I'm giving up on cross-posting things that happen in Rhilshen. If you want to find out where they're posted at so you can read them, it's super easy to find out. Either way, I'm done with that.
Ayreg won't get a new post until he's back in Rhy'Din.
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She had never been to Rhy'Din. Meriz had heard about it from when Talalaryn Nil-Gador was complaining, mostly about the fact that just being there made the elf's skin itch like fury, and the description of the populace and the slipshod manner in which everything was cobbled together didn't entice her to ever want to step through one of the shadow portals from Rhilshen to visit. At least in her native of Rhilshen, Meriz understood who was on what side. The Legion was actually an effective peacekeeping and military force, and there weren't sixteen dozen factions all contended for control of something that stayed miraculously independent from any of them. There, in Rhy'Din, ancient empires and guilds tried to extend influence and control as much as individuals did with armies of raised undead and personal strength. All in all, the place had a very confusing, chaotic atmosphere to her. No wonder it made Nil-Gador's skin itch.
Currently assigned to the garrison of the Rhilshen Fortress, her role was normally as Captain of the Guard, along with Nil-Gador and the other two Legion-Captains in the Banner. Her duty shift had been spent in quiet boredom, lounging around in the dungeon of the Fortress where the shadow portal to Rhy'Din was located. It always had guardians, see, because it was a soft, tender underbelly into Rhilshen. Worse, it was inside the walls of the Fortress itself. A hostile force could easily try to sweep in to kill Emperess Skye and seize the White Throne for themselves, and if there was not a heavy guard here to face them down, then no one would know what was happening until it was too late.
Legion-Captain Yolanda Meriz pulled the straps of the breastplate loose, allowing the armor to sag down from her shoulders. Carefully, she pulled the two pieces off over her head and settled them down onto the armor rack in her quarters. They were a simple affair, a soldier's room, and suitable to her. Though she was often called imperious in appearance, every inch looking like the daughter of K'Taleren nobility.
As the firstborn daughter of her family, it had fallen onto her shoulders to take responsibility of the house affairs. Her family had been made wealthy in the trade of salt, and earlier in her line uncanny bravery forged House Meriz into a powerful force in K'Talar. Family history stated that in the days of Antiquity, during one of the earliest Twilight Wars, one of her ancestors, holding only the banner bearing her family crest, charged into the line of ravaging minotaurs from across the Dragonspine. The soldiers, some sworn to her and some not, broken and falling back, found the courage in their hearts to be men. They rallied and charged, pushing the rampaging horde back to save the only one with courage; to hold the line. It was only one battle amongst so many others, in a war that raged across untold hundreds of miles, but the High Priestess serving as the head of state for Rhilshen at the time had bestowed upon that woman a patent of nobility, creating House Meriz. That history cast a long shadow that still stretches to this very day, one that Yolanda herself wanted to follow. She bit back the bitter gall of having been disowned by her mother, the Matriarch of House Meriz, for her desire for valor and glory. She had betrayed her birthright, which was the only reason why the undercoat beneath her breastplate was black instead of red; trimmed in silver, instead of gold. Ranked as a commoner instead of nobility.
The buttons on her black uniform coat were undone with deft, skilled fingers, and she shrugged out of the sleeves, pulling the coat back around to her front to settle onto a hanger. It bore the marks of breastplate straps, lines dug into the fabric from the edging of the breastplate itself. It positively needed an iron. As much as she herself needed a hairbrush. Setting the coat on its hanger aside, the buttons of her linen shirt came next, and before long she had thrown the white shirt, a darkened gray in places where sweat had soaked into it, onto the basket where all of her dirty laundry went. She turned and moved to the window, turn-down boots not making a sound against the long rug she had purchased and settled over the tile of her quarters.
She felt no shame at the exposure of her upper-body - only those with both a looking glass as well as a sharp eye, along with an inkling of where she was, could have seen her from the ground outside. The garrison of the Imperial Fortress had rooms on two levels: One was near the base level, perhaps only one floor up. The other was near the uppermost of the levels of the Fortress, where she herself was billeted. The idea, she had mused in the past, was so that no matter which direction the Fortress had come under attack from - the ground, or the air - there would be a contingent of legionnaires at close hand to meet them.
The lights of Aeshelm were restricted at this hour to the lamps burning silent sentry in the streets. Most, though not all, of the homes and businesses beneath her bore darkened windows. The hour was late. Eying the hairbrush on the table next to the stand-mirror, she raked a hand through her blond hair and gave it a shake to try and coax some of the tangles out before she ripped half of the stuff out with that brush trying to tame the helmet-head into something that resembles presentability.
There was a sound behind her, what seemed like stamping boots. Unsurprising, that - legionnaires patrolled the corridors of the Fortress in routine patterns, and there were any number of others who could be out and about - Bloodsingers, Bloodguards, the Emperess herself even.
What was surprising, though, was what happened about ten seconds after. She had only just sat down into the chair in front of the stand-mirror upon the table when the rug beneath her booted foot shifted. An instant later, there was a prick on the side of her bare shoulder, like a needle piercing flesh.
It pulled her attention, her sense of alarm rising in a flash. Before she could even take in the image of the black-garbed figure before her, though, darkness twisted her vision into an unbearable howl of chaos before consuming it utterly.
Ayreg won't get a new post until he's back in Rhy'Din.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She had never been to Rhy'Din. Meriz had heard about it from when Talalaryn Nil-Gador was complaining, mostly about the fact that just being there made the elf's skin itch like fury, and the description of the populace and the slipshod manner in which everything was cobbled together didn't entice her to ever want to step through one of the shadow portals from Rhilshen to visit. At least in her native of Rhilshen, Meriz understood who was on what side. The Legion was actually an effective peacekeeping and military force, and there weren't sixteen dozen factions all contended for control of something that stayed miraculously independent from any of them. There, in Rhy'Din, ancient empires and guilds tried to extend influence and control as much as individuals did with armies of raised undead and personal strength. All in all, the place had a very confusing, chaotic atmosphere to her. No wonder it made Nil-Gador's skin itch.
Currently assigned to the garrison of the Rhilshen Fortress, her role was normally as Captain of the Guard, along with Nil-Gador and the other two Legion-Captains in the Banner. Her duty shift had been spent in quiet boredom, lounging around in the dungeon of the Fortress where the shadow portal to Rhy'Din was located. It always had guardians, see, because it was a soft, tender underbelly into Rhilshen. Worse, it was inside the walls of the Fortress itself. A hostile force could easily try to sweep in to kill Emperess Skye and seize the White Throne for themselves, and if there was not a heavy guard here to face them down, then no one would know what was happening until it was too late.
Legion-Captain Yolanda Meriz pulled the straps of the breastplate loose, allowing the armor to sag down from her shoulders. Carefully, she pulled the two pieces off over her head and settled them down onto the armor rack in her quarters. They were a simple affair, a soldier's room, and suitable to her. Though she was often called imperious in appearance, every inch looking like the daughter of K'Taleren nobility.
As the firstborn daughter of her family, it had fallen onto her shoulders to take responsibility of the house affairs. Her family had been made wealthy in the trade of salt, and earlier in her line uncanny bravery forged House Meriz into a powerful force in K'Talar. Family history stated that in the days of Antiquity, during one of the earliest Twilight Wars, one of her ancestors, holding only the banner bearing her family crest, charged into the line of ravaging minotaurs from across the Dragonspine. The soldiers, some sworn to her and some not, broken and falling back, found the courage in their hearts to be men. They rallied and charged, pushing the rampaging horde back to save the only one with courage; to hold the line. It was only one battle amongst so many others, in a war that raged across untold hundreds of miles, but the High Priestess serving as the head of state for Rhilshen at the time had bestowed upon that woman a patent of nobility, creating House Meriz. That history cast a long shadow that still stretches to this very day, one that Yolanda herself wanted to follow. She bit back the bitter gall of having been disowned by her mother, the Matriarch of House Meriz, for her desire for valor and glory. She had betrayed her birthright, which was the only reason why the undercoat beneath her breastplate was black instead of red; trimmed in silver, instead of gold. Ranked as a commoner instead of nobility.
The buttons on her black uniform coat were undone with deft, skilled fingers, and she shrugged out of the sleeves, pulling the coat back around to her front to settle onto a hanger. It bore the marks of breastplate straps, lines dug into the fabric from the edging of the breastplate itself. It positively needed an iron. As much as she herself needed a hairbrush. Setting the coat on its hanger aside, the buttons of her linen shirt came next, and before long she had thrown the white shirt, a darkened gray in places where sweat had soaked into it, onto the basket where all of her dirty laundry went. She turned and moved to the window, turn-down boots not making a sound against the long rug she had purchased and settled over the tile of her quarters.
She felt no shame at the exposure of her upper-body - only those with both a looking glass as well as a sharp eye, along with an inkling of where she was, could have seen her from the ground outside. The garrison of the Imperial Fortress had rooms on two levels: One was near the base level, perhaps only one floor up. The other was near the uppermost of the levels of the Fortress, where she herself was billeted. The idea, she had mused in the past, was so that no matter which direction the Fortress had come under attack from - the ground, or the air - there would be a contingent of legionnaires at close hand to meet them.
The lights of Aeshelm were restricted at this hour to the lamps burning silent sentry in the streets. Most, though not all, of the homes and businesses beneath her bore darkened windows. The hour was late. Eying the hairbrush on the table next to the stand-mirror, she raked a hand through her blond hair and gave it a shake to try and coax some of the tangles out before she ripped half of the stuff out with that brush trying to tame the helmet-head into something that resembles presentability.
There was a sound behind her, what seemed like stamping boots. Unsurprising, that - legionnaires patrolled the corridors of the Fortress in routine patterns, and there were any number of others who could be out and about - Bloodsingers, Bloodguards, the Emperess herself even.
What was surprising, though, was what happened about ten seconds after. She had only just sat down into the chair in front of the stand-mirror upon the table when the rug beneath her booted foot shifted. An instant later, there was a prick on the side of her bare shoulder, like a needle piercing flesh.
It pulled her attention, her sense of alarm rising in a flash. Before she could even take in the image of the black-garbed figure before her, though, darkness twisted her vision into an unbearable howl of chaos before consuming it utterly.