“Why is it always us?”

The voice of Jacques Deli run out in the nearly silent woodlands around him as he slung his rifle over his shoulder casually while his eyes looked over his larger companion as they continued on the path stretching towards their destination. In all of his years leading up to him joining The Order he had never been so insufferably bored.

“We do as our mission wills us to.” The larger man replied as he maintained the duo’s pacing.

While Grifor Lathil may not have been impatient like Jacques was, he knew the mission was not a fool’s errand. His faith in the organization that held his will was absolute and he knew if they were quick and discreet this wouldn’t turn out like their last mission. The Order didn’t like failure, no matter the reasons— sometimes he wasn’t sure why they tolerated him and Jacques’ failings but was thankful for whatever the Grandmaster and Observer of The Order saw in them to excuse it. It was in his mind that one day he would have to meet the woman and kneel before her wisdom.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Jacques grumbled.

“You know so.” Grifor corrected, a slight pause after his interjection. “There’s the town. Look.”

Jacques let out a long whistle in a state of faux amazement. “Sure is. You think this little girl is worth it?”

“She better be.” A female voice chimed in from behind— their third member.

The Order always operated in a trinity at a bare minimum and following Isen’s reassignment their squad was given someone new as Grifor took the position of commander. It still felt weird to him that Isen would be reassigned, but he supposed with the constant bickering by Anaria as well as his own personal ambitions it made sense. This was the first time he would see this new girl in action— he hoped she would be competent and at the very least less bloodthirsty and annoying as Jacques.

Grifor thought back to the explanation of the issue. It had come to their leader’s attention that a powerful and inexperienced psion had discovered her latent powers. The townsfolk hadn’t cast her out, but had not reacted warmly due to the fact that the people of Dun were a superstitious lot and in lieu of recent events with The Resistance and The Order fighting each other it was likely they feared that the fight would come to their town next when it came out they had a psion in their town. Grifor understood why those had commanded him to recruit her as it was known that this girl was not a normal psion— she was a clairvoyant. Clairvoyance was not something he was well educated in before The Order recruited him but he came to know certain things about seers, touchers of dreams, and prophets of forces unknown. If The Order held someone who could be a powerful sentinel in their ranks as well as a valuable asset; they might just be able to crush The Resistance outright.

“A clairvoyant is what our grandmaster needs. We will convince her to join us— The Order can give her understanding of the power at her fingertips.”

Jacques chuckled. “And I’m guessing if she says no…”

The larger man gritted his teeth— there was no telling them no and he knew it. Their leader made it abundantly clear of how important it was to acquire this woman as an asset to their ranks and not let her fall through the cracks. They had lost ranks to the resistance and their naïve efforts and it was vital that such losses would not be repeated. So despite his own misgivings about killing a child he knew he had to act with all of the strength he had in him; if she refused them he would take her and if he had to… he would bury her as well.

“You know the answer, Jacques. We all do.”

He just hoped this Azarnite Weaver or the townsfolk would not refuse him. He hoped they would have faith and sense.

He hoped he would not have to kill them.

The world was falling apart. Every limb burned in pain, and he pushed forward, up the stone steps of the tower. I have to stop this echoed throughout his mind. His body looked as it had been torn to shreds—his clothes, his bare flesh; all looked like bloody tatters. His sword hung limply at his side, as he continued upwards. Behind him were only the corpses of those in his way; the corpses of the dead. There was no one else with him; he’d left his companions behind. Not for their sake: for his. Higher, higher and higher as his head began to swell with pain and vertigo. Every wound, every sacrifice, every ounce of blood spilled had been leading up to this. At the top was the Chained God. At the top was the reason his humanity had been stolen from him. At the top was the enemy. One more enemy to defeat. One more challenge to face. One more…one more…



“ONE MORE!” Marlowe bellowed, bringing the saber up to catch the blade coming down in a violent arc towards his face. He caught the longsword near the center of his own blade, pushing back against his opponent’s grip. The two had been locked in combat for some time now. Marlowe’s jacket was cast aside, and he was wearing his thin white shirt. Without his slacks, he could have appeared to be battling in his bedclothes. The woman across from him was more modestly dressed. His eyes locked with hers: as a strand of teal hair fell in front of her face; they’d been sparring for close to an hour now and she was starting to look a tad disheveled. “Come on, hit me with your best-“

It was over in an instant; the woman wrested Marlowe’s swordhand from his grip, kicked his legs out from under him and fell on top of him, her blade pressed to his throat. “You’re too open,” she remarked, taking the steel away from his neck. “You said you wanted me to teach you how to control the fight, but you’re still relying on your strength and not your thick head.” She lightly thumped his forehead, and gave an exasperated sigh. “Are you sure you’re even capable of thinking while fighting?”

“I thought that’s what the training was for,” Marlowe groaned, sitting up and rubbing his neck with a free hand. “I thought you liking me would mean you’d be less rough.”

“You can’t each someone to be smart. And it’s because I care about you that I’m so hard on you. I don’t want you to get hurt fighting.”

“Viera. It’s okay if I get hurt fighting.”

The woman sighed, before retying her hair into a ponytail. “You always say that. So what happens when you’re finally hit with something you can’t heal?”
The man grew quiet for a moment, closing his eyes. His heart had jumped when she said that last part. Not being able to heal; being able to die. That one thing that kept him away from the rest of the world; that kept him from being normal. Part of him would embrace mortality in an instant. But now he had Viera to protect, and his friends needed him, and Dun was still…

Marlowe took a deep breath, stood up and approached Viera, placing a hand on her shoulder as she turned to him. He gently brought his lips to her forehead, and spoke with a low voice, “Okay. I promise, I’ll be safer from now on. No more running in blindly.”

“I don’t expect you’ll keep that promise.” Her small fingers traced around the thin beard the man had slowly been growing from their months along the road. He seemed so different from the wide-eyed man she met a year ago in Derim. His battles back home had aged him.

“I will. I’ll try to, anyway. I’m not gonna just run out and leave you.” Those words came out carelessly, and he felt her grab at his side, her hand tightening around his tunic as he talked. She’d lost nearly all of her family due to her older brother. Hell, part of the reason she traveled with him was to find another missing sibling and bring them back home. He opened his mouth to apologize, to say something to make the words better before—

A scream broke their quiet moment together.

Marlowe looked towards the direction of the scream. “When there’s smoke….” He grumbled. He walked over to his gear, hefting up a thick burgundy jacket and sliding it over his lithe frame. A leather bandolier came next. And finally, a huge hunk of metal that was laying against the tree was placed in thick straps along the bandolier. He looked off, almost off balance carrying such a cumbersome weapon, compared to Viera’s single sword.

“There’s fire.” Viera sheathed her longsword, and started walking off towards the sound.

Beautiful. Sunshine. Aza. The young woman had been born and raised in this small town just outside the Dhadan Forest, and as she grew she'd come to know and love all of the people, her neighbors, and yet all of the love for her seemed to have disappeared.

Azarnite Weaver stood in her tiny home, alone, peering out one of the windows that looked out onto the main road that carved it's way through the row of houses with a strained crease on her face as if she were looking for something. In reality she was lost in thought, daydreaming more like. Things had changed so much in the last few weeks and still she was working to come to terms with the idea that maybe it was time for her to move on, to leave all the people she'd known and grown up with behind. None of them were wrong for being afraid or for looking at her the way they did. What with the sparse incident that happened here and there, and her crying out so loudly in the night it woke those in the houses closest to her own. Azarni's dreams and sparatic, uncontrollable bursts of- what even was it? A sort of raw energy that leaked out of her at the worst of times. Everything was spiraling down around her.

Her bright, sky coloured eyes shifted and blinked as she drew herself back to the present and pressed a loose piece of silvery blue hair back behind her ear. A soft sigh began to slip out past her lips when she saw them. The three strangers in white cloaks, pressing in on an elderly fellow she used to know well. Knitting her brow and tilting her head to inspect further it she found the old man's hand lifting up shakily to point in the direction of her house and suddenly she felt very ill. Hazy pieces of her dreams came back to her in nauseating waves- visions of shadowy figures dressed in robes surrounding her until they swallowed her whole.



"Stay away from me!" She shrieked as her feet trampled through the long grass, her heart pounding like a sledgehammer in her chest, all the while cursing herself for not leaving sooner or listening to the warnings. For being so blind!
She had very much refused them, escaping out a back window as soon as they'd started heading toward her without time to grab anything. Everything in her told her to run even when her adrenaline threatened to leave her nailed to that spot. Fear had won, luckily enough for her, at least for a moment.

That was short lived. So focused on running as fast as she could, she failed to watch her steps, and a root that snaked up out of the muddy ground caught her foot and she fell forward- screaming as her hands shot out just in time to keep her from face-planting in the dirt. Flipping over onto her back she kicked her feet in a frantic manner, scooting herself back as at least one of the three slowed the chase down to wander toward her. Pulling a hand out from behind her, she held it forward with her palm open toward him. What she thought she was trying to attempt was unclear, but it was obviously a failure as she turned to shaking her hand out and quickly spun back around trying to get her feet back up underneath her so she could run again, growling in frustration.

The older man let out a heavy sigh when he had seen the young girl take off when she saw them, and he let out another when she cried out in fear. Grifor knew fear was a valid weapon and tool, but he had not committed to hurting anybody when he stepped in the township but still she viewed him as an enemy from the onset and was utterly terrified. Right as she did so he had heard the click of his companion’s rifle and had he not pushed the metal down on instinct the girl would’ve had a hole in her torso.

He knew the marksman he had been paired with was bloodthirsty and immoral but he didn’t think he’d jump to drawing his rifle in the middle of the town when their mission was different than the ones they had been assigned before; they were not dealing with Marlowe but bringing someone new into their midst. Perhaps it was his age showing but he just couldn’t believe what he was doing was wrong and despite all of what Grifor had been tasked to do before he did not see himself as an assassin or executioner; he was not that, he could never be that. After what he had been told they had to be just in their cause and nothing else. If he was wrong there would be a burden placed upon his soul that could never be forgiven.

“Hey little girl! Where are you going?” He could hear Jacques voice chasing off— the perversion of his bloodlust very so apparent.

Damn it all.

He looked over to the female member of his squad. “Shiara— stick to the shadows, be quiet. You know the secondary plan.”

“Noted.”

He looked back to the townsfolk beside him and gave a sorrowful nod. “My apologies, I will return here to amend my companion’s behavior later. Excuse my absence, but I must be going.”

The older man held out his hand as he surged with cosmic energy and in a flash of purples and blues he had vanished before the townsfolk— in but a second later he re-materialized behind the girl as his companion had come closer to her with rifle in hand. There was a frown on Grifor's face as he spoke out as the girl tried to sputter away from Jacques.

“We are not here to hurt you, Ms. Weaver.”

Jacques rolled his eyes but he didn’t say a word as a retort, he did not exactly want to piss off the senior member of their little mission; especially when that senior member wielded a warhammer.

She gasped as she was cut off, stuck between the two of them now, her head jerked from left to right to look between the two of them. Taken off guard by the taller man appearing in the way of her escape. "You're lying!" she cried when her wide frightened eyes finally settled on him. "I know who you are, and I know the things your people do!" She continued to back up, through the middle of them, but she was well aware there was little to no chance of her escaping them when they were practically on top of her.

"You're the reason everyone is so afraid of having me around now. Everything I've ever known, gone because of their fear." Jutting a finger out, she pointed in gesture back toward the town in an accusing way. Whether they noticed or not, the ground below their feet gave a subtle reverberation as she did.

Her eyes scanned back over to Delios, at the barrel of the rifle aimed more or less in her direction. "I said stay away from me. I mean it." Where she longed to sound anything resembling threatening, her voice came out very meek and shakey as she backed up against a tree, and whether they noticed or not, the ground below their feet gave a subtle reverberation as she did- her hands folded back behind her to press up against the trunk to feel her way, still moving back slowly around the left side of it.

Marlowe and Viera rushed through the undergrowth. They’d been patrolling the area of Dhadan Forest for a few days now; a big change from their previous regime of travel. Hell, the past few days had been almost calm. He had struggled to push the events of the past month out of his mind, to lay who he was by the wayside. It was a new year. It was a new chance to begin again. A chance to have some sort of normal life without the looming threat of The Order. Of course he couldn’t have that.



Just one month ago he was battling. Not just for him, not just for Viera, but for everyone’s lives. Rin—his ally and dear friend who’d fought alongside him since he found himself lost in Dun—Rin had joined The Order. He’d killed innocent lives. He’d laid waste to the man he once was. And yet Marlowe still tried to save him, to bring his friend back.

Rin had killed one of their own.

Lexi Uael—no, Lexi Rauzil. The young woman they had helped so early in their adventure had made a life with Mathis Rauzil. They had a daughter, a home, a life together. And Rin took that away from them. Marlowe remembered the night they buried Lexi. Rauz had taken him aside.

“Kill him.”

“Rauz, he’s our friend—we have to try and—“

“He killed my wife!” His voice was quiet, hissing quiet. Something unlike Rauz. He grabbed Marlowe’s collar, bringing him close to his face. “He took everything from me.” A baby’s cry came from nearby, and Rauz let go of Marlowe, walking off. “He doesn’t deserve mercy.”

Rin burned towns. Marlowe fought back, begging his friend to stop. Begging him to come back. And in that fight, in that moment Marlowe ignored the wounded, the dying, all to fight Rin. Kath had saved many of them, Kath and Deya had done their duty as members of the Vann. And Kath and Deya left Marlowe. A punch. Cold words. “You are no different than them.”

The words echoed in his heart. Months of fighting, of blood. They’d met Mikael. They’d met Anaria. And they finally found Rin. At the heart of it all, Marlowe only found more death, and betrayal. And in that despair, Marlowe did give into that bloodlust, tearing through his enemies like a mindless beast. He remembered Viera’s face, her hands covered in blood—not his blood. Staring at him as he tore men apart to feed the hatred inside of him.

The euphoria gave him pleasure, it gave him happiness to tear apart his enemies. But the memory of that moment made him sick. There was nausea that related to the smell of blood now, nausea that came back as he fought. It terrified him, thinking of letting that darkness back inside, and giving himself to it. The thought of Viera ever looking at him like that again, or Kath’s own anger at being proved right, or even the idea of never being able to look at his hands without seeing the blood staining his hands. He never wanted that again.



“Come on, I think the screaming came from this clearing!” Viera had pushed ahead of Marlowe, pushing the brush aside. They weren’t running full blast; but keeping an open eye ahead of them. The Order loved springing traps. Especially against someone as foolish as Marlowe.



He’d saved Rin. He couldn’t kill his friend, and as he stood over his comrade, his feet deep in white snow stained red with blood—his blood and Rin’s blood. The blade raised above him, willing to end his friend’s life for good.

“Do it.” Rin’s eyes locked with Marlowe’s. “Kill me. I can’t live with this pain. Knowing what I’ve done.”

He couldn’t. He carried Rin back to town, back to his friends. He was tired of the bloodshed and the fighting. He just wanted to go home with his friends. And for a moment, it seemed things would finally be normal. Viera admitted her feelings for him. Rin was healing. Mikael wasn’t drinking as much. There was peace in the new year. And then, on the first day of the New Year, Rin gathered his gear and met with Marlowe outside of the inn in Dunric.

“I’m going to head out.”

“You’re kidding, right? You haven’t even healed up completely.”

“I need some time to think. I need time to figure out who I am.”

“We know who you are. You’re Rin. You’re our friend.”

“Marlowe. The things I did—the people I killed. I see them. Every time I close my eyes, I see what I’ve done.”

“It wasn’t yo—“

“It WAS me. It was a part of me. The part that wants power, that wants to be the strongest. The Order, they find a way to get into your mind, to whisper your secret desires to you.” He closed his eyes. “I need some time away from Dun. Away from this war.”

And Rin left.



They’d stopped running, and had stealthily approached the clearing. Marlowe wanted to groan as he saw the gruesome twosome of Delios and Lathilos. The sniper was usually hiding, so this was a good chance to take him down before he had a chance to run away and take potshots from the trees. But Lathilos was always a hell of an enemy with that damned Warhammer of his.

Marlowe looked to Viera. “You’re going to be mad at me. But someone has to interrupt them before they hurt the girl. I’m going to distract them; I need you to hit them from the side while they’re focused on me.”

Viera nodded to him, as Marlowe moved through the brush. For the gear he had been carrying, spending two years in Dun had made him well equipped to travel throughout the swamp and brush. Especially when it meant sneaking up on assholes like The Order. This was his chance to hit them hard before they had a chance to hit them. As Aza told the men to stay away, Marlowe’s voice broke the silence. “You know, the lady said to back off. I know a scumbag like Delios thinks of that as a chance to really get the creepiness going, but I’m really disappointed in you Lathilos. You’re always talking about how you’re the good guy. And you’re scaring this young lady!”

Marlowe grinned viciously at the two men, bringing his right hand to the pommel of the great sword on his back. “To be honest, I’m always happy for a chance to get even with the two of you.” Where was the third? Did they really send two to chase after a woman?

“Marlowe.” The words were cold and bitter. It was always Marlowe, no matter what mission he was assigned he always reared his naive head. He was sick and tired of his interference in his activities— it was time they were put to an end.

“The lady is in the middle of a conversation, but if you and your girlfriend want to tangle then I will be more than happy to oblige.”

The older orderling snapped his hands across his back, a loud ‘thunk’ colliding as a metal warhammer met with the brush covered trail below— the sound of a grumble leaving his lips as his brows narrowed as he looked in the direction of his enemy. The intensity of the two men were sure to scare the girl even more than it already had and given the sniper was already concerned with looking out for Marlowe’s supposed companion if she was going to run this would’ve been the moment to do it. But it was still a dangerous prospect nonetheless.

Marlowe smirked, “Sorry guys, but i'm on a solo walk tonight. But I think I can tango with the two of you by myself.”

“He’s lying.”

His companion’s voice was evident, but he didn’t care in the slightest. He already knew that fact; he could sense her.

“I know.” The larger man grumbled as his hand clenched the handle of the hammer as he charged Marlowe before swinging the hammer down blindingly fast just as the sound of Jacques' voice screeched out in profane slurs to draw out their unseen second enemy. Grifor remembered her tactics well from the previous year and he knew she'd appear soon enough to blindside his partner while he was preoccupied with her boyfriend.

“You haven’t beat me yet. You won’t.”

In all of the countless times he had squared off with Marlowe there had been no victor in Marlowe’s favor— his bones had been broken by his hammer on so many occasions, and if not for Marlowe’s ridiculous abilities he would not even be breathing in the present. Marlowe was an unskilled punk with no talent for fighting while he was a veteran of several conflicts and a well-tested royal guard who had more combat experience than Marlowe could even dream of. Even with Marlowe’s more competent girlfriend at his side or his Kata “buddy” he was confident he could take him.

Not today. Not ever.

Azarnite's head jerked in Marlowe's direction when he appeared out of no where, scared out of her wits. Another one? No? The two gentlemen with her seemed less surprised and more angry at his showing. A savior? The two orderlings looked to know him well, so perhaps he was a part of the resistance she'd heard of here and there. The heat and her dizzying panic made her vision blur. What was going to happen to her?



It was just another normal day. Warm, the sun casting down its dwindling rays in the evening hours. Aza sat outside watching some of the children running about with a smile on her face. Motherly and kind, with no kids of her own, it was a common occurrence for many of the residents to bring their's to her when they had errands to run. Azarni always graciously accepted. Up until recently she had been valued and trusted, cherished even by some of the older townsfolk.

There was always judgement when you fell out of the norm, however, and the petite lady had, unintentionally, done just that.

While she leaned against a beam supporting the front of her house, looking out as one kid tagged another, her ear twitched some- the sound of mumbling voices. When she tore her blue eyes from the street to turn her head she found three of the less favored men in the town standing on the corner of her yard casting her their angry glares while they whispered among themselves. Drunks, troublemakers. Anger always stemmed from something you didn't understand, from a fear of the unknown. Confusion.

Ms. Weaver never judged them. Never blamed them. She was just as confused and frightened as the rest of them. However, when she caught sight of one the young men's hands bouncing a decent sized stone up into the air and down again, her brow furrowed and she slowly rose up the post to retreat back inside. Before she could do so, before she really understood what was happening, the stone came hurdling toward her. It was a simple thing, really. One she could have avoided by stepping out of the way. All she did was think.

Stop.

It did. Right before it tore back across the yard and struck the man and shattered his cheek.



She never stopped scooting around the tree, picking up the pace some as Lathilos and Delios's attention was moved elsewhere. Hiding on the opposite side, she looked left and right, wondering what the safest route would be, if there was one to begin with. Her legs were shaking, threatening to give out from underneath her. Was there even an option in running?

Another quake shifted the ground below her feet and she groaned. She could feel it, that energy, humming in her veins- feeding off of her fear and threatening to breach the surface.

Azarni took off, using the distraction as a loose opportunity to, at the very least, put some distance between herself and the three. Weaving through trees and bushes, hopefully giving the gun wielder something else to shoot at should he choose to turn on her again.

Viera pressed her feet down, her head kept low. She knew as soon as Delios was on to her presence he would immediately start making boisterous potshots fueled by his unimaginative and limited vocabulary. The fact of the matter though was she couldn’t really make a swift strike as long as he was veered towards her direction, and as stupid as the cultist sniper was he was also very observant— it would just take one movement out of the brush for him to see her and then it’d be all over. Viera was not so brash or suicidal to take that gamble, so she would have to wait for a few moments to see an opportunity. And that’s when the girl the two cultists had cornered had scooted away before bolting in a rush in the opposite direction from them whilst their eyes were focused on herself and Marlowe. It would only take a few moments for Delios to notice and turn in aggravation— his impatience was “legendary”.

“Damn it!” He turned.

This was her chance— with her sword already drawn as they entered the brush, Viera was ready. Digging her feet into the ground she pushed herself outward in a rush of speed, her aura channeling to the back of her feet. She would be upon him right as he was in the middle of his next sentence.

“Where the shit do you think yo—”

Viera smirked as the weasel of a man’s ears perked and he turned as fast as he could with rifle in his hand. He wasn’t as skilled as his peers— he wouldn’t be able to teleport in time like the coward he was. The sound of a sharp metallic ‘clang’ rung out as her sword met the center of his rifle as he had used the weapon to block her strike. Had it been an ordinary rifle it would’ve been cut in half as her blade dug into his chest. He was fortunate… no, he was lucky.

“Feckin’ hell, girl! You trying to cut my head off?” He spat, his nerves a bit shaken as he jumped back following the strike. “Lathilos! We’ve got a runner!”

No reply. Lathilos was busy.


But Shiara Isolt was not.

As she had been commanded by Lathilos, Shiara had took the backwoods approach to keep a silent but watchful eye on the scenario. It had been predicted that someone would interrupt or cause issue with their taking of Azarnite Weaver and it would be her job to make sure while her companions were occupied in combat to deal with whatever loose ends. Despite being new to this… organization, Shiara was not stupid enough to disobey an order that could lead to dire consequences— consequences she would never find acceptable.

The tan-skinned woman shuffled through the woods— her feet cracking against the pine as she kept her momentum. Azarnite was on the move and she was not far from her.

She pushed her spiritual energy to her feet as she collided with another tree sending it faling right in the general direction Aza was heading before landing flatly on a sturdy branch overlooking the off-road trail. The attack would either end up blocking the psion’s path or crushing her under the sheer force of the falling timber. Either worked for Shiara. Truthfully, she didn’t really care.

“You really should watch where you’re going. Seems like this forest is hazardous for one’s health.” She quipped, though given her generally ambivalent attitude and tendency toward monotonous speech it likely did not seem sarcastic but rather matter-of-fact as she brushed a strand of her white hair from her face and behind her ear.

“You really should listen to what he has to say.” She added, referring back to Lathilos.

She heard Delios's call but kept moving. He was occupied with a more head on problem at the moment. Azarni kept running, stumbling and tripping over her own feet and the long grass. She'd nearly forgotten about the third one by this time, but even as foolish as she was in doing that, she was still paying attention enough to see a tree falling down in front of her and she came to an abrupt halt, hands planting against the trunk just as it crashed to the ground, kicking up dirt and debris.

She should have known it wasn't going to be that easy. "I don't want to hear it, I don't want anything you have to offer!" Aza yelped back up at the girl. "I just want to go back home, I want my friends back! I said stay away from me!" Her shrieking demand rang out and echoed against the trees and what may have seemed like a simple angry emphasis, bringing up her arms and then swinging them back down against the log, turned into a crackling explosion. Before her hands had time to connect with the wood it cratered and then split in two, erupting into a flurry of giant splinters that shot off in all directions.

Taken aback by her own desperate fury and being pelted with chunks of wood, Aza stumbled back, her chest heaving.

"If you don't leave me alone I might hurt you. I don't want to hurt anyone else!" Poor, sweet, naive girl.

CLANG

It was an awful sound, of metal against metal. Lathilos was strong. He was more physically imposing than Marlowe could ever hope to be. How many times had he fought Lathilos now? It seemed like the old man had been a constant enemy since his first days in Dun. He was bullheaded and a zealot. A card carrying true believer that the Order was doing the right thing. If they weren’t on opposite sides of this conflict, Marlowe could probably grow to have a begrudging respect for the old man. But he took the side of murderers and psychopaths, and Marlowe would not allow him or his people to harm anyone else.

CLANG

Marlowe’s footwork almost slipped as he was pushed back by Lathilos’ heavy swing. At least with a weapon like Hard Edge Marlowe had a better chance of standing up to him. Before he’d been knocked easily aside by the Warhammer. Now? Now he could defend himself.

CLANG CLANG CLANG

Each strike was heavier than the last. Marlowe knew he was on the defensive, but on the bright side all of his bones were still unbroken. For once. Being on the defensive wouldn’t work though. The Order sent out teams of threes, and while Delios was busy with Viera and Lathilos with him, he knew the girl would still have another pursuer. The Order was difficult to understand, but their tactics always seemed to remain the same. He had to figure out how to get out of this conflict and now. He didn’t have to beat Lathilos; but Delios was a problem. He was a ranged attacker and could track them easily. He watched as Viera pushed the man back; at close range the man was put out of his element. He could draw his saber, and fight with two weapons, overpowering Lathilos; but holding his sword in one hand would leave him unable to hold back the larger man’s strikes; it would put him off balance; and leave him with a caved in skull. He could use his scrap gun—the weapon he kept at his side. Marlowe slid back and reached for it; only to find it missing! Shit! He probably left it back at the tavern, not bringing it on patrol with him.

Now things were looking bad. He would beat the man in a fair fight. But that’s when the idea struck his head: Fair. When had The Order ever fought fair against them? He had spent so much time believing in honorable, gentlemanly combat but every time he tried to put up the heroic act, it led to him getting beaten down. Using the scrap gun, hitting enemies low; those were unfair moves but those were what won him his battles. Marlowe dashed back, away from Lathilos.

“Running away? I never pegged you for a coward. Stupid, but not cowardly.”

“What can I say?” Marlowe quipped back, keeping a few feet away from him and Lathilos. “There’s a first time for everything!” He dug his sword into the dirt, kicking up detritus, flying into the un-expecting face of the larger man. Marlowe used this moment to push forward, with the blunt of his blade; to knock Lathilos onto his back, plant a foot square on the man’s face, and jump towards Viera and Delios. He raised his blade upwards, aiming to hit the sniper square in the face; to stop him; but the older man was smart enough to pull back. Metal tore through flesh, but only slightly, grazing the man’s skull and cutting around his left eye.

“Viera! Let’s move!” He roared, running away from the two, and in the direction of the girl. They just had to find her, and get her away from them now. There was no need for a victorious battle today.

The howl of someone striking their enemy rung out behind the two women— echoes of the battle that was occurring between the others, however Shiara kept her eyes on the psion below knowing full well the danger she posed as well as the importance of the objective she was assigned. Lathilos had told her to talk to her if she ran off, to offer her kindness instead of malice; and if she rejected the sentiment outright to take her. The woman thought back to her days protecting the person she cared most about and how together they were taken for insufferable games. She thought back to the words spoken about her and how she was but a slave by a different name. How was she to oppress someone else and indenture them to a similar fate? It made her sick. But she knew she had no choice in the matter— it was this girl’s servitude or...

She mentally shook her head. No— she’d never allow it.

“If you don’t let them talk to you, they might hurt you.”

Shiara bit into her lip for a moment as her thoughts lingered back. Thoughts that she couldn’t escape from no matter how much she served her newfound “masters”. A light breath escaped her lips as it slipped into her mind for a split second.

“If you don’t help us, then we’ll make you help us. How much do you care about her? What will you do?”

Shiara sprung herself from a branch to another branch.

“I don’t want to do this.”

She swung down landing on the ground in front of her— her hood falling back and her face becoming plain as day. Her purple eyes narrowed, as she took another calming breath.

“But I will if I have to.”

Azarni took a few steps back, shaking her head and balling her hands into fists. As Shiara landed closer she might be able to pick up on the soft reverberations traveling through the ground, the epicenter being where her target's feet met the earth. It was slow at first, like a steady heartbeat. The distortion in the air lingered, the masses wavering out of the palms of her hands at an unsteady rate, drifting up like the shadow of heat to kiss her shoulders.

Her eyes flickered, her expression almost stunned as Shiara was better revealed to her. A young woman, maybe even a girl, was who she faced. Aza's sky colored pools, confused and torn, locked with the deep violet orbs of her newfound enemy. "W-Why..?"

She'd seen them coming, so to speak, but never had she dreamed she'd be running from someone like this. Someone so small, so normal looking. The figures from her nightmares taunted and hunted her endlessly. They were threatening, scary. The men, somewhere behind her- that was who she often envisioned. Perhaps it was this girl though, that frightened her the most. The fact that the Order, known for leaving death and despair in its wake, had managed to pull someone so familiar and similar to herself into their midst. It was true Azarni didn't have a clue as to what they were here for, what their goals were, but she knew she was right to flee. That nothing good was going to come out of her listening to a word of what they had to say. The Order was murdering people, tearing down anyone that stood in their way. Fathers, mothers, children. They were ripping families apart. No reason or excuse was good enough to justify the sins they'd committed.

"Please stop this. You don't have to do anything, please just let me go."

“I do.” Shiara replied her fists clenching as she did so.

In all of her life, she had never had choice— not now, and not ever. The thoughts of a life where Azarni’s words were true was idyllic and wonderful. The day she could rest in peace without the choke of a chain or threat was a dream she wished someone could have. But if it was obtainable it was not so today and she knew that so very well no matter what her soul yearned for.

“I can’t.” She added, her voice slipping from monotone into sorrowful manner for a brief moment.

This position was familiar to her— facing down an inexperienced opponent in a high stakes arena. Sure, the appearance may have been different and her goal was to capture and not to kill… but it was very much alike. The stone and metal walls, the cheer of a bloodthirsty crowd, and the preparation of battle may have been absent but there was still the same hopelessness, the same stakes, the same choiceless ruin. Had Shiara not been conditioned after all her years of experience she may have cried not only for the fight but for her soul. A scared girl’s cry shivered in her mind.

I’m sorry. Gods forgive me.

Her mind cried out, the words possibly reaching the psion despite it not being the desired intention.

“Show me why they call you the Maiden of the Red Sands, girl.”

The ground underneath Shiara cracked as she bolted for her enemy—keeping her eye out for any motion of psionic attacks as she closed the distance between the two before sending out a flurry of punches forward towards her opponent. Whilst her intention was to capture and not to kill, that didn’t mean that Shiara was going to perform lightly— her skillset was not one of delicacy and The Order had recruited her for this fact. Azarni may have been a psion, but she was not immune to blunt force trauma. A fact if she was not prepared to dodge she would learn would be a mistake.

Azarni flinched as the unspoken plea boomed into her mind, a hand shooting up to clutch at the side of her head. It was deafening.



She'd always been a well known empath. Starting at an early age, people remarked to her mother about how in tune she seemed to be with the emotions of others. They didn't have to say a word for her to know- from trying to contain an exciting surprise to having a bad day. Azarni was always there ready to share in the joy or offer a shoulder to cry on.



Her heart hurt. She wanted to reach for the girl, to hold and comfort her.

Aza recovered just in time to see Shiara make her leap. She wasn't a fighter, she'd never had to throw a punch in her life, on the outside there was nothing about her even remotely dangerous. When Shiara made her move though, there was a last pleading look in Azarni's eyes before she squeezed them shut. Tears that had been building up in her eyes fell down her cheeks and there was a sound in her throat that built up into a loud pained wail- and the shimmering orbs that had been bubbling on the skin of her hands ruptured into a wave of energy around her so quickly it sucked the air around them up like a vacuum.

“I don’t want to do this.”

Then it exploded. Detonating like a bomb, several booms and cracks were heard as the force of the psionic blast burst out of her and collided with and snapped branches right off the trees.

She told them. She'd pleaded with them, but they wouldn't listen.

The loud ‘thwoom’ shot out from the sheer psionic force was a new feeling for Shiara.

The dark-skinned girl had collided with a large oak tree a few feet behind her, the force from the attack sending her a great deal of length. In all reality, charging a psion with a brawling strategy was not exactly an ideal approach; but Shiara had never in her past dealt with combat scenarios where she was up against extranormal opponents— people who were like her and talented in physical fighting arts with mana, bones, and blood. That’s why she had been picked for the death pits and it was why she was tasked with supporting activities by this godforsaken cult. So it was a new sensation.

She winced in pain as she pushed herself from the indent she had made in the tree— splinters digging into her back and body. However, Shiara was not physically weak as evident by her history of arena fighting; she had built an immunity to various amounts of pain and due to this was not so weak to be brought down to her knees by a heavy toss into a tree, even with Azarni’s apparent potential strength being known to her now.

“So that’s what you can do.” She muttered under her breath as she cracked her neck.

She walked forward, about to return to the fight but just as she was going to prepare another strike out from the brush came to two others; it wasn’t her companions.

Are they dead?

Shiara could still feel the pulse of mana energy of distinct amount in the distance heading in their general direction— one of them was incoming much slower though. She noted her observation as she looked at the brown-haired male in front of her. Another enemy.

“You’re interrupting.”

“Interrupting is sort of my thing today.” The man stood there, holding the large hunk of metal in front of him. “Hey, lady!” He called to the blue haired woman nearby. “I’ll handle these guys messing with you.” He turned back to Shiara, looking at her quizzically.

“You a new recruit? The usual third member of Lathilos’ group isn’t so…female.” He said, looking her over. The normal third member. Someone he knew all too well.


He charged the teal haired man, his sword in front of him. “Just. Fucking. DIE!” He screamed. He stabbed forward, and his blade met flesh. When Marlowe opened his eyes, he nearly let the blade go as his eyes met the pained eyes of a woman. His opponent had grabbed a human shield, held it in front of him and—there was no time to react before The Orderling’s blade pierced his side, bringing Marlowe to his knees. As he looked upwards, he saw him.

He was smiling.



“He’s been reassigned.”

“Good. I hope it’s somewhere cold and empty.” Marlowe noticed he girl had not run. At least she’d moved behind Viera. “Viera. Take the girl somewhere safe.” He sighed. “I’ll have to hold this lady and her friends off.”

Viera shook her head and took the girl’s hand. “Don’t get carried away,” she quipped, pulling Azarnite with her.

“You aren’t my task. I will pursue her when my companions arrive.”

"It'll be tough to do when you're out cold lady. Just be happy I'm feeling nice and I'm not too keen on mindless killing." No more killing. Not when he didn't have to. The Order would chase after their target forever. But hey, they weren’t trying to kill her. That was new, right?

“How many bouts have you won to know you'll be able to?”

“Enough.” Marlowe swung the flat of his blade at the woman, aiming to simply bat her aside. He didn’t want to stick around long enough to deal with a three on one fight, but those kind of odds seemed more and more common these days. When you burn your bridges with your companions, such things happened.

She was fast! She ducked under his swing and came up with a heavy punch to the sternum. Marlowe coughed, feeling something break inside. She was stronger than your average brawler. He felt his blade drop to the ground as he fell forward onto his hands and knees.

Marlowe tried to push himself up, reaching for his sword to react and…the girl had dashed off with incredible speed. Marlowe noticed the technique: it was something he’d used since Viera began instructing him in the techniques of her culture. Being able to strengthen limbs using the power of the body’s spirit. This new girl was more skilled then he was in combat, and she could do similar abilities. He really, really needed to get his shit together. He heard sounds from the distance; the others were coming. The sound of the vulgarities meant that Delios wouldn’t turn and run, but wanted revenge.

So Marlowe ran. It was his only chance now.

Viera pushed her aura into her feet; she wasn’t sure when her new enemy would catch up with her but she knew it would happen— there was no question about that. It was inevitable that the only way to combat the groups of cultists was to either outmaneuver them or outfight them. The Order was a group of hungry direwolves; they were confident in their motives and they were relentless in their actions. It was just a spurn of luck that they had got a heading on Lathilos and Delios this quickly. The edge of the forest was up ahead, the creek they were running alongside teetering off into a small lake as the sun glimmered down upon the lowland hills of the open frontier.

At least I will not have to fight in this damned forest.

She looked to her side— at the girl they were helping. A light smile.

She was about to say something before the rush of footsteps behind them became louder and louder— her smile dropped. Marlowe was gaining in skills but he was still sloppy and slow even when he pushed himself; not to mention there was no cry out for her to let her know that they could slow down and rethink their approach like they had done so many times in the past. Viera slammed down on her feet and spun around, both her hands grasping her sword as she did so.

The woman from moments before halted as she did so as the girl that she had been running with took cover behind her.

“Damn it, Marlowe.” She muttered before speaking out clearly to the girl she was protecting. “Stay behind me.”

“I’m skilled in three forms of martial arts, several aura arts, and am competent with this sword. I suggest you turn back.”

The white-haired girl shook her head. “I hope that isn’t boasting. Because if not, this is going to be real quick. Just like your friend.”

Viera narrowed her eyes. Her opponent was definitely confident in her own form and if her appearance had anything to say about it she knew that she was at the very least competent in hand-to-hand combat. But she also knew that Marlowe would be here in only a few moments— either their fight would go quickly in their favor or the three orderlings would eventually overwhelm them. They didn’t have Rin or Mikael at their side this time around, they didn’t have numbers in their favor. She almost wished Marlowe convinced Rin to stick around or found Mikael before they set off on this patrol; if that was so then she would be confident that they would win for sure. She knew just going with the two of them was a bad idea.

But Marlowe was the king of bad ideas, and she was the one who had to make them work.

Viera was ready to charge her opponent, but she had to fight defensively. “So are we going to fight or not?”

As they came to a halt and Viera took up stance in front of her, Aza folded, holding herself up with her hands on her knees as she gasped for air. They hadn't even gotten very far, but she felt like she'd been running for an eternity. Sweat beaded up on her brow and rolled down her face.

When Viera drew her sword and made an attempt at warning their pursuer, she grimaced, reaching for Viera but not quite grasping her. Her eyes peered out from behind the cyan haired woman, locking onto Shiara again. Azarni groaned again. She wanted to vomit. Even if they got away now, how long would it be before they found them again? 'Marlowe' and his friend here were obviously well known nuisances to the Order's cause, and there was no way she could turn back and return home now.

Everything seemed so damn bleak and hopeless right now, there were less and less options for her as each second passed. The heat of the battle, the frantic emotions of those around her, and the terror of being chased were catching up with her. The psionic energy was still surging very much alive within and around her, making her head pound.

Should she make another attempt at running? Leave Viera behind when she'd put her neck out for her, or risk getting tagged herself? "Please.." she huffed, exhausted.