A Royal Interlude

Of course, not everyone took Artorias up on his offer. Cousin Mylene was woefully ill-equipped for battle, and she immediately declared she'd stay in the balcony and seal the elevator down until the violence had subsided. Councilor Ivanovna was the same, as was Lady Ri. That meant their guardians stayed by their side, which was considered sufficient protection. Ancient wisdom said that three was the minimum number for a proper gank squad, which would be more than enough to slay most knights, especially if they were working together. Unfortunately, none of the knights had bows or crossbows with them, but they had the advantage of the elevator acting as a bottle neck.

The rest decided to join Artorias, for their own various reasons.

"Please don't come along," Artorias said to Miquella. "If anything happened to you, we'd all have to explain things to Malenia, and none of us want to do that."

"Definitely not."

"That woman is not normal!"

"Who?" a confused Prince Cezar said, turning towards his bodyguard, Dead Achmed. The skeleton warrior shrugged.

"Now, you all know you can't afford to turn down having a Light Magic wielder with you, Artorias," the other blond king proclaimed cheerfully. "After all, the grass jellies we're all carrying on our belts can only last so long."

Dame Maria coughed. "He is correct, your majesty. I will be too busy to heal you when I am acting as your sword, and as our primary DPS, you will be the priority of any we encounter. There is also not discounting the possibility that the Lord Presider gave orders as to your capture or death specifically."

Everyone stared at her.

"She has Dark Magic AND Light Magic?" Queen Siegmidala said. "I know I said the explanation could wait until later, but had better be a very good explanation, Artorias."

"And don't think I didn't see whatever loud tool she used to stagger her opponent," Miquella said.

"Do I ask you how that knife of yours that sends out blades of fire works, Miquella?"

"Now, cousins," Queen Xiulan said, "save your passion for dealing with the La Sablican forces." She had drawn her sword, with its bluish blade of alloyed crystal titanite, while her bodyguard merely flexed his massive knuckles in anticipation.

Said knuckles then helped the other knights drag the incinerated corpses of the La Sablican forces off the elevator platform. Some still burned, black flames with white edges, and everyone was careful not to get too close. After some argument, Po the Black picked up the discarded Hylian-style claymore and used it to impale the still-burning corpses—most had intact torsos—to drag them off the elevator, which was disgusting.

After a quick debate about whether the corpses should be secured—there was a small chance they'd come back to life, after all—there were left in a pile on the opposite end of the balcony from the elevator where the remaining knights could see them. While the La Sablicans coming back to life soon was extremely unlikely, if worse came to worse the three remaining could leave through the elevator.


Maria, Po the Black, Dame Finlay, Dead Achmed, and Dame Siegabe all descended on the elevator first. Dame Finlay and Dame Siegabe stood in front of where the elevator's entrance would be on the basis they were the ones wearing armor. Maria stood ready behind them, Consequence Rakuyo in twinblade configuration in one hand and a pistol in the other, while Dead Achmed stood partially crouched. At the very back was Po the Black, also partially crouched, eyes intent and determined.

The other knights glanced curiously at Maria's weapons, but made no comment. There would be fighting soon.

When the elevator reached the ground floor, they didn't wait. Dame Siegabe charged out first, her rotund armor serving as a boulder to force open a path, while Dame Finlay darted after her, acting as the Dragonslaying Captain to the Catarini's Bonecrushing Executioner. An unarmored nobleman in the middle of the screaming the La Sablicans' apparent battle cry was the first casualty as he was pushed over and trampled, and then the two knights were slamming into the backs of the line of men keeping people from the elevator and disrupting their formation.

The resulting fight was short and bloody as the La Sablicans found themselves suddenly under assault from both sides. Dead Achmed leapt gracefully into battle, spinning through the air in as he leapt over the back line of the La Sablicans and reformed in their midst, spinning and striking wildly as Maria and the other knights took them roughly from behind, swords thrusting again and again, even as the men were assaulted from the front by various nobles and knights wielding what few weapons they had and servants powerstancing daggers. Po the Black, lacking weapons, struck with fists and feat and bulbous stomach, the latter sending foes he struck with it flying, breaking the La Sablicans' formation as effectively as Dame Siegabe's charges.

It was a perfect gank, and the La Sablicans holding the line fell to it.

Only when they'd fallen and Maria had taken on a defensive stance as she scanned the faces of those the La Sablicans had been fighting did she have the opportunity to scan the ballroom.

It was chaos. The one saving grace was that it was easy to identify the La Sablicans from everyone else. Most of them were wearing armor that had been hastily—and badly—decorated to look like formal armor, all near-identical and decorated in the La Sable colors of red, black and blue. Fortunately, because of the circumstances of their 'disguises', the La Sablicans were armed with longswords at best and were facing resistance against people armed with slightly more variety. Bursts of wind, fire, water and small pieces of flying rocks also occurred as nobles remembered some of them had magic.

There were many bodies on the ground, clothes stained with blood. She was too far to asses their injuries, but she saw several heads separated from their bodies. Not an impossible bar to going beyond death, but it certainly made it difficult for many people. Here and there were islands of resistance as armed knights and nobles formed defensive lines of their own. Maria was fairly certain one of them would be centered around her squire.

The lull that followed was brief as those who had been attacking the La Sablicans keeping them from the elevator turned around to take their place as it's defenders as more La Sablicans attacked. A few were too slow to turn and fell as they were backstabbed, either dead or dying. The rest quicky found themselves embroiled in fighting once again.

Behind her, she heard the elevator begin to rise as Po the Black stepped on the protruding stone that activated the elevator and hastily vacated the platform before it took him with it. The King had stated his intention to incinerate anyone standing on the platform should it rise, in case it meant they had been overwhelmed and ganked in turn instead. The rotund Xiarmen man joined the defensive line, parrying swords with the backs of his bare hands and occasionally grabbing La Sablicans who had ventured too closely in a grab attack, using their very bodies as a colossal flailing club to strike down those trying to reach the elevator.

Maria wanted to plunge into that fight, but she wasn't just some hunter now. She was a Light Magic wielder. There were some things only she could do.

As the mix of nationalities, noble, knights and King's Blades fought to defend their monarchs, the La Sablicans wasting their breath with cries of 'For the glory of La Sable!', Maria did what she could to retrieve the fallen and keep them alive with light magic. Those who'd fallen wearing some kind of solid armor were lucky, as the plates had either protected their torsos from being crushed or at least distributed the weight enough to be survivable. She dragged them out by flopping and often broken limbs as they were trampled by friend and foe alike, and if they were lucky they were still alive enough for her to heal so they could healed more thoroughly later.

Those were the lucky ones. The rest… well. Inside of every was a fragment of the Dark Soul. As long as one had the will to live on, death was but a brief emptiness, or so it was said.

May they go beyond death…