Pylarea's Story

This day looked to be shaping up terribly. Pylarea was still rather disoriented as the odd-mannered human came meandering along before the group. They were a heterogeneous lot to say the least, there not being much similarity between any two of them besides species maybe, but the one thing that tied them together right now was a willingness to join the Children of Fire, well that and sleepiness. The Nightmarian had considered it somewhat rude for them to be roused up at such a dismally early time in the morning as they had been, but she had to keep remembering this was not Ecclavaria and as such strangers to Nightmarian society were unaccustomed to certain...niceties as she herself was. Not that the past few weeks had not been a major eye-opener for the sheltered woman, after all life outside Umbridge was nothing like she would have imagined, but at the same time she was terrified and appalled she also felt elated and fascinated at what this world had to offer. Why did it have to be so early though?

Oh dear! The poor thing had dozed off on accident, or near enough to be startled when a burly fellow roughly brushed passed her, nearly knocking the poor moth off of her feet had she not taken a quick step in the process! The next thing she knew everyone was trotting off rather quickly, but why? Those rude fellows earlier had not been very clear earlier as to why they should get up, just hurry up, don’t ask questions, and be quick about it! Did no one teach proper mannerisms outside of civilized Nigthmarian society? Too late now though, and she was already starting to fall behind. Why were they running so fast? Were they late? Apparently she was not the only curious fellow amongst the pack oh she never heard anyone complain aloud, but she could hear their thoughts, most of them were as tired as she was, and just as confused. Hopefully they would quit running soon because she was not sure how long she could keep up at this pace. Was that man from earlier a machine or just insane?
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The jog, what was she talking about, the dead-paced sprint seemed to last an eternity, despite her fortitude as a Nightmarian of an Upper Class Pylarea was uncertain whether she could manage this pace much longer, but it’s not like she did much running about in Ecclavaria, so there’s that factor to consider… What did keep her going were two things in particular the enormous white spire, and everyone else’s thoughts. She knew when they reached the tower itself that their initiation ritual would begin, sometime at least, and she could finally consider herself a Child of Fire, Breaker of Bonds, and Saviour to the Races! A wet, filthy, and exhausted Child of Fire that is… She was, simply put, in an awful state of being for the moment, and…My skirt! It was dreadful! Her precious skirt, the new one she had finished knitting just two days ago, was splattered with mud and torn down the side! She could never mend this with the little bit of hair she had left, it had taken quite a bit just to finish the skirt and two days did not allow for much to grow back.

Oh no, not again! Why was she always drifting off to la-la land whenever someone decided to speak and tell them to go somewhere? Maybe it was the years of merely acquiescing to whatever may be asked no matter what it could be that had engrained this kind of attitude in her psyche, or even…Before that though could go any farther a heavy hand shoved her towards smaller room where everyone was…taking off their clothes! What was going on here?!?! Oh wait…there were initiates robes and weapons waiting for them. That was when she decided to tune in on the thought wave again. Yes, de-robe, leave everything you owned there, re-robe, and pick up a weapon of some kind. Weapons, wait what kind of initiation was this? It was definitely time for her to pay attention, especially since she was not all the well-trained, well actually not trained at all, with any kind of weapon…whatsoever. Hey there was that funny-acting human again!

“I am Captain Feng Tao. If you survive, you will be initiates of the Aesr. Units are named for… hatchlings. Leave all of your old things here. If you have need of it, it will be replaced. Initiates are not permitted the prejudices, stigmas, and remnants of what they were before.”

After making his spiel the man, no Captain Tao, proceeded to lead their small group out of the room for some ways. For a human he was not all that ugly, and despite the rumours she had heard concerning the race she was not completely disgusted by his appearance. Had he not said that they were not allowed the prejudices and stigmas from their past? See things were already looking better for her life outside of Ecclavaria! That was until she noticed her group had come to a stop in the midst of an arena with three other robe-clad initiates carrying…Oh dear me, why did I have to do this today of all days?…weapons, of which she had forgotten to grab one of her own. This day looked to be shaping up terribly. There was that woman from earlier with Nihalistrix, she had been near enough oblivious to the duo, a rather difficult feat for anyone to do with a dragon lord in their midst, much less someone who had never really seen a dragon before.

“Initiates: there are those among you who will form a unit beneath the honourable Aesr. Two hundred of you stand before me. Fifty of you will leave this arena alive. Attempting to escape is… inadvisable. Captain Tao will remain in the arena with you, but attacking him is also inadvisable, unless you wish for your own death. If at any time he approaches you, do as he says. Now. Begin.”

(Kuro)At the final word, the barred gates on either end of the arena cranked open, and at first there was naught but a chilling silence in their wake. Then, the shuffling and howls began, and it was not long before the gnolls were pouring into the space. Once a civilized, lupine race of Norr, these had clearly been driven from their minds, reverting to something more animal than humanoid. They did not hesitate, ripping at once into the nearest initiates with extreme prejudice, and in short order, the fresh earth was drenched in blood. (Kuro)

Luckily Pylarea had somehow shuffled more into the centre of the group, away from the immediate danger of being slaughtered by gnoll, at least until the group split up, and she was in a much more conspicuous and much less benign locale. What was she supposed to do? She had never needed to fight before, and this seemed like a little too much to just join some silly little army! She couldn’t just sit down and cry though, even though she wanted to do so badly, there had to be…wait Pylarea’s wings began to flutter with a rapidity she had never mustered before, hopefully this would work, she had never tried it on vicious animals though. As the dust from her wings began to disseminate throughout the area surrounding the group around herself she began to chirp loudly while the amethyst cores of her antennae. The particles in the air began to form, more or less, a ring around the individuals with whom she had entered the arena and the colour began to alter to that of the walls surrounding them. Hopefully the beasts outside of her perimeter would be a little too preoccupied and stupid to notice this little parlour trick, hopefully giving the other initiates some time to handle their assailants inside first.

This did nothing to alleviate her weapon-less situation though, and the grim-reality surrounding her had a very detrimental affect upon her. Fellow initiates were still dying, and very quickly she had noticed, but despite the negative connotations involved with such an experience it did denote one thing, there were free weapons lying about. A relatively close short-spear had peaked her interest, but the Nightmarian had forgotten to realize that dead creatures and loose weapons nearby might mean unfriendly, and living, creatures just as close. As the moth-humanoid bent over swiftly to grab the weapon she heard a fierce flurry of paws claw towards her. When she looked up a gnoll, with bloody gristle in its teeth, was rushing towards her, and as it came within five-paces it leapt.

As the slavering gnoll advanced the Nightmarian moth could think of nothing but, “This is it…” She sat there, petrified, as non-respondent limbs clutched desperately to the short spear in her miniscule hands. The beast was going to slay her, and there was nothing she could do about it, she was useless, what good was she if she was to fall in the first half-hour of battle? While all of these thoughts flickered through Pylarea’s mind, faster than she could even comprehend them, she closed her eyes. Not just closed, but she squinted them as if a vice clasped their lids, and she awaited her impending doom. The end had come, and this never would have happened in the safety of Ecclavaria, the great hive city, home…

Death rattles and shrieks to equal that of a banshee filled the arena, the sounds echoing off the walls to create a veritable cacophony of doom and despair. It became so difficult to distinguish which sounds belonged to whom. Whether it was the vicious, bestial gnolls glorying in their massacre, other poor initiates who were eviscerated and soon to become chow, or the more fortunate who had yet to fall victim to this cruel charade of a test. The tiny insectoid did not even notice the yelp of her assailant, slain by some quasi-righteous Drow warrior, a giant compared to her diminutive frame, who bodily lifted Pylarea to place on her feet.

"Be more careful."

Just as quickly as he had appeared the massive being rushed off to combat some other foe, but with whom or what Pylarea was uncertain for his powerful words had left her speechless. Such a perilous situation in which she had placed herself was summarized in three little words. The actions of her fellow initiates seemed to make complete sense now, such as the human who had been dressed in that tin can earlier standing back-to-back with an elf warrior, the duo making short work of individuals and small groups of the savage gnolls, and even managing to keep a pack of five at bay. There were harpies soaring above the melee below, plucking unfortunate targets here and there while spell-casters lobbed damage from a distance. Everyone seemed to understand what they needed to do to survive, and those who didn’t…well didn’t.

This epiphany triggered some random memories from the recesses of the Nightmarian’s mind, leading to ideas and assumptions over what she could do. For years she had practised moving objects with her powers, sometimes even throwing them with a vengeance when having a tantrum, halting servants in their steps and holding them captive to her mind, and even doing simple things like snapping her bread without even lifting a finger. If she was capable of accomplishing such feats with unconscious ease, then how much harder could it be to apply such principles to a fight? All of this took only an instant for Pylarea to digest, and it was time to get busy.

Okay, here we go!

She was Pylarea, a moth born to the illustrious Kal’Tizzmet Brood, and she was definitely not going to die like this. It seemed a nearby gnoll, who had just finished hacking off a fellow initiates head with a rudimentary knife made of bone, had somehow taken noticed and understood the change in her demeanour, and begged to differ from her new opinion. The sight nearly made her gag, but the fury with which is instilled in her being conquered and repressed the detrimental feeling. Using this anger as a launching point, she concentrated the rage as a blacksmith would a blazing inferno to craft remarkable weapons, but this weapon was not made of steel.

The amethyst cores of the moth’s antennae began to glow furiously, and the startled screams of the gnoll resounded gleefully in Pylarea’s ears, the creature’s left limb had snapped in three locations, forcing the beast to drop the head. As much as she enjoyed the sound of the beast it would attract too much attention, and her gaze focused upon the beast’s weapon, without any abilities to overcome the powerful psionics directed towards it the gnoll’s eyes dizzyingly rolled in fright as the weapon slashed towards its throat, opening a river of blood from ear to ear. Its body went limp with a rapidity that was near sickening, and crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll dropped like a child seeing a brand new toy.

This smile planted across the Nightmarian’s face was a terrifying sight to behold, it conveyed a feeling of both amusement and disappointment that such things would be so easy, but then again she was of a noble Brood. Her senses tingled as another of the beasts tried to assail the miniscule target from behind, and had it not been completely ravenous it might have known of a Nightmarian’s innate tremor sense and could have succeeded in the simple trick. It was not though, and much to its dismay the creature found itself frozen in mid-air, a prime target for a lucky harpy to scoop up and toss back to the ground.

Despite the glee which Pylarea derived from this gruesome sport it was short-lived as a powerful force whisked her away through a large doorway into a cavernous hallway to set her down amidst another group of initiates. Oddly enough there were several such groups being formed and joined throughout the corridor until roughly over one-hundred of the initiates remained. They all seemed somewhat dazed by the event, and unfortunately the adrenaline coursing through the moth’s veins began to wane. The previous wave of sickness washed over the poor woman, and she found it impossible to prevent the bile to rise and exit her body. Luckily the discharge did not land on her or any of the initiates nearby, yet several did seem disgusted by the act and cautiously moved away from her.

“Open-field combat is one thing, but our enemies are many, their tactics varied, and you will not always have the luxury of direct confrontation. Nor will it always be clear to you what the enemy’s true objective might be. Here, you will be divided into groups, and your opponents will be each other.”

The announcement had mixed effects upon the remaining initiates, startling some while others seemed nonplussed. Pylarea nearly felt like crying from frustration, why was any of this necessary? How many more of them must die to prove their worth? It seemed these questions were of little import to the Children, and all she could do was acquiesce to their requests. The prices one pays for freedom.

“Memorize the faces of your comrades. They may be the only things that keep you alive. Also, as is only fitting, if any one of you kills the captain, you have his place in the ranks.”
Captain Tao seemed nonplussed at the announcement, but that did not seem altogether implausible considering his composure earlier in the morning, during their bout with the gnolls, and now. She heeded the female’s words, the same woman who had done much of the speaking since they arrived at the spire. One of the Drow, the filth who had sacrificed one of the other initiates originally, began spouting off about trust and marking themselves. He did make a point on the marks, but the trust she was not quite sure about, unfortunately they did not have much choice in the matter for the moment. The still somewhat sickly moth stood up from her half-seated, half-prostrated position and spoke up loud enough for the rest to hear her words.

“Uhm…I think I can help with markings…just wait a second.”

The previous efforts with her psionic abilities had drained the moth of much needed energy, something that their stroll this morning had not helped, but she could still manage to use them for a little while longer, if she conserved her energy that was. The shy Nightmarian let her robe slide down over the sides of her shoulders, letting in down so her wings could emerge completely and flap freely, but still being careful to conceal certain areas of her form. Her wings began to flutter slowly while her antennae yet again began to glow brightly. The air around the particles was gently caressed into moving the now orange-colored dust towards her new comrades, attaching itself to all of their robes and dying the white cloth.

It was of a hue very dissimilar to the dust of the arena or glow of the light in the hallway, so mistaking it for anything else would only be possible for the color-blind, or those who simply did not care. The effort needed to manufacture this marking had taxed Pylarea more heavily than she had assumed it would, and her form began swaying slightly from dizziness. If it had not been for the tin can human standing nearby to whom she was able to place out a hand to steady herself she would have collapsed, after a moment the wave of exhaustion passed and the moth was able to regain her composure. Her quick, gentle hands quickly replaced the robe back around her weary form.

“I’m sorry about that sir… Hopefully that will help with what is to come…”

The carnage around the near terror-stricken Nightmarian had been raging for quite a long time, hours it seemed, but maybe it had only been minutes, anyways it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to keep track of the time as fatigue gripped her only half-trained body and mind. Her groups’ markings had mixed effects in this bloody melee, at times it seemed the worst decision she could have made since it brought undue attention upon them, but it also allowed for them to tighten their company and form something akin to a bubble of resistance. Luckily she managed to find herself placed in the very middle of this section, yet even so they were not so tight-knit as to have formed an effective pocket, they still needed room to swing weaponry or move, and with those two factors there was still plenty of space for opponents to mill about.

The world around them was bursting with emotions, both latent and overt, as her natural psionicism began honing in on the environment surrounding her, a whooshing of air from behind rapidly grew louder as a harpy began dive-bombing towards Pylarea. A friendly arrow sent her assailant asunder as it threw the creature off-balance, and a somewhat familiar voice called out in warning. "Get to ground! You make an easy target, butterfly!" Once again the large…was he a dark elf? The two were hard for her distinguish because of her unfamiliarity with the two species, but whatever he was this was the second time he had saved her during a near-death experience.

A behemoth of an elf of their nearby had just become very un-busy as opponents envisioning his slaughter of their comrades backed off very quickly, even she wanted to scramble away from the man, but a strange feeling of joviality and warmth stemmed from his mind as he offered some free advice. “Might wanna use yourself some o’ that steel, lass,” he mentioned with a wink, nudging his toe under the handle of a nearby mace. “Even if you have some o’ the fancy mind-magic, can’ get too distracted, yeah?” Ironically enough though he flipped the same mace into the air to begin using it to bludgeon some rather unintelligent initiates who had thought to get the best of him, was that supposed to be some kind of joke?

Her comrade had a point though. She could really only focus on one opponent at a time, and with the danger of her thoughts becoming as haywire as before when she had forgotten to even grab a weapon from the selection something serious needed to be done, and fast. There was a vast selection of weaponry from which to choose, and it was growing by the minute thanks to the rapidity with which some fellow initiates decided to die, but what should she choose? The axes seemed much too bulky and awkward to be of much use, she did not have any knowledge of how to use bows, and maces just seemed so…filthy! Swords it was then…wait a minute… what was that?

Pylarea began scrambling towards a fallen human-like female with a strange object clasped around her forearm, she might have overlooked the instrument seeing as she had fallen face-down and nearly concealed the entirety of the weapon, but the glint of long a long strand of metal protruding near her thigh made the moth curious. Turning the woman over, not as difficult as she had thought since she was just a little smaller than the Nightmarian herself, the item’s entirety was revealed to her. It was a vambrace of some sort, but with a peculiar set of attachments stemming from the up-side wrist area, which were three long, flexible, metallic whips approximately six foot in length. If a woman of smaller stature than herself had been able to utilize the weapon then so should she, then again the woman was dead now…

After quickly stripping the girl of her possession and readjusting the item to fit her forearm the moth finally stood up prepared for battle! Why was nobody trying to kill her though? Honestly since the harpy had been near-enough to harpooned out of the air by her twice-now savior not many had made an attempt upon her oh so fragile life. Maybe it was because of the fact that every time she was in danger so heroic figure swooped in to save her? More like it was because she seemed to be in close proximity to the biggest and meanest looking of fighters who looked as if they enjoyed nothing better than massacring countless foolish individuals who thought they could make a name for themselves by defeating such daunting foes. Obviously they were fools because the mass of bodies piling up around them could point to no other conclusion to the Nightmarian.

It seemed there was nothing she could do now but wait for someone to want and kill her for whatever reason they may have, whether that be out of curiosity, blood-lust, or simple boredom it did not really make that much of a difference when you thought about it. All you could do when someone tried to stick you with a pointy stick, or beat you senseless with a blunt one, was doing the same back to them! In retrospect she much preferred this new kind of life to that of her old one…she never could have done the same the countless times the breeders had perpetrated such acts on her in the past.

An idea crept into the front most part of Pylarea’s mind as someone finally decided to try her skills. It was a Halfling female who seemed to have taken a disliking to the very large men surrounding the Nightmarian for some reason and wanted to do away with what seemed the easier target. Of course her opponent only thought she was sneaking up on the moth, so it seemed she had few prior dealings with the Nightmarian race or she would know it best to just attack them head on. As the little woman crept within just three feet of her intended victim Pylarea’s antennae began glowing brilliantly, and luckily this particular task did not require much effort to use effectively.

Two of the vicious metallic, whips darted from around the right side of her body to wrap themselves around and up her would-be assailant’s legs and knees, the blades biting deep into the soft flesh of her calves. A wicked smile spread across the Nightmarian’s face as the third whipped itself across her throat, opening up a gaping hole that allowed her precious life force to gush out quickly. Another quick thought sent the now limp body flying lifelessly into a fellow Nightmarian who was busy assaulting the Tin Can Man she had used as support earlier. The least she could do to apologize was by helping him with the task at hand. The wickedness of her smile faded into mere congenialty and beaming pride when the man was able to safely chance a glance in her direction.

Today was definitely a much better one than it had seemed previously…

Tugging at the packaging, he allowed the salted fish to be hauled away by men with stronger arms than himself. Kisikoni knew that the fish would spoil soon, but it they still had enough time to consume it before moving on to the more well-preserved rations that the Paragon had. It would bolster their resources temporarily, and salted fish wasn't the worst thing to eat- especially if it was a change from vension or hard bread. Checking the back of the storage room, his sharp eyes swept the dark shelves and found nothing more that could be salvaged. The spirits, as requested by Mercy had all been taken earlier- though by the looks of it Kisikoni estimated about a quarter had gone bad from poor preservation. Nobody liked the taste of bad champagne. Grinning slightly, Kisikoni entertained himself with the thought of becoming a chef when this was all over- due to the many years on the road and away from a home he became quite knowledgeable on what spices made a food taste good (because eating the same broiled meats would have driven him nuts) and how to preserve them well.

Reality was not quite as generous, however. The end was still a long way to go, and though the war may end some day, for better or worse, he still had his own inner demons to worry about. Closing the door, he took a paintbrush and slopped a big, red "X" on the rotted, wooden door to indicate that it had been cleared out. Moving out into the courtyard, he saw that there were still a multitude of supplies left to move around. At this rate, they could be finished before-

"Pack up and be ready to leave. We march for Talos City in six hours!"

Yep. Enough time before they moved out. Talos city was their destination, but Kisikoni was quite sure he had heard it somewhere outside of the books. Where, he could not remember. However, he did read an amusing epic recommended by Alistair about a human named Talos that became a god through his great deeds across a fictional continents. He also did remember the elves being very petty about it. Sadly, the author, Beth Es'da had yet to finish the epic as detailed to him by the androgynous harpie. He would have to seek it out when he had the time.

He looked over, tilting his head slightly to get a crick in his neck and noticed the white-haired elf that stood idly with some sort of mount. Was it a mount? He wasn't too sure, but the thing didn't look too friendly. He remembered him from recruiting, as very few people in general had shock-white hair. Beelzes did, but it was because of all the magical stress during the Siege of Herrick.

"Hey, Private Thalion! Get over here and help me with these bags, boy!" He said, mustering up the most mature and booming voice he could. He pointed at the pile of supplies and the wagons in succession.

---

Mercy returned a smile in kind. As often as she gave smiles, this one in particular was warm. It felt almost foreign on her face, as one so accustomed to lewd notions and drunken grins. Speaking of drinks, once again Wrath decided to comment on her habit of consuming half the spirits in stock within a single night again. She rolled her eyes, running a hand through her hair. "The soldiers don't taste half as good." She replied, waving away that notion. Both she and Wrath knew that she lead her own soldiers well enough, though they lacked the steely discipline that Lilly recently began to command from her troops. They were comfortable (mostly) with her, and she was very comfortable with them, and that was how it should be.

Even as she followed the General as he began his slow walk, he turned back and noted that it was growing again. Mercy shrugged slightly. It wasn't like Nightmarian-Human crossbreeding was normal, but it wasn't rare. Chitinous plates were an unfortunate by-product of the event, but she wasn't exactly too stressed about it. Like any mother would have, she did worry at first- but even after extensive research that she did while traveling to meet up with Wrath's legion, she found not a shred about it, or any implications it had. So, she decided to worry about it when the time came, as there was no point in babying him because of it. He wouldn't like it very much either. He did seem to be rather concerned about it, and it looked so cute.

It was very hard to resist cuddling him like a stuffed animal.

She followed him, eventually coming upon the disguised Red: Iridanias. Mercy was impressed with her morphing ability, which would have been more than useful for herself in many occasions. However, unlike Wrath she didn't seem to care much about her amazing figure. Mainly because Mercy simply thought she looked better, and that she wasn't homosexual. She was still slightly annoyed by her comments, despite how true they were.

"Apologies, but do I detect yearning? I have heard unsettling comedies- er, tales about dragons in heat." She commented snidely. Whether Iridanias would respond to that or not, she still settled back and listened to the report intently. As Wrath queried the Big Red's intentions with the Imperian, her voluminous red eyes sharpened considerably at the Red's remark. For a brief moment, she wondered what dragon's blood tasted like. It was an interesting thought, though she suspected it would be many times hotter than that of Children's blood. She never did handle spicy food well. She calmed herself down. Trying to avoid staring daggers into the dragon's eyes.

---

Safir did not have time to react as his elfish comrade was easily beaten by a martial-artist who used nothing but a set of knuckles and his limbs. Dresinil fell, unconscious just as Safir was busy tangling with the Nightmarian, which was, in all cases, bad. However, he had a nightmarian of his own backing him up- the Moth from earlier that had so helpfully doused him and his team with orange spores. He was almost hopeful, if it weren't for the fact that she was busy as well, fighting a halfling that was smart enough to use the weaknesses of Pylarea's weapon of choice. Grunting, he managed to throw the Nightmarian that battered uselessly against his shield off for a precious moment.

"An eye for an eye!" Safir bellowed, feinting an attack on the Pugilist and twisting around the moth-girl, attempting to distract Yulni by throwing a fearsome haymaker that threatened to pummel the lone halfling if she did not dodge. However, in that moment Gatan realized his folly, redoubling his efforts along with the Nightmarian- who raised his sword-dagger combination. Safir snarled, glaring at the both of them as he readied his dented shield. A shame, the one his mother enchanted would never have bent so easily.

Gatan rushed in first, attempting to dance around his shield. However, unlike Dresinil, Safir was more level-headed and defensive compared to the elf's raging offense. Though the fist-fighter was quick, his eyes were quicker and he quickly pivoted, swinging the sword around to where his shield would have been. However, Gatan easily rolled under it- allowed the Nightmarian to jump on his exposed back. Safir had not forgotten about the ant-like warrior, as he twisted again to bring the shield up and bash his armored arms. The dagger flew from his hand, but the Nightmarian had more than his sword to fight with. Hissing, the bug grabbed the shield reflexively, rooting Safir to the spot. Roaring, the knight tried to hoist the shield away from the Nightmarian, but failed to push away before Gatan could recover and dash back, landing two crushing blows to Safir's side and face. The shock caused Safir to cough, clearing his mouth of what liquid there was. He recovered quickly, because unlike Dresinil, his body was trained to ignore blunt trauma- Knight armor had the ability to block cuts and scrapes, it could not protect somebody from blunt force, which was why Safir had been conditioned to deal with it as best he could. Retaliating with a sword swing, The pugilist easily dodged it, but Safir used the Nightmarian as a pillar of balance and launched a leg sweep that caught the Pugilist off-guard, full in the face.

Grinning slightly, Safir watched him roll across the ground completely stunned before bashing at the Nightmarian's fingers that gripped the shield. The trick to dealing with the martial artists was to catch them off guard. Whether it be kicking dust into their eyes, going for a drop-kick, or biting his hands as he tries to grapple you. He managed to force the Nightmarian to let go of his shield, before proceeding to take quick jabs at him from behind the cover of his shield. The nightmarian was forced on the defensive, but even as Safir thought things were going well, He felt a hostile presence and realized that his leg sweep was a lot less paralyzing than he hoped. Forming a chokehold on him, Gatan proceeded to throw the Knight off balance, while landing as many blows as he could on his exposed back. They hurt, pretty badly. Roaring, he raised his shield arm to throw the Pugilist off him but a cutting voice told them to cease.

Just like that, the test was over. Children garbed in red cossacks began to pour into the battlefield, tending to the injured. Safir looked at the Nightmarian, who shrugged and sheathed his weapons. He then turned to the pugilist, who promptly hopped off his back and began shaking himself off. "Nice sweep." the fist-fighter admitted grudgingly. Safir grinned at him.

"Not so bad yourself, martial artist." He replied in kind, before searching for the unconscious Dresinil. He found him being tended to by the children, though still unconscious. He shrugged. At least that meant he was still alive. He took a look around, hoping Pylarea had survived her fight in with the Halfling- it would have been a damned shame if his brief distraction didn't help in the slightest.

The few moments of glee Pylarea had derived from her quick victory over the Halfling woman proved short-lived indeed as a vicious jab of reality was soon flying in her direction, literally. A dagger had been flung from the capable hands of yet another Halfling woman who was even then barreling her way towards the wounded Moth. There seemed to be no end to these vicious little creatures, maybe it was because of their diminutive stature no one really considered them a threat, whatever the case their assumptions were wrong. These fiends were despicable, daring, and dangerous.

Pylarea was given barely enough time to even utter a shout of pain as the impish woman plowed into the near incapacitated Nightmarian, kicking her forcefully to the ground in the process and using the momentum to continually beat her with open fists. Luckily the weapon she had been carrying previously was planted firmly in the moth’s thigh, or she would be in immediate danger, not that having a child-like devil pounding on your head was good by any stretch of the imagination, but with her natural defenses the blows did not hurt as much.

Unfortunately the beast caught wind of this fact and started desperately fumbling for any vantage her body might give her; all the soft spots were up for grabs. Pylarea tried desperately to utilize the weapon clasped upon her wrist, but the fiend was too close and she too disoriented by the furious barrage. All she could try and do right now was fending off the little cretin off and try to dislodge her from the seat upon her own chest. A shifting of the weight on her torso gave rise to instinctual motions as the moth took the split-second chance to toss the imp off of her chest and take the upper-hand position. Of what could have distracted the woman for that moment Pylarea was uncertain, but she was definitely sure that she had the advantage now.

She was both larger than the Halfling and much more powerful, to her surprise. It had always been taught to them that Nightmarians were superior beings, but she could never have assumed it would be so blatantly obvious. Pylarea wrestled vehemently with the woman until she managed to trap both of the Halfling’s wrists beneath one of her hands, no easy chore yet expedited thanks to the other species’ smaller build, and was trying desperately to use her other to pummel the fiend. It proved much harder to land a blow than the moth had anticipated as the imp kept wriggling like a maggot whilst thrashing her feet about, kicking the Nightmarian’s backside with her tiny feet.

“Cease.”

The momentous shockwave emanating from the order was not voluminous in origin, but tonal. The mere sound of the word itself carried all the weight necessary to force the combat to an end, right there and right now, and Pylarea’s struggle was no exception to this phenomenon. Immediately she had loosened her grip upon the struggling Halfling, who herself had ceased her resistance and seemed similarly awestruck, but the paralytic effects quickly wore off as the woman forced herself out from under the moth.

“Get off me you fat cow!” She quickly withdrew the dagger from Pylarea’s thigh as she sped off about her own business.

It seemed the Halfling had not taken any wounds during the last two conflicts, or if she did they did not phase her in the slightest, but the Nightmarian was now bleeding profusely upon the stone floor beneath her. That is she was until a Child adorned in red robes stopped before her to administer healing magic to the wound. After mere moments the bursting flow had ceased and the gaping hole had sealed itself. She wanted to thank whoever it was that had just healed her, but when looking up to meet their eyes she was horrified at the sight placed before her. The man’s lips had been sealed shut.

Some words were spoken and initiates began filing up and leaving the battleground to file through a doorway off to their right which had just recently been opened. There was word of food, bathing, and rest for the lot of them should they so desire any or all of the amenities listed, and the mere thought of all filled Pylarea with intense feelings of relief and joy. What to do first though, for certainly each comfort had its own advantages. Warm, soothing waters for a bath would more than likely relax every muscle in her body and force the moth’s status into that of sleep, but no matter how much she desired the pursuit she needed sustenance first.

Looking down at her robe made the Nightmarian think twice about such circumstances though, she was covered in grime from the day’s toils, and there was no way she would be seen anywhere in her current state, much less consider eating like this. The rooms quickly filled up, but Pylarea found one to her liking, nothing special like the harpies’ roosts and whatever the other races might need, just a simple bed with clean linens. She scooped up the clean clothes, placing her weapon upon a shelf to indicate the room was taken, and proceeded to scout out the baths. Luckily it did not take long to find them as many of the other initiates were intent upon the same goal as she, and soon she was able to dip part of her body in the relaxing, warm waters.

It was a shame she had wings to worry about, otherwise she would merely plop right into the soothing bathes and be done with the business, but she could not chance getting them wet. Instead she had found a nice seat where she was submerged up to her waist, but her wings were still safe from any harm. With a generous smile planted across her face the moth began washing the grime from her body slowly, basking in the radiance of such a peaceful moment after her dreadful day. At least it had not turned out as bad as she had thought.

---

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.

---

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.

The stirrings of the fellow Children did little in the way of bothering Pylarea in fact she was used to others roaming about and starting their days whilst sleeping, and today was no different for her. There was some form of ceremony taking place to mark their initiation, but she was just too tired to get up to watch everything start off, she was sure that someone would be kind enough to detail the events taking place, it may seem a little rude, but it had been so long since she had a proper night of sleep. After a while though there was no way to escape the fact she needed to get up, and thundering knock at her door allowed for no more beauty sleep.

The Nightmarian turned on her side and slipped two delicate feet upon the floor, rising as luxuriously as possible under the circumstances whilst an iron-clad voice boomed out from the other side of her door. “‘Ey dere li’l misses del’cate! Rise ‘n shine or you be in fur sum trouble! We ain’t got no time fur slackers in da Children!” With that being said the man, or whatever creature he may be, stepped off with heavy steps, their plodding sound being almost as loud as his fist beating against her door not too long ago. An enormous yawn crept up upon the moth as her arms stretched out reluctantly and her back arched with the motion, and at the end of this ritual her balled fists rolled forward to stretch the muscles along her forearms.

It took quite a bit of time for the fragile woman to prepare herself for the day, fluttering her wings to stretch them out properly, washing her arc shell with the water basin at the foot of the bed, combing her hair to get the tangles out, and fussing with her robes until they were as wrinkle free as she could manage to make them. By the time she finished she heard only a few footsteps leading away from the rooms, and no doors had been opened or closed for a couple of minutes. She hoped she wasn’t late for the ceremony, and she didn’t want to make a horrible impression on her first day as an official Child.

The moth managed to catch up with the last of the group, the second group she would later discover, and came up behind the little Halfling female who had nearly killed here the day before, for such small creatures they were such fierce fighters. Who would have thought of such a thing? She noticed several of the other Children flopping about, tossing each other around, and breaking limbs with relative ease. The ones who seemed to be doing this the most were those who had freshly drunken from the pool of…blood?!?! What on earth was going on? She was a moth…they fed on nectar and the like… they weren’t carnivorous beings! It looked like a requirement though…and there wasn’t much she could do about it now.

She hesitantly brought the black liquid to her moth and let it drizzle lightly over her lips and down her throat, the heat of the concoction warming the very core of her body as it worked its way down to her belly. A strange sense of…connectivity flowed over her as she felt attuned with the group around her, their feelings and even the whispers of thought. Was everyone receiving the same reaction? Not everyone seemed affected by this as she was right now, and indeed most looked as if they didn’t even notice the connection, but her better-honed psionic abilities amplified the effect. The Nightmarian moved as carefully as she could right now, not wanting to unwittingly hurt herself or anyone near her for that matter. Luckily she was accustomed to moving about delicately, consciously holding back so as to appear as prim, proper, and delicate as possible. At least the caste system had been good for something.

While she was practicing her art of self-control and exploring the new limits of her psionic abilities, in so far as honing in on individuals and even trying to transmit a few signals to see if they would garner any attention, the Halfling from before approached her…and bowed for some strange reason. A mumbled apology, near inaudible, escaped through tight lips as she then gazed up expectantly at Pylarea, and she could feel the woman wanted her to do the same, or something near enough as to justify her presence. Instead of trying to speak aloud this seemed an opportune moment to try out her abilities. She concentrated hard, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow slightly, as she thought…

Please, there is no need to worry. We all did what we must yesterday. Let us be sisters of the Children now. My name is Pylarea.

After sending that message to the woman Pylarea returned the woman’s bow with an equal measure of depth and period of time before returning up with a bright smile planted across her face. This time she spoke aloud, “So what’s your name?”

The runaway wagon carved a path of confusion in it's wake, and while there was the poor soul that was run over there was no lasting damage until it promptly crashed. Kisikoni was barely able to keep up, and was slightly relieved when the wagon's rampage came to an end. At the same time, a bud of worry erupted in Kisikoni's chest, wondering the fate of Talae until he noticed a crowd gathering around a separate area. He pushed himself near the front, looking over the shoulders of spectators and saw Talae in the arms of Beelzes. She didn't look terribly injured, and Beelzes was cheerful as usual. Satisfied that Talae was in good hands, he attempted a quick signal at the deep human before disappearing back into the crowd. Truth be told, after everything that had recently transpired he wasn't too eager to be alone with Talae. It would be incredibly awkward, and she definitely needed time to take in everything she had told her. He also had a horse and preservatives to retrieve, and it would be best if they were separated. Other enemy assassins or bounty hunters would be forced to split up, thus weakening their forces. With Beelzes, Kisikoni was certain that Talae could take on any threat.

Eventually, he would have to talk it out with others- his specter problem wasn't slight enough to be brushed off, especially with it laughing in his head at the notion that it could be tamed. Talae was the only one he trusted so implicitly with the full weight of the knowledge, though he was aware that the Paragon had an inkling of his state. After all, Pel had been assigned to him as a personal medic. He cringed slightly at the thought of the halfling, halting the guilt before it could take root in his heart.

The elf he had killed would be of no use to the Paragon, but the unconscious dark elf may yet yield some answers. The third man, who had been impaled by Talae's blade was unlikely to have survived, and even if he did, would probably have been gone by now. He jogged past the stalls they had been attacked, without giving the body that was still sprawled on the cobblestone a glance. He would have to either bring the body to Xeron or Wrath to determine whether he would be of use, or bring a report back. The man was dead, and from what he could tell did not look anything special- especially so due to his average level of skill in fighting. He retrieved the pack horse, thanking the shopkeepers once more. Though they looked disgruntled, their day brightened considerably when Kisikoni tipped them a couple of coins for the trouble. Leading the horse back around, he brought it over to a merchant who was selling spices. After a quick exchange, Kisikoni dutifully loaded several bags of salts onto the horse, which seemed to take on a slightly disappointed appearance. He took the last one and threw it onto his shoulder, using a free hand to grab the horse's reins and begin leading him back out of the city.

---

What in blazes was all the racket about? Mercy groaned, blearily rubbing her voluminous red eyes. The entire camp was in an uproar for one reason or another, and Mercy resolved to find it and squash it so she could go back to sleep. A half-empty bottle was clenched tight in her left arm as she got up unsteadily and burst through the flaps, eyes fiery. Seizing a nearby soldier, she inquired about current happenings. The soldier, unused to the generally lewd nightmarian's antics gave a nervous response. She supposed the idea of assassins would explain the rude intrusion earlier. Speaking of which, the web-wrapped men she tossed out earlier had not remained in front of her tent, so she assumed they were taken away to be questioned. A pile of turned over dirt, no doubt a trail left by somebody attempting to move the web-stricken individuals lead her to where all the action was happening.

Stumbling over, she took a swig of the increasingly light bottle and clasped a hand onto who she believed to be Xeron. "You're tellin' me, that our security is so bad letta'couple of guys enter my tent ta'tryna kill me?" She slurred, trying her best to sound indignant but failing horribly. Half her eyes were unfocused and dormant, which wasn't helping her attempt either. Releasing her grip on Xeron's shoulder, she swayed slightly while turning to regard the bunch of captured men. She burst out laughing when she saw one that was beaten to a pulp. "Who, who did that? He or she deserves a promotion!" she cried, slapping one of her knees in mirth. Sighing, she drained the rest of the bottle and used the end to poke one of the prisoners gracelessly. "I dunno' fellas, none of these guys look like they know anything." She slurred, incredibly late on the uptake. She quickly lost interest in the faceless goons, taking a more prominent interest in finding the leader so she could sleep in safety. Whoever saved her probably wouldn't be there to catch her when she fell if it happened again. "Hoo, well I'll go an' check the storage and check the storage to see if he's stealing anything." She said, turning and raising an unsteady hand.

---

Three days was just enough time for Safir to regain comfortable control of his body. No longer did he accidentally crush his bones in a fall or pop a joint out of it's socket with a swing. He could not say the same about Dresinil, but he seemed well enough off to join them on the mission that was announced to their leader- the unpredictable and unnerving Aesr. Once again, magic was utilized, and they were transported to a huge city. Safir's first emotions were that of frustration. Why the hell did they go through that triple-pace march for hours if they could have simply teleported to the tower? His second thoughts was that of how quiet everything seemed. Looking around, he finally noticed that indeed, everything was empty.

What were they doing here? The only logical assumption that Safir could make was that they were doing some grunt work and hauling supplies. However, the city looked long abandoned to the point where most of the food would have spoiled. Safir glanced at Dresinil, and to the rest of his comrades, but Aesr seemed absolutely outraged by the turn of events as well. Once again, the heavy-lidded knuckle head that was their captain had to placate the disguised dragon, who took the form of a catching elf.

For all their strength, by god did they have an equal amount of pride. Their disguises were uncannily beautiful. Shrugging slightly, he gave a reassuring nod to Carmen- their healer. Though clad his his armor and shield, such desolate silence made him feel vulnerable. Carmen's presence made him a lot more confident than he would be without her. They were off again, marching toward nowhere. He wasn't sure what was to come or make of this event, but Aesr certainly seemed agitated about something and Safir figured it might have something to do with this area. Safir noted that he was beside the moth woman as well as Carmen, and decided to converse with her to pass the time. "Three days enough for you? I think I broke more figures those past few days than the entire Civil armies throughout the war." He said, flexing his digits confidently.

Neira moved silently alongside Xeron, both rendered invisible by his psionics. There was a magic-dampening field around this place, and the sounds of battle from downstairs indicated that some of their number were discovering this quite quickly. Psionics were only magic in the loosest sense, and besides that, the dark elf beside her was a bit better at it than your average fool.

Not that she would ever tell him so, of course. Indeed, even as they continued their search, they were volleying back and forth telepathically, with she as usual content to shred at his invincible ego in a futile, though valiant effort to humble him.

Since she wasn’t exactly sure what they were supposed to be looking for, and would much rather be fighting downstairs with the others, her remarks had a bit more bite than they usually did. He didn’t much seem to mind.

---

Talae cursed under her breath, a string of the vilest oaths she knew in her native tongue. When Sid and Koni had gone below, her instinct had been to follow them into that unknown (and probably highly dangerous) situation, but her orders were clear.

As it was, her indecision had enabled the escape of her prisoner (Salim, she was told, though she hadn’t really wanted to know), and now she had been forced to follow the bastard. His path had taken him through several winding corridors, and a few wrong turns had forced her to take the time to slay some undead along the way. She had far too much experience with exactly that, and though her breaths came with a bit less regularity than normal and her hand-and-a-half dripped with ichor and gore, she was unmaimed.

Her last turn had put her at a dead-end, though she noted that the window at the terminus of the hallway was open, which prompted another vicious string of expletives. Of all the damn stupid things to-

Gritting her teeth, she padded along the hallway, sheathing her blade across her back. Leaping onto the windowsill, she looked out and saw her suspicions confirmed. Salim, apparently trying to chew through his bindings, was precariously-balanced on a ledge of stonework about four inches wide, above several slavering ghouls. “Ast’va, you fool!” she yelled, shaking her head. Without hesitation, Talae was out the window, but her race was much more accustomed to this sort of situation than humans were, and her natural grip was such that she was in no danger of falling… herself.

“Stay there if you still want to be alive at the end of this,” she grumbled, picking her way over to his location with deliberateness. She could probably move a bit faster, but she really didn’t want to spook him into doing something else fatally-stupid, like jumping, for instance.

---

Pylarea, who’d been lost in thought, noted that she was being spoken to and turned to the tin-man who’d issued the words. The proclamation of new strength evoked a nod in the moth-woman. It had been a trying few days, and she still was no soldier in the conventional sense- she’d never had to be, until she left Ecclavaria- she was feeling more assured in her capabilities, at least a little.

The blonde woman, Carmen, was covering a smile with her hand, apparently genuinely pleased that they were all now able to move without breaking things. The moth was about to respond in words, but was cut off by a particularly enraged shriek from Aesr, which caused her to flinch a bit. “We might need that soon, I think,” she replied, blinking slowly. Pylarea liked to consider herself pretty intelligent, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that their leader wanted to smash something to bits. Which meant they’d all probably be following her into confrontation quite shortly.

Indeed, the entire group was soon on the march again, and the hours they spent covering ground (or, in her case, the air slightly above the ground) passed in relatively-pleasant conversation. Though Aesr would occasionally shoot a glare at anyone who dared to speak too loudly, Captain Tao apparently wasn’t bothered in the least by any of his soldiers socializing.

---

Once she’d concluded her jaunt into her native language, Shasarra smiled (somewhat nervously) at Zulii. The other woman actually reminded her of her older sister, who was also among the most traditional and fiercest of the harpies. Of course, Hatskar was dead now, slain in a battle against the Civil. It was the entire reason Shasarra had joined the draconian army in the first place.

Turning to Jivven, who she realized she’d forgotten to answer earlier, she shrugged diffidently. “Oh, yes, battle won. No losses, either. How glorious for all of us.” She scratched the shell of one slightly-pointed ear with a claw, a habit she had when she was considering something, then allowed one blond eyebrow to ascend her head. “But surely, the real glory is only there when your hands are bathed in the blood of your foes and the smell of it clings to your skin, no?” Her smile stretched over keenly-pointed canines. She may not dive into battle and feast on the fallen, but she was still of true harpy stock, after all.

---

The general chatter ended several miles from their destination, when Tao gestured for silence. Given that it was backed up by Aesr’s now-patented death glare, most complied immediately. Those that didn’t were quickly elbowed into submission by their compatriots, not desirous of a petulant dragon’s wrath upon them.

The second town they entered at first seemed like a replica of the first, empty save for the whistling air and dust. Ahead of them, though, the captain’s eyes narrowed, and he signaled something to Aesr, who nodded curtly, at which point he peeled off from the group and ran ahead while the dragon signaled a halt. Carmen, who had worked with both before, knew exactly what this meant, and placed her finger to her lips as an added plea for as much quiet as possible. When she lowered her hands, she clasped them together and closed her eyes, not even opening them again when the soft luminescence of holy magic started to seep from her skin.

Ten very tense and utterly quiet moments followed, during which a few dared not even breathe, and then Tao appeared once more, locking eyes with Aesr. The dragon’s voice over the mental connection that they all shared soon followed. “We’ve run into the Civil.” The last two words were almost spat, dripping with derision. “They’re sacrificing citizens to make more undead for Darenthi’s army. It is our task to stop them. Remember: undead can only be killed by beheading, fire, and holy magic. There will also be a necromancer in the area, and be careful of it.” Despite the note of warning in the words, she didn’t sound particularly concerned.

Carmen was a different story, though, and the cleric swallowed, at last releasing her hold on the spell that had begun to build. All of the members of the Aesr would then feel a boost in resilience, though the true potency of the spell would only be evident were they injured. There would still be pain, but a pain greatly reduced, so that they might fight more evenly with fell creatures that knew no agony at all.

As the procession started forward, she stopped Safir and Pylarea with a hand to each shoulder. Patting her hip with a hand, she stood as if holding a sword, then gestured to herself, indicating that she needed to examine their weapons for a moment. Pylarea handed hers over first, and Carmen smiled, praying over the thing for a few seconds, until it too, glowed with a radiant aura. If Safir would relinquish his, she did the same again, and both temporarily had divine magic with which to smite their undead foes. Such spells were difficult and draining, and probably not worth it in so small a quantity, but Carmen had been enjoying their company all morning, and wanted very much for them to survive.

Nodding, she gave them up to the battle, and then went about finding herself a strategic point from which to observe the battle and intervene as she was needed. If need-be, she could participate, but it was more strategically valuable to save her energy for healing the injured.

---

At the head of his company, Tao led the Aesr towards the center of the city. The dragon for whom they had been named had disappeared, but he had a vague sense of where she was, a privilege afforded to those of his rank.

Upon entering the town square, they were met with a grim sight: plainclothes villagers, tied into long chains of people, were being ritually executed by soldiers wearing the regalia of Nihil Darenthi’s Civil army. In most cases, it wasn’t long before the dozens of corpses rose again, taking up weapons as the undead. The necromancer himself was not immediately visible, but that meant nothing. He or she was present, and that was obvious.

At the moment, the element of surprise was on their side, but it wouldn’t be long until they were noticed. Tao gestured to those soldiers nearest himself and gestured for the others to divide in half and flank, cresting the rise that led to the square proper and laying into the first soldier he saw, the unnatural strength of the Children of fire ensuring that the elegant horizontal slice of his slightly-curved sword was enough to part the woman’s head from her shoulders smoothly as water.

After that, the alarm went up, and he surrendered himself to the battle.

The newfound strength in Pylarea’s wings greatly added towards her comfort for their long march, and indeed she had never been able to hover for this long of a period before the ritual, much less direct herself and maintain balance. It seemed she had a bit more stability than the harpies as well, their flapping wings looked to cause a bit of movement even when still, but this might have to do with the fact that she was utilizing her psionic abilities in tandem with her more powerful wings. She had been marching, well hovering, next to the Tin…no that wasn’t his name it was Safir, and the nice cleric whom she had heard called Carmen, since they had left under the command of Aesr, but little conversation had been made on her part.

Ever since she partook in the ritual of initiation Pylarea had been long lost in her thoughts, and they were not all focused upon trying to control her new body. It took a great deal more concentration now to not hear what others were thinking around here, their hopes, fears, and desires, or whatever you could call them. The first few days it felt like a tempest was stirring betwixt her ears, and it had been only yesterday that the headache began to subside. It seemed Safir had wanted for her to converse with him more openly, but she would just have to let his hopes down for the moment. Too bad there was more fighting to be done. This time they were told they would be facing the undead legions of The Civil.

The moth continued on in her half-dazed state, terrified about the impending conflict which was awaiting them. They would have to fight the dead, and not just men either, there would be women and children more than likely. How could anyone do such a thing? Just throw away someone’s life like it didn’t mean anything. If she thought like that though, were The Children any better? Isn’t that how they started, by being thrown into some awful trial-combat phase and whoever wasn’t chosen was either incinerated or thrown into more combat? This was just too much to think about right now though. She had to focus on the upcoming battle. Her hands were already shaking enough as is without compounding her doubts.

The Nightmarian still managed to strengthen her resolve, even if there was still some trepidation left in her heart. She had left Ecclavaria for a reason, she had wanted to join the Children and fight against her oppressors. These were her comrades now and there was no turning back, she had to stick with her choice. That was when she caught sight of the villagers being slaughtered by The Civil, and no sooner did they fall lifeless than their corpses clawed their way back into rank-and-file after just moments of death. A chill crept down her spine as the gravity of the situation hit her. There was a chance they could die, and then they would end up just like that. No wills, wants, or needs. She couldn’t let that happen, not to herself or anyone she had come to know in these past few days.

With her newly enhanced weapon at the ready, Pylarea decided it best to keep herself on the ground for this fight. The harpies would naturally take to the sky, but they had much greater mobility than she did. If anyone were to loose an arrow or spell she would probably be incapable of dodging the attack. There was always the chance she could use her powers to deflect whatever comes her way, but it seemed the best choice to do what she was familiar with since this was her first battle since the ritual. She noticed Safir tearing through the undead ranks like they were paper, and he seemed to have fewer restraints about fighting the poor souls than Pylarea at the moment.

Several of the unsavory creatures had noticed, or maybe not who was she to know, her hesitation in this matter, and seemed to decide the best thing for them to do was find something to tear into, and unfortunately she was their intended target. The amethyst foci of her antennae began glowing brilliantly as the chain-whips of her sural began writhing with supposed anticipation. With a flash they leapt out to bite deep into the undead flesh of their targets, eviscerating them in all fashions, their still warm blood flew in a dozen different directions as the whips snapped and popped to and fro, some of it splashed on Pylarea’s face. Her soft, pink tongue flickered out to lick at a droplet in the corner of her mouth and a smile spread across her lips. The heat of the battle had come up the Nightmarian.

She gazed at the tortured half-corpse without much visible expression, but that fact that she had fallen silent mid-sentence conveyed just as much as Xeron’s breathily-exhaled oath, and Neira closed her jaws with a faint click, nodding curtly and about-facing to stand in the doorframe, a tall if not massive shadow in the ebony leathers and cloth of the Paragon.

The conversation happening between the two minds behind her registered as a faint murmur in the back of her own mind, but because she was not consciously making psionic contact, the images and residual glimpses of memory made next to no sense to her. The mantra, though, she understood that, and subconsciously, she ground her teeth together, wishing right along with the poor soul he would just hurry up and end that miserable existence already. She could not call it a life, not really, for it was more mercy to die than experience it.

Her companion’s comment was curt, and even as she followed him back down the twisting hallways and staircases, her eyes narrowed to slits. “How, exactly, do you propose we do that?” There were scores of undead in this place, and she was not so stupid as to believe the Paragon’s force of a mere thirty had managed to chew through them yet.

Quite the opposite, likely: unless they were very lucky or very smart, it would soon be they who were spat out like so much rotten meat.

---

Talae, dead gods help her, actually growled at the man, a small frustrated noise at the back of her throat. He’d nearly cost himself his life, which would mean costing her her commission, and possibly her own life as well. It figured that she was both stuck guarding the hopelessly-lucky idiot and also that he was important.

Her jaw clenched as she jumped down from her spot on the wall and landed soundlessly beside him. “If you’re done making stupid jokes, we’re going back inside.” Her tone was flat, without much in the way of inflection, but it was a bluff and both of them likely knew it. She wasn’t precisely tall, but he was a good head higher than she was, which meant the fact that intimidating stares required eye contact rather counterproductive. In close quarters, he had her cold, as he’d demonstrated once already, but she was not one of the Paragon’s finest fencers for nothing, and the extra room here might make such a contest a bit more even.

Now, however, was neither the time nor the place to be having it, which meant she had to attempt something she hated almost as much as being beaten: negotiations.

“Look, I don’t know why the general insists that you live, and I’m going to be honest and say that I personally wouldn’t care if you dropped dead right now. But- you’ve seen what your employers like to do to the people they hire. Seems the logical thing to do might be to find new employment, and we just so happen to be hiring. Now, shall we move before more ghouls find us or do I have to knock you unconscious first?”

---

---

Dark saw the blood it had drawn from the little-fast-thing, and something that might once have been a smile spread across its face. Unfortunately, this only made it look all the more twisted and terrifying, its teeth, slightly pointed in the canines like all its underground ancestors, caked in some reddish-brown muck that flaked slightly, dry due to the lack of saliva and other such living-creature functions.

As the little-fast-thing drew back, Dark grinned more widely, grey-fleshed lips drawing back so far they split and tore. Dark didn’t mind, for Dark felt no pain any longer. No pain, no fear… all of it was gone beneath the fuzzy haze of pleasant fight-lust-hunger. It cracked its knuckles, the bones shifting unnaturally, and Dark blurred, moving quickly enough that most would not track the movement easily. His patterns were erratic, but quick-fast-thing seemed to anticipate, and Dark knew that they were much the same, and both knew not to show their backs to each other.

A wet, gurgling hiss bubbled up from its throat, and Dark continued to circle, much more closely this time. The Swarm was keeping away air-flying-pain-bringers, and the Brethren occupied the painful-light-weapons and the shining-quiet-woman. Right now, the contest between Dark and the little-fast-thing was a draw, and Dark searched its surprisingly-cunning mind for a solution.

The answer had just presented itself when Dark staggered forward, confused. Looking down, it noticed that a hand-axe had embedded itself in one leg, severing the tendons and crippling even Dark. With a bestial howl, Dark rounded on this new threat, a grounded-flying-thing with numerous small-bleeding-wounds, and forgot the cardinal rule of combat.

Never show the enemy your back.

---

White lights exploded behind Shasarra’s vision as she impacted the roof, tumbling sideways and eventually falling from that, too, hitting the ground with a sickening crunch. Carmen’s spell numbed the pain, but she knew without looking that her wing was bent at an awkward angle, and it still hurt so badly that she lost her breath for a good five seconds, unable to gather the strength to force air into her lungs.

She was riddled with small abrasions, many of them oozing blood, but that was scarcely of concern to her. Her left wing was broken, probably shattered, and she was confined to the ground, where she was both slower and weaker, graceless as any creature who did not know the sky. It at once shamed her and inflamed her proud rage, and as soon as she could move again, she pushed aside all thoughts of agony and lifted herself from the ground, talons scrabbling for purchase on the cobblestones of the square.

The first undead who sought to take advantage of her condition received a crushed skull for his trouble, courtesy of her enhanced strength and roundshield. He crumpled to the ground, the spike on the shield having gone right through his eye.

What she saw next evoked an automatic reaction: Jivven was being circled by another undead soldier, and the muscles in that one’s legs were tensed and coiled to spring. Without thought, Shasarra hurled her axe, spinning it end over end until it embedded itself firmly in the back of the creature’s knee, staggering it for a moment. Unceasing, she picked up a nearby fallen pike and readied it as the thing turned, but she knew well enough that this particular foe was good as dead already, and smirked over its shoulder at the dark elf she’d been trying to kill less than a week ago.

---

Their holy weapons making quick work of the undead before them, it wasn’t long before Safir and Pylarea would find that they were able to cut a swath into the center of the fray, at about the same time as Carmen reversed the putrefaction process placed upon Oraun. The stammering necromancer Quwall was saved from the retribution of the enraged elf by the timely intervention of her partner, Knossus. The unusually-massive deep human man lowered the spell when Oraun’s steel rebounded off of it, sending the elf sprawling.

“Get a hold of yourself!” he barked at Quwall, and she straightened up immediately, shamed by her superior officer. He glanced over at the red-robed woman, little more than a wisp compared to his own bulk, but then magic was the great equalizer in that sense. The human girl could well have more power in her little finger than most possessed in every fibre of sinew and musculature.

That in mind, he called up the last resort, choosing to play all of his cards at once. A fell light set his eyes aglow with crimson malevolence, and he chanted low, in a tone ominous as much for the corrupted words it spoke as for the intended mood.

At first, the earth simply shook, trembling from within, its echoing murmurs cascading outward. The tremors drew the attention of Vortigern and Tao, and both approached, the latter tilting his head sideways, though looking only at Carmen. The cleric, Knossus noticed, was still smiling serenely, and nodded gently, which the red-haired man with the robes trimmed in charcoal seemed to accept with equanimity.

Well, things would soon be different. Slowly, sundering the cobblestones and wrenching a great hole in the ground, a skeletal body rose from the ground, the empty sockets where its eyes should be emitting that same unholy red light. The beast, once a dragon of size equal to a greater hatchling, opened its fleshless maw, its roar silent and almost parodic. With bones harder than steel and an animation not of its own making, it would not fall easily.

“Privates Pylarea and Weylin,” Tao began, and the tall, savage-looking elf nodded in reply, “the female necromancer. The other is mine. Carmen, Privates Garethson and Oraun, this beast.” It was not his desire to leave three soldiers to take care of such a creature by themselves, but he was probably the only one with sufficient training to kill a necromancer on his own, and he had not missed the glow of Carmen’s magic emanating from the weapons belonging to Safir and the nightmarian moth. The cleric, he trusted unconditionally, and that was not something he could say for most people.

They would have to be enough for now.

It seemed so peculiar to be able to be lost in the nothingness that was battle. There was so much to it, yet at the same time so little. Pylarea had been brought up to be the picture of primness and propriety, always staying calm, cool, and collected so she could do what was asked of her. Now though, things were different, she didn’t have to be the picture-perfect, dutiful child right now. She could let go of her restraints and lets the waves of battle sweep over her, enveloping her body and mind in the heat and emotion of everything around her. She could sense her comrades feeling, and this amplified her own experience one-hundred fold. This was dangerous though, she knew there was something to be done, that she needed to remember, but what that could be was a mystery.

Before long she had flown through the thick of the undead ranks, aided for the most part by her weapon imbued with the holy magic of Carmen. The rotting flesh parted as steel bit into limbs and body as water would an experienced swimmer. Not that Pylarea had much experience with swimming in her life, it was not allowed by the Head of her Brood, just another activity she would need to make sure and experience now that she was free to do as she wished. All thanks to the Children of Fire. Had it not been for the dragons she would never have experienced the things she had, or what would be in store for her down the line.

A distant voice sounded off in the distance, the sound seemed distorted by an incalculable distance, but the emotion behind it was clearer than day. The words grasped her mind and yanked her back from the void in which she reveled, the tone they conveyed meant this was no time drift idly by as the tides of battle. There was serious work to be done, and she needed to focus every inch of her being on it lest she be defeated by a powerful enemy. “Privates Pylarea and Weylin,” Tao began, and the tall, savage-looking elf nodded in reply, “the female necromancer…” That was all she needed to hear before dashing closer to her comrade in arms. It was one of the men who had saved her when they first battled the Gnolls not all that long ago.

“So, do you be any better with that fancy mind magic lassie? We’re gonna need it to take down that there woman. Any ideas?”

“We will not be able to attack her head on. If only we could distract her somehow so one of us could get close…”

“Good luck wit’ that ‘un girly. The way she be flinging that magic about we’ll be lucky to hit twenty paces! We might as well try throwin’ dirt at ‘er for all the good it’d do us.”

“Wait…that might just work. Give me a minute.”

With her last, somewhat quizzical, statement the Nightmarian’s amethyst foci began glowing brilliantly, the power focusing into her wings to give her flight. Weylin stood bemused at her actions, what on earth could the moth girl be thinking? Didn’t she know he was just horsing around with that idea? What she had planned soon started coming together though as she began levitating into the air, now a good ten to fifteen feet above the ground and a dark violet mist began heading straight for the necromancer. It would take most, if not all of her concentration to pull of this stunt, and if someone were to target her she might not have time to maneuver.

As the cloud began to envelope the area surrounding the necromancer, limiting a clear line of sight to only a few feet, Pylarea linked with Weylin’s thoughts, but doing so forced her to disconnect with every other member of their group. She began sending out a ping to their target’s area. It was a trick she had been taught when she was but a child, something all Moths and similar Nightmarians knew utilize when in areas with a limited field of vision. The sound would bounce off of all the objects in the area, forming a rough mental map of what was in front of them. Usually it was only meant for one person to use, she didn’t know if Weylin would even really understand what was going on.

Do you understand what I am showing you? I cannot hold this for very long. Please hurry!

The dampener that had been keeping magic from properly functioning here… it was located in that? Neira had to give credit where it was due; the ingenuity of their foes was something to be considered worthy. A skull in a mausoleum like this was hiding in plain sight. It was perhaps simply too bad that it wasn’t hidden well enough.

Xeron was intently focused, and she did not need to be asked to spare her questions for the moment. Briefly, she even considered assisting, of lending her own mind to the effort in an indirect way, but refrained for two reasons: first, she knew he was capable of accomplishing this on his own, fatigued though it might make him, and second, the action itself would have implied a level of trust she gave to nobody. Communing with one’s mind to the extent that mental energy could be shared was a relinquishing of a great deal of secrets and privacy, and it reminded her far too much of her birthplace.

So instead, she wordlessly moved to the dark elf when his task was done, observing his signs of exhaustion even as her own vitality returned. Still without speaking, she grasped one of his arms and slung it over her shoulder, stilling the pieces of rubble that had begun to fall from the ceiling. Suspended there, as if in some viscous liquid that deprived them of all motion, they made for what seemed a frozen moment in time.

Then, she pulled the both of them through space and out of the castle, and everything where they had been resumed.

---

Talae followed a half-step behind Salim as the two ducked and wove to reach the tethered horses. From the way the ground was shaking, it wouldn’t be too much longer yet before the entire structure came down around the others, and that worried her. She still had friends in there, people whose lives were of more importance to her than she would ever willingly admit.

It was easier, she thought as she watched her charge swing astride a beast of burden, if you didn’t care at all, but alas no matter how she tried, reaching that perfect equilibrium where nothing mattered was impossible for her. To this day, she blamed her sister’s influence for that.

She hesitated, half-tempted to duck back into the castle and get the others out or die trying. A foolish notion that the pragmatist in her detested, and yet…

The appearance of the nightmarian Captain Neira was a temporary distraction. The woman appeared uninjured and not in the least fatigued, though the same could not be said for Xeron beside her. Talae approached the two, indicating with a gesture that the psionic man could be led to a mount if he wasn’t up to that floating thing he tended to favor at the moment. Neira shrugged, stepping away from him and letting him do as he pleased.

An idea occurred to Talae right then. If she was still in the kind of shape to be teleporting places, then…

The nightmarian rolled her red eyes. “Fine, Shanir. I don’t have to read your mind to know what you want. It’s all over your face. Where are they?”

“Underground. If you-” she was cut off by a small huff, and a chitin-encased hand touched her temple.

“Show me.” Talae thought of the route that would be necessary, closing her eyes and visualizing the path that Kisikoni, Sid, and the others with them had taken to the underground part of the castle, before she’d been forced to leave them behind and chase after the former mercenary.

When Neira stepped away, she was frowning, but nodded anyway. “Make sure the idiot doesn’t do something stupid while I’m gone.” It wasn’t necessary to ask who ‘the idiot’ was, because as far as Talae knew, Neira only regularly associated with Xeron, the General, Mercy, and Thanaros, and only one of those people was in her immediate proximity at the moment.

Once the woman was gone, Talae at last deigned to answer the swordsman’s question. “I acknowledge your skill, but foolishness impresses no one.” Hopping up onto another of the horses, she tried to quell the small feeling of guilt that she was not in that castle, fighting to get her comrades out of it.

---

Neira zipped through the collapsing passages of the castle structure, less concerned than most people would be at the impending demise of the structure. If something would have hit her, she simply threw it aside with a bit of telekinesis, or else moved around it using her presently psychically-enhanced limbs.

Coming at last to the spot Talae had seen their comrades get drawn underneath the structure (or was it outside? Perhaps there was more to this architecture than there seemed to be), she followed the path down, landing with a solid but muffled thud upon the floor.

The place was nothing less than a disaster. Bodies lay all over the place, though the greatest portion of them were nothing but dust now, thanks to Xeron’s work. Still, no longer was there anything down here. Muttering a few choice obscenities, most of them directed at Shanir’s poor sense of direction, needless concern, or both, Neira took off running down the passage, rounding a corner and coming upon a set of stairs, which eventually led her back to the main level. As she cleared them, a large chunk of stone fell from the buttresses high above, effectively closing off the passage.

Thankfully, she was close enough at this point to pick up some stray thoughts from Lily, captain of the Sunwings, and knew she was probably on the right track. Locking on to that location Neira willed herself to it, appearing just behind the elf-woman’s lieutenant, apparently running back the way they had come with Sid, the second-in-command of the entire damn army, unconscious and slung over her back.

“No good that way,” the nightmarian informed the woman- Adel, was it?- curtly, then gestured ahead of her. The two took off again, running across what appeared to have been the site of quite the confrontation.

“Damn, looks like I missed all the fun.” Kisikoni was also unconscious, and very heavily wounded from the look of him, while several others were still standing and in various states of good and bad repair, including Lily herself and Yan’vega, who Neira would willingly admit she preferred alive to dead.

Swiftly assessing the situation, she tossed the deep human captain over one shoulder and addressed the rest. “I can get him, archer girl, and Sid out of here. No more than that, though. The place is coming down, and your best bet is to take advantage of that. From here, Torga over there can break a hole in the wall, and Thanaros should be able to float you down. From there, well… run like hell, kids, unless you fancy being squished.”

“You, you’re with me,” she told Adel, and wasting no time hearing any protests the girl might have had, grabbed her by the upper arm and dragged the lot of them back to the retreating line with little more than a thought.

Of course, “little more than a thought” didn’t mean it required a small amount of effort, and by the time she was able to pass Koni and Sid off to be treated by a medic, she was crankier than usual and in some serious need of sleep.

---

---

Knossus stared down the strangely blank-looking little man from a distance of about ten feet. Empowered by the strength of his casting, he knew it wouldn’t be all that much of a challenge to snap the fool’s bones with his bare hands… and that sounded like exactly what he wanted to do at the moment.

“So, cave-brother, what say we settle this after the ways of our kin? No magic,” he held up his hands as if to indicate that he would use none, “no weapons,” the crimson radiance of his pupils scanned the equally-red length of the liuyedao in Tao’s right hand, “merely the strength of our limbs and our minds, hm?” Of course, given that the redhead appeared to be a bit simple meant that such a confrontation would hardly be fair, but then anyone who wandered onto a battlefield like this one had to accept that as a matter of course. In fact, every advantage was one for Knossus. He was larger, the residual effects of his enchantment made him just as strong as a Child of Fire, and he had years of experience in matter of war.

Tao merely blinked at him slowly, then flicked the blood off his sword as best he could and sheathed it, pressing his palms together in front of him and bowing at the waist. Knossus mirrored the gesture, then stepped back with his right foot, bouncing a little to keep himself in constant motion. His opponent took the opposite stance, alerting Knossus to the fact that he was left-side dominant, but seemed disinclined to move much at all.

Flowing forward, the larger man lashed out with his right foot, attempting to hook it over and around Tao’s corresponding calf and drag him downward. Rather than simply stepping back and out of the way as he would have expected, however, the shorter of the two stepped into the maneuver, stopping the now-abbreviated motion cold with both of his hands and twisting. The uncomfortable wrench caused by the more-than-human strength of the Children forced Knossus to twist and fall, lest his leg be broken while he simply stood there. Tearing his foot from his opponent’s grip, he rolled to the side and then back onto his feet, which the strange man in red armor seemed perfectly willing to let him do.

This time, when he lunged, sudden and powerful as a summer thunderstorm, he aimed high, thrusting for Tao’s neck. The latter blocked, crossing his arms slightly above his head to block the downward momentum, and stepped forward quickly, jabbing his foot for Knossus’s shin. Eyes widening, the larger man jumped backwards, sacrificing stability so as to remain uninjured. He was punished for it when Tao shifted his weight from one foot to the other, slamming the opposite knee into his abdomen.

The blow itself was not overly injurious because of the angle at which Knossus had been standing, but it effectively shattered his stability, and this time, he fell forward even as Tao stepped back, hitting the ground and feeling the unfortunate crunch of his nose breaking on the stone tiles.

---

That there woman? Vortigern shook his head to himself. It seemed like every time he was around the ladies, his grammar went out the window. Of course, he always had the brogue, but that was just his upbringing.

But never mind that. There were things to be killed, and he was just the man for the job. It seemed that the comely little purple lass had an idea, and he was perfectly content to follow, as long as the end result still involved bathing himself in the blood of his foes. Almost literally.

She was kicking up some kind of dark purple mist-dust, and while he didn’t really understand how she was accomplishing that, the fact was that it was still happening, and the sensations that entered his mind unbidden after that made about as much sense as anything. He grinned when her mental voice accompanied them, and thought back to her.

I may not be the mos’ cultured man on the continent, lass, but I’m not stupid. I know a good plan when I see one… or when the other guy don’.”

So saying, he sank into that peculiar state of mind that characterized his own berserker tendencies- not overly loud, but certainly what most people would class as overly aggressive. This whole mental communication thing worked surprisingly well- he was able to latch onto the small pings that were being sent his way and follow them with all the determination of a bloodhound. When his shortsword and tomahawk bit deep into Quwall’s flesh, then, her shriek didn’t faze him in the slightest.

The fact that she proceeded to summon hellfire and light the purple cloud with it was marginally more troubling.

The move was irrationally stupid, and luckily he saw it coming, else he’d have been a pile of smoldering ashes. As it was, he was able to duck and avoid the first gout, and even as the acrid stench of burning powder filled his nose, Weylin did not tarry in his task, dispensing with most of the flashy stuff and slitting her throat.

Er… Pylarea, lass, I’m gonna need a way outta this, or chances are good I’ll burn ta death, if ya take my meanin’.

---

A short distance away, though not close enough to be affected by the flames themselves, Easkr, the semi-sentient summoned skeleton of a dragon, had decided he didn’t like the shiny one. His steel hurt. It had been quite some time since Easkr had known pain; even in his lifetime he was among the mightiest in his clutch, but that had been eons ago now.

From the corner of his eye, he caught another making for his face. With a soundless snarl, Easkr swiped at it, the mighty heave of his claws sending Oraun back to the ground. His tail lashed behind him in frustration, and he tried to do the same to the tin man, concentrating his attacks there. One, two, three… Safir was battered from side-to-side, though his armor was making it difficult for the dragon to tell if he was getting injured or not. At least it had stopped the annoying needlepricks of his weapon.

He was raising a fist to crush the foolish human when he was dully aware of something crashing into his left side. Turning slightly, he got an eyeful of half-crazed harpy. Had he a mouth, Easkr would have grimaced. As it was, he made to kick her away with a hind leg-

PainpainPAIN! All of a sudden, the world didn’t make quite as much sense anymore. The three he’d been dealing with- angry-dark-man and shiny-painful-man and annoying-bird-woman were encased in golden spheres If he looked closely enough, their wounds appeared to be disappearing. More concerning was the fact that his right wing-bones were missing, sawed right off by virtue of an equally-aureate blade, apparently insubstantial except by virtue of magic.

Well, that decided it. The red-robed woman had to die first. Dismissing all of the others, Easkr recklessly charged Carmen, whose eyes went wide as she dove to the side, out of the immediate path of the pale-boned beast. He wasn’t about to give up that easily, though, and she was forced to relinquish the healing shields she had around the others in order to successfully stave off the next attack, causing the taloned claws to rebound off the holy aegis she’d put up. The sword also had to go, but at least she was easily the biggest distraction possible, hopefully giving Safir, Zulii, and the others enough time to get at its weak point, whatever that might be.

The way Weylin had responded to her thoughts almost made Pylarea feel bad for even speaking, well thinking, them out loud to him, she might as well have told him, “Follow this you dummy!” It was a little too late to apologize though, there was a good chance it would only distract him if she started to speak to him. That and she might just lose her concentration and botch this fancy little plan she cooked up out of the middle of nowhere.

Wow… Her plan actually worked. It happened much faster than Pylarea had expected as well, not much sooner did she began relaying the sonic pings to Weylin than she felt them dissipate. It seemed that was not the end of their encounter though, as soon as the Nightmarian released her concentration on the cloud and pings she saw a burst of hellfire leap forth from the defeated necromancer. Luckily her compatriot managed to dodge the first gout with seeming ease, but that was not the end of their trouble.

Er… Pylarea, lass, I’m gonna need a way outta this, or chances are good I’ll burn ta death, if ya take my meanin’.

Uhm…yeah, this was not so good. How many options are there when it comes to saving a comrade from a wave of savage hellfire, really, how many? For a regular magic user there would probably be plenty of options, but she was just a Psionic, she used her mind to manipulate the environment around her. In all actuality Pylarea was not even a professional yet, she had just received a decent boost in her abilities after being initiated into the Children.

Get ready!

Without hesitating another moment the Moth dropped the hold she had on her wings to give her the lift forcing her to fall towards the ground, but it gave the Nightmarian just the extra bit of force she needed to accomplish her next feat. With a quick mental shove Weylin went flying both up and away from the spewing inferno towards the direction opposite Pylarea herself. There should have been just enough force to lift him over the cloud and safely outside of the flames area of destruction. He probably would not land very softly though, but hopefully she had given him enough warning to merit a safe landing.

She, on the other hand, was not in such a good position. It had taken more focus to speak quickly and send him up and over than was necessary for her to make a perfect landing. Although she did not fall flat on her face, which would have been just dreadful, her rear end did receive quite the shock as she plumped down flat on her behind. A grimace spread across Pylarea’s face as the pain shot all the way up her back to the nape of her neck, but thanks to her nifty Arc Shell nothing was broken of seriously damaged, well except maybe for her pride just a little bit.

Their battle was not over yet though. It seemed that Safir was still locked in combat with the reanimated corpse of a dragon, and Captain Tao seemed locked in a, somewhat perplexingly, lackadaisical duel with the other necromancer for The Civil. Who should she help? Captain Tao actually seemed to be holding his own quite well. Her mind was made up rather quickly though. Once the dragon decided to target Carmen her decision was made. There was no way she could let the creature kill her new friend.

The foci in Pylarea’s antennae began to glow brightly once again as the Nightmarian severed her connection with the others, if something was to happen she was not expecting she could not risk them suffering from any backlash. The Moth quickly linked with the dragon’s mind. She could feel the creature’s pain, frustration, and even confusion at what was happening right now, but that was the least of her concerns. She focused with all of her might to send the beast a psionic shriek, probably the equivalent of having a bolt of lightning strike the ground right next to a regular being. Hopefully it would stall the beast for a moment, just a moment was all they would need.

Bastard was hiding something from her, and she had no doubts about that. The only problem was, she wasn’t exactly invited to the party wherein he’d be likely to deliver that piece of information, whatever it was, and so she was presently trying to find something else to do.

It was easier if she convinced herself that she didn’t care, but that took considerably more effort these days than it used to. Nevertheless, Xeron and Wrath and that snotty dragon wench could keep their secrets if they wished to; Neira was going to give them some berth until she became convinced that she wasn’t going to be tempted to assault on sight. Impulse control had never been her strong suit, mostly because in her early years, that sort of thing had been done for her, and after that, maintaining functioning relationships with comrades hadn’t really been necessary.

Scanning the back of a particular cart, she ran her chitinous hands over several of the glass bottles in quick succession, producing a series of audible clinks. Tilting her head to one side, she spent a single moment later in contemplation and then grabbed two, tucking them away in a small sack of her personal items. The march began in a matter of minutes, and she intended to find a certain spider before then.

As it was, she managed to catch up to Mercy no more than a half-hour in. Holding one of the bottles out by the neck, she offered it to her fellow nightmarian with a sly grin. “Ecclavarain vintage, almost a good century ago. It’d burn a human’s hair off, but I thought you might like it.” Neira shrugged nonchalantly, as if to indicate that it didn’t matter much if she didn’t.

---

Talae’s eyes were unfocused, most uncharacteristically off somewhere in the middle distance. She was fairly certain that Salim had been attempting to make conversation, but she frankly didn’t care. This, she had been told, was the face she wore most often when her sister was on her mind, but presently Fae was about as far from the dark elf’s thoughts as she ever got these days.

The object of her worry was someone else entirely, but then it would be foolish not to concern oneself when one’s closest comrade was possessed by something that frequently injured him. Subconsciously, she grit her teeth together. She’d have to tell him she didn’t like it. Of course, it wasn’t her choice to make, and she respected that a good deal more than most people would. But if he valued her opinion like she valued his, he’d want to know.

Attuned ears picked up on the General’s approach, and she was mildly surprised to find that he indeed seemed to be seeking her out. Though she had no more against him than she did the average person, he had never seemed keen on her line of work, which wasn’t exactly uncommon. Perhaps it was for this reason that it took her a moment to respond to his words.

“The irritating one is mildly correct; all tools have a use. All the same, I can see why you might not wish to utilize my particular sort. Do not concern yourself with it.” A pause, and something that sounded suspiciously like her sister’s voice reprimanded her in the back of her mind. “But thank you, even so.”

She sent a curious look in Salim’s direction, rather nonplussed by his interjection, but ignored him, sinking back into her thoughts and entirely unaware of the exchange between the general and the mercenary.

---

---

This was getting ridiculous. Knossus, before he’d apprenticed himself to a Civil necromancer, had been one of the best brawlers in his village, but this entire exchange was proving to be the most frustrating thing he’d ever endured. Not because of the condition of his body: while he was bleeding unceasingly from a broken nose and nursing several swelling bruises elsewhere, he had endured far worse before. No, the reason he was so increasingly enraged was because of the mental war that his opponent was waging on him and clearly winning. The smaller man before him had yet to lose an exchange, had no visible injuries and what was more refused to attack except exactly as far as was necessary to fend him off.

It was more than he could handle, used to winning as he was. It was time to break the rules, then. Quickly forming a plan, Knossus lunged forward, feinting a kick with one foot before abruptly shifting his weight and using the other. Tao, as expected, knocked it to the side with the judicious placement of a forearm, moving back and the shifting in to strike at Knossus’s chest with an elbow, which positioned his hand in such a way as to aim at the man’s already-injured face.

Rather than trying to avoid or block the fist, Knossus took a moment to summon the necrotic magics to his hands, ready to use their proximity to rot away the little fool’s body from the inside out. Just as he was reaching for Tao’s abdomen, though, he was brought up short by a fierce sensation of tearing flesh. Looking down, he saw the other man’s sword, somehow unsheathed in the time it took him to summon the spell, had found a new home in his belly.

Glancing back up, he saw the redheaded Child regarding him with something akin to infantile curiosity. “You, too… always too slow…”

Knossus didn’t have the vitality left to respond, instead collapsing to the ground in a crumpled heap.

---

At around the same time, Dark fell at Jivven’s hand, half-living body no longer able to respond to his commands. He was saved from the questionable dignity of being raised as an undead by Shasarra’s axe, which cleaved his head wholly from his body. The injured harpy glanced up at Jivven, gesturing to the enemies still about them.

“I’m not going to be much help with these wings, friend. But you might make a difference yet.” They were probably the nicest words she’d yet used on him, and she had to admit to herself that even if he was a groundwalking little slip-fish, he was rather good at it.

---

Easkr lumbered forward with surprising speed towards the cleric, ready to rip into her with his skeletal jaws, but was frustrated by the shield she had erected against him. He knew, though, that it could not stand forever, and while the dragon thundered away against it with single-minded determination, he felt something prick the back of his consciousness.

It sounded like a gastly wail, though a minor annoyance more than anything, and he might have dismissed it, had he in his distraction not missed the approach of two elven men, both armed with dual weapons apiece.

Oraun smashed bodily into the dragon’s ribcage, hacking away ferociously, though without much efficacy, at the massive curved bones that had once protected Easkr’s heart. Even as the dragon turned from the cleric, now pinned under one massive forepaw and struggling to breathe, he felt a weight bear down on his neck, forcing his jaw and face closer to the ground. Vortigern’s momentum was such that he’d recovered well enough from his toss at the grace of Pylarea, caught on to what the others were doing, and directed himself as well as he could to fall atop the dragon, landing in a crouch at about the middle of the series of vertebrae that made up its neck.

He was not so heavy that the pin would last forever, though, and fortunately, Safir made it just in time, the sword still imbued with holy light puncturing Easkr’s glowing eye-socket with what sounded suspiciously like a crack as it cleaved the bone beneath. The knight’s blow, not the fastest or the most graceful, did what speed and grace would not have been able: from the bottom of the eye socket and down through the cheekbones, Easkr’s skull was cracked and shattered, part of it crumbling away to the ground.

Without his necromancer to lend him the necessary force, it was enough to do the undead dragon in, and he went rigid, unable to move, even as the unlife left his stark-white body and dissipated under the force of the purification. The skeleton gave a great shudder, then crumbled into nothing more than the pile of bones it had once been under the ground.

Carmen, more than a little enfeebled from her exertions, struggled to free herself from underneath the still-heavy claws of the dragon, at last managing to wriggle free with a fair amount of creative contortion. Standing on shaking legs, she gave her rescuers a weak smile and set about examining the Children immediately closest to her. Most were all right and would not require immediate attention, but a few did need a bit of patching up. The magic of her earlier enchantments faded as she drew the light back into herself in order to heal where needed. Pain would slowly return to her comrades, and enchanted weapons would lose their extra properties, but if they took but a moment to look about them, they would know that such things were no longer necessary.

A few stragglers remained, but were quickly being finished off. The undead had fallen, and the Children of Fire were victorious, for the moment.

Tao stood, directing those of his troops that were still sufficiently able to draw the bodies, friends and foe alike, into a great pile for a funeral pyre. For those in the service of the dragons, burning was the only fit way to be sent off, and it had the added bonus of preventing the reanimation of corpses, something that they were all more wary of now that their greatest foe was capable of raising armies of the once-living for his own purposes.

Aesr reappeared at some point in this process and informed everyone that they would be setting camp in this village for the night, and that they were permitted to take any salvageable supplies they could find from the surviving buildings. She then ordered Tao to set up a watch and vanished again, presumably to sulk.

This wasn’t supposed to have happened.

Pylarea found herself shocked at the utter lack of compassion or respect for the dead on the part of a goodly portion of her new comrades. When told they were permitted to salvage for any supplies they dove on the corpses of the undead and truly dead as harpies would a fresh slab of meat, some even fought over their prizes as harpies would as well. It would be best to keep that analogy to herself though, she did happen to be in league with several of the creatures, and not a one seemed like they would take kindly to such sentiments.

Instead of “salvaging” any equipment or goods the Nightmarian, instead, held a short ceremony to honor those who had died, in the tradition of the Nightmarians of course and without the use of a pyre. After her few minutes of reverence Pylarea decided it would be best to find somewhere to make camp, well it was not necessarily a camp since she would not need to pitch a tent or anything due to the large number of buildings capable of residence but that was decides the point. A cursory glance around gave glimpse to the sight of Safir, the human who seemed to enjoy living in his armor. There actually was not much she could question on that part in all truth since her Arcshell was more or less a suit of armor such as his, but she was forever trapped whilst he could remove his extra layer.

It did not take long for the moth to discover Safir’s whereabouts, despite losing sight of the large man as difficult as that sounded, mainly because she was able to use her echo-location-like ability to keep tabs on where he went. When she finally did catch up with the man he had found shelter within a particularly large building near the main road and had salvaged several supplies from the storeroom downstairs. Luckily her body was able to sustain itself without food for a bit longer time than he would, and on top of that she did not require the sustenance of meat.

“Hello Safir. How are you feeling after the fight from earlier? I hope the dragon did not prove too harmful to you.

He did seem worn out, but as far as she could tell he was not much worse for the wear. The humans were a strange lot though, she still could not tell much about them besides the fact they had a soft outer-layer and tended to…what was that word…bruise yes that was it.

“Oh, I am so sorry. I did not mean to bother. Would it be okay for me to join you here?”

She could not see why he would not acquiesce to her request. It seemed like he was a nice enough person, but then again maybe all humans just pretended to act nice so they could take advantage of you later on. The Civil definitely seemed to practice portraying such false-images with a frequency and efficiency that was quite startling. Nightmarians had always been much more translucent in regards to such things, they were usually very straightforward and clear in their actions, well depending upon their breed. Some like the spiders seemed to prefer trickery and the like to accomplish their goals.

“So what is your opinion on The Civil? I could not believe what they did to this town today, and that they are doing it to countless others just like this one. I wish there was more I could do to help.”

She was completely honest in those regards. Pylarea had never truly known hatred before this battle, but now the bitter emotion began festering in the back of her mind. She wanted to end the brutal onslaught of The Civil no matter if the cost was her own life.

Jivven cursed and kicked the door, finishing it off for good in a shower of splinters. This was the third damn house along the main road that was ruined far beyond being used as a decent enough shelter. The entire second floor was missing, as in it was now part of the ground floor, the roof was nonexistent, and the walls had so many hole he could swear that if a strong wind came through, he would hear it whistle. He gave up and threw his hands up in the air and left the entrance, cursing all the while under his breath. There had to be a decent house in this place, they all couldn't be destroyed, could they?

He sighed, cursing about it wasn't going to magically rebuild it. He'd just have to keep trying, as before, they all couldn't be destroyed. On his journey to find the one house that wasn't more firewood than house, he pondered on things. He wondered if Shasarra was okay. She'd probably be with the medics, getting her wings looked at. Heh, would have thought he'd actually come to like the harpy. Sure, she was a bit stuffy but she more than proved her worth. He'd just have to conveniently forget that he was one finger short because of her. Besides, it never hurt to have a friend in the skies.

The forth house wasn't completely destroyed, but had already been claimed by some of the other Children. It was too crowded for the dark elf's tastes and decided to look elsewhere. But it did prove that there were still intact houses around. He gave the men and women in the house a wave and went on. His next thought was about the creature he had fought today. The darkling fellow. Could Jivven actually end up like that creature if he died? The thought sent shivers down his spine. If he died, he'd have to make sure that he goes out with a bang. Don't want to end up like that poor sod.

As he approached the next house, his trained dark elven ears heard a strange sound. It sounded like someones ragged breathing. The dagger flew from somewhere in his robes and to his hand in mere moments. Breathing like that reminded him of the zombies they just fought. Perhaps there were stragglers they didn't catch. The houses would make a perfect hide out for the foul creatures.

Jivven silently pressed against the outside of the house and slowly made his way to the door, a throwing knife appearing in his left hand. He had the element of surprise, the bastards would never see him coming. He didn't even need to take off his robes for this. He counted steadily down from three, and on one suddenly appeared in front of the door. However, instead of zombies, he was greeted by comrades. Injured comrades. The blades in his hands disappeared as he ran to the nearest injured man, the human Safir. He was admist a pile of splintered wood and his breathing was the ragged sound he had mistaken for a ghoul.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jivven cursed in rapid succession, "What happened?" He asked, oblivious to the fact that the human may not be able to answer him. Jivven's eyes were wide and he felt worried for his comrade. "Uh- I'll go get help! Yeah I'll- Dammit! What happened to you?!" He asked, skirting across the room to Pylarea. He quickly tried to assess the damage, but he was no medic. As far as he could tell he could tell, she was bruised and missing part of her antennae. But they both were still alive. "I'll go get help! Don't move or- Fuck!" He said, running out of the house and yelling for a medic.

He happened upon Carmen during his mad sprint, and remembered she was some sort of cleric, mage or something like that. A medic in essence. He went to grab her hand to drag her to Pylarea and Safir while speaking in fragmented sentences, "Come on! Safir, Pylarea! Hurt! House! Over there! Fuck!"

---

Liliana Bloodleaf

"Guess." Lily replied poking her head through the tent flaps with a coy smile. The elf's voice easily identified her despite the dim light in the tent. Lily could see just fine in the low light though, thanks to her elven eyes. Something about evolving to hunt in the dim light of the forests? "Try to be a little bit more polite though, else I'll have to stop visiting," She said jokingly. Lily always seemed to be more comfortable around Turha than anyone else in the Paragon, and though not the bright paragon of innocence she once was, he was the only one who saw the closest thing to it.

"You're not busy, are you?" She asked. Despite his answer, she stepped into the tent, allowing the flap to slide back behind her. She looked... Different. She wasn't wearing her patched live leathers, or even the rough travel-stained clothing she wore into battle. Surprisingly, she actually was wearing a simple but elegant white dress that flowed all the way down to her bare feet. The dress fit her just right in all the right spots and was spotless. Dead gods only knew where she found something like that. Her head was no longer obscured by her hood , and actually looked combed for once. As combed as her golden wavy locks could be anyway. Her bow and quiver were left in her own tent. She actually looked like a woman now, instead of some rag-tag soldier.

The airy girl blushed as she caught Turha's eyes, then she smiled. "The Sunwings actually bought this for me at the last town," She said, spinning allowing Turha to get a full view of the dress. That explained the mystery as to where the dress came from. She must have had it stowed away in a pack somewhere during the traveling. "I tried to yell at them for it, but I just couldn't. They said I deserved something nice for once," She said. Despite how much she tried to play it off, it was obvious to everyone she cared about those three. "May I?" She asked, pointing at the bed. Turha nodded, letting Lily take a seat beside him.

"How are they?" Turha asked about the Sunwings. Lily sighed and looked shrugged. "Fine. They're out on patrol now. Adel said something about actually getting one of the reds to give her a ride. Zyn and Landion each took a ground patrol. I'm proud of them. Even despite Adel's huge mouth," She said, adding to the hyperbole with hand motions, "Between her and Zyn, it's like trying to herd cats," she added, laughing. Her laughter was infectious and had Turha chuckling as well. As the laughter died down Lily still smiled. "Still though. We're family, and I love them like family," She said sighing.

"You know... I never really felt like I had a family before," She said, her smile finally leaving her face. She leaned against Turha for support as she spoke "Back before the Paragon, before the Blackguard. Back with my clan, the Bloodleaf, I never felt like I truly belonged. I was cheerful- optimistic- while everyone else was serious. Survival, that was what mattered back then. Not happiness. Happiness and optimism blinded you to what the world was really like," She said, laying her head on Turha's lap. "Still though, I clung to it. Perhaps I didn't really want to know what the world was like. How we had to fight every day just to stay alive. I heard stories about how the clan fended off the Children, and the Primah before that. But they we're just stories back then."

She sighed, but continued talking. This had been a burden on her shoulders for a long time now, and this talk was a long time coming. "I don't know if my clan was the ones who left me, or I was the one who left. When I got separated from them in the Ashwoods, I don't know if they looked for me or if I just ran and never looked back. I just don't know any more," She said, taking one of Turha's hands and holding it against her chest. "I don't hold a grudge against them anymore. They had to do what they thought they needed to do to survive, as did I. I don't know if it was the right choice or not, but I do know if I didn't leave I wouldn't have found the Paragon," She said, looking up at Turha with a smile. Her eyes blue eyes once again were bright- even in the dim light of the tent. "I wouldn't have met Wrath, or Kisikoni, or Sid, or Faera, Caine, Talae, Alistair, and everybody else in the Paragon. You all mean so much to me and are more of a family to me than anyone in the Bloodleaf ever was, and I would gladly follow you all anywhere."

Then she reached up and cupped Turha's face with a soft hand, "Especially you, Turha Mialee. You mean the most to me," She said, pulling him in for a long kiss.

With that, what little light in the tent was extinguished.

A soft grunt escaped the dragonfly as she was engulfed in spiderly affection, if you could call it that. She considered a (comparatively) good-natured crack about addictions, but in the end declined.

“Hm… don’t say things like that. I’ve been known to actually take people up on debts,” Neira replied dryly, working the cork from her own bottle with a single pointed digit. She didn’t drink nearly as quickly as Mercy, though, mostly sipping on the brew sporadically throughout the day. Not that it mattered; the stuff was so potent that she spent the majority of the afternoon pleasantly buzzed. Made marching considerably more tolerable. Once, she would have been able to waste away her days in this manner if she so wished, for people of her stature were not required to assist in manual labor. It was amusing, in a bitter sort of way: she’d always wanted to be a soldier, but that had never been allowed. Now she was, and she was almost nostalgic for the old days when slaughtering things wasn’t a daily reality.

Wait… what? She looked down at the bottle in her hand and shook her head, causing the world to tilt slightly. That was a passing fancy of incredibly stupid proportions. She wasn’t good at anything else, so why bother to long for days when she had to pretend to have a head for diplomacy and the graceful arts of conversation?

“Do you ever miss it? The Hive?” she asked suddenly, though her words were enunciated clearly still. After that slip, though, she clamped her mouth shut and said nothing for the rest of the trip, though she would admit to being interested in the answer.

---

“Hm. Pretty,” Her voice was a drawl, laced with something approaching disdain. “But does it have a use?” Neira hopped down over the ledge and into the crater Wrath currently occupied, able to avoid falling off-balance by sheer dent of practice and muscle memory. The body remembers what even the mind forgets, an old man had once told her.

She glanced again at the stone, but whatever fascination it held for him wasn’t hers. She blinked slowly, and a silence stretched over the space, until she broke it again, handing the general the remnants of the liquor, still a good quarter-full. “If you’ve ever had a mind to learn about the other half of your culture, I’m in a foul enough mood to talk about it. You can start with this. Keep it to a couple swallows, though, because I don’t know how inoculated you’d be against it.” The fact that she could still use the word ‘inoculated’ was perhaps overridden by the fact that she was offering to talk about Nightmarians.

Truthfully, she didn’t know if he was even interested, but what the hell? It wasn’t like she had anything better to do at the moment. Maybe she’d just talk at him for a while, and see how long he’d listen before he up and left.

She’d always been called insufferable, after all; might as well make an effort to live up to expectations every once in a while.

---

Fak’ir and Talae entered the tent together, though they were there for quite different reasons. The halfling with the desert complexion was running supplies for the healers, being without an active assignment at the moment. His captain was there on a more personal matter, but of course he wasn’t about to ask her about it. Captain Shanir was known for two things: her swordplay and her reticence. As far as he could tell, she spoke easily with about three people, and of those, one was dead and one was off marshaling a force of harpies to aid the Paragon. The third was presently unconscious in this tent, as he’d told her when she asked.

The shadowmage passed the cot where that earth-rending orc had been earlier in the day, only to find it empty. Shame; he’d been interested in bringing up elemental theory with a fellow practitioner. Maybe he’d catch him later.

He saluted Sid when he walked by, which should have been awkward with his hands full of blankets and apothecary’s supplies, but wasn’t because of his balance and training. Being taught to move fluidly through and with dark spaces had the occasional fringe benefit. “Captain,” he offered, and nodded to Beelzes not too far away. Unlike his superior officer, the Lieutenant was rather social for a wetboy. He didn’t see the correlation between killing for a living and ignoring the living.

The supplies were dropped carefully onto a table slightly further back, and he fastidiously checked the labels on everything before he let them be. It wouldn’t do to mistake wort for nightshade, or vice-versa. Especially vice-versa.

He caught a brief glimpse of the captain at her old partner’s bedside, but if he registered anything more than this barest of details, he would never mention it.

---

Due to what was quickly being recognized as a ‘special condition,’ Kisikoni was somewhat removed from the rest of the patients. No need to provoke suspicion among the other soldiers if he accidentally sprouted extra limbs during a particularly bad dream or something. To Talae’s knowledge, this had never occurred, but she supposed it was worth being paranoid about.

She’d hoped to find him awake, but it seemed that he’d been out for most of the afternoon. The attendant nurse was sparing with the details, and she didn’t seek after them. There was a stool by his bedside, though, and she took it, perching on the edge like she might at any moment have to flee or fight.

“I’m leaving,” she said aloud, then halted, a bit surprised at herself. Nevertheless, she saw no harm in it, so she kept speaking. “I’d wait until later to tell you as much, but that time is a luxury I don’t have. Solo mission this time though, so… well, I should be back shortly at any rate.” And you’d better not be in this state when I get back.

“About the other thing… I understand why you didn’t say anything. I’m… glad you did, though, eventually. I’d match a secret with a secret, but the point would be moot right now, so… later.” If you die, I won’t forgive either of us.

Sighing softly, Talae rose slowly, slipping her fingers across Koni’s palm and squeezing briefly, touching the knuckles of his hand to her forehead. It was an old gesture of familiarity, one used often among the people of her village to bestow luck. “Fortune be with you, partner. We shall need it.”

---

---

Carmen gently touched the tawny feathers and flesh that comprised Shasarra’s wings, barely grazing the surface. Even so, the harpy hissed and cursed low in her native tongue, causing the healer to send her an apologetic look. For some time now, Camen had been in the peculiar Zen-like haze that characterized one of her healing trances. Her teacher had called them a special gift from the gods themselves, but of course the gods had been dead by the time Carmen was born.

Godsent or not, it allowed her to stave off the weaknesses and frailties of her own body long enough to complete her tasks. The soft, aureate glow of her holy magic seeped into the harpy’s bones, rearranging the shattered fragments like a series of puzzle pieces, and slowly, so slowly, knitting them together. The flesh followed, but Carmen knew not how to reattach feathers, so a few of those would have to regrow on their own. It shouldn’t interfere with flight, though, so she wasn’t too worried about it.

Shasarra flexed the limbs with surprising ease, and shot a glance at the blond woman. To all appearance, the healer did not belong in an army: she carried no weapons, had little musculature, and though her stature was relatively tall, it was not sturdy. Her hands were without callus, her hair and clothing free of battle-debris, which frankly perturbed the harpy, so used to being neck-deep in the gore of her foes. Nevertheless, she grudgingly acknowledged her respect for the cleric with a nod, taking off to stretch her sore muscles.

Carmen was just thinking about how nice it would be to sit down with a cup of tea, and perhaps play a signing-game with the Captain, when she was approached by a panicked-looking dark elf she recognized as Jivven. Unlike her superior officer, she was very good with names, even if she never got to say them. As soon as the words ‘Safir’ and ‘Pylarea’ were out of his mouth, she was running as close after him as she could, scarcely needing to be pulled along.

They came upon a standing structure of about two stories in height, and she was ushered in the front door without any further ado. The scene that met her eyes confused her, but she did not bother to hesitate. By now, she was completely exhausted from the exertions of the day, but she would not give that more than a passing consideration. Pylarea seemed to be bleeding from the head, but she was still conscious. Safir looked to have been tossed like a rag doll, and his neck was displaying a very worrisome injury, so it was to him that she went first.

His breath was shallow, and a closer examination of the wound revealed a pattern that she had never seen left by a physical weapon, blunt or sharp. This caused her brows to furrow, but right now the important thing was not what had happened, but how to fix it. Breathing deeply, Carmen closed her eyes and laid the pads of her fingers over his windpipe. Normally, contact was not essential, but because the wound was as much internal as external, it would be easier this way. Her own magic circulated around her lungs and heart, an unusual center for something that was usually found in either the head or the belly. Drawing it out in threads, she willed it to repair the damage, but it was slow going. A solid five minutes later, Safir’s throat was once again fully functional.

Attempting to stand, Carmen staggered, catching herself on Jivven’s shoulder, and tried to smile reassuringly at a rather traumatized-looking Pylarea. Motioning for the Nightmarian to lower her head, Carmen placed an index and middle finger on each temple. This was more delicate work, because she was working with anatomy around the brain, though it was far enough away from the vital functions that she felt comfortable healing it in this state.

The wound was jagged, and Carmen had to resist the urge to shiver. It looked like it had been torn off, not merely sliced. Stopping the bleeding was simple enough, but she didn’t know if the psychological implications would be as easy to cope with. That wasn’t really her area of expertise.

Cutting off the flow of magic, Carmen lowered her hands with that same mysterious smile and managed to conduct herself to an unused corner of the room, where she promptly curled up on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and falling asleep.

Pylarea

Safir, Pylarea’s chosen company for the moment, was still choosing not to speak with the moth, and it seemed he did not even acknowledge her presence for all the Nightmarian could tell. Have I upset him in some fashion? Maybe I should not have bothered him after all. What could I do to cheer him up? Maybe nothing… The woman always fretted over such things, being raised as a noble, even if a minor one at that, forced a person to carefully examine every action and reaction to judge what it reflected upon the other’s inner-most thoughts and feelings concerning the environment around them. This was indoctrinated all the much more so in the female Nightmarians. By the looks of things it would just be best to wait for the human to open up in his own time, he was probably as exhausted as she was from the previous battle.

The time passed slowly as the two sat in their quiet little building, Safir feasting on his salvaged meal and Pylarea merely watching him and observing the building around her. Their solitude was interrupted though by the sounds of footsteps approaching. It is probably no more than just another Child coming to seek shelter for the night. I wonder if they will be more willing to converse than Safir. The man, or at least he looked like a man, approached them somewhat tentatively, but not strangely enough like he knew exactly what and who to suspect to find in the larder, and greeted them apologetically. Strange, I do not remember seeing him around before. Where was he while we fought the Civil?

He started to speak of smelling something, but quickly drifted off in mid-sentence when his eyes began to wander around Pylarea’s direction, it was probably the food located behind her. After regaining his composure he glanced at the moth again, which did not really register, it was not the first nor would it be the last time someone had taken notice of her looks, but what soon followed far from what Pylarea would have suspected. Some unknown force struck Safir and hurled the man across the room like a child would a rag-doll when throwing a tantrum. “By the Hive Mother, Did you just hit him with telekinesis?”

What… Before Pylarea could even finish her thought a force, what probably was the same one which had hit Safir, made contact with her skull. Her Arc Shell had proven much more capable of negating the blow than the human’s body, but it could not manage against the next three blows which slammed into her within a quick succession of the first. A darkness began descending over the girl’s eyes, enveloping her consciousness and awareness. The only thing that kept her from passing out completely was the fear which gripped her very soul. It was bone-chilling, something she had not felt since she was a child in Ecclavaria, this was a feeling the Nightmarian was very familiar with, and somehow she knew what was happening.

Hive…Mother? As the thought crossed her mind another blow cracked her skull yet again, forcing her to lose whatever ideas began connecting and the little grip she had left on staying awake. Even the fear could not keep her aware now as darkness enveloped her. The next four blows across her stomach and thighs barely even registered with her psyche, they seemed like illusions sent from some horrid nightmare would from long ago. This would soon change though. A blinding pain like none other seared through the Nightmarian, starting from her left antenna and coursing through her entire body like waves of fire. This brought her back to a semi-conscious state of being.

It seemed like an eternity passed before anyone else came. She could not keep track of the time from when the assailant left and whoever it was who found them started screaming. Who was that man? No, he cannot be a man….Hive Mother? How….why? It would take time before the woman could connect all the dots, right now all she could understand the pain, washing over her in waves of agony. Was it days before the others came? No, it could not have possibly been that long. Hours then? That still seems too unlikely. How could such a small span of time seem like an unending cycle? She lost count of the number of times her body throbbed with agony or shivered with an uncontrollable fear.

When it did start to dissipate though the moth could feel a warm presence near her, and whoever it could be was a kind and generous soul, but she could feel how tired they were. Pylarea did not know if she could maintain to same level of strength this person…no this woman was managing. It must be… It had to be the cleric Carmen. The presence seemed too familiar, caring, and exhausted to be anyone but Carmen. The Nightmarian finally regained some level of awareness of the situation around her, the screaming one form earlier must have been Jivven, and it was so strange to think of him doing something like that. Safir seemed to be alive at least, which was a miracle in and of itself, but Carmen was huddled up and sleeping on the floor like a newborn would.

The wounded moth crawled over slowly and lay next to the sleeping cleric, thankful that there were still kind people left in the world. It was always and miracle to find someone so kind in this time of hatred and evil. What could a weakling like herself do at a time like this? Things were no different than when she lived in Ecclavaria, a prisoner to her own brood. Tears began flowing as a powerfully as a river swollen with flood waters, but she refused to make a sound. Something had to change. She refused to be helpless anymore.

--

---

"Nonsense, Nonsense!" Mercy bubbled, lightly punching the conservative dragonfly. "Call me up on that favor any time!" She shared the pleasure of the Vintage with Neira silently afterward. The stuff was far more potent than she recalled, but her extremely high tolerance to alcohol she built up over the years allowed her to down three-quarters of the bottle before the buzz started to set in. Once it did, it didn't take long for her to reach the boiling point. The rigid pace she set for herself never faltered, Mercy was quite used to drinking herself into a stupor while on the move. The concentration it took, however, killed some of the pleasantness of the vintage. However, she wasn't too far gone to ignore the company Neira provided her. Though she remained quiet for most of the journey, it was by no means awkward as Mercy constantly supplied a stream of inane rambling.

When Neira finally interjected with a question, Mercy had opened her mouth to reply, but surprisingly, had no answer. Scratching her head lazily, Mercy's face tilted toward the sky as she pondered about how to answer. Humming in unfocused thought, she took a swig of the near-empty bottle. "I'd say I think about it, but I don't miss it." She began, "This life and my past life are separate." Blushing slightly at the coherent poetry, she continued. "All my friends back there are probably dead now; A century is far too long to be gone when you live in the moment." Sighing, she took another long draught of liquid. "Even under these circumstances, I'm quite sure I can never return anyways."

The sun had set once more, but vision still came poorly to the drunken Nightmarian. Her voluminous red eyes winked erratically, and she let out a loud exclamation of relief when they finally stopped for the night. With the empty bottle swinging haphazardly from her hands, she stumbled over to the crater where she slumped over the edge, looking down at Neira and Wrath. "Hmm. Hmm." She hummed contentedly, observing their exchange with more interest in Neira's attempt at small talk than anything else. She had no real plans to conceal herself, She was far too inebriated to even try to do so. Just as well, She was far too exhausted to bother moving toward her tent, which she had very clumsily set up. In the end, one of her men had to help her, and though he said it was no trouble, the Nightmarian thought she sensed an irritable air from him.

---

Still reveling over the triumph earlier, He did not notice Pylarea come in. It was only when she offered to take the bed nearest that he raised his head, and gestured for her to do so. There was no need to be selfish, even such a small bed was enough for the big Knight. Setting down the food, he gestured for Pylarea to help herself while he quietly thought about what would happen next. However, Pylarea seemed a bit more talkactive than she was before all this. He wanted to answer, but her questions, unlike his own, were complex. The civil, as he knew it were not evil in the past. However, this begs the question "What truly is evil?" That was something Safir didn't know. Perhaps he spent too long formulating an answer, as Pylarea lost interest when Gatan entered. The human pugilist seemed like he wanted to crash or otherwise. However, before he could react, the man had gone for the food he had scrounged up.

Suddenly, a foreign impact sent Safir flying into the shelf nearest to him, and he was suddenly in a world of pain. The last thing he could hear before everything collapsed into a blur of pain and ragged breathing was Gatan. Did Pylarea do that? Why would she? Even as Safir's eyes squeezed shut and his face wrinkled to express his distress, he could not help but feel so betrayed. The rest of whatever happened next was lost to the Knight, as he struggled to merely continue breathing and trying not to die from suffocation.

As time passed, eventually he heard a voice break through the buzz of pain, an unfamiliar voice. Not too long afterward, he felt relief from an unknown comrade, and when he finally could breathe comfortably once more he opened his eyes. The dark elf, Jivven was present, as was Carmen. Massaging his throat, he felt that all was in order. As expected of the healer to perform her role so well. However, looking around he saw Pylarea. Before his rage could swell up, he noticed something off. She was on the ground, and one of her mandibles were missing. The way Carmen and Jivven fretted about her immediately stopped Safir from punching her in the face. He directed his ire toward Gatan instead, who had disappeared. He was about to say something about it, but his logical nature spoke to him. Why would Gatan attack so suddenly? It was more than likely he had created an alibi. He noted that Carmen had finished her duties, and decided to sleep in the corner.

"We all are equal, my ass." He grunted, picking her up and tossing her lightly onto the bed he claimed. Soon after he strode toward Jivven. "Thanks for calling for help." He said, raising his fist and lightly tapping him in the shoulder. As grateful as the Knight was, his visage was alive with anger and thoughts of revenge. However, going up to Gatan and slicing his head off would prove to be a bad idea. He would have to wait. His eyes finally turned toward the pitiful-looking Pylarea.

Safir could not possibly know what was going on in her head, but by the dead gods did she seem broken. He knelt down in front of her, trying to catch her gaze- but it proved to be an impossible venture. "It was my fault. I let my guard down around that bastard." He said after a minute. "Later, I request that you tell me what happened.. I could not see after the bout of telepathy. This won't happen again." He rose. Safir was far too angry and restless to sleep now. "I'm going out for a bit." A walk would do him better than lying awake and allowing his hateful thoughts to get the better of him.

Pylarea & Gatan

Being an ant, an industrial Nightmarian, had its advantages. When you were programmed to think of nothing beyond the task at hand, anxiety rarely had a chance to set in. Gatan was more concerned with getting supplies for the march ahead rounded up than worrying if Pylarea or the human would nark on him. When his primitive mind did drift back to that possibility, Gatan scoffed. The moth was a weakling. Too used to taking commands and being domineered by those more powerful than she. The human male was another story. Gatan was unsure of how that one would proceed, but they had no proof Gatan had done anything wrong, so he was untroubled by this variable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pylarea did not know if she was sleeping, harassed by nightmares of the past, or simply laying there awake trying to feign sleep, assailed by memories of long ago. Well, whatever the case be she knew that this could not continue on for much longer and after Carmen’s healing the dots began to connect to one another. I very well cannot be sleeping if I am able to think such as this. The moth brought herself to a semi-sitting position, leaning the weight of her body on her hands but keeping her waist and legs on the ground. The cleric was still sleeping peacefully, exhausted from the exertions of her tumultuous day.

It seemed everyone was enjoying the peaceful embrace of slumber except the Nightmarian and Safir, the human had come to her earlier and attempted to make some conversation, but she was in no way to open up at the moment. She was too preoccupied to even consider letting her guard down for even the briefest amount of time. He blamed himself for this attack, but how could he have known what was to happen? Safir soon stormed off in to the night’s dark embrace for some reason. Hopefully he did not try anything brash.

The assailant was merely biding his time when he could devour her without having to worry about anyone’s knowing, and she could feel his presence flittering about through their camp. He had to be some form of Nightmarian, there just was no doubt to that fact, and from his dietary preferences he came from The Wild. Their kind had been practicing cannibalism for far too long, and now it was practically a necessity.

The harsh realities of The Wild rarely pervaded into the commons of Ecclavaria, but the higher-castes were made aware of this fact in case they ever needed to travel outside of the Hive City’s safety. She had never witnessed any of these atrocities until fleeing the city for the Children none too long ago when the group she had been travelling with was attacked by foul creatures similar to the one earlier. Had it not been for the brave Mantis and Scorpion in their party they would have been overcome by the attackers, but still, all their power could not prevent their death.

I cannot sit idly by and wait. There must be something I can do, but what would that be? I am just a weakling moth….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gatan forced himself to shed his instinctual tendency to collect and organize in order to take stock of what all he'd managed to accrue. As an ant-type, he rarely slept more than two to four hours at a time, leaving a great deal of time to be devoted to productive things. In the time that the other Children began bedding down, Gatan had gathered several crates of dried meats, salt, a bit of sugar, some syrups, oil, and a miscellany of other foodstuffs. It dimly occurred to the Nightmarian in disguise that getting together items like tinder and tools might prove useful, but he did not particularly care for fleshling-made crafts.

With his own antennae long amputated, Gatan's extrasensory was dull at best. His sense of smell was greatly diminished as a result, and any sense besides sight required near point-blank proximity to be effective. His ears were little more than vestigial nubs, the Nightmarian relying almost solely on his tremor-sense to gather information on the world around him. It'd been a few hours since the meal he'd made of Pylarea, but judging by her footfalls, Gatan assumed she was feeling better. Slowly, the ant turned away from his stockpile to look at the approaching moth. His face slowly spread in a demure smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had not been very difficult to discover the creature’s location. Even though she was missing most of her left antenna her telepathic skill were far from crippled, and judging by the being’s lack of his own antenna he was using only his tremor-sense to detect her. She approached him cautiously, conveying a sense of both uncertainty and trepidation, there was no lying in her steps either, the moth was terrified and unsure of how this would play out. One wrong misstep and she would be devoured alive.

Gatan looked at Pylarea voraciously, the gleam in his eyes similar to a predator surveying its prey. His gaze forced the moth to reach up and grasp at her chest and clench the fabric of her tunic with an iron-grip. The ant started to wake towards her hungrily, but before he could make two paces the woman shuffled back quickly. “Please, I don’t want to die. I will do anything you want, just...please let me live.” His hearing may not have been the best, but he could hear well enough to distinguish the sincerity in Pylarea’s voice.

This wasn’t exactly how he wanted everything to play out, and by no means did he care one bit about leaving her in one piece, it had been so long since he had feasted on a fellow Nightmarian’s flesh and even then he had never tasted anything so succulent as the moth’s, but he was no fool either. The girl was a fine slab of meat, and there was no use wasting a good play thing before he had all the fun he could want out of it. Fine then, if she thinks it’ll save her skin, I’ll just have to taste that flesh after I’ve had my fill.

“Oh really, d’ you think you got somethin’ I want? I have a ravenous appetite, and you might not be willing or capable enough to give me my fill.”

“No, I will, believe me I will!” She sounded eager and hopeful, like a rabbit who thought the only hole left open was its salvation. Creatures could be so foolish when they thought there was hope.

“Well fine then. Let’s see how you do then. Come here.” Gatan was not one to mince his words or waste any time. Instead of listening to his commands the girl actually began backing up even more. She was right next to the tree line, outside of the camp’s fires’ reach. “What’re you doing? I said come here!” This was making Gatan most unpleased. Maybe he should just take a bit while taking advantage or her body.

Pylarea would not stop until completely outside of the light of the campfires, this meant Gatan could no longer see her, but he could tell where she was using is tremor sense. She did not walk but maybe five feet into the forest itself. “You should come out here away from the spying eyes of the camp. Please, I will make it worth your while.”

The ant was thoroughly enraged that he would have to go through such hardships just to sate a hunger or two with the girl. What does he care what any of the others see or think about him? Bah, what the hell. I might as well play along with her little games. Gatan began to walk towards his newfound plaything, hiding in the dark like a shy little maid. Honestly, women could be so self-conscious and fretted about the most trifling of matters. Who cared if they copulated in the middle of his stockpile? He would take her in front of the dragon’s tent if the beast didn’t care!

Something strange began happening as he stepped into the darkness of the woods though. It was as if a vice had clamped down onto, but very slowly, he didn’t notice it at first, no his movements just started slowing down minutely, yet it wasn’t long before it felt like a swamp was engulfing his body. What’s happening? The blood should make me stronger than this! Soon enough it was taking the pugilist all of his might just to shake his appendages, but no matter how hard he tried his mouth would not move nor the muscles in his throat allow for any sound to escape.

“Did you like seeing me in pain earlier?” His arms began to extend slowly, not from any lack of ability on Pylarea’s part, but because the beast in front of her was very powerful, indeed she would never be able to compete with him if he was to have understood the true danger she posed. It took nearly all of her might to bend the outstretched arms backwards at the elbows; she could hear every fiber of his body rip and tear slowly as he fought with every ounce of his being.

“Was I delicious? Tasty enough for seconds or even a four-course meal?” While she was stating these hypothetical questions Pylarea focused her attention upon his hidden secundi, they were easier to bend backwards now that she need not worry about his arms, but the process was still slow going as he was able to focus more attention on them as well. It was futile though. He may be powerful, but he was unprepared for this assault.

“Was it as fun for you as it is for me?” Venom dripped from the moth’s words as she locked in on the creature’s legs. Maybe she should not leave him in too bad of a spot so that Carmen’s job would not be too difficult in the morning. The poor girl was tired enough as is without her adding on the workload. Instead of forcing his knees back as the rest of his limbs she was content with merely snapping his ankles. Actually, she was unsure as to if she even could have broken the creature’s knees, it had taken nearly all of her current effort just to do the same to his arms, and his legs would obviously prove much stronger than they were.

“If you ever attack me again, or anyone of the fellow Children, I will crush you.” There was nothing but sincerity in the Nightmarian’s voice. She would not budge on this demand, and if need be she might have to risk her life by killing him. That would be a most undesired outcome from Aesr’s point-of-view. Whatever the case, all Pylarea wanted to do now was sleep in peace. She continued back into the light of the camp grounds and went back to the little two-story house where she found Carmen sleeping peacefully. The moth lay down next to her in the bed Safir had placed her and drifted off easily into the realm of slumber.

“Life sucks if you don’t take a risk every once in a while,” Neira pointed out, though what was originally intended to be a somewhat-lighthearted jab wound up sounding rather more grave then she’d intended.

Well, that was more than enough of that. She chuckled when Wrath asked for a ‘story,’ sinking down crosslegged on the rock beside him. It was a mirthless sound, and she shook her head slightly even as she let her arms rest loosely, draped over her knees in a vague approximation of mediation posture. “Well, I’m no loose-tongued minstrel, but I shall endeavor, o general.” Her eyes narrowed suddenly, locking on a spot just to one side of him. She could have sworn… but no, that must be the alcohol.

Sighing slightly- before she stopped herself anyway- Neira relaxed a bit, looking somewhere into the middle distance. “Understanding nightmarians would be impossible if you didn’t understand how the Hive works. There are people who live outside of it, of course, savages who feed on the flesh of their fellows.” She sounded almost a tad wistful about that, though her mouth dropped into a frown. “I can’t imagine why- it tastes awful. At any rate, the rest live in Ecclavaria, the great hive-city.

From the moment you’re born to it, you understand- your life is meaningless. You exist only to serve the Queen in the way that your subspecies has always done so. That much is mostly common knowledge, I suppose. Perhaps being a laborer is as awful as it sounds, but it’s nowhere near as dangerous as being a queenspawn. The males don’t have to worry too much- most of them are handed off to other high-caste families. The females, though… well, one of them will be queen someday. The chances of being picked are greater when your sisters are fewer, so you can imagine what happens.

It’s called the Game, and they play it like their lives depend on it, which I suppose they do. The thing is, direct murder isn’t allowed, so you have to get creative about it if you want to win. It’s rather amusing, watching all of them plot and scheme to take each other down, but they never do realize that this as much as anything else is hardwired into their systems. The Queen is a psion of immense power, and it’s all her. I expect what the dragons do to their initiates is an attempt to replicate that control,” the last part was mused thoughtfully, as though she hadn’t bothered to consider it before, and she leaned back on her hands.

“She instills in them the drive to eliminate the competition, but also the inability to assault each other directly. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s actually necessary or if she just does it all for her own amusement. Either way, I suppose it’s fun to watch. You know there’s only ever been one actual murder in the Hive-city? Apparently, one of the spawn found some way around the compulsion.” She shrugged. “Aren’t you glad you were born elsewhere?” Inwardly, she was wondering if perhaps it would be wise to stay well away from the Ecclavarian vintage in the future, but well… she was hardly one to curb most of her vices.

---

---

About what does a mute cleric dream? Looking at Carmen, all that would be readily discernible was that whatever the content of her somnolent thoughts, it was most unpleasant. At some point, she reached out unconsciously and found Pylarea’s arm, grasping the nightmarian moth gently by the wrist and elbow, as if to keep herself anchored to the realm of the waking somehow.

---

Shasarra was still seated by the campfire when Zulii made her hungover appearance, and she chuckled along with the rest at her fellow harpy’s rude gesture. She’d had more than a few adventures at the wrong end of a bottle of hotblood wine herself, though admittedly she could only remember about half of them.

As things settled back down, though, she resumed her story, a rather amusing yarn about a harpy prince who dressed as a woman to escape from his mother’s flock. When she got to the part about his sister recognizing him, and summoning the rest of the flock, there were several loud guffaws that brought her to a stop before she continued. “Nobody really knows what happened after that,” she finished mysteriously. “Some say he flew fast enough to evade them all and ran off to join the Paragon. Others think he flew too close to the sun in his efforts to escape and died of heatstroke. Still more are certain he was recaptured or eaten by Balenforethus himself.” The woman shrugged as if to say it didn’t really matter, then turned over the mantle of storyteller to whomever wanted it.

---

Tao was running his usual halfhearted patrol around the fringes of the camp, checking that the perimeter guards were all still awake. One poor sod had woken to see the captain hovering over him, blade drawn, and nearly fallen over himself with prostrate apologies. Tao had smiled, then, in a way that was not at all comforting, and resheathed the liuyedao at his hip. The man was still whispering prayers to his ancestors for both thanks and future protection, but he certainly wouldn’t be sleeping again until he was well and truly off-duty.

Folding his hands inside his sleeves, Tao did not bother to disguise the slight scuffing sound his wooden footwear made on the ground. He was dutifully stopped by every sentry, which satisfied him, though he made a note to see if they’d notice him were he silent. They’d know if a group approached, but a single assailant? That wasn’t as easy to tell. He knew that at the very least, the Paragon had a dedicated battalion of nothing but assassins, and very skilled ones at that. The Civil and Savage seemed less concerned with that sort of thing, but it didn’t mean they were incapable of it either.

He’d been sent here to do a job, and both because of and in spite of his mission, he was going to prepare these troops as well as he could.

"Well, I couldn't quite let you choke to death, now could I? What if I need a meat shield later on down the line?" Jivven asked Safir in jest. A bit too late as then he realized the livid stare the knight held. Jivven hoped Safir wouldn't take offense and pop his head like a bloody bubble. Truth be told, after the joining under Nihalistrix and becoming one of many of her Children, Jivven found himself rather attached to the members of Aesr's squad. What with them fighting and surviving their first battle against the Civil undead and seemed to further that bond. Of course, he'd rather die than let them know that explicitly and he didn't feel quite like dying anytime soon.

Then the knight spoke to the moth Pylarea and stated he was going for a walk. In a low voice, Jivven warned, "Don't do anything reckless." True Jivven had no idea what had transpired nor how the pair ended up in such a condition. It did serve as a reminder though, to never let his guard down, even near friends. Though he felt a connection with the unit, it didn't mean he had to trust them fully. "Anyway, if you're going out, I suppose I'll stay in here and keep an eye on our Cleric and Moth," he said as if he was doing Safir a favor. As Safir stormed out of the house Jivven strode to the darkest corner of the house and sat, shedding his white robes for the black cloak underneath. He was almost invisible in the low light if not for his white hair screaming, 'here I am'.

Before long, the Moth left the house as well. Jivven opted to not say anything to her, as she had the look of a woman on a mission. Besides, he wasn't her babysitter, she could do whatever she wanted. He just wacthed as she strode out of the house, and like that it, it was quite once more except for the rhythmic breathing of Carmen. So peaceful, so serene, so... Pure. It was almost precious. Still, it was at this point Jivven began to slip into sleep himself. Later, Jivven's light slumber was broken by a sound of an approaching entity. His hand tightened around a throwing knife as his assassin conditioning dictated, but was proved unnecessary. It was only the returning Pylarea. That was good, she seemed to not gotten herself killed. Jivven couldn't help but grin when Pylarae chose to sleep in the bed with Carmen. Feeling a tad bit awkward, he grabbed his white robes and walked over to the window.

"Sweet dreams," he muttered as he took a step out of the window and grabbed onto the lip of the roof- easily pulling himself up to the roof. He made his way to the middle of the roof and sat crossed-legged, watching over the interior of the camp from his perch. His natural balance and control ensured he wouldn't fall off anytime soon. So he closed his eyes and listened to the inner workings of the camp until he drifted off to sleep himself.

---

Liliana Bloodleaf

"I believe in the compelling power of love. I do not understand it. I believe it to be the most fragrant blossom of all this thorny existence."
~Theodore Dreiser

Kisikoni wasn't too sure when he became aware of it, but when he did, he was aware of a very heavy cloud in his head. It numbed all coherent thoughts, and deadened his limbs. The fogginess persisted, attempting to relax him back to nothingness, but Kisikoni had the desire to know where he was. Incidentally, he finally found out how to open his eyes with that thought. Lifting his heavy eyelids slowly, his sight slowly adjusted to the new environment. He lethargically became aware of the fact that he was in the medical tent. After some extremely sluggish deductive reasoning, he came to the conclusion that he was drugged. He must have been in a lot of pain. Nobody was around, he was secluded. Confused as why he would wake up in the middle of a drug session, he was even more perplexed at why he felt like he couldn't fall asleep again. With half-lidded eyes, he let his head lie back after having it move around to ascertain his location. Perhaps this was a good time to reflect.

It felt like an eternity since he became a part of the ostracized legion and cooperated with the Reds. It felt like multiple eternities since his quiet life in the tunnels. The darkness, the dampness, and the lack of space seemed almost hostile to him now, after spending so much time above ground. If Kisikoni had figured out how to work the muscles in his jaw, he would have sighed. His thoughts eventually drifted to more mundane things, such as life, death, friends, and foes. He had almost forgotten the snide voice in his head, but eventually it wormed it's way through the fog in his mind. It began talking in a mocking tone, but in his half-conscious state, he couldn't comprehend anything it was saying. Instead, he began chuckling foolishly at the buzzing in his ear, and the voice fell silent. The laughing continued well after the voice stopped talking to him, but eventually his thoughts allowed him to focus on his situation, and what he actually was. At the moment, he was half-inclined not to care. There was so much death and sadness that he almost wanted it to overtake him, and leave him completely and blissfully ignorant to everything. On the other hand, he met so many unforgettable characters. It was a mental back-and-forth that happened almost every time Kisikoni was alone now, and what tipped the balance in the favor of staying in control was one thing. His one anchor.

His expressionless gaze sparked slightly, but he continued to lie in his bed, unable to move.

---

Before long, Mercy was utterly bored of the exchange. She was quite amused when she saw Wrath readily accept the liquor, seemingly for the first time, but when Neira started rattling off about things she already knew, Mercy realized that nothing that would keep her interest would come up. The rock that both Wrath and Neira were examining was interesting, to be honest, but in what way would a simple meteorite help or hurt them? It was a bloody clump of minerals. She was, to some degree, aware of another presence. One that wasn't of the drunken three hanging out in a bloody crater. She turned and took note of a robed person, who almost immediately thereafter wiped himself from view.

"That doesn't work on me, hon." She sang in soft tone, turning her gaze back toward Wrath. Struggling to focus in her drunken stupor, she could have sworn she saw Wrath's pocket shift slightly and a soft glow emanating from the pocket suddenly vanish. Blinking erratically, she decided to question the General later, if she could even remember. Either way, it was very surprising that whoever-it-was hadn't noticed her rather promiscuous form. Maybe it was her ark shell. She always did take care to dull the pieces so it blended perfectly with the darkness.

There wasn't much to do here anymore, so she decided to turn her voluminous red eyes away and stumble back toward camp. Passing along the rows of mostly dark canvases, she heard some rather revealing noises every now and then. Mercy allowed herself a silly grin, regretting the fact that she had no clue which tent was which and therefore could not tease them later on. Staggering along, she finally reached what was believed to be her tent. Peeping inside, she saw her pack of belongings, and sighed in relief. Settling herself right down, she tried to drink from her bottle before she realized it was empty. Pouting, she chose to go to sleep instead.

---

The night air was refreshing as Safir stomped his way around the outskirts of the camp, taking unconscious care not to disturb anybody in their sleep. To be honest, the thought of revenge at this stage wasn't considered in total seriousness. His sword, unbuckled and prepped to be maintained was left back on his bed, and the straps on his armor were loosened to allow some comfort and easier breathing. He was fuming quite badly over the events despite the cool air and calming atmosphere, so much so that he wondered if he could beat the Nightmarian in a fistfight now and teach him a lesson. However, in a straight beat-down, Gatan surely had the advantage.

After making a lap around the city, an impressive feat with an entire suit of armor and a fatigued body, he made back for the building. If he wasn't so tired, he would have noticed Jivven, dozing lightly on the roof of the building. An amusing sight indeed, though unnoticed by everyone nearest to him. Entering the building, he noted the irregularly large form on his bed. Carmen wasn't that fat. Apparently, Pylarea had decided to snuggle up with the healer, and now retrieving his sword was just that much harded. Slipping it carefully out from under Pylarea and Carmen, he unsheathed it and inspected it. Safir took the sword and exited the building once more, where he re-sharpened the blade with deft strokes of the grindstone he carried around. While he did have his blade enchanted, slashing dragon bones was still a pretty dumb idea. When he was finally satisfied, he sheathed the blade and walked into the room. He undid most of his armor, and placed it on another bed. How funny it would have been if he decided to flop down with Carmen and Pylarea. How short his lifespan would be when they woke up and saw him like that.

Throwing himself there on the unoccupied bed, he drifted off into an uneasy slumber.

Bound and gagged though she was, Neira was imprisoned voluntarily, and bore it with all the dignity of a queen, albeit a particularly angry one. Currently, she stood unmoving in the middle of her cell, posture more flawless than it ever was on an ordinary day, and the look conveyed through her narrowed eyes was nothing short of perfect disdain. It was making her cell guards incredibly uncomfortable, but she did not care. Did they not understand that her greatest weapon was still available to her? That if she wished, she could be free of these chains, free of all of them, with a mere thought?

As it was, she had closed off her mind, too, sealed it tightly against the intervention of anyone. Xeron could try all he wanted, but she wasn’t stupid. You didn’t work for so long beside such a powerful psion without accounting for the possibility that you might one day be on a different side from him again.

When Wrath had collapsed, she had known it wasn’t the alcohol. Despite her jabs to the contrary, there simply wasn’t enough there to kill anyone, much less someone with a half-dose of Nightmarian blood. Hell, she could have given the stuff to Sid and the worst that would have happened was a vomiting captain who then passed out for a few hours and woke up with the mother of all hangovers. No, something else was going on here.

Of course, she hadn’t helped her case when the dragons had landed. True to form, instead of trying to explain the circumstances, she’d drawn herself up to her full height and stared Iridinias down. “What, afraid your most important little pawn won’t be so useful to you anymore?” Come on, you scaly bitch, I dare you. Just try something. The thought had not been projected, though she had been sorely tempted. She did not take kindly to being treated like some yellow-blooded coward, the kind who would use poison and insidious treachery to take down an opponent. Her pride was far too great for that. Even when she herself had played the Game, her methods had always been direct, her intentions known. It was perhaps a miracle that she had survived where her opponents had not.

They had been much rougher than necessary when chaining her, but she had let them without dignifying the measure with a fight. It was a token restraint upon a creature who could teleport, anyway. Now, the bindings pulled uncomfortably at her limbs, and she was bleeding in a few places, but if there was one thing she understood, it was how to put mind over matter, and right now, the only things she felt were the indignant rage slithering over her skin- burning cold, not heated like her usual demeanor would have suggested- and the calmer, frostier-still knowledge that she would endure whatever farcical trial they put her through, because she had too much pride to run away anymore. She had run from Ecclavaria, she would not run from this. The blood, then, could seep ichor-blue from her wounds and pool at her feet on the floor with the eerie sound of regular drips, her muscles could protest her rigid vigil, but she would not stoop to acknowledge these things. She had endured much worse.

She was also quite certain that one day, she was going to kill that scarlet-scaled bitch. A contemplation over the methods for this was her meditative mantra, and the unholy fever-light it brought to her otherwise icy external demeanor was causing anyone who looked at her quite the measure of discomfort. She was using it to push back her actual concern over what had happened to the general and who had engineered it, because there was nothing she could do about that right now.

So for once, Neira would call upon the person she used to be, the dignified, regal Queenspawn buried under years of hatred and crass affectation and mercenary work, and though she wouldn’t like it, they would enjoy it much, much less.

The only murderer in the history of Ecclevaria would watch, and wait.

---

With Talae still away on a mission, Lieutenant Fak’ir Kethyrian was left in charge of the special operations unit of the Paragon. They’d been ordered to muster up and face battle with the rest this time, but he wasn’t about to have them form up in ordinary ranks. Their strength would be better spent doing what they always did, just in a different setting. Besides, just because the captain had trained herself to be versatile enough to fight with the heavy units if need-be didn’t mean they all had. Fak’ir’s command of shadow and illusion magics made it possible for him, but most of the rest of them were trained for sabotage and assassination only, and that was what he fully intended on having them do.

Upon seeking out his captain’s tent to take it down for the march, he’d discovered an impressive cache of resources, most of which had been labeled for squad use. He wasn’t sure when Talae had found the time to brew all of these, as several took weeks to mature properly, but the discovery gave his squad a real chance to make a serious difference in this battle. Along with vial after vial of corrosive acid, designed to melt the heads off the undead, there were various muscle-degenerative poisons and stealth and diversion devices. It seemed she planned on the possibility of an undead-heavy battle, though everything here would work on the living just as well.

There was a small bandoleer of other substances set aside from the rest, with a separate note attached.

Fak’ir-

Most of these are for the squad. Make sure everyone knows what’s what. Even an undead soldier can’t keep moving if his muscles lock up. Trust me, I’ve tested it. The rest are for Captain Ayalen. The blue substance is the same neurotoxin I gave the rest of you, enough for both knives, if he sees fit to use it. The red ones are basic restoratives, which should provide an energy boost. Tell him it might help deal with the issue he was telling me about, but only for a little while. Devil’s own luck to all of you.

-Talae

Fak’ir had no idea what issue that was, but apparently keeping Captain Ayalen from keeling over in exhaustion would help. Frankly, the halfling Lieutenant wasn’t sure what kind of fool worked himself to exhaustion often enough to have developed an “issue,” but he supposed it wasn’t any of his business. Shrugging, he tucked the note into the bandoleer and grabbed the rest of the supplies.

By the time he reached the med tent, Captain Sid was already up and about, along with Captain Beelzes. Like the good soldier he was, Fak’ir saluted the both before inquiring. “Pardon me, ma’am, but I’m also looking for Captain Ayalen. Special delivery, apparently.” He hefted the bandoleer and shrugged. As soon as he saw Kisikoni, he was passing this off with instructions to read the note, since he had his own squad to muster in the meantime.

---

The next morning saw all the Children roused at a relatively early hour, though it seemed that someone had taken enough mercy on them that at least the sun was already out before they were wakened.

Carmen, having slept heavily since the previous evening, was awake long before that, pleasantly surprised to discover that Pylarea, Safir, and Jivven were all in her immediate proximity, though she might not have known about the last if she hadn’t decided to throw open the window for some fresh air. Shasarra had roosted a rooftop over, and Carmen waved to the harpy, who returned the gesture with the languidness of half-sleep. Smiling to herself, and more than a little cheered that she seemed to have found herself some friends, she checked each for persistent injuries using magic alone. Finding none, she nodded to herself. That was good; she had worried she might have passed out before everyone was taken care of.

How she’d wound up on the bed was something of a mystery, but not a very large one. She was touched that they’d care so much, and watching the sleeping forms for a moment, she swore to herself that she’d do everything she could to ensure they survived this. They and the Captain were the only friends she had now, and she wasn’t much worried about Tao. That man had an uncanny ability to take care of himself.

Turning, she exited the house they were in, walking to the well to see if there might be any water to draw. Pleasantly surprised to find that there was, she hummed in the back of her throat and carried a basin of it back to the house, which was quite the labor. Nevertheless, she was able to split it into several buckets and step into another room to use one to clean the worst of yesterday’s grime off herself and wash her hair, which was a luxury they would not have often in the days to come. When that was done, she emptied her bucket into the garden outside and headed to the mess tent to gather everyone supplies for breakfast.

They were awakened with only time to dress and eat, but by bringing food to them, she hoped to give them the luxury of a bit of time. Indeed, by the time each was officially wakened, Carmen was gone, but extra food was beside the supplies they’d found in the house yesterday, and the fresh water was still there, for whatever purpose they deemed it best.

---

No more and no less than an hour after wake-up call, the Children of Fire were on the march once again, following direction from Aesr, though from whence the dragon herself pulled it, none but she could say. Well, Tao had a feeling he knew, but it was more like an itch somewhere in the back of his consciousness, and frankly he was too bored with it already to puzzle through the implications. In his experience, what dragons did was usually based on the opinion that they knew better than anyone else, and truthfully, he could say the same for any military leader.

When the smoke of cooking fires became visible on the horizon three days later, Aesr signaled for a stop, and turned with a flourish to address the troops. “Over that hill lies an encampment of Civil soldiers. The advantage of surprise is ours, and we’re going to take it. The captain will split you into two teams. One will lead the charge and attack from the west side.” That way, the dying sun would be on their side and interfere with the enemy’s visibility. “The other will wait until all the forces have been turned to engage with the main force, then use the crest of the hill for a height advantage and initiate a flanking maneuver.”

With that she fell silent, leaving the mundane details to Tao, who suppressed the urge to drag a hand down his face. He understood that Aesr, more than others of her kind, believed herself invincible, but this was reckless. Granted, the strategy was sound enough, but the Children of Fire had been marching for most of the day, and she hadn’t sent ahead any reconnaissance units to see just what they were dealing with. She seemed unbothered by the fact that they were fighting blind, though, which only served to further perturb the Captain. Unlike some, he did not have absolute faith in those he worked for, but that didn’t mean he was going to defy his orders… often.

He split the group, putting most of the heavy hitters in the first group to soak up the initial damage. Here went Safir, Oraun, Vortigern, Shasarra, himself, and anyone else with more in the way of armor and close-range weapons than their lighter counterparts. In the flanking squad, he put Carmen in charge, followed by Jivven, Pylarea, Zulii, and anyone who made primary use of a ranged weapon.

As quietly as they were able, the flanking squad took position, and he led the assault squad in a much less stealthy formation, though one rapid enough that being spotted wouldn’t matter. Raising one hand into the air, he dropped it with finality, signaling the charge.

The first wave of the assault squad hit the outer ring of tents with thundering force, and dozens were dead before the Civil had time to react. They recovered with admirable swiftness, however, and it was not more than a few minutes before alarms were sounding all over camp, forcing the soldiers from their tents and the mess hall and back into battle, some without time to replace armor, and some only able to grab the weapon or object nearest-to-hand. The Children needed to press their advantage as much as possible, though, for as Tao had feared, they were outnumbered nearly two-to-one.

He’d do whatever he could to get them through this, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it.

A day ago, the order was issued that the army would be mobilizing, and healers were distributed to accelerate the healing of the wounded. A day ago, a healer watched in horror as her healing magic seemed to cause her patient, Kisikoni Ayalen, much pain and distress. When that healer left for some assistance that day, she came back to a perfectly healthy deep human, who dismissed her "ridiculous" assumptions that she wronged him in some way. How she handled the situation was known only to herself, as that day for Kisikoni was spent in rehabilitation. And perhaps, some more bedtime in that tent. Since he had been wounded and unconscious, nobody felt the need to erect a personal tent for the deep human, as the medical tent has become his own. This is the most likely reason why his was one of the last to be taken down a day later.

Walking back toward that medical tent was not at all easy, as it stood ominously with the scents of sterility about it. It gave him the worst thoughts, and the time to mull them over. As he approached the entrance, he took note of a few people around it. His eyes squinted slightly, but all the same entered right after them. "I'm right here, Captain." He said, catching her words directed at the nurse. A dark elf appeared, handing him a set of vials and a note. Before Kisikoni could ask for the specifics, he disappeared. Before Grimsmirk could respond to his arrival, he popped open the note and gave it a scan. So the man's name was Fak'ir. He smiled slightly at Talae's gift, wondering if they would have any effect on him at all, despite her effort. He redirected his attention at the halfling. "What is it do you want?" He asked, moving past her to gather his belongings.

---

There wasn't much to say about how Mercy spent her two days. She woke up with a bad hangover, washed it down with lots of hot tea and water, and proceeded to look for Neira. When this endeavor was unsuccessful, she was thoroughly suspicious. Not a single soul knew where she was, and unlike most characters, she wasn't very secretive. In a rare, sober state, she did try to recall memories of the night before. She remembered drinking, watching, and noticing something very strange. She slapped the bottom of her left fist into her right hand when she remembered, humming contentedly at her impeccable memory, even when blindingly drunk. She wasn't senile yet, at the very least.

There was some mentions of a confrontation last night, but they were mostly rumors, visions of drunkards like herself that had spent the night partying away with their comrades. Unfounded, and with no real reason to believe them. That is, of course, if there were other sources to consult. While Mercy was nothing if not lewd, cunning did play a factor into the spider's tricky way of manipulating others with her personality. She didn't even have to act to get the gears grinding for many to recall the events of the night before. As it turned out, nothing useful could be gleaned, and the day before the day of mobilization passed without much event.

She had already packed her things, and with much difficulty, figured out how to tear down her tent without breaking important structural pieces along the way. She still hadn't heard a thing from Neira, which was odd considering how they were supposed to be drinking buddies. Mercy had secretly been hoping she would bring more of that Ecclavarian vintage. Good stuff, that was. Asking around once more, she got the same response. Deciding she had nothing better to do, she decided to ask Redscales about it. She soon found out that the lusty draconian maiden was out preparing for battle.

"Drat. Out of options." She muttered, blowing a loose lock of hair out of her face.

---

The rousing wake-up call brought Safir up from his uneasy rest. Bolting awake, he made sure he was still in one piece before allowing exhaustion to overwhelm his senses. Perhaps staying up to sharpen his sword wasn't the greatest idea, but when he found out they were moving out right after, he debated about becoming a psychic afterward. He quickly changed , wolfed down some of the food, and geared up. Carmen had gone, but apparently he was one of the first to be awake. He had no idea if Jivven, who had rested outside (the fool), was up and about yet. Looking outside quickly, he assumed he already was. That man did have a tendency to be on top of things.

He paid no mind to Pylarea while he was preparing, mostly because of the time crunch. If she was still sleeping by the time half of the hour had passed, he would have given her a sharp slap on the shoulder. Whether it was necessary or not, he had finished on time and was just strolling out the door when the army had begun forming up to begin it's march.

Safir was quickly reminded on why he hated marching. The mindless jarring as his feet moved in tune with the man in front and away from the man behind got on his nerves. What was worse, was when they showed no hesitation at the smoke that billowed out in the distance. When he realized the commander intended to attack when she voiced that opinion, it was all he could do to hold back a sigh. While he wasn't exhausted, the march had left him winded. And he was put on the front lines. Well, at least he had his sword, sharpened fresh last night. Donning his helmet, he flexed and stretched slightly as he got into position.

And then, as one would say, they were off. Safir was still amazed at the speed the dragon's blessed him with, flying up toward the Civil encampment with a speed many sprinters could only dream of. And he was by no means a sprinter himself. He hadn't been able to see Dresinil in a while, and when he saw him running a little bit away, it heartened Safir far more than words could have. Smashing into a guard with his shield, he felt very little resistance as the man dropped aside like a ragdoll and was trampled by the initial assault. A poor way to die. His blade sang as it cut through the unprepared Civil, who reacted faster than the strike of a whip. It was quite impressive, and judging by their numbers, very bad news for them. Letting loose his own war cry to combat the Civil, he knew that with his augmentations, his comrades, and his armor, these ants stood no chance. Somewhere back in his mind, Safir wished he had the ability to shoot fire- it would have made his life far easier.

For the first few hours of the night sleep had come relatively easy to the Pylarea, but that was probably only due to her complete and utter exhaustion from the battle, attack, and retaliation of the day before. She soon found herself unable to rest peacefully, despite the quiet, cool night air embracing her body, keeping her cool even with the body of Carmen adding its own heat to hers. How could she have done what she did the night before? It was…vicious and cruel of her to do such a thing. You could almost say another person had taken over her mind and body, someone hidden deep inside the recesses of her mind. Whoever that person was, the Nightmarian was uncertain, but she was terrified of them.

All she could do was lie still with her eyes opening and closing every now and again, but she dare not wake anyone else to bother them with her troubles. She was too unfamiliar with Jivven and she had noticed the way Safir had looked at her the day before, with a look in his eyes that said he might just blame her for what had happened. There was always Carmen, the sweet girl seemed so nice and caring amidst this posse of thugs and ruffians, but the poor girl was so exhausted and needed her sleep. Several hours later she felt a pair of hands reach out and grasp her right arm, like the girl was desperately trying to stay rooted in this world. If only she could do something to ease her troubles, but interfering with dreams was a dangerous business, they were best left to their own devices.

It was strange how time passed at night when you had naught to do but think and ponder. Minutes seemed to drag by hours and vice versa, time did not flow as a liquid in steady streams, but more like the wind in bursts and calms. One cannot truly tell if they have slept or not during these periods, all they can do is hope that they closed their eyes long enough to steal a dreamless sleep. Before much longer, or it could have been the majority of the night for all she knew without the moon to serve as a teller of time, the healer awoke and began to stir. It was then that Pylarea decided it best to keep her eyes closed for some time, hoping the girl would take no heed of her fake slumber and busy herself with her own devices.

The cleric had proven to be a very busy bee in the early hours before the rest of the beast that was their camp stirred itself. She flitted about bringing both fresh water and food before anyone else had even twitched a muscle. Everyone except Pylarea that is, she had dared to flicker and eyelid open every now and again to steal a glimpse of the cleric and she dashed to and fro, spending some time washing the dirt and grime from her body. That would be a more than welcome comfort after what had happened. One might wonder why she did not rouse herself to begin the morning rituals of awakening with the sweet girl, but she could not bring herself to look her in the eyes, not after what she…no what the other one had done last night. She felt soiled, like a stain had settled upon her soul, and no amount of water would be able to wash away this feeling.

The time for refreshment and preparation had come and pass with little of import. No words were whispered nor considered between the human, elf, or Nightmarian. They merely went about doing what needed to be done for the day’s journey. It was time to march again, and that could only mean there would be battle. She could sense the exhaustion permeating through the anxiety and excitement, but nothing too serious to worry about. No one was nearly as one edge as they had been the day before with their first battle with the Civil. Confidence could be felt in the group, but maybe it was too much confidence, hubris always reared its ugly head before the fall.

Things were to progress differently this day though, for there was some strategy to be had in this attack. Admittedly it did not seem like the wisest of strategies, seeing as they were to attack a group of unknown size and makeup, but then again she was merely a servant of the Dragons, a Child of Fire. Who was she to question the judgment of her masters who had more experience than she at such matters? In the end her qualms matter naught. She was sent with the cleric, the elf Jivven, and the strange harpy Zulii, and others who did not specialize in close combat. They crept quietly into position and waited for the most opportune moment to attack.

Clouds of smoke billowed up and tents collapsed into themselves as the Children began their attack. Things seemed to be going somewhat smoothly, but for a surprise attack the enemy displayed an amazing level of calm and assurance. What was worse was that they began to form a counter defense with a rapidity she could only admire. Very good energy could be felt coming from the enemy camp, and that was always bad news for a smaller force such as theirs. Tensions began to mount as they waited for their moment. It was Carmen’s call for when they were to attack.

Talae moved completely soundlessly, firmly at home in the darkness that was her element as surely as it was Fak’ir’s, never mind that the swarthy halfling could actually magick it. She knew that, somewhere, he and Kisikoni and the General were waging a large-scale battle with the Civil, and though part of her worried over the outcome, she knew better than most that she was making a greater difference here than she would be elsewhere.

It had been a while since she’d had wetwork to do by herself, but then leading a squad of like-skilled killers had only made her better at it, not worse, and she laced the area with poison, moving with efficiency and a worthy absence of noise. Several dragon corpses lay between now and her initial joining of the Blackguard, and she’d made a careful study of their anatomy in that interim: treating battles like experiments, testing acids and toxins on flesh samples and merely observing her scalier allies. All of this had been honed for such uses as to which she now put it, such as killing dragons before they hatched.

She had discovered last time she tried this that the effects would not even be immediately visible; useful, when the mouth of this cave was periodically flown over, and the inside inspected. The dragons dared not risk keeping all of their eggs in one place, not even one so well-guarded as a keep, and she wagered that Astara thought herself cunning for minimizing the guard. For surely, who would think to look where so little attention was paid?

Perhaps it would have worked, if Talae’s mind did not move in similar patterns. The infinitesimal hiss of corrosive acid burning a hole of a centimeter’s diameter in an egg almost as tall as she was greeted her sensitive hearing, and Talae lowered a string into the new gap. From there, she extracted a vial of poison and a dropper from her bandoleer, letting the fluid run down the string and into the embryonic liquids drop by lingering drop. Luckily, it did not take many, even to kill a developing dragon, and the entire clutch of twenty was likewise poisoned in about half an hour.

Just in time for her to make it out before the next patrol flew by, then.

Straining her ears for any incoming wingbeats, Talae proceeded as quickly as stealth would allow to the mouth of the cave, flattening herself against a wall when the noise was suddenly apparent to her. The sound of flapping grew heavier, and it was with a dull twist to her stomach that she realized the dragon was going to land. Chewing her tongue, she made a quick decision, ascending the wall of the cave with the peculiar grip afforded to her kind and wedging herself in between a stalactite and the wall.

Her breath went still in her chest as an enormous draconian head pushed into the cave, followed by a serpentine neck covered in white scales so pale they were almost translucent. The dragon looked over everything carefully, then drew in a deep breath. The hitch at the end almost convinced her that she had been detected by scent, and she loosened the dagger at her thigh. It wouldn’t do much, but she couldn’t draw her bastardsword in this position.

She was surprised when the creature exhaled, bathing the eggs in flames from its gaping maw. The heat was uncomfortable, and she felt the very edges of her clothing beginning to singe. Her skin, she was sure, had taken on a pink tinge to the grey, equivalent perhaps to a nasty sunburn, perhaps even a blistering one. She wouldn’t know until she could look, though, for she could barely feel such trivialities anymore.

The revelation that she was losing all ability to know pain was not as comforting as it might have been. She had fought enemies like that before, and all of them had been undead. The thought that she would soon have something so uncannily in common with a walking corpse made her feel ill, but unfortunately that fact that she was not in agony right now was forcing her to think of it.

The flames abated and the head and neck disappeared, but she waited until all noise had once again ceased before she dropped to the ground. She had not known that dragons incubated their eggs in such a way; a touch was enough to tell her that they were slightly too warm for ordinary comfort. She had little time to study, though; with the Paragon’s recent luck, she might yet return to them to see a siege still raging.

Hopefully, those she cared for would still be alive when she got there. She was no fool, and knew quite well there was one whose health concerned her more than the rest, but… now was hardly the time.

So it was that Talae Shanir slipped into the forest beyond the cave, leaving twenty unborn dragons dead in her wake.

---

There was little to do but wait, really, though what precisely Neira Valtegan waited for was anyone’s guess. It was not as though she could speak past her gag, and even though she could have perhaps thought things at people, she had thus far chosen not to.

Her vigil had not ceased, and even now she stood in the center of her makeshift prison, a closed-off cart. Unlike before, however, she did not glare at her guards but instead remained still with her eyes shut. For all the world, she could have been sleeping, but at present she was much more interested in keeping track of the goings-on not too distanced from her location.

There were many minds on the battlefield, but even more shells where minds had once been, now capable only of the barest thoughts. Undead, then, most of them the lower-class kind that served largely as padding, fodder for the blades, cannons, and sorcery of the Paragon. So much fodder, however, would take a while to chew through.

A few of the undead were higher-class, still retaining enough presence of mind for things like independent ideas and personality. When a nightmarian became such, they were universally referred to as mosquitos, regardless of what they had been before. The metaphor was perhaps appropriate, given their taste for blood. They moved though the field, stopping to engage only when absolutely necessary, and for this reason, they were obviously looking for something, or perhaps someone, specific.

As of yet, they had not found what they were seeking, but she decided to keep tabs, in case they did. Though for all she cared everyone in the army could believe otherwise, she was no traitor, and if she had to break her chains and defy her orders to prove that, then she would have absolutely no qualms about doing so. She had made no secret of the fact that she was nobody’s lapdog, and stupid orders weren’t worth following.

---

---

For a while, Tao’s plan had succeeded admirably, and the flanking maneuver had been timed so well that almost the entire rear guard was destroyed under the onslaught of the Children of Fire. As he’d feared, of course, things were rarely what they seemed, and it looked as though they had indeed sprung the jaws of a mighty trap.

In a way, this was annoying to him, for he had known better. In another way, that strange way he had about him sometimes, he was inordinately pleased. Worthy challenges were rare things, and each new battle was an opportunity to find one.

So, when Aesr decided to finally start being a commander, he demurred and set about the tasks she put to them, organizing the troops with surprising effectiveness for one so seemingly daft. Nevertheless, it was hard to prepare oneself for what he knew to be coming, and he was only glad that Carmen had seen fit to enchant his own blade this time around. Of course, she knew without a word from him that Aesr’s handling of the command left Tao free to do what he was really suited for: priority assassination of particularly dangerous hostiles.

As the two squads formed back up into one army, he observed Carmen bestowing her odd sort of favor (in the magical sense, anyway, though he found that it usually correlated to the personal one as well) upon weapons belonging to Pylarea, Safir, Jivven, and the harpy Shasarra. Given that she could only do so many, he found the choices to be wise, both in variety and in the fact that each possessed a measure of skill beyond the common soldier, though he was not oblivious to the fact that some of them had yet to fully realize their potential.

At this point, Aesr mounted the battlements and bestowed upon them at last their fire. The resulting conflagration was impressive, if indeed a bit amateur in the way first efforts invariably were. Luckily, the mastery of the flame generally came a bit easier than the first struggles with enhanced bodies. They’d acquit themselves well, he thought idly, something approaching pride coloring the inward musing.

The battle proper was on shortly thereafter, and Tao first moved to the side of the battlements where Tellion was working, shoving his sword almost absently into the neck area of some undead thing trying to rise from the ground. “I wonder if they get bored…” he mused idly to himself. All of the rising from the ground and eating flesh wasn’t exactly a varied routine, after all.

Pylarea

A white-hot flame of passion was coursing its way through Pylarea’s body as she stood unflinching amidst the sea of corpses writhing as maggots would in decaying flesh. The metallic whips mounted on her vambrace were hissing venomously as they sliced through the air, her psionic abilities were still very much intact despite losing on antennae not long ago. Their deadly flurry was made even more lethal thanks to Carmen’s favor being bestowed upon them in the manner of an auric blessing. What was taking place had gone from a swarm of mindless drones attacking to a deadly whirlwind of steel with bits of rotting flesh flitting about as it was chopped into pieces. All the Nightmarian needed was to leaden the air surrounding her oh so slightly so that the assailants would move that much more sluggishly.

This plan soon backfired though, she may have done well to keep the foot-soldiers at bay, but there were other creatures much more frightening and dangerous yet of which she was unawares. Ghosts and phantoms began rending the earth surrounding her; ripping several surrounding Children to shreds with the same ease she would pick the petals from a wishing flower. Pylarea had nary a moment to act before the spirits turned their assault upon her, and two swarms engulfed the area surrounding her in before she could even blink. Had it not been for the aura she had created they would have torn her to shreds in the blink of an eye, but the first swarm had their momentum stalled when combating the leaden air, forcing the creatures to break off as her whips lashed towards them.

The other half of the spirits stopped at the sight of their fellows breaking off, and what could be considered a quizzical look overtook their visage as they looked Pylarea over. It was the same look the ravenous Gnolls had in their eyes as they first surveyed the initiates during their first test, gauging the mettle of their soon to be prey. As this strange stand-off was taking place a familiar voice called out from not too far away shouting, "That. Is. Mine!!" It was the creature who had assailed her not long ago, a feeling of terror nearly washed away the burning resolve instilled by the battle. How had he recovered so quickly from her attack, if what she had done only stalled him for a night, what would happen the next time now that he knows to be wary?

The phantasmal swarm broke off as Gatan came charging towards them in his revenge-laced fury, but only so they could dart back underneath the ground. Pylarea knew what was coming next, she had noticed them bursting forth from underneath as harbingers from the Underworld would, as she had no desire to be standing in the same place when they made their ascension. Her single amethyst orb glowed furiously as she attempted to take flight, but all she could manage was to hover just a foot from the ground and it was taking too much of her concentration to manage that. The moth steeled herself as the earth beneath them started to rumble. Unfortunately the situation necessitated that she back herself up to Gatan, something that sent icicles darting up her spine. “Do not dare claim me fiend! You do not own me do you understand!” It was not meant as an inquiry, everything she said was a fact.

Pylarea

The Gods must have truly left the world long ago for them to allow such undead monstrosities to wreak havoc upon the realm of the living, for every corpse the Children cut down two more managed to scramble and scrape their way to take its place. It was definitely a losing battle and the much more so whenever greater undead beings would clamber up their makeshift ramparts, as in the case of the banshees who assailed their lines not far from where the Nightmarian Pylarea now fought. That battle was taking place in a whole other world apart from her own, for now she was embroiled in a desperate fight with a pack of ravenous spirits.

Banshees were capable of producing a truly devastating and debilitating wail which could literally pulverize the body, but the ghouls and phantoms which now encircled the two previously feuding Nightmarians emitted a truly cacophonous sound of their own. Mixed cries of pain, hatred, sorrow, and anger drowned out the storming clash of battle around them. It became hard to tell from where any attack was coming as they would tear the ground asunder and barrel through other living bodies in their immediate vicinity. As much as she hated to admit the fact that she needed the other Nightmarian at this moment, it was something she could not forget.

There was no way either of them could fully tackle any of the beings circling them, if either took too far a step from the other the phantoms would have a chance to burst in between them, and then it would be all over. They were moving much too quickly for her current psionic abilities as well, she could not focus the necessary power quickly enough with her injuries inflicted upon her by her now stalwart defender. Instead a new plan had been devised. Pylarea had managed to link the consciousness with the other one, Gatan was his name she now realized, and used this to her advantage. True, the simple-minded pugilist was unable to comprehend what exactly was happening to him, but then again she did not need his understanding, just his abilities.

Steady ground was being made though at a heavy cost. Despite their thoughts and movements working in unison for their general well-being the wailing spirits were still managing to land dangerous blows upon their bodies. Two of Gatan’s secundi had been ripped smooth off of his torso and another deep gash in his right side impeded his movements more, but he still managed his wounds better than Pylarea was her own. Her wings had been ripped viciously several times, leaving them ragged and bloody, while the rest of her body was ravaged with a plethora of wounds raked into her flesh by angry teeth and claws.

She was unsure how much longer she would be able to manage fighting at this rate, and there was no sign of relief in sight. The last phantom left harassing them had gone underground, but that was not her only concern. A large group of undead had managed to move steadily closer to the fighting duo, and while they were busy fending off the spirits other Children had given up a large portion of ground, leaving the two Nightmarians largely surrounded. As Pylarea braced her bruised and battered body for the vicious assault of the undead inching ever closer, Gatan taking full advantage of the room they were now allowed to begin tearing into the horde of attackers, a rumbling in the ground started underneath Pylarea’s feet. Before she could react the soil beneath her burst open in a fury as the last phantom grasped for the moth.

Neira hissed when the male vampire dissolved, and were it not for extenuating circumstances, she would have pursued him, torn down his pathetic excuse for a mental barrier, and fed him his own rotting intestines, just for fun.

As it was, Wrath’s mind was stirring, and she still had two vampires to deal with. Well, one and a half, anyway. Still, she attached a nice little mental tag to the retreating one, not invasive but useful, and blinked languidly when the one still hale and whole attempted to wrap her sticklike fingers around the general’s pale neck. She received a blade to the heart for her trouble, and Neira stepped in smoothly towards the other, who scrabbled backwards with all the futility of the three-legged doe.

“Now, now, dear, try not to struggle. It’ll only hurt worse,” she singsonged, then nearly grimaced when she realized how similar that sounded to a certain arachnoid friend of hers. Bloody Mercy. Next thing you know, I’ll be hitting on anything that moves.

The remaining vampire gasped her last even as Neira drove her hand the rest of the way through her chest, snapping the limb with several wet cracks for good measure. The flaxen-haired thing lay unmoving thereafter, well and truly dead- for good this time.

Wiping her bloodied hands on her robe, Neira turned to Wrath, sweeping her eyes down over him exactly once before she sighed. She was at his side almost immediately, fingertips at his temples, siphoning off his pain. This was a trick she’d learned long ago but never seen much use for. Of late, it had become regular to split agony with Xeron such, though he most often refused now, as there was some inevitable psionic bleed. She could only assume she was no longer allowed to share in his plans, but she wasn’t about to ask this one’s permission when he clearly required the assistance.

His comment, such as it was, met its answer with the entrance of a healer, screaming her fool head off and making rather a spectacle of herself. Once the ungodly racket had died down and the necessary deductions had been made, Neira responded by raising a single eyebrow. “The pale one? I could find him, and transport us there, but you’re not dying on my watch without a better plan than that, Captain.” She didn’t mention what was obvious to the both of them: that he was hardly in the best shape, and the two of them, while formidable on their worst day, did not an army make.

---

---

Carmen had the palms of her hands resting softly on the temples of an injured orc when she heard a crash too close behind her for comfort. Pressing her bound lips together in a thin line, the cleric finished off the process and rose, turning fluidly in time to see Safir and Dresinil engaging two Wights and three or so lesser undead.

Biting her tongue, the young woman was forced to watch as, immediately after felling one of the creatures, Dresinil’s head was bashed in by a blind-side hammer blow from another, and he crumpled to the ground, dead. When Safir fell, too, the healer knew a sensation she had not felt in what seemed a lifetime: a cold tendril wound its way around her stomach and her heart, warming until it burned, creeping up her throat to settle in her mouth with the metallic tang of blood where she’d bitten the soft flesh inside her mouth.

Slowly, her left hand ascended to her lips, the threads there burned away with the touch of holy magic. With it, her bindings, her reservations, wore away, and her chains were loosed. Her skin took on a warm glow, and the area immediately around her was flooded with magic, healing the injured over a wide area. The elf who had obeyed Jivven’s order for conveyance found that his injured knee, an old wound form a battle long ago, had returned to complete function, and Jivven himself was good as new, perhaps better.

Vortigern, still fighting beside Pylarea and the one called Gatan, grinned broadly at the rush of adrenaline, cleaving into the hand grasping for the Nightmarian with giddy abandon, lost to the red berserker haze. The same orc Carmen had just healed nudged Jivven in the shoulder. “I’m a pretty big distraction, buddy. You look like a guy who could take advantage of that.” Gorthax, for so he was called, turned and headed back for the field of battle, intent on causing as much carnage as possible.

Fortunately, the burst of life-energy from Carmen was timed with the arrival of the reinforcements, and at about the same time as a peeved Aesr, chased by a screeching Iridinias, dove downward to order her unit captain to take what men he could recover and lead the vanguard, that number of salvageable soldiers nearly doubled.

For her own part, Carmen crouched, touching a gentle hand to Safir’s forehead. “Rise, my friend,” she implored him, her voice husky from disuse but fairly thrumming with music, “for now is not your time. I will not see you lost to the likes of these.”

Just ahead, Tao bellowed, a sharp rallying cry heard even over the din of arriving reinforcements. Aesr did not want to be outdone by her brothers, and it was their job to ensure she would not be. Though he was certain by now that few fought for her whim, he knew that in the end, each individual purpose would be served in the same way.

The troops answered him, gathering about their oddball captain like the trained soldiers most of them were not. Several now lay dead, and when all was said and done, several more bodies would join the dust, but the reinforcement and recharge had done most of them a service to morale as well. He watched those that could still answer his call gather about him: Carmen, Shasarra, Gorthax, Tellion and Vortigern among them, and the Captain gave them all a savage grin.

“Back to hell with them all!” The shout was Vortigern’s, but several more picked it up, and in a v-formation with Tao at the point, they charged forward to meet the Civil lines, now augmented with both the living and fresh undead. The formations crashed against one another, several falling in the immediate contact. Tellion was hit with a javelin and went down, another dark elf and halfling behind him, but by far the majority of the loss impacted the undead. It was not long before the freshened Children reached the ranks of the living among their foes, and here the battle began in earnest. These were no mindless zombies, but thinking, feeling, strategizing soldiers.

Carmen had summoned a light-formed glaive, which she swung with all the ferocity of a shieldmaiden of yore, occasionally punctuating her assaults with pure notes of spellsong, their effects differentiated by pitch and tone. Tao moved like water, flowing around opponents, leaving many dead or re-dead before they registered the damage. Gorthax was a rough, shouting mess with a mace, the perfect distraction for those who worked without so much noise.

“Now this is more like it, in’it, ‘Rea?” Vortigern asked the moth beside him, cleaving a zombie’s skull with one of his axes. Shasarra, wielding a sword and shield in tandem, was already streaked with the blood of her foes, macabre lines painting the canvas of her face in a history of vicious victories. She stepped in to take what was once Dresinil’s place in the line, though she held it more with swooping, diving, and dodging motions than sheer strength and endurance.

The Children of Fire were making a push, and there was no mistaking that the Civil were now on the defensive.

With a rush of satisfaction, it watched the vampire clutch at his face and scream as it's hand sheared off a good portion of his visage. Before it could rush in for the kill, Cristophe all but vanished, retreating into the line of fighting paragon soldiers. He returned with two corpses and a refreshed countenance. With a smart remark, he dropped the husks in his hands. Suddenly, two blights rushed Kisikoni, but it made no inclination to move as they closed in. While these skeletal horrors were unnatural, they were but a candle in a gale compared to the vampire and Kisikoni's speed at this point. They were nothing but a nuisance. With a explosion of movement, the blights stumbled past Kisikoni as their ribs and organs were sliced clean through. The graveworms made to attack it Kisikoni, latching themselves onto the deep human's armor and attempting to tunnel through. Another blast of air and fell energy, and the simple monsters were thrown off, left squirming on the ground as the taint quickly overwhelmed their instincts and they fell still.

With a brief pause, it felt nothing but amusement. Cristophe made to attack but paused confidently as it loosed a keening laugh, clawing the air with it's fell notes. "So it is true! You nightworms are the cowardly maggots the stories make you out to be!" It screeched in hysterical mirth, as fleshy growths similar to roots began to sprout over Kisikoni's arms and body. Insulted, Cristophe made to respond but was cut off as Kisikoni rushed the pale maggot, jumping and scoring a brutal kick to it's chest. The vampire flew back several feet before regaining balance and twisting to divert the momentum back to his side, attacking once more with two swipes of his clawed hands. The deep human easily dodged left, attempting a wild swing that would have cleaved the vampire in two if he had not jump and scored a spinning kick to the deep human's jaw. Spinning away, it quickly grabbed it's dislocated mouth and snapped it back into place once it got up, in time to see Cristophe nearly on top of it. Bringing it's arms up in defense, it felt the vampire's claws rake across it's arms, causing a release of a vile stench and liquid, presumed to be blood. Flinging it into Cristophe's face as he recoiled, it attempted another kill, attempting to cleave the vampire into multiple pieces with two devastating swipes.

---

Squealing in delight when the web managed to successfully ensnare the vampire, she took notice of the Sunwing that appeared next to her. Mercy couldn't be assed to remember her name, but smiled when she interrupted with her question. "Aren't you cute, helping old ladies finish off hellspawn." She cooed, resisting the urge to take her eyes off the vampire and give the adorable elf a squeeze. Suddenly, four blights appeared, covering Getrude from further attacks as she made her escape. A soldier jumped in, ramming his sword through one of the blights and causing it to collapse. Mercy had to quickly wonder what was so special about these things as she kept them at bay with her whip before the graveworms started eating the soldier that had slain one of the blights.

"Oh. How unsightly." Mercy muttered, stomping the face of the unfortunate soldier in as he fell to the ground. Surviving graveworms attempted to attack her, but her ark shell was finally useful for something as they drilled and gnawed to no avail and simply fell off. "Watch your shoes honey, I don't want to have to see that happen to you too." She warned Adel, using her whip to easily crack the ribs that protected the blight's organs that contained the parasitic worms. Eventually, they were defeated, and the worms were left to rot. Mercy coated the organs with her webbing for good measure, as the viscous substance would not tear easily and cause the worms to suffocate.

However, her problems were not over. That vampire had escaped into the camp once more, and the Blights were causing paragon soldiers to rise up and attack their lines from behind. At this rate, even Wrath's army of powerful misfits would rout and become a thing of the past. She ground her teeth, deciding to forego pursuing Getrude and decided to work on the undead Paragon Troops that rose to attack their former comrades from behind.

---

Barely conscious, Safir was unable to register that next to him lay his dead friend, Dresinil. He was unable to see Carmen go through some invisible change. He was oblivious to the world in it's entirety as he waited for a wight to stroll in and take his life. However, with a flash of light that he couldn't see, Safir suddenly find himself invigorated, able to breathe once more. Opening his eyes, he managed to see Carmen bend over and touch his forehead. His bloodlust was completely gone, and he could only look up in wonder as his limbs were refreshed and he felt vigorous and eager once more. Her request was interpreted as an order by the awestruck human, immediately scrambling to his feet.

His head turned as his heightened senses caught his air-headed captain screaming a rally cry, which was very rare for the calculating and quiet officer to do. Safir instantly followed behind Carmen, who seemed to have changed entirely. The entire scene and general ambiance had changed- what was hopeless was now hopeful as the true children arrived, the faithful beserkers who were the cream of the crop. Roaring his own battle-cry, he raised his sword. It had miraculously escaped damage so far from the dragonfire on quick inspection. Charging with his comrades, he would never have felt such a strong sense of camaraderie if he continued to lie near death from his fight with a wight. Crashing into the line of the undead, his shield immediately threw two of the undead back with it's sheer force, another sweep of his sword killed several more as heads rolled, Once the initial charge's effect had worn off, he continued his wrath, blocking blows with his shield and tanking lighter strikes in his sturdy suit of armor. His destructive slices were calculated this time, unlike the bloodlust that had overcome him earlier in that desperate situation and most of the undead could not stand up to him. Making much further progress was the undeniable aura of Carmen, and not too far away was Pylarea, which was a sight that relieved Safir. Jivven, being the man that he was was nowhere in sight. The jolly co-operation that existed between the children as they pushed the Civil back was astonishing.

Pylarea

Pylarea’s eyes were shut tighter than a Mantis’ raptorial legs as the phantom beneath her lunged with deadly intent, but something strange happened. She had not noticed it before, but a warm, rejuvenating sensation overcame her, washing away all the previous exhaustion and healing her wounds. When her eyes opened, Vortigern stood with his mighty axe held proudly as the broken spirit lay hacked into pieces. That was not all that happened though, portals had sprung about all around them, and with those gaping chasms of energy rushed forth a beautiful tide of Children hell-bent on pushing back the tides of the undead.

A grim smile spread thickly across the Nightmarian’s lips as she steeled herself once again to confront their foes, a dark glimmer flashing brightly behind her ever-so dark eyes. Their Captain Tao shouted from a point on the battlefield not far off, now within their own lines instead of behind the enemy’s, and soon a remnant of what had been clustered around him, forming a vanguard which would strike into the Civil’s center. Pylarea was ready to kill, but she was no fool, instead of taking a place on the front, as would the stout warriors, the moth danced back just a few feet behind them.

Their small group soon charged, leading the wave of Children reinforcements seemingly intent upon outshining them, but that would not be allowed on this day. They had fought too long and too hard to let others steal the glory from them. As they rushed onward, she noticed something different as the enemy flittered about, forming their battle lines. She could hear their thoughts, and there were too many to be a handful of necromancers, no this was the living, breathing Civil army, and Pylarea could not be more pleased at the moment. Her comrades in arms began tearing into the soft, supple flesh of the enemy as their lines collided, sending body parts flying and bodies crumpling to the ground.

Vortigern posed an interesting question as he whirled his axe towards an undead soldier’s skull, but she had no words for him now, she had no words to describe any of what she felt. A laugh soon began softly rumbling forth from between her lips, a laugh with the thickness of honey but soured as spoilt milk and with the texture of broken glass. Even though they were battling a mix of living and reanimated flesh, for some reason the living seemed to flock towards Pylarea as the dead did her large fighting companion. Maybe the Civil assumed this might be a safer approach?

Or at least the human who had been steadily advancing upon her had thought so until the Nightmarian began maliciously laughing in response to the question posed. It seemed something had nearly broken inside of him when he realized what exactly it was he had chosen to face, and by the looks of several other back-stepping soldiers behind him a small group had seriously underestimated her. Before they could make another step Pylarea’s single amethyst antenna began glowing brightly, all she needed was to constrain their legs for a few seconds. As she did so the long, chain whips twisting from her vambrace began slithering up her foes’ legs, torsos, and necks, leaving brilliant crimson rivers trailing in their midst.

A quick twist was all they needed, and as the metal receded from their bodies the crimson rivers began pouring blood too quickly for them to realize. She allowed their bodies to slump to the ground slowly as she brought one of the lashes towards her mouth for a sample of her prey. A light chuckle escaped after she did so and watched the responses from several of the other Civil soldiers in their midst. “Oh yes, it is definitely time to play is it not Vortigern?”

Neira’s nose wrinkled with distaste as Wrath downed several vials of a vaguely plurplish draught. She’d nearly laid into the last fool who’d tried to convince her to drink anything medicinal. Perhaps it was fortunate that her injuries were usually the kind that could be treated without them. Natural armor did wonders, she reflected, tapping her fingers lightly together.

At the mention of Xeron, her eyes narrowed. “So that’s what he was after. It figures.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Keeping her own mind closed off for the duration of her imprisonment had left her blind to any psionic manipulations he’d been using on the general, and so it was impossible for her to know the extent of the damage without checking herself, something they currently lacked the time for. She’d never show it, but this concerned her. A muscle in her jaw tightened, but she forced it to relax and followed the halfblood out of the tent. If she noted his use of her given name, she chose not to comment upon it.

---

She’d opened her mind to the rushing tide of thoughts among her comrades, feeding Wrath the assessment she was able to produce from the tangled jumble of panic, resolve, and hasty observation. It was hard to keep an organized stream of consciousness in the rush of battle, and losing made that worse. So she sorted through flashes of images and distorted fragments of language, piecing together a picture of the state of things, and this was what she reported, keeping her own words as succinct as possible.

She maintained an unusually-grim expression, nodding her acknowledgement to his order and pushing past the panicked or feral thought patterns of the soldiers to plant the order firmly where they would recognize it in their minds. Northern end of camp, as soon as possible. General’s orders. The last was not a strictly-necessary portion of the message, but she gave it careful emphasis. That draconian bitch was not in charge here, and the men needed to know it, else any victory they earned would be in the name of Gurthenemon the Red, and not the Paragon. She may have detested politics, but she well knew what an advantage that would be. Even their defeats must be in their own name, lest they all lose sight of why they continued.

---

The demons and golems charged, the Paragon soldiers right behind them. Neira moved in at the front of the line, still shadowing Wrath. It was not where she’d most like to be, as the frown etched into her face presently showed, but it was what was necessary, and she had never hesitated to do just that.

She moved to the side when the earth erupted into massive whips of dirt and stone, temporarily losing track of her charge. Unbothered, she ducked under an incoming swing and used her momentum on the way back up to slam the heel of her hand painfully into the chin of her assailant, snapping his neck. The earth crumbled back to unmoving dust shortly thereafter, and she noted Sid’s reappearance with a sardonic smile. That Halfling had a damn uncanny sense of timing.

She knew the face of the dead woman, for it was one she had seen many times in the minds of prisoners or opponents. Miralight Duff, arcanist, wizard, and rumored second-in-command to Nhil himself. If she had to take a guess, she’d say they’d just invited the necromancer’s fury.

Excellent.

---

Talae Shanir came upon the battlefield at last when the Paragon were making their reinvigorated charge. Setting her jaw, the dark elf spurred her horse, who charged obediently. She could make out her squad on the periphery of the battle, laying traps and sabotaging the Civil behind their lines and without their knowledge. On another day, she might have joined them, but a sweeping glance across the field was enough to inform her that right now, melee combatants were needed more.

With balance only a darkling could possess, she kicked her feet out of her stirrups and drew them underneath her, crouching on the back of the galloping stallion and drawing Abel from the sheath on her back. It was freed with a soft, metallic ringing, the sound of things beginning and things about to end.

When the horse reached the front line, she yanked his reins to the side, ensuring he did not die needlessly by crashing into an oncoming pike or something of the sort. She, however, sprang from his back, somersaulting in midair and landing behind the first line of Civil soldiers.

Her blade cut into the unprotected neck-joint of the first man’s armor before any of them had a chance to react. By the time the rest had regained their bearings, Talae had a flash-bomb in hand, and, striking the flint on her index and middle fingers together, produced enough of a spark to light it. A deft toss placed it in the middle of a group of oncoming fighters, and several staggered backwards, blinded by the detonated result.

By now, the rest of the Paragon were through the initial defenses also, and she fell in with the rest, following the scent of abject fear to find the man she sought. It would not, after all, be a true battle for her unless she was fighting it beside him, regardless of the form he chose for the purpose.

---

---

Perhaps most people would have been bothered by the warped nature of Pylarea’s demeanor as compared to what she had previously been. Vortigern Weylin, a man with more scars than years of his life, understood exactly what was happening, and did not bother wasting the time to be concerned about it. Battle changed people. It had made him different, too, forged an unhealthy, twig-limbed elven boy from the forest into an axe-slinging, towering combatant with a dangerous battle-lust and a savage grin.

So instead of asking her if she was all right, instead of letting his mouth twist downward with concern or his brows furrow, he laughed, a deep baritone rumble that should have sounded out-of-place but really didn’t. “Atta girl! You’ll be a story to scare Civil children yet.”

But the time for talking was past, and he sank back into his battle-haze, hacking and slashing in a graceless, efficient art that might yet make him such a tale himself.

---

Carmen was free. How long had it been since she was so? Longer, perhaps, than she wanted to remember. What should have been elation was conveyed upon her features as grave sorrow, frozen into place by the uncanny fierceness that shone only from her eyes. She knew she shouldn’t have done it, that she needed to conserve energy, for she could feel the spellpower massing in the Civil camp, and knew that if she was to stand any chance of cancelling it when it triggered, she would need nearly everything she had, if not more.

But… she could not sit by and watch her comrades, her friends, fall. For so long, Tao had been the only friend she knew, the only one willing to sit beside the woman who could not speak, who was a freak of nature even amidst the other crimson-robed Silenced, and communicate in hesitant gestures, building a language that belonged to them and nobody else. Since her reassignment, she’d been able to make other friends, those who seemed to look upon her and see nothing to hate. Jivven, Shasarra, Pylarea, and Safir… only four, but so many more than she’d ever known before.

They would not die. She would not allow it.

Her desperation to reach the Civil encampment infused her motions, truncating the graceful swings of her glaive and forcing her to backpedal several times when an attempted blow she normally would have been aware of took her by surprise. She quite nearly stepped forward to take on the dark-haired human who held so many of her comrades at bay, that familiar hot sensation driving her toward such action, but when Shasarra tumbled backward, she was rent by conflict. She needed to heal her friend, she needed to avenge the others, and she still needed to save her energy.

Tao, as he always seemed to, solved her dilemma by stepping forward himself. His single glance in her direction reminded her of something he said once. Protecting people…that is noble, perhaps. But what if people can protect themselves? It had seemed an honest inquiry, asked with an almost childlike innocence, but she’d realized that he’d pointed out something she failed to consider. She couldn’t do everything she wanted to, but she didn’t have to either.

She flitted backwards, down the hill after Shasarra, intent on treating the worst of her friend’s injuries. Fortunately, it seemed that the exchange, though brutal, had not lasted long enough to deal the harpy any singularly life-threatening wounds, though the sum total of everything she had endured, the shallow cuts that littered her body, was dangerous enough on its own.

---

---

Skali watched as the next taker stepped up, a man who looked to be barely out of his boyhood. She was expecting a group; that would have made much more sense, and eventually, they would have been able to overwhelm her with sheer numbers. Many would have died in the process, but so would she, eventually. But no, this youngling was all on his own, exchanging glances with the red-robed cleric and holding up a hand diffidently to deter any of his men from following him to this.

Curious… if Skali had her guess, she’d say that even despite his youth, he had most of the men and women on the field beat for years of combat experience. It was in the way he moved, gliding around fallen bodies and terrain hazards without appearing to even notice them. She was much the same, and a small, secretive smile played across her features. If she could take this one down, her subsequent death at the hands of the masses would all be worth it.

“I am Hurin Skali,” she announced again, as had been customary when she was taught to fight. A worthy opponent deserved to know the name of the one who would be his end.

He cocked his head sideways, the purpose with which he had locked eyes with the mage replaced by what appeared to be a vague, dreamlike quality, as though he were both present and not at the same time. Though his hair was a red-brown, she took him to be a deep human; he was shorter than she, and more lightly-built. It made no difference when facing down the Children of Fire, of course, but it spoke to how he’d been trained, what kinds of tactics he was likely to use. A single-edged sword, presently covered in crimson rivulets of blood which dripped languidly to the earth below, rested in his left hand, his right entirely empty.

One eye was scarred, and the other sported a tattoo she vaguely knew to be familiar. “Feng Tao,” he returned at last, and Skali blinked. It was not a well-known name among common soldiers, perhaps, but she knew it. Not an assassin in the conventional sense, but something of a… problem-solver, sent to intercept and dispatch targets of particular importance in the heat of battle. Perhaps I should feel honored. I will certainly deserve it if I get rid of him.

Knowing better than to underestimate him, she already had the advantage over most of Tao’s opponents, and when she first charged, swinging her left sword in a wide arc, he ducked with speed she had not been expecting. Still, she was able to compensate a bit, and a few reddish hairs floated to the ground. Stepping in, she moved her right sword to slice at his hip, but his own blade blocked crosswise, and he jumped backward, swinging his arm in a tight circle that locked her blade into its motion, forcing her to drop it.

The whole thing took less than two seconds, and already she was without one of her swords. Skali exhaled, realizing she’d been holding her breath the entire time. Shifting her remaining blade to her dominant hand, she chuckled, low and dangerous. She was going to die today no matter what she did, but oh, how the challenge called to her.

Tao stood five feet from her, unmoving and apparently willing to wait until she attacked again. Their confrontation had already gained the attention of a few of the nearby soldiers, well aware that the captains of the squads of Civil and the Children were dueling. Maybe it was a bit superstitious, but such things had the tendency to portend the fate of the greater conflict, did they not?

Skali side-eyed her troops. “If you’re going to watch, make sure you learn,” she deadpanned, and strafed forward with considerable velocity. Tao sidestepped, their swords meeting when they drew alongside each other. Carefully avoiding a deadlock he was sure to win, Skali moved past it, whirling around to face him even as Tao echoed the movement in perfect unison. He was quicker in the recovery though, and she had to backpedal to keep up with his next round of strikes, parrying furiously and delivering a solid kick to his shin just as he shifted weight to step forward again. The slight hitch in his movement allowed her an opportunity, and she righted herself, slashing for his midsection whip-quick. He was faster, and what would have been a fatal blow was reduced to a nick, his blood slightly darker than the red brigandine it seeped into. She’d hit him right where the armor was laced, as he did not wear the complete set of mirror-mail, presumably for lightness.

She reversed direction and crouched into her next blow, aimed for his feet. He jumped, and she used the time to advance, windmilling her arms alternately as she drove him back with three successive upward slices. None hit, but she had him off-balance now.

He launched himself backward, drawing the pommel of his sword to his chest, thrusting outward with it as he moved forward again. Skali’s eyes went wide, and it was all she could do to dive out of the way, rolling to her feet in time to meet his next downward blow with her sword. The kick he delivered to her midsection was backed with a great deal of centripedal force, though, and his wooden sandal collided hard with her sternum. She felt the bone crack and splinter with the force of his supernatural strength, but that blow had been placed well enough that it probably would have broken either way. She had to admire that.

Pushing past the agony, Skali shoved backward on their joined blades with everything she had, which must have been considerably more than he was expecting, for he gave enough ground for her to stand properly, wincing as she attempted to pull more air into her lungs. It was a nearly-unbearable sensation, like her lungs were being rent with splinters of her bone, which they probably were.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Skali knew that she had one more pass left in her at most, and she needed to make it count. She had one thing going for her, though: this man was not aware of the fact that she knew she was going to be dead by the end of today. Her self-preservation instinct was all that stopped her from something suicidal until now, but all of that was slowly wearing away to be replaced with the grim certainty of death.

“I’ve always wondered,” his voice, strangely hollow- though his eyes had sparked to life after she drew his blood- broke her from her reverie. “What it felt like to die.”

Skali laughed, a sound that turned into a cough. She ignored the blood that dribbled down her chin and smirked at him. “I’ll make you a deal, Tao. I make it to hell first, and I’ll be sure to tell you when you arrive. Just in case they get you with poison or something stupid like old age.”

A barely-perceptible tilt graced the edges of his lips, and she thought idly that if it were an expression more common to him, he might be considered attractive. She put this down to blood loss and shook her head to clear it. “I’ll take you up on that,” he agreed, flicking his wrist sharply so that most of the ichor left his liuyedao.

The scarred woman said no more, rushing forward in a reckless move that left her defenses wide open. His face registered nothing further, even as her blade cleaved into his right shoulder, the force of desperation separating the limb from its stump even as his sword slid smoothly into the exposed flesh of her neck, parting her head from her shoulders. The arterial spray coated his face and chest, but he scarcely even blinked.

Tao bent, picking his severed arm up off the ground, showing no external sign of what must have been agonizing pain. Blood welled freely from his shoulder, flooding copiously onto the ground. Looking over at the watchers, who had grown in number to encompass just about everybody he could see, he blinked slowly. “Best finish as soon as we can,” he told his troops, slipping into the ranks of children to seek out Carmen before he could faint from the loss of blood.

Pylarea

Pylarea had grown numb to the battle raging in her midst, instead all she could focus upon was her next victim, whichever soldier of the Civil Army happened to be closest, and whether they be living or dead was no matter. How many had she taken thus far into the conflict? The number had gone uncounted for the majority of the battle, but it steadily grew, sometimes just one or two notches could be added to her belt, but other times small groups would fall prey to her rage. She needed this, of that she was certain, how many years had she merely meekly submitted to the authority of her Brood, shut her eyes and closed her mouth to the harsh realities and only opening them to utter the pitiful word, “Yes.”

Freedom that was the joy she experienced now, complete and utter freedom from her past and fear. She had control of the world around her, if someone wanted to cow her they would have to prove her better, and that was growing progressively more difficult by the day as she continued to fight for the Children. They had given her power she could never have dreamed of and inspired a confidence she had never had. There were others as well, people she had grown to like who were different in as many ways as could be imagined, nothing like the monotony of living in Ecclavaria with its legions of monotony and hatred for the unique.

Sinister laughter continued pealing from Pylarea’s not so innocent lips in fits and bursts when her whips would bite deep into the flesh of another foe, sometimes experiment with new way of killing them. A rather large elf who had thought he could best her through sheer strength and speed soon found his foe took enjoyment in rending his limbs from their respective sockets, as any child would a small frog or insect. Another Deep Human had thought to try and conjure a quick spell, but too late did he discover the true length of her whips as one began snaking down his throat.

Not all was going perfectly for the Nightmarian though. She had grown reckless in her fury and one Halfling had managed to evade her notice and slashed viciously at her right side. Had it not been for the strength and protection of her Arc Shell some might have been cleaved in half, instead Pylarea managed to escape with a rather deep gash, hindering her movements. Another Elven warrior had managed to land an arrow in her upper left thigh. None managed to land more than one blow however as they soon discovered she was perfectly capable of reaching them even if they managed to escape her whips.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and Pylarea made sure to never forget about her own.

Alistair Razoredge was the kind of man who used to be considered a fool among fools. A white-winged royal, he’d run away from his life as warlord and his choice of consorts to join a mercenary band. He was, despite his extensive weapons training and considerable skill, not a violent individual at heart but a peaceful one, almost a scholar, if the idea of a harpy scholar was not so ridiculous. He was also aware, and repeatedly reminded, that with the right disguise, he could easily pass for a woman, between the fine-boned features and the unusually clean snowy hair.

It had been nearly impossible to unite the scattered harpy clans into a single fighting force, much less under his own banner, and yet somehow, he’d managed to do it. The dozens of duels he’d fought with his territorial kinsmen were evident in the scars which seemed now to crosshatch his porcelain complexion, from sword-cuts to blunt wounds from maces and old burns from near-miss flame spells. He’d endured them all, and each one had been well worth it for this moment alone.

For all that he had been born and raised upon craggy cliffs over the sea, it was here that he could at last say he was coming home, for it was the people that made it so. His sharp vision picked out Sid below, and beside her Thanaros, the once-captain Wrath, and Neira the nightmarian. Another area held dear Lily, arrows flying from her bow with customary speed and accuracy, and he was certain that the surviving Shanir sister, Talae, was atop a horse, riding tandem with a man he did not recognize. He could not, unfortunately, spot Kisikoni, and he hoped his old friend was not dead.

The other half of his forces, led by a warlady called Keshiryn, would be coming up behind the lines of the Children of Fire, but from up here, it was easy to tell that the servants of the Black formed the second half of an impressive pincer maneuver, and so his orders were to prioritize the success of the attack on the Civil.

It was then that chaos needled its way into his carefully-organized lines. Were he not so well-educated, he might not have recognized gravewurms when he saw them, but as it was, he needed to control the damage. “Shamans! Burn anything infected with those wurms, including our own! Do not hesitate! We are lost the moment they infect us. Everyone else, get clear of the area! Ranged weapons only- you will not be the tools of necromancers today!”

The response was immediate: the infected parties went up in flames, those still enough in their own minds dropped their weapons to accept it. Loss was necessary, and honor to the clan more important than pain, than life-the militant nature of harpy upbringing instilled this early. The rest took to the skies, drawing bows or magic where necessary, and Alistair extracted as many of his people as he could, but there was no mistaking that many were too far away to heed his calls. Salvaging who he was able, he directed anyone still hale and whole to join the Paragon lines, leaving the rest to the command of their own captains. Warlord he might be now, but loyalty was still first and foremost to one’s own local leaders.

It was with heavy heart that he as well took wing, but there was no time to worry about the others now. If they could get out, he had to believe that they would, but he could not risk everyone else falling victim to the wurms.

Drawing his own bow, he swooped into the fray, firing and puncturing a Civil soldier right through the eye. Alighting near an old friend, he gave her a gentle smile. “Long has it been, Miss Lily,” he said by way of greeting, drawing the end of another arrow back to his cheek and releasing. “Though-” he fired- “I hear it’s Captain now.”

---

Neira only understood some of what was going on, but all the same, her eyes narrowed. She’d lingered behind with the general and the captain, and even now glanced between them, suspicion lighting her gaze. She would not plunder his mind for the information, but that didn’t stop her from knowing that he told the truth.

Pleading with Sid was useless, though; the halfling was a little too emotional and bullheaded for that to work. So, she tried Thanaros instead. Don’t.

I must, he replied simply, shooting the captain a glance. So he sensed what she sensed then.

Neira’s lips curled in something between a snarl and a grimace, and she glared at him for several seconds. There is no must. There is always more than one option. Always.

The half-orc gave her a sad sort of smile, and she scoffed. But he was apparently just as immovable as Sid on this point, and she grit her teeth, smoothing her face into impassivity. Fine. If it’s really what you want. Try not to die, Thanaros. He nodded sagely, and Neira heaved a sigh. Useless sentiment, that she couldn’t help but be angry with him.

Snapping off her first real salute in decades, she turned away from the two departing officers and to the general. “Come on. Five minutes isn’t long, and you and I have a lot of killing to do in between now and then.”

---

Talae drew in a deep breath. Nothing. At least one of her ribs was cracked, and several shallow wounds were bleeding sluggishly, but she felt nothing. A slight twinge in her side when she inhaled, but no pain. Shaking her head, she drew a red substance from her bandoleer and took out the cork of the vial with her teeth, downing the substance in a quick draught. Hypercoagulant, to slow the bleeding even further, outright stop it if she were lucky. She might feel no more pain from her wounds, but that wouldn’t stop blood loss from killing her.

Where was he? She’d lost track of the folk suffering from the unique panic Kisikoni could induce because by this point, a large number of people were panicking, and her odds of finding him now were unpleasantly low.

As if in answer to her thoughts, Salim rode up next to her, and she paused to consider his offer for only a brief second before leaping astride his horse. She nodded to his men, though not without wondering when and where he’d acquired them, and they were about to ride off when Fak’ir and Asera appeared at her side.

“We ride in your shadow, captain,” the halfling pronounced, and Asera nodded eagerly.

Talae was torn, but did not show it. “Fine. But make sure you stay in it. All of you.” The last was directed pointedly at Asera, the youngest and most impulsive member of her squad. With almost all of the fighting head-on at the moment, they wouldn’t be as much use as normal to the frontal charge, but this sort of thing was what they were trained for. Both nodded, and disappeared with a flick of Fak’ir’s wrist, pulled into his shadow magic and rendered invisible.

“Let’s go.” Salim grinned and spurred his horse forward, the ten cavalry units skirted the edges of the field, delayed only once to deal with a small group of Civil that had become separated from the main line. Fak’ir and other members of her team flickered in and out of visibility, and her heart, or what little was left of it, swelled with pride. Yes, they would be fine when she- now is not the time, Shanir. Keep your head on straight.

Within minutes, they’d reached the pocket of Death Knight resistance, the fighting here much more pitched than it was elsewhere, though Paragon soldiers were dropping like insects. An uncanny aura of foreboding hung over the area, and she reflected that Kisikoni’s more questionable abilities seemed to have amplified considerably since the last time they were on the same field.

“Thank you,” she murmured to Salim, leaping from his horse the moment she was close enough to see him. Or rather, what was left of him. The sight of the transformation was not what bothered her, though she would not hesitate to admit that she was afraid. What frightened her most, though, was that she had no idea how much of this being was even her partner anymore. Some of it had to be, though, and that was what allowed her to continue forward resolutely, pulling a smoke bomb from one of the pouches at her belt. She doubted darkness would be a problem for whatever the creature was, and she knew that deep humans were well-adapted to it. It would only be an advantage for herself and her squad, and she tossed the thing into the fray without hesitation, hefting Abel in one hand and drawing a long, serrated blade with the other.

Charging forward, she managed to get the attention of Kil, drawing him away from his rush towards Koni. Faki’ir, Asera, and Merin, an elven skirmisher with a flamberge, intercepted Ruv, the three of them moving in perfect concert, knowing that to attempt a full-on brawl with someone so heavily-armored would be a mistake for saboteurs like themselves.

Talae had no such reservations. Spinning her knife in one hand, she advanced, utterly silent but unmistakably angry.

---

---

Carmen inhaled sharply, the blood gushing from Tao’s arm a direct shot to her chest cavity. Running forward without the slightest heed for herself, she murmured soothing platitudes- though more for herself than he- as she examined the wound. Yes, she should be able to reattach the-

Suddenly, her oldest friend was torn from her grasp, Aesr cauterizing the wound beyond her ability to repair, and Carmen nearly wept from her new position in the dirt, where the dragon had shoved her. Tao would be forever a cripple, and she could have stopped it. Smiling darkly, in a way that sent shudders down the healer’s spine, the Captain simply nodded to Aesr and about-faced to rejoin the fray.

The dragon spread her arms wide- attend to me, for I am all that counts- and Carmen’s facial expression hardened, closing off until none of her customary gentleness or openness remained. She found, with dismay, that she hated Aesr in that moment, and one of her hands curled into a fist beneath her sleeve. Tao would only have one of those now, all because of… the cleric’s shoulders slumped. Not yet; everything was too soon, and she couldn’t ruin it. Her friends still needed her.

Carmen rose with all the dignity she could muster, brushed herself off, and stepped forward, casting silently, watching with baleful eyes as the dragon’s wounds closed up and she hissed with satisfaction, probably from the refreshed and warm feeling the magic tended to produce. Carmen’s eyes fell to the ground, and she did not move them from there until Aesr was off, back into the fight with renewed vigor, screeching her defiance at her foes.

A tiny seed of self-loathing bloomed in the healer’s breast right then, and it was all she could do not to vomit. Forgive me.

---

The Wraiths were wreaking havoc on the Children’s lines, but what Aesr had not realized was that the fact that her troops had been slowed with his duel and then his temporary disappearance was now proving to be an advantage. They were able to take their pick of situations, swoop in, deal heavy damage, and get out.

This was the way of things for several rounds, but at last it came time to make their final push for Nhil Darenthi’s encampment. Tao, the right side of his robe burned off when Aesr so helpfully cauterized his wound with her breath weapon, looked at once like a man worn down and one entirely unfazed. His body was battered, there was no mistaking that, but his rate had not faltered. Adjusting for the lack of an arm was unexpected, but since it was his non-dominant one anyway, it simply required more cross-blocking and a bit of balance adjustment. The first few who’d thought to kill the cripple had met slightly sloppier ends for it, but besides that, he appeared unchanged.

He was not, but the difference was less physical than mental.

Rallying the troops he had left (which was still quite he substantial number and managed to include most of the best soldiers in his division), he led the group forward, stressing that speed was of great importance. The less opportunity the Civil had to regroup or unleash the next wave of horror, the better. They were through most of the undead muck now, though there were still Wraths in the area, and the path to the Civil encampment was a straight shot, as an arrow flies.

“Hold formation, keep each other alive, and kill anything that stands in your way.” Tao’s orders were soft and curt, relayed down the line with precision. They charged, met by Civil who picked their targets carefully. One man went right for Pylarea, and another two closed on Jivven. One of these was met with the business end of a mace from the orc standing beside the darkling, but the other danced out of the way without difficulty. Daesino Alfangor was an old man, even by the standards of dark elves, but he had seen the youngling claiming to understand his art from a distance a way, and resolved to show him exactly what shadowdancing was supposed to look like before he was killed in this mad rush. Passing the art on to the enemy was better than letting it die, especially since battle was the only way to do so.

Safir and Shasarra were targeted by what appeared to be a team of slash-and-dash fighters, their speed and agility far outstripping their strength, and their cunning beating both of those traits by a hair. The four-person team were grinning like madmen as they rushed the knight and the harpy.

Pylarea

Pylarea’s head drooped over to the right slightly as she turned her battered body around to gaze upon this new threat. A contemptible smile spread across her sweet lips as she took stock of the two fresh assailants, neither of which she should worry about very much. One of them was yet another mindless skeleton, just like the countless others she had ripped to pieces since this battle began, honestly when would they learn that a larger army does not guarantee victory? The second one, well he was even less of a bother to be earnest. His face was pimply, his body gangly, and the pike he carried looked as if it was the only thing keeping a sturdy wind from blowing him away. If she had to guess he was some form of coward only willing to attack the most helpless in appearance. Unfortunately he was about to learn a very serious lesson, but who said she could not have any fun before lessons began?

As the boy charged forward with his pike leveled at her chest Pylarea whipped her right arm into the air to lash her opponent, forcing him to skid to a halt and swipe at her attack in an effort to parry the blow. Meanwhile the skeleton soldier she could only assume was his lackey in charge of opening up defenses continued on its determined path straight for her. As it came within striking distance a psionic blast pulsated forth to send its undead frame sprawling backwards, bent and broken into pieces, now all she needed to deal with was the child. Sure, defeating him like the others would be simple if she was to use her abilities, but the Nightmarian had been taxing them heavily thus far and it seemed this battle was still far from over as the enormous wraiths continued tearing into their ranks.

Pylarea readied herself for the next attack she could tell by the way he carried himself that he was too nervous to sit still much longer and much too eager to try and flee, his pike was longer than her whips and he obviously believed he could take her with relative ease. As her opponent crouched slightly, it looked like he was tensing himself unleash a powerful all or nothing swing, a blur charged from her left side, where he back was currently turned. Another skeleton had snaked its way through the masses to collide with the moth, bringing both of them to the ground in a flurry of rotting flesh and fluttering, ripped wings. She was forced to wrestle the creature using only her, considerable, strength, unable to focus any of her powers on the creature.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nurrel was overjoyed at this turn of events. When the he had dragged along to soften up his opponents crumpled under the…whatever kind of assault the purple woman unleashed upon it he had been terrified, but when the form of another skeleton lurking nearby crept into his view and out of hers his resolve had been steeled. All he needed was to wait for a minute and ready his self for when it tackled his victim. He had noticed this one tearing into their ranks as Skali fought and died earlier, if he could just take her life then he would have to be promoted to the rank of Captain!

Before his meal-ticket could throw off his new skeleton pawn Nurrel brought his pike up over his head, his whole body poised for what was to come next. When it looked like his skeleton was finally gaining the upper hand the soon-to-be Captain brought down the head of his pike with all of his might, slicing the blade through his skeleton and into what he could only assume was the soft flesh of the purple woman. A smirk spread across the deep human’s lips as he removed the pike from his victim’s corpse and quickly hefted it into the sky, shouting out in triumph at his accomplishment.

“This one has just slain a champion of the Children. Who dares challenge me next?”

As he stood proudly over the corpse of the purple woman something strange was happening, instead of the other soldiers of the Civil rallying around him and the Children breaking the opposite happened. His fellow soldiers, the living ones at least, seemed stricken with an over-powering fear, but of what he was unsure. He had obviously just slain a mighty warrior, and with the Wraiths tearing into the Children’s lines then obviously the tide was turning in their favor at this moment in time. He felt a hand come into contact with the armor on his back, a feeling of panic crossed his mind. He had sunk the head of his pike into her skull hadn’t he?

The next thing he knew there was a petite, delicate looking hand protruding from a newly formed cavity in his chest, with his pulsating heart clasped within its tiny fingers. When he tried to breathe all he could do was cough, and with his cough came a large amount of blood. “But…I should be….” Before he could mutter the last of his thoughts a cold grasp descended upon his body and darkness filled his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the life drained from the careless boy Pylarea plucked her hand from his chest, letting the pitiful thing that was his heart fall to the ground as well. It had been a rather close call there for a minute, had it not been for her vambrace and arcshell some serious damage could be done, as was though things were not necessarily for the better. Her singular piece of armour and weaponry had been sliced nearly in half, and with that a large gash nearly two inches deep had been carved into her forearm. As is she needed to remove the forearm guard and steeled herself for what was to come next. The Nightmarian closed her eyes and felt a heat rise from within her, when next she opened them and parted her lips just slightly a controlled breath of dragon-fire was let loose to seal the gaping wound.

Pylarea cried out in pain as the sensation overpowered her senses, but it was better than the alternative, which was to lose them by way of blood loss. When next she stood things seemed somewhat more lonely and chaotic than they should be. The obvious reason was that her comrades being led by Captain Tao had pushed forward somewhat farther than she had anticipated, but there was nothing to worry about. The moth delicately lifted herself up, dusted off, and continued back into their company, this time without the assistance of her trusty weapon pilfered from the corpse of a dead woman, now lying broken and useless on the ground along with the corpses of so many men and women.

---

“My name is Daesino Alfangor, and my family invented your art. I have been a master since before you were a thought in your mother’s head, youngling.” The tones of the return greeting were far from accusatory or arrogant; indeed, there seemed almost to be a wistful sadness in them. I am also old, older than I should be, and ready to leave this world. Still, the last Alfangor could not slough off his mortal coil without knowing for certain that at last one remained who knew his techniques truly. If this child were to have that knowledge, that intuitive understanding of shadow that could not be taught, then Daesino would be only too happy to fall by his hand.

Still, there were a few things he could impart first, in the only way he’d been taught: in blood-lines, scored into flesh, reminders of every errant folly. He was covered in innumerable small scars, as would this young Noda’Razzr be, if he was worthy of them.

Jivven’s first swing met with only empty air, Daesino flowing away from it as though he’ known exactly where it would be. Flickering, the dark elf seemed to vanish from sight, the only mark of his passage a new, light nick on his opponent’s spear arm. Perhaps surprisingly, he did not press his advantage or try to cut any deeper.

“Again, only as though you mean it this time.”

---

Shasarra’s last throwing dagger buried itself in the arm of the encroaching skirmisher, and the one opposite him fell under the weight of Safir’s shield-bash, her nose shattered and blood pooling in her mouth. Spitting it, she tried to recover and scramble to her feet, but a heavy blow from a mace caved her skull in, and she crumpled like a week-dead leaf underfoot.

Gorthax grimaced appreciatively, nodding to Safir, Shasarra, and Vortigern, who, approaching from the other end, had finished off the harpy’s opponent with a savage grin and a swift axe-blow to the back. “We’re forgin’ ahead,” the too-tall elf volunteered, “but we’re supposed ta stay well clear o’ that.” He pointed to where the lich was unleashing its fel magic over wide swaths of Children less pragmatic than they. “Orders are to make a push for the camp, as soon as we can.”

That, of course, would be easier said than done. With the lich making a chaotic mess of the field, getting around it would mean walking into a pocket of Civil resistance fortified by the late-game appearance of a creature from draconian legend. Indeed, even as the group turned to meet their oncoming assailants, a fair mix of magi and elite physical combatants, there was no mistaking that these were not mindless undead or frightened rookies. Many of them were once members of Nhil’s personal honor guard alongside Daesino, though in his state he had precious little use for them anymore, and now they marched to battle like the rest.

“Come on, ladies and gents, let’s get while the gettin’s still good!” Vortigern at least seemed unfazed by the caliber of their new opponents, focused only on the next move, the next breath and swing and strike, and making it to their destination.

---

The man without a right arm soon found himself in the rather interesting company of a semicircle of magi, dodging spells with a rare alacrity that presented itself as careless abandon. At his back, the red-robed cleric shot off spells of her own, eying the lich with the air of someone driven quite nearly to distraction.

It felt so wrong to her every sense, but her loyalty was to these people here, and she would not allow herself to fail them any worse than she already had. A hand gesture forced holy magic into the very pores of the nearest magician, and the light seared him from the inside out, as though rending his soul before his body. Their advance had slowed, too slow now for comfort, but at the very least the lich had not reached them, and she would ensure that it did not, even if it managed to work through the swarms of Children that rushed it now.

Slow their progress might be, she reflected as Tao sliced through the last mage, but it was still inexorable. She had faith, real faith, that her friends were strong enough to make it, and she could not help but feel that the emphasis the captain always placed on supporting each other in his orders and his strategies was the right one. She had known groups of Children unable to take advantage of the bonds their initiations created, who were still competitive and individualistic even when they were supposed to be working together.

But not them. Not this squad. She could not bring herself to call them the Aesr, for the hatchling had nothing to do with it. They were many, and they were mightier than the sum of their parts. Somehow, she knew with certainty that only this would save them, in the end.

---

Thereafter, Captain Tao took his first step within the bounds of the Civil camp, and his squad with him. They had reached their goal, and now all that remained was to see what awaited them there.

---

Alistair chuckled as he slung his bow over his back, donating half his remaining white-fletched arrows to Lily’s quiver in a smooth motion. The other ten, he kept simply to ensure that he would not be caught flat-footed at any time during the battle, but his true skill had always been with polearms, and his wickedly-pronged trident was in his hand momentarily, a wide arcing swing tearing a Civil soldier from navel to sternum, leather armor entirely notwithstanding.

“I am ever and always just Alistair to my friends. Rest assured that I wouldn’t miss it for The Gift itself,” he replied sagely, rotating his body and plunging the spear into the next woman’s neck.

It was then that the call came for the Blackguard to form up near Wrath, and for the barest of seconds, Alistair hesitated, looking to the sky. His kith and kin were being devastated by what appeared to be a siege weapon, fueled by unholy magic. He knew with grim certainty that there was nothing he could do for them, though each life snuffed was another weight on his shoulders. But, if Wrath and his legion could reach the camp, than their deaths would not be for nothing, and those that remained could be saved.

Alistair was in the air again like a shot, joining the formation and standing beside his old comrades once more. Time away from them had only made their continued fight more imperative in his eyes. Not all of his people agreed, and many were more inclined towards the elusive forces of the Savage.

He would show them that they were wrong.

---

Neira stifled a full-throated laugh at the spectacle of Wrath being treated entirely like a child by his mother, cracking a rare smile and waving at Mercy as the spider took off. Neira flanked the both of them, and it was not long before they and a few others managed to break free of the fighting and head into the camp.

Her consciousness alighted upon something most strange, then- a mind made like water or slick glass, one that she would not be able to manipulate without significant effort, if then. At first he wondered if this was Nhil, but the vampire she’d tagged, Gertz, was nowhere in his vicinity. Instead, she sensed that there were dozens of soldiers at his back, and at least one psychic.

“The Children have reached the edge of the camp,” she warned, even as the white-winged harpy arrived, a figure familiar to her as one of the few decent sparring partners she’d had back before her promotion. They were soon joined by three others, including Shanir and Ayalen, but she paid them small heed as they continued their march for Nhil’s tent, through the strangely-empty camp. Oh hell. This is going to go badly, isn’t it?

---

“I abandoned any notion of honor long ago, and the only sovereigns who hold my loyalty are the people I care for,” Talae replied to the Death Knight, uninterested in his hangups or his prejudice. Men who would be still corpses clung to all manner of foolish things, she knew that.

Before she could strike, Salim stepped in, and her tongue was halfway to forming the words of a harsh rebuke when he was struck, and they left her in a muted hiss. Before she could properly formulate a reaction to the new circumstances, she as pulled into a circle of teleportation, and attempted to hold onto her last meal as she, Koni, and Asera were pulled through time-space and deposited, rather unceremoniously, somewhere a short distance behind Wrath and the small squad he now led toward the center of the Civil encampment. Salim was not present, and she gritted her teeth, shaking her head and pulling herself to her feet-

-and finding herself in Kisikoni’s grip. Was the fact that she could actually feel that, feel the hands about her upper arms, psychosomatic? It hardly mattered, but the realization left her unable to properly formulate any kind of response. Then he kissed her, and Talae’s hands gently cupped either side of his face, and how she wished that were enough. She caught his wrist as he turned, and her words were nearly whispered. She had been keeping two very important things from him, but at least one of them was secret no longer.

“I… I love you too. Stay alive, Koni, please. Stay you, regardless of what your body becomes.” The other thing would have to wait, assuming they both came out of this alive. “I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.” And there it was, her greatest fear laid bare: that everything she ever loved would be torn from her in the same violent manner. Her parents, her best friend and erstwhile teacher Caine, her sister Fae. Talae had always tried to be realistic about what she could achieve and what she could not, and she knew with fatalistic certainty that she would not be able to withstand the weight of another loss. Especially not him.

The dark elf's lips tilted in a small, sad smile, and she released him, taking up her weapons and gesturing for Asera to follow her once more into the shadows of the battle, striking the few foes that thought to flank the main party as they progressed inexorably towards whatever awaited them at the center.

Pylarea

The world around Pylarea had all but ceased to exist. The battle was of no consequence, the corpses were mere stepping stones, her comrades and enemies naught but faceless shadows swimming in a sea of darkness. All that mattered was powerful, confident form sadistically gazing upon her visage. The human, Jhontal Rrhontar, had been toying with her for the last few minutes, and there was nothing she could truly do about it. A terrible vice-grip had clamped upon her chest, its cold and vicious finger digging deep into the very essence of her soul, if she were to lose this fight then something much worse than death was in store.

Her opponent was a mage, and luckily the first spell he had slung at her had merely bowled her over after colliding into her side, her arc-shell once again saving her life in this battle royal, but even though she had not been harmed she had still been disoriented by its force. The Nightmarian had tried desperately to penetrate his personal space, rushing in quickly whenever possible to hopefully catch him off-guard, but the mage was much too agile and always seemed to have a spell on his lips to counter. He seemed to know he could not win by using only arcane magic, but he had made that clear from the beginning. This for was not on the prowl for another kill, but for a prize.

If she had to guess it he was mad as a spring hare. He constantly cackled, ogled, and japed whenever she came too close to him, he wanted her to get close and she could feel it with what little psionic ability she had left. Her antenna was tucked lightly into his belt; he had managed to slice the appendage off after catching her off-guard with his first attack. Pain seared through the remnant of her stump as blood trickled down over her eyes and lips, the metallic, sickly sweet substance leaving a bitter taste upon her tongue and stinging her eye.

“Well aren’t you the feisty one little moth girl? That’s okay though, once we win this battle there will be more than enough time to break that spirit of yours, I happen to specialize in such things just so you know!”

By now the moth had grown tired of retorting to his japes and jibes, knowing it would do nothing but fuel his ego and force her to distraction. It took every fiber of her being to stand up right now, much less try to attack him with the feeble blade she had plucked from the hand of a Civil soldier. Her adrenaline was depleting rapidly, and once that ran out she would probably just collapse. It seemed like her opponent was aware of this fact as well, and he was using it to his advantage.

“Aren’t you going to grace me with any more spicy words from that honeyed tongue of yours? Good, at least you’re a fast learner; it looks like I won’t even need to cut your tongue out like the rest.”

Somehow the psionicist managed to conjure up a breath of fire from the depths of her stomach, draining most of her reserves in this last-ditch attempt to gain the upper hand. As the wave of flame rolled towards the human she quickly followed right behind it, feeling the heat singe her hair slightly with how close she came to running right through it. Pylarea slashed wildly with both hands as she came to where her opponent should be, but sadly her sword connected with naught but thin air. A heavy forced collided with her head, sending the Nightmarian sprawling to the ground and her only weapon flying away.

A quick spell soon had her limbs pinned to the ground as a magically reinforced hand shoved her face sideways and into the dirt, effectively eliminating the possibilities of her even attempting to blast him with one last belch of fire. Another hand soon began caressing her hair and stroking her shoulders lightly, wanting her to know she was in no position to fight back. She was stronger than the average human just by being a Nightmarian, and the advantage of her being a Child added even more to that, but she was exhausted from the constant fighting. Pylarea was still unaccustomed to long battles, if only there was something she could do.

“Oh yes, you’ll definitely make a fine trophy to add to my collection. Once this rabble is all cleaned up you’ll be all mine! Have you ever been a slave before my sweet little thing? It won’t be so bad, you shouldn’t worry about a thing, flesh slaves are treated much better than the rest!”

The magic encompassing her limbs began to loosen slightly. Her assailant was working himself into a frenzy and losing focus, if only she could just push this a little bit farther, make him forget his position for just a little bit longer.

“Please, don’t hurt me. I-I promise I will…”

She could not see the smile upon his face, but she could feel the mixture of joy and desire emanating from his being. His searching hand began reaching farther down, reaching her breasts and squeezing tightly, the pain spiraling into her chest as she felt the tension in her arms release just when she needed them to the most. Her right hand balled into a fist and made contact with the upper-part of his head, his left eye popping out of the socket as the full force of her blow landed on his temple. The human collapsed onto his side in a ragged heap of flesh, so thin and frail she was surprised she had been beaten by such a small man.

Pylarea was not satisfied with that though. Even though his body lay limp she continued to pound away at his head with all the might she had left, pulverizing the mage’s head until it resembled only a puddle of thick pool. Her hands shook terribly as she tried to wash away the filthy remnants of his touch upon her skin. The Nightmarian tried to stand, but it was just too much to handle. She had fought as long and hard as she possibly could, but she had lost so much blood since being rejuvenated by Carmen that last time. It took all of her energy just to keep her eyes open.

The moth slowly slumped down and lay on the ground softly. Her eyes could no longer fight the weight forcing them to close. As they began to shut the last image she could gaze upon was that of her friends, still fighting with all of their strength for one another. They were marching onward and deeper into the Civil camp, Pylarea felt left behind by all of them. If only she could have lasted just a little while longer, helped them just a little bit more...