Beyond Chaos – A DiceRPG

“Come here, you silly boy!” Lanarot called, holding out her a cup towards her nephew. 

Karot blinked, walking over to her, sipping from the cup as she held the back of his head. “Thank you, kako.”

Lanarot brushed his hair and his cheek. “My handsome boy, how can you make me worry like this?”

“Sorry…” Karot looked up towards the sky again. 

“Is beautiful cloud.” Lanarot nodded her head as she stared at the cloud, which darkened. 

“It will rain?”

“It will rain, it will rain,” Lanarot said, clasping her hands behind her back. “Is a good day for fighting.”

“I do not want to fight…” Karot pouted. 

“How you cannot fight? You are Iyrman!” Lanarot pulled the boy to her chest, brushing his hair. “If you do not want to fight, I will fight.”

“Kako, you will be safe?” Karot asked, his lower lip quivering.

“You silly boy! You know who I am?” Lanarot planted a kiss on his forehead. “I am papa’s kaka.” 

“Kako!” Konarot called, before pointing towards the ball to the side. “Nana say we can play with ball.”

“If nana say it, nana say it,” the girl said, feigning wisdom beyond her years, before the girl charged towards the ball and picked it up. “Who will go first?”

“Karot, you go first?” Kirot asked.

“I want to look at cloud,” the boy admitted.

“I look at cloud too?” Kirot asked. 

Karot smiled. “Okay.”

“I look at cloud,” Konarot said. 

Lanarot sighed. “How you can all be so cute?”

Fonasen smiled, watching over the children who played so well together. “He has corrupted his sister this much?”

Sonarot couldn’t help but to smile, beaming as she sipped her tea. “She will grow up to cause so much trouble.”

“She takes after you,” Fonasen agreed, doing her best to hide her smirk. “You should bring Jirot and Jarot.”

“I cannot take them from their mother…” Sonarot placed down her cup. “She worries for Adam.”

“Does she know?”

“I cannot tell her.”

“She is your daughter too.”

“Do I need to worry when father is there?”

“Since your father is there, you should worry further.” 

Sonarot smiled wide, the woman revealing the exhaustion upon her face finally. “You do not know it, sister.”

Fonasen fell silent. ‘I do not know it?’

As Sonarot teased her sister, her daughter finished her prayers with her twins. She held the pair upon her lap as they each spoke the words of the light prayer, placing a bead into the small tub with each light prayer, until their hands were finally empty.

“I am done!” Jirot declared.

“Shh,” Vonda hushed the small girl. “Jarot is almost done.”

“Ope!” Jirot clasped her hands over her mouth. “Sorry, mummy.” Her voice was barely a whisper, her ears drooping slightly, but they raised upon seeing her mother’s radiant smile.

Jarot glared at his beads as he prayed, slow and deliberate, each word thought upon. He closed his eyes, seeing the faces of his father, his greatfather, and his uncle. “Mother’s blessings upon you.” ‘Mother’s blessings upon you. Mother’s blessings upon you.’ It was only after he had said and thought of the prayer three times that the boy placed down the beads. He thought of Lucy and Mara too, and the others who had left. 

The boy closed his eyes, clutching his beads tighter in hand. ‘I did not say it! Come home safely!’

They were completely oblivious to the explosion within the fort so many miles away. 

Vice Commander Hugo hesitated for a moment, his eyes looking through time. In that moment of hesitation, he had lost his chance to step forward to meet the Mad Dog, and the song of steel striking steel echoed through the air. 

“Vice Commander Hugo, you may step back,” called a voice, and with the words, even without thinking, the Vice Commander stepped back. 

Jarot’s lips formed a wild grin upon seeing who had clashed with him, his eyes full of fury. “Have you come for revenge?”

“Do you and I have such trouble?” he replied back, adorned in his full plate, wielding a blade that glowed ever so brightly, like the sun itself. Even now, Jarot could feel the radiant light of the blade piercing through his skin, though his axe was only clashing against the blade. The figure who wielded the blade was tall, strongly built, his face marked with decades of fighting, pieces of his cheek and ears missing. 

“Do you really wish to step forward today?” Jarot asked. 

“I apologise, Mad Dog, but I cannot step back.” The figure’s blade exploded with white light as he clashed with the Mad Dog. 

“I will beat you again today!” Jarot roared, his entire body flashing red hot as he engaged with the Sun Sword of the Floral Sun, he who was its Grand Commander, the strongest. 

‘You are as terrifying as ever, Jarot,’ Sir Zachary thought, already feeling the ache within his arm while only clashing with the Iyrman. 

‘Do not forget my name,’ he had said all those years ago, his eyes full of such a viciousness. ‘Jarot. Ja, of the Rot family. I let you live, because I have decided to let you live. Do you wish to know why?’

‘…’

Jarot had grinned wildly back then too. ‘If you had replied, I would have killed you!’ 

His hyena like laughter had engraved itself within the Sun Sword all those years ago. 

“How dare you!” Sir Iris shouted, her red blade glowing, before redness flashed all across the Iyrman. “To cause such trouble for the sake of beas-“

Iris had made the mistake of forgetting her place, as the grey skinned Iyrman’s rage flowed through to his blade the Iyrman giving all caution to the wind, almost breaking the woman’s arms through striking her blade. She stepped back, her arms throbbing wildly as she grunted in pain. 

“Left?” Rajin whispered just loudly enough for her to hear.  “No. It must be the right.”

‘When I grow up, I will potec you, babo,’ the girl had said. 

“No, I should take both?”

‘What?’ Iris prepared herself to clash with the Iyrman once more, who seemed to have finally decided whatever it was he was pondering while casually engaging in a battle with her. 

‘I move this?’ the boy had asked, looking up at him with his sweet amber eyes. 

“It is a shame you have come across me, Iyrman,” the Vice Commander of the Cherry Blade said, holding out his red blade.

“Have you lost a son?” Tonagek asked, drawing his blade, the blade glowing a light blue under the gentle rain. 

“Beasts? No.”

“When Tonogek died, I lost almost all purpose,” Tonagek admitted. “You, Aldishmen, can you understand it? The weight of the blade that I wield today?”

The Vice Commander remained silent, staring at the Iyrman before him as he so slowly drew his blade. 

“You are lucky it is raining,” Tonagek said. “It will wash away your blood.” 

Quiet Rain.

The Gek family weapon was quite the blade. Someone like the Vice Commander before him would have loved to wield such a blade. 

It was a Greater Enhanced blade, one that required Attunement, to meditate with the blade, to become one with it. It was a blade that held a Greater bonus, and it struck as hard as a greatsword, like the one his opponent wielded. It’s main ability was quiet. When Tonagek struck, he could make an additional strike each round. If he was an Expert, instead of attacking twice per turn, he would attack three times. 

Except, Tonagek was not an Expert. He was greater than a Master, having only fallen into retirement in the past couple of years. 

Tonagek could attack not twice, but thrice, and with Quiet Rain, he could strike as though he was instead as though he were at the peak of mortal strength. 

The reason why it was called Quiet Rain was because in the rain, the blade gained a greater bonus, or one might say that it was technically considered a Legendary Enhanced weapon in the rain. 

Except, in the hands of Tonagek, or any other Gek, the blade held such a bonus without the rain. 

It was only when Tonagek, sprung forward with a savageness of the Iyr, pushing through his limits, striking the Vice Commander with seven blows within the span of a single moment, did the Vice Commander understand the mistake he had made for stepping towards the limping Iyrman. Each blow was heavy, for only an Iyrman could understand how heavy such a blade was.

“Do not fall so easily,” Tonagek requested politely, his voice low and sad. “The heaviness in my heart remains.”

Unfortunately for Tonagek, the Vice Commander had already dropped to a knee, hacking blood onto the ground, barely clinging to conscious. 

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Vice Commander Shiny Armour,” Mosen huffed towards the woman who had drawn her blade and pointed it towards the Iyrman.

‘What?’ the Vice Commander thought, suddenly feeling so small, eyeing up the Iyrman who stood with his arms crossed.

Mosen glancing aside towards Tonagek. ‘You should at least take an arm. If you’re going to fight, do it properly.’

Vice Commander Hugo finally drew his blade, facing against the Iyrman who held the same tattoos as the Mad Dog. “Do you not use an axe?”

“Those children, they love my wife more than me, and I do not intend to change that,” Gorot replied.

The Vice Commander blinked, unsure of what that had to do with using an axe or shield. 

“Little Jarot… he calls me baba,” Gorot said, holding his shark blade over his shoulder, as though carrying a sack. He closed his eyes, recalling the boy’s amber eyes staring up at him so shyly. Though his name was Jarot, he was so unlike the old man. The boy, he was too small, too sweet, and too shy. 

‘It is your baba,’ Mirot had said. 

Jarot hid herself within his nano’s bosom. 

‘Baba?’ Jirot asked. ‘How you can be baba?’

‘He is my husband.’

Jirot gasped, almost dropping her bottle of milk. ‘Why?’

‘I married him?’

‘Why?’

‘He is so handsome.’ Mirot smiled in the beautiful way that she did, and Gorot’s heart had stirred once more. 

Jirot stared up at Gorot long and hard, judging him. ‘Baba is handsome?’

‘I think he is.’

‘Baba is strong?’

‘He is a little bit strong?’ Mirot said.

‘Baba is little bit handsome.’ The girl cackled, causing her brother to cackle too, before the boy gasped, staring up at Gorot, before beginning to cry. 

‘You should smile more,’ Mirot had warned him later that evening.

‘You prefer it when I do not.’

Mirot let out a defeated sigh, one of the very few within their marriage. ‘Since my Jarot is so cute when he cries, I will allow it.’

The Vice Commander wasn’t sure what Gorot was talking about exactly, but the one thing he did know, was that whatever the Iyrman was thinking, it had enraged him so much, he almost chopped the Vice Commander’s neck clean with his jagged blade. Sir Hugo barely managed to catch the blade with his own, his blade nestled within the teeth of the wicked blade. 

“Remember the name of Jarot!” Gorot snarled. “For it was Jarot who has sent Esme to Baktu’s embrace, and my Jarot who will send you to meet with her.”

‘What?’ Hugo thought, his eyes growing wide, feeling a sharp pain flowing through him. 

The tears streamed down Gorot’s face, his eyes pure white, his entire body red hot. 

‘Cucumber,’ Gurot had said, chewing it slowly. 

‘Where did you find it?’

‘Kaza give me cucumber.’ The boy smiled so radiantly, as he always did when speaking of his cousin.

‘Do you like cucumbers?’

‘I like cucumbers, but I like kaza more.’

‘…’

Little Gurot smiled even brighter. ‘Daddy?’

‘Yes?’

‘I like daddy more than cucumber.’

‘I love you too, Gurot.’

Of all the memories Gorot could recall while risking his life, there were so many greater than the half eaten cucumber his son had shared with him. 

Well…

It was the most delicious cucumber, and the tears which followed when Gurot realised there was no more cucumber left, was the most delicious dessert. 

It was a dessert he could only appreciate because his nephew had been raised so well.

‘He is definitely the Mad Dog’s son!’ Sir Hugo thought, seeing the wild grin upon Gorot’s face.

When a man’s wife prays for him, it’s scary.

When a man’s wife prays for his enemies, it’s terrifying.