Spear of Clouds Unfurled 5.3

We ended up trying three more combinations of runes on the obelisk, all of which were apparently wrong, and all of which summoned undead soldiers to attack us. It was incredibly annoying, and although Nathan said it could somehow be 'farmed' — however that worked, after Lord Mousington and I made detailed sketches of everything we ended up teleporting back to the start of the dungeon.

We emerged in the middle of the afternoon, and passed Belevar and Caroline's party on the way down. They glared at us, and Nathan cheerily gave them the finger, something that confused the new dhampir man they'd recruited to replace Glesvir, who had a bow and quiver like me, along with two short swords. I resisted the urge to be petty, however, and did the far more mature thing of pretending they didn't exist.

The town, although it hadn't recovered to its pre-Caith attack state, was becoming more lively, and the wall had been mostly repaired. The market gardens beyond it had been ruined, but from the Guildhall's raised vantage point I could see many of the ex-slaves working to resow their small fields.

The Guildhall itself was fairly busy, and while the others went and ordered lunch I waited in line as Ritah assisted some new arrivals, a group of beastkin adventurers who were all bronzes.

"Oh, hello Doctor," said the rabbit-eared woman once it was our turn, looking us over. "You look… dusty?"

"My report," I said, handing over my notes. "We figured out that the book every group gets upon defeating the second floors boss showed how the constellations lead to shrines with weird puzzle locks. And when you fail them, undead creatures in armour appear. It's all in there."

Ritah grimaced. "That sounds horrible," she said. "I don't know how you can do this, Doctor."

"Just Charlie is fine," I said. "And… the money is good? I get stronger faster? I can heal more people before getting tired? Plenty of reasons."

Also, although I'd never admit it, I did find myself enjoying dungoneering more than I once had. It was scary, yes, but that fear was diminishing over time, replaced by a kind of adrenaline high.

"You'd never catch me going into a place like that," said Ritah, shaking her head. "Oh, I think Laera was looking for you."

I sighed. What was it this time? And it was definitely something. Laera didn't hate me, I didn't think, but I was far from her favourite person. I was, in her eyes, a little unfairly, 'trouble.'

"Great, thanks," I said, moving past the rabbit-like woman and knocking on the door to Laera's office.

"Come in," came a harried voice.

I cracked the door open to see a very agitated looking Laera up to her neck in paperwork. She had great bags under her pink eyes, and her usually neat hair was a bit of a lank mess.

"Oh, Charlie, good, come in—close the door," she said, giving me a tight smile.

'Good?' I don't think she'd ever greeted me like that before.

"Is there… a problem?" I said, closing the door with a click before crossing and trying to brush off the worst of the sand off my cloak before sitting on the chair opposite her.

"Yes," she said, rummaging around for a moment before pulling out a piece of paper and handing it to me. "There is."

It was battered, creased, and a little damp, indicating it had come via Laemist recently. Despite 'watertight' charms on the mail crates, it was still pretty humid inside.

That, however, wasn't what caught my attention. No, that was the sketch of a lion-like beastkin with glasses staring back at me. They were a bit more severe that I hoped I looked, almost villainous appearing, really, but it was unmistakably supposed to be me.

"'Charlie: wanted for Crimes against Property?' Five- five thousand gold!?" I said, looking up at Laera. "This is real?"

"Unfortunately," said Laera, gesturing to the bottom. "It bears the Empress' sigil."

I looked at the bottom of the sheet of paper, which did indeed bear a very official looking seal.

This was well, I assumed, rather bad. Despite my less than mainstream political views, and dislike of police, I'd never actually been in trouble with the law back in Austria. Certainly, I'd never had a bounty on my head. I might have gotten used to the danger of delving in the dungeon, but this… the sound of my heartbeat began to boom in both my ears, and I felt my moth go dry.

"Don't worry, I've also got one," said Laera, holding up a page with her own likeness. "Jalver as well, and quite a few of those who took part in the 'relief mission' you turned into a slave break." She smiled. "I don't know if I should feel jealous — you've got a bigger bounty than me…"

She trailed off as she saw that my hands were trembling and there were tears in my eyes.

"Hey, Charlie, take it easy, OK?" said Laera, giving me a tight smile.

"This- there- there's a bounty on my head?" I said. "How is that OK?"

"You do know that if Mercia attacks us, overruns us, then they will kill us?” said Laera. “Me, you, Jalver, probably most of the Beastkin adventurers. That was before this."

I exhaled and took off my glasses. "Maybe academically," I said. "I don't know, this feels… worse? Real? Targeted?"

It was one thing to be part of a political movement against slavery, it was another thing to have been singled out. Dammit, I was a doctor; I'd never wanted to be a 'leader.'

"Word must have gotten back to them that it was you who masterminded the slave break," said Laera.

"What are we going to do?" I said.

"Do? Not much we haven't been doing," said Laera. "We keep on building up the town, getting more guild-members here. Make ourselves a really hard target. As for the bounties, I'm going to contact the board.

"I know it doesn't feel like it all the way out here, but the Guild isn't a powerless institution. We have pull with all the major powers, and the our leaders don’t take kindly to bounties being put on their branch Guildmasters and mistresses."

"This is the only place on this world I know," I said. "That all feels… abstract."

"Right, I sometimes forget that to you, this town is Alaria," said Laera. "Well, the Guild operates over two hundred branches across the old world, has thousands of members, and is wealthier than some small kingdoms. Mercia is one of the more powerful empires, but the Empress cannot do something like this without repercussion."

She gave me a smile, and I tried to return it, but it came out as more of a grimace.

I left the office feeling shaken. I suppose I had assumed that I would continue not to catch the eye of anyone in Port Imperial — the Viceroy hadn't even remembered me between when I'd gone aboard her ship with Laera, Jalver, and Tabbeeza, and when I'd healed her son. But now that I had been noticed, there was no going back to being 'just another Outlander' in Guildport. I was known to the Mercians now, and had very obviously set myself up as diametrically opposed to basically everything they stood for. That was scary.

The others were having lunch, but I needed some air after that conversation, so instead I headed back out into Guildport and began to walk.

In reality, nothing had changed. Laera was right. If Port Imperial attacked and conquered Guildport, I was almost certainly going to be killed unless I could escape. Me and probably most of the Beastkin who weren't enslaved.

Still, it felt as if something had changed.

My feet took me up to the top of the headland, next to where the stout lighthouse had been finished. It was a clear, sunny day, and I could see quite a bit of Laemist beneath the gentle swell now that I knew to look for it.

Following the curve of the bay northward I could see land being cleared for what looked like another plantation, the first such one visible from Guildport—albeit only from the highest point of the headland. In some ways, it felt fitting: the outside world was coming more into focus in time as the result of my actions.

On a less abstract level, however, it enraged me to know that there were slaves suffering in chains within sight of my new home, and served to remind me why I had put myself in Mercia's crosshairs. Yes, even if I was scared, I didn't regret my actions, and I knew I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had done nothing.

I was pulled from my ruminations by the feeling of three people approaching me. That wasn't that unusual, lots of people enjoyed coming up to the top of the headland, there were even a handful of rough benches and rocks that people sat on.

No, that wasn't unusual. What was, however, and I only caught a few moments later, was that they were focused on me. Intently. And with no small degree of white hot hatred.

I turned around in time to see that one of the three dhampir had a bow drawn and aimed at me. I recognised the trio by sight, but had never interacted with any of them, so I didn't know the name of the woman who released the arrow that whistled through the air towards me.

It struck me in the chest, the force of the blow knocking me from my feet. My breastplate saved my life; had I not still been in my adventuring gear, it would have taken me in the heart—something that was complex and shock inducing enough that I might not have been able to repair the damage before I blacked and then bled out.

A kill shot, part of my mind registered; that had been a kill-shot.

I had now idea why I was under attack within the limits of Guildport by people who even from this distance I could see had tin and bronze Guild tags.

The rest of me, however, was already moving, using reflexes honed from dungeoneering. My bow was in my own hand a moment later as I rolled behind one of the rocks people often picnicked on: arrow went to string, and I popped out of cover and shot my own shaft back at their archer even as the other two dhampir began to race towards me: one was a woman with sword and shield, the other a man with a big hammer that crackled with flames.

At a range of less than a hundred meters, I was a damn good shot, but I wasn't fighting stupid zombies, I was fighting other Guild members—people with supernatural reflexes and inhuman strength. Well, indhampir strength, I supposed. The other archer ducked the shaft, which half a second after I fired I realised had also been a kill-shot—I'd been aiming for her red, left eye.

I didn't have time to reflect on my immediate reciprocation of lethal violence, however, because the other two were getting closer too me every moment. I lashed out with my empathomancy, and they screamed in terror, stumbling and tripping as their emotions suddenly twisted from hatred and anger and the steely green of experienced adventurers in combat to midnight terror.

I shot one of them in the leg, the one with the hammer, managing to get my arrow between the plates on his upper leg. The terrified dhampir toppled, and I jerked back down as another arrow whizzed up towards me, coming within an inch of one of my lion-like ears.

I darted back up and loosed my third shot, this one aimed again at the downing hammer-wielding dhampir. Well, he'd dropped the hammer, and was coming down from his terror—faster than I'd expected, actually—and was instead swearing and pulling at the arrow I'd stuck between his armour.

I shot him in his other leg, eliciting another scream that seemed to shake the other melee-wielding dhampir who had been cowering behind her shield. Her emotions recovered, returning to their previous mix—albeit with quite a bit more caution than she had previously had before.

I tried to hit her with another blast of terror as I darted back into cover as another arrow flew my way, but although the blackness took a degree of root, she seemed to realise that she was under the affects of magic and managed to push through it, rushing forward if, not quite at full pace, then at a steady jog.

That was bad. I was pretty fast and had a dagger as long as my forearm, but she was in full plate with a sword and a shield; she would turn me to mincemeat in melee.

I ducked fully into cover and flexed my hand, trying not to focus on how close she was getting as I wove together a spell. The blue ring on one of my fingers lit up, and a wave of weariness accompanied the ursine roar as a rather large blue and orange bear swirled into existence and charged towards the dhampir swordswoman who had closed to within fifteen meters.

The sudden appearance of the illusory bear sent orange surprise shuddering through the swordwoman's aura, and she immediately skidded to a stop, all her attention focused on the magical construct as I peered out of cover, waited half a moment for her to raise her shield to protect herself from a translucent claw.

And then I shot her in the leg.

Unlike the other dhampir, who was still halfway up the slop towards me and swearing as he tried to pull the arrows out of his legs, the swordswoman had better armour, and I didn't manage to hit the join I had been aiming for— right above the knee. Still, the force of the blow staggered her at a rather inopportune moment, meaning that my illusory construct's blow fell against her shoulder instead of her shield, and knocked her to the ground.

Another arrow whizzed towards me, and this time I wasn't quite fast enough to fully dodge back into my cover. A line of pain opened up on my cheek and then side of the neck,

I hissed in pain I immediately began to haemorrhage copious amounts of blood. Getting fully behind cover, I did my best to shut out the fear and light-heartedness as I moved to heal what was clearly a nick to a carotid artery.

I managed, if barely, and blinked away black spots as the bleeding stopped. I gulped, a few more seconds-

I shook off the fear and grabbed another arrow with a bloodstained hand, using my empathic senses to aim for where I could feel the archer was moving to assist the dhampir woman who was on the ground and struggling against my illusion still.

Judging by the satisfaction I felt in her aura, and the surprise when I popped back out, she must have thought she'd killed me with the face and neck shot. That seemed like a rather foolish mistake to make against someone who was a known and powerful healer, and one that turned out to be a rather grave one. My arrow took her in the gut, punching so far through the thin chainmail she had there that I knew without my intervention, she'd probably bleed out in the next ten minutes.

She staggered, then toppled, and, no longer pinned down, I rose from my cover and knocked another arrow and aimed it at the swordswoman, who had several nasty cuts on her face and was trying to stab my illusory bear with a dagger as it repeatedly clawed at her.

She saw me aiming at her, and tried to roll away, but my arrow smashed into her wrist and although it didn't penetrate her gauntlet, it dented it and sent the dagger flying from her grip.

"Stop! Stop!" she screamed as my bear continued to maul at her. "I yield! I yield!"

I twitched my fingers, and with a mental command ordered my illusory bear to no longer attempt to kill her, just keep her occupied, even as I darted down towards her.

I had never used my abilities to harm a person: monsters, a few times, yes, but never a person. Part of me had expected it to be hard, some kind of appropriately difficult threshold to breach. But it wasn't hard at all, no more difficult than closing a wound or healing a bruise. In many ways it was far easier to harm than heal.

I darted in, placed a hand on her shoulder, and then after a brief moment of feeling her cut and bruised body, neatly severed her spinal cord at the neck. I didn't plan to leave her a quadriplegic permanently, I'd fix it later, but I was not taking any chances with people who had tried to kill me—even if they claimed to be surrendering.

Still, as I repeated the feat with the other two, and then began ensuring that the archer wouldn't bleed out from her stomach wound as she stared up at me unmovingly with black terror that was all her own, I realised that Velevir was right; my powers were terrifying.

 

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