Melina
When she began to stir, she felt the uncomfortable grip of iron on her wrists. She tried to disperse but felt a rune beneath her pulse, forcing her to remain solid. Her amulet was missing, though her clothing seemed otherwise unmolested. She sighed in relief, not sensing any bruises either.
Looking about, she quickly noticed a few dead omen nearby. Seemingly cut down by a large blade as each was nearly biforcated. She was sat in a cell that opened up into a cavernous sewer where dripping water and fouler smells called home. Chains dangling from a few of the ceiling rafters and corpses littering a few of the other cells she could see like stockpiles of rotten food.
She felt her stomach twitch a little as the smells fully hit her nostrils, fighting down a retching gag that threatened to burst out. "Oh, what foul housings..." she mumbled, growing confused now as her mind woke further. Why were the guards dead?
She received an answer by the sound of metal crashing against metal as two collosal Omens, Morgott and Mohg, tore across the cavern ahead of her. "What in the name of Marika...?"
The battling was more than just violent. It almost felt hateful. Twin men of vast size, one with broken horms and ragged robes with a wooden cane. One with proudly gnarled and vast horns that covered his head and face, swathed in red, gold, and black robes that Melina recognized as belonging to the fabled Lord of Blood. A new cult that had sprung up.
"You dare!" She heard the angry voice of Morgott scream as a golden dagger formed and slashed across Mohg's face, "Kidnap one with my protection!"
Mohg only laughed, turning back and splashing his blood across the air as it turned to flames. Morgott retreated back, eyes widened in horror. The omen's voice was louder than Morgott's, yet somehow even more hoarse. "What terrible pact have you made?"
"Oh dear brother. Dearest brother Morgott." The omen spoke, slowly tapping his massive gilded trident that seemed to double as a gllden priest's staff. "I have merely begun!" As the air seemed to grow heavier, and the smell of blood grew heavier as the lights got dimmer.
"Madness... you truly have succumbed to madness!" Morgott resolved in a fury. Melina could hear, however, as much sorrow as there was rage in his words.
"Madness? No. No..." he slowly chuckled as a hand surged up, piercing seemingly nothing as blood dripped along a tear in space itself along his fingers. Warted, boney hands slowly ripped out a fistful of crimson flames that glowed with a hateful red before hurling them at Morgott. "I do all I do, for my Lord, and for the Formless Mother!" Laughing as Morgott raised his cloud, hissing in pain as the flames lapped at his flesh even through the thick fabric.
"Then you have truly been lost." A resolute and pained sentence as he slowly grips his staff tight with his hand. Slowly, the wooden pieces began to crumble and crack apart as shimmering crystallized blood shaped into a curved, long blade emerged. Seemingly hewed black with a shimmer that curled through it with various reflections of the light. "Let thy brother, then, be the one at last to lay thee to rest."
"Oh, you certainly may try!" As Mohg thrust his trident to the air, tearing another portal as bloody droplets of flaming blood began to pour all around like a rainstorm.
Morgott did not hesitate, stabbing his sword into the ground as bubbling pools of clean and seemingly golden tinted water began to form across the cavern floor. "Let thy sinful rebellion be put to rest!" As massive geysers of holy water surged and crashed against great mouts of burning blood while the two men rushed toward one another. Trident crashed against bloody blade as the two moved like a swirling storm of blood and golden light as Melina watched on, seemingly for the moment safe in her cell.
Mohg laughed as a splash of blood scorched Morgott's arm, trying to capitalize as he charged and stabbed with his trident at full speed. Morgott shifted once Mohg got closer from pain to focused as he slid slightly to the side while angeyser burst up beneath Mohg. "Die." Slashing from chest to back with the blade as the briefly stumbled Mohg coughed and stumbled slightly forward.
Morgott quietly squeezes his hilt, moving into an older stance once more as he places his blade back into a cane like hold. "Do you regret any of this?"
Mohg slowly fell to his knee, clutching the open seem in his torso. He began to cackle, however, held up by his trident alone. "No." As his laughter bubbled further, his body beginning to bloat.
Morgott lept right towards Melina as she sees the Lord of Blood glow and then explodes in a firestorm of ritual blood that burns every wall mearly to cinders.
After about a minute, she could hear her own heartbeat before remembering she sadly lacked one. Opening a nervous eye, she saw Morgott hunched over her, quietly shaking. She felt a click as the shackles on each wrist came undone.
"Morgott..." she whispered, quickly moving around him and looking at his back. She covered her mouth before quickly looking away. Nothing remained of the omen's ragged cloak, and half of his tail, too, had been burned away. His back was charred painfully, but thankfully, it did not seem fatal. Extremely painful, but not fatal.
"I simply... need some rest..." his voice in agony.
"What were you even doing down here?" She used placed a hand on his arm, supporting as she could as he began to hobble back out of the cell.
"A few of my men... mentioned you had come through here. You would only come through..." he stumbled to a knee, dropping his cane blade.
"M-morgott!" She knelt down, hand on his chest to try and help. "Breathe... you are very wounded."
"Tis but a scratch.." he chuckled but did seem touched by her concern. "Besides... this was not the last of my brother."
"But surely he could not survive such a grevious injury." She spoke, confusion filling her voice.
"Indeed... but that was a simple illusion."
"Just like your own, on the bridge.."
"And I suspect the true Mohg has grown far stronger."
"Then we... we will have to be ready."
"I do not think it will be our hands that lay down the new Lord of Blood."
Melina observed him for a moment, brow furrowed. "You... have considered my idea."
"There has been far too much war in the Lands Between. Too much..." she could feel the tiredness in his voice. "Perhaps... there is some merit.." he coughed haggardly.
"We can discuss this another time. Save your strength." She slowly aided him to his feet as she told him, and the omen slowly nodded. Both moved then in silence towards the throne room, passing through where they could not be seen in shadow, and others, with Morgott's authority.
They would discuss the details another time. For now, she would make sure the few apothecaries Morgott trusted tended to him. She would need to thank the guards who raised the alarm, however. She could not imagine what Mohg may have planned for her had she remained in that cell. She would rather not try, either.
.....
Marika
Clutching to her knight as Torrent galloped along the mirror like the surface of the water, she glanced to the side of them. Running alongside them on all fours was Blaidd, keeping pace with their spectral steed. She was glad, as the very sudden and loud shriek from above of the flying dragon made her clutch tight again.
It was massive, easily reaching around fourty metera from the tip of its maw to the end of its broad tail with blueish white scales and a craggy exterior. Twin horns that were twisted and warped with what looked like old crusted glintstone that also covered its long extended snout. Its arms and wings were a fused piece with thick and heavy wings that could likely match its body length twice over.
They had accidentally woken it up as they explored the vast lakeside surrounding the Academy, taking time to chart and catalog the various landmarks. She had noticed her knight had a love for cartography.
This did not seem like a reason the dragon would take for disturbing its nap.
"To the east!" Blaidd roared before dipping away as the knight shouted to Torrent and rushed toward the nearby cliff.
"Lead it to crash," she heard her knight chuckle, "Then cut it off." She could almost feel the smirk on her knight's face as the plan the two had formulated seemingly through pure instinct began to become clear to the gilded goddess.
Another loud shriek above before she turned and sat backward on Torrent. "You best not be making a fool out of us!" As she focused, then fired a tree of arrowed that hit the dragon in the snout. It did not seem all that pleased as it roared and dove down towards them. Another hundred meters to the cliff face, and it was gaining rapidly.
"Alright, you're up!" Her knight yelled.
"Up?" As she then felt the reigns for Torrent put in her hands. "WAIT -" before she could argue, her knight lept from the horseback and caught onto the lower jaw of the swooping dragon, flying up as it twisted and wriggled to dismount her as Marika could see her repeatedly stabbing its mouth as it did like a very angry bee. If the situation had not been so hazardous, she might have found it cute.
She gripped tight, "Hya!" Shouting to Torrent as the horse picked up speed. She looked up and noticed Blaidd just above the cliff, hammering his collosal blade over and over against an old, massive tree. She began to smile, realizing the full extent of their plan.
She took a breath and began to stand on top of Torrent. Shakey and wobbly, but stable enough as she ran a hand along her arrow, blessing it. "That's it, steady Torrent!" As she turned, tying a small rop to the base of the arrow before aiming. "Jump!" She shouted, and her knight instantly obeyed as she watched the glowing blade detach from its jaw. A moment later, a frosted pot exploded inside its mputh just as the knight lept off into a nearby tree that grew near the edges of the water.
She fired, landing the arrow right in its eye as the holy light first erupted and blinded it as it quickly lost control of its flight path. A couple seconds later, the fuse on the rope pot she had set ignited, bathing its entire face in thick oil before engulfing it in potent flames. It seemed to doubly hate this, starting to fall from the sky as it waved its head back and forth in rage and pain.
Marika grinned, leaping to mount Torrent properly again and directing him juzt out of the crashing path of the dragon as its body hit the thin watery surface and dug a long trench across it before ultimately smashing against the cliff wall. It flailed about, finally quenching the flames on its face as its body tore apart soil and rock alike with its angry twisting.
When it finally found proper footing, it turned with one clawed hand against the rockface as it turned towards Marika with its other eye. It glowed with a bristling of blue as its mouth exuded thin blue mist before thrusting its neck forward and unleashing a stream of magical flames that tore across the thin water and earth.
Yanking on Torrent's reigns, she quickly began to avoid the flames as it swept across the battlefield with its breath in an attempt to burn everything to dust. "If she can do it..." she mumbled to herself before leaping just as she dismissed Torrent, saving the spirit while barely avoiding the sweeping flames herself as she drew up her mace. "Foul beast!" Cracking her mace against its jaw while it was breathing, smashing its upper jaw down and into the ground. The brief snap of its jaw shut made the flames rapidly well, and then popped as it reared back with magical flames bursting from its snout and damaged eye.
"Good work!" She heard her knight shout, hearing her rapidly approaching footsteps.
"It isn't over yet!" She shouted, gripping her mace as the massive drake turned and stamped a back foot forward to try and crush the golden goddess. She dodged but failed to fully avoid the shockwave and got thrown back by the blow, landing painfully against a few rocks. It took a little to recover her senses, looking up just in time to see Blaidd riding the tree as it dropped to spear right into one of the dragon's wings before hacking the other with his sword while howling excitedly. It didn't cut all the way, but with one wing pinned and the other wounded, it was truly stuck.
"Hehe, ain't so tough now are we?" Blaidd lept down, landing beside the knight as she knelt down by Marika.
"Here," offering her hand, "are you alright?"
Marika blushed slightly. "Yes, just some bruises." As she took her hand, lifted back onto her feet.
"Good. Can't have you being as Tarnished as the rest of us now, Marissa" winking teasingly.
"Ohhh!" She shoved the knight, who laughed.
Blaidd chuckled. "Come on now, we can have our fancy of words once this is good and dead."
The two nodded, turning with Blaidd as the beast at last ripped its wing free of the fallen tree trunk. Angry and scared, Marika took a moment to think. She watched how it frantically snapped and bit at the very air, hurdled against the wall. It no longer resembled the noble beasts that had once ruled the lands between with a regal ferocity. It was a terrified, wounded animal now. Lost, confused, injured.
The sight stilled her fury. It didn't look like a monster seeking blood anymore. "Wait..."
Her knight stopped, turning to her. Blaidd was not so quick, rushing towards the beast as he laughed excitedly. She watched as the beastman lept up, barely avoiding the snapping jaw of the drake before sinking his blade into the top of its head and driving it down with a painful crash into the earth. It did not move again, slowly fading into the gilded dust of the deceased.
Marika watched, quietly staring at the beast's form as its remaining eye began to close, and wondered if that may have been her fate. How many lives had this beast claimed? How many caravans devoured? Yet, did that truly justify butchering it like an animal as they had?
Her knight seemed to sense her morale quandry, a hand softly rested atop hers that gripped onto her mace still. It did not give her answers, but it did offer a small comfort as she watched the last dustings of the creature fade away.