Breath of Fire 2 Gaiden: A Death of Dreams
Chapter 1
Robert lay stretched out on his rickety old bed, staring at the ceiling of his tiny apartment, his eyes tracing the familiar path of a crack in the white paint. There were a hundred things he could have been doing, at least one he knew about that he should have. Below the window, on the little wooden mantle that served as his makeshift desk, ink and quill and small stack of papers awaited him. Financial records mostly, there was a lot he had to budget for that month. Spring tax would be rearing it's ugly head soon, as would guild dues and a promised spike in prices for lessons at the Academy. It could wait though; he didn't feel like pouring over numbers today.
Not that it was his usual habit to avoid work, far from it in fact. At eighteen, Robert had spent most of his life working harder than many in Hometown did their entire lives. He had lost his parents sometime further back than he could remember. A foreign couple hailing from somewhere on the West Continent, they had lived on the very fringes of the settled lands, keeping largely to themselves. City guards had found Robert, lying wrapped in blankets just outside the gates. No one could agree if his parents had been killed or just abandoned him. No one truly cared either; Robert himself included. Once maybe, he might have, but all the questions he had ever asked were always meet with half-hearted shrugs or contradicting answers. After a certain point, he came to the conclusion that there was simply not enough evidence to piece the story together and, not long after he realized this, figuring out just what happened to his parents stopped really mattering to him
It had been that twist of fate however, that caused him to find his way into the care of Meredith Avars, owner and proprietor of the Gull's Song Inn. Most of his childhood memories were filled with visions of her gloomy rotund face glaring down at him and her snappish, gravely voice ordering him off to another task. The middle-aged widow had hardly been the kindest of keepers, though, when he reflected on his time at the inn years later, he knew she was far from the worst he could have found himself with. Horror stories of foster parents who beat or even sexually abused the children they took into their care had reached him over the years. Stories that could make him shiver in disgust or hatred for those who carried out such vile deeds. He had been spared though. Life had been hard, yes, but not cruel. To Meredith, he had simply been another worker and was expected to earn his keep just like the rest.
The crack abruptly ended as it ran into the wall, probably to be continued in the room over. None of his concern anymore, the neighbors could pick up where he left off, if they were so inclined. With a sigh, he rolled over on to his side and stared blankly out the window, watching through his bangs as the smoke from the blacksmith's shop across the street lazily drifted by. In another few hours, Daniel and Nina would get out of class and meet him down at the Hunters Hold for a drink. It was a daily ritual, but Robert looked forward to it all the same. Till then though, he had nothing to do but wait.
Waiting.
Robert had never really been able to figure out if he enjoyed it or not. He was good at it, even considered it one of his better abilities, but there was a hazy point that separated tolerance from enjoyment. On the surface, he knew that there really was nothing in the act itself to warrant enjoyment. Sitting for hours in one place while a chain of events played itself out that would only eventually lead to you; hardly the epitome of entertainment. Still, the situation was one any Ranger would be familiar with. There always came that point in any job that you took that involved doing nothing for a certain length of time. If you were hunting demons, you had to wait for them to come out of their lairs. Cleaning someone's home, there was the inevitable pause while you waited for your employer to finish whatever they were doing before they could give you the next task. Some people couldn't stand it, they'd grow restless and bored. Robert got a strange, voyeuristic pleasure out of watching someone else struggling to keep their patience, which was where that hazy distinction emanated. There was a change that came over them in levels. He could see them fighting to keep it contained, but it would always get the better of them and come bubbling to the surface in one violent change of character after another. Build up and burst, build up and burst, pop, pop, pop; till they were red in the face and sweating, hands clenched around whatever was convenient as though to choke it in punishment for making them wait.
There wasn't always someone to watch though. Like now. Robert scanned the room, some subconscious reflex insisting that he be certain of the fact. No one else was there, as expected. The apartment was empty, save for himself and a headless stone Fou-dog sitting in the corner. Empty and desolate. A wasteland of dirty clothes and brickabrack strewn about the wooden floor. Nina always laughed at his little home's lack of tidiness.
"You are a most typical bachelor." She'd giggle every time she and Daniel came over. Homebody that he was, Daniel expressed little more than disgust as Robert's less than sanitary living quarters. He had even gone so far as to clean the room himself a few times, though always found his efforts were in vain, as the room would return to it's former state within a week. For his own part, Robert preferred it as it was. Not the cleanliest way to live, and he certainly wouldn't impress anyone with his organizational skills anytime soon, but it was comfortable, broken-in even. Half his life had been spent in that room and it's condition was a monument to his presence there.
That was his excuse anyway. Daniel always accused him of simply being lazy and that was probably closer to the truth. He had spent a good portion of his life cleaning up after other people and now that he was the only person he had to care for, he found it a nice change of pace to let things simply stay on the floor. It was a moot point really. They were the only guests he ever really entertained at his home and, despite Daniel's nagging, they really didn't care.
Four dull taps from the battered old clock sitting on his dresser signaled the hour and brought Robert's train of thought to sudden halt. Two hours more and Daniel and Nina would be finished with classes for the day.
Sitting up, he swung his legs around off the side of the bed and bent down to yank his boots onto his feet. He could live waiting a few hours, but there was no reason he had to wait alone.
"You don't look so swift," Andy said, handing Robert a ceramic mug of steaming tea as he walked by the chair the dark-haired demon hunter had sunk into. "You should probably add some tiame powder and blood-mint to your meals." He took a seat on the edge of his bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I can talk to my supplier, I'm sure he'd be willing to cut you a deal."
"Thanks," Robert murmured, taking a cautious sip of the bitter drink before risking a full swallow. The piping hot tea burned down his throat and into his belly, were it subsided into more bearable warmth. "I feel fine though."
"Yeah, well, you may feel fine but that doesn't mean you are. To my eyes, you look terrible." Andy's long, gray ear's twitched back ever so slightly, something Robert had learned was a sign of worry or annoyance. "One of these days, you're going to collapse. What if that happened while you were out chasing demons, hmm?"
"Then it would really cut back on the cost of burying me." Robert snickered.
Andy scolded him with a glare, the Plainsrunner's ear's twitching back even further. "Come on, I'm serious."
"Go figure, so was I." Robert downed another mouthful of tea, sucking in a breath through his teeth as the tip of tongue was burnt raw. Andy laughed, shaking his head in exasperation.
"You're idiot, you know that right?" Robert's only answer was a lop-sided grin. "Yeah, that's about what I figured. Not one damn lick of common sense."
Andrew MacHullay, Andy as he preferred to be called, was Robert's "building friend" of sorts. A handsome example of the Southern-Breed of Plainsrunners, Andy's boyish good looks and blond hair set him a world apart from the rotund, sag-faced dog men who made up the majority of Hometown's Plainsrunner population. The only hints he was even Plainsrunner at all lay in his long gray-furred ears and oversized feet.
The social circles they ran in, not to mention the generous five years in age Andy had over Robert, led to little contact between them outside the apartments. Inside however, they often paid one another little visits to help pass the time over drinks or share a piece of news. Of course, this also led to many a lectures on Robert's state of well being. The son of a rather prominent herbal healer in the upper part of town and a fully trained physician himself, Andy had been force fed lessons on how to properly care for his body inside and out and often took it upon himself to tell others, Robert mostly, how to do so as well.
Robert risked another sip of tea, then made a face. "I'll never understand how you can drink this stuff."
"And I'll never understand how you can drink brandy laced khava..." Andy mimicked Robert's expression. "Might as well drink snake venom for all the harm it does your body. Not to mention the fact that it tastes like oak- mush and fireseeds."
"At least it tastes like something, which is more than I can say for this... stuff," he peered down at the shredded bits of green leaf and sandy black substance floating in the bottom of his mug. "And, as always, there are different bits of things in it from last time."
"I like to experiment, yes."
"Well, I don't know how you can change the ingredients around so much and still always manage to produce a liquid that tastes like dirt, but congratulations and I hope that was your goal." Robert raised his glass in mock salute, then downed what was left.
"You always drink it," Andy pointed out as he carefully removed his gold- framed spectacles and wiped the lenses clean with a pocket-handkerchief.
"What other choice do I have?" Robert shrugged. "You won't let me bring anything good to drink."
"Hmmm, speaking of which, isn't it about time you went off on your daily death march to the Hold to meet your friends?"
"Family," Robert corrected with a smile. "And not for another couple of hours, no. So eager to get rid of me?"
Andy snorted, balancing his glasses back on his nose. "You come in here begging for company, then sit in my chair, insult my tea, and ignore my advice. So, given what a wonderful companion you make, it is any wonder I want you gone?"
Robert feigned a hurt look, but said nothing, unable to think of anything to continue their game of one-upmanship. He wasn't surprised, Andy usually won these contests. Resigned to his defeat for the moment, Robert lapsed into silence and waited, hoping Andy would opt to start the next topic. Conversation with the Plainsrunner could be a rather difficult matter to handle. One wrong word could send them spiraling back into a health lecture. That he cared something about Robert's health was all well and good, but there was little that could put a person to sleep faster than listening to an herbalist ramble on about their profession.
"So," Andy began, coming to the rescue in due time. "How are your siblings doing anyway?"
The question brought a ready smile to Robert's lips, more for how it was phrased than the fact it had been asked at all. "Oh, well, you know. Daniel is still a whinny pain in the butt and Nina it still too quiet around strangers for her own good, but I still love them just the same."
Andy chuckled dryly. "Wonderful to see you hold them in such high regard."
"More than either one of them deserve," he joked, still smiling as images of his two siblings ran through his head.
Despite their insistence at being called otherwise, they were not related at all. Such could be gleaned by just a glance at them. Nina was from the Wing Clan, the large purple-black wings on her back all the evidence anyone would ever need to prove that, and while Daniel and Robert were both from the Human Clan, they bore no resemblance to one another. They were not even officially adopted siblings either, none of them had ever had the time or ever felt the inclination to make the long trek up to Windia to fill out the papers needed for such a declaration. Self-appointed adoption was good enough to them.
"I'm going to tell them you said that next time I see them. Not that it's likely to make much of an impression." the Plainsrunner said with a wry expression. He had only actually met either of them for brief moments, usually as he was leaving the apartments and they were arriving, but he knew Robert well enough to know that any barbs he cast were completely superficial. It was one of the reasons Andy enjoyed his company so much, he made a nice change from his stiffly formal and polite colleagues from the College of Medicine.
"What about you? How's your father doing?"
"Oh, he's fine, I suppose. He has been pushing me to move back up to the Plateau and open a joint practice with him lately though. It's a pretty tempting offer too," Andy rubbed the back of his neck, causing his long ears to bob and sway comically. "I'm not sure I'm ready to give up here just yet though."
"Ah," Robert nodded sagely. "You're far too attached to our sparkling conversations and my razor sharp wit to leave, you'd miss me too much."
The Plainsrunner stared at him with a deadpan expression. "Like I'd miss a flu."
A beat passed, then both men broken down into helpless snickers.
"Really though, why not?" Robert asked after the moment had passed. "I mean, people on the Plateau get sick too and they could certainly afford to pay better than we lowly Tangle rats could."
"True, but people in the Tangles get sick more often," Andy let out a long sigh and leaned heavily onto his knees, his ears dropping till the tips touched his shoulders.
"To be honest, it's been on my mind ever since my father brought it up. On the one hand, I need to look out for myself and the money I could make up on the Plateau would certainly take care of that. But then there's the oath," he smiled at the blank stare that earned him. "The doctors oath. A pledge sworn in blood to aid those in need without hesitation and raise them up regardless of station. There are only two other doctors in this city beside myself, my father being one of them and the other up on the Plateau as well. It certainly wouldn't be that difficult to make trips back down here, but that doesn't help the people who have constant need of attention. The whole thing has just been one big... conflict, I guess." He sighed again, letting his head fall forward onto his waiting hands, fingers vanishing into the mess of blond hair.
"A moral dilemma?" Robert offered.
The Plainsrunner looked up at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's it exactly."
Robert smiled, his voice intoning softly. "Never doubt the morality of what you do. You cannot afford to think about it and those who need you cannot afford your own inner distractions giving you pause. Keep it in mind and in heart that what you do is good and just, no matter what it may seem sometimes. You are needed and you are needed whole and may no distraction ever steer you otherwise."
"That was shocking poignant and eloquent," Andy paused to smile slightly, his ears perking up. "Especially coming for you. Who said it first?"
The younger man gave a soft laugh. "Another demon slayer, someone I met a long time ago. Course, he was talking about being in the thick of battle against demons, but I think it works well for life in general, no? "
"Perhaps. I'll certainly take it under consideration, oh wise teacher," Andy slowly got to his feat, stretching his arms above his head. "Want some more tea?"
"Mmm... you mean this tasty stuff?" Robert held out his mug, smiling brightly. "Nearly as much I want scurvy."
Andy let out an indignant snort, snatching the cup out of Robert's hand on his way by to the stove. "Stop complaining, you always drink it."
Cory Rordain didn't look behind him when he first felt the aura of corruption radiating from the ramshackle barn, he turned and ran. Fear pumped adrenaline into his lithe frame, feeding his panicked sprint through the empty fields, pushing him faster than he had ever gone in his entire life. It wasn't enough. The tall grass gripped at his legs, threatening to trip him with every step. He could feel the presence behind him, catch a shadow falling over his shoulder. It was playing with him. This wasn't a situation he was used to.
Born into the family that had first founded the Rangers, he had spent his entire life surrounded by the odd assemblage of mercenaries, outlaws, and would-be heroes. His father had groomed him to become the next guild- master, his mother had seen to it he received the best training available. There wasn't a demon in the whole of the peninsula he couldn't kill. He had even taken missions that led him further north, where the creatures were more numerous and much more dangerous. Cory was a good fighter and a competent one at that.
And now he ran, his sword thrown aside without even a thought of drawing it.
The farm lay almost twenty miles away from Hometown, part of a small collection of ranches that had sprung up along the fringe lands in recent years. He had come here to investigate the disappearance of several farm animals. Hearty folk all, the farmers were used to dealing with brushes with demons and rarely needed to hire Rangers to take care of them outside of the breeding seasons. Clan matters were another thing entirely. There was no sign of demon activity around the community and to make matters more suspicious, one of the most recent arrivals, the Eukle family, were the only ones who hadn't reported anything. No one was willing to go speak with the family themselves though, it would have seemed 'un-neighborly.' So instead they sent to town for a Ranger to come out and see if the animals were on the farm.
Cory had found out soon after he had arrived that the farmers suspicions were misplaced. He had found the farm in sever neglect, crops wilting in the field and the only sign of life coming from a starving plow horse tethered to a post by the tool shed. He had killed the animal as a mercy. When he approached the main house, he was taken back by the stink of rotting flesh and necromantic magic, so thick that it tainted the very air with an oily foulness. Movement in one of the upstairs windows caught his eye and he looked up to find himself staring into a pair of hollowed eye- sockets surrounded by wrinkled and rotting blue skin. More movement from a shattered down stairs window and a spine-chillingly inhuman moan was all Cory needed to confirm his fears. Someone had killed the family, then raised their corpses.
A devote Evanist, he had to resist the temptation to destroy them by hand and give them a proper burial. The necromancer that raised them might come back and he had no desire to face a mage of that caliber alone. It only took a simple 'Spark' spell to ignite the old house's dry timbers and set it ablaze. It was also all it took to wake up the presence sleeping in the barn.
It was the grass that finally ended the chase. The toe of Cory's boot caught on a heavy clump of weeds and sent the young man tumbling to the ground, but he rolled gracefully back to his feet and came up running. As though waiting for just that moment though, the presence behind him grew closer; it did not intend to play with him anymore. A shadow fell over Cory as it moved in, a warm wash of air carrying the scent of death and decay. Cory didn't stop. He heard something, a whisper so faint the words were lost on the wind, and felt the aura of powerful magic flare into existence. Something inside of him beyond flesh and bone twist violently, send a ripple of burning pain coursing through his body before it was ripped away, an all encompassing freezing numbness rushing in to fill it's place.
Cory Rordain took two more steps, then he died.
Chapter 1
Robert lay stretched out on his rickety old bed, staring at the ceiling of his tiny apartment, his eyes tracing the familiar path of a crack in the white paint. There were a hundred things he could have been doing, at least one he knew about that he should have. Below the window, on the little wooden mantle that served as his makeshift desk, ink and quill and small stack of papers awaited him. Financial records mostly, there was a lot he had to budget for that month. Spring tax would be rearing it's ugly head soon, as would guild dues and a promised spike in prices for lessons at the Academy. It could wait though; he didn't feel like pouring over numbers today.
Not that it was his usual habit to avoid work, far from it in fact. At eighteen, Robert had spent most of his life working harder than many in Hometown did their entire lives. He had lost his parents sometime further back than he could remember. A foreign couple hailing from somewhere on the West Continent, they had lived on the very fringes of the settled lands, keeping largely to themselves. City guards had found Robert, lying wrapped in blankets just outside the gates. No one could agree if his parents had been killed or just abandoned him. No one truly cared either; Robert himself included. Once maybe, he might have, but all the questions he had ever asked were always meet with half-hearted shrugs or contradicting answers. After a certain point, he came to the conclusion that there was simply not enough evidence to piece the story together and, not long after he realized this, figuring out just what happened to his parents stopped really mattering to him
It had been that twist of fate however, that caused him to find his way into the care of Meredith Avars, owner and proprietor of the Gull's Song Inn. Most of his childhood memories were filled with visions of her gloomy rotund face glaring down at him and her snappish, gravely voice ordering him off to another task. The middle-aged widow had hardly been the kindest of keepers, though, when he reflected on his time at the inn years later, he knew she was far from the worst he could have found himself with. Horror stories of foster parents who beat or even sexually abused the children they took into their care had reached him over the years. Stories that could make him shiver in disgust or hatred for those who carried out such vile deeds. He had been spared though. Life had been hard, yes, but not cruel. To Meredith, he had simply been another worker and was expected to earn his keep just like the rest.
The crack abruptly ended as it ran into the wall, probably to be continued in the room over. None of his concern anymore, the neighbors could pick up where he left off, if they were so inclined. With a sigh, he rolled over on to his side and stared blankly out the window, watching through his bangs as the smoke from the blacksmith's shop across the street lazily drifted by. In another few hours, Daniel and Nina would get out of class and meet him down at the Hunters Hold for a drink. It was a daily ritual, but Robert looked forward to it all the same. Till then though, he had nothing to do but wait.
Waiting.
Robert had never really been able to figure out if he enjoyed it or not. He was good at it, even considered it one of his better abilities, but there was a hazy point that separated tolerance from enjoyment. On the surface, he knew that there really was nothing in the act itself to warrant enjoyment. Sitting for hours in one place while a chain of events played itself out that would only eventually lead to you; hardly the epitome of entertainment. Still, the situation was one any Ranger would be familiar with. There always came that point in any job that you took that involved doing nothing for a certain length of time. If you were hunting demons, you had to wait for them to come out of their lairs. Cleaning someone's home, there was the inevitable pause while you waited for your employer to finish whatever they were doing before they could give you the next task. Some people couldn't stand it, they'd grow restless and bored. Robert got a strange, voyeuristic pleasure out of watching someone else struggling to keep their patience, which was where that hazy distinction emanated. There was a change that came over them in levels. He could see them fighting to keep it contained, but it would always get the better of them and come bubbling to the surface in one violent change of character after another. Build up and burst, build up and burst, pop, pop, pop; till they were red in the face and sweating, hands clenched around whatever was convenient as though to choke it in punishment for making them wait.
There wasn't always someone to watch though. Like now. Robert scanned the room, some subconscious reflex insisting that he be certain of the fact. No one else was there, as expected. The apartment was empty, save for himself and a headless stone Fou-dog sitting in the corner. Empty and desolate. A wasteland of dirty clothes and brickabrack strewn about the wooden floor. Nina always laughed at his little home's lack of tidiness.
"You are a most typical bachelor." She'd giggle every time she and Daniel came over. Homebody that he was, Daniel expressed little more than disgust as Robert's less than sanitary living quarters. He had even gone so far as to clean the room himself a few times, though always found his efforts were in vain, as the room would return to it's former state within a week. For his own part, Robert preferred it as it was. Not the cleanliest way to live, and he certainly wouldn't impress anyone with his organizational skills anytime soon, but it was comfortable, broken-in even. Half his life had been spent in that room and it's condition was a monument to his presence there.
That was his excuse anyway. Daniel always accused him of simply being lazy and that was probably closer to the truth. He had spent a good portion of his life cleaning up after other people and now that he was the only person he had to care for, he found it a nice change of pace to let things simply stay on the floor. It was a moot point really. They were the only guests he ever really entertained at his home and, despite Daniel's nagging, they really didn't care.
Four dull taps from the battered old clock sitting on his dresser signaled the hour and brought Robert's train of thought to sudden halt. Two hours more and Daniel and Nina would be finished with classes for the day.
Sitting up, he swung his legs around off the side of the bed and bent down to yank his boots onto his feet. He could live waiting a few hours, but there was no reason he had to wait alone.
"You don't look so swift," Andy said, handing Robert a ceramic mug of steaming tea as he walked by the chair the dark-haired demon hunter had sunk into. "You should probably add some tiame powder and blood-mint to your meals." He took a seat on the edge of his bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "I can talk to my supplier, I'm sure he'd be willing to cut you a deal."
"Thanks," Robert murmured, taking a cautious sip of the bitter drink before risking a full swallow. The piping hot tea burned down his throat and into his belly, were it subsided into more bearable warmth. "I feel fine though."
"Yeah, well, you may feel fine but that doesn't mean you are. To my eyes, you look terrible." Andy's long, gray ear's twitched back ever so slightly, something Robert had learned was a sign of worry or annoyance. "One of these days, you're going to collapse. What if that happened while you were out chasing demons, hmm?"
"Then it would really cut back on the cost of burying me." Robert snickered.
Andy scolded him with a glare, the Plainsrunner's ear's twitching back even further. "Come on, I'm serious."
"Go figure, so was I." Robert downed another mouthful of tea, sucking in a breath through his teeth as the tip of tongue was burnt raw. Andy laughed, shaking his head in exasperation.
"You're idiot, you know that right?" Robert's only answer was a lop-sided grin. "Yeah, that's about what I figured. Not one damn lick of common sense."
Andrew MacHullay, Andy as he preferred to be called, was Robert's "building friend" of sorts. A handsome example of the Southern-Breed of Plainsrunners, Andy's boyish good looks and blond hair set him a world apart from the rotund, sag-faced dog men who made up the majority of Hometown's Plainsrunner population. The only hints he was even Plainsrunner at all lay in his long gray-furred ears and oversized feet.
The social circles they ran in, not to mention the generous five years in age Andy had over Robert, led to little contact between them outside the apartments. Inside however, they often paid one another little visits to help pass the time over drinks or share a piece of news. Of course, this also led to many a lectures on Robert's state of well being. The son of a rather prominent herbal healer in the upper part of town and a fully trained physician himself, Andy had been force fed lessons on how to properly care for his body inside and out and often took it upon himself to tell others, Robert mostly, how to do so as well.
Robert risked another sip of tea, then made a face. "I'll never understand how you can drink this stuff."
"And I'll never understand how you can drink brandy laced khava..." Andy mimicked Robert's expression. "Might as well drink snake venom for all the harm it does your body. Not to mention the fact that it tastes like oak- mush and fireseeds."
"At least it tastes like something, which is more than I can say for this... stuff," he peered down at the shredded bits of green leaf and sandy black substance floating in the bottom of his mug. "And, as always, there are different bits of things in it from last time."
"I like to experiment, yes."
"Well, I don't know how you can change the ingredients around so much and still always manage to produce a liquid that tastes like dirt, but congratulations and I hope that was your goal." Robert raised his glass in mock salute, then downed what was left.
"You always drink it," Andy pointed out as he carefully removed his gold- framed spectacles and wiped the lenses clean with a pocket-handkerchief.
"What other choice do I have?" Robert shrugged. "You won't let me bring anything good to drink."
"Hmmm, speaking of which, isn't it about time you went off on your daily death march to the Hold to meet your friends?"
"Family," Robert corrected with a smile. "And not for another couple of hours, no. So eager to get rid of me?"
Andy snorted, balancing his glasses back on his nose. "You come in here begging for company, then sit in my chair, insult my tea, and ignore my advice. So, given what a wonderful companion you make, it is any wonder I want you gone?"
Robert feigned a hurt look, but said nothing, unable to think of anything to continue their game of one-upmanship. He wasn't surprised, Andy usually won these contests. Resigned to his defeat for the moment, Robert lapsed into silence and waited, hoping Andy would opt to start the next topic. Conversation with the Plainsrunner could be a rather difficult matter to handle. One wrong word could send them spiraling back into a health lecture. That he cared something about Robert's health was all well and good, but there was little that could put a person to sleep faster than listening to an herbalist ramble on about their profession.
"So," Andy began, coming to the rescue in due time. "How are your siblings doing anyway?"
The question brought a ready smile to Robert's lips, more for how it was phrased than the fact it had been asked at all. "Oh, well, you know. Daniel is still a whinny pain in the butt and Nina it still too quiet around strangers for her own good, but I still love them just the same."
Andy chuckled dryly. "Wonderful to see you hold them in such high regard."
"More than either one of them deserve," he joked, still smiling as images of his two siblings ran through his head.
Despite their insistence at being called otherwise, they were not related at all. Such could be gleaned by just a glance at them. Nina was from the Wing Clan, the large purple-black wings on her back all the evidence anyone would ever need to prove that, and while Daniel and Robert were both from the Human Clan, they bore no resemblance to one another. They were not even officially adopted siblings either, none of them had ever had the time or ever felt the inclination to make the long trek up to Windia to fill out the papers needed for such a declaration. Self-appointed adoption was good enough to them.
"I'm going to tell them you said that next time I see them. Not that it's likely to make much of an impression." the Plainsrunner said with a wry expression. He had only actually met either of them for brief moments, usually as he was leaving the apartments and they were arriving, but he knew Robert well enough to know that any barbs he cast were completely superficial. It was one of the reasons Andy enjoyed his company so much, he made a nice change from his stiffly formal and polite colleagues from the College of Medicine.
"What about you? How's your father doing?"
"Oh, he's fine, I suppose. He has been pushing me to move back up to the Plateau and open a joint practice with him lately though. It's a pretty tempting offer too," Andy rubbed the back of his neck, causing his long ears to bob and sway comically. "I'm not sure I'm ready to give up here just yet though."
"Ah," Robert nodded sagely. "You're far too attached to our sparkling conversations and my razor sharp wit to leave, you'd miss me too much."
The Plainsrunner stared at him with a deadpan expression. "Like I'd miss a flu."
A beat passed, then both men broken down into helpless snickers.
"Really though, why not?" Robert asked after the moment had passed. "I mean, people on the Plateau get sick too and they could certainly afford to pay better than we lowly Tangle rats could."
"True, but people in the Tangles get sick more often," Andy let out a long sigh and leaned heavily onto his knees, his ears dropping till the tips touched his shoulders.
"To be honest, it's been on my mind ever since my father brought it up. On the one hand, I need to look out for myself and the money I could make up on the Plateau would certainly take care of that. But then there's the oath," he smiled at the blank stare that earned him. "The doctors oath. A pledge sworn in blood to aid those in need without hesitation and raise them up regardless of station. There are only two other doctors in this city beside myself, my father being one of them and the other up on the Plateau as well. It certainly wouldn't be that difficult to make trips back down here, but that doesn't help the people who have constant need of attention. The whole thing has just been one big... conflict, I guess." He sighed again, letting his head fall forward onto his waiting hands, fingers vanishing into the mess of blond hair.
"A moral dilemma?" Robert offered.
The Plainsrunner looked up at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, that's it exactly."
Robert smiled, his voice intoning softly. "Never doubt the morality of what you do. You cannot afford to think about it and those who need you cannot afford your own inner distractions giving you pause. Keep it in mind and in heart that what you do is good and just, no matter what it may seem sometimes. You are needed and you are needed whole and may no distraction ever steer you otherwise."
"That was shocking poignant and eloquent," Andy paused to smile slightly, his ears perking up. "Especially coming for you. Who said it first?"
The younger man gave a soft laugh. "Another demon slayer, someone I met a long time ago. Course, he was talking about being in the thick of battle against demons, but I think it works well for life in general, no? "
"Perhaps. I'll certainly take it under consideration, oh wise teacher," Andy slowly got to his feat, stretching his arms above his head. "Want some more tea?"
"Mmm... you mean this tasty stuff?" Robert held out his mug, smiling brightly. "Nearly as much I want scurvy."
Andy let out an indignant snort, snatching the cup out of Robert's hand on his way by to the stove. "Stop complaining, you always drink it."
Cory Rordain didn't look behind him when he first felt the aura of corruption radiating from the ramshackle barn, he turned and ran. Fear pumped adrenaline into his lithe frame, feeding his panicked sprint through the empty fields, pushing him faster than he had ever gone in his entire life. It wasn't enough. The tall grass gripped at his legs, threatening to trip him with every step. He could feel the presence behind him, catch a shadow falling over his shoulder. It was playing with him. This wasn't a situation he was used to.
Born into the family that had first founded the Rangers, he had spent his entire life surrounded by the odd assemblage of mercenaries, outlaws, and would-be heroes. His father had groomed him to become the next guild- master, his mother had seen to it he received the best training available. There wasn't a demon in the whole of the peninsula he couldn't kill. He had even taken missions that led him further north, where the creatures were more numerous and much more dangerous. Cory was a good fighter and a competent one at that.
And now he ran, his sword thrown aside without even a thought of drawing it.
The farm lay almost twenty miles away from Hometown, part of a small collection of ranches that had sprung up along the fringe lands in recent years. He had come here to investigate the disappearance of several farm animals. Hearty folk all, the farmers were used to dealing with brushes with demons and rarely needed to hire Rangers to take care of them outside of the breeding seasons. Clan matters were another thing entirely. There was no sign of demon activity around the community and to make matters more suspicious, one of the most recent arrivals, the Eukle family, were the only ones who hadn't reported anything. No one was willing to go speak with the family themselves though, it would have seemed 'un-neighborly.' So instead they sent to town for a Ranger to come out and see if the animals were on the farm.
Cory had found out soon after he had arrived that the farmers suspicions were misplaced. He had found the farm in sever neglect, crops wilting in the field and the only sign of life coming from a starving plow horse tethered to a post by the tool shed. He had killed the animal as a mercy. When he approached the main house, he was taken back by the stink of rotting flesh and necromantic magic, so thick that it tainted the very air with an oily foulness. Movement in one of the upstairs windows caught his eye and he looked up to find himself staring into a pair of hollowed eye- sockets surrounded by wrinkled and rotting blue skin. More movement from a shattered down stairs window and a spine-chillingly inhuman moan was all Cory needed to confirm his fears. Someone had killed the family, then raised their corpses.
A devote Evanist, he had to resist the temptation to destroy them by hand and give them a proper burial. The necromancer that raised them might come back and he had no desire to face a mage of that caliber alone. It only took a simple 'Spark' spell to ignite the old house's dry timbers and set it ablaze. It was also all it took to wake up the presence sleeping in the barn.
It was the grass that finally ended the chase. The toe of Cory's boot caught on a heavy clump of weeds and sent the young man tumbling to the ground, but he rolled gracefully back to his feet and came up running. As though waiting for just that moment though, the presence behind him grew closer; it did not intend to play with him anymore. A shadow fell over Cory as it moved in, a warm wash of air carrying the scent of death and decay. Cory didn't stop. He heard something, a whisper so faint the words were lost on the wind, and felt the aura of powerful magic flare into existence. Something inside of him beyond flesh and bone twist violently, send a ripple of burning pain coursing through his body before it was ripped away, an all encompassing freezing numbness rushing in to fill it's place.
Cory Rordain took two more steps, then he died.