Fable - Ask Shattered Promises

[Syele Wilhart]

While such rage was the foundation that her psyche had been rebuilt upon, this complete loss of control was not a regular occurrence. In fact, she had never lost her senses like this when claiming the heads of magical bounties.

But this wasn't just some errant magic user with a lust for power and a disregard for life.

This was a Dreadlord.

This creature had stood for everything that was wrong with Vel Anir, her injustices writ large in terrible, powerful flesh.

They had taken so much.

At last, Jaster's voice broke through the red fog that had clouded her judgement and Syele finally stopped. Wrenching the dagger from his perforated torso one last time and dropping it upon the floor. Her exertions combined with the still-throbbing blow to the Guardsman's chest left her breathing ragged, the hard leather of her armour left devastated where she had been hit.

"They all... deserve this..."

Still kneeling by the corpse, Wilhart took her time to try and catch her breath. The blood still pumping in her ears with each adrenaline-spiked pump of the heart.

Syele looked to Jast, an eyebrow poised quizzically on her blood spattered face, "And what exactly...are you hoping to find?" Wilhart inquired, disregarding his lackadaisical apology and getting to the meat of the matter.

She might have passed the test, but frankly his behaviour in their short time of knowing each other was more than peculiar.

 

[Jast]

Jast slowly leaned forward, scooping up the dagger that Syele had dropped and proceeding to clean it on the Dreadlord's clothes. "Papers, orders, gold, anything valuable."

Though he hated giving them any sort of compliments, Dreadlords did tend to come prepared.

A lot of the time they treated their homes like a safehouse. Using it to store clothes, cash, treasure, and everything else they might think could come in handy. Jast had no idea if they would find anything of the like in this place, but it was worth a look at least.

Pulling himself up, he gestured towards the the manor around them.

"The people paid for all this shit anyway." Jast said with a shake of his head. The local taxes no doubt had the Governor, and now this Dreadlord, sitting rather comfortably. Even without servants and Guards the estate on the nicer side. "So think of it as reclamation."

Quickly Jast stepped away from the body, beginning to move from room to room and digging through chests, closets, and drawers. Anything silver or gold was thrown into a sack, anything that he thought might be of greater value tucked into his belt.

Fighting a revolution wasn't cheap.

You needed something to pay for blades.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Wilhart left the man to his wanton looting, not concerned with his justifications or whether it was right or not. In an idealistic world, it would be reclamation. But if the people of Darren were caught in possession of jewellery and trinkets far beyond their station in life, then the Dreadlord's death would be firmly placed upon their shoulders. Their suffering would not stop until the hangman's noose was sated.

She slowly returned to her feet and attempted to keep herself busy by gathering splintered furniture to be used as kindling. However, her mind tainted by bitterness in the wake of her trauma couldn't help but race.

They had killed a Dreadlord, but now what?

Who would be stationed in this village in his place? Another fiend, hand-reared to be just as cruel and callous to the people as the one before? What if they were worse? What if they sought vengeance?

What now for her? Syele may have seen this as justice in murder, but the law would say otherwise. How many had seen her face, could describe it? Was a pouch of gold in a tavern enough to buy willful ignorance? The woman grimaced, those familiar lines etched across her brow as she realised that her rage held a multitude of consequences.

This, Jaster Marr, evidently held schemes beyond a murder on this night and had like-minded friends whose feelings on the Dreadlords mirrored her own, but could he be trusted? Did she have a choice?

As she piled the debris, the former Guardsman considered her options.

Running was always there; to return to the life she had built for herself but...

...she couldn't shake that sensation that had exploded inside of her as the knife bit into that man's chest. It was the first time Syele Wilhart had felt something worth feeling since she left the academy, fresh-faced and full of hope for the future. This meant something. Her frown faded, an edge of determination lining thinned lips. This was justice.

And it was worth fighting for.

 

[Jast]

Marr went about stripping the house of what they could use as quickly as possible.

He didn't grab silver sonnces or golden candle stick holder. All of that would be too difficult to carry and more difficult to get rid of. He went for coins, blades, anything that might offer them an immediate benefit. Operations like theirs didn't run for free.

You needed money for food, supplies, and most importantly; friends.

By the time Syele had made her decision, when her pile was big enough to light, Jast had a bag slung over his shoulder.

What he'd taken would help them for a month or two, not much, but enough at least to keep food in their mouths. That part was almost as important as striking out. Hungry men didn't make for good fighters, that was a lesson the Guard had taught him.

"Nice little bit of kindling." Jast said with a gesture, taking out his light and holding it out towards Syele.

"Ready?" He asked. "No guards, but someones going to check on this fuck eventually."

Better to not be here when they did.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

"Filled your boots then," she commented, taking the offered light and crouching down to start the fire at the base of the kindling. The robbery may have been justified, it may have been necessary but that didn't mean that Syele had to like it.

The flames began to catch, licking the splintered finery of the manor's destroyed furniture, her gaze lost in the soft, growing flicker. "Let them find ashes," Wilhart spoke as she stood, looking to Jaster Marr with a freshly burning zeal in her gaze.

Her mind was made up.

"Now that I've adequately proved myself to you, Lieutenant," she began, walking away from the scene of their murder and the now-growing flames, "I would like to meet the others."

 

[Jast]

"Very poetic." Jast commented, motioning towards the doorway so that they could escape from the scene of their crime. Following on Syele's heels as she began their trek out of the manor proper.

As they moved, the former guardsmen made her demands known. Jast snatching up a small coin that he had left behind on a counter-top in his mad looting dash.

"Yes." He agreed. "I'll even tell you where we're heading, sign of good faith."

Perhaps he hoped it would make up for his earlier slight. "Little town called Sedwin, right on the coast. Nice enough town, really."

As it turned out; that wasn't true.

Sedwin was a one bit fishing town that at one point might have been a two bit town, but lost it's second bit somewhere in a pile of shit. The whole place sat in the middle of a swamp, every building looked as though it was falling down, and even the docks which lead out to sea somehow managed to smell more of raw sewage than they did ocean.

The Tavern Jast brought Syele to was no different. An out of the way ramshackle Inn and bar situated on the corner of town. As they sat themselves down, Jast motioned towards the bar.

"Try the rum." He suggested. "Really helps mask the smell."

 

[Syele Wilhart]

As it turned out, Jast's definition of a 'nice enough town' was a complete and utter cesspool. It gave her cause to doubt either his honesty or his sanity and with the short amount of time she had already spent with the man, she was leaning towards the latter.

Perhaps once, Sedwin was a 'nice enough town' but there were more than enough factors that could render small hubs of industry into fetid wastelands like this.

"I'd rather keep my wits," Syele replied, giving the denizens of the bar a cursory once-over, a certain sense of paranoia following the woman in the wake of what they had done. Perhaps, it was this reason that gave Sedwin purpose here. If Marr and his cohorts had done this sort of thing before, if they were already wanted, then it was the best barest sliver of civilisation to hide amongst.

"What happened in Darren," she began, skipping past idle rum-soaked small talk and moving straight to the purpose, "have you done such deeds before?"

 

[Jast]

Jasttilted his head in a half nod, taking the small shot of rum before him and letting it slip between his lips. "Few times."

His tongue hadn't been so free on their first meeting, but he'd been worried about prying ears and eyes then. This place was buried so far down at the end of the world that he doubted anyone ever left it, or even knew about it.

It was why they'd picked it in the first place.

"Not that close to the Capital." He admitted. "And usually on the road, easier to catch em when they don't have time to prepare."

Killing Dreadlords was a nasty business. One way or another the fight was always over quickly, either because you'd managed to catch the fucker by surprise and he was dead before he could really respond. Or you didn't.

Weren't no other way about it.

"Only been awake for a few months." Jast explained. "Got put to sleep for a bit during the June days."

A common nomenclature for the days of violence surrounding the revolution. The successful coup which was now almost two years passed.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

A certain comfort came from the fact that he had done this before; it stripped that sense of unstable impulse back and revealed reason and purpose beneath. Not only that, but they were smart about it too. Syele herself was more than aware of the dangers that came from a prepared magic user, never mind one that had a relentless training regimen at its foundation.

Wilhart nodded, her shoulders relaxing somewhat in the knowledge that this wasn't the disorganised chaos that she had first suspected.

"The word of revolution travelled far," Wilhart commented, her stare settling upon a notch in the table likely caused by a nervous dagger that picked away at tired wood, "I only wish I could have been there to help."

She chose not to pry into Jast's own circumstance, knowing better than to dredge up another's trauma.

"What the fuck happened, Jaster? Because from where I'm standing, I can't see a shred of this so-called change."

 

[Jast]

The smile on his face dropped away, and for the first time Jast seemed to sober up. The amusement completely gone. "I don't...I don't rightly know."

His head shook.

"It was all lookin' good, the plans were set. Then that undead army through a curveball into things..." Jast could still remember that day, when he'd heard news of the attack. The battle had been a fierce one, Vel Anir's walls had been breached for the first time in centuries.

It had been chaos and panic, and the moment had been exactly right. The coup had happened, and they won, from what he'd been told anyway.

Sure as shit didn't seem like it. "I-I honestly don't know."

His head shook.

"Bastard fucking nobles are still running around." His fingers furled into fists. "Dreadlords still killing like they own the place."

He frowned. "It was supposed to, we were supposed to..."

A long breath dragged into his lips.

"My brother tried tellin' me." Jast began to explain finally instead of babbling and commiserating. "The Houses didn't...well they didn't fight. We always thought they would, ya know? Send all those dreadirds out. Some of em did, 'course, But not enough. They just laid down, and I guess the Guard thought...why lose all those lives."

He scowled, kicking the empty chair besides him. "Because the fucking idiots didn't realize they were being played."

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Syele studied Jast as his lackadaisical demeanour vanished, revealing something altogether more real beneath.

Her gloved fingers laced together and propped her chin up, her elbows resting upon the bar. Wilhart's expression remained unmoving, static in its bitter resentment of the man's recollection of so-called revolution.

How many had laid their lives down for false change?

"Stupid bastards."

She removed her hands from beneath her chin and laid them flat upon the bar as if waiting for cards to be dealt.

"And so what now?" Syele quizzed, her head tilting at Marr as she pushed straight forward onto business, "What's the end goal here, you and your like-minded friends?"

It had to be something more than picking off the odd Dreadlord here and there.

 

[Jast]

Jast nodded in agreement as Syele threw her insult.

The Guard should have known better, they should have seen it. Even with the Noble Houses 'cooperating' there was little doubt that behind the scenes each and every one of them was making a move of some sort. Pulling strings, placing bribes. Jast was sure of it.

He was sure of it because he knew his cousin, and he knew how she worked.

It might be a year, it might be ten, but eventually? They would make their move. "The end goal is what we were promised."

Jast said with a nod of his head. Though the long staying smile on his lips had since turned to a frown. "Dreadlord's gone and the nobles out of Politics."

Whatever the form of that might take. There would always be magic, there was no denying that, but the current system? How Vel Anir kept it's power? Such things were no longer tenable, not to Jast, not to those like him.

"Won't be easy, maybe a pipe dream." He scoffed. "But fuck it if we ain't gonna try."

They had to do that much at least.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

It was certainly a lofty goal, dismantling a long-established power structure with a handful of jaded individuals? From where Syele was sitting, it looked like madness and even Jast was realistic about any prospect of success.

It was a fool's dream.

Had the events in Darren not unfolded then perhaps Wilhart might have held greater reservations.

But that feeling from driving the blade into the Dreadlord's chest still thrummed within her chest, having ebbed away to remnants of lingering retribution. She stared down at her gloves, washed clean of the blood but not of their actions. Even then in the afterglow, Syele knew that she wanted more than just one pound of flesh.

"We'll do more than try," she muttered darkly under her breath, her right hand moving up to reveal a solid silver ring around her index finger. She nodded to Jast and gave the rune-inscribed steel a few taps.

"Do you know what this is, Jaster?"

 

[Jast]

Jast frowned for a brief moment, his lips thinning as he leaned forward. "No."

He admitted.

"Don't rightly think I do." The world was a damned big place, and even someone as experienced as him lacked in something. Even after inspecting the little ring struck through Syele's nose, he had no idea what the thing was.

Though clearly, more than a simple accessory. "'Fraid you're gonna have to fill me in."

He said, the curiosity clear in his voice.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

"Protection," she replied plainly, leaning closer to Jast so that he could take a better look at the markings forged upon the steel, "helps ward off attacks upon the mind."

Wilhart had learned the hard way the cost of being ill-prepared against magic-wielding foes. A tale for another time, perhaps. It was one thing to protect your body, having to adapt to an endless possibilities of power but your mind and soul were not so tangible. How could you protect that which held no physical form?

As much as it had displeased her, the solution was also found in magic.

"It's rune magic," she admitted with an evident sense of distaste, the lines upon her brow deepening as a scowl crested, "but we'll need it if we want to do more than just roadside ambushes."

There was, however, a small hitch.

"We'd need a spell engraver."

 

[Jast]

Jast let out a long whistle. "That woulda been nice to have a year or so back."

He'd wonder if that fucking Dreadlord could have done if he had. A frown touched his lips for a moment, fingers drawing slowly into fists.

The memory flickered through his head again. The feeling of that bastards fingers around his throat, the tightness within his chest. The sensation of...of his soul slowly being torn from his body. As though his very being had been stripped away and then...just shoved back in.

Bile rose in Jast's throat, but he took a sharp breath and managed to catch it before he vomited to the side of the table. Rubbing briefly at his face to offer himself a small amount of cover from Syele's gaze before he drew himself back up.

"We will, and we do." The Guardsmen said, his voice a tad more serious. "But...know any?"

She had the one, could she get more? "Shit isn't easy to find around here. I mean..."

There had once been Dreadlords he'd trusted, but now?

"Might as well head north." Elbion had to have something like it, but that was a far trip. Dangerous too if they wanted to use the Portal Stones.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Syele didn't judge Jast's presumed momentary lapse in the past, knowing that he'd mentioned being 'put to sleep'. She could imagine that not only them, but these like-minded friends all shouldered the terrible burden of memory.

"Not living," she answered, clenching her jaw in the frustration of having dispatched the only artificer that she had met. He had been her bounty, and being driven by rage hadn't afforded much room for mercy. She recalled that he offered her the ring in exchange for his life.

She had taken both.

"North. You mean..."

Elbion, naturally, was a place that Wilhart had purposefully avoided in her travels for obvious reasons. It went without saying that Syele believed the Templars had been righteous in their failed aims. Still, it stood to reason that the city and its focal point, the College would have what they needed to ensure progress.

"...hmph. I think you're right," Wilhart conceded with a certain degree of constipation, "but then what? I have a feeling that we cannot afford whatever they may be willing to sell."

 

[Jast]

Jast drummed his fingers against the table as he thought. Syele was right. They didn't have much passed what he'd taken from the Manor and whatever else the others had stashed away. Enough for a few things, but anything with real oomph? They'd need more money.

Or…"No revolutions been won without breaking a few laws."

He said, shrugging his shoulders.

The thought of reducing himself to theft did not sit easy with him, but there was a difference in robbing banks and stores to what they were talking about.

"But…maybe in just Elbion." He mused, leaning forward. "They got Vel Acan, Zaphris, that other fuckin place where they take the kids."

If they could get what they need to start[/] in Elbion then they could strike and take what they needed here, hurting their target twice over. "We set ourselves up with the bare minimum up north, should be able to scrape enough together, then we hit something closer to home…"

Dangerous, yes, but what better way to send a message?

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Syele grimaced, chewing on the thought of descending into theft at the behest of justice. Her hand moved to touch her ring, fingers tracing along the curves of the metal. She had stolen that, had she not? The end would justify the means if it led to some measure of success in this cause.

That last thought troubled her, stare growing distant. Ends justifying means. Like throwing lives away at castle walls...

Erich is so cold now. He's so heavy. I can't breathe. Help me. He won't stop looking at me. Want to close his eyes. Can't move. Let me close his eyes. Trapped. I'm dying. Please let me die. Erich. Stop staring at me like that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry! It hurts. Please. I can't breathe.

She snapped to attention with a sudden wince, instinctually gasping great mouthfuls of air as if she had been saved from drowning. There was a fearful flicker in Wilhart's face, eyes wide in the terror of memory.

The former Guardsman caught herself after a few seconds, usually more accustomed to reliving those horrors in her sleep. Fear turned to grief, which then twisted itself back into the bitter rage that sat naturally upon Syele's face.

"Then that's what we'll do," she said, voice detached while avoiding Jaster's gaze. Her hands balled into fists that she opened and closed rhythmically, suggesting that it was a common habit for her.

"Do you need to make preparations? I'd rather leave sooner than later."

 

[Jast]

Jast watched the moment play out.

He recognized it, because he saw it in the others, he saw it in himself sometimes too. Though admitting that was harder than he would have liked. A flicker of emotions surged through his chest as the pain seemed to twist through Syele.

The Lieutenant couldn't help but feel the pity, despair, guilt. All of bursting through him at once when he saw Syele suffer through the moment of loss from so long ago.

A breath snapped her back into it. Though Jast wasn't sure if it was enough.

Anger twisted itself back onto her face, eyes staring down at the table. For a moment Jast simply stared at her, his eyes darting down to her first for just a brief moment. They really fucked us up.

He thought to himself, and then tipped his head in a nod. Syele didn't want to sit. She couldn't sit.

Just like he couldn't.

"I can leave a message for the others. They were supposed to meet us here." Jast thought. "But they know the drill."

They knew what kind of war they were fighting. "Portal stone? Or long walk?"

Both had their dangers. With the portal stone they would have to go through the Guardsmen outpost, a long walk? Well, they'd be headed north first through Anirian Territory then Imperial. Plenty of bandits on the road, not that he was worried about that, but an Guard patrol asking question?

They had to pick their poison.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Syele silently mulled over the options in her head, weighing the swift but seen journey over the longer one fraught with more peril. She held no doubts for their general safety, the pair having managed to slay a Dreadlord within hours of meeting one another for the first time.

What she didn't want, however, was to be seen by an entire outpost.

"I'd prefer the long way," she finally answered, having scraped enough composure back to look at him again, "I wouldn't want too many Guardsmen committing our faces to memory."

Neither of them were particularly inconspicuous; Wilhart, with half of her face marred by hideous burns and Jast, whose dishevelled appearance and very presence was a charismatic oddity that one couldn't help but commit to memory.

"What do you think?"

 

[Jast]

Jast nodded in agreement. "Yeah...north it is."

Probably for the best.

"I'll get us some horses." That much at least he could afford. The loot he had taken from the Dreadlord's house would pay for the supplies they would need. Elbion was a long way off, and there was no doubt they would be better off on horseback.

A whistle escaped his lips, and almost immediately the barman glanced over towards the table. He gave Jast an expectant look as he pulled himself up from the chair. "On your way already, Lieutenant?"

The man said, clearly knowing him.

"Aye. Got business to see to." He gestured towards the door. "Let the others know, will ya?"

A quick salute was offered in answer, and before too long Syele and Jast were out the door. Ten minutes later they stood at the stables, disheveled as the tavern, but with horses of surprisingly good quality. A mark that the little town was not all that which it seemed.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

It was reassuring to know that Jaster Marr's vision seemed to have a stable foundation. An established post and trusted acquaintances wasn't something to be sniffed at, dilapidated backwater or not. His convictions were true, and while she may have held reservations upon their first meeting, these had since been dismissed.

She wondered if his strange, dishevelled mannerisms were a side-effect of his suffering or a calculated masquerade to seem less capable than he was.

"Is the whole town in on this?" Wilhart inquired, transferring her saddlebags from Agnes to the horse provided; her fiery chestnut mare affronted that Syele would choose any other mount but her. A great huff left her nostrils, and the former Guardsman offered an apologetic grimace. One errant physical description to the Vestigare and it could have been over before it truly began.

"It seems like you have quite the network."

 

[Jast]

"Not as large as I'd hoped." Jast had ever been truthful to those who fought with him. Lies might get him more soldiers, more informants, but it would only lead them to betrayal in the end. None of them could hazard that.

"But, most have served in the Guard one time or another." Every Anirian citizen had to at least endure the training, and the year of service came after that. It meant that even the most afar citizens had both training, and some pride in the Guard.

Least those who had any damn respect for themselves. "Means, we can bend a lot of ears."

He paused for a moment, finishing adjusting his final saddle strap.

"This town though?" He glanced over his shoulder. "Everyone knows the score. They pay their taxes, peddle to the Republic, but everyone in this shithole knows what we're about."

It was risky, but everyone knew it. That was why there were no children to be found, no elderly, just those who could fight if needed. Those who would be the backbone of their little re-rebellion. Even if there were less than a hundred of them.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

He might have downplayed the fruits of his early efforts, but it was no small feat to have recruited anyone for such a cause.

Discontent about the state of affairs in Vel Anir was not challenging to find, at least privately. The injustice of their society was not something that could be hidden, but it could be stifled. It was one thing to find a well-lubricated soul with a gripe in a darkened corner of a tavern. It was another to find those with the courage or madness to act upon it.

These actions had consequences.

"Well, I'm impressed, Lieutenant," she offered with formal sincerity, "truly."

Syele's foot found purchase in a stirrup as she mounted the horse, Agnes offering nothing but side-eye in the face of such blatant disrespect. Wilhart offered her own look in retort, one that said: You'll be fine, you petulant child, before turning back to Jaster.

"How do we play it if we meet Guardsmen on the road?" Wilhart asked before her eyes narrowed, "Or are you going to surprise me?"

So serious was her nature that it was difficult to tell if she was joking. Truthfully, she no longer knew either.