The fallen stones proved no great obstacle, navigating around them no significant undertaking. To Ástríðr, the battlefield was alive with rhythm. There was a mandate of sorts, a desire deep within her to unleash harmonious, resonant chaos. But as soon as the dust cleared, it revealed a number of monsters that looked as surprised to see them as the party was to see the monsters. It was wrong. There should have been hatred and blood and emotion. Instead, however, there seemed to be only a collection of creatures acting as if they were supposed to be there.
The camp they had just stumbled upon was staffed by a number of these ugly green creatures, tall and bulky and crudely batrachian in their features, with broad heads sat upon broad shoulders with no discernible neck. Their dull, slimy, mucus-hued eyes regarded them with dumb acknowledgement, barely aware enough to be rightly deemed ‘bestial.’ Primitive leathers and bone plates and animal skins served as armour, though the weapons they bore were made from crude, low-quality iron, in open defiance of all other indicators of this race’s level of technological sophistication.
They bayed and gurgled in their half-aquatic tongue, and even fluency sounded choppy and broken from their wide, oozing mouths, filled with rows of sharp, serrated teeth.
“Orcs…” spat Sonja. “What the fuck are they doing this close to Maelnaulde?!”
“Is that really relevant?” asked Katsumi, lending her attention to Ástríðr’s sister. “We kill them like all the rest. Leave none of them alive. And we’d best be about it quickly, lest they do the same to us.”
Sonja sighed, and nodded. “You’re right.”
“Glad you’re back with the sense-makers, sis,” Ástríðr remarked to Sonja, keen on undermining her. Ástríðr almost panicked in that moment, unsure of where such a malicious thought had come from. Certainly, mocking Sonja was a favoured pastime of hers, but this was truly neither the time nor the place. “You’re the one with the shield. Lead the way?”
Apparently unaware of her sister’s confusion, Sonja nodded curtly and charged forth again, thrusting her sword in the air, a little ring of light appearing at its tip, then erupting forth into multiple interlocking spiked rings of semi-transparent white energy that illuminated the room and sounded like the tinkling of bells as it rotated before bursting, the last auditory sensation like shattered glass in her ears.
“Holy Circle. Good to see she’s getting serious about this,” Ástríðr muttered, placing her flute to her lips and coaxing it into a shrill cry that vibrated the instrument’s construction. “I might as well respond in kind.”
Kyomi’s Miasma spell blasted in the midst of the orcs with such force that some of them visibly recoiled, Carbuncle rearing back and spitting forth a blast of air that literally cut through them, the gales twisting about themselves and putting a weak cyclone that encompassed most of the orcs in the middle of their group.
Kyomi’s next spell was Contagion, and it was Bio, but somewhat weaker and affecting multiple victims simultaneously. It spread just as quickly, however, and quickly intensified until the orcs were howling in horror and pain, their skin rotting away more quickly than the minotaur’s did.
And then there was Katsumi. As the battle raged, Ástríðr found herself rather frustrated by the lack of attention the drahn was giving her. It was as if there was a… Well, it was almost painful. She didn’t want to think of herself as pining for another’s affection. There was no reason to. She was just a random person who… No. That was a lie. She wasn’t ‘just a random person.’ She was Katsumi. Katsumi was special. Katsumi hadn’t fled in horror after seeing her fully herself. Everyone else outside of the family fled, or swooned, or did any number of other empty things the moment they learned what she was. Katsumi hadn’t.
Katsumi. Katsumi. Katsumi… Ástríðr could not seem to clear her mind of the damn girl, could not seem to wipe the smell of her, the saucy, alluring scent of blood and belladonna, from her nose. But…there was nothing between them.
Nothing.
Right?
No, she knew that wasn’t true.
On some level—on every level, she could feel her mind screaming it as though caught in an isolated fit of madness—she knew she was falling for the girl.
And of course, she had eyes; she knew that the girl was falling for her, even if the girl herself was blissfully unaware of it. She knew that. She knew it. She did. She did…
No. She didn’t. Not really.
Did Katsumi love Ástríðr?
Was Ástríðr even worthy of love to begin with? As Kyomi had so elegantly reminded her, Ástríðr was something of a monster. Someone who took little care for the needs, wants, whims, or general health of others.
By the time Ástríðr realised with an unwelcome shock that she had stopped playing, that her lips and lungs had frozen at the lip of the flute, it was nearly too late for someone of her speed to dodge the orcish blade that swung downward right next to where her head was mere seconds ago. Wait, no. She hadn’t dodged. She had been pulled out of the way. She almost blushed when she realised that Katsumi’s hand had grabbed her waist. It was…new. There was a gentle warmth to her touch, but by the same token, Katsumi felt…guarded, somehow. Ástríðr made sure the woman who might well be her first love did not see her so affected. There was too much of a chance that she had failed to suppress her flush. After all, she had nearly died just there, and she had never thought it possible she would space out in the middle of a battle, so what else was she letting slip in her daze?
More importantly, she found she didn’t want to look into her eyes. Fear rose like a corpse flower blooming in her throat. She was terrified that Katsumi might have pulled her out of the way out of a sense of practicality, of cooperative self-preservation, and for no other deeper reason. There was the very real possibility that she was overthinking things, paralyzing herself; it terrified her, and she despised it with every beat of her heart.
By the time Ástríðr returned to herself, there was a hot feeling flashing unpleasantly through her chest, and she was completely unsure of whether she wanted to commit brutal murder or suicide. The admonitions came from Katsumi’s mouth, swift and stinging, expressing her displeasure at Ástríðr for completely forgetting herself in the middle of combat. The flush on Katsumi’s face could have been blushing, and truth be told, Ástríðr desperately wanted to believe that that was the case, but Ástríðr could not manage to escape the thought that it was anger that fuelled the rebuke. She had, after all, nearly gotten herself killed.
Biting her tongue so hard she could almost swear she tasted the familiar tang, Ástríðr’s breath returned to her instrument. Stupid, foolish, reckless. Of course Katsumi wouldn’t want her. The poor girl had been through hell the previous night, the same hell that was forced upon all those who shared her bed. The fight they were in demanded her immediate attention; the enemy before her could easily claim Katsumi’s life if she didn’t kill it. There’d be ample time for self-doubt later, when the very thought that made her stomach churn up in knots and made her see red was relegated to an abstraction and no longer seemed like such a real possibility.
Once more, Ástríðr felt Katsumi’s arms around her, restraining her. Her first thought was that Katsumi meant to pull her back. Once more, Ástríðr felt like something shrivelled in her abdomen, sending liquid murder through her veins.
Then she looked around her.
Kagura vibrated with excitement.
Kyomi was on the verge of uproarious mirth.
Sonja’s expression was somewhere between horror and shame.
Katsumi’s…
Katsumi’s reaction was many things, chief among them being dumb, uncomprehending shock, but otherwise so muddled and dissonant as to be unreadable.
Why do they all look at me so?
Ástríðr turned around.
Oh.
Blood and gore, bones and viscera. She vaguely remembered that there were orcs that stood before her at one point. They had menaced her with crude weapons, which were nowhere in sight. Ástríðr had never had cause to doubt her own memory, but the past span of a day had proven this to be one suffocated by firsts. What had done this?
“Well, fuck, Ástríðr,” Kagura remarked, stunned, and to say she was grinning was an understatement bordering on misrepresentation. Her entire countenance was swallowed by her teeth, her lips were pulled back so far. “You sure you’re a bard and not, say, a warrior? You’ve been holding out on me!”
“What?” Ástríðr asked, dissociation settling as an unwholesome pall upon her broad shoulders.
Kyomi’s hand joined it there, her voice low enough that only the two of them, and maybe Sonja, could hear it. “We haven’t been fighting for half an hour. With one note they kinda died or exploded, their weapons only fragments strewn about the camp by this point. Then you started punching, and tearing, and I suppose ripping. Definitely gouging. Personally, I suggest you stop unless you want scars on your knuckles that not even healing magic can remove. The whole thing was cool at first, but then it just kinda…got awkward… But hey! Maybe Sophia’ll be impressed with your thoroughness. I know I am!”
Katsumi’s hand alighting upon her face gingerly brought the conversation to a screeching halt. Her thumb drew circles into the soft flesh, and soon its twin joined it on the other side of her face, repeating the same motion. Gently, Katsumi turned Ástríðr’s face to hers, and those violet eyes burrowed deep into her, searching. On her face was the most open expression Ástríðr had seen all day. Then her eyes locked, her face returned to its impassive, focused cast, and she nodded once, curtly, more a bob of her head as a definitive affirmation. “It’s you. Good.”
“Well, of course it’s me. Would anyone else look this fucking sexy in a fit of primal rage?” Ástríðr said, cringing as she realised she was smiling just a bit too broadly.
Katsumi shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean. Your mind remains your own. Your sanctuary is yet unbreached.”
She then looked at where her hands were placed, flushed, and then yanked them away as though burned. Her head studiously turned from Ástríðr, her purple eyes looking anywhere else. “W-we should press on, I think. The work waits.”
The blush might have been a good sign. Everything else was not. Ástríðr wanted nothing more than to just have the girl but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it. Those words from the previous night rang through her mind for not the first time that day: To allow you to violate me would be to surrender the last of myself, and what remained would be bestial.
“Damn it,” Ástríðr hissed to herself. Her words were quiet enough that the gods wouldn’t hear them, and yet Katsumi’s gaze reverted to her sharply.
“Taking this job was your idea. If you will not lead, who then shall I—shall we follow?” Katsumi’s reprimand was quick, though its sharp edge was brittle, enough that it shattered entirely upon the final word.
“Me,” Ástríðr said calmly. She wasn’t even aware of the sudden change until she realised that Katsumi was on the ground looking rather dazed. “Remember that. A moment’s weakness does not affect my ability to lead so completely as you seem to think.”
“I did not think you incapable, merely shaken. Hesitation is defeat. To falter is to perish,” Katsumi replied, rubbing at her jaw. “I would not have our centre unable to hold, lest we fall to ash like so many leaves on the night wind.”
Unlike Ástríðr, Kyomi took no care to be quiet at all when she giggled and asked, “Do you think they know we can hear them? As fascinating as this is, I sorta wanted to get the whole dungeon thing finished some time before I find myself wizened and grey.”
Katsumi shook her head. “As I have said, the work waits, yet I somehow doubt any of us here assembled should prefer this delve to finish with our deaths.”
“Actually, I’m very much okay with dying in combat,” remarked Kagura.
“Agreed,” Kyomi said with a smile, “It’d be quite the adventure to see what lies beyond, no?”
“Quite astute, my dear sister. But I suppose we had best move from such ideas right now. Ástríðr is beginning to look at us funny.”
“Noted.”
Katsumi looked at the both of them. “From what I have been told, I think dying here would be a far less pleasant experience than either of you give it credit for. The Sword Saint, at least, does not seem the type to be stymied by such trivialities as the mortal veil, and I would hazard a guess that the one named Sophia is possessed of similar capabilities.”
Kyomi leaned in to whisper to Kagura. Or at least, it looked like she had. In reality she spoke just as loudly as before. “Why is Katsumi suddenly talking about death like that?”
“I’ve not the slightest clue as to what provoked her. She’s being quite morbid, though. Mayhaps we should just move on and hope she follows along our path of life?”
Kyomi nodded solemnly, “Agreed.”
“And just what would you two idiots know about Katsumi’s…” Ástríðr paused instead of continuing to speak. As if her own words had dealt her some finishing blow. “Apart from the five of us, we’re going to kill every last thing in this dungeon that moves. I’m done with this nonsense.”
“But of course,” Kyomi announced, turning to present her right profile and raising a closed fist.
“Your will is our command,” Kagura answered, mirroring her sister’s motion.
Carbuncle ran between them and leapt up to complete the picture with a strangely high-pitched squeal.
“...Right then…” Katsumi muttered.
----------------------------------------
Orcs stood between them and the next chamber, but they died without much in the way of significant danger. Somehow Ástríðr held herself together much more tightly as they proceeded into the mine, the corridors narrowing ever tighter as they twisted through the complex, lined on either side by thick veins of sparkling raw mithril. It became clear that the minotaur had been a decoy, a tamed warbeast to conceal the infestation of beastman tribes that ran deep into the earth. Rotting orcs crossed their path eventually, first one, then three, and more and more as they continued towards the next open chamber. Few of the more recent bodies, the ones with most of their flesh still intact, bore fatal wounds, yet the discolouration spoke of a potent poison, according to Kyomi’s sage knowledge on the subject. How the Drunken Whore’s resident professional dominatrix had come to accumulate so much in-depth knowledge of the esoteric poisons she rattled off as she examined the corpses, Ástríðr wasn’t fully certain she wanted to discover, now or ever.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
They were somewhat prepared, then, when upon entering the next large arena-like chamber, a snarling sabre-toothed face in a bestial approximation of a man’s on a lion’s head and body snapped at them, its batlike wings unfurling with a crack of tensing membrane even as the chitinous tail, spiked and with a grossly oversized scorpion’s stinger on the end of it, thrashed and beat the ground.
The tail lashed forth into the corridor, over and over, the tight space meaning close calls and narrow evasions more dependent on luck than any semblance of skill. Katsumi was the first to recover and stab her narrow, overlarge two-handed sword into the fleshy gaps in the chitin, causing the manticore to recoil, the wings beating and bearing it aloft.
A swirling vortex Ástríðr hesitated to call anything save ‘darkness’ swirled around Katsumi, redoubling as she pursued the tail, and then surging as she bent her knees and launched herself off of the ground up to the higher levels of the arena.
The manticore scrambled on the rock walls of the large domed chamber, its claws struggling to find sufficient purchase for its considerable muscular bulk, before the scorpion’s tail lashed out to try and get Katsumi. A split second before it was unavoidable, Katsumi launched herself off of the wall and onto the opposite wall across the arena, then off of that wall to grip onto a handful of the manticore’s Nemean flesh, swinging about and over onto its back, plunging her blade into the vulnerable juncture at the base of the tail.
The monster’s pain ricocheted around the chamber as its grip failed and its wings caught it, before it began thrashing in flight to dislodge the irritant causing it such pain.
Katsumi was thrown loose, her sword flying from her grasp as she was launched to the ground with no way to right herself or avoid grievous injury upon impact.
Ástríðr was moving before she even fully registered what was about to happen, her breath flowing through the flute as “Leaves From the Vine” worked to counter her acceleration. She could only do so much with that, however, and so she made up the remainder by moving to where Katsumi would fall, catching her lithe form in her arms even as the transfer of momentum threw her off of her feet.
A shadow fell across them, a dozen dull thuds in quick succession tolling like a bell as she looked up to see Sonja stood before her, her shield raised, though holding a number of spines on its face.
Those weren’t spikes on the manticore’s tail. They were quills.
Kyomi threw forth the deep purple cloud of lung-rotting Miasma, but by the time the spell had taken shape, the magics unfolding, the manticore was already out of it. Bio, the green-brown ball of semi-transparent magical poison, in contrast, shot through the air, snapping onto the manticore’s hide and spreading, almost falling away until it found that wound, the almost-severed joint, and attacked it with extreme prejudice. Kagura ran forth and tried to replicate Katsumi’s show of irrational athleticism, but failed and merely looked silly. Leaping up and down, however, caught the manticore’s attention, and it dove like a falcon and slammed into the stone floor, scrambling for purchase on the smooth stone and leaving gaping rends in the rock with its deadly claws, its jaw unhinging as its double-toned leonine roar shook the foundations of the chamber, a feral challenge and absolute command for bestial submission. Rather than being cowed by the primal venomous creature that, according to some, invented death and all things that were bad, Kagura lunged forth and stabbed her tachi as deeply as she could into one of the manticore’s eyes.
The effect was immediate, the creature’s claws raking through where Kagura had been, though now she was fifteen metres back from the creature and so it struck only air. Kagura didn’t have a moment to rest, however, as quills harassed her location, forcing her to flee at a dead sprint around the room. Sonja, relieved, charged forth, shield leading the way as the round slab of wood and metal bashed into the side of the manticore’s head, jostling its gouged eye. The pain that lanced through the monster’s skull was unmistakable, its forelimbs collapsing for a moment and its unending hail of quills going wide of Kagura’s running form, cutting a swath up the rock wall that punctured deep into the stone. When the manticore turned to Sonja, igneous venom built up as its glands swelled in the back of its throat, but as Ástríðr beheld the rare smirk that split Sonja’s usually demure, stoic expression, she knew that her sister had a trick up her sleeve.
A quick twirl of her sword set it alight with bright magical flames the colour of a flower their mother had shown them once—guren—and Ástríðr realised what was going to happen.
“Crimson Lotus Blade,” Sonja stated, lashing her sword arm forth and burying the blade into the manticore’s swollen gland the moment before the venom was ejected. Just as quickly, the spatha retreated and Sonja’s shield moved to defend her face and upper body, with not a moment to spare; the manticore’s jaws slammed shut as the explosive weaponskill ignited the venom in the back of its maw, erupting in a brilliant conflagration that consumed the poison as it spread, blasting out of the bottom of the monster’s throat.
The manticore’s skin did not break, but its gorge sagged, laying plain the ruination of its neck; but the manticore’s jaw was forced open, the flame spewed forth as the joint of its maw was shattered irreparably, bathing Sonja in some residual tongues of the ignition that her shield was more than enough to defend her from. She took that moment all the same to use a second weaponskill, her sword alighting in bright blue, spectral fire, a shadow of the mythical Mortal Flame, and then plunging into the manticore’s remaining eye with a spray of deep crimson, almost black ichor that splattered onto her raised shield and steamed with its own significant heat, even as the shadow of the Mortal Flame was extinguished with coils of black smoke rising from its ruined, mangled socket. “Burning Blade.”
The manticore lashed out once more, many times and now blindly, unable to roar or see, unable to spew forth venom that would alight into unquenchable flame upon contact with the air, and now all that remained was its damaged tail and claws.
And, of course, its wings.
Katsumi tore free of Ástríðr’s hold the moment the manticore found the strength to raise its wings, and to Ástríðr’s great, burning shame, rising as a large, uncomfortable, flaming lump in her throat, she had not even been conscious of the drahn’s awakening as the battle continued, having assumed her dead the world.
“Deatheater! To me!”
The greatsword on the other side of the chamber stirred, and then shot off, spinning as a discus towards her at an impossible speed, the hilt slamming into her outstretched hand with an impact that should have been hard enough, given its speed, to shatter every bone in her arm and wrench it out of its socket if not off her body entirely; yet, her fingers closed around it, unharmed, and she brought it to bear without even a wince of pain. She swung it up and over her shoulder into its baldric on her back, leaving both hands free.
With one strong stride as the darkness from before surged forth to envelop her form once again, she sprung into flight, ripping up the stone beneath her as she did, the force of her acceleration leaving a vacuum in her wake which wrought havoc on the topography.
The manticore perhaps sensed the danger, the absolute annihilation that turned the air of the room into a suffocating, cloying pall, and took to flight; yet, it was not fast enough, Katsumi planting her feet mid-flight as she launched up into the air, shooting up and closing the distance much more swiftly than the manticore could gain it. Katsumi rose before the manticore’s face, and there was a pause that Ástríðr might have only been imagining. Her hands shot forth, grabbing the limbs that supported the membrane that allowed the manticore flight, seizing them in a death grip; then she plummeted faster than falling would have accounted for, and the sudden change ripped the bones from the wings entirely, tearing away the limbs as she crashed towards the ground.
Ástríðr knew she could not cushion this descent, not with any of the songs in her repertoire. The image of Katsumi’s body on the stone, broken, shattered, mangled, still…
A dull shock ran up her arm. She returned to herself in time to see the impact finish moving its way through the manticore, the chitin plates popping off of the tail and the bulbous stinger on the end bursting and spraying venom in a broad cone behind it. Her arm held strong and fast in the follow-through motion of a punch, her fist embedded into the shattered skull of the monster.
Katsumi walked gingerly as she approached, the dark aura dissipating from her form, Carbuncle bounding around jovially in her wake. The last few moments should have brought Ástríðr some sense of disquiet, given that they were now fully blanked out of her mind, but all she could feel was a wave of relief that sapped her strength. She’s okay. She’s okay. She’s okay…
There were several long moments that Ástríðr spent staring at Katsumi, captured by the look in her eye. There was no judgement there, no fear, no disgust. That is, until Katsumi noticed that they were making eye contact, at which point her face flushed and she turned away, firmly showing her profile and only her profile, her gaze focused on the corpse. “T-that was a good blow. Well-executed.”
“Are you hurt?”
Katsumi’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed, her face turning away entirely. “I’m fine! I-it’s just muscle fatigue. I’ll manage…”
A sigh. “Oh, for the love of… I was going to have you all fight a chimera next, but quite frankly, this is just sad. You pass!”
That voice. None of them knew it.
Ástríðr and Katsumi whirled around, and the bard was aware of her sister and the other pair of twins turning to look. And what faced them was a sight and a half.
“A…clown…”
In front of them was a clown. A jester. A jongleur. No two ways about it. From the outlandish garb to the garish white makeup, in every sense was this…man?…meant to attract attention.
The jester’s face was fully androgynous, and the voice was no help, resting in that grey register that could debatably belong to a high-pitched man or a deep-voiced woman. The billowing pale green blouse they wore obscured the shape of their torso, and the tights that clung to their legs were certainly shapely enough to be on a woman. The pointed, upturned shoes were so stereotypically Ravanan that they couldn’t possibly have been genuine, and the layers of bright pastel cloaks with carpet-like hems further obscured their figure. A spectacularly feathered turban capped their head and hid their hair, their purple-painted eyes a solid multicoloured abyss, shining from time to time with sparkling lights, each of which reminding Ástríðr uncannily of the brilliance that heralded the death of a distant star.
In comparison to their eyes, the literally carved-on scarlet smile ought to have appeared mundane, but as the lips peeled back to show sharp, interlocking teeth, holding back a forked tongue that was distantly reminiscent of a serpent, it was profoundly unsettling.
The jester brought their hands together in a single clap, and they were as pale-white as the merrymaker’s painted face, tipped with sharp claws that were painted a shade eerily reminiscent of dried blood, and though their face moved and emoted, it only highlighted the mask-like quality of their countenance instead of dispelling it.
“Well, Frey gave our ‘crossroads’ here a push along the way, and Óðinn imparted to her the thingamabob around which this whole game revolves…and Loki’s quite thoroughly indisposed. What a trial, what a bother, what an awful bore!” The jester moved from word to word with a chaotic mixture of wild gesticulations and vaudevillian pantomime, ending reclined as though on a salon sofa in mid-air. “Oh well oh well oh well. Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. Yes, yes, there’s simply nothing to be done! O lament, o dirge, o frightful tragedy!”
“Excuse me…” Sonja began.
“You’re excused~” the clown interjected in a breathy, faux-aristocratic voice and an exaggeratedly posh gesture of dismissal.
“…But what precisely are you here for?” Sonja pushed on.
The clown turned their gaze onto Sonja, somehow communicating a sense of deep, long suffering exasperation despite neither their carved, grinning mouth nor their magenta-coloured eyebrows making even the slightest quirk of motion. “I somehow doubt that’s a question you want answered, gelfling. We’d be here until the Promised Day, and we’d only stop then because the explanation would then be moot!”
“By what name are you called?” asked Katsumi.
The jongleur ceased, and then rotated, until it looked as though they were perched upright in an armchair. “Well then. She speaks! And what a question does she lead with! Not that tired old question of ‘who are you’ or ‘what is your name’ or ‘what manner of creature are you’, but no, an actual question that would produce an answer of which you people are fully able to comprehend! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
The joker mimed swooning. “I am called Azoth, the Quicksilver, the Perdition of Paracelsus, the Pierrot of Persecution, but that is merely a descriptor and not a soubriquet. You may know me as Mephisopheles, however, if it please you.”
Mephistopheles finished off their introduction with a sweeping, dramatic bow and an overdone, bombastic flourish.
“An Apostle, then?” asked Kyomi.
The jester’s face didn’t so much as twitch, but their displeasure was palpable, changing from the pleasured surprise of earlier with a shift to rival the material with which Mephistopheles was apparently described. “Indeed. And Óðinn told me of you. The clever one. The Conduit. Careful, girl~ You needn’t dig too deeply, lest the abyss you find there stare back into you~! But yes. I am the Apostle Mephistopheles the Joyous Herald, of the Four Fiends.”
“The Four Fiends?”
“Indeed,” bit out the jester, still making their grossly exaggerated gestures, the overblown nature of them making the human motions seem alien and otherworldly, unsettling, like an imperfect imitation, utterly devoid of any context or authenticity. “The offices given to the greatest Apostles of our unborn god. The Herald, the Retainer, the Knight, and the Shepherd. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. There are others of our number, but theirs are the lower offices, and they are not to be burdened with the full scope of our Dark Divinity’s grand design. They have not the vision to comprehend their part in it, nor the faith to see it through to the end of their own agency. We are but emblems of treachery, and ours is the sacred task to unite the voices of our profaned brethren, and raise them up that our Prince might become quick, that the black sun’s bloody dawn might give shape to our hopes and dreams and prayers.
“Save in the nocturnal embrace of our Sunderer of Heaven, we are vermin, cast out, mistrusted, abhorred. Ours is the heritage that shall claim back the skies, and through our god shall our shackles be shattered. We shall rise from our warrens and lairs in all the deep and unseen places of the earth and walk abroad, revelling in the new order.”
“What do you want with her.”
It took everyone looking to her, including Mephistopheles, for Ástríðr to realise those words, icy and fraught with murder, had escaped from her lips, had found voice through her lungs and were now hanging in the air between them.
“The Stormfury asks, and this humble Herald shall answer: nothing,” said the jester, and if not for the profound sincerity of their tone and the air around them, a much better indicator of this Apostle’s mood than the expressions on their face, Ástríðr would have assumed deception or mockery of some kind. “Simply that. I wish nothing of her. I wished only to see with my own eyes how the Beautiful Lady, Shade of Night that she is, was blossoming, lit in the light of the moon and lashed by the winds of the storm that rages high on the mountaintop. And, despite my original admonition, I was by no means disappointed. As I have said, I am but a humble Herald, and it shall fall to me to impart unto thee and thine thy next appointed steps in this grand dance, this great wheeling of the indifferent stars on high, and the remote worlds that pay them their ephemeral tribute. I simply thought it might make my task something of a simpler undertaking if we were acquainted before the next act comes to the stage.”
“Want me to kill ‘em?” Kagura asked, though none too subtly. The jester merely checked their sharp nails, as though examining whether their colour was fading, and did not respond.
“No, you moron,” Kyomi snapped. “You’d die!”
“An astute observation, Conduit. You are correct! Doing me harm is a task that is very far beyond any of your currently limited means,” Mephistopheles supplied affably, turning over in midair until they rested on their stomach, their head propped up with one hand while the other reached forth and toyed with a strand of Katsumi’s hair with the very end of their index nail. She might as well have been made of stone from how she reacted. “But the appointed time is coming, oh yes, it’s coming! And it will be here sooner than you think.”
The words registered on some level, but Ástríðr might as well have been hearing them underwater. Irrational rage surged forth within her, and her hand lashed out to seize the clown’s hand. “Don’t. Touch. Her.”
The playful charge the air had taken tensed to a fever pitch as Mephistopheles looked at her, and though their face was unchanged, there was a distinct sense of her hair standing on end, as though death approached, unseen though deeply felt, from just out of the corner of her eye.
“There was an old order of meddlers in the past who thought they could twist the cycle of the heavens of their own will, to drag the machinations of the gods into their favour. Fools one and all though they were, they had one particular practise known as the gom jabbar. It seems like a lesson that it would serve you well to learn, o Stormfury,” the jester said lightly, though the feeling heightened until it felt as though someone was sharpening a dagger with a whetstone right next to her ear.
Katsumi hooked her hand around Ástríðr’s and pulled the elf’s grip down, away from the self-proclaimed Herald’s wrist. “Point. Taken.”
“Is it, now? Well, that’s just golly grand, now isn’t it?” chuckled Mephistopheles, rising from their prone position and into a posture that didn’t seem physically possible within the constraints of leverage and gravity. Then they sighed, waving the band of five away. “But I digress. All this work, tricking the orcs and the tengu to work together… Eh. I suppose I’ve only got myself to blame. This silly little cave-mine-thing is clear. You can go ahead and head on back. I’ve seen what I needed to.”