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Character of the Season
Frail in body but dangerously quick of mind, Nikandr is the sort of character who proves that curiosity can be just as perilous as any weapon. A necromancer, inventor, and problem-solver with more ambition than self-preservation, Niki approaches the world like a puzzle box begging to be opened, even when what’s inside has teeth. Blunt, dry-witted, fiercely independent, and carrying a history best left partially buried, he has a knack for making even failure feel fascinating. Whether he’s raising the dead, moving across Caido to King's End, or experiencing a hangover for the first time, Nikandr brings a wonderfully strange spark to Caido, and we can’t wait to see what trouble his brilliant mind wanders into next.
Congratulations, Niki!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
The elders’ shuffling retreat toward the doors landed like a weight off Damien’s shoulders. One less danger in the room. But as the hush closed back in, his eyes snagged on Theea. The way she peeled off too fast, the way heat still lingered on her ears — he’d noticed. Didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but he knew he’d touched something raw. He filed it away, the way he did with every small tell, and let the thought sit silent while the air shifted.
Because then the floor split.
Deimos’s power tore the stone wide, and the stench rolled up with the sound — rot, damp fur, old scraps. The scream of the first ROU scraped his bones, another shoving out behind it, blind and furious. Damien’s eyes flickered to find Thorn's position for a brief second.
Then Theea darted forward, sword flashing in a sharp line for the first beast’s throat. Damien stepped up beside her, falling into rhythm as if they’d practiced it. He wasn't crowding her space, but close enough their arcs overlapped like two halves of a shield wall. His axe came down in a brutal swing toward another ROU, aiming for its flank to stagger it back and split the pressure.
“With you,” he said, low and steady. Not a command, just a tether — for her, and for himself.
Damien attacks ROU 3 with his battle axe, fighting side-by-side with Theea
Watching with wide eyes and honestly awe as Deimos unfurls his magic to reveal the ROUs beneath their feet, the courtesan steps back right in time to avoid getting stepped on or bit by the initial burst of rodents as they rush from the opening. Deimos’ magic hits them and Thorn’s hands are already moving to try and collect a loose stone with his telekinesis magic.
Once he’s succeeded with that, the courtesan lobs it at the head of ROU Two, his freehand reaching down to snag the dagger just in case they turn around to try and take a shot at him now that he’s revealed himself to be a threat. He’s positioned a bit closer to Deimos than he is Theea and Damien, sure that the two of them have it covered on their own.
Thorn uses his telekinesis magic to snag a stone and yeets it at the head of ROU two!
Telekinesis (Abandoned/Hybrid): Can move small objects in a 5ft radius.
Type: Grey | Rank: Basic | Cost: Action
And so the hunters committed to exactly what they’d come for – unleashing a torrent of sieges and assaults. Theea stepped forward, stalwart and eager, slicing towards ROU 4. The beast, the largest and most overbearing of the group, hissed, used all of its other senses, to dodge the incoming blow.
With a veritable ease, it swung its head towards her, fully intending to commit to a bastion of damage upon the interlopers, but Deimos and his Mastered Life Drain impeded its path entirely, stopping it wholly dead in its tracks.
Damien launched at the third ROU with his ax, hitting the miscreant, but the cretin wasn’t to be outdone either. Turning back, vicious and unrelenting, it launched, biting down on the Accepted’s leg.
Hawthorn too would find himself quite successful, the telekinesis snagging at the stone and sending it hurtling towards the second monster. It hit the beast square in the head, and it wouldn’t have any moment or time to recover; an inevitable demise in a single swing.
But the first ROU, having been left untouched and unbothered in this interim, seized upon the confusion and chaos, jumping towards Theea, and despite Damien’s promise of protection and closeness, there’d be no way to block this assault, as the ROU clamped down upon her arm.
--
Damien, Hawthorn, and Deimos have all hit – the latter two taking out their chosen opponents. Theea and Damien have been bitten by the remaining ROUs! No post order!
ROU One: 30/50
ROU Two: 0/50 - dead
ROU Three: 41/75
ROU Four: 0/100 - dead
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
The axe landed heavy, biting deep into the ROU’s flank, but it wasn’t enough. The thing squealed, blind fury snapping it back around, and before Damien could reset his stance its teeth sank into his leg. Fire tore up his calf, hot and fast, the crunch of pressure narrowing the walls of the temple. He grunted, breath sharp between his teeth, shoving against it—but then there was a black blur through the air.
Damien’s head snapped up just in time to see the other beast's launch, leaping like a goddamn hunting hound, jaws wide. Straight at Theea.
Instinct cut through the pain. His leg burned, his balance staggered, but he wrenched free enough slack to swing again, driving the blade not at the rat chewing him but at the one tangled on her arm.
His teeth bared as he heaved the axe sideways, biting through the pain flaring up his leg, trying to carve the leaping brute off her before it could drag her down.
Damien ignores the ROU biting his leg and swings his axe at the ROU latched onto Theea’s arm, trying to free her.
Biting his tongue against the excitement that lurches through him to see that the stone has hit the ROU. He watches in the heat of the flurry of tails and snapping teeth as it drops, convinced that it won’t get back up. It leaves him a few more moments to figure out where to strike next, he notes ROU 3 as it latches onto Damien’s leg while he focuses on the one aiming for Theea’s arm.
Cursing a little under his breath, he utilizes his magic again. This time picking up the effects of his air magic, trying to push a brief gust from the brief wind stirred up here against the ROU to loosen its hold on Damien’s leg, concentrating on it with all of his might.
Thorn focuses on ROU 3! He uses his wind magic to try and dislodge it from Damien’s leg.
Air manipulation (Abandoned/Hybrid): Can manipulate the air. Must be within a 5ft radius, control is weak and unstable and requires concentration.
Type: Grey | Rank: Basic | Cost: Action
know this ain't for the weak
or for hate, it's for soul
Damien is pressed in beside me, and I give him a sharp nod, a flit of a smile. His presence is steadying and yet...
I miss.
The blade whistles through stink and shadow and hits nothing but cold air. Shame flares hot—bright, useless—and anger snaps right after it. I brace to take the hit and slash back—
—but Deimos’s power rips the air and the big one buckles mid-lunge, dead before I can react. There's no time to decide if I'm grateful or frustrated. The other one is already moving.
It launches like a hurled boulder, all rancid fur and teeth in the same breath that one clamps down on Damien. I throw my sword arm up to cover my face and try to cut across its line, but it slams into me, jaws locking on my forearm. Cloth tears; flesh parts. White fire streaks up the limb as chisel-teeth grind down, hunting bone.
“Shit—!”
I reel back into the pillar, the creature’s screech tearing in my ear like ripping canvas. I wrench my arm, trying to keep its teeth from setting deeper, and my free hand drops to the weight at my hip. I rip the dagger free and drive it up hard, aiming for the soft seam under its jaw—the hot, wet place where a throat gives—trying to jam the point deep enough to make it let go.
Theea uses her dagger to try to stab ROU 1 in the throat!
The maelstrom persisted, though with two less ROUs occupying their space, one might’ve thought it would’ve been an easier task. But as the new hunters would come to learn and discover, simply because something seemed simple, clean, and rudimentary could be anything but.
An outpouring of action resumed - Damien lunged towards the incoming ROU with vehement ease, but the large beast, despite losing one of its senses entirely, didn’t seem to be bothered in the least. Maybe it was Hawthorn’s magic wiling in towards Damien, or the other ROU not yet dislodged from biting with all its feral force, but the distraction meant no ax plunged into its nasty exterior.
Instead, though, given Hawthorn ‘s incantations pulsing through, the air volleyed and deterred not the third one, but the cretin leaping its way towards Theea. In turn, this gave her opportunity to thrust her blade into its neck as it screeched and screamed, calling for any of its fellow brethren for help.
The beast still snagging its teeth into the Accepted’s leg wouldn’t be able to come to any aid – the Sword made certain of it, unleashing another pulse of his vicious Life Drain. It succumbed quickly, dropping off the other man’s limb and leaving wounds behind. “There might be others coming,” he warned, eyes flickering briefly to the nest – preparing for something inevitable.
--
Damien has missed ROU 1, Hawthorn has distracted ROU 1 in all the crossfire, and Theea has successfully stabbed ROU 1. ROU 1 has called for aid – which might mean trouble for the next round. Deimos has killed off ROU 3. No post order!
ROU One: 16/30
ROU Two: 0/50 – dead
ROU Three: 0/75 – dead
ROU Four: 0/100 - dead
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
know this ain't for the weak
or for hate, it's for soul
The gust snaps past my cheek—sharp, deliberate—and that’s when it clicks: Damien’s on me, trying to help. He’s hurt too, same as me, just lower; a rat on him, gusted by magic. Hawthorn.
I grit my teeth as I jam the dagger up. It finds the seam beneath the rat’s jaw and sinks; hot blood spatters my sleeve. The jaws slacken and I rip my arm free—pain flaring bright, then settling into a hard, workable throb as blood runs in rivulets down my wrist, dripping from my fingers. I’m getting better at carrying this kind of hurt, which probably says something questionable about my life choices.
I shift my footing, bring the shortsword up and drive it down in the same breath Deimos tears the other rat off Damien and warns that more would be coming. The beast in front of me is still screeching—calling—and I angle for the notch behind its skull, trying to cut the sound out of the room before more come boiling up from the nest.
“With me,” I toss back to Damien—not a plea, just a line between us—and brace for however many more there are.
The axe swung wide. Nothing but air and stink. Damien bit off a curse as the rat’s blur slipped past his blade, his leg still burning where the other tore into him. Foolish, he thought, teeth clenched. Should’ve finished the one on me first. But watching Theea slam back into the pillar, arm caught in those jaws, there hadn’t been a choice that felt right.
Then the tide shifted — Thorn’s gust, Theea’s dagger — and the brute slackened its hold on her. Deimos’s magic ripped the other off Damien’s leg altogether, the carcass dropping heavy to the stone. He staggered once, planting the axe haft against the floor to steady himself. His pant leg was already soaked through, crimson dark against the fabric where teeth had chewed in, but he looked down at it with the dry detachment of a man taking stock. Flesh mangled, sure. But he’d seen worse.
'Tis but a scratch!
Theea stepped back in with her blade, aiming to finish the last one. Damien didn’t move to crowd her or steal the strike. That kill was hers. Instead, he shifted to stand aside at her flank, axe angled low as he turned his head toward the yawning nest Deimos had opened.
The Sword’s warning still hung in the air: There might be others coming.
Damien’s eyes flicked to Thorn, then to Deimos, brows curving with thought. “Could set a trap,” he suggested, voice low but firm. “Or funnel them somehow.” Though, of course, he didn't know whether they'd come streaming from the opening or at random out of other crevices.
So even as he said it, he set his stance behind Theea, blood dripping into his boot, axe ready. If anything else came clawing up from the dark, it’d find him standing there first.
Damien covers Theea’s back, and suggests to Deimos and Thorn that they set a trap or funnel the next wave.
The magic doesn’t work on the third one – but that’s alright. He does succeed in distracting the first ROU which is at least something by comparison. Such that Thorn drags his attention away as Theea’s blade sinks into its neck. It screeches an unholy kind of sound that has Thorn gritting his teeth, jaw working as he moves his hands again.
Damien’s suggestion of a trap or funneling them in is met with a decisive hum, trying to listen for where the rest might be coming from to be prepared to act if they do show up. But for the moment, he takes the distraction that Theea has and uses his telekinesis magic once more, aiming to try and keep the space blocked he thinks they might come from.
Thorn tries to pinpoint where any other ROUs might come from and uses his telekinesis to try and push a rock over against it so it might deter them!
In hindsight, perhaps there should’ve been more of a team element rather than simply two hovering around one another – it wasn’t doing any good to splinter and split themselves apart. He'd seen, in many circumstances, how those semblances often turned out. Deimos furrowed his brow at the actions, but waited it out, figuring Damien and Theea could kill off one last flailing ROU on their own.
Of which Theea finally did, sticking her blade through the little cretin’s throat. It faded into oblivion with all its usual flare and amidst the demise, giving her enough time to either settle herself or take a moment to breathe. The Sword tilted his head, already beginning to alter his incantations across the open portions of the nest, listening to the suggestions but knowing only some notions would work, just the same. “If any of you need healing, see Hawthorn or Zuriel,” at which he nodded towards the unicorn along the sidelines, ignoring her residual eye roll.
But his motions were already settled into more conviction and nuances. There’d be no need to set a trap – the ROUs were fully aware of their existence by now, given the amount of noise erupting from the center of the room – and Deimos had other ideas. “Good,” he nodded towards Hawthorn as the man was already maneuvering pieces. “We can block some of these routes off.” Then the rats, speculatively, would have no choice but to come through the open portions, where the hunters would be ready. It’d take far too much time for them to chew through any other soft stone. He snagged at more rock and rubble, placing it in front of two of the openings, leaving only two more available.
--
The initial onslaught of ROUS has been slain!
You have some options for this round:
- Heal up via either Zuriel/Hawthorn
- Help block some of the routes off (Tunnel Three and Tunnel Four)
- Or prepare in front of Tunnel One or Tunnel Two
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
Theea’s blade punched through, silencing the last rat with a wet, ugly screech. Damien stood beside her, axe low, breath hard but steady. Blood still dripped into his boot, the leg throbbing hot with every pulse. He shifted his weight and it burned sharp, but he kept his jaw locked, eyes on the nest. Deimos’s warning had been clear: more would come.
Rock shifted across the tunnels under the Sword’s will, stone filling gaps like the walls themselves were closing in. Thorn was already working with the pieces, his magic nudging rubble into place. Damien’s mouth tugged in a grim half-smile, approving the thought. Contain the bastards.
He planted the axe head against the floor, bracing both hands over the haft. “I'll cover one of the openings,” he said, voice clipped, already stepping into position. His stance was steady, but the crimson soaking his trouser leg left no room for doubt. He cast Hawthorn a glance, brow tilting. “If you’ve got a moment—mind patching me up?”
The words weren’t a plea. They were practical, as if asking for a whetstone to edge his blade. Damien set his shoulders, eyes hard on the dark mouth of the tunnel, and waited for the next surge.
Damien takes position in front of Tunnel Two, keeping his weapon ready (basically holding his action to swing first if a rat shows up). He asks Thorn for healing on his leg so he can hold steady when the next wave of ROUS comes.
While Theea and Damien take out the last ROU, Thorn busies himself with blocking one of the openings from the rest of the ROU pack, perking up when Deimos speaks next and they have a moment to themselves before the peace would inevitably crash down again. Panting slightly, Thorn straightens up as he watches Deimos block off more portions with earth magic, hoping that one day he might have the option of that at his disposal.
Catching Damien’s glance a second later, though, he hears the question in a no-nonsense way which to Thorn only tells him that he’s definitely hurting. “Yeah, no problem.” He hums to the woodcutter, closing the distance to Damien’s side, dropping into a swift crouch as he places his hands at his knee to inject with some healing to hopefully help heal him up enough that it would stop hurting.
Thorn heals Damien!
Healing (Abandoned/Hybrid): Heals minor wounds at basic level.
Type: Light | Rank: Basic | Cost: Action
know this ain't for the weak
or for hate, it's for soul
I cut the screech short and the body drops, twitching. Petty, maybe, but I give it a little kick and stick my tongue out before the ache in my forearm sharpens my focus. Blood snakes down my wrist, tacky and warm. I flex my fingers—sting, throb, sting—and grimace. I want to keep moving, to help block tunnels, to be useful, but it’s my sword arm. If I don’t fix it, I’m just making myself slower.
I look over at Zuriel, catching the sassiness in her response to her bonded. I approach a little sheepish, chin ducking. “Long time no see? Sorry—arm again.” I hold it out. I wait until there's an ease to the pain, heat easing, edges knitting just enough that my fingers stop buzzing. Relief loosens something in my shoulders I didn’t realize I was clenching.
Over my shoulder I catch Damien settling into his stance at Tunnel Two, axe low, Thorn crouched at his leg. The sight unknots another worry. I turn back, roll my wrist; much better.
I keep the dagger in my left, adjust the shortsword in my right, and decide not to choose between them. Two blades feel like insurance—one to catch, one to cut. I jog to the open mouth of tunnels, boots quiet on stone, and plant myself a pace off-center to spoil a straight rush. Pillar to my back, nest in my periphery, Damien a steady line across the nave.
“Covering this one,” I call, low. I square my hips, raise both blades, and breathe into the ready—eyes on the dark, listening for whiskers and claws, prepared to meet the next wave on my terms.
Theea asks Zuriel for healing before approaching tunnel one, holding weapons at the ready
