First Target: The Unbeliever

[Godhand]

It was a couple of days ago in Radasanth when the order came down. After that Red Forest thing, Godhand was happy to let Raieaera sink into the ruin it had brought upon itself. But, of course, someone up on top had a soft spot for the elves. Isn't that always the way? Those old guys sat in their ivory towers, sucking down pasta alfredo and fuckin' chitlins, you know, the worst part of the pig all fried up? And sending Godhand out to die for a cause and people he didn't even believe in. Terrible. But what could he do? They were on top and he was on the bottom. If he didn't follow orders he was back out on his ass, possibly worse if they thought he might turn fed.

One of the old dons, Gaggi, had given him a list. On it were basically the worst criminals in the war; some group calling itself the Necrosition. The list detailed each of their abilities, or at least the abilities the surviving scouts had managed to discern. Each one of them was absolutely lethal in his own way, but one in particular caught his eye. Sir Anderson Maxwell, alias The Unbeliever. He was causing the Bladesingers quite a bit of trouble; apparently his special ability consisted in canceling out all magic. Godhand ran his hand over his sheath thoughtfully; a fellow after his own heart.

Well, no matter how dangerous he might've been to a mage, Godhand was not impressed. From what he read, there was absolutely nothing the wizard-killer would be able to do against him if he managed to catch him away from his friends. The mercenary packed up that afternoon after studying the list, packing a wagon with every weapon he thought might be useful. He left the Magnums behind, though; they were no use in that God forsaken land. Something to do with old curses.

[Ataraxis]

Ten days in the dungeon. Ten days, eighteen hours and a few seconds over thirty-eight minutes, she guessed. It was getting harder to trust her internal clock with every drab day in a cellar that stank of mould and muck, of stone corroded by stale and dripping water. Her bare feet were scratched, as were her knees and palms, and the dampness of the cell’s stone floor did little to soothe the ache. Worst, she was shackled to heavy, rusty manacles that made her wrists and ankles red and raw. If she trusted the cottony feeling in her mouth and the grating of her bones, she would soon get lockjaw. Things were looking dimmer every time she thought on it.

She could see in the dark, and that was barely any consolation. Utter dark or the sight of that festering cell amounted to the same. Neither gave her hope, but she enjoyed closing her eyes only for the lure of falling asleep, perhaps even dreaming of times before the her imprisonment in the Unbeliever’s cage. Of the day she had been moved from the Obsidian Spire to this derelict castle through means she still did not understand. Sadly, she couldn’t even get that, for fear that the rats would swarm and devour her was a powerful deterrent.

Something clanged at her left, like a brass bowl and utensils on a wooden platter. The ring of a fork and knife would have lit her soul, days ago. Not because they would facilitate the meagre repast of stale, salted meat and mushy things she could only guess were carrots, but because she could use them as weapons, or perhaps tools to escape. But it was all so foolish. After all, she’d learned that her prison had no lock, and that her warden was not alive.

In the darkness she wept, and not even the rats deigned comfort her.

[Godhand]

Giacomazzi had supplied Godhand with two fine Fallien Geldings to pull the wagon. Now he didn't consider that, literally, godforsaken desert nation anything but a worthless sandy hole in the ground, but apparently they knew their stuff when it came to horses. On the other hand, they believed them to be sacred so lashing them to a wagon filled with weapons was probably considered "so very sacriligeous". The mercenary didn't give a damn about that, but he did briefly wonder how in the Hell the crime boss had managed to get a hold of horses like these. What was there in Fallien? The mobster snorted. Bodies, and probably lots of them. God only knew how many holes had been dug in that desert.

The trip out of the city had been uneventful. It was still, Jesus, probably a week to Raieara, but at least the Geldings would make it a comfy ride. No animal in the world gives you any guff after you take it's balls. It was only after he cleared Radasanth's last guard post that he began to feel ill at ease. He could feel someone watching him. The feeling got more and more intense the closer he came to The Razor's Edge, a narrow pass through a cliff that was a favored ambush point for bandits. He knew what they did to merchant's caravans, of course, and he knew that those fine steeds dragging him along probably made him look rich. Still, it'd be a cold day in Hell before any Goddamn robber punk ever made a move against Godhand Striker.

It was as he was telling himself this that the first of many arrows came down. The mercenary shouted a curse and dove under the tarp covering his wagon. More arrows came down, but they bounced off of it harmlessly; it was that special cloth-dehlar blend that Lillian made, God bless her darling soul. Godhand cursed as he rifled through the weapons he'd brought, only now seeing the foolishness in leaving his guns behind. Just because they were useless in elf land didn't mean the trip there would be any safer for their absence.

[Ataraxis]

‘I can’t feel my legs… I can’t feel anything… Ataxia… sleep paralysis.’ An alarm went off in her mind, but there was no reaction save for the surge of terror that assailed her. The rats. The rats were coming – she could hear them, the hundred tiny feet scratching the stone, their whisker upon her skin. Before she could wake up, they would be done, and would leave nothing but gnawed bones. No red stains, as they’d drink it all.

When her eyes opened, she truly believed in a miracle. At the very least, they had been reasonable enough to leave her head intact. When she noticed a muted light that pierced the gloom, she understood that she had been moved. The light burned her the more she looked, but she took as much of it as she could. If they could take her up, they could take her down again. Not a single drop of it would be wasted.

“I had almost forgotten about you, child.” The voice was grim, hoary as though it had not spoken in decades. He was far from where she was stretched, and as such she could not see him. Still, it was not difficult to guess that this was Anderson Maxwell, the man who’d introduced himself just before throwing her in the dungeon. The Unbeliever himself. “Lucky I told my servants to feed all prisoners regularly.”

Had she the strength, she would have sneered. She had been fed a grand total of three times, and had regurgitated the first maggoty repast. “What do you want.” Lillian coughed, unable to even turn her words into a question.

“I want to know how you suddenly appeared before me, ten days ago. Granted, that information will not be of any important, but I remain a curious… being.” The snicker of irony was strained, as though he became more and more aware of his own nature as he spoke. There was a brush of cloth and metal; she guessed he had shrugged it off.

“The black armour… in the Spire.” Lillian sighed, her voice heavy with pain and defeat. She didn't care what she said, or to who she said it. It was all the same, now. “On the chestplate... I touched the stone.”

[Godhand]

Godhand had to literally dig through the weapons he'd brought to find something useful. The things was that the mercenary was at heart a melee fighter, and he didn't really have anything besides his guns that were of any use in a situation like this. Or so he thought. His fingers suddenly grazed something smooth and round. He tossed aside a set of throwing knives only to find a cannonball, one of a pair he'd tossed into the wagon as an afterthought.

It'd been years since he bought it, back when he was a member of the very first incarnation of the Bandit Brotherhood. Good kids, if a bit of a grabass organization. They'd planned to go to war with some despot state nearby that had enslaved some elves or something; he certainly couldn't remember what it was about. Still, the mobster had gotten all excited and, flush with stolen wealth, had gone on a bit of a shopping spree in the bazaar.

Knives, swords, cannonballs and even a twenty four foot Zweihander had been purchased. It had all been for naught, though; their leader dissapeared the eve before an attack plan was to be made. Probably assassinated, but nobody ever found the body so who's to say? Godhand liked to think he'd gone off to live in an island filled with beautiful amazon women that serviced him in every way. Hahaha, no, only kidding. The mercenary figured he was buried in one of Fallien desert's many graves.

Godhand picked up the cannonball, pleased with it's weight. Almost immediately afterwards he turned and hurled the projectle at the nearest cliff side. The stone and the sphere both practically detonated upon impact, sending thick dust all over the area. There was a confused roar from the attackers, a panicked neighing from the Geldings, and then the mobster leapt out of the wagon.

[Ataraxis]

Lillian closed her eyes, once more greeting the darkness. She remembered the tower of unliving black, remembered the people who had led her there from a frantic Eluriand. Led her with dozens of other students from the IstienUniversity, to a fate worse than death. On the higher floors of the Spire was a room, where the obsidian pulsed with white veins. At its heart was a black armour, magnificent in its make, but it had been bound by chains of the starkest white. Chains, however, that had been broken by the mercenary Godhand. Unfettered, the armour beckoned her – she answered, touching the onyx stone. Lillian cursed there and then: she remembered that, when she had been teleported, they had been moments away from an undead onslaught, one that spearheaded the very arrival of the Dark.

“Ah, yes. The stone that brings him to us, or us to him.” The frail voice broke her daze, returning her to the dull grey of the marble ceiling. The Lich was in musing, as though trying to fill in what blanks remained. “Then, without any clear instruction, the stone must have sent you to the closest among us. A sensible theory.”

“You keep… saying ‘us’. Who are you, Unbeliever?”

“We are the Necrisition. Of the Necromancer, we are the all-reaching Fist.” There was the grate of a chair against stone. Echoes of heavy steps, shaking what sounded like a full-plate armour. Breaking the monotony of the dappled grey ceiling was the face of the Lich himself, pale like the drowned dead, milky eyes that glowed a sickly orange. Staring right into hers, unmoving. “And it just so happens that, as of this morning onward, we are those who now rule Raiaera.”

He maintained the gaze, one from which she found herself unable to break. The world went dark again.

[Godhand]

"Who the fuck do you think you are!? I paved the way for punks like you!" There was a short pause as Godhand, fuming, loomed over his fallen assailant. The kid looked up at him, face swollen and nose bleeding, and uttered a pathetic mewl. The mercenary paused, then raised his foot and stomped into his skull. "FUCK YOU!"

He'd taken full advantage of the diversion the cannonball had caused. The mercenary felt his way through the dust, drawn to and fro by the bewildered yells of the bandits. Each time he managed to get his hands on one it was quick work; just clasping his hands over their windpipes and giving a quick squeeze. They didn't put up much of a fight at all, but not many people could in a situation like that. By the time the dust cleared, the last men standing were Godhand and the bandit leader. The mercenary had tuned him up pretty good then; he was still in a bad mood from getting sent to that hellhole Raieaera and didn't have much patience for bottom feeders like them. Then came the stomp, and that was that.

Godhand briefly considered stowing their bodies into the wagon to take them back to Corone after the job was done to see if there was any reward for them, but quickly dismissed the idea. The last thing he needed was for that necromancer to resurrect these punks in the middle of his journey. He could already imagine it; he'd be whistling a merry tune as he drove past a tattered battlefield, clicking his tongue once in a while to urge the geldings onward, and then one of these assholes would lunge up from behind and sink their teeth into the mobster's melon. Godhand shuddered; what a way to go.

The mercenary walked over to ground zero from his cannonball attack, looking to see if he could still salvage the projectile. But, dumb fucking luck, he couldn't find it in anywhere. What the Hell was he thinking? It was probably in low althanas orbit after ricocheting off the stone. Godhand chuckled as he hefted himself back unto the wagon, shaking the reins to let the horses know it was time to go. It was still a long way to Raieaera.

[Ataraxis]

The iron bars shook as the gaol door snapped shut, sending grit and dust from the rocky ceiling to pelt the girl. She awoke, a headache flaring in her mind something fierce. Maxwell had done something to her, but all she could recall was the eerie glow of his eyes. But Lillian didn’t fool herself into thinking there was some other trick; sometimes, a look was all it took. When she tried to stand, her knees quickly buckled and she fell in the puddles of fetid waters with a splash.

She didn’t understand what was stopping her from breaking out of this feeble cell. Though the locking mechanism was magical in nature, the bars themselves were nothing but packed rust. Her normal frailty could not make them budge, but she had tried to call upon her powers countless times, without success. No gargantuan strength, no razor sharp threads. Nothing she did worked, and it frustrated her to the point of despair.

In this cell, all she had was a brass bowl, a knife and a fork. “Oh, and a wooden platter, not that that’s going to help me.” With much contempt, she observed the tray, saw the splinters along its edges and the darker line than ran through it, proof that it was made from two different planks. Watching it made her furious, and she did not know why. She did not care why. She hated the damn thing, as much as she hated everything in this god-forsaken dungeon. And the rats! Gods, she hated them all.

One of them twittered in a corner, long whiskers lapping the dried bottom of the bowl of cold porridge she had been given, three days ago. Feeling a need to relieve her violent urges, she threw the tray at it will all her might. The rat scampered, its fat body collapsing as it squeezed through the bars. “Great, and the damn thing broke.”

And then it hit her. Wasting no time, she scrambled for the remains of the platter. There was a thin sliver of wood, so thin that it broke when she took it in her hands. The other part was on the verge of splitting again, a process she had decided to accelerate. She took the fork and knife from the bowl and plunged them both, blade and tongs, into the fissure. With a bit of wriggling, the platter came apart. Then, she did the unthinkable.

Lillian undressed herself.

There was no reason to blush and gyrate as she usually would, her audience being naught but the red eyes of a couple of rodents. Hastily, she dipped the dress into the stale waters that soaked the floor, turning the thing into more of a rag than it already was. She hurried to the bars, wrapped the wet cloth around two of them and ran the thick sliver from the tray into the knot. She took both ends of the wooden handle and turned.

Her hands were bleeding from the countless splinters, but she did not stop. These bars were nothing but rust, and this particular application of force would be, should be... had to be more than enough. The iron wailed, and she strained even further. Sparks flew as they snapped. Lillian was elated, and she instantly began work on her shackles, simple work… very painful work. She pulled her wrists out, compressing her hands as much as she could until they were freed, one by one. It had taken days of fasting for that, but as willowy as she was, she had managed to lose even more weight. She repeated the gruesome progress with the manacles at her ankles, and within half an hour, she was free.

She was dressed again, but holes riddled the fabric. She was standing again, but blood dripped from her wrists and ankles, the skin peeled off with their forceful liberation. But she was free.

And she was furious.

[Godhand]

Thank God he'd thought to bring along a couple of fur coats to line the bottom of the wagon. The mercenary had had to fish one out almost the minute he'd gotten past the Raieaeran border; fuckin' rogue weathermages had conjured up vicious blizzards around the corners of elf land to repel attempts at aiding the elves. They'd probably been successful, too; Godhand couldn't imagine anything but a Fallien horse getting anybody through that blasted cold. He thought about that gun running deal with Djakara; what a fucking disaster that was. I mean he'd gotten out of it more or less okay, and all those shotguns had definitely made his bosses happy, but it was still a nasty bit of business. He'd had to fight his way through an army, backing an incompetent leader and surrounded by incompetent allies and it was just bad, bad business. He was definitely put off Salvar after all that.

Godhand breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a village appear on the horizon. It didn't look razed, anyway. That was a start. When he finally steered his exhausted horses into the settlement, he got an overwhelming feeling he was in a ghost town. I mean everybody was still there, but it just felt wrong. Quiet. The town's residents stood on their doorways, watching him with caution. They all wore black; they were in mourning for their country. Just then a man clad in full plate armor and bearing the crest of Sir Anderson stepped out in front of his horses, holding out a hand to stop them.

"This village is part of the court of the honorable Sir Anderson Maxwell. Travelers are not welcome here. Our lord has already delivered this month's quota of dead to the great Xem'Zund'; it is by the infinite mercy of our lord that your life is spared. Go back to Corone, traveler."

"Oh, certainly, my dear knight. Could you just...Wait, for a moment? I am unsure of which path to take back to my home. I was disoriented by a blizzard, you see. Perhaps you could point me in the right direction? Let me just get my map, and you can point out where I am. It's right back here, you see."

Godhand walked over to the back of his wagon and smiled when he found the second cannonball.

[Ataraxis]

Every step up the winding stairs replenished her, filled her with a new wind that was most likely fuelled by rage. Yet, there was something Lillian had to recover before she could even consider unleashing it. Until then, she would have to rely on her small size and a once despised ability to be so easily ignored. It helped that they'd also taken away her boots, imagining that they could house some small, hidden weapons. Fat chance, but a good try. 'Regardless, I'm not leaving this place without them.'

Lillian found her path barred by a heavyset door, bolted shut. This one was going to take more than a stick and a wet rag to bust open, and so the girl decided to bide her time. She hugged the left wall some three feet away for the door hinges, calculating that when it would open, it would provide her all to cover she needed without crushing her into a bloody pancake.

No more than a dozen minutes of wait and she saw shadows play behind the grilled slats. The clink of keys, the unlocking of a padlock. The panel creaked open, blessing the dark and grimy stairs with a modicum of light. Rattling bones and moaning drawls announced the presence of the undead warden, come to feed one of the other prisoners. A stupid idea, considering how one was unconscious and the other was dead. God, she could already smell the horrid stench of the porridge. In a way, those two were lucky to be where they were now.

When the warden passed her, she lightly shut the door. It wouldn’t do her any good if the Maxwell goons came to this one’s rescue. No. She wouldn’t have it.

Lillian bull-rushed the zombie, planting the splinter-turned-stake into his rotting atlas, twisting dryly. She pushed herself off him before tumbling down the stairs and fell on her hind, just in time to watch the damned ghoul break apart on the steps until his corpse was swallowed by the depths. Pocketing the rot-stained stake, she walked through the unlocked door.

The castle was empty. She crept along corridors with walls as scarcely decorated as the abode of a blind man, testimony that this Anderson was no afficionado of art and had no interest in interior design. A few random turns and she happily stumbled onto the very room she was looking for, left unguarded as well. She wondered at the possibility of a ploy, but the lack of security could have been due to a lack of a workforce to begin with. If they had to leave their stations to patrol the small town she could see through the arched windows, then she still had a chance of getting out of this place in a single, unmarred piece. “Here’s for hoping.”

The chamber was vast yet just as vacant as the rest of the ruined castle. At its center stood a marble plinth, nondescript save for the objects that lay upon it – notably a pair of boots and the finest of rapiers she had ever seen, crafted from Delyn. Her rapier. She took them both and sped out of the room, hopping from foot to foot as she shod herself and strapping the weapon along with her rope belt.

It didn’t stay there for long. The last guards in this joint had rounded the corner, and they were all undead.

She had a tooth to pick with their entire kind.