Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

The Stormweaver looked around at the stalactites, at Tanwen, and at the receding aura of Elwen. It wasn't that everything was growing. It was that they were shrinking. A desperate effort by the curse to keep them at bay now that they were so close. And one he would not allow for.

"Brace yourself, Tanwen,"

"For what?" she asked, confused.

"Be ready to run. Or fly if possible."

"Arashi, what are you doing!?"

"This hex is toying with us. I will not be toyed with."

Before the dragoness could ask what Arashi meant, a pulse of power turned the abyss white, the 'snow' above them parting as more and more stalactites spilled through the gaps, plunging past them and splaying out at the top. A cacophony of booms rang out rhythmically as they fell into place, fusing together to form a bridge extending in the direction of the Onokruun's aura. Tanwen looked up from the forming bridge at her mate, seeing the Stormweaver's figure still, even as his hide seemed to be in perpetual motion, the cloud-like hues engulfing his scales shifting and changing, until finally, he released the stalactite he was attached to, beating his wings powerfully once, twice, and a third time, another crack sounding out as his own stalactite fell to the bridge below, filling a hole that was directly below it.

A hellish groan rumbled from the abyss below, and Tanwen jumped with a start as she felt her own icy spike fall out under her, filling the final hole. The bridge was as white as the snow from which it was formed, other colours shimmering in the not-light that illuminated this place. Tanwen looked to the Stormweaver, seeing him gesturing for her to follow. Another groan rang out, and she realised that it was not the Experimentalist's doing, rushing towards him as swiftly as her wings would carry her, landing at a sprint moments after he did the same.

[C S]

Upon the next groan, in the instant of sound propagating throughout the chamber, the void had warped. It was now nearly all consuming. The blank canvas surrounded the bridge and the dragons upon it, and they couldn't tell if they were falling into oblivion or not, how featureless their surroundings were, and how alien the forces at work on their bodies were.

The forest of stalactites, where they just were, was a point of color directly over Arashi and Tanwen. A pinhole that wasn't flat, vaguely luminescent white. It could have been taken as Elwen's affliction reacting so strongly to the Stormweaver, observing how he used its components and decisively denying him even that. Content to keep him in a purgatory of nothing but him, his mate, and his bridge.

[The Kingpin]

"Arashi! What's going on?!" bellowed Tanwen frantically as she ran after the swifter, more slender wyrm.

"The curse is trying to disorientate you. Ignore it. Follow the aura!" called the Stormweaver ahead of her as he pressed on.

And so they did, continuing onwards for what felt like an eternity, until the aura seemed so close they could touch it.

And yet it still wasn't quite within reach. The aura was much larger than Arashi had expected. It had a presence he wasn't used to seeing in Hueilin Elwen's age. It certainly wasn't the aura she exuded on the outside. Little wonder Dyrineyr did this to her. He's nothing compared to...this, he thought with a measure of wonder.

This thought was short lived, however, in the face of the more pressing problem. Before them was blackness. Not an endless abyss as it was before, but a wall of shadow. Reaching forward, he found it tangible, soft, like a massive curtain, but one that couldn't simply be pulled aside.

"O...kay. So now what do we do?" asked Tanwen as she stood beside her mate. She hated being so dependent on someone else. Being helpless and following another's lead aggravated her. But she knew there was no hope of her taking the lead here. She had no idea how any of this worked. The last couple of times she tried to take charge, everything went to hell.

"I'm thinking. I do not know if the curse will let me manipulate its fabric a second time. We will need another solution."

[C S]

As if to spite Arashi for his words, the snow coated bridge began to disintegrate, starting from the far end and working its way forwards towards the pair of dragons. The infinitesimal pieces of rock drifted upwards and outwards. The segment of the bridge they originated from was whittled down from a walkway for huge drakes to a rocky spindle, until that became nothing over the canvas. The Experimentalist would have to live up to his moniker, for the time for thinking was suddenly in short supply.

[The Kingpin]

The cracking of the dissolving bridge was their salvation, as it happened. Glancing over his shoulder, he fixed one of the crumbling spikes with a look, the spike tilting off to one side before it could crumble further, shooting forward past them like a gigantic ballista bolt, plunging into the black barrier. One by one, the stalactites that formed the bridge were repurposed, serving as projectiles to be sent forth into the barrier, each spike following the one before, colliding with a deafening clang as what was once ice turned to metal.

"I thought you said you couldn't do this anymore!" exclaimed the dragoness, taken by surprise.

"It's a distraction. Brace yourself. And tell your mother to watch for the spire."

"How?"

"Exactly as I told you. It's not chronomancy. Just tell her to avoid that spire."

And so the dragoness did.



Elwen stirred from what seemed to her to be a waking slumber. This shell of shadow she stood in was one she'd known for longer than she could even remember at this point. Was it years? Centuries? Millennia? Longer?

She had no grasp of time in this place. All she knew was that she had been here far longer than any nightmare should ever be.

She had seen her projects turn on her, her passions shackle her, her loved ones imprison her. She had seen the walls of the den she and Cyndeyrn had shared turn into a literal labyrinth of tunnels, with fangs of stone and vitorite gnashing whenever she sought to leave. Her magic reacted differently every time she used it, every spell manifesting in strange, dangerous, unpredictable ways.

And yet now, she heard her daughter's voice. Little Tanwen, her little white flame, asking her to watch for a spire.

At first, she had no idea what to think of it. Was this another trick? Another method this nightmare came up with to torment her?

But then she heard the banging. The deafening crunching clang of metal piercing stone, and she felt the earth shake beneath her feet. Earth that was pitch black, made of darkness.

She moved, backing away from the source of the sound and eyeing it warily. In moments, the floor split with an explosion of dust that was closer to soot.

Light engulfed the entire room an instant later, a sharp, buzzing crackle all but deafening her, two rocky dragons ascending from the hole beside the spike of metal. In the aftermath of the light and sound that blinded and deafened her, Elwen noted that a piercing aroma, not unlike the scent of lightning-scorched air, dominated her sense of smell completely, leaving her unable to smell anything else.

"How did you know that would work?" asked the larger, more muscular stone dragon to the other, lithe one.

"I didn't. It was an experiment," responded the slender drake as he looked down into the hole, watching as the last of something crumbled away.

"You mean we could have died there?" asked the bulkier one, incredulous.

"No. We would have failed, however. But to do nothing would be to fail anyway."

"You're unbelievable, Arashi."

"I'm also quite skilled, Tanwen."

"No...Tanwen?"



Tanwen looked up at the dragoness a few feet away, realising she looked nothing like herself right now. "Arashi, the armour?"

A moment later, the shell of stone that had shielded them from the electricity crumbled to dust, revealing the glowing hide of the White Flame to the Onokruun artisan.

"How...No. This is another trick. Another cruel torment...That is not my Tanwen...She's but a little whelp..."

"Mother, it is me...We're here to free you."

"LIES!" bellowed the dragoness, a gout of bright green flames spilling forth before Elwen as she stepped back, Tanwen stopping short of the blaze that extinguished a moment later, having nothing to burn.

"Dyrineyr cursed your mask. As far as Drakhunmiir knows, you are but a drooling, thoroughly damaged husk of your former self that spends her days talking about the intelligence of slugs and hiding from sight, terrified of Onokruun magic and anything to do with it."

That gave Elwen pause.

"...Dyrineyr?"

"Yes. Since then he has slain Okrom and taken charge of Onokruun, as well as the title of Artificer. We only recently found a way to free you, with the help of a young Onokruun drake named Jahkiid."

"And who are you?" she asked.

"I am Arashi."

[C S]

A gurgling interjected the moment before more could be said, emanating from the roof of Elwen's inky cage. The fabric of the darkness bubbled and writhed. Streams of black, steaming liquid began to pour out as viscous blobs, which splashed down around the dragons, yet nowhere near enough to cause their avatars harm. The curse could not endanger that which was its charge, of course.

What it sent to dispatch the intruders was something much, much more vile. It slipped through the break above in one serpentine motion, with the same slick ambiance as the eel-like slugs that had troubled Arashi and Tanwen before. However, this thing was not the same as they, despite similarities in shape and build. It descended along the walls of the shadow on limbs made of metal, which bore a resemblance to Onokruun crafting claws. Overlapping plates of serrated metal armored its long body, and lined with barbs.

Its face bore the likeness of Elwen's cursed mask, detailed with wrinkles and a ferocious glare, and a metal maw of several mandibles snapping and clashing. Each recurved and sharpened point brought to mind the weapons used to slay dragons in the days of yore. Who was to say what they would do, being the enforcer of Elwen's captivity.

The blasphemed vision of creation reached out with its metal limbs and crashed onto the level where the others were located, across the way from the breach.

[The Kingpin]

Elwen backed away at the sight of her nightmarish doppelgänger, curling up against what could have been the corner of this tarry prison. Her wings curled forward in front of her so that each wing digit served as a blade pointing forward, her head framed between them, jaws parted in a threat display as she braced to burn the threat if it approached. Arashi's hide crackled as he moved to engage, before Tanwen cut him off. A thunderous snarl escaped her as the flames that made up her form flashed like a beacon, casting even the blackness of the chamber in a pale grey light. Flexing her knuckles, she glanced at Arashi briefly and reared up, preparing to fight the beast. Her already massive talons gained a shell of steel, layers of armour coating her own, her white hide glowing orange as she braced for combat. "I am going to tear that...THING'S head off...and I'll do the same to Dyrineyr when we get out of here," she snarled, her bladed club of a tail thudding heavily against the ground below.

[C S]

The mandibles of the grafted slug whirred and whined their retort as they cut their deadly path inside the creature's mouth. Unflinching and indifferent to the dragoness' anger, it ambled on towards her on its many sharp legs, each one a weapon in their own right. At the whims of the curses' rules, even they could bring harm to the burning daughter.

[The Kingpin]

A fireball slammed into the abomination's foremost limb the moment it tried to approach, blowing the limb clean off and turning the ground below it to slag as the dragoness angled herself sideways to meet the aggressor.

[C S]

Without regard for the missing limb, the oversize slug continued towards Tanwen, its weapons constantly in motion as it closed in. The tips of its legs clinked against the floor as if it were made of glass, while the movement of each metal limb made a sound similar to the mandibles, whirring in a most unnatural fashion.

[The Kingpin]

The dragoness snarled as she swung her tail inwards the moment the slug got within reach, the massive mace that was her tail club crushing and puncturing its whirring mandibles with a violent hiss, steam rising from bubbling muck stuck to the glowing orange spikes as she backed away, fangs bared in a vicious threat display.

[C S]

As before, the slug had no reaction to the ensuing wear on its form outside of the lurch of its mass as a result of the impact. Its advance was paused momentarily as a consequence, but at is range, it hardly mattered. In moving her tail away, Tanwen presented an opening for the monstrous combination of flesh and metal, and though she worked to distance herself, that was all it needed to lunge. The dented and perforated face of the slug came before her throat in a sudden burst of speed, and its many weapons struck their mark, anchoring into the White Flame's avatar.

[The Kingpin]

The White Flame made good on her title, a gout of fire spilling forth through the metal plating as the armour was blown off into the slug's maw, cleaving much of it off and tearing out the other end, embedding itself in the inky black wall behind it. She made the most of the opportunity, her claws digging into it and heaving it off its myriad legs, throwing it across the chamber and into the sticky wall, right over the orange plate that had been attached to her throat mere moments before.

[C S]

The bestial slug rolled up the wall as it would had it hit the floor, complete with a recovery onto its numerous bladed legs. With that bout of the bizarre out of the way, the slug lowered itself and then pushed off, leaping a considerable distance before thudding back onto the ground in front of Tanwen. Several yards laid between the two behemoths still, and the slug did not hesitate in its steady advance. Though its ichor seeped profusely from its wounds, it truly seemed uncaring to all that Tanwen did to it. All the better to vent her rage, all things considered.

[The Kingpin]

The dragoness snarled as she bounded forth, her fury all but uncontrollable. She gripped the first pair of limbs to enter her range, formidable jaws coming down on the back of what served as the abomination's neck and forcing it into the earth. Pale fire spilled out around her jaws, immolating the slug even as it was held down, the White Flame's sheer strength being used to restrain and brutalise her opponent, even as the Stormweaver paced at a distance, watchful. His mate's anger was great, and he had no intention of intervening unless it seemed she was in danger, though he was just as ready to jump into the fray, though nowhere near as literally as she had. His would be a game of distance, should it come to that.

[C S]

At the slug's rear, a couple sets of legs folded inwards on each other to form a hollow blade, roughly in the shape of a spearhead. The action only took a few seconds to complete, and it took even less time for the creature to swing its body about, using the dragon's own hold on it against her. The blade struck her in the chest, just over her shoulder. The pain Tanwen felt was as though there was actually a weapon sliding over her bone outside of Elwen's mind, a more pronounced sensation than the earlier bite.

[The Kingpin]

A bellow escaped Tanwen as she recoiled from the sudden, surprisingly deep blow. The next instant however, the roar was silenced by a thunderclap, the abomination's tail, and the blade it had formed, blown to ash and cinders as the Stormweaver shifted to cut the beast off, putting himself between it and Tanwen.

[C S]

Surprisingly, the wound was not cauterized by the immense heat which dealt it. The flow of blood was regular, and came in thick waves as it pooled on the ground behind the slug, which turned its body to face Arashi. The same was true for the blood that dripped from the creature's missing leg. The extent of its damage gave it some pause, and it soon became apparent why. The flow of blood slowed abruptly, and the surface of the viscous substance appeared to coagulate. However, the hardened product was still connected to the creature, though inanimate.

Its glaring metal visage was ever trained on the Stormweaver. Unfeeling, untiring. Just like another thing associated with his legacy.

[The Kingpin]

The Stormweaver's cloudy hide crackled, sapphire eyes shining nearly white as a luminescent haze begin to spill out between the scales of his hide and through his wing membranes, arcs of electricity leaping between his horns and dancing up their length to the tips. His expression was as stony as his foe's, though to say it lacked emotion would be doing him a disservice.

"Careful Arashi! It's doing something with its blood!" warned Tanwen as she held a wing over her injured shoulder, backing away towards her mother as the Stormweaver took on the abomination she had wrestled with.

"I am aware."

Almost the instant Arashi spoke, spikes burst from the ceiling, a row of them impaling the slug's tail and the coagulated blob extending from it. Each spike, in turn, grew outwards, a dozen branches spreading into the amalgam's tarry black flesh, working to gradually immobilise it.

[C S]

What actually came to pass was the complete opposite of the magus' intentions. Metal and hide split predictably, but blood did not spurt and douse the surroundings. Each crack and scrape was punctuated by a bodily shudder that ran through the monster's form. It lowered its head with each shake, and arched its back. Simultaneously, its back began to heave, helped along by every failure of its integrity.

The abominable slug's body broke unevenly, as though it were but the shell of a creature maturing into another phase of its life. Or, perhaps more accurately, it was evocative of a parasite leaving its hollowed host behind as a husk. At that point, the rocky spikes were clearly not doing any damage to what emerged from the metal body, climbing out of its confines as if that very body was a coffin.

A blackened Cyndeyrn, with a face warped with the features of the mask. A drake made of dark ichor, the likes of which that drowned light and scattered it about into an oily sheen across its surface. The twisted dragon stepped out into the arena with movements that spawned quakes, and a growl that made the air itself quiver. Then, and only then, did the metal slug fall flat and was stilled.