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The final Anglian Mist mission to rid the Empire of the ever enduring Mist was undertaken by a number of noble families and their supporting loyalists and free commoners. Spearheading what was presumed to be a suicide mission into the mist were Cro-Zzhin Yaotl, Jared Kade and Alderik Kade, using the henceforth largely unseen Dragonbeads which had been discovered to ward off the mists's grasp a few weeks back. With the Dragonbeads in their lanters, they were supported by Siegfried von Rahm, Abelhard Rote, Goderoy Kade, Florance Kade, Leufred Reginar and Kailu Frisque. The plan was to reach a Dragion Temple that lay somewhere in the mist, which House Black's airships had verified before were not actually covered in the mist but in a pocket left untouched. The road to this temple was long and left the group wondering if they had made a mistake. The Kades were certainly familiar with the first leg of the trip, going through the Anglian heartland and through towns they had in their childhood crossed. Everything was deserted, but appeared as if it could spring back to life at any moment. Laundry was still dripping and drying in the wind, food and drinks were served on the table of the local inn, still steaming hot as if they were served a mere moment ago, not months which had passed since the mist first came to Anglia. A small children's toy lay idly abandoned by the side of the road, and everything was still functional, there was just no living being around them.
The deeper they went, the thicker the mist seemed to become, and the rumbling noises of something large moving in the mist were ever present. Perhaps there was a sense of the group having made a mistake, but none dared to question their resolve and try to argue for a return trip. After all, without the Dragon beads there was no way back, and the Kades made very sure that nobody but them or the Cro-Zzhin were handling them with care. Eventually the group stumbled upon a set of stone gates with twisted and mangled stonework, as if molten lava had crept up from the ground and formed structures with its swirling motions, leaving behind a very peculiar yet eery design. Passing through the gates, the mist dissipated, and they entered a clearing from where a pile of stones could be seen. While Alderik and Abelhard tested whether the clearing was safe by releasing a couple of mice which seemed to survive just fine when wandering away from the lanterns, Kailu Frisque noticed something glimmering at him from the top of the pile of stones, but couldn't quite make out what it was, choosing to remain quiet and find a better time to investigate.
Goderoy, Leufred and Siegfried secured the perimeter to ensure the group would not be ambushed by the unexpected, while Alderik attempted to translate a very old Anglian nail script that had been encountered before by the Ravenstad party in another Dragon Temple. Florance and Jared meanwhile breathed down his neck, watching his every move, no doubt to the great irritation of the Kade. With Abelhard Rote in prayer to the Spirit for protection and Cro-Zzhin fascinated by some manner of Dragon statue (or what was left of it after centuries of decary) Kailu saw his opportunity to slip away from the group's attention, and adeptly hop and skip up the pile of stones of which one would assume had once been a bigger building but was now collapsed. He jumped from stone to stone, careful not to alert the others. Indeed, the guards were still looking away, and the Kades were intently focussed on the translation, Alderik's annoyance being vented quite loudly for everyone to hear and incidentally also muffling Kailu's feet on the crumbling rock. He eventually reached the top, where he was met with a shrine-like object, within which was a tiny green stone, seemingly levitating in the middle of the shrine structure. Small slivers of green light and glitter flowed out of the holes as if it was the font of some sort of flow of energy, but the exact meaning was irrelevant to Kailu. It glittered, it shone, it looked like it was worth a hundred thousand Frisky Pearls. It looked like he needed it.
Without much thought for the consequences or investigating its purpose, Kailu reached into the shrine to grab the pebble, no larger than the tip of a finger, pulling it out with care, but inspecting it with great vigor when he finally had his hands on it. The investigation was cut short however, as mere moments after he had taken a good look at the object, the rumbling noises in the mist became louder and louder, and trees could be heard rustling around them. The guards on the perimiter called out to the group, Leufred in particular:
" Uh, guys, Rote, the Mist is coming closer! It's creeping towards the stones all around
us at an alarming rate!"
They paced back away from the mist, before Cro-Zzhin whipped around to the Dragonbeads, only to see them violently shaking and clashing all over the lanterns they were put in, cracking the glass and sending shards all over the ground. Instinctively everyone looked up at Kailu who was still standing at the top of the temple mound with a brilliant radiating green pebble in his hand, knowing that whatever was happening came as a direct result of the Varran not knowing how to keep his hands to himself. There was a moment of silence, perhaps one that the group could not afford, but seemed fitting as they all acknowledged that Kailu had most likely doomed them to be swallowed by the mist, to which he apologetically shrugged and exclaimed:
"What! What did I do?!"
As quick as their situation changed, the group quickly sprung to action as Jared started barking orders. The perimeter guard was joined by Rote who had raised his weapon by now, while Jared instructed Alderik to continue translating for as long as he could, and Cro-Zzhin tried to wrestle control over the Dragonbeads. Florance just stood there thinking to herself "great, I'm going to die now and I haven't even finished the Mountain Top Sonata", while Kailu made his way down the mound, stuffing the pebble somewhere on his belt where others would hopefully forget about it and it couldn't alert anyone of its presence. To finish off his orders, Jared grabbed the nearby emergency flare they had brought with them, and shot it straight up in the sky, already noticing that the mist was starting to form overhead, yet also witnessing the fireworks arrow flying past the border of the mist and unleashing a flurry of red sparks above them.
Something was wrong this time though, something was very wrong. They had heard that a mage was able to see ghostly tendrils through the mist that none others could see in the past, but now they were starting to witness physical shapes moving around them and in the landscape. Trees started snapping and dirt was moved around, it was as if the Dragon Temple they were in was holding back whatever the mist was hiding from entering into the Alorian realm with its power, and that Kailu having taken the core, resulted in the Temple no longer fulfilling its purpose and the beings being able to break through, an assumption that was quickly confirmed by Alderik as he continued to translate as quickly as he could. Eventually, he noticed writings related to the Dragon statue nearby, and quickly dragged Cro-Zzhin along with him, because it mentioned half-Dragons. Albeit not a Dragon, Cro-Zzhin was about the right size and his claws seemed compatible with the slits and control mechanisms that were present beneath the fallen Dragon statue, but the inscriptions were vague and badly weathered, so the two continued to try and make sense of them, just as clay-like figurines stumbled from from the mist with obvious intent to attack the party.
Before long, melee had ensued, and even Jared and Kailu joined in the fighting in whatever means they could. Florance was daftly pacing back and forth before she resolved herself to make one elegant final stance with a harp of her own making and improvisation, her Anglian Longbow that she took along but never intended to use. Plucking at the strings, she shot arrow after arrow at the clay minions below, not with great precision, but with enough determination to make everyone feel like every member of the team was pulling their weight. Jared was knocked sideways by a clay minion, before Goderoy slashed it in half above him and continued the fight elsewhere. In his dazed state, he opened his eyes once more, rolling around in their sockets before resting on Abelhard Rote who was fighting a clay monster near a big willow tree. As per usual, he once more saw his old scimitars resting against that tree, standing there. He thought to himself about the mockery of Arken and how even in this very critical moment, it would not stop to haunt him. And yet, when Rote was knocked back by two clay monsters coming to reinforce the one fighting him, he stumbled backwards and tripped over the scimitars that stood by the tree. Jared was silent for a moment, trying to drag himself off the ground with his eyes trained on the scimitars, seeing once more that Rote cursed in his native tongue and gave a defiant kick against the scimitars that were still there. Jared could see his swords, and he could see how Rote acknowledged them, and he could see how Rote kicked into them causing them to slide away from him. They had never done that before.
"They had never done that befor" - he muttered to himself.
With great speed, jared raced to the scimitars, much to the confusion of Abelhard Rote who was still on the ground and about to be mobbed by the clay monsters, discarding his replacement weapons like they were nothing, and in one fel roll grabbed both scimitars and unleashed the Isldar howling winds with them as he cut through the clay monsters, a tingling of tears streaming down his face as he battled along.
It became obvious to the others that they were running out of time however. Florance had both been tired out by the great force of the Anglian Longbow, and forced to seek cover from the black glass spikes that had been launched at her from the mist. The tendrils had seemingly started throwing shards of black glass at the party, the others parrying and avoiding, but Cro-Zzhin being less lucky and having a number of them impaled in his back while he shielded Alderik from being hit, continuing to translate. Alderik eventually managed to crack a crucial sentence, grabbing hold of Cro-Zzhin's arm who was trying to pretend like the shards weren't there, but was quickly losing consciousness because of the loss of blood. Alderik forced his claw into the lock mechanism, tracing it along the ridges that he had translated, before finally inserting it at the fifth base, causing a clicking sound to erupt from the base of the statue. The statue's eyes lit up in bright fiery green as rumbling could once more be heard around them, but this time not from the forest, but from the ground. Vines and roots snapped as long spires rose from the ground, writing on them lighting up in fiery green. The tips of the pillars engulfed in green flame, the scene of awe was only disrupted by Leufred's agonizing and deathly screams of pain as he felt like his eyes were being torn out of his head and every bodypart of him spasm'd on the ground, Rote trying to gain control of his head movements to stop him from bashing his head into the stones.
The pillars caused crackles of green lighting to appear that flashed against the mist, the tendrils and the clay monsters and turned them to glittering dust each time it hit. With each zap Leufred screamed out, almost as if his Witchblood status had something to do with what was happening, but this whole scene was not occurring a moment too soon either. Parts of the mist overhead were starting to dissipate, suddenly revealing two airships that had sped to the location of the fireworks flare. It was Jäger Scwarz's party on House Black's airship armed to the teeth, and a smaller airship manned by Dianne Black and her retinue on a smaller medical airship. The medical airship performed some daring maneuvers to close the gap between the duo and the party on the ground, and released ladders down below to allow the party on the ground to escape. Rote carried Leufred on board the ship where he started quickly regaining his senses, being further removed from the green lighting pillars. The others came up one by one, before finally Cro-zzhin was raised with a series of ropes and pulleys attached to his wrists and tail and ankles, having already lost consciousness.
Once on board, Dianne Black, Same Kaze and Mi-Sung Zhao quickly tried to help Cro-Zzhin, the former two healing his physical wounds, while Mi-Sung used her Magical Knowledge to identify the black shards and guide the medics in using the proper tools and healing agents to stabilize the bleeding Cro-Allar. The airship ascended, though was quickly followed by a number of clay monsters leaping from the mist and jumping onto the deck of the ship, thudding on the wood and causing the airship to bounce gently each time as they did so. Beni Yahgda and Cieli Le'vilja were quick to respond with their staves, using them as metaphorical baseball bats to knock the clay monsters back as they boarded the ship, while Valeri Ravenstad's magical eagle circled around the ship clawing at them mid-flight and causing them to fall down. Valeri herself stood at the stern of the ship, throwing her eagles feathers with great precision at the approaching clay monsters while Azra Min Eazim and Kailu Frisque secured the back end of the ship, cleverly using the ropes and wooden struts of the airship to knock the clay monsters of the ship. The ship eventually gained enough altitude to reach Jäger Black's command, from where the two airships attempted to speed to the western coast where they knew aid would be.
The mist itself seemed to come more alive everywhere, tendrils reaching from the mist below and shooting shards of black glass at the ships. These shards however did not simply impale, they fluttered all around the ships, causing smaller explosions as they shot past or next to the airships, small but loud explosions of black dust that rocked the airships back and forth from the shockwaves. Jäger continued to coordinate the airship that was trying to draw the fire from the medical ship while Ilmadia Luleth lobbed explosives overboard each time she saw a tendril raising from the mist, knocking it back down. Alexander Amsel, Seraphina von der Ebene, Eyanaeil Faenin and Torlian Krakaine were all heavily engaged in melee on the top deck with the clay monsters that had leapt on, knocking monster after monster over board and keeping Jäger safe from harm as he sped across the deck to reinforce where he could. Marvin Bethell used their Magical Knowledge to predict the movements of the tendrils, surmising a pattern in the movements that resembled demonic beasts of old, and barking orders at the fighters, who were now informed where to best hit the enemies that were adeptly identified.
Philippe du Langlier, Nouveau Tempete, Joasaie Lloablen and Oskaar Sorenvik protected the lower deck and the deckhand stations, keeping the sailors safe from the monsters and between the four of them practically singlehandedly holding the entire lower decks safe, indepting the House Black airship sailors while more and more claymen leapt out of the mist and started gnawing and clawing at the wood and metal hull of the airship. The airship continued to speed across idyllic villages and fields of farmlands and empty pastures, hoping to make it to the western edge of the mist for salvation. The glass shards shot ever more intensive, Ilmadia's explosives becoming less effective, and all the battle crew tirind themselves from the constant fighting. Dianne Black's airship had been hit a number of times in the rigging, causing the entire airship to tilt to one side, threatening to tip over the members of the airship down to the mist below and certain death.
It was through quick acting on behalf of Azra Min Eazim and Valeri Ravenstad on Dianne ship, and Alexander Amsel and Seraphina von der Ebene's acting on the other ship that allowed the escort ship to brace into the medical airship, essentially combining both airships into one bigger floating mess of balloons and wires. Valeri's bird raced back and forth with ropes, attaching the vessel with some clever make shift rigging as directed by Azra Min Eazim, barely just doing the job of holding the whole contraption together while it violently rocked back and forth. The center of gravity and the mass of the whole thing was now uneven, and it was veering into directions where the captains could not control it. To make matters worse, more and more glass shards shot up, some hitting the back end of Jäger's airship, and causing an explosion that ripped out the lower half of the captain's quarters, setting the whole thing on fire. The airship was now speeding out of control and clearly going for an obvious slow descent, while leaving behind a trail of black smoke on the horizon. The gamble had paid off however, as the airships just barely brazing the mist, shot over the edge of the white cliffs of Morass on the western edge of Anglia, and were met with a fleet of ships carrying Howlester and Black banners.
On board the admiral vessel, Genevieve Howlester closed her fan, watching with widened eyes as the two airships were speeding in a wrecked state towards the water, slapping the closed fan into one of her gloved hands as she exclaimed:
"Your grace Christopher Black, I believe it is time we aid the Duchess consort, my aunt
lady Dianne, in coming home safely to port".
Christopher black smiled, perhaps an odd choice for the occasion, but with a certain confidence in the capabilities of his battleships as he replied:
"I couldn't agree more Lady Howlester". - and immediately turned to command the captains of the other ships to form a battle line. The tendrils of whatever was hiding in the mist had seemingly started spilling over the land and spilling into the water. As the ships turned, before long, clay monsters leapt out of the water and larger tendrils stuck out, reminiscing the legends of Krakens of old. The ships opened their portside cannons and opened fire with broadside after broadside, until the battle was so fierce between the shard warping tendrils and the battleships that it became an orgy of constant cannonfire and explosions. The airships meanwhile continued to speed out of control towards the water, risking a heavy slam and potentially killing many on board if they could not slow down. It was thus the timely arrival of the so called "pirate gang" that had tagged along with Nadiir Kahn on his Varran wavecutter, the fastest two rigged canoo they were capable of building in the Corsair fleet. This one however was a peculiarity. A number of clockwork engineers had installed a strange steam powered device with paddles on the sides of the ship. Next to the steam engine which pruttled gently was Mae Draylas, who herself was flanked by Tullion Kearney and two braziers of flame. As Nadiir Kahn positioned his wavecutter in the path of the crashing airships, Mae consumed the flames from the braziers, absorbing them through her hands as fiery bright shapes formed on her arms, reaching all the way up to her shoulders. When they did so, her entire form burst into an elemental being of flame, and stepped into the steam engine's fire compartment to overcharge the engine. The Engine started buckling under the sudden increase in temperature, steam leaking out of all crevices that had not been triple welded, but the engine held as the paddles now sped into overdrive, causing the wavecutter to move so quickly that Taliandra Jouhari had to grasp onto the mast of the ship to prevent herself from being launched off.
Just as the speeding started, Tullion Kearney started weaving a spell for a long shield, his hands gesturing in the air and creating a large magical bronze and translucid shield in the air behind the ship. As the ship sped along, the shield became longer and longer, following the wavecutter like a trail, in effect creating a landing strip for the airships that were now heading straight for this shield that was forming in front of them. Jäger and Dianne simultaneously detached the air balloons to prevent the hulls from being ripped apart on landing, causing the whole mangle of ropes and wood to smash into Tullion's shield and slide along it with grace, Tullion's shields being perfectly smooth and even used by himself as a surfing board on occasion. As the wavecutter sped ahead of the airships, fuelled by Mae Draylas's fiery form in the engine and Nadiir Kahn's steering, Zuzumi Al-Yaotl continued to lob alchemical grenades and other concoctions at clay monsters that tried to slash at the magical landing strip, while Mozz Mu-Yaotl continued to dash and claw his way across the wavecutter, his blade tail whipping in all directions and knocking back any clay monsters that did get lucky enough to actually latch onto the ship. The pirate boat continued to speed along, eventually noticing that the airship hulls, now without attached balloons and frankly praying to whatever deity that they were somehow still alive, coming to a gentle halt before just tipping over the edge of where Tullion had left the shield, and promptly settling in the ocean water, held up by the somewhat leaking hull. The people present on the pirate vessel cheered, Mae having returned to normal but leaving residual flame in the engine enough to speed away. After all, those on the vessel seemed satisfied with having done their part, and knew full well that they were still wanted by the state, thus disappearing away from the naval battle that was very much still ongoing.
On the ships, Rowan Haaven, Shane Marth and Garth Viduggla were desperately trying to hold back clay monsters who had crawled on board of the capital ship and pushed Genevieve Howlester into a corner. Christopher himself remained at the helm while flanked by Lazarus Lupenzi and Philippe du Langlier who kept him safe from harm and were able to prevent him from even needing to draw his cutlass. Bartolomeo de Cana, Mordred Howlester and Warren Howlester meanwhile escorted Relveth Vinthracia and Victoria de Letoirneau from deck to deck to tend to the wounded who had also started clawing from under the ship's hull and attacked the sailors below decks. Lea Aalders and Walthur Drake were desperately trying to keep their charts up to date to inform Christopher Black on the ongoings of the battle and the positions of the ships, who fought desperately to hold back the mist monsters. With the adept and resolute acting of all those present both on the airships and the battleships, they were able to push back the clay monsters and the tendrils, until the tendrils all seemed to combine and formed one great serpent-headed monster that slashed at the ships, smashing their masts and ripping their ropes while cannons continued to roar in defence.
The final reinforcements to arrive were on the smaller sister of the Kade battleship Laridae, the Meridae, a hastily refitted pleasure yacht that had been makeshift put together from what willing people they could find. Valdis Kade stood near the helm, Anglian Longbow in hand as he lobbed arrow after arrow at claymen jumping out of the water, reminiscing of pheasant hunting at the estates of his childhood, while Percival Ravenstad guarded his back and the captain with a number of Viridian Knights. Djanira Acosta tried to assist where she could with her magic, emboldening the fighters who were clearly on a vessel that was not meant for fighting a naval battle, while Emerthas Jou kept her safe from harm. Even Tristan Kade was present, but perhaps not in a way anyone had expected. As the ship veered heavily to one side and started tilting from being hit by a tendril, Tristan Kade, screaming, rolled in his wheelchair across the deck of the ship, swinging his Zweihänder sword with rage back and forth, cutting clay man after clay man in half while his wife was desperately trying to catch up to the wheelchair that was speeding from one end to the other, eventually crashing into the where she mustered all of her strength to support her husband so he could have his hands free to swing at the foes.
The Airships were stable, yet sinking, and the Meridae ship quickly arrived on the scene to help the people who had already abandoned ship and landed in the water, and those still on board to transfer to the smaller pleasure yacht. The Black vessels had meanwhile cornered the tendril being, battering it over and over with explosives. The clay men had stopped coming, the warriors cried out in victory as Genevieve congratulated Christopher Black. The victory would extend further than was originally expected however. As the tendril beast was killed by a last great broadside, and crashed into the water sending a great shockwave that rocked all the boats, small specks of green light erupted on the horizon all over the landscape. Stones that were seemingly unremarkable in the past had started lighting up, almost like a series of beacons, with small green crackles of lightning coming from them. The Witchbloods present in the party, now far removed from them, could still feel an uneasy pull in their eyes each time a flash of green lit up. Indeed, Valeri Ravenstad's bird in the sky could confirm that all over the mist small prickles of green light appeared which drove away the mist. Whether this all happened because Kailu removed the stone, whether everyone had worked together to defeat the monster, or whether Alderik and Cro-Zzhin had activated some ancient Dragon Magic defence system, was uncertain. But everyone celebrated together regardless.
The green lights eventually died down, and all the clay men that were still around faded into dust. The tendrils disappeared as if they had simply been wished away from the world and the mist swirled by gusts of wind as if it had all been just a bad dream. Perhaps the most anticlimactic part of it all were the Anglians re-appearing all over the land. Farmers popped back into existence in the blind of an eye, guards patrolled the walls, cookwives continues stirring and a single child walked down the road that was traveled before, picking up her toy and running off with it again. The Anglians had no idea what had happened. It was as if the entire land had been swallowed in time and time had not moved for them, so the soldiers continued to celebrate their time off on the west coast, and were mildly unsettled and confused when attention was drawn to the fact that a bunch of badly damaged House Black ships were moored off the cliffs. Within hours, contact between Vlissinghelm and Anglia was restored and the Anglians were utterly confused about the whole ordeal, as if they had no memory of whatever had occurred before entering the mist. The green stones that had lit up before also seemed to have reverted back into their dormant state, so it took the officials hours to actually convince the Anglians that this wasn't an elaborate hoax, eventually also resorting to the Emperor who had just arrived to the scene in the evening to reinforce that it was all true.
Through the actions of all those who had worked in the past months to solve the Mist crisis, and those who came to be present during the final hour, the Mist had seemingly been vanquished, and order restored to the Anglian landmass. It took even less than a day for the Anglian grain shipments to start pouring out of their winter storages that had remained untouched for so long. A flow of grain caused bakeries all over the Empire to spring back to life, and the price of bread dropped by thirty times in less than 24 hours. Things seemed to finally be getting back to normal.
It was thus that the victorious party with Genevieve Howlester, Christopher Black, Jared Kade, Valdis Kade, Cro-Zzhin Yaotl (who had been nursed back to health) and many others of those who were present in the final battles made their way back through Anglia on foot, passing many villages. In Anglia they were all thanked for their assistance and return by the locals, even Kathar like Nouveau Tempete received some form of gratitude from the simple folk. The sun was thus setting on an eventful day as the nobles made their way through Axford before preparing to cross the border to Vlissinghelm on their way out. Genevieve looked out the window of her carriage which she shared with Christopher and Dianne Black, seeing one half of the grand Axford Cathedral's tower gone, and a massive pile of rubble that had wiped out half a neighborhood with it. She idly remarked:
"In the Spirit's name, I wonder what could have done that. Everything else looks so
peaceful and the same, except for that tragic disaster."
Christopher Black who was holding his wife's hands widened his eyes as his head turned around, peering out of the same window. He scraped his throat, and simply added:
"Well. I haven't a clue Lady Howlester." - while he nervously rubbed Dianne's hand a little too rough
The deeper they went, the thicker the mist seemed to become, and the rumbling noises of something large moving in the mist were ever present. Perhaps there was a sense of the group having made a mistake, but none dared to question their resolve and try to argue for a return trip. After all, without the Dragon beads there was no way back, and the Kades made very sure that nobody but them or the Cro-Zzhin were handling them with care. Eventually the group stumbled upon a set of stone gates with twisted and mangled stonework, as if molten lava had crept up from the ground and formed structures with its swirling motions, leaving behind a very peculiar yet eery design. Passing through the gates, the mist dissipated, and they entered a clearing from where a pile of stones could be seen. While Alderik and Abelhard tested whether the clearing was safe by releasing a couple of mice which seemed to survive just fine when wandering away from the lanterns, Kailu Frisque noticed something glimmering at him from the top of the pile of stones, but couldn't quite make out what it was, choosing to remain quiet and find a better time to investigate.
Goderoy, Leufred and Siegfried secured the perimeter to ensure the group would not be ambushed by the unexpected, while Alderik attempted to translate a very old Anglian nail script that had been encountered before by the Ravenstad party in another Dragon Temple. Florance and Jared meanwhile breathed down his neck, watching his every move, no doubt to the great irritation of the Kade. With Abelhard Rote in prayer to the Spirit for protection and Cro-Zzhin fascinated by some manner of Dragon statue (or what was left of it after centuries of decary) Kailu saw his opportunity to slip away from the group's attention, and adeptly hop and skip up the pile of stones of which one would assume had once been a bigger building but was now collapsed. He jumped from stone to stone, careful not to alert the others. Indeed, the guards were still looking away, and the Kades were intently focussed on the translation, Alderik's annoyance being vented quite loudly for everyone to hear and incidentally also muffling Kailu's feet on the crumbling rock. He eventually reached the top, where he was met with a shrine-like object, within which was a tiny green stone, seemingly levitating in the middle of the shrine structure. Small slivers of green light and glitter flowed out of the holes as if it was the font of some sort of flow of energy, but the exact meaning was irrelevant to Kailu. It glittered, it shone, it looked like it was worth a hundred thousand Frisky Pearls. It looked like he needed it.
Without much thought for the consequences or investigating its purpose, Kailu reached into the shrine to grab the pebble, no larger than the tip of a finger, pulling it out with care, but inspecting it with great vigor when he finally had his hands on it. The investigation was cut short however, as mere moments after he had taken a good look at the object, the rumbling noises in the mist became louder and louder, and trees could be heard rustling around them. The guards on the perimiter called out to the group, Leufred in particular:
" Uh, guys, Rote, the Mist is coming closer! It's creeping towards the stones all around
us at an alarming rate!"
They paced back away from the mist, before Cro-Zzhin whipped around to the Dragonbeads, only to see them violently shaking and clashing all over the lanterns they were put in, cracking the glass and sending shards all over the ground. Instinctively everyone looked up at Kailu who was still standing at the top of the temple mound with a brilliant radiating green pebble in his hand, knowing that whatever was happening came as a direct result of the Varran not knowing how to keep his hands to himself. There was a moment of silence, perhaps one that the group could not afford, but seemed fitting as they all acknowledged that Kailu had most likely doomed them to be swallowed by the mist, to which he apologetically shrugged and exclaimed:
"What! What did I do?!"
As quick as their situation changed, the group quickly sprung to action as Jared started barking orders. The perimeter guard was joined by Rote who had raised his weapon by now, while Jared instructed Alderik to continue translating for as long as he could, and Cro-Zzhin tried to wrestle control over the Dragonbeads. Florance just stood there thinking to herself "great, I'm going to die now and I haven't even finished the Mountain Top Sonata", while Kailu made his way down the mound, stuffing the pebble somewhere on his belt where others would hopefully forget about it and it couldn't alert anyone of its presence. To finish off his orders, Jared grabbed the nearby emergency flare they had brought with them, and shot it straight up in the sky, already noticing that the mist was starting to form overhead, yet also witnessing the fireworks arrow flying past the border of the mist and unleashing a flurry of red sparks above them.
Something was wrong this time though, something was very wrong. They had heard that a mage was able to see ghostly tendrils through the mist that none others could see in the past, but now they were starting to witness physical shapes moving around them and in the landscape. Trees started snapping and dirt was moved around, it was as if the Dragon Temple they were in was holding back whatever the mist was hiding from entering into the Alorian realm with its power, and that Kailu having taken the core, resulted in the Temple no longer fulfilling its purpose and the beings being able to break through, an assumption that was quickly confirmed by Alderik as he continued to translate as quickly as he could. Eventually, he noticed writings related to the Dragon statue nearby, and quickly dragged Cro-Zzhin along with him, because it mentioned half-Dragons. Albeit not a Dragon, Cro-Zzhin was about the right size and his claws seemed compatible with the slits and control mechanisms that were present beneath the fallen Dragon statue, but the inscriptions were vague and badly weathered, so the two continued to try and make sense of them, just as clay-like figurines stumbled from from the mist with obvious intent to attack the party.
Before long, melee had ensued, and even Jared and Kailu joined in the fighting in whatever means they could. Florance was daftly pacing back and forth before she resolved herself to make one elegant final stance with a harp of her own making and improvisation, her Anglian Longbow that she took along but never intended to use. Plucking at the strings, she shot arrow after arrow at the clay minions below, not with great precision, but with enough determination to make everyone feel like every member of the team was pulling their weight. Jared was knocked sideways by a clay minion, before Goderoy slashed it in half above him and continued the fight elsewhere. In his dazed state, he opened his eyes once more, rolling around in their sockets before resting on Abelhard Rote who was fighting a clay monster near a big willow tree. As per usual, he once more saw his old scimitars resting against that tree, standing there. He thought to himself about the mockery of Arken and how even in this very critical moment, it would not stop to haunt him. And yet, when Rote was knocked back by two clay monsters coming to reinforce the one fighting him, he stumbled backwards and tripped over the scimitars that stood by the tree. Jared was silent for a moment, trying to drag himself off the ground with his eyes trained on the scimitars, seeing once more that Rote cursed in his native tongue and gave a defiant kick against the scimitars that were still there. Jared could see his swords, and he could see how Rote acknowledged them, and he could see how Rote kicked into them causing them to slide away from him. They had never done that before.
"They had never done that befor" - he muttered to himself.
With great speed, jared raced to the scimitars, much to the confusion of Abelhard Rote who was still on the ground and about to be mobbed by the clay monsters, discarding his replacement weapons like they were nothing, and in one fel roll grabbed both scimitars and unleashed the Isldar howling winds with them as he cut through the clay monsters, a tingling of tears streaming down his face as he battled along.
It became obvious to the others that they were running out of time however. Florance had both been tired out by the great force of the Anglian Longbow, and forced to seek cover from the black glass spikes that had been launched at her from the mist. The tendrils had seemingly started throwing shards of black glass at the party, the others parrying and avoiding, but Cro-Zzhin being less lucky and having a number of them impaled in his back while he shielded Alderik from being hit, continuing to translate. Alderik eventually managed to crack a crucial sentence, grabbing hold of Cro-Zzhin's arm who was trying to pretend like the shards weren't there, but was quickly losing consciousness because of the loss of blood. Alderik forced his claw into the lock mechanism, tracing it along the ridges that he had translated, before finally inserting it at the fifth base, causing a clicking sound to erupt from the base of the statue. The statue's eyes lit up in bright fiery green as rumbling could once more be heard around them, but this time not from the forest, but from the ground. Vines and roots snapped as long spires rose from the ground, writing on them lighting up in fiery green. The tips of the pillars engulfed in green flame, the scene of awe was only disrupted by Leufred's agonizing and deathly screams of pain as he felt like his eyes were being torn out of his head and every bodypart of him spasm'd on the ground, Rote trying to gain control of his head movements to stop him from bashing his head into the stones.
The pillars caused crackles of green lighting to appear that flashed against the mist, the tendrils and the clay monsters and turned them to glittering dust each time it hit. With each zap Leufred screamed out, almost as if his Witchblood status had something to do with what was happening, but this whole scene was not occurring a moment too soon either. Parts of the mist overhead were starting to dissipate, suddenly revealing two airships that had sped to the location of the fireworks flare. It was Jäger Scwarz's party on House Black's airship armed to the teeth, and a smaller airship manned by Dianne Black and her retinue on a smaller medical airship. The medical airship performed some daring maneuvers to close the gap between the duo and the party on the ground, and released ladders down below to allow the party on the ground to escape. Rote carried Leufred on board the ship where he started quickly regaining his senses, being further removed from the green lighting pillars. The others came up one by one, before finally Cro-zzhin was raised with a series of ropes and pulleys attached to his wrists and tail and ankles, having already lost consciousness.
Once on board, Dianne Black, Same Kaze and Mi-Sung Zhao quickly tried to help Cro-Zzhin, the former two healing his physical wounds, while Mi-Sung used her Magical Knowledge to identify the black shards and guide the medics in using the proper tools and healing agents to stabilize the bleeding Cro-Allar. The airship ascended, though was quickly followed by a number of clay monsters leaping from the mist and jumping onto the deck of the ship, thudding on the wood and causing the airship to bounce gently each time as they did so. Beni Yahgda and Cieli Le'vilja were quick to respond with their staves, using them as metaphorical baseball bats to knock the clay monsters back as they boarded the ship, while Valeri Ravenstad's magical eagle circled around the ship clawing at them mid-flight and causing them to fall down. Valeri herself stood at the stern of the ship, throwing her eagles feathers with great precision at the approaching clay monsters while Azra Min Eazim and Kailu Frisque secured the back end of the ship, cleverly using the ropes and wooden struts of the airship to knock the clay monsters of the ship. The ship eventually gained enough altitude to reach Jäger Black's command, from where the two airships attempted to speed to the western coast where they knew aid would be.
The mist itself seemed to come more alive everywhere, tendrils reaching from the mist below and shooting shards of black glass at the ships. These shards however did not simply impale, they fluttered all around the ships, causing smaller explosions as they shot past or next to the airships, small but loud explosions of black dust that rocked the airships back and forth from the shockwaves. Jäger continued to coordinate the airship that was trying to draw the fire from the medical ship while Ilmadia Luleth lobbed explosives overboard each time she saw a tendril raising from the mist, knocking it back down. Alexander Amsel, Seraphina von der Ebene, Eyanaeil Faenin and Torlian Krakaine were all heavily engaged in melee on the top deck with the clay monsters that had leapt on, knocking monster after monster over board and keeping Jäger safe from harm as he sped across the deck to reinforce where he could. Marvin Bethell used their Magical Knowledge to predict the movements of the tendrils, surmising a pattern in the movements that resembled demonic beasts of old, and barking orders at the fighters, who were now informed where to best hit the enemies that were adeptly identified.
Philippe du Langlier, Nouveau Tempete, Joasaie Lloablen and Oskaar Sorenvik protected the lower deck and the deckhand stations, keeping the sailors safe from the monsters and between the four of them practically singlehandedly holding the entire lower decks safe, indepting the House Black airship sailors while more and more claymen leapt out of the mist and started gnawing and clawing at the wood and metal hull of the airship. The airship continued to speed across idyllic villages and fields of farmlands and empty pastures, hoping to make it to the western edge of the mist for salvation. The glass shards shot ever more intensive, Ilmadia's explosives becoming less effective, and all the battle crew tirind themselves from the constant fighting. Dianne Black's airship had been hit a number of times in the rigging, causing the entire airship to tilt to one side, threatening to tip over the members of the airship down to the mist below and certain death.
It was through quick acting on behalf of Azra Min Eazim and Valeri Ravenstad on Dianne ship, and Alexander Amsel and Seraphina von der Ebene's acting on the other ship that allowed the escort ship to brace into the medical airship, essentially combining both airships into one bigger floating mess of balloons and wires. Valeri's bird raced back and forth with ropes, attaching the vessel with some clever make shift rigging as directed by Azra Min Eazim, barely just doing the job of holding the whole contraption together while it violently rocked back and forth. The center of gravity and the mass of the whole thing was now uneven, and it was veering into directions where the captains could not control it. To make matters worse, more and more glass shards shot up, some hitting the back end of Jäger's airship, and causing an explosion that ripped out the lower half of the captain's quarters, setting the whole thing on fire. The airship was now speeding out of control and clearly going for an obvious slow descent, while leaving behind a trail of black smoke on the horizon. The gamble had paid off however, as the airships just barely brazing the mist, shot over the edge of the white cliffs of Morass on the western edge of Anglia, and were met with a fleet of ships carrying Howlester and Black banners.
On board the admiral vessel, Genevieve Howlester closed her fan, watching with widened eyes as the two airships were speeding in a wrecked state towards the water, slapping the closed fan into one of her gloved hands as she exclaimed:
"Your grace Christopher Black, I believe it is time we aid the Duchess consort, my aunt
lady Dianne, in coming home safely to port".
Christopher black smiled, perhaps an odd choice for the occasion, but with a certain confidence in the capabilities of his battleships as he replied:
"I couldn't agree more Lady Howlester". - and immediately turned to command the captains of the other ships to form a battle line. The tendrils of whatever was hiding in the mist had seemingly started spilling over the land and spilling into the water. As the ships turned, before long, clay monsters leapt out of the water and larger tendrils stuck out, reminiscing the legends of Krakens of old. The ships opened their portside cannons and opened fire with broadside after broadside, until the battle was so fierce between the shard warping tendrils and the battleships that it became an orgy of constant cannonfire and explosions. The airships meanwhile continued to speed out of control towards the water, risking a heavy slam and potentially killing many on board if they could not slow down. It was thus the timely arrival of the so called "pirate gang" that had tagged along with Nadiir Kahn on his Varran wavecutter, the fastest two rigged canoo they were capable of building in the Corsair fleet. This one however was a peculiarity. A number of clockwork engineers had installed a strange steam powered device with paddles on the sides of the ship. Next to the steam engine which pruttled gently was Mae Draylas, who herself was flanked by Tullion Kearney and two braziers of flame. As Nadiir Kahn positioned his wavecutter in the path of the crashing airships, Mae consumed the flames from the braziers, absorbing them through her hands as fiery bright shapes formed on her arms, reaching all the way up to her shoulders. When they did so, her entire form burst into an elemental being of flame, and stepped into the steam engine's fire compartment to overcharge the engine. The Engine started buckling under the sudden increase in temperature, steam leaking out of all crevices that had not been triple welded, but the engine held as the paddles now sped into overdrive, causing the wavecutter to move so quickly that Taliandra Jouhari had to grasp onto the mast of the ship to prevent herself from being launched off.
Just as the speeding started, Tullion Kearney started weaving a spell for a long shield, his hands gesturing in the air and creating a large magical bronze and translucid shield in the air behind the ship. As the ship sped along, the shield became longer and longer, following the wavecutter like a trail, in effect creating a landing strip for the airships that were now heading straight for this shield that was forming in front of them. Jäger and Dianne simultaneously detached the air balloons to prevent the hulls from being ripped apart on landing, causing the whole mangle of ropes and wood to smash into Tullion's shield and slide along it with grace, Tullion's shields being perfectly smooth and even used by himself as a surfing board on occasion. As the wavecutter sped ahead of the airships, fuelled by Mae Draylas's fiery form in the engine and Nadiir Kahn's steering, Zuzumi Al-Yaotl continued to lob alchemical grenades and other concoctions at clay monsters that tried to slash at the magical landing strip, while Mozz Mu-Yaotl continued to dash and claw his way across the wavecutter, his blade tail whipping in all directions and knocking back any clay monsters that did get lucky enough to actually latch onto the ship. The pirate boat continued to speed along, eventually noticing that the airship hulls, now without attached balloons and frankly praying to whatever deity that they were somehow still alive, coming to a gentle halt before just tipping over the edge of where Tullion had left the shield, and promptly settling in the ocean water, held up by the somewhat leaking hull. The people present on the pirate vessel cheered, Mae having returned to normal but leaving residual flame in the engine enough to speed away. After all, those on the vessel seemed satisfied with having done their part, and knew full well that they were still wanted by the state, thus disappearing away from the naval battle that was very much still ongoing.
On the ships, Rowan Haaven, Shane Marth and Garth Viduggla were desperately trying to hold back clay monsters who had crawled on board of the capital ship and pushed Genevieve Howlester into a corner. Christopher himself remained at the helm while flanked by Lazarus Lupenzi and Philippe du Langlier who kept him safe from harm and were able to prevent him from even needing to draw his cutlass. Bartolomeo de Cana, Mordred Howlester and Warren Howlester meanwhile escorted Relveth Vinthracia and Victoria de Letoirneau from deck to deck to tend to the wounded who had also started clawing from under the ship's hull and attacked the sailors below decks. Lea Aalders and Walthur Drake were desperately trying to keep their charts up to date to inform Christopher Black on the ongoings of the battle and the positions of the ships, who fought desperately to hold back the mist monsters. With the adept and resolute acting of all those present both on the airships and the battleships, they were able to push back the clay monsters and the tendrils, until the tendrils all seemed to combine and formed one great serpent-headed monster that slashed at the ships, smashing their masts and ripping their ropes while cannons continued to roar in defence.
The final reinforcements to arrive were on the smaller sister of the Kade battleship Laridae, the Meridae, a hastily refitted pleasure yacht that had been makeshift put together from what willing people they could find. Valdis Kade stood near the helm, Anglian Longbow in hand as he lobbed arrow after arrow at claymen jumping out of the water, reminiscing of pheasant hunting at the estates of his childhood, while Percival Ravenstad guarded his back and the captain with a number of Viridian Knights. Djanira Acosta tried to assist where she could with her magic, emboldening the fighters who were clearly on a vessel that was not meant for fighting a naval battle, while Emerthas Jou kept her safe from harm. Even Tristan Kade was present, but perhaps not in a way anyone had expected. As the ship veered heavily to one side and started tilting from being hit by a tendril, Tristan Kade, screaming, rolled in his wheelchair across the deck of the ship, swinging his Zweihänder sword with rage back and forth, cutting clay man after clay man in half while his wife was desperately trying to catch up to the wheelchair that was speeding from one end to the other, eventually crashing into the where she mustered all of her strength to support her husband so he could have his hands free to swing at the foes.
The Airships were stable, yet sinking, and the Meridae ship quickly arrived on the scene to help the people who had already abandoned ship and landed in the water, and those still on board to transfer to the smaller pleasure yacht. The Black vessels had meanwhile cornered the tendril being, battering it over and over with explosives. The clay men had stopped coming, the warriors cried out in victory as Genevieve congratulated Christopher Black. The victory would extend further than was originally expected however. As the tendril beast was killed by a last great broadside, and crashed into the water sending a great shockwave that rocked all the boats, small specks of green light erupted on the horizon all over the landscape. Stones that were seemingly unremarkable in the past had started lighting up, almost like a series of beacons, with small green crackles of lightning coming from them. The Witchbloods present in the party, now far removed from them, could still feel an uneasy pull in their eyes each time a flash of green lit up. Indeed, Valeri Ravenstad's bird in the sky could confirm that all over the mist small prickles of green light appeared which drove away the mist. Whether this all happened because Kailu removed the stone, whether everyone had worked together to defeat the monster, or whether Alderik and Cro-Zzhin had activated some ancient Dragon Magic defence system, was uncertain. But everyone celebrated together regardless.
The green lights eventually died down, and all the clay men that were still around faded into dust. The tendrils disappeared as if they had simply been wished away from the world and the mist swirled by gusts of wind as if it had all been just a bad dream. Perhaps the most anticlimactic part of it all were the Anglians re-appearing all over the land. Farmers popped back into existence in the blind of an eye, guards patrolled the walls, cookwives continues stirring and a single child walked down the road that was traveled before, picking up her toy and running off with it again. The Anglians had no idea what had happened. It was as if the entire land had been swallowed in time and time had not moved for them, so the soldiers continued to celebrate their time off on the west coast, and were mildly unsettled and confused when attention was drawn to the fact that a bunch of badly damaged House Black ships were moored off the cliffs. Within hours, contact between Vlissinghelm and Anglia was restored and the Anglians were utterly confused about the whole ordeal, as if they had no memory of whatever had occurred before entering the mist. The green stones that had lit up before also seemed to have reverted back into their dormant state, so it took the officials hours to actually convince the Anglians that this wasn't an elaborate hoax, eventually also resorting to the Emperor who had just arrived to the scene in the evening to reinforce that it was all true.
Through the actions of all those who had worked in the past months to solve the Mist crisis, and those who came to be present during the final hour, the Mist had seemingly been vanquished, and order restored to the Anglian landmass. It took even less than a day for the Anglian grain shipments to start pouring out of their winter storages that had remained untouched for so long. A flow of grain caused bakeries all over the Empire to spring back to life, and the price of bread dropped by thirty times in less than 24 hours. Things seemed to finally be getting back to normal.
It was thus that the victorious party with Genevieve Howlester, Christopher Black, Jared Kade, Valdis Kade, Cro-Zzhin Yaotl (who had been nursed back to health) and many others of those who were present in the final battles made their way back through Anglia on foot, passing many villages. In Anglia they were all thanked for their assistance and return by the locals, even Kathar like Nouveau Tempete received some form of gratitude from the simple folk. The sun was thus setting on an eventful day as the nobles made their way through Axford before preparing to cross the border to Vlissinghelm on their way out. Genevieve looked out the window of her carriage which she shared with Christopher and Dianne Black, seeing one half of the grand Axford Cathedral's tower gone, and a massive pile of rubble that had wiped out half a neighborhood with it. She idly remarked:
"In the Spirit's name, I wonder what could have done that. Everything else looks so
peaceful and the same, except for that tragic disaster."
Christopher Black who was holding his wife's hands widened his eyes as his head turned around, peering out of the same window. He scraped his throat, and simply added:
"Well. I haven't a clue Lady Howlester." - while he nervously rubbed Dianne's hand a little too rough
