2/20/2023 0 Comments Kingdom rush stormcloud temple![]() ![]() Something in Nilul’s tone or look seemed to reach the assassin, who visibly tensed. But that power is yours, now, yours alone. I am sorry that no one was there for you, Fei Ling, when you needed it most. “They gave you power, when no one else would,” Nilul said gently, returning Ling’s gaze. Either we swear not to tell the Dragon of your identity, or your minion kills us. Her eyes with emotionless chips, boring into Nilul. “Cut the crap,” she said, quietly and without a single trace of affect. ![]() “In that case, can I at least induce you to betray them?”įei Ling shifted dangerously. “That’s a shame,” Nilul replied, her voice poutingly regretful. It’s too much fun working for the Yozis, and you’re not as strange or wonderful, sorry.” “How forward,” Ayala exclaimed, flopping down on a nearby divan. I’ve come to seduce you from my father’s service.” Nilul crossed her legs, extending an upraised palm. Behind her, the assassin Fei Ling loomed, slender and tall, face covered but with an aura like a knife. A deep purple bruise had blossomed on her cheek where Taldrim had struck her. Ayala was a slight, cheerful looking young woman, not quite as waifish as Nilul, with dark brown hair cut in bangs and similarly-colored eyes. She bowed, bright eyes blinking, her shift strangely bloodless after the dismembering she’d inflicted on Taldrim. “Guests, guests! We’ve got guests!” Ayala announced, bouncing over the threshold of her suite. They sat, back to back, in strangely companionable silence for a few minutes, before Ayala and Fei Ling returned. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Nilul exclaimed, voice wavering, like one might expect a worried mother’s to, on the day that her son first went to school - if that son were a beloved and promising Exalt, rather than a useless mortal. It’s like ‘good magistrate, bad magistrate,’ you see?” I’ll provide the gentle inducements, and if that doesn’t work, you scare them. “Uly, you may be dense to the point of hopelessness, but there is one thing you are good at: being really scary. “Now, when we talk to them, I’m going to need your help.” “Well, as long as you do that,” she sniffed. “I accept this responsibility,” he said dryly. If we die, I would like to note that this was completely and totally your fault, Uly.” “Of course they’re not crazy, that’s actually just competence. “How charitable and paranoid of you,” Nilul sighed, sagging into his back as she sat down. She draws power from chaos and discarding aspects of her femininity, something like that.” This-” he waved at the room, “it probably all has some sort of arcane purpose. ![]() Uly, you should just kill them so we can go. I don’t know if I can reason with people like this. “Are you sure we should be touching their things?” Nilul asked, uncertain. Ulyssian, having swept the place for traps and found nothing, returned to the main room of the suite, moving debris and scattered clothes with his sword to clear a place for the two of them to sit. The central mirror of the room had been shattered - an impact crater of crunched glass belied the fist that had done the deed. Nilul examined a twisted black remnant on the ground she declared it to be the obliterated ruins of a makeup kit. A dress made of finest silk lay in tatters around the smooth stone tub, as if ripped apart by some titanic beast. The bathroom of her given suite was a sight to behold. Taldrim was strong, perhaps the mightiest non-Elder combatant that House Sesus boasted save Ulyssian himself, but Ayala had fought with an easy, whimsical style that belied her terrible brute strength. It had been a brutal, bare-knuckle brawl, but in the end, it was Taldrim whose arms were torn off, Taldrim whose knees buckled and jaw shattered before the Mnemon’s assault. They had a few minutes more before Ayala and her retainer returned from the arena. ![]() Nilul, her hair beginning to loosen from its raised-chopsticks arrangement, followed cautiously in his wake. Ulyssian stalked through the premises, eyes alert, wary for traps. Some had been placed with casual effrontery across the statues themselves: a hat, a vest, a pair of pants, a mismatched set of stockings. Clothes, mostly her own rags, but also the haphazard belts and scarves of her companion, were scattered across the chambers with effortless effrontery. Dirt and sand were tracked prominently across the beautifully polished floors, and the set of ceremonial masks that lined one wall had clearly been taken down and played with. It was the courtesy extended an Earth Aspect, but she had neglected her given suites terribly - or, Ulyssian mused, perhaps she had done what she could to make them her own. Mnemon Ayala’s chambers were patterned in ivory and stone, adorned with statues of obsidian and blood-red rock. ![]()
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