Mirthholme Saga 1: A New Peril Beckons

[OmniShadow]

"Hmph... What reckless destruction. Is this how heroes do things nowadays?" Edrian said to himself as he surveyed the battle below from one of the taller buildings, himself being about a hundred meters away from the actual battle. "Well I guess it was to be expected, what with there being Niflos there afterall. Their barbaric kind's got nothing in the way of subtlety." The shadow demon doppleganger mused to himself.

After watching the battle rage for a short time more, and seeing how it was quickly comming to an end, Edrian decided to start moving and perhaps get some information out of them. Afterall, someone had attempted to assassinate him. And though he did not fear they knew who he truly was, he was still interested in finding out more about them and their reason for doing so, and by the looks of it he was not the only one with a problem.

With the sky covered in storm clouds there was plenty of shadows and dark places for Edrian to move in, and though he did not make use of his natural abilities he used them as cover to be harder to notice, and seeing he was a master at stealth, among other things, it would not be hard to avoid notice. And it was by running from shadow to shadow that Edrian found his way to the balcony of a two story house, overlooking the swift and wild battle between Taharial and Isabella. The tattoo on her thigh did not go unnoticed by the doppleganger now dressed in his 'regular form'.

'Interesting, so that tattoo was not just something random to misguide, but an actual mark of some order or brother... Erh, sisterhood. And they seem to be connected to the Niflos as well. Very intriguing.' Edrian thought with a smirk growing on his face. Well, wheter he was needed or not, Edrian did not trust the man now fighting the assassin to either get the job done, or to actually capture her alive should he manage to beat her, so he had to take measures.

Even as the fight between the two escalated, Tahariel drawing closer and closer to landing a hit with his toxic skin, suddenly a glob of glowing red energy seared toward the two, forcing them to either separate or get hit by the dark energy of Edrian's blood magic. On the far edge of the roof the two fighters were on now stood Edrian, with his right arm slightly above shoulder height and his hand glowing red with magical energy as blood from civilians who had been caught in the fray was being drained to power his blood magic. "I do not know what you are attempting, bu-" Edrian suddenly noticed how the assassin had NOT dodged the easily dodgable ball of energy aimed inbetween the two and not directly at one of them... huh... "Well... Nevermind then." He said, looking a little surprised himself as he let the energy he was already gathering drop.

Edit: Edited since he can't do things which isn't possible anymore :P

[Astral Harmony]

The experiment roared. Asche's Demon Sword came down on his noggin hard. The roar of the experiment died out suddenly and Asche's ears picked up the satisfying crunch of a sheet of steel traveling through an enlarged human skull.

Well, that was over, unless the experiment could still function with a head split like a watermelon. There was a deep, throaty gurgle. The bubbling of crimson going up through the esophagus. Asche's sword was absolutely soaked in red.

And then the Killbug MkII detonated. It actually didn't turn out that bad. The only considerable danger was one of the legs that flew right through the second story window of a large house, doubling the size of the opening. Everything else was either debris too small to cause problems or large debris that didn't fly far or didn't fly at all. Burning metal and razor sharp edges were all that remained.

Isabella and Taharial did not come out of their rapid melee unscathed. Isabella had taken two stabbings from Taharial's thorns, one in the left leg, another in the right breast. Taharial had taken a few more bubble counterattacks when Isabella picked up on his combinations. Isabella, despite looking quite weakened, still had a lot of fight left in her, and Taharial wasn't ready to call it quits yet.

They charged, thorns clashing with wand. He got another stab, then got struck in the cheek by her wand. And then she was suddenly gone, hit by a glob of glowing red energy and knocked off the building.

The next thing Taharial and Edrian knew, they heard the disturbing sound of a small body falling on a weapon's rack. Isabella lay on her side with two spears, four longswords, and a single trident penetrating her flesh to different lengths. She was bleeding far too badly to save. Her eyes were open from the shock of death, her mouth agape, and something crawling out of her shredded back. The thing was dark yet transparent, and it didn't tear its way out so much as it simply grew out and separated. It kind of looked like a large shrimp...an evil shrimp, the size of an adult human torso.

The shrimp-like monster looked up at Taharial, gave him a hateful hiss like a demonic cat, and died in a puddle of black slime. Isabella had no pulse, and probably no more blood inside her body.

There wasn't a single enemy left standing, and most of the buildings where the battle was fault were in much of the same condition. The city guards, obviously not going to be much against what the heroes had just taken down, quickly and gratefully demoted themselves to fire control.

There was a woman on the scene, directing the work effort. You'd have to have lived your life in a cave not to know her. She was none other than Captain Kaitlyn Foxxward, former notorious pirate captain and now mayor of Port City Marldukes for the past fifteen years. Supposedly, her probationary duty to the city after having been convicted and sentenced was done a good long time ago, but apparently running the port city appealed to her and she decided to remain the mayoress for as long as she could. No one argued. She was a helluva leader and she often took matters such as problematic people personally enough to investigate and take action herself...which is what gave Marldukes its almost legendary lack of criminal activity.

Kaitlyn talked briefly with the leader of the carpenter's guild and then, with Joshua and Millie, spoke with Asche, who Kaitlyn (wrongfully?) assumed was the leader of the hero group. "Sir Asche, I'm Kaitlyn Foxxward, mayoress of Port City Marldukes. I wish to thank you and your comrades so much for your assistance in defending our city. If possible, I would like to invite all of you to my house where you can rest up and get medical attention for your wounds."
"You can count on my healing abilities," Millie said confidently.
"It's High Chamberlain Dormond, I know it," Joshua growled. "It has to do with Princess Sulea, I know it! And now that bastard's got my sister! I-"

Kaitlyn laid a firm hand on Joshua's shoulder. "Look, Joshie-boy. Just calm down. You can come in and get some rest, too."
"I'm not resting, not until I know everything there is to know about that bastard."
"And that's very admirable, Joshie-boy, but why don't we work together? I've got contacts just like you've got contacts."
Millie beseeched the heroes. "Please, come with us and rest. You all must be exhausted and aching and hard up for information, and I guarentee that after you've had a hot meal and a long sleep, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to learn about the people who have it in for you."

[Overcast]

He found his way to the side of Asche who was not being called their leader. He looked up at him bemusedly, a raised eyebrow at the possibility that a guy so based on a singular form of combat could lead this group. Scott knew he didn't have the ability to do such, he had always been a bit more based on doing things alone after all. The guy who had shot the dark energy was a dick, he wouldn't lead long before rebellion. Sylen was a grenadier, nuff said. Adeze, as fun as she was, he was quite sure that leading wasn't something she would be interested in. Thar was out of his mind. The plant guy was druidic in nature, druids weren't much for leading anything other than other druids. Alex was fun, but he didn't figure him much for leading. Soan was an oblivious sod. He found all of them were terrible leaders...well except for one, he reached out a greeting for their current host with a positive attitude,

"Hello miss Foxxward, was a rather beautiful city you had here. I am Scott Sincair, no one special. I should be able to aid in the healing if necessary, but I do believe it is necessary to clarify that we are not so much companions of this one."

He took a confident look up at Kestrel and nodded confidently to himself. She would be the only suitable one,

"I think I would rather vote for that one to be our leader. Smart, tactical, confident, not male. She has all the qualities of a good leader...though I figure we can go over this one later. I just want to make it clear I wouldn't vote for this big lug."

He patted the larger man on the back with a grand, and slightly bloody grin which soon after seeing you would connect to the fact that Isabella was missing a hand,

"Useful in a pinch though I'll give ya that. So we gonna get off to good company or shall we mill about the remains of the bad company for a while?"

Truthfully he was a little bit weighted to the second choice and was already off, he had stuck the MO with a syringe and had extracted some adrenal fluid for possible studies, and had picked up a few of the useful scraps from the Killbug for future use. He also snuck himself a sample of Glutton flesh for the simple fact that he was interested in doing a few experiments involving Abyss and Hell. The negative plane had been a bust, and time was gonna take a bit longer and he didn't have the time until he finished this quest. For now extended demonic or devilish lifetimes were on his mind,

"Done here, can you point me the way? I never stayed in this town longer than four hours before."

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"Ch-yah, I won't count on that one, Mr Sinclair," Kestrel landed. She seemed to have grabbed some random cloth that had blown free in her freak weather (which had died down to gentle breeze by now) and wrapped her partially naked body with it (not that it was actually naked, because the feathers really covered most of her extremeties).

"I wouldn't try to insult a man who just wrecked that monstrosity. Besides, I arrive late, and lose my clothes in the most inappropriate situations," she added with a wry little grin. Turning to the Captain Foxxward, she bowed slightly.

"We apologise for all the collateral damage caused by the spontaneous outbreak. I will send some students from the Academy over to aid in repairs of the street and any other damages. They will have the incentive of extra credits on their end-of-year marks, so they'll do a damned good job at it." She winced mildly as she plucked a loose feather from her shoulder. Whispering a few command words to it, she sent it speeding away with a message to the Academy.

"Mmmm... High Chamberlain Ashley Dormond? Can't say I'm surprised, since he's one of the only few people who has enough power to bring forth those abominations," she said after a little while. Apparently, the different conversations travel good on the wind, but it takes her a small amount of concentration to recall what was said. Such is the capabilities of a Headmistress of an Academy who's had to deal with too many political and internal dispute matters simultaneously, "a little rest would be nice, and perhaps more information, thank you. My shift blew away in the wind I created - Ch-ya, and it was nice silk too - so I'd probably need a new one. I should really try to hang onto them, but they just get fried by lightning or torn..."

[Naqel]

The explosion of the Killbug was the first thing Thar saw around the corner, and the last thing related with the battle that just took place there was to be seen.

Releasing his watery shield he drank some of its former content. The refreshingly cooled, crystal clear water relieved him of the stress related with fighting. One could think he'd be used to it after 50 years of monster slaying, but there was something about it similar to doing homework that made it tiresome no mater who was the enemy and how long it took. With a few exceptions, it just wasn't fun.

With the appearance of Captain Kaitlyn Foxxward, Thar found himself counted towards the group of, what he just realized, very well known people. Even though he spent most of his human time in countries neighboring with Mirthholme, he still could attach names or at least some common titles to those people...

For a while he was impressed and even ready to ask autographs, but then he remembered that he still needs to find the Graham twins. Which apparently were not around...

The lack of twins was cleared by another of the numerous extremely kind guards, which pointed at Joshua and mentioned his sister being missing. Wanting to get the information he was sent to gather, Thar followed the group keeping a short distance, hoping to speak with someone about how he could help searching for the missing twin.

[Arcanum]

Alex walked over to Asche, Scott, Kestrel, and Kaitlyn and couldn’t help but laugh at their discussion over a leader.

“I’m sorry but are you all serious? Sure we’re after the same thing but that doesn’t mean I’m taking orders from any of you. I’m sure several of you feel the same way, only you just don’t want to say it out loud. The only purpose some sort of leader will serve is that of a scapegoat; someone we can dump all our worries and concerns onto and hope he – or she – doesn’t fuck us all over. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Alex waited for a few seconds and felt like he had just made a bad impression. Ah hell... well let’s try and fix that.

“Oh don’t get me wrong,” he continued after a painfully awkward moment, “I’ll still tag along and help the group out, just don’t expect me to vote for someone who I won’t end up listening to.”

Ah much better. No... wait... still awkward. Alright, plan C.

“What was that you said about a hot meal? I’m starving.”

That’s better. Now nobody is angry at anyone.

[Overcast]

Scott was staring at the vial of MO subject adrenal fluid, it wasn't as clear as usual. He didn't realize that the chemical caused a mutation in the endocrine system, though the rapid creation of enzymes and hormones could cause a severe energy creation and mass function. At the same time the body would suffer extremely, it would explain everything. What a wondrous drug. Amateur work of course, but still rather good. Given time he could probably perfect it. Though that would require his attention, did he have time for that? He stared at the demon flesh, that could be useful, perhaps in use with demonic bodies it could nullify some of the negative side effects. Perhaps, but he would need to do a bit of testing. If only one of those Prides were still alive he could keep it in captivity.

As typical his mind was far beyond the current situation until he forced himself back, it seemed Kestrel was talking to him. He got in just after that strange sound that he figured was part of her accent. She seemed critical of herself, another good leadership quality. After all ego was good in the face of the public, but in the face of your comrades humility was better.

Her clothing wasn't well, a slightly appealing image she was, though he wouldn't say out loud. Another good quality, makes the group look better with someone attractive at the front. Though clothed would be better so he figured he could offer up,

"If you can find me a clothier I can make a rather good fabric for your cause. Heat retardant, conductive, and reflexive. Not as comfortable as silk no, but as close as you can get artificially. Give me a good enough clothier and I could even add in a form-memory function so it could change with your transformations. Though I would need a lab."

He looked over at Kaitlyn,

"Oh yes that reminds me, do you have an alchemical lab in town I can use? I would like to refill my ammunition and perhaps complete that project i was just talking about."

Of course Alex seemed quite content on arriving and making an ass out of himself for half a moment. He laughed loudly and hung an arm on him grinning hard,

"You are a real smooth talker good man. Remind us to keep you away from PR. That is the prime purpose of a leader. We don't have to listen to them, though for Kestrel here it might not be a bad idea she thought rather fast out there, but we need someone who can publicly represent us. Besides from what I saw we basically hit that battle like a sledgehammer, strong but disorganized and sloppy. You don't toss chemicals randomly into the mixer and expect a positive result. You might get it like today, but more often than not you end up being turned inside out because you vomited up all of your internal organs from a bad reaction."

A thing he had learned from years of work is the more morbid your metaphor the more memorable it will be.

[rapter200]

When Sylen came to the fight was over, and thankfully he was not on fire. Someone must have put it out, a very difficult task in and of itself. The last thing he remembered was a large lumbering mass of flaming thing flying toward him hitting him in the shoulder and knocking him on the ground. Damn, he wasn’t made to be hit that hard. Nor by a flaming mass for that matter. He was lucky to be alive. He saw the others all gathered around some official looking person and were discussing something. Sylen got up still feeling pain from being hit, he walked to where the group was congregated. It seemed they were discussing who would be leader. “I vote for whoever will put us in the least amount of danger as the group leader. No way am I following some crazed blood luster.” He said when he got close enough to be heard. “Also I would like to thank whomever put out the fire on my shoulder. That was very kind of you. Now a few seconds ago as I was walking here I heard something about a hot meal. Yeah I would like some of that I haven’t eaten in a day.”

[OmniShadow]

"Well... I must admit that was not according to plan." Edrian muttered to himself as he looked down on the severely impaled corpse of the assassin. The miniscule chance of her hitting a rack loaded with weapons pointed UP was itself near a miracle (Well ok, the spears was acceptable, but SWORDS?), one being in the middle of the streets at all was just ridiculous. 'Karma is a bitch... Huh?' He thought with a slight frown on his normally handsome face. He just shrugged, deciding that what was done was done and that there was no point dwelling on it, instead he might look up some of the other 'heroes' and see if he could get some information that way. That was why he was here afterall.

Edrian was just about to turn to the gathering group of legends a few streets down, when he remembered something. "Oh yeah, sorry about interupting your fight. I realize I was a bit hasty and endangered you as well, but at the time I was really not thinking straight. I think the sight of that assassin made me panic a little, I was attacked just a few days ago you see..." He 'explained' to the toxic druid as he bowed his head in an appologizing way, the way he stammered some of the words, and the sincerity of his voice made it a prety convincing display, though his previous actions 'might' cast doubt on it. But Edrian did not really see any point in getting close with this cadre of freaks.

He bowed once more before he began to climb down the house using a few crates which had been left nearby, in a very normal and mundane fashion that took him a few seconds. However after having finished climbing down the well-dressed sorcerer started sprinting toward the other legendaries gathering some distance away, getting there just in time to hear Scott's metaphor. "huff... That is.. huff... an interesting way... huff... of describing it.." Edrian said inbetween gasping for air after the fairly short run, in truth he wasn't exausted at all, he just liked to play the role of fairly weak sorcerer. It made people think they had an advantage over him when they were close. After taking a few seconds to catch his breath Edrian turned toward Kaitlyn. "Greetings Captain Foxxward, I seem to have come at a bad time, but I will do what I can to assist for the good of your city." He said with an elegant bow beffiting someone within nobility, before he shifted his eyes toward the group at large.

What someone with sharp eyes might have noticed about him though, despite his looking completely exhausted physically, he was not sweating at all and infact looked perfectly clean. Of course, the likeliness of anyone even caring about what might seem such a miniscule detail was minimal. "I have to admit, I did not expect to find so many fine heroes and legends here, but despite that we all seem to have some form of problem and as such I would be honored if you would allow me to join you, if only for as long as I might prove usefull. I am the Sorcerer and Scholar of magic and lore Edrian Zhard" Edrian said in a dramatic fashion as he gave a deep and somehow even more elegant bow to Kestrel and the group at large. It seemed atleast some of them believed she was most fit for being their 'leader' and among those here, he would probably have chosen the same. Afterall, she was one of the more famous and respected of the legendaries here. He himself as the Sorcerer Edrian Zhard was just famous at best, which made him wonder why he had been a target.

[lazy man]

(OOC:Heh, with the rate at which I post, I should just make some sort of joke at some point where Asche isn't mute but can never get a word in and everyone thinks he is. Oh well, post with talking coming up!)


Asche, after getting the blood off of his sword, nodded to Captain Foxxward--although he felt the 'Sir' wasn't exactly necessary--and was about to respond before getting so eloquently interrupted by just about everyone. He didn't exactly feel like dealing with it for too long, though. He found gatherings of people with any sort of reputation for different things always led to bickering at some point, something he didn't want to deal with.

However, he couldn't exactly dismiss the fact that the group of people he was with were powerful in all their own ways. He didn't remember seeing any of them for very long, if at all, but he had heard the rumors of most of them. The fact that they were all gathered in one spot was either something very dangerous or something that would go down in history books.

But there would be enough time for all of the leader and group talk and worship later. Now wasn't the time. "Everyone, I don't think we should talk about a leader just yet. We don't even know what's going on or if we're even going to stick together for very long. If the time comes, we can discuss it then. Now," Asche said, turning to Captain Foxxward and Josh, "I think it's about time we get moving. The sooner we know what's going on, and the more we know, the better." And thinking about it, he had to add on, "And a hot meal would definitely be nice."

With his own words thrown in, Asche rubbed his neck. Almost getting his head ripped off by a huge monster wasn't something new to him, but it never did stop it from hurting. Being able to briefly relax after that would be nice, if anything, but he just hoped his presence didn't scare anyone around him like it usually did.