1) The Winds, also known as the Webs, are psychic currents that run across the Three Realms. (Also across Earth and it's space, though in a different pattern then in Terrielle, Kaeleer, and Hell). In the Three Realms, the Winds form a web that meets at Ebon Askavi, the Black Mountain. The lines strait out from the mountain are called tether lines, the lines between the tether lines are called radial lines. Blood who wear the Jewels can travel the Winds like a spider over a web, and use this to cross distances more quickly and with less problems then in normal travel.
There is a Web for each rank of the Jewels. The darker the Web, the more tether and radial lines there are, and the faster faster the Wind is. You can only travel on the Webs that are your Jewel rank or lighter. You can't ride a Web of darker rank unless you are being sheilded by someone who CAN ride that web, or are in a Winds Coach being driven by someone that can ride that Web. There are specific points, called Landings or Landing Webs, that are the official drop points. They are marked by pieces of clear Jewels, which act like a psychic beacon to everyone on the Webs. Thus far, this is the only use discovered for those clear pieces.
2) I didn't mention this before, but differnt races of humans have drasticly differnt life expectancies. For Halliyans and Eyriens, 17 centuries is considerd 'young' and 'in the prime of your life.' For others, they only live as long as us. For simplicities sake, all the races that I deal with will all be the very, very long lived ones. There are also differnces in coloring for various races. The most notable characterisitcs, however, are the fact that Eyriens have wings. For an image, picture bat wings. Big, black, webed. One other race has wings- the Jhinka. They are the mortal enemies of the Eyriens, don't wear Jewels, and are considered to be little more then barbarians.
3) Warlord Princes are dangerous, agrresive, edgy, protective of females and friends that they love, and are the type of males that most need contact with their Queen, or other dominat females in their life. They're considered laws to themselves, To sum up their mindset, I give you a quote from the series: "I'm an Ebon-Gray Warlord Prince. I can do anything I damn well want to." Please keep in mind that this was said AFTER threatening to cut off a man's hand.4) Next up: Psychic scent. What it really is is an indication of your presence, an echo of who you are and your feelings at any given time. If you stay in a room for more than a few minutes, or handle an object for a while, your psychic scent gets imprinted onto it. If you stay in that room almost constantly, keep the object with you 24-7, or experience very intense emotions in the room/with the object, the scent gets stronger. If you leave the room for a long time, or abandon the object, the scent gets harder to detect. Extreme emtions experienced there at a later date can cover up the original psychic scent, especially if the new ones are stronger than the old ones.
5) Tangled webs are what a Black Widow weaves to trap or fool the mind. They can induce nightmares, create illusions, hide certian selected things, supress someone's memory, create dreams, tear your mind apart, and many other things. The best known tangled web is one woven to see images of the future- but it's hard to interpret and apply to everyday life. Anyone CAN, in theory, get out of a tangled web that's trapping them, if they have the psychic strength to do so. But they need to first recognise that they're IN a web, and then they need to knowledge of how to fight it.
6) Last thing, I swear. Psychic threads. A psychic thread is a connection between two minds. Words, emtion, power, and knowledge can be sent along the bond. You can only send threads that are the level or your Jewel or lighter, and can't recieve any from a darker Jewel. Threads can be made open to all, narrowed down to one group, one gender, or one mind. If you wear a Jewel darker than the thread being sent, than you can 'listen in' without anyone being aware of it, so long as it's doesn't exclude your gender or mind. There's no limit to the distance that can be reached with this- though more distance does need more strength.
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Lucivar growled and shifted his wings. He and his half-brother Daemon had been waiting here for over an hour for the new group from Earth, stationed at the border to Askavi. Though they were the only two humans in attendance, various kindred were roaming the woods around them- providing another group of guards who were invisible to anyone who would be in the group that would be coming. A good portion of the Blood from inside Kaeleer didn't even believe in the kindred's existence- even less from either of the other Two Realms did. They had yet to meet a single person from Earth who even knew that the kindred might exist- let alone what they could actually do.
Deamon noticed his restlessness, but didn't comment on it. He was impatient, too- the delegation should have been here at least half and hour ago. They would have been worried, but every other group from Earth had been just as late on their first journey here. In every one, something always shocked the new group for some reason, or something had to be explained. "What do you think they ran into this time?"
Lucivar shrugged irritably. "Who knows? With the last batch it was the talking horses, the ones before that an Offering ceremony, before that a Black Widow coven..."
Daemon nodded absently, looking down the road. Something about this wait was making the hairs on the back of his neck lift.
:Help! Attackers! Come, now!:
Both Warlord Princes were up and running for the nearest Wind before the call from one of their kindred company had finished. The only people who would send attackers at a diplomatic party were Dorothea and Hekatah- real raiders would have gone looking for a richer prize.
The psychic alert had included the location of the crier, so there was no need to waste any time trying to probe and find where the battle was. A Black radial would bring them directly to the spot. When they reached the Winds, Deamon wrapped a Black shield around Lucivar, so they would both arrive at the fight as soon as possible.
But he had been raised around Dorothea's schemes- and he knew just how helpless people new to the Three Realms would be against the killers she would send. He didn't have much hope for them arriving in time to do any more than bury the remains.
(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)
KaeleerWhen they dropped from the Winds, the woods around them were eerily still. In front of them was an overturned coach, with baggage spilling out from its compartments. There were also five machines that they recognized as from Earth.
No one and nothing moved or made a sound around them- not the kindred, not any attackers, not even any screams for help.
Glancing over at Daemon, Lucivar called in his bladed war-stick, and watched at Daemon wrapped Black shields around himself. Nothing was going to get to him, now. Lucivar left off all his own shields but the one intended to deflect psychic attacks- nothing physical was going to be hitting him, anyway.
Moving with the ease of long practice and coordination, they slipped out and into the woods around the carriage, keeping mental contact through an Ebon-gray spear thread. :Find anything?: Lucivar sent after a minute of searching.
:No.:
Lucivar gritted his teeth to stop from spewing pithy phrases into the air around him. It wouldn't do any good, and might give away his position. But where were they? Even if the marauders had completely obliterated the diplomats, the kindred should have contacted them by now, and told them what had happened.
But Lucivar's gut feeling said that there would be remains. Lady Une had said that they were good- and he'd seen some of the Lady's status reports. Her group would not have gone down without a fight- and there should be signs of a fight.
He'd only seen battlegrounds like this when one group had so drastically outclassed the other that the only damage had been done to the people, with no traces being left behind.
Something teased at the back of his mind, an idea just out of reach.
(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)
KaeleerDaemon didn't even try to look for signs in the ground- he'd never been trained as a physical tracker. He let his senses slip out in probes, tasting for strong emotions, battle Craft, psychic shields, psychic scents... anything to indicate the presence of someone else.
Nothing.
Not even kindred.
Where were they? He'd helped to train some of them in fighting himself- they should have been able to hold their own against a marauder group for this long, at least. And there had been enough of them to fight for far longer than that.
What had happened?
The forest was still absolutely silent. No ambient noise from surrounding creatures, no leaves rustling from the breezes, nothing.
If anything, this lack of sound made him far uneasier than the lack of battle. The games Dorothea played might be vicious and subtle, but they were always detectable- if you knew how to find their marks.
He'd spent far too many centuries learning to do so.
About to step out onto the road, but something made him pause and look around again. There was something... off. Something that wasn't quite right. Something didn't ring true.
Daemon carefully extended all his senses, testing the air, again trying to find anything.
There wasn't anything there... there wasn't anything there. Daemon cursed, dropping his shield and racing back towards the road. :Prick!: he snarled :It's an illusion! Someone created a tangled web to trap anyone who came out of the Winds over the battle!: It was the silence that gave it away. It might look like a forest, and feel like a forest, but they were the only things in it. You couldn't weave psychic scents or animals into an illusion.
He felt his half-brother's fury pulsing back to him, but he ignored it as he reached the carriage again. He was now a fully trained Black Widow, and one of the most powerful in existence. No quickly created tangled trap would hold him and Lucivar for long.
He released his power into the web.
(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)
KaeleerLucivar knelt next to Daemon, who had collapsed just as he had burst out of the forest. :Bastard?: he called, using their Birthright Red. :What happened?:
:There was... more power... in that web then I thought there should be.:
:How much?:
:Enough to knock me on my ass once I cut out of it. Felt like a Red bearer made it- with another Red bearer helping her. I shielded before I cut it, but I wasn't expecting that much.:
Lucivar looked up- and realized that they were indeed out of the tangled web. He recognized the area- they were about 500 yards up the road from the spot there the battle was supposed to be taking place.
And now that he was out of the illusion, the psychic feelings of battle were flowing from around the bend in the road in a torrent that was impossible to ignore.
Daemon was struggling to get up beside him, but it was clear that he was in no condition to fight. "Stay down, idiot!" he snarled at him, getting up.
Daemon snarled right back.
Lucivar ignored his brother and ran for the fight ahead of him. Daemon wouldn't be able to reach it, not in that condition, but he would be able to put up shields to keep himself safe Only an idiot attacked a Black Jeweled Warlord Prince, even if he was slightly stunned.
When he rounded the bend in the road and actually saw the real battle ground, it was only a lifetime of training that had been pounded into his body- never freeze where you make a fucking good target- that kept him moving.
His mind certainly had nothing to do with it.
His mind was too gibbering with shock at what he was seeing ahead of him to actually try to do anything as complicated as coordinating his body.
The setting was the same- an overturned carriage, five Earth machines scattered around it, woods on either side of a dirt road. But this time, there were bodies.
They were lying in the ditches, sprawled in the road, and bits of limbs could be seen in the underbrush of the forest. Some had broken necks, some had slashed knife cuts, some wore sword gashes through their bellies, some looked like they'd been pierced by one small thing, and still others bore the claw and teeth marks of the kindred.
"Mother Night," breathed a voice beside him. Lucivar whirled, raising his weapon, before realizing that the speaker was Daemon.
"Hell's fire, Bastard!" he snarled. "What are you doing here? You should have stayed in the road!"
"I wasn't hurt or drained, Prick, just slightly stunned. Have you noticed?"
"That the only dead are bandits? Yes. So, where are-"
The feel of a cold steel blade against his throat stopped him from completing his sentence.
"So," a new voice drawled. "Would you be good witches, or bad witches?"
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A/N: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know I said that the G-boys would be in here (and they are, kinda), but I just couldn't fit it in. On the plus side, even without the notes at the beginning, this is the longest chapter in the story so far. Ummm... I swear by... by... by my Halloween candy that you will actually get to talk to and see the G-boys in the next chapter!
ChimeraDragon:
Well, as my only
reviewer of chapter 2, you get all my thanks for this one. I hope (if
you haven't read the trilogy) that you're not too confused, and if you
HAVE read the trilogy, I hope you like what I'm doing with it. It
really is a fun plot line to write. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
See yas later!