The group stepped outside the dungeon in good spirits. Ivan held Myrn's hand and could feel Penelope broadcasting her own little happy contented embrace to him inside the Shroud. She was currently teasing Azalea about how well she did, and picking through the loot for interesting finds. One was a bone white comb, and their talk about that quickly changed to the two girls sitting down and combing each other's hair. Ivan could actually feel the buff to mana regeneration and charisma the stupid comb gave just for brushing out one's hair with it.
They headed down the quiet street and past Inns and taverns that provided most of the noise into the night. There were plenty of lanterns, magical and mundane about the city streets and all were lit. The group felt unafraid going down the main road, and people didn't shy away from them. There were a few guards about, but not as much as should be on patrol. Which was odd, there should have been at least one group to pass them by.
There was no alarm sounded, so it couldn't be anything serious, and try as he might Ivan couldn't push away the cold feeling of dread in his gut. He remembered then that Anastasia was looking for him.
Ana was his friend, and something of an older sister. She would be worried sick about him naturally, especially if she had learned about what happened at the Parish, but she was one of them. One of Theadus's followers. The thought of it made him furious and he didn't know exactly at or with who. Ana had gone to Theadus's church to better serve her jobs, and her purpose. Ivan hadn't blamed her at all for that at the time, but now that so much had happened he couldn't believe that she would just cling to her treacherous god. Her own family.
Ivan shook his head, and Myrn gripped his hand sensing his discomfort.
They rounded a few corners and came up on the street leading to the Bed and Barrel, Meeda's Inn.
“Hey.” Marvin said, reaching for his weapon, and giving Ivan a significant look.
“Iv—Isaac. You better leave I think.” Andy said, peering up the road.
Myrn and Ivan joined them coming around the corner. Up ahead the Inn wasn't exactly under siege or being raided, but there was a large host of armed men wearing Army of Light tabards standing in formation about the building.
Meeda appeared to be furious with their blockade of his custom, but the idle and long suffering troops looked like they weren't going to budge. Their leader was a stern looking officer who was in conversation with Meeda, and trying to keep him calm, but failing. Tila and Layla were at the door.
The group of them were spotted by both opposing parties at once and everything seemed to just happen too fast.
Meeda waved his hand violently at them, and shouted.
“Go! Get Gone! They have no business taking you in! They'll take no more of my family to that bloody camp!” Meeda growled in a shout loud enough to wake all the neighbors.
At the same time Tila broke from behind Layla's apron and out the door.
One of the militiamen, standing idly with a simple crossbow, seemed to panic upon seeing the armed group of adventurers, and raised the loaded weapon.
Marvin started pushing Ivan and Myrn back behind the building. Seconds seemed to drag as Meeda shouted, and Layla burst through the door to try to catch her daughter. The mustached officer caught her up by her arms, perhaps thinking her to be rushing him, but his focus had all been on the shouting man. Meeda saw Tila sprinting, the girl holding her books to her chest, and running with all her might to get to her cousin and Ivan.
Ivan could see the panicked and scared look in her eyes. The tears of fright and confusion, and the hope she saw in reaching them for whatever reason. The thinking of a child.
Ivan saw the militiaman with the crossbow raise his weapon, and begin to shout.
The officer's eyes went wide, hearing the words, but Ivan didn’t hear them at all. All he saw was the bodkin tip of the crossbow bolt rising, and coming into perfect line with Tila’s back.
The Officer shouted something at the man, and raised a hand, clearly ordering the man to put the weapon down.
Time seemed to bend and stretch. To Ivan's senses it seemed to visibly warp as luck and events were...played with. Ivan felt as though he should have been able to push against it. Like there was something he could have done to prevent what was about to happen. The soldier flinched at his officers' sudden and sharp orders; the wave of his hand maybe.
The weapon fired, letting out a snap. Ivan wanted to scream. He saw Meeda's and Layla's terrified eyes in the terrible moment it took the bodkin bolt to sail through the air.
It struck Tila in the center of her back.
Her books, and paper report fell from her hands covered in blood. Her face registered pain, and then confusion before she fell to the floor like a little broken doll. All other thoughts vanished in that moment.
Ivan moved faster than he had in his life. He was at Tila's side, Shroud flailing in the air as Azalea came forth. His scroll flared into life divine designs flaring across its surface as fast as thought. There was already so much blood soaking into the cobblestones.
Ivan turned Tila onto her side, her eyes registering him, and Myrn in horribly dazed confusion. Ivan's hands shook. His mind ran with so many memories. Jen's broken body. Tanya's horrible wound. His heart hammered in his ears louder than any other sounds; louder than Myrn's, Meeda's, and Layla's screams put together against the shouts of the Officer.
His hands were shaking so badly.
A voice from deep in his memories burst forth in his mind.
“Settle. Settle Ivan. You can't help the poor thing unless you're calm. The first thing is to stay calm. There. There now. See. Wash your hands, and get ready.”
The phantom image of the Goddess's hands laid over his own in his memory, and he stopped shaking. His mind grew critical and he worked through the steps he needed to save Tila.
First, his best long acting recovery tonic. Tila had just barely earned some basic jobs so she would need all the endurance she could get to survive the healing fatigue.
“Administer Medicine!” Ivan muttered, still working on forming the complex healing spell on the scroll. He needed to Inspect Tila to be sure of her condition. He could pull out Penelope too? Use her scroll? Would she have the skills? No time.
The tendrils of medicine sank into Tila's mouth and wound, buffing her recovery and giving her a small bonus to endurance that would last a few hours. The long last remedy wasn't as powerful as a short-lived boosting one would be, but Ivan was again worried about causing Tila too much healing fatigue. That could be as fatal as any wound. Part of healing magic was knowing how much each person could take, and children, unfortunately, could only take so much.
Second, he would need to remove the arrow, and there was no choice but to use the most effective and immediate healing he had or she would die from blood-loss. He just finished that step.
“Azalea now!” Ivan ordered as the spell scroll completed on his conjured projection.
Azalea stepped forward from the Shroud, one hand toward the scroll, and the other holding her lantern over the girl to give Ivan clear light.
The healing spell worked though Ivan remotely felt the strain it put on Azalea to do it, but he wasn't idly waiting. In the moments it took Azalea to channel into the scroll he took hold of the bodkin bolt by the fletchings and pulled it free the moment he felt the magic activate. It was about as perfect as he could have managed, but the little girl had been shot through the heart.
Third, based upon Ivan's execution of the arrow removal she would have taken some little damage. Another healing focused tonic was needed. Ivan had debated for just a moment what to use. He had none left of his best remedies, leaving just his more common, and less effective brews. He could use a fast acting one and hope she had the endurance to survive the healing fatigue, or he could use the lighter touch of a regenerative tonic while holding shut the wound with the first aid materials Myrn was producing at that moment from her pack.
“Administer Medicine!” Ivan cried, selecting the gentlest and most potent of his leftover brews of medicine, and then for additional effect as he cast his hands over the bandages Myrn was putting to the wound he cried; “Imbue Medicine!” Soaking the cloth in a mending salve that would rather gently and efficiently boost the effects of Myrn's First Aid skill.
There was...lots of shouting and movement. Ivan didn't hear any of it.
“Inspect Person!” He shouted desperately as Myrn pressed the medicine soaked bandages to the wounds.
Inspect Person: Tila Owlfeather, Human,
Jobs: Maid Level 1
HP: 1/5 MP: 2/2 SP: 1/5
Overall Condition: Critical
Status Conditions: Healing Fatigue, Extreme Blood-Loss, Shock
She had no wounds. Ivan had perhaps done it. He didn't dare move the girl still, but a tiny spark of hope kindled to life in his heart providing color to a world that had suddenly gone gray and narrow.
Tila looked at him, her eyes too dull, and her face too pale. She tried to smile. She tried to speak, but she couldn't say the words through her dry lips. Ivan tried to shush her, to tell her to save her energy when the light in her eyes simply vanished, and she went totally and completely limp.
He looked up at his scroll in horror hoping to see that the numbers had not changed. That she had merely gained the unconscious condition, rather than anything else.
Inspect Person: Tila Owlfeather, Human,
Jobs: Maid Level 1
HP: 0/5 MP: 0/2 SP: 0/5
Overall Condition: Dead
Cause of Death: Extreme Blood-loss robbed her of much of her Endurance attribute and her body, though properly and wholly mended, could not support the incurred Healing Fatigue.
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There was lots of shouting. Ivan didn't hear any of it. It was like he was underwater, and everyone else was screaming above the surface. Myrn seemingly read the scroll and had stood, but Ivan didn't, and really couldn't track where she had gone when she left. He just gathered up Tila's blood soaked, and perfect little body in his arms and started weeping.
There was lots of movement around him. He was vaguely aware of more people shouting. More people than there had been before. Azalea was at his side, trying to get his attention. He focused enough to look at her, his vision swimming in tears, and his throat suddenly raw as though he had been screaming.
“Master...Ivan...If I may...I will follow her, and attend her soul as is my duty, but I need your permission as my summoned master to leave the plane.” Azalea said, her drawn and thin hands, her dried lips and gaunt face too much of a reminder for Ivan to see right now and say anything but yes.
“Go. Go! Take care of her! Make sure she-- Get her to--” Ivan choked on his tears, and held Tila's body to his chest desperately.
There was a mob of people about him now, and the Army of Light Militia group was in a defensive formation. Myrn was screaming at them. Just screaming with an almost senseless animal rage, right alongside Meeda. Layla had fallen beside Ivan, and was letting out a lament of agony. She had read the scroll, and was barely able to keep herself vertical.
Something in Ivan pulsed.
It made him look up and toward the forces of light, the little group of about twenty men, now all surrounded by who knows how many enraged townsfolk. Weapons were being drawn. Shouts of anger, of outrage, were turning to threats of violence.
Ivan's eyes settled on a shaking and nervous looking young man who was clinging to his unloaded crossbow. There was no blood on his hands. But a lot of guilty people didn't actually have blood on their hands.
Ivan stared at him, at Tila's killer, the roar and press of the mob hardly a hindrance to where his gaze landed. The sound of shouting filtered away to the howling sound of a hunting pack. Wolves, or hounds maybe, each calling from an immeasurable distance as Ivan stared at the man. He felt them when they came on, arriving in his shadow, and storming into the absolute darkness within the Shroud.
Ivan stared at the man. He stared at another of Theadus's men as for the second time in his life the God had robbed him of someone he truly loved and enjoyed. He realized that something about Theadus made them vulnerable. That they were tools and fools in more than a few ways. They were being used by Theadus, and guided to foolish actions believing they were doing the right thing while never thinking for themselves. Theadus was a fool, never feeling the touch of the Fate among his followers as Ivan just had. There were so many things that were suddenly clear coming with that realization.
When the man finally met Ivan's eyes it marked the end of his pitiful sanity. Ivan felt the Shade Hounds leave his side, sliding and rippling through shadows of the mob unnoticed, and felt their first bites land into the man. They didn't make him explode or shred him on the spot however.
No, no. That's not what the Shade Hounds did. They were older and darker things that sought for more than simple material flesh. They wanted the meat of the mind, and the emotion of the heart. In practical effect they would steal his mana overtime returning it to Ivan, but the real world effect would mean the man would go insane. If Ivan let him live long enough.
Ivan's scroll ran with new text, finally getting his attention.
Congratulations! Your Dark Spark has bonded to your Standard Rank Hedge Doctor job and Unlocked the Adept Rank Witch Doctor Job!
Witch Doctor Level 1 Skill: Gaze of the Dark Houndsmaster: A pretty unique and powerful ability that summons fallen and mostly undetectable spirits to your side! Only you and your victim can see them, apart from very powerful and specific detection magics, and their attacks afflict your prey like a curse just without laying any sort of detectable curse on them! Frightening!
This pseudo summon ability has a frighteningly low mana cost and returns mana to you in portions related to your Intelligence attribute, and your distance from the target. Mana cost increases linearly per target you apply this to, but do it right and you'll be rolling in mana in no time.
Witch Doctor Level 1 Perk: Friends on the Other Side: Your charisma has a greater effect on all demons, ghosts, spirits, and most extra-dimensional entities.
Witch Doctor Leveling Attribute Gains: Witch Doctor gains a large bonus to Charisma, Wisdom, and Intelligence with each level. Gain only minor increases to other attributes every other level of his Job.
“Ivan.” Penelope said, getting his attention from within the Shroud.
Ivan held Tila's still warm and blood soaked body to his chest, not really caring about what was going on around him. Tila's killer was unimportant for the moment. Ivan could feel the man panicking more and more as he lost mana, his sanity’s only shield, to the strikes of the hounds. Ivan didn't really care. He just felt numb.
Being numb was the only thing that would keep him from-- No.
He held her little body, arranging her so it was like she was just napping in his arms.
“Ivan...” Penelope said again.
Ivan didn't respond, but used enough of his aura to tell Penelope that she had his attention.
“Samiel is following Azalea to the gate. He gave you his word that Tila and Azalea both will arrive at the Gate of Eternity unharmed.” Penelope said.
Ivan nodded, and showed Penelope what gratitude he could without letting his aura out too much. He felt like it might burst if he didn't keep it contained right now. So to focus he gently cleaned Tila's face, and arranged her hair neatly. When he was ready he didn't even have to ask Penelope to come and take her body into the Shroud.
A horse rode up during that time. Ivan almost remembered the sound of its hooves.
He stood, with the dead child, and crossbow bolt in hand; soaked with her blood from his chest down to his knees, as Thomas rode onto the streets and pulled his excellently bred horse, Featherfoot, to a stop. Thomas was finely dressed as if he had rushed here from a dinner party or something, and looked absolutely horrified as his eyes tracked to Ivan, the girl, and the blood coating Ivan from his chest to his knees.
Thomas took in the scene, the full scale riot that had nearly come about, as he and the few knights that could keep up with his venerable horse came to get their men out of there.
“Stop! Stop this everyone! What has happened here?!” Thomas demanded in a roaring shout, but the people were so enraged, so tired of being tread on and learning that a relative of theirs had been missing or found dead. The rage roared in them, and it was only by the will of the high level officer and Thomas's own dangerous aura that the people did not strike out.
“I will have answers!” Thomas roared, Featherfoot prancing as the mob pressed as close as they dared. Thomas's question seemed aimed at everyone, his gaze lingering on the one soldier, now hiding in the back under the cover of a shield who held a crossbow with a loose drawstring.
“You will not!” Cried a sudden second voice of resounding clarity.
It didn't match Thomas's charisma, but its authority registered with the people of Dentennek immediately. A hole was made in the back as a man in a dark velvet top hat, matching vest, jacket, and tall black leather boots strode forward. Each piece had some small golden decoration carrying his house sigil, a feather and hoof. The vest had golden buttons each decorated with the simple design. His top hat had a decorative buckle, and the same with his belt and so on. He was something close to handsome, and just a little pudgy if not quite round. His face was kind, and pained. He looked about for the child, but by then Ivan had quietly handed her off to Penelope without a care to who saw him do so.
Penelope was arranging the girl now, and singing some ancient almost wordless lullaby to her corpse. Ivan's heart felt like it had been shredded in his chest. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he just stared up at Thomas while doing everything he could not to scream again, or lash out and rip that idiot militiaman into pieces right in front of everybody.
So far, this whole situation was something Ivan could use. And he would use it to kill Theadus, and the thrice damned fate too.
“I am Clarence Waldorf Fablehoof.” The man in the fine clothes said, his authority ringing clear to anyone who as much as thought of Dentennek as home. He spoke his words with clear emphasis and import as if to press upon the Army of Light the authority of his name.
Behind him a woman in hooded robes trailed. She was covered in frighteningly potent magical gear of the same dark color, bearing the same house crest as the man before her. Ordinary people hardly seemed to notice her, but those that did dragged those that could not sense her from her path and bowed their heads in her direction. She returned the bows with tiny nods of her head without looking at anyone, but always nodding in their direction. Her eyes under the hood seemed locked on Thomas.
“I am the elected Mayor of Dentennek, and I tell you right now Hero of Light, and whatever officers you command that enough is enough.” The man said, his voice stern as good iron, but his face was still dripping in sweat.
Thomas managed to appear to have staggered while staying atop his horse.
“I-I'm here to--” Thomas stammered.
“Whatever purpose you had here is now done, Hero of Light. You, Your Lord, and his Armies are not welcome here, or within a hundred miles of Dentennek, or our sister cities for that matter.” The mayor barked.
The mob roared their agreement. One soldier deftly deflected a rock before it took Tila's killer in the face. The man looked like he was about to piss himself, his eyes darting to every shadow, and eventually to Ivan. Each time he looked at Ivan the man just about screamed.
The thunder of more hoofs came down the road, and Thomas grimaced.
A huge man rode into the street then, also in finery, and was so large as to make the already impressive stead he rode even more impressive by how little it seemed to care that the fat and huge man was on his back.
“It's unseemly for such a mob to gather in the hours of the dark with barely a light to hand in but one in ten!” The huge mass of humanity called from the back of his horse, a cohort of elite and dangerous Knights of the Sun forming up about him.
Ivan very carefully made sure the Shroud was about him, but did not keep his glare from 'Lord' Daybreak, or spare Thomas from it for very long. Ivan was...very, very, not okay. Something in him was seething and screaming, and writhing just below the surface of his body and thoughts. If he moved more than his eyes or spoke...He didn't know what would have happened.
Ivan braced himself as black and scarlet lightning crackled up and down his arms. The magical burst of it was absorbed in the crowd's fury, but Thomas noticed, of course he did, and his eyes went wide. By now he had used that Hero intellect of his to piece together what had happened if not the detail of it too. Ivan glared at Thomas, meeting his stare, and then glared pointedly at Daybreak's huge half muscular half human porcine figure upon a mount that was made heroic by the simple act of carrying such a pompous burden on its back.
“Lord Daybreak I am handling this!” Thomas snapped.
“Sure you are, boy. I've seen how you've been handling things, and it's dreadful and slow. You people! Disperse or my men will run you Dark Worshiping heretics down!” Daybreak said, his voice about as gruff and tidy as a seal's blubbering cough.
“Try it...It would be fun...” Cackled the hooded woman behind the mayor.
The mayor took a deep breath as he turned to her, and gave her a mighty fine stern look before turning back to Lord Daybreak and Thomas with the same conviction he had before.
“No. Our right-”
“NOOOOO?????” Daybreak roared.
The massive hulk of a man was about to say more when the woman flipped her hand in his direction. Ivan had a brief moment of deja vu as a ball of silken webbing slapped over Daybreak's mouth cast from her hand.
Daybreak just about went mad before he noticed the complex dual spell ritual decagrams rotating and filling with light around the robed woman, and her right hand. With her left she wagged a finger at Daybreak.
“Ahem. As I was saying.” The mayor went on, as if he had expected as much. “You have no right to dictate our right to assemble. And as of this moment all forces of Light, and your Lord himself are hereby Forbidden to step within the grounds or hinterlands of Dentennek effective immediately. I encourage you to release our people in the prison camps you have been fortifying outside of our immediate borders and request that you leave immediately to prevent fictions with any other towns that may wish to enter into the alliance you will be made aware of in good time.”
The woman in robes seemed to grin, and stopped holding her finger up. Daybreak was finally able to pull the webbing off his face then. His knights looked implacable and doll-like in the little circle around his massive and barely human form.
“Alliance! FORBIDDEN!? Don't make me laugh!” Daybreak roared, but the Mayor did...something...Ivan didn't know exactly what ruling class title jobs like Mayor could do, but they had power and he knew the gist of it.
Daybreak's face twisted in a grimace as he struggled to speak and his mount shifted with displeasure. The militia forces sagged and groaned. The knights all suddenly grew much more rigid.
“Drop your weapons and armor! Quickly!” Thomas ordered, glaring at the commanding officer with the mustache, but clearly pointing his words at the low level armsmen. “All of them!”
The men did as he said, and while looking uncomfortable himself Thomas turned to look at the mayor.
“Mayor Fablehoof please. Allow us to act as ambassadors in this manner!” Thomas asked.
The mayor grinned something of a predatory little smile at Thomas.
“You Hero, I might be willing to allow that privilege.” Though he said 'might' Thomas's shoulders relaxed noticeably. “Your men and that...thing...over there I think not. I have made my case. Your Lord, his Kings, and his Companies are forbidden from stepping upon these grounds. You will receive more information when the terms of the alliance are totally in effect. For now the actions of your men have simply gone too far. I state again that it is in your best interests to release the captive members of our population and vacate the Horn of Istan as soon as you are able.”
Thomas took a breath and nodded.
“Would you please explain why it's in our best interests?” Thomas asked, cocking his head just so at Daybreak as to make clear to the mayor that the answer was for him.
“REBELLION! REBELS! TRAITORS!” Daybreak croaked, but he was barely able to get those few roaring words out.
“Silence Daybreak. They are within their rights, and have sworn no oath to our Lord. You have no authority over them but what you've convinced yourself of in your mind.” Thomas said, practically sneering as he said it.
His charisma had such an effect wielded that way that the porcine man actually went pale where he sat upon his massive horse.
Daybreak was close to having some kind of very serious and hopefully fatal fit atop his increasingly agitated horse all the same. Thomas had just dealt him several slights, insults, and improprieties all at once with that simple denial and clarification. -And Daybreak's mount wasn't really a horse, but some kind of Kirin hybrid. Kirin's type of magical creature that could be bred with certain horse stocks, but they were incredibly dangerous and known for killing stableboys. Ivan had no love for the things, they made the grumpiest warhorse seem cuddly and affectionate by comparison.
The mayor seemed to struggle with calculating what exactly he was allowed to say.
“Isn't it obvious?” The hooded woman said.
Her voice made everyone grow quiet. She looked about, her face masked in the deep hood, its color somewhere between maroon and scarlet. The garments she wore were fine, magically enchanted things, but they also seemed ancient. So did she for all her apparent vigor.
“Dentennek, and several little towns like it on the Horn are Dungeon towns. You've come thinking to rule Istania's lands. You and your Lord think that she was the power here. She certainly helped make it, no one in their right mind will deny that, but what she did was teach us. Supported us. And tasked us to maintain the Dungeons that continually threatened this land and once made it unlivable and dangerous to settle here.” The woman said, sweeping her gaze over the people.
“You all are our children, and our children's children. You held your own against Theadus’s attack, but now your Elders have made the call they never hoped to have to make.” She explained further, and cast her gaze back to Thomas and Daybreak.
“There are those of us here who live in the dungeons. Those of us who have moved far away from home seeking new challenges. Dentennek is one of several wonderful places that Istania helped adventurers build, and now that she's gone those adventurers we sent out into the world are coming home!”
Thomas rocked in his saddle, and gave Daybreak a very pointed and heavy look. Daybreak's outrage deflated and sagged like a bladder with a hole in it. His fat face went pale.
“What?”
“Did you think of that? Did you think all of us were gone?” The woman asked, and she cackled like a mad witch.
“You—You can't stand against a King!” Daybreak croaked.
“No?” The woman asked, cocking her head in a curious birdlike motion.
She pointed into the darkness of the rooftops off to Daybreak's left. Ivan didn't see what lurked there, but Thomas did, and Thomas’s face went pale. Featherfoot sensed his master's mood, and danced away from that direction. Hell Featherfoot had been with Thomas all this while it was probably a higher level than Ivan anyway. Maybe the damn horse saw it too.
“Creature---Creature of the—the night! Heretic! Heretic!” Daybreak said, but weakly.
The old woman seemed to smile within her voluminous hood.