Destinies Intertwined: Golden Blades & Mountain’s Peak
The Outlands rang with the bellows and war screeches of Tenebris forces as they followed after the golden mask of Lierosa, a shining blue-white stone clasped in the third of her remaining hands. She had to get this treasure to the prince. Dragar was after him and there was no possible way he and her daughter could face the treasonous monster alone! If she could just find Rorgan’s geyser, she could get it to them!
Wolfish humanoid half-beasts howled as they barrelled through the ranks of the other Tenebris, quickly closing the distance between them and the masked Illumine. Clicking her teeth, Lierosa tried to dodge their reaching claws, slashing at those she couldn’t with her two gold-tinted blades. The beasts let out furious shrieks and yelps of pain as black blood poured from their wounds, some losing speed from losing their limbs. They’d already taken one arm from her, they weren’t going to take another!
Another chorus of unearthly howls joined the maddened cacophony, causing the three-armed warrior to look back at the hoard. With her two good right eyes, she could see the hoard of writhing limbs behind her. Serpents, half-beasts of every kind, and misshapen dopplegangers charged toward her, bellowing curses and vile oaths as they went. But the worst were the wraiths who’s skeletal hands extended from smoking, ragged robes of the darkest kind.
The sight made Lierosa miss having her fourth arm. There was no way she could out run them as she was, but without her fourth arm, she couldn’t use her weight-lite belt and keep a grasp on the stone! But she had to use the belt or it’d be all for naught! With a quick glance down at the stone an idea occurred to her and for a moment, she hoped she wouldn’t choke on her possibly last actions.
Lifting her mask, the warrior stuffed the treasure into her mouth, clamping her jaws around the stone to keep it steady, before pulling the mask back over her face. She then reached down and twisting the gem-studded dial on her belt until a only a blue gem shown in its golden case. In a moment she was almost weightless, allowing her to leap and propel herself farther from her gruesome hunters. As she did, an urgent pressure in her chest shook her bones like a hammer to a gong, as a sudden light appeared above one of the Outlands towering obsidian geysers. Rorgan!
‘There!’ she thought, twisting the golden dial to a heavier black stone to slow and lower herself, before turning back to the blue. Twisting herself around, Lierosa kicked off the ground toward the geyser. Even as wraiths flew over her, clawing to get hold of her, the Illumine warrior continued on. Slow, lift, kick. Slow, lift, kick. Slow, lift, slash, kick. Slow, lift, kick.
Lierosa huffed and panted against her mask, her eyes focused on the geyser peak. Just one more leap and she’d be able to escape the Outlands, rescue the prince, and get him and the treasure to safety! But as she made to take the final jump, something hot and sharp struck her side, sending her careening into the lip of the geyser. A sword fell from her grasp as she coughed, choking on the stone she’d fought so hard to obtain. The illumine clutched the geyser’s edge as she gagged, lifting her mask and horking up the small stone into her hand. Tears beaded in her eyes as she coughed again, her throat stinging and her side screaming from the thick black arrow shaft still lodged in her stony flesh.
“Lierosa! Stop!” called familiar voice. “You’re only hurting yourself and the family! Please, I know you’re upset with me but your fighting is only making it worse!”
Shock and fury boiled in Lierosa’s veins as she looked up, spotting the cloaked silhouette of Jemyer the Treasonous. A thick mane of auburn was pulled back in a loose braid, half obscured by his dark hood, while inky black designs trailed down his dull-red adobe skin. In one set of hands, he held the reigns of a mangy, four-legged black vulture, with his companion, a prune-colored archer riding a second. A bow was held in the other rider’s lithe hands, a second black arrow notched against its string.
“You and I both know the hunter isn’t after Rashelle,” he said, landing his violent steed on one side of Lierosa, with the archer landing on the other. “Just give me the stone and I can save her! I can stay the Betrayer’s hand and maybe make room for you to find safety too!”
The Illumine pulled herself up against the geyser’s mouth and bared her teeth as the traitor’s mount shrieked and snapped its beak, jerking at the reigns around it’s face as the Jemyer pulled them back. Her inner stone burned as he spoke, acting like he was the gallant hero in some little play of his. But he knew the hunter was after their daughter and the prince. He knew they were in danger and yet here he was lecturing her that he knew how to keep their daughter safe when he was helping the very side that turned the Betrayer into the beast he was!
“No!” she bellowed back, pushing herself to her feet. “No, you don’t want to save Rashelle. You want to give your lies credence so you can force her back into your arms to use and abuse her just as you did when you were banished!”
Lierosa sheathed her remaining sword and unclipped the Weight-Lite belt from her waist. Keeping her stark blue eyes fixed on her former partner, she slipped the stone into a pouch on the belt and forced herself to stand tall.
“I will not let my daughter fall prey to the likes of you! ,” she said and lifted the belt over her head. “Ite, et custodiat Princeps lucem et protegere filia mea!”
Realizing what was happening, Jemyer shouted, his steed surging forward to catch the belt, but neither were in time to stop the defiant warrior as she threw it into the belly of the geyser. Light burst forth from the mountain’s maw as the magic within the stone mixed its waters and vanished in a spray of glistening white water. Lierosa sank to her knees holding her punctured side as she rested her head against the obsidian peak.
The stone was gone, the belt was gone, but though she could not join them, she knew that they would return to the human Terlumin kingdom and provide her daughter what she needed to stay alive and keep the hope of the Illumine kingdoms alive.
