mcd900

Spirited as their defense may have been, it couldn't keep them out of the walls. The fighting was inevitably going to move to the streets... hopefully the citizens were out of the way by now. Seilan to (26, 31), Elthunder(S) Mage 1.

The ballista wasn't quite destroyed after the first cast, and it would be irksome left any longer. Best to take care of that while the opportunity presented itself. Seilan - Elthunder (S) Ballista 3. They're going for our ballistae, too, naturally... we'll need them intact to win this fight. Can't allow them within the walls... Hit & Away to (27, 29). Something seems a little different about Erephis today... well, we're in a battle. It happens.

The crash of the boulder announced the return of the enemy - it was once again time to defend the walls. It was quite the bold strategy to promise the safety of the citizens after employing their siege weaponry, and he couldn't help but question whether they really intended to follow through on their offer. Not that they had any intention of surrender; certainly not, with as many high-profile Vaians as there were here now. He moved into a position near the wall that had grown all too familiar over the past week, catching the sound of a sizable bolt from across the town. Now that's some thunder... let's try and follow the General's example, shall we? Seilan to 23, 30, Elthunder (S) Ballista 3.

So it could be made to happen in theory... I suppose we'll see what happens in practice, then. He thought it over for a moment, quietly, before noticing Taiyute's blank smile. "Thank you... that's very kind of you to see. And, Erephis... don't stress so much about it, alright? I'm sure there'll be plenty of time to figure things out. We're in no real rush after all - this is research, even if it would be nice to use some of this in a battle. And again, I'd be glad to help, if there's some way that I can." He slipped his tome back into a pocket as he spoke, nodding to Erephis. "Do remind me to show you more of what I've learned later, by the way - it'd be unfair not to, and... well, it would be nice to share more of what I've learned, if it truly is so groundbreaking."

Erephis was certainly... quite excited. Her enthusiasm was starting to get through to him; at least, enough for him to start to get the feeling that the importance of what he'd learned had not quite been appropriately impressed upon him. Before he could form a response, though, she'd already begun to talk about the staff. "I won't say I'm not interested in the staff... but, again, I can't quite use its magic yet, and anyways you have plans for it. I want to see how you mean to make a tome from it, actually. I've not really heard of anyone doing such a thing to a staff's magic before." To cast a Berserk spell from a tome... it would likely be dark magic, so he wouldn't be able to use it - but it was piquing his curiosity nonetheless. "I'd be interested in the staff if it isn't all used up by what you plan to do, but... well, maybe you could show me about casting from the tome you intend to create." It'd be nice to learn another form of magic, especially as his grasp of anima magic was limited as it was... though it might have been a bit large of a thing to ask. Too late to not have made his request now, though... and perhaps she'd even say yes.

The magical display had more of an effect on Erephis than he'd anticipated; even if he acknowledged his magic wasn't exactly commonplace, surely such a reaction was a bit much. "Throwing the entire magic world upside down... well, this magic is useful, but I'm not sure if that's enough to warrant such a turn. The existing systems of magic are... deeply rooted, to say the least, and again, this magic is somewhat niche in its applications, after all. Well - there are more applications I've yet to show you, though." Taiyute's response set him somewhat at ease that what he remembered of wind magic was correct. Her mention of her mother's mastery of tornadoes lent credence to the idea that wind magic could be repurposed in such a manner; her magic had a different feeling than most mages', after all. It was something worth looking into further. It had been enough sharing from his end without having his own curiosity sated, however. "Erephis... that staff you purchased. How exactly were you planning on studying it further? I don't think I'm quite capable of harnessing the magic within it, as I am now, at least - but I don't think I've seen any staves among what you're carrying. For how much it cost you, you must be quite interested."

Returning once more to the fort's walls - he'd lost count of how many times it'd been this week - it was hard not to notice another new face discussing something with Amera, though he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. It was apparent, though, that Amera was far from in a good mood, and as Erephis explained what exactly their little magical study group would be doing, he mused that perhaps it was a conversation that wouldn't do well to be punctuated by cracks of thunder. Well... too late to not follow through, I suppose.. now, how would be best to demonstrate this? It took only a moment of thought before Seilan became acutely aware of the lamia's expectant stare, and half of another before he decided to figure it out as he went along and not keep her waiting any longer. He retrieved the newly purchased tome from a pouch at his side, and stepped close to the parapets. "If you'll observe that tree over there... yes, that one will do. This is a standard Elthunder spell - it flies from the caster to the target, not too far, and the recipient is on the wrong end of a bolt of lightning. This is just as any other spell you're likely to find at a vendor of magical goods, and most anima mages ought to be familiar with its use." Pulling his older tome from a pocket on the other side, he gestured towards a different cluster of trees, perhaps about three times as far from the walls as the first. "However, this is different than the concept of lightning and thunder of a person who is not a mage. To them, lightning comes from the skies above..." He paused, focusing on the tome to cast, and after a brief moment, a bolt thundered down from above the distant trees. "...like so. As I was mentioning earlier, this use may actually be closer to the original concepts of anima magic - the control of latent natural phenomena and power through magic, rather than the reimagining present in most tomes today. That isn't to say reimagining isn't useful, of course - there's another way of using thunder magic that I can still show you." He turned towards Taiyute. "Oh, and... well... I'm not exactly sure how much of that made sense to you, but it might help to think of it like this. For wind magic, one might cast more of... a tornado, or somesuch, rather than a blade of wind, like most wind tomes are... at least, I think they are. Possibly."

Ah, a Berserk staff... quite an expensive purchase to make for research, considering she couldn't use it. And not even with her own money, at that. At least the vampire didn't seem to mind much. Ah, his sleeve-- "Hold on, where exactly are we going...? I can't just use my magic in town, there's no way the townspeople will let me do that. Nobody at the training grounds is looking to stand in the way of a Thunder spell either..." ...ah, she couldn't possibly want to observe his casting from the city walls, could she? Perhaps his bedroll would have served better being set atop the walls instead, between this and the events of the past week. "...well, I suppose I don't mind, as long as you've an idea of where you want to go. Now is as good a time as any, after all."

Seilan watched as Erephis excitedly inspected the celestial; her enthusiasm was apparent, seeing as she was frantic enough to lose her footing (...tail-ing...?). Well, at least someone knew something. It'd be some time until the records could be read to learn more, unfortunately. Until then, all there was to know was what the celestial could share about herself, cryptic information though it was. It seemed the genasi was puzzled, too. Ah, but the Hero was asking him something... He tilted his head quizzically, snapping the new tome shut. "Did we... not attend the same meeting? I thought I'd already mentioned that I don't know much about celestials. Anything at all, to be honest. Well, if even the Vaians don't, I suppose I hardly have a chance, after all." It was an odd question for her to ask... perhaps she'd been distracted earlier. Fair enough - things had gotten wild enough in there that even he had been reaching for his blade for a moment, so she could hardly be blamed.

The small gust of wind set a light ripple into his cloak, the silver hilt in its pocket lightly tapping his side. He made a note to save that little reveal for a later conversation, when both the lamia - he was... loosely confident that her name was Erephis, at this point - and the genasi, whose name he'd still managed to not catch, were less occupied with other matters. "Ah, I'm glad to hear it. It looks like you have quite a natural command of wind, so it looks like I'll have a good reference to learn from. Hold onto that tome if you'd like for now. I'll get another one now, and then I can show you both what the formula writing process looks like." He'd selected a weightier tome from its stand nearby, bringing it to the counter, and made it as far as drawing out his coin pouch to pay the shopkeep when he looked back and realized who the newly arrived customers were. Pity; he'd been about to apologize for interrupting her reading with the discussion they'd been having. A further pity, still, was that despite his meandering about in an attempt to relax, he'd yet again run into someone he'd rather have avoided. The vampire and the star, Seilan didn't particularly mind, though the Hero, well... it was clear enough that he wasn't the only one among them who was at least a little troubled by her presence. Even if all of Coteon's propaganda was obviously wrong, there were still many questions left unanswered. He set his payment down with a brief "thank you" to the spider and stepped towards the others near the front of the store, quietly paging through the new tome. Perhaps he'd be able to leave them to their own conversations. Seilan purchases Elthunder and Restore.

"Ah, well... comments on effectiveness aside, I figured you'd say something along those lines - after all, the formula is fairly unconventional compared to some of the more commonly devised ones." If he was confident of one thing, it was that it worked in practice. "If you look once more, you'll see that the formula is more evocative of thunder as it is conceptually in nature, as opposed to the more common formulae that focus on the creation and shaping of lightning and thunder as a weapon. My teacher posited that this approach is actually closer to the core concepts of anima magic when organized in this way as opposed to how it's most often used for combat, but that's another matter entirely..." Receiving the tome, he passed it in turn to the other woman. It had taken him a brief moment to understand what she had asked of him; she spoke a bit unusually, but she was a fair bit more comprehensible than the 'star' from earlier. "And, yes, I would be very glad to exchange some of my magical knowledge with you, as well. It would be nice to learn about elemental wind; my experience is... eh, limited, to say the least, beyond thunder magic." Limited to zero, admittedly, but the two of them didn't have to know that... well, for now, at least, since it seemed that they might continue their discussions in the future. Empty-handed once more after handing over the tome, he picked up a staff set in a nearby rack that had caught his eye during the conversation. Holding it in his hands, the knurled wood had a warm, soothing aura to it. Perhaps it was time to pick up something new...

Seilan couldn’t help smiling a little as she fumbled her way through her words. Her curiosity seemed well-intentioned enough, after all. “It’s true – my magic is a bit different than most tome-based casting that you might find out there. I can show you what it’s like later, but we’d need more space… ah, hmm…” Pulling his tome from his cloak and taking a short step closer, he flipped it open and offered it to her. “In the meantime, you can look at this. The incantations shape thunder a little differently than the way it’s usually taught… er, wait, how familiar are you with anima magic?” He laughed awkwardly a little at his (possible) slip-up; maybe he’d been a little too enthusiastic as well. The others from Hwein hadn’t exactly been interested in magical studies, so perhaps a want to have a good talk with someone who understood things from the same perspective had been building up…

“Ah… yes, I am.” It was a bit of an odd first impression from the lamia, but she didn’t seem to share the human-hating tendencies of some other Vaians, so he didn’t mind. “You must be one as well, then, if you can sense it. I’m Seilan. I’ve… been around here for a little while, but I haven’t been able to visit the shops around yet, so I’m only just taking a look now…” Looking around the store, it was a safe enough assumption that the spider tending the store was a Tepel local, though the lamia as well as the… blue woman…? in the store stood out enough that he’d have seen them before during this past week if they were also locals. They must have been part of the general’s group; it seemed that today was certainly a day for first encounters with unfamiliar faces. “If you’d like, I wouldn’t mind discussing magic with you at all. It’s been a good while since I’ve had a chance to.”

Having stayed just long enough to catch the end of Amera’s info, Seilan briskly exited the fort, waiting until a safe distance from the others at a meeting before cracking a smile. There was a certain humor in her brief panic to finish explaining contrasted to their decidedly one-sided first meeting. Not that he’d really done anything himself to stumble her, but seeing another side of her after all that aggression was certainly something. He set off towards the northwest quadrant of the city to have a talk with the rest of the mercenaries, and had been walking for a few minutes until his sleep-addled brain finally kicked along the thought that they were probably making use of their newly found free time. It wouldn’t be worth the effort to track each one of them down right now; it’d best to just catch them tomorrow in the morning at the barracks. Though, this did leave him with some free time of his own… ‘Town it is, then.’ Aimlessly walking through the streets, he had to admit the town was fairly nice; at least, enough was there to imagine it had been, before all the battle damage. Still, those living here seemed to be getting along well enough given the circumstances, so they were probably fairly hardy folk. The weapons trade going on in this city reminded him a bit of the metalworks back home, and faint memories of the family workshop trickled back to him. Home… How was it back home? Dorren was probably running the day-to-day of the shop now, he had the experience and it was about the right time for their parents to hand off the shop... It felt as if thoughts of Hwein were never more than a moment away. The occupation had been less bad for humans than monsters in Hwein, but that was a low bar to clear, and it could get worse at any time, after all. Not only that, it had been over two weeks since their group had left the capital, and it could be as long or longer till they returned. Seilan blinked, shifting his focus from his thoughts to the surrounding buildings, and found himself in front of the town’s vendor. A mixture of curiosity and boredom urged him towards the door, and he stepped inside with a quiet “Hello.”

As the Vaians and the… ‘celestial’… exchanged words, Seilan listened quietly. It came as a surprise that of all present, the Hero was the one most familiar with whatever the star was. Thinking back to stories and legends of the stars left him drawing a blank; there was little that came to mind save that wishes made upon a star were sure to come to pass. Not that any of his had, of course, and certainly none of them had involved such a star taking form and roaming the lands. Her story seemed innocuous enough, though, unfortunate as it was. “I can’t say I’ve heard talk of any of your brothers and sisters in any place I’ve ever been, but I wish you luck finding them nonetheless, Astraea. If all goes well with our plans, it ought to be peaceful enough to look for them freely.” Letting her go seemed like the right thing to do, anyways. That settled, his mind began to wander, and between Amera’s outburst, the reveal of the Hero, and the growing realization that these were some of the most important people in Vaia, he was starting to feel the pressure of the room. “Well, if that will be all, I’ll be off now. I need to inform the others from Hwein of what we’ll be doing from here on, and have everyone properly prepared.” It was a true enough reason, though he didn’t let on that his fatigue was the real motivation for the prompt exit. A rest without worrying about an attack sounded wonderful after everything that had happened this past week. Maybe he’d explore the town, too. Might as well; having looked at it now and then from the walls didn’t really count as a visit, after all.

He’d caught wind of a prisoner held within the fort over the past week, though the dungeons hadn’t exactly been his first concern, and so he joined the rest of the room in their surprise as the prisoner was brought in. Amera had called this creature ‘the problem’ earlier, though for Seilan she presented more of a curiosity than anything else. The fact that the Vaians were mystified as well had him even more interested; if anyone could have known, it would have been them. Amidst his confusion was a small feeling of relief, as well. The Hero, oddly enough, had spoken for the Vaians, and they had decided to march to Hwein as soon as the rebellion was quelled and they met the Demon King. An unpleasant thought crossed his mind, and he couldn’t help but wince slightly as he realized the duty of being Hwein’s representative would once again fall upon him, whether he liked it or not. He certainly hadn’t particularly enjoyed it this far.

Seilan found himself unconsciously reaching slowly toward the handle concealed within his cloak at the less-than-pleasant introduction of the Hero, only catching himself upon seeing the vampire’s hand on the hilt of her own blade. Hopefully nobody had noticed his movement amidst Amera’s frustrations; as much resentment as he had for Coteon and their prized Hero, if she was under the protection of Vaians, there was little he could do here. The question at hand, then, was - why was the Hero now fighting alongside the Vaians? If the invading forces back home were anything to go off of, Coteon’s soldiers were zealots, and their Hero was surely no exception, from the way they spoke of her. And yet here she was, fighting a rebellion in Vaia in the name of the Demon King… and past that, possibly even providing aid for Hwein. It sounded too good to be true; but he couldn’t afford to linger on these thoughts any longer. Amera seemed content enough to leave the matter alone, and that left everyone’s attention on him now. He looked once more at the faces around the table. “Right, then. We were sent on a mission to request aid for Hwein. You all may be aware that trade between Hwein and Vaia has fallen off as of late; this is due to the arrival of Coteon forces, who have occupied our capital, Desaix. They’re led by a noble from Coteon, a certain Baron Edwin Vernon, whose troops are stopping any of our merchants from heading here.” Seilan paused for a moment, glancing at the Hero. It occurred to him that she didn’t exactly fit the image of the great warrior he’d heard of, though it was pretty easy to believe Coteon’s soldiers were more than a bit biased. “Humans not in open resistance against Coteon have been mostly left alone, but… the occupiers are attacking monsters almost unresisted. Hwein doesn’t have the strength to defeat them alone, so I’m asking for Vaia’s help in fighting them off. I know now that you’re dealing with a rebellion here… the rest of the mercenaries under my command and I are willing to assist you, if you’ll help us in return.” Steadying his nerves, he nodded to indicate the end of his explanation. It wasn’t a great offer for them, but hopefully it’d be enough. It would have to be.

He couldn’t help but scowl slightly at Amera’s call for him, even if he had been about to meet the new arrivals anyways. She had a remarkably crass way of addressing people who had come to help; though, admittedly, it was hard to blame a Vaian for resenting humans. It was evident enough that not everyone got this treatment from her, if the way she was clinging to that woman was any indication. Passing by the wagon on the way to the fort, he caught a glimpse of the people that had been disembarking the wagon for a trip into town. For a group Amera had been so eager to see, there were fewer than he’d expected – less than the group he’d arrived with, though by now that number had dwindled. And stranger still, there were humans among them. Not that it was unheard of for Vaians to cooperate with humans, being one himself, and all. No, the odd part was that they were apparently important enough to be joining the meeting. As for the ones heading into town, they seemed to be in good enough cheer. He couldn’t help but envy them a little; the past week had been rough on Seilan, between anxiously anticipating attacks at all hours and keeping the mercenaries focused. He made a mental note to wander the town himself later; he hadn’t yet, and he could use the distraction. Ah, but he’d tarried too much during his observing. He had to hurry along, now, before he inadvertently gave Amera any more to work with against him. There were a fair few fresh faces, and she certainly wasn’t going to help with making first impressions.

It was hard to tell from the walls, but it seemed as if the approaching force had come to a halt at Amera's approach. It was a safe enough conclusion, then, that they were the the reinforcements Tepel had been awaiting after all. Seilan let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Help was a welcome sight, seeing as they'd been holding Tepel less well than he'd hoped. The mercenaries were fully trained, but the worst they'd fought were organized bandits, the kind that the cavalry scattered with a single valorous charge; the same kind of charge that Captain Virrin had undertaken five days ago, now. Except, as it turns out, the Vaian insurrectionists were more well-armed, well-armored, and well-prepared than countryside bandits, and so fell Captain Virrin and the rest of what little cavalry they'd arrived with. After that, it turned out his meager learnings at the academy was all they had for leadership now that their officers had fallen, leaving him to direct Hwein's forces, and in the days since then, he'd lost more people defending the walls. Far from home in Vaia, fighting on little more than a promise for aid for Hwein. He hoped it would be worth it, when the time came for Hwein's liberation. "For now, though, it'd be good to get acquainted with the Vaians," he thought idly as he descended the walls and approached the gates.