Private Tales Verhandeln

[Szesh]

Gregory's monologue seemed to have too many words for the little information he was giving them, but a few thoughts stood out as blinding red fire in Szesh's mind. The names of the Great Ones that had destroyed Bhathairk and ravaged Elbion, the bringers of the plague that had scoured his lungs and body, the very illness that the dragon priests had burned from him. And the day of Reikhurst's sacking. He did not know this, but Heike surely would. If it were the only true thing left, Heike would remember that day.

The vampire seemed to appear at once from the shadows, and Szesh's hand grasped at the shaft of the now nameless hammer. He could feel Heike's hatred radiate through the cavern, and it quickened his heartbeat in anticipation of battle.

But battle did not come. The vampire was... inviting them? Did he think they were so foolish as to simply follow him into a trap?

He turned his great head back to Gregory. "Who?" he demanded. If nothing else, the worm seemed to know things.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Gregory shrunk back into a nearby corner formed from a wooden support beam and cavern wall. The look on Helgen's face, on the Lady's face. What they said to each other. He had seen some small flare ups of infighting--such was inevitable, was it not?--but not like this. A slow crumbling began, a dispelling of illusions. This wasn't what he thought it was, the Lady and the Draconian. Not at all, was it?

The Draconian asked him a single word question. And Gregory, like a man refusing to abandon a sinking ship, clung to his hopeful illusion of the situation and answered, his voice like a quivering hand, "He is...my Lord Helgen. Second of the Mistweavers."

Heike paid Gregory mind no more. Not in the presence of a true threat, a foe to be fought instead of simply executed. Though she had heard the wretch say that this Helgen was a Mistweaver, and indeed he looked it, lacking any Slaughtern claws on his inviting hand. She had seen and knew the foremost of their tricks. Formidable, but not something that was a mountain to tall to overcome. And, like in the tower versus the wizard's numerous bodyguards and mercenaries, Heike was not alone.

She dashed forward. A burst of inhuman speed at the expense of blood. She took a swipe with a claws that whistled and seemed to cut the very air.

But she did not touch Helgen. His body of flesh and blood and bone became as mist, her claws passing harmlessly through as she whirled around. The mist moved. Some of it stretched to the knife on the ground.

Helgen corporealized. He had the hooked knife in hand and he'd a quick slash of his own.

Heike jerked back, but the knife clipped her neck. She pressed a palm to the wound. Not deep--only a faint stain of blood on her glove. A flesh wound at best. But she'd have to be wary--

Helgen threw the knife directly at her. Heike twisted her body to narrowly avoid it. But Helgen thrust out his hand and used his spell of Recall Weapon to bid the blade--in mid-air--to come sailing back to him akin to a boomerang. And its path curved slightly, back towards Heike as it so happened, and she had to throw herself almost flat to the ground to avoid it again.

Helgen underhand-tossed the knife over his shoulder, up and toward Szesh. His body turned to mist, and the mist rushed at the Draconian.

If Szesh was quick, he could estimate the trajectory of the thrown knife. That it was intended to go sailing over his head and come down close behind him.

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

A name was all Heike needed to attack. He didn't see her move until she reached the Mistweaver, and Szesh understood where they had earned their odd title. The movements of the two vampires were so fast, and the torchlight so dim, that only blurs gave away any hint of battle.

Their cover was obviously blown, but this was worse news for Gregory than it was for them. He was a liability now, and guilty of any number of crimes in the Golden Blade's eyes.

The knife moved unnaturally, and Szesh's lip curled. More magic to make things difficult, and he caught the glittering edge as it arced gracefully towards him. He lunged to the side, out of its likely path, but the mist was fast approaching. How did one fight what wasn't there?

He could try to burn the mist away, vaporize the tiny droplets as they travelled, but Heike was in front of him and he dared not risk her injury. He remembered the grisly appearance of her back after the last accident. Instead the hammer came out in full and, not in any mood to be caught unprepared, he slammed his palm to its head, bracing against the sudden weight of his scales changing to iron.

 

[Heike Eisen]

CLANG.

The knife, where it otherwise would have plunged into Szesh's kidneys or thereabouts, struck his scales that were in fact now iron and vibrated with a terrible aftershock in Helgen's hand. A ghost of a scowl crossed his face--

A torch flew at him. Thrown by Heike--she had gotten around to an angle to do just that. Formidable, the namesake ability of the Mistweaver strain, but the vampire still had to know when to use it. They could be caught unawares. Overwhelmed. And though two wasn't a massive advantage of numbers over one, it was enough. Especially when the two in question were seasoned warriors, had fought together before and could wordlessly act off of each other. The warrior's knowing, true then and true now.

Helgen had just enough time to smack the torch away before it struck his head. A blossom of embers danced like fireflies briefly in the air, and the torch hit the ground, its flame sputtering but still lighted.

Heike followed up. Again on the attack. She slashed and slashed and slashed again, knowing that Helgen would dodge physically or in quick flashes of mistform for each, but she did not relent, keeping on him as he moved. She would force him to keep his attention on her. Until an opening was created.

And she actually caught his knife, after he had tossed it up into the air as he transformed to mist. Helgen reformed some distance away. Used Recall Weapon. And the force of the spell, calling the knife back to its master, was far more powerful than Heike thought. She was actually pulled along with the knife as she gripped it, her feet leaving the ground and her arm feeling like it had almost been ripped from its socket.

Heike let go while in flight and went tumbling to the ground and rolling and sliding and was stopped on collision with a wooden support beam in the chamber. The beam gave slightly, and a shower of dust came falling down as she lay there collecting herself.

Helgen, re-armed, turned and faced Szesh. Spun the hooked knife around so that he gripped the blade instead of the hilt. And with his free hand again gave that curt gesture of invitation for him to attack. Helgen did not know what we would do to bypass the iron that the Draconian's scales had become, other than delay long enough for the magic to fade or to flee if delaying proved untenable, but it was best to appear as though he was could handle it.

* * * * *​

Gregory, all the while, stayed cowering in that small corner, watching the fight.

A Knight of the Golden Blade...? Here? In Reikhurst again? Not by herself but with an ally. And if she had one ally, what if she had more?

Not only were they not all dead, they might...might be...and this meant...

And Gregory's eyes went hollow with cold realization.

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

The knife did not pierce his scales, but he still felt the cold blade's impact. The air had been pushed from his lungs by the transformation and Heike's torch served to prevent Helgen from taking advantage. It was good to see Heike's speed and ferocity in its full glory. Despite her lamentations on her form, Szesh could not help but feel empowered by having such a formidable ally. The only reason that Helgen still stood was because he possessed tricks of his own.

The hammer met the stone floor with a resounding crash, sweeping through the mist where Helgen had once been. He turned in time to see Heike sailing across the cavern. By the time he wrenched himself back upright, Helgen had resumed his taunting.

Szesh snorted, feeling the stale air of the cavern whistle past metallic nostrils. Helgen was a dangerous trickster. Szesh did not like tricksters. It was for the same reason he reviled magic: a refusal to fight head on. The strategy of the weak, who could not succeed by their strength alone.

Emboldened by his iron flesh, and feeling the battle fury growing as he watched Heike on the ground, he heaved himself forwards. Helgen held his ground as the draconian approached, and when Szesh swung the hammer in a great arc at his chest he bent low, ducking the strike and jabbing up into the metal arm.

Szesh snarled at it, but again the knife made no purchase. Helgen dodged another titanic swing and sliced at metal hamstrings, again to no effect. The vampire's speed was his only advantage at the moment. While any single blow from the hammer would likely end him Szesh was weighed down by his own defenses. A final swing of the hammer crashed into the cavern's wall, and again a shower of dust blanketed them.

Then Szesh felt a lightness, and he faltered backwards as his weight shifted once more. His scales had resumed their normal silver hue - the enchantment had concluded.

Helgen sneered in the darkness. His body once more began to fade from view. Szesh, in a desperate attempt to keep that mist as far from him as possible, beat his mighty wings forwards. The burst of wind was enough to snuff the torch on the ground.

 

[Heike Eisen]

The namesake mistform of the Mistweaver strain was a formidable advantage--Helgen knew this. It allowed for freedom of movement paralleling flight, which creatures like the Avariel and, of course, Draconians enjoyed. It allowed for the effortless dodging, perhaps even trivialization, of mundane steel weapons. The potency of the mistform went on.

Yet, in addition to the hated frost magic, there was something else which the mistform had a vulnerability to. Wind.

Try as he might, the burst of wind was stronger than Helgen's ability to move as a cloud of mist, and so he as this cloud was swept back. Like steam or smoke being fanned away. And it was just as the Draconian's spell of iron protection had worn off and he could have an opportunity.

Helgen had no choice--not if he wanted to keep up an offensive instead of being carried away like a small ship at the whim of a strong gale. He corporealized, his body forming in a braced stance and sliding to a stop against Szesh's beating wings. He had gone in and out of mistform rapidly within a very short span of time, and he was feeling the dreadful side effects stack up: the lightheadedness, the feeling of intoxication, the aloofness and incoherency of thought. He could not keep this up. Not for much longer.

And it was here that Heike had her chance.

Helgen heard the flapping of her coat as she leaped at him. Had no time to Recall his weapon from the ground for a defense nor to properly dodge--only to look back over his shoulder and see her yellow eyes gleaming in the newfound dark and her claws slashing. She caught him, digging trenches into his cheeks before he could shift into his mistform again (which would do nothing to heal said wound after he corporealized again). Messy, bloody, the slashes on his face, but hardly lethal.

When Helgen became of flesh again some distance removed from Heike and Szesh, the wound was indeed still there, and upon his expression now--even if slightly--were the effects of overusing his mistform, that woozy and disoriented look.

"You should have died with them," Helgen said to Heike as his dagger was Recalled back into his hand. And then to Szesh, "And you are committed to a lost cause, Draconian."

Heike ignored Helgen's words. Stayed focused on defeating her foe, her enemy, this embodiment of Reikhurst's woe before her. She shot a quick, sidelong glance to Szesh--it was brilliant, the buffet of wind from his wings to counter Helgen's mistform. And there was only one way out of the cavernous chamber. They could trap Helgen in here, unable to get past Szesh in either corporeal or mistform, if he were to stand sentinel by that sole tunnel leading out.

Trap him. And kill him. Or...perhaps there was another option.

In either case, Heike gave a slight gesture of her head back toward the sole tunnel exit for Szesh to see.

* * * * *​

Gregory stayed in his corner, fearfully looking on.

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

Helgen's cool demeanor had evaporated. He looked tired and battered, and Szesh assumed it must take a good deal of energy to turn one's entire body to mist at a moment's notice. If it were any bit as jarring as turning his own hide to metal Szesh could understand why Helgen would not use it unless necessary.

A lost cause, it was almost comical. Szesh had been a lost cause for decades. Causes were not things he fought for anymore, and to be perfectly honest he was still not entirely certain of Heike's true endgame. Kill the vampires, this Jurgen especially, that was obvious, but it felt like more than that. Maybe laying the fallen soldier's insignia to rest would help mend whatever other injuries she held. Whatever the case, it didn't matter. Szesh was here for her, for a friend. He was here to repay a debt to her, she who had awoken any last shreds of duty within him.

He stepped forwards, eager to end the pompous vampire himself, but he caught Heike's glance and nod towards the door. He stopped, flicking his gaze between the two undead, and then stepped back. He did not know exactly what she meant, but understood enough to take a few large strides back to the cavern's entrance. Perhaps she wanted to finish him herself? Had this one wronged her personally?

Helgen took a moment to understand his situation. An impassable barrier at the entrance, and an unyielding foe within. Gregory remained useless as always. Even as fuel, he would never be able to devour the poor boy before Heike cut him down.

The mistweavers were deadly, yes, but cunning in equal part. If he was outmatched in force he could prevail in other ways. He dropped the knife to the cavern floor with an echoing clatter. "I yield."

Would the knight accept his feigned surrender? It intrigued him just how much of her honor code she would continue to follow. Baffling, why one who had been blessed by the King's strain would cling to their inferior customs.

Szesh looked to Heike, and the midnight fangs bared by his snarl told her with little room for confusion: the vampire need die.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike stood up straighter. Not relaxing completely, but a slight lessening of her guard.

A yield. She would not have ever expected such words to ever leave the mouth of one of these vampires. Immediately she was struck with the recent memory of Ferelith doing the same, yielding, in Rennegast's tower. A fierce enemy both then and now, surrendering to her mercy, quitting the fight and volunteering herself/himself into her custody. Helgen dropping his weapon was hardly a gesture of any value, what with the particular magic that possessed that Recalled it back swiftly into his hand. Yet a yield was a yield.

She saw Szesh's expression, his bared fangs, and knew exactly his stance on the matter. But her honor now demanded a certain resolution. One that she would follow through, and one that Szesh might dislike in one regard and like in another.

"I accept your yield," Heike said. Left it at that momentarily as she walked closer to Szesh. Not too close, but within an optimal distance: a few paces.

"However," she continued, "your profuse guilt has already been ascertained by my own eyes five years ago. There is no place to quarter you, nor jury to properly try you, no terms of war of which to adhere nor potential for dialogue in which your 'life' could be exchanged for a life of equal value. Thus, in light of this guilt I have witnessed and under these extraordinary circumstances, I may only grant you a swift and dignified execution."

Which is better than you deserve, you monster.

Heike pointed down at the cavern floor at her feet. Said, "Come here. Face away from me. And then sit upon your heels. Then you will be granted your last words."

A sideways glance to Szesh. Heike had her doubts that Helgen would do as she instructed. Why would he? She was not offering a way out--only a cleaner death. In all likelihood he would try to die fighting, to try to at least take one last Reikhurstan with him or attempt some kind of escape--hence why Heike stood sufficiently apart from Szesh, such that he could have time to react to this latter option.

If it went as Heike surmised, Szesh would know what to do. No yield, no mercy. A death as messy and painful as need be.

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

Szesh stood firm at the doorway, the only way in or out of the crushing chamber. His wings remained half unfurled, ready to force back the wall of mist once more or to burn the vampire to ash should he try to flee. His chest felt tight when Heike accepted the yield, as he and Helgen had both known she would.

She should not have. Helgen was far too dangerous and far too clever. Maybe it was his lingering claustrophobia, but honor seemed to matter very little down here in the dark earth. Most of the people at their level were dead and buried already. All the same, he knew better than to interfere with Heike's rite.

Helgen, much to Szesh's surprise, appeared to accept the instruction. He stood, glanced at Gregory, and then began to slowly make his way to them. Szesh could feel the cold coming off of him, feel the same instinctual revulsion from his dead flesh as he had felt when Heike was first held against his breast. The hammer would require time before its magic was ready to use again, but he held it at the ready all the same.

Then Gregory moved, walking to where Helgen's knife had fallen, and picked it up. His steps were even as he, too, approached the pair, holding the knife by its blade.

"Stay back," Szesh growled at him. The threat from Gregory was next to nonexistent, but he did not want the boy to complicate things.

Gregory did not listen and continued to slowly approach the pair. "I have brought his weapon," he said, and his voice was soft and level without any hint of the fear or doubt he'd felt moments before. "In surrender."

"Back!" Szesh barked again, gripping the hammer tighter. He could not leave the doorway, not while Helgen turned and knelt before them.

As soon as Helgen's knees hit the stone, Gregory snapped his arm up and flung the knife at Szesh. It sailed through the air with surprising speed and accuracy, and Szesh snarled and raised an arm to instinctively guard his face. Taking his final chance, Helgen dissolved into mist once more. It was unsure if he would even survive the transformation another time, but what was his alternative? He rushed like a storm gale past Szesh's side, using the momentary distraction.

Szesh saw the man dissolve, saw him fly at speed. With a quick and desperate twist of his neck, he belched a flare that lit up the cavern end to end. The entrance's wall was singed black, and a howl of agony pierced through from beyond.

It took a moment for Szesh's eyes to adjust after the sudden light, but soon enough he saw Helgen, clawing across the floor on his belly with blackened stumps for legs.

Gregory made some sad attempt at a battle cry as he charged the pair, still under Helgen's hypnosis.

 

[Heike Eisen]

It went as Heike thought.

Yet the actions of Gregory she had not anticipated. Heike had stood like a headsman awaiting Helgen to sit down before so she could grant him his opportunity to speak--this, when Gregory moved. She tracked the movements of the servile man, bemused. She thought at first that this was yet another attempt at ingratiating himself with her, that he was so enraptured by the fantasy of his new life under the dominion of the vampires that he would at all costs delude himself, such to see it preserved.

The throw of the knife was alarming. Not so much that Gregory had a hope of doing serious damage to either herself or Szesh, but that it might be granted greater force by Helgen using his magic. But he didn't. He made to escape, trying to flee in his mistform. Heike scowled, but Szesh caught Helgen with a torrent of firebreath, the vampire unable to keep up his mistform for long and this exhaustion proving to be his downfall.

Heike turned her attention to Gregory. Rushed to meet him and whipped an arm out and slammed it across his neck with force enough to completely bowl him over and to send his feet sailing over his head, the man collapsing in an upside down mess on the ground--crumpled, with his rear end ungracefully upwards before he slumped over onto his side and lay there. He was certain to have hit his head roughly on the cavern floor. It didn't matter to Heike if he might have lasting damage from that or not, even though she as of yet was undecided on what to do with him.

She looked over toward Szesh. Saw beyond him the diminished Helgen, still slowly attempting to flee.

"He has forfeited his yield." Not that it made much difference, and this thought garnered a wry smile. Such ought to be the fate of all these vampires infesting Reikhurst. "You have my permission to do as you please with him, Szesh."

Helgen, a low groan rumbling in his throat, rolled over onto his back to regard the Draconian after he heard Heike speak. Fierce eyes on Szesh, he said with an air of assured finality, "I do not fear. I will join...the Everlasting Mist...within our Dread Lady."

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

Szesh loomed over Helgen, titan's shoulders heaving with the rush of chaotic battle. He had expected as much, but he felt an indignation that he had not experienced in a lifetime. Heike's presence continued to draw the soldier out of him. Even her words, carefully chosen as always, pulled at the strings of forfeited honor.

Draconians did not place much stock in yields. Indeed, one who begged for mercy was considered undeserving of it. Maybe then it was Helgen's betrayal of Heike's kindness that angered him so, his insult to one that Szesh considered friend.

In any case, lips curled back over dark fangs. He gazed into Helgen's defiant face with his own dark stare. Wordlessly, he swung Trajan's hammer in a graceful arc to obliterate the vampire's head. The weapon cracked the stone floor with a satisfying certainty, and Helgen moved no more.

He turned back to Heike, legs and chest spattered with dark blood, and moved on Gregory. The fury still burned in him, and although Gregory posed little to no threat, he wanted nothing more than to tear the worm's head from his shoulders.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike watched on with a grim satisfaction as Szesh summarily executed the Mistweaver vampire. And so should it be to all the enemies of Reikhurst to meet such an end.

Which left Gregory.

She turned to look at him, the man sluggishly writhing on the ground, his motions such that it looked like time had been slowed twofold for him alone. Heike glowered down at him, this would-be "Reikhurstan." She had the small wound on her neck from the fight with Helgen, but the thought of drinking of Gregory's blood, even for the pragmatic purpose of allowing the minor wound to heal after she slept, was appalling. She would not even feed from him if she was injured enough to be on death's door.

Gregory, the hypnosis gone and all his own illusions concerning Heike and Szesh dispelled, said with a hollow voice, "I see it now."

"What." Firm. Powerful anger only just controlled by even more powerful resolve to keep it in check.

A small, pitiful nod of his head toward her belt. Specifically, the insignia of the Golden Blade that dangled from it. "There were...oh gods...there were more than just me. The day after Reikhurst had fallen. We thought ourselves the only survivors." A single, gasping laugh that was completely devoid of mirth. "I suppose that is what every other group must have thought. There are other groups...aren't there?"

Heike knew it to be true. She knew it now, after a clue had lead onto some painstaking and difficult research. Yes, there were more survivors. More than she could have possibly imagined, thank all that is good in the world.

"Yes. There are other survivors. They are scattered far and wide across Epressa. Even across Liadain." Her brow narrowed. "And they have likely not forgotten who. They. Are." The accusation was heavy. Damning. "Reikhurstan. Through times of joy and through times of sorrow."

"What would you have me do??" Gregory said, dismay creeping in. "They were all killed--everyone that I was with. The vampires pursued us, as they likely pursued others, and they picked us off as they could. There was no escape. I tried...damn it all, I tried."

No pity. "You should have remembered that you were a proud son of Reikhurst, of your mother and father whose names I do not know and who would undoubtedly be ashamed to see you now, as you are."

Gregory, his voice small. "But...the reason I am what I am now...is because you failed, Knight."

Heike was taken aback. And she could say nothing.

"You and the Order of the Golden Blade failed in your one true duty," Gregory said, more saddened than anything. "Reikhurst fell. You failed to protect it and to protect us. I did what I had to do to live. That is all that I wanted to do, to simply live. Am I wrong for this?"

Still, Heike could say nothing. Her eyes were distant.

Gregory, seeking confirmation, looked to Szesh with a hint of desperation. "Draconian, please, tell me. Am I wrong for this??"

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

It took only four long strides for Szesh to reach the boy. Four strides to adjust his grip on the hammer, and to feel the heat of dragons rekindle within his chest.

After one stride, Gregory spoke. Upon the second, Heike replied. Three, and the pitiful story of a man's defeat was laid bare. Four, and a merciless rebuttal was given.

Despite undead fangs and claws, Heike had always been more merciful than he. Was it because she was once human herself that she bothered to hear Gregory out? Szesh did not like it when his bounties had talked too much. They never had anything useful to say. Always the same: begging, bribery, or defiance. The latter was what he preferred, if forced to choose.

But this was Heike's battle, so he would fight it by her rules. By the time Gregory had begun to beg, Szesh loomed over him, a clawed foot dwarfing the boy's head.

What would you have me do?

You should have remembered that you were a proud son of Reikhurst...
​

Yes. Heike knew it as well as he. Cowardice was not to be pitied.

And then the worm continued to speak, spoke an accusation so audacious that it almost masked his craven face.

Szesh hated him for it, more than he had despised him earlier, yet against his will was forced to contemplate the boy's words. What if a draconian lay here? What if one of his own begged mercy for kneeling to the enemy? What if he, and the other warriors of his home, had been defeated. Would the actions his people then took to survive be on his conscience?

Gregory looked up, and the eyes that stared back were black, empty, and devoid of movement. In a single heartbeat, with no less resolve nor certainty as he had with Helgen, Szesh arced the hammer up and brought it down through Gregory's face. The metallic thud that reverberated through the cavern felt cold. Szesh had delivered his answer.

Szesh rose, with human blood added to undead upon his scales, and returned to Heike's side, replacing the hammer. "Your death did not take his honor. It was given freely."

 

[Heike Eisen]

Heike's gaze refocused as soon as her ears heard the crack of metal on bone, the wet splatter that signified the very last moment, brief and violent, of Gregory's life. Such as it was. Still, she had been shaken and was--despite her best efforts--visibly so. Heike thought she had known the full weight of her failure. She had seen the carnage of that most terrible night, seen the haunting devastation both in the gray, ash-filled morning after and now in the city's quiet abandonment. She knew that the vampires responsible had yet to meet their due justice and that the citizenry of Reikhurst, those who were lucky enough to survive, had their lives either traumatically disrupted or outright fallen to ruin. And here, in Gregory, was a man whose life had fallen to ruin. Yes, it could be said that Gregory always had within his heart the latent willingness to become a villain's accomplice in order to avoid death should circumstances coax it to the surface.

Yet that did not erase Heike's, the entire Order of the Golden Blade's, abject failure in the defense of Reikhurst. And, ultimate victory permitting and in the wake of Reikhurst's restoration, Heike would submit herself to trial to answer for this failure. Her honor demanded it.

Heike nodded. Again trying to harden, or at least neutralize, her expression. "What has come to him was brought by actions of his own accord. His death would have been mourned if he had held firm with a righteous heart, but now, his cowardice has left the reception of his passing with nothing but due scorn and disgust."

And then she had to say it. She had to address it, at least in part. "Thank you, Szesh. I was...taken aback by what Gregory had said, when I should have well known that it changed not one bit of his treason."

An exhale--one of those habitual echoes of life. Then Heike, with her business concerning the insignia and as well their business concerning Helgen and Gregory both done, turned toward the exit tunnel.

"Come. It is high time that we depart my lost home. Before the night fully comes."

And in her mind, she had her objective. The first and perhaps most important step of all in the quest to restore Reikhurst.

Finding a cure to her damnable affliction. Ridding herself once and for good of her vampirism.

Szesh

 

[Szesh]

Szesh nodded bruskly at her thanks. He was not very good at accepting thanks, or kind gestures in general, but he met her gaze long enough to try and convey his appreciation.

He was glad to leave the caves. The stagnant air was now thick with blood, sweat, and fouler things. Gregory's ruined body lay motionless amidst a slowly growing pool of congealing blood, but Helgen's corpse had melted away entirely. Szesh suspected it had turned to mist for a final time.

He followed Heike back through the cramped tunnels, back through the curtain marking Gregory's room, and up into mercifully fresh air. Though the sun was long beneath the horizon, the night sky was still a welcome brightness against the impossibly black stones of the mine.

"Heike," he rumbled after stretching his wings and tail. He moved close and peered down at her. Her silhouette was very small against his, and he contemplated once again how such strength could be housed in such tiny bones. He would never understand how, but it did not matter. Many things were not meant to be known.

"My debt is paid..." he continued, but his voice trailed. The word 'paid' hung awkwardly in the air as the giant warrior fumbled about his vocabulary. "...but, if you need me again..." He retrieved something from his belt pouch before offering a scaly hand to the vampire and handing her a smooth, round object.

It was a small stone, oblong and milky white. With her unnatural night vision, Heike would probably be able to make out the minuscule scribblings upon it.

"Squeeze tightly, and I will come." He showed her a second, identical stone before replacing it in his belt.

As with Heike's powerful affliction, Szesh did not understand why the stones worked, but it was enough to know that they did. The merchant who had sold them had explained their use, and Szesh had found his words to be truthful. Considering the two ellipsoid rocks had cost him the majority of the bounty for the catalysts, the merchant had been wise not to lie. Squeeze one summoning stone firmly and with conviction and the other, regardless of location, will pulse with life and motion, guiding the two together.

It was the best he could do to convey his own thanks to the knight. Thanks for her partnership, thanks for reminding him of a better version of himself, and thanks for being a friend.