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Aqua Mint Sugar
c88e6d
>Hopefully the acid won't hurt her
On the contrary the Gregorina seems to enjoy my blood.
>Alliance, looting, exposition
I decide to focus a little more on things OTHER than mating for the moment.... just for the moment though. Taking a deep breath and steadying myself before the Queensguard, I look it in the... I think those are eyes anyway, and ask, "I will be happy to ally with you, but may I scavenge the ruins above?" The Queensguard makes a faint sound like a snort and waves dismissively. "Oh, those scraps? Go ahead, nothing irreplaceable." My desire for 'permission' satisfied, my bodies on the surface gradually disentangle themselves from one another temporarily and set about searching through the wreckage of the Pale Kingdom for shiny baubles or useful items and piling them up by the Victory Monolith outside the tunnels.
Still, I can tell the Queensguard and its companions are feeling a little undercut by the fact that I am currently in the process of impregnating their monarch, and judging by the condition of the city and this chamber they have been waiting for years to give some kind of speech. Taking pity on them, I decide to provoke them. "So... who are you and how did you come to be in this place?" I ask, steeling myself for what's coming.
The Queensguard livens up immediately, drawing itself to its full height and beginning to gesticulate (a dangerous procedure given the weapon clutched weightlessly in one of its clawed hands.)
"I am glad you asked, Consort Melora! It is a tale of epic chivalry and art, a soul-searing saga of a great land grown greater by divine providence and deep spiritual strength, a-" This continues on for quite a while and I admit I do stop focusing on him while leaving my body watching him to enjoy Gregaria until I hear him start the story itself.
"-And so in the Year of the Founding, the Queen of the Land of Want birthed the Pale King, the progenitor of our entire nation. Born with chalk-white flesh and weak red eyes, he was thought bound for an early grave, and was not even given a name, so fearfully certain were his parents of his imminent demise. Would that they could have understood the promise within the Pale King's blood! Despite a certain feebleness of flesh early in his life, the Pale King's mind was as a streaking thunderbolt across the land, a champion of virtue and practitioner of the chivalric weighs. Indeed, so deep is the script he wrote on the subject that it was woven into the very being of his later knights! But ah, that was centuries later. So dedicated was the Pale King to justice, honor and wisdom that he refused to take a name, being only called the Pale Prince until he came of age. By his twentieth year, his father abdicated the throne in his favor, and by his twenty-third he had sired more than eighty children! It is thanks to his generous donation of seed that the Pale Kingdom learned much of the ways of blood, and so finally unlocked the power to weave and unweave life itself!-"
He continues on for another half-hour, discussing the methods in which the Kingdom created many new forms of life, apparently being descended from a group of creatures quite like the Fulgurines and Elz, though evidently no longer anything close. From what I can tell, after subjugating their neighbors by using wit, strength of arms or the Royal Voice that so pained me upon entry, they chose to focus on their mastery of art, Bloodweaving and remedying all social ills of their kind. It was apparently an existence of hard work, romance and celebration intermixed on any given day, until the Fulgurine nation attacked.
"-And when the Kingdom needed him most, Sir Atravus vanished. Of course, you have his sword so we can restore him from backup." I don't know what that means... "Regardless, when the Fulgurines contacted us for the first time in centuries, we were entertained. We recalled their metal trinkets and gewgaws and were hoping they were going to bring us some of their mechanical puppets or demonstrate their sparking toys. While we were a thousand years beyond them in most every way, we did admire their dedication to the arts of the alchemist and smith. Imagine then, our surprise, when after a mere two-hundred-years they turn up with village-sized flying ships and weapons that draw down thunder from the heavens, armor nearly equal to our own soldiers' and Mountain Breaking Light. They approached us as equals, which we were willing to concede they might be, and then requested we grant them some of the wealth we had drawn from the earth and fields over the centuries. We asked them what they would grant us in return, and they showed us weapons of war, running water and pretty blue sparks. The King, Harrakus the First, was so utterly unimpressed, he simply turned away and started holding the Peasant's Court. The Fulgurine had the GALL to demand His Majesty's full attention and warned of grave consequences should we reject his proposal, so myself and Sir Korus politely removed him from the palace and into the river."
At last, the Queensguard clacks some internal part, scrabbling its hard claws against one another. "Admittedly, we might have been more tactful, for it was not a week later that the Fulgurines began to hurl their weapons of war into our glorious capital. The Knights could, of course, hold their own against any dozen of their flying craft, and the King darkened the sky when he took flight, singing battle-hymns and poetry as he tore them all asunder! Sadly, our soldiers fared less strongly, and even our knights fell one after another against concentrated fire. Crying out for aid, we called forth the peasantry from the surrounding country, and they came in their [millions]. The numberless host of our loyal serfs struck terrible blow upon blow as we cast Fulgurine vessels from the sky, but as the weeks rolled on and the King himself fell it became clear victory could not be guaranteed. The Queen-Mother, rest her soul, birthed Gregaria and dispatched the last surviving Consort in the kingdom along with all of we who remained in the Queensguard, into this chamber, where we have waited for... I do not really know, maybe fifteen years? Boring time anyway... As to how the battle ended, we have no idea. From what you've said, it seems the city is uninhabited and there are no Fulgurines... Still, it would be nice to know who won."
Perhaps I should tell him about the monument, or even show him. There is nothing preventing us from heading above ground, after all. I could also get him to help identify some of the stranger artifacts I have been pulling from the rubble...
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