The Paragon
The Imperian, Temp Camp
Whistles and calls echoed down the line as soon as the flare became visible. Only moments ago, the light had erupted from a structure within the complex. Iridanias and Wrath observed the flight of the phosphorescent red streak swerve drunkenly through the night sky before fizzling out with a dissatisfying hiss. Within moments, the front line broke out in to a rush of last minute preparations and orders. Before long, seventy outriders as well as a contingent of golems were rushing towards the castle. The remainder of the army was preparing for a larger-scale conflict and a slower march.
Iridanias appeared at the side of the general, placing a firm hand on his arm. Wrath finished fastening his bracers and regarded the dragon out of the corner of his eye. She scowled. "Act like a general, not a captain. You have thousands to command, not a handful of easily maneuverable troops." Wrath jerked his arm from her grasp and narrowed his eyes at Iridanias.
"What are you saying?" it was the dragon's turn to glare.
"Don't be an idiot, Liu-Wen." the bronzed woman took a step back, but maintained a threatening posture. "You have sent ahead mounted units, well-armed and numerous enough to seize a castle of that size, so extracting a small group will not be a problem. Wait. Here. Moving the rest of your forces now would be othing but a waste of energy and resources, and if this is some sort of ploy to back you up against the stone, you'll be walking right in to it." Iridanias' gaze softened and she wrapped Wrath's hands in her own, "Think of your people."
Too many things were rattling around the human's skull at the moment. Sid's safety. The rest of the Blackguard. What was going on in that blasted castle, why Nhil was out here in the first place. This was not the lot he was meant for. Strategy and intrigue were not the forte of the young fighter. He was impulsive and impatient, eager to tear at a tangible enemy instead of chasing after half-formed assumptions and clues. But he was the son of a most pensive leader of men, and that part of him bled through at this critical moment. Wrath relented, allowed his muscles to go lax and nodded to the dragon. She returned the gesture with a smile and began relaying orders to prepare for combat, but cease preparations for movement. The army would await the return of their emissaries.
The Civil
The Imperian, ????
"This it?"
I would imagine so, the elegant voice replied to her query with his usual tone of exasperation.
"Good," she said, ignoring the vexation of her partner. The halfling clanked with the metal and wood of dozens of charms, trinkets and what her mate would refer to as junk strewn about her clothing. She hoisted a rather large slab of rock with relative ease, almost falling back in surprise at the seemingly weightless mineral. The stone, almost the size of her torso, should have weighed at least as much as a human child. "Hmm..."
The male voice sighed. The owner of the voice, a sentient tome floating off to the left of the halfling, penned down several more lines of text and moved slightly closer to her. Rub it, general Duff.
"Oh! Capital idea, maybe an earth djinn will appear and tell us why Nhilly brought us to this gods-forsaken crater when the investigation obviously said that we should be looking for fields of clouded light. I mean, does this look like..." Miralight scraped away a layer of dirt and the rant died in her throat. The 'rock', when cleaned even the slightest bit, revealed a bright white crystal-like mineral beneath the filth. It glowed with a dull radiance that slowly brightened as the halfling cleared away more dirt. All around the impacted earth, other foragers of the Civil were gasping an crying out in shock as they unearthed similar finds. Beams of light from the exposed crystals began to cross the night sky in dim arcs. At the lip of the depression, Nhil oversaw the excavation with a retinue of retainers both living and undead. Miralight waved to the deep human excitedly and pointed at the luminescent artifacts.
Nhil smiled at his little love and began walking towards her, taking a long step in to the crater to join his soldiers in the squalor of grunt work. His retainers squawked in surprise and followed hastily behind, judging their reticence would cost them much more than a few dirty boots. Nhil spoke without addressing any of them in particular, his words cutting the air with the precision of cold steel.
"How many terramancers are battle-ready?" he asked. A small, mousy woman in mottled gray robes wrung her hands nervously and squeaked out a reply.
"Roughly a dozen, my king, but we can force the others-" Nhil cut her off witha wave of his hand.
"Save them." Nhil patted the shoulder of a young man that was extricating himself from a mud hole. The boy immediately forgot what he was doing and stared at his leader in marvel. Most men never got to see their leader up close, but to be praised by him was an honor among honors. Nhil continued on, leaving the boy dumbstruck and glanced at the rat-faced woman. "Rouse forty skeletons and the ogres. We will have the stones ready for transport by afternoon."
His words did not need repeating, and the majority of his living advisers scrambled to obey. The undead plodded silently along, their dull eyes taking in the scenes before them with passive interest. Nhil finally reached Miralight and crouched down beside the halfling, placing a light kiss upon her cheek. Miralight acknowledged him with a lopsided grin and a slight blush, but mostly focused on the snow-shaded crystal. Nhil smiled as well. "Having fun?"
"Of course! I've never seen anything like it, it radiates a completely different magical signature than anything we've ever encountered even before the dragons! I could have sworn it was divinely enchanted, given the nature of our quest, but it shows signs of not only arcane but primal magical fulcrum. It's almost as if it is constantly shifting the nexus of its power in order to keep from being analyzed too intently. Amazing, really, but-"
Nhil put a finger to her lips and pursed his own, staring in to the halfling's eyes. She loved it when he did that. Any other person trying to staunch her flow of words would have earned a transmogrified shirt that tried to strangle them, but Nhil was...special. Miralight knew he already knew what she was thinking, and let it slide. Instead, the halfling embraced Nhil. The scene of warmth posed a juxtaposition, a stark contrast to the trudging militant atmosphere. Thousands of living and undead soldiers milled about in the night, working and getting ready to bed down for the evening. Weapons bristled and magic flared as the multitudes of undead and necromancers worked through the darkness.
At length, Nhil arose, and Miralight followed him back to the black-velvet tent set up near the center of the encampment. Within, the interior was several times much larger than should have been possible. Arcane odds and ends jutted from bookshelves and masses of spellbooks and the like littered the floor. As Miralight began shedding her dirty clothing, Nhil moved to the corner of the room. A cage stood, tall and imposing, made of dark iron that somehow radiated gloom. Nhil was forced to step back as the occupant lashed out with a clawing swipe.
Nhil simply stared on in mute amusement was the midnight-skinned prisoner scrabbled for something, anything to hurt. He wondered silently if he would ever tire of watching her struggle. He decided it was unlikely. The figure within the cage eventually slumped against the bars, her meager energy spent. "That was close, milady. Maybe tomorrow will yield better results. Eh, general Ebon?"
The dark elf hissed some half-formed invective and struggled weakly to sit up. Diloxi Ebon was a wisp of her former glory. The darkling had been beaten and mutilated, ugly scars marring her neck, arms and torso. An ear was missing and one of her eyes shown with the milky white of blindness. Diloxi, who had once prided herself on her beauty, now looked down in an attempt to keep her damaged visage from the light.
"No, no, my general. Come now, you have work to do. Work for the Civil!" Nhil smiled warmly, but Diloxi felt as if every iota of heat had been rapidly drained from the room. The broken dark elf tried to curl up in upon herself. Nhil clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Now...where is the next path to The Gift?"
On the bed, Miralight sighed contentedly and curled up in the covers, awaiting her mate's return.
The Paragon
The Imperian, The Castle
"Here it is." Xeron knelt down and began prodding an innocuous skull on the ground. It was innocuous in the confines of the office because the room was already a charnel house, filled with waste, flesh, and broken bones. The darkling offered no explanation as to what he was doing to Neira. It became apparent almost immediately. The magic-dampening field around the castle began to rapidly degrade, eventually dying out entirely. Magic users would feel the sudden link to their powr like the surge of a broken dam. What came next took considerably more effort.
The energy was intoxicating. The force that animated the dead was anathema to the living, an entropy incarnate that craved life with undying urgency. Although what Kisikoni was channeling could not be considered mortal in the strictest sense, it was definitely alive, and that was what counted. Those undead cut down by the legionnaires, even those decapitated, continued to claw their way towards the morphed deep human. They moved with increasing speed and frantic need, trying to be the first to devour the unholy essence. From the walls, ceilings and floors the undead surged with renewed numbers.
Most of the tide simply surged on past Lily, Mercy, Torga and the rest in their mad rush to envelope Kisikoni. It was only when the energy ebbed in one swift release that the horde paused. Every undead in the castle simply stopped to glare at Kisikoni with their baleful regard, as if silently blaming him for their diminished feast. The nearest ghouls were close enough that they could have licked Koni. In another moment, the tide resumed and fell upon the defenders with sudden hunger.
They summarily fell apart as dust and bones in the following moments. In the room above, Xeron panted, watching the necromantic focus keeping the undead animated crumble in death.
The world grew silent in the absence of the fighting. That was, until the cracking and groaning of yielding masonry began. Jack flailed in surprise and looked to Torga. "Can you keep the roof off of us until we get outside?"
The question was moot. The sound of cries and horses just outside of the gateways was all the others needed to begin their mad rush towards the outside. The cavalry had finally arrived, and nobody wanted to linger any longer than they had to.
Salim, pulling Talae along with all due haste, was the first to reach the riders and mount up. Talae was given her own steed and Salim was forced to ride behind her. The southerner shrugged. "Not all bad, I suppose. So. Impressed with my bladework?"
The castle roared in protest and began to buckle inward as the collapse began in earnest.