Steel flashed. The blessed weapons that had been taken from the tomb of Fleuri's forefathers proved especially destructive, undead crumpling, burning with each strike. Even glancing blows were proven effective, their decrepit flesh burning away, bodies collapsing. Unlike the fires of simply enchanted weapons, the divine solar flames of Reon-blessed weaponry were red-gold in color, and made short work of the undead they fell upon.

The own blade finely-crafted but lacking such enhancements, Fanilly stuck to aiming for the head, hewing it from the shoulders of another undead. The head, the limbs, those were the best targets to strike on an undead without the advantage of a blessed weapon.

And it seemed her knights were well aware of this fact. However, the orders one of her very own knights had issued... had she made a mistake in not being more explicit? She had assumed such enemies, as foul as the were, would be best dealt with by allowing the knights to perform their work swiftly and without much interference. But was that the wrong approach?

The legs cut out from one undead, and then its head slice from its neck.

It was among the last that fell in the entrance chamber to the mausoleum.

Fanilly inhaled deeply, straightening as she regarded the aftermath of the battle. The corpses were dry, those that were not burning away into ash didn't shed any blood.

"There is surely much worse awaiting us below," she began, looking back over her shoulder towards the others as she began to approach the stairs, "Not to mention the conspirators themselves. While they're outnumbered, a necromancer and a lightning witch are-"

The gleam of silver light suddenly exploded from the darkness ahead of her. It was only in the scant seconds that Fanilly found herself even aware of the incoming blow, only notified by the sound of rattling plate armor, that she was able to throw herself just out of the range of the glowing axe as it slammed to the stone floor below.

Hitting the ground a meter away, she stumbled back to her feet just in time to witness the edge of the axe blow brilliantly and explode, obliterating the stone beneath it and leaving behind a smoking crater.

The axe raised from the floor, its handled gripped in two armored hands, alight with runic inscriptions.

The weapon was wielded by a tall, broad figure, clad head to toe in elaborately-carved, rune-inscribed plate armor. The carvings were unlike those Fanilly was familiar with. Some were horned, grimacing faces, others ghoulish beasts.

A long beard hung from a shadowed face beneath the helmet.

So this was one of the conspirators.

"Iron Roses," even as her heart hammered in her chest, the man taking one step forward, Fanilly had to keep their mission in mind, "Keep him preoccupied, prevent him from barring the way forward. I will take the remainder of our forces deeper into the mausoleum."

She had to remain calm. To think clearly. If they wanted to end this, to cut the enemy down here, and to save the hostage, they couldn't allow themselves to be caught up here.

They outnumbered him, but the enchanted nature of his equipment was obvious. Still, he was only one man.

And they had to push deeper!

[@Creative Chaos][@Rune_Alchemist][@Saiyan][@Crimson Paladin][@Psychic Loser][@VahkiDane][@HereComesTheSnow]

[hr]

Elisandre's voice, when she spoke, was filled with relief. It was clear she was desperate to find something normal, something commonplace, to talk about.

"Ah, well, y-you see," she began, taking a deep breath, "Sir Arsene might not have seemed very important in some ways, but I think he got so much focus because of the hundi reverence for the concept of the Knight Errant. Besides, he did play a big part in helping when Brigitte and Chantilly got attacked by Rozenalt and the Redmarch Knights outside of Hervard's Glen, and I loved his relationship with young Lord Regis! 

Her attention shifted to Sir Fionn.

"I'd definitely recommend it!"

While her grip on the book still seemed somewhat tighter then it should have needed to be, at the same time the First Princess was speaking quite freely. It seemed talking about literature was a passionate subject for her, and thus would serve as an effective distraction. Fireheart was a standalone novel, of course, but characters such as Bloody Lord Rozenalt and the Redmarch Knights were popular antagonists who appeared frequently in folklore and myth. The same could be said of the Midnight Hunt, or the mysterious Wyzal.

When what appeared to be another child sat down in front of her, Princess Maletha shifted awkwardly, still holding the plush dragon tightly for a few moments before deciding to speak.

"Um, it's... h-he's... he's Thrinax," she said, after a few moments, nestling her chin against the stuffed dragon's head, "Like the one from the story with P-Prince Erion."

Prince Erion, the Last Prince of Talderia, was another figure often mythologized. Some stories, such as the founding of the Erion Knights and their Fortresses of Caron Lyn and Erhan Lyn outside the Black Pit, were definitely true. Others were less likely to be so. The truth of his friendship with the prideful Thrinax was difficult to verify, but a dragon with that name did once exist, and possibly still did somewhere in the world.

Given the dragon's noble heart beneath his arrogant exterior, perhaps there was no surprise the shy Second Princess would name her plush toy after him.

"U-um, do you have any friends like Thrinax...?"

[@Psyker Landshark][@Raineh Daze][@The Otter]