“She's fine,” Skyeyes whispered to Merdon. Sarel was asleep, in a bed within Verist's tower, with the knight sitting on a chair nearby. It had taken the priest hours to put things right, and the blue kobold had passed out as her bones were forced back into place by magic, but it hadn't killed her. She was alive, breathing, sleeping peacefully given what had just happened to her only hours before.
“What's going on with this attack?” Merdon asked, distracting himself.
Skyeyes shook his head. “I don't know. We only found out as you returned. I'm about to go ask Verist what she knows.”
The man thought about going along, leaving Sarel to rest. There was nothing he could do about her condition now, but it felt wrong. “Keep me posted,” he said quietly, leaning forward in his seat.
Skyeyes nodded and left silently, not even a noise from the door as he opened and closed it. Once he was in the halls, however, he broke into a run back up to the top of the tower. When he reached Verist's room things were about how he left them. The witch herself was working on something at a desk while Red was casually hurling magical attacks out the window. One of them looked quite angry, the other was too distracted with her work to feel anything. Of course, the priest went up to the angry red kobold and mage and looked outside to see what had her so upset.
The knights were walking through her magic. They were utterly unimpeded by her attacks and the burning grass around them. It was a shocking sight, a vision of demons dancing in flames and ash. Skyeyes stepped back and pressed up against the wall with his eyes closed. What were they supposed to do with enemies like that?
“They're immune,” Red stated obviously.
Verist hummed. “Eyes of Ethral, if I had to guess,” the witch commented. “I've removed the door from the base of the tower. That should hold them for a while, at least until their mages crack another of my spells.”
Skyeyes paled at that notion. “And once they're inside, we're doomed. We need to leave,” he said, stepping away from the wall. “Teleport to the orcs.”
The witch turned and gave him a cold glare. “I'll not be leaving my things, thank you very much. I just need a couple of hours and we'll be fine. It should take them much longer than that to figure out how to manipulate my tower. If they can at all.”
Red grumbled and jumped off the windowsill. “So we just wait,” she complained. “Wonderful.”
“Well, Sarel is stable,” the white-scaled kobold informed them, looking to get Verist's gaze off him.
“She wouldn't need to be if she wasn't with Merdon,” Red claimed with a sour look.
Verist smirked and said, “But you can't do that without taking away her free will, and that's bad, isn't it?”
Red looked disgusted at the implication and shook her head. “I know! I'm just pointing out that if she didn't go tagging along with him everywhere she wouldn't have gotten hurt.”
Skyeyes shook his head at her. “I don't think that's the case, Red,” he said calmly, looking out at the knights once again. “Remember, the Eyes are an organization against kobolds as a whole. It wouldn't matter if she were with Merdon or not. If they had seen her while assassinating the orc chiefs as a free kobold of their lands, they might have done much worse.” Sarel was only wounded because it hurt Merdon.
Red refused to acknowledge that and simply left the room. She was tired of arguing with Skyeyes about humans and the consequences of interacting with them. They were simply at opposite ends of the spectrum. Perhaps they had to work with a few of them now, maybe in a few decades humans would be less of a problem, but the future she envisioned for kobolds had a lot fewer humans involved with kobolds. The mage decided to rest for a while since her magic wasn't of any real use against their enemies. It was a waste of time and power for her to keep throwing fire at knights that didn't need to worry about being burned.
Skyeyes was equally at a loss. He couldn't fight normally, and his wolves wouldn't exactly help against the Eyes of Ethral at the base of the tower. Verist was busy with her own work, whatever plan she had to get rid of the knights, Red was skulking, Merdon was keeping a vigil over Quickclaw. Thickhide was the only kobold he didn't know was up to anything special. He made a face and walked out of Verist's room, intending to find the green kobold. Wherever he was hiding around the tower. It wasn't useful, but it was something to do, something to take his mind off another fight with Red, off Quickclaw's injuries, off the dangers around them. If only to relax, himself, for a time.
Thickhide was sitting in a small room he'd claimed on the floor below Verist's. The knight was sitting on a bed and looking gloomily at his armor. His eyes were sad but the rest of his features were neutral as if he was trying to ignore that feeling. Skyeyes had a feeling he knew why the green-scaled one had that look. Their fight against the slavers had been brutal. No doubt it was the first time he'd seen so much carnage and he had been in the middle of it. Not only in the middle but a direct cause of some of it. He had killed while wearing that armor just a few days ago. Not everyone was fit to do such a thing. Many were capable of performing the act, almost as many would crack after doing it.
Skyeyes walked into the room and sat next to the green kobold. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.
“About what?” Thickhide asked, putting on a forced smile. He was shockingly transparent.
The priest sighed. “I can see it in your eyes. Once the adrenaline wore off, you started to feel sick about the fight, didn't you?” he guessed. Thickhide didn't respond, so Skyeyes continued, “It happens to everyone. Even Merdon. Your first real battle is always something disturbing. Even if you had faced only one opponent on your own, the act of taking a life is hard on the soul itself.”
“They were the bad guys,” Thickhide said, looking back at the armor. “It had to be done, right?”
Skyeyes put his hand on the green one's shoulder. “It might have to be done, but that doesn't make it any less difficult. There are many things that have to be done that are nearly impossible. This very day a man woke up with a sick wife and worked until he would collapse to try and keep her alive. None of it was easy for him, and it might not get better for a long time, but he continues doing it because he must.”
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Thickhide tilted his head and looked at Skyeyes. “Who is this man?” he asked, confused.
“It's no one specific,” the priest sighed. “There are many people on this planet, humans, elves, kobolds, orcs, of one group there must be many this scenario happened to. It is just their lives right now.” Probability and all that. “Take it as a story, know that for someone out there it is just their life, and learn from it. Sometimes the things that must be done are the hardest of all.”
Thickhide was quiet for a while as he thought about that. Eventually, he said, “Killing is very easy, physically. Humans are very fragile, even with armor.”
Skyeyes nodded, “We can be too. Our scales are tough, but an arrow or a hammer and that's it.” Elves, Skyeyes knew, were just as easy as humans, they were simply long-lived, suffered less disease. Only orcs and dragonkin broke the trend.
“I cut a man open,” Thickhide said softly. “His insides spilled out and he died. It was so easy, it took just a few seconds, just two motions.” A stab and a slice to the side.
The priest guided him away from that. “What would have happened if you didn't?” he asked the shaken kobold.
“Red would have died,” Thickhide replied, “or been captured.” Their journey would have been over.
“And the other kobolds that were already in cages wouldn't be free,” Skyeyes added. “There's no reason to be ashamed of what you did, and it's perfectly normal that you feel this way. The question is what you do now.”
Thickhide looked at him again, seeking an answer with his gaze. “What I do?”
“Yes,” Skyeyes said, standing up. “You can stop. There's nothing wrong with that. Hang up your armor, find something else to do with your life.” Thickhide looked at the floor when Skyeyes said that, hesitating. “Or you can keep going, keep fighting. You'll have to do what you did again, but you can make sure it's for the right reasons. Because there are those out there that fight for the wrong ones.”
Skyeyes left Thickhide alone with his thoughts. It was up to him now, whether he wanted to continue on the path of a warrior or not. Nothing more Skyeyes could say would change his mind any more than what he'd already done. The priest found himself wandering again, deep in contemplation about the green kobold, and wound up outside of Sarel's room as he made his way back to his own. She was still in stable condition, but asleep. Merdon hadn't moved and clearly didn't plan to until she was recovered. Verist was likely still working on her plan and would call for them if they were needed, so Skyeyes simply returned to his room and tried to relax. There were no metaphorical fires he could put out, nor literal ones, there were no emergencies to fuss over, and yet he felt restless.
Hours after getting healed, Sarel woke up with a start. She didn't just sit up, she jumped out of bed, grabbing a bedpost and flinging herself to the top of a dresser where she yanked the drawer out and held it over her head, ready to throw it if necessary. Merdon fell backward out of his chair and then held the wooden thing up defensively, in case the thief was still out of it and decided to hurl that drawer at him. Luckily, she calmed down and slowly lowered the piece of furniture. The blue kobold rubbed her eyes and looked around the room, her eyes darting around as quickly as possible to catch her brain up to speed. The walls told her Verist's tower, which meant she wasn't captured, and the presence of Merdon relaxed her a lot.
She dropped down to the floor and sheepishly put the drawer back in place. “Apologies, verakt. Sarel did not realize where she was.”
Merdon put his seat down and went right over to her, hugging the kobold tightly. “It's all right,” he whispered. “As long as you're okay it's fine.”
Sarel hugged him back and then got up to date on what was happening. She was sour when she learned her broken arm wasn't a dream. Though, it also afforded her time to tell Merdon what had happened. How, exactly, she and Shade had gotten ambushed inside the orcs' city while wandering the town.
They had been looking at various kobold dominant establishments. Shops and workplaces that were ran or staffed by kobolds. There was even a part of the orcs' city that was largely lived in by kobolds exclusively. None of the businesses were open, but it was enough for Sarel to see tables and chairs built for someone like her. At least until the small group of humans ambushed them. The way she told it, the fight was terribly short and quick, with only Shade managing to do anything significant.
Sarel frowned as she discussed her ineptitude next to Shade's skills as an assassin. The way she avoided an attack she didn't see coming, pulled a concealed dagger from her waist and retaliated without a second thought. Of course, that had to end with Sarel getting a lump on the back of her head and blacking out. It didn't give Merdon any new information about the Eyes, but it did make him try to comfort the thief. Both of them were outclassed by these new opponents; he could relate to her struggles there.
After catching up for a bit, he suggested they go see Verist. He'd been sitting around all day and wanted to stretch his legs, with Sarel agreeing happily. She didn't like being cooped up any more than he did. A whole day in bed was too much for the blue kobold. Even if she didn't particularly like Verist, it was better than doing nothing in her book. The climb up the stairs gave her a workout, got her blood flowing again, made her forget about that bone that had been sticking out of her earlier in the morning. She needed to forget that, desperately.
Verist's room had changed since Merdon saw it last, and he stopped dead in his tracks to stare, with Sarel poking her head around his side to see too. She had moved all the furniture to the sides and made her bed disappear. The floor was marked with a massive sigil that went from the center of the room to the corners and then up the walls. If the knight didn't know any better, he'd think she was summoning a demon. He did know better, however, and recognized the runes as teleportation. Merdon had seen a mage guild once when he was younger, and it was how the mages traveled to different branches with ease. This, however, was ridiculous and complex, and the point of it escaped him.
“Are we going to teleport out of here?” he asked, daring not to step into the room for fear of messing up one of the marks and doing something catastrophic.
Verist laughed. “No, don't be stupid. Well, not individually or as a group anyway,” she muttered in correction. “I think this will do it.”
Without a single pause, the witch stood in the middle of the circle and began chanting in a language Merdon didn't understand. It wasn't draconic or elven, those were the only two inhuman tongues he knew. The marks on the ground began to shine as they filled with magic, and he glanced at Sarel nervously. Quickclaw shrugged and braced herself. Whatever came next would be better than getting slaughtered by the Eyes of Ethral, that was for sure. Merdon looked squeamish as he did the same, silently agreeing with her shrug.
Verist grinned as her eyes flashed, the spell finished, and she released all her built-up energy. In defense of the mages outside, there was no way they could have predicted something so rash and unheard of, and the knights were sure trying their best to break into the tower when it happened. They did everything they could have reasonably thought to do. It was just that seeing a massive white tower flicker and fade away, leaving a large open glade behind that they all walked through a dozen times to make sure it wasn't simply invisible, wasn't a sight one saw frequently. As for the tower's occupants, a massive shift of matter across great distances was disorienting and nauseating in the best of cases. Merdon could then be forgiven for throwing up all over the stairs as soon as they landed.
Recovering from his bout of displacement, the knight righted himself and stumbled into Verist's room. She was looking pleased with herself and staring out the window. Slowly, Merdon turned his head and looked. He was greeted by the sight of pure white mountains and a blizzard hammering down outside. Verist had taken them to the frozen North.