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Prophetiae Adventum: Envoys of the Pantheon

Kyra Pfalz-Karstadt,

most definitely not Lutatia Eichenwald von Brudel

---

The last of the tea had run out, and Lutatia had nothing to show for it, but she had been prepared for an extended search. She had packed enough for two full meals for herself, plus a little extra if her companions needed an extra pick-me-up. She had long finished her inflight meal of some toasted sandwiches, and was tucking into some delightful cream-filled biscuits when something on the ground below that she was idly observing caught her eye. Or, rather the lack of something. She popped one last baked treat into her mouth before she nudged Lede to descend to a lower altitude for a closer look.

The anomaly in question was a village, but it seemed quite abandoned, and abandoned recently. There were some easily explainable reasons that could have a village deserted so, but considering the circumstances of the missing patrol and the rumors of meddling by Nuniel, it was a point of interest.

“Ser Aurelian,” she spoke, putting power into a communication spell to the nearby knight. “There’s a village off the spur of the main road to your left. It’s been abandoned, and I think we should check why.”

There was no response from the knight, but she hadn’t expected one, because it was one-way. He didn’t have the knowledge of the spell to reply. Frankly, that was probably going to be an issue going forward. With the party already split up, fast two-way communication could mean life or death. She would have to figure out a way to teach everybody the spell or some close equivalent, somehow.
She continued to provide overwatch as Aurelian headed over, in case something went wrong. If the village had been taken over by troops from Nuniel, for example, then it wouldn’t do if she went down with Aurelian and was ambushed together. From the closer view, though, it was obvious that something sinister had happened here. A field had obviously been torched in the recent past, which didn’t bode well for anything good.

It was only when he casted his signal flare spell did she react, first, with a wince, before finally making a lazy descent onto his position. After all, if there was enemy action here, he’d just alerted everybody else, as well.

Glancing around carefully as she landed, she made her way over to the knight. It was obvious up close that there had been a struggle, and it seemed Aurelian was investigating one of the houses.

“Well, we’ve certainly found something,” she idly commented. “Anything important?”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Giselle watched in grim satisfaction as the bones split and cracked against the stone surface. Even in this weakened state, this sort of thing was not a threat at all. Frankly, she thought the three of them could bully their way through to the cathedral just by shoving them aside, but even now, a certain level of panache needed to be upheld despite the lack of obvious witnesses. Clearing the skeletons out would be a public service, anyway—if the city was to ever to return to its former glory.

Either through lack of power as a result of countless years of slumber or personal preference, her companions picked… alternate weapons for the slaughter. The backslap had its own bit of flair, and despite Giselle’s mild distaste for the cleric, she had to admit using a sarcophagus lid as a melee weapon was a particularly creative and effective solution.

Unfortunately, instead of using it like a particularly unwieldy buster sword, the thrice-damned cleric decided to use it as a projectile, creating an almighty crash that just about drew in all the shambling undead in the entire neighborhood.

“It would seem your combat skills have grown rusty over the centuries, Akyasha,” she commented dryly, frowning at the skeletons flooding in from the alleyways. These seemed to have actual weapons. On the other hand, those would be weapons that her companions could use, however disgusting and rusted they looked.

“Perhaps the rusty cleaver would suffice instead of fisticuffs?” Giselle kindly offered a suggestion as said cleaver swung down towards the diminutive vampire’s head.

Her attention quickly turned elsewhere as she reflexively parried a sickle-wielding skeleton that had approached. With a twist of her lance, she smacked the skeletal frame aside and rent it into pieces with the blunt end of her spear, before ducking low and whipping around to disassemble a second skeleton with the pointed end.

“Nor I,” Giselle agreed, nodding towards Aleksiya.

She began moving in earnest towards the cathedral, and away from the shrieking beast, batting aside skeletons along the way.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

The defeat of the overgrown lizard was a bit anticlimactic, all things considered, but in an ideal world, such a thing should be. Lissa was a lot more relieved that the entire fight had gone on with no casualties, and the thing provided food for the village, which was about the best outcome that anybody could ask for, even if Lissa still need to have some words with the Mothraki girl about her fight or flight responses.

At least with that over, Lissa was able to check up on the injured Oni girl, and overall, relax from a job mostly well done. As it happened, it seemed the girl would survive, but more concerningly, there had been other adventures going on about the village while she and Nylah had their own. It seemed there had been some incident on the other side of the village. Lissa had to look into it further, but it seemed there had been some deaths according the rumor mill. Mostly, though, Lissa simply helped out with odds and ends for the past few days, occasionally popping in to see how the injured were fairing.

It was only until Enli called another gathering did things become interesting again, and not really in a good way, as the injured Haruno more or less staggered into the meeting, delivering concerning news. The other happenings in the village were also troublesome, but Lissa immediately focused on what had happened to Haruno, and by extension, Mie. She had been hoping to engage with the merchant on behalf of the village, using some of her own skills and funds to help with their rebuilding, but with said merchant and her caravan stuck in the snow and potentially besieged, those plans were out the window.

Rather, Mie herself needed help, and from Haruno’s tale, her situation seemed dire.

Lissa was of a mind to volunteer to go look for the merchant herself, nodding in agreement at Nylah as she asked her questions.
“I think… it would be mutually beneficial if Mie made it here. If her situation is as bad as it sounds, I would be willing to join any expeditions to help, however small it may be. It would leave a bad taste in my mouth if we just ignored their plight, regardless.”

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Sitting cross-legged atop her sarcophagus, Giselle’s left eye imperceptibly twitched as she watched a nearby lid launch itself into space, before coming back down with an almighty crash. She frowned in displeasure at the interruption, lamenting once more the company that she was forced to keep on the day of her resurrection. It didn’t quite help that she was still ambivalent about being brought back to unlife.

Although in normal circumstances she was not too against receiving hugs and skinship from her trusted friends and certain acquaintances, in this moment of time, it took almost all her willpower to not scowl at the overenthusiastic vampire cleric as she was embraced. “Akyasha. Perhaps,” she allowed, speaking curtly, before responding with more warmth to the younger looking of the two vampire lords that she had awoken with.

Hopping up from her seat on her would-be sepulcher, she smoothed and fixed the hem of her black dress, teasing a thin strip of bare skin where her thigh highs met.

“From my perspective, it has only been some weeks or months since we’ve last corresponded, no matter the real gulf in time, Aleksiya. Though, from princess to princess—"

This time, she genuinely scowled, even as she spoke through the dreadful screeching that broke the dead peace of the garden. Giselle had wanted some more time to truly get her bearings, but it seemed even her fellow undead would not give her the proper peace and solitude for such a thing.

“I believe we can save any formalities we wish to pursue for later. As much as I wish to wallow in despair of my own loss, perhaps I would also be better served doing so elsewhere,” she dryly agreed, nodding at the smaller vampire. She was at least somewhat curious to see what awaited them at the cathedral, after all.

Glancing towards the gate where hordes of mindless, feral undead creatures were beginning to gather, she probed herself, searching within her for her power reserves. With the hunger she felt, Giselle found herself wanting, very much so. Nonetheless, she reached out to the side as she materialized a blood-red lance to fall into her grip. Despite her unrivaled efficiency in blood magic, she felt the toll on her recently awakened body. Strained as is, she didn’t dare attempt to transmutate the blood weapon into something less fleeting and more metallic, lest she needed the blood before she was able to feed on something in this cursed world.

“Well, girls, let’s clear the rabble, shall we?”

Spinning her polearm in her hands, she stepped out to join her counterpart at the gate. This city had really gone to the dumps in the intervening centuries, if somebody was letting unshackled hordes of skeletons and goddess knows what else roaming about. Perhaps it needed some personal reorganizing.

Advancing with a sweep of her lance, she smashed into a small group of shambling undead, the force of the blow tearing through their bodies and sending their bones clattering against the nearby stonework.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

Lissa felt a bit surprised at her own temper, feeling herself grow uncharacteristically heated over a simple fight against an equally simple monster. Then again, she had seen witness to a town devasted and laid low by twin disasters, only to be beset once again by a third, and likely not final threat, all before its inhabitants had time to get back on their feet.

The karmic injustice of the matter tugged at her heartstrings, even as she wrangled with said overgrown lizard. She was thankful that it wasn’t actually overgrown, at least for its own species.

Because of her own little charge, she was in no position to dodge the monster’s chameleon tongue once again. This would have been a larger setback had it been full-size, or if she wasn’t actually a Raam, but even she was surprised when its pink tongue shot out, found purchase, tugged… and just barely made her stumble as she braced against it.

Well, well, well. That was a mistake she would be taking full advantage of.

With a flick of her wrist, she dug into its outstretched tongue with her blade to sever it. For a moment, she waited for the beast’s momentum to carry itself over to her before she finally moved, keeping in mind the movement of the hunter clambering onto it.

“Now!”

Once it was finally upon her, she drew herself low, so that the chameleon could almost pass above her, before she thrusted upwards with her sword, to tear into the beast from its vulnerable belly.

If she timed the move correctly, then her hunter friends would be delivering the coup de grace moments later. Not leaving things to chance, however, she made sure to quickly pop back up and pirouette on her feet once the creature passed, bringing her sword up once more incase the monster proved more resilient than she had calculated.

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Giselle de Farry

Undead Princess, de Farry

---

Her eyes opened to an unfamiliar ceiling.

However long her slumber might have been, the fall to her was just yesterday.

Just yesterday that she had failed her most sacred duty as a sovereign, to that of her people—to protect and lead them in their time of need. Just yesterday were those darkest days, in which every safeguard, carefully cultivated and shepherded over countless centuries, came crumbling to an end as the men of the hundred paladins finally came thundering through the mountain passes, the rivers, the fields, the trenches, and finally, the city walls.

For all of her overtures of peace, to gain an understanding, to bridge the gap to a… careful coexistence, with a deft blow, they had shattered what she had so carefully built.

In doing so, in their ignorance, they had doomed the last sliver of land untouched by war and the blight of a dying age.

By not stopping them, she had damned the people of her land, humans, vampires —her friends-- to a shattered, pitiful end.

She had made a last, futile stand in the field. As a vampire and a great lord, she would not debase herself to selfishly await death in a throne room, long after her loyal subjects had expended themselves in her name. No; they had come for her, for who she was, perhaps what she represented, but not, perchance, her cause.

It was a fight she gave, and if her end gave her enemies a reason to spare who remained, or to even allow them to escape, then all the better to die with a sword in her hand.

Yet the bitter regret of failure remained. It could have all turned out so differently.

Giselle de Farry had died, along with those that she had failed to protect. Yet now, she existed once more, within this elegant, but poor substitute for a proper bed. Why, then, had her goddess deigned to grace her with undeath once more?

She remained still for some time, staring up at the carved lid above her long after she had awakened, a single teardrop falling from her eyes and down the pale skin of her face.

It was only then that she rose, somberly, lifting the sarcophagus lid aside so that she could figure out where she was.

Devoid of light, and ruined as it was, she was in some manner of courtyard garden. She could tell, once upon a time, that it had been a grand and beautiful one, a fitting sepulcher for a vampire lord –or lords, for who else could lie in tombs as elaborate as her own had been?—to lie in state. That this place existed at all, with those dying, awful days, was a complete mystery to her. By the very end, there was precious little to give respect to the lords of the undead, let alone their desecrated remains in the aftermath of the paladins.

Yet, as she examined herself, running her fingers over the cold, pale, and unblemished skin that she knew from unlife, it was clear that this was not the broken body that she had left in her last hour. Even her favorite dress, woven by her own hands, remained untouched, something surprising but welcome, considering such artifacts would likely have been put to the torch after her death. Would it be that the same could be said for her maids and loyal friends…

It was obvious that some manner of sorcery had happened, but the magnitude and manner of it, she could not yet fathom.

Standing up, she took in the rest of her environment. A dead city greeted her, emphasized by the lightless world that she found herself in. How much time had passed? Yet this place remained familiar. She was in Alavaris, with its cathedral in its rightful place in the northern skyline. She even remembered a familiar voice as she gazed upon it, though she frowned as the vague feeling coalesced enough that she could recall the curt form of address that she had been given in that memory. She had to make a wry smile at that. She gave her goddess her due respects, but they hadn’t always seen eye to eye philosophically.

Giselle replaced the lid where it belonged, before taking a seat atop her sarcophagus. Hungry and melancholic as she was, she was not alone, after all, as she watched the nearby lids of her counterparts open.

It seemed her counterparts for this lovely evening was to be a certain annoying cleric, and the Rime-winged Angel. Unfortunate, perhaps, especially given the presence of the former, as she had wished to be alone with her thoughts for longer, but she was glad all the same to see former allies and compatriots in this new undeath.

“Greetings, and good morning. It seems we have been summoned once more, for better or for worse.”

Prophetiae Adventum: Envoys of the Pantheon

Kyra Pfalz-Karstadt,

most definitely not Lutatia Eichenwald von Brudel

---

Lutatia yawned, giving an affectionate pat on Lede’s mane. Soaring through the air at an altitude of several thousand feet, the Pegasus rider nursed a strapped bottle of hot tea, enjoying the warmth of the dawn light. She silently thanked her past self for having drank in moderation last night; otherwise, it would be far too early in the morning to be both flying and nursing a hangover headache.

Last night, in between rounds, they had all agreed to split up to tackle the tasks the group had decided upon. Half of the newly formed team of envoys would remain in the city to check for leads, while the other half was to take the rescue mission. While part of it could end up as a lead, what with the strange happenings around the Kingdoms lately, part of it also was the opportunity to get a proper audience with the lord of Goldshore, or to get an easy crack at his library.

It was frustrating how protective that man was of his books. As a landed citizen of Coris of good reputation, she had paid out the nose in the past for access to his library, and that was for a temporary pass. It offended her Brudelian sensibilities to be nickel-and-dimed so, but as good as the man was, he was still a lord in a merchant kingdom, she supposed. It wasn’t like she would ruin a decade’s work and use her royal upbringing as an in, anyway.

That was why she was out today, together with Aurelian and Vyandar, to do their good deed for the day. Lutatia had been sorely tempted to show the other envoys the city as their resident guide, but there was a time and place. So, after getting a good night’s rest at home, she rose early in the morning to prep Lede for flight before meeting the two armored men at the city gates.

As expected, it was dull, mind-numbing work. She couldn’t even do something more engaging, like fancy aerial maneuvers that she enjoyed during training and practice, because at its core, the mission was search-and-rescue. Lutatia was able to do the bare minimum to mix things up, at least. Instead of flying the parallel track search that Brudelian Pegasus knights favored, she flew her search in the expanding square pattern that airships from Nuniel had been observed to use. If anything, it was more engaging. She wasn’t sure how well-versed sir Aurelian was with his former country’s air forces, but he would probably be familiar with the patterns she was making in the sky if he was interested enough to pay attention to her. It perhaps was slightly less optimal considering they were following a river, but… small things.

As it was right now, things were still pretty boring. East and North-east of Coris, along the Trifork river—that was a landscape that Lutatia was intimately familiar with. As far as she could see, it was simple river traffic, the boats and ships like little ants from the sky, with the farms and their fields of green stretching out into the greater horizon, broken only by the occasional groupings of trees.

If there was a lost or indisposed patrol out there, she wasn’t seeing it.

Ayo

Well that's rude

Bible of Ichor: Septet for the Dead

Princess Ambassador

Giselle de Farry

'Sella'

♀

---

Standing at 5’ 4”, she possesses an average, if somewhat slim frame. Her pale skin is a near match for her paper-white hair, often done up in fluffy twintail locks that reach down to her upper back. Her blood-red eyes, typical of her kind, twinkle with amusement, to match the refined elegance of her way of carrying herself. She enjoys discerning, often bare-shouldered dresses, and usually of her own creation.

Abilities

As a lady of blood, Giselle takes the art of bloodcraft to its upper bounds of refinement. Acting as the artist or conductor of her own world, she paints the environment around her in tasteful blood. From the elegant dresses she wears, to the beautifully crafted weapons she wields, to even the exquisitely decorated chairs and tables that she sits at, they are all her creations of blood.

Once upon a time, transmutation of such valuable ichor into immutable, fantastic masterpieces was not beyond her. It was not uncommon for her to reward the most loyal of her friends and followers with thoughtfully crafted weapons, equipment, and sundry. To others, for the right price.

Although her work embodies creation, it does not belie her destructive potential, either through her creations themselves, or by brute force of blood as is favored by many of her kind. Possessing a secondary affinity for illusion, a task she puts to use in friendship, it can be otherwise insidiously dangerous in battle, in light of her abilities of creation. How can one feel safe, after all, if one knows what they face is a creation, but not of what type?

Personality

Giselle is an unusual character for her breed, insofar as one can be as an undead being whose unlife and purpose revolves around lifeblood. Secular as much as one can be without being too out of line with Ichor, she treats humans as intellectual equals to her own kind, preferring to judge people on their individual merit and without the bias of unlife— show respect and have your wits about you, and she will return the favor, and more. That, however, doesn’t stop her from finding many of them wanting, and subsequently, beneath her notice.

To humans, she is one of the more pleasant characters among her people, if somewhat smug and self-satisfied. She’s able to find intellectual companionship with the humans and vampires that she finds herself able to respect, and somehow finds amusement out of the antics of those that she does not. Those that she favors she does all in her power to protect or win to her side, slotting them into her retinue with their free wills (mostly) intact, dispensing favors and rewards with an even hand. Many eventually serve in her employment as maid and butler knights, as thralls and valued humans alike.

Content to talk, listen to stories, and act as ambassador between the two worlds, she does not kill unless required to do so, finding the act a waste. Satisfied with her own thing in peace, she subscribes to the mind your own business school of ethics. She, however, responds by rote with significant force escalation if even slightly provoked otherwise. To Giselle, the taking and giving of blood is transactional—if she respects you. For the right price, she may even allow one to walk alongside her as a fellow daughter of Ichor.

In the wake of the ashes of an era crumbled to dust, for how the world has fallen, only sense can be found in returning her queen and liege lord to the world.

Biography

An era and a half ago, long lost to time, Giselle was once the heir to a great princely house. Just and fair, wise for her years, a consummate diplomat, and unblinded by religious zeal, she was the ideal successor to rule the lands of the great house. It was this same lack of dependence on the whims of the gods that made it easy for her to fall when a vampire passed into her domain.

Finding stability in a particularly decadent ritual together with some of her court, once turned, her attention simply returned once more to tend to her domain with a careful but firm hand, as she always had, securing peaceful futures for her human and undead subjects through personal diplomacy—backed by her loyal order of maid-knights.

In time, she became respected for her immutability and diplomacy by both living and undead alike, joining the orbit of the Queen as one of her trusted, if aloof, generals in the role of ambassador between the two societies. She was the bridge between her kind and the humans, the gateway to the undead, and the undead to the living. Connections, special goods, and services that might never have existed between the two did, through her.

It was a respect and a reputation that went a long way, her land and court remaining a finely balanced neutral safe ground even well into the war of the crusade of the Hundred Paladins, carefully maintained by ironclad treaties and agreements.

Yet still, the paladins would not suffer a single vampire to remain untouched, especially one that would provide the last safe haven to her kind. Fortress as it was, booby-trapped beyond reason, guarded by its own elite order of knights and secured by human alliance, it was no deterrent. Eventually, they came for her and her people still, as society and general order unraveled as the era came to a close. The last days of the crusade burned bright and hot as vampires fought against paladins, knights against knights, humans against humans, the Paladins paying dearly for every inch of soil taken.

There was only so much an isolated enclave in a collapsing world could take, however, before it too would fall together with their Lady and the rest of them all.

Epic of Beginnings - Dawns Cradle

Lissa

From the corner of her eye, Lissa watched as Nylah and her stretcher screamed away from her in the direction of the spider lady’s house. Good; Haruno would get the help she needed, and away from danger, to boot. The moth girl had thrown and left a light-energy shield spell or construct in her wake. Impressive, and potentially helpful… but although her Raam strength meant that she could easily wield a longsword one-handed, the difference in technique and weight of using her weapon in an unfamiliar way and technique could be potentially fatal.

With that in mind, she left it there on the ground for a moment, although she gestured to one of the spear-wielding hunters to claim it for themselves. They would probably need it. Lissa wasn’t sure how the acid would react to her own physiology, but together with her own armor, she would rather she take such hits rather than one of the squishier villagers. With some luck, Nylah’s gift would keep them uninjured, or at minimum, alive.

At least it sounded like the hunters knew what they were dealing with, even if they hadn’t expected one at the village.

Reinforced by the hunters, she slashed out at the monster with her sword before yelping as the creature shot out a gout of acid towards her and her newfound allies. The Raam quickly moved to dodge out of the way, pulling the nearest hunter that looked to be in the line of fire with her.

"Assuming that neither of them had taken a bad hit from the nasty liquid, Lissa’s next decision was to gesture for the hunters to begin to flank the chameleon before she charged it from the front, sword raised.

“Die, you godsdamned overgrown lizard!”