Valkur
The True Valkyria, Valkur!
- Location
- Fólkvangr
Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism
- Thread starter torroar
- Start date
- Mature
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy intrigue happens male protagonist ck2 quest belief stronk count of cannons drunken wisdom foes in the shadows graf of guns if you have a question check the front page first it begins... mountain vietnam ogres paranoia rising unseen enemies everywhere use the search function before asking waifu wars wake the bull
Position abdicated? What's that about?
Also, does anybody remember Urgdug's full great name?
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
Been like that for a while since he is focusing so much on the other project.
On the front page.
- Location
- United Kingdom
He abdicated his position ages ago when he started researching at the Arcane Fulcrum. Kinda hard to rediscover the method of making Waystones and be the High Loremaster.
There's even an interlude with Teclis considering his ascension to the position I believe.
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Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Abdicated in favor of Teclis when he moved to our province.
Godzillaslayer10
I am ready for this quest!
- Location
- Somewhere
I have no experience with Warhammer Fantasy but is Magnus the Pious a canon character, and if so what age is he in?
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
He is a canon character. IIRC he's a young, in his early twenties man during 2304.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Couple of changes on the front page, which I know not everyone checks so I thought I'd flag them up.
This one's been around for a week or so, maybe a little more. Magnus now has a physical description, previously only Anna and Alexandra (of the children) did.
Fun stuff.
This one's been around for a week or so, maybe a little more. Magnus now has a physical description, previously only Anna and Alexandra (of the children) did.
Next, Arthur has taken up the Obsidan Blade that we looted after the Vampire War and - more importantly - he's gained a Fate Point.
The Obsidan Blade is interesting; it could be that torroar decided just to give it to him since so many people in the thread have been talking about it for ages. Or something could have happened back in Ostland that caused him to take up the weapon. The Fate Point could support this... or it could be completely unconnected.
Fun stuff.
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
That sounds very interesting and I hope we can get more information later about it sounds like quite the story.
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Hugely important canon character. Reunited the shattered Empire which had been broken for centuries, gave the Nuln schools the first official charter in canon, created the Magic Colleges, killed an Everchosen in single combat....yeah. He did a lot of stuff. 2300' was largely his time - from 2304 and the Great War Against Chaos to 2369 when he died peacefully of old age.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
What's a fortune point?
Valkur
The True Valkyria, Valkur!
- Location
- Fólkvangr
Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
Not to be rude, but we've been over this atleast three times already.
It's a reroll.
Dutch
Bored Spearman of the Wind
- Location
- CET
Fate points are get out of jail free cards.
Fortune points are rerolls.
Huh, so we have about 40 years provided that nothing goes wrong for him health wise.
Edit: How is our griffon looking right now @torroar? Or is that a mystery until we get back?
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Wouldn't be as much of a problem if the blessings make one naturally more predisposed towards acting in a manner the Lady approves of.
It would lead to a gradually more superhuman aristocracy but the bad apples wouldn't get blessed further so they'd fall behind on the eugenic arms race compared to their peers.
[CANON] Distant Kings Under Jade Skies - torroar (The GM)
Note: Uh, muse keeps acting up on the update. But I wrote something else? I'm sorry about that...but it's something, right?
Distant Kings Under Jade Skies
Johanna slowly twirled her halberd as the so-called protector of the village in the valley below stepped forth from the shadows of the temple ruins.
Moss had already begun to cover the long shattered remains of the temple dogs that lay strewn about the place. Her sire waited further back, Genevieve's single jian resting against the rock of some greater statue whose features had worn away over the centuries without maintenance. Atop said rock sat the elder vampire who had taken up a half lotus position with her eyes closed. There would be little to no help found there in accordance with the latest bout of their training regime. After all, as Genevieve had said, it would be impossible to assume that the two of them would forever be together.
The thrall would have to learn to be without the master at some point.
What Johanna had not expected, however, was just what emerged from the shadows. It was no terracotta construct of Cathay's armies animated by spirit and magic entwined together. Not another of the temple dogs that Johanna had already faced at various points on their journey throughout the lands of the East. Nor was it some secretive servant of Chaos given the total lack of armor and carved sigils about the place. The latter had been unlikely given the lack of that unique stench that those tainted by the dark powers but even so it had seemed more likely then…this.
"The cursed moon fills the sky, and yet someone stands before me."
The voice was guttural, yet noble in its own way. Calmer than it should have been if one only took the appearance as their cue. It also spoke truth and for all that Johanna felt wretched she nonetheless was also terribly rejuvenated by the unholy rays of light that Morrslieb cast upon them. Loathing for her very existence welled up inside her once more before she banished it with a single inhaled breath and firming of her will. All the years she had spent had at the very least been good enough for that. Johanna gave none of her internal turmoil away however, and kept her features still as the grave she would never be buried within.
"Two, if I would count the one who is oh so far away. Hmmph," the ruin's inhabitant rumbled again.
It…Johanna could not rightly call it a beast.
To be sure, the fur that covered it was thick. But it was also short and remarkably clean of mange and shagginess. Pointed ears stretched out from the sides of a skull with skin stretched tight against it but no to a great extent. Just about as much as the ears of an elf might. Even the somewhat elongated fingers were held in loose fists that hung at the side of the speaker without the feral spreading of claws that she would have thought more natural to the type of being standing before her. At least at first. Then as she examined it she found that such an idea was not precisely correct. It was in the straight back. The calm expression that could not be mistaken even with the fangs that were just large enough to separate the lips with their size but not enough to bare them fully and the half-snout like nose. All of this was piled upon the inhumanely thick muscles that bulged across almost the whole of the frame, stretching it up to a full eight and a half feet tall and several handspans wide.
"You're…not what I was expecting," Johanna finally said, bouncing her halberd once before raising it up to lay it upon her shoulder.
It laughed, but it was not a cheerful laugh. It was a sad, broken thing that carried with it enough ancient grief that even her own stopped heart almost felt like it beat in sympathy for an instant.
"What then were you expecting, scions of Lahmia?"
Johanna's eyes did not widen in surprise; her self-control was more than enough to suppress such things. But that did not mean her grip did not minutely tighten upon the haft of her weapon.
"Did you think that I would not know the scent of your blood," and the calm veneer disappeared ever so slightly in exchange for a sneer and growl, "When it was yours that has hunted mine kind for so long?"
She shook her head before pausing in the act. If the black cloth that had been carefully wrapped around the eyes of the one before her wasn't simply for show, then it would not see her perform the action. Or see much of anything.
"We aren't hunting – well. We were investigating the rumors. Neither of us expected…you."
The almost kingly visage returned as their quarry chuckled, this time without the soul shaking pain.
"The brood of the whore Neferata have long sought to strike at the blood of her younger brother in all things. You expect me to believe that it is coincidence that more you have come here and found me once again?"
"Well," Johanna rolled her neck back and forth slightly, "Kind of?"
"You are not the first to hunt me down," the teeth peeled back, "You may not be the last."
Then before she could speak again, the strange Strigoi pounced. Johanna danced back as fast as she possibly could but even that was almost not enough before the blind vampire attacking her cracked the earth with a single fist. Stone cracked and cratered beneath the almost casual display of strength as the guardian corkscrewed about in the same instant to kick her straight in the chest and send her flying backwards. Her runed halberd glowed as she whipped it forward to slam into the ground and slow her speed leaving a carved trench in the mossy stone of the ruin grounds.
"Will you not protect your thrall, daughter of Lahmia," the Strigoi spoke calmly even as Johanna leapt forward with her own series of strikes, swinging the halberd around her own neck in order to readjust her grip. "It is shameful to let one's own suffer when you should fight alongside them."
"If she needs me," Genevieve spoke up, "Then I will rise to her aid."
"Ah," the seemingly blind vampire nodded minutely before catching the halberd's shaft and whipping Johanna and her weapon off to the side to impact against the shattered remains of a temple dog. Bones cracked and the former Talabeclander wheezed despite herself. "A lesson for youth that one day they must leave the nest…strange for one of Neferata's daughters to act in such a familiar manner. I do not even smell the condescension or dismissiveness that your words should carry."
"We do not serve her," Genevieve replied, her voice wholly calm. "In fact, since coming to Cathay we have not even been contacted by her agents. Which is…surprising in its own way."
The Strigoi chuckled and even grunted in respect as Johanna sliced a bloody ruin across its barrel chest and punctured the abdominals with utmost focus.
"She tries. But the lords of this land have long learned from their experiences with the treachery of the Monkey King. When the Emperor crushed the coup attempt," and there the vampire's tone grew wistful, "And imprisoned the immortal Wukong and rid his court of those who had infiltrated it, he enforced a brutal and powerful secret police against them."
"Ah," Genevieve nodded, "Which explains why his kind are all corralled within their mountain range. I had long wondered about that. The rat catchers being allowed their magic and companies of soldiers was something I had already guessed."
"Are you seriously doing this right now," Johanna grunted as her free arm was partially wrenched out of the socket with a pop of joints and a screech of pain through the ripping efforts of the Strigoi who then proceeded to swing her back and forth into the ground on one side of the vampire and then the other leaving two steadily deepening craters behind.
"Once I have slain you, I will rend your sire apart in due time youngling. Though I do dislike slaying children," the Strigoi answered her with honest regret in his voice.
"We are not here to kill you, we were merely investigating," Genevieve said. "A village protected from bandits and those who scale the Great Bastion for centuries by the 'ghost of the fallen temple'. Criminals sentenced to death found rent to pieces and the blood drained from them?"
The one beating Johanna half to death sighed before throwing her further away from him and against one of the collapsed temple gates hard enough to crack even more of her bones.
"Alas, that is the way of things. We try…but humanity is terrible at keeping such things secret. It is how I was found in the first place, I suppose. I will have to move from here soon then."
"I'd like to stop fighting now," Johanna coughed out her own sour blood as she struggled to get up. "If you two could just talk while I…lay here and try to fix myself."
"We aren't going to fight and kill you…," Genevieve opened her eyes and tilted her head, the question obvious.
"I…," the strangely not bestial Strigoi looked at her and her thrall before sighing and running a hand along its furred head. Then its expression firmed. "Swear upon the ancient rules of guest right, and we may speak further."
"Pon bread and salt," Genevieve bowed her head. "I would so swear."
The Strigoi stared at her for a long, long moment. The terrible fury and strength of its kind were merely leashed, not nonexistent. Genevieve could smell it. Then it turned and looked towards Johanna.
"And you, thrall?"
"Yeah, that works," Johanna wheezed again before she popped a rib back into place with a squelch of flesh and an unyielding will. "Question, Master."
"Yes?"
"What was the fucking lesson here?"
Genevieve, once she had walked over to her thrall at the side of the towering and uncertain Strigoi, did not smile.
"You are not as strong as you think you are," she said flatly, dragging her somewhat healed student to her unsteady feet. "Did you think I didn't hear your boasting? Your pride burns too strongly, dear Johanna. I have to crush it. That way, that incessant belief that you are superior? That is a slippery slope amongst our kind."
Johanna turned her head away, the shame burning almost as badly as her wounds. It wasn't a false accusation. But gods was it easy to think that way when she could crush the bones of the pre- of others.
"We are superior," the Strigoi said mildly, "But in that superiority lies great responsibility. We are responsible for using our strength as wisely as possible."
They came further into the temple's ruins then, and upon the tied up captives of a now defunct group of bandits. All ten of the men screamed through their dirty gags but none of the three vampires looking upon them managed to summon the empathy to feel bad for them.
"Call it a difference of opinion then," Genevieve tilted her head against as she looked at the meal offered to them.
The bandits had only been functioning for over a year, food shortages driving them to gain resources through less legal means. But they had murdered. They had destroyed lives. They were to a man guilty.
They were, to a man, terrified as fangs steadily emerged and features stretched and became just that more inhuman.
"I don't know where that is, but they make 'em strong there," Johanna sighed from across the side of the small fire that had been built.
"You do not know the story of Mourkain? Of the treachery of the Lahmians? How...," Gunari raised an eyebrow at her. "I would have thought…ah. You do not serve Neferata, knowingly or otherwise. You do not know the history of your blood."
"I know some of it," Genevieve offered, "Not all of it. My own sire was not particularly focused upon teaching history. He focused on…other things," her voice turned dark before she blinked it away. "But...if you are of the Strigoi, then…"
The Strigoi shifted slightly before settling into a surprisingly regal sitting position upon the rocks. Almost as if they were a throne. Once they had entered the temple, the Strigoi had taken off his blindfold, revealing eyes the color of washed copper.
"Why am I not a slavering beast like my brethren," he gestured to himself, "Or rather…why am I caught between one and the other?"
"I've seen Strigoi before," Johanna felt at the fading bruises on her side, "You don't…you don't look like them. Or something halfway."
"I was like them, once," Gunari laid a head back against the pillar. "I do not…know for how long. When Mourkain fell, I fled, as all who did not fall that day did. I was broken in mind, body, and soul. I was awoken once more, my mind my own, here in Cathay. The beast had come up against a travelling group of monks and was incapable of realizing it was outmatched. The pain was enough to…to…," the Strigoi rolled his hand in the air, "Come…full circle I suppose. I did not think it possible, and yet there it was."
"Did they teach you then?"
"No, student of Master Po," Gunari lolled its head towards her and squinted, "And do not act surprised. All know the story of Master Po and his Pale Apprentice. I have heard it told again and again in various forms. I, unlike you, had deformed. Your thrall knows what I looked like."
"But now you're not, which is a pretty neat trick."
"It is a matter of will…and self-control," the Strigoi hummed.
"You…willed yourself away from…."
"Being naught but a mindless beast, yes," Gunari smiled thinly. "I have seen my kin since, I have traveled back to the Old World once or twice in my time. I know," the smile disappeared, "What the machinations of Neferata have done to them. I may never look again like you two do, but I can take comfort that even the Whore Queen of Lahmia was unable to twist all of us. A small victory, but one I can enjoy."
"Huh," Johanna murmured as she put her hands closer to the fire.
"Take, for instance," Gunari gestured to the flame, "This. A small candle of civility in these ruins. None of us need it. The cold is natural to us, the warmth unneeded for our frames. If I wished I could live here, this grave of noble warriors and protectors, in complete and utter darkness. With only the cold and shadow as my companion."
His lips stretched back to reveal his fangs.
"As a beast."
"Small victories," Johanna repeated, her voice thoughtful.
"The dark magics…Dhar, I have heard it called. It affects us in its own way as well, which is why I have turned away from it as well," Gunari sighed, "Despite it being the legacy of Mourkain, I have watched what it has done to the Necrarch. To my brethren in their crumbling keeps and caves where they hold their façade courts," the Strigoi snorted, "So in love with the dark and cold that they have forgotten when we stood in the sun without fear. I hold to some of the old principals of course," he nodded, "But only those that have let me distance myself from the…debacle that is the Old World.
"What was this Mourkain place?"
"Ah…beautiful Mourkain," Gunari sighed before smiling sadly. "Would you learn of it then, little thrall?"
"…sure, why not?"
Distant Kings Under Jade Skies
Johanna slowly twirled her halberd as the so-called protector of the village in the valley below stepped forth from the shadows of the temple ruins.
Moss had already begun to cover the long shattered remains of the temple dogs that lay strewn about the place. Her sire waited further back, Genevieve's single jian resting against the rock of some greater statue whose features had worn away over the centuries without maintenance. Atop said rock sat the elder vampire who had taken up a half lotus position with her eyes closed. There would be little to no help found there in accordance with the latest bout of their training regime. After all, as Genevieve had said, it would be impossible to assume that the two of them would forever be together.
The thrall would have to learn to be without the master at some point.
What Johanna had not expected, however, was just what emerged from the shadows. It was no terracotta construct of Cathay's armies animated by spirit and magic entwined together. Not another of the temple dogs that Johanna had already faced at various points on their journey throughout the lands of the East. Nor was it some secretive servant of Chaos given the total lack of armor and carved sigils about the place. The latter had been unlikely given the lack of that unique stench that those tainted by the dark powers but even so it had seemed more likely then…this.
"The cursed moon fills the sky, and yet someone stands before me."
The voice was guttural, yet noble in its own way. Calmer than it should have been if one only took the appearance as their cue. It also spoke truth and for all that Johanna felt wretched she nonetheless was also terribly rejuvenated by the unholy rays of light that Morrslieb cast upon them. Loathing for her very existence welled up inside her once more before she banished it with a single inhaled breath and firming of her will. All the years she had spent had at the very least been good enough for that. Johanna gave none of her internal turmoil away however, and kept her features still as the grave she would never be buried within.
"Two, if I would count the one who is oh so far away. Hmmph," the ruin's inhabitant rumbled again.
It…Johanna could not rightly call it a beast.
To be sure, the fur that covered it was thick. But it was also short and remarkably clean of mange and shagginess. Pointed ears stretched out from the sides of a skull with skin stretched tight against it but no to a great extent. Just about as much as the ears of an elf might. Even the somewhat elongated fingers were held in loose fists that hung at the side of the speaker without the feral spreading of claws that she would have thought more natural to the type of being standing before her. At least at first. Then as she examined it she found that such an idea was not precisely correct. It was in the straight back. The calm expression that could not be mistaken even with the fangs that were just large enough to separate the lips with their size but not enough to bare them fully and the half-snout like nose. All of this was piled upon the inhumanely thick muscles that bulged across almost the whole of the frame, stretching it up to a full eight and a half feet tall and several handspans wide.
"You're…not what I was expecting," Johanna finally said, bouncing her halberd once before raising it up to lay it upon her shoulder.
It laughed, but it was not a cheerful laugh. It was a sad, broken thing that carried with it enough ancient grief that even her own stopped heart almost felt like it beat in sympathy for an instant.
"What then were you expecting, scions of Lahmia?"
Johanna's eyes did not widen in surprise; her self-control was more than enough to suppress such things. But that did not mean her grip did not minutely tighten upon the haft of her weapon.
"Did you think that I would not know the scent of your blood," and the calm veneer disappeared ever so slightly in exchange for a sneer and growl, "When it was yours that has hunted mine kind for so long?"
She shook her head before pausing in the act. If the black cloth that had been carefully wrapped around the eyes of the one before her wasn't simply for show, then it would not see her perform the action. Or see much of anything.
"We aren't hunting – well. We were investigating the rumors. Neither of us expected…you."
The almost kingly visage returned as their quarry chuckled, this time without the soul shaking pain.
"The brood of the whore Neferata have long sought to strike at the blood of her younger brother in all things. You expect me to believe that it is coincidence that more you have come here and found me once again?"
"Well," Johanna rolled her neck back and forth slightly, "Kind of?"
"You are not the first to hunt me down," the teeth peeled back, "You may not be the last."
Then before she could speak again, the strange Strigoi pounced. Johanna danced back as fast as she possibly could but even that was almost not enough before the blind vampire attacking her cracked the earth with a single fist. Stone cracked and cratered beneath the almost casual display of strength as the guardian corkscrewed about in the same instant to kick her straight in the chest and send her flying backwards. Her runed halberd glowed as she whipped it forward to slam into the ground and slow her speed leaving a carved trench in the mossy stone of the ruin grounds.
"Will you not protect your thrall, daughter of Lahmia," the Strigoi spoke calmly even as Johanna leapt forward with her own series of strikes, swinging the halberd around her own neck in order to readjust her grip. "It is shameful to let one's own suffer when you should fight alongside them."
"If she needs me," Genevieve spoke up, "Then I will rise to her aid."
"Ah," the seemingly blind vampire nodded minutely before catching the halberd's shaft and whipping Johanna and her weapon off to the side to impact against the shattered remains of a temple dog. Bones cracked and the former Talabeclander wheezed despite herself. "A lesson for youth that one day they must leave the nest…strange for one of Neferata's daughters to act in such a familiar manner. I do not even smell the condescension or dismissiveness that your words should carry."
"We do not serve her," Genevieve replied, her voice wholly calm. "In fact, since coming to Cathay we have not even been contacted by her agents. Which is…surprising in its own way."
The Strigoi chuckled and even grunted in respect as Johanna sliced a bloody ruin across its barrel chest and punctured the abdominals with utmost focus.
"She tries. But the lords of this land have long learned from their experiences with the treachery of the Monkey King. When the Emperor crushed the coup attempt," and there the vampire's tone grew wistful, "And imprisoned the immortal Wukong and rid his court of those who had infiltrated it, he enforced a brutal and powerful secret police against them."
"Ah," Genevieve nodded, "Which explains why his kind are all corralled within their mountain range. I had long wondered about that. The rat catchers being allowed their magic and companies of soldiers was something I had already guessed."
"Are you seriously doing this right now," Johanna grunted as her free arm was partially wrenched out of the socket with a pop of joints and a screech of pain through the ripping efforts of the Strigoi who then proceeded to swing her back and forth into the ground on one side of the vampire and then the other leaving two steadily deepening craters behind.
"Once I have slain you, I will rend your sire apart in due time youngling. Though I do dislike slaying children," the Strigoi answered her with honest regret in his voice.
"We are not here to kill you, we were merely investigating," Genevieve said. "A village protected from bandits and those who scale the Great Bastion for centuries by the 'ghost of the fallen temple'. Criminals sentenced to death found rent to pieces and the blood drained from them?"
The one beating Johanna half to death sighed before throwing her further away from him and against one of the collapsed temple gates hard enough to crack even more of her bones.
"Alas, that is the way of things. We try…but humanity is terrible at keeping such things secret. It is how I was found in the first place, I suppose. I will have to move from here soon then."
"I'd like to stop fighting now," Johanna coughed out her own sour blood as she struggled to get up. "If you two could just talk while I…lay here and try to fix myself."
"We aren't going to fight and kill you…," Genevieve opened her eyes and tilted her head, the question obvious.
"I…," the strangely not bestial Strigoi looked at her and her thrall before sighing and running a hand along its furred head. Then its expression firmed. "Swear upon the ancient rules of guest right, and we may speak further."
"Pon bread and salt," Genevieve bowed her head. "I would so swear."
The Strigoi stared at her for a long, long moment. The terrible fury and strength of its kind were merely leashed, not nonexistent. Genevieve could smell it. Then it turned and looked towards Johanna.
"And you, thrall?"
"Yeah, that works," Johanna wheezed again before she popped a rib back into place with a squelch of flesh and an unyielding will. "Question, Master."
"Yes?"
"What was the fucking lesson here?"
Genevieve, once she had walked over to her thrall at the side of the towering and uncertain Strigoi, did not smile.
"You are not as strong as you think you are," she said flatly, dragging her somewhat healed student to her unsteady feet. "Did you think I didn't hear your boasting? Your pride burns too strongly, dear Johanna. I have to crush it. That way, that incessant belief that you are superior? That is a slippery slope amongst our kind."
Johanna turned her head away, the shame burning almost as badly as her wounds. It wasn't a false accusation. But gods was it easy to think that way when she could crush the bones of the pre- of others.
"We are superior," the Strigoi said mildly, "But in that superiority lies great responsibility. We are responsible for using our strength as wisely as possible."
They came further into the temple's ruins then, and upon the tied up captives of a now defunct group of bandits. All ten of the men screamed through their dirty gags but none of the three vampires looking upon them managed to summon the empathy to feel bad for them.
"Call it a difference of opinion then," Genevieve tilted her head against as she looked at the meal offered to them.
The bandits had only been functioning for over a year, food shortages driving them to gain resources through less legal means. But they had murdered. They had destroyed lives. They were to a man guilty.
They were, to a man, terrified as fangs steadily emerged and features stretched and became just that more inhuman.
=========================================================
"My name is Gunari," the Strigoi said, wiping the last drops of blood from his lips as he sat against a fallen pillar. "I am…was…of Mourkain."
"I don't know where that is, but they make 'em strong there," Johanna sighed from across the side of the small fire that had been built.
"You do not know the story of Mourkain? Of the treachery of the Lahmians? How...," Gunari raised an eyebrow at her. "I would have thought…ah. You do not serve Neferata, knowingly or otherwise. You do not know the history of your blood."
"I know some of it," Genevieve offered, "Not all of it. My own sire was not particularly focused upon teaching history. He focused on…other things," her voice turned dark before she blinked it away. "But...if you are of the Strigoi, then…"
The Strigoi shifted slightly before settling into a surprisingly regal sitting position upon the rocks. Almost as if they were a throne. Once they had entered the temple, the Strigoi had taken off his blindfold, revealing eyes the color of washed copper.
"Why am I not a slavering beast like my brethren," he gestured to himself, "Or rather…why am I caught between one and the other?"
"I've seen Strigoi before," Johanna felt at the fading bruises on her side, "You don't…you don't look like them. Or something halfway."
"I was like them, once," Gunari laid a head back against the pillar. "I do not…know for how long. When Mourkain fell, I fled, as all who did not fall that day did. I was broken in mind, body, and soul. I was awoken once more, my mind my own, here in Cathay. The beast had come up against a travelling group of monks and was incapable of realizing it was outmatched. The pain was enough to…to…," the Strigoi rolled his hand in the air, "Come…full circle I suppose. I did not think it possible, and yet there it was."
"Did they teach you then?"
"No, student of Master Po," Gunari lolled its head towards her and squinted, "And do not act surprised. All know the story of Master Po and his Pale Apprentice. I have heard it told again and again in various forms. I, unlike you, had deformed. Your thrall knows what I looked like."
"But now you're not, which is a pretty neat trick."
"It is a matter of will…and self-control," the Strigoi hummed.
"You…willed yourself away from…."
"Being naught but a mindless beast, yes," Gunari smiled thinly. "I have seen my kin since, I have traveled back to the Old World once or twice in my time. I know," the smile disappeared, "What the machinations of Neferata have done to them. I may never look again like you two do, but I can take comfort that even the Whore Queen of Lahmia was unable to twist all of us. A small victory, but one I can enjoy."
"Huh," Johanna murmured as she put her hands closer to the fire.
"Take, for instance," Gunari gestured to the flame, "This. A small candle of civility in these ruins. None of us need it. The cold is natural to us, the warmth unneeded for our frames. If I wished I could live here, this grave of noble warriors and protectors, in complete and utter darkness. With only the cold and shadow as my companion."
His lips stretched back to reveal his fangs.
"As a beast."
"Small victories," Johanna repeated, her voice thoughtful.
"The dark magics…Dhar, I have heard it called. It affects us in its own way as well, which is why I have turned away from it as well," Gunari sighed, "Despite it being the legacy of Mourkain, I have watched what it has done to the Necrarch. To my brethren in their crumbling keeps and caves where they hold their façade courts," the Strigoi snorted, "So in love with the dark and cold that they have forgotten when we stood in the sun without fear. I hold to some of the old principals of course," he nodded, "But only those that have let me distance myself from the…debacle that is the Old World.
"What was this Mourkain place?"
"Ah…beautiful Mourkain," Gunari sighed before smiling sadly. "Would you learn of it then, little thrall?"
"…sure, why not?"
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Knowing more about Johanna is always good as is more of your writing in general
Massgamer
Advance toward the Future
- Location
- The Future
No problem and interlude is awesome too.