carpedavid
First Post
If you haven't seen it yet, you've made the front news page. Well done.
The Celestial Empire (Romance of the Three Kingdoms-ish, Updated 12/09/05)
Emperor Valerian
First Post
We did? Oh wow... never expected that from this little story hour! 
Emperor Valerian
First Post
Meanwhile, Felonca Causes Trouble
You’d think with all this arcane power, the scholars would’ve made some kind of efficient shelving system, Felonca growled mentally about the same time. Since Nayu had gone to mediate as the scholars had instructed him, she’d tried to search the Imperial Library for information pertaining to her reason for being in the city.
To get rid of this forsaken dagger!
Unfortunately, the magical tomes were packed haphazardly, something she discovered quickly when in her first stack she found tomes regarding everything from the proper use of aboleth’s blood to charts detailing the thickness of dragon-scales over a draconic lifetime. Within the vast building, and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tomes, she had no idea of where to begin her search. Without guidance, two hours before she’d come to the reluctant conclusion that she could spend ten lifetimes searching through the library, and perhaps only make her way through half the volumes.
Finally, she rounded a corner, and found the target of her present query.
“Won Wei?”
He ought to know where anything is in here.
Felonca nervously twitched her nose as the scholar turned around, several books still bundled in his hands as his re-shelving stopped. Golden sunlight from the afternoon filtered into the dusty room, as other scholars further away bustled about, carrying priceless knowledge in their arms.
After the chaos of the previous day, it had taken many hours to track him down again, in the upper layers of the Imperial Library. Somewhere within the depths of the building, Nayu still meditated. Absently, Felonca looked down, and her eyes caught the faint glint of a ruby hilt in her boots.
“Yes? A..um... Felonca, isn’t it?” the comparatively young scholar said, causing Felonca to snap her head upwards again. To her relief, his eyes had not followed where she was looking... instead he looked right at her, a polite smile on his face. “I trust that you will find use for the great gift your friend gave you?”
“Um... yes. And I humbly thank you and the scholars for choosing to bestow such an honor on both of us,” she bowed, careful to keep her newest warfan out of the way. From her hip, Kongxi’s Fan seemed to gleam, even in the bright light of the halls in which they stood.
“And I trust you won’t disappear in the midst of us like you did before?” the scholar grinned, nascent age lines appearing on his lips and eyes when he did so. When he smiled, he looked stately, she thought. He certainly hadn’t looked stately when she’d swished the fan back and forth only moments after Nayu had given the artifact to her, and the room suddenly was covered in inky darkness.
“I was merely testing its abilities,” Felonca smiled back. And I have no doubt the ability to disappear inside a cloud of mist or darkness will be useful... “And I must say that it worked beyond my hopes.”
“I think that was when the young Emperor escaped to the courtyard,” Won Wei’s grin grew wider, and the two laughed at the memory of the Empress dashing into the courtyard, only to be upbraided by her own ten year old son. “His Majesty seems to have grown a backbone since your arrival,” the scholar added with a whisper of approval.
“He just needed someone to tell him what he could do all along,” Felonca replied. Though it was funny to see the Empress running about like a hen, while the guards refused to move at the Emperor’s order... The happy thought was strangled, however, by something far darker... something she still felt pressing against her ankle.
“Um... but I also need advice. The other scholars say that you are very wise, Won Wei.”
“They say such, and do me honor,” Won Wei bowed again, though Felonca noticed his eyebrow was raised in question.
“This Library is immense, and I am in need of assistance.” For a moment she stopped, unsure of where to go, until her mind remembered the whole reason for her trip to the capital, to brave the potential dangers the Empress and her lackeys might pose.
“Do you, um... know where I could find information an...um... artifact?” she finally stammered after several long pauses. Now, Felonca, pick your words carefully. You don’t want him to necessarily know that you have THE dagger. Just an... artifact.
Won Wei’s smile left his face, his eyes wide with question. “I assume you do not mean Kongxi’s Fan... we already answered your veritable barrage of questions on that subject.”
“Of course not... I mean another...um... artifact.”
“Which one, may I ask?” Won Wei said, turning around to finish placing his books back on their proper stacks.
Ok. A logical question from him. You just need to deflect it...
“Um... I can’t say...” Felonca said slowly, quietly. At the grudging admission, Won Wei turned back around, his face now full of question.
Great move, Felonca! That was awkward enough that now he probably suspects something! she cursed to herself.
“Well,” he said momentarily, “I can’t quite help you with this problem unless I know which artifact to look for. As you said, we have hundreds of thousands of arcane tomes and books all over.” He turned his head slightly, his eyes prying. “Why can you not say what this artifact is?”
Dammit! Need an excuse, otherwise he’ll just poke into my mind and they’ll
“Um... no, I can’t tell you that,” she stammered, before adding, “I just need to know where the section of the library is that deals with artifacts. I can find the tome my-“
She stopped in mid-sentence, the bone-chilling sensation of another presence within her mind washing through her. For a split second, Won Wei’s eyes glowed slightly, then suddenly they flew wide. The presence just as quickly vanished, and the scholar tumbled backwards, knocking over a stack of books.
“You... you have...” he managed to stutter softly, before his frightened eyes flashed towards her boot.
“Dammit!” Felonca hissed to herself. “Yes, I have it,” she hissed to him, “and I want to destroy it,” she growled. Several other scholars were already looking at the two after Won Wei’s fall. As few people as possible need to know this! Damn scholar mind reading and then falling over! Gah!
“You...wish...” he said slowly, his voice still high and squeaking from the strain of surprise.
“Yes!” she hissed again, before adding, “Don’t be so damn obvious! Prince Hu already wants this dagger, as does the White Wolf Clan! I don’t know who else wants this thing, so please don’t draw attention to me!” As she quickly helped him to his feet, she added, “For someone that just read my mind, without my permission, you are quite slow!”
“A...um...” Won Wei stammered, before finally his voice came back to him. He cleared his throat, and with an acting job worthy of only the plaudits of the drunk, he said in a faux commanding voice, “Yes, I know where that would be! Let us go now!” he said, taking her by the arm and hustling her out of the room, his wide eyes still betraying his distress at the situation.
Great, Felonca groaned as other scholars looked, until she looked into their eyes, and saw impishness, even laughter. The silence of the hall was broken from a few controlled snickers, and Felonca let out a sigh of relief. There were no female scholars present, and Felonca easily guessed the thoughts in some of the other scholar's minds had close parallels to the thoughts constantly in Meiji's mind.
If they want to be dirty minded, that’s fine. At least they aren’t suspecting I’m carrying the only weapon that can kill a sitting Emperor...
You’d think with all this arcane power, the scholars would’ve made some kind of efficient shelving system, Felonca growled mentally about the same time. Since Nayu had gone to mediate as the scholars had instructed him, she’d tried to search the Imperial Library for information pertaining to her reason for being in the city.
To get rid of this forsaken dagger!
Unfortunately, the magical tomes were packed haphazardly, something she discovered quickly when in her first stack she found tomes regarding everything from the proper use of aboleth’s blood to charts detailing the thickness of dragon-scales over a draconic lifetime. Within the vast building, and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tomes, she had no idea of where to begin her search. Without guidance, two hours before she’d come to the reluctant conclusion that she could spend ten lifetimes searching through the library, and perhaps only make her way through half the volumes.
Finally, she rounded a corner, and found the target of her present query.
“Won Wei?”
He ought to know where anything is in here.
Felonca nervously twitched her nose as the scholar turned around, several books still bundled in his hands as his re-shelving stopped. Golden sunlight from the afternoon filtered into the dusty room, as other scholars further away bustled about, carrying priceless knowledge in their arms.
After the chaos of the previous day, it had taken many hours to track him down again, in the upper layers of the Imperial Library. Somewhere within the depths of the building, Nayu still meditated. Absently, Felonca looked down, and her eyes caught the faint glint of a ruby hilt in her boots.
“Yes? A..um... Felonca, isn’t it?” the comparatively young scholar said, causing Felonca to snap her head upwards again. To her relief, his eyes had not followed where she was looking... instead he looked right at her, a polite smile on his face. “I trust that you will find use for the great gift your friend gave you?”
“Um... yes. And I humbly thank you and the scholars for choosing to bestow such an honor on both of us,” she bowed, careful to keep her newest warfan out of the way. From her hip, Kongxi’s Fan seemed to gleam, even in the bright light of the halls in which they stood.
“And I trust you won’t disappear in the midst of us like you did before?” the scholar grinned, nascent age lines appearing on his lips and eyes when he did so. When he smiled, he looked stately, she thought. He certainly hadn’t looked stately when she’d swished the fan back and forth only moments after Nayu had given the artifact to her, and the room suddenly was covered in inky darkness.
“I was merely testing its abilities,” Felonca smiled back. And I have no doubt the ability to disappear inside a cloud of mist or darkness will be useful... “And I must say that it worked beyond my hopes.”
“I think that was when the young Emperor escaped to the courtyard,” Won Wei’s grin grew wider, and the two laughed at the memory of the Empress dashing into the courtyard, only to be upbraided by her own ten year old son. “His Majesty seems to have grown a backbone since your arrival,” the scholar added with a whisper of approval.
“He just needed someone to tell him what he could do all along,” Felonca replied. Though it was funny to see the Empress running about like a hen, while the guards refused to move at the Emperor’s order... The happy thought was strangled, however, by something far darker... something she still felt pressing against her ankle.
“Um... but I also need advice. The other scholars say that you are very wise, Won Wei.”
“They say such, and do me honor,” Won Wei bowed again, though Felonca noticed his eyebrow was raised in question.
“This Library is immense, and I am in need of assistance.” For a moment she stopped, unsure of where to go, until her mind remembered the whole reason for her trip to the capital, to brave the potential dangers the Empress and her lackeys might pose.
“Do you, um... know where I could find information an...um... artifact?” she finally stammered after several long pauses. Now, Felonca, pick your words carefully. You don’t want him to necessarily know that you have THE dagger. Just an... artifact.
Won Wei’s smile left his face, his eyes wide with question. “I assume you do not mean Kongxi’s Fan... we already answered your veritable barrage of questions on that subject.”
“Of course not... I mean another...um... artifact.”
“Which one, may I ask?” Won Wei said, turning around to finish placing his books back on their proper stacks.
Ok. A logical question from him. You just need to deflect it...
“Um... I can’t say...” Felonca said slowly, quietly. At the grudging admission, Won Wei turned back around, his face now full of question.
Great move, Felonca! That was awkward enough that now he probably suspects something! she cursed to herself.
“Well,” he said momentarily, “I can’t quite help you with this problem unless I know which artifact to look for. As you said, we have hundreds of thousands of arcane tomes and books all over.” He turned his head slightly, his eyes prying. “Why can you not say what this artifact is?”
Dammit! Need an excuse, otherwise he’ll just poke into my mind and they’ll
“Um... no, I can’t tell you that,” she stammered, before adding, “I just need to know where the section of the library is that deals with artifacts. I can find the tome my-“
She stopped in mid-sentence, the bone-chilling sensation of another presence within her mind washing through her. For a split second, Won Wei’s eyes glowed slightly, then suddenly they flew wide. The presence just as quickly vanished, and the scholar tumbled backwards, knocking over a stack of books.
“You... you have...” he managed to stutter softly, before his frightened eyes flashed towards her boot.
“Dammit!” Felonca hissed to herself. “Yes, I have it,” she hissed to him, “and I want to destroy it,” she growled. Several other scholars were already looking at the two after Won Wei’s fall. As few people as possible need to know this! Damn scholar mind reading and then falling over! Gah!
“You...wish...” he said slowly, his voice still high and squeaking from the strain of surprise.
“Yes!” she hissed again, before adding, “Don’t be so damn obvious! Prince Hu already wants this dagger, as does the White Wolf Clan! I don’t know who else wants this thing, so please don’t draw attention to me!” As she quickly helped him to his feet, she added, “For someone that just read my mind, without my permission, you are quite slow!”
“A...um...” Won Wei stammered, before finally his voice came back to him. He cleared his throat, and with an acting job worthy of only the plaudits of the drunk, he said in a faux commanding voice, “Yes, I know where that would be! Let us go now!” he said, taking her by the arm and hustling her out of the room, his wide eyes still betraying his distress at the situation.
Great, Felonca groaned as other scholars looked, until she looked into their eyes, and saw impishness, even laughter. The silence of the hall was broken from a few controlled snickers, and Felonca let out a sigh of relief. There were no female scholars present, and Felonca easily guessed the thoughts in some of the other scholar's minds had close parallels to the thoughts constantly in Meiji's mind.
If they want to be dirty minded, that’s fine. At least they aren’t suspecting I’m carrying the only weapon that can kill a sitting Emperor...
Emperor Valerian
First Post
Dark News from the North
“So that’s it?” Felonca asked some hours later. She shook herself for the seemingly countless time, and once again, a small cloud of dust flew from her body, illuminating the thin strands of light that petered down to their location, in the depths of the library’s catacombs. “Only those options?”
“Yes,” Won Wei replied after a moment, running his hands over his formerly fine silk robes with a somewhat saddened expression. Obviously his clothes were ruined. “Those are your only three chances.”
“Well... I said before that killing the Emperor is out of the question,” Felonca replied. Slaying the Emperor was the first option the two had found, easily located in one of the upper chambers, and one that both had immediately put aside. The slaying would fulfill the purpose of the dagger’s dark, unknown creators, but would cause so much chaos that more would likely die than if the young Emperor stayed alive. And Felonca couldn’t bring herself to kill a small innocent boy, hence their continued search for other solutions.
“Well, that leaves us two options,” Won Wei said, finally standing up after he’d removed as much dust from his clothes as possible.
“Leaves us two options?” Felonca asked, as Won Wei handed her the ancient tome that held the remaining secrets.
“Yes, us,” the scholar flecked a few final spots on his robe. “As one of the Council of Scholars, it’s my duty to ensure the safety of the Imperial Throne.” By his tone, Felonca detected an almost paternal undertone.
He actually cares deeply about the Emperor, not as a ruler, but as a young, growing boy...
“So. We have the two remaining options. Find a Celestial Dragon, messenger from the Heavens, and persuade the great creature to destroy the dagger...”
“Or stab someone close to the royal blood who claims the throne with the dagger,” Felonca finished, trying not to swallow on reciting those words. She was glad Won Wei hadn’t been looking when she’d read them initially... she knew of two people with the royal blood in such circumstances. One was at the head of an enormous army, marching away from the capital. The other was still inside this very building...
Thank goodness they don’t appear to know Nayu’s ancestry... If they were forced to choose between hunting down Prince Hu in the midst of his legions, or killing the young man already in their midst, as much as Won Wei and many of the scholars liked Nayu, she doubted her friend would live for long.
“I think either of those is also a most difficult task,” Won Wei replied, not evidently picking up her inner thoughts. “I will have to do much research to find out what this ‘Celestial Dragon’ is exactly, and where it might be found. I highly doubt Prince Hu is going to just walk into our laps, however...”
From somewhere above, a loud, dull creak echoed through the dusty chamber. Both Won Wei and Felonca looked up, to see a stream of light blazing from the doorway... the rays of the setting sun.
“Pardon me, Master Won Wei,” a young man’s voice said breathlessly, “but a messenger has arrived from the north. His Imperial Majesty requests your presence immediately to discuss the news he brings.”
As she spurred her horse further on, slowly making progress, Felonca’s heart fell. Since the arrival of the messenger only a few hours before, she had been in constant panic. The news had been devastatingly sparse: there was a great battle to the north, and Quan-Shi’s army, which included both her father and her uncle, was defeated, and its remnants were now outside the city walls. How badly, who survived... she had no idea of knowing until now.
As officially the army was not under the Imperial banner, but under the banner of the provincial government of Dai, it needed permission to enter the Imperial City. Won Wei, as representative of the Council of Scholars, immediately said the troops should be let in, yet somehow Felonca hadn’t been surprised the Empress had disagreed.
The Empress had pointed out that letting in tens of thousands of wounded and dying increased the risk of disease, as well as starting a panic within the city streets, yet behind these facades, even the politically limited Felonca could see why she didn’t want the troops within the city; her power was already in retreat, the Imperial Guards were beginning to listen to the Council more than her, and most importantly, all of these new soldiers would undoubtedly listen to Felonca, Nayu, and thus likely Won Wei, before they would ever obey an order from her.
Stupid woman... thinking of her position more than her people, Felonca snarled in memory. The arguments had lasted far longer than Felonca thought was necessary or appropriate, and finally it took Nayu’s quick mind to find a solution; he asked the young Emperor over his mother’s objections, and Yuandi promptly countermanded his mother. In a fury, she had stormed out of the Council Chambers, cursing the young boy, Won Wei, Nayu, and Felonca.
Maybe she’ll just jump off a tower or something, Felonca thought darkly. Her brooding was interrupted when her eyes caught sight of a soldier carrying a tattered banner, the character “Wa” emblazoned in stark black on its white cloth.
That’s a Wa-Feng banner... she realized immediately, and her mind turned to far more pressing matters than a pouting Empress. Her progress in the crowd ground to a halt, and as the masses of soldiers pushed onward into the city, she was forced to dismount, to clamber through the mob.
“Papa!” Felonca dashed, cutting amongst and through the long, broken streams of humanity that seemed to block the entire boulevard. As far as the eyes could see, all she could pick out were wounded soldiers, their armor bloodied, their weapons hanging in defeat. Somewhere behind her, she heard her horse whinny, but she didn’t care.
Papa...
Finally, amongst the sea of heads, she spotted the dark head of her father towering of the others, his helm gone, his white armor soiled and dirty. Within moments she ripped through the crowd, and leapt into him.
“Papa!” she cried, clutching him close in the closing darkness. He smelled of sweat, iron, and blood. They didn’t say anything about you! I thought you were dead! She closed her eyes tight, not caring if anyone saw.
“Felonca,” her father said quietly. The embrace lasted far shorter than she hoped, as he gently pushed her away. When she looked up at him, she saw worry, even fear, dancing within his eyes.
“We thought we were strong enough to cut off Prince Hu,” her father said quietly. “We positioned ourselves astride his only road back to Langya, and hoped to crush him. We...” he suddenly stopped, and a great dark hand started to run through his hair in frustration. “We had the high ground, and we had the better position. Hu should have had no choice but to charge into the teeth of our spears... but...”
The fear seemed to flare brighter in his dark brown eyes.
“Felonca... you must realize this. Hu is no ordinary man, he is no ordinary commander,” Felonxi said, his voice even quieter. “Lesser men would have been trapped but he... well...” Her father looked down, his hands gesturing towards the masses of wounded moving about. When his eyes flashed up towards Felonca, they looked meek, and for the first time she could remember, she saw something altogether foreign to his gaze.
Shame.
“We saw him come to the front, and raise his hands,” Felonxi began, “so we ordered our scholars to prepare themselves. Yet, no matter how they concentrated and called for Heaven’s Blessing, the skies opened, and flames rained down on our men. Then... then they charged...” Felonca stood speechless, as she read the horrible events that followed through her father’s quiet gaze.
“I...I saw him near the front of the battleline, and I realized that we had to kill him. So I charged him... but I couldn’t reach him in time, before the lightning and hail scattered what remained of us...” His voice faded into nothingness, before he looked down yet again.
“Dian and Quan-Shi set up the rearguard, while I organized the troops retreating in the smoke. I escaped unharmed... both were wounded, Quan-Shi badly.” He stopped again, as if the words near his tongue were words he did not want to utter, but words he knew he must say.
“I failed. We failed.”
Felonca closed her eyes, imagining the horror, the smell of sulfur blanketing the sky and earth, flames licking, burning everything, the chaos and confusion of a retreat through billowing smoke. The sheer horror of the event, of trying to organize thousands of fleeing people so they could make it to safety, instead of choking to death in the smoke, or being ridden down by Hu’s cavalry. When she opened her eyes, she gently touched her father’s shoulder.
“Many men retreated safely. You have succeeded, and you have no reason to be ashamed. You brought them here, where they will likely be needed,” she said simply. She heard no reply from her father, but his looking up from the ground spoke enough.
“They make for here with all haste,” Felonxi said, “the Prince and his entire host, now swollen with abominations against the dao and Heaven’s Will.” He stopped for a second, but Felonca’s slow nod prompted more. “There were seas of skeletons... they were easy for our men to kill, but they seemed endless as the sands of the desert beaches. There were great demons, spiders of great size, monstrosities of horn and flesh beyond number...” His voice once again faded, as he gave a slight shudder, before looking up towards the outer walls of the immense city, the same walls that had made Felonca feel so boxed in when they arrived a week prior.
“They will breach these walls,” he said simply, bluntly, “and the middle walls, and the inner walls.” A sigh of resignation. “They will even breach the walls of the Jade City. There is no hope.”
There is no hope. Those four words coming from her father made Felonca shudder. Her family history had been built on situations where others said there was no hope. Her grandfather had held off 10,000 barbarians to the north with a regiment of barely a thousand, and only just before she was born, Felonca’s father had successfully defeated an ogre one on one.
For him to say there is no hope... Felonca shuddered again, her mind’s eye imagining the sky growing dark, before a pregnant, orange glow let loose of torrent of fire onto the city below.
But he managed to get many of the soldiers out alive... thousands of the soldiers out alive! If it is as he describes, no one should have been able to survive such a firestorm! That alone shows there is hope!
Regardless, Felonca... there is a battered army here, and a city needs to be defended.
The greatest treasure of arcane tomes needs to be defended.
An Emperor needs to be defended.
An Empire needs to be defended.
“How closely do they follow?” Felonca asked, her voice no longer quiet. The soldiers about need to hear this too.
“Hu followed slowly... his army is too huge to move quickly,” her father replied. “That should give us a week to get the soldiers out, and if we do some forced marches, we could sneak past him...”
“We aren’t retreating,” Felonca replied, mustering some steel into her voice. Mentally she shuddered again, at the image of the city, and its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, burning in the wind. “Someone has to stop them, so the people can escape.”
“Stop them?!” She heard the fight coming back into her father’s voice, and it made her happy, even if the ire was directed at her. “How are we going to fight them? You have no forest to hide in here, Felonca!”
Now, to just turn this ire a bit towards something productive... she thought.
“We have just a week, papa,” she replied. “Enough time to get as many of these soldiers healed as possible, and as many of the people out of the city as well.” She stopped, and as she felt the eyes of soldiers around falling on her, she forced a smirk to her lips. “Call a meeting of all of your generals. I’ll get the Emperor’s guards to come as well.”
We have to hold them off, at least until the people can escape, and we can evacuate all the arcane tomes within the Imperial libraries. If it took us only six hours to find the ways to destroy that dagger... She shuddered to think of the secrets someone like Hu could find with ease in those catacombs.
“Why? What for?” he asked, plainly confused.
Felonca changed the smirk to a laugh as she pointed at her father.
“Shang Wa-Feng is going to save Liaoxiang!” She turned, and pointed to one staring soldier, and shouted again, “Did you hear? Shang Wa-Feng is going to save Liaoxiang!”
As murmurs began to run through the bedraggled soldiers, she turned back to her now speechless father.
“Now you have a reputation to live up to, Papa.”
Let us hope we can both do this... I think the Empire is depending on us...
“So that’s it?” Felonca asked some hours later. She shook herself for the seemingly countless time, and once again, a small cloud of dust flew from her body, illuminating the thin strands of light that petered down to their location, in the depths of the library’s catacombs. “Only those options?”
“Yes,” Won Wei replied after a moment, running his hands over his formerly fine silk robes with a somewhat saddened expression. Obviously his clothes were ruined. “Those are your only three chances.”
“Well... I said before that killing the Emperor is out of the question,” Felonca replied. Slaying the Emperor was the first option the two had found, easily located in one of the upper chambers, and one that both had immediately put aside. The slaying would fulfill the purpose of the dagger’s dark, unknown creators, but would cause so much chaos that more would likely die than if the young Emperor stayed alive. And Felonca couldn’t bring herself to kill a small innocent boy, hence their continued search for other solutions.
“Well, that leaves us two options,” Won Wei said, finally standing up after he’d removed as much dust from his clothes as possible.
“Leaves us two options?” Felonca asked, as Won Wei handed her the ancient tome that held the remaining secrets.
“Yes, us,” the scholar flecked a few final spots on his robe. “As one of the Council of Scholars, it’s my duty to ensure the safety of the Imperial Throne.” By his tone, Felonca detected an almost paternal undertone.
He actually cares deeply about the Emperor, not as a ruler, but as a young, growing boy...
“So. We have the two remaining options. Find a Celestial Dragon, messenger from the Heavens, and persuade the great creature to destroy the dagger...”
“Or stab someone close to the royal blood who claims the throne with the dagger,” Felonca finished, trying not to swallow on reciting those words. She was glad Won Wei hadn’t been looking when she’d read them initially... she knew of two people with the royal blood in such circumstances. One was at the head of an enormous army, marching away from the capital. The other was still inside this very building...
Thank goodness they don’t appear to know Nayu’s ancestry... If they were forced to choose between hunting down Prince Hu in the midst of his legions, or killing the young man already in their midst, as much as Won Wei and many of the scholars liked Nayu, she doubted her friend would live for long.
“I think either of those is also a most difficult task,” Won Wei replied, not evidently picking up her inner thoughts. “I will have to do much research to find out what this ‘Celestial Dragon’ is exactly, and where it might be found. I highly doubt Prince Hu is going to just walk into our laps, however...”
From somewhere above, a loud, dull creak echoed through the dusty chamber. Both Won Wei and Felonca looked up, to see a stream of light blazing from the doorway... the rays of the setting sun.
“Pardon me, Master Won Wei,” a young man’s voice said breathlessly, “but a messenger has arrived from the north. His Imperial Majesty requests your presence immediately to discuss the news he brings.”
As she spurred her horse further on, slowly making progress, Felonca’s heart fell. Since the arrival of the messenger only a few hours before, she had been in constant panic. The news had been devastatingly sparse: there was a great battle to the north, and Quan-Shi’s army, which included both her father and her uncle, was defeated, and its remnants were now outside the city walls. How badly, who survived... she had no idea of knowing until now.
As officially the army was not under the Imperial banner, but under the banner of the provincial government of Dai, it needed permission to enter the Imperial City. Won Wei, as representative of the Council of Scholars, immediately said the troops should be let in, yet somehow Felonca hadn’t been surprised the Empress had disagreed.
The Empress had pointed out that letting in tens of thousands of wounded and dying increased the risk of disease, as well as starting a panic within the city streets, yet behind these facades, even the politically limited Felonca could see why she didn’t want the troops within the city; her power was already in retreat, the Imperial Guards were beginning to listen to the Council more than her, and most importantly, all of these new soldiers would undoubtedly listen to Felonca, Nayu, and thus likely Won Wei, before they would ever obey an order from her.
Stupid woman... thinking of her position more than her people, Felonca snarled in memory. The arguments had lasted far longer than Felonca thought was necessary or appropriate, and finally it took Nayu’s quick mind to find a solution; he asked the young Emperor over his mother’s objections, and Yuandi promptly countermanded his mother. In a fury, she had stormed out of the Council Chambers, cursing the young boy, Won Wei, Nayu, and Felonca.
Maybe she’ll just jump off a tower or something, Felonca thought darkly. Her brooding was interrupted when her eyes caught sight of a soldier carrying a tattered banner, the character “Wa” emblazoned in stark black on its white cloth.
That’s a Wa-Feng banner... she realized immediately, and her mind turned to far more pressing matters than a pouting Empress. Her progress in the crowd ground to a halt, and as the masses of soldiers pushed onward into the city, she was forced to dismount, to clamber through the mob.
“Papa!” Felonca dashed, cutting amongst and through the long, broken streams of humanity that seemed to block the entire boulevard. As far as the eyes could see, all she could pick out were wounded soldiers, their armor bloodied, their weapons hanging in defeat. Somewhere behind her, she heard her horse whinny, but she didn’t care.
Papa...
Finally, amongst the sea of heads, she spotted the dark head of her father towering of the others, his helm gone, his white armor soiled and dirty. Within moments she ripped through the crowd, and leapt into him.
“Papa!” she cried, clutching him close in the closing darkness. He smelled of sweat, iron, and blood. They didn’t say anything about you! I thought you were dead! She closed her eyes tight, not caring if anyone saw.
“Felonca,” her father said quietly. The embrace lasted far shorter than she hoped, as he gently pushed her away. When she looked up at him, she saw worry, even fear, dancing within his eyes.
“We thought we were strong enough to cut off Prince Hu,” her father said quietly. “We positioned ourselves astride his only road back to Langya, and hoped to crush him. We...” he suddenly stopped, and a great dark hand started to run through his hair in frustration. “We had the high ground, and we had the better position. Hu should have had no choice but to charge into the teeth of our spears... but...”
The fear seemed to flare brighter in his dark brown eyes.
“Felonca... you must realize this. Hu is no ordinary man, he is no ordinary commander,” Felonxi said, his voice even quieter. “Lesser men would have been trapped but he... well...” Her father looked down, his hands gesturing towards the masses of wounded moving about. When his eyes flashed up towards Felonca, they looked meek, and for the first time she could remember, she saw something altogether foreign to his gaze.
Shame.
“We saw him come to the front, and raise his hands,” Felonxi began, “so we ordered our scholars to prepare themselves. Yet, no matter how they concentrated and called for Heaven’s Blessing, the skies opened, and flames rained down on our men. Then... then they charged...” Felonca stood speechless, as she read the horrible events that followed through her father’s quiet gaze.
“I...I saw him near the front of the battleline, and I realized that we had to kill him. So I charged him... but I couldn’t reach him in time, before the lightning and hail scattered what remained of us...” His voice faded into nothingness, before he looked down yet again.
“Dian and Quan-Shi set up the rearguard, while I organized the troops retreating in the smoke. I escaped unharmed... both were wounded, Quan-Shi badly.” He stopped again, as if the words near his tongue were words he did not want to utter, but words he knew he must say.
“I failed. We failed.”
Felonca closed her eyes, imagining the horror, the smell of sulfur blanketing the sky and earth, flames licking, burning everything, the chaos and confusion of a retreat through billowing smoke. The sheer horror of the event, of trying to organize thousands of fleeing people so they could make it to safety, instead of choking to death in the smoke, or being ridden down by Hu’s cavalry. When she opened her eyes, she gently touched her father’s shoulder.
“Many men retreated safely. You have succeeded, and you have no reason to be ashamed. You brought them here, where they will likely be needed,” she said simply. She heard no reply from her father, but his looking up from the ground spoke enough.
“They make for here with all haste,” Felonxi said, “the Prince and his entire host, now swollen with abominations against the dao and Heaven’s Will.” He stopped for a second, but Felonca’s slow nod prompted more. “There were seas of skeletons... they were easy for our men to kill, but they seemed endless as the sands of the desert beaches. There were great demons, spiders of great size, monstrosities of horn and flesh beyond number...” His voice once again faded, as he gave a slight shudder, before looking up towards the outer walls of the immense city, the same walls that had made Felonca feel so boxed in when they arrived a week prior.
“They will breach these walls,” he said simply, bluntly, “and the middle walls, and the inner walls.” A sigh of resignation. “They will even breach the walls of the Jade City. There is no hope.”
There is no hope. Those four words coming from her father made Felonca shudder. Her family history had been built on situations where others said there was no hope. Her grandfather had held off 10,000 barbarians to the north with a regiment of barely a thousand, and only just before she was born, Felonca’s father had successfully defeated an ogre one on one.
For him to say there is no hope... Felonca shuddered again, her mind’s eye imagining the sky growing dark, before a pregnant, orange glow let loose of torrent of fire onto the city below.
But he managed to get many of the soldiers out alive... thousands of the soldiers out alive! If it is as he describes, no one should have been able to survive such a firestorm! That alone shows there is hope!
Regardless, Felonca... there is a battered army here, and a city needs to be defended.
The greatest treasure of arcane tomes needs to be defended.
An Emperor needs to be defended.
An Empire needs to be defended.
“How closely do they follow?” Felonca asked, her voice no longer quiet. The soldiers about need to hear this too.
“Hu followed slowly... his army is too huge to move quickly,” her father replied. “That should give us a week to get the soldiers out, and if we do some forced marches, we could sneak past him...”
“We aren’t retreating,” Felonca replied, mustering some steel into her voice. Mentally she shuddered again, at the image of the city, and its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, burning in the wind. “Someone has to stop them, so the people can escape.”
“Stop them?!” She heard the fight coming back into her father’s voice, and it made her happy, even if the ire was directed at her. “How are we going to fight them? You have no forest to hide in here, Felonca!”
Now, to just turn this ire a bit towards something productive... she thought.
“We have just a week, papa,” she replied. “Enough time to get as many of these soldiers healed as possible, and as many of the people out of the city as well.” She stopped, and as she felt the eyes of soldiers around falling on her, she forced a smirk to her lips. “Call a meeting of all of your generals. I’ll get the Emperor’s guards to come as well.”
We have to hold them off, at least until the people can escape, and we can evacuate all the arcane tomes within the Imperial libraries. If it took us only six hours to find the ways to destroy that dagger... She shuddered to think of the secrets someone like Hu could find with ease in those catacombs.
“Why? What for?” he asked, plainly confused.
Felonca changed the smirk to a laugh as she pointed at her father.
“Shang Wa-Feng is going to save Liaoxiang!” She turned, and pointed to one staring soldier, and shouted again, “Did you hear? Shang Wa-Feng is going to save Liaoxiang!”
As murmurs began to run through the bedraggled soldiers, she turned back to her now speechless father.
“Now you have a reputation to live up to, Papa.”
Let us hope we can both do this... I think the Empire is depending on us...
Emperor Valerian
First Post
This is the first part of what will likely be a four part update. Part Two is almost done as well, pending something gets checked over by dragnfly. Hopefully, it should be up either tommorrow or the day after.
The Assault on Liangxiang, Part One
Nayu ran a hand over the fine new robes the scholars had given him, the silk and fine wool gently caressing his skin. He’d taken the time to properly put his now half-grown beard and mustache into place. These men might be my future subordinates... I need to make a good impression.
He looked beside him, and saw with slight bemusement that Felonca’s jaw was working back and forth in irritation, and her ear flicked back and forth in annoyance. She had wanted to go in her normal battle-leathers, but it was Nayu that had explained, then cajoled her into finding a suit of armor of her proper rank of Xiao. Even after she’d taken the great plumed helm off of her head, it was rather apparent that the armor was a strange weight on her thin shoulders.
She turned, and flashed him one of her looks, at first sharp, but then fading into something else he didn’t recognize... the same strange look she’d been giving him every now and then since they’d rescued her father.
No... I saw that look before that, Nayu thought, as Felonca suddenly averted her gaze to straight ahead, her jaw grating back and forth faster now. He thought her dark skin darkened even more, but he wasn’t sure. He closed his eyes and sighed. She’s trying to put off being upset at me... but something else is grating her.
She’ll tell me when she’s ready, he thought simply, putting aside the thought of perusing her mind out of concern. Likely she’d misinterpret the move, for good reason considering what she’d gone through.
Their twin footfalls echoed down the marbled halls of the Imperial Palace, immense statues of great beasts, the spirits of Heaven and Below, lining their path. Nayu refused to allow himself to avert his gaze from his destination... a set of great bronze doors at the end of the hall. As they drew close, the bronze monstrosities creaked then opened.
“His Excellency Wakabayashi Nayu and Xiao Wa-Feng Felonca!” one of the attendants called out as the two entered the room. Before them lay a long ornate table, pillows set along the sides, the front, and the rear. At the head of the table sat Felonca’s father, resplendent in freshly cleaned white armor, at the far end, her uncle Dian clad in his blackened armor, his shoulder would newly healed. Clustered all around were the plumed heads of every concievable Imperial commander in the city, as well as the garish hats of Won Wei and several other scholars.
Most surprising was the person not seated at the table. To the side, raised higher than the rest by a dais and several pillows, sat the thin form of Emperor Yuandi, the immense silken robes not able to cover his small size. His eyes looked at Nayu, but the sorcerer saw the young boy’s eyes positively light up on seeing Felonca.
“I think you’ve made a friend,” Nayu whispered quietly, to which Felonca merely looked at the young boy and gave him an immense smile. The attendants in the room motioned Felonca and Nayu to two empty pillows, close to the front, by her father.
“I have called this meeting, of all the chief generals and commanders, to discuss what is to be done about the oncoming force from Langya,” the Emperor said weakly. Even Nayu could see the nervousness in those young eyes.
“It has been made apparent to me that you all are the finest commanders we could summon on such short notice,” Yuandi continued, “and I am leaving the salvation of not just my person, or the tomes within these great walls, but also the lives of the hundreds of thousands of my people within this city in your hands.”
Nayu’s eyebrows raised... those were not words he would’ve expected from a boy under the influence from a mother like the Empress Dowager... she would’ve filled his head with bombast and prideful words, if only to secure her crumbling position. He speaks for himself... Nayu’s eyes narrowed, as the Emperor went on, urging the generals to find a solution that would save the most people. He cares for his people... his eyes are too deep, they reveal too much of his soul for it to be a lie...
“I am also aware that two of you present are not generals,” the young eyes looked directly at Felonca, and his face broke into a partial smile before some inner teaching of decorum made the nascent grin fade, “or a part of the Scholars.” His gaze now rested on Nayu, and the sorcerer once again looked into those eyes, and saw earnestness, nervousness, and fear.
“Wa-Feng Felonca, and Wakabayashi Nayu, you are here by special Imperial request. Please give them...um...” he stumbled momentarily, sweat beading on his brow. Nayu’s eyes looked over to Felonca, and he saw her nod her head quietly, urging him on. After a moment, the Emperor regained his composure. “Please give them your attention as you would if the Son of Heaven was speaking their words.”
Nayu looked back at Felonca, and saw her smile at the boy’s accomplishment, and instantly his mind went to darker, more morose thoughts... thoughts that troubled him the more he looked at the Imperial face.
When I hadn’t met him, it was easy to blame all of our problems on him... but now that I see how young he is... and how much he cares... I can’t put blame on him anymore.
And taking the throne from him would mean hurting Felonca... Nayu thought, looking at his friend. The depressing thoughts grew even more. He smiled sadly when she grinned at the young Emperor as he finished his address, and the young boy beamed back at her. I could never do that.
He closed his eyes, and felt the cold, hard outline of his father’s seal, still trapped in his pocket. I don’t know what I should do...
“Your Majesty, sirs,” he heard Felonca begin soon after, and he fought to pay attention. I should listen...
Should I be the Emperor, Papa? he heard himself whisper quietly in his mind, hoping that somewhere far away, an ancestral spirit would hear the plea. Should I be the Emperor, Papa? he thought again a few moments later, a prayer that repeated again and again as Felonca recited troop numbers, and argued with her uncle and father over whether the city was defensible. Finally, almost a half hour into the meeting, Nayu realized all eyes were staring at him.
“Are you alright, Nayu?” Felonca asked him. “I’ve only asked you what you thought five times... and you didn’t respond. Your lips moved, but your eyes were staring someplace else...”
“I’m... fine,” Nayu said hastily. I hope I wasn’t mouthing my prayer in the open! I hope no one here can read lips! He glanced around, and only saw curiosity and concern on the faces of the other generals, not outright hostility. That alone put him more at ease.
“Um... well, the way I look at it,” Nayu stumbled forward. Think on your feet! Large army approaching a large city, and we have very few soldiers... “We only have a limited number of troops, am I correct?”
“With the remains of Quan-Shi’s force, perhaps thirty-thousand or so, half of which are Imperial Guards,” a grizzle old general whose name Nayu had ignored replied. The sorcerer merely nodded, avoiding the name issue altogether.
“And the city walls are immense. It is obvious we can’t defend the outer walls, or perhaps even the inner walls, but with that force, coupled with the Scholars, we should be able to defend the inner walls and the Jade City?”
“For a while,” Felonca’s father rumbled. “Under the full blast of Prince Hu’s magic, I doubt even the Scholars will prove useful.”
“We only need a while,” Nayu replied. “Long enough to get all the arcane tomes out, long enough to make sure the last evacuees are gone, and...” He paused momentarily, indecision in his mind. Do you want to be Emperor, or not, Nayu?
“...enough time to get the young Emperor out of the city and safely to the north,” Nayu finished his thought, then sighed. “I trust that the Scholars have magical abilities that can aid us in this?” He glanced partway at Felonca, who had the same strange look in her eyes. She didn’t seem to stop him, so he pointed at Won Wei.
“Of course we do. We can move objects and even people over great distances with the our arcane powers, if needbe,” Won Wei bowed. “We were already thinking of detailing some scholars to supervise the removal of as many tomes as possible in this manner, while keeping some others prepared and ready to teleport the rest of us, yourselves, and a small number of others out as well.”
“Excellent,” Nayu said, his footing more steady now. “Now, there are how many scholars in the city capable of such magic?”
“Um... there are thousands of our ranks in the city, likely many of them, to find posting here, have access to such magic in varying degrees,” Won Wei replied. “We also have a few from the War Mages Academy here that can help more directly.”
“Nayu...” Felonca’s uncle started, “surely you don’t expect us to win this fight! Why, even if all the scholars in the Empire were here, we likely wouldn’t be able to teleport away the Imperial Court, the army, the arcane tomes, and all the scholars?” Dian looked about, gaining grunts of agreement from the other generals present.
“What we’re proposing isn’t to win one battle,” Felonca finally cut in, the strange look gone from her face, “but to survive to fight again, and have a chance at winning this war.”
Nayu nodded. “If we flee the city and let Hu capture the arcane tomes, there’s no telling what disasters he’ll be able to wreak. If we let the Emperor and his Court get captured, they can be hostages or worse. And... I will not stand by to watch several hundred thousand be massacred.” He looked about the room, not knowing his eyes were blazing with an Imperial glory of their own, and none of the generals challenged his gaze.
“Now... I have an idea...”
“Miss Felonca, if you please?”
Felonca turned around and smiled at seeing the Emperor looking at her. He was so nervous speaking to the generals, yet he came through well! As the other commanders left the room, she saw Nayu pause and wait. She waved him on, and watched him leave, feelings of her own welling to the surface momentarily. She pushed them aside, and looked at the young boy eagerly waiting before her.
“Yes Your Majesty?” she asked, sitting on the ground below his dais.
“You have been a great help to me, Miss Felonca,” the Emperor said haltingly. “But there is one more thing I...um... need you to help with.”
“What is that, Your Majesty?”
“I want to tell you something, Miss Felonca,” the young boy said. Before she could nod her head, he cut off her assent. “Before you say yes, you have to promise me that no one will hear of what I am about to tell you.”
What could be so important that the Emperor wants to swear me to secrecy? Felonca thought. Part of her initially thought the young boy was joking around, until she looked into his eyes, the green of his distant tiger-hengeyokai ancestry shining bright and deep with resolve. He really does have a secret then.
“Your secret will follow me to the grave, Your Majesty,” she bowed. “Though I am curious, Majesty,” she added when she rose, “about what is so important that the daughter of a mere soldier should be the only one told of it?”
The Emperor looked around, his eyes darting back and forth for a moment. Once he was sure no one was listening, he leaned close to her.
“You are an honest person. Master Won Wei trusts you, and so do I. But Master Won Wei even wants me to do things I do not wish to do. Unlike my mother, he has good reasons behind his wishes, and unless something happens, I shall follow them to the best of my ability for the safety of my people.”
“What wishes, Majesty?” Felonca asked guardedly. Please don’t say he wants you to order something dark and foolish...
The Emperor looked down for a moment, and sighed, before staring at her with those same green eyes.
“He wants me to remain on the throne, Miss Felonca,” the Emperor said simply. “A place I no longer wish to hold. I may be young, but I’ve seen what that chair can do to people. It makes them mean, foolish, bitter and hateful.” He stopped again for a moment, as if thinking deeper than his mere decade would allow, before going on. “I would wish I had no part in it.”
What!?
“Please, Miss Felonca, don’t be so stunned,” the Emperor gave a shy, distant smile at her when her jaw dropped to the floor. “An Emperor must be a master of magic, a master of talking with others, and a master of management, and it is quite apparent I am atrocious at the first, barely adequate with the second, and hopeless with the third.”
“Majesty, I...” Felonca stammered, before the royal voice plowed on.
“I told you before that I wanted to learn swordplay, and to be a soldier. If I were to not be the Emperor, that is what I would become. A soldier. Wouldn’t it be a sight, me leading a band of cavalry into a deadly charge to emerge victorious, like you did?”
“Like I did?” Wait... “Majesty, with all due respect, you do not know what you are wishing for!” Part of her mind was surprised at her tone with her superior in station, but the rest of her charged ahead. “You have no idea what happened there! I was almost killed, and so many of my men died...” She stopped her thought, the images of the dead filling her memories again. He knows NOTHING of what happened there! Nothing!
“You did something that day that I wish I could do,” the Emperor’s young voice spoke above hers, “You looked something bigger and stronger right in the eye, and then fought it head on!” His bright eyes looked back down towards the ground, dimming with sadness. “If only I had been able to direct myself better...”
“You’re a ten year old boy!” Felonca said, forgetting to add the proper royal title. “Your own mother was the one misruling things! How can we expect a ten year old to react differently...”
“I am the Emperor, too,” Yuandi said quietly. “I am the living appointee of Heaven’s Will, yet I could not use my own to cow people who harmed my realm.” He looked back up at Felonca, and with his small hands grabbed her own. “When you talked to me, the day the Scholars finally confronted my mother, you showed me that I should have been confronting her! I should have seen she was using me because of my position... I should have used my royal authority more, to appoint Won Wei as my chief advisor sooner, and not listened to my mother and my uncle!” He looked down, and Felonca saw his eyes begin to shimmer with nascent tears.
“I shouldn’t be Emperor. I’ve allowed too much to go bad... too many people have been hurt because I did nothing,” the young boy said, his voice cracking from the strain of holding back tears. “I wish I could set it all aside, forget all of it.” Felonca’s heart fell as she watched his small frame given a slight shudder, a tear running down his cheek.
He’s just realized his own family has used him for his position... only care for him because of that. He feels overwhelmed and alone... she thought. Her mind thought momentarily of someone that could help with this quandary, but for the moment, she saw before her a young boy that needed a simple hug. She wrapped her arms around him, as he started to cry.
The Assault on Liangxiang, Part One
Nayu ran a hand over the fine new robes the scholars had given him, the silk and fine wool gently caressing his skin. He’d taken the time to properly put his now half-grown beard and mustache into place. These men might be my future subordinates... I need to make a good impression.
He looked beside him, and saw with slight bemusement that Felonca’s jaw was working back and forth in irritation, and her ear flicked back and forth in annoyance. She had wanted to go in her normal battle-leathers, but it was Nayu that had explained, then cajoled her into finding a suit of armor of her proper rank of Xiao. Even after she’d taken the great plumed helm off of her head, it was rather apparent that the armor was a strange weight on her thin shoulders.
She turned, and flashed him one of her looks, at first sharp, but then fading into something else he didn’t recognize... the same strange look she’d been giving him every now and then since they’d rescued her father.
No... I saw that look before that, Nayu thought, as Felonca suddenly averted her gaze to straight ahead, her jaw grating back and forth faster now. He thought her dark skin darkened even more, but he wasn’t sure. He closed his eyes and sighed. She’s trying to put off being upset at me... but something else is grating her.
She’ll tell me when she’s ready, he thought simply, putting aside the thought of perusing her mind out of concern. Likely she’d misinterpret the move, for good reason considering what she’d gone through.
Their twin footfalls echoed down the marbled halls of the Imperial Palace, immense statues of great beasts, the spirits of Heaven and Below, lining their path. Nayu refused to allow himself to avert his gaze from his destination... a set of great bronze doors at the end of the hall. As they drew close, the bronze monstrosities creaked then opened.
“His Excellency Wakabayashi Nayu and Xiao Wa-Feng Felonca!” one of the attendants called out as the two entered the room. Before them lay a long ornate table, pillows set along the sides, the front, and the rear. At the head of the table sat Felonca’s father, resplendent in freshly cleaned white armor, at the far end, her uncle Dian clad in his blackened armor, his shoulder would newly healed. Clustered all around were the plumed heads of every concievable Imperial commander in the city, as well as the garish hats of Won Wei and several other scholars.
Most surprising was the person not seated at the table. To the side, raised higher than the rest by a dais and several pillows, sat the thin form of Emperor Yuandi, the immense silken robes not able to cover his small size. His eyes looked at Nayu, but the sorcerer saw the young boy’s eyes positively light up on seeing Felonca.
“I think you’ve made a friend,” Nayu whispered quietly, to which Felonca merely looked at the young boy and gave him an immense smile. The attendants in the room motioned Felonca and Nayu to two empty pillows, close to the front, by her father.
“I have called this meeting, of all the chief generals and commanders, to discuss what is to be done about the oncoming force from Langya,” the Emperor said weakly. Even Nayu could see the nervousness in those young eyes.
“It has been made apparent to me that you all are the finest commanders we could summon on such short notice,” Yuandi continued, “and I am leaving the salvation of not just my person, or the tomes within these great walls, but also the lives of the hundreds of thousands of my people within this city in your hands.”
Nayu’s eyebrows raised... those were not words he would’ve expected from a boy under the influence from a mother like the Empress Dowager... she would’ve filled his head with bombast and prideful words, if only to secure her crumbling position. He speaks for himself... Nayu’s eyes narrowed, as the Emperor went on, urging the generals to find a solution that would save the most people. He cares for his people... his eyes are too deep, they reveal too much of his soul for it to be a lie...
“I am also aware that two of you present are not generals,” the young eyes looked directly at Felonca, and his face broke into a partial smile before some inner teaching of decorum made the nascent grin fade, “or a part of the Scholars.” His gaze now rested on Nayu, and the sorcerer once again looked into those eyes, and saw earnestness, nervousness, and fear.
“Wa-Feng Felonca, and Wakabayashi Nayu, you are here by special Imperial request. Please give them...um...” he stumbled momentarily, sweat beading on his brow. Nayu’s eyes looked over to Felonca, and he saw her nod her head quietly, urging him on. After a moment, the Emperor regained his composure. “Please give them your attention as you would if the Son of Heaven was speaking their words.”
Nayu looked back at Felonca, and saw her smile at the boy’s accomplishment, and instantly his mind went to darker, more morose thoughts... thoughts that troubled him the more he looked at the Imperial face.
When I hadn’t met him, it was easy to blame all of our problems on him... but now that I see how young he is... and how much he cares... I can’t put blame on him anymore.
And taking the throne from him would mean hurting Felonca... Nayu thought, looking at his friend. The depressing thoughts grew even more. He smiled sadly when she grinned at the young Emperor as he finished his address, and the young boy beamed back at her. I could never do that.
He closed his eyes, and felt the cold, hard outline of his father’s seal, still trapped in his pocket. I don’t know what I should do...
“Your Majesty, sirs,” he heard Felonca begin soon after, and he fought to pay attention. I should listen...
Should I be the Emperor, Papa? he heard himself whisper quietly in his mind, hoping that somewhere far away, an ancestral spirit would hear the plea. Should I be the Emperor, Papa? he thought again a few moments later, a prayer that repeated again and again as Felonca recited troop numbers, and argued with her uncle and father over whether the city was defensible. Finally, almost a half hour into the meeting, Nayu realized all eyes were staring at him.
“Are you alright, Nayu?” Felonca asked him. “I’ve only asked you what you thought five times... and you didn’t respond. Your lips moved, but your eyes were staring someplace else...”
“I’m... fine,” Nayu said hastily. I hope I wasn’t mouthing my prayer in the open! I hope no one here can read lips! He glanced around, and only saw curiosity and concern on the faces of the other generals, not outright hostility. That alone put him more at ease.
“Um... well, the way I look at it,” Nayu stumbled forward. Think on your feet! Large army approaching a large city, and we have very few soldiers... “We only have a limited number of troops, am I correct?”
“With the remains of Quan-Shi’s force, perhaps thirty-thousand or so, half of which are Imperial Guards,” a grizzle old general whose name Nayu had ignored replied. The sorcerer merely nodded, avoiding the name issue altogether.
“And the city walls are immense. It is obvious we can’t defend the outer walls, or perhaps even the inner walls, but with that force, coupled with the Scholars, we should be able to defend the inner walls and the Jade City?”
“For a while,” Felonca’s father rumbled. “Under the full blast of Prince Hu’s magic, I doubt even the Scholars will prove useful.”
“We only need a while,” Nayu replied. “Long enough to get all the arcane tomes out, long enough to make sure the last evacuees are gone, and...” He paused momentarily, indecision in his mind. Do you want to be Emperor, or not, Nayu?
“...enough time to get the young Emperor out of the city and safely to the north,” Nayu finished his thought, then sighed. “I trust that the Scholars have magical abilities that can aid us in this?” He glanced partway at Felonca, who had the same strange look in her eyes. She didn’t seem to stop him, so he pointed at Won Wei.
“Of course we do. We can move objects and even people over great distances with the our arcane powers, if needbe,” Won Wei bowed. “We were already thinking of detailing some scholars to supervise the removal of as many tomes as possible in this manner, while keeping some others prepared and ready to teleport the rest of us, yourselves, and a small number of others out as well.”
“Excellent,” Nayu said, his footing more steady now. “Now, there are how many scholars in the city capable of such magic?”
“Um... there are thousands of our ranks in the city, likely many of them, to find posting here, have access to such magic in varying degrees,” Won Wei replied. “We also have a few from the War Mages Academy here that can help more directly.”
“Nayu...” Felonca’s uncle started, “surely you don’t expect us to win this fight! Why, even if all the scholars in the Empire were here, we likely wouldn’t be able to teleport away the Imperial Court, the army, the arcane tomes, and all the scholars?” Dian looked about, gaining grunts of agreement from the other generals present.
“What we’re proposing isn’t to win one battle,” Felonca finally cut in, the strange look gone from her face, “but to survive to fight again, and have a chance at winning this war.”
Nayu nodded. “If we flee the city and let Hu capture the arcane tomes, there’s no telling what disasters he’ll be able to wreak. If we let the Emperor and his Court get captured, they can be hostages or worse. And... I will not stand by to watch several hundred thousand be massacred.” He looked about the room, not knowing his eyes were blazing with an Imperial glory of their own, and none of the generals challenged his gaze.
“Now... I have an idea...”
“Miss Felonca, if you please?”
Felonca turned around and smiled at seeing the Emperor looking at her. He was so nervous speaking to the generals, yet he came through well! As the other commanders left the room, she saw Nayu pause and wait. She waved him on, and watched him leave, feelings of her own welling to the surface momentarily. She pushed them aside, and looked at the young boy eagerly waiting before her.
“Yes Your Majesty?” she asked, sitting on the ground below his dais.
“You have been a great help to me, Miss Felonca,” the Emperor said haltingly. “But there is one more thing I...um... need you to help with.”
“What is that, Your Majesty?”
“I want to tell you something, Miss Felonca,” the young boy said. Before she could nod her head, he cut off her assent. “Before you say yes, you have to promise me that no one will hear of what I am about to tell you.”
What could be so important that the Emperor wants to swear me to secrecy? Felonca thought. Part of her initially thought the young boy was joking around, until she looked into his eyes, the green of his distant tiger-hengeyokai ancestry shining bright and deep with resolve. He really does have a secret then.
“Your secret will follow me to the grave, Your Majesty,” she bowed. “Though I am curious, Majesty,” she added when she rose, “about what is so important that the daughter of a mere soldier should be the only one told of it?”
The Emperor looked around, his eyes darting back and forth for a moment. Once he was sure no one was listening, he leaned close to her.
“You are an honest person. Master Won Wei trusts you, and so do I. But Master Won Wei even wants me to do things I do not wish to do. Unlike my mother, he has good reasons behind his wishes, and unless something happens, I shall follow them to the best of my ability for the safety of my people.”
“What wishes, Majesty?” Felonca asked guardedly. Please don’t say he wants you to order something dark and foolish...
The Emperor looked down for a moment, and sighed, before staring at her with those same green eyes.
“He wants me to remain on the throne, Miss Felonca,” the Emperor said simply. “A place I no longer wish to hold. I may be young, but I’ve seen what that chair can do to people. It makes them mean, foolish, bitter and hateful.” He stopped again for a moment, as if thinking deeper than his mere decade would allow, before going on. “I would wish I had no part in it.”
What!?
“Please, Miss Felonca, don’t be so stunned,” the Emperor gave a shy, distant smile at her when her jaw dropped to the floor. “An Emperor must be a master of magic, a master of talking with others, and a master of management, and it is quite apparent I am atrocious at the first, barely adequate with the second, and hopeless with the third.”
“Majesty, I...” Felonca stammered, before the royal voice plowed on.
“I told you before that I wanted to learn swordplay, and to be a soldier. If I were to not be the Emperor, that is what I would become. A soldier. Wouldn’t it be a sight, me leading a band of cavalry into a deadly charge to emerge victorious, like you did?”
“Like I did?” Wait... “Majesty, with all due respect, you do not know what you are wishing for!” Part of her mind was surprised at her tone with her superior in station, but the rest of her charged ahead. “You have no idea what happened there! I was almost killed, and so many of my men died...” She stopped her thought, the images of the dead filling her memories again. He knows NOTHING of what happened there! Nothing!
“You did something that day that I wish I could do,” the Emperor’s young voice spoke above hers, “You looked something bigger and stronger right in the eye, and then fought it head on!” His bright eyes looked back down towards the ground, dimming with sadness. “If only I had been able to direct myself better...”
“You’re a ten year old boy!” Felonca said, forgetting to add the proper royal title. “Your own mother was the one misruling things! How can we expect a ten year old to react differently...”
“I am the Emperor, too,” Yuandi said quietly. “I am the living appointee of Heaven’s Will, yet I could not use my own to cow people who harmed my realm.” He looked back up at Felonca, and with his small hands grabbed her own. “When you talked to me, the day the Scholars finally confronted my mother, you showed me that I should have been confronting her! I should have seen she was using me because of my position... I should have used my royal authority more, to appoint Won Wei as my chief advisor sooner, and not listened to my mother and my uncle!” He looked down, and Felonca saw his eyes begin to shimmer with nascent tears.
“I shouldn’t be Emperor. I’ve allowed too much to go bad... too many people have been hurt because I did nothing,” the young boy said, his voice cracking from the strain of holding back tears. “I wish I could set it all aside, forget all of it.” Felonca’s heart fell as she watched his small frame given a slight shudder, a tear running down his cheek.
He’s just realized his own family has used him for his position... only care for him because of that. He feels overwhelmed and alone... she thought. Her mind thought momentarily of someone that could help with this quandary, but for the moment, she saw before her a young boy that needed a simple hug. She wrapped her arms around him, as he started to cry.
Emperor Valerian
First Post
The Assault on Liaoxiang Part Two
“Please move along as best you can, ma’am,” Felonca called down from her perch atop the battlements, as below the sea of moving humanity slowly crawled through the gates of Liaoxiang. Nearly a full week had gone by since the Emperor’s confession, yet Felonca had yet to say anything to Nayu.
He swore me to secrecy, she thought to herself, telling herself that was the main reason she hadn’t said anything, knowing full well that the thought was a lie. It was a bright sunny day when these dark thoughts returned, just as Felonca was attempting to manage the stream of constant evacuees now fleeing the city to the south and east.
Still no sign of Hu, she distracted herself as she and several scholars and soldiers continually urged calm. Even Meiji was helping, singing songs along one of the bridges, trying to lift spirits and above all, keep things orderly. Yet even trying to dwell on those things didn’t keep her mind away from something that was troubling her.
She looked up, just in time to see Nayu pointing and shouting commands and orders to the scholars and the soldiers, the bright blue robes the Scholars had given him flapping in the breeze as his plan slowly came to fruition. From the top of the inner wall, she could also see the throngs of people below, looking up at him in awe as they filed out of the city, their lives on their backs.
He looks like an Emperor, she sighed, as his voice rang out with directions, encouragement, and orders. Despite that cute young face of his. Despite the stress and the trying situation, she couldn’t help but smile, at least for a moment, until more troubling thoughts came back.
She thought back to the palisade wall a few weeks before, and those bright, piercing blue eyes that seemed to stare into her soul.
”You are attracted to him,” the same dark voice from memory repeated in her mind. She closed her eyes tightly, and tried to shake her mind free from the memory. It would complicate things, it would make things awkward, something
they couldn’t afford. While she’d managed to keep herself under relative control the past two weeks, the last time the feelings had arisen this high, she’d snapped at him rather sharply on the road to Liaoxiang. Not even two weeks ago...
”You resist the thought,” the dark voice continued, lending its sound to the thoughts of her own mind, ”In a way, what you claim is true. You are not attracted to him.
You love him.”
“I don’t,” she said quietly to herself. We are friends. He doesn’t need that kind of distraction now! I don’t need that distraction now! Yet even as she closed her eyes
again, she saw those piercing blue eyes turn to familiar ones of deep brown. Against her will, it seemed, she felt her heart begin to race.
She opened her eyes again, hoping to get those dark eyes from her mind’s eye, yet it seemed the fates were conspiring against her. Nayu was leaning against the battlements during a brief moment of rest, and flashed her a bright smile, those deep brown eyes, even from afar, seeming to call to her. To her conscious mind’s horror, she realized she had been staring only after she saw Nayu’s face grow puzzled.
“Is something wrong?” his voice called across the walls. “You keep giving me these strange looks.”
It’s hard not to stare when everything you do occupies my every thought… part of Felonca’s mind lazily thought, before her more disciplined self shouted it into oblivion.
“No... nothing’s wrong!” she waved back, bravado on her face. Go back to managing the people! Go back to being the leader you are! Then I can.... she started to think, before finally, inevitably, she sighed in surrender.
I won’t be able to stop thinking of you, she realized.
“You sure?” he yelled back, making his way past ranks of guardsmen and soldiers, towards her. “You look like something’s wrong. You have for a while now.”
He reached out and held her shoulders, the same way he’d done whenever he thought she’d been lying about something that was wrong. She felt those hands on her shoulders again, those comforting hands. Her mind shouted at her body to stiffen, to break away from this contact, but her instincts overruled her brain, and she felt herself relax.
Felonca... just surrender to it. You can love him, just from a distance... then maybe... maybe one day...
She closed her eyes and gave another sigh. That’s why you haven’t told him yet of what Yuandi told you.
You want him for yourself... you’ve had him basically that way for almost a half year now...
If he takes his rightful place, at best you’ll share him with an Empire full of others... and at worst...
She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to banish the thought of never seeing him again, never being able to talk to him, to see those eyes...
“Something’s wrong. Tell me,” he said simply, at absolutely the right time.
He cares for you too, she thought quietly, He’d never intentionally abandon you, even if he became Emperor... She leaned back a slight bit more, and her mind finally came to a decision...
You will be Emperor if you desire, I’ll make sure of that, and then…then you can decide if there is room for me in your life. The choice will be yours…my dearest friend.
Her eyes opened and she was able to meet Nayu’s confused brown eyes with a genuine smile.
“No. Everything’s fine now,” she said quietly. His look of confusion grew for a moment, before he gave her a grin she thought looked positively boyish.
“Good. And if you want to talk about it, I’m ready to listen,” he replied. “After all, I can’t have my right-hand man, I mean kitty, feeling bad about something!” The hands on the shoulders became a momentary hug, then a pat on the back, before he was gone again, shouting at some poor sop that had turned his cart, blocking the road.
There he goes...
...an Emperor.
“Someone help him get that cart upright!” Nayu barked, and instantly two soldiers were down, flipping the cart right-side up, and hurriedly tossing its former contents back into its hold. Within a few minutes, the cart was ambling along its way again, and the crowds of people were yet again moving.
He watched the masses for a few more seconds, before he felt an eerie presence on the back of his neck. Turning around, he realized his instincts had been right, as Won Wei smiled and gave him a bow.
“The troops have been finally disposed as you have advised, and the Emperor has commanded,” the scholar said. “May the Heavens bless you if your cleverness is proven right.”
“May the Heavens preserve us if my cleverness is right,” Nayu replied wryly. For a moment, his mind jumped back to several months earlier, when he had served as Hu’s temporary double. “The Prince of Langya is a tricky man... directness is not his usual approach.” After a second, Nayu nodded, his mind assured. “He’ll try that trick, if he’s as intelligent as I think.”
“I trust you see him through and through... you two do look like brothers, even,” Won Wei said, drawing up alongside Nayu. “If he had stationed our troops on the Middle Walls as I and Quan-Shi had recommended, and he did teleport his arcane masters inside the walls behind them...”
“We’d have quite a few dead soldiers, and a sacked city,” Nayu finished the thought, before he furrowed his brow again. “Are you sure that if the scholars formed their arcane might, they can keep his people from teleporting any further in?”
Won Wei gave a slight, nervous laugh. “That is the twelfth time you have asked me that question, and I believe this will be the twelfth time I have said yes.” He smiled and turned to Nayu. “For someone as young as yourself, you do worry quite a bit... a good trait to have in a governor once this is all done... in contrast to some of the fools the Dowager Empress allowed to remain.” His eyebrows darkened momentarily as he frowned. “How old are you, young Wakabayashi? You surely cannot be thirty.”
“I am almost eighteen, Master Wei,” Nayu grinned when Won Wei spun around, his eyes wide in shock.
“That’s it?!” he partially squeaked. “Eighteen and you have done this much, and your powers are this great!?”
“Is something wrong, Master Wei?”
“In five years, ten years... the Heaven’s preserve us from what you could do!” the older scholar said quietly, shock having taken all the sound from his voice.
“Heaven’s preserve Hu and his allies, you mean,” Nayu corrected. I have no intentions of turning against you, or the other scholars... you’re dong too much good, trying to help people instead of hurt them like the Empress...
“Excellency! Excellency!”
“What?” Nayu turned, annoyance high in his voice. He had grown fond of conversing with Won Wei, yet interruptions seemed to abound. They’re calling me ‘excellency’ already... which is something good I suppose, though this endless stream of messengers is annoying to the extreme. He regretted his snappish response when he saw the young man before him, barefoot and ragged, breathing heavily as if the very spirits of the past were running him down.
“Northern wall sentries report a huge cloud of dust to the north!” the man breathlessly yelled, before stumbling forward and then to the ground. “They think that...”
“It’s Prince Hu’s army, yes,” Nayu finished the man’s sentence, before turning to some of the more idle scholars nearby. “Someone fetch this man water!”
As some nearby attendants rushed off to find the messenger some sustenance, Nayu looked off towards the north. While he saw no clouds of dust, only a blind man would not have been able to see the immense, powerful thunderhead forming in the sky...
“Please move along as best you can, ma’am,” Felonca called down from her perch atop the battlements, as below the sea of moving humanity slowly crawled through the gates of Liaoxiang. Nearly a full week had gone by since the Emperor’s confession, yet Felonca had yet to say anything to Nayu.
He swore me to secrecy, she thought to herself, telling herself that was the main reason she hadn’t said anything, knowing full well that the thought was a lie. It was a bright sunny day when these dark thoughts returned, just as Felonca was attempting to manage the stream of constant evacuees now fleeing the city to the south and east.
Still no sign of Hu, she distracted herself as she and several scholars and soldiers continually urged calm. Even Meiji was helping, singing songs along one of the bridges, trying to lift spirits and above all, keep things orderly. Yet even trying to dwell on those things didn’t keep her mind away from something that was troubling her.
She looked up, just in time to see Nayu pointing and shouting commands and orders to the scholars and the soldiers, the bright blue robes the Scholars had given him flapping in the breeze as his plan slowly came to fruition. From the top of the inner wall, she could also see the throngs of people below, looking up at him in awe as they filed out of the city, their lives on their backs.
He looks like an Emperor, she sighed, as his voice rang out with directions, encouragement, and orders. Despite that cute young face of his. Despite the stress and the trying situation, she couldn’t help but smile, at least for a moment, until more troubling thoughts came back.
She thought back to the palisade wall a few weeks before, and those bright, piercing blue eyes that seemed to stare into her soul.
”You are attracted to him,” the same dark voice from memory repeated in her mind. She closed her eyes tightly, and tried to shake her mind free from the memory. It would complicate things, it would make things awkward, something
they couldn’t afford. While she’d managed to keep herself under relative control the past two weeks, the last time the feelings had arisen this high, she’d snapped at him rather sharply on the road to Liaoxiang. Not even two weeks ago...
”You resist the thought,” the dark voice continued, lending its sound to the thoughts of her own mind, ”In a way, what you claim is true. You are not attracted to him.
You love him.”
“I don’t,” she said quietly to herself. We are friends. He doesn’t need that kind of distraction now! I don’t need that distraction now! Yet even as she closed her eyes
again, she saw those piercing blue eyes turn to familiar ones of deep brown. Against her will, it seemed, she felt her heart begin to race.
She opened her eyes again, hoping to get those dark eyes from her mind’s eye, yet it seemed the fates were conspiring against her. Nayu was leaning against the battlements during a brief moment of rest, and flashed her a bright smile, those deep brown eyes, even from afar, seeming to call to her. To her conscious mind’s horror, she realized she had been staring only after she saw Nayu’s face grow puzzled.
“Is something wrong?” his voice called across the walls. “You keep giving me these strange looks.”
It’s hard not to stare when everything you do occupies my every thought… part of Felonca’s mind lazily thought, before her more disciplined self shouted it into oblivion.
“No... nothing’s wrong!” she waved back, bravado on her face. Go back to managing the people! Go back to being the leader you are! Then I can.... she started to think, before finally, inevitably, she sighed in surrender.
I won’t be able to stop thinking of you, she realized.
“You sure?” he yelled back, making his way past ranks of guardsmen and soldiers, towards her. “You look like something’s wrong. You have for a while now.”
He reached out and held her shoulders, the same way he’d done whenever he thought she’d been lying about something that was wrong. She felt those hands on her shoulders again, those comforting hands. Her mind shouted at her body to stiffen, to break away from this contact, but her instincts overruled her brain, and she felt herself relax.
Felonca... just surrender to it. You can love him, just from a distance... then maybe... maybe one day...
She closed her eyes and gave another sigh. That’s why you haven’t told him yet of what Yuandi told you.
You want him for yourself... you’ve had him basically that way for almost a half year now...
If he takes his rightful place, at best you’ll share him with an Empire full of others... and at worst...
She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to banish the thought of never seeing him again, never being able to talk to him, to see those eyes...
“Something’s wrong. Tell me,” he said simply, at absolutely the right time.
He cares for you too, she thought quietly, He’d never intentionally abandon you, even if he became Emperor... She leaned back a slight bit more, and her mind finally came to a decision...
You will be Emperor if you desire, I’ll make sure of that, and then…then you can decide if there is room for me in your life. The choice will be yours…my dearest friend.
Her eyes opened and she was able to meet Nayu’s confused brown eyes with a genuine smile.
“No. Everything’s fine now,” she said quietly. His look of confusion grew for a moment, before he gave her a grin she thought looked positively boyish.
“Good. And if you want to talk about it, I’m ready to listen,” he replied. “After all, I can’t have my right-hand man, I mean kitty, feeling bad about something!” The hands on the shoulders became a momentary hug, then a pat on the back, before he was gone again, shouting at some poor sop that had turned his cart, blocking the road.
There he goes...
...an Emperor.
“Someone help him get that cart upright!” Nayu barked, and instantly two soldiers were down, flipping the cart right-side up, and hurriedly tossing its former contents back into its hold. Within a few minutes, the cart was ambling along its way again, and the crowds of people were yet again moving.
He watched the masses for a few more seconds, before he felt an eerie presence on the back of his neck. Turning around, he realized his instincts had been right, as Won Wei smiled and gave him a bow.
“The troops have been finally disposed as you have advised, and the Emperor has commanded,” the scholar said. “May the Heavens bless you if your cleverness is proven right.”
“May the Heavens preserve us if my cleverness is right,” Nayu replied wryly. For a moment, his mind jumped back to several months earlier, when he had served as Hu’s temporary double. “The Prince of Langya is a tricky man... directness is not his usual approach.” After a second, Nayu nodded, his mind assured. “He’ll try that trick, if he’s as intelligent as I think.”
“I trust you see him through and through... you two do look like brothers, even,” Won Wei said, drawing up alongside Nayu. “If he had stationed our troops on the Middle Walls as I and Quan-Shi had recommended, and he did teleport his arcane masters inside the walls behind them...”
“We’d have quite a few dead soldiers, and a sacked city,” Nayu finished the thought, before he furrowed his brow again. “Are you sure that if the scholars formed their arcane might, they can keep his people from teleporting any further in?”
Won Wei gave a slight, nervous laugh. “That is the twelfth time you have asked me that question, and I believe this will be the twelfth time I have said yes.” He smiled and turned to Nayu. “For someone as young as yourself, you do worry quite a bit... a good trait to have in a governor once this is all done... in contrast to some of the fools the Dowager Empress allowed to remain.” His eyebrows darkened momentarily as he frowned. “How old are you, young Wakabayashi? You surely cannot be thirty.”
“I am almost eighteen, Master Wei,” Nayu grinned when Won Wei spun around, his eyes wide in shock.
“That’s it?!” he partially squeaked. “Eighteen and you have done this much, and your powers are this great!?”
“Is something wrong, Master Wei?”
“In five years, ten years... the Heaven’s preserve us from what you could do!” the older scholar said quietly, shock having taken all the sound from his voice.
“Heaven’s preserve Hu and his allies, you mean,” Nayu corrected. I have no intentions of turning against you, or the other scholars... you’re dong too much good, trying to help people instead of hurt them like the Empress...
“Excellency! Excellency!”
“What?” Nayu turned, annoyance high in his voice. He had grown fond of conversing with Won Wei, yet interruptions seemed to abound. They’re calling me ‘excellency’ already... which is something good I suppose, though this endless stream of messengers is annoying to the extreme. He regretted his snappish response when he saw the young man before him, barefoot and ragged, breathing heavily as if the very spirits of the past were running him down.
“Northern wall sentries report a huge cloud of dust to the north!” the man breathlessly yelled, before stumbling forward and then to the ground. “They think that...”
“It’s Prince Hu’s army, yes,” Nayu finished the man’s sentence, before turning to some of the more idle scholars nearby. “Someone fetch this man water!”
As some nearby attendants rushed off to find the messenger some sustenance, Nayu looked off towards the north. While he saw no clouds of dust, only a blind man would not have been able to see the immense, powerful thunderhead forming in the sky...
Emperor Valerian
First Post
The Assault on Liaoxiang, Part Three
Night fell, and even as darkness began to sweep over the land, Nayu’s focus remained clear as a bell, the same emotions that had run strong at Xianfung, and even earlier at the small village besieged by giants, now burned even brighter. With a concerned eye, looked to the gate under his feet, as the last of the refugees from the city trickled out, the last few pieces of sand at the end of an immense avalanche that was now long outside the city gates to the south, fleeing hard.
Ancestors protect them, he whispered a silent prayer, as a stiff wind finally came from the south, rushing from behind towards the towering storm clouds to their front, the setting sun seemingly setting them ablaze...
“The clerics of Shenyang are now in place,” he heard a sharp yet feminine voice say over the sharp whistle of the growing wind. He turned, and Yari Ai seemed to stiffen slightly under his gaze. He noticed immediately a change, and gave her a smile.
“Did someone twist your arm into wearing that armor?” Nayu asked, and Yari Ai gave a rather sheepish smile, looking down momentarily at the battlements under their feet. The move made her chain armor jingle.
“A little,” she replied. “I believe my temple elders called my battle activities without armor, ‘foolish.’ Though,” she added, “this armor isn’t too bad. Its rather light, so I can still move if needbe... I refuse to wear the heavy lamellar that the soldiers wear.” She made a face. “Too restricting.”
Nayu nodded. “Did you enjoy the city?” he asked, momentarily looking out at the advancing thunderhead, before back at his friend. They hadn’t seen each other since the small group’s arrival in Liaoxiang... considering Yari Ai’s past, they’d collectively agreed it was far too dangerous for her to accompany Nayu and Felonca into the Jade City. Her presence might have not only endangered herself, but her two friends as well. Their other companions, Selim and Meiji, had both thought it best they didn’t appear in the Jade City as well... Meiji as he was interested in exploring the ‘cultural aspects of the capital,’ and Selim because, evidently, he was a known face with a reputation among some within the Jade City...
“Well, after Meiji and Selim disappeared to who knows where, I only got to the temple of Shenyang two days ago,” Yari Ai confessed with a lop-sided grin. “After the Imperial agents that had been tailing me finally stopped their stalking my every move, but that’s another story,” she waved off a situation that sounded to Nayu like it could have been a tale in and of itself. “I’m guessing they must have received word from above that the palace situation had changed a bit?” The smile became a mischevious grin.
“Likely,” Nayu looked past Yari Ai towards Felonca, who was busily directing soldiers along the battlements, even as her own father lectured her on how she needed to be wearing heavier armor. “Looks like the person who got the word out is getting the same lecture you got.”
Yari Ai started to look over as well, before a sudden brilliant flash flared up before their eyes, clearing well within the outer walls of the city.
So... Hu calls himself clever, Nayu thought, watching as the first explosion of a fireball was followed by more, rippling, rumbling from just inside the outermost of the walls of Liaoxiang. Just as Nayu predicted, Hu had begun his attack by sneaking in scholars and mages to attack from behind where he thought the defenders were.
And around Nayu, the defenders, all safely further inside the city along the inner walls, stopped their conversations, all eyes watching the magical barrage that slowly seemed to engulf the outermost reaches of the city. Instantly, within Nayu’s mind, a sea of messages sprang, as the Imperial scholars flashed reports to each other, from one mind to the next.
”They have begun their attack. Middle walls and Middle City unaffected.”
“Scholars appear to have teleported into the city in groups of three to five, with small retinue of bodyguards each. It would be logical that the bodyguards are well trained.”
“Hu’s mages have begun to teleport again.”
They’re now going to jump into the Middle City... they realize we aren’t on the outermost walls... Nayu mused, adding that thought to the messages ranging among the scholars, before adding another. ”Once we know they’re within the Middle City, we spring our own trap.” Moments later, new flares arose along the walls of the Middle City, as Hu’s scholars teleported in and immediately blasted the walls. It would be only minutes before they realized they’d hit nothing... a window of only minutes where they would be confused...
”Now,” Nayu mentally transmitted, and within seconds he heard voices along the wall barking commands.
“Felonca!” Nayu called, and his friend spun around from her staring at the new flares along the walls. “We’re going in! Tell your family members!” His friend nodded, and started to turn, before she suddenly stopped, faced Nayu again, and snapped a salute...
“Wa-Fengs!” Felonca shouted a moment later, catching the attention of her father, uncle and cousin, “We ride!” By the time she reached them, she instinctively felt that Nayu and Yari Ai were just behind them.
Part of her wanted to ask Nayu again if this teleportation was safe. Sure, Hu’s people were doing it en masse, but then again, Hu seemed to have an abject disregard for life. Nayu had never displayed magic this powerful before... starting fires and creating lightning bolts was impressive in its own right, but being able to move people great distances in the blink of an eye...
“Close your eyes,” she heard him command. “When we arrive, we should be directly in the middle of a group of enemies. After that, you all know what to do,” he said, even as she felt the first tendrils of magic beginning to whirl about them, spinning around her again and again, a dull roar coming to her ears.
There seemed to be a bright flash, bright enough that it showed through her closed eyelids. An illusion of some kind, she realized, remembering Hu’s scholars had not shown any flash to her normal eyes. She felt a sensation of falling without end, of spinning about furiously, twisting, as if she was being stretched. Just as suddenly as it started, the dull roar ended, and now her ears were assaulted with the noise of yelling, and the crackle of flames, her nose assaulted with the smell of burnt wood and sulfur.
Felonca opened her eyes. They had teleported in the midst of a residential street, wooden homes surrounding them on all sides. A few blocks away, flames rose from one of the preemptive fireballs Hu’s people had launched, the orange glow dull in the growing mist of the night. And standing the street in front of them, stood four men clad in robes, looks of shock and horror on their faces.
“Get them!” Nayu shouted, and as Felonca began to draw her bow, she heard the twang of Meiji’s bow in the air. A moment later, one of Hu’s scholars toppled over, an arrow coming from his shoulder. The other three looked at their downed comrade, and started to make arcane symbols over their heads, only moments before Felonca’s arrow ripped through the neck of one, while Felonxi and Dian shredded the other two with their blades. Meiji finished the last one with his scimitar with ease.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad!” Dian laughed, wiping his blade on the robe of the scholar he’d decapitated. “Poor bastards!”
“Remember,” Nayu said, looking around carefully, “there are escorts to these spellcasters. We might have to destroy them as well.”
Felonca sniffed, her hybrid nose picking of something strange in the air. Above the smells of sulfur, of burnt wood, and now of blood, she smelled something else... something faint, that she’d smelled once before. It almost smells like...
At that moment, Felonca saw a momentary shape in the shadows between two houses, and had only an instant’s warning before she felt something big and heavy, like a crossbow bolt, whoosh only mere inches from her head. The next second, she heard her uncle cry out in pain, as four strange creatures leapt from the shadows between the houses.
Each reminded Felonca of the rakshasa they had fought long ago... a tiger’s head on their bodies, save their fur was entirely jet black. Their hands were jointed backwards, just like a rakshasa’s, though instead of robes and magical components, each wore midnight black chainmail, and held great and wicked kukris in their twisted hands. In the light from the nearby fires, Felonca saw the blades gleam with an unearthly shine.
“Poison!” she called out, backing towards the other members of their strike group. She took only a moment to glance back, and saw that her uncle was only slowly climbing to his feet, a crossbow bolt wedged into his shoulder. He’s been poisoned! “Yari Ai! Look to my uncle!” Felonca barked, her eyes returning to the nearest of the assassins before narrowing. You’ll regret tangling with me! she snarled.
The rakshasa directly before her slowly stalked forward, moving slightly to the right, then the left, its eyes watching for any weakness as Felonca quietly echoed the moves. Her brain heard Meiji’s voice start in a song, and as she sank back into her training, she had enough time to wonder if her cousin was going to make the rakshasa’s giggle like he’d done with the gnomes so long ago.
At that moment, the rakshasa struck.
It leapt forward, both its kukri’s poised to strike at her chest, yet with the speed and grace of her ancestry, Felonca side-stepped the blow, before whipping her body around hard, putting every ounce of power into her warfans. One caught the rakshasa in the side, ripping open his lower back, while the other caught his neck. The assassin tumbled to the ground, and in seamless motion with her first strike, Felonca finished him off.
She looked up, in time to see her father shatter the kukri of another assassin, the poor rakshasa backing away as the huge panther hengeyokai gave pursuit, his far longer and larger sword poised to end the struggle, while Yari Ai and Uncle Dian, disabled as he might be, held off another assassin. The third lay on the ground before Meiji, shaking and trembling uncontrollably, as the bard sang.
Nayu felt the magical power that he’d summoned quickly die back down, as it became obvious his assistance wasn’t needed. I could use that lightning bolt at some other point this night, he thought, watching Felonxi cut down the assassin in front of him, as the assassin by Meiji suddenly leapt up, and began to simply run in circles. Insanity, Nayu thought, looking at the bard’s work. Rather appropriate...
”Hello, young Wakabayashi...”
Nayu immediately froze. The voice was thin, reedy, and raspy, not belonging to any scholar that Nayu knew. Nayu felt something, someone pushing on the edges of his mind, ever so slightly. He turned, and through the mist far up the street, he could see two brilliant blue eyes, blazing deep into his soul.
”It seems the paper tiger has come forth...” Nayu shot back, now recognizing the mental voice of the camp commandant, the same rakshasa that had slain Liu long ago. The rakshasa that had fled before they had a chance to extract their revenge.
”Insolent little brat!” the voice rasped, the blue eyes growing brighter and brighter. ”Do you not know I have the power to crush your pathetic little mind! To rip it to shreds as I please?”
Go ahead and try,” Nayu let himself smirk. You don’t realize what I have with me... For a moment, he felt a sharp push on his mind, as if someone was launching a battering ram against the gates of this thoughts. He felt Kongxi’s cap warming on his head, and he smiled as he heard the rakshasa scream from up the road, the cap not only deflecting his attempt to break into Nayu’s mind, but attacking the rakshasa in return. The brilliant blue eyes disappeared for a moment, then returned, far dimmer.
“You insolent little brat...” the rakshasa’s voice hissed audibly.
Nayu smirked again, feeling the magic he had dismissed rapidly returning. A moment later, black, swirling bolts of energy lashed from Nayu’s hand, dashing into the mist, and wrapping around those brilliant blue eyes. Nayu felt himself grow stronger, more powerful, as he felt the magical powers of the rakshasa being sucked away from the rakshasa, to be tossed into the infinite void. Once again, the brilliant blue eyes faded.
Nayu started to walk towards those eyes, even as he heard the noise of Felonca leaping into battle with the assassin still threatening Yari Ai and her uncle. ”You’ve caused a great deal of pain,” Nayu spoke to the voice as the rakshasa finally became visible, his ragged and mangy white fur seemingly wilted from Nayu’s attack. “But now,” the sorcerer said aloud, feeling another magical storm building in his hands, “its time for you to die.”
Nayu lashed his hand out yet again, and this time a crackling bolt of lightning, filled with all the malice and anger he could muster, launched from his fingertips straight at the rakshasa. But where Nayu expected the creature to collapse, arcs of electricity running over its body, instead a ring on the creature’s right hand glowed unnaturally bright. Nayu focused more power into his lightning bolt, only to see the ring grow brighter still, until suddenly, a flash leapt from the ring, and Nayu screamed.
The sorcerer found himself laying on his back on the cobblestone street, his robes scorched, small wisps of smoke rising from his charred clothing. Around him, he smelled the thick odor of ozone. Every muscle in his body screamed in pain, and every slight movement that brought his clothes rustling over his skin produced great pain.
My lightning bolt... he must have reflected it back at me, Nayu realized, forcing himself to sit up, as he desperately tried to fight through the pain to tap his magic. I need to defend myself... he thought, expecting to see the rakshasa running at him.
Instead, the beast merely stood, rooted in the same spot, its body bent, wracked by the enervation Nayu had launched at it earlier. Its breaths came rapidly, its wheezing so loud that Nayu could clearly hear the gasps. The sorcerer also heard the noise of running feet, and felt behind him the presence of Felonca and her family, the Wa-Feng already arraying themselves, readying to run at the creature and cut it down.
Yet despite its decrepit state, despite its certain doom, the beast had a smile on its lips.
Nayu frowned, before suddenly his eyes widened, as even through the pain, he saw why the creature still had a thin, bloody grin on its lips, as just barely visible in the mist was a titan, a figure of legend...
And Nayu fought his hardest to remain conscious... to warn his friends...
Felonca’s first thought was her friend, and she rushed up to Nayu, kneeling beside him. Nayu! Be alright! Please! His robes had been badly burned, and it was apparent the burns continued underneath to his own skin. His own breathing was shallow and weak. Before Felonca could call, Yari Ai was beside her, already beginning healing ministrations.
“Hold on, Nayu,” Felonca whispered, putting a hand on her friend’s forehead before gently touching his face. Hold on! Don’t die on me! You can’t die on me! “Yari Ai will help you.”
“Felonca...” she heard Nayu whisper, before a spate of coughing robbed him of his voice. His eyes seemed to flicker for a moment, as he momentarily slipped in and out of consciousness. Finally, his eyes opened, and it looked as if it was requiring all of his strength to keep himself from slipping away.
“I’m right here, Nayu,” she said encouragingly. Please... hold on for just a moment, until Yari Ai can complete her healing!
“It’s...” he managed to hiss, before a series of unintelligible words came from his mouth, then his eyes closed. For a moment, Felonca panicked, till she saw that his chest still rose and fell in ragged breaths.
“He’s unconscious. It is probably for the best,” Yari Ai said quietly, before her voice rose in quiet prayer.
It is for the best... he’ll feel less pain that way, Felonca tried to tell herself, yet the pain was real, and deep, so much so that she didn’t, couldn’t focus on the words he had tried to say. Instead, as she rose, she looked directly at the rakshasa, her eyes burning with hatred and rage.
“You’ve hurt me and mine for the last time,” she hissed, her warfans opening with an audible, deadly click. Shiver! I want to see you shiver before I slash your throat! she mentally screamed. Despite her wishes, the rakshasa did not shiver, did not quake, but instead still half-stood, its thin, weak form still smiling.
“You are foolish, Wa-Feng!” it laughed, the gesture making its emaciated form shake. A single, weak clawed finger pointed across the space between them, towards her family, assembled in ragged line. “All of you are fools,” the voice continued, “and you’ve finally fallen into our trap!”
“Our trap?” Felonca’s father growled, “I only see one of you, little wretch, though as soon as my sword’s done, you’ll be in two pieces!”
“Confident Felonxi,” the rakshasa grinned, “You were always a loud-mouth in my camp. Now, let us see how well the loud mouth can be backed by a sharp blade!”
Felonca’s eyes, like the others, were so focused on the rakshasa that she didn’t notice the looming shadow in the growing darkness until the immense figure pushed past the rakshasa. The man was huge, fully nine feet tall, his form shrouded in huge lamellar armor that positively glowed with magical power. His green eyes bore directly into Felonca, as his tiger lips curled back into a ferocious snarl at her scent. In one hand, a katana that seemed to scream of a keen and sharp edge glinted in the night. In the other hand, a rough and pitted greataxe hung like a sword of doom.
“My dearest Felonca,” General Hsiu, ex-commandant of the Hsiu-lan Military Academy, grinned, bearing his fangs. “I have been waiting months for this day...”
================================================
Nayu and Felonca’s players were very clever... they guessed well at what the Langya plan would be, and developed a counterattack plan that worked well... let the Langya scholars teleport in, then surprise them with groups of scholars and warriors, hopefully killing off many of their spellcasters before the battle was too far along.
The fight with the spellcasters was, shall we say, a classic example of “when low HP wizards meet damage inflicting fighters.” It was quick, and brutal... the spellcasters rolled horrible on their initiatives, and as a result, were mowed down.
In comparison, their nazaruthe rakshasa escorts, specialized assassins, had high initiatives, and managed to poison Dian, as well as cut Yari Ai and hold up Felonca and Felonxi long enough for the rakshasa who killed poor Liu long ago to try to take on Nayu mano-a mano. Nayu’s enervation robbed the rakshasa of quite a bit of his spell power, but then Nayu’s ill-fated lightning bolt (the rakshasa had a ring that would reflect one lighting bolt spell) knocked the sorcerer down from full strength, to, if I remember correctly something along the lines of 4 or 5 hp. Not to mention there was no way he would come anywhere close to passing that concentration check.
As this happened, Felonca and gang took care of the last of the assassins, and were ready to turn their attention to the rakshasa, when, lo and behold, the evil Master Hsiu makes his appearance...
Speaking of which...
Here's an picture of Master Hsiu Li, as created long ago by an artist on these boards.
Night fell, and even as darkness began to sweep over the land, Nayu’s focus remained clear as a bell, the same emotions that had run strong at Xianfung, and even earlier at the small village besieged by giants, now burned even brighter. With a concerned eye, looked to the gate under his feet, as the last of the refugees from the city trickled out, the last few pieces of sand at the end of an immense avalanche that was now long outside the city gates to the south, fleeing hard.
Ancestors protect them, he whispered a silent prayer, as a stiff wind finally came from the south, rushing from behind towards the towering storm clouds to their front, the setting sun seemingly setting them ablaze...
“The clerics of Shenyang are now in place,” he heard a sharp yet feminine voice say over the sharp whistle of the growing wind. He turned, and Yari Ai seemed to stiffen slightly under his gaze. He noticed immediately a change, and gave her a smile.
“Did someone twist your arm into wearing that armor?” Nayu asked, and Yari Ai gave a rather sheepish smile, looking down momentarily at the battlements under their feet. The move made her chain armor jingle.
“A little,” she replied. “I believe my temple elders called my battle activities without armor, ‘foolish.’ Though,” she added, “this armor isn’t too bad. Its rather light, so I can still move if needbe... I refuse to wear the heavy lamellar that the soldiers wear.” She made a face. “Too restricting.”
Nayu nodded. “Did you enjoy the city?” he asked, momentarily looking out at the advancing thunderhead, before back at his friend. They hadn’t seen each other since the small group’s arrival in Liaoxiang... considering Yari Ai’s past, they’d collectively agreed it was far too dangerous for her to accompany Nayu and Felonca into the Jade City. Her presence might have not only endangered herself, but her two friends as well. Their other companions, Selim and Meiji, had both thought it best they didn’t appear in the Jade City as well... Meiji as he was interested in exploring the ‘cultural aspects of the capital,’ and Selim because, evidently, he was a known face with a reputation among some within the Jade City...
“Well, after Meiji and Selim disappeared to who knows where, I only got to the temple of Shenyang two days ago,” Yari Ai confessed with a lop-sided grin. “After the Imperial agents that had been tailing me finally stopped their stalking my every move, but that’s another story,” she waved off a situation that sounded to Nayu like it could have been a tale in and of itself. “I’m guessing they must have received word from above that the palace situation had changed a bit?” The smile became a mischevious grin.
“Likely,” Nayu looked past Yari Ai towards Felonca, who was busily directing soldiers along the battlements, even as her own father lectured her on how she needed to be wearing heavier armor. “Looks like the person who got the word out is getting the same lecture you got.”
Yari Ai started to look over as well, before a sudden brilliant flash flared up before their eyes, clearing well within the outer walls of the city.
So... Hu calls himself clever, Nayu thought, watching as the first explosion of a fireball was followed by more, rippling, rumbling from just inside the outermost of the walls of Liaoxiang. Just as Nayu predicted, Hu had begun his attack by sneaking in scholars and mages to attack from behind where he thought the defenders were.
And around Nayu, the defenders, all safely further inside the city along the inner walls, stopped their conversations, all eyes watching the magical barrage that slowly seemed to engulf the outermost reaches of the city. Instantly, within Nayu’s mind, a sea of messages sprang, as the Imperial scholars flashed reports to each other, from one mind to the next.
”They have begun their attack. Middle walls and Middle City unaffected.”
“Scholars appear to have teleported into the city in groups of three to five, with small retinue of bodyguards each. It would be logical that the bodyguards are well trained.”
“Hu’s mages have begun to teleport again.”
They’re now going to jump into the Middle City... they realize we aren’t on the outermost walls... Nayu mused, adding that thought to the messages ranging among the scholars, before adding another. ”Once we know they’re within the Middle City, we spring our own trap.” Moments later, new flares arose along the walls of the Middle City, as Hu’s scholars teleported in and immediately blasted the walls. It would be only minutes before they realized they’d hit nothing... a window of only minutes where they would be confused...
”Now,” Nayu mentally transmitted, and within seconds he heard voices along the wall barking commands.
“Felonca!” Nayu called, and his friend spun around from her staring at the new flares along the walls. “We’re going in! Tell your family members!” His friend nodded, and started to turn, before she suddenly stopped, faced Nayu again, and snapped a salute...
“Wa-Fengs!” Felonca shouted a moment later, catching the attention of her father, uncle and cousin, “We ride!” By the time she reached them, she instinctively felt that Nayu and Yari Ai were just behind them.
Part of her wanted to ask Nayu again if this teleportation was safe. Sure, Hu’s people were doing it en masse, but then again, Hu seemed to have an abject disregard for life. Nayu had never displayed magic this powerful before... starting fires and creating lightning bolts was impressive in its own right, but being able to move people great distances in the blink of an eye...
“Close your eyes,” she heard him command. “When we arrive, we should be directly in the middle of a group of enemies. After that, you all know what to do,” he said, even as she felt the first tendrils of magic beginning to whirl about them, spinning around her again and again, a dull roar coming to her ears.
There seemed to be a bright flash, bright enough that it showed through her closed eyelids. An illusion of some kind, she realized, remembering Hu’s scholars had not shown any flash to her normal eyes. She felt a sensation of falling without end, of spinning about furiously, twisting, as if she was being stretched. Just as suddenly as it started, the dull roar ended, and now her ears were assaulted with the noise of yelling, and the crackle of flames, her nose assaulted with the smell of burnt wood and sulfur.
Felonca opened her eyes. They had teleported in the midst of a residential street, wooden homes surrounding them on all sides. A few blocks away, flames rose from one of the preemptive fireballs Hu’s people had launched, the orange glow dull in the growing mist of the night. And standing the street in front of them, stood four men clad in robes, looks of shock and horror on their faces.
“Get them!” Nayu shouted, and as Felonca began to draw her bow, she heard the twang of Meiji’s bow in the air. A moment later, one of Hu’s scholars toppled over, an arrow coming from his shoulder. The other three looked at their downed comrade, and started to make arcane symbols over their heads, only moments before Felonca’s arrow ripped through the neck of one, while Felonxi and Dian shredded the other two with their blades. Meiji finished the last one with his scimitar with ease.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad!” Dian laughed, wiping his blade on the robe of the scholar he’d decapitated. “Poor bastards!”
“Remember,” Nayu said, looking around carefully, “there are escorts to these spellcasters. We might have to destroy them as well.”
Felonca sniffed, her hybrid nose picking of something strange in the air. Above the smells of sulfur, of burnt wood, and now of blood, she smelled something else... something faint, that she’d smelled once before. It almost smells like...
At that moment, Felonca saw a momentary shape in the shadows between two houses, and had only an instant’s warning before she felt something big and heavy, like a crossbow bolt, whoosh only mere inches from her head. The next second, she heard her uncle cry out in pain, as four strange creatures leapt from the shadows between the houses.
Each reminded Felonca of the rakshasa they had fought long ago... a tiger’s head on their bodies, save their fur was entirely jet black. Their hands were jointed backwards, just like a rakshasa’s, though instead of robes and magical components, each wore midnight black chainmail, and held great and wicked kukris in their twisted hands. In the light from the nearby fires, Felonca saw the blades gleam with an unearthly shine.
“Poison!” she called out, backing towards the other members of their strike group. She took only a moment to glance back, and saw that her uncle was only slowly climbing to his feet, a crossbow bolt wedged into his shoulder. He’s been poisoned! “Yari Ai! Look to my uncle!” Felonca barked, her eyes returning to the nearest of the assassins before narrowing. You’ll regret tangling with me! she snarled.
The rakshasa directly before her slowly stalked forward, moving slightly to the right, then the left, its eyes watching for any weakness as Felonca quietly echoed the moves. Her brain heard Meiji’s voice start in a song, and as she sank back into her training, she had enough time to wonder if her cousin was going to make the rakshasa’s giggle like he’d done with the gnomes so long ago.
At that moment, the rakshasa struck.
It leapt forward, both its kukri’s poised to strike at her chest, yet with the speed and grace of her ancestry, Felonca side-stepped the blow, before whipping her body around hard, putting every ounce of power into her warfans. One caught the rakshasa in the side, ripping open his lower back, while the other caught his neck. The assassin tumbled to the ground, and in seamless motion with her first strike, Felonca finished him off.
She looked up, in time to see her father shatter the kukri of another assassin, the poor rakshasa backing away as the huge panther hengeyokai gave pursuit, his far longer and larger sword poised to end the struggle, while Yari Ai and Uncle Dian, disabled as he might be, held off another assassin. The third lay on the ground before Meiji, shaking and trembling uncontrollably, as the bard sang.
Nayu felt the magical power that he’d summoned quickly die back down, as it became obvious his assistance wasn’t needed. I could use that lightning bolt at some other point this night, he thought, watching Felonxi cut down the assassin in front of him, as the assassin by Meiji suddenly leapt up, and began to simply run in circles. Insanity, Nayu thought, looking at the bard’s work. Rather appropriate...
”Hello, young Wakabayashi...”
Nayu immediately froze. The voice was thin, reedy, and raspy, not belonging to any scholar that Nayu knew. Nayu felt something, someone pushing on the edges of his mind, ever so slightly. He turned, and through the mist far up the street, he could see two brilliant blue eyes, blazing deep into his soul.
”It seems the paper tiger has come forth...” Nayu shot back, now recognizing the mental voice of the camp commandant, the same rakshasa that had slain Liu long ago. The rakshasa that had fled before they had a chance to extract their revenge.
”Insolent little brat!” the voice rasped, the blue eyes growing brighter and brighter. ”Do you not know I have the power to crush your pathetic little mind! To rip it to shreds as I please?”
Go ahead and try,” Nayu let himself smirk. You don’t realize what I have with me... For a moment, he felt a sharp push on his mind, as if someone was launching a battering ram against the gates of this thoughts. He felt Kongxi’s cap warming on his head, and he smiled as he heard the rakshasa scream from up the road, the cap not only deflecting his attempt to break into Nayu’s mind, but attacking the rakshasa in return. The brilliant blue eyes disappeared for a moment, then returned, far dimmer.
“You insolent little brat...” the rakshasa’s voice hissed audibly.
Nayu smirked again, feeling the magic he had dismissed rapidly returning. A moment later, black, swirling bolts of energy lashed from Nayu’s hand, dashing into the mist, and wrapping around those brilliant blue eyes. Nayu felt himself grow stronger, more powerful, as he felt the magical powers of the rakshasa being sucked away from the rakshasa, to be tossed into the infinite void. Once again, the brilliant blue eyes faded.
Nayu started to walk towards those eyes, even as he heard the noise of Felonca leaping into battle with the assassin still threatening Yari Ai and her uncle. ”You’ve caused a great deal of pain,” Nayu spoke to the voice as the rakshasa finally became visible, his ragged and mangy white fur seemingly wilted from Nayu’s attack. “But now,” the sorcerer said aloud, feeling another magical storm building in his hands, “its time for you to die.”
Nayu lashed his hand out yet again, and this time a crackling bolt of lightning, filled with all the malice and anger he could muster, launched from his fingertips straight at the rakshasa. But where Nayu expected the creature to collapse, arcs of electricity running over its body, instead a ring on the creature’s right hand glowed unnaturally bright. Nayu focused more power into his lightning bolt, only to see the ring grow brighter still, until suddenly, a flash leapt from the ring, and Nayu screamed.
The sorcerer found himself laying on his back on the cobblestone street, his robes scorched, small wisps of smoke rising from his charred clothing. Around him, he smelled the thick odor of ozone. Every muscle in his body screamed in pain, and every slight movement that brought his clothes rustling over his skin produced great pain.
My lightning bolt... he must have reflected it back at me, Nayu realized, forcing himself to sit up, as he desperately tried to fight through the pain to tap his magic. I need to defend myself... he thought, expecting to see the rakshasa running at him.
Instead, the beast merely stood, rooted in the same spot, its body bent, wracked by the enervation Nayu had launched at it earlier. Its breaths came rapidly, its wheezing so loud that Nayu could clearly hear the gasps. The sorcerer also heard the noise of running feet, and felt behind him the presence of Felonca and her family, the Wa-Feng already arraying themselves, readying to run at the creature and cut it down.
Yet despite its decrepit state, despite its certain doom, the beast had a smile on its lips.
Nayu frowned, before suddenly his eyes widened, as even through the pain, he saw why the creature still had a thin, bloody grin on its lips, as just barely visible in the mist was a titan, a figure of legend...
And Nayu fought his hardest to remain conscious... to warn his friends...
Felonca’s first thought was her friend, and she rushed up to Nayu, kneeling beside him. Nayu! Be alright! Please! His robes had been badly burned, and it was apparent the burns continued underneath to his own skin. His own breathing was shallow and weak. Before Felonca could call, Yari Ai was beside her, already beginning healing ministrations.
“Hold on, Nayu,” Felonca whispered, putting a hand on her friend’s forehead before gently touching his face. Hold on! Don’t die on me! You can’t die on me! “Yari Ai will help you.”
“Felonca...” she heard Nayu whisper, before a spate of coughing robbed him of his voice. His eyes seemed to flicker for a moment, as he momentarily slipped in and out of consciousness. Finally, his eyes opened, and it looked as if it was requiring all of his strength to keep himself from slipping away.
“I’m right here, Nayu,” she said encouragingly. Please... hold on for just a moment, until Yari Ai can complete her healing!
“It’s...” he managed to hiss, before a series of unintelligible words came from his mouth, then his eyes closed. For a moment, Felonca panicked, till she saw that his chest still rose and fell in ragged breaths.
“He’s unconscious. It is probably for the best,” Yari Ai said quietly, before her voice rose in quiet prayer.
It is for the best... he’ll feel less pain that way, Felonca tried to tell herself, yet the pain was real, and deep, so much so that she didn’t, couldn’t focus on the words he had tried to say. Instead, as she rose, she looked directly at the rakshasa, her eyes burning with hatred and rage.
“You’ve hurt me and mine for the last time,” she hissed, her warfans opening with an audible, deadly click. Shiver! I want to see you shiver before I slash your throat! she mentally screamed. Despite her wishes, the rakshasa did not shiver, did not quake, but instead still half-stood, its thin, weak form still smiling.
“You are foolish, Wa-Feng!” it laughed, the gesture making its emaciated form shake. A single, weak clawed finger pointed across the space between them, towards her family, assembled in ragged line. “All of you are fools,” the voice continued, “and you’ve finally fallen into our trap!”
“Our trap?” Felonca’s father growled, “I only see one of you, little wretch, though as soon as my sword’s done, you’ll be in two pieces!”
“Confident Felonxi,” the rakshasa grinned, “You were always a loud-mouth in my camp. Now, let us see how well the loud mouth can be backed by a sharp blade!”
Felonca’s eyes, like the others, were so focused on the rakshasa that she didn’t notice the looming shadow in the growing darkness until the immense figure pushed past the rakshasa. The man was huge, fully nine feet tall, his form shrouded in huge lamellar armor that positively glowed with magical power. His green eyes bore directly into Felonca, as his tiger lips curled back into a ferocious snarl at her scent. In one hand, a katana that seemed to scream of a keen and sharp edge glinted in the night. In the other hand, a rough and pitted greataxe hung like a sword of doom.
“My dearest Felonca,” General Hsiu, ex-commandant of the Hsiu-lan Military Academy, grinned, bearing his fangs. “I have been waiting months for this day...”
================================================
Nayu and Felonca’s players were very clever... they guessed well at what the Langya plan would be, and developed a counterattack plan that worked well... let the Langya scholars teleport in, then surprise them with groups of scholars and warriors, hopefully killing off many of their spellcasters before the battle was too far along.
The fight with the spellcasters was, shall we say, a classic example of “when low HP wizards meet damage inflicting fighters.” It was quick, and brutal... the spellcasters rolled horrible on their initiatives, and as a result, were mowed down.
In comparison, their nazaruthe rakshasa escorts, specialized assassins, had high initiatives, and managed to poison Dian, as well as cut Yari Ai and hold up Felonca and Felonxi long enough for the rakshasa who killed poor Liu long ago to try to take on Nayu mano-a mano. Nayu’s enervation robbed the rakshasa of quite a bit of his spell power, but then Nayu’s ill-fated lightning bolt (the rakshasa had a ring that would reflect one lighting bolt spell) knocked the sorcerer down from full strength, to, if I remember correctly something along the lines of 4 or 5 hp. Not to mention there was no way he would come anywhere close to passing that concentration check.
As this happened, Felonca and gang took care of the last of the assassins, and were ready to turn their attention to the rakshasa, when, lo and behold, the evil Master Hsiu makes his appearance...
Speaking of which...
Here's an picture of Master Hsiu Li, as created long ago by an artist on these boards.
Last edited:
Bryon_Soulweaver
First Post
*low whistle* Nice.
Emperor Valerian
First Post
And should anyone like to have a full tiger hengeyokai like Hsiu in their game, here is the template I created. In most cases, it is identical to the standard hengeyokai template, except for the following:
Bonuses: +2 Str, +2 Dex (representing the strength and comparative quickness of the big felines) -2 Wis (standard hengeyokai penalty)
Size: Size changes to Large creature
Shapechange: The tiger hengeyokai (obviously) when she she changes shape will go to either hybrid tiger-human, or a full tiger (with MM statistics)
ECL: +3 (that is my roughest guess... it might be higher. Never became an issue as the template was only applied to a big bad NPC)
CR Modification: +2? (I did only a rough guess and winged this combat... does that sound about right?)
Bonuses: +2 Str, +2 Dex (representing the strength and comparative quickness of the big felines) -2 Wis (standard hengeyokai penalty)
Size: Size changes to Large creature
Shapechange: The tiger hengeyokai (obviously) when she she changes shape will go to either hybrid tiger-human, or a full tiger (with MM statistics)
ECL: +3 (that is my roughest guess... it might be higher. Never became an issue as the template was only applied to a big bad NPC)
CR Modification: +2? (I did only a rough guess and winged this combat... does that sound about right?)
Emperor Valerian
First Post
Facing the Master
A lump filled Felonca’s throat, as the apparition from her past loomed in the firelit mist. She shuddered as the dull rumble of the tiger hengeyokai’s growl echoed off of the surrounding houses, his two titanic weapons each taller than she was. Instinctively, she raised her warfans in a defensive stance, even as her mind went overboard, trying to think of how to defeat such a powerful foe.
Hsiu is subtle, she reminded herself. The big tiger had all the advantages – both size and power – yet she knew he was cunning He was the first to tell all us cadets the value of traps, of deviousness on the battlefield... She watched carefully, as he almost casually twirled his katana about, slowly coming closer. He’s flexing his wrists, keeping them loose so he can spin his blade and slash quicker...
“Hsiu Lin!” Felonca’s father bellowed, the family longsword long ago drawn, “I do not know what you did to my daughter, but you’ll pay for it today!” Hefting his sword high above his head, Felonxi lunged forward, followed shortly by the hobbling Dian.
Most mortals would have recoiled at having the two heads of the Wa-Feng clan charging them, yet Hsiu merely bared his teeth in a ferocious grin. With a mighty swing from the flat of his axe, Hsiu sent Dian tumbling through the air, even as his katana easily blocked Felonxi’s attacks. As Dian landed hard against a house and was knocked unconscious, Hsiu gave a snarl, the monstrous general turned his entire attention to the smaller Felonxi, swinging and slashing with unbridled fury.
“Papa!” Felonca yelled, recognizing the danger. Hsiu is bigger, and has two weapons to papa’s one! For a moment she stood rooted in place by fear, watching as her father was almost instantly forced on the defensive, his sword blocking each powerful blow from Hsiu’s larger, more powerful strokes.
In a panic, she looked around. Meiji was still dispatching the last of the assassins. Nayu was still sprawled on the street, Yari Ai bent over him, trying to heal him the best she could. With sickening suddenness, Felonca realized she and her father were alone... not just against Hsiu, but the rakshasa still hiding behind the immense fighter.
I have to help him! She knew that head-on, she stood no match against the gigantic warrior. His immense blade and hammer would likely slice through and crush her warfans respectively. But if she could get behind him, she knew she had something that could stop the powerful warrior...something that she was afraid to use, but to save her friends, her father, to save Nayu…
A deep dark feeling begin to bubble up in her chest. A feeling she had never had before, that scared her almost as much as she craved its strength. Almost without thinking she shifted to hybid. As her father backed up, furiously swinging to avoid the Hsiu’s attacks, she dashed, low and fast, behind the taller Felonxi, her black leather clothing and dark skin quickly melding into the shadows between the houses.
Keep backing up, papa... she wished, as the deadly duel grew closer and closer to her, as her hand slipped down towards her boot, and wrapped around the cold silver hilt of the very weapon she had wanted to destroy. All of her being wanted to leap out into the fight right now, to fight side by side with her father, to help him. But she knew doing that would only mean both their doom.
Surprise is my ally, she whispered to herself. I will strike like a snake from the shadows. I will take Hsiu down when he least expects it... Despite the mantra she repeated in her mind, she found it hard to remain quiet, and watch her father suffer under the withering blows.
Ferociously, seemingly with all the inevitability of a flood washing across the land, Hsiu’s blades clashed and clanged with her father’s sword, and bit by bit, she could see her father slowly becoming overwhelmed. A cut to his armor here, a chink knocked away there, as Felonxi was forced back. Finally, his longsword responded a split second too slow, and Felonca watched in horror as Hsiu’s greataxe crushed into her father’s stomach, the force of the blow spinning Felonxi around. With frightening elegance, Hsiu spung his katana around, and slammed the blade hilt-deep into Felonxi’s back.
PAPA!!! Felonca wanted to scream, barely muffling herself from doing so. As she looked on in terror, Hsiu put his foot on her father’s back, and shoved the motionless body of Felonxi several feet forward onto the cobblestones below, just past the alley where Felonca huddled, hidden.
Papa... she watched as the massive Hsiu chuckled, and lazily twirled his blades, his eyes looking about the deepening mists. Felonca’s hands shuddered as she watched the prone body on the street, no movement coming from its battered form. Papa...
“Here kitty kitty,” the rumbling bass of the tiger crooned, those fierce green eyes seeming to gloom in the doom. “Come out Felonca... its just you and me now...” He looked about, until chillingly, his eyes stopped, staring directly up the small alley in which Felonca was hiding. His lips curled into a teeth baring smile. “Ah... so the black cat hides in an alley... how... appropriate...”
Close to the wall, Felonca... she told herself, squeezing tighter against the wall, her eyes closed as she squeezed back tears. Closer! Blend with the darkness! She gripped the dagger hard in one hand, Kongxi’s Warfan tightly in the other.
“Where are you, little one?” Hsiu called, lumbering closer and closer to the alley entrance. “Come out and...”
Hsiu’s sentence was stopped short by an immense thunderclap, a bright flash that for a split second, illuminated the entire alley in a bluish glow. Just as quickly, the flash disappeared, the loud explosion now nothing more than rumbles echoing off of the city. The air stank of ozone, and when Felonca opened her eyes, she saw Hsiu staring towards the street, smoke rising in wisps from his great armor...
“Little wretch!” he snarled, now lumbering back out to the street. “This isn’t your fight, you little peasant! Want-to-be king!”
Felonca immediately recognized her chance, as the tiger hengeyokai’s back was wide open to her. Her military training came back to her, as she slipped away from the wall, to the middle of the alley, her muscles tensing, readying...
“Wrong, Wa-Feng!” her instructor’s voice snarled, and Felonca fought to keep her temper under control. She’s struck the melon dead on with her blow, and despite the helm covering it, had knocked the fruit from the post it had been mounted on.
“But sir, that blow would’ve have knocked a target unconscious!” she complained. For five years she’d listened to the constant harassment, and she was already growing tired of the complaints. No other cadet that was twenty was treated as she was, and she knew that an unconscious opponent could be dispatched with ease...
“Wrong AGAIN, Wa-Feng!” her instructor bellowed. “Never, NEVER go to merely knock out a dangerous foe! Bai-Long Mao, what should one do when one has the chance to attack an unsuspecting foe?”
Felonca turned, and glared at the young White Wolf, who was beaming at the chance to show her up. She managed to keep the growl in her throat quiet... that would have only inspired her instructor’s ire more.
“You must kill them, sir, by slashing apart their neck!” the White Wolf smiled as he delivered the answer, and Felonca felt the back of her eyes growing hot. She already knew what was coming... she expected having to do hours of extra physical training, past the point of pain. What angered her, was that Bai-Long Mao was getting a laugh at her expense...
“Correct, Bai-Long Mao. Now, Miss Wa-Feng, you will give me seventy pushups for your error,” Master Hsiu Lin growled, his tiger eyes glowing with pleasure at another chance to break her...
The neck, Felonca looked, shifting into hybrid, spotting that as Hsiu lowered his head, looking down towards the street, a tiny gap opened in his armor at the base of his neck. The neck, she repeated to herself, clutching her weapons tight, as she started to run. The neck! Her muscles twisted in honed practice, her body leapt airborne, high enough for her weapons to get a clear strike, as finally, a banshee, screaming wail came from her lips as she jammed her warfan into one side of Hsiu’s neck, the infamous dagger into the other.
She wrapped her legs around his midsection, gaining a grip, pressing her body close to keep him from being able to throw her off. As he let loose an immense roar of pain, she twisted the dagger hard, jamming it deeper and deeper into his neck, her own scream echoing through the streets.
Hsiu thrashed, swinging wildly, but Felonca was pressed too close to his back. The tiger dropped his weapons, his immense paws reaching back, trying to claw her off, yet she only pressed herself closer, twisting the dagger more and more, her eyes closed with anger, hate and tears. Kill him! she mentally screamed at the dagger.
Then, she felt it.
At first, she felt a slight warmth along his armor, a warmth that quickly grew hotter and hotter, until she was forced to release her grip. Gracefully, she backflipped off of her perch, landing on the cobblestone streets, looking up just in time to see Hsiu turn towards her.
The immense hengeyokai bore no weapons... instead his hands clutched his throat, clawing, fighting, as if he could rip his throat open and pull out whatever was choking him. His green eye were wide with fright, as smoky wisps began to emerge from every joint and hole in his armor. Finally, one of his paws wrapped around the dagger, and pulled it from his neck. As his body shuddered and shook, those green eyes had enough time to see the blade and grow wide with absolute terror, before twin roaring tongues of flames blasted from the orbs. Flames erupted from his mouth, smoke poured from out of his armor, as Hsiu screamed in agony. First, he fell to his knees, his paws clawing and scratching his throat more... then, moments later, the cries died to nothing, as his burning corpse fell forward into the street.
Felonca spun around, and saw the rakshasa standing there, still haggard and hobbling, but with blue eyes wide with fear instead of confidence. She reached for her waist, and pulled out her remaining warfan, her eyes set. Now, its your turn... She started walking forward.
“No...” the rakshasa whispered, its hands raised as it backed away slowly, painfully...
Felonca brought her warfan across her body, then with a quick snap of her shoulder, let the warfan fly. It cut through the air in a perfect arc, before planting itself in the hapless creature’s neck. As its body fell forward, the rakshasa’s head bounced up the street.
She bared her teeth and growled as the hunter's passion of the kill went through her limbs, the ancient panther in her soul roaring to the surface. But as she turned back around to watch the bones of her old nemesis burn down into nothing, the panther in her faded back into the depths of her mind, and her body went slack as the weight of what had happened fell onto her. Beyond the still burning hulk of Master Hsiu, she saw the battered figure of a black panther, his shattered white armor now stained bright red. Yari Ai, her chain mail tinkling in the dark, hovered over Felonxi, while to her side, Nayu stood, bloody and unsteady.
No… Felonca dashed over beside Yari Ai. The cleric had already turned Felonxi over, and now Felonca could see the full extent of the damage.
His chest armor had been slashed with such a powerful blow that its scales had been shredded away, leaving a deep, bloody wound. From his stomach, blood bubbled and gurgled, from where Hsiu’s katana had stabbed completely through the hengeyokai’s body. From the corner of his lips, blood dribbled onto the cobblestones below.
Felonca felt tears blur her sight, but she restrained them, and reaching out, she gently wiped blood from her father’s face. If father dies…he died in battle. It’s what he would have wanted…
“He’s gravely wounded,” Yari Ai said hurriedly, “and unless we head back to the wall now, he’ll die,” she said bluntly. She looked up at Felonca. “There’s nothing I can do here... Hu’s people will probably be swarming over this area before I’m even partly done healing him. We have to go.”
Felonca nodded, and turned to retrieve her weapons, knowing that that’s what her father would have wanted. The night felt unreal as, kneeling, she retrieved the dagger from the ashes that had been her old master. The blade glinted in the light of the fires that still burned all around.
A pair of shaky hands reached around and gave her a hug from behind. She leaned back into Nayu and closed her eyes, for a moment not caring anymore about feelings, needing only the presence of someone she loved.
“We need to go, Felonca…” Nayu’s voice was stronger than she thought his shaking frame could support. My Emperor… Turning halfway toward him, she lifted her head and raised the dagger between them.
For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes, emotions unreadable, then Felonca sighed and lowered her eyes to stare at the dagger. “I hate this thing…” she whispered, so soft he could hardly hear. “Every time that I use it…I feel like a piece of my soul is taken away.”
Nayu swallowed, not sure what to say. “Felonca…” he began, lifting his hand.
What he was going to say was never finished, as from above, the sky flashed red, then orange, before the pregnant clouds let loose a torrent of droplets.
Yet this rain was not one of water, but of fire...
======================================================
Hsiu, to begin with, was accosted by the injured Dian and Felonxi (being run by Felonca’s player), and the behemoth, with ease, knocked Dian aside, then hammered on Felonxi until he was down to –7 hit points (critting with the katana and the greataxe will do that). He then turned, and started hunting for Felonca (after all, the prissy little human cleric and the badly wounded sorcerer didn’t look like threats).
Nayu had rested for a round, and then launched a nasty lightning bolt at Hsiu, which of course got the hengeyokai’s attention. When he turned around, Felonca attacked him from behind, (sneak attack, something like 8d6) and more importantly, stabbed him with the dagger. I randomly rolled up what the dagger did... in this case, it sucked away 8 of Hsiu’s Con, dropping his hit points to the point it killed him instantly. Felonca then turned, dispatched the crippled rakshasa, only to arrive back to find her father is dying.
This also marks the end of the 11th session... yes, we did end on the cliffhanger.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
A lump filled Felonca’s throat, as the apparition from her past loomed in the firelit mist. She shuddered as the dull rumble of the tiger hengeyokai’s growl echoed off of the surrounding houses, his two titanic weapons each taller than she was. Instinctively, she raised her warfans in a defensive stance, even as her mind went overboard, trying to think of how to defeat such a powerful foe.
Hsiu is subtle, she reminded herself. The big tiger had all the advantages – both size and power – yet she knew he was cunning He was the first to tell all us cadets the value of traps, of deviousness on the battlefield... She watched carefully, as he almost casually twirled his katana about, slowly coming closer. He’s flexing his wrists, keeping them loose so he can spin his blade and slash quicker...
“Hsiu Lin!” Felonca’s father bellowed, the family longsword long ago drawn, “I do not know what you did to my daughter, but you’ll pay for it today!” Hefting his sword high above his head, Felonxi lunged forward, followed shortly by the hobbling Dian.
Most mortals would have recoiled at having the two heads of the Wa-Feng clan charging them, yet Hsiu merely bared his teeth in a ferocious grin. With a mighty swing from the flat of his axe, Hsiu sent Dian tumbling through the air, even as his katana easily blocked Felonxi’s attacks. As Dian landed hard against a house and was knocked unconscious, Hsiu gave a snarl, the monstrous general turned his entire attention to the smaller Felonxi, swinging and slashing with unbridled fury.
“Papa!” Felonca yelled, recognizing the danger. Hsiu is bigger, and has two weapons to papa’s one! For a moment she stood rooted in place by fear, watching as her father was almost instantly forced on the defensive, his sword blocking each powerful blow from Hsiu’s larger, more powerful strokes.
In a panic, she looked around. Meiji was still dispatching the last of the assassins. Nayu was still sprawled on the street, Yari Ai bent over him, trying to heal him the best she could. With sickening suddenness, Felonca realized she and her father were alone... not just against Hsiu, but the rakshasa still hiding behind the immense fighter.
I have to help him! She knew that head-on, she stood no match against the gigantic warrior. His immense blade and hammer would likely slice through and crush her warfans respectively. But if she could get behind him, she knew she had something that could stop the powerful warrior...something that she was afraid to use, but to save her friends, her father, to save Nayu…
A deep dark feeling begin to bubble up in her chest. A feeling she had never had before, that scared her almost as much as she craved its strength. Almost without thinking she shifted to hybid. As her father backed up, furiously swinging to avoid the Hsiu’s attacks, she dashed, low and fast, behind the taller Felonxi, her black leather clothing and dark skin quickly melding into the shadows between the houses.
Keep backing up, papa... she wished, as the deadly duel grew closer and closer to her, as her hand slipped down towards her boot, and wrapped around the cold silver hilt of the very weapon she had wanted to destroy. All of her being wanted to leap out into the fight right now, to fight side by side with her father, to help him. But she knew doing that would only mean both their doom.
Surprise is my ally, she whispered to herself. I will strike like a snake from the shadows. I will take Hsiu down when he least expects it... Despite the mantra she repeated in her mind, she found it hard to remain quiet, and watch her father suffer under the withering blows.
Ferociously, seemingly with all the inevitability of a flood washing across the land, Hsiu’s blades clashed and clanged with her father’s sword, and bit by bit, she could see her father slowly becoming overwhelmed. A cut to his armor here, a chink knocked away there, as Felonxi was forced back. Finally, his longsword responded a split second too slow, and Felonca watched in horror as Hsiu’s greataxe crushed into her father’s stomach, the force of the blow spinning Felonxi around. With frightening elegance, Hsiu spung his katana around, and slammed the blade hilt-deep into Felonxi’s back.
PAPA!!! Felonca wanted to scream, barely muffling herself from doing so. As she looked on in terror, Hsiu put his foot on her father’s back, and shoved the motionless body of Felonxi several feet forward onto the cobblestones below, just past the alley where Felonca huddled, hidden.
Papa... she watched as the massive Hsiu chuckled, and lazily twirled his blades, his eyes looking about the deepening mists. Felonca’s hands shuddered as she watched the prone body on the street, no movement coming from its battered form. Papa...
“Here kitty kitty,” the rumbling bass of the tiger crooned, those fierce green eyes seeming to gloom in the doom. “Come out Felonca... its just you and me now...” He looked about, until chillingly, his eyes stopped, staring directly up the small alley in which Felonca was hiding. His lips curled into a teeth baring smile. “Ah... so the black cat hides in an alley... how... appropriate...”
Close to the wall, Felonca... she told herself, squeezing tighter against the wall, her eyes closed as she squeezed back tears. Closer! Blend with the darkness! She gripped the dagger hard in one hand, Kongxi’s Warfan tightly in the other.
“Where are you, little one?” Hsiu called, lumbering closer and closer to the alley entrance. “Come out and...”
Hsiu’s sentence was stopped short by an immense thunderclap, a bright flash that for a split second, illuminated the entire alley in a bluish glow. Just as quickly, the flash disappeared, the loud explosion now nothing more than rumbles echoing off of the city. The air stank of ozone, and when Felonca opened her eyes, she saw Hsiu staring towards the street, smoke rising in wisps from his great armor...
“Little wretch!” he snarled, now lumbering back out to the street. “This isn’t your fight, you little peasant! Want-to-be king!”
Felonca immediately recognized her chance, as the tiger hengeyokai’s back was wide open to her. Her military training came back to her, as she slipped away from the wall, to the middle of the alley, her muscles tensing, readying...
“Wrong, Wa-Feng!” her instructor’s voice snarled, and Felonca fought to keep her temper under control. She’s struck the melon dead on with her blow, and despite the helm covering it, had knocked the fruit from the post it had been mounted on.
“But sir, that blow would’ve have knocked a target unconscious!” she complained. For five years she’d listened to the constant harassment, and she was already growing tired of the complaints. No other cadet that was twenty was treated as she was, and she knew that an unconscious opponent could be dispatched with ease...
“Wrong AGAIN, Wa-Feng!” her instructor bellowed. “Never, NEVER go to merely knock out a dangerous foe! Bai-Long Mao, what should one do when one has the chance to attack an unsuspecting foe?”
Felonca turned, and glared at the young White Wolf, who was beaming at the chance to show her up. She managed to keep the growl in her throat quiet... that would have only inspired her instructor’s ire more.
“You must kill them, sir, by slashing apart their neck!” the White Wolf smiled as he delivered the answer, and Felonca felt the back of her eyes growing hot. She already knew what was coming... she expected having to do hours of extra physical training, past the point of pain. What angered her, was that Bai-Long Mao was getting a laugh at her expense...
“Correct, Bai-Long Mao. Now, Miss Wa-Feng, you will give me seventy pushups for your error,” Master Hsiu Lin growled, his tiger eyes glowing with pleasure at another chance to break her...
The neck, Felonca looked, shifting into hybrid, spotting that as Hsiu lowered his head, looking down towards the street, a tiny gap opened in his armor at the base of his neck. The neck, she repeated to herself, clutching her weapons tight, as she started to run. The neck! Her muscles twisted in honed practice, her body leapt airborne, high enough for her weapons to get a clear strike, as finally, a banshee, screaming wail came from her lips as she jammed her warfan into one side of Hsiu’s neck, the infamous dagger into the other.
She wrapped her legs around his midsection, gaining a grip, pressing her body close to keep him from being able to throw her off. As he let loose an immense roar of pain, she twisted the dagger hard, jamming it deeper and deeper into his neck, her own scream echoing through the streets.
Hsiu thrashed, swinging wildly, but Felonca was pressed too close to his back. The tiger dropped his weapons, his immense paws reaching back, trying to claw her off, yet she only pressed herself closer, twisting the dagger more and more, her eyes closed with anger, hate and tears. Kill him! she mentally screamed at the dagger.
Then, she felt it.
At first, she felt a slight warmth along his armor, a warmth that quickly grew hotter and hotter, until she was forced to release her grip. Gracefully, she backflipped off of her perch, landing on the cobblestone streets, looking up just in time to see Hsiu turn towards her.
The immense hengeyokai bore no weapons... instead his hands clutched his throat, clawing, fighting, as if he could rip his throat open and pull out whatever was choking him. His green eye were wide with fright, as smoky wisps began to emerge from every joint and hole in his armor. Finally, one of his paws wrapped around the dagger, and pulled it from his neck. As his body shuddered and shook, those green eyes had enough time to see the blade and grow wide with absolute terror, before twin roaring tongues of flames blasted from the orbs. Flames erupted from his mouth, smoke poured from out of his armor, as Hsiu screamed in agony. First, he fell to his knees, his paws clawing and scratching his throat more... then, moments later, the cries died to nothing, as his burning corpse fell forward into the street.
Felonca spun around, and saw the rakshasa standing there, still haggard and hobbling, but with blue eyes wide with fear instead of confidence. She reached for her waist, and pulled out her remaining warfan, her eyes set. Now, its your turn... She started walking forward.
“No...” the rakshasa whispered, its hands raised as it backed away slowly, painfully...
Felonca brought her warfan across her body, then with a quick snap of her shoulder, let the warfan fly. It cut through the air in a perfect arc, before planting itself in the hapless creature’s neck. As its body fell forward, the rakshasa’s head bounced up the street.
She bared her teeth and growled as the hunter's passion of the kill went through her limbs, the ancient panther in her soul roaring to the surface. But as she turned back around to watch the bones of her old nemesis burn down into nothing, the panther in her faded back into the depths of her mind, and her body went slack as the weight of what had happened fell onto her. Beyond the still burning hulk of Master Hsiu, she saw the battered figure of a black panther, his shattered white armor now stained bright red. Yari Ai, her chain mail tinkling in the dark, hovered over Felonxi, while to her side, Nayu stood, bloody and unsteady.
No… Felonca dashed over beside Yari Ai. The cleric had already turned Felonxi over, and now Felonca could see the full extent of the damage.
His chest armor had been slashed with such a powerful blow that its scales had been shredded away, leaving a deep, bloody wound. From his stomach, blood bubbled and gurgled, from where Hsiu’s katana had stabbed completely through the hengeyokai’s body. From the corner of his lips, blood dribbled onto the cobblestones below.
Felonca felt tears blur her sight, but she restrained them, and reaching out, she gently wiped blood from her father’s face. If father dies…he died in battle. It’s what he would have wanted…
“He’s gravely wounded,” Yari Ai said hurriedly, “and unless we head back to the wall now, he’ll die,” she said bluntly. She looked up at Felonca. “There’s nothing I can do here... Hu’s people will probably be swarming over this area before I’m even partly done healing him. We have to go.”
Felonca nodded, and turned to retrieve her weapons, knowing that that’s what her father would have wanted. The night felt unreal as, kneeling, she retrieved the dagger from the ashes that had been her old master. The blade glinted in the light of the fires that still burned all around.
A pair of shaky hands reached around and gave her a hug from behind. She leaned back into Nayu and closed her eyes, for a moment not caring anymore about feelings, needing only the presence of someone she loved.
“We need to go, Felonca…” Nayu’s voice was stronger than she thought his shaking frame could support. My Emperor… Turning halfway toward him, she lifted her head and raised the dagger between them.
For a moment, they stared into each other’s eyes, emotions unreadable, then Felonca sighed and lowered her eyes to stare at the dagger. “I hate this thing…” she whispered, so soft he could hardly hear. “Every time that I use it…I feel like a piece of my soul is taken away.”
Nayu swallowed, not sure what to say. “Felonca…” he began, lifting his hand.
What he was going to say was never finished, as from above, the sky flashed red, then orange, before the pregnant clouds let loose a torrent of droplets.
Yet this rain was not one of water, but of fire...
======================================================
Hsiu, to begin with, was accosted by the injured Dian and Felonxi (being run by Felonca’s player), and the behemoth, with ease, knocked Dian aside, then hammered on Felonxi until he was down to –7 hit points (critting with the katana and the greataxe will do that). He then turned, and started hunting for Felonca (after all, the prissy little human cleric and the badly wounded sorcerer didn’t look like threats).
Nayu had rested for a round, and then launched a nasty lightning bolt at Hsiu, which of course got the hengeyokai’s attention. When he turned around, Felonca attacked him from behind, (sneak attack, something like 8d6) and more importantly, stabbed him with the dagger. I randomly rolled up what the dagger did... in this case, it sucked away 8 of Hsiu’s Con, dropping his hit points to the point it killed him instantly. Felonca then turned, dispatched the crippled rakshasa, only to arrive back to find her father is dying.
This also marks the end of the 11th session... yes, we did end on the cliffhanger.
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