“Nick?” she said, a bit of blood dribbling down her cheek. Her knees went weak. She collapsed, and to his shock, she was not dead. A sliver of her health remained visible, pulsating violently.
Screams followed. Panic. Confusion. Nick looked beyond the clearing to see Sir Gareth approach, his hands empty, his thrown sword embedded in the dying Frost. Black fire burned about his hands.
“I find you at last, demon,” Gareth said. “Heretics ever seek fellowship amid heresy.”
He made a throwing motion, and from his hand flew a thick black orb whose center was solid darkness but whose edges burned with midnight fire.
Spell: Dark Orb
The orb struck Nick square in the chest. He gasped as the fire charred across his leather armor, the impact like a dozen punches to the chest.
“What…” he gasped, unable to finish his sentence as he collapsed onto his back. The attack was nothing like Gareth’s previous magic, built of his faith in Vaan.
Gareth: Level 17 Human
Archetype: Knight
Special Classification: Deity Blessed (Eiman)
Armor: Augmented Chain Mail, Quality Tier 7
The knight has abandoned his god, Sorrow answered. He wields Eiman’s magic now. Slay him, pillager, no matter the cost. This blasphemy cannot stand.
“Slay him?” Nick said, eyeing the approaching knight with dread. “Shouldn’t you two be friends?”
I need not explain myself to you. But what Gareth has become is abhorrent to me. End him.
As if it would be that easy. Nick staggered to his feet, wishing he could help Frost. All around him, members of the Remembrance panicked and fled, led by Ranu.
“Into the woods,” he shouted to them. “Flee, flee to the safe spaces we prepared!”
Two more orbs of shadow swelled in Gareth’s hands.
“I have no business with you, Majere cultists,” he said. “I’m here only for the demons.”
Before he threw the orbs, fire swelled at his feet, bursting forth to form a wall.
Spell: Fire Wall
“Stay back!” Violette shouted, her hands extended as her magic poured forth. “We’ve no business with you.”
“But I have business with you,” Gareth said, and flung another orb unseen from the other side. It passed through the wall of fire, its aim immaculate, to strike Violette in the chest. She rocked, gasping from the pain. The wall faded, her concentration broken.
“You have allied yourself with demons, scholar of Silversong,” he said, pulling his shield off his back. “Their guilt is now yours.”
Nick and Violette unleashed their magic simultaneously. Gareth weathered both with his shield raised high, the
“Run,” Frost said weakly at Nick’s feet. “Just…leave me, I’ll…I’ll…”
Stand your ground, pillager, Sorrow seethed. Or would you abandon the cultists whose lives your presence endangered?
Nick glanced over his shoulder as he readied Sorrow. The cultists had fled, all but Ranu, who remained by the pile of bones with his arms raised and his head tilted to the sky. Nick had no time to ponder what the man was doing. Two more
Despite their differences in levels, Gareth was still weaponless, and Nick lunged forward, hoping that might be advantage enough. Sorrow scraped along the shield, easily deflected. Nick swung twice more, trying to find an opening. Instead, he was rewarded with a sudden charge, the shield smashing into him and awkwardly pinning his arm. It did no damage, but it sent him flying to a tumbling landing on the grass.
“Leave them alone!” Violette shouted, fire swirling around her hands. It exploded outward as an enormous plume, and even with Gareth’s shield to block, it still burned. Flames kissed his skin, but despite the spell’s fury, it only chipped away at Gareth’s health. Not worth the exhaustion it caused Violette as she dropped to her knees. Not when Gareth loomed large, more than half his health remaining. Nick added to it the best he could, two more bolts that crackled through the shield, their damage maddeningly reduced.
When the barrage ended, Gareth bent down, his hand closing about the hilt of his sword, embedded in Frost’s back.
“Nick,” Frost said, still struggling to breathe. Gareth’s heel pressed to her skull. “Run, Nick…”
Gareth stomped with all his strength, cracking her skull. Her head caved in, gore spilling out, bone crunching, and then she was blessedly turned to shadow and dust.
“I pray that suffering was enough,” Gareth said as he lifted his freed sword. “Both of you must learn pain awaits you in Yensere if we are to be free of your evil.”
“Evil,” Nick said, once more rising to his feet. “You’re the one who interrupted a funeral with murder.”
“Is it murder if the victim returns unharmed?” Gareth asked. He slung his shield back over his shoulder and held his left hand up. Dark fire swarmed across his fingers. “Or do you suffer still, in whatever lands you return to when your life here ends?”
Hardly information Nick wished to share. The last thing he needed was Gareth knowing the physical costs he paid with his every death inside Yensere. Before he could think of a proper retort, a new voice thundered across the night.
“Interloper!” Ranu shouted, now standing atop the pile of bones in the heart of the dormant mourning pyre. Gareth held his sword defensively before him.
“I would show you undeserved mercy, cultist,” Gareth shouted back. “Do not come between me and the demons.”
Green light swirled around the edges of the bone pile. It looked like flames at first, until they grew larger and brighter. Moths. Little moths, flitting up and down before diving into the center of the bones. Bones that shimmered a deep emerald and vibrated with life.
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“I keep the ways of the eternal,” Ranu said as matching fire swelled about his wrists. “And for the sake of my people, I will see the champion of the false empire humbled.”
Spell: Bone Storm
The bones of the corpses rose into the air about Ranu, swirling in orbit. Faint green fire shimmered across their bleached white surface. Ranu stood in the storm’s center, majestic in his pale robe. He pointed at Gareth and issued his challenge as his name and level fluctuated before Nick’s eyes, growing in strength from the power of the dead.
Ranu: Level 11 Human
Archetype: Cultist
Special Classification: Necrotic Caster
“Show me the might of the god you serve,” Ranu said. “And I shall give you the promise of those whom death knew not.”
Sir Gareth pulled his shield off his back and held it at the ready. His head lowered, and his legs braced.
“It matters not whom I serve,” he said. “You’ll die either way, cultist.”
He charged Ranu, into the heart of the storm. Bones ceased their orbit to fling toward him in a relentless barrage. Ribs pierced his sides. Femurs struck his legs. Teeth dove for his eyes. The hits were many, but weak, and Gareth relied on his armor to endure them, robbing the bones of much of their sting.
Gareth roared as he charged, and when the gap was closed between him and Ranu, he flung his shield aside while raising his sword. Ranu met the challenge, his arms crossed over his chest. The bones pulled in, latching together to form a wall. Gareth’s sword struck the center and failed to penetrate.
“You insult the mourning song,” Ranu said, visibly struggling from the strain to control the
Gareth bellowed in retaliation, darkness and shadow swelling across his shield to form a swirling maelstrom across the steel.
Spell: Chaos Slam
That seething mass of ancient magic smashed directly into Ranu’s shield. Bones snapped. The magic holding the storm quivered and weakened. Ranu screamed, but he was not yet done. The bones exploded outward in all directions, growing larger and larger to become a dome encasing the two in its heart.
Lightning crackled around the outer edges, the same deep green color as the fire.
“You insult the dead we came to sing in remembrance of,” Ranu said, his voice strained. “Begone, knight. I will suffer your presence no longer.”
Magic swelled. Gareth tensed, uncertain of the nature of the attack. He kept his sword close and his shield on his back, and when the magic did come, he held no defense.
Spell: Bone Storm Finality
The bones shattered at once, erupting with power it seemed only the Majere knew how to manipulate. From within the femurs, ribs, teeth, skulls, and vertebrae emerged fire and lightning, all flickering green and otherworldly. They descended upon Sir Gareth, the lightning reaching first, coursing through his body with such power it paralyzed his limbs so his pained scream could not emerge, his jaw locked shut and his lungs unable to function.
The fire came next, swarming upon Gareth like rain yet falling as silent as snow. It sizzled across his golden armor, charring portions black. It flowed to his skin, his face, beneath his armor, living flame that sought to reach past flesh and muscle to touch the very bone. Now Gareth did scream, guttural, howling, giving sound to the spell as his life dropped by a massive chunk from the overwhelming power of the spell.
Gareth collapsed to his knees, and Ranu did likewise, his power spent. As Nick watched, Ranu’s level plummeted back down to 5. Despair filled him. All that fury, and yet it wasn’t enough to bring down the knight, filled as he was by whatever new blessing had been granted him.
“Foul magic,” Gareth said. His sword had stabbed the ground, and he clutched it to brace himself. “Yensere is better with it gone.”
With speed belying his size, Gareth lunged back to his feet, crossed the space between him and Ranu, and thrust his sword straight through Ranu’s throat. The leader’s body vibrated in a sudden seizure. One thrust. Despite all his power, all his magic, one thrust was all it took to end the man’s life.
“Damn it,” Nick whispered. He’d hoped the cultist could have finally brought down the maddening knight, but tonight seemed destined to be one of cruelty. He retreated, rushing across the grass to where Violette had watched the conflict in stunned silence.
“You need to leave,” Nick insisted, painfully aware Gareth had turned his attention their way. “Don’t worry about me and Frost. We can come back from this.”
“Come back how?” she asked, looking baffled.
“Trust me,” he said, grinning at her despite his pain and exhaustion. He had to show her he was unafraid. “We’re demons, after all.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she said. “Only the stories that I’ve heard.”
Nick lifted Sorrow in both hands.
“It means you run, while I stay and fight. Once you’re safe and Gareth’s gone, return here and look for us. Both of us, me and Frost. We’ll find you, I promise, now run!”
Violette glanced between Nick and Gareth, then nodded.
“All right,” she said. “But remember, I’m learning Majere magic, so if you die, I’ll find a way to bring you back long enough to yell at you for breaking your promise.”
Violette sprinted for the safety of the distant maple trees. Nick positioned himself between her and Gareth. He had a single cast of
“Strange, to see a demon fight honorably to protect another,” Gareth said, his gait unchanged as he approached. Wounded as he was, he showed not a hint of pain. “Does she mean something to you, Nick?”
“She’s a friend,” Nick said, trying to stay light on his toes and ignore how little health remained in that red bar in the corner of his vision. “Surely you have a few of those, besides me? Or does the stick-up-your-ass life of a knight prevent that?”
Gareth paused just outside of reach, his sword tilted slightly and held at the defensive. His eyes narrowed. His muscles tensed underneath his armor, now chipped and burned from the battle.
“A friend?” he said. “Then know that when your life is spent, I will hunt her next. She’ll bleed out at my feet, Nick.” He grinned, sick joy in his eyes. “Perhaps when you return I will have her corpse ready…as a gift between friends.”
Anger drove Nick onto the offensive, even as Sorrow warned against falling for such bait. He abandoned all he’d learned from his training with Frost. No stances, no careful movements, just wild swings with his strength poured into them. The aggression meant nothing to the more skilled knight. He easily batted aside Nick’s panicked slashes, twice, three times, and then shocked him with a sudden lunge forward with his elbow leading. It struck Nick in the forehead, costing him his vision as the world spun and his legs wobbled, threatening to lose their balance.
Knowing he was vulnerable, he swung blindly, hoping to intercept a killing blow. Instead his sword struck Gareth’s armor, rebounding off without harming. In return, Gareth smashed his head straight into Nick’s, further lighting up the world with white. Nick rocked backward, then gasped when Gareth’s fist struck him in the stomach hard enough to crack a rib. An immediate elbow followed, hardened with the gleaming chain mail, striking Nick in the face. His nose exploded with pain, blood splattering.
When he fell, Gareth pressed his heel to Nick’s chest, pinning him to the ground, while the other foot stepped on Sorrow’s blade so he could not swing it. Nick struggled in vain, nowhere near strong enough to overcome the combined weight of Gareth and his armor as the knight loomed over him.
“What is this?” Gareth asked, reaching down with his free hand. “More heretical artifacts? Or did you steal this?”
It was the mirror, Nick realized. It had slipped from his pocket. Gareth lifted it, studying the runes written upon the handle. A strange panic filled Nick, and he flailed with his free hand.
“Give it back,” he said, struggling to speak. Breathing was difficult given the weight. Gareth stared into the glass, momentarily transfixed, and then shook his head.
“No, demon Nick,” he said, pocketing it. “I will take everything from you, bleed it from you bit by bit until you learn Yensere offers nothing but pain to your presence.”
Nick might not be able to push free, but the momentary distraction had caused Gareth to shift his weight and not press down so firmly. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Nick to slide Sorrow’s blade out from underneath the knight’s other foot. He swung, slamming the edge against the side of Gareth’s knee. The knight screamed, blood spilling from underneath the plate, and instinctively he retreated a step.
Nick rolled onto his stomach, clutching Sorrow’s hilt tightly, and scraped his feet along the grass in a struggle to stand. He stumbled more than ran, his muscles weak, his health a pittance of red in the corner of his eye. Up ahead, he saw Violette lingering at Rockgrave Forest’s edge.
What are you doing? he thought. Though his chest ached, he forced himself to scream.
“Run, damn it! Get out—”
His vision blurred, and he desperately hoped he saw correctly that Violette was fleeing into the trees, when he felt the sharp pain of a blade piercing the back of his skull.
Health: 0
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