The Children of Fire
The Tower of Nihalistrix the Black
The Tower of Nihalistrix the Black
The recruits were given the rest of the day and the night that followed to rest and recuperate as they chose. It was early the next morning when they were awakened, and dawn was only just painting her rosy hues across the sky.
Shasarra, who had been enjoying a nice roost, grumbled several unpleasant things when the sergeants came to rally the troops, and she found herself forming up into a semi-orderly queue with the majority of the other surviving hopefuls. They were shuffled out into the same hall that they’d fought in but the day before, only now it was pristine and without the slightest trace of the carnage that had taken place the day before. Captain Tao was leaning against one of the room’s many pillars, arms folded in his sleeves, and appeared to be asleep standing up, not that she was fooled.
The harpy found herself situated between a purple-skinned nightmarian woman and the dark elf from yesterday. She was ultimately a pragmatic soul, and so did her best to ignore the fact that they’d been trying to kill each other the day before, sparing him a nod before her attention was drawn forward.
A Thane was at the front of the room, though it was not the same elvish woman who’d done the speaking yesterday. This one was male, and human of all things from the look of it. There were flecks of gray dusting his already-light hair, and for this she suspected that he was somewhat into his middle years. Humans grew so slowly and died so quickly that it was hard to tell, though. There was something about him that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable, and she shifted her tawny wings with traces of unease. The man was flanked by seven of those red-robed magekin, all of varying shapes and sizes, but none looked anywhere but at the Thane himself, and his attention was focused solely on Aesr, who had taken up a spot on the dais where her mother had resided the day before.
Vortigern thought she looked kind of silly like that, as the platform had clearly been made for a creature of a different size, but of course he wasn’t going to say such a thing out loud. Fearless berserker or not, there was only so far he was willing to go. Fortunately, his caution did not extend to the sadistic witch-doctor beside him, and he shot her a friendly grin, a bit wild due to the fact that one of his eyeteeth was chipped, not really mindful of the vehemence of whatever response she should choose to give. When he wasn’t busy hacking into things with horrendous ease, he was quite the mellow sort, after all.
“What d’ya reckon? Summat in me bones tells me this’ll be magic, but I kinnae say I know much about it.” He was asking her, of course, as she seemed to be the only magical sort without her mouth sewn shut. His brain put two and two together, and he grimaced slightly. Hopefully that was a volunteer thing; it seemed rather gratuitous otherwise.
Maratharn, the present Thane, cleared his throat, and allowed silence to descend upon the room before he turned to the Captain. Seeing that the man’s eyes were closed and posture relaxed, he scowled and coughed again, less discreetly. When that didn’t work, either, he huffed impatiently, and gestured to one of the Silenced, who nodded and lit a small flame, sending it flying toward the errant officer without a word of warning.
The captain’s eyes snapped open, and for a second, there was an expression of startlingly-clear anger on his face, before it clouded over into his usual haze and he mildly sidestepped, gesturing to the troops to follow him and approach the dais as though nothing had just happened. The flame guttered out on the stone of the pillar, leaving the gray stone blackened. The group moved forward until they stood before Aesr, who appeared to be inspecting them with an air of appraisal before nodding to herelf. Upon closer examination, it would now be evident to all those present that she stood before a raised stone pillar about the height of a man, upon which rested an enormous earthen bowl.
The Silenced fanned out until they, Aesr, Feng, and Maratharn formed a rough circle around the recruits. Aesr was in front, the captain to the left right angle and the Thane to the right. As one, all removed some form of pointed object from their clothing or immediate surroundings, save the dragonling. Not one broke the moratorium on sound, not even when they collectively raised the blades to their wrists and made a ritual incision, allowing the universally-red liquid to drip with the barest of whispers to the stone below.
The seven were not idle, however, and each was working the same spell: the initiation. The liquid pooling on the floor resolved itself into a perfect circle by a collective effort of their wills, and flared with some unholy internal light before bursting into flame, impossible as it seemed. The licking tongues of fire seemed to signal something, for at last Aesr herself moved, raising her foreleg to her own great jaws and biting down. It would seem that dragons bled black, as the ichor that dripped into the bowl was devoid of any color whatsoever. Reacting with whatever ingredients had been placed in the receptacle beforehand, it took on an eerie green hue and a faint radiance, throwing her scaly visage into sharp relief.
“Drink of it, and understand our strength.” She said simply, and then silence fell once more.
One by one, they did as she ordered, and the effects were immediate. There was an internal shift in the very constitution of their being, as though some new connection existed, an internal pull in the direction if Aesr, and through her, Nihalistrix. So, too, was there some inward understanding of camaraderie, as though each were not quite his or her own anymore. Indeed, the connection wound through them all, channeled through Feng and Maratharn and Aesr all the way to the Lord herself. Nothing more than a tickle in the back of the mind, but recognizable as foreign all the same. With it came what felt much like a surge of adrenaline, and the unwary would soon find that the same muscular efforts produced much more force now than they had before. An errant sweep of Shasarra’s wing knocked a nearby orc to the ground, and his feet actually left the ground as he pushed himself back upward, the look of surprise on both faces almost comical.
Gradually, a hum of voices overtook the room, and all but Feng and the recruits left it as silently as they had come. For his part, the captain watched his troops, something akin to pity crossing his face, though he doubted that any of them were paying enough attention to notice. Right now, they would be discovering that their physical strength had almost doubled, and it would be a difficult adjustment to make. He’d wait for it to sink in before he did his job and gave them the resources they needed to deal with it. Luckily, none of them would yet be able to breathe fire, else he really would have some work on his hands.
The Paragon
Talos City Square
Talos City Square
Talae Shanir approached the Paragon encampment, insofar as it could be called such a thing, feeling strangely out-of-place under the oppressive sun. Her detachment was not one of those known for their affinity for those places in which they could be seen, being more inclined to the dark and dank corners of the world. Still, even for them, travelling by night was not always an option.
It scarcely seemed like she’d bathed that morning anymore, what with the heat seeping into her skin. She glared up at the offending celestial body as though that would convince it to let up, but in the end simply snorted derisively. If she did that for too long, she’d end up as blind as-
“Fak’ir.” The word was intoned softly, but with an unmistakable air of command. The man in question, a curiously dark-skinned halfling with white-blond hair, straightened immediately despite the oppressive heat.
“Yes, Captain Shanir?” The lieutenant inquired sharply.
“Make our report to the general. The rest of you, be at ease. Rest for now, and try to stay out of the sun if at all possible. I’ll resupply and then go retrieve our orders.” There were precious few opportunities for her platoon to rest, experienced as they were at going those places an entire army could not. A palpable collective sigh of relief ran through the soldiers, and she smiled slightly to herself. They worked impossibly hard sometimes; it was no stretch to say that they deserved a break.
It seemed as though she were not the only ranking officer inclined to make a trip into town at this point; she spotted quite a few people she knew making much the same route. Glancing up at the sky she was unsurprised to see a large golem, far enough aloft to be mistaken for a bird by anyone without sufficient experience. That would be Lily, doubtless.
The dark elf’s eyes dropped earthwards and leveled out in front of her, mapping the most likely course to her destination. She’d prefer to make this quick, so as to arrive back in enough time to… a retreating figure caught her attention, and Talae immediately moved without really bothering to consider it, drawing up next to perhaps the most familiar face of them all. “Supply run, Koni?” she asked flatly, casually. Of course, that was far from the question she really wanted to ask, but that answer was something he had to decide to give. It ate at her, that she had no idea what happened to him when he fought, moreso now that she was no longer around to watch his back should the repercussions prove too much to handle at some point.
Neira sifted through the goods on the weapons cart with distaste, taking inventory as she went. As a rule, she disliked weapons made of wood and steel, and personally never used them. The same could not be said of all the members of her division, however, and she acknowledged that it was better to give them exactly what they needed to be as efficient as possible at killing things. To this end, she had developed a rather discerning eye, and was entrusted with the funds required to restock the Paragon from local smiths. They were short on maces, it seemed, and bows, mostly. Swords were always around, though they might need a few more of the two-handed kind… it was also useful that she was capable of carrying all these things at once.
Someone else was rummaging around, and she spared a sideways glance, only to see the orc that had completely ignored her three days before. She sneered without bothering to hide it, but decided it didn’t really matter and dropped the expression. “What are you looking for?” she asked, though her tone admittedly contained a bite that a neutral question would not have. “If it’s something too special, we probably don’t have it, but I am making a trip into town shortly, so if you have a request, I will hear it.” No other promises, of course. The nightmarian woman promptly went back to what she was doing, as she really didn’t care whether he answered or not, chitin-encased hands picking swords up by the blade without noticeable reaction, sorting them into more distinct piles by type. Few people bothered, but it made playing at quartermaster a bit easier.