Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[The Kingpin]

No sooner had Urlox said the word nonsense than Elias lunged at him, his form shifting almost instantly. The black coat was replaced by a thick pelt of shaggy black and brown fur, his angular face becoming long, fangs several inches long gleaming in the light as they threatened to slam shut around Urlox's maned neck, talons poised to rip the man to shreds even as Matthias charged forward , gauntlets becoming plainly visible as the cloak was blown back behind him.

[C S]

Urlox brought the full weight of his impressive steel around to slam the pommel into the side of Elias' jaw, knocking his fearsome teeth off target while simultaneously using the length and flat-side of the sword as a guard against the kleidde's bulk and claws. He stepped out of the way of Elias' subsequent staggering, which could have bowled him down all on its own.

[The Kingpin]

A snarl escaped the Kleidde as he stumbled sideways before kneeling to right himself. He lunged forward once again, a terrible crack sounding out as face met fist, Matthias's gauntlet knocking his transformed twin backwards several feet. The Wanderer pressed his advantage, a second fist swinging up under the Kleidde's jaw, practically knocking him back up onto his feet as another fist connected with his chest, sending him backwards further. A sudden thump sent Matthias flying nearly ten feet and slamming into the cliff beside the burning shack, The Betrayer immediately charging for Urlox with the attempt to bisect the man, a massive clawed paw swinging down from above with all the might the formidable Kleidde could muster.

[C S]

Urlox used the motion of bringing his sword to bear to act as a counterbalance to himself. As he moved the mass of his sword around, he threw himself out of the way of the vicious clawing. At the same time, he brought his sword down on Elias' arm after his paw plunged into the snow. The broadsword did not cleave through the kleidde's limb, but it was lodged deeply enough to have the wound seeping blood around the cross-section.

[The Kingpin]

A bellow of pain escaped the Kleidde as he closed his free paw around the blade, talons gouging into the metal as he pushed it out of the wound and thrust it away, its weight dragging Urlox off balance with it. In the same movement, Elias lunged for the newly exposed Guard Captain, his claws tearing across the back of his uniform and leaving several horrific cuts in his back. The Betrayer did not have long to revel in his infliction of pain on the man before the heavy metal gauntlets of his furious twin met with his hide once more, another horrendous crunch sounding as ribs were smashed from a low, surgically precise blow to the flank, winding the Kleidde. A strike over the back sent Elias collapsing into the snow from the sheer force of it, the Wanderer wailing on him with blow after terrible, relentless blow, a frenzy every bit as monstrous as the Betrayer's own coming forth through Matthias's very human form.

[C S]

Chandra bit her lip and reluctantly eased the pressure on her sling-bow's trigger. She did not take her bead off of Elias, despite staying her bolt thus far. If she hadn't seen Matthias race back into the battle and deal his blows, she would have taken it upon herself to start her assault with the others. The games these men were playing with their life, all for revenge...

"Ha! Those will need some stitches!" Urlox roared with a strange joviality, picking himself off the ground and dragging his sword through the snow until he was holding it at the ready. His bleeding back was turned away from Matthias' barrage, but it was not so for long. The guard captain spun about and charged, his sword trailing behind him up until the last moment, where he stopped before Elias and swung the sword about in a massive arc onto his shoulder. The scarred sword drove deep into the bones, its edge splintering them as it cut through the Betrayer's body.

[The Kingpin]

A horrific scream echoed across the mountainside as the blade shattered bone and all but severed his arm, the goliath flipping over and kicking Matthias back across the snowy hill. The Wanderer soared across the rise before hitting the ground, kicking up rocks and dirt, his cloak, shirt and leather breastplate mangled from the blow. Rising to his feet sluggishly, the Kleidde glared at Urlox. "I will feed you your own entrails for that, Thimeas," he snarled, an inhuman sound so loud it could be heard even by the rangers several dozen yards off.

[C S]

"And I'll take off your other arm for what you just did to Matt, Elias!" Urlox countered, barely audible to the rangers at their various places. The man's empty hand found his blood-dripping blade and raised its point true to the shapeshifter's heart. "Let's see who is quicker!"

[The Kingpin]

The Betrayer watched Urlox raise his weapon. For a moment, his calm demeanour returned. He listened to Urlox's little challenge.

And then promptly swung his talons up into the weapon's flat side, talons cleaving it in two with a deafening clang, shards of cold steel scattering across the ground as he lunged forward, jaws parted to rip the man's head off.

[C S]

The rangers cringed as a collective at the sorry sound of shattered steel. In the minutes after, they were left to make sense of it. It might as well have been unfathomable to them, the notion absurd. The pillar that was Urlox's sword was very much a pillar in the community of Daaven, as powerful a symbol as any banner or design on the guard captain's plate armor. Not in any man's lifetime could it be... broken.

In the thick of things, however, Urlox did not even pay the rending of his sword any mind, for the only thing he could think about then was victory. The shorter length proved to be swifter than the broadsword as a whole could ever be, the crude edges pulled close to Urlox's center before finding themselves inside Elias' maw, then ripping through a cheek and down the length of his neck as Urlox dove out of the way of the beastly Betrayer.

[The Kingpin]

A pained growl escaped the Kleidde as he stumbled to the side, clutching his neck with his good arm as he glared at Urlox. A sudden, painfully powerful grip closed on the scruff of his neck, a battle-worn, shirt-and-cloak-less Matthias yanking him over and swinging a steel plated, bladed fist into the wolf-man's face, the beast's muzzle breaking in several places from the force of the blow. "Thimeas! Catch!" shouted the Wanderer as he spun the Betrayer around him, sending him stumbling maw-first at Urlox.

[C S]

"I'll do more than that!" Urlox pledged with silent fury, digging his heels down. He threw his arm up and over Elias's neck so that he could lock it with his elbow. It was not a strangling grip, the wolf's neck was just far too large and muscular, but Urlox's stature was imposing enough an obstacle to stop the maimed kleidde, and his hold was firm enough to restrain him in his weakened and disoriented state.

"Breaking my sword, eh? A worthy final act for that arm, then!" Urlox proclaimed right before he drove the broken edge into Elias' one good shoulder, forcing it down into the blade and letting it get stuck in the bone.

[The Kingpin]

A bellow of pain escaped the beast, yet another sound in the cacophony of agony that filled the air with every strike, the beast barely heaving time to break free before another vicious blow struck him, Matthias's latest punch shattering his ribs all over again, before slashing down, gutting him. A last ditch attempt to free himself sent Matthias tumbling back, and knocked Urlox off of him, the Kleidde stumbling weakly in an attempt to get away from the two. The feeling of a heavy weight on his back was all the warning he got, Matthias literally jumping onto him and flipping over, using Urlox's blade as leverage to swing back in, his feet kicking the splintered ribs inwards and impaling his lungs in one swift movement. Stumbling back, a gurgling groan escaped Elias, looking back and forth between the two.

[C S]

"Poor Elias. I was always loud, and you were always the quiet one. Fancied yourself quite the strategist, from what I 'ad gathered back then. As true in the past as it is now, though, you never did well with the small details." Urlox cracked his knuckles. "What do you say, Matt? 'Ow's about we show your brother that you don't need no damn magic to burn away the unwanted, but a 'andy oil lamp instead?"

[The Kingpin]

"It would be a fitting end for a snake like him," agreed Matthias as he walked up to his brother's battered figure, sidestepping as Elias tried to kick. The Wanderer grabbed the leg, his free arm coming in with a vicious downwards swing, tugging the trapped leg upwards at the moment of impact. A sickening crunch sounded out as the leg was broken, Matthias pushing his brother backwards. "Grab his arm," stated the Wanderer as he made his way to one side of the writhing Betrayer, intending to take the other arm. They would drag him, kicking and screaming, to the very same death he had sought for his own flesh and blood, his own twin, his mirror.

[C S]

Urlox did just that. He went around Elias' flank, crouched to get into position and then wore a small frown on his face. "Just a moment," he said. He reached into the reddened snow, took the hilt of his sword in his grasp and wrenched it out of the wolf-beast's flesh with a spurt of blood and the heaving of severed tissue. Urlox cleaned the broken sword as best as he could on Elias's chest before sheathing it. "Right then," he told Matthias. Urlox slung Elias' arm underneath his, and used the other to support his leg. "On your mark."

[The Kingpin]

"I never thought," started Matthias as he reached down, grabbing the furry arm of his treacherous brother. "... When we were still children, running through the streets of Riverdale... Pestering shop keepers, playing with children in the marketplace... I never thought that I would be the one to bury you. I never fathomed that I would be doing so to save the family from your selfish whims," he all but snarled as he began to drag the Kleidde towards the burning shack.

"Matthias... Brother, don't do this!" pleaded the battered, bleeding Kleidde desperately. "We're blood! Isn't that what our family stands for beyond all else? Loyalty to our own?"

"It is what my family stands for. Aidan was blood too. You killed him. You have earned this fate," stated the Wanderer.

"Thieryal made me do it!"

"And he will die like you will. You are not one of us."

[C S]

"Look at you, stumbling over the small details again, lad! At the end of all things, go with dignity, what little you have left," Urlox scolded Elias. Matthias may have disowned him, but Urlox sounded very much like an older brother in a very twisted way as the flames grew nearer, the heat wafting over them all.

[The Kingpin]

Elias's figure was shifting in their grip, the wolf-man losing his pelt and terribly mangled skin becoming visible, revealing the extent of the damage he'd sustained.

"I only wanted us to have what we'd lost... To get what was taken from us... I wasn't wrong in that, you know I wasn't!" exclaimed the Betrayer as the roar of the fire grew louder, almost enough to overwhelm the dying elf's voice.

The Wanderer's face twisted into a look of disgust that Elias could not see, though it dripped from every word he uttered next. "The Liullwyns lost something long ago. The Lyalls did not. Many generations have passed since then. We are not the kin of those inbred arrogant wretches in Niyera. The ones who lost their kingdom died long ago, and they lost it to their complacence, their arrogance. It was a fate they deserved."

The heat was almost unbearable now, the orange tongues of flame lashing at them voraciously, the shack itself crumbling from the inside out. Matthias stopped, looking to Urlox. "Thimeas. You take the legs. I'll take the arms. On three," he stated simply.

[C S]

Urlox stepped around Elias, trading off his limbs to Matthias until he was holding the thoroughly defeated elf by the legs, the broken one twisted awkwardly in his grasp. "On three," he repeated.

Up the slope, Valeria pulled her bow off of its perch and clenched her eyes shut. Her gloves were clasped over her ears for fear of hearing Elias' final cry where she was. Such terrible suffering.

"Maybe the two of us aren't so different. Go figure," Baaz thought, and then rose from her roost. Part one of their mission was just about finished. There wasn't any cause to keep watching.