“While I appreciate your quick response to my last missive, First Preceptor, I still have concerns about your unorthodox appropriation of the Pathmaker’s Lantern. Especially since the item in question is now missing alongside one of your pupils. Only so many assumptions can be made from these facts, and even the most charitable are worrying. To be blunt, Adept Kitthar Marono has never shown himself to have the right temperament to be trusted with such a priceless relic; especially one that could potentially “interact” with his heritage in an unpredictable way. I cannot understand why someone of your experience and wisdom would condone, or even enable, Adept Marano’s actions. But I also appreciate your status and unique perspective might give you reasons beyond my ability to conceive. So, at your earliest possible convenience, please offer a more substantial explanation than was included in your previous response.” - Memorandum authored by Senior Scholar Albius Wazo of the Vindabon Ivory Tower.
Yara stared down at the plaza from the balcony’s doorway, her eyes slowly widening in confused dread as the mad carriage came to a stop before the bell tower. With a wobbly whisper, she asked. “What…is…that?”
Mak, who was kneeling on the balcony proper, crossbow on its railing, didn’t answer for a few seconds. He only broke the tense silence when Kit started to creep up to take a look. “A problem, and an opportunity.”
Getting up from his spot, the mad paladin brushed past Yara and gestured at both her and Kit. “Keep focusing on your magic, we’ll need it for when things get messy.”
He then went over to his nearby pack and started rifling through it, looking for who knew what. Kit met Yara’s gaze for a moment and offered a nervous shrug before sitting back down next to his lantern. Not knowing what else to do, Yara squatted down on the balcony and watched.
So far, the swarm of ghouls was still ignoring them, thanks to the subtlety spell she was feeding into the lantern. A lifetime spent focusing on not being noticed had prepared her well to use her mistress’s gift. However, there was still a certain amount of mental and physical strain that went with the magic, especially now that Kit’s arcane array had her shielding an entire room. She had no idea how long her spell would last, or if it was strong enough to protect them from whoever or whatever was in that carriage.
Having arrived from a different entrance to the plaza, the carriage in question was pretty far from their safehouse, but was still easily visible. Squinting her eyes against the bright overhead sun, Yara watched the scene unfold with great trepidation. Cole stood atop the ruined guard station, the threat of violence clear in his body language. Natalie had emerged from the bell tower’s husk and waited with jittery bloodlust in her partner’s shadow. All while some strange figure dismounted the carriage and babbled off something, the groan of ghouls kept from Yara.
Focusing on her mistress, the thrall tried to reach through their psychic link but found it still partially obstructed. The metaphorical waterfall that kept their minds apart had become inconsistent, with random gaps steadily growing in the sheet of psionic interference. Yara didn’t know if anything sent through that waterfall would be understandable, so she didn’t press on the link. Besides, with every beat of her nervous heart, the gaps grew larger, and she didn’t want to distract Natalie unless there was something important.
Another figure emerged from the carriage then, and Yara’s guts coiled into a hard knot as her survival instincts screamed to flee from that thing in noble dress. Frantically turning to Mak, she nervously hissed. “Something bad is here.”
“I know, give me a moment.” He muttered in response while doing something with a collection of small bottles and vials.
He knew? Did he expect something like this to come? Was he preparing some form of poison for the new enemy? Yara’s eyes flicked to his crossbow, and she wondered precisely how good a shot he was. Considering some of the things she’d seen Cole do with a halberd, and that Mak was more experienced than him, odds were Murtrey had utterly mastered his own weapon of choice.
Then just as Yara allowed herself that little smidgeon of hope, the monster from the carriage grew dragonfly wings and took to the sky. She’d attended temple services when she was younger, she’d heard the whispered stories passed between elders once enough drink had been had, and she’d even seen vampires recoil at the possibility of what now confronted them. Cole and Natalie were facing one of the faerie court’s gentry.
“Sidhe,” she rasped, voice tight in her throat.
Kit looked up from his work, eyes alight with pure fear, but before he could join Yara in panic, Mak snapped. “That’s not an actual sidhe, just something so twisted it thinks it's one. Now be quiet! I need to get this mixture right.”
How did Mak know this? He’d not even looked out at the plaza since the carriage first arrived. Were things like this just that common in Harmas that he knew what to expect the moment he saw the coach coming?
Refocusing on the plaza, Yara watched as the standoff erupted into violence. The false-sidhe slipped through the air faster than she could see, attacking Cole, only to be driven back by his and Natalie’s efforts. The Paladin and Alukah formed a harrowing duo, both bringing spells and steel to bear against the fae noble. For all the mutant’s speed, he wasn’t strong enough to strike them down, but neither were they fast enough to catch him.
Turning away from the battle just as Cole hurled some knives up at the false-sidhe, Yara asked. “How much long-aggh!”
Something terribly thin and terribly sharp had just been jabbed into her neck. Hand going to the wound, she looked to see Murtrey standing directly behind her, an odd device in his hand. It resembled a mix of a glass bottle and a needle. She’d seen things lime that back in Vindabon. What was it called? A syringe?
Yara’s legs gave out from beneath her, and she fell bodily to the floor. Mak caught her head before it could strike anything, but otherwise let her tumble into a heap. Thinking became painfully hard, each disjointed thought struggling to connect to its fellows. Still, she tried to move her arms and legs, but they merely jerked slightly. As her mouth slackened and a line of drool leaked free, understanding finally managed to wriggle itself free of her syrupy mind.
She’d been drugged by Mak.
Looking down at her with an unreadable expression, the mad paladin whispered. “It’s a small dose, won’t do any permanent harm.” Then, after a pause, he added. “Tell Cole… tell him I’m only doing what’s necessary.”
He turned from her, crossbow and pack over each shoulder, and approached another body lying on the floor. Kit had also been drugged and was staring directly at her with bleary confusion. Terror bubbled up within Yara like a corpse’s gases escaping mud as the full helplessness of the situation settled on her limp shoulders.
A painfully loud pop filled the room as Mak uncorked something and muttered words Yara’s mind wouldn’t have been able to grab onto at the best of times. The smell of fetid death suddenly bloomed from the madman, and he crouched down before Kit, obstructing Yara’s view. But nothing stopped her from hearing the series of gurgles and wretches the magi made, nor catching the faint whiff of blood accompanying the thick odor of rot.
Mak stood back up, dragging Kit to his feet in the process. Face pale and waxy, eyes unfocused, the magi looked like a ghoul. The only thing that stopped Yara from thinking he’d just been murdered and reanimated was his shaky breaths and the fresh blood dribbling from his newly pierced nose. A ring of dull metal stuck through his septum, marking him like a bull headed for market.
Grabbing the lantern with one hand and Kit’s shoulder with the other, the traitor hurried towards the staircase, pushing the befuddled magi before him. Right as Mak reached the landing, he glanced back at Yara, and her heart nearly went still. He was wearing one of the masks, one of the jagging human skin masks.
A low plaintive groan escaped Yara’s drooling mouth as she fought to take back control of her body and mind. Everything felt thick and sludgy; her limbs struggled helplessly against the soporific tar trapping them, while thoughts slipped through her grasp, vanishing into the murk of confusion. Well, most thoughts, as one in particular had its hooks so deep in her, she couldn’t have escaped it even if she wanted to.
Mak had betrayed them. Mak had betrayed them and stolen Kit.
The scorching edges of that terrible truth slowly ignited something in Yara. An old, long-locked-away emotion whose bindings had just recently been loosened. She was angry, no, not simply angry, she was furious. Within her addled mind, a flame started to grow, one born of that most dangerous of feelings, righteous wrath. She would not let this happen!
As the fire grew, it set the mental sludge keeping her trapped to boil. With an effort she didn’t know was in her, Yara curled her fingers into a fist and started to push against the floor. Dull muscles slowly rallied to the beacon of her fury, and soon she was partially propped up on a single wobbling forearm. This maddeningly minor, yet somehow monumental task set her heart a thundering. With every passing second, the boneless weakness filling her was boiled away by the flame of wrath, until she was on her hands and knees.
After managing to pull her head up, Yara fought a wave of vertigo and then felt her jumbled thoughts slowly coalesce into a web of connections. Mak had drugged her with something that relaxed every part of her into uselessness. But he was no expert on vampire thralls and had given her a measly dose on account of her size. Petite or not, Yara had spent her entire teenage and adult life being near-constantly injected with vampire venoms. It would take far more than what Mak gave her to keep Yara down, especially when Natalie’s gifts and her own determination were involved.
Yara got to her feet after three tries, then slurred a curse at the fleeing traitor. “Ja-jagging bastard.”
She stumbled towards the staircase, her legs becoming steadier with every step. Halfway down the splintered stairs, Yara remembered what awaited her outside the safehouse. There were ghouls, ghouls she’d need her magic to slip through. That thought struck another like a careening billiard ball, and she realized why Mak had used a different drug on Kit. Whatever potion made the magi look like a ghoul would probably fool the actual ghouls. That, along with the skin mask would let them make a clean escape.
Yara slapped the side of her head, trying to knock more good thoughts free. She needed to think to use her magic, and despite her body quickly recovering from the drug, her mind was lagging a few steps behind. Still, a few vague ideas managed to escape the sloshing currents within her skull and coalesce into something resembling a plan.
After managing to turn about on the stairway without falling, she clambered back up towards the upper story and headed for a different room than the one with the balcony. At its far end was a small window covered by heavy curtains. Grabbing onto the mouldering drapes, Yara pulled them down, bringing the metal curtain rod with them. As the sound of metal clattering against wooden flooring echoed across the room, she realized too late the attention that would draw now that Kit’s lantern was gone.
Spurred onward by the noise of breaking glass coming from below, Yara took up the rod and used it to smash the window’s lock. Improvised cudgel still in hand, she clambered up onto the windowsill and found herself peering down upon a ghoul-infested alley. Tattered hands reached up from below, their grasping, hungry fingers making her stomach heave. But she didn’t have the time nor the thoughts to spare on being scared; all that mattered was following Mak and getting Kit back.
Using one end of the curtain rod like a shepherd’s hook, she reached across the tight space between buildings and to the window opposite her, yanking open dusty shudders and providing her a way forward. Just as clumsy footfalls started to sound on the stairs behind her, Yara wrapped herself in a section of fallen drapes, then hurled herself from one window to the other.
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Glass shattered about her, but momentum and thick fabric kept it from her skin. After landing on a stretch of carpet with a plume of dust, Yara scrambled free of the drapes and crystal shards, just to find a ghoul staggering towards her. Before her mind could remember to be afraid, she struck out with the curtain rod, sending the hungry corpse sprawling, its neck bent at an odd angle. She stepped over the body and started moving through the new building, looking for useful windows and doors. It didn’t take her long to find a ladder leading to an attic with its own window. Clambering up into the stinking space, ignoring the two rotted bodies sitting in one corner, Yara got the rusty window open and crawled up onto the roof.
Moving between rooftops was her best bet to not just keep track of Mak but beat him to wherever he was going. As even if the ghouls ignored him, moving through that many bodies took time; something Yara had learned the hard way back in Vindabon. She’d also not wanted to climb onto the abandoned safehouse’s roof for fear of instantly catching Mak’s attention. Leading her to her current position, scampering over worn shingles, and trying desperately not to be noticed.
Upon cresting another ridge, she dared to look down at the plaza and noticed two major things. First, Cole and Natalie were still fighting for their lives against the false-sidhe. As much as Yara wanted to see if the psychic interference was gone, she wouldn’t risk distracting her mistress and getting everyone killed. Secondly, she spotted an odd, slowly closing gap in the ghouls, a path of pushed-back and knocked-over bodies. Her addled mind conjured up a term Alia had once used. “Game trail.”
Sure enough, at the start of the path, she found Mak, hurriedly moving through the tide, Kit being dragged behind him. Upon seeing the traitor, Yara’s hand went to a broken shingle, and before her syrupy mind could realize how bad an idea this was, she hurled it at the hunter. The piece of clay fell painfully short and struck an unlucky ghoul. Mak’s gaze snapped over to the impact and then up to cut across the rooftops. Like a hammer being taken to a neglected spigot, Yara’s sudden terror knocked loose more of the sludge in her mind, letting magic once again flow freely.
She soaked herself in as much subtlety as she could summon, and to her immense relief, Mak looked right through her. With redoubled urgency, the traitor got back to pushing through the ghouls and towards his destination: the carriage. So much made sense now; Mak hadn’t survived because of his skills and mantle; he’d survived because he’d sold himself to the fae. But once this ugly realization finished blooming, it bore an even more bitter fruit. What did the prince’s court want with Kit and the lantern?
Spurred on by this new worry, Yara looked frantically around the plaza for some way to beat Mak to his destination, and noticed a set of familiar forms sitting in front of the now abandoned safehouse. Natalie had left some of her wolves as guards, but they’d been utterly useless. In fact, as the Ancilla spared another second staring at the spectral wolves, the clearer it became that something had been done to them. They sat perfectly still, showing no signs of their usual lupine body language. Additionally, the ectoplasm that made up their bodies had a thicker, more soupy look to it. Of course, an alchemist paladin of Master Time would be able to drug jagging wraiths!
Yara ran to the next set of eaves and crossed over to another building, as her growing frustration reached a boiling point. Her mistress and the paladin had clearly been suspicious of Mak, but still walked right into his trap. They’d given a drunken madman the benefit of the doubt, and now… and now… one of the few people who’d ever been kind to her was paying the price. But yet, bitter as Yara felt, certain other thoughts were finally escaping the emptying swamp in her skull, thoughts she preferred buried. Cole and Natalie may have given a drunken madman a chance, but not long ago, they’d also given one to the broken thrall of a vampire who’d hunted them. Mak may have spat on this offer, but Yara knew her accepting it was the only reason she was still alive.
With those sobering thoughts lying heavy on her shoulders, she found a reasonably sturdy-looking downspout and began shimmying down it. The carriage was close, and once she reached the plaza floor, it wouldn’t take her long to reach it, that is, if the ghoul packs didn’t grab her. The fact that she hadn’t been noticed by any of the shuffling corpses below her was encouraging, but crowds by their very nature did not play nice with subtlety spells. Or… at least they normally didn’t.
A lifetime of trying not to be seen had educated Yara well in all the ways people ignored things, including how groups might miss something a single person would not. The magic wreathing her would crumble under the combined scrutiny of so many eyes, be they living or dead, but if she gave the crowd a reason to ignore her, they would.
She silently dropped down onto the paved stones in a space between corpse packs. Quick as Yara could, she unsheathed her knife and approached a stray ghoul. This was going to be messy, but if she could move the rotting remains of Sir Dietrich’s meals, then she could do this to save Kit. Yara spun the ghoul towards her and plunged her knife into it over and over; first in the neck and then down its torso, spilling a cascade of fetid blood and viscera onto her.
The split-open ghoul tumbled to the ground, and a few of its fellows glanced in its direction but otherwise didn’t react. Whatever passed for senses and a brain within those rotting husks had dismissed Yara as just another member of the swarm, a face in the crowd, not worth noticing.
After wiping the worst of the filth from her face, Yara got to work moving through the ghouls. This was another skill she’d long practiced. With her slim form and nervous dexterity, she could slip through the gaps in groups with ease. A knack that put her in direct contrast to Mak’s pushing and shoving. He was nearly at the carriage, but was also moving much more slowly through the swarm. She was catching up to the traitor and could even see Kit trailing behind him. The magi was still terribly drugged, and Yara felt a new twinge of worry upon seeing his vacant expression. What sort of damage would such a poison do to him?
By now, the mass of bodies around her had grown increasingly thick, forming a tightly packed ring that stood two paces out from the carriage and its pullers. The magic that kept the faerie coach clear of ghouls was stripping away Yara’s advantage. Mak had already shoved himself partially through the ring, while she kept bouncing off its edges, unable to find the right opening.
Once Mak vanished from view, Yara’s desperation overruled her caution, and she forced herself forward into the mass of corpses. No longer was she swimming through the gaps in the crowd; now she could only desperately wriggle between the ghouls like a carrion insect. With every paltry step, the layer of grave filth covering her grew thicker, as she squeezed herself through the groaning corpses. More than once, she felt dead hands groping after her. Each time she battered them away, she feared her disguise was finally undone. But terror and determination were a potent fuel for her magic, and she remained unnoticed as she got closer to her goal.
Kit’s hand was just an arm’s length away. With one final shove, Yara pushed herself forward and tried to grab his fingers before Mak finished pulling him through the ring. Not long ago, the idea of holding his hand, or anyone’s, in fact, would have made Yara recoil; now, she was bound and determined to grab hold of the magi and not let go. Her fingers brushed against his sallow skin as she fought to get a grip, but the mix of sweat and filth covering her let Kit slip away at the last moment.
It took all Yara had not to shout “NO!” Instead, she pushed a seething breath between her teeth and got to work with her knife, trying to hack through the tightest part of the ring as if dead flesh was thick foliage. Gore and viscera splattered out from each ghoul she cut, staining everything a dark, oily brown that was slick beneath her feet. Yara struggled and thrashed while trying to keep the filth from her eyes and mouth. Her desperate slicing had done little but turn the ghouls from dense undergrowth to a treacherous swamp. All around her was death, rotted death that tightened its grip no matter how she struggled. As Yara nearly slipped on a length of entrails, a new, terrible thought pressed in on her finally clear mind. What would it be like to drown in a corpse-tide?
A strange noise slipped through the droning of the ghouls; it was a wet gurgling gasp. Looking up in the noise’s direction, Yara caught sight of a small form being hurled into the mass of ghouls. Fresh blood followed after the plummeting person like a comet’s tail, and he impacted into the swarm not two meters from Yara. Instantly, the ghouls' behavior shifted; no longer did they shuffle in place like a crowd of gawking onlookers, as one, they surged towards the bleeding body.
Now it was Yara’s turn to be battered and pushed, as over a hundred hungry corpses fought for a place at this red feast. Wave after wave of dead flesh pressed down upon her, threatening to not just crush Yara, but the surrounding ghouls. Stabbing, kicking, punching, pulling, she tried everything to keep herself above the tide, but the inexorable weight of so many bodies was pulling her down. She wanted to scream, to cry, to call out to her mistress, but she lacked the breath or focus to do anything more than keep struggling. If her concentration lapsed for a moment, she’d drown or be torn apart.
Something heavy slammed into her shoulders, and Yara was shoved down by a hulking ghoul who was trying to pull himself over his fellow and towards the sounds of tearing flesh. Pressed down into the morass, Yara could do little but curl into a ball, as dead bodies battered and struck her. Panic gave way to despair as she realized there was no way out of this. The weight upon the subtlety spell was growing unbearable; a single lapse, and the now agitated ghouls would descend upon her like the poor bastard nearby. Even Natalie and Cole, for all their powers, wouldn’t be able to reach her in time if she risked sending a message.
She was going to die here, badly, and odds were there wouldn’t even be enough of her left to bury. As that truth struck her over and over like a blacksmith’s hammer, Yara couldn’t believe how stupid she was. How could she have possibly thought chasing after Mak and Kit was a good idea? She wasn’t a vampire, she wasn’t a priestess, she wasn’t anything but what her betters decided she was! In fact, she was less than even that! Yara was a poor thrall and a worse person. A wretch who’d only lived this long thanks to the mercy of others. Now, there was no mercy left to beg; all that remained was the fate she’d always known was coming, to be fed to unliving hungers.
A heavy strike sent Yara to her side, and as she tried to reposition her hands to cover her face, she noticed something. Wrapped around her wrist was a bracelet of filthy gemstones. Kit’s gift to her. With all avenues shut, Yara was faced with one final path. She needed to use more of the magic woven into the bracelet. Till now, she’d just been using it to loan her subtlety spell to Kit, but his creation wasn’t selfish; through it, she could borrow some of his telekinetic skill. Something she’d not even tried before. In fact, Yara had no real idea how to do this, or if it would even work, considering Kit’s current state. But that didn’t change the fact that she had to try.
Grabbing onto her own wrist, clutching at the bracelet, Yara focused on the flow of magic moving through her and the enchanted gemstones. The warm coppery slickness she associated with her subtlety spell covered her like a phantom tarp, a tarp whose corners were tied to the bracelet by four “knots.” The knots anchored her magic to four matching gems in the bangle, helping keep her gift stable. But the subtlety spell wasn’t the only thing bound to the bracelet; other dull, empty pockets hung loosely from it, each waiting to be filled. These must be the gems Kit couldn’t finish. Beyond these were two more active gems, one whose power was sealed away tight, while the other was sprouting a long, thin thread that trailed off away from her.
Not knowing what else to do, Yara clutched at the thread and nearly lost concentration as a spike of information pierced her mind. With the same certainty she had in knowing where her arms and legs were, Yara knew where Kit’s lantern was. The seelie relic was sitting inside the coach, next to a drugged and bound Kit. Through the thread’s connection, she could see more of its kind, coiling out of the lantern and into the magi in a mass thick as rope. For one brief moment, Yara wondered if she might be able to reach through the lantern and rouse him, but now wasn’t the time for fantasies.
Instead, she focused on the other gem, the one with magic locked away. It seemed intrinsically linked with the thread gem, and as Yara considered it, a slight phantom hum started in her head. It was the sound of a violin being tuned. A cold shiver ran up her spine as pure intuition took over. She poured her limited power into the thread and violin gems, letting her subtlety spell flag in the process. Like a pressed fruit, the magic in the violin gem burst free, flowing into the other gem and Yara herself.
The thin thread swelled from a sliver of awareness into something more potent, something more tactile. Yara could feel the lantern and the carriage it sat in as if her hand was grabbing onto both. These phantom sensations bludgeoned her mind, and the subtlety spell sputtered out. Yet before broken teeth and grasping fingers could find her flesh, Yara grabbed tight onto the carriage and “pulled” herself towards it.
She shot forward with breakneck speed, slamming into the legs of dozens of ghouls, knocking them down as she flew towards the carriage. Yara’s body skipped along the slick stones. Her already disgusting leathers, collecting new layers of filth in the process. Keeping her head down and her arm up, she struggled to keep her “grip” on the carriage as her body tried to pull itself apart.
After bursting through the last of the ghouls, Yara allowed herself a single look around to see that the carriage was already moving, but not anywhere fast enough to escape her. In that split-second, her stunned mind found the time to notice Mak alone sat in the coach’s driver's seat. Which… meant the original driver was the one thrown to the ghouls. Something that didn’t make much sense if Mak really was working for the fae. But before she could give this much more thought, the rapidly approaching back wheels of the carriage pulled Yara’s focus.
She twisted her body, rolling herself over twice, skidding along the plaza, earning herself some more bruises, but keeping the wheels from crushing her. But now her head was directly below the axle, and the telekinesis was pulling her up towards the spinning cylinder. Frantically, she reached up and over, grabbed onto part of the undercarriage, weakened her magical grip, and started pulling herself towards it physically. Yara bit down a scream of pain as she lifted her exhausted body up into the wooden supports. Now with her legs to help, she managed to sling herself beneath the carriage like a load of contraband.
Once she was reasonably certain the magic wasn’t the only thing keeping her secure, she let go of whatever mad spell Kit had packed into her bracelet. Immediately, she felt terribly lightheaded, and her grip started to slacken. But lightheadedness was an old friend, and it had never been an excuse to slack off in Glockmire. After wrapping herself around whatever she could, while ignoring how the jostling carriage battered her cut and bruised body, Yara summoned up enough strength to reach out through another link. One that was no longer hampered by perfidious magic.
+ Mistress, help! +
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