Dark Jack

From Downfall ReRisen

“I... well, we don’t have...” Kay started saying, but kept interrupting herself as she realized that she did not have an explanation as to how the others knew they were coming or how they had managed to get a truck ready that fast. The garage with most of their vehicles – and all of their heavier vehicles, like trucks and tanks, which they did have a few of – was near the center of Eighfour along with the rest of their most valuable things, and truthfully she doubted they were even fueled usually, since they were rarely used. Now that he had mentioned it she even realized that the ground around the outer wall of the settlement had changed while she was gone, having the appearance of soil recently disturbed by a lot of traffic, mostly going parallel to the wall. Patrols, maybe?
“I...” she said again, slowing down her pace before coming to a stop altogether, her brow furrowed in confusion. Squinting, she could make out that there seemed to be more people on the wall than usual.
“Something is wrong. Something has happened.” Her attention turned back to the truck approaching them, inspecting the vehicle more closely as it sped toward them as quickly as the terrain allowed. It was the kind of smaller truck with an open storage area, the kind some people called pickup trucks, geared towards being able to traverse terrain quickly, which was practically a necessity in a place like Eighfour, where there forest was all around them. More important and remarkable, however, was the manned belt-fed machine-gun mounted on its back. There were another two people sitting on the cargo bed besides the gunner, each carrying what appeared to be assault rifles. “This is...”

“Don’t move!” someone shouted as the truck skidded to a halt just some ten meters from them as all guns came to be aimed at Enn. Even the driver jumped in on the action, drawing and pointing a small-caliber pipe gun at him, even though the weapon did not stand the faintest chance of penetrating the soldier’s armor.
“Wait -” Kay shouted, but one of the guys with assault rifles waved at her aggressively – notably taking one hand off his weapon to do this – without taking his eyes off Enn.
“No, identify yourself! What are you doing here? Who are you with?”

From Downfall ReRisen

“They won’t shoot you if they can tell you’re with me and that I’m bringing you of my own volition,” Kay assured her new friend, resisting the urge to add “I hope” to the end of her sentence to not have Enn worry more than necessary. “Pretty much everyone knows who I am in Eighfour; being ‘the girl with the gate’ makes everyone at the settlement pretty interested in me, though not always in a good way. They’ll probably spot my cart and put their guns away immediately! No need to worry. None at all.”
Stop talking, she admonished herself, trying not to worry about whether her smile was too stiff or her breathing too quick, even as she felt her heart pounding in her chest. You’re making it worse.
“Unrelatedly, my cart is pretty resistant to bullets. Just so you know.”
Did I seriously just say that? What is wrong with me...

All it took for them to get in view of Eighfour was cresting what appeared to be a three meters tall elongated hill of sorts with somewhat steep but manageable slopes, except that Kay knew that the “hill” actually fully encircled the settlement, functioning somewhat like a rampart for defensive purposes. She did not know when, why or by whom it was made, but it was so old that the forest had long reclaimed the presumably human construct, making it difficult to identify it as anything but a part of the natural terrain. Only someone from Eighfour would know... or someone who knew where Eighfour was.
From the rampart there was about another couple of kilometers to the walls of the settlement, but from the top of it one could see a great deal of it. Past the wall just see the two nearest flak-turrets, each with two clusters of four barrels pointed diagonally toward the sky. Some ways past those one could see much more livable structures than the wall, which were low, clean buildings, the smallest and most disposable of which were of wood, a few older, larger buildings were of bricks and mortar, whereas most of the larger buildings were of reinforced concrete. The roofs of nearly every single building had a cladding of dirt on which grew grass and brush, enough so that they could be mistaken for part of the terrain if viewed from above, even if someone did happen to get a look past the trees.
Granted, most of those things could not technically be seen yet, as much as Kay just happened to know. Maybe Enn’s helmet could zoom his vision or something, but otherwise it was probably much too far to tell details yet.
Kay almost wished that there was a clear line of sight through the trees from here to the central part of the settlement, near which most of the largest and most important buildings were, like their power stations, their primary armory, the advanced research labs, the hydroponics labs and their medical center. It was the oldest, wealthiest, most upgraded and most impressive part of the settlement... so naturally, it was situated in range of certain vaporization if the duke was detonated.
Intriguingly, it seemed as though a truck was leaving Eighfour just as she and Enn were arriving, and it took her several moments to fully realize that the vehicle was headed their way. Coming to receive them? They must have spotted Enn already... and, encouragingly, opted against shooting at him.
“Seems you’ve got yourself a welcoming committee,” she remarked quizzically. “That’s a first, I think. But then again, there aren’t a lot of strangers in Eighfour.”

The Prophecy

Outside the southern gates of Zerul City

“Recent?” Thomas mused, scratching the back of his neck. “The person being cured, you mean? That was a while ago, it turns out, but we only learned about it just several days ago, and it took another day to actually track him down. We’ve only known about all of this for a few days, really...”
Jaelnec frowned, though, at the mention of people being able to walk even with the Withering. That part he knew was true; most people did not even notice that they had contracted the pain at first unless the marks it left happened to appear somewhere within easy sight, and only noticed themselves weakening after a day or so. And even then... though the Withering was undeniably horrible, painful and debilitating, the weakening of the afflicted only increased gradually, typically not leaving victims bedridden until four or five days in. And even then, Freagon had stayed on his feet and scowled, growled and fought as he had always done, until he was literal hours from death to the plage. While it was probably unfair to hold others to Freagon’s standards – concerning this or pretty much anything else – it did make it somewhat unlikely that the city did not have even a few people who caught their Withering in its early stages.
“And the other thing?” he asked Thomas, gesturing to Domhnall. “About people able to walk, and family and friends being willing to help them?”
Surprisingly Thomas sighed at this. “I don’t even know where to begin... Firstly, there aren’t as many friends or as much family available as would be ideal, really. Not only has the Withering taken its toll on Zerul City as much as anywhere, but with so many people off elsewhere in Rodoria...” He let the sentence trail off, leaving them to reach the conclusion that a lot of people were left alone for themselves.
“But even ignoring that, I didn’t want to send them off without not just someone to care for them, but bodyguards ready for combat. I sent out word about looking for volunteers along the most public channels I possibly could, and though I suspect most Zerulics wouldn’t admit it, there’s a pretty thriving crime syndicate based in our city. There’s a very real danger that they’ll be ready to either ambush the people going to Mount Zerul and take them hostage, or in a best case case scenario loot the homes and businesses of anyone going while they’re gone.”
Clenching his jaw, Jaelnec had to stop himself from angrily chastising the boy for being so indecisive. He had to remember that not everyone had gained the same gruesome insight about what happened to those that died from the Withering that he and his companions had. “And if you wait, those people die anyway.”
“I thought the same thing,” the other admitted regretfully, “and decided to go ahead with the expedition after waiting for volunteers for just one day... but...” He shrugged. “‘Whether I let them or not’ is right. It’s probably no surprise that those afflicted who could still walk, and who still had friends and family... they left on their own. I have no idea where by Mount Zerul they might be, or if they even made it there, and I’m left almost exclusively with afflicted who can barely move.”

“As for this,” Thomas said, making a vague gesture at the refugee camp forming along the wall of Zerul City. “Yes, this is new, but the guards were stretched thin even before this. These people are from Nemhim City, which has apparently been attacked and destroyed by some kind of monster.”
“A monster? Singular?” Jaelnec remarked, eyes widening at Thomas’ words as he quickly ran through the creatures he had read about in the records of the deo’iel that could possibly be powerful enough to effectively defeat an entire Rodorian city.
“Yeah, just the one. Shapeshifter, apparently, with reddish-brown skin.” He paused, grimacing. “And it eats people’s hearts.”
Jaelnec instantly turned pale as a ghost, chilled to the bone. “Immanuel.”
Now it was Thomas’ turn to widen his eyes in surprise. “What?”
“A harvester. The monster you just described... it’s a harvester.”

The Prophecy

Outside the southern gates of Zerul City

“No one knows what it eats,” Thomas admitted with a shrug, “since animals seem to avoid the fog around the mountain. There are loads of people who think its long dead – last time it was officially seen was over six hundred years ago – but others seem convinced that Djubei is still alive, and every now and then someone comes back from the mountain saying they saw Djubei, or heard it speak to them, or felt its presence or something.”
“It’s probably a coincidence,” Jaelnec mused. “I have a hard time believing that some monster just happens to fill the air with something that cures the Withering. But if this guy got better, there must be something there.” He looked at Thomas. “So, have you sent anyone?”
“Me?” the boy exclaimed, apparently shocked by the idea. “I’m just the son of a count, it’s not like I have any power around here; I’m basically a glorified messenger. That being said, I did send out word that we’re looking for volunteers for a trip to Mount Zerul, for an experiment that might cure the Withering.”
Jaelnec frowned. “But you haven’t sent them there yet?”
“Of course not! We have people with the Withering literally dying to stand in line to go there, but I can’t very well just send a bunch of deathly sick people to live in the wilderness on their own. Most of them can barely even walk, let alone take care of themselves; cure or no cure, they’d be more likely to end up dead than anything else. Normally it probably wouldn’t be a problem to just send a detachment of the Ducal Guard with them, but...” He made a vague gesture with both hands encompassing the area around them. “The guards have too much on their hands already, they can’t spare anyone else.”
Thomas sighed. “I’ve been looking for healthy volunteers to escort the afflicted, too, but that line is about as short as it gets. Leave their livelihoods behind for at least several days, going to an area where people supposedly disappear mysteriously, and expose themselves to the Withering?” He shook his head. “There might be a few, but not enough.”

The Prophecy

Outside the southern gates of Zerul City

Though the suggetsion was essentially sensible, Jaelnec’s enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by Domhnall reaching the conclusion that it would be best to stay and wait for Claw to arrive, to avoid any possible misunderstandings that might arise from the Zerulics being approached by something that was undeniably difficult to tell from a large man-eating beast... which Claw might be, for all Jaelnec knew, though a relatively sapient and supposedly honorable specimen of such. It was not just that he wanted to forge ahead and progress in the completion of his quest, but also that he was eager to reunite with Aemoten and Thaler, especially with how poorly they had both been doing lately, Thaler in particular. With Angora’s description of the things that made their home in the underworld of Zerul City fresh in his mind, he was reluctant to leave his friends without his protection for long.
Domhnall’s inquiry about Djubei earned him another deeply confused look from Thomas, and even Jaelnec was somewhat taken aback until he realized that it was only natural for word about such a thing as Djubei not to spread that far, even if it was relatively common knowledge in Rodoria.
“Djubei isn’t really a... person,” the squire tried to explain, looking to Thomas for confirmation that he was not saying anything wrong. “It’s actually a matter of some debate what Djubei is, but supposedly it lives under the mountain and is the reason the area around it is always covered in mist.”
“Some people call it the ‘God of Misfits’, but we’re pretty sure it isn’t a god,” Thomas joined in, apparently catching on about what needed to be explained. “It’s hard to study it very well, though, since most of the entrances to its tunnels have collapsed over the ages. And even then people who try to find it tend to... disappear. We don’t actually know of any way down to it now, and even if you could get down there, we don’t know whether Djubei would be inclined to talk to you... or if it even can talk.”
“I read some of the deo’iel’s records about it, and though they don’t know much about it either, they think it’s most likely a very powerful monster of some kind.” Jaelnec threw his arms wide on the horse in a gesture meant to entail unspecified enormity. “Apparently it’s huge, and it has tentacles. And that’s about all they know.”

The Prophecy

Outside the southern gates of Zerul City

“Someone… what?” Thomas asked with renewed uncertainty, clearly confused by Domhnall’s description of their soon to be arriving acquaintance, but Jaelnec spoke before the boy even had time to finish those two words.
“Claw is coming after all?” he asked, equally surprised and pleased with the news. “How do you- actually, never mind that. That’s great news.” He turned to Thomas. “Claw isn’t human, in case that wasn’t clear from Domhnall’s description. He’s, uh… best way I can describe him is as a cross between a tarke and a Melenian, only instead of being catlike he’s more wolflike.”
“Uh…” Thomas seemed completely lost, struggling to keep up with the unexpected developments he had to deal with during his supposedly simple task of receiving William’s allies. “Okay, I guess I’ll… pass that description on, and let them know that this creature isn’t dangerous.”
“But the Withering?” Jaelnec asked eagerly, his enthusiasm picking up further as his hope soared at the thought of successfully ending the plague. “You said he cured it? How?”
“You can ask him yourself, he’s in the city,” Thomas suggested, immediately more comfortable once the topic changed to what he had expected to talk about. “But the short version seems to be that he went to Mount Zerul after he started showing symptoms, and for some reason his health started improving until all trace of the Withering was gone. Apparently he’s convinced that he was saved by ‘Lord Djubei’, of all things.”
“The mountain? It could have been the Ice Clan, somehow…” Jaelnec mused, but the other quickly shook his head.
“He assured us that he didn’t have any contact with anyone there, and that he stayed at the foot of the mountain. He said… he said the fog cured him, and that the fog came from Djubei.”

The Prophecy

Outside the southern gates of Zerul City

“Others...” Thomas repeated, seemingly taken aback more by Domhnall’s accent than his words, but generally confused nonetheless. “I was looking for the ghiril armor because I figured it’d be the most easily recognizable… and worn by the leader…”
“The man riding the beast Domhnall described is the leader now,” Jaelnec remarked a bit more grimly than he had meant to, especially considering that stepping down as leader had been his own decision. “The woman – a daywalker – and him went ahead of us earlier; they should have come through already.”
“Is that so?” Thomas shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eyes shifting nervously as he tried to deal with this unexpected development. “But… Oh!” He suddenly clapped his hands loudly with a victorious expression on his face, apparently remembering something. “I do remember a large creature I’ve never seen the likes of before coming through earlier! Was scared that it’d attack the refugees until I realized someone was riding it. The people riding it… I guess they might fit your description?” He winced, seemingly trying and failing to remember. “My attention was more on the beast than the rider, but there might’ve been a man and a woman on its back. I think the man spoke with some guardsmen on his way through, though I think they’ve been relieved by now.”
Jaelnec frowned. “Didn’t William mention Aemoten – the tall foreigner? He knew him, at least.”
“Probably,” Thomas shrugged apologetically, “but do you have any idea how many refugees have come through here the last day’s time? ‘Nightwalker in ghiril armor with a black coat and wide-brimmed hat’ is much more distinctive than ‘tall foreigner’… even without the coat I was sure you were Jaelnec.” His arms dropped down his sides as he let out a sigh. “Besides, you’d think William would’ve mentioned the beast he was riding; way more distinctive than anything else.”
“Etakar – the creature – only found us after William left; he didn’t know about it.”
Thomas nodded, smiling. “That makes sense, I guess. Regardless, if you ask about the creature in the city, I’m sure you’ll have no problem tracking down your leader. In the meantime I have information for you! William had some people interview the person of interest you’re here for, and something really came up! Turns out he really claimed to have contracted the Withering and been cured!”

From Downfall ReRisen

There were a lot of questions that Kay wanted to ask about Enn’s helmet, about where they came from – did his old faction make them, or did they simply have a stash of them that they obtained from somewhere? - and just why the Trenians had not fielded equivalents to them if they ended up with intact examples every time they won a battle, but she ultimately decided against it. Chances were that Enn did not know anything about it anyway, and even if he did it was not relevant to their current situation. Even so, his arguments did little to abate her desire to get her hands on his helmet, and even less to lessen her curiosity. What was it that made the helmets so advanced, she wondered? And why did the Trenians, with access to technology like automated drones and “hell-lasers”, not have the ability to make those helmets themselves, let alone simply copying designs made available to them?
In truth, it only made things worse that Enn practically turned the helmet into a challenge. “You’d have to be better than the entire Tenian faction,” he said. Well, who was to say that she was not? Granted, it was not all that likely that she was – she was not even the best from Eighfour, and not even a specialist at that – but it was possible. How exhilarating would it be to prove herself better than all the tech specialists of an entire faction combined?
She was not sure what he had in mind concerning keeping what he had but making himself look less Anderekian, either. If the helmet was indeed so unique and impossible to replicate, did that not make it the single most easily identifiable feature about him?

Enn’s apparent handicap in normal conversation did present an unfortunate problem, even ignoring how thoroughly sad the reason for that handicap was. No civilians, no parents, no relatives? She had no doubt that his old faction was big and powerful enough to go to war and actually stand a chance, and that they had a lot of fancy toys and resources… but what was the point of it all? They fought, killed and took to… be able to fight, kill and take even more? They made themselves strong just to be able to get even stronger?
It sounded as though it was normal for Enn, but also like he somehow knew that it was not how it was everywhere else. The implications of how he had any experience with the concept of civilians and such when he had never interacted with such personally was… disconcerting, at best.
“I’m… sorry about that,” she told him, wincing uncomfortably at how awkward that sentence felt in her mouth. “That sounds horrible. I’ll help you get on their good side… or, well, at least try to convince them that you can be trusted. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

And so, turning around to wave her goodbyes to the spotter-birds – presuming and hoping that they would not follow – Kay lead Enn through the forest, heading back to the faction she had actually intended to leave behind with her new acquaintance. It was a long walk, though, and even with thunder up above and the looming threat of aggressive, warlike factions potentially combing through the forest, Kay could not stop herself from chatting enthusiastically with her companion.
At first she figured she would educate him on Eighfour a little, and talked at length about just how her faction worked. Their primary defense was the forest itself, naturally, which made reaching Eighfour by land with anything larger than a small cart difficult and made it virtually impossible to spot it from the air. She confirmed his unspoken suspicion of the settlement having gates, describing the ten meter tall wall of rock and wood they had erected around the entirety of their land, on top of which their best marksmen took turns patrolling, armed with their own choice of gun for the work. She went on for some time listing the people on the list for guard duty, ranging from boys and girls barely into their teens to some of the factions more capable elders, and their favored guns, which in turn ranged from improvised pipe guns to high-powered sniper rifles, assault rifles and machine guns, though more of the former than the latter. None of their guns were likely to stop the hulking war-machines she had seen last night, but they counted on the dense forest itself to stop those. She also described their flak-turrets in greater detail, pointing out that they had not actually been used to shoot down anything in her lifetime, were manned and manually controlled, and were basically 130mm semi-automatic cannons… a far cry from the anti-air “hell-lasers” his old enemies apparently deployed, but enough to punch through the armor of anything she could imagine being capable of flight.
Then she went on to talk about the daily life in Eighfour, and how they actually lived as opposed to functioning as… whatever his old faction could be called. They had farmers, obviously, but not nearly as many as one would expect for a faction their size; out of the thousand or so people calling the settlement home, only a dozen or so were actual farmers. They mostly cared for the faction’s livestock and grew a few resilient crops that could thrive even in the shade of the forest, whereas the largest part of their population – the engineers – were those who actually kept the people fed through liberal use of hydroponics, growing their crops indoors under artificial conditions. She could not tell him for certain whether there had been hydroponics tables from the beginning or whether the founders of Eighfour had installed them, but she knew that they had at the very least expanded and improved upon the operation over time, upgrading their facilities over time to support their growing population.
Which, in turn, lead her to start talking about her own life in the faction; how her people did grow up with their parents… for most of her childhood, anyway. Her enthusiasm faltered somewhat when she told him the story of how her mother had been late from scouring and her father having gone out to find her and bring her back, only for the fog to appear and presumably swallow them both, for them never to be seen again. Remarkably her mood seemed to pick right back up again, though, as she quickly changed the topic to how Gramps and several other elders had taken her under their wings along with the other orphans of the faction – of which there were disturbingly many, with the state of the world being what it was – and had trained her to become a productive member of the community. She had started out assisting with the vital hydroponics operation and, once she was old enough, had finally been given free reign of her time and skills, to learn, recover, restore and build as much as she possibly could. She eagerly described the various projects she had embarked upon during the first years of her career, from a simple handheld grabber arm, to clocks, to refrigerators, to automated cookers and her first drone, which she remarked also “lived” in her cart: a small land-based rover affectionately named “Buddy”.
Her face fell somewhat when she reached the point when she had started tampering with weapons technology. It had gone splendidly at first, with her being able to cobble together pipe guns and the like with ease, and with ammunition being fairly simple to produce once one had the necessary molds and materials. When she had been trying to build something sturdier and more powerful, however, it turned out that she had probably gotten overconfident and careless, because the rifle she had been trying to build misfired, practically exploding in her hands and showering her face in fragments, along with the intended projectile. The accident nearly killed her, she had been told, and rendered her unconscious for quite a while… long enough, it turned out, for some of her fellows to decide that this was an opportune time to test the gate, which they claimed was what had restored enough of her cerebral functions to let her wake back up. She made no attempt to hide her distrust of the others’ intentions and her dislike of this change to her person, but did not outright accuse them of turning her into a science experiment either.
It was at this point that she felt the need to explain their faction’s possession of the gate and her artificial eye, and told him the story of where it came from. Decades ago by now one of their scourers had come upon a human carcass in a ravine, which had seemed like it had been dead for some time. Whether it was correct to even refer to the corpse as a “human” was potentially a matter of some debate, however, as what they had found had actually been more machine than flesh and bone, with all limbs and most of its organs replaced with cybernetic prosthetics. Though some of those cybernetic parts had been damaged or were outright missing, most of it had actually been in surprisingly good condition and required little to no work to restore to working order. By taking notes on how the parts had been installed on the corpse they had been able to figure out most of how they worked and how they connected to the host and each other… at least enough so that they had managed to plug the gate and an eye from the corpse into Kay while she was unconscious. Now they kept suggesting installing various other cybernetic replacements in her because they would not work without the gate, and were likely more effective than organic parts anyway, but she refused; having a toaster on her face was enough disfigurement for her.
Since then, she mused, she had been a lot less mindful about doing things for the sake of the faction and had started doing things for herself instead, like crafting the scavenger gun and going out scouring on her own, keeping whatever she found for herself to play with. She did exactly as much as was required to be considered a productive member of society, but no more than that.

Eventually, a while after they had started encountering scattered tree-stumps in the ground and discernible trails through the undergrowth, Kay looked at Enn with a frown.
“We’re nearly there,” she told him, waving her hand at him in a somewhat dismissive manner. “Just a bit further ahead and we’ll be in view of the gate. Just… put away your rifle as well as you can and walk next to me, all right? It’d be a shame if they thought you’d taken me hostage and was forcing me to take you here; depending on who’s watching the gate they might hurt you, or worse. Some of the guys are a bit overenthusiastic about getting to test their guns on ‘real’ targets.”

The Prophecy

Zerul City, I’onriyi’s estate

So, Nimbus figured as she listened to I’onriyi’s explanation of his scepter – “united winds”, apparently, though the archangel had no idea why he spoke the name in the arcane language – his outrage had been about Male’dai treating enchanting as a pass-time. There was perhaps some merit to taking offense from that, considering how important the discipline was to him, but surely he could not expect everyone who dappled in a field of knowledge to hold it in as high regard as he did. There were mages who barely even cared to study magic, painters who could go months without putting brush to canvas, hobbyist archers who only picked up a bow when they felt like it. This did not mean that magic, painting or archery were not things that required time and effort to build proficiency in, but merely that not everyone partook in them for the sake of achieving mastery. To say that something was universally incapable of being a pass-time, no matter how difficult or time-consuming doing anything worthwhile would be through it, could never be true.
Perhaps their perspectives differed as well? It was undeniably a possibility that I’onriyi – a penin – would disapprove more of pursuits that served little purpose outside passing time enjoyably than they did. His kind did have a finite lifespan, after all, whereas deigan were known to never age... not to mention that Nimbus was even a true immortal, incapable of dying permanently and literally with all of eternity before her. It would be logical for him to simply place greater value in time than them, even if penin did live for centuries.
“I’m not sure if I’d be capable of enchanting in the first place,” Nimbus pointed out when their host suggested that they could make something before setting out on whatever journey he had in mind. “From what I can tell from Male’dai’s knowledge it is a discipline that builds on manipulation of matter through magic, and I am unsure whether immortal energy is suitable for it and if it is, whether Male’dai’s skills would even apply to how it behaves. In Heaven all I had to do was call the fabric of reality and it would shape itself to my will... I have never created anything in Reniam.”
She shrugged. “But I suppose I could assist nevertheless, if you wish. I imagine that my divine hand could be helpful, at least.” She would also like a proper weapon so that she was not reduced to defending herself with a dagger when danger arose, but she dared not ask any more of this man. She would make do with the dagger if the situation demanded it.

And then she was back in the kitchen, seating herself back and the table, sipping her tea and idly stuffing little torn-up pieces of bread in her mouth as she stared off into space, frowning to herself. Meeting I’onriyi had gone well... in fact it had gone much better than either of them had expected it to. Or more smoothly, at least, which was what concerned Nimbus now that the tension of trying to make a positive impression on her chosen companion had lifted. Being accepted by the penin had been much too easy.
They had expected him to be much more cautious and curious about them, particularly about their pasts and motivations, but apparently the little man had been satisfied with nothing more than a superficial summary of Male’dai’s background and current state. Specifically, Nimbus was surprised and worried that I’onriyi had showed practically no interest in her beside the fact that she was an archangel and which abilities she could contribute. He had not at all looked into her motivations, her past, her situation... the majority of his interest had been in Male’dai. How could he not question why she was willing to spend her time and effort keeping Male’dai alive in the first place? Why they were trying so hard to do good? Or why an archangel, of all things, would even be allowed to abandon her duties to pursue a fanciful adventure such as this?
Did he imagine that she was trustworthy and harmless just because she was an angel? The very thought seemed obscene to her, but they were the “good immortals”, after all, so perhaps some mortals did expect them all to be perfectly benevolent, though such expectations would imply that he had no knowledge of angels or fear or penance, to be sure... or even archangels of Rilon, Frenis or Deliph, for that matter. Since her ascension – her earliest memory – she had learned that angels were not all the same, and some were indeed as terrifying and dangerous as any demon. Even benevolent angels were ultimately soldiers, created specifically to fight in the eternal war that was bound to resume sooner or later. War was the very purpose of their existence, including hers.
If he accepted her so easily, what manner of secrets could these other companions be hiding? If she, whom he knew next to nothing of, was indeed so preferable to their company... just how bad were they?

I’onriyi was not gone for long, as it turned out, but seemed revitalized when she rejoined her, now clad in more modest and socially acceptable attire. He also seemed eager to leave and find the companions he had spoken of earlier, to “see what sort of explanation these men could possibly have for the situation he found them in just yesterday,” which made Nimbus curious and concerned as to just what kind of situation that had been. When they had met it had been a situation much like that of a beggar approaching a merchant for scraps – at least the initial impression could easily have been as such – and she struggled to imagine what situation could be more unflattering than that.
He probably found them doing something illegal, Male’dai suggested, sounding somewhat concerned herself. Or something violent, but which for some reason didn’t warrant stopping them... or bar them from being potential allies. There must have been extenuating circumstances of some kind.
She quickly threw the last crumbs from her plate in her mouth and followed up with a mouthful of tea – which was still too hot for her to comfortably drain the remainder of the cup – before she stood once more, brushing her dress nervously with her hands. She nodded solemnly and followed.

Soon after they arrived at an establishment going by the name “the Drunken Dove” – a name that was quite perplexing to angel and deigan alike – which looked to be quite empty for the time being and look like a battlefield on the inside. Something had clearly happened here, and Nimbus had a grim suspicion that she could guess at least part of it. The inn only looked empty, after all; they could hear faint, agitated voices from somewhere else in the building, sufficiently muffled to be unintelligible, though at least one of them did sound recognizably feminine. Nimbus also immediately registered a demonic taint lingering in the air that made her feathers bristle.
“Demonspawn,” she warned I’onriyi as she glared past what appeared to be a magically erected stone pillar in the far side of the room, behind which a hallway lead to the rest of the building. Her hand was on her dagger instantly. A thought suddenly occurred to her. “I hope those are not the companions you spoke of?”

The Prophecy

and
The ride was uncomfortable in the extreme. Angora's adrenaline had by now worn off in its entirety, and by the gods her body ached. Her head was fuzzy still from Iridiel's heavy blow, and her muscles were sore and tired from overexertion. Added to her misery was the seemingly-constant, incessant rain. She was sodden to the skin, and what made it worse was the squire she was riding with, sitting in front. Part of her wanted to cling onto him to make sure she didn't fall off, and part of her realised if she did so... he might jump off. Again. Such a difficult one to anticipate...
Well. She had just stripped off in the middle of the camp. Perhaps she needed to apologise for that. And for her actions. It was probably the best first step in trying to soothe flared tempers in the group. And yet she felt as though her speaking might aggravate things. The squire was not an easy one to judge, although he had most certainly judged her already. But judges can and should change their minds, given new evidence.
It had over ten minutes, with nothing but the clopping of hooves on earth.
"Hey... Jaelnec, right?" Her voice was quiet, though it retained its ethereal quality and tone. "I uh... just want to say sorry. For first off... attacking you guys. Might seem pointless to say sorry for something you couldn't really control, but I want to apologise. And I'm not just saying that because it's the right thing to do. I mean it."

Jaelnec, meanwhile, was probably just as uncomfortable with the situation as Angora. Having a girl he had pretty much just seen naked sitting within touching distance, so close that all it really took for him to feel her against his back was a small dent in the road, was having a rather observable effect on the nightwalker. Or it would have observable, had he not arranged himself the way he had specifically to hide said effects. He kept himself as rigid as humanly possible, trying to keep as much distance as he could between himself and his passenger, and his gaze fixed on the path ahead.
It was horrible. Not only did he really not want to think of the murderess as a girl after what she had told them back at the camp, but now that he was, all manner of different chivalrous concerns came to mind. How he thought he should really offer to wrap her in his cloak, how it would be safer and more comfortable if she was hold on to him as they rode. Only, one of those things would remove one of the last physical barriers between him and her, and the other would make it extremely difficult for him to take his mind off what he had seen recently.
When she spoke his first reaction was to be grateful to have something to be angry about, immediately distracting himself from her femaleness by fixating on the fact that she did not seem confident in remembering his name. She continued before he could vent his not-entirely-justified anger, however, and he found himself somewhat unwillingly placated by her words.
“It wasn’t you,” he told her, reiterating what she had already been told. “And nobody got seriously hurt. Not... really. So it’s okay.” He wanted to say more, commenting grimly on how unusual it must be for her to feel responsible for her actions – particularly when those actions were not even hers – and that she had been hurt worse than any of them, but he decided against it. Besides, she had said “first off”.

Angora listened intently to Jaelnec's speech. The cold and the rain made her shiver, and she fought hard to keep her teeth from chattering - how she wished that the spirit's warmth still protected her! She readied herself for the condemnation - only for Jaelnec to take the exact opposite stance. He seemed to understand, seemed to acknowledge that it wasn't truly her, but something else entirely, using her body. "That's... good to hear. I know it wasn't truly me that did this, but... it still feels wrong to simply accept that. It was my body, my form. But... Thank you, Jaelnec." The squire's words comforted her. Though he no doubt was still very angry at her, his declaration that he at least gave the image of forgiveness and understanding was a great burden off her shoulders. The first step on the road to reconciliation. Now to take the long jump into the unknown.
"I also want to apologise for my actions at the campfire." She let her words sink in slightly, and cleared her throat, trying to shift slightly on the horse as she did so, also trying to keep away from the squire - to respect his own personal space. She noted that he was as stiff and rigid as a wall - why? Was he injured? Was this how he rode a horse? If it was, it was a most intriguing style. Or was he hiding something? Oh... he might well be. And so, her thoughts moved to him. A striking figure for sure, with those deep black eyes... veritable pools of inky darkness. Like the darkness she used during her work, as black as the night sky. She snapped herself back to reality. "I, erm... didn't know you'd have such a reaction. I guess in hindsight it should have been obvious right?" She gave a nervous giggle, unsure what reaction that sentence would garner, but she pressed on regardless. "Sorry. If I'd known that would happen I would have changed over at the river. I guess I was, uh, only thinking about the practical matters at the time. Kind of a holdover from the spirit, I suppose."

He did not realize what she meant by her “actions at the campfire” until she mentioned his reaction to them, which to him removed all need for clarification. Had he not been wearing a cloak and armor she might have noticed the muscles in his back going taut at the thought of those events. She might have noticed his biceps and neck-muscles growing tense regardless; all he knew was that her mention of those events, the thought of what he had seen and the fact that he felt her shuffling about behind him made him very keen not to move from the spot.
Even so he found himself a little indignant over her words. “Why would it have been obvious?” he asked, so distracted by what that assumption implied that he forgot to address her apology.

He tensed even more - in anger? Angora panicked, stammering out a sentence before she was able to compose herself. "No, no no, I meant... I, uh..." Angora sighed, wiping away the rain from her face to hide her embarrassment. Pull yourself together, girl. "Damn it... I meant that I should have known not to do that, to be mindful of other people, right? I haven't had to deal with actual people in... however long it's been. I forgot that you can't just do things like that. People in the city don't go about in naught but their skin, right? I mean, unless things have really changed over the last few months, hehe..." Another nervous giggle. "I didn't mean anything negative by it. Just that in hindsight I guess I should have known better."
Shame. It was a new feeling to her. She had acted worse than a back-alley slut, a whore, and now she was feeling the consequences of it. She had been so blunt, so overt with herself, she felt... dirty. Women of the dockyards were better than that, by the gods...

Jaelnec slumped a little – just the tiniest bit – at that, and if she was paying attention she might notice the flush of crawling up his neck. Of course that was what she had meant, it was, itself, obvious. He had to stop himself from groaning in regret and shame for having immediately jumped to the conclusion that she had meant it as belittlement of him; that he was a prude, innocent, naive or some combination thereof... that he was a child. Suddenly he wished that he had taken the chance when he had it to escape this life and found the worm-people.
“Oh,” he mumbled awkwardly, too embarrassed with himself to be very eloquent. “Uh, right. Well, I guess that’s... fine. No harm done.” No physical harm, anyway.

For Angora, noticing even the smallest things around her was vital when she was in the city, and even more so when she was alone in the wilds of Rodoria. Suffice to say, it therefore should not come as a surprise to know that she noticed Jaelnec's abrupt change in attitude, as well as his change of posture. He seemed... deflated, almost defeated? Had she said something to upset him unknowingly once more? "A-are you sure? I mean, not to intrude... If you say so." Mutual awkwardness was abound in great quantities, the air so thick with it that Angora felt as if she was drowning, unable to breathe properly. Her chest tightened, her breathing quickening to an uncomfortable pace. She, too, began to freeze in place on the saddle, though her grip on the saddle itself tightened to such an extent that her knuckles were screaming in outrage. Yet she held on, hoping to find something to calm herself down with. Or at least, to ground herself in reality, to prevent anything untoward happening. Meanwhile, the Black Sword had begun to glow seemingly white-hot in her makeshift scabbard at her belt - the raindrops almost instantly vaporised into minuscule clouds of steam as they impacted on the flawless obsidite blade, rising into the air. The warmth was welcoming to Angora, who until that time was convinced she was at least suffering the beginnings of frostbite - how ironic, she thought, to get frostbite in the rain.

“Yeah...” the squire exhaled, unsure what more to say. “I mean...” Yes? What did he mean? He was not even sure that he knew where his own thoughts were going.
He shook his head, chuckling quietly to himself. “I’ve been raised to be a knight for half my life, and though my master was a shameless womanizer, I always resolved to be better. That even if I couldn’t fight as well as him or be as smart as him, at least I’d be... I don’t know, a better person? And I try to be good, but...” He sighed. “I don’t know where I’m going with this. Forget I said anything. It doesn’t matter to you anyway.”

"I... I see." Angora nodded slightly, perhaps understanding more about this man than he truly wanted to let on. That's why he had judged her so... harshly? That he wanted to hold people to account to keep people from falling into the depths of depravity, as his own 'master' had done. And that he did so because he held himself to such high standards, and couldn't afford to have those standards compromised in any way? Perhaps - it made sense to her. Knights to her were tyrants, men who ruthlessly exploited their power to benefit themselves, just like all the other lords and ladies, a hierarchy that she, as a burgher, was shielded from. The cities kept to themselves, paid their taxes and made sure the monarch didn't infringe on their old rights... right?
"...You try to be good in a world where good is almost overrun." She ignored his last sentences. It did matter, by the gods, they were going to be working together, of course it mattered! Angora relaxed, slouching slightly in her saddle seat, though still careful not to make contact and reinforce the squire's sense of unease. He was but a couple of inches taller than her, though he was more well-built as of course men tended to be. He had quite the attractive frame, actually... Stop it.
"I sort of know what you mean. Of course, I didn't have, like, knightly training or anything, but I grew up in a family, as you know, built on crime. Mama the chatelaine, Papa the goldsmith, bought and sold with blood money. You know... I didn't choose to be a Cleaner. I know it probably sounds, like, really outlandish and like I'm covering up for myself, but... I didn't."
Angora sighed and shook her head. "I... I shouldn't be saying this. But I will, because if you and I have to work together, you need to know things about me. My father is Erik Kelenwyn, captain-junior of the Dramburgh crime family. The Dramburghs specialise in Cleaners - which meant that I was practically trained to be one from when I could first hold a sword and bat my eyelashes. I do what I do because I'm told to do it. The money... yeah, sure, whatever, it's nice and all, but you have no idea what happens if I say no, Jaelnec." Angora shuddered, memories of the one and only time she said 'no' coming dangerously close to the fore. "They break you, Jaelnec. They break you in ways you never thought possible. I can't say no. I said it once. I say it again, I die." She lowered her head, her sodden hair falling about her face. "They said they'd hand me over to the government. A good execution to prove that the city's government were tackling the problems. Or just a good way of getting the people's minds off things."

At first Jaelnec had no idea what Angora was talking about, but it did not take long to realize that she had taken his words even more heavily than he had meant them. He had thought simply to justify why he had reacted the way he had to seeing her in the nude, his conviction that it was his duty not to look, which he had failed at... and she thought he had spoken of so much more. Furthermore it seemed that she took the time to open up some more about herself, which Jaelnec instinctively dreaded, given what she had revealed about herself previously.
But then that one sentence – “I didn’t choose to be a Cleaner” – made him listen to her explanation with a new frame of mind. From the moment she uttered those words, though she likely could not see it from behind him, he frowned deeply, and when he felt her shudder at the thought of her past that frown turned to a scowl. By the time she finished her tale he was holding on to the reins so tightly that it hurt, biting down on his rage and just trying to stop himself from urging the horse into a gallop to get to Zerul City as soon as possible, to find the people responsible.
“They can try,” he told her, a dark edge to his voice that rendered it akin to a low growl. “People like that... the world is better off without them. I’ll die before I turn a blind eye to something like that!”
Then he sighed deeply, and this time he seemed to deflate all the way rather than just a little, falling into a more natural pose as he relaxed more than he had since seeing her naked. He let his fury drain into that sigh, and it, in turn, had made him forget about his reservations about her closeness. He felt tired, suddenly... but he knew the anger was still there, just under the surface. Only now it was not directed at Angora.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought...” He shook his head. “It’s their fault. They’re worse than... they’re the worst. They need to be stopped.”

"It's okay. I wouldn't have expected you to know, I should have made it clearer earlier. I don't enjoy what I do, even though it might have seemed that way earlier. I know of people who tried to leave the Firm, Jaelnec. One of them... well... pieces of them showed up much later. I dread to think what they did to him - probably tortured him within an inch of his life and then hacked him apart. They sent pieces of his body to all the Cleaners - at least that's what they said. Part of me thinks it was a Cleaner that did it. It was meant as a warning to us all... nobody leaves the Firm." Angora drew her new cloak about her body, shrinking into herself in an almost-defensive posture. "This... this is why I do what I do. Not really for money. To survive."
Slowly, tentatively, she reached out and took hold of his back. "Y-you don't mind, do you? Not feeling stable..."

“I don’t mind,” he assured her, his voice much firmer than it had been since before the two of them met. He was too preoccupied with the Firm now to even think about what he had seen, or about Angora’s femaleness at all, beyond feeling grimly responsible for her now that he knew she was a victim. For some reason he felt stronger and more confident than he had for a long time, filled with certainty that he would hunt down those who used people the way she had been used.

"Th-thanks..." Angora took hold of Jaelnec's back with the fullness of her hands, steadying herself on the saddle as she did so. Instinctively, she shuffled closer, so her legs touched his. She felt safer, more secure... and more reassured. No longer was she the object of everyone's scrutiny, no longer was she the villain. And no longer did she have to hide the crimes of the Firm. True, she was complicit in many of them. But they had taken control of her, they had enslaved her, chained her to the Cleaners, robbed her of her freedom. Jaelnec had made this all so... clear to her. She thought it was better than it was. They had locked her in a dungeon, tortured her, abused her. Memories she thought lost were re-surfacing, and she began to seethe. Now she remembered why she had taken the mission to claim the Black Sword. She had meant to use it to carve her bloody way through the Firm - such naivete was not unlike her - and cut her way to freedom. And now, she had found the most unlikely allies. The squire had gone from the judge to the enforcer, the defender... the protector.
Her knight in a shining cuirass of metal she had never seen before and a muddied face. How noble.

“Things like this...” Jaelnec mused quietly after a while of contemplative silence. “This is one of the things I never understood about my master. Freagon was powerful, the best fighter I’ve ever seen, and he was a Knight of the Will. Yet he knew things like this happened – this and so much more – but never did anything about it. He could have, I have no doubt, but he chose not to. I can’t forgive something like that. Who is going to stop evil if good people are content doing nothing?”
He looked skyward, letting the rain cool his face. “I’ll do something. Everything I can, alone and with my bare hands if I have to.” He looked over his shoulder. “I swear it.”

Angora nodded in agreement with Jaelnec. It was odd, truly. Barely an hour ago, they had been at each throats, and now, here they were, finding more common ground than either of them had perhaps even thought possible. She remembered something she heard from her education. "A philosopher once said... All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. And it is easier to stand by and do nothing, than to intervene and place oneself in harm's way. I guess your knightly master thought the same... and realised that he wanted to take the easy way out." Angora shook her head. "And if everyone does that, then evil will simply walk over them. I guess my own actions helped that to happen... I have much to atone for."
She looked up, and met his gaze. "I think we have some cleaning of our own to do when we get to Zerul, huh?"

Jaelnec nodded grimly, then realized the hastiness of his fervor. “After the Withering,” he conceded reluctantly, knowing that his quest was not one that allowed time-consuming distractions. Every day more people died to it, their souls swallowed by the plague. People like the Firm were horrible, but not even they could compare to the Withering. “Once that quest is at its end, we’ll make sure no one suffers at their hands again.”

"...We might not get that luxury, should some in the Firm want to kill me." Angora swallowed nervously, still looking at Jaelnec. "My family still has many enemies, in and out of the Firm. But, on a more positive note!" She said with another nervous laugh. "Do you have, uh... accommodation in Zerul and the like? I guessed you might have some pre-arrangements in place and such, but it never hurts to check, right?"

Even though he wanted to assure her that no one from the Firm would be allowed anywhere near her, he decided to respect her wish to change the subject. “I’m not sure, actually. One of our companions who apparently has some influence in Zerul went ahead of us and said he’d arrange for our arrival, but Aemoten and I are pretty much all that is left of the group he knew when he left. Maybe, maybe not... though if there aren’t, that’ll complicate matters a bit. Then we’ll have to find our next clue ourselves.”

"Hmm... mhm. Okay." Angora nodded and frowned in contemplation. She thought about matters for a moment - true, the Firm most likely would treat her with suspicion and subterfuge, but she could at least count on a few allies - and her family. An idea struck her. Her family! Of course. Erik might not be the most trustworthy, despite being her father (something that vexed Angora something terrible), but her dear mama, her brothers... they could be trusted! And they could be used to build a base of operations, at least one that could operate with the outward protection of the Firm. She could use her father's position as a shield. For now.
"You could always stay at my family's villa. We have plenty of room, stables for horses, a smithy if you need repairs or want to forge weapons and armour, et cetera..."

Jaelnec arched an eyebrow at that, puzzled by just how Angora thought staying with her family would be a good idea. “Didn’t you say your family were the ones who decided you’d be a Cleaner?” he asked, wondering whether he had misunderstood something yet again. The way he remembered it, though, it had sounded very much like her family were part of the Firm. “Aren’t they allied with the Firm? Do you really...” want to be around people who corrupted you like that? “...trust them?”

"I don't trust my father, it was he who... predetermined my future, he who is the member of the Firm. But I do trust my brothers - Reikard is a sergeant-at-arms, whilst Yvann serves with the City Guard... I can trust them. As for my father... I will simply hope to the gods that his love for me transcends his desire to grow in stature in the Firm. If he doesn't, then... it'll be five on one." Angora's grip tightened involuntarily. "Mama I can trust utterly."

The squire frowned at Angora’s explanation. “It only takes one person to report to the rest of the organization, and odds could quickly end up much worse than one against five. I want to deal with the Firm, but I don’t want to take the risk of your father summoning assassins to kill my companions in their sleep unless I absolutely have to.”

"I swear that I will do all in my power to stop that from happening. Just as you swore to do something. An oath for an oath, right?" Angora gave a warm smile, despite the rain. "I'm still a member of the Firm... and no member of the Firm can harm another without inviting some serious consequences, right? You're allies of mine. Any strike against you is a strike against me... even if it's from father. Word gets out, his standing plummets quicker than a lead weight, right?"

He was not entirely sure how much he believed that being around Angora’s father was advisable, regardless of the girl’s assurances. After all, she had just told him that they might have no choice but to face off against the Firm in the near future due to the likelihood of someone from the organization wanting to kill her. Just how was Angora’s membership in the Firm going to protect them if the Firm itself wanted her dead?
Besides, one oath was not worth the same as the other, just as not every man’s word had was equally valuable. The oath of someone who made their living and name on honor, like a knight, was generally considered much more trustworthy than that of a thieving murderess. He wanted to trust her, but... there were limits to how far he was willing to go on blind faith in the goodness of another alone. He had believed that the good in Annabelle would triumph over the evil haunting her, and his belief had nearly gotten all of them killed. His faith in the good in people was exactly the reason he had stepped down as leader back then and asked Aemoten to take his place.
“I think it’d be for the best if we stayed away from anyone affiliated with the Firm,” he told her after pondering the matter for a moment. “From what you’ve told me it just sounds much too dangerous, especially considering that you’re carrying an artifact that we know the Firm wants. If they come for you I’ll stop them, but I think it would be better not to taunt them until we’re fully ready to face them.”
Pausing, he finally shook his head. “Of course, Aemoten might think otherwise. We’ll see what he says when he rejoins the group.”

"If he rejoins." was all Angora could mumble in response. "I don't know if your other comrades will be as willing to hear me out as you have been. Well... I mean... you probably weren't willing. You know what, forget I said anything, let's just get to Zerul, yeah?"