Taking The Capital Pt. 3

The Prison was large and there were an ample number of prisoners to choose from. Most of them were simple thieves, with a few murderers and rapists, but Doom wasn't interested in basic criminals, he was looking for any captive followers of darkness and eventually he found a gold mine. He remembered how Alms Amour had originally been a land controlled by Darkness and it seemed that many of the royal line of the time and their retinue still lived imprisoned in the bowels of the prison.

Most importantly, chained up in a cell all by himself, is a draconic man who introduces himself as Raig Ruya, distant cousin of Runa Ruya and once and future king of Drakmir. He's not nearly as strong as Runa, but he's still quite powerful and will be a useful ally, however in return for his help he wants control of Alms Amour again. Doom was somewhat looking forward to being in charge of an entire country, but he relented eventually, after all it would be best to leave control of the actual nation in the hands of someone with experience.

Once freed he steps out of his cell, he's about 8 feet in height which means he's still shorter than Doom, but towers over almost everyone else. He leads Doom to the rest of his fellow captives. The first is a cell with four women, one a demon, one another dragon, an elf with dark almost ebony skin and a human. He introduces these women as his brides. Naming them, Maja, Croya, Ina and Lara, respectively. They seem very excited to see him, the human, Lara, seems to be charmed somehow, but the others just seem to be actually happy to see him.

"Can they fight?" Doom asks.

"Croya can, the others aren't really fighters," he admits.

"Then Croya comes, but the rest stay here. We'll free them later. Right now we only want fighters, any non-combatants are just a risk," Doom explains and Raig hesitates and then nods. Croya is let out while the other three are left in the cell. They seem disappointed, but understand the reasoning. Raig brings Doom to more cells, the vast majority end up being mere servants, but they do meet the captain of Raig's armies. She's named Isidora Bell Maple, a surprisingly cute name for what turns out to be a 6 foot tall orc woman.

Doom is assured that she can fight and after finding a few others who served in Drakmir's army, it is time to move on. Weapons are procured for them in the prison's armory. Raig eschews any weapons. Croya takes a crossbow and Isidora grabs a two handed greatsword in each hand. Croya also grabs some simple leather prison guard armor, as it seems she intends to stay in her humanoid form, Isidora meanwhile decides to keep wearing the prison rags.

Doom explains the situation to Raig, Isidora and Croya at the prison entrance and Raig grins to Croya, "Hmm need some help assaulting the palace, huh? We can do that," he says. With that he steps outside and changes forms into a 10 ft long black dragon. Croya leaps onto his back and they take off into the air and towards the palace.

Doom and his troops follow on the ground and arrive at the palace shortly behind him. The palace is indeed guarded by a phalanx of heavily armored and armed royal guards; they have, of course, noticed Raig flying towards them and some are already taking aim, but it's too late. A jet of black flame engulfs the phalanx of guards as he swoops in. Screams erupt from the guards as some are incinerated immediately, many of them survived, however and Raig wheels to fly away as they start to take aim, but at that point Croya begins firing from his back as he retreats out of range. Her bolts raining down on the guards, forcing them to raise shields and making them unable to fire back. Doom and his troops charge in as Raig and Croya move out of range, Isidora, Kasi and Ursa lead the charge. With Cara, Gitta and the remaining troops coming up behind them. Cara and Gitta using expert shots with throwing knives and bow to cover them, with Olivia beside him, Doom slowly makes his way forward.

The Royal Guards really are a step above the city guards. Even after being hit with dragon fire, peppered by a crossbow and now having Isidora bearing down on them dual wielding greatswords, they stand their ground and manage to hold off the first attack. The fight actually seems pretty even, the guards' large tower shields are pretty effective at negating Gitta and Cara's ranged attacks even as they also hold off the attacks of Isidora, Kasi, Ursa and the others. Doom's arrival of course would likely change the tides, but it never ends up being necessary as Raig and Croya return, another flame breath would roast allies and enemies alike, but luckily that's not Raig's plan.

He flies straight towards the phalanx of Royal Guards and then transforms mid-air into his human form, slamming into the middle of their ranks, with Croya, jumping from his shoulders to land and roll behind them. The Royal guards turn quickly to address this new threat, but Raig easily bats aside a whole line of them and then tears into the backs of the front line with his claws, "The king returns!" he bellows. The Royal Guards break at this point, their formation failing as they simply struggle to survive as they are each surrounded by enemies and finished off. With the Royal Guards defeated and any survivors rendered helpless, Doom steps through the aftermath towards the palace doors and pushes them open, stepping into the palace proper, Raig follows behind him and sniffs disdainfully, "look how they've ruined this place..." he notes glancing around.

In fact, it's rather impressive. Doom had wondered how the capital palace could be any more lavish than The Regent's back in Kia Marun, but this palace managed it. The ceiling of the entrance hall was a large dome seemingly made out of gold, a silver chandelier hung from the dome and where multiple candles would be placed instead, there were minor light spirits dancing, casting their light around the room, much of it reflecting off of the gold dome to bathe the entire entry way in reflected light beams. The walls were made out of sandstone, but with segments of white quartz attached to the walls to break up the yellow sandstone. The corners of the room had roman style columns that looked to be made out of ivory. A mahogany desk with gold filigree around the edges sat in the center of the room, two carved sandstone staircases with silver banisters curled around where the desk was, stopping in front of it, but at each end of it, leaving an unbroken path directly to the desk. The stairs curved upwards to a second story, silver railed balcony with ornate wooden doors that presumably went to various rooms.

Doom was enamoured with the design and noted that a lot of the materials must have been imported, the mahogany especially since he doubted mahogany trees grew around here. He was so busy admiring the room that he didn't notice the figure sitting at the desk on the ground floor. Raig, however, notices her and quickly strode towards her, attracting Doom's attention as he slammed his hand down smashing the desk in half, "Not going to welcome me home?" he asks the woman, who seems unbothered by his violent action. She's got dark skin, white hair, grey eyes and pointed elven ears. She's wearing an outfit that is part robe and part armor. It's a simple white cloth outfit that covers her from her neck down to her ankles, but there's sections of it that seem to have hardened metal or leather sewn underneath creating lumps in the robe, mostly centered on her shoulders, chest, stomach, crotch and thighs. The white of her outfit seems strangely unfitting in this room, despite the white, gold, silver and yellow aesthetic of the room, the white of her robe seems less a statement of purity or opulence and more a threat, Doom realizes why, it's the white of bleached bones. She has a quill and twirls it in her fingers as she responds.

"This is not your home anymore and I will make you pay for the desk," she responds and Raig growls, but the woman suddenly stands and, Raig almost jumps back at her movement, "The king, Queen and Princess are upstairs, the King's Bodyguard and The Queen's Servant are with them. If you go up there they will likely do more than just imprison you this time, of course I doubt that will stop you, so instead..." she says and raises the quill, her other hand slipping a book from a sheath at her thigh and opening it one handed, "I'll make sure you never set foot on those stairs," she says.

Doom starts to laugh and for the first time the woman seems to notice him, "You... You're actually threatening us with a book and pen? I know people say the pen is mightier than the sword, but I think you might be pushing it a bit," he mocks her and a refined slender eyebrow raises on her forehead. Doom looks around at the rest of his troops and notices they all seem deadly serious. He feels a gnawing dread, something is happening here he doesn't quite understand.

"You don't know of my powers? It seems a demonstration is in order," she says and Raig, Croya, Cara, Isidora and Gitta all move to try and stop her as she brings the quill to the page, immediately all of them freeze in place. The entire room seems to be frozen and the woman steps around Raig, the quill vanishing and she runs a hand almost lovingly along his cheek as she begins to approach Doom, "so, you're the new big bad weapon of the Darkness, huh? Seems no one has bothered to teach you much, then again, I don't think any of them expected me to stand in your way," She stops in front of him, "I imagine Raig expected me to simply stand by like I did when the light conquered his kingdom," she says.

"Why?" Raig manages to **** out and every breath seems to be a struggle.

She turns away from Doom, back to Raig, "Because my dearest king, you have finished serving your purpose, the new king has not served his purpose yet, so I'm afraid I can't allow this little take over of yours," she explains. Raig growls, but he still can't move.

"What are you?" Doom asks, speaking without issue and she hesitates and then turns back to him.

"You can still speak? Impressive, you're actually more powerful than I expected, but no one can break my spell, as for your question. I'm a goddess," she says with a grin, moving a hand to teasingly rub his chin, "I have many names, but the most common name I have is... The Scribe," she states as if making some kind of joke. She seems disappointed at his lack of response and snaps, "have these people told you nothing of this world?" she states angrily.

"No, but I'll be sure to ask them to teach me more when I've finished here," he responds and she gives him a patronizing smile.

"Oh so overconfident, but you won't be finishing anything here," she says and pats his cheek.

"I made a mistake recently, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one who makes such mistakes," he says and she tilts her head.

"What mistake is that?" she asks.

"Underestimating my opponent," he answers as his hand lashes out and grabs her thin arm, yanking her off her feet. Her eyes widen and she yelps in surprise.

She looks panicked, her eyes darting to the hand holding her wrist, Doom's face and the book, "but... But I wrote your name! I wrote it right there! No one is immune!" she yells in a panic. Doom reaches out and plucks the book from her hand and glances at it. There are indeed a number of names written there.

"Raig Ruya, Croya Ist Leihe, Mira Cosmir, Isidora Bell Maple, Nicole Ryans and the name Doom had before he arrived in this world are all written down" He smiles and then slams her down onto her knees, making her grunt. He leans down towards her, towering over her relatively tiny form, "There's one problem, little Scribe... That isn't my name, my name is Doom," he states and she swallows fearfully, but then glances away.

"Alright... You win, but know this... You've made a powerful enemy," she says and vanishes instantaneously. As soon as she's gone everyone else suddenly flies into a rush of movement, the contained momentum of their actions suddenly carrying them forward as the spell freezing them in place breaks. It takes a moment for them to recover from the sudden chaos and Doom approaches Cara.

"Cara... or Mira?" he asks, but upon seeing the look of hatred on her face, he coughs and continues, "Cara... when we're done here I want a run down on what just happened," he orders. She hesitates and then nods.

"Vox would be better at explaining such things, but I'll try my best," she agrees.

"Sounds like our targets are just upstairs, shall we end this?" Doom asks Raig and he nods, breathing out some smoke.

"I'm looking forward to it," he says and jumps up to the second floor, the rest start to follow up the stairs, but Doom hangs back for a moment and looks down at his hand. The book is still there. He figured it would vanish with her, but it seemed she wasn't able to take it back. He decides he should keep it safe and tucks it away before following the rest of them up the steps.