Tristan d’Etrona, wiped soot from his eyes as he stumbled over to the wall of a nearby building and allowed his legs to collapse under him. He slid to the ground, back pressed against the wall and took in the devastation laid out before him. Across the street from where he now sat was the ruin of one of Altria’s largest public buildings, the grand cathedral of Astraea itself, a building that had served as both a house of worship and a courthouse. Now it was a half collapsed and flaming ruin.
Tristan had been inside the building when the disaster had begun. His charge had been a young man on trial for petty theft. Tristan had verified the man’s guilt himself, but had accompanied him to his trial to recommend a sentence of conscription. Justice demanded penance for his crime, but the boy had been stealing to feed his sickly parents and younger sister. Some time serving in the legions would have given the boy a steady income and training in a useful tradeskill.
All that didn’t matter now. His charge was dead, struck down by whatever force had destroyed the cathedral. Tristan had been standing just a few meters away when it happened. The first to fall was the bishop himself, sitting on his dias in judgment over the accused. The roof of the cathedral had shattered, raining debris on all those gathered beneath it. Tristan had watched in stunned horror as a streak of red light slammed into the bishop, sending him and his stone chair tumbling off the back of the dias. Then in rapid succession two more streaks of red light slammed into the shocked petitioners. One of those had struck Tristan’s charge, and the force of the blow had sent the boy sprawling at Tristan’s feet.
The next several minutes were a blur to Tristan, but when he’d stopped moving long enough to process what was happening, he had found himself kicking open a side exit to the cathedral, the body of his charge draped over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Tristan had carried the boy out to the street where priests of Astraea were gathering to treat the wounded. He’d left the boy with them, though he knew it was meaningless. The boy’s head had been cracked open and he could see his deformed and shattered skull under all the blood.
Tristan looked down at his shaking hands, willing them to steady. He had thought himself beyond the point of succumbing to battle shock, but this attack, whatever it was, had come out of nowhere. It had caught him off guard.
Closing his eyes, Tristan used a trick that had served him well for much of his life. He envisioned himself as he was now, a man barely thirty, but with the weight of years laid upon him like a blanket. His black hair had started going prematurely gray years ago, matching the color of his eyes. His clothes were standard issue, a steel cuirass with the symbol of Astraea embossed upon it worn over a padded gambeson. They were torn and burnt now, but earlier in the day they had been pristine.
Tristan took the shaky, beaten, and broken version of himself he saw in his mind’s eye and placed it to one side. Then he painstakingly constructed a new version of himself to stand beside it. This new Tristan was battered but unbroken, injured but in command, and most of all standing on his feet and ready to act.
With an effort of sheer will Tristan stepped out of the image of himself as he was now, and became the version of himself he had just constructed in his mind. As he did so, he forced himself back to his feet, and when he took his first step forward he had become the man he needed to be.
“Arbiter!” A priest called out, catching sight of Tristan as he moved back towards the cathedral.
Tristan came to a halt and acknowledged the man. “Yes? What is it? I was about to begin searching for more survivors in the building.”
“It’s the man you brought us, Arbiter.” The priest told him, seeming flustered. “Please, come with me. You should see this.”
Tristan began to follow the frazzled priest as he made his way to the cathedral’s courtyard where the injured were being treated. “I understand if his wounds were too great…” He trailed off as they drew up on a small congregation of priests gathered around the body of Tristan’s charge.
“It’s not that,” The priest said. “The boy is still alive, by the grace of the goddess, but look here.” The priests gathered around the boy stepped back to give Tristan room, and he knelt down to get a closer look. The boy’s head had been cleaned of blood, and healing had been applied to his cracked skull, however something was still wrong with his forehead. For a moment Tristan couldn’t parse what he was looking at. “Is that a ruby?” He asked one of the priests.
“No, Arbiter. It is a red gemstone, yes, but I believe it to be a soul gem, not a ruby.” The priest knelt down and pushed back the boy’s hair with one hand. Then put a finger on the gemstone embedded in his forehead. After a moment it began to glow with the same red light Tristan had seen during the destruction of the cathedral. The priest withdrew his hand and the glow quickly faded.
“Can you not remove it?” Tristan asked.
The priest shook his head. “Soul gems are highly magical, capable of storing enchantments of incredible power. When we healed his young man the gem was not forced out from his body as it should have been. Instead the wound sealed around it, incorporating the gem into his flesh.”
“What does that mean?” Tristan questioned the man. “I’ve seen healing remove shrapnel before. Why not this? Is whatever enchantment it carries preventing healing?”
“I don’t fully know. Healing restores the body to the state the spirit believes it should be. That is why healing cannot cure aging, nor will it heal a piercing or tattoo. The spirit does not believe these things to be injuries, they are part of the spirit’s identity and so any healing done will only reinforce their presence. In this case it seems as though this boy’s spirit has accepted this gemstone as part of its mortal body, but I could not tell you if it is through magic or some natural response to the trauma he has been through.”
Tristan considered this for a moment. “Can you wake him? I would ask him about what he is experiencing.”
The priest shook his head again. “I’m afraid not. Whatever is happening to him seems to have placed him in a state of suspended animation. If you hold your hand to his mouth and nose you’ll find that he isn’t breathing. The only reason we know he is alive is because his spirit is still present and attached to his body.”
Another priest stepped forward, and Tristan recognized him as an Inquisitor. “Arbiter, what my colleague has not mentioned is that magic that affects the spirit is almost always the domain of necromancy or the blackest sort of enchantment. Changes to a man’s spirit can change their entire identity. It’s not quite as bad as soul magic, but since souls are inviolate to all but daemons the spirit is often a target for those who would cause others to commit terrible acts on their behalf. We must take this boy into custody and isolate him, for his own protection as well as ours. He may be involved in the attack here.”
Tristan rose and addressed the inquisitor. “He was not involved with the attack. I brought him here today myself, and he was only one of three struck down by flashes of red light that broke through the cathedral’s ceiling. The first struck was the bishop himself, and I find it unlikely that he would be involved in any attack against the church.”
The inquisitor shook his head. “This is grave news, but you misunderstand. I believe this attack has not yet concluded. Whatever was done to this boy changed him, it may be controlling him, we must secure him until we can be sure he poses no danger…” The inquisitor cut off as the gemstone in the boy’s head began to glow once more, this time without anyone touching it.
For a brief moment the stone glowed as bright as a noonday sun, then it was gone as abruptly as it had begun. When the light faded Tristan’s sword was already in his hand, anticipating some new threat. However, at first it seemed that the only thing that had happened was the disappearance of the gemstone from the boy’s head, as if it had converted itself into light and vanished as quickly as it had come.
Then they all watched in horror as the boy’s body began to shift and contort grotesquely. His flesh melted from his bones and a cry of “Necromancy!” went up from the assembled priests, but then new flesh began to grow, bones cracked and shifted, and when the process was complete a completely different man lay on the ground before them, a man with dark red skin and thick horns protruding from his forehead. As they watched, this new man opened his eyes and blinked up at them. “Um. Hello there.” He said.
“The nature of our enemy is revealed, it seems.” The Inquisitor said, readying a spell of abjuration. “Arbiter, The Adversary has sent one of his agents to test us. We must dispatch him before he can bring greater calamity down on us.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Tristan was inclined to agree with the Inquisitor’s assessment. This was obviously some machination of the god of evil. With a thought he filled himself with the light of justice, causing silver fire to run down the blade of his sword.
At his feet the devilkin’s eyes widened and he began to stammer out a protest, but they were all interrupted by a crash from the ruined cathedral. “WHY THE FUCK DID THEY START ME IN A BURNING BUILDING?!” a thunderous voice roared. Another crash quickly followed the first, and a moment later a chunk of wood and stone came flying out of the wreckage, exploding against the cobblestone street on impact and sending bystanders running in terror. “IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE? ROLL A CHARACTER WITH VULNERABILITY TO FIRE AND YOUR SPAWN POINT IS A BURNING BUILDING? THAT SHIT HURTS! I HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN A CHANCE TO ADJUST MY SETTINGS YET!”
This last tirade was punctuated by several thuds, and by the time the voice had finished its complaint, one of the remaining walls of the cathedral exploded outwards in a shower of broken stone and wooden beams. Out of the hole crawled a troll twice the height of a man. It blinked at the shocked audience gathered before it. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ALL LOOKING AT?” It bellowed at them.
Tristan had seen trolls before. Altria was a frontier city built between a mountain range to the east and a vast forest to the west, and both stone trolls and forest trolls were known to wander the wilderness outside its gates. They were a type of giant, a variety connected deeply with the land they lived on. They were also incredibly violent, territorial, and barely qualified as sentient.
Tristan had never before heard one speak, and if asked he would have said they were incapable of more than grunts. He wasn’t sure what to think about this foul-mouthed specimen.
His choices were quickly taken from him as the Inquisitor released the spell he’d begun casting. Not against the devilkin who was still cowering at the point of Tristan’s sword, but against the already angry stone troll that had just arrived in their midst. Purifying fire exploded from the inquisitor’s open palm, bathing the troll in white hot flames. The creature screamed in outrage and pain, and Tristan watched in horror as it ripped another section of wall away with its bare hands, and threw it at the offending priest.
Whether he was blinded by fire or simply a poor shot, the troll’s attack missed the inquisitor, instead plowing into the group of healer priests standing nearby. Tristan cursed, then began to move. With one hand he began casting a spell even as he swung his sword around in a burning arc for the troll’s leg.
Though his instructor in swordcraft had preferred to use two weapons, Tristan had always preferred the flexibility of a one-handed style. Unlike normal skills, spells required at least one hand free to perform the gestures required to activate them, so even though dual wielders could attack faster and use their extra blade to deflect blows, they weren’t able to use spells in combat.
There were other styles of course, heavy weapons and shield users had their own techniques, but before Tristan had become one of Astraea’s Arbiters he’d trained in the royal guard under a master of their unique class, Blade of the Zephyr. It was a class focused on blinding bursts of speed, the sort of speed you’d need to stop an assassin from reaching their target. Though Tristan was no longer a member of the guard he hadn’t forgotten that training, in fact he’d adapted it to his new calling.
That’s why when Tristan moved, the sudden violence of his acceleration caused a small shockwave that only caught up to him after his sword had passed completely through the meaty part of the troll’s leg. Tristan let his momentum carry him past the troll, then he released the spell he’d been preparing.
Strength flooded into Tristan as the spell took effect. Balance of Power was not a spell you were intended to use on yourself, it was supposed to be for empowering a weaker combatant, and it was one of the Arbiter classes signature abilities. Tristan had found a secondary use for it due to his build being so lopsided as all of his stats suddenly became the average of his highest and lowest score.
Tristen brought his sword around in a blazing arc. He had little doubt in his ability to defeat this creature, to his knowledge only two people in Altria could hold their own against him in a fight. However Tristan was sure that The Adversary would not have sent minions that were incapable of harming him, and there was still the devilkin to consider.
Twin booms echoed off the buildings of the cathedral district for a moment, leaving silence in their wake. Tristan stood there, stunned. When his sword had made contact with the troll the creature had exploded. There was no other word for it. Tristan hadn’t even felt any resistance as his sword bisected the creature, only for it to be torn apart by the shockwave a moment later.
He looked at his combat log in confusion, trying to figure out what had happened. Surely an agent of The Adversary couldn’t be so weak? Stone trolls were known for their strength and toughness, but Tristan’s log only made sense if it was so much lower level than him that his attacks had completely bypassed any defenses it had.
He looked up to the sound of hushed whispers from the onlookers. The skills Tristan had just used would have revealed his identity to anyone that knew of him. He was the only living Arbiter that had also trained as a royal guardsman, so there was no room to deny it.
His brief time of peace in this remote posting had come to an end, and it hadn’t even been necessary. Why would The Adversary have sent such a weak force to attack them? Was this just a distraction?
The whispers were cut short as a rain of green blood and chunks of troll began to fall in the streets outside. Tristan waited for it to end, then stepped out of the cathedral ruins and approached the inquisitor. The priest had gone down on hands and knees, supplicating himself.
Tristan sighed and reached down to lift the man up. “Get on your feet, there’s no need for that.”
The visibly shaken inquisitor latched onto his arm like a lifeline, “Redeemer, forgive me, I did not know you were in Altria.”
Tristan shook the man off. “There is nothing to forgive, I did not announce myself when I arrived. Now get up and assist your fellow priests. Many were injured in the attack.”
Dismissing the man from his mind, Tristan turned to face the man who truly interested him. The devilkin who had replaced Tristan’s charge had managed to climb to his feet in the time it had taken for Tristan to slay the troll, but strangely he had made no attempt to flee. Tristan had been expecting to need to chase the man down, so this was a curious development.
Seeing that Tristan’s attention was on him, the man grinned and made a strange gesture with his thumb.
“Dude, that was awesome. Like something out of an anime! I’d ask if I could learn it but I’m more of a mage type, you know?” As he spoke he wiggled his fingers in Tristan’s direction.
Tristan’s blade was at the man’s throat before he could blink, the wind generated by his movement stirred the man’s hair a moment later–about the same time he was successfully able to gulp.
“If you attempt to cast a spell, I will remove your hands. Do you understand?” Tristan asked him.
“Woah dude, chill out! We’re cool, I’m not going to do anything.”
Tristan could barely understand the man’s strange dialect, but he was confident that his point had been understood. “Good. You are under arrest. If you come quietly and make no trouble I will guarantee your safety.”
“Under arrest? What the hell for? I just started playing!” The man protested.
A new voice rang out before Tristan could answer. “Indeed Arbiter… On what charge do you arrest this man?”
Tristan turned to see who had spoken. A new priest had entered the courtyard, but where the priests of Astraea wore white robes, this man wore robes the color of darkest night. A priest of The Adversary had come to the halls of justice. Tristan inwardly groaned.
“My client is well within his rights to know what he is charged with.” The priest said. “As you well know.”
“Advocate.” Tristan acknowledged the priest. “This is an active crime scene, I must insist that you retreat to safety, or assist the other priests with healing the wounded. If you wish to represent this man I will ensure that you are sent for when the situation is under control.”
“I will go, but you will release this man into my custody so I may inform him of his rights under The Law. I will give his parole.” Said the advocate, humoring Tristan with a small unconcerned smile.
Tristan managed to resist the urge to grind his teeth. This was an unwinnable situation and both of them knew it. Tristan needed to cut his losses and approach this from a different direction. “Very well. I trust you can deliver him to jail once you have advised him. I will present formal charges at my earliest ability, but for now he is to be held as a person of interest in this attack.”
Tristan held up a hand to cut off the advocate’s protest before he could voice it. “Further, this man began the day as a ward in my custody, duly convicted and awaiting sentencing. Many things I do not understand have occurred in the last hour but before he can be released we must confirm his identity as I myself saw his appearance change before my very eyes. I swear these things are true and not intended to mislead by my oath as Arbiter.”
The priest’s mouth snapped shut. He had no doubt been about to protest his client’s imprisonment with no charges yet levied, but Tristan’s attestation that the man was already a convict had forestalled that argument. The advocate could only nod and motion for his client to follow him as Tristan turned away from the pair.
He had no worries that the priest of The Adversary would fulfill his legal duty, their god was the god of Law after all, and while Law and Justice were far from the same thing the two faiths worked together constantly, with the priests of The Adversary serving as lawyers in the courts overseen by the priests of Astraea in their capacity as judges. Together the two faiths did their best to ensure that the law was followed and justice was done, but it didn’t stop Tristan from being annoyed by their obsessive adherence to the word of the law rather than its spirit.
Tristan put it from his mind. He’d already decided on a new course of action. Without further hesitation he walked back into the ruined cathedral, in search of the third person who’d been struck down by a flash of red light.