Evgeny nodded in reply to Riona’s question. “Without any real businesses to provide goods and few traders from surrounding areas, we have to make do with whatever we make ourselves here. It’s not impossible to get supplies. Charcoal from fires works well enough for our purposes.” He put his hands together, fingers arrayed like a tent, and listened to Ike next. In his mentioning of the killer, Evgeny had not exactly intended to dwell on the unpleasant subject, but though he wondered why the white-haired man would take an interest in such things he opted to answer him. “No, violence is very rare here. All crime, in fact. In a place like this, everyone knows everyone else, and any secrets are soon laid bare. Besides, the killer is dead. He came to this town seeking refuge, accepted our hospitality, and repaid it with death. His madness claimed five souls, though we managed to save the sixth, and for his appalling evil he was hanged by the neck until dead.”
The air of an intense storyteller, having come over the noble schoolteacher stealthily, departed abruptly. He gave a shrug and tied off the tale with, “But the world is sometimes full of cruelty. Why do you ask…and why do you think this has anything to do with poor Willard? Poor boy died in a fire.” His black, round spectacles seemed oddly like beady crow’s eyes, staring straight into Ike’s.
”I think so too. Stand back, ladies. This calls for a little Shinobi skill.” After Ashlyn and Thor moved away from the trunk, Harper went to work. She produced various small spheres and cylinders, seemingly from thin air but more than likely from her sleeves or vambraces. One after another they were placed around the stump, and once she attained a safe distance, Harper smiled and snapped a finger. Like a cluster of fireworks the ring of bombs went off, throwing dirt and sticks in every direction. When the dust cleared, however, nothing seemed to have happened.
”Aw…I was sure there was some sort of magic doing something. I mean, it’s probably just silly of me to think so much of one stump. That’s me, overthinking.” Looking at Harper, one couldn’t tell whether she felt the prongs of self-pity or merely gave a good-natured critique of her own impetuousness.
A moment passed before the ninja turned away, but rather than move on she opted to deliver the deadwood an irritated kick instead. Her shoe flew toward the base of the stump, fast enough to stub her toes badly, and like the proverbial knife through butter it slid
beneath it. A quick lift of her leg threw the stump up as if it weighed nothing, though a second’s observation revealed it to be a hollowed-out shell on a hidden hinge. Before the three female soldiers lay a crude ladder down into a dark hole, previously kept secret by the trapdoor disguised as a stump. Harper beamed, laughing out loud.
”Hah, gotcha! Bet you thought I was gonna give up. I’ll have you know that’s not luck at all. When we’re looking for answers, we soldiers aren’t allowed to believe in coincidences. Did you hear those hollow sounds when my bombs went off?” Putting a lid on her excitement, the ninja peered down into the hole.
”Ooh, spooky,” she remarked unnecessarily.
”So who’s going first?”Mercury sported a grimace as his guildmates addressed the woman. Personally, he saw no reason to go out of the way to help her. The business of the townsfolk belonged to them, and stopping in their mission to help a damsel in distress -though she looked more like a hippo in a dress- should not have been on the trio’s itinerary. Frenzy Plant wasn’t, after all, a goody-goody guild, but a war guild. Didn’t finding out about a possible plague outweigh one bawling blimp’s emotional state? Yet he said nothing. Maybe one of the others’ intuition told them that she could be of use.
Meanwhile, the woman pointed a sausage-like finger down the alley, and between shakes told Gabriel and Enma, “Down there. Down there’s the bastard that did this to me! A man with black eyes. I was just trying to go to work, and he…he pushes me over and cuts my purse so fast he cuts my arm too. Wah!” She snuffled wetly. “That’s all the money I had…I’m…I’m sorry to ask, misters, but if you’re kind enough to stop and ask a poor woman what’s wrong, maybe you’re kind enough to try and get her money back too…?” A modicum of hope flashed through her eyes, however sickly-green they appeared.
Ni Rensa – Cinders of a Home
@zarkun Sensing that tapping her foot in bemusement wouldn’t get her anywhere, Ni decided to loosen up a little in the hopes of finding more clues. She inhaled and exhaled, slowly and with deliberation, then bent down. Like a creature tensing up to spring she crouched, but rather than executing any sort of jump she remained hunkered down. Uncharacteristic seriousness clouded her face, and with eyes closed she breathed in through her nose again. Moments passed while the wind whistled through the ruined house and the war sphinx searched, interrupted at length by faint creaks as she began to move. Eliza looked on in silence, curious but quiet as a grave lest she break her comrade’s concentration. Carefully, like a cat reaching out to snare an unwary fish on her claws, Ni overturned a few pieces of heat-scarred wood, and brushed aside some ash. An object appeared among the debris: a bone, partially blackened in the manner of a steak left too long on the grill. Ni picked it up, and brought it morbidly close to her face.
”It’s…an arm bone, I think. Too thin for a leg bone, but long enough for an arm.” She looked expectantly at Eliza, hoping for assistance. Though tracking lay in Ni’s domain, the former dark mage’s wits would be more suited to forensics.
Eliza caught the bone as it was tossed to her, and held it next to her arm. A lack of bulky clothing made for an easy comparison, and the raven-haired woman remarked,
“So he was attacked, after all.”This evoked a furrowed brow from Ni.
”Hum? Okay, tell me.”Smirking ever so slightly, Eliza addressed both Damian and Ni Rensa as she explained.
”Well, we saw Willard’s ashes when we came in. Funerary ashes are made by incinerating a body in a furnace, and if people liked Willard they would have made sure to remove his body from this place. While bones can be burned by fire, it would take some extreme heat to burn a bone this way.” She held up the charred bone for the others to see.
”Plus, it’s almost the exact same shape and size as my inner-arm bone, so it probably belonged to a woman about as tall as me. Since flames are powered by a pyromancer’s emotion, my guess is that whatever this woman did, she scared him so badly that he unleashed all his power in a firebolt straight at her, burning straight through her and into his own home.”Seldom did Eliza show emotions overtly, but her usually cold features now betrayed that she felt very troubled.
”But she didn’t die. If she did, Ni would have found more bones than this. What kind of person powers through getting their arm blasted off by fire, and then kills the caster? After all, this hut is so small, Willard should have been able to escape easily from an accidental fire. He didn’t burn to death—he was murdered in his own home before the killer escaped, and the fire covered her tracks. At least, that’s what I think. But it must mean that there is a sickness or curse or something in this town after all.” She realized that she had begun to slouch and straightened up. Her eyes landed on Damian, waiting for him to suggest a course of action, though without complete sincerity. Moreover, she expected that he might be impressed with the intellect of a lowly soldier.
The enmity of Argus did not go unnoticed by Tsubano, whose attunement to people by virtue of her health-oriented Marsh Songs combined with her experience permitted some insight into the feelings of others. Neither did it elude Graham, who
felt it, like an oppressive presence. A dread king or undead overlord might also exude the same sort of soul-squeezing atmosphere no matter how calm they appeared, though obviously Argus’ displeasure didn’t generate a feeling near that degree. In the end, the demon decided to abide by the decision, which was good. Graham had no doubt that he and Tsubano would never be able to force a seal on him unwillingly. Of course, he did not factor in the help of the spirit Leo, but given the celestial being’s denial of respect to Frenzy Plant and its general he did not expect much help from it at all. When putting a seal on Xyster, Tsubano managed because the dullahan had been soundly defeated by the guild not long before.
”I will only need to see your guild mark, on the back of your neck. The seal need only last for a day, though I am confident it will last longer. Denial is an act of subjugation, be it of will, strength, feelings, or freedom, and now and then everybody must serve. Frenzy Plant stands for order in this world, and the Seal of Denial is its embodiment. Of course, that is not to say we are subjugating you. For you, this denial might come as a rare moment of peace, and as long as that isn’t an atrocious thing in your mind the seal will be hardy indeed.”The witch directed Argus to kneel, as if swearing fealty to a lord or humbly offering a prayer in a cathedral. Xyster had been forces to her knees, but given the current situation Tsubano felt very relieved that Argus would do so of his own accord. Once he was down, the diminutive woman placed both of her hands on the back of his neck, where his guild mark lay just the same as everyone else’s. Beneath her touch, the liquid of the tattoo began to move. The vines that constituted the sigil of Frenzy Plant twisted and elongated, forming a self-entwined pattern oddly like chains. As a whole, the sigil grew larger and more complex, but in only a few seconds it was done. The green and red had become silver, and it shone dully in the dimming afternoon light.
”Thank you, Argus. If I am right, you should feel a slight pressure on your neck, not too different from the sensation of wearing a watch. It’ll bother you less in time. For now, let us return to the village. You might even enjoy not feeling oppressed by the negative feelings of those around you.” She acknowledged his noble self-sacrifice with a bow.
As they walked, Nandy took a few discreet glances as Isla, the little prisoner. He knew little about her except the tales told of what she’d done. Fullheartedly he believed that someone could trap people in paintings, torturing them psychologically for nothing but twisted pleasure, and he could easily believe that Frenzy Plant would conscript a lawbreaker to service by binding him or her with one of Indigo’s special orders, yet…he could not understand how a small, innocent-looking girl could do something so evil. She seemed as nervous about the situation in Belka as anyone might in her position; truth to be told, Nandy felt his fair share of fear himself. At seventeen years old, he had experienced war already, but not so much horror that fear couldn’t put its teeth into him. He knew that Bytan Brass, the old campaigner, would face whatever they ran into with unflinching resolve, so Nandy felt is appropriate to feel scared enough for both of them. By the looks and sounds of it, though, Isla was trying to outdo him. He thought about saying something to her to assuage her nerves, but he knew that any such comfort coming from him could only be hollow. So he followed her as she followed Corporal Brass, who just now pushed open the great chapel door.
A little foyer, poorly lit by candles, waited for them. In front of the door to the chapel proper sat a man with huge glasses and a wide-brimmed hat, clothed in ragged cleric’s robes and wearing an odious scowl. His whiskers, unkempt, long, scraggly, but sparse, made him look like a miser. “Ey,” he growled to the three who entered. “Git lost. Ain’t nobody allowed in the church ‘til tomorra.” He recognized Isla, Nandy, and Bytan as outsiders, perhaps not familiar enough with his reputation to know to turn away. Before them stood Lyric, a contemptible associate of the church much better known for his drinking than his piety, if he had any real faith to speak of. His oniony breath alone could have made children cry, never minding his appearance and manner. Lyric stood up, his arms crossed with elbows thrust out into his cloak, attempting to make himself look bigger. “Didn’ja hear? No loiterin’! Cleric’s ain’t allowed to bloody noses…s’why I’m ‘ere!” He shook his fist to demonstrate, only to scowl deeper when Bytan made no move. Nandy wanted to retreat badly, but he would not let himself look like an amateur in front of a senior guild member and a prisoner.
Lyric pound his hairy fists together. “Roight then. Looks like I oughta show ya ol’ Lyric means business.” He swung at Bytan’s jaw, looking to take him down in one hit. The next thing he knew, he was on his back against the door, gasping to try and get air into his lungs. Had the old geezer hit him? He couldn’t tell. “…Wot?”
Shaking his head, Bytan turned to Nandy.
”Looks like business is closed, eh, son?” he quipped, before turning back to Lyric and planting his heel on his chest at high speed. The door slammed open and the drunkard slid through, gargling. In front of them stretched the chapel, stone floor with rows and rows of pews, tall candlesticks to provide light, and boarded-up windows. At the opposite side of the room lay some stairs and at the top an altar, upon which currently lay a body. Standing over it were two acolytes as well as the portly cleric from earlier. The sudden noise and entrance made the head cleric jerked in surprise, and around his hands an aura of frothing orange magic sputtered and died. A strangled sound rang out through the chapel, which Nandy found to his horror to be coming from the body, which he assumed to be dead. In fact, the body looked very much alive on second glance, though some of his insides appeared to be on the outside. Without skipping a beat the cleric reactivated the spell, and the sounds of pain from the man ceased. He did not look up as he demanded, “What is the meaning of this?!”
Bytan, clenching his fists, called,
”I don’t know what sort of occult ritual you’re up to, but you’re finished. Master Sanders will be thrilled to find out that the clerics are the source of the evil in this town!”
