Expanse: The City Reboot (Dark Fantasy Epic) Main Thread (Open, Started)

[FinalDream]

Katelyn Verneer - the capital of the north, Tinsdal

Katelyn watched the chaos unfold hidden in the grounds. She looked horrified that the party had been ambushed before she had been able to take her shot. Or even identify her target. Gritting her teeth in anger Katelyn launched herself from the grass and began running towards the blinded and panicking crowds. She would not be denied her revenge. Not after she had come so far.

It was then she saw him. Ripping of his mask and rubbing his eyes. Katelyn stopped. She felt the rush of adrenaline. The singing of her heart. With a clean and swift motion Katelyn drew her bow and fired.

It was finally over.

Then something hit her hard from behind.

Katelyn hit the ground.

The word receded into darkness.

 

[FinalDream]

Scarlett Verneer - the capital of the north, Tinsdal

Gods be dammed! Scarlett screamed the curse inside her head. This was the second time a flash grenade had got the better of her. Without thinking Scarlett tried to activate her gift but the searing pain that washed across her mind like a migraine reminded her it was out of action. For now. When Scarlett regained her sight she saw the tip of a sword inches away from her face.

?Please don?t make any sudden movements miss.? A voice spoke from behind a mask.

Scarlett felt someone grab her hands and pull them behind to be bound in rope. As she was dragged away she caught sight of him, lying in a pool of his own blood, an arrow piercing out from his neck. Mixed emotions raced across her mind.

?Wait? where are you taking me??

Her protest fell on deaf ears.




Tear - the capital of the north, Tinsdal

Tear took a step back and raised her arms at the sudden bright light. She immediately dropped her nice girl facade as a maid and only thought about her chance to kill Scarlett and Vergil. Hatred for the pair surged through her mind like a bolt of electricity and she grabbed a silver knife from behind. It wasn?t particularly sharp but with enough force and repeated blows she could kill them.

Recovering her sight Tear saw Scarlett still stunned. She smiled and began to walk towards her keeping the blade hidden out of sight. Who would suspect a nice maid helping out a guest? It was then she saw it too. The arrow cut through flesh like butter and the river of blood that followed seemed almost unreal. Tear felt a little sick.

?Drop it.?

The voice came from behind. Tear let the knife fall and raised her arms in surrender.

Kalyn Alexander Vaalender - Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

Kalyn tore of his mask in anger and threw it to the ground. His sight was almost gone. Rubbing his eyes to regain some vision his first thought was to find his wife and son.

He never felt the arrow. Only his life draining slowly away on the ground.

In those last moments before he died Kalyn felt afraid. Very afraid.

 

[FinalDream]

Scarlett Verneer - the capital of the north, Tinsdal


Scarlett tried to struggle, she couldn?t see what had happened to Telnor and hoped he was still ok. If they had harmed him in any way then she would kill the lot of them. Scarlett cursed at herself. Why hadn?t she tried to fight? Make a stand and protect the group? Scarlett took a deep breath and tried to relax, she knew she was helpless and after all now was not the time to act up and get noticed by these people. She need to lay low, observe, and work out the details of her escape plan.

Father?

Scarlett shook her hand and banished all trace of her father into the dark recesses of her mind, she would deal with the anger and grief later. Then she saw Tear. At least the anger flaring in her eyes. So she had been captured too? This didn?t bode all too well for staying under the radar. Scarlett looked away and caught sight of another women, she had long slightly curled dark hair and tanned olive skin and was dressed in a dark grey ninja garb, despite her best efforts at trying to break free from the two men holding her she seemed only to work herself up more and more.

Wait.

Scarlett saw that one of these men was carrying a bow. This woman had killed her father!

 

[DragonofDecay86]

Vincent and Lucian - District Heart - Cave Entrance - Dojeran

Vincent and Lucian entered the cave just as another gust of wind threw a bank of snow down from the cave entrance, making an audible THUMP behind them. A cool blast of air was thrown into the cave on impact, ruffling the cloaks of the Hunter's as they sat at the cave entrance rummaging in their bags for something.

"Ah, here it is." Lucian said happily, pulling out a torch from his rucksack and throwing it over to Vincent who caught it easily out of the air. Vincent pulled out his flint and steel and struck them together near the torch, igniting it in a bright blaze of red light that lit up the gloom and allowed the pair of hunters decent vision into the shadows. The cave they stood in was pretty straightforward, a single path leading down into the belly of the mountain.

"Looks like we're going down." Lucian said, igniting his own torch and starting a slow decent into the mountain.

Vincent followed solemnly, eventually leaving the bright white glow of the outside world behind, to descend deeper into the shadows and darkness of the mountain caves. The caves kept descending at a descent rate, eventually straightening out. It was hard to tell which direction they were going though however, so they could have been going in any direction and they never would have known the difference. The walls grew closer around Lucian and Vincent the further in they got, growing more ragged and broken. Bats and rats become more commons sight the lower the descended, eventually growing bold and coming closer to the pair of hunters. Eventually Vincent couldn't take the constant sea of rats underneath and on his feet as he walked.

Vincent stopped down hard, hearing a satisfying crack and squeak as a rat was broken under his heel. The rest of the rats fled into cracks and crevices, not wanting to share the same fate as their brother. Vincent smiled and stopped for a moment to wipe his boot off on a jagged rock, making sure the remains of the rat were cleaned off his shoe before he continued on.

"Was that enjoyable Vincent?" Lucian said with a sadistic grin, twisting his scarred face into an even more gruesome sight than normal. It was unnerving when Lucian smiled, despite the fact that he did it often.

"More enjoyable than having those disease ridden bastards crawl all over my boots." Vincent said, pushing past Lucian to take the lead again.

Vincent and Lucian walked in silence again for what felt like an hour before the tunnels grew wider again, until they opened up into a cavernous room, where even the glow of their two torches weren't able to penetrate more than a few feet in front of them. The path dipped down to a lower elevation, while another path took a higher route. The sound of a stream trickling down could be heard, along with the sound of rustling wings.

"Well what path should we take?" Vincent asked, turning to his companion to see him already ascending the higher path.

"The path that gets us out of here." Lucian said without looking back, simply motioning for Vincent to follow. Vincent sighed and started up the path that would hopefully lead them out of the darkness of the mountain.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Telnor- Waterfront Garden

Everything was bright. Telnor blinked furiously, trying to get his eyes back to normal quickly. Suddenly he felt someone grab by the shoulder and spun him around.

"Resist and die. Cooperate and you get to," Telnor felt blood on his face as heard his would be attacker punched in the face and fall to the ground.

"This way Master Telnor!" Telnor felt someone grab his hand and pull him out of the Waterfront Garden and back into the mansion. As his eyes recovered he saw it was the same man who had delivered him the note earlier. Then something clicked.

"YOU! You were the carriage driver to Cryka! Jihel!: Telnor exclaimed.
"I'm surprised you remembered. Any rate we can talk about that in a minute," Jihel replied, letting go of Telnor. "Just keep running. There are others with me. At least ten. We can get out of here together. They have guards at every entrance so we will have to fight our way out."
"I'm not leaving those people behind to die," Telnor gritted through his teeth. "I'm not that kind of person."
Jihel sighed. "She said you would act like this. The great and noble Telnor. I hate orders. We are to protect you at all costs."
"Wait. Who is She?" asked Telnor as they turned a corner and stopped as a group of five people came from down one corridor and four others came from the other. All of them wore black leather armor, with the image of a snake wrapping around their bodies. Black leather helmets covered their entire faces, the picture of two large fangs running the entire length of the mask.
"This, Telnor is the rest of my squad and She is Mistress Nicon. She has ordered us to protect at all costs. Sounds nice but she only really wants you alive so she can kill you. She has been pulling strings to make sure we are in place to follow you. Nothing much. Getting me hired to drive you and these people just worked as servants. Its real easy for people to except new servants so its easy to get them to work here. She has small groups throughout the North to watch but nothing spectacular like what she. You know what I've said too much," Rihel told Telnor as he striped and put on the armor given to him by one of the squad members.

Rihel signaled one of the others to step forward. The squad member handed Telnor a set of armor. It was leather like the others but it was blue, with a dragon wrapped around it. Fire was depicted all along the arms. Telnor stripped and put it on, admiring the flexibility it offered him. He was handed a belt with three pouchs.

"There are different types of bombs in there," the squad member who give Telnor the belt explained. "You have smoke bombs in there, flash bombs in there and Pepper Bombs in the last one. Remember to keep your mouth and eyes shut with that last one. It can burn."

Telnor nodded and buckled the belt around his waist. Another squad member came up to Telnor carrying a sword case. Telnor's eyes widned as he realized that it was his.

"I'm sorry sir but I needed to raid your room for your sword. There would have been no time get it later," the member apologized. Telnor glared as took the case and attached his sword to his belt. Also inside were two daggers with ankle holsters. Telnor wrapped them around his ankles and tightened them to hold them there. Standing up he turn to the squad.

"We need to recuse everyone in the Garden. As these are mages we should take higher levels and arm ourselves with bows and other things we can throw. But these mages are also holding a lot of hostages. Does everyone have smoke bombs?" Telnor asked. The entire squad nodded once in unison. "Ok. What we should do is have a few people on the upper levels throw the smoke bombs. The rest of us charge in and get the hostages out safely. Then the guards and anyone else resisting can attack without fear of danger to civilians. Understood. Good. Lets go!" Telnor turned on his heel and ran the way he had came.

They ran through hallway after hallway back towards the Gardens. Guards who were aimless before quickly joined the group and soon Telnor's group had tripled in size. When they came to a stairways leading to the second level, Telnor sent five guards up there with all the smoke bombs but his. As they got closer to the Garden, Telnor ran into Vergil, Vessel and some strangers. Telnor explained the plan to them. When he was done explaining, he turned to door and yelled "ITS TIME TO COUNTER ATTACK!"

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

After listening to Telnor's plan, Vergil continued getting inside the mansion with the Vessel in tow. As he got in, he could hear a voice calling to him.

"Mr. Crawford, over here!" The voice yelled, it was one of the maids, she quickly hurried him and Vessel into one of the rooms. As he entered, Vergil could see that Fiora was here as well, along with his and the Vessel's equipment.

"Oh Vergil, its good to see your still up and about."
"You as well Fiora, who were those guys out there that you sent?"
"Them, they are from the Shadow Information Network; the organization that the De La Croix family has run in service to the Dean for hundreds of years."

"S.I.N has a network of agents across the entire North Section, and we're also starting to branch out into the Middle. What we do, is we obtain by various means, legal or otherwise, information that concerns the security of the North, this information is then passed on to the Dean, who would decide how best to use this information. Before you ask, I don't know how we missed information regarding an attack by the Mage Order. Damn those Mage purists." She said, ending in a furious rage.

"They think that the North should be a Mage only section. But they don't realise, is that it takes people of both Mage and Non-Mage lineages to successfully run something, as one side could have benefits the other does not. Co-Operation is the key."

"Sorry about that Vergil, its just, how could we miss this. I'll have the maids take care of Miss Velkan, until we can get out of here." The maids took hold of the Vessel, and laid her down onto the bed, and started tending to some minor injuries.

"Don't beat yourself up on this mother, not everyone is perfect." Vergil remarked, showing sympathy.
"Your right. Anyway, I know now may not seem like the perfect time for presents, but I have something of your fathers." Fiora recalled, and carried a wooden container, and placed it onto a table. "Go ahead, open it." She then gestured to the box.

Vergil walked up to the box, and undid the leather straps that held it in place. Inside, was a crossbow, painted in a dark blue colour, and had a image of a wolf carved on its side. At the front, the firing end of the weapon, had a metal piece shaped like a wolf.

"Well, Father certainly had taste." Vergil remarked, quoting the look of the crossbow.

"Indeed he did, Angello was an expert Arbalist, but he was also a fine swordsman. It seems his skills have passed on to you. Oh, by the way, your father named it Fenris, probably because of the wolf theme." She replied with, raising a smile afterwards.

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

"You'd probably would of been captured, like your parents. Don't worry though Vessel, we'll get them back." Vergil said, sounding confident.

"Yes, quite, when we reach a safe location; I'll have send some scouts out to see if we can't track down where the Mage Order could of taken your parents Miss Velkan. Rest assured, we will find them." Fiora remarked, determination in her voice.

"Speaking of, how much does this the ****, and by extension you know about S.I.N?" She then asked, sounding concerned.

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

"Well, I'm glad to see that the **** got some humour out of our operations, but I must remind you that S.I.N is a very serious organization, we take some measure of pride in our work. But I suppose we can make exceptions of a sort, for someone who is a 'friend' of Vergil."

Vergil sighed.

"The **** is not a friend mother, merely an acquaintance of mine" He remarked in a disapproving manner, as he further inspected his father's crossbow.

"I take it that you still have some crossbow bolts left. I feel that we may need them, if we're to escape the mansion."

"Of course, let me just find them." Fiora replied with, as she began rummaging through a chest.

"Here we are, a quiver filled with standard bolts, and ones with specially made armour piercing bolts."

"Nice, very nice. Okay then, how are we going to go about escaping the mansion. I suggest we change into something more civilian."

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

"You might have to what?" Vergil asked.

"Look, if its spare clothes you want, then there should be some in the satchel of mine over of there. Granted, they are more male in design, but they should suffice until we get something more suitable for you."

 

[CrazyBlaze]

[t] Telnor [/b]

Telnor's group charged as the smoke bombs hit the ground, they were all prepared to take back the Garden from the mages, thinking the smoke bombs would give them the advantage. They were wrong. As soon as they entered the garden, a barge of fire, lighting and ice was popped open Telnor's group, wiping out ten of his thirty men and sending the rest of the group scattering. Some ran back the way they came, others ran into the garden, still hoping to rescue the hostages. The mages quickly fired upon those who had ran back inside.

The mages then started to pick off the ones who had ran into the garden until only Telnor, Jihel and two of Jihel's men were left, scattered around the garden. All of a sudden arrows, rocks, silverware and other random junk came flying out of the second floor windows. The people who had split off from the group to go upstairs to attack from afar, were trying to save the survivors of ill advised counter attack.

A couple of the mages turned to face these new pests. Summoning the power of lighting, fire and wind, they destroyed the floor above the counter attackers, bringing the ceiling on them, crushing and killing them.

The two members of Jihel's squad were ducking and dodging the attacks of two different mages when one of them got blasted with a bolt of lightning, exploding his head. The second one got frozen in place. As he tried to break free the mage froze his head in a block of ice, slowly suffocating him.

Telnor and Jihel were on separate sides of the Garden, both attempting to fend off their attackers. Jihel dodged a blast of wind, stepped into the mage and punched him in the gut, leaving him breathless. Running as fast as he could he tried to make it to Telnor, ducking, spinning, jumping and dodging the mage's attacks.

As Telnor tried to dodge the attacks something started to happen to his vision. He started to see the mage's movements and noticed how they were attacking. He started to be able to predict where the next attack was going to be. But even with his ability working he could barely dodge the attacks. The mages forced him back to the railing. One of the mage's released two bolts of lightning on either side of Telnor as a second mage prepared a large blast of fire. Telnor placed both hands on the railing, back flipped over the railing down towards the beach below. The mage launched a large fireball at Telnor, just before he started to fall, landing square in his chest, wrecking Telnor's armor, cracking his ribs and sending him falling on his back. Jihel tried to run to railing but was frozen in place by a mage and knocked unconscious.

Telnor laid on the ground, burns across his chest, unmoving.

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford/Fiora De La Croix - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

"Help yourself to whatever is available in there Vessel."

"No, not a problem at all. Anyway, Vergil, if your looking for your clothes from earlier, I had them placed on that chair over there." Fiora remarked, and pointed over to a chair next to the bed.

"Thanks, I'll um, get changed in the bathroom, wouldn't want to strut about half naked in front of you ladies. Won't be long." Vergil then placed the crossbow down, and went over to pick up his original outfit, and entered the bathroom.

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford/Fiora De La Croix - The Dean's Mansion - Tinsdal

"Guess I'll have to remember that for next time then." Vergil remarked with a satisfied chuckle as he finished putting on his old clothes. He then stepped out of the bathroom, and saw the Vessel in his attire.

"I must say, it suits you rather well." He commented whilst getting together his equipment, strapping on his new crossbow behind his back last.

"Now then, how are we going to get out?" Vergil asked, bringing the topic back to escaping the mansion.

"We could just easily walk out the front door, with the Mage Order attacking from the gardens, it seems they neglected to place any form of defence at the front entrance. Which I must say is a rather idiotic oversight, I mean what did they think we we're going to do, directly attack them?" Fiora remarked, mocking the futility of the Mage Order's plan.

"By the looks of the attack, it seems that was their intention. Anyway, despite the basic nature of the plan, it looks like we are simply going to walk out of here. Well then, lets go." Vergil remarked, commenting on the fighting outside in the gardens, then the simplistic nature of the escape. He then lead himself, Fiora, Vessel, and the maids out of the room, and into the main hallway.

 

[Evrant-Knight]

Vergil Crawford - Mansion Hallways - Tinsdal

As the group moved through the hallways, Vergil was on point, scanning the hallways with his crossbow, so to counter any attackers or ambushes. They were nearing the main foyer when the Vessel spoke.

"Hmm, you have a point Vessel, the **** would have certain capabilities that would be useful in finding your parents. Perhaps if we combined both her and S.I.N's resources, rescuing your parents should be easier than if we tried on our own."

"If you can contact this the **** when we reach S.I.N headquarters, then we can start planning a rescue operation."