wardenraime

1234 - Lords of the Storm Lands III

“What?!” Gwarim boomed.  “Jors-kil!”

The Strategos in question, who had been quietly speaking with Strategos Jagan, looked over, a smile fading slightly when he noticed all of the Despots staring at him.

“Get over here!” Gwarim thundered as he waved the man over.

Jors-kil excused himself and crossed the room, leaving the Strategoi and joining the Despots.

“The old man says Iaivi Fortress was attacked,” Gwarim said.  “What happened?”

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1233 - Lords of the Storm Lands II

Leon’s blood turned to ice as he processed Triyr’s question.  It was one he was expecting to have to answer, but not so soon.  But he only needed a moment to kick his brain back into action.

“Found it in a ditch somewhere,” he quipped.  “Thought it was nice.  Took it for my own.”

Triyr glared dismissively at him.  “Yet another uncouth newcomer…”

The question had stunned the other Storm Lords on the dock, and it was Gwarim who recove...

1232 - Lords of the Storm Lands I

As Storm Herald returned to reality, the magic that transported her deep into the base of the Great Strand of Lux bleeding away into the Void, she was greeted by a spectacular sight: a city glittering in the darkness, bands of Lumenite stretching from its heart like spider silk and connecting it to outlying bastions covered in weapon emplacements and vast fortifications.

The great fortified city of Voidshore had been built upon a demiplane, a plane large enough for a settlement...

1231 - Silver Masks

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It took several hours to cut down all of the bodies on the tree at the heart of the...

1230 - Jors-kil

“You all right?” Alix asked, her voice smashing against his migraine like a sledgehammer against theater glass.

A long, pained groan rumbled from Daryun’s throat and pushed past his lips.  Despite that, he still croaked, “Never better.”

A lie, to be sure, but with the creature dead, the vise grip it had upon his mind had vanished, and his recovery had already started.  As pained as he was, he was in less pain than he was just a few seconds ago.

“Hey,”...

1229 - Pincer Attack

Finding a place in the fortress’ battle wound to safely disembark turned out to be harder than Daryun had initially estimated.  Having Alix there was a gift from the gods since she was able to get better angles and maneuver around better than the larger transport ark.  Unfortunately, none of the blasted halls were large enough for either the Ulta suit or the transport, these decks at least if not the entire fortress having been designed with rather cramped, narrow halls barely wid...

1228 - Dead Fortress

Almost immediately upon exiting the portal back into the Void, Leon’s small force turned and began powering up their jump drives.  Leon could sense the magic building within them, but what he found fascinating was a similar thing happening with Archelaus, who was still outside of the arks riding his clockwork octagon.

Beneath the glossy surface of the octagon, thousands of rune-inscribed gears turned and turned, constantly making new glyphs and enchantments with every click. ...

1227 - Leaving for the Games

Magic pulsed within the comms room, rippling slightly as it brushed up against the privacy wards, and then concentrated in the large slate in the center of the room.  Light shone from the slate’s face, resolving into the figure of Justin, Valeria’s father.

“King Leon,” he whispered deferentially.  It had been a long time since Leon had pulled him from Nestor’s veritable tomb, and though he remained respectful, that time had also given him a sense of familiarity that ...

1226 - The Greatest Threat

Leon stepped back, letting Alix’s blade bite nothing but air, and in the next move, he darted back in, lunging forward with his training sword.  Alix swiveled away, showing her grasp of House Raime’s fighting style by taking hits as infrequently as she could in favor of dodging or deflecting.  In a further showcase of her skills, she fought hard not to be put on the defensive, smoothly moving from dodge to strike and back again when Leon responded in kind.

They danced abou...

1225 - Triumph Before the Games

The entire Artor Valley shook like the Nexus itself was tearing itself apart twenty thousand years early, but rather than Reconstitution, it was the roar of Artorion’s people that caused the tremors.  Thousands of their warriors had returned home, carried upon the arks that now circled over the city’s many streets and plazas.  They brought with them victory, adding four more planes to Leon’s Kingdom during the final phase of the campaign, the glory of which Leon had already be...

1224 - Territorial Princess

The ethereal jellyfish slowly undulated over Westmount, closely watched not only by Leon’s arks but also Red from her lair.  Not that Leon thought it was up to anything nefarious, but it always paid to be cautious.

The Princess herself had yet to make an appearance, leaving Leon some time to get her welcome ready—or rather, for his people to get her welcome ready as he remained with Archelaus, who’d taken quite the interest in this development.

“Does she come by often...

1223 - History

For several days, Leon allowed Archelaus to stay at his palace.  The Despot hadn’t indicated a desire to leave, but neither did he present any kind of serious threat to Artorion as far as he was concerned.  He simply wandered the palace almost aimlessly, occasionally stopping to stare at something with strange intent for hours at a time.

As Leon, Ipatameni, and several of his tax ministers were mediating a land dispute between Shatufan and Sentudon by official petition, Iron...

1222 - Power of Will

The design was simple, so simple he could put hammer to anvil and make one such blade in moments.  He could almost do it in his sleep.

Like the popping of a bubble, Leon’s lips parted and released a long, frustrated sigh.

He couldn’t just call upon his magic and turn forged metal into the blade he envisioned—or rather, he could, but such was not his current goal.  Instead, he was trying to do so using origin power alone.

He sat on a quiet mo...

1221 - Draconic Truth

The tension of the moment was palpable, and the air in his soul realm—as much as his soul realm had air—seemed sluggish, as if it too could sense how momentous of an occasion this was.

Leon stood in the center of his soul realm, in front of his throne, with Xaphan to his left and the Thunderbird to his right.  In the far distance, past thick curtains of gray mist, he could see motion.  Stray eddies of mist whipped out as something massive cut through, som...

1220 - Wonder in a Dead Heart

“… and fourteen separate projection matrices.”  Nestor looked up, his faceplate having been pressed almost onto the surface of the Ancestor Gem he was examining it so closely, folded his arms, and brought one of his hands up to his chin.  “My golems use more than thirty of such matrices…”

Leon frowned as he scrawled Nestor’s findings down in a nearby notebook.  They’d only been at it for about ten minutes, but he’d already filled almost half of the noteb...

1219 - A Clan United

Leon’s return to Artorion came much earlier than expected, but the celebration was just as bombastic as his last return—in fact, as Storm Herald landed at its designated arkpad close to Flash Fortress, the celebrations had already begun.  Word had been sent back before Storm Herald and the rest of the ancient arks had even made it through the Lion’s Portal that he was returning and bringing back word of victory.

But Leon didn’t pay the celebrations much mi...

1218 - The Sun

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The departure from the dead plane came quickly, especially since Leon had practically locked himself in his quarters and trained with the Great Black Dragon.  They mostly practiced with black flame, ...

1217 - The Dragon's Words

“You have disturbed me,” the Great Black Dragon growled.  “What do you want?”

Leon smirked.  “Disturbing you was the point; I’ve already gotten what I want.  But so long as you’re here, I was hoping you could answer some questions for me since you’ve been surprisingly helpful these past few hours.  I mean, you’ve gone from not helpful at all, to being as mildly helpful as ‘mild’ could possibly be!  That’s an infinite increase in helpfulne...

1216 - Great Sky Dance

“By the Ancestors…” Leon whispered, momentarily awestruck by the vision before him.

The Thunderbird, her form ethereal, intangible, stood before him by the power of the gem in his hand.

“While it’s always nice to be acknowledged and praised by my descendants, as is only right and proper no matter the occasion, in this case, Leon my boy, this has nothing to do with me.”

Leon stared at her blankly while his team, most of whom had reeled back from the Thunderbird’...

1215 - The Ancestor Gem

The gem was like an empty abyss, a vacuum that sucked up magic power uncontrollably.  Leon’s magic was ripped from his flesh, flooding his mind with such pain that he fell to his knees and let loose a hoarse scream.  Lightning burst from his fingers, some flash of instinct or a side effect of the gem’s hunger; with his mind so consumed by pain Leon couldn’t tell which.

Lightning heated the gem until it seared his fingers.  His muscles locked as he fell to his knees....

1214 - The Umbral Plane III

The Souleater made for an impressive sight as it emerged from the gloom surrounding the desiccated city.  It was first and foremost enormous, stretching from head to tail more than a thousand feet.  Its head and body were rather fishlike, though harsher and more angular than Leon would’ve expected.  Twelve black tentacles waved through the air beside it, while a fishlike tail gracefully undulated at its rear.  Its body was almost entirely covered in scales of th...

1213 - The Umbral Plane II

The doors to the iridescent tower were large, though on the enormous structure, they appeared rather miniscule.  Still, Leon landed in front of them, hopped out of his Ulta suit, spared the pile of bones not too far away a brief glance, and then approached the doors.

“So,” Marcus said as he and the rest of Leon’s group followed, “palace?  Temple?  Anyone want to make a bet?”  Like Leon, he exited his suit, and both suits, under the control of their giant pa...

1212 - The Umbral Plane I

Splitting the blackness of space with the darker blackness of a spatial portal, Leon’s smaller task force of ancient Thunderbird arks emerged into a world in ruins.

Much like the expeditionary force’s approach to the Yun Cluster, they had appeared a good distance away from the plane that had become a Souleater’s nest, allowing them to approach in a manner of their own choosing.  They began preparing emergency jumps just in case and began accelerating toward the plane in a wid...

1211 - Dark Quarry

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1210 - Imperial Honors

Backroom deals, threats, and assurances of rights filled Leon’s hours as the set date for announcing Yun’s death crept closer.  The death of their ruler had stricken many of the established powers in Yun’s Empire with terrible anxiety, fear sprouting within them that under more direct rule Leon might interfere in their business more than he might’ve with Yun serving as his Prince.  That anxiety created doubt, and in the shadows of doubt would fester disloyalty.  No dras...

1209 - Death in the Palace

“… and they’ll be demanding answers at some point.”

“We can tell them whatever we wish!  If they argue too much, let them answer to our arks!  Let them hear the wailing of their Ancestors as their lines come to an end!”

“How long will that take?  How much blood and time must we expend on these planes before they’re brought into line?  A few words may save us all an ocean of blood!”

“An ocean of their blood!  We took n...