RP:Friends in High Places

From HollowWiki

Part of the Township Troopers Arc


This is a Warrior's Guild RP.


Summary Lionel returns briefly to Frostmaw, fast-tracking his duties as Knight-Commander. There, he is rejoined by frequent ally Krice, who promises his blade in the final battle against the insectoids.

Frostmaw: Fort Frostmaw Main Gates

Lionel waves one caravan down toward Sawhurst Street and the other toward the Avenue of The Coppers. Sixteen gilded carts in all -- eight on each side -- and all of them repurposed to deliver goods to the needy. Their formerly pristine lacquer polish has begun to chip from all the stacks of corn and grain slamming into their side doors. Their plush cushions have been patted down and made lesser from the weight of so many stone mugs of milk. In the wake of Lionel’s emergency relief order, sixteen wealthy merchants have found yet another reason to be disgruntled. Oh, most of them have made the most of their carriages’ temporary confiscation, faking smiles and talking up how wonderful it feels to ‘do a little something for the less fortunate among us.’ In private, they’ve spat and sneered at the silver marks the government has offered them in exchange for their cooperation, bemoaning that they’ve chosen to conduct business somewhere with such loose laws. Lionel has requested that his soldiers stop reporting this to him; there are too many real problems in the world for him to hear about the falsehoods of the merchant class every other week. One of those problems, a not-insubstantial one at that, involves the hundreds of spiced and dusted citizens presently incapable of fending for themselves. Lionel will not be in Frostmaw long. From the Southern Sage to the Nameless Desert, from spider ambushes in the long-forgotten city beneath Vailkrin to a full-blown assault on Rynvale, and now to great monstrous guardians of the distant eastern sea, the Catalian and his band have spent the bulk of the past two months facing a vile insectoid legion most still believe the stuff of myth. If the Warrior’s Guild acts quickly, the better part of Lithrydel will be spared to keep thinking that. But while he’s here, Queen Hildegarde’s Knight-Commander has much to do. As the caravan splits and fades down separate destinations, frosted dust kicked up in its horses’ trails, Lionel takes a deep breath and leans against a carved stone statue. The sun’s long gone and the air is frigid, but there’s still more work to be done.


Krice ambled through Frostmaw at a comfortable pace, his stride fueled by purpose; he headed north, traveling to the Fort that overlooked the wintry city. He was dressed in his usual black attire and further warmed by black robes, multi-layered fabric billowing around him with each step he took. Though he clearly intended to make it all the way to the large structure further north, activity flourished along the path before it and he slowed to investigate. It didn't take him long to deduce the cause for the bustle, and as he maneuvered out of the path of a relief cart, crimson eyes caught sight of a familiar - though scarce, these days - Knight-Commander taking a breather against a curved wall. Krice's approach was not intentionally stealthy but his steps were quiet, masked more so by the swarms of people coming and going through the area. Only once just outside the other male's reach did the enigma announce himself, greeting Lionel casually. " Hey. Y'alright?"


Lionel opens his eyes. He’d only just closed them, but exhaustion has a funny way with time perception sometimes, and he quietly wonders if he’d fallen asleep. “Hey there, yourself,” he says lazily, but with obvious overtures of happiness to see the man. Kicking free from the statue, Lionel looks around to watch the last hint of carriages vanish around a corner. A pair of guards clad in heavy chainmail vests and bluish metal pauldrons march past them, bowing deeply to both. It seems Krice has more than earned a fair share of respect from the soldiers of this land. “Yeah, I suppose, heh. Haven’t really known the word ‘rest’ in ages, but I’m getting by. The Guild’s fought in several major engagements. We’ve got one last battle in this war against the insectoids, but after what we’ve been through lately, I don’t know how many of us will be coming back. We’ve already lost too many.” He bites his lip. “Then there’s Frostmaw. But, ah… I suppose that’s nothing new. What about yourself? How’s it been?”


Krice remained at a distance from Lionel but not out of reach if he took a step forward and extended an arm, allowing both men their personal space - and the Knight-Commander extra in which he could gather his thoughts and recoup some energy. Whenever soldiers marched by, the silver-haired warrior glanced their way but didn't always receive a look in return. To the pair most recently passing by, he dipped his head in a reciprocating nod, respectful enough though more tempered than theirs. After attentively listening to Lionel's reply and acknowledging each point--Frostmaw's troubles, the Guild's activities--with minimal action, Krice offered his comrade a wry frown and mused, " Far removed from the action, it seems." His absence from the battles that had claimed so many lives bothered him. " One last battle, you said. Where's that - and when?"


Lionel smirks, nodding candidly. “Too far away from it, if you ask me. I worry for the lives of everyone under my command, and I’ll always feel that much better for it when you’re around. But I have to tell you, this battle…” He plucks a tiny white flower from the blade of grass at his feet, blowing gently and watching little yellow beads catch wind and sail into the horizon. “It’s not like Larket. It’ll only be a handful of us against an army of them. That’s how we’ve done this from the start, every time, all through the realm, but whatever fresh hells we unearthed in the previous battles will pale in comparison to this.” He pauses, wincing, as he ponders the easiest, best way to convey the scope of what they’re up against. “Millennia before Hind and Lore, millennia before Kaizer and Khasad, the Haathian civilization stretched across Lithrydel. The history books barely mention it -- I know, I looked -- but we’ve uncovered sprawling ruins with buildings once so tall they stretched to the clouds like none other. They were an advanced society, and they dabbled in things not like what we see today. They had many enemies. A magister toyed with science and magic in a strange way, enlarging weapons and spell potencies in order to gain Haath an advantage. It turned other things bigger, too. Like bugs, for example. All this, we’ve learned as we’ve went. Another thing we learned is that there’s an island well off the coast of Ryvnale, Haath’s last stand against the creatures, and it became the insectoids’ haven. It’s where they’ve poured in from, having burrowed deep beneath the earth in every direction. Our last mission is to go there, hit them hard, activate a device the magister alluded to in his final log, and end things once and for all. Only… we scouted that island, aboard a ship called the Tranquility, and a sea beast fit to dwarf a kraken came at us with a vengeance, summoning a whirlpool and sloughing off its scales which became monsters in their own right. To say we barely escaped would be an injustice, not just to the severity of the situation but to the lives lost in its wake. Krice, that’s just the doorman. The bouncer. The guardian. This is hell, we’re going to. This isn’t like Larket.”


Krice understood the scope plenty well enough. He was not a rookie in the world of battle, fighting against men or monsters, and Lionel did well to further convey the enormity of the task that lay before him. Before -them-. His brow furrowed in contemplation, the warrior pledged his support. " I'll come with you." There was no hesitation, no time given to think it through; all the thinking had been done as the Knight-Commander rattled off one fact after another about the battle to come. Huge bugs, advanced civilization, warped magic, massive doorman. Got it. " How many men are left to fight?"

Lionel exhales softly. It’s a poor effort at masking what would have been a full-fledged sigh of relief, because his ever-expressive azure eyes seem to have warmed their glow and his cheeks have found a touch more color. “Thank you.” Four words from Krice; two from Lionel. Nothing further need be said. It’s the straightforward realm-saving exchange they’re used to by now. Images flash through his mind in rapidity when Krice asks after the number of combatants. Images of Emrith, and of Khitti, and of Brand, and Rorin and Oline. And of Kreekitaka, which elicits a small smile from the Catalian, as he mulls over what strange fate conspired to bring them all together like this. And others, too -- the surviving crew of the Tranquility, and perhaps Valen, and Larewen. So many faces buzz by so quickly. “We’ll have at least nine, not counting the sailors whose jobs it will be to get us home in one piece or near enough to it. But nine of the best damned fighters around. If we split into teams, operate with precision, and do our jobs with aplomb, I think we have an outside shot. I do.”


Krice was silent through Lionel's moment of mental musings, his expression turning a shade quizzical as a smile passed over the Knight-Commander's face. Unable to read the thoughts of others, he was left in the dark as to the nugget of information that inspired that smile but it mattered not. What he focused on were the facts that -had- been given to him, and the count of 'nine' in total who would go up against an 'army of large bugs'. His gaze drifted from Lionel for a moment, distant and thoughtful, but as another pair of soldiers passed by, those crimson eyes returned to the Knight-Commander's own and he nodded once more. " Fine. What are these bugs? What are their capabilities? What magic do they wield? Do they have arcane shields?"


Lionel wishes he had Rorin’s knack for bestiaries. The lad’s memory has astounded him again and again in this war. “Rorin will say it best,” he thinks out loud, “but I can try to fill you in. There are many kinds. Scorpions with the heads of men, spewing poison and ripping prey to shreds while chanting. Spiders of half a dozen varieties or more, some to blast ice and others to affect their victims in strange, psychological ways, and others still to lurk and lie in ambush and ensnare them. Mantises that fight like swordsmen. Wasps which fight like wyverns. Millipedes that cover city streets, trampling people and devouring them.” That one prompts a sudden glance of disgust as Lionel looks elsewhere. The memories of Rynvale are too fresh. “There are more. The unifying trait here is size. They’re all so much larger than their native forms. They’re led by monarchs, we call them -- truly gargantuan creatures. One of these monarchs was half the size of Fort Frostmaw, with hundreds of eyes she launched like napalm, and swords underneath. She nearly skewered us all with those hundreds of swords jutting out of her body, to say nothing of the desert’s worth of sand she sent pummeling down on us. These things are monsters in the purest sense, but possessing -- at times -- of a higher intelligence so terrifying in its relentless drive to consume. I don’t know about shields, but the lumbering ones have hides and scales so thick even Hellfire’s taken issue.”


Krice shared Lionel's disgust at the images conjured by his descriptive reply, brow creased in discontent. As the Knight-Commander spoke, the warrior turned his back to the curved wall by which his comrade stood and looked out across the pathway that lead up to Fort Frostmaw. A creature half the size of such an imposing structure? Even -half- was unfathomable. By Lionel's conclusion, he released an accepting sigh and lifted his chin in defiance of the odds they faced. " Sounds like a walk in the park," murmured the enigma, sending a side-glance and wry smirk to the man at his left.


Lionel returns the smirk. If there’s one thing he can count on from Krice, it’s having his back when evil comes out from the shadows. But if there are two things, it’s having his back and getting a couple of smiles in while he’s at it. The enigma seems to have a permanent way with the Catalian, a true enigma in and of itself. “I’m headed back to Rynvale soon. You wanna come along? Or will you be sticking around here for a while? Admittedly, I can rest a little easier at the edge of the land knowing you’re here while I’m gone. But there are spare rooms at the Broken Barrel if you want to pack up now. Innkeeper practically gave us the whole place after we saved him from one of those bastards.”


Krice 's smirk turned to a slightly softer expression, one that reflected his awareness of just how dire their recent future was going to become. Large, overly-magical bugs with hyper-sentient minds and the fighting skills of warriors had already proven tough for the Guild, but this last battle of the war was shaping up to be the worst. At Lionel's invitation to join him on his trip back to Rynvale, the warrior arched a brow and appeared hesitant, glancing southward in the general direction of the island city. He parted both lips as if to speak but words halted before they reached his tongue. After a moment spared to reshuffle his thoughts, the enigma looked at the Knight-Commander once more. " I have to organize things here first, anyway. I'll meet you there in a few days."


Lionel turns and begins the trek back to the fort. "See you then, pal. On your guard. My town's not in such a state right now that leaving it behind again gives me any kind of good feeling." Krice had been there when the terrorists struck last month; he needn't stress the details, the warrior knows exactly what he's talking about. Into the night, Lionel goes, his shoulders a bit straighter now in the wake of a most valuable ally regained.


Krice nodded to Lionel and watched as he departed, calling after him a casual, " I'll watch over Frostmaw for as long as I'm here. Get some rest." The warrior by contrast looked sharp and alert, fully rested; after all, he wasn't the swordsman who had fought hordes of large magical bugs through several battles over the last couple months.