[center][color=red]Tale's End Slums, Magnagrad[/color][/center][hr]


A part of him felt invincible.

His heart trembled, as it always did, but there was a newborn courage blossoming within it. He had blocked a rocket. Sure, the paling had been shattered into a thousand pieces, but still... He had saved them. Not only his friends, but everyone at the pub as well. It was undeniable. He was a hero! He couldn't wait to rub it in Galahad's face.

Ragnar allowed himself one final glance at the pub as he ran ahead toward the warehouse where the sharpshooter was located. While Ragnar's heart swelled with pride, his brain was swimming in questions. He had no idea what the hell was going on. Why had a rocket been fired with the express aim of blowing up the place where his friends drank? How was the cyan wolf cub able to warn him in time? And, perhaps most importantly, why the hell were there sounds of a fight now coming from within the pub? He supposed none of those things mattered at the moment. All that mattered was the bastard sharpshooter. Ragnar had to reach him before he could reload.

Something in his spine moved in a way it wasn't supposed to. He had endured worse, but here, in a live fire situation, an injury like that could prove disastrous if he allowed it to get in the way of his movements. He did his best to square the discomfort away in some dark corner of his mind.

Twenty feet ahead of him stood the warehouse. There was open window at the top floor where the rocket must've been fired from. Ragnar cursed silently, wishing Ziotea had been there beside him. She would be able to jump to that window instantly, or fling him up there. Ragnar smirked, wondering how she'd react when he told her about this night.

Ragnar maintained his stride, not daring to make himself faster through his ether, as he would need as much of it as possible in the coming fight. When Ragnar reached the entrance of the warehouse, he unleashed a spark of ether in his right palm, summoning his etherblade and in one swift instance he swung the silver-colored sword horizontally across the rotting doors, immediately cutting them in half before plowing through them to the warehouse's interior. There was a chance they weren't locked, but he couldn't risk slowing down.

Ragnar's pace slowed as the darkness of the warehouse overcame him. A singular shaft of light bled into the shadowed space from the open doorway behind him, but whatever this warehouse held within it, he couldn't tell. Ragnar quickly raised an open palm and with a flick of his fingers a glowing sphere of light manifested itself in the air above his outstretched hand. The ethersphere gave off a pale sapphire light, pulsing gently at first, but then blooming violently until its luminescence lit up the entirety of the warehouse floor.

Ragnar paid no mind to the countless crates stacked all across the floorspace. In the instant after the place had been lit up he had scanned the room and spotted a staircase at the far end of the floor. 

Before he could reach the first step of the staircase, a scream pierced through the musty air.

It was a man's voice, crying out in pain. It had come from somewhere high above him. 

Ragnar listened intently, but he could hear nothing else but the sound of the wind coming from the open doorway behind him. He made his way up the steps carefully, one by one, his etherblade humming softly in his right hand.

When he reached the top floor of the warehouse, he saw her. 

The artificial etherlight spilling in from the open window painted her and the corpse of the ice pirate at her feet in a hazy amber light. She turned to Ragnar and though she stood a distance away and the light from the ethersphere was now too bright and he could barely see anything in front of him, he knew that her eyes were staring deep into his.

The sound caught in Ragnar's throat.

"Y-You... You're the girl from before. You sold us the wolf pups," the inquisitor said.


"One hundred-sixty gia. Not enough for a girl struggling to survive in this city," the girl spoke in a voice that was not hers, but seemed to belong to a hundred separate people at once.

Ragnar's heart was beating so hard it almost hurt. Whatever he was witnessing was... not natural. There was something off about the girl, as if he was seeing her through one of Rodion's micro lenses. Her body was like mist, and as her lips moved the air around her blurred. With a sickening horror he saw the splatter of blood framing her mouth. His eyes then focused on the man lying crumpled at her feet and at the horrifying wound on his neck.

"Who are you?" he asked, his eyes daring to gaze at the strange apparition in front of him .

The girl turned away from him and stared down at the pub where his brothers were.

"Everyone," she answered.


[center][b]***[/b][/center]


[center][color=red]The Shadow & Storm Pub, Tale's End Slums, Magnagrad[/color][/center][hr]

There was a gloved hand holding on to Dragonov's ankle, a sliver of bone sticking out from where the wrist had been severed. With a sneer the Varyan lieutenant bent down and pried the ice pirate's fingers from his boots. 

He was covered in blood. Everyone was. Every[i]thing[/i] was.

The fight against the ice pirates had ended as quickly as it began. Quite simply, it had been a massacre. All of the SA soldiers had survived, and none had been so much as wounded. Dragonov wagered the real wounds would be psychological in nature. 

"Once, during the war, a Lanostran prisoner broke free, got his hands on a frag grenade and threw himself into a crowd of our conscripts. The result of that particular incident didn't compare to... this," Dragonov said to Stina, taking a cursory glance at the mounds of viscera and bone that now decorated the dancehall. 

"Well done, I suppose," the Varyan lieutenant said with an appreciative smile, clasping the inquisitor on the shoulder. The inquisitor might've still been drunk, which would probably explain the horrible mess he had made of the ice pirates, but he quelled the threat with ease and for his efforts, Dragonov's men would live to tell the tale.

The giant inquisitor had tore through the ice pirates with such ferocity that even Lycaon and Dragonov had been left slack-jawed by what they were witnessing. After the fight, Lycaon had quietly asked Dragonov if this had been Father Stamenkovikj's first live combat encounter, and when the blue-eyed lieutenant answered yes, Lycaon was taken aback. 

"I feel sorry for the Elurians," the Lanostran officer responded.

"Indeed," Dragonov agreed.

"What now? Kadenza managed to slow us down long enough for him to escape," Lycaon said quietly.

"Don't worry. If I know our other friend as well as I think I do, Kadenza won't be getting very far."


[center]***[/center]

The cellar stank of old virrika and dead rats.

Their footsteps echoed through the old stone tunnel. Above them, Sister Mel heard noises. Screams, gunfire, armored limbs being sliced off and falling to the floor. The cacophony of death and slaughter that was taking place just a few feet above her head was terrifying to her ears, but she couldn't allow it to frighten her. She was a Sister of the Varyan Church. It was her duty to bring people salvation, and that was what she intended to do.

"They're all supposed to be blown to bits. What the [i]fuck[/i] happened? Why do I pay these useless fuck ups?" Kadenza muttered to himself.

"Will you stop for just a bleeding second and listen to me?!" she screamed, her voice resonating through the dark tunnel.

The smuggler ignored her and continued onward, his hands buried in his pockets. Sister Mel remained where she stood. 

"Kadenza," she called, tired and desperate. 

Finally, he listened. Kadenza turned to face her, and for the first time, she could see the terror in his eyes.

"What?"

"I know what they'll do to you," she said.

"So do I."

"No. You don't."

Mel wrapped her arms around him. She rested her face on his chest, hearing his heartbeat. It came in quick violent pulses, like the music that had been ringing in her ears just a half hour ago.

"They'll take you to the Ice Vault in Muraad, where they'll keep you in a frozen cage until your body decides it doesn't want to bother anymore. That's what'll happen if you don't go along willingly," Mel spoke the words candidly, as if this was a known certainty. "I don't know why the SA is after you, but you're a valuable source of information for them. If you cooperate and agree to work with this Lieutenant Dragonov, they'll spare you," she pleaded.

He smiled.

"All those years at that nunnery and you still don't know a fuckin' thing about anything," he answered, pushing her back violently.

"I'm in deep! You've no semblance of an idea what'll happen to me if I talk," he spat, his face contorting with fear and rage, "You think a cold cell scares me? It doesn't compare to what they'll do--"

"And just who are [i]'they'[/i], exactly?" a voice spoke from the darkness behind them.

"Who's there?!" Kadenza screamed, his voice breaking. When Mel turned around, Father Hassan was standing a few feet behind her, a smile touching his lips. 

"Father--"

"Take your friend's advice and get out of here," Hassan said, cutting her off.

Fighting back the tears in her eyes, Mel nodded at the inquisitor. Taking one last glance at Kadenza, the Sister began to make her way past Hassan when a glint of something shiny flashed in the dark. As if in slow motion, she watched as Kadenza raised the jeweled hand-cannon he had been gripping behind him and aimed it at Father Hassan.

In the eternity between seconds, Sister Mel knew. That weapon, at that distance, was powerful enough to blow both her and Father Hassan apart. He didn't care if she was in the way. There was murder in his eyes, and nothing would stop him from pulling that trigger.

As the realization hit her, so did the explosion. She felt the blast of force rocking her backward, and in the instant before she blacked out, she saw a dark blur moving with an inhuman quickness in front of her.

Mel found herself on the cold stone floor. Her ears ringing. Her vision obscured by flashes. It was as if a bomb had gone off in her head. She tried to get up, but realized that she couldn't. Something was holding her in place.

When her vision finally came into focus she found Hassan kneeling in front of her, one hand gripping her arm tightly, the other stretched out in front of him. A pale gold light seemed to be resonating from his open hand. A [i]paling[/i], she realized. To her horror, she realized that same hand was a bloody mess and was missing several fingers. The inquisitor was still smiling through it all. Sweat was collecting on his brow, but somehow, Hassan was soldiering on through the injury as if it was nothing. Whether the man had trained to be able to endure such pain, or if he was just insane, Mel didn't know.

Kadenza was writhing on the ground in front of them screaming, a curved dagger buried hilt-deep in his shoulder. Hassan made his way to the smuggler and with his one good hand he grabbed Kadenza by the collar, picked him up and slammed him hard against the wall.

"You and I, we're going to have a conversation," the inquisitor spoke.

Kadenza continued to scream in agony.

"[color=fff200]Stop screaming, please.[/color]"

In an instant, Kadenza closed his mouth and ceased his wailing. His eyes seemed to relax and though he still trembled from the pain, the same cocksure attitude returned to his face.

"[color=fff200]Tell me about your dealings with Father Dara, the apostate summoner[/color]," Hassan demanded.

"Didn't deal with him directly. He was weird. Didn't talk at all, seemed terrified of everything. There was someone else. He wanted me to find Dara a vessel and a crew. They wanted to cross the sea. To El."

Hassan paused for a second, seemingly to take that last bit of information in.

"[color=fff200]Who was this other individual?[/color]"

"No one important. Some stiff servant. A proxy."

"[color=fff200]A proxy for whom?[/color]"

Kadenza stared at Hassan unblinkingly, then scowled.

"I'll die if I tell you that," he answered matter-of-factly.

"[color=fff200]I don't care. Tell me who this servant was working for[/color]."

Kadenza smiled then.

"He was cautious. Did a decent job of it. Erased his tracks, but nothing gets by me. If I want to know something, I find out. It took me a few months of digging but eventually, I discovered who he's working for."

The young smuggler leaned in close to Hassan with an impish look in his eye.

"Lady Ophelia Bjornlie. Head of the Bjornlie Ether Stock. She's financing the apostate's journey to El, and she's keeping him hidden."