this all started when they went around checking if people were real or fake. the main clues as to who was real was whether they could speak or whether they are wearing a backpack. long story short, they were able to confirm sunguard was real after they talked to them, even though they never actually use their voice.
so after that small interaction of course i went crazy with it.
me and the other 3 sunguard fans are cheering rn
(we all need to get more insane about them right now)
"The Sunguard" joins the Tournament of Ages to host a variety of activities and goods throughout the week.
Be sure to check our schedule! Oathsworn will be gathered daily to offer various fun events such as games involving poison and enchantment roulettes and tests of strength as well as goods like bottled blessings and much more!
Please note: Activities listed for a certain day will only be for that day, so don't miss out! Check them out (HERE)
“Can anyone tell me the similarities between glass and the beginnings of a spell?”
No voices bore an answer. The silence in the courtyard broken only by the clamor of the city. Muffled shouts too far to make out, the clang of craftsmen at work. No answers though. The circle of shifted, wavered in discomfort, glances shared between neighbors. None of them bothering to meet the cold gaze of the magistrix in the middle of them. A woman’s voice finally called out,
“Enough force and they both will shatter.”
“Close enough. What’s your name?”
“Vyriali Cinderspear. House Cinderspear. Battlemage.”
“Ah, a Magister’s daughter. If you didn’t know that, I bet your father would be rather displeased. You have any further insight?”
“Spells are crafted, they are fragile. You can break them with so little if you know where to put pressure. Unless the spell is tempered, all you need is a nudge in any direction and it disrupts.”
The magistrix raised her chin, cobalt eyes focused on Vyri. Slender fingers clasped behind her back before she spoke again, “Good. Come by my office later, would you? There are some things we need to discuss. But before that, can anyone else tell me how to stop a spell?”
Once more the muffled sounds of Silvermoon filled the court. Vyri clenched her jaw before she opened her mouth to speak, but before the words were even on her tongue.
“You silence them. You bend the arcane in their bodies and wrap in around their throats. Or you starve them, siphon away any mana they attempt to turn against you.” The voice echoed from a far hall, each word followed by the sharp clatter of metal against stone. Nervous chattering erupted in hushed tones as attention wavered from the woman in the middle. Her sapphire eyes closed into narrow slits, brows bending in as one corner on her lip curled in a snarl. The circle parted, a wide opening as the white-haired man came close. Each step sang like the shaking of chains, each footfall was a metallic stomp. Red and gold encased his form that towered over most by a head.
“So, the Spellbreakers show once more. Lovely, so I assume you are her for --”
“For her.” The armored and robed man’s final bootfall brought him looming over the magistrix. A thumb hooked over his shoulder, leveled at Vyri. “Knows what she is doing. Don’t know why she even attends these, she’s proven.” A faint azure glow peered over his shoulder towards Vyri, “You want to be a spellbreaker, girl?”
The darkness broke, a faint green glow just barely visible as it spread over white. Vyri pushed herself up onto her elbows, the glow swiveling about. Silence. The light blinked out as the quiet was ruffled, a sigh so quiet it almost didn’t manage. She shifted, the shush of the sheets following as she tried to pull herself over the edge. Just the right twist made her bite down on a groan. Fingertips trailed over the bindings she felt over her ribs, over the uneven tightness of a not-so second skin. Bare toes pressed over the smoothness of earth and rock.
How long had she been doing this? Was this how it was always going to be? Traitor princes.. The world seemed to be gathering them. Arthas, Kael’Thas.. Who was going to be the next to throw their people out a window? A sharp hiss press from between her lips as she tried to stand. But she still did, the darkness hiding away the muscles of her jaw working to keep any more noise down. Her gaze just slipping over to the edge of the tent. Another light, a dim purple line. Each step grew the light, made it brighter until her eyes narrowed and she pushed open the tent.
“Cinderspear.. What are you doing up?” The voice familiar, one that had barked at her, called her out, snapped at her. Older, rugged and harsh, time worn from decades of doing what he did best. “Get back to bed, girl. Don’t be daft.”
“Captain Morrowmourn, Wh--”
“You don’t want to hear about this now.”
“I think I do, sir.” Vyri’s jaw set, squinting up at the captain. “What. happened?”
Morrowmourn’s gaze bore into her, harsh and hard. It lingered there, unmoving, as he chewed on nothingness. Until a grunt broke the silence, “Fine, kid, fine.” One of his gauntleted hands grazed over the short white stubble, “You’ve been… out a while. No idea what actually happened, probably some mechanical bullshit. Point is, we found you. A few others. None of you were in great shape.” Vyri stared up at him, her eyes darting over a stoic face. It was like trying to read stone.
“Captain… what else?” She stumbled forward, legs still not quite steady, but she kept herself up.
“The last one, Freeburst, passed. About a night ago.” His hand came down onto her shoulder, “Sorry, kid.” The smooth plate pressed on her shoulder as his hand closed, just enough to be there.
Vyri shook her head, but it didn’t hide how her brow drooped, it didn’t hide the way her ears fell. Fists balled up into the fabric of her pants, but she didn’t speak. Not for a while. When she finally opened her mouth to speak once more. She was cut off just like that evening.
“Nothing you could of done. No one could of seen it coming. You’re on leave, my orders. Go home, Vyri. Rest, recover, do whatever you have to, but nothing left here. We got this. So. Go. Home.” Morrowmourn’s hand double tapped her shoulder, thumb digging below her collar and fingers clamping down for just a moment. Then the captain turned away, those unchanged eyes glancing over his shoulder as he walked off. The clattering of heavy armor muffled as if it were coming through water. Vyri looked up then over the Eye.
Flurries and swirls of fresh snow cascaded from the trees above. The sounds of the warcamp ringing out and drowning the sounds of the forest. From the clatter of crashing trainees to the call of criers, shouting out wears and news. Vyri sat the the edge, the head of her spear lost in a sea of white. Soft creaks and protests came from the crate below her, but all these sounds never reached her mind. The spellbreaker’s eyes shifted about under closed lids as if reading something long forgotten.
Scenes from the past few months. The battle of the beard, her holding a choke point. Her company starting to falter, but the Sunguard helped her. The Siege of Sundial, the blood of so many over the stone roads leading to the point, not of the fresh from innocent veins. And once again, she threw herself into a choke point. She flung herself into danger. Blood ran down her face and three Kul’Tirans beared down on her, but the Knight-Commander, Corinth, Zana all came to her aid. Brawling during Mistlefoe and meeting Razail and Thordemar, laughing as she shoved snow down Narridel’s shirt, then winning the tournament.
The cacophony of to two different worlds collided back into her sense, a sharp blink that shook her from her daydream. Golden eyes looked around at the mask of her home, studying or searching, for a moment. The cold air bit all the way down her throat as she took in a deep breath and slowly brought herself back to her feet. Shouts of familiar people and friends came to her ears. The effort of the smiths and the people around her in a home that is no longer intimate.
It’s been too long.
Her feet carried her, sabatons clawing through the stark white sheet, towards the heart of the camp. Faces that were once unfamiliar smiling up at her as she passed. People that were once characters of a completely separate book now friends she saw daily, that she bled next to.
Enough of this. They fight with everything. They do what must be done. And you, what have you done? Tried to throw yourself away.
The war council’s tent came into view as she straightened herself up to her full height.
If you are to protect them, then do so as they do you.
“Archon, if I may.” Vyri spoke as she raised her chin. The talon tips of her gauntlets scraping along the chainmail of her palms.
You will not lose them, not again. They’ve done so much for you. Return the favor, kid. Or else, go home and cower.
“I formally request my own unit of Spellbreakers once more. Allow me to show our enemies that the only thing they hold against us is glass.”
Sometimes, the soldier could force fondness to the ways of which Autumnvale has attempted to adapt to her world.
The pheasant, however, is braised.
The texture too soft and tender; less meat and more sodden. Neither is much appreciation to be had for the tang of white wine in its juices; a waste of drink, if she were to be asked. With every bite of fare, the grains of mustard within sauce had burst against her teeth; annoying, distracting.
Underneath, the cook, Dawnspire native, had attempted to appeal to her tastes. With her knife lifting up the side of the poultry, she discovers a bed of wilted and blanched dark-greens intermixed with a ‘rustic’ chopping of mushrooms - foraged from the woods along the mountainside, she thinks she heard some sod say.
It is, unabashedly, a homage to the woman’s tastes and the culture of cuisine in the colder regions of Quel’Thalas. Unfortunately, it is equally clear that the elves who fed the mouths of soldiers and officials to pass through this feast hall, had never seen such fare in their lives.
If such a combination of foods were to be prepared proper, the bird would have come charred and speckled with the mustard, crushed. On the side, perhaps, the vegetable and fungi would come raw or in a cloudy soup. And the wine would be in goblet than simmered down in a pot.
There is something to be said about effort, such as Thanidiel has preached when it was in turn to say something gracious, or morale-raising. And food, is food, after all.
She isn’t sure how much she appreciates the way this meal parallels with times of old, still.
Another portion to be slid off the curve of her knife and popped into her mouth - just for the etiquette of it - and the plate is pushed off towards the table’s center. A slow shifting of her digits like the movement of a piano’s hammers, and the blade rotates to a rest along the inside of her palm.
The handle is levered forward.
“Elinden, how many?”
Her gaze raises from underbrow to regard the man addressed. He looks tired. She can see it in the weight pressed upon his eyelids, even with the hacked red mussing around his head.
Good, he should be.
“Sixteen from the Thirteenth Regiment. Seven from the Southeast, Hallowleaf, they said.”
“Leaders ‘mongst them?”
“A former Knight-Master, Kielen Duskshield. From your people, they answered to a Ciril Farlong.”
“Aye. Stabled? Watered? Fed?”
“All being attended to, Captain. As of now, they sit cross-legged on the grasses outside of the Village, taking fill of the bread given.”
“Send them here; they will make their introductions to me before given right to make camp. In the meantime, the eastern-side should be cleared for their presence.”
“The whole of them as usual, Captain?”
“Aye. Be…” the Duskward draws off, the trenched gap between her brows closing into a knit. By now, the knife has been lowered the table. Still, her hand spreads over the blade.
“How many are we at now, Elinden? Last month was three-and-half-hundred ‘tween us and them.”
“With these additions, we number at four-hundred-and-six.”
“Growing a bit big for our britches, aye?”
“And the ovens.. and the grasslands, Captain.”
Thanidiel bows her head towards the mopheaded man standing at the table’s end, needing nothing more to convey the militant courtesy extended to the Lieutenant Brightvale. Again, the knife wheels in her grip; to be slid into breast from overhead with her comrade’s swinging hook of ankle around a stool leg.
“We’ll need to let the word spread. Another few dozens - less than a month’s time - and that is how many more I am willing to allow camp along the Village.”
“Twisting a cap on the jar?”
“Mm. I’m interested in maintaining an army, not a Great Herd.”
“S’that not an army?”
“Not my style, not my speed. Allow the Archon and his to lead thousands to battle. We’ll keep ourselves swift and effective for all of those death-defying stunts, aye?”
“You mean you will, Than– Captain. You do all of that, and it’s up to me and Harthen to calm the men behind us and assure them that we are, in fact, going to survive.”
“Give yourself some credit. It took the whole active company to fell the Reaver. If you’re willing to spread the rumour that I picked up and swung about chains the length of a warship twice-over, you are free to that ass-kissing, Elinden.”
“And Tyr’s Hand?”
“Your’s and the boy’s screaming spurred me on like dueling drums. Couldn’t have done it without you two.”
“One breath, you’re telling us both to shut our fucking mouths and keep quiet. Next breath, you’re saying our yapping inspires you. Which is it, Captain?”
“Whatever conveniences me to say at the time. For now? Shut it, duck your head, eat the vile they’ve been trying to feed me, and let’s both get back to proper work - Aye?”
“I can only shovel so much of it in my mouth at one time.”
“I’ve walked in on you placing at least three time’s the amount of breast on that plate, right in your mouth. Lying bitch.”
“Oi, watch yourself, Captain. Talk a lot of shit about who’s warming my bed; I’ve seen you want to shake your comrades bloody for even thinking about your’s.”
“The difference is that I have a woman and you have romps. Bring someone home to me and we’ll try some reverence.”
“Someone good for me?”
“Academy Diploma. Steady career. What else do those fucks at the top look for?”
“A certain paleness to the skin? A maximum of an inch of fat behind the arm?”
“Mm, toss all of that, then. Rubbish.”
The knife scrapes.
“–Eh?”
“Your attention span…” is drawn off. “Come on, get out. Bring them their first orders.”
“And the vile?”
“Give it to the hound on your way out.”
Thanidiel does not keep her eyes on Elinden with his exit from her hall. Her attention draws towards the knife. Coated in fat and spice, and pointed towards her own person. Out of place/misaligned. She grips unto its handle, and, carefully, wipes one of its two surfaces against the cloth placed to the right of her. Then, it flips as the action is repeated in another stroke. Idly, the thought passes on how the motions resemble Goose’s Formation.
In the midst of noise bubbling around her – Elinden’s stool scraping across rock and earth and weed; his footsteps aloud through even the soft dirt as it compresses under his boot; the voices of men and women filtering from the outside; the constant rumble of horse hooves vibrating underneath her feet – another thought materialises.
The Phoenix Guard wonders who, or what, would be caught between its wings.
Awaiting her answer, the tool is returned to the wood’s surface once more. There, it points outward in solemn welcome of every boot that begins to filter into the space before her.
She notes how they mimick army with the loosely packed southern volunteers at its fore, and the Knights at its back in rows. The number looks suffocated, sandwiched by the layout of the feast hall where its tables format in a folding flank. She can see how they shuffle uncomfortably as they are forced to settle over stone, coal, and ash, from the morning fire since-dead.
The audio of their march dies down to the shiftings of their clothing and roll of debris from underneath soles, then ebbs further into stagnant quiet.
And so it stays. For the Duskward does not immediately boom her greetings nor call forth the tradition of introductions to be made to her by each new head. Instead, she studies.
She studies the wear of their shoes, and how much the leather sags down their feet.
She studies how segments of plate strapped over chainmail, felt, and cotton, fit upon each new soldier’s person.
She studies the length of hair flying over their brows, speckling their cheeks and catching through beaming light.
She studies the roundness of them - the fat that builds upon their arms and bellies. Some look well-fed. Most, she can see how, already, the dwindling trade of Quel’Thalas has drained their bowls.
In particular, the soldier studies its leaders.
Such a thing has yet to be announced - nothing has been announced at all. But it is something Thanidiel finds easily determined.
The mountainpeople have not been trained in formal stiffness. They stood outside of the dutiful (painful, at times) parade rest the Knights beside them had adopted. Instead, those of her birth settle with a way known to her as vigourful, and to others, as defiant: a laxness to their shoulders, an uneven settle of the feet. ‘Round the one she has identified as Ciril, those close have all drawn back their adjacent legs. Protective, and hesitant to remove floor.
Kielen’s presence is louder than that. His garb is something bold and distinctive from ‘mongst the more uniform Knights. While his comrades were content with a single swordbreaker, or leather spaulder, strapped against their persons, she notes how plate layers along the length of his upper arms in broad, encompassing, pauldrons. Instead of a practical barbute hanging from underarm or belt like many others, an arrogant faceguard settles over his coif.
Loud.
Even idle, he is fucking loud.
She can sense the pacing of his breath from here; how it desynchronises from the calm of all those around him until the brute moves forward, like that would smear away the scrutinous glint underneath her brows.
“Former Knight-Master–”
“You are dismissed.”
“...Ma’am?”
“You may present yourself to Fury Company in a week’s time.”
The rest does not need to be given to the air between them. Again, the blade is in her hand, and, again, it is offered forth to the man opposite of her. Confidence removed, the Blood Knight reaches forward. It is an action hesitant and disbelieving as the bare iron is slid, and held, against rivets.
“Consider that your ticket.”
“The… men, ma’am?”
“Everyone here will be evaluated for entry. Grain, work, shelter, to be provided immediately thereof. Dismissed.”
The flicker of relief that goes through the harshness of his face is like a light through forest canopy. It is something redeeming to the butchery of his first presentation. Graceful, now, his surrender goes swiftly.
“Blood and Thunder, Kin’taris.”
“Sun at your back.”
With the turn of his body away from her, the Captain crooks her fingers towards the crowd.
“At random. I don’t care about any exploits or titles before you’ve stepped into this tent so I hope you’ve left it all in the field. Names first, then me and your two Lieutenants, Elinden Brightvale and Harthen Sunbright, will determine your skillsets, units, superiors, and standing orders.”
The small thing with as hastily shorn hair as Elinden, at the very back of Kielen’s former company.
“Yenette Sunshield.”
The giant with thick and loose coils, closest to Ciril.
“Byrran Morningheart.”
The man with copper red skin at the very center of the Knights.
“Oridren Bloodmist.”
The half-elf with an axe-bite on her jaw falling out of the southern pack’s formation.
