Fate - First Reply Where Sat Sister Bertha Better-Than-You

[Ledhros Caur]

Across this particular chunk of south central Epressa, opinions differed re: the Temorzhai convent. Sharply, in fact. To the relatively enlightened King of Ashdell, this convent was a hellish institution where generations of girl had suffered, his latest ward among them. To everyone else, Temorzhai was ineffably respectable. Benevolent, a major employer, a pillar of the community.

What's a king to do? Well, hire the mercenaries of the Silver Key, not to put too fine a point on it. Hire them to burn the convent and put specific sisters to the sword. Share the particulars of the unprovable but brutal allegations. Pay them enough to overwhelm any lingering questions of conscience and reputational risk. And disavow all responsibility while standing ready to find homes for the orphans, students, novices, and postulants once the Silver Key annihilated the nuns.

All that to say, a force of several dozen men marched toward the convent one cold morning. The convent, a stone complex, stood alone on a hill overlooking the village of Temorzhai. Alarm bells began to ring as sentries noticed the warband.

 

[Jonathan Burr]

Jon liked nuns. He did. They were peaceful girls; it was hard to judge them for any irregularity considering the companion he kept. He’d made them a simple offer of a show for food and board, and they’d been pleasantly surprised with the fire flowers. As long as Hob stayed out of sight, things were going swimmingly for Jon. A nice bed (safely away from the younger sisters, he noticed), a decent meal, crusty bread and cool water. All it took was sparking off a little fun and giving the girls a few knowing winks.

The fire flowers were Jon’s pride and joy. They were marvels of chemistry that sparked and whirred and screamed into the air. They were best seen at night, little avatars of fire lurching toward the night sky and bursting into white, red, blue and green sparks. Jon had a few purples, but those were a bit more special and harder to make. The girls were happy with the little flowers that spun wildly on the ground or burst in midair.

Of course his time here was drawing to a close. It was a short visit, just a little stop. Hob didn’t like hiding for long, and he didn’t want incidents to crop up with some of the girls. He yawned and stretched out on the narrow bed, frowning when alarm bells rung. The hell?

He sat up and got out of bed. He was on the second floor, and being mounted up on the hill he got a decent view of what was coming. That didn’t look friendly. That looked like armed men. “Oh gods.” Jon swore. He grabbed his bag out from under the bed. Run? Fight? They were mercenaries. Maybe he could scare them off?

 

[Ledhros Caur]

Jonathan Burr

The Silver Key warband formed up on the slope just inside bowshot of the convent. And then did nothing.

"Sorta hard to get excited about burning down a convent," said Togle, one of the band's dwarves. He spurred his pony up beside Ledhros' gelding. "No challenge in it, no decent stories to come of it, no loot - and they're nuns."

"Most of them." Truth be told, Ledhros wasn't wild about any of this either. But a handful of nuns, including the Mother Superior, had a carefully buried history of genuinely brutal abuse toward some of the girls in their care. "The King was pretty particular about killing a few specific ones and lighting the place up. Guess we'd better start with the first part. I don't..." He grimaced and raised his voice. "Alright, boys. We've got four targets: the Mother Superior, a Sister Aganetta - around fifty, with a mole on her left cheek - a Sister Berta who's about forty with red hair - and the groundskeeper, a man named Jode. The King wants all four dead, doesn't care how. He doesn't want us injuring anyone beyond that, not if we can help it. Blades away unless you've got a target to take out fast. Fists and cudgels only, otherwise. Get to it."

The thirtyish mercenaries got to it.

 

[Jonathan Burr]

Oh no. This wasn’t good.
The mercenaries settled at the bottom of the hill for a few minutes, barked something Jon couldn’t make out, and charged. He had to do something! The gates would be locked, but he had to stop them. The sisters had been good to him, he wasn’t about to let them get murdered by a band of thugs.

“What absolute coconut of a human being attacks unarmed girls?” Jon growled, undoing the toggles on his bag and pulling out a few choice fire flowers. Normally they were fairly harmless. One could toss it on the ground and get a fairly snowy display of sparks or watch one shoot into the air from a painted tube. They were also essentially flaming chemicals, and Jon had learned from experience not to take them too lightly. He’d seen a child blow off a few fingers trying to hold a spinning flower in his hand.

Are you sure this is a good idea? We could just leave. There’s a good way over the wall out the back, and we could filch some rope. Hob suggested, large ears flicking up.

Jon shook his head, and opened the window again. Well, he could try? He picked out a tube firework, aimed it down at the mercenaries, and lit it. The fuse sparked and hissed for a few seconds, and blew out of his hands like a wild snake. It twisted wildly and burst into a shower of blinding red sparks on the ground near the mercenaries.

“Shows you lot to go harassing women!” Jon roared at them.
Hob snickered gleefully, his lips peeling back to show off his impressive array of dagger teeth. Think you can light them afire?

“I don’t want to set anyone on fire, I want them to leave.” Jon muttered, picking out another. He lobbed the spinning flower out the window at them, watching the blue flower spin violently in the air. It shot off its sparks and leapt around on the ground like a mink on fire, spitting and lighting small patches of grass on fire.

 

[Ledhros Caur]

Blue fire skidded its way around the grass, and the mercenaries came up short. Ledhros whistled. The men drew back for a high-pressure huddle. You've never seen a tense meeting until you've seen one populated by mercs who've just encountered superior firepower.

Ledhros slid off his horse and kept it between him and the convent. He waved down quite a bit of shouting. "I know, I know. The King didn't say anything about the nuns having a mage. Best believe we'll squeeze him for a bonus. But to get paid at all, we've got to take that convent and drop those four."

"Fire arrows," Togle grunted. "Not for the whole place, not yet, just plant one or two smoking arrows in the garden and the front door and such. Get them panicking, get them running. Maybe put one through the window where that magic came from."

As plans went, it was better than the nothing they had. In short order a couple of fire arrows arced toward the convent.

Jonathan Burr

 

[Jonathan Burr]

Jon yelped and yanked his bag to the side of the window as a fire arrow thunked into his rented bedpost. He set down the bag and hurriedly doused it with the water jug. Oh. That was it. They were going to set the poor women afire?

Jonathan yanked out two of the tubes and lit them, sending them right toward the mercenaries. He cupped his hands over his mouth. “Fucks sake you smarmy bastards what did the girls ever do to you?!” He shouted at them, punctuating it with another blue spinner for emphasis. “Leave me go and fuck off!”

Hob cocked an eyebrow. Want me to deal with it?

Jon sighed and shook his head. He didn’t want them dead but there had to be some reason they were being so stubborn. He went to the arrow and pulled it free from the bedpost, attaching a hanky. What the hell was the symbol for parley? He waved the white handkerchief out of the window. “Hey! I don’t want to waste any more on you assholes! Can we talk?” He bellowed.

 

[Ledhros Caur]

Jonathan Burr

"Ledhros-"

"I see it, I see it. Archers, hold." Ledhros chewed a scrap of dried eagle's eye to power just the briefest hint of mimicry. His eyesight sharpened long enough to verify that, yes, the youngish man in the window was waving a white flag. "Anyone catch what he's saying?"

"He's using bad words," said Togle, deadpan. "That's the mage. Gotta be."

"Probably. It's the right window, anyway. Okay, let's see." Lehros rooted in his saddlebag and got out a well-used white flag. He put it on a spear and started walking up to the convent.

 

[Jonathan Burr]

Oh thank the gods.

A white flag in reply. Jonathan sighed in relief and pulled out a large rocket, settling it over his shoulder. He wasn’t going to be able to defend himself against all of them alone, but gods willing he was not going unarmed. Hob was with him but they had a rather strange relationship. It was up to the rabbit whether he wanted to defend him or not, and Jon had learned that entertainment value counted a lot to spirits like him.

“Nothing to worry about ladies.” Jon said hurriedly as he rushed downstairs and out to the courtyard. “Just a little misunderstanding, I’ve got this handled.”

Jon opened the gates and shut them behind him. “Hey now. Don’t shoot. You really don’t want one of these things up close.” He waggled the fire flower on his shoulder. “So what are you guys doing? Why are you attacking convent ladies? You’ve got to know they don’t have any gold yeah? What is this, a rape run? Half of you don’t look too bad.” He gestured to Ledhros.

“Handsome over here looks like a damn field of gold. Look at that hair. Hey, wash out the blood and throw your head around like a stud horse at the nearest bar and they’ll be throwing themselves at you. Shit I’d take a crack at you if you’d put down the pigsticker.” Jon chuckled nervously.

 

[Ledhros Caur]

Jonathan Burr didn't look like much, but he sounded like plenty. Ledhros blinked and kept blinking. The gadget-thing over his shoulder got a blink. The rabbit familiar, definitely.

"We're here for four people, nobody else," said Ledhros. "Mother Superior. A Sister Aganetta, middle-aged with a mole on her left cheek. A Sister Berta, a little younger. Jode the groundskeeper. They've done terrible things and we've been hired to fix it. Nobody else unless we have to, mage, but we're not stopping until we get those four. And you may make pretty fires but we can make pretty fires too, you follow?"

 

[Jonathan Burr]

Jon laughed. “What, fire? You think this is just fire?” He waggled the rocket. “Boy if this hits too close it’ll burn like hell for weeks and every time you bathe it’ll feel like you dipped your testicles in boiling oil. Listen, why you after the old mother superior and a fucking groundskeeper? The hell you going to do with the clubs? Beat him like a gopher?”

Hob cackled, flicking an ear. He looked closer at Ledhros. Hob wasn’t a small creature, and his wormy fur seethed when he laughed. Half his face peeled up against his nose when he grinned, showing off dagger like teeth. Jon shrugged. “Listen, fellas, you tell me where the sisters went wrong and I guarantee you dont have to go butchering people. You keep pressing this and Hob gets to see if he can beat his best distance at the Scumbag Launch.”

 

[Ledhros Caur]

Jonathan Burr

The rabbit familiar was undead. No, demonic. Ledhros weighed unpleasant options. He wanted to be rational about it.

But all he could think of was the stories he'd heard, the rationale behind this mission. He took comfort in the fury. It helped him cut through the uncertainty of the situation.

"There are bones under the convent," he gritted out. "Small ones, going back decades. Stand aside."