Panting breaths. Bloodied hands. Burning rage. Flame surrounds. Down the path of no return. Look at the reflection, see a shadow. But the eyes. They’re aglow.
The Prophet jolted back to reality and clutched his head as a fierce migraine assaulted his senses. It was a vision, nothing more. He looked down at his hands as he slowly calmed down; they weren’t the same as they were in his vision. Not just in their cleanliness, but their shape. Those hands weren’t his, they couldn’t have been, so then whose were they?
“You alright, Prophet?” Huojin asked, shaking his friend lightly. The Prophet jumped at the touch and took a startled step away from Huojin, his back colliding with the stone wall of the dungeon they were in; Huojin looked at him with concern lacing his expression.
“Y-yeah, sorry. Where were we,” he deflected, using one hand to grab his head as if it would help calm his headache. The air around them was musty and thick, clogging the senses and making for a sufficiently uncomfortable atmosphere in the dark depths of the stone tower they were infiltrating. If they were correct, this is where the slavers who had kidnapped Huojin’s sister would be. It had taken them little effort to break down the rotted wooden door which was slightly disconcerting, but their fears were wiped away once they made it inside.
For an abandoned tower, there sure were plenty of signs of recent activity. The Shackles of The Pale Rider is what they called themselves, and apparently, they were awful at covering their tracks. Huojin and the Prophet followed a trail of footsteps in the soft, muddy ground which eventually led them to a spiral staircase leading even further down.
“Good gods I think I might suffocate if the air gets any thicker,” Huojin growled, already having started down the stairs with the Prophet quickly following suit. “You’re sure about this, right? Just running in with no backup,” Cinris asked warily. “I’m not waiting for closure any longer. It’s here in front of me, I won't abandon her again,” Huojin responded.
The Prophet nodded and followed Huojin as they delved deeper still before being met with a large steel double door. They could hear voices beyond it, accompanied by the sounds of music and the thunking of mugs as they hit tables. Huojin knocked on the door heavily and the talking all but stopped, same with the music. Huojin slowly and carefully drew a knife that he had purchased recently at the blacksmith from the belt that also held up his overcoat, concealing it behind his thigh.
They had made a few purchases at the small smithy and nearby shops, including some disposable knives, healing potions, and poisons. The knives were small and unpolished, about the size of the Prophet’s hand and lacking any real handle, just a strangely shaped tang wrapped in cheap leather, but the poison was supposedly potent enough to kill a bear. The straightening and sharpening done on Cinris’ estoc were near perfection, and it felt lighter in his hand than before.
One of the doors slowly creaked open and the Prophet pressed his back to the other door to be just out of sight. They were met with a scarred, bearded, and filthy man whose smell was so pungent the Prophet had to hold back from gagging. “Wha’ d’ you wan’,” the man said, his accent thick and heavy, assaulting the duo's ears.
“Is Darrin here,” Huojin asked, a false smile on his face. The Prophet wasn’t too familiar with the name, all he knew was that he was the one who had led the raid on Huojin’s village that ended with Lilia being taken.
“No’ at th’ moment, wha’ ov et,” the man responded, answered by Huojin’s knife being slammed into the bottom of his jaw. The man fell limp as Huojin wrenched the blade from his skull with a squelch, kicking the body to the ground and rushing into the room, throwing the knife into the head of another who had drawn their weapon. The Prophet slowly and calmly stepped in after him.
The rest of the slavers inside sat still while trying to process what was going on through their booze-clouded thoughts. There had to be at least fifty of them. The Prophet drew his estoc and looked around the room. It looked like any other bar you'd see on the surface, if not a little more grimey. There was a long mirror behind the bar and lots of empty glasses sitting on tables.
He closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath, remembering that feeling he had during his communion before opening them again, his pupils now crimson in color. He hadn’t exactly had time to practice with this new technique, making it unrefined; the color of his eyes refused to replicate that purple he had seen at first, but despite its imperfections, it was still immensely powerful. The sudden influx of information forced onto him made his head throb.
But it was worth it. Every possibility revealed itself, every shift in his stance changed what would occur. It was active Prophecy, something he could normally only do in a dream being done in real-time. Settling on the most favorable outcome, he mimicked the movements required, loosening the tension in his muscles and swaying before lowering to the ground and rushing forth. The slavers in near synchronicity cried out, drew their weapons, and moved to meet the Prophet’s charge. He ducked the swing of an axe, bringing his weapon in an upward arc to separate the axe wielder's arms from their owner.
Huojin darted forward similarly, swinging his staff into the skull of the man who once held an axe. With a crunch and spurt of blood, the slaver collapsed onto the ground. Huojin moved on, using the carried momentum of his first swing, and spun the staff behind his back, bringing it crashing down onto the shoulder of another slaver who crumpled to the ground with a cry of pain; he was silenced as the Prophet drew his sword over his throat.
The fight grew more and more chaotic as it stretched on, but the slavers were less than coordinated, allowing Huojin and the Prophet to whittle them down until barely a tenth of the original force remained. They hadn’t made it unscathed, though. The Prophet’s left arm hung limp at his side after it had been struck at the shoulder by a massive club, and Huojin had suffered several slashes across his back and chest.
Both parties were winded and wounded, but the slavers were in better shape than the two, and there were more of them. “Where. Is. Darrin,” Huojin heaved out, clutching his chest with his left hand, the right holding onto his staff which was more or less keeping him upright. Strands of wood poked and jutted out from its body and cracks jolted along it; the fight had been taxing for the weapon.
“The ‘ell d’ you care,” a particularly tall one responded. The man was almost entirely unscathed and struck an imposing figure, his thick leather armor making him seem even larger and his long unkempt hair made him distinctly filthy looking. “Tell me and I might make it quick,” Huojin growled as he stepped forward but stumbled, barely catching himself with his staff.
The slaver let out a laugh and walked towards Huojin, dragging an axe behind him. It was large, but still significantly smaller than Grayson’s, making the Prophet less intimidated by it than he could’ve been. “You ain’t doin’ nuffin,” he said, spit flying from his mouth. The slaver stopped moving suddenly, inspecting Huojin’s face.
“Oi, lads. Don’ he remin’ you ov someone,” he called out to the rest of the group. “Yeah, you remin’ me of tha’ little brat Lilia! How strange, I din’t thin’ she-” he stopped before roaring with laughter. “Oh, you mus’ be Huojin! Tha’ one she kep’ crying for! Big brov’a Jin,” he taunted, leaning in further. Huojin’s eyes had gone wide and his shoulders had begun to shake.
“Damn shame Darrin sold tha’ one, she was always my favo-”
The slaver was cut off as Huojin swung his staff into his skull, snapping the weapon in two, his furious glare doing almost as much damage to the slaver as the attack. The man spun and fell to his hands and knees with a yell, blood dripping from a freshly opened wound on his head. Huojin slammed one of the broken halves of his staff into the man’s thigh and kicked it, sending it fully through his leg. The man cried out in pain, spurring the other slavers to move to attack Huojin, turning their back on the Prophet just long enough for him to cut two of the six down.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“If you don’t want to drop without a fight, you focus on me,” the Prophet commanded, swiping his blade through the air, cleaning it of blood. The slavers cast a wary glance between their comrade being attacked by Huojin and the fresh corpses on the ground. Slowly, they all resigned to fight the Prophet, something he wasn’t exactly looking forward to. The Prophet wasn’t in the shape to kill four able-bodied fighters solo, but he’d have to try.
Huojin walked over to the man on the ground, ignoring his own wounds, entirely driven by adrenaline. Kicking him onto his back, Huojin placed one knee on his chest. “Who bought Lilia,” Huojin muttered in a low tone, just barely loud enough for the man to hear him. “Why don’ you go off an fuck ya’self,” the man spat.
Huojin exploded with fury, slamming his fist into the man's nose before standing and grabbing him by the hair with his right hand, practically throwing him behind the bar, knocking over a lantern in the process which shattered, igniting the alcohol on the ground. His left hand held the other half of his staff, which he swung into the mirror behind the bar after lifting the man’s head again. The glass shattered, crashing onto the ground and breaking into thousands of razor-sharp shards. The man started to struggle in Huojin’s grip, realizing what was about to happen.
Huojin threw him face-first into the shards on the ground before repeatedly stomping on the man's head, burrowing shards into his eyes and face. “Tell me who bought her,” Huojin shouted, only relenting in his attack for a moment. The man let out a cough, blood splattering onto the reflective glass beneath them. Huojin grabbed him by the hair once more, pulling him up to face level.
“Huojin! Get it over with and help me, I can’t keep this up,” the Prophet yelled as he deflected a swing from one of the slavers, having barely enough time to duck under another swing. He retaliated by bashing the man with his shoulder, sending a bolt of pain through him as his already broken arm suffered more damage, but he still sent the slaver stumbling into a wall. The Prophet moved to capitalize on the opening but got thrown off as more attacks flew his way from all directions, forcing him back on the defensive.
“You bleed far too easily. Disappointing,” Huojin goaded, ignoring or otherwise not hearing the Prophet. The slaver grinned, his teeth bloody. “Funny. I said tha’ same exact thing ta Lilia,” he coughed out.
Huojin bristled, his rage boiling over. He forced the man's mouth open with surprisingly little resistance and made him bite down on the hard wooden bar table. “Should’ve just told me what I wanted,” Huojin said before slamming his fist down onto the top of the man’s head like a hammer.
The man yelled out as his teeth cracked and shattered, falling to the ground and curling into the fetal position, clutching his hands over his mouth. Huojin grabbed the half of the staff still stuck in the slaver's leg and twisted it. “Who,” he asked again, not needing to make it any more descriptive. The slaver’s speech was mostly nonsense as he tried to speak with a blood-filled and largely toothless mouth, but Huojin could make out two distinct words before the man succumbed to his injuries. “Royal.” “Prince.”
Huojin was jolted out of his rage-induced stupor as the man spoke, and he looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood and his breathing was heavy. The rage in his gut slowly shifted to something else. Anxiety. He noticed his reflection in the shards of mirror around him, hardly able to recognize his own face now. Everything except his eyes. Though even then, they glowed with a rage unfamiliar to him.
He was once again brought back to reality as the Prophet cried out in pain. Huojin swiveled, seeing the blade of a knife protruding from his friend's back. Not wasting a moment, he grabbed both halves of his staff and leapt over the bar, finishing off the remaining slavers with a few well-placed strikes, only now noticing the rapidly spreading fire that had started from the shattered lantern. The Prophet had fallen to the ground, and let out muffled cries of pain as Huojin lifted him, wrapping his arm around his back.
“I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what I was thinking, I couldn’t hear you,” Huojin apologized, his eyes frantic and his voice shaken. “It’s fine… Just get me out of here before the adrenaline wears off,” the Prophet groaned, slumping further into Huojin’s support. The two managed to skate past the growing flame and made it to the door, climbing the excruciatingly tall staircase and taking in deep breaths of fresh air as they hobbled through the broken-down door.
The both of them collapsed onto their stomachs, any energy they had lingering in their bodies escaping them upon seeing the clear blue sky. The Prophet let out a few choked cries of agony as he wrenched the blade from his stomach, casting it aside and entangling his fingers in the damp grass in an effort to distract himself from the pain.
“You should’ve left it in, would’ve helped the bleeding,” Huojin voiced, his concern evident as he crawled over to the Prophet. “Survived… worse,” the Prophet breathed, his eyelids fluttering. Huojin’s vision began to blur, but he had just enough breath in his chest to pull two small glass vials, trimmed with gold and filled with a crimson liquid, from a satchel on his side. Rolling one to the Prophet, he took off the glass stopper.
“Gods I hope these work,” he said before downing the potion. The liquid was cool as it went down his throat, but strangely burned with an almost cinnamon flavor. The Prophet did the same, and energy began to creep back through the two as their wounds closed. The Prophet sat up first, coughing and holding the spot where the knife wound used to be.
“What did you learn from him,” the Prophet asked after his coughing stopped, looking over at Huojin. The excommunicated monk also pulled himself up, and a grim expression settled on his face. “I think… I think the Royal family bought her,” he responded bitterly. “Shit,” the Prophet muttered, flopping back down and resting his arm over his eyes.
Huojin looked at the two halves of his staff and sighed. “He deserved it. Everything I did to him, he had it coming. But if I could go back, I know for certain I’d do it differently,” he mumbled to himself, twirling the broken weapon in his hands. “You got hurt because I was too absorbed in torturing that scum. What if I can’t come back to my senses in time? What if I get someone I love hurt again,” Huojin asked as he turned to the Prophet, tears brimming in the corners of his eyes.
“We both know I’m not the best with these things Huojin, and I’m certainly not one to talk about avoiding hurting those you love,” the Prophet responded, standing and moving towards the carriage. “Please,” Huojin said, the heavy laden desperation in his voice stopping the Prophet in his tracks. The Prophet ran a hand over his face, turning back to his friend.
“You probably will. Especially if you keep on this path. And when that time comes, just hope they have it in them to forgive you, even though you may never forgive yourself.”
Huojin sat in stunned silence as he looked at the Prophet, who turned and marched to the carriage, hopping into the back and slipping out of sight. Huojin understood, though. It was why he had been kicked out of the temple. He had a knack for losing himself. He was better now, but he still wasn’t perfect.
He lifted the right half of his staff and held it pointing to the sky, admiring how the sun silhouetted it. There was one thing he knew for certain, one of the only certainties he still held. He would find Lilia and he would get her out of whatever hell she was stuck in, no matter what. And he would beat anyone who got in his way until they dropped dead. But he needed to know if he was ready for what was next. His mind drifted back to his old temple and a long-since dormant memory was brought to the surface again. A smile spread across his face.
“Hey, Prophet. We need to go steal something,” Huojin announced as he pulled himself to his feet and jogged over to the carriage. The Prophet stuck his head out of the opening of the back with a baffled expression on his face. “I’m sorry I swear I must’ve misheard you,” he said, his eyes following Huojin as he climbed into the driver's seat.
“Not in the slightest. Remember how I told you about Darrin’s raid on my town and temple? Yeah, well a couple years ago I found out that one of the larger temples went back there to recover whatever artifacts they had, cause Darrin burned it down and all that. Anyways, that should mean that they have my actual staff,” he answered before correcting himself. “Well, not exactly my staff. I got kicked out before I could be given it, so technically it still belongs to the temple. It had some sort of curse on it that if anyone it deemed ‘unworthy’ tried to wield it, they’d just up and die. Set by a god or something. I met the criteria, according to the elders.”
“Wait so, if I'm not misunderstanding, we’re about to-,” Cinris started, “Steal a staff from some religious folk who claimed it was a relic of divine beings, yes,” Huojin said, finishing the sentence. “Wow, alright, okay. Where’s this other temple,” the Prophet asked, heavily questioning his partner’s sanity.
“Big city called Ashbourn! Should be easy to blend right in with the crowds and all that. Might even be able to catch some downtime there,” Huojin said with a smile, spurring the horses into action and starting them down the road.
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