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The Dying Light
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Ithanian nobles being massacred by Daendroque troops
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Ithanian nobles being massacred by Daendroque troops
The Emperor had been sitting on a powder keg, and he was well aware of it. He had sent troops around the various corners of the Empire to soften the blow, but he forgot for a moment in his own arrogance that he wasn't dealing with ignorant children. The forces that conspired against him anticipated his moves to ensure a peaceful transition in the Empire and aimed their moves elsewhere. Since the 11th creed's implementation, the entire plantation population of Slaves had in one fell stroke been made free, causing huge financial losses for the plantation owners in Lusits and Daendroc. Queen Juliana's nepotism and unstable reign had already made the political spectrum of Lusits extremely fragile, and a financial collapse of their economy from the top down severely aggravated anti-Regalian sentiments in this once so loyal kingdom. From the south, scores and crowds of Elven refugees swarmed into Lusits looking to claim their citizenship from the local cities, overwhelming the various city states and Viscounts in control of the southern border. Within days, barons and Dukes of the west and southern lands banded together, marching their levies in secrecy north while they used the Elven refugee flows trying to reach Ithania's splendor and richness as a cover to avoid detection.
On the 24th, all void broke loose in Hivre Haute Puisse, the richest of the Ithanian Princedoms and seat of the capital Bijoux vert plusse-rême. Soldiers of the various barons and plantation owner mercenaries flooded out of the refugee camps and public administration centers, storming the relatively unprotected castles and palaces along the Plaisance river at the heart of the capital. Panic and utter terror immediately gripped the capital. Ithania had long neglected their military expenses in favor of relying on Regalian troops for security, which resulted in only a small token militia of Imperial guardsmen available in the Palais de Suprême veriteé. In the south, the plantation owners had grown fat and wealthy off the Elven wars, now their funds being funnelled in an open rebellion against the Emperor in the heartland of the financial backbone of the Regalian Empire. Bands of thugs and mercenaries stormed the shining marble palaces with the gold plated roofs and the walls decorated with jewels from all over Ithania. They put any and all to the sword. The first to fall was Duke Reginald IV of Kade-Schwarz, the Imperial Guard Commander on location to protect the various Kades and Ivraes which were vacationing there to escape the war in Torse. The rebels started massacring the Ithanian nobility by first rounding them up in the courtyard of the palace before shooting them down one by one with crossbow fire. Those who survived the initial impact due to jewels in their corsets bouncing off the bolts were then mercilessly struck down with the sword. Looting happened all over the various palaces, all over the city and soon all over the countryside as well. Soldiers attacked the marble walls, cutting the jewels down. Various Ivrae de Vixe court ladies were tossed down the waterfall balconies from the fifth floor, their screams almost inaudible from the utter chaos in the city below. Fires broke out all over the city, and the ravage that consumed it even frightened the rebel barons and Dukes who now realized they had unleashed a monster onto Ithania, unable to control their own looting soldiers anymore. They were Daendroque ex-slaves and brigands, people who had always suffered in poverty while the Ithanians lived in excellence and opulence. This became less a political fight against the Emperor and more a social struggle from the poor to eradicate the rich north of them and claim their wealth by the sword, an old Daendroque tradition.
Duke Reginald IV's entire household had their throats slit: his wife, their children, Duchess Mathilda and even Archduke Philipe Berrois de Vixe, a patron of the poor people, was ironically stabbed by the very people he had tried to help all those years. The aunt to the Emperor, Aliandre Kade, was captured by the rebels as a valuable hostage while the majority of her entourage were put to the sword. It was said by the locals that days after that, the pristine crystalline and snow white palaces which always formed a shining beacon at the elevated parts of the city had rivers of red flowing out of them, turning into hellish scenes of agony and death. What little Regalian forces were still available tried to defend the docks as much as possible, allowing the fleeing Ithanians to run onto ships to escape the massacre. Eventually they too were overwhelmed and the last ships sailed away, finishing the day with a barrage of cannon fire at Fort Sainte Vladaise to prevent the rebels from acquiring cannons. Untold amounts of Ithanian but also Regalian nobility had been killed there, and the second richest city in the Empire had in one day of chaos been reduced to rubble. By the time the rebel leaders finally regained control over the city, the damage had been done and sent out shockwaves of terror across ithania. The Daendroque cities back south who had not joined the rebellion promptly shut down their city gates for the Elves and countrymen who tried to flee to the city for safety, causing massive refugee camps to form around the walls of the city states of the Daendroque Governorate.
The Regalian Government tried to scramble what available fleets were ready to set sail to Ithania to secure the other cities which were now wide open to invasion by the rebel host. It was certain this rebel host could be defeated, as it was not sizeable and had no coordinated leadership, but the situation was dire either way as they had proven to have the motivation and capability to kill any and all who they opposed. The State was effectively engaged in a race against time to secure the various cities and prevent any further bloodshed before moving on the counter offensive. The Emperor summoned the war cabinet, sending out the relevant communications to summon the war hosts. He decreed that the Statue was now no longer their top priority, rather saving Ithania from utter destruction was now paramount. Since von Treppewitz was re-located, Ulric Typhonus had retired and the Duke of Dragenthal was unavailable, a summons was made to any and all able bodied and skilled men of leadership to take up the banners of the armies under their command.
The Darkness
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Fire illuminates the dark deep
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Fire illuminates the dark deep
In Regalia, a group of five made their way down the hidden catacombs underneath the city, They traversed the great greenbed lake, the various Vampire dens and the blackmarket boats without much trouble. Descending in the deeper levels, the Virtue took the lead of the group at front, followed by the Stone Mage, the Soul Mage and the Spirit Mage, with the Isldar at the very back of the group. They passed the great doors of the Etheldriën, the last sewer remnants of an Elven city that once stood where Regalia now is. Beyond here, nobody had any idea where they were going, they just trusted on the Virtue's ability to sense where they were going. The hallways were dark and ominous. The stonework looked warped, alien almost. None of those present had ever laid eyes on anything like it, as this stonework was thousands of years old and likely dated back to the Meraic civilization. Water still leaked down the hallways and tunnels, even light pierced from above as a testament to Elven architecture. Even though the Humans built their city over the ruins of an Elven metropolis long abandoned, the Elves had turned the ruins of Meraic into sewers as the Humans would later do to their buildings. Faint skittering could be heard down the various hallways, though the group paid no heed as they were traveling much, much deeper.
The next level looked even more alien and twisted. The tunnels mouthed out into massive caves with huge open ceilings, yet utter darkness was all around them. Their torches did not light enough anymore, though the Virtue had a solution. He used Blinding Light Magic to light up the tunnels, revealing massive winged snake like statues positioned all over the cave. Some were fallen over, mostly the stone had crumbled from untold age. The statues were positioned in such ways it almost looked like they walked into a graveyard, or more specifically a battlefield. Some of them were frozen in motion as if fighting one another. The Stone Mage and the Soul Mage paused for a moment, staring at these statues with an uneasy feeling about them. The Virtue and the Isldar eventually pushed for them to move onwards. They carefully maneuvered between these massive statues, some of which even as tall as the Cathedral towers above ground. The air was getting colder and more difficult to breathe this deep, but their cause was more important. They had to find what he was hiding down here. When they passed from the massive caverns, a huge underground ravine separated them from the passage to the lowest level. The Stone Mage and the Virtue proceeded to build a bridge out of Stone Magic. The full length of nearly 100 yards was finally bridged after half an hour with a jigsaw puzzle of stones and rocks. The group passed over it, not sure what to expect on the other side, but confident they would be victorious against whatever would try to stop them. They were very wrong.
Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop.
The constant dripping sound got on the nerves of the Soul Mage. "Where is that coming from?" he asked nervously, while trying to sound casual. The Virtue turned around for a moment, looking at the others before he muttered "Probably just some leaking water. Who knows how far the water flows down here. There's springs all around us". The Isldar stepped forward "Have you been here before? How will we know what we will run into?" The Virtue paused for a while before turning back as he continued walking "Let's keep going". The group cautiously followed in pursuit, an uneasy feeling beginning to creep over them as the dripping started to sound louder and louder. A few minutes down the corridor that just didn't seem, to end, some droplets fell onto the Isldar who had an initially harmless reaction as if being jumped at by a spider "Ah! Ah! That's voiding cold!". She tried to wipe it out of her face as the droplets ran down her forehead, though her vision went red as it was rubbed into her eyes. The Stone Mage had noticed, walking closer to light her with his torch. He picked up a droplet with a finger and tasted it before he turned back to the others "That's blood". The isldar was now frantically trying to wipe it out of her face while the Virtue suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. the Soul Mage and the Spirit Mage wandered closer to the Isldar to try and help her while the Stone Mage walked closer to the Virtue to try and talk to him. The Virtue just shook his torch in front of him, then proceeded to wave a hand in front of his eyes. He turned to the Stone Mage as he muttered to himself: "Clever rot, how could I have been so blind". As his eyes met with the Stone Mage, his tone suddenly soured as he yelled "Did someone talk?! Which one of you vermin talked?" The Stone Mage looked towards the others who were frozen in motion staring at the Virtue before looking back at the Virtue "Maybe I... Hm… Maybe the Lord talked to him? yeah, yeah tha-" Before he could finish his sentence, the Virtue backhanded him across the face with an angry look on his face. He yelled "Idiots idiots idiots! We're right where he wants us!" Suddenly a look of dread passed over his face as he turned his gaze up, raising his torch. The ceilings were filled with scribblings, runes and glyphs drawn in blood, various parts were still wet as they dripped down on the floor below. He stared back at the others in the group with widened eyes as he half whispered: "Run you idiots".
There was a moment of complete silence broken finally by the Soul Mage asking "Wh-what?" Before anyone could reply or do anything, the glyphs lit up with a red hue, the whole hallway shook and a thundering roar could be heard echoing through and beyond. The whole group started sprinting to the exit, or rather the opening back to the bridge they had built an hour ago across the underground ravine. They tried to run across the bridge though as they reached halfway, a massive wingless dragon crashed through the wall behind them. It stared at them with slitted golden eyes, reaching its neck higher above as it looked at them from afar. It was easily 50 yards from them but it was clearly almost as large as the Regalian Unionist Cathedral. It was wingless, scaled almost snow white with a blonde hair mohawk running down its neck and back. It has massive black claws and rows of teeth ready to pounce. The Virtue turned to look half amazed and terrified of what it could do, before he whispered "Of course, the conduit. It's more than I even thought it would be". The Dragon promptly opened its mouth, breathing a violet fire towards the group on the bridge. The Virtue raised his hands, creating a dome of barrier Light that deflected the fire away from the group with cinders passing through, landing on the clothing of the various members. The Virtue turned around the others yelling "You're on your own now. Run or die!" before he jumped off the bridge into the darkness below. Stunned, the others began panicking, running down the length of the bridge while the Stone Mage tried to sabotage the bridge behind them, knocking stones away. The Dragon started pursuing them on the thin bridge, and as they passed it, the Stone Mage caused one massive stone shock wave to collapse the bridge. The Dragon crashed down into the dark abyss below with a screech until they couldn't hear it anymore. The group tried to catch their breath, now short of the Virtue, but still very happy to be alive. The Soul Mage started to congratulate the Stone Mage, though the Spirit Mage was still very much alarmed. "Did any of you hear the fall?", she suddenly blurted out moments before the Dragon suddenly levitated next to the edge near them on various swirls of wind. The group immediately started sprinting again as the Stone mage yelled "Now that's just unfair dad!".
The Dragon jumped towards the ledge, climbing onto it before it began chasing the group through the massive cavern with the snake statues. It crashed through a couple of them, pushing them over but before it could reach the group, another wingless Dragon appeared behind it, latching onto its back and biting down on its neck. This dragon was scaled green and yellow with intricate brown horns on its head and spine. It stared at the group with its slitted golden eyes before the white Dragon turned on it and this colossal battle commenced. The group frantically tried to avoid the falling stone and the dragon legs crashing around them, rushing towards the exit and hopefully safety. Fire flung around them, the roaring and screeching of the Dragons echoing in the caverns as they scratched, bit and burned each other. The group eventually reached the gates to the upper level which the Soul Mage promptly started closing. The Isldar reached for his shoulder and tried to pull him away as she yelled "You idiot! They are bloody Dragons, you think a gate is going to stop them?!" They rushed further and further until they could no longer hear the rumbling and crashing of stone. They paused to catch their breath as they all looked at one another. The Isldar muttered "You think he's dead?". The Soul Mage shook his head "No, we are probably alive because of him right now". The Soul Mage looked at the Stone Mage again as he jokingly said: "Disapproving father huh?". The group let out a collective nervous chuckle before they all agreed to continue moving to the surface, hoping they hadn't unleashed some apocalypse on the surface. The surface seemed calm as ever. People were shopping, a few drunkards were laughing at a woman who had dropped her basket of potatoes. All looked peaceful. And underground, Dragons were fighting.
The Isldar started wandering off as the group split off, patting off the charred spots on her coat while saying to herself: "Dragons. Bloody Dragons though".
OOC Notes what is common IC knowledge:
- Anyone can know there is a rebellion going on in Ithania. It is now called The Dying Light Rebellion.
- Anyone can know Duke Reginald IV was killed and other various nobles.
- Anyone can know the Emperor summoned the hosts and troops to war.
- Anyone can know the movement of Regalian fleets.
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