Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Assassin's Tale; Armory

Credits; Krell, Rea,

The palace was just as it had been when they'd left it yesterday morning four thousand years ago.  The mosaics were still intact, every tile still vivid and bright.  He could see that all of the armor and easily destroyed urns had been replaced by flower arrangements and statuary.  It was quite pretty.  Cyssie and Igor looked completely out of place here.  Even at their nicest they didn't look nearly nice enough to live in a palace like this.  Thalia had given her daughter a lot of freedom to be who she wanted to be, but she clearly had made the palace for someone of her sensibilities.  Cyssie and Igor would go back to the lab soon enough, but for today they were the King and Queen of all mad scientists. 
"The armory is up the hall that way.  We're going to tour the palace, it's been a long time since we've been up here.  God be with you both."
"And be careful, if you make it back alive I'm of a good mind to make the two of you the godparents."
"Thank you Cyssie, Igor.  For everything.  Krell?"
Krell waved as Cyssie and Igor walked off up the hall, lead and followed by a regiment of Gravagan courtiers, guards, and officials.  Rea tugged on his sleeve and pointed down the hall.  "We need to hurry, Petra could already be fighting.  All of the male armor is Hal's, take whatever works best for you."
"What about you?"
"I keep some armor here and there.  This is one of those heres'."

It was a long hall, plastered with purple warriors facing off against all manner of fierce monsters and even more fierce bands of heroes and adventurers.  Thalia had always been fairly dramatic, and she'd done a lot of work to make herself seem egotistical.  In fact judging primarily based on the things she kept around and let be written and recorded about her one would think she was insanely self centered.  But even here he could see the things she actually cared about.  There was a mosaic where she towered over an army of Gravagans, but every one of the soldiers had his own face and it was their order that was shown more than her authority.  On another wall she sat at the end of a table, in the center looking over on those gathered.  But he could recognize them by the backs of their heads; there was Tala of course, and across from her was Courtney in her black dress.  Arcania had her head down as she poked at a salad beside Sara, who raised a wing over her head.  And across from them was a sight he had to stop and laugh at.  A dark haired girl facing to her left where a young man in a priest's garb laughed over lasagna.  Thalia had every mosaic done in great detail, and she clearly was doing more than just placing a focus on herself.  It was a perfect record of everything that had happened in her lifetime to her or Gravaga. 

The armory was at the end of the hall.  Hal's armor was all on the left, and Krell quickly picked a composite mail with a particularly impressive pedigree.  Rea had gone off to the right and had presumably found her own armor.  Krell pulled it on and laced it up before looking around for a helmet.  There were far fewer to choose from.  Ultimately he settled on just not using a helmet.  It was too confusing and all of them restricted his vision.  He did however find a very nice set of metal plated boots and a set of mail backed gauntlets.  The set of enchantments all seemed geared towards fighting demons, or at least shades.  Lots of counter shadithic and protective enchantments; the sort of things that would let one resist corruption. 
"You ready yet?"
"Yes.  How about you?"  Krell stood up and spun towards Rea.  She'd switched out for pants and a shirt, with a composite breatplate and a set of greaves.  She still looked good, but in a much more prickly way than usual. 
"Not a chance.  I have no idea how Petra does this so often.  Demons are scary."
"I'm sure between the two of us it'll be fine."
"Krell you ignorant fool, I'd kill for your confidence."

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