Erica dwelt on her thoughts long, though she disturbed Ophilanna's rest, prodding into the void of her friend's emotions. "Can you do it?"
"I have to. That's what I'm here for.", the answer shot out quickly. The anger was welling up within her. Deep down, Ophilanna could hardly contain how upset she was at seeing her father there. Frankly, she thought, that perhaps there was room for denial, maybe he had changed over the years.
Except that he hasn't, and it's gotten worse. Much worse.
"Tonight, I will put an end to it, and put the guilt he inflicted on me to rest. This is as much for my mother, as it is for me, and my tribe."
Nodding along, Erica very well understood - she went through a similar experience with the orphanage and her brothers and sisters. And who stayed by her side? It was Ophilanna. Now it is time to reciprocate, to fulfill her due diligence.
"I will have your back, Ophi."
Both closed their eyes. Upon opening them, they found themselves staring at the tent's ceiling, contemplating many things. Its crimson colour wouldn't be the last shade of red to be seen.
While one had to brace herself to kill, the other, much the same, to protect. Despite their conflict and apprehension, this was rather dual to their nature.
Erica, who had killed before, now has to protect a friend; while Ophilanna, who had only ever stolen as her worst vice, now finds herself in the position of having to relieve her renegade father of his life.
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The moon at peak, Ophilanna and Erica met outside their tent, geared and ready. Routing straight for the rat hole shown to them by Elliot, they met him there. With a bit of curiousity, he waved them through and vanished into the shadows, watching over them like a guardian spirit, leaving few words before they headed off through the forest. "Don't be reckless, and try not to rouse suspicion. If the alarm bell rings, the entire situation is over and you'll run, understood?"
Ophilanna's eyes twitched at the mention of the mission being called off, but she mutters, before turning around: "Understood."
At the edge of the garrison, atop a hill admist strategic placement, they found themselves hiking through grass and meadow. The enemy camp wasn't far, but they need to circle around through the forest to not get caught. It was a straight route to battle, but a lengthy trek if done without getting caught.
"Let's sneak through the field around the left side, enter the forest, and head in from the back. I'll go ahead, you cover me.", Erica said, her gaze fixed on the little dot, the enemy camp, they could make out from a far distance.
Getting to the forest, which only covered one of the camp's entrances, was arduous, but their only way.
"Halt. I see something in the field up ahead. It's in the way."
A grotesquely large figure towered over the field, wielding a large weapon. It was a cross, puzzling the duo. On closer inspection, the individual was a bulky, giant man clad in armour, wielding a cross easily reaching his size. Ordinary man would be dwarfed by this crucifix.
In hushed tones, they conversed, trying not to be caught by this monstrosity of man. "This wasn't in the reports.. Wait. Are these reinforcements?"
"If they are, we're in a pinch. Let's contact Elliot."
They rustled through the field, taking a wide berth around the giant, reaching the forest at last. As Ophilanna turned her head, she could see the man get closer, thinking they were seen. She pulled Erica into the bushes, telling her to be silent.
His footsteps were heavy, leaving footprints similar to a bear's. Standing in front of them, unaware of their hiding place, towered a fleshen monster in the likeness of man.
He grunted and roared, much like a beast. Whenever he took another step forward, he ended up tumbling, dragging the wooden crucifix behind them. It clawed through the grass and earth by its sheer weight. "Grahh!!", he snapped off a thick branch of a tree by walking through it - this wasn't the average soldier, they feared.
Erica turned her head, anxiously looking around for other enemies. She was a bit shocked to see, suddenly, Elliot pop up behind them, until she remembered he would watch over them constantly.
Speaking in hushed tones, they looked at each other, confused at the situation.
"Elliot, do you know what that is?", Ophilanna pointed at the giant. He glanced through the thicket, revealing curious knowledge.
"If he's here, then there's bound to be another one... there.", he pointed at the enemy camp, still visible from the edge of the forest. In the midst of the camp, a woman - by her attire, judged to be a nun? - stood, among other nuns, talking to the soldiers.
"The giant is called a Goliath, that woman.. well.. Take a good look at her hands, and the other nuns."
Erica was the first to notice the strings she held in her hands. They extended from her slender fingers like attachments to her own limbs. "She puppeteers the nuns? How does that work?"
"A good question indeed. I have not the faintest idea. The bigger problem is her combat ability. Each of those five nuns is a puppet - and they're fast. They skitter about like spiders, their ribcages protrusions of metal to cut heretics and enemies.", Elliot mused. He grinned at the thought of having to fight them.
Then, he summarised. "They are inquisitors, called the Priests of the Hearth."
"Alright", sighing vibrated through the air, "I will take the Goliath down. If you come across the Puppetrice, you should split up - sword against puppets, magician against the one who puppeteers - the puppets are rather resistant to magic. Good luck."
Having made their way through the forest's thicket, faint noise could be heard in the background, far away from the camp's edge. A single soldier stood guard, a lantern in hand.
Ophilanna signed Erica to dispatch him while she distracted him, ultimately knocking him unconscious and dragging his sleeping body into the bush. Ophilanna saw Erica's lips move, though she couldn't make out what was said.
In the midst of her speaking, trouble arose in the enemy camp. The puppetrice nun fiercely argued with the leading officer, Ophilanna's father, as he, in his drunken stupor, tried to feel her up - rightfully upsetting her. Denied of his urges, she stormed off and left him high and dry. He made way to his tent, cursing her along the way. "Couldn't even has a piece of that..."
Delirious, the man stumbled into his tent, empty aside from a guard at the entrance. Erica couldn't see any more. Their way through the camp would be straightforward - not many guards were in the way they would have to dispatch. Most could be sneaked around, others were sleeping on their shift. The puppetrice was nowhere to be seen.
To Ophilanna, it was a prime opportunity to strike. The escape would be much easier than fighting their way through these soldiers and the puppets beforehand, and her father could run away, too.
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Erica knocked a handful of men unconscious and they dragged them out of line of sight, sneaking and crawling behind tents and firepits in bushes and grass to minimise exposure, avoiding light sources and noise. Chatter, from the ones who were awake, could be heard. Ophilanna halted, listening into their conversation about battle plans.
"Be honest, ya think the women's any good here?", one prodded, while the other shrugged.
"Haven't had a go with 'em yet. The captain's hoardin the pretty ones. Ain't bangin an ugly hag!"
Laughter wide and far around the fireplace. Another joined in, chugging a mug of beer. "The reinforcements sure are a stuck up bunch, ey? What're they here fer?"
Glancing around and at each other, all shrugged shoulders, leading to resounding laughter. "Captain's got a real eye for plundering, really! So much pretty meat and booze, the pay is great."
Moving on, their voices grew quiet, until all they could hear was indistinct sounds of chatter and laugh. Truthfully, it took much of her to stay put and not kill all of them, then and there. Erica put her hand on Ophilanna's shoulder, whispering into her ear. "It'll be okay. You'll get your revenge. Let's continue."
Gathering her confidence and resolution, Ophilanna steeled herself. They finally reached her father's tent, situated at the walls facing the meadow and fields, only a single guard was around. It was well past midnight now, their journey lengthy and burdening, but ultimately worth. Erica pointed out a hole sizable enough for them to escape through in the shabby wooden wall.
"Take the guard and distract it quietly. I'll take him out", Ophilanna whispered to Erica.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
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"What's that? Who's there?", the guard loudmouthedly yelled. "Is that yer guys again? Stop playing tricks on me-"
He moved, step by step, towards a source of noise he heard, his words cut off and turned into quiet gargling and the sound of choking on water. She had summoned a water orb and moved it to encapsulate the unsuspecting guard's head - as water filled his lungs, he began losing consciousness, and his choking was muffled, unable to reach very far.
Erica dragged his body behind the tent and, with her friend, stood in front of it. Ophilanna was mustering up the courage required to face this challenge on her own, not to be swayed or lead astray from the path she put out for herself.
She casted a barrier to isolate sound - a basic spell of the spatial magic she was studying - before they entered.
Inside, a drunken, overweight man sat on a chair, likened to a throne of gold, as if a pile of misery, deflated and sorrowful he looked, he was still the father of Ophilanna.
"Who's - hiccup - there?!", his chubby hands he waved through the air, upset at his situation. The man reached for a bottle of alcohol, helping himself to a fill, half of it gushing out from the sides of his mouth. He struggled to retain even a sip of the liquid washing down his throat.
It would be nothing but exaggeration to call him a shell of his former self. The man who had terrorised the memories and nights of Ophilanna for years, sitting on his throne of suffering, in the very flesh, left her conflicted.
Not because he was redeemable, she thought - because she was upset over feeling scared by a caricature of man, like him. It was repulsing her, the being of her every fiber. He stared, dumbfoundedly, at the two persons coming into view, that entered his tent and denied his shouting and demands for an answer.
Her father, with a fist in the air, shouted for them to identify themselves. "Who're ye?! Take down your hoods! What's yer business here?"
His face, upon the removal of Erica's robe, turned into wicked, distorted shape of a human grimace. Seeing her being an elf, a young one at that, fed the flames of his mind, hungry for pretty meat to devour and defile.
He was, by all accounts, a despicable, instinct-driven, feral being. A human not human, a beast among beasts. Nay, Erica shivered and recoiled, this was less human than any beast-kin.
Licking his lips, he motioned them to come closer, so he could have a "taste". Unsurprisingly, Erica readied to unsheathe her sword, while Ophilanna, in eerie silence, stood still mere steps away, facing her father. When she removed her hood, eyes burning with intense hatred unleashed onto him, striking fear into his mind for the first time in a while.
"Another elf.. hiccup.. C'mere.. let me have a taste.. ehehehe..", he mumbled, unseating. To the unsuspecting observer, he struggled to stand still.. much less stand up, before inevitably stumbling towards them. Suddenly, he tensed up.
"Wait...", while slowly sobering up, he realised, gazing at Ophilanna. "You're.. that child. From that damn whore! C'mere!"
As soon as the man's hands reached to the sword leaning onto his "throne", screams tore through the air. In pain, he looked down at his hands, blood splattered across the right. A cold sensation climbed up his nerves, numbing the pain of the icicle that just impaled his right hand.
Just before he could grab his sword, Ophilanna casted a spell, icicle bore, to impale the tendons and nerves in her father's hand, incapacitating him. Crumbling to his knees, the man began sobbing and biting his lips from the pain that scoured his body, despite the numbing sensation of the ice.
The psychological impact wasn't zero. Ophilanna hesitated gravely to continue, instead opting to watch his every move. It took a moment for words to escape her lips, just as the man before her, the very father that has been tormenting her dreams since she could remember, spoke up.
"Where.. cough.. are my soldiers? What did you do to them? You little witch!"
Though she could hardly stand looking at this pitiful husk of a man, she resolved herself, fixing her eyes on him.
Ophilanna's pupils grew, locking onto him, into his eyes. It was enough to cause him goosebumps, shudders, that hushed all throughout his weak, frail, opulent body. A pool of blood at his feet formed.
Speaking with enormous magnitude, the air - seemingly - crackled with hate around his daughter.
"You took everything from me. My life. My tribe. My mother. My family. And now, you shallow being.. you insolent creature... argh.."
She stumbled backwards. Her head felt heavy, as if a thousand horns were drowning everything she thought and said. His eyes, as he would not take his gaze off her, turned into those of a snake, a grin broadening across the man's face.
"Yet you've come back to me. You realised that you are at fault. Nobody had to die, if only you came out."
His voice, monotone and unlike before, sounded as if possessed by the unnatural. It was.. eerie. Erica stepped forward, guarding her friend. Ophilanna's father, however, kept pushing forward, speaking up.
"Little girl, so foolish, to think that one meager death would alleviate your pain. Open your eyes. Am I not right here? Weak and prone to death? A coward ripe for the taking? Kill me. Kill me and realise that it brings you nothing. Nothing but pain and the realization..."
He coughed blood, drops spitting through the air. "that all your effort is vain. Naught! Meaningless!", he dramatically swept his left hand through the air, as if grabbing a fistful of it and dispersing it like dirt.
"Dirt. That's what you are. A foolish little thing. Now kill. Kill me and the others here. See for yourself the pleasure of taking a life. Become like me. You said it yourself. A shallow husk.. but you're just as much like me. You carry my blood."
Within the blink of an eye, a knife blitzed through the air, cutting it in two. Blood, from his cheek, as it grazed him, barely.
"Can you not speak to your own flesh and blood directly, dear daughter? Why won't you listen to my words, darling?"
The man's eyes.. crackled. There was a spark. He was so daring.. it wasn't him, Erica noticed. What is happening?
Ophilanna recovered upon one key realisation. That man.. isn't speaking as his father, but some twisted creature possessing him. Her father, the coward, would never dare speak up this way - when he's cornered, nearly dead.
In the first place, he didn't deserve the position he was in for his combat prowess, or anything. It was mere luck upon luck. He was greedy, lucky, and rewarded for his cowardice - of course, after covering it up plenty.
Ophilanna's fists tightened. Stepping forward, the weight of each step grew exponentially, until she was standing right in front of her father, cowering on the ground. Pathetic, he was. A man worth little more than a maggot.
"You don't know anything, dear father. I hope you can find your peace in the afterworld. I will certainly have mine, with you gone... even if we're the same blood."
As she spoke with trembling voice, the magic cast simultaneously illuminated the tent. Crackling fire amidst the thick, choking smell of charred flesh would escape out into the night, carried by the wind across the entire camp.
Ophilanna burned him to death. His body, lifeless, now only charred and coaled, was a lump of black. It smelt as disgusting as befitted him, she thought, before telling Erica they will leave.
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Once they left the tent, however, there seemed to be a large aggregation of soldiers. They were alarmed by the smell of fire from the captain's tent. The puppetrice was absent, still, concerning the duo greatly. In the distance, sounds of battle could be heard in the forest's background noise.
Elliot was fighting the Goliath.
"Erica, let's take care of this quickly and escape!", she whispered into her friend's ears. Casting a diversion spell - a gigantic water orb whose surface tension she lowered so it popped and flooded the area - they made haste to the wall's rathole. Crawling through the mud and dirt and grass, they got up onto their feet. Ophilanna created a block of ice to cover the hole - to turn around, staring into the eyes of a woman anyone would believe insane.
With eyes that flicker around, back and forth, and slender fingers which commanded a handful of puppets, it was the Nun they'd lost sight of. Without knowing her mission, this was going to be a dangerous encounter, until she spoke to them, just barely acknowledging their existence.
"Heeeere you are.. Like maggots through the dirt they crawl, you, too, wish to escape?"
A little laugh later, she resumed. "You had your fill of death and murder.. befitting of an elf, an affront to the human, Aria's image! Let me rectify your existence.. quickly.."
Several of the puppets' limbs, themselves but faceless and devoid of life, cracked and moved at a speed Ophilanna, much less her warrior-braved friend Erica, could hardly keep up with. Their ribcages now opened to reveal.. mandibles, metallic claws, that would lash at the puppet's foes with ferocity and speed hardly seen on a battlefield.
"Hehe.. my pious children.. massacre these filthy creatures.. Here be slaughter in the name of her Holy Vastness!", the puppetrice's hands swiftly moved and danced through the air, as if playing an instrument. Erica stepped in front of Ophilanna, whose eyes swept across the battlefield in front of them.
"Can you occupy the puppets? I'll try and get her..", Ophilanna breathed heavily into Erica's ear. She only nodded. Moments later, metal clashed against metal and spikes of ice flew and flew, scraping a puppet and nearly grazing the puppetrice. Being disturbed in her play, she grew angry, her movements becoming more frantic.
One of the puppets, from the sudden movement, fell to the ground - which Ophilanna believed to be a good sign. "Got one!", she exclaimed, though no closer to victory.
Her relief turned dire, as she watched the puppet's head and torso crack. It started skittering around, speedier and harder to evade than before. It was... spider-like, remarkably so.
Fear wrapped around Ophilanna, once it drew closer and closer. She would have a hard time evading its attacks with this speed.
The icicle she propelled its way was dodged clumsily, but it got up just the same. Through Ophilanna's hesitation, the puppet came ever closer to her, launching itself at her very neck.
She tried it all, but no magic she thought of would manifest this quickly. It felt.. hopeless. Her neck would be slit by this abomination.
Something... cut through the air, with speed and precision, a force, that she has never seen before. The puppet was launched against a tree, nearly breaking it in the process. Pieces of string frayed.
When she opened her eyes after that moment, time stood still. But she was relieved at the sight of who stood in front of her.