Sorry about the lateness, I know that both @spawning of Bob and @RoseThorn have been waiting for this for very different reasons. I walked along, Rose keeping pace beside me, lost in thought. “I’m not related to Norimia.” she said after an eternity of silence, I looked at her “If not then explain how you look more alike than most siblings.” She looked back at me, “Norimia was born in the Empire, I was born in western Cathay, that alone should tell anyone that we aren’t related.” I nodded, “We’ll see when we reach the camp. If we keep this pace, we should be there by midday tomorrow.” Rose looked back east, along the way they had come, then west along the road. “Please tell me that we’ll be leaving the road soon, with help from the locals, they could easily find your camp if it’s only half a day’s walk from a road.” I looked back at her, “We’ll be leaving the road in about twenty minutes. We’ll have three hours after that before sundown, then after starting again in the morning we continue to midday. A total of nine hours off of the road.” She nodded, then looked back at me. “When we enter the forest, can we have a break for me to put on my armour? I’d rather not go traipsing through enemy held woods without it on.” “Uuh, Rose, the Legion holds the woods. Unless you do something wrong it won’t be ‘enemy held’” she smiled innocently up at me, “Oh, surely the Legion won’t take offence at an armoured Templar walking straight towards their camp. Also, there is no way your rebellion is going to last long if the March knows which forests you claim, patrols are likely constantly combing the woods searching for you.” I held my hands up in surrender, laughing, “Alright, you win, we’ll stop, I’ll put on my actual armour, and you can get yours on too.” She grinned, “No fire either, we’ll draw the attention of the entire forest.” Keeping watch while Rose changed, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Hey, Rose, earlier you said that most people would avoid helping the March because they don’t have reason to respect their authority, but then you said that they would get help from the locals in navigating the woods, how does that add up? Also I’d like to know how a barely nineteen year old girl knows so much about war.” I heard her sigh, “The reason they could get help from the locals is because people will do an awful lot for someone when the alternative is being forced to watch their daughter being skinned alive.” I felt the blood drain from my face, “That’s extremely specific, how do you…?” “I’d rather not talk about it. Same with how I know so much about war, they belong in a part of my life that I would rather have stay buried.” I nodded in understanding. After they were done, they inspected each other, James wore a suit of chainmail, with a breastplate, wrist guards, and an open fronted helmet, revealing his slightly hooked nose with a scar running down his left cheek and brown eyes, he was in his mid twenties. I surveyed Rose’s black washed half plate and chainmail, eyes lingering on the blue gem in the sternum. “What’s that any good for? It’s a fist sized ‘aim here’ point in the middle of your chest.” “It’s enchanted. Any other remarks on my armour?” I smiled, and could feel the sensation of triumph flowing through me, “Yeah, other than the gem it looks like an older version of the plate that several members of Norimia’s family wear.” Her face flushed red with embarrassment, and she scowled at me. “Even if we are related, it would be so distantly that it’s not funny!” I grinned, and started off into the forest, “Come on, we’ve spent enough time standing around and talking.” James nearly tripped on a root, and I glared at his back, “Don’t try to introduce me as a ‘possible relative of Norimia’ I’d prefer if you just said that I’m coming to help fight.” He nodded, too tired to argue. “How is it… that you aren’t tired… at all?” He gasped as we took a break, I smiled. “Years of practice. I’m a bit older than I look.” He looked at me with confusion in his face. I had made up my mind to get the truth out in the open. “Whaddaya mean… by that? How old... are you?” I smiled slightly, “I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest with you back in town.” He looked up at me, “You don’t say, Miss-fake-accent? What else did you lie about?” I blushed. “Well, for one thing, my name is not Rose.” He looked up in shock, looking me in the eye. “Alright, tell me everything.” I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “I… ah, um, I’m-” I stopped, how hard was it? Just say it! “MynameisArdarisI’maVampireandwhenIsayI’molderthanIlookIactuallymeanthatI’moverthreethousandyearsold!” I gushed the words, and James looked blank. “Could you repeat what you just said, but at a speed where I can actually understand you.” I felt my ears and cheeks burn. “My name is Ardaris, I’m a Vampire and when I say I’m older than I look, I actually mean that I’m over three thousand years old.” James blinked, unsure whether I was joking or if I was serious. “I thought it best if I told you now…” I murmured, looking at the ground, and James sighed. “Where you at least honest about wanting to help fight?” I nodded slightly, and he smiled. “Then we have no problem. Although I don’t think a Vampire will be allowed into camp.” I smiled back, “Well, I was expecting you to run screaming, so I guess that’s alright.” I heard a branch snap, and saw the crossbowman just before he shot. “Look out!” I started pushing him out of the way, but the quarrel still clipped him. I charged at our attacker, punching my arm through his neck, ripping out his oesophagus. I ran back to James, and checked the injury. The bolt had buried itself about four inches into his back, about five inches to the right of the spine, it had probably punctured a lung. I picked him up gently, “What direction is the camp?” He tried to say something, but only wheezed something unintelligible. “Just point me straight there. Are there Healers there?” He nodded, and pointed roughly north west. I leapt off of the trail, running straight towards it. “Hey, what’s that?” The speaker pointed to a blue light in the forest. His companion squinted at it, struggling to see it in the dark. “I don’t know, but it’s definitely moving closer.” More people came to look, “Whatever it is, I doubt it can make it over the trench.” The first guard said, as it approached the edge of the torchlight. I saw the upcoming trench, it was about ten feet wide, with cavalry spikes on the far side. The audience of Legionnaires was growing tenser with every step I took. I leapt over the defences, landing in the middle of the group of soldiers. “This man is a member of the Legion, he needs help.” The men just stared. “NOW!” I roared, and the men leapt into action. One stayed behind, “You’ll need to come with me, Miss. The commander will have some questions.” I nodded, and followed, knowing I’d done all I could. “So, Ardaris, how did our undercover man end up hiking here with you in the first place?” The commander asked, “He mistook me for a member of Norimia’s family when I mentioned him. It was all caused by a big misunderstanding.” He laughed slightly, I couldn’t see him through the blindfold. “That sounds about right. So, you say you want to help. Why?” “I’ve seen enough in my time to know that this needs to be stopped.” I heard someone whisper something behind me, and the commander murmured something back, before continuing to address me, “So, as a way of seeing if you really know Norimia, answer this-” He was cut off by the sound of shouting outside, and I felt the blindfold being yanked off roughly. I opened my eyes to a Warhound leaping on the person who had freed me. He was one of the Legionnaires who I had met the night before. I leapt up and grabbed the Warhound by the scruff of the neck and hurled it away as hard as I could. I checked the man’s wounds. He had several deep bites and was losing a lot of blood, but would most likely survive. I carried him out of the tent and surveyed the camp that had become a battleground. I rushed to the healer’s tent, and put the Legionnaire with a group of other injured soldiers, and ran back out, sword and shield materializing in my hands. I looked over the battlefield, the Legion had been taken by surprise, but despite their complete lack of preparation were taking down at least two enemies for every man that fell. However they were outnumbered at least four to one. I surveyed the battlefield for where I was most needed, when I saw a group of enemies begin to cast a spell. I dived towards them, reaching out to the souls stored in my armour, drawing out power, and launched a blast of magical energy at the wizards. Every enemy caught in the blast was completely disintegrated, and almost everyone on the battlefield stopped and stared at me. I looked around, unsure of what I should do, as silence settled over the battlefield. The only movement was thousands of crows and ravens flocking to the trees around the camp.
Hooray! As soon as school starts, you start writing again! You must be a sucky student. Does Rose thorn get better marks than you? This chapter is great. All the time I feel like I am getting closer to knowing your characters. Except I usually can't work out which ones are just there to die.
Haha, actually for me school just ended! I haven't been able to write much on L-O recently due to it competing with my study and the book I'm writing That's because I try to avoid characters who are "Just there to die" I build the characters and have them do what I see the person doing. And this causes death. Horrible, horrible death.
Hmm. I can't find fault in this, other than my dislike of how overpowered Ardaris is. I think you should stick with characters who don't have to fight Gods in order to have a challenge, although I understand why you have such a large set of powerful characters. You wanted to change the Warhammer world without having your characters just get swept along by more powerful forces. This is why you have a mix of really powerful characters and near normals, so you have ways to keep your cast from crossing the line into Superman vs Goku but still have your characters matter to the overarching plot. I do like the way you've set up your world for a World War in a believable way, and the fact that you do show that your normals have no way of keeping up with your bigger characters. Although I'm waiting to see what happens with some of the whfb rules making cameos. I know that you're planning something. Also, which one of us should do you know what first? I realize it's at least three installments away but still...
Thank you RoseThorn for deconstructing every fluff piece I've ever written. I try to keep it from the viewpoint of my less ridiculously OP characters, which is why I avoid writing from the viewpoint of Slann. Unfortunately Ardaris is one of the easiest Characters to write from, so I often write from her perspective when she's around. As for That Event, I think we should release That Installment simultaneously.
He's currently writing a book. He keeps complaining that he wants to make the chapters longer but can't think of how, he currently has four I think and along with his Fluff pieces has been going on the backburner to school. He's been doing a lot more on his art because he can do that alongside his schoolwork.