6. Enbarr's Embers
There are so many bones. . .
The torch in my grip painted the hall with a faint glow, the shadows shifting as I passed by the various cells. Most by the entrance where my skirmish with that strange woman had taken place remained empty, barren save for the strewn about shackles attached to the back walls.
Completely alone in this place apart from the near silent skittering of rodents that I could make out. I wasn't close enough to see them, but they were the only other living things still making sound in this basement.
Unfortunately, they did not remain barren as I traveled deeper into this place.
Metal sconces, each set about a dozen feet from the next and each holding an unlit torch. In turn each one was placed on either side of the empty cells that occupied this practically abandoned place.
Despite the opportunity to light the corridor as I passed them by, they remained in their dull state. Undisturbed. With the slim hope that this place would not remember my presence, if I left no trace behind of me having been here. The light chittering of rodents scouring through the bones littering the various cells stopped to stare at me, returning to scavenge after entertaining a moment's curiosity.
My offhand had curled around the flame emanating from the torch, not quite conjuring a spell of its own as my fingers hovered above the fire. Orange streaks flickered in and out between my fingertips, licking my palm in turn with my own heartbeat. The fire dulled, simmering down into mere embers, and chilled down to ice for a brief moment before it glowed a bright hot blue.
A bit strenuous of a task, but a fair trade for all of the extra light that it granted me. Extra light reflected off of my other hand, feeding it a small bit of my power whilst controlling its ebb and flow.
It felt, right, was the only way to put the sensation.
This didn't truly feel like my other spells, closer still to cutting a hole in my palm to let blood leak out. Again, the fire was wild, being fed from two different sources and greedily tried to suck more power than I was willing to provide.
A flame that wished to grow, and one in which whose growth I had to stifle.
Some intellectual part of me wanted to prod at it, but the more reasonable part won out in the end. It was something I could afford to dig deeper into at a later date, preferably when I'm not in some random noblemen's dungeon.
While most of the rats chose to avoid and ignore my passing, there were still some that trailed farther behind me. Most of them would scatter the very moment I swung my torch towards them, and I hoped fear outweighed their hunger. Only time could tell, just as I came across progressively more intact corpses and fatter rodents surrounding them. The stench of rot had greatly intensified, with both waste and blood mixed in equal measure of every breath that I took.
I pushed my body's desire to retch down.
"Why couldn't this have just been an ordinary rich guy's basement. . ." My words came out in the form of weak whines, muffled greatly by this placed that reeked worse than any garbage heap. While I wasn't wading through a literal sea of the dead, but that might have been comparable simply based off of the amount of bones. "Why? Why are there so many?"
My eyes turned to scan each cell that I passed, stuck with a constant grimace on my face as they registered the limp bodies covered in rags. Too many bloody chunks, and severed decayed limbs, separated from bloated corpses. Eventually I came across smaller piles, an odd and a sudden change to the dead that I'd been trying to ignore up till now. My curiosity won out in the end, dragging my feet to the closest set of iron bars to peer into the contents with the holding cell.
What is it? It's so much smaller than the others. . .
"Oh dear god," My speech quickened, and eyes darted around to examine the room that featured a resident smaller than the one that came before. From what I could gather this had been the final resting place for women, but this one without longer hair and smaller than other adults. Shifting my head closer, part way into the cell at this point to identify tiny hands and bare feet. "That's not. . . That's a fucking child, oh that's a kid. . It can't be-but it looks-and- NO! This has just been a long fuckin day, maybe it's just a dog. I'm seeing things. They're just weird and put a rabid dog in jail or something, people did weird shit like this back in the old days right?"
The realization had driven me to retreat back and pace, a worsening situation finally getting to me. I sucked in a breath, and used the brief but quiet moment to calm my nerves. Returning to the spot that I'd moved to in order to look into the cell, I bent down for a better look. A sliver of light reflecting off of a dead eye stared back at me.
Why does it always involve kids? Don't let this be a precursor to all of the conspiracy theories back home.
"That is. . Yeah, that's a child. Someone is going to die for this," My tone had become curt, barely hidden venom within my every word. The latter half was muttered under my breath, flipping rapidly between anger, and disgust. "More people need to die for whatever the FUCK this all is."
Patting my pockets with my spare hand, I abandoned all attempts to amplify my only source of light. It would survive. My hands shook up till the moment they grasped the chain of keys I'd taken, both of my hands clutching their respective items. Holding them tightly.
The door creaked far too loudly for my liking, regardless of how carefully I entered the room.
It shouldn't have surprised me. At this point I wouldn't doubt that my mind was playing tricks on me, but it was for that same reason and same tiny sliver of doubt that drove me to see it up close. The rats that had been tearing into the child's body fled once I was close enough, holding onto bloody chunks of flesh as they left. My foot launched a rodent nibbling on the child's ear that hadn't been scared off by my presence, "Fucking rats."
Even through my gloves I could tell their hair was heavily matted with blood, congealed and cold to the touch. Holding him up caused something inside of him to slosh around, quickly settling as I kept him in place. Flipping him over I could tell that the young boy that had locked away to rot in here had died long ago, holding a finger to his neck confirmed as much. With no bloating, and this place not supplying much heat. . .
He's maybe been dead for two or three days.
A bright flash rang out through the hall, the phone in my hand briefly lighting up the room around me. Lowering it after I was done, releasing a sigh before shutting the child's eyes. There's no court that I realistically turn to is there? In that case, we document and record.
I just hope that it'll be enough.
Moving onto the rest of the body, my hand shifted the child's arms looking for wounds. Bite and scratch marks from the various rodents littered the upper body, even going so far that the past rat had removed an ear. Leaving only a bloody hole in its place. While there were plenty of bite marks of their own to be found on his legs, and entire toes ripped from his feet.
It was going to the center of his chest that finally revealed something that seemed out of place to me. The detail that drew my attention came from the bandage wrapped around his abdomen, pulling it aside to reveal an angry scar stuck in the healing process. A photo of it joined the other stored on my phone, my gaze flickering between the door and the boy's chest.
"Oh God, forgive me."
My torch was abandoned against the wall, still close enough to provide some measure of light for what I was about to do. Leaving my phone on the ground next to me, and swapping it out for what remained of my damaged knife.
The initial cutting proved. . difficult to say the least, what I'd been left with was akin to a broken shiv. The flesh was tougher than it had been cutting into people who were still alive, sliding edge against the bottom of his ribs. Slicing away to peel back the skin to expose the rib cage underneath, and in every motion was more anger than the last.
It was sloppy, and the kid didn't deserve to be treated like an animal meant for slaughter, but I don't have a lot of fucking time. And even fewer options.
"What-" The smell was putrid, there was something deeply wrong and that being more than simply dissecting a dead child to begin with. Cracking open the chest cavity caused black blood to spill out into the open air, the liquid almost deem to steam as it coated my gray gloves. Droplet fell from my fingertips only to paint the floor a darker hue.
"The-" My words were coming out between brief hisses of pain, the scorching liquid felt close to boiling as it passed over my hands. Using both of my hands, I pushed them back into the opening that had been created. The skin resisted the sudden shift, wishing to revert back to its former position despite bending under force like rubber.
"Fuck?" I'd been left oh so properly stunned after digging in a firmer grip and pulling the layer back. Blackened veins ran interconnect amidst the muscle underneath the skin, as little as he had, but they were readily obvious given how emaciated he appeared to be. Another fault from being abandoned down here. Really, it was after pouring the excess out onto his other side where I didn't reside, that I fully understood what it was that I was looking at. It was certainly an odd piece of evidence.
A lack of it really.
I had thought that he looked thin, as horrible as it is, such a thing was expected. A litany of broken ribs, only shards left over at this point as sternum had been left cracked and half way healed because of it. A bright white scar gluing the two broken pieces back together. What was more unsettling was how few ribs his body had, the complete absence of parts of his internal organs and the web of black veins ingrained within his flesh.
Not every appeared to be so. . . corrupted, but from where I'd torn him open it certainly looked that way.
Everything that was in reach seemed to be showing signs of severe decay, almost as if he had been dead for so much longer then I had initially thought. Most of the ribs had eroded, seemingly had rotted for much longer than the rest of the body had. Pulling the loose bone fragments apart from the spine, and light cracks echoed in the small cell. Leaning away from the fumes, that and soft sizzling were the only sounds that occupied my mind whilst in the midst of things.
All of it for nothing, less than nothing.
The lungs were a mess, bleached white skin revealed itself once I lifted the right lung up out of the tainted blood. Dark veins led into the organ, strands of black split into smaller parts as a bright white took their place to cover the rest. Sections of the organ showing signs of fraying at the edges.
'Dragonfruit', such was the treacherous thought that creeped into my brain at the very moment that I was examining the damage. I huffed at the idea, half angry at myself for getting so distracted.
Another photo was taken after wiping my gloved hand clean against my leg, and carefully dragging my broken knife in place. Slicing my blade into place came with a great amount of effort, and more than I thought it would take. While it may have been due to the top part being melted off, but the skin hadn't proved to show so much resistance before. Redoubling my efforts helped, treating it more like how one would cut into Balsa wood rather than with a surgeon's grace.
Blood poured out as I made the cut, dark liquid once again coated my blade down to the fiberglass handle. Groans of disgust came in equal measure as the ones that entailed my frustration.
I dumped the excess, squeezing the flesh of trapped fluid for a clearer view inside of the malformed lobes. The bronchi had shriveled in my unaided eyes. Abrasions and scratches lining the insides of the lung, zooming in on the pictures I took showed they had torn even holes in the smallest bronchi. While I hadn't gone to study medicine and only retained a moderate understanding of the human body, this appeared to be far beyond simple 'necrosis'.
Moving onto the one on the left, the lung that rested on that side was far more damaged than the other. A thinner version, and large to the point of being cancerous almost. For this, I simply cut away at the veins that were connecting it to the body, and gained access to the heart in the same stroke.
The space between the defective lungs was vacant, because there was no heart left behind to speak of.
There was no trace of it, nor the veins that should have led to its resting place, but where it should have been slotted, remained the fractured sliver of a rock. Shattered pieces of circular glass, some material that I couldn't identify with a texture harder than bone. I was properly stumped, holding the strange shards out in front of my torch and wondering where this poor child's fleshy heart had disappeared off to.
This did not belong here.
I pocketed the largest, and most intact fragment beside the tome in my satchel. Placing what other pieces that I could scavenge into smaller compartments as I left the cell with the door locked behind me. A brief stream of light from looking back showed the boy's corpse, and face covered up by the same rags he had passed away in. My muscles ached from the blood boiling in my veins.
Other cells held the corpses of those in worse conditions, their dead forms visibly breaking apart at the seams. Checking each room was necessary. I had to be certain that there was nothing that I'd overlooked. Backtracking, moving back to the prisoners that were in the rooms before and searching the bodies that had been left behind.
There was a distinct split between the people being kept down here, either being empty, and the ones that usually were. Only kept vacant save for the bones. From where I'd found the young boy's corpse, with everyone that I passed being remarkably more intact than the ones that had come before.
And smaller.
Some shred of a younger, and innocent version of me died a little more with each prisoner that I came across. Close to a dozen consisting of a mix of adults, teenagers and children that were practically toddlers or younger.
I'd gone through with checking each body, the skin and bones belonging to the older ones cracked under the slightest amount of pressure. They looked so much like that strange women I'd killed, while the younger ones had fallen victim to similar symptoms as the boy I'd found earlier. Unlike the boy, the corpses belonging to smaller children were less intact and far more rotted away. Each bearing opaque corneas in all further cases that I found.
"Awgkh awgkh awgkh," My head snapped to the direction of the noise, letting the head of one of the dead that I had been examining drop to the floor. It was a brief raspy thing, enough to put me on edge and catch my attention despite what was the center of my focus. Holding my ear close to the wall, and keeping my torch out of sight to any further sound. Only catching a light groan. "Krmmm. . ."
A pressure built itself up from within my gut, coiling paranoia as I stepped out to approach the source. My hand returned to the torch, less so to readily empower the light it produced, but to enhance the process involved with casting a bolt of flame.
I wasn't entirely sure if casting would work out in the same manner that I intended it to, but it just felt right to do.
The bodies I passed were getting larger, more teenagers maybe? Still without finding any sign of who or what had produced that sound that I'd caught wind of.
Until I did.
She just seemed like another one of the dead, a glancing look made her appear not different from the others imprisoned here. Chained to the wall with her arms twisted back behind her back, kneeling with her head bowed.
The light clinking of those very same chains drew my eyes, my head snapping in her direction just in time to hear her whimpers. Trying to shift herself into a more comfortable sitting position. "Ow ow owowowow. . ."
I abandoned moving quietly, light but firm taps hitting the floor as I approached the cell. Her eyes remained shut up til the moment that I stopped in front of the metal bars, and tapped the material making up the cage she'd been left in. She snapped her eyes open when she realized that there was someone at her door, wide eyes and holding an equal stare to my own.
A view that must've been an odd sight for her to see, I could tell the gears in her brain turning. Clearly as shocked to see me, as I was to see her. The only difference being that I managed to hide it better.
"Hi," My words seemed to break her out of the stupor she had been stuck in, and her doe eyes became glossy as her form began to shake. She quickly devolved into a babbling mess, tears streaming down her face. "God fucking damnit, you idiot." Apart from bleached white hair, and thin frame that is.
How could I think to talk to the tortured little girl trapped in a basement, and NOT consider she would panic? . . . Gah, time to improvise.
"'mI orsry. 'lIl be uiqet, 'lIl be uiqet, I wesar hatt I onw't akme nyaorme oinse! 'mI orsry! 'mI otn icsk, I ond't eend nya edmciien, ouy onw't eahr nyahitng rofm me, lepsea usjt ond't eltl erh!" The girl just spiraled, bawling her eyes out before I had even started to approach the door. None of this was going to be painless, but a bit of brutalism and haste would certainly limit any discomfort. My hand burned as it sucked the heat from my torch, the stolen flames licking my fingers and lit up the room from within my grasp. "lePsea!"
I dropped my grayed out, drained torch to clatter against the ground. Seizing one of the girls chains with that free hand.
CLAsh!
Aiming at the metal above we're I'd placed my hand, the magic building from within the palm of my other hand spewed forth. The steel shattered under the force of the spell, and heated the surrounding links aside from the one at the center of the explosion. Shards of yellow fragments flew out from the impact site, causing the girl lying underneath me to shriek.
Taking advantage of the heat that I could still feel in my hand, clinging onto the leftover energy and blasting the second chain attached to her other wrist. All the while the girl curled up into a ball once the other set of metal chain links fell to the floor. Shaking as she tried to make herself, hoping to go unnoticed.
Of the fire that had fueling my actions? It left me, and in it's place lied a simmering hate rather than a boiling rage.
Satisfaction wouldn't be quite the feeling that could be said running through my mind, but I knew even if she didn't understand at the moment. A part of me was certain that she would appreciate being free again.
I hoped, and I hoped as I sat on my knees waiting for her to calm. Uncertainty kept me from touching her directly, that would only make her stress more and delay things. There was nothing I could do but wait. Being an awkward fuck was really biting me in the ass today.
So I fidgeted, patted down my pockets for my various possessions. Just looking for something, anything really.
Eventually, my hand rubbed up against a hard rounded object and secured a firm grip on the item. It was one of my health potions, and a vulnerary at that if my memory on Fire Emblem was still accurate. Or were they called elixirs?
The ceramic bottle glowed a soft orange, a measure of power remained in my hands, and maintained by the shred of adrenaline still running through my veins.
Cla-cla-cla-cla-cla-cla-clack~
My eye snapped up to the girl when she unfurled from the ball that she'd formed around herself, and upon spotting my attention directed at her, she shuffled back a step. Her eyes peaking out at me from underneath the arms wrapped her lithe frame, holding a measure of fear and desperation.
I hadn't had the time to give her a good once over, but once I had the chance to? White hair adorned her scalp, and while I'd seen white hair before. Her's was closer to the whitened threads coming from age than would normally belong to someone with a platinum mane. Scared witless and stressed out of her mind from the looks of it, the sight leaving an uncomfortable lump in my throat. Pushing away my own treacherous mind from trying to compare her to other familiar faces back home.
She's far from well, and while the sunken cheeks worried me a tad much, it was an issue capable of being remedied. Some part of it was reassuring, that she was still alive and bore enough strength to show how she felt at the moment. Weaker than I'd like, but it was still something that I could work with, "Hi."
Call me a one trick pony, I could care less. Something needed to be said or we'd get absolutely nowhere, and we couldn't afford to be slow whilst here. I didn't want to test my luck, thin as it is. And so, taking off the bloodied leather glove clinging to my left hand.
I offered her my bare hand, flipping it over for her to place her own against my palm.
Squeezing my hand and outstretched arm tightly as I helped bring her back to her feet. Her gray eyes squinted up at me, legs shaken from trying to handle her own weight after being trapped here for so long. As she spoke to me chalk full of stuttering in her words, regret threatened to creep into my thoughts. "Pah-lePsea, usjt eltl me hwat-at oyu anwt rofffm m-"
"Drink," As to not leave her wondering, I unscrewed the cork sealing the healing potion and I handed the vial over to her hesitant hands. Leading it to her lips for her to drink deeply from, she appeared no better than before, but her grip on me felt far more secure. She almost choked on it, sucking in sips far to greed for her body to handle in her state and I lightly patted her back to clear the lungs.
Fear struck me, stunned and stuck in the thought of finding fluid in her lungs just as I did with the boy. My nails bit into my skin from how much I clenched my fist when she handed the vial back to me, spotting a reflection of the night's sky stored within the bottle. I sucked in a breath from between my teeth, holding for a moment for the hate to settle and met the nervous girl's gaze once I was done.
Ah, it seems that I'm not keeping it together as well as I thought. Fuck me, nows NOT the time.
It took some coxing for her to try walking, tentative and pain movements even with the potion's healing benefits aiding them. Even a blind man could see the issues that would arise should she be allowed to walk on her own two feet. Were things to go sideways, she would need to keep pace, and that wouldn't be possible in the current state she was in.
"Ah!" I ended up spooking her regardless of my intent, though I did try to avoid moving her too quickly as I lifted her into my arms. She wildly flailed around in my arms, a once frightened expression shifted into one of embarrassment and buried her head into my shoulder. Our new position was taken out into the hall for me to continue searching, with the girl carried by sitting on my left arm. My jaw ached from self inflicted pain with every shallow breath that I felt her take, a simple truth that I could do nothing to ignore.
Instead only focusing on my immediate priorities.
My torch was dead, there was no recovering the thing and I wasn't all too inclined to try. So in its place were ones that I randomly grabbed off the wall, most of them flickering out and dying shortly after being lit. Whatever coal or oil that lined their caps would fade and burn away in minutes, the flame dying out faster than I considered sensible.
Something just felt, off, the people that I came across all appeared to share a single feature with the girl I carried in my arms. White hair, or at the very least, hair caught in the process of whitening.
Whenever we passed another cell that I had to check, she would shiver at the sight of every new body we came across. In a few cases, I avoided entering entirely. The dead ones lay strapped to the wall, trapped here to an excessive extent, but the live ones tended to. . .
An older man that appeared to be in his teens rocked back and forth, muttering to himself with a bloodied scalp. Torn out chunks of white locks lay strewn about him. I could've sworn that he was watching me.
They seemed to be better off dead too.
I had exhausted all of my options, and aside from the girl whimpering at the sight of the others whilst in the safety of my arms? To say that I was tired of this place would be an understatement. My first thought was that I had started to see things, it certainly felt like this night had been playing tricks on me.
Part of me thought one of the prisoners we'd passed was staring at us.
From the depths of a room encased with iron bars just like all the rest, beyond where my dwindling light could reach. My hair stood on end, as if I was being watched again. So I tested them, to settle my paranoia and nerves if nothing else. Their face followed us, followed me as I walked back down the hall and kept turning in order to track me.
Another young girl, I saw her glancing down at the one in my grasp and back at me to verify what she was seeing. I wouldn't blame her but regardless, I opened the door to enter the cell as their eyes remained on each other. Part of me expected a second freak out,that'd make freeing her a difficult matter.
What I received instead was indecipherable babbling from the one in my arms, some things that I wasn't quite sure were words to begin with. There wasn't a real back and forth between the two, just babbling on the verge of tears from the one by my side, and whispered words from the latter. I could really use a duolingo class or two.
The first girl that I'd found had thicker hair while the latter was straighter, but both were short. The former was fearful while the other was more apathetic, violet eyes lingering on the circular marks engraved upon her wrists from the chains that held her. Once standing, I offered her to take a portion of the potion that I used on her sister earlier. "onD't, ouy avhe to ivge erBadnttae omse of hits ulvernrya oot."
She tried to refuse it, gesturing to her sister and spoke with her too rapidly for me to try to track. They seemed to come to some sort of understanding, with the newly freed girl reluctantly ingesting about a third of the potion.
It was easier to think of them as siblings, they seemed to know each other in some respect. Their bickering brought back memories.
The older girl seemed more capable of standing, taking my forearm when I offered her my other hand.
I didn't stop for anything, well, only for one last thing. Briefly slowing down for a moment to gaze down at the place where I'd taken the life of that witch, where I'd expected to find a rotting corpse. . .
There was nothing.
CRASH!
Thunder roared as we stepped onto the ground floor, the girl in my arms shook like a leaf and tightened her grip. The other just readjusted hers, and the whole mansion that we rose into seemed so much larger because of it.
Empty as it was before, a mix of marble and mahogany lined the building. I'd snuffed out the flame in my palm, allowing the storm to light the path forward through the sealed curtains. Rain and lighting seemed to be in full swing, casting a violent war for the heavens above to be born witness by the world below.
Stormlight briefly illuminated the courtyard, a portion of the once full garrion had returned to their post. Silhouettes of pikeman stood out in the turbulent storm, some under the cover of the main gatehouse.
Glancing in the direction that I'd snuck in through earlier, weighing my options for how we could leave. Evidently going back the way I came was not in the cards anymore, as I doubted that the sisters would be able to handle crossing, and a part of me didn't want to figure out if it could handle the weight. Nor did I wish to put them more at risk for hypothermia than they already were going to be.
I brought them closer, setting the former girl inside of my coat and the latter under the protection from the tail of it. The cold rain burst into the house, doosing me in spray and causing the Former to shriek in surprise.
"ooLk at hatt, Erpepsonhe ash infllay ecddeid to oijn u-" A voice commented upon me entering the courtyard, some of the soldiers turned in slight interest, having noticed the mansion's double doors open. Of the detachment of soldiers stationed here, my attention focused on the man who spoke and his robed companion. One dressed in the same colors that I bore. "Oh, ouy usmt be neo of erh ttandentas. 'lIl etl ouy eadl itwh hits neo Poalol."
"ouYre' otn. . . owH idd ouy ccasse het ablraoorty?" The head msge turned his full attention to me, a flash of recognition crossed his face as he spotted something about my waist. Or rather someone, the Latter girl lingering behind me buried herself into my cloak upon catching sight of the man. His tone became colder and snappy, a harsh steadiness remained despite the increase in volume. "nsAerw me esdotpic avsgea, hewre is Erpepsonhe!"
Ah, so you're the one responsible.
Good.
"He sni't neo of inme, ubAroen." His partner cut in, taking a reprimanding tone as the other mages bearing similar robes to mine spread out. Checking my eyes on the main two while staying aware of where my faux brethren went, ordinary military men began to pay more attention too. "Do otn rutst hits avsgea, hits is utb a erme ritck to esdroty Drasteia."
The hulking knight standing beside the sage spotted her soon after, his voice low but welcoming.
"riPcenss deEgalrd, hyw rea ouy otn esrintg?" The knightly man bent himself slightly forward, trying to coax the Latter from her place underneath my coat. They were trying to run me down immediately, but gaining more time was preferable. I leaned away from her, shifting my coat briefly yet long enough for him to spot the Former within my grasp. ". . .Poalol, hyw do het hicdrlen arbe hacnsi?"
Our knight faced his compatriot at the end of his questioning tone, there was in the air that I could feel. Waiting for a response. An odd buzzing made itself present in my ears, and I gripped the strands of power flowing through my veins harder as the seconds passed. A short retort followed, "It asw a repauciotn, orf hetir ropectiotn nda of hotse roandu hetm."
"hawt in het evdil do ouy eamn? Ouy wosre hatt hety erwe eibng elwl arced for, how lsee ouwld be astedk itwh arcngi orf hetm if otn neo of ouyrs?!" The knight's tone turned bitter, incensed over something the mage had brought up. Gesturing at me, connecting the conversation with something having to do with the mansion that I'd just left. "Usjt rdoer imh to akte erh acbk nsidei, Nberra is urbinng, we avhe otn het imte orf hits."
Flipping through the pages of a leather bound book in his hand, purple light curled about his arms. The mage replied in the same dry tone, "Hetre is an ssassain in uro ervy idmst, elhp me ilkl hits nda we hasll eadl itwh het itcy atler."
"He is neo of ouyrs, hetre rea onne how eawr obres ikle ouyrs hatt anc nteer het alpcea. Hawt oucld ospibsly arwanrt hits earticon! Erwe it otn ouy how asw so nsistinte on ecsriung het alpcea, so?" I'd caught enough of the conversation to register that 'Ubaroen' was hesitant to confront me, arguing with the mage intensely of what to do with us. Coming between the two of us, trying to create distance with his attention split in half. An opportunity presented itself to escape while they bickered, "Ouy rea eibng bsau-AHK!"
He was too close to avoid the spell, dark energy seemed to suck both the light and life out of the man. The magic cleanly ran through the knight, and brought him to his knees.
"Ouy lwaysa skaed oot anmy ueqtisnso orf ouyr wno oogd," The sage snidely remarked, slowly approaching the knight's hunched over form, and the venom held in his words surely promised death. With everyone else too stunned to act, or the few that hadn't been struck with shock too far away to be of any help. Still in the process of sliding weapons off their backs or sheaths. Plan B was self-evident.
The area light up around me, runic sigils forming in the air of my periphery. A shard of glass like ice shot out, catching the bastard in the shoulder.
"Gah," The man grunted under the magical assault, my lesser shards that I my spell produced simply bounced off with minimal lasting effect. Retreating behind two of his subordinates, he slipped a hand into his coat for a vial of familiar liquid. "Ilkl het ntirlepeor, nda idr me of uro rotblusoeme awpns!"
"Damn you to hell Apollo," 'Ubaroen' muttered under his breath, bringing himself upright on unsteady feet. Stray flecks of my ice graced his armor, imbedding themselves into the mage closest to him. Trying to delay their advancement with the rest of the slaughter occurring around me.
Even so, I could focus on assisting him, and for a moment I believed that I didn't need to. Digging an axe off of his back, himself splitting a mage clean in half through the torso given the chance to act.
So I directed myself to keeping everyone at a distance, slinging a spike of ice into the jaw or chest of any mage dumb enough to approach. The local garrison seemed to be primarily defense in nature, with few archers to counter attack effectively. And the few they did have were targeted first, the skirmish quickly devolving into a series of independent battles.
My priority remained constant, switching between standing my ground and retreating towards the drawbridge to keep the girls out of harm's way.
fs-BANG!
A jolt of lightning invaded my body, every muscle contorting for a brief moment before coming back under my control. Someone let out a scream. My vision pulsed, zeroing in on my assailant as I dug my feet into the ground. The rain stopped in the air, flash freezing at a whim, and squeezed into several thin shards.
In a blink of an eye, disappearing from beside my hand and into the woman's chest. She tried to stay upright, her own spell to follow up with fizzling out half way as she collapsed. Other spells hit me, scorching balls of flame and blades of wind that broke against my back.
Facing away from the attacks to limit their effect on those I was protecting, an easy target. Nothing proved to be debilitating, too weak for any enemy magic to latch onto me. In turn, I blasted anyone who gave chase after me.
Even with that, our luck ran dry.
Their leader had recovered with a hole in their shirt in place of my ice, "It eesms hatt ouy avhe utoivled ouyr seuulfesns to me, hawt a rewchted isdppainometnt you urtedn uto to be."
He chipped away at the knight, rending entire chunks of metal warped by his dark magic. Despite the losing battle, with his back to the metaphorical wall in this complete slaughter for both sides. 'Ubaroen' attempted a final charge, tanking the festering miasma and landing a hit that launched the sage onto the ground.
Within range.
"T-het Odgesds, hagh, ilwl lacim ouyr rewchted ousl," The knight captain sputtered out his last words, receiving a torrent of wind blades from behind that caused blood to pour freely. Slicing open an artery. Directing a final order to me, throwing his weapon and impaling the mage had effectively struck the killing blow against him. "UNR!"
"Ouy ilwl infd hatt hatt ayd ilwl evner omce," The sage, 'Poalol', derided as he brushed himself off of the floor. Unbeknownst to him, the simple fact that I was still here escaped him, preoccupied with mocking a dead man. It took longer to pull the energy together, an extra second of forging hardened shards. Scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I was outnumbered, badly, and running on fumes that simply breathing couldn't replenish. My eyelids ached from keeping a clear view of the battlefield, and the pressure in my gut sunk further.
They shattered his knee cap, the right leg splintering where bone met with a sickening series of cracks. Quieter than the raging storm, but with a distinct enough snap to tell it apart. Soon after collapsing from his own weight in the next step he took.
He laughed, that thing's only response to almost losing a leg was to giggle with overwhelming mania.
"Ouyr avsgeayr is amranpt in isduprintg my esdgnis arbarbani, oh utb ouy ilwl ealrn to egb orf ermcy oosn! 'lIl avhe ouyr kusll!"
LEVEL UP!
[11]
HP: 33 + 1 | Mv: 4
Str: 13 + 0 | Lck: 11 + 1
Mag: 20 + 1 | Def: 11 + 1
Dex: 10 + 1 | Res: 15 + 0
Spd: 17 + 1 | Cha: 9 + 0
Only a small number of his mages survived the battle, more than a few bleeding to death on the floor. Part of the mage showed signs of fading, purple fumes breaking away the corpses into the stormy night's sky. While those that made it, of the few intact, one grabbed his leader by the shoulder and dragged him away.
The wounded leftovers stuck with finishing off stragglers wearily kept guard of their retreat.
I wished to say that we left that place running, but to say the truth would be something closer to mutual defeat. Both of us limping away with our tails between our legs, as the entire garrison stationed here lay dead.
We tried keeping to the side streets, focusing on returning to the room that I'd reserved for that time being. Avoiding frantic patrols heading to different sections of the city, desperate screams in the same direction of fires spread under the thunderstorm. Some of the mages I'd just fought could be heard still following us, light splashes ringing out some ways behind us.
Taking the long way around destroyed buildings, brought down with the rumble littered with ash. Of all the fires that were started, the bodies of people buried under fallen beams in more than a few we passed.
Fleeing the richer sector of the cities, with fewer bridges that I was forced to cross some of our pursuers lost the trail. Only for those footsteps to rejoin the others as those closest yelled out our location, we need to gain ground.
Grabbing the barefooted latter girl that had initially chosen to walk and lifting her up, I broke into a sprint. Merely for a short stretch of time that burned my legs begging for air, enough to dodge around a few streets to break line of sight. If I needed to, I could try killing one or two.
But I wished not to test whether I still possessed the mana to do so.
Slipping inside of the building just before a squadron could turn the corner and spot us fleeing. Crossing paths with our attackers at the same time. Shouting heard through the door at people I had wagered were there, providing us with a moment to slip away unnoticed. Numb from a mixture brought on by the cold and stress, I eagerly sucked in a relieved breath. Appreciated just to be indoors again.
"How het ELHL rea ouy?!"
In the very moment that I'd heard a gasp from one of the girls, I spun on my heel with a rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins. My ice tome dragged up by my weary soul, lighting up the room with what lingering mana I'd stored in reserve. The true identity of who prompted such a reaction popped into my periphery, just as I heard the door slam shut behind me. The innkeeper.
Everything had flipped on its head, alertness winding down from the perceived safety inherent in this place.
Rain colosensed into icy shards, water sliding off of my tensed frame, my eyes shooting towards the figure further into the room. Forming, glowing, and accelerating in one simple motion driven by the sudden spike in adrenaline.
CRACK!
My heart skipped a beat, and something inside of me snapped when the house shook from the thunder let off by the storm outside.
Her body slammed into the wall behind her, launched back by the force of one of the shards sent into her skull. Stumbling back, falling onto her side, and collapsing with the sound of her head hitting the floor. Blood bubbled up to stain her blue tunic, and casual verdant dress beneath it compounding the effect of the other puncture wounds.
This body would not be fading anytime soon, and in that realization the moment seemed to stretch on for far too long.
Spinning on my heel, my hand grabbed the limp arm of the latter stunned young girl. Her previously disinterested eyes held a different look to them now, her attention flickering back and up at me. An unreadable expression on her face, one I ignored in favor of making our way up the stairs with a sudden weight making my feet drag along the steps.
From here on out I'll try to include translations at the end, uhhh, Codex is a good name. I don't remember the actual name some books would have for adding on context for the story.
Codex:
"I'm sorry. I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet, I swear that I won't make anymore noise! I'm sorry! I'm not sick, I don't need any medicine, you won't hear anything from me, please just don't tell her!"
"Please!"
"Please, just tell me what you want from me-"
"Don't, you have to give Bernadetta some of this vulnerary too."
"Look at that, Persephone has finally decided to join u-"
"Oh, you must be one of her attendants. I'll let you deal with this one Apollo."
"What have you done with her. . . How did you access the laboratory?"
"Despotic savage, where is Persephone!"
"You're being ridiculous. He is one of your own-"
"He isn't one of mine, Auberon. Do not trust this savage, this is but a mere trick to destroy Adrestia."
"Princess Edelgard, why are you not resting?"
". . .Apollo, why do the children bare chains?"
"It was a precaution, for their protection and of those around them."
"What in the devil do you mean? You swore that they were being well cared for, who else would be tasked with caring for them if not one of yours?!"
"Just order him to take her back inside, Enbarr is burning, we have not the time for this."
"There is an assassin in our very midst, help me kill this and we shall deal with the city later."
"He is one of yours, there are none who wear robes like yours that can enter the palace. What could possibly warrant this reaction! Were it not you who was so insistent on securing the palace, so?"
"You are being absu-AHK!"
"You always asked too many questions for your own good."
"Kill the interloper, and rid me of our troublesome pawns."
"Damn you to hell Apollo."
"It seems that you have outlived your usefulness to me, what a wretched disappointment you turned out to be."
"The Goddess will claim your wretched soul,"
"RUN!"
"You will find that that day will never come."
"Your savagery is rampant in disrupting my designs barbarian, oh but you will learn to beg for mercy soon! I'll have your skull!"
"Who the HELL are you?!"
Note:
Lvl 10~ Mages
HP: 28 | Mv: 4
Str: 4 | Lck: 8
Mag: 15 | Def: 5
Dex: 11 | Res: 11
Spd: 9 | Cha: 9
I guess this is the official end of the prologue, or first Arc of my story.
If you thought this was the Enbarr, good job, have a cookie. The games are so vague with what happen during those experiments, tried to get the idea across that that shit was real fucked up.
I was working on what the cannon reasoning should be on the Empire's sudden succession crisis, and while I have most of the nobility's reasons for rebellion sorted. How the royal family goes missing was something I'm still greatly unsatisfied with, and thus for now I'm going with the 'the plague got em'. Getting the vibe down for the empire, its citizenry and nobility is going to be real tricky. That said, the dialogue above is subject to change should I come up with something less contrived for how the royal family dying off while going unnoticed. Right now it should be vague enough that when I do wrap it all up in a nice bow, the change will appear seamless. (I have an idea to tie it into the political intrigiue aspects in FE3, but that need more chapters to be revealed)
I'm also getting rid of Fire as a skill, why? Because it doesn't work as a skill, well, in game it does. As a written story where learning magic is more organic, having a dedicated skill for it is simply redundant, and instead I'm replacing it with Attunement. (Increase the max uses of all spells by +20%) The idea is that active practitioners of magic use their muscles that manipulate mana more efficiently than those who don't. A boon for doing magical exercise essentially.
Might alter more skills to make them fall more in line with this form of media that I'm telling this story through/with. I'll prefer to play these things by ear.
