“Have you ever doubted the laws we are enforcing?” I ask.
My companion looks at me strangely.
“Your question is treading on dangerous waters, friend.”
Friend? He is evaluating my conduct as much as I am his. Given the amount of power we, the arbiters, received, it is only natural for us to observe each other, pairs changing periodically.
I simply shrug in an answer.
“I was young before the Overlord came to power, but I still remember this continent from before her rule. The nations tore in endless wars between themselves, monsters lurking in the forests. The death toll was much greater than nowadays. Yet sometimes, I believe, that people were more content with their lives back then, before the Overlord’s peace.”
“And their happiness ended whenever a power-hungry guild tried to gain more. Lands levelled, kingdoms destroyed as wizards' knowledge was used only to further their gains. You claim to remember those dark times and still consider revisiting them?
“No, my friend. The Overlord’s decrees and, by extension, our work, are the only things stopping the Realms from falling apart. If your memory is as good as you claim, better don’t forget about this.”
It's assuring to know there are still people honestly believing in our cause.
- Ion’s dream journal
“Yes!” Sarah screamed riding on Ion.
He watched as her breasts bounced rhythmically. Her long, flowing crimson hair was…
Wait! Wasn’t she blonde?
He looked up and saw that her face was shifting. What moment ago was Sarah’s changed into Sae’s and then again.
The girl seemed oblivious to this, at least until she noticed Ion’s expression.
“By the abyss! I messed up, hadn’t I?” Sae said, blinking with milky-white eyes.
Her whole body darkened as the hair started to fall from her head, which also changed, barely resembling human’s now. Ion stared in horror as her mouth opened impossibly wide before swallowing his head.
He woke up with a scream.
“An ale before sleep keeps worries away,” Thaleus grumbled before beginning to snort again. If Dorian’s and Ciros’ rest was interrupted by him, they hadn’t reacted.
Ion fell on his cushions and stared at the ceiling.
No, he hadn’t slept with Sae. Not that he wouldn’t consider it…
But it could explain her recent strange remarks. Maybe she pretended to be Sarah? Actually, that might fall within her idea of a good joke. Yet they looked far too differently, too much to correct it simply with a make-up.
Unless… Sae was a doppelganger.
He laughed.
Ridiculous idea.
Right?
But it was Sae who exposed the one impersonating Larry; surely they could somehow tell one from another...
Maybe after pretending for so long she finally became too careless?
No, he was just getting too paranoid. Because of his vision-dreams, he started to consider every stupid nightmare as something important.
He just had to get a good night’s rest. Not terribly easy between his recent visions and nightmares about dead people chasing him.
Maybe he should consider casting sleep on himself every night?
Worth trying.
****
When Ion woke up he noticed that everyone had already left the room.
He actually fell asleep pondering how to affect his mind with the sleep spell. The unsolved problem still remained; the spell, to affect his mind, needed it to be already relaxed, unconscious or otherwise unfocused; and neither of this states could be achieved while actively trying to cast a spell.
Maybe trying the alchemy then? The village herbalist might know something that could help him. But wouldn’t asking her be too risky? She could be a part of the cult… He briefly considered using his – already limited now – healing ointments to abuse their side effect, but decided it would be a waste. Not to mention that another of their side effects, hallucinations, might make his nightmares even worse.
Dressing up, he looked through a window. He noticed Ciros sitting cross-legged outside the inn as if meditating.
Ion headed to the common hall of the building and headed towards his group.
“I was just going to finally wake you up,” Dorian greeted him. “We’ve almost finished our breakfast.”
“Still those nightmares?” Thaleus guessed.
“No changes,” Ion said, taking a loaf of bread.
“Everyone’s experiencing this after killing someone in a fight-”
“It’s here!” Ciros run to their table.
Seeing their questioning gazes he explained, “through spending months in forests, developing a connection with nature, one might become able to sense changes to it. Find out whether the area has been tainted by the presence of the unnatural. Here, the sensation is faint, much weaker than the imprint fiends left near Windhelm; but something similar definitely lurks nearby.”
“So we’ve found them!” Reria was excited. “The presence must be weaker because they are not affecting the environment directly; only through their vessels.”
“Or they moved on and nature is still recovering. As followers of Sudomeas are our primary culprits I’d like to check the area near their fort. The traces should be more clear there.”
“Anything useful in those documents you read, Sae?” Dorian asked.
She shook her head, “the only mention I’ve found is that fire broke out and burned most of the fort around two hundred years ago. At the time there was no longer reason to maintain it anyway, so it was left abandoned.”
“So probably most of its wards are already gone… hopefully, they hadn’t set up new… at least not on the large scale…” Reria pondered.
“Say, Ciros, could you sense doppelgangers with your ability?”
Everyone was startled by Ion’s sudden change of subject.
“Doppelgangers? Why now, out of sudden?” Sae questioned.
Was she more agitated than anyone else?
“Just a passing thought… but wouldn’t it be useful to somehow discern them?”
“Hard to say, really,” Ciros wondered. “Today, I wouldn’t have noticed anything if not for our earlier encounter with fiends. After sensing much stronger corruption, I knew what to look for now. With doppelgangers though… some claim that they dwell everywhere people live. If I knew how nature reacts to the area where none lives and, say, a village full of them, maybe I could discern whether they are present. To make things harder, cities and villages often also leave their own imprints on nature; some may be almost neutral while others outright hostile to it. I wouldn’t have high hopes.”
Ion’s question visibly dampened group’s mood.
“I heard you are joining us today?” a soldier broke the silence. “Petra starts a training session in a few moments.”
“Right,” Ciros explained, “when we’ve discussed our contract here, Sae included assistance in training villagers.”
“It earns us few more coins. You’d be training in the spare times anyway.”
“Actually, I wanted to look around the village,” Reria said. “Yesterday I didn’t have enough time. Maybe I’ll be able to find something that you’ve missed.”
“It's not like all of us have to participate... I will join you,” Sae smiled. ”So that Ion knows no doppelganger caught you.”
****
“Damnit! You have a shield, use it to parry!” Petra scolded the villager who lost a weapon while sparring against her.
There was a group of around forty villagers training with various weapons under watchful gazes of soldiers. So far not a sign of the rumoured exceptional abilities of Cresfall denizens; only some of the hunters and axemen, the so-called village militia, carried their weapons with confidence. According to soldiers, none of the group belonged to the cult of Sudomeas.
On a whim, Ion picked one of the training spears and made it through various forms drilled into him back in Windhelm. The villagers gave him a wide breadth, apparently intimidated by the presence of one of the mages. That didn’t apply to the guards however, and soon one of them asked him to spar.
“Man, it’s cheating,” a soldier complained as Ion helped him from the ground.
The passive protection of Arcane Armour spell Ion constantly maintained was enough to render most of the – numerous, Ion had to admit – strikes of his opponent’s training weapon that Ion wasn’t able to block totally harmless. And those few that might have passed through it were stopped whenever he manifested a Shield.
“I know. But who ever excepts a fair fight?”
He took a sip of water, enjoying a feeling of real peace for the first time for many days.
“Haha! Come at me, again! This time all at once!” Ion heard Thaleus’ laugher as he taunted five battered villagers circling him.
Ciros was standing near a makeshift archery, showing a group of teenagers tips about bows. Dorian was nowhere to be seen; some time ago he left to discuss something with Niklas and Petra.
“Oh, here you are!”
Ion looked quizzically at two people who approached him. A man, close to Ion’s age, yet taller and better-built, clad in a leather armour with a quiver and a shortbow looked like an average hunter. Maybe quite handsome. Hugging him was a girl who spoke to Ion; she appeared slightly younger than him and looked kind of familiar.
“Do I know you?”
“You must be Ion. You’ve met my brother, Josh. I’m Jane, my friend here is Bran.”
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Ion felt goosebumps as he shook hands with Bran.
“I will be at the range,” he said, caressing his bow.
“My Bran can be so shy at times,” Jane sighed, tracing every step of her boyfriend. “After Trevor told us what happened, priest Friedrich decided to send some of us back to protect the village. I met Josh on his way back to the castle. He told me you wanted to speak with me.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“I’m just curious how you’ve come to learn magic. Josh mentioned your deity teaching you. Does he speak to you? Shares knowledge in dreams?”
“Well, that’s a bit of personal question, isn’t it?”
“I’m just trying to wrap my head about this. In guilds we spend years trying to understand the basics of mana manipulation,” or so Ion heard from Lara. “Yet you claim to learn this in a span of days. How?”
Jane spoke few words, which Ion associated with calling forth for fire mana. She smiled when flames harmlessly engulfed her forearms before letting them spread in a wide arc.
“After initiation, I saw the Lord in his full majesty, felt his gaze as he scrutinized me. It felt like an eternity, until finally he deemed me worthy…. Then an unbelievable amount of knowledge flew into me, so much that I couldn’t hope to understand nor remember everything. I also understood that it was just a tiny fraction of the knowledge Sudomeas has…
“Suddenly, mana and magic, it all made sense! Well, maybe not all. Seeing feats of priest Friedrich, I know there are still many things beyond my grasp,” the girl sighed, longingly. “I yearn for a chance to experience an audience with Sudomeas once again. To be bathed in his boundless knowledge. Priest Friedrich keeps repeating that if I continue as the Lord’s faithful servant, one day I will definitely do.”
“So you’ve only seen him once and already learned everything?” the girl affirmed. “Never spoke with him in dreams or something like this?”
“Oh, how I’d wish to…”
They continued to talk for a while, yet Ion was unable to get Jane to admit that anything similar to his visions ever happened to her.
Hearing cheers coming from the archery range, they came closer to see what’s going on.
“Dude, I never imagined you could be so good with a bow,” one of the villagers said.
“It’s only to be expected,” Bran said, releasing another arrow straight into a bullseye.
“Isn’t my Bran awesome?”
“Oh Ion, here you are,” Dorian approached them. “We’ve been wondering with Niklas how feasible to you would be creating some illusory monsters for villagers to train on, starting with gobbears. So that they could better understand their range difference and-”
He paused, looking around.
“Actually, Sae might help in this too. Ciros, could you help us find her?”
“Sure, why not?” Ciros tried to hide his surprise. “Carry on with your training and maybe one day you could rival Bran,” he bid farewell to the teenagers training around.
“See you again,” Ion said to Jane before they left training grounds.
“Sae? Illusions? What’s going on?” Ciros inquired.
“I just wanted to get your attention. I think we’ve finally found someone touched by fiends.”
****
A few hours later, Ion managed to find Jane and Bran.
“I thought about what you told me and I’d really want to learn more about Sudomeas. In the parts of Rikse I’ve grown up, everyone preached only about Uther or Shiela… but I never felt connected to them. The deity of knowledge, however…”
“Of course you’d be interested,” Jane smiled. “I’m sure that tomorrow or on the day after someone is going to visit our fort; surely you could tag along…”
“Only tomorrow? With your people staying there, I’m not sure whether my group stays there for long…”
“Don’t worry, even if the villagers change their minds about mercenaries again, it surely won’t happen that fast…”
“Even then, it will surely take me longer to understand everything and I don’t want to keep my group waiting if we’re forced to leave. But if what you told me is true, the chance to broaden my knowledge of magic… when such an opportunity comes again? I’d do everything for it…”
“Everything? We could work with this…” there was an unsettling grin on Bran’s face. “Where’s the harm in leading him today? The faster he receives tutoring from priest Friedrich, the better.”
They’ve been travelling through the forest, Bran and Jane leading the way. Suddenly, they heard two short chirps of thrushes.
“Look out!” Jane tumbled on the ground after Ion pushed her.
An arrow struck Bran’s arm. With a painful groan, he pulled his longknife and run towards bush the supposed attacker was.
Another arrow flew, yet the hunter evaded it with inhuman agility.
Jane was still prone, slightly confused. Finally, she gathered her wits and began to chant, however her words have been muffled. Someone grabbed her from behind, stuffing the cloth to her face.
Ion focused, guiding mana to form a ray which would drain strength of the enemy. He directed it against Bran who, surprisingly, was pushing back Thaleus.
“Cursed abomination,” the dwarf mumbled when the ranger shrugged off another hit of his hammer and tried to gut him with the knife.
A bolt of energy hit Bran, causing him to stagger. It was immediately followed by an arrow, which again caused the ranger to grunt in pain. In the meanwhile, Ion finished casting another spell. For a moment Bran stood still, taking another arrow from Ciros.
In the next second, Ion felt his spell losing its grasp over the opponent who, ignoring the dwarf, tried to charge against the half-elf. The dwarf used his momentary distraction to swing his hammer, causing Bran’s leg to bend with a sickening crunch. The hunter fell, and Thaleus jumped on him, pinning the hunter to the ground.
Sae quickly produced another piece of cloth, poured Ion’s potion onto it and forced Bran to breathe it, quickly causing him to pass out.
“Well, he was quite resistant, wasn’t he?” Thaleus grumbled, still sitting on the ranger.
“I told you to cover your hammer with liquid silver,” Reria scolded him. “That way your weapon should have been effective since the beginning, not only after the energies contained inside his vessel were expanded. That’s why we bought it!”
“Contrary to Ciros’ arrows, my hammer isn’t expendable. It would damage it!” the dwarf huffed.
They moved still unconscious Jane and began to tie both her and Bran.
“Through seriously, ‘look out’ Ion?” Ciros asked. “Couldn’t you have thought about better distraction?”
“I considered it. Yet if I were suspicious of myself, I would be prepared for me using spells, not trying to push someone down…”
“Speaking of spells… How should we keep her from escaping with magic as soon as she wakes up?” Sae asked, pointing at Jane.
A few images passed behind Ion’s eyes and he spoke immediately.
“Keeping her unconscious and drugged all the times would be a good start. It’s not like we have shackles that could be used to disturb the flow of mana, and even if, it’s not like they are infallible. Taking everything that could be used as a material component goes without saying. That would include getting rid of her clothes and hair. For preventing her from chanting correctly, cutting a tongue should suffice. Somatic components are more tricky, as its often forgotten that not only fingers can be used for gestures, but toes too. As we’re going to carry her anyway, there’s no reason to not amputate them…”
He suddenly felt sick, as the images hit his mind with full clarity. The group was staring at him wide-eyed.
“Gods damnit Ion! We aren’t trying to seize freaking Essae!”
“I might have gone a little over the top…”
In the end, they settled on keeping Jane naked, tied, unconscious, gagged, and with her fingers broken. It was something that should make casting difficult enough, and also what Dorian should be able to heal if his ‘hunch’ wasn’t correct. Yet judging by Bran’s unnatural resilience, they doubted it.
Ion drew a runic circle around unconscious bodies, preparing a ritual. After a few minutes, during which he was forcing himself to work, not stare, he chanted, causing the air around them to coalesce before slipping below their bodies, slowly elevating them. When the floating, transparent disc fully formed, Reria casted invisibility on the bodies. Afterwards, the group slowly proceeded back to their inn, where by now Dorian should have completed his preparations.
****
“I call upon thy powers, Adrestia! Bless those runes and bind the evil within this circle. Protect us from its influence, shield us from its view, let us discern truths and falses of its words. Guide my magic, shape it according to my will, let my vows be fulfilled!”
Inside the room, in the middle of Dorian’s circle laid the limp body of Bran. The paladin confirmed that he was the source of demonic taint he had felt earlier. Jane – still kept unconscious – was left by Sae in their second room, after confirming that she wasn’t radiating similar aura. They planned to decide what to do with her later.
Similarly to Jane, there was a brand on Bran’s body.
The girl’s was small, barely noticeable. Ion could almost remember seeing something similar – and had a strange impression of Vision-he facepalming inside his mind. Bran’s was huge and elaborate, occupying most of his naked chest. If he were to compare it to something, it would be a noble crest of sorts, with intertwining runes around it, all formed of scar tissues. He could sense hints of mana circulating through it and somehow knew that if he could see the hunter’s soul, he would see this mana attached to it.
“Everyone is ready?” the paladin looked around.
Sae brandished her daggers, both covered by liquid silver, standing ready just outside of the magic circle. Thaleus waited close to her, still refusing to endanger his hammer, yet had a shield ready to deflect the hunter’s attacks should he broke the circle. Further behind stood Ion and Reria, both carrying vials of holy water in their hands. On the far corner of the room, Ciros waited, an arrow with a silvery tip ready to draw in any moment.
On the opposing corner, with a grim look on his face stood Niklas, assisted by Petra. Dorian decided to inform him immediately after confirming that the source of taint was indeed Bran. The leader of guards took some convincing to not order his subordinates to immediately arrest Ion’s group, at least not without letting him witness a proof.
“Carrying powers of Adrestia, I command you, fiend, show yourself!”
When the mana left Dorian’s hands and touched Bran, his body twitched.
“Impressive work, mortals,” a deep unnerving voice, barely resembling Bran's sounded. “Tell me, what do you desire? Knowledge of arts and science, unparalleled to other mortals? Through my master, I can grant you this. And much more… Release me and state your wish, we’ll surely reach an agreement…”
Not letting the hunter continue, Reria chanted and sprinkled him with holy water. Contrary to Dorian, her incantation wasn’t calling forth any deity, it was simply a way to guide both her mind and mana onto correct patterns.
Judging by an ear piercing scream the effect of her spell was similar to Dorian’s own. At this moment Ion was glad that they opted for setting also silence wards around their apartments.
“Fools! I’ll give you one last chance, release me and I will let you continue your worthless existence!”
Bran screamed again, this time when Ion finished his incantation.
“You will die for this, maggots!”
“Yes!” Sae shouted. When everyone looked at her without understanding she pointed at Thaleus. “You owe me 5 gold!”
“Don’t you think this ain’t the best moment?”
During the momentary distraction, Bran jumped on Dorian, who was one of the closest to the circle. The hunter rebounded as soon as he approached the line of runes. He tried once more with the same effect, cursing when his efforts failed. Dorian closed his eyes, whispering prayer, strengthening the circle.
“I will remember this, mortals! Do you think I’m afraid of your pitiful magic? I can simply leave this vessel when I get bored with your tricks.”
“So release him from your influence!” Ion said and chanted once more.
“You think a mere mortal could order me? My liege is Earl Glasya! President Labolas will prolong your agony for each second this continues-”
”What were you trying to achieve here?” Reria repeated both her question and a chant.
Bran screamed in pain once again. Then the maddened laughter started. Which was interrupted when another incantation was finished.
His scream continued, much longer than any time before.
“It’s…it’s gone!” Bran gasped. “I think you’ve released me! Hurry! There are others who were kidnapped, you have to help them! I… I can lead you!”
“Do you take us for fools? Release him!” Dorian said, following his words with prayer.
“His soul is bound to me now!” Bran said after Dorian’s spell ended. “There is nothing you can do!”
Ion chanted once again.
“So this means you are really trapped here with us. We can continue this until you give us the answers!”
“I will rape you, flail your bodies, kill you and then rape again-”
His tirade was interrupted when Reria’s chant finished.
“Whose orders are you following?”
“-I will trap your souls and animate you so that I could torture you again. I will continue this until your minds could no longer endure-“
Another invocation and another scream.
“Are all cultists possessed by fiends?”
“-I will feed your soul to the Devourer so that your anguish would be eternal-“
Ignoring the rumbling, Ion began sprinkling holy water once again. This time, however, his target wasn’t the possessed hunter. His guts were right about Bran the moment he first met him, what if his suspicions about Sae were also true? He had to be sure.
The girl looked slightly annoyed when most of Ion’s holy water landed on her. He chanted, yet his incantation differed slightly, as was the intention he was filling his mana with. Instead of forcing the fiend to separate from the body he possessed, he imagined it forcing a doppelganger to reveal its true self, to take its original form.
Ion saw Sae’s surprised expression when she felt the spell taking its hold on her… the surprise quickly turned into fear immediately replaced by anger.
Nothing happened.
“Essae’s tits! What was that supposed to be?”
Ion sighed with relief. All in all, he liked the girl.
“I must have, erm… missed my spell,” Ion believed that even ‘Bran’ who just finished suffering from someone’s previous spell was looking at him curiously and not willing to believe his lie. “It’s not easy to maintain focus when you hear the fiend threatening you…”
He coughed.
“Don’t we have more important things to do? What were you trying to achieve? How many have you possessed?” He focused on the fiend and chanted incantation once again.
“Even if you chase me away, this vessel will die, his blood will be on your hands. As the blood of the others serving our cause, that will come to avenge him-“
Reria chanted not even waiting for the possessed hunter to finish.
Bran’s body suddenly grew limp. The crest on his chest flared with energy, at least to those able to sense mana. The energy flew out of his body, assuming a shape of a little, winged, doglike creature.
“You think this is the end, mortals? It will be known that you defied the will of the chosen of Amaymon. Despair and prepare for agony beyond your imagination…”
The creature and its voice slowly grew distant as it disappeared.
“It’s gone,” Dorian said.
“The fiend used most of its powers to maintain possession, and after we finally managed to sever his connection with the vessel, denying him of the source of energy maintaining him on our plane, he was banished,” Reria nodded.
“In how deep shit are we?” Thaleus asked.
“In time, the fiend will reform on the Soul Plane, maybe after a year, maybe after century, the passage of time is relative between the planes,” the sorceress sighed, messaging her temples. “Through, I’m more willing to believe that his masters will rather punish him for his failure instead of trying to fulfil his threats. If anything, it’s more likely that they would try and form a pact with us on their own.”
“What are we doing with him?” Ion pointed at Bran.
He was breathing, yet his empty gaze was fixed on the ceiling, not reacting to anything.
“We should take him to Leisha’s Crossroads,” Niklas suggested. “The priests might be able to help him.”
“Do we have the cooperation of your forces?” Ciros asked.
“Yes, I will send a message to Leisha’s Crossroads immediately. We will wait for reinforcements…”
“We can’t let the cultists get stronger! The longer we wait, the more fiends will possess humans, the more villagers will be under their influence. We should capture every known cultist in the village and then move against those in the ruins,” Reria objected.
“If we start arresting those currently in Crestfall, there will be unrest in the village. It’s hard to guess how many supporters they have there,” Petra said. “There are only twelve of us, guards, here. We might get six, maybe ten more if we include all the militiamen I think we could trust. Not enough to maintain order in the village if things escalate. Still, I think we should act now...”
“Including us, we would have twenty-four people,” Sae said. “ According to what we’ve been told, there are around fifty cultists in the ruins; less then forty if we exclude those currently in Crestfall. We have an element of surprise…”
“Their priest isn’t a pushover. I doubt that your mages would be able to counter him, especially if he’s assisted by his apprentices. Also, what would we do with the cult’s supporters, both willing and possessed? We lack numbers required to capture them…”
“They would have to be killed,” Dorian stated. “Those who joined the cult willingly are guilty of its actions. As for the possessed, as much as it pains me, in current circumstances, the only way to prevent even more from suffering their fate would be to kill them too.”
“If we wait, clerics from Leisha’s-“
“Would struggle to help an even larger population,” Reria interjected. “And judging by looks of Bran, the fiends are really binding to the possessed souls. I doubt they could repair the damage caused by this…”
“They surely have more experienced exorcists than you, there may be ways…”
“Are you willing to risk that the cult disperses and grows its roots somewhere else?” Dorian asked. ”I understand that’s a hard decision, but it’s the only one. Sometimes, such acts are necessary to prevent a greater evil. If you let mercy direct actions now, it’ll only cause more suffering-”
Suddenly, Ion felt a disturbance in wards set around the apartment. He had no chance to warn anyone before the room’s door exploded.