Yelena
The ‘outside’ world of the catacombs was just as alien as its interior. An ethereal breeze wafted through the air of the massive cavern they emerged into, bathed in an azure light not dissimilar to the sconces they’d seen in the shrine room. Then, their eyes adjusting to the presence of the otherworldly light, they saw that it was not stalagmites that jutted out from the ground in uneven formations throughout the cavern, but buildings – the remnants of a city.
Then the dark letters of the Everloft’s notification chimed in the back of their skulls:
-Bhashera, Forgotten City-
Marius whistled to see the sight. It looked like, for once, even his tongue was tied.
“Forgotten,” Yelena mouthed.
“It is being so,” the Red-Woman said as Edna nuzzled up to her arm. “Once this is being great capital of the First Layer, now reduced to nothing.”
“I suppose you will tell me the Argents are to blame for its destruction,” Yelena said.
Marius looked between the two women, saying nothing, eyes wide like those of a schoolboy inspecting a scrap between two friends.
“They are being the final nail in the coffin,” the Red-Woman replied. “But it is the Nether Ones who claim this place, first. Ida’Mallok. What you are calling ‘Voidspawn’”
“Then we have at least one common enemy,” Yelena replied. “I have killed only Voidspawn since I was a child, and I will continue to do so. You have my word on that.”
The priestess of flame regarded the Argent with curiosity before turning away towards the city and pointing towards the spire of a dilapidated church.
“There,” she stated.
Both Thief and Guardian looked at the building – unremarkable. Broken. Nothing dissimilar from the rest of the sorry scene.
“That’s where we’re headed?” Marius asked.
She nodded curtly and simply began walking, her eyes unblinking, towards their target.
“The Lightbringer,” she said, moving like a sleepwalker through the shadowed gateway to the city.
“I think that was a yes,” Marius whispered, and with a gruff nod of her own by way of affirmation, Yelena followed their guide with Marius into another plane unbeknownst.
The buildings were like the dark gravestones of a forgotten era. Yelena noted no similarities between them and the shanty huts that comprised the village on the outskirts of Caer Akris above. Indeed, these dwellings seemed more advanced – the tell-tale signs of gothic architecture adorning their stained-glass windows, frescos, and grisly statues that once hung from the rafters of their roofs. These statues – of dog-men standing tall and proud with various armaments – now littered the cold, empty streets.
“I dunno about you two,” Marius said, more to break the uncomfortable silence than anything else. “But this place looks like a prime spot for looting.”
“You may want to check yourself,” Yelena replied, stopping the group with a raised gauntlet. “These ruined homes seem to have occupants.”
She was talking about the beast she had just spotted chewing on something within the rubble of what looked like blown-out shop front – a little sign that may have once boasted of trade goods or groceries lying smashed to pieces by the crumbling entrance to the building.
The reptilian creature looked up, its mouth dripping with the entrails of its prey, and issued a low snarl to the new invaders of its realm. Its tail rattled like a snake’s in warning, and only when her eyes lingered on that particular limb did she see that it was a scorpion’s stinger attached to the back end of the beast – like some freakish amalgamation of lizard and insect.
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Morphology: Scorpirex
HP: 6/35
Marius’ knives were out before anyone said a thing and he dropped to a crouch. making ready to take the vicious mutant down. Only then did the party become aware of what it was chewing on – the rotten carcass of one of its own.
“No,” Yelena said.
Marius' eyes shot to meet hers, and he was surprised to find not fury there, but pity.
“Yelena, you’re – what? – ten EXP from the next level? And you know what that means: Attribute points, baybee. Here’s Big Daddy ‘Loft giving us a free helping of EXP on a silver platter. What’s the deal?”
She met his stare without knowing what to say. In truth, it was not the pangs of sympathy in her own heart that stayed her hand, but the look of the Red-Woman as she watched the creature with a look of sorrow.
Sorrow – for Voidspawn?
Didn’t she just say it was these beasts that had corrupted her home?
Yelena needed to know more. And for that, her sword would not serve her. Words would. Listening would.
“Remember, Marius,” she said. “I made a promise: to listen.”
She was listening, now. She was listening to the dream in her own heart – to be what her Order trained her to be, no matter what had happened to the people here due to their conquest. Due to Jael…
Killing more beasts of this woman’s home would do nothing to endear her to her. Sure, the thing looked like it deserved death, but at that judgmental thought another voice in her head suddenly broke through to make itself heard:
Didn’t plenty judge you for being what you are? For your skin? For your heritage? For the curse baked into your very bones?
Yes, she thought. They did. And the only reason I wasn’t thrown into a spit and roasted alive up there was because one dumb mutt took pity on me.
Dimedrious…
“Look at this beast, Marius,” she finally said, responding to his confused stare. “It brooks no threat to us. Its eyes are the eyes of a dying animal – not of a predator.”
“Looks pretty damn similar to me,” he chuckled. But he sheaved his blade, much to her surprise, and sighed again. “I ain’t gonna go against you, though. Long as you don’t bat an eyelid at my thieving ways, I’ll leave the long necks alone.”
Yelena looked at the Red-Woman who just shrugged, uncaring.
“It cannot be helped,” she said, shaking her head at Edna. “A Thief chosen by the Everloft must be doing what he was born to do.”
Marius grinned like a kid in a candy store, and for the remainder of their journey towards the broken church, he kept himself at the rear, whistling nonchalantly whenever Yelena turned her gaze toward him, with always a few more gems glittering in his pockets.
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They made camp in the shadow of a dilapidated house as night fell above, the Red-Woman having repeated her warning about the increasing dangers posed by the dark.
“Won’t the beasts that dwell in this place hunt us?” Yelena asked.
“There is no needing to worry,” she replied, stroking Edna’s horned face. “They are licking their wounds.”
“From battle?”
“From battle,” the Red-Woman confirmed.
They were huddled round their campfire together, Marius having long since ran off to pilfer the forgotten remains of yet another destroyed shop.
Yelena stared at her toes before the bonfire. The cries of the creatures she heard outside were not the sounds of predators on the prowl – they was, somehow, a sadness in every call that belched from their scaled throats and echoed through the dead city.
“They sound sad,” Yelena said, unprompted.
The Red-Woman regarded her strangely, as though expecting there to be some deeper meaning behind her words.
“They have lost their Brothers and Sisters,” the Red-Woman said, absent-mindedly petting the giant beetle beside her, who rolled onto her belly like a dog and demanded more scratches on its onyx carapace.
She was right. They’d seen several other members of this Scorpirex brood on their journey through the ruins. All of them torn to shreds. Others were on the brink of death, being nursed by their peers, who paid the passing travelers little heed.
“Thank you,” she said, and Yelena found herself almost overcome with shock to hear the words uttered by her.
“For your mercy,” she explained, returning her gaze to the burning logs between them. “It is not a trait I have known the Argents to be having.”
Yelena didn’t respond. She did nothing but offer the woman a subtle, restrained smile. She didn’t want a resident of this place to hate her. For the first time in her life, she was talking to a being that could live in this place – a human being that had made her home here and managed to survive, even if it was under the claws of that wretched bird.
“It is a sad thing,” she continued. “These creatures were not born with hate in their hearts. And yet, the Ida’Mallok have made them their instruments. They have made them tools for evil.”
Yelena stiffened, being careful not to pry too far: “Aren’t these creatures the Ida’Mallok? I have never known a peaceful Voidspawn.”
“No,” the Red-Woman hissed back. Then, softer: “No. Your Voidspawn are coming from the surface. They are coming here to make this world evil.”
Yelena stared at her through the fire, unblinking.
“All evil,” the Red-Woman stated. “It comes from the surface. From Averix.”
The irony of this statement, and the Red-Woman’s searing hatred for Yelena’s home, struck the Argent warrior more than any blow she’d weathered so far.
And suddenly, like a key being turned in her mind, it all clicked into place.
“The Magisters,” she said, and the way she said it snapped the Red-Woman to attention. “The Old masters of the Glance. It’s them – isn’t it?”
Slowly, with a growing sense of confusion, the Red-Woman nodded. And a whole new fear entered Yelena’s heart.
“But you came from the surface too, did you not?” she asked. “Were you a prisoner or an adventurer seeking her fortune?”
And just as Yelena feared, the Red-Woman simply shook her head, facing her now with a growing sense of pity.
“How - ” Yelena began, meeting the Red-Woman’s unblinking stare with totally new eyes. “How long have you been here?”
And the response that came, spoken with the searing knife of truth, cut to her core.
“Since the beginning.”