Like all convenient things, Taelian's train foray came to an end. It had been forced to stop in a small city somewhat adjacent to Arlain, due to the strain of what was apparently Sundered dust particles corroding away at its lower material. In need of repair, the passengers had been let off... two days ago. No other train came; no other train would for some time, and as much as Taelian would have savored the tranquility of resting quietly in some dirty tavern, he had a relative deadline for arriving in Kalzasi.
Again, though; nothing seemed to work, or stay working for long. Trains, the good nature of others, the weather... the Adh Nuaihm. Aldrin would not have scrutinized him if he knew the pure ardor of his journey thus far.
It had been rough. Nearly every moment of it.
Taelian had begun to walk across the savannah plains, colored gold and velvet from a mixture of sun-touched wheat and lilac flowers that ran across the span of the horizon. He walked for a day, and now almost two -- somehow even in the midst of Ash it was hot, but he was no stranger to scorching heat. Sil-Elaine was moist and muggy; at least Daravin was dry. It was nice, too. Always feeling the sun on your back -- the trees weren't plentiful enough to obscure it, and the clouds scarcely came in comparison to where he was from. Daravin was truly a beautiful land.
It had become clear to Taelian that it was everything his people thought it was. Their homeland... perfect and summery, and taken from them unjustly.
"Stop."
A voice called from behind him. Taelian, stepping across the sand-colored road that ran through the wheat and lavender-shaded fields, quickly turned his back to the presence behind him. The first thing he saw was a gloved hand, clad in black, gripping a sword and beginning to pull it from its sheath. Instinctively, he quickly did the same, throwing his hand onto the hilt of his claymore as it rose from his back and gripping his weapon, drawing it and getting into a readied stance.
"Whoa, whoa, Elf. You don't want to do that," the man advised. He wore black leather armor from head-to-toe, though his face and hair were not obscured. He had unkempt brown hair that ran nearly to his shoulder, with hazel colored eyes and a young and handsome complexion. He appeared to be... half-grinning, as he raised a palm flatly towards Taelian and glanced partway to his left and right. "I have friends. Raise your weapon against me, you raise it against all of them."
Taelian's eyes narrowed. He frowned. "That's okay," he began. "I've raised my blade against far worse."
Re: Days Away
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:15 pm
by Taelian Edevane
Taelian struck first. He gripped his claymore with both hands and cleaved forward, the weighty blade clashing hard against the steel shortsword of his opponent. The Siltori's eyes flared amber-red for a moment, and he pulled his blade closer to his body only to quickly step forward and lunge. Fire thrust forward, moving beyond the highwayman's blade and razing his face, the texture of his skin marred by burns and boils. His flesh had essentially been melted.
He was dead.
Four men appeared from the tall stalks of wheat. Taelian exhaled, running forward to avoid their attempt at surrounding him. They quickly gave chase, and the Elf was forced to turn around and swing his weapon forward, the arc of flame charring through the core of one of the men's chests. He gripped his abdomen and fell to his knees, screaming in pain as the fire continued to burn through him. Shrivenflame did not easily abate; he would die shortly.
Taelian felt the ground beneath him swell and begin to change. He attempted to strafe backwards, but before he could, an intense surge of force sprung from the Kinetic bed upon the soil and impacted him hard, flinging him backwards. The Ebon Knight ensured that he kept a tight grip of his blade, and used it to quickly rise to his knees after performing a swift recovery. The Elf's eyes quickly darted back and forth between the three men, attempting to discern which of them was a mage. After not too long, he found out who; the man had an obvious quirk that glowed through his tunic, on his right shoulder. It was an aethereal line of sorts.
The Siltori's gaze fixated. He propped his arm up and pointed his elbow at the group of men before him, his fist risen towards the clear sky. A javelin of fire formed quickly within his grip, and shortly afterwards he flung the Flamelance at the opposing mage. It zipped through the air at a high velocity, dashing with a fiery red line across its trajectory, only to be dissuaded by an intense kinetic burst that dispersed the fire into several smaller kindlings, scattering and falling onto the sandy road.
The Pyromancer grimaced.
"You should've just given us your shit, Elf. Now, you've killed two of us -- you've got to die," the mage said. He had a gross accent; it did not carry any of the regal class he had become accustomed to by the Valran and Entente. It sounded more as if he had been taught the language by mud.
Taelian stabbed his blade into the ground. Trail erupted from it, springing forth. The homing pillars of fire chased speedily after one of the mage's companions, and though the Kinetics mage attempted to disrupt the Trail, the larger ability was difficult to pinpoint and proved much harder to deflect. The magic-less man attempted to run back into the wheat field, but the Trail followed and quickly caught up to him, first catching him by the legs then running across his back and thereafter altogether consuming him in fire.
The Siltori nodded. Five men originally... though there were three down now. They were all human. They kept calling him Elf, over and over.
As kind as Renfier had been, he could not lie that he felt a sense of disgust in being condescended by these... clearly inferior things. There was nothing about them that stood out. Just numbers.
"Jordane," the man beside the Kinetics mage called out. Taelian supposed that now he knew the mage's name. "We're not going to win this, Jordane. We should get out of here -- while our legs haven't been burnt from their bones. Please, Jordane," the seemingly reasonable bandit advised him.
The mage appeared to ponder on it. Taelian quickly interjected. "I'm not letting you go," he said. "You'd be a threat to me my whole journey. You could follow me, use magic as my guard is down -- no. Both of you are going to die."
Re: Days Away
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:30 pm
by Taelian Edevane
"I suppose he isn't giving us much a choice, is he, Henri?" the mage asked his demoralized companion. He appeared to still be rather shaken, low in conviction, perhaps made to feel so by Taelian's warning after the short-duration carnage he had just witnessed. Whatever the case, it did not matter.
"I'm still going, Jordane," he said, clearly letting the worry get to him. The man's heart rate appeared wild; his face was seeped in fear. He turned around towards the road leading to Arlain, and put his weight into his boots, beginning to flee. A tug of force pulled him on his ankles and tripped him, however, and as he fell Jordane dropped a longsword straight through his skull, twisting the weapon and skewering him into the sands.
"Coward shite," the magi declared, his voice still notably laced in the thick drudgery of the Daravinic lower class. Taelian visibly cringed. "True man never lets fear be the thing that gets to him. I don't know if you've got money or not, Elf, but ye'll get your due. Those were me brothers -- you wouldn't get it if you tried!" he dramatically exclaimed. The man certainly looked angry to match his aggressive words; Taelian could not deny that.
Though, he could not help but dissect his statements and by doing so, question their validity. "Weren't you the one who just killed one of said brothers?" Taelian asked.
"He was deserting!" the man yelled.
"Were you the one who orchestrated this in the first place? This heist of yours? You appear to be the most powerful, so I assume you're the leader..." he trailed, looking upward as he mockingly pondered. The other man seemed to grow furious.
"Yeah, so what if I did, Elf?! Going to reprimand me my thievin' ways?"
"No," Taelian shook his head. It wasn't about morals, it was about survival. The other man knew that, deep within. He had probably told himself the same thing many times, to justify his deeds, time and time again. But it was effectively over. The Siltori rushed forward, blade in hand, and began to swing at the other man with Emblem still attached to his weighted swings. The other man, a poorer swordsman than mage and unable to deflect his fiery arcs while simultaneously defending against his blade, was quickly overwhelmed and burnt to ash.
The group of assailants was dead. And far from any sense of grief or guilt, Taelian was glad. It felt good to kill them as they had done to his own kind, ten million times before. To kill them so close to Silor's old capital.
Not a great amount of time passed by. Taelian stepped forward and on the horizon, he could see white spires brimming from the slight curvature before him. His eyes seemed to spark with excitement; it was what he thought it could have been. The Siltori burst out into laughter; a rare event.
"Arlain," he whispered. It was there, right in front of him. "Arlain."
Comment: Taelian's journey has taken him quite far. I've been enjoying his trek across the Daravin Empire. It's provided a great insight into the goings on there as well as some glimpse of the setting. Thanks for writing all of it!
