When Leon walked into the throne room of the Sacred Golden Empire’s Imperial Palace, he did so much as he did about a month before: flanked on both sides first by Elise, Maia, and Valeria, and then by several Imperial guards. Unlike the last time he was here, however, the massive courtyard surrounded by trees was nearly empty, driving home just how big it was without people to fill it. More t...
2022-05-30 15:01:03 +0000 UTC View PostAfter his exchange with the Thunderbird, Leon returned to his meditations and continued reveling in his command of black fire. For hours, he gave all responsible parents everywhere a headache by playing with fire, and when he finally left his meditation chamber, he still had a few black sparks dancing around his fingers.
However, his jubilant mood was slightly marred when he heard what s...
Leon stared back at Anastasios for a long moment, shocked at the Lord Protector’s appearance. However, after several seconds, propriety kicked back in and he raised a hand in greeting, returning the Lord Protector’s casual acknowledgment.
For his part, Anastasios seemed amused more than anything at Leon’s shock, and briefly smirked before returning to the conversation he was having...
In case you missed it, I posted more revisions to the Knight Academy over the weekend! You can check them out here!
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The journey back to Evergold started off with great excitement. Leon’s retainers, as well as those who remained among the Evergolden escort, were qu...
It's been a long time since I last posted one o
2022-05-21 05:07:46 +0000 UTC View PostLeon sighed as he finally collapsed into a seat in his portable villa back in the expedition’s camp.
Following his meeting with the ninth-tier tree sprite and his gaining of a new ‘retainer’, he’d led the remnants of his expedition back to the camp where Cassandra and the rest of the Evergolden squad were seen to, and the bodies of their fallen were collected. Leon hadn’t stopp...
The ninth-tier tree sprite looked much like Leon had last seen it: huge, powerful, but rather timid in what body language Leon could parse. However, perhaps as a sign of its growing trust, instead of bringing Leon inside of its tree where he assumed it was most powerful, it met with him out in the open.
Or, Leon wondered, perhaps it was a sign that it didn’t trust him at all, given the...
Leon and his party blazed their way down the halls of the research facility, no longer interrupted by Apati. Leon had refused the man’s offer, but given his own feelings, and the informal alliance he had with the tree sprite accompanying him, that was the only offer he could give right then. Nestor’s offer still held some appeal, though. Make it look like he was killing the man, but in actu...
2022-05-16 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostLeon and the tree sprite had an alliance. He didn’t think too hard about it, but neither did he entirely trust the creature. He’d spent too long on the watch out for such beings back in the Forest of Black and White, and those old instincts, while almost forgotten, had shown themselves to still be quite strong after arriving the Prota Forest. Still, he was enraged at the kidnapping of his p...
2022-05-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostOnce Apati was finished with his threats, the first thing Leon did was to project his magic senses and try to locate his people. If Apati had done anything with them already, then he was going to explode in anger.
Fortunately, he located them fairly quickly on the route to the research facility. Thanks to their still-healing wounds, they were moving rather slowly, but they were still bei...
Despite Leon’s offer to talk, the tree sprites didn’t utter a word—hardly surprising, given none of them had mouths, but he was hoping for some kind of reaction anyway, or at least an attempt to communicate with him mentally. Instead, they just stared at him for a long moment before anything else happened.
For his part, he remained patient, forcing himself to relax his posture and ...
Leon stared at his party, bloodied and broken, as they bravely put up what looked to be a last stand.
And he was in the depths of the research facility, unable to do anything about it.
“These are your people?” Apati asked apprehensively.
“Yes,” Leon answered through clenched teeth. “I need to get to them, what’s the fastest way out of here? Tell me on the way!...
Valeria wasn’t quite sure how she ought to feel. Looking around, she took great comfort in the fact that, after their wanderings throughout… wherever they were, she and Cassandra had managed to find the rest of their people. Everyone save for Leon had been found and sprung from their cells.
However, while that, by itself, was great and worth celebrating, they hadn’t run in...
Valeria stared in confusion at the sight around her. Just a moment before, she’d been walking through the forest with Leon and the others, and another moment, she was in a dark room with wooden, but organically-shaped walls all around her. What little light there was in the room came from a few thin branches high above her with a few small translucent leaves glowing a gentle blue.
“L...
“None of this is usable, I’m afraid,” Apati said as Leon stood up, the emerald the dead technician now inhabited in hand.
“Why not?” Leon asked as he glanced around at the small handful of control consoles scattered around the room. “They still have power, don’t they?”
“They would’ve helped early into the outbreak,” Apati explained. “This is a secondary mai...
Leon’s anxiety for his people was immense, but his curiosity was powerful, too, and with the threat that the roots posed, he couldn’t help but take a moment to investigate them before trying to continue further into the research facility. He knelt down by the largest one left—all had been quite thoroughly devastated by his fire, but there was still more than enough left to examine.
Leon’s blade appeared in his hand in a flash of light and lightning danced across his body.
The rest of his companions were gone, and he hadn’t even sensed it happening. Panic at the uncertainty of what had just happened flooded his mind for a moment before he mastered himself.
In an instant, he did two things. The first was project his magic senses, hoping that if his people ...
Leon remained vigilant as he and his people followed closely behind the Evergolden warriors. Their truth rings were active, dispelling all illusions before them, but they did nothing to help fend off mental attacks, and the high probability of being teleported away wasn’t something they could easily, if at all, combat.
So, it was with more than a little apprehension that they passed th...
Leon had a wide grin on his face as he made his way back to the camp. The entire demonstration that the manticore had put on had lasted for more than an hour, and with so many powerful eyes watching it, and Leon’s antimagic enchantments helping them to analyze the flow of magic around the creature, they were able to figure out just what it was doing when it disappeared and reappeared.
A...
2022-04-20 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Leon reached what he assumed was the site of a battle between plant giants and the wounded manticore, he immediately used his antimagic again. He didn’t need it to be in use for long, but he wanted to confirm what he was about to do.
As expected, the remains of the plant giants and the still-breathing manticore were revealed for a moment before the illusion snapped back into place...
Leon stared out into the forest, his frustration great, as was his anger.
Three days had passed since they’d been attacked by the plant giants, and yet, nothing of real note had happened. They’d been attacked twice more by plant giants and wolves, respectively, and fought them off both times. Another Evergolden warrior had died, and most of the rest had been injured, as had Gaius, Alc...
2022-04-15 15:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWhen Leon bolted outside, his weapon drawn and armor donned, he found that the horn hadn’t been sounded for nothing: a dozen plant giants, each one twice as large as a stone giant, had surrounded the outer wall of their camp and were steadily advancing toward them.
Each one’s proportions were subtly different, but they were all roughly human in shape. For all their minor differences, ...
2022-04-13 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon, hovering in the air, watched as his retinue spread out over the treetops. His entire party was with him, save for Elise and Talal, who’d both chosen to remain back at camp—not that he could blame them, given the dangers of the Prota Forest. However, Cassandra wasn’t of the same mind, and despite her own brush with what Leon could only presume were the defenses of the research facili...
2022-04-11 15:01:05 +0000 UTC View PostWhatever had happened to Cassandra to so discombobulate her, it had faded entirely by the time she and Leon had returned to camp. Her anger at having to return, too, had faded, and when they reached the palace-tree, she surprised Leon with a relatively humble apology. She then went to get fully checked out by her own healers, arranging to meet with Leon again when that was finished.
Her c...
2022-04-08 15:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostAs Leon flew over the forest, his caution never wavering, he asked Nestor and Xaphan both, [Were you two paying attention to that ambush?]
[No,] Nestor bluntly replied.
[I was,] Xaphan admitted, sounding like he was grinning madly. [That was quite a blunder on your part. Getting a little too used to your magic senses, are you? Can’t handle it when you’re unable to sense threats ...
2022-04-06 15:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostLeon, shrouded in shadow, took off into the air. With the wind against his face, running through his feathers, and over his wings, he felt invincible. He was back in his element, soaring through the sky, master of all he surveyed.
He struggled a bit to focus, and after about several minutes of reveling in stretching his wings once again, he managed to turn his attention back to the fores...
The camp Leon’s party made was nearly identical to the one they’d set up the night before—a relatively small palace-tree was flash-grown, and Leon set up the individual modules of his portable villa around it. The Evergolden earth mages then built a stone wall around the pieces of his villa, making their little camp quite tough. They had to do a bit of extra legwork getting rid of all the...
2022-04-01 15:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostIt was the day after they entered the Prota Forest, and the decision had been made to continue. As they expected, though, the second day proceeded about as eventfully as the first, with their party being attacked three times as they trudged through the forest. There didn’t seem to be any kind of rhyme or reason to the attacks, but they were growing steadily stronger.
The first was easil...
2022-03-30 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostLeon rushed forward as Anshu groaned on the ground. The three members of Cassandra’s escort were not too far away, and as far as Leon could tell, they were alive, but severely injured.
However, their physical injuries wasn’t what Leon was most concerned with.
“Helen!” he shouted as he slid to the ground next to Anshu. Helen shouted a reply, but Leon barely heard her as he ...
Leon, needing a moment to calm himself down, landed in the center of the blackened crater he’d, in his rage, made. The rest of his retinue descended from the sky and landed around him, and Leon, ignoring Cassandra’s questioning, went straight to Elise.
The sight of a wind blade making it past her armor to cut her face had enraged him, triggering the outburst. It had been a blur at th...