Avandias/History

(See Chapter 8.)

Avandias was member of the royal family of the South. Was.

At some point he looked really hot, so Kyrill went all teenage crush on him, wowie. But then he did a stab. :( That didn't vibe so well with his family. Now he has anxiety.

Avandias was the second child of Dunirias and Neri Kastairn, the Southern royals of the time. He grew up close with his sister, Dunaetha, and from a young age began learning everything required to rule a nation. He picked up horsemanship as soon as he was large enough to hold himself in a saddle, an activity taught to him by his father, with whom he was very close. Though he always knew the mantle of leadership would fall to his older sister, Avandias wanted nothing more than to be as good a ruler as Dunirias.

His father unfortunately fell ill during Avandias' young adult years, and when he did not get better, the responsibility of the South was quickly passed to the Kastairn children. It was a stressful time, worrying about carrying their nation smoothly while watching their father's health fail, but the siblings held it all together. Dunirias passed when Avandias was twenty-four years old, a devastating loss to him at the time. He became withdrawn for weeks, leaving the bulk of the weight of responsibility to Dunaetha, but when he at last returned to the public eye it was with full conviction, even taking on extra work to relieve his sister of the burden he'd placed on her. The siblings gained popularity through the years, especially Avandias with how he liked to work closely with his citizens and solve their problems personally.

The three royal families sworn to the Kastairns, fearful of another tragedy that might shake their stability like the sudden loss of their previous ruler, proposed some safeguards to Avandias and Dunaetha: to continue the family line so their seat would remain unchallenged, and to begin work on a phylactery to cement themselves as the permanent head of the South.

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Dunaetha married Thael Lekapos when Avandias was twenty-eight years old. He gave up his title of Lord Kastairn and the duties it came with to his new brother-in-law then and happily took the lesser title of Lord Avandias.

Phylactery Research
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Sharik
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Downfall
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Avandias left the town that night with a Soul-Jack sigil carved in his chest and Metsis Lekapos controlling his every move while he could only watch through his own eyes as he rode home to Jaraska, found his nephew sleeping, and stabbed him to death.

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Though torn at first whether he should attempt to heal the dying boy, Avandias instead cast a powerful Binding on his soul before it left this plane, sealing inside his own ruby amulet. His sister and Thael quickly found him amidst the carnage, Anthias dead in his arms, the knife that had killed him pressed against his own throat. Thael wrestled the weapon from his hand, recognizing what had taken place, but Dunaetha became inconsolable; her brother's actions were nothing short of betrayal, and the law would support her to have him executed on the spot. But Thael convinced her to back down, and Avandias was instead banished from the South upon pain of death should he ever return.

[...]

For two years Avandias traveled the neutral territories, the East, and even parts of the West, chasing after rumors of phylacteries or powerful Celestials that could undo the crime he had committed and bring Anthias back to life. It was that very quest that led him to seek out Lord Aislin's tournament in Ulmery.

Chapter One
Avandias arrived in town to buy flint and fell into accidental companionship with Feyrith and Azariah. Upon hearing Iglas was also in the city, and that the general was looking for a noble, he and his two "bodyguards" entered the city's prison to speak with him. They did not find him there, but they were caught up in a prison break. Not wanting more trouble with the law, Avandias headed into the woods towards Ulmery for the tournament, and briefly encountered Eponine and Masa on his way. He left the gathering party and rode through the night to arrive early for the tournament.

Aislin's Tournament
Though he thought he'd shaken off his temporary companions, Avandias found himself running into the others from the prison at every turn - and even grouped with Elias and Gen once the tournament began. Avandias borrowed a weapon and bag of gear from Sunny in the arena as they awaited their turn. Sent through the stone door to a watery cave of broken statues, the three of them pieced together a riddle from carvings on the monuments. They encountered a stone salamander, which Gen quickly dispatched, then a horde of cave imps that nearly disposed of them all before they solved the riddle and used a mechanism on the statues to open the door at the end of the tunnel. Avandias was impressed with Gen's fighting prowess, and somewhat less so with Eli's lax attitude.

Palinoia
Upon arriving on the island, Avandias didn't wait to puzzle how they'd been transported and delved straightaway into the most obvious problem: how to survive as a group and what to do with the phylactery once they'd found it. With the future so uncertain, he soon left the group and headed straight into the maze with a warning to the others not to make an enemy of him. But the maze had other plans, and soon he, and the rest, were dragged through the thorny hedges and separated.

Now alone, Avandias heard a faint cry for help deeper within the maze and, suddenly worried that some kid had found trouble, headed towards the sound. His panic worsened as the cries turned to screams - finally, he came across a huddled shape in the mist. Suspecting a trap but still concerned, he approached the form with dagger in hand. The shape reared up to reveal a twisted creature screaming for a soul, which then attacked him.

He managed to escape with only a torn shoulder, having wounded the creature with his knife, and carried on through the maze alone for some time and getting worried that he had not seen any of the other contestants since they left the arena. No sooner did he think that than he stumbled across Feyrith, Masa, and Azariah running towards him, away from a spreading fire. He quickly joined them, though enraged that the flames could destroy what he'd come for. Their sprint brought them straight to Gen and Iglas, who seemed unusually distrustful of him, blaming him for the general's grievous injuries. As the fire spread, they moved as a group towards the center, herded by flames and the same creatures that Avandias had encountered before.

They stopped in a clearing to regroup, where Avandias told them about his encounter with the creature and the danger they posed, then gave his last healing potion to Feyrith to use on Iglas, while Gen mentioned encountering a crazed version of Avandias in the maze that had attacked the general, suspecting it could have been one of the same creatures. They were interrupted yet again by a pair of mercenaries. Avandias opted to take a defensive position and let the well-armed fighters handle it - only for one of the creatures to appear behind them. A stranger wielding a lance dispatched the thing before he could make a move, however, and when Iglas recognized her, they followed her further into the maze.

The stranger was gone by the time Avandias caught up with the group, but they seemed to be on track as they arrived before a stone ruin and the creatures' nest, where Eponine was waiting. Briefly arguing his motive with Gen, Avandias pointed out that after the dangers they had encountered, they should not enter lightly. His fears appeared unfounded at first when they reached the nest's center and found only an empty pile of debris. Until dozens of the things surrounded them, trapping them inside.

Collecting blood on the blade of his knife as they group fought the creatures, Avandias drew a sigil on the floor and used his last cantrip pouch to ignite it, burning a handful of the creatures alive. He joined Gen at her back to fight with her in tandem as Feyrith and Eponine joined the fray with an artifact cannon, scattering the remaining beasts.

An extremely ugly man appeared to warn them of their folly just as the debris at the center shifted apart for a massive, rotting creature to rise above them: the Harbinger.

Through great collective effort, the Harbinger was finally felled, though it remained alive in its shattered state and tried to crawl towards the center of the ruin. As it was no longer a threat, Avandias headed inside to see if the phylactery was indeed waiting for them, only to find Elias already inside and no phylactery to be seen. He seized the monk to threaten him, but quickly realized killing him would bring him no gain, so instead returned to the others to inform them of the state of things. Only for Elias to pull a vial from his sleeve and claim it as the unfinished phylactery, which Iglas then claimed for safekeeping, despite Avandias' desperate pleas to hand it over.

Upon learning of the phylactery's defective state, Avandias was crushed. He left the maze with the rest of the group through the teleporter Eponine repaired, hollow.

Chapter Three
Upon arriving at the Tall Oaks Inn at Aubade, Avandias reluctantly joined his new companions in the hot springs to wash and relax from the recent ordeal, though being in the South left him on edge for unspoken reasons. Feyrith revealed his status as a half-elf, prompting a surprised and somewhat rude reaction from the blood mage, having never met anyone other than human. After a bit of passive aggressive prodding between himself and Elias over the topic of blood magic, Avandias surreptitiously used the very thing to incapacitate Iglas from leaving while the ice mage bled out from a wound sustained in the maze, and soon after departed the springs when the others seemed too keen to label the medical mishap the result of a blood spell.

Meeting up again with the others in the common room where Eponine explained the difference in phylacteries, how sacrosancts worked, and why their phylactery was broken, Avandias argued with the others on what should be done with it, claiming that he should be taking it, and that he was willing to pay off anyone else who claimed it. In the end, he resolved to trust Eponine's plan for it, as well as her suggestion on where to start looking for a sacrosanct to finish it. He and the other mages present powered up the heavy automaton artifact taken from the island so Eponine and Aster could begin to repair it, then parted for the night.

The next morning, after being introduced to the partially-functioning Enjin, Elias showed them all their new bounties and statuses as criminals across Kalon by order of Aislin. Avandias began making plans to leave immediately for Ulmery, to collect Sharik again and possibly negotiate with the high judge there about their criminal status. With the phylactery placed safely inside Enjin, Avandias resolved to trust the others not to lose it, and the group made plans to split up as mercenaries seeking their bounties closed in. In a narrow escape that accidentally led to the inn catching fire, they made their way to Imaine's ship, where Kyrill revealed herself as a stowaway before they set sail out of the South.

Back to Ulmery
Upon landfall, Avandias and Elias prepared to head to Ulmery, when Kyrill volunteered herself to accompany them; Avandias remembered what little Eponine had told them about her and agreed to let her come, hoping to learn more regarding phylacteries from her. The three of them received some horses on loan from a group of horse traders who owned a ranch near Ulmery and requested they return the animals there, giving them a warning about some bloodthirsty beast on the road that had slaughtered some of their companions recently.

On the road, the two men questioned Kyrill curiously about her knowledge of phylacteries and sacrosancts, finding themselves at odds morally more than once over who deserved to use one and who deserved to die to make one. Kyrill expressed distaste for the use of mage souls by the lost kingdom she came from, while Avandias suggested the practice was better than using an innocent, as cursed mages often deserved their fate. They camped for one night on the riverbank, and arrived in Ulmery the next day.

A clever lie by Elias got them through the gates, and after a bit of searching, Avandias discovered that his beloved horse had been seen leaving the city alone nearly a week earlier, and not been seen since. He left word with the horse ranch to send word to Duskvalley if they happened upon him, then the three of them followed Elias' plan to get them North for the meetup, by selling both Kyrill and Avandias into slavery.

Aboard the slavers' airship and in bonds in the cargo hold, Kyrill asked him to use his magic on her. He found the magic blocked, oddly enough, though her blood boiled at its touch and ate away the fibers of her rope cuffs enough to slip them. Elias soon met up with them as the slavers came to check on them, and a bloody fight ensued in the cargo hold, ending with the three of them taking the ship and freeing the other prisoners. They completed their flight to Kunlun, the Northern capital, without incident. After wandering the frigid streets for a bit, Avandias used his unskilled Mend spell to heal Elias' broken arm, though overestimated himself and suffered the effects of blood loss afterward.

Meeting Up
Moments after the heal spell, the little group encountered Feyrith, Fang, and Imaine by chance across the street from the doctor's house. A heated and tearful exchange revealed that Eponine and Aster were believed to be dead, killed by the Inquisition in Waalren. Imaine gave Enjin, miniaturized by a spell, to Avandias for safekeeping as Kyrill ran off. The blood mage berated Feyrith for how he reacted to their grief. Kyrill received a map on a beet to a location high in magic from the old woman Tama, and met with everyone to convince them to come with her there, with the promise that death was not always permanent and could be reversed. The group boarded the stolen slavers' airship, piloted by Enjin, to reach the location on the map, but the rough takeoff resulted in a loss of power before they made it there and left them to continue through a blizzard on foot. Enjin returned to full size upon landing, nearly crushing Avandias in the process.

A huge man on a sleigh cut off their progress and took them to his village. They were allowed food and a warm place to rest, though not permitted to leave at the request of a Lady Maria. Soon after, the poison in the food began to work against the group's mages, afflicting Avandias and Elias especially badly, and Lady Maria made herself known. Her brother had perished in the tournament, and she blamed the group for his death.

Chapter Five
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Chapter Six
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Chapter Seven
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Chapter Eight
Uh oh.

Chapter Nine
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Chapter Ten
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Chapter Eleven
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Chapter Twelve
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