That They Might Not Suffer
Chapter One – Minor Tricks
It had been eight months since he had given up his search for reviving Kishuna. There were no traditional methods of bringing him back and every rumor he searched out and turned up fruitless. Lord Reglay had stopped bothering him for a while, so he was free to drink his cares away.
That is, until he came along.
Renault found himself at a loss for words yet again. This was due less to being shocked by something and more that he was on his seventh drink of the night. He was still coherent enough to look around and register things, albeit incredibly slowly, but not enough to form much of a response.
It took him long enough to recognize the old man in the corner watching him. He was rather tall, but judging from the small black robes around him, he could easily hide behind a flagpole. He looked somewhat like a druid, although something of his clothes was throwing him off. It took him a long time to realize he wasn't wearing a cape or a hood. While his inebriated mind told him that was what was wrong, a rather small portion disagreed, but stayed silent. As he stared, he noticed that it wasn't that he had no hood, it was that he used something like a scarf to wrap around his head, covering his forehead and his right eye and letting the rest drop like long hair. Perhaps he had lost his sight like Kishuna, though only in one eye.
What was particularly unsettling about the old man was his other eye. It was simply a speck with very little coloring, like a snake. As Renault drunkenly stared at him, he came to the realization that all this time, that snake eye was watching him. And moreso than that, but the snake eye was coming closer.
"You've taken a healthy interest in me."
Renault waved his mug around. "Sho've you, snake eyesh. Whasshu want?"
The old man sat down next to him as he drank before spilling a bit more on the floor. "I don't believe we've met, Renault. I am Nergal."
Renault watched him with shaky eyes. "How d'you shtill know me? Shomeone still talks about me?"
Nergal smiled, and for a brief moment, Renault was uneasy, as if this was a person he shouldn't be associating with all too easily. "Oh, I've heard the tales of the legendary mercenary pair, Renault and Kishuna. Who hasn't?"
Renault acted on that impulse and glared at him. "Sho what? You're gonna make fun of me 'caushe I'm drunk? I'll shove my shord so far up yer ass that—"
"Patience, Renault." Nergal wasn't about to take any chances so easily. "I never said anything of the sort. In fact, I bring a gift."
He moved his arm forward and opened his hand, as if letting go of a bird and helping it fly away. Renault watched with a drunken apathy, but felt something changing inside of him, as if a warm breeze had penetrated his skin and was beginning to flow inside him. His reaction time quickened and he watched in amazement as he felt on top of his game and sharper than he was coming into the bar.
"What… what did you do?"
"I removed the alcohol from your system so we could have a bit more coherent chat." Nergal smiled; this one was perfect. Excellent quintessence, stumped by magic and, at one point, willing to sacrifice for his friend. This one would make an excellent assistant.
Renault simply stared in shock; Kishuna was a great druid, but even he never did that for either of them. While it could've been that Kishuna was drunk with him half the time and wouldn't have been able to… perhaps he had misjudged this man.
"Now, it has come to my attention that you wanted to revive your friend."
Renault shook his head. "It's not possible. Everything I've done has led to a dead end."
Much to his amazement, Nergal laughed. "Are you referring to those foolish sages, druids and bishops who speak only of the natural order of things? Or those ridiculous rumors you clung to like the last strands of false hope?"
"Get to the point, old man," Renault said rather forcefully. "What else was there?"
"There was me," Nergal replied shortly. "I have been researching a manner of energy and consequently magic that would make it possible to revive a human."
Renault wasn't impressed; he must have heard that particular spiel about four times now. "Sure you are."
"Unimpressed, eh? You were when I showed you that small trifling of a power."
He simply rolled his eyes. "Probably just a trick of some sort that just any advanced mage can pull off."
"Is that so? Then why is it that's the first time you've seen it? Surely, when other mages get drunk and start casting spells all over the place, it only takes another sage or some other advanced mage, as you called it, to cast it and simply bring them back into our realm of coherency."
He opened his mouth to talk and shut it. Damn. He had a point. "Alright, so what of it? It's not if someone stops drinking, they'll live forever."
Nergal stood up from his seat. "My dear Renault. If I was able to cast a minor spell like that that you've never even seen before, what else might I be capable of?"
Nergal could see the gears whirring away in his head. Perhaps this one wasn't so clueless without his friend after all. "I've made my residence and my place of research away from prying eyes, on the island of Valor."
That got Renault's attention and snapped him out of his thoughts. "The Dread Isle? Are you mad?"
"There's nothing dreadful about the place," he replied. "Besides, if such a stigma is attached to it, who's going to intervene?"
Renault conceded another point to Nergal. Perhaps this old man could bring Kishuna back…
Yet before he could answer, Nergal began to walk away. "Should you want your friend back, remember. You have a friend in Valor." With that, he walked out the door. Renault ran after him, burst out the door and looked in every possible direction Nergal could have gone. How could anyone disappear like that?
He walked back inside, paid his tab, and left for his home. Clearly, he had a bit of thinking to do.
Warped back to Valor, Nergal laughed to himself. What a foolish mercenary. Such minor tricks managed to impress him and while he appeared to be capable of some minor insight, he was still easily controlled. A friend in Valor. Ha! If anything, he had an employer in Valor. This washed-up mercenary would provide the help necessary to create Nergal's first morphs.