Topic: Road to War: Prelude

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 00:54 EST
Road to War: Prelude

~~~

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others. - Niccolo Machiavelli

~~~

A common theme was being played on the piano, by a woman adorned in a white dress.

Atticus entered the uncharacteristically empty Inn, scanned the empty seats, the vacant bar, analyzed everything. Not until he stood in the center of the room did he realize the song was playing, and had accompanied his every step, as haunting as the otherwise vacant commons. He turned towards the piano and it's player, an eyebrow raising in curiosity. Yet he would not, did not interrupt.

The woman's fingers pressed into the keys, suddenly ending the song. Then, with a glance to the ceiling, she smirked. As her fingers flowed, she slowly turned her head to the man, the sustain pedal firmly struck to allow every haunting note bleed out into the Inn."

"Alluvius." She cocked her head to the side, her eyes returning to the keys. "The stench of Alluvius." She giggled to herself over the music.

There were few instances in his life that he could recall such a sensation, as the goosebumps that prickled his arms and the back of his neck in the moment she voiced those words, that word, that name. Of course, she might know of it, but it wasn't the knowledge. It was the tone. His face, already stoic, lost all expression behind a figurative mask of steel. He proceeded toward the piano, the notes played seeming to determine his speed, his rhythm, pulling him like a marionette. For a man who felt little in the way of fear, he took a deep, almost quavering breath before speaking.

"What of it' Does it smell so bad to you? I do not believe it was always so." Factually stated, and concise. Even if his words -were- fired out rather quickly.

"Blood; distant, world or otherwise..." She flowed into something else entirely, the piano an extension of her mind's eye. It was appropriate. She grinned darkly, revealing fangs.

"You all smell the same. From a different world. It's funny, really....there is a stench to each world. Their inhabitants..." She then fell into a chuckle. "Every universe smells different even if the same place and time exists....curious, really....I can always smell your kinds' stench through all of the shit."

She ceased her music, and closed the key cover on the piano. She stood slowly and then turned to him. "Such a pretty boy, aren't you? I suppose Kaius had to get his looks from somewhere."

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 00:57 EST
He'd been about to comment on differing universes, perhaps even catch her off guard with something he knew. After all, he designed the White Rose armor, and it was to his home plane of Horizon that it sent telemetry. Even if it was currently missing. But he didn't get the chance.

"Pretty boy?" His eyebrows raised, "I rather favor my mind, I believe, madam. But, uh, thank you for the compliment just the same." He was caught off guard, but quickly gained his bearings with the mention of Kaius. "There is little to be surprised by in Kaius....end. And he was hardly my 'kin', as your....remark about our genealogy would imply." The music she had changed to would have been off putting, again, to anyone else. But Atticus feelings were pushed far away. Perhaps to poor effect, given the possible level of danger. He made no move to take any kind of defensive posture, nor did he move away when she chose to rise and face him; he'd taken other precautions, layered enchantments and Chained Contingency spells, cast and recast dozens of times over; a vast network of arcane energy traced across every inch of his skin. Not for or against her, specifically, but potent enough to ensure his longevity.

"Yes, your mind." She mused with a wave of her hand. "That succulent fleshy thing inside of that thick-skinned shell" A shame, really....if only you knew." Renna turned to him fully, giggling to herself. "Same world, same kin. You both smell like shit." She licked her lips, slowly. "I wonder if you taste the same..." She offhandedly mused, before shaking her head. With a raise of her hand, she felt her fingers twitch. "Such magical energy woven into your skin..." She lowered her arm. "No, you would taste so much different than he did. So much....spicier" A perfected mage's armor, perhaps, but, to me" A mere starter to the main course of your steaming guts." Renna held out a hand towards him as she approached. "I don't think we have been introduced, Alluvian," she paused, and then "I speak a dangerous game but I am really a kitten."

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 00:59 EST
"Any unwanted touch will leave you quite alone in this room, I fear." He looked down at her outstretched hand. "You will forgive me if I avoid the usual pleasantries," instead he bowed slightly at the waist, keeping his eyes on her the entire time. "Atticus. D'Arcstorm." He had received telemetry straight from the White Rose armor while she had....ended Kaius. "I believe I know who you are, madam. Though, with my latest data, you could be any number of....you." His face went deadpan when she said 'kitten', "A young fool fell in love with you, and to him perhaps you were a kitten; forgive me, if I focus more on the claws than he." He certainly hadn't sought her out, but upon finding her here he could hardly resist the interaction. Curiosity, and the chance to assemble first hand information. To hear Kaius tell of it, at times she could well be a kitten. Atticus was ever skeptical, and especially of that.

"Then it is a shame you have failed to note the shadow of my influence lurking over you like a twisted Myriad." She continued to move forwards towards him, her abyssal eyes hallow. "Then be blessed to know you speak to the real me." She chuckled then, as she snapped into the fabric of the Nexus and then next revealed herself right next to him, blowing into his ear with her succulent and seductively twisted words. "Much to your horror I think you will find all of your kind mere rats to my claws, Alluvian."

"Say my name," She purred. "Go on. You know it. If that cursed armor told you anything you should know it."

It didn't matter how much time passed, how many bodies, how many clones, how many experiments, how many worlds. She might go by any of a thousand names, and each of them feared somewhere, by someone. Not One, or This One; not some paragon of the Dark; and certainly not by some cutsey nick name fashioned by one who sought reprieve by imagining her something she wasn't.

Of course he knew her name, and he had no desire to say it - because saying it was in a way an admission of her power.

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 01:01 EST
But he said it just the same, though it wasn't the cursed armor, as she said, that had told him.

No, it was Kaius, the man who had loved her against the judgement leveled by almost everyone else - certainly his Alluvian First Sword contemporaries.

"Everyone knows it," his voice was quiet, and despite her increasingly nerve rattling demeanor his eyes were blue steel boring into hers, "You are the one called Renna, the Betrayer."

A unbreakable smile scarred her face as she restrained a chuckle behind her lips. Her shoulders shook. Her arms trembled. She rolled her eyes back in her head as she sighed. "I can smell it you know. Each and every cell quaking in their molecular prisons..." Renna turned away from him, waving her hands into the air. "Every single reason, every single pain....Every single hatred I have for your kind comes from Kaius. You know....I don't hate you. I remember things about you and your kind that came from Kaius that just simply pissed me off and..." She looked to a nearby wall. "You know..." She clapped her hands together, that immediately melded into the wicked clawed gauntlets she was known for. "Let's play hide and seek." She twisted her hips, casting a black eye at him. "The prize is a meal and you are it."

"Arcfire," he took a step back, and muttered "Prepare Contingency body slide." His voice rose again, "The molecular quaking, as you called it, is only the precursor to spells nearing completion. How did he wound you so, that it poisoned you against an entire Universe?" Several diagnostic enchantments 'went off' as it were, increasing his reflexes. "I suggest you seek a meal elsewhere, you shall find no sustenance in me."

Her happenstance mention of the word Myriad had not gone unnoticed earlier, either. He wondered with some trepidation if she could realize how her touch on the Myriae had reverberated back through their system; he couldn't help but find it ironic, either, given the very little he knew about her affinity for crystal, coupled with the Myriad's resting state. Like the White Rose armor, which was a DEAD (Dynamic Enervating Armor Design) suit , the Penance Myriad had transformed into something else - Pendura - and had vanished from Atticus' radar.

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 01:10 EST
"Oh....is that what that is?" She raked her eyes over his form as she lifted a claw towards him. "Oh, how I wish, for soothing rain....so I can feel again..." Renna whispered. "Such a wet-work of armor even though I have done nothing to harm you!" She giggled her words, a claw holding her stomach. "Loosen up! Work those shoulders - roll them! Relax and settle into your role, babes....because if you think you are safe in your little network of magical energies....think again." She lost her smile, her voice became almost robotic. "I might not be of your kin and you might not think I am unable to harm you, however..." She looked over him. "We are family now. Whether you like it or not....isn't that right, my Rose?"

The Knight was suddenly there with them, appearing as it usually did from a vertical blue-white slash cut in the air which sealed behind it; it panned from Renna to Atticus, and back again. "The grave....is no bar to your call." It wore a stolen face that was somehow enhanced, strengthened by whatever magics kept the White Rose armor animated. But there was no mistaking whose it was. It was the face of the man who had inhabited it for so long, and to whom it was bound.

Atticus appeared visibly shaken, and took yet another step back - though neither her nor the armor had made any more aggressive gestures. "Dispel." His eyes were focused on the armor, but kept flickering to her. If she somehow commanded it....No. Once again towards the armor, louder, "Dispel!" The word was accompanied by a complex gesture - not that it helped.

A newcomer entered the Inn, but at a furtive glance from the mage, they left just as quickly upon seeing Atticus, Renna and the Knight having a pseudo standoff. Had she stayed, he might have told her that he too was second guessing whether he should have ventured out to the Inn this night. A hand went quickly to his brow to massage it, glancing between the new girl and the White Rose armor. Too many people wearing dead peoples faces, dead people's auras. Something told him it wasn't just Halloween. He began to wonder if, perhaps, it was him.

Any amusement was lost when she saw the Knight. The thing's words cut far deeper than needed, but, she replied with the same amount of effort as she originally summoned him. It wore a face that visibly harmed her. "What's wrong?" She looked to Atticus. "Having a problem?"

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 01:12 EST
It, the White Rose armor, stared at Renna almost thoughtfully.

"It is for you to tell us, me, if there is something....'wrong'. How can....I serve you?" When the Knight was in her sight, she knew what it was doing. But what about when it wasn't' When she was otherwise engaged" Kaius had had many 'clones', though the term wasn't accurate. Bi-located selves, when he was ended. And almost all of them went with him. Save for those few that had somehow become, ironically thanks to her, detached from him. Those few had reassembled in what passed for the closest, physical original; the safe space of the White Rose armour, fusing them together into something....different. Far more armor than Kaius, and far more artifact than man.

"I..." Atticus was truly at a loss, "Wonder if there was ever any salvation for you, or if Oblivion had always touched you too deeply," his gaze flickered to the Pathfinder armor. "Why did you change him?" Whatever happened to the armor, it wasn't Atticus doing. "Do you truly desire to corrupt everything" To what end? Your..." his voice trailed off and he shook his head. Folly and madness. He couldn't understand her. The type of personality that would burn the world down in some twisted attempt to save it, or perhaps just for fun. He couldn't tell.

She had heard all she needed to know. Renna lowered her eyes to the ground then back up again to Atticus. "Kaius....he spoke of your lot with so much ill. I twisted and I....ultimately killed him. I am not sure if I murdered a soul or saved him from eternal damnation. Your kind....your very existence is a world of control. I remove control. I remove the lines of suppression. I will be perfection and I will be the first, the last....I will be everything." She tilted her head up to the ceiling. "Negzarcurgis has been my life and the life of the Original. I have taken it far beyond the land to which it is bound....I have taken it far. To the skies. To the stars. To other places between here....and elsewhere." She smirked.

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 01:16 EST
"No, I do not wish to corrupt anything. I merely want peace. But to remove conflict, there can be only one ruler. One." She affirmed. "ONE." She then looked to the Knight. "I have Alluvius's exact location. You can thank Kaius for that. His knowledge was most assuredly acceptable. The Knight's ability to move between many realms has given me a link, long, long ago....I never had a vessel. I do now..." She approached Atticus, so that her face was close to his. "Say my name again."

"Kaius was a boy, and in love. For whatever reason. He would have told you anything he thought would curry favor, and obviously did." He managed to get that much out before she closed on him, his words coming quick on the heels of her own. "You might have the coordinates, but there are a couple things that you lack." And now was a perfect time to -not- list them for her. "Under only two conditions can-" he caught himself, and stopped.

For now, the defenses would hold. Whatever her claims.

"Renna," he began, too soft - either from intimidation or lost in his own thought of how close she came to cleaving into Alluvius. Again, louder. "Renna, the Betrayer." The closer she got, the harder he studied her eyes; he didn't flinch or turn away. "She looks like you, even though it was mostly him that Jonas copied. But some parts, strands, here and there, the echoes of power....they definitely come from you." Ultimately, she could only intimidate so far as his curiosity let her. Whoever he had been talking about wasn't readily apparent.

"For a boy in love, he sure did shake less than you have..." Renna licked her lips. "I lack a lot of things; but trust me....I will fill in the gaps. You have no idea what I am capable of and, I suppose? It is best I make my intentions clear." She brushed a strand of white hair from her face, her smirk returning. His words were not lost, for she had more important things to declare.

"Consider this my official announcement. In exactly ninety days from now, Negzarcurgis declares war upon Alluvius and on that day, we will come for one thing and one thing only..." Renna took a step back. "Your complete surrender to your new ruler."

She looked to Knight then. "Him."

Knight of The White Rose

Date: 2016-10-28 01:25 EST
The Knight's watch kept to Renna, straying to the mage only when she drew too close, and only to scrutinize any potentially hostile action he might take against her. It was in his protocols, designed by Atticus but shaped by Kaius. It knew that Atticus knew that, and Atticus knew that it knew, and Renna knew, too. Everybody knew. The look it cast at Renna, though, was unfortunately disturbing; it wasn't love, it was barely even the memory of love. Even as she declared war on Alluvius.

And with that declaration, the molecules that she had so easily detected quaking finally snapped into action around Atticus - and his physical form was abandoned into energy which arched out all around, avoiding her, but seeking windows and doorways and was then vanished.

She turned her head to the energy that was dispersed. "Aw....I was going to tell him if he didn't comply, I would merely have Negzarcurgis devour his pathetic little planet..."

The Knight waited, as usual, head tilted and listening. It didn't notice her look upon his arrival, at his new visage. The moment had been lost to him while she faced Atticus. It knew something, though, something that simply hadn't come up in her questioning, about Alluvius. But in trying to assimilate her idea of who would rule there, he....it....forgot to volunteer the knowledge. At least for now. "....Home?" Even the voice was familiar, was -HIS-, despite it's lack of inflection.

Renna looked to the Knight. "Yes. Home." She held out a hand to it. "My love."

He blinked, and reached out to take her hand in his; not his gauntlet hand, but rather the fleshed one. The taloned gauntlet cut a ribbon in the air, opening to one of her lairs, impossible from this side to see which since the event horizon was intentionally inverted. He made no remark as to the name by which she called him. He didn't feel love. But he did remember it.

Renna stepped into the portal, dragging the Knight behind her.

(( OOC: Just a note of credit, obviously going out to Renna-mun/Lu, without whom this little teaser - and what will follow for KotWR, Kaius (dead or not), and a host of other Alluvians - and Negzarcugians (wow, spelling") in the future. Working with/ playing with you is always exciting for me, and especially my chars. I couldn't help but recall a line from Deadpool as Atticus met Renna for the first time, I hope I quote it correctly here: "This guy's got the right idea, he wore the brown pants!" ))