Edna nehuf Yeth ohuf raywet eth Nuvork fw’Elimzs rynurtet morfe Yedhir gibbesht yenroughe
[And when They who wore the Crown of Smiles returned from Their great journey]
Eth Nuvork egnachet, edna osh uut evahet Yeth
[The Crown had changed, and so too had They]
Dabekamet. Edna sha malignante sha eth eshruges fu Thaidz yidalrex
[Corrupted, and as malignant as the curses of Death’s mistress]
Damssen liffet eth Nuvorkz kradhenet tighyl…
[Madness filled the Crown’s darkened light…]
[Once given life, Their touch rotted to bone
Where blossoms once trailed in rivers once streamed,
Came the reddest of fires that followed wherever traveled…]
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“Red!!” Blue screamed, panicked and panicking, as she held on for dear life—practically.
“I am trying! I am trying!” Red shouted in reply, struggling to control the renegade chimera which had only become faster than its fastest, pinkish sparkly glitter radiating off as it galloped forth. “Stop! Stop stop STOP!” He pulled, tugged, and yanked at the harness.
Indeed, so fast the unicorn was galloping, the wooden wagon was barely able to travel straightly or even stay on the ground; neither it nor its wheels were designed for such speeds. Supplies and things, in fact, were detaching and falling off.
“Gods’ sacred toilet! You Demon-King’s fucked moron! STOP ALREADY! LISTEN TO ME, RIGHT NOW!” Red bellowed, having had enough of this, his frustration bleeding out from his voice.
The unicorn unleashed quite the neigh…before, ultimately, coming to a skidding pause, the hapless wagon jerking harshly from the sudden halt, tossing and tumbling much. Yet, nevertheless, they had finally stopped.
“Fantastic…” Novea’s breaths muttered, pretending as though she too had not been…terrified about this sudden ordeal. Though, she was audibly annoyed.
“My back…” Blue caressed her back, breathing in and out though struggling from the pungent air around… “He actually listened this time…” her breaths remarked, implying that this incident was by no means the first.
“Yeah…” Red, however, promptly dismounted, hopping right onto the ground as he grabbed his polearm, staring in the direction in front.
The fields surrounding were burnt asunder, embers fresh. The air was filled with smoke and soot; the sky itself almost seemed tinted reddish, and not even from the descending evening; glittery smoke dotted the horizon from places beyond away, winds accompanied by the whispering shrieks of griffons elsewhere.
Whatever this was, whatever was happening, it was everywhere.
Yet that which itself had been so burning was in sight ahead even if distant, thus remained the singular focus.
“We’re close… Just a long walk…” Red eyed unicorn next and near. “Stay here. Do you not move. Got it?” his voice commanded with aggressive assertion.
The unicorn puffed, growling almost, yet adhering nonetheless.
Red, without delay, thus began to walk; he remained so fixated, indeed.
Blue…was still processing everything… From the griffons to now this… Nevertheless, she was really worried, even though she really did not want to be going to where Red was so gravitating. “Re… Oh, Trinity in Heaven! Red! Wait! Please wait!” she yelled, gripping her staff before hopping off the wagon; she quickly made way to catch up.
Novea…nearly groaned; “He cannot help himself…” she muttered, standing up as she grabbed the revolving-rifle, wrapping the strap around her shoulder… “Alrightly…” Her mask-obscured eyes turned to Antica; “Stay here, got it?”
“I would prefer that I not—” Antica was replying, yet…
“No. I don’t know what remains there—anything could happen… This is obviously not isolated, and those griffons could return at random…” Novea, interrupting, specified; “You need to stay here as a precaution. I cannot risk you; you are too…” Her voice abruptly paused… “Too…” She tensed, flustering within… “…too…important…” She ahemed; “For the Guild and…obviously the Company…” She proceeded to shove that distinct corvid whistle into Antica’s hand; “If anything happens, you know what to do… He’ll caw if he notices anything bad too…”
Antica simply nodded in acknowledgement, gripping the whistle in hand… “It is understood…”
“Goodly heard…” Novea swiftly hopped off, jogging to catch up to the other two now more distant.
The unicorn tapped its hooves and puffed, dismayed as those three headed further and farther into that pit of smoke and blood, the stench of which was now even more pungent.
Antica stood herself up, her mask-obscured eyes scanning the environment around… Grassy and…with more towering hills around and in the distance, as if where they now were was a flat smudge in-between. Smoke rising further afar, the air seeming…unsafe to breathe.
She hopped off the wagon and approached the front, standing next to the unicorn so too left behind… She could tolerate its presence now, seemingly… Or perhaps circumstances made her tune it out; for indeed, she was focused…
In the distance ahead was that closest cloud of smoke, once freshly burning yet now waning. Although the details were still difficult to discern due to the distance and awkward elevation from here to there, it was obviously a settlement.
Antica blankly observed as those three figures became more and more distant… A strange feeling emerged within, and not just because she did not necessarily appreciate being left behind… No, not just that… And the longer she stared, the more this feeling became potent… Indeed, she wanted to see it too.
Antica cautiously opened her smart-cloak; « Fly. Ad me. »
Immediately, a cyanic light flashed and brightened; her little automaton swiftly came buzzing out with gently faint glitter. Hopping straight onto her shoulder, its little head stared with attent, its exotic mechanical wings stretching.
Antica proceeded to point in the direction of those three receding figures and the settlement of smoke ahead; « Consequé spectá-que. » she commanded; follow along and spectate. « Settilementù denizenos sûs’abante conflagrants stat; quoc éd surveillarí tectë vulo. » She wanted that denizen settlement surveilled too.
Fly nodded its tiny little head, before flying off and away in a hard-to-see cyanic sparkly trail, heading for that burning settlement. Fly was naturally going to keep its distance, but she hoped those two adventurers specifically would be too distracted to notice an odd automaton buzzing about.
Regardless, with that issued, she pressed her communicator device.
« Bí: Lower altitude. Vulo attenționem on that deflagrated denizen settlement abante me. Survey, assess, and highlight… Essence and aura scan too—differentiate for echoes… Fly already admovents éllâc est; utilizá çeù necesse. »
With such directives given, her attention shifted down to her terminal device. Pressing, the digital screen flashed on; her ignited eyes thus began to stare, fixating… monitoring… seeing…
-||-
A village. One large yet humbly sized; buildings dense and compact, as if on the verge of transcending into towndom. Ashen and dusty, the burnt heat still fresh even if now tamed. The gleaming flames had long subsided by the time of arrival; left being only a mere torched corpse of what had once been a community, now occupied only by wildering ghosts and withering shadows.
The silence… Indeed, the utter silence within the sizzling embers… As if the screams of those decaying echoes persisted, unable to rest even in death; trapped forever in those final moments.
Death… Indeed, surrounding was nothing but death. Residual footprints of plated boots and monstrous claws and paws were still freshly implanted into the ground about.
Red stood there, having arrived before the others. He had not even entered the village in full, yet the scene already painted the picture most vividly, considering the trampled woman before his boots.
Blue, coughing from the smoke, finally caught up alongside Novea; “Red! Gods’ sacred!” she shouted, panting as she coughed even more; “You need to…” Yet she froze in her words, eyes seeing… “Trinity’s salvation… What happened here?” She did not need to ask.
“What do you think?” Red simply replied, his voice so…cold yet fiery.
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Novea’s eyes peered around, that revolving-rifle already in her hands, attentive and prepared for…most things. “Well, Red, you wanted to see, and now you have seen…” she frankly spoke; “Now what?”
Red did not reply. He merely stepped forward and began to move further into this site of deathly silence.
Novea, sighing, followed…
Blue’s breaths tensed even more, tightening; she clenched her staff… “You truly just had to…” The weight of this sight already crushed within; “You know…you are not the only one with bleeding cuts, you know that…” she quietly muttered… Nevertheless, she followed along.
As they traversed further into this large village, more things became more apparent. Bodies…scattered around in all manners of conditions and states, ordinary souls of almost every age; many of them.
Caught, dragged off, and cut down… Blood still wet even if dried; bodies contorted, stiffening, and colding despite being fresh and warm; once teary and terror-filled eyes now so lifeless and empty… Everyone had clearly been caught off guard by this sudden attack; these were the ones who had tried to run.
There truly was no adequate nor proper method to describe, to invoke, that grim and bleak feeling experienced by staring at a true lifeless being of what had once been a real breathing other, never mind tens of dozens of them.
“I am going to…” Blue halted, her breaths squeezing as her stomach clenched itself as if collapsing… “I don’t want to be here! Why did you bring me here, Red?! Why did you bring me… Can we leave… I want to leave, please…” She was practically begging.
However, Red merely glanced; “You know why…” he stated, too caught in the gravitational pull.
“And you know why I do not want—can’t…be here…” Blue replied, trying not to cry.
“Yeah.” Red simply acknowledged. “I never told you to follow. You didn’t have to; you don’t have to. You can go back and wait.” he said, before continuing on.
Novea, having halted as well, looked at Blue… She could tell that what Blue was experiencing was not merely a product of horror or terror… Indeed, from this to her apparent petrified fear of griffons, there was something greater to Blue’s affect; there was something greater to Red’s affect. Both seemed abnormal from their usual.
Novea herself, however, was no exception; she was awfully silent and cold, despite these sights too being daggers that stabbed at her mind and memories… Especially the kids; that was the worst; always the worst.
She opted to remain with Blue whose tension only worsened… Before, with a deep inhaling, perhaps somewhat coughy, breath, Blue tempered and settled, having decided; “No… I will follow… I will follow…” Thus, she followed, Novea doing so as well.
The scenes, the bodies, and such… Stories could be inferred from them alone. Mothers toppled over their children as if trying to shield, children clinging onto their mothers who were dragged and cut down… Families trying to stay together both in life and in death’s embrace. Buildings around seemed punctured, griffons having demolished through to drag out those hiding. Such was not to mention the amount of burnt corpses… It was hard to tell how many were burned alive or burned after the slaughter.
And these sights did not improve whatsoever.
Griffons were chimeric predators, barely tamed monsters; running away, fleeing in crying dread, merely triggered their predacious instincts, and the dismounted knights had evidently permitted their griffons to run amuck. They were by no means clean or humble in killing their prey, either.
Stomped, torn, mangled, and broken… Many of the bodies were, to state it mildly, completely ‘fucked up’; some were even left partially eaten—ripped at by their sharp claws and monstrous beaks.
Yet one had to be the worst of them all, as Blue so paused and stared down…
A girl, one quite young… Yet Blue only saw half, the other half being slightly away as if having been tossed as if rubbish… It appeared that two griffons had become violently competitive regarding which one got to swallow her whole, only to lose interest once the poor girl was inevitably ripped in half… Picky eaters, those chimeras were. Thankfully, the girl was likely long dead before her intestines spilled out.
Novea stood silently behind, she herself trying not to react… As Blue…stared agape, frozen with widening eyes… It was as if images of analogues flashed in Blue’s eyes; as if she saw herself in this girl; as if she resaw…similarities she herself had witnessed…
Blue promptly puked, nearly falling to her knees… “Trinity’s salvation, Son and Father and Heaven watch her please!” her breaths unfurled; “What the fuck? Why… Always, why?” she nearly broke, her voice was at a total loss… “I hate…griffons… I hate griffons, I truly do… I cannot even…define…how much... Why…”
“Yeah, they suck…” Red merely replied to her almost cries, halting for once as he glanced; “They’re too good at what they do, and their violence’s been intentionally bred for that reason…”
“I know…” Blue replied… “But that only makes me more horrified and upset…and angry…” Her voice burned with so much.
Yet Red’s attention then shifted somewhere near, eyes having noticed… Something close to a more intact building… Something that was impossible to unsee once seen. He quietly approached and stared for a moment, before simply kneeling down… “But this right here…” he began to say, gently picking it up… “This is the work of man…”
Blue, eyes tearing with shivery teeth despite her not crying, glanced and saw…
A baby whose head had been…bashed repeatedly into that very wall.
Novea stared…silently, before looking away, unable to bear the sight…
Blue’s eyes stared as if her heart, as if memories in mind, were shattered… Before, all so abruptly, she hollowed and flattened; “How knightly of them…” she simply said, coldly, standing herself up and swiping her attire… For whatever reason, everything within had gone completely numb, desensitized. “I am surprised none so far seemed to have been violated, considering all I am witnessing are women and children…”
Red put the infantile corpse down with grave respect, before turning to Blue… “Can’t discount they didn’t drag off a gal to use before tossing in a river… But those knights are honorable warriors and methodical professionals who are disciplined and have self-control, unlike common rabble…” he remarked, though by no means out of respect or defense.
“How chivalrous, certainly…” Blue replied, contempt in voice. “Though… Where are all of the men, anyhow?” she noticed…
“Yeah… Good fucking question…” Red stated, eyeing around…
Indeed, the majority of the bodies encountered so far were seemingly women, the elderly, and children, with adolescents being more female than male. Prime men and boys of age were…evidently lacking.
Red continued walking, Blue following… Novea, however, lagged behind. She remained silent, though her hands were…more shaking… She truly could not handle these sights as much as her posture implied. Nevertheless, she made way to follow Red, yet…only to pause as she saw that Blue herself had abruptly paused, staring off in the distance…
“Blue?” Novea tilted her head a little…
Blue’s attention seemed to have been caught by something… “Sorry… I thought I… I thought I…saw…” She struggled to even… “Like an odd light or bug or something…”
“What…did it look like? Did it have a color?” Novea…immediately asked.
“I do not know… A sky-like…between green and blue…color…” Blue answered…
“…” Novea blankly stared… Right… She did not explicitly order a certain someone to not. “It is likely nothing…” Her voice was more awkward…
Blue sighed, shaking her head; “Yeah, you must be right… My heart and head are being playing with from these…sights…” she said; “Although, there was an awfully strange sense to it…”
“Well, these places always have…lingering ghosts that trick the senses…” Novea replied, finding it difficult to keep her Raven persona donned; “Let’s keep…going, and let Red finish so that…we can leave here quickly…”
“Yeah, let’s… Seeing this is suffocating…for both of us…” Blue lowly remarked, before coughing from the air; “Literally… Though, one of us seems to…always need to…relish in the suffocation…” Nevertheless, with a breath, she promptly continued forth. Novea followed in kind as both caught up to Red.
The three continued forth until, finally, Red arrived at what was the heart of this village… Usually, villages of all sizes had a sizable plaza space at their hearts for communal gatherings, meetings, and such… Including, of course, sudden assemblies. This village’s center, however, was quite spacious, stupidly so in fact, being quite vacant; it was rather the contrast to the otherwise compact density.
A pillar of sorts stood at the center’s heart, peasant in its construction; it commemorated some kind of disaster which destroyed much of this village long ago, with inscribed words describing a vow to never build within the space of what had once been to honor and respect, and that, should another disaster befall, the victims were to be buried around this monument. It also outlined a specific criteria of irrigation practices to which must be strictly adhered lest they incur the wrath of some local…fairy divinity.
Approaching, standing before, reading, and just…looking at this pillar… For whatever reason, it improved the mood, at least for Blue… “One more disaster to be added to this, I suppose…” She needed to be humorous. “Though, fairies, huh? Does this village have elven blood?”
“Hm…” Yet Red’s eyes returned to everything around, the burnt buildings and people… To his surprise, there was…no mass of butchered bodies to be found at the center. There were still many bodies, granted, but the center was more or less...empty. “Well, they didn’t get herded to the square with some knight telling them all their ‘crimes’ or that of their bounded lord, and then be butchered… Nope… They just went right into it… A surprise fucking attack…” his thoughts muttered aloud.
“An attack…” Blue’s eyes looked at Red, disconcerted; “You said we are deep in loyalist dominion, no…?”
“We are.” Red just replied.
“Rightly…” Blue nodded away… “So, I am struggling to truly…grasp… Did the Alliance fly their way here, or…?”
“No. Wasn’t Elderberry; wouldn’t make sense…” Red began to cogitate; “Lack of men and boys of age… Must’ve gotten levied into the armies…” he deduced; “I doubt the men of this village did something to piss off their lord… My bet is, Humbleberry was building up and stepped on the Alweny’s tale…”
Blue’s eyes widened, breaths tensing… “Wait… So, you suggest, then…that…Grandberry did this? That…this attack was punishment or…”
“An example. A warning.” Red stated, not aloof to the rising embers afar… “Guess the war isn’t going too well…”
Blue felt even more bleak, yet also…more numb.
“So, what do we do now?” Novea plainly asked Red.
Red…contemplated, before glancing; “Search around for survivors, if there are any…” he thus said; “Then, and you might not like this, but… I can’t leave these people to rot in the sun… We’ll bury them, the way they would’ve wanted, while we’ve still got the time…” His voice was…solemn in affect.
“Alrightly, let’s do that, then…” Yet Novea neither contested nor protested; “They still might have…tools we can borrow… We should check their shacks…”
Indeed, as stupid of an idea this so obviously was, she could not simply leave and pretend as if she had seen nothing; not after seeing all of this…
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[Their corruption washed across the shores of all the thousand realms
Once gracious beasts turned to monstrosities
Once servants of Smiles grew horns and devilish wings, hungry for mortal souls
The Crown filled the hearts of man,
War. Violence. Greed. Cruelty. Malus. Evil.
By this way, had that Legendary Age of Smiles,
Whence all of the thousand realms received their names,
Ended.
So had been born, the First of all Great Tyrant Kings, Lord of Fiends and Dæmons
They who wore the Fallen Crown, borne by which were all the world’s depravity
And all things twisted.]