• Open • Siege of Storm's Edge: Then There Were Two

[Kasoria]

3rd trial, Ymiden, 720
Storm's Edge
Dusk

"Jus' them?"

Jessup nodded shakily, but not with true fear. Kasoria had seen that in the faces of men like him over the last two seasons. The first one, mainly. That sopping, shaking, trembling terror of creatures their simple minds couldn't have imagine before. Not out of stupidity, but simply ignorance. Farmers and tradesmen, the most monstrous enemy they'd faced had been wolves, jackals, maybe the occasional growling bandit on a lonely road. What the Stormwastes had spat out at them over the Rebirth Cycle, though... they were beyond the pale. Beyond thought and nightmare.

Yet they were real. Real and hungry and relentless.

But they could be fought. They could bleed, and they could die. That lesson most of all, had changed the men that survived.

"Been hovering up there, just above the far tower," Jessup said, voice low even from the wall below the tower he was pointing at. "Looks like just the two of 'em, sir."

"Y'know I ain't a sir."

"Sorry, s... Mister Karim. Force of habit."

Kasoria sighed. Rharnians. Even the lowest among them spoke so proper, and with such respect. He drummed his fingers across the bow in his hands. Feel of the wood and string, weight of it in his hands, now familiar. Tested and tried and not perfected. Not yet. He licked dry lips and shook away the last of his headache. Every trial came with a fresh one, since his initiation. A new and wondrous thing had taken root in the Raggedy Man of Etzos, but he'd promised not to unleash it until his "mentor" was ready for his first lesson. And that, he'd been told, would be after an appropriate period of rest. Considering what it had almost cost him - what it had cost him - Kasoria wasn't going to argue.

The old-fashioned way, then.

"A'right," he said, turning to the trio of other volunteers behind him. All carried bows. All had been practicing, just as he'd been. He swept a gaze along their faces, and saw that same steely, fire-forged look. Men baptized in blood and fire all. Men he could trust to act, in other words. "We're headin' up. Have yer arrows nocked an' ready." His voice hardened as they started moving, freezing them at once. "Stay behind me, ye ken? F'they spot us 'fore we can get arrayed an' loose, I can shield yeh. Can't do that if yeh go rushin' ahead, can I?"

A chorus of mumbled "no, sirs" and "guess nots" met him, and Kasoria nodded sharply. He turned back to Jessup, the features of the man's face starting to blur in the dying sunlight.

"They come down an' dun' explode, have men ready an' waitin' t'finish 'em close."

Jessup smiled crookedly. A genial mirror of his own lopsided smile as he patted the pike on his shoulder. "But not too close, eh?"

"Smart man."

They'd all learned. They'd all come farther than when they begun, become more than they were when they arrived. Even Kasoria. Especially him. He forced the thought and the slumbering sensation in his bones away. He focused on his hands, and what they carried. On his eyes, and what they would measure. He rolled his shoulders as they started to see the pitiful last rays of light shining at the top of the stairs... through the open door. He held up a hand, and the men behind him stopped. All of them drew arrows and nocked them without an order being given. Kasoria paused longer... watching... waiting-

A bulbous shadow floated over the stone platform at the peak of the tower. A moment later, another followed. Jessup had been right.

Kasoria closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply. As went that air, so did his thoughts. Deep into himself, into the well of power he knew his Spark to be... and when he called upon it, there was almost a growl of anger. He shushed it, willing to to come into being. Shivering under his skin and dancing through the coiling black chains on his arms. He breathed out, and the air around him crackled with the ether he imbued it with. He could feel the field of space flipping, turning to his command, allowing naught but him to control magic within that space. Not much good against the monsters above them, with their very corporeal, very mundane, utterly hideous belching flames... but it would make the Shield he might have to cast come all the faster.

One volley. Maybe two.

"Make them count," he said aloud, and moved swiftly out from the torch-lit staircase into the darkening night-

-raising his bow and drawing it in the same fluid motion, smooth and focused to the point even the redhead would give a grudging nod of approval. Around him he heard scuffing feet on dusty stone, getting into position around him, doing the same-

-all of them picking their targets, one of the two bloated, bulbous abominations above them. Looking like living orbs of rock, fiery fissures running through their "skin", flaming peaks atop their full-body-skulls, vestigial hands poking out from their sides-

Kasoria had seen them enough. They all had. And they were no longer afraid.

There were far worse things to fear, than these fucking pests.

"Loose!"

[Mathias Blackwood]

3 Ymiden 720 | Mathias Blackwood | Storm's Edge

Two Firespitters? Mathias could handle that. He'd been on the training field when the word went out about the monsters coming over the walls again. By this point the things were little more than pests. It almost felt akin to having to manage rats in the sewers of Rharne again. So he grabbed his bow and went to his shared room to get his arrows. Mathias had become a little picky during his tenure at Storm's Edge. He didn't know the finer points of making arrows but there were plenty around the place who did. They did most of the fletching for Mathias and all he did was sharpen the wooden end of the arrow into a point. His request was specifically not to use stones or metal for arrowheads... he had his own plans.

Mathias didn't get far out of his room before Kasoria and a contingent of archers came whipping around the corner. They seemed to be heading off to fight exactly what Mathias was so he fell in behind them. Kasoria's command was impressive and many of the archers didn't have enough wit about them to think of anything else, but Mathias didn't have any intention of being anywhere near the beasts when they died. He made his way up to the ramparts on the opposite wall. He had a bow. Why get close at all?

The first volley of arrows flew and the last two Firespitters were struck in dozens of places. Some arrows bounced off, some struck true, but the creatures didn't die... not yet. They came lower to the ground, preparing to do that which they'd been named for while Mathias comfortably took aim from the ramparts. Stupid hot rocks. "Karim! Collect the parts!" Mathias shouted. It would be useful both for the researchers and for the two mages. Mathias was going to answer the question of exactly what rocks these beasts were made out of... if he could. He nocked another arrow and fired it lazily into the back of one of two the Firespitters nearing Karim and his archers. The arrow bounced off the creature and Mathias groaned. He nocked another and drew back further this time. Then he loosed it as well.

[Kasoria]

Kasoria trusted his training, and the things he'd survived that season. When first they'd fought these floating balls of malevolent fire, they'd seemed indomitable. Their skin was tough, their fiery breath was deadly and worse, beyond their flight, they were not entirely stupid. They were able to pick apart the strongest or most skilled of a group, target them, break down morale through their screaming immolation. Many a squad had broken facing them.

But that was before. This was now.

Both monsters roared as the air was suddenly crisscrossed with arrows. Kasoria's quartet firing from below and close, Mathias and his squad from the other side of the yard. The skittering, jabbering humans weren't afraid of them anymore, or had mastered their fear. Before the full shock of their assault had been absorbed, they were already notching fresh arrows onto their strings. They seemed to split their attention, one heading for Mathias' on the wall, the other looking down and opening his mouth-

"Thank yeh kindly."

-into the perfect target.

TWANG

Twenty yards, clear target, and this was not his first culling. The arrow flew straight up and into the creature's maw, just as Kasoria could see the growing flames massing at the back of its throat. There was a hideous crashing, crunching sound, like a crossbow bolt smacking into fresh mortar. The Firespitter reared back and a moment later two more arrows smacked into it, piercing the gaps in its rocky hide, the men around Kasoria following his lead. The beast thrashed in midair and made to flee, turning away from the tower, a floating pincushion-

No you fucking well don't-!

Kasoria notched another arrow. He raised, drew, aimed... but didn't fire. Instead he smiled... and the air around the Firespitter turned to churning lead around it.

Ether pulsed and surged through Kasoria's arms, making the black chain mutations etched into his skin dance and shine. Shimmering, lashings ropes of the stuff arced through the air as the monster was held into place, Shackles of Abrogation stopping it from fleeing-

TWANG

-as another cluster of arrows smacked into it, drawing burning blood this time, and Kasoria fired-

"Shite..."

-barely striking his target. He didn't need to wave his hands about to cast his Abrogation now: just think of what he wanted to cast, and where, and it just... happened. But he was still recovering from his initiation, and without the rough guidance of a limb to channel the ether, the effort smacked him in the stomach like a mailed fist. He staggered back as the Firespitter keened again, scream higher, agonized, dying. An arrow had burst its eye and blood was pattering down, smoking on the stones. Kasoria went down to one knee and ground his teeth. He reached back... grabbed... nocked... drew-

"It's coming down!"

He looked up to see the Firespitter start to corkscrew its way down to the top of the tower, and spared a look in Mathias' direction. He hoped the mage was doing better, and faster, because it was about to get a little hot on his end...

[Mathias Blackwood]

3 Ymiden 720 | Mathias Blackwood | Storm's Edge

Well at least they'd succeeded in splitting the monsters up. Strategically it was a good decision. It made a lot of sense. Mathias and Kasoria were two capable men so it made sense that each of them should have to fight one of these beasts. Unfortunately that had not been Mathias's intention when he started shooting arrows. Maybe the other archers on the ramparts who joined him had meant to do that, but Mathias was just trying to take cheap shots at an unaware beast. Apparently that was not going to be the way this fight went down. Then again, the Firespitter wasn't having such a good time. While Kasoria dealt with his monster, the other floating ball of doom with cute little hands came for Mathias and the archers on the ramparts.

They were pests but they were still dangerous. A fact proven when the beast began spewing a stream of fire towards the ground before turning it's head up towards the ramparts. All the archers either ducked for cover or suffered uncomfortable burns. Mathias heard at least one man screaming and running around on fire from the floor which he had dropped to. Clever. They couldn't shoot it in the mouth if they didn't have a shot at its mouth before the fire started spewing. It's skin seemed effective enough to handle most of the arrows but ever now and then one of them broke through. Mathias did his best to make sure it was his arrow.

Like Kasoria, Mathias had been able to use his magic more openly in Storm's Edge. He'd found more uses for it at Storm's edge in a season than he had in Rharne proper for arcs. Magic was like a muscle and Vega had taught Mathias plenty about building muscle. The more you practice, the stronger you get. His second mutation had been more subtle than the first. He almost didn't realize it until he was messing around in the forge one trial and created a sword that burned like a stick. It broke like a stick too. Wood. His spark liked wood. So he used wooden arrows with tips he sharped with a knife. As his fingers nocked the arrow on the bowstring his ether reached out into the soft wooden arrow and bolstered it. It wasn't quite steel but it was certainly harder than stone. He drew back to his chin and loosed the arrow into the beast's head as it began to ascend the rampart wall.

The arrow dug through the stone and the beast wailed but Mathias just knocked and bolstered another arrow. Now it was facing him. Mathias put an arrow through it's eye. He was aiming between the two eyes but was glad to have struck it where he did. The beast flailed and began falling down the wall. When it hit the ground at the bottom, well... it did what they always do when they die.

[Kasoria]

"There she blows!"

"Eyes front, fer fuck's sake!"

The flare from the bottom of the wall was impossible to miss, but Kasoria wasn't about to take his eyes off their problem. Mathias and his group had dealt with their problem; theirs was still very much alive. The Firespitter came tumbling down from the sky, stubby arms flailing, spewing steaming red blood-fire from its mouth as it went. The archers leaped back as it slammed onto the stone roof of the tower, hard enough to send cracks through it. It thrashed. It whined. Pierced and shot through and mutilated, it was glowing hotter, brighter-

"Get behind me NOW!"

He's casting the spell before the words have even left his mouth. The trio of volunteers don't question, don't hesitate. They know as well as he does what this frenzy means from a Firespitter. They scramble ad duck behind Kasoria just as a fountain of ether explodes from him, before flattening out in front of him as if there's an invisible wall it smacked into and is spreading across. Only this is the wall, a Shield long and broad enough to hold back the flaming wreckage after the Firespitter...

... any moment now...

"... er... sir?"

Kasoria didn't correct the man. He was too busy frowning through the shimmering white-blue Shield at the Firespitter that was... definitely not exploding. Its thrashing had grown weaker, light in its maw dulling with every passing trill. The flaming crown it wore was likewise dimming down to a candle's worth of flame. Curious, Kasoria stepped forward, almost touching the Shield, and studied the creature. One remaining eye was glaring balefully at him. Hating and hating with its last moments. Refusing to let pain and panic take over completely... but all that hate could not save it. As Kasoria watched, the Firespitter succumbed. Not the quick and spectacular death of an explosion, but the slow agony of bleeding out, or the closest its kind could come to.

"It's dead?"

There was enough uncertainty in the voice for that to be a question, and Kasoria didn't have an answer. He suspected trickery, even from these base creatures... but he couldn't deny what his eyes were seeing. The flames and smoke that defined the Firespitters had fled entirely from it. It looked more like a lump of charcoal or volcanic rock, once scorching and roiling with thermal energy, now just a dead, cold lump. Slowly, cautiously, he lowered the Shield. Then he stepped over... and nudged the thing with his bow. It rocked a little. Made a scraping noise.

"... aye, think so-"

HSSSSS

TWANG

Steam blew shrilly from one of its fissures and a moment later an arrow was trembling in the dead thing's face, where its nose should be. Kasoria rounded on the sweating archer. The boy squirmed and looked away. "Um... well, I... I mean, it could have been-"

"Daft sod. Geddown there an' grab us some rope. They're wantin' t'cut these things up, see what makes 'em work."

"Who?"

Kasoria spat, and grunted as his gobbet hissed and sizzled on the dead lump. "Prob'lee the red'ead an' that doctor. One wiv' the white hair. Either way, ain't fer youse t'reason why. Jus' geddit." The volunteer scuttled off and Kasoria raised an arm to Mathias across the way. Once he got one in reply, he lowered it and allowed himself the luxury of sitting down. He sighed, breathing the excitement from his lungs... and felt the newborn Spark of Transmutation, slumbering beneath his strutting Abrogation.

Soon, he whispered mentally. Soon.

[Mathias Blackwood]

3 Ymiden 720 | Mathias Blackwood | Storm's Edge

With his firespitter dead, Mathias made his way down the ramparts quickly to collect the pieces of it. He hadn't taken notice of the fact Kasoria's wasn't dealt with due to a mix of arrogance and pride in his own success. The little round devils always blew up after they died which made it difficult to really bring a full one in for the smart people to examine. Mathias had once thought it would be good to capture one but he didn't even have the slightest idea how they would go about it. Could they be knocked out? Could they be put to sleep magically? Mathias had neither the skill nor patience to test it and so he'd always defaulted to destroying them.

But like a child who broke a vase, Mathias now walked around the battlefield collecting all the pieces so he could try to put the beast back together. The problem became clear immediately, he had nothing to hold the pieces. So Mathias disappeared into a hallway for about a bit and when he reemerged, Kasoria had already killed his beast as well. Mathias, now gripping a large sack in his left hand, gave Kasoria a thumbs up before beginning to pick up the pieces of the firespitter. It wasn't impossible to tell the difference between firespitter parts and normal rocks but it was a little more complicated than Mathias expected it to be. At first he had judged by the presence of firespitter blood. If there was hot blood on it, it had to be part of the firespitter.

That notion was dispelled quickly when Mathias realized that the firespitter blood had spread over a whole swath of the floor and tainted all the rocks. He had to be more precise about it and precision (apart from with a bow) was not exactly Mathias's strong suit. He didn't play clean up often. Then again he supposed it wasn't all that different than sweeping around the forge, only now he was picking up chunks of dead flameborn instead of sweeping dust... okay so it was very different. All the same, Mathias had a sack full of Firespitter pieces within a few bits and he looked to see what Kasoria was up to.

Kas had handled himself well. It wasn't that Mathias expected the man to be a slouch, but ever since the initiation Kasoria had seemed... different. Of course he seemed different to Mathias. The relationship between the two of them would never be the same. Mathias could feel it- the connection. Kasoria might have written it off as part of the new magic resting inside him but Mathias knew the nature of the bond. They could serve each other well in combat now. They could share their ether to do marvelous things... first there was one transmuter in Storm's Edge...

Now there were two.

Mathias approached the man he still knew as Karim. Kasoria had taken a seat to relax but Mathias was nothing if not a bother to Kasoria. "You seem like you've recovered well. Find me a little later and I can start showing you some of the magic. Bring your sword and any other trinkets made of interesting materials and I'll bring some of the things I worked with when I was first initiated. I have to drop these off with Gennadiya." Mathias said as he hoisted the bag of Flamespitter parts over his shoulder. He gave Kasoria a nod and if nothing more was said, he went off to see Gennadiya.

[Doran]

Mathias:

Knowledge:
Ranged (Short Bow) x 3
Tactics x 3
Transmutation - Expert Mutation
Transmutation - Bolstering wood is easier

Loot: A lot of pieces for Mathias to bring in for research.
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 10
Magic XP: Yes, for Transmutation.
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

Kasoria:

Knowledge:
Ranged: Short Bow x3
Tactics x1
Leadership x2
Abrogation x2

Loot: 1 damaged but intact corpse to bring in for research .
Wealth: -
Injuries: -
Renown: 10
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 15

- - -

Comments: I like how you described how the current situation has affected the people of Rharne and how the lesson that they learned – that the creatures can bleed and die – changed them, Kasoria – and that you incorporated the Abrogation spark’s reaction to the new spark.

That was fascinating to read.

I also found it interesting that the Firespitters have become little more than pests for Mathias. After a while, you probably get used to fighting such creatures though.

Both of you wrote the combat part of the thread well.

I wonder what Mathias will teach Kasoria. I already look forward to reading about that!

Enjoy your rewards!