Selena of the Six Generals

The ropes binding his wrists were now loosened and as a result, he had just barely managed to get one hand free and with that, small sparks of a Bolganone spell had flickered in the air near the automaton, an attempt at possibly charring it but… he was hoping for more than just a few measly embers of flame that rammed into his target.

No good… he was still too weak to create anything with a fire spell aside from a few small embers but… so long as that automaton stood and the cold remarks of the crowd remained, it seemed like getting out of here would be far from simple.

“You… do not need to apologize… What is important is… getting out of… our current situation.”

—but, though her focus was primarily on her opponent, it was not so solely attended that she was unable to notice: flames. (Hardly noticeable, flickering for just a moment, but she had not cast them herself; a quick gaze to the student reveals one hand of his is freed, and that much sparks a hope in her chest, burning in its cage.)

So, she lifts one hand, and she shifts her focus—to their surroundings: the gardens that had summoned her here to begin. She cannot sense any sort of barrier (though, she could not pretend she knew the correct schools for that), but it feels as though that should be unsurprising: they had a crowd, and if there had been a limit to her freedom, the once-mage knight would like to believe she would’ve noticed. It all builds towards a resolve that if they can leave this place, there would be nothing artificial to stop them—save for the automaton, of course.

(Would that be a danger to the local townsfolk?)

Well—ducking to the side again as the machine swings for her once more—it would appear it was far more immediately a threat to them, and Selena had a mission: to rescue the student hostage. (She would have to trust that whoever was responsible could control their machine; and if they could not, that the Duke would have measures in store to resolve this.) She could not devote herself to that issue.

Instead, in the window of opportunity she’s been afforded, she dashes back to the boy’s side, removing the rest of the ropes and pulling him to his feet. (There’s not a lot of time, she knows, but she can try the best with what she has.)

Many archways lead into small yet empty chambers. In other words, he and the general could hide in them. Staying dead silent for a few moments won't be too difficult; they have to make sure not to choose one with only one exit.

"One from before seemed to react to sound... I don't know about sight, though." Did it also react to the flash of light from Selena's Thunder spell? Or just the sound? He supposes it doesn't matter too much if those things can hear them. If they weren't in a perilous situation, Lyon would wonder how they work.

"But... If I have to, I can try casting." He keeps following Selena's lead. Nothing about the walls seems any different — not that he looked for any distinguishable architecture before he got lost. "It's too risky for me to try offensive spells without a tome, but I know Rescue and Physic..." Both have good range and utility in a pinch, and failure to cast them shouldn't have any dire repercussions.

“Of course,” and she agrees, because what else could she do when her prince spoke? The order (again, the apt one to deliver) is made informally to avoid combat given the chance, and she agrees. They do not know their enemy. (It could not be predicted.) “Your judgement is sound.”

So then: to continue their escape. Selena finds herself reliant on her memory as they continue on, but her recollection affirms: this route was familiar. (It spoke of the surface above.) Every now and again, the knight’s gaze is cast behind her—to check up on her prince; to make certain they had not been found—and there is an eerie, unsettling feeling that comes from nothing turning up.

But she wouldn’t wish for something to go awry. If all was calm, then that was for the better.

Even more so when one tunnel demonstrates at the end an iron gate; askew, practically open, not dark beyond but lit by casual moonlight. (If she listens carefully, she can even make out the faint echoes of chatter from the guards beyond.)

still, nothing ventured, or something.

he has a spell prepared for things like this.  it's a modified diagnostic spell.  many healers use the original chant to visualize injuries or determine if the source of a problem is from the body or from outside of it.  linhardt, who thinks such a thing is disgusting to consider, uses his to see lingering magicks on items, or try and determine the shape of mechanism for certain engineering constructs.

it's useful for his work, which often sees him delving into places people like him were guarded against.

in this instance, when linhardt's hand glows gently and he hovers it across the painting, it feels more like the original purpose of the spell.

it feels as though the painting is that third entity in the room, and it feels as though whatever ailment it suffers from is decidedly an internal problem.

the nausea that often takes linhardt when he makes such discoveries of the flesh in his healing takes him now, and because he had expected to look at an object and not a person, he withdraws his hand suddenly, physically recoiling with a groan as his face pales.

he turns, hunching over and hugging his stomach.

“i feel sick,” he explains, voice thready.

Which, truth be told, could be any manner of thing. She would not wish the worst to come of their circumstances, but she feels as though she would be a sour knight if she did not consider it. (They were told beforehand that the portrait was grotesque; that Lady Carmilla was unnaturally young; and there may be dark magic involved.) What would happen if Lady Carmilla were the practitioner? Would there be a danger to interfering with the painting? (Would she act out if she found her youth was being threatened?)

…Selena could not know what Lady Carmilla’s motives could be, but she imagines that, if she were to marry a woman; she would want to grow old with her. Even without traces of forbidden magic involved, she would not accept the offer of forever youth; because aging had a beauty as well, she thinks.

She snaps to attention when Linhardt recoils, the sudden motion catching her eye, even in her musing. Sickness, he claims, and the professor can imagine very little could be the potential cause of that. A hand is extended, tentative, to rest upon his shoulder—only if they do not mind—Selena falling to match his height, and she voices, “What do you need? I’m afraid I am lacking in faith magic, but—” (This was a noblewoman’s manor.) “—I’m certain we can find something for you.”

It seemed out of place of the theme, but perhaps it was to guard against injury. Elffin tugs at it lightly, and is surprised to find it give easily under his touch.

"There is a locked chest over there, that seems it would be able to take a key…" Prying the edges of the mat and- there, one of the corners was not fastened down, allowing him to pull out a small scroll. He frowns, unraveling it to reveal what seemed to be the corner of a larger paper- and a single number written upon it.

"And… this. I suppose similar pieces must be scattered throughout the room then. Search for oddly placed items- I doubt that they expect us to overturn the entire room to search for the first clue."

As for where it belonged- perhaps something on the desk?

At the very least, it would be best to have some consistency in their actions.

"I'll leave it on the desk, for now. We can gather anything we've found and piece them together there." Of course, its surface was not entirely blank, either, a purposefully placed half-written letter laid on its surface. Elffin fiddles with the quill pen- though it seemed that the inkwell was empty.

The chest is likely not a thing that could be forced open ahead of anything else; if the room itself was a puzzle, it was entirely possible that the chest could contain their way out; or it could imply their directive for the next stage, but all the same—it was for later and not for now. (Selena places it into her memory, but it is allowed to drift back to be brought up again later.)

But in the meantime: the little scroll Elffin had found seemed a lot more immediate: if they could locate the others, then they could likely solve one of the various other objectives strewn about their surroundings. Selena walks over, takes a closer look, and then nods.

“I’ll see what I can find,” she accepts, and as their first is laid to rest upon the desktop, so too is that decision stored in memory: collect as many as you can locate and lay them on the desk as you go.

And so, her work begins, parsing through chains, passing a hand over the stone walls; even the floor beneath them, as she wanders, is tested with her heel as she moves about.

(Very little comes to fruition.) She does find a key in the chains.

“There’s a key in the chains,” she announces aloud, though pulling on it finds the thing stuck fast in place. Eyes drift along the metal to locate a lock: 3 numbers, currently set at a blank 0-0-0. “I think we’ll need a passcode to unlock it. Three numbers.”

Those words were enough to cause Marth to look up at Selena, his face somewhat stained with his own blood. Really, he hadn’t expected to have been caught off guard, captured, and held for ransom in the first place and yet, here he was.

While he didn’t know exactly about the ransom part, the sight of the automaton shuffling in between him and Selena was enough to cause him to slightly shiver in fear. He had never been this afraid… not since he lost Falchion. What was he even supposed to do? His hands were quite literally tied, a measure to prevent him from casting magic and to make matters worse, his voice had been weakened through slight blood loss, making casting spells with a verbal component quite difficult.

“Please… hurry… They’ll… likely come back soon…” He stated in a harsh whisper. Gods, it was more of an effort to speak than usual and he disliked it so.

It’s a cry for help she has heard far too many times—as a soldier; as a mage general; as a professor acting on behalf of the Academy. (No matter where she travels and what she does, she cannot help but answer the call of those who needed her; who needed anyone, only for Selena to be the voice to answer: the only voice that can.) Her gaze narrows against the automaton; her ears close out the roar of the distant crowd; and her mind focuses on the task before her.

“Don’t worry.” I’ll protect you. “You’re safe with me.”

She doesn’t know how quickly she can disarm the thing—hardly knows what it is, but if it was anything like the machine she had faced with her prince years ago, meandering the underground of the monastery’s vast, sprawling catacombs, it was clearly a fallible thing; and she had practice fighting it.

Ah, but there is little time afforded for her to simply think about it all, isn’t there? As soon as the acknowledgement settles in, the monster moves, shuffling its form about and raising one great arm to destroy her. Quick on her heels, the once-knight darts away, concentrating on her magic to spark and ignite—

“Avert your eyes.”

—and foster lightning, crackling and ecstatic; the echoes of a storm to pierce through the guard. It stutters, if only briefly, but the opening is an allowance; she doesn’t know how long she has; doesn’t know what exactly they’re facing; but if she can free the student before anything else occurs, then the worst case scenario becomes her death and his survival.

Which, in Selena’s opinion, isn’t too poor of an outcome.

Quickly, she arrives at his side, and in kinder situations, she would’ve taken her time; would’ve used a proper blade to aid in her precision. This is not a circumstance that grants such liberties, so even as their audience rages against her intentions, her fingertips spark with the warm flickers of Bolganone, and they are controlled, carefully, methodically, to burn.

(The automaton rears again.)

—and it is made clearly evident that Selena does not have the time to finish his escape. The flames vanish in an instant, careful to ensure that he is not injured, and then Selena:

“I’m sorry.”

"He is a pet," Andrei says, embarrassed that he had let this slip for no real reason, "There was some training involved, in terms of behavior, but mainly…" Mainly, all Cranberry had been offered, and offered in return, was affection, gentle and undemanding. His mind wanders briefly back to the young foals in Yngvi's stables. They, too, required a period of months, even years, before beginning training. Before that, he remembers being encouraged to interact with them, for no other purpose than to acclimate them to human touch, no real expectation behind each movement.

The wolf cub had quickly tired from its earlier burst of energy, pausing its assault upon his hand, and Andrei takes this momentary reprieve to run a thumb softly against the fuzzy forehead of the young animal. It closes its eyes, a whine high in its throat, and settles, nudging closer to his hand as it lays down for a nap.

Andrei's eyes flicker towards the sheet of paper he'd been presented with, giving a considering hum.

"It seems we are not expected to complete these task in the very first session," he says, a fact that probably should've been obvious at first glance.

But the professor's words ring true, that they are more suited to the task than most. And while their interactions in Rusalka had hardly been pleasant, if she is willing to put it behind them…

Instead, she simply watches, and she listens, even in silence as the other thinks; and his train of thought seems to conclude with one pup resting against him—indeed, they were never meant to get very far in one day.

“I agree,” she affirms aloud, because she’d witnessed, growing up—in her times with horses and farm animals and all the things that are borne wild in their own right—that fostering amnesty and cooperation is never a thing that happens quickly. There is a time that must pass; an effort that must be made; Selena is still looking at Andrei, and she nods. “We should. It would likely be for the best.”

So it would not be moons until they met again—against her earlier musing and judgement. By his own command, Andrei was willing to commit to regularly training the pups; to settling them into domestication; to helping them find companionship in humanity and those who would go on to love them more than anything else. The thought garners a soft smile, the sort of thing hardly visible as she settles down in place.

“I can’t promise I’ll be available daily, but this time every week should do well, should it not?” It sufficed for today, at least, and Selena would not struggle too much to free it up for the future. Another of the pups nudges against the back of her hand, the motion goading her into a gentle caress of its fur. She is honest when she continues:

“I look forward to working with you.”

Wrenching her gaze from the blackened land, she turns and responds to her professor, grateful that another experienced mage was leading the group.

"I'd like to start with measurements, and making sure we understand the scope of the situation. We can try to set firebreaks downwind of the leading edge of the burn, and focus on controlling that edge of the field first. Our priority should be limiting its spread, then working from the outside in."

She nods at the specks in the distance, the only indication of the monastery across a sea of ash.

A hand is lifted, eyes fluttered closed, as Selena feels the air, trying to get a sense of its direction; she is not a wind mage, she knows, but the professor knows magic; and she has seen the devastation of fires before. (When bandits looted and destroyed the towns of rural Grado, vanishing before the emperor’s forces could lay them low, the first order of business was always to help the people first; to aid in their rebuilding; to make them strong again.) 

She opens her eyes, and the professor is not surprised when vision affirms—the winds blow south, towards the mountains. Celica speaks of retrieving a sample.

“That would be wise,” she agrees, and then she motions to the far end of the field (where the flames sought but had yet to reach). “If we’re going to set firebreaks, we ought to begin there—and when the flames arrive, collecting some of it for study shouldn’t prove to be too difficult.”

As instructed, Eirika opens the tome to the first page. A preamble is scrawled across the page that discusses the basics of magic and the different schools therein: Light, Dark, and Anima.

“Ah, I remember this. Lyon and I discussed the different types of magic. Fire is the easiest to cast, is it not?” It would make sense as to why Selena handed her this tome as opposed to the lightning one she had held moments before. She spends a few more silent moments reading the page and then turns the page, azure eyes scanning the new page fervently, pure interest alight in her eyes.

“Indeed, it is,” Selena confirms with a nod of her head. “It strikes a good balance of being simple to parse and light on the body, both physically and metaphorically. It is rare to find a mage who has not at least practiced the spell.”

(Likewise, the multi-purpose nature of it also led to various optimizations; to cast lightning is a simple but situational thing; flames, however, were far more versatile, and if a thing must be done with frequency, it is only a matter of time before someone finds a way to make it lighter.)

She is about to vocalize as much; but then, there is the question: ‘What was it like for you?’

Another scholar might begin with, ‘That was a long time ago,’ and, perhaps if Selena were one of the best, this may have been her beginning—but she was not, and so she begins differently. (She reflects on the start of her journey with a jarring clarity; not perfectly clear, but enough so that she recalls it has been less than a decade.) Hard work, she remembers, and that is when she remembers to speak:

“I actually found a deal of difficulty starting my studies,” the professor admits, though there is little shame to be found in her words. “I had no gift for magic—or anything, really. I became a mage because I possessed the resilience to pull it off.”

(She had been physically strong, yes, but lacked a talent in blades or archery; so her fortitude became a boon against those who would sooner crumble beneath the pressure of said weapons—and her dedication was what had eventually borne her title.)

“However, I was used to lacking in talent, and I did not let it dishearten me.” (A light nod then, punctuating the phrase.) “Instead, I chose to work hard, and though it took me far longer than my peers to get a grasp of even the simplest spells, I eventually grew to surpass them all.”

"...Oh, do relax," Zephia finally says. The tip of her heel nudges against the corpse, and she almost adds: see? Even he's completely at ease. "I didn't kill him, if it'd make you feel any better to hear it in plain terms. Do you truly think me so incapable that it'd take me four tries to find a man's heart?"

Maybe, if she were seeking something—but the viscount doesn't have anything that she wants, and Zephia has nothing to gain from his death. And while she's sure that there are plenty of those hailing from her homeland that would think her eager to kill regardless, they have never understood what invites magic's first spark into her hands or the weight of her blade against her palm.

So.

"Now, if you're done trying to see if there's a spot of blood on me to mark me as the killer, I think we ought to focus our attentions elsewhere, hm? Locking down the perimeter is exactly what the perpetrator would expect. It would be better for us to keep his death our little secret and see who comes sniffing around to find out why."

Selena looks stiff enough to whet her blade against. Zephia thinks again: she really shouldn't be teasing the poor woman.

(And she thinks, again: but Selena makes it much too easy.)

…Well, she wasn’t prepared for that. (She isn’t certain she ever could’ve been.) Her only reply is an attempt to stand tall, stay focused, and to think through the logistics of everything that would come to pass.

“They could be escaping as we speak,” she retorts, and it is with, perhaps, the only proper strength she’s had all morning. If they do not scour the area, the killer could escape—and they would have very little cause to come back, especially with the scene as littered with evidence as it already was. The only reason Selena can imagine for not alerting the whole of the house immediately would be to make the killer believe the viscount was actually still alive.

…Maybe that was possible, considering how many stab wounds it took to take him down. Perhaps he had a cleric on staff that could mend those.

(If Selena were more trained in faith, she recognizes, perhaps she could’ve done something herself.) Though staves had been a part of her domain in Magvel, they had never been her specialty, and with such skills being a use-it-or-lose-it sort of thing–

Zephia is implicating herself again, and the line draws Selena from her present thoughts and hurls her into infinitely worse ones. Her mouth opens to speak before falling shut, nothing emerging in that time. (She should be choosing to trust in her companion, however difficult it was proving to be.)

“…What if no one turns up?” she says at last, the question only seeming reasonable and fair. “And the rest of the viscount’s family will wish to check on him at some point, not to mention—”

Well, his blood was currently all over the kitchen floor. Furthermore: his body was atop all of that blood.

The air is left smelling faintly of ozone.

Ah, he understands now.

Lyon reaches down to grab a fistful of rocks, feeling their jagged edges against his palm and fingers, before ducking through an archway. Taking the opposite direction from the monster's path should buy them more time for their search.

"I grabbed a few rocks in case we need another distraction," he informs her. "As you know, I'm not too proficient with Anima magic... so I'll continue to count on you, Selena."

He wishes he could do more. In his eyes, his contribution towards their escape has been minimal at best—especially next to Selena's efforts to protect him. There's always the possibility of freezing the monster in its tracks. However, Lyon doesn't trust himself to cast Blizzard without a conduit. Such recklessness would only put them both at risk. In the worst-case scenario, the golem stalking them in the darkness is somehow immune to magic.

(She is uncertain if he needs the reassurance; but all the same, she was his knight, and that would not be betrayed. If the prince was unsure, the Fluorspar would make clear her devotion.)

Her ideal path would be to guide them the way Selena had come, but though the mechanical monster had been diverted for now, there had still been the maze they traversed to get this far. Doors and hallways sprout out every which way, and it is upon her own memory that the knight must rely to retrace their steps. (Her hope, however wishful, was that she was leading the two of them the right way.)

It is between one step and the next, however, that she finds her thoughts pointing, briefly, askew. Though up to this moment, she had been singularly focused on escape (third, of course, to ensuring Prince Lyon’s and to ensuring his safety), Selena would be remiss to consider herself a knight if she did not also consider any other potential threats.

The catacombs are old, evidently; and they stretch on for endless eternities. Between one step and the next, the thought occurs:

What if there are more?

She hopes there aren’t. (She wouldn’t know.) Only the one has appeared so far, so it was highly unlikely they would find another. All the same, she finds she must voice it; it would only be fair to her liege:

“There is a risk, however faint, of us running into another of these golems.” (Simultaneously, her mind decides their next path, finding a familiarity in some of the stone grooves.) “I do not ask anything of you should the need arise,”—(because he had voiced, clearly, already and by order, that he would not permit Selena to lay down her life for him)—“but I do wish for you to be ready just in case.”

"Thank you. Now, there is one more thing for me to explain."

(King Ephraim wished to have such malice cast upon himself; and he wished to do so because of Prince Lyon.)

She accepts the staff, and she feels the weight of it in her hands. (There is a trust being placed in it also: a trust she does not deserve but would do her best to uphold.) If something went awry, she would have to subdue the winner of Magvel’s war; but for trust in herself, she would exchange trust in him, and she would believe in his determination to win against its magic.

“I understand,” Selena says, and she lets his words seep into her bones. (This was for Lyon; to understand what had possessed him and what pushed Grado two steps too far; and this was for Ephraim, who sought, also, that understanding—and if the Fluorspar wasn’t imagining things, it feels like the first stones on a new path between nations.)

“Prepare yourself, King Ephraim,” is her warning, the mage general tapping into the staff and getting a sense for the flow of its magic. (It is new to her, she recognizes, and she is not one with a talent for spells; but she has worked hard to get a sense of understanding for that which is foreign, and step by step, the arcane is unwound.) The gem at its focus lights itself, and Fluorspar continues, “I hope you win.”

The viscount is dead, silenced by three wounds across his chest and a fourth that left a nondescript knife lodged between his ribs.

Amateur, she thinks, stepping over the blood that had spread far enough in a bright, slippery pool. An assassin—or a warrior, or a fighter, or someone otherwise so accustomed to taking life that their hands wouldn't shake with the first thrust of steel—would have left one wound, and two at most; clean lines to end things quickly and without argument, whether out of duty or mercy or perhaps a mix of both. Four, though—four tells a different story entirely.

Fear, maybe. Passion. Anger. There is often less difference between them than people realize.

"Most people," Zephia finally says, "would presume the obvious and draw their weapons first, Selena. Do you want to try again? Ask with a little more bite, perhaps?"

She turns, her smile patient and kind despite the circumstances—or perhaps exactly because of them. From the moment they'd met, it was evident enough that while Selena was willing to play nice, she wasn't at all eager to name Zephia among her allies. And isn't that simply hurtful, when all Zephia had done was dutifully trot along to protect the man who now lays between them, dead as can be?

At present, she is not doing that.

But if Selena took a step back when Zephia moved, she would like to hope that, at least, it wasn’t too obvious. (It’s hard to read the other woman—was it an admission of guilt or an intentional inflammation? She cannot know for certain.) ‘Do you want to try again?’ Zephia asks, and for a moment, Selena feels remarkably small.

“…”

(It’s hard to find the words, so she stands silent, half-sure; trying to make sense of the situation and the number one suspect—her partner—in twain.) Think rationally. Be just. Do not jump to conclusions.

“And how long ago was that?” (Still: unsharp, unsteady; with an attempt to muster courage and surety behind it.) It’s entirely possible that Zephia is telling the truth—they were only so many, and they were called for because the viscount’s number was lacking—but even still (even knowing that), she finds herself hesitating to look on her own. (Last time she was told that, it was a trap that led to her untimely demise.)

Well, Zephia wasn’t him, at least. (She seemed… kinder; she offered a warmth that starkly opposed Valter’s cold apathy.)

—even if they were both unsettling. (Even if they both seemed darker than most would like.)

Selena shakes the thought away, refocusing her mind on the task at end: the murder of the viscount. (The death of their charge.) He has four stab wounds with a knife still embedded; an uncleaned mess in the wake of carnage. (There had been no time, it seems, for the killer to clean up after themselves; or they were anxious enough to believe there hadn’t been.) They likely only had enough of a plan to pull it off—but not enough of one to have confidence in their escape thereafter.

In accordance with the new rules for June, Valter and Selena now have public thread trackers! Aside from the link here, there are a few ways to access them:

FOR VALTER.

On his homepage, the previous link to his SUBMIT page has been replaced with one titled THREADS, since we rarely get submissions anyway, and the link for them is consistent across blogs. This new link leads directly to his thread tracker.

The link to his tracker is also located in his pinned post and stats page in their respective link sections.

(The image for the second one is too thin for me to press the button to add my own alt text, but it's a screenshot of the top of his stats page, demonstrating a list of links, including one titled, "Thread Tracker".)

FOR SELENA.

Due to the way Selena's theme and pages are set up, being on my laptop (aka without a proper mouse/setup haha) means I cannot reveal them in the exact location I would like them to be. Therefore, while the links will remain in these general locations, I will probably be posting an update sometime later this month (after I get home lol) with updated instructions on how to find her thread tracker. If all else fails, she and Valter share a spreadsheet, so if you can't find it via her page, you can find it via Valter's!

Similar to Valter, Selena's navigation links on her theme contain a link to her thread tracker, literally titled "thread tracker". At present, it is the last in the line, but once I get back to my setup, I'll be moving it to be before her interview.

It is also accessible via her pinned post and stats page. Given that her stats page does not have a dedicated links section, this is the primary location that will be changed later this month. For now though, it is located at the top of her Class Mastery tab as a link labeled "Thread Tracker."

This is all the vital information I have to share! More specific details and musings underneath the cut.