Roleplay from Ecthelion Tezokian
The Fall of Ecthelion
Waiting for the wedding, he continued to participate in the festivities, having several more glasses of wine since his speech. 'Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad', he thought to himself. 'Catherine is strong of will and mind... she will see through the veil Garas has put around her.' Nodding to himself in agreement, he takes another sip of wine. He wants to look at the scowl of Garas's face that several in his party have mentioned to him throughout the night, but the satisfaction of not giving him an ounce of attention was far too great to submit to lesser desires.
But all of that was interrupted suddenly... as the most subtle of coughs escaped his lungs. At least half of the Sirion entourage went dead silent and turned to it's leader, the other half probably being unable to hear it over everything else going on. The panic in Ecthelion himself began to rise internally. He told himself 'Perhaps something polluted the air...' but he couldn't fool himself. In all of his days, the only time he had ever coughed was when he did so to mock other people or deliver a subtle point across in his youth, and rarely as Prime Minister. The only other reason an Elf would cough was smoking too much of the fabled Adrian's Leaves from Rollbar, but he never partook in such disobedience. Suddenly, another cough escaped his mouth, slightly louder, and then another... he rubbed his throat to try to stop but it only began to tingle and then burn. While he was breathing normally, it began to feel like he wasn't getting any air. In an effort to still maintain manners and not alert others, he stood and strained to say, "Please excuse me..." and he quickly headed for the door. The hall seemed larger than when he entered... and it didn't seem like he was getting any closer to leaving even though he was still walking... the lights began to dim in his eyes as his face began to take on a deeper hue unknown to him of course. He sensed he was suddenly walking down stairs even though the floor was clearly straight. To an outside observer, it was clear he was simply falling. He continued to crawl to the door as the Sirion party was now visible panicked and rushing to him.
One last reach of his arm was the final effort he could expend until he collapsed to the floor entirely. By this time, his people were surrounding him, and one of the many healers in his employ shoved through the crowd to start assessing him. Captain Gerber of Ecthelion's own Death Riders breached the crowd shortly after the healer, seeming to wait a few moments for instruction on what to do from the medical professional.
Healer: "He's been poisoned! We have to get him back to the inn immediately if he's to have any hope!"
Without hesitation, Captain Gerber ordered a dozen of his men that had also shown up by now to carry Ecthelion outside to the carriage he had made his entrance to the dinner in earlier. Placing the elf into the carriage, the Captain entered as well, and ordered his men to return to the inn with all haste. The other men got on their horses as well and formed a line behind the carriage as it took off into the streets of Oligarch.
Back in the hall... a lone minstrel speaks... "Uhh... Prime Minister Ecthelion departs for the night!" He was supposed to announce when the Prime Minister arrived and departed per his job, and staying on the side of caution, decided to continue to do so. He was an idiot.
