Legacies of light

On the third of the fourth month of the 132nd year of athbhreith beithíoch calendar, the battle of the shadow serpent began.

At 900 hours, Ronald Fuinseog's advance team left to head through the forest guarding the human settlement. They made sure to stealthy past through their surveillance, and made an effort to not spring any traps.

No more than three hundred men could have been brought by Ronald as any larger would have been suspicious and ruined the impression that they were on a scouting mission.

At 1100 hours, they reached the other side and proceeded to move forward.

At 1200 hours, they are spotted by choice and proceed to start running away.

By 1330 hours, they are forced into their first confrontation. Ronald's advance force consists of around three hundred men, versus around three thousand humans.

Location: Eastern Battlefront

Φ To the east of Ronald's positions is a slightly mountainous area that guards a river further east river, which is where they are pretending to flee.

The humans falling for this send an army from the northwest, and another army from the southern forest, and successfully manage to box Ronald's army in. Soon after this fighting begins.

On the battlefield, the humans where fabric armour which is composed of numerous fabrics interwoven together, and the standard soldier wields a wooden spear, and others shoot arrows from behind. While the beastkin wore black armour, which was something all elite Fuinseog men had to wear to war.

Some were less armoured than usual to give the feeling that they were simply scouting the area, so instead, they covered themselves with chainmail armour. Yet they are still far more protected than humans. Each one of them carried sword as their main weapon.

Each beastkin was outnumbered one to ten, yet the odds were still in their favour. They easily ripped through the fragile humans without anything stopping them, even the thick cloth the humans were wearing was no match for the beastkin inhuman strength.

But more than that was the innate beast qualities in each of them. Some beastkin were faster than the human eye could catch, some had the ability to jump on top of their heads, and some could poison the humans with each blow.

The beastkin were a strong army when united but each of their individual strengths where more than the humans could handle. But the humans had two massive advantages.

First was morale. One of the human generals shouts, “These men are simply scouts, led by the Fuinseog. If we take them out now, they won’t be able to report back on our whereabouts, if we win this battle our children and wives will be protected. FATHER, BROTHERS, SONS, THIS IS YOUR MOMENT TO SHOW YOUR STRENGTH!”

The second was the number of them. The humans outnumbered the beastkin ten to one, and around forty-five minutes into the battle, another army of two thousand humans appeared. So that number jumped up to sixteen to one.

Killing humans wasn’t an issue to the beastkin but the numerous amount of them, and the morale they had started to exhaust the beastkin and soon the beastkin had to deal with even more humans. This situation was unsustainable and no one was more conscious of this fact than Ronald Fuinseog.

Φ Gritting my teeth, I say, “What a bother.”

Scáthach who is sitting on a chair composed of shadows, says, “You look stressed how about you take a seat.”

“I would rather die than touch the powers of a witch such as yourself.”

“Such a shame, but it is rather funny for a legacy like you to say such a thing.”

“This power I have received is divine, it is nothing like the sorcery of yours.”

She laughs a bit, and says, “I hope you never have to see the flaw in that thought process.”

“Enough, now bring up the map.”

From her shadows Scáthach makes a map which showcases everyone’s current position on the battlefield, and the shadows take on specific shapes denoting enemy from ally, and their brightness increases or decreases to show the current health of the combatants.

After taking a good look at the witch's map, I say, “Something is wrong here.”

“What do you mean?”

“These humans are far too organized. Their armies are composed of both archers and pikemen in organized little units, and there is also their armour, which is one I have faced when fighting humans in Duibheagán (Molstoria). How do they have access to this?

But one thing about this settlement that also bothers me is how close it is to our territory, I know that other houses can be foolish but to completely miss the humans so close to Louernia is ridiculous.”

Turning to the witch, I ask, “Lugh has no role on this battlefield, which seems quite strange to me.”

“What are you insinuating Fuinseog?”

“That maybe these humans were intentionally kept here, so Lugh little boy could defeat them and gain infamy.”

“That is quite the accusation.”

“There have been rumours going about, that our precious high king won’t be able to have kids, and wouldn’t take make Setanta the next in line to be ruler.”

“Did I hear you just slander the high king?”

“Nothing of the sort, I was just trying to understand the minds of our great leader.”

“You suck at it.”

“What a shame, but we have far more pressing issues to attend to,” I say walking forward.

“You do realize we are supposed to keep the humans occupied, if too many of them die they will retreat.”

“I understand that you ageless hag, but I don’t feel like allowing a loyal solider of mine to die, so simply allow me to ease up the weight on their shoulders.”

“Go ahead, and if you fall and scrap your knee grandma over here will kiss your booboo. I would also suggest getting your nose checked, a hunter like you shouldn’t be so off.”

“Die.” Walking forward, I take out my whip and say, “Please lend me your strength again today, Arawn.”

My legacy activates from my whip, and then I swing my whip, and from it countless briars appear and strike my foe. The briars stretch out and easily pierce through the bodies of my foes one after another.

Then I say, “Third bloom,” which causes a flower to appear that releases poison from the briars.

Due to how numerous and clumped up the humans are the poison devastates them. As this continues, Ronalds shouts, “Don’t let you’re morale fall, those of you who fight with all your heart and soul are those I will never let die!”

His men feel far stronger than they ever were before and start fighting harder, and as this happens Ronald looks around and sees humans running away due to few.

So he plunges his briars into the ground and they move through the earth till they end up right below the deserters and plunge out piercing them from the ground. Ronald continues to strike all of them, and as he does he remembers the face of his older brother.

-Break-

By 1500 hours, the number of humans had quickly increased to nine thousand, as multiple big and small armies had come to join and crush the Fuinseogs.

The beastkin army is fighting back the best it can, but they are quite literally being crushed by the dead bodies of the humans they are fighting. So Ronald says, “We will break through their encircle meant on the east, all men move immediately!”

Soon Ronald and his army make their way towards the eastern part of the encirclements around them, while doing this he uses the briars he has created to move massive clumps of dead human bodies to guard their escape.

Then through the use of his legacy, he mows through the humans who were blocking their exit, his skill with his legacy is tremendous and he is capable of not only using it for offence but also for supporting his men while they escape.

Upon breaking through the enemy lines, they start to head for the small mountain range to the right of the battlefield, but since they are now free from other humans they are finally capable of getting struck by arrows.

Fifty of the beastkin with Ronald are dead, and the rest are all in critical states, with many not fit for battle anymore. So as the arrows rain down they deal quite a bit of damage to the rest of the force.

So Ronald turns around and says, “Enough of this. Advent!”

Through his body half of it does not have his legacy acting on it, and the other half has a dark energy radiating off of it. Unlike Orb’s advent, the legacy is completely acting on his face forming a mask, and the radiating energy doesn’t go through his face as well.

From his whip, countless briars emerge, and then he sends them in an overwhelming wave towards the humans, which devastates them once again, then Ronald says, “Second bloom.”

And from his briars man-eating plants a fluffy substance is produced, which spreads far and wide, then he says, “First bloom,” which causes a single red flower to appear that catches on fire and as it does it ignites the fluffy substance which explodes making a huge mess for all of the humans.

Ronald and his men then move into the mountain range, and the humans follow suit.

By 1700 hours, the humans had surrounded the mountain range and had sent in an army to snuff them out.

But they are currently engaged in a game of tag inside the mountain range. The beastkin hunts the wonderbeasts present and feasts on their flesh, while the humans desperately try to catch the smaller force of the beastkin but can’t.

The beastkin and Fuinseog especially are skilled hunters and know how to make the best of their environment, due to his and their smaller force, it is next to impossible for a large human which is necessary to battle them, to find them.

This stalemate continues for the rest of the day, and by 1000 hours the next day, the beastkin have made their break for it. But made sure to pass by the human encampment on the mountain range, to alert them into following them.

By 1100 hours they have escaped the mountain range and entered into a battle with the humans surrounding the mountain range. They draw out this fight so other humans can join which they do, and soon they end up in the same situation as before.

Most of Ronald's men are tired, so with Advent, he fights against all of the humans in the surrounding area using his briars to both attack and defend, until 1200 hours, where one of the humans shouts, “IT IS A TRAP, WE MUST RETURN, THERE IS A BEASTKIN FORCE HEADED STRAIGHT FOR THE CASTLE!”

The humans freak out at the mention of this, but the Fuinseog army just smiles knowing their efforts weren’t in vain. Ronald says, “We can’t stop yet, we now need to hold as many of them back as possible, no more holding back kill all you can.”

Scáthach stepping forward says, “That won’t be necessary.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I will take care of each and every one of them.”

From beneath her shadows arise, and start to restrain all of the humans to the ground and she then says, “Now go on and scurry over to the armies that have already gone back I will deal with all for these here.”

Φ Dumbfounded, I say, “Let’s go.”

As I move away with my men, my mind struggles to comprehend what I have just seen. That output of power was equal to that of my Advent yet she has no legacy, is this the true strength of the queen of shadows?

Legacy: Arawn

Ability: it allows it’s user to manifest briars and manifest plants associated with them. The different types of briars manifest depend solely on the skin and ability of the user.