Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

At that moment, Morrelie found her own path around mostly empty pens. The few animals within were lethargic, she noticed with a callous stare in their direction. "Can they really not feed their sustenance and sacrifices?" Morrelie wondered, belittling her opponents before she even saw any of them. There were a few hens plucking at the dirt around their small houses and a few skinny cows that ambled listlessly. The only creatures with any hint of spirit were the small six-limbed gliders covered in fur, stuffing their faces with scraps of grain.

The prowling mage frowned. The taint of the demonic was a cloud over this settlement, but there wasn't so much as an imp to be found. And from her vantage point, the village seemed so scarce. Were these people even alive anymore? Morrelie was beginning to have her doubts as she rounded a cottage, and found herself looking down the general symmetry of homes and shops. It was the most ordinary of settings for one her her hunts, but one with such a sense of vacancy.

"This can't be right," she thought with a deepening scowl. From what Arashi had told her, Morrelie assumed her prey were adept foes, skilled in evasion and secrecy. That it took so long to find them should have been a testament to their skills. In reality, it seemed that they had escaped her prying senses for so long by simply existing in shambles. This Brotherhood hadn't even gone as far as to turn the soil beneath their feet into simmering coals, which the invaders from another realm found complimentary to their sensibilities.

"Another dire treachery perpetrated by the Stormweaver? What kind of a laugh is he having, tempting my wrath twofold?"

This was the thought that went through Morrelie's head repeatedly as she walked down the straight through the village. Finally, at one intersection down the way, she saw the congregation of the "masses" at the moment of their dispersal.

"Ah," Morrelie said with elevated volume, yet even tone, "Arashi has either overstated the threat you all pose, or has demonstrated his baffling incompetence once more. Whichever the case," she drew her wand with her deft, experienced hand, "Your end is nigh."

[The Kingpin]

Carlisle was one of the handful to pause at the decidedly loud proclamation. "Arashi?" he asked, confused. Few had heard the Stormweaver's true name. Regardless, the Millenial Mage's statements, and the reaching for her wand, were sufficient for him to brace himself, grasping at a wand of his own.

"Peace, Carlisle. There will be no need for that from you. On with your work. I will see to our guest," came Kristov's statement with a tilt of his wrist as he turned towards the mage.

"Talented you may be, Kristov, but I am not about to walk off when there's a person threatening to kill us," responded the slender mage firmly, making no move to depart the scene.

"Bloodshed among our congregation will not do, Carlisle. The Lord of Change will have no use in a dead following. No go," stated the Disciple resolutely, his hand waving in the direction of one of the side roads leading out of the square, as if physically dismissing his subordinate. Others seemed to have taken the order more seriously and suddenly than Carlisle had, and, having already been in buildings and down alleys, did not take much to disappear behind cover once more, some going as far to walk off as though to tend their fields and livestock. It wasn't immediately visible in his actions, but Kristov was braced for combat, and so too, were several of his congregation.

[C S]

"Don't be like that, Kristov," the sarcasm dripped out from Morrelie's cloth mask, "this will be a lot more convenient for me if you all stay where you are. For example..."

Morrelie flung her wand about in a whipping motion. Bright light crackled to life around Carlisle, and from these metaphysical tears came the Interceptor's chains. The glowing restraints thudded into the floor around the man, forming a cage of spiraling bars. They then collapsed on him, each chain wrapping around his body in full with a constricting tightness, and braiding into one another to fully cement the overpowering shackle. Trapped by her magic, Carlisle felt the onset of years beyond him, though his features didn't age a day. Deprived of his energy, he could not resist the mage.

The Interceptor turned her black eyes back to Kristov after her demonstration, and they narrowed. "Kristov. Carlisle. Such interesting names, to be sure. Here's one you can take to your admittedly unceremonious graves: Morrelie."

[The Kingpin]

"Let me free!" demanded Carlisle as he squirmed, his motions doing little against the chains.

"You have a hatred for us, Morrelie. We've given you no reason for it. It matters little. I will grant you a most glorious of graves, under the light of the Watcher of Worlds."

In an instant, the ground split beneath the Millennial Mage's feet, jagged masses of stone closing around her legs like bear traps, a second pair of stony maws growing out of the edges of the first as they climbed up her form, gradually immobilising her. Kristov lifted his hands, his two polearms ripping themselves out of the wall and shooting into his hand once more. Their shapes shifted once more, vertebrae crunching and cracking and pulsating as seams appeared in the ivory bones, revealing inky blackness beneath.

[C S]

The thousand-year woman let out an irritated grunt, at both Kristov's words and his choice of retaliation. She pointed a palm down at the creeping stone, and from it, she projected her will. Light manifested around her form in a similar manner as before. There were no chains to emerge from these rifts; they swirled around her form and emanated a wild power. The peredomantic field warbled and resonated dangerously, and Kristov's binds were eroded away to dust under a concentrated force of destruction.

Morrelie lifted a foot from the powder, kicking it out to shed the fine grains, a casual contrast to the energies that faded around her. "Not the first time I've had the displeasure of fighting one who would lob rocks at me. It is the first time I've heard of a bunch of sun-worshiping demon-kin. Normally, the sun-love is reserved for your enemies, no?"

With that same aloofness, Morrelie flicked her wand. With a sickening crumpling of flesh and bone, Carlisle's body was crushed underneath the loops of her chains, suddenly and without fanfare. His head, poking through the coils, was unharmed, but his face told of the agony he felt in that moment.

[The Kingpin]

"We do not worship the sun, Morrelie. We worship the Lord of Change," responded Kristov as he glanced towards his former companion, a look of what seemed like sadness on his face as he heard Carlisle's barely audible gurgling groans, knowing there was no hope in saving him now. "Peace, brother. Your suffering is at an end," he said calmly, his tone soft, even comforting, as he held a hand in the direction of his companion. The man fell still, a drawn out sigh escaping him along with his last breath.

"He was a sick man, you know," he said, looking up from his friend and back at the Mage, reptilian gaze narrowing with what could either have been bitterness, or inquisitiveness. "Unwelcome anywhere. Dismissed from his own village because he was too physically weak to work in the fields, and too poor to learn to write, that he could otherwise become a scribe. I found him as a beggar in Grey Rock. I took him in. He learned of the Watcher of Worlds and embraced the change that our Lord represented. The promise that all the suffering he had been through as a child, as a young man...It was hope. You have robbed him of that. So who is the real monster, here? The demon-worshipper who helps the poor and helpless, or the demon hunter who slays the poor and helpless for their beliefs?"

[C S]

"Can't really say I worship the sun, either," Morrelie replied with an introspective tenor, her gaze to the ground and all of Kristov's words falling on deaf ears. When she did look up again, she said, "Ah, if only Desunka wasn't such a *******. There may have been a time in your weakness, when you would have found and worshiped me instead of some hell-beast bent on world conquest. Oh well. Hindsight's twenty-twenty and all."

[The Kingpin]

That genuinely earned a laugh from Kristov, the Disciple entertained by the mage's arrogance. "Worship you? You are a mortal of flesh and blood. Of finite life and limited potential. I would no sooner worship you than the worms that roam the dirt beneath your feet. In the grand scheme of things, you are no different from they," responded Kristov flatly. "A demon, I may worship. But he is a demon of great power, with great promise. A demon that grants gifts to his loyal."

[C S]

"It's tempting to keep you alive long enough for you to show me these worms with arms and legs, and the ability to postpone death as I have," Morrelie replied airily, which was paired with a swift and morose, "Unfortunately for you, I am not so weak-minded." And that was when Morrelie brought her wand about, slashing it vertically through the air at Kristov. In the wake of her gesture, magical energy surged towards her. Streams of light, like an aurora, collected into a thin strip of dazzling color. Then they erupted outwards as a single blade of mana, hurtling towards the necromancer. Dirt was thrown into the air as the village was almost literally sliced in two by this glowing barrier of annihilation.

[The Kingpin]

Kristov's retaliation was instant. Swinging his arms forward, his polearms struck together with a resounding crack, a distortion of light erupting from the meeting point of the weapons in the form of an orb. Kneeling in the instance after that, he watched as Morrelie's blast wrapped around the orb like twine around a finger, until it coiled into a ring. Holding his arms out, he pushed forward, the deadly ring shooting back at the mage as it expanded once more, until the ends touched, what was once a narrow coil now becoming a massive ring, wide enough to encompass several houses, spiralling as it closed on the mage, making choosing a direction to evade in difficult.

[C S]

Morrelie raised her wand high over her head and pointed it at the ring, reining it under her command with no shortage of amusement. The phrase fight fire with fire did not quite apply here. She twirled her wrist, and the ring was broken again into a ribbon of volatile magic, winding and undulating in accordance to the tip of the bone wand. Morrelie then twirled in place, holding her wand out to direct her weapon. In a flourish, the chromatic blade was sent through houses and shops, and it passed through alcoves and alleys, ripping through the others unfortunate enough to be hunkered down in its path of judgement.

Just like that, a swath of the village was collapsing on itself, burying the deceased in a truly unceremonious manner, true to the Interceptor's word. And there was no time for Kristov to process or grieve for the lost, as the wave of destruction was sent rushing towards him once again by the terrifying mage.

[The Kingpin]

A pulse of magic engulfed the Necromancer as the blast struck, a warble of light being followed by a resonating boom that kicked out dust and debris all around him in a blast wave that washed over the entire village. Survivors of the onslaught scattered from the crumbling town, the less experienced following the orders of their superiors.

"Naive."

The wreckage around the Millenial Mage came alive, horrible cries tearing out over the dust and destruction as shadows flitted in and out of sight, cloaked by the dust cloud and the rubble. One such living shadow shot out of the shroud behind the mage, ivory fangs and shredding barbs threatening to tear her to ribbons.

[C S]

Before the moment of contact, spearheaded chains rained down from above and stabbed into the ground around Morrelie. From piercing the aether, the lines twisted from their roots and whipped outwards. There were several impacts audible in the dust, some bodily while others were the hollow crack of broken timbers. The chains fanned the debris away as they shot through the air, and were also a dire consequence for anything using the disruption as a means of attack.

The small village looked like a warzone. Morrelie stood in a section surrounded by crushed roofs and walls. Kristov, across the way, was also surrounded by mounds of wood, metal and glass. The mage turned her head to look over her shoulder, and saw what had become of the "creature" that was behind her. It was broken -- split in two through the midsection, throwing its legs and torso in different directions. She was sure that was all she did to it, though. Everything else wrong with it was its own quality. Abundant growths that lined its back and made one shoulder bulbous and disfigured. Spines jutting through flesh that was shrunken and thin over the muscle and bone.

"I'm fairly certain that isn't a demon, there. But it's trying really hard to be one, I'll give it that. Or... it was before... hmm..."

[The Kingpin]

"The cursed refuse of mankind's arrogant and presumptuous nature. Things that are, in a way, much like you. Warped. Corrupted. Many like them exist in the world, and in most cases, they are shunned, hunted, persecuted for their mistakes," explained Kristov calmly. "Where elsewhere they would die to the swords of the overzealous, here, they are given a chance to redeem themselves."

The ground beneath Morrelie's feet seemed to crumble, a sinkhole appearing where she stood even as crystalline spikes erupted from its walls, an earthen torture device made all the more deadly by the fact it extended upwards like some subterranean beast. Kristov's hands were bloody, his eyes shimmering dimly through the cloud of dust that choked their battlefield.

[C S]

Morrelie in turn leaped straight up, lowering her weight at the height of her jump. Remaining aloft at a feather's weight, she looked down into the crystal maiden. "Again, I have experience with this sort of thing," she called out to Kristov, turning her dark gaze to him. "I will give you credit; the spikes are a nice touch. Maybe I'll put you down there when I'm finished here!"

[The Kingpin]

"You can try," was Kristov's only response. Swinging one of his polearms forward, a ripple formed in the air before him, two more appearing behind and to either side of her, forming an equilateral triangle at their edges. An instant later, they accelerated towards her, looking like the scorching surface of a desert dune as they grew more focused, refracting the air around them with greater and greater intensity as they closed in, a second set of refractive arcs appearing a moment later, in places the others had not been.

[C S]

Lessening the strength of her charm, Morrelie fell out of the pattern of burning magic, while also ensuring she did not fall into the crystal maw waiting for her. She had her knees tucked into herself, and her black eyes aligned with the necromancer. Morrelie held her wand out, and sparks of magic ran along the spiraling structure of the ivory tool. They collected at the tip, preceding the beam of light that shot across the distance between Morrelie and Kristov. It pierced the remainging dust, anchoring to a leaning support column of a downed building, and then wrenched the mage over the obstacles separating her from the demon worshiper.

Morrelie restored her full weight over the course of her flight, and came to a landing a few yards away from Kristov in a low kneel.

"Try. Do. Done. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I've got to properly finish you first."

Immediately following her words, a line of red extended from the point of her wand, smaller threads of magic and gas winding around the bright base of the formless blade.

[The Kingpin]

"Funny. Usually people associate red with demons," stated Kristov, almost distractedly, his polearms twisting in hand as the cracks across their forms widened, a vivid, sickly green hue shining from portions of the weapon, wherever inky blackness did not overwhelm them.

With a flick of a wrist, he sent a block of stone slamming into the Millennial Mage's back, launching her towards him as he swung one of his weapons diagonally across her path.

[C S]

The Interceptor interrupted the swing with one of her own as she approached. Her massless rapier parried the spinal polearm with a flash of light and a terrible rending sound, producing vapors of green and black to waft from the vertebra. Morrelie pivoted around the weapon in short order, stopping behind Kristov with a hand on his shoulder and a pain radiating through her back.

A favor she was more than willing to repay as she made the man as light as she had been moments ago, so that she could lift him clear off of his feet. Morrelie spun Kristov into the same stone block, where it had come to settle, and restored his full weight after she released him to deliver an impact of comparable force to his back.

Displeasure was not the word to describe how Morrelie felt, being reminded of her failure to slay the masked dragon. "I can always take out those pent up frustrations on him..." suggested a vindictive part of herself.

[The Kingpin]

The Disciple groaned as he hit the stone and tumbled, flipping into a kneel with one hand on the ground, smirking out of the mage's view.

An explosion of debris was kicked up behind the Interceptor, stone and splinters lurching towards her from three different directions and arcing around over her like an earthen tidal wave, leaving only one way to go; towards the necromancer who stood to face her, eyes alight in the dim light of the dust cloud.