Open Chronicles Hellsfeld

[Szesh]

A wave of relief washed over Szesh as he saw heike’s fangs plunge into Ferelith’s neck. Though his stomach turned reflexively, the physical transformation was obvious. Her body seemed to regain its strength in a feverish attempt to draw as much sustenance from the mercenary as possible. She rolled and mounted her prey, and the victim’s body went limp.

His own breathing was too loud for him to hear Ferelith’s words. If he had, he would have realized that this recent turn of events was his fault. He had not realized the woman had yielded, and had sought to help his ally the only way he knew how. In doing so, he had undone the temporary peace between them. Possibly even lost them an ally in their fight.

Some strength was beginning to return to him as his body worked to convert his latest meal into useable energy. His wings were bruised, but unbroken. The blood still flowed from his injuries, but the volume had lessened.

He stopped a few steps down from the landing, the only sounds his own breathing and the wet, sickly sounds of Heike’s meal. He did not know what was going to happen. Would she kill the woman? Leave her unconcious? Would she become a vampire herself? The stories had said that any who suffered a bite and lived would be cursed themselves… but the stories had said a great deal of things that Heike had proven untrue.

As far as he could tell Ferelith had been rendered quite helpless. He didn’t trust it entirely, she had after all just kicked him down a flight of stairs after appearing to be defeated. His emotions battled for this next course of action. Concern asked him to move closer, to aid his still wounded friend if her victim should rise again. However, he had never seen Heike in this state, and self-preservation dictated that he wait. He had done terrible things himself when in a battle frenzy, and it didn’t take much imagination to guess that feeding might add a similar “excitement.”

A new sound appeared, growing louder. Footsteps, many of them, plodding down the steps from above. It appeared that the remaining mercenaries had passed his flames and were on their way. He rose to his feet painfully, caution would need to be put aside.

”They come,” he warned.

 

[Heike Eisen]

You...ask for a yield only...

Heike kept feeding. Drinking in the girl's blood. She was now on top, her attempt to roll the mercenary over and gain the upper position in the struggle successful. The mercenary's physical protestations were weak, her gripping and her grappling and her pushing all failing, her arms at last going limp. Good. Perhaps the troublesome mercenary was finally subdued.

...to have your...friend slit my throat...

Heike paused. Her fangs still buried in the girl's neck but the siphoning of blood ceased. The whole of her body cried out for it, flaring with the heat of the blood she'd already ingested, a wordless yearning communicating the very ecstasy of the feeling: Don't stop, don't stop. But stop she did. For a moment. Then she started again. She would not allow her kindness to be exploited as a weakness again. She would drain this mercenary dry. Gorge herself. It was the only--

..While I rested...Then call....my yield a ruse?

She stopped. Withdrew her fangs from the mercenary's neck. Sat up with a puzzled expression as her body gave a final quaking shudder that worked its way down from her shoulders and to her spine and trickled there to her legs and ended at the tips of her toes. At the last flexing of her toes, her expression changed suddenly into one of thunderous alarm.

Heike clapped her palms to her temples, eyes wide, clearly distressed at what had happened. A misunderstanding. A grave misunderstanding. Everything had escalated so quickly. Treachery in yields could go both ways, on the part of the one yielding--as Herr Elias warned of--and on the part of the one accepting the yield, for it was just as possible for the accepting party to strike down the yielding party.

Then there was that everpresent possibility of doubt. Was the mercenary, now that she had lost the upper hand, attempting in a ruthlessly calculating way to disarm Heike once again? Appealing to her sense of honor, making this Heike's fault, buying for herself another opportunity in which to attack again? Heike didn't know. She didn't know. And she didn't have time to think.

Footsteps. Men. The girl's fellow mercenaries. Szesh warning of their imminent arrival; the prompting that Heike must act.

Heike looked to Szesh, then over her shoulder at the stairs leading up to the wizard's work study, and then back down to the mercenary, Heike's hair dangling down and framing either side of her face. She made her choice. She didn't know if it was the correct choice, but she made it.

She spoke quickly and decisively to the mercenary, saying, "It was a misunderstanding. I don't care what you think about that. Stay down and don't move if you want to live. If you move for any reason, I swear to you that I will rip your head off."

She didn't ask if the girl understood or not. She didn't leave any room for protest or debate. It was the best deal the mercenary was going to get at the moment.

Heike stood from her pinning position on top of the girl and turned to face the mercenaries as they began to show at the top of the stairs.

To her side, Szesh. Behind her and on the ground, the blonde-haired mercenary.

And Heike kept a keen ear out for any movement from the latter. She had given her word that she would stop at nothing to kill the girl if she did. Even if it led to Heike's own death, she would see her word fulfilled.

She would not allow another shrewd attempt to turn a yield into an opportunity--if such was the girl's ultimate goal.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Ferelith Scathach]

Ferelith hurt.

Everywhere.

Her joints ached like rusty hinges.

Her back a dried twig cracking and whining.

Her drowsy, clouded vision precived the world through half closed eyes. Her breathing staying at the pace it had when the feeding had began.

She had gone pale.

The only movement her body produced was a slight twitch here and there but she mostly just lay there shivering.

That was when she saw it.

Her necklace!

It must have come of in their tussle!

The delicate clasp keeping the chain connected crushed and battered.

After already losing her sword and knives she couldn’t lose that necklace. She wheezed and struggled to reach it weakly. A delicate sliver heart on a golden chain. Her true name “Gunhild” written across it. Her father had made the entire thing by hand. Her mother engraving it in the graceful way she wrote.

Flashes of the day after her name day pass through her mind as she continues to reach until hearing the vampires order. Having not been close to reaching it anyway she lay back with a pained groan before pointing to it.

The effort of even trying to reach it exhausting her too much to even for the words. Instead her eyes looked to Heike with genuine pleading.

Her hand closest to it gestured to it gleaming by Heikes foot. Her gaze darting between the vampires yellow eyes and the only link she had to her family however painful it was. After that she lay still once more and resumed her dazed stare and shallow breathing.

The two new holes in her neck already beginning to bleed leaving to red lines running down her neck to the floor.

 

[Szesh]

Szesh watched the exchange between Heike and Ferelith with muted interest. He wasn't sure why Heike had stopped short of killing her, why she had decided now that the misunderstanding was forgivable, but he was not in a position to care. Enemies were quick approaching. He saw Ferelith stretch her hand towards a shining object on the ground. A piece of jewelry... necklace, perhaps? Again, he did not care.

The stairwell was narrow, and Szesh stepped forward with surprising precision, making sure his clawed feet did not land on Ferelith, her necklace, or Heike's boots. He gently placed a hand on Heike's shoulder. It covered nearly to her neck. "Are you well?" he asked her. The blood meal had seemed transformative. Where before Heike had barely the strength to breath she now stood tall and fierce, but her skin was still burnt, her wounds still open. Szesh did not understand how this process worked, but he remembered that she had needed to sleep at the mill before her hand had healed from the direwolf's bite. That injury seemed like a scratch by comparison.

The fighters barreled down in a cacophony of metal plates and weaponry, and they stopped just short of the pair, apparently startled by the vampire and draconian both standing on the landing, facing them and ready for a fight. They remembered what Szesh had done to their allies, and even if they hadn't seen Heike fight her visage was as terrifying as ever. Szesh moved his tail aside, made sure that they could see Ferelith lying broken on the ground.

"They... they've killed her! That's impossible, isn't it?" A particularly unsteady voice called out.

"Shut it!" Answered a second from further back. "Remember, just keep them away from Renegast until he's done."

Blades pointed down the stairs at the pair, making a wall of sharp points. One in particular stood out.

"That's mine," Szesh growled up at them, seeing his own spearhead bearing down on him. Evidently the fool holding it thought it would make a suitable polearm. He must have known Szesh was speaking to him, because the weapon began to shake.

They were not advancing, and although he was feeling a little better than before, Szesh was still not eager for a fight so soon. He knew, however, that Heike's actions would be dictated by her code, and so he dipped his head and quietly asked her the question that would decide whether they fought or ran.

"Are they... guilty?"

 

[Heike Eisen]

The blonde-haired mercenary had been reaching for something. Had given Heike a certain look after pointing at it.

One thing was clear: Heike wasn't going to take the chance on the thing in question, a necklace, being enchanted and offering a boon of some sort to the girl if worn or touched or what have you. So Heike quickly squatted and scooped up the necklace and pocketed it in her coat and turned back to face the mercenaries gathering at the top of the stairs.

A hand on her shoulder. Szesh.

Are you well?

"No," Heike said with a stolid demeanor. "But I will make do."

The feeding had done much good to reinvigorate her, to replenish the blood she had leaked out through her wounds and into her shirt and coat. Hell's fury, she had bled everywhere during all of this, hadn't she? She could be so careful at times, as when she had Szesh burn the cloth stained with her blood back at the mill, and then there were incidents like this fight now that seemed to render all her earlier cautions pointless; she could only do so much to prevent her affliction from spreading, and that was disheartening--outright tragic.

The wounds in her chest, her back, her side, the little gashes on her forehead (not to mention her broken fingers and her cracked rib cage and her burns), all of these weighed on her. None would heal until she slept, and she would ooze blood from these stabs and cuts until she did--slowly ooze, much more slowly than when she was alive, yet even so, ooze nonetheless.

All she could rely on was the burst of energy gained from feeding. Peculiar. She seemed...more energized than usual. The magic in the girl's blood? If Heike's dampening lessened it, she could only imagine how it affected...well no, not only imagine, she knew how much it affected the girl. She had survived multiple broken bones, a great fall from a Tower, numerous punctures from Heike's claws, and still had the strength a mere moment ago to kick Szesh--Szesh, a massive Draconian triple her own weight--down a flight of stairs. It made much more sense now, the girl's disproportionate strength, given even the minor and muted dose of it in Heike's body now, infusing her with a notable charge of abnormal vigor.

Perhaps Heike should have drained the blonde-haired mercenary from the start. Hm. The more one knows.

The mercenaries hesitated at the top of the stairs. Talked among themselves and seemed content to hold their defensive position.

Are they... guilty?

"They are mercenaries," Heike said. And then, loud enough for the men at the top of the stairs to hear, "Perhaps we should allow them to die by sword, as is the ultimate fate of their chosen profession. Mayhap they will yield. Distance themselves from the guilty man they fight for."

Heike smirked in a manner that was nothing short of sinister. "Or maybe they will not. And we don't have swords, do we Szesh? Shame. But we do have our claws. Our teeth. Far messier than swords...wouldn't you say?"

Heike stood her ground. Gazed up at the gathered mercenaries with a hungry and ferocious look that was more bravado than not. She was willing to fight, she did need to feed further for her eventual sleep and recovery of her wounds, but said wounds--despite the influx of energy from the girl's blood--were still to varying degrees debilitating. A fight could end badly for her Heike and Szesh; especially if the girl was again biding her time for an opportunity to strike surreptitiously.

But Heike could not afford to show any weakness to these men. The calm confidence she projected might coax the mercenaries into a surrender. And if a fight was inevitable, that same confidence might unnerve them and give her and Szesh that small edge.

They were so close.

They had to prevail.

And punish the guilty, the man who was responsible for the theft of the Catalysts.

Her Oath of Justice demanded it of her.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Ferelith Scathach]

Watching the Vampire pick up her necklace she seemed satisfied.

Resigned.

Now she knew it wouldn’t be left behind at least. Her body ached as she lay there. Every beat of her heart sending a pulse of aches and pains through her body.

The vampire had taken a good bit of blood and after pushing herself well beyond her limits well...

She was not getting back up for a few days. Her body replicating blood cells at a snails pace and putting all other healing on hold. Simply halting the bleeding enough for her death to not be guaranteed before leaving it and foucusing on her blood.

Something didn’t feel right however she felt like something was inside her that didn’t belong, but her body was too weak and over taxed to fight it back.

It even began replicating the blood itself helping it spread through her system with increased potency.

Her pale skin had almost begun to gain the same pallor as Heike’s own. Her bones suddenly began to ache with more persistence until they began to feel like they had been set aflame inside her. Ferelith arched her back and screeched in sudden agony. Her open mouth revealing one normal canine and one growing longer and forming a fang.

It felt as if her body was tearing itself apart. It was a slow process, but after being helped along by her body’s weakened state and her body replicating the diseases blood along with the arcane to help get her back up and not dead something was beginning to change at a slightly more rapid pace.

Her pinkie and pointer finger already beginning to resemble Heikes own claws. Her skin matching her tone more and more, and when she opened her eyes they looked at Heike and her draconian friend with one sky blue... and one a yellow spitting image of Heikes own pair.

“What..did you..do to me..” She struggled out between pained gasps as her body twisted in involuntary throws of pain before her mind seemed to decide it had had enough and with another twitch Ferelith passed out with a grateful sigh.

Her mismatched eyes losing focus and closing.

Her twitching body finally going limp.

 

[Szesh]

Heike could not have summarized Szesh’s own feelings more succinctly. He was not at all well either, but all he could do was manage. It was a feeling all too common for him, and he imagined for the vampire as well.

They were not well. Neither of them were where they wanted to be, but they had made do with their own circumstances. Both unwanted, both forced from their homes, they had carved out new places for themselves in the world. It wasn’t their first choice, but it was something.

Szesh’s lips curled up in a snarl at her next words, and he flexed his iron-black claws. These mercenaries seemed simple folk, and he thought a visual demonstration might be in order. A tiger’s growl rumbled from his throat, and he was pleased to see several faces on the stairs above turn a shade or two paler.

“Fuck this!” Came the sudden exclamation. A man near the back of the group, wearing orange cloth beneath silver armor, stood up and sheathed his sword. “I’m not being eaten by no alligator and a vampire bitch.” Other voices murmured agreement, and the blades wavered for a moment. Mutterings of “not worth it” and “didn’t pay enough” drifted down to the pair.

These murmurings were silenced when the first to speak turned and took a step up, only to have a knife plunged into his belly by the man at the very back of the group. “No one retreats,” he growled. “You got paid. You do the job. Anyone else turns tail…” he let the body drop, “I’ll gut you myself.” He wore thick black armor, and a helmet that hid his face.

The blades lifted once again, fearful faces behind iron visors. Heavy breathing, getting faster, until with a wild battle cry, one man lunged down the steps with a trident.

The ensuing battle would be uphill and cramped. If Szesh could only get a shield, perhaps he could push them back, but any shields the fighters had were behind that wall of swords and spears.

 

[Heike Eisen]

The blonde-haired mercenary was in pain behind her. Of course she was. Heike had a pretty damn good idea how much her own injuries would have hurt if she were still alive; each on the dreadful level of her back's burn wound. The girl had abnormal strength and fearsome regeneration, but no dulling of pain it would so seem--the raw fullness of it felt and suffered without respite.

So be it. By necessity, so be it. Heike could not provide any measure of reasonable care while there existed a threat; and then, even if with the threat nullified, she had only a couple of potions for sedation and anesthetizing available. Minor comfort, if they could even aid at all.

Heike didn't look back. Didn't see the peculiarities ravaging the girl's body. Didn't take her eyes off of her current foes.

Foes who seemed all but ready to yield, until one of their number--a sergeant or a captain perhaps--violently brought them back to fighting order. They steeled themselves, wrenching their spirits out of the valley of surrender and climbing back up that grueling hillside of aggression, and the charge was led by a lone trident-armed man.

Heike stepped up a few of the stairs to meet his charge. Brought up her left arm--the majority of her finger-claws already broken--and used it as a shield to catch the prongs of the trident in her flesh. She grimaced, grabbed the shaft of the man's weapon and jerked it forward and the man along with it, bringing him close enough to stab two of her claws through his visor and through his eyes and, with a slight twisting inside of his skull, tore at everything inside.

Heike sidestepped and let the man's body fall past her, a limp arm and hand brushing diagonally against her chest and her abdomen as it did, and a crashing clamor followed as the mercenary's armor rattled and clanged and finally came to rest on the landing near the unconscious girl.

And Heike still had possession of the trident. She wrenched the prongs from her arm by yanking back on the shaft, spun the weapon around, and chucked it (with a small burst of inhuman strength) like a javelin up at the mercenaries. It hit a man whose misfortune it was to be one of the frontrunners, striking him in the neck with enough force to knock him up the stairs (nearly taking his head off in the process) and into the man behind him.

The trident had been fouled by her infected blood, yes. But it was not a problem if he who suffered a wound from it and got the blood into his body died. Her affliction may bestow a species of unlife to the living, but it could not reanimate a corpse.

Tragic. Unnecessary, if they had been allowed to yield. But they had not been, and this resulted. Heike resolved to check the man after the fight was won, to make absolutely sure that he had passed. Heike could not abide allowing her affliction to spread. Could. Not. Anything was a mercy in comparison to suffering it.

"Szesh."

If there was one thing she missed dearly from having the company of other knights of the Golden Blade at her side, it was the "warrior's knowing." That union so deep with her brothers and sisters of the Blade that, in battle, their teamwork was effortless, intuitive, a near wordless sharing of intent and a near flawless cooperation among them. There simply was nothing else like it, no other bond so unique and wonderful.

With Szesh, that feeling, that warrior's knowing, had come roaring back, even with their relatively short time spent together. She didn't even need to say, Give them hell. Just his name. Probably didn't even need to say that.

Here, now, she had created a gap in the mercenary line clogging the upper staircase. A way in for Szesh, who would certainly know how best to take advantage.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Szesh]

The next series of events happened in a blur. The trident being thrust and Heike taking the blow. It was almost comical how the man was pulled forwards, undoubtedly shocked that his weapon seemed little more than an inconvenience to his enemy. He didn't have more than an instant to wonder at this before her claws dug into his head, his shrieks cut short by grotesque wet crackles. Flecks of blood painted his silver, the bright red even more striking against the reflective backdrop.

Heike returned the trident like a ballista, and it slammed a man back into his peers. The vampire spoke his name, more telling than a thousand words. This was his opening. The battle fervor had been rekindled by the brutality he just witnessed, and it fed off of the fear in the soldiers' eyes.

He pushed off of his good leg so powerfully that he left behind deep gashes in the wood. In a blink he had closed the distance and grabbed for the fallen warrior. He had found a shield. His momentum and mass pushed into the crowd, knocking the mercenaries into each other and the closest onto their backs, tumbling over one another. He lifted the corpse and the sudden movement was enough to remove his already loosely attached head, and the trident clattered back down the steps.

He had no weapon and the quarters were unbearably tight. This was not the time for finesse, it was time to use the greatest advantage he had at this moment, overwhelming strength. He allowed himself to wade deep into the pool of savage pleasures as he beat the mercenaries with the body of their fallen comrade. He stepped forwards when he could, crushing the helmet of at least one man and breaking more than a couple of limbs beneath his weight. Any steel that came his way cut instead into his shield, which thankfully wore a decent amount of armor.

Their foes that had not lost their footing began to climb up the stairs. Szesh could see, with a flare of anger, that the archer still lived. The pain in his thigh resurfaced as it was suddenly remembered, and he was aware of just how violently his left leg was shaking. He bared his teeth, and broke the ribcage of a man behind him with a slam of his tail.

He did his best to block the arrows with the corpse as he moved forwards. It bled incessantly, dousing the fallen men that lay on the stairs. Szesh guessed that perhaps half of them were dead or stuck beneath the slain.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike went in right behind Szesh.

Though she was bleeding from numerous wounds, and reckoned she would need more blood before she rested to allow said wounds to heal, now was not the time for conserving. The fight needed to be finished. Quickly and efficiently. For she and Szesh still needed to apprehend the wizard--who, curiously, had done nothing at all to aid his own hired men. Best not to question one's blessings.

Heike needed her reflexes to be faster, inhuman, and this demanded expenditures of blood in her body. But it would be worth it.

The tactic was simple: stay close, very close, to Szesh. Watching his back, yes, but also using him to screen herself from sight from a good majority of the mercenaries--very much in the same vain as when Szesh shielded her earlier with his wing. Her reflexes were key: to pounce on opportunities and openings in the cramped and lightning-paced battle, and as well to move with Szesh, to stay close but not inadvertently get in his way. Watch. Watch keenly. He shifts forward, she shifts forward. He steps back, she steps back. He moves his tail, she weaves out of the way.

And all the while, lashing out from behind Szesh's intimidating frame, as if the Draconian had an extra set of smaller, leaner claws popping out from his back, his sides, from around his legs and wings.

Heike was exerting herself a great deal. The blonde-haired mercenary's blood, recently drank, being burned away each second to allow for the reflexes she required, the funneling of time down into a manageably slow scale (by her perception).

Bodies tumbled down the stairs by the efforts of both herself and Szesh. Some stopping short of the landing below, others rolling to a stop near or even partially on the unconscious girl already laying there. Szesh--with a particular fury--smashed with his tail a man armed with bow; Heike scooted backward on a stair to avoid the tail, bumping into a mercenary behind her who in turn bumped into the wall behind him. The length of his sword scraped under her left armpit, slicing open fresh wounds in her side there and in her bicep. Her left arm was horrifically injured at this point--three broken fingers, forearm puncture wounds, now the twin sword slices--and near useless.

Without turning around, Heike snapped the claws of her right hand back. Found and ripped off his helm. Then sank her claws into the soft flesh of his face and let him go once she felt his body ceased to wiggle against hers. And down the stairs he went, joining the other bodies.

The number of mercenaries left combat ready now could be counted on one hand.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Szesh]

It was incredible how little he could feel Heike even though she was very, very close behind him. She moved as he moved, and he did not have to worry about avoiding her or giving her warnings. The blood meal had clearly done something, for she seemed to be back to her old fighting self. Any soldiers unfortunate enough to be missed by his bludgeoning attacks were quickly dispatched by her striking claws. Any who fell and slid beneath his feet were cleaned up so deftly that he felt as though he wore a shroud of death. More than once a blade failed to meet his scales because it was deflected, or its wielder suddenly disappeared.

Their whirlwind marched steadily up the stairs, Szesh’s energy bolstered by the feeling of invincibility that Heike’s inhuman abilities granted him. The black knight, the one who had so sternly demanded that they fight, had retreated to the next landing with the only two remaining mercenaries. His face was still blocked by his helmet, but his breathing was audible and his knees seemed weaker. Apparently his earlier courage was strongly influenced by the number of bodies between him and the monsters. Now he would have to battle them himself, and he didn’t seem to like that idea.

Szesh hurled the body up the last few steps. They were better prepared this time, and it only knocked over one of the guarding fighters. It gave enough of an opening for Szesh to advance to the landing, though, and he stepped on the exposed leg sticking out from beneath the corpse. It snapped loudly.

The black knight and his last ally both stabbed with heavy longswords. Szesh had been ready, and grabbed at the blades, holding them fast. They cut into his palms, scarlet blood running down the steel, but the men were unable to pull their weapons free.

And now the warrior’s knowing flowed the other way, and he roared ”Heike,” crouching low so that the vampire would have as wide an opening as possible. Once these men were dead, it would be only the wizard at the top of the tower. His magic had made him impervious to Szesh’s flames, unbothered by the chaos around him. He didn’t know how they were going to fight him, but such problems would be dealt with soon enough.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike.

She saw in her periphery that Szesh had crouched low. Knew from keeping count and track of the positions of her foes that the two who were left were in front of him. And she did not need to know the manner of Szesh's opening, only that he created one, and that it was time for her to strike. To finish these last two men and with them the fight itself. One last exertion, one last bout of pushing herself beyond what she thought were her limits; all those days spent on the verge of physical and mental defeat during the rough early days of her squiring were now paying dividends.

Heike turned. Quickly and carefully grabbed onto Szesh's wings and used them to launch herself up and over him. Over the top of his head she came twisting through the air, rolling as one might roll on the ground. Behind the last two men she landed on her feet, regained her balance, and thrust the claws of her right hand into the back of one man's neck, just beneath his helm and above his armor. A hard crunch of his spine, and a vicious tearing as she wrenched her claws out.

Had it not been for the miserable state of her left arm, she could have done this to the other man--the black knight--at the same time. For this lack, the black knight let go of the sword caught in Szesh's grasp and elbowed Heike hard in the face, dazing her for a second.

She didn't remain so. An oozing of blood from her nose, she whipped out a right hook thrown with such force that, when it struck the side of the knight's helm, he spun round from the impact and Heike's fist burst into a sharp pain all its own. But the back of the man's neck was exposed again. And Heike finished him as she did his comrade, digging in her claws and crushing the bones of his spine in his neck.

Quiet, again, when his body dropped to the new landing they had fought on.

Heike dropped down to her knees. Sat back on her heels soon after. Took in the moment to simply rest. She had been able to summon a new round of strength for the fight against the remainder of the mercenaries, solely on account of having recently fed from the girl and as such maintaining a moderate reservoir of blood upon which to draw.

But she could not endure another fight, not at this level of intensity. This was not a matter of pushing beyond supposed limits--these were definitive limits. It was a fact that no amount of willpower could conquer. Even if she did go and feed from the still warm bodies, her worryingly numerous injuries would persist. Her effectiveness was without question diminished.

And yet she had to. She had to endure. Szesh may have felt the same, embattled and exhausted, but willing to grit his teeth and endure alongside her. For there was one more foe left to subdue: the wizard himself.

Heike glanced down the stairs and to the other landing below. The girl was still unconscious. Good.

Then, she looked up to Szesh. Said, "We're going to need to be smart about this."

She didn't even realize that--in the manner of an old habit--she was breathing as if she had just finished running a good few miles.

* * * * *​

Rennegast kept working his enchantment on the Catalyst. Almost done. Almost done.

Then it was probably time to retire for the night. His work study had been burned quite severely before he put all the fires out, and that was a matter so troublesome to fix that it was best left for a new day.

The Luminari man, Trajan, was still lying on his floor. Slipping in and out of consciousness. Well, it certainly would be inconvenient if he died. One less client to bring him materials to work on, one more body to clean up come the morrow.

Rennegast stayed by the table, bent over the Catalyst with delicate motions of his fingers weaving the stabilizing enchantment upon it.

Some good fortune: all of that distracting racket coming from the stairwell had finally ceased.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Szesh]

Szesh shielded his eyes against the spray of blood that came from the men's mouths. They crumpled to the ground one after the other, and Heike knelt with them. His own breathing was heavy, and he leaned against the wall, steadying himself and taking some of the weight off of his shaking leg.

The cuts in his palms were not so deep, thankfully, and he could still move his hands if he was willing to endure more pain. On the subject of pain, the arrowhead embedded in his leg needed to come out.

He sat, knowing he would not be able to support himself once the pain started. With a few deep breaths in preparation, he grabbed at the broken piece of arrow shaft that jutted from his scales. His claws slipped on the small bit of wood. It was slick with blood and too thin to easily get at. Cursing under his breath, he grit his teeth and dug his claws in deeper. Growling, groaning, he fished for the jagged metal that tore at his tight. His claws were likely to do just as much if not more damage, but the foreign object had to be removed lest the wound fester and rot.

He would have asked Heike for help, her claws were large but much sharper, and she could no doubt delve into flesh with surgical precision, not so much the tearing that he was used to. He would have asked, if her own blood did not carry an unspeakable curse. He still didn't know if it would affect his kind, he had never heard of a draconian vampire, or a vampire version of any scaled being for that matter. All the same, he had no desire to be the first.

He tossed the bloody bit of iron down the steps and wrapped his leg in thick cloth that he tore from the black knight's tabard. He used the same fabric to bandage his hands. He wanted nothing more than to remain on the landing and rest, his leg now throbbing more painfully than before, but it was not to be. Whatever that wizard was doing he didn't seem too upset that the third catalyst never arrived. Perhaps he didn't need it to do whatever terrible thing he sought to do.

With the grunt and groan of a much older man Szesh rose to his feet, testing his weight on the injured leg. It would hold. He looked down to Heike, the only things stopping him from offering her a hand up were the open wounds his his palms.

They trudged up the steps, nearing the study. The air had changed, they all knew that the final confrontation was at hand. The two of them, tired and broken, moving to fight a foe of untold power. They were very brave, and probably very foolish. Szesh did not like leaving the blonde tattooed woman on the landing, but he quieted these concerns. She was in no shape to come after them. Whatever healing powers her tattoos possessed seemed exhausted. He hoped he was correct.

"Do you know... what this wizard... can do?" Szesh asked in between breaths as they climbed.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Bleeding (oozing, but slow bleeding was still bleeding) from the slashes and gashes in her chest, her back, her lower side from the blonde mercenary, her upper side from the black knight's sword, her left bicep, her left forearm from the triple through-and-through punctures of the trident, the dotting specks from minor cuts on her forehead from the metal man's fist and the trickle of blood from her nose from the knight's elbow. The three broken finger claws of her left hand. Her rib cage cracked roughly between her breasts. The burns on her back that still simmered with a crisp pain in every small movement.

These made up the sum of Heike's injuries. And Szesh did not fare much better, if at all better. They both had arrived at the tower fresh and ready for a fight, but now they were both severely diminished. If perhaps this was the purpose of the mercenaries (both bands of them, the ragtag bunch which the blonde girl had been a part and the six men who had been in league with the warhammer-wielding metal man), then they had succeeded. It cost the mercenaries their lives to weaken them, but weakened they were. Such was the strategy employed by callous and calculating commanders with scores of men to expend, to simply whittle down their opposition by drowning them ceaselessly in a tide of men. It had a deadly effectiveness.

Heike, slowly and with her left arm hanging mostly motionless and definitely useless, found her footing again. A wince escaped her mouth as she stood again, the burn on her back maintaining its agonizing presence. Here a small, nagging thought: Heike didn't know how she was going to either repair her coat and her shirt or procure new ones. She would need to find some way to manage, as she had in the past.

She followed Szesh up the stairs leading back into the wizard's work study. Briefly she thought of the blonde-haired mercenary. It seemed unlikely that she would be able to get up and either escape or--and this time with no misunderstanding and clear intent--ambush them while they had their attention focused on the wizard. She would have liked to carry the girl up here, keep her close to keep an eye on her, but that might put her in harm's way if this ordeal with the wizard got out of hand.

Do you know... what this wizard... can do?

"Mmmmmagic," Heike said, in the way of a stage performance, smiling wryly after she did. "In seriousness, I know not the exact capabilities of this man. And I loathe these sorts of surprises. Don't you?"

The blonde-haired mercenary had within her enough surprises of this kind for one night.

* * * * *​

The wizard's work study; the top floor room of the tower.

Burnt were its walls and its floor and its ceiling where Szesh's fire had been left to rage until Rennegast, finally, decided to extinguish it. The bodies of the Luminari warriors and the mercenaries strewn about (including, still, the remains of the man Szesh had partaken of). Trajan Meng, laying on the floor and completely drained of his capacity to fight, struggling mightily to remain conscious. And the wizard himself, Rennegast, working at his table, putting the final touches of his enchantment upon the Catalyst.

Heike stepped into the work study. Walking slowly. Cautiously.

But it seemed the wizard, even while looking down at the magical Catalyst on the table, had noticed her and Szesh entering. He grumbled irritably, and said without glancing their way, "I am almost finished. Almost finished! We may attend to whatever ends have brought you here to my tower and caused you to brutalize my hired men after, but allow me to finish! I simply cannot suffer interruptions!"

There existed two options:

Allow the wizard to finish his work.

Or interrupt before he could.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Szesh]

If Szesh were not an asocial, gruff-tempered member of a reclusive species, he would have found Heike’s pageantry humorous. Unfortunately, her attempt at levity was lost on him. He agreed with her sentiment, though, he did not like magical surprises. He didn’t like magic at all. For all of his great size and strength, all of his years of training and experience, it could do little against someone who simply erected a magical barrier, or who brought a blizzard down upon him. It seemed unfair, and tantamount to cheating. Of course, members of species were not blessed with great size, flight, and fire breath may view his genetics as a similar level of unfairness.

He hummed his affirmation. ”Never simple,” he said. If one didn’t know better, they might think he had made his own attempt at a joke.

Szesh followed Heike into the study, admiring the damage he had caused earlier. The flames had been extinguished, unfortunately, but at least they had reduced much of the books and instruments to ash and melted slag. The wizard, still not looking away from his work, chastized them as if they were children, telling them to wait their turn and let him finish his work.

Szesh snorted in anger. Did this conjurer not see what they had done? An army of exactly two had infiltrated his tower, destroyed his study, incapacitated a battlemage and slaughtered nearly twenty trained men. Add to this a magically enhanced juggernaut and it was nothing short of awesome that he and Heike stood before the wizard now. And yet still the wizard tinkered away, seemingly unimpressed and unthreatened.

It should have been a warning to them that he was a man of considerable power, for who else would so casually ignore such warriors? Szesh did not consider this. He was too tired, irritated, and prideful in his own battle prowess to be anything but insulted.

That was who they had come to bring to justice, who they had come to kill. It would all be over with his death. Szesh walked forwards. He kept his eyes open for any signs of a magical attack, but still he advanced. He aimed to strike when he was in arm’s reach, to claw and knock the head right off of the sorcerer’s shoulders.

If Heike had a different idea of how they should proceed, she would need to speak now.

 

[Ferelith Scathach]

Fereliths eyes snapped open.

Two yellow orbs piercing the darkness that greeted her. A deep black had begun to creep into her tattoo. The blue slowly succumbing to it until it was entirely sickly black against her pale skin.

That was when the pain started.

Her back arched as a scream ripped from her throat. Her hands slowly forming into claws. Her teeth shaping and growing into fangs. Her bones hardening and her heart...halting.. The pain struck like lightening vanishing as soon as it came. But the pain was nothing to what she felt next.

The corpses sang to her. The intoxicating aroma of their blood emptied her mind of all rational thought as she let out and angry screech and dove into the nearest corpse.

Her fangs sinking into flesh.

She drank deeply. Her hunger craved more, needed more...Demanded more.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Rennegast kept working on the Catalyst. Almost there. Almost there! Just the last few weavings of the stabilization lattices around the Catalyst's humming magic. The pure excitement of his work on the precipice of being complete never got old. Oh, that was why he left the College, wasn't it? Too many scruples. Rennegast simply had a need to perfect his various arcane crafts and disciplines, and he had enough of being told "no" by the Maesters. Yes, it turned out to be plainly obvious that he did not need them, for he had carved for himself a niche in the world in which he excelled and could pursue his passion.

He offered his vast enchanting services for free, so long as the client provided him the materials and reagents and whatever else he required. He did not care for what purpose his clients would then go on to use the enchanted items for, and he considered it none of his business anyway. Yet, it seemed, his clients most often had their vengeful enemies.

Like this man Trajan here. He planned on using the Catalysts in the middle of Alliria, likely stripping the stabilization enchantments on all three at once and allowing the inherent volatility of the Catalysts to, well, be volatile. That is what Trajan had told him; that may well not be the truth--Rennegast's clients were often not above lying, but again, none of his concern.

What was his concern were these two interlopers. Perhaps they could be persuaded with gold. They almost always wanted gold. In lieu of that, information. In lieu of that, enchanting services. People--all peoples, humans and elves and orcs and all the rest--were creatures of want. They wanted things, as Rennegast simply wanted to finish his work in peace. He could come to a deal with them, they would thus be on their way, and then Rennegast could see about repairing his embattled tower and hiring yet more guards to protect him from INTERRUPTIONS.

Almost done. Almost...

There!

Rennegast grinned in effervescent success as his work was finally done and this grin was frozen on his face as his head was severed by Szesh's claws and fell along with his body to flatly thud on the study's floor.

* * * * *​

Heike circled briskly around in a wide berth as Szesh went straight for the wizard. She could perhaps get into a better position, get around to the wizard's side or behind, or at the very least out of his periphery or out of his focus as his attention was taken up by--

Oh.

Szesh had the right idea. He just...walked right up to him and took his head off. And Heike wasn't one to question her blessings. Both she and Szesh were in perhaps the worst shape possible to have engaged him openly. And it also happened that a head was rather easy to transport back to Alliria and deliver to Captain Bronmarch. The good captain might also be able to identify the wizard, if this was not the first such occasion of masterminding thefts of magical items. One of the three Catalysts they sought--not glowing as brightly as the one they had found inside the chest carried by the thieves--lay on the table, the other behind the table on a nearby shelf, ready to be recovered.

"Good work, Szesh," Heike said. A playful smirk crossed her features. "Though it seems a stretch to say that."

Easy as it was to dispatch the wizard that she, and no doubt Szesh too, had been wary of this entire time.

A scream, then. Muffled and muted by the walls of the stairwell from which it came and the distance away. The blonde-haired mercenary was awake, it seemed. Suffering from the wounds which did not trivially heal on account of the lack of her arcane blood. Heike would go to her, administer what care she could, but not before this one final matter.

The bald man, who had briefly turned his skin to metal during their fight. He lay broken on the floor of the study, Heike's own claw wounds in his shoulders and the animalistic bite on his jaw and cheek and Szesh's fire having severely burned his legs and left his pants in ragged tatters. He, like the blonde-haired mercenary, was no longer able to fight. He could be taken alive.

Heike went to him. Crouched down. Asked curtly, "Who are you, and what were you doing here?"

The man, his eyes glassy, nonetheless found her and locked onto her with his gaze. He croaked meekly, "Fiend..."

Heike just let out a quiet hmm from her throat. It was likely that they would get nothing from the man.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Szesh]

Szesh was almost surprised when the wizard's head tore from his shoulders, exactly as it should have. It rolled a fair distance because he had actually swung much harder than he had needed to, expecting to encounter some sort of magical shield or at least a hand raised in defense. But no, there was no defense, not even an acknowledgment of his approach. He simply died.

The body feel, pouring yet more blood onto the floor. Szesh looked at Heike as she approached, and so great was his relief in not facing another prolonged battle that he actually allowed himself a short huff of laughter. "Yes... stronger than I thought." Could it truly be so easy? His prizes lay before him, one on the table and the other upon a shelf. Assuming they were safe to touch, he could transport them easily back to Elbion for a substantial reward.

The scream echoed from the stairwell, and his heart and good humor both sank. "Can she not die?" he growled in frustration. The woman should have been killed several times over at this point, and his patience had worn completely through.

He watched Heike crouch over Trajan, who was still alive it seemed, despite being severely incapacitated. He echoed one of the only words he had spoken to them this entire time. He may need to recover his senses a bit before he would give them any useful information.

Szesh crouched over Rennegast's decapitated body and tore off a large swath of his robe. He draped this over the catalyst on the table, wrapping it gently, before tearing another piece and doing the same to the catalyst on the shelf. He did not know what magics had been imbued into these things, and he did not want to touch them with his bare skin. He knotted the makeshift satchels tightly to his waistband.

"Do you wish to take him?" he asked Heike. He was very ready to leave this place, perhaps find a nearby town to rest and recover before returning to the third catalyst.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Can she not die?

Heike silently echoed this sentiment, modified in her own way. Provided that the blonde-haired mercenary did not break her yield, Heike did not wish for her to die. Quite the contrary, if the girl did die while in her custody, such would be a weighty infraction upon her Oath of Honor. But if the girl did break her yield, her astounding and--by Szesh's appropriate tone--frustrating vitality would prove to be a massive problem.

Szesh set about collecting the Catalysts for his bounty. And Heike meanwhile looked over the bald man. She took from her belt a vial of coagulation salve and applied it carefully to his shoulders with the flat sides of her claws. She had nothing for burns, and nothing on her belt strong enough to tackle the task of healing his ravaged face; these wounds he would have to weather until they could perhaps be treated along the way to Alliria, or in Alliria itself.

Do you wish to take him?

"Yes. Can you carry him, Szesh? I doubt that he will be able to walk under his own power."

Szesh's natural strength (and size) was far greater than Heike's own--even if her left arm wasn't rendered useless. Heike could carry the bald man--she was tireless under normal circumstances due to the undeath bestowed by her affliction--but she would be slowed. She could keep her speed up with minor expenditures of blood over the course of the miles back to Alliria, but that seemed the clearly inferior option.

Regardless, the last matter needed attending to. The blonde-haired mercenary. Who was now awake. The bald man wasn't going anywhere, but the same could not be said with any certainty with regard to the mercenary.

"I will go and secure the girl," Heike said. And, as she stood, she added, "I should hope that she holds her yield. If not...bleed her out."

Heike turned. Crossed the wizard's work study. Entered the stairwell. Started to descend the steps.

A few bodies on the immediate landing; those final few, including the black knight, of the mercenary band. Then she came within sight of the landing upon which rested the greater majority of the slain mercenaries.

And she looked down the stairs and saw the girl.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Ferelith Scathach]

Her mind was a fuzzy blank. Drunk with ecstasy as she feasted.

Blood flowed down her throat and her heart began to beat again. That was when a small part of her realized what she was doing.

Remembered what it felt like to be alive. Remembered what it felt like to be human. Toutured an existence as it was but still having slated her thirst she felt more in control again.

She decided to drink the man dry and wait for her captors. That was when she heard someone coming. She looked up into the eyes of her foe and captor. She spat the corpses neck from her mouth. She looked into her yellow eyes with her own.

The realization that she was looking at another one of her kind hit her like an anchor from the sky.

She looked from the corpse to the vampire. Slowly holding up her clawed hands already coated in gore.

“What did..You didn’t...You wouldn’t have..” before she could continue she let out quite a deep burp. Holding her mouth she found a way to go paper as she realized what she had truly done.

“I’m..Im going to be sick..” She groaned and kicked the body away. Slumping to the floor on all fours she heaved up the food she’d eaten earlier that day. Soaked and coated red with the excess blood still coating her throat. She fell to the ground clutching her knees to her chest.

Her newly grown claws digging into her flesh. She whimpered at the pain but held fast to her position her body still aching from the change as the ecstasy of feeding left her body and the throbbing ache set into her very bones.

The two puncture holes in her neck gaped allowing blood that had stopped running and slowly began to ooze from her wound.

 

[Szesh]

Szesh was unsure why Heike was providing medical care to the fallen man who had tried so fervently to kill them, who appeared to have a singular vocabulary and whose hatred for them burned even now. Of course, they could not interrogate a dead man.

"Yes," he answered Heike's question. "But we must go on foot, I cannot carry both." Heike was light, and it was likely that Szesh would be able to carry Trajan and stay aloft for some time, but the two of them would be pushing it. Even if he could stay airborne it would not be for long and he would quickly exhaust himself. It would be quicker overall to walk or ride if these men had a carriage or wagon in their possession.

Heike went to tend to the mercenary, and Szesh crouched down to examine the fallen warrior. The bleeding had stopped, and his breathing had become a touch more regular. With luck on his side he may survive the trip. He did not know where they would be headed next. His initial plan of recovering the third catalyst would likely need to wait, as traversing the forest on foot with one, possibly two captives would be too difficult. Elbion was the ultimate delivery place for the catalysts, but it was half a world away. Alliria, then, seemed most likely.

It was then that he noticed the man's warhammer lying at his side. It was an impressive weapon, obviously high quality and custom made. He picked it up. It was exceptionally well balanced and felt warm in his hand. This, too, he tucked into his belt, which was beginning to pull quite heavily on his hips.

He scooped up Trajan and slung him over his shoulder so that his head and arms draped in between his wings. Stooping through the doorway, he plodded heavily down the steps. The smells of charred wood and burnt flesh faded, replaced by strong odors of blood and the recently slaughtered.

He arrived to see Heike upon the landing, and the blonde woman doubled over at the base of the next staircase. A low rumble came from his chest at seeing her awake. He did not immediately recognize that her tattoo had changed color, but he knew something was different about her now...

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike stood on the stairs. Looking down at the blonde-haired mercenary.

Eyes wide with a hollow and unblinking horror.

Her body frozen.

No, no, no.

No, no!

No...

* * * * *​

Heike's eyes rolled up into her head and her legs crumpled beneath her and her body went limp and she tumbled down the stairs and came to a sprawling stop on the landing and on top of the bodies of the mercenaries and next to the girl she had inadvertently infected.

All the world gone black in her abject shock.

Szesh Ferelith Scathach

 

[Ferelith Scathach]

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me..” Ferelith said with an eye roll. The blood pumping through her body again could almost trick her onto feeling like nothing had changed.

Her breathing resuming to its shallow slightly quickened pace as she realized she simply hadn’t been for a few minutes. She hadn’t realized she was indeed now dead. In the time between her unconsciousness and her reawakening she had died.. It rocked her to her core and made her already aching stomach to churn even more.

 

[Kara Orin]

While others had their adventure elsewhere, Kara stood before a tree. At her feet was a hole several feet into the deep. Dirt covered her clothes, hair, and skin. A trace of magic lingered in the air as the runes on her sword faded.

Kara’s eyes looked upon the once buried chest.

The orc woman and man heard an eruption of earth just a second ago and rushed toward Kara.

“What happened?!” asked the man.

Pointing at the hole she created, Kara said, “Let’s see what’s inside…”

Kara would order the orc and man to haul the box out of the hole. Once they did, she would open to inspect its glowing contents.

And once she did, she would tell her comrades, “The closest portal stone is near Alliria. We’re hauling this there…”

 

[Szesh]

Szesh promptly dropped Trajan to the floor, just gently enough so that he wouldn't die from the impact. Heike had collapsed suddenly, her body hitting the mass of bodies on the steps and tumbling down. Szesh stomped after her, causing new sounds of metal bending and bodies breaking as he moved without regard for his footing. He reached for her, hesitated, noting the blood coming from his own palms and soaking into the bandages he wore. Heike had been very clear in her warning, no open wounds should touch her blood.

He lowered a wing and used this to clumsily turn the vampire over. She wasn't breathing... but she didn't need to breath. She couldn't be dead...er than usual, though. Nothing had struck her. He looked back at Ferelith, immediately suspecting her hand in this.

Now he noticed the change. The eyes, the claws, the bloody face and black tattoo. He stood at once, putting a hand on the head of the warhammer he had stolen. At once, his flesh turned to iron, and the sudden shift in weight sent him falling onto his back, sending a fresh spurt of blood across the steps from the bodies.

There were too many thoughts going through his head to make sense of. What had just happened to him? Why did Ferelith look like Heike? What had happened to Heike? With effort, he pushed himself up to sitting, his normally silver scales now dark, clouded metal. Had the woman done this? Was it the hammer had just touched? A delayed curse from the wizard whose head he had so casually tossed aside?

"Explain!" was all he could think to roar at the woman.