PART 2 - Vayle

Vayle has been chasing a ghost for years. This one just isn't the kind that a paladin would usually chase.

Falconreach is in chaos when the paladin arrives. Undead swarm the town and people are fighting them tirelessly. Despite having only just arrived after days of travel, it takes all of three seconds for the paladin to join the fray.

Cape fluttering outwards, axe moving with a precision grown only of years worth of practice and experience, every swing and step looking more like a dance than the rush of battle, the paladin strikes down undead after undead, each of these strikes carefully manoeuvred to take out as many as possible while expending the least energy.

It appears that the paladin has arrived on the tail end of the invasion, however, as it is not long before the undead have all fallen or retreated and the people finally have the chance to stop a breath. There is an almost suffocating feeling in the air that only some of them seem to be picking up on but which could not stand out to the paladin more if it was glowing as a star with a thousand aflame arrows pointing to its source.

Her head snaps up, her eyes spot the distant flash of red armour as the Doomknight leaves, her grip tightens on her axe and a flash of what might be fear darts through her gut.

She sincerely hopes that Sepulchure's presence does not coincide with her reasons for coming to Falconreach the way she thinks it does.

"That was some good fighting out there," a voice compliments and she turns to look at the guardian that has come up beside her, now leaning heavily on her sword.

"Years of practice, nothing more," she assures, shifting the grip on her own weapon to allow it to droop to the ground.

"Still impressive," the guardian says, holding out a hand. "Guardian Jenni. You are?"

"Vayle," she replies, shaking the offered hand with a smile.

Jenni smiles.

"Nice to meet you, Vayle. What brings you to Falconreach?"

"Oh, you know," she says, gesturing vaguely with her free hand. "The same sort of thing that has paladins travelling pretty much anywhere,"

"Oh?" Jenni asks.

"I suppose you could say that…" her free hand drops to the pouch strapped to her hip, enchanted with the same magic all basic adventurer's bags are. It slips in and brushes against old and chipped but polished metal, curls around an aged, wooden handle, and a surge of determination goes through her heart as it always does, she closes her eyes and inhales deeply.

She opens them again and meets Jenni's curious gaze.

"…I'm chasing a ghost,"

The water was dark and scary and churning and trying so, so hard to pull them apart, but she held on as tightly as she could. He'd fallen in because he'd been trying to help her and she was not going to let the river pull them apart because he'd gone limp the moment he hit the water and everything was the wrong way up and spinning but if she let go he would drown and she was not letting him drown even if they both might drown now…

A dull THUNK echoed in the water and her eyes flew open as the air shot out of her lungs and she watched the bubbles float upwards, back aching from collision with a rock and then a sharp tug in her stomach as gravity took hold. And then they were falling. The water was white and churning and then…

SPLASH!

She adjusted her grip on him so that she was holding his upper arm, a better grip that his hand, and kicked. She broke the surface spluttering and coughing and pulled him up after her. Then she rolled over so that she was on her back and kicked until she felt herself make contact with something solid. She heaved the boy up onto the rocky ground of the cave they were now in – though where the strength to do all of this was coming from, she had no idea – and scrambled up herself.

Then, alone but for an unconscious stranger and the roaring of a waterfall in the background, she buried her face in her hands, hugged a knee close to her chest and sobbed.

A wet, hacking cough and a splash as water expelled itself onto rock.

"Uhhh. What a ride… Note to self…. next time, use a tree branch to reach the person in the river,"

A deep intake of breath through a nose clogged from crying.
"You're alive!?"

"I… think so. How can I tell?"

An almost broken giggle.
"Yeah, you're…" a break for a hiccupping sob "…alive,"

"Ow, my head… Where are we?"

Arms tentatively lowered from a face, green eyes puffy from crying peering out.

"I… don't know,"

Falconreach was an incredible place. It really was.

Barely two hours after the undead invasion had finished and already everyone had chipped in together, adventurer and non-adventurer alike, to clean the town up and repair the damage. Had she not seen the battle herself, she would have doubted it happened.

But now that job was over and people were beginning to return to their homes or to the inn, chatting happily among friends and returning to everyday life as though they had not just defeated an entire army of undead warriors.

A really incredible place.

It's fortunate she mused that the people of Falconreach are so resilient. Or, maybe they're just used to this.

"Welcome to the Falconreach Inn!" the innkeeper greeted cheerfully. "Can I interest you in a room, or perhaps some free bread?"

"A room for the night would be lovely," Vayle replied, giving a small smile. "But I was hoping you could help me with something else at the moment…"

"This looks like…the old Guardian Tower. We should not be here!" Artix said, looking at his surroundings, before his eyes flickered back to her and just over her shoulders, widening slightly. "Are you alright? What… what happened to you?"

"I'm fine…I think. I just touched that orb…" though there was a strong itching sensation on her back and a feeling of something new at the back of her mind…

Artix knelt down and looked at the orb, frowning slightly as he watched it. Then he reached forwards and picked it up. For a moment, the room seemed to grow very, very dark and something seemed to creep from the orb and across his hands…

And then he inhaled sharply, closed his eyes, shook his head and put it back down.

"I am leaving, Vayle," he said, looking around the surroundings again as he stood. "This is a bad place and we should NOT be here. Come on,"

He turned and started to walk away. She watched for a moment, before her eyes were drawn to the orb again.

Slowly, her hand started to reach out for it…

…and a hand caught her wrist, moments before her fingers brushed the surface of the orb.

"Vayle," Artix said, sounding almost pleading. "We must go,"

And whether it was the pleading tone or the almost desperation for her to listen or the fact that he looked and sounded almost scared, when so far he had been nothing but brave and confident in getting them home safely, she didn't know.

But she listened. She pulled her hand back through his grip so that he was holding her hand rather than her wrist and let him pull her to her feet.

They left the room together, leaving the orb laying on the floor.

It was with a familiar weight in her heart and on her shoulders than Vayle slumped down on a chair near the fireplace of the inn, barely hearing the sounds of chatter around her. She propped her axe up against the table, planted her elbows firmly on the wood and dropped her face into her hands. Then she rapidly pulled it back up, grimacing, pulled off her gauntlets and repeated the action.

Too late. Too late again.

This seemed to happen everywhere she went. A rumour of a heavily cloaked figure here, a glimpse of a winged young man there; stories of a mysterious young man running from necromancers – "a paladin do you think?" "No, of course not, don't be ridiculous, paladins fight necromancers, they don't run from them" "well why else would they be chasing him?" (he would have made a good paladin, she thinks) – or of undead invasions that arrive shortly after the departure of a stranger from town.

Those last ones were getting more and more rare, something she was thankful for. She thinks he probably is too.

And yet, despite all the stories, all the rumours, she never manages to catch him. Sometimes she arrives in a town only to find that she was chasing the wrong rumour, sometimes she arrives to find that he had left the area a day, a week, a month before.

Her joking statement of being chasing a ghost seems to become more and more true with each day that passes and she catches not even a glimpse of Artix von Krieger.

Vayle was fuming. Edgar had been so mean! He'd been worried about her but that was no excuse for him to have yelled at Artix like that! Artix had done nothing but help her and had brought her home safely and Edgar had yelled at him and not let either of them explain anything!

Her new wings itched somewhat uncomfortably, but she was beginning to get used to them.

She sat down on her bed with a huff and looked at the axe she had put on her bedside table. She'd never had the chance to return it because Edgar had pulled her away and marched her home right after Artix ran off when her brother yelled at him. She could still see the hurt look on her new friend's face after Edgar had told him to stay away from her and blamed him for her wings.

Artix had given her that axe so she could keep herself safe when he went back for the orb, but it wasn't hers so she couldn't keep it. She'd return it to him tomorrow and she'd take Edgar and make him apologise for yelling like that!

Yeah, that was a good plan. With that in mind, she lay down in bed and tried to get to sleep. The sooner she slept, the sooner tomorrow would come and the sooner she could make sure this mess was fixed!

Vayle awoke to the sound of screaming.

Her eyes snapped open and she sat up in shock. She clambered out of bed and looked out of the window, recoiling with shock at what she saw but somehow unable to look away.

Zombies. Lots and lots of zombies, roaming the village. And a thick green fog covering everything. Even as she watched, one of the villagers – a nice man who sometimes let her have fruit from his tree when he saw her – stumbled out of his house and clutched at his throat, gasping for breath. Even as she watched, the fog swirled around him and…and…

And he turned into a zombie.

She stepped back from the window slowly, one step at a time, and found her fingers curling around the handle of the axe on her bedside table.

She lifted it slowly and held it the way she had seen Artix do when he'd been fighting off those monsters in the cave and crept to the door.

It creaked open ominously and she padded carefully through the house, looking for any signs of her brother.

Something moved behind her and she turned around.

Her eyes widened and her grip on the axe tightened as sharply as the coil around her heart and the weight in her stomach settled.

"E…Edgar?" she asked, voice trembling.

The zombie lurched forwards and she swung the axe with a scream.

Pain. So much pain. How long had it been? Hours? Days? Weeks? She didn't know and her body was aching with exertion and her heart was aching with what she had seen and what she had had to do.

The image of her home going up in flames, mindless creatures that had once been friends, neighbours, strangers, milling around, was engraved into her brain and she saw it every time she closed her eyes.

Her legs gave way. She couldn't go any farther, just couldn't run any more. She'd had to fight her way out for nothing because the monsters were going to get her now anyways.

Footsteps approached and she shifted her grip on the axe anyways, just because she couldn't keep going, didn't mean she was going down without a fight.

"Hello there, young lady…" said an unexpected, gentle voice. She looked up as the lady knelt down in front of her, offering a hand and a warm smile.

"…would you like some tea?"

It had been a day since she had arrived in Falconreach, and she was preparing to leave. If Artix had left a week before and she wanted any hope of catching up with him – though she doubted she would, what with not even knowing remotely which way he went let alone what twists and turns he would have taken in that week – then she needed to leave as soon as possible.

"Um…excuse me, Miss?"

She turned to face the young boy who had run to catch up with her.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You…" he paused to heave a deep breath, having apparently run across town to catch her. "You're looking for Artix, right?"

"Yes," she said, drawing out the word as he caught his breath.

"Why?"

She gave him a questioning look to hide her surprise, but the young boy didn't retract his question and met her eyes straight on.

"He's a friend," she said, measuring her words. "We knew each other as children but haven't seen each other in years,"

It was simple, it was short, it was the truth. It also didn't tell him any of the personal details of their past, things she would rather keep to herself for now.

And now it was her turn to ask a question.

"Why?" she asked, turning his own question back on him.

The boy grinned and straightened up, having now regained his breath.

"I needed to know you weren't some kind of lifelong rival of his or someone with a grudge against him that wanted to kill him for the death of a family member you blamed him for or something," he said. "And you aren't! So maybe I can help!"

Again, she gave him a questioning look; though this time at his choice of scenarios. A lifetime grudge because of the death of a family member? Against Artix? She was relatively sure that she'd never had an imagination like that at his age, let alone scenarios like that for someone she didn't even know.

"Help?" she asked.

"Yeah," the boy said. "Artix left from the other gate. He didn't say much about where he was going, but I think he was headed towards Verteroche Crossing,"

Well, that was certainly useful information.

"Thank you," she said, giving the young boy a genuine smile. "You may have just saved me a lot of time and frustration,"

She gave him a small nod, and then whirled around and started striding across the town towards the other gate.

"Oh, and tell him Ash says hi please, Miss!" came a call from behind her.

She raised a hand in acknowledgement and continued on her way.

Her hand slips into her bag and grips the handle of the axe.

She may just find him yet.

One of my favourite parts of AUs (reading or writing) is nods to canon. How many of those do you think you can spot in here?