Reflections in the Dark: Fortu

Fortu roars in rage as the sneering Sir Briefadel, his Mother still in his arms, steps back over the lower-teeth barrier and falls off the edge. Running forward, the ex-Gladiator is amazed to see the armoured Knight and naked woman falling at a pace far slower than he'd anticipated. It takes him a moment to register that the roaring, magical wind is substantially reducing their rate of fall.

Searching around, desperately for something to do, Fortu grabs his combat rete and casts it down after them, but it too is caught in the wind and just spirals comedically above them. Perhaps due to its weighted ends and relatively small surface area, it does appear to be falling slightly faster than his enemies but frustratingly, not fast enough.   

Then, with reckless abandon, Fortu dives headfirst off the balcony after them!

If Sir Briefadel, while wearing full plate-mail, could do it, then surely the same updraft that slowed their fall would do the same for him? The wind rips at him but his armour fully protects him, aside from his exposed, and now already windchilled mouth and chin. For a moment Fortu wonders how the bare-naked woman below can tolerate it, but then he remembers the insidious, thousand-bladed machine she'd recently been trapped within. Glaring up, she momentarily locks eyes with him and then, just before the darkness below swallows her up, Fortu again feels those multiple needles of pain pierce his solid armour, as if it wasn't even there.

A few moments later, Fortu too is engulfed in the inky darkness and, although it's glow doesn't illuminate the blackness more than a few feet in front of him, he's still thankful for the 'light' spell that Rifkin had recently recast upon his new sword.

His new sword...

The beautiful, raven haired, voluptuous woman had laughed when she saw that he'd found 'Her Husband's sword'. 

As he tumbles onto the sudden ground, Fortu is forced to consider what he really knows about Lord Urdurel. Obviously, his son; Sir Briefadel despised him, but what value is there in the opinion of a snake? When he’d first disembarked in Stowan via the oceans to the south, Fortu had avoided the larger cities. Considering his fraught, captive slave history, he had no desire to spend anymore time within their walls.

Clambering to his feet, Fortu feels around for his lost net but he's not surprised when he fails. The fierce cross winds could have carried it yards from where he landed. Strangely silent in the thick, soupy darkness, Fortu advances with his massive flamberge sword raised, on the lookout for the Witch and her son.

What actually, did he know? He'd heard that Lord Urdurel was the undisputed leader of the prosperous realm, that it sat at the furthest point of the Human lands and acted as the border between the so-called civilised world and the mysterious Fey realm. Lord Urdurel appeared to be a King in all-but-name. A supposedly wise but reclusive old man, respected rather than feared. His rule was said to be firm but fair and he'd kept the peace with the neighbouring regions by way of a strong, well organised army and stronger diplomacy.

All turned around in the dark, Fortu realises that he's not even sure which way he's facing and begins to suspect that leaping into the darkness, had possibly been a rash decision.