Chapter 7: Die Another Day
Alaric
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Chapter 7: Die Another Day
It's been ten months since you handled a conventional demonic outbreak in Eadric, but the procedure is simple enough:
- Evacuate as much of the area as possible.
- Contain everyone else.
- Kill the threat by any means necessary.
You are not well in the head, and have several good friends who are demons. You know that they can be mentors, lovers, and treasured allies. Just as much as the priest standing before you, who's slaked with sin, drunkenly wavering, and scaring a young man half-to-death when his presence is no longer needed here.
What precisely Father Pevrel can do for your city was revealed to you this evening over a lengthy carriage ride. He went over the layout of his men's patrols, their duties, how he's allocated their strengths, and compensated for their weaknesses. You have an excellent memory, and know that this specific district has been held under close scrutiny. Father Pevrel mentioned it was due to illicit activity, but didn't specify what that activity was. Now you know.
Inertia planted themselves in the heart of your city, with the primary intent of beating you down even further. Threatening your home. Ruining your name. Killing your family. Those screams were undoubtedly from your children turning into demons. You've heard it hundreds of times before, and no doubt will hear it many more times again.
But not tonight.
The ache in your chest is as much from your soul as it is from the knowledge of what you're not running towards.
There's only one way you're going to handle this.
You are the leader of the Church of Mercy, and have a title to live up to.
"I'm just going to slow you down." Desperation deepens in your tone. Both men standing before you make a face between disgust and amusement, despite how dire the situation is. You're too exasperated to not groan at Father Pevrel, as you sweep Piety off from the floor, and sheathe it. "Did you not HEAR what's going on out there!? What are you waiting for?! Go! Get your men!"
Larkin is looking to you holstering your colossal weapon as if he's never seen another human being in his life. "What are you doing?"
"Showing you Mer—"
With a smirk, Father Pevrel releases his hold on Larkin, and abruptly pushes the boy away from him.
The leader of the Church of Vengeance makes a single sweep with his deathly sharp, volcanic blade, low to the ground—
"—FATHER PEVREL!"
He slices one of Larkin's ankles wide open.
Wincing, you rush forward to catch the cultist before he collapses to the ground. There's screaming. It's horrific. You take extreme pains to keep the young man from putting any weight on the spot. You've felt the same kind of injury several times before, and won't let him suffer if you can help it.
A few words from your enemy carries over the ripping sound in the air. Larkin isn't sniveling. He's pissed. "The FUCK is WRONG WITH YOU?!"
You wince again. The question somehow sounds uglier when it's not directed at you.
The boy is still screaming. The neighbors are going to hear, if they haven't already.
"Now who's the hypocrite," the priest laughs, practically skipping out of the room. A thin trail of blood falls from the end of his sword into a thinner line behind him. "Don't come looking for me, Anscham. Not until this is resolved." ("I SHOULD HAVE FUCKING KILLED YOU FIRST—!") "You should have! I'll see to any threats in the immediate area, and buy you as much Time as I can. Don't wait for me if you—" ("YOU WON'T HAVE A SECOND, YOU BUTCHER! WE'LL—") "—you're too kind. Thank you. If you can figure out the rest. Father."
He pauses at the exit. You know the sadist is lingering over the sight of someone bleeding out on the floor, despite his pious attitude. He's speaking directly to the cultist. "Our God is Righteous."
This is nothing you can't patch up with next to no supplies, and you're carrying all of your equipment with you. Larkin shouldn't be in too much pain (by your standards), and won't have a lasting injury if this is properly taken care of.
Your scowl could still kill. "Go. The Gods are Merciful, Father Pevrel."
He's gone in a flash of darkness.
The instant the lord of retribution is out of sight, you make a point to back away, stand up from the floor, and keep your hands where Larkin can see them. Your Relic is kept only in place by the chain binding it to your palm. "I'm not touching you. Not if I can help it. You're not interested in pain relief, and this won't kill you. And neither of us want to die. Am I— am I mistaken?"
The cultist has already regained his composure. It's obvious that he was just putting on a show to irritate Father Pevrel, and straightens upright. He's expertly applying pressure to his wound, and likely has incurred others like it before.
The boy has yet to answer.
Mercy, grant me strength.
"Listen." All of the humor leaves your tone. "Kid."
"How old are you," the brat sneers.
"Twenty-five."
He blinks, and looks you over again. "Oh." A sniff. "Pinned you at thirty-something, at least—"
You're yelling over the sound of the tear in reality right next to you both. "SO."
"Weight really does a thing to a guy, doesn't it?"
"LARKIN. I just so happen to like distorting our perception of reality, too—"
"You think I like doing this?" Another look, like you're ill. It's a look you're seeing too often. Maybe your perception is improving.
A similarly deprecating look is given. You cross your arms. "You spent years studying this. So, from one hobbyist—"
"Oh, shut the fuck UP!" His chest is heaving with anger. "I've dedicated most of my LIFE to doing away with your HORSE SHIT CREEDS and INSANE expectations of men and women who are out STARVING AND DYING with NO ONE there to ANSWER when they actually need HELP!"
Calmly, you fold your hands, and point the tips of your fingers towards the cultist. "You don't need to hear about the tireless work we're doing. The people in this district do not deserve to die a painful death at your hands, either."
There's something ugly twisting the young man's features.
He's been grieving.
"I don't CARE! ALL of my—" He sniffs, trying hard not to cry again. "—all of my allies were CONVENIENTLY murdered this week!"
He looks horrified at showing his hand, even for a split second.
Mercy. His parents might have been at the hearing.
There was a hearing with your city's elders. Father Pevrel only came to Eadric to have answered their call. The hearing was allegedly to have your identity exposed as an imposter (which was a ridiculous claim meant only to waste your time). The lord of retribution used the opportunity to execute nearly one hundred homicidal traitors to the theocracy, and rooted out the most pertinent potential allies you could have made from the encounter. These saved souls— and their voluntary atonement— guaranteed their freedom.
You got several new allies out of the affair, and several dozen less enemies.
Not a single one of those blasphemous curs left that hearing alive.
Something comes over Larkin. He's eyeing you like a wild animal, and resembles one as well. The edges of his slightly crooked teeth are bared at you as he smiles. "But it doesn't matter. You can call me a hypocrite until you're blue in your fat fucking face. It's not going to make a lick of difference. I've wasted your time, Father. Just like everyone else. And we're going to keep wasting it, and keeping you here pent up in Eadric like the dog you are! Funny how we got rot-eye back there away from his own city in the process, isn't it?!"
The cold sweat on you isn't going anywhere. You don't dare to interrupt.
"You both are two peas in a fucking pod, aren't you? You'll play this little game and get your sick fucking kicks all YEAR!" He leans back, laughing. "Worship will come." The season is meant to be devastating.
"Father Sullivan will be dead. You'll be cut off from your precious little friends across the country." The leader of the Church of Spirit has been in some violent conflict for weeks, fighting for his life. The man is meant to help your communications across the nation, and to heal your own mind.
"It doesn't matter if you fixed the roads. One hundred clergy of Mercy won't help you when the entire Church of Storm is pitted against you." The countryside is in ruin. Travel is next to impossible in many places.
"Not when Father Wilhelm and his Church of Dream is so worked up trying to see the next catastrophe, they forget what's right in front of their FACES!" One of your strongest allies has been suspiciously absent for months from affairs.
"Bet you're wondering where crusty old Mother Aimar went off to, too?!" The leader of the Church of Time is off in some desert, perpetually unavailable for so much as a minute to speak.
You swallow, hard. You've been playing right into your enemy's hands, but you can't simultaneously see to every last one of your allies. It at least sounds like the capital and the Church of Flesh aren't on fire, and there's a problem right in front of your face demanding that you continue to not say a word.
"That's right. Stand there, and listen. You won't raise a hand against me, will you? You're even softer than you look. Coward."
"I'm not the one ranting, divulging my ally's plans, and trying to save my own skin while countless lives are on the line, Larkin."
He shuts up, and fast.
You take a step backwards, take a deep breath, and take a hard look at the space that's hanging in the air before you. There's a shift in your vision. The cold sweat on you redoubles. The life leaves your voice. "Something is moving inside."
"You're lying," Larkin stutters. You give the boy a look that makes him draw back. "Fuck, wow, fine. Not lying." There's an equal amount of terror mixed in with his shame. His words increase in speed by the syllable. "Listen to me."
There's a dark shadow moving inside the rift, there's literally nothing you can do at this moment to slow it down without invoking, and so you are going to STICK to your PLAN and listen as intently as you can.
"I hate you, but I'd rather live to see you die another day. This is not the absence of Time. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I don't know shit about shit. But I do know that this is a rip in Time. I don't think you can remove a Goddess, or have an absence of Her, or whatever. However Time works." A questioning look is given to you, which you don't humor. "But this— I've studied this. This is Magic. Magic is not the manipulation of what IS. That's what you all do. Clergy. You let the Gods work THROUGH you, and THEY control what THEY are. Right?"
"Right," you whisper.
"Sorcerers manipulate what should never be. That's what Magic is. The impossible made possible."
The sorcerer leans back looking paler than death, and sick enough to puke. "We've trained for years, and weeded out those of us who couldn't even read about this spell without turning. I guess you would have made a good candidate, too." He's panicking. "It matters now, I'm not ranting, shut up, let me think."
You are a priest of Spirit, the Father of the Church of Mercy, and frequently have panic attacks. You know he can get through this. "Larkin. Focus on what we need to do to close this— this rip in Time. Breathe, if you need to."
"Okay." He takes a deep breath—
"Not too fast. Normally."
"You wouldn't know what normal is if it hit you in your busted face." Your nose is not that busted. "Listen. This opening is a rip in Time. It is not the past, it is not the present, and it is not the future. Three people are needed for the ritual. It WOULD be impossible for a human to manipulate Time with Magic— but we found a way around it. One person's Vitality for each aspect of Time. I think. It's pretty confusing. But three people ARE necessary. It just kills you if you do it with less." He goes greener. "Really nasty stuff."
"What is Vitality?" No regrets. You'd honestly rather get this information and face certain death than to be in the dark for a second longer.
"I don't have Time for this shit. Literally. Fuck you."
"I want to help you, Larkin, and whatever you all summoned is getting MUCH closer. It seems to have— how many horns is that...?"
It's probably twelve horns, based on the silhouette. The thing is moving erratically every time you look into the sky-space-tear, BUT you really want to focus on whatever Vitality is.
Larkin takes a hand off from his ankle just for a moment, to pinch the bridge of his nose. Blood gets all over it, which he messily wipes on some spell pages on the floor like they're trash. "It's something you get while casting a spell. It doesn't matter if you have the spell written down once you understand it like... like a recipe. We're going to die, why are you asking—?"
"That doesn't make any sense." Celegwen— the only sorceress you've ever seen cast spells at length— always said she felt drained after casting a spell. Yech— your demonic best friend— also seemed exhausted after performing particularly complicated Magic. "I thought—"
"You don't know shit about shit. Too much Vitality makes humans turn. It's that simple. Very small, simple spells aren't risky unless the person— well, to be honest, I'm not sure why some people turn instantly, either. But smaller stuff is usually safer. The big stuff, like this? It's too much for most people to handle." A terrified glance goes up to the rip in Time, along with the source of the tearing sound. Larkin resumes speaking much more quickly. "I didn't want to do it because I didn't want to turn into a demon. I'd rather just die. But we wanted to go through Time to find the worst demons we could, and bring them out into the city until you were dead or Eadric fell."
"You're desperate." You sound like a dead thing. "You're all hurting, and desperate for change."
"Yea—"
Righteous anger takes over your speech. "You are a threat to my city, to every person in it, and to your own life. I am showing you ALL the Mercy I possess. Let me save us."
"You just want to get off feeling high and mighty."
There's a behemoth leering from behind a star. It's got four wings, at least twenty horns, and is dripping with some black substance through the night sky. The creature has no color. It has no legs. It might not need to breathe, based on how still its body is, but it also might be in some nightmare between your perception of Time Herself.
The creature's facial features are too far off in the distance to truly discern, but your blood is running cold at the thought of it seeing you, too. "I don't want to die either, and I love my family. They don't deserve any of this, even if— even if I do. Now tell me how to close this. Quickly. It's coming."
Larkin is actually crying, though no sobs leave him. His voice is completely level. "We didn't expect to have to close it. The spell is meant to end once ONE figure leaves the rift. That's why I'm so scared. It might not work. It could just end everything, or last forever, or what if someone falls in and can never come back—?!"
The ripping sound is not coming from the tear.
The creature within the rift is tearing stars apart.
You stare down Larkin, and take a step forward. "Tell me."
"Th-three people stand in a triangle around this space here. I can't teach you Magic in a matter of seconds. Humans aren't like other races. We're a vessel. The Gods are meant to work through us—"
"I KNOW, LARKIN—!"
"—th-the spell can be led by one person! It will kill you, or turn you, if you try it blind. Maybe not, though. I always thought you were actually a demon, Father. I'm not going to lie to you. But talking to you? I'm thinking you're just going to die if I do this, and I don't want to be left here alone when this thing comes through! It's probably going to kill me too to try this! And Father Pevrel will have killed everyone else—!"
The monstrosity in the sky is closer. You only blinked, but it's somehow much closer. Its body is casting a shadow over an impossible space, and darkness is beginning to shroud the room even deeper than before.
Passion is all through your voice. "Is there anything I need to do for this ritual?"
"There's nothing you can do in a matter of seconds, Father Anscham. They say you're a demon of faith, right? So you'd probably be okay to just trust me. I can draw on your Vitality."
If you're going to never see this place again, you might as well know. The pile of bloody fabric around your ankles, by the corpses, and in all of the blood has yet to move, too. "What's under the cloth, Larkin?"
The boy nursing his slashed ankle next to you grits his teeth, and looks up to the rift above. "The remains of last four people who tried the ritual. It's killed everyone who's completed it, and sometimes right after death you can pull on a dead body's Vitality. It's really fucked up, and usually fucks up the people who get involved. I think having the process interrupted might have made things worse, too."
Nausea is on you hot and fast, along with a spark of divine inspiration.
As a man of all the Gods, you are capable of invoking every single deity. You've called upon Them all— save for one.
Time.
Your devotion to the Goddess of the Sands is unlike any other. Crippling fear and unrivaled reverence has stayed you from ever calling upon Her. This Magic is a mockery of Her works, and potentially causing harm to one of your dearest patrons.
There's no question in your mind that your devotion can contend with ANY amount of heresy.
You genuinely have no idea what awaits you if you try, save that the leader of the Church of Dream told you once that those who invoke Time unawares often disappear without a trace.
There's worse things that might happen if you wait one more second.
>The following are mutually exclusive.
>Majority vote will decide.
>In the event of write-ins with heavy overlap, I may combine some or all of them.
>Discussion is highly encouraged, and as always will be taken into full consideration along with any vocal opposition.
>A] Invoke Time.
>B] Ask Larkin to close the rift as quickly as he can. You'll do anything in your power to try and help. (Feel free to write-in anything you'd like to say or do in addition.)
>C] Grab Larkin, throw him over your shoulder, and linger in the area for as long as you can. DEMAND that he teach you how to aid with closing this rift. You'll take the rest one thing at a time. (Feel free to write-in any other strategy you wish to employ. A ROLL WILL BE REQUIRED.)
>D] Grab Larkin, throw him over your shoulder, and get out of this house. You'll face whatever's coming on the street with your friends, and pray to ALL of the Gods that this tear will close behind it. (Feel free to literally write-in who you want to pray to. A ROLL MAY BE REQUIRED.)
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