[center][h2]Morianne[/h2][/center]

Morianne looked on as Tyaethe had called down her armor onto the battlefield. No matter how many times the troubadour had seen the vampire's magic, she was always impressed by the pristine beauty of it all. Tyaethe now stood tall, gallant. She was the ideal image of a knight that all great storytellers dreamed of. It made Morianne jealous. Her desire for fame drew her to that form of gross incandescence.

Morianne recalled how, in her early days of knighthood, she had attempted to replicate Tyaethe's armor with her own skills. However, try as she might, the troubadour could only produce fragile swords of pure mana. Armor seemed impossible.

While the other knights had begun their charge, Morianne furiously tuned the strings of her lute, only occasionally gazing upward to see if anyone was upon her. The Knights were continuing their steady push. She spotted a few familiar faces, wincing whenever the blood which began to cake the battlefield became too much for her to withstand. 

Morianne sighed. This was embarrassing. Being a user of spellcraft came with a special caveat: Mana. Even as a practiced bard mystic, Morianne knew she risked eventually running out of mana. Without mana, she'd be incapable of fighting and little better than a civilian. Thrash had made it quite clear that musical spells, unlike their traditional counterparts, consumed an incredible amount of mana. This was due to how the casting ritual for musical spells was, unless under specific circumstances, continuous. The duration of the spell coincided with the duration of the casting ritual. So unless Morianne wanted to have her soul recycled into a bunch of dumb fairies, she best be wise about her spellcasts.

Morianne thought back to Tyaethe and ultimately came to the conclusion that, at least for now, she should follow her senior's example. It'd save a considerable amount of mana.

"A copy can be just as good as the original, Mori," the troubadour reassured herself.

She began to play a tune that, had anyone been actively listening, was obviously improvised. 

Sharp, staccato rhythms played in quick succession. Droning cords smothered the beats of clashing steel and cries of war. Eventually, the sound settled on a horrid ostinato that chilled the bones.

[center]Come to me
My protector, dearest steel
The one I abandoned in lives past
Your deadly edge, sharpest zeal
I've come to see

The cold you give is better
Than my own displeasure 

Goddesses above
With your power I cast
A spell which shall make me an equal peer
So I may stand…No
So that I may be
A iron rose who knows not fear

I ask that you deem me

A Worthy Knight[/center]

A single sword of crystalline, transparent blue flickered itself into existence, its hilt firmly in Morianne's grasps. The sword itself had taken the shape of a rapier. A shield would soon follow, a round buckler, materializing in much the same way as her 'sword'.

"It's no armor, but it'll have to do." Morianne said. The troubadour gave a silent prayer to the goddesses before charging into the fray herself.

She changed through. Keeping her shield up, she made way through the entrance that her fellow mage, Katarina, had opened. She sliced and poked her way into the fight making quick, speedy work of any bandits which stood in her way despite her swordplay being quite average. Turns out, shields were pretty useful.