Written by MonMarty Before the ground assault or any major attack on Regalian targets could begin, Demetrius had to be removed from the Regalian city. Its Deathfire mortars and cannons continued to be trained on the skyline and the people below, willing to rain destruction down on them at the slightest provocation. The resistance had long been planning an aerial assault on Demetrius, gathering the necessary equipment and clandestine allies to be able to approach. A Regalian airship would not do, the steamtech machines proving too slow and fragile, a single shot from Demetrius would disable the buoyancy and cause it to plummet to the city below in a blazing ball of fire. And as such, an unusual ally had been found, in a long forgotten Dragon Site installation that provided the airship. The airship had not been seen by anyone until the moment it was picked up, merely an hour before the attack would take place, but guarantees were made of its effectiveness, and it would soon showcase its uses. The attacks would all be unleashed the moment the airship started its assault, and what a starting signal it was. It appeared rapidly in the skies above the city like a galloping horse, bursting from behind Mount Agatha that cast its shadow on the north side of the city, taking Demetrius by surprise. The sentient Vampiric Castle shrieked with dismay, its cannons and mortars re-aligning as the airship sped its way to the frontline, carrying the assault crew on board. Anyone who witnessed the airship would describe it as if a statue of a reclining lion statue shooting through the clouds, entirely made of a white-marble-like material and with glowing purple lines to accentuate its shapes. Behind the head’s mass was a large rotating disk of all kinds of brilliant metal colors, like a massive sun-disk, that rotated rapidly and seemed to have some sort of relation to its defiance of gravity despite its size. The vehicle lacked a balloon, rotating blades, or indeed any type of visible traditional propulsion, it was as if a massive block of stone shot across the sky in defiance of gravity itself. Its mouth slid open, and a starlight burst of purple light raced forth, crashing into Demetrius to which it roared again, some rubble collapsing in on itself and crumbling to greygate below where the assault had just begun, safe from the cannonfire of Demetrius that had now decided to unload all volleys on the approaching aircraft. It shot volley after volley, however the airship moved with maneuverability it could not anticipate, using both distance and a circling motion to stay out of reach, eruptions of red and purple smoke popping all around it as the deathfire mortars failed to hit their mark. It was as if a shark circling its prey, and when the time was right, it shot its mark, two massive hooks ejecting from the forward part of the airship, boring deep into Demetrius’s walls and pulling the thick cables taut. Then, from beneath the airship, two gondolas raced along the massive cables, suspended and dangling as the ship kept rotating so as to keep the gondolas safe from cannon fire. The proverbial beach-head would be made just after the gondolas reached the footsteps before Demetrius’s great gate, forward crystals resonating to slow the gondolas to a crawl before their hatches opened and the assault teams began, the airship behind them meanwhile providing covering fire with its own purple light lance. First on the darkened stone of Demetrius’s base would be Viggo Sorenvik, who else. The man who had orchestrated this particular move, would not tolerate anyone else to set the first foot on Demetrius’s demise. He was met by a Vampire champion, a foe that anyone would be feared to meet even alone in a dark forest, but fear would not be met on this battlefield, for Viggo had an ace up his sleeve. Just as the Vampire was about to charge him, a champion to slay a leader and demoralize his troops, Viggo slammed the last remaining cure, procured from Marinoor, into the Vampire’s face when it tried to go for his throat, causing it instantly be cured of Vampirism, the Sanguine curse leaking away from it. The Vampire fell to its knees, screaming in agony at the loss of its precious gift, after which Viggo gave the command. From behind him, Erwin Braunschweiger came charging, his head ducked, and bayonet affixed to his Puretek rifle. He plunged the Puretek into the now-cured Vampire’s heart, killing him instantly. Yet this would not be the end of Erwin’s role, as he witnessed the gargoyles on Demetrius’s walls unleash a cloud of Vampiric familiars, twisted amalgamations of bats and squids that raced to the assault party and threatened to overwhelm them. While his bayonet was still impaled in the ex-Vampire corpse, Erwin closed his eyes and recited the first verse of the Hymn of Faith, the song heard in the Temple of the All-Beacon, applying the blessings of the God Emperors and Empresses on his weapon. As he lifted his rifle, corpse still attached, a see-through golden image of God Emperor Theomar steadied his rifle with him, and together they pulled the trigger, the bullet unleashing and bursting into a thousand smaller projectiles that each found their marks on the Vampiric familiars, causing them to burst into golden flames. With the first obstacle out of the way, Erwin pushed the corpse off his bayonet, and cleaned it, while Viggo dragged the corpse by the collar and just tossed it off Demetrius for good measure, plummeting to the assault on Greygate below. More Vampires charged, and Triss Aduro was on the mark to keep the Archduke safe, or perhaps to make him revel in the fact he had to fight so little on his march to the gates of Demetrius. Triss came from a running charge, her spear arcing lightning along the floor before she thrust forwards into a Vampire who was just about to bear down his weapon onto Sorenvik, slaying him, followed by a quick slash to the side to deter another Vampire’s approach. She then charged forward for another running jump, using the spear’s rear end to pole-leap into the thick of battle with Taeron Fa’Salor who was holding off numerous Vampires with his flaming sword and Songaskian shield. He raised up his shield, shielding both himself and Triss from a volley of Vampiric crossbow bolts, before thrusting his blade forward, igniting any Vampire it made contact with into full-body flames, and clearing the way. Eerikur Fjordefil charged further up, clearing the way immediately for Isobel Lykke through a pack of Vampiric hounds. Eerikur’s hair lit up in bright blue flames, a battle cry bellowing the battlefield as he sped forward without stopping, slashing his sword and bashing his shoulder into any enemy he could, knocking them to the sides like bowling pins to an unstoppable ball, rage beset in his icy blue eyes and the call for battle. Isobel behind him meanwhile used this rolling ball as cover, following up on the Vampiric hounds that he merely knocked aside, double-tapping them all as she punched their skulls into the pavement, crushing each into a gorey and brittle mess, tap, tap, tap, knuckle dusters making easy work of these Demonic creatures. Just as another Vampire tried to flank Eerikur, Isobel leapt forward, straddling the Vampire’s chest and causing it to collapse, before unleashing a flurry of punches and blows onto its face until there was nothing left but a sputtering puddle on the pavement. On the other side, the Dragon’s followers strode forward, Gwyneth Zylmoira at the center and Arahael Bancroft and Novellia Fristadvlom to each of her flanks. Gwyneth walked slowly and gracefully, as if unaware that she was caught up in a battlefield, the wind picking up around her, and the silks gently dancing in the wind as she raised her arms up higher, a trickling of static erupting from them. Novellia to her left kept Gwyneth’s flank safe, Vampires charging for they knew that Gwyneth was the weapon to tear down the walls. A Vampire, mired in wickedness, pushed one of the weaker vampires forward into Novellia’s sword, her stumbling backwards to hold the weight of the much bigger Vampire impaled on her weapon. Just as this occured, the Vampire saw its moment, slashing its weapon overhead beyond Novellia, distracted by the Vampire corpse bearing over her. Just as the strike was about to land on Gwyneth, the blade preemptively slicing at a few of her stray hair strands, the blade held in the Vampire erupted from the Vampire’s chest, steered by Novellia’s graceful control over the weapon from a distance, and sliced off the Vampire’s arm, before decapitating it. She then continued to steer the weapon telepathically, focusing her body’s movements in dancing motions to avoid incoming weapons, while her sword did all the work from behind each foe that assailed her. Arahael similarly used his dual scimitars to fend off incoming Vampires. A careless strike on a flanking Vampire caused one of his scimitars to crack and burst into shrapnel of metal, clattering on the ground. Caught in the moment, it was as if time suddenly slowed, Jared watching an approaching group of Vampires, perhaps five, charging straight at Gwyneth. Looking to Gwyneth to warn her, he was instead met with her soft gaze already on him, her hair upright and defying gravity, lightning sparks arcing from her body and eyes lit up like the brightest flash in the sky yet her expression one of absolute serenity. She held her hand out, and he took hers, after which a spark struck from her hand to his, a sliver of blue light wrapping his arm, and emboldening him with vigor. While still holding her hand, he lifted his leg with electric static, before slamming it down on the ground, the arcs of lightning finding the shards of his broken scimitar, and shooting them like shrapnel up at the approaching Vampires, impaling their eyes and heads and taking them all down in one fell swoop, before he let go of Gwyneth’s hand and charged forward with his remaining scimitar. Gwyneth then raised both of her arms all the way up, her spell complete, lifting herself off the ground and with an ear-splitting thunderous clap, a cacophony of lighting strikes erupted from her body onto the gates and the walls, striking at the stone like a thousand explosive charges, and pulverizing the gate itself with such force it threw the Vampiric crossbows off the walls into the courtyard below. Overhead then, Wilvamair Arnyn flew with his wings stretched wide, carrying Jocelyn von Duerr who had extended his Creation Particle Register, rapidly concocting different experiments. Wilvamair did not truly know why he was carrying Jocelyn von Duerr in this manner, only that it was important to the group that he did. Indeed, Jocelyn could not normally test the boundaries of the Creation Particle, but had ample intention to do so with these Vampires, all fair in love and war. He struck a few chords, creating a new permutation, and kicked one of the Vampires in the head as they flew over, just to try it out. He looked back, watching the Vampire just explode into orange goo, shaking his head, a failed mixture. Another one was tried, but each time, an unstable mixture was applied. The next Vampire instantly shrank as if all liquid had left his body, another melted into a puddle of acid, another yet turned into a pile of rainworms, and another yet burst into flames and ran screaming off the side of Demetrius. So much data to collect, so much useful medical information, but eventually even Wilvamair was weirded out, landing Jocelyn safely on the edge of the battle so he could continue to experiment with the few Vampires that had not quite been killed but were also incapacitated. After landing, Wilvamair himself took flight once more, landing one of Demetrius’s towers to challenge one of the Vampiric mages. At first, the Vampiric mage summoned two lesser demons, who Wilvamair reached for with his fists covered in silver flames, slamming their heads together and causing their bodies to erupt in silver flames and killing them. More spells were flung, but all were deflected by Wilvamair’s spear, until the Vampire could do nothing but cower and scream. The Vampire’s end was witnessed by some on the battlefield below, only an agonizing scream, and a large burst of silver flames erupted from that tower, until it went quiet, and Wilvamair flew down to the battle below. The melee below was fierce and thick, with enemies and resistance all intermixed. Regalian soldiers left and right fell on the steps towards the gates that had been blown open, but Kaya Sorenvik was one of the first through the pile of rubble, followed by Lily Janssen short behind her. She ran down a nearby Vampire, the spear stabbing straight through and somehow even accidentally stabbing another Vampire behind that in the side, before pushing her boot off and freeing her spear. To her left, a Vampire came charging at her, sword high up in the air, causing her to unbelt her axe from her waist, throwing it and landing it straight in the Vampire’s face, the Vampire stumbling and slowing just in front of her, and before it fell over, she fluently pulled the axe out of its face, and then brought it down on the head of another Vampire approaching. Lily meanwhile held up her shield, intercepting several crossbow bolts aimed at Kaya from the parapets of the castle, before slamming her shield into the head of a Vampire that Kaya hadn’t quite killed yet, and tried to get up to stab her from behind. She then quickly mixed a concoction of subterfuge, an invisibility dust that covered herself and Kaya, only momentarily granting them invisibility as the chemicals reacted with open air, but given them enough time to reposition and get the next Vampires from behind, unleashing a flurry of attacks side by side. Lee-Ming Qie had meanwhile reached the walls, climbed up the rubble, and started taking out Vampires from the walls, his daggers controlled with Weapon Song like a storm of blades, both protecting him and slicing any opening in armor he could find. He meticulously made his way across the wall, occasionally standing still and using the daggers to deflect incoming crossbow bolts, perfectly timing them to prevent the tips from going anywhere near him, before continuing his march, the daggers spinning, and even picking up a few weapons from the Vampires and turning them on their former masters. The sound of his blades was quickly overwhelmed by Sibyllad Lykke below, shouting battle cries and swinging their battle-pick left and right with little precision but with such force the impact killed most fledgelings on first contact. They then noticed one of the smaller towers on the gatehouse smashed by Gwyneth, having sustained some damage and being unstable. They charged forward, their massive war-pick in hand, and let out a ferocious shout, utterly pummeling the stonework into a fine dust at the base. Then, a final slam, they looked content, a smirk on their face before they thrust forth their beer gut into the remaining piece of wall, that last push causing the tower to topple over, rapidly crumbling and collapsing on top of a Vampiric formation to the left of where Kaya and Lily were fighting, the stones crushing the Vampires underneath, all the while heralded by a shouting laugh from Sibyllad, who when all was said and done, jumped forward and continued their war-pick swinging. On one of the side buildings, Wilvamair had been overwhelmed by a number of Vampires having jumped onto his back, pulling and contorting his wings, while others were kicking him into the ground, causing him to be unable to move. Carmen Vincenzo and Palina de Pierre came charging up a flight of stairs, Carmen charged forward first, her body erupting into a cloud of ravens that sped past the Vampires that had come down the stairs to meet them, only to reform behind them, and cut their heads off with a quick few slashes of her sword. Before these bodies could even drop, Palina used her size to vault and slide between the legs of the Vampires, racing past as Carmen gave her the all-clear sign. Holding off any Vampires that would charge up the stairs and giving Palina the opportunity to clear the enemies off Wilvamair’s back. Indeed, she arrived just in time before a Vampire was about to bring its sword down on his head, using her running momentum to slide across the smooth stonework, dragging her longsword to cut his legs off, and causing him to collapse in an agonizing scream. She held off another Vampire that had come to meet her as she got up, but now seemed overwhelmed herself as the Vampires who had been standing on Wilvamair’s wings had now turned to exact their revenge on her. As she stumbled back however, she became emboldened when Wilvamair’s wings flapped up, his position back to standing. Few could see the outcome of that fight, but all would see the silver-flaming bodies of Vampires falling from that building’s high walls, while Carmen continued to hold off Vampires from coming up the stairs. A large lumbering Vampire approached, some sort of dark magical amalgamation that crushed several Regalian soldiers as it approached Cadwyn who was fighting a group of Vampires around him. He slammed his flaming longsword into their chests and arms, and another Vampire dared to come close, in reach of his other arm. Quickly switching his wielding arm from his Magitech to his Mundane arm, he grabbed the Vampire in the face with his Magitech hand, the magical connections in his arm bursting into action as energy flowed from the top connections to his hand, before all that energy burst like a shotgun blast in the Vampire’s face, erupting it into gibs on the floor behind. Still, the lumbering Vampire came closer, and Cadwyn seemed unaware. Eletha Darrath had perched on one of the nearby roofs of the buildings, away from the melee on the floor, and pulled out her bow to try and take out the lumbering Vampire from afar. She took aim and fired, the arrow perfectly aligned for a headshot, but glancing off the Vampire’s head with a thud. The Vampire stopped its march to Cadwyn, instead looking for Eletha. It noticed Eletha then and marched in her direction, smashing aside a nearby Vampire that had just come charging by, popping its head off to show it meant business. Eletha had to do some quick thinking, and then had an idea. She put up her arrow, strung her bow, and then unleashed, in the same moment that she cast a Magical projectile through the arrow, causing the arrow and the magical bolt to fuse into a shot that propelled with such speed that it might as well have been a bullet from a Puretek rifle, a trail of dark-blue speeding through the air before it shot into the Vampire’s skull, shooting out on the other side and taking down two other Vampires as it kept drilling through them before it finally hit the stonework behind them. The Vampires were dead instantly, all three dropping to the ground moments after. As the Regalians were overpowering the Vampiric defenders, Demetrius howled, its gargoyles on the main castle turning to meet the attackers, and coming to life. The gargoyles perched on a nearby outcropping of the castle and aimed forth their arms, sending waves of red magic projectiles down at the crowd below. Baeldeth Tahlvin was quick to respond, sheathing his Khoptar, and using both of his hands to fire off magic projectiles in return, each projectile intercepting the gargoyle’s attacks, meeting them before they could meet their mark below. The gargoyles howled in anger, before flying down to the crowd, intent on crushing Baeldeth. Lynmar Lomstedt was quick to intercept before Baeldeth could unsheathe his Khoptar to ready himself for impact, shooting his puretek at close range at one of the approaching gargoyles, hitting it in the head, and causing the whole statue to crumble into a hail of stone and dust, which was then quickly intercepted by Lynmar’s heater shield being raised, protecting both him and Baeldeth from the hail of rubble. Lynmar was then knocked aside as the next gargoyle descended, though Baeldeth had been able to prepare himself, using one fell sweep of his Khoptar to slice it down the middle, causing its life to ebb away, and stonework to collapse on the floor lifeless. Lomstedt quickly recovered from the blow with his strong armor, and charged headstrong into more oncoming Vampires with his shield up and stave poised to strike. The battle seemed to be overwhelmingly in the attackers’ favor, and all around the city below, signal flares were going up that attacks had succeeded, only the assault on Greygate still being ongoing. A final push was commanded by Viggo, before Demetrius revealed its own final ace card. The castle itself seemed to come alive, the main keep body erupting from the stone, like spikes on the back of a stoney creature, a gargoyle with wings made of walls and a mouth where once the front door of the castle had been, its gothic arches and windows making up the features of its face. Large arms erupted from the building, and it seemed as if doom had come. And yet, this too was prepared for by the resistance. Out of nowhere, a black and red cloud burst next to Demetrius’s shape, and an upper body of a grotesque monster reared forth, red flesh and exposed muscle tissue as if a creature without skin, its head a crown of spikes and jagged bones, two small golden beady eyes in sockets of darkness. It howled, before its hands met with Demetrius’s face, the rest of the creature’s own body obscured by the dark cloud from which it had erupted. Its hands pulled and pushed, before Demetrius’s stonework that resembled a face was snapped in half, part of the rubble collapsing down below, and the other creature roaring victoriously, before it started pummeling and breaking off parts of nearby spires and impaling the rest of the stonework with it. Demetrius howled as if in pain, and the whole floating island shook. This was the moment where Viggo commanded the retreat, everyone rushing quickly back to the gondola where Jocelyn von Duerr had already triaged the wounded and brought everyone on board. When the last climbed on board of them, the gondolas sped off back to the airship from which they had come, and when they safely landed, the hooks detached, and it flew off into the distance to return to the Dragon Site. The creature continued to attack Demetrius, and as suddenly as it had appeared, Demetrius gave out one final last howl, before it flashed away in the blink of an eye, only a cloud of dust being left in its wake, distorted by the sudden mass having vacated that position in space around Regalia. The large creature had gone with it, and Demetrius was now fully and truly defeated. The Dragon sensitive could feel the Leylines being restored, the Void Essence unclogging the energy connections, and the Song of Dragons returned to them. In the countryside, soldiers sallied forth, small camps and hide-outs unleashing their revenge on the Vampires who no longer had the threat of Demetrius looming overhead, and victory seemed certain.
