Seeker of Thrones 5-55
“Kassardis knew instantaneously that the words of the Very Wise Frog had come true. For the canyon had three entrances, and down each came one of his wives, armed and thirsty for blood. First, small and cunning Vastoki with the glint of her rifle sights, then enormous and brutal Littari, dragging her iron cauldron, and finally the refined Ipreski, languid and resplendent on her palanquin. And one after the other, all three of their cruel and lusty eyes fell upon Kassardis.
Kassardis tried to pray, but found no sound would come out of his lungs. He tried to hide deeper in the reeds, but he found the mud unyielding. He tried to shut his eyes, but his heartbeat drowned out his thoughts. So instead, he clutched on to the old swordmaster’s weapon like a good luck charm, its cruel metal cold against his bare chest. A strange thought entered his mind and gripped his tendons like a vice.
And as this thought gripped Kassardis, it was then that the truth of the Very Wise Frog revealed itself in its full glory. For violence truly was inescapable, and the three wives were inundated with it. They had no other language with which to negotiate their hard won spoils.
“Stand aside,” said soft Ipreski, “As oldest wife the Silver Prince is mine by right.”
“Move an inch further,” said Vastoki, “And I will put a bullet through that milky throat.”
Littari, for her part, said nothing, but rather hefted her cauldron into the air with a tremendous roar, and charged. Kassardis watched as the words of the Very Wise Frog came perfectly true, and a brutal combat unfolded.
Realizing the danger that Vastoki’s rifle presented, Ipreski slid off her palanquin and behind an enormous boulder. But that boulder was shattered a moment later by the tremendous force of Littari’s iron cauldron, sending her flying. Ipreski’s servants and retainers were pulped a moment later against the heavy bottom of the cauldron and spread across the rock, and Littari advanced on the eldest wife, frothing at the mouth.
She would have crushed Ipreski as she had promised, but in a mere second there were three cracks of Vastoki’s rifle, and Littari’s skull blossomed in gore, her cauldron smashing to the rocks below as she slumped forward. Ipreski sprang to her feet, her fine silks tearing, and drew her blade, dashing at Vastoki before she could reload.
Vastoki was impossibly agile, and even though her fingers were slick with grit and sweat, she chambered a round and fired it right at the smooth face of the eldest wife. But Ipreski had anticipated this for years, and had practiced a blade art specifically for this purpose, which she called Ego Ballistics. With impossible speed, she cut through possibility and cleft the bullet in two before it could touch her flesh.
Vastoki was taken aback. Such was her speed, however, that the incoming blow merely severed her nose from her face and cleft her glasses in two, instead of separating her head from her shoulders as was intended. Blinded by gouts of blood and shrieking in pain, she crawled away. But Ipreski, caught in the moment of victory, was blinded in her own way to Littari, who had survived three bullets to the head by the virtue of her enormously thick skull and was now staggering up behind her with cauldron in hand.
The first blow of the cauldron cracked Ipreski’s’ back and sent her sprawling, the second crushed her shins and feet to splinters. The third did not come, for Vastoki, acting on instinct, loosed three more shots, which blew the throat out from Littari and sent her reeling backwards.
This gory sight, and the ruin of his three wives, Kassardis beheld, and his resolve hardened into ice. He emerged from the pool, his blood cold in his veins, and the old swordmaster’s blade clutched tight in his hand.”
– Tales of the Silver Prince
Princes do not work.
many turn the dirt.
we vote, the rulers smirk.
You should be considerate when throwing heads around, especially if theyre sentient books
She is not having a good day.
And behold!
A sleeper wakes!
Violence is inescapable!
Down. Down. Down. Down.
Ashen mire staining her gown
Into tomorrow, out of the Deep
Into the fire, out of her sleep.
That last frame, with the bodies and the building, is utterly epic.
Worms always return to dirt. Only giants walk where they will.
Further proof of the mighty power of Pree Allison is that the broken sun that the founder of my order crafted for Throne is now shining over these filth which they call “The Shades”
But is it gluten-free?
Undoubtely. Koss always thought well his designs.
Someone is asking the REAL questions
Be careful, for the truth might shock you
demiurges hate her!
Yeah, she couldn’t have known.
Totally. for reals.
There were no signs whatsoever.
Take your bets folks: Does Allison take the book, or leave it in the mud for devils to sift through?
Will we see its pages once more?
The worth of a book goes beyond its pages;
the trees that were pulped, the printers’ paid wages
too much to leave for the weather’s ravages
The heart’s desire is not so easily cast aside.
How brutal. It seems the silver prince will have little left to fight.
and the Oscar for the role of a sorrowful demon, Cio.
Aw, hope she continues her writings eventually
I believe in the version of this story I’ve heard, the young pree Kassardis takes a husband and becomes a mighty Philosopher-King, disillusioned by the blood thirst of the women around him. Such stories are usually told by visitors to Throne, as us natives know well the transitory nature of concepts like “gender,” “philosophy,” and “this hell-blasted foreigner’s purse caked in his own blood, once I slit his throat for telling a boring story.”
Cio, what Alison needs is the devil you are now, not what you were. The one who is painfully trying to change, not the one that embraced decadence and wallowed in a pit of power.
That is what the glasses and writing represent.
If only there were more than two things she could be.
CUT IT FROM HER, AL-YS-UN. CUT THE HATRED FROM THY COMPANION’S HEART. WIELD THY BURNING NAME AS A BUTCHER WIELDS HER FLENSING KNIFE AND LIE TO THE FACE OF GOD.
THIS IS NOT YABALCHOATH.
People who “cut out” sections of their friends’ personalities are rarely suitable for the role of hero, for long. Though I suppose Alisson has not been acting very heroically thus far, by some definitions. Alisson is a strange name.
This is not a tale of heroes.
This is a tale. No more, and no less.
Ciocie Cioelle Estrella von Maximus the Third, for shame.
Or for pride, I’m not wholly certain.
You CAN escape this. You HAVE escaped this. And, if you so choose, you WILL escape this again.
Life is constructed entirely of choices and paths. You traversed the path down into the deep and dark, and you traversed the path away from it. These are paths you know well enough, you needn’t fear or froth or rage at the thought of doing so again.
As for Allison Ruth, I would advise repairing those glasses anyway. We are everything that we are, and Ciocie Cioelle Estrella von Maximus the Third includes those glasses. I know I just said she can walk those paths again, but those are not paths walked with ease, and she will need her friends, or elsewise those willing to stay near her, to help her back up from the path into the deep and dark.
And to whoever it was that sold me that odd liquor, I apologize deeply for not catching your name, I believe the drink might’ve taken it from me, among other things. Aside from that, it was excellent, and I thank you deeply for your service. Next time though, I might request a weaker brew.
There is no escape from the Grand Enemy. But one can meet I on the field of one’s choosing.
From the deep and dark was Ciocie Cioelle born. To the deep and dark she will return. But not all depths have the same monsters, and not all darknesses cut.
A tip of the horns to whoever it was who offered her the pen as a method to sate her hunger for dominion, though. Any time you can convince someone to try heroin to help get over coffee is to be lauded.
INGSVLD will not stand for this.
The gods in the background, for the curious, are not the better class of god.
Is…is that a Terry Pratchett reference?
That’s no way to treat a book, Cio. Even more so, a book of secrets and lies, some of which may be true. Return to it, return! Your fandom awaits longingly to know the tales contained therein.
Ironically, she’s just gotten the hurt part of hurt/comfort fics down pat.
It is heartwrenching to see dear Cio’s resolve crumble so. *sheds a single flaming tear that burns three kilometers into the ground*
Is it truly homicide to kill something that can take three rifle shots to the back of the head?
Or is it just the truest form of violence?
The truest form of violence is death by concept.
The three are not mutually exclusive, though.
Kassardis should likely stick with boys after recent events.
Do you think that would help him escape the inescapable?
Has this comic ever actually praised violence? Pree Aesma achieves and learns nothing through it. Kassardis found violence inescapable, yet watched as his three wives failed to reach their goal through it. Perhaps the sword is a gold weapon indeed.
Pick up the book, Allison. There’s more than one way to kill a demon, sometimes you do it by being a friend.