The Synod: Book of Black Justice
Chapter 16
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
AN: Well it has been awhile since I posted to this one, what with the focus on the siege of Prart, and... yeah this one will go on hold again eventually until God Rising expands in order to avoid spoilers, but as it is I can safely continue it, there are stories in this that... quite frankly I want to tell, so with that in mind, enjoy a double release day with this chapter AND a new story 'Blood in the Streets' sorry about the delay, coursework has been eating me alive and is not leaving me much time, but only a few more days and I'll be back to a more rapid release, I owe a few more days of double releases still, and I'll meet those if it kills me. :) In the meantime, enjoy!
...Kami Miyako…
Lakyus and CZ were not slow by any stretch of the imagination, yet every step felt like it was slogging through a thick swamp or slowed by molasses. They rushed as fast as they could, though Lakyus herself was quite convinced that CZ was taking it easy on herself just to hold pace with Lakyus.
It wasn't until they reached a juncture and Lakyus paused to get her bearings that CZ spoke up. "Why the rush?" She asked.
"Because Vepyr gave us three names to work with, and I want to find our target before Skana does." Lakyus answered, breathing hard from the heavy pace to which she had subjected herself.
"Why?" CZ asked.
"Because I got to thinking about things, and Skana was far too calm before, the only real indication of raw unbridled rage was her desire to take the investigation portion that had a high likelihood of fighting. My first thought was that it was just to vent her frustration, but I didn't think about what she'd do if she was successful and got a name before us. You know what happened here in the last days of the war, what happened to Neia. Neia 'feels' things, but Skana avoids dealing with feelings until they come crashing down like a mountain."
"And?" CZ asked.
"And I fear that finding the responsible party will be that trigger." Lakyus said as she turned and rushed down another ruined street that lead to the noble district Vepyr had pointed them towards.
"I don't understand." CZ said with the casual indifference of her common tone, only having served alongside her let Lakyus detect a hint of concern.
"If Skana gets… triggered, how far do you think she'll go? She 'hates' the Slane Theocracy for what they did to her wife, and this place is the last remnants of it. The poisoner and the person who bought it from her may be too much. She might kill both to start with, and while I could live with that, but what if she doesn't stop? What if she suffers a breakdown and turns her hate on the city itself? Everybody with any real combat power in this city died when the siege ended, if she goes on a killing spree…" Lakyus let the thought hang there, she could see CZ running through the various outcomes.
The war was over, it would be murdering the Sorcerer King's subjects, whether they thought of themselves as such or not, he would have no choice but to punish her, severely. If that happened and Neia learned of it, how would she respond, fresh off an attempt on her own life, to find her wife had gone on a rage-fueled killing spree of… more or less innocent civilians? The two women shook their heads. Neia was fragile now, she wouldn't get over that.
CZ grabbed the note out of Lakyus's hands and quickly read it, then handed it back while the adamantite adventurer looked at her in surprise. "I do the first, you do the second, we meet at the third if both fail." It was a rare occasion for CZ to speak more than three or four words, and it showed the gravity she'd given to the matter at hand as Lakyus had explained it.
"Agreed." Lakyus said, they ran as hard as they could and CZ quickly left Lakyus far behind, turning right down a road that Lakyus would turn left at. When Lakyus reached her destination, she wasted no time. She checked briefly to see that the outside looked as it was described and just as promised, there was a nameplate on the remains of a wall with a small damaged gate with bent, broken iron bars that might have once been beautifully shaped and quite decorative.
At a guess, she figured it took fire from a siege weapon, if the holes in the wall and gouges in the once fine road were any indication. The gate was secured, not that it mattered. Lakyus jumped over the gate and went straight to the door. She pounded on it, almost hard enough to break it down. "Open the door!" She demanded.
"Go away!" A voice shouted from within.
"I'm not asking you, I am ordering you! Open… the damn… door… NOW!" Lakyus snarled out.
"And I'm saying no!" The voice, rough and largely drunk, replied. "Now go away!" The man who owned the voice added in annoyance.
"Fine!" Lakyus shouted, and then she kicked the door open.
"What the hell?!" A drunken man said, swaying on his feet as he gawked at the shattered entrance, his outburst stopped when he saw the beautiful blond adventurer, and his mouth closed with an audible 'pop' when her large black sword came out and was leveled at him as she approached.
"You have one chance and only one chance." Lakyus said with eyes narrow enough to have made Neia look wide-eyed. "Present to me the perfume bottle made by Vepyr. If you have it, you get to live and I'll pay for the repairs on your door."
The person looking at her was a broken looking old man, thin, not in the best of health, whatever he had been before now, he had to have been better than this, but Lakyus had no time for sympathy, not now. His gray beard and wrinkled face spoke of many troubles over many days, and his glassy eyes suggested he'd had a great deal to drink, given the hour of the day, the first thought Lakyus had was that she hadn't just caught him at a bad time, she'd caught him at his normal life as it now was.
"Ah don't…" He began, and she drew closer, fear seemed to give him a sense of clarity as his body briefly stopped swaying. The demon sword was at his neck. Mentally, Lakyus fought the urge to tremble, since she'd joined with the Sorcerer King she had faced off against and put down humans. But this was different she was looking at a pathetic drunk, a ruin of a man in the ruins of a city, at any other time she'd be trying to help him. Not… not this.
Her eyes swept the room, it was a virtual dump, servants had obviously long vanished from the household, and that gave her some indication of who had been attending him here. That thought eased her conscience somewhat as he began to stagger toward the steps and led her up to the next floor. A few minutes later he came to a door. "Please b-be quiet, mah waf esh schleeping." He stammered, and opened the door gently, she followed after him, keeping the sword pointed to his back.
She entered, and was immediately struck by the heavy smell of perfume, she glanced around the room and saw why as he walked past the bed. There was indeed a woman there, but she was not sleeping. She was dead, very, very dead and she clearly had been so for months. Her body was in a deep state of decay. For a moment Lakyus almost killed the ruin of a lord, she almost pushed it into his back, but a moment later she felt a great swell of pity rise in her breast as she realized he could not have killed her.
The body had been pierced through and through by a large arrow, the sort used by siege weapons. The picture formed in her mind, she'd gone to fight, or so she assumed given that the corpse still wore light armor of the sort that some minor nobles used, she'd died, her body had been returned to him, and he had fallen into madness. However, with the chaos, nobody noticed he hadn't seen to the burial, he had simply slipped deeper and deeper into madness and drunkenness from the days of chaos down to the present.
The drunken old man went to the dresser near the bed and took a bottle out of a drawer, he brought it over to Lakyus and held it out. He saw that she was looking at his 'sleeping' wife.
It made him smile, "Shee sho beautiful, eben sleeping." He said happily, "Donsha think so?" He slurred out.
Lakyus felt her heart break for him, she couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth, "I have… never seen a woman like her before."
"Shank you." He said in a barely audible voice, "She sheems to like thish perfume, sho I buy it shometimes for her, do you need sha bottle?" He asked in a fragile, broken voice.
Lakyus shook her head. "No, I am trying to find someone who should have it, but does not. Forgive me for my actions, it is an urgent matter, when your wife awakens, pass on my praise, I… will have someone come to repair the damages I caused." She said delicately.
He nodded numbly as he put the bottle back. "'Kay… ah, can we go, leter shleep." He asked, and Lakyus put away her sword and backed out of the room.
He followed after, closing the door gently as if he feared to wake his wife from what was obviously her eternal rest.
Lakyus rushed out the door as he turned his back to her, whispering to the bedroom, "I'll be back to check on you again in an hour dear, you sleep as long as you need to, OK…?"
The adamantite adventurer shuddered as she left the house and messaged CZ. "Not here, any luck?"
"None here." CZ replied.
"Meet you at the third." Lakyus replied.
"Right." CZ answered.
Lakyus tried to message Skana, but got no answer.
...Kami Miyako...Count Medif's residence...
Skana was filled with wrath as the name slipped from poisoned tongue. She had nearly killed the woman, she had felt the fear and trembling of her victim to be as the sword of the Vice Commander split the poisoner's lip and sliced open her tongue, the muffled desperate whimper… was beautiful. It was only the iron discipline and the knowledge that Numenev would soon be suffering worse, that kept back the urge for blood, but hatred was rising fast. When she'd disposed of the woman through the portal, she'd gone straight for the noble district.
As she'd made her way there, she enjoyed the contemplation of the poisoner's suffering. Her one green eye's hatred burned bright enough, that a glance kept the few people out in public from accosting the well dressed woman for anything. Though if she'd thought of it for a moment, it might have been the burning in her one green eye, it was a recognizable feature and more than one probably guessed who she was, if not why she was there.
Finding Count Medif's residence had been easy, find the noble district, look for a house that wasn't a shit pile, check the plate at the front. For a moment she almost kicked down the gate and charged the door, but a moment's professional thought came to mind, if he weren't there and came home, he'd know something was wrong and might go to ground.
So instead she jumped over the gate and then sought an open window. The manor was large, not in the best shape compared to what it must have been in prewar times, but it was far and away better off than any other she'd seen since passing through the ruined entryway to the city.
However, getting in was still easy, she quickly but quietly walked around the side of the house and searched for a window, she then jammed her sword between the sill and the sliding portion and pried it up, her adamantite blade did not threaten to bend under the downward pressure she applied. The window was another matter, but she did her best to avoid making much noise. When she had it up, she went in and closed it down behind her. A close examination would show a breach, but she had no intention of allowing for that opportunity.
She found herself in a well decorated study, there were plenty of books, a comfortable red leather chair. The rug was the same shade of red, Skana could not help but notice that most of the room had a 'blood' red theme to it. It made her uneasy, even the books had mostly red covers, she approached and pulled one from the shelf and flipped it open.
To her surprise the pages were blank, she replaced it and pulled another, again blank pages. Twice more she repeated the action, the titles were there, and they were common enough, but the books themselves had no evident content. Suspicion grew and the corners of her mouth turned down in a small frown.
'It's for show.' Skana thought as she looked around. She activated her sensory martial arts and listened with care, there was movement upstairs, she could hear a single pair of feet. However she could also hear movement down below. She paused as the message from Lakyus came in, she did not bother to respond to it, there was something she wanted to do first.
She looked around the floor of the room. Were it not placed in the house where it was, she would have looked for the usual cliche of the sliding bookshelf. This however, suggested something else, especially with the sounds below, she moved the chair out of the way and then lifted the rug. It appeared to be stone just like the rest, but 'knowing' as she did that others were there… her mind kicked into overdrive and she crouched down in that spot. She slid her hands all over it until she felt a 'tiny' difference in the flow of the stone, a very small gap, negligible unless one knew where to look.
She took out her sword and looked closely at the little gap, then wedged her blade in, biting her lip as she did so. It 'caught' and she pried the stone up, it wasn't a large stone, far from it, it was only slightly thicker than her smallest finger. When it came up she laid it aside, it was easy to then remove the others, and there, just as she suspected, was a trap door.
She raised that up and found a set of steps. She smiled a predatory smile as she held her sword out in front of her. A darkness lay below that rivaled that which lay within her heart. She needed no light, not for this, and so she lit none. Black Justice scouts had to operate in any conditions, and front liners had to be ready to fight in a moonless night as well as broad daylight.
She removed her glove from the empty hand and stored it, then step by step she worked her way down the gap, her companions would be along soon, but this was 'her' time. The poisoner was a mere supplier, but here were people who orchestrated everything, they were worse.
Her thoughts turned to the demoness, 'I wonder if I can make these suffer enough that she would cringe?' She thought with vicious satisfaction. The stairs were not long ones, and she soon passed under the ceiling, one hand was kept out a few inches in front of her blade. She remembered Cocytus's instructions. "In the darkness, even night vision may be of limited use to you, never underestimate the power of touch, your hands are as good as your eyes."
She passed down a long hallway that ran well under the house, but at its end there stood a door with a faint hint of light showing beneath it, the way it persisted suggested the use of continual light enchantments. She took a deep breath and listened when she reached the door, muffled words reached her, she counted the voices. Five. Five would be a start.
She then sheathed her sword and drew her bow. She nocked an arrow, then leaned back and kicked the door right next to its handle. Enhanced by her martial abilities, the door flew in as if blown open by a strong wind. She needed not even a second to loose her arrow at her first target. It took him in the thigh, sending him writhing to the ground.
The second arrow took his companion in the same place. She was already in before she soundlessly dropped the third with an arrow in the kidney. The bow was stowed away and her sword was out as she neared the other two. These had more time to respond. The first tried to launch a fireball at her, only for her to dive out of the way at a forward angle while continuing to close the distance. Her sword flashed left and right then back again less than a foot from her, opening up three deep wounds in his gut. She then kicked him back and used the rear momentum to launch herself towards the fifth, a lightning spell came towards her. Ironically his rapid response was what caused him to miss and strike his wounded colleague instead. She danced through the air, predicting the line of his strikes by watching his hands, and within a few failed strikes she was close.
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward directly into the tip of her sword, running it through his stomach and out his back. They froze there in that half embrace, her shoulder pressed against his chest as she leaned in towards his ear. "You shouldn't have tried to kill my wife motherfucker." His eyes widened as he realized just who had drawn down upon him.
Enhanced by strengthening arts, she rotated her body in one direction while pushing her free hand against his shoulder in the opposite direction. The sword severed his spine, and as he screamed in pain, his upper and lower halves were partially severed, before he fell to the stone floor and reached with his hands to desperately grab his lower half and 'pull' it back together.
The cries of the remaining three who still lived were music to her ears. Upstairs she could hear noise, multiple footsteps. Fast ones, they were fading, going farther away.
"Where are you?" Lakyus's message reached her.
"Busy taking care of a rat infestation." Skana replied, wishing idly that the screams of her victims could be carried as well by the message spell.
She approached a writhing man on the floor who was desperately trying to get the arrow out of his thigh, but… he was an idiot, he was trying to 'pull' it back out the way it had gone in. Skana wanted to laugh, but she paused to take in more of the way her targets were dressed. They wore dark robes with various designs sewn in red thread, the men themselves were clean cut and physically fit, a rare enough thing in Kami Miyako by recent standards.
As her shadow loomed over him, dancing by the slow pulse of the continual light enchanted stone, he looked up, his screams had become sobs of almost childlike pain.
Skana held her sword out, and with a little flick as he looked up at her, his left eye was gone. His hand went up to the eye and he yowled like an injured cat. "Oops, I guess you should have surrendered." She said.
As he was still trying to comprehend what was happening, his other eye was taken the same way. He tried to scramble back, blind and desperate, there was no hope for him. "Oh I guess you still are looking for a weapon to fight back with, stubborn." She said sarcastically, and pushed her sword into his mouth and out the back, he stopped scrambling.
The remaining two survivors were looking at her with absolute horror, "We surrender!" They howled out in pain.
"Can you guess who I am?" She asked. The first one whom she had largely cut in half had stopped moving.
"Are you in the house?" Lakyus asked via message, "We've got the one we're looking for." Skana sighed reluctantly.
"Basement. Find the red room." Skana replied abruptly and turned her attention back to the two injured survivors who were trying desperately to stop the flow of blood.
"No, I don't know!" The first man cried desperately, he was young, perhaps in his early twenties, with thick dark hair and frightened brown eyes that the hood of his robe revealed when it fell back.
"Gah…" The second groaned as he managed to pull the arrow out the rest of the way it had come in and cast it aside. "I… can guess."
Skana held the sword up to his eye, he was older, perhaps in his forties, salt and pepper hair and hazel eyes. "Make it a good guess." She said viciously.
"The one eye is a dead giveaway, you're the wife of Neia Baraja. I knew this was a bad idea." He said sullenly.
"Good guess." She said. "My friends are upstairs, they've captured Count Medif, I assume he's in charge?" She asked.
The older man nodded slowly. "Sort of, this was his idea after all, he's got most of the contacts. This couldn't have worked without him. But now that Neia is dead by poison, I expect our will is done all the same."
Skana's entire body trembled with rage, but she decided to play along, she could hear the steps above her, they would find the basement soon.
"What objective was it, why did you want her life? Was it revenge over what happened here at Kami Miyako? Why did my wife have to die?" Skana asked furiously.
The younger man quickly snapped out, "Don't tell her, you'll ruin everything!"
Skana flashed over to him and quickly deprived him of both of his eyes. "I guess he shouldn't have resisted." She said grimly, and strolled back to the older counterpart as the wounded blind man screamed and rolled in agony on the floor clutching at his face.
The older prisoner sighed, "Stupid of him, there's no reason not to tell you now. We're Zuranon, well, a 'sect' of Zuranon, we've been following the war since before it began, harvesting negative energy from various battlefields. We also carefully monitored the growth in power of various figures, and then we found out what happened at Prart last year. When Neia drew on the power of the Sorcerer King. When we found out about that, how could we 'not' kill her?" He asked rhetorically.
Skana frowned, it didn't make sense. "I don't get it, why didn't you just offer yourselves to the Sorcerer King's service, he 'is' undead after all, why kill the acolyte of someone who by your standards, might as well be a god?"
"Because he doesn't strive to create more death of course, why he doesn't, we don't know, but he doesn't. However, it was thought, as we saw the bloodlust of his Pope, that 'if' she were turned undead, whenever she was out serving his will, someone like her could create a veritable sea of it. She was able to draw on his power in life, what more could she accomplish if she were an undead. So we decided to use poison. With poison soaking her organs, raising her to life as a human would be… well even if it is possible, what sense would it make, she'd just die in agony all over again. However if she were raised as an undead, who knows what being her lord might make of her? An undead follower who can draw on the power of an undead god, who moves out into the wider world? She'd wipe out whole cities just trying to gain control of the power she could draw on."
He smiled blissfully at the thought, "We'd be fueled for years off her efforts on his behalf, with none the wiser, or so Count Medif insisted." He sighed with regret and shook his head as he kept pressure on his wound.
Skana heard steps coming closer, she approached the wounded man and finished him off with a satisfying thrust through his throat, cutting off his cries, she returned to the last survivor.
"So you hoped the Sorcerer King would create a follower who loved death more than he did himself, and that as such, she'd create limitless power sources for you, where he did not. But why didn't you think you'd be caught?" She asked in a curious voice.
"We used so many clueless dupes and stooges, we thought it was impossible, Count Medif figured you'd just blame the restaurant owner and maybe the waiter and call it a day." His pained voice was full of both disbelief and regret.
Skana laughed, the steps were close, approaching the open door, she was sure they could see her. She sheathed her sword. "Well unfortunately, you missed your target. Neia survived the attempt, and your stooges were not quite thorough enough. Each one gave up just enough to let us track you back here, and now you're caught. Oh... and one more thing you should be aware of, which I think you either forgot, or did not know." Skana said with casual sadism in her voice that actually sent a chill down her last surviving captive's spine.
"Neia doesn't just 'serve' the Sorcerer King, she loves him like a father, and the Sorcerer King, he dotes on her like a man might his own daughter… and also… he might not love to create 'death' but don't mistake that for mercy. He 'does' love revenge on those who wrong him and his." Skana said, and as horror dawned upon the older man's face, Skana kicked him in the temple, sending his head back into a stone pillar and knocking him unconscious just as CZ and Lakyus approached her back.
"You got him?" Skana asked rhetorically.
"We did." CZ replied. "These?" She asked, gesturing to the bodies.
Skana shrugged, "Well, they didn't surrender, more or less."
"I see." Lakyus said flatly. "At least it looks like nothing of value was lost."
"Can I have some time with the Count?" Skana asked happily.
"Too late, he has been dispatched to Nazarick." Lakyus said contentedly. "If it helps, Vanysa sends her thanks for the new toy. She thinks fairly highly of Neia, so I can assure you it won't be a pleasant, or short, stay."
"Well, I'll have to visit him soon enough for myself, and I suppose I should see to these. " Skana said calmly and with a regretful sigh, she sent a message to Nazarick and had a gate opened, she tossed the living and the dead through, and then an unexpected message came for her, from the Sorcerer King himself.
"Would you like to go see your wife?" He asked in a voice that fairly resounded with noble gratitude.
"Yes, My Lord." Skana replied instantly.
"The gate will be open for you in a moment, Lakyus and CZ may go as well if that is their wish." Ainz added.
Turning to Blue Rose leader and the battle maid, "Do you want to go see my wife?" Skana asked the pair and they nodded emphatically.
"They will go with me, Sire." She replied. The gate opened, and they entered it as quickly as they could.