Completed Betrayer. Oathbreaker.

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

A ragged figure moving across the landscape.

Mischa Ven'rohk walked, the Elbion portal stone at her back. The dead and desolate farmland, the lasting wound of Pandemonium upon Arethil, stretched in a massive circle from the stone. Tilled fields and managed farmland on the perimeter of the sickly soil returning to nature, overgrown, abandoned by farmers wary of another crisis.

Alone she walked, a weak and staggering gait. She was starving, dehydrated, exhausted, sunken eyes separated from an open and welcoming embrace of death by sheer force of will. She carried her severed right arm, torn savagely apart at the elbow, the half she carried still clad in a vambrace and gauntlet of black and red plate armor. The wound at her elbow cauterized, a gnarled mass of unsightly flesh. She had on her person no weapons, no armor. She wore only her arming pants and shoes. Her doublet had been torn, most of it rendered useless and left behind, and she pinned the largest scrap of it to her chest to cover herself.

But it was not her nakedness which concerned her most. No. She pinned the scrap of torn doublet to herself and only incidentally covered her small breasts. There on her chest the open wound, perfect and bloodless and in the very shape of her heart which beat exposed to all Arethil inside the pit of it, and it was this she meant to hide.

She could show no one. No one. Not the wound. Not the leech-like Thing wrapped around her heart inside it. For at first she had been horrified and afraid. She did not understand the leech-creature, the Thing which had been imprisoned inside the hilt of her destroyed sword. Yet now, with the embrace of this tiny creature around her beating heart, she could ceaselessly feel the presence of the Great Holy One. The Thing was connected to It, a part of It perhaps. In this she found comfort, solace. For this meant that the Great Holy One watched her still, thus the promise made valid yet. Her service for strength, the strength her meager body lacked.

It was the way in which she could return to her tribe. To undo her father's 'merciful' exile. Home beckoned, if only she gained the favor of the Great Holy One and It fulfilled Its promise.

She could show no one. She could show no one this Thing, her only conduit between herself and the Great Holy One. Her hope of returning home embedded within.

She could show no one. Show no one this blessing which rested inside her.

Mischa's legs wobbled and she dropped down. She both held her severed arm and pinned the scrap of clothing to her chest with her left arm. This leaving her with only half of her right arm with which to crawl.

And she crawled. Desperate lines left in the dirt. The sun above hidden in a pocket of clouds, as if it were a mercy to not cast its light upon so dismal a demise.

And she crawled. Closing her eyes and clenching her teeth and pushing beyond the frail limits of her runty body.

And she crawled. A nausea and a lightheadedness and altogether a terrible accounting of the culmination of stresses and exertions accrued in days and weeks past.

She crawled.

Until she collapsed in a slump short of an abandoned farmhouse. The baleful call of carrion birds overhead. She rolled onto her back. Stared absently up to the sky. Each breath, each rise and fall of her chest, a precious and precarious thing.

* * * * *​

They the three of them journeyed long from the Spine. Templar of the Keepers of Oath Chapter. But it was a joyous occasion.

A brother, now having come of age, would be initiated into the ranks.

And they journeyed across Arethil such that he might answer the call, as had his older brother who so journeyed and their father before them and even his father before him.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani opened her eyes as the empty whispering around her dissipated and the portal stone left her back in the desolate circle outside of Elbion. Her clothes were still dripping and slightly torn but her wounds had been heald. She carried a spear using it as a walking stick, the dead earth sticking to her bare feet her boots tied together and slung over her shoulder. She had returned empty-handed this time, but she found consolation in the fact that no other had been able to find what she sought either.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of a murder of crows screeching in the distance. She sniffed the air, she smelled blood and charred flesh. Something close to death had passed through here. She looked up ahead to where she saw the crows circling. quickening her pace she came to the abandoned barn. She smelled the burnt flesh in the air before she saw her. A crumpled lump in the dirt several birds already coming down to inspect to soon to be corps.

Alani rushed forwards waving her arms and the birds scattered shrieking at her. She shrieked back at them and glared at them, letting them know that this body was hers. She gently rolled the girl over. She looked like herself. She had the green pallor of an orc, with small tusks like hers and she was about the same size as Alani was. Alani had never seen anyone that looked like her.

"Hey, here, drink this," She quickly grabbed her cantine and helping the girl sit up she gave her some to drink. She then took off her tank top leaving her in her chest wrap and trying to help put it on the girl who had nothing to speak of covering her upper half.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

Immediately startling, the presence of another. Mischa's eyes went wide. Apprehensive, suspicious, fearful. She clutched her severed arm and scrap of cloth to her chest. Meager resistance as the stranger helped her to sit up, rocking her body from side-to-side with what little strength she could muster.

A human. No. Close. Maybe. But no, no. Her skin was off, her ears pointed to a degree. It was a small measure of comfort that the stranger was near as small as Mischa herself. But she was still a stranger. She wouldn't understand. Much like the dwarf in Elbion, only worse now. One's eyes played more into fear than one's ears.

Mischa swatted at the canteen being offered with the half of her right arm. A pathetic showing, she could hardly reach the canteen let alone knock it from the stranger's hand. Yet still she tried. Turned her head from the water on offer even as her tongue and her throat demanded it.

"Don't look at me," Mischa said. "Don't look at me. Just. Just leave me."

* * * * *​

He had come from Vel Anir. Traveling north and west to avoid the Anirian grasp about the edges of Falwood. His course a roundabout one to reach his destination.

He had suspected that he had gone slightly too far west. He was right. But the sight of the Elbion portal stone at last put him back on track.

And he saw them. The peculiar look of them both.

There his curiosity piqued. A longing for a true home. Kin.

He followed, and watched from afar.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani scowled, "Drink or you will die," She ordered continuing to hold the bottle up to her lips and tipping it back so she either had to drink it or let it spill down her neck. "Now, don't be stubborn and let me help you. I mean you no harm," She said carefully sitting the girl up. She then took her tank top and helped put it on the girl, gently but firmly countering any resistance she gave. She saw the gash in the middle of her chest but it didn't seem to be bleeding at the moment. The first priority, for now, was to get her someplace safe.

the crows perched on the roof and in the branches to the tree the grew next to the barn. Several braver crows hopped along the ground nearby curiously watching as this girl stole their snack. One tried to hop too close and Alani's head snapped up and glared at it. It locked eyes with her and then took another hop closer, testing her. Alani snarled, growling at it, showing her tusks. It flapped hopping backward giving Alani her space.

Alani turned back to Mischa. "Alright, don't be alarmed, I am going to carry you now," Alani was short and lean but she was also toned. Scars crisscrossed her muscular arms and back. Her hands work calloused; capable of such gentleness yet powerful at the same time. Strong arms lifted Mischa up and draped her injured form across Alani's shoulders as she started back down the road. There was a Villiage not far off where there would be medicine and other medical supplies. The burns to Mischa's severed arm had cauterized the wound and kept her from bleeding out in the moment but if the burns went untreated they were sure to become infected. Alani knew how to treat burns but she needed supplies that she didn't have here.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

Mischa wanted to protest further. To do everything she could to make the stranger go away and diminish the chance of her seeing the wound. But all resistance ceased as soon as water, fresh water, touched Mischa's lips from the stranger's canteen. She drank vigorously, gulp after gulp until she coughed and a small splash of water fell from her mouth and she coughed some more until finally she cleared her throat and her airway.

Mischa just breathed. Eyes closed. Sat there as she felt cloth slipping over her torso.

The stranger snarled, and Mischa opened her eyes and looked. Blinked.

Little Elf Teeth.

The stranger looked back to her. Said she was going to carry her.

"Alright."

Mischa's tone different from before. Kindred instead of confrontational. The tension gone from her body, a cooperative allowing of the stranger to aid her.

She was quiet for a time.

Pensive.

* * * * *

(Days ago)​

They sat about the campfire at night, their horses hobbled and grazing nearby. Alliria far behind them now. Their destination drawing near.

Jensen sat on his bedroll and ate his ration of salted meat. Drank from his waterskin. He watched them, Rickard and Abby, the other two templar; he was the oldest among the three. He had been Rickard's sponsor when first he joined the Keepers of Oath, and now he sponsored Abby through her initiation.

"Me-tic," Rickard said to Abby.

"Me-tic," Abby repeated.

"U-lous."

"U-lohs."

"Meticulous."

"Meticulohs."

Rickard glanced to Jensen. Jensen smiled and gave a small shrug. Absoula, "Abby" as they all called her, was a wildwoman from one of the clans in the Ixchel Wilds. Common was not her first tongue, but she was a quick learner. Every night on the journey Rickard taught her some of the more uncommon and difficult words of the language; this, before the stories he and Jensen would tell of their world, the civilized world they'd both come from, as she listened with fascination and awe. The woman had been struck dumb with wonder when first they entered on Alliria, and with near childlike curiosity inquired about everything she laid her eyes on.

Rickard had been intimidated by her at first, Jensen could tell. Normal woes of a young man's pining for a young woman aside, Abby stood about half a head taller than him. Maintained a fierce gaze and a warrior's physique to match Rickard's own. He had consulted Jensen, Rickard did, ostensibly asking for some sort of permission, if it was okay for him to approach Abby. Jensen simply said that there was nothing in the Chapter's code that forbade this; clearly Rickard had truly been asking himself, gathering his courage. Jensen observed an immutable fact of life in this: that a man might face down death itself and stand triumphant and brave, yet shrivel and become weak in his knees at the prospect of putting his pride at hazard expressing his interest to a woman.

"In a few days time," Abby said. "We will see your home, yes?"

Rickard nodded. "Yeah. I haven't been back home since I became a Templar. It'll be an experience for both of us."

"Your home. Is it like Alliria?"

Jensen chuckled. "No, Abby. Only Alliria is like Alliria."

"Smaller?"

"Yes," Rickard said. "Much smaller."

Abby thought about this. Said, "Smaller is good."

Jensen stood after he finished eating. Told Rickard and Abby that he'd be going about setting up traps to catch more small Savannah game. It was partially true. He fully intended to set up the traps and possibly have more food for the road. But he also left the camp to give Rickard and Abby time together in private. There was once a time when he had been that young man too. Cherished days.

In his latter years, a sorrow and a simplicity. Things fell away with time, whether by tragedy or otherwise, and he kept what he held onto tightest. Jensen was one of the oldest of the Keepers of Oath, and he would train and sculpt the newest squire-initiates into fine Templars.

This, for as long as he still drew breath.

 

[Alani Delkera]

The girl seemed to relax. Alani was glad she did not have to fight the stubbornness of an orc to keep the girl alive. Alani knew full well that self-preservation was thrown to the wind when orcish stubbornness was involved. She had a double dose of stubbornness herself, the orcish variety from her mother, and a dwarvish variant from her father. The human genes mixed in there were probably the only things that kept her stubborn streak in check. Though humans had their own kind of stubbornness that could be almost just as bad.

As they neared the village Alani noticed a shift in the wind and caught a whiff of something new. She sniffed the air. Something, or someone more likely, was following them. She was unable to subtly check behind her with the girl on her shoulders but she cocked her head to listen. There it was, a rustle, a snap out of place. To the untrained ear, it would have just sounded like the wind or a bird in the underbrush but Alani knew the difference.

Whoever it was they were keeping their distance. She did not let on that she knew they were being followed but she was ready to put the girl down and fight at any sudden change.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

In the stranger's care a reckoning. The blind eye Mischa had turned to the exertion of her body finally made to see. Desperation had spurred her forth, from one failure to another in Elbion and then off to the portal stone at the behest of a vision from the Great Holy One. And still there she had failed, for Gharn lived and she had been utterly defeated. All the while as she pushed herself and pushed herself, seeking to do something right and gain the favor of the Great Holy One, she ignored the suffering of her own body. A vague awareness of her limitations, but never fully acknowledged, even as agonies of all varieties plagued her.

Now, as she was being carried by the stranger, she at last knew and understood just how weak she had become. Unable even to walk or so much as crawl under her own power. She had allowed what little strength she had to crumble into dust, and it would take time to build herself back up.

A single saving grace through it all: that she endured. Barely, but yet she endured.

And the stranger. Like a shadow of what Mischa once had been before allowing herself to collapse into so miserable a state. More, perhaps. What Mischa could be, or at least an important step toward something greater.

Quiet, as the stranger walked through the farmland.

And Mischa at last spoke. Said, "Who are you?"

A manner of uncertainty holding her for a moment.

"You look different than most orcs. Human-like."

 

[Alani Delkera]

A warm smile crossed Alani's face, "You don't look like most orcs yourself." She chuckled softly so as not to disturb her charge. "My name is Alani. My mother is a half-orc and my father is mostly dwarvish," She explained. They breached a hill and the village came into view. "Almost there, don't worry, we'll get you patched up and some food in you," Alani said with soft encouragement as if talking to a fawn just learning to walk.

Alani caught the whiff of tobacco smoke as they neared the first house and saw a man sitting on the front porch. She quickened her pace.

"Hey, sir, my friend has been hurt, she needs help, where can I find a healer?" She called to him.

He jumped up "come in, put her on the couch," he said opening the door to his house and ushering them inside. "Mary! We have guests, one of them's injured I'm going to fetch the doctor," he called out before rushing back out the door.

Alani put Mischa down on the couch as a woman rushed into the room from the kitchen wiping her hands off on her apron. As soon as she saw the state Mischa was in she started "Oh good heavens, what happened?"

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

You don't look like most orcs yourself.

Her words were the truth, and they hurt. Alani likely did not mean them to be so, yet they cut into Mischa's heart nonetheless. Mischa had known it all her life. Felt it as her small and fragile body was pummeled and beaten senseless in every fight she had against her fellow tribesorcs. Even in Vel Anir and Elbion and the dungeon beyond the portal stone, she fought and lost against humans, dwarves, scrawny Shriekers. She lost because she was thin, because she was puny, because she was weak.

Father had seen it too. Knew it before her very first Umrogk, knew that Mischa did not look like most orcs. He had been right...hadn't he? To exile her.

And look at her now. Look at her now.

Weak. Just as Father knew. Just as all of the Dm'rohk tribe knew. And yet the world refused to crush her underfoot. As if she were so pathetic a creature that she deserved not even the dignity of that.

Mischa closed her eyes and was quiet. Carried along in silence. She noticed not the entering of the village, the smell of tobacco in the air. Paid no mind to the new voices around her.

She felt the feathered cushions of the couch. Didn't move. Didn't react. She lay still, eyes closed. Slight and sporadic twitches of her lips, scrunchings of her face.

The Great Holy One was watching closely. She could feel Its gaze in the back of her mind.

A tiny flare of Mischa's nostrils.

I will show you strength. I will show all of Arethil strength.

I will break this world if I have to.

 

[Alani Delkera]

"I'm not exactly sure, I found her on the side of the road near the portal stone," Alani explained kneeling down beside Micha. The girl had lost lucidity again. Alani gently brushed the hair from Mischa's eyes while Mary stood looking over the back of the couch and wringing her hands nervously.

"Could you put some water on to boil. The healer will need it when they get here," Alani explained sitting on the edge of the coffee table. The woman nodded and hurried back into the kitchen to put the kettle on. A few minutes later the man returned with the healer. A tall narrow looking man with a sharp nose and black hair. He knelt down next to the couch and scowled.
"I'm going to need hot water and some clean rags."

"We put some water on the fire before you got here," Alani explained as Mary went into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of hot water, a clean rag hanging over her arm. The healer raised his brows in surprise and nodded for Mary to put it down on the table. Anali moved to get out of his way standing near Mischa's feet as he worked to clean and dress the wounds.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

A vision. From the Great Holy One. Powerful and isolating from the world. A vivid reality recreated in the deepest pit of Mischa's mind.

They were back inside the Sunken Tomb. Mischa and Marcie. She could smell the old, stale, musty air, the darkness at bay only by the light of the torch Marcie carried. The stone of the chamber enclosing the two of them together, locking their fates in place. The sound of her footsteps in the puddles of water, approaching Marcie. No. Don't make me do it. Don't make me. Please.

"Marcie."

She looked at her. That warm smile. The smile Mischa first saw when she had been saved in Bhathairk. The smile which had shown her nothing but kindness and caring, beyond even what her own mother and father had shown her. The sight of it a blessing upon Arethil.

"Yes, Mischa? What is it?"

I don't want to. Anything but this. Please. I'll do anything but this. I love her, and I love Father. Don't make me choose. I can't...I can't...

Mischa's hand to Marcie's cheek. The fire. Ready to be unleashed. The Great Holy One's will.

I take it back. I take it back! I don't want to! I'll find some other way!

Sights of home. Memories dredged up and brought before her eyes. The great open plains and rugged rocky hills of the Blightlands, the life-giving Drawa River and the green valleys all surrounding it, the bountiful jungle of the Ixchel Wilds. The whole of that great and wild expanse. Home. Home together with her mother, her brothers, her father, all her fellow tribesorcs. And the yearning became too much, her heart a heavy stone gripped by the fist of desperate longing.

"I'm sorry," Mischa said.

And Marcie's head disappeared in the fire. Her smile annihilated from the face of Arethil. Forever.

* * * * *​

But the vision was not over. Again, Mischa was back in the Sunken Tomb. Again, her footsteps carried her inevitably toward Marcie. It began anew, the greatest sin in all her life.

Stop. Please stop. I don't want to.

Sights of home. Memories inflicted upon her heart with a crushing immediacy that overpowered all else. Home. Home. HOME. The love which crushed her other love underfoot. For that was the way of the world.

"Marcie."

"Yes, Mischa? What is it?"

"I'm sorry."

* * * * *​

But the vision was not over. The Great Holy One was relentless. Mischa's meager protests amounted to nothing. It would show her the sights of home. It would show her the world breaking, literally cleaved in two, drifting apart in the endless blackness of night and stars in a great cosmic cataclysm.

It made her kill Marcie. Kill her kindness. Kill her caring.

It made Mischa kill her. Kill her over and over and over again.

Made her crush Marcie's weakness underfoot.

This, times beyond counting. An infinity encapsulated in mere minutes.

This, until Mischa killed her without hesitation. Without remorse. Without weakness.

* * * * *​

Yes.

I want to go home.

* * * * *​

Mischa opened her eyes, and glared at the healer.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani perched on the arm of the couch watching as the healer worked. Alani's brow furrowed as she watched Mischa's face contort with unpleasant dreams.

"When I found her there was also a wound on her chest, though it didn't seem to be bleeding anymore," Alani told the healer. He bearly even nodded in response, continuing to work with quick fingers. He was almost finished when the girl's eyes snapped open. The healer looked down at Micha with a disinterested stare, his face locked in a permanent scowl "You're not going anywhere in your condition miss so you might as well stop looking at me like you want to rip my head off." He said tying off the last bandage. He then moved to pull her shirt up so that he could treat the wound on her chest.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

(Yesterday)​

They arrived in the village. Rickard and Jensen waved to Mary, and she back at them. Abby, mildly confused as to whether this was some manner of custom or not, waved as well. Mary trotted along with them; she wanted to see the look on Rickard's mother's face when he knocked on her door. And, to Rickard's mounting surprise, his impromptu entourage of villagers steadily grew as he and his fellow Templar made their way toward his family home. It felt a little strange, even if his heart couldn't help but to swell with pride. All of his neighbors, the people he'd grown up with, giving him a sort of hero's welcome.

Jensen walked alongside Rickard and smiled weakly, his inner thoughts solemn. The last time he had come here it had not been so joyous an occasion. He had come to sponsor and initiate Rickard into the Keepers of Oath, yes, but he had also come alone, bearing grave news about the fate of Rickard's father. Rickard's mother, Helen, understood in her quiet manner, yet she could not bear to look him in the eyes for the duration of his stay. He only hoped that his presence would not remind Helen of what she had lost; that Rickard's return meant well for both him and his younger brother, Bran. Secretly, Jensen prayed that he would not fail Rickard nor Bran as he had failed their father.

Abby walked in a state of minor apprehension and bemusement, with big, sweeping turns of her head to regard each new villager as they approached and joined the gathering. Two small girls marveled at her long braids, asking her several times with gleeful excitement if they could touch her hair. Abby glanced to Rickard, and Rickard gave her a little nod. Abby in turn nodded to the girls, who each squealed happily and ran their fingers down her braids a few times.

Rickard, Jensen, and Abby, and all the assembled villagers approached Rickard's home. Astonishingly quiet for a group of such size; it seemed no one wanted to ruin the surprise.

Rickard knocked.

And Helen answered. Her face instantly flaring into warm, smiling, trembling elation. A shuddering gasp as she could hardly contain herself, her hands clapped over her mouth for just a moment, and she broke into tears of joy and reached out and embraced her son.

It was going to be a good few days back home.

* * * * *​

The healer's hand. Moving toward the shirt which covered the open wound. Her exposed heart. The Symbiote. Her conduit to the Great Holy One. Her way home.

Rage and terror and sorrow all at once as her eyes went wide. A war that lasted a fleeting second, rage the victor.

Yes.

I want to go home.

It happened within two blinks of an eye. Mischa felt them slithering through her body; from her chest and to her shoulder and down her right arm. Movement visible just under her flesh, like a dozen tiny vipers racing in chaotic patterns beneath her skin, the tiny undulating bulges darting toward the severed end of her arm. Mischa rolled on the couch to point her right arm at the healer and out burst the thick black tendrils, each as fast as a loosed arrow, penetrating into and through the healer's body, growing and stretching and enlarging with lightning speed until a split second later the tendrils slammed into the far wall, their tips writhing and curling like manic, billowing smoke.

More slithering within Mischa's body, spreading down to her legs. It was the Symbiote, this extension of the Great Holy One, fulfilling its promise. Thousands upon thousands of tiny little teeth in the new veins emerging from her heart, burrowing through the muscle and bone of her weak body, replacing it, changing it. The bestowment of the blessing. The strength her puny orcish body lacked. The strength she could never attain on her own. The strength Arethil had cruelly denied her.

Mischa snapped up from the couch and to her feet, as if she were not at all starving, dehydrated, utterly exhausted and sleep-deprived. Her emaciated form invigorated with a wellspring of unnatural energy.

A slight twist of her head, and all the tendrils which had spilled out from her right arm morphed into sharpened edges of various sizes and shapes. A frenzied twirling from the tendrils, and they ripped the healer apart from the inside out. A dozen pieces of him, the slop of his innards, collapsed with a great wet splattering of blood to the floor of the home. And the tendrils whipped back, shrinking from their enormous size, comparable now to the length of her left arm. Still they writhed, as if each one had a mind of its own, all them pulsating to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Mischa stumbled away from Alani, from Mary. Pressed her back up against a wall. Eyed them both with that same rage and terror and sorrow.

Yet more slithering within Mischa's body. Up from her heart and climbing her neck, tiny twin bulges of skin as the alien veins pressed against the flesh and muscle from within. Teeth consuming their way up into her skull, the sound of myriad chewing echoing in her head. It came to a stop. Just behind her eyes.

Mischa pinched her eyes shut.

"Don't..."

Her tusks, her two tiny tusks, her Little Elf Teeth, simply fell from her mouth and hit the floor and bounced and came to rest. Little trickles of blood from the corners of her mouth, where once they had been.

She made a strange, almost pitiful, choking noise. But she caught her breath. Opened her eyes. The sclera a deep red, pupils a blazing, otherworldly orange.

"Don't come near me. Don't touch me."

Her right arm. The green of her skin seemed to be withering away. Turning black.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Something felt off. Alani wasn't sure what it was but she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end the moment before the tendrils lurched from Mischa's arm skewering the healer and his insides flung across the room. Alani jumped to her feet, her stone knife drawn. She had never seen anything like it before, the unnatural smell filling her lungs. The drum of her heart pounding behind her ears as it whispered run, run, run. But then there was that look. The look of terror behind Mischa's eyes. Mixed with grief and blinded by anger. Some small piece of her was still crying out for help.

Alani bared her teeth and squared her shoulders. "Get out of here, I'll take care of her," She said waving Mary and her husband away. Both of them rushed from the room, followed by the sound of the back door slamming.

Alani turned back to Mischa, her face softening as she reached out her empty hand. "Hey, calm down, I'm not going to hurt you."

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

The Great Holy One was inside her. Its presence radiating out from her heart like a burning star, scorching her entire body in its almighty luminance, trembling in her veins like the very sundering of the earth under her feet, crackling up and down her spine like the lightning called to being by the spirits of Storm and Sky. It listened through her ears and felt through her skin and saw through her eyes, Mischa a portal into Arethil for It. A weight near tangible upon her, as if the whole immensity of Its being were just behind her, leaning heavily onto her mind and body.

Mischa could feel It. The great bore of Its gaze, looking around through her eyes at everything she saw. A consuming curiosity. Fascination. As if before It had seen Arethil only as if in a dream, and the dream had just been made real, the smeared and ill-defined edges of the surreal brought into sharp reality.

Mischa's head spinning. Dizzying. Vertigo. As if she were falling and falling, spiraling downward without end, the very foundation of creation twisting and turning with her. A feeling of being slowly and inevitably crushed, every inch of her body smothered, the slow rolling of a mountain across her bones. Drowning. Submerged and sinking. Swallowed whole by the endless depths of the inundating power that now possessed her.

All this, as yet more alien veins wormed their way out from her heart, birthed by the Symbiote but made into her own. They chewed their way through her body, eating and replacing her own veins, arteries, capillaries. Her muscles, her ligaments. Her organs. Mischa Ven'rohk was being remade from the inside, piece by piece.

As Mary and her husband fled, Mischa held her stomach and doubled over, incredibly frail in that small moment. She pinched her eyes shut again and retched harshly once and then twice and blood spilled from her mouth. Her orcish blood, that which she had been born with. Cast out. Expelled. And there was yet more to be purged.

Mischa threw her body back up against the wall, strings of saliva turned pink dangling from her lips. She wiped them away with a quaking left hand.

Hey, calm down, I'm not going to hurt you.

Big, wide eyes snapping at once to the hand Alani offered. Stifled breathing. Mischa slid along the wall, backing away. A small arch to her back. Her body straightened. A more severe arch to her back. Straightening again. An arch which banged her shoulderblades into the wall.

Pleading, in her eyes and in her tone. "I need this." Again, a tone more resolute. "I need this."

And Mischa bent back so violently that her body broke through the wall of the home and she fell to the ground outside amidst the debris of broken wood and dust. She lay writhing in the dirt, crying out in pain as the bones of her spine were being reformed, her body twisted into a "C" as she kicked and flailed and spun about. Her right arm now completely turned black, and the blackness spreading across her chest, up her neck, and to her left arm.

There, one of the villagers who saw her burst from the home and the state of her on the ground, one of the villagers who did not shriek or scream in fear but looked on for a moment with an apprehensive expression, there was Bran.

And he turned and ran home to tell his brother, Rickard, what he had seen, a frightful eagerness swelling in his chest. That chance to prove himself in the most noble of causes: the defense of one's home, one's family.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani watched. She did not know what to do. She had never felt like this before. She always knew what to do, or at least how to figure it out. Now, watching as the corruption spread and pain clawed at Mischa from the inside out Alani stood frozen.

She could see the pain it was causing her, she could smell the fear and desperation. Alani's mind raced for a way to help but came up blank. She was Alani, daughter of earth and stone, she could fight a bear and win. Yet she found herself paralyzed by this thing.

Mischa crashed through the wall of the house and Alani snapped out of her trance running to the front door and onto the porch.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

Alarm ignited throughout the village. That doubled-edged sword of curiosity and fear leaned for some more heavily on the curious side, bidding them to keep their distance, yes, but watch with a frightful fascination. Those that ran and hid in their homes and elsewhere spread the word in quaking tones. Children were shepherded inside and away. A number of the able-bodied men of the village took up whatever manner of arms they had: pitchforks, old spears or swords, shovels, broken pieces of wood, felling axes. They stood by the doors of the their homes and watched with an awful specter of dread hanging over them.

The village had no proper guard force. Everyone knew everyone else, and theirs was a life of peace the likes of which a large, impersonal city like Elbion seldom enjoyed. Murder, theft, raids even, all things which happened elsewhere, terrible stories from far away.

They kept their distance. Some knew of the village healer's fate thanks to Mary and her husband, some did not, but all knew that they ought to stay far from the thing writhing in the dirt of the path through town.

That thing. That creature. That monster. It was something that Rickard and his fellow Templars were sworn to slay, and the villagers collectively prayed that they would be their saviors.

* * * * *​

Mischa could feel her bones moving. Her spine seeming to come alive, to segment itself into a colony of crawling creatures, marching in ways predestined. Here a bone would break, here a bone would shift, here a bone would glide over another, here a bone would crack open and the alien veins of the Symbiote would entwine within and the bone would coalesce again. This, until the work was done.

The agonizing tension constricting her back and spine snapped loose in an instant, and Mischa's body flinched like a bow regaining its resting shape after its arrow had been fired. She gasped and gasped and rolled over onto her stomach, pushing herself up with her left hand to her knees. She sat on her heels, head lulled back and eyes up to the sky. The great blue above, wherein the Spirit of Sky watched over the lands of Arethil and saw even now Mischa's home, her tribe, and all the lands they wandered.

She needed to endure. She only needed to endure this. And she could return.

A wrenching pain in her abdomen. Fire in her throat. Mischa choked and gagged and retched violently and her head dipped forward and more blood burst forth from her mouth. She sat there, breathing, ropes of blood and what little saliva she had clinging to her lips. She wiped her mouth with the back of her left hand. Stopped. Stared for a moment. Watched as the black invaded and conquered the green of the skin on her arm, seeping down and down in the manner of spilled ink spreading through cloth.

Mischa looked up. Saw Alani there, by the front of the house.

You don't look like most orcs yourself.

No. Mischa did not. Not then, and especially not now. She touched her mouth again, touched the spots where once her tusks had been. The Little Elf Teeth she had despised for as long as she had them. She had known only hatred for them, a lamenting that they were not large and proud; her tusks a symbolic nexus of all her woes. But now, in their loss and in the presence of Alani, a curious longing pain. Mischa's tusks were small and puny, but they were hers, gifts from her mother and father, signifiers of her beloved orcish heritage. And now her tusks were gone, the resentment she held for them quietly burned away in their absence, leaving only the sting of loss.

The green of her left arm, her proud green skin, eaten away until all was black.

Mischa retched and choked and coughed again. Caught her breath in stammering gasps. She reached out with her newly changed left hand, large eyes beseeching Alani. She said, "Water. Please. Water..."

She feared anyone and everyone getting close to her. She feared that they would not understand, just as the dwarf in Elbion did not understand. She feared that they would try to touch the Symbiote in the wound, try to kill it, try to kill her.

But she needed water. Needed it. For there was more orcish blood yet to be expelled, her frail body already famished and parched as it was.

Tiny, dark gray, fur-like strands began to poke out from her shoulders. The feeling of their emergence like needles pushed out from inside the flesh. These strands moving of their own accord.

* * * * *​

Rickard and Jensen and Abby stood from the meal Helen had made them the moment Bran burst into the house. They set about armoring themselves--Rickard and Jensen in their full plate armor and Abby in her squire's leather and chain--a process which took precious time, but a process most necessary.

"What was it?" Rickard asked as donned his greaves.

"I-I don't know," Bran said. "But it was small. It looked like a girl. You know, almost human, but not. There was something wrong with its arm. And its eyes."

"What was it doing?"

"It was on the ground. Screaming. Just...flailing around. I don't know if it hurt anyone yet."

"Let's pray it hasn't."

Bran moved across the main room of the house and took their father's old spear from off the wall.

Rickard noticed, and said immediately, "Hey. Bran. What are you doing?"

"I'm coming to fight with you, Rick."

"No, you're not."

"I have to. I'm of age now, I'm joining the Keepers of Oath, and a monster is in my home town. I'm doing it; I'll stay out of your way but I'm going out there with you."

Rickard wanted to argue. To come up with some excuse. Convince him that he should stay and protect their mother. Something. But it all fell short.

So he said to his brother, firmly, "You stay behind us. If we need you, we'll call on you, but you stay behind us. Watch our backs. Got it?"

"Yes. Got it."

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani didn't know why, she didn't understand what was happening, but she could see the fear and desperation in the girl's eyes. Taking her cantine from her side she held it out walking carefully forward to seem as non-threatening as possible. So what if she wasn't what Alani had been expecting. She had made a vow to protect the misunderstood creature from civilization. How was Mischa any different? Yes, she had just killed a man but a cornered animal often lashed out in fear. She had woken up to find a strange man reaching for her chest. Alani probably would have reacted the same if she had been in her position.

Alani looked out at the village, she could sense the tension in the air. The whole village holding its breath. The calm before the storm. Sooner or later some of the villagers would get braver. They did not understand it, it was different, that was all the justification they needed to destroy it.

Alani saw several people approaching from the other side of the village, armed and wearing heavy armor. She tensed and her grip tightened on her knife. She moved to stand between Mischa and the approaching villagers. She did not make any aggressive moves, nor did she take a defensive stance, though every muscle in her body was ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.

She called out to them as they got closer, "Please don't get too close, she is just scared and disoriented."

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

Mischa reached out with a trembling hand just a bit further and took the canteen Alani offered. Unstoppered it and brought it to her mouth and tipped her head back and drank as if she'd just emerged from the desert. She dropped the canteen once it was empty and sat there, panting, staring up at the sky.

The black had consumed the green of her neck, but, curiously, stopped there and did not spread above her jawline, the skin of her face still as green as the day she was born. But it spread down her torso, to her waist, dripping down to the tops of her legs. This, concealed by the shirt Alani had covered her with and her own arming pants.

More of the charcoal-colored strands emerging from her shoulders, her arms--but stopping midway to the elbow. The fur-like strands emerging from her back and her chest. Gently they swayed, these strands, like grass in a soft breeze or seaweed in a weak current. Each contained a narrow mind of its own, born with a singular purpose: protection. And now her abdomen began to sprout the strands beneath her shirt.

Mischa leveled her head, her gaze. Saw Alani move around. And Mischa would have turned to look, but a great, seizing pain gripped her chest and she let out a stifled half-gasp and wrapped her arms about herself. SNAP, and Mischa's body hitched violently, as if momentarily tugged upward by an unseen force, her mouth open in a soundless cry. She doubled over as she sat there on her heels.

She felt the bones of her ribcage breaking, shifting, changing, moving and rearranging, alien veins slithering in and around them, enhancing them; it was the same as what happened with her spine.

And as the process continued, Alani's voice. Behind her. Calling out to someone. And here a small moment of clear thought amidst the excruciating pain in her body, like a break in a storm. Alani was...helping her. She had known Mischa for so little a time, didn't even know her name, and yet still she was helping her. She had watched Mischa kill the healer, watched her now as That Which Makes Pure bestowed Its gift, and yet still she was helping her. Her kindness and caring for kin unconditional.

A tiny jewel formed in her mind, shadowed and bitter and a thing she secretly admired, and in this gem the sincere confession that Alani was better than Mischa could ever be. She, Alani, who held true to her orcish heritage, however partial, as Mischa allowed her own to bleed away.

* * * * *​

Rickard, Jensen, Abby, and Bran all approached. Rickard and Jensen with sword and shield, Abby with her battleaxe, and Bran with the spear.

Rickard didn't know what to think of it when he saw it from a distance. Strikingly human in appearance. Small and female, but with black skin and some kind of an aberrant right arm, like a writhing sea creature had grown from her elbow there. From the distance it was difficult to get a clear look at its face, but the unnatural and sinister orange of the eyes stuck out fiercely.

Someone stepped in their way, and Rickard and the Templar stopped a good several paces from her, she with the blond and braided hair. She spoke and...Rickard glanced to Jensen, and then they all exchanged glances. Uncertain. Wary.

Rickard looked forward again. At the blond woman. He steeled his face and cleared his throat. He didn't know what she was playing at--if anything--and he didn't know the full extent of what had happened. But this village was his home, and he knew he needed to take charge and keep everyone safe. None here were skilled in combat, and if that creature went from sitting in the road to hostile, Rickard feared the worst.

"My name is Rickard Penrose. I am a Templar of the Keepers of Oath," he said. Instead of decisive action, he hesitated. Said, "What do mean she is 'scared and disoriented'? Do you know what this creature is? What happened--?"

"It killed James!" A villager, yelling. "That thing killed James!"

Another villager: "Mary saw it with her own eyes, Rickard!"

Rickard glanced apprehensively to the black creature sitting hunched over in the dirt, its back to him. Then back to the blond woman. Said, "Is this true?"

Jensen tried to intervene, prompting softly, "Rickard, enough, we've a duty--"

"Is it true?" He asked it again. Rickard knew well his sworn duties, but he also knew Arethil was home to many persons and beings the likes of which he would have never imagined until he saw them. He froze like a frightened doe the first time he had seen a komodi. Now with this woman speaking on the--thing? creature? girl's?--behalf, Rickard was loathe to be blinded by a fervor that could lead to tragedy.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani was glad that they were willing to listen, if still apprehensive, perhaps there was a chance. She had a feeling that whatever metamorphosis was happening to the girl it would protect itself on an instinctual level until it was finished. If they decided to attack it, many more could die like that, all because of an irrational fear of the unknown.

"She was injured and scared. A cornered animal will often lash out in panic. She came back to consciousness to find a strange man standing over her, she had an injury on her chest, he tried to remove her shirt to treat it but she was disoriented and panicked. I am sorry for your loss but pitchforks and torches are only going to frighten her more. I do not know exactly what she is but up to this point, she has only acted out of fear, not malice. No one else needs to be hurt, she seems to trust me. I'll take her away from this place as soon as she can stand," Alani explained looking back at Rickard, who seemed to be their leader, there were two other humans and an orc with them. She knew that if it came to fighting that she would not be able to stop either side from destroying each other. She did not understand exactly what was happening to the girl but from what she had seen it was incredibly powerful. As for the templars, Alani did not have any of her usual armor or weapons on her, she might be able to hold back the orc but she knew she didn't stand a chance against the men in full plate. Yet still, if it came to that, she knew what she must do, it ran in her blood, she would fight.

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

Jeers and shouts from the onlookers about the village:

"Injured and scared, my arse!"

"James was a good man!"

"Don't listen to her, Rickard! That thing is a monster!"

"Murder! It was murder!"

"Justice!"

* * * * *​

Her ribcage at last coming into its new arrangement, its augmentation complete, the agony abating. Mischa felt the open wound of her chest closing, new bone forming with supernatural rapidity, skin crawling after and on top of it. The Symbiote encased inside her body now, that small piece of the Great Holy One firmly a part of her.

Close. Close to the end. The fulfillment of the promise.

And then she heard it. The man Alani was speaking to and reasoning with on her behalf. What he said: the Keepers of Oath. A sword forged of pure shock stabbed through Mischa's gut. She felt the presence of the Great Holy One beating within her ears, listening with keen intent to both Rickard and Alani.

Another retching spell overcame her. A heaving so powerful that her pinched eyes exploded with colorful stars behind the lids. More of her orcish blood burst from her mouth, splattering to the dirt road. The sacrifice she had made manifest, there for all the world to see.

Quivering breaths in and out. In and out. More of the fur-like strands, that pain of piercing needles, sprouting from the skin on her legs now, stopping just above her knees.

And Mischa turned her body slowly, shifting in her seating position in the dirt. She turned, breathed and turned, until she faced Alani. Until she faced Rickard and those who accompanied him, he and the older man clad in the black and red armor of the Templar Chapter which knew her only as two things.

Betrayer. Oathbreaker.

* * * * *​

Rickard listened. It was hard to deny that the blond woman was telling the truth. The girl with the black skin wasn't going on a rampage throughout the village; she seemed to Rickard, if anything, to be dying. The blond woman wanted to take her from here, and to Rickard, this was the resolution that he secretly wished was feasible. He knew his Oaths, his sworn duties, but he was loathe to have his brother Bran anywhere near a fight without him having undergone the proper training.

But there had been a murder, and that could not go unanswered. Rickard could hear the villagers calling out from their vantages; they would neither feel safe nor that the crime had been punished and justice upheld if the girl simply walked away.

Was she a girl, or was it a creature? The blond woman had made a comparison to a cornered animal. Did the girl with the black skin have agency, or did she not? If she was not a moral actor, then what happened to James was tantamount to a tragedy, not murder, as if he'd been mauled by a bear or some such. But if she did have agency, if she was a moral actor...then Rickard and Jensen and Abby all had their sworn duties to uphold.

Rickard turned his head for a moment as he thought, then looked back to the blond woman. Said, "We must ensure the safety of the village. I must, for this is my home too. Suppose you are wrong. Suppose this apparent trust is not so and she comes back here. We cannot allow it--her--to endanger--"

The girl with the black skin had turned around, sitting down there behind the blond woman. Something caught Rickard's eye, drew it to her face. Some likeness. Some familiarity. Something he was certain he had seen before. He squinted, not bothering to finish his sentence, and stared. Studied her face.

And both he and Jensen shifted their feet and assumed fighting stances, raising up their shields some and readying their swords. They had both seen it at the same time.

Her eyes were different, yes. Something had happened to her small tusks. But neither Rickard nor Jensen would forget her face, and here she was now, no longer much of an orc it seemed but something wholly different.

"Mischa?" Rickard said. This, with shock.

"Mischa Ven'rohk?" Rickard said. This, with potent anger.

 

[Alani Delkera]

There was a shift in the air, the hair on the back of her neck rose, her heartbeat pounding in her ears and she was gripped by real fear for the first time in her life. This was different than a wolf defending its territory. when wolves fought they did not fight to kill, only to give a warning. In the wild, there was no concept of crime or good and bad. Civilization was the only entity that would go to killing and beyond over anything from personal beliefs to perceived cultural slights. She did not understand this concept of justice or revenge. She only knew that if she fought to protect the girl like she believed was right, her life would be in danger.

Alani dug her heal into the dirt, her grip tightened on her knife, her shoulders squared. She bared her teeth two little tusks visible, as her breathing quickened. She would fight if only to give the girl a chance to run. She would fight because she believed it was the right thing to do, even if it meant her death.

"Run," She hissed through clenched teeth, "Get out of here."

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

And now the very toes of her feet had turned black, the living armor of fur-like strands covering a good portion of her body, and the bones about her heart--and the Symbiote wrapped around it--changed and hardened into a considerable aegis. She'd yet the last of her orcish blood to expel, blood of a different sort coursing throughout the webwork of her new veins in its stead.

Slowly Mischa stood. The dizziness, nausea, starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, sleep-deprivation, all of it weighing upon her, her last two vestiges of strength the gift from the Great Holy One Itself and her own will.

Run, Alani said.

There was no vision from the Great Holy One, for none was needed. It knew she had made her choice, this done of her own accord.

"No," Mischa said. Eyes laced with crippling guilt but a firm determination, ringed about their edges with the sickness of her deprived and enfeebled state.

It did not matter, that acidic guilt that had chewed through her heart and her spirit ever since the Sunken Tomb, despite the looping visions of the Great Holy One moments ago. It did not matter how much she wished things had been some other way, that she wept often on Marcie's behalf for the sin perpetrated by her own hands. What mattered was that Mischa had done what she had done, and that she should stand tall and face the consequences. Though she willingly sacrificed her orcish heritage for the Great Holy One's gift, this tenet of the old ways she would respect.

Mischa would own what she had done. There could be no running. Such was weakness. And the Great Holy One concurred.

The tendrils of her right arm coalesced into a sharpened lance of such length she had to hold it at an angle to the ground. Mischa stood her ground, swaying with the totality of her miserable state bearing down on her.

And she waited.

* * * * *​

Now they were oathbound. Now they had no choice but to carry out the appropriate justice. And while Rickard worried for Bran, and even worried for Abby, it would be an utter disgrace and dishonor to Marcie's memory should they allow her murderer to go free. Marcie was a true friend, a kind soul, a chaste and righteous servant of all things good, and Rickard relished the chance to avenge her. A honor most solemn, and an honor likely to be unmatched up to his dying day.

"Mischa Ven'rohk," Rickard shouted, "you have betrayed your Templar brothers and sisters and broken the oath you swore! You stand guilty of the murder of Marcie Armentrout, and you have fled from the justice appropriate to your crime! There is nothing you can say in your defense, for these facts are known beyond dispute."

She wasn't running. The blond woman even told her to run and she wasn't running. Her unholy arm became a weapon and she stood there, waiting. Rickard was split between two warring emotions, an innate and primal fear born of not seeing any of the same in his opponent, and a single, retributive thought concerning her staying: Good.

Rickard swallowed, and said, "You may have discarded the armor you stole from her, but her blood remains on your hands. Today, the debt shall be paid."

Jensen immediately stepped forward and barked at Alani, "Stand aside, woman! This is Templar business and a matter of justice common to all Arethil. We've no quarrel with you, now stand aside!"

Behind Rickard and Jensen, Bran and Abby began to fan out wide to the left and right.

 

[Alani Delkera]

Alani looked at Mischa, saw the longing sort of pain deep in her eyes, regret. Yet she still stood to fight. Alani looked back at Rickard. He also seemed pained by the decision he had to make. Two people who did not want to fight but felt like they had to, and she stood between them.

"I do not understand your justice. You said that more death will bring balance and peace but all it brings is more death. I have done nothing even by your laws that would warrant death. I only saved a wounded traveler on the road. If I stand in your way and you kill me then are you not guilty of the same crime you accuse her of. I made a promise to her that I would not harm her. If I step aside now and handed her over to you it would be the same as driving the blade into her flesh myself." She shook her head. "I will not make it that easy on your conscience."

 

[Mischa Ven'rohk]

"Easy on--?" Jensen looked flabbergasted, as if to him Alani had spoken sheer nonsense. With a blink and a little shake of his head, he said with a forced patience, "There is no loss of honor in retracting one's word after it has come to light that you have been deceived. And you have been deceived, woman. How could you have known Mischa to be a murderer? But now you do know. Now, you must make the right choice."

Abby and Bran continued to flank around wide, considerable space left in the road between them and Alani and Mischa.

"Justice will be done this day," Jensen said. "We need not kill you to remove you from our way, but neither I nor my fellows wish you harm. But if you stand in league with this murderer, then we will do what we must."

Rickard, unable to hold back anymore, shouted at Mischa, "Marcie saved your life in Bhathairk, Mischa!"

And Mischa said, "I know." Watchful flicks of her eyes to her left and right.

"You were the daughter she never had! How could--?"

Rickard saw them then, Abby and, more specifically, Bran in his peripheral vision. Their careful movements catching his attention. In the parley between himself, Jensen, and the blond woman, they'd each snuck off, circling wide and intent on going after Mischa.

Bran. Damn it, Bran! Far too eager to prove himself! In Abby Rickard had more faith, though still she was but a squire-initiate, and neither she nor any of them knew what they were up against. It appeared as if Mischa had brokered some manner of deal with demons or performed some horrid ritual, for she was scarcely the little orcish girl Rickard remembered her to be. Not only was she a murderer, but this seemed evidence enough that she'd gone fully mad.

And both the woman he loved and his younger brother had taken it upon themselves to attempt approaching her.

"Bran!"

Rickard could no longer stand idle. He strode forward, intent on knocking the blond woman out of his way with his shield if he had to. He had to engage Mischa first. For Abby's sake, for Bran's sake, he had to engage her first.