[[ :: Year 3 :: ]]-- A quietness lingers upon the Rings, as they hold their breath for the events to come... these past days, supplies, men, warriors have been ferried out of the Ward, into the Rings beyond in preparation... --
The fearful flee, and the brave rally their nerve. A reckoning centuries in the making comes, on the winged heels of the Ward's newest champions. The time is soon to come... --
-- Amidst the pained howls of a tortured beast and the baudy laughs of drunken merrymakers, amidst the vice and terror, the rebellious Count's forces speak their oaths and promises, under the watchful eye of their would-be King. --
-- Many multitudinous loud trumpets are sounded, each from the uppermost spires of the Ward of the Peers ... --
-- The nursemaids and peasant-folk of the Peerage huddle together as trashgulls let out their all-too-familiar squall overhead. --
-- Master Orenzio hammers out a piece of armor for one of his last customers ... perhaps his finest creation ever... --
-- Mrs. Minchin dickers over the price of rent, increasing it by three times ... her renters are outraged... --
-- Apprentice Designer Lebril Thielin, one of the last remnants of old Ticker Square, grows increasingly nervous that the second time won't be the charm... --
-- There is a sense of ... finality. --
-- If not for this Peerage Ward, then perhaps for the world itself. --
-- It is for the ending of her play that Elizabetha d'Auvergne, the famous actress, emerges once more for a walk-on performance ... --
-- A new sun rises, a red dawn. With it, the exhale. The time is upon us, for good or ill. A shadow lingers, heavy, above the liberated Vestige. --
-- The great gate of the peers... is left open ... --
-- Tumultuous times. Folk march to their defeat or to glorious victory. Such things are hard won, and hard lost. None can say who will emerge triumphant. --
-- But there is a singular certainty: men will die, tonight. --
-- The trail of the Ward's finest continues onward, in the wake of the Drill's destructive passage; each crumbled and abandoned district bringing them closer... --
-- From tumble down cityscape, to the frozen tundra... past abandoned homes, long since raided or abandoned by Comital forces, or other miscreants of the Rings. --
-- The prize, in sight. Trepidation ripples through the vanguard like a biting wind... The force, arrayed. The bridged river the only obstacle remaining... --
-- A delaying force of mercenaries sallies out to meet them on the frozen river... --
-- A cataclysmic battle is about to unfold ... --
-- The once peaceful town of Vestige... now a bloodbath for a world's destiny... --
-- Crows pick at the dead. The Ward is come, and breaks through the barricades to sack the camp. It remains remarkably undefended, though from the darkest corners the dead, and shadows emerge to claim their due. --
-- Chaos reigns, the perpetual snow stained with the blood of the Count's mightiest defenders. Among the corpses, jackals pick through the packs of slain foemen... --
-- A quiet settles over the Vestige... the wind is calm. Shadows stir... --
-- The passage to the Drill lays open...--
-- Comital mercenaries emerge from the various tents and camphouses about the Drill... --
-- There are screams from within the Drill as the Peerage vanguard enters, slaughtering and killing with brutality. --
-- Eddie Goodtimes get beaten up. --
-- The man once called 'Reeve' hosts a tense conversation with Drayson Sparrowbroth amidst death and betrayal, long-time bartender at the Spinning Groat tavern. These men have known each other for many years... --
-- There is much discussion within the Drill. The Count has fled deeper into Stormharbour, the remaining Rubies at his side. The tale of Stormharbour's curse is well known --
-- Doubly so now, seized and controlled by the Count's forces. There is the sound of drums from within, and the faint whisperings of darker things yet. --
-- A small group, the tip of the Spear, is to descend beneath the streets of Stormharbour. Brave the curse, and the Count's elite forces, while the remainder hold the line, with the Drill now seized --
-- As the discussion is had within the Drill, reinforcements come to set up and reinforce the siegeworks.--
-- Barricades are set, catapults drawn. Preparations made... --
-- small number of camp followers have begun cleaning up the bloodshed, tending the torn and battered tends. Preparing the Vestige for what is to come... --
-- The snow falls. The blood isn't so clear, now. --
-- The Tip of the Spear prepare themselves to follow the darkened walls, and into the sewers beneath them... --
-- How long until these fields shine a bright crimson once more? --
-- An ominous feeling in the air. Anticipation. Concern. The victory was too easily won. Too few fallen. What horrors await? --
-- The barricades are set, ready for the counter assault. --
-- A hatch, buried almost by fresh snow... --
-- The snowy air cuts to the bone, more than ever.--
-- Far in the distance, the faint sound of infantry... --
-- They're drawing ever closer. Forms, some large and some small, shamble onward with grim determination. --
-- A moment of unnatural calm, and then - they've begun to arrive. --
-- The wind howls. Hope shakes, insecure once again in your bodies. --
-- A smattering of grim laughter as men who's only love glitters, gleams and clinks kindly in purse step forth into the gallow's ever tightening noose. Your life- and theirs- for a hefty smattering of ducats. --
-- Cackling at the gates. Ahead of you. Beside you. Behind you. --
-- Atop the barbican gate of Vestige, the orange banner flies tattered beneath the comital. Watching as the warriors of the 99th are slowly ground down is Anders Orza, evidently left in command. --
-- A pause in the clamor of battle... no more reinforcements in sight. --
-- Beneath the siegeworks, in the gloom... more terrible monsters, garbed all in ruby red, await the brave few who aim to steal into the comital holdfast. --
-- Comital mercenaries, their lives bartered for coin and blood, fight tooth and nail against the sieging forces. Hardbitten men, living unhappy lives - still, better a bitter one than none at all. --
- The battle lessens at the fore as reinforcements come slower and slower. The smoke of battle drifts along, howled away by the strong winds. Blood-stained, gore-speckled, viscera-coated; the men and women stand at the ready to push forward. --
-- Bare your blades, raise your shields anew. Something drives on the Count's creatures - a relentless zeal, a ferocious fury. --
-- Armaments from above.. --
-- A great howl from the fortress. A groan, or a sigh. The air around it shimmers with strange energies. The host of the Peerage lets up a cheer, even amidst the thick of the fighting... --
-- A pause in the fighting. A woman can be seen walking, gliding, smoothly over, across, past the battered and the broken, the dead and the destroyed. --
-- Mortal form bled out on the stone, yet the work is not concluded. Swift spear strikes made quick work of the flesh, but such a man is not so easily undone. Our works linger, our spite, our ambitions, and all the misery we have wrought. The soul lingers in the terror remembered to the survivors. --
-- t gleams in the darkness ahead of them, as the tide of shadow rushes in to claim it. A Bitter, Angry Soul. Crimson in the dark. --
-- From the inky black sky, that ripples like water, a surge forms. A cloying mist of darkness. The deluge erupts. --
-- It comes. It comes seeking to claim him. That lingering orb of hatred. --
-- The mood shifts at the gates. The Count's final reinforcements begin to arrive. The mood shifts to dogged survival... --
-- All-consuming... the darkness spreads... --
-- The deluges rages. It ROILS. The blackness come to claim that which they so desperately desire. --
-- The gloom grows thick and heavy ... --
-- And from it issue so many whispers, so many confused cries. Old, familiar words.. --
-- The tendril-like fingers of the creatures of shadow and desire, of wanting grasp at the crimson soul. As the anchors are struck and destroyed, it weakens... it HOWLS in pain, and frustration. It's end is near. --
-- Now unprotected, the deluge roars once more. They fling their full force upon the lingering soul. --
-- The Spear in Moros' hand hisses, roars. A familiar voice... deep, gutteral. Strong.--
-- 'ROHOMUAJI!' --
-- 'RED BLOOD, AND LIFE FOR A LIFE!' --
-- 'IT IS OVER. IT IS FINISHED.' --
-- 'ROHOMUAJI! ROHOMUAJI!' --
-- 'BITE DEEP. LIFE FOR A LIFE. IT IS ENDED!' --
-- Moros fights his way free of the thousand hands, all probing and scratching. He leaps forward, thrusting the spear deep. --
-- A life. For a life. --
-- A life. For a life... --
-- A life... --
-- ...for a life... --
-- As the final blow is struck, the promise of Rohomuaji - the red spear, that trades life for life, is fulfilled. It takes the ruddy soul of auld Senuspur into itself, and then --
-- SHATTERS! A hundred splinters spray about the shadowed glade, and the ambitions of the Count come finally to their end. --
-- ..Alas, that the promise must be fulfilled. Those same splinters find Moros the Last's heart, and bury themselves deep. And his life ends. Traded for one, and for a thousand. --
-- Meanwhile, above the great gates of Vestige, the Orzan banners are being swiftly struck down by men in orange and black. Not a single soul of that house even stepped foot to challenge the heroic besiegers. --
-- Anders smirks, taking a final drag from a loose cigarillo. He upturns a mock salute to the brave heroes below, and then disappears beneath the walls. --
-- They return, from the shadow and darkness. From the whirlpool of inky black, thrust into the bloody battleground of the Vestige. They charge, emboldened, into the back line of the lingering creatures... --
-- As the Captain falls... you notice the body of Ser Moros the Last... the many bodies of the dead all strewn around you... --
-- Seven score and more of them, heaped up upon the once peaceful snow of Vestige... even now... beginning to grow thick with snow and ice. --
-- A cheer rises up from the haggard heroes, 'Moros the Last! Courtland! Otto! Syl! Atlem! William! Grim! Seamus! Fierce Chakravati!' and a score others, the dead are extolled by the lucky few who survived. --
-- The rumors that spread about this day run far and wide... they are contradictory and conflicting in almost every way. --
-- But one fact remains consistent across them all: Ser Moros the Last held the key to defeating the Count, and he gave his life to use it. --
-- Retainers of the three houses begin to arrive at Vestige slowly, paying homage to the dead burning upon the fields of blanketed snow --
Countless heroes spend their last as that which you see now, as if the Lantern of Stormharbor itself were still pure and existing. That warmth of their life, that glow of their intent, that /light/ of the Last.... It shall soon sway from this celebration, from these comforts, and focus upon you wretched and lingering things that escaped our Cinquefoil Rose this night.
Count Zarono Senuspur:
Ah. The hour is upon us.
Dame Synia Velstra the Beloved:
Count Senuspur. [She lends him a bow of her head... just slightly]
Ser Moros the Last:
It has been some time...
Count Zarono Senuspur:
[Senuspur, lets out a deep, courtly bow.]
Dame Jagoda the Just:
Your crimes are too numerous to count, you'll forgive if I do not list them.
Count Zarono Senuspur:
Welcome, all. Brave errants. Welcome to my House. [The Count's lips are pursed, his hand upon a rapier which gleams coolly even in the dark.]
Ser Moros the Last:
[Moros offers the Count something else. He offers a Lady's favor.] This wood, it's from the Tower. [Moros slowly reveals a spear, made from the wood of Phelan Sunpurse. The Spirit of Rohomuaji... The Spear to slay the Count]
Count Zarono Senuspur:
I remember, as a boy, the duelling clubs of the Old City. You see this scar upon my cheek? A merchant's son etched it into my skin. It has remained with me, even now... [He ignores the spear, quite pointedly.]
Ruby Emerice Guoremor:
[Entirely encase, Ser Emeric stands alert, as the Count greets his guests. His longspear, having supped from the blood of Kings, glows a sinister red.]
Count Zarono Senuspur:
Of course, I couldn't let such an insult stand. He cut deep, you see. A mark upon a Prince's son.
I remember...
We met upon the shores of the Island Ymph two weeks thereafter. The air was hot, there. Your sweat got into your coats, into your jerkin.
That day...
That day was such a day.
I skewered him. The man who made this mark upon me. [He presses one solitary finger along his cheek.] And I gained a reputation, then, as the premier duellist in the City of Old Port.
But that...
That was long ago.
[He draws his rapier in a long, slow motion. The sword, it shines. He regards it with a kind of louche disdain...]
Dame Jagoda the Just:
To think... Imagine if you had used all this time, all this life to be a hero, not a villain... You could have walked to the king with all behind you. Our sins stand before us, and you your own. This fate is our own making. Blame no one.
Emma Falltower.
[She looks to the spear held in the hands of Ser Moros before looking back to Zarono, a hatred filling her eyes.] you... you t-took away my only chance to ever learn who my parents were. Who I am. Who I was supposed to be. You burned it down, erasing my family's legacy. I'm not here for the King, I'm here for revenge...
Count Zarono Senuspur:
You could have followed me, you know. My path was the path to truth. A luminous truth. Of this dread, fetid world. It's tawdry reality.
Ruby Emerice Guoremor:
[He steps forward, a moment in time...]
Count Zarono Senuspur:
But you have chosen a dream in its stead.
Ser Moros the Last:
I have brought somethign with me... Something you forgot. A /Promise/. The Lady in the Tower, the Lady in Waiting, how her grief has touched me.
Dame Synia Velstra the Beloved:
[She glances to her allies making ready...]
Ruby Emerice Guoremor:
[He spins his halberd...]
Count Zarono Senuspur:
And you think I fear this little device? Yet another mirage, another fantasy, dreamed up by a frightened little boy.
Dame Jagoda the Just:
A dream, carried in the hearts of men is as real as any spear.
Ser Moros the Last:
Phelan was brave. That much I have come to learn.
Count Zarono Senuspur:
[His eyes twinkle.] I was not speaking of the young master Sunpurse.
Dame Synia Velstra the Beloved:
[She glances between the Count and them once more] Who?
Count Zarono Senuspur:
At any rate... you shall have no truths from me. No ribbons, no bows, no ending to the tale.
You have forfeit that, I think.
Shall we dance, then?
Dane Jagoda the Just:
Let battle be the reward we reap, Count.
Ser Moros the Last:
Very well then. May we keep the Promise.
Emma Falltower:
For Jodfry! For Ticker!
Ruby Vsaja Sumari:
You're in for a surprise, sweet dove.
You're to see the truth of it all.
-- Count Zarono Senuspur's body lay prone on the cobbled floor, bleeding out along the length of the spear... --
Ruby Vsaja Sumari:
You're to gaze into the absence of beauty, and there...
You'll come to know yourselves.
-- The sound of a heartbeat, drub-drub, drub-drub, drub-drub.. resonates in the chamber as Vsaja languidly speaks. --
Ruby Vsaja Sumari:
Let me look upon his eyes, one last time...
And you can continue your journey.
[He steps quietly through the darkness, looming over the Count's ancient body.]
[He draws a flower from his cloak, cone vibrant, now dying.] This dear Count, is what I have become...
[He kneels, and plants a kiss on the Count's cold, dead forehead. A piece of theatre...]
Onward now, sweet doves. Fly, into Shadow...