“Es buena hora,” noted Esperanza as she noticed the other members of the group approaching her location. At that moment, there weren’t too many of the supply center’s guards and defenders left around her. She had already turned over a hundred of them into corpses, while the remaining thirty or so kept their distance and eyed her with dread visible in their eyes.
The ones who hadn’t already bled from all of their facial orifices while screaming gibberish due to prolonged exposure to the side effect of [Far Down the Deep End], that was.
Esperanza had discovered – by complete accident, at that – that the skill’s side effect actually worked in quite an insidious way. While it would show instant effects to people who failed the check by a certain margin, against others who were closer to passing the check, a prolonged, amplified exposure would erode their soul’s defenses little by little, and eventually, their defenses would fail them, allowing the skill’s side effects to claim them unchecked.
More than a dozen other guards had already fallen to such an effect, and out of the remaining thirty, another dozen or so were showing signs that they too were on the verge of collapsing.
Not that it mattered much for Esperanza.
These guards were destined to die one way or another. They could end up falling into madness and die that way, meet with a more merciful and quick end by her blades, or try to escape and meet their end by her companions’ weapons instead. One way or another, their lives were forfeit, and nothing would change that.
Nothing in the vicinity has the power to change their fate.
Esperanza casually flung her blades – four of them this time, attached to tentacles thinned and disguised as ropes – towards the nearest guards. Her blades moved as if they were alive, something that most people would have attributed to a skill of some sort, instead of them being literally part of her body. They slit the throat of five guards and decapitated three more in quick succession, causing the remaining survivors to take a step back in fright.
The display also caused some of the guards to waver, which in turn resulted in their mental defenses breaking. As a result, another three of them wailed as they bled from every orifice on their head. One even clawed himself with his own hands, his sharpened nails tearing off skin and flesh with every move, screaming incoherently all the way until he dropped to the ground and stopped moving.
It was a sight that broke the will of the few remaining guards as most of them turned and ran away. Not that it would have done them any good, as Esperanza could hear their screams and wails as they ran into the other members of her group before they went far. She already knew that no mercy would be shown tonight, and only destruction would be left behind.
Of course, Esperanza had already secured documents and maps that looked like they would be of use to her group from the keep before she left. The keep behind her was already entirely engulfed in flames by now, which would burn everything and leave no traces of what had happened there. She knew that they would subject the rest of the supply center to the same treatment before they left.
Let the mysterious conflagration and slaughter confuse the demons as to what had happened there, even if they likely had accurate guesses about it.
Before too long, the noise in the distance quietened down, and most of the group gathered around Esperanza’s location, save for the ones who were on lookout for escapees and survivors. They quietly exchanged gestures – something they learned from Ani to allow them to communicate silently since using speech might have revealed their origins – and confirmed that they had taken care of everything they planned to do in the supply center.
With a final exchange of nods, the group then spread out once more as they tossed around lit torches or burning pieces of rubble to other buildings, causing the fire to spread out uncontrollably behind them. By the time the group had reached the walls of the supply center once more, all that was left behind them was a roaring conflagration that consumed most of the place, with the flames racing towards the wooden walls as well.
Satisfied that they had left no witnesses behind, the group climbed over the wall and left, allowing the flames to erase the tracks they had left behind. The conflagration roared to life upon touching the wooden wall and soon engulfed it as well, with the fire visible from far away.
Meanwhile, the culprits of said fire were gathered in the woods nearby. They waited a couple hours more to ensure that nobody had survived due to some fire resistance skills or the like and tried to escape. While Esperanza had [Soul Sense] to check, she disliked completely relying on the skill. Where there existed a skill to detect, there likely also existed ways to avoid said detection, after all.
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As such she considered blindly trusting something a skill told her to be unwise.
“What do we do next?” asked Val’Kasj while they waited for the fire to die out. Some of the group were spread out around the supply center just to make sure there were no survivors escaping from the blaze, but more than half of them were gathered together to discuss their next steps. Val’Kasj was naturally amongst them as he had become sort of a big brother figure to the other [Progenies of Yore] by virtue of being the first and oldest of them.
The taciturn boy was not one for many words and usually went straight to the point, which also helped simplify things when they needed to discuss matters.
“The Demon Territories should increase their alertness after what we just did, so it’s unlikely that we could hit any other place as smoothly in the near future,” stated Ani. As the most experienced one amongst them, the progenies put quite a bit of value in her words, and Esperanza herself also valued the advice of a local who knew the world better than her. “I would suggest we lay low for a while before we do more.”
“Pretend that we’ve done enough until they let their guard down again, then?” asked Esperanza from the side, now back to her more familiar guise which almost looked like her previous form. Her guise also wore a long dress that was actually just part of her body that had shapeshifted to mimic a dress, as some might have noticed from the way the dress seemed to merge into her arm or leg at times.
“That’s what I have in mind, Exalted One. Do you approve?” asked Ani with deference. Despite her greater experience and at the moment, superior strength, she still deferred to Esperanza, as in her eyes Esperanza was a messenger from the Deities they worshiped, one that carried out their will in the mortal world. “It might also be for the best if we lay low in the human kingdom instead. The demons wouldn't even dream of looking for us there.”
“Wouldn’t the humans be a potential problem in that case, though?” asked Mel-Ivas with some doubt. The children from Navef knew that the humans of the world were little better than the demons, even if they didn’t have a direct animosity with them as of yet. They were all worshipers and tools of the new gods after all, and thus were not to be trusted.
“Ah, but there’s the key, young one. We have yet to do anything that would cause the humans to look for our presence, so as long as we avoid their eyes while we enter their territory and find a hiding spot, we should be safe there,” replied Ani with an understanding nod. “In fact, I know of a few hideouts of fellow adherents of the old ways in this region of the human kingdom, so we might be able to stay at their place if they still live there.”
“That’s a pretty sound plan,” noted Esperanza with a nod. Ani made her point that the humans had no reason as of yet to look for them, since they had done nothing that would cause the humans to even be aware of their presence. “Also, once we have rested enough, I might attempt to come into contact with the human [Heroes]. They come from the same place as me, so there might be a way for me to convince them not to trust everything they have been told since coming here.”
“Do you believe it likely that they would hear you out, Exalted One?” asked Ani with some surprise. It was the first time that Esperanza mentioned how she and the human [Heroes] came from the same place, which surprised everyone gathered quite a bit. “According to what I know, I have never heard of a [Hero] or [Champion] turning their backs on the new gods.”
“I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t happen to know them personally,” replied Esperanza with a shake of her head. Alissa O’Connor was one of the very few people she’d consider a true friend of hers back in school, and while she wasn’t as close to Ethan Greene, she was quite familiar with him since he and Alissa were almost always found together. Of course, she didn’t exactly have a good relationship with Joshua Smith, but two out of three was not bad odds. “One of them is my good friend, even.”
“Huh. That… does make the situation an unusual one…” admitted Ani after Esperanza gave a quick rundown on her relationship with the [Heroes]. “I guess no [Hero] before this had people they know telling them the truth about what is happening in this world either, so they never have any reason to turn against the new gods… If even one of the [Heroes] were to sympathize with our plight…”
“It’d be a complete change of the situation,” said Tiesya as she processed the information from the discussion between Ani and Esperanza. “The [Heroes] are far more publicly noticeable compared to us, so if even one of them were to turn against the new gods, it would be quite a blow against them, moreso if more than one did so.”
“Yeah, I don’t plan to contact them until after we’ve rested and moved again, though,” replied Esperanza with a nod. “I’m not güey enough to bet everything on just one meeting, besides, if Oldies were right, the new gods might also be influencing the [Heroes] in covert ways. I want us to be prepared to escape in case things went poorly during my attempt.”
“A good precaution to take, Exalted One,” said Ani as she nodded in agreement. The experienced warrior had always favored plans that were foolproof and had contingencies in case things didn’t go as expected. She was not someone who would bet everything on a single throw of the dice, like some young people might.
As it was, Esperanza’s intention to meet and talk with the human [Heroes] posed some risk to their activities, as if it went poorly, the humans would be made aware of their presence. On the flipside however, the potential payoff should the meeting go well was tremendous, and more than justified the gamble, Ani felt.
Besides, she had a strong faith in the Deities of Yore, and believed that the messenger they sent to this world, one brimming with their power, would certainly act in accordance with their will. While Esperanza considered her relationship with Oldies more of a cooperative one, she was smart enough not to clarify that to the others.
After all, it might get a bit complicated to explain to worshipers of some gods that she didn’t exactly share their faith despite being those very gods’ messenger in the mortal world and all that comes with it.