“Praise Sol!” A raspy terrifying voice ordered.
“I am devoted! I serve only-” The cloth masked chimeric human ran its blade through the common man ending his babbling pleas.
“Purge!” The inquisitor roared. Only the devoted would be spared. The slightest lie, the slightest doubt weighed as heavily as the greatest sin. The wretched hounds held no mercy nor tolerance in their hearts.
Inquisitors swarmed the towns and villages with no other order but to purge dissent by any means. The streets ran red with the blood of innocents and heretics alike and whole settlements put to the flame. The people feared. They pleaded and fled and professed and were cut down with the enemies of the church all the same. Only did a fraction of their victims remain, kneeing on the ground with arms raised in prostration among their slain family and neighbors with broken minds.
“Unhanded me! I am a count! I am a loyal servant! You- This cannot stand!” Lord Kraus screamed in agony as a dagger stabbed into his thigh.
“Confess!”
“I have broken no command. I am faithf-aaahhh!” The count foamed from the mouth with bloodshot eyes as agony wracked his body from the inquisitor’s spell.
“Heretic! Confess!”
The count’s cries reached a crescendo as he could not longer bear the excruciation. “L… Lu- Luh… Loo- Lor..raine…” As the count tried to expose his nephew in his last moments, something overcame him, holding his tongue still when he tried to speak the truth, and forcing words not his own from his lips. With his last thoughts, he cursed Luther and the inquisitor mangled him apart.
“Lorraine!”
“Heretic!”
“Find!”
“Purge!”
The inquisitors wailed grim intentions as they massacred all within the count’s estate, down to last servant. Like wolves in the night they ran as one, searching blindly and madly for their next target. All in their path would be brought before the light of Sol, by this order and this order alone they lived.
---
“Stand!” Durinn, the fiery haired leader of the dwarves roared as he cast a spell to reveal the location of the vile creatures to all. “Stand and fight!”
The otherworlder alliance battled fiercely against the small army of inquisitors set upon them, the once lively town now the wreck of a battlefield. They were more but the foes before them too mighty. Few among them possessed skills great enough to kill through the inquisitor’s traits and those who found favorable matches often lost their lives before they could take advantage.
Tath slipped slipped between shadows as she sniped arrow after arrow into the relentless creatures, a burst of shadowy spikes impaling them from within following each one. “Durinn, morale!”
The dwarf knocked away his opponent and let out an invigorating roar that swept over the land. “I can’t do much more!”
He weathered a blow that buckled his knees, but as the inquisitor raised its weapon again, the claws of a griffin ripped through its head. The mighty beast soared over the battlefield as swift as the wind tearing and mangling in its path. Several chimeric inquisitors lunged into the air and a sonic wave plummeted them to the ground and split open their bodies. Before they could fully regenerate, the greataxe of a the goliath leader carved them in half with baleful aura, ending their lives for good.
The griffin swooped down next to Tath and morphed back into the lazy eyed half elf Shifter. “We should probably run.” Lynn casually suggested.
“So they can hunt us down like wild game?” Tath snapped back as her arrow reaped only an inquisitor’s ire.
It lunged and a jagged black sword impaled them. A fearsome knight of towering size and grim black armor that reeked of death battled the chimeric human to a disadvantage, until a second appeared to aid, and the creature fell to their necrotic blades. The veiled pale Shandral emerged at their side in smoke, a muddled smile on the Necrotic Healer’s face as her undead swarmed forth to change the tide of battle.
Tath spared her a glance before returning herself to the fight once more. “Damn humans. Curse the both of them.”
It was Chariot and the Pandavas the target of her ire, and no one needed to ask why. The former had vanished before the chaos unfolded and the later fled by themselves in the middle of discussions for an alliance. And it was them alone who were left that suffered the consequences.
“We are strangers, after all.”
“You would defend them?!” Tath snapped at Lynn once more, her carefree attitude grating on her more than usual in this dire time.
An inquisitor leapt from the shadows without warning and the fist of a minotaur shattered it apart, its body morphing into a gorgon that petrified the regenerating remains with its gaze, and returned to Lynn once more.
“Where is the Enchantress?”
“Long gone!” Durinn shouted back. Tath spat another curse, this one more spiteful. The other two groups’ actions could be reasoned as Lynn said, but Carmen was allied with them. To betray that oath and escape with her safety alone was more than the shadowhunter could bare. She made a silent promise to be an arrow between the seductress’ eyes the moment she saw her again.
---
A carriage fled down a deserted path at high speed, drawn by two golems shaped like horses and accompanied by half a dozen loyal guards, all former retinue before the change and now legendary tier monarchs Antoine had personally vetted, whether by mind reading, sensing the truth of their words, or espionage of his own. There could be no failure in the wardship of his young master. The Change had exposed his true name and with it, the house's ambitions.
The elderly butler turned his focus to boy in question, sitting stoically beside his most trusted and closest maid. Only nine years of age, but Antoine could see the makings of king already. Everything that had happened in these last cursed months would have broken most grown men, yet he had preserved and even now endured the fright upon them with a stiff upper lip.
“It won’t be long now, Master Clovis.” The old butler assured. “The duchess is sure to take us in. It is quite safe there, I am told.”
The boy did not speak, but he nodded in response. And shed not a single tear nor cry word of fear, of which Antoine found himself pleased again, some small joy in this peril they found themselves. What he had said was not a lie. The duchess had ambition, that much was obvious. Thus there was room to come to a deal. Should she desire power herself, then engaging herself to Clovis would cement her legitimacy. Such an alliance would not have been possible before the Change, but with great upheaval also comes ample opportunity.
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A blast crashed against the ward coating the carriage, shaking it terribly. Antoine refilled the carriage with mana as he glanced to ensure the boy’s safety, currently cradled by the arms of the maid.
“Inquisitors!” One of the guards yelled.
“Fend them off!” Antoine implored back as another impact assaulted the carriage.
“There’s too many! You must flee ahead, we will hold them off!”
Antoine did as advised, with a heavy heart. The guards outside were loyal assets of quality rare even now. They would fare worse in the negotiations without them, and without stable support, would find it harder in the future to secure authority solely within Clovis’ hands.
“There’s nothing to fear, young-”
The carriage exploded with force that strained and broke through the protection around them, sending the three inside the carriage flying away. The vile chimeric inquisitors lunged towards the boy and a gallant hero struck a mighty blow, a destructive force obliterating the inquisitor whole.
Chandra raised his other hand channeling a spell and a white light crashed down on the four others charging his way. Excruciating shrieks rose from those captured within as Smite reduced them to nothing. A whip lashed out and struck the soul of another that lunged and two more ended its life. Chandra glanced around as the rest of his clan swept the remaining inquisitors.
“Disgusting creatures.” Priya smiled as she lashed the remainings of one in a dire state purposefully stalling its pathetic death.
Hardly ideal behavior but Chandra let her be, turning his focus to the injured boy sitting by a dead maid, his attitude near catatonic. Chandra healed his wounds as he crouched down next to him with a patient empathy.
“...we shouldn’t linger.”
“You must…” Antoine spluttered from among the wreckage, his body badly injured but more importantly was his slowly decaying flesh. A member of the clan raised a hand to heal but stopped and shook his head at Chandra.
“You must protect him.” The butler mustered the last of his life. “He is… a true descendant… of the last king of Styria. The rightful heir! He must reclaim the throne… he must…”
Chandra watched as the old man fell quiet then turned in deep contemplation to the boy, along with the scheming eyes of most others, Priya especially. Chandra too, schemed, of that he would not deny. But he was not heartless.
“Come on.” He picked up the child and looked to the others. “Contact the alliance. Invite them to something new.”
---
A ghostly woman, pale and haunting rose a head to new arrivals, black tears streaking down her face as her visage turned more horrifying. A wail fell on the area, grating the soul but only an instant before Shin ran a blade through her, harvesting the rare elite’s soul as he continued on the party’s hunt. The banshee was useful, not for his own spirits, but useful still.
“Why do you need so much?” Basem criticized. “Too greedy.”
“Needs to be right.”
“We talked about this.” Yen added. “The most important thing is our builds, it’s not something you half ass-”
“Because we are kings and will rule, you say this all the time, I know, greedy woman!”
Yen frowned. “You better be putting thought into your build, too. Don’t let me catch you making a dumb decision again.” Basem clicked his teeth and turned his focus elsewhere.
“It has been a while.” Donny commented.
“We should have done this way back. I don’t know about you, but I think powering up our ace is a pretty good fucking move.”
“Not arguing against that. Just saying we could multitask.”
“You mean like the training we’re getting?” Yen countered.
“I mean like I don’t really think killing mobs makes a lot of impact.”
“The letter was quite clear.” Kamala interrupted. “Things would become too dangerous even for us.”
“What does the priest know…” Mujin complained.
“At the very least… it is best to avoid the initial chaos and assess things for ourselves from safer standing.” She reasoned.
Basem came to a sudden stop and the rest stopped with him to varying degrees of alert. He looked out to the horizon on their left with a tense expression. “Chimera people. Ten!”
The first of the inquisitors lunged as the party shifted into formation. Basem blinked back as one cratered the ground and aimed a surging arrow. Karla landed thundering kick without warning that turned half the creature’s upper body to dust as Basem shot past her, sinking an arrow into the skull of an indestructible.
The inquisitor did not die but the pause the arrow caused made it helpless to the speed of an eager assassin. Ashley severed and bisected as she pleased with no thought for the flow of the fight. But the others were used to that. She slipped into the shadows as lightning clawed the air and Donny cleaved off its head.
A second swipe of its arm broke through his cover of bastion, but the knight did not move. A sudden thrust of his shield knocked the headless creature back into one of its own and roots ensnared them in place. A blast of frost and fire freed them from their chains and Shin stepped in front, pulse densely coated the whole of his body. The two inquisitors struck with mythic lethality and their weapons rebounded off him. Shin pulsed forward in a blur and sent one crashing away with a single thrust.
“Heresy!” The remaining shrieked as its body exploded into a collection of limbs that rained down on Shin.
But none even made a dent in the armor of pulse. Shin stepped inside its dozen strikes as black and white swirled in his palm. A thrust sent a countless waves of vibrations echoing through its body, and in an instant its bones shattered and flesh burst from its skin.
The inquisitor reformed in moments as the second returned in furious charge. And Shin calmly focused on the vibration around him. Slowly, he unwove the dense layer of armor into strands of flowing streams that enveloped him like silk. The inquisitors struck, and he stepped behind them. Three impacts each followed and prismatic mana crumbled their souls away. Blood burst from Shin’s body from the sheer impact of movement, but his wounds recovered in an instant.
A spray of acid melted Donny’s head and his body hit the floor, opening the path in. The inquisitor lunged through Basem’s pinpoint arrow, and struck down on Kamala, but its fist stopped short on her wings of divine majesty. Two pairs grew from her back, each with feathers like shields, able to guard and absorb the impact of even these fearsome creature’s mythic skills.
Kamala stared dispassionately from behind her Shieldsaint Wings as molten heat swirled in the mouth of the shifting monster. Plants erupted from the ground, launching it helpless into the air in an instant. Shin appeared by its side as his veins burst once more and struck it dead.
A spear thrust with the visage of a dragon but stopped short on the inquisitor’s flesh and thus neither could the attack on its soul pass. A clawed hand swiped the scaled spearman away and Mujin’s senses flared as the creature was upon him in an instant, only able to evade by virtue of his reflexes and the warning in advance.
But the inquisitor charged again, putrid aura gathering in its hand, and it struck a hollow image of himself. Mujin’s confusion lasted only a moment before Ashley reaped it in quarters. Roots wormed into its pieces at once and ravaged away its mana, regeneration unable to outmatch the damage. Mujin grit his teeth in disappoint and turned in search of a new opponent, but the battle was already over. The peerless powerhouses of Shin and Karla having crushed most of them to death.
But just as the lull started to set in, Dante blinked, full bodied purple tattoos covered his body as a dagger meant for Yen pieced his chest. He kicked off a phantom platform with Yen with him as the inquisitor’s body started to bloat.
“Ward.”
Words reached Shin’s ears the moment the charlatan had moved, and he took Kinnara form and erected layers of duality enhanced prisons around the hidden inquisitor in the air just in time to contain an explosion of foul miasma. And a second hidden inquisitor lept from the shadows.
Yen didn’t think. Her mind moved on reflex alone. Vector sent the unmoving Dante crashing into the hands of Kamala’s vines as her body turned to flames. She willed desperately for every threat before her to be erased by fire and force, and an explosion detonated in the air. The inquisitor crashed down, its charred and broken form fast regenerating, and with the shards of light still falling from her body, Yen channelled a second explosion, far greater than the first and reduced it to ash. She lingered for a moment then soared down to the regrouping party, where Kamala healed Dante with uneasy expression.
“It’s not an affliction. It may be his soul…”
“He’ll be fine.” Shin stated without concern as the prismatic color faded from his eyes.
“Is that your general optimism or do you actually have some basis for this?” Yen asked, fairly concerned.
“He’s fine.” Shin reaffirmed.
“I’m fine.” Dante confirmed.
“You don’t look fine…” Dante rose a finger at her words, signally them to wait as he laid on the ground with his eyes closed and calm smile. A few moments passed and he suddenly vaulted to his feet with showy performance to an awkward silence.
“This fucking party…” Yen glanced at the wreckage of the battlefield. “These things are such bullshit.”
“You did want more risks.” Donny reminded, to which Yen couldn’t bring herself to retort. Still, her wallowing lasted no more than a moment before she brushed it off.
“Fuck it. Another month and they won’t be a threat anymore.”
“We should still wait until the designated time to learn more about what we face.” Kamala spoke and none disagreed.
“Yeah, I guess we have to…” Yen rested a hand on her hip. “When are we gonna stab him in the back anyway?”
“That hasn’t been decided yet.”
“I mean…" Yen turned to the priestess with deadpan look and a callous glint in her eyes. "C’mon, we definitely will.”