Scenes of music: Broken Crown

Song: Broken Crown

They sneak up on her when she leaves the tavern. Several of them, all brandishing swords, sabers, daggers or spears. She smiles softly. There’s only ten of them. And she’d actually been hoping for a real challenge. Ridiculous. They approach. Slowly at first but more confident when she doesn’t run or scream. She adjusts her wide hat. The feather on it is slightly waving in the evening breeze.

She takes the rapier from her belt and raises it. The bandits are hesitant. They have not expected resistance. Her flamboyant appearance and the gilded rapier have thrown them off. They expected a traveling noble on a stupid quest for adventure. She takes two steps forward to approach the first bandit and her smile widens.

He raises his sword to stop her. Too late, much too late. In the time it took him to decide his next action her rapier has sliced through his jugular after she closed the distance with a leap forward nobody expected. Blood rushes out of the wound while he collapses. Some of it splatters onto her elaborate leather armor but the stains are almost invisible on its red color. The other bandits are furious. They attack ferociously. So the dance begins.

With flowing, almost dance-like movements she waves between her attackers, elegantly taking out one after the other without ever being touched by them. A slit throat here, a stabbed heart there, a hand clean cut off - the bandits are going down fast. To finish the last three she jumps out of range and shocks the first with a sudden burst of electricity, then sends sharp, cutting winds towards the second one, sending him flying. The last one is burned so quickly by an intense heat without flame that only ashes remain. She is skilled and her swagger was not a sign of arrogance - it was pure confidence in her well-honed skills as a duelist.

They picked the wrong woman to rob.

---

The song had me immediately thinking of a Western theme but I wanted something fancier than cowboys while still following the theme of confrontation. I liked the swagger of the Red Mage class (RDM) from Final Fantasy XIV (FF) and thought to use this as a template for the character. After some research and questions to people I play with, I adjusted the combat scene to its current version. In contrast to FF it is more based on melee and less on magic; this is how I envisioned the scene in my head - it does not have to be a close representation of how the class plays.

Thanks to Zurin Arctus and Aruktai for their input on RDM style and gameplay.

Requested by Deithwen Addan.