The Wards of Saint Estes have always been children of obscurity—orphans, abandoned, unclaimed. Yet history records that obscurity often masks destiny, and in Silverpoint’s @Metropolitan Museum of Proven that veil was torn.
It began with a @Portrait of Varath Julius remembered in whispers as the Proven of Death. His life had been written in shadows—an orphan who refused mortality, who carved his own dominion by swallowing the essence of Death itself. Wherever Julius walked, the air carried the scent of mint and silence; even funerals were said to lighten with his strange smile. Yet with his ascension came paranoia. Julius feared one above all: Lazarus Kane, the man who could not die. This fear festered, until his dominion cracked.
@Hermoine Peppermint stood before that portrait, unaware until that moment that the same blood pulsed in her veins. Her dreams—cities gone quiet, mint-scented air, the smiling figure—were no longer the imaginations of a girl longing for family, but the echoes of a legacy deliberately buried. The Ring of Saint Estes had recognized it long before she did. Where Julius embraced death as an ending, Hermoine embodied its counterpoint: preservation, breath, and defiance of despair. In her, the Ring found the balance it had long sought.
But as revelations bloomed, so too did danger. The museum was not empty. Watching in silence was @Vileticous Rary , a broodspawn martialist of the Cult of the Crimson Scale. His eyes lingered not on the Proven’s scrolls or ivory statues, but on the Obsidian Shard, a relic said to resonate with the same primal chaos that Julius and Kane once courted. For Rary, the shard was no curiosity—it was a key, perhaps even a weapon.
When the Wards moved, he followed. In the alley behind the museum, away from civilians, he revealed himself not as a mere scholar, but as a predator. His scales rippled, wings unfurled, and his crimson eyes locked on the Saint Estes Ring. His words were clear: the Ring was no holy relic, but a "foolish trinket," and power belonged only to blood of the ancients—blood like his own.
What followed was no mere street skirmish, but a clash of legacies. @Theseus , wielding the Ring, called upon its resonance, shaping Ki into forceful leaps and strikes. @Goten Namaki , loyal and reckless, flanked the broodspawn with fists and kicks, his movements sharp and instinctual. @Hermoine Peppermint , her newfound bloodline heavy upon her, held her ground as shield and watcher, ensuring innocents would not suffer the fallout of this duel.
This confrontation marks a turning point in the Ward’s saga. The portrait of Julius Peppermint was not just history—it was a mirror, reflecting the blood that Hermoine carries and the choices she must yet make. The Obsidian Shard was not just a relic—it was bait, drawing forth those who hunger for broken chains. And the alley was not just a battleground—it was a proving ground, where the Saint Estes Wards first stood as a trinity, facing not the memory of the Dragon Wars, but its living, breathing aftermath.
Yet even as Rary bared his wings, another truth lingered, unspoken: Saint Estes is still bound within the @The Draconis Expanse , a prison woven from dragon will and sealed by the Accord of Silence. The Anchors now know where he is, and why he cannot be slain—but not yet how to reach him. The Ring hints at the key: defiance, the breaking of bonds. But every bond broken draws the attention of the Watcher of Chains—that ancient hunger Hermoine felt in her visions, the entity that lurks at every unraveling.
And so the Wards must ask themselves: when the time comes to shatter the gate to the Draconic Expanse, who will step through with them—and what will step out?
Recorded in the Shadowed Chronicles of the Saint Estes Wards
On the 29th cycle of the Lakes District, the Wards of Saint Estes—Theseus, Goten Namaki, and Hermoine Peppermint—emerged from the Metropolitan Museum of Proven with knowledge that forever altered their path. In the hushed alcoves, they uncovered Hermoine’s distant kinship to Varath Julius Peppermint, the Proven of Death. But knowledge is never free. Watching in silence was Vileticous Rary, a broodspawn warrior of the Cult of the Crimson Scale, who had been tracking the Wards since the museum doors opened. His target was the Saint Estes Ring, a relic that he declared a “foolish trinket,” claiming true power lay only in the blood of the ancients.
To avoid civilian bloodshed, the Wards led Rary into Haven Alley, a scarred place that had once seen Lavon Vey descend in fire. There, destiny erupted.
Opening Movements
Theseus called upon the Saint Estes Ring, weaving Ki into crescents of golden force. He vaulted into the air with the aid of his @Midnight Blue EchoThread Cape , striking with a dragon-breath flurry of kicks. At his side, @Goten Namaki flanked Rary with raw fists and flying knees, reckless but burning bright. Hermoine pulled bystanders to safety, her gaze never leaving the battlefield.
The Predator Unveiled
Rary shed his disguise. Wings of black leather tore from his back, scales rippled across his flesh, and his crimson eyes burned with hunger. His roars filled the alley, shaking the cobblestones. Each beat of his wings stirred whirlwinds of dust and debris, threatening to disorient the Wards.
Yet, in the storm, Theseus and Goten moved as one. Strikes from both sides hammered Rary, golden light and raw Ki intertwining like the pulse of the Ring itself.
The Meteor Strike
Rary lunged to shatter the Ring’s bond, but Theseus drew his gaze away, daring him with words that cut deeper than steel. That heartbeat of distraction was enough. Goten summoned every ounce of will, forming a colossal sphere of Ki, a miniature star clenched in his palms. With a cry, he hurled it into Rary’s chest.
The impact was catastrophic. Light engulfed the alley, cobblestones cracked like glass, and the @Broodspawn was hurled backward into the wall. The vortex he had summoned—a swirling maw of violet and crimson—writhed and buckled under the backlash.
The Vortex of the Ancients
Rary revealed his purpose in rage: the Ring was not his goal but a key, a pawn in the designs of the Council of Ancients. His strike tore reality itself, pulling open a window of their dominion. From its depths poured whispers of hunger, the scent of brimstone, and a serpentine sigil of crimson.
The Wards did not flinch. Together, Theseus and Goten unleashed their most devastating combined assault—golden waves of Ring-born arcana intertwined with a blazing torrent of Goten’s Ki. Their resonance crushed the vortex inward, snapping it shut with a thunderclap that rattled the Lakes District. Rary, broken and bleeding, was hurled against the wall, his form collapsing in agony.
In the silence that followed, a fragment remained: a Violet Shard, pulsing with the energy of the closed rift. Cold as the grave, whispering like a choir of serpents, it drew Hermoine’s gaze. While Goten urged its destruction, Hermoine hesitated—her blood, the blood of Julius, felt kinship to it. Instead of fear, she felt understanding: the shard was not an end, but a message.
When Theseus attuned to it, the shard revealed a symbol: the mark of the Council of Ancients, etched in serpentine crimson. The shard resisted, striking him with cold and static, a warning that they were now being tracked.
With the alley in ruins and Rary’s body left broken in shadow, the Wards retreated. They donned the Adaptive Undersuits (Prototypes) provided by Vontrese Cole, knowing the shard would serve as both lure and clue. They carried it not as a trophy, but as a burden, one that marked them in the eyes of powers older than dragons or Proven.
That night, Hermoine whispered that the shard’s hum was not silence but echo. The Council of Ancients had seen them. The war of men had turned a corner, and the Wards of Saint Estes were no longer hidden children. They were players in a game where even death could be defied, but every defiance drew eyes from the void.
The Battle of Haven Alley is remembered not just as a victory, but as a revelation:
Hermoine Peppermint accepted her bloodline, binding Julius’s shadow to her own light.
Theseus proved the Ring was not just a relic, but a beacon of will that could challenge even broodspawn.
Goten Namaki unleashed his first meteor strike, a blow spoken of in awe by those who survived.
The Violet Shard marked the moment when the Council of Ancients first looked upon the Wards.
And somewhere, in the dark, the broken form of Vileticous Rary stirred, his wings twitching in the gutter. His role was not finished. The Ancients had more for him yet.