Farren was the first to follow up his first attack with a shot from a blunderbuss straight into the warping flesh of the rapidly mutating thing that resembled Arrayah less and less by the second. Fired from a couple of meters away, most of the quicksilver pellets hit the surrounding flesh due to the enormous innate spread of the blunderbuss' projectiles, but at the same time that also meant it was borderline inevitable that some of them did manage to hit the wound itself. The reaction to this was instant, as the afflicted area seemed to suddenly swell and leak some manner of disgusting, necrotic-smelling yellow fluid.
But while Farren was doing that, Ophelia took the time to follow her completed eldritch weapon's instructions and evoked the power of the Archspark, which switched the very nature of her blade from being arcane-based to being bolt-based. When she immediately followed up this change with a repeat of using the ranged attack of the Profane Abyssal Blade, plunging her sword into her shadow once more, they all found that the actual manifestation of the attack differed quite a bit from how it had appeared the first time. Whereas before the blade emerging from Arrayah's shadow had been black, it was now an intense shade of sapphire blue; still a thing of darkness, yet seemingly giving off a hint of color it did not have before. The blade thrust up into the monster's body, but this time it neither shattered nor deflected when it met her hide. Instead the unnatural attack seemed to simply bypass Arrayah's skin and flesh entirely, phasing through her without inflicting any physical damage... except that from the point of contact, electric sparks and fingers of crackling lightning seemed to be shooting out and crawling across her exterior. When Ophelia immediately retracted her sword, a fine mist of steam remained behind as the projected blade disappeared. Though the damage did not seem to particularly hinder Arrayah – as almost no damage had managed to do so far – it was clear that the voice had spoken the truth: her sword had hurt Arrayah much more than when it had been attuned to the arcane. Sadly even this increased damage seemed almost beneath her notice due to her immense and recently replenished vitality.
Yet even though both Farren and Ophelia managed to land a couple of attacks first, it seemed that the abomination's writhing and screeching finally reached a crescendo. Very abruptly the flesh just below Arrayah's left arm bulged, only for the skin to burst in a spray of blood as a fourth arm seemed to grow out of her explosively, as long, strong and clawed as the three others had now become. Her new hand immediately shot out and viciously slashed at the nearest target: the Moonborn Hunter, who had been bludgeoning her hip with a charged Tonitrus. The attack was shockingly fast, even faster than Arrayah had been before, and even the Moonborn did not have time to react before blood splattered from the wounds left by the talons of their enemy. The Hunter stumbled backward and fell to the floor; still alive, but sufficiently eviscerated by the attack to need a second or two to regenerate. Then Arrayah reached down toward her waist with all four of her hands, and placed one set of left and right hands on what would be equivalent to her hips and one set on her hind body. With a deafening wail that all but completely drowned out the sickening noise of rending flesh, she liteally tore herself apart. She did not cut, but pulled her own flesh and bone apart with sheer brute strength, spilling obscene amounts of blood as she did so. Ultimately her hind body simply collapsed on the floor, its countless limbs still twitching in death-throes but rapidly growing still, while Arrayah's top part dropped to the floor about a meter from it, still very much alive.
Arrayah's hands reached toward the floor and raised herself up, using her arms as disturbingly insect-like legs. And then, in a flash – the speed of which they would immediately realize was that of a quickstep, though its range appeared much longer – she was within a meter of Ophelia, with one of her left hands lashing out to claw at her with blinding speed.
Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara – Borstown, Bor Manor, dining room
“You did,” Vela conceded with an approving nod to Yanin. “To be clear, this is not the same kind of task as your first two. Doin' this will not help Borstown, nor me personally, directly. It is not a critical emergency, and if you disagree the problem will still be resolved... eventually. But we will have to wait until a team of deo'iel gets here to do it.”
On the baroness' left, from the north side of the dining room where the kitchen and pantry were located, Wade and Kylie returned to deposit an armful of food each. Wade arrived carrying a hefty copper pot that gave off a strong aroma. It contained a hearty venison stew with broccoli, onions, leeks and tomatoes; a meaty meal with ingredients chosen specifically to avoid starchy vegetables to accommodate the diet of a palanter... or half-palanter, as was the case here. Kylie came bearing a large, wide copper tray laden with what appeared to be a literal silver platter of baked apple slices with cinnamon, a second silver platter with baked potatoes, a copper bowl of roasted nuts and a loaf of dark rye bread. It was all simple but expertly cooked, with plenty of vegetarian alternatives. The even mildly attentive among them might notice that not only the cookware being brought in from the kitchen, but also the dinnerware arranged at the seats on the three dining tables that were arranged end-to-end, were all metal, and their plates even appeared to be silver. As Wade had reported earlier, it seemed that Bor Manor had not yet managed to replace all the dinner- and cookware that had been destroyed to form the vessel of the ceramic wraith.
While her servants set their burdens down on the middle table, Vela continued: “But that's plenty of platitudes, I think. I'm offerin' you all another thousand rodlin to travel to Wenal and track down and stop a vampire that's been makin' a mess over there. And before you even ask,” she added, glancing meaningfully in Irah's direction, “this is the nasty kind of vampire, not the kind I'd expect to be reasonable. He's been actin' really weird, pickin' random victims from random villages, feedin' on them a bit and then turnin' them. He's been leavin' a trail of new vampires all over the place – twelve of them from my last report – , and it's caused all kinds of havoc.” Her expression darkened. “A couple of them even decided to just sit where they had been attacked, waitin' for dawn to incinerate them. And another several went home and couldn't stop themselves from slakin' their thirst on their families before comin' to their senses.”
While Ophelia and Farren began to realize the depth of the victory they had just achieved, Arrayah more than fully comprehended her own defeat... but more than that, more than anything, she felt the unimaginable vastness of the loss she had suffered. She had been stuck here, in this little cavern, for so long... mad, hungry, angry, hateful, but more than anything she had spent all this time here obsessed with the idea of herself as the champion. The Profane Abyssal Blade was so much more than her mentor; it was the beginning and the end of her entire world, the root of her very identity, her everything. It was simultaneously what had driven her insane and what kept her sane; it was what had made her lose her humanity, and what allowed her to hold on to what humanity she had left. And now she had lost it. Not only had the weapon left her grasp, it had ceased to exist the way it had before, and what remained of it was in the hands of someone else. Another “champion” who was so much less than her in every way, yet who had taken everything from her. Ophelia. She recognized this for only a second before her capacity for understanding left her, and all rationality was burned from her brain. Along with the long, piercing, primal scream she let out, almost everything else left her as well. Everything except the hate. Her eyes opened so wide that their corners ripped and she started to “weep” blood.
The first thing the thing that had once been Arrayah, the Black Blade did was to dispose of the burdens that remained on it. She swiped her arms to either side with immense force, tossing the saw spear with her right hand into the nearest perimeter wall of the cavern where it hit so hard that nearly the entire blade, all the way up to the handle, became embedded into the rock. Her left hand, meanwhile, exerted a similar amount of force as it threw the helpless Torquil in the opposite direction, across the entirety of the cavern, past the central column and all the way to the far wall. It happened much too fast for Farren to even have a chance to stop it. Torquil found himself pathetically cartwheeling through the air for what felt like an absurdly long time before impacting the rock wall. Far off in the distance from everyone else, Torquil faded away and disappeared, banished back to the Hunter's Dream.
At the same time, Ophelia and Farren moved. Farren stepped in and delivered a powerful swing that cut deep into her flesh... only for the flesh he had just cut to start writhing and convulsing rather than immediately healing, as if something behind the skin was suddenly awakened and began to move. These convulsions spread out from the wound – which, though seemingly still there, stopped bleeding instantly – and her body began to twist and bulge even more obscenely than it ever had before. With small bursts of blood, new eyes opened on her head... then on her neck... then on her shoulders, down her back and chest, and soon started opening all over her torso. Small eyes, big eyes, eyes that loosely resembled human ones, ones with pupils as vertical slits, even eyes that looked like those of an octopus, with the only common feature was that they all glowed with an azure light. Those of her fingers that did not already have claws abruptly spurted long, scythe-blade-like talons, and her muscles seemed to swell to a monstrous degree. And all the while she kept wailing, giving voice to the unfathomable malice that now permeated every molecule of her being.
Ophelia quickstepped backward and acted upon the instructions she had received from her completed weapon, projecting a three-meter long black blade from Arrayah's shadow and into her body... though it appeared that the arcane blade coming out of the ground still did very little. Rather than pierce Arrayah's flesh the way the spears projected by the Profane Abyssal Blade had impaled them, this blade seemed to only cause superficial damage before the arcane energy that composed it seemed to scatter into a fine mist, breaking apart before it could overcome her resistance. “Ah,” the voice of her new sword intoned in Ophelia's head. “Its former champion has become inured to influences of the Nightmare, which has also given her resilience against the arcane. Even its completed blade is still arcane, but it is not of the Nightmare. If it... It is difficult without its rune, but... Champion, feed it two quicksilver bullets and incant 'evoke archspark'.”
Upon realizing that her initial plan had failed owing to the muted nature of frozen time, Ophelia resolved to hold position, maintaining contact between her weapon and that of Arrayah, and waiting for the effect of the snakescale hourglass to expire. In a world without time she found herself bizarrely waiting for time to pass; for those stored-up five extra seconds she had absorbed from the hourglass – from the powdered scales of a Great One who devours time as it passes – to go by and everything to go back to normal. The tension would doubtlessly be palpable, and she would find that she did not even have the comforting whispers of the Holy Moonlight Sword to keep her company, as even its consciousness seemed on pause. Once time resumed and color and sound returned to her world, she would have to speak the incantation again. But of course it would not be without immense risk: they had all already witnessed many times just how fast Arrayah's reactions were, how quick her reflexes, how sharp her instincts. Ophelia had an undeniable advantage by knowing what was happening before it happened and waiting expectantly for her chance to strike while it would come as a surprise to the monster before her... but even so. If Arrayah spoke the swords' incantation first, she would be the one to reunite the halves, to gain the completed whole and become the true champion. Ophelia had the advantage, but this was still a gamble with possibly incomprehensibly high stakes. With how powerful Arrayah had proven with just the Profane Abyssal Blade, how much worse would she be with it combined with the Holy Moonlight Sword? Would any of them stand a chance against such a fierce creature possessing such arcane power? Would anything in the Old Labyrinth? Would anything in the Waking World?
After the quite possibly longest five seconds in Ophelia's life, as abruptly as it had stopped, time resumed. The black spear sank into the rocky floor, the saw spear continued its thrust toward Farren's back, Farren's glaive slashed across the back of Arrayah's fingers for the second time. Above, Arrayah's many pupils contracted into tiny dots and slits as all of them instantly focused on Ophelia and the fateful point where their weapons joined. Her lips parted, her throat contracted and her tongue moved as she produced words in her foreign language. But Ophelia spoke first. “Gestalt truth!”
The experience of what came next was surprisingly reminiscent of what she had experienced after she broke the snakescale hourglass: there was a burst of nebulous something in her hand, and the handle of the Holy Moonlight Sword vanished, just as the Profane Abyssal Blade seemed to disappeared from the monstrosity's hand. Arrayah, Farren and the Moonborn Hunter all staggered backward and away from Ophelia, pushed by an unseen shockwave that shot out powerfully – ironically saving Farren from being stabbed in the back – before the world was consumed by darkness. For an instant, all of them found themselves in a world of endless black; an infinite abyssal void, an incomprehensible vast, primordial emptiness. Then there was something else: scattered across the darkness as tiny pinpricks were countless lights. Were there thousands? No... millions. Billions. Each one miniscule and insignificant next to the sheer magnitude of the void, but so innumerable that what was still mostly the infinite black now seemed alive and beautiful. The Cosmos. And at the core of it all, sitting calmly in the palm of Ophelia's hand, was the brightest light of all: a miniature moon, bathing her in its cold, pale light. Compared to everything else it seemed so small, barely a speck next to all the other darkness and light in the Cosmos, yet from their perspective it was bigger and more brilliant than anything else. Then – after a long instant that lasted but a tiny fraction of a second – all of this immense and glorious reality, all the darkness and light of the Cosmos, abruptly collapsed on itself. Everything folded into itself, becoming smaller and smaller, until it finally condensed in Ophelia's waiting hand.
Arrayah let out a scream of ageless rage and agony as a new weight settled into Ophelia's grasp. She found herself holding a long, slender and beautiful handle that was more than long enough for both of her hands, that flared into a sweeping crossguard. Beyond that stretched a blade that was quite possibly the most exquisite thing any of them had ever seen. It was slightly longer than even the Holy Moonlight Sword had been, but also only a fraction of its thickness and width, tapering into a fine point at its tip. It weighed only a fraction of what the Holy Moonlight Sword had, and its balance felt so perfect that it almost seemed weightless to handle. The tip of its blade was perfect black, a condensation of the primordial void they had witnessed as the weapons combined, but the further down the blade you looked, the more specks of light seemed to be strewn across it, until it all culminated at the base of the blade, right against the hilt, where it seemed to give off the radiance of the full moon. A blade of light and darkness, of nothing and everything, of rage and serenity, despair and hope. The completed blade. A voice spoke in Ophelia's head that was not the feminine whispers she was used to, nor was it the masculine voice she had heard since the Profane Abyssal Blade had awakened. This voice was androgynous, neither feminine nor masculine yet somehow both. It spoke with confidence and authority, yet also gently and soothingly. It spoke but a single word: “Champion.”
She also felt something take shape in her mind; something she had seen before, carved into the walls of this cavern countless times. Ophelia has obtained the Deception Rune. Erases the bearers presence indiscriminately unless they act toward another person in particular. Also allows one to speak without producing sound, essentially communicating telepathically.
It would be a profoundly strange experience for Ophelia when she broke her snakescale hourglass. One moment the world seemed chaotic and frenetic with everyone moving rapidly, desperately competing to be the fastest... and then the next instant, with a disconcerting abruptness, everything just stopped. Arrayah's form lurched forward, one right hand at the end of an extended arm angling the saw spear she had taken from Gerlinde to stab it into Farren's back, her left hand raised a bloody Torquil into the air once again, and her second right hand was essentially driving the Profane Abyssal Blade into the floor where Farren had been standing half a second earlier. Farren was mid-swing with his beastflayer, while just a few meters from him she saw the Moonborn Hunter also mid-swing with a flaming hammer. Even the fire coming off the hammerhead, and that which came from the multitude of sconces spread across the cavern, seemed as though frozen in amber.
But it was more than that. Just as instantly as everything she had been conscious of moving around her became stuck in place, so did everything she had not been conscious of moving. As time stopped for her, all color vanished from the world; the bluish light of the sconces, the azure eyes of Arrayah and Farren, the red of blood and orange of fire – everything – turned to grayscale. In a world where the light was not moving, wavelengths could not be perceived and interpreted as colors, so all she could see was amplitudes; brightness. More relevant was it, however, that she found herself suddenly in a world of complete and perfect silence. Even the air was frozen in place, incapable of conveying sound waves, which plunged the universe into an impossible stillness. Not not only could Ophelia not hear any of the most prominent sounds of the battle before her, but she would also find that even as she sprinted and quickstepped to close the distance between herself and the Profane Abyssal Blade, she did not make sound either. Even though her feet hit the floor, they did so with nary a whisper, and though she could feel the breath leave her lungs and her heart beating inside her, she could hear neither.
And so, as Ophelia touched the tip of the Holy Moonlight Sword – itself gray and dull in frozen time – to the black form of the Profane Abyssal Blade, finally establishing physical contact between the two halves of the eldritch weapon, she spoke the incantation... but produced no words. Because no words could be spoken in a world without time, because without time there was no movement, no color... and no sound.
After having been raised up high in the air, right up next to the arm holding the black spear, Torquil had just enough time to get out a quick sigh as he accelerated back down toward Farren with tremendous force. Not again, he thought, trying his best to turn his face to the side and brace himself against what was coming. “Luckily” Farren moved out of the way in time with a quickstep so that he would not get hurt... which naturally just meant that instead of the relatively soft impact into his companion, Torquil would be smashing straight into the floor. Again. Arrayah missed her two-pronged attack against Farren, with the saw spear scything across the area just a fraction of a second before her left hand bludgeoned Torquil into the floor, eliciting a rumbling boom from the sheer strength of the hit accompanied with a sort of wet squelch as the captive Hunter left a somewhat Torquil-shaped bloodstain on the floor.
But even though her attack seemed to have failed, Arrayah did not seem to so much as miss a beat. Before she so much as had a chance to recover with the arms she had attacked with, her third arm was already moving, angling the tip of the Profane Abyssal Blade downward and then thrusting it straight down on top of Farren.
With most of the most pressing business taken care of at the farm, everyone scattered and started working in earnest to prepare for the journey back to Borstown. They quickly agreed to bring the crusaders' horses with them – out of concern for the animals, hope that the village of Borstown might have use for them, or just for the sheer monetary value of so many trained war horses – which on its own prolonged their departure by necessitating them getting the steeds out of the barn and organized. On top of that it would also extend the journey back by as much as four hours since they not only would need to herd the horses the entire way, but would also need to go the long way around the forest rather than through it the way they had come. It did gain them the advantage of not having to transport the still-catatonic Bren or their prisoners – conscious or not – by hand, as they could easily and safely have horses carry them. It also meant that they did not need to rifle through the crusaders' many saddlebags immediately to select what was worth carrying back, since the horses could easily bring all of the crusaders' belongings with them.
During these preparations Irah also started explaining what had happened and what she was seeing to Caleb over the telepathic connection he had just recently reminded her of, only for the fallen thalk to interrupt her: “I know; I have been telepathically linked to you this whole time.” Seemingly pleased with Caleb's claim that he had been reading her mind during the entire stay at the farm, ever since Freagon had told him to stay in magical contact with Irah, preparations continued unimpeded.
Suddenly, as the party were herding together the horses and preparing for the long and difficult journey back to Borstown, Irah would feel something shift. Something right at the edge of her consciousness - something she had barely had any awareness of feeling, if any at all - abruptly disappeared. “This should be enough," she heard Caleb's voice in her head, sounding grim yet determined. "Do not waste the effort to try to respond, Deo'irah; I have ended the telepathic link from you to me. You can hear me, but I can no longer hear you.” He sighed in resignation, something that must have been meaningful to make it through the magical communication. “Deo'irah... back when I told you and Lhirinthyl my description of Feevesha, I thought I might have made a terrible mistake. I thought that by telling you that, I had made any observations I would make about you today worthless, since you could just assume the characteristics you knew I admired in her. That you would abuse this knowledge to gain my favor and get me to show you my summoning name. But it seems I worried needlessly. Through the telepathic link I was able to observe your actions, your words, your thoughts and your feelings... and you are nothing like Feevesha. Truthfully, I do not think I saw a single one of her qualities in you. I have decided to stay in the Corerealm for the time being, and use the life Feevesha gave me to accomplish something good in her name. But I will not be staying with you; I have accumulated enough energy to teleport, and I will not tell you where I am going. Lhirinthyl can keep the spellbook... but one of your angels will have to translate it for him. Tell Vela Bor that I am sorry for what I did. And tell everyone goodbye. Goodbye, Deo'irah. You will not hear from me again.”
“Caleb says that he is sorry, Lady Bor, for what he did... and wishes to bid goodbye to everyone. His journey now cleaves from ours--he has likely already teleported away. I... find myself glad. Her sacrifice will not be in vain, and he will try his best to be good and make the most of it.” Irah relayed, strangely comforted despite the indictment of her that Caleb had projected into her mind. One afternoon was rarely enough to get the measure of a being, with all of their nuances. That he did not think her guileless and meek, nervous and trusting, these things were simply true--that he did not think her selfless or curious or generous... nobody was ever anything all of the time. She believed that he believed it, but she did not care about his assessment at all: it mattered very little to her what anyone but those she let close--Lhirin, more than anyone--thought. She swallowed and found a suddenly uncomfortable lump in her throat begrudgingly disappear, and something of a blush came over her for a brief moment before she inhaled and let the feeling float away.
Vela frowned. “That's... troubling. It's not even worth telling the deo'iel if he teleported, since he could be anywhere now.” She shook her head in frustration. “I suppose we'll just have to pray that he makes good on his promise and doesn't cause any more disasters. There's nothing we can do about it now.”
“That is all we can do for anyone, Lady Bor. I have more faith in Caleb than this sorry lot, at least.” Irah moved her head as she spoke to indicate the Crusaders. “Suffering galvanises us. Whether it leads us to further the cycle of pain or attempt to break it... that is a choice we all get to make.”
“Sure,” she shrugged, “these g'vassin are terrible, you'll never hear me say otherwise... but they don't have access to enormous divine magical powers. I'd much rather have a rematch against one of them than against Caleb.”
“Oh, yes, it is certainly easier to quell them than a rogue divine... but the true enemy is not these exploited vessels, rather the fear and hatred that have been fostered inside them. Its roots reach far these days--the rotten ideology they adhere to poses far more danger than a lone Thalk, I think. Caleb is no longer our problem, for better or worse. The Crusaders are. I hope that we can at least do something more substantial about them.”
“Right...” the baroness drawled doubtfully. “You should probably aim a bit lower, at least for now. I know you did well today even though we were outnumbered, but there's a difference between fighting thirty crusaders on a farm, and fighting four thousand of them holed up in their fortress.”
“You're right, of course... perhaps this is a conversation best had in better surrounds, though: for now we have a great many horses to escort back to Borstown. Your people are the ones whose blood paid for these horses, so their proceeds should largely go to the benefit of the victims. If any have the temperament to be put to work on the farms you should take those, and the rest can be sold on. Now would be a good opportunity for people without to acquire a new mount, too, hm?”
With all of that out of the way, the party left behind the bloodstained battlefield strewn with corpses and undertook the tedious journey back to Borstown. Along the way at least Freagon and Quintin, and perhaps some of the others as well, decided to break up the monotony however slightly by rummaging through the saddlebags. As one might have expected, the vast majority of the crusaders' belongings and valuables were stored there rather than being carried with them at all times. In there they discovered a much more substantial amount of money than Yanin had found on the corpses – totaling as much as 624 rodlin – as well as various provisions, tools for traveling and maintaining their equipment, and no less than six different ornate necklaces and eleven rings that all appeared to be made of gold. They all bore the mark of the same craftsman, though none of the companions, nor the baroness and her aide, were familiar with, but from the materials and craftsmanship it was probably a fair assumption that they were quite valuable. Most interesting to them was likely a bundle of several dozen pages of encoded documents, wrapped in a leather binding and tied with a string. There was nothing in particular that told them what these documents might be, with the only hint they could get without decrypting them being that a couple of them bore a wax seal that several of them definitely would recognize: the seal of the duchy of Nemhim. But examining them during the trip only revealed that the encryption was not of the simple kind that could be intuitively broken. They likely would need a decryption key to get any meaning out of them besides what could be assumed from the presence of a seal from the ducal office, or someone with divine blood to hope to be able to read them.
Eventually the party arrived back in Borstown, where they found the village having settled mostly back into normal activity after all the panic earlier in the day. Insurgent angels and invading bandits aside, the villagers' lives and livelihoods still depended on getting work done in a timely manner, and so even as the sun slowly lowered toward the far western horizon, the fields would still be abuzz with people harvesting or tending their crops and taking care of their livestock. The baroness quickly and easily managed to get some of the villagers to take over any of the horses that the party did not want to keep for themselves (in case any of the ones currently lacking mounts would want to adopt one), and they were taken away to a pasture to graze for the time being. Keeping the horses would be no issue for now since they could mostly live off wild early autumn vegetation, but it would be up to all of Borstown to collectively evaluate how useful these animals would be to them and how capable they were of feeding them through the coming winter... and any they could not use or feed would likely end up sold off if possible or butchered if not. Regardless of what conclusions would eventually be made, the crusaders' horses did not seem to the the companions' immediate problem anymore at this point.
Getting back to Bor Manor they (but mostly Vela and Quintin) were met and welcomed back by the well-groomed man called Wade, who looked somewhat less well-groomed and more disheveled now than last time they had seen him. He reported that they had cleaned up the mess left by Caleb's angels, though larger repairs and the replacement of destroyed property would take time and funds to complete. He specifically mentioned that they had a severe shortage of dinnerware now since all of their ceramic plates, platters and containers had been smashed to pieces. The penin received this report with a nod of her head, evidently unsurprised but pleased with the efficiency of her staff. She then asked how Tedwyn – the sole survivor among the supposed adventurers that had been visiting the manor before the companions got there, who she had told to head back and assist with cleaning – had done, which made Wade pause and blink his eyes confusedly. “Who?” The news that Tedwyn apparently never even arrived back at the manor after he had been sent off was met with much displeasure from several members of the party. Irah immediately went to check her coach to see if the likely impostor-adventurer had stolen anything, and would be relieved to find nothing missing. Yanin, meanwhile, asked the baroness if she had spoken with Tedwyn or any of the other adventurers as to where they had come from, and she reported that of course she had; she had been evaluating them for a task she wanted completed, after all, the most immediate of which had been the elimination of the bandits they had just completed. According to what she had been told, Tedwyn was originally from a village in Seclyr, born as the favored child of a family of great and supposedly renowned warriors. Tedwyn had told her that he had decided to become an adventurer after having successfully hunted down and exterminated a pack of greedlings for killing his parents... singlehandedly. She would also tell Yanin – most likely unnecessarily – that she got the impression that he was lying through his teeth.
Irah wanted to argue that Tedwyn did not represent any kind of significant threat, and that the worst that could come of it would be crusaders catching, questioning and killing him, but that there was nothing any of them could do about it now. “He'll spill as soon as someone points a blade at him. And not just Crusaders; any opportunist or witchhunter out there,” Yanin pointed out, correctly recalling that Tedwyn knew about Irah being a summoner. “I think it will require no more vigilance than we already have to muster for the Crusaders, thankfully... but it is terribly tiresome. He is going to get himself and others killed, one day. Why couldn't he just do some honest work and get some honest coin?” Vela chuckled. “Maybe he would've if you hadn't verbally destroyed him.” “Well,” Irah began somewhat exasperatedly, running a hand through her feathers with a sheepish grin, “he deserved it, and I stand by what I said... but you are right.” There was an obvious playfulness to her demeanor that suggested she was not being serious.
With that out of the way, Vela invited all of them to stay at her estate for the time being and dine with her this evening, and she and Wade took a moment to ask Nabi if she had any dietary constraints they should know about. Neither of them had ever encountered an erashyir, after all, and knew little of the Dark Ones besides vague rumors and stories. With that handled, Vela also extended an offer that any of them could use the baths in the manor if they so desired, and then let the companions loose to do as they wished until dinner was ready, and they all went their separate ways to take care of whatever small bits of business they had until such the time came for them to reassemble.
Madara went to have a look at Cole, the the armed helper at the manor they had initially encountered ringing the alarm-bell outside the manor back when the frantic activity of the day had begun. She found that the initial assessment of his injuries had been correct in that none of it was life-threatening, but treating would still do much to prevent dangerous infections and minimize permanent cosmetic damage. The cut on his cheek was quite superficial and easily treated, whereas a closer inspection of his leg-wound proved that it was a more severe laceration across the outside of his thigh. Luckily the wound had not affected any major blood vessels and had not been deep enough to damage the muscles, but it was long and deep enough to obviously be very painful and to absolutely require cleaning and stitches to ensure that it did not turn into something more serious.
Yanin took the opportunity to ask once again about the availability of hounds, and this time – now that the answer was not quite as obvious – was told that while the baroness did not own any hounds herself, Borstown did have a number of hunters who kept them. Aside from that, Yanin also made an effort to get an assessment on how old the crusader commander's injuries had been; something that had been made all the more difficult to guess at assuming that Bren had already applied at least some magical healing to the man. Conferring with the medically gifted members of the party – so primarily Madara and Irah – they estimated that with expert first aid, he might have been wounded as much as two days ago, but without that it would likely have been less than a day.
Lhirin first helped Irah take a quick, short nap, then ask around to predictably find that no, there was indeed no resources in Bor Manor – nor all of Borstown, for that matter – that could assist him in deciphering Feevesha's spellbook written in a completely made-up language. Besides that, he did make an effort to familiarize himself with the layout of the manor, and would likely take notice of a few things. Most obvious was the fact that the manor had another two huge paintings that seemed to be of the same artist that had made the depiction of the battle against the Nemhimian Prooga in the hall, both of which he would find in the dining room. One painting seemed almost obscenely huge, standing nearly as tall as the ceiling and fourteen meters wide on the south wall of the room, and depicted a collection of ten individuals, armed and armored, on a beach with the sea stretching out beautifully in the background. The six in the foreground all stood in battle-ready stances and included a male human archer wielding a very unique-looking longbow with limbs adorned with glowing runes; a human man wielding a very nice longsword; a human man wielding a beautiful hewing spear that also appeared to be portrayed as giving off a faint light of its own; a free deigan woman holding a wicked-looking grossmesser; a human woman wielding a flaming rune sword in her right hand and seemingly conjuring a small fireball in her left hand, which puzzlingly appeared to have snowflakes swirling around it; and, of course, a younger version of Vela Bor herself, still armed with her trusty crossbow. The last four were all human and stood a bit further back in the painting, behind the six others, and appeared to be at ease and smiling. The other painting in the dining room was on the western wall and was “only” six meters wide but just as tall as the other, and depicted just two people: a younger Vela Bor, unarmed and wearing very nice, fancy clothes, and the woman who was also in the larger painting who appeared to be a mage, wearing a white long, flowing dress and with white flowers in her long red hair. Both of them were smiling happily and they were holding hands, standing in front of what appeared to be the very manor they were currently in. Aside from that, Lhirin would doubtlessly also find that the ground floor section for guest rooms appeared to have one pair of guest rooms less than on the floor above, and comparing it to the view from the outside it seemed to simply have space missing.
Upon her return to Bor manor Irah excused herself immediately to take advantage of the remaining time before dinner. She popped into the kitchen quickly to leave a number of pressed and dried disks of compacted tea with the staff for use later (and inviting them to partake if they wished–with instructions to steep it with hot but not boiling water for around three minutes and to enjoy the first couple of washes amongst themselves if they wished). She then headed to the bathroom and got to work using the hand-pump to fill the basin, placing the dried herbs in. Once it was around half full or perhaps a little under she stopped and heated the water to a comfortable temperature with her magic. She disrobed as she did so and stepped in, enjoying the brief moment of relaxation, before scrubbing herself clean with a little of the soap and the aid of her magic, taking only a couple of minutes before she got out and began to dry herself by simply lifting the water off of her–which she quickly deposited in a nearby drain quickly followed by some of the water from the top with all of the trapped oils and the water containing the sediment from the bottom. It didn’t leave a perfectly clean bath, but it was as near as anyone could reasonably ask for. Irah took a nearby towel and wrapped it around her midriff before poking her head out of the door and spotting Jaelnec, quickly inviting him in with a beckoning hand and a smile on her face. “The bath is ready for you, if you like?”
Though Jaelnec had removed his hat and left his cloak with his horse since he was indoors, he was still wearing his armor. It was a habit he had been taught by Freagon to keep his armor on as much as possible, and one of those habits that made Jaelnec slightly bitter about his master's priceless equipment. His ill-fitting hauberk was heavy, whereas Freagons lutrium cuirass probably weighed less than his coat and was easier to move in. But since he was still wearing his armor, Jaelnec was also still wearing what grime and gore he had stained himself with during the battle earlier and failed to wipe away with what means he had at hand. A bath sounded perfect, especially if he was going to be joining a baroness for dinner. “Thank you,” he told Irah, mirroring her smile but averting his eyes. She was not exactly dressed, and looking at her in such a state would hardly be a chivalrous thing to do. Since she seemed to have bathed already he assumed that she was leaving to get dressed elsewhere. He started undoing his belt as he headed for the bathroom door.
“Do you need any help doffing your armour? It can be tricky to get out of by oneself.” Irah added as Jaelnec crossed the threshold into the bathroom, while turning around to gather the remainder of her things--namely the white dress that she had simply discarded on the floor nearby and the black one still neatly laid out in some distant corner near the unused penin-sized bathrobe. She did indeed intend to change elsewhere, but figured that a moment alone after the battle with the young and shy nightwalker might be used well to offer him some friendly advice or lend a sympathetic ear.
Initially Jaelnec thought getting some help was a good idea, and he had almost begun speaking the words of his agreement before he thought metter of it. It was true that taking a hauberk off was quite a bit more troublesome than putting it on. In the latter process, its weight meant that he pretty much just had to drop it on his head and it fell into place on its own, whereas to take it off now had that shapeless weight working against him. Having someone else to help pull it over his head and off his arms would undeniably be helpful. But Irah was just wearing a towel. Though Jaelnec had obviously seen women in various states of undress before, including ones entirely in the nude, he still held on to his notion of chivalry, chastity, and what he considered to be decency. And the thought of having a beautiful almost-naked woman grabbing at him, maybe even rubbing against him, in an effort to get his armor off... well, he would be lying if he claimed that the idea did not appeal to him on a carnal level, but it hardly seemed decent. “Thank you, but I'll manage,” he instead told her, quickly repurposing the “thank you” that had already been on his lips. He gently put down his belt with all its items still attached, including the scabbard with his now-clean sword in it.
“As you wish,” she began, laughing a little and widening a smile that he would not see as he avoided letting his gaze stray in her direction. “You did very well, earlier, for your first time in true battle... I want you to know that while I'm here you are always welcome to talk things over with me. I think it helps to get worries out of our heads and into the world, and... Sir Freagon isn't one for conversation it seems.” she spoke as she went to fish the linen chemise from inside her white dress, before laying it down over her black dress and folding that over her left arm as she more roughly picked up the white one with her right hand. “I have Lhirin, of course, but more often it's Reina and Rilon that I talk to most... the gods don't respond, of course, but prayer lightens the soul. Is the water warm enough, before I go?” she added as she finished getting herself together and ready to leave.
A small, quick frown passed over Jaelnec's face at the mention of prayer, but he decided against pushing that particular topic for the time being. “Sir Freagon offers lectures, not conversation,” he mused, going over to the brass tub to feel the water. “I'm used to it.” The water felt quite pleasant, as you would expect from a bath prepared by a water elementalist. Inwardly Jaelnec was amused by the very notion of checking if the water was “warm enough,” considering that he was used to bathing in streams, rivers, the ocean, or even just dousing himself with water freshly drawn from a well. To him, growing up on the road and mostly in poverty, a warm bath was an exquisite rarity. “It's great.”
“That's my worry, Jaelnec, that you are used to it... he earnestly means well, I think. The world is often hard, and cruel, and unfair--and he has tried to inure you to the world's many trials and make you strong. Unfortunately strength without vulnerability is as steel without give: brittle and hard. But look at me, starting to lecture! Enjoy the bath, sweet Jaelnec, and make sure to use the soap.” Irah spoke softly as she padded about the room gathering her things and finally lingered at the door for a moment, wondering whether to say something about Freagon's withering. If Jaelnec didn't know yet it was hardly her secret to share, but she felt a pang of concern for the boy--whatever had exposed Sir Freagon had likely exposed Jaelnec too... but the Withering was terribly unpredictable. She swallowed the concern and bade him goodbye before quickly scurrying towards the nearby stairs and up to the guest room she'd chosen on the upper floor to get dressed properly.
Jaelnec, Freagon, Irah, Lhirin, Nabi, Yanin, Jordan and Madara – Borstown, Bor Manor, dining room
About an hour after they had been dismissed the dinner bell rang, calling all of them back from their various errands around the manor and to the dining room, where they would find the baroness and her staff waiting in the far end of the room. Vela had changed into a comfortable casual robe and seemed to have set aside her weapons somewhere, whereas Quintin had removed his armor, bow and weapons, but kept his longsword on his hip. Both of them had cleaned away the traces of the struggles of the day, and though Quintin still stood at attention at Vela's side – right between her and Cole, who had also doffed his armor and crossbow but kept a shortsword on his hip – they looked much more comfortable and relaxed now than any of them had seen them before. Jaelnec also looked much better as he joined them. He had opted to not put his armor back on after his bath, but still kept his belt with all the equipment attached to it on him, including his sword. Freagon, on the other hand, looked... mostly the same. Not only was he still wearing his cuirass, bracers and greaves – though he had removed his helmet and gauntlets – he had also put on his long black coat over the armor, making him stand all the more in contrast to his freshly-promoted squire. Rather than having bathed, it looked as though he had only washed his face and hands.
Behind the baroness, the companions would also likely notice a collection of linen sacks: eight smaller ones and one much larger one, all of which appeared to be filled with rather heavy, shapeless contents. “I finally had time to get it,” Vela told them with a smile once they had all arrived. “As promised: one bag for each of you with fifty rodlin for your help with the angels, and one bag with the one thousand rodlin I promised for helpin' defeat the bandits and save Bren. And I'll take this chance to thank you all again, in case I didn't remember doin' so before: thank you all, truly, for your help. I can't tell you how much it means to me... and though I'm still worried about Bren, just the fact that he's alive and back in Borstown is worth rewardin' and celebratin'.” She nodded at her two housekeepers, well-groomed Wade and somewhat rotund Kylie, and they hurried off toward the kitchen. Then Vela turned back to the companions. “You've all shown that you're proper adventurers, and more than worth my trust and patronage. I'm hopin' this is the start of somethin' grand; I think you could do great things together, and I think I have just the thing for you to look into next.”
Happily spending several seconds torturing Torquil by digging her claws and Gerlinde's saw spear deeper and deeper into his flesh, Arrayah nevertheless kept her many eyes on Ophelia and Farren. She watched Ophelia keeping her distance, did not react to the mention of Paarl's blood at all and did not seem to so much as flinch when she shouted Arrayah's name. And she watched Farren injecting himself with the vial of darkbeast blood while twisting around the serrated blade in Torquil's shoulder. All in all, she was attentive but deeply unimpressed with what they were doing.
Since Ophelia insisted on uselessly running in circles and the Moonborn Hunter – who was now slashing at her furiously, half transformed into a beast with a bony fist-weapon in their right hand, just as they had witnessed Skinner use – continued to prove their impotence, there was no contest as to who to direct her efforts toward. She turned toward Farren as he approached and roughly yanked her mundane blade from his wound, only to attack Farren with both hands. Her right hand made a huge, sweeping horizontal slash with the saw spear, while her left hand made an equally huge vertical smash down on top of him... while still holding on to Torquil's leg.
Torquil blinked and swallowed nervously after seeing Ophelia look at him, nod her head downward, then turn around and nod her head upward in the direction of their adversary. He also tried to lick his lips, only to be reminded that his tongue was no longer his tongue and his lips were no longer his lips. In all the excitement, he had actually almost managed to forget that his face had been replaced with some monstrous visage. The specifics of what other implications might be included in the gesture aside, the core meaning definitely seemed to be for him to attack Arrayah... which seemed like a really bad idea. If he walked just a few steps forward all of them would be in range of her big attack, and she would be able to cripple all of them in one fell swoop all over again. Ophelia and Farren kept their distance, staying at a range where Torquil estimated they would be able to quickstep away and avoid getting hit, but if he went up to Arrayah to attack her? There would be no escape unless he learned to fly. So what was Ophelia's plan? Because surely she had thought of something he had not; she was smart, much smarter than him, so she must have thought of something. A small voice in the back of his head suggested that she might be using him as bait, but he immediately dismissed that notion, certain that she and Farren would never do something like that to him. Loathe though he was to risk getting skewered again, Torquil nevertheless had faith that his companions knew best and did as he was told. Brandishing his Hunter's axe and, after a second's consideration and recalling his conclusion that the projected spears were arcane, the Loch Shield as well, Torquil rushed in to join the assault.
All the while Arrayah just stood there, holding up Gerlinde's exposed, disarmed and mutilated body to her eyes, slowly working her claws in and out of the Huntress' leg as though she was giving her the world's most painful massage. She sank in her claws, rending flesh and shedding blood, and retracted them to let the wounds heal; sank in her claws to reopen the wounds, and loosened her grip. It only took a couple of seconds of this, as well as Gerlinde's body working to regrow practically all the flesh on her right arm, before her regeneration slowed to a crawl. As soon as it did Arrayah ceased playing with her claws, and her eyes shifted to check on Farren, Torquil and Ophelia. Heaving a deep sigh – completely ignoring the Moonborn Hunter, who dismissed their chikage and instead summoned a Holy Blade to attack with, which proved just as ineffective – Arrayah simply swung her left arm in an arc and released her hold on Gerlinde. The half-dead Huntress was sent hurdling through the air before crashing to the floor a good twenty meters away in the direction opposite of the central column, toward the outer wall of the cavern. Just as soon as she had discarded Gerlinde, Arrayah's attention instead turned to Torquil running straight at her with his axe poised to strike. Her stronger right arm swung Gerlinde's saw spear in a powerful horizontal chop, which Torquil managed to quickstep sideways to avoid... only for her left hand to dart in just as he was recovering from his first evasion, grab him by his left foot and lift him off the ground upside-down just as she had with Gerlinde a moment ago. Torquil attempted to swing his axe at her even as he hang suspended, but barely had he extended his right arm for the attack before the saw spear came rushing back at him in Arrayah's right hand, ramming its serrated, pointed tip directly into his right shoulder. He screamed – a strange and inhuman sound with his altered voice, like a swarm of bees imitating a human cry of agony – as Arrayah twisted the blade. Still just standing there. Still with the Profane Abyssal Blade raised high above her.
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