Eldarwen. 26, 2
Sonitus 5
Auctor 8
The machines lit up and it seemed as though the synthetics inside would survive the experiment, but Eldarwen would have none of that. She made a small gesture with her hand, and they blew up in a mixture of black and green, smearing the cockpits with their blood and skin. They would need to understand the price of making machines such as these, and so she bound their souls to them as well. Enough synthetics had been sent to Evermoor already.
Alectra turned her head away, at first everything had looked to be going alright, then even more synthetics had died. Twenty five felt like nothing in the big picture. She was saddened that she thought of it like that. It was true though. Twenty five was not much compared to ten thousand. It was amazing that there were still so many more left in the city. She'd have thought they'd want to leave and abandon their home, their faith. However, they had stayed and only grown more determined.
"I believe that our arrangement has come to an end. Now that you have done what you craved so badly." She looked up at the face of her queen. The synthetics were back up on their feet, busying themselves with taking notes and studying the machines who were walking around the room.
Alectra had been afraid before, fearing that the queen would send them after her as well. The inquisitors knew how to break their sisters and take away their pride, before killing them. They were few in numbers, but sanctioned by the queen. However, when she met the eyes of her queen, she understood that she had probably always wanted to deal with Alectra herself.
"I.." She wished she hadn't fallen into her trap, when the fist hit her with a sickening crunch, likely breaking Alectra's jaw and sending her head down against the cold, hard floor.
Eldarwen smiled, after all this waiting she would finally get Alectra. She took a firm grip of her hair and shouted. "I did not give you permission to speak!" The synthetics tried to ignore them, it was hardly the first time they had seen one of their own beaten into the ground.
The queen wanted their attention, but they were too few in the room, so she teleported the both of them to the town square where the blood sacrifice had taken place ten years ago.
Sonitus continued reading the diary of Alectra, most of it shocked her. Other than what Alectra must have written herself, there were drawings and ideas for numerous inventions. They were simple and undeveloped, but as the writer explained herself, the synthetics and their technology had given her a chance to make reality out of them.
There were some parts that Sonitus couldn't read, as the language was too formal and advanced for her. She could understand about half of it, but a majority of the words were new or she hadn't known what they meant to begin with. She did like seeing a lot of words from the language of amour either way. Each of those passages ended with Auctor's signature.
There were two things that Alectra and Auctor both wrote about more than once. The blood sacrifice, and the machina faust. Sonitus went back to the first entry about the former, which she had only skimmed before and felt sickened.
It's peculiar how you can feel on top of the world one day, and in purgatory the very next morning. I did not know they had stolen the armor, nor did I expect this kind of reaction from her majesty. I watched a hundred of my friends cut open like if they were cattle, and had it not been for our lady, the queen would surely have done the same to me as well. I thought it a weak argument that I was not like them. Are we not all sisters made by the one true godess? However, the queen stayed her hand from killing me, where I sat in the blood of my synthetic friends. While they were hard to tell apart in life, I will remember them as if they all had been individuals. Not what the queen called them. Auctor was forced to watch us lined up in the street. I saw the tears in her eyes. I have her to thank for my life and that the research was not destroyed. I do not know what she had to promise to give the queen, to stop her from destroying what information we had gathered. The armor have been taken from us, but I think we can still make use of it one day.
Sonitus didn't want to believe that Eldarwen had killed them, but the amount of dead just increased the more she read in Alectra's diary. She went to the page where the machina faust was first mentioned.
I used to study, and later teach the art of war at the university in Ayamine. We, as a race, have not fought many wars at all. There has been a surprising amount of knowledge and inventions made in the area, when you take that into account.
The scouting parties that travels Evalon has brought back interesting knowledge about the other races. We are without a doubt the best warriors, according to those reports. If that is arrogance or truth, I can not know. Though they do mention the others use of magic. I am glad that the study of the armor has given me and my sisters, a way to counter that. If we supposedly take away their magic, what good are they? How easy would it be to conquer them all?
The machina faust are merely a theory as of now, but we intend to make them reality. They will be our shield against magi.
Alectra didn't seem to share her mother's hatred for mortals, from what she could tell after reading the diary. She did want to see them conquered though, and considering how a half of the drawings in her diary were of weapons, Sonitus guessed that it was because of her pride as a scholar.
She put the book back down. It was clear that Eldarwen had found out about these synthetics and not taken kindly to them. It wasn't that strange after they had stolen the armor of hatred from her mother. Sonitus assumed that they had been made by Auctor, since they lived in her city. Alectra had been left alive, because Auctor had convinced Eldarwen that she was an asset. At least, that's what Sonitus could make out from her sister's last notes.
"Do you not know it is wrong to snoop?" Auctor's voice came from the door.
Sonitus turned around on her heel, and smiled. "I can't be the only one, sister. My crime isn't even as severe as yours. Writing in someone else's journal." Auctor looked down, so that Sonitus was unable to see her face, though the reaction could be one of shame. She stepped over to her white sister, put her hand on her waist and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Did you miss my touch so much that you turned naughty?" Auctor shook her head, but her shivering body told Sonitus a different story. The singer laughed and let go off her sister. "It can wait. I need to speak to mother, where is she?"
"Eldarwen is busy and has no time for you. I told you that." Sonitus frowned, but went for Auctor again with her hands. "I mean, sh.. she.. she's probably dealing with Alectra now that I can't protect her anymore."
Auctor stammered, and her words stopped Sonitus right before she was about to kiss her.
"Did you really not miss me? I thought we were closer than this." Sonitus said heavyhearted.
The writer hesitated, but would rather keep Sonitus on her side, so she closed the small gap between them and pecked her. A small price to pay, she figured.
Sonitus closed her eyes, but the face that appeared in her mind did not belong to Auctor. She thought of Ailish, exposed and in her arms again. Strange perhaps, but she was not one to deny her urges.
Auctor regretted kissing her, as Sonitus soon got frisky and more forceful than she had ever been. If this was her sister's way of showing that she had missed her, she was curious as to how she showed someone she loved them. She was pushed out of the treasury and up against a wall in the corridor outside, where the servants stared at her. Auctor had no way of telling Sonitus to stop, what with her lips being occupied, but eventually the singer stopped by her own accord.
"Oh, sweet mercy. You remind me of both of them. Did you always taste this paradisaical?" Sonitus wasn't sure if it was her smell, her taste or her creation that was the source. Furthermore, it felt recent and possibly because she had not experienced Ailish as she truly was before entering the portal. "What do I need to do for you to share your bed with me?" She punched a hole in the wall next to Auctor's head, and startled her sister, when she realized what she needed to do.
Sonitus drew her sword, and left Auctor, who watched her walk away with heavy steps.
Eldarwen had managed to attract quite the crowd. Well, the arena was still popular in Ayamine and the ekiruru had always had a penchant for violence. Alectra had not put up a fight though, but watching the queen break her might still have its charm. She wouldn't survive much longer.
She stomped on Alectra's leg, and broke it, blood sputtered onto the street and the dark wooden bones were bared. The traitor didn't scream in pain, as she could not even speak to begin with anymore. She groaned, before Eldarwen dropped her back into her own blood.
"Let this be a lesson for everyone who thinks they can escape my wrath!"
The words echoed through the street, and she knew where she needed to go. Her body shook and she wanted to turn around, turn away from this path she had chosen carelessly, but her feet didn't listen to her fears. She made her way through the gathered ekiruru, and saw Eldarwen tower above them.
"Any last words?"
Her mother was on a powertrip and Sonitus finally got through the crowd. She saw Eldarwen raise her foot above the mess on the ground. Alectra had changed colour from all the blood she was laying in. One of her arms had been torn off her body, and thrown to the side. Both of her legs were broken and her breathing was strained.
[sub]"As no one else."[/sub] Her voice failed her, and the words didn't come out very loud. It was short of a whisper. Sonitus understood why no one objected, but she couldn't be like everyone else, not now. "As no one else is going to tell you this, I will; This is wrong!"
All those times she had acted, because she was afraid of Eldarwen's scornful glare, went through her head as the queen turned to look at her with that expression. She gulped, but held onto her sword. The killing had to stop. Why couldn't she lead armies away from their own to fight the other races? Sonitus liked those too, but she could at least overlook such an act.
"You greet me like this, after a thousand years?"
Sonitus thought it was obvious, but maybe Eldarwen wanted to give her a chance to back down and retract her statement. She couldn't, and instead she nodded.
Eldarwen was angered by her insolence, and let her foot come down on Alectra's back, likely shattering her spine. She pulled her staff out of the aether, and prepared herself to beat some sense into another defiant individual.
Sonitus got down on one knee, when she saw Alectra stomped on again. She didn't want to feel like she had caused her death. It would make her as bad as Eldarwen, who had fallen low if she had killed ten thousand for stealing an armor.
"Bück dich, befehl ich dir." She sang, and put her hand on her helmet. Amour rose from the ground before she did. "Wende dein Antlitz ab von mir. Dein Gesicht ist mir egal." She took a deep breath, and wished that she had someone to pray to, but the only god she had acknowledged in her lifetime was standing in front of her. She didn't want to bother Ailish, and there was really no other god worth praying to. "Bück dich!"
Eldarwen blocked the sword she had given to the demigod, as Sonitus rushed towards her. She had grown considerably, and actually put up a good fight. When she was forced out of the town square, because of the sword's attacks, she knew it wasn't the same woman that had been brought back from the dead.
Auctor watched Sonitus and Eldarwen clash. She dared approach Alectra, when Sonitus had driven her mother away. The daughter of nature was holding onto life by a thread, but she was alive. Auctor summoned a scroll, and wrote down a spell to prolong her death until she may be able to find someone to heal her. It felt hopeless though, who would want to heal someone the queen hated? Alectra was the most brilliant mind in this age among her people, and now she was on the verge of death.
"We want to help, she got hurt because she protected us." She heard three voices saying in synch, and looked up at them. "Come with us."
Auctor had no other choice, and picked up what remained of Alectra. She left the arm though, and followed the synthetics to the library. She knew they had taken up residence in it, but not that they had a way of healing someone this badly injured.
They entered the library and lead her down countless of stairs, until they stopped in the middle of an empty room. She wondered how this was supposed to help, and was about to scream at them in despair, when the floor began to shake and sink. It moved slowly downwards. How much further could they even go?
That's when the walls around them disappeared, and they descended into an enormous cavern complex. She could see unfinished towers and buildings, surrounded by numerous pathways and synthetics below.
"Mother of Eldarwen." She swore, which she didn't like doing, but the magnitude of what she witnessed was aweinspiring. How could they have done all this? The cavern may be natural, but the city wasn't.
"Welcome to our humble dwelling." The synthetics said, as the lift stopped. There was five paths to take from where she was standing, and she didn't know which one to take, but the synthetics gestured for her to follow them into the one on the left. "Du bist im Labyrinth."
Sonitus was bleeding, and while she had managed to hit Eldarwen a couple of times. She had been thrown through the ceiling of a house shortly after. She didn't want to get up and fight her mother again. It was not her wish for them to become enemies and if she did move, she feared she might find out she had crushed someone with her landing.
"Do you surrender?" She heard a voice she loved.
"Do you?" Sonitus replied, and Eldarwen laughed.
I didn't think so.
"I suppose so. The price has been paid with Alectra's life, and since those freaks of your sister has proven themselves competent; There is no reason for us to continue fighting." Eldarwen entered the house through the door, and reached her hand out to Sonitus, to help her up on her feet. "Blind loyalty does not equal true loyalty. Even I know I am wrong at times."
<spoiler=Machina Faust><spoiler=Pic>
Bonuses:
+ Immortal
+ Immune to magic.
+ Has the ability to absorb magic and pull it into themselves, acting as shields to other Ekiruru nearby.
Flaws
- One can be instantly killed by repeating the poem of the blood sacrifice, which Auctor has inscribed on the back on all of them.
"Hellfire scorching, blinding the sky
Descending like rain
You will believe this blood sacrifice
Life was the price for change
Our blood forever stained on the street
Blood can't be washed away"
- Needs someone willing to enter the suit, but the Ekiruru would forever lose their identity. They are now machines, unable to any greater thought and made for war. They lose their souls and will not end up in Evermoor should they die.
- Activating their ability to absorb magic to protect their nearby comrades, causes instant death for the Machina Faust who does so, after they have absorbed the magic.
<spoiler=Action>
Sonitus action: DC9. AP3. Inspire a large group of mortals(500) for life.
+6 Sound. Her song and her sword which she used in the battle to inspire them.
+2 Hatred. Keeping their hate under control.
Sonitus inspires those who watched her stand up against their queen and fight her, to form the order of Wisteria. The steadfast guardians, who will fight for good, love and all that is holy to the ekiruru. They'd only take one form of reward for their deeds, or none at all if the one they helped is unwilling to reward them. Music is their version of holy scriptures, and it's common for them to sing while fighting.
<spoiler=Pic>
