Prince Greyblood, Heir to the throne of Pandemic. After his dip in the Wyrmwound, he finds that he has a certain immunity to many magics. The Mimic's influence is no different.
ThunderRider, the alleged son of the StormCatcher and the loudest voice of the clan. He was one of the first to know the clan's imminent downfall, and was given the immediate task of getting help.
Heavensbane, the son of a dragon that is said to harbor a piece of the Shade. He has a strange affinity to treasure and magical objects, claiming that the magic helps him "stay awake" and anchors him to reality. Perhaps his love for magic treasure will be of use...
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It was common knowledge that Mages were to have enchanted objects as their Familiars. Flying tomes, puppets that moved of their own volition, and roaming suits of armor were normal within the area where the Mages were to set up their tents. Enchanted objects were nothing but a familiar sight.
However, the sight of a clan assassin giggling hysterically and almost choking his prince and Heir to the Pandemic Throne was enough to throw anyone off their game.
Greyblood had heard from ThunderRider that the clan had begun to deteriorate, the members slowly loosing their minds and the Nocturnes seemingly the worst off from all of them, and that those unaffected should run to seek aid from an allied clan. When he heard the news, Greyblood had rushed to the Vault to warn the Vault Guardians with ThunderRider in tow.
They didn’t see the two Pearlcatchers, but they did find Heavensbane, the son of the Shade Dragon that had infected the clan long ago. Heavensbane didn’t seem affected, though it was difficult to tell from his dream-like ramblings. It wasn’t until Crystal Star attacked Greyblood and the mystical Shadowsong had informed them of their predicament did the unlikely trio begin their quest.
It wasn’t off to the best of starts.
“
WHO BROUGHT A THUNDER FORESAKEN MIMIC INTO THE CLAN?!” ThunderRider’s booming voice echoed. The three had fled to the outskirts of the camp, hiding in a small Quarantine Area that the clan had roosted by.
“Not know…” Heavensbane muttered, rubbing his talons together. His golden armor had long since been discarded, as have all of their garments. None of them knew if what they were wearing was a mimic. Could pre-existing things become mimics?
Greyblood was clearly uncomfortable showing his full, grotesque figure of flesh and bone and pestilence given how he was trying to shrink into himself and cover what he could with his wings. Even ThunderRider had to throw out his apparel, as he was known to scavenge things. Perhaps he had brought in the mimic by accident?
“The Hoard was normal… Normal?” Heavensbane continued. “Nothing more… No mimics…”
“Whoever it is, it must to be someone from the last scavenger expedition, correct?” Greyblood piped up from his current curled up state. “ThunderRider, you said everyone began acting bizarrely after the last haul?”
“
Indeed!” The Ridgeback roared out, stomping his talons and lashing his tail. Sparks of static were flying around him like flies on a carcass. “The Queen was the
first to notice. She took Hailstorm and sent him to chart out the next expedition path, then gathered the council.
I was the
only one that wasn’t affected out of the other reps,”
“Scavengers… the night…” Heavensbane stated rather loudly and abruptly, sinking back down to mutter under his breath. ThunderRider cleared his throat and continued his speech.
“She told me that the clan was showing
disturbing signs, and to take those who are unaffected and to seek help from an ally,” the Lightning Representative rumbled. “But now, it seems we do not possess the time to fly to an ally. We must deal with this
OURSELVES!”
“But how do we discern who brought the Mimic to our clan?” Greyblood allowed his head to pop out of his winged prison, so that he may see his two companions. “We have so many Hunters… is it possible to even investigate all of them?”
“Magic in the air…” Heavensbane hummed out, though he went unheard by the other two.
“Perhaps if we keep an eye on them,” ThunderRider tapped bis chin in thought. “The Mimic
must show itself at some point!”
“A chance that our own should attack us would be too high if we set foot in the camp without foreplaning,” Greyblood countered, daring to uncurl himself and stand up to begin pacing back and forth. “We need to chart out a path to the scavenger dens,”
“
Can we not fly, or has our wings been bound to our sides?” ThunderRider snapped, spreading his wings and flapping them a few times to emphasize his point.
“So can the others with wings and the ability to take to the skies!” Greyblood barked. “Rushing in will only mean-“
“MAGIC WITHIN THE AIR!” Heavensbane roared out, jumping to his feet and rearing up to his hind legs. His black eyes, deeper than the darkest voids, seemed to be staring at both of the now silenced dragons at the same time. “Mimics pulse with energy! Their very Beings a source of wakefulness! Follow I, for my Nothing will lead us to the Mimic as I feast on it’s very life source!”
“What?” ThunderRider took a step back, clearly perturbed by the normally unsteady Skydancer. “What does he mean?”
“He is a son of a Voidwoken,” Greyblood reasoned, his eyes widening. “Like his mother, he may be able to sense the Mimic through the magic that the Shade within him wishes to consume,”
“Are you sure?” ThunderRider kept his blazing blue eyes on the black eyed dragon, who was still standing on his hind legs like he was paused in time.
“Very sure,” Greyblood said. With that, Heavensbane lowered himself back onto the ground. He stepped forward, eyeing the outline of the camp intensely. Greyblood looked to the camp as well. “Heavensbane will lead us to the Mimic, and he will be its demise,”
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Heavensbane was leading the Ridgeback and Tundra as they circled above the camp like vultures. His antennae were waving in the wind as he tried to pick up any strange signals in the energies around him. Indeed, his clan was in disarray. Even his own mother had fled the camp. He could sense her Nothing watching him from afar.
“Anything yet, Bane?” Greyblood called over the wind. He watched as the dragons below him romped around in a strange insanity, like they were mere puppets of a puppet show.
“The ground littered with golden claws…” Heavensbane answered, leaving ThunderRider to groan in frustration.
“Have you forgotten the
RIGHT WAY OF SPEECH?!” The Ridgeback roared, only to be shushed by the mutated Tundra.
“Hush your voice!” Greyblood hissed, shoving his spiked tail towards ThunderRider’s thigh. “The Mimic could hear us and send someone!”
“The fall of a clan…” Heavensbane whispered to the winds. “Halted only by the fall of the deities. Irony in full bloom,”
“Is that your way of saying that is it ironic that you should be the savior of the clan?” ThunderRider huffed out, his tone so low it almost sounded like a different dragon.
“The sun says yes,” Heavensbane replied. He then halted in the air, hovering in place and looking forever into the horizon. ThunderRider and Greyblood fumbled in the air at the sudden stop, but quickly regained their bearings and watched as Heavensbane seemed to scan the very fabric of existence. The Skydancer’s head tipped down, along with the rest of his body, as he curled his wings to wrap around his body and allow him to plummet down to the world below.
“Has his mind left him!?” ThunderRider gasped as he and Greyblood dived down to follow the falling pink Skydancer.
Heavensbane landed on top of a tent on the outskirts of the scavenger dens, close to the clan hoard. The tent broke his fall and caught him before he could suffer any fatal damage, or any damage at all it seemed. The next sounds were that of ThunderRider and Greyblood expanding their wings to break their own descent, landing heavily in the sands of the Boneyard. The next resonances were that of dragons stampeding their way towards them from all directions.
“Quickly!” ThunderRider ushered Greyblood into the ruins of the tent for some amount of safety, though it was soon be short lived. When they entered the tent, it did not take a Skydancer forehead gem to feel the heavy arcane energies in the air. Like a hot summer’s day, the air was almost suffocating.
“Greyblood! ThunderRider!” called the voice of Heavensbane, clearer than the two had ever heard before. Shooting their gaze towards the voice, they found Heavensbane grappling with none other than Infect, Greyblood’s arranged fiancé. Heavensbanes eyes took on the colors of red, as they should have due to his Plague birthright.
“The magic wakes me and fills me with the energy of life!” Heavensbane called out, almost seeming euphoric despite his current impromptu sparring match. “The Mimic! It is here! Find it!”
“
Do not touch me!” Infect growled in a voice that sounded like her but was not her own. “
I will bring this clan to its knees!”
“Hurry!” Greyblood gasped out, running towards the pile of trinkets. ThunderRider quickly began digging through the collection as well.
“
My slaves approach, to rip you to shreds!” Infect’s voice barked out, huffing and puffing as the Mimic forced her to fight with a body that wasn’t meant for battle. The sounds of giggling Nocturnes, stomping Imperials, ravenous Mirrors, and roaring Guardians filled the ears of the three unaffected dragons. They had no time to waste.
A small sliver of movement caught Greyblood’s eye from his peripheral vision. Something was moving beneath the covers of the fallen shelter. Leaping like a pouncing Tigerblood Foo, Greyblood pinned the moving lump and ripped it out from under the sheets, revealing a wooden Bogsneak puppet that was as big as Greyblood’s torso. It struggled like a living creature.
“
Get your claws off me, mutated freak!” Infect’s voice called, sounding strained. Looking over, Greyblood witnessed Heavensbane pinning Infect down effortlessly.
“ThunderRider, keep her pinned!” Heavensbane called.
“Right!” the Ridgeback charged over and quickly traded places with the Skydancer, who rushed over to Greyblood with his talons outstretched.
“
I will kill you all, shred you to ribbons and turn you all into my puppets,” the puppet sneered, the voices of the rest of the Clan of Pandemic echoing into the air. The three dragons looked up to see the rest of the clan surrounding them, their eyes wide and unblinking.
“Mother? No…” Greyblood spied the black and red Mirror that wore a bone crown, Queen Harbringer.
“
Move, and you die,” the puppet said through the mouths of every dragon present.
“I don’t need to move to consume you,” Heavensbane snarled, opening his mouth wide with a snake ready to consume it’s catch. A black orb of vantablack darkness formed around his gums and teeth, turning his entire mouth black. A shrill scream that sounded like the bending of metals erupted from the puppet. It convulsed in Greyblood’s hands, and the Prince watched in morbid curiosity as a black mist seemed to be extracted from the puppet, leaving the wooden marionette to drop into a limp pile of ball jointed limbs and fabric wings.
Heavensbane seemed to be taking the deepest breath he possibly could, all the while the rest of the clan seemed to be struggling to rush forward. The spell binding them to the Mimic breaking with every second as the Mimic attempted to have its army tear the three limb from limb.
The black mist swirled down into the abyss of Heavensbane’s mouth, which promptly snapped shut. When it did, the air seemed to twitch. The heavy atmosphere seemed to lift off of the shoulders of those present, and the dragons surrounding the fallen shelter seemed confused.
“What happened?” Infect wheezed, her red eyes drooping. “ThunderRider, why are you pinning me?”
“ThunderRider,” Harbringer announced, stepping forward as the rest of the clan clamored to regain their comportments and raced to fix any damage they had caused while under the influence of the Mimic.
“
My Queen!” ThunderRider jumped off of Infect and bowed to the Mirror approaching.
“I thought I stated to get help from an ally,” Harbringer’s gaze drifted to Greyblood and Heavensbane, who in tandem walked up and proceeded to place themselves in their official stances.
“We came across some… information,” Greyblood stated, confidence rising in his chest now that his mother was here. “We had no time to reach out to our allies. We had to take action ourselves,”
“Indeed,” Heavensbanes eyes were fading back to black, slowly but surely. Now that the magic fueling his Nothing was gone, the Nothing continued to sap away all of his natural elemental energy from his Being. “The Mimic… Took the clan- Kept itself in the minds of many,”
“Heavensbane was the one who led the charge and defeated… this,” Greyblood threw the defeated Bogsneak puppet to the ground at Harbringer’s talons.
“That-!” Infect gasped, causing heads to turn her direction. “But I thought it was-“
“Was what, Infect?” ThunderRider snapped, puffing out his chest. “Was it
you who brought this
calamity into our midst?”
“I went out to help Virus with hunting,” Infect informed the gathered dragons. “I saw it as I was searching for scraps. I thought… It looked to be made of gold and jasper when I first laid eyes on it,”
“Mimics warp the eyes and trick the mind,” Greyblood stated, recalling his teachings from his companion and beloved, Namiato. “It merely made itself shimmer like it was precious, when in reality it was vicious,”
“The Night of the Nocturne is one of gifts, but one of danger,” Harbringer said, kicking the puppet to the side and rattling her wings to make the bone chimes sing. “We must rebuild what we have broken. ThunderRiser, Greyblood, and Heavensbane, you will be no different. Greyblood, when your father returns, have him help you in rebuilding the remains of our library. ThunderRider, tend to the other Representatives,”
“Yes, my Queen!” ThunderRider and Greyblood barked at the same time and turned to relay their duties. Harbringer turned to Heavensbane next, the Skydancer swaying from side to side like he was about to topple over.
“My Queen, I helped the clan,” Heavensbane spoke slowly this time, trying to keep his words from tumbling out faster than his foggy mind could process. “From the skies I dived to find the Mimic. To find it… and free everyone,”
“And you did well,” Harbringer stated after a moment of hesitation. “For a Voidwoken. You can help rebuild this shelter, and then help the Hunters rebuild the trinket stores,”
“My Queen, I thank you!” Heavensbane called, an eerie grin splitting his face. “Trinkets and treasure, all to keep me awake. I will not disappoint you,”
“Then go now,” Harbringer ordered. The Skydancer nodded and proceeded to work on cleaning up the shelter he had destroyed. Harbringer turned on her heels and began marching down to help the Alchemists. It was time to rebuild.