Thread: Surviving The Time Of Troubles (Athene & Alvis Alendran)

The city had been in chaos. The loss of magic had been a trial and more for so many houses, and so many drow had fallen from their high places. Caution and patience were bywords for the Drow people, planning their moves very carefully, and with exacting detail. But now, scores were being settled by the score, and those that plied the trade of death by combat, they were finding themselves sought after and never short of something that needed doing. And for some, it was not a time of troubles, but a time of pure, raucous joy. Ktonos del Valuken, soldier to whatever house offered him the most money or bloodshed, was not at his post. With the running battles in the streets, he'd declined his post on the walls, taking himself into the street. He was not a sight that sat easily with anyone that he came across. He was a blood soaked phantom, ghosting from place to place and reaping a bloody harvest wherever he hesitated long enough to draw his blade. In most cases he simply relied on the cold edge of a long knife, but on occasion he was faced with one that put up more of a fight, or was surrounded by others, and he would reach for the blade on his back. When he did so, blood ran in small rivers, and thusly resulted in Ktonos reaching his current state. He'd been on the hunt for nobles in particular. No noble himself, Ktonos had been naught but a simple street thug that had shown enough promise to be press ganged into the academy to try adn mold him into a proper Drow warrior. It had been a mixed result. While he had learned enormously about the arts of war, he'd also been found to be unruly and incredibly violent, even by the standards of the Drow. Some thought him a threat, other simply a prodigy of the blade with a bright future before him. Both sides were perhaps right. His current employer was a relatively minor house, but saw this Time as a grand opportunity to make a swift rise in fortunes, and thus had little issue with Ktonos moving out to remove useful tools from the other houses that opposed them. He slipped along the darkened wall of an estate, looking for a point along it that he might be able to scale, knowing that this might be a simple place, little mroe than a merchant, but it was close to several noble houses. a cunning noble might seek refuge within, or be seeking to negotiate terms for weapons to help defend them. Either way, it was an opportunity. Ktonos found what he'd beenlooking for a small indentation caused by a missed strike, gouging a point for him to grip. He used that point to haul himself up, then to grip the top of hte wall. His foot found the notch, and he was on the top of hte wall, checking it for guards. Only one. And looking the wrong way. Ktonos advanced quickly, one hand siezing hte mouth of his foe, and the other driving a kinfe into his chest. The heart. It was always a heart thrust in a kill like this. Ktonos rode the corpse down, laying it out on the stone before jerking the knife free. It was a swift motion that lef this knife streked in blood. He ran his tongue along the fuller of the blade, his eyes rolling back at the taste and feeling of it. It was electric, setting his nerves and senses afire for a moment. Heart blood was always the greatest rush for him, and he hunted it. Now that he had such a taste, he let himself off hte wall, and head for the estate. Emerging from the estate less than a half hour later, Ktonos was grinning. Flames were jetting from the house, the merchant apparently having been a dealer mainly in alchemical agents, and bottled fire being a popular choice, there had been a vast stash of it all. Ktonos was leaving via the main gate, ignoring the screams of those still trapped within the building. He was carrying a trio of severed heads, two of them from female Drow. He was sure that one of them had been a noble of some kind, the other likely the head of the merchant house. The other was simply in the way. But his face was lit by a fierce grin, and the light of the flames made him seem like a bloody revenant, a spirit from beyond this world sent to reap the body and souls of those that opposed him. For Ktonos, it was simply a good day to be him.