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Mahendru Divya	Divya is no stranger to villianous monologues. They're an occupational hazard for a Bureau of Destiny employee, and they turn up more often than people expect. She does find this particular deathknight -remarkably- informative and she even pays him the courtesy of pulling out her journal and making several notes in it in Old Realm ("The loveless?" and "The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears?" and "crushing ghostly essence makes soulsteel?" and "cities have afterlives", and so on). "The Laws of Heaven will never be gainsayed, Vitiating Whispers," she says at the end of his speech. "The void has no spiritually meaningful power over Creation itself, not in 5,000 years and certainly not now. If you'd like to debate this matter, I can recommend several dozen sages who would enjoy discussing your philosophy. You can surrender to us now and have the opportunity to meet them. Or we'll have to take you by force. Will you submit to our lawful authority?" Inauspicious Icons rumbles an approving noise. He likes it when she does all the talking. It lets him bare his teeth and look threatening, which is -much- more fun for him.
The Mournful Chorus	Chorus listens attentively to Vitiating Whispers That Spiral Into The Reaper's Embrace as he neatly explains who he is, in whose interest he acts, and what he is working on. Her lips curl up in dismay at the fact that Divya seems more than happy to take notes while the other deathknight gives this self-indulgent speech. When Deryl draws his weapon and issues a challenge in response, the Envoy reaches for her silver-furred pet with a great sigh. The monkey, now visibly relaxed after they left the crowd outside, cocks his head while she whispers something into his ear. In response, he chitters softly, then jumps straight from her shoulder towards the tower's great stone wall. It very much looks like he wants to climb up. Meanwhile, Shredded Promises snarls in frustration and draws his great curved sword. The ghosts under his command follow suit. "Teach this fool a lesson", he commands, pointing at the hungry ghosts and their master. "I hwill protect the Hallowed Voice." The small woman he is referring to, and who he now steps in front of to shield her with his stolen body, reaches for an utterly ornamental ring of metal at the back of her cloak. ...only when she grabs it and unbinds the strap that holds it, it looks very much like a razor-sharp chakram. "So much for diplomacy. Well... I certainly tried, didn't I?" Chorus winks at Shredded Promises, then readies herself for the battle.
Deryl Laklan	"Yet Heaven itself was created and so, it shall not last. We are the heralds of the next age, the age of dead iron. Thorns is only a symptom of what's to come however I find the city a tad boring with all their conquest and politics. My goal here is to spread happiness to the Hundred Kingdoms to impress my mistress." He gives a malicious smirk while he takes off the monocle revealing something horrible. His eye beneath it was a prosthetic all along made of spectral steel, with its eerie surface revealing a spiral pattern of swirling souls. Even if not close to him, you can hear sounds similar to screaming coming from his false eye Deryl closes his eyes while unsheathing his crystalline blade that shines under the light of the celestial bodies. Then he opens his eyes once again but with resolve against the perpetrator who orchestrated the events. Even with a cursed power, he stands against him for the sake of Creation. "Life may die and wither away, but we shall enjoy every minute of it as we please. I will not let you take away our moments all because of your end of the world crap"
Mahendru Divya	Inauspicious Icons's rumbling discontent at the speeches going on and on finally culminates with the great jade lion leaping from his place beside Divya to bear down on the deathknight. Both front paws, each as big or bigger than a grizzly bear's, swing in for the Deathknight as the Lion Dog ignores the hungry ghosts, preferring more fatal prey.
The Mournful Chorus	While the nemessaries grin in anticipation and prepare to advance, Shredded Promises adapts a defensive pose, ready to intercept anyone - or anything - coming at Chorus.
Deryl Laklan	"Heaven will soon fall to the darkness and the Celestial bodies above shall be consumed by the void. If you care about the gods so much, join them in their inevitable demise!" The essence of deathly lightning converges in one of his hands and then it strikes at the chosen of stars.
Mahendru Divya	Divya blithely sweeps herself out of the path of that deathly lightning, her robes fluttering about her as she moves with the practiced assurance of an expert in the martial arts. "Lots of things have taken a shot at Heaven, none of them have landed it. Doubt you will either, my friend."
Deryl Laklan	With their mind connected by a dreadful curse of being enthralled to the cursed chosen of Aurora, Deryl commands them to charge at the horde of hungry ghost so that they may not prove an obstacle when dealing with their Abyssal master
The Mournful Chorus	Chorus remains where she is for now, in the relative safety of her protector's shadow. But standing still doesn't equal idleness. She raises the gleaming chakram high above her head where it can catch the moonlight, smiling beneath her hood. Her other hand, she points at Vitiating Whispers, past Promises' shoulder. And she begins to sing. Not a battle hymn, but a requiem - half-mocking, half-lamenting the imminent demise of Vitiating Whispers That Spiral Into The Reaper's Embrace, chiding him for his careless sins. Everyone on ~her~ side feels slightly more motivated to tear this guy to shreds through this song. The tower's walls only serve to magnify her voice with a multitude of echoes.
Deryl Laklan	With his wrathful eyes set at the deathknight responsible for being the architect of tragedies. As he swings his adamant blade, his skin slowly turn to patches of diamonds resembling the scales of a dragon that shine with a baleful glow. With the flash of shining yet malignant essence coming from his sword Malignant Shimmer, his daiklaive slashes through the hordes of undead spectral maidens but even if they are still many, he manages to weaken them.
The Mournful Chorus	Meanwhile, the ghosts in their stolen flesh have reached the front of the battle. Seeing that their way to the deathknight is blocked by a veritable swarm of hungry ghosts, they draw their daggers and hand axes, trying to chop away at the bloodthirsty things. So far, their attempts are in vain, but they still grin happily. This is fun!
Mahendru Divya	With the battle joined in full, Divya is content to let the much showier Lion Dog lunge in first. Deryl's engagement with the Hungry Ghosts limits the Deathknight's homefield advantage nicely. And 'Echo' is singing, in a way that her troops seem to respond deeply to. And possibly Divya herself, though she doesn't care to admit that or think deeply on the implications. Instead, she narrows her eyes and waits for a strategic moment of opportunity. Thinking she's found one, the Sidereal crosses her wrists as she concentrates on the weave of fate running through all things and all places, even in this deathly-aspected tower. No matter what steps Whisper took to bring this building under foreign cosmological rules, the principles wrought into Divya's very Charms still held sway here. And she uses them now, hooking her finger around a key spiritual thread in the Deathknight's existence and attempting to bind it to her own.
Mahendru Divya	Inauspicious Icons is -not happy- with his failure to smite down this evildoer. But the battle has gone against the deathknight so far, and he grins savagely as he sees Divya successfully hook his fate and swipe it from him. With the enemy of Heaven vulnerable, the giant Lion Dog hunches for a brief moment before springing forward into a leap. Down comes the spirit, great jaws open for a savage bite.
Deryl Laklan	"You shall soon face the power drawn from the suffering of a dead god!" Even with the horde of hungry ghosts protecting him and even when attempting to cast a spell with the sorcerous staff. But even with that, heaven's wrath eventually got him for he gulped and his eyes twitch once he saw the giant lion dog pouncing at him. Even the dead can scream in agony as it gravely injured him for now the pavement of the tower is now covered in his own blood, leaving a massive bite mark in his chest. "Oh come on, I got these clothes from Grieve!" His bravado in pretending he cares more for his expensive suit and not his own health is cracking, as clearly feels pain from it.
The Mournful Chorus	Shredded Promises hums along with the song, standing his ground and keeping a wary eye on the action. He seems determined to stay at the Envoy's side. And it doesn't actually look like they would need his help over there, anyway. At Whisper's agonized scream, he snorts in contempt. "Fool", he mumbles.
Deryl Laklan	With his inhuman shining eyes, he looks at Vitiating Whispers with contempt and fury for he wants another Thorns to blossom in the Hundred Kingdoms. In his mind two words repeat: Thorns Is Enough. While a baleful bluish nebula like clouds is above his head as it is reminiscent to that of a bright halo. The diamond sword glues further with colors that do not signal hope, but doom and despair for his enemies. "Vitiating Whispers, you are an enemy to both the living and the dead. I will never let this decadent paradise that breeds despair to both sides be a cancer to creation" He growls almost as if he's a beast himself. "I maybe a monster among the chosen, but I am a monster that shall be a bane to those that harm innocents." He swings his daiklaive in the left of the deathknight as the light coming from his aurora shines upon the adamant blade flashing towards Whisper's battered body. Soon there will be another color in his blade. Red
Deryl Laklan	With a bright flash of searing light, Vitiating Whispers drops his soulsteel staff in the ground. But what follows is a shower of blood spewing from the left side of his chest, leaving a massive wound as he gets on his knees. "No, even after my exaltation, I'm still a chump of a wannabe philosopher!" He laughs grimly at the absurdity of his situation as he views it as some dark comedy but instead of viewing the life of others as a comedy of meaningless existence...it seems it was now directed to him. He sobs like a child who lost a game. "No, even after I sacrificed the god and took his heart for my staff's gem, it wasn't enough." He rages in frustration as things did not go as plan. "This paradise was supposed to impress my mistress so I can be the highest of her chosen! I would have usher in a city that shall rival the darkness of Thorns!"
Mahendru Divya	"I'm afraid that suit is done for," Divya says conversationally, as she steps to the now-kneeling form of Vitiating Whispers. "I can offer you a -fetching- suit of magenta, however. The Violet Bier's very good at purple for its prisoners." She glances back, at Deryl's furious face and at Chorus' expression, which as always seems to have more than one meaning with no indication if any of them are actually true. Then she bends over and picks up that soulsteel staff, turning it in her hands to experimentally test its weight and possibly examine it. But her eyes are still focused on the Deathknight. "My allies don't seem to have much patience or interest in what you have to say. But I do. Surrender. I can even promise you a rapt audience who will want to know everything about your philosophy. You really want to give up that last chance? To make a statement that will be recorded forever?"
Deryl Laklan	"Surrender? You might as well kill me right now on the spot. Ah it would bring memories, me getting executed through poison while a raiton gouges at my eyes all because I wrote a book about the wrongs of my nation's regime" He laughs but it dies down to mere silence as his eyes are as dead as a fish. However he commands his ghosts to flee towards further into the tower. "Just execute me. I failed both in life and in death. I failed to spread the word of my own philosophy back in my life and failed to save my wife from death, yet now I failed to bring a paradise in the world of the living" There is both sadness and unhinged expression in his face for he knows death is inevitable even for chosen like him
The Mournful Chorus	With the deathknight's surrender, the envoy's short, but passionate song continues for a few more seconds, her voice dropping to a lower register as she proclaims him guilty of crimes against the dead in her ending vocals. She quickly tucks her chakram away again, then locks eyes with Shredded Promises, briefly. The nemissary gives a subtle nod in response and begins to move towards the others. Silently, trying to not raise suspicion. After several steps of his, "Echo" follows in his wake. Her eyes remain on the fallen Whispers. She listens carefully to the conversation between Deryl, Divya, and the Daybreak.
Deryl Laklan	He grabs his adamantine sword and directs it at the deathknight. "You want it so badly huh? But before I give you your demise, whose the Lover you once mentioned? Is she a deathknight of influence? Exalts do have their own set of hierarchies like the dragonblooded" Deryl says as his grip on his sword tightens further as he awaits to be his executor that shall avenge the fallen of the town that hired him. "Is she one of the Mask Of Winter's high ranking deathknight?" The chosen of the Deathlords are still a mystery to him for he is unaware of the Masks is not the only undead ghost king spreading death in Creation
Mahendru Divya	Divya watches the drama unfolding between Derwyn and the Deathknight. With a hand signal to Inauspicious Icons, she sends the great jade beast to circle behind Whispers to block his retreat in case he pulls some impossible trick and gets back up. With the man captured, and Derwyn seemingly inclined to interrogate him, that frees up a bit of her attention to do what she'd otherwise have been doing all along; actually look around this tower a little and see what else there is to see. Without leaving, her gaze sweeps the walls and ceilings. She looks for more Hungry Ghosts. For necrotic traps. For tapestries or books or signs of where this not-likely-to-talk Abyssal came from or who he works for. It's easy enough for a discreet Sidereal to leave the talking to her allies for now. Time enough for more pointed questions later.
The Mournful Chorus	Several of the Envoy's entourage are busy keeping an eye on the retreating hungry ghosts, but not all: Most of them have started gathering around Vitiating Whispers and Deryl, a half circle of angry grimaces, pale and waxy in death. The same burly woman who waved a hand in front of one of Deryl's pawns back in the forest now crouches down next to the fallen deathknight, pointing a dagger square at his nose. "You pathetic little shit!", she snarls with barely contained hatred. "Using ghosts as fodder for your thrice-damned machine...? That's a shitty paradise if I've ever seen one. You know what, I ~spit~ on your paradise!" And she proceeds to do just that. A thick glob of spittle leaves her mouth, aiming for the deathknight. Meanwhile, the Envoy has almost reached the group, briefly catching Divya's gaze as it sweeps the room. She offers the Sidereal a smile of tired relief, seemingly happy that this is over. But in truth, she is doing her best to provide a distraction, as are the nemessaries. Shredded Promises has moved silently into position between shadows and beams of moonlight, until he has found a clear line of sight to Vitiating Whispers. In one hand, he still holds his sword... but the other reaches for a hidden pouch in his funeral linens. With a quick flick of the wrist, a small thing of steel, coated in a dark substance to prevent it from reflecting light, leaves his fingers. He aims for the deathknight's throat.
Deryl Laklan	The man giggles at the strange chosen he hasn't heard of before and then says it smugly. "You really think the Masks is the only..." Then a something sharp pierced his truth and then convulses to the ground while in a few second there is only silence that fills the halls of the tower. Although he felt dissatisfaction with the incomplete answer, he's glad that's all over. He wonders if she should toss the corpse disrespectfully to the raitons or burn his corpse so it may not arise as one of the dead. Deryl then approaches his corpse as he wonders what his prosthetic. eye is as he plucks it out. It appears as an eerie gem if not used for sight. "It looks like the metal usually used by the deathknights. Besides for sight, I wonder what it does. Does uhh anyone want this?"