Welcome to Gaia! ::

Siegell opened his eyes slowly as a message came to him, and his ruined face twisted itself into a hideous smile. "Shut up, Vern," he said, but his voice was nearly a purr of delight, and he reached down to pick up his little porcelain mask. He held it up to the light pouring in the mouth of the cave, and a wry little smile crossed his twisted face before he dropped it into the blackness far below. He wouldn't need it today. He might not ever need it again, but gods... if he went down, it would be in the greatest battle this world had ever seen, and he would never. Ever. Be forgotten.

He curled forward, feeling the blood cease to rush to his head as he shifted himself. All around him, soft squawks and growls echoed in the high-ceiling cave outside of Eyris where the Mordacheans had stored their legion of Bat Lizards. Training them had been an enormous b***h, but they knew their alpha now. They had one, and only one, master to follow: the White Dragon. Shastah spread his wings at an unspoken command from his rider, and the little Mordachean wild wyverns unfurled their wings, looking up from their hanging perches on the cave ceiling.

"We ride," the White Wolf of Mordache murmured, hoisting a throwing spear, and Shastah released his own ceiling perch and rolled, snapped his wings open, and soared out of the mouth of the cave.

Seconds later, a few hundred small wyverns erupted out of the cave, snapping their little jaws, like a swarm of locusts following their master. They were like a black cloud in the sky, chasing after a snowflake, and they rapidly made their approach, hundreds of beating wings like distant thunder in the air.

Siegell reared up near the edge of the battlefield as Shastah stopped and rose up, and Siegell stood in his saddle, swinging his spear out to point. The Bat Lizards rushed past and around him, swarming around and under and over the White Dragon, and began to attack the much larger and more powerful wyverns under Eyris' command, swarming them, ganging up on them and trying to bring them down.

Siegell grinned down at the chaos. His pets wouldn't win, but they would get plenty of attention, and they could not be ignored until they were gone. He grinned down at Vaida as his pets swarmed her guardsmen, and lifted his spear, pointing it directly at her. "You," he whispered. "Mine."

"Beautiful." Mendeleeve commented, as he bore witness to the work of Siegell and the Mordachean bat lizards. With them, Mordache had Learania pinned down at every turn. That the enemy continued to fight was but an amusement. However, the green knight's smile was taken away by a sudden ruckus from behind him and turned to see soldiers either running about or on the ground.

A segregated wind scythe whirled towards the three and sliced into Vern, who did not move to avoid it. The blade simply dissipated upon his aura. The most damage it did was to blow the Valkyrie's hair out of place. "...Well, that was stupid."

"Where did that attack come from?!" Epimetheus shouted, furious that any attack had somehow reached them at all.

"I-I don't really know from who. sir, but it cam from inside the mansion!"

"Impossible! The manor is abandoned." Mendeleeve responded.

Vern chuckled. "Well, clearly, your men were lax in their search. Seeing as it was your responsibility, I'm sure you'll be wanting to remedy the situation before the Baroness arrives.."

Mendeleeve growled lowly as he scowled at Vern, but his attention was brought back to the soldiers as more wind blades began to be cast. "Round up a group of sorcerers and have them put a stop to these attacks! Have them bring down the whole building if they need to! Meanwhile, send a group in and deal with whoever is inside! I don't care if they live, so long as they keep whoever is inside from escaping!!" The soldiers didn't intend on keeping Mendeleeve waiting. His orders were carried out right away. The people inside Fefga Manor were about to have the fight come inside the mansion itself.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

The first pound from the battering ram hit the main western gate. The dozen or so soldiers who carried it then began to back away ever so slowly, yet as quickly as they could, to continue their work at forcing their way inside. If a soldier who helped carry the ram was killed by an archer, his body was moved away and easily replaced by another. As Mordacheans continued to climb the ladders, which for some reason weren't really being dealt with by anybody, it was becoming harder and harder for Learanian archers to retaliate. On the other side of the gate, Learanian soldiers were reinforcing it, doing whatever it took to keep the gate closed. They knew once it was open, their chances for surviving would be next to none.

Amidst the turmoil, a Learanian officer on the wall looked out, he saw a lone rider coming towards the castle from a different way than the main Mordachean or Sentrian forces. As he got out his scope and looked through it, he saw the man attack some soldiers with some sort of magic and then keep going. He was clearly being pursued. "Who is that man?!" the officer called out. "He's not one of ours, but he's not with our enemies, either!" The officer put away his scope and began dishing out some more orders. "Have archers concentrate some fire around him- keep the Mordacheans off him! Get a rider out there and lead him inside the city! I don't care if the rider is a soldier or part of the guild! If the rider can help whoever that is, then good, if not.. I cannot spare the focus to keep trying. Keep firing!!"

(Sorry for the delay. Here it is)
As the Sage addressed Blythe and offered his, Blythe approached the man and extended his own. A tactician-turned-researcher? Certainly not a common career path, but by now, even someone who had been in Learania as short a time period as Blythe had had grown accustomed to encountering the uncommon, if not the outright inexplicable, bizarre, or seemingly impossible. “Right, glad to have your company, Soren,” Blythe replied. “I’ve been living here for a couple of weeks and I’m still pretty new to this world so I don’t know the wider geography of it too well yet. I had no idea an army of the size of the one outside would be here. What about you?”

Hardly any time thereafter, the sound of the front door being kicked opened could be heard clearly, even amid all the noises of battle. Blythe immediately clutched his Heal Staff tightly both out of fear and and instinctively. They obviously weren’t alone anymore, and all Blythe would be able to do if it came to fighting would be support his new companion. If possible, however, he could reach Cesario downstairs and the two of them might be able to hightail it out of here... outside where there was a ARMY to have to deal with. He made eye contact with Soren indicating mutual awareness of their situation.

North of Eyris, even more Mordachean troops were positioned – Avery’s. Zhe was responsible for attacking the northern gate of Learania’s capitol. Additionally, the time they’d spent occupying Sires meant hir troops had seized all goods that had come in to the port from afar, making them excellently supplied for the battle at hand. A well organized leader, as always, as the barrier went up over the city (a truly impressive sight, but one that didn’t intimidate Avery even if it did astound hir; the might of Mordache would overcome such an obstacle), Avery began relegating orders to hir subordinates to be carried out, troops already in formation to actualize the verbalized as soon as the select message-relaying soldiers zhe always had on hand.

“Time to wipe out these Learanians for the glory of our Immaculate Baroness of Mordache!” zhe exclaimed. Such were hir expectations: “Lieutenants Biggs and Thelma are to have our main designated cavalry units carry our heavy infantry to the gate. Thelma’s bow units are to fire at any enemies upon the wall or within their range otherwise during this process, as well. After being transported, Lieutenant James is to take charge of opening that gate and Lieutenant Bonnie is to oversee infiltration by ladder. Also, Lieutenant Rosencrantz is to have his casters fire their siege magic upon that magic-barrier-thing!” Avery iterated hir commands clearly, but with ferocity indicative of hir fragile temper. “Make it happen!” zhe concluded, aggressively swinging hir Bolt Lance in hand to point towards the enormous target that was the capitol of Learania.

At the immediate conclusion of Avery’s orders, subordinates’ heads were rolling and all instructions were quickly transmitted. Thus, Rosencrantz (and right-hand man Guildenstern), along with all his subordinates capable unleashed Fenrir spells directly upon the magical barrier (with a certain few instead unleashing Bolting) while it still stood, and contributed to its demise when such was the time to do so. After it had fallen, the attention of their efforts shifted to anyone atop the city’s next greatest defense: its walls. The distance of such targets combined with the precision necessary to successfully strike meant many a shot didn’t necessarily hit anything, but some certainly did, and their efforts collectively incited chaos for the Learanians stationed there to deal with. Many a siege-spell tome got completely used up, but the collection of goods in Sires meant there were plenty more of such tomes available and that they could liberally use such resources.

While Rosencrantz and company were unleashing their barrage of magic, Biggs (carrying James) and Thelma (carrying Bonnie) and their designated cavalry troops began their charge for the northern gate into Eyris, Thelma’s many Bow Knight (and Bow Pally, of course) units exchanging arrows with the Archers (and Snipers, of course) atop the wall the needed to overcome. Most of their mounted units were transporting the foot units under James and Bonnie, but there were also certain groups responsible for the bringing along ladders or the battering ram that would be needed for them to force their way through the gate. The troubadours among the cavalry served to counterbalance some of the damage incurred on their allies when not fatal. Moving so many foot units with the horse units saw to it that Avery’s forces were in their places much more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. As such, James, Bonnie, and their underlings were upon the forefront and already on their own feet again to go about their respective orders. James had some of his most physically powerful men collectively wield the battering ram and ordered that it be slammed against the gate that needed to be opened in order for the many troops present to proceed through to wreak havoc, whilst Bonnie oversaw ladder placement and determined which units proceeded to climb them.

Also worth noting is that Biggs’s, Bonnie’s, and Thelma’s second-in-commands (Wedge, Clyde, and Louise – James’s died in Thread 2) were not present in the rush but remained behind with more troops so as to provide waves of reinforcements if or when necessary.

Ignis Draconis sum. Thema fabulae, thema apologi.
c** igne sacrō, Flametongue, (prō amicīs pugnō) prō pace volō.

Fire Dragon

FD had continued to repeatedly unleash tremendous blasts of his ferociously fatal Flametongue upon large strips of Mordacheans, weaving fiery, zigzagging lines of destruction and what-have-you. He was highly productive, as it’s what he shines at in large scale battles such as the one at hand (that and fighting obscenely large monster boss things that tend to show up – there’s almost always some big creature to deal with). But a ways into the conflict, a distinct sound could be heard in the distance, quickly escalating to a tremendous volume. Soon enough, its source became visible: an enormous black mass in the sky racing forward.

Upon closer inspection one could see that the composition of the seemingly amorphous entity was comprised of many, many, MANY small, wyvern-looking creatures. And as anyone in a battle of such enormous proportions as the one at present could tell you, there can be great strength in numbers. Furthermore, since the bat lizards collectively resembled a shapeless, ominous entity – they could count as the obligatory big monster to deal with. Which meant our Fire Dragon would inevitably be engaged in interpersonal brawl against the numerous flying foes. And so the dragon flew a ways back towards the western gate before turning again to be facing the oncoming aerial opponents, so as to be more properly aligned against the bat lizards as a whole. That way, when they drew near, his Flametongue might hopefully effect a larger number of them.

FD didn’t often care for battling anything wyvern or dragon related or adjacent. But one can’t control such things. The dragon would fight them. Today was not a day to do things poorly; there were too many precious things worth fighting for!

What a temper. So maybe the black bandit did have some bite with his bark. His retreating step gave him some time, but the bandit was soon upon him again, and this time blows rained down on the young lord. Each swing had tremendous power, so it was difficult to block or parry properly. And they were pretty fast too, which made it all the more difficult. But he managed, and prevented Ali from dealing any major damage to him.

Of course, the bandit wasn't very precise since he was trading power for accuracy, so most of the time he just evaded the swings, and when he evaded, he lashed out at Ali, trying to exchange blows with him. He wasn't able to deliver a decisive hit though, as Ali quickly swung again at him before he could do much.

After a bit of this exchange, Roy parried and quickly stepped past Ali, putting a small distance between each other, flames emerging around his sword.

"What a surprise. I'm also pretty good at killing assholes like you." he smirked before he swung towards the bandit, intending to make it burst before Ali could reach him.

"Me?" said Soren with another darting look outside. What he saw was hardly reassuring. "I've been here for a couple of years."

And thus the door went in, and thus his hand flew to the tomes and journals he'd piled on the nearby table. He clutched his own staff and fussed over what to take with him into combat. So much effort invested into so many pages! He didn't want to leave a single one behind! But knowing that the situation was too dire for thought, he merely swept up the Elwind-esque tome that was available and met Blythe's glance. Indeed, their objective was clear.

Get out alive.

He quickly clicked through his thoughts with hope against hope, searching for some way to take out the majority of their enemy without dying within thirty seconds. It was certainly a fair tactic to just stand at the doorway and hit them as they came one by one, but such a thing could last only so long. It wasn't like they'd give him a chance to build a barrier of corpses!

No, no. First, the stairs. Get to the top of the stairs and cut them down in masses with his magic. The more bodies he could put on the floor, the more difficulty for their intruders. Maybe he'd find something to thrown down the stairs. Maybe he'd find a makeshift barricade. And if they found their way up or came in with archers—well, could he retreat to a room? There weren't exactly any emergency exits, were there?

Well, he'd think of something along the way. Soren glanced back at Blythe, grim but resolute. "I can't ask you to do anything for me," he said, "but I will request that, if you find a way out, please flee."

The sage then hurried out with his tome to get to the stairs. Hopefully he wouldn't be looking down at a swarm of the enemy too soon. He half-wondered where Ed and his two-headed pup had gone, and he hoped they would at least get through the ordeal alive.

What in the blazes was that coming at him? Aeolus squinted at something in the air that seemed to bolt into sudden visibility, and in the next instant, he realized that he was seeing arrows. At first they came scarce, but then more and more seemed to come his way, and his mismatched eyes went big. Was he being targeted? Was he to die after all?

Aeolus put his head down as if that would save him, and for a moment, it seemed that he would fall. It would either take the horse plummeting and crushing him or simply an arrow throwing him off, which would either kill him or leave him to the angry Mordacheans and Sentrians all around. But he heard cries that were not his own and looked up.

It was unbelievable. Those who had turned to pursue or strike him instead staggered away, clutching arrows in their shoulders or their faces, some ducking, some swatting at the air. And when he gave another look, it seemed to him that the arrows were deliberately avoiding him.

No way. There was no way his ex-nation's enemies would even think to assist a poor underground slave such as he.

...But if there was, he promised he would love this world that much more. And so, unaware that a rider was to be dispatched to guide him, he clumsily spurred his well-stolen mount and clung to it as the horse cantered on toward sanctuary.

Kiote cursed under his breath as he fired arrow after arrow, aware that Joshua, the swordmaster as Kiote was aware, passed him by. Kiote had managed to put several arrows in the 'giant', but in all honesty it didn't seem to be affecting him at all. Kiote was also dealing with the issue of bandits still approaching him so he was forced to change aim and fire at them as they got too close to ignore. All in all, Kiote was getting really nervous about this. This was not looking particularly good, and then it only got worse as the thing started to run at them, large fumbling steps that might have been comical minus the club it carried along with the fact that it was probably aiming to kill him.

Kiote's eyes snapped up as he realized how close the 'giant' had gotten which really only served to cause Kiote's face to go pale. That club was heading down at him in a dangerous path, one that would no doubt crush Kiote's skull and kill him instantly. With that in mind, Kiote lunged to the side, rolling after the dodge before coming up and pulling an arrow to the bow. This time, Kiote took a purposeful aim at the giant as he pulled back the arrow. This time, Kiote was aiming for the head, taking the time to make sure his aim was steady and true. With this accomplished, Aroze released the arrow, pulling his hand back to his quiver and drawing a second arrow as he pulled it to the bow, aiming it in a similar fashion, but not firing. Firing blindly would not serve a purpose, so he needed to see how the thing reacted to his first arrow.