The Dance of Chaos [IC-Fantasy-OPEN]

[Haedros 92712]

Anselm
Merkburger Fen
Unsterb Manor
Iris

Iris rode her horse through yet another empty village, the stench of blood and death putting her on edge. She saw men of the Black Band, who at first thought it would be a good idea to attack her. Then they saw her pin, and backed up, clearly terrified. What the hell kind of power does my employer have? Hen she felt a prickle up her spine. Monsters. Something of monstrous origin was close. Her heart began pounding, and her whole body felt charged with electricity. She rode faster. She caught glimpses. Undead monsters roamed the grounds. They did not approach, thankfully. Finally, she reached the Manor. A sizeable mansion, not the biggest in the world, but still huge rose before her. Fog obscured the finer details of the house. She dismounted, and walked to the front door. She reached out her hand, and struck the wooden door three times in succession. Then she waited. Her heart pounded yet faster in her chest. This place had a dark aura to it, one that was inhospitable by nature. The grey cloak she had bought prior to setting out her was shifted by the wind. She jumped, before realizing what had happened. Iris took a deep breath, and, facing the door, steeled herself for whatever the hell this “assessment” would be.

Anselm
Merkburger Fen
Unsterb Manor

It took a while untill the door was eventually opened a little from the inside, creaking like in every good haunted house. The one who had opened the door and now stared blankly at Iris was a human maid, wearing mostly black and white clothes. Silver hair framed her pale visage which was dominated by a pair of grey eyes that first looked at her face before quickly looking down, onto the eagle she wore. A hint of understanding was visible in the woman's face for a moment before she fully opened the door and performed a curtsy before Iris. She then welcomed her with a slightly reserved voice:

"Welcome to Unsterb Manor, miss. I hope your journey was pleasant? May I take your cloak?"

She did not really wait for an answer, carefully helping Iris out of her coat before hanging it onto a hook in the entry hall. Ah, the entry hall. It was pretty large really...and most of it was invisible in the darkness. There was only one source of light which was a candleholder with three lit candles on it. It was placed on a cupboard near the door. Anyway, after having deposited Iris' coat, the maid closed the door, which fell shut with a deafening bang, picked up the candleholder and said:

"Please follow me, miss. And do watch your step, the house is dilapidated."

The maid then turned around without another word or another look over her shoulder to see if Iris was actually following. Considering that Iris had no clue about the building's layout as well as the fact that the maid had the only currently visible light source, it would be smart to follow her. Anyway, the maid would lead her through the entrance hall, the light of the candles barely helping to illuminate the room. They walked past what was probably a massive painting, judging by the part of the frame as well as of the painting that she could see. The upper portion was lost in the darkness but the lower one, barely illuminated, showed two rather small and feminine legs with high socks and a dress of some sort. In the frame there was a golden plaque, stating: "Lisbeth Unsterb".

But the maid didn't stop at the picture to give Iris much time to look at it. A short while after they had passed the painting, they reached what seemed to be a large staircase which they then climbed up. One story. Two stories. Then they left the staircase and headed to the right, walking down a corridor. To their right were windows, giving a very good view of the fen on this side. Mist crawled over the ground, hiding much of it but every now and then something reared its ugly head out of the mist and looked around. The undead abominations were still out there. Anyway, on their way through the manor, Iris probably noticed that everything was indeed quite run-down. Dust was gathering, carpets, curtains and wallpapers were torn, furniture was partly broken and old blood stains were on the floor or the walls. The floor creaked almost everytime one stepped onto it and sometimes they even had to evade small holes in the floor.

After a while another flickering light approached them and the creaking of the floorboards was enough indication that this was not just a will-o'-the-wisp like they could be seen sometimes in the fen. They soon got close enough to each other so they could make out some details. The ones approaching them were two. The one who held the candleholder was a pale girl in dark clothes and armour, holding a scythe in her other hand. She reeked of death and was quite clearly undead. She ignored them completely. Behind her walked a giant of a man in the uniform of the Black Band. As they walked past, he tipped his hat in a greeting.

They then reached a door. The maid knocked before opening it, announcing:

"Mylady, there is a visitor. Miss Unsterb has sent another new special employee for evaluation."

The room they had entered was well lit and dominated by a long dining table. On one end of the table, with windows to the fen in her back, sat a small girl in a fine dress. Yet her devilish red eyes and the fangs shown in her grin betrayed her true nature as a vampire. She had a glass of a strange red liquid before her, which exuded a metallic stench. On the other end of the table, furthest away from the door, was another seat in which yet another small girl sat, she too wearing a fine dress. She had weird wings behind her, like branches having grown out of her back and from these branches dangled colourful crystals. She was busy cuddling a teddy bear. Then there was yet another creature before them, another young woman, also reeking of death as well as...salt water? Yes, upon closer expection one would find that she had several bodyparts that looked more like they belonged to oversized seadwellers rather than a human. Before her was another character, wearing the clothes of a jester.

The vampire girl grinned and answered:

"Thank you Adele."

She then turned her gaze towards Iris:

"You've come at the perfect time. I and these two friends of mine will set out on a small adventure soon. It could be dangerous so I can evaluate your abilities there very well.

You are here for an evaluation, aren't you? I don't think that I've seen you before and my sister does usually send everyone with the precious eagles to me for evaluation."

The Vampire’s question struck Iris as odd. Had she not been expected? She pushed the thought out of her mind, and in its place came a more dominant one. A vampire? That’s who I’ll be working for? That and a bunch of undead beasts? Iris could think of nothing but the volatility of the relationship between a creature of that nature and a relic with the ability to strike it down in one blow. Then she realized. She wouldn’t be working for the vampire. She’d be working for her sister. The predicament cleared in her head, she spoke. “Yes, that’s what I’m here for. Of what nature will this... adventure you speak of be?” She said, her eyes darting around to the other occupants of the room. Iris wanted this to be over with quick. This place made her feel queasy, and all the undead seriously put her on edge. Her hands clenched in her lap as she awaited a response.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Oh, that's a scary look in your eyes." Pynus said with a smirk as she stood up and turned to face Marina who just arrived atop the roof. She whispered something, and a blast of wind came from underneath her and wrapped around her for a few moments, drying her off. "But that's not enough to make me back down. Even if you compliment my figure. To back down now would just be plain boring, wouldn't you agree? If you don't wish to go easy on me, then I will not go easy on you. So, I only have one thing to say right now..."

With that she took a step back, and made a long taunting bow, smirking and refusing to look away from Marina the whole time. "So, what are you waiting for? Come on, try to take it back."

[Charlia]

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Oh, that's a scary look in your eyes." Pynus said with a smirk as she stood up and turned to face Marina who just arrived atop the roof. She whispered something, and a blast of wind came from underneath her and wrapped around her for a few moments, drying her off. "But that's not enough to make me back down. Even if you compliment my figure. To back down now would just be plain boring, wouldn't you agree? If you don't wish to go easy on me, then I will not go easy on you. So, I only have one thing to say right now..."

With that she took a step back, and made a long taunting bow, smirking and refusing to look away from Marina the whole time. "So, what are you waiting for? Come on, try to take it back."

"Boring, maybe, but I can think of a few fun things we can do... after you give me back my ladle," Marina shot back, before she dissolved into water yet again, drenching Pynus--but this time, when she rematerialized, she wasn't just standing over the elf. Pynus would find herself lying on her back once again, but this time, instead of Marina standing up and looking down at her, the young sailor was directly on top of the elf, pinning her down.

"I believe you have something of mine," she said nonchalantly, reaching inside of Pynus's shirt before grabbing the ladle and pulling it out. "Not that I didn't enjoy that, but this belongs to me, thank you."

[Imperial--japan]

Helvetica Israndel

Helvetica's smile grew as the woman stared at her wide eyed. Sure, she had voiced a desire that sounded near impossible, but she had no intention of throwing these lesser races to their deaths so easily, not when they had such an important purpose to serve. Alas, she'd hoped the Band might be money hungry enough to accept her at her word, but she supposed it might be better that they didn't. It meant that their leaders weren't imbeciles, someone to accept anything at someones immediate request. It lessened the risk of failure from poor leadership, and perhaps the odds her mercenaries might turn on her. Clearing her throat to prepare her explanation, Helvetica was all too happy to elaborate on part of her plan.

"It is not as though I intend for you to single handedly topple the leadership of the Galarai." She started. Her people were not warriors at heart, but they could field formidable forces, and usually more than enough to match a human kingdom.

"We must merely spark the flame of distrust between the two Loroi nations. A relatively....simple task with the powder-keg that is the fragile peace between the two peoples. Once that is done, we align ourselves with the Vorian's, whom we shall gift slaves in tribute." She paused, now moving on to the subject of the cult of sins. It was rare that she would speak of such matters outside of her own select group, but this was an important business matter.

"As for the cult...we possess within our power, the ability to summon otherwordly patrons. Demons, as some would call them. Lust, Pride, Wrath...we have no shortage of entities wishing to enter this plane of existence. They shall no doubt prove a significant boon to our attempts in toppling Galarai leadership." Helvetica paused to gauge the reaction of her possible ally.

"I can elaborate more...if so far you are interested? I do not wish to waste my time if you find your men not up to the task."

[Free Empire of the Low Isles]

A Night on the Town with Dante,
A Small City at Night, Arghyo,
Ser Dante D'Aquila

"A fly on the city wall~," the drunkards in the tavern began, arms and mugs hung casually along shoulders like cheap scarfs, "can see how drunk we all are~! Your eyes are red and hazy, the barkeep's a little lazy, and the whole tavern hates our lack of tune~!" Slowly, what resembled a kick-line of five men were sashaying on the cramped main floor, a popular Anselmian song flowing from their lungs like hot air from a bellows. It was less of a giddy insanity and more of a desperate need for that same insanity that drove them on. "From varicose Velikiya to capricious Calaria, our bleating notes are heard and hated! But we'll keep goin' and screamin', drinkin' and dealin' till the maid's done gone and chucked us out!"

Dante laughed and sung along tunelessly, joining in with the entire tavern. It wasn't often that you got to let go of that sense of social propriety and just act like a hooligan, so Dante took every chance he got to let down his guard and feel like a commoner again. Drinking and singing came naturally to his blood, even if the Anselmians in the house would argue it belonged more naturally spilling on to the ground, due to its Calarian nature. But right now everyone was drunk enough not to care about nations and race and gender, especially here in Arghyo. It was the best country to live, not because everyone kept to the letter of the law and worshiped those pointy-eared incestuous elves in their tower, but because everyone knew how to drink together. That was the important bit.

"Ser Dante! Ser Dante!" A voice sounded barely over the ruckus of the pub, but loud enough for the slightly buzzed knight to raise his eyebrows and level those honest green eyes of his in the direction of the noise. A young girl of about seven pushed her way through the drunk workers and guards until she was about level with the knight's thigh. He, being conscious of several of the guards's stares, picked her up and set her on the stool next to him. "What, hic, what is it Lya? D-Did someone steal your sweetroll again?" he said, crossing his eyes and acting far more drunk than he was in order to get a laugh out of her. Having succeeded, the little girl took a few moments to settle down before taking a deep breath. "N-No, Ser Dante, no! You asked me to tell you when the moon was high in the sky so you can go out on patrol, remember?! I can't just let you sit in here and drink grown-up juice all night!" she explained, slapping Dante's leg playfully.

"Oh, right! Thanks, Lya!" Dante said, standing up and helping the child down. "Now, you get back to your da, okay? Make sure he doesn't drink too much so he can take you and your ma home safe, alright?" After receiving a small salute from the young guard in training, the knight smiled, paid off his nightly tab, and made his way out into the brisk night. It wasn't necessarily a cold night, but the city was near the coast so it basically got the equivalent of a dragon flapping its wings all time no matter what time of year it was. While wearing his armor, Dante was sufficiently covered from what the elements might do to a man, though the price he paid in flexibility and general comfort might not have been worth it. He still wasn't used to plate even after all these years.

A breeze wove its way between Dante and the door, removing any lingering warmth from the tavern and shutting the knight out into the dark silence. Frowning, Dante gave a quick shrug. "Well, I do need to go on patrol... besides, I might meet a nice boy this evening. Fall in love, get married, adopt a kid or two, move out to the country, forget my life and grow old with him as two crotchety farmers." Each new stage of his life was accompanied by a clunk of his foot step on the pavement. "Always nice to day dream when out here... especially when no one else is out... only the stars and me... and I'm talking to myself again. Dante, you have to stop doing this, you're gonna go crazy." A sigh escaped his lips, "... Is what someone that cared about me would say. Oh, fantasy... how I wish I could make you real..."

Slowly, the forlorn, homosexual knight of the Stumbling Blade made his rounds through the dark alleys. It wasn't until he found a young man embracing his lover in an even darker alley than the rest did things start getting interesting. "Oh~!" he gasped, loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Young love in an alley at knight! How romantic!" A smile spread over knight's face, causing his eyes to close and not allowing them to see the knife that was clearly against the girl's throat. "Now then! I'll be on my way, but take it from an old veteran of night's like these, you two should really find a warm stable or something. You'll catch a cold being out here!" With that, the knight seemed to move on down the alley, passing them inconsequentially.

Then he slipped on a puddle, having formed earlier that day due to the rain common in this area of Arghyo. Dante's whole body flew into the air, causing the fully armored knight to land on his back. Unfortunately for the would-be murderer, the shield that the knight of the Stumbling Blade had been carrying slipped from his grasp, flying away from him and into the criminal's face. Hopefully, the distraction of having her assaulter punted in the face by a heater shield would be enough for the young maid to run away into the night.

The knight, meanwhile, groaned and sat up. "Oh dear... not again..." he muttered slowly, trying to pull himself up.

An error. A minor one, that was a given, but an error nonetheless. It would delay his goal.

He was...annoyed.

Or, something close to that. He was certain he had calculated everything from the life this maid lived, to the street and location of where he planned all of this to happen, to the frequented places of the nightly patrols. This...was an anomaly. An inconvenience. It...could be dealt with. The moment he heard the knight's voice, he froze where he was, noticing that at the moment, he hadn't noticed the knife Dax had pressed to the young woman's throat. As he rattled on about the concept of finding somewhere warmer to conduct their business, he gently eased a hand over the girl's mouth to silence her crying, his knife still tight against her throat. He spoke of being on his way...and at first, Dax felt...satisfied to know the anomaly would take care of itself. He said nothing, letting his senses clue him in on the clutter of the man leaving the alley, gently easing his body over the woman below him to better hide the knife from the parting knight, as well as anyone else that might decided to cross the alley at that time.

The girl was still crying, muffled by the clasped hand over her mouth. He could tell she was going to scream if he released her. That felt unacceptable. Perhaps he would snip her vocal cords before he proceeded with anything else...that would take care of the problem. Before he could analyze what he would do any further, he heard a loud clatter as it seemed the knight had fallen to the ground, and perhaps if he was any normal human being, he would've felt amused. He felt dissatisfied by the thought that the knight would stay even a second longer, further building his anticipation. He felt like a child eyeing a cookie jar, fingers glazing the edge of the container. And yet, in a moment, he was thrown off the woman with such force that he was barely able to withold a gasp...mostly due to the sudden heavy force applied to him.

His head hit the pavement, stunned, and he could only watch with dull, dissatisfied eyes as the maid managed to gain her strength and stand, stumbling out of the alley as she shrieked. He felt a dull pulsing in the back of his head...and as he reached to touch it, his fingers came back stained red. He gave no reaction but a sigh, only turning his eyes back in the direction his prey had managed to escape to. "Look at what you've done..." He muttered himself, seeming careless for the wound in the back of his head. "Letting my little fish slide right through my hands...this is...unfortunate." He spoke, before he turned to look at the knight as he stood. He shook his head and gently reached down, picking up his clattered knife, frowning as he noticed the scratches that had been taken on the blade due to his fall. Dissatisfaction. Sub-par. His soulful excitement faded, and empty, dull nothingness filled its place. Yes, perhaps the prey was not so important, he could find another city, another maid, another alley...but his beautiful, handcrafted knife was scratched. He couldn't conduct business like this. "...tonight has...gone worse than expected. I suppose you're the reason." He sighed, turning his dull eyes to the knight, the scratched but otherwise perfect knife still lightly gripped in his hand. He had yet to decide whether or not it would be a preferred option to slaughter the man instead. Tall frame, sharp features, it was hard to tell his true build from his armor...that was a risk he was unsure he wanted to take...

The Darkest Alley Just Got Darker,
A Small Coastal City, Arghyo at Night,
Ser Dante D'Aquila

"What was that?" Dante asked, tilting his head casually over his shoulder. His green eyes pushed at the edges of his lids, flashing in the light and contrasting with his olive complexion. It took a moment for him to process the fact that the boy that had been on the ground earlier, the one that had been on top of the girl, was now glowering at him with a knife in his hand. Due to the ringing in his ears caused by the fall, the poor knight didn't necessarily hear everything that had transpired before. He did see that the girl was gone and had heard the telling shriek of a frightened woman. For this moment, his mind seemed to chose the innocent explanation for that shriek.

"Oh, oh!" he exclaimed, immediately jumping up from the ground nimbly, almost as if the armor wasn't there at all. "I'm sorry, dear! I didn't mean to make your date run off and all. That puddle took me all off guard, pretty much assaulted me! I might have to take it in to the jail for that, let it cool off for the night..." he tottered, the excuses and apologies and jokes rolling off his tongue as easily as water came from the clouds. Turning to fully face Dax, the knight left himself completely open to attack as well as an inspection. The light from the lit lamps of the street wrapped a warm glow around Dante yet left the darkness surrounding the young man even darker than it should have been. Running a hand through his dirty blonde hair, the knight's facial features cleared. A sharp jawline, Calarian nose, white teeth, pleasant smile, and the tell-tale marks of a frequent clown around his eyes and mouth marked him as a handsome if a bit boisterous man. The tan on his face also clearly signaled that he was used to a life outside, either tilling fields or, more likely, travelling the roads.

It was then that Dante's green orbs finally focused on Dax's face, especially focusing in on the flash of scarlet along his forehead and the red marks along the side of his neck from the wound on the back of his head. "Oh, by the gods!" the knight exclaimed, immediately rushing forward faster than expected to take a closer look at the wound. "I can't believe I hurt you this badly! I am so sorry! Here, let me make it better!" Meanwhile, that puddle that he had slipped in was now, strangely, in between them. It hadn't moved, no magic had taken place.

Other than the magic of Dante's lack of situational awareness.

The knight slipped again, this time launching forward into Dax and landing with his full weight into the criminal's stomach. Hopefully knocking this dangerous boy to the floor for easy subduing and causing the knife to fly a distance away from the new tangle of human limbs flailing on the ground. It was remarkably similar to the previous situation, except now Dax was in his victim exact position.

[Castle Crashers]

Somewhere

The white haired boy took a deep breath, unsure if his healing spell had worked. White magic was just so.. weird, so difficult to control. No matter of how much he tried, it normally eluded his grasp. But now.. seeing her wounded like that had scared him so much that.. he was somehow able to do it. His healing spell seemed to have worked, and even if the magical circle in front of his hand had flickered a little, her wounds had been healed. Celio heaved a sigh of relief, feeling just a little weakened, as he continued to look at her with that worried expression on his face. When she mentioned her friend, it took him a few good moments to realize that she was probably talking about that necromancer from back then, in Arys.. but even so, this was a little confusing. What were they doing here, in the middle of the war? How had they escaped from that doomed city?

And yet.. he didn't say anything.. as he once again felt the sting of guilt. According to everything he knew.. she should have hated him. She should have despised him. Then why was she.. why was she acting like this? Why was she asking for his help? Was she just pretending..or was what she had told him back then, on the streets of that burning city, true? How could it be? He had seen just so much hate, so much greed, so much envy... how could anyone be so kind.. so forgiving?

He was confused, but when she asked for his help.. he was ready to say yes. It didn't matter that they would have to fight against the Scriptures, against Faith Keepers. It didn't matter that he had no idea how to do it, and that trying enter the city of Sedia seemed to be a suicidal idea. It didn't matter that he was lost and weakened, that he had witnessed so much death before meeting her again that he was disgusted, that he was sick of all life. It didn't matter.. if she wanted his help.. there was no way he could say no. And it wasn't just because of the guilt that was just consuming him.

But before he was able to say anything, he looked at the snake that was wrapped around his arm.. and after a moment of silence passed, the boy looked back at Julie with his crimson eyes, as he was standing up. But then, the snake disappeared.. it was there for a moment.. and then nothing. And then, she felt someone.. or something behind her. And when she turned around, she saw someone that she had met before..even if she did not seem to be of this world. A girl, looking to be around Julie's age, of a near unnatural beauty. She had a long, free-flowing and lush jet black hair, and feisty, ruby red eyes that nearly seemed to glow. Her clothes were black, just as Celio's robes, greatly contrasting with her snow-white skin. She was wearing a short, black skirt, over the knee black boots, and a dark cloak, covering most over her body. As before, her very presence seemed to emanate power, and as Julie looked at her, she felt the same sinking, unnatural feeling that she had experienced when she had looked at that snake.

"What are you trying to do, you little girl? Is this some kind of a trap?", she asked angrily, clenching her fists. "Why should we believe you? You are just trying to get my master killed. That's what all you heroes of the light always want. You are just going to take advantage of his kindness, and you'll give him to the Faith Keepers as soon as possible. You want him to burn at the stake.. I know it. Why wouldn't you? All that talk about forgiveness... lies. There is no way you could ever forgive him for what he has done.. because you don't understand. No one does.. no one even tries." A black dagger appeared in the girl's hand, and she pointed its blade directly at Julie's neck. "So tell me.. what are you really trying to do? When are you going to reveal your true face?.."

Julie watched the young Celio worriedly as he looked at the snake and then back to her, worried as she noticed the smoky creature had disappeared. Where had it gone, and why? The moment she felt a presence behind her, she was alarmed, turning with the feeling clearly expressed on her face...and was met by a woman close to her age, that of whom had dark hair, bright red eyes, and black clothing. She...was definitely not human. Her beauty alone was enough to make Julie feel insecure and belittled, let alone her aura of power and inhumanity. She got the slight feeling that this girl was probably the snake that had been with Celio before. She spoke, calling Julie a little girl even though they most definitely looked the same age, asking her if what she was asking of Celio was some kind of trap in an angry tone. She asked why they should believe her, and mentioned that all heroes of light wanted to do was take advantage and turn him into the Faith...she accused her of wanting him to burn at the stake, of lying, that she didn't understand, that no one tried to. She pointed a blade to her neck, and asked her to reveal her true face.

Julie, honestly, felt a little hurt. How much did she have to do to prove herself? How could she ever show that she was being true and serious if no one ever listened to her? She frowned, a look of sincerity upon her face as she walked to the angry girl, calm in her expression, placing her neck right at the point of her dagger, metal to skin. She looked at her fiery red eyes with her calm, honest blue ones. "I...have no idea how I can truly prove to you how sincere I am...I have sacrificed more than you know in the name of Kindness, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life, however short or long that may be...if I wanted to kill Celio, I would have done so when I found out he was the one who killed my father. I would not have hugged him and cried, I would not have forgave him...if I truly wanted to take advantage of kindness, to turn those of Sin into the Faith Keepers, my friend in Sedia...I tried to protect him, but the Scriptures...they wouldn't have it...They sliced my abdomen open...I probably would've died if it wasn't for Celio." A small smile crossed her face as she said this, her eyes showing full vulnerability.

"He has shown me kindness, so it is only fair for me to show it in return...he does not have to come with me to Sedia, I would never force him--or you--to do such a dangerous thing...he is open to walk away at any time...but I cannot let my friend sit there when I have a chance to save him, to show him true kindness..." She grabbed the girls hand gently, pressing the knifes tip into her neck. "This is my true face...this is my purpose...but if that doesn't convince you..." She softly removed the blue crystal necklace, tossing it to Celio with her free hand. "Please, wear that. Think of it as a last resort...if you have no other resolution, grip the crystal, kiss the blue gem, and you'll be placed in an impenetrable barrier that only the holder of the crystal can undo...it truly is the most safety I can provide you with." She looked back to the black-haired girl, sincerity in her eyes. "That's your insurance...but if you still don't believe me...if you really think I am evil...please, end my life now. Because if I cannot prove this to you now, then I have failed. Everything is open to you...there is nothing else I can provide that would truly show you I mean well."

An error. A minor one, that was a given, but an error nonetheless. It would delay his goal.

He was...annoyed.

Or, something close to that. He was certain he had calculated everything from the life this maid lived, to the street and location of where he planned all of this to happen, to the frequented places of the nightly patrols. This...was an anomaly. An inconvenience. It...could be dealt with. The moment he heard the knight's voice, he froze where he was, noticing that at the moment, he hadn't noticed the knife Dax had pressed to the young woman's throat. As he rattled on about the concept of finding somewhere warmer to conduct their business, he gently eased a hand over the girl's mouth to silence her crying, his knife still tight against her throat. He spoke of being on his way...and at first, Dax felt...satisfied to know the anomaly would take care of itself. He said nothing, letting his senses clue him in on the clutter of the man leaving the alley, gently easing his body over the woman below him to better hide the knife from the parting knight, as well as anyone else that might decided to cross the alley at that time.

The girl was still crying, muffled by the clasped hand over her mouth. He could tell she was going to scream if he released her. That felt unacceptable. Perhaps he would snip her vocal cords before he proceeded with anything else...that would take care of the problem. Before he could analyze what he would do any further, he heard a loud clatter as it seemed the knight had fallen to the ground, and perhaps if he was any normal human being, he would've felt amused. He felt dissatisfied by the thought that the knight would stay even a second longer, further building his anticipation. He felt like a child eyeing a cookie jar, fingers glazing the edge of the container. And yet, in a moment, he was thrown off the woman with such force that he was barely able to withold a gasp...mostly due to the sudden heavy force applied to him.

His head hit the pavement, stunned, and he could only watch with dull, dissatisfied eyes as the maid managed to gain her strength and stand, stumbling out of the alley as she shrieked. He felt a dull pulsing in the back of his head...and as he reached to touch it, his fingers came back stained red. He gave no reaction but a sigh, only turning his eyes back in the direction his prey had managed to escape to. "Look at what you've done..." He muttered himself, seeming careless for the wound in the back of his head. "Letting my little fish slide right through my hands...this is...unfortunate." He spoke, before he turned to look at the knight as he stood. He shook his head and gently reached down, picking up his clattered knife, frowning as he noticed the scratches that had been taken on the blade due to his fall. Dissatisfaction. Sub-par. His soulful excitement faded, and empty, dull nothingness filled its place. Yes, perhaps the prey was not so important, he could find another city, another maid, another alley...but his beautiful, handcrafted knife was scratched. He couldn't conduct business like this. "...tonight has...gone worse than expected. I suppose you're the reason." He sighed, turning his dull eyes to the knight, the scratched but otherwise perfect knife still lightly gripped in his hand. He had yet to decide whether or not it would be a preferred option to slaughter the man instead. Tall frame, sharp features, it was hard to tell his true build from his armor...that was a risk he was unsure he wanted to take...

The Darkest Alley Just Got Darker,
A Small Coastal City, Arghyo at Night,
Ser Dante D'Aquila
"What was that?" Dante asked, tilting his head casually over his shoulder. His green eyes pushed at the edges of his lids, flashing in the light and contrasting with his olive complexion. It took a moment for him to process the fact that the boy that had been on the ground earlier, the one that had been on top of the girl, was now glowering at him with a knife in his hand. Due to the ringing in his ears caused by the fall, the poor knight didn't necessarily hear everything that had transpired before. He did see that the girl was gone and had heard the telling shriek of a frightened woman. For this moment, his mind seemed to chose the innocent explanation for that shriek.

"Oh, oh!" he exclaimed, immediately jumping up from the ground nimbly, almost as if the armor wasn't there at all. "I'm sorry, dear! I didn't mean to make your date run off and all. That puddle took me all off guard, pretty much assaulted me! I might have to take it in to the jail for that, let it cool off for the night..." he tottered, the excuses and apologies and jokes rolling off his tongue as easily as water came from the clouds. Turning to fully face Dax, the knight left himself completely open to attack as well as an inspection. The light from the liatt lamps of the street wrapped a warm glow around Dante yet left the darkness surrounding the young man even darker than it should have been. Running a hand through his dirty blonde hair, the knight's facial features cleared. A sharp jawline, Calarian nose, white teeth, pleasant smile, and the tell-tale marks of a frequent clown around his eyes and mouth marked him as a handsome if a bit boisterous man. The tan on his face also clearly signaled that he was used to a life outside, either tilling fields or, more likely, travelling the roads.

It was then that Dante's green orbs finally focused on Dax's face, especially focusing in on the flash of scarlet along his forehead and the red marks along the side of his neck from the wound on the back of his head. "Oh, by the gods!" the knight exclaimed, immediately rushing forward faster than expected to take a closer look at the wound. "I can't believe I hurt you this badly! I am so sorry! Here, let me make it better!" Meanwhile, that puddle that he had slipped in was now, strangely, in between them. It hadn't moved, no magic had taken place.

Other than the magic of Dante's lack of situational awareness.

The knight slipped again, this time launching forward into Dax and landing with his full weight into the criminal's stomach. Hopefully knocking this dangerous boy to the floor for easy subduing and causing the knife to fly a distance away from the new tangle of human limbs flailing on the ground. It was remarkably similar to the previous situation, except now Dax was in his victim exact position.

Dax was immediately annoyed when Dante began to speak again. Great...of all the people I could've had to deal with...it had to be an idiot. He thought with dissatisfaction as Dante rattled on about making his "date" run off, and put on a lame joke about the personification of a puddle. Dax eyed him carefully, fully taking in all of his features and what the could mean. He definitely appeared to be around Dax's age...which was not necessarily a good sign. He was tan; it could be a sign of hard labor, and the armor was doing nothing to disprove the idea that this man likely came head to head with others a lot. The odds were only dropping...but he had many features of what Dax would consider an ideal target...but he would have to, somehow, get a better look at his figure and muscle build before he could really make a call. He was surprised out of his deep analyzing of the man when he rushed towards Dax, sparking a whisper of alarm in his head, stepping back as he gripped his knife tighter, ready to cut Dante's neck open at a moment's notice. It was really one of the only exposed parts on his body, after all.

"No, I need no help, stay back--" He tried to start before, by what felt like the will of the gods, the man slipped on a puddle and, at full weight and full force, the slightly shorter, armored man came into collision with Dax. He was knocked back to the ground, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs, his wounded skull hitting the stone pavement once more. He wheezed, eyes open with shock and a sudden, sharp pain in his skull that refused to leave. It was the closest thing to emotion (outside of killing) that he'd felt in a while. His fingers twitched, the familiar weight of the knife in his hand now gone once more. He looked, only to find that it had landed a distance away, having no chance of saving the raven-haired boy if he needed it. He wheezed more, at a loss of regaining his breath with the full weight of the blonde boy still upon his thin frame, becoming lightheaded from the blood leaking from the back of his skull. His eyelids fluttered as he vaguely remembered somewhere in his now foggy mentality that he could use magic to escape the boy's weight, but he had neither the concentration or the energy to do so in the moment. He felt his heart beat heavy in his chest as the blood continued to leak from his head, his mind only becoming foggier. Not good, not good, I need to leave...or get the knife, or...something...anything... He thought in a whisper. "...get...off of me..." He muttered weakly, the pain in his skull distracting him from putting full force into his words. He was intrigued he managed to get them off without slurring, but his voice was hoarse. This was not going to end well, and his positive solutions were getting slimmer chances by the second. "...get off...of me..."

[Free Empire of the Low Isles]

Dax was immediately annoyed when Dante began to speak again. Great...of all the people I could've had to deal with...it had to be an idiot. He thought with dissatisfaction as Dante rattled on about making his "date" run off, and put on a lame joke about the personification of a puddle. Dax eyed him carefully, fully taking in all of his features and what the could mean. He definitely appeared to be around Dax's age...which was not necessarily a good sign. He was tan; it could be a sign of hard labor, and the armor was doing nothing to disprove the idea that this man likely came head to head with others a lot. The odds were only dropping...but he had many features of what Dax would consider an ideal target...but he would have to, somehow, get a better look at his figure and muscle build before he could really make a call. He was surprised out of his deep analyzing of the man when he rushed towards Dax, sparking a whisper of alarm in his head, stepping back as he gripped his knife tighter, ready to cut Dante's neck open at a moment's notice. It was really one of the only exposed parts on his body, after all.

"No, I need no help, stay back--" He tried to start before, by what felt like the will of the gods, the man slipped on a puddle and, at full weight and full force, the slightly shorter, armored man came into collision with Dax. He was knocked back to the ground, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs, his wounded skull hitting the stone pavement once more. He wheezed, eyes open with shock and a sudden, sharp pain in his skull that refused to leave. It was the closest thing to emotion (outside of killing) that he'd felt in a while. His fingers twitched, the familiar weight of the knife in his hand now gone once more. He looked, only to find that it had landed a distance away, having no chance of saving the raven-haired boy if he needed it. He wheezed more, at a loss of regaining his breath with the full weight of the blonde boy still upon his thin frame, becoming lightheaded from the blood leaking from the back of his skull. His eyelids fluttered as he vaguely remembered somewhere in his now foggy mentality that he could use magic to escape the boy's weight, but he had neither the concentration or the energy to do so in the moment. He felt his heart beat heavy in his chest as the blood continued to leak from his head, his mind only becoming foggier. Not good, not good, I need to leave...or get the knife, or...something...anything... He thought in a whisper. "...get...off of me..." He muttered weakly, the pain in his skull distracting him from putting full force into his words. He was intrigued he managed to get them off without slurring, but his voice was hoarse. This was not going to end well, and his positive solutions were getting slimmer chances by the second. "...get off...of me..."

Could This Be a Bigger Fish Situation?
A Coastal City at Night, Arghyo,
Ser Dante D'Aquila

Air hissed between Dante's teeth as he landed on top of the young man. Plate wasn't the best armor to wear if you expected to get up immediately from the kind of header the knight just took. Of course, typically, the goal of people wearing plate armor was to not get knocked down in the first place and to rather do the knocking, but you can't always get what you want from a situation. Clumsy feet will always be clumsy feet and puddles will always be there to trip them up. The only thing Dante could do now was damage control and he was already messing that up, considering the fact that his latest victim was currently begging to be released so he could at least breath. This fact, of course, took a few moments to register in the knight's brain before he realized that he was currently murdering a man with his own weight. "Oh, my gods!" he exclaimed, immediately rolling off... and on to the knife that had been thrown from the assaulter.

"I am sooooo sorry!" Dante apologized, sitting up and placing the knife directly under his butt by accident. "Okay, we seriously need to get you some medical help! I-I think I see brain coming out of your head!"

[Tracian Empire]

The Royal Palace of Chovers
The Kingdom of Duivene

A few rather awkward moments passed as the old human who was sitting on a stone chair on the other side of the room simply looked at Az, in silence. The man was wearing the simple white and azure robes of those mages who had pledged their loyalty to the King of Duivene, and the only part of his attire that vaguely pointed towards his real rank was one of the necklaces that he was wearing, representing the golden emblem of Duivene's Royal Mages, held by a golden chain. The emblem itself was however partially obscured by a pendant. An old black chain holding what seemed to be a transparent crystal, of an unknown origin. The man himself was fairly unimpressive in appearance - an old man with long, gray-white hair and an ashen beard. His light blue eyes seemed to be clouded, and even if he seemed to be carefully examining the newcomer, the man was pretty calm and carefree. If not for his clothes, he could have easily been confused for any of the old merchants in the markets that Az had just seen. But he was no ordinary man, as the former Prince of Hell was now standing in the presence Claude de Tellier, Royal Sorcerer of the Duiven Crown for the reigns of the Kingdom's past five or so kings.

Truth be told.. no one really knew who the first monarch who had appointed his services was. Claude was old, but none of the past few Kings ever had any reasons to dismiss him. Some rumors said that the he had become the King's Own Mage during the Wars of the Thorns.. but he couldn't be that old, that was for certain.

"Az.. that's a pretty weird name for a Galarai, isn't it?", the main asked in a relaxed voice. "But who am I to judge? We humans have long lost most of our sources of information on the customs of the Loroi.". A few other quiet moments passed. "So you have information about the.. Armies of Hell? You don't seem to be one of those enthusiastic magic initiates who are ready to believe every fantasy book that they find in the Royal Academy's library.. so this could be interesting. But if you want our mighty kingdom to do something against a demonic threat, I'm afraid that you've come to the wrong place. The Seneschal won't be interested, I'm sure of that...so.. what do you actually want?"

---

Somewhere
The Archbishops of Superbia and Ira

The blind boy sighed, as he seemed to tightly grip the handle of his invisible weapon. "You are so naive..you don't know anything about it, little fisherman. You don't know what the Sins are, and you don't seem to have ever faced their true temptation. You have never experienced their corruption...and you have never had your soul at the mercy of one of the Sins. You don't know anything.. and we are not your precious Teacher." Behind Pride, the ashen eyed Wrath smirked, playing around with what looked like a little dagger. "I've heard about the previous Archbishop of Sloth.. and I vaguely remember her from the Sacking of Arys. I don't know how she managed to escape.. but good for her. Not many of us can even dream of doing it. But if there is one thing I can say for sure.. that is that she can't help us."

Pride chuckled. "You are just so ignorant...", he said in a slightly irritated voice. Even the sclera of his eyes was now black, they were just as hollow as they had always been. Even if he was pointing his weapon directly at Leide, and even if he was looking in his approximate direction, it was clear that he was surrounded by darkness. "Why are you so focused on saving her? Why do you want to do that? People like you who thing that they are heroes are the most annoying of all..do you want to save her from Ira even if it means that she will die?"

---

Somewhere else, in a forest

The black haired girl hesitated..she was angry, that at least was obvious, and her hands were shaking.. but she did nothing, for a few moments, just looking directly into Julie's eyes, red meeting blue. Then, the mysterious girl pushed the tip of her knife forward.. but before the black dagger was able to reach Julie's neck, someone grabbed it's blade, pushing it to the side. The knife dispersed into smoke when Celio touched it, and the girl took a step back, in shock. "Stop it..", he told her, with a twinge of guilt in his voice. "I.. trust her. If she wanted to kill me..she could have done it long ago. And we each owe a death, after all..we've faced it together so many times, and so many times we broke its rule. I've never thought that we would have survived last night. We shouldn't have survived, I shouldn't have survived, it isn't fair.. but that's what it happened. And we found her.. and.. I want to help her.. will you help me?"

The girl remained quiet for a few good moments, looking back at forth between Celio and Julie. She involuntarily touched her right palm - where a magical symbol was present. Anyone with a little bit of knowledge in magical symbols, runes, and circles would have instantly recognized it as the mark of a contract between a relic, and a master...but Celio was asking for her help, not ordering her to help him like he could have. Relics bound through a master through such a powerful symbol wouldn't have had a choice. And yet.. he was giving her one.

The girl closed her eyes for a few moments.. before she sighed, defeated. "I will..but.. I will keep an eye on her. If she tries to do anything wrong.. I will.. I will...", and the pale girl remained silent. Celio turned around, looking at Julie as he took her hand, placing her blue crystal necklace in her open palm. Unlike the older Celio's coldness..his hands were warm. Alive..but the same vague smell of lavender and flowers was also there. "Don't waste it on me.. if there is someone here who deserves to live through all of this, that's you. Not me.." And the white haired boy remained quiet for a moment. " I'm not sure why.. but I will help you save your friend.. and hopefully, all three of us will get out there alive. However.. I'm not all that good at wielding white magic. No matter of what I do, it always seems to slip right through my fingers..and if we'll fight against those cursed Scripture knights.. I won't.. I won't hold back. "

Celio took a step back, tightly clenching his fists in frustration. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "I will distract them, so that you will be able to sneak in and save your friend.. but I can't.. I can;t fight fairly. I can't fight honorably. If we'll have, I will have to use my disgusting magic. And I will need you to trust me. If you are going to fight against the Faith... will you do it alongside a repulsive Achisian necromancer?"

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Oh my..." Pynus said, "At least buy me a drink first. But right now, can you please take a step back, so I can at least get up?"

As soon as Pynus had the opportunity to stand, she took it, and looked at her soaked clothes. With a chuckled, she whispered something and a column of wind surrounded her for a moment before it disapated and her clothes where again dry.

"You should be careful around drunk strangers. Or strangers in general." Pynus said when she looked at the young sailor, "You never know what they might try."

---

The Forgotten Prince, Az'goxaak
Royal Palace of Chovers, Kingdom of Duivene

---

"Well, you're a sharp old man." Az said with a smirk, "Not like I was trying to hide my intention. I want two things. One you can't give me, and one that you can. Firstly, why should I sit on this information when it can be useful in the future for the protection of our mortal plane. While you can not act on it now, I wouldn't expect that, but it is only a matter of time before the Armies of Hell invade our mortal plane."

"But that isn't my primary reason." He said, "After all, why give away something without getting something in return. A trade, transaction. Its business. I am offering this information, at what I'd consider a very low price. You see, I live an isolated life, away from the problems of the world, but I don't desire to live in ignorance of events that have passed. So, I come out of my isolation occasionally to gather knowledge. This time I found out that a pretty serious war was fought, and the details couldn't help but catch my attention. As such, I desire to learn more about what happened during that war, and who better to get the knowledge that I seek than from one of the heroes of that war. All I want in exchange for handing it over is a meeting with the Princess Alexis, be it under guard or whatever."

[Castle Crashers]

Dax was immediately annoyed when Dante began to speak again. Great...of all the people I could've had to deal with...it had to be an idiot. He thought with dissatisfaction as Dante rattled on about making his "date" run off, and put on a lame joke about the personification of a puddle. Dax eyed him carefully, fully taking in all of his features and what the could mean. He definitely appeared to be around Dax's age...which was not necessarily a good sign. He was tan; it could be a sign of hard labor, and the armor was doing nothing to disprove the idea that this man likely came head to head with others a lot. The odds were only dropping...but he had many features of what Dax would consider an ideal target...but he would have to, somehow, get a better look at his figure and muscle build before he could really make a call. He was surprised out of his deep analyzing of the man when he rushed towards Dax, sparking a whisper of alarm in his head, stepping back as he gripped his knife tighter, ready to cut Dante's neck open at a moment's notice. It was really one of the only exposed parts on his body, after all.

"No, I need no help, stay back--" He tried to start before, by what felt like the will of the gods, the man slipped on a puddle and, at full weight and full force, the slightly shorter, armored man came into collision with Dax. He was knocked back to the ground, the wind completely knocked out of his lungs, his wounded skull hitting the stone pavement once more. He wheezed, eyes open with shock and a sudden, sharp pain in his skull that refused to leave. It was the closest thing to emotion (outside of killing) that he'd felt in a while. His fingers twitched, the familiar weight of the knife in his hand now gone once more. He looked, only to find that it had landed a distance away, having no chance of saving the raven-haired boy if he needed it. He wheezed more, at a loss of regaining his breath with the full weight of the blonde boy still upon his thin frame, becoming lightheaded from the blood leaking from the back of his skull. His eyelids fluttered as he vaguely remembered somewhere in his now foggy mentality that he could use magic to escape the boy's weight, but he had neither the concentration or the energy to do so in the moment. He felt his heart beat heavy in his chest as the blood continued to leak from his head, his mind only becoming foggier. Not good, not good, I need to leave...or get the knife, or...something...anything... He thought in a whisper. "...get...off of me..." He muttered weakly, the pain in his skull distracting him from putting full force into his words. He was intrigued he managed to get them off without slurring, but his voice was hoarse. This was not going to end well, and his positive solutions were getting slimmer chances by the second. "...get off...of me..."

Could This Be a Bigger Fish Situation?
A Coastal City at Night, Arghyo,
Ser Dante D'Aquila

Air hissed between Dante's teeth as he landed on top of the young man. Plate wasn't the best armor to wear if you expected to get up immediately from the kind of header the knight just took. Of course, typically, the goal of people wearing plate armor was to not get knocked down in the first place and to rather do the knocking, but you can't always get what you want from a situation. Clumsy feet will always be clumsy feet and puddles will always be there to trip them up. The only thing Dante could do now was damage control and he was already messing that up, considering the fact that his latest victim was currently begging to be released so he could at least breath. This fact, of course, took a few moments to register in the knight's brain before he realized that he was currently murdering a man with his own weight. "Oh, my gods!" he exclaimed, immediately rolling off... and on to the knife that had been thrown from the assaulter.

"I am sooooo sorry!" Dante apologized, sitting up and placing the knife directly under his butt by accident. "Okay, we seriously need to get you some medical help! I-I think I see brain coming out of your head!"

Dax was relieved when Dante finally decided to remove his weight off of his thin body. He drew in what breath he could...and, perhaps, the first mildly coherent thought that was able to cross his mind was his knife. Where was it? Why wasn't it nearby? Why could he not see it anymore? With a short, barely capable look around with glazed eyes, he noticed that, in fact, the tip of his knife was just barely peeking out from under the weight of the knight that'd just rolled off of him. He felt displeasure, knowing that his weight would only push the blade more onto the rough stones of the alley, scratching it more than it had been before...and even moreso, it seemed that this knight was only causing more and more problems. Now he couldn't even use his weapon of choice to end such a disturbance.

The comment of seeing Dax's brain fall from his head by the blonde knight nearly made him scoff. "Don't be daft. It's only a little blood. I can assure you that if it was my brain falling out of my head, I would not be conscious at this moment." He replied matter-of-factly, before a look of clear distaste crossed his face. "I don't need medical help, either." He said dully, though, his voice seemed wobbly, and it looked as though he was having trouble sitting up stable. "I would rather die than let one of those untrained fools anywhere near my head...they would do more damage than they would help." He paused, shooting a cold look to the knight. "Like you." With the icy comment made, Dax frowned, fumbling with his jacket pocket as his fingers struggled to cooperate with his injured head. Finally, after a long moment of fumbling, he managed to retrieve a roll of bandages. From there, he attempted to unroll the bandages, but still seemed to have trouble with how lightheaded he was becoming. He...could barely think, let along be anywhere near dexterous with his hands. He'd taken two concussions after all, and it was easy to tell he was having trouble from the simple act of unrolling bandages, and the blood rolling down the back of his neck, as well as his forehead.

Somewhere else, in a forest

The black haired girl hesitated..she was angry, that at least was obvious, and her hands were shaking.. but she did nothing, for a few moments, just looking directly into Julie's eyes, red meeting blue. Then, the mysterious girl pushed the tip of her knife forward.. but before the black dagger was able to reach Julie's neck, someone grabbed it's blade, pushing it to the side. The knife dispersed into smoke when Celio touched it, and the girl took a step back, in shock. "Stop it..", he told her, with a twinge of guilt in his voice. "I.. trust her. If she wanted to kill me..she could have done it long ago. And we each owe a death, after all..we've faced it together so many times, and so many times we broke its rule. I've never thought that we would have survived last night. We shouldn't have survived, I shouldn't have survived, it isn't fair.. but that's what it happened. And we found her.. and.. I want to help her.. will you help me?"

The girl remained quiet for a few good moments, looking back at forth between Celio and Julie. She involuntarily touched her right palm - where a magical symbol was present. Anyone with a little bit of knowledge in magical symbols, runes, and circles would have instantly recognized it as the mark of a contract between a relic, and a master...but Celio was asking for her help, not ordering her to help him like he could have. Relics bound through a master through such a powerful symbol wouldn't have had a choice. And yet.. he was giving her one.

The girl closed her eyes for a few moments.. before she sighed, defeated. "I will..but.. I will keep an eye on her. If she tries to do anything wrong.. I will.. I will...", and the pale girl remained silent. Celio turned around, looking at Julie as he took her hand, placing her blue crystal necklace in her open palm. Unlike the older Celio's coldness..his hands were warm. Alive..but the same vague smell of lavender and flowers was also there. "Don't waste it on me.. if there is someone here who deserves to live through all of this, that's you. Not me.." And the white haired boy remained quiet for a moment. " I'm not sure why.. but I will help you save your friend.. and hopefully, all three of us will get out there alive. However.. I'm not all that good at wielding white magic. No matter of what I do, it always seems to slip right through my fingers..and if we'll fight against those cursed Scripture knights.. I won't.. I won't hold back. "

Celio took a step back, tightly clenching his fists in frustration. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "I will distract them, so that you will be able to sneak in and save your friend.. but I can't.. I can;t fight fairly. I can't fight honorably. If we'll have, I will have to use my disgusting magic. And I will need you to trust me. If you are going to fight against the Faith... will you do it alongside a repulsive Achisian necromancer?"

Julie waited, watching with a surprisingly calm expression--understanding, almost--as the black-haired girl shook angrily, ready to push the knife forward, to pierce the skin of her neck...and she waited for it with no resistance, no show of fear, nothing. But, to perhaps both of their surprise, such a thing didn't happen as Celio interrupted the exchange, causing the blade that had been pressed to her neck to disappear. She looked, surprised as Celio defended her, explaining that he trusted her...and she couldn't help but smile a little. She was curious about what he'd meant about them surviving last night, but supposed that kind of question could wait for later. She watched as the girl was quiet for a while, looking between Julie and Celio before she sighed, saying she'd keep her eye on her before falling silent.

She then watched again as Celio returned the pendant to her, placing it gently into her palm. She noticed that, in fact, he definitely was warmer than the Celio she knew more...but, oddly enough, they still seemed to smell the same. That was nice and familiar, atleast. It helped to remind her that they were, in fact, the same person. He mentioned not wasting the pendant on him, and mentioned that she would need it more than him. He then mentioned that he was willing to help save her friend, that hopefully they would get out alive, and he mentioned not holding back. He then added with frustration that he would distract them, and that he couldn't fight honorably; meaning that he needed her to trust him, that he wanted to know if she was willing to fight with an Achisian necromancer. Her smile grew, seemingly totally un-bothered by the mention, and instead pulled him into a warm, delightful hug. She was filled with relief and happiness to see that he was willing to help her save the older Celio. "Of course...I would never mind fighting alongside you, Celio. Necromancer or bread-maker, I would be happy to fight with you wherever and whenever. I just hope that you can trust me in return, and know that I will not only do all that I can to save my friend...but to protect you, too." She told him softly as she hugged him, before she pulled away to show him her bright, content smile. "...thank you for helping me...I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am..." She told him, and after a moment, she let him go and looked between Celio and the black-haired girl. "...well, I suppose we should get going now, then. There's no real way to tell how much time we might have..."

[Nuridia]

Somewhere

The white haired boy took a deep breath, unsure if his healing spell had worked. White magic was just so.. weird, so difficult to control. No matter of how much he tried, it normally eluded his grasp. But now.. seeing her wounded like that had scared him so much that.. he was somehow able to do it. His healing spell seemed to have worked, and even if the magical circle in front of his hand had flickered a little, her wounds had been healed. Celio heaved a sigh of relief, feeling just a little weakened, as he continued to look at her with that worried expression on his face. When she mentioned her friend, it took him a few good moments to realize that she was probably talking about that necromancer from back then, in Arys.. but even so, this was a little confusing. What were they doing here, in the middle of the war? How had they escaped from that doomed city?

And yet.. he didn't say anything.. as he once again felt the sting of guilt. According to everything he knew.. she should have hated him. She should have despised him. Then why was she.. why was she acting like this? Why was she asking for his help? Was she just pretending..or was what she had told him back then, on the streets of that burning city, true? How could it be? He had seen just so much hate, so much greed, so much envy... how could anyone be so kind.. so forgiving?

He was confused, but when she asked for his help.. he was ready to say yes. It didn't matter that they would have to fight against the Scriptures, against Faith Keepers. It didn't matter that he had no idea how to do it, and that trying enter the city of Sedia seemed to be a suicidal idea. It didn't matter that he was lost and weakened, that he had witnessed so much death before meeting her again that he was disgusted, that he was sick of all life. It didn't matter.. if she wanted his help.. there was no way he could say no. And it wasn't just because of the guilt that was just consuming him.

But before he was able to say anything, he looked at the snake that was wrapped around his arm.. and after a moment of silence passed, the boy looked back at Julie with his crimson eyes, as he was standing up. But then, the snake disappeared.. it was there for a moment.. and then nothing. And then, she felt someone.. or something behind her. And when she turned around, she saw someone that she had met before..even if she did not seem to be of this world. A girl, looking to be around Julie's age, of a near unnatural beauty. She had a long, free-flowing and lush jet black hair, and feisty, ruby red eyes that nearly seemed to glow. Her clothes were black, just as Celio's robes, greatly contrasting with her snow-white skin. She was wearing a short, black skirt, over the knee black boots, and a dark cloak, covering most over her body. As before, her very presence seemed to emanate power, and as Julie looked at her, she felt the same sinking, unnatural feeling that she had experienced when she had looked at that snake.

"What are you trying to do, you little girl? Is this some kind of a trap?", she asked angrily, clenching her fists. "Why should we believe you? You are just trying to get my master killed. That's what all you heroes of the light always want. You are just going to take advantage of his kindness, and you'll give him to the Faith Keepers as soon as possible. You want him to burn at the stake.. I know it. Why wouldn't you? All that talk about forgiveness... lies. There is no way you could ever forgive him for what he has done.. because you don't understand. No one does.. no one even tries." A black dagger appeared in the girl's hand, and she pointed its blade directly at Julie's neck. "So tell me.. what are you really trying to do? When are you going to reveal your true face?.."

Somewhere else

"I don't understand why he doesn't leave either.. human feelings are so.. weird. But maybe you will understand, one day.. but before that day comes, you don't have to think like that.", the black eyed boy told her. "You are not dead weight. You have a lot of potential, and you can do so much..fate is a cruel thing, so you shouldn't blame yourself for all that suffering that you had to experience. Not even I am the master of my own fate, and that is pretty annoying.. but I will fix that, sooner or later." The boy stopped for a moment. "Am I trying to console you? Huh.. that's even more weird. Still, you shouldn't think like that. What am I going to give you now is only going to help you become stronger.. but if you would have been useless, and weak, without any potential.. would I even be here, talking to you? Probably not.. because it would have been boring. And being bored is one of the things that I hate the most.. "

The boy sighed, his expression hidden behind the skull mask, and a blade that seemed to be made from black smoke appeared in his hands, too large for a child to properly wield.. but in one swift move, and a thrust forward, the blade of darkness pierced through Alina's abdomen. She felt pain for a moment.. but then nothing..and the blade disappeared. Then.. it was as if she took a deep breath of fresh air.. as if for a moment. all her worries had disappeared.

The moment was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a blade moving quickly through the air, and a certain squire's jagged blade was stopped right above the boy's head, by an invisible shield of sorts. "What are you doing? What did he do to you?", a slightly scared Rafal asked, looking however at her..The boy turned around, looking directly at the Wyzkian squire as he tightly gripped the sword's jagged blade with his right hand, so tightly that black blood started to drip.."Do you want to die, little boy?", the deity asked, looking at him with his hollow, deep black eyes..

The Royal Citadel of Chovers, the Kingdom of Duivene

The tired Alexis sighed, having finally returned to her home after what was now nearly half a year of constant fighting. Even if the Princess had clearly told the representatives of the Faith that she was no longer going to give away her mana like that, it was still going to take a while before she would truly recover, even if one were to ignore the battle that had just happened inside of the walls of the holy city of Sedia. Even so, she was glad to be finally home - as she was unfortunately, mostly oblivious to the power struggles that were going on inside of her native realm. She was a warrior, a knight, not a politician, and ever since she had become a knight of Duivene five years ago, she had spent most of her time away, fighting. And not much had changed even after the end of the Great War.. for the Princess had continued to fight against all that was evil and lawless, without much rest, always protecting those in need. She was one of the Seven Heroes after all.. and that was clear when they had entered the city, were crowds of people had gathered to cheer for her, to thank her, to pray for her, all in a frenzy. The crows had eventually dispersed once their group had entered through the citadel's walls, their long journey from Sedia ending with their arrival in front of the palace.

"I'm not sure.. since I could say the same thing. It's been a long time ever since I've talked with the nobles.. and my father never prepared me for that. Wielding my lance has been my reason to live ever since my older brother died in the war. I did promise you that your past crimes would be forgiven though, so that at least I can guarantee - nothing will happen to you." The Princess dismounted her horse, and looked at a nearby soldier, who saluted her by bowing his head. "If my sister is in the palace, please tell her that I'm asking her to meet me. We haven't seen each other in a long time, but she should know that I have arrived.."

Angelica peered out of the window to see her sister talking to a group of people outside...she figured that it would be best to go talk to them herself. She hadn't seen Alexis in so long because she was always off on some mission or another as a knight and one of the Seven Heroes. That was her way of contributing to the kingdom, going off to go and save as many people as she could and correct any injustice that she saw. Angelica was never much of an adventurer, her place was here to watch over the king and protect the kingdom on the homefront the best way that she knew how.
"Pardon me, Princess...but your sister the Princess Alexis requests your presence at once." Angelica looked up at the soldier that had entered the rooms and dipped her head to him. "Well sire, lead the way. I am eager to see my sister after so long." She gathered her skirts and followed the soldier down out of the room to where Alexis currently was.

Meanwhile, Mellie had left her manor and left the charge to Marcela while she was away...she had all but leaped up from her chair when she got news of a possible lead, that may have information on her parents and their disappearance. Right now she was heading toward the Arghyo borders, the thick velvet hood of her cloak thrown up over her head to both protect from the sun and so the people wouldn't freak out over her strange appearance. For some reason, this place didn't take kindly to any speck of black on their pure white landscape.
"So...Anselm. The lead is in Anselm...that's some ways away but if I go quickly..."
After haggling in town over the price of a horse and some other items, the young vampire led the horse past the Arghyo borders, quietly as she could...it was almost agony to try to not attract the guards. But as soon as she had taken the first step out of the country, she hopped onto the bay gelding and rode off toward her destination...normally she would have put much more planning and effort into this but the excitement of this lead got to even her.

[Tracian Empire]

Somewhere,
In a forest

The white haired boy was.. certainly not expecting such a reaction. It wasn't exactly his fault, after all, most of the people who knew him either feared him, disliked him, or outright hated him. He was a despised Achisian necromancer, and even the other necromancers who were serving the Eternal Flame and Serpent viewed him with disdain, mocking him for his perceived weakness. There weren't many people in his life who had showed him any kind of weakness - and especially not people who had reasons to hate him. So Julie's behavior was just.. so confusing. When she hugged him, Celio blushed, and it was rather easy to notice because of just how pale he was. And of course, all that she was saying, that she was happy to fight with him, and that she wanted to protect him too.. that was.. well, confusing and embarrassing at the same time for the poor crimson eyed boy, who simply opened his mouth and then closed it again, unable to say anything.

When she pulled away from the hug, smiling, Celio just looked at her for a few moments. This girl was such a mystery for him.. her behavior, her way of being, her kindness.. they were all against all that he knew. He was probably never going to understand her. She had all the reasons to hate him and to want him dead, after all, her country had suffered so much because of evil people like him..and even worse, he was the reason for her suffering. He had killed her father right in front of her. She had also seen him kill Auguste, and so many others.. and yet, she didn't want revenge. She forgave him for what he had done.. and that was beyond his power of understanding. It seemed to break the rules of the world that he had learned - that the only thing that mattered was power, that forgiveness was for the weak, that revenge made you strong. Achisia had long ago rejected the tenets of the Magic of the Oath, the rule of "Power in Balance, and Balance in Power.". All that mattered was power through dominance, dominance through power.

The white haired mage took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, before he spoke. "We should go.. but before we start looking for your friend.. I have to.. I have to do something."...

---

Not much time had passed ever since they had left that glade.. but the forest soon changed. While the glade and the trees surrounding it seemed to be.. alive, Julie finally realized why the forest was frozen in that near unnatural silence. Something had happened here, something horrible. Broken and burned down trees, scorched land, ashes, like scars in a dying forest. A battle had been fought here, or even worse, a massacre. The illusion of life that the forest had back in the glade dissipated, replaced by decay and death. Celio remained quiet, as did the black haired girl, who was clearly the same one that Julie had met back in Arys - Krypta, Celio's relic. And eventually, they reached what looked like a huge, circle of ashes, devoid of trees, in the middle of the forest. The site of a battle.. and the final resting place of many, judging by the rusty weapons, armors, and bleach white bones that were visible from place to place, buried beneath the ashes.

"I'm sorry that you have to see this.. but.. I can only help you save your friend if I do this.", Celio told her, with a twinge of guilt in his voice. Turning around, the boy rolled his right sleeve up, revealing that his forearm was filled with scars, some older, while some were worryingly recent. It seemed that the boy was not lying about his difficulty in controlling healing magic.. or that he was to used to such wounds. Of course, Julie most likely didn't know much about necromancy, but one thing was known by all mages. Blood was an extremely good catalyst. Immediately after, Celio took out a black dagger, one that looked extremely similar to the magical blade that Krypta had used when she threatened Julie. Tightly gripping the dagger's handle with his left hand.. Celio slit his right wrist without hesitation.

He flinched because of the pain, of course, and blood immediately started to flow out, its crimson color so different from his snow white skin, but he just ignored everything around him as he knelt down, starting to draw a magical circle on the ground. It was a complicated design, one that she had never seen before.. black magic, that at least was obvious. And it was also fairly obvious that he was an expert at it. And he wasn't going to waste any time. When he was ready, he stood back up, blood still trickling down his arm. He murmured a few words, a chant, most likely, in a voice soft enough for Julie to be unable to hear it..and the blood started to sink into the ground. And the magical circle that had been drawn started to glow in crimson red.

And then silence. But she could smell it. Scorched metal and ash. Dark magic. Twisted magic. And then the ground started to tremble. And one by one, they started to rise. Undead skeletons, the last vestiges of a brutal battle, the restless souls, condemned for all eternity, bound to the necromancer's will and magic. Knights of Duivene, spearmen and mages of Achisia, mercenaries of Calaria. Celio turned around, looking at Julie with a sad smile on his face, his blood still falling to the ground, drop, by drop. He seemed even paler than before, as the spell had clearly taken its toll. "This..should distract them enough for you to save your friend. But once we reach the city, and I will use the undead to distract them.. you need to get in as quickly as possible. And you can't turn back. If they see you with me, then that will bring the entire Faith down on you. Can you promise me that? That you will save your friend and not look back?.."

[Tracian Empire]

Somewhere

The weird boy remained quiet for a few good moments, just looking at Rafal with his hollow, black eyes. The Wyzkian boy was breathing heavily, tightly gripping the handle of his jagged sword.. but he couldn't move. No matter of how much he was trying, he just couldn't move.. and that scared him. Alina was trying to explain something to him, her tone almost.. happy.. but he just couldn't listen. All that matter was the.. thing, in front of him. It looked like a boy, younger than him.. but he knew that it wasn't true. That it was just an illusion.

He was from Wyzkia, after all. Anselm was a land of bandits, mercenaries, and chaos. Calaria was an endless struggle between the proud cities of the sea and the mainland. Velikiya was a land of cursed winter and of endless Karaki attacks. But Wyzkia was the one where the danger was hidden. Corrupting the land, monsters, beasts, and demons taking untold forms. The Paladins were supposed to defend the land from that evil, but they were but a shadow of their former strength. For his entire life, Rafal had been taught to fear not the evil he could see, but the evil that remained hidden, striking from the darkness, stabbing you in the back. And the Great War had proven just how true that was. But even there.. he could fight. Back then, he had the choice of fighting, or of running away. But here.. he couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. And that scared him.. not only for him.. but for her too. He had seen it, the way in which he had stabbed with that dagger. For someone raised in the Faith and in the code of the paladins, that reeked of evil.

And there was nothing he could do.

And yet, he tried to push. To push his blade forward, to hit that thing.. but the was stuck. And blood slowly started to trickle from his nose, falling to the ground, drop, by drop. And the weird deity finally spoke. "That's an interesting sword you have there, little knight..I know it all too well..too bad that it's sleeping though.. it would have been... interesting, for her and me to meet again.." And while most of his face was hidden by that skull mask.. it was obvious that he was smiling. "What should I do though? It's not a nice thing to do, to try to kill people like that.. someone might become upset if they are threatened by a magical sword, wouldn't you think? They would want to punish those who did that for their insolence, wouldn't you agree?"

And another dagger of smoke and shadow was formed in his hand, and the boy pointed the tip of its blade directly at Rafal's neck, before looking at Alina. "What do you think, little girl? Wouldn't it be fair for him to get some powers too? But his magic is weak, held back by balance. A weakling such as him wouldn't be able to dominate it like he should..and he might die.. but isn't death the final destination of you all? Isn't it.. an acceptable risk?.."

[Charlia]

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Oh my..." Pynus said, "At least buy me a drink first. But right now, can you please take a step back, so I can at least get up?"

As soon as Pynus had the opportunity to stand, she took it, and looked at her soaked clothes. With a chuckled, she whispered something and a column of wind surrounded her for a moment before it disapated and her clothes where again dry.

"You should be careful around drunk strangers. Or strangers in general." Pynus said when she looked at the young sailor, "You never know what they might try."

"Hey, is that a promise?" Marina joked, though she stood up, gripping her ladle tightly. "'Cause if it is, I'll take you up on it. I'm pretty sure I've got enough for at least one drink. Maybe more. Though I don't think Lucy'd approve very much... meh, she's a prude, life is short, and you're hot. Do we have any good arguments against it?"

Somewhere

The weird boy remained quiet for a few good moments, just looking at Rafal with his hollow, black eyes. The Wyzkian boy was breathing heavily, tightly gripping the handle of his jagged sword.. but he couldn't move. No matter of how much he was trying, he just couldn't move.. and that scared him. Alina was trying to explain something to him, her tone almost.. happy.. but he just couldn't listen. All that matter was the.. thing, in front of him. It looked like a boy, younger than him.. but he knew that it wasn't true. That it was just an illusion.

He was from Wyzkia, after all. Anselm was a land of bandits, mercenaries, and chaos. Calaria was an endless struggle between the proud cities of the sea and the mainland. Velikiya was a land of cursed winter and of endless Karaki attacks. But Wyzkia was the one where the danger was hidden. Corrupting the land, monsters, beasts, and demons taking untold forms. The Paladins were supposed to defend the land from that evil, but they were but a shadow of their former strength. For his entire life, Rafal had been taught to fear not the evil he could see, but the evil that remained hidden, striking from the darkness, stabbing you in the back. And the Great War had proven just how true that was. But even there.. he could fight. Back then, he had the choice of fighting, or of running away. But here.. he couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. And that scared him.. not only for him.. but for her too. He had seen it, the way in which he had stabbed with that dagger. For someone raised in the Faith and in the code of the paladins, that reeked of evil.

And there was nothing he could do.

And yet, he tried to push. To push his blade forward, to hit that thing.. but the was stuck. And blood slowly started to trickle from his nose, falling to the ground, drop, by drop. And the weird deity finally spoke. "That's an interesting sword you have there, little knight..I know it all too well..too bad that it's sleeping though.. it would have been... interesting, for her and me to meet again.." And while most of his face was hidden by that skull mask.. it was obvious that he was smiling. "What should I do though? It's not a nice thing to do, to try to kill people like that.. someone might become upset if they are threatened by a magical sword, wouldn't you think? They would want to punish those who did that for their insolence, wouldn't you agree?"

And another dagger of smoke and shadow was formed in his hand, and the boy pointed the tip of its blade directly at Rafal's neck, before looking at Alina. "What do you think, little girl? Wouldn't it be fair for him to get some powers too? But his magic is weak, held back by balance. A weakling such as him wouldn't be able to dominate it like he should..and he might die.. but isn't death the final destination of you all? Isn't it.. an acceptable risk?.."

"No!" Alina cried, frozen in place--in that moment, terrified of what might happen if she tried to intervene. "If he might--if he might die, then don't do it! He shouldn't die... He shouldn't--but you're wrong, you're wrong about him, he's not weak. If someone like him can be called weak, then--"

If someone like him is weak, what does that make me? If a knight is weak, then a whore like me is just--

Her eyes were glassy and blank, and she stared at the two of them for a moment, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something else but couldn't.

It had been different for her. To die, to lose her humanity--none of that really mattered, not to something like her. What humanity did she even have left? But Rafal--was important. Rafal deserved to live. He deserved better, so a risk like that couldn't be taken. They were so different, and it was unfair to treat him as if his life had as little worth as hers.

"You can't," she finally whispered, after what felt like long hours of silence. "For him, it's just not worth it."

He needed to live. His life wasn't an acceptable risk. Hers was, and always would be. That was all there was to it, really.

It was all so very simple.

[Remnants of Exilvania]

The Vampire’s question struck Iris as odd. Had she not been expected? She pushed the thought out of her mind, and in its place came a more dominant one. A vampire? That’s who I’ll be working for? That and a bunch of undead beasts? Iris could think of nothing but the volatility of the relationship between a creature of that nature and a relic with the ability to strike it down in one blow. Then she realized. She wouldn’t be working for the vampire. She’d be working for her sister. The predicament cleared in her head, she spoke. “Yes, that’s what I’m here for. Of what nature will this... adventure you speak of be?” She said, her eyes darting around to the other occupants of the room. Iris wanted this to be over with quick. This place made her feel queasy, and all the undead seriously put her on edge. Her hands clenched in her lap as she awaited a response.

Anselm
Merkburger Fen
Unsterb Manor

The vampire girl stood up once Iris asked her questions and quickly walked up to Iris. Once she was directly in front of her, she came to a standstill, clasped her hands behind her back and then leaned forward while looking up to look at Iris' face with her big, red, hungry eyes. She flashed a cute smile with her fangsand cocked her head a little to the side before saying curiously:

"Are you nervous?"

She then started walking around Iris, always keeping her hungry gaze on her. She was examining her already although she probably wanted to see her in action later as well. She lifted up one of her hands and ran a finger over Iris, around, up and down, all the while keeping her gaze on her and questioning her:

"Hm, powerful. I can feel all that mana inside you ...but...something is off..."

She came to a standstill again, this time before directly before Iris, resting her chin on one of her small fists and looking as though deeply in thought. Absentmindedly she mumbled:

"I'll have to test that..."

Then she returned to her previous cheery mood and asked loudly into the room:

"Say, Mireille, could you be a nice little friend and forget that teddybear for a moment? I think Ms...oh...you didn't introduce yourself and I didn't either so please, let me make up for it."

The Vampire Girl pointed at herself, then at Mireille and lastly at Jeremy, giving a curtsy as she introduced herself:

"I am Lisbeth Unsterb, daughter of Konrad Unsterb and current owner of this run down ruin. The young girl over there is my friend and her name is Mireille, she never bothered to give me a last name though and since we're surely all close friends, I suppose our relationship can stay on a first name basis. Oh, and the funny guy over there is Jermee.

Now, Mireille, how about a new, temporary toy? I am sure the young lady would love to play with you really roughly for a couple of seconds. Just don't break her though."

Helvetica Israndel

Helvetica's smile grew as the woman stared at her wide eyed. Sure, she had voiced a desire that sounded near impossible, but she had no intention of throwing these lesser races to their deaths so easily, not when they had such an important purpose to serve. Alas, she'd hoped the Band might be money hungry enough to accept her at her word, but she supposed it might be better that they didn't. It meant that their leaders weren't imbeciles, someone to accept anything at someones immediate request. It lessened the risk of failure from poor leadership, and perhaps the odds her mercenaries might turn on her. Clearing her throat to prepare her explanation, Helvetica was all too happy to elaborate on part of her plan.

"It is not as though I intend for you to single handedly topple the leadership of the Galarai." She started. Her people were not warriors at heart, but they could field formidable forces, and usually more than enough to match a human kingdom.

"We must merely spark the flame of distrust between the two Loroi nations. A relatively....simple task with the powder-keg that is the fragile peace between the two peoples. Once that is done, we align ourselves with the Vorian's, whom we shall gift slaves in tribute." She paused, now moving on to the subject of the cult of sins. It was rare that she would speak of such matters outside of her own select group, but this was an important business matter.

"As for the cult...we possess within our power, the ability to summon otherwordly patrons. Demons, as some would call them. Lust, Pride, Wrath...we have no shortage of entities wishing to enter this plane of existence. They shall no doubt prove a significant boon to our attempts in toppling Galarai leadership." Helvetica paused to gauge the reaction of her possible ally.

"I can elaborate more...if so far you are interested? I do not wish to waste my time if you find your men not up to the task."

Anselm
Near Heydekrug
Camp Black

The girl seemed lost in thought for a moment before nodding and approaching Helvetica. Once in front of them, the difference in height was once again very visible. Karelia was, afterall, only about 1,47 m tall. However, she then extended one of her hands towards Helvetica, offering a handshake while whispering:

"This is delicate business. No written documents, no signature, no nothing that can later be used against either of us. If you take this hand then the deal is sealed, we will help you out but we will expect proper payment as well as common sense from the commands. Oh, and btw, my name is Karelia, Karelia Krizenek. I am the Spymaster of the Band."

If Helvetica was to accept the handshake, she would get her hand pressed rather firmly by Karelia before she led her back to the table and unfolded a large map on it. It showed the coastline of the Loroi realms as well as the border with Velikiya. About as much as one could see from outside the Loroi territory had been filled out on the map but in most cases it was simply forest and in case of the Vorians' realm even less because it was hard to get someone close to their coastline and have them return again. Still though, Karelia's mind was already at work, figuring out some of the early steps of a plan. She pointed at an island not far from the coast of the Galarai Kingdom and said:

"We'll need a closeby base of operations that would be fairly easy to defend. Granted, if either the Galarai or Vorians really wanted to attack us then there isn't much we could do against it unless we already amassed a sufficient amount of your...otherwordly patrons. The island here is perfect. Close enough to meddle within their kingdoms, close enough to Anselmian territory for us to supply it pretty safely and most importantly, currently not well defended if my last reports are correct. The whole civil war is drawing away troops from remote or easily defendable areas of Velikiya, making them easier for us to grab."

She then ran her finger up towards Velikiya, or more like, the Anselmian coastline there and from there then to Velikiya, or more precisely, the Great Steppe of Kanadroviya in eastern Velikiya.

"The Colonel is currently deployed here with a contingent of Anselmian mercenaries, battling some undead hordes. Not his first choice enemies really. He keeps going on about how boring they are to fight and how they lack sentient beings' emotions and reactions. I'm sure once informed about the situation he'll gladly leave the mercenaries out there and take command of a more reliable Black Band force and go straight for that island. Got any problems with that?"

Meanwhile, Mellie had left her manor and left the charge to Marcela while she was away...she had all but leaped up from her chair when she got news of a possible lead, that may have information on her parents and their disappearance. Right now she was heading toward the Arghyo borders, the thick velvet hood of her cloak thrown up over her head to both protect from the sun and so the people wouldn't freak out over her strange appearance. For some reason, this place didn't take kindly to any speck of black on their pure white landscape.
"So...Anselm. The lead is in Anselm...that's some ways away but if I go quickly..."
After haggling in town over the price of a horse and some other items, the young vampire led the horse past the Arghyo borders, quietly as she could...it was almost agony to try to not attract the guards. But as soon as she had taken the first step out of the country, she hopped onto the bay gelding and rode off toward her destination...normally she would have put much more planning and effort into this but the excitement of this lead got to even her.

Anselm
Not far from the Arghyan Border
Ab geht die Post!

Maybe it was simple misfortune, maybe it was luck, maybe it was destiny. Point is, Mellie had taken the same road that someone else was travelling on. The Black Knight was still travelling the road together with an unconscious Cyrus lumped over his shoulder. This time he hadn't taken any chances and chained both his legs and hands together as well as gagged him. No more interruptions on this long and arduous journey he had. All because that horribly ineffiecient man had gotten all the horses murdered. But the knight kept quiet and just continued his march, the steady rythm of his heavy steps being the only thing one could hear far and wide.

Untill another sound reached his ears. It reached them later due to the helmet he wore but still early enough. A horse, coming from behind, quickly. And it was coming from Arghyo. If there was anything that the Black Knight could still feel then it was probably relief and joy in this moment. Joy for now he had a horse again and relief for it was coming from Arghyo which meant he'd have had to sack the traveller anyways. He quickly sidestepped and got off the road, hiding himself in the shadows off the road. A look up brought relief. The moon was covered by clouds which meant that the risk of his armour shining and gleaming because of reflected moonlight was so much lower.

When Melanie was finally in sight, the Black Knight got ready for action, the clanking and clinging of his armour easily drowned out by the noise of the galloping horse. Then, when she was nearly at his position he simply threw the limp body of Cyrus at her, throwing her off the horse with it. And while she landed on the road and Cyrus on top of her, the Black Knight quickly grabbed the horse to keep it from running away. How to do so quickly? He took Cyrus oversized sword, rammed it deep into the ground and used it as a post to which he could bind the horse. Then he looked after his victim. She looked beautiful, inhumanly so, but the Black Knight had no eye for beauty. All he saw was that she was still very much conscious but still shocked by the sudden attack. Not perfect but good enough.

The last thing Melanie saw before she blacked out, was a black armoured fist down towards her face like a high speed train...except that trains don't really exist here yet so it will probably need a different metaphor.

When she woke up again, she would immediately notice that they were far away from where they had been previously. And from the position of the moon she could probably deduct that atleast 3 hours had passed, though only if she knew what time it was when she was captured since the moon was kind of obscured then. Anyway, she would find herself in a completely new environment. It was quiet, the sounds of her assailant's movements in his armour as well as the wheezing of her tired horse being the only sounds there were. When trying to look around she would quickly notice that she had been chained. Her feet had been chained together as well as her hands. She had also been gagged.

The environment she was in reeked of death and rot. Looking around as best she could (she had been thrown over the saddle) she would find that they had stopped before a rather large, white and obviously abandoned run down mansion on a small solid spot in the middle of what seemed like a large fen. No end of the fen was in sight, regardless in which direction she looked and there was only one road that led to the mansion. As for her assailant, well, the Black Knight was busy dropping the limp body of Cyrus down some kind of shaft and once he had done so, he approached her again. Noticing that she was conscious, he raised his fist again.

[Nuridia]

Melanie Trebond
Anselm
Black Knight

Mellie didn't even remember what had happened to her at first...it was all so quick that she didn't even have time to defend herself from this hulking metalhead before he had dared to attack her. The one brief time she got her bearings and the whole world went black.
The first thing she remembered was the throbbing pain in her face when she woke up..her first instinct was to reach up and feel her face because she took great pride in her beauty and would slaughter this walking tin-can if he had disfigured her in any way. But any injuries probably should have healed by now...she would have known had she only been able to touch her face. When she tried however, she couldn't lift her hand. Another tug and she felt the links of chain digging into her wrists. Chains...absolutely fan-fucking-tastic. If it were rope, she would have been able to snap it like paper but no, it had to be gods-damned fucking chain. Just great...I should've brought backup, how am I supposed to contact my sisters and brother? Now how do I get out of this?

She had no time to stew in her own misery or plan a grand escape however, for this barbarian was coming toward her again and she couldn't punch him. Ripping into her gag with her fangs, she managed to shred it and spit it out just before he came and raised his fist to her. The only thing she could think to do, she sunk her teeth into the nearest spot of the horse that she could reach and the pain made the animal raise a loud cry as if it were being flayed alive. It bucked wildly, throwing her off and kicking out its hind legs at the knight...its hooves slamming into his armored torso. Mellie struggled to move around but she managed to get herself into a sitting position, and with a great deal of effort and rocking forward she managed to stand, even if she couldn't run or really walk. I guess I have to hop out of here then...here goes nothing.

[Haedros 92712]

Unsterb Manor
Iris

The creature of the night spoke. She asked if Iris was nervous. She attempted to speak, but no words would come. And then the creature placed a finger on her. Iris shuddered under the Vampires touch. It was cold, unfamiliar, gave off the feeling of death. Every nerve in her body sent a cold, almost electric shock through her body. Every muscle became tense, so tense she had to restrain herself from leaping from her seat. A cold sweat began pouring from here face, her whole body. Her heart skipped a beat, and she stopped breathing momentarily. And then the Vampire spoke again. She spoke of Iris’ mana capacity, pretty normal, but then she spoke of feeling something odd. This made Iris even more tense, even more scared. She began to nearly shake. And then that touch was gone. She released the breath she realized she’d been holding. The Vampire introduced herself as “Lisbeth Unsterb.” It was unsettling to place a name upon an undead being. It made the creature even more human. Then Lisbeth began talking to one of the other people in the room, Mireille. Then she turned back to Iris. She introduced the others in the room. And then, She told Mirielle something. Something about “playing roughly...” That... doesn’t sound good. Playing roughly? Iris sat, tense, and prepared for the worst.

[Castle Crashers]

Somewhere,
In a forest

The white haired boy was.. certainly not expecting such a reaction. It wasn't exactly his fault, after all, most of the people who knew him either feared him, disliked him, or outright hated him. He was a despised Achisian necromancer, and even the other necromancers who were serving the Eternal Flame and Serpent viewed him with disdain, mocking him for his perceived weakness. There weren't many people in his life who had showed him any kind of weakness - and especially not people who had reasons to hate him. So Julie's behavior was just.. so confusing. When she hugged him, Celio blushed, and it was rather easy to notice because of just how pale he was. And of course, all that she was saying, that she was happy to fight with him, and that she wanted to protect him too.. that was.. well, confusing and embarrassing at the same time for the poor crimson eyed boy, who simply opened his mouth and then closed it again, unable to say anything.

When she pulled away from the hug, smiling, Celio just looked at her for a few moments. This girl was such a mystery for him.. her behavior, her way of being, her kindness.. they were all against all that he knew. He was probably never going to understand her. She had all the reasons to hate him and to want him dead, after all, her country had suffered so much because of evil people like him..and even worse, he was the reason for her suffering. He had killed her father right in front of her. She had also seen him kill Auguste, and so many others.. and yet, she didn't want revenge. She forgave him for what he had done.. and that was beyond his power of understanding. It seemed to break the rules of the world that he had learned - that the only thing that mattered was power, that forgiveness was for the weak, that revenge made you strong. Achisia had long ago rejected the tenets of the Magic of the Oath, the rule of "Power in Balance, and Balance in Power.". All that mattered was power through dominance, dominance through power.

The white haired mage took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, before he spoke. "We should go.. but before we start looking for your friend.. I have to.. I have to do something."...

---

Not much time had passed ever since they had left that glade.. but the forest soon changed. While the glade and the trees surrounding it seemed to be.. alive, Julie finally realized why the forest was frozen in that near unnatural silence. Something had happened here, something horrible. Broken and burned down trees, scorched land, ashes, like scars in a dying forest. A battle had been fought here, or even worse, a massacre. The illusion of life that the forest had back in the glade dissipated, replaced by decay and death. Celio remained quiet, as did the black haired girl, who was clearly the same one that Julie had met back in Arys - Krypta, Celio's relic. And eventually, they reached what looked like a huge, circle of ashes, devoid of trees, in the middle of the forest. The site of a battle.. and the final resting place of many, judging by the rusty weapons, armors, and bleach white bones that were visible from place to place, buried beneath the ashes.

"I'm sorry that you have to see this.. but.. I can only help you save your friend if I do this.", Celio told her, with a twinge of guilt in his voice. Turning around, the boy rolled his right sleeve up, revealing that his forearm was filled with scars, some older, while some were worryingly recent. It seemed that the boy was not lying about his difficulty in controlling healing magic.. or that he was to used to such wounds. Of course, Julie most likely didn't know much about necromancy, but one thing was known by all mages. Blood was an extremely good catalyst. Immediately after, Celio took out a black dagger, one that looked extremely similar to the magical blade that Krypta had used when she threatened Julie. Tightly gripping the dagger's handle with his left hand.. Celio slit his right wrist without hesitation.

He flinched because of the pain, of course, and blood immediately started to flow out, its crimson color so different from his snow white skin, but he just ignored everything around him as he knelt down, starting to draw a magical circle on the ground. It was a complicated design, one that she had never seen before.. black magic, that at least was obvious. And it was also fairly obvious that he was an expert at it. And he wasn't going to waste any time. When he was ready, he stood back up, blood still trickling down his arm. He murmured a few words, a chant, most likely, in a voice soft enough for Julie to be unable to hear it..and the blood started to sink into the ground. And the magical circle that had been drawn started to glow in crimson red.

And then silence. But she could smell it. Scorched metal and ash. Dark magic. Twisted magic. And then the ground started to tremble. And one by one, they started to rise. Undead skeletons, the last vestiges of a brutal battle, the restless souls, condemned for all eternity, bound to the necromancer's will and magic. Knights of Duivene, spearmen and mages of Achisia, mercenaries of Calaria. Celio turned around, looking at Julie with a sad smile on his face, his blood still falling to the ground, drop, by drop. He seemed even paler than before, as the spell had clearly taken its toll. "This..should distract them enough for you to save your friend. But once we reach the city, and I will use the undead to distract them.. you need to get in as quickly as possible. And you can't turn back. If they see you with me, then that will bring the entire Faith down on you. Can you promise me that? That you will save your friend and not look back?.."

As soon as they began walking, began heading out of the glade...the entire landscape changed. It made her heart sink a little. Everything was dead...or dying. The land was scarred with the remains of torched trees, scorched earth, the rusted armor and swords, and the occasional scattering of bones. The sight itself was enough to send a shiver down Julie's spine. As they entered the area, Julie made sure to avoid any bones as she walked, worried if she disturbed anything, it might be considered disrespectful to their final resting place. It was the site of some grand war, she knew that much...but she hadn't been taught much on any battles as a child, or even as she'd first become Archbishop...so the specific name on what the battle was seemed lost to her. It felt wrong not to even know the name of the place so many had died...as Celio and Krypta did, she remained silent and deep in thought until Celio directly spoke to her.

He spoke that he was sorry for what she was going to see, but that he had to do so to save Celio. Julie paused, almost surely knowing what he meant, and she gave him a reassuring smile. "It's alright...I understand." She told him softly, watching as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing something she was certain she'd never noticed before. The scars on his arm...the cuts almost certainly made for the same reason; the exact act he was performing right now. She realized she must've never known before because the Celio she was so used to being around had never once taken off his cloak or rolled up his sleeves, which she assumed was for the reason she was seeing right now. She watched in slight horror as he took out a black dagger and slit his wrist open, a sight that was enough to make Julie wince with phantom pain. That must've hurt. She realized now that, perhaps, necromancy worked more fluidly with blood being used as a catalyst.

She again watched as he created the magic circle with the blood, whispered a chant, and watched both in awe and in shock as the circle glowed red...and the horrible, sulfur-like stench of ash and hot metal filled the air. Even before this had happened, it was clear that this entire act of magic was unholy. It almost made her feel sick, being a holy being herself, but she withheld the feeling of nausea. The ground trembled as the bodies and skeletons rose from the ground, sparking a moment of fear in the Archbishop as she rested her hand on the hilt of her blade...but it only took her a moment to realize they weren't a threat. Not to her, anyway. She relaxed slightly, her blue eyes turning to Celio as he smiled sadly at her, the blood dripping off his wrist, looking almost sickly pale as he stood there. He spoke that it would be enough to distract the guards long enough for her to save the older Celio, but said that she needed to get in as quickly as possible, and that she couldn't turn back. He told her that he wanted her to promise him that, that she would save her friend and not look back.

She didn't answer at first, considering what he said, and she remained silent as she instead focused her attention on something else. She approached him, taking his bleeding wrist into her hand, gently whispering a healing spell and watching as the wound bound itself back together. "...you have to be careful not to leave these kinds of things unattended..." She told him softly, watching as his wrist healed. "...it could get infected..." She was silent a moment after that, struggling with the conflict of what he wanted her to do versus what her morals told her to do. She looked troubled. "...I understand I'll have to be quick, but...I...can't just leave you at the mercy of Sedia..." She told him softly, still holding his wrist, not making eye contact. "...I will do what you want, I will go for him first, but...if you are in trouble...I...wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to you." She told him before she took her crystal pendant in hand again, the one he'd returned to her, and this time, she slipped the necklace over his head so it rested around his neck. "...I'm strong...I can protect myself, but...I have to make sure you will be okay. If you don't want me to look back...if you don't want me to look back...promise me, if they corner you...if they're going to hurt you...use this necklace." Finally, she decided to look up; honest, urgent blue eyes meeting crimson ones. "...is that a plan..?"

"

Somewhere

The weird boy remained quiet for a few good moments, just looking at Rafal with his hollow, black eyes. The Wyzkian boy was breathing heavily, tightly gripping the handle of his jagged sword.. but he couldn't move. No matter of how much he was trying, he just couldn't move.. and that scared him. Alina was trying to explain something to him, her tone almost.. happy.. but he just couldn't listen. All that matter was the.. thing, in front of him. It looked like a boy, younger than him.. but he knew that it wasn't true. That it was just an illusion.

He was from Wyzkia, after all. Anselm was a land of bandits, mercenaries, and chaos. Calaria was an endless struggle between the proud cities of the sea and the mainland. Velikiya was a land of cursed winter and of endless Karaki attacks. But Wyzkia was the one where the danger was hidden. Corrupting the land, monsters, beasts, and demons taking untold forms. The Paladins were supposed to defend the land from that evil, but they were but a shadow of their former strength. For his entire life, Rafal had been taught to fear not the evil he could see, but the evil that remained hidden, striking from the darkness, stabbing you in the back. And the Great War had proven just how true that was. But even there.. he could fight. Back then, he had the choice of fighting, or of running away. But here.. he couldn't move. He couldn't do anything. And that scared him.. not only for him.. but for her too. He had seen it, the way in which he had stabbed with that dagger. For someone raised in the Faith and in the code of the paladins, that reeked of evil.

And there was nothing he could do.

And yet, he tried to push. To push his blade forward, to hit that thing.. but the was stuck. And blood slowly started to trickle from his nose, falling to the ground, drop, by drop. And the weird deity finally spoke. "That's an interesting sword you have there, little knight..I know it all too well..too bad that it's sleeping though.. it would have been... interesting, for her and me to meet again.." And while most of his face was hidden by that skull mask.. it was obvious that he was smiling. "What should I do though? It's not a nice thing to do, to try to kill people like that.. someone might become upset if they are threatened by a magical sword, wouldn't you think? They would want to punish those who did that for their insolence, wouldn't you agree?"

And another dagger of smoke and shadow was formed in his hand, and the boy pointed the tip of its blade directly at Rafal's neck, before looking at Alina. "What do you think, little girl? Wouldn't it be fair for him to get some powers too? But his magic is weak, held back by balance. A weakling such as him wouldn't be able to dominate it like he should..and he might die.. but isn't death the final destination of you all? Isn't it.. an acceptable risk?.."

"No!" Alina cried, frozen in place--in that moment, terrified of what might happen if she tried to intervene. "If he might--if he might die, then don't do it! He shouldn't die... He shouldn't--but you're wrong, you're wrong about him, he's not weak. If someone like him can be called weak, then--"

If someone like him is weak, what does that make me? If a knight is weak, then a whore like me is just--

Her eyes were glassy and blank, and she stared at the two of them for a moment, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something else but couldn't.

It had been different for her. To die, to lose her humanity--none of that really mattered, not to something like her. What humanity did she even have left? But Rafal--was important. Rafal deserved to live. He deserved better, so a risk like that couldn't be taken. They were so different, and it was unfair to treat him as if his life had as little worth as hers.

"You can't," she finally whispered, after what felt like long hours of silence. "For him, it's just not worth it."

He needed to live. His life wasn't an acceptable risk. Hers was, and always would be. That was all there was to it, really.

It was all so very simple.

He had been traveling for months now. He had first left Histria on foot, too panicked to grab much more than the clothes he was already wearing, and then he had scavenged the rest of his supplies on the way to where he was now. Not long after he'd left Histria, He'd located an isolated farmhouse, one that'd happened to have an unattended barn with a few horses inside. He'd been able to escape with a brown Mustang, and from there, travel got a lot faster and easier. Poor and with little to no hunting skills, Wulf had often resorted to stealing to get the food he often needed both to feed himself and to feed the horse he rode now. He'd nearly been caught more than twice, and as such, he often waited until night to get the food or the water he needed. Sometimes he thought about abandoning the horse purely because of the extra stress it put on the boy to get more food, but it felt wrong to suddenly let the horse go after having traveled with it for so long. After a while, he'd decided to give it a name. Jakob, after the best and only friend he'd left in Histria. It only seemed appropriate to name it so.

His months of traveling had finally brought him to Wyzkia. He'd thought it might be best to travel as far as possible from Histria, to really insure he could try to get a new start in a new place. So that none of his old demons or the rumors that were spread about him would follow. He decided that, maybe, once he got here, he could start to live a normal life. Maybe find another mage or wizard or sorcerer that really knew how to control their powers, someone who could help him learn to control his abilities. Yes...here, maybe, he could start to have things look up for him. Maybe he could find a nice family, someone who could feed him, someone who would accept him, someone who would love him the way his parents never could. Thinking about his parents often made him sad, so he tried to get the topic off his mind as often as he could...

And perhaps it was then that he saw what he did. A boy that looked his age with a blade to an older boy's throat, threatening him, and a girl who seemed to be trying to talk him out of it. The boy his age seemed to be wearing a mask, and he seemed strong, but he was threatening them...and Wulf didn't have the nature to simply turn and walk away from that kind of sight. He frowned, working up a sense of bravery as he pulled out his dagger, hopped off of Jakob, and ran for the boy's expose backside. "Hey!" He cried as he ran for his back, a look of courage on his face, his dagger armed, "You leave them alone!" And then...well, he slashed at his back.

[Faal Lot Himdah]

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Short? Ha, maybe for a human." Pynus said and put her hands on her hips, "But that doesn't matter, be life long or short, I'm still hot. Plus a free drink and good company.... no arguments here.... but there might be a wee issue...."

With that Pynus pointed to her feet, where a vine was growing around her ankle. She did not panic, instead she looked at Marina with a smile before being suddenly pulled down from the roof, and hitting the ground with a thud. If Marina looked to where Pynus hit the ground, she'd see Pynus with her face in the ground, and Nym standing right beside her, looking down on her wielder with great disappointment, only to look up at Marina after a moment.

"Unfortunately, while Pynus has little care for how she'll feel in the morning, or the fact she angered a few people by cheating at cards..." Nym started and grabbed Pynus by the collar of her clothes, "I do care about her well being, so if you can excuse us..."

[Granis]

Somewhere
The Archbishops of Superbia and Ira

The blind boy sighed, as he seemed to tightly grip the handle of his invisible weapon. "You are so naive..you don't know anything about it, little fisherman. You don't know what the Sins are, and you don't seem to have ever faced their true temptation. You have never experienced their corruption...and you have never had your soul at the mercy of one of the Sins. You don't know anything.. and we are not your precious Teacher." Behind Pride, the ashen eyed Wrath smirked, playing around with what looked like a little dagger. "I've heard about the previous Archbishop of Sloth.. and I vaguely remember her from the Sacking of Arys. I don't know how she managed to escape.. but good for her. Not many of us can even dream of doing it. But if there is one thing I can say for sure.. that is that she can't help us."

Pride chuckled. "You are just so ignorant...", he said in a slightly irritated voice. Even the sclera of his eyes was now black, they were just as hollow as they had always been. Even if he was pointing his weapon directly at Leide, and even if he was looking in his approximate direction, it was clear that he was surrounded by darkness. "Why are you so focused on saving her? Why do you want to do that? People like you who thing that they are heroes are the most annoying of all..do you want to save her from Ira even if it means that she will die?"

“So what, you’d rather just give up?” Leide asked, his eyes flashing orange once again as frustration began to enter his voice. “There’s always another option, you just aren’t willing to look for it! Yeah, so maybe I’m not an archbishop of sin like you two are, so what? I should just abandon you? There’s no way I’d do that! And why are you so sure Teacher can’t help you anyway? If she managed to escape, why can’t she show you how to escape as well?”

He threw his hands up in frustration, barely noticing that the gesture ended up flinging moisture from the leaves above him.

“Yeah, maybe I’m ignorant, maybe I’ll never go through what you guys are going through, but you can be damn sure that even if you guys have given up on yourselves, I sure as hell won’t! Kat, Ira, I’ll save them both!”

And then, a smirk grew on his face, and he extended his hand towards the black eyed man.

“And now that I know you’re here, I’ll save you too. I don’t care about any of that hero stuff, but I want to save my friends.”

Just a second afterwards, the orange faded from his eyes, and he suddenly looked worried.

“Oh, oh my gosh, I’m sorry I yelled at you like that!” He said, his face going red with embarrassment. “I don’t usually lose my temper like that. That was really rude…”

However, even with his worry, he still held his hand out to Pride.

---

Anselm
Merkburger Fen
Unsterb Manor

The vampire girl stood up once Iris asked her questions and quickly walked up to Iris. Once she was directly in front of her, she came to a standstill, clasped her hands behind her back and then leaned forward while looking up to look at Iris' face with her big, red, hungry eyes. She flashed a cute smile with her fangsand cocked her head a little to the side before saying curiously:

"Are you nervous?"

She then started walking around Iris, always keeping her hungry gaze on her. She was examining her already although she probably wanted to see her in action later as well. She lifted up one of her hands and ran a finger over Iris, around, up and down, all the while keeping her gaze on her and questioning her:

"Hm, powerful. I can feel all that mana inside you ...but...something is off..."

She came to a standstill again, this time before directly before Iris, resting her chin on one of her small fists and looking as though deeply in thought. Absentmindedly she mumbled:

"I'll have to test that..."

Then she returned to her previous cheery mood and asked loudly into the room:

"Say, Mireille, could you be a nice little friend and forget that teddybear for a moment? I think Ms...oh...you didn't introduce yourself and I didn't either so please, let me make up for it."

The Vampire Girl pointed at herself, then at Mireille and lastly at Jeremy, giving a curtsy as she introduced herself:

"I am Lisbeth Unsterb, daughter of Konrad Unsterb and current owner of this run down ruin. The young girl over there is my friend and her name is Mireille, she never bothered to give me a last name though and since we're surely all close friends, I suppose our relationship can stay on a first name basis. Oh, and the funny guy over there is Jermee.

Now, Mireille, how about a new, temporary toy? I am sure the young lady would love to play with you really roughly for a couple of seconds. Just don't break her though."

“Hi!” Jeremy said with a wave. “Yeah, that’s me. Jeremy the funny guy, but you could probably tell that from the jester costume.”

As he spoke, he gave one of the bells on his hat a little bat, causing it to flail around briefly with a chorus of jingles. Of course, he could see quite plainly that the new girl was pretty nervous. Maybe he should actually do his jesterly duty and try to cheer her up a little.

“Um, I know I probably look like one of her psycho retainers at this point, but Miri and I are actually kinda new. Don’t worry too much though, even if she seems scary, Lizzy’s a big ol’ softy. She hasn’t even tried to kill me yet! Or at least, not seriously… Anyway, just make friends with Miri, and Lizzy should be relatively civil to you as well. Hell, the worst she’s done is stick me in this jester costume, which you’ll realize is pretty lenient once you get to know me.”

And then he looked over to Miri with a small chuckle.

“Oh, and Miri, don’t hurt her too much.” He said. “I might be wrong, but she looks like a pretty normal person to me.”

”Oh, but you couldn’t be more wrong, partner!” Barbatos chimed in from his position by Jeremy’s side. ”This one ain’t just a dumb human like you, she’s a full blown weapon! In fact, I’d go so far as ta say you’re a Relic, arentcha?”

[Tracian Empire]

Royal Palace of Chovers
Kingdom of Duivene
The Royal Sorcerer's Chambers

"That's true.. but it is known that deities and demons tend to have.. a different perception on time than poor mortals. So while an invasion of the demonic hordes would seem imminent to their hellish masters.. the mortal world should be alright, for a while. And there are already a lot of problems that this new peace of the Holy Council has to face. The Cult of the Sins is a pretty present threat that exist inside of our own world, so like I've said before, I doubt that anyone is going to do anything about this hellish threat, while there are many other things that have to be dealt with. And Princess Alexis isn't the idealistic little girl that she was before she fought in the Great War.." The old man sighed, remaining quiet for a few good moments. "So, you don't know much about the Great War.. that's interesting. You could certainly get your hands on a lot of knowledge about it.. but if you want to get firsthand knowledge, then meeting with one of the Seven Heroes is certainly the right thing to do.. " But then, the sorcerer did something weird. He took the transparent crystal that was acting as a pendant and he seemed to kiss it - murmuring a word that Az couldn't understand for some reason. And for a moment there, the former Prince of Hell would have certainly been able to feel the flow of a really weird magic.. as the crystal slowly turned black.

"Though of course, a question remains.. what is a really powerful demon doing in this mortal world?", the man asked, with a sly smile on his face. "Your information about the Armies of Hell might then be very accurate.. but why shouldn't I call for the Faith Keepers or the Scriptures to hunt you? Though, if you are trying to kill the Princess, I should warn you that she is more than able to defend herself, oh demon."

---

Somewhere
Grand Duchy of Wyzkia

For a moment there, Wulf's dagger actually seemed to be about to pierce the weird boy's back.. but of course, nothing like that happened. The blade simply stopped in the air before it was able to reach the boy, and just like the poor Rafal before him, Wulf was suddenly unable to move..of course, he was able to breathe, and to move his eyes around.. but the rest of his body seemed to be frozen, as if.. someone, or something was controlling the very core of his being. Quite a terrifying feeling, that was sure..

The little deity turned around, looking at Wulf with his hollow, black eyes. As always, the skull mask was covering most of his face, but the Achisian boy would soon clearly have the impression that the non-human being was smirking, underneath that mask of bone. "Well, well, what do we have here?", the other boy asked, a bit of sarcasm in his note, ignoring the other two people behind him for a few moments. "Did no one teach you that it's not nice to try to stab people in the back, little one? If you wanted to fight against me so badly, you should have attacked me from the front. Though, the end would have been the same.." The boy sighed, before he once again started speaking, but this time, apparently to no one in particular. "Humans are such weird creatures.. some of them are more than willing to take part in the most vile and despicable of acts.. while others are willing to die in order to save people they had just met. That's why the human world is always so interesting.. it's never boring.. always and always, you can see unexpected things happen. You can find goodness in the most twisted evil, and wickedness in the bravest of heroes..they honestly don't know what they are losing by not visiting this place. It's just so.. entertaining.."

The boy then suddenly took a step to the side, so that Wulf was able to directly look at Rafal, who was also.. stuck in a similar situation. Once again, everyone around probably knew that the weird boy was smirking underneath his mask.. something was.. wrong. Something simply seemed to be a bit off.. even if they couldn't say what. As if whatever the boy was supposed to represent... wasn't supposed to be here, with them. "Little knight.. you've just witnessed that boy doing something dishonorable.. shouldn't he be punished for it?" And out of a sudden, Rafal started to move, taking a few steps forward, even if it was rather obvious by his panicked expression.. that he wasn't the one doing it. The Wyzkian squire stopped right in front of Wulf, looking in fear at the boy as he moved his hands, the tip of the jagged blade stopping right in front of Wulf's throat. And the weird deity chuckled. "Now, little boy....tell me one thing.. why should you live? Why shouldn't you slowly die, chocking on your own blood?"

---

Somewhere else

Breathing heavily, Celio just stood there, with the blood still falling to the ground. He was expecting to.. run away. To look at him with disgust, or even to just outright attack him. Or to mock him.. that's what most people did. Those on the side of the light despised people like him. Necromancers were considered to be the embodiment of evil after all. Disgusting mages, who went against the very order of life and death with their twisted art. Especially due to their association with Achisia and her armies, necromancers were now almost universally hated throughout the human realms. And well, even those who served the same dark realm as him normally reacted bad - because of envy. He felt horrible about it.. but he was actually good at this type of magic. While white magic was so difficult to use...spells of necromancy felt just.. so natural. So right. And that made him hate himself. The thought that maybe.. maybe he had been meant to be a necromancer ever since he was born made him feel sick.

He paid no attention to his wrist - blood was extremely easy to use in such spells.. and during battles, he normally had to cut himself so much that constantly healing those cuts would be pointless and dangerous at the same time. Mana was valuable.. why waste it on something like that? And besides.. the pain.. calmed him down. It was difficult to explain.. but while he was so good at it.. the idea of forcing both magic and dead bodies to respect him was wrong on so many levels. His art of magic was horrible, and he knew it.. so deep inside, he wanted to be punished for it. As long as his oath bound him to the Mage-Emperor, there was no escape to be found for him in death.. but he deserved to suffer. And when she approached him.. well part of him did want her to make him suffer. It only seemed right. He had hurt her so much.. so he still just couldn't understand why... why she refused to get her revenge.

And then.. she took his bleeding wrist into her hand.. and she healed his wound with a spell. Instead of mocking him, or of telling him just how disgusting he was.. she told him that he should be more careful with his wounds. Without looking directly at him.. she told him that she didn't want to leave him at the mercy of the Faith. Instead of telling him just how much he deserved to be hated.. she told him that she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if something were to happen to him. And instead of striking him down, she slipped her own necklace over his neck.. the one that was supposed to protect the one who had it..and then, as her blue eyes met his crimson red ones.. he couldn't help but shiver.

He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve any of it.. compassion. Someone worrying about him. Someone.. being kind to him like that. Not when his hands were so stained by the blood of others. Not when he had caused so many suffering and death.

He just stood there, not trying to move his hand, or to look away. He just continued to look at her.. confused. So of course, he asked the only thing he could think about. "Why..?", he asked, his voice quivering a little. He remained silent for a few more moments.. before he just tried to explain what he was thinking. "Just.. why are you acting.. like things. Why are you.. so.. kind? I don't.. I don't understand it. Even if.. even if you are the Archbishop of Kindless like you say.. how.. how can you be like this? It's just.. it's just that I don't understand. You should hate me.. that's what anyone would do. That's what they all do. And you have more reasons than the rest..I've killed.. innocent people after all. People you've cared about. You should despise me.. and yet you don't. You should just try to kill me.. and yet you're.. worried that I might get hurt. I don't.. I don't understand.. are you just.. pretending?.."

[Free Empire of the Low Isles]

Could This Be a Bigger Fish Situation?
A Coastal City at Night, Arghyo,
Ser Dante D'Aquila

Air hissed between Dante's teeth as he landed on top of the young man. Plate wasn't the best armor to wear if you expected to get up immediately from the kind of header the knight just took. Of course, typically, the goal of people wearing plate armor was to not get knocked down in the first place and to rather do the knocking, but you can't always get what you want from a situation. Clumsy feet will always be clumsy feet and puddles will always be there to trip them up. The only thing Dante could do now was damage control and he was already messing that up, considering the fact that his latest victim was currently begging to be released so he could at least breath. This fact, of course, took a few moments to register in the knight's brain before he realized that he was currently murdering a man with his own weight. "Oh, my gods!" he exclaimed, immediately rolling off... and on to the knife that had been thrown from the assaulter.

"I am sooooo sorry!" Dante apologized, sitting up and placing the knife directly under his butt by accident. "Okay, we seriously need to get you some medical help! I-I think I see brain coming out of your head!"

Dax was relieved when Dante finally decided to remove his weight off of his thin body. He drew in what breath he could...and, perhaps, the first mildly coherent thought that was able to cross his mind was his knife. Where was it? Why wasn't it nearby? Why could he not see it anymore? With a short, barely capable look around with glazed eyes, he noticed that, in fact, the tip of his knife was just barely peeking out from under the weight of the knight that'd just rolled off of him. He felt displeasure, knowing that his weight would only push the blade more onto the rough stones of the alley, scratching it more than it had been before...and even moreso, it seemed that this knight was only causing more and more problems. Now he couldn't even use his weapon of choice to end such a disturbance.

The comment of seeing Dax's brain fall from his head by the blonde knight nearly made him scoff. "Don't be daft. It's only a little blood. I can assure you that if it was my brain falling out of my head, I would not be conscious at this moment." He replied matter-of-factly, before a look of clear distaste crossed his face. "I don't need medical help, either." He said dully, though, his voice seemed wobbly, and it looked as though he was having trouble sitting up stable. "I would rather die than let one of those untrained fools anywhere near my head...they would do more damage than they would help." He paused, shooting a cold look to the knight. "Like you." With the icy comment made, Dax frowned, fumbling with his jacket pocket as his fingers struggled to cooperate with his injured head. Finally, after a long moment of fumbling, he managed to retrieve a roll of bandages. From there, he attempted to unroll the bandages, but still seemed to have trouble with how lightheaded he was becoming. He...could barely think, let along be anywhere near dexterous with his hands. He'd taken two concussions after all, and it was easy to tell he was having trouble from the simple act of unrolling bandages, and the blood rolling down the back of his neck, as well as his forehead.

Assaulter Turned Good Samaritan,
A Coastal City At Night, Arghyo,
Ser Dante d'Aquila

Quickly figuring out that his new self-triaging patient was in need of some assistance, Dante took the roll of bandages out of Dax's hand. "I should probably deal with this, seeing as you're... well, you're losing a lot of blood..." the knight explained, smiling in a conciliatory manner before starting to wrap the gauze around the crimson stained noggin of his new friend. Dante's motions were quick, tight, and quite clearly practiced through battlefield experience. Apparently, this knight wasn't as new or stupid as what most people would think at first. At least, he wasn't as inexperienced, naive, dull, ignorant, untrained, unprofessional, or unable... or maybe he just knew how to tie a knot around a head. Eventually, though, Dante encountered a problem. "Oh... uh... I don't... have anything... to cut this with..." he muttered, concentrating on searching around him, on Dax, and on himself for some sort of sharp object... despite the fact that the knight could have easily torn the white cloth apart with his gauntlet-ed hands.

"Ah ha!" Dante declared while his hand surfaced from a particularly awkward search. "I didn't even remember bringing my old trusty knife with me, but I guess I did! Good for us, huh?" In his grasp was Dax's precious blade, now thoroughly scratched and maybe even a little bent. The handle certainly had some nice scuff marks on it now. But the smile on Dante's face as he found it underneath him might have been entirely worth the ordeal! If, you know, the person who the knife belonged to wasn't currently passing out from blood loss nor was an emotionless husk of a murderer. With the utmost caution and efficiency, Dante cut the bandage and finally tied it so that it was snug around his patient's wounded skull. "There! Now then... We need to get you something to eat... The body turns food into blood, don't you know! Oh, and a bed..."

Thinking to himself as he left Dax's head to rest on his knee, the knight tapped his chin with his new but confused for an old knife. "Now then... where in the city do I know that has a bed and some food...? Hmm... I got it!" Smiling down at Dax, Dante gave off a temporarily scarier aura than Dax could ever manage. "I'll take you home with me! Sh sh sh! No need to talk! Save your strength!"

And with that, Dax was being carried off bridal style to his kidnapper's lair.

[Charlia]

Unsterb Manor
Iris

The creature of the night spoke. She asked if Iris was nervous. She attempted to speak, but no words would come. And then the creature placed a finger on her. Iris shuddered under the Vampires touch. It was cold, unfamiliar, gave off the feeling of death. Every nerve in her body sent a cold, almost electric shock through her body. Every muscle became tense, so tense she had to restrain herself from leaping from her seat. A cold sweat began pouring from here face, her whole body. Her heart skipped a beat, and she stopped breathing momentarily. And then the Vampire spoke again. She spoke of Iris’ mana capacity, pretty normal, but then she spoke of feeling something odd. This made Iris even more tense, even more scared. She began to nearly shake. And then that touch was gone. She released the breath she realized she’d been holding. The Vampire introduced herself as “Lisbeth Unsterb.” It was unsettling to place a name upon an undead being. It made the creature even more human. Then Lisbeth began talking to one of the other people in the room, Mireille. Then she turned back to Iris. She introduced the others in the room. And then, She told Mirielle something. Something about “playing roughly...” That... doesn’t sound good. Playing roughly? Iris sat, tense, and prepared for the worst.

"Play?" Mireille's eyes lit up, and she carefully, gently set the bear down before clapping in excitement. "Yay, I get a new toy! New friends, new toys, sweets, Mr. Bear... This is the bestest day ever," she sang, skipping forwards and stopping directly in front of Iris. She leaned forward, looking Iris over with wide, curious eyes, and then beamed. "So you're my new toy, huh? I'll try not to break you. Um, um, what should we play... Oh, I know! Let's play catch!"

And with that, she darted into the air, crystal wings glowing, and threw an enormous fireball at Iris.

"Catch it!"

Pynus of the Winds
Outside some Secret Tavern outside of Sedia, The Ecclesiarchy

---

"Short? Ha, maybe for a human." Pynus said and put her hands on her hips, "But that doesn't matter, be life long or short, I'm still hot. Plus a free drink and good company.... no arguments here.... but there might be a wee issue...."

With that Pynus pointed to her feet, where a vine was growing around her ankle. She did not panic, instead she looked at Marina with a smile before being suddenly pulled down from the roof, and hitting the ground with a thud. If Marina looked to where Pynus hit the ground, she'd see Pynus with her face in the ground, and Nym standing right beside her, looking down on her wielder with great disappointment, only to look up at Marina after a moment.

"Unfortunately, while Pynus has little care for how she'll feel in the morning, or the fact she angered a few people by cheating at cards..." Nym started and grabbed Pynus by the collar of her clothes, "I do care about her well being, so if you can excuse us..."

"No one's arguing that," Marina replied, grinning. The vine, however, was unexpected--and not entirely a pleasant surprise, either. Only a moment later, Pynus was yanked off of the roof, which--really, really didn't look fun.

"Hey!" she called down, before turning into water and pouring off the side of the roof, reforming into herself as she hit the ground. "We were having a conversation, y'know. An' it's not like I'm going to let anyone hurt a beautiful lady like this, though she seems to be able to take care of herself just fine..."

Somewhere
Grand Duchy of Wyzkia

For a moment there, Wulf's dagger actually seemed to be about to pierce the weird boy's back.. but of course, nothing like that happened. The blade simply stopped in the air before it was able to reach the boy, and just like the poor Rafal before him, Wulf was suddenly unable to move..of course, he was able to breathe, and to move his eyes around.. but the rest of his body seemed to be frozen, as if.. someone, or something was controlling the very core of his being. Quite a terrifying feeling, that was sure..

The little deity turned around, looking at Wulf with his hollow, black eyes. As always, the skull mask was covering most of his face, but the Achisian boy would soon clearly have the impression that the non-human being was smirking, underneath that mask of bone. "Well, well, what do we have here?", the other boy asked, a bit of sarcasm in his note, ignoring the other two people behind him for a few moments. "Did no one teach you that it's not nice to try to stab people in the back, little one? If you wanted to fight against me so badly, you should have attacked me from the front. Though, the end would have been the same.." The boy sighed, before he once again started speaking, but this time, apparently to no one in particular. "Humans are such weird creatures.. some of them are more than willing to take part in the most vile and despicable of acts.. while others are willing to die in order to save people they had just met. That's why the human world is always so interesting.. it's never boring.. always and always, you can see unexpected things happen. You can find goodness in the most twisted evil, and wickedness in the bravest of heroes..they honestly don't know what they are losing by not visiting this place. It's just so.. entertaining.."

The boy then suddenly took a step to the side, so that Wulf was able to directly look at Rafal, who was also.. stuck in a similar situation. Once again, everyone around probably knew that the weird boy was smirking underneath his mask.. something was.. wrong. Something simply seemed to be a bit off.. even if they couldn't say what. As if whatever the boy was supposed to represent... wasn't supposed to be here, with them. "Little knight.. you've just witnessed that boy doing something dishonorable.. shouldn't he be punished for it?" And out of a sudden, Rafal started to move, taking a few steps forward, even if it was rather obvious by his panicked expression.. that he wasn't the one doing it. The Wyzkian squire stopped right in front of Wulf, looking in fear at the boy as he moved his hands, the tip of the jagged blade stopping right in front of Wulf's throat. And the weird deity chuckled. "Now, little boy....tell me one thing.. why should you live? Why shouldn't you slowly die, chocking on your own blood?"

Alina's eyes widened as she realized what was happening, as she realized what Rafal was doing--or, more accurately, what that boy was doing.

He was forcing Rafal to act, making him do something he clearly didn't want to do--and that, that was just--

"Stop... Stop it, I don't want to--please don't make me--"

That was so, so wrong.

Her hands twitched, her eyes wide and unseeing, bright colors spinning in her mind--and out of the ground between Rafal and Wulf erupted an enormous barrier, a great wall of woven vines that ripped Rafal's sword out of his hand and hid it somewhere within the midst of the winding plants, leaving the two boys separated by the expanse of thick greenery.

With that done, and Wulf saved from further harm, she turned as if not even thinking about her movements, glassy eyes seeming almost to glow as they focused on the strange boy--and was it pure imagination, or was their hue a shade redder than their normal, soft pink?

"Don't," she started, her voice soft and even--and was that a faint echo behind it, like there was another voice speaking? "Don't you ever do that again. Those who ignore the obvious wishes of others, who force them to do things they don't want to do--I hate them. I hate them. Don't you hate them, too?"

The grass withered and died under her feet, cracking as she took one step closer to the boy, and then another. "Don't you think they should all just die?"

[Haedros 92712]

Unsterb Manor
Iris

The creature of the night spoke. She asked if Iris was nervous. She attempted to speak, but no words would come. And then the creature placed a finger on her. Iris shuddered under the Vampires touch. It was cold, unfamiliar, gave off the feeling of death. Every nerve in her body sent a cold, almost electric shock through her body. Every muscle became tense, so tense she had to restrain herself from leaping from her seat. A cold sweat began pouring from here face, her whole body. Her heart skipped a beat, and she stopped breathing momentarily. And then the Vampire spoke again. She spoke of Iris’ mana capacity, pretty normal, but then she spoke of feeling something odd. This made Iris even more tense, even more scared. She began to nearly shake. And then that touch was gone. She released the breath she realized she’d been holding. The Vampire introduced herself as “Lisbeth Unsterb.” It was unsettling to place a name upon an undead being. It made the creature even more human. Then Lisbeth began talking to one of the other people in the room, Mireille. Then she turned back to Iris. She introduced the others in the room. And then, She told Mirielle something. Something about “playing roughly...” That... doesn’t sound good. Playing roughly? Iris sat, tense, and prepared for the worst.

"Play?" Mireille's eyes lit up, and she carefully, gently set the bear down before clapping in excitement. "Yay, I get a new toy! New friends, new toys, sweets, Mr. Bear... This is the bestest day ever," she sang, skipping forwards and stopping directly in front of Iris. She leaned forward, looking Iris over with wide, curious eyes, and then beamed. "So you're my new toy, huh? I'll try not to break you. Um, um, what should we play... Oh, I know! Let's play catch!"

And with that, she darted into the air, crystal wings glowing, and threw an enormous fireball at Iris.

"Catch it!"

Iris almost couldn’t comprehend the absurdity of what was before her. This little girl had suddenly flown up into the air, tosses a massive fireball at her, and then told her to catch it. She stared for only a moment at the blazing orb hurtling towards her face. Iris leaped back, and her image distorted. One of her arms became sharp, and pointed one the end. The other started glowing and projected a circular barrier. She put up this barrier in front of the fire orb. She staggered at how much mana that had used. It was not much compared to her accumulated store of energy over thousands of years, but it was still a large amount, almost the whole of what she produced over the course of the day. The fire hit the barrier and she prayed to the gods that the shield wouldn’t break and she would be burnt to a sizzling relic crisp.

[Charlia]

"Play?" Mireille's eyes lit up, and she carefully, gently set the bear down before clapping in excitement. "Yay, I get a new toy! New friends, new toys, sweets, Mr. Bear... This is the bestest day ever," she sang, skipping forwards and stopping directly in front of Iris. She leaned forward, looking Iris over with wide, curious eyes, and then beamed. "So you're my new toy, huh? I'll try not to break you. Um, um, what should we play... Oh, I know! Let's play catch!"

And with that, she darted into the air, crystal wings glowing, and threw an enormous fireball at Iris.

"Catch it!"

Iris almost couldn’t comprehend the absurdity of what was before her. This little girl had suddenly flown up into the air, tosses a massive fireball at her, and then told her to catch it. She stared for only a moment at the blazing orb hurtling towards her face. Iris leaped back, and her image distorted. One of her arms became sharp, and pointed one the end. The other started glowing and projected a circular barrier. She put up this barrier in front of the fire orb. She staggered at how much mana that had used. It was not much compared to her accumulated store of energy over thousands of years, but it was still a large amount, almost the whole of what she produced over the course of the day. The fire hit the barrier and she prayed to the gods that the shield wouldn’t break and she would be burnt to a sizzling relic crisp.

Mireille's eyes narrowed, and she glared down at her newest toy.

"That's not catching," she growled, and her wings glowed a little brighter--several empty chairs and other items that weren't tied down--including several rather sharp-looking objects--lifting into the air, and flying towards Iris, with absolutely no restraint showed by Mireille.

"You're a bad toy," she said angrily. "I don't think I like you very much. You're no fun at all... Maybe I will just break you!"