This chapter was a beast to finish, but I wanted to make sure I had Echo and Raphael's dynamic figured out. Writing that scene where Raphael got angry at the captain was the highlight of my day though.
Guess the character part 3 - who are Raphael and Echo?
Raphael: The Paladin And The Vampire
"Hey! Raph! Come take a look at this!"
Raphael looked up at the sound of his traveling companion Echo's voice. The vampire, a few feet ahead of him on the deer track they had been following, pointed insistently at the ground at his feet like a child who'd just spotted an interesting specimen of bug they wanted their parents to look at.
"Shh, Echo, where will we be if we scare off our bounty?"
Echo gave Raphael an irritated look. "Just come over here and look."
Raphael sighed and picked his way down the rocks toward the place Echo was standing, where much of the undergrowth had been tramped down and low-growing bushes broken.
"Something passed through here. Something big, and most likely manwolf shaped."
"How do you know that it's the manwolf's trail we're looking at?"
"Look at the ground, Raph," Echo insisted. He scooped up a clump of damp soil. "This dirt smells like blood. There's a whole blood trail going that way. And the scent's a match from the blood on that scout's dagger from where he got a stab at it." He dropped the handful of dirt on the ground and dusted off his hands.
"Cut off one of its paws, from what I remember. Of course, you'd know all about blood," Raphael said flatly. "Should we report back to the scouting party?"
"Not yet, Raph. The blood-scent, it's less than a day old. The manwolf can't have gotten far in that time, not with an injury like that. If we follow that trail, we'll be able to head it off and kill it before it can get higher into the mountains again."
"You just want to feed from it before the scouts find it and harvest whatever's left."
"I can't deny I'm interested in seeing what manwolf blood tastes like."
"Won't it infect you?"
"Nope. Poison and disease immunity, one of the perks of being me," Echo said with a grin. "By the way, that's poison ivy you're standing in."
Raphael leaped out of the patch of leaves he had been standing on, knowing the irritating toxins couldn't get through his boots but not wanting to have to spend the next few days washing them out of his clothes. "Echo!"
Echo snickered. "Kidding. And weren't you just nagging me about being quiet?"
Raphael scowled. "You're impossible."
"It's one of my many talents. So, are you coming or not?"
"Of course I'm coming," Raphael said. "You know as well as I do how you get when you're in the middle of a good meal. Someone has to knock you back to your senses afterward."
The two of them slipped quietly into the trees, Echo following the blood trail, and Raphael following Echo.
"You know, I could probably lead you in all kinds of hilarious directions, and you'd never know," Echo remarked.
"Or, you could not tell me what you're about to do, so I'm not expecting it," Raphael replied. "What are you planning?"
"I'm going into bat shape to see if I can find the thing. Just follow behind me," Echo said. "As soon as I give the signal, start shooting. You got silver-tipped bolts before we left, right?"
"Yes, but Echo, I don't think-" Raphael began, only for the vampire to vanish, abruptly replaced by a very smug-looking bat with a rose-red tint to its brown fur and Echo's pale blue eyes.
Raphael folded his arms. "Fine. We'll go with your plan."
Echo the bat flew up into the canopy of the trees, only visible as a small dark shape fluttering from branch to branch.
"Echo, slow down!" Raphael huffed as he ran after his companion. He reached up and pulled his adventurer's weapon - a crossbow - from its sheath, so he'd have it ready when he came across the manwolf.
Echo was very good at formulating plans, and the plans usually worked - the problem was that they were much more aggressive than Raphael was comfortable with. Raphael wasn't fond of killing in general, much less in the predatory, bloody way Echo devised. He'd only agreed to this particular mission because, for the villager who had become the manwolf of Heapfalls, death would be the most humane option. Of course, Echo was more focused on the thrill of the fight and the promise of blood to drink afterwards.
Raphael didn't dislike Echo. In fact, the vampire had been good company ever since the two of them had met in the town of Rainspell, in the Lucky Goose tavern. That had been a distressing day for Raphael, who had awakened in a back alley of Rainspell unable to remember anything but his name. After hours of asking around and gathering information, he'd gone to the Lucky Goose, hoping to find one of the mysterious "adventurers" he'd been told about - and also slightly hoping a rest and a drink would soothe his frayed nerves. Then, a vampire a handful of years younger than him had hopped onto the bar stool next to his and showed him a scrap of paper etched with the words Raphael could trace with his eyes closed - Kill to survive. Survive to win - asking if he had seen anything similar.
Upon realizing the commonality in their stories, they had decided to go together to the next town. Then the town after that, then the town after that. After taking several bounties and traveling to four towns together, they had declared themselves a permanent party, an honor signified by both of them upgrading from calling each other Morrowseer and Bat King to addressing each other by their real names.
That had been several weeks ago, and they had only received more bounties since.
They had been en route to Oakfield two days ago when they had been flagged down by a messenger and informed that a villager had been infected by an improperly disposed-of manwolf carcass, and had been terrorizing the townsfolk for weeks. They had offered a massive bounty for its death, and Echo was quick to point out that manwolf fur and claws were greatly sought-after as magic talismans, meaning they could sell what they harvested themselves as well. The dealmaker had been their appeal to Raphael's compassion - the villager could not be saved except by killing it, and that would free him from the manwolf's curse.
Raphael was startled out of his thoughts when a bat swooped down from the canopy, landing upside-down in a tree and resumed human form. Echo, hanging upside down from the tree by his knees, was holding a dead rabbit in his hands and drinking its blood.
Raphael cleared his throat. "You were supposed to be looking for the manwolf?" he reminded the teenage vampire.
"Yeah, already found it. It's straight ahead of you, about two hundred feet or so. Thought I'd grab an appetizer on the way back."
"And by hunting mere hundreds of feet from a manwolf, did you accidentally scare it off?"
"No, Raph, I'm not as stupid as you seem to think," Echo retorted. "It hasn't moved from where I saw it. Looks like its injury is catching up to it."
"Good. All the better to put it out of its misery quickly. Lead the way, Echo."
Raphael followed the young vampire further down the blood trail, until they came to an open clearing reeking. A musky, wet-dog sort of smell, undertoned with the reek of disease, and mixed with the smell of rotting flesh, filled the air, so thick that even Raphael, who lacked the sensitive nose of his vampire companion, could smell it clearly. As for Echo, he quickly covered his nose, looking sickened.
"Are you alright?" Raphael asked his young companion.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Echo muttered, his voice muffled by his hands clamped over his face, which looked like the only thing keeping the vampire from throwing up. "Gah, if I didn't know any better, I'd say this thing was dead already. We're in luck, Raph, the manwolf's just ahead. Shoot as soon as you find an opening. I'll go into bat form and sneak up closer to him."
"Is that…?" Raphael began, not sure if he should finish the sentence with safe, wise, or a good idea.
"Not all of us have a nice long-range weapon like that crossbow of yours," Echo replied. "With luck, I can catch it both by surprise and in range of my dagger, then mesmer it into holding still. Then you can shoot it repeatedly until it stops breathing."
"And if we don't have luck?"
"Then pray to the higher power of your choice that you don't miss the first shot," Echo replied casually. "Remember, don't shoot until I give the word." Echo again took on his bat form, flying up and disappearing into the treetops.
Raphael decided he likely wasn't going to get more answers than that, and crept forward, readying his crossbow. He peered out into the clearing from behind the tree he was hiding behind, where a disgusting sight met his eyes.
In the middle of the clearing were the scattered parts of what might have been a sheep at some point, although right now it was a pile of flesh and blood and wool with the occasional bone sticking out. Hunched over it, Raphael knew immediately, was the manwolf.
It was only dressed in a ragged loincloth that looked like the tattered remains of the pants the villager who had been infected had been wearing, and it stood crouched on its hind legs like a person, but that was where anything human about it ended. It was completely covered with shaggy, matted gray fur, its remaining hand was a half-paw with sharpened nails, a tail had torn through the loincloth, and its back feet had been stretched into a more animalistic shape, forcing the creature to crouch on all fours. It was tearing into the remains of the sheep carcass with reckless abandon, flinging blood and guts all over the otherwise pristine meadow. The stump where one front paw had been was discolored and oozing from infection, and the creature kept favoring and licking it as if that were going to help.
Raphael watched, sickened, waiting not-too-patiently for Echo's signal. The vampire was still nowhere to be seen.
Then, Raphael saw a red-furred bat circle overhead. He loaded a bolt into his crossbow, ready to fire as soon as Echo landed a hit.
The manwolf looked up, sniffing the air and looking curiously at this bat flying around in daylight. It gave a few preliminary swats at the bat, before deciding its kill looked more tantalizing.
Raphael then heard, faintly, the sound of footsteps, not far off.
The scouting party. They'd somehow managed to keep pace with the two of them, perhaps by spotting Echo from the air, and were threatening to blunder right into the manwolf if they didn't do something fast.
The manwolf looked around, sniffing the air and glaring out into the trees where Raphael was hiding.
It growled. Flicked an ear. Then locked eyes with Raphael, who was still kneeling on the ground, not daring to move a muscle.
Echo suddenly dived, turning back in a flash of darkness, then yanking out his dagger and plunging it into the manwolf's back. The manwolf snarled and whipped around, shaking to get Echo off of it, while Echo hung on for dear life, twisting the knife further into the manwolf's flesh.
Raphael saw Echo flick his hand in a sort of beckoning gesture, before the manwolf threw him off and into the rotting carcass of the dead sheep. Luckily, the teenage vampire didn't appear to be hurt, just dazed, and within seconds was gingerly picking himself up.
However, he didn't have a weapon anymore, his adventurer's dagger now lodged in the back ribs of the man wolf - who had whirled around, snarled, and charged.
Raphael fired his crossbow, and the manwolf howled as the silver-tipped bolt plunged into its jaw. However, the creature was still fixated on Echo, who had picked up a sheep bone in lieu of a proper weapon.
"Echo!" Raphael shouted
The manwolf whipped around, bristling, at the sound of Raphael's voice, before it charged. Raphael quickly fired again, this bolt getting lodged in the beast's arm. He then scrambled out from under the manwolf's paws, scrambling to re-arm his crossbow.
Echo wiped sheep blood off his forehead, then sprinted in between the manwolf and Raphael.
"Stop!"
Raphael saw the manwolf look confused, then a blank, glassy look crossed the creature's face. Echo stared hard at the manwolf, invoking the mesmeric gaze of a vampire to hold the manwolf perfectly still.
Raphael quickly jammed his crossbow bolt into place, leveled the weapon, and fired. This time, the bolt went right in between the manwolf's eyes. The manwolf made a sharp squealing noise, the mesmerizing spell over it breaking for a fraction of a second, before the feral light in its eyes dulled. The manwolf toppled over onto the bloodstained grass, adding its own tainted blood to the mixture rusting into the dirt.
"Back up, Raph. Remember, this guy got infected by touching an improperly dealt with manwolf carcass."
Raphael backed up, storing away his crossbow. "I assume you plan to…" He coughed. "Clean up so it's safe for the scouting party?"
"Yeah, just to be safe. I assume they know how to properly dispose of the infective parts, but they haven't exactly impressed me. They almost ruined our surprise attack."
Raphael averted his eyes as Echo crouched over the manwolf's body and bit it on the neck, slowly draining it. He knew his friend needed to eat as much as anyone, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy watching it.
Vampire feeding was a messy process. Even Echo, who went out of his way to make it as neat and quick as possible, couldn't make it completely pleasant to watch.
It was while Echo was feeding that the scouting party showed themselves.
"Morrowseer! Where in Kosuta have you been?" the man leading the scouting party demanded to know.
"Gentlemen," Raphael said. "As you no doubt have noticed, the manwolf has been slain. Bat King found its blood trail, and we decided to head off the beast ourselves before it could escape back into the mountains."
The lead scout grimaced in disgust as he saw Echo behind Raphael, still drinking the blood from the manwolf carcass.
"I hired you to follow my orders," he growled.
"Actually, no, you hired us to kill the manwolf. That's exactly what we did," Echo said, having finished draining the manwolf. He walked over, wiping the blood from his lips, and smirked at the captain's increasingly reddened face. "Now, unless you want to pay us to kill another one, you'll help us burn vectors of the infection so we can harvest our cut of the spoils."
"I assume you know what my companion means," Raphael added, giving Echo a look warning against starting any further arguments. Echo grinned innocently in return.
"Yes, I do," the lead scout grumbled. "Well? Don't just stand there, men! Start gathering wood! And don't any of you go touching the body barehanded, you hear?"
Quite a few of the scouts were disappointed in the lack of combat they ended up getting, but a manwolf carcass was no matter to make light of, and soon they had a bonfire going, which Echo tossed the manwolf's body onto. The fire hissed as it consumed the lycanthropy-spreading toxins in the manwolf's flesh and remaining blood.
"Do you often act against orders, Morrowseer?" the lead scout hissed under his breath as the bonfire began to burn down.
"I apologize profusely for not going back for the scouting party, sir. However, as both I and Echo have said, we didn't think there was any time. The manwolf was on the move, back toward the mountains, where we wouldn't be able to pursue it. Surely you recognize putting it down was the top priority of this mission."
The lead scout scowled. "And surely you see that I can't have loose cannons running around defying their direct superiors," he snapped over his shoulder as he stomped off.
When the fire burned down, all that was left were mats of manwolf fur and the creature's claws, which were quickly picked over. Raphael grimaced as he plucked a claw from the ashes.
Echo swearing jerked him out of his thoughts, and he hurried over.
"Only two claws! What kind of bounty cut is that!?" the vampire shouted at the lead scout, who gave him a smug look.
"The village needs the charms more than two lone adventurers do - especially two vagabonds like you two. And you can expect a reduction in the gold you get as well."
"Vagabonds! You're just pissy we killed the manwolf instead of you, you puffed-up - overdressed-" Echo snarled. Raphael grabbed Echo by the arms, holding him back, as the young vampire continued to curse out the lead scout, who folded his arms and grinned triumphantly, looking like a child who had just gotten the upper hand in a fight over a toy. Raphael's blood boiled, but he forced himself to stay calm.
"Echo, please, he answers to the mayor who hired us, he can divide the pay cut how he likes."
"We were promised fifty-fifty!"
"That was before you refused to report to me," the lead scout said pompously.
It took an exhaustive amount of talking to keep Echo from tearing the lead scout limb from limb right there, and they ended up making a separate camp from the scouting party that night.
About the middle of the night, one young scout slipped into their camp.
"Um… Morrowseer and Bat King, was it?" he asked. "Uh… here. Some of the spoils I managed to grab earlier."
Raphael inspected the bag, finding four more manwolf claws and several more knots of manwolf fur.
"Thank you," Raphael said. "I'm sure it was a considerable risk to get this."
The scout scratched the back of his head. "Well, I overheard the Captain talking about your pay cut. Seems he was planning to short-change you on spoils either way, what happened today was just a good excuse."
Echo snarled under his breath.
"I plan to tell the mayor of Heapenfalls about this. Both the captain's behavior and yours. Thank you again, sir."
"You're welcome," the scout said, looking touched.
The march back the next morning was tense. Raphael walked a few paces behind the rest of the scouting party, and Echo had pointedly refused to assume human form all day.
"Where's the vampire?" the captain asked sharply partway through the journey.
Raphael again had to bite his tongue at the callous way the man spoke about his young friend. "Echo decided to fly ahead of us, sir. Before dawn broke, in fact. He is at his strongest at night, after all, and the skirmish with the manwolf was exhausting for us both. He should be waiting for us back at Heapenfalls."
The captain's face reddened. "You sent a scout ahead of me against orders again?"
"Echo is not your subordinate. Nor, for that matter, is he mine. He just decided he was better off traveling ahead when his power is greatest and resting after the mission - just as your men and I did last night. Surely you have no reason to protest that, do you?" Raphael asked, raising an eyebrow.
The captain sputtered but couldn't apparently fire back a retort, because he again stomped away to the front of the party.
Raphael smiled and reached into his cloak, where Echo, in bat form, clung to the woolen material, hanging upside-down, asleep. He gently nudged his friend's ear with his finger, and Echo the bat stirred, then blinked his cold blue eyes. Raphael almost got the impression the little mammal was grinning.
Around halfway through the journey, Raphael noticed, more and more, that something smelled foul. The warm, heavy, decaying smell of rotting flesh floated around the traveling party, specifically, the wagon they were using to carry the spoils and the scouts' spare weapons and provisions. Raphael, of course, had all of his in his bag, and Echo also had supplies of his own - although they were absorbed into his bat form and thus inaccessible until he turned back.
For a long time, Raphael kept silent, confused. Could one of the food bundles have started rotting?
"You smell that, right?" Raphael mouthed down at Echo, who quickly buried his muzzle in the folds of Raphael's cloak as answer.
"Morrowseer? What's up?" one of the scouts asked.
Raphael frowned. "I smell something rotten," he said. "Do you?"
"Yeah, I just wanted to keep my head down," the scout said. "What about you, Mercutio?"
The young scout from the previous night nodded. "It reeks! Reckon we should tell the captain about it?"
"Not yet, I want to check something. Can you stop the wagon for me?" Raphael asked.
"Uh, sure," the first scout said. He leaned over to the man leading the horse pulling the wagon and whispered to him.
The horse driver nodded and gestured for the horses to halt.
Raphael climbed up into the wagon, rifling through the bundles of manwolf parts and nearly sorted swords, spears, bows, and arrows.
Then Raphael saw, tucked carefully underneath the wagon seat, a medium-sized wooden box. As he got closer, the rotting smell was so powerful he had to cover his face to keep from retching.
"You!" the lead scout demanded, marching up to the wagon, fuming. "Why did you stop the wagon!? We need to keep moving if we're going to make it back by dark!"
"Morrowseer and I found a suspicious smell coming from the wagon, sir," the first scout said. "Morrowseer requested he take a look in the wagon. Didn't see no reason he couldn't."
The lead scout's face got even redder. "Get out of that wagon this instant, elf! Or I'll see to it you get even less payment than before! And you! Get those horses going!"
"Why are you so defensive about me looking in the wagon? All that is in here are spoils and weapons, after all," Raphael said, picking up the bow quiver that hid the strange box from sight.
"Huh? Hey, captain, what's in the box?" Mercutio asked.
The lead scout paled. "Just more spoils, scout! What makes it so different from all the other boxes we collected from that manwolf!?"
"The fact it smells like somethin' died in it, that's what!" the first scout said. "All of you have noticed, haven't 'cha?" '
Everyone in the party, who had started gathering around the wagon, expressed affirmation to this, a not so small number of them looking visibly sick.
"And it all appears to be comin' from this little box! Wonder why that is, captain? I'm curious about what's in there, and by jingo-!" The first scout climbed up into the wagon and made to pick the box up.
Raphael realized, then, what could be in the box that could smell so awful, and grabbed the man's shoulder. "Stop! Don't touch it barehanded!"
"Huh?" the first scout asked, but before Raphael could apologize and explain, the lead scout had thrown himself into the wagon, yanking white and gold gloves - blessed with purifying magic, Raphael recognized, because the blessing matched the enchantment on his own gloves - over his hands. He snatched up the box and tried to dive out of the wagon with it.
But Echo wasn't about to let him get away. With a tiny, bat-squeak battle cry, the transformed vampire leapt out of Raphael's cloak, flapping in the lead scout's face until he, with a cry of alarm, tumbled out of the wagon, knocking himself senseless on the ground and letting the box fly out of his hands.
The box lid splintered upon contact with the ground, flying open to reveal a disgusting sight.
It was somewhat between an animal foot and a human hand, covered in matted gray fur and tipped with long claws, chopped off at the wrist and the blood from the wound staunched with a silk handkerchief. It was bloated and covered in rotting sores - it had clearly been in that box for at least a day, if not longer.
Amid cries of revulsion from the other scouts, Raphael walked over to the source of the decayed smell that had plagued them all afternoon, quickly pulling a scarf out of his bag and tying it around his face in a makeshift mask.
"A manwolf paw. If I'm not mistaken, the same paw one of your scouts cut from the manwolf we killed yesterday," Raphael said, his voice low with controlled fury, as the lead scout weakly lifted his head off the ground. "You were planning on smuggling it back into the city, weren't you? A trophy for killing the manwolf of Heapenfalls."
The lead scout tried to get up, but Raphael forced him down with a foot on his back. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? Even being cut from the creature does not stop the infectious parts of a manwolf from being infectious. Something you ought to have known: your own manwolf of Heapenfalls was infected by such an oversight."
"I-It doesn't matter, elf!" the lead scout spat. "I was keeping it in a box, it's not as if it were out in the open-"
"Quiet," Raphael retorted. "Yes, you weren't keeping it out in the open - I doubt even you would be that foolish - but what if one of the scouts had picked up the box unprotected without knowing what was in it, as was what almost happened now? You could have spread lycanthropy to this entire scouting party, if not your entire village."
"But I-!" the captain protested.
Raphael cut him off with a glare and a sharp flick of his hand. "Tell me, captain, do you wish death on every man, woman, and child in Heapenfall, or are you just a complete idiot!?"
The captain stuttered a few times, likely still trying to explain himself, but Raphael was in no mood to hear it.
Echo landed in a nearby tree and turned back.
"Ah, Echo, you've returned," Raphael said, making a show of being surprised to see him.
"Couldn't miss the show. I mean, I always thought pigs would fly before you really lost your temper at somebody."
"Well, you're just in time. Can you take this thoughtless trophy of the captain's and burn it? I assume you remember the proper method."
"But I-" the captain began, only for Raphael to glare at him.
"With pleasure." Echo wrinkled his nose as he picked up the manwolf paw, before he turned back into a bat. Taking a second to stabilize himself with his burden, he then flew off into the trees.
"Now, what to do with you," Raphael hissed at the lead scout. What little color was left in the man's face immediately left it.
Several minutes later, the party was back on the move again. The only change was that the lead scout had been bound and gagged and was being led by Mercutio and the older scout who had been with him, who had introduced himself as Dante. Raphael had, in the end, decided to let the mayor of Heapenfalls deal with him according to her law once they returned. The lead scout had again tried to defend himself, but it all had been shut down immediately. No one in the scouting party was pleased to hear how he had risked dooming them all for the sake of an interesting trophy, and thus no one protested to him being tied and forced to march near the back of the party like a prisoner. Echo had returned with the manwolf paw burned and a few more manwolf claws and fur knots.
"Boy, is the mayor not gonna be happy with you," Mercutio said to the lead scout. "First you try to cheat the best adventurers in the area out of their pay, then you try to smuggle a lycanthropy vector into the city after we had to call them in in the first place because we brought unprocessed manwolf parts into the city."
"We aint' saying anything Morrowseer didn't already say, but I'm mighty interested in seein' what's left of you once she's done," Dante said. "Best I can hope for you is you not being a Heapenfall captain any more."
"Wonder who Mayor'll hire? You, Dante? You've been on as a knight the longest."
Dante waved him off. "Ahh, she's not gonna want ol' me to be a captain. Skill matters, and I've got no leading skills."
"In my book, experience is everything," Echo said. "It means you've had time to prove yourself. I think you'll be the next pick as well. You've impressed me over these past couple days."
"Wanna bet on it?"
"Sure," Echo said;
"I'm in. How much?" Mercutio asked.
"Keep the gambling to a minimum, you three," Raphael said firmly over his shoulder.
All three of them were right on at least one account - the mayor of Heapenfalls, Juliet Firenze, was fuming once they explained why her captain was tied and gagged and being escorted by two lower-ranked scouts. Raphael didn't stay around for the tongue-lashing the lead scout was sure to get, but he did see him being escorted out in cuffs flanked by two unhappy guards.
Dante was appointed to be the new leader of that scouting party, which was met with celebration all around. Mayor Firenze, for her part, only raised an amused eyebrow as her new scout leader good-naturedly handed a sum of gold to both Echo and Mercutio.
"Looks like you had more faith in me than I did in myself, boys," Dante whispered to them.
"Captain Dante? Scout Mercutio? You may return to your barracks."
"Yes, ma'am," Dante said.
"Yes, ma'am," Mercutio echoed.
They both left, Dante still smiling to himself and Mercutio giving a thumbs up to Echo and Raphael as they left.
"Now, Morrowseer and Bat King?" Mayor Firenze asked. "You two have gone above and beyond what I have paid you to do. Not only did you kill the manwolf, you stopped new ones from being born thanks to the stupidity of my own officer. You more than deserve the gold I am about to give you."
Echo grinned at the sack of money one of the mayor's bodyguards placed on the table for them. "This'll be enough to keep us going for months!"
"Thank you for your generosity," Raphael said tactfully.
"You're most welcome," Mayor Firenze said. "I mean, I did hire you to do what you have done. The absolute least I can do is pay you for your efforts." She steepled her hands. "Speaking of adventurers, a party of them arrived in town while you were gone. They were asking to meet with any adventurers that had recently come through the area."
"Really? Interested in recruiting?" Echo asked, rolling his shoulder and smirking.
"Perhaps. They seemed vague about their intentions," Mayor Firenze said. She turned to the bodyguard by the door. "Go ahead and let them in, don't keep our heroes in suspense."
The door opened, and an odd trio filtered their way in.
The first was a young woman about Echo's age, who was unusually tall and well-muscled. Her messy, shoulder-length hair was pitch-black, paired with bright red eyes whose glow mirrored the ruby on the hilt of her onyx-colored sword, currently strapped into an adventurer's sheath. She was wearing a men's shirt and pants, both of which looked a little too small for her, and over them, a sleeveless wool tunic that stopped just above her knees, and she had a ruby pendant around her neck. Her serious, professional demeanor as she entered faded into a dorky grin.
"Hey, there!" she said - very loudly. "You guys the adventurer's the mayor was tellin' us about?"
"Don't be so loud, Black Flame Sword, you'll scare them off," a much younger voice said flatly from behind her.
A short, small preteen girl, the source of the scolding, entered next, folding her arms across her chest and looking over both Raphael and Echo. Her bright green eyes, searching their faces, gave off the impression she wasn't quite impressed with them yet. Her outfit was a strange mix of "pampered rich girl" and "warrior" - a knee-length blue dress with gold clasps made of glisterworm silk, glisterworm silk leggings underneath, glisterworm silk noblewoman's gloves, paired with a black leather chestplate, knight's boots, and an adventurer's sheath with a sort of hooked blade on a chain fastened to it on her back. She wore a gold diadem in her long, dark green hair, currently pulled back into a braid that reached her waist. Her pointed ears clued her toward being an elf, but the pink birthmark on her neck, partially hidden by her dress collar, revealed her to, rather, be a fairykin. Flying right behind her, almost like an attendant or bodyguard, was a fairy in blue robes who had a bronze key almost as tall as she was strapped to her back in lieu of a more conventional weapon. The fairy alighted on the young girl's shoulder.
The little girl scowled, her expression much more serious and businesslike than her companion - who was at least half a decade older.
"You're Morrowseer and Bat King, right?" she asked.
"Yes, we are," Raphael said, recovering quickly from the shock of seeing such a mature little girl. "I am Morrowseer, he's Bat King."
"I'm Lilliputian Princess - call me Princess for short," the little girl said. "This is Key Mace, my magic teacher." She gestured to the fairy on her shoulder.
"An' I'm Black Flame Sword!" the woman behind them announced. "Nice to meet ya! Princess and Key Mace here really ain't the type for small talk, but they're glad to see you, too." She turned to Mayor Firenze. "Uh, Mayor, mind if we sit down? Princess is right, we should get down to business."
The bodyguards were nothing if not prompt, and soon they had chairs and were seated around the mayor's desk.
"Morrowseer and Bat King," Key Mace said. "We have been looking for adventurers who arrived in Kosuta under unusual circumstances - like the princess and Black Flame Sword."
"Unusual circumstances?" Echo asked. "What kind of unusual circumstances?"
"We believe all adventurers that match the description we're looking for received the same message. A token, of sorts," Key Mace explained.
Lilliputian Princess and Black Flame Sword both fished around in their bags - which Raphael realized looked identical to his and Echo's travel bags, that they had found next to them the moment they had awakened in Kosuta with no memory.
"Guess we use yours," Black Flame Sword said. "Mine's not in great condition."
"Only because you nearly drowned yourself within seconds of getting here," Lilliputian Princess replied. She pulled out a scrap of parchment.
Raphael's eyes widened as he recognized the words written on it in bleeding ink.
Kill to survive. Survive to win.
"I'm assuming from your faces that you also found a note like this?" Lilliputian Princess asked. "That means you got here the same way we did. No belongings. No memories." She leaned over the table, her jaw set.
"Tell us everything you know."