Runemancer Florre is a Splinterlands character.

Splinterlands is an NFT Trading Card Game based in the world of Praetoria.

Lore:

The first time Florre encountered the Chaos Legion was on her homeworld, Folia, in the Forest of Flames. The forest was a beautiful yet dangerous place. Its fire-scorched trees were burned and blackened. Their leaves smoldered with glowing embers. Pools of bubbling magma and mud pots could be lethal to any who stumbled into them or ventured too close.

As Florre ventured deeper into the forest, gathering reagents for the healers of her village, the clank of metal and rough tone of angry voices broke the silence. Through the trees, three warriors in dark armor and black cloaks tromped among the flora. Ahead of them, a pair of wild elves staggered along, their wrists bound by rusty iron chains and manacles. As she stared in horror, a warrior raised a whip and lashed one elf across the back. He staggered and fell to his knees. When the second elf bent to help him, the warrior whipped him, too.

Rage burned within Florre like the flames in the surrounding trees.

She murmured a spell, and two red and blue birds appeared above her. They soared through the branches toward the armored warriors and flittered overhead. As they did, the manacles around the elves' wrists clicked open and fell to the ground with a metallic clank. The elves stared down in surprise. Then they whirled and charged the warriors, fists swinging.

Florre rushed toward them through the trees. One elf caught a warrior squarely on the jaw, and the man's eyes rolled up in his head as he fell in a heap. Another warrior tried to draw his sword from its scabbard, but the second elf tackled him to the ground before he could. The third warrior, the one with the whip, vanished into the trees and smoke.

The two elves fought to keep the remaining warrior pinned to the ground. He beat at them with his mailed fists and caught one in the belly with a kick from his heavy leather boot. The elf let out a grunt and fell back. The warrior struggled to his feet and drew his sword.

Florre pulled up short and chanted a spell. Before she could finish, the loud crack of a whip resounded. A fiery pain tore into her back. She cried out and stumbled sideways. Her legs gave out. She fell. Her right hand hit the forest floor, but her left—her left sank into the boiling slur of an igneous mudpot.

The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt before. It consumed her, and everything went black.

It took months for her to recover and piece together what had happened next. The sounds of battle had drawn the Riftwatchers, who had brought Florre to their encampment and, with the aid of their runic magic and devices, saved her life, although they couldn't save her limb. In its place, she wears a cold, metal cogwork arm.

Years later, she can still feel the super-heated mud burning her arm away. She misses her family and her friends from Folia, but she didn't hesitate when the Riftwatchers asked her to join them and put a stop to the Chaos Legion. Now, she is a Runemancer, a leader among those who pulled her from the fire. They saved her and taught her how to defend herself using the art of runemancy. She puts those skills to use protecting her realm and every other from the Chaos Legion.

Florre and four of her Riftwatcher allies rushed into the ruins of an ancient cathedral. Her wild hair whipped in the wind, and two small blue and red birds flew above her. Magic blasts ricocheted off the surrounding stone. She and her allies found cover in the nave behind a fallen pillar, crouched low as they returned fire on the enemy.

“You Riftwatcher scum! This place will be your tomb. You're outmatched and out-magicked.”

“There's the man in charge.” Florre grinned. “Mind keeping them occupied for a bit?”

Her four companions exchanged glances. “It will be our pleasure,” one said.

Florre stood and vaulted over the fallen pillar, and the other Riftwatchers let loose with a barrage from their runic weaponry, providing cover as she raced across the nave. It was littered with chunks of stone, rotting pews, and open tombs that still contained skeletal remains. She leaped over and dodged around them as spells exploded on every side.

Her target stood on a balcony overlooking the cathedral's sanctuary: a middle-aged man dressed in the armor of a Chaos Legion commander. She darted across the transept, scrambled onto the crumbling altar at the center of the sanctuary, and muttered a spell. A vine erupted from the earth, and she grabbed hold of it. It carried her into the air as it climbed the wall of the sanctuary. When it reached the balcony, she leaped off and landed behind the commander.

“Outmatched and out-magicked, you say?” she asked.

He gave a start and whirled to face her as she summoned a flurry of razor-sharp leaves. She thrust her hands forward, palms out, and the leaves flew at him. They slammed into his armor, leaving deep grooves and gouges.

He staggered back but remained on his feet. “You're beneath me.” He snarled the words of a spell as he drew his sword. Its blade flared a brilliant blue.

She twiddled the fingers of her cogwork arm, and her birds darted forward to fly in circles above the commander. The blade's light winked out. Florre studied the tips of her fingers with a bored expression. “You'll have to do better than that.”

The commander spat at her feet. “You tree-hugging filth!”

His sword cleaved through the air. Florre blocked it with her cogwork arm. The clang resounded through the cathedral like the toiling of a bell. She swung her arm. Its pistons and actuators hissed and whooshed as it accelerated toward him with impossible speed. It hit him open-palmed across the face.

The Chaos Legion commander spun around as his legs gave out and collapsed in a heap of tangled limbs.

Florre strode to the edge of the balcony and peered down at the battle between her Riftwatchers and the remaining Chaos Legion goons. With the flick of her wrist, more razor-sharp leaves spiraled through the air and found their mark.

Runemancer Florre - SDXL - V1