Michellin

Wanderers

For a moment, Kire thought she had died. Absolute black, with winds whipping at her soundlessly, and so very cold, like walking through the land of the dead. It was the total opposite of her portals. But no sooner had the thought occurred to her than the darkness disappeared, the stink of the rot of the chapel assaulting her senses after that nothingness left. “Can everyone in this world do that disappearing trick?” she muttered, shaking her head a bit to get her bearings back. She crouched down and pushed his hand away with her arm.

He had taken off his cover for the first time, and she spared him a glance, noted in the dim light the scarring on his cheek, before turning away to scan the chapel in case they suddenly appeared in front of them. “So they don’t take prisoners normally?” she asked, ignoring his threat and immediate question. “They do look like the ‘dismember now, ask questions later’ kind.” She fished out the carnelian gems she had found on the corpse earlier. “I assume you found the headless body when you were following me around? Found this, and a rune, on its chest. I found a gem just like it the last time I hunted the blood mage down. Wouldn’t be surprised he’s allied himself with this lot somehow. Or is using them.”

She paused, catching her breath. While she had used her portals and dragon-strength together on numerous fights before to ensure a quick victory, she’d never encountered anybody who could transport themselves at will before. “What happens when they touch you?”

Wanderers

Ignore their taunting. While Kire hadn’t expected them to run in fear at the surprise attack, seeing them ignore their slain companion altogether wasn’t a good sign at all. Everything about them screamed ‘killer’. Just as what looked like the male between the two of them beckoned to her, played with her, she felt the back of her neck prickle, accompanied by a familiar aura. He did come after all.

“I guessed as much,” she said in reply, her gaze never leaving her opponents. Any moment now. Her opponent leaped forward, and she evaded, anticipating his blow with her sword as she dodged to the side, then spun to face him. She flooded her body with dragon-power, her Ring glowing almost white-hot, and lunged with a grunt. She met the monster’s blade with her own again; this time, her sword bit into the metal, cracking it in half. Not daring to stop, she evaded again, and this time threw the hunting knife at him before attacking again, rushing full speed at him. The distraction of the knife was enough for her to get in a slash to his side. Pick at him. Slow him down. Then the killing blow, she thought, concentrating. Save the portal for the last, in case her reluctant companion failed to subdue his own opponent.

Wanderers

They are here.
Kire had suspected as much. Earlier, after she had taken the gem from the blue corpse, she dug around for the other gem she had brought with her. The two gems, upon close contact with one another, flashed briefly before the magical energy in them faded. She didn’t like how that felt. If the corpse-monster had sensed the gem, others would, too. Ikegai along with them. The only question is when, and how many there would be. Was this what the man had been afraid of when she lit the fire? Save your fires for daylight. If he was less afraid of them during the day, it was safe to assume that his enemies were the kind to raid at night. Better rest up, then.

The rest of the day she had spent getting her energy back. A meager meal of roasted coyote. Replenishing her waterskin from a well that thankfully hadn’t dried up. Then hiding from the terrible heat of the noon sun. And thinking. Now and then, her thoughts would go to the stranger, if he really would leave her alone. Briefly, she worried that if the fight would come to her, that he would somehow be caught in the crossfire. Kire huffed. With that power of his, he’d be fine. The question was, would she be? It was bad enough to expect living, thinking opponents of the same size and strength as the corpse, but that shot of pain when she had tried to remove the gem and rune concerned her. Was it a defense from the blood magic? Or was it some ability the corpse had when it was still alive? At some point when the day had waned, she could sense she was being watched. Him, no doubt, but she didn’t bother pinpointing his location or trying to stop him. Let him satisfy his curiosity, or at least wear him down, along with any other thought he would have of her leaving soon.

By nightfall, she had made sure to keep to the shadows, not so much to hide from the stranger but in anticipation of new threats. Her palms itched at the thought of waiting for danger to come to her. She could just try leaving the way she came, but she had finally made progress on her search. Let them come. And they did. She hadn’t seen them yet, but she could feel them disturb the magical auras that had settled into the ruins. She slunk among the ruins and the rubble, finding a position that would give her a vantage point and some cover. Once settled, she peered as far as she dared, and sighted a monster.

By the gods, it was huge. And it wasn’t alone. The corpse she had fought had been a formidable size, but death had shrunk it somewhat. Clearly, they were looking for somebody. For me.. Kire curled her lip. Speed was of the essence here. Kire stepped backward, bent her knees, and jumped.

The first elf would have seen a bright blue flash right above him, right before a gleaming white sword slashed down at him, slicing his neck at a diagonal. Kire landed on the ground on her two feet just as the body fell, then turned to the other two. One down. Kire leaped back and Jumped through another portal, ready to do the same to the third hunter, but the moment she emerged, she was met with the swing of their blade. She blocked it with her own sword before tumbling back, rolling back onto her feet as fast as she could. Definitely faster than corpses.

Wanderers

“Fuck.” Kire ducked and rolled out of the way of its swing. She was now glad she’d bothered with the armor; the physical and magical protections it provided would have probably caught the blow and kept it from killing her, but it would’ve hurt like a mother. The monster was shaky on its decaying feet, but still much too lively for her liking. It was even speaking. Probably just a remnant of whatever words it used to speak when alive, rather than real thought, but Kire didn’t like that it could do that at all. She was trying to scan for some sign of Ikegai’s art on its body when it lunged, swaying a bit.

Kire kept low, dodging again, and this time she slashed at its leg, seeing an opening. The corpse roared, or would have if it still had a functioning throat, as it sunk on one knee. “Hm.” Kire backed off, wary despite the corpse’s unsteadiness, then tossed the carnelian gem in her hand away, to the opposite direction. The corpse shambled between her and the gem, angry and confused, sensing a trace of the blood magic that called to the one that was animating its dead body. Kire closed the distance and hacked at the sword arm first.

The monster opened its mouth in a silent scream and swung its other limb around, hitting Kire and sending her flying back against the collapsed wall. “Ugh…fuck you.” She leaped to her feet before the corpse could tear at her, but without an arm and another leg threatening to fall off, she could finish the fight now. Its swings and lunged were wilder now, but each time it almost threw itself off balance. Kire slashed the other leg clean off now, then kicked it square on its back, toppling it over. Finally, she lifted her sword and swung down, chopping off its head.

The corpse convulsed, and so did the severed head. Kire grimaced, waiting for it to calm down. When, finally, its movements slowed to a halt, she nudged the giant torso with her foot to turn it over. It hadn’t been too difficult to bring the monster down, but it bothered her that, presumably, despite this corpse decaying here for a long time, it still had enough magic in it to move so dynamically. She scanned the body, feeling for Ikegai’s telltale blood art, and her gaze focused on a small mark on its chest. From a distance she had mistaken it for some birthmark or scar, but upon closer inspection it was a rune, Amrian, tattooed on the skin. At the center of it was a gleaming carnelian bead, embedded in the flesh. Kire sheathed her sword and drew out the hunting knife, getting read to carve it out of the skin.

The headless corpse convulsed and grabbed her with its remaining appendage. An electric shock of pain bolted through her body, starting from her hands, where her fingertips had been touching its chest. Kire gritted her teeth through it and tore out a whole chunk of chest, the rune and carnelian with it, and the corpse was now still. Her lip curled in disgust as she picked out the gem from the corpse skin and tossed the rest of the chunk aside, before spitting at the headless corpse.

Wanderers

Kire wiped her sweating brow, her left eye stinging a little from the extra discomfort of her sweat. Gods, it was hot, and while she had no problem bearing the weight of her weapons and her armor throughout her journey here, she hadn’t fully accounted for the desert heat. She drank only a mouthful from the waterskin, not wanting to deplete her supply, and instead focused on not losing the trail. The rust-taste of blood, of rotting, bitter things—this was his magic. And the closer she got to the outskirts, near the rubble that had once been part of its protectives, the stronger it stank, left a rank taste in her mouth.

She stopped, not daring to approach this collapsed wall just yet, observing from a distance. Nothing unusual on the surface—until her eye sighted a desiccated arm. What is that? The arm was large for a man’s. Was it even a human arm? She wondered if this was a twisted homunculus, or some other beast. Ikegai’s dolls, however, wouldn’t have fashioned a weapon like the one the dead limb still clutched. It looked cruel, unnecessarily so. Did this thing have anything to do with the pillaging of the city? If so, a weapon like that looked to be exactly the kind of killing implement made by a people who delighted in murder and suffering.

Her fists clenched and unclenched, and she rolled her shoulders before drawing her sword. Her other hand fumbled with her satchel, produced something hidden in a pocket of leather. The gem. It looked inert, dead, the way it did the past several months. The arm, similarly, did not move. “Well, Kay. Only one way to find out.” She stepped closer.

The rubble moved. Pebbles fell, glancing off the corpse arm. Kire gripped her sword tighter. A faint flicker of red light shone at the center of the gem in her hand. Closer. A few more steps. The arm twitched. “Don’t be rude, Kay, help him up,” she muttered to herself, stepping close enough for her to disturb the remnants of the wall with her boot. The carnelian gem trembled in her hand, glowing bright red.

The corpse rose, pushing against the rubble, and Kire jumped back immediately, avoiding the long, cruel blade. “What in all the gods--!” As she had suspected, the body was huge. The softest parts of its face had rotted away, but it moved its head from side to side as if searching for something, trying to sniff something out. Kire took in the sight: pointed ears, blue-grey skin. She could imagine an army of such creatures sweeping through this city. And Ikegai’s stink is all over this. Kire waited, watching it. It looked confused, perhaps only operating on the barest of magical energy. Perhaps it didn’t even know she was there.
Until it swung his head around in her direction. “Well, shit.”
The thing leaped on unsteady legs towards her, swinging. Kire dove, whirled around to slash its legs and almost got caught by the long blade. It moved awkwardly, erratically, but with a weapon and reach like that, Kire had to be careful.

Wanderers

Kire huffed. She supposed that was the best she could hope for out of him. She stood still, her gaze on the empty spot on the ground where he had just stood moments ago. While he was a prick, Kire imagined she’d probably be even less accommodating had she been in his position. She looked over at the remains of the fire and pondered, for a moment, if she should light it again, draw out whoever it was he had been warning her about. This, she knew, standing up straight with a sigh, was not prudent. The urge to be impatient, to get her hands on something to fight, was hard to stamp down, but she couldn’t be picking fights that big on her first day of the hunt. Without the man’s interference, she could at least explore the city.

Most of it was as she had expected. Ruins, signs of a brutal pillaging, here and there some trace of Ikegai’s malevolent influence. Kire frowned. The man feared her face, and it was possible Ikegai had somehow brought his homunculi here, perhaps to terrorize the poor desert city. But those dolls could only act as avatars of his power, at least as far as she could surmise. They didn’t have the raw might that could level a city like this. If I could find a body, some remnant, anything… She steeled herself for what she might find in her scavenging; she had no time or energy to spare giving burials all over the city, as much as she felt like they needed it.

Her exploration didn’t yield much, just more signs of wanton carnage. It was frustrating. Kire knew her quarry wasn’t one for committing violence without some end goal, but throwing indiscriminate killers into the mix was exactly the kind of thing that would help obscure his tracks and motives. Fuck the bastard. And the weight of all that useless death, that was on her shoulders. From my world to this. Kire stopped and pounded her fist at another wall, making it crack. If I had caught him sooner, killed him sooner… She took a deep breath. Her anger and regret, constant bedfellows to her, wouldn’t serve her at the moment. She needed to clear her head, and she needed to get to know this new terrain first. For now, she resolved to stay here until daytime, when, hopefully, her search for Ikegai’s tracks would be aided by sunlight, and if still it yielded nothing, she would move on to the port city the stranger had talked about. After some more wandering, she came to a home whose remnants formed what looked like enough shelter for the night. The stench of death was everywhere, but that couldn’t be helped at the moment.

She woke just when the sun had risen, and with a groan Kire eased herself off the ground and crawled out of the meager shelter she had found. She took in her surroundings, the warm light of the new day chasing the shadows off the ruins. It was always worse to look at destruction during the day, when you could see more of it, and when you could imagine more of the life that had once been here, rising to work or start the day. Nearby, she could see what remained of a blue house, hints of turquoise paint amid the dirt. “Right, Kire. Time to work.”

She did the same thing she had done the night before, combing through this part of the city, leaving markers to indicate where she had already searched. There wasn’t much in the city itself, but there were indications of Ikegai’s magic leaving stronger traces in some parts. These traces seemed to be closer to the outer limits. I suppose he wouldn’t conduct a lot of his rituals in close quarters, or somewhere in disarray. His hideouts in Amria had either been large caverns, or abandoned places that gave him room for his ‘experiments’. The pillagers didn’t seem to have stayed long in this city, either. Outskirts it is.

Wanderers

Kire couldn’t quite understand the strange waves of emotion on his face. Like he wasn’t quite sure whether he hated her or not. There’s a story here. “What did they do to you?” Kire murmured under her breath, not so much speaking to him as trying to see through him. When he demanded that she untie him, she snorted. A few minutes ago, maybe she would’ve done so with less hesitation, but this man was a much more erratic version of the person who had only an hour ago coolly taunted her from the temple roof. The cinnamon smell of his magic tickled her nose. In any case, she sure as all hells wasn’t going to touch him or get too close.

“I’ll do your feet first.” Hopefully she wasn’t going to regret this. “And don’t you move a muscle or I’ll cut off your feet.” With care, she used her sword to cut the bindings around his ankles. “Before I unbind your hands, tell me what in the seven rings of hell are you so afraid of? You seemed to know me. I am definitely sure I have seen neither hide nor hair of you before today.”

Wanderers

Kire frowned. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong than usual. Something had changed in him the moment his eyes met hers, as if he had seen a living nightmare. “What d’you—look, if you keep doing that, you’ll only hurt yourself.” She was about to consider just cutting him loose and letting him run when the realization sunk in. He was afraid of my face.

“Hey!" She raised her voice to get him to pay attention, her sword drawn for good measure. “Hey. Why are you afraid of me? Just now—why are you afraid of my face?” She bent a little towards him. “Have you seen this face before?”

There was one possibility, and she didn’t like it, not one bit. Dolls. The first time she had seen Ikegai’s dolls, they were misshapen, mangled, poor copies. She pitied these twisted forms. His obsession. Her face. That had to be it. This was her lead, and she wasn’t leaving him alone until she was sure of it.

Wanderers

Kire had expected anger or hostility, but not that. She jumped to her feet an grabbed him by the back of his clothes, dragging him back before kicking at the last of the embers, finishing the job. Then again, if he had been so worried about her presence there, the caution was understandable. “You said there was nothing left here,” she said, turning to him, eyes narrowed, her scarred eye almost squinting shut. “Are you afraid whoever they were that attacked your home would come back? Who were they? And why would they? They’ve had their fill here, clearly. And with that magic of yours, you could flee, anyway.” Why would you stay here, though?

She paused to looked around and feel for any disturbances. Nothing yet. Still, she kept her hand on her hilt while bending to pick up her helmet, ready to strap it back on at the first sign of danger, then turned to face him again. “The man I’m looking for, he’s dangerous and greedy. I need to find him before he destroys anything else.”

Wanderers

The smells of death wafted towards them; it was too familiar. Kire couldn’t afford to be sentimental, not now. She knew how it was to be trapped in the memories and stay there, paralyzed by tragedy. She did consider leaving then, or perhaps coming back here when her leads have dried up. It wasn’t like this place was going anywhere, and she might even catch him in a better mood. The thought didn’t last.

At his parting shot, her fist darted out, taking advantage of his lapse in attention. “That was the wrong thing to say, little man,” she muttered, searching around for something to bind him with. Not long later, she had tied him up, careful to avoid touching him too much, and sat him upright against the temple wall. She had considered taking off the fabric that hid his face, but the part of her that felt guilty and angry at herself for being unable to control her emotions earlier decided to let him have his anonymity, at least for now. Now what. Do I leave him here? Kire huffed, then turned away, going back into the temple.

She spent the time airing out the chapel, clearing out the rubble, and burying whatever remains she could bury. She had gotten too used to burying the dead. She wished she had brought ale with her, but all she had with her was a waterskin. Now and then she paused to look about for any signs of other desert dwellers, or of Ikegai or whoever had caused this destruction. Nothing. Only the traces of blood magic, that other magic that seemed endemic to this place, and the aura emanating from her ‘prisoner’. Sighing, she returned to where she had left him, started a campfire, and sat with a huff. She unclasped her helmet and slipped it off, wiping the sweat from her brow and ruffling her short, blonde hair that had clung irritatingly against her skin.