Fable - Ask Magic, and The Study Thereof

[Orion]

The clamber of hooves against the dirt path that steadily became more and more overgrown was like a relaxing drumbeat to Orion's ears, the sound of live crunching against the grass and roots that encroached upon the once busy road was a nostalgic reminder of the trips to and from his once-illustrious home of Trastus, long since abandoned and dilapidated. Why, it had been so long since last he left that even seeing the horse-drawn carriage pass through the gates of his home to whisk him away on this impromptu trip to the great city of Annuakat had filled the aging mage with an excitement he'd not felt in some years. Now, crossing a leg over the other as he relaxed on the well-cushioned seats of the carriage, the tendrils of madness that so constantly threatened his mind gave way to the feeling that this journey would bring much change to his life, perhaps offering him some meaning or purpose that he'd been searching for ever since his mind began to wane.

He was unsure why he'd been summoned to Annuakat. A courier had arrived in Trastus the previous week, bearing a letter and a sum of money addressed to Orion by his true name, Janus Carrux. That any courier could find Trastus was curious enough; the old town was hidden well and protected by powerful magic. That anybody would seek out the talents of the Mind Mage who had so infamously brought about the downfall of his entire academic establishment with his growing madness for any reason was another curiosity altogether. Few knew that he still lived in that abandoned academy, and those who did were unlikely to want anything to do with him. The mystery surrounding the day's events were intriguing, but Orion knew when danger threatened to rear it's head, and something was certainly amiss.

The courier and the old man who drove the carriage had both spoken few words, and neither seemed to know exactly what was destined for Orion at Annuakat. Orion cared little; his life had long ended, and now he lived more as a shell who served as a warning to aspiring mages. If he was to meet death or danger at the end of this road, so be it. Still, he finally grew tired of the silence, speaking up to the driver. "Tell me, sir. Do you have any idea how much longer we have?" Orion didn't consider himself an impatient man, but being alone in his thoughts seldom ended well for him. Slowly the madness would creep back into his head, aching like a sore muscle...

He received no answer from his driver, and soon after he voiced his question the carriage came to a sudden stop. It was too soon for them to be in Annuakat, although there were several small settlements dotted about the route to the grand city. Light peeked through the curtains on the side of the car of the carriage, but Orion could see nothing outside of them. Raising a hand, adorned with old jewelry and scars to boot, he pulls the curtain aside to reveal his new situation.

A militia? Some form of law enforecement? The men who surrounded his vehicle were armed and lightly armored. They were definitely organized, so what could...

"Come out and get on your knees, Carrux! Time to pay up for what you've done!"

Ah... Bounty hunters. He did still have a small price on his head, didn't he? Not from any city or governance, but from the families of some of his former students, surely. Well, there was no getting out of this without violence, was there? He wasn't sure if this had been a trap all along, or if maybe it was sheer coincidence that they'd found him now, either way, he had little choice but to slowly emerge from the carriage, hands raised and eyes calm and relaxed. They were just outside the gates of a small village... Doubtful any help was coming. He didn't wish to bring harm to more people...

But if they insisted on blocking his path, he would.

Jakub

 

[Jakub]

One of the armed men drew closer to the carriage. He clutched the crossbow tightly, pointing it in the mage's general direction. The stranger appeared visibly tense, hands fidgety and palms sweating, for he too feared the presence of magic just as much as his comrades. Something about the way Orion carried himself inspired no small amount of worry within the hearts of these hardened mercenaries.

"Alright, hand over any weapons you are carrying, or there will be consequences. You are surrounded from all sides by crossbow-totting men who'll turn you into a pincushion at the slightest suspicion." His was a rough voice of a man in his mid-to-late forties, visibly worn down by the passage of time, unhealthy eating habits, and excessive drinking. Atop of that, everything so far indicated that the men who formed this particular bunch weren't exactly hygiene-oriented. For that matter, they stank.

Alas, despite their relatively poor manners, they showcased some extraordinarily varied equipment for what should've been a handful of mercenaries. Swords, daggers, repeating crossbows, shields, smoke bombs, and even venom-tipped bolts adorned the group of ruffians, all of whom carried a similar, if not slightly different load to one another.

"You sure that this is a good idea? Ain't he supposed to be a mage of some kind?" one of the men piped in, barely audible, desiring not to be heard by their boss, who thought it was a clever idea to apprehend Orion directly instead of conducting an elaborate ambush.

"Agreed," the other paused, thoughtfully rubbing his half-shaven head, "I ain't got enough balls for this kind of stuff. Normal people? Sure. Mages? 'ell no. We have no clue what this guy can do."

"If it was up to me, we would've pelted his ride with gas bombs and carried away his unconscious body, but no, no one ever listens to me."

"Shut up Nicolas," retorted the third party, nudging the man's proposition off into a dark corner, ner to resurface again, "Last time we did that, you improperly calculated the dosage, and the guy died from asphyxiation, you bloody psychopath."

"Be silent, for God's sake, don't you see I'm trying to conduct work here?" came the voice of their displeased leader, head never turning to meet the gazes of his subordinates. He was too busy keeping his crossbow leveled at Orion's chest, prepared to kill the mage if things went south. For all his overconfidence, the leader hadn't considered outside interference. Much less in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.

One of his men screamed. Escaping his lips was a low, strangled cry followed by a wet and highly uncomfortable SNAP. They all turned in the commotion's direction, seeing someone, no, something, munching on the limp body of their formerly living comrade. They caught brief glimpses of a horselike body with four muscular legs, but instead of hooves, each limb had a human hand at its end, tightly gripping onto the loose soil. Neither a stallion's scruff nor a stallion's head graced the grotesque being, for its nape proved far too long and not thick enough to be considered as such. Where a horse's face should've been, hung a humanoid head, connected to the rest of its body by the aforementioned neck.

Needle-like teeth rent human flesh with relish, causing severe bleeding that formed a non-insignificant pool of liquid beneath the hanging body whose frame remained restrained some two-and-a-half meters off-ground.

Orion

 

[Orion]

Orion reached into the deep pockets of his robe, clutching at the fabric within and pulling them inside out to demonstrate that he was quite unarmed. He had anticipated that he may encounter some of these overzealous money-seekers should he venture far from Trastus, but he was not a man who relied on weaponry to dissuade those who may attack him. Orion was an illusionist; a master of the mind, an expert in twisting the way it thinks and perceives. If Orion chose to attack these men, they wouldn't have much warning.

Fortunately for them, Orion was not as practiced as he had once been; weaving an illusion powerful enough to escape this rather sizable group was feasible but would expend most of his energy, and leave him considerably exhausted. The mage was nothing if not crafty though: He could allow himself to be taken in, and whittle them down bit by bit with smaller scale illusions, to create an opportunity for his escape. These bounty hunters were already shaken and frightened by his presence, and an uneasy mind was a vulnerable mind.

"I offer no resistance... gentlemen. You played a cunning trap, and it has worked quite flawlessly. I shall inform my appointment in Annuakat that I will be indisposed for the foreseeable future." Orion spoke softly towards their leader, the only one of them who wasn't shaking in his clothes. He supposed it was hard to find good help these days.

He was preparing to turn himself over to the men when he felt it, a shift in the wind and a distortion in the energies of this place. Shortly after they would hear the sickening sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh as the unidentified creature pounced one of the hunters, beginning to feast on the fresh kill. Even Orion winced at the visceral sight. It was no natural beast, it was an abomination, and the twisted aura flowing from the beast filled the former instructor with a looming sense of foreboding.

Even so, it offered him a perfect opportunity to escape.

His cloak flowed behind him like a shadow as he suddenly spun around, chanting some incomprehensible phrase under his breath and firing a ball of strange blue flame at the leader while his head was turned. Cerulean embers trailed behind the ball, flittering in the air as it collided with the man and knocked him down. The fire would not burn him; the spell was designed to be non-lethal in its function. Quickly though, he would aim his hands towards the rest of the man's group. "If you wish to live, get behind me! Unless a bounty is more valuable than your lives? If I don't kill you, this beast will. We must fight together!"

He could not leave all these souls to die. They were guilty only of hunting down a wanted man, and he could not flee knowing this wretched abomination lived. No, he would kill it here and now.

Jakub

 

[Jakub]

The monster neither snarled nor growled at them, merely chattering its overexposed teeth, lips pulled back in a mocking smile.

"Do not refer to my familiar with despicable names," came a voice from beyond the shroud of the unknown. A tall, broad-shouldered male with stygian hair and piercingly blue eyes seemingly appeared beside the creature, holding what looked to be a crossbow. Strange contraption it was, of dimensions superior to those of a mercenary crossbow and with a drum of arrows attached to its underside. The stranger rose it up, peering through the metal sight with unshakable determination.

*CLICK*

Something frighteningly quick whistled through the air like a scrap of gossamer amidst the windstorm. A bolt planted itself between the eyes of their leader, splitting his skull in half with mere fragments of bone to keep it from dividing height-wise. He fell like a sack of wet concrete. Following his fall was an audible thud, a jingle of metal, and bewildered stares of the man's subordinates, each more frightened than the other. The blue-eyed one remained unphased, aiming again before landing a shot, hitting a mercenary in the gut this time. His bolt passed through both chainmail and gambeson-like butter, facing minimal resistance.

The string of Jakub's crossbow pulled back, on its own and with no input of his. He snorted, ready to shoot at any point before finally addressing Orion, eyes betraying no hits of emotion, fear, nor amusement. "You are Orion, are you not?" The question held more rhetoric than genuine value. Jakub already knew the answer, hence why he cut the man off before he had a chance to respond in kind.

"You are a mage," he stated, more so blunt in his exclamation, not skipping a beat. "Which is why I can't allow them," Jakub's gaze traced over the remaining mercenaries, disdained by their presence, "to capture you." His familiar moved forward just as he uttered the sentence, sinking its overdeveloped maw into the nearest man who desperately cried for help, unsheathing his dagger to stab his assailant to no avail. The beast's hide proved too thick and too sturdy, deflecting the attempts with impunity while simultaneously disemboweling a man by nearly biting his torso in half.

Jakub took a step back to avoid the spraying blood that would've otherwise ruined his expensive coat. He winced, ever so slightly baffled by the creature's sheer ruthlessness and aptitude for violence.

Orion

 

[Orion]

Orion had begun to suspect something was amiss before a word had been spoken; The creature before them had slaughtered its prey so viciously and aggressively, and yet stood by without making any attempt to claim another victim. This was not the natural behavior of a beast, but of a creature taking orders. The voice of a man booming from behind the ominous being was met with the parting of Orion's lips, the word "Familiar" echoing on his own lips.

The mage hadn't the time to look over the well-dressed newcomer before he fired his weapon at the leader of the bounty hunters, the bolt striking like lighting with the sound of thunder. A fearsome contraption to be sure, Orion didn't need to turn and observe the results to know that the target would be a gruesome sight. The gags and shouts from the other hunters seemed to offer some hint as to just how inhumane a death it had been. No, his eyes would remain on this ebony-haired man with the gruesome familiar at his side and the death bringer in his hands.

Orion did not fear the man or his pet; if he was to be killed, then what reason was there for this little 'rescue'? Unless it was that this new fellow aimed to kidnap him in the bounty hunter's stead. That would explain why he now felt the need to send the beast after another of the hunters, causing Orion to wince and step aside. He knew Orion's name, knew that he was a mage. This couldn't have been his mystery correspondent, could it? Why would he be here?

Orion, however, was less than impressed with this stranger's behavior. The first killing he could understand. The slaying of the leader was also arguably necessary. But the third demonstration of his power did nothing but tell Orion that this man was dangerous and cared little about the morality of his actions. Stepping forward, the shadowy cloak covering Orion would open to display the symbols etched upon his flesh, black shapes, and unreadable text that seemed to glow in simmering anger as Orion placed himself between the Familiar and the now cowering bounty hunters.

"That is quite enough! These men are here doing the job they were assigned. I did not ask you to kill them, nor did I need assistance in avoiding capture. You will kill no more of them, less I turn your familiar into disgusting pieces before you."

He turns his head towards the hunters, his tone increasing in anger with every word. "Flee now, but tell none of this. I will know if you do."

Returning his gaze to the man with the crossbow, his lip curls into a snarl. "I don't like it when people make a mess of things when I have it managed. Do not test me."

Jakub

 

[Jakub]

"Hm? Their job?" Jakub's head dipped, eyebrow raised as far as it could be without departing from his forehead. "They are bounty hunters, a job tedious and dangerous, that no less requires an individual to place their life on the line for the sake of profit. If they cannot bear the consequences, well, then they aren't much of bounty hunters in the first place."

The creature sniffed, atrophied nostrils flaring before Orion. It ogled him from head to toe, its head tilting sideways at the sight of fleeing mercenaries.



"Ņ̷̜̤̯͕͎̣̠̦̳͕̩̮͙̬̣̫̠̤̭͎̎̈̃͋̐͋̊͌̏͛̂͑̄͋̇̕̚͘͜͜͝͝͝͝ͅơ̸̧̘͈̖̠̙̠̿͑̄͆̽̽̎̓͂̿̚͝͝͠ ̶̢̨̨͔͙̳͈̖͈̮̦̳̯͈̠̗̤̱̤͂̐̒m̵͙͉̓̆̏̄͒̔̓͒̆͛̓̈̓͛͘e̵̢̢̱̮̹͚̝̫͖͍̼͖̱̬͎̣͈͉̞̻͈͈͋͒͒̑̐͐̉͋̅͗ȃ̵̡̛̰̦̖̬͇͙̳͓͈͗͌̉̍͋͌̎̾̈́̃͂͊̕̕̚͘t̸̨̯̖͇̹̹͍̤͍͕͉̟̟̂̿̍̆̀͗̾̈́̎̑͑̇̒͜͝͠?̸̡̬͈̮̞̥̫̹̪̱̦͍̼͕̩̺͙̺̟̬̥̺̠͉̰̌̍͗̔̊̉͋̊͗̋͊̉̃̀̌͌̚͜͝͝"




The beast's maw opened, dripping with saliva as it spoke in a combination of voices, none of whom proved even remotely comprehensible by human standards. And as its neck craned to look at Jakub, the tall male dismissively wagged his finger at it. Jakub took a step back, and so did his familiar, blowing a cloud of putrid fumes from its many orifices. The gas smelled like death, an unholy combination of rotten eggs, maggot-ridden meat, and burnt hair. Jakub, on the other hand, appeared unbothered by it.

And tho his face conveyed little emotion, he looked awfully pleased with himself, pointing the previously used crossbow to the ground in hopes of discouraging Orion's attack.

"Do you think me stupid? Do you think I hadn't done my homework?" he inquired, eyelids flat, half obscuring his brilliantly blue eyes. Jakub took a tension-relieved step forward, aiming to nullify the distance between Orion and himself. He nonchalantly discarded his crossbow, leaving it on the familiar's back for safeguarding.

"A brief background check told me that the men you sought to preserve lack the barest traces of professionalism when it comes to conducting work." Jakub pocketed his hand, rummaging through the contents of his long, fur-lined coat. He soon retrieved a piece of yellowed paper, diligently waving it before Orion's face. "I knew that they were going to catch you, a non-issue assuming you were delivered alive and preferably in one piece."


"But this," Jakub quickly unfurled the document, pointing the ink-ridden front page at Orion. Upon it laid many names, most, if not all, unknown to either of them. They stood irregularly scattered across the paper's boundaries, worn down by the passage of time. Jakub carefully traced the tip of his digit down the list, forming a zig-zag motion. "These just so happen to be the names of all bounties that died within their hold. Some from rough handling, neglect, and acquired injuries. Some were killed deliberately, likely out of convenience."

"Be as it may, the bounty hunters are more often than not under no obligation to bring back live bounties. And you, Orion, are a criminal. Had I been assured of your survival, then none of this would've happened. Alas, I refuse to cut corners in my work."


Orion

 

[Orion]

The mage was beginning to have trouble deciphering whether it was arrogance or disinterest that seemed to ooze from every pore in this man's body. Either way, he wasn't exactly thrilled with the tone this undoubtedly powerful man was taking with him. Perhaps he had been expecting gratitude? Praise? He found this man difficult to read. "It is not your killing them per se that I take offense to, so much as it is how you've gone about doing it. Striking terror into their hearts with a familiar resembling the visage of death itself, letting it feast upon them as though they were but cattle." Orion crosses his arms, and almost seems to hold his now bare torso in self-comfort. He'd allowed a charge of his magic to boil inside him without releasing it, and now a cold chill ran through his veins.

Regardless of intent or method, the hunters weren't going to be taking him. Those that remained were either dumbfounded or terrified at the grisly display put on before them. They remained rooted in place as Orion leaned down to scoop up his cloak from the ground, wrapping it around his shoulders once more as he began to step towards his 'rescuer'. What was he going on about now? Professionalism? Homework? "I really don't care." He stated matter of factly. "It's just as you said, I'm a criminal. Who am I to pass judgement on your methods?"

He snatches the paper from out of Jakub's hand as he held it out for him, skimming over it with mild curiosity. Of course he knew none of the names, but one never found answers if one didn't look in all places. As his eyes lazily scanned over the list, fingers decorated in silver rings gripping the side firmly, he briefly flicked his gaze back to him, not seeming all too concerned with him, the crossbow, the hunters, or the familiar anymore. "I'm assuming you have some kind of business with me, seeing as you know my name, and my history. Am I also to assume you won't be taking 'no' for an answer regarding whatever this business is?"

Orion grumbles softly, holding the paper back to him. This had gone from interesting to dreadfully boring, although it was possible that was merely his volatile mind suffering one of his many mood-swings. Maybe it was an unspoken wish to have been allowed to tear this man and his familiar limb from limb... Likely it was combination of all three.

"Out with it. I'm hearing you out as a matter of courtesy, but I really must be on my way to Annuakat."

Jakub