[The Osiris Open] Round 1: Shinsou Vaan Osiris vs Ruby

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Opens 1st June 2016 at 12am EST.

Arena to follow!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

For Honour, Dignity and Respect

Diary of Lufenia – 12th May

The journey from Karak had been short, but the walk into the magnificent but eerie grounds of the abandoned Red Dragon fortress had felt as if it had spanned a generation.

The markings of violence were etched into the cold marble of the floor. The sounds of my footsteps echoed against the crimson walls, shattering the omnipresent silence. As I walked forward, I could almost imagine the fear that'd been haunting the inhabitants of the castle in their final moments as I noticed spatters of dull red staining some of the ancient paintings.

When the Castigars came, they had come with a thirst for blood.

My heart raced dangerously as I neared a spiralling staircase. It seemed to go on forever before being swallowed by a darkness I can’t describe. For a moment I stopped to admire its height; if the arched ceilings weren't so high the staircase would've, inevitably, been less intriguing to regard.

Wanting instead to explore the great hall, I decided to walk through the large, double french doors. Each tile of the floor was chosen specifically, and it showed here. There were more of those beautiful paintings all around the room. A set of double staircases, one on the left and one on the right, framed the northern wall. The railing of the staircase seemed to be exquisitely engraved with flowers and vines, never a one to be the same.

In the centre of the room there were six large stone pillars evenly spaced, each one elegantly carved to accent the Renaissance feel of the castle. To the left, there was a grand wooden door that seemed to lead to a very large library. To the right, there was a door that leads to some sort of a green house, with too many plants to name, each one from a different place in the world.

As I went in, there was one particular flower that stood out. Its ocean blue leaves unfurled but curled curiously inwards at the tips. One of the leaves was stained with the rust red of old blood.

I’ve seen this somewhere before. But where?

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

So, I wonder who the Brotherhood have set me up against this time? Hopefully someone a bit more...on my level. It's not training unless you're actually made to work.

Shinsou's thoughts echoed through his mind as he stepped into the distorted portal lens in front of him. His employers had been more than pleased with his recent successes for them and were only too happy to oblige when the Telgradian needed someone to sharpen his skills against in his free time. Using their web of connections and their sizeable reserves of gold, there weren't many people they couldn't get hold of. To Shinsou, it mattered little who it was.

As long as they are capable.

The funnel of the Citadel’s swirling portal snapped and crackled as the electrical substance it was made from bent to Shinsou’s every whim. Strange, tendril like anomalies morphed and swirled in front of his face as his destination spun into focus.

The Telgradian judged the two foot gap between the lip of the portal and what appeared to be some sort of wet stone floor and stepped down perfectly; Shinsou’s foot pressing, for the first time, onto the cold, hard surface of his creation. The Telgradian had designed it from the pages of Lufenia’s diary – the memoirs of a traveller that he had come across in the Cartographer’s library back when he first set foot on Althanas - and had sent word ahead to the powerful monks of the Citadel to work their magic. With an approving nod, he brushed aside a bang of brown hair and allowed his soft, golden eyes to survey the wonderful work that had taken place in his absence.

The sodden surface of a concrete path carved a puddle-ridden courtyard in two. The cobblestone ground was covered with soggy, grime smeared leaves and as his footsteps crunched over crumbs of loose gravel one by one, the distinctive mixed scents of mud and rainwater filled the Telgradian's nostrils. After a few more paces, Shinsou stopped to cast his gaze to the looming form of the Red Dragon fortress.

This is where the Brotherhood said everything started. ISOS, the Castigar war, the clan rebellion...all of it. Now, all that remains of that age are the scribbled thoughts of a forgotten traveller. How marvellous the Citadel could bring this place to life one more time.

Just ahead, an iron wrought gate stood at least three times the height of him and on either side there was a wall that encircled the inner sanctum of the castle. The gate was topped with jagged iron spikes that jutted out dangerously, preventing any unwanted guests from vaulting the walls. The gigantic castle keep was made of some sort of washed limestone and finely carved statues of gargoyles adorned the edges of the fort around its massive wooden front doors. Assorted coats of arms were some of the more prominent statuary, breathtaking in their beauty and refinement but worn through age.

As he approached the main entrance, The Telgradian pressed his hand against the heavy oak door on the right, and after a bit of a struggle it slowly opened on its massive rusting hinges.

The halls of the castle were as silent as a crypt, and almost as dark and eerie. Shinsou imagined the place was well guarded during the years of its use and kept away from the public. According to Lufenia’s notes, it was used only to house the small and now-defunct Red Dragon clan and was so scarcely attended by anyone from outside that many rumours circulated about what went on here during the Castigar war.

Shinsou suddenly jumped as the heavily reinforced doors slammed behind him, his golden eyes fixated on nothing as Sorian looked on. Settled again, Shinsou took a moment to investigate the replica of the building he had rebuilt from the scribbles of a traveller.

Far over his head, vaults and arches sailed up and converged in a classical array of marble carved embellishments in the centre of the hall. A row of marble columns rose to a second floor scarlet-carpeted staircase and created an avenue that extended to the end of the hall in which the Telgradian stood. At the end of this avenue two white statues of a goddess, shrouded in celestial robes, flanked a pair of French doors each with a single hand pointed towards the heavens. The floor of the hall consisted of an arrangement of black and white stone slabs that led to a centre circle underneath the point of a crystal chandelier. Here, the emblem of the Red Dragon clan was sketched out over the circumference of the room in the shape of a horntailed ruby dragon.

“It’s just as I pictured.”

Shinsou walked a straight path between the columns in silence towards what he would discover to be the great hall. The lay-out of this section of the building was similar to several other Althanian castles; high, narrow windows of plain leaded glass. They alternated with the pillars, dark with the lack of any background light. Under these were pedestals that contained small statues and trinkets that represented the clan. Rows of lighted candles flickered in their iron holders positioned either side of these figurines, the smell of their smouldering wicks wafting through the hallway.

The Telgradian stopped as he heard a sound from behind him, brushing a thread of chestnut brown hair from his face. His shining and alert eyes flitted around the room whilst he stood motionless by the great hall. Shinsou then smiled wryly, his eyes suddenly diluting as he sensed a presence otherwise unknown to him.

“…Here so soon? I hadn’t even time to marvel at this place.”

[Ruby]

Beauty came in many forms. For Ruby, it came in nature. Nothing could match the providence of time and happen-stance quite like the dying moment of the rarest bloom, or the light of summer’s first day. Just as an ignorant man might turn away from art or a lesser man find meaning in satire over dramaturgy finery, if you chose not to admire, and to observe the unending unravelling of nature, you are left ugly.

How she came to be here, where man made horror met nature’s idyll she could not be sure. All the calamities to befall her kin of late dulled her senses. Wars. Deaths. Sacrifices. Whatever vestiges of beauty she carried within her crushed. Beneath an avalanche of man’s selfishness, the red headed matriarch had left herself no choice – grass roots. Those precious idolatries of praying to trees and tending to the needs of geraniums and tulips. They were her mantra now.

The castle was no mere metaphor. Social decay coated every cold, grey surface. The blood alone was testament enough mortals were incapable of reproducing anything more than a pallid and harrowed imitation of nature’s perfection. In tandem with silence, Ruby felt sorrow and regret. Stories, as thick as the blood, smothered any architectural splendour the contorted halls might once have possessed.

Hythonis Elyria. The name would never leave her memories. A flower of simple origins, all the same more beautiful than anything else the greenhouse possessed. Its presence meant the slow march of progress taunted her still. She had hoped the tournament could be an escape. A way of proving herself that after all she, and the troupe had endured strength remained. Unbroken. Tested. Triumphant. The Ai’bron betrayed her trust by drawing on her fears to construct their battleground.

“Our hearts are but a vessel,” she began to sing.

Warmth drained from the glasshouse. The cracked, peeling paint on the iron framework flickered. Like artificial blades of grass in a spring breeze, it fought against the swell of magic that roiled out from the woman’s lips. A single exhalation projected her voice into the upper reaches, where mist formed and humidity intensified. Sweat beaded on pristine brow. Skin prickled. Heart raced. The more she thought of the past, the more it paved way, good intentions ablaze, for the future.

“Indebted to the world.” Her skin paled. The air began to frost. “Come and test my mettle, fear’s no longer my enemy.”

Winter found its way through cracks and doors ajar. Though sun shone dauntingly in the sky above, in the glasshouse, mirroring the occupant’s cold stoicism, the seasons turned. The solitary blue bloom, centre stage in the performance of its life, remained vibrant as the purest of lazuli. The haunting words formed an invitation. The glistening icicles in the tree branches and on thorny vines end stops and exclamation marks to one chapter of her life, a proclamation of the start of another.

“But even though I no longer fear peace is not my remedy.”

Her song ended. The glasshouse slowly returned to its fetid humidity. The spell singer moved silently past the floral tombstone, out into the hallway, and the uncertainty beyond. With every step, she regained her strength, each a return to the fiery temperament that had ended kingdoms and inflamed rebellions. Whatever version of her scattered self would appear in the coming trials, she embraced it.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

The candles flickered at the edges of Shinsou’s vision as the songstress entered the room from the west wing. They danced in the cool draught that blew through the open hallway of the Red Dragon fortress, harbingers for his opponent’s arrival as the slipstream her entrance created bristled the glowing tips of their flames and made them sputter and smoulder.

The truth was that the candles were a late omen. The Telgradian had sensed her present the minute that the twisting blue and marine tendrils on the threads of the Citadel’s portal had torn their grasp away from her and deposited her to his west. Intriguingly, Shinsou had felt something a little different from her than the others he was used to probing with his spirit sense. Threats, as they usually were when they came, registered as a throbbing pulse within the pit of his stomach. From the intensity and timing of the pulses, Shinsou Vaan Osiris was able to gauge the strength of one’s soul and the measure of their potential.

This, though?

No, this was something different to what he normally felt. The pulses were passing, drawing away from him even as he drew his breath. It heightened his senses. Saliva filled his mouth and scents from the castle wafted into his noise, the heaviest of which was the heavy, bitter combination of musk and blood. Shinsou settled Enpera firmly against the side of his coat and wondered, briefly, how long his spirit sense had failed him.

Or perhaps she is more powerful than the rest and my spirit sense couldn’t register?

The disorientation of Ruby’s aura was beginning to ebb and clarity came to the young Telgradian as he turned to face this enigmatic woman. Quiet, with a face unmoving and a steady hand upon the guard of his hilt, Shinsou took in her appearance. Her blazing red hair hid a temperament beneath a flowing blue dress that angled up to the thighs. Her eyes, though brown, seemed to glint in the light in a way that he had not seen before. It was terribly curious and all the while even more intriguing that the Brotherhood should choose someone to fight him whose sheer beauty matched her power. But more curious than this was the particular choice of opponent.

“A spellsinger. Yes, I heard the tunes calling from the west. It was affecting even the stone in the walls in this room. It even made Enpera’s blade vibrate. It was truly fascinating to behold.”

Shinsou stood at the end of the short hallway, with the double doors behind him on his right and left. Clean white sunlight poured in from a window above the hallway; the light gleaming off the polished brass trinkets adorning either side of the great staircase leading up to the top levels between him and the songstress. The breast of his greatcoat flashed in the brilliant white, the polished buttons glinting like diamonds.

“However, I wonder, my lady…would you be able to sing such a beautiful song if I crushed your throat underfoot? Would you be able to conjure a masterpiece through your bleeding lips? The honied promises of infinite death and ressurection in the Citadel will lead you to try, I assume. As long as that cycle remains, I am interested to find out for myself.”

Thoughts of battle suddenly came to him as his instincts began to awaken, as though emerging from a long hibernation. With his words, the time for polite conversation was over as quickly as it begun. Tension filled the room and almost as if his words had chilled the breeze which flowed through the ancient hallways of the castle, the two stood within a tightening aura of hostility.

In silence he brought his right palm to bear, opened the fingers and turned his gaze to the woman in front of him.

"The crawling queen of iron, the self-destructing doll of mud, fill the earth and let them know their own powerlessness..."

"Enpera Butorenjin"

The incantation came as a dry gasp from breathless lips. Shinsou moved into motion immediately, springing on to his right heel and pivoting, but instead of attacking the songstress he turned and threw open the doors behind him. Throwing them shut to create a temporary barrier and buy himself some time for the spell to take effect, the Telgradian sprinted down the hallway that followed before throwing open the first door on the left.

A few minutes is all I need. I’ll draw her deeper into the castle for now.

Inside, bright torchlight touched on every detail, enhanced it, and brought them to life. The paintings in the narrow corridor of had been flung from their hooks on the green and gold wallpaper long ago; three of them lay on the wooden floor with shattered glass adorning their faces. An unpleasant breeze of dust and mildew blew in from across the passage, causing the filthy scarlet curtains to dance in its grasp, merrily and carefree, oblivious to the violence that had been carried out within the fortress.

Something flickered between the curtains; caught his eye for just a second, just as he was about to cross across the hallway. Before the thought could try to escape from his mind, he reached for what was an emblem, gold and familiar. Dark spots of rust stained it. Tugging it loose from the windowsill, he held it in front of him momentarily before putting it back and darting left once more.

"What was that doing here?," he whispered, clutching Enpera close to his chest.

[Ruby]

Ruby remained calm and collected whilst the irksome man before her reveled in idolatry. Whatever notions he worshiped wrongly, she would surely topple his idols in due course. Her skin prickled long after he had departed, tense from the anticipation of something more primal, an unleashing of rage as she had oft come to expect in the Citadel. Purloined of her opportunity, icy heart still thawing, she cursed having to break a sweat.

"I won't need to sing to swiftly sway you to sleep." A firm hand pushed the door open, thunderous applause in the distant background as the baying crowd finally got their ticket's worth.

The sound of her heels clicking on worn stone filled the absence left in the man's wake. She drew her blade, which began to sing of its own accord, bitter barbs delivered promptly.

"I'll sing for you, my dear. He's an odious little trow."

"Your time will come, Lucrezia my dear. We'll sing him a little duet, even if my part is a gargle through bloodied teeth."

The sword could not argue with the sentiment. Together, the sisters marched through the corridors, grandiose and sycophantic epitaphs to a bygone age. The rapier was the cleanest thing in sight. Dust settled on mantle and turned to an ashen covering. Candle stubs lingered with long forgotten warmth, their sticks smothered in yellowed wax and bulbous pestilent remains.

She took a right turn, then a left, then three rights. Soon, the spell singer lost track. Only the good grace of the man's cumbersome footwork offered clues as to his whereabouts. Her heart slowly came alive, a heavy beat thudding beneath dragon skin bodice and stitching that cost a season's profit's on a royal stage.

"Shall I do the talking?" Lucrezia asked, shrill. Her cacophonous pitch bounced down the hallway into an ante chamber.

"Oh no. Not this time." Ruby intended to deal with the man's threats personally.

"That is a shame." Had she a face, her expression would have been succor.

Disappointment trailed after them, spiraling through the dark crofts and empty fireplaces two men tall. Only with her senses riled did she begin to see another story unfold around them. The portraits, eschew on the drab walls were tarnished. Some were torn, others covered in crude insults from victorious enemies. The detritus was not reckless abandonment, but besieged chaos. Things were thrown as furious men and ravenous women searched, for what, Ruby could only guess.

"Footsteps..." Lucrezia whispered.

Red eyes, fire within, scrutinised the corridor leading left from an ornamented chamber. Curtains that would not look out of place in Scara Brae's grand hall hung threadbare from poles wreathed in gold leaf. Dull inset emblems declared allegiances and tallies without meaning.

"He knows this place...," she said softly. "Or believes he does." A rabbit was quick, but in his own warren, invisible.

From her boundless realms of experience, Ruby drew on an adage, taught to her by the bard Duffy Bracken. Prior to becoming a bard, he had lived as a street urchin - a peddler of cheap tricks and would-be-pickpocket. They had played chase, tag, but with gut punches, and not once in a decade had Ruby been able to catch him.

"Let's give him pause for thought." She smirked. Lucrezia smirked. A concerto rhythm emerged from her tip, accompaniment to eh matriarch's advance.

Together, the duo began to compose a verse in their joined minds to bring the castle tumbling down around them. Ruby gripped her rapier tightly, pointed forwards, eyes narrowed, and tip-toes rose to reduce her noise. She turned a corner after an interlude of shadow and emerged into a long, pillared hall. Dead opposite, veiled by distance and gloom and light from holes in the roof above, a monotheist's organ - hundreds of feet high at pipe's tip, and a thousand ivories beset in oak and iron before a grand throne.

"Greater men have tried my friend, and greater men have failed!"

In answer to his question, she pledged to overcome whatever he threw at her and emerge triumphant. Heart now burning, puerile passions blanching away the thawing of six months in noble civility, Ruby Winchester remembered who she was, a thousand years ago.

"The Phoenix sings with its flame, not its beak!" Embers formed on the hem of her dress. She advanced into the hall, warming up for a performance with vibrato note scales and a favourite line from I Want to Be Your Canary.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

The heavy greatcoat that had moments ago been clean, white, and presentable had dimmed with a film of dust as the Telgradian prowled around the corridors that formed the intestinal tract of the castle. As he took a left, he passed a dirty, golden framed mirror. The Telgradian gazed upon his clean shaven face. It had been a long time since he had seen his own reflection, but the man staring back at him wasn’t the Shinsou Vaan Osiris he or anyone else knew. This version of him was like no other – cast from no mold and limited by nothing but what he set for himself. Taking the tint of the soiled blade of a knife, the glass could barely even properly reflect the pigment of gold in his irises. His visage was dry and apprehensive, even as he wiped it. For a split second, as he gazed into his very soul, his blood had run colder than the ice of Salvar.

Have my eyes dulled?

Many would say his involvement with the Brotherhood had tainted him and had revived the lust for power that Shinsou so often denied was the driving force behind anything he did. The evidence was, irrefutably, there to substantiate those claims; the rate at which he had regained his powers since stepping foot on Althanas was no co-incidence when the frequency of his visits to the Citadel were taken into account. For a man who had been determined to end his own status quo and become something more universal and open minded, Shinsou was doing a great job of appearing to walk down the same old avenues over again. A fallen emperor, using his powers to serve a fallen empire with dreams of conquering the world, would make a convenient story for those who wanted to believe it. But was it the truth of the matter?

There’s always an endgame. I know mine, but that’s for another time. I'm on the cusp of tapping into something great, something even I have never experienced before, so let’s not get distracted by these fleeting thoughts any longer and quickly put an end to this banshee.

Moving on down the corridor, the Telgradian could feel the presence of the songstress drawing ever closer and almost had to take a breath as he reached an oaken door at the end of the narrow hallway. In what he believed to be the final passageway before the room containing his enemy, judging from the violence of the pulsing in his stomach, Shinsou paused and took stock of his surroundings once more as he began to think upon his next move. Sets of tattered scarlet curtains lay carefree across filthy glass window panes, darkening and choking the light of the already dim oaken panelled corridor. In the corners of the room, cobwebs began to knot together like lumps of clotted blood on the coving. Even the ever present draught, which had been only a moment ago seemed like a wisp, had changed into something beastly and had started howling through the length of the wing.

Shinsou blinked as the breeze pushed a gathering of dust sharply into his face from atop a musty wooden skirt. It was then, facing the wall, he noticed it.

…a hole…

The hole in the wall was one of three similar sized ones, caused by some sort of musket ball, he presumed. All thoughts seemed to melt away as his view of the world shrunk to an open hall framed around a black circle. Sunlight poured into the room from gaps in the ceiling above, and an antique grand organ loomed hundreds of feet high to the pipe's tip over a throne forged from a twisted, decorative amalgamation of metal and wood. There she stood, the songstress, garment edges ablaze with the colours of the phoenix as she no doubt prepared to spin a concerto of chaos. Her fiery red hair shone in the light and her beauty reminded Shinsou of a mythical, deadly siren; like the ones once rumoured sighted near Etheria port.

What the-

Suddenly, the room jolted violently. Shinsou winced as his vision was obscured by a hailstorm of plaster and timber, the earth underneath his feet trembling with increasing magnitude. Undoubtedly, she was casting a spell, and not a very friendly one. Time was of the essence. Repositioning himself next to the hole, Shinsou clawed at the wall to anchor himself straight. He saw that she was stood between two rows of six columns each. These columns, carved from washed limestone, supported the very roof above her head and untold portions of the castle’s west wing.

From this corridor, which he judged to run parallel to the hall, the Telgradian could line up five of them perfectly. The sixth, to his extreme right, was blocked by the back of a staircase but that wouldn’t matter much. The wall separating his corridor from her was little more than blown plaster and rotting timber and would prove no object at all against the might of his Enpera Kurohitsugi.

Enpera Kurohitsugi

A wall of air formed behind him in the corridor. As it began to shimmer like the reflection of the moon on a lake at night, forking tendrils of black and purple convulsed and converged around each other to form a fifteen foot wide circular portal of black and purple energy. There was a crackling sound as the strange, phantom like mist of the void met the musty atmosphere of the Red Dragon fortress, the chemicals in the dark matter reacting violently and repulsing those of the oxygen in the air. Protruding from this abyss of darkness were fifteen thin, dangerous spears of dark matter, five aimed at the glistening pillars supporting the room next door.

Without even having to motion, Shinsou commanded the five spears forward. They sped out of the portal and their lengths ripped through the wall as if it were wet rice paper, sending chunks of dusty plaster, torn wallpaper and splintered wood scattering in a wide angle shrapnel cloud to the hall’s east. Forks of blue and purple electricity snapped around the shafts of the spears, scorching the surface of the white marble floor as they traveled before smashing into – and through – five of the six supporting pillars, making short work of the supports.

The Telgradian wasted no time and leapt through the wound his spell had created in the wall. As he jumped through, Enpera’s tip brought to bear by his side, Shinsou’s eyes tried to see through the dust cloud. The room had greyed and blurred at first, then faded in temporary darkness until he hung low and ducked right out of the cloud. Shinsou could see the songstress dead ahead as the masonry began to creak all around him, buckling under the strain of its own weight. She represented, in one way, a goal for him.

To kill someone even more powerful than me.

A wordless sound rumbled behind his closed lips as he lowered his eyes to the tip of his blade.

“Enpera Butorenjin!”

The Telgradian found himself savouring the new sensation of his fingers tingling with the power of his sword magic once again. Flicking strands of brown matted hair out of his face, the Telgradian snapped his head up and began his sure footed sprint towards Ruby’s right hand side as chunks of granite began to dislodge from the crumbling roof and cascaded, randomly, into the hall. Shinsou knew that the second the blade made contact with her neck, the nerves and motor-neurones within the flesh would cease working, along with her voicebox. His sword arm lashed out in a thin arc from right to left, the edge driving fiercely towards her milky collar, carrying with it the hope to end this battle quickly before it escalated.

[Ruby]

“But the true song is fire’s abrasive form.” Her words continued vibrant echelons within a vibrato of power, planning, and potential.

Columns, falling without interference, cracked and crumbled. Sliding in on themselves, cruel jokes of architecture, their sudden absence brought the castle to life. Ruby felt relief that her opponent chose to stream headstrong into rubble and ruination. He put himself in harm’s way. A mistake, amidst her aria, that he would regret.

“Flames burn flesh and heat burns hate, but in the hearth we find reprise!”

Swordsmiths alike, Ruby saw herself reflected in her opponent when she turned on her heels and stared him down. A boulder crashed a hundred feet to her right, a precursor to the reckless, unaltered fury that bridled between them. Nobody who observed their conflict left in doubt – here were two souls searching for approval.

“A song is all we have my friends, despite the legends pure. Phoenix and the flames may die, but in ourselves, we are sure. I am but a vessel, a voice without a god. Only when the earth falls down, from lies our truths are shod!”

A glint. Something fiery, not flame, but passion. In her eyes, it shone like a diamond asset. Nothing, not even darkness pure could extinguish it. Ruby had wielded such a passion countless times, but only in moments of direst need. Emotions burnt her skin more virulently than dragon fire or comet’s fall. Only dedication to her family, her friends, kept her standing.

“Goodbye.”

Her song stopped. As it did, she conjured her violin into her grasp. On her shoulder, she cocked it, and strung a note that carried the spell song into an eternity of continuance. Tattered curtains fell from cracked window frames. Columns, now in mountains of recklessness danced with dust plumes. The sunstroke in the roof, through which daylight formerly crept, now let in the afternoon’s pale imitation of summer.

Milky spheres fluttered into life. Protected only by her sufferance, Ruby vanished behind a dome of white light. Fire danced on its surface for only the briefest of revelatory moments, its purpose revealed only when a hunk of rock as large as a house crashed down onto where the spell singer once stood. Protection. Isolation. A master plan, a stroke undying.
She watched her adversary strike her from within a pearly dome. The world beyond, silent backdrop to her self-discovery, poultry compared to the opponent’s turbulence. She could see conflict in his eyes, as his sword swung in slow motion for her nape, and then she realised. They were not fighting one another. They were fighting ghosts. She frowned.

“Too late…love.”

The castle crumbled. Her resolve wavered. The sphere, robust enough to withstand an age, served as a theatre to her comeuppance. Ruby Winchester, once again, found herself looking down at people who deserved better. Sweat beaded on her brow. Her heart fluttered. Her dress, sodden by sycophancy, lost it's lustre.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

What?

Shinsou’s arm jarred as the Damascus edge of his treasured blade, Enpera, slammed into something hard and the Telgradian winced as an aching pain reverberated up his bicep and shoulder. Quickly and instinctively he took a step back, taking care to dodge more of the cascading debris falling from above him and realized, as the milky white dome materialised flush in front of him, that the object he had hit seemed to be some sort of barrier.

Fuck. No time to think!

Shinsou’s intended strike had failed. He frowned as he felt the effect of Enpera Butorenjin dissipate through his sword and into the air harmlessly, the Telgradian feeling frustration build up inside him as knew that his plan of paralysis was now closed to him. Cursing his misfortune, he retreated a few steps momentarily and refocused. It was clear that this mysterious songstress would be safe, momentarily, within her protective dome whilst the room crumbled around him and so Shinsou tore his gaze away from the shield and back at the section of the wall that he had originally climbed through. It was clearly marked by a dark, crumbling wound, setting it aside from the elaborately painted sections of the collapsing hallway. Without hesitation, he ran back towards that crevice and into the more stable corridor from whence he came.

Let the room do the work. Let’s see how strong that barrier is!

Even before Shinsou managed to finish his thought, the deafening sound of crashing stone erupted from in front of him. The once illustrious hall ahead looked more like a warzone now; littered with chunks of grey debris, with bright red torches that had once lined the walls now strewn liberally across the floor, setting fire to the rugs and curtains that adorned the room. Adding to the chaotic theme of the failing wing, the walls, ceiling, and floor were bending into a curve that made the Telgradian feel like he had walked into a condemned building being demolished. Smoke started to funnel through every available crack until it obscured his opponent entirely. The cracking and creaking of the masonry eventually stopped and once again silence took over the wing; a heavy silence of anticipation. The wind was high and blowing smoke from the fires into Shinsou’s corridor through the gaping hole in the wall. The Telgradian knew it would only be a matter of time before the fires made their way to him. Hopefully they would consume the entombed songstress first, but there was no point hanging around to take the chance she had survived the initial collapse.

Behind him, at the end of the short corridor, was his first decision: right or left? The hallways in either direction led to antechambers that connected to other wings of the castle, places that were still intact where the Telgradian could set up an ambush if he needed to. Shinsou took a right and tried to make a mental mapping of the building as he went, but after a few more intersections he concluded that this place was a maze. His only point of reference, the songstress’s life force, was too weak to sense now.

The sound of snapping once again broke the silence, only this time the sound was instantaneous. The Telgradian opened his free left hand, spreading the fingers wide. Within two seconds, thin, forking tendrils of black and purple convulsed and converged around each other to form a lance of dark matter within the palm. There was a crackling noise as the musty corridor air met the electrical form of the weapon. Shinsou held the lance in his left palm, ready to use at will, as he jumped down a rotting wooden staircase leading to the lower levels and landed in front of the foremost, poorly lit, oak panelled hallway with a loud dull thud. The eyes that once carried the rich colour of gold stared bleakly into the darkness as he figured out his next move.

[Ruby]

Darkness. Here, in shadow’s grip, Ruby found fleeting peace. The first impact against the barrier had dulled her senses, her voice wavered, her heart out of synch with the vibrancy of her lyrics. Her sword found respite in its sheath, unneeded, but protesting its imprisonment.

“Eclipsed, the phoenix wallows, deep in its regret.” She sung softly now, voice cracked, full of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.

It was the bolstering force behind her shield. Obscured by the pale, milky depths of the barrier, the chaos beyond was a distant problem for the red head. Her bigger concern was how she could best her opponent in open combat. He had displayed providence with abilities she had never encountered, and an unknown foe was deadlier than any other was.

“But regret kindles it’s mottled plumes, anew, resplendent, alive!” Her finale carried out into a long, folk-esque rumbustious note.

From nothingness, she revealed a violin. Its surface embedded with veins of gold likes roses bright, its bowstring, aflame, falling gently into her right hand’s grip. Magic fuelled its playing and with a flurry of notes, Ruby maintained her finale painfully sung word. It echoed, a fragmented reprise, the spell song lingering long after its wielder’s voice perished.

Time. Here, in an aeon’s respite, Ruby found fleeting focus. The first rock cracked, crumbling about the pearl force field, and atop its crumbling brutality piled hefts of column and smouldering rafter. Ruby continued to play, a Scara Braen folk ditty her anthem.

The shield faltered. In a break in her music, the spell singer reached out a hand and clenched it into a fist, fingers turning white with exertion. The force field turned opaque, and then clear, a thin distortion through which she could see that which her song had wrought. A frown tarnished her face. Something had gone awry. Her intent was to bring down the roof overhead. Her gambit sabotaged.

“Opportunist prick,” she spat.

The pillars toppled the castle’s grand hall in moments. Fortunately, for Ruby, the chaos had scattered around her, the rocks piling on top until they fell away like reeds in the wind. Fire danced in between the palisades and stained glass. The spell singer stood, encased in glass, song lifting her spirits as it did in the streets of her home all summer long. She was a pearl embedded at the heart of a steep and volcanic caldera.

“Come to the break of day he said, and we’ll love again my dear!” she cried.

The folk song became a riotous limerick, the sort of drinking song dockland workers chorused long into the night and thereafter, into the morn’s warm sunrise. She carried on through the first verse, and then let out a belter before an end stop. In the silence, the spell song ended and the violin vanished in threadbare mist.

Freedom. Here, in the hollow of uncertainty, Ruby found herself back where she started. Constantly chasing men who should know better. She clicked her knuckles, unsheathed her blade, and began to clamber up the rockslide in inappropriate footwear and entirely appropriate foul temperament.