On first stepping through the heavy wooden doors of the great hall, the noise of the carousing beyond had been like a never ending roll of thunder. Now though, the maze of corridors had muffled the festivities to barely more than a whisper. Apart from a few people who had evidently decided to continue the celebrations in the privacy of their own chambers and the occasional scurrying of servant's feet, the keep was quiet. At this distance the smell of mead and spiced meats had been replaced by the scents of dusty wood and beeswax polish. Calmness reigned here; as the wooden door of her chamber shut behind her, Silph breathed out. Apart from one slumbering form, she was alone. At last.
Ofneir would laugh if he saw her now. Swaddled in the lizard's silks like some simpering maid. It was all they had to give her; the North's furs were not intended for sweltering summers, and in the heat, the human had begrudgingly changed to something more appropriate. Though it still chafed at her nerves to wear something so...refined. Silph sat on the edge of her bed, taking off her shoes gingerly.
Kirvam's summer estate was grandiose, lush, and frankly over-the-top - much like the entire Kaleshian Empire itself. She regretted accepting the senator's invitation. It was not home; in fact, it was the exact opposite, and she longed for the rich culture of north Diane all the more. And the food. Gods, the food. She did not like lizard food. Their meat was too tough, too spicy - they could not cook meat like the men and women back home. The servants had seemed offended at her unwillingness to eat, perhaps a direct result of Kirvam's insatiable need to please his guests. At the risk of looking rude, she'd stayed at the festivities longer than she should have. Far too long; it was only now that she'd returned to the safety of her room, another large and majestic space that did little to impress her. Exhaustion was plain on her face as she began to lay back on the bed, automatically reaching behind herself to undo the straps on her back--
--only to blink in surprise when she touched nothing but air. Ai, Akadum. That's right; they'd taken Bonesmith, too. She began to relax, eyes drifting closed.
But not for long. Sometime after her eyes shut, she jolted awake as the acrid smell of smoke filled her nose. She sat up wild-eyed, taking in the sudden and abrupt sight of flames licking at the door. Her eyes widened.
"My God, fire! Fire!"
There was another in the room. Some stranger who Silph had not cared to meet or speak with before hand. But the current emergency rendered all reservations she had about the other woman moot. The human leapt from beneath her covers and dashed to the stranger's bed, shaking her roughly by the shoulders.
"You! Wake up! Wake up now!"
There was no response from the sleeping woman. Despite being shaken they remained limp in their bed. Something held them in unconsciousness and alcohol was the likely suspect. A fug of the senator's generous hospitality hung over the woman like a cloud; the bottle slowly seeping it contents into the woman's bed was also a dead give away.
Silph was not to be outdone. She had roused many a drunkard with a rude slap, and would not hesitate to do so now. Shrugging a massive shoulder, Silph rolled the woman onto her back and leaned in, giving the sleeping woman a forceful strike across the cheek.
"Get. Up."
The sound of the blow had barely faded away when Silph's face was bathed in a soft red and green light as glowing eyes flew open. Barely a fraction of a moment later a hand shot out from the now awake stranger's side and grabbed at the thumb of the hand that had just struck them. Pulling the digit back, they didn't stop until Silph's wrist was painfully twisted. For a few seconds the redhead's radiant gaze remained fixed on her assaulter, a look of confused anger on their face before the mind behind it seemed to catch up with the woman's body and released the painful hold.
"Fuck off." The multicoloured glow disappeared as the woman closed her eyes and rolled onto her side so that she faced the wall, her back to Silph. "Don't… leave me alone."
Silph studied the young woman for a moment, eyes filling with anger as she grasped the wrist of her left hand. She was not often hurt by another's touch, but the girl's grip made her feel pain and caught her off-guard in a way she wasn't used to. It discomfited her, and she responded in the way she did most things: willful ignorance.
"Fine! You burn alive, then, yah? Hmph."
With a dismissive grunt, Silph moved away, rushing to grab her boots that sat near the edge of her bed.
"Whut?" The question was followed by the sound of rustling fabric and the reappearance of the faint multi coloured glow. "What are you talki-"
There was a sharp intake of breath followed by a mumbled curse as Silph's words evidently teamed up with the acrid smell of smoke to penetrate the drunkard's mind and deliver the news that the blacksmith had known almost before waking up. Silph however was no longer paying the other girl any mind. In fact, the look on her face seemed distant as she shoved on her boots hurriedly, coughing at the plumes of smoke curling underneath the door. Without warning, a wave of heat rolled over the blacksmith before receding again just as quickly with a heavy wooden thud and several muttered curses. A glance over Silph's shoulder revealed her ever so slightly swaying room mate, fully dressed and rapidly blinking their eyes, standing by the door, one hand cradled in front of her neck.
"You know how to get outta here?" There was a pause as the woman sucked the fingers of the hand by her neck. "We need to be fast. Everything is burning."
The other woman merely grunted in affirmation. At last dressed properly, with her few belongings slung over her shoulder, the large woman strode over to the bedroom door and flung it open, ignoring the burn of metal in her hand.
Kirvam's entire estate was built like some sort of fortress. No windows in the rooms meant no alternative route; they would have to charge through the building inferno without any way of knowing where the fire had spread. They were at risk of getting caught in the blaze if they weren't careful.
Fortunately, Silph was too stubborn to die. Covering her nose and mouth with a silk cloth, she marched forward into the blazing hallways, setting off in the direction of the banquet hall. She had barely passed two doorways when the far more lightly built figure of her companion loped past in the smoke filled darkness. The woman smelled like they'd drunk so much alcohol that by all rights her sweat should be catching aflame and yet somehow she almost danced down the corridor. When a pile of rubble hidden by smoke or gout of flame interrupted her path the woman seemed to flow around it like water passing a rock, and soon she began to disappear into the smoke ahead of Silph.
It wasn't until the blacksmith was approaching the junction between a couple of corridors that she saw her strange roommate again. The auburn haired woman was down on her hands and knees gasping for air in between bouts of dry hacking coughs.
"Can't… go… that way" A slender arm pointed down one of the corridors, ragged breathes making it shake slightly. "There's no… just smoke."
Cerulean eyes panned towards the direction the redhead pointed, before coming to rest again on the hunched over woman, unreadable. Despite her furs and comparably slower gait, the Diane woman seemed wholly unaffected by their hellish surroundings. She was used to the flames of the forge, plumes of smoke hanging in wisps around her as she worked. One did not tolerate it so much as they adapted to it. One just had to cover well, and keep a measured pace...
Something this one with her did not seem to get. Staring down at the other woman with nothing but disdain, Silph clicked her tongue impatiently.
"You...Your name is…"
"Re-" The half formed word was lost as an explosion of rasping coughs erupted from the woman's throat and they had to take several shaky breaths before they were able to speak again. "Reva."
"Well, whoever you are," The blonde asserted rather ignorantly. She slipped a heavy hand around Reva's arm and hefted her up in one fluid motion. "You move too fast through; you will get smoke in your lungs, yah? Come-" She jerked her head towards the other corridor, the one leading towards the banquet hall - her initial goal. "We go this way."
Not caring to wait for input from her companion, Silph hoisted the other woman up and against her side, all but carrying her as she continued her dogged march down the hallways. It was difficult to get her bearings as they moved along. Whoever had lit the castle's flames had been thorough. The fire had crawled its way along the walls, decimating every fine piece of furniture, glassware, and art that stood in its path. Only the ornate stone engravings on the pillars remained unmarked; Silph used those as her waypoints as she kept her head low, pausing only to bring her and her hapless, wheezing quarry over an overturned armoire.
Someone had closed the doors to the banquet hall. With her free hand, Silph grasped the red hot knob and tore the door open, grimacing as a wave of heat blasted her in the face. As her vision adjusted to the brilliant displays of orange and red, her eyes widened, taking in the scene before her.
"Ai, Gods…"
Kirvam Ozirious stood at the front of the hall exactly like he had earlier that night. Though the flames swirled and crackled around him, there was still a sharp confidence to his posture and the fire around him could only brighten his already intense red scale. He wore no armor, his nightgown torn, burned black and bloodied. It was not his blood that stained the white silk however--but instead the half dozen assassins' lying limp on the floor.
As the door swung open he assumed a defensive pose, ready to withstand whatever might come, but was surprised to see allies instead of foes. It was clear when he called out to them that despite tonight's treacherous turn of events, he had no intention of coming off shaken or even bothered.
"It's about time I ran into someone who hasn't fallen so shamefully to these pathetic excuses of assassins." He mused lightly, when suddenly a groan from a body at his feet interrupted his thought. With no more than an annoyed look, he slashed a curve along the man's neck and beckoned for his two new allies to join him.
With one graceful wave of the senator's hand, the fire in the room split a path for Reva and Silph to take towards him. A perk of a man whose bloodline was derived from a red dragon. "Come quick you two. We must make haste to the armory in case they've more capable soldiers than this filth."
As the flames parted, Reva began to wriggle and squirm against her rescuer's iron grip. The auburn haired woman had all but stopped wheezing and her strange eyes seemed to be fixed on the body at the senators feet. After a few moments of not making any progress in her bid for freedom there was a gentle tap on Silph's shoulder. Immediately, the hold loosened.
Released from the blacksmith's grip, Reva began to make her way along the path towards Kirvam. Silph's few words of advice having apparently sunk in, she moved slowly and carefully, using her arms to shield her face from the heat. All the while though her eyes stayed locked on the body and as she approached where the senator stood Reva knelt down. Holding one hand out to shield herself from the spraying blood, the flame haired woman twisted the assassins head towards her. After staring briefly and impassionately at recently stilled face she turned her attention to the fallen warriors robes, grabbing at a stretch of patterned cloth that lined the garments neck. For a few moments the woman held the stained and smoldering fabric, her face a mask of confusion, until something else caught her eye.
"Who?" Reva ripped a strange pendant from around the fallen warrior's neck before standing up and holding her blood drenched prize out towards the red scaled senator.
"Why?"
With one brow ridge raised, Kirvam took the amulet and studied it for a moment. Its origin was without a doubt, the pendant formerly a golden sun now tinted black and red by soot and blood.
"A curious trinket--and one that raises far too many questions." Kirvam spoke, urgency growing in his graveled tone. "Come quickly. If for some divine forsaken reason we're being besieged by a group as enigmatic as the Order of the Morning… well, the loss of my fields and my summer home are just the start."
He spun on his heels and effortlessly formed a new path through the fire, the senator taking up an unforgiving pace as he led the way to the armory. With Kirvam waving away the smoke and fire that choked the corridors before them, the trio moved quickly through the estate.
As they approached the armory, the red lizard paused and raised a hand to signal the two warriors close behind him to listen. The sounds were hard to detect amidst all the roaring flames and groaning wood but they were unmistakable.
Laughter. Banter. Metal clanging against the stone floor. Order or not, it was clear that some of them were not beyond looting the estate. With a twitch of annoyance in his brow, Kirvam's hand extended towards a nearby flame and with grace, he drew it to his blade and turned to his companions. He paused, realizing he never asked either of them for their names, and quickly decided it mattered not.
"Are you two prepared for a fight?" Kirvam asked calmly, glancing back at the doorway cautiously before continuing. "I'm sure I can hold their attention long enough for you two to arm yourselves."
The sound of cracking knuckles was the only answer from Reva as her brilliant gaze swung from the Senator to Silph and then finally, the door.
Silph followed the red-head's gaze, brows furrowed. "Armed or not, they die tonight."
Somewhere in the armory lay the armor Silph herself had painstakingly made, the hammer she had spent so many hours honing, the swords she had done much to sharpen. The thought of some filthy bandit simply coming along and claiming her things for themselves - for free - incensed her, and she surged forward, kicking away a burning chair that propped open the door.
It caught the looters off-guard. The closest one to her spun around, mouth agape, his hands grasping--
Ai, Akadum! My hammer! Her face grew dark with fury.
"You--" The rat-faced man spat out. Before the bastard could so much as say another word, the wind was knocked from him as the blonde slammed against him, wrapping her arms around his back with a crushing grip. With a bellow, she lifted up, bending backwards and smashing the man head-down onto the marble floor. It did the trick; Bonesmith came loose from the unconscious man's hands easily, and she snatched it away.
As she was recovering her balance, Silph felt a gust of air brush past her followed by the appearance of Reva at the edge of her vision. The red head sprinted towards one of the stunned looters. With one hand she caught a sword arm that had been swung too late, using the momentum to push the limb behind it's owners back, while an elbow found its target in the man's temple. As her target buckled under the assault, Reva pulled the man's sword arm straight up behind his back and used her other arm to force his head down onto a rapidly rising knee. There was a stomach churning crunch and the man went limp.
Before she could disentangle herself from the unconscious assasin something smacked into Reva's throat, lifting her bodily into the air. Feet swinging wildly through thin air and face screwed up from the pain, Reva tried to break the grip around her neck with blind jabs at the arms holding her. This only resulted in her being slammed into a wall, the hard stones acting to increase the pressure of the grip squeezing the life the flame haired woman. Slowly Reva struggles died to nothing, all her energy apparently focused on sucking any amount of air into her lungs.
"Look upon me sinner. Know this is a righteous death."
There was a slight shift as one burly hand released its grip on Reva's neck before a thumb prised open one of her eyes, a soft green light illuminating the goon's smirking face.
"YOU! Fuc-" Reva's would be executioner recoiled at the sight and the moment of surprise gave the half strangled woman the opening she had been hunting for. This time a fist to the elbow of the arm that still held her buckled the limb and broke the grip. Desperately sucking down air, Reva didn't give the assassin time to recover, using the wall to launch herself at the man who had nearly strangled her.
In the foreground, Silph could be seen facing off against another of the men, a large brute who somehow managed to dwarf her in size. The Northerner was no seasoned warrior; a relentless blacksmith, yes, but no knight. Her grip tightened on her hammer as she used it to block blow after blow, gritting her teeth as each forceful strike managed to push her back. Again the man came, swinging his sword down at Silph with startling speed. She moved away a second too late; she hissed as the edge of his blade cut into her exposed shoulder.
"Not as fast as the other one, are ya?" The man sneered. Silph cut her eyes at him, ignoring the blood running down her skin. "Don't worry. I'll make this quick for you."
Whatever lunge, grapple, or maneuver the man planned was cut short by a ray of searing fire shot just over Silph's newly torn wound. The man went crashing into the rack of armor behind him, screaming out all sorts of curses as the flames burned deeper and deeper into his chest.
The senator then appeared at Silph's side, smoke rising from scaled fingers that still crackled ever so lightly with magic. Whatever pleasantly surprised expression he held at seeing his companions charge before him was replaced with an unimpressed sneer in the presence of their attackers.
"Let us finish up here and get on with our escape." He sighed as if more annoyed with the fact that they were fighting for their lives than worried. Without warning or permission he turned to Silph and brought a scaled talon to her hammer, the head of her signature weapon suddenly enveloped in a flame not unlike his scimitar.
"A gift for your bravery." He winked before charging at one of two men left and locking him in one on one combat. Or so the looter thought anyways. As the ruffian made to swing their sword at the senator, an arm appeared around their throat. In one sudden moment they toppled backward to the floor, revealing for a brief moment Reva, her face splattered with bright red blood. Falling on top of the looter she drove the heel of her hand into center of their face before gripping the side of their head, lifting it into the air and then smashing it against the floor over and over until her victim stopped struggling. For good measure Reva twisted the man's neck until a terminal crack reverberated around the room.
Kirvam watched the sight with an expression that landed somewhere between surprised and amused. "Well I suppose that works too."
The last man standing suddenly grew a sense of self-preservation as he watched the trio trounce his friends. Gulping, he began to back away from the battle, turning to slip away down the burning hall--
--only to see impending death in the form of a flaming hammer. There was the whumph of metal hitting bone, then a light thud as his body fell to the ground. Silph did not spare him a second glance as she approached the other two, her eyes alight with adrenaline, battle furor, and...fear?
"We must go now. No more wasting time fighting." She pursed her lips at the sight of Reva's bloodied face, but said nothing about it; a more pressing issue had taken her attention. Her eyes flickered from the hammer in her hands to the lizard, nervousness plain on her face.
"Get rid of these flames," She barked at Kirvam, shaking Bonesmith emphatically. Sweat had begun to bead at her temple. "This magic is no good. This hammer is fine without it."
"Very well." Kirvam nodded, amusement playing on his expression at her reaction. With a simple snap of a finger the flames dissipated and the senator turned towards the nearby wall. It took him only a moment to draw the nearby flames into a concentrated molten orb and blast an opening to the courtyard he knew would be on the other side.
"You don't reach a position like mine without being prepared for everyth--" Kirvam began, his body interrupting him as a wave of weakness washed over him. It had been awhile since he had the need to cast at this frequency and the fatigue of his magic was setting in. "Come. There's a button alongside the fountain. We need only press it and we will be safe."
The Northerner stayed quiet. She'd instinctively grabbed the senator's elbow lest he fainted, and now her eyes drew up to his own, iron resolve clear on her face.
"We will jump down. I will help you." Her tone left no room for argument. "Reva?"
From behind the senator came the sound of tearing fabric. Reva, apparently oblivious to the new plan, was feverishly tearing at the robes of one of the dead men, revealing a network of strange tattoos similar to bloody pendant that now hung from her belt. The woman paused, staring at the markings before moving over to the nearest dressed corpse, tearing at it's clothes with equal fervour.
Her actions were rudely interrupted as Silph's hand seized on the back of her outer garments. Ignoring any and all protestations, the blonde, with her two companions in tow, went for the opening in the wall. There was a rush of cool, fresh air as Silph leapt the short distance down to the courtyard; then, just as quickly as they'd drawn breath, a haze of smoke filled the air as she set Kirvam and Reva down. Coughing, Silph turned her gaze about the courtyard, blinking at the destruction and chaos. She was mistaken before; it was not just their part of the mansion that burned. The entire estate was alit in flames. Their attackers had gone to great lengths to try and kill them all.
And more could appear at any moment to finish the job. A sense of urgency increasing her speed, Silph ignored the pain in her injured shoulder and moved onwards, approaching the massive fountain in the centre of the courtyard.