Fear and Loathing

[Paladin]

((Closed)).

It was a cold, silent cloudy day in the fields of Skavia. The sun had just risen up over the mountain peeks to the north and the permafrost that covered the ground had not yet melted. Four men, a woman and about a half a dozen dogs made their way across their quickly across the cold rocky ground. The men rode on horse back, white steeds that had been raised by the church and spoke in Salvarian. These were men of the church. A Paladin in regal white armor leading the group riding beside him was his squire a young but athletic looking Salvarian lad named Valino Darashann III. Like his sire he rode tall on his horse, and was clad in white armor though it wasn't nearly as heavy or his regal.

The other two men were not nearly as high class looking. Clad in white leather robes, and wide brim hats they were unkempt, unshaven and armed to the teeth. They were witch hunters, the boogeymen of the church, specially trained to hunt down magic users who'd been declared enemies of the church by any means necessary. Even their dogs were said to be able to sniff out dark magic.

The woman was not a member of the church. Quite the opposite in fact. She'd been a loyal member of the crown since she was a child and had been strongly against the idea of the church being allowed to hold even a little power after the end of the war. In her mind the right move would have been to eliminate the followers completely. Apparently she hadn't been alone in ideals.

Recently a specially engineered plague had been ravaging areas of Salvar. The disease seemed to target those who followed the sway leaving them feverish, frantic and in constant pain. It turned their skin gray and made if flake and bleed before eventually rotting away. Muscle and organ tissue usually followed soon after if the victim did not die of bleeding. Valino himself had been a victim though by a divine miracle as well as holy magics and holy medicine he'd miraculously survived. Even the scars that had been caused by his cracking skin would heal with time. At least that was what the doctors told him but others would not be so lucky.

The Church had a cure but it was slow and difficult to make, compared to the rate the disease spread and killed it was like trying to put out a raging forest fire with a cup of water. They needed to find a way to end this plague before it continued to spread and the woman was going to help whether she wanted to or not. According to information obtained from her interrogation the plague was magical in nature, its creators residing just in a village the laid just beyond the horizon now. She was likely not the cause of the plague, only a member of the group responsible but until they reached village she was considered responsible for all those who had died or would die from the disease and thus would be punished accordingly. That was why over the few days that the trip had taken she'd been stripped of cloth and dignity, she'd been given nothing but water to drink and had been forced sleep outside with the dogs and fight with them over scraps if she wanted food. That was why instead of ridding on horse back she'd been bound by her wrists to the back of one of the horses and been forced to make the trip by foot.

The normally kindhearted Valino would have objected to such torture under normal circumstances but having experienced first hand the pain of the disease and having watched as everybody from infants to the elderly slowly and painfully succumbed to it he couldn't help but feel as though her pain was deserved even as he continually reminded himself that The Sway taught forgiveness.

“Its just over those hills,” screeched the woman as she pointed to the distance where the tops of several buildings could just now be seen by the normal human eye.

“Ah so it is,” said one of the witch hunters as they pulled a flint lock pistol out from underneath their robes “guess that means you can go meet the sway now. I think the dogs were getting tired of sharing their food anyways.”

The witch hunter cocked the hammer but before he could pull the trigger Valino's voice rang out. “Stop!” he commanded “let me perform the execution. She violated my body, my mind and possibly my soul with her plague. Let her pay her debt to me before she meets The Sway.”

There was a pause. Then the witch hunter smirked and looked to Valino's sire who simply nodded his head which prompted the witch hunter to put his gun away. “Alright lad. Send her on her way.”

The young man leaped from horse and gripped the handle of his sword but before he could could draw his blade and put the wretch out of her misery and armored hand sternly gripped his shoulder. Valino looked up to see stern face of his sire, Sir Ludvig, who gave him a simple order “If you're going to perform the execution then act like a member of the church and not a common lowlife.”

And just like that Valino felt his malice for the woman disappear and with it the clouds it had created in his mind. When his sire had grabbed him the man had bestowed upon him one of the blessings that all paladins of the church learned, the blessing of clarity. The apprentice paladin straightened his posture and his clothing as he took his hands off the blade and calmly, this time with out malicious intent, made his way over to the prisoner.

“On your knees,” he commanded the woman who in turn responded by spitting at him. The young man drew his blade and leveled its point at her exposed throat before repeating his command word for word. This time she obeyed allowing Valino to continue with the ritual. He'd never performed an execution before but as part of his duties as a soon to be paladin he'd witnessed several and while under the influence of his sire's blessing he had no problems remembering the words.

“You kneel before me a criminal of the church. You're crimes have made you a heathen and a dog. Because of your crimes the body, mind and soul of countless others have been violated and they may never get a chance to walk the blessed path,” recited Valino almost methodically “you have been punished for crimes but as more followers continue suffer for you actions so to will your punishment continue not in this life but in the next. With my blade I give your body back to the land of Salvar and send your soul to meet The Sway. May they help you walk the path of redemption.”

Then in one swift motion Valino drew his blade and plunged it into the woman's heart the same way he'd plunged it into the heart effectively removing her soul from her the mortal realm. He made she was laid face down so that her body the blood that now rushed from the wound would seep into the the land.

As he got back on his horse Sir Ludvig asked him a seemingly innocuous question. “So how do you feel?” to which Valino didn't answer as he and the other men made their way to town.

[Leopold]

Leopold was seldom found to be wanting in the academic field of knowledge. He, by his very nature, was a rook on the signpost, watching the crossroads of life in all its fickle, bitter, and twisted glory. In Salvar, however, he had been found very much lacking in all respects. Whilst mercantile pursuits were his passion, and indeed, his skill, in the frozen wastes there was something else afoot he did not understand.

It was the power of faith and glory.

In the wake of the fall of the Church, the collapse of Salvar’s state, and the deconstruction of the country’s economy many groups had risen in the hopes of claiming a small stake of that power. Many had become disillusioned, disenfranchise, and unsatisfied with the peace efforts of the diminished crown following the war. Outright, many of the groups had the remnants of the Church and its members should be removed from the face of Althanas.

“This is gruelling to observe, Wilfred. Remind me again why I agreed to this?” Leopold raised a frosted eyebrow, struggling to come to terms with the events unfolding on the sheet ice in the distance. The merchant shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, and made several feeble attempts to warm his hands with his steamy breath, despite his thick goat hair gloves.

The shrew-like butler could only shrug his shoulders, which made visible movement outside of his fur-lined coat. The thick padding over his form cladded the lanky form of Leopold’s trusted ally in the cold war. His breath turned to steam, and high above, to ice without much resistance as he wheezed in similar fashion to Leopold into his own gloved hands.

“Good deeds never go unrewarded in a land of pious determination, milord. I think it would be appropriate for you to be seen to be…” the man minced his words, stumbled, and then righted his direction with a cough of his throat, “helping those in need.”

Leopold did not doubt Wilfred’s advice, but he very much doubted the execution thereof. He patted his hands together, bounced from foot to foot, and then fell silent, motionless, and humble. Down on the ice, death descended without prejudice. The sound of the gunshot pealed high to the sky like a clap of thunder. The body fell to the ground, without fanfare, and in the final moment of the stranger’s life, Leopold found himself muttering a silent and long forgotten prayer. Whatever was happening in the Salvic states, Leopold had no doubt that occurrence such as this would become more common place before they found the root of the problem.

“True, by all means, but I daresay I think we should redouble our efforts to bring this to a peaceful conclusion. Do you not agree?” Leopold buried his hands into his armpits and cocked his head through the drift of snow. The group they had followed were zealots in the merchant’s eyes, following their new mandate to the letter, but twisting the meaning they found in its words.

“Peace is not a word I understand, milord.” Wilfred smirked wildly. In the grey, blue, and slate shades of the bleak horizon, the man’s smile cast light over everything. “I think it would be wise for you to remove it from yours. The Church is acting under orders of the state, a state, I might add, that is rather keen to see its people freed, and it’s ruined heart rebuilt…”

“At any cost you might say?” Leopold raised a bushy eyebrow.

“That remains to be seen, but from we have just witnessed,” he pointed a digit to the bloodied corpse on the verge of their vision, and then moved his hand towards the stream of horseback men that trailed through the tundra back to the nearest town. “I believe cost is a relative measure.” It was a measure Leopold had yet to understand. They were supposed to be preventing a menagerie of ills that had befallen the people of Salvar’s shattered settlements, yet, wherever they went, the Hand of the Sway had inflicted nothing but more death.

“Like history, I guess the rate of interest is set exclusively by the victors,” Wilfred returned. The play on words, metaphors, and old wives tales brought a fleeting smile to both their faces. Leopold patted Wilfred sarcastically on his shoulder, before he set off down the slope in pursuit of their prey. By the end of the day, Leopold Winchester hoped to have discovered two things. One, who had ordered the Church to be its justice department, and two, who had brought plague, death, and devastation to the land he was increasingly inclined to call home.

[Paladin]

The village of Lorem had once held an important role to the church. Since long before the it had served as a civilized hub for missionaries and glory seekers looking to tame to the wild region of Salvar called Skavia. Prior to the war the church had be welcomed here because it had been it's knights and it's soldiers that had so many times helped clear the immediate area of the orcs and barbarians, that might otherwise threaten the village. It was an odd and unpleasant feeling now to receive nothing but cold stares and fearful whispers as the holy men and their dogs made their way along the hard packed dirt road between the gray stone buildings.

“I don't like this,” muttered one of the first.

“Nor do I,” said the second one in agreement.

Ludvig scowled. “These creatures have taught these people to fear us,” said the paladin in an uncharacteristic display of open disgust. The normally taut and pious holy knight merely had off to the right with his head and soon Valino and both witch hunters could easily see the source of his disdain.

A holy church of The Sway. Once a regal structure, it had been reduced to ashes and rubble. Somebody had burned its pew and taken hammers to its stone walls. Its stained glass windows had been broken, and its holy symbols smashed and defiled. The terrorists had torn it down as a message to the people. They controlled the village, not the church and not the crown and as long as that remained the case followers of The Sway were not welcomed.

“What now sire?” asked Valino finally breaking the uneasy silence that had befallen his comrades.

“Me and you will find find us a place to stay during our investigations,” said Ludvig before turning his head toward the witch hunters“ in the mean times Father Williams and Father Abraham will begin their investigations. He addressed the witch hunters as Father because despite their roles they were technically priests of The Sway as all witch hunters were. Becoming a witch hunter, at least one officially recognized by the church entailed going through the holy rights of priest hood.

Both men nodded in agreement. Father Abraham and his three dogs took their leave. Turning off the main street and heading down one of the side roads however Father Williams had different plans. One his wolfhounds kept looking back and growling and he knew why. Though by who he didn't know. He reckoned it was about time he found out. The witch hunter turned his horse around and with his dogs started going back along the path he'd just traveled.

[Leopold]

The old man turned the corner, and no sooner had he ridden into Leopold’s view on a metaphorical high horse, the business man shot him an awkward look that fused contempt with wistful surprise. He had, despite his lack lustre ability to tail a charge, not expected the preachers to detect they were being followed so easily. Several courses of action sprang to mind in the merchant’s mind. Many of them involved a lead slug to the temple, dragging a body into the dark, and speaking no more of the matter except between himself and his beleaguered servant.

“Good afternoon,” Wilfred said with a chipper peak to his tone. It was a natural, off the cuff, and perfectly acceptable comment to pass to a stranger crossed on the open road. It would have proven to be quite adequate cover for the pair, had Leopold simple chosen to continue advancing towards the inn on the far side of the small holding, and not remained fixated to the spot, some hundred feet from the snarling fangs and wizened grimace.

Wilfred carried on for a good twenty feet before he realised, quite suddenly, that he was now walking alone. He turned on a half heel of his left foot, remaining facing both the stranger and his master, lest he be exposed to the wraith of either gentlemen, and waited. “Lord Winchester?” he said softly, without raising too much suspicion. “Did you remember something you have forgotten again?” he half chuckled, as if to make out like this sort of thing happened all the time.

Leopold glared, but hid the contempt in a smouldering furrow of his brow. He looked at the man servant, then beyond to the preacher and his dogs. He let a few seconds pass, before relaxing, regaining lost ground, and standing next to Wilfred with arms at ease and heart no longer racing.

“Not this time, except my manners of course Wilfred.” He advanced slowly towards the father, and held out his stubby right hand to offer his greetings. His teeth, pristine and white, gleamed against the bleak backdrop of the ruined hovel.

“That is very good, sir, very good.” Behind his wall of moustache, smarm, and thick rimmed spectacles, Wilfred observed the unfolding curiosity. He had followed his aster over snow drift and kingdoms end, and each of those pained steps had been for this strange moment between the old and the new.

“My name is Lord Winchester, father, it is a pleasure to meet the Sway’s guidance on the long road.” He smiled.