[ORP] The Fenian conflict

[YenLan]

Lan stood on the balcony of the General's quarters, looking into the distance. The view of Fenia city in its entirety was a sight to behold- but also one to be wary of. The city supported the former king, and is still supporting him now. Zuan's army marches towards the castle, every member a formidable opponent; the techniques they used differed drastically from that which Lan was used to in the east, it was unlikely that he would be able to hold against them.

How ironic was it that he was again in a position most efficient in throwing away the lives of men?

If he hadn't happen to travel to Fenia to complete a shipment request for an acquaintance in Bravia, he wouldn't have met Michael, and in turn, wouldn't have been involved. Yet here stands General Lan, a branded member of the usurping faction. He gave a bitter laugh, Cooperation has its price. Though he has long lost interest in titles and the opinions of others, being known as a criminal still annoyed him, it goes against his way. His actions were questionable, yet it was a necessary sacrifice in paving the way towards his ideals - ones that can only be realized far away from the East.

Lan closed his eyes, feeling the flow of qi coursing through his flesh. While the two years on the ship was time well spent learning about the new land and its "magic", he had become unfamiliar with his body. He calmed his breathing and listened, taking in every detail around him. He heard the locals gossping as they passed the gates of the castle. He heard the yawn of a guard patrolling the nearby towers. His brow tightened slightly in a frown,Not enough. Further calming his mind, he made out the flap of a bird's wing as it flew over the town walls, and something else shooting through the air-

Lan suddenly snapped an arm out, catching an arrow between his fingers; its tip was dull and a note was attached. He had been waiting for this.

	They are here. War has arrived.

Thrill and excitement coursed through his blood; a thrill he hated, an excitement he loathed. They brought a grin to his face - a grin that he did not want surfacing from within him.

He loved it.

Lan bowed his head toward the East before leaving the balcony.

"風林火山 (Fūrinkazan), may the skies be our witness."

[Archadeas]

*From outside the castle walls, a dense black mist sweeps in, blanketing the ground in a pitch, blacker then the night, the screams of thousands of tortured souls echo on the wind, the sun turn dull and the light dims to a faint grey, the smell of dirt and rotting corpses fills the cold air of today*
*Archadeas arises from the blackened mist, clad in his ebony bone armor, a great obsidian axe rests on his shoulders, and his crimson red eye pierces through the distance looking at his enemies. He stands at the gates, prepared for war. He speaks with a voice like that of a choir of a thousand lost souls, that reaches to the ends of Fenia.*
The void is upon you and there is no escape. You shall all be returned to the nothingness, For Fenia!
*His final words boom with a thunderous crash, black lightning crashes through the sky, he raises his axe*

[Aida]

Coughing and spluttering, the journey from Imperius back home was almost unbearable. Flu had taken her, the result of a weakened body after some overzealous dueling. It could not have come at a worse time. It was cold, too, the skies overcast and grey, threatening rain. Making her way down the usual roads, she noticed with a start just how quickly things had gone to hell. Citizens escaping the city had flooded the roads, pitching tents and makeshift shelters upon any available ground, horses and cattle feeding on any available fodder. Little children, barely clothed and very dirty ran in front of travellers, begging for bread and occasionally pick pocketing anyone who stopped for more than five minutes. There was mud everywhere.

'It's been barely a few days,' she thought to herself, expertly skirting a young lad who she was sure meant to make off with her money purse. She tucked it inside her bodice and pushed past the throngs of people. The army should be arriving anytime now and the real fighting would take place. Perhaps there was no blaming these people for taking whatever they could carry and getting out. A brief pang of worry made her stop before she forced herself on, she hoped the young girl she had employed as steward was safe. Not to mention the house and all that was in it.

The gates loomed up before her. Usually open and a welcoming site, they were locked down and ominous. Guards were posted everywhere, checking papers and sigils. She pushed her way past more people once more and pulled out a letter from her bodice, dislodging the coin purse and causing it to drop into the mud. Handing the letter to a guard, she bent down to pick up the purse, but not before the young lad she had dodged before had snatched it up and run off. She swore.

"Seems like the mayor's signature," the guard said, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Of course it's the mayor's signature," she snapped, looking around for the little thief. "Are you going to let me in, or not?"

"Suppose."

He gave her a sullen look and opened the side gate, ushering her in. She stomped forward and pushed her way into the city. Compared to the roads outside, it was almost empty. Eerie, in fact. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and rushed home, the silhouette of the castle in the corner of her eye.

[Duke_of_Earl]

Duke, sat perched atop one of the guard towers in a crenel between two parapates, observed the scene below with sigh of annoyance.
A member of the clerical staff was with him, tome in hand, reading the days ledgers aloud.

"rraaaooooowww"

Duke interupts the reading and turns to stare intently at the aide.
The aide squints his eyes a bit and rubs his temples as images and the memory of sounds flood his mind.
It took some time in the beginning, but this aide was one of a few who had learned how to interpret the contact into instructions that might just have well been given verbally.

"Yes sir", the aide replied. "I shall post the announcement presently. Shall we continue?"

"sktksktsktskt" -Duke makes a dull clicking sound from the back for his airway, a signal that come to mean dismissal of a present circumstance, and leaps down off the crenelation heading quickly through the door, down some stairs and out to the gatehouse, making his way to the sullen guard.

"Meow"

Upon attracting the attention of the sullen guard. Duke proceeds to try and communicate with him too. Planting images of other citizens who are expected to turn up at the gate, as well as the image of huddled masses sheltering inside a spectacular building, and an image of the area beyond the wall clear of all civilians, with an accompanying image of civilians running about in a crossfire and being torn to pieces.

Without waiting to see if the guard had fully understood the instructions, Duke heads off into the city.

[Constance_de_Vere]

Hrodohaidis sat Constance's deeply slumbering body up. The girl continued to sleep as Hrodohaidis opened her eyes. Sure enough, Alice was sleeping across the threshold of the room. Having thought himself clever, the brother had set up a guard against her nightly activities, but he'd chosen a poor one, limited by his sense of delicacy for his sister's virtue. Uncaring how cold the floor was against the girl's bare feet, she rose from bed and walked to the window.

Even with the window closed, she could scent fallen leaves crushed under many feet. And, the tang of blood. There was a delicious wrongness in the city. Had she not needed the girl, she would have consumed her in that instant and gone to join the fight, but all the same, she promised herself that she'd indulge as far as she dared tonight. The smile that spread across Constance's lips was too vicious for the girl's sweet nature, but in the dark none who thought they knew her could see it.

Now where had the brother thought he'd hidden the sword this time? She wouldn't bother with armor tonight. Let him agonize that he thought she had care whether the girl came to harm or not. As long as she didn't die, her blood was as good as any other's. As was her habit, she searched the girl's desk to ensure the foolish brother hadn't attempted another letter to his sister. He hadn't dared tonight, but there were other interesting correspondences. Some Michael guy had stolen the castle and crowned himself King. She didn't care who King. No, what was interesting were the other orders. She laughed at them, but her laugh cut off as she considered that the brother probably had some silly notion he'd join in this fight. Months of time would be lost if he should die. Well, there were ways to terrorize him into staying out of the fight.

Turning from the desk, she entertained herself with breaking one or both of his legs to keep him in bed. Both would be best she decided, so she looked forward to doing it when she returned. And, it'd keep him out of her business for several weeks. That only left Alice. She stepped over the woman who served the siblings as a steward. Too useful to kill. Too loyal to the brother to keep alive. But for tonight she lived because could she cook and Hrodohaidis had a sword to find. The search for the sword took longer than expected. So when she at last found the sword hidden under a tarp in the brother's workshop, she smashed several of the face paints he had been laboring endlessly upon lately. Such a waste of a life. Again she regretted she had not claimed him first, but consoled herself by the fact that his time would come and soon.

Thus armed, she left the expansive grounds of the de Vere estate and headed into the city. Her first destination was the University. Sometimes the brother thought he could hide things from her there. On the way she passed several fights, but she neither helped nor hindered. The fate of most creatures didn't matter to her. So after she ensured nothing had passed between brother and sister at the University, her next act of destruction was to leave several messages at the University she permitted the girl to manage, thinking it was her own desire and somehow helping her get free of Hrodohaidis' influence. Fools, both her and her brother. She made it so there'd be no classes for those silly enough not to want to fight. If only she could burn the books, too. Cities burning down from the start of a library fire were the best. The note to the students was vague. Let this new, supposed King figure out if the girl was loyal to him or not. It was, however, tempting to reply scathingly to his note asking if Constance wanted to continue as rector. She would be terribly inconvenienced if he sought to oust her puppet from the facade of innocence the position provided. Hrodohaidis had a low tolerance for inconveniences, so she wrote some piece of candy the girl might conceivably write, just in case any Michael had brought were smart enough to compare with correspondence from the real Constance.

Laughing at how the brother will react when he hears of how his sister had been seen running around town with a sword in nothing but her night robe, Hrodohaidis joined the purposeful march of the town militia. They were heading towards the Castle. This was not a behavior she thought wise. After all, what were a handful of poorly trained slobs going to do against that thing? The brother had built part of it, so she knew it was a lost cause, so she drifted away from them. Who was she to care if they dashed themselves against those walls and died?

From what she saw the invading force was laughably weak. The more she saw, the more troubled she became. She wanted a fight, not to dispose of trash. She thought of those orders upon the girl's desk, but she didn't obey them. Let them think for another night that Constance was their creature. When the army came, things would change.

So it was that the only true damage Hrodohaidis did that night was to break the legs of a sleeping man. It was hardly satisfying, but still it was necessary for her purposes. With the excitement of a coming fight in her, she allowed the girl to rest, but kept her smothered with her own personality. The girl's body was hers, after all.

[Nocturne]

Cleaning off the blade that he held dear, he read the new bulletin on the news from Hannah, his face devoid of emotion. It was probably a good thing too, or he might've injured himself laughing. The civil war went on a few days as both forces gathered. And of course, when the numbers were no longer in the ursurper's favor, there was an ordered "Step Down." To not defend the castle after so many were rendered unable to fight by the onslaughts. It was political maneuvering at its worst, and one reason the nether beast typically avoided politics with a passion.

He shook his head as he re-sheathed the blade. Yet when people ignore the laws and take things of their own wants and desires, then try to spin it like it was all for the good of the people? One couldn't just stand there and accept such things in a civilized society. That was why he took up arms. Those on the false council broke laws as they saw fit, they chose their personal desires for power over the greater good of the VR. Yes, despite knowing the consequences likely and the lack of support, they still did so, perhaps because they wanted the power and prestige that came with it, perhaps they thought they were doing right. Who knows, but with this post, they made it clear their true designs. While this could've been done on the first day and perhaps held the meaning they seemed to want to take now, waiting until the army gathered at your door, your allies were dying, and numbers were not in your favor showed nothing but cowardly desperation.

He stuck a tiny pin through the woman's name as he spoke, "See you tonight then, Hannah. Same time, same channel. Hope you don't run away again like you always do. It has gone on more than long enough, and whether or not there's a step down formally, there is a step down coming. Even if you are too arrogant to realize it." With that, he turned, walking out of the inn and going to visit his friends before the battle was rejoined yet again.

[Archadeas]

*Archadeas, clad in ebony bone armor and black steel, steps forward from the fallen castle, he raises his axe and cheers a victorious bloodthirsty roar*
The usurper has fallen and fled with his tail between his legs, death to rat Michael and his cowardly followers!
On this day we take back the kingdom from a false and unworthy "King"!
Let Michael forever be known now as the Rat King!
Off with their heads!

*With a thunderous boom he shouts to the heavens, the ground shakes and the air trembles*
For Fenia And For Her People!


*Archadeas then calms down in an instant, as if all his anger faded in a flash, he speaks calmly, looking over all those who listen to him*
Now we may return to our work, may we rebuild our land to be even greater, let the courts judge the rat king.
Talk to me if you were injured during the battle to retake the castle during the siege.
*He wanders off calmly to work*

[Mazork]

For the first time in a long time, Mazork greeted the sunrise from the window of his office in the Royal Castle of Fenia. He normally worked from Imperius, only visiting the capital when necessary. The necessity that had brought him to the capital this time was unlike any other before it: a revolt had needed to be put down, the castle be reconquered.

Looking around in the room, whoever had occupied it for the last few days had left it in good order. At least they had had the decency to not make a mess.

The orc picked up his large war axe and left the room. The night watch was over, it was time to catch some sleep. After these past few days, sleep would be good. The days had been spent making plans and the nights assaulting the castle, leaving little time for sleep.

Only once, had his axe been briefly bloodied. As much as Mazork had yearned for battle, his duties had been different this time. Not because he was the general, that had never stopped him from leading his troops at the frontlines. It was because their target had been this castle. As the royal Castle of Fenia, it was no ordinary building. It was protected by magical means as well as physical. Luckily, he knew of all those mechanisms, and how to negate them, so as not to endanger the lives of his soldiers overmuch. Thus, his days had been spent devising ways to avoid the physical traps, and his nights, matching his powers against the magical wards protecting the castle.

It had taken a few days, but the castle was theirs now, and not one person in his army had lost their life, barely even hurt. The same could not be said of the other side: the fools had targeted the King, thinking him a weak, spoiled nobleman. It had been a slaughter. Many had been gravely wounded, some had been killed.

Now, all that remained to be done was to catch the rebel leader and his surviving supporters. Michael had better hope that it would be someone else to catch him, for Mazork was in no mood for mercy. He had been played a fool by the human. Since the start, Mazork had spoken for him in the council, urged the King to give him a chance... and Michael had repaid the trust with betrayal.

Not the smartest thing to do.