Swordtember prompt 4: Crystal
Feat. Gwuenevere (she/her) and General Tristan (they/them) (story under read more)
What strange alchemy is this??
A fine example of Gwuenevere’s crystal attack powers…
General
Tristan, a broadsword who serves under the Janthizerain Arch Thermite,
is tasked to take his soldiers to capture an Erdestrian mining town near
its southern borders. Surrounded by earthen domes and ravines, the
mines here are an important source of metals used to construct flying
polearms and war-torches for Erdestra’s armies. If this town is
destroyed and its resources looted by Sir Tristan, it will weaken
Erdestra’s supply chain.
Without warning, Tristan invades the
town, giving little time for its citizens to evacuate. Tristan allows
their soldiers to ransack the town’s buildings, refineries, and mines.
But from over the hills comes the Erdestrian General Doomgreater, Prince
Luther, and their army to take it back. As the two armies clash,
Tristan has their forces break down the supports in the mines in hopes
of causing a cave-in. But as they hack through the mines’ columns, a
lone Erdestrian soldier follows them inside.
Tristan heard rumors
of a cloak that somehow defeated General Viez during a battle a month
ago. It was said this cloak wielded a crystal blade made from her ichor,
and its sharp edge cut through steel, no matter its thickness. Tristan
thought it was ridiculous gossip about Viez’s sour defeat. What piece of
ragged cloth would ever think of fighting?! Yet Gwuenevere stands
before them, fighting their soliders with that crystalline blade.
No
matter how much they swipe at her with their blades, Tristan and their
soldiers quickly find Gwuenevere a formidable opponent. She is quick,
focused, and incredibly stubborn for a fragile object. She trained her
blade on Tristan, the tip of it scores the surface of their blade from
the blade tip to the rainguard of their face. Now hindered by pain,
Tristan makes a downward strike to end this tomfoolery.
All that
Tristan knew next is the bright blinding light of something erupting out
of their face of their rainguard. They hear Gwuenevere’s angered yell
and a sudden rush of magic blows them away from the little cloak.
Tristan slams into a wall and collapses onto the ground, their blade
broken in two. Their upper half of their blade tarnishing and turning to
crystal, Tristan looks up with their uninjured eye and sees the cloak
charging them with her blade raised for a final strike.
Sometime
later, Prince Luther takes a few soldiers to flush out the remaining
Janthizerain soldiers from the mines. With General Tristan missing,
their soldiers’ morale fallen into complete disorder, and many had
fleed. In the mines, Luther found the caverns covered in familiar
glowing crystals. In a large room of broken columns and ransacked
storage chests, Luther finds Gwuenevere escorting a few young curios who
hid in the mines from Tristan’s soldiers. Gwuenevere is all torn up
from her fight, but her material enhancements strengthen her fabric body
and keep her going.
As Luther and his men help Gwuenevere find
the remaining curios in the mines, Luther asks Gwuenevere about General
Tristan. Gwuenevere points to a large crystal column that snaked up and
down a nearby stone wall. There embedded within it is General Tristan
the broadsword, their metal core warped and twisted by glowing crystals
while their kernel lies entrapped by its crystalline prison.