awaiting them at journey’s end, eternal mourning for this land
There is a deep ache in Lucius’ heart as the story unfolds itself in his mind’s eye, a tale of loss and betrayal and resentment. A tragedy.
The story bleeds away, then, and he finds himself standing at the base of yet another great tree, this time surrounded by faces old and new. The tale isn’t done, it seems, as their final enemies rise up before them. He has no shock nor indignation for the monster’s words — merely a promise, a plea. St. Elimine protect us.
Glancing back at his familiar allies — Khalkós, readied for combat, and Linhardt, already moving to help one of the others — Lucius moves as well. Many of the others look much the worse for wear, and he approaches one of them, the silver-haired young woman who had called out to them earlier. As exhausted as she looks, her priority is still on the others around her.
Just as you care for others, please, allow me to help you in turn. The prayer he utters weaves into a soothing blessing, briefly glowing around the other’s form before dissipating, taking the majority of her injuries with it.
lucius casts recover (9): +4HP
micaiah hp: 9.5/10
There is little time to offer words of encouragement, though, before another student cries out, and he turns, heart seizing as he watches her — too far away for him to help at the moment — get swept back by the enemy’s blade. He looks around, at all those already injured around him. Too many of them. If they can’t hold off the enemies before they unleash a devastating strike…
He pushes himself forward, feeling his earlier wound throb again. Even if your faith should ever become boundless, your energy will not. Not even light magic can be used endlessly. Don’t be too foolhardy. Words from faraway past ring clearly in his mind, but another glance at the enemies makes his choice clear, and he approaches another injured student.
For the sake of protecting those important to him, he would play the fool.
A hand reaches out, gentle magic playing at its tips, but he can already tell it lacks the potency of his previous attempt. Any little bit that could keep them alive… He focuses harder, even as his next breath comes in a painful gasp from the strain.
lucius activates selflessness! +2HP to leif at the cost of -1HP from lucius
leif hp: 7.5/10
lucius hp: 7/10
It is all he can manage before the magic fully blinks out, but Lucius still smiles at the student, placing his hand briefly on the other’s shoulder. “It’s not… not much… please, be careful,” he says, gradually catching his breath.
The fight has just begun, certainly, and so many of them are tired, but the enemies haven’t overwhelmed them yet. Khalkós hovers close, muttering something about not daring to go too far in case Mr. Dodgeless ends up getting slammed around too hard, and a warm feeling blooms within him, even through the exhaustion. Keep them safe, all of them, he repeats the prayer silently, and hopes it will not go unanswered.
@lionheartedsunflower or @diadic or @avemaera !
In through the window and out of a dream, it’s all so… fantastical. And just as Leif realizes what game he’s been roped into underneath Dhanvi’s urging, granting validation for Arvis’s apprehensions, the very woman any ire or further questioning could have been placed unto is no longer with them, replaced by the faces of eight others and some spirits as well.
( Leif has the feeling that even if they confronted Dhanvi with this new knowledge, she would not have said anything more. Tight-lipped to the very end. )
Kiragi’s surprise at their existences being more than just ink scrawled onto parchment makes Leif realize that the archer too was no mere work of fiction, and he takes in the sight of everyone else gathered here too, wondering if he had misheard what one of them had called the other or perhaps it was just some far-fetched coincidence—
It is not. That is Lachesis. That is the woman who had escorted Leif from a burning palace and into an inky darkness, the woman Leif had promised his lover he would find one day again, the woman who had left them all for an impossible hunt across a deadly desert…
She looks just the same as the day she had saved him… Despite all these years, despite the great unlikelihood, despite everything… Here she was before he even set out to find her.
It all really was so fantastical… Leif has a hard time believing it’s still no fabrication.
But Leif’s attention is diverted away from her, from one blond to another. This one reaches for him, a soft warmth and glow exchanged from one body to another, as gentle words fight against some kind of pain that seems to ripple through the man’s voice.
In exchange, Leif feels his wounds heal faster.
“ No, it’s plenty, ” Leif tells him in advance in lieu of a proper thanks. The thought to do so slips his mind, but he does tell him, “ You’ve given me the strength to fight. If you can, fall back! ”
And despite being explicitly told to be careful, Leif does not do that. No, he takes his renewed vitality and rides it as a surge of momentum, brandishing his mother’s blade and charging forward to their wounded foe.
That thing’s almost dead, I know it!!!
The princeling leaps ups into the air into a fine arc, like that of a mighty pegasus’s first flight, before he brings his sword down and plummets like a sinking ship.
Leif attacks The Executioner with the Light Brand at melee range. Grounder activates! 1d20 roll: 14. Hit! (-2.5HP) The Executioner’s HP: 0/14.
What strikes The Executioner is not the blade of the Light Brand but instead the hilt, aimed precisely to knock the enemy down and out but not extinguish it completely. Perhaps it was useless to show mercy, but Leif’s mercy always comes at a price.
If they are all to make it out alive, out of this strange storybook and web of manipulation, Leif needed to get any advantage he could get, and he thought he saw something he recognized…
The Executioner has been captured! Leif steals the Speed Ring.
Rifling through his prey’s collapsed form as Leif binds it down, he manages to locate the band of silver melded around an orange sapphire he had thought he had caught a glimpse of, shimmering in the light: a speed ring, a treasure to boost one’s agility beyond their natural capabilities.
He slips it on over his finger, over top of the glove Morgan had handed him, and lets its magic course through him. One enemy down, three more to go…!! // @lionheartedsunflower @amnesiac-pawn or @avemaera
