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#and the future of Exandria
quiddie · 2 years
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Okay, I see a lot of people talking about Laerryn’s work in terms of the spell Plane Shift. Now I know that’s ultimately my fault because of how I spoke about the remains of the solar bow, but that isn’t what she’s attempting.
Now let me say all this with the grain of salt that I’m not trying to remove all blame from LCS - I know who she is and what I built into her and what she’s capable of and willing to do - but I do think it’s inaccurate to call her uncaring (in terms of the citizens of Avalir) and despotic in her single-mindedness.
First, the Astral Leywright. Simply put, it builds a new leyline road through other planes. Now, Laerryn runs and maintains the engines & batteries, but she doesn’t steer the city. That’s Helmswoman Akami Rowe’s job. That’s the Navigator’s Guild’s choice. *That* is why LCS thinks of it as a gift to the city and to history - it’s an opportunity, not an obligation (or worse, a coercion like Plane Shift would be.) Yes, she’s taken a lion’s share of the energy stored for this Replenishment - but just this once (and what are 7 years to an elf, really?) and the thing she gives back is a new leyline that goes not North or East or South but OUT. (And the solar bow’s planar attunement was primarily to help the AL know the directionality of building a leyline in a new axis.) And Avalir could (not MUST) use it. Anyone can use it.
And sure, maybe the Septarion and the citizens will be too confused or scared to use it at first but that’s fine - the point wasn’t that we have to go NOW, only that this was her one chance to make the leyline at ALL (or at least until the next apogee solstice). So her thought is that the city doesn’t have to understand right now, but eventually they’ll get it and history will remember her fondly for making the road to the next big discoveries a little easier.
Keep in mind, Laerryn is one of the smartest people in the city (e1 “often the most cerebral”) that took a vital but understated job (e1 “no one understands exactly what you do to ask you for anything”) with no laurels attached (e2 her envy when walking through the Magisterium and seeing the resources allocated on their behalf vs. the Court of Workings) so if she wanted glory she could just pick a different job and immediately get the praise her talents would garner. Instead, she dedicated her life to quietly and dutifully protecting the Heart of Avalir, and expanding on the city’s mission statement (travel the leylines collecting knowledge and magic to share with the world).
With all that said, please continue raging at Laerryn’s choices because that’s fun and good and fine and honestly I love watching it. I just wanted to clear up that one fuzzy area.
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willowbirds · 2 months
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When C3 is done, do you think Reilorans will end up like Aeormatons?
By that I mean do you think they will be unlocked as playable races in Exandria?
Because if they do, there better be a Reilora PC in a future CR project!
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artbykhuggs · 2 years
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Race Against The Dawn
EXU Calamity was truly a heartbreaking and incredible piece of storytelling to experience. It’s been on my mind for weeks now, so please enjoy my first-ever piece of CR fanart, featuring Zerxus and Tempus.
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beauregardlionett · 5 months
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fearne is girl-bossing her way through the campaign and we love this for her
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Propaganda under the cut.
Yuno Gasai was submitted without propaganda.
Laerynn Coramar-Seelie:
She helped keep a magic floating city in the sky while building a machine to move said city across planes- all while trying to ignore her ex-husband. also both kinda causes the apocalypse but also prevents a huge chunk of existence from being wiped out due to the apocalypse
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ghostofwhitestone · 2 years
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A few decades after the end of the world, Maya Agrupnin pulled her father aside for a talk.
She’d just become a parent herself, a beautiful little girl with feathers a radiant golden white that brought a little more light to all of their lives. And yet, there was an odd look on her face, one that seemed to deepen when she glanced to her deeply proud father.
Her face worried him the second they stepped into a side room.
“Is everything okay? What did you need to… Maya..?” She puffed her feathers as her father spoke, her eyes distant.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about… About Avalir, lately.” Cerrit straightened, resting a hand on her shoulder.
“Okay…” his tone was dark, though a touch curious.
“Dad, I’ve known Bella for a few days, and I already…” her voice broke, “I already can’t imagine going far from her, and you…” without warning, she wrapped her arms around her father, her wings clumsily going with them. “Dad, I’m so sorry.”
“For what? I don’t…”
“I can’t imagine what you were thinking when you sent us away, but…” her eyes casted back toward the sound of a baby cooing, “Now? Now I can put myself there, and I… Dad that was bravery I could never show.” Cerrit began to slightly tear up, a firm lump forming in his throat. “I’m so sorry you had to do that, but I’m so thankful you did. I just… I needed to say it.”
Cerrit cleared his throat tearfully.
“You didn’t ever need to say a thing, Maya,” he said soothingly, “Every day after that one I spent with you and your brother was all of the thanks I needed.” Maya smiled, leaning into his shoulder for a moment.
“Still,” she whispered, “It’s been on my mind.” Cerrit smiled softly.
“That’s understandable,” he mused, “But you know what that tells me?” Maya raised her eyebrow.
“What?”
Cerrit opened the door to leave, facing her as he spoke one last time.
“You’re gonna be a great mom.”
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staticrevelations · 8 months
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becoming more and more convinced that Predathos has corrupted or made some kind of pact with Ludinus the way Vespin did with Asmodeus and that Predathos corrupts those connected to Ruidus like Lilliana and we're effectively heading towards a potential second mini-Calamity
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"#this expectation of CR to make a statement is *SO* wild"
is it. I mean everyone else is battening down the hatches and preparing for a lawsuit. It makes their silence telling that CR probably got good preferential treatment out of the new OGL so they're gonna side with daddy WOTC.
Mercer's no better than a scab worker if he sticks with WOTC at this point.
Jesus Christ some of y'all have absolute brain worms over this shit.
Why the hell would they need to prepare a lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast and "batten down the hatches"?
As a company, they are in an entirely different place with any possible OGL changes than Paizo or Green Ronin or Kobold Press or any of the other handful of companies that'd be heavily impacted by a change.
Critical Role, as a company, is not built upon the sale of supplement books, systems, or anything else that'd be affected by the Open Game License changing.
They have exactly one book, Tal'Dorei Reborn, that'd be affected by any OGL changes. They do no have these decades of game systems created via this license to worry about.
So yeah, they have absolutely no reason to release a statement about any possible changes Wizards of the Coast might make to the Open Game License, especially if nothing has been officially released. They do not need to release a statement about every single thing that happens in the ttrpg space.
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breathalyzerfail · 10 months
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I’m imagining the Cerberus Assembly trading cards are less like baseball cards and more like K-pop photocards …
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annamaggs16 · 1 year
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Not to be Evon Hytroga or whatever but……
This episode (39) was so weird characterization wise. It helped cement so many feelings about the C3 characters and Bells Hells in general. For me, and this is from my own personal viewing and interpretations, opinions, and all that stuff, Bells Hells are collectively my least favorite because they don’t feel genuine for me.
I know the cast didn’t want to be secretive like Mighty Nein and take a hundred episodes to reveal backstory, but I’ve always found it so weird how all these individuals after a few days of hanging out and fighting things started spilling the deepest parts of their souls to one another, revealing some insane backstory. FCG used some of it against them when they went Murderbot, and the characters/cast? seem to be annoyed when others don’t cough up information like Ashton about Hexum and his parents, or Chetney with magic items and most recently the letters. Just seems like there’s a lot less patience this campaign, like they’re rushing to build character relationships…without actually building those key moments for a solid, healthy friendship. And not just character bonds, but are rushing in general towards something that’s taking forever to get to.
Just look at what happened to Fearne. We spent episodes waiting for this big reunion for her and her mom only for the Hells to make all about themselves and their trauma, and no one apologized for doing so. They even made accusations at both mom and dad, went into their minds, and hurt them: Ashton beat up Birdie at Joe’s, and Imogen made Oleander’s brain bleed. You can be upset about being abandoned by your own parents but to physically bring harm to someone else’s when you don’t even have the full story yet just goes to show they have issues they’re knowingly endangering everyone with.
I’ve already talked about Bells Hells tendency to jump straight towards violence and murder, so I’m not going to repeat myself again. However, I will bring up the fact about how willing they are to turn on each other. FCG started as an accident with Chetney causing initiative, but they all (pardon Ashton and Orym) went right to attacking causing serious damage. And with Chetney under Rudius flare, Orym was well aware he wasn’t himself, but was still trying to knock him out, going from doing intentional damage to just trying to make him fall unconscious with Fearne more so trying to reach his mind. It makes me wonder if Chet got super lucky with it being Orym and Fearne, and what the others would’ve done considering Taliesin very much seemed disappointed?? that no one else was hearing or alerted by the combat to join in. Imogen’s already stated she’d hurt whoever, as has Laudna. So everyone is basically ready to go and no one is really trying to fix that friction.
Then we come to the topic everyone wants: Laudna’s post-resurrection. I’m baffled. From someone saying it’s your choice to come back and that you love them, the way Imogen treats Laudna like she’s an afterthought annoys the hell out of me. She’d rather have a nice dream eating cookies with her in a hut than actually talk to her when she’s back alive. Let’s not forget that Laudna was obviously disturbed with hearing how her body was treated when she was dead and wanted direct answers and neither Imogen or Ashton really gave her them other than they wrapped her up with respect. And her magic items are now just everyone else’s? Are you serious? More commotion was made about Turmoil and whether Ashton or Chet should get it and what to do about sharing, but no one who has Laudna’s magic items genuinely tried to give them back. They asked once and were like “okay, it’s mine now✌️” and went on about their day. Fearne!!! tried to give her a necklace and dolls that weren’t even real with more effort than FCG and Imogen giving her the items back. Like there’s no real care about her. You can ask how she’s doing and accept the first reply whether it’s honesty or lies all you want, but the fact that y’all know she had her shit taken from her, her parents, her home, her life, her identity, and not even ask genuinely or even force her like “no, no, take it back, it’s yours. I was only holding on for you to have it again.” And I’m so glad they asked about which name to use since Laudna herself didn’t even tell them about the name Matilda, it was revealed by someone else without her permission. But it really feels like they dissed her so much this episode by doing the bare minimum in checking in.
And the missed opportunity on downtime. They literally wasted so much time about which route to take and debating about staying the night adding another day just for it basically to not matter now. Short cut would’ve clipped 3 days, everyone was ready to leave on a questionable airship when even the captain was iffy about it and Orym was the only one picking up on that. The fact they were so willing to miss out on diamonds, diamonds for Revivify specifically to not have to stay a day only to end up staying a day for repairs and a ruby was so odd, especially when they could’ve stated since they were getting the Ruby and Coin they might as well get the other diamonds and give the crew more time for repairs instead of rushing away. I know they don’t think much can happen during travel days in the air, but did they completely forget that just a few days ago they were paranoid as hell about Paragon’s Call having an airship of their own?? So now they only have 1 diamond, a ruby personally for Imogen, a weird coin personally for FCG, meanwhile Orym is still fighting with a basic sword and he can’t even benefit from Turmoil because it’s not finesse and he has no strength for weapon fighting. They had time to look about the city for these things but decided not too, they could’ve asked Sheshadri for some aid in advance since they were cleared as suspects. But they didn’t. So that added 1 day, and then the fail with the storm added another day, and if they plan to stop in with the werewolves and take longer than a day, it’s going to bring them to the exact time they were trying to cut down. And it’s not like they have anything to show for it, not yet at least.
These characters just don’t feel like people, they feel like plot devices forcing a story to happen rather than letting it unravel and investigating it naturally.
Chetney is sus as hell still. He’s ready for intense fight and flirts so hard and openly and gives gifts for payment but definitely feels like there’s some darker alternative motive with how he handled Yu and his whole blood hunter stuff and him basically living on the run. I just don’t see why he’s still around. Found Gurge, made all payments, the only benefit is that he gets to the werewolves and learns restraint and control. But there’s a serious issue with how. I don’t see why thematically speaking that wouldn’t require him to stay with the werewolves and take several weeks to do so, which would put him out of the apogee solstice stuff. He can’t just learn control in a day with a magic potion or item, so i feel like if there’s any time for him to tap out, it would be then. Either learn control, or take the cure. Because if he doesn’t do either of those, how comfortable are they going to be with him and these flares if he can’t control himself and is willingly putting them all in danger even if they do chain him up Teen Wolf style every full moon/Flare cycle? Thematically speaking, story wise, why would you want that big, could be very bad, wolf problem that could happen literally any night and is only going to get worse as he gets stronger. And if he does decide to take the cure, then he’ll have all new abilities to figure out which may also be safer to do by himself. The choices being made by this character are just so fascinating but make no sense in the realism of Exandria.
Laudna is letting herself be run over by others. She stood up more for Imogen in the beginning than she ever has for herself, almost living vicariously through her and invalidating her own self worth compared to others. Her friendship, while I know a lot of people want a canon romantic relationship between her and Imogen, it feels one sided and borderline unhealthy for her. Look at the “You lied” drama. Imogen was so quick to blame her and not listen, only for a few days later for them to be like “that totally didn’t happen hehe hi✨” they just don’t address their issues and I feel like Laudna is just accepting the way Imogen reacts and behaves with her in fear of losing the first person who didn’t throw anything at her on sight.
FCG just feels like a side support character. Still don’t understand why they willingly take people’s pain or how they feel about doing so. We know they’re curious about gods and doing good and seems like they want to genuinely help and does so with the Hells, the real testament is how they act with NPCs and this one seems to have the most basic respect and self conscious awareness with how they present and behave.
Fearne, yeah she’s fun and fey and steals but I don’t feel like there’s been a lot of moments for her to truly show who see is. One moment that this happened was when she Revivified Orym and was on the brink of tears. That was her best moment. She lost out on her parents because the other Hells took control of the situation, forcing her hand. Her wanting to give Laudna gifts or part of herself back to her might be guilt or gratification that she’s back. Either way, they haven’t really talked about much other than being witches. She still very much only seems to have an authentic connection with Orym to me with the rest being fluffy funniness by Ashley. Like Sam said, “revive Orym or the one that makes us all laugh.”
People will probably hate and disagree about this but Imogen’s so fake for me. There’s such a layer of fake masquerade presentation she has about herself about being this victim to her powers and society when she’s taken ZERO initiative to find out about them until it literally drove her dad away and rumors started up about her. FCG calling her out on her coldness isn’t surprising because I definitely feel like she’s colder and almost a different person than what we started off with and whether or not it has something to do with the shade mother rock or the gnarlrocks I wouldn’t be surprised. But there’s just something about the way she claims to care about people but then goes around saying she’d hurt any of them, and literally goes gun blazing in combat all the time now. She feels like that toxic person that clearly has a lot of internal problems going on and instead of getting actual help goes to their friends for advice and inadvertently drags them down into their bullshit getting them hurt. And she’s taken, once again, no initiative to do anything about that, she hasn’t tried to learn control over her powers as it’s a clear danger to all of them, and she hasn’t really checked in with the fact that Ashton, Chetney, Fearne, Orym, and Laudna all went down in that fight against Thull and is now racing towards another one with very little regard about their lives. And she blew up a city but isn’t concerned about all those lives potentially effected. I’m pretty sure Imogen has the most magic items to enhance her powers but if you have all your eggs in one basket…what do you think is going to happen when you drop it? And it’s still so weird Orym sees her as a leader type and Ashton refers to her as a friendly face to the public. She’s barely holding it together and I have a bad feeling that it’s going to hurt all the Hells, just solidifying even more about how much they don’t really know about one another and are putting up with everyone’s falsities for mere convenience. 
Orym got talked over so bad this episode. Boy was really trying to put some rational thinking in this group and no one listened until he proposed a deal where they benefited with a bare minimum addition of a Ruby. This isn’t the first time. The museum where they burned the Verdict he was upset about, having to fight Yu’s attackers Liam doesn’t say anything but he physically acts out Orym’s remorse with having to attack them, when he tried to talk real deal about a plan for infiltrating the Disdain and everyone made it a joke and thus he died along with others, his interrogation with Treshi showed he too is holding a lot of frustration in, and tonight it showed again with being against running back into the fight and taking the airship out again without taking a day or two to regather themselves. He puts up with so much but I think because he’s used to his opinion not mattering in the realm of Vox Machina level company of politicians and leaders, he doesn’t feel like he’s in the right to voice his concerns to these strangers of about a month now. He could with Dorian and Fearne, but since Dorian’s departure Orym voicing himself has gotten less and less except for when he goes lecture mode on them. At the end of the day, the man has a mission to report back on and is like the only one of them willingly talking about their past and backstory now to everyone. He still has Fearne as his best girly, but he seems to be the only one looking out for the group’s interest and common sense safety since they don’t have any. He also seems to have the most morals and mortality of the group, showing how he feels about not just their “enemies/opponents” but also about their own actions they commit to others and themselves.
Ashton’s the type of kid you can’t force into change. At some point you just have to stop trying and let them either drown or reach out and the Hells don’t understand this and might be causing some frustrations. If anyone’s had that “I’m emotionally tough, I can handle everything” type of friend then you’d know what I mean. The one who is in AP classes and has three finals on Friday and clearly sleep deprived, also having to do most of the group project by themselves while studying. Yeah. He’s one of those. Ashton seems to bare the weight of so much shit but is just SO unwilling to talk about it or ask for help, that in all honesty I feel like they’d know more about them if they didn’t push so soon. Tal/Ashton invented wtfiuwt for a reason in game, Ashton clearly has a purpose for it but they’ve only done it once and that was without Chetney. He invented a game to force people to be honest about their emotions and their shit. That’s a cry for help. The way FCG found out about his pain by being him and then didn’t really talk about it much afterwards feels like a missed opportunity to explain why he’d be so willing to fight for these people while enduring all that and even more during combat. And how on the latest 4SD it’s like we got more information about his lineage outside of game than actually exploring it in game. Like with all of these conversations Ashton apparently wants to have with Laudna but barely interacted with her at all this go around over multiple down days.
I’m not holding C3 to what C1 and C2 were but there’s definitely a lack of connection character wise. And the fact that it’s just about been 1 episode per day, with the big Apogee in a few weeks and this travel to Yios will take ~11/12 days they really haven’t had many opportunities to chill the hell out and talk. It’s a much more stressful, hopeless, lore heavy campaign but all these characters really don’t fit naturally into it, feels very directed and forced with plot direction this time around. And just this past episode majority of the cast/characters were pushing it along instead of roleplaying potential character beats. They’ve already sort of marketed this Apogee to be a big marker in this campaign whether they intended to or not. It’s literally the big event we’ve heard about for awhile now, but if it literally takes another 30 episodes to get to this big expedient event coming up rather quickly in game, that’s just going to drive more of a disconnect. 70 something episodes to cover 2 months is such a drag, and then there’s the question of if there’ll be anything after that or if that’s literally the end goal for C3 and making it the shortest campaign so far. Which would theoretically explain why this campaign is lore heavy and drawn out, could be it was meant for story rather than characters all along from the start like EXU Calamity. But I feel like if that was the case, why let your players create ridiculous backstories with past campaign connections if that wasn’t as much of a priority this go around? Feels like a waste of potential that could’ve been saved for another campaign later on and they could’ve made more appropriate characters for an Apogee Solstice campaign with characters that can actually do something about it other than 3 fighters who can’t do shit when it comes to magic, a Druid which is the opposite of arcane magic all the way, a cleric with no true god solely designed to kill, sun tree body with shadow magic, and some moon chick with lightning powers.
I like stories that revolve around the characters. If you have good characters, it doesn’t matter what the story is about because it will shape to them. This campaign just has that opposite feeling completely making it really hard to remotely care about any of the Hells for me.
#critical role#cr discourse#bells hells#look…Matt destroyed emon with dragons. would it be far to say he’s willing to destroy all of Exandria so they can start C4 on a new planet??#it would be a total boss move of him#I’m joking a little. would kind of suck if everything they created got destroyed forever#but it could open them up to doing a huge timeskip to the future or even go back in time to before the war between gods and primordials#see a vasselheim before it became known as the Dawn city?? that could be cool#vm and m9 had their fair share of issues but bh is on a ridiculous level with everyone trying 1up each other#the world building is impressive and great but even some of it doesn’t feel real compared to other places in the world#asarius feels more real than bassuras#bh being investigated for a murder is probably one of the realist shit that’s happened#a big squid popping up from dirt hills…come on. cool creature but why? nothing came of it#they talked about wanting to have stakes but there really hasn’t been. not when you can pull past pcs to rez a current one#and everyone is back like nothing happened and keeps moving on. where were the stakes? they weren’t changed by that fight#this campaign simultaneously has so much and nothing at all going on at the same time#remember ‘take me instead you Raven bitch’ ‘fix him FIX HIM’ or scanlan’s wish ‘I have passed through fire’#remember when Caleb gave up the beacon to the dynasty ‘you need me more than I need you’ lavaside breakup or Essek double agent#those moments had more stakes than this campaign
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candyradium · 2 years
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So. I just finished the EXU: Calamity finale.
God. Fuck. And that's it, isn't it? That's really it. We don't know if people remember what happened that day. If their story gets known. We don't know who's around to tell it. But it did happen, and it did matter. It mattered so much. The ring of brass may have played a part in releasing the Calamity upon Exandria, but they are also the reason that there is now an Exandria left to be recovering from the calamity, over 900 years later.
And there's one person left who truly knows what the ring of brass accomplished. Because he was a part of it.
Fly high, Cerrit. I am so glad that you got to keep your promise.
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You didn't create anything. We have always been here. You came and you shaped, you took and you shaped and you changed, but you didn't create a thing. You're not god, you're a child. You are a child and you're lost, how do you not see that
- Zerxus Ilerez, last First Knight of Avalir
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willowbirds · 1 year
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The Endless Shadow and The Fate Shaper
I know we are probably never gonna see these guys since they were, you know, CONSUMED.
I wanted to draw an interpretation of them anyway because I felt inspired. You give me lore? I draw it!
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ariadne-mouse · 2 years
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Thank you Aabria for another wonderful adventure <3 <3 <3
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iironwreath · 1 year
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Assert [Iona]
Iona patrolled the gallery at its outskirts, arms folded behind her back. When she circled close to Theotae’s current group on one loop, Theotae’s posture changed. Irritation flashed across her face, quick as a spark from a fire, then gone. She caught Iona’s gaze, purposefully seeking her out. 
“Centurion,” she called. “Would you come stand by me a moment, please?”
Iona approached. She wasn’t worried, only curious. A challenge had taken residence in Theotae’s eyes, firm and decided. Her feet were already trotting over before she had a chance to read the situation or guess what could have led up to it.
At arm's length, Theotae took her by the waist and swept her in against her side, head turned to catch her mouth in a kiss. Iona started, then smiled, warmth and familiarity taking precedence over surprise. She rested a hand on Theotae’s sternum. It was a polite kiss, lips only—demonstrative, but no less affectionate. 
Theotae drew away first, batting her eyelashes. She thrust her gaze back onto the elven noble standing opposite them, hand still firmly clamped around Iona’s waist. 
“Does that answer your questions?” she asked curtly, brooking no room for negotiation. The man gulped, then nodded, backing off. Iona blinked out of her daze.
“Will that be all, my lady?” she asked, trying not to look or feel or sound smug.
Theotae grinned with all the smugness Iona repressed, her eyes glittering. “Yes, Centurion, thank you.”
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honourablejester · 2 years
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“The paladin wasn’t hard to find, even amongst the ruins. No single mortal would ever be hard for him to find, but certainly not this one. The echoes of holy magic still rippled across his skin, the wounding warmth of it, branding deeper than any weapon of the hells. There was no plane on which Asmodeus could not find this man.
Zerxus and Asmodeus, after the ruin. One final gift. One final betrayal.”
This is probably the worst time to post this fic, when the finale is tomorrow and we see just how bad it finally goes. But. After that conversation in Episode 2, I had to. I had to.
WARNINGS: Elias is dead. Zerxus found him. And Asmodeus approaches him in the aftermath. So, um. Pain. A lot of it.
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