TVC II Chapter 4 - The Queen of Mysteries

[Simon von Carstein]

Alastor heard a distinct click in his ear and turned slightly to find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. Following it with his eyes he saw it was attached to a blood stained and glowering colonel Canaris. "His correct title is captain." he said matter of factly. "He had to do a lot to earn it so please use it." Keeping his eyes fixed on Alastor he continued "Its a long trip back to Drakenhof and if you're going to share my roof then you will be silent at all times. If I so much as think you are going to whine about unfairness or injustice then I will just shoot you now! I think the council will be most understanding."

 

[The Archivist]

Faust poked his head up from behind the driver's bench on one of the carriages. Every time he'd tried to get inside had resulted in a few narrowly missed crossbow bolts or throwing knives, so instead he stayed put.

He spotted Roland in that unusual garment of his, fighting quite a bit away. Knowing the carriages were leaving any moment he opened his backpack and began frantically winding the handles inside.

 

[Get of W'soran]

Arno raised an eyebrow at the headless disintegrating corpse of his underling.

The vampire give a mental shrug, the vast majority of the attacking force where new-bloods and despite their training they could easily be replaced.

Then he looked up at the mortal, he was impressed with him...the human had managed to land a blow on him although it had mostly been by surprise at the speed he moved.

Despite that all Arno considered Roland slow, fast for a human to be sure, but limited and weak as all the living where.

"He could make an...interesting recruit...although his manners will need cleaned up." the Senior assassin decided.

Arno made a hand gesture to the remaining assassin.
"Alive if possible" it said.

Arno smoothly unsheathed the sabre at his waist and with a flick of his left hand a short dagger appeared from underneath his sleeve.

"You're clearly damaged mortal...if you lay down your weapons then I shall grant you the gift to allow you to reach your true greatness."

Without waiting for a response Arno leapt forward swept his sabre around for a cut that moved almost too fast for human perception to even follow, at the same time he shift his stand to ready a quick thrust from the dagger if it was needed.

Even as Arno attacked his surviving follower moved in from another angle, clearly well practised at fighting alongside his brother assassin, the vampire's dagger was a blur as he went low, targeting Roland's leg.

 

[Lord_Mortis]

As the shadow mage fell to his demise, Ezra offered herself a glance over the side of the cliff and a grin as the foe was thwarted. The grin quickly turned sour as the magical feedback from his death led to the dispelling of the wall of flame the young Lahmian had conjured and a tidal wave of new enemies.

Figuring everyone would now be in full retreat Ezra groaned and bent down to pick up her fallen weapon. She stretched her tired and broken limbs then turned to the two paralysed vampires behind her, saluted them mockingly then scaled down the cliff face to the lower ledge to give her a better vantage point and bringing her closer to her messenger.

'What is happening?' she asked Elanor, surveying the scene both mentally and visually for a brief moment. She noted one less voice coming from the group. 'Who has died?'

 

[Count michael]

Somehow in in his recklessness Mikhail became separated from the carriages when they started to move, leaving him and a few wights who hadn't been destroyed yet surrounded by the cloaked vampires. Surprising enough with the death of the one controlling them the Wights seemed to stop attacking Mikhail instead through some personal vendetta started attacking the cloaked vampires temporary allying with Mikhail who slightly confused preferred to fight alongside the wights as they seemed to have more honour than the vampires.

Slowly Mikhail and the Wights cut their way through the surrounding vampires carving a path towards the carriages through the combination of Mikhail's brute force and the wight's disciplined advance. Blocking a nearby vampire's attack, Mikhail watched as the nearest wight decapitated the vampire with it's axe causing Mikhail to laugh at the lunacy of his situation, he was fighting with the undead against the undead. As the wight crumbled from another vampires attack, Mikhail grabbed the fallen Wight's Great axe swinging it around in a deadly arc causing the vampires to fall back briefly enabling Mikhail and a couple of the wights to break through to the carriages. "Your kind sure to know how to offer a warm welcome vampire" he said to Dieter "I'd prefer it though if they were orcs, at least they would have more honour" whilst yanking out the arrow that was still embedded in his chest which quickly healed up. Walking to the nearest carriage he hauled himself on top of it surveying around his axe held ready, the Wights just stared in mute silence at Mikhail for a long moment before with a dry rattle that one could almost mistake for laughter they followed him and climbed into the carriage

 

[Bounce]

We have reached the carriages at last. That sneaky necromancer fool is getting them to move so we can escape. The princess is with me. She doesn't look great but she is alive. I hadn't noticed anyone has died. I have been too preoccupied keeping the princess alive. Elanor thought as she checked the princess' fragile heartbeat. Oh how divine it sounded, so rhythmic and beautiful. The carriage jolted and she was snapped from her reverie. Were her fangs out? Oh dear. You had better get here soon or you will get left behind. She added to Silence as she tried not to focus on the princess' delicious blood. Hopefully she might wake soon.

 

[The Dread King]

Dieter glanced and Mikhail and give the mutant a grateful smirk, despite the wolf-man being held formerly as a prisoner the Blood Dragon was glad to have such a skilled warrior currently on their side.

He glanced up at the advancing Assassins, for some reason they had slowed down but they were stil coming and their numbers would simply overwhelm the council in mere moments.

“We can't wait anymore.” The vampire announced and waved to Mikhail and Kavok. “Into the carriages, quick!”

Turning Dieter took a step towards the Carriage to ask Morturion to ready them to move, he realised the living man called Roland was still out there somewhere but it was simply impossible and foolish to waste anymore time waiting.

Dieter had only just began to walk when he stumbled as he felt something lanced through his lower back and his stomach.

The Blood Dragon looked down in confusion to see the steel tip of a blade sticking out of him.

The blade was torn loose and Dieter stumbled around, dragging his blade with him in a deadly arc to see a tall, fox faced and silver-haired vampire in a long white robe, in his hand was a bloodied Nipponese short sword.

“Silibar!” he realised in horror.

With inhuman speed Dieter used the momentum of his turn to swing the greatsword in a blur towards Akarin's former Lieutenant but as fast as the Blood Dragon was the assassin was far faster.

Too quick for Dieter to even follow Silibar removed the Captain's arm at the elbow and then turned the blade and reversed the direction of the cut to decapitate the leader of the Regent's Guard.

The exchange happened in mere moments and most of the present Council members could barely register what had just occurred as Dieter's headless corpse hit the ground and began to disintegrate to dust.

The eternally grinning assassin was already turning back into the shadows and melting back into the ground as he shadow-stepped away before anyone could reach him.

A cold echoing hiss filled the entire ravine, clearly a magically projected sound.

“Target Eliminated.”

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Morturion had been apprehensive and keen to leave, but as events unfolded in front of him, his expression changed in a flash. As he registered the severing of Dieter's arm in his mind, the now ashen-faced necromancer realised that starting the journey if and when Dieter fell was folly. He commanded the carriages to leave with all due haste.

As the head of the Regent's champion fell to the ground, all potential internal and external turmoil that might have been caused by the mage's action action ceased. But his thoughts could not settle; as the vampire melted into the shadows, an unprecedented feeling of terror possessed the wizard. He could be using his shadow-step to catch up with us... The frames of the carriages trembled in shock and the axles of their wheels rattled like the bones of the newly slain. Morturion shouted out to the other carriages, "Prepare for combat! That man could arrive in here at any moment!" For all he knew, his voice could have been lost in the din and chaos, and there was no time to stop and consider things slowly and carefully. What Morturion knew to be the bastion of certainty in this storm of doubt was the crumbling of the council's victory into the ashes of defeat.

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Kylar sighed as Arno left to deal with the human.

“What a bother.” he muttered under his breath as he realised he was now in charge of the assault.

The assassins wear advancing at a pace that could barely be called a jog when the sound reached them.

“Target Eliminated.”

That perked his mood up, so the thorn in their side Dieter was finally dead.

Kylar held up a hand, stopping the advance of the assassin - vampires.

“What now sir?” asked one of his fellow brothers.

Kylar was about to tell his men to pull back when he saw the “New Blood Squad”, a few dozen extremely young vampire assassins. As part of Silibar's New Order's tactics in rebelling against the Triumvirate they had swiftly expanded their ranks with copious amounts of new bloods who lacked the skill level and experience of true assassins but who's sheer numbers made them quite useful.

After all even newly made vampires, with a year or two of intense training, were lethal killers.

They had one major weakness however and this was showing now. When their blood was up it was almost impossible to stop them from killing and Kylar could see them trembling as they willed themselves to resist the urge to kill.

Kylar sighed, the Order wouldn't miss a few dozen of such young soldiers.

The assassin raised a hand.

“Send in the new bloods.” he ordered and as he dropped his hand dozens of blood thirsty killers swept down the hill towards the Carriages.

OOC: the first and last sections of this post were written by @Get of W'soran. The middle one was made by me, @The Dread King.

 

[Harland]

Arno’s sudden lunge barely gave Roland any time to react. Rather than simply dodge, all he could do was throw himself backwards to avoid the attack. He landed heavily, but managed to roll into a defensive stance just as the onrushing Arno barrelled into him. Scimitar clashed with longknife, but Arno’s dagger drove into Roland’s shoulder.

Roland staggered backwards, and collapsed to his knees. I can’t win this fight, not in this state, he realised as he look up at the approaching Arno, his henchman standing vigilant to one side. He sheathed his knives.

“Very well,” he said, “I yield.”

 

[Harland]

Faust slammed his hand down on the release catch as the carriages rolled away. From within the rucksack rocketed a grappling hook, arcing high into the air and crashing down next to Roland. On the rope was a clockwork device, ready and waiting to haul Roland back in at rather stupid speeds.

"Grab on and let's go!" Faust yelled at Roland as he readied himself to retract the line.

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

Roland saw the grappling hook land in the dust behind Arno’s feet. He smirked – neither of the vampires had noticed, as their attention was fixed on him. With difficulty, Roland raised himself to one knee.

“Wise choice, mortal,” Arno growled, and stepped forwards-

As the leg was in midair, Roland reached out – one hand scooping the foot inwards, the other slamming into the inside of the knee – there was a crunch of cartilage, and Arno hissed and fell to the ground.

“So long, sucker!” Roland exclaimed has he dove forwards, hands clasping the hook. The line suddenly tautened and wrenched him forwards, just evading a lunge from the other vampire, who land face-flat in the dirt.

Roland crashed through a mass of vampires as the line whisked him away, but he hung on for dear life, despite the immense pain in his shoulder and chest. Then he burst through the crowd, the line went slack, and he tumbled through the air – over the owl-eyed Faust – and crashed onto the roof of the carriage. Barely managing to keep himself from falling off, he slumped onto his back, clutching his throbbing shoulder.

“Fuck vampires,” he said.