Taking a few deep, and completely unnecessary from a biological standpoint, breaths, Tyaethe closed her eyes and let one sigh out before going back to the more-appropriate language. Right, paladin and everyone's senior, that had its own standards of expectation.

"Right... items that completely bypass willpower like that can't be of mortal make," the vampire stated, holding hope one hand the instant it looked like someone would intervene, "Not aren't, they can't. You could overpower an entire fort in the right situation, but that takes an enormous amount of magical power. You could make an item that would do it to one person, have it puppet them, drain them of mana, and repeat, but not something like..."

She wandered forward a little, then pushed apart two bodies slightly with a foot, "This, where two people were tearing each other apart and a third one got stabbed in the back. You just... can't put enough power to do that into a static item, not without a high chance of someone breaking free. Especially when you make them attack their friends."

The paladin returned to stand by the rest of the group, frown returning, "And the things that can do this... I've seen them before. Maglad gathered them up, relics from Hidroroth's attempt to subjugate the world. Items woven into the fabric of creation only to dominate. Even without their creator, just touching one would make someone into a puppet, and with the proper mechanisms, anyone could take control. This is... better. But also worse."

At least the similarity explained her reaction.

"That 'shard of glass' sounds like a piece of Angroron. It was a sword once, or something shaped like a sword. It's..." Tyaethe cocked her head, hair trailing on the ground, "It's hard to tell how much is poetry and how much was a description. The name passed down through Talderian is..." and that, while definitely familiar, was even more archaic than usual, "Something like 'The Hole in the Tapestry'. The Elves called it the Wound of the West. It's probably as close as something can be to destruction made manifest, some thing from the time of the Veil's creation that Orodrunn repurposed. The full sword would instantly kill you on a touch, this... well, I guess you try to kill everything else instead. I don't know how it affected everyone, but any amount of magic and sacrifice would interact horribly with this."

Looking up at the evening sky, she added, "Short version? We're looking for part of a thing that kills on a touch. If you find it, don't touch. And unless you're working for the King, Sharky, I will not let you take this back to your employer." Regardless of what the other knights might think on this. The Church was supposed to have these locked away, that anyone had stolen one...

---

~Fort Daelantine~

There was a brief moment during which it seemed the atmosphere in the fort had finally shifted to a more positive and cordial one. It was but a fleeting moment, the eye of the storm before a whirlwind of ill-intent and anger began to once more permeate the group of Knights. Amy was standing just slightly behind Fanilly, doing as Serenity suggested as remaining by the captain's side in case her magic could help protect the girl. Despite their physical proximity, it was hard to feel like she was in a situation she could control: the reactions of everyone to the information provided by the mercenary group's leader made them anxious at best, and furious at worst. On the other hand, Amy didn't even know what they were talking about: she had a vague idea of a notorious mercenary gang, but she didn't have any strong emotions regarding them or what they did.

Of course, if they were truly responsible for this massacre, then that would soon be replaced a deep, simmering hatred for the group that would plant the seeds of resentment in even the most innocently minded.

Despite all of this, Amy was still an island of ambivalence in a sea of strong emotions. At least she was happy that the mercenaries she was, and still is, worried about agreed to search together. It would put her mind at ease, as all their members gave off the vibes of people that she didn't want to have to fight: an observation she didn't need her powers to make. She was hardly a fighter and opposed violence, so she hated the idea of having to get tangled up in a fight where she was so exposed. For now at least, it seemed like she could just focus on supporting her allies, especially as the ambivalence of the knights shifted from the group ahead of them towards the Golden Boars.

And that all lasted about a minute before Tyaethe explained the origins and powers of the item they were searching for, and... that she wouldn't let the mercenaries take it away. The knot in her stomach immediately tightened and Amy let out a frustrated grunt as she shook her head. "Of course..." She was annoyed. Annoyed at herself and her naivety and the situation that was slowly unfolding. There was no clear allegiance, not between the groups, and not amongst their members. Between familiarity and hostility, she could barely make sense of the situation anymore and it was starting to really nag her. It was a mix of the nauseous feeling from the massacre, the anxiety of thinking about a possible fight and last but not least the self-loathing of not contributing anything that made her more annoyed than anything. Her fingers slowly curled into a fist, and she felt the fire burn in her chest as she took a deep breath without even realizing it.

"How about we just all focus on finding this... shard, and not touching it??" Amy cried out as she took half a step forward, her frustrated voice cracking towards the end of the sentence.

She didn't mean to, her body acted without thinking. But she meant it too, her frustration finally bubbling to the surface after standing around for minutes now in an awkward face-off. Her normally pale face was flushed red, and she turned to face Tyaethe for a moment before turning back towards Alette.

"I know everyone here is ready to spill blood, but look around us! Look at the bodies!" Amy motioned with her hands around the inside of the fort at all the dead bodies and pools of bloody mud. She had worked herself up, the threat of violence finally giving her the confidence to speak up. This might've been her first mission, but she felt like she had a duty to do her best to keep people safe, even if she might get scolded later for speaking out of line. "For all the emnity the name Golden Boars carries around, everyone sure is ready to repeat the massacre... at this rate we won't need any magical artifact to turn us against each other! Mayon graces us with her light, let's not commit to bloodshed under it..." With a pouty face she held her gaze on Alette for a few more seconds before her confidence began to run dry. Like a balloon deflating at a rapid rate, she'd shirk from sight to behind Fanilly, already starting to regret her outburst. "S-sorry captain..." She whispered quietly, clutching her flute to her chest once more. She just hoped she didn't do any more damage with her emotional flare-up.

Fleuri Jodeau

A cursed black shard...could it have done all of this?

The thought of a single shard that could drive so many good soldiers to murderous madness was a disturbing one. Whether they went mad just by being unprotected in its proximity or if someone somehow used the shard to madden them? Whatever the case might be, Alette's attitude suggested that she was not worried about suffering the soldiers' fates, nor did the other party she mentioned.

Speaking of the other party...

Fleuri immediately recognized what the corpse's tattoo meant. He was not as familiar with mercenary companies as men like Gerard and Fionn, but he knew of the Golden Boars, perhaps the most infamous mercenary company on the continent. According to Alette, they were also here to collect the shard. But if they were here, that would suggest that there were multiple parties who knew about this shard while the Iron Roses had been in the dark. Despite their connections to the crown, the military, and the church, the existence of this disaster-bringing shard had somehow evaded their attention at the very same time that at least two opposing parties were hiring mercenaries to retrieve it and wage battle with each other in the kingdom's borders.

Some of the other knights were already seemingly eager for the opportunity to fight the Golden Boars. No surprise that former mercenaries like Gerard and Fionn seemed the most enthusiastic. They probably crossed paths with the Boars before, and probably were quite familiar with the wrongs that those immoral swords-for-hire were responsible for.

If the Golden Boars have made a move against the Kingdom of Thaln, it might just be the justification that the crown needed to put them out of business for good, Fleuri thought. He certainly wouldn't be against it- putting an end to this wicked mercenary company once and for all would be a worthwhile mission.

But what about who hired them, or who hired Alette? No mercenary with any self-respect would reveal their employer willy-nilly, especially for such a sensitive, secretive mission. However, it might be possible, Fleuri speculated, to arrange for Alette to be summoned before a court and compelled to name her benefactor, if she persisted in Thaln. However, that matter could wait. Investigating the scene as soon as possible took precedence, and Fionn had asked Fleuri to accompany his investigations. Perhaps the former soldier-of-fortune thought that his and Fleuri's contrasting upbringings might allow them to notice different things. Or maybe Fionn was just being sociable- he and Fleuri hadn't really interacted much.

"Good idea, Sir Fionn," he responded, putting away his sword. "If the captain had a journal or a log, or a correspondence, we might find some useful information there."

"But first, a question for the mercenary captain," he said, turning to Alette. "These disguised Golden Boars, they were alive and lucid when you and your company arrived here, right?"

@The Otter@VitaVitaAR

A... shard of Angroron...?

For a few moments, Fanilly was entirely taken aback by the news. Certainly, the description of the pitch black, glasslike relic fit, but did such things even exist anymore in this world?

It was no use dismissing it as a simple myth, of course. As sure as the gods existed, so to did Black Blade Angroron. The Empty Sword, wielded by the successor to the vile Hidroroth, Orodrunn. The fortress once inhabited by the fallen divine spirit still existed in a ruined state, to the North.

There was no reason to doubt its existence, but the fact that it could be present here? How? Why?

The mere thought was like some kind of nightmare.

Fanilly didn't want to believe in such things, but at the same time she couldn't think of anything else that could adequately explain the fate of the fortress's inhabitants. Especially given the description of the object in question.

"You're kidding, right?"

Alette's red eyes widened as she spoke.

"That's... ugh, it does sound like it but..." she trailed off for a few moments, pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand, "No wonder we were paid so much. No wonder we were told not to touch it. Damn it!"

She glanced towards Clarice, as if hoping that the parasol-wielding mage would offer some sort of assistance, but she simply shrugged.

"It would explain why this place didn't feel like a curse, even if it does still feel awful," Clarice commented, drawing a sigh out from the pigtailed mercenary.

"Ah, Alette in distress is lovely, too..." came a comment from Abigail.

"You hush," Alette addressed her for only a moment before her attention returned to the knights.

Fanilly took a deep breath.

"If it truly is a shard of Angroron, regardless of how it found its way here we must recover it," the Knight-Captain insisted, "If it devastated the soldiers in this fort by driving them to madness, there's no telling what else it could be used for."

She had to remain calm and composed.

"This entire fort must be searched. Sir Fionn, since you volunteered to search the captain's quarters I shall leave that to you and Sir Fleuri. For the rest of you, it's probably best to start with the barracks and move outward from there. If it was taken here with the intent of handing it off to Alette's company, then it was probably in the possession of someone posing as a soldier."

She paused for a moment, glancing towards Alette.

"You won't get an argument from me," the mercenary captain responded with a heavy sigh, glancing towards the knight who had asked her about the Boars, "Sir Fleuri, I think? We've only found this one so far, and he was dead when we go here. Lying sprawled out in the dining hall."

She gestured to the dead Golden Boar.

"If we can find any others, it's not impossible we'll find out who hired these shitheads. Anyway, Abigail."

She turned towards the pallid, knife-wielding woman.

"You go with those knights to check out the captain's quarters. Got it?"

"Of course, Alette!"

As if overjoyed even to be ordered by her captain, Abigail quickly hurried to accompany Sir Fionn and Sir Fleuri.

"Clarice, I know you're not just good at curses, set up a scrying circle and see if you can get anything from that."

The finely-dressed mage let out a despairing sight at the idea of remaining in the fort for any longer, but appeared to head for a cleaner spot before beginning to get out her tools.

It was only now it became clear that her feet hadn't been touching the ground the entire time.

"Bors, I think you'll understand why I ask you to keep watch?"

"Of course, Lady Alette."

"Great. And if the Boars show up..."

The Shark's razor grin returned as her eyes drifted towards Sir Fionn.

"I'll only play as much as they deserve."

@Rune_Alchemist@HereComesTheSnow@Raineh Daze@ERode@PigeonOfAstora@Conscripts@Crimson Paladin@Creative Chaos@The Otter@Krayzikk@Psyker Landshark@6slyboy6

Gerard suggests investigating the inside of the structure, and I nod in kind. We could discuss the severity of the situation at lengths but if we aren't able to recover this cursed object in time these greedy mercenaries might cause even more havoc in their wake.

I make for the door that Alette's men had entered from, still sparing a careful glance to their numbers. Better safe than sorry.

@HereComesTheSnow @VitaVitaAR

A black shard of glass. A Shard of Angroron. Alette's crew, tasked with retrieving it. The Golden Boars, tasked with the same. And somehow, the Knights of the Iron Rose, the preeminent order of knights within Thaln, had been wholly in the dark about this until this very instant. Was the Crown itself oblivious to the existence of such an anomalous relic?

It didn't matter. The order had long been falling.

"Sir Nicomede," Serenity spoke, gesturing to the Mayonite spellsword. "Past experience speaks of how evil most often lurks in the depths of the earth. We'll scour the cellars." And, if need be, acquire a greater source of 'water' for her fellow knight.

"I'll stay here. If someone finds the shard, it should be obvious, but I can confirm anyway..." Tyaethe said, trailing off. Well, she wasn't bizarrely gifted or anything, but she was an ordained priest, and simple entreaties like 'is this a piece of manifest evil' tended to get something of a response, even if it was a muted one. Beside which, these were meant to be under the guard of the church in the first place, so it was worrying that it had gotten out... and it also meant that, of everyone here, she was the one best suited to taking it back. And not for the usual obvious reason of being hard to kill, either!

Not that this left her all that much to do in the interim, so her attention turned to Alette's crew. Hm, there wasn't all that much she could say about most of them, but that one...

The paladin's advance on Abigail was anything but casual, standing between her and the duo she was accompanying with her arms folded and sword trailing behind her as a very sharp tripping hazard, and one eye raised in curiosity.

"What are you? No pulse. You're not even breathing. I bet if I touched you, you'd feel... well, pretty warm, today, but cold if it was winter," the vampire stated, head tilted, "But if you're some necromancer's puppet, then they would have to be watching to direct things. Some sort of golem?"

A shard of something out of myth and legend? Small wonder everyone here was taken by such surprise. Renar felt the same, but shook it off after but a moment, already calculating the angles behind this. Something like that was a priceless tool for destabilizing anything one cared to, but it was used on Fort Daelantine? Certainly, it had resulted in the slaughter of quite the number of Thaln's soldiery. But if one truly wished to strike a telling blow against the crown, would it not have been better to target the Iron Rose themselves? Or the royals themselves? If this was in preparation for an invasion, it would have been better to deploy the shard against a border fortress. No, some other motivation was at play here. A test of its capabilities, perhaps?

And then there were the mercenaries. Their employer knew. That was concerning in itself. He would have ruminated on this further, but the Iron Roses' latest addition proved herself to be a simpleton in short order. Renar stared incredulously at Amy following her outburst, suddenly reconsidering the amount of threat she posed to himself in comparison to her apparent level of intelligence.

"...The hostilities had ceased already." Renar said slowly to the half-breed, as if explaining to an idiot. "If you would care to stop and think next time before speaking, there's work to be done. In any case," He turned away, already dismissing her from his thoughts for the moment as he focused on his next target of conversation.

"Lady Alette." Renar inclined his helmet in her direction. "I fear I'm obliged to ask this of you, despite my doubts to your cooperation in this matter. By now, surely you realize that your employer needlessly gambled your lives in retrieving this shard? I recognize that you have your word as sellswords to maintain for steady work, but as I see it, you risk little at this point by revealing who exactly wants this artifact so badly. Even if you plan to take your own vengeance on them for this incident, sell them out to us and this will assuredly be easier on everyone involved that actually matters."

@6slyboy6 @VitaVitaAR

---

A dangerous mythical shard causing an uncontained burst of psychosis was not the last thing Steffen expected to hear, but it was still an interesting explanation. It was darn criminal though that the shard could just fall into the fort's hand and caused such a horrific disaster. Still, there were way more questions left unanswered. The mercenaries told them that their employers arranged them here - in this fort. Were the fort captain or some Thaln soldier the employer? Wolf Father forbid that ever to happen, lest they uncover an entire anthill of corruption as the shard should have been returned to the church's possession, not to this random group of 'who knows what' allegiances.

It seemed like they managed to bargain some cooperation though, work should begin to move thankfully. One step at a time: the shard first, and then the Boars.

"Well, if you want the shard found, let's get going, shall we?" Steffen exchanged a quick glance over at Amy, whose outburst had garnered a bit of derision from Sir Renar, and mostly ignored by the rest. Tough to say he had a point, but Steffen couldn't blame sentimentality, especially for one unfamiliar to horrors. Not to let the words dwell on for too long, the Ingvarr handed her a piece of cloth that the mercs had handed to the knights for the shard recovery.

"The barrack will need an extra searching hand." He stated plainly to the churchwoman, not letting his opinion on the matter materialize.

The door to the barrack was stuck and creaky, but a 'gentle' nudge freed it from its dormant state. And before him laid more bodies. It would take a while.

@6slyboy6

---

@VitaVitaAR @Raineh Daze @Crimson Paladin @Psyker Landshark

---

Fionn had been turning to leave the second Fleuri's question was answered, but between Tyaethe stopping the one who was sent to search with them and Alette's response to him, he had no choice but to remain a moment longer. "I mean it, Alette. Do whatever you want when we aren't around, but keep it quick and clean when we are." At the very least, it would help spare him from any questions as to why she took such time putting Boars or their ilk down.

Amy and Renar both passed without comment from him for the moment, though he couldn't stop a sense of disapproval welling up at both of them in the moment.

"Tyaethe. Perhaps you could accompany us and question her as we go? I'd rather not test any good will we have here, and I'd certainly prefer to refrain from testing the poison on her blades."

Fleuri Jodeau

Before they could head inside, Tyaethe approached the pale woman whom Alette was sending them into the fort with. The vampire's senses and centuries of experience had caught onto some very curious peculiarities about this Abigail, and was bold enough to question her about it to her face.

Is Abigail undead? he silently asked himself as he listened to what Tyaethe had to say. He had crossed paths with undead before, even prior to the mission to the mausoleum, but he had never seen one like Abigail. She looked far more...lively...than the undead he was used to, not just in her movements and actions, but in her physical appearance- she was far too intact easy on the eyes, too...not uncanny...for a corpse that had been dead long enough to have such discoloration.

Most curious was the fact that Tyaethe, a centuries old undead herself, didn't seem entirely sure what Abigail was. If something intrigued and bewildered even her, of all people then it must be a mystery worth paying attention to, he thought.

Fleuri waited to see what Tyaethe would do, trusting in the vampire paladin to provide proper Reonite guidance for handling situations like this.

@Raineh Daze@The Otter@VitaVitaAR

As Fanilly chose to accompany the other knights into the barracks, Alette waved her hand towards Sir Fionn.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. Honorable knights and all that," she commented, "Ah, but that captain of yours is really cute, you know. Chatting with her definitely lifted my spirits after hanging around with all these corpses."

It felt as if Alette's demeanor could turn on a dime, given she was not letting out a playful giggle. Still, when Renar spoke to her, her more serious expression returned.

"I'm not going to deny I'm pissed we weren't told just what we were chasing," responded the crimson-eyed Shark, "Sure, the pay was nice, especially getting half first, but it feels like something they should have mentioned."

She sighed.

"But, not like they didn't warn us not to touch it and to try and keep it nice and wrapped up," she continued, "Besides, only a real dumbass would hire expensive mercenaries and not give a shit about their investment. Hard to justify ratting them out when you think about it like that."

She rested her spear on her shoulder once again.

"We're already not going to be finishing this job," she added, "Spreading the name of our employer around on top of that? That's bad for business."

---

The choking scent of blood permeated the barracks. Here, kept insulted from the elements, the corpses were largely quite fresh. It was a grisly sight, to say the least. Some of the soldiers had been murdered in their beds by their fellows, stabbed to death or brutally beaten. Others had perished attempting, it seemed, to protect the injured, some not immediately affected by the shard's madness.

It was a grim sight, to say the least.

Fanilly's hands tensed, and she took a deep breath, trying to clear her head.

"We hadn't gotten to the barracks, yet," commented one of the mercenaries grimly, "It's worse then we thought."

Still, no matter how grim it may be, they could not leave without investigating the bodies.

"Look for anyone who has a tattoo of a boar on the back of their neck," Fanilly ordered. The sight of some of her knights' reactions to the tattoo had been enough to inform her of how they felt, but it was also their strongest lead at the moment. Alette was right. If they found any more bodies belonging to disguised Golden Boars, they would potentially find clues as to who employed the infamous mercenaries. And, if they had obtained the shard, where it might have been taken.

At least the Boar's policies meant there was an identifying marker.

---

"Hmmm?"

Abigail tilted her head when she was spoken to, her eyes shimmering.

"A vampire... ah, an elegant killer? No, no... fast and brutal, but not elegant," she commented as she took stock of Tyaethe's form, "Adorable, though... not as cute as dear Alette, but still adorable~"

She let out a dreamy giggle.

"Mmm, I don't know if I'd call myself undead, you know? I don't think it's very accurate, not exactly... Ah, I know!"

Smiling pleasantly, she took one of her gloves in her hand and slowly removed it.

Beneath were jointed fingers.

"Does this answer your question, cute vampire~?"

When they reached the Captain's quarters, it was just as grisly a sight as the rest of the fort. The captain, a powerful-looking man with dark hair and a large moustache, lay in his bed, his throat slit with a sharp implement. However, is body appeared otherwise untouched.

Near his bed, his desk had been pulled open, various papers scattered about the floor.

While it was a gruesome sight, to say the least, something about it seemed entirely different from the violence committed below...

@Rune_Alchemist@HereComesTheSnow@Raineh Daze@ERode@PigeonOfAstora@Conscripts@Crimson Paladin@Creative Chaos@The Otter@Krayzikk@Psyker Landshark@6slyboy6

"I don't want to hear that sort of thing from you..." Tyaethe muttered, shaking her head. Yes, yes, she was small and cute, that was rather unavoidable, there was no way she was going to do tall and elegant. Small, busty, and cute was the best she could possibly offer. But it wasn't a compliment that she was particularly seeking to get from strange killing-obsessed mercenaries. Or random passers-by. Or the other knights. Or Reon, although that was probably because she didn't want it...

Still, the jointed fingers answered her question--some sort of construct, or someone transplanted into such a thing. Definitely not a normal procedure, and why would it ever have been done to someone like this... not that it mattered. Unless there was a madman forcing pseudo-immortality on people, this meant there wasn't some sort of necromancer hanging around finding new ways to make autonomous undead. The best case scenario with those types was firmly reminding them that no matter their intentions, they were still going around murdering people first.

Worst case scenario was having to fight through your usual discarded experiments and undead horde.

Concern assuaged, she found herself looking at an enormous metal pillar. Or, in more descriptive terms, the half-giant Bors' leg.

Hmm.

"Have you enough room on your shoulder for one paladin? If we're going to be stuck out here together, I would rather not be shouting." Not that it was really shouting, just speaking loudly, and her hearing was excellent regardless. But perching on high spots like that was an old habit, and something familiar to oppose the darkness clinging so tightly to the fort.

Unsurprising. He hadn't actually expected to get anywhere with this line of questioning.

"Fair enough." Renar shrugged in response to Alette. "I was simply obligated to make the attempt. If you won't be trying to finish your original assignment, we've no quarrel." He didn't discard the notion that she was simply lying to catch them off guard, of course.

He made no move to join the other knights, staying in the Shark's general vicinity for the moment. Renar rested the head of his poleaxe against his pauldron, turning his helmet to regard Alette again.

"I'd apologize for Fionn, but I doubt he'd much appreciate that. I'll get his side of the story later, but what is his history with you, anyway? Why exactly does he seem to despise you so? I've not seen him like that unless it involves serious moral qualms."

@VitaVitaAR

---

His chest tightened again, but after the first time, Steffen navigated the bloody carnage more unperturbed. Starting with the bed nearest to the door, a soldier who didn't seem to have much of a struggle, a single stab wound visible, he flipped their body over, his clothed hand trailed the back of their neck. Nothing, just an innocent dead. One to hope they did not suffer long before departing.

Steffen laid the body back down on the bed gently without a sound, turning to the next victim. A group of them, definitely had a worse fate than the last, laid on one another in a pile, with the two top ones with cuts and bruises that had blackened to the hours. The bottom one did not possess the engravings of the Boars, but instead a bloody sword in his still firm grip. He must have died for the protection of others, a valiant death that deserved the salute Steffen made. However, the same could not be said for the other victim.

Holding the collar down, it was gold, not the color of blood nor the pale skin; the borders followed a familiar man-made path. It's a Golden Boar member.

Immediately, Steffen grabbed hold of this soldier one-handed by the neck, lifted him out of the pile and dropped him to the floor rather impetuously in the middle of the barracks.

"Here's one. I'll check the others, can someone look at him?"

@VitaVitaAR

---

~Fort Daelantine, Barracks~

Perhaps she had spoken too soon, or too late. It was the awkward silence which she broke with her own fighting words, induced by a volatile reaction to Tyathe's words, but she couldn't help herself. Amy was used to being shunned and she didn't mind making jokes that ended up with people looking at her weird, but this wasn't either of those. The glances from her teammates hurt her soul, but now that she was fueled up and honestly still a little angry, she wouldn't let them get to her head.

She knew she did and said the right thing, even if the others didn't agree. Once the mercenaries turn on them if they find a shard, or the knights jump at the opportunity to seize it, they will rue the day they didn't plead like her. They needn't become friends with the mercenaries, but it stung that the two groups still held a distance from each other that could always turn into a nasty case of getting stabbed in the back. And Amy liked her back stab-less.

She'd ignore Renar's words for the most part, staring back at the knight with an angry glance and a sizable pout as she waited for her teammate to turn around and leave her. She certainly didn't appreciate it, but she also had a hunch Renar was the type of person that was, well... blunt, to put it simply. Fuming in silence for a few more seconds, an idea came to her, and she grinned at the mischievous (and honestly childish) plan before using a bit of her magic to enact it. In the blink of an eye, she'd let her illusion magic loose to create on the rude knight's cape an inscription that spelled out "DUNCE" in large, colorful letters made of differently sized strings. Nodding to herself on a job well done, she'd let the childish illusion linger as she followed Steffen into the barracks.

Despite having the piece of cloth to grab the shard if they found it, she mostly used it to cover her nose from the smell of blood inside the building. She wasn't feeling too ill anymore, but she still hated the sight, and Amy ended up following closely behind the ingvarr knight. Every time Steffen was finished examining a body, she'd place her hand on their forehead as she ushered a silent prayer for their souls to Mayon. She was the only real cleric in the group that seemed to care about such things, and even though it was a tedious process she'd make sure to repeat it for everyone they found inside. At least these bodies were in better shape than the ones left outside, and she wondered if he was just being weak again, not starting with the gruesome ones outside.

THUD

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a body hitting the floor, and she felt a jolt in her body as she quickly turned towards the source of the sound ready to face danger. She'd only find Steffen, but the body that he had just dropped on the floor had a different feel to it than the rest. Listening to the knight's request she'd finish up the prayer that had been interrupted before making her way over to the corpse.

A quick examination of the tattoos and a silent prayer later Amy would turn to Fanilly, beckoning to the knight captain to come join her as she hunched over the body. "Can you come help me with this captain? I'm sure it will go faster together, who knows what kind of sewn-in pockets they might have for hiding contraband. Plus... I'm not very good at checking the dead."

---

@Conscripts@Psyker Landshark@VitaVitaAR

---

@VitaVitaAR @Crimson Paladin

---

"Well, Fleuri, Abigail, what do you think?" Fionn asked as they filled into the captain's room, looking over the body. "Not brutalized. Not another body in here. A single wound, quick and clean like. No struggle, at least. Probably before this turned into a massacre. Immediately before, I reckon." He stepped over to the body, turning it over, checking underneath it and in the bed itself to make sure there wasn't anything else to be found right on the corpse.

"One of you, check the desk and those papers thrown all around. Someone else check his closet, make sure there isn't anything left in there, maybe in a uniform. I doubt he commanded the fort in his nightshirt."

Fleuri Jodeau

"Yes, this doesn't look like the work of a berserk madman," Fleuri spoke sadly, looking at the fort captain's corpse. "This was a calculated murder, and from the look of him, he died with his mind intact." Even being murdered in his bed could not take away the dead captain's apparent dignity, especially compared to the madness-fueled slaughter that his subordinates were subjected to.

Whomever did this, Fleuri hoped that the Roses would get the chance to bring them to justice. And whether by execution or in battle, they would not be afforded the same dignity in death.

"I'll check the man's desk," Fleuri volunteered. "There might be a journal or a log or some sort of paper trail alluding to what led up to this." The knight walked up to the desk and began to very carefully examine both it and the contents.

@The Otter@VitaVitaAR

_@Krayzikk

A black shard of glass. A Shard of Angroron. Alette's crew, tasked with retrieving it. The Golden Boars, tasked with the same. And somehow, the Knights of the Iron Rose, the preeminent order of knights within Thaln, had been wholly in the dark about this until this very instant. Was the Crown itself oblivious to the existence of such an anomalous relic?

It didn't matter. The order had long been falling.

"Sir Nicomede," Serenity spoke, gesturing to the Mayonite spellsword. "Past experience speaks of how evil most often lurks in the depths of the earth. We'll scour the cellars." And, if need be, acquire a greater source of 'water' for her fellow knight.

"One day we'll all get to go somewhere nice," Nicomede commented, breaking his own silence. This 'Alette' was not familiar to him, so he had been content to let others do the talking; he listened and stood ready, in case negotiations broke down. The past few minutes had given him plenty of time (and reasons) to think about how quickly things were going from bad to worse. "But I won't hold my breath. Captain."

He nodded respectfully to Fanilly, then nodded his confirmation to Dame Serenity. Knowing the general sensibilities behind a fort's layout made it simple enough to know which direction to walk; he held the lantern on his left gauntlet steady ahead of him and strode towards the bowels of the fort that had gone insane and been invaded by the worst kind of mercenary, not necessarily in that order.

"Despise me?"

Alette looked taken aback at Sir Renar's question for a few moments.

But then, her lips slip into a grin, and she was unable to hold back a wave of laughter.

"Ah, you think he hates me? That's hilarious! Ah, I should tell him that when he comes back!" she declared between chuckles, wiping a tear from her eye, "No, no, he doesn't hate me at all. Aah..."

The red-eyed Shark took a deep breath before she continued to speak, seemingly to calm herself.

"We met. It was a while ago, I was still a child," she explained, "He's probably worried about me, more than anything. He doesn't need to, but I don't think that's going to stop him."

A thoughtful expression crossed her features.

"He does have an excellent taste in knives, though. I split open a slaver's belly with the one he gave me."

The manner in which she spoke of disemboweling a slaver sounded much more like recalling a fond memory then describing a violent killing.

"Mmm?"

The half-giant's hidden gazed turned downwards, towards the earth to rest upon Tyaethe's diminutive form. He seemed to consider the prospect for a few moments, before eventually kneeling.

"Very well," Bors said, "You quite remind me of my daughter, so I'm happy to assist."

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

---

Sir Steffen, it seemed, had discovered a body of one of the Boars. Fanilly took a deep breath. While she'd certainly killed before, directly handling corpses wasn't something she was entirely familiar with. Still, all they had to do was search him for anything unusual, and leaned down to take a closer examination of the body. At the very least, locked inside, the corpses had yet to decay.

The scent of blood was still choking the air, however.

"He's..." she trailed off for a moment, taking a deep breath, but before she could speak, another mercenary approached. He was a young man, with red hair, and he quickly knelt beside the corpse and began patting him down.

"No worries, I've got this," he said, perhaps a little too brightly given what he was doing, "One of those nasty piggies, then, huh? Bastard. Hmmm... there's something... here?"

He ran his fingers over a spot lower down on the dead man's outfit.

When it was sliced open, a small scrap of paper and a cloth wrap were revealed. The cloth was empty, no sign of any supernatural shards of ancient weapons.

The paper, however, was somewhat more interesting.

Black like a shadow and shaped like a piece of glass. Don't touch it.

@Conscripts@6slyboy6

---

Abigail sighed as she examined the wound on the captain's neck.

"A single, violent stroke..." She considered the traits of the dead body for a few moments, "Definitely before the violence began in the rest of the fort. I don't think anyone even came up here... it's a much more elegant death, but still just as cruel..."

It was hard to discern how she felt about it, given the dreamy tone of her voice. Perhaps she was pleased the captain had died like this rather then some kind of brutal murder below? Perhaps she was admiring the elegance? Perhaps it was some combination of both? Regardless, the strange, tall girl drifted to the closet. Within was a simple uniform and various other articles of daily clothing. Beside it stood his suit of armor.

"Mmmm, not here, I don't think..." she murmured to herself, as she slowly searched through his drawers and clothing.

The desk, however, proved somewhat fruitful. Indeed the man had kept a journal, though it seemed many of the pages had been ripped and torn out.

One page in particular, however, hinted at something perhaps surprising. Only part of it remained.

With an object as wicked as this, there can be no accidents or mistakes. Though my heart and soul belong to the crown, I still trust the judgement of-

Beyond that, the page had been torn away.

@The Otter@Crimson Paladin

@Rune_Alchemist@HereComesTheSnow@ERode@PigeonOfAstora@Creative Chaos@Krayzikk