Lovejoy

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Sorry! Got home and ended up playing the new God of War for like 3 hours... :(

Will have the update up tomorrow!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarah @CollectorOfMyst

Will have an update for the both of you tomorrow!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@Scout I'm taking control of Hassan for now, since he's going to be a bit sneaky/careful with info at the moment. After all, Stina is around. :p

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@vietmyke @OppositionJ @deathbringer

There we go!

Sorry for the bad quality of the writing here. It's been a hectic week for me and I couldn't go back and finetune this post as much as I wanted.

Besides this IC post, I've also sent you guys a prompt regarding what happens after you set out to the Glacier. You can use that to inform your next posts!

Once again, sorry for the long wait.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

The Circle Keep, Elder Mountain, Lanostre

---

The world was quiet but for the lashing winds. The descent down the Elder Mountain was an arduous journey for most, but for Father Galahad and Mother Tatiana, it was like a stroll through childhood lanes. The two inquisitors had chosen to ride their ramahks down the mountain, while Elisheva and the meager forces that remained under her command were carried down the Skyway, a massive elevator cut into the Elder Mountain itself decades past by the engineers of Bridgetown. The ramahks were agitated, unusual for them, but something dark was in the air, and the two inquisitors could feel the massive horned beasts tremble under their saddles as they carefully rode them down the mountain path. Even with the strange agitation of the ramahks, the journey had been a sobering one. It had been more than a decade since either of them had traveled down the Mountain, but the miles of stone and ice, the familiar fortresses and waycastles standing sentinel through the path, the scent of evergreens filling their nostrils, and the icy sting of the mountain air, it had all managed to lift their spirits somewhat.

Before they had set out Elisheva had given a fleeting report of the demons that awaited them at the Glacier. She was able to kill several of them, but was overwhelmed after they swarmed her forces and cut through them like a blade through parchment. She also told them the demons holding a defensive position around the Glacier and only attacked after she approached. She wondered if the T'saraen research garrison was wiped out due to them being in too close proximity to the Glacier.

She promised to go into more detail once they reached the perimeter where the demons stood in a defensive formation, but at that moment, Galahad and Elisheva wrestled with the knowledge that these demons were unlike any that had come before. They were intelligent and cunning, capable of organizing into battle formations and seemed to fight under a command hierarchy. What that meant, and how it threw into disarray the understanding of the Glacier-- it was a change that Lanostre was not prepared for. The two of them couldn't help but wonder what the Queendom would look like upon their return from El.

The sun was high in the sky by the time they reached the Circle Keep, the formidable fortress that ringed the Elder Mountain and acted as Sapharan's first line of defense against invaders. Elisheva and the twenty seven shivering conscripts that comprised the rest of their forces had arrived a short while before them. The three inquisitors, together with the force of conscripts, then made their way into the Circle's armory, where Elisheva, Galahad and Tatiana outfitted themselves with ammunition and extra ether vials. It was there that Mother Astraea and a pale-skinned Father Cillian met them.

"Galahad, Tatiana," Astraea spoke their names in greeting, nodding her head at Tatiana. This was the only acknowledgement the summoner would recieve from her that morning. It alone would have to do. It meant that their earlier arguement was behind them now. They would put things aside, and fight together as a warband, as they always had.

"Father Galahad, Mother Tatiana, may I have a word?" Cillian called out. He was sitting down on a bench. Mother Astraea made her way to him and kneeled down beside him, checking his wound. The Protector was gripping his abdoment, trying to keep his breathing measured.

"Neither Elisheva nor myself were the warleaders of our warbands. Elisheva is our senior, but she is more a soldier than a tactician. She will differ to you during this operation. As will I," he said, staring intently at Galahad.

"Please heed what I say. This musn't be a battle of attrition, but a swift destruction. We must kill them quickly, otherwise they will swarm us and... it will not be a pretty sight. These demons are not invulnerable, but in fact, are brittle like glass. However, they are faster than any inquisitor I have ever faced in the Seminary. If there is a way to destroy them all at once, before they can spread out too far and cause too much damage, we must consider it a prime strategy."

"I will fight in the front. I've hunted the Glacier's spawn before and I will do so again," Astraea said, flashing her eyes at Tatiana.

"And I must uphold the aegis, less we all freeze out there, but I can take a few of them down myself. Galahad, Tatiana, what are your thoughts?" Cillian asked, his golden eyes focusing on the two of them.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@OppositionJ @vietmyke Shit guys I'm really sorry for how long this is taking. Work has been extremely fucked lately and I haven't had time to finish the post. Right now its about half done. I will definitely have it finished by this weekend though. Sorry for the wait.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@The Angry Goat Nah I think it works really well!

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@shylarah There are long range communication methods or whatever in this world. Those engineers most llikely received word of the URA through a transmission from Cero. In any case, we will learn more about the connection between Tsukasa and the T'saraen enclave in Lanostre, but the idea that I was trying to convey is that they are at odds with each other and that the URA is something the engineers in Lanostre might not be totally down with.

As for Cillian and Astraea, I don't think they are intensely familiar. Cillian just knows her through her work as a medic in the Seminary and through joint training exercises/competitions.

I think the Warbands are named after powerful/frightening concepts, and maybe some inquisitor long ago was a big fan of the seraphs of legend and decided to name their Warband after them. :p

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

@deathbringer Hope I got Astraea right!

@OppositionJ @vietmyke Tomorrow I'll have a in update for Tatiana and Galahad. Sorry it's taking so long! Things have been pretty busy on my end.

The Last Embers (Dark Steampunk/Fantasy)

Military Hospital, Sapharan, Lanostre

---

The floor of the trauma ward was awash in red. Men and women in medical scrubs scurried through the ward, treating the dying and wounded. Astraea stood there among them, her boots were slick with blood, as were her hands.
As soon as the inquisitor stepped foot into the ward a young medic, seemingly not noticing her uniform, yelled for her to apply pressure on the oozing wound of a pale-faced conscript. Astraea did as she was told. She stared intently at the conscript, a young blonde Varyan girl. The terror in her eyes- it was a foreign thing to look upon, something she knew that was real but had never witnessed herself. For many years Antonin had put her on medic duty, tasking her with healing the broken bones and weeping gashes of countless other pupils who had suffered wounds on the training yard, but all of them had endured their injuries with the steely solemness that the Seminary had beat into them.

The conscript looked into her gaze, and for the first time Astraea met with the eyes of someone fearing death.

Without effort or ceremony, the conscript's wound closed beneath Astraea's palm. There were no bright lights or ethereal energy resonating from her hands, only flesh, nerve and tendon returning to its original state, as if time was being rewound. She didn't even need to think about it now. Injuries like these were nothing compared to the wounds that her warsiblings had sustained on the training yard.

"W-what?" the young medic stared at her in disbelief, as his eyes finally noticed the black and crimson coat she wore.

"There was an inquisitor brought here not too long ago. A Father Cillian. Where is he?" she asked, eyes searching through the ward.

The medic took a moment to respond. He motioned toward a space at the rear of the ward. "Back there."

Astraea nodded at the medic and left.

All around her there was chaos. The medical staff was struggling with the influx of wounded conscripts and as she made her way through the maelstrom of overworked medics and healers her lungs breathed in the exhaust of machines pumping distilled ether into the depleting veins of wounded soldiers. Astraea wondered just who was responsible for this massacre.

She passed by a small group of T'saraen engineers huddled in a corner with grave expressions on their faces. They wore the furlined parkas and turbans of Bridgetowners, and her ears picked up some of their conversation as she walked by.

"Word is Tsukasa gave the order to power the machine to its full capacity last night," one of them whispered.

"The traitor," another spat.

"Could it have been the cause of what happened?"

"Don't speak such things. Not aloud."

She didn't understand what the engineers spoke of and thus didn't pay it much mind, and as she opened a curtain in front of her she finally caught glimpse of him. Father Cillian lay on a blood-stained bed, situated in a secluded space away from the rest of the ward. He was surrounded by a surgeon, a young Varyan nun, and the old medic whom Elisheva had ordered to bring Cillian to this place.

The protector of Warband Leviathan was conscious, his cloudy amber eyes staring at the ceiling in forced concentration, his chest rising and falling in controlled breaths. Astraea stopped in her tracks. she could hear her own heart beating in her ears. Cillian's pain was absolute, she could feel a small echo of it coursing within her, and it was all he could do to keep from screaming. He appeared calm, but sweat streaked his dark skin. When she looked down at his bare torso, the inquisitor couldn't help but wince.

Cillian had been opened up like a purse, a massive gash ripping through him from his chest down to his groin. A blood-splattered blanket covered his lower extremities, and Astraea shuddered to think as to how the rest of him looked below the waist. With a start Astraea remembered something Ragnar had once told the warband, about how Protectors could create ethereal shields to block anything, from the cold, to the ethereal magic of other inquisitors, to individual pain. Was Cillian keeping the pain from becoming too much to bear through his use of a paling? If so, he must have been expending a worrying amount of ether.

Astraea hurriedly approached the wounded inquisitor.

When his eyes fell on her, they squinted, as if seeing some mirage in the distance that he couldn't be sure was real. Even then, there was genuine relief in his eyes.

"You can tend to the others now," he said to the medic, surgeon and nun.

The three of them, standing around Cillian, turned to look at Astraea. The surgeon gave the Lanostran inquisitor a quizzical look.

"Excuse my ignorance, but, who is this?"

Cillian tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but a sudden tremor of pain made him decide against it.

"This is Mother Astraea of Warband Phoenix. Apprentice to the White Necromancer. She can heal me," he told them.

The Varyan nun, a young girl who looked no older than fifteen, suddenly gasped.

She gazed upon the R'heon's mark on Astraea's neck with rapt fascination, and then took in the inquisitor's platinum hair.

"The White Huntress," she whispered with breathless amazement.

Astraea cocked an eyebrow, unsure as to how her exploits in the Seminary had reached the ears of this young nun in the clerical branch. The surgeon and medic nodded at her solemnly and left, taking the astonished nun with them.

Astraea looked down at Father Cillian. He seemed to be ecstatic to see her. He did not smile, but his eyes did.

"It's been a while, Mother Astraea. Good to see you," he said in a ragged voice.

She didn't answer, instead she kneeled down in front of him and placed her palms over the cavernous wound.

"You came in the nick of time. I was just about to undergo a painful surgery. If you hadn't come they would've had to stitch me back together themselves. I would've had to remain awake for the procedure in order to keep the paling."

Astraea paid little mind to what he said, as she concentrated all her efforts on repairing the damage that had been done to his body. She had one vial of ether at her belt, and the diamond-shaped catalyst embedded within her hunter's bracer began to tremble as it channeled the Omestrian ether into it. It then coursed through her palms, and with her guidance, flowed onto the wound.

Cillian breathed out, as if a great burden had been lifted from him. He was finally able to let go of the paling that was keeping the worst of the pain from reaching him.

"Tell me about the demons," she said, her emerald eyes aimed at the wound as it slowly began to repair itself.

Cillian turned away from her and stared at the ceiling again. It took him a while to answer.

"They were... strange. Beautiful in a way."

Astraea shot him a glance.

"What?"

"My garden, back at the Seminary. I grew roses, lillies, irises. Dead plants from the old world. With my ether I could bring them back to life. These demons, they were the same."

Cillian tapped a finger to his wound, seeping it in blood. He then brought his fingertip to the wall and began to draw on it.

A humanoid figure. Three pairs of massive wings erecting from its back.

"What is that? An.. angel?" Astraea asked, uncertain of what she was seeing.

"... A seraph."

"What are you talking about?"

"The "Soldiers of the Gods". You know the tale. Before humans were given life, the Remnants fashioned warriors from the ice and breathed into them the ether from their own souls, granting them power and purpose. These saints waged war in the name of their Lords, but apparently, failed in this task and were abandoned, their lifeless forms left to be swallowed by the ice."

Astraea looked into Cillian's eyes.

"Are you saying the demons you fought are the seraphs from the legends?"

"I can't be certain they are one and the same. But they are similar to those we've read about in the history texts."

Cillian turned to the wall once again and began to draw more winged figures, each of them regimented into separate groups.

"You understand the Black Glacier more than I ever could, thus you are aware that historically, the demons your people have hunted have been little more than bestial creatures-- highly dangerous, but predictable in their movements."

Astraea looked at the crimson etchings on the wall. The winged figures were lined up in familiar patterns. It took her a while, but finally, she realized. The "seraphs" had been drawn in battle formations.

"These are not guileless beasts, but in fact, sentient and intelligent soldiers who use tactics to overwhelm their opponents. They even have a hierachy, with commanders and generals. I was in the rear, keeping the aegis for the Varyan soldiers under Elisheva's command, and I saw everything that transpired. Elisheva, unfortunately, vastly underestimated them, and this was the result," Cillian said, gesturing toward the countless wounded conscripts throughout the trauma ward.

"What about you? How did this happen?" Astraea asked him, focusing on the wound again

"They are fast. Much faster than ordinary men. If you don't use your ether to match their speed they can easily overwhelm you. Their wings are deadly weapons, sharper than any blade. I learned this the hard way."

"Seraph or not, the demons of the Black Glacier should never be faced without the utmost care and preparation. You and Elisheva learned that today, but we won't be taken off-guard next time," she told him before rising from her kkneeling position.

"I've healed the worst of it. Thankfully none of your major organs were damaged. It will leave a hell of a scar, and you'll be in some amount of pain for many days, but you will be able to fight."

Cillian listened intently, and once she was finished, he tried to get to his feet. He struggled, but eventually was able to rise from the bed.

"R'heon, you have my thanks."

"Get your gear together. It is time we rejoin the others."