A big man with long red hair opened his eyes. Margrave Reinhardt stared at the stone ceiling above before suddenly leaning up. He grabbed his neck and grunted in pain from the sudden movement. A serving woman in the room froze in her tracks. The margrave opened his mouth to call out to her, but s...
2023-03-15 06:57:10 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave walked down cold stone stairs slowly, his big feet forcing him to take the steps slowly lest he fall. He very nearly bumped into Melanie at the bottom. She stood holding an iron gate. Argrave entered, ducking beneath the low-hanging iron bars and entering into the dungeons of Castle Cookp...
2023-03-14 06:56:12 +0000 UTC View PostIn response to the news that Duke Sumner, not Margrave Reinhardt, led the triumphant army of the south to seize Dirracha, Argrave gathered everyone important for the decision-making despite the late hour. All talked idly around the table waiting for the last arrival: Elenore. Beyond Argrave’s i...
2023-03-13 06:55:16 +0000 UTC View Post“You didn’t have the foresight to bring boots?” Elenore asked Argrave as she leaned on his arm.
Argrave looked down at Elenore, smiling with a bitter patience. She wore cloth pants for travel, and he could barely see her pink feet. Indeed, pink—the new flesh was like a newborn’s, ...
2023-03-10 06:55:23 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave and Anneliese sat atop some temporary bedding—specifically, a large tarp splayed out across the flat grass with some fur blankets atop it. Anneliese was already delving into A-rank magic. She had two books on her knee—one projected the strange, incomprehensible full-body matrix exclus...
2023-03-09 06:55:43 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave eyed a wriggling bag made of poor cloth handled by one of the men of the tribes of Vysenn. Some animal lovers would undoubtedly take umbrage with the treatment of the amphibians, suggesting that they would be traumatized being transported in such a manner.
“Your Majesty… what ar...
2023-03-08 06:56:00 +0000 UTC View PostA small party of four navigated across a treacherous and narrow valley road where rockslides seemed liable to happen at any point. Their feet crunched when they fell upon with the loose basalt fragments beneath. They had the inhuman, alabaster-like skin of the people native to Vysenn. Their wizen...
2023-03-07 06:56:43 +0000 UTC View Post“We cannot afford to make this a long journey,” Elenore informed Argrave as she slipped on some heavy gloves suited for travel. “Given the recent influx of spellcasters you brought, we have no excuses to languish within this fortress. Any wounds have been healed by magic, any supplies lost ...
2023-03-06 06:56:01 +0000 UTC View PostOn the front opposite the barbarians, the battle was pitched to the point of hopelessness. The army of Relizeans outnumbered their foes, true enough… but the garrison in Castle Cookpot had one advantage over them: spellcasters. They were not of grandiose rank or stature, but they had many. That...
2023-03-03 06:56:15 +0000 UTC View PostIf Anneliese were to analogize being in the tephramancer’s storm of basalt with Llewellen’s [Life Cycle] empowering her, a perfect example came to mind at once. If she had been walking on the land as a B-rank mage, now she was swimming through a still ocean as a fish might. Up, down, or any d...
2023-03-02 06:56:43 +0000 UTC View PostThe staves of the tephramancers beat down upon the soil of the earth, sending an echoing boom out into the world. It was a marching drum of war that stirred the spirit and could be felt for miles. Every time their rods met the ground, the basalt storm about them whirled faster, then died down unt...
2023-03-01 06:56:25 +0000 UTC View PostOnce everyone had set up camp, Argrave stole away from the encampment just before dusk and headed for the ring of verdancy beyond Vysenn. It was difficult for them to do so, as the people set as night watches were quite vigilant. Argrave took comfort in that fact, as it signified the fighting for...
2023-02-28 06:56:16 +0000 UTC View PostTheir party departed on foot to First Hope from Quadreign. When Argrave had gone there originally, he’d come with only Vasilisa and her personal companions. Now, he returned with a relatively vast force of spellcasters—well over four hundred, all expertly trained and with vast reservoirs of m...
2023-02-27 06:58:04 +0000 UTC View PostRuleo stepped through the stone confines of the Order of the Rose fortress he inhabited with one other beside him. This place was far more elaborate and long than most fortresses of theirs he’d visited—from all he’d gathered in old books, this place had been the site of a prolonged war. The...
2023-02-24 06:58:58 +0000 UTC View PostAnneliese awoke with a sharp intake of breath. She sat up with surprising energy, then looked around the room. Most notable was Argrave, sitting by her bed in a chair. He looked tired, yet locked eyes with her all the same.
“You alright?” Argrave questioned.
“I…” Anneliese g...
2023-02-23 06:58:09 +0000 UTC View PostThough Anneliese put up a strong front before Argrave, the truth was she was greatly nervous about this. Hiding as much was a habit she had picked up from Argrave. She had not lied about being confident in understanding Llewellen’s lectures, yet even still, the hound of trepidation followed her...
2023-02-22 06:56:33 +0000 UTC View Post“If the only thing you’ll offer to our lord Erlebnis is bits of knowledge that may interest him, then this meeting is over,” the gargantuan head continued after Argrave’s refusal to accept its offer.
Argrave stared at it resolutely and confirmed, “It’s over, then.”
The e...
2023-02-21 06:57:35 +0000 UTC View PostIn coming into this cave, Hegazar had commented about the thickness of the magic in the area. Argrave had thought nothing of it at the time, but thinking back, that had been a mistaken assumption. Onychinusa, pure-blooded ancient elf and mortal champion of Erlebnis, must have been in this area, w...
2023-02-20 06:56:38 +0000 UTC View PostA bird of wind tore through the skies, keeping its mystic wings steady in its glide. A party of many sat atop it—Argrave’s coterie and the Magister couple of Hegazar and Vera. It brought back some memories. Argrave watched the terrain disaffectedly, focused more on the duty coming ahead than ...
2023-02-17 06:59:30 +0000 UTC View Post“Your Majesty won’t be attending as… well, as yourself?” Diana questioned Argrave.
Diana had donned different dress than the casual things she had been wearing the days before—now, she wore an elaborate dress of white fur. She had a large silver circlet embedded with sapphires and...
2023-02-16 06:55:18 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave stared up at a gargantuan moving gear that clicked every second. One might think the clocktower of Quadreign would be rather elaborate on the interior, but no—it was one large gear with a much smaller one at its center. The smaller received the directed power of the Flame of the Tenebro...
2023-02-15 06:51:54 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave planted his foot down and crested over the top of a hill he’d travelled once before. The snow had melted a little more on their return, and the pine trees seemed a little more robust. Another detail was far more striking—namely, the moving hands of the clock tower overlooking the pala...
2023-02-14 06:56:13 +0000 UTC View PostGalamon blinked open his eyes and turned his head. Sunlight fell upon him, and instinct spurred him to move quickly. His hands reached for where he kept his flasks of blood, but then as cognition returned to him as unconsciousness released its hold, he remembered what he had done that put him on ...
2023-02-13 06:58:05 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave stared at Galamon as red mist poured out of his body. He was running things through his head in a panic, yet held out his hands to follow his course of action.
“Remember what we talked about, Galamon,” Argrave called out. “Stay conscious. All your years of experience in fighti...
2023-02-10 06:56:35 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Svetlana of Quadreign opened the door and Argrave’s gaze fell upon Ganbaatar, memories came rushing back just alongside his plan for how to deal with this situation.
Ganbaatar—a fairly tall individual with golden hair, pure red eyes, and sharp ears—was the only elven playable cha...
2023-02-09 06:58:11 +0000 UTC View PostElenore, Durran, Melanie, and some assortment of Argrave’s royal guards surrounded a table in a tent. Durran and Melanie were both fully armored, just as the royal knights. Elenore pointed to a crude map of the region—it depicted no terrain, but did roughly sketch what looked to be a choke po...
2023-02-08 06:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you… sure this won’t do anything unwanted?” Vasilisa asked. She knelt just before one of the runes on the walls of the pit containing the Flame of the Tenebrous Reaper.
Argrave crossed his arms as he looked over her. His mind was still on the unexpected and unwanted disturbance...
2023-02-07 06:57:37 +0000 UTC View PostTheir party of six stood at the bottom of the now-useless tower amidst the rubble spawned by destroying all its floors. Vasilisa kneeled over a body—Margrave Ivan’s. Or… just Ivan, now. In death he lost all, even his title. He was covered and dust and debris and mutilated half a dozen times...
2023-02-06 06:55:27 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave seemed to have a penchant for fighting powerful people in high towers with the intent of subverting their governance. This was the second time—not a lot by any measure, but even still, it was strange that it had happened twice. This time, Argrave had a lot more at his disposal than a ba...
2023-02-03 06:56:38 +0000 UTC View PostArgrave had déjà vu to something that had occurred not months ago—namely, Margravine Sophia’s campaign to sway the northern nobles rather strongly reminded him of Leopold’s. Things were markedly different in the aristocratic circles of the north, yet they remained the same to the patricia...
2023-02-02 06:59:09 +0000 UTC View Post