Conquest: Heroes of Arcadia

[Kamotz]

Conquest: Heroes of Arcadia
(PG - 13)
​

Halcyon High City
Capital of the Halcyon Empire

Erika Valke strode through the halls of the Halcyon Imperial Palace, and for the umpteenth time she marveled at the change in décor since Ryder's ascension to the throne. Gone were the ostentatious gold-and-gemstone gilding, the imperial portraits of past kings and queens, the ornate tapestries telling tales of old victories, and the marble statues of heroes in battle.

Ryder had done away with all of it. What he put in its place was simple; elegant and modern. Sleek lines, minimal decoration - even the ceremonial throne room had been completely overhauled. No longer was it an obelisk of precious metals and decadence. It was sparse; an elevated marble throne upon marble stairs. The only ornamentation was a series of stained-glass windows depicting heroes and events of legend.

It was because of those heroes that Ryder had called her to meet with him. Not in the throne room, but his private office. That was the real seat of power. That was where the king truly ruled from. It was where he fought from now that the wars had ended. It was where he fought to keep the peace so many had paid for with their blood. Now he believed that the old relics of heroes past would help preserve the future.

He'd tasked her with finding them - either a relic itself, or just a trace of it. She didn't understand the details of how possessing these relics would prevent further war, but she trusted Ryder. He had already provided her with a list of suitable candidates for the journey. They'd narrowed it down to five plus her. Four of them knew to meet her at the palace courtyard. Vallane Hy∂d, Culain Leonhardt, Olivia Denarti, and Kaladin Goldsinger were already waiting. The last, however...he'd been more difficult to convince. It had taken some of her more...persuasive talents to even garner his attention. Nevertheless, she was...known for her abilities to persuade even the most stubborn of people.

===

Lance Donovan was not one for following orders. He wasn't a soldier. He was a killer. Throughout the war he'd never seen organized combat; he never partook in drills, nor was he given marching orders. He was simply pointed in a direction and unleashed; tasked with dispatching everything that crossed his path. That was his nature, and the nature of war. Ryder and his generals knew that grim reality, and Lance was their way of keeping their hands clean of it.

When Erika Valke showed up at his door with "orders" from Ryder, it rubbed him the wrong way. He'd paid his dues to the "Hero King" and was promised anonymity in return. That was their agreement. Lance's power for Ryder's blind eye.

So why had Ryder gone back on their deal?

Were Lance a pettier man he would assume that Ryder no longer honored their agreement; he would assume that Ryder believed his new status, and high walls, and armed guards would protect the king from the his wrath and the truth. But Lance was not a petty man. And he knew that Ryder was smarter than that. For Ryder to summon him - the way a man summons his dog - meant that something very different was going on.

It didn't help that the Valke woman was the one Ryder had sent. She was powerful. Dangerous. Even for someone like him. Their scuffle had exacerbated to the point where it seemed they'd kill one another. And Lance wasn't sure he'd be the one walking away. It was not his usual sentiment. And he didn't like it.

He stalked through the streets of the Halcyon High Capital; eager to get it over with. Cities were a mixed blessing; full of potential and entertainment - but also crowded, loud, and intrusive. It made being him much more difficult. The Need was never stronger than when he was surrounded by people, the Hunger never more intense. The Passenger whispered ever louder, more incessantly, to the point where it was almost louder than the cacophony of the city around him.

He pushed past the madness and stuffed down the Need; he forced himself to ignore it even though he knew it would only come back stronger and louder than before. He moved through the lower sections of the city and made his way towards the palace itself; where the Valke woman had ordered him to arrive.

"Halt," bid the guards, weapons at the ready. Lance hardly blamed them; even looking as human as he did he cut a threatening figure. They were right to be wary of him. "State your name and business."

"Lance Donovan," he answered curtly. He was annoyed with the scrutiny but refused to make it into a thing of note. Push through the noise and the clamor. Do what needed to be done. "I'm here to see the Valke woman. Or Ryder. Whichever one of them called me. I don't particularly care who."

The guards bristled, but checked the registry and allowed him to pass.

Once within the courtyard, he felt uncomfortable. He was surrounded; not by enemies, but by uncertainty. He had given up the high ground; he was unfamiliar with the terrain; he had abandoned all sense of tactical advantage.

The Passenger whispered, almost screaming its protest. But with a snarl he stuffed it back into the dark corner of his mind; the high towers in the spaces behind his eyes.

"Oh good, you decided to come." It was the Valke woman. Erika. How grating a voice. Haughty, arrogantly noble - so full of duty and obligation. She lacked any sense of whim and freedom. "I was worried we'd have to kill you."

"We, yes," Lance muttered, looking over the group. Erika had explained the setup: a chosen few; some of the most capable and knowledgeable of Ryder's subjects. Though he was now beginning to doubt that fact. First there was the girl. Young, small; and he doubted she was worth much in the long run anyway. Then was the tall, thin man in the shiny robes. A spellmaster, certainly, but hardly impressive at first glance. The next two were of more concern.

The woman - a slender, petite brunette with dark eyes, dressed all in black - fit the bill of an assassin. And Lance made a mental note not to underestimate her for her size. The other man, tall, pale and hawklike was of more interest. He seemed to close to Lance's own kind. Too much like a fellow monster. Lance recognized the madness - that selfsame hunger in his eyes. He understood that. He knew that kind of man.

It wasn't someone he needed to concern himself with.

Only the Valke woman - tall, powerful, and as dangerous in her own way as he was - really warranted his concern. The rest would be easy enough to handle - to push away or pull in close - but Erika already knew him; already crossed blades with him. Getting his way there would be infinitely more difficult.

"Well then, we have an appointment to keep," said Erika. She spared Lance a pointed look. "Let's get started."

 

[Firebrand]

Halcyon High City
Capital of the Halcyon Empire
Castle Courtyard

Culain inspected his carefully manicured fingernails clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. About damn time their last member showed up. Punctuality was an important virtue, and he had little time for people who couldn't be bothered to show up on time. He glanced up and met the newcomer's eyes. He knew of Lance by reputation, though their paths had never crossed in the wars. Here was a kindred spirit, one who savored the rush of battle and the thrill of taking life, becoming so drenched in blood that the red blinded you and you became nothing more than a sheathe of skin and muscle around raw screaming instinct and primal murderous intent. But a kindred spirit did not always mean a friend to be made, and more often than not, it led to disastrous consequences. He would tread carefully around this one. Still, he had been looking for a worthy foe for a long time. Maybe he had just found one. With an exaggerated sigh, he undid his cravat only to retie it with a flourish, tucking the cloth into the neck of his tunic. The others here were... well, it was a pretty mixed bag, truth to tell. Valke was a good soldier, and though Culain had never served under her command in the war, but they had crossed paths a few times. She was a solid commander, a good warrior and reliable, but she was something of a hard*ss.

He couldn't figure out why the waif of a girl was here. She seemed like a dead weight. If she fell behind, Culain wasn't about to pull her share. He didn't care what Valke said, if the girl became a hindrance she would be left behind. The alchemist too gave Culain a bad vibe. He knew the man was an eccentric genius, but he seemed more the former than the latter. He had a reputation, but that reputation did not seem to translate to a lot of fieldwork, and Culain signed onto this venture under the assumption that he would be doing nothing but fieldwork. It was the other woman that intrigued him. Olivia Denarti had spent most of the time following the end of the rebellion as a political prisoner of the king, and if the rumor mill was anything to go by she was doing this because the king had promised the return of her lands and titles if she saw it through. In that way, he supposed, they weren't so very different. Had he been a different sort of man, Culain probably would have been tossed in the dungeon after provoking that riot in the low quarters. It was only his "loyalty" to the new regime that spared him that. Well, that and it would take considerable resources to build a prison that would hold the Red Demon for long.

He drew a bag of roasted chestnuts from one of the pockets of his coat and popped a few into his mouth. He glanced sidelong at Olivia, leaning against the courtyard wall with her arms folded over her chest. "Want some, love?" Olivia cast him a baleful glance and looked him up and down. "Look, it's just some food. You look hungry." She shrugged and silently took the bag. As she tossed one into her mouth, Culain turned to Valke. "So, fearless leader, when do we get underway? What's the timetable I can expect to have my magic sword in?" He grinned at the commander and sat down on one of the low stone walls that lined the garden paths, flipping the tails of his coat out behind him so as not to get them dirty.

Olivia kept her face professionally blank as she studied her new comrades, as she knew they would be doing to her. It was hard to believe that the fearsome Red Demon was such an insufferable dandy in person. His record spoke for itself, and she did not doubt that he was completely competent on the battlefield, but his manner of speaking was just the kind of thing that pissed her off. He spoke like a member of the lower class emulating upper class diction, which she supposed was fitting. He was, at heart, just another social climber. But he also did the infuriating thing where his words were said with an undercurrent of wit and irony, an almost-but-not-quite laugh at his own joke. Now that she thought about it, her innate dislike of Culain probably said more about her than it did him. Perhaps it was best to reserve any further judgment until she saw him in battle first hand. And he had shared his food with her in what she assumed to be an unsolicited and altruistic gesture. Culain had a reputation for being shrewd on the battlefield but as far as she knew he had little enough patience for politicking and the subtle interplay of courtly relations. Him giving her the chestnuts was probably simply that.

"Culain," she said. "Catch." She lobbed the little bag underhand to the fire mage, who snagged it out of the air.

"That's Lieutenant Colonel Leonhardt to you, ma'am," Culain replied.

"I'm not calling you Lieutenant Colonel until you start bowing and scraping and calling me 'my lady', Leonhardt. And we both know that's never going to happen."

The man shrugged and brushed his hair back off his forehead. "Fair enough." He began scratching at the gap between two of his teeth, obviously trying to give off the look of one who is disaffected and careless. Olivia had to admit that he was good at making people let their guards down. Probably a skill he honed in the lead up to his tavern brawls. She leaned back against the wall and narrowed her eyes to slits. She had received instructions from the new king that her duty was to keep these people alive, no matter how much she may end up wishing it otherwise. Back when she had been an assassin for the nobility, she had often served in the capacity of a bodyguard, so a protective role was nothing new to her. It was just a little awkward to now be protecting people she had been ordered to keep an eye on in the war. The lord she worked for then had thought to gain more prestige by picking off all of Ryder's best and brightest in the last days of the war. Olivia had defected before that became necessary, but she had to develop the plans well before that.

Culain would have been simple. Even on campaign, he would often slink off to the local tavern. It wouldn't have taken too much get him to prompt a melee, and in the drunken confusion he would, true to form, think very little of his self-preservation. She would slit his throat and be off with no one the wiser. The plans she had devised for Donovan and Valke would need just minor modification to work without a hitch in the current circumstances, and it would be undoubtedly easier to take out Goldsinger now. The girl was a nobody, and from what Olivia knew about her, she didn't merit the effort for a complex plot. An obsidian dagger in one of the capital's numerous back alleys would do the trick. Quick, simple and no fancy stuff to get overly complicated. But that wasn't her contract and she didn't make a habit of killing people she wasn't paid to. That being said, it was probably best to keep mum on the topic. In her experience, whenever someone knew that she had devised numerous ways to kill them, it made further dealings with them awkward.

She turned her head and spat on the cobblestones. "Valke? I'm with Culain on this one. I've been locked up for too damn long. I need to get out and stretch. So do we have any leads?"

 

[Crash & Charm]

Halcyon High City
Capital of the Halcyon Empire
Kaladin Goldsinger
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“So when do I get to use my new lab?” Kal asked of no one in particular. He was in a group with a whole bunch of really serious people. All he wanted to do was sit down and work on his spells. He needed to recreate some early success but he couldn’t do it without a lab. He looked around the group evaluating them, studying them. Each of them had different talents and he could see why they were called to the group. One of them in particular caught his attention. Her name was Vallane he remembered. He came along side her. They stopped at the gates. A slight problem seemed to have arisen.

He looked around taking in all of the scenery. He saw a few trees and lots of gray stone. When people talked it echoed.

He surveyed the group a second time. These were people he would have to work with and he would probably need to know what kind of skills they could posses. His father had taught him that a persons bearing could teach you a great deal about them and even let you know what kind of mood they are in. Kaladin pulled his clipboard close and started taking notes. He was muttering under his breath.

“Everyone on edge. They seem to be regarding each other with suspicion not trusting. Conversations are short, shallow and almost nonexistent. Both Culain and Olivia have had significant training, likely with magic and blade. The girl named Vallane seems to have grown up on the streets. I wonder what made her special, Further investigation is needed…” He trailed of then he noticed Vin looking at him. He cursed when he realized she had heard every word she had spoken. He quickly strode forward taking advantage of his long stride.

“What are you writing?” Vin asked, She almost had to run catching up. Vin stood on her toes trying to get a glance at what he was writing.

Kal Grunted, “Nothing, I just like to keep notes.”

They had advanced through the Initial gate and had entered the courtyard. Kal took another note. He started muttering again “Everyone is eying each other, watching. I think I have their personalities down. Should add to them later.”


Vallane Hy∂d
Intrestin’ Vin thought each of the group members looked dangerous and/or rich. That Kal guy is the type of person she could con. Not saying that he was smart but he appeared to be gullible. When She had glanced at his clipboard the handwriting had been familiar. The unique style and lines seemed familiar to her. The other members gave off the same general aura, Danger. She had quickly memorized everyone’s names.

Culain seemed to be annoyed and very tense. Was he always so formal? As far as formality went that Olivia girl would win the hat. She even walked formally smooth but never over or under stepping every stride perfect. She hated the way Erika looked at her, as if she were just street trash. Even thought Erika was the one that had recruited her she still looked down on her. Lance looked like a knight. It was possible that he didn’t act like one all the time.

A first impression is always important. Vin thought, still all of them could be completely different on the inside. I wonder how heavy there coin pouches are.