them. The winds raged through his tower, straining the Al’dar’s flames and echoing across the stone with a cruel, high-pitched laugh. Aurcinis’ body cracked once- twice- and dropped to the ground.

Vashiryn couldn’t even find his voice to scream.




Wind’s laughter echoed in his ears as Vashiryn regained consciousness. It was fiercer than any storm, whipping his hair across his face as if in mockery. Vashiryn caught his footing on soft sand, and felt wind replaced with an oppressive sunlight, hot against Vashiryn’s skin. The dark elf opened his eyes, and within his mind countless others opened with them, slitted and red like the blood of the Queen and the sands at his feet. Vashiryn squinted his eyes and shook his head. He wouldn’t find the answer within those eyes; he could not afford to fixate on them again.

Laughter quieted as a voice rose up from within his head, a voice not his own nor his friend’s. “Fights of glory and deceit, acts of mercy and cruelty, moments of hope, despair, and fury; all have been witnessed by the Arena on this day!” Vashiryn moved his awareness throughout his body as the voice spoke. His armor shone pristine, as if he had not just ripped blood from the arrogant God-Incarnate’s throat. Vashiryn felt a dull pulse within his mouth. His tongue was swollen significantly, barely able to move within its confines, but the taste of blood had faded alongside the pain. Vashiryn sighed, his duty heavy as his tongue. A reminder. Monster.

The voice continued, heedless of his weight. “Paragon you are not - but Chosen you have gained. For the Lords you fight not - but in the Arena you remain. Judgment shall still be passed. A boon may yet be won. Witness the selected heroes. Witness the Arena’s Choice!”

Dread crept into Vashiryn’s mind as the voice’s words turned over alongside his vision. No more Fire Lord. And in his tower of Al’dar, his plan hadn’t worked. Something was wrong; he was missing something, something important. And the Fire Lord would not be around to tell him what it was.

But a boon, still: he could do something with a boon. That was enough to make him Incarnate; or patch whatever hole he’d left open in his vision. Vashiryn furrowed his brows, trying to recall every detail of the dream and determine what he’d missed. Trying not to think of Aurcinis’ body slumping to the ground.

The voice saved Vashiryn’s introduction for last. ”Of voices silenced.” Vashiryn let out a short breath, a tinge of strange pride tipping his chin upwards. He knew what he was; what he must do. His voice was the first consequence of many; and he would bear them all with grace. “Of futures twisted and changed.” Vashiryn’s view from atop his new tower had certainly been the furthest from the Al’darii’s current city. Not enough-- not yet. “Of Fire declared.” The Al’dar’s breath flickered within him, remembering echoes of its raging bonfire. “Witness Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii, Chosen!”

Witness the elf who became a monster.

Another screeching wind picked up almost immediately, and Vashiryn took a careful step backwards to assess its movement. It collided into the center of the arena, and from Wind’s corpse rose a statue of a woman at least thrice Vashiryn’s height. He squinted as solid silver reflected the sun’s rays. A pity his final trial had to be in direct sunlight; he’d have to find a way to compensate for his sight.

“Let the Judgement of the Arena begin.”

The voice spoke one last time within his mind, then fell silent. Vashiryn’s eyes immediately flicked towards the first competitor-- Camellia Dictari-- who began advancing towards the central statue. She stood several inches taller than Vashiryn, and was covered almost head to toe in a clearly elaborate set of armor. She slung a sword as large as she over her shoulder and slammed it into the sands as she declared a challenge. Sinners. Fine; “sinner” and “monster” were of one breath. But her armor, clearly forged of hard metal, was not something Vashiryn expected to melt easily. And her sword could fell Vashiryn with a single blow. No-- this was not his fight. Not yet.

Vashiryn’s eyes followed a faster movement: an arrow glowing with swirling green light that shot across his field of view. The archer-- Lunara Song-- had missed Camellia by a breath. The arrow followed its path past the statue, startling the final competitor as she hurriedly dodged. There. A distracted foe was a vulnerable one. Vashiryn locked his gaze onto her and brought his hands forward to begin his sign. Chalybe would finish this swiftly.

No-- the Al’dar Incarnate would not simply lurk on the sidelines. He would hold his spear and slay his enemies with his own two hands. Vashiryn turned his gaze instead to a point in the sands between him and the girl-- the one the voice had dubbed Epithet. Fingers pulled from his chest, and Al’dar’s breath followed his command, alighting above his head. Hands bounced upwards, willing the flame into a blaze, shaft and point of the holy spear forming in the air. Calmly, deliberately, Vashiryn brought his hands together for the final sign, finger pointing towards his target as fist crashed into flattened palm. At his will, Chalybe crashed downwards, its flaming point embedding itself into the scarlet sands. Vashiryn rushed towards it, palm outstretched to wrest it from the sands and slice open his foe.

He was the monster. He would find the missing piece in his puzzle, and make his Al’daren city perfect. And he would kill again, and again, and again-- for Aurcinis’ sake, and for them all.

Post #: 5
8/26/2024 8:45:51   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


“Lunara Song—”

Camellia’s ears perked up at the strong, confident call. She turned her head, eyes honing in on her new foe.

“... Ranger General of Alevia.”

Sorrow hung upon the ranger like a veil, draining her skin of color and oozing from a barn-owl masked glower. Her garb befit her title, but did nothing to camouflage her in this Lords-ruled land so far from the tree-bred and oak-honed shades of nature. Bow drawn, arrow nocked, the ranger’s naked fury would have borne down upon Camellia like a wildfire…

Had the woman’s eyes not been peering past the half-drake.

“... and today both of us will die.”

Camellia stayed as still as the statue beside her, letting the bolt soar past the side of her face with ease. The arrow screamed in its flight: a hurricane of rage and power that assaulted Camellia’s ears but ignored her form, its deadly storm meant for another.

Lunara Song. The other two upon this battlefield became meaningless. Their names —declared by the Arena instead of themselves— would be discarded and forgotten. But Lunara Song, Ranger General of Alevia. She would be remembered.

The word-scrawled phantoms roared at the thought, their calls growing louder as if to leave no space for another’s name. Camellia urged them to quiet, though they still whispered at the edges of her thoughts. She grit her teeth against a rising itch in her throat and launched herself towards Lunara, crimson motes rising in her wake, sheath discarded in the central sands as reminder of her declaration. Every step kicked away a piece of the world, letting it tumble off the edge like the cascading sands. Nameless foes, noonday sun, promises of a boon and declarations of Chosen. None of it mattered.

Only Lunara and Camellia.

And Venus’ words, worming their way into the world of two, squirming themselves through the cracks lest they be forgotten even for a moment. Camellia glared, honing her discontent into her blade, eyeing the cuts she could make upon her foe to cripple them most. With a shout, the half-drake brought a heavy swing crashing towards Lunara’s shoulder, aiming to shear the ranger’s arm off. The blade’s weight brought about a slothful strike, and Lunara dodged aside with ease. Scarlet sands scattered from the weapon’s blow, a deep, ugly gash carved into the ground. Flashes of Olivier’s repeated, agile evasions flicked through Camellia’s mind. No. The next blow would carve Lunara’s flesh.

The silver chainlinks clamped down upon Camellia’s wrist, dangerously tight, yet reassuring in their force. Bright sunlight reflected off that silver and stirred a soundless memory, buried beneath the phantoms of words. Camellia plumbed for it briefly, but found no purchase deep within the siren calls of Venus’ love. Unsatisfied, Camellia resurfaced and refocused on Lunara. She had no time to spare for a memory that could not declare itself, could not reverberate in her subconscious. Her foe was before her. Camellia re-adjusted her grip on her blade, accounting for the slight change in weight. Sharp eyes tracked the ranger as she lashed an arm out, a faint, almost translucent rope distorting the sunlight and the air. It leapt and weaved like a snake, driven almost by a mind of its own rather than by muscle and motion of its bearer. It lunged for Camellia’s ankle, wrapping tight around her before she could step away.

Fine. One deep breath sucked in everything. Rope upon her ankle, chain upon her wrist. The hooded foe that thought they’d gained the advantage and the half-drake that knew they could overpower this simple party-trick. Camellia released the breath…

And tore herself in two.

The words closed in immediately, eager to fill the space in this newly birthed world of one. Her one precious second away from the battlefield burned from both ends, lit by memories that believed this place their own abode. Fingers drifted across her back, closing echoes of wounds long-since mended. Venus’ gentle voice whispering into her ear, laced ever-so-slightly with the piercing air of dominion, of authority.

I am yours, as much as you are mine.


Camellia roared, an echo of mourning and rage both trapped within the world of one. She knew not if the cry held the grief of the solitary tear rolling down her cheek, or the fury of the frustration-fueled itch that crept up her throat. She lashed her bound leg backwards, effortlessly overpowering the ranger’s grip and forcing them towards the half-drake. One last phantom’s grip closed down upon her wrist and pulled, trying to drag her towards a final embrace.

The world slammed back down upon her with unapologetic fury. Her one second, burnt away with fruitless wisps of passion before her blade could even be raised, before it could even touch flesh. The final pull of memory drove her weapon forwards in an awkward, unpracticed stab. Camellia hurriedly corrected the strike, pulling the sword upwards in a rushed arc towards the drifting ranger’s side.

And the silver links upon her wrist glittered in the light, their patient memory wrapped in perfect, unobtrusive silence.

Post #: 6
8/27/2024 22:30:52   
Dragonknight315
Member

The ranger’s mind races as she flashes through her options. With the charging bull— or rather, charging dragon— Lunara’s options are thin. Bow in hand, she considered firing another arrow only to immediately dismiss the thought.

<No, too risky. Armor is too thick. Would have to aim for the hand or eyes. Even if this one landed the shot perfectly, it might not even slow them down.>

A curtain of dread sweeps across the ranger’s cloak as she shoves the bow back into her quiver. A dire situation, completely out of Lunara’s field of expertise. With a figure as imposing as Camellia, what could the ranger do?

<... Only one option left. The tether—>

The half-elf’s right hand twitches as the old magic flows through her digits. With mere seconds away from collision with the draconoid, Lunara shifts her weight forward and pulls her hood up. The winds die around the ranger, pulling Lunara into her own little world. As the moment finally arrives, Camellia joins her. The figure lashes forward, her heavy, jagged blade poised to cleave the half-elf’s shoulder in twain. But Lunara is ready for her. As soon as she makes out the blade’s intended path, the ranger springs to the side, barely dodging the attack in the nick of time. Lunara hears, feels Camellia’s blade as it slams against the red sands beneath them. The impact shakes Lunara to her core like a jolt of thunder, the act confirming the dragon’s strength. Yet the sound dies nonetheless, swallowed by the half-elf’s mantle. The moment exists only for the two of them; the outer world cannot hear it.

As the ranger lands on her feet, she throws her open hand to the side, her intent expanding beyond her arm. The spectral cord snaps into existence and races towards Camellia’s ankle. In terms of physicality, there is no contest between the two of them; there was no way Lunara could topple the figure with raw strength alone. But there is more to life than just brawn. All Lunara had to do was picture the rope contracting and it would happen. With its supernatural properties, the ranger could turn the figure’s strength and momentum against them

But as Lunara grabs the tether with both hands and waits for the perfect moment, Camellia catches on. Suddenly, Lunara feels the rope tug upon her, not the other way around— and the ranger falls forward.

<What?!>

With mind and body both thrown off balance, Lunara demands answers. Mid fall, her eyes dart down towards the dragon’s ankle only to find the cord moving, the tether seemingly phasing through Camellia and slipping from her flesh. The figure flickers into a cloud of darkness like smoke from a candle flame. As the half-elf’s gaze snaps back up, she sees Camellia standing amidst the black cloud, once again ready to strike.

<An after image?... Shadow magic!>

The truth hits the ranger an instant before the pale dragon can. Shadow magic. The ranger had dabbled with such arts during her time of service against the demonic hordes. A means of fighting fire with fire—most of her progress for the art vanished along with most of her magical potential upon her excision. Lunara knows firsthand that the dark magic is perfect for moments of deception such as this. To be on the receiving side for a change...

The thought distracts the ranger, but truthfully there is nothing she can do. With no time to dodge or adjust, the blade tears through the half-elf’s leathers and slices into her side. A familiar pain races across her flesh; though her earlier wound from the fey had fully healed, the strike brings back the searing sensation and more. A groan escapes Lunara’s lips before she grits her teeth and throws herself into a roll. Landing on her knees, one hand rushes to meet her wounded side, the other still gripping her cord.

<A severe injury, but not fatal. That should of have been a deathblow...>

The half-elf has neither the time nor the willpower to process the thought. All that matters is that she lives and can fight. Her eyes glance back at Camellia, the tether still tied to their ankle.

<... Got’cha.>

Sensing her opportunity, Lunara grabs the cord with both hands, her intent flowing through it like electricity. As it does, the cord shrinks, tugging at the dragon’s leg with supernatural strength. With the two beasts connected, Lunara pulls, trying to bring Camellia down like one.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 7
8/28/2024 1:53:48   
Anastira
Member

Energy dances through Epithet’s entire being as she runs, head-to-toes: not anxious energy, but confident, passionate, electric. She feels as though her blood is on fire, every movement punctuated by purpose. The memory of the archer’s arrow splitting the air next to her cheek - moments before - nags at Epithet insistently; and yet, as she runs, she banishes it altogether.

Nothing but a distraction; and Epithet can’t afford a distraction now.

It’s strange to think that she’d just left the other arena, broken and on death’s door, her hand mangled beyond recognition, her blood spilling onto the marble; and yet here she is, not only whole but vibrant, full of vitality, stronger and sharper than ever before. Instinct draws her forth, sharpens her focus to a feral point, her body taut like a bowstring, ready to launch herself at the newcomer like the wild thing she is. As she darts forward, her newest enemy dashes across the sand, footsteps clouded with crimson, motes of bloodred sand floating through the air like vulgar confetti.

Epithet smiles. It is a sharp thing, teeth bared until it’s almost more a grimace than a grin, too wide for her face. She watches with interest as her opponent takes the flaming spear in both hands, pulling it from its place among the sands.

“You’re a silent one, aren’t you?”

The man does not say anything; he continues to come closer, and Epithet tenses. Any moment now.

An Insult…she needs a good Insult. But where to go with this one?

He’s tall - he looms over her; but then, most creatures loom over Epithet. It’s part of the fun of it - she’s just small enough to be disarming. Underestimated. Mmmm…very pretty armor, yes - Epithet’s considered armor before, herself, but what use would it be? Armor can’t protect one from words. His face gives nothing away - at least, not yet; his eyes are closed-off, so different from the archer’s. And yet…the way he holds that spear - skillful, no doubt, but something is off. Yes, Epithet is sure of it. There’s a familiarity that’s somehow lacking, the slightest bit of hesitation perhaps?

It’s not much, but it’s enough - and Epithet isn’t one to shy from a gamble.

Her smile widens as the man draws close enough for killing. “You think you’ll win with that spear? It doesn’t even belong to you.” She strikes forward as she finishes the Insult, Advice behind her and Criticism held in front: “But my words will always belong to me.”

Epithet doesn’t have to look to know the Insult lands true; she feels it in the motion that comes next, the thrust that should have impaled her through her heart - deflecting instead to the side, scraping painfully against her ribcage. She sucks in breath but keeps moving, overshooting past the man, striking out with Criticism even though she knows it won’t land. The pain is a riptide against her ribs, fiery-hot and searing, like the spear itself. But it doesn’t matter that Criticism stabs uselessly into the air; it doesn’t matter that she draws no blood. He heard her Insult, and that is all that matters.

She plunges Advice down into the sands, the red of the letters on its blade nearly indistinguishable from the scarlet of the arena floor. In one sweeping motion she uses the blade as a pivot, skidding around it to a stop so she’s facing him again, sand flying out to either side.

When she looks again, the man’s spear is gone.

She freezes. Gone. Gone? Why would he…

No time to think; there must be another trick, and Epithet hasn’t got time for it. As Epithet watches, he makes a strange motion with his right hand, his fingers flicking back and forth in front of his mouth…and then he pinches his fingers together, shaking his hand next to his ear. Huh? This is no silent-language Epithet’s ever seen, that’s for certain. For an instant, she feels hypnotized, trying to dissect what it might mean. Epithet hates a secret - so long as she’s the one in the dark…

No time to think, she reminds herself, more forcefully this time. Whatever it is, nothing happens immediately, and that means it must not have worked. So she thrusts herself forward, slipping under his guard, low to the ground - and cuts upward with Criticism as she crouches, her blade finding the flesh of his thigh. She lets out a sigh as she feels the blade sink in - but the man frees himself too fast, and Epithet recoils, Criticism coming free. She’s facing the edge of the arena now, her back to the silvery statue in the center, and the man in front of her. Part of her wonders: if she forces him backwards again, might she be able to knock him off the edge, past the cascading sands and into the endless void?

The man seems to be making another strange signal, his hand fluttering around next to his chin, and Epithet has to fight off annoyance.

“I don’t know what that is,” she hisses, “but I really don’t care.” She prepares herself, forcing herself not to think about those hands - magic signals? hypnosis? - and darts forward as the man raises his hand once again -

Epithet is stopped short.

For a long, confused moment she struggles, unable to understand what holds her in place. She looks at her hands one at a time, her fingers still tight on the hafts of her blades. Her left hand - no longer mangled, but, she realizes, still scarred, crisscrossed with deep ugly canyons stained white, hard and rough. For an instant she feels a phantom pain, a memory of the archer’s boot grinding her bones to dust -



A flash of pain lancing through her hands where she stands - the ship bucking beneath her.

Captain?

The Hearthlake, as wild as she is, churning in great swathes of white, like an animal foaming at the mouth.

Captain - Nefeli denies us entry.

The edges of the Hearthlake burning, a flame splitting the sky in two.

Her own voice, except it sounds wrong somehow: denies us? The same way she’s denied all the souls of the world their little peace? Her laugh, but that is wrong, too. I hope she enjoys my little revenge tour.

Captain -

All those deals she’s made, all those chains. I shall be the one making the deals now.

The waves crashing over the bow -



Epithet screams…

- and realizes she is on fire.
AQW  Post #: 8
8/28/2024 7:37:59   
roseleaf320
Creative!


The ever-watching Wind swept Vashiryn’s hair behind him as he dashed forwards towards his newly-chosen prey. Cloth-wrapped feet slammed step after step into the sands beneath, sending crimson flying into the sunlit air. His foe matched his steps, dashing towards him with two mirrored blades, one silver and cyan, the other black and scarlet. Two blades-- no matter. It was no different than two sets of claws. Vashiryn’s brows furrowed slightly in concentration as arms outstretched towards his King’s fiery spear. Without breaking his footwork, Vashiryn clasped waiting hands around the weapon and thrust it from the sands, crimson grains mixing with charred black until the place he had pierced was almost indistinguishable. The reflection of his hands shone within Chalybe’s fire as he took his final steps towards the girl who would pave his path to godhood.

Until the overworlder decided to open her mouth.

He ignored her at first, ignored the words that sprouted from her lips as Chalybe first reached his hands and warmed his palms with comfort in the flame that called him home. Words were not needed, should not be given, so he would not speak and he would not listen. But her voice was grating against his ears, with a volume and resonance that Vashiryn could not drown out.

“You think you’ll win with that spear? It doesn’t even belong to you.” Her voice grew louder as Vashiryn drew closer; he felt her eyes on his, as taunting as her voice, and forced himself not to reward her by returning her gaze. “But my words will always belong to me.” The little trickster knew nothing of him or his spear, and certainly nothing of his words. He raised Chalybe’s point, leveling it with his eyes to prepare a thrust forwards, as he’d seen Aurcinis do so often.

And Vashiryn realized the reflected hands within the spear were not his own.

Vashiryn’s fingers were thin and long, his palms unmarred. The hands within the flames, slightly higher on the shaft as if he were guiding them from behind, were larger. Calloused fingers, with countless scrapes darting across darker skin than Vashiryn’s. Aurcinis’ hands.

Crimson scattered across the ground as Vashiryn’s final step twisted on the unfamiliar surface. The elf’s body jerked forward to compensate, sending the spear tip forward to scrape against the trickster’s side instead of stabbing through her chest. Teeth clamped involuntarily against his wound, sending an arc of pain through Vashiryn’s mouth to mirror the abnormal frustration that shocked through his body. Vashiryn couldn’t even hold his spear right, couldn’t even get a single stab in without his fixation with the Al’dar getting in the way. Aurcinis had nothing to do with this. It was the Incarnate’s turn.

His foe lurched towards him with silver blade in hand, but the stab forced her to stumble, and Vashiryn needed only the smallest step to dodge her strike. He pivoted in place, keeping his silver eyes trained on her as she stabbed her other sword into the ground to help her small form stop its momentum. Chalybe’s visage flickered in his hands, its flames burning themselves out quickly outside of the Hearth. The dark elf’s hands were already moving, letting go of the shaft even as the weapon was still disappearing in the air. Vashiryn brought his right hand to his mask, oscillating his fingers in a sign: speech. His foe would not understand him, of course; he didn’t need her to. There was something comforting about putting the declaration into movement. He brought his hand towards his ear, pinching its grasp and shaking it back and forth: nothing. Her words held no power; only action, and its consequences, could bring change. But Vashiryn could not shake the frustration that sat in the pit of his stomach like a wound. Why hadn’t his action in his vision been enough?

While he signed, his left hand reached into his pouch and found a Flame-bearer. He tapped the round coal with his middle finger, keeping his hand hidden behind his pouch. The Al’dar tugged on his heart and warmed his palm as it breathed life into the Bearer. The Hearth unwrapped his fingers and pushed behind him with his palm, sending the black stone flying southwards. If she was lucky, and not as distracted by his sign as he hoped, the trickster might see the stone simply fall to the ground and seem useless. It would land far away; he didn’t want to risk it detonating while he was still finding his footing. He could push her into it; let it detonate below her without her even noticing his plan. Vashiryn dug his left foot into the ground and thrust his weight to the side, trying to reposition for a more direct route to the center while his foe was still reeling from his stab.

Vashiryn registered the slice before he felt it; the unexpected movement as his enemy dropped low to the ground and surged upwards. Pain darted up his thigh as the sharpened silver blade painted its way up a break in his armor. Vashiryn gritted his teeth and forced himself to finish his steps to place his foe between him and the primed Flame-bearer. People were so unpredictable; it was why Vashiryn was always so skilled at hunts. He could predict exactly how a beast would react when cornered. Once a being was human enough to gain sentience they became… harder to control.

But it would take much more than a mere gash to bring the Al’dar Incarnate to his knees. As Vashiryn’s eyes met his foe’s-- a matching slate-gray-- he brought his hand to his chin the way he would for every hunt.

Fuel our Fire.

The girl opened her mouth; Vashiryn did not listen. Even as she insulted his language, as a flame of anger rose within his chest, Vashiryn would not listen. Words were meaningless. He did not need them to play his role. To control his people.

With his flame hot in his chest and across his face, Vashiryn reached a hand forwards as if to grab his foe. But that would be too kind. No; he would show this useless overworlder what it meant to be a god. Gods needed no words; they barely needed to lift a finger. Just enough to tap their palm.

With a warmth, Al’dar’s breath erupted above his palm, its flames crawling up the girl’s chin. The dark elf intended to draw his dagger; to use the flame to blind her before he could slit her throat; but his movement stuttered.

Looking back at him through the flames were the golden eyes of his King. Even in the fire’s heat, they stung with a coldness Vashiryn had never seen within Aurcinis. Within his vision’s tower, he’d had memories of Aurcinis as forlorn, resigned, even hateful towards the Al’dar Incarnate. But never cold.

Vashiryn’s frustration boiled over into rage. Aurcinis did not matter. The Al’dar had shown him his role; why couldn’t it leave him to carry it out in peace? The Al’dar Incarnate stifled a growl in the back of his throat as he raised his palm, fingers spread, and thrust it forward into the vision. Tendrils of fire scattered from his palm like ants from a shoe, and golden eyes disappeared as the Al’dar slammed hand and flame into his enemy’s face.
Post #: 9
8/29/2024 23:51:40   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


Blood splattered on the stained sands as Camellia carved through the ranger’s side. Lunara rolled to one side as Camellia steadied herself, fully aware that any extra pressure would be wasted by the ranger’s speed. The golden chainlinks upon her wrist glowed with a gentle light, pulling themselves tighter as the weight in her hand lessened once more. Two grips, two hands holding the blade alongside her own. She pulled her sharpened pride back and took just one moment to admire the fresh scarlet that painted its surface. She’d clean it off after she is done; she always had. Even after…

Camellia bit into her cheek, pulling her mind from the mire, and slung loose blood across the sands with a sharp swing of her blade. Venus’ words were an obstacle. A sweet distraction that had cost her an easy kill, that was so desperate to keep her mind upon a corpse of the past. Their interference was maddening, quickly birthing an annoyance that overshadowed the guilty comfort Camellia found in their presence.

The ranger pulled tight on the cord that bound the two foes together, and Camellia failed to hide her smirk. She lifted her leg, ready to lash it backwards in an encore of their last game. This time, she would not miss. This time, she would-

Her leg didn’t move.

No, it did. But it moved forwards. The half-drake’s eyes narrowed, processing as much as she could in the moment before her balance fled. The cord had shrunk, now a mere couple feet in length. Its movement heaved at Camellia, pulling her leg towards the ranger with violent force. Fighting the motion was like trying to wrestle an actual dragon. Camellia toppled to the ground with an embarrassing yelp, sand exploding outwards like a storm. She spat out far too many fine grains, scrambling to her knees in a cacophony of clattering, crashing metal. Her grip closed upon her blade, still chained tight to her hand. The movement threw a golden glimmer across her eyes through the haze, diving deep past the phantoms and snatching at the stirred silver memory. These two lights rose together, slipping past scrawled memories and tugging at the edges of Camellia’s mind, beseeching just a moment of recognition. She relented almost unconsciously, and relived, the moments flashing through her in blessed quickness and unstoppable silence.

Sunlight shines off a brilliant, jeweled watch. A gloved hand extends down to her, the man’s sharp, silver eyes asking a single silent question to a girl that has forgotten what the word “family” even means: Would you like to be ours?

Sunlight shines off a dented, battered shield. A gauntleted hand extends up to her, the woman’s tempered, golden eyes declaring a single silent truth to a girl that has trained months upon months to so much as tap her Mother’s armor: You are our pride.


Ah. Of course. Her disdain for words ran in The Family.

Camellia tore herself in two…

and roared.

She roared with such fury, such vitriol, that it spanned the worlds. That every word-born phantom quaked in place, unable to slip whispers in her ear or caresses across her skin. That her own ears rang in blissful deafness. Camellia lunged forwards with all her might, raking a laced claw across Lunara’s leg. The world crashed down upon her in all its rage, and she drove that rage to her weapon, arcing it through the air with one hand. The ranger lifted a small blade, not to parry Camellia’s weapon aside, but to pierce the woman’s wrist, to pierce her scales, to drip her own draconic blood to the sands. Pain joined the wrath of Camellia’s roar, and her grip on her sword loosened.

But the chains did not. Unhampered, deadly steel dropped like a guillotine to sever the ranger’s arm.

And behind Camellia, beyond Camellia, cloaked in the blissful quietude of the ranger’s gift-giving mantle and blessed by a fiery god Camellia knew not, the world erupted. Exploded. Swallowed Camellia whole in a sea of flame.

Her roar cut off, and she burned without uttering a word.

Post #: 10
8/31/2024 22:00:17   
Dragonknight315
Member

Quiet— all is quiet within the feather-enclosed space that Lunara and Camellia occupy. Disjointed, the arena yields little sound to begin with. No spectators, no mechanisms, just the trickle of moving sands. It makes the silence created by the mantle even more noticeable. Every step, every gasp, every heartbeat fills the ranger’s expecting ears. The experience might have driven a lesser creature mad; but here, Lunara finds herself in her element.

As the cord snaps taut around Camellia’s body, Lunara hears it before she sees it. The draconic warrior lifts her leg in protest, sand shifting beneath their figure as she struggles for balance. But Camellia is too late, Lunara knows. She pulls back on the spectral tether, her meager strength multiplied as its ethereal fibers respond to her command. It leaves Camellia with no other option but to fall.

A smirk breaks out across the half-elf’s face as Camellia crashes into the sands with a loud thud. The dragonoid squeals with a noise so unlike someone of her stature. It’s almost charming. Almost. At first, the ranger finds satisfaction in seeing Camellia in such an embarrassing state. But Lunara’s grin fades away as the dragon stirs. Through her visor she sees Camellia rise to her knees, her whole body trembling— a sight Lunara wishes she didn’t know firsthand. Her heart echoes with mirrored grief, the confliction rising to the surface.

<Tricked, bound.... But you have yet to be declawed... Your talons are still yours.>

This time, Lunara holds fast to the thought, unwilling to let it go. The sight reminds her of the bunker, of the pain and agony, only now she sees a glimpse of it from the other side— it tells her that this is only temporary, that the half-elf has only stoked the dragon’s flames. And so Lunara must do something before Camellia can retaliate and take away her victory.

<This one must, for the sake of everything...>

As Lunara rises to her feet, she finds it all too easy to reach for her dagger. One hand holds the killing steel, the other still grips the spectral tether. Her eyes fix themselves to Camellia’s neck, to the exposed bare flesh. But just as the ranger steps forward and gathers her courage, she sees Camellia grow still, her moments almost frozen in place—

<... Wait, she’s using—>

The half-elf’s nerves burn with a dull ache as they try to warn Lunara. A sudden feeling, something not quite right. But just as the ranger realizes it, it is too late. A roar bellows within the pocket world; as it fills the ranger’s ears, she feels a claw sweep across her leg. Catching her completely off guard, it tears through the leather with ease and finds its way into her flesh. Lunara grits her teeth, desperately trying to hold back a scream. Her leg stings as the sand-covered air kisses her wound, but the pain only lasts for an instant. As Lunara reels back, she feels her leg go limp, a cold numbness emanating from the wound that sweeps through her veins. Her head spins, her vision blurs, the sensation eating away at her life and energy.

<No, not again. This one refuses to go back!—>

Even in the delirium of her weakened state, Lunara knows what must come next. Through the blurry haze of her mask, she can barely make out the outline of the figure. With nothing but instinct to guide her, Lunara lashes out with the dagger, unable to even feel its weight in her arms. As the cold leaves her body and her vision refocuses, the ranger finds her blade buried in Camellia’s wrist.

<... Lucky.>

Though the act of fortune halts Lunara’s immediate execution, it does little to halt the inevitable. Her eyes shift to the greatsword still in Camellia’s hand, to the hue-stained chains that bind the blade to her. In that moment, Lunara’s heart betrays her for a second time. The figure’s dark magic, their brooding presence, their endless will to survive at all costs— The half-elf feels pity for Camellia. It reminds the ranger of herself, of what she would do in this situation.

<... Always.>

For all that pity and empathy, her answer remains the same. She would cut her foe down without hesitation.

Just as Camellia would do to her.

The dragon warrior rebounds, their blade swinging down with renewed resolve towards Lunara’s extended arm. There is nothing the ranger can do. Too close to the dragon to properly dodge, too slow to mount another repelling blow. As Lunara’s eyes follow the greatsword, it seems to move in slow motion to the ranger, her mind taking in the inevitability of her situation. But just before the blade meets her steel, just before the ranger surrenders herself to her fate—

—Fire.

A blast rips through the pocket of silence like an invader seeking to conquer. Flames kiss the two combatants as the detonation throws them off their feet. The ranger gasps as she falls onto her side against the sands, her ears ringing with a maddening hum.

<... What was that?>

The ranger groans as she slowly rises to her knees, stumbling halfway as the pain rips through her body. As she looks down, the half-elf sees several shards of sizzling hot stone still embedded in her left leg and lower torso. Smaller fragments of shrapnel, nothing life-threatening but still unpleasant. What really wounded Lunara was the fire. The entire left half of her cloak is singed, the ashen smell of leather and cloth overpowering even her mask as it fills her nostrils. Her quiver is safe, untouched by the flame. But tears drip from her eyes as she finds several of her precious feathers scarred black beyond repair. Though the cloak is still functional, she feels another fragment of old life fading away as the magic leaves the damaged feathers.

<... Who?!>

The ranger’s gaze turns towards the direction of the explosion. At first, her mind pictures Camellia, her face still fresh in Lunara’s mind. But as she finds the dragon, she dismisses the thought immediately. It appears that Camellia bore the worst of the explosion, her armor smothered in tainted sand and bits of shrapnel. Clearly the attack is not the dragon warrior’s doing. But if not her, then who?

As the ranger turns her gaze behind Camellia and towards the statue, the answer becomes obvious.

<Of course, the dark elf.>

Lunara gasps as she spies another suffering from the pyromancer’s fury, their flesh warped and burnt.

<The fey...>

Were Lunara in a better state, the ranger might have found amusement in seeing her adversary struggle. But Lunara has more important matters to attend to. With the source of the explosion determined, her eyes shift back to the draconoid. Immediately she expects some kind of response, a continuance of aggression. But the half-elf sees Camellia’s gaze fixed to Vashiryn. Lunara could see the fury fuming in the warrior’s soul. When Camellia finally looks back at the ranger, her intent is clear. She draws a line in the sand with her greatsword towards the distant pair...

<A ceasefire.> Lunara recognizes the unspoken message. The thought rattles in the half-elf’s mind as she considers the offer. Perhaps the dark elf had violated Camellia’s code of honor, the sudden attack demanding her retaliation. Such a notion did not captivate Lunara.

<A distraction. If this one were you, this one would have finished the fight.>

Regardless of the dragon’s intent, however, Lunara is in no position to disagree. If Camellia wants to turn her intention elsewhere, so be it. The act could only help the ranger, freeing her of the figure’s relentless assault. Plus, it would allow her to settle some unfinished business...

<You have a deal.>

The ranger gives a spirited nod as she plucks the shrapnel from her leg. Thoughts of revenge infect Lunara’s mind as she turns towards the pair, towards the fey.

<You.>

Some part of Lunara wishes to challenge the dark-elf, to have him pay for burning her irreplaceable feathers. But Lunara swallows the thought along with her pride. Ill equipped to deal with the figure’s fire magic, not to mention the dragon’s own intentions— it would be better if Lunara left Camellia and Vashiryn to themselves.

Slowly, Lunara pulls herself up, her whole body aching from the strain of the battle. As tactics flash across her mind, the ranger takes stock of her current situation.

<Moderately injured. Damaged torso and legs. One dagger missing, no doubt lost in the explosion.>

The ranger grits her teeth as she stumbles towards the center of the arena.

<Tether is dematerialized, cloak singed and barely operational...>

The half-elf pulls her hood down, her imposed stillness shattering in an instant as the outer world rushes to meet her ears.

<This one still have two more feathers left...>

As she takes the bow into her hands, Lunara calls out to the fey.

“Oi, Epithet was it? Not looking so good.” The half-elf speaks the being’s true name, demanding her attention with an insult of her own. “Got any more life lessons for this one, or can we skip straight to the killing?”
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 11
9/1/2024 1:45:28   
Anastira
Member

In the end, Hell is not a place beyond reach, beneath the tranquil waters of the Hearthlake. In the end, Hell is ash and fire and scarlet sand, and Epithet is already there.

Epithet crumples atop the archer, her skin iced by the black marble floor. The asteroids in the center of the arena shine brilliant, silver…

Not again, Epithet prays, even though she’s never been one for silly superstition. She knows the gods are real - and she knows that they’d spite her prayers as much as she spites their divinity.

The waters of the Hearthlake are as gentle as a mother’s embrace…perhaps the Hells-beyond-Hells were nothing more than a dream - a tender nightmare -

Shock has rendered her motionless, and every nerve turned numb as her brain struggles to protect her from reality. The world around her continues on in slow motion; and in doing so it leaves her behind, lost in a memory. Her opponent’s hands are feather-light, his face burning as fierce as a lover’s. Epithet finds herself unable to speak. Where have the words gone?

Hands pull her aboard a ship - her ship. Yes…Wister. Her savior.

The fire is so pretty, it might as well be a light show. Hypnotizing. Look: here is a white as stark as starlight; here an orange the color of the prettiest flower. Here a yellow, like a candle burning in the deepest midnight, and here a red the shade of the sands. And there a black, as black as her heart -

Eyepatch, Wister says, and in the memory of the dream Epithet reaches a hand to her face and feels it there, the cloth drawn over her left eye, though her left eye is perfectly good. She reaches to pull it off -

The fire licks upwards, and in the moment that it does, all feeling returns.

And Epithet is suffocating.

The smoke chokes at her throat, closing it against the words she reaches for, the words that have always been hers. The syllables she finds come out as hacking coughs, unintelligible, and her lungs ache with the effort, a sharp throbbing pain. Her face is wreathed in flame, in heat, in agony: tendrils of fire curling against her cheek, catching at her hair, igniting her skin.

The scream that wrests itself from her tortured lungs is long and high and ugly, gnarled and grating. She feels herself recoiling from the heat, but not fast enough.

The impact is the worst part.

Sluggish, silenced by the smoke, Epithet isn’t ready for the hand that comes her way. The man’s fingers themselves on fire, his open palm dancing with flame, yet somehow unhurt. His skin seems unharmed, he seems to feel no pain, yet when his fingertips plunge themselves against her face there’s enough pain to last a lifetime. For a horrifying instant Epithet finds herself completely blind, nothing but flying sparks and dancing lights of red and white and orange, and the sensation of something searing her from the inside out.

She staggers backwards, her hand going to her face, and the moment she touches it with her fingers she wishes, wishes, wishes she hadn’t. The skin there is slick and angry, painful to the touch, already raised and, she’s sure, ugly. She blinks, but she can’t see: her right eye is blurred by tears - she can feel them streaming across her cheek and down past her chin - and her left…

Her left sheds no tears, but somehow that’s even worse.

She can’t see.

Her left eye…is blind.

The eyepatch, she thinks, hacking out another cough as she backs away from the man of fire, the man from the Hells. The eyepatch. It was on her left eye…

No. No time for superstition. It was just a hallucination…

She blinks against the pain as she stumbles back, tripping on her own feet, sprawling out in the sands, and as she does she remembers something - a flash of memory. A championships from long ago, a carriage, a voice. You still think the eyepatch makes you look cool, Motley?

She gasps, in pain, in recollection, what does it matter - she realizes, suddenly, that the pain is not just from her face, but from her body, too, and she realizes that her entire torso is pinned against the statue in the center of the arena, and she is pain incarnate, a husk of a creature sculpted from nothing but agony. She cannot move. She cannot speak. And what would it matter? For the second time in an arena - for the second time in her life - Epithet knows she is about to die.

But she can’t let it happen so easily. She is feral and untamed and she will not go down without her own wild revenge.

She has to move quickly. The man is so close to her, dagger in hand, ready to kill; even as Epithet continues to blink, trying to clear the tears from her eyes. Blissfully, her frayed nerves have gone into overdrive, pain fading into a strange intense noise, the agony so fierce it’s crossed the boundary into something closer to shock. She feels, again, like she is floating, or falling, or perhaps both. Set free, cut loose. What does she have left to hold her back? Nothing.

She is a corpse built of fury, carved from cruelty’s bones.

And the man’s strike will not hit. It does not matter where he aims: it will not land. Not in the way he intends, anyway. In this, Epithet must be certain, because she has no room not to be. She can’t afford not to be. He will try to cut her, he will try to kill her: and he will fail.

She believes. And sometimes, belief is enough.

The statue is at her back; Epithet has nowhere to go. But what does it matter? He can’t make this strike; he’s incapable of it. She breathes deep, inhale, exhale, reveling in the pure power of the pain that dances along every nerve, fire in her bloodstream, fireworks on her skin.

As he comes close, the dagger poised to cut through her neck, she slams her head forward - connecting with his.

The blade, so precisely poised, strays from its mark, deep, so deep, but somehow, miraculously, missing her artery. She could swear she feels the blade scrape against her very vertebrae - or her collarbone, at the very least. She can feel, without a doubt, the hot blood beginning to flow - a foreign feeling, once, but the archer has made this sensation familiar already, and the second time, Epithet is prepared.

She lives on borrowed time now. She’ll have to do her best with whatever she has left.

Epithet clears her throat painfully. Her lungs still sting from smoke; her voice comes out raspy and hoarse. But when she speaks, the words do come, and for now, this is all she needs.

”That’s all you can do?” she croaks out, lunging forward as the man tries to back away, Advice’s scarlet blade looming between them. “That’s all? You forget yourself, oh silent one. You forget I am fey, I am wild. Make me a corpse. Make me a corpse, if you dare! If I am a corpse, I have nothing to lose. You have created a monster. And I will bring you down - I will bring all of you down with me. I will cut you until your blood flows the color of the sands, until your bones are ground into dust, until so little is left of you that there is nothing left to remember. If I die…then you will die with me. Not just your flesh; not just your blood. Your soul will fade, too, and with it the very memory of you.”

She takes another step forward, snarling, her teeth bared, plunging Advice into the man’s stomach and twisting it hard, Criticism in her other hand - its tip trailing in the sands.

From across the arena, Epithet hears the archer’s familiar voice call: “Oi, Epithet, was it? Not looking so good.”

Epithet turns to look, momentarily distracted. The archer. The archer must die, even more than the man must die. She inhales sharply.

”Got any more life lessons for this one,” the archer continues, “or can we skip straight to the killing?”

Epithet growls, deep in her throat, animalistic as she pulls Advice roughly from the man’s torso. Straight to the killing - but I’ll be the one carrying it out, sweet thing.

She turns away, the man and his fire half-forgotten, words already forming on her lips.

This time, she will finish the job.
AQW  Post #: 12
9/1/2024 23:11:31   
roseleaf320
Creative!


Leave me be! Vashiryn’s bonfire of hatred flared through his body with uncomfortable heat as he slammed his foe’s head backwards. The Al’dar wasn’t making sense, his head was starting to throb from the cursed sunlight, and this ridiculous little girl who wouldn’t shut up! He pushed her, hand still spread against her face, no longer caring about his plan to drive her into the Flame-Bearer. She needed to suffer. The girl scrambled away from him, expression alight with panic and covered in burns. The dark elf watched as she slammed into the statue and slumped against it silently, and he smiled.

He’d kill her the same way he killed the Queen; only fitting for those who talk too much to bleed out from the source of their voice. He stepped towards her and leaned down, drawing Defend from his left-hand sheath. The blue veins in her neck pulsed quickly and clearly underneath translucent skin. Not for much longer. He was the Al’dar Incarnate. He’d prove to her and his flame that she was merely a single ant to squish on his conquest. Words were useless; and Aurcinis was nothing compared to the power Vashiryn wielded.

He raised his dagger, its point inches away from his stunned prey’s neck, and stabbed.

Pain cracked across Vashiryn’s skull like lightning, and he stumbled to catch himself as his head rocketed backwards. The girl-- the little brat-- still leaned against the statue, her head hanging forwards and her neck bleeding from behind. She had hit him with her forehead, leaning her entire head forwards to redirect his stab to slice where her neck met her back. Why were these foes so completely unpredictable? Vashiryn felt a growl rise deep within his throat--

No. He was letting emotion get the better of him; it was making him sloppy. Vashiryn inhaled deeply, his eyes still locked on the girl as she stirred. Aurcinis’ voice came unbidden to his mind, but Vashiryn let it soothe him; Aurcinis had always understood Vashiryn’s emotions better than he. "Your anger is yours; control it, channel it; not the other way around." The flame within him flickered and calmed under his companion’s call. He needed to win this boon; to find out why his rule had failed within his vision. He would not gain either if he fell prey to his own emotion.

Vashiryn took another step back and sheathed Defend. Think-- that’s what he was good at. The girl would get up any moment; and when she did, she’d charge straight towards Vashiryn. So, as she coughed, he locked his eyes on the sand between them and brought his hands up to bring Chalybe down on top of her.

“That’s all you can do?”

The speech stopped Vashiryn’s hand mid-sign, the movement not yet finished enough to call the flame from his heart to the outside world. His foe’s voice was cracked and strained, seeping smoke and pain, but still functional. Vashiryn’s eyebrows furrowed. This was not what he had expected. She stood, brandishing her scarlet blade towards him, and Vashiryn found he could do nothing but listen.

“That’s all? You forget yourself, oh silent one. You forget I am fey, I am wild.” Silent one. Vashiryn’s tongue pulsed in his mouth, his vow hot in his throat. He would not let the lies he must tell ever grace his lips; for they and he did not deserve the comfort and intimacy that the Al’darii granted speech.

“Make me a corpse. Make me a corpse, if you dare! If I am a corpse, I have nothing to lose. You have created a monster, and I will bring you down.” He would not speak, for he was no better than the monsters he hunted. But there was a monster right in front of him, and her words flowed on and on like sweet honey, and Vashiryn could not resist them.

“I will bring all of you down with me. I will cut you until your blood flows the color of the sands, until your bones are ground into dust, until so little is left of you that there is nothing to remember.” The sound of an explosion interrupted Vashiryn’s thoughts, and a surge of panic welled within him. His Flame-bearer had gone off. There must be some trickery to these words, Vashiryn realized, for he hated their very sound and should have cut it off long ago, but he had let her continue. They were frozen, the two of them, while she spoke and the world moved around them. He managed a step backwards, a slow hand reaching for a dagger. But she spoke, and she spoke, and Vashiryn’s head began to scream.

“If I die, then you all die with me. Not just your flesh, not just your blood. Your soul will fade, too, and with it the very memory of you.”

Vashiryn felt the spell break, a taut string that snapped as she finished her speech. He scrambled for his dagger, for something, anything to protect him from this monster whose voice made her so much more dangerous.

His fingers barely brushed Defend’s hilt before his body erupted in agony.

The flame within him sputtered as the monster stabbed with her sword of scarlet. His umbral mail protected him from the brunt of the attack, but the sword’s tip still pierced through a few of his links and wormed its way into his gut. The monster twisted her blade before drawing it out, and Vashiryn bit down, tasting blood as he stifled a scream.

Another voice called out, directed towards the fey monster. She withdrew her blade, and Vashiryn stumbled, cupping his bleeding wound as he fought to regain his bearings. He watched his foe’s scarlet blade dripping with his blood as she withdrew towards whichever foe had summoned her.

Her speech had stunned and stabbed him; the speech of another called her away.

Vashiryn shook his head dimly as he assessed his current state. The wound was painful, but not too deep; definitely not enough to be deadly. This wasn’t over yet, then-- and if a combatant had distracted the fey, then the last would likely seek Vashiryn. He glanced forward and saw a lone foe a short way off in full armor, her greatsword clasped one-handed as it dragged across the crimson sands. She was the one who had called the first challenge loud across the sands. Camellia. So that was where his Flame-bearer had gone-- the sand around her was clearly displaced as if in an explosion, and her short hair hung wildly about her skull from the blast. Vashiryn’s eyes met the woman’s, a bright purple that seared Vashiryn with her visceral hatred as she stared at him. Vashiryn took a deep breath, lowering his hand from his stomach. Aurcinis’ voice came again, and Vashiryn welcomed it, fostered it, channeled it. An echo gentle and loving as he coaxed Vashiryn through one of their first bad hunts. "Stay still; I’ll take care of you.” Vashiryn remembered Cin’s voice alone, after that fight, had felt like it could be enough to heal his shredded side.

With a resigned breath, Vashiryn held his palm upwards and tapped it, calling the Al’dar to his hand once more.

His calculations had been deeply wrong. He knew why his vision had failed.

Monsters had no right to speak. But the most powerful monsters were those that did.
Post #: 13
9/2/2024 22:51:38   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


Camellia’s world became one of hungry flame and piercing stone.

She could barely hear the shrapnel that pinged uselessly against her armor, but found the occasional, sharply stinging purchase against the back of her head. The blessed purple scales glowed, dragging heat within, pulling at each lick of flame so they may scorch all of her. Fire caressed her skin, hundreds of invisible fingers picking at each natural scale to burn new scars upon her that rivaled the words in its care, in its passion. She pulled her focus tight, shutting out the searing pain and honing in on each of Venus’ cries, each phantom that wished to assure her she was safe, she was loved forevermore. She was certain that among these ceaseless echoes, one of them was still silent, one of them still hid truth within memory that Camellia had yet to taste.

The flames ceased in an instant before Camellia could find it. She staggered one single step forwards —refusing to fall to one knee— and examined herself through gasps of pain and trickles of sweat. Her blade had dipped into the sands once more, cutting a small line through crimson grains. Blood flowed across her scaled wrist, still trickling from the ranger’s piercing gift. She flexed her wrist, wincing at the pain that stabbed through her. Violet eyes shifted up, scanning Lunara’s state. If the ranger had laid that trap, she’d be lurking, ready to strike her weakened prey. But no; while Camellia had borne the bulk of the detonation, Lunara had not emerged from it unscathed. She knelt before the half-drake, cloak singed, dagger discarded, shrapnel embedded within her.

Camellia snarled and whipped her head around to glare across the battlefield. The dark elf and the grotesque woman —their un-declared names already forgotten— fought one another tooth and nail. Camellia watched as the singed woman drove a blade into the elf’s stomach. At this distance, she could just barely make out the embroidered flame upon his clothes.

A distraction. Silent in its approach, suffocating in its company. Would nothing let her work in peace? No. No, it was time to assure her solitude. The man would die in swiftness and savagery. The words would be pushed as deep within her mind as they’d allow. And then she would slay Lunara Song. She looked back at the ranger and drew a slow, straight line through the sands with her blade. May neither of them cross it until he is dead.

Lunara nodded.

The pair turned towards the distractions as one. They advanced side by side, and Lunara pulled down her hood to call out to the grotesque woman in a challenge betraying familiarity and fury alike. Camellia bristled ever-so-slightly as her scowl deepend. These distractions deserved no such pleasantries —they’d had their chance. The dark-elf turned to face the approaching hunters with grim solemnity and locked eyes with Camellia. A tapped finger called flame to his grasp, flickering between shades of orange and beautiful purple. No. Those flames would not touch her again.

Camellia tore herself in two.

There it was. A phantom of hidden words, drifting silently beyond the crowd of deafening voices. It cowered in front of the elf, a distraction from a distraction. But she had to know. She had. To. Know.

Draconic muscles tensed and exploded forwards with a might that shook off the last clinging sands and shrapnel from her form. Her ghost upon the many’s world moved with her, blasting across the sands for a foe she herself no longer sought. Its advent alerted the elf, and he hastily threw the flame upon her, shrouding her world of one in blazing pain and scorched tears.

But her advance would not cease.

Her claw closed upon the words, upon the elf, and the world crashed down upon her with the weight of a forgotten, evasive memory, finally torn open by its hungry master.

Her armor is discarded piece by piece. Each clatters to the ground in a chaotic pile. It will take an hour to sort through it when the night is done, when the sun reclaims her attention. Loving arms cascade over her shoulders like a waterfall, clasping tight against her chest and pulling her into Venus’ embrace. She sighs, content, subdued. And Venus’ voice whispers in her ear in all its cruelty, in all its hunger. An undertone, ever-present yet ever-ignored by The Sister in her infatuation, is louder than ever. No magic stirs within it, yet it nonetheless expects obedience of its amore, expects them to listen, expects them to agree.

Cami. It could be just the two of us. A world made by and for us alone.

A Family of our own.


Poison. Treachery. Betrayal. Shallowness. Selfishness. Covetousness. Scheming. Blasphemy.

Sin.

Camellia’s claw tightened around the elf’s throat, her eyes staring right through him at a woman that wasn’t there, that would never be there. Bile rose in her throat, grief rained from her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She’d already felt this, done this the next day. A day of sorrow, of resolve, of unplaceable hatred. And now it clung to her like mourning garb. Every wispy caress of passion, every venomous sting of betrayal, every kiss and every word echoing in her forever, never to be forgotten.

The chains upon her wrist loosened, her mismatched blade growing heavy as lead in her hand. Even in all their silent affection, The Family’s assistance must be earned. Camellia needed to give them a new target, and their hands would lift hers. Her eyes flicked to the chain. The green links had not lit, had not pulled at memories of Brother Amber. But… they didn’t need to. He was her Brother. He ridiculed her, she broke his nose. He’d found her weary, exhausted, and granted her rest she hadn’t known in days. And…

He knew exactly how she liked her armor prepared.

Damn him. If she lived through this, if her sanity remained, she’d restock his hidden stash with those lemon-sweets he pretended to abhor.

Blood trickled from the ranger’s gifted wound, pooling between the lines in her scales and highlighting the chainlink scars that wound across her. She recoiled at the sight. Venus’ sin, in all its splendor and authority, had driven Camellia to perform her own. No words, no magic had made Camellia doubt with such conviction. She’d abandoned The Family. She’d blamed them for her betrayal.

All on her own.

Her side erupted in blazing flame and stinging steel, piercing deep within. It stung beneath The Family’s flesh, driving itself through skin and scales that had gone a lifetime without tasting wounds. Her eyes flicked aside just in time to see a single, Family-blessed scale drop to the sands, its home stolen by the elf’s dagger. The distraction of words had ruled her, and the distraction of flame set her world ablaze in bloodless agony as recompense.

She shoved the man back with a roar, and dropped her grip to her greatsword. Her heavy pride ascended in her grasp, and before she crashed it down she imagined the elf a purple-clad, half-drake girl, her life molded by devotion and ardor.

Upon this moment, Camellia would declare a new Sinner.

Post #: 14
9/4/2024 17:57:31   
Dragonknight315
Member

As much as Lunara wants to discount the dragon warrior’s theatrics, the half-elf finds that they have a place here. Fey, Lunara knows, thrive on words and emotions, and her earlier bout with Epithet all but confirmed her prideful nature. So the half-elf readies her wit. And with her chosen weapon and her bow in hand, she calls out to Epithet.

Sadistic delight, existential terror, disdain and aggression in equal measure— the child’s many faces are still fresh in the ranger’s mind. But as the words catch the fey’s ears and she turns to face Lunara, she wears a new expression, one that catches Lunara by surprise.

Rage. A pure, all-consuming rage— The fey’s whole body bleeds contempt as Lunara takes in her wounded sight.

She stares back at the ranger with one good eye, the other damaged and warped along with the rest of her charred face. Lunara sees the gash along Epithet’s throat, a new line carved in red over the ranger’s previous work.

<Looks like the dark elf made for poor company if he attempted the same thing...>

Despite Epithet’s severe injuries, the fey holds herself tall. She rips one of her twin blades from the dark elf’s body, the scar still visible across her entire left hand.

<Wished he finished the job.>

As Epithet brandishes her blades with obvious intent, Lunara reaches down for one of her arrows. But just as her fingers touch her were-feather fletching, Epithet dives, charging towards the ranger like a raging bull.

<Quickly—>

The ranger moves from her familiar bolts and instead grabs an ordinary arrow. It will suit her all the same. Instinct takes over as the ranger notches her arrow, her aim rapidly trained on the fey’s thigh. Camellia’s heavy armor had deterred the ranger from using her bow, but the fey has no such defenses; it is almost inviting—

Without hesitation, the ranger releases her arrow. It breaks the fey’s flesh with ease and pierces through until it sticks out from the other side. Such a devastating shot— but much to the ranger’s surprise, the fey pushes on, staggering for a moment before continuing her charge.

<Impossible— A shot like that should have crippled her. It’s as if she can...>

All the pieces suddenly fall together. Lunara watches in horror as the fey draws closer. Her throat, her hand, her leg— The fey can stave off her own injuries!

“What a way to greet an old friend...”

Epithet lets out a low growl as she brings one sword forward in a sweeping arc. With little else to protect her, Lunara grabs the belly of her bow with both hands and holds it out to block the strike.

“A friend, you say?”

The steel crashes into the wood, carving a small chunk out of it. But as the bow creaks from the impact, it holds fast.

“It’s dangerous to be friends with this one.” The ranger lets out a strained but deadpan laugh as she continues. A true statement— most of Lunara’s friends are either dead or lost. Something she aims to fix. “But if you insist...”

Her words strike Epithet like a hot iron. She scowls as she lashes out with her other blade.

<Predictable.>

The half-elf steps back to dodge the swipe, but Epithet pushes forward. Channeling her momentum, she strikes again in a series of slashes, each blade following the other, her assault growing faster and faster.

“You forget…I am invincible, my sweet, desperate archer. The last laugh…as you so finely put it…will be mine.

As Lunara tries to duck and weave between the blows, her body cries out in protest. Her wounded side, the shrapnel holes in her muscles— they slow the ranger down just enough for one attack to clip the ranger’s left arm.

“Gah!—”

Lunara lets out an audible gasp before biting her lip, unwilling to give the fey any satisfaction. The act is cold comfort to the ranger, however. She drops her bow and staggers back until the half-elf falls to the ground. As she looks up, Lunara can see Epithet closing in. The sight is all too familiar to the ranger; she can remember the look of satisfaction in the fey’s eyes during their encounter on the blackened marble as she leaned over the ranger. But this time, the fey did not even seem pleased with her work. Instead, all Lunara can find in Epithet is anger. Disdain.

Despair—

“You aren’t invincible,” the ranger forces out the words. She will not let this second chance at life end the same way. “You’re hollow.

A spark of surprise flashes across the fey’s visage as she lunges in for a killing blow. But at the last moment, Lunara finds her determination and forces her body to move. She rolls to the side, kicking sand up into the air and towards the fey as Epithet’s blade scrapes against the floor. Coughing, hacking, Epithet gathers herself and searches for her prey obscured by the red cloud. That moment of hesitation is all the ranger needs. Suddenly, a green light pierces through the blood-stained curtain as the spectral tether wraps itself around the fey’s throat.

“You said to this one that everybody serves something...”

As the dust settles, it reveals the ranger kneeling on the ground. One hand is tied to the tether, the other hangs limply by Lunara’s side.

“But what about you?

The spectral fibers tighten around Epithet’s neck. The ranger knows the limitations of her severed self. Her faint remnant of the old winds cannot overcome the force of life. While Lunara cannot crush the fey’s neck, she can hold her in place. If the ranger can manage that, then Epithet’s own nature would take care of the rest.

“This one knows your kind, fey. Fleeting, momentary, chasing after whimsies... But there’s no substance. On your own, you are nothing. And this one knows what it feels like to be nothing.

Lunara pauses for a moment as she struggles to force out the words. Tears wet the ranger’s eyes, the sight hidden behind her mask. She can feel her human heart pounding in her chest.

“The difference between us is that this one has accepted it. So stop acting like you’re better somehow just because you can tell yourself a lie.”
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 15
9/5/2024 1:43:01   
Anastira
Member

Epithet lunges towards the archer - without caution, without fear. Her movements are reckless as she charges across the sands. The words she holds are fragments of thoughts, swells of emotion and remnants of ideas spinning hazily through a broken mind. It is a feeling more than anything else, a tide of rage and anger and fury and distilled bloodlust, so strong she can almost taste it. The need to feel not just her words, but her blades - cutting into the archer’s flesh, making the archer bleed. The need to punish the archer for her little act of spite in the arena of twilit sky.

It’s an intoxicating melange, fuelled by insult, fuelled by pain, fuelled by pride.

But one thought cuts through the fog, sharp as a knife, as she watches the archer reach for an arrow: this is her last chance, her final chance to kill the archer for good. Her only chance to be the one to end it between them.

She can’t let this chance slip away.

So she steadies herself mentally as she runs, her feet kicking up dust in her wake, her tired arms barely able to heft the uneven weight of Unwanted Advice and “Constructive” Criticism. Their points draw long, cruel lines in the sand, narrow canyons that open up on either side. Will those lines remain, even after the archer is dead - after Epithet is dead, too? Or are they disappearing even now, erased in seconds by some unseen breeze?

It doesn’t matter. If Epithet is about to die, all that matters is that the archer dies, too.

The archer barely moves. She seems so still, so calm. Almost at peace - Epithet will have to change that. With a disarming steadiness, the archer draws an arrow free and nocks it to her bow.

Epithet inhales sharply. Pain lances across her disfigured face, flickering embers of agony against her skin; if she could catalog pain like the colors in the sky, this one would be white hot, not so much throbbing as it is constant. Full of pressure, asking for release. The wound on her neck is a more brittle kind of pain, maybe a black or a dark blue, fragile and stinging, intense in a different way - narrower, less insistent, yet somehow it draws her attention even more than the burns on her face.

Distractions.

When she speaks, no sound emerges, but her lips move anyway:

“I am whole. My face is not burnt.”

The throbbing, aching, surging pain of the burns dissipates, slowly and then all at once, as though she’s plunged her face into ice water - receding until the sensation is like the vague memory of the real thing, a faraway noise that threatens to resurface, buried just deep enough to ignore.

“The blade did not strike true. My neck is uncut…”

And there - the sharp, stinging, knifelike pain dulls until it becomes a strange tingling instead, almost a tickle. She can still feel the little rivulets of blood dripping down. She needs to bind the wound, of course, but there’s no time. Even as the Lies leave her lips, the arrow the archer had nocked is already in flight…

But Epithet is ready, the syllables forming in her mouth even as the arrow’s head buries itself through her thigh, so deep she’s certain its head protrudes from the back of her leg.

“The archer’s aim was not steady; the arrow never flew…”

Three Lies. All three, all at once. And they will wear off…she does not think about it; she can’t afford that. Instead, she revels in the way the pain disappears, allows herself to relish the complete lack of consequences. Lets herself feel invincible. Untouched. It feels as though the surge of adrenaline rushes directly into her very soul.

Why is she here? What boon did she intend to ask? Who was she, in the hallucinations, the visions, the memories - and how did that version of her get left behind?

None of it matters.

This is what Epithet knows: she is here to win. A honed beast of violence and murder, a creature who inflicts pain as an art, her victims unwilling canvases. And she revels in it. She enjoys the rush, the thrill of flirting with death. What a pleasure it is to trade blows, to trade pain; cut for cut, wound for wound, soul for soul. And even more exhilarating knowing she is invincible, above it all. That they can make her bleed, but they cannot touch her.

So she approaches the archer with a smile, every step a little lighter than the last. Her headlong rush becomes a skidding sidestep as she draws close. “What a way to greet an old friend,” she grins, barely tipping her chin in the slightest mock imitation of a bow.

And then she attacks. Criticism twirling up in one hand as she sweeps Advice wide, feinting first with the lighter blade before bringing Advice up and around, cutting downwards to slice the archer in half; ending their fight for the second time, Epithet thinks, her blood singing in anticipation. The momentum of the blade is like a dance - a trio, Criticism lilting in her right hand as she leans forward into the swing; then Advice, its weight pulling her entire body around, tilting her forward as it -

…is stopped short by the archer’s bow.

“A friend, you say?” the archer says.

Epithet growls deep in her throat, her jaw grinding, lips pulled back to expose her sharpened teeth. Frustration, a feeling like deja vu - the same searing embarrassment turning her cheeks red. She does not appreciate being denied. And she doesn’t understand how the bow doesn’t splinter from the impact. It creaks, yes, maybe even flexes a bit beneath her blade, and yet - impossibly - it remains in one piece.

It’s a stalemate. Move, and the archer might free a hand - to stab Epithet with a dagger, or skewer her with an arrow. Move, and Epithet might find an opening, to cut the archer to pieces with her blades.

The worst piece of the stalemate is having to see the archer’s face up close.

“It’s dangerous to be friends with this one,” the archer says, letting out a laugh that sounds more like she’s choking. Epithet would like for her to choke. “But if you insist…”

If I insist? Does the archer not understand sarcasm? And to imply - no. No. Punish her, Epithet thinks, the idea so strong it’s like a riptide, pulling her out into unknown currents. Epithet doesn’t make plans; she acts on instinct and impulse, and it’s a good thing, because in that moment she can’t find it in her to form a single coherent thought.

She raises Criticism and lashes it forward with her arm, lightning-fast like a scorpion’s strike…

The archer steps backwards, dodging handily, almost gracefully. Almost. But Epithet isn’t done.

“You forget,” she murmurs, half-snarling, “I am invincible, my sweet, desperate archer. The last laugh…as you so finely put it…will be mine.”

She takes another step forward, advancing on the archer: Criticism looping up and over her head, Advice already sweeping around behind her, turning her all the way around as she drops low and lets Advice carry her forward. Then Criticism again, striking horizontal, and an upswing on Advice as she rises, the rhythm like a song, steady yet growing faster and faster. Accelerating infinitely. She cuts back across with Criticism, a quick angry motion like a sideways V; Advice sweeping downwards at the same time, and Epithet’s body bends with the movements like a blade of grass billowed by the wind - forward, backward, down and to the side, upwards again, what vicious poetry -

The ranger is her…mostly…blank canvas, ready to receive Epithet’s art. Epithet’s blades paint violent brushstrokes through the air - the ranger ducks and weaves through them, barely staying ahead of the flashing metal; and yet, she does stay ahead, by a hair, and Epithet has to bite back the smallest taste of admiration.

Then one of her brushstrokes lands - Criticism, sweeping wide as Advice forces the archer to dodge again; Criticism taking advantage of the moment of distraction, clipping the archer’s arm. Epithet’s first addition to this little…artwork: her favorite color - red.

No wonder the fey are known for their love of the finer things.

She thinks she even hears the archer cry out as the blade cuts her, and this gives Epithet a surge of pride so intense it’s nearly overwhelming. This is how Epithet loves it best. Her in control, them playing a little game - but with Epithet as the predetermined winner. So playful. A dance, a piece of art, a wandering song. Epithet’s own little whimsical masterpiece, whatever that may be. Carved with Epithet’s own hands, by her own blades…what a delicious existence.

Epithet savors it - or tries to. But something within stops her. Memory. Deja vu. The two of them in the arena, on the black marble floor, and Epithet listening to the death rattle, knowing she’s won. But somehow she hadn’t won. Somehow, the archer had turned her own game against her.

The archer drops her bow, staggering to the ground.

Epithet could have been merciful. Could have been nice. This could be a nice little game. But the archer ruined it all - for both of them.

The archer stares up at Epithet, and Epithet feels bile in her mouth, sour, acidic, absolutely vile.

You ruined it. You ruined it.

Even if Epithet wins the game here, now, there will be no joy. No savoring. The archer insulted her, made her a fool, tricked her - Epithet would rather have died in that arena, for good, than been out-tricked by a petty mortal. Now, there is no joy in victory. Because if she wins now - it will only make her the archer’s equal.

And she wants to be better.

She raises both blades together, ready to go in for the final blow -

“You aren’t invincible,” the archer says, even as Epithet throws herself into the lunge. “You’re hollow.”

Epithet hesitates, the barest moment of surprise, barely discernible - but too much. Long enough for the archer to roll out of the way as Epithet’s blades come down among the sand, grains of it billowing in her face, scratching her burned face. She coughs against it, hacking. Her throat feels rough and hoarse from the smoke earlier, her lungs ruined. She braces herself on her blades, bent over double as she hacks in the cloud of dust.

She could almost swear she feels her face ache from the burns. Not much, but enough to distract her. And the sting of her neck, the throb where the arrow pierced her thigh -

No. I do not feel them. I refuse to feel them.

She pivots, searching desperately for the fey, peering as the sand settles -

And feels something wind itself tight around her throat.

“You said to this one that everybody serves something,” comes the archer’s voice, grating to Epithet’s ears. Her form seems to materialize out of nowhere through the slowly dissipating dust, her figure kneeled on the ground - one hand tied to what seems to be a glowing tether. “But what about you?

The tether tightens, chafing against the cut the man-of-fire had inflicted there. Panic begins to close in like a vise, tightening in her throat. It’s tempting to drop her blades and claw the tether free of her throat…but she can’t. Her words are out of reach - she can’t speak, not with her throat closed up like this; she can hardly breathe. So her blades are her last chance to find victory. If she lets go of them - then she is lost.

If only she’d moved faster, when the archer was at her mercy. If only she hadn’t hesitated.

Why had she hesitated?

“This one knows your kind, fey. Fleeting, momentary, chasing after whimsies… but there’s no substance. On your own, you are nothing. And this one knows what it feels like to be nothing.”

Fool, Epithet thinks. But the ranger’s words echo in her mind, the tiniest seeds of doubt - struggling to grow, to thrive, to flower. What is Epithet? Why is she here? What is she doing here? She doesn’t remember anything. Nothing except the game. The pleasure of it: carefully placed words, pain flashing in a stranger’s eyes. Even more delicious when it’s a long game, when they begin to trust her, believe her - once, she managed to actually make a creature love her, and when she finally tore into that one it was the cruelest and most lovely thing she’d ever seen.

But…why? Is that really all she is? Fleeting. Momentary. Acting on whimsy. It’s not just that nothing matters now; nothing ever matters. Nothing has ever mattered…has it?

And she has never mattered to anyone or anything, either. If she didn’t exist, would the world be any different?

Is she nothing?

“The difference between us,” the archer goes on, “is that this one has accepted it.”

Epithet shudders, gripping her blades so hard it hurts, fighting not to drop them - struggling not to tear at the tether around her neck. The archer’s words hurt. But that’s not possible. She can’t hurt Epithet with her words. She can’t use Epithet’s tricks against her. Maybe she knows of the fey, but she’s not one of the fey, and -

“So stop acting like you’re better somehow,” the archer says - and this, this is the killing blow - “just because you can tell yourself a lie.”

Tell yourself a lie.

And that’s the truth of it, isn’t it? Epithet isn’t just lying to the world.

She’s lying to herself.

She looks up, staring, and from her one good eye, she feels something she can’t remember having ever felt before.

Tears.

Not tears from smoke, or tears from pain. Tears from…sorrow?

She snarls, half-choking against the tether, straining against its pull. “How dare you,” she barely manages, her own voice so dark and gravelly and tortured that even she does not recognize it. Where the tether chafes at her neck, the pain returns, that awful brittle stinging fury from where the man cut her throat. “How dare you.” Her face is on fire, in agony, burning, and now she’s crying from the pain, too. “I will kill you.”

She tries to stand, but the place where the arrow pierced her thigh burns so hot that her leg buckles. She crumples to her knees instead, her entire weight leaning on her blades as she braces them into the sand.

She has to get rid of the tether.

“You will never,” she snarls, raising Criticism to her own neck, her mind a fog of fury, “never turn my own weapons against me. Never again.”

And she slashes Criticism against the tether, motionless as the blade cuts ice-cold against her own skin.

She rises, blood beading on her neck like a crimson necklace, her eyes frigid.

Her blades, her words, her game. The archer has taken them all from her, one way or another…and now it is time for Epithet to reclaim them.
AQW  Post #: 16
9/5/2024 15:35:41   
roseleaf320
Creative!



Under the scalding sunlight, in the battlefield seen only by the ever-singing wind, the elf from the underearth simply watched.

He would not dash towards an unknown foe, spear blazing with anger and desperation. His own voice had tried and failed to teach his King such patience many times. Don’t be so reckless, whispered between medical beds, or over clasped, worried hands. All Vashiryn had gained for his recklessness was a throbbing wound in his torso and the humiliation of being saved by another. No; Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii would do what he knew best. He would assess, and he would wait for his foe to come to him.

His patience did not go unrewarded. As Vashiryn took a silent, shallow breath, holding the Al’dar still in his hands, he noticed a strange shimmer in the air. His sharp eyes followed the flicker of movement that pulled itself from his foe like a web stretched from a rocky crevice. As Camellia Dictari froze mid-stride, her ghostly silhouette continued, its weaving glimmering in the light as it streaked towards him.

Now. Vashiryn raised his hand and hurled the Al’dar towards the webbed silhouette. It burst against it, flames rippling into the air across her form for a split second before orange and purple disappeared completely. The impact did nothing to abate the woman’s charge, if she’d felt it at all. Panic flashed through Vashiryn as he tried to sidestep, but winced back as the movement yanked at his stomach wound, and--

Vashiryn could not breathe.

Solid gauntleted fingers wrapped tight around his neck and squeezed, lifting his feet from the ground. Vashiryn’s breath eked out in a gurgling gasp as he struggled against the pressure. His oath not to speak had gained him nothing but this, a grip where he could not speak if he tried, his voice crushed within him just as the Goddess Queen’s had seeped out with her blood. His fingers helplessly grasped at his enemy’s hand as he felt his vision begin to blur. He gasped for air; coughed; and let his hands go limp. He was powerless. It was over. He could finally just… let go.

Aurcinis’ voice crashed into his mind, a memory of a yell that echoed off caverns with a strength only the King could convey. We won’t let a monster like this get the better of us! With a burst of renewed vigor, Vashiryn tapped the shaft of his dagger and called the Al’dar to its steel, washing the blade in translucent orange. Regroup, men! Show it our pride-- Vashiryn jammed the dagger behind a single scale in his enemy’s side, right below her shoulder, and pried it forwards until it flew off, glinting, into the sands. Show it we are Al’darii!

When Vashiryn glanced at his fiery dagger, he did not need the image of his King, crowned in fire and wrapped in webs, to know what he needed to do.

Vashiryn stabbed his dagger into the gap revealed by the broken scale. Cloth sizzled as the flame burned through it and to the skin beneath, and his enemy howled as she thrust him out of her grasp. The dark elf stumbled backwards, frantically catching his breath, as she raised her greatsword over her shoulder. Her armor made it impossible for him to go for a single killing blow as he had in the past; he’d have to disable her first, tire her out. As she brought her sword down, Vashiryn used his exhaustion and injury to guide his momentum, dropping his body to the ground, knife still in hand. He felt the greatsword scrape across his shoulder, knocking the bone into discomfort, but Vashiryn bit down and ignored it. He dove towards her leg instead; he’d take her limb by limb. He wrapped both arms around her heavy boot and jammed his dagger quickly underneath another scale near her ankle. It functioned just like a monster’s scales, and his hands fell into a practiced comfort as the metal piece pinged away from the armor with ease. Vashiryn stabbed quickly into the gap, reinvigorated by Aurcinis’ battlecry. His target let out a curse, her deep voice rough and strained. The dark elf felt sharp talons pierce through his chest as his enemy kicked him back. He shuddered as he fought against the pain that now painted his core with every breath. He would not fall here; not when his puzzle had finally been solved.

The wound in his stomach, his chest, the throbbing around his neck from movements too irregular for his strategist-mind to predict. His people would never be controllable by logic alone. If he were to create an Incarnate of the Al’dar-- some god-like being weaved of lies and authority-- it needed to understand the emotions of the Al’darii. To manipulate them so rebellion would not so much as be whispered about.

He would make Aurcinis the Incarnate.

Vashiryn pushed himself to his feet, sand scattering around him. A dullness spread through his chest that masked the pulse of both pain and heartbeat. As his enemy advanced slowly, limping from the injury he’d inflicted, Vashiryn raised a single pointed finger. He stepped backwards, and the point of his finger traced a jagged line in front of him. His tongue throbbed in his mouth as he struggled to form the words of his ancestry. And Vashiryn Est’de Al’darii broke his vow to make a new one.

I weave my web.

The silver band around the dark elf’s forehead glinted in the sunlight as a thin, spectral strand trailed from Vashiryn’s finger. Within his mind’s eye, spider-like legs wrapped countless webs around the King of the Al’darii, spreading outwards from his limbs to encircle every one of Vashiryn’s people.

Post #: 17
9/6/2024 13:34:50   
Anastira
Member

Even as Epithet’s throat stings from the cut of her own blade, the tether dissipates, its essence bleeding away into the air before Epithet’s eyes. For an instant, she is motionless, watching Lunara steadily - perhaps it’s her imagination, but she thinks there’s something in the archer’s eyes, a moment of unsteadiness as the tether is broken. The two of them might as well be statues, as still as the likeness of the god watching them from the center of the sands.

Epithet reaches up and roughly swipes the tears from her cheeks. She feels the faintest sense of revulsion, a distaste for her own vulnerability. She chokes it down.

Then she lunges at the archer, towards the statue in the center of the arena, Advice in hand and ready to swing upwards. The sands rise around her feet, disturbed by her footsteps. The lines she’d drawn in the sand with Criticism and Advice, only moments before - when she had turned away from the man with his fire and bent her focus on the ranger instead - are gone already, erased. She knew they would be, and yet the thought feels so grim. So empty.

She can walk a million steps and no one will ever know. The evidence of her presence disappears. Rain washes across pavement; sand settles into familiar patterns. Coins are exchanged, nameless, and a week later no one will remember the fey that paid them. Words are exchanged, the most fleeting thing of all; and yet they may continue on, held within invisible wounds…but eventually, even their memory will fade. Once, Epithet cherished this fact. She loved slipping in and out of the world, knowing she will be forgotten. No lasting bonds, nothing to tie her down.

Now, the thought feels morbid.

What did you do to me? she wonders, as she throws all her weight behind the blade. How did you break a fey’s mind, archer?

But if the archer can beat Epithet at her own game, use her own tricks, inflict the same pain with her words…then what does Epithet have that anyone else doesn’t?

No…worse. She has less than anyone else. All she has is the hatred of those she’s hurt…

But hatred can be good, too. A powerful weapon. She burrows into that thought, wields it like a dagger. It builds her strength, even as her arms burn, even as her neck stings, and she brings Advice upwards alongside Criticism, their blades shrieking through the air -

Halfway through the swing, a screech fills the air, so loud Epithet has to fight the urge to drop her weapons and cover her ears. For a moment she feels herself reeling, barely registering the sudden warning glow of the archer’s cloak; and yet, somehow, though her mind doesn’t recognize it, her body and her instinct do. She feels what is to come next, remembers deep in her bones what her brain has half-forgotten - the force of wind pushing her outwards, explosive, and Epithet forced to her knees in the previous arena.

It’s the oldest rule in the book: never use the same trick twice.

Driven by instinct and pure muscle memory, Epithet pulls her blades back down to the sand, their points impaled as she skids backwards, her grip on the pommels so tight that her knuckles turn white. Sand swirls between them, driven up by the storm. There’s something green in the fragrance of the wind, and coupled with the sand flying between them, it brings Epithet back, into unbidden memory -

The ship, the crew, the Hearthlake, an eyepatch -

No. A trick of the arena, maybe, but one she won’t fall for again. She grits her teeth. Something is wrong with her ears; in the aftermath of the wind, the world is utterly and completely silent. It’s a strange feeling: without her hearing, she feels so isolated, as though the rest of the world lies beyond a wall of cotton. But at least she can still see out of her right eye. At least she can still feel the sand gritty beneath her knees, and the heavy familiar weight of her swords in her hands.

She blinks, shaking her head as though it’ll bring her hearing back.

The archer is already gathering herself, readying another strike against Epithet, maybe. Epithet knows she should pick herself up, finish this off. But something holds her in place. The vision of that ship, the voices of the crew. All of it feels so real. Just barely beyond reach, like she can almost brush it with her fingertips, and…

Why does she care? They’re nothing but hallucinations.

She chances a glance downwards at herself, taking it all in for the first time since she entered the arena. Her bare feet are crisscrossed with scratches and bruises from the arena floor, caked with sand. Her robes, never pristine, are a patchwork of red and black, dyed crimson from her own blood. She leaves Criticism standing in the sand for a moment, just long enough to touch her fingers to the blood on her neck.

It’s just begun to clot, beading up everywhere. Beneath her fingers, it feels as though someone’s embedded a choker within the skin of her throat. She flinches as she touches it.

She rises, reaching to take Criticism back in her right hand. Already the archer is gathering herself, so Epithet forces herself forward as quickly as she’s able, propelling herself against her blades and pulling them unceremoniously from the sand as she rushes the ranger. Half-sprinting, half-leaping across the arena to close the gap between them, her blades sweeping up into the air and coming down together as an X to cut the archer’s head free of her body -

But the archer moves, just in time, bow meeting blades once again. Epithet feels both blades stop suddenly and recoil to either side from the force of the blow, Criticism flying free and landing heavily in the sand. She hisses in frustration, eyes narrowing - and even so feels a little rush of relief, because the ranger’s desperate move has shattered the bow in her hands, wooden splinters flying in the air between them.

Epithet allows herself to smile.

Without her bow, Epithet thinks, surely the archer cannot win. The thought makes her confident - overconfident. She turns back, regaining her footing, and strikes with Advice, fast and hard.

But her confidence has blinded her, because she is not prepared for the dagger that rises to meet her throat.

In that moment, locked together in the middle of the sands, Epithet finds the archer’s gaze. Both of them are still, blades millimeters from piercing skin. If either of them move, Epithet knows, both of them die. And then there is no winner; only two who have lost. So she stays where she is, her entire body taut, too wary to move, almost too wary to even breathe. Her hand shakes slightly from Advice’s weight. She wishes abruptly that she had used Criticism instead. Her eyes flicker across to where it lies in the sand, so close and yet still beyond reach.

She swallows and returns her gaze to the archer.

Neither of them can win.

No…that’s not true. One of them can. But someone has to lose. And as she looks into the archer’s eyes, she knows: the archer would not give this up so easily. She would not stand down. There’s simply no chance. The look in the archer’s face is weary, exhausted, and yet there is a passion there. Hunger. Yearning. She fights for something, and whatever that something is, it is important to her.

What right does Epithet have to take that from her? Epithet doesn’t even know what she’s fighting for.

If Epithet could still win, maybe it would be different. But she knows, without a doubt, that that’s no longer an option here. Either neither of them win, or Epithet can give this victory to the archer. And how bad would that really be? Certainly, it would mean Epithet loses the game. But she’s been playing the game her entire life. And hasn’t the archer earned this? She’s not only met Epithet, blow for blow; she tricked a fey. Outplayed a fey. And that…that is not something any other mortal would be capable of, Epithet thinks.

Epithet closes her eyes.

“You fight well,” she says, the words reluctant even as she knows it’s the right decision. “I wasn’t wrong when I said you were lost…was I? But…” She forces herself to open her eyes, to meet the archer’s unwavering gaze again. “I believe that there is more you fight for. Something out in the great blue world that means something to you. And maybe you are right. I am fey. I am meant to be transient.”

Her grip tightens on Advice as she fights to keep her arm from shaking.

“I do not like you,” she says, gritting the words out, every syllable painful. “But…I…respect…you.”

She inhales slowly. So this is how it ends…this is how she dies. Losing her own game…intentionally. She lets the breath fill her lungs. It’s coarse, dusted with sand and tasting vaguely of steel and blood, but she doesn’t care. It’s one of the last breaths she will ever take.

“I don’t respect many people,” she adds, so quietly even she can barely hear herself.

And then…she lowers Advice.

Pulls her hand away, slowly, so the archer can’t mistake her intentions; and gives it a little throw, so it lands in the sand opposite Criticism, out of reach. Far enough out of reach that there can be no doubt. No mistaking it for a trick.

She closes her eyes, offering her bare, bloody throat for the archer to take.

“Have your boon,” she whispers. “Make it count.”

And she braces for the inevitable.

She feels every breath, every pulse of her heartbeat. She feels the coarse, gritty textures of the sand grains beneath her bare ankles, against her bare feet. Her hands feel so empty - such a strange feeling, after carrying Criticism and Advice with her, all this time. She feels the sting of her neck, the ache of her thigh, the burning pain of her face. Her hand prickles with the scars the archer inflicted, an injury healed in body but not in mind.

She sees the crew.

She hears Wister’s voice: Remember the boon. Remember who cursed you.

Nefeli’s face, thunderous, as the boat capsizes with Wister on deck. Epithet falling into the swirling waters of the Hearthlake, down, down. Her eyes closing as she realizes: she has failed to do Wister’s bidding, to end Nefeli for once and for all. But...at least she will find peace in the Hearthlake, where all souls go to sleep.

A flash of memory - Nefeli’s face as she hauls Epithet’s corpse out of the water. The Home flickering all around her, chained souls against every wall, kidnapped from the Hearthlake, taken before they could find peace. Paying their souls to keep Nefeli’s faux-world alive, to keep the Home from disintegrating…

Is this what it is to die? Flashes of memory, a life condensed into seconds? Epithet feels she is drowning. She tries to pull herself back - to the archer, to her inevitable death - but the memories won’t let go.

Wister, in the Home, somehow, sneaking Epithet out, except they were a stranger to her; she didn’t recognize them…

Wandering. Endlessly.

The crew. A ship sailing the Hearthlake, returning souls -

No. It doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a memory; she’s sure of it. It hasn’t happened yet. In fact, she’s sure it hasn’t happened yet, because she’s wearing an eyepatch in this one, and her eyes are perfectly fine -

Were perfectly fine. Until now.

She sees the crew on the deck, faces she doesn’t recognize - faces she will, maybe, someday; or would, if she had not already given her life to the archer. She even sees Wister. The Home is gone, because where it should be there’s a glade instead, evergreen. The archer would appreciate that, she thinks, coughing out a laugh…

Epithet blinks.

She is in the arena.

The dagger is no longer at her throat.

She reaches up, in a daze, to touch her neck. She’s not sure what she expects: maybe she thinks she’ll find it sliced open, cut in two. Maybe she’ll feel blood pouring from her neck. Maybe she’ll feel the breath leaking from her body…what does it feel like to die? She doesn’t know. Because Nefeli did not let her…

“No,” she whispers, as her hands come away to find nothing has changed. She is no less whole than she was ten seconds ago. She finds the archer’s eyes, not understanding. “No, you must -” she tries reaching for the dagger, as though to draw it against her own throat - even as the archer collapses onto the sand, her body rife with exhaustion. Epithet thinks she can hear the archer sobbing faintly behind her mask. She steels herself and presses onwards, her voice half-strangled. “The boon -”

She looks back at the archer, helpless on the ground, weeping. Unable to even stand. And it occurs to her suddenly: the boon could be hers.

It’s what she should do. If the archer is really going to give it up, then Epithet should take it for herself. It’s what any fey would do. No one would have to know she’d faltered; it would look like a trick, playing on the archer’s sympathies to cause both of them to lower their weapons. And then Epithet could lunge for her swords - either of them - and she would win. She would win. And the boon could be hers.

But something stops her. Honor?

She’s never had a sense of honor before. At least…not that she can remember.

She doesn’t know who she was, before Nefeli took her. Maybe that version of her cared. Maybe that version of her had some sense of honor. Maybe she lost it all at some point.

She looks back at her swords. So tempting. She could have either of them, feel their familiar weight…and yet, what would be the point? It wouldn’t be a true victory. Maybe, if she had intended this all as a trick from the beginning, anticipated how it would play out; maybe, if it had been earned. But she had never once considered that the archer would let her walk free. If she cut the archer to pieces now, it wouldn’t win her the game; it would only make her a backstabbing coward.

She’s tired of the game, anyway.

So, instead, she backs away from the archer, scooting on her knees, and sits in silence, staring listlessly. Her fingers draw haphazard patterns in the sands. She sucks in a breath. Neither of them can have the boon now. The Lords would want to see them fight to the death, to earn it. By refusing, they’ve both given it up. What a strange irony.

She sets her jaw and grabs the arrow impaled in her thigh, holding it tight in both hands. Counts to three, and pulls it out. The blood begins to flow freely onto the sand, staining it slightly darker than its natural color, and Epithet watches it hazily, momentarily hypnotized; then she rips a piece of her robes with her hands, tugging at it roughly and knotting it around her thigh.

She hesitates before tracing her neck again with her fingers; and then she does the same for that, too, knotting a strip of cloth around it as tight as she dares.

Finally, she turns back to the archer, the ghost of a smile on her lips. She is so tired. So, so tired. Gravity pulls her down almost gently into the sand; she feels herself sinking deeper and deeper. It’s all catching up to her: her wounds, the loss of blood, the fatigue. All she wants to do is sleep…

“So,” she says, her voice laden with exhaustion, “what now?”

The archer lets out something close to a whimper, her words so quiet Epithet has to strain to hear them; but she makes them out nonetheless, just barely: “I don’t know.”

Epithet closes her eyes. She doesn’t know, either.

All she knows is that it’s over. Finally.

Surely…surely she can rest now. Surely she’s earned that much.

So she lets her body ease into the sand, too tired to move, too in pain to fight any longer; and as she lies there, fighting not to drift into the black abyss of unconsciousness, she watches the archer through heavy eyes. And she thinks of mercy, and kindness, and what it really means to win.

She can feel herself slipping away; but she holds on, just for now, just for a little longer.

She wants to live…at least long enough to see if the archer gets her boon.

Maybe the Lords will surprise them both.
AQW  Post #: 18
9/6/2024 13:34:52   
Dragonknight315
Member

<... You're crying?>

Lunara watches in awe as tears roll down Epithet’s face like rain. An outburst of emotions was to be expected. To crumble, to unravel— but for it to take this form? While it comes as a surprise to the half-elf in the moment, perhaps she should have expected it. To endure for so long, to carry a burden all your life— Lunara knows it all too well. She had shown a glimpse of it to the fey only a moment ago. But soon the sobbing turns to something else as Epithet speaks up over her tears.

“How dare you...”

The ranger’s blood runs cold as something suddenly snaps within the fey. Lunara’s grip tightens around the spectral tether, desperate to not let go as Epithet thrashes uncontrollably in her binds. Snarling, screaming, the fey fights against her captor, against Lunara. The ranger’s gaze is fixed to Epithet, eyes straining behind her mask as she looks for any sign of weakness or opportunity.

<Just a little longer...>

The ranger blinks. Once, twice. Suddenly, the fey is gone— her tether is gone. Fear and confusion take over Lunara’s heart. She looks down to her still-working arm only to find an impossible but unmistakable sight. A silver insignia stands out amidst the canvas of fine black cloth. A military jacket— her jacket with her insignia. The rangers patchwork leathers are nowhere to be seen, and as Lunara looks around, so is the arena. Walls of concrete and steel replace the open air of the city’s heart, the surreal realm seemingly enclosed and conquered from all sides.

<What’s happening... How is this one...?!>

The bunker. The ranger feels her heart racing in her chest at the sight of the infernal place again, the sensation like whiplash— she struggles to comprehend it, her mind desperately seeking for answers. But as she looks across the room, Lunara sees her through an open steel door.

<... It’s... You?! Me?! But...>

Stretched across the prison wall, her limbs bound by adamant chains, the half-elf sees the were-owl staring back at her. Her face is wracked with equal parts fury and agony. To see her own reflection staring back at her with such killing intent...

<No, no! This is wrong!>

The feathered-one bares her teeth and screams.

“How dare you!” The figure calls out, her voice echoing the words spoken so long ago. “I will kill you!”

<... I?>

At once, Lunara blinks, and the illusion shatters. The half-elf lets out a deep gasp as the city’s heart returns along with Epithet, the fey taking her doppleganger’s place. She finds the tether anchored to her adversary’s throat and still within her grasp.

<Just... What was that?>

Perhaps it was a trick of the fey, some kind of poisoned memory. Perhaps it was simply a hallucination, the ranger’s own nerves getting the best of her. But the distinction does not matter. All that matters is her victory, her reunion. So close to seeing it realized, Lunara cannot let the fey ruin her chance for a second time.

Suddenly, the fey trembles, her legs buckling from the weight of her circumstances. Epithet’s red and blue swords slam into the sands to catch her fall. She can barely prop herself up.

“So close...” Lunara thinks out loud as she watches the fey’s unraveling. “We’re so close, April...”

But just as the moment seems to draw to a close, the fey shifts in the sands. Lunara watches with horror as the fey pulls one of her swords from the sands and holds it to her throat...

“You will never—”

<... Wait!>

Never turn my own weapons against me. Never again.”

Blade pressed against the tether, Lunara pulls on the spectral binds, desperately trying to do something, anything— Her body moves before she can even process a “why” or a “how.” Regardless of her intent, she is too late. The fey sinks into the rope with a self-destructive fury. Consequences be damned, Epithet wills her freedom with her own hand. The fey’s intent is too strong; as the blade collides with the spectral winds, Lunara can feel the fey overwhelming her, the pressure growing greater and greater until...

Snap—

The rope flickers as the shock wave travels through its fibers and slams into Lunara. The ranger reels back with a heavy gasp, her chest aching with phantom pain. It’s as if the fey had plunged her sword through her half-elf's chest. As the rope disappears from her hand, Lunara finds herself tracing the imaginary wound.

<No. Not again!—>

The ranger sees the fey’s eyes glazed over with a thousand yard stare. Epithet rises from the red sands, fresh blood flowing from her neck and draping her shoulders like a mantle. The sight terrifies Lunara.

<A contradiction– Deep inside the fey knows it but cannot process. She cannot be nothing, but if she if accepts it, then the fey has nothing else to lose...>

For an instant, Lunara sees it again— her doppleganger. Like a dark mirror, the half-elf sees her struggle within the fey. But why? When the ranger risked her life, it was always for a goal, a higher purpose. Never out of pointless spite. Even in their last duel when the two fought to death and beyond, it was all for the Lord’s entertainment. For the boon, for her homeland, for her—

The half-elf’s body tenses as the fey lunges forward, blades poised to strike the ranger down. A primal fear sweeps through Lunara’s veins, and as the panic swells within the half-elf’s heart, her cloak billows against her with a faint green light.

<This one can’t fail. This one can’t go back!>

The blade swings upward. Mere inches away from her face, the ranger closes her eyes, and the tempest sweeps around her. Once more, the old winds answer her pleas with a blood-curdling screech. The green light turns red as it kicks up the sand and sweeps into the fey like bloody talons.

<Don’t lose hope.>

Lunara hears her other half speak in a deafening whisper as the wind falls upon her ears. So pleasant but so painful with her body still reeling from the cut to her spectral tether.

As the ranger opens her eyes, however, her heart skips a beat.

<Close... Too close!>

Much to Lunara’s unfortunate surprise, she sees the fey far closer than the ranger had intended. Between the two of them, a large scar is carved into the sand, the moment surviving even the raging storm. As the half-elf spies the red and blue blades, she puts two and two together. Like calipers in a mountain side or spikes in a tree—

As soon as the tempest begins to slow, the fey makes her move without hesitation. She lunges again, her arms sweeping together to pin Lunara’s throat between both blades.

<Now!>

Lunara pushes off her feet. One hand reaches for her dagger while the other raises her bow. As the blades cross together in an X, they slam into the wooden frame of Lunara’s blow. It was a miracle that the wood had survived one blow; perhaps it was made with more care than Lunara initially believed. But in no way could it have survived a second, let alone a third blow. The wood shatters against the steel, splinters flying out in all directions. But this is exactly what Lunara wants.

The two move in a blur of motion, each adjusting for the other's movements. And the fey moves for a follow up swing, Lunara lunges with her dagger.

Suddenly, the two stop. Lunara stares into the fey’s eyes as she holds the dagger to her charred throat. The ranger does not need to look down. With each heavy breath, the half-elf can feel the steel sword grazing her own flesh.

<A stalemate...>

Locked in an unwinnable situation, the two stand before the champion’s statue. Lunara can feel the weight of it and the Lords’ gazes bearing down upon her.

<Unacceptable... This one can’t lose!>

But she can’t win. Deep inside, Lunara knows the truth. Make any sudden movement, and the fey would send her back to that accursed plane of silence. A fate worse than death...

Lunara stares at the child’s face, unable to do anything else. Once again, she takes in her adversary’s scars. While the half-elf has weathered much in these last few hours, she cannot help but imagine the creature’s suffering. To be standing tall despite such overwhelming injuries— Perhaps the ranger could outwait her? Surely the fey did not have much strength left. But neither does Lunara. With each pained breath, with every agonizing second that passes, Lunara can feel the heat swelling within her nerves. Just how long could she hold on?

Just as the ranger considers her next move, the fey suddenly shifts. Lunara flinches, her grip tightening around the killing instrument. But somehow, she stays her hand as the Epithet closes her eyes.

“You fight well.”

The ranger lets out a gasp behind her mask, completely taken aback by the sudden compliment. Old habits rise to the surface as her mind reaches for answers. A lie, a trick, a way to lower Lunara’s guard and surprise her. And yet, Lunara cannot help but feel a sense of honesty in the fey’s words.

“I wasn’t wrong when I said you were lost... Was I?” The fey speaks with a somber tone as if the words are just as painful to Epithet as they are to the ranger.

Reciprocation— the ranger feels compelled to nod. Not by the fey’s magic but by Lunara’s own volition.

“But... I believe there is more you fight for.” The fey opens her eyes and stares into the ranger’s soul. Lunara feels her hand twitch again, but she shoves the impulse aside.

“Something out in the great blue world that means something to you. And maybe you are right. I am fey. I am meant to be transient.”

Acceptance— a transformation. Lunara sees the fey’s hand shaking as well. Perhaps she too is fighting against her nature. The half-elf hangs onto every word, desperate to see where Epithet is going with this.

“I do not like you.” The fey grits her teeth, the words seemingly poison in her throat. “But... I... respect... you.”

The ranger tilts her head, her sudden confusion evident even behind her mask. The fey’s voice lowers to a whisper, just barely able to cut through the ringing in Lunara’s ears.

“I don’t respect many people.”

<This one is not a person...>

Then, the fey retracts her blade.

<... What?>

It takes a moment before the ranger can process what just happened. Frozen stiff like a statue, Lunara does not move, her blade still pressed to the fey’s throat.

“Have your boon. Make it count.”

<... Is... This for real? Is this one dreaming?>

Lunara’s hand begins to shake again as she stares at the woman’s throat. She doesn’t believe it; she cannot believe it, the fey surrendering themselves to the slaughter. But that’s exactly what is happening. Epithet closes her eyes, the child seemingly awaiting the inevitable as Lunara holds the dagger to her throat. In another time, Lunara would have been happy and content with Epithet’s respect. Murder was a tool, a last resort. Needless bloodshed only invokes more bloodshed, more death, more work. But as much as Lunara feels humbled by the thought, respect would not bring back the past.

<Do it.> A voice calls out from within. <Do it.>

For years, Lunara has chased this moment. Spent every waking second of her misbegotten life just for a chance at reunion. To feel her soul return to her, to restore her homeland, to see her wonderful wife again— If she were to slit the fey’s throat right now, Lunara would be one step closer to victory, to absolution.

<Do it now. You won’t have another opportunity.>

The half-elf swore that she would do anything to see that promised dream. And yet, Lunara hesitates. Seeing the fey so meek— it sours her thoughts. The knife feels heavy in her hands. Was this truly necessary?

<Yes!> She hears her godfather screaming in her ears. It is too much for the ranger.

“Sorry...” The ranger says, her voice echoing Mallory’s words. “But this one must...!”

Her hand moves, intent on traveling through the steel—

“Luna—”

But suddenly, it stops. Just as the ranger is about to go through with the deed, she feels a gentle tap on her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Luna.”

Lunara lets out a gasp as a wave of warmth rushes over her. It’s soft, comfortable, familiar, like the gentle caress of a lover— She hasn’t felt this since...

“April?!” The ranger forces the name out as her throat begins to close. Before the ranger realizes it, the dagger pulls away from the fey’s throat, a gentle hand guiding her arm down. She can no longer hear Mallory.

“You don’t have to fight anymore. You can put your weapon down. Please, you can rest now.”

The ranger breaks as years of repressed emotions rise to the surface. Sobbing— She is sobbing, her tears clouding the glass of her mask. She feels a hand touch her again, this time rough and physical— no doubt from the fey.

“No. No, you must—”

The fey tries to make Lunara reconsider, but it is too late. All at once, she feels the adrenaline leave her body. So drained, so tired.... She collapses against the sandy ground in absolute exhaustion. With the last ounce of her strength, the half-elf pries her mask off so she can breathe—

<... Unbelievable.>

Once more, the ranger finds herself in shock, slow to process her own surrender. She had thought the fey foolish; Lunara must be a fool as well to give the fey her last laugh. But that is okay. As Lunara looks towards the endless sky above her, she can see the fey sitting next to her out of the corner of her eye.

“So...” the fey speaks through heavy breaths, seemingly just as exhausted as Lunara. “What now?”

The ranger forces herself to smile. An act of courage and bravery, yet deep inside Lunara is terrified.

“I don’t know.”

A half-lie. She knows what comes next. Judgment— this time, Lunara would be awake and aware for the Lords’ decree. But after that? The severed one could only hope for a miracle.
AQ DF AQW  Post #: 19
9/6/2024 18:25:56   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP



Violet scales announced her name: Camellia Dictari, Sister to the Dictari Family.


Though the dark elf’s speed failed to match Olivier or Lunara’s, he moved with a certitude both of them lacked. It reminded Camellia of her Brother, or even of Venus: both of them glided through the world as if they knew the exact moment each person around them would take a step, and could be there to place a carpet beneath their feet.

But prescience alone could not avoid her blade. The Sister’s steel clipped the man’s shoulder as he ducked beneath it, drawing out traces of scarlet but failing to deter his advance. Father’s silver guidance clamped down on her wrist, lightening her blade’s burden yet causing the ranger’s bloody wound to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat. At the same time, the man wrapped his arms around her ankle. Practiced hands pried another scale from her armor before she could react, his dull eyes honed in on her weakness. Her gaze narrowed. This man was hunting her, skinning her like a beast. She would let no mere hunter bring her down.

Steel pierced her through and forced unscarred flesh to sing in agony. She slung a curse down at the sharpened distraction as her leg lashed out, poisoned talons tearing at the man’s chest and flinging him away like a ragdoll. Exhausted legs advanced to chase her foe, only to stumble as her ankle screamed in protest.The Sister swore again, and limped onwards through pulsing dissent. Pain was only a distraction like any other. She could drown out the words, she could kill the man, she could stifle this suffering. If only for now. If only until she won.

The elf pushed himself to his feet and raised one hand, a deadly finger pointed directly at her. Camellia swung her blade in front of her defensively, Father’s silver grip reinforcing her own. Be it fire or dagger, she could weather it. Her body had already withstood the man’s blaze and blade twicefold. Her scales were scorched, her flesh pierced, and exhaustion weighed heavy in every step, yet still she stood. So what was one more blow?

Her foe drew a line through the air, lips finishing a whisper his hand spoke into being.

“I weave my web.”

A single strand glittered into existence between them, tense and inviting. A clear trap; a tripwire for whatever fiery bomb this man hid in the ether. Words whispered at the edges of her mind, vying for her attention, begging her to acknowledge her amore’s love. Camellia was already caught in one web. She’d be wrapped in its strands until the day she died, its spider long dead and unable to end her suffering. If she wanted to cut herself free…


Chainlink scars declared her sins: Abandonment. Faithlessness. Doubt.


… she could start with a single strand.

Camellia charged forwards, wounds screaming alongside her as the web snapped across her neck. The man reached up moments before impact, tugging a finger at the strand as if plucking a lute. The disgusting smell of burnt flesh drifted to her nose as the web ignited into hungry flames that licked at her neck and chin. The Sister bit a fang into her lip, the bitter taste of blood and the sharp calculated pain taking the place of the searing wounds. This was nothing, nothing. It had to be, or else she would be extinguished, consumed by the greedy flames this man hefted upon her. She lashed out in silence, the flat of her blade colliding with her foe’s chest and toppling him into the sands. Mother’s golden pride clasped down tighter on her wrist. Her Parents guided her blade, easing its weight. Every swing would prove herself worthy of their silent love.

The man rolled to his feet, and she followed with quick, pained steps. His hands rose once more. Those hands were his lips, each of their movements a word imploring a fiery god to press iron to her scales.

Sister Camellia was so sick of words.

Mother, Father, and Sister lashed out as one, blade singing with deadly grace. Its song held such beauty, such ferocity, that it muted the elven poet. Her face sat emotionless as steel finally, truly tasted flesh and dropped his severed hand upon the sands, its blood invisible against the stained grains. A scream echoed in her ears, though she couldn’t tell if it was the words in her mind or a voice upon the battlefield. Brother’s emerald links crushed her wrist and drove all feeling from her hand. There was only her blade, lifted by the will of her Family.

Every last ounce of strength pushed her forwards, pain blazing from her wrist, her ankle, her side, fire burning along every inch of skin and scale. She reached out with one hand, eyes honed in on the man’s wrist. She would lock him in place, so that he may not slip away like everyone on this battlefield seemed to do, and with him trapped she would cleave him in two. He reached out with her, and his hand pushed against her gauntlet, his wrist practically guiding itself into her grasp.

And the man smiled.

Venus’ words called at the edge of her mind. She could still see the smile that painted her amore’s severed head. The smile that knew it had won, that smile that knew her inside and out, that smile that knew she’d be right here, in this moment, agonizing over its final words.

No. No more words. No more plans. No more echoes from dead souls. Even as the world above them burst into flame, as this man’s fiery god held a spearpoint over her head, she would not falter, and would not doubt again. She was Purger for the Dictari Family. She declared sinners, declared enemies, and removed them, so The Family would be threatened no more. These words were a threat to her sanity, and thus a threat to The Family. This man was a distraction from slaying these words, and thus a threat to The Family.

It was time to forget. To forget this distraction, and his scorching, silent words. To forget Venus, and her endless, loving echoes.


Chained blade decreed her sentence: Slay the memory of her love. Do her duty.


She gripped down upon the man’s wrist and swung her blade with every last drop of her Father’s counsel, of her Mother’s pride, of her Brother’s guile. Her steel cut deep into the dark elf’s side, and the chains upon her wrist loosened ever so-slightly to grant her feeling once more. With Sister’s own strength, she grasped down on her blade, her pride, as tightly as she could. It was weightless, invisible, silent. If she shut her eyes, she could forget it was even there.

So she kept them open. She would not forget her Family’s love, ever again. She’d spent her whole life repaying them. First as a Page. Then as their Purger. She was their pride: the blade that had slain more threats to them than any in the Dictari Family’s history. Father and Mother trusted her to kill her amore. Brother trusted her to win these Championships for The Family, even as she began it against them. It would be unbefitting of Sister Camellia to let her Family down.

In quickness she drew her blade back, readjusted her grip, and lashed out again with all of a Sister’s devotion. On this day, if her blade kept its course…

Camellia Dictari would tear the world in two.

Post #: 20
9/8/2024 9:41:22   
roseleaf320
Creative!


Vashiryn’s prey flew like an unwitting fly into his web. He watched its wisps silently settle on the exposed skin of her neck as a deep-seated rightness settled within his chest. He was not the Al’dar Incarnate, the false god, the monster. He was its creator. The spider at the center of the web. The Weaver.

His prey thrust her weapon outwards like a shield, blade braced with both hands to support its weight. Vashiryn gripped Counsel tight, lowered in his right hand. He imagined the strand that pulled her towards him, the strand that connected his hands to the web around her neck. She had touched his voice; had wrapped sharp fingers around his neck and squeezed until the Weaver had awoken. She had done him a favor. And favors were only right when returned.

Instead of stepping aside from her blow, Vashiryn stepped towards his foe with an outstretched hand. His fingertips met the strand that brushed the skin of her neck, rough and scarred, and he resisted the urge to wrap them around her windpipe and squeeze. But the Weaver did not need to do something so forceful. All he needed was a touch.

The strand lit like oil under his touch, red hot flame tracing its path across his prey’s skin. The blunt of her blade connected with his chest, and Vashiryn reached out behind him, bracing himself as he crashed into the crimson sands. She was relentless; but that made her predictable. Vashiryn let his momentum carry him into a roll and quickly leapt back to his feet, pushing aside the agony that screamed from the fey’s wound in his stomach. The wounds might even work to his advantage; if Aurcinis was concerned about him, he would be less likely to doubt. He just needed to ensure he was healthy enough to make the trip home.

His foe advanced, limping from the wound he’d ripped in her leg. She was tired and sluggish; it was time to end this. Vashiryn turned to glance at the sand behind him, pinpointing a spot to command Chalybe to.

As his foe readied her blade for a cut from below, Vashiryn pinched the fingers of his left hand up around his chest, pulled, and—

His arm exploded in agony.

A guttural retch escaped the dark elf’s throat as he wrenched his arm back and watched blood gushing into the crimson sands. Vashiryn could not find the strength to loose the primal scream that filled his mind and sight. She’d been too fast-- even though she held the heavy blade one-handed-- and it had cost Vashiryn his hand.

He was trapped. Trapped in a world with too much light while his vision began to blur; trapped in a world too loud as his ears began to buzz. Trapped by an agony that surrounded his body, pulsing from stomach, chest, and wrist, stronger than he’d ever felt even against the worst monsters. Trapped in a world where his tongue stifled his speech, and one of his hands-- the way he preferred to speak and the only way he could speak without his voice--

was gone.

Vashiryn searched his mind for Aurcinis’ voice; for words of comfort and strength powerful enough to overcome even this. But he found only silence. A silence that rang more deafening than any noise or voice he’d ever heard.

So the Weaver gave the King his words.

“Kill her.”

He felt the command echo across his visions, through the caves of their home and the ears of the Al’darii. He felt his King within his fingers, a puppet through which the Weaver could say whatever he wanted and all the Al’darii would obey. When he took the Al’dar within his hands at fifty years of age and pressed its flame to his ash-painted chest, he had vowed to do whatever must be done for his people. And Camellia Dictari would have to sever his heart in two before he broke that vow.

So he would kill her; and he would be quick. If he didn’t get medical attention near-immediately, Vashiryn was going to die; it was as simple as that. He felt the tug of the Al’dar within his chest, the start of a command that had yet to be finished. Vashiryn spread his fingers to let Counsel drop to the sands below, no longer necessary. Vashiryn raised his right hand into the second sign’s bounce-- fire-- to bring it to life over his head and force its shape. But the final sign needed both hands--

And he would use Camellia’s. She stood with fingers outstretched; palm flat; reaching out for him. A grin burst unbidden across the Weaver’s face as he formed his fingers into a point for the final sign. She had robbed him of the vessel for his language; so she would replace it. Kill.

The Weaver slammed his sign across his prey’s palm. Her hand slid around his wrist; her sword slid into his side; Vashiryn took it all. Even as she readjusted and went for a final cut, Vashiryn stood silent and still. For if he moved, she would follow; and she was trapped in the center of his web.

As the visage of his Incarnate’s spear crashed down upon them, the Weaver saw his city within its flames, enveloped in his perfect web of lies, trapped and safe.
Post #: 21
9/27/2024 21:32:49   
  Starflame13
Moderator


Wind laughed. The sun above flared. The crowned warrior upon the Pillar raised her spear to the heavens - and plunged it downwards with a howling scream.

The sun went out.

Sands, still warm, flaked away grain by grain to leave behind a cool, smooth surface. No light for reflect against steel, no laughter to echo against stone. Only silence.

Only Darkness, welcoming its Chosen with open arms. A Champion, Chosen, words spoken from the Heart of the Arena into the very souls of those still within it. A Victory, witnessed. The presence intensified, the weight of its power a tight cloak upon any still living. A Boon, earned. And the presence vanished, whisking the remnants of carnage back to whence they came and leaving behind only Darkness and their Champion.
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 22
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