Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

The jungle cat's eyes settled on the only one that wasn't standing still or running away. There was a lot about this woman to catch the eye. Her scarlet dress, which was quite fetching in the torchlight, her cool easy demeanor. The fact that the scent of blood wafted off of her wherever she went -- hello! Dahnae licked her lips and trotted up to the woman that could not care less about a strange cat and put her nose to work.

Yep, this was that it alright.

Now all that was left to figure out was where she was keeping the food.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Can I help you?"

The woman in red stopped as the cat approached, looking down at it with the same unconcerned stare. Despite the strangeness of the situation, and the apparent animal nature of the being involved, Pamela asked her question as if she were talking to any other person on the street.

[C S]

Yes, now she was getting somewhere!

Dahnae sat on her haunches and reached out with one of her front paws. She prodded Pamela in the tummy, making her rolling growl. Give the cat the food, she thought she was communicating, effectively at that.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"I have nothing for you," Pamela replied, opening her coat to reveal nothing but her armor underneath. As if to punctuate this, she stepped around the cat-like creature and continued down the street.

[C S]

The cat's eyes went wide. Literally. Her pupils dilated to an insane degree, taking up most of her eyes.

This was what dismay truly meant.

To be so close to food, only for it to be a lie. The jungle cat growled dejectedly to herself, batted her paws at the air, and eventually hung her head while others looked on. All at once, her jolly romp had come crashing down into a morsel-less somber.

She started after the blood-scented woman still, in a way that only made sense to her as a cat, and perhaps as a girl as well, that if she stuck around long enough, she would find where this stranger went to smell like food. And that was almost as good as being fed.

[The Kingpin]

"There are many things I would like to say. But there is a time and place for them all," stated the Duke slowly. He glanced over his shoulder, spotting Dervin, who gave him a slow nod. Good. There were no agents spying on him and his guest.

"Unfortunately what I have to say now will not set your mind at ease," he began, gritting his teeth as his gaze settled once more on the Elven princess. "The King knows of the hardships facing you and your parents. He knows the Adsila Kingdom is vulnerable, and I fear he may be planning something," he explained.

[Hopeflower]

Vixen's face lost a little color at that, but the only other outward sign of her distress was the slow, steadying breath she took. "Father thinks so too," she replied. "He says it's been too quiet." She paused, then turned to face Andruil properly, straightening her back. "It's dangerous, then, for you to be telling me this."

[The Kingpin]

"Perhaps," agreed the Duke as he paced thoughtfully back and forth before the Princess, before halting to face her. "I am many things, Vixen," he continued, slipping on formalities for the first time in recent memory, and yet feeling, for once, that something was right with all of this. "...But a blind ruler is not one of them. The people of Riverdale are discontent with the monarchy. They dislike where Valenhad is headed. People from other provinces in the kingdom have been moving to Riverdale. Some have even volunteered to join our military. The word, my informants tell me, is that they are ready to fight if they must. They will no longer stand by and humour the monarchy's warmongering...And neither will I. The King probably already suspects this, but for now, he isn't certain," he explained.

[Hopeflower]

As Andruil spoke, the worried frown on Vixen's face deepened. The princess hadn't been certain of many things for a long while now. She wasn't sure if she'd fall asleep and wake up to find her mother would still be alive. She couldn't be sure that the eerie calm her father kept muttering about would last forever, especially now. She certainly wasn't sure that she was ready to rule in the event that she lost both of her parents. But in the time she'd spent getting to know Andruil, she'd learned one thing never changed - he never launched into explanations like this without a goal in mind.

"So what are you asking of me?" she asked quietly.

[The Kingpin]

"Not so much what I ask, as what I offer; an alliance. Should the worst come to pass, I will secede from the kingdom and re-establish the Kingdom of Irrydil...and will fight by your side to end this would-be empire. I did not take up my father's throne to pledge fealty to a tyrant," sighed the Duke as he turned to face the lake. It was sunset. The lake seemed to be ablaze. Geese called out to one another as the swam in a small flock in the middle of it, looking almost like the Elvish tradeships he had seen in the history books his father had had taught to him as a boy. Never forget your origins, he had said once. In the back of his mind, the young Duke now wondered if his father had ever imagined that this would eventually happen. That the kingdom he and his grandparents had pledged their lives to defend would ever become such a thing that Andruil would have to protect the rest of Aster from. That the Kingdom they fought long ago, that they had subsequently served for millennia, would one day become an enemy once more. It was a stirring thought, and one that was all the more unsettling given how much time and training he had endured, all for the purpose of becoming one of the kingdom's finest soldiers, and its leading commander after Prince Sebastian himself. This, all of this, was what was wrong. This was what had been nagging him for the past couple of years. This danger, this impending darkness that he should have seen coming. The very thing his brother and uncle had warned about, before departing for the West. At the time, he had called them traitors. He had fought them. He had scars from that battle, his sword had been smashed to pieces in the battle. And yet now, after so long, time had shown him what he should have seen long ago; they were right.

"All I ask, is your word," he began once more, approaching the Princess, his resolve all but burning in his eyes with the glare of the setting sun. "Your word that, should Valenhad turn on us, we will stand united in the face of it. As we always have. Alone, neither of us are powerful enough to win a war against Salazar, and if separated, the falling of one will only delay the fall of the other. But together...Together we have the potential to end this once and for all. To end the tyranny, and bring back the peace we once knew," stated the Duke.

[Hopeflower]

Vixen was shaking her head before he'd finished speaking, more out of disbelief than outright refusal. "Why my word? You know I don't have the option of making that promise," she said. "The most I can do is bring this to my parents' attention." The most, but not nearly enough, she reflected with some frustration. Andruil's conviction was almost enough to make her overstep her place. He had good points and the charisma to sway people to his cause, but if her parents refused, that was that.

[The Kingpin]

"I do intend to speak to your father myself, soon. But he must hear it from your lips first. With his concerns being on the Queen, he may not be fully aware of what allies he has and does not in this...war. If I approach him without your aid, he will think it a trap or trick to reveal his concerns. A way to get his guard down, an attempt to betray him. I would think likewise in his place. King Salazar is a treacherous one, it wouldn't be the most underhanded move he'd made in his quest for power," explained Andruil, wary of how long the conversation had gone. Dervin could assure him privacy, but not forever.

" I want you to think back a bit. Two years ago, at the Solstice, you asked me a question. I had been distracted during our conversation, and you had asked me whether something was troubling me. At the time, I had not realised what it was I felt, so I simply dismissed it as having been closed up for too long," he began, the memory returning to him vividly, more vividly than any other he had experienced in his life. "We Lyalls....We Liullwyns have always been very...perceptive when it came to things that troubled us. It is what made our loyalty and vigilance so legendary in the old days. But that day I had not realised that my perception was focused in the wrong place. I had been so preoccupied with enemies from the outside that I did not realise some of those in attendance were very deliberately serving the King's ends," he concluded.

[Hopeflower]

"I...see." Vixen looked away, torn and all at once too aware of how exposed the lakeside was. She rubbed at her arms, feeling chilled even though the day was still very warm. Her pause was too long for even her own comfort, but finally she managed, "You have my word that I will do everything in my power to help you. Should that mean riding into war with you in the event that my parents die..." The young princess faced Andruil again, setting her jaw and squaring her shoulders. "So be it."

[The Kingpin]

The Duke was silent for a moment, the pale hazel, almost yellow eyes reading her resolve in the way she spoke, held herself, indeed, even the ways that no man nor elf could perceive. The Andruil of this reality may not have shared everything with the one of the real world, but his senses were just as sharp.

"Thank you, Vixen. I pray that day never comes," he said at last. "I pray your parents live long and fruitful lives, that your mother the Queen's ailments are short, and the coming years prosperous and filled with nothing but joy, for you and I both," he continued, turning to reach for a bottle of Irrydil honey wine and two exquisitely crafted crystal wine glasses, part of the contents of a basket he had brought with him on this trip. It was a very deliberate move, however. Dervin would have seen it, and known that Andruil had concluded the secret part of his little trip.

Handing a glass filled with the deep golden wine to Vix, no less filled than his own, he set down the bottle once more. "To your health, and that of the King and Queen," he said, raising the glass.

[Hopeflower]

Vixen took the offered drink with a quiet sigh. "And to yours." Glass clinked against glass, and she drank more deeply than was entirely proper for a lady. As she watched the sun continue its descent toward the horizon, she could only hope that she hadn't just made a terrible mistake.

[The Kingpin]

Once more, the surroundings melted away, weeks and months washing away in the tides of time. Before long, the golden glow of the sunset-kissed sky was replaced by the infinitely more grim hues of war; the red and black of fire and smoke. The once green, grassy ground was trampled into a sanguine sludge of mud and blood, the result of a hundred thousand men and women who had died in this battle for supremecy. All around Andruil, now King Andruil Liullwyn, the ruins of Crestvale's elite forces lay crumbling in piles of wood, steel, stone and embers. Corpses littered the ground, the battered bodies of soldiers of a dozen different nations, broken, burned and bloodstained in mounds of death not yet decayed. The unholy roar of vast armies filled the sky, the King's armour soaked in the blood of dozens, even hundreds of men. His sword, reforged, shone a menacing red, silver and steel caked in a thick layer of blood, rivulets running off the weapon as he paced towards the latest of his foes; Prince Sebastian Archer.

The Prince, backed by four Black Hand guards, had attempted to charge the King of Irrydil, only to learn the hard way that the former vassal was far stronger than they thought. Backed by his own legions and his own elite warriors, he had succeeded in felling all but one of the Black Hand soldiers, by virtue of having recruited deserters of that very force, and being a former agent among their ranks himself. The remaining one was talented, perhaps one of the best, but even he could not get through the sheer numbers of elite soldiers keeping him from the Prince. Normal soldiers would've been torn apart like wet paper, but those backing the King now were a combined force of former Black Hand, The Ducal Guard and the Falcons of Niyera; the assassins bound by blood to the service of the Elvish High King. They were capable of matching any of Valenhad's forces, man for man.

With Sebastian's Royal Escort preoccupied, he was left to fight Andruil alone. It was a fight between two royals, one Elven, one Human. They had charged head to head, and Sebastian had learned first-hand that the legends of the Wolf of Riverdale were true. In a moment that could have decided the battle, the Elven King had jumped from the back of his gryphon, an action that took the Prince by surprise, and one that that would ultimately decide both their fates. Impaling the royal's grounded drake and knocking it aside in a swift movement, Andruil had sent Sebastian flying. It was mere moments before the Heir of Valenhad had regained his footing, but by then the Wolf of Riverdale was upon him. The clanging of steel on steel rang like bells with force that for all intents and purposes should have destroyed both their weapons. Andruil had not been without his own informants. He knew of the witchcraft the Prince had used to brace for this battle, what had amounted to selling his soul for power no mortal man could wield. Golden eyes met red ones as their swords crossed, the former clad in chainmail and leather, the other in scale and plate.

It showed, however, that while the Prince had strength, Andruil had one advantage; he was a Gladeiryn; a practitioner of the ancient Elvish martial art of Klaeddhur. Where slow, heavy blows would have cleaved a slower, less skilled man in half, Andruil danced around the blows. When the Prince brought his claymore down overhead, the Wolf of Riverdale wove left and aside the blow, his boot smashing the claymore in half before backing away.

But all was not well for for the Elven monarch. Despite his armour, despite every precaution, every antidote he had consumed at the start of the battle to fight the poisons that would be used against him, despite the fact he had the armies of the West, of Adsila, of the Hueilin at his side, he himself was losing strength. Battle fatigue had made him careless. He had already been stabbed twice with silver daggers; a parting gift by one of the Black Hand before he was ripped apart by the King of Irrydil. The metal itself was a non-issue, but the poison coating the weapons was another matter; Something undoubtedly made specifically for him, whatever poison coated the blades had left wounds that were not healing. He was getting slow. And Prince Sebastian knew. He could not continue this forever.

[Hopeflower]

Far from King Andruil's side, but no less deep into the fighting, the new and sole ruler of the Adsilas cut a bloody path through their enemies. Vixen was light on her feet, wielding dual swords with the grace of a dancer and the fury of a Queen whose home and subjects were threatened. Her auburn hair had been dyed crimson and hung limply, reflecting the exhaustion that was beginning to drag at her limbs.

A gash had been opened in her cheek, just barely missing her eye and nearly deep enough to expose her teeth. Another, half as deep but twice as long, colored everything below her left mid-thigh red. For every man or woman she cut down, another was always there to take their place. It would not be so if she could only hold out for a while longer, she knew, but it was also only a matter of time before she tired and grew clumsy.

That was something Vixen couldn't allow to happen. Not now. She wouldn't leave her people without a leader.

From deep within, past the boundary between beast and woman, Vixen drew new energy. She didn't have unlimited reserves, but maybe she had enough to keep herself alive until the end, one way or another. The Iupan within her snarled and bared its teeth and fought to be released, but she forced the transformation away. A bigger target was the last thing she needed to give her foes.

And so on she fought.

[The Kingpin]

"How much longer will you fight, traitor?" taunted Sebastian with a smug grin as he circled, fixing the Knight with a blood red glare. "Look around you! Your soldiers are all over the place, dead, dying! The crows will grow fat on the bodies piled high here!" he taunted.

"Especially fat from the pampered blubber of your rotting corpse, and Salazar's too, I'm sure!" retorted the King, his blade tracing fast circles at his side, shaking off the blood from the weapon.

"You'll address him as your King you half-breed grime!" barked the Prince as he lunged forward, two falchions in hand. The young man launched into a spinning lunge, the blades missing their mark the first couple of times, the last swing meeting the King's blade. A loud clang sounded out as a harsh twist shattered the Prince's weapon, a sudden kick launching him onto his back with a heavy thud.

"Where did you learn that one? Fairytales?" taunted Andruil as he reassumed his battle stance. He stifled the urge to wince at the burn of the wound on his abdomen. He could not let Sebastian see him suffering. "I am amazed you survived so many battles. Salazar must've had a battalion of nannies and sentries around you for protection all these years. That'll be the song the children in my kingdom sing for generations to come! Sebastian the Silly," he continued, his comments clearly cutting deeply as he tried to lure the Prince into making a stupid move. So far, it was working.

"I'll have your head on a pike for that, mutt!" shouted the Prince, lunging with his remaining blade. Andruil parried the blow and redirected it, all the while spinning around the furious Heir, his blade plunging forward at the Prince's armoured back. A last minute twist saved the Prince from being impaled, instead leaving little more than a dent in the plate. An elbow to the face was Andruil's reward for the ambitious attack, stumbling back as he shook his head.

Almost the instant he recovered, the Prince swung his blade for his head, a swift duck barely evading an untimely beheading. In one fluid move, Andruil lunged, hitting Sebastian square in the chest, the Prince sent sprawling to the blood-soaked dirt of the battlefield.

"My family spent too many years...serving the Archers. We thought you worthy, once. We were willing to forget the past, put what you had done to us behind us. Then Salazar came along...Him and his spawn...Bloodthirsty, tyrannical, just like your ancestors. I suppose what they say is true. The line of Archer is a line of beasts," said Andruil as he approached.

"Ironic, coming from a dog," snarled Sebastian, his head low, even as a glow seemed to appear under his armour. He looked up, the red eyes now blazing fiery pits as he rose to his feet, his armour bursting at the buckles as he leapt forward.

The King attempted to sidestep the attack, but the speed was something he hadn't expected from the thusfar sluggish Prince. He was on the floor before he even realised he had been knocked off his feet, a massive, smouldering hand wrapped around his throat. "It's amazing what some alchemists, a Demonologist and the blood of a Draxon monarch can do for one's fighting prowess," rumbled the monstrosity, something between man and dragon, but not even meeting the more natural appearance of the Draks. This was an abomination, a warped horror made up of bulging muscle, split scales and coursing, fiery veins. Behind it, a lashing tail, looking like some four-jawed serpent, writhed as though it had a mind of its own, separate from the Prince himself. It snapped at the corpses around him, tearing at armour, clothing and flesh alike, hungering for something to tear apart and devour.

Wrapping his hand around the Prince's wrist, Andruil squeezed, glaring into Sebastian's eyes as a feral yellow glow replaced the dull golden hazel hue of his irises, a crunch sounding out as the Prince's wrist was shattered, a thump following it as he was launched backwards. Before he had even struck the ground, The King had swung his legs up and kicked out, landing on his feet and massaging his throat.

"So there's the Wolf," snarled the monster of a man that had once been Prince Sebastian, checking its wrist for damage and grunting as it saw the hand hanging limply.

"You're undeserving of it," said the Elven King as he gripped his sword once more, his shield on his arm. He could feel the dirt sticking to him, the blood under his armour harder and harder to ignore. He was beginning to feel light-headed, even the supernatural regeneration of his bloodline unable to make up for the damage caused by the poisoned blades. He would have to end it soon. "An abomination like you should be put down with a blade. This world has no place for your kind," he said finally.

"Arrogant mutt...The only one that will be put down is you, like the dog you are!" barked the monstrous Prince as it lunged.

This time, Andruil was ready. Leaping into the air, he tumbled end over end, a spiralling leap that brought his entire body out of the demonic monstrosity's reach, the Prince passing under him as the blade was thrust into its back, crunching through its lower back and impaling it completely. The King was dragged out of the air by the monster's momentum, hitting the ground, kneeling on the Prince's back. An inhuman bellow rang out over the battlefield, the fighting in their immediate vicinity stopping.

"Andruil, look out!" shouted a voice beyond a number of Andruil's men, The King turning to look at the source, the sight of his brother almost drawing his attention away from the serpentine form of the Prince's tail, the appendage lunging for his neck. His shield caught the attack, a loud thunk being heard as it was batted aside. Andruil straightened the shield arm, and a bolt shot forth from the wristbow strapped to his gauntlet, nailing the appendage to the demonic Prince's own leg.

Sebastian stirred, a violent jerk sending Andruil to the floor as the monster crawled up over him, the molten pits of its eyes glaring at him as it tried to bite his face off.

A resounding crunch was what was heard next, Andruil's now turned arm slamming into the beast's chest, crushing nearly a dozen ribs at once as he threw the Prince sideways, jumping onto it just short of the blade now protruding from its chest. With barely a second thought, he grabbed the beast's throat, pulling its upper body off the muddy floor as he plunged his fist into its fanged maw. Deeper and deeper he reached, terrible gashes being torn into his gauntlet, armour and flesh alike, until he was down to the elbow. Wide, confused and horrified eyes looked up at him, completely shocked at what he was doing. "That's some interesting poison you used on me...Let's see how you like it," snarled the King, eyes glaring with all the feral fury of the most ferocious wolf. The demonic beast felt something pushing at the insides of its throat and the tops of its stomach. It could not have known that the King's talons had torn gashes into it, his blood mingling with that of the beast, flooding the wounds with the very poison meant to assure it victory. It squirmed and gasped and writhed under him, desperate to free itself, but the damage was done. In this position, with its lower body paralysed by the blade, Andruil could not be thrown off.

He remained until the beast's struggling ceased, until its last breath was taken. Only then did he draw his arm from its throat, rising to his feet. He kicked it aside, ripping his sword free of its abdomen before turning away from it. It took him three steps to before the dizziness kicked in, his limping pronounced as he walked away from his foe's lifeless corpse.

A flash in the distance drew his weary gaze, a massive multi-branched bolt of lightning striking the peak of the royal palace. It was a moment before a spectacular explosion engulfed the citadel, plumes of fire spilling down the sides of the jagged spire at the heart of Crestvale. A moment later, the booming roar of a dragon sounded out, its vast, runed form passing overhead as a gust of cool air blew across the battlefield. King Andruil, soaked in blood and caked in sanguine mud, standing amidst the corpses of thousands of men and women, had won. It was almost enough to make him ask, Was it worth it? But, thinking of the kingdoms he had saved, the people he had liberated of the Usurper's rule, the question answered itself. Yes. It was.

[C S]

Incrementally, the weariness of the campaign wore off on Andruil. He still staggered towards the fires that ravaged the centerpiece of his proud nation, looking no better himself. He was surrounded by loyal soldiers and bitter enemies, alive or dead as they may have been. The acrid smell of smoke and its dire, almost unintended, byproduct: burning flesh lingered over the aftermath of war. In this waking nightmare that had become of his ideal seat as duke of Riverdale, he should have been a sick, broken man.

He had shown his true grit, however. To reach deep into the core of evil itself, to spite it with the very same toxin that threatened his life. Really, to end tyranny by all means, no matter what sacrifice was needed. The willing warriors that followed him into this terrible scene. His own body. For the future peace and safety of those who were not even born, they were the necessary offerings to appease the machinations of fate.

It was a hefty cost. Andruil could have acted on his innermost desires, taken the fair princess and turned his back on the seat of Riverdale, and Valenhad as a whole. They could have gone into hiding, perhaps in some quaint nameless village, and they could have made many new friends and carry on without a care in the world. All of his hardship, all the stress that came in these truncated years; a lesser man would not have done with it at all.

Sir Andruil Lyall was not a lesser man.

Thus, while he waded through that bleakness of that terrible eve, Andruil felt his strength returning to him. He was relieved of the pain, and the scarring of battle both physically and mentally. Reprieve, mercy, reward. Who but the Life Bringer knew? The scene itself faded into a calm, cool white. Then, when Andruil opened his eyes next, he was faced with the queenly elemental. She looked upon him warmly, more than pleased with his performance. Proud. Desrium stirred after discerning the change in Cleotaire's aura. He stood up and looked to Andruil, wreathed in green bands and leaping sparks.

"I have seen within you the hesitation to ascend the ranks of your people. The attachment to your loved ones, within your borders and without. You could have had that life, should you have desired it. A tinge of your real life inside your fantasy, a lenience I allowed to see how you would take to it. It only confused you, however. You were so dedicated to your duty that abandoning it never crossed your mind," Cleotaire reflected, and then put her hands in her lap.

"And then, to go the extra step. To overthrow your own faction for the good of Aster, and to take it under your own guidance so that tyranny does not take it again. So that your people can be at peace. That is a mark of merit, and it is my great joy to bestow upon you my blessing."

[The Kingpin]

The Knight rose to his feet, before kneeling a moment later. "You have my thanks, Life Bringer. I do not know what more I can say," he said slowly, head lowered. What more could he say? The memory of the trial was one that would linger, like a vivid dream. An ironic twist on the reality he lived. One that was simultaneously repulsive and appealing, that he was both thankful was not true, and regretful for the loss of. It was one where his family was not split. Where Vix had not spent her childhood as a slave, where Arsenic could speak, where the Adsila, and, thanks to his own hand in things, the Irrydil kingdoms existed. But it was one where Valenhad was a dark shadow on the land, a curse to all of Eastern Aster, the perpetrator of unspeakable crimes even to the modern age. In all, it was a reality with its own merits and shortcomings.

"When I swore my oath as a Knight of Valenhad, it was not for the honour of the King, nor for that of my family. It was because of the stories of injustice my father had told me as a child. The horrors my ancestors faced, that many in neighbouring kingdoms faced for a long time. My station, so long as Valenhad remained powerful, meant I could use my authority to ease the hardship of others, in Valenhad and beyond," he told after a few moments of thought. "It is a sobering thought to think that, with a few differences, that power could have been so terrible," he mused.