Adrift: Raven's Wail

"To see such an amassed army go to war like that? nothing short of terrifying."

Anonymous report from the Vermilion Civil War.

Kids, these vile scum that dared face her were nothing but kids! Malphas could not, would not accept that these ingrate scum, her bloody son at that had DARED to raise their weapons at her! The betrayal by her husband! The Royal Knights at least had some sense to follow her. The good ones, at least, but her spy ring was being cut down so quickly that she couldn't replace them fast enough.

Kaine, Kaine Antewood, and his blasted domain over Chronomancy. Out of all the foes that whore had dug up from her icy hovel he was the worst so far, her son while a powerful mindtricker and soul mage could not even begin to understand how much of a powerful man Kaine was and...

Malphas felt her blood surge, her family had betrayed her! She would burn this country to the ground down to the very last soul! The Gods and their chosen! Everyone would be sent to the long queue!

Revenge, she would have her bloody revenge even if the very world cracked into two. The blasted whore yet lived in a crystal coffin somewhere and so did her disgrace of a friend who was blessed by the All-Father and had the nerve of taking her last son from her!

She beheld the slaughter of her troops and felt the heat of battle overtake her like a demonic possession. With a swipe of her hand, a sigil of hex-based divination flared upon the world. With that bloody spaceborne weapon they were using against her, Malphas found that most of her repertoire of Divination magics, even the ones that Divine Energy fueled, were not working properly.

Turning to the profane arts was not a hard switch, but the costs of it were steep as she felt another soul depart to the hells, doing the heavy lifting to power her Hex. Information flooded her mind, and she spotted the Silverbrand cur leading a charge, an easy target that she would delight in destroying. A smirk appeared on Malphas face "Ah, if there is one worthy fighter among those miscreants it would be you little Silverbrand, from a worthless dreg to true warrior and all it took was fucking the Whore"

Malphas filled her displacement spell with mana, time to put him down.

The second Hope saw Malphas's form, she was on the move. Air broke around her as she blasted her way into the mad Queen with a potent combination of movement-based spells and blessings from Gods related to speed.

Richard's entire body glowed as he went up a few meters off the ground and, with a powerful heave of force, came down like a meteor upon Malphas, his afterimage interposed within a series of slashes that came down at every angle. Malphas didn't even see Hope's mad dash as she slammed her Warhammer right into the Queen's chest.

"Damn y-" She began to scream before Vivienne warped in, clad in purple flame and screaming like a berserker from the north. A moon-shaped arc of energy flowed out of her sword as she swung downwards towards Malpha, who visibly cringed at the sight and found herself unable to dodge the attack. She screamed in outrage as the eldritch fire burned away the livery of her cape.

"Enough!" she screamed again, but her mouth clamped down unnaturally as Arthur made himself visible. His entire body was tinged by the red mist of the Rage as the man crushed a pebble within his palm and shadowy chains made out of fire clawed their way toward Malphas to bind her in place, Hope knew her beloved would be unleashing the mind attacks soon and she relished the pain he would dish out.

Saa'ryu appeared behind her back with wicked speed and fury, clawing into Malphas's back with her precision strikes before juking out the backhand strike the Queen unleashed in retaliatory anger. Then, the world turned into pure white as a draconic roar echoed right above them. Kallista swooped in her shadow, engulfing the battlefield as Malphas screamed once again, this time in legitimate pain, as even someone as strong as her could not keep up with the sheer onslaught of high-powered attacks that were being dished out.

A crunching sound echoed, and Kallista was in her humanoid form right on Malphas's left side. With a warcry, she decked the woman with a perfect haymaker and exploded into a series of jabs and straight punches before the same sound echoed again, and she went flying upwards. Richard went up to the skies as well, and more beams of light came down towards Malphas.

She kneeled as Arthur's mind powers brought her low, but not before locking eyes with Hop, who was running in for another blow with her weapon. Malphas let out a powerful wail, and Hope had just enough time to blink as a beam of red lightning the size of a big house flared toward her! Vivienne leaped into the way and held her sword like a shield, her flames eating at the attack.

"Do it!" Vivienne cried and Hope grunted as the fel forces of the Rage flowed into her body and soul. It sagged to her as she noticed that Arthur also had started using it to its maximum level. It didn't take much for her to figure out how to push her profane power out like Malphas had done, and so with a scream of her own that betrayed the powerful emotions beneath her skin. Hope let it loose.

The young woman could barely see as the full might of the beam attack flowed outside of her body, but she felt his presence as Kaine and Kaede warped at the very last second and also bombarded Malphas with a slew of Chronomantic and Gravitational spells, locked in place for but a second the mad woman could not dodge out of the way and for the very first time in this accursed battlefield she screamed in pain.

Kallista's shadow appeared as Richard and Arthur went for the kill. Richard's fist struck right at Malpha's chin while Arthur stabbed her heart, the Dragones' head snapped open, and with a howl of pain, Malpha's entire arm was eaten to the torso! "Hit the bastard with everything you got!" Kaede screamed from the skies as Kaine pointed his staff down, and a silvery light slashed into Malphas's back.

Everyone went in for the kill. Hope shrugged the fatigue off from having to discharge all of her unholy energies and rushed Malphas down. Vivienne and Richard both leaped off the way as she planted her Warhammer right at Malphas left knee, and the woman went down gurgling blood as a shadowy knife slashed her throat.

"For Lucrezia!" snarled Saa'ryu as she leaped off.

Malphas coughed up blood as she took a knee in front of Hope. "You don't have the stones to kill me! You little strumpet! Why don't you run off to your dead wh-" Hope screamed and the world froze as the full might of the the Mad God filled her with enough power to kill a divine, with a grunt of sheer power she raised the Warhammer up and with another scream brought the weapon down right at Malphas's head.

A sickening crunch was heard all over the battlefield, the weapon went through Malphas's head, then neck and chest only stopping below the ribs as Hope's screams of rage and fury echoed alongside it "Die!" with enough power to kill a lesser being with words alone Hope hammered the body again until all that was left was a bloody mess.

Which was quickly put on fire by Kaine with magic.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Arthur rushed to Hope as she kneeled and cried, "It's over, my love. It is finally over, and we won! We have avenged Lucrezia and saved the Kingdom from further bloodshed." He nodded to Richard, who strode forth and placed a hand on Hope's shoulder. "And now we save her." He looked around as his comrades stared at him with equal parts hope and dread.

"We, all of us who have a deep tie to her, we will save her."

For two weeks, King Jason watched as within two weeks, the entire Warmachine that had torn through his Kingdom as a jagged blade morphed into the biggest reconstruction effort he had seen yet.

Even the Thrice damned Grannarius forces had joined into the effort. Forces from as far as the Shogunate and the denizens of the cold watery depths from the north came forth under the leadership of the Duke-in-Waiting of Wulfgrem. Jason's mind went back to the day after the battle against his foolish wife. The young man looked devastated, and the weight of responsibility weighed on him like the palm of a giant.

The Arch-Duke's family was already helping the young lad in getting acclimated to his new title and the arduous work that it entailed. But the King would not be so callous as to ignore him, and as soon as his Wife's remains were purified and then burned, he was on the job, trying to mitigate as much as possible to get the Kingdom up and running again with Richard.

It was his son Arthur who came in clutch in these hectic days. Together with Hope and the rest of the crew whom he had personally been calling the "Lucrezia's People" for a while, who ensured a level of diplomatic cooperation, he was amazed by. Once, the rivalry and frosty relations the Kingdom had with the other powers of the world were all smoothed by the Blinding Light that was Hope's powers. Or when that failed, intimidated by Kaine and Vivienne.

Arthur had told him that they were waiting for something to happen with Dragoness of the north so they could proceed with Lucrezia's healing, according to him it would take the involvement of the Gods for it to happen and that confirmed a theory Jason'n network of spies and Formal Inteligence had put out days before the war broke out. Someone up high in the Divine Hierarchy had meddled with Lucrezia, and all of this madness that followed.

One operative of his believed it was the very face of the reconstruction efforts that had pulled this monumental ploy. God Ra'Tyrius and his Wife Goddess Wynnur: Of course, no amount of mortal information gathering would put the second entity in any of the reports, but the King had his people up in the Golden City. The delays in getting Lucrezia healed and the involvement of a draconic entity outright confirmed one of his theories.

Involvement from the outer reaches of reality, that and the fact Lady Vivienne was using an artifact blessed by the blasted forces and not being censured over it, not to mention her brand of magic that was witnessed by several high and low-level individuals, and censoring them was a fool's errand. If the All-Father wished to open his metaphysical borders as all of this seemed to imply, He wouldn't be the one to say no.

"One must pick his battles wisely," King Jason said to himself as he sighed. Dealing with the aftermath of his Wife's foolish actions would be his legacy, not to mention the personal and emotional side of this mess that he confined only to his children. But he would do it. Divines, as his witnesses, would drag his kingdom from this pitiful quagmire and rebuild it stronger and better than before.

His son would not inherit a legacy of shame, nor would his daughter.

"You have just enough time to explain to me and the others what in Father's name happened down there, or so help me I will summon His chosen up here myself, flesh and all, and have her tear you into divine flesh!" Saal'Xhir spoke with barely constrained wrath that kept the Divine from fully shouting. These past few weeks were not easy on what was now called the Lucrezian Coalition, and one Divine in particular was feeling the brunt of their wrath.

Morugarius pinched the nose of her bridge again as she sighed, this...all of this thrice damned mess was seriously starting to anger her and she felt deep within her immortal soul the rage of a Entity made for war. Even if she focused on strategy and such.

"Peace! Threats will do you no good here, even if you have that particular mortal at your back and call sister." Morugarius raised her hand as a gesture of peacekeeping. The other entities tied to Lucrezia and her people stood a bit behind, watching her. Their faces were composed masks of neutrality as Saal'Xhir huffed in outrage. "As I have already said and shown. Neither I nor my Wife had any dealings with Malphas or the mortals who managed to wound Lucrezia" Morugarius waved her hand as a panel of silvery light showed the particular scene where Lucrezia was struck "As you can also see in the evidence I've provided already these two foolish mortals were in cahoots with powers from beyond our reality, something your people have being doing so brazenly I've had complains from numerous entities and mortals alike mind you" Morugarius was going to say more before the Goddess of Vengance spoke.

"Not our concern, not the topic of this meeting, and All-Father himself sanctioned it already." She tapped air as feathers appeared. "My avatars tell me your secret forces were deployed to multiple battlefields when their civil war was raging down in the mortal realm, and yet none were on the battlefields. Explain." Morugarius sighed again as she went on for hours upon hours trying to halt their fever.

It was not fun, she thought to herself, being this scrutinized, and yet she did it all the same because she would not allow her beloved to be slandered for something she did not commit. Morugarius fought tooth and nail for the innocence of her woman, and in the end, she managed to eke out a victory somehow. Still, she was called by her Father and Mother and put through yet another round of interrogations.

But this time, that mortal was there.

Hope was in full armor and brimming with power; the spear gifted by the Hivemind hummed with unholy power meant to kill Divines, and Morugarius knew the woman was angry. That led to quite a few harrowing moments within the chamber, but she still prevailed. For all the sins her beloved had committed (too many to count), Morugarius would not leave her to the wolves at their door, even if the All-Father himself came for her...

When she reached her residence within the realm of the gods, she caught herself reflecting on that line of thought. It took ages, but she finally understood how her older brother felt. It was a sobering thought that shook her core; at that moment, she had betrayed her Father's trust just as Augurius had done, even if for a second. Morugarius wondered what would happen to Lucrezia, the harbinger of such monumental change, who was now in stasis within her cold coffin.

And then she discarded that thought, lest she find herself at the business end of Hope's spear.

An infinite expanse greeted her as screams echoed inside her mind, dark and grey, fog and rain; it was all a muddled heap of shapes and half-formed ghosts that whispered something to her as she walked forward. Fear was ever a companion as she waded through the fog into muddy slopes, being hammered by a rain so strong she could see the sheets hitting the reddish rock beneath her bare feet. Something was wrong, and she could feel it.

Hollowness crept within her slender frame, a lack of something... important and dear to her heart, whispers and murmurs of a bond forged in unholy fire and trust that nothing could break, yet broken it was, and now she felt akin to a newborn babe abandoned by her mother. The cold rain was akin to the unwelcoming ground of the forest that would soon mark the spot of her grave.

Something pulled, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt a pain so great she wanted to scream, and so she did as the pain tore her from inside out! Screaming turned into whimpering and crying, and then there was nothing. She weakly raised her head and saw what looked like a road of packed earth guiding her into somewhere...somewhere she once knew.

Noise exploded around her as the terrain shifted into vast fields of shrub-like plants, terrifying machines of metal and smoke hurling about as shades screamed around her form, fighting an invisible battle to her eyes. Yet the noise and the smells were very much real, and she found herself ducking and dodging mad charges by shades on both sides, falling shadows from the cloudy skies, and the blocky machines who would turn into shade-like beings the more she stared at them.

An insurmountable amount of time passed as she braved the battlefield and crossed something akin to a slow river, finding paved stone and fancy signs all over her view. The architecture shifted to show a grand set of stone and concrete buildings in rows that stretched to the horizon, empty streets and lampposts guiding her towards a particular place in this realm, somewhere close...

Laughter filled the winds around her, familiar yet unfamiliar. Cold and warm with something alien to herself that she could not figure out why or how, trying to appease these questions while she stood facing the path was not going to work, she thought to herself. It was time to face whatever secrets this place wished to tell her, or failing that, finding out who she was and what she was doing here.

"Time to face the music," she spoke to the shades and whispers, and this time they dared not reply.