On the way back, Argrave consorted with each of the myriarchs, endeavoring to assess the sum total of Erlebnis’ presence. It was a somewhat cerebral task with Altan, Erlebnis’ faithful, among them. He had to act like he was acting that he wasn’t interested in how Erlebnis arrived. In reality, that was mainly what he was interested in.
From it, he concluded some things. Firstly, Erle...
2023-06-07 06:58:10 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave had been hearing reports from Anneliese about how the reignited battle looked. She called it many things—chaos, indiscriminate destruction. Looking upon it with his own two eyes, he could think of few adjectives beyond that. Aspects of dragons, great chasms in the earth, titans formed of wind… it was a grand display of death. Spells of the highest order battered at the elven gods, c...
2023-06-06 06:55:41 +0000 UTC View Post“All of that work to return without finishing?” Ganbaatar stepped to Argrave, concerned but with anger held tightly at bay.
Argrave watched the ship docked with knights and his cousin aboard, then looked to Ganbaatar. Behind, Moriatran and Artur moved off, speaking to each other as they returned from the Mother’s Steppe. He waited a moment, then conjured a ward around himself and th...
2023-06-05 06:53:37 +0000 UTC View PostBefore Argrave stood his top ranks in this expedition—everyone who had some degree of authority. The three Veidimen officers, the Magisters, Mina and the Monticci family, and lastly his family, Orion and Anneliese. These were all people of proven trustworthiness and skill, and he needed precise delegation and execution at this critical juncture.
“Artur—you’re going to the Mother...
2023-06-02 07:00:55 +0000 UTC View Post“Anneliese, please scout out where the elven gods watch the breach.” Argrave stared at Dimocles’ extended hand, not moving to shake it.
Anneliese was rattled enough she nearly sent her Starsparrow into the ward she’d conjured to block their conversation. After dispelling it, she let the Starsparrow go free and Argrave recreated the ward.
“Do I have something on my hand?”...
2023-06-01 06:57:13 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave, without ceremony or significant announcement, departed to do his duty. It remained a daunting task, but ever since he’d decided to play out that act in front of the centaurs he abandoned any notions of fruitful cooperation with them. He dealt with Sarikiz, not them, and he needed only the centaurs’ unwitting assistance to rouse her from her slumber. On the return journey, however, ...
2023-05-31 06:57:07 +0000 UTC View Post“Now that I know what comes, all of this looks so small,” Onychinusa marveled, one of the emissaries of her Lord at her side as she witnessed the march of the elven gods. They stood above the canopies of the redwoods, removed from the conflict yet central to it all.
“Everything can look small from the right perspective,” the emissary answered back.
What occurred down below c...
2023-05-30 06:52:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe crux of this operation was simple. Retreat, to spread the attackers thin in their single-minded pursuit. Gather, to enable a swift and decisive advance to the enemy’s heart. And lastly, strike, aiming right for the heart.
And strike they did.
The battlefield descended into utter pandemonium once the giants and Amaroks were freed of the illusion. When confronted with enemies on...
2023-05-29 06:55:45 +0000 UTC View PostThat which came from the breach in the northern forest dominated all sight. They filled the gap between every tree, a disorganized legion of monsters.
High up in the branches, a purple fleshy orb with eight white wings on its center and one eye on its front flapped up and down, sagging and then rising like a jellyfish in water. Everywhere it went, black winged creatures poured from its bo...
2023-05-26 06:58:12 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave walked up to where Anneliese and Orion already stood. Even now, Anneliese was scouting with her Starsparrow in the distant elven camps, keeping an eye on the situation that they might time things.
“Received word from the elves,” Anneliese began before he’d said anything at all. “Nikoletta was taken far, far away from the frontlines, searching for her father with a group of...
2023-05-25 06:55:59 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave came upon Anneliese sitting in the roots of one of the giant redwoods, well concealed with several Veidimen on watch. She opened her eyes when he alighted on the ground, soaring from the trees as he did. A few heartbeats later, her Starsparrow took its place on her shoulder.
Orion and Artur followed behind Argrave, and he directed the both of them to give him some space. There was...
2023-05-24 06:56:50 +0000 UTC View Post“Are they gone?” one centaur asked, clutching his bloody and bent leg as he languished in the rubble.
“Yeah, they’re gone,” one of the older centaurs said, peering out overtop the pit of that human’s making.
A pyrrhic triumph spread in the centaurs, battered and defeated though alive they were.
One strode to another over the loose dirt and rocks and pounded him on ...
2023-05-23 06:55:30 +0000 UTC View PostTo speak to a king was not to know a king… and to know a god was not to understand a god.
The emissaries of Erlebnis knew this fact well. Though an extension of His will and bound together in an inextricable network of individual cognizance, they could never claim to understand how their Lord thought. To deliver His will was a step removed from the mind that bore it… yet over a millen...
2023-05-22 06:55:40 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave tried to talk with the centaurs for a long, long while. Their reply was rather consistent—namely, a barrage of arrows.
Despite Argrave’s restraint, they called him genocider, as they thought he came to kill their people in party with the elves. They called him defiler, as they’d witnessed Argrave removing a braid from Sarikiz’s hair to bridge the gap between realms. His na...
2023-05-19 06:54:55 +0000 UTC View Post“You can hear them from here…” Argrave muttered, peering through the great Redwoods. Ganbaatar and a few other members of the Supreme Myriarch’s Kheshig had carried the royal pair up here, and now Anneliese and he crouched side by side. He watched with his eyes, while she watched with her bird.
The initial meeting with the elves had gone very, very well—that was in large part du...
2023-05-18 06:56:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe Supreme Myriarch stared ahead at giants moving through the trees, trampling the overgrown roots of the Bloodwoods beneath their feet as though they were common twigs and not the redwoods comprising their homeland. From this far away, they almost seemed like normal-sized elves walking in one of the small forests beyond these lands, where one determined human with an axe could fell a tree in ...
2023-05-17 06:56:14 +0000 UTC View Post“God damn it all… proxies, parables, metaphors, rituals—why can’t these damned gods just talk straight?” Argrave bit at his knuckle, stewing on what Anneliese had reported.
“Because then we would know what they intend to do. That might make their plans a little more difficult to enact,” Anneliese reminded him tactfully.
Argrave chewed a few more times, then looked to h...
2023-05-16 06:58:47 +0000 UTC View Post“Should we meet with this man?” Anneliese asked, staring out across the sea of grass. “Who is Dimocles, even? You seemed to have knowledge of this name.”
“One of the player characters,” Argrave said shortly.
“Ah,” Anneliese nodded. “Then maybe we…” she stopped, then rephrased, “As I recall, you once said all of the player characters are good… more or less....
2023-05-15 06:58:14 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave woke up early the next morning. He’d slept very soundly—it was one of those sleeps where it felt like he’d just blinked and the next day came. He stirred to his feet and woke up feeling fresh and pure. He stared at his hands and wiggled his fingers, each of them leaving behind a slight crimson echo that was much thicker than it had been yesterday. He’d accrued much practice and ...
2023-05-12 06:56:09 +0000 UTC View Post“This is our favor,” Chiteng said, holding a silver coin out.
Argrave took it, examining it. It looked old and battered, more like something out of an archaeological dig site than something actually used as currency. Even the image was barely discernible as a face. Perhaps it was something sentimental to them—the last coin of the ancient elves, something like that.
“That is ...
2023-05-11 06:57:09 +0000 UTC View PostArtur sat in the dank and smelly altar, where the iron and rot of the blood pooling on the floor pervaded every inch of this place. He had refused to follow Argrave into the other realm not once, but twice. He didn’t think the king judged him for that fact, but it still weighed as his mind. He could not quite say why he followed the man into the portal leading to the vast steppes yet not the ...
2023-05-10 06:56:39 +0000 UTC View PostThey walked through the verdant palace that marked the elven gods’ meeting area, following just behind the red-robed woman. This place was clearly a collaborative effort—the stones were beige and pleasant, the place was overgrown with greenery likely furnished by the god of agriculture, and it was all kept temperate by the bright pyres of the elven god of flames and war. Servants of Chiteng...
2023-05-09 06:56:49 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave rode back on the ivory whale for the island where the rest of his companions resided. He was ferrying back and forth often enough it felt like a waste of time, somewhat… but then, this would be the last time they’d step on its back, he supposed.
“Argrave… I want you to know that whatever happens in this place, this damnable forest… I’ll always be your woman,” Nikolet...
2023-05-08 06:57:04 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you talking about the god’s blessing within me?” Argrave asked with a firm voice—he was proud of himself for staying steady given the walls themselves were shaking.
“You admit, then, that you have the favor of another god,” Chiteng’s red eyes narrowed somewhat.
“No. I was blessed, but I have no favor from him,” he shook his head. “We traded. Bartered. I had ...
2023-05-05 06:56:56 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave stared at his hand as they drifted across the sea. Not his first or second, but his third hand. There was one small benefit to active ascensions over passive ascensions—the effects were immediate. Anneliese had needed to wait a few days, but Argrave already saw the fruits of his labor before him. It was quite a small and singular fruit—a faint dark red hand projected out from his ow...
2023-05-04 06:55:24 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave laughed enough that it seemed like everything was okay. But with blood pouring from his body in waves every time he threw his head against the wall, and his clearly involuntarily grunts and shouts of pain, Nikoletta could tell that everything was the opposite of okay. What he did caused pain great enough it was hard for him to even speak. Yet every time he crumpled, in perhaps ...
2023-05-03 06:57:46 +0000 UTC View Post“I was surprised when you contacted me,” said a tall blonde man, a steel helmet depicting a boar resting in the crook of his arm. The rest of his equipment was laid out before him, polished and ready. All that remained was putting it on.
“Surprised I could, or surprised I would?” Durran asked, leaning up against the wall with his glaive to his left. He was fully armored in gray wy...
2023-05-02 06:55:49 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Argrave finished demanding cooperation from Chiteng, he felt a little lightheaded from the rush that brought on. He managed not to do anything foolish or embarrassing in the wake of that, though he furiously replayed what he’d said in his head to make sure he’d said nothing overtly disrespectful. He hung on every word uttered, thinking of how it might be interpreted… then wondered if...
2023-05-01 06:55:15 +0000 UTC View PostThe lone call of the whale had been a haunting thing from the shore alone, but as Argrave and Orion sailed out deep into the open sea that call of theirs became more numerous. A faint red mist shielded one from seeing too far, so the harrowing noise of distant foghorns penetrated the bloody ocean’s fog as the giant Chiteng watched on from above, staring.
“No matter what happens, I’d...
2023-04-28 06:56:06 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave waded through the thick, viscous blood flooding the underground altar. He’d thought going through the wetlands of northwestern Vasquer had been torturous, but to walk through heavy red blood was far more unpleasant. Fortunately, the source was not too far from them.
Ahead, there was a circular rock wreathed in roots. The blood flowed down the plant life almost artfully, yet it a...
2023-04-27 06:55:44 +0000 UTC View Post