Fire Emblem On The Forums: Excalibur Arena [IC]

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

Chapter 1 Part 2: The Queen In Blue, The King in Red, The Knight In Black

This is a continuation of both Excalibur Infernus, and Excalibur Glacius.

 

9th of Second Heat

Rosanne and her group were the first to arrive at Swampmill, just an hour after midday through the west gate of the village. The previous day had been one of battle and then tending to the dead. They then turned in early, and spent the morning traveling. Swampmill could be called a traditional Marshlands village by every definition; it makes good use of the river ways and bogs of the land, the people are simple and solitary, and the whole place is humid and warm. The most defining feature of Swampmill isn't what you'd expect. No, it's not a mill it is a large fountain at the center surrounded by a moat. At the center of the fountain there is a statue dedicated to Lance Moss The Defender, a hero in the Marshlands for being one of the original defenders against the threat of the curse. 

 

"Well, here we are. I want you all to fan out the village, and find information about Lancelot The Black." Rosanne instructs, finding a seat on a nearby tree stump. "The Marshlands support the usurper, so avoid mentioning you are the Queen's men. I'll stay here, come and get me if anything happens or if you find any meaningful information on the knight. And of course, be prudent. We never know what might happen."

[RedMageCole]

Mercia was honored for a few reasons. Notably Rosanne's willingness to take her suggestion and try to do what they could for both sides; burn the corpses that had the poison, but give a proper burial to those who died. Mercia didn't mind the extra work; it helped ease her conscience about killing, and she started to finally feel confident that she was on the right side.

 

She had a feeling that maybe even one day, she'd be able to convince her sister of Rosanne's goodness.

 

Mercia looked significantly more determined as she walked to the Marshlands after a good night's rest, and listened attentively to Rosanne, nodding after her words.

 

"Understood, my lady. I'll do whatever I can to find information. I'll try scouring the perimeter of the fountain; it's large, but there's a good chance that people who respect Sir Lance's knightly virtues may know about Sir Lancelot as well."

[rustytengo]

"Umm...should I stay back here with you Lady Rosanna? Master Merlin told me that I should avoid these areas, since they don't really like those like me that well." Blodeuyn said fidgeting a bit on her feet. "I don't want to cause any trouble for you or the people here."  

[Aurorix]

Nicolos leads the way towards the town stopping on its outskirts turning back to the rest of the gang.

 

"Here we are everyone, Swampmill. Everyone fan out and search for information about Lancelot."

 

"I'm... just going to hang back for a bit. I always seem to draw a crowd in cities around for better or for worse. If anything happens or you find any good leads tell me right away, otherwise just be vigilant. There could be also be Pendragon supports in town as well so be mindful about telling folks you're with me." With that he pulled out a rather large tome and leaned against the trunk of a large tree. He flipped through the pages before stopping seemingly getting back to where he was before.

[Chevaleresse]

"Okay, Lady Roseanne! Are you sure you'll be okay by yourself? I can find you a centipede or something if you want." Really, Gwyn was more interested in the surrounding marshes than the town itself. It wasn't every day that you got to visit a swamp, after all. Gaheris made a sort of rumbling noise, and ponderously turned and began walking toward the village. "Gaheris can look for Lancelot, too." 

[rokubiraijuu]

Look for information about Lancelot, huh? Juliett casts her eye around at the town... a pretty modest, quiet place. She's not really a fan of the climate, but beggars can't be choosers. "Iba, if I leave you tied up somewhere out of sight to graze nicely, you won't make a scene, will you?" As much as she'd like her pegasus to accompany her as she looked around and give her a greater sense of safety, something like him would probably draw more attention than she'd like. In response, he snorts as if in derision, shaking his head restlessly.

 

"Well, you're just going to have to deal with it," she says tiredly, though not without a touch of fondness.

 

He has a grumpy look on his face the entire time she fastens him to a more out of the way spot near where Nicolos is reading. At least he'll be able to keep an eye on him, if anything happens. "Let me know if shit goes down, okay? Yeah, you'll probably tear your reins off if there really was action you were missing out on. Okay, behave yourself."

 

There's still the issue of heading into town by herself, though, something she's not too eager about. But she doesn't really know any of the others too well... oh, wait.

 

"Hey... Ari? Right?" It's thankfully not too hard to find him, and she pulls out the Fire tome she'd been safekeeping. "I picked this up during the fight yesterday. Nicolos said to give it to you."

[Blasbo]

Swampmill, hm...? Seems like a pretty nice place...she just hopes the tavern is just as nice. After all, she still fully intends on holding Nicolos to that promise of drinks later. She doesn't have as much problem going by herself to gather information--she's not exactly a stranger to brawling and, well, most of these people look like they can take care of themselves if they need to as well. So, giving a slight nod, she raises her hood again, enough to keep her face mostly covered.

"We'll meet back here after a while, then, I'm guessing? Don't worry, I won't get anything from the bar until we're all there--but once we are, it's fine if we use your tab, right?"

She doesn't actually give Nicolos much of a chance to respond to her little joke, walking off into the village shortly after. She strolls on through the little hamlet, trying to keep a low profile and looking around for anyone who might know something about Lancelot...

[RedMageCole]

Walking around the fountain was getting to be quite exhausting on Mercia's legs, and she found that she was... not the bravest when talking to people on her own. Usually she had backup or support to talk to people with, but this time it was... all on her own. Asking a question that could easily result in screwing everything up. A deep breath always came to Mercia as she started to approach someone... then she exhaled every time she walked past. A few times she passed people by through the fountain, before she stomped her foot.

 

Damn it, Mercia! Rosanne is counting on you; grow up and just talk to people! What are they gonna say, anyway? What's wrong with asking for Lancelot, just because they support that wretched man? They're not gonna know you work for Rosanne, so just stop being a coward and just go for it! The next person you see, you'd better ask!

 

Groaning, she took in another deep breath and sighed. From a distance away, she could spot someone in a green cloak. Alright... It was gonna have to be done. She already held herself to it, and she was not going to let the fact that she couldn't really see the person's face stop her. For all she knew, that person was gonna be that man... but it was gonna be fine. She had to stop worrying. She had only been in Rosanne's employ since a few days after she pulled out Excalibur, and never did anything properly outside with her. Even if it was him, nobody could possibly know she was working for Rosanne.

 

She took a few steps, before gently calling out.

 

"Excuse me...?" Mercia called, as she approached a little closer to the cloaked figure. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you might have some information on Lancelot the Black...?"

[Blasbo]

It's not too long before she comes to the center of the town, and...hm. That's actually a really nice fountain. She'll have to ask Nicolos about it later on...but, she's not really here right now to admire a statue, is she? She's here to ask about Lancelot, and so far not many of the people she's asked have had much of anything to say about him. Which...damn, that's a bummer. But before she can move on to question people in the square, she spots a face in the crowd. A familiar, blue face, one that wouldn't be out here if she had her way, one that would be safe and protected at home, like...like things used to be. But the Pendragons have never been in the business of letting nice things last, have they?

 

It's also a familiar face that's heading right this way. Fuck. Shit. Okay. If she's here then the Queen Bitch's forces probably aren't far behind so it's probably not smart to pull any funny business here. She doesn't want to deceive her--dammit, she's never wanted to hurt Mercia--but at this juncture she doesn't see much of a choice in the matter. ...Fuck, does it hurt, though.

"...W-Why--" Quickly, she clears her throat. "Why do you want to know?" She puts on...just about the deepest fake voice she can muster, and she hopes that's enough to keep Mercia from recognizing her right now. Because if she did recognize her right now there'd be a lot of uncomfortable questions.

[Sentient Bowtie]

 

It had been quite some time since Galen last set foot in Swampmill. When was it, again? He'd still been actively practicing magic at the time, so it had to have been at least a few months back... No, longer than that: a year, perhaps more. His family was decently-well known, if not well liked, in town. He supposed it was better than being an outcast, though at the same time he couldn't see himself running into anyone that might recognize him anyway. None of his old acquaintances would be in the area, nor would (as the sudden thought strikes him) Felicity. Galen chuckles at the thought of meeting his twin sister here, of all places, by sheer chance. Who could possibly imagine such a thing happening? Pure fantasy.

 

The mage leaves his hood down as he wanders through town in search of information on Lancelot. No matter how much time one spent in the wet airs of the Marshlands it never got any easier, and he was loathe to give the humidity something else to grasp onto and use to make him miserable. His distinctive fangs, normally a distinct sign of him being out of place in the other lands, should slip beneath the notice of anyone native to the area...

[RedMageCole]

Hm. That wasn't a response Mercia was prepared for. Rosanne's words echoed in her mind... She figured that made sense, not telling anyone who she was, especially since they mostly were in favor of that wretched man... but what could she say? She wasn't the best liar in the world. A pause came across her before she... decided that a half-truth wouldn't hurt.

 

"Um... I'm looking for him. I wanted to ask him about the Knights of the Round Table while I was passing through the area. There's one Knight I look up to that I wanted to ask him about, and I know he's supposed to have a knack for appearing when he is needed... while the Knight I look up to is elsewhere across the continent."

 

To be honest, while she did want to know more about Alexander the Dragon Prince, it was a pretty silly thing of her to say, but it wasn't entirely far from the truth; she did really want to ask Lancelot about Alexander when they met... but of course that was not nearly the full reason for why she was there. But they didn't need to know that.

[Pyon Pyon Kyuu!~]

"You'll be fine Blodeuyn, the people of the Marshlands are the most used to Cursed. You'll have nothing to worry about, they will treat you like they treat everyone else. However, if you want to stay with me that is fine too." Rosanne turned to Gwyn, at first oddly and then she smiled. "i'm quite alright Gwyn, I don't need a uuuh... Centipede. Thank you for offering though."

[Chevaleresse]

"More for me, then!" Gwyn cheerily walked off, headed.... directly into the swamp, until another low rumble from the wyvern corrected the half-fae's course. "Fiiine. I bet there's centipedes in town somewhere, too. You can look for Lancelot, so I'll have some to share with him by the time you find him, right?" Another rumble, and Gaheris nuzzled his rider with surprising gentleness for a giant antlered flying lizard. "Then it's a plan!"

 

The half-fae and the wyvern made their way into town without much further ado, despite Gwyn's frequent stops to rummage about for bugs or gawk at a strange bird. Neither of the pair seemed to notice the stares a Wildlands wyvern drew, what with the glittering translucent wings and the massive antlers adorning the wyvern's head. Eventually, though, Gwyn found themselves huddling closer to Gaheris; there were Cursed around, and they made the half-fae visibly nervous. There was no reason to be afraid, really; that guy with the fangs was probably perfectly nice, even if he had the power to kill all of his friends at home for real. . . Gwyn couldn't help but watch him like a nervous animal. 

[Blasbo]

Owena can read between the lines just a little bit--enough to suppose that if Mercia, a known agent of the monarchy, is looking for Lancelot then it's likely enough that the monarchy is looking for him too. And if they were looking for him, it wasn't just to chat him up about Alexander the Dragon Prince. She can't say for certain that Rosanne wants to find him for the same reason that they do, but either way this is worth reporting back to Nicolos about as soon as she can; the two outcomes she can see with Rosanne meeting up with Lancelot is him either deciding to become an agent of stagnation or being executed after refusing to bend the knee. It...it would probably hurt Mercia a lot if she figured out how they knew, but she just can't allow either of those two possibilities to come to pass.

 

Of course, to report to Nicolos she'd have to disengage with this conversation, which...well, she'll have to do her best.

"...Sorry, I don't know any more than you." She keeps her voice that same level of deep, shaking her head. "Sorry to ask unnecessary questions. There's rumor that the monarchy is interested in recruiting him or removing him if he won't be swayed...not everyone wants things to stay as they always have been. So you might get that question more than once."

Well, not exactly true, but...

[Sentient Bowtie]

"..."

 

The mage is stunned into silence. Here he is, wandering through the town fruitlessly asking passersby about Lancelot, when a... Galen didn't even know what to call it rounds the corner in front of him. Accompanied by a child--? He barely has the presence of mind to question that part of the situation, eyes utterly fixated on whatever the thing with them was. 

 

Gods, is that thing enormous.

 

He notices the child (who exactly was letting them run around with a gigantic beast like that?!) staring at him like they might bolt at any minute, and mundane confusion breaks through the whirlwind of questions in his mind. They seemed... almost afraid of him. Galen didn't have a clue why with such a beast at their side, but they were nervous all the same. Maybe he should say something, but what to say? He searches their face, then glances at the beast again. 

 

It had antlers.

 

...Why the hell did it have ANTLERS?

 

...Deer have antlers...

 

"...Is that your pet deer?" he blurts, after spending possibly the least amount amount of thought on the question that anyone had ever spent on anything.

[Chevaleresse]

Gwyn blinked. The question was enough to make Gwyn forget about their fear for the moment.

"What?" the half-fae asked blankly, seemingly as confused by the question as the stranger was confused by its subject. "Gaheris isn't my pet, he's my best friend! Well, one of my best friends. We go everywhere together. He likes tea." 

[Swordstar]

"Hmm? Ooo, cool thanks! Fire magic is pretty great, and it sucks to be stuck with just wind magic. It's way too weak, but most of my tricks aren't offensive stuff. So I'm stuck with these tomes. This'll be great!"

 

He grinned at her and then gestured at town.

 

"Wanna go see what we can find? Nickles will prolly get mad at me if I just stay behind to pester him, so maybe I can find some fun to have in town. You can do the asking, and I can see what else i can find!"

[rokubiraijuu]

Eyebrows lift, and Juliett has to suck in her lips a little to clamp down on the smile that appears. Nickles... 

 

"I'm glad someone's got a use for it."

 

She thinks briefly back to the day before and Nicolos' odd reaction to the tome. He'd seemed startled by it, or maybe put off, for some reason. She's not really that interested in knowing the reason — everyone's got stuff they'd rather not share — but she does wonder. Especially since it seemed like, as far as his sword was concerned, he was pretty comfortable with slinging fire around.

 

Although Ari is a little more exuberant than what she usually looks for in company, she's more glad to just not be going in alone, and for all his energy, he seems friendly enough.

 

"Haha, okay... just don't leave me high and dry, and we'll be good." Delineating the task of actually asking for information entirely to her sounds like exactly that, so she'll keep her expectations low. "What's the best way to go about this...? I mean, people'll get suspicious if we just start interviewing everyone on the street about Lancelot."

[Swordstar]

"Hmm... Ooo, we could pretend there's a big old bad monster outside! Like a dragon! Or, there was someone I knew once who had a magical wyvern. They were super cool but looked really scary. The wyvern I mean. Gwyn is... Well, Gwyn is Gwyn! But they're not scary. The wyvern is though! I bet we could pretend something like that was attacking! Or maybe we could pretend we had a message for Lancelot? Hmm... I don't know, usually my plans involve tricking people. I could try and illusion up a dragon, but that'd be hard to do something that big..."

[RedMageCole]

A slight twinge of disappointment hit Mercia, but she managed to shake it off easily; nobody said it was going to be easy and she would be able to locate Lancelot on her first try. Instead, she tried to keep a smile up.

 

"That's alright! I'm sorry to bother you..."

 

Mercia's smile did slowly fade over what the person said. Were the rumors really that bad? She wasn't going to actively try to dispel them, but...

 

"I... I see. It's okay, I don't blame you if you've heard those rumors..." Mercia paused for a bit, then decided to, while trying not to blow her cover, at least try to inquire a little bit about the rumor. "Forgive me for asking more questions, but is that a rumor that's been passed around a bit in this village? I've heard that the Marshlands support... Nicolos, right?... Do you support him as well?"

[rokubiraijuu]

Bless him, he was trying.

 

"Mm... I don't know, I don't want to sound some kind of village-wide alarm..." she replies dubiously, but gently. "If people actually tried to get together some kind of militia to fight off an imaginary threat, we'd end up with more on our hands than we bargained for."

 

She lets the little tangent about this 'Gwyn' person fall to the wayside. No idea who that was, but she wasn't going to ask.

 

"The message idea's nice, but I wonder if more nosy people would start asking us who we were and all that, then... and then we'd have to be careful about our story and who we're telling it to." Her mouth quirks thoughtfully and she rests the back of her hand against her lips in contemplation. "Hm..."

 

"Maybe we can pretend to be some people who need his help with a personal issue. He's a fabled knight, right? We can always say we're looking to find him because we want to learn from him, or something." She shrugs as though to say 'it's the best I got'.

[Swordstar]

"Ooo, that could work! You could act like you wanted to learn from him! You have a spear and everything, so it's clear you're a fighter. Maybe you're traveling to find different knights to learn from, or something like that. And I can be... Well..."

 

They frowned, thinking it over. Normally his solution would be to go invisible. But she'd asked him to not leave her alone... So that was out.

 

"Maybe I'm just your friend or something. Since he can't really teach me much since I use magic... Unless I pretend I want to learn how to use a sword or something."

[rokubiraijuu]

It's not as elaborate as a more thought-out plan, but... well, they said sometimes simple is best, right? Hopefully they wouldn't get unwanted questions.

 

"You can be moral support," she replies wryly, with a smile.

 

"Okay, so that sounds like a working plan." As they head into the village proper, she looks back over to him. "What else did you want to look at while we're here?"

[Blasbo]

Man, she has never wanted to get away from her sister and avoid answering her questions more than she does in this moment. She wanted to see Mercia again, yes, but...when it was all over, when someone who'd treat their people was on the throne, when they had options other than appealing to someone who had no history of or reason to be listening to a Dragonborn's appeals to not treat them like lessers. Not lying to her while she tries to do some shoddy intelligence work about one of the Knights of the Round Table. Why would they be willing to join with Rosanne, anyways...? Didn't they leave because the last Pendragon was an utter shithead?

"That's...a general sentiment around these parts, yes. The status quo hasn't been kind to many here, and a lot of people see Rosanne as representing more of that status quo. 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss'...as the saying goes. As for my opinions..."

She's silent for a few moments before deciding to be honest for once, a pained grimace coming over her face. "I just hope this whole thing is over soon."

[Swordstar]

"People! People are super interesting and also fun~ Besides, you guys are all like... Supporting Nickles in his big fight, right? So you gotta find out what the people think! Plus I can have fun with people~"