“I don’t understand.” Evan said slowly. The healer certainly looked befuddled by the question as he backed away towards the ladder and he wasn’t the only one.
“You can’t be serious Ere.” Natalya growled, stepping between them, “I watched this man damn near kill himself trying to save these people, there’s no way in all the hells he’s the culprit.”
“John, how many people lived in Valda?” Erebus asked calmly.
The Guardian took a couple seconds to answer, every bit as flummoxed by the accusation as Natalya but yet to work up to outrage due to sheer shock, “Three hundred and thirty seven.”
“I count three hundred and thirty seven phials.” The necromancer explained only to sigh as he realised he really wasn’t taking the room with him on this one. “…Evan doesn’t need one, anything he could do to the phial he could do to himself. So where did the extra phial come from?”
“Oh come on, that’s ridiculous. Why would I do something like this?” Evan protested, “You said it yourself, anyone could bypass the wards after so many chances to practice.”
“It’s a good act, had me fooled for quite a while, but the flaws really are too large to ignore by this point.” The necromancer declared, whilst trying to step clear of his companions so he’d have a clear shot at the healer, so far they weren’t allowing it. Well except for Holly who had not only stepped clear but was working her way slowly behind him.
“I can’t let you do this Ere. You’ve no proof.” Alice told him, standing beside Natalya in solidarity.
“I’ve more proof than you think. First and foremost… he’s too skilled. Even if Evan were the greatest prodigy the world had seen for generations there’s no way he could master so many disciplines in his first century. And the runecraft is especially out of place. He’s got alchemy gear, a summoning circle and a shelf full of blood magic, but I don’t see an artificery, so explain to me how he was able to master runecraft?”
Evan spluttered in disbelief, “You can’t honestly be about to murder me for being good at my job.”
“It’s not much of a case.” John agreed slowly, on the verge of making his mind up.
“I’d add that he had a shield for stopping vitae drain just ready to go. A spell like that takes years if not decades to develop.” Erebus added. “And I’m not going to murder you in cold blood for being unreasonably skilled, that would be just ridiculous. I’m going to murder you because you killed my friend.”
“If I were this horrible killer why would I create a shield to stop it?” Evan protested, his back now to the ladder though he didn’t dare climb up it. That would almost guarantee Erebus a clean shot and the necromancer seemed in the mood to take it. A point rendered moot a moment later as the necromancer telekinetically shut the trapdoor, the bolts sliding closed for good measure.
“Because I don’t think you ever intended to hurt anyone.” The black robed mage told him evenly, even as he calculated whether he could get away with a parabolic shot over the heads of his friends without collateral damage. “Tell me Evan, how did your son die?”
“What are you-?”
“I imagine it was an accident, a falling branch, a nasty fall, maybe he banged his head on a rock.” Erebus continued, speaking over the healer. “No matter what it was I’d imagine being unable to save him was agony. You know even a Healer First Class struggles with a panacea, could you even cast it back then?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Evan yelled back, the outburst rageful enough it stunned those around him into silence.
“Oh I think you do.” The necromancer said sympathetically, “At first I thought it professionalism, or a sense of duty, that you would labour so hard to save those around you rather than search for your boy. But you mourned him long ago didn’t you?”
“Nothing I say will convince you will it?” The healer observed sadly, head bowed and defeated as he hid behind Erebus’ allies, “You really think I’m some kind of monster.”
“All of this is just speculation Ere.” Amara pointed out, not actively interposing herself like her fellows but not exactly helping either. Susan was also staying to the sidelines, not out of a lack of interest but in these close confines the risk of killing someone by just bumping into them was far too high.
“What’s not speculation is just two people had access to the blood when the loop started.” He said gravely, “If it’s not him then it’s Guardian Mill, and my gut tells me it isn’t Mill. And Mill was with me when Sato was killed, that just leaves Evan.”
“Evan was with me.” Natalya countered, “And I think I would have noticed.”
“Would you? One small cut is all it would take. And were you with him the whole time?” Erebus pressed.
“Yes, right up until we left for the meeting where he…” The necromancer paused, “had to do a few last minute checks while I waited outside.”
“Plenty of chance to start draining Sato then.” Her friend noted pointedly, lowering his battlestaff a little as he let her reach her conclusion.
“It still doesn’t make any sense. Why would he spend all that effort on trying to save everyone?”
“Because he gets all that mana and magicka back when the loops resets, whereas you assisting him means he gets to siphon a lot of power from you before the loop wipes you from existence.” Erebus explained.
There was a pregnant pause, then Natalya slowly stepped out of the way, a few moments later John joined her, leaving just Alice between Evan and annihilation.
“Natalya?” Evan pleaded, “You can’t seriously believe this?”
“I’m not sure what I believe, but if he’s wrong then you’re going to be alive and well again in a few hours. If he’s right then I’d be sacrificing my only chance to live to protect someone who murdered my friend in cold blood.” She told him calmly.
“…John?”
“It’s like he said, only two of us can access that cabinet. And I know for sure it wasn’t me, all I want to know Evan is why you did it?” The geomancer going so far as to point his wands at the healer and just thirty seconds ago his closest friend.
“I didn’t!” He yelled, desperate now, “You have to believe me! For Sanitatem’s sake John, why would I do something like this? What possible motive would I have?”
“I don’t know.” His old friend told him mournfully, “But I suspect the necromancer is about to tell us.”
“That depends.” Erebus told them evenly, “Al, are you going to step aside?”
The shapeshifter gave him a level gaze, “Someone with as much power as you have can’t afford to be murdering people on a hunch, until you give us something better than circumstantial evidence I’m staying stood right here.”
“We’re getting a little short on time here.” The necromancer pointed out.
“We’re always short on time, there’s always people to save, a plague to stop, a city imperilled.” Alice shook her head, “Doesn’t change a thing.” She actually chuckled despite the tense standoff, “I can see it in your eyes you know? You’re wondering if you can blast through me without killing me. Wondering if I’d forgive you. Wondering if you can bring yourself to do it. I suggest you keep wondering.”
Erebus nodded slowly, turning his attention back to Evan, “As I said, I don’t think this was deliberate. I suspect you’d been quietly experimenting with chronomancy for some time before this all started, nothing serious, maybe you could go back a few seconds, slow down time for a dying patient by a fraction. A little bit of extra time is practically the healer’s mantra. Just a few more seconds and you might have saved them, every healer thinks that, especially one who, by your exclamation I assume attended the Sanitatem Institute.”
Evan said nothing, just glaring at him, wild-eyed as anger and desperation warred behind his eyes.
“Anyway, your son dies. Nothing you could do to stop it. Maybe they arrived on your operating table already dead. It doesn’t matter. Now most people would mourn, spend a few years broken by it, but you just happen to have enough illegal magical knowledge to be dangerous and access to a medical tool that can also be used to drain the life out of the entire town. How close am I?”
Evan repeated himself, jaw visibly clenched to the point anyone who wasn’t a healer would likely need to see a dentist afterwards.
“So you get your good friend John to unlock the cabinet, probably something about removing your boy’s phial and burying it, and because he doesn’t have a heart of stone he does so and while he’s letting you have a few moments to yourself you kill the entire town. You rationalise it to yourself fairly easily, afterall it’s not like you’re really killing them, you’re just going back in time by a day, no one will ever know.”
“I don’t know where you got the rest of the power from,” Erebus continued, “and at this point I don’t especially care. Maybe you’d been saving for a rainy day, maybe you had some heirloom artifact, it doesn’t matter, either way you managed it. You dragged an entire town back through time by a day. The problem is your son wasn’t inside the town when the loop started, all that effort, that betrayal, all for nothing, and it gets worse.”
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The necromancer stopped for a moment to see if Evan would break his silence, he didn’t, though his glare had moved from anger to sheer hatred.
“Because despite your dabbling you’re not an expert on time magic, and that was a far bigger and more complex spell than you were able to handle, and now your friends, the people you were sworn to protect, are dropping like flies and you daren’t tell a soul what you’ve done. But if you just keep trying, can just keep the loop going, then maybe you can fix this, but there isn’t enough energy to keep the loop active, people are dying sooner and sooner… and just as you think all hope is lost… Salvation! The Council comes to find out what’s happening.”
Erebus grinned at him, teeth flashing, “I bet it never even occurred to you the first time. When the First Response team came blundering in to help, but the loop doesn’t care what you want and you still haven’t figured out how to stop it anyway. So they get killed and sure enough a Second Response team comes blundering in in search of them.
“And you’re committed now. An entire First Response team dead? They’d have your head on a pike, and if they’re going to die anyway then it’s not really murder right? So you kill them, drain the life from them and smelt their souls for good measure, and suddenly you’ve got a power supply that will last years. It gets even better, because people just keep coming, entire legions of the undead you don’t even have to feel guilty about. You’re set for an age.
“The problem is that people stopped coming, and before we arrived you still were no closer to breaking the loop safely. Even assuming you murdered some truly powerful mages I’d imagine that supply ran out ages ago, how many of the people missing at the start are in fact just because you smelted their souls to keep things running?”
Finally Evan snapped, “For someone I can wipe out of existence with a word you sure talk a lot.”
Erebus smiled, far too satisfied at being vindicated, “Finally done with the act?”
“I was hoping to get at least one more of you before the reset.” The healer admitted, “Not that it especially matters at this point, you’ve all been incredibly helpful, especially you Erebus. I should be able to break the loop within a few more attempts.”
“You’re quite welcome.” The necromancer replied calmly, “Of course you could just break the loop now.”
The healer snorted in amusement at that idea. “And have my friends despise me? Be cut down where I stand by Council thugs? I’ll pass.”
“I’m feeling generous.” Erebus began before stopping himself, “No that’s a lie. I’m not feeling generous at all, but I’m prepared to hold my ire if you stop this now.”
“You think you can kill me? You said it yourself, I’m a master of magics and I’ve nearly an entire town’s worth of energy to call upon if pushed.” Evan snarled, only to flinch as a stone the size of a small dog shattered on his shield, the aegis flashing into visibility as it stopped the spell.
“You scum-sucking, selfish, egomaniac!” John roared, another stone from the basement walls pulling free. Erebus couldn’t help being impressed, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to even lift this one without magic.
Evan just batted it down to the floor with a small display of geomancy, only to follow it up with smoothing the walls of the basement with a whispered word, depriving his friend of easy ammunition. “Oh do be quiet John, if you’d listened to me that first morning none of this ever would have happened.”
It happened so fast that Erebus barely even saw it happen, one moment John was opening his mouth to retort, the next he was convulsing on the floor, Natalya darting through the line of fire to try and stabilise him.
“Temporal acceleration and dread healing.” The necromancer observed, “I do hope you’re not trying to intimidate me.”
“Just trying to reason with you.” Evan told him in the too neutral tone of a man trying not to show their anger. “You must see you are outmatched. I can reset the loop in a second, all of you will be gone. There is no way you win this, all your defiance does is cost more lives.”
“You have a proposal.”
“Let me drain your lives, at least then you’ll actually be dying for something.”
Erebus sighed, “You’re right. I cannot stop you resetting the loop.” He glanced around at his friends, “But I won’t lay down and die for you. Anyone here want to?”
Unsurprisingly there were no takers, even Holly had her hands raised and ready to fight, the dryad trying desperately to get the local trees to grow their roots into the basement. It would take ages, the trees had never felt a dryad’s call before, the stone was thick and the mana needed to fuel it for Holly was like trying to drain a reservoir with a straw, her bond to Alec practically flooded with concern as her partner tried to practically forcefeed his magicka through the bond but if the standoff lasted long enough then it would be one hell of a sneak attack.
“I think that’s your answer.” The necromancer growled, “Now do your worst.”
Evan did.
“Tempus redit.”
The wave of magic burst out from Evan, a scintillating screen of blue energy that ignored the stream of mana-eating fire from Amara and barely shuddered from Erebus’ burst of entropy. It spread out across the room in under a second, smothering the essence of the divine in Alice before annihilating her, passing easily through Natalya’s aegis and Erebus’ as well. It erased Susan from existence with ease and struggled for just a moment to handle Lana’s armour of sin before it removed her from the timeline as well.
Finally it reached the back wall where Holly stood, passing over her too. The dryad found herself simply floating in an endless void of ethereal blue as the wave continued onwards, presumably not stopping until it reached the wall erected around Valda.
Across from her Holly saw Evan also floated, and he had unfortunately noticed her, his eyes wide with shock and terror. “You can’t be here.” The mage said, “You can’t be here!”
He tried to cast something, anything, but it all died in that blue glow, retconned before it could ever truly exist. Desperately he tried to swim through the void, but there was no medium to pull against, leaving him flailing comically in the air. If it was air.
There was a shattering sound, all-consuming and everywhere, as if Holly were surrounded by breaking glass, and then it was over. Everyone was back where they’d been before the spell except Evan, the healer face down on the floor from his flailing.
Amara made to leap for him but the healer was back on his feet in a flicker of too-fast motion, the vampire knocked into the walls with a wave of his hand and landing heavily in a heap.
“How did you-? That’s impossible! You can’t…! What are you?” The healer demanded, glaring at Holly with a burning hatred that made his antipathy for Erebus seem like a candle before a roaring fire.
“So who wants first shot at him?” The necromancer asked, another blast of entropy gathering at the tip of Yew’s stave.
Evan blurred, chronomancy giving them speed even a vampire would be jealous of, a moment later he had Alice pulled tight against him, a ritual knife to her throat, the old soldier deathly still in his grip, “Try it and I give your friend here a crimson smile.”
For the first time since arriving in Valda, Erebus actually looked scared, very slowly lowering his staff to the floor. “You don’t want to do this. It’s not worth it. Please don’t hurt them.”
“That’s more like it.” Evan sighed, relaxing just a little, “Now open the hatch and I’ll push your friend back through once I’m up.”
The necromancer nodded, opening the hatch without complaint, “Everyone do what he says. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt here.”
“Finally.” The healer drawled, as he laboriously began to climb the ladder. It was a slow process, the mage having to step slowly backwards and keep their frail prisoner in place by raw strength.
Even with how light Alice was the only way Evan was able to haul her up with him would be through a raft of physical enhancements, the mad healer clearly having turned his experiments upon himself at some point. “See was that so hard? All you had to do was show a little bit of respect and everyone gets to walk away. Well nearly everyone.”
In one smooth movement they drew the tip of the dagger across Alice’s throat. There was a startled gasp from out of sight and the sound of a body dropping to the floor.
Erebus sighed deeply, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Sure enough, as the necromancer practically sprinted up the ladder, Evan lay dead on the floor, eyes wide and uncomprehending, the healer skewered to the floorboards by a dozen spines that had erupted from Alice’s back.
The shapeshifter made a fairly comical if sad sight, Evan’s collapse had hoisted her into the air by the spines she had killed him with, her face a rictus of agony as she fought not to scream, legs flailing helplessly in the air. The cut on her throat had already healed. “Don’t you dare laugh.” She growled through the pain.
Her friend rubbed at his eyes in tired defeat, there was no comedy here for him, his friend was suffering and he’d been unable to prevent it, “All clear.” He called back through the trapdoor, “Evan’s down. Alice is alive. How’s John?”
“Alive.” Natalya called back, “I’ve no idea what state he’s going to be in once he regains consciousness though.”
“We’ll get there when we get there.” Erebus replied, “For now I want you to destroy those blood samples, have Mar incinerate them. Holly how’s your bond right now?”
“I can feel him a lot stronger now, though it’s still weak.” The dryad called back, “Anyone mind telling me what just happened?”
“You saved our lives is what happened. I’ll give the full explanation once I’ve helped Alice back on her feet.”
That was easier said than done, the shapeshifter obviously couldn’t retract the spines or she would have done so and she had unfortunately done all too good a job of making them sturdy enough to penetrate bone, one of the spines had taken Evan in the forehead and hadn’t stopped until it emerged from the back of his skull.
No blade he had would be able to cut through them, and fire was a terrible idea, the heat needed would easily burn Alice as well. Water would have been ideal, a water jet from an experienced hydromancer could carve through steel through butter. Alas hydromancy was one of the magical arts Erebus had always struggled with, even after his master’s tutelage, and he wasn’t going to risk a slipup with a friend’s life at stake.
It was an interesting conundrum, shapeshifters were notoriously difficult to affect directly with magic so entropic spells were also out which was a pity really, Erebus potentially the greatest entropomancer on the face of Reath.
Finally he settled on just taking a file from one of his robe pockets and began freeing Alice the old fashioned way, filing as close to her skin as he dared.
“You’re taking the piss right?” The shifter grumbled as she realised she was going to be stuck there for some time, and worse still her colleagues were starting to climb up the ladder.
“I don’t want to leave you with wounds you’ll have to heal, not in your condition.” Erebus explained, “And there’s no magic I have that I trust to do the job.”
“Bollocks to that. I’m a big girl, I can take it, and if there’s a little blood fine, I’ll let the wound heal on its own, scion’s honour.” Alice told him flatly.
“No. You’ll wait until you’re out of sight then heal it anyway despite the fact you’re as likely right now to give yourself a tumour as you are a scab.” Her friend not buying even a word of it.
To their credit the main emotion the group expressed upon seeing Alice was concern, with triumph and congratulations being a close second as they filed out of the infirmary, only Natalya and Ilvere staying behind to tend to Guardian Mill.
Susan briefly offered to try and remove the spines with her devouring touch, but as with fire it was deemed too risky to Alice – even the shapeshifter balked a little at the thought.
As victories went it was a sombre one. There was no knowing if John would ever recover and the loss of Sato was felt deeply. Beyond that everyone was simply exhausted, Natalya eventually taking one of the infirmary beds whilst the rather rough treatment of Amara in the basement had left her hungry enough that she’d disposed of the surviving blood samples by simply drinking them.
Holly had her own things to do, more or less sprinting towards the boundary and Alec running to meet her once Erebus had given the go ahead. Every step made it just that little bit easier to breathe for the dryad, though she could already sense just how much the stress and strain of nearly a day disconnected not just in space but time had strengthened the bond.
Ultimately it had taken several hours to slowly file Alice free, the old woman visibly pained and hunched now as she walked and Erebus so exhausted he took a nap of his own as soon as she was free.