ok so in the process of updating and pinning the Character Post(tm) i realized theres like. a billion old art i never posted. doing that
we got;
Soulbeast merging and pets lore (from an au where zori isnt the commander but other than the scar placement and the fact that commander zori has More pets than this the lore still stands)
Lasca ref I couldn't fit in the Character Post bc of the image limit
Zori in tha priory
Character expression practice sheet where you can watch in real time as i figure out how in heck to even draw seremnis (the solution is :3)
Seremnis as other things (minecraft origins furry and Dragon(tm))
Zori at her wedding not understanding how the boquet throwing thing is supposed to work and trying to support albas and traheane
tha siblingses (first art of lovi and varza, not 100% accurate to current designs for 'em anymore (mostly lovi's armor and weapons are off) but like. pretty close)
Enkkioh has decided that her job as wayfinder is to smack isgarren whenever he's being needlessly crass/tunnel visioned/vague for no reason. She and Lovi worked together on a hardlight invention that specifically just lets Enkkioh bonk people over the head with a paper tube. No matter how tall or floating they are. In SotO Enkkioh was using a real paper tube and just jumping real high. Whenever Isgarren complains about it, Enkkioh reminds him that this is her Job. He's the one who let her be Wayfinder. Suffer or improve as a person, old man.
Enkkioh has also started using this new technology on anyone else who starts to sound too much like Isgarren. (.....mostly Seremnis in VoE tbh,,)
Also sidefact, one of Enkkioh's first combat oriented inventions is a sort of momentum controller, that allows her to have effectively more or less mass at will, which lets her jump high and hit hard despite being. Y'know. Nearly min-size asura. (Which is how I flavor a lot of her warrior skills working.) She doesn't actually have much active control over magic- most of her abilities, beyond the spellbreaker magic she's managed to learn, works by funneling ambient magic through her magitech
Enkkioh had interacted with Seremnis quite a bit before either of them ever got the Commander title (Seremnis in PoF, Enkkioh post icebrood saga), so they already pretty much know each other, but. Enkkioh had only ever really interacted with Zori when they were both Pretty Significantly Otherwise Occupied (mid icebrood saga and EoD). Zori insisted on coming with to Janthir when she heard about it, though (because hey! Cool new place to explore, people to interact with! Surely nothing from my culture's past will inextricably come back to haunt me here ( : ), and Enkkioh, being the Wayfinder, also went. It was uh. Really kind of a microcosm of someone who'd only heard of the Pact Commander through legends Actually Meeting Zori. Especially while Zori was having a less than stellar time. Honestly between that and Knowing Seremnis Enkkioh is uh. A little spooked about what exactly her future role as commander holds for Her Personally, but. So far she's doing. Relatively fine and emotionally stable?? Although the bar. the bar is. much lower than she thought it was. uh. it's probably fine,,,,
Speaking of janthir wilds though- that's the expansion where several people Zori has been avoiding (in her mind for their own safety) have decided they are Not in fact going to leave her alone anymore actually. Including Her Warband, Her Sire, Her Aunt, Her Dame (yea i know strea died don't even worry about that i have Fic Plans). She also. Has no clue how to interact with Malice. Like that's. Her imperator?? but she has no idea how much that. like. matters at this point, she really doesn't feel like she's part of the legions anymore,,, but also it fields weird and wrong to act like they're on equal footing?? she has no idea where she stands here and it Bugs her bc she Used to just. Know. She has no clue where she stands with any of these people now,,,
Ok i missed actual valentines bc i. slept through it. and am feeling good enough to actually go to work today so here's some sparknotes
I still find it incredibly funny that the expansion with fandom-decided 'most horny for the commander' characters is where I've decided Enkkioh is leading. My Most Aroace Character of all time. She's making normal rational decisions throughout SotO about the voice in her head. Meanwhile if Seremnis had been the wayfinder Peitha would have OHKO'd her instantaneously,
Seremnis' other weaknesses have historically included; centaurs, engineers (which could mean nothing), pirates (which could mean nothing), people who can pick her up like she weighs about as much as a grape (this is like half of tyria), people willing to treat her with basic care and decency (rem the bar is under the floorboards)
...granted if your personality is Rancid that does lose you all points and she does have like. Some other standards. But just not. a lot of them,
Zori generally smells like burnt or wet fur, but on occasion will smell like nice flowery soap bc someone (her wife) has dragged her into taking a bath. It should be noted that Zori does in fact love baths (warm water, the scent of flowers, fingers running through her fur). It's that she just also really likes being picked up and carried,,
Don’t give me too much credit for the background, I basically just drew over a screenshot I took in arborstone but like. It looks pretty and I’m proud of it so here she is! Zori! The first commander!
In deciding how the story goes between the three commanders (zori, seremnis and now enkkioh as of eod i decided) I thought it’d be neat to give Zori more of a reason to back off as commander for a bit, and.
Well now I’m on a page for traumatic brain injury.
So.
Count Zori in for never ever getting anywhere near an airship ever again.
...Might write some short things for this era later on, we’ll see. Sure is turning around in my brain with ever-increasing speeds
also referencey art under readmore bc yes
love that the medium armor canthan mask basically already has a cat face on it
are Arkthur and Enkkioh friends or are they in a buisness relationship in the dictator world. Also is there a possiblity that Arkthur may befriend Enkkioh in the main timeline
Alright so we doin' this- y'know what. People have questions about Arkthur specifically, they ask you, but to give absolutely no context whatsoever... given the absolute density of shenanigans that Arkthur's cannon life consists of, I think it seems fitting that the arkthur of dictator enkkioh timeline gives her some tragic 'best friend death' backstory material that drives her to become a dictator, and therefore immediately trust when this clearly-alternate-universe-as-far-as-she-knows-version of Arkther tells her to try conquering other worlds, and then proceed to immediately get shot in the face by cannon Enkkioh.
As far as... any other version of enkkioh, though, she's just vibing in the vigil, creating new inventions to help fight dragon minions and beating said minions up herself. If you're game with that, she's game to be friends with you. Just be ready for the arm-wrestling.
Second time writing from one of several AU’s of my commanders! This one is... actually this one isn’t even really an AU, it’s. Actually just the cannon for someone else’s commanders, and we decided it’d be fun to put Seremnis in there. This fic is actually about the first time she more officially meets the rest of this universe’s Dragon’s Watch! It’s... it’s an eventful meeting. A whole big lot of lws4 spoilers inbound, as well as a... just a whole lot of blood and gore and Bad Dead Things Sounds. Not sure if it’s enough to count as the... actual body horror I was going for, but. Hey, these things never go as planned anyways, so... have fun! (Also blame @actually-an-octopus for... Well, this au specifically, but also all the other ones)
"The rumors of my... immortality, are drastically... understated..."
She watched, comfortably perched in a high, shadowed corner of the room. It was far from the first time she'd been there, listening in on the lich's various conversations- most of them overly long, drawn out monologues. Thorns, he could make a monologue out of anything. She'd expected this time to be different, considering how much planning he'd apparently done, but... there he was, still droning on, and on…
She looked to the white-furred charr he was trying to intimidate, almost completely ignoring the norn by her side... quite frankly, she wasn't surprised that the lich hadn't noticed her hiding spot. He had quite the tendency for tunnel vision, and it was especially apparent now- all the sylvari was surprised about was that the Vigil commander hadn't come with, though she did spot his deadeye warband member. She'd long-since stopped flinching at the crackling of the lich's bones, the way tar and dried skin squelched as he righted himself... she had spent far too much time in this palace. But, now that her commander was here, and she finally had a reason to…
She was sure there'd be backup. The commander of whispers wouldn't come without a plan for backup- but while they were waiting for backup to arrive…
The small sylvari dropped, soundlessly, to the floor, the light of various sigils on the floor and up her arms beginning to glow a harsh white. She felt power flowing into her form, bark snapping and beginning to drip sap that hit the floor with a dull hiss, and then- it burst, a spray of golden sap lost in the abrupt swirl of green and black fog, raw necromantic power just begging to be used- and, eyes on the opposing lich, she'd simply... let it. The floor turned to swiss as a hoard of unstable, screeching minions crawled out of it from some dark corner of the mists, flinging themselves at Joko in a bloody mass and quite literally exploding as he tried to gain control over them- and, well, of course, she'd take the opportunity to siphon what power she could. She simply... relished in it for a few moments, savoring the *rush* that a mild case of possession could give someone.
"You- heathen!" Joko shouted, flinging the last of the minions across the room as it spattered against the wall in a sickening crunch, blood coating the gilded walls in a fine mist as it, too, exploded. "You'd betray your benefactor in his moment of triumph?"
She let out a dark laugh, voice echoing and distorted as her ill-gotten form faded- and she'd let herself fall directly into her shade, dark shadows swallowing her form as she concentrated the power she'd stolen into volatile form. Her vision quickly went dark, excepting a few lights in the room- larger, smaller blue, dark orange, bright orange... sick, twisting, tumbling green and black- she'd let the energy loose towards that one, watching a portion of it dissipate into the air, scattered.
"...-ards! Fix this!"
Hm... more of them. Extensions of that sickly life force- oh so familiar. She heard the muffled sounds of notched arrows, grinning in a way only shades could. She'd simply... tilt her head to the side, feeling the small breeze of projectiles whizzing past- saw the new life force begin to drain out of them in thick globs, and pulling it to herself en masse with a mere twitch of a semi-physical finger.
It was muffled enough in her shade to ignore it as she continued her attack, but he was still talking. On fire as he might be, as much life force as she stole and ripped away, he still-
"Enough!"
The small sylvari stumbled back a step as she returned to her physical form, staff gripped in both hands. He hadn't really done that himself- she'd simply run out of excess life force- but she was content to let him think it was.
"You are no commander, no dragon-killer," the lich snarled, a chill running up her spine as the entire space cooled considerably. Sensible alternative to ice magic, in a desert. "And yet you think you have the ability to dethrone the magnificent lich-king?!"
She paused, straightening as if she had to take a moment to consider- only for him to interrupt again, circling her.
"I am immortal! You should know better, I've been teaching you for months! All that training to take the glorious position of my general, and this is-"
"Do you ever shut up?!" Seremnis snapped- watching with immense satisfaction as surprise, then outright rage showed itself upon the lich's face.
"You have no idea how much I've looked forward to this- just listening to you is nauseating, not to mention the actual smell," she continued- taking casual stock of the awakened beginning to fill the rafters.
"You..." the malice in the one word filled the room. "You were made to serve-"
"Do you really love your own voice that much?" She rolled past a barrage of arrows, waving her staff across the floor and listening to the sounds of archers scrambling over themselves to flee. "I'd bet if you ever got your own speeches recorded, you'd do nothing but listen to them as your whole kingdom fell around you."
"And you don't have a loyal bone in your body."
"Sylvari don't have bones."
"Then what-"
"Teeth aren't bones."
"Fine, not a loyal leaf. You think anyone in your precious Tyria will let you back in? You've sold your soul to the highest bidder twice."
Seremnis barked out a laugh, watching the lich step towards her, only to be surrounded in a pen of poison, chill, and a flurry of small, invisible cuts.
"You really think I was ever on your side? I asked for control of your soldiers and didn't bat an eye when I took more! You really never caught on until now?" She tilted her head, tutting. "I expected better from you."
"Oh, you want 'better'?"
Okay- okay, that had maybe been pushing it a little, but he kept leaving himself so wide open for-
Seremnis danced back as a near-hoard of awakened began piling into the room, the dark shape of a scythe extending from her staff as she placed mark upon mark in the room, tripping and stunning them en masse, barely flinching as attacks began landing; claws, dripping tar, tearing through soft bark, dark sludge mixing with bright sap.
"If you really fancy yourself a good enough lich to replace me, why not prove it?"
The lich's voice rang out clear over the sea of snarls, and she... considered it. Prove it, hm?
She stood, ignoring the teeth currently digging into arm- focusing, instead, on channeling her own necromantic power through the awakened around her- to force them to stop, force them to turn on their master- and, slowly... she felt the teeth in her arm remove themselves, watched as heads in the awakened crowd her around her slowly, jerkily...
With the sound of bone in friction with bone, tar and organs crushed to compensate, they turned their heads towards Joko. And, sap dripping in a thick ooze down her back and arm, Seremnis allowed herself a sly grin. A 'better lich', hm? Oh, she'd wanted to try this for so long... It'd worked, always, when the lich wasn't paying attention- sending awakened off on long trips around Elona, by the caves under Istan, ignoring the ever-increasing number of Tyrian awakened who, mysteriously, never returned- but in front of him? Really, it could make a necromancer blush.
Unfortunately, Joko didn't seem to share the sentiment, and she felt the ground beneath her... shift- swirling into sand, pulling her just deep enough to bury her feet before surrounding her- digging into wounds, then further, into and down her throat- she felt the awakened return to shredding through what remained... Distantly, she heard the lich saying something along the lines of "Now, where were we?"
And she grinned, croaking out her last words- a sigil of healing glowing beneath the mass, the life force of every awakened around her abruptly portioned in order to extend her own life just a little longer.
"...The rumors of my immortality... are greatly..."
She only heard part of the enraged response of "NO!" before shadows crawled up her arm- once again enveloping her as she stood- once again pulling on the life force of the awakened as they stumbled and fell, feeling the satisfaction of rejuvenation.
Her voice, once again twisted and warped, finished her earlier statement as she concentrated her stolen power to once again unleash.
"...understated."
...What? He'd probably plagiarized it from somewhere, too.
...
"You... you were a far better fight than I thought you'd be," Joko drawled.
She could almost see his smug face- but only almost, given that her own face was currently pinned to the ground by a smelly, smelly lich foot. The dirt irritated the several lacerations on her face, even as that somewhat paled in comparison to the canid's claws digging into her side to keep her down- and... thhorns, she could feel them moving, pressing into raw 'muscle', but... somehow, all she could think about was how absolutely terrible a lich's feet smelled. Experiencing death so often gave one a strange perspective on things, she supposed.
"I suppose I did train you-"
"You've ignored me for the past five months."
She flinched as he dug the bottom of his staff into her shoulder, twisting into soft bark.
"Silence! You learned by my mere presence. An unfortunate side effect of being as great as I am."
She suppressed the urge to groan. He was still talking. But... in keeping his anger focused, in drawing out the fight as long as she could... she had successfully kept his focus off her commander. In that, at least, she'd won.
"Really, I should have expected such treachery from such a morally twisted thing like you, commander," he continued- almost as an afterthought.
Oh... ohh, she was in- so much pain, but she... still couldn't stop the little, childish giggle that escaped her. "Y... you've never given credit to the right person in your llife, have you?"
She let a moment pass, let the question hover.
"...You're really going to tell me this... disaster was your idea?" Joko muttered.
Seremnis smiled, innocence playing on a face it didn't belong to.
"All she asked me to do was watch Aurene."
A beat of silence, and then...
The window shattered.
...
...She didn't... have the energy left, to fall back into shade. To heal herself. Joko had started starving her of it midway through the fight- with how easy it was to draw out, it wasn't hard for her to believe that the lich had intended to make her suffer. But now, with the awakened, evidently, no longer a moral option...
...But Symph was here. She'd be okay. Her commander was…
A thought rather immediately backed by fact as she felt a purer healing magic flowing through her form- taking a deep breath, despite the pain it caused. She listened to the somewhat muffled conversation around her, felt the druid's old fern hound lightly nose her face, lamenting momentarily that she hadn't brought any treats for him.
It was... it was over. The awakened were free. It was over...
--
...She stood, leaning against a decorative pillar in one of the more... shaded areas of the fortress of Jahai. She was doing her best to ignore the sidelong glances every side of the debate was giving her- she was used to it, she told herself. She wasn't a new little Whispers recruit. She'd given just about every side a reason to be suspicious- betrayed the pact, then betrayed Joko... even before she'd done any substantial work, she'd heard the angry mutterings of anyone who knew her to be a necromancer.
...But she was used to that.
She took a long breath, wincing at the pain that still lingered from the rather deep wound in her side. It'd almost made her miss this thing- and even then, she'd had to make the trip with an escort. It would be worth it, though, as soon as everyone was here.
She'd narrow her eyes as the debate between the factions droned on, despite Symph's best attempts to placate them. Seremnis understood the importance of it, of course, but... she didn't exactly envy the position.
"...Now we can finally begin the main event."
Seremnis looked up- catching sight of the increase in Mordant Crescent around the room, saw their drawn weapons. She narrowed her eyes, starting to pull necromantic power around herself, listening... admittedly, only a little closer, as the Archon continued his rant. Injured or not, if anything happened to Symph now...
"Awakened, sunspears- you're all pathetic. And now? You're-"
And the crack of a shotgun resounded through the rotunda, the Archon stumbling forwards- turning, in rage, to confront whoever had fired. Seremnis... let her magic fall away again, a small smile on her face. Yes, he was right. The main event was here.
The Archon only had time to spit a few more insults before Koss had him more... permanently silenced, even as many others in the room continued to look for the source of the gunfire.
And when they found it…
Another crowd of awakened followed Koss into the room- one in front decidedly Asuran, blowing a small trail of smoke away from a crystal-formed rifle, her wide, sharp-toothed grin seeming permanently affixed to her face as she surveyed the room. She was far from the only one there- Pact insignias, armor and weapons littered the new crowd of charr, asura, norn- even a few sylvari were scattered among the many humans in the awakened crowd.
Every one of them, Seremnis recognized. She knew most of their names- had them written on a long paper list of those the Pact had lost to Joko. If she hadn't snuck them out of the palace herself, before getting caught...
Well, they were simply unaccounted disappearances from the stealth-trained units Joko had given her command over. The great lich had no reason to suspect her replacing disappearances, after all.
Even if every one of them had disappeared around Istan.
Even if over half of them had been former pact members.
Even if he'd lost a quarter of his forces by the time the commanders launched their attack on the fortress.
What reason would he ever have to suspect a soft little lone sylvari, when he had plagues and dragon-killing commanders to deal with?
...What? She had always wanted to try double-crossing someone.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Original Character/Original Character, Zori Sunblade/Ev Frostner
Characters: Zori Sunblade, Seremnis, Ev Frostner, Enkkioh, Braham Eirsson, Taimi (Guild Wars), Kasmeer Meade, Ryland Steelcatcher, Spirit of Owl (Guild Wars), Owl (Guild Wars), Aurene (Guild Wars)
Additional Tags: icebrood saga spoilers, no like this entire thing takes place in the icebrood saga the entire thing is spoilers, Icebrood Saga: Power, Icebrood Saga: Champions, GW2 Path of Fire spoilers, GW2 Heart of Thorns spoilers, mostly vague ones for those two tho, now how do i put it... uh, disarming, Past Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Summary:
The Pact Commander and Ryland have some... differences of opinion, when it comes to being Champion.
These would be the blog's namesake commanders- Zori Sunblade (charr), Seremnis (sylvari), and Enkkioh (asura). Each weilds both the shown two-handed weapons- a longbow, staff, and rifle- as well as another set of two weapons, all with an axe as one of the two- hence the name.
I'll go ahead and put each of their introductions as individual posts, or this is gonna be way too long and way too rambley, but I'll find some tag to unite them all under for convenience sake.
