Accept or decline?

Both seemed fraught with danger.

If I accepted would I be trapped and bound to the Wild Hunt forever? And if I declined, would I be judged and found wanting, instead, becoming a target of the hunt?

I wasn't really sure about that kin-slayer claim in our summoning ritual. The words had been guided by and reinforced with magic from the Wild Magic. But I doubt ap Nudd would accept, 'The Wild Magic made me do it,' as an excuse.

The rules for the Wild Hunt were clear, and those rules bound the Wild Hunt, as much as they bound those that asked for help. Those who would summon and demand justice, would themselves be judged. It is well known that justice is blind. And Lady Justice's sword cared not how it was wielded, or who it slew. As long as justice is served.

I tried sending a message to Caraid for advice, but that connection, that link that had existed since before I breathed life on Talahm was missing. It seemed not only time had frozen. Communications were also completely disabled, even an attempt to speak aloud and ask Cedric was impossible.

The Wild Hunt wanted me to make this decision and refused to allow me to renege, after the fact, by trying to offload responsibility to my Vassals or Caraid.

I realized, I really only had one option. Choosing to decline, I based my decision finally on honor. I'd been given a second chance, barely lived a second of the eternity I'd envisioned. But in this life, I wanted to make a difference. I didn't want to blindly accept injustice or take the easy path as I had in my past life.

If I wanted to make a difference in the here and now, I couldn't forsake this life to the ambiguous uncertainty as a shadow of the Hunt. In a way, my choice was consistent and part of the reason I'd built up enough Karma to meet S-PRIME.

I'd often acted to intervene and keep my stepfather from abusing my brothers and sisters, in that past life, taking the abuse upon myself. Hoping to deflect his anger. This was really no different.

My reasoning may have been self-aggrandizing. Perhaps I was rationalizing, and my choice was completely selfish. But I'd just started living this life, I wasn't ready to spend eternity in those fleeting moments of blind justice that the Wild Hunt was constrained to live.

No warmth. No emotion. No future. The Wild Hunt had its place. But I didn't believe I was part of that community of dogged martyrs.

I chose to stay and fight, not only because it was the right and honorable thing to do. I chose to stay because Caraid deserved to have at least one person in his life that would share his burdens. At its root, his death during that ascension chamber occurred in some way due to greed and jealousy. His story was one of tragedy and grief, and unlike the Iliad, there would be no voice to give rise to another Homer epic. No moral tale of woe to guide and enlighten future generations.

Caraid had already sacrificed his chance for reincarnation, placing his entire faith in S-PRIME and me, faith that we would further his goals, right his wrongs. To choose the Hunt invalidated that choice. It made inconsequential what was a huge sacrifice, his chance at reincarnation.

He had been betrayed enough. I would not be added to that list of those that disparaged and belittled his expectations.

As I came to my decision, the fog that had gathered and coalesced as he summoned his men, once again flowed like water to embrace me, acknowledging my choice. And as it enveloped me, it began to change.

Precipitation.

The cycle of evaporation, condensation, and rain repeated itself. Accelerated condensation as the fog became a summer storm, rainwater to quench and give life to a barren land.

As temperatures plummeted, that rain became snow. Gentle at first, then the Wild Magic was released, and that gentle rain and snow became a tempest, a blizzard of ice, sleet, rain, and snow.

For those that had been judged and found innocent, for those that had refused the Wild Hunt's offer, the snow and ice accumulated around them, protecting them in layers of crystal coldness.

For me, it was as if I'd spent too long out in the snow and ice. The heat leeching from my body. Peaceful. My breathing slowing, my metabolism adjusting. And Beleros' Aura mutating, the cold of liquid nitrogen. A fire could burn. But so too could ice. And Beleros' Aura now burned with the biting cold of absolute zero. Instead of melting the ice, Beleros' Aura adapted and embraced the nature of cold and ice.

Cold fire.

Just as dangerous and deadly as heat. No longer the gentle warmth of home and hearth. No longer healing. Potential destruction bound and constrained by my will. A harbinger of death, responsive and ready to destroy.

I stood betwixt and between. Not part of the Hunt, but not separate. My refusal to join the Hunt had not exempted me from the Hunt's judgment. My summons had been found worthy, and as claimant, I would stand on the side of the Hunt to deliver justice.

Moving to stand at the right hand of Gwyn ap Nudd, I turned to face the dais and Lord Kel and Lady Patricia. My movement was the impetus to set time in motion. Like popping a soap bubble, my action restored time and momentum.

With me at the epicenter, combatants that were engaged in battle before The Wild Hunt was summoned, those deemed guilty, found their opponents frozen in icy tombs, impervious to both weapon and spell.

Confusion and uncertainty circulated within the room, as those that had been judged and found guilty realized that something had changed.

Lady Patricia was the only one who seemed indifferent to the actions around her as if she had expected this outcome at some point. Her indifference was not a performance, it was a prelude. A determination to act. Opening her palms, she began tossing handfuls of something to the ground. Small and white, resembling seeds or pellets, she tossed and scattered these items.

One handful. Two. Three. Until finally the ground was saturated and littered with the objects.

Spreading out my perception, I focused on one of the objects that had landed near me, concerned because where they landed, the fog dispersed.

[Ismenian Drakon Tooth - A tooth, harvested from a giant serpent that has been tasked with guarding the sacred spring of Ares]

"Arise!" Patricia's command invoked the magic hidden in each one of the teeth.

"Arise and fight!

"I release you from all constraints. Form up. Remember your ancient inheritance. You the shadow guards of Dragon.

"Ismenian Legion, you are called forth!

"Destroy these that would resist that we may strike at our enemies’ heart!"

As she commanded, they obeyed. Energy vortexes forming, absorbing any fog and Wild Magics that came into contact with them, those energies nourishing and speeding their development as they grew. A field strewn with a multitude of teeth, activated and blossoming, burgeoning and distorting into a harvest of death. Growing larger and deadlier until the transformation was complete.

A legion of skeleton encased in iron armor, brandishing iron swords and steel shields. Eyes as hollow and black as Gwyn ap Nudd's own, they assembled. Combatants capable of killing the Sidhe with weapons that poisoned the blood and destroyed the spirit.

I recognized this army of warriors from myth. Constructs of bone and steel, they had battled Jason and his Argonauts when he quested for the Golden Fleece. They were creatures of Ares, the Greek God of War, and imbued with his energies, and although they were also imbued with the powers of Hades, they could be killed.

But they were tenacious. Never tiring. And would need to be completely crushed or they would continue to battle until none remained. They were Ismenian Drakon, infused with the soul of a dragon.

Undead. Impervious to fear. Incapable of retreating.

I was uncertain If their weapons made of iron, a metal that was anathema to Sidhe would affect the undying hordes of the Wild Hunt. What I was certain of, was that this battle wasn't going to be as one-sided as I'd thought.

Gwyn ap Nudd seemed unconcerned, his only reaction was to command the fog. Once again identifying and judging these new targets. The scales of justice would not be denied, and they again formed above the heads of these warriors. Unbelievably, I discovered that they were not soulless automatons, that dragon spark that created them contained part of the true soul of the Draken they were harvested from.

Even stranger, a few, a very few were found innocent. What did it say about the makeup of a soul? Was it layered and capable of being divided? Could you siphon off the evil that was done in life, so that only the good remained when it was time to face reincarnation's Karmic judgment?

These few were offered the Huntsman choice. Serve and join Gwyn ap Nudd's army or be destroyed.

As one they accepted.

Bodies of bone and sinew morphed as blood and flesh were restored. Armor and weapons discarded and replaced by the mithral and silver. The Wild Magic joyous as it served ap Nudd's will. The process was not instant. But life was restored, and Undead eyes sparked with life once more.

Those newly risen and restored, those that had made the choice to embrace life, as one, moved to join Gwyn ap Nudd's ranks.

The Satyrs and Daughters of Artemis that had been exposed when I'd dispelled illusion, also moved. Abandoning and ceding location, no matter the strategic and tactical superiority they may have possessed. They moved quickly to stand behind the Ismenian warriors. A living counterpart for the Undead, but just as armed and dangerous. They formed an additional bulwark of protection for Lord Kel and Lady Patricia.

I wondered, briefly, who exactly she was to the Greeks to deserve this fanatical devotion. For it was obvious, they would protect her, even unto death.

There was no signal given. No command to attack. But suddenly the silence was broken, not by shouts and voice, but by the sounds of clanging metal against metal as the battle was joined.

Gwyn ap Nudd did not join the battle, at first. Instead, he deployed a formation array that changed the battleground. This was not like a Portal into a different realm. No translocation of troops and enemies. It was more like bringing his realm, his domain to the world.

Walls, floors, and ceilings vanished, while a battlefield of lost souls, carnage, and open skies unfolded. There was no sense of movement. It was simply a seamless transition. Not here, then there. The here simply reflected the will of Gwyn ap Nudd in the now.

I gave a brief thought to my Vassals, thankfully, somehow, the oaths that bound us allowed me to be aware on a subconscious level of their fate. They, too, had been given the Huntsmen choice. They had chosen to abstain. But unlike me, they had been protected and encased in icy tombs. They were non-combatants in what was about to occur. Frozen in time awaiting the outcome of this battle and justice to be served.

As we battled, as the Ismenian Drakon warriors were slain, the detritus of bodies from both sides were given no rest, each called back to battle by their master. Gwyn ap Nudd's dead simply reformed, made whole and ready to battle once more.

Patricia's side was different. The Satyr's and Children of Artemis that fell rose, but as The Huntsmen sowed, so too did they reap. The fallen, those from the living, joined the Wild Hunt. Given no choice, they became fresh troops in an ever-growing army.

The skeletons were different. They too had no choice but to join the Huntsman legion, but before that choice was forced upon them, they shattered. Teeth scattering, growing and forming new troops to battle for Patricia. The army we faced doubled and tripled, as each slain foe released a torrent of teeth in a frenzy of explosive force. Teeth that grew a fresh horde of the Undead that embraced the dying to swell their ranks.

Five times larger. Ten. Fifty. Finally, when our opponents had grown to one hundred times the size of ap Nudd's forces, he responded.

Raising his horn, a cacophony of sound rang out, born of fury and indignation. The stirring notes summoning additional troops to his banner.

This call to arms was different, the specters and denizens that responded mirrored that difference. Knights on battle chargers. Magic wielders well versed in ice to counter the Ismenian Drakon fire. And, Fomorians. Giants of little intellect, yet even in their mindless devotion, they were powerful.

Armed with clubs that had been gathered and shaped from oak, imbued with age and strength, hardened by fire, these Giants didn't just kill as they struck the Ismenian, they ground and pulverized the Skeletal warrior's bones to dust, no longer allowing teeth to give rise to fresh troops.

And the monstrous.

Not only Seelie but Unseelie responded to that horn's demand. Slaugh, nightmares made real, took wing and flew. Creatures of such horror that to look upon their visage was to inspire despair in the living. To see the truth behind those fears that had enabled man to create fire. They were the monsters of the dark.

The battle impetus slowly changed. The overwhelming odds slowly decreased as more and more Ismenian were removed from battle.

This battle of titans. This conflict between Pantheons. Greek versus Sidhe was not entirely one-sided.

Those living that had answered the Huntsmen call were capable of real death. When slain, their bodies were banished to Gwyn ap Nudd's realm, removed from this battle permanently as the process to reform bodies without souls began. They had made the ultimate sacrifice and would join the Wild Hunt's ride forever.

Magics were released. Ice and fire clashing for supremacy. The clash of temperatures from such extremes met and created hurricane-force winds, winds tempered by blizzards and firestorms. Tornadoes were birthed and banished as the conflicting energies combined into the perfect storm.

But within these raging winds, calmness reigned.

Two islands of calm.

Patricia and Gwyn ap Nudd, both the epicenter for the hurricane and typhoon energies that were released. Both unaffected by the energies released.

I had not been a bystander to these events. My sword flashed. Spells were cast. And Beleros' Aura absorbed their dragon flames and responded in kind with a blaze of cold fire that shattered steel and bone alike. The healing benefit of the aura was denied to me, but the destructive force remained.

In my last battle, I had been the commander. Acting, guiding and choosing how and when to battle.

This time was different.

This time, I responded to Gwyn ap Nudd's will. Moving where he felt the need. Attacking or defending as he directed. I was an expression of his will, and as he led, I followed.

We answered his demands and orders instantly. There were no individual ego's, no thought of disobeying orders, no questioning his command decisions. And because we acted in concert, instantly following his directive, the Legions he had assembled became that much more deadly.

We slowly whittled and destroyed the Ismenian forces, but as they were removed from combat, their tactics matured. They began to focus their attacks. No longer random engagements with opposing forces. The warriors marshaled their forces and formed into battle formations made famous by their Grecian ancestors. Tower shields began to appear, squads combined, until a phalanx of diverging shield walls was formed.

Moving in concert, these forces channeled their attacks, intent on making a path. Absorbing even the harsh blows from the Fomorians. If they could not kill it, they ignored it. Where their opponents fell, they trampled them, iron-clad footwear grinding flesh and blood into the earth.

Their target became obvious as they moved decisively towards me. Phalanxes of warriors, protected by their shields, brandishing new weapons, swords replaced by spears. As they moved into range. Determined to reach me. And once they had, they struck.

My sword a dizzying display of speed. Parrying and blocking. Killing more and more. Each flick of my wrist killing a new target. Faster and faster, spinning my blade in a whirling fan of destruction. Imbued with icy flames, my opponents shattered.

A deadly dance, a ballet of perfection, my sword moved in deadly counterpoint to their attacks.

But no matter how many I blocked. No matter how fast I was. I was one person. And as their weapons began to pierce my flesh, their iron not only created wounds, it poisoned me.

Iron was the bane to all Sidhe. It did not matter what my lineage was, what God I was descended from, my blood was Sidhe.

My powers were not strong enough to excise those poisons, quickly enough.

I may have been able to live for eternity, but that did not mean I could not be slain. I was not immortal. And as the wounds and poisons mounted, as my sword slowed, my responses became more desperate less skilled. I managed to block fewer and fewer strikes.

Until eventually.

Inevitably.

I fell.

[Piercing damage is taken.]

[Poison damage is taken.]

[You have died]