1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.6 An Innocent Profaned
1.1.6.16 One for all, or all for one
Alderney: {Kafana, you’re a wonderful person, but you just are not cut out for stealth. Next time you try something like this, remember that we can see your position on our shared maps. If you know where you are, then we know. We’re three minutes out. And you will wait for us, or else I’ll barge into your room and yank that crown off your head myself.}
Wellington: {This is going to be a tough fight, but with the right buffs I think we can take them. They won’t expect Alderney’s grenades or you to be able to cast an area of effect sonic stun.}
Kafana: {You remember when you all agreed to give me a veto and do things my way?}
Bulgaria: {Yes, we remember.}
Kafana: {Well, I’m using that now. This isn’t going to be a tough fight, because we’re not going to fight at all. That’s not what I’m here for. This isn’t to do a quest. I’m here for one reason, and one reason only.}
Tomsk: {Which is?}
Kafana: {I’m not going to go back, look Vittoria in the eyes, and tell her that I stood by and just watched them torture to permanent death the boy she considers to be her little brother. If I did that, I couldn’t look myself in the eyes.}
Alderney: {So what do you want us to do?}
Kafana: {I wanted you to have a fun afternoon playing volleyball and to later tell me, back at the Sanctum, that I was foolish for losing experience. What I wanted to do was save Pierrot if I could, but even if I couldn’t get him away from them, I thought I had a good chance of forcing them to stop torturing him and just kill him, no time for diseases or permanent death, so even though he loses the messages, he gets to see Vittoria again and play with the children again. I can live with that result. It is enough.}
Bulgaria: {So you’re going to kill yourself. Or, rather, go into the situation knowing that they are going to kill you. A martyr.}
Kafana: {I don’t want to die. But if it happens, which I agree it probably will, then it will be for a purpose and I’m going to go out in style, making a statement Kafana-fashion.}
Bungo, Bulgaria, Tomsk and Alderney came up. Far down the road, she could see Wellington too.
Kafana: {Weapons and armour away, guys. Strictly civilian volleyball clothing only for this one, put everything else in your stash. I’d wear red-cross armbands if I had any. Bungo, you’ve been afraid of these guys from the start, you wait here and make sure that whatever happens, FraGamal don’t barge in.}
Bungo: {You’re right, I am afraid. But I’m here and I’ll come with you. Wellington is the right choice to leave behind, it will save Pierrot two minutes of pain if we don’t wait for him.}
Kafana: {You guys are nuts, but having company will be nice, even if it means we all lose some experience. Ok, let’s go. Leave the talking to me. I’ve something to say to them, and I want to deliver my message clearly.}
They walked around the dune and down to the beach. It was obvious from the first glance that this was a trap.
Down by the water, towered a 2.25 meter tall woman with red eyes, red skin, fangs that dripped red, spiky red armour with twin red scabbards and, yes, her hair (which was styled in a tall chonmage) was also red. Looking like lamb on a hook in a slaughterhouse, a rope-wrapped Pierrot dangled beside her, bound so tightly that the sticky bloodstains streaking his skin could no longer be trailed back to single spots because they'd long since merged into a russet mottle reaching from shoulders to knees - a grim parody of ravaged raiments, hung not from shop-bought belts but from condensed cruelty; an abstraction embodied as a living force whose only visible manifestation was the extensive pattern marking where tar-roughened rope or something else had savagely sliced into Pierrot's skin, but which felt just as real and threatening to all Kafana's other senses as an accidently kicked viper.
Kafana couldn't tell if the tall women felt the same way from the distasteful way she gripped the back of Pierrot's head with just a single hand; but Kafana did notice that the way the woman seemed to be avoiding having any more contact with Pierrot than she required to support the weight of his limp form, biceps bulging as she strove to keep her arm nearly fully extended horizontally. No time to worry about that! She dragged her eyes away from the innocent boy, and onwards to the Brute Squad member standing on Pierrot's other side.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Likely male, and probably human, but certainly the most revolting mess of a person she’d ever seen. He combined the least attractive features of trolls, zombies and the runt of a litter of pigs. He was very short, with a pot belly sticking out of his carelessly tied armour that was dripping with a gloopy, greenish yellow slime. His narrow leering eyes were watching Pierrot’s tormented expression as he used his rotting peg-like teeth to chew thoughtfully upon a strip of flesh he’d flensed from Pierrot. She could smell his putrid stench from here, and it made her want to gag.
To their left was a wide shallow depression in the sand and beyond that, sitting on a dune, was a man dressed as a gambler from a Mississippi river-boat, who was swinging a shining ruby attached to a watch chain in slow lazy circles.
Between them and the gambler was a medium height man stripped to the waist, with a shaven head and tattoos of wolves, ravens, coffins, skulls, and plenty of phrases in thick Germanic script. He had a ring in his nose, vein-popping muscles and a hammer almost as large as he was.
She scarcely noticed them.
That was because standing nearly directly between her and the pair holding Pierrot was the most beautiful bishonen she’d ever seen. He was tall, wearing flowing robes of midnight blue silk, and his glorious jet black hair fell nearly to his ankles. He also happened to be carrying a jagged white sword, but that hardly seemed important.
Bungo: {Kafana, snap out of it. He’s using mind magic upon you. The red one is VamaKali, the runt is Jincan, the gambler is FancyAnts, don’t go near the dip in the sand - it contains his pet giant antlion. Hammer-guy is Wibano, and pretty-pants is their leader, Kullervo the Necromancer. Their archer, WraithLock is probably hidden in the dunes somewhere over to the right - they’ve left that approach clear because they want us to go that way and get pinned.}
She closed her eyes for a moment and thought as loudly as she could “Fuck you!”. It seemed to help. She opened her eyes, and spent a second looking at Tomsk before turning back to face the Brute Squad.
Bungo: {Oh shit, Kullervo’s got his legendary weapon, The Bone Sword. It swallows souls. Once a day it can trap the soul of an enemy, preventing respawn. You sure you want to do this? You’ll have to delete and create a new character. All your online followers will forget you, and The Burrow won’t launch. We can still run.}
She swallowed, mouth dry, confidence gone, suddenly feeling very small and exposed, wanting to run.
And then Jincan tore off another strip, and Pierrot made the first sound she’d ever heard from his mouth. It was a pitiful whimper that continued into a howl that went on and on like all the air he’d not used over the years had been stored up and was only now being let out.
She squared her shoulders. She came here for a reason, and if she’d been a fool and fallen into a trap, she could still make sure that if someone was permanently killed here today it was her who’d barely been playing a week, rather than Bungo with his wonderful legacy skills built up with years of effort. {Sorry guys if this messes up The Burrow, but it is something I have to do. Remember, no violence. Show time.}
She stepped forwards.
"My name is Kafana, and I will not fight you. I am a Priestess of Cov, named so by Torello’s own Guardian of Cov’s Sanctum. I have no authority under the law to judge and execute a fellow adventurer.”
She carried on moving forwards, as un-threateningly as she could manage, down the right hand side that they’d intentionally left open, keeping her eyes and words directed towards VamaKali.
“I will not fight you, but neither will I be complicit in your actions. You are torturing an innocent child of the Covadan, the very people Cov invited us to this planet to protect.”
They let her come, confident in their advantages, waiting for her to finish talking so Kullervo could make a speech for his own live stream. She stepped next to Pierrot and held his hand in both of hers, making no effort to pull him away from VamaKali.
“You are violating the hospitality that you have been offered, violating the trust placed in you by your Vessel, and violating the reputation of every questing spirit who has come here seeking only a better world.”
As she spoke, she slipped onto Pierrot’s finger the one item she hadn’t put in her stash, The Ring of Francis the Navigator, whose freedom of movement attribute would neutralise any bonds or abnormal conditions restraining him.
“It is on their behalf that I condemn your actions, and call upon them to demonstrate that they are the majority and you the aberration.”
She stepped towards Kullervo now, who looked peeved about having been ignored. Her friends, who’d followed her, stood peacefully next to Pierrot. She tapped her chest over her heart, where her pendant hung.
“As Cov is my witness, I vow to stand between you and your prey, that any harm you deal will hurt me first.”
{Guys, in three seconds throw Pierrot into the water, he’ll be safe there.}
She raised her voice as loud as it would go, not in a bellow, but the clear ringing clarion of a general or a singer used to projecting to the back of an auditorium, stomach in, chest out so the tip of The Bone Sword just touched her Womble sport’s bra.
“I am Kafana. Who will stand with me?”
Her last thoughts were “Oh Cov, this is going to hurt. I don’t want to die.”