This is Avalon (Alpha and LL)

Wilhelm Schneider had dedicated his life to the Order of the Iron Shield and the protection of the people of Avalon from all threats. He stood just over seven feet tall with short cropped white hair and a beard to match, a scar running from just above his left brow and down across his eye, the injury having blinded him in that eye years ago. In every sense of the word Wilhelm was what everyone pictured when they heard the word Knight. At that moment he did not sport his brilliant Vermillion plate armor and Warhammer, instead sporting a simple short sleeved tunic with the crest of the order emblazoned on the front. He leaned against the heavy wooden door before him, resting his forehead against one tree trunk like arm as he peered through the narrow slot into the holding cell beyond.

Overnight a their had slipped into the guild's compound deep in the heart of the great city it Karnaca and has been caught trying to lift an artifact from theor trophy hall. The item itself was nothing of great value, an oddly shaped medallion made of some unidentified green stone and engraved with tunes that no one had been able to read. It had sat there for years, largely ignored by members. As he stood there thinking about it Wilhelm felt a headache begin to come on and he quickly shoved the thoughts aside, the headache fading as quickly as it has come.

The man inside the cell and managed to make is way into the most sacred of grounds for the Iron Shield, upon his arrest all his equipment has been stripped from him, much of it highly specialized tools that the old knight didn't recognize possibly because the Rouge had built it himself. He had spent all of ten minutes in the cell with the man and found him insufferablely arrogant. He had identified himself at Gabriel Crow and then, with a smirk that Wilhelm had wanted to wipe away with the back of his hand, declared that he was better known by another name.

Storm Crow.

The man seemed both confused and offended when Wilhelem didn't instantly recognize the name. It was then that he chose to excuse himself and cool his head before he did punch the man.


Inside the cell Crow rocked back and forth on the cheap wooden chair they had schackeled him to, slowly pushing it up on the back two legs before letting it slam back down on the battered stone floor. There was nothing particularly impressive looking about Crow, a slim, athletic build under clothes that didn't seem to fit quite right, an unruly head of sandy coloured hair with a scruffy looking beard to match. He stared up at the ceiling, counting cracks in the concrete in an attempt to alleviate the bordum he was feeling. It had been roughly an hour by his guess since the massive knight had stormed out, and the whole time Crow sat there, very much aware of exactly where The Key was, feeling the same anxiety at being away from it that he had since he had read that damned book two weeks ago. The buzzing in his head had only gotten worse when he was close to it, making it difficult to think clearly.

The chair legs came down with a thud that echoed through the chamber.

"If you're planning to bore me to death you're getting close to accomplishing that goal," he shouted towards the door, knowing that someone was on the other side watching him, "but if you wanna know about that key, then boring me isn't gonna work."

The two sisters couldn't be any more different from each other, but that's what nine years difference in age coupled with diverse parents can do to siblings. Where Valatha was calm, collected, and seemed to have inherited more of their mother's fair looks as opposed to their father's dark complexion, Nayeli looked as if dark ink had been spilled when her parents conceived her. Both sisters had the same pale, platinum hair from their father, but Valatha's skin looked only to be tanned.

Valatha's height gave away little as to her father's bloodline as she matched their mother's towering 6' frame. Nayeli, on the other hand, was the usual height of 5'7" for a dark elf and it was unlikely she would grow much more than that. Her skin wasn't obsidian like their father's, yet carried a dusty and dark grey color. The purple of her eyes decidedly marked her as a dark elf, not that they rose often from staring at her feet whereas her blue eyed sister met everything with a raised chin.

They had lived alone for years now, Valatha had taken Nayeli away from their parent's bickering at a young age to raise her on her own. The expensive of living was high, but Valatha was a desirable companion for any seeking to explore, hunt, or otherwise leave humanity and risk their skin. Her flirty nature and carefree attitude towards the skimpiness of her Goddess' robes left her popular among the men even without doing anything extra to gain their appeal.

Unlike many of her guild mates she lived outside of the guild hall so she could return home and tend to her sister...or rather, so Nayeli could tend to her. The house they lived in wasn't shabby, some tiny one-room house near the border of the settlement. It looked to have been built before even their parents were born, but it kept upright when they slept at night.

"Val!" Nayeli whispered urgently to her sleeping sister. She had woken early and had already made both breakfast and lunch, packed their lunches, double-checked their gear, cleaned the house, washed the dishes, and waited for an extra half hour, "It's time!" She stayed crouched on the edge of her sister's bed.

Valatha's eyes eased open with the grace of a waking cat. "Mm...time for what?" She knew, of course, but she enjoyed teasing her dear sister.

"Y-you said you w-were going to i-i-introduce me--" Nayeli begun, but stopped as one of Valath's paler hands rose to touch her cheek.

"Mm, you're a good sister. What would I do without you?" She pulled her sister down to press a kiss to her forehead, Nayeli's face ending up smothered between her bare breasts.

"Y-You'd be fine," Nayeli whispered as blood rushd to her cheeks and turned them a darker color. "You're a-amazing at everything you do. I can barely cast cura properly."

"You'll grow into your spells," Valatha released Nayeli so she could sit up, "Now...do I smell oatmeal?"

***

Nayeli wasn't sure what to make of the stares the two of them got on the way to Valatha's guild hall. The fairer sister dressed in perhaps the skimpiest example of priest robes one might have ever seen. The front dipped so low that her naval was showing and the only explanation for why the fabric didn't peel off her body with her movements or hang slack at any point had to be magic. The skirt of her robes had a slit on the front of either thigh that went all the way up...really, the slits kept going up past her waist a few inches. The only reason a stiff wind might not showcase her to the world was because of the build in guard to ward against such a thin. Her sister, by comparison, was clothed in a modest acolyte robe that covered everything all the way from the full skirt that reached her ankles to the lace collar that circled the column of her throat.

Valatha had promised to be by her side for most of the day while she introduced Nayeli to the others, but that promise had to be quickly broken as one of their other members approached and whispered to Val. A repentant sigh escaped her and she looked to Nayeli, "I'll be back shortly, I have a meeting to get to." Of course she wasn't about to tell her sister the truth.

***

The heels of Valatha's boots echoed through the hallway as she made her approach with her usual smile on her face. "Wilhelm," Her hand extended as she reached him and she rested it on his arm. "Eris told me." She kept her voice low. An unspoken spell pulsed from her. A novice would be unable to feel it, it might come across as merely a shiver or a moment of unease. It was her way of checking on people to make sure there was no healing required. "Have you been able to get any information from him? Why would he try to steal that over everything else we have in there?"

Feeling her hand on his arm Wilhelm froze, a shudder working its way down his spine but he did his best ignore it. He disliked magic. No matter well meaning a person may be, no matter how useful it may be, how many people where saved by it, bending the primal forces of creation to a person's will, anyone's will seemed like it was just asking for trouble. If a person could mend broken bones with the touch of a finger what was there to stop them from using the same power to shatter those bones. It wasn't that Wilhelm didn't trust Val, he just didn't trust what she could do.

Gently he brushed her hand away, "Other than some ridiculous name that he expected me to have heard of, he's told me very little. His arrogance is astonishing all things considered. As for the.....well he's said very little as to why he wanted...." Another headache started as he began to think of that artifact again. He turned away from the door, shutting the view port before rubbing the bridge of his crooked nose with thick fingers.

"Mayhaps you will have more luck with him, using whatever....charms you may posses..." He said as he brushed past Val, heavy footsteps echoing through the tight corridor as he stode away.


Crow tilted his head to one side, listening to the heavy footsteps as they moved away from the cell. He assumed that it was big guy who had come to greet him after his capture. He had heard another set of steps, sharper, lighter more....feminine.

"Hello? Anyone out there? I could really use something to eat in here!"

Wilhelm was right, of course, the healing magic Valatha had wasn't too far removed from some of the unholy magics that necromancers used and even Valatha herself knew a few offensive holy spells that she disliked using. She was, in all forms of the word, a healer by nature and had no interest in bringing harm to even her enemies.

Valatha made no attempt to keep her hand in place as Wilhelm brushed it off, "Just checking on you, big guy." She murmured to him before she turned her attention to the man inside the room. Her own pain from thinking of the artifact made Val wince. As the view port was closed and Wilhelm walked off, Valatha called after him. "I'll see what I can do." Her ear turned to the doorway as Crow called through it and she motioned for the nearby guard. "Bring something good from the mess hall would you?"

The guard nodded and hurried off to do her bidding. Her slender hand raised to open the view port and she wiggled her fingers through it as a hello. The more reserved tone she used with Wilhelm faded in favor of a sweeter, lighter tone meant to gain trust...or at least attempt to. "I've sent someone to get you food. In the meantime, can you tell me anything about that artifact you were trying to steal?"

The hand that waved to Crow through the open viewing slot was definitely not the hand of the bulky knight who had tried to squeeze him for info earlier. If the rest of what was attached to the hand was as pretty as the hand itself he would be more than happy to let her squeeze a few other things. She was also getting him food,which instantly made him like her even more than the big old guy. He stretched out his legs, tilting back his chair and resting the bare soles of his feet against the cold stones.

When they had stripped him of his gear they had smartly taken his boots along with it, which meant he lost the spare set of tools he kept in the heels. Which if he had, escaping this place wouldn't be a difficult task for him. But he was going to get food soon, so he wasn't in too big a rush to get out.

"The Sleeper in the Pyramid stirs. He cannot awaken." Crow quoted, a passage inscribed on stone tablets across Avalon that everyone had seen and committed to memory but every tried to ignore. It loomed over their heads like some impending prophecy of doom that none had been able to discypher. He grinned with that same arrogance that he had shown to the old man, his chair tilting forward and the legs thudding against the floor, "That stone is the key to finding it."

The recitation of the passage made the pretty elf wince. It had only taken one look at the passages for it to sear into her memory and she despised it entirely. When the tablets were first discovered there had been a rush to figure out what it meant, but when months had passed and nobody could make head or tails of it most discarded the pursuit. There were still a few who pursued the truth behind the passage's meaning, but they were mostly discredited and often found themselves cast out from society. Usually, though, it had less to do with the passage itself and their near fanatic pursuit and the crazy antics that entailed. A small, crazed bunch of them had formed their own guild that was mostly independent from the rest of society. The Watchers.

"Are you with them then?" She refused to say their guild's name as her slender fingers withdrew from the viewing slot and she finally peeked through it so he could get a look at her bright blue eyes and blonde brows. "And the stone is the key to finding the Pyramid?"

Crow had always been happy enough to ignore the passages about The Sleeper. It had never had any particular impact on the daily commings and goings of his life and so he had been content enough to ignore it. If he hadn't been hired to snag that damn book by those whack jobs he wouldn't even be sitting in that cell. Instead he'd be hanging around a brothel somewhere with much more pleasant company.

"No," he replied flatly to her question, not needing her to elaborate no who 'They' may be, " I'm not stealing the stone for The Watchers. But, they probably know it's here anyways so they're probably gonna come knocking on the door soon looking to take the stone and find whatever it unlocks."

The truth of the matter was that he hadn't actually handed the book over to them after the heist and it was sitting in the bottom of his pack. But he didn't need to tell The Iron Sheild that. Having them think The Watchers could attack at any moment could work in his bennift.

"They wouldn't dare encroach on our soil." Her voice dropped a portion of its lilt as she responded. Crow couldn't see her lips, but the cupid's bow had tugged downwards into a tragic frown. Her guild wasn't unused to hall raids, but usually it was by other guilds and done for glory. While the interest of those maniacs was a little unsettling, she trusted in Wilhelm and the others to defend just as they trusted her to heal.

Finally the guard returned with the tray of food and she withdrew from the door to retrieve it from his hands. Quietly she jerked her head towards the door and her fingers brushed over the hands of the guard during the exchange. A thrill of magic transfered from her to him powered by silently mouthed blessings that were meant to protect the guard. Unlocking the door was quick work and the guard opened the door, peeking inside the room to ensure Crow hadn't yet moved.

"They're a bunch of whack jobs and fanatics." he said casually, rocking his chair back onto its hind legs, "I mean if all the high walls and armed guards couldn't keep out one very skilled and devilishly handsome thief, do you really think it'll stop them?" He was bullshitting her at this point, but he was good at bullshitting people, it came with the territory.

Crow flexed his shoulders and crained his neck to one side, "So, you mind coming in here and undoing these shackles my arms are starting to cramp. As if in response to his request the heavy locking bolt on the door slid back and the door creaked open, "Yes, thank you!"

"I'll let Wil worry about the whack jobs and fanatics." Her hips swayed as she walked into the cell with the tray of food. "And the very skilled, devilishly handsome thief when he shows up." Her tone was light and sweet as she stepped closer to the man. Her robes were the very definition of skimpy, the way it clung to her body seeming almost unreal, almost magical. Her blue eyes swept over him with a degree of amusement as she drew closer and the door closed and bolted behind her.

"I brought you food." She explained as she drew closer and glanced to the tray in her hands. "You want to eat, right?"

It wasn't very often that Crow found himself left speechless by something, anything let alone the female figure, but when the elf woman entered he suddenly felt tongue tied and unable to think of any decent comeback to her saying she hadn't seen any handsome thives around. It wasn't the first time he had seen an elf in something that revealing, he had spent far too much time in brothels to ever make that claim. But he had never seen one so well put together, and in the getup she had on he was finding it very very hard not to stare at the very inviting expanse of cleavage on display.

"Food..." he finally said spying the tray she was holding, "I like food. But you may have to feed me given my current situation." He rattled to chains binding his arms to get the point across.

The falter in his personality and speech didn't escape her notice as she walked towards him with the tray in hand. "Of course." She poised the tray on one hand as she took hold of the fork and began to scoop up some of the wild rice. "I don't mind feeding you. I certainly can't release you until I get the go ahead from ol' stick-in-the-mud Wil." She paused and raised the fork to his mouth. Though unnecessary, she bent over as if it'd assist in the feeding. It was a wonder her breasts didn't slip right out of her dress entirely. "Now that it's just the two of us I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me."

"But first..." Her heavy, thickly lashed lids fell shut halfway as she watched him. "Wil's horrible with names, he neglected to tell me yours." Around them the cell was so quiet that they could hear the mouse in the corner scurrying about to find any scrap of food. "I'm Valatha."

Crow's mouth suddenly felt very very dry as she angled herself towards him, giving him an even better view of the very very generous landscape, of rounded hills and deep valleys. Good god the woman had some impressive tits and he was wondering, or maybe hoping they really would spill out of the thin fabric just so he could get a better look.

He leaned forward to try and get at the fork full of rice buy it was just a little too far away and his restraints where doing there job very well, "Uh......Valatha.....nice name." He strained against the chains some more trying to get at the food, "You can just call me Crow.". After several more attempts he slunk back to his chair, "So no chance of unchaining me? Man, I am completely at your mercy right now it seems. You could do ANYTHING you wanted to me."

"Crow?" Her brows knit together as she remembered Wil's words about the name he was supposed to know and her head tilted slightly. "I think I've heard about a Crow. Crow something, or was it something Crow...? You wouldn't happen to be him would you?"

Her lips curved into a sweet smile as he asked about being unchained and she moved the fork closer to his mouth. "Is that a request or are you genuinely worried Mr. Crow? You don't have to be worried. I'm a priestess of the light. I don't cause harm to my friends or allies."

Crow greedily wolfed back the forkfull of rice.

Nice legs, amazing tits AND she knew his reputation. If Crow was the kind of man who believed in it he may just think he was falling in love. But the odds of that where in all honesty pretty slim, but either way this Valatha was shaping up to be good company at very least.

"Storm Crow," he corrected her around a mouthful of grain, "thief, treasure hunter, all around dashing rouge." he swallowed the rice, "Claiming to be a priestess doesn't really convince me that you're not up to no good. Met far too many corrupt priests for that to convince me you're not going to take advantage of this situation to try and rob me of my virtue."

He opened his mouth, indicating he wanted more food.

"That's the name! Storm Crow!" The smile that spread on her face was nearly as pretty as she was. "I wouldn't dream of besmirching your virtue, not while you're all tied up and helpless." She winked at him as she offered him another forkful of food. There was a long moment of silence before she finally questioned. "Do you actually know how to use that stone to find the sleeper? Everyone's all but forgotten about him by now."

Truth was, nobody had forgotten about it. They shoved it to the back of their minds in an attempt to suppress the buzzing and headaches that happened whenever one thought about it.

Crow, slightly disappointed that she had no intention of taking advantage of his current situation, accepted the offered forkfull of rice.

"Well, here's the rub of it, I don't know for one hundred percent that hunk of....whatever the hell it is, actually does. I'm making me an educated guess based on the information as it has been presented. So the only way we're really gonna figure this out is if you give it to me and we see what happens." He could hear the buzzing in his head as he talked about it, back worse than ever has he tried to focus through it, making it hard for him to think.

"Mm," Valatha's lips pressed together in a frown as he spoke of his uncertainty. "I heard Wil talking of putting you on trial for execution." While this wasn't unheard of, Valatha was lying. She was, however, a very good liar. Concern showed in her gaze for the man as she looked up at his eyes and fed him another forkful of food. "Perhaps if you'd be willing to cooperate I could coax him into being more lenient? He listens to me." She paused before she whispered to him, a softness to her voice. "Please, Crow? I'd be forever grateful if you did."