“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
― Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom
The girls departed the classroom amid the chatter from the others leaving with them. Vivienne performed a mock bow and quickly caught up to them dragging her brother along. “How was it for you?”
Alea shrugged. “As expected I suppose.”
Alyssa smiled.
Mireille was pensive. “Is it a bad sign that I’m not completely pessimistic?”
“Were you not very pessimistic on Monday? So take it as a good omen.” Alyssa tried to cheer her up.
As the group of friends walked down the corridor other students chatted around them, some overtaking them because Alea was not a very fast walker. Light from outside painted their shadows on the walls.
Many students kept their distance because of Alyssa and her fairly bad reputation. One of the more brash girls discussing Alyssa’s demerits in earshot got a warning look from Vivienne, closed her mouth, and found she had an urgent need to be somewhere else.
Mireille gazed at the scene in interest. “Could you look at me like you did that girl? It is fascinating that you can scare someone with your cute face. Is there a trick to it?”
Vivienne snorted and shook her head. “The ones that are so obvious are not the ones you should be concerned about. Going with the flow, doing what others do only louder and more visible is not the mark of a courageous person. Bullies of opportunity. If there is the slightest resistance they will look for softer targets.”
Valens subconsciously nodded along with that before stopping and taking a step behind his sister.
Alyssa grabbed Mireille and hooked her arm through hers. “Don’t dwell on it.” As she saw her skeptical look she added a bit embarrassedly, “I will try to heed my own advice.”
The weather had cleared for the moment and the snow was slowly melting, leaving only shaded spots on the meadow with a sprinkling of ice.
“So much for it remaining snowy!” Mireille complained.
“Divination is an inexact art and more useful for broader predictions. Who can say what the next days will bring.” Alea took it all in stride.
“We will not be going to the townhouse this weekend?” Alyssa asked to confirm their planning.
“I don’t think going there would be a good idea.” Alea shook her head.
After they had entered the mensa the sky slowly became dark again and snowflakes began to drift from above.
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After sundown in the Golden Cockerel
The barkeeper grinned as he saw the small figure enter the taproom. Snowflakes fell from the cloak covering the girl and left small dark spots on the wooden planks as they melted. The crowd was more subdued and it was less busy than usual and only some of the older men looked at Vanessa in disapproval. The cold weather and the snow made travel less attractive and most of the patrons nursed their ale while keeping to their own business.
He gave the towel he was using to dry the recently washed mug a twist and then set it down again. Green eyes flashed in his direction before the small girl sat down at her usual table. Shortly afterward a tall woman with snake-folk features and one of their exotic curved swords at the hip entered and decisively walked to the table seating the cloaked elf girl.
“Clarisse, can you man the bar alone for a moment? I have to use the restroom.”
A pretty brunette with a slim build nodded amicably. “It’s slow going today. No problem, take your time.” She flashed him a smile.
Nodding his thanks he walked into the back putting the towel on a shelf and exited through the backdoor into the yard. A cold wind blew snowflakes across the recently frozen muck. A horse whinnied from the stables.
After looking around carefully he stood in a shadowed corner and pulled a small crystal tablet from his belt pouch. After injecting a bit of magic into the runes that glowed with liquid silver fire a small sparrow coalesced.
“Gerald here, I have seen a small elf girl in the company of a snake-woman. Seems to fit the description. They are in the common room at the moment. If they do it like the usual they will head to a private room and probably leave shortly afterward.”
The sparrow sped away and was soon lost in the gloom and snow.
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In a room in the upper story of the inn.
Iseret looked at Vanessa and both gave a nod. The rapport between them was a beautiful thing to behold even though the vampire girl was very cautious about trusting fully.
Without another word they got up and left by the window, the lazily drifting snow obscuring their departing forms. Shortly after they left the door was silently opened and a serving girl bearing a tray of food and drink entered before gasping with a bit of exaggeration and saying “Oh, false room! I am sooo sorry.” But her acting went to waste as only the open window and a slowly swinging windowpane showed that there had been anyone here before.
Running over the rooftops Vanessa had to slow down for Iseret to keep up but the difference was not as great as it should have been as gusts of wind propelled her forward with unnatural speed.
They stopped on the copper-plated roof of a mansion while waiting for a particularly alert patrol to pass.
“Are you alright? This weather should be a problem with cold-blooded people.” Vanessa looked at Iseret with a bit of worry.
“I have made preparations but I would be lying if I say it is nothing much.” Iseret rubbed her arms and pulled the cloak tighter around her figure. Her breath steamed in the cold wind. “This weather seems a bit unnatural, don’t you think?”
Vanessa rubbed her pointed chin and sighed. “It has been so many years, why does SHE have to become so active all of a sudden.”
“I can guess whom you mean and must concur. The city of broken ivory has slumbered and only the most perfunctory attempts at ruling have made Ulsolm a nation rather than a stretch of wilderness.”
Vanessa nodded and spoke a short spell, both of them became shrouded in a fine haze of mist. It would not do much if seen from nearby but from a distance, it would obscure their shape and whereabouts.
“Thank you,” Iseret said politely. “Shall we continue? We should not keep them waiting.” A smile flashed across her lips.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
And then they were off again.
Shortly afterward, they entered the northern dockyard district and made their way towards a dilapidated and aged part of the quarter, more so than usual, that is. Smoke mingled with the falling snow, the rumble of machinery strangely muted. They went past great windows of dirtied glass behind which glow lamps shone like fading fires, feeble and distorted. 'This unseasonal frost will kill a lot of people. I will look to the temple of Meloris when I am free.' Vanessa thought.
The area they were entering had slowly fallen to ruin after the drowning plague. It was rumored that the most serious outbreak had originated here, in this formerly prosperous plaza. And it was not only superstition that kept the wealth from reinvigorating the fallen businesses. Nothing but illness and despair seemed to flourish here. A great statue of Ielenia stood in the center, arms, as well as a pair of wings, spread wide while icicles hung from her lowered head as if her tears had frozen.
The goal that Vanessa and Iseret had set for themselves this evening was seemingly a backyard laboratory very important in the supply chain for the Bluestone but they had been planning to exploit the opportunity for more.
“There they are. You take the right, I take the left? Do we have a second for an illusion?” Vanessa’s whispered voice reached Iseret over the humming of the wind.
“I would prefer quickness over finesse in this situation. Yes, I will go right.”
The entrance was set into the side of an old burned-out building, leading into a cellar. Beside the entrance sat an old man playing with some knucklebones. Farther down the sideroad and well hidden in the shadows to both sides were groups of thugs, waiting for them. Directly before the entrance was a small plaza with a shattered fountain.
One of the thugs manning his post in one of the alleys leading away from the laboratory leaned around the mound of broken masonry covered by snow he was hiding behind before another of his brethren pulled him back sharply while whispering, “You will give us away. Wait for the old geezer to croak, and then we will attack. He even has the signal charm.”
“I know, but it’s cold and boring. Hiding, my ass! All of us together is overkill anyway.” As he got no response, he turned around and asked, “Right?”
The one that he had been talking to was in the process of slowly sliding down the wall to the side, a big red stain spreading on his breast.
From the other side of the plaza, a cry of pain could be heard, followed by vigorous cursing and loud shouting. “We have been discovered! Attack!”
Vanessa sprang back as the now alerted thug hacked at her with a heavy cleaving knife. In the background, an older woman with sooty dirt caking her features spoke a short spell, and blistering flames shot from her fingerless gloves, spiraling towards the vampire. Her cloak flared and showed simple but sturdy leather armor.
The alley was perhaps two and a half meters across and largely blocked by fallen masonry and trash. The thugs stationed here consisted of Gloomskulls and some mercenaries swaddled in dark cloaks against detection and the cold. Gleaming implements of mayhem sprouted from many hands as a group consisting of around a dozen members went on the attack. Three of them had perished in the first seconds of combat.
On the other side, Iseret danced among the other group of surprised malcontents drawing arcs of red with each slash of her khopesh. But being only mortal, not all of the red fluid staining the ground was from her enemies. A deep gash in her side, thankfully mitigated by her armor, bled freely while two hedge witches tried their best to kill her using conjured blasts of sharp rocks and a whip made of wind respectively.
The fire sorceress on Vanessa’s side spoke commanding words and several orbs of fire formed above her shoulders and began to morph into a birdlike form akin to a hawk. The small girl jumped forward evading a slash from a saber wielded by a one-eyed brute grinning with gold-capped teeth. She opened her small mouth wider than seemed possible biting into the neck of a Gloomskull wielding knife-studded knuckle-dusters. With a sickening crunch, her teeth crushed his windpipe and blood spurted into the night air steaming in the cold. Drops of the precious fluid carved abstract designs into the dirty snow.
“NOW!”
Chanting filled the air as several figures robed in dark red suddenly raised themselves from their hiding spots around the alleys and the laboratory. Dark red fluid danced between their hands and rose from barrels placed strategically around the location. Runes flickered and stabilized as walls of magical force enclosed the area.
Hawks formed of blazing fire shot forth and Vanessa dodged between the stone enclosing the alley jumping from one wall to the other higher and higher while the flames adjusted their course with beating wings.
Cackling with pyromaniac delight the sorceress directed the birds of prey with sweeping gestures before a knife coated with some dark substance flew from Vanessa’s hand into her throat. Gagging and stumbling the fire-hawks began to explode in a parody of celebratory fireworks.
Dark forms rose from the barrels and for a moment a complex latticework of bloody runes shimmered around the area rising high into the sooty air.
Iseret prayed, “Many-as-one, great goddess hear my plea- fill this vessel with your divine gift. Let the night flow through my teeth and coat my arms that it may anoint your foes in deserved pain.”
Dark poison gushed from Iserets venom teeth that grew in size to resemble those of Kadira and her khopesh began to drip with black syrupy fluid.
Nicked by her blade the thug she hit began to scream as the flesh dissolved from where it had been cut.
The door to the laboratory was violently thrown open and several men and women wearing tattered robes of once expensive design dashed outside. Their eyes were glowing with an eerie dark-red light and lips were drawn back from elongated and pointed teeth. What humanity they once had lost in maddened bloodlust and strange mutation.
‘They have realized our intent to bait and then overwhelm an ambush. That looks...bad.’ Vanessa stood above the cautiously defending mercenaries and saw one of the ghoulish figures fresh to the fight clamber up the wall to her right with the speed and jerky movements of a spider. It's fingers ended in dark bony claws.
With a gesture and a spell, a lance of ice shot forth from Vanessa’s hand and impaled the creature. Screeching -once upon a time it had been male – it scrabbled with both claws to extract the icicle which it finally managed. Meanwhile, the other seven creatures began to hunt for Iseret ignoring Vanessa for the time being.
“Keep them busy, I will summon aid.” Vanessa gestured and a whisper of thought reached Iseret who raised an eyebrow but nodded. Fighting for her life against the remaining thugs and mercenaries while the creatures in tattered robes circled she shrugged and intensified her efforts. Sparks flew where steel clashed with steel as the snake-woman spun and danced with supernatural grace. She spat some poisonous saliva at an inattentive mercenary that had tried to get behind her and stabbed another one as her erstwhile target screamed while parts of his face sloughed off.
Vanessa entered the building behind her and spoke dark, consonant-heavy words while she scratched and cut a runed circle into the still intact plaster of the wall ahead. Mildew-covered wooden boards creaked beneath her slight weight and it was the one time she thanked her small build. From outside howling and encouraging shouts could be heard. “Kill them, he who brings the head to Orpen will be rewarded beyond your imagination. Gold, power, slaves. Kill them!”
Vanessa's spell reached its climax and she spoke, “GHHERALXYAIR come, by the covenant and by my command, come. Feast on my enemies, rend their souls.”
The darkness thickened and for a moment it was all-encompassing. Even the eyes of a vampire failed to penetrate to gloom as a part of the black void shifted elongated and took on the form of a hunched creature near two dimensional in its absolute absorption of light. And then it flowed towards the window and vanished before a scream of tortured agony rent the night.
The ‘fiends’ as Iseret had dubbed the mutated, robed creatures were able to feel pain, but it seemed to only make them mad. And they shrugged off wounds that would have killed a man thrice over. Her poison was slow-acting on them and their flesh was oddly woodlike or perhaps as a corpse in rigor mortis inexact as the comparison to the scuttling beings was.
Deep wounds marred her upper legs and arms, some slashes had cut through her armor and blood flowed down her sides. If Vanessa did not come back quickly it would be all over for her. ‘Call me to the fields of reed and rushing water where the sun forever sets in endless dusk and the stars are gilded in red and gold.’ The Prayer for the Judged whispered through her clenched teeth as she whirled and cut another Gloomskull who screamed as the poison began to corrode his veins.
The shadow of the earth witch elongated and a hulking figure gently pulled his head off. Blood fountained into the night air and for a moment shock stilled the furious combat.
Then, as if the world had released a bated breath, the fight continued and Vanessa jumping from the first floor crashed into a group of mercenaries who had tried to keep in the background. Flashing claws of black ice scored metal plate and chain mail rings sprayed from the impact of her strikes.
“Ohohoho. Marvelous.” A clapping sound could be heard and an obese man in a cavalry officer's uniform slowly walked up the stairs leading into the laboratory below. His hands were adorned with all manner of rings and jewelry and each ‘clap’ jingled and clashed. Behind him, a gaunt figure with an eyeless cloth mask silently followed. Vadislav Orpen grinned broadly. “Men, each of you that lives gets ten gold pieces as a bonus. You have been such good sports. Then let us conclude this chapter in the ‘Rise of the glorious Orpen’ why won’t we?” And he laughed. The runes around the area flashed brightly and some began to distort and glow.
Vanessa looked startled and alarmed at that but shortly after furrowed her brows.
Vadislav looked surprised for a moment then fury distorted his features. “You will not steal what is mine, her blood, her soul, all is mine” Spittle sprayed with each word his canines protruded over his upper lips.
The runes shattered and floating in the sky hung three dark figures in the armored robes of the palace guard of Margrinar. Down below several knights followed by crossbowmen advanced in formation.