RP:The Emperor Has No Crown

From HollowWiki

Part of the Rise of Larket Arc


Summary: Emrith and Hisk Spittle infiltrate Larket fort and castle to steal the Rage Stone. But Hisk Spittle betrays Emrith and tips off Macon. In the ensuing battle, Hisk Spittle dies an ironic death. Emrith kills/maims three guards, but ultimately escapes with the rage stone and crown in hand. Macon spins the intrusion as “a failed assassination attempt by Frostmaw, in league with Kelovath and his Mad Fermin (Hisk Spittle’s corpse as evidence), resulting in the loss of a few of Larket's finest and a theft of a royal headdress.”

NPCing by Josleen


King and Queen’s Chamber, Larket Fort

Macon has, finally, laid his head down to rest in what is now, once again, the chamber of the king. Anyone keeping close tabs on him is aware that he has not slept very much at all since his coronation. That Furious Crown has been seated atop his head every waking moment, the angry artifact within perhaps coaxing the King of Rage through sleepless nights with timely boosts of adrenaline. The former councilman is out cold, snoring sporadically in his bed while his crown and the Rage Stone sit upon a regal pillow on a nightstand just within reach of The King of Larket. Outside the room Fort Freedom is as lively as it ever is this late at night. Guards man their stations on the curtain wall, inside and outside the gates, in the otherwise unoccupied throne room, and so on. Some of them are drunk, most of them are not. It is as normal a night inside Larket as any have seen in the city for some time.


Josleen had enlisted Hisk Spittle in playing for Team Kelovath, but her intuition sussed out that the rat had not fully turned coat. Thus, she reached out to Emrith in Frostmaw and enlisted his stealthy aid. Hisk Spittle and Emrith are to steal the rage stone from Macon, with Hisk Spittle taking the lead. He knew how to find Macon, and once close to Macon, could reveal himself as a trusted confidante. According to plan, Hisk Spittle would then distract Macon while Emrith’s sticky fingers descended from the shadows and snatched the prize. Easy! However, part of Macon’s royal campaign is a promise to keep out fermins! And thus, a fermin cannot simply waltz into the Fort and ask to speak with his buddy The King. And so just after midnight as Macon slept, Hisk Spittle infiltrated the fort like a thief in the night as well. He led Emrith through the spaces between walls and floors, the tiny corridors between walls and guards that the fermin have always known about. The rat’s small mages’s robe billows as he bounds on all fours over pulley systems meant to manipulate chandeliers, and behind false bookshelves that lead to secret rooms. He peeks through the eyes of a painting of Queen Jacklin in a corridor to ensure that the way is clear before swinging open the portrait like a door and joining the corridors of humans. He closes the painting behind him (and Emrith, presumably) and opens the door in front of him to the King’s Chambers, a safe guess of where Macon may be given the hour. And what luck! The king is sleeping! Easy! Hisk Spittle waddles over on his hind legs to the night stand, but suddenly his tail whips clumsily against the bedside table and knocks over a half-full glass of water. It tumbles to the ground and shatters loudly! How strange, given how agile the fermin has been so far, that he should be clumsy now. If Macon wakes, Hisk Spittle wheezes, “King Macon! How delightful to s-s-say that, and but I c-c-come with urgent news-s-s!”


If Hisk Spittle possesses a shadow during his clandestine entry into the inner chambers of the fort, it could be no more silent and undetectable in the dark than Emrith. The vampiric elf is adorned in his traditional boots and cloak, which allow him to glide just above the ground and to bend light around himself in such a way as to render himself next to invisible. Combined with the lack of any heat signature, and the spell-blade might as well not be there. He ghosts along in the fermin's wake until he reaches the bedchamber, flushed with new blood and with all senses keenly aware of the world around him. He is only a few feet from the infiltrator, easily poised to see the creature's tail come into contact with the nightstand. The elf's muscles go taut with sudden alarm, and his right hand dips silently into a pouch at his hip. It comes up with a tiny glass sphere, which he crushes in his fist before fanning the fingers of his left hand in an intricate gesture and summoning a brief but vicious little burst of air. It funnels the contents of the sphere - a potent sleeping gas - directly toward Hisk Spittle's face, and Emrith quickly consolidates his hopeful advantage by gliding soundlessly into a corner, the better to watch what unfolds. The only sign that anything is amiss is the shattered glass from both the water-glass and the tiny globe...and the fermin, of course, who may or may not be feeling the effects of Emrith's little bit of devilry. The spell-blade has no need to breathe, and the pouch from which he has sampled possesses another dozen or so pellets, which he will happily use to quell any resistance if need be.


Macon is not so sleepy as to not be awakened by a shattering glass in his room. The Death Knight shoots up, covers flying off of him as he reflexively extends his right hand out towards his side, calling for his trusty axe to come flying to his aid. However, with The Rage Stone now nestled in its spot as the crown jewel of Larket, the great axe no longer possesses that furious sentience and ability to move on its own that the strange artifact grants it. The crown itself does shake rather violently in place during the time Macon takes to blink Hisk Spittle into focus and sneer at the rat, its intrusion, and its brown nosing greeting. He does not call for guards, as livid as he is with them for allowing the rat to slip past them, having one of those ‘enemies of Larket’ in his bedroom is not a good optic and one that he will avoid. The angry aura of the stone suddenly becomes amplified, the trinket has likely detected the presence of the second intruder, but unfortunately has no way to communicate outside of making the people around it increasingly furious. The Death Knight shakes off the sensation coming from the glowing red rock and Hisk Spittle has been shown previously to be immune to at least the ambient effects of the stone, so Macon sees no need to calm the artifact, allowing Rage to pour out unbridaled from it. The King lowers his right hand, aware now that the axe is not coming, and raises a brow at the perhaps sleepy rat, “Spit it out then.” He demands of the fermin in an angry whisper.


Hisk Spittle, not usually one for brown-nosing, continues uncharacteristically bowing his head as if performing the role of sycophant for someone else. “Sorry to have alarmed you, my King,” low low bow, possibly a wink. Hisk Spittle isn’t quite sure what to do next to simultaneously tip off Macon that something is up without also taunting Emrith into an attack. The last thing he wants is to be killed, but how can he and Macon slip out of here with the rage stone and without much ruckus. “I have cooo-ooome,” he yawns. “Coooome toooooo…” another yawn, the fermin swaying from side to side, then drops onto his side fast asleep. His whiskers twitch as he dreams of disemboweling Emrith with his claws.


Emrith grins a mirthless grin as the little fermin eventually succumbs to the effects of Emrith's sleeping-gas pellets. Macon, unfortunately, is wide awake and probably on high alert by now, so the vampiric elf knows that he will have to act very quickly and decisively. He erupts without a sound from his previous point of vantage, feet gliding an inch or so above the carpet, barely stirring the glass shards as he passes. His hands are shuttling in and out of that pouch on his hip as he darts across the room toward his goal, moving with superhuman alacrity as they seize, crush and then throw fistfuls of glass pell-mell in the chamber. Soom, the gas is a whitish, acrid fog, eddying where it will; the spell-blade has no time for further subtleties and direction of the sleep-inducing vapours. Instead, he makes a beeline for the object of his quest: the Rage Stone itself, nestled in the crown of Larket. He hopes to reach it before Macon does, even though the man so recently roused from bed is far closer than the elf himself was when the fermin dropped insensate to the ground. Both hands shoot out to seize crown from its pillow, driven by the need to finish the mission and to abscond as silently as he first intruded. Up this close, he can feel the insistent beating of rising rage, but for a little while, at least, he bears down and resists the desire to turn aside and descend upon Macon in bloody fury.


Macon shakes his head, finding the rat particularly frustrating tonight as it bows. Then the yawning comes and dull, grey eyes narrow, looking to the crown rattling on its pillow and then at the rat, and then at the crown again, and once more at the fermin as it goes down. The King is out of bed now, carefully stepping over Spittle and broken glass alike. He has two ‘weapons’ at his disposal, lying in opposite directions from where he stands in his regal PJs. He chooses the more traditional of the two and moves towards his massive greataxe, hanging on a nearby wall, beside his suit of armor, while moving away from the crown and Stone. With the axe in hand and gas seemingly appearing out of nowhere inside his bedroom Macon only kind of puts two and two together, looking at the grounded rat. It is probably too late, but the King takes in a mostly clean, large breath and holds it, resisting the urge to curse whatever coward Frostmaw has sent into his home. The Rage Stone, meanwhile sees all, and is actively pumping out that furious aura towards the vampire holding it and out at its rightful owner attempting to keep him awake, as it had these past few nights, for as long as it can. The fury acts as a kind of alarm, as guards inside the Fort are now feeling much more alert and on edge than they usually are, though they can’t explain why. The closest of them are on their way towards the King’s chambers, perhaps compelled to try and assassinate him or something, however The Stone can get their attention, it tries it. With one wild swing of the stoneless Rage Axe Macon shouts out, “Cowards!” before stumbling forward towards the side of his bed.


Hisk Spittle, in his dream, wears Emrith’s intestines around his shoulders. The vampire’s skull is his new crown and he is crowned King of the Fermin. Macon is in the dream, looking on wistfully, drying a happy tear. The guards arrive, two swordsmen and an anti-mage (no fort is complete without anti-magic forces in Hollow). The swordsmen do not attack Macon, but instead take stock of the situation and assume that Hisk Spittle was the intruder, and Macon knocked him out because he is a great and powerful king. While sober-minded guards would sweep the room to find any more would-be fermin assassins, these two have taken a hit of stone rage and instead begin to stab and beat and kick the sleeping fermin. They pummel into its small skull and body, spraying blood and viscera in all directions, including on their own faces. The King himself will likely be sprayed by the bloodied, matted fur of his co-conspirator. The beating doesn’t last very long, however, as Emrith’s sleeping gas begins to slow the swordsmen’s movements. The anti-mage, who has better defenses against both the rage stone and the sleeping gas, stays clear-eyed long enough to summon a gust of wind and blow the gas out of the bedroom with such force it breaks a window. One swordsmen tucks into the fetal position beside Hisk Spittle’s battered corpse and falls asleep. The other, more naturally endowed in magical defenses, stands and shakes his head to clear it of rage. “King Macon?” he asks. The anti mage works on a second spell to detect all creatures, living and undead, in the room. It won’t reveal Emrith visually if he is caught, but it will tip off the mage who could point in his direction or attack (if caught by the spell).


Emrith feels the cold metal of the crown on his hands, and knows that victory is quite literally within his grasp. It is only scant seconds after this, however, that all hell breaks loose in the king's bedchamber. Guards, perhaps summoned by the man's shouted word or by the power of the stone itself in all its bloody-minded half-sentient rage, sprint into the room and set about making a grim end to the sleeping fermin. Emrith, now tugged mercilessly by his own rising anger, has only enough presence of mind to shove the crown into a bag he has slung on his left hip, opposite his now-empty pouch. The bag is warded - imperfectly, it is true, but warded nonetheless - against magic, in such a way that seeing what is inside is a difficult, nigh-impossible task via magical means. The other advantage this neat little device offers is that any magical item stuffed inside it will have its effects somewhat muted...or so the spell-blade fervently hopes with this dastardly stone. The crown doesn't fit all the way into the small bag - he was expecting a little rock, not a full ornamental piece of head-gear - and so the effect is not nearly so muted as the elf would have hoped. He senses the casting of magic from one of the guards, notes that another of the trio has fallen afoul of the lingering gas...and that is when most of his rational thoughts cease. With both hands now free, the vampiric elf takes Heleg from its scabbard on his back, charges without a sound across the room and battens on the two guards who are still standing. He goes for the magically gifted one first, using wind stance in a series of sweeping strokes intended to keep the man off guard whilst simultaneously pressing toward the door. When the swordsman closes with the vampiric elf from the right, Emrith drops into water stance, vaults into an acrobatic roll, tucks his left arm in against his chest, kicks off a bureau with both feet, and brings his one currently naked sword down to sever the anti-mage's spine. Fabric tears as the swordsman not currently dealing with a broken back gets lucky with a wayward stroke, having been able to guess the elf's relative position by the steel bursting from his compatriot's body. Emrith hisses through clenched teeth as he hits the ground in a crouch, yanking Heleg free with a meaty, gristly ripping sound. Stone stance, and he blocks another thrust with a vertical parry; he cares nothing for fancy tricks now, being caught up in his rage and upon the opponent he faces. Even as the anti-mage slumps, mortally wounded but not yet dead, Emrith follows through with a heavy overhand chop, hacking a chunk out of the remaining swordsman's wrist before following through with a side-swipe that bites into the cage of his ribs with a sound like kindling being stepped on. Emrith rides the momentum of this last attack into a full spin, which lets him pivot back toward the door. With both adversaries down and hopefully out, he has enough presence of mind to rein in his terrible fury, to remember that he has the object of his mission, and that escape, at any cost, is paramount. He bursts out the door and makes ready to flee the fort with all possible haste. There's only one small problem: the enchantment of Emrith's boots, which previously allowed him to float without a sound above any surface beneath him, has been severed, so now any passer-by will be treated to the sound of rapidly drumming elven feet.


Macon is way too sleepy again to show any kind of remorse or sympathy for his two-timing rat accomplice as it is unceremoniously beaten to death by some of the very men its illusions have tricked into crowning The Rage Knight their King. There is also the possibility that The Death Knight saw Hsk Spittle as he saw the rest of his kind, as a means to an end, and feels no connection to the illusionist whatsoever. The King swipes feverishly with one hand at any that come to his aid or ask if he is ‘ok’, “The crown!” He’s holding himself up by leaning against his great axe, the butt of the handle pressing against the floor, and when the bloodbath starts he is pushing himself up towards his feet. -His- guardsmen are felled and there the former councilman does feel a twinge of genuine sadness that is quickly replaced with Rage Stone-fueled fury. These are his subjects, after all. Through the flashes of blades that appear and disappear in the air and in the Larketians squints and musters as much of his strength as he can to lift his precious weapon, with both hands at the bottom of the handle and fling it towards the doorway as Emrith and the rage stone move through it, the axe tumbling over itself, narrowly missing furniture as it travels. Outside the bedroom Macon’s simple shout of “Invisible!” can be heard, and some confused looking guards probably litter the escape route the vampire seeks to take...


The irony in Hisk Spittle’s death if duly noted by the living. How fortunate is the rat to have escaped knowledge of such irony. The guards Emrith disposes of or incapacitates cannot give the nimble, invisible elf chase. However, it’s a fort full of guards, both magical and not. Still, Emrith has the element of surprise and, thanks to Hisk Spittle, is now familiar with an exit route between the walls of the castle. The corridors fill quickly with a handful of mages who, upon reaching those footfalls, will cast spells to illuminate the intruder or dispel his enchantments or just fry up his brain with a little arcane radiation, provided the swordsmen don’t slice and dice the vampire first, but the castles’ own guard are largely ignorant of the shadowy corridors between rooms. The final irony in Hisk Spittle’s death may well be how he helped foil his own justice.


The parting of the air behind him is something Emrith feels and hears at almost the same time, and his headlong run turns into a half-ducking cringe as Macon's axe whistles toward him. It literally parts his hair as it sails over his head, thunking into the wall ahead of him. The man's shout from behind him - that single word "Invisible!" is enough to let Emrith know that the game is nearly up. Two centuries of more or less steady training kick in then, providing a balance to the constant tug of the cursed stone riding his left hip, and the elf decides that battle is no longer of the slightest importance; indeed, it will likely get him killed, meaning the failure of this dangerous ploy. Having previously been borne along in a red tide of anger and hatred and negative emotion, Emrith might well have simply charged out of the main gate, the better to take the fight to his enemy and thus doom the whole ordeal. With a clearer mind, and with a temporary lull in the action before other guards are quite close enough to know what is happening, the vampiric elf rams his sword home in its scabbard, re-asserts control of the link which powers his boots, then makes his way with all possible stealth to the portrait which granted him entry. From here, it is a fairly simple manner of retracing his steps through the labyrinthine warren of passages between the walls of the well-constructed fortress. In no time at all, the elf will be little more than a bad taste on the tongue, a memory to plague weary heads, the spectre who infiltrated Fort Freedom and stole its tainted crown.


Macon , in the days to come, will have this tale painted to Larket exactly as he sees fit. A failed assassination attempt by Frostmaw, in league with Kelovath and his Mad Fermin, resulting in the loss of a few of Larket's finest and a theft of a royal headdress. With the populous unaware of the existence of The Rage Stone such an event is easily written off as a petty theft as a new, better crown can just be crafted for the Brave King... Meanwhile The Cold City is cast in ever more unsavory and cowardly light.