Urias
VIIIth Century, year 63, Brumáire. Day 23. In the Shyva Kingdom.
The door opened slowly, and the light from outside pierced Urias’s silhouette, preventing the room from being completely illuminated.
Upon fully opening the door, Urias moved slowly in a fixed direction, advancing further into the room until his steps halted in front of a simple office table. The table was cluttered with various equipment, magical accessories, and documents. She carefully cleared a small space on the table, then grabbed a chair covered in dust. After lightly blowing away the excess dirt, she placed it on the table.
“Fuuuuu,” Urias sighed deeply as she dropped into the chair, raising her feet above the table.
“Sigh, only the living can suffer from exhaustion,” meditated Urias.
This room was her favorite space, where her weaknesses, sorrows, and anger found comfort.
“They don’t call me Urias, the Iron Lady, because I am a gentle ruler,” she whispered vaguely while tidying her hair.
Despite being aware that nations with higher protocol were watching her, she didn’t seem to care much about the new eyes scrutinizing her every move.
“Well, it’s not as if just now my actions started to be observed. Isn’t it?”
In any case, there was a new ruler, Dero the Mad, who made the Iron Lady suspicious. He was frighteningly insane yet competent. His movements were slow, with a random interval, as if he were waiting for the right opportunity to sow chaos in the mountainous regions.
“…The protocols… hierarchy of power among nations…bla bla bla”
“I used to care a lot about it.”
“like a baby crawling into existence as city-states. Economic, military, mercantile, strategic influence negligible…Only upon attaining greater significance in power could a nation ascend in rank, perpetually submitting to the Great Nations atop the hierarchy.”
“Yep, those would be the types of research reports I used to write back when I was still in the royal academy.”
“Nowadays, that kind of subservience still bothers me in a way… Due to it, that injustice befell my mothe-…”
“Sigh… I can’t remember the last time I was able to rest this well.”
Urias had not realized that in the midst of her thoughts she had fallen asleep.
“How many days have I not slept? Five days? Or maybe a week? Tiredness really is a human’s weak point.”
Her tiredness was justifiable, lately she stopped being a gentle puppy and started showing her teeth, so there were many things she needed to do. One single error and everything could be thrown away.
Around this thought her eyes gradually began to close, and only mutterings came out of her mouth… she was…
“I need to train!”
Urias rose quickly from her chair, preventing laziness from catching up with her and falling asleep again. Standing there drowning in thought was not going to bring any results…
With this posture, Urias left that dark room, locked the door with a magic seal, and headed for the training camp.
After a short walk reaching the training field everyone reveres the majesty in front of them.
“You don’t need that, I just came to train”
“Your majesty, training with us?”
“Is there any squadron better ranked than the red squadron? You may come, attack all at once!” Her ferocity lived up to the title she carried. Fearless and skillful, this was Urias the Iron Lady.
Seizing the opportunity, the Iron Lady was off guard.
A warrior’s sword advanced towards Urias’s neck; she quickly drew her scimitar, blocking the blow and leaping back a step.
“Bravo. It makes justice to the red squad, always taking advantage of the best opportunities,” smiled Urias lightly.
Just before his retreat could come to an end, another warrior spun his giant sword, seeking to center the blow on Urias’s legs. However, Urias’s agility was incredible, and she promptly parried the blow, the swords clashing violently, and the sound echoed around the field.
The training ground only allowed access to noble people or those with martial abilities above the ordinary. Consistent with this space were the coat of arms of several important families. The one that stood out the most was the Crimson family, responsible for the Red Squadron.
The fierce battle didn't seem like ordinary training. Imagining each well-executed blow was admirable, feeling the lightness they possessed in manipulating the sword.
At this point, Urias took a more defensive position, carefully moving around and blocking only when extremely necessary.
“I have to focus on dodging; I can’t lose focus and try to block some attack. If I do that, I will be cornered.”
The most experienced warrior of the Red Squadron, Gus, unlike Urias, was already showing some fatigue. His strokes were aggressive, while Urias’s were fast and precise.
“The moment my sword collides again with your scimitar, Your Majesty, it will be the end of you.”
Not necessarily the end for Urias. Gus probably meant that Urias’s scimitar couldn’t withstand his violent attacks for long. However, Your Majesty didn’t even imagine that scenario, so it sounded more like a provocation to her ears.
Her scimitar was made of dragonic bones, Urias’s pride and joy. It was crafted from dragon bone bathed in the blood of a hundred-year-old Ignis. There were few magics that could destroy this scimitar. And anyone of them was here…
In this current scenario, only four of the original ten warriors were left, and Gus was one of them. Thus, Urias waited for the four to launch themselves forward, due to a small opening she had purposely created. But her countrymen didn’t fall into her trap. As a result of their tactic not working as expected, the warriors did not allow even a second for Urias to breathe and reposition. The opening that she had created as bait was becoming a burden.
“Must stop using these half-assed tactics against well-prepared warriors,” smiled Urias.
The warriors haven’t stopped executing simultaneous attacks. But executing simultaneous attacks while the opponent was able to dodge them all, even in a disadvantageous position, caused fatigue and lowered the morale of the warriors. Even though they were well-trained, they were still humans.
“Well, that’s six gone, considering that each of these possesses the strength of eighty well-trained and equipped men. It is not to be expected that I would begin to tire too.”
“I would not waste your breath with praise if I were your majesty,”
the warrior misunderstood totally what Urias was talking about. Those whispers were just Urias analyzing the battlefield.
Urias only gave a slight smile after the warrior misunderstood.
Then the vision of one of the warriors began to blur, the Queen’s movements became more intense and accelerated. None of the Red Squadron that had been left found even a flaw in their offensives. Urias struck a blow so powerful that one of the Red Squad could not even respond adequately to the blow. The queen’s swordplay was just like a dance, an extremely violent dance.
“So there are only three left?” Urias asserted. Despite the mocking tone, Your Majesty had been caught off guard, being thrown against the wall by Gus.
“Hahaha, I finally did it!” The last three remaining were celebrating for finally managing to land some blows. But Gus was completely fatigued, putting his hand on his knees and breathing deeply to catch his breath. The celebration would not last long.
Because nobody counted the fact that Urias was a terrible loser.
“The voice that whispers in my ears, I call upon you.”
Solstice
Urias had conjured a magical ability. As he finished the conjuration, he leaped towards the last remaining warriors who were celebrating and had barely realized the serious error they had made.
Solstice was ready to strike them, a small orb of pure mana condensed in his fist. He punched the ground, firing a shockwave that incapacitated them all in a minute. After finishing his blow, Urias stood gracefully.
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"That's all for today!"
"As always, a baaaad loser," a voice in the background denoted Urias' personality.
It was a female voice referring to the majesty without reverence, which was unusual enough in itself.
Urias smiled and answered vaguely, "As always, you arrive at the last minute."
"I brought important reports that have made me take so long. But first, are they okay?"
"Well, I took it easy on them, but they will probably spend a few days with their butts hurting."
"I believe they will be honored to know that it wasn't a dream to put Urias, the Iron Lady, against the wall, even though you took it easy."
“Hmpf, pure luck”
“Hahaha that personality of yours will never change. You indeed remain the best swordsman in Haifa.”
“Very kind of you. But the question remains, what reports Jess?”
“I believe we should discuss this in a more private space.”
The two walked calmly to the central palace, during the walk Urias told one of his maids to contact Grand General Bertrand to come to the meeting urgently.
“Right, I believe this is the ideal place.”
“I hope it’s not bad news Jess” Bertrand murmured as he pulled up a seat at the rounded table made of the most luxurious marble possible.
Jess was silent. He opened his leather backpack that was around his waist, took out a small letter, and placed it on the table
“I would very much like to bring you good news Bertrand”
Urias saw the seal on the letter, that seal clearly identified who the sender was from.
“So it’s from the Dark Ruler?”
“B-but what?” that message took Bertrand by surprise. No doubt Urias was surprised as well.
“You can open it Jess…” Urias didn’t let surprise have any space, a smart move, should surprise take over that meeting it might cause some divergence of information.
Jess opened the letter with trembling hands, everyone already knew it couldn’t be good news. Considering the long negative relationship that Urias and the Dark Ruler have. Jess read the letter carefully, upon completion, he placed it back on the table.
“Well… how can I put this… The Ruler of Darkness, has demanded the lands north of the Krashopf glacier.”
This demand made no sense at all, if there wasn’t some foul play behind it.
The Kingdom of Shyva, had a different system of succession, as soon as its Ruler died or was unable to continue his reign, seven new candidates were selected, who passed a rigorous aptitude test. One of this test is the Royal Academy... The background of the chosen candidate did not matter much, as long as they were young they could undergo a proper education and Rule the Kingdom for prosperity. At the end of this test, Urias was the only remaining alive.
“This is going to be quite problematic, we can’t give away land with enormous potential,” Bertrand said, already preparing himself for a possible war.
“But since we can’t sustain any more wars, we’ll have to solve this another way” Jess replied thoughtfully.
Urias’s fingers were restless, her index finger tapped frequently on the table, it was she’s hipomania she possessed when became anxious.
There was a time in her past when Urias had come close to entering the court of the Dark Ruler. However, fate smiled upon her, and she was selected as a candidate for succession. This greatly enraged the Dark Ruler, who saw Urias as a diamond to be polished , which in itself was true in view of Urias overwhelming power.
“Well, I probably would have become just another undead in his hands” meditated Urias
Urias was weak in long-range magic, unlike the previous King, who was a skilled sorcerer. She was efficient, and did not require large amounts of mana particles to be able to perform some low range magic. However, if she depended on longer range spells, she was out of her reach. She simply did not have the mana reserves to provide spells of this size.
Because of this, Urias turned to a more practical way of fighting, using short-range magics, and focusing on her melee combat style
…
“Still, the internal research that there is a chance of possessing mana reserves under the glaciers is something that cannot have leaked out so easily.” Spelled Bertrand stoping Urias self though.
“…You’re right, and besides the Dark Ruler doesn’t usually demand land”
“How many men can we move to the border Bertrand?”
“At this moment your majesty, we have been able to add two regiments, more than that we can put our new possessions at serious risk”
“That will not hold off an invasion…”
“The big problem would be the lines of logistics, the glaciers is an area still little explored and we don’t have great infrastructure yet. Cold clothing, carriages, horses and weapons would have to be stocked from scratch in the glaciers if we want to sustaining a worthy battle”
“Now is to late for doing this. Nobody ever imagined that any interest could arise from that remote region”
“With the current battles the vaults are starting to empty quickly, and taxing again is not an option too”
“Maybe we can bring back a general from the battlefield, or perhaps reassign a retired general.”
“With that, we could postpone the confrontation a little longer… Currently, there are two Generals in the Kingdom of Greenhocker. It’s like attacking an ant with a cannon.”
Urias listened in silence to Bertrand and Jess discussion, they were all arguing as if the battle was a sure thing. But for Urias something was out of the curve, for her this battle was avoidable. The ruler of darkness is watching for something more valuable, not land, but her mind couldn’t tell what exactly. This made her more and more impatient.
The Glacier Region was in the middle of a triple border, between the Kingdom of Florenz, Kingdom of Shyva and the Kingdom of Darkness.
“Triple Border…” Murmured Urias As if she was forgetting a link in the chain.
“There are also rumors that the confederation of Dusselmoth is studying ways to mass produce weapons with Dragon bones, that might-“
“That!!!” Urias’ mind had been enlightened by Jess comment, the chain link that was hidden from Urias eyes has been connected, her mood suddenly improved and she had finally deciphered why the Dark Ruler was suddenly doing this harshly movement.
“Jess, we don’t need to come into conflict with the Kingdom of Darkness, nor do we need to hand over any land” Urias held this statement of his with such excitement that there was no way to properly contest it.
“B-but how?” Bertrand remained skeptical, in all this time of his life, he had never missed the smell of a long war coming.
“Bertrand, the Dark Ruler is not interested in our lands. What else does the Dark Ruler have an interest”
“Undead…?”
Bertrand was flabbergasted, how he hadn’t put the pieces together.
The crisp mountain air carried the faint echoes of victory. It hadn’t been long since the heroes, led by Queen Urias, had vanquished the Ice Dragon in the frigid Glaciers of Krashopf. But amidst the celebration, a new challenge gnawed at Urias’ mind – That was long enough for its body to start rotting, the ideal time to get a living Dead Dragon as a familiar. That’s exactly what the Dark Ruler want
“Your Majesty,” Bertrand, her trusted advisor, cautioned, “let arming another kingdom with such a beast is akin to inviting future peril. A single dragon’s might outstrips four generals combined.”
Urias frowned, acknowledging the truth in his words. “Time, Bertrand, that’s what we need. Time to find a countermeasure before this advantage blossoms into a full-blown crisis.”
“And I shall find that information for you, Your Majesty,” Jess, Urias’ unwavering Paladin.
With that, the tension-filled meeting dissolved, and Urias retreated to her quarters. Though modest for royalty, her chamber glistened with intricate sapphire panels carved in geometric patterns. A vast stained glass window offered a breathtaking panorama of the bustling capital city. Yet, Urias’ gaze fell upon the modest stack of papers beside her bed – her secret passion, unfinished romantic novels.
“My loyal Jess,” she muttered, pen scratching against parchment. “What would I do without your unwavering support?”
Sometimes, the weight of her crown felt heavy, a stark contrast to the carefree days of childhood spent with her beloved mother. Avenging her mother’s wrongful execution, a once burning desire, seemed to dim with each
passing day. Now, the fate of thousands rested on her shoulders.
Only Jess remained, a beacon of loyalty amidst the ashes of betrayal. Adopted by Urias’ mother and forever sworn to the ancient Citrine family, she had stood by her queen even through exile and disgrace. When false accusations of treason tore Urias’ family apart, it was Jess who followed her mistress into the unforgiving north.
Now, a simple knock announced the arrival of Jess with steaming cups of dark herbal tea and battlefield reports. Etched onto weather-resistant parchment, the news provided a stark update of the current situation.
“Escape from Florenz’s court and the coronation of a new regent king,” Urias murmured, eyes skimming the titles. “Completion of the outer wall battles… Delays in ration deliveries causing unrest among the new recruits…”
As she sipped her tea, the weight of leadership pressed upon her. But with Jess by her side, unwavering and loyal, Urias knew she wouldn’t face these challenges alone.
Urias lingered on the article about the new regent king. To secure a peace truce even at the cost of their own son’s head? It reeked of desperation. “No doubt they’ll seek foreign aid to solidify this treaty,” she mused. “As long as they keep their fertile lands out of it, I suppose it matters little.”
Yet, despite her nonchalant shrug, a sliver of unease lingered. The lack of information about this new king gnawed at her. What hidden strategies might he harbor? What unforeseen alliances could tip the scales in his favor? The uncertainty gnawed at her, casting a shadow over her momentary relief.
“Right, time for the Dero report,” Urias muttered, steeling herself for the inevitable clash with the degenerate gargoyles. As expected, the spy reports yielded no surprises, a monotonous drone of escalating gargoyle activity in the subterranean tunnels.
The gargoyles, Urias despised them. Propaganda was their lifeblood, their tentacles deeply woven into Dero’s political fabric. To her, they were a race of deceit, their public image a gilded mask hiding their true, treacherous nature. Distinguishing truth from theatrics was a constant battle in this war of shadows.
She knew the gargoyles’ game. Every buried truth, every veiled manipulation, multiplied their advantage. Dero had seized the initiative, maneuvering the pieces on the political chessboard to elevate the gargoyles. It was only a matter of time before they were positioned for dominance.
The thought of these creatures skulking in the darkness, waiting to strike during moments of turmoil, sent a shiver down Urias’ spine. The silence before the storm was unnerving.
“Your Majesty,” a deep voice echoed from the shadows. “The Shadow Guard requests your immediate attention.”
Urias’ heart leapt. The Shadow Guard, her elite tacticians, only emerged in matters of dire urgency. Their arrival confirmed her growing premonition – the storm was breaking.
The Shadow Guard, her elite tacticians cloaked in perpetual twilight, rarely emerged unless matters were dire. Their arrival sent a cold knot of anticipation twisting in Urias' gut.
"Speak quickly," she commanded, her voice taut.
"Your Majesty," one of the figures bowed, the shadows obscuring his features. "Something is… off about the new regent king. A shift, a discordance."
Urias narrowed her eyes. The regent, a pawn to secure a shaky truce, seemed an unlikely source of alarm. "Explain yourselves," she insisted.
Another figure stepped forward, his voice a raspy whisper. “He’s… different. Not menacing, no, but there’s a dissonance in his presence. Like a melody played on broken strings.”
“Unusual, perhaps,” Urias conceded, “but hardly cause for panic.”
“Your Majesty,” the first figure pleaded, “it’s as if he casts no shadow. Where others radiate a spectrum of emotions, a whisper of their true nature, he is… blank. Empty. A canvas untouched.”
A shiver ran down Urias’ spine. The Shadow Guard relied on a keen intuition, an ability to read the invisible language of auras and intentions. Their unease was a harbinger of unseen danger.
“He walks in darkness, unseen, unheard,” the second figure rasped. “A serpent coiling in the shadows, waiting to strike when least expected.”
Urias paced the room, her unease morphing into a cold knot of fear. No aura, no shadow – an anomaly in the tapestry of human existence. It felt… wrong.
Dismissed, the Shadow Guard melted back into the shadows, leaving Urias alone with the gnawing suspicion that the “average human” twisted masked something far more sinister.
Suddenly, her body betrayed her, a primal fear slithering through her veins. The regent king, a distant enigma until now, felt like a storm cloud gathering on the horizon, pregnant with the threat of unknown chaos.
Should she be worried? The question echoed in the silence, a stark reminder of the new, chilling uncertainty that now shadowed her reign.
…
She needed to find a way to get close to him without raising another’s suspicions.
A plan began to form in her mind. It was a risky plan, but it was the only way she could think of to get the answers she needed.
In the meantime, Urias had to deal with the other challenges facing her kingdom. The gargoyles were still a threat, and the war with Dero was far from over.
She also had to contend with the internal politics of her own kingdom.