Knights of Anathaeum The Tools of My Enemy

[Oliver]

The force of the hit was in his entire arm, an ache lingering as the stricken went astumble, nigh dirtborne with his long blade. The air grew deadly then, sentencing two to finality and dealing it unseen, like the shadows themselves should’ve woken to pass judgement. Mere dull thuds betwixt the trees, one for each.

The dark, narrow sliver of the visor spied a shimmer, brilliant in the dim of an untended camp. Purple, something like fire kindled in metal that’d be sent his way — was being sent his way with new vigour. He fell back a step as it swung, vibrance flashing too close for comfort even as it missed, continuing overhead with momentum. It felt amiss, the brazen attacks that’d proven ineffective against plate until now, unless—

Unbidden, a sensation akin to fear crawled within his chest, recognition reaching for the fibers in his body like no blade could, enchanted or otherwise. And to the beat, the runes flared the brighter, like they should’ve known. Yeah, no.

Get.

Jaw clenched, he gripped the hammer tighter, wrist rolling experimentally as he let the scythe pass him again.

That glowing bullshit.

Swiftly, he stepped into the swing’s wake, blunt instrument delivering another strike for the injured half. Agony.

The fuck.

The scythe retaliated, haft striking him in the side, the unrattling plate. And yet, it was wholly felt as if he’d worn naught at all. A held breath escaped him, a mere huff within the helm.

Away from me.

The hammer continued its way despite all, knocking away the arm that held the scythe. That it shoud’ve still held on, mattered not. At great velocity, his gauntleted fist made contact with the man’s face. Ballistic.

Bebin Theros Faramund Castor Vega

 

[Faramund]

Faramund didn't respond immediately. In truth, he wasn't sure he wanted to. 'It's where the Cult forges its weapons,' he explained, vaguely. 'It's where... where they take those they capture.' Castor was not a bad man. Faramund knew that. He was skilled and he was able, and when he fought, he did so bravely. But there were things you could share... and things you could not.

No matter how much you may have wanted to.

'Listen. Before we enter, I need you to know you can trust me.' Glancing sidelong at the dusker, Faramund tried to stop his hand from shaking. 'Whatever happens in there, whatever is said or inferred... I need you to know that you can trust-'

The wave struck with the force of a thousand fists, cutting off all conscious thought. Taken, driven under, the fear in Faramund's eyes faded, winked out. His hands stopped shaking, even as his legs carried him onwards. To the Workshop. To the Shaper.

Cold stone, blood and bone. Dead meat, dead meat, dead-

'My son.'

Starting awake, Faramund blinked as his senses returned to him in a crash of sound and blinding light. The memories -some his, some not- fled from his mind, like the fading of a bad dream. He did not realise he was waking up to a nightmare until the Shaper's fingers were at his throat.

The Shaper!

Fighting the urge to vomit, to void his bowls so that he might feel some form of relief, the dawnling forced himself to stillness as his creator examined him. Fear gripped him, held him captive. His hand brushed the hilt of his sabre, no longer shaking.

'Father.'

Red-faced, twisting its head this way and that, the Shaper reared back, as if struck. By force. By premonition. 'My son,' it repeated, tasting the word. Its snake-like neck coiled, uncoiled. 'My child, my boy... returned to me. At last.'

At last, the voice inside his skull echoed. At last, home!

Jinking left, right, the Shaper tottered and danced. The gauntlets covering its aged hands jingled and clinked. Looking closely, Faramund saw scalpels and needles and a pair of forceps. Bloodied. Wet with another's life-blood. Yours soon, the voice promised, louder now. The man who was never meant to be.

'We believed you lost to us.'

Blinking, his brow dappled with sweat, Faramund stared up at the face of his sire. The Shaper gazed back, one eye blank, ringed in gold markings, the other missing. 'Compromised, I was told. Defective.' The creature shook suddenly, spilled sideways to dislodge a tray of surgical tools soaked in fluid. 'No, no, no, I told them! Not defective! Not you, never you!'

Righting itself, the Shaper reached out. Faramund remained silent.

'And now here you are,' it whispered, taking his jaw gently and tilting his head back. 'Back where you belong. Safe, in my hands.' Faramund felt the shift in the air a moment before it happened, but by then it was too late.

'Why?!'

Seizing the back of his head, the Shaper wrenched it back, exposing his throat. A scalpel came up to kiss his skin. Feeling its bite, the dawnling forced himself to remain calm even as the blood began to flow.

'I was commanded here... by He Who Watches.' Holding up his injured palm, Faramund showed the Shaper the bandaged wound. 'The stone recognised me, recognised my intent.' Gasping, teeth gritted against the pain, the not-quite-doppler stared its sire in the eye, unafraid now.

Of death. Of dying here, now, in this moment, to the monster whom had created him... It.

'I am here to relieve you of a burden,' it continued, 'to take away the Child whose gifts you squandered. Who has gifts you failed to unlock.' The words came to him, unbidden and uncontrolled. Knowledge of things he had no right to possess flooded his mind as, slowly, his eyes turned black.

'The more your delvers dig, the further She withdraws.' The Doppler blinked. 'And He has grown tired of waiting.'

Castor Vega Bebin Theros Oliver

 

[Castor Vega]

"Sounds bloody unpleasant," remarked the knight to himself. However, it was Faramund's next words that truly worried Castor. They were Knights Anathaeum. Trust was ever granted without given voice. Battles fought, wylds protected; all from the same root. Thus if his companion felt the need for reassurance, a truly troubling fate awaited them.

"Faramu-" began Castor, intending to tell the other man that this was unnecessary. Except the the Sworn suddenly stopped mid speech.

The other knight resumed walking without a word.

"Faramund," the dusker ventured once more.

Nothing.

So against all sense and reason, Castor followed his companion into the increasingly dense depths of the Mount.

A new room of death and depravity. There stood a singularly vile presence. Even without knowing, Castor knew. The Shaper.

"My son."

What the fu-

"Father."

What sort of thrice-damned family reunion had he stumbled upon? Castor never knew his father and was now counting himself lucky. Frozen by the sheer inexorability of this meeting, he could not prevent Faramund from ending up in the Shaper's, his father's, grasp. Every single instinct screamed at Castor to cut this Shaper down and Faramund with him.

Senara's Barb slipped into the palm of his hand, obscured only by the overlong sleeve of a corpse's robe.

And yet Castor did not move. Or would not. Faramund's earlier words of trust grated at the dusker's every thought. For a moment, he saw familiarity in the dawnling's eyes and that was enough to stay Castor's blade.

Castor said he would trust Faramund until he could not. It seemed that moment had yet to arrive.

Faramund Bebin Theros Oliver

 

[Bebin Theros]

A pain like a nail driven through the skull. Bebin pressed a thumb to the side of his nose. Huffed hard to spatter the blood born of his cranium about the floor. Wiped what mess away from bristling whiskers. Slung his bow over his shoulder as the scythe wielder twitched a mess upon the earth.

Words and breath garbled into incoherent tremble and choke.

"Report," Bebin barked low as he rose. Half cloaked in the shimmer of the mirror silk that spilled over his frame, and billowed with each step he took.

Boot thud against still muscle, broad fingers wrapped tight against arrow shaft. A wet squelch and suck as arrow came free of flesh. Stashed. Bebin bent low and made quick work through the robes. Moved onto the next dead and dying.

A tremble of hand. Twitch of muscle. The arrow snapped. Wasted in his hand. He grit his teeth. Steadied his breath. Moved to the lead of the trail.

Instinct and training burried deep any bud of regret that dared grow against his heart.

His eyes cut over his shoulder, heart loud as a drumb between his ears. Vision blurred, as his flesh struggled to remember it was not the dying man's. It had escaped the pull of that star's end. All the world seemed to bend at the corners as Bebin eyed the Black Armor.

No time but to breath.

---

​

What light that passed through the Shaper's Workshop was pale as moonlight. Silver as the distant stars. Bounced and beamed through pillars of ice. Tanks of glass. Bent around forms all too human, trapped in prisons all too cold. Too familiar.

Perversions of Loch and Life. Mockeries of Death.

Hands, so sharp with their delicate touch. Warm with blood that bead fat rubies about their silvered edge.

A titter of laughter from behind the Saper's red mask. A sound that shook through the long and wrinkled neck. "No no," he said, as deadly digits tapped and fluttered about throat's apple. "I told them, I told them, my son," he went on with his madness. Only stared all the deeper into those eyes as black as his. "My son is without fault," Loosed his grip and cupped his child's round skull in his old leathery hand, white and bloodless as knotted birch. "My son is my greatest work," A choked and happy sound, as the blades traced delicate trails across neck, held tenderly the side of Faramund's face. "He cannot betray us," A genuine pride rung in his ancient chords. "Loyal, my blood, always loyal," he laughed soft as distant whispers.

A gentle tap, with blade and prong and forcep come soft clatter and clack at once.

"Well," he said as simple as any father might, come the visit of their child. "Never you mind what He Who Watches commands, my boy," he said with a wild glee there behind his permenant smile. Let his hands fall from Faramund's face and head. Grasped his shoulders firm, and glad to feel the flesh there. The bone and warmth of his progeny. "He doesn't have a body," he broke into laugher. "He doesn't have arms!" he said sharper, and let go of his child.

A half turn away, and his long neck followed after. His red mask angled towards the altar. Towards his latest work.

A naked body, there upon the plinth. Dead eyes, without the light of life burning in them. Young and strong. Their face, too much like ones they both knew. Too much like them. The insides on display. Silver and grey. Snakes of strange ichor. Too much like the blight.

"And without me," he said with a slow nod as he shuffle stepped just the bit closer to the altar. "He'll never have one," he giggled with another laugh. A snort. "Not one that works anyway," he stood at his altar, and went back to work. "Would you care for some tea, my boy?" the sound of claws come clickity click. "Then you can tell me all about your days away from us," he said with cruel curiosity. "Away from home," he said more sweetly.


Oliver Faramund Castor Vega

 

[Oliver]

It was over. The man was over with.

The scythe yet burned, runes about the blade pulsing with light that’d begun growing dimmer. Like a day fading or life draining, inching away half unnoticed. The white-knuckled grip on the hammer loosened as he straightened, arm coming to rest at his side stiffly like it had a craving to swing again. At something.

Report.

It was a miracle he’d heard it really, the sound of his own blood and breath humming in his ears so loud, within the helm might’ve been its own separate realm entire. He peeled back the curtain, the visor going up as he turned on heel at the sound of steps that wouldn’t stop. And he looked, really looked at whom would rush on with urgency, reclaiming arrows as the trail onward ever beckoned.

The man wasn’t as pristine as he’d been a generous moment ago, before his unseen wander. There was an effort made to will it away, he knew, but it yet lingered in the little unsteadinesses, that one more blink like he’d struggled to see him eye to eye. For one usually so composed to the point of appearing statuesque, it was a jarring fit. His side ached where the haft had struck it, stole a bit of breadth from each inhale, but in comparison to the rest—

” Guards snook upon us — Three I counted. The rest you know, having come to at the most opportune moment. ” Picked them off like flies. Banishing the camp and the dead and their names from his mind, he settled to follow suit, close enough that their voices could be kept low. For a moment longer he let the cooling air douse the spirit, allowing himself the courtesy to settle down before speaking.

Report?

” Learn anything? ”

Bebin Theros Faramund Castor Vega

 

[Faramund]

The pressure eased, and the doppler was thankful for it. 'Tea?' It asked, straightening up, a bead of blood trailing slowly downwards, following the contours of a face it had worn for the last ten years. Longer, perhaps. 'No, thank you. I am not thirsty.' A lie, that. The Doppler knew lying to Father was bad, but he did it anyway.

Something is-

Wrong, thought Faramund, his mind groggy, his actions those of a stranger. Turning, he stared at the man standing nearby. Though his features seemed familiar, there was something... odd in the way he looked. Is he Enemy? The doppler wondered, head tilting to one side. Is he my friend? Faramund mused, sensing a headache coming on.

Neither failed to notice the palming of a blade.

'Where is the child, Father?' Blinking, the Fara-thing went back to watching its creator work. Twilight shimmered and danced across stone a glossy black. The flesh that lay upon the altar was pale and lifeless, limned in rivulets of blood. Its face bore an uncanny resemblance to someone. A person they both knew.

Who is this? The doppler wanted to ask, struggling to decipher what its eyes were seeing.

Faramund looked up.

'My report will have to wait, Father. The other matter must come first.' Resting a hand on the hilt of his sabre, the dawnling glanced around. Cold stone, blood and bone. This is no home. A madman's paradise, that was what this place was.

The Shaper's neck twisted, hither, tither.

'Are you sure, my son? You sound... hesitant.' Reaching into the open chest cavity, the monster's hand closed around a bloody organ. There was a squelch, a snarl. 'Stubborn thing! Quickly! Lend me a hand, m'boy!'

With speed belying his size, the Shaper seized Faramund's arm.

A scalpeled finger tore through his sleeve, revealing the mail hidden beneath. The Shaper didn't seem to notice. 'Here,' he said instead, dropping the fat heart of a dead man into Faramund's upturned palm. 'A bit of courage.'

Laughing behind its mask, the monster continued its ministrations.

'Who is it He means to give the girl to?' It asked, cutting away an eyelid and placing it in a dish nearby. 'One Eye? The Barb?'

'I do not know,' Faramund replied, 'we were sent to retrieve the Child. Nothing more.'

'Hmm.' The Shaper did not sound convinced. 'I see.' Hunched low over the altar, he turned to glance over his shoulder at Faramund. Their eyes met. Black on black on- Brown. 'He works in mysterious ways, does He not?' Slowly, gently, the Shaper raised his mask, revealing the face beneath.

'You can find the girl that a-way,' he murmured, pointing, his tone no longer one of interest. 'In the holding cells, where she slumbers. You know the way do you not, my son?' Faramund nodded. 'I do.' The Shaper dismissed them with a wave. Quietly, he returned to his work, waiting until they were out of earshot before speaking once more.

'Most curious.'

Castor Vega Bebin Theros Oliver

 

[Castor Vega]

Fear. Anger. Worry. A torrent of emotions swirled within the knight Anathaeum, each threatening to rise to the surface and ruin his farcical facade. He was barely managing to the suppress the rising bile in his throat. This place, this workshop, could not be conjured in Castor's darkest dreams. Broken, tortured figures remained suspended in glass all around him. A macabre exhibit that would cause even the most seasoned knights to balk.

Yet it was not the mutilations, or the entrails, or the Shaper himself that truly shook Castor to his core. It was the monstrosity's tender, fatherly tone. And the unassailable fact that it was directed towards a man Castor called a fellow knight. What sort of obscene fate had brought them to this point?

The dusker's anxiety only increased at the Shaper's casual dismissal of the Everwatcher's prerogative. Instead he favored tea and hearts. Their gambit was a hair's breadth from falling flat.

Still, Faramund pressed for the task at hand and finally did the Shaper reluctantly relent.

Castor remained silent as he followed Faramund out of the Workshop and towards the holding cells. The dusker struggling desperately to keep his mind focused. Doubt crept with insidious intent. Was the explanation given earlier simply a ploy? It'd sounded all too-convincing to the knight.

Body mirrored mind. Dagger and doubt.

Faramund Bebin Theros Oliver