Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[Hopeflower]

'My voice?' Arsenic asked evenly, if not a little dryly as he braced for a joke. He cocked his head and let the illusion go. Part of him wondered if he really was that recognizable, even when he'd fully assumed a given role.

Rowan, too, was looking at Andruil quizzically - she'd seen Arsenic in action as Ambrosia, and the few tells she'd noticed were very, very small. If she hadn't already known who she was looking at and what to look for, she probably wouldn't know his illusions from any other women. And dealing with the kinds of targets they handled together, that was what she wanted from him.

The innkeeper flinched just slightly when Andruil's finger met a deep and stubborn knot, formed by sitting at a desk for the better part of the day. She bit her tongue and swallowed the reflexive pained sound.

[The Kingpin]

The Knight gave a thoughtful Hmm, clearly trying to put into words what it was that he recognised. "I don't think so, no. It's hard to describe. Perhaps standing would alleviate it somewhat. I think I've seen you lying down by the fire or in a tree enough times to just about be able to tell it's you and not your average seductress that I'm looking at. At least as you are now. It's the little things like how you hold yourself, how you're postured, how your head is angled just so... They seem to contribute to it, I think," he said after a few moments of consideration, his hands firmly, but carefully, exploring and untangling the mass of tense muscle that was Vix's back.

[Hopeflower]

Arsenic tilted his head the other way, amused...and maybe a little intrigued. 'Watching me that closely, are you?' he teased, even as he wondered if that was something worth testing. Could someone familiar with his mannerisms pick him out of a crowd even if he looked nothing like himself? Maybe he should ask Rowan to try sometime. If nothing else, it might be funny to see if she got it wrong.

"Sounds like I'd better watch myself," Vix murmured jokingly, sighing with relief when her muscles loosened under Andruil's attentions.

[The Kingpin]

The Knight's smile, surprisingly enough, was completely devoid of any mischievous intentions or snarky attitude as he responded, "In a world of psychomancers and shapeshifters, can I really afford not to know my friends well enough to be able to identify a fake?" His fingers, meanwhile, had made their way up to the Innkeeper's shoulders as he carefully began to squeeze along them, pressing a thumb and two fingers in on the front and back of her shoulder muscles as he continued. "Surely you remember those two...things that Zazikel sent to the village. The shape-changers?"

[Hopeflower]

'Yes,' Arsenic answered, sobering. 'You do have an advantage over most of us though, if I'm not mistaken. And for all that magic can do, even the best copies will never be perfect.'

Rowan hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose you'd know."

'It's a guess, admittedly, but an educated one.'

What fresh tension had worked its way into Vix's shoulders at the reminder of her home being attacked was quickly worked out again. Even so, she asked, "You don't think we'll have that kind of trouble again, do you?"

[The Kingpin]

Andruil planted the softest of kisses on the Innkeeper's cheek as he began to trace back down her spine once more. "I actually spoke to Septimus about them a while back. He told me that to his knowledge, they had died out long ago. We could well have met the only ones left." He smirked at one particular memory, adding, "And the last time I met them I brought down an entire cave system on their heads. The odds of them coming back are very small. Likewise for their master." He had seen to it that the Assembly went to investigate shortly after he'd reached somewhere where he was free to write. If Zazikel was still there and had somehow survived, he was most likely long since imprisoned. It was a pity he didn't have the authority to follow up on such matters, being outside his jurisdiction as they were. Still, he trusted them to find and end the would-be Archdemon. That being said, there was always something else out there. Always another danger.

[Hopeflower]

Vix made a satisfied sound in the back of her throat - whether it had more to do with the deaths of the creatures and their master or the path of Andruil's hands was anyone's guess. "Glad to hear it."

"So we count our blessings," Rowan said, flicking her hair out of her eyes with a toss of her head. "And we don't worry about shapeshifters or other psychomancers trying to take someone's place. Not many of them will get past Nick, and the ones that manage it won't be able to keep the imitation up forever."

Arsenic nodded, then gave Andruil a long, searching look. 'Any particular reason you're concerned about this?' he asked, a thought going to Sami and her kind - but they were all dead asleep, and would remain so for months yet. No cause to worry, not for some time.

[The Kingpin]

"Well if they're shapeshifters, they won't get past me, either. Psychomancers on the other hand," he started as his thumb stopped over a particularly tense-feeling knot, beginning to work on it in gradual circles, picking up the pressure gradually. "Well, that's why I've been keeping such a close eye on you all. Far be it for me to be so careless, not that it's difficult to enjoy being in the company of such attractive individuals," he elaborated half-jokingly. To Arsenic, he added, "You can thank the whole incident of yesterday for putting me on edge. We may not necessarily have to worry about shapeshifters or psychomancers here, but... Well, you tend to get a bit more vigilant than usual after another elf is nearly killed. And that's not to mention that my particular set of skills makes reading others a specialty."

[Hopeflower]

'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' Arsenic deadpanned outwardly, but he nodded, accepting both of Andruil's given reasons with little more than a knowing look. From what you've said, it sounds like Viho plans to include you in hunting down the people responsible anyway. Probably guessed you'd get involved one way or another. Just remember to watch yourself, too.

Vix leaned forward a bit to give Andruil better access and gave his knee a reassuring pat. "We're more than pretty faces," she reminded the knight, snickering when Arsenic aimed a playful scowl her way. "On the off chance that we do run into a psychomancer that gets by both of you, it's rather difficult to hold an illusion when one's trying to avoid having their throat slit."

Rowan lifted her shoulders in an easy shrug, offering a small but confident smile. "I didn't master dual swords just because it looks flashy."

[The Kingpin]

"It is still very flashy," responded Andruil off-handedly. "It's rather hard not to be when you have two swords. Well, unless you're very bad at using them." Reaching down to the base of her spine, Andruil began to trace his thumbs outwards. "I have absolute confidence in your abilities. We did fight in the most terrible battle Aster has ever seen, did we not?" he asked, a rhetorical question more than anything.

[Hopeflower]

"And almost all of me made it out, too," Rowan quipped. More seriously, she added, "We'll be okay. Maybe not exactly safe, but okay."

Arsenic hummed his agreement. 'At the very least, we have more backup than we usually do when we find trouble,' he said, glancing at Rowan.

"I do wish you'd take less risks," Vix put in mildly, though Arsenic was sure her tone would be sharper if she wasn't so distracted.

'Someone has to make sure you put that needle and thread to use.'

"Haven't you got enough scars?" the innkeeper asked, the barely-there exasperated note in her tone making him smile.

'I'm not quite covered in them yet, so...'

[The Kingpin]

"One of these days you'll be able to introduce yourself as The Scar and frighten your employers and marks alike," joked Andruil as he glanced over to the end table and his forgotten mug of tea. Thinking better of letting it cool, he glanced over to Rowan. "Would you mind passing my mug to me?" he requested, his hands never leaving Vix's form, though now that he thought he'd managed to dispel most of the tenseness built up in her back, he let his hands wrap back around her waist, pulling her against him in an embrace.

[Hopeflower]

"He asks me after I've gotten myself good and comfortable." Rowan's complaint was more teasing than genuine, and she stood up a little stiffly, one of her knees cracking as she did. The other followed suit somewhere in the few steps she took to retrieve the drink. She sat back down after passing the knight his mug.

'Just Scar would do, I think,' Arsenic replied evenly, as though discussing the weather. He scratched at the mark across his throat absently. 'Though I've already met two different assassins who call themselves that. Pretty sure there must be a hundred of them.'

Vix snorted and teased, "Because you're all about standing out, Sir Tattoos-Are-Too-Noticable." She let herself be moved without complaining, relaxing against Andruil's chest.

[The Kingpin]

He nodded a thanks to the Scarred Assassin as he accepted the mug, looking to his Mute friend. "I would not be too torn up over it. After all, any vengeful family member of a mark that happens to learn your alias will be more likely to get one of the other hundred Scars than they are to find you," quipped Andruil as he sipped his drink with one free hand.

[Hopeflower]

'The few times someone's tried to find me, they've thought Arsenic was an alias,' the mute elf said. 'They have conflicting descriptions to work with and they tie themselves in knots trying to find my "real" name. That suits me just fine.' The only and most useful gift his father had ever given him.

Rowan sighed and muttered, "You have the weirdest luck."

[The Kingpin]

"I can see how that could happen... Sticking to one alias is probably better, then. Less risk of them being able to figure out the fact that you use two and make use of it to track you down," agreed Andruil, finishing his drink in one last gulp. Lukewarm. A pity. It was better when it was hot. He would have to make some more. But later. For now, he was more than happy to simply enjoy the peace of their banter, Vix's company, Arsenic and Rowan's snark. Their return to normalcy.

[C S]

At the next day's dawn, three women, two marked by fresh bruises, began their transformations from shadow-walking soldiers to harmless damsels. They had left the city the first time with a cache of civilian wear to hide away out on deployment, preparations for the trip back. They had slipped out of the gates under the cover of night, no different from Gryerwun, knowing that the return would not be so clearly set.

Bulky clothes stuffed into a large carrying case made for difficult going, mostly for Baaz. She was glad that the infernal thing that made climbing and vaulting so difficult was going to be abandoned an hour's walk away from the walls of Niyera. The rangers had chosen a field of tall grass to drop the case in, and marked its location with an inconspicuous trail of pebbles on the snowy ground. They took care to add an element of chaos to their trail, so that on the odd chance someone were to happen across it on the edge of the stalks, they wouldn't think anything of it.

The build of the coats and pants they slipped over their suits added to their visual lie. Leather stuffed with a layer of fluff and patch-stitched and rimmed with fur. The kind of clothing one would wear going up a mountain, or out into a tundra. Layered over already form-fitting clothing made the ensuing heat a cruel and unusual form of torture.

"I never thought I'd be hoping for a blizzard," Valeria muttered after her disguise was completed.

"Keep a stiff resolve, Trupont. This portion of toil is almost at an end," said the squad leader. Internally, and she would never admit this to anyone even if asked, Chandra regretted choosing a place this far out from the city. It was secure, yes, and they had taken every precaution to reach this point in the health that they were, but sometimes human conditions whittled away at the most staunch of people.

"Mm," grunted Baaz, her head poking up over the tops of the pale gray blades blowing back and forth in the lazy morning breeze. The location was all wrong, but she had enough time in the desert to know that no matter how bad it got inside her clothes, there were soldiers hunkering down in the belly of ships wishing for such a respite. "If the gatekeepers start asking too many questions we can ask to be led to the nearest bathhouse, make a few disingenuous promises, get out of our own sweat, then make a quiet escape while they're still waiting on three naked women to beckon them in."

"Good plan." Valeria's sidelong look and monotone were telling of how she really felt. "What happens if they're women as well?"

"Odds are still in our favor," Baaz assured her without actually looking at the rookie. The roads were clear, and she told Chandra as much. "On your order."

"Yes. Idle chit-chat's not going to get distance underneath our heels. Let's get a move on," Chandra replied, shuffling up past Baaz and patting her on the back, her hand thumping against the case she dutifully carried, bruises and all.





The axeman came across a village in the days after taking a life. He did not take it to mean he had found his way back. It took one look to confirm that wherever he had walked to wasn't there.

It was a place with buildings on either side of a single avenue that ran through the place, gates on either end, and a thicket of forested land around it. The posts that held up the signs that welcomed visitors to "Wickendale" over the perimeter fence were covered in lichen and all other stringy flora. Ivy was prevalent, dangling from anything with any height. Walls laced with vines and tiny flowers.

"I've gone too far south," Rutgers had commented to himself even as he approached the guards and delivered his spiel in that pleasant persona of his. It was automatic, how he dealt with those who approached him, who asked him questions about where he was from and what he had seen on the way. A closed in bunch. All the while, his thoughts went back to Copper. His little haunt?

On a whim he inquired about the strange character as a distant observer. "Any of you know about a man with a thing for black clothes? An odd sense of pleasantries?"

The one who told him the most was a young woman he had come across sitting on a patio drinking something that Rutgers did not bother to investigate past face-value. In truth, the man was tired enough to not care any great deal about this Wickendale, or the people who lived in it. That same simmering beneath the surface that burned after the meeting with the red woman burned again for Copper, and it was his only motivation. Copper's death was not a satisfaction. To know that he had touched the lives of others while slipping into the grave himself was something Rutgers could not let lie, despite having no means to do anything about it.

What was he supposed to do? Drive his axe into the necks of everyone the one-time assassin ever spoke to?

"Copper was a drifter, like you, until he decided to settle down." the woman told Rutgers. "At first he was investigating strange occurrences around the village. Disappearances. Missing children."

"The usual plights of places tucked in the middle of the woods," the axeman had noted with a grittiness he did not intend.

"No one knows how he did it, but he went off into the yonder and came back with all the lost ones... nothing could have been done for them by then. Far too late. It gave the families an answer as to what happened to their beloveds, though. And then, once he stuck around, the killing stopped. People weren't afraid to leave their houses at night."

"Hubris." Rutgers let that one remain silent.

"Copper did a lot for Wickendale. I can't really say he was a friend of mine. A good acquaintance, maybe."

"I know the type."

"You said you saw him out on the road?"

"Yes."

"Did he mention anything about what he was doing? Or when he's coming back?"

"No." Rutgers told the lie without a twinge of remorse.

"Oh. That's a shame. But fate has been kind with the drifters that have come Wickendale's way. Anything I could do to help you feel at home, or help you get going on your way?"

"I'll manage myself, thank you."

Rutgers was through with getting too fond of villages, named or otherwise. The traveling ate at him, but the mission of finding his way back gave his life some basic purpose. Killing monsters was a shaky pillar, threatening to crumble into dust and plunge the axeman's sanity, his control, into the abyss inside his heart. Crimes of passion created beasts. Always on that red-painted line.

[The Kingpin]

Andruil stood before the doors of Septimus Place fairly early that morning. Viho had said he thought it prudent to invite the Knight to sit in on a lesson. He wasn't sure quite where that was, exactly, but he presumed it had to be somewhere in this building. Pushing through the tall oak doors into the marble-lined halls of the building, he walked towards what looked to be a reception desk, a man standing behind it. Closing the door behind him, he pushed his hood back and revealed his head. "Greetings."



The grizzled Lord of Khulruud stared at the trio before him, thoughtful, perhaps sceptical. "I see. It appears there is more to these Clan Lords than they let on. I had thought Arakhniir trustworthy... But if he has been keeping this from me, then that is no longer an assumption I can afford to hold." He found it possible that Buruq may have bent the other two to his wishes, but that could not account for the oddities he had noticed himself. The way the Clan Lords seemed uncharacteristically quiet for dragons of their position, at least in his company. The fact Elwen of Onokruun's mysterious condition was a matter no one could explain only strengthened Cyndeyrn's story.

"Why did you not approach me with this sooner?" questioned Thurduunax.

Cyndeyrn shook his head. "There are seven clans. You're only Lord of one of them. I could not risk getting anyone else hurt or even killed because of my foolishness."

"I could crush all six of them if it came to it," rumbled the grizzled Runecrafter. "They know that just as well as I do."

"Perhaps, but they would not die without dealing a blow that could make you incapable of leading on. And without you or them, the Clans would have no leadership; everything would plunge into chaos," defended Cyndeyrn.

"Oh, because our current situation is so grand and orderly and pristine," hissed Tanwen critically, a clawed hand held up before them both, Thurduunax silently asking for silence.

"We have all made mistakes here. I have assumed too much. Cyndeyrn has bowed to the wills of others; a trait unfit for a Lord of the Hueilin. Tanwen, you have been too quick to judge in many cases. This is a sensitive issue, I know. But you must understand your father's motives," he rumbled.

The dragoness's muzzle contorted into a terrible visage; a scowl so monstrous it gave even Thurduunax pause. "His motives? His motives would have left my mother a mindless wreck! For as long as she lived... That is cruelty that doesn't belong in my family." rattled the White Flame angrily.

"Perhaps. But he had limited options. In times like these, forgiveness for those who sought to do their best is more valuable than ever. Once the matter is concluded, Cyndeyrn will be stripped of his rank as Lord of Maelgwyn. A clan with a weak leader is a clan at risk of falling to ruin, and if they succeeded once, others will do so again. We will need a new leader for Maelgwyn; one that is unyielding. But that is a matter that I will tend to later." The statement came in a tone of finality that discouraged any further pressing. Shifting his burning gaze to the Ambassador, he bowed his head slightly, acknowleding that it was the Elder's turn to speak. "Qudumakhriin, how do you believe we should proceed?"


"Hmm, could I do...? No, that won't work. Too dependent on variables. How about...? No, that one could catalyse with something else and make things worse, that won't do, won't do at all," muttered the the serpentine ancient. As he pondered possibilities in his head, he tapped what seemed to be some form of staff against his lips, as though it were a pencil, the dragon looking up thoughtfully in consideration. A few moments of silence concluded in a smile and a nod. "Ah, yes, I think that will do it. Right. First of all, I will need your assistance in reversing what has been done to Elwen. I can help repair the psychic link Elwen had to the mask, perhaps even provide the spells necessary to give her back her identity... But I am no runecrafter. I have dabbled in it, but I was never formally trained. I will need you to unravel the old cursed runes on the mask, and find a way to cast the spells I will provide you in runic form."

"Very well. Cyndeyrn, I will need the mask." It wasn't a request, but an order. Clearly as far as Thurduunax was concerned, the Lord of Maelgwyn's demotion was effective immediately. He did not argue, simply nodding and heading to retrieve the artefact.

[C S]

"Good morning." The receptionist looked Andruil up and down and put his mind to work determining who he was dealing with. Not a student, but someone planning on being one? "You're very early for instructions. I take it then, you are expecting Viho?"

[The Kingpin]

Andruil raised a brow, taken by surprise. "In a manner of speaking. He is expecting me," responded the Knight. "I decided I would find my way here beforehand so that I wouldn't have to go looking later." he explained as he walked up to the desk, setting a hand on its surface and leaning against it. "How did you know I was here for him, specifically?" he inquired.