The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
The chill breeze carried with it the salty air of the nearby sea, a fresh wake-up call for Nadine. Her head still pounded from a particularly hard round of drinking last night: the hangovers were not the reminder of merriment she preferred. Still, she would fight through the pain: literally. It was the perfect time to fit in a few bouts of practice.
She dug her halberd into the dirt, clenching her eyes for a few moments as a bout of nausea passed. "Maybe I do need to cut back," she moaned, clutching her abdomen.
Nadine needed a distraction. Desperately.
"What entertainment do we have today?" she asked, pulling her weapon free from the earth.
The one benefit of the constant dreary overcast of Nevermere was the lack of blinding sunlight in the early morning hours. Light never did help her migraines. Pushing the privates around...well, that just might.
Nadine wandered about the training field, twirling her halberd like an oversized baton. Most of these foot soldiers were...lackluster, at best. Going through the motions, hardly putting any spirit into their actions, but...there.
One of the soldiers executed a flurry of blows against his practice opponent's shield. His movements were like a dance, a sharp comparison to the feeble swings of many of the other cadets. He would work just fine to clear her head.
Nadine stepped up, catching the subpar opponent and tossing him to the side.
"Mind if I tap in?" Nadine slowly lowered into a readied stance, exaggerating a wince at a pop in her neck. "You uh," a belch interrupted her words. "You look like you could use a challenge."
Last Edit: May 26, 2023 23:25:35 GMT -5 by Deleted
A reassignment to staff duty meant that Ber had spent the weeks since the ball training on his own time rather than having one of his days dedicated to training. Continued participation in the assessments, however, meant that he had to find some way to keep up with the other soldiers if he was interested in keeping his job, and as a result, most of his evenings and much of his one day off were spent on the training grounds. Occasionally, someone allowed him to fill in for some other missing soldier when they ran their drills. Though the self-imposed schedule was brutal, it had worked so far. Ber was still a soldier, and that was the most important thing.
It didn’t mean he was happy in the moment, however. Swinging a sword at a dummy would never equate to swinging a sword at another person who could dodge or deflect the blows, which was part of why Ber sought out opportunities to spar against other people. However, this particular soldier, a young man about his age named Johnson, was hardly the challenge Ber had hoped he would be. Hesitant and clearly lacking in confidence, he had spent almost the entirety of their spar on the back foot, unwilling or unable to break his defense to attempt to retaliate against his opponent – which meant that Ber might as well have been striking a training dummy.
Irritated, he brought his sword down repeatedly on Johnson’s shield, each one increasing in strength as he allowed the momentum to carry him from one movement to the next, until suddenly Johnson disappeared. Eyes narrowed, the soldier drew to a halt and looked up at the witch who had intervened, recognizing her a moment later while she prepared to take his opponent’s place. As a matter of fact, Ber did mind, but he wasn’t about to protest an officer’s presence to her face; they both knew there was only one answer to her question: “No, ma’am.”
Raising his own sword again, he waited another moment until he knew Machenet was ready. Then he rushed at her, feinting a blow to one side before swinging the blade at her from the other.
Nadine was lucky she favored the long halberd: when the man's lunge turned ploy, it only took a bit of a twist to catch his blade on her weapon. Metal screeched against metal for a mere moment before the two disengaged.
It was a solid opening tactic on the soldier's part: in battle, combat man to man should only last about twenty seconds, give or take. A single blow, maybe two, to incapacitate the enemy, then on to the next. Any more than that was far too physically taxing for a battlefield. Duels of the more adept soldiers, however...that was the fascinating bit. And Nadine planned to give this soldier a battle to remember.
The officer struck up with her halberd, planting her feet to deliver three thrusts with the weapon in rapid succession.
Although he had started attempting to learn archery at one point, Ber was primarily a swordsman and a brawler. Like every other Nevermerean soldier, he had learned how to use a sword and shield as part of his training, and any other weapons that he favored would have to have been learned on his own time – as would the best ways to defend against them.
The challenge with squaring off against a halberd with a sword, he soon learned as he both backed up out of reach and deflected her blows, was that the longer weapon gave his opponent far better reach than he had: Machenet could stand there and poke at him with the halberd, whereas he stood no chance of hitting her with his sword.
And they said size didn’t matter.
If he could get in close, he thought that his shorter blade would be more maneuverable than the halberd’s long wooden pole. After another few attempts to test her defenses, Ber rushed forward, going for the officer’s legs in an attempt to destabilize her.
Nadine wasn't sure what the boy was up to when he made small strikes, easy to be parried. He certainly knew better technique, she'd seen as much watching his prior duel. What was he--
Nadine was shocked as Stormcrest rocketed forward, a move that would have left him quite open had she a sword or a dagger. She had no hopes of moving her halberd around in time to block him.
So as Stormcrest made contact with her legs, she dropped her weapon and let herself fall backwards, attempting to grab the boy and deliver a solid kick upwards.
Officer Machenet hated losing, much more so to the boy Terach spent so much time gloating about. She'd show him. The Lieutenant had to know that Stormcrest wasn't the perfect, infallible soldier.
Last Edit: May 28, 2023 12:44:22 GMT -5 by Deleted
Somewhere amidst the adrenaline now coursing through his veins, a vicious satisfaction flickered through Ber as he successfully closed the distance between himself and Machenet. His efforts paid off - mostly.
As she fell back to put more space between them, she cast aside the halberd and managed to grab him while his momentum still carried him forward. Her solid, booted blow to his torso had him back-pedaling in turn, sword still clenched in his hand, before he regained his balance and raised the weapon between them.
Ber was not above pressing his advantage in ostensibly unfair fights. Though the officer was unarmed, he would try to hold on to his own weapon as long as possible. This time, he had the longer reach, so he kept his distance while he made a short, sharp jab at her torso. If all went well, there would be no large flourishes or swings from him, lest he mistakenly give her the opportunity to rush him just as he had her.
Nadine's move had paid off in the short term, but now found herself quite unarmed before the swordsman. She quickly ran through a short incantation, wincing as she ripped a few hairs out.
It was just in time too. The air crackled, dark mist exploding just as Stormcrest's blade careened forward. It instead found purchase in the chest of a rather irritable miniature shadow demon. The fleshy, rotting beast squealed horrendously, pulling itself further on the blade as it tried to scramble towards its unwitting attacker.
Was it a dirty move? Maybe. But her magic was a part of her skillset as much as Stormcrest's combat techniques were a part of his. And at this point she was willing to do a lot to win.
She moved toward Stormcrest's side, hoping he would be too distracted with the little monster to block her right hook towards his head.
Machenet made a clear target in front of him— then suddenly his sword sank into the chest of a rotting beast that screeched and reached for him. Shocked at the unexpected appearance of magic and repulsed by the summoning itself, Ber flinched back and tried to yank his sword free of the creature’s body, but its flesh clung to the blade as it scrambled toward him, indifferent as to the wounds it caused himself.
The officer’s trick worked. Distracted by the summoning, Ber didn’t notice the blow coming toward him until it was too late to block. Her punch collided painfully with the side of his face, and his grip on the sword loosened as he fell back. Now as unarmed as his opponent, he turned to face Machenet again, rushing forward to try to land some punches to her side.
Nadine grinned fiercely as her opponent staggered, breathing heavily from both the physical exhaustion and drain of summoning. But the boy was up faster than she anticipated. The officer tried to plant her feet, raising her hands to block her face and bracing...
The punches came fast and heavy to her side, the air pushed from her lungs as she staggered, trying to move away from the soldier.
It wouldn't...it couldn't end like this!
Nadine tried to rush forward to tackle him to the ground, but was wildly off balance...
Machenet seemed to expect him to aim for her face, but Ber had a different target in mind. His blows landed with a satisfying solidity against her side, forcing her to retreat, and the soldier pressed his advantage, intending to keep her on the back foot as long as possible given that she had experience and size on her side. Attempting to change the tide, the officer rushed toward him in a desperate, off-kilter charge. Stepping to the side, Ber shoved her to redirect her momentum away from him, hopefully causing her to stumble and fall. If she remained standing, he would follow up with another punch to the side of the head, and then another to her side, and perhaps attempt to sweep her legs out from under her – whatever it took to get her to land on the ground and leave him standing the victor.
She was charging the boy one minute, and down on the ground with a nasty headache the next. Not to mention the horrible pain in her side...that would bruise up quickly no doubt.
Worse than any physical injury was the damage to her pride. She'd let some baby-faced private knock her to the ground? It was insulting. It was humiliating. She wanted to get up right then and there and right the situation but...
As she sat up, a hiss of pain forced itself between her teeth, clutching her side. Goddess, he better not have broken a rib.
"Fine," she huffed, pushing herself to her feet with a wince. "Back to training with you then, Stormcrest."
She wouldn't bring herself to admit his win, to acknowledge or congratulate him. It would taste like bile in her mouth. Humility wasn't one of Nadine's strong suits.
And just like that, the spar was over. Shoulders rising and falling with the exertion of the fight, Ber looked down at the officer sprawled across the ground. The ghost of a satisfied smirk had the corners of his lips twitching upward as he stepped back, casting his gaze around for the sword that he’d last seen impaled in the chest of her horrid summoning. It lay abandoned nearby, and as Machenet gracelessly pushed herself to her feet, he retrieved it. Her words had him turning to face her, admittedly in a far better mood now than he had been before.
She wasn’t Woodwick, so any acknowledgement of his victory from her was unnecessary; they both knew perfectly well who had won, and that was enough for Ber.
What words Machenet did offer him had him looking back at her for a moment before he nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” The words were agreeable, perhaps suspiciously so. Though he managed to school his expression into something respectfully neutral, he couldn’t entirely keep the sense of accomplishment from lacing his tone.
As she watched the boy walk away, she spat a bit of blood to the ground: she must have bit her tongue during the fight. It was the least of her concerns.
Because now Nadine had to figure out how to deliver a crushing defeat to Stormcrest and deflate whatever ego her defeat had pumped up.
"Watch your step," she muttered, clutching her side as she turned to supervise the less adept cadets.