Dark Jack

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, Bor Manor, Borstown

Though he did not examine the painting in the hall closely at the moment, even glancing at it enough to acknowledge its presence, size and potential as a threat would be enough for Yanin to get a general sense of what it was depicting. It was a remarkably lifelike representation of an enormous apelike creature, covered in long, thick, coarse brown fur and with a body that seemed to bulge obscenely with disturbingly exaggerated muscles, captured mid-fight against a scattered group of much, much smaller humanoids. Though it was difficult to determine the exact scale of the painting, the prooga – which is what Yanin might recognize the creature as, albeit obviously deform compared to how their kind normally looked – was shown to be easily seven times as tall as the tallest of the surrounding humanoids.
Looking at the chandelier, Yanin might be able to determine that while the ornament itself was brass and thus possibly a suitable vessel for a wraith, the sturdy chain-links that held it aloft by connecting all the way up to the ceiling appeared to be iron. Not only would a wraith not be able to possess the chain, but it would have great difficulty breaking free from it. The chandelier was also not the huge and ostentatious kind, looking to have a maximum capacity of eight candles, limbs that were only some thirty centimeters long; the whole thing looked to weigh less than ten kilograms.

Nabi responded to the advance of the ceramic wraith's by retreating toward the center of the room, staying out of reach of the ungainly construct as its presented its sharp instruments threateningly in her direction. Before she could be pushed back far enough to potentially either get caught up in one of the other fights herself or accidentally get someone else tangled up in the fight against her opponent, however, Jordan rushed in from his place in the armory to assist her.
Jordan swung a truncheon, aiming at the wraith's cleaver, but even as he approached the creature's glowing eyes turned to him as it ceased its advance toward its initial target. It seemed to begin to draw back in an attempt to evade the young man's attack, only to suddenly freeze in place and start vibrating in place while giving off a loud noise of creaking, straining ceramic. It was an easy target; Jordan's blow hit the cleaver directly, knocking it to the floor and shattering several of the pottery shards toward the end of that arm, all while the wraith appeared momentarily paralyzed, its glowing eyes darting back and forth in what might have seemed like confusion or panic, even as Nabi moved in to reengage and help in the fight.

Freagon, meanwhile, simply stared at the table wraith posturing at him like an angry bull with a blank expression, keeping his sword grasped with both hands and ready for combat. The table rushed at him like a battering ram, but the old nightwalker evaded it with a casual-looking step to the side, causing the table to run straight past him...

Or rather, the table would have run past Freagon, had this not been the moment that Lhirin finished his preparations for another activation of Magnetic Field, and iron needles suddenly darted in and embedded itself in the hind legs of the wraith, causing it to immediately stumble, fall over and noisily clatter to the floor on its side. Freagon afforded the deigan half-breed a brief, ambiguous glance before he rushed toward the table, moving his sword up and to the right as he went, only to deliver a swift diagonal strike to it, cleaving straight through one of its legs and halfway through the tabletop itself.
The table twitched again, and the Knight of the Will instantly swing left to right, rending a second large gash all the way through the wooden vessel parallel to the first, after which the table remained still.

Another barrage of iron needles fell on the blanket wraith from above as it was flopping its way down the stairs, slamming into it with a rapid series of dull thuds and pinning it to the steps. Unfortunately it did not seem that the needles themselves were enough to destroy the wraith, however, and though it was indeed momentarily forced down and held in place, needles – effectively headless nails in this scenario – proved quite inadequate fasteners, as the lack of a head meant that there was nothing stopping the wraith from merely pulling itself off the small missiles, at once rising back off the floor and leaving behind the disruptive iron objects as it continued its trek toward the floor of the hall.
Another four needles went for the legs of the ghouls, embedding themselves in one calf per creature, prompting all for to halt for a second just before they would have reached the bottom of the stairs. Two of them merely growled in wordless frustration while one of the possessed witch-hunters muttered a curse under its breath.
One of the witch-hunter ghouls then leaped off the stairs, silver-sword raised high over its head as it let out a shrill, coarse battle cry as it went to deliver a huge, but extremely telegraphed downward slash toward Yanin. The other witch-hunter went down on one knee, grabbed the offending iron needle in his calf, and unceremoniously pulled it back out.

The last two ghouls seemed to hesitate for but a moment, watching their silver-sword wielding allies for a second or two before both of them knelt as well and simply removed the needles. Then they both ran the rest of the way down, heading straight for Lhirin, weapons poised to strike.
Lhirin would notice that Yanin was to his left, dealing with his own fight, and Freagon had just seemingly finished his opponent right behind him.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, Bor Manor, Borstown

Freagon did not hesitate when Lhirin told him to withdraw, but instantly released the divine wearing the witch-hunter's flesh and jumped backward, changing his stance mid-jump to seize his weapon with both hands. Way back in the armory, still standing guard by Irah, Jaelnec let out a shriek of pain, threw both of his hands up to cover his eyes and turned from the doorway as the bolt of lightning struck the ghoul, filling the hall with searing light; light which was fundamentally anathema to nightwalker eyes.
In the hall itself, standing but a couple of meters from it, Freagon did not even blink nor flinch. His one eye kept staring at his opponent expectantly, his blade prepared to finish the job if Lhirin's spell proved insufficient.

It very quickly became clear that his wariness was unnecessary, though, as the once-ghoul instantly collapsed on the floor as soon as there was no longer electricity keeping it standing. He glanced behind him and to his left, where Lhirin stood amidst the now-inert rug. Then past him and toward the left staircase of the hall, where Nabi was just ceasing the blaze she had conjured against the table-wraith, but the disappearance of magical fire only revealed the real fire that was currently engulfing the piece of furniture... which was no longer moving. If that wraith was still active, it seemed content to just stand there and let the fire consume it.

For a second the silence was almost deafening in the wake of this short burst of combat, with the only sound being everyone breathing and the crackling of the flames, but Freagon did not relax his stance.

Then, suddenly, several of things happened all at once.
To their left, in the west-end of the hall, one half of the massive four meter-wide double door swung open as another unnatural abomination moved into the hall: a 150 cm tall construct made up entirely of what appeared to be shards of dinner plates and pottery in various colors, making up a frame that loosely resembled a humanoid shape with arms, legs and a small head. All the different ceramics creaked, clattered and cracked as it moved, a pair of orange-yellow eyes alight on what would be considered its face, and it raised its arms in front of it as if preparing for a fight. On the end of its right arm – either held by it or as part of its actual vessel – it brandished a hefty meat cleaver. On the end of its left arm was a carving fork.
To their right, in the east-end of the hall, a smaller door burst open but a second after the first, allowing another table to enter, only this one was much larger, perhaps closer to what one would consider a dinner table whereas the the currently burning one looked more like a bedside- or coffee table. This one had not commandeered any additional furniture either, but merely crashed in as just a table, moving on all four legs in an aggressive stance, like a bull ready to charge.
Finally, up above on the landing that lined upper floor of the hall, four human figures rushed in from the west end – each with different and somewhat obvious signs of probably lethal injury – and moved to stand at the top of the two staircases, glaring down at the people gathered at the bottom of the hall. The two on the left wielded silver swords, but did not wear the armor that the first had, whereas the two on the right wielded a flanged mace and a spear, respectively, and both wore chainmail over gambesons.
Accompanying what was in all likelihood ghouls on the landing was another wraith, though this one seemed much less intimidating than the ones on the lower floor, as it seemed to be made up of sheets and blankets and was just flopping awkwardly over the floor, moving to the top of the left staircase along with the silver-sword wielding ghouls.

The pottery-wraith moved to attack Nabi, who was closest to it. The second table-wraith went to rush at Freagon. And all the creatures upstairs started running down them, the faces of the ghouls in particular being twisted into expressions of mad delight at the bloodshed they expected to be about to partake in.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, Bor Manor, Borstown

The twenty remaining iron needles pierced the rug with ease, but while Lhirin would feel its death-grip on him loosen to the point where it no longer threatened to crush him, it did not seem as though it was enough to dissuade it from keeping him in place and blinded. The cloth writhed and twisted around him, rubbing the somewhat coarse woven fabric against him. The thick cloth even muffled sound from outside it quite significantly; while it was no longer immediately dangerous on its own, this rug-wraith was quite well-suited for immobilization and sensory deprivation.

It was Jordan, it turned out, who claimed the final blow to the greatly weakened water-wraith with a decisive downward strike of his truncheon. While water had definite advantages for a creature such as this in its malleability and indestructibility in terms of normal threats, a loose medium such as water was also incredibly easy to lose control over as their magic was disrupted, making them easy to destroy.
The creature stared at Jordan as he approached with glowing orange-yellow eyes from within the liquid and made a weak attempt at evading his attack, but it was too difficult to move with the iron truncheon still inside it. The bludgeon hit with a splash and the wraith burst like a bubble, spilling the water that had made its makeshift vessel over even more of the floor as its spirit lost its tether to Reniam and was forcefully returned to whichever divine realm it had come from.

Yanin looked at the hall intently, but the room was surprisingly bare for such a large open area. The only things he could see present there that had not already proven to be a wraith was the chandelier above and the large painting in the far back.

Jaelnec had been waiting nervously beside his master and Irah, currently waiting for orders or for circumstances to force him to act as he had been instructed, but Freagon seemed content to simply watch the others fighting the wraiths for the time being. Though Jaelnec had gotten better at catching the subtle signs of the knight's moods over the one-and-a-half decade they had spent together, even he had very little idea what was actually going on in the older nightwalker's mind. All he really knew was that Freagon was staring very intensely at the scene before them, sword in hand and ready to act, yet seemingly waiting for... something?
When Madara entered the armory, approached them and addressed them with a brief bit of information, it was only the younger nightwalker that actually turned to look at her. Freagon kept his single eye firmly fixed on the door to the hall and the events playing out over there.
Even so it was still Freagon who responded first: “Thanks,” he simply told her, a small smile curving the corners of his mouth as Jordan crushed the water-wraith in the doorway. Then his eye abruptly widened, his body tensed for a split-second, and out of nowhere he dashed toward the door with a speed that would have been impressive for a person in regular clothing, but was made all the more so by the fact that he was moving that fast in full combat gear.

Freagon sprinted straight past Yanin and Jordan and entered the hall in a heartbeat, his sword held in one hand out to the side as he moved to pass the trapped Lhirin on his right. There was a flash of metal, his sword moving with blinding speed to his left as he drew its eternally razor-sharp edge nimbly and precisely to carve through the rug at about shoulder-level of the captured deigan, cutting all the way through without the sword as much as touching the person inside.

Lhirin would suddenly feel the entire right side of the rug go limp and light flowing into the darkness as a slit opened up over there. The grip of the rug seemed to loosen even more, almost to the point of falling off on its own. It would not be difficult to free himself anymore.

But Freagon kept moving without pause or hesitation, stepping past Lhirin's form and toward the approaching warrior just as this strange iron-clad man, his expression twisting into a grimace of annoyance, raised his silver-sword to strike. He was slow and clumsy; there was another flash of metal as Roct darted from Freagon's left side and upward, clashing with the other's blade hard enough to knock the sword out of his hand, sending it clattering loudly across the floor.
Continuing to move with dexterity and alacrity, Freagon's right hand and sword moved down behind the witch-hunter's shield, only for him to tear it off the man's broken arm and fling it, too, to the floor. The knight's left hand darted for the stranger's right arm and seized his wrist, holding him in place.
He hesitated for a second, staring into the man's face, meeting the witch-hunter's expression of rage with one of intense scrutiny.
Then he loudly and clearly shouted just one single word: “Ghoul!”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin and Jordan, Bor Manor, Borstown

Yanin acted immediately, decisively and cautiously, rushing to Lhirin's aid and throwing his freshly acquired truncheon at the wraith hiding above the door. The hunk of iron hit the water with a splash, sending a cascade of water suddenly spilling onto the floor from the point of impact as the iron disturbed the angel's control of its vessel. only seemed to continue to inconvenience it as it seemed to suddenly struggle greatly to even maintain its shape, let alone manhandle its hostage.
But even as the wraith lost its grip on the wall and fell to the ground with a loud splash, it remained just vaguely cohesive, though it kept “bleeding” water from its from and shrinking as the iron kept weakening it.

It did manage one last act of defiance, however: as it fell, the wraith extended Lhirin just slightly into the room before releasing him, dropping him just a couple of meters beyond the doorway, directly onto the ornate rug decorating the floor in the hall. And the second the deigan half-breed touched the rug, the cloth seemed to abruptly jolt to life, jump up, fold in on itself and wrap around him tightly, wrapping him in a cocoon while squeezing him like a python.

But as soon as Lhirin disappeared inside the rug, the wounded man that had seemingly been fighting the wraiths immediately rushed toward him.

Madara, outside Bor Manor, Borstown

“More people?” The bell-ringer seemed confused as to what Madara meant. “There have been guests, of course, but otherwise it's just been Lady Bor and us. Wade and Kylie take care of the day-to-day, and Quintin, Byron and I just help out.” He winced. “Byron... didn't make it. Bandits got him. Quintin went to track the bastards, but he hasn't come back since.”
The man seemed to fall into thought for a moment when she asked if he knew anything that might help. “I don't know if this is important,” he said hesitantly, “but I saw the summoner drink a vial of something while she was running up stairs. I think it might have been piaan.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, Bor Manor, Borstown

As everyone started filtering into the armory and short conversations were being had here and there, Freagon started marching straight through without caring, only to then slow his stride and glance toward Yanin and Jordan getting some iron weapons from one of the racks. Finally, when he was just a couple of short steps from reaching and opening the door that would lead into the hall, Freagon stopped entirely and turned around.
“You take one too, boy,” he ordered Jaelnec, who was trailing several meters behind him, only to slightly raise an eyebrow as he realized that the younger nightwalker's attention seemed to be less on him and more on Irah... and that this female true deigan was looking first at his sword, and then at him, before stating her desire to hear the story of his blade.
The grizzled old knight narrowed his eye at her and his jaws worked as if chewing on some imaginary thing in his mouth. He would have ignored her and just carried on walking, had he not decided to wait a moment anyway for his page to retrieve a larger iron implement. Not that he figured Jaelnec would need it; Freagon was confident that he could destroy any divine in the manor before they reached him, and even in the event that one did reach Jaelnec, the boy had a knife and bracers of mostly pure iron specifically for situations like this. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
Even waiting passively as he did in this moment, Freagon figured that he could easily just pretend to not understand Fermian and be entirely justified in ignoring her... but that could result in some annoying discussions later, when the others learned that he actually did speak Fermian. The girl did seem decently skilled with magic and seemed confident about her magical reserves. Her, the male deigan, Sir Yanin Glade... there was potential here. It was probably best to not needlessly antagonize any of them. Yet.
“We will see,” the old nightwalker replied noncommittally in Fermian, making a mental note to prepare himself and decide exactly how much he was going to divulge to her. It was far from the first time anyone had asked him about Roct, of course – practically every true deigan he met seemed to feel entitled to an explanation as to why he, a nightwalker, owned such a thing – and normally he told them the barest minimum. But if he really was going to try to get along with this one, slightly more than minimum might be better.

“I can feel it too,” Kinder reported in Irah's head after she had announced that something was off about her magic. “I can still feel the angels inside, but it is as though something is obscuring my senses. Be careful, Deo'irah; I cannot tell where the angels are right now.”

Jaelnec had naturally assumed a defensive position to guard Irah as soon as they moved to enter the manor and only left her long enough to obey his master's command to retrieve an iron truncheon before hurrying back to her side. He would seem concerned at the signs of her seeming unwell, but also focused, alert and tense, setting aside business that did not seem urgent for as long as he sensed that there might be danger afoot.
For a moment he held the blunt instrument in his right hand as his only weapon, shifting it back and forth a little and turning it in his grip, feeling its weight and balance, then he switched it to his left hand before reaching his right one for the hilt at his left hip. He drew his own sword in a motion that was almost an exact replication of the one Freagon had brandished his weapon with, but unlike his master, the blade that emerged from his scabbard was nothing special. A steel blade of middling quality, its surface scuffed and its edge chipped here and there, well-sharpened and -maintained as much as one could on the road, but obviously worn and getting toward the end of its lifespan.

While everyone else were making their last preparations in anticipating of having to face down summoned divines, however, Lhirin merely had to cast Magnetic Field to manipulate a host of iron needles and swung open the doors to the hall.
The barrage of needles struck the wraith's mostly-wooden body with a loud, rapid series of dull thuds and the sound of splintering wood, and a faint, ghostly voice cried out in agony as it seemed to stumble away, further into the room, only for both chairs to seemingly lose whatever semblance of cohesion they had with the table and clatter noisily to the ground. The table and candleholder was still moving, albeit obviously much slower and more awkwardly than a moment ago, but the chairs had been rendered inanimate by the injection of iron.

His eyes forward, locked on the weakened wraith in front of him, Lhirin stepped forth into the hall... only for his view of the wraith to abruptly become obscured by a mostly-transparent visage that filled his entire field of view the instant he stepped across the threshold. He would feel a warm, wet tightness envelop his head, cover his eyes and ears; suddenly, even though he stood on dry ground, Lhirin's entire head was submerged in water. The liquid instantly prevented him from breathing, only for the water pressure to swiftly increase, especially around his neck, further cutting off airflow, and then pulling up with enough strength to lift the dainty deigan's feet off the ground.
Sitting on the wall directly inside the hall and above the door Lhirin had just walked through, where it could not easily be seen from beyond the doorway, Lhirin would come face-to-face with the creature that had just ambushed him. It appeared as something that only vaguely resembled a creature in the first place, being mostly just an ever-shifting, shapeless blob of water aside from the one pseudopod that had extended to envelop his head and capture him. The only distinctive feature of it seemed to be a pair of yellowish-orange lights within the liquid, staring at him with glee.

The people behind Lhirin might see the tip of this water-pseudopod dart down from above and envelop Lhirin's head in one rapid movement, only for it to disappear upward along with Lhirin a second later with an audible squelching noise.

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, Bor Manor, Borstown

Walking up the six short stone steps ascending toward the entrance and turning the handles of the front double doors of Bor Manor – the door-handles themselves brass but otherwise plain, the doors made of dark, heavy wood with light iron studs and reinforcements with a simple brass door knocker on the right door – the door yielded freely, swinging inward with naught but a faint creaking sound on its hinges. Beyond the threshold was a room left in darkness, illuminated only by the sunlight pouring through the now-open front door, giving a sense that the further into the manor they ventured, the darker the shadows seemed to become.
They were met by the sight of a relatively small six by eight meter room that was mostly plain and utilitarian, with naked brick-and-mortar walls and a floor of somewhat rough stone. The room presented them with a straight walk across it to the next set of double-doors, almost identical to the ones they had just opened to enter this room, with an extinguished oil-lantern hanging in a thin chain from the ceiling halfway between the two doors, low enough that both Yanin and Freagon were in danger of hitting their heads against it. To their left as they entered they would find a series of three wooden weapon racks for storing weapons vertically, and to their right were five different mannequin-esque stands for storing armor or clothes.
One of the armor stands wore a simple set of gambeson and hauberk and a cervelliere on its head, while the one next to it was clad in the kind of coat of plates that was standard-issue for rural Fadewatchers. A third wore a simple but nice long leather coat, but the rest were entirely bare. The weapon stands contained a small selection of arming swords and short spears of steel, but also four of the iron truncheons that were also standard-issue for Fadewatchers, and which were known to be much purer iron than their other equipment. Even so, most of the space here seemed to be empty, either because the equipment that would have been there had already been taken or because the arrangement was designed for visitors to leave behind their weapons, armor and outerwear as they entered the manor.

The second set of double-doors opened as freely as the first, once more swinging away from those entering and inward, only this time into a much, much larger, more open, richer and – in some ways – more welcoming space. The room beyond these doors was 22 wide and 16 meters across, with a floor of smooth, light-gray square ten centimeter stone tiles arranged neatly in a grid-pattern, and the walls were clad with light wood panelling. The hall beyond was also much brighter than the armory they had just gone through, with sunlight streaming in not only from the large windows immediately to the right and left of the entrance that they had seen when first approaching the building, but also from above.
Directly in front of the door, starting but a meter from the threshold, the floor was clad in a thick five by eight meter woven rug, beautifully embroidered with abstract symmetrical ornamental patterns in reds, greens and blues. At the far corners of the rug started a symmetrical pair of stairways leading up to the second floor, widening as they ascended to a landing above that seemed to extend all the way along the wall but with an open center, meaning that the middle of the hall effectively shared its ceiling with the floor above, making it a good seven meters tall. Past the top of the stairways they would be able to see another pair of two by two meter windows on the north-facing second-floor wall that they had not been able to see from the south-side of the structure. A long chain hang from the far ceiling in the middle of the hall, suspending a brass chandelier above the rug, though it appeared that all but three candles on it had already burned out. On the wall directly opposite to where they entered the room, in the pride of place and obviously placed to immediately capture the attention of visitors as they entered, hang an impressive six meter wide and two meters tall painting.

Just as obvious and likely much more urgent to those who entered, however, was the sight of two figures about ten meters in front of the door, on the other side of the rug and between the two sets of stairs. To the right stood a man clad in patchy plate armor that looked like it was probably iron rather than steel, with an iron-studded and -banded round shield in his left hand an a silver longsword in his right. He was clearly beaten and bloody, his face almost entirely coated in blood that seemed to be pouring from a head-wound mostly hidden by his hair. It would be obvious even at a glance from this far away that his left forearm was broken just past the elbow, bending in a very unnatural way under the weight of the shield it wore.
Across from the man, a mere couple of meters from him, stood a bizarre visage facing him. A round wooden table, maybe a meter across, was lightly tapping its feet on the stone-tiled floor, its legs moving as though alive, while a pair of wooden dining chairs stood with their backrests seemingly fused to the tabletop, twisted and facing in the direction of the man across from it, with the legs of the chairs awkwardly waving and twitching like the legs of some horribly misshapen insect, filling the air with the sound of creaking and cracking of wood. A simple pewter three-pronged candleholder wiggled back and forth on the table as well, with the two candle-less arms furthest to the sides having bent themselves down and toward the man as well. As the door opened, however, the candleholder abruptly twisted itself to turn its arms toward the intruders, revealing that the tip of each arm held a sharp, unnatural orange-yellow glow.

“Please help!” the man called, his voice extremely hoarse and raspy. Despite his obviously bad condition he kept his shield and sword up as what the adventurers would most likely realize was probably a wraith turned its attention back to him and started slowly advancing in his direction. “Hurry!”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, outside Bor Manor, Borstown

If Freagon had an opinion regarding anything Yanin said or did, be it his introduction or his apparent lack of interest in the old nightwalker, he did not show it. He shot a look at Jordan when he offered his introductions, just enough to signify that he was paying attention, but similar to Yanin, Freagon then turned toward the open gate and stepped onto the walkway as he finished fastening the straps of his gauntlets.
“I'm Jaelnec,” the younger nightwalker offered, looking at Jordan with a nervous smile and waving a hand at him in awkward greeting. But even then it only took a couple of seconds for him to glance back to his master, realize that he was moving and hurriedly follow him.

Approaching where everyone else was congregating, Freagon let his detached, dispassionate one-eyed gaze sweep over the crowd. He did not outwardly react to anything, and it was too difficult to tell exactly where he was looking to even guess at what he was thinking behind that expressionless face. He did offer a curt nod of the head upon hearing Yanin describe the most effective methods of fighting wraiths, as if in a vague sign of acknowledgment or approval. Then he stepped past and headed for the front door along with him and Lhirin.
As he strode down the short path before him toward the manor, Freagon reached his right hand to his left hip, grasped the ordinary-looking hilt sticking out of the ordinary-looking scabbard attached to his belt, and drew the sword in a quick, smooth movement. Though everything else looked normal, there was absolutely nothing ordinary about the blade. Impossibly pure, smooth and bright, its double edges curving gracefully along the length of its leaf-shaped contour. With a color that seemed like that of silver or even platinum, anyone familiar with extraordinary materials – and Irah in particular, who came from a city that on rare occasions had produced weapons like this – might realize that this was a sartal blade, and an incredibly well-made one at that.

While Freagon walked past without a word and Jaelnec hesitantly followed, the penin woman turned to Yanin with a serious mien and nodded her head resolutely. She pointed toward the front door. “Through that door, the first room is a small armory. There should be a few iron weapons, among other things.”

Taking a moment and listening closely, Yanin would just faintly be able to make out the sound of a woman crying loudly and desperately. It sounded like it came from one of the second floor windows.

Behind them, the bell-ringer – who had seemed somewhat relieved that attention had shifted from him to the penin woman – seemed surprised when Madara opted to address him rather than his employer.
“Ah, yes,” he admitted, gesturing vaguely at his right thigh. “The town was attacked during the night, and I...” He paused, shot a sidelong glance at how everyone else were focused on the manor and what was going on inside, and seemed to stop himself from telling the entire story. “It's just a flesh-wound, it can wait. I was lucky. I saw a couple of guys get clobbered pretty hard by one of those monsters inside while we escaped, though... they probably need help, if they're still alive.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, outside Bor Manor, Borstown

While it was hard for Jaelnec not to stare too openly at the petite deigan beauty that was Irah – though he did not know her name yet, nor did any of the others know his since Freagon had simply introduced him as “the boy” – from the moment she entered his vicinity, it became an impossibility for him to feign indifference when he realized that she was looking at him, meeting his obsidian gaze, and his mind started racing with dreams and fantasies of what meaning he could find in that simple connection. And just a moment later, time almost seemed to stop when a tendril of water snaked out of the liquid halo hovering above her to seemingly wash over parts of her form briefly. He swallowed hard, captivated and fascinated by the sight of this small white-clad woman, who somehow managed to seem defenseless even while demonstrating her dangerous magical powers, and whose choice of outfit seemed to so expertly straddle the line between being provocative and scandalous, both chaste and tantalizing at the same time.
It took until Freagon elbowed him in the ribs painfully for Jaelnec to remember that they were in the midst of urgent business. Freagon had already removed his cloak and thrown it over his horse, and while Jaelnec started frantically removing his own cloak, the older nightwalker slipped out of his black coat – leaving his lutrium cuirass bare and shimmering brilliantly in the sunlight – before slipping on his gauntlets and putting on his helmet, both visors still open.

Just several meters from there the penin woman broke eye-contact with Lhirin to instead stare incredulously at the spot by his feet where he had just ruined one of the stones that made up the path to the manor. Her chest expanded briefly as she puffed up a little, only to exhale and deflate again in an effort to control her temper; though it had clearly annoyed her, it did not seem as though she had any intention of making a fuss about it. Not at the moment, at least.
She did seem impatient to get things moving, however, and rolled her eyes when Lhirin assured her of his competence at handling wraiths and introducing himself, and seemed entirely unimpressed at his claim of having memorized the Deo'iel Guide to Survival.
Before she could give a reply to the male deigan's words, however, his female kinsman stepped in and interjected her own questions. The penin sighed, still impatient but clearly recognizing that the situation, as urgent as it might be, likely did call for slightly more than the smallest possible amount of information.
She ignored Lhirin and turned to Irah instead. “None of the wraiths have used magic. I have seven guests in there, one of which is the summoner. She'd be easy to recognize, she's the only Melenian among them.” The penin winced. “She's not controlling the wraiths, though, and I don't think she's summoning any more of them. I...”
The penin frowned and stomped her foot angrily. “Ah, bhûhl it, I might as well tell the entire story! I was trying to convince some of my guests to help with saving our town's healer, and the one's that actually seemed like the adventuring types had just started making plans for doing that. Then Feevesha – the Melenian – offered that she was a summoner and could aid the operation in that way, and it turned out that three of the other guests were damned witch-hunters! They attacked her and she panicked and summoned a wraith to protect her, and kept summoning more as she fled upstairs.”
She groaned in frustration. “Last I saw, most of my guests were fighting wraiths. I saw four of them.”

In Irah's head, Kinder hesitantly chimed in: “She's telling the truth. I can feel them inside, faintly, radiating... elation. Amusement. They are not under anyone's control, they are having fun. But I think I feel twelve angels inside. One of them much more powerful than the others.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara, outside Bor Manor, Borstown

Down the road about 150 meters to the southwest of the Fadewatcher station, almost immediately across the street from the Borstown winery, stood the manor house of the barony, the home of Baroness Vela Bor and, according to some stories, the very place where the Nemhimian Prooga had been felled 89 years ago.
The very plot of land the manor was built on stood out in stark contrast to its surroundings, as it was the only soil in the area that did not show any signs of crops being grown there or animals grazing. Surrounded by a 220 cm tall wrought iron fence – plain to look at despite the expensive material, but heavy and durable – the plot appeared to be one big lawn or garden. The width of the property took up some 86 meters of the street and went some 62 meters deep, most of which seemed to be occupied by nothing but grass and weeds that ranged in height from knee- to waist-level. Only at the front of the property, the part facing the street, was the grass cut short and suggested a half-hearted attempt at some level of ornamental presentation, with a nicely pruned drakehorn tree bursting with ripe fruits to the right of the building and what appeared to be a cluster of rose-bushes growing right up against the fence with blooms ranging from deep red to bright pink. Though the front garden to the left of the building was mostly just grass, a keen observer might have noticed a fairy ring of white orb-like mushrooms on the lawn at about eight meters in diameter. Irah in particular would be quite likely to recognize it as a ring of horse mushrooms, which were edible and generally regarded as tasty, but sadly not particularly useful in alchemy.
At the very front of the property was a 12 meter deep and 10 meters wide protrusion from the main plot, where the fence took a 90 degree turn toward the street until it was right by it to then turn again and encircle the area. In the middle of the protrusion facing the fence was broken up by a six meters wide double gate of white-painted wood, which were currently opened inward, toward the manor. The gate lead to a broad path cobbled with some kind of flat, circular white stones that lead straight to the front door of the structure itself, on either side of which, directly against the wall itself, were two neat and strikingly beautiful and well-tended flower gardens, the plants in which looked far healthier and more vibrant than anything else on the property and which exploded into a multitude of blossoms in all manner of shapes and colors.
The building itself took up less than half of the plot it was built on, as though it was 70 meters wide it was only about 20 meters deep, with an eight meters long and six meters wide protrusion at the front that seemed to mimic that of the fence and meet the path from the gate with. While this protrusion was only one story tall, most of the main building stood two stories tall.
The architecture was a curious mix of traditional Rodorian and penin design, with very sharp, straight angles everywhere and a generally rather boxy shape and thick, sturdy brick and mortar walls that were left plain, but with exterior detailing in dark wood on the corners and over otherwise bare diagonals that made the surfaces more interesting. The south-side of the manor – the one facng the street and thus the one visible to everyone – also had seven square two meter cross-windows, with four on the ground floor – two on the wall to the left of the entrance and another two at the center, with one window on either side of the protruding entrance – and three on the second floor, again with two on the left, slightly offset from the pair almost directly below them, and one that sat directly above the entrance. All parts of the structure had gable roof with ceramic tiles that looked like they had once been clay-colored, but were stained with growths of dark-green moss and light-green algae.
There was no movement to be seen inside the windows, however; the entire structure was built on a tall foundation, so most of what one could see through them from outside was the ceiling.

Directly inside the gate and to the left were two four meter tall wooden post connected with a metal bar between them at the very top, from which hung the large brass alarm bell that was just now starting to slow its undulating movements and utter its final hesitant tolls before falling silent once more. The bell had been operated with the help of a rope hanging from it, which was currently being held by a muscular human man in a suit of brown brigandine armor, a shortsword at his hip and a crossbow leaned against the bell-post. He looked like he might be in his mid-thirties, clean-shaven and with short brown hair, intense eyes and looking notably unsettled. This fellow, one might notice, seemed to be leaning left, sparing his right leg and had a fresh-looking cut across his left cheek.
A couple of meters from the post and up the path toward the house was a whole little cluster of people. Two of them were humans: a well-groomed gentleman in nice, clean but otherwise unremarkable clothes with a thin mustache and short salt-and-pepper hair that looked like he might be in his late thirties; and a somewhat rotund woman that was also dressed cleanly and nicely, though she wore a mildly stained apron over her dress, with strawberry blonde in a tight braid that reached halfway down her back, who also looked to be in her late thirties.
The last person standing in front of the manor, being fussed over incessantly by the two human servants, was very noticeably not human. Less than a meter tall with a slim and athletic build, this elderly penin woman was dressed in a pair of tight-fitting linen trousers on her short, thin legs, a pair of nice buckled shoes and a black vest over a light-gray blouse. Her exoskeleton had a pale yellowish color and looked slightly uneven here and there, and her large, round eyes were strikingly neon-green in color. She also had a shortsword at her hip, albeit one that looked much more ornamental than that of the bell-ringer, and she was leaning her elbow in the stock of a remarkably well-crafted crossbow with the bow itself obviously being made from metal and some kind of winching mechanism for resetting the bowstring to the lock. The crossbow was nearly as long as the penin was tall.

Outside the gate all the would-be adventurers found themselves gathering in place of the incapacitated Fadewatchers. Jaelnec and Freagon both halted their horses and were just beginning to dismount when Yanin demanded that they identify themselves, only for Lhirin to immediately declare them as allies.
Planting both of his metal-clad feet heavily on the dirt road as he disembarked Xilos, Freagon turned to Yanin with his scarred and expressionless face as inscrutable as always aside from a slight momentary narrowing of his single eye. Beside him, just a couple of meters away, Jaelnec swung himself nimbly from Sabicia, reflexively holding on to his hat, while looking nervously from Freagon to Yanin.
Not that anyone could ever be entirely certain where, exactly, a nightwalker was looking; their uniform black eyes meant that the direction they were facing was the only indication one had of such. Even so there could be little doubt than Freagon's intense attention was solely on Yanin.
There was a slight, ambiguous twitch in the right corner of his mouth as he inhaled one last time through his cigarette before spitting it out into the street.
“Freagon, of the Knights of the Will,” he grumbled while reaching for the gauntlets and helmet he had hanging off the side of his horse's saddle. “The boy is my page. We're here to help.”

Over by the gate, Lhirin was addressing the armored bell-ringer with almost the exact same assurance as Freagon had had.
“Inside,” the man replied, moving toward the ascended deigan with an obvious limp. “Piece of shit guest doing some crazy magic, and –”
“Get off me! I told ye, I'm bûhlen fine!” the penin woman suddenly exclaimed, shrugging off her human servants, slunging her crossbow over her shoulder and striding as quickly toward the gate as her little penin legs allowed. Despite her age she seemed quite fit and healthy as she let her sharp, discerning gaze sweep over the highly unusual, motley crowd that had gathered outside her home.
Her servants started to follow, only to change their minds when their mistress shot them a quick glance, a soft smile and gently shook her head no.
Then the penin turned her attention back to Lhirin, who was the one that had spoken up first, and spoke quickly and clearly: “I still have guests inside. There are wraiths on the loose, don't know how many. 50 rodlin to each of ye if ye help.”

The Prophecy - Dreams of Destiny

Jaelnec and Freagon, entering Borstown from the northeast

A soft smile graced Jaelnec's lips as he rode down the road with his eyes closed. He listened to the steady sound of the hooves of Sabicia and Xilos on the dirt road as they traveled at a trot, the rhythm of the sound corresponding to the rhythm of his own movements in the saddle to create an almost hypnotic experience. He could hear the chain-links of his own hauberk rattling faintly with each of Sabicia's strides, could feel the scabbard of his sword tapping him gently on his left thigh with each sway. Nearby, somewhere to his right, he could hear the cheerful song of a robin and further away, behind him and to the left, he heard the slow, repeating tone of the call of a blackbird, all of it accompanied by the gentle sound of the leaves rustling in the breeze.
He felt the warm sun on his hands and arms through his leather gauntlets and shirt-sleeves, with the pleasant heat only occasionally fading to the chill of an early autumn wind. He could smell the scents of the forest gradually, very slowly intermingling with the smells of a town, just as the sounds of nature began to be accompanied with the sounds of hatchets on wood and voices in the distance. The sound of laughing children.

There was a brief flash through Jaelnec's mind at that sound: an image before his mind's eye of a very young, blond girl's smiling face, which prompted him to immediately open his eyes as he felt a cruel fist close painfully around his heart. For just a split-second he was convinced he could smell smoke and see the faint reflection of a bloodstained toy rabbit, only for the vague memory to fade and give way to the much more vivid present. He shuddered.
Though for just an instant he had been reminded of how he had been back then, Jaelnec immediately felt at home in his body as it was now: slender, yet muscular, strong and sturdy yet agile. He clutched the reins in hands to feel it better through his gauntlets; he inhaled deeply to feel the weight of the chainmail rest comfortingly on his chest through his gambeson; he clenched his thighs and calves and remembered the countless hours of training he had had to go through to become like this. Part of him almost wanted to reach for the hilt at his left hip and draw his bastard sword, just to remind him of the feeling of its weight in his hand and to feel the memory of his muscles bleed into his mind, assuring him that using it had become natural to him. He resisted the impulse, in equal parts because he was afraid that he might scare the townspeople and because he knew that reaching for his sword without reason would likely prompt a harsh scolding.
Instead he reached up and adjusted the wide brim of his hat, feeling the coarse fabric shift against the helmet he wore beneath it. The shade cast by the brim helped, even as the canopy of the forest began to give way and let more and more of the bright sunshine through, casting the world in radiant light. While Jaelnec greatly enjoyed the warmth of days like this, such particularly sunny weather was also troublesome in that the world become so bright that it became blurry to his eyes, shapes and colors bleeding into each other as his nocturnal, uniform jet-black eyes tried their best to adapt. On a day this bright, even just the sunlight reflected off grass and the light-gray dirt and brown dirt was enough to cause him discomfort bordering on pain.
He reflexively moved a hand up to brush back a few stray strands of honey-blond hair that had escaped his shoulder-length ponytail, only to feel his gauntlet-clad fingertips brush over the scar where it trailed across his right cheek, from his cheekbone, across his lips and toward his chin. Again he shuddered, huddling into his linen cloak as this mark immediately served its purpose of reminding him the consequence of defiance.
Sabicia snorted nervously, the mare he was riding seemingly sensing his discomfort, and Jaelnec quickly leaned down to pat her neck and assure her that everything was okay.

Glancing ahead, Jaelnec could plainly see his master, Freagon, riding the gelding Xilos just several meters away. The old man – a nightwalker like Jaelnec himself – sat stiff and straight in his saddle, facing straight ahead. His broad shoulders were outlined by his own cloak, though the cloak was down, allowing Jaelnec to see the knight's messy rat's nest of salt-and-pepper hair.
Without thinking and without really knowing why, Jaelnec's gaze was drawn to Freagon's left hip and thigh, where his scabbard was gently swaying back and forth. He stared at it, ordinary though it seemed at the moment, and felt a strange wistfulness come over him. Uninvited thoughts rose from the depths of his mind of how much he wanted to try to hold that sword himself, to feel it in his grasp, to cut the air with it. Roct: the sword of a true Knight of the Will.
It took a moment for Jaelnec to realize that his master had turned in the saddle, only for the young nightwalker to raise his gaze and meet that of his older kinsman. He let his eyes travel up from the scabbard, up where he could see the hem of Freagon's black coat within the cloak, past the almost blindingly brilliant shimmer of his gold-and-purple lutrium scale armor, to his face. The old man's skin was a mess of scars of all kinds, from burns and cuts and things Jaelnec dared not even imagine, which meant that the knight was mostly incapable of changing his expression, but rather seemed to wear a neutral, indifferent mien at all times. Even so his jet-black left eye – the right being hidden behind a large leather eyepatch – staring at him somehow managed to convey everything that his face could not: intense attention, impatience and expectation.

Jaelnec immediately jolted up straight in his saddle and started looking around frantically, trying his best to spot what it was that his master wanted him to notice, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary. They were still on the road on their way into Borstown, still a little ways uphill from the township itself with a nice view of the entire settlement. It easy to spot several buildings that were obviously bigger and than the others, namely what Jaelnec suspected was the inn, the local Fadewatcher station, what seemed like a winery and what had to be the manor house of the barony. There were people in the street, in the fields and a few along the treeline, but he did not see anything that seemed immediately obvious as something deserving of attention.
After a few seconds of this Freagon's eye narrowed slightly in disapproval, and the glow of the cigarette between his lips brightened as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled a large cloud of foul-smelling smoke.
“People are avoiding walking near those two buildings,” he said, his voice deep and a little hoarse, and he pointed toward the town, indicating two places near the central crossroad: one that looked like a regular house at a distance, a little southeast of the crossroad, the other that was the Fadewatcher barracks. “Most people are taking detours just to not get too close, and those who go there seem to be paying attention to those places specifically.”
Jaelnec took a deep breath to calm himself back down, anxious to feel his master's sharp glare on him like this, then asked: “What does that mean?” His voice was not as deep as his master's, but was young, healthy and strong.
“Not sure,” the knight shrugged, turning his attention once more from his page to the town ahead. “Could be lots of reasons, but most likely something happened. Recently. There's fresh fear in the air.”
Reflexively looking around again as if expecting to see the source of this fear spontaneously materialize out of the undergrowth, Jaelnec frowned. “Should we investigate?”
“We'll ride past on our way to the manor. If something important is going on we'll be able to tell from that. Otherwise we're here to see Bor.”
A worrying thought occurred to Jaelnec: “What if someone's hurt?”
He instantly knew that this was not an acceptable comment when Freagon turned in his saddle once more, fixing his dark stare on him with an intensity that made Jaelnec want to physically shrink so that he could somehow hide. “Have I missed something, boy? Did you become a healer while I wasn't looking?”
Jaelnec averted his gaze and spoke with a trembling voice: “No, Sir...”
“Really? You didn't suddenly discover that you were a healing elementalist, or learn an arcane spell of healing, or gain favored powers? Maybe you discovered a recipe for healing balms that you're secretly carrying with you? Or you've been researching surgery and medicine instead of sleeping?”
“No, Sir,” Jaelnec said, feeling a familiar sense of dread come over him. Though Freagon did not raise his voice and his expression remained the same, there was a coldness to his tone and his stare that never failed to make the twenty-five-year-old man feel like a ten-year-old child being lectured all over again.
“Neither am I. I am a Knight of the Will, and you are my page. My skills are better used elsewhere, and you follow me wherever I go. Or do you disagree?”
Jaelnec swallowed a lump in his throat. His master's last sentence was phrased as a question, but spoken as a challenge: Do you dare to disagree? “N-no, Sir.”
“Don't stutter, boy.” Freagon turned back toward the approaching town. “If we are needed we will act, but someone needing help doesn't mean they need our help. Now get your head out of your ass and pay attention.”
“Yes, Sir.”

Jaelnec licked his lips and started absorbing the world around him through the lens of a knight-in-training rather than a person, pushing back the appreciation he felt for this world that he was a part of to follow his master's wishes. He ignored fond thoughts of how fifteen years ago, before he became his mater's page, he had almost never felt the sun on his skin and mostly experienced the sunlit world through closed doors and curtains. He discarded the past, both the time spent with Freagon and the time before then, and focused on the present. Felt the world crystallize before his senses, not as a beautiful place full of life and wonder, but as a dark one fraught with danger and peril.
A world that needed his sword. A world that he was being trained to protect.

His gaze was drawn to the manor house of the town as he sensed movement there. Several people seemed to stumble hurriedly out of the front of the building, one of which looked notably smaller than the rest. One of them went to the front gate of the fence surrounding the small plot of land, and though it was impossible for Jaelnec to tell details from this far away and in daylight, it soon became obvious what was happening as the sound of an alarm-bell started chiming from down there.
“Go,” was all Freagon said, as both of them urged their horses to accelerate to a gallop, rushing through town with their cloaks fluttering behind them.
They rode for Bor Manor.

Yanin, Madara and Irah, main room inside Fadewatcher station, Borstown

Upon hearing Yanin's rank within the Fadewatchers, the other man – whose tabard marked him as a simple watchman, the lowest rank within the organization – performed a reflexive salute. His younger fellow, who was also a watchman, glanced up at hearing the information but did not move, focusing instead on holding the lantern steady for Madara.
“None, sir,” the Watcher Yanin had addressed answered his questions. “They didn't say anything and didn't wear anything we could identify them from. They came from the northeast and left that way again, too. They didn't seem to be interested in anything else, they just went straight for our healer. They spoke with him first, then he closed his door in their faces, and that's when things got ugly. There were...” He stopped to think for a second before continuing: “There were twenty-two of them, though six of them are piled up in the basement now.”
He heaved a deep sigh. “I'm sorry I can't tell you more, sir. When the bandits ran it was just me, Cavin and a two of the baroness' guys standing, and we decided it would probably be more useful to try to save the wounded than pursuing the enemy into a losing battle. One of the baroness' guys did leave to try to track them, but I haven't heard anything about that since.”

At that point all of them were interrupted in what they were doing by the loud, sudden sound of an alarm-bell chiming relatively close by, and all of the local Fadewatchers that were capable of it – even the wounded ones – froze in place, eyes wide and desperate.
“The baroness!” the one that had been speaking said breathlessly, clearly terrified. “The baroness is calling for help! Please, if she's using that bell it's an emergency! Go! We'll handle things here, but we can't lose the baroness!”

Jordan and Lhirin, outside the Fadewatcher station, Borstown

As Lhirin was leaving and Jordan still contemplating what to do about the situation, the calm and quiet of the day was suddenly shattered by the chime of an alarm-bell from just down the street, from Bor Manor. Within a handful of seconds the sound of the bell would be accompanied by the sound of galloping hooves, as two horsemen came rushing down the street from the northeast toward the manor: both wearing armor, and both with swords at their side.