From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Daily rituals absorbed and consumed for the time being, kept him from becoming restless, from immersing his soul into further contemplations, damnation, or anything of such ilk. Instead, he remained preoccupied with either Artisan or General duties, hastening back and forth after the wedding and reception, digging into the earth and conspiring for further strength, further dominion (to be enough; as if the anthem would ever have repose or sanctum, as if it’d ever cease pressing its numbing ache into his ether).
So for the moment, it was the barracks, with its familiar edges and lacerating boundaries, a comfortable expression of his vigilance, strength, and accord. After shoveling out the freshly fallen snow, he’d taken to rolling up his sleeves, even in the chill (the mountains had been too embedded in his blood, a favored season skimming over flesh and blood), open to ruminations and concoctions. While he and many others seemed to enjoy the statuesque, immobile dummies and targets, he wanted to add some additional challenges, and with his creation magic back into its full power, there was no ceasing or desisting in the actions.
First, he contorted and concocted the frame, wooden beams, strong and sturdy, hastened under his beckoning, summoning, demanding enchantments. The invocations sprung, ignited, incensed, enticed, until they towered along his height and slightly beyond. The dummy was taken from another, and hung from the top, so it dangled, lifeless, but ready to be reeled, pulverized, and consumed. Perhaps that would better lend itself to others who wanted maneuvering fortitudes, assailants and adversaries coming to strike back. So the Sword eyed it, backing up a few steps to admire the fortifications.
{Open training thread!}
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
It was a crisp day to be out and about, but it wasn't too windy and no active blizzard battered them, and Jigano let his feet wander towards the Settlement to check in with friends and allies and collect supplies for the farm. Machinations of his own had begun to turn in his facile brain, as well, and he had some loose notions of improving his strength and speed and skill to make them come to fruition. So it was that his first stop was at the barracks, not expecting to have much luck today but hoping to ask a ready militia member when their General would return.
Instead he was directed out back, to where a familiar dark head was constructing more targets for the weapons and ire of those who wished to learn offensive patterns of engagement. His mouth quirked into a smile that had been rare of late, soft foot steps whispering over the snow as he glided to a halt, wrapping his cloak a little more warmly around himself.
"What training regimen are you designing today?" He called, ambling over to the newly-married man, settling beside him to admire the swinging practice dummy upon its inverted perch.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
The soft footsteps betrayed another’s movement; an expectation in the barracks, corresponding to all of those who utilized it for its designated, designed purpose. His eyes turned away from the newly-established effigy, no longer pondering where to put it at the moment, distracted from the other’s approach. The General didn’t expect anyone in particular, and only arched a brow, inclined half a smirk, when he saw Jigano in the midst of the training grounds.
The gaze returned, sweeping back on the dummy, worthy of explanation. “I thought some would rather have a mobile target.” Another way to bite back, to fight an adversary’s movements, to chisel and hone motion into their schemes, tactics, and techniques. One could only fight and pierce something unmoving for so long – and that wouldn’t hold true for reality. Enemies didn’t linger. Enemies didn’t cease and desist. Enemies didn’t wait.
So he wouldn’t either.
A shrug to his shoulders thereafter, easing the weight off of them, the tension of other schemes on the horizon, attention returning back to the Sage. “What brings you here?”
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
A target that could swing and retaliate - well, sort of - seemed an excellent notion, especially for the beginners among them. Oliver, he thought, and Quanil too for that matter might have a good opponent in the swinging straw man that twisted idly in the breeze.
If he was picking up a new weapon, it would suit the bard as well.
But today he was looking to hone skills of a different sort, on a scale that the dummy likely wouldn't appreciate. He smiled as Deimos turned the question to him, arching a silver brow. "Looking for a mobile target," he admitted, a flicker of humor in blue eyes. "I had some notions of practicing combat magic, and came looking for an instructor in the art. Are you free for a bit today?" Because while many were proficient, none were quite so famous as the Sword in that regard.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
The answer wasn’t an unexpected one; he’d been amongst those ready, immersed, into enchantments, invocations, and contortions from the very beginning. It was a rampant source in his blood, a beating, bleeding tempo and undulation of persistence, fortitude, strength, might, and fervor in its own regard; as much as the wielder, the desired outcomes eternally the same. “I have time,” came on the slightest etchings of a smile, a pulse of destruction and desecration. The familiar spread of the insurrections flared to life in his soul, and he could’ve plucked any of the strings, any of the strands, any of the threads, bid them to sweep along the grounds, to engage and eradicate, to destroy and demolish.
But this was training, practice, means to an end, to see how far they could push and pull, to understand weaknesses, flaws, defects, and inadequacies, to draw the line in ability.
The Sword drifted away, feet not bothering to whisk away the newly fallen snow. Their conjuring capabilities would likely find the powder, rime, and ice a suitable victim. He placed himself some distance and yards away from the Sage, not bothering to spread out his palms in front of him – contorting and controlling via mind, via concentration. “I meant to tell you,” an afterthought, while Jigano was sorting himself out, preparing for the incoming siege. “My creation magic seems to have returned.” To full strength, and he wasn’t certain what to make of it (the hows and whys muffled beforehand, and much the same now). He signified his uncertainty with a shrug of his shoulders, and then returned to the impending onslaught. “Your move.”
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
The General always had time for his militia and students, Jigano had found, and he inclined his head in gratitude at the acceptance of his request. He caught sight of that hint of a smile, too, that hint of eagerness for the striving and challenge to come, and he rolled his shoulders in anticipation.
Given their abilities, he took a moment to divest himself of his favored fur cloak, setting it safely aside near the barracks door before he returned to face the General. A whisper of fire magic kept him warm and gave him a basis to start from; Deimos had far more experience with the element, while Jigano mostly used it for combining with earth and creation, and only rarely on its own. He flexed his fingers as a focus to swirl more of it around them, but the revelation brought his head up eagerly, chasing the new information.
"It has? That's wonderful news! Have you noticed anything different about it? Or any new magic alongside it?" He'd been exploring the limits of his own creation magic, the strings of earth and fire that had to be struck along with it in his soul for it to waken, and he was curious as to what other possibilities existed.
His move, though, and he focused the fire in his hands, hotter and hotter, until he had a ball of white-hot flame that he split in two, flinging one sphere at the General's leg (where a miss would hopefully fizzle harmlessly into snow) and holding the other ready as a shield.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Deimos had long since shrugged out of his own furs, casting them aside while he worked on the mobile target, stages of warm-up already coiled through his veins. His eyes went automatically to the bits and pieces of flame the Sage sought to conjure, the rumble of his own onslaught taking shape in the back of his mind; the rush of an ocean, the beating drums of tides, rapaciously curling over sands and earth. “Not yet,” in reply to Jigano’s inquiry, figuring the Loreseeker would have some realm of sagacity, knowledge, or at least deeper insinuations. Perhaps it was another grand mystery, yet to be overturned or solved. Maybe they’d merely learn it along the way, as they had done with nearly everything else Caido had slung towards them.
His attention riveted back to magic and manifestations, face void of anything but the nature of the moment – reticent and concentrated, brows furrowed, waiting, anticipating. The two part torrent of flames was clever, and he was forced to sidestep out of the range of the embers coiling towards him, though it still managed to singe at his boots, a snort volleying in between as he shook his left foot, then stomped it into nearby snow, waiting for the burning sensation to cease.
In retaliation, the beast launched a massive wave of water, meant to soak, defuse, and bombard any notion of Jigano’s flaming shield.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
Nothing new to add to the knowledge stew as they tried to reconstruct the laws of magic they'd thought they'd known, alas. Still, they had much to undertake and understand about Caido's ever-changing rules, and sometimes the only way to do that was to push each other to their limits. Fire was Jigano's least-practiced element, a power he still worked to master on its own, and so he chose that for his first assault.
And he grinned as that assault connected, a flash of pride at being able to singe the stalwart General, but Deimos was never inclined to simply let such trespass slide. Jigano had known the other man had a predilection for water magic after their dip in the sea, but he had clearly gained mastery over the element since then as water cascaded towards the bard, far more wicked than Saiden's waves had been. His little fire shield expanded as he sought to minimize the damage, but the sphere he wrapped around himself couldn't turn so much water to steam instantly, even though he used magic to keep the fire burning throughout an assault that would have quenched any normal blaze. At its end, though, the bard was wet and already starting to shiver as his clothing steamed. He kept the fire in place around him - as much to ward off the cold as to shield himself from further indignities - and reached out to wrap his power around the earth at Deimos's feet, attempting to open a local chasm to steal the General's balance and send him tumbling down with the snow into the new pit that was appearing, several feet deep below him.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Deimos watched – eternally the observer, bearing witness to the way the water formed and conjured against the Sage’s fire. He didn’t smirk, snicker, or laugh as Jigano was suitably soaked, never a being to satiate and sow contentment where there was so much more of the battle to come.
He didn’t feel or notice anything at first, no alterations, no blinding glimpses of obvious elements cast his way, until the earth began to shift beneath his feet. A quick glance below confirmed its movement and motion, and he could feel his balance alter; tipping him towards the left.
Instinctual, inherent strands, threads, and damnation alone drove at him – mind calculating, seething, and sensing something else entirely contained within now – and though he was puzzled, perplexed, and bewildered by it, he went to utilize the incantations just the same. A volley, a barrage, of his own stone, loam, and soil enchantments brooded beneath, attempting to right the pit forming below, to fill it once more.
Before, hadn’t he only been able to barely move rocks?
A machination formed again, ever apparent, ever ready in the stokings of his infernal mind, and he sought to lift stones out of the ground, out of the snow, out of the rubble and ruin, sending them towards Jigano.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
He was going to need to cut the training shorter than he'd wanted with how the cold seeped through his wet clothing and into his bones, even with the fire to keep the worst of the freezing air of Deepfrost at bay. Jigano focused on taking away Deimos's stability, using his earth magic the way he did the first time in the Spire, but the other man was no longer the novice he had been last season, when they had built memorials to Adam and Peter. Even as the earth split beneath him more formed, though Jigano couldn't see it happening. All he saw was that the General remained upright, steadying himself somehow - earth or telekinesis or some other spell - and then the bard had problems of his own.
The barrage of stones could have been met with a battle of wills, but Jigano didn't want to risk the potential that the mage who created the element could control it more fully than one who hadn't (an experiment to come back to later, though, when he had time to ponder it in depth). Instead he raised his own stones to collide with the General's, smashing earth and rock against each other in brute force unlike his usual preference for subtlety.
Subtlety that came in the form of a snowball scooped up and launched at the opposing mage amidst the crash of stone and showers of frozen dirt as the Provost abandoned his fire shield and began to retreat backwards across the snowy training field to open more distance between them, seeking that 30 foot boundary beyond which he could wrest control of earth and fire from Deimos's command.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Stones and earth smashed into one another, and his eyes riveted to the elemental display, powers colliding, fracturing, vastly similar in their ilk, neither superior to the other. He might have surveyed them more, had the distraction of the snowball flying through the air not conformed into bounding shadows. The beast reacted out of predisposition to action, a flare of something ghosting out of his mind, a push, a pull, of air. However, either through inexperience, the hollowed unknown, or lack of concentration, the wisps of the gust hardy mattered. The snowball smacked him cleanly in the shoulder, colder particles ricocheting over his face, causing him to shake his head, an undulation of skin and flesh to ripple beneath layers.
Which, apparently, Jigano had used to plot an escape.
The Sword's eyes narrowed, and the years of battlefield prowess stalked, presided, with him. He’d spent too many hours, days, weeks, and seasons honing the rapacity, the edges of instinctual design, to regard enemies and adversaries in their retreating forms. To hone and snag at victory, to diminish them until their utter defeat, to watch and bear witness as they either surrendered or succumbed. Perhaps it was much the same for all the predators pervading through his blood now: the eagle, the tiger, the bear, the hound, eclipsed and maneuvering for the end, the intentions always clear, always precise.
Except this wasn’t a dais of war, and this was no opponent of kingdoms and countries, of broken treaties and botched abductions. It was Jigano, and they were practicing.
A breath, an inhale, an exhale, a rivulet of memories washed back over and away. Still, he advanced, he stalked, following the bard’s motions, very much once a king, a Reaper, of a land meant to sever and disrupt, brutalize and condemn. The only feature that might have set the Sage at ease, that Deimos didn’t intend to pulverize and diminish, was the arch of his brow, the challenge, the goading, prolonged in the vestiges.
The General honed in on the magic from before, the one he knew less and less about, diving into its enchantments, its incantations, its breadth. It swirled and churned before him, a miniature tornado, and when he asked, brows furrowed, fixation finally immersed, it grew, picking up the notched stones from before, a swirling mass of earth and devastation. Then he sent it towards the Loreseeker, watching as it spun and gained velocity in its haphazard motions.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
A second strike on the General? Today was assuredly his lucky day, but Jigano knew better than to grin or rest on his laurels against this opponent. His attempt to retreat to a safer distance fell flat as Deimos advanced and the bard didn't hesitate to begin--
Struggling out of his wet tunics?
Madness with a purpose as he freed his shoulders and let the wrapped garments fall to his waist, silvery dragon's wings erupting from his back. No sooner had he spread the broad pinions, however, than he looked up to see the twisting air headed for him - nearly upon him, as several of the smaller stones flung free of the spiral to cut and bruise across golden skin. He hissed and leapt up, wings beating past the edge of the tornado and nearly faltering as he just barely managed to rise above it, the air frigid against his damp skin but up the only avenue of any distance he could retreat to, to gain that thirty feet of buffer beyond which a mage's control would fail.
But gravity still worked just fine, and Jigano twisted the magic of creation and earth to summon a blunted spear in each hand to throw down at the General as he circled the training field overhead.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
There was the slightest arch to his brow as Jigano apparently felt the need to divest himself of clothing (in the winter, already chilled once from earlier ministrations), and then it reverted back to its prior, nonchalant status as the notions became more apparent. Dragon wings rippling along spines, partial shifting to accommodate and allow for some evasion, and he snorted, shaking his head, conjuring more and more manifestations as the bard took flight.
Concentrating, he failed to notice the, thankfully, blunted spear until it was too late, rendering down upon him with a blasting vitriol and force, straight into his right shoulder. It knocked him back briefly, searing surprise in the midst of the ravenous. The pain was a splintering, binding, and then numbing experience, one he’d felt many, many times, attempting to shake off the nuances with flickers of motions through a roll of the muscles, but they complained vividly.
Irritating and vexing, to allow himself to be so distracted.
Clenching his jaw, growling inwardly, the Sword harpooned back to the machinations meant to be at hand earlier. Jigano was a suitable range away, clearly intending to remain out of controls and contortions wake, but it didn’t leave him completely free or liberated. The General would simply have to adjust his tactics.
A bow appeared in his hand, courtesy of creation magic, not bothering with artisanal patterns or displays. Arrows dipped with fire, with blunted tips, he brought the bow upwards, ignoring the protest of his shoulder, drawing back the string, to permit the rush of strength, ability, and control to go blazing forth on the release – aiming for wings.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
A third strike, and Jigano bit back the triumphant grin, unused to this level of success against the General, but pleased and proud nonetheless that he had managed to improve since their training sessions had begun in seasons past. His bruises from the whirlwind still smarted and his skin was rippling hard with goosebumps as the Deepfrost cold cut through even the false heat of the adrenaline coursing through him, but Deimos was swift to adapt to the new distance between them, responding in kind to the spears with flaming arrows.
Maybe it was the cold slowing his reactions down, or the lack of tail that made his aerial maneuvering less graceful. Maybe it was how slow he had been flying in order to launch the spears with any pretense of aim, or maybe it was simply Deimos's own skill that did it, but Jigano floundered as he tried to dodge the flaming arrows, wings slipping in the cold, thermal-less air, unable to propel him out of the way in time. Fire struck true, blunted tip clattering through scale-feathered pinions though thankfully the scales themselves were far less flammable than true feathers would have been. It was enough to disrupt the beat of his left wing, singed and scorched though not ablaze, as the bard tumbled from his aerial advantage, shifting to his raven form to gain control of his descent and then back again as soon as he realized the remaining embers could do more damage to him in that form.
He hit the snow hard, air knocked out of him as he lay there for a few moments, gathering wits and breath before focusing on Healing himself of his hurts. Only then did he push himself up, slowly dusting the snow from his trousers and pulling his wet tunics slowly back into place as he gave Deimos a measured, sardonic smile. "So... the Air Manipulation is new, yes?"
