[h3]EVERYREN, FORMERLY OF THE SOMNUS IMPERIUM, NORTH AVARA[/h3]
[i][b]Moments before the Immolation...[/b][/i]

it was an alleyway, a dark one as they always seem to be in Somnus cities. Despite it being a sunny morning, no light passed through into these narrow pathways between buildings. Remas had no idea how he got here, his memory restricted to the moment he saw the women in front of him. The strange white haired and faintly blue skinned women was inspecting a box; his box, looking over small glass vials and metal containers within with scrutiny, trying to keep her obvious fascination at a minimal level of fascination. 

“So, is this what you call…. uh, the Grindebault right?” the women said, looking eagerly at a small white root, which when combined with certain ingredients through mortar and pestle and then burned becomes a cloudy dust and smoke which is both irritable to skin and dense enough to become a smokescreen, favourable to all assassins and thieves alike. Just like the woman in front of Remas. He knew what she was, they had been having these little alleyway meetings for some time. 

“Indeed. As promised, I have constructed two devices using the Grindebault. I will construct a proper batch the next time we meet. I assume you have it, the item?” Remas inquired cautiously, this individual inspiring Remas to act quiet and restrained unlike his usual bombastic and sarcastic self.

“I have it, but I must say you are a strange man Justinanus. I offer you the death of anyone or any object in the world, and you have me steal… a box filled with a branch from some tree. I figure this is of some great use that you would have me bust into the Alchemical society of the Dominion’s headquarters. So what, does it give immortality or something?” the woman states while taking a small box out from under her cloak.

“I assure you, the Uloyidasi is one of the most valuable alchemical plants in existence” Remas promised.

“Never heard of it”. the woman responded nonchalantly while opening the box, looking at the strange silver-like metallic branch.

“Then how about… The flesheater solution?”

“Uh-huh, some kind of acid then?.” The woman picked up the small branch, waving it around like a twig.

“ Justinian damned Yuwanists… how about…” Remas thought, until realizing that as an assassin from the Dominion, this individual would know the flesheater by another, more colloquial and by a far more infamous name. 

“Dread of the Moon” Remas whispered, attempting to scare the woman. It worked. Not in the obvious sense, but the women dropped the plant within less than a heartbeat. Her face was perfectly calm, but Remas knew he had genuinely frightened her. She looked directly at him, her eyes telling him she was in disbelief. 

“This… this is seriously Dread of the Moon? Are you insane? Why would you need the Dread?” She was still getting her head around the fact that inside that small box, that something as innocent as that piece of plant was the dread… no wonder the security was so damn high she thought.

Her shock and fear suddenly disappeared when she realized something. This man had not only got her to steal something like the Dread but had it in its apparent original form… meaning this man could make the Dread. Boy did she get lucky four years ago when that target just happened to be attempting to kill some random Somnus plague doctor.

“Well Doctor Justinanus, I think we may have to make a new, better trade off” The women spoke, implying she wanted the Dread,in its weaponized form.

“Well, Morinth, you see I am contact with a certain Drathan that--” Remas stopped. The women wasn’t looking at him anymore, but frantically looking back and forth.

“Remas! Get up! The City is on fire!” She screamed. 

Confused, Remas looked around and saw that the city was perfectly fine. “What on Avara are you screaming about you crazy Yuwanist bitc---” Remas was immediately interrupted when she spoke again, yelling instead of screaming… yelling in a very deep, very masculine voice.

“GET UP YOU IDIOT, THE FUCKING CITY IS UNDER ATTACK!” Morinth yelled at him before suddenly her face and then body turned into Phebosius. Oh crap, I’m dreaming he thought with sudden realization.
[h3]THE ACTUAL EVERYREN[/h3]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/EmDFBHy.jpg[/img]

With a startle he rose out of his horrible tavern bed, Phebosius next to him preparing to pull him out.  “Wait, wait, I’m up” Remas barked, looking around to see the group was pacing around frantically. Through the window Remas could see red light and embers, so indeed the city was at least on fire. 

“Phebosius, you remember Sistiastium and Septimopolis, the dream cultists, they have finally come!” Bosk yelled from the other side of the tavern. It took a while, but Remas finally put together what this all meant. 
“Oh shit” Remas sighed. Where the hell was Morinth when he needed her? Why did the council have to send him to a city about to be destroyed by the plague? He was just supposed to get some Justinian damned Tendrilweed. Remas looked around inside the Tavern. Aurelius was writing on a piece of parchment with a quil, a Somnite Imperial Eagle out of its cage and ready to send a message back to the Council in High Ironmarch. Mananimos was in the middle of the tavern meditating, Saathen was pacing in nothing but a sleeping gown and Phebosius was busy putting the last of his armour on.

Bosk entered the room in full paladin armour, the man looking like a walking hunk of gold. Despite his almost comical appearance, the man was stern and gave off an aura of knowing unlike his usual dimwittedness. Remas knew they had seen this happen before, just like the old days during the Fall. Phebosius went on about it every day after all. 

“I will take the gate, Pheb, in case the worse has come to pass and it has already been opened. You know what to do”. Bosk then turned to the kid, Odev,  just waking up and walking into the room half asleep. “Boy, we need to warn the city what is really going on. Go and run to the castle immediately” he ordered patiently. The boy simply nodded and walked out of the room again.

“What do we do?” Remas asked now, glad he wore his plague doctor mask even while sleeping, as it hid his almost stupid facial expression.

Phebosius looked around as the room was filling up with the twenty other members of the party, the men being mostly sergeants. They too were gearing up for battle. He looked at Remas with an expression suggesting the answer was obvious.

“Right, right, don’t die. I’ll get ready then” Remas muttered, standing up and beginning to put his plague doctor robes and cloak over his sleeping robes. Phebosius and Bosk left then, rushing off to save the city from certain doom, obviously they thought the rest of the party would take too long to prepare for them to go with them, the cocky bastards. Saathen strangely was very quiet however, having yet yelled or made any remarks concerning his intelligence or manhood. The room became very quiet after Bosk and Pheb’s sudden leave, leaving Aurelius’ scrawling on paper as the primary source of noise. 

Remas, after finishing getting dressed begun to walk out of the tavern with the now ready party. He didn’t know if Bosk and Phebosius were alive, but it would be in poor taste to abandon them. His run down the street towards the gate was stop short by the sudden blast of a horn, a horn Remas knew sounded very much like a Charlinite horn… 

The ground shook. The rest of the party stopped moving.

Light, blinding light. Remas flinched, putting his hand in front of eyes before turning away from the gate. Justinian save them. The rest of the party was muttering anxiously, backstepping towards the tavern. Remas simply walked, deceptively calm.

Yells, cheers, clangs of steel on steel. Screams. Justinian save them, Everyren was not being overthrown from within by cultists.

“We are being invaded!” Remas yelled back at the others, now running back into the tavern. he rushed up the stairs and into the storage room. His medical box was within, much larger than all those years ago when he spoke to Morinth as in that dream. he opened his box using the key around his neck, revealing potions, smaller boxes and parchment covered in his messy writing. He threw this all on the ground. He took the fake bottom out, and unlocked the second layer. Within was his personal arsenal of alchemical warfare.

The Charlin bastards thought they could just invade Somnus because they were tired of fighting the Moonlanders, or the plague, or the ghuls, or the Drathans or the damn Dominion. Remas wasn’t all too religious, perhaps even a heretic the servitors would say, if they knew about his little dealings with Morinth or his other plans… but Justinian damn it he knew where his loyalties lied in the end. The easterners always thought the north was weak and needed guidance and protection like some child, so damn condescending. 

And honestly, he was sick of all these Paladins and Charlinophiles. Orev wouldn’t shut up about honour this and honour that. He was sick of being considered the weaker member of the party, sick of the Jahun-ka and Paladins mistaking his intellectual pursuits for cowardice. Sick of them and their cultural postering. Deep down, perhaps he just wanted to use this invasion as an excuse to show off, but he quickly vanquished this thought with a torrent of forced patriotic fervour and annoyance at Paladins.

He begun by taking out a metal cauldron, running over to set it above the tavern fireplace. Mananimos was still there, sitting and meditating. Such an annoying man Remas thought. The others below had started making loud banging noises. It seemed they were barricading the Tavern door as Charlin soldiers started closing in on the street.

Remas returned to his box, taking out three clay orbs, placing them and a sling next to a window. He then got a row of six wooden pipes, the size of the sticks the old nobles used to beat horses and pages with and placed them next to the orbs. He took out two metal contraptions, like gauntlets but only covering the forearms, leaving the hands covered by leather, chemical coated gloves worn by plague doctors, like the ones Remas wore now. Connected to one of said gauntlet-devices was an interesting mechanism which when a metal trigger is pulled, a flint is struck, causing sparks, functioning much like a match. The other gauntlet is a specialized plague doctors device originally created for medical purposes. A pipe made of leather made of an Otnemarcasan beast and coated in a protective chemical runs across the gauntlet to a glass bottle filled with air and a glass bottle filled with, normally, a herbal mixture, both strapped to the back. Used to spray infected at a distance, alchemists in the north have refitted this device for military purposes.

Remas placed both next to the other pieces of equipment and begun placing numerous boxes and vials by the window as well. He took out his mortar and pestle and carefully took a bunch of spiky, vibrantly coloured, rainbow-like Sybasus flowers and placed them within the mortar. He begun grinding them into a toxic and lethal poisonous mush, before mixing it with water and filling the empty glass bottle connected to the gauntlet. 

He took the wooden pipes and placed them in knots on his outer robe. He tied two of the clay orbs on wraps around him waist. He strapped the gauntlets onto his arms. Two boxes remained of the ones he decided to use for this event. One contained his guns. All single shot pistols, four Somnus Blackstone matchlocks and a single Dominion doglock, a piece of art and gun he acquired from Morinth in exchange for a single drop of Dread of the Moon. 

Speaking of the Dread, Remas opened the second box, holding within a single silver twig of the abominable Uloyidasi tree, a metallic and extremely magical flora only found in secret oasis’ and underground jungle-caverns in the Union. As Remas carefully took the plant out and moved towards the cauldron, the old Dryadicist sage finally made an expression beyond smiling, and it, like Morinth before him, was shock and fear.

“The Uloyidasi is it? A frightful weapon to be using. You would use it against your fellow Justinians?” The old man asked, narrowing his eyes. Remas dropped the twig into the cauldron, watching it wither and begin to glow in the heat.

“I need to test my theories one way or another old man, and the Charlinites have revealed themselves as willing test subjects” Remas replied, watching as the twig deformed into a puddle of glowing, clumpy silver liquid. Dread of the Moon while a colloquial term used by assassins and rogue’s was once a far more refined term restricted to the highest and most secret circles of Drathan wizards. A concoction invented by a wizard commonly rumoured to be in direct communication with Yuwan herself, the substance was devised as a torture device. Due to the extreme danger in its handling, and the incredible longevity of the substance on all other physical elements, the Dread was banned by a council and henceforth only became used by certain wizards to guard their tombs, coating the near everlasting Dread on surfaces for unwitting victims to touch. Later, after war-orientated alchemy became a mainstream concept, the Dread of the Moon was rediscovered and used in high profile and incredibly brutal assassinations since then, prized as an extremely rare and valuable death dealer. 

As legend has it, the Dread of the Moon has not yet be refined to its final form. As an advocate of this theory, Remas originally had Morinth acquire the Dread so he could experiment with it in an attempt at refining it to this mythic final form. While talking with the Drathan defector, Dosazes daz Vosazastivis he discovered that the current refined form may in fact be its penultimate state. This final form may in fact actually exist. The final form, dubbed the “Sword of Yuwan” by Dosazes is believed to be alchemy’s most diabolical, if theoretical, invention.  A weapon of unprecedented scale and destructive power, the final form would be a gaseous, air-borne Dread, capable of decimating an entire country and eradicating millions of people and billions to trillions of living things down to the maggots within Avara’s soil within but days. Remas’ mission was simple. Create the ultimate weapon known to all mankind and bring an end to the Plague once and for all, by eradicating all life within the afflicted area of the world. 

“Perhaps Morinth was right, perhaps I am insane” Remas whispered to himself before grinning maliciously, watching as the clumpy silver liquid refined into a perfectly smooth, shiny metallic liquid as he added other ingredients to the mix in perfect pre-set quantities and with absolute precision and timing. If he one day succeeded, he  figured the irony of a Justinian using the Sword of Yuwan to obliterate the dreaming plague might cause the world to stop functioning correctly. Still, today was not that day and instead he would be using the dread for, though innovative, far more mundane purposes. 

He took the completed “Flesheater Solution” and with utmost care, slowly moved it onto a table. He took a single bullet and with tweezers dipped it into the solution, giving the bullet a shining, chrome like coating. He carefully placed the bullet inside one of the matchlock pistols, he dared not use the doglock for this, as the pistol would have to be discarded carefully after use. He then put the tweezers inside a vial, filling it with a few drops and then throwing it inside a box filled with various objects, some years old, that still had older forms of the solution coating them. The box would need to be bury deep, or thrown into the ocean soon. It might even be wiser to go to Karkarth and throw it into one of  the volcanos there.  

Remas begun entering a state of total focus as he took great care to place the pistol back onto his coat and vial alongside the other vials inside his cloak. Mananimos voice faded away as did the Charlinites attempts at bashing down the taverns door. he took one last object out of the box, a Grindebault grenade, lit it with a few cracks of the automatic flint and threw it out the window.

As the small object fell down with a tail of smoke behind it, Remas walked down the stairs, directly towards the door being knocked down by angry Charlinites. Saathen yelled at him, but her voice was muffled and distant, even as she tried to grab his shoulder. 

The door fell, and Remas walked directly towards the Charlinites rushing in. Raising one arm, he sprayed a torrent of toxic mist at them, the soldiers within the mist slowing down as the poison begun slowing down their hearts and dulling their minds as the throbbing pain locked their muscles down. Casually walking through the door and into the cloud of skin-irritating smoke, Remas took one of the clay orbs out of the band around his waist and put it into a sling he was holding. Lighting the fuse on the clay bomb he charged out of the cloud of smoke, appearing before a cluster of around thirty Charlin soldiers. Swinging the sling around, Remas released the clay bomb, flinging it directly into a cart next to the Charlinites, causing a great explosive eruption, launching metal, piece’s of wood and body parts into the air and across the street. The explosion despite its fury too was muffled and distant, Remas ignoring everything as he took a second clay bomb and lighting the fuse. He flung this bomb at a building, the explosion launching stones and wood across the street and obstructing access for the Charlinites horses. after a full minute after the building fell and the Charlinites reforming, they crossed on foot, climbing over the debris and charging forward.

No long standing alone, the Charlinite knights clashed with the twenty odd companions of the Ironmarch. Remas stepped back, allowing Saathen to charge forward and bash a Charlinite knight aside with her kite shield. Using the Ironmarcher Jahun-ka as a wall, Remas loaded the third and final clay bomb into the sling, aiming behind them and throwing down debris on the other side of the street. The battlefield was successfully enclosed, sealing it off from cavalry charges and mass human waves. A fight worthy of a last stand.

Saathen of No House was shaking things up for the Charlinites it seemed, clearly, the were not prepared to face a Jahun-ka in the Somnus Imperium. After cleaving her sword through a fifth mans helmet, the Charlinites begun to take the fight more seriously, waiting until more of them climbed over the debris until charging into the fray again. Aurelius too, was doing surprisingly well, holding his own despite being significantly smaller than his opponents, mostly through parrying blows and sidestepping them. So long as the debris obstructed access to the battlefield and the party kept up its efforts, they should be able to hold off a superior force for some, if short, time. 

Sadly, this did not last as the Charlinites seemed to have quickly adapted by placing a wooden ramp over the debris allowing numerous knights to run up in rapid succession. They were being surrounded now, the Charlinites encircling them and cutting them off from the tavern. Mananimos was still within, likely having already surrendered due to being a pacifist. Another wave of Charlinites crossed over the ramp, pushing back the party further away from the tavern, the first of their number now dying. Shocking Remas and temporarily taking him out of him battle trance, a Karkarthian Jahun-ka warrior appeared leading the force. So that explains the Charlinites surprise with fighting Saathen Remas thought, realizing that the Karkarthian’s were also in on this little excursion into Somnus. The Jahun-ka was a huge man, even compared to Saathen. He possessed horns, and a huge tower shield. He was probably of someone of note, though it wasn’t like Remas had any knowledge of Karkarthian culture or standards.

 Remas took one of the wooden pipes out of the knots and lit its fuse. Throwing it at the Jahun-ka, the explosive fell short of its target and landed in front of  the Charlinite charge, causing them to vacant the area and brace for an explosion… that never came. The explosive fizzled out without any reaction. A Justinian damned dud. The Charlin knights rushed past the stick and engaged the remaining party. Remas took out the first pistol and lit its match. firing, he completely missed his target and hit nothing. Cursing, he had to remind himself that he was did have an appalling aim with guns. He looked to his right to see Saathen fighting five men at once, to his right Aurelius was duelling, badly, against three Charlins at once. He drew out his second pistol, crossing over the bodies of dead party members and Charlin knights alike, firing again and missing. 

The party was now back to back, twelve of  them left. Remas was waiting for the Jahun-Ka, who was now walking towards them. Firing his third pistol at the Jahun-ka and missing completely, Remas succeeded in drawing his attention.  Walking back now, as the Jahun-ka slowly walked towards him, Remas drew Morinth’s gifted doglock and fired it randomly to the side, unknown to him hitting a Charlinite knight in the head. There were now over one hundred enemies in the street, circling the party of eight, mostly being held together by Saathen’s indomitable defence, now surrounded by a small pile of corpses. Aurelius was kneeling on the ground, gash through his thigh and six swords aimed at his throat and chest. 

Mananimos was walking out of the tavern with swords pointing at him in all directions. The fighting stopped briefly as the party members realized there was only three of them left standing. Remas, facing off against the Jahun-ka now standing in front of him glaring, Saathen, ready to collapse with fatigue and numerous wounds and an apparently random sergeant named the unsightly yet oddly common Gregory, the man refusing to die, clubbing an already dead knights head in repeatedly with a polearm. 

Remas pulled out the pistol with the Flesheater round, knowing now was the moment he was waiting for. He only knew the theoretical effects of the Dread on a person, and could only hypothesize the effectiveness of a bullet dumped in the Dread of the Moon, but he knew this was going to work on all matters concerning alchemy, preparation and mechanical, the problem was delivery. He was truly a horrible aim. The Jahun-ka, understanding Remas’ desire for a duel continued moving forward. Saathen fell over then, exhausted. Gregory was now punching the dead mans helmet with bloodied hands. The battle was over now, and so the experiment would begin.

The Jahun-ka wasn’t a fool, and even watching Remas’ horrible aim knew to defend himself, placing his shield in front of him. Remas knew he had to get rid of that shield, so took out another of the wooden pipes, hoping beyond hope  that they were not all duds.  Remas struggling the light the fuse with the automatic flint, the Jahun-ka drew closer, now flourishing his sword.

After successfully lighting the shorter fuse of this explosive, Remas chucked it into the general direction of the Jahun-ka, his incredible throwing accuracy hitting the shield perfectly, the explosive detonating and sending shards of molten copper, shrapnel and burning oil across the shield. The Jahun-ka threw the shield away and shouted out, sadly, in battle rage and excitement as he now sprinted head on towards Remas.

Almost in slow motion, Remas watched as the huge warrior charged, raising the pistol up in the general direction of the charging giant, Remas fired his pistol, not even bothering to aim. The pistol flashed a bright shining light and spat out a shower of silver sparks and almost glittering smoke. Remas looked at his pistol almost absently then looking at the Janhun-Ka who had stopped and looking at him questioningly and back at the pistol.

The Jahun-ka begun laughing, barking at him in his foreign tongue. Remas was about to explode into a ranting tirade when the Jahun-ka stopped laughing and looked at one his finger, which had been shot off. 

Where the missing finger once was, now was a stump of flesh with molten silver sparks dripping off it.

“It worked…” was all Remas was able to say as the Jahun-ka watched in horror as his hand begun to heat and steam, his gauntlet turning red hot. Remas couldn’t see what was going on underneath the red-hot gauntlet, but the Jahun-ka was now screaming, genuinely screaming. Skin and flesh, now mushy and glue-like was falling between the armour plates of his gauntlet, blood now lighting on fire. Remas walked towards to warrior, now kneeling on the ground frantically grasping his arm as it begun falling apart, the armour platings lighting on fire now too.

In a futile attempt to stop the caustic Dread, the Jahun-ka chopped off his own arm, however by this point his entire body was now melting and imitating a dying candle, his flesh melting into wax-like glue as his upper torso was lit on fire. As his eyeballs begun melting into liquid and flowing down his face and his screams died out in a bubbling gurgle, the small army of Charlinite and Karkarthian knights surrounded Remas, the sole fighter still standing. A wall of shields gradually and very, very cautiously marched towards Remas, stopping just in front of the flaming, melting pile of semi-metallic, semi-flesh like wax, which was now melting an already dead corpse next to the once-Jahun-ka.

Remas looked around, still too focused on the results of his experiment to care about the army surrounding him.

“Haha, so, uh, I surrender?” Remas joked. Before he could say any more, a strong sensation of pain struck through the back of his head, and there was darkness.