HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Feel free if you think it wouldn’t make sense not to—- i’m definitely gonna have to do edits on my end tomorrow rather than tonight

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

clunky infodump GO

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@ghastlyInc

As the ranks dispersed through the field to begin a thorough examination of the corpses, a rough sound seeming caught at the halfway point between a growl and a sigh loosed from the rear, a somewhat miffed, deflated swordsman approaching the fore to investigate a corpse near the Captain. His face was still a more or less serious knot of furrowed brow and stern lines, especially near the jaw, but the inimical fire behind his eyes had receded greatly.

"Not to overstep rank and dole out orders, Captain," he grunted as he turned over the corpse of a fighter that had been blown aside by a force great enough to invert his elbow joints. "But it's best you just let it roll off your back for now. Mercenaries are all like that. Especially the leaders. Builds trust within the unit."

Alette the Shark. That recontextualized essentially their entire encounter. Hailing from the North, her band had campaigned multiple times in Velt and Estival as well as the nation the Roses called home— consequently, there was a significant overlap in "stomping grounds" between them and the company he'd been picked up by. He'd never had the dubious pleasure of seeing the Shark in person, but he knew her well from the perspective of a professional rival— or perhaps more accurately, as someone under the employ of one.

Wasn't like I was the leader out on recruitment drive or negotiating contracts against her, after all..

Just one of The Faceless.

It was clear enough that her reputation's preceding her was some measure of mark towards character— completely untrustworthy scum didn't last terribly long on the field, nor as a unit. Warfare was their business first and foremost: to join a band like hers or his meant that the enlisted troops trusted them to get food into their bellies. As such, leaders needed certain qualities to hope for any success in bolstering their ranks.

Martial prowess was always beneficial. One wouldn't be remiss to call it the rule in a mercenary band, and Alette had plenty at her disposal— the crimson lance she toted was almost as revelrous in battle as she, and her storied agility made delivering its (supposedly) accursed, lifestealing strike all too easy against a long, long list of enemy combatants. Clearly, she had strength covered, but it was a foolhardy soldier of fortune to ignore her aura as a leader.

Was she successful?
Was she dependable?
Was she on the side of her employers, or her soldiers?

Your life was on the line when you made that choice. You were no patriot, nor champion, nor revolutionary. The question was whether you would be risking your life for the sake of your comrades, or whether you would be reduced to a simple pawn. That she had enjoyed continual success over the years meant she definitely needed to be doing something right on that front, near as he could tell.

The smell of dried blood, the clanking of armor as his comrades shifted bodies to uncover boar tattoos similar to the one he found himself staring at, the air thickening with the gloom and tension of recent, massed death... His body knew it all well. Before Candaeln, this was the scene of home— the field of a battle, recently concluded. Many comrades dead at his feet, alongside many of the enemy, known or otherwise.

His intra-company unit was what they called a "forlorn hope" in Thaln— a corruption of the words for "lost troop" found in most military manuals. Those amongst the wider company who held the unenviable role in the battlefield of vanguard— on the front of the lines and the very first to clash with enemy ranks. Those that threw themselves into the meat grinder to gain a toehold the rest of the troops could utilize and fall in behind to reinforce. Increased pay for increased risk— so it usually went.

High mortality rates, even given the company captain's disciplined and measured leadership informing the tactics of their deployment. Legend amongst those that survived along side him, the veterans that had brought him up into their ranks, said that the black leather masks the company wore into battle originally were only issued to the Forlorn, then disseminating out into the entirety of the enlisted ranks as their Captain's career continued.

They said he meant to foster the boldness of the Forlorn into the whole of the company, increasing uniformity and cohesion within his troops. Emulating the archetypal Doppelsöldner en masse in this manner quickly became the calling card of The Black Regiment, leading to another moniker altogether being bestowed upon them.

And it always concluded that we actually became "Franz's Faceless" so we cared less about living and dying as a result.

At his end, he wasn't convinced he had been on the right side of the "loyal comrade" and "unwitting pawn" equation. Perhaps he would have been better served, if he had the luxury of shopping around, in a group like Alette's. If he remembered correctly, her band had a higher focus on singular, quality troops— in the league of a less scrupulous adventuring group as opposed to his company's larger masses of rank-and file, militaristic regimentation. It was entirely likely that she, for all her universally attested brutality, had built her band upon more personal connection than that.

Things may have been so.

They may also have not.

He couldn't take any of it back now, and as a Rose, he knew where he stood. The present served to be the morning he'd trudged through that hell in the past for. He was dwelling on the latter rather than focused on the former. Enough. The soldier he'd inspected had indeed bore the same tattoo the others had reported upon the fresher bodies— a boar with burning eyes, and gilded tusks growing from its jaw. That...

That could have been coincidental.

"Sir Gillian." he said in greeting as he approached after a moment, dropping to a knee to closer inspect the body the Reliquary had casually kicked aside while striking up conversation with Alette. "Marking on this one too? Ah. There it is. Swear I've seen it somewhere..."

He didn't wait for an answer— the ink was the same. Gold tusks and red eyes... The men around him all reported likewise. No mistaking it: these men were The Golden Boars. Among the most unscrupulous companies on the market today, they typically garbed themselves in purple and gold coloring as uniform, but even during covert operations, those tattoos served to brand their allegiance into their skin. A lifelong employment, where duties sank so low they reached the flames of hell. Unfortunately, there was no way out of facing the fire— deserters would get sent there personally by their brethren's swords.

"They're more mercenaries, Captain! I recognize the brand!" he barked immediately upon confirming the second brand upon the neck of the fallen sellsword, voice clipped and pointedly professional above his mounting confusion. "She's not lying about 'em."

His sword was still in hand as he did so, something he was sure any present wouldn't fail to notice, but so long as he'd not raised it to her he doubted Alette would quite take it as picking a fight. To enjoy and welcome battle was one thing, but he was hard pressed to imagine her to particularly appreciate her chances against this contingent of well-equipped knights by her lonesome.

She had a point in reminding her captain of that.

However, since they'd determined the cause was an enemy group of mercenaries, ones that had no qualms getting their hands as dirty as they needed, it raised its own share of questions.

"Now that we've figured that out," he intently into their conversation this time, releasing his left hand's grip upon the collar of the fallen body. His tension had not yet left him— the setting didn't allow for it. Nor did his trust in her. Now he knew who she was and who the men she had killed were, more or less. But the image was still woefully incomplete, especially if this would amount to the entirety of the answers they could get from the pigtailed spearwoman.

Firstly, this couldn't be the full battlefield. There were important people missing.

"Where'd you send the rest of your cohort? They dealing with whatever brought the Boars here further in while you greet us at the gates?"

His amber gaze searched her face openly, his speech reverted to the gruffer, direct tones of his former profession. The messenger making it here, the timing of this scene, the lack of a protracted siege to cause it, the older bodies of the soldiers suggesting them to have turned upon eachother with staggering uniformity— what on earth was this? Had they walked into a ritual suicide's aftermath? How had the Boars managed and infiltration of this scale? Had they done so under orders of some client? Were they deserters?

Did you really come here because things looked off, or because these men were marked for death by their Condottieri?

As much clarity as could be lent to the picture, the knights needed. Even if she didn't have the full scope of things, hers was still a damn sight more complete than theirs.

"I'd have figured you and that spear of yours to be at the center of the action."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

oh, sick, mercenary background might actually come in handy. got a free night tomorrow, i'll try and get something up then.

Also a good excuse to finally get off my ass and flesh out Gerard's former company a little.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

ahahaha

haha

haaaa

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

it's probably also that i'm playing the equivalent of an agitated pit bull who has shelved his good manners and that the others got in ahead of me

only fair considering the amount of times i've zoomed past everyone lmao

sometimes you're the hammer and sometimes you're the nail

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

honestly had a hard time thinking of what to do for this one

just got it out so we can move

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

Gerard's longsword slid free of its scabbard, the noise of steel against leather befitting the tension in the air. It had been more than enough to see the strewn, mangled bodies scattered about the interior of the walls as they approached the thoroughly destroyed gate opposite their entrance— limbs bent the wrong ways, armor roughly shorn from bodies, the telltale signs of flame that ravaged skin, and enough arrows to pincushion what unlucky soldiers fell prey to them...

Yet no occupation. No sign of the supposed cohort that had clearly stormed through the front, despite the clear carnage that had been inflicted. No cannon to blow the gates open. No occupying archers, littering the walls and fortifications to pluck their lives as they came to investigate. Nothing to cause the burns, no oil or errant flame. It didn’t add up from the perspective of standard military affairs as he knew them. Something different was afoot. Magical, maybe, but nonetheless impossible at this point to place.

Being off his guard wouldn’t do at all. A split second was all he might have to steal life away from the reaper’s claws in this increasingly treacherous-seeming fortress. To spend it drawing a weapon was suicide compared to spending it fighting with one. Readiness decided everything. For a man who lived by taking the fight to his foes as he, it was the best he could do under the circumstances, much as he hated to admit it. Striking hard and fast was still his modus operandi, but such was impossible when you could not find your target.

So when the small girl with a crimson spear brazenly impaled a man wearing Thaln’s colors moments after they had entered the outer walls, it was only the fact that he had been placed at the rear of the formation that stopped him from lunging forward and ridding her of her head before that almost saccharine voice began to drip out of her irreverent mouth. Pallid, young, and with eyes like fresh blood, she almost reminded him of the First and Youngest that rode alongside their Captain. Hers was a demeanor that wholly disregarded the overbearing force of their small company in spite of her apparent age and stature— one that screamed of either extreme ignorance or danger. Practically mocking them to their faces, defying them to take action for what they had plainly seen in front of them, offering only the most token of defenses for her actions..! Did she really think that anyone would buy—

“Cool your head, Segremors, you impetuous—”

The third knight he had roughly shouldered past caught him by his collar, momentarily stopping the march in its place as he yanked the building inferno of a swordsman back. Unexpected as it was, the younger man blinked— and saw nothing.

Nothing from his fellows. Despite the girl not having offered much beyond “it’s not what you think” as a defense… None of the other knights were keen on exacting retribution that, to his eyes, had clearly been earned. Not Dame Maritza, who he knew to be viciously protective of the innocent. Nor Sir Fleuri, a man of a paladin’s character, training, and courage. The Knight-Captain, who just moments ago held ice in her veins, had been given enough pause to not yet make good upon her threat when it was clear the spearwoman refused to comply. Even Dame Tyaethe Radistirin, whose battle experience equaled everyone else’s put together at a conservative estimate… She seemed reclined. Even relaxed. A fight wasn’t even near her consideration.

He wouldn’t be getting the orders.

The mental machine that was Gerard Segremors jammed.

“How are we supposed to believe this, based only on the word of an enemy?”

His voice was tight, taut, caught between fury and flummoxing. That she had little else beyond the disdain for assumptions as defense was not helping matters. Not for him. It made no sense— But seemed to be the hand he had been dealt. He felt the grip loosen upon his neck after he spent the next second or so in motionless silence, his senior having seemingly been content with halting his advance. So at least he didn’t mind the suspicion.

He stared daggers at the diminutive killer before them, the sounds of his comrades leaking in as he tried to work this out. Her identity and purpose were good lines of questioning, but he wasn’t sure there would be any clarity in her answer after this initial reaction— to say nothing of truth. It was true that the walls were unmanned, and that luring their force into the open killing field would be ideal for an ambush if there was to be one. But what of the keep itself, where the supposed truth of the matter lied? It was about as simple to bar the door from the outside and roast them alive in the interior, or blow them away.

Again, he returned to the bodies they had seen. To the girl’s indifference to their cohort of prestigious cavalry, many of them veterans, bearing down upon her— presumably as a whole. Whatever had reduced an entire garrison of soldiers here to mere wreckage… That was what they faced. Was it her? Or something they’d yet to see?

His grip upon the blade, beneath his armor, turned yet again white-knuckled. None of it was trustworthy. The Knight Serpenta was best fit to lead the questioning— if he and his temper jumped in, things would derail. Sir Jarde was already investigating one of the bodies. Probably to look into the idea their current adversary had put forth. His eyes were usually good— if any proof of deception existed, he’d surely find it.

Gerard was stuck upon a hair trigger, without anything to set himself to. His head swiveled, scanning their flanks and rear. The gruesome scene caught a lot of attention, but even if he assumed the worst, he couldn’t see her being the cause of everything before them. Something else, surely, had to be lurking somewhere in the fortress.

He would keep his vigilance. Act as rear guard. Not break formation...

Stay ready.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

alive, but also dead

post when less dead

maybe tonight

maybe sunday

Secundi Lux

---

It wasn't the longest fall in the world— not by the standards of the entirety of humanity's history of dancing within the wind. She had learned in her History education that commercial aircraft had broken up mid-flight before (for one reason or another), and some crew had subsequently survived falls from heights cresting the even the highest mountaintops that few dared climb. A couple hundred feet down an observation tower, by comparison, was stepping off a curb onto the street.

And yet the wind still seemed to buffet her face for an eternity as she looked at Mother Earth surging up to meet her from below, the vertigo she'd contended with on the edge left far behind. The screech of metal on stone drowned out a lot of the noise that wasn't the heavy bass rumbles of a shockwave loosed by the thunderous powers at work below, but luckily Rivka's voice (musical as you'd guess) managed to carry over, if only just.

A crucible? Doable. Made sense, even! Trap the spindly bitch in a bunch of rock and then charbroil it where it couldn't escape— a good, simple, yet brutally effective plan. If Selma were to opine, her favorite kind of 'em.

But the other half of their embattled quartet had plans of their own, and where already there, quick on the draw. By the time Selma had clocked what was happening, the spindly creature of night had been broken by the tide, crushed under its weight, and then...

Crystal plunged Hiems into its chest, and from that single impalement blossomed a glacial flow, a sheet of diamond that ensconced their foe, leaving it paralyzed in its hunched, defeated posture as the bitter cold carried it to a final rest that not even the poisonous levels of Nox could rouse it from. Poised and cool-headed, the twintailed blunette wasted no time in ripping her blade free of her defeated prey.

Oh! They got it taken care of, nice!

Her grip, at a point only some three or four dozen feet away from the finish line, suddenly skipped and loosened as her gauntlets passed over an unexpected change in texture. Blankly, the big girl's supernatural speed put itself to work as she glanced up to realize that a piece of steel rebar, intended to reinforce the concrete that had been shorn away by some point of the battle, had crossed her path.

Ah.

She then realized that this skip had knocked her into open space— coincidentally, right above a shiny, glittery, and kind of spiky looking ice sculpture and oh verdammt no no no no WAIT WAIT WAIT GYAAAAAAAA—

Less than a second later, a blur of green, brown, and silver made impact, a crash of disintegrating ice heralding a colossal THUD that threw up a small, nearly cartoonish plume of dust into the air, mixed with the sparkling points of albedo from the many icy bits of what used to a Void.

“Gottem!” The blonde girl announces with a pump of her armored fist.

In her ear, her the radio operator's crisp tone sounded. "—vels are dropping—diffusers are back online. You’re clear."

A shaky, mostly embarrassed thumbs up greeted the team on the ground as it rose out of the settling cloud of particulate, which gave way to a very uncharacteristic warble from their now somewhat bloodied tree. Her forehead, having cracked against a seven-foot mass of ice and then the much larger planet it stood on, had split open with a shallow cut above the left eyebrow. Nothing serious as far as she could tell, but...

"Yeaaah, go teeeeeeam..."

She was gonna take herself a second and shake that one off, as it were.