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Of The Blades of the Conclave...

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Of The Blades of the Conclave... Empty Of The Blades of the Conclave...

Post by MidgetNinja Sun May 30, 2010 5:47 pm

It was dark out as nights often were, until a sudden explosion of ethereal light battered the darkness back as the sounds of chanted drifted across the winds louder and louder still than the clashing of thunder over head and the sound of rain pounding the ground relentlessly.

Marcus knew he was going to die tonight, he knew it even as the ?Inquistion burst into his guild's meeting place, as his leaders rose to defend their acolytes, as warriors of the conclave cordoned off the area, even as he and a few of his fellows fought their way past the picket lines and rushed for the tree line beyond. He knew because he had dreamt it, and ever sense he had been a boy his dreams had never been wrong.

Yet hope was a powerful, sometimes cruel, thing and as the prospect of the safety the trees offered grew in his mind, so too did the flames of hope.

Just as quickly they were smothered as five figures emerged calmly from their would-be haven. They wore thick cloaks, black as the pit, each with their hoods down obscuring their faces in the shadows cast by the magical conflicts behind Marcus and his brothers. A gold amulet on their right shoulder held their cloaks together, and a heavy broadsword across their backs gave them a uniform feel.

Despair swallowed him as one of his compatriots summoned astral fire to his hands and unleashed it upon their captors the look of a wild animal in his eyes as he poured all the flame of his soul into his attack...

...only to watch in confusion and growing horror as the wave of flames struck the marching black figures, sputtered, and then died. It hadn't even been sufficient to slow them down...

A profound sense of loss filled Marcus even as the figures closed in about his friends, but then again that too was expected. All around him his companions fought with the cloaked figures in vain as their magics struck them and died ineffectually while the strength continued to drain from them as their captors drew closer, and closer still.

As one they drew their swords, glowing with rune fire as any mage worth his salt would tell you, and then they were among them, striking down everyone around Marcus, who simply stood passively by and watched for a second time as his companions were slaughtered to a man.

In the end he stood alone as the hooded men surrounded him utterly, having been spared thus far as he was the only one who had yet to fight. This close he could make out the details of their amulet, but he already knew what they looked like.

A single sword held aloft in a defiant hand, surrounded by a wall of black fire.

It was hard not to miss the symbolism.

Still a question haunted him, even as the figures closed in on him to finish the task they had set out on, something in his dreams he had forgotten.

"What are you?" he asked in an oddly calm voice.

As one the figures stopped, seemingly confused.

A moment passed, and then another, before a single figure squared off against Marcus, and pulled off his hood. He had dark black hair, pale complexion, two brown eyes, a mouth, a nose, two ears...

Everything his eyes told him said he was just a man, even as every other sense in his body screamed at him that he was wrong...until he noticed two things...

The pair of runes tattooed into his temples, pulsing in time with the man's heart beat...and the horribly dead...far off look in the man's eyes...

Suddenly he spoke...

"I," he said, his voice monotone and as dead as his eyes, "...am a blade."

A sudden impact in his chest told Marcus he had been run through, and instant later his mind flattered and his legs gave out before him. A vague sense, rather ironic, sense of deja vu were the last sensations his body registered before he slipped quietly into that eternal night.

_ - + /| = |\ + - _

The Blades

The blades are the secret weapon of the Inquisition, nearly impervious to all but the strongest of magics, and trained from infancy in the use of powerful rune swords, they are the ultimate mage killers. But that is merely a single aspect of the roles they fulfill, they also serve as bodyguards, enforcers, and watchdogs of the conclave, they are the personification of soldier.

And yet they are a double edged blade if their ever was one, as their mere presence can serve to drive the hardest of mages temporarily insane if exposed for too long. As much a danger as a asset, they are bond to the mage they serve with a pair of magical runes, indeed the only magic they don't seem to have any affect on, that binds their lives with that of the one they serve.

The origins of these youths is a closely guarded secret, although most of them are selective breed like livestock as the only way to pass on their talent seems to be through birth. The truth is they are survivors of The Fall or more specifically the descendants of those survivors who had seen the heart of the conflict that sank Atimar beneath the waves. It can only be assumed that the conflict had been too much for their...spirit...to handle, so as a defensive reaction their bodies, through unknown means, effectively cut themselves off from magic permanently. This specific trait passed down through generations, contained effectively upon the still undead infested lands of the Dra Ghul Islands.

Indeed it was an unauthorized Inquisitorial expedition that first discovered these unique youths who seemed to passively weaken all magics cast around them. This, unnamed Inquistor, instantly recognized the value of this rarest of commodities, and quickly arranged to smuggle them back to the Conclave.

Their parents must have thought they had been doing their children a service, and a way they had, a lifetime of training molding them into highly praised and respected warriors as well as an escape from the undead they were hardly too terribly off. Indeed the only price had been their freedom, and so few people had that at any rate that the pragmatic and stoic warriors hardly seem to notice it's loss.

They are the warrior of elite of the magi, and they are watching...always watching...

MidgetNinja

Posts : 304
Join date : 2010-05-26

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