On the morning after the abrupt conclusion of the meteoric rise of Gianna d'Avec, a group of mercenaries more or less wholly - some would say 'obsessively' - dedicated to her death met for their usual breakfast bap.
Anyone watching this small collective—four women and two men—would have thought them unlikely terrorists.
Indeed, it was difficult to rationalise their white-hot hatred for the High Priestess alongside mundane things such as their prodigious consumption of bacon, sausage, and strong white tea.
It would be tempting to assume that the threat from this rundown cafe was so insignificant that Gravalk's avatar should never have had a moment's concern.
Tempting, but very, very wrong.
Whilst a quick scan of the pinched, tired faces mechanically chewing on their morning repast would find nothing more sinister than the usual rundown residents of this district of the city, a more thorough glance would reveal something far more alarming.
For example, not one of these early morning snackers was below Level 40.
Sure, in and of itself, this was not especially unusual. Live long enough, pray to the right god, and be reasonably lucky and most people - whilst not exactly likely to cross that threshold - could reasonably expect to have a shot at it.
For example, a particularly diligent Accountant would feel they'd missed out if they retired without at least being within touching distance of that level.
No, it wasn't their levels themselves which marked this little group out for special attention, but rather the significantly combative nature of their Classes.
Which meant the atmosphere in Crazy Xim's cafe was somewhat strained this morning.
"She was definitely on the Scarlet Throne by the eighth bell," a short, dark-haired woman with the rather ominous sounding Class of Nightmare Reaver. It should be noted, though, that he possible intimidation factor of her doom-laden Class was somewhat undercut by the spreading ketchup stain on her tunic that she was brushing at, ineffectually, with one hand, whilst trying to consume the rest of her roll with the other.
"That was her schedule for the last year, Tenia," the taller of the two men replied, slurping his tea. "I think we can take it as fucking read that she was on her throne at that time."
The woman blinked somewhat owlishly and then narrowed her eyes at the man who had spoken.
Once upon a time, she'd liked him. There'd been something between them besides a shared interest in the complete and brutal destruction of a certain red-haired High Priestess.
But familiarity had bred contempt. And what could be more familiar than a daily contact stuck forever in the raking over the coals of sorrow and anger.
Impotence of revenge led to its own sorrow.
"Some of us took our role in this endeavour seriously, Charl," she almost spat at him. "Since we uncovered that the bitch didn’t actually stay in the Temple overnight - which I worked out, you will remember? - my job was to track her whereabouts. Which I did, without error, for nearly five years. It is hardly my fault that the rest of you couldn’t organise an assassination in a charnel house."
As always happened when the two clashed, Charl found himself on his feet - body inflating to ridiculous proportions as anger triggered the main Skill of his Berserker Balloon Class.
The second man, a squat wiry figure with a beard that made him look, to his mind, like a pirate and in everyone else's like he had spent a long, hard winter sleeping rough, tutted. He had made that noise countless times over the years when this confrontation had played itself out.
As an Empath Nullifier it was entirely within his skillset to put a nice thick coating of calm over proceedings and, for the first couple of years, he had given enough of a damn to do so.
Then he had realised that neither Tenia nor Charl were really going to do anything to each other and that he was simply wasting mana.
Maybe one of these days, the big guy would lose his shit and tear the snidey mare's head off. Then wouldn't he feel silly? But he doubted it.
He flicked his eyes to their erstwhile leader, sitting silently in the middle of her two sisters, watching the daily drama playing out precisely as it had the day before. Although, considering the news they had just received, probably wouldn’t tomorrow . . .
The blonde woman caught him looking.
"You have something to add, Irek?"
"Not me," the bearded man returned his focus to his breakfast. "This ain't my circus and those two-" he jerked a thumb at the Reaver and the Berserker -"sure ain't my monkeys."
Against her better judgement, this made Hel smile, but the frustration of the situation quickly stole away any sense of humour. "Charl, cool your jets. You don't know when you'll need that mana. And Tenia? Leave him be."
Neither of those addressed acknowledged her words, but she knew they would now settle down—they always did. These daily meetings had progressed almost like clockwork—if the particular clock was designed by a madman stuck in a time loop, relentlessly masturbating over an image of his pet turtle.
First, Tenia would outline the High Priestess' arrival at the Temple. Realising she did this, rather than stayed overnight on the Temple's Third Floor, sadly, had represented the only significant development they'd achieved in about a year. That they didn't know where d’Avec went, or why - of course they didn't. What were they, a highly trained elite, covert intelligence squad well used to operating behind enemy lines? Ahem.
Secondly, Charl would get all pissy he already knew this and then Tenia would bite back at which stage it would all go def-con 1 as her fucking
Hel rubbed a hand over her face, reached for her own bacon roll, and wondered what they were going to do now the focus of their rage had been taken off the table.
It had all been so much simpler, way back then. When the clean, hard burn of it was at the very centre of their existence. Such drive ensured that they tolerated each other's . . . foibles. But the relentless grind of the years and the constant, undeniable fact that, regardless of how many promises they made, plans set in motion, nor death threats sent, they were approaching their fifth year into this mission and if they had caused Gianna d'Avec as much as a head cold, then there was not a shred of evidence for it.
And now someone had killed her.
Hel snorted, causing the rest of her team to glance towards her in concern. As a
Here they sat in the same cafe, having the same conversations, arguments, and snarks as they had done many times over the years.
It was enough to make Hel weep.
Hel did her best not to glance at her silent sisters sitting either side of her. Arwel and Erwell were all that remained of her own family, and neither had spoken for their entire lives. Seeing your parents cooked from the inside out would do that, apparently. That they had both become Wraiths was hardly a surprise. That Hel had sufficiently subverted their death wishes to keep them with her to accomplish this task was more of one.
But there were some things you didn't want to dwell on at the eighth bell in a busy working man's cafe. Not when there was bacon to eat.
It had all been so simple. All they needed to do was waylay Gianna d'Avec as she entered or exited the Temple each day. The fact she did that, despite being able to reside in there permanently, had seemed such a gift when Tenia brought it to them.
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They had the firepower, the Skills, and the kamikaze indifference to their own survival to ensure that they had every chance of overcoming the Level disparity. Dungeon delvers did such things, daily, and as a matter of course. And they had an expectation - nay, a desirable necessity - of coming out of their encounters alive.
And yet, for all their advantages, they had not been able to make it happen.
And now someone else had done it for them.
The funny thing was, despite the fact that an event they had long dedicated themselves to bring about was coming to pass, nobody was actually feeling remotely happy. Nor, it turned out, did they have anything to talk about which wasn't concerned with planning the violent death of a certain High Priestess.
Irek met Hel's eyes and raised his eyebrows again. She gave a little shake of her head in response. It turned out that she didn't have many better ideas than he did.
Well, wasn’t that wonderful. He felt a wobble in the emotional state of one of the two Wraiths - he could never tell them apart- and pressed down more firmly with his Skill.
It was like pouring water into a desert.
"What the fuck are we doing still here?" They all turned to Tenia who, to be fair, was pretty high on the list of them most likely to lose her shit first.
"We've met here every day for the last five years. I kind of think it would look pretty damn suspicious if, the morning after a brutal murder, a bunch of Level 40s with rather destructive classes suddenly stopped meeting for breakfast. What do you think?" Hel's voice was tight, and each of them surreptitiously refreshed their defensive Skills.
"What do you think happened?" asked Charl for the sixth time since they sat down.
Arwel and Erwal gave a strange screaming noise in reply that caused silence to fall amongst the rest of the patrons. Hel glanced towards Irek and indicated he needed to do his fucking job and ramp up the levels of chill. The last thing they needed was her sisters freaking out and stripping flesh from bones.
"Look, I'm just going to come out and say it. It wasn't me.” Tenia crossed her arms over her chest and sat back, glaring at the others.
Charl nodded. "Me neither."
Irek opened his arms wide. "Goes without saying.”
Hel was aware they were all looking at her and her sisters. “It's not quite that simple.”
That hardly smoothed out the growing tension.
"I could be wrong," the Nightmare Reaver began, "but it's a pretty fucking binary position. Did you guys kill the High Priestess?"
"Well, first of all, why don't we all keep our fucking voices down. I hear the Security Service are pretty damn motivated to close this case.”
"Fair enough, Hel, But what do you mean ‘it's not that simple?’” It took a lot to get Charl's goat going, but there were signs that particular ruminant was off and running downhill.
"And stop fucking messing with our emotions!" Tenia pushed out a quick screech of Banshee towards Irek, which made the Wraith sisters’ little outburst earlier seem like a minor giggle, knocking him to the floor.
Hel flicked a gust of wind towards Tenia, lifting her—and holding her—into the air while simultaneously catching Irek and putting him back on the righted chair.
"Let's all settle the fuck down."
If the group's antics near the window disturbed the rest of the patrons, they didn't show it. To be fair, a little light mayhem was hardly the sort of thing to cause comment in this particular establishment. Nevertheless, the charged scent of personal shields being raised wafted through the air.
Charl snarled and began to increase in size. Hel sucked all the oxygen out of his lungs and quickly returned him to his normal size, spluttering as he did so. She wagged her finger back and forth. "Stop it!"
There was a moment of tense silence.
Tenia gave up struggling and hung sulkily, letting her power bleed from her hands. Irek dropped Good Cheer and began channeling Conciliation whilst Charl struggled to breathe, going increasingly red as his lungs refused to inflate. The Wraiths sat impassively, staring up at the Temple through the window.
"Do you want me to explain, or do you want to be dicks?"
"To be honest," Irek said, increasing his output and taking yet another Mana potion, "it'd be great if we could do both."
"Well, boo-fucking-hoo." Hel released Charl's lungs and let Tenia fall, unceremoniously, back to the ground. "Let's try to remember who we are – or at least used to be - and keep the total fucking shambles to a minimum."
"For the one of us who appears to need to explain how she might have killed our target without mentioning it to the rest of us, you're being pretty punchy this morning." Tenia glowered.
"Look, as I said, it's not that simple.” She glanced at her sisters who continued to sit staring up at the Temple. "It was just before the tenth bell. I was locking up for the night as usual and-" she paused, flashing back to her blind panic of the night before- "well, I realised neither Arwel nor Erwel were in the house.”
They all turned to look at the Wraiths, their silhouettes blurring and fading under the intense observation. “And that's unusual?" Irek asked.
“Is it unusual for me to lose track of two beings who have the ability to drain the life force out of anyone they make physical contact with? Who I have had to give my personal assurance to the Council will not take another life in this city? Yeah, pretty fucking unusual.”
Irek pushed down on his active Skill a little more. As usual, though, he found that Hel was curiously resistant. In theory, someone of a similar level couldn't be able to push back in this way. However, he couldn't ever remember being able to affect her overmuch.
"So, what happened?" Charl had caught his breath and didn't seem to be holding any grudges over his brief suffocation.
“Well, I knew there was only going to be one place they could have gone. I mean," she jutted her chin towards them, "look at them!"
Her two sisters were staring idly out of the window, their eyes locked on the Third Floor of the Celestial Temple. "It's all they live for. And I use 'live’ in the broadest of all possible senses."
"So, you're saying they killed her?" Tenia’s voice dripped with skepticism.
Hel's eyes darkened, tempests swirling in their pupils. “I'm not sure at what stage in our relationship you decided you could speak to me in such a way. I would urge you to reconsider the advisability of your tone.”
There was a brief moment when Irek could feel Tenia preparing to make an issue of it, and he switched to his most powerful Skill, Mood Killer, which, in theory, should take the heat out of any situation.
"Tell your pet manipulator that if he doesn't get out of my head, I'm going to be visiting his dreams tonight, and then we will be having some fun." Tenia's eyes were fixed on Hel.
"Irek. Please." Hel's voice was soft, and with reluctance, he released his Skill. "Now, are we going to play nice, or do I need to remind you the difference between being a monster when asleep versus actually being a real and present one right here."
“To be fair, Hel, it sounds like it's you that's saying you fucked up," Charl chipped in. "Just tell us what happened."
Perhaps realising that when a Berserker Balloon was the voice of reason, you'd probably strayed a little too far away from the reservation, Hel let some of the Skills she was holding drain away.
When the atmosphere calmed slightly, she continued, the hard-edge vanishing from her voice. “It wasn't hard to work out where the two of them had gone and I caught up with them just after they'd entered the Temple. "
"And the Temple Warders?" Irek asked
"At that time of night, it was a skeleton staff, and, well, we all know how good my sisters are at getting in places they shouldn't. Anyway, they'd somehow baffled the Portal Stone and were slipping through to the Third Floor. I caught them both, but I was dragged through alongside them."
"And?" Tenia seemed to have forgotten her previous antagonism and was leaning forward in interest."
“She was still in there. I could hear her arguing with someone within her chamber.”
As she spoke, Hel was transported back to the night before, Anwel and Erwel straining against the leashes of air she had placed around them. She'd never truly struggled to control them before, but now - so close to their quarry - they were almost insane with fury. Hel had needed to pop a bubble of oxygen around them all to deaden the noise their snarling and wailing was causing.
She remembered that the light coming from beneath the High Priestess's door had cast a sinister glow around the rest of the floor, and the shadows cast by the Wraiths clawing attempts to break free and assault the door to the receiving chamber were monstrous.
For a moment, Hel had considered letting them loose and adding her own power to the assault. This was an opportunity that surely would not occur again. In all their years of dogging d'Avec's steps, she had never stayed inside the Temple this late after the close of business. It was what had made it so impossible for her to waylay. For a glorious moment, she could see the end of their long vigil.
But then reality kicked in.
They'd planned this so carefully for a reason. Without Charl, Irek or Tenia, there would have been no realistic possibility of success. Even all working together, she put their chances at 50/50, but with only half the team, they were just going to be free XP.
"I have given you my answer," the voice of the High Priestess exploded out from behind the door. Hel could not make out to whom she was speaking and pulled quickly back on her sisters, dragging them back towards the Portal Stone.
“And you just left without doing anything?"
Hel ignored Tenia’s scorn. She was suddenly struck by something she hadn't registered at the time. There had been a dampness to the air on the Third Floor, which was wholly unusual around the high under the Priestess.
Had there been ... water coming from under her chamber door?
"What happened next, HeI?" Charl was leaning forward, the table creaking under his weight.
Hel put that thought away. "We got out of there as fast as we could. But I can tell you, Gianna d'Avec was hale and hearty just past the tenth bell."