Emeriss stood alone in the center of the hall as she stared forward at the tapestries. The room was sparse, little more than the bare chamber, a few supporting pillars, and the tapestries themselves. In truth it had become a memorial in all but name, and she sometimes found herself standing there reading their names and studying the stylized art as if to remember; but the dead do not forget.
She approached within a few paces of the only wall hanging that currently held her interest. It was cut of a vivid green cloth, artfully stitched with black thread to give the suggestion of ravening flames with a single figure at its center. Emeriss studied it carefully as she had many times before, as she had for all of the depictions in the hall.
Two huge shadows loomed behind the man and two more lurked to his sides. A smaller shadow with burning eyes obscured the figure's robes below his breastplate of dark metal. The Warlock's hands were cupped together as if to drink but instead flame poured between his fingers and lit his face with an ominous glow. His features were angular and wolfish with far more than a single man's share of arrogance. Lavender hair, that odd heritage of the Keepers, flowed down his shoulders and spilled onto his chest.
Emeriss snorted audibly as the memory of the cocky bastard preening like a bird when he thought nobody was watching surfaced briefly. For some reason she could not explain, she never remembered him as he was while the final blow fell. Always as the idiot that sat down to brush his hair after every fight. She knew that was unfair, the arrogance thoroughly beaten out of him long before everything had fallen apart.
Emeriss turned from the tapestry and regarded the others, her gaze skipping from face to face in odd patterns as she became lost in thought.
A thousand years hadn't seemed a very long time, after the first hundred or so. It was all just a matter of perspective if one didn't need to rest, after all. First the days became insignificant as they eventually do to mortals, then slowly even weeks or months began to slip by like a days march lost in thought. Years followed quickly, then decades. Everything after that became a dream that she sometimes found herself waking from.
Emeriss had been ‘awake’ more often than not the last few months, which she preferred. She knew that at least a few of the others had survived but finding people of their caliber if they did not want to be found was near impossible and she doubted they would seek her out.
Her neutrality had not garnered her much goodwill, at the end. It had been her duty to contain the emergence and she had done so to the best of her ability. The loss of her Ziggurats had been a blow, the mighty structures annihilated along with much of the countryside simply to create impassable walls of Soulfrost with their self destruction. Emeriss knew that her feigned retreat and counterstrike had bought enough time for most of her wards to flee into the wilderness where they had a chance of survival. Most still stung after all this time.
She had fought that same battle over and over in her mind for long decades after the final citadel had reached it’s destination above a loney world of ice and snow. It had been longer still before she accepted what her advisors had told her the day of the battle. She had provided the best possible outcome that anyone could have hoped to produce. Even with the Warlock’s arrival and aid it had taken months to put down all of the Eaters as they slowly tightened their encirclement. The seemingly inexhaustible horde of Mindless Ones brought forth by Kallio's minion eventually turned the tide of the battle through sheer attrition. It had been unsurprising when the Warlock had brought his wrath upon Anban in the aftermath, but she had not intervened.
Instead she had dispatched Riders and what few of her champions remained to discern the fate of the Mountain only to find that the way was obscured. No manner of spellwork or Talent could locate the path once the Keeper’s had chosen to close the gates and so she had been forced to withdraw. By the time she had rebuilt her forces and repaired her remaining Ziggurat the outcome had already been decided. So she withdrew and waited, searching the lands methodically for any sign.
“You certainly didn’t waste any time, did you?”, Emeriss asked aloud as she turned back to the tapestry of the Warlock and her senses alerted her of the slight stir in the mana woven into it, “Less than a year to spy on everyone and then you sink an island to free your servant.”
The woman fell into familiar silence once again as the flames surrounding Kallio’s depiction slowly began to shift and dance. Shadow's suddenly expanded to form a smoking portal from which a dark staff emerged, gripped in a withered hand.
Emeriss exploded into motion.
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“...JUST FUCKING BLAST THEM YOU IDIOTS!”, Blackstone thundered at the pair of mages who had introduced themselves as Roland and Gaius.
He slammed mana into his shield as brilliant golden light illuminated the dark forest around them along with several lumbering creatures with thick ape like bodies and oily green skin. The beasts threw themselves from tree to tree and shrieked hatefully while they raced towards the group. Blackstone bashed his shield forward and a ghostly image of the shield superimposed itself before one of the beasts.
“Duck!", Roland then raised his arm and fired a bolt of crackling white energy that writhed in the air before sinking into one of the goblins with a sizzle of cooking flesh. The creature locked up and went down just as Blackstone's attack flattened the second monster, its headlong rush ending in a gristly crunch.
A split second later three more of the shrieking things were swept into the air nearby and then slammed to the ground by Gaius’ spellwork. The mage lifted his staff into the air with both hands and once again the Goblins were raised into the air before being slammed down. As the creatures struggled to orient themselves Selda charged them with a shout of her own, swinging her hammer in a vicious arc that crushed muscle and bone with ease. Gaius held the goblins down as the female dwarf swung her hammer again and again before she quickly retreated back to the group, pausing only to ram a shoulder into an attackers face. Another bolt of white energy blasted the creature away from her as she resumed her position in the circle.
Blackstone glanced quickly to his left and right, reassuring himself that both Selda and Nari were holding position in the triangle. The two mages stood within the formation of infantry used the relative protection to bombard the vicious creatures with spells. Blackstone was driven back on his heel by a sudden tackle and he leaned into the impact, bracing his legs before slamming his shield upwards and blowing the goblin away. He followed up the shield slam with a quick thrust of his sword. The goblin screamed and thrashed for a moment before being pounded into the ground by a ghostly golden shield and going still.
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Selda began to laugh happily as she gripped her hammer close to the head and began to punch and smash the unarmored creatures as a small group of them rushed her. They desperately tried to disrupt her footing by throwing themselves at her legs only to be smashed to the ground and held there by an armored boot as the hammer came down.
“Nari you okay?", Selda turned to face the elf who had spoken little during the confrontation.
The elf in question turned his owlike gaze on her and nodded, “Yes, Selda, I'm well. They're only goblins after all."
Four of the beasts lay dead just within range of his polearm and the dwarf burst out laughing at the sight.
“Did’ja really stack them up all neat like that on purpose or did they just fall in a pile?"
“I GOT ONE!", Gawin roared suddenly and Blackstone sucked in a breath of surprise before they all turned to regard the curly haired record keeper.
The portly man's sword was stuck firmly through the chest of a scrawny looking goblin that had tried to dive between Blackstone and Selda to attack the spellcasters. He tugged the sword loose after a few pulls and he got a few nods of approval. Blackstone dumped a reasonable amount of mana into a quick pulse of healing energy that washed over the group as a warm ripple of air and repaired any minor damage they had taken during the fight.
“I can't do it forever, I've got a couple more healing spells like that in me before you'll be carrying me around on your back.", Blackstone warned seriously as Selda got a strange gleam in her eye.
Nari’s large pupil’s pinpricked with interest at the sight, “Mass healing? That's quite the desirable talent Blackstone.”
“Let's not put it to the rest, I'm much better at healing myself than others.”
Selda punched him lightly in the arm as she almost vibrated with excitement. She sucked in a huge breath and began to speak before snapping her head around to look into the trees. Everyone froze and followed her line of sight but saw nothing. She frowned, seemingly confused before speaking.
“Thought I saw something for a second. Over there. We should probably get moving.", she said evenly as her voice became serious.
Blackstone nodded as he agreed, “She's right. We haven't even gotten to the first campsite, but it's close. Though I’m still bitter about this Farrimese guide waiting for us there instead of in town."
"According to the missive, if we cannot reach the first location ourselves we would perish on the trip even with a guide.”, Gawin chimed in helpfully as he bounced his sword in his hand and looked into the darkness with newfound confidence.
Blackstone and a few of the others sighed at that. He took a few deep breaths to properly process the helpful reminder before calming himself. He took a moment to get his bearings and after a brief conversation with Roland, who had an impeccable sense of direction, they realigned their heading. Stepping over a few dead goblins, Blackstone left his sword drawn as the group proceeded deeper into the northern wilderness as the stars overhead twinkled prettily through the branches.
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Kallio lunged as the blade flashed out at his neck, spinning under the blow and out of the portal in one liquid motion that was utterly at odds with his fragile appearance. He slammed the butt of the Darkstaff against the floor of the stone room with a bang as the blue torches illuminated his withered body and he faced Emeriss where she stood ready.
The armored woman returned the salute before deftly turning the motion into a two handed thrust that carried her across the distance between them with a rasp of metal. The Warlock stepped into the attack, holding the staff by the first and third quarters and sweeping her thrust up and to the left. Emeriss slammed her right foot into the ground and pivoted, turning the thrust into a diagonal cut that forced Kallio to abandon his own counterthrust to rotate the haft of the staff to intercept.
The force of the blow drove him back a few feet as the Darkstaff rang with a deep hollow sound from the impact. Emeriss didn't give him time to recover or reposition as she snapped a brutal kick at his left hip hoping to destabilize him. Instead of dodging Kallio simply thrust the staff at her several times to prevent her from fully closing the distance before she came in for another slash.
Taking the initiative Kallio spun away from the blow and shifted his grip on the weapon before assuming an overhead stance, with the heel of the weapon behind his own head and the tip of the staff pointing forward. Emeriss parried instinctively as the first of the barrage of thrusts came within her guard as she retreated two steps to match Kallio's advance. Upon the final strike being turned away the Warlock slammed his left hand back towards his elevated right arm, instantly reversing his grip and delivering a crushing strike straight down her centreline with a twist of his hips.
Emeriss didn't even try to block or parry as she threw herself into a diving kick at Kallio's legs that forced him to once more abandon the strike as he leapt over the kick and rolled. Emeriss regained her feet in a practiced motion as her blade flicked out at the Warlock's hands in an imperfect rhythm and forced him to give a step of group to regain his feet. Pressing her advantage once again she simply bulled forward using her armored shoulder and blade as a shield.
Kallio responded with a blindingly quick series of attacks aimed at her knees and ankles, regaining the momentum of the fight as he herded her to the left and away from the pillar she was attempting to place between half her body and the Warlock's weapon.
The weapons slowly probed at each other as they each circled the other in an attempt to be the first to establish contact. The range of the Darkstaff proved advantageous as Kallio bounced forward on his toes and stole the last quarter inch of distance between the weapons and flicked the point of her blade down across her own centreline and exposed her right side. As the staff was flicked towards her head with a motion that came from the Warlock's back and hips she responded by spinning in place and snapping her leg out from behind her in a vicious kick. The motion allowed her to avoid the opportunistic attack and follow the kick up with a spinning slash of her own that the warlock parried upwards as the both jumped back to gain distance.
They stood and faced each other for a few moments before they both saluted again and lowered their weapons. Emeriss tilted her head with obvious satisfaction as she examined the blade she held in her hands and found that it was completely unharmed despite being viciously struck by the heavy staff several times. She sheathed the weapon and met Kallio's gaze before speaking.
“The Dreadwatch extends its hospitality, Warlock.", she continued to stare at him with something approaching enjoyment in her mostly blank expression, “You look horrible, Kal."
Kallio flicked a lock of his hair behind his withered skull as he replied, "Oh?"
"It really is you, isn't it?"
"It is good to see you again, Emeriss."