"...Sceenn, Sceenn!"

Sol ducked backward. He had already put two and two together and knew those three words meant death. Falling over himself was the better option.

But he was not the target.

Three teardrop-shaped projectiles of near-invisible energy blasted out from her wand into the scorched form of the doppelganger once known as Aloro. Who was still weeping, crying out in agony from what Sol had done to him. Now- thankfully, silenced.

Sol stared at the now corpse, looked at the woman, then looked around the room.

The once beautiful Inn was now slowly burning, the fire spreading along the dry wooden floors.

He looked to the two Drakon, now standing over a smoking suit of armor that appeared to be headless.

Had they decapitated whoever it was that had been inside?

He looked down at the two doppelgangers he had helped kill. The one that had been disguised as Aloro was a charred mess from the waist down, and the flame was licking up his torso.

She had pulverized his throat with her blasts of force, just as she had his cousin.

No, not his cousin. He thought as he looked down at the creature that had worn his cousin's face. He had been right. The creature had played him for a fool, now twice over.

Where was his cousin? Dead? Doppelgangers were creatures shrouded in mystery, but he'd heard too many stories of them killing and wearing the skin of the people they disguised themselves as.

He had assumed such stories were old-wives tales, but then again, he had also assumed doppelgangers themselves were old-wives tales.

The scent of apples was gone, and it was replaced by the smell of burnt flesh.

Sol vomited out the tea he'd drunk during the conversation, the pleasant alacrity causing citrus flavor going in turned rancid on the way out.

He wheezed and coughed. Breathing in to recover only caused him to inhale the smoke, now permeating the room, making him hack all the more.

An urge to panic was mounting in him. His cousin was dead most likely, his body withered, desiccated, and buried in a shallow grave. If they buried him at all.

And during all this, he felt a sickening sense of guilt.

Because it wasn't the loss that was causing his facilities to shut down. Or at least not entirely.

It was the… violation done onto him, with an unenchanted mind he now had he looked back on the conversation. And how he'd been so thoroughly controlled and manipulated, it felt so… vile.

He now suspected the stories of doppelgangers being mind readers were correct, at least in the case of Not-Aloro.

The doppelganger had known his thoughts far to intimately to be as simply done as a barman's reading of a customer. And this only made the violation deeper.

He felt a sudden second pang of loss. Strange grief owed to whoever the real Aloro had been before the doppelganger had gotten him.

Doubt washed over him. Was his sorrow for the original or to his faux counterpart? His- its… natural charm had persuaded him to like the 'barman' even before the magical charm took effect.

The woman stared at him, the pity and disdain on her face slowly slipping away into a look of impatience.

He looked down from her eyes, feeling ashamed, yet not really knowing why. He felt so... exposed, vulnerable.

Luckily her glare shifted to the approaching Drakon, who had since completed their brutal execution of whatever the armored figure had been. Their method caused a smell that reminded him vaguely of burnt mushrooms.

The brothers, unlike Sol, were not suffering the whiplash of their first kill. Nor would they have been near as affected if they had.

Ignoring the simple fact that they did not share as personal a connection to whom they were fighting as he did. Or more accurately, a connection to the disguise worn by who they'd fought.

Drakon simply did not struggle with death and killing in the same way humans did, or any other race for that matter.

Even Drakon who had forsworn violence as a last resort, such as Asgar, did not deal with that same struggle.

They were built for war and war alone. Whether on a small scale or a significant one came as naturally to them as breathing.

As for the violation that was the magically charming effect created by the doppelganger, well.

They hadn't really thought about it yet.

No, instead, what they were focused on was the cleric himself.

"Sol, what's wrong? Where are you hurt?" Asgar quickly rushed over and looked the human over, yet finding no wound to explain his wheezing. And what appeared to be the beginning of weeping.

"What's wrong with him?" Argus asked, only for his brother to speak in turn. "I don't know, we need to get him out of here. The smoke can't be helping whatever this is if it's not the smoke itself causing it."

Sol was aware of what the brothers were saying but could not summon the air with which to form words to explain what was happening. And he wasn't entirely sure what was happening.

The brothers shared a look then nodded. Gripping Sol by the arms and dragging him out as the building burned.

Unfortunately, despite his best attempts, Argus could not snuff the flame. It appeared that trick was limited to only snuff out what was meant to be lit.

They quickly escaped the flame, and Asgar began to care to Sol in an attempt to coax him from his growing panic attack.

Argus turned to the woman, who had followed them out. Now as the sun’s light fully illuminated her, he looked her up and down and realized something.

This woman should be dead, her body had enough stab wounds in it to bring someone down a dozen times her size.

Wounds either inflicted by her own attacks reflected back onto her by the second doppelganger's divine magic or created the monster's own dagger.

Her face was mostly untouched- though a single stab wound had pierced her cheek. Creating a hole that the Drakon could look through into her mouth, an injury that made him cringe to look upon.

There was another enigma about her. She most certainly appeared dead but her skin had a hue more akin to charcoal, devoid of any blemishes or changes in color; if one ignored the wounds that is.

She looked not dissimilar to Anverth, though he had the benefit of his shiny ruby beard to break up the grey flesh. And said skin was far more textured and rocky than the woman before them.

Like her skin, her eyes were ash black as well, as was her hair. Even the regions they'd expect time to be a slightly lighter shade, like the palms of her hands, were the same pitch-black color.

All of this was practically mundane compared to the truly ludicrous amount of damage that had been done to her body. Which mostly consisted of stab wounds, and yet there appeared to also be burns and old scars.

These wounds were not easy to spot, as they were by and large the exact same color of pitch-black as the rest of her.

All of this was irrelevant to the duo at the moment, as the woman was clearly dead. Or, more specifically, undead.

Some strange variant of the cursed corpses that roamed the earth long after their time had passed.

But what made them all the warier was the way she held herself, intelligent, reading them and looking them up and down just as they were doing to her. And still, she had not spoken beyond the words for her spells.

She stared at them, and they stared at her.

Finally, she spoke, and with far more gravitas and presence than her stature and behavior would have indicated initially to them.

"I don't have much time left, I have an idea of who and what you are, and thus I would share information with you. This information is regarding the lives of the caravan that came before you, and likely more. If what I overheard about you is truthful, I imagine you'd be invested into making sure all those people don't die?"

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The brothers froze. Despite hearing her spell casting, they had not expected her to be able to actually communicate.

And thus, after a moment of silent debate between the two, Argus spoke with a weary nod. "Of course, but how can we trust an undead?"

He spoke this, and yet he was not entirely sure he didn't find her trustworthy, so far as he could tell. She helped them for no reason besides the kindness of her stilled heart.

She shrugged. "How can I trust someone living? The dead didn't kill me, that honor went to the living, though now they live no more, thanks to my own hand."

The meaning that the doppelgangers had killed her was not lost on him. Nor was the claim of the credit in the victory of the small battle.

Thus, Argus raised his brows at her. "By your hand? We fought as well."

She scowled at him. "Had I not been there, you'd still be enthralled by the doppelgangers."

"Doppelgangers?" He asked with mounting confusion, while Sol had heard the word before, and knew its connotations, it was unfamiliar to the Drakon.

She rolled her eyes, then spoke with not a small amount of venom.

"'Aloro', or the man disguised as him, as well as the one hiding as your hyperventilating friend's cousin."

She gestured vaguely to Sol

"They were two parts of three, with the last being a figure going by Father Elliot."

"So, all three were scamming people from their homes?" his voice was colored with uncertainty. He did not yet understand the why of anything that had happened.

"Don't be a fool." She spoke harshly. "What gain is there to be had in owning an empty town?" She rubbed at her temple, her tone softening. "I don't know who they work with exactly, besides for their God, of course. But in my skulking around, I've overheard them mention a 'she,' as well as a snake."

She grimaced.

"I have never met her, but I believe it is thanks to her magic, at least in part that I still stand before you."

"She made you undead? Is she a Wight?" Argus felt foolish the moment the words left his mouth.

The woman squinted at the Drakon as if she was unsure of whether or not she thought he was addle-brained.

The clink of pestle and mortar was just barely heard, as Asgar began to roll out his tools and started to work on something that would hopefully calm his human friend.

"I do not have much time, as I have already said." she almost glared at Argus. "Will you hear me or not?" He bit back an urge to ask why she had so little time- or the complaint that he had been listening.He would ask after this seemingly urgent information had been given instead. "Yes, please tell me."

"Father Elliot, Aloro, and I suppose, Calum. The Priest, the Innkeeper, and the fill-in man, and also my hunter. He didn't prepare his disguises, just shifted as needed to two dozen different forms. He'd been looking for me for a while. They really do- or did, serve an entity known as Virion, so far as I can tell. And based on the magic I've seen them wield, and it appears to be divine in nature. I can only assume that his claim to godhood is at least somewhat true."

Argus again bit back a reply regarding this, angry over something claiming to be his God's son or that anything that claimed to be so might be valid in any way.

"I doubt he is Tavig's son." The woman offered, if unable to read his strange dragon-like face. Still able to see the way his body tensed and making the apparent assumption that this Drakon served a Dragon God.

She continued. "What matters is that the people aren't leaving due to a fear of heresy. They've been kidnapped in the night, either made to sleep with magic, or charmed as you have been."

"Why?"

"Sacrifice, or at least I believe so. In my memory, it is all a blur of chanting, prayers and an altar."

She swallowed. "But I do know they raise the bodies, in some cases, as Wights and send them out into the world to build even more numbers. They are building an army of servants or soldiers, I am unsure which."

Argus's eyes sharpened as he heard this last piece of information. This explained the Wight they'd fought, the one that had earned them the right to make an Oath in the first place.

Undead were known to simply appear. For any corpse left unburied, or unburnt. There was a chance it would rise again, its goal to destroy any and all nearby life.

Wights were formed on these occasions, but they were rare.

The tribe had tentatively assumed that one of those unique events had occurred. As there was no follow up attack by a necromancer, or an army of undead controlled by one. As one would expect if a necromancer had been involved with its creation.

"Why are they building this army?"

She shrugged. "I imagine, so that it may serve the interests of their deity."

"You claim there are more doppelgangers then?" He asked with some suspicion. He had only just been charmed minutes ago and was not so forgetful as to be immediately trustful of the next person to tell him a story that vaguely made sense. Furthermore, her story didn't make sense. How could such a small group achieve all this?

She looked confused, and not a little frustrated by his question. "No, its- it was just the three, so far as I know. Although I have heard them speak of a fourth when my mind is clear enough to spy on them. They refer to her as 'snake.' She is their necromancer."

"Then how have they done this?" he gestured about to the deserted town. "How have three or four managed to kidnap so many?"

She looked at him with growing indignation. "They enthralled the population of the town. They killed some, I think. But left enough to keep the town functional, and occasionally they do recruit from caravans passing by. They've been doing all this since I've been here."

"How long have you been here, then?" Argus asked.

She squinted, “I'm not sure. Time is hard to keep, such a foul a resurrection as that I am was not supposed to happen. A magical accident, my own spells reacting to the 'snake’s.' It must have worked for a time, just another undead under their control, as my first memory of myself again is here in the town. Smelling the scent of wood in the shop of that one's cousin." She pointed at Sol as she spoke.

"It reminded me of a friend and brought me back to myself. After that, whatever magical control they had over me broke. And I've been hiding in the town and avoiding them ever since, attacking them at opportune times when my facilities were my own."

She looked almost pained as she stopped speaking. As if trying to remember what she was trying to say hurt her.

"When my group and I arrived, the town was less populated than one would expect, but not the ghost town you see before you. It has been steadily shrinking as time has gone on, but a large group left just yesterday. They took the caravan as captives. Father Elliot used his magic to put them to sleep."

She shrugged, and Argus found himself growing in anger over her seeming indifference to the plight of the caravan.

"It's the reason I acted now." she continued. "Elliot took most of the town’s armed and armored guard with him, This was my chance to use you to kill two of them, so I took it."

"What about the caravan? What has become of them?"

She shrugged once more. "I don't know, but the last time they did this, they were gone for only two days. And returned without the caravan."

"You have allowed this to happen more than once?" Argus asked with mounting horror.

She looked at him with a snarl. "They were beyond my power to stop, nor did I have control over my own body to do anything until hours ago. One does not return from death freely, even if it was not one's intention to do so."

Argus grimaced. "My apologies."

She turned an eye to him, then to the Inn of which smoke had begun to spew from its main entrance.

She then looked to the only now recovering Sol and the Drakon beside him, who was speaking softly and giving him some form of herbal tincture.

"Who are you?" Argus asked.

"...I was once Dore, a member of the Aurum. A mercenary group. As for who I am now?" She shrugged, then spoke, "Are you planning on trying to save that caravan?"

Argus nodded, before looking at his brother who gave a single nod back. "What else can we do?"

"There are at least sixty townsfolk with him, all enchanted by him a half dozen times over. Will you kill them?"

He shook his head. "Can you dispel the effect on them like you did us?"

She raised a brow. "If I had time, maybe. But I don't, I give it another hour or so before I lose all sense of self again. Maybe for good."

Argus gave her a look of confusion. "But, you seem fine," he coughed, looking at the brutally damaged state of her body. "Mentally, at least."

She gave him a rueful look. "I have you two to thank for that, actually. You reminded me of another friend of mine, which in turn reminded me of me."

The smoke was beginning to build, the fire hadn't spread outside of the building yet, but it would soon.

"I'm afraid, however, that you three don't have time for my life story, whether or not you intend to go after Elliot or save the caravan, or both. That fire will bring the whole town on us soon, and while their numbers might be small. I don't think any of you have the will to begin killing them."

The duo of brothers shared a look, then peered at Sol.

Both themselves and their Oaths recoiled at the very idea of killing the enthralled townsfolk, and both doubted Sol would even be capable of it. Not that they would have allowed it even if he had been.

Their friend seemed to have been brought low, and neither entirely understood why. But they suspect it was an effect of the doppelganger's charm.

She nodded to Sol. "You need to get him away from here, wait till the town starts crowding to put out the fire, then go through the front gate. If you're lucky, the guard will have come in to help with the burning, and you'll be able to get out without anyone noticing."

Argus fixed the woman with a look of concern. "You sound as if you aren't coming with us."

"I won't be." before grimacing at his look. "Save your sympathy for the living; you fool. I'd rather be sent back to the beyond as myself, rather than some monster."

They faintly heard a shout from several streets down, calling the word 'fire' out.

"I believe that's my cue," she said, seeming oddly at peace.

Argus spoke softly, "You plan to stay here and take the blame?"

She shrugged. "Well, if you're going to save that caravan, it won't help if Elliot has half the town out looking for whoever killed his cohort. He'll need to stay here to hold down the fort, and if he has a dead body to pin this on, all the better. They headed north with their prisoners. They should be easy to follow."

She smirked. "You'll want to wait till they're all here before making your escape, and don't worry. I won't kill any of them... Oh, and if you ever run into anyone from the Aurum, tell them, 'Fortune favors the gold.' they'll know what it means."

She then turned to the Inn and spoke the word "tine." As she did, she stuck out her tongue upon which a candle-like flame appeared.

Once there, she spat it out, and a hand-sized ball of flame shot from her mouth, smashing into the Inn.

"tine." she continued doing it, slowly spreading more and more flame to the Inn as the trio began to leave, ducking into an alleyway and traveling through such methods. Doing their best to navigate the unfamiliar town, as shots of warning turned to cries of rage.

Luck had favored them, and they got to the gate and passed through it unaccosted.

On the wind, they thought they could just barely hear a faint feminine laugh. But perhaps that was just the sound of the flames.