Shiner stomped through the front door of the Back City mission and invited in the sound of falling rain. A thin golden aura over his body kept him dry and warm as he patrolled the building.
“Nothing to report, Sammy,” he said cheerfully. “Unless you want to remind Brother Nathan he lives amongst the downtrodden.”
“Nothing to report, aye,” Sam said, lifting a pen to write a stock phrase in the mission’s front desk night log. “Outdoor patrolman returned, observed nothing to report,” he said out loud as Shiner made his way around the welcome desk.
Sam did not mind these late-night duties of manning the front desk just as Shiner had been on his arrival to the mission. When the weather was nice or there were no reported incidents, the front desk was manned by a lone paladin or priest. It gave Sam time to be alone with his thoughts.
During poor conditions or after an unsettled day with the protestors outside, the watch would be covered by two paladins, and since Shiner and Sam were the lowest ranking paladins in the small mission of only fifteen, that meant the two of them.
The cold, midwinter rains had been falling for three days straight, so Sam and Shiner had all but migrated to nocturnal life, filling the night log with meaningless scripted lines until dawn when they could finally leave to get breakfast. Then it was time to sleep as much as the daylight would allow before getting to it again the next night.
Sam had to dab the pen several times to get a suitable period to appear on the paper. He reached down into one of the drawers to find three unopened ink horns. He uncorked the small vial and began writing.
“Ink horn empty. Replaced from drawer beneath desk. Two replacement vials remain.”
“I hate that you always say what you’re writing in that damned book,” Shiner grumbled. It was the part of the night where he began to get restless, but Sam had a remedy.
“Hey, Shiner, there’re a couple peaches in my bag over there if you want one.”
Shine leapt to his feet hurried to the canvas messenger bag. “Sammy Bleedingheart, a true hero! How’d you know I was starving.”
Sam turned to look flatly at Shiner as he fished for one of the peaches. “What?” he asked just before taking a large bite.
“You’re becoming obnoxious. If I did not have a snack for you, you’d probably start a fight.”
“I can’t fight you,” Shiner said, returning to his seat. “Brother Nathan still needs you for community outreach, what with all the Throne experience you have!”
Sam laughed at the remark. He had been ordered to the mission for his cultural knowledge of the throne. Shortly after his arrival, Sam discovered the entire crew of the mission was from the southern half of the March. Not a single person came from anywhere north of Crossroads.
As he met with the strategic and operational leadership of the mission, a lofty priest named Brother Nathan, and a young paladin officer, Lieutenant Braver respectively, they had assured him his street smarts would be utilized.
So far, Sam had not been ordered to do anything outside of the mission. He had only left for meals and to visit his family.
“The Church appreciates your decision to not fight me, Corporal.”
“Log it,” Shiner said with a wink. “Is it dawn yet? I can’t tell with all the clouds.”
“Not even close. Why don’t you work the log a bit? Give you something to think about.”
Shiner sulked. “I didn’t give my name to think, Sammy! I am an armored construct! A Will-empowered warhammer-swinging siege engine.”
At that moment, the room rumbled with a sudden crash of a Paladin through the front door. With his entrance, cries and curses came spilling from the figure of a man being pulled along. A gleaming golden chain of magic from the paladin’s hand wrapped several times around his wrists. The prisoner was in a rough-for-wear crimson coat, with a full face mask sewn into its hood. Eye holes were crudely cut into it, one larger that the other. The whole coat smelled at once of moisture and soot, and even though it was still dripping wet, there were several large holes burned in it.
Sam frowned at the crimson color. The man was a wrath lich.
“Damn you! And Damn the Dreamer! Where are the elder gods when we need them, huh? Napping! That’s where!” The man was crying as he taunted his captors.
“Corporal, need to log an arrest,” the paladin said with a harsh tone. His attitude seemed aimed more at the prisoner than Sam. He was one of the older, yet low ranking Vanguard Paladins that filled out the more aggressive ranks of the Back City mission. Jaded by the grimy environment and frustrated by the lack of opportunity, men like this were usually sent to patrol the streets after dark. If no other reason was suitable, it was because they were angry enough to put up a fight if something did go wrong.
“Right, your name?” Sam asked, doing his best to ignore the continued cries from the lich.
“Private Grim,” he replied flatly, yanking the chain to hush the captive. Sam chuckled a bit, glad that the shrieks from the lich covered it.
“We will have to discuss the circumstances of the capture in detail, but his arrival is logged,” Sam read off of a crumpled, dusty, and overall not often used instruction slip on the inner cover of the log book.
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“Aye,” Private Grim muttered. “He wasn't the only one out there. There were three or four. They scattered when I showed up about a block east. On Breadbox, or maybe Gallup Square? Hey, where were you and your friends?” he asked the lich.
The lich looked up at Grim, took a deep breath, and suddenly, liquid flame sparked into view, churning around the mouth area of the mask. Sam and Shiner leapt to their feet and Grim glowered.
“No you don’t, friend,” he said, twisting the chain around his wrist, and wipping it hard. The lich was pulled downward, and Grim was ready. He lifted his knee to meet the lich’s face. There was a crack and the flames dissipated, leaving the lich whimpering and curling into a ball on the floor.
“Anyway,” Grim said, looking back at the two desk workers. “Don’t know where the others ran off to. One of you two should go take a peak.”
“Stay here and wake up the mission, I’ll check,” Shiner muttered. His playfulness was gone as he sidestepped the prisoner and grabbed his warhammer and shield from the floor next to the door. He looked back at Sam nervously as the golden aura covered him and he stepped out into the rain.
“Bleedingheart, what is happening?” a sleepy woman asked in the doorway. Sister Maribel, the attendant to Brother Nathan, was still in her nightgown with a plush robe over. Her right hand was behind her back.
“Grim’s made an arrest. Wrath Liches out in the street and a few of them escaped. Shiner went to check on it.”
“Alone?”
“Well I was going to wake the mission.”
“No, no, you’re fine. Shiner’s an idiot,” she said, revealing that in her right hand was her golden casting scepter. Maribel was a studied interrogator. A priest trained in using the Will for combat in ways more creative and cunning than a paladin. The look of frustration and fear on her face sent a chill down Sam’s spine. Maribel rushed out of the door as quickly as Shiner had.
Sam pulled open a small drawer on the very end of the welcome desk to find a small handbell. He stopped for a moment, putting aside his worry for Shiner and Maribel, focusing on the Will instead.
“Please, let me warn my allies of the danger,” he muttered, focusing on his faith. He shook the bell, which silently began to glow gold. The glow grew brighter and brighter, until, like a drop of water, it dripped out of the bell. The glowing orb fell slightly before catching in the air and shooting straight up toward the ceiling. There, began to shriek an alarm in the form of a choir singing an aria before zooming through the door Maribel had left open.
The aria was omnipresent even at the other end of the building. Sam nervously watched the front door. The singing was drowning out every other sound. Even the constant patter of rain that had been the soundtrack to the past few nights at the desk could not be heard.
“Corporal, why the alarm?” Lieutenant Braver’s entrance to the lobby had been masked by the alarm. The young man looked tired, his eyes bloodshot and underlined by dark circles. He noticed the prisoner lying at Private Grim’s feet, a small splash of blood spreading from his masked face. “Ah, I see.”
“There was a small group outside, sir,” Grim said, giving the chain another tug. The lich shuddered.
“Corporal Shiner and Sister Maribel went to look for the ones that escaped,” Sam explained
The Lieutenant sighed. “Let me get my armor. Is Brother Nathan up yet?”
“I have not seen him, sir. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “Just not sleeping well.”
“I think Corporal Shiner and the Sister have this covered, sir.”
“Lieutenant Braver! Why is your paladin sounding the alarm?” Brother Nathan’s voice spilled from the hall behind the lieutenant as he yelled over the wailing.
“There’s been an arrest, Brother. It is being investigated.”
“Funny, because I see you standing, not investigating.”
The Lieutenant looked at Sam, embarrassed. Brother Nathan was much older than Lieutenant Braver, but by Church rules, where chapels would be run by priests and priestesses, missions fall under the purview of the highest ranking paladin. Brother Nathan did not take kindly to taking instruction from a man less than half his age, and as a result, worked to make every hour of Braver’s day a nightmare.
The glowing orb from the bell shrieked back into the lobby, silencing Brother Nathan. It whipped around loudly for a moment before rushing back into the bell.
“Well well well,” he said, looking on the wrath lich’s pathetic personage. “You know you could have just made friends with us to get invited inside.” Brother Nathan laughed out loud at his own joke.
“Listen to the jokes from the Dreamer’s priest. All the way down here in the Dreamer’s excrement,” the lich sputtered from the floor.
Brother Nathan’s face fell at the insult. “You would be wise to shut your mouth. Private Grim, take him to the holding cell.”
Grim looked past Brother Nathan at Lieutenant Braver. “Sir?”
Braver’s breath caught. He could almost feel Brother Nathan’s anger flaring. “Please, Private, to the holding cell.”
“I will have to talk to him about that little power play Private Grim just made,” Brother Nathan said to Sam, though Sam was positive it was more for Lieutenant Braver. “This is my mission after all, you know? Even you armored brutes should heed my orders.”
Sam looked over Brother Nathan’s shoulder to see Lieutenant Braver looking down at the floor, shaking his head.
“I mean,” Sam said, unsure of himself. He looked down at the log book and absently began writing something about the explosion. “The holding cell is staffed by the paladin’s, right? He was probably just asking permission.”
Brother Nathan said nothing for a moment, and then left without a word to Sam or to Braver. After he departed, Lieutenant moved over to the desk.
“Please, watch it, Sam,” he said frankly. “Grim gets away with it because he’s been here for a quite some time. I do not need him chasing out any more of my paladins.”
“More?”
Braver half-smiled. “I mean, there’s something to be said when you are the mission with the most transfer requests on the continent, right?”
Sam looked concerned as Braver started to frown.
“Just, be careful. My signature is on the bottom of the paperwork, but Brother Nathan’s been playing the game longer than you or I have been alive.”
“Then maybe he’ll know what I’m supposed to write in this stupid book about arresting Wrath Liches,” Sam said, searching for levity.
Braver laughed. “I will ask him when he calls me to his office to yell at me about you two. Not to mention his administrative assistant running out into the night with a paladin to chase criminals. It’s all very unsightly,” the Lieutenant said jovially, yet exhausted by the workplace drama.
On cue, Brother Nathan’s voice came from the hallway. “Braver! My office!”