| [Wood-Mother of the Goblin Tribe] |
| Dryad, Female, Woodmother |
| Location: The Human Capital, Palace |
Her mud and grime coated hooves clack against the stones, her steps growing sharper with every movement as she walks, losing the muffling debris stuck to her with every movement. Creatures of claw and tooth swarm alongside her, breaking open doors and sealed chambers as they cut into the heart of the human capital — its castle.
The infiltration of this place was easy enough. The darkness and the humans' distaste for filth played to their advantage, allowing them to not only reach the city and enter it via use of waste outlet channels and tunnel systems but even to breach all the way to the castle. They only needed to gnaw through a few gratings and metal bars, and they made it all the way here.
The dryad shakes herself off, dropping down to all fours as she prowls. Hobgoblins crawl alongside her, moving along like a swarm of spiders.
The city has sounded the alarm, but that’s exactly what she was hoping for. It was a little earlier than desired, but the plan is still functional. The hobgoblins in the city center were only a distraction, in order to draw away as many of the guards as possible as they bite off the head of the snake.
She grins as they run forward, cutting through the unprepared.
| [Azimuth] |
| Orc, Female, True Hero |
| Location: The Human Capital, Streets |
The monster falls into two pieces, its legs flopping down at her side as her arm holds its torso up into the air — the two halves connected by a string of black entrails that continue to pulsate like worms, trying to burrow back into the wet soil of a rainy day.
Something moves in the corner of her vision. Azimuth spins, using the screaming half-body as a shield. Rabid gangrene claws tear into its writhing mass, as the monster indiscriminately attacks whatever it can reach. People run and scream all around her, the screams of the humans indistinguishable from the howls of these sickly things. The smell of rot and sewage is in the air, coming not only from the innards inches from her face, but from all around her as a thick miasma.
The orc lets go of the torso, which is still alive and now held aloft by its brethren’s long claws that have dug deeply into its flesh and kicks against its back, sending a few of them flying as she readies her sword. However, she stumbles, something clinging to her back, having jumped on her from behind. Her hand finds its wrist, wrapped around her chest and she yanks on it, putting that farm strength to good use as she tears its off of the sleek metal in which it found no grip and twists before ducking down, using the momentum to throw the hobgoblin over herself and down onto the ground, where her boot quickly crushes down on its face — not killing it, as evident by its screams now it is blinded and mangled.
There’s no time to finish it, though, as the swarm continues to move.
Guardsmen are pouring in from the city, but they are ill-matched and unprepared. Those with polearms and grouping manage to hold small formations steady, but the rest fall quickly below the long arms and agile movements of the monsters.
— Something grabs her leg.
Azimuth slams the sword down between the cobblestones, cutting off a long, slender hand from its owner.
| [High King Meridian] |
| Human, Male, High King |
| Location: The Human Capital, Palace |
“Do you ever wonder why the gods do what they do?” asks Meridian, staring out over the city and watching the flow of lights. “I do,” remarks the very old man, shaking his head. “I never used to, honestly.” The city coagulates, the part of it in danger growing dark, as the life-blood flows into all other directions. It’s a living, breathing organism in and of itself. “I tried to avoid it entirely, actually. For my whole life.” Meridian lifts his gaze, staring towards the heavens, from which the gods stare down unto him. “Even after they made their presence clear to you and I,” he says. “I tried to avoid believing in them.”
He holds his hands behind his back, watching the clouds drift by as he waits, but not really sure for what.
Steps come from behind him, the woman having risen to her feet once more. He feels something sharp press against his back — the tip of a blade pressing in through his mantle and cloak.
“Have you really betrayed your principles?” asks the assassin. “To stay out of this from the start to the end?”
“No,” replies Meridian, shaking his head and not bothering to look at her. “I just found some principles now to begin with,” he remarks. “And you?” asks the old man. “What do you have to believe in?” She tsks, turning her head away as he stares out over the lands below.
It’s almost nostalgic; the two of them up so high like this again.
“I wonder often about the gods,” he says again. “They’re strange, aren’t they?” asks the old man, stroking his beard, which feels softer now than it once did, given that it lacks the salt of the ocean air and the sea spray. “The people they choose, their methods — it makes little sense to me, yet somehow, things add up in the end.” He turns around, the tip of the knife snagging in the fabric of his clothes as he moves to face her. The old man places a hand on her shoulder, looking at the elf, who had, for her stubbornness, been punished by the heavens anew. She reeks and is covered with gore. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll get you a rag.”
“I’m here to kill you!” she reaffirms through gritted teeth, grabbing hold of his cloak with her free hand and lifting the dagger into the air.
Meridian looks at her, shaking his head. “No, you’re not,” he says with astounding confidence, and then simply walks off. “Not anymore.” He waves a hand in the air. “I think you’ve learned that lesson by now.”
The assassin stands there, left behind by her target, her arm still frozen in the air as she simply watches him stroll over the monster’s corpse and back into his chamber.
In truth, it’s a hard statement to argue against. Every time she’s tried to kill him, the gods have clearly and decisively intervened. The collapsing of the lighthouse, the destruction of the city quarter, the monster just now.
It really doesn’t get much clearer, does it?
All of them have a role to play here in this song and dance that is orchestrated by the heavens, and even if they try to fight against it, if they try to dance to a different tune than the one that has been designated for them, the world will know and will take measures to make sure they return to the proper choreography.
So it is best to just embrace it, to do as the gods ask, and to live in harmony with their will.
Meridian takes the lid off of a bowl atop his commode, steam rising out in warm vapors as he pulls out a towel from the hot, herb-infused waters it was bathing in and wrings it out, handing it to the elf, who somewhat awkwardly walks inside after him, clearly not sure what to do now. It’s a strange situation, socially.
“I need to get to my advisers to help arrange the defense of the city,” explains Meridian. “But I’m old and slow,” he explains. “That’s why you’re here,” affirms the man as she wipes the grime off of her face. “This is fate. This, all of this…”
She looks at him, unsure. “To what ends, though?” she asks.
Meridian shakes his head. “It is not for us mortal beings to ever know.”
| [Azimuth] |
| Orc, Female, True Hero |
| Location: The Human Capital, Streets |
She’s pulled back to a formation of guards, but there are so many of them. How did they get into the city?
The orc lifts her sword into the air, getting ready to charge back for another assault on the line of grim maws that protrude from the darkness.
— And then, it begins to shake. A rattling moves down her bones. The hairs on the end of her neck stand on end, and her eyes go wide as the smell of fresh, lightning-cut air fills her nose.
They wouldn’t, would they? In the city?
She hesitates in that moment to swing her sword as she holds it aloft, listening to the wowed voices coming from the distracted guardsmen, as her blade glows alight, shining with a vividly cold, blue energy that condenses around the singing metal.
A monster lunges out of the darkness towards her.
Azimuth swings her sword to cut it in half.
The night roars, her eyes flashing with blinding white, as the lance of God breaks through the skull of the lunging monster, piercing through it from above with pinpoint accuracy.
It falls to the ground, a glowing, smoldering wound lined through its corpse.
— Then, a second later, it begins to rain.
Hundreds of small shafts of light — like white feathered arrows — cut through the sky, the houses, the bones, and the cobblestones of the road. They shoot so deeply that they leave holes in the world below, causing the streets to become unstable and crumble as they slowly collapse into the sewage tunnels below.
Azimuth stares and watches, as the world before her is turned into what resembles pristine winter’s snow.
| [Wood-Mother of the Goblin Tribe] |
| Dryad, Female, Woodmother |
| Location: The Human Capital, Palace |
Her mud and grime coated hooves clack against the stones, her steps growing sharper with every movement as she walks, losing the muffling debris stuck to her with every movement. Creatures of claw and tooth swarm alongside her, breaking open doors and sealed chambers as they cut into the heart of the human capital — its castle.
The infiltration of this place was easy enough. The darkness and the humans' distaste for filth played to their advantage, allowing them to not only reach the city and enter it via use of waste outlet channels and tunnel systems but even to breach all the way to the castle. They only needed to gnaw through a few gratings and metal bars, and they made it all the way here.
The dryad shakes herself off, dropping down to all fours as she prowls. Hobgoblins crawl alongside her, moving along like a swarm of spiders.
The city has sounded the alarm, but that’s exactly what she was hoping for. It was a little earlier than desired, but the plan is still functional. The hobgoblins in the city center were only a distraction, in order to draw away as many of the guards as possible as they bite off the head of the snake.
She grins as they run forward, cutting through the unprepared.
| [Azimuth] |
| Orc, Female, True Hero |
| Location: The Human Capital, Streets |
The monster falls into two pieces, its legs flopping down at her side as her arm holds its torso up into the air — the two halves connected by a string of black entrails that continue to pulsate like worms, trying to burrow back into the wet soil of a rainy day.
Something moves in the corner of her vision. Azimuth spins, using the screaming half-body as a shield. Rabid gangrene claws tear into its writhing mass, as the monster indiscriminately attacks whatever it can reach. People run and scream all around her, the screams of the humans indistinguishable from the howls of these sickly things. The smell of rot and sewage is in the air, coming not only from the innards inches from her face, but from all around her as a thick miasma.
The orc lets go of the torso, which is still alive and now held aloft by its brethren’s long claws that have dug deeply into its flesh and kicks against its back, sending a few of them flying as she readies her sword. However, she stumbles, something clinging to her back, having jumped on her from behind. Her hand finds its wrist, wrapped around her chest and she yanks on it, putting that farm strength to good use as she tears its off of the sleek metal in which it found no grip and twists before ducking down, using the momentum to throw the hobgoblin over herself and down onto the ground, where her boot quickly crushes down on its face — not killing it, as evident by its screams now it is blinded and mangled.
There’s no time to finish it, though, as the swarm continues to move.
Guardsmen are pouring in from the city, but they are ill-matched and unprepared. Those with polearms and grouping manage to hold small formations steady, but the rest fall quickly below the long arms and agile movements of the monsters.
— Something grabs her leg.
Azimuth slams the sword down between the cobblestones, cutting off a long, slender hand from its owner.
| [High King Meridian] |
| Human, Male, High King |
| Location: The Human Capital, Palace |
“Do you ever wonder why the gods do what they do?” asks Meridian, staring out over the city and watching the flow of lights. “I do,” remarks the very old man, shaking his head. “I never used to, honestly.” The city coagulates, the part of it in danger growing dark, as the life-blood flows into all other directions. It’s a living, breathing organism in and of itself. “I tried to avoid it entirely, actually. For my whole life.” Meridian lifts his gaze, staring towards the heavens, from which the gods stare down unto him. “Even after they made their presence clear to you and I,” he says. “I tried to avoid believing in them.”
He holds his hands behind his back, watching the clouds drift by as he waits, but not really sure for what.
Steps come from behind him, the woman having risen to her feet once more. He feels something sharp press against his back — the tip of a blade pressing in through his mantle and cloak.
“Have you really betrayed your principles?” asks the assassin. “To stay out of this from the start to the end?”
“No,” replies Meridian, shaking his head and not bothering to look at her. “I just found some principles now to begin with,” he remarks. “And you?” asks the old man. “What do you have to believe in?” She tsks, turning her head away as he stares out over the lands below.
It’s almost nostalgic; the two of them up so high like this again.
“I wonder often about the gods,” he says again. “They’re strange, aren’t they?” asks the old man, stroking his beard, which feels softer now than it once did, given that it lacks the salt of the ocean air and the sea spray. “The people they choose, their methods — it makes little sense to me, yet somehow, things add up in the end.” He turns around, the tip of the knife snagging in the fabric of his clothes as he moves to face her. The old man places a hand on her shoulder, looking at the elf, who had, for her stubbornness, been punished by the heavens anew. She reeks and is covered with gore. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll get you a rag.”
“I’m here to kill you!” she reaffirms through gritted teeth, grabbing hold of his cloak with her free hand and lifting the dagger into the air.
Meridian looks at her, shaking his head. “No, you’re not,” he says with astounding confidence, and then simply walks off. “Not anymore.” He waves a hand in the air. “I think you’ve learned that lesson by now.”
The assassin stands there, left behind by her target, her arm still frozen in the air as she simply watches him stroll over the monster’s corpse and back into his chamber.
In truth, it’s a hard statement to argue against. Every time she’s tried to kill him, the gods have clearly and decisively intervened. The collapsing of the lighthouse, the destruction of the city quarter, the monster just now.
It really doesn’t get much clearer, does it?
All of them have a role to play here in this song and dance that is orchestrated by the heavens, and even if they try to fight against it, if they try to dance to a different tune than the one that has been designated for them, the world will know and will take measures to make sure they return to the proper choreography.
So it is best to just embrace it, to do as the gods ask, and to live in harmony with their will.
Meridian takes the lid off of a bowl atop his commode, steam rising out in warm vapors as he pulls out a towel from the hot, herb-infused waters it was bathing in and wrings it out, handing it to the elf, who somewhat awkwardly walks inside after him, clearly not sure what to do now. It’s a strange situation, socially.
“I need to get to my advisers to help arrange the defense of the city,” explains Meridian. “But I’m old and slow,” he explains. “That’s why you’re here,” affirms the man as she wipes the grime off of her face. “This is fate. This, all of this…”
She looks at him, unsure. “To what ends, though?” she asks.
Meridian shakes his head. “It is not for us mortal beings to ever know.”
| [Azimuth] |
| Orc, Female, True Hero |
| Location: The Human Capital, Streets |
She’s pulled back to a formation of guards, but there are so many of them. How did they get into the city?
The orc lifts her sword into the air, getting ready to charge back for another assault on the line of grim maws that protrude from the darkness.
— And then, it begins to shake. A rattling moves down her bones. The hairs on the end of her neck stand on end, and her eyes go wide as the smell of fresh, lightning-cut air fills her nose.
They wouldn’t, would they? In the city?
She hesitates in that moment to swing her sword as she holds it aloft, listening to the wowed voices coming from the distracted guardsmen, as her blade glows alight, shining with a vividly cold, blue energy that condenses around the singing metal.
A monster lunges out of the darkness towards her.
Azimuth swings her sword to cut it in half.
The night roars, her eyes flashing with blinding white, as the lance of God breaks through the skull of the lunging monster, piercing through it from above with pinpoint accuracy.
It falls to the ground, a glowing, smoldering wound lined through its corpse.
— Then, a second later, it begins to rain.
Hundreds of small shafts of light — like white feathered arrows — cut through the sky, the houses, the bones, and the cobblestones of the road. They shoot so deeply that they leave holes in the world below, causing the streets to become unstable and crumble as they slowly collapse into the sewage tunnels below.
Azimuth stares and watches, as the world before her is turned into what resembles pristine winter’s snow.
