A Demon's Arithmetic

[Olivan]

From the moment Alydia Ettermire issued to the children the command to flee, quick feet beat upon the dampened, craggy terrain in chaotic organization. Their key to freedom came in the form of two brightly burning torches that attracted the children like moths. Olivan found himself sprinting alongside of the youngsters as if he’d been apprehended and detained in these caverns as well. He’d seen a lot of things on the fief grounds of Salvar, but he’d never before seen a monster. Only within the confines of his wild imagination were beasts like what he’d just witnessed real.

Before he even realized it, the group had made it back to the mouth of the cave. The children breathed heavily for air due to the exhaustion and anxiety that came gift wrapped with the trial that they’d just underwent. “Is this everyone?” Olivan asked his drow companion, hoping that she would answer favorably and end this nightmare. But just before she could speak a single word, a young girl shot up from among the group. Her eyes were widened and her senses sharp like a mother deer sensing something wrong in the environment. “W..Where is Sage?”

The amalgamation of elated youth had their relief sapped instantly upon hearing the inquiry. Heads turned left and right with eyes scanning the ambiance in all directions in order to provide a positive answer. Yet while their eyes searched, their lips remained sealed. She was nowhere to be found.

Fear had now poisoned Olivan. How would he be able to face his sister if her daughter wasn’t found and brought back safely? “When was the last time that any of you had seen Sage!?” The Salvarian awaited some kind of answer from the gathered young one, but his ears were met with shrieking and crying. To settle down would be an impossible task to ask of them in all of their turmoil. Therefore, adrenaline mixed with fear of the unknown prompted Olivan to blindly dash back into the cave, but not before snatching a torch from Aly. All rationale escaped him, with his mind only set on finding his niece.

“Sage! Where are you!?” The serf screamed, as he ran in any direction he could. Eventually his panicked running led him back to where the monster and Vim were still fighting. However, amidst the roaring of the two, he heard the wailing of a little girl balled up in the corner of the area. Her wet face matched the picture that he’d seen in his sister’s house. “Sage, don’t worry….everything is going to be fine!” Olivan tried to sound as reassuring as possible, but there was no real conviction behind his statement. He was still terribly frightened, especially since the foul fiend seemed to have prevented Sage from escaping just by the way that him and Vim were positioned. Olivan in no way could match the brute strength that Alydia’s companion possessed, but he had to do something. Unfortunately, that something was yet another decision which lacked rationale. Taking his chances, the young teenager tried to dash passed the monster once its back was turned. But misjudging the fiend’s senses as well as arm length led to a back swipe that’d nearly crushed Olivan’s skull had the boy not ducked in time.

Having reached the girl, Olivan observed his position and truly understood why she couldn’t escape. The monster was somehow fighting with Vim all while keeping a sharp eye on his prey. St. Donomar found himself growing more anxious by the second. Everything was in Vim’s hands now. Either he was going to defeat his adversary, or the fiend would have quite the large meal on his plate.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Vim's strength was flagging. He was wrestling the demon with all of his strength, but he wasn't nearly powerful enough for the pulsating mass of green flesh. It was something else entirely, and though he'd done all he could to fight for his child's survival, he just didn't have it in him to withstand the brute force of the attack. His right side was a mass of pain, and blood frothed up to his lips as a result of the blow that had hit him directly. His head was spinning from a glancing blow, and his left arm hung uselessly at his side.

He'd been aware of Sage's presence, but had been unsuccessful in trying to draw the demon away from her so that she could flee. When Olivan rushed in to try and rescue her, the big man felt a rush of anger. What about the other children?

He gathered up his strength for one last attack, but a casual flick of the monster's wrist sent him skidding across the floor on his injured side, and the demon who walked in Lou's armor turned back to Olivan and Sage. A feral grin lit his face; maybe he was not eating fourteen children...but two children so closely related would still give his power a decent boost.

The crack of a whip in his ear made the demon whirl around to see who DARED challenge him now. Hadn't they seen him decimate their biggest, most powerful man? Didn't they see that he had the little runt of a boy cornered?

The challenger that met his gaze was a blazing scarlet wind. Her coat billowed around her from the wind her own movement made, and her hair streamed behind her. A single frost blue eye glared out at him from beneath the brim of a broad hat, and the demon snarled.

"You."

"Xas," she hissed. "Uns'aa." Alydia cracked her whip again, lashing the brute roughly across the ugly green face and starting to retreat, drawing him forward like a circus trainer might while taunting a tiger.

He came after her without hesitation. If not for her, the townsfolk would have blindly accepted his leadership and then they would have never had a chance of rescuing any of the children. He would have been free to do with them as he wanted, set up a more elaborate sacrifice, rather than rushing it for fear of interruption. Rather than being interrupted and potentially losing every last morsel. That was looking unlikely, but she had already stolen thirteen of his fourteen prizes, and he might not be able to reclaim them.

Rather than running for the exit, like a smart woman would have, Alydia backed up until she was touching the wall. The demon who had masqueraded as Lou Dwin let out a dry chuckle.

"Now you are a bug for me to squish," he told the woman whose face might have been carved of obsidian for the severity of its expression. He charged, building up speed to destroy her, but to his surprise, she reached out and touched the wall. A large chunk of it disappeared, and an instant later, right as he could feel his body brush against the brim of her hat, so did she.

He crashed full-tilt into the bare wall and reeled for a second, turning to look for his target. She was standing a few feet away, but before he could attack her again a huge gray mass filled his vision.

It was the last thing he ever saw.



Alydia Ettermire turned from the massive chunk of rock she'd just dropped to glare at Olivan, cracking her whip one last time for good measure and letting the sharp sound reverberate through the cave before stomping over to where Vim had managed to sit himself up. She didn't like the sound of his breathing, but he probably had enough time to get back to town and be attended by the physician. Probably.

"We'll get you help," she told the large man, hauling him to his feet and starting to direct him toward the exit. Despite the fact she was supporting him as much as she could manage, the big man had to bear most of his own weight.

"There should be men...soon...." he told her. "I told them...get a bunch of men...just in case....to come after us..."

She nodded. "Good thinking. Now...hush." She turned her glare on Olivan once more. "You. Bring the child and come with me."

She led them all out of the cave, where the other children, lost and frightened, were waiting in the dark, huddled around the two horses. After setting Vim down to rest and sending little Sage over to Stell-stell, she whirled on the Salvaran youth. The fact that he was just a child, only a handful of years older than some of those who had been taken, didn't even register in her mind. She had a Coronian lad only a scant year older than Olivan on her team, and he would have never done something so stupid when she told him to take the target and run.

"What did you hear, when I told you that after we had the children out, to take them directly back to town? Did you hear 'take them back to town if you feel like it, if your sister's child is among the rescues?' Did you hear 'that's just what I think, feel free not to listen?' Or, worse, did you hear 'Olivan, why don't you do whatever you feel like, regardless of the danger it might pose to the other children?' I told you to take the children back for a very real reason, dalhar. If, Thayne forbid, that monster had been able to kill both Vim and myself, do you know what he would have done?! He'd have snapped your neck and Sage's neck like TWIGS! And then he would have rushed off to collect the rest. I gave you instructions so that if the worst happened, the most lives would still be spared. NOT so that you could ignore them!"

It was a rare burst of temper from Alydia; usually she was so in control of the world that if one thing went wrong, she could pull any of a dozen little strings to make things right again. But this situation was different, it was far more delicate and had much higher stakes.

So she stood there, sides heaving to take in the angry pants of air sustaining the thief, glaring down at the boy who stood taller than she did.

"Well? What did you hear when I told you to take them back to town? SPEAK!"

Already she could hear the hoofbeats of many horses approaching, and even the rumble of a wagon. Vim's foresight had likely saved his life, since she wasn't sure she could have trusted the young St. Donomar to either get him back to town safely for emergency medical treatment or to keep track of fourteen young, frightened children.

[Alydia Ettermire]

I'm just gonna finish this one up.

The young man cringed beneath the withering look piercing him. He didn't have a good answer for her; when he didn't find his niece among the children he had panicked. What sort of a hero panicked and abandoned children? What kind of hero put his own flesh and blood over so many others?

Olivan wasn't a hero, not tonight, and his eyes fixed themselves on his feet. He had come only because he wanted to help. Instead he had messed everything up. Alydia had had to save him, again. He opened his mouth, and a hesitant sound came out, but he was interrupted by the men from Valeena Lake arriving.

"Louisa!" The lead man's voice was filled with both astonishment and relief as he laid eyes on his daughter, the first child to vanish. Other men, entering within seconds, called out to their children or the children of their siblings. More than half of the little ones were met by relatives, and the rest were piled into the wagon with the promise of seeing their parents soon.

Alydia turned away from Olivan abruptly. "Take Sage back to your sister. Use the white mare." She had been kind to the boy earlier, when he was just a little lost child. But her sympathy for and patience with him was gone. She walked away from him with her billowing coat trailing behind her. He could follow the convoy back easily enough, and if he failed to follow instructions this time and lost himself and Sage, it would be on his own head.

The thief walked back to her injured man, who was holding his daughter carefully, happy to have her back safely. Kneeling down beside the little girl, Aly ran a hand gently over her matted brown hair. The child was filthy and her eyes had sunken in from exhaustion, fear, and dehydration, but she'd be fine. All the children would be fine.

"Go with the other kids in the wagon, Stell-stell. I need to take your daddy back to town quickly. I'll get you when you get back to town."

She watched the little girl for a moment as she clung to her father and then let go, climbing into the wagon to be driven back to town. Aly helped Vim back to his feet and onto the large brown horse he'd ridden in. Jumping up in front of him, the red-coated thief - no...today, she had been a Detective - turned the horse around and started rushing them back to town. Vim was quite badly hurt, and Alydia needed to get him to a medic as soon as possible.

Behind them, the convoy got moving, carrying precious cargo back to anxious parents. With the exception of Estelle, all children who had relatives come to get them rode with them, and the children in the wagon were too excited to finally be free and on their way home to sit still.

At the very back, lagging behind, a Salvaran teenager and a young child rode back to town. A heaviness weighed on his soul. Why couldn't he do anything right? What would it take for him to become a hero?

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia had very nearly run that bay into the ground, rushing Vim to Valeena Lake and a healer. All along the way, the horse seemed to make it his mission to try to brush his rider off beneath low branches or by nearly stumbling over difficult footing. Had Aly been human and night-blind, he'd probably have succeeded. When they finally pulled into town, the poor beast was lathered in sweat and its breath came out in great, heavy pants.

Fortunately for both her and Vim, the news that the children might have been found had spread, and townsfolk were gathered in the streets with a mixture of hope or morbid curiosity. They didn't know which children had survived, which had been harmed, and which were all right.

Alydia hopped off the horse, and barely were her feet on the ground when she was surrounded by people, each one asking how the children were, which children had survived, and who had been responsible. The questions came one on top of the other, from all sides, and each person was shouting so that their question could be heard.

"ENOUGH! All of the children are all right. They are on their way and will be here shortly. The kidnapper was Lou Dwin, and he is dead. More urgently, Vim needs help."

As soon as the news hit the ears of worried relatives and neighbors, the tension that had been so heavy in the air shattered. The shouted questions turned to excited murmurs and relieved sobs, and more importantly, at least to Aly, a few men picked the injured Vim up from off the horse's back and carried him off to the local medic's house. With care, the big guy would probably survive.

~*~*~

It was nearly half an hour later when the wagon and men returned with the children, and except to pick up Estelle and take her home to feed her, Alydia kept herself aloof from the crowd. She would have taken the thanks of grateful parents graciously, but that wasn't what she wanted. What she wanted to do was just watch families embrace the children they'd thought they'd lost forever. That was the part that made it all worthwhile.

When she'd been a detective, the hardest cases had been the ones involving children. Child murders had been the second worst. At least with a body right there in front of them, the family could begin to cope with the loss and move on, even as a member of law enforcement hunted down the killer to bring to justice. It was the kidnappings that were the worst. Most kidnappings, if the children weren't found quickly, turned into murder. But as long as their child was gone, the family had a hope that they'd be reunited with their little one and a breathless fear that terrible things were happening and they'd never see them again.

That combination of hope and fear was paralyzing. Parents didn't know which way to turn, whether they should join the search themselves or if it was best to wait at home. Many would cling to little items treasured by their children, because that might be the very last part of them they had.

Aly knew that fear very well. It had been plaguing her since communications had been cut off from Raiaera, since Dex had gone missing, since darkness had once more reared its ugly head in the world and threatened all those she held dear.

In Vim's home, she drew a bath for Stell-stell so the little girl could clean up and then heated up dinner so the child could have a good meal for the first time in a week.

"Aunt Aly?" The little girl had come out of the bath with her light brown hair tousled, but now that she was clean, it was easy to see that aside from a few scrapes and bruises, she'd come through unscathed. It gave Aly an indescribable amount of relief to see that little freckled face with her father's hazel eyes again.

The Alerean Elf set a plate down on the table and sat down at the place next to it. "What is it, Stell-stell?"

The little girl hopped into the seat and poked at the food despondently. "Will my daddy be all right?"

Aly stood up, grabbed a hairbrush off the counter, and went to work on the little one's hair. "He'll be fine. He got a little beat up holding back the monster, but he's being taken care of now. He'll be back with you tomorrow, and your Uncle Lore is coming to help for a few days until your daddy is back on his feet."

Estelle made a face, wrinkling her nose. "Uncle Lore is boring and has a lot of rules."

Aly laughed. "That he does. He even has lots of rules for me...but it's just how he knows to deal with us. He loves us both very much, in his own way. You'll understand when you're older."

"People always say that, Aunt Aly! Always!"

"I know," the thief said with a small smile, working through the last snarl and starting to weave a loose braid into the girl's hair. "And I know it's frustrating. But it's also true. You learn a lot as you grow, get experience, and sometimes you don't even know that you are. And when you have learned, when you have that experience, then you'll understand. It's just not something that can be explained away. You can't understand it in here," she tapped the top of Estelle's head, "until you understand it in here." She reached down to tap over her heart.

"Love is a tricky thing like that, Stell-stell."

The girl pouted. "I wish you could stay with me. Or Uncle Dex. Uncle Dex has been gone a long time."

Aly gave a slight nod, sitting back down. "I know. And that's why I can't stay, because I would. But I have to find your Uncle Dex, as well as your Uncles Sintta and Kelvar, and your Aunt Hyanda."

"I have a lot of uncles and aunts I've never met."

"Yes, you have. Now, come on. Let's get you ready for bed, and I'll take you over to see your daddy first thing in the morning."

~*~*~

Dawn had barely broken over the tree tops with its bright, clear light when Aly was shaken awake by little hands. The little girl had hardly been able to sleep she was so excited to be able to spend time with her father, and wouldn't even take breakfast without him.

Estelle burst into the healer's house, throwing the door open so hard that it banged open like a gunshot.

A few of the children were in there as well, being treated for exhaustion and dehydration, and the door slamming open woke the parents that had stayed with them. Estelle didn't even notice, running over to her father's bed and jumping up into his open arms.

Alydia shut the door softly and watched. This was the one reunion she'd been most eager to see, the one that made it really worthwhile. The one that in her mind made this endeavor a success, and the one that, if it hadn't occurred, would have made it a failure. After months of frustration with the Raiaerans and Dex not communicating with her, this one moment with Vim's arms around his little girl felt like a breath of fresh air after an eternity of suffocating.

A hand was placed on her arm, and Aly glanced over to one of the mothers waiting for her son to recover. "Thank you. Thank you, so much. If you hadn't come..."

The thief reached over and patted the woman's hand. "You don't need to thank me. Seeing this," she motioned to encompass all the families in the room that had been reunited, healed. "This is why I did it. An end like this, in a case like this...it's the rare one that keeps people like me from giving up altogether when children go missing."

The woman nodded, then returned to her child's bedside.

Lore arrived shortly before morning was out, and when he did, Aly took to the road again, going to catch a boat to Salvar.

This mission was done. But she still had a greater mission ahead of her.

[Taskmienster]

A Demon’s Arithmetic: Sorry that it seems that a person would start it, and lose interest after a page… only to have another person pick it up and lose interest as well. Those kinda things erk me to no end. But, as many of us have done, we pick up where the thread was left off and soldier on! Good to see you back. I’m going to be giving commentary based on where I see it’s needed. If the Mathemagician or Olivian come back and would like commentary based on their personal additions to the thread they are more than welcome to ask away and I’d be happy to provide such. As it stands, most of my commentary, or lack thereof, is going to be directed at WitW… with a heavy eye aimed at the last couple posts as requested.

Continuity 7
Setting 6
Pacing 6.5
Dialogue 8
Action 6
Persona 6.5
Technique 6
Mechanics 8
Clarity 7
:: Said I wouldn’t say much for those other than WinW, but Math… some of the stuff you wrote went straight over my head. It’s so unique, that explanation on what any of it means – at times – would be muy helpful.
Wild Card 6

:: The last couple posts seemed to be rushed, as if you wanted to get it just out of the way. Though that is to be expected at times, and understood. I’ve done that more than enough times. However, it made the pacing of the thread change, not dramatically, but enough that it was a bit off-setting. Not a whole lot of advanced technique used, probably because the will to just get it out of the way was more important. Gramatically, it was very well written, though there seemed to be at least one run-on sentence that drew away from the pacing and the story itself at times. Other than that, not bad, the rust isn’t thick, lol.

Score: 67


Rewards:

Math: 640 exp | 100 gold
Olivian : 1000 exp | 150 gold
WinW : 2000 exp | 200 gold

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added.

As always, if you'd like to hit me up you're welcome to at any time.