Private Tales Something Amiss

[Kaska]

Kaska grinned a little, letting the blanket fall back to reveal the torches she had grabbed. "Ready." She caught one on the torch at the door frame and quickly slipped out with it, not eager to be spotted as they left. She waited for Lia to join her, then lighting the next one and holding it out for her and they entered the treeline.

"Why so grumpy? This was your idea."

 

[Lia]

"I didn't think we'd have to go through with it." She admitted quietly, grumbling something under her breath as she stepped after Kaska.

Briefly she wondered just how far this grave was, though only because she didn't want to be caught by patrolling scouts around the Fortress. The thought of having to explain what she and Kaska were doing with torches and some shovels was...unnerving to say the least.

Best not to get caught.

"Let's get this over with." She told Kaska. "The sooner we find what we need the better."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska continued to grin, her mood improving the more time was point in between the events and now."Ahhh, you're just afraid I'll get to him first. You just want the final blow. For glory," she teased, a bit mocking. Still, it seemed harmless compared to the way she use to talk to Lia. Her nose wasn't upturned at all.

"You like what I said back there?" She asked, referencing the meeting a few days back. "They're gonna report home that you're some big hero now."

 

[Lia]

"I don't want to be a hero." Lia said truthfully, shaking her head slightly.

She had never been one for glory, not like some of the others. Lia knew a few Rangers who had only joined so that they could save someone, kill a Dragon, that sort of nonsense. That wasn't why she wanted this.

Any of this.

"Plus." She glanced at Kaska. "We let the Lich get away. Not a very heroic thing to do."

A mistake that they would correct soon enough though.

 

[Kaska]

"Sometimes the most heroic thing you can do is survived," she leveled seriously. "Besides," she perked. "You can't honestly think we could have taken him back there without these.You have no idea what his magic felt like. I'm still not even sure how you're gonna get close enough to touch him. Sure there will be 12 of us, but if he just goes for you? He must suspect you're the head of this all."

She stated her intentions to come for the first time, not even noticing she did so.

Alright, so perhaps she was feeling something towards Lia too. Not friendship. No. Just. A responsibility. Cause she was dumb and was gonna get killed.

 

[Lia]

Hefting the shovels as they walked Lia frowned. "I have a plan."

This was of course the first time she had mentioned it.

"I'm not a complete fool." She liked to think that she had actually proven that more than once throughout this entire journey. Lia wasn't a dumb soldier, she was a strategist, and she had come up with at least a rudimentary tactic in fighting the Lich. "I don't doubt the Lich will attack me first."

She'd cut off it's arm after all. "But I'm fairly certain I know how to stop it from doing so. At least for a few seconds anyway."

Which in theory was all that she would need.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska slowed, casting a glance at Lia. "...Oh...?" She asked, the woman given her whole attention.

 

[Lia]

"The weapons." She gestured to the sword on her back. "They're adorned with holy Runes, blessed too I suppose."

That was logical to her, how else would they work? A combination of Rune and Divine Magic, probably wrought by some Templar Smith who had specialized in that sort of thing.

"I can copy it." She was sure of that, mostly because she'd read about it in one of the books. The account had been less than detailed, but...it was enough to at least let her try it.

"I'll put the Runes on my armor, carve them before they get there." Didn't have to be perfect, just close enough. "Even if they only last a few seconds...It'll be enough."

He paused for a second. "If it's not. You can finish it."

They'd already proven the Lich could only focus on one of them at a time.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska huffed.

She had to admit, that was genius. Well. The first part. The leaving Kaska to finish him off part had her frowning. Because once again. Trying to keep her from dying.

"I'll etched them on for you," she concluded, not so much an offer as a statement. She best take it, Kaska wasn't selfless often.

 

[Lia]

Lia nodded, satisfied with herself.

If there was some flaw to her plan she was positive that Kaska would have pointed it out, but since the girl offered no objection the Sergeant was more than a little smug.

"I briefly thought about sending a missive to the Templars." She quietly admitted to Kaska as they walked, her eyes adjusting to the dark of night as they continued along the trail. An owl hooted in the distance, likely watching the two girls as they moved.

"I doubt the Majors would have liked that though." Lia continued. "They can get a bit...territorial."

She'd never actually met a Templar before, though she'd seen them in the streets of Alliria.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska snorted, brushing back a tree branch and pushing past it. "Something tells me there's a lot we're doing that they wouldn't like." She paused, then asked carefully. "What do you think is going on?"

Out of all the people in the fort, she felt like Lia was the only person she could trust to level with her here. Maybe it was just because they were so close in rank, or maybe they had been through enough of this together for Kaska to know they were on the same page. Either way, there was trust between them that only fighting together would grow. Kaska was leaning heavily on it now, aware that a misstep in these events could spell trouble for either of them.

 

[Lia]

Lia frowned for a few seconds, thinking. "I think they're weary of the status quo changing."

She could understand that, it was something that all people were scared of. She'd talked to her father about it on more than one occasion, though the discussions had usually been more about the Merchant Council than the Rangers.

A frown touched her face for a moment, and then she continued.

"They're likely afraid that things are coming to a head." Which they were. A werewolf in the Reaches one week and then the next a Lich. Things were becoming more troublesome as of late, a fact that nobody could really deny at this point. "We've had a steady peace for some time, and now the world is getting..."

She trailed off, searching for the word. "Stranger."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska grew silent, thinking this through. "Perhaps. But why keep it a secret? Why not send a party after the lich after the first encounter? Or warn us? Or reach out to the Templars?" She knew there was tension between her people and them, but it was also very unlike the Rangers to but any of their own in unneeded danger.

"Something... is off here. Something changed within us, something they aren't telling us." She paused for a second, then added, "It wouldn't hurt to send out a simple warning." There was no saying what this master was, but something told her it wasn't a mere human.

 

[Lia]

Lia shrugged. "I'm not sure."

Kaska was suspicious, that much was obvious, but Lia wasn't entirely sure there was an actual reason to be. It did seem odd, she could admit that much, but what was the purpose of keeping things a secret? Surely the Rangers wouldn't want to put people in danger.

Not now...not ever really.

"The Rangers and Templars haven't worked well together...ever." She said quietly. "As for...well I don't know Kaska."

Lia admitted quietly. "There must be a reason. Otherwise they wouldn't let us go after the thing now."

 

[Kaska]

Kaska pursed her lips, falling silent for a long moment before she dared to level her next, controversial thought. "Maybe they don't expect us to succeed. Maybe it's just all a show." She shrugged softly, not putting it past anyone that had power to behave that way. Even if they were a ranger.

Lia had been raised seeing rangers from the outside, with their good deeds and solid reputation. But Kaska had been raised off of an entirely different perspective, where rank and ambition rule the decision making around her. Lia knew the rangers as rangers, but Kaska? She knew them as goal-oriented lieutenants and majors. Majors were not the common folk. They were not the ones on the ground. In her opinion, that changed everything.

If these rangers were pure of intention, their only goal to serve the people of Arillia, they wouldn't care what rank they were.

"This feels like something more," Kaksa insisted, if just to herself. Lia was proving to be the optimist while Kaska the pessimist. "I'd send the missive."

 

[Lia]

She frowned, raising an eyebrow at Kaska's insistence at being about as cynical as one could be about the Ranger higher ups. Her lips thinned, and slowly she shook her head. "They don't expect us to fail."

Otherwise why approve the mission at all. They could have just said no and that would have been that. Lia would have been angry, but she wouldn't have gone against Orders. Kaska would have just taken it the way it was, she hadn't even wanted to go on this trip anyway.

For that matter, why was she going anyway?

"To the Templars?" She sounded outright shocked by the suggestion, though it was more because Kaska had made it than anything else.

She was the last person Lia would expect that from. "Hoping to see your Templar boyfriend?"

Lia was half serious, half teasing.

 

[Kaska]

"Puuuft. Nooooo," She refuted, huffing indignantly. She rolled her eyes, using it to hide a small smile. "As if any of them could handle me." Her thoughts slipped to the man pinned to the door and her smile abruptly faltered, slipping away.

She said nothing for a long moment, her mood crashed.

"I was only trying to be proactive," she explained almost passively. "I don't hate the rangers you know. I just." She didn't know what just. She rolled her eyes again. "One look at you and they'd probably run away screaming anyways." She released a branch early, sending it flicking back at Lia.

 

[Lia]

Lia ducked before the branch could strike her in the face, lips thinning. "Watch it!"

The Ranger called out, taking a step forward and nearly slipping on a root as she did so.

"Once we get close to the Lich." The Sergeant said, quiet at first and getting a bit louder so that Kaska could actually hear her. "Once we've tracked him and found him, had our shot."

It was a compromise in a way. "I'll send one of the other Rangers to the Templar Chapter House in Alliria. That way if we fail..."

She didn't finish her sentence, the implication obvious.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska laughed, covering her mouth and wincing in sympathy as Lia ducked. Heh.

She swiped that smile away, growing serious as Lia did something that was slowly no longer surprising Kaska-- she listened to her again. Kaska nodded, unable to help a slight exhale in relief.

"Good." She held the next one properly this time, pressing on. "Almost there," she commented off offhandedly, moving back to the topic.

"Course, you keep saying we but we don't even know if I'll be assigned. If my father has his way he'll probably have me escort some fancy noble halfway to the other side of the world just to see that I can't mess anything up."

 

[Lia]

"Your father wouldn't want you on a mission to kill a Lich?" She asked, somewhat incredulous. Sure it was dangerous, but if they won the battle and walked away successful they would likely become legends throughout most of the Reaches.

"Why not?" She asked curiously. "It would pretty much silence any and all talk of nepotism or favoritism."

At least that was how she saw it. "There's no faking killing a Lich, if we succeed we'll...well like you said we'll practically be heroes."

All talk of Kaska not deserving her place as a Ranger would be silenced in an instant.

She'd have thought her father would be all for that.

 

[Kaska]

"Oh, don't get me wrong. He would. He just doesn't think I could do it. Can't exactly blame him, I've done everything short of light our house on fire to make him step back. S'been nothing but long missions carrying around things until recently, so maybe he's trying to change things," she added, a new afterthought. "I don't know." She frowned, trying to puzzle out a murky situation.

"I think the way everything was before worked just fine if I'm being honest."

 

[Lia]

Lia glanced at Kaska. "Nothing lasts forever."

The comment was a tad depressing, but it was the truth.

"You're in the middle of things now." Part of that was Lia's fault, something that she wasn't sure the other girl had yet realized. Kaska had been caught in the wake of ambition that she carried. She wasn't sure that was entirely a bad thing though. "Either you'll deal with it."

They began to slow as they neared what was clearly a grave marker. "Or end up on a Ranger farm tending sheep somewhere. Chasing after farm boys too timid to talk to you."

Lia made it sound as though that would be depressing.

 

[Kaska]

Kaska made a face, a noise of discontentment following.

She didn't follow up with a comment on that. Lia was annoyingly right about things sometimes.

She stuck her torch into the ground, relieved to find that it was softer than not. Thank god for their backs. "Here." She held out her hand for a shovel, using it to brush dirt off the gravestone.

"Ser Robert Ferneal," she read. She grinned. "Found you. Ready?" She asked to Lia, a brow raised as she stepped to the side to allow them both access to the grave. She had the shovel tip digging in, her foot braced to give it it's first shove as she waited for LIa's approval.

She wasn't going to risk the girl's neck unwillingly after all.

 

[Lia]

Lia let out a quiet sigh, and then nodded her head.

"Watch for patrols." The Sergeant said quietly, well aware that what they were doing would have seen them hanged in most of the world.

Though no one would seriously call either she or Kaska a Necromancer, grave robbing and this sort of thing was heavily frowned upon even here. The Rangers were known to do it when searching for the undead, but this...this wasn't the same thing at all. They were digging up a Ranger.

A fellow ranger.

Still, it was for a good cause she supposed, and thus she began to dig.

 

[Kaska]

It was back-breaking work, but finally, they struck bone. Literally. Kaska pulled back her shovel and blanched, the arm bone cracked and sticking out of the soil from the abuse.

"It better be here," she grumbled, propping the shovel up against the wall of the 6 foot hole they were hiding in, a torch stuck into the side to give them light.

She gritted her teeth and got down on her hands and knees, trying not to think about what was getting under her nails as she pried the soil loose around the center. Her fingers brushed a scabbard. She scrambled, pulling up it's long.... long length.

She gaped.

"It's... huge." Aw fuck.