Closed Books RPG

[The Assassin of Chaos]

Noire nodded in thanks, trying not to think about the probably crushed Jay.

Another rock would land to the left of Nerien and then another behind Kaliyah. A hail of rocks would shatter upon the Rider and his Horse and if anyone cared to look up, they'd notice another ten rocks making their way down.  

[cosmos_rose]

The Assassin of Chaos

Noire nodded in thanks, trying not to think about the probably crushed Jay.

Another rock would land to the left of Nerien and then another behind Kaliyah. A hail of rocks would shatter upon the Rider and his Horse and if anyone cared to look up, they'd notice another ten rocks making their way down.

Uh wait. I just realized he got knocked unconscious, not sure how I missed that.
Can I edit my post? XD Neiren would never be that mean. lmao

Edit: I kinda just went ahead and fixed it. sweatdrop  

[The Assassin of Chaos]

Cosmos_Rose

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The Assassin of Chaos

Noire nodded in thanks, trying not to think about the probably crushed Jay.

Another rock would land to the left of Nerien and then another behind Kaliyah. A hail of rocks would shatter upon the Rider and his Horse and if anyone cared to look up, they'd notice another ten rocks making their way down.

Uh wait. I just realized he got knocked unconscious, not sure how I missed that.
Can I edit my post? XD Neiren would never be that mean. lmao

Edit: I kinda just went ahead and fixed it. sweatdrop

xD

I'm happy to leave my post as it is.  

[BhelliomBlue-Rose]

The Horseman was slightly pale, but pain didn't do much to dull his sense of humor.
"I aim to please: Customer satisfaction guaranteed."
Yeah, I know what you mean.
If it makes you feel any better, his brothers are all this bad.
"Hey! I resemble that remark!"
...You are such a disappointment. Hold on.

The adversarial equine had not forgotten the rocks.
Rocks falling and rising were events of note, physically, and it didn't pay to ignore them.
Given the saddle, his view was a bit restricted from above.
Thus, paying attention to the trajectory was a bit dicey.
The legs raised, one after another in what almost equated a dance, slipping out of the way of the stones.

What he could not dodge, his eyes redirected, though mostly those that neared him.
There was a drawback here.
This area was crowded with those he (at least marginally) acknowledged as people.
Instead of guiding the missiles harmlessly to the ground, he mostly tossed them right back into the sky.
Directions were of no importance, so long as they weren't right here.
It was not a good day to live in this city; it was raining rocks now...

Conquest, of course, was holding onto the saddle for dear life.
His bad arm flopped around uselessly as he did a passable imitation of a bull rider.
The horse apparently had a high opinion of the Rider's skull, so he wasn't nearly as guarded.
You've gotta be shitting me!
Ain't this place done blowing up yet?!
Blame the Priest over there!
He's worse at thinking things through than War!  

[cosmos_rose]

The Assassin of Chaos

Nerien, the drug lady, the scathian and the KO'd Priest would've have been in immediate, peril danger due to the rocks.
HOWEVER to their great fortune there was a witch among them and she was quite powerful. While blood magic was her specialty, she was also well versed in light magic which thankfully didn't require sacrifices.

"Alright if ya folks could just stay calm for a brief moment, ol' Olive's got yah covered."
Raising her hand up she summoned a light, but durable shield that would gracefully and mindlessly take the blow of the earthly hailstorm for them.

Eventually, when they were finally safe, the witch would place her hands on her hips with confidence.
"Huh....yeah. Nice.
I deserve a high five."
Turning around she glanced at both the peryton and the girl.
"How's Jay looking?"

"Well he's not dead." Nerien chimed.
"Otherwise I'd be dead too!"


Abeline was unconcerned with the rocks.
Whatever Glory failed to toss or dodge what was heading towards her anyways, she would gracefully dodge herself.
Due to her training that she received from her beloved teacher Mona (I think that was her name), the princess was surprisingly good at being agile and quick, much unlike her peers.

And also more specifically Kaliyah, who was entirely opposite of her sister.
Good fortune was on the groups side today however and although the eldest did not think to dodge the rocks, Vasieya was there by her side to deflect any tumbling balls of earth with her large, sturdy roots.


With the immediate danger finally over, most of the women in the group would find themselves relaxing again.
Olive would tend to Jay and check his wounds, if needed she'd perform a little blood magic.
She hoped she didn't have to do that though.

"I think we're gonna need another mount for Jay...
You think he'd mind an undead horse or somethin?"

Abeline would survey their surroundings and check for any important damages that may have acquired, such as yet another wounded ally.
Almost immediately upon doing so would she spot something most peculiar.
"Wahhh...
Is that...
Is that Kaliyah??
This day is perhaps the most eventful day I've ever had in the entirety of my life."

Walking towards her sister, she half hoped her friend might accompany her.
"Kali?"

The eldest took a deep breathe in and climbed off her steed.
Still for whatever reason, a nervousness rose up inside her as she watched her sister near.

"Why do you always do this?" Abeline laughed as she continued to pace herself towards her with open arms.
"You always wait for me to come and greet you!"

"I dunno..." She replied, blushing slightly as her sister suddenly hugged her.

Briefly the sisters embraced. Kaliyah with a sort of shy, embarrassed smile and Abeline with her usual large and gleaming one.
When they pulled apart, Abeline kept her hands on her sisters arms and looked up at her much taller sibling.

"So you must've been the one to help Conquest meet with father.
That's unusually generous of you.
Are you two actually getting along?"

"More or less. We haven't fought all that much, though I've been tempted to.* She shrugged again.
"He finds me visually pleasing though."

"That's....good?
It's better than what I'd think would happen between you two anyways.
...
Were you mean to him?"

"A little." The eldest confessed.
"Anyways, more importantly, I'm thinking this is a very appropriate time to leave this city now.
There's no place to rest and we have only one direction to go."

"I agree." Vasieya suddenly added in.
"Ze people are not going to be very happy once zey have cleaned up ze town a little.
If we leave now, we will be wizin Gaia's lands in a week."

"So the plan is to fight Gaia?" Abeline questioned.

"Sort of. Your group of friends has decided to be sly in their ways..." Kaliyah murmured as she glanced at Glory and Conquest.
"We can explain on the way."  

[The Assassin of Chaos]

Noire nudged Jay, then shrugged.
"Probably out cold," she mentioned. "Hell knows how though, he got floored by a rock, not hit in the head. He have any alcohol or anything?"  

[BhelliomBlue-Rose]

As the shield formed over the heads of the semi-mortal group, Glory blew air between his lips.
...Okay, you should feel embarrassed.
Why?!
'Cos you could've done that and saved yourself some broke limbs.
No! I couldn't!
Dad never studied shielding magic!
What, really? Would'a thought he'd love that, fighting dragons and s**t.
Why would he wanna do that? That is a worst-case scenario for assassinations!

Conquest shook his head in disgust.
The lady who'd taught Abeline and Sca'than, BeaLiata Mona, would have hated Glory.
She'd been a being that drained the lives of others just to survive, but she'd had... rigorous... standards.
That was one more face he wasn't looking forward to seeing.
If anyone would know the difference between the Rider and his father, it would be her.
She would likely not take kindly to the switch.

"Yup. That is indeed your big sister.
Showed up when you caught that alien cold."
The robed Horseman wasn't sure how much she would remember of her ordeal.
For the moment, it was simply easier to make use of the older fiction.
As his friend strolled to embrace her sibling, the seemingly middle-aged man watched, forgetting his mask now that she couldn't see.
Despite being a bit pale from both bloodloss and pain, he was smiling warmly.
His friend was alive, and she was happy.
Even if it would only be for a little while, for now, it was enough.

The horse, by default an irascible creature, tried to walk away from all this sentimentality.
Since he just trotted over to where the other invalids were lying, he wasn't particularly successful.
Zombie would be a better bet. Wouldn't recommend skeleton horses.
Death's tried that. Uncomfortable, and the silly thing's head kept falling off.
Settled on a normal one; the first of the proper Mounts. Nice guy, name of Binky.
He would move whenever they were ready.  

[cosmos_rose]

The Assassin of Chaos

"Ah right, good call Glory.
Except I thought his horse was named Mortis...
Binky sounds like an idiot sidekick name."

The witch shrugged and looked around.
What she was about to do here was some real advanced leveled stuff. Not necessarily because conjuring things was high level, but her technique was going to be unusual.
She was a bit worn out on sacrificing things, so she needed to do something else to use a little bit of her dark magic.
This was a particular trick that the Apocalypse herself had taught her and now hopefully Olive could manage to do it herself.

"Ah, how convenient." The witch smiled as she walked towards some nearby rubble and pulled out the corpse of some unfortunate rat. "This is just what I need to get me my zombie horse.
Let's just hope I do the freaking magic right."

With disgust she tossed the corpse back on the ground, though away from the rubble.
"Alright. Here we go.
Bippity Boppity Boo!"
There was no chant involved with this spell, but Olive thought that maybe it would look cooler if she shouted that.
Waving her hand around in exaggerated and seemingly random gestures, she began sending the magic towards the decomposing rodent.

For the first minute, nothing would happen.
The witch would simply look ridiculous as she tried to figure out how to do this exactly.
But then, abruptly, the rats body would begin to move and take shape in the most grotesque and unsettling manner.
Before both the four eyes of the mortals and the hundreds(?) on the horse, the rodents body would somehow grow in mass and take the form of some sort of dead, rat horse thing (this was the only thing that looked similar to what i was thinking). For the most part the decaying creature was of horse body frame but the beady eyes and ears were of a rodent.
If you looked at it long enough, it was kind of cute actually...


"hmmm...close enough." The witch sighed as she used some light magic to push any boulders or rocks on Jay and picked him up, potato sack style.
"This is only a temporary spell so hopefully when Alai wakes up, Nerien can turn into something that's bigger..."

With the same spell she grabbed a stray rock and miraculously turned that into a saddle and then grabbing a twig, turned that into the reign.
When all that was done, the witch would climb on top the beast and lay Jay's unconscious body behind her, then took a hold of the reigns.
"Before you gawk at me and worship me for my magical prowess, we should just wait and see how long I can keep this spell up.
Last time I did this it lasted maybe 2 minutes.
So....
Yeah."

As for Noire, Nerien would walk up to her and bend her two forfront knee's.
"You can ride me for now, just push Alai's body toward the back and we should be fine."


As for Abeline, she and Kaliayh decided to share a mount as well.
Kaliyah grabbed hold of the dracolisks reigns and Abeline sat in the back, both legs on one side since unlike Kaliyah, she wore a dress.


It was time for them to go to the homelands of Gaia and both Vasieya and Gabriel would lead the way....

----

The trip was uneventful as such a planet with little animal life (at least in the desert environment) and lots of tree's would be. It would take them one week to leave the desert tree's baren, hot lands

But as time went on the environment would change before them.
The soil of Gaia was full of vast, green and flowery plains that ran for miles beyond sight. There were lush rivers, small animals and occasionally lone tree's in the area. For another week this was all that they would see.
Eventually, in the distance they would finally spot the large mountains forming a lengthy wall against the horizon.
This was the center of Gaia's civilization.

For all travelers there was The Queens path, which was a steadily winding dirt road that lead to the summit of the mountain. All along the way there were torches for light, petite shops that sold food and supplies and on the occasion there were towns where Conna were in their humanoid forms.
It did seem that for the most part however, considering that they were in a pine forest, that most of the Conna here stayed in their original tree shapes.


It would be very early morning, the group had already began their hike towards Gaia's summit and they were less than an hour away.
Olive's zombie horse rat thing had attempted to shift back to it's original form only a couple of times, but she'd been able to maintain it.

Alai was awake and well though her legs were not in good shape.
For sometime, until Olive herself was healed enough to take care of her, the scathian was bound to Nerien for mobility.

Abeline seemed to be doing fine as well. Occasionally she had headaches but she'd yet to lose herself to Bliss.

Gabriel, as planned, had been turned into stone and Vasieya was carrying him effortlessly. Looking back at the group, her eyebrows pinched together as she stared at them with concern.

"So we are almost zere.
Are we ready for zis?" Vasieya questioned.
She was obviously feeling unnerved.
The whole time Conna had been watching them for Gaia. The Eldest of the Tree's had been aware for a while now that the group was on her lands, but she'd yet to take any action about it.
All that they knew was that she was very carefully and silently observing them.  

[The Assassin of Chaos]

Noire was making sure Alai was doing OK and trying to figure out how to help her legs for the moment. The alternative was panicking like a normal person would.

Jay had woken up at this point and answered honestly to Vassy, "Hell yeah. We gon' kill something."  

[BhelliomBlue-Rose]

A couple of blue eyes flicked to the witch, narrowing in individual glares.
Don't you talk s**t on Binky.
Dude was one of my best friends when I was starting out.
Names change, and we die, too.
As she raised and twisted her abomination, they remained mostly upon her.
The corpse wasn't all that interesting.

His Rider was unconcerned with it, but for different reasons.
Conjured things didn't last too long, and it wouldn't be much of a danger.
It didn't take much to dispatch a corpse, usually.
He turned his head to the road once it was evident that they were ready to leave.
Not that I an turn much else.
Stop that whining. Could've been worse.
Yeah. I could've broken my nails, too.

"Ready or not, here we go.
Everybody remember the plan?"
The idea was to hand over Gabriel, for a start.
While she gloated, a party would be arranged to celebrate the downfall of her enemies.
From there, they could propose crushing Bliss for the Book.
From that point, they could poison the Firstborn empress.

It might have occurred to her that this was a trap, but the discussions might shift that thought.
From her perspective, if things went smoothly, she would be the means they intended to use.
From Conquest's, that was exactly correct.
Most of her estimations, from what he could read of their target, would be based upon Vasieya and himself.
If she didn't know about the altercation between them and her sister, then the Empress was blind indeed.

He'd made sure to go over the overall structure several times before they hit the treeline.
Improvisation was acceptable, so long as the goals were accomplished.
Each had their own. Noire had made the poisons, Jay was to plant them appropriately.
The Horseman was there to keep Gaia's attention where he could.
Aside from support and continued distractions, those were the main assigned roles.
They would have to try and keep Gabriel from being killed, and Gaia's finding out was one of the other triggers for the '******** everything' option.
Once that threshold was breached, they would just go for broke and attempt to take her out...
"Hullo, the city! Anyone home?"  

[cosmos_rose]

The Assassin of Chaos

Upon everyone's confirmation the petrified angel nodded and lead them forward to what, after a few minutes, would be revealed to be what was the capitol city of Gaia's Summit.
And for a capitol city, they would notice it to be both not very large, yet also not too small.
The homes were built of some sort of pale gray stone and much like Gabriel's homeland many of the homes were simply one story high.
Lanterns and torches dimly lit the quaint city's pebbled pathways compared to the waking suns rays.

Alai had noticed awhile ago that Noire was concerned over her legs.
Earlier Olive had done what she could to wrap them up so that the bones would continue to heal in a proper fashion, but that was about all she could do until she healed up herself.
"You know Noire, you don't need to worry about me.
I'll be fine, you know, after a while."

Shortly after entering a lone common daisy Conna would approach them.
"Our Goddess is rather intrigued by the picture you have presented her." She greeted.
"Pray tell us, before you step further, what you have come here for.
Although she states that she may know already."

"Me and my fellow star travelers," began Vasieya, "have come here wiz a proposition for her.
A peaceful negotiation we were will all win.
If she will let us go to her zrone, my friends and I would prefer to talk wiz her in person."

The Common Daisy bobbed her head just once in acknowledgement.
"She accepts on the condition that all weapons and mythical creatures are left behind."

"Does that include Kaliyah and I?" Abeline puzzled.
Technically, if one truly thought about it, Oravian's were just dragons that could turn into people.
Or was it vise versa?
It depended on who you asked honestly.
Kaliyah would say that they were dragons who turned to people, but she was raised in a very different age and was a prophet to the Oravian religion.
Abeline leaned a little more to the other side personally, she'd always felt more like a petite Princess/Queen than a large, ravenous beast.

The Common Daisy pondered this over herself and in addition listened to Gaia's opinion. After a brief moment a silence, she nodded.
"Yes, including you two.
You can stay inside the city but not in her home."

"That's fair." Abeline agreed as she then looked over to her friends.
"See you guys in a little bit?"

"Follow me." The daisy would wave as she would walk away from them.

Due the condition pretty much all the mounts were not allowed to follow with.
That left behind Glory, Nerien, the Dracolisk and of course the two dragons girls.
The rest were alowed to follow.  

[The Assassin of Chaos]

"So will anyone after a while, Alai," Noire pointed out. "That's the point of healing naturally. I just wish I could speed it up somehow."

"Catch ya around, Nerien," Jay waved her off. Better sneak her way in somehow, he swore. He remembered he still hadn't picked up that weapon from the Conna and couldn't be arsed to bring his gun-scythe anyway. He just shrugged and went with it.  

[BhelliomBlue-Rose]

The white robed man atop his horse shrugged, and slid down the left side to his feet.
The formerly broken limbs were a bit sore, but they were whole.
All in all, Olive did good work, and he'd thanked her on the way.
Even identified the plants for Noire to make a salve for all those cuts.
Wouldn't speed up the healing much, to be sure, but it would definitely help.
Letting their guide take the lead for now, he'd acquiesce to the request.

His golden blade was unbelted, as were at least half a dozen knives from varied places around his person.
These were slung over Glory's saddle.
Padded vials and sealed packages of dubious content went also into the saddlebags.
Several packets of poisons and narcotics, on the other hand, weren't removed.
Those were closer to tools than weaponry, anyhow.

"Warn ya; don't get excited if you see the sword on me later.
It's pretty fond of me, and doesn't always listen when I tell it to stay."
An old warning. Still necessary, when things like this happened.
As they started forward, into the city proper, the Rider kept his stance loose and his movements fluid.
Sharp movements attracted attention from predator-based species, and Conna evolution was a mystery.

A wink tipped to Abeline and Alai, and he turned to go.
"Don't cause too much trouble, you troublemakers.
I know what you get up to when nobody's looking!"
The separation wasn't wholly unexpected, but it didn't matter much.
Hostages wouldn't be so easy to take with the two dragons and the horse in the same place.

Contingencies were plotted, discarded, and replotted, and had been for the whole trip.
Jay could use a bow and a blade, so handing the golden one off to him would do well enough.
Worst came to worst, then Conquest didn't need a weapon.
He just needed to get close to their target.
Her own instincts would do the rest, or so he hoped.
They hadn't actually made an issue of how Conna spread their parasites within earshot of others.
For all Gaia knew, they were still ignorant...  

[cosmos_rose]

The Assassin of Chaos

"Well that's sweet that you're worried Noire," Alai somberly smiled, "but there's not much to be done about it.
Olive will take care of me as soon as she can, she just needs to heal up herself a bit more.
You should leave with the others though, before they leave without yah." She said, nodding her head towards the others that were following the daisy.

The Daisy would wait patiently as all those who were coming discarded their weapons. Whenever they were finished she would wave them along and guide them through the town.
This town, unlike Gabriel's, was almost eerily quiet.
Besides the sound of their feet crunching on pebbles, the rustling of leaves in the chilly breeze, there was little else to be heard.
Even as they passed by a market, the people there all seemed to be moving about in a slow, serene manner. Words were hardly spoken and when they were they were brief and calm.
Also unlike the city of clay, the Conna here seemed to have next to no interest in the group even though two of the members were men.

Like ghosts they would saunter on the pathway and through the village. Eventually, if they cared to glance backwards, they would only see little light gray figures of the homes as they kept pacing forward.

The nature around them was astounding and just like Gaia's city, serene.
Surrounding them were large pines, fields with long green grass and white wildflowers.
And in the distance a river could be heard tumbling through the earth...

While admiring the scenery, dozing off or whatever they were doing to kill the time, they might suddenly notice a half an inch of water soaking the bottoms of their feet.
Just as this happened however, they would see her in the distance.
A redwood oak tree so large it hurt their necks just to look at her branches praying towards the sky.

The entrance of her home was her own trunk, which had an opening much similar to the looks of a cave. Walking inside they would be greeted by the faint glow of torches as the lit up the home.
And there was Gaia, laying comfortable on a white and gold french provincial chaise lounge chair.
The supposed Goddess of the Tree's was fashioned much like her elegant bed as well. This evening she wore a white, breezy dress that would drag behind her as she walked and about her neck and wrists were gold trinkets.

Her dark green eyes flickered to her guests as they came into her home.
With a warm smile she stood, letting her long white hair fall to her ankles.

"My darlings," She cooed, "what a blessing it is to have your presence here in my home."
Calmly she observed each guest with steady eyes.
"What is it that you need from me?"


Vasieya gulped.
"I....I...uhm...
We here...."
The french tree felt tongue tied...

----------------

Both the scathian and the princess would chuckle in unison as they would wave to Conquest as he wandered off on his adventure.

"Well I don't know about you guys..." The shapeshifter would sigh, long after the other group dissipated in the distance.
"But I wanna find a nice, shady spot to take a nap in while we wait."

The Steel Knight shrugged. "I suppose I could use a nap too..."

Both of the dragons seemed to feel an indifference to napping as they scanned what they could see of the town over.
"Well I'm not really sleepy." Abeline spoke up.
"Think there's anything particularly interesting in this town Glory?"  

[The Assassin of Chaos]

Noire frowned, but followed the others. She kinda wished she didn't have to, wiggling her cigarette around her mouth a little.

"Jeez Vas, there's a joke about being frenched here somewhere but I can't be bothered to make it," Jay mused. "Didn't think trees did ostentatious. Also we have this guy."
He poked at Arthur with his trademark copyrighted grin.