Karma quitely withdrew her hands from the purring bird's head, and kissed it gently before sliding to its side, taking Uriel's hand. "Uriel, please take good care of him. Goldstream has been with Raziel since he first became a Fortis Tutor, and he's his favorite. He's loaning him to you in good faith and trust, Evertu Tricerto. Please show him you are capable."
Uriel sighed, patting the back of the cooing bird's head a little, "I'll do my best. I like this one, he's a lot gentler than most of the other birds."
"Raziel trained him to be so." Karma smiled, reaching to her belt for something.
"Raziel probably cares more about this bird than me." Uriel grinned just a little, scoffing as he pulled hishand back and replaced its glove. Karma reached up and placed a small pouch in the knight's hand, and Uriel took a moment to look inside, finding bits of some strange type of fruit.
He looked down questioningly at Karma, "What's this? A treat for Goldstream?"
The priestess smiled and shook her head, and she closed the bag for him. "It's dried Mestala fruit. If you ever get tired of the herbs in your pack, try some. It tastes a lot better than the foods we usually eat here in Prontera."
Uriel smiled, reaching down in his saddle to kiss Karma on her reddening cheek, "Thank you very much, dear Chaplain. I'll try to make it last the trip." With these words, he lightly tapped Goldstream's sides and clucked his tongue, and the aurulent beast slowly began padding along the cobbles and out of Prontera. On the horizon, the sun was now setting, dividing the sky in a brilliant cascade of oranges and reds, all fading upward to the midnight blues of the twilight. Uriel continued to look back towards the Priestess as he trotted away, smiling reassuringly, until he finally brought his face forward and snapped the reins, shouting "HYAH!" into the sunset, steed carrying him over the horizon with the speed of a sunbeam.
Karma simply stood, a hand gently and slowly touching her cheek as she watched him ride off. Her other hand came up, too late, to weakly wave goodbye, and she continued waving, even when his figure had disappeared into the sun. Casting her eyes to the ground, she turned and walked only a few paces before running into a figure who had been standing silently in the shadows behind them throughout the whole episode. The Ordo Chaplain looked up into the eyes of the White Assassin, who spoke quickly and quietly, "Raziel has need of us, Chaplain."
As they strode instep down the darkened streets, illuminated briefly every time Luna clawed her way past the majestic steeples of the sanctuaries in the city, Karma stared at the ground and breathed quiet, shuddering breaths. They were silent, save for the click of their boots and pumps on the cobbles, until Karma spoke softly, "What's happened, Angel?"
The assassin cross just let out a sharp, mirthless laugh. "A botched interrogation. Old Ironlimb finally messed up, and the suspect is almost dead. Too injured to talk."
"If that's all, why are we needed? What's happened because of Giron's failed interrogation?"
"The man's followers know where he is, and the only information we gleaned from him was the knowledge they were on their way to free him. Apparently he's been preaching in other towns for a while now, and has amassed a rather sizeable gathering of fools and apostates."
Karma shuddered out a sigh of disgust, "There will always be fools who don't realize how well they're being treated. The land's been at peace for hardly two years, and they still want to fight. Those stupid pawns..."
"Yes, those stupid pawns are converging on our town, so now we must make ready to meet them at the gates. Karma, gather your forces and head to the western gate. You'll be stationed there alongside Rouge. We have found enough archers and hunters to hold off the majority of infantry and cavalry that might rush us, but we are short on magical defense. Pray they don't have any well-trained wizards in their ranks." The assassin smiled again, disappearing as she walked into the shadows that filled the streets. "Have a fun night, Chaplain."
Silence overtook the city as the assassin cross disappeared completely.
A sudden chill caused Karma to stop and look Northward. For a moment, the Priestess just stood, and shivered.
It was a dark, dingy hell. Rats scurried among the holes in the stone walls, as the wails of tormented souls rang out from the numerous cells hidden in the darkness, barricaded with sharp and corroded iron bars. Prisoners lay shackled by their wrists to the walls behind them, and few made any signs of still being alive, or even of caring to live. From somewhere in the forsaken depths the sounds of one being actively tortured for information could be heard: Hideous wailings and the sounds of iron tearing flesh, of fire searing through skin, of death through the thin masquerade of interrogation.
He sat there, chained as all the others to the wall. He was a skeleton with skin as his only clothing. His nails were overgrown, his hair matted and filthy as it hung down over what was left of his face. He shuddered with every ragged breath, each torturous lungful of air passed between his chapped lips and down his raw throat. From every opening of his face, blood had flowed and caked around as it dried. His eye, half open, was yellowed and bore witness to the thousand horrors his body had been through.
He was no longer a man. He was... nothing.
He sat in the darkness, much as he had the day before, and the day before that. Time melded from hour to hour. It was endless, it was without record and impossible to account for. It was always dark here, and the darkness robs the soul of its light, its hope.
Another man sat beside him. But he was not like him. He was well-dressed. He was clean. He was smiling, and healthy, and full of color. He wasn't chained, but rather he held his hands in his lap, clasped, as if he was simply waiting for the barwench to bring him his meal. His tophat was set at an angle, crooked over his left eye as he peered over to the wretched man's face, a toothy grin set upon his jovial face. After a very long silence of this strange man simply staring at the deformed creature beside him, a very weak and dry "What do you want?" finally heaved itself out of the prisoner's mouth.
"What I want is simple. I want your freedom."
There was another silence as the half-dead wretch digested the snappy answer, and softly responded "Why mine?"
Tophat never lost his grin as he continued his stare, and replied as quickly as before, "I've been watching you. I know your spirit's print by heart, and when I close my eyes your aura dances beneath my vision. You show extreme promise to me, young Alchemist. This is truly an injustice to have you locked up in this dungeon, to have these self-righteous fools torture you and break your delicious spirit in the name of their 'God'." Every single word was spoken as if the whole thing was a joke to this strange creature, and he shifted himself so as to kneel down in front of the chained one, looking up into his eyes through the bloodied locks of white hair, "I know you and your kind. I know that you can and will be better, and I know tonight will be the turning point in your entire existence."
"...I'm a heretic... I have no destiny... I am nothing..."
"Don't let such foolish worries trouble you, my good man! They brand what they do nto understand as evil and destroy it. Why do they do that?"
"...It is evil..."
"No!" Tophat laughed out loud, a sound that clashed headlong to the endless torment swirling in the darkness. Several corpse-like prisoners nearby stirred with the sound, and everyone in earshot felt a strange warmth writhing through their veins. "They destroy what they do not understand... because they are frightened by it! These men are small, they are weak! They hold sway over the populace only through their petty 'God' and through their terrorism and philisophical opium!" Life flickered in the wretch's eye, as it slowly moved itself up to look at the man before it. Tophat continued, softer and lower this time, "I come for your freedom... I will set in motion your destiny, and through you, they will come to know... me!"
The prisoner's eye widened as his face contorted into the sheerest vision of utter terror as Tophat's face shone with the light of a thousand suns, the entire dungeon filling with unholy luminescence as the man's devilish laughter rang clear through the basalt walls. The entire structure shook on its foundation, and the dying everywhere writhed where they lay, screaming in time with the laughter. Guardsmen clambered through the halls, attempting to find the source, but as they lay hands upon the bars of the cell Wretch was kept in, they howled in surprise and terror, their gauntlets, then the rest of their armor, glowing bright orange-red as their bodies combusted, reducing each and every one of them to stock-rigid skeletons of ash and smoke, before they all crumbled into mounds of soot. Wind from an unknown source coursed through the halls, and the dust of all the prisoners and guardsmen swirled away with what used to be the iron bars. All the while, the man still barked his daemonic laughter, and the light still burned itself into the Wretch's eye, as he was held mute by the horror that gripped his mind and paralyzed his body.
Suddenly as it had begun, the light was gone. The laughter had stopped. All was dead and quiet, save for Wretch. His hands fell to his sides, the iron shackles reduced to soot, and he blinked over and over again to regain his sight in the sudden pitch darkness. There was a silence, as he kneeled, holding himself up with his hands and panting. He felt warm, warmer than he had felt in the longest time, and his entire body coursed with newfound energy and strength. Through the ratty hair covering his face, his eye darted all around, finding nothing but ashes and stone in the pitch of the dungeon's darkness. He found himself formulating a plan of escape in his mind, and hysterical laughter shook his body as he realized... he was free!
His body went rigid and his laughter stopped as he felt a single command imbed itself within his mind.
"Go."
And he was up, running, and gone.