Outside Influences

As she was being prodded through the woods, Bel discovered two things about her captors. First, they spoke a second language that she didn’t recognize. Some vague comments about Satrap and the way that they talked about the Satrapian language made her think that they didn’t actually have an outpost at all and were going to be taking her to the other side of the Barrier. If she squinted just right that was a good thing – getting to the other side was supposed to be her goal.

The second thing that she’d learned was that her brother had been a little bit right about Crystal. Unlike the rest of Nebamon’s group, the scaled woman was friendly enough to talk with her. The topics of conversation weren’t great, but talking was preferable to silence and gave her something to keep her mind occupied.

“Come oooon,” the woman moaned, “just tell me how you got to Satrap.” She leaned in close to whisper in Bel’s ear. “It’ll be our little secret.”

Bel leaned away in distaste. “No thanks. Why would I even want to help you?”

“Knowledge,” the unhinged woman proclaimed. “Otherwise it’ll disappear with you.” She turned her sad eyes on Bel, as if the thought of her secrets disappearing would somehow change her mind.

“I’d rather not disappear at all,” Bel grumbled. She hugged herself tightly. The way Crystal had said “disappear” sounded far too much like her true meaning was something worse.

Crystal shrugged, her mood unburdened by her heavy words. “Sorry. I’m more of an act first, consequences later kind of girl. And, in my defense, I thought you would be a bit more mindless.”

Bel’s eyebrows went up. “What? Why would I be mindless?”

“Most spirits are a little…” Crystal began, but then just shrugged and waggled her hand in the air. “You know, unstable? Flighty? Barely coherent?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bel sighed. Although, thinking about it, that described some of Dutcha’s behavior – or at least the sampling of abilities that Bel saw through the spirit’s constellation and the vague memories she retained from her ritual.

Bel leaned closer to Crystal and whispered, “why don’t you just help me escape? Then you’ll have all the time in the world to ask questions. And maybe I’ll even give you some answers.”

Crystal glanced around furtively, obviously afraid of the others overhearing. “Don’t get me in trouble,” she whispered back. She pointed one of her scaled hands at herself. “I’m just hired help. Me and my dowsing rods. Now that they’ve got you, I’m not strictly speaking necessary.”

“Oh really,” Bel hissed, “it must be terrible to–”

“What’s with all this whispering,” Rikja interrupted. Her snout twitched in irritation as she glared at them. She skimmed back her lips in distate as she looked at Bel, showing off her inhuman collection of small, pointy teeth.

Crystal waved a hand in Rikja’s direction. “It’s okay, Rikja! We’re just chatting about boring stuff.” Then the woman whispered, “don’t worry, she’s all fiery temper and no bite.”

The grumpy fire mage turned to the group’s leader and shouted, “hey boss, why don’t we just gag her, truss her up, and carry her back? She’s a bad influence on our group dynamic.”

“Do you want to carry her?” Nebamon asked.

“No, I want Ken to carry her. We shoulda just gotten rid of the boy,” Rikja complained.

Nebamon looked at Bel for a moment, his yellow eyes examining her with all the compassion of someone examining an old shoe.

“I thought that the Third Priest would find the boy interesting,” he explained. “Besides, Bel won’t do anything unreasonable so long as he is safe, yes?”

Bel didn’t respond. She didn’t want to give the insufferable man the satisfaction. Instead she stared into the forest, listening to the droning of insects and the light fluttering of wings from the local birds. She drank in the little tastes of freedom like a drowning woman gasping air.

Actually, there was a lot of wing fluttering going on. Bel looked around and spotted a large flock of… of something following them through the upper canopy. Her snakes perked up as she squinted, flicking out their tongues in agitation. The behavior was strange for foraging birds, if that’s what they were. Then again, most birds didn’t have two pairs of wings and long, blade-like beaks that glinted in the sun.

Crystal had joined in her looking into the air and stared at the circling flock with interest. “Are those native to the area? What do they eat? Their body shapes don’t seem optimal to perch in trees.”

Everyone in the group glanced up, but Rikja barely spared them a moment of her attention. “Shit birds for a shit country. Who gives a shit?”

“Very articulate,” Nebamon chided her.

“It’s this stupid language,” Rikja began. Then she ranted about something in her native tongue. Bel couldn’t understand the words, but she’d heard enough from the temperamental woman that she could guess the meaning.

Bel turned her attention back to the birds. They weren’t going anywhere, but were instead hopping from tree to tree, keeping pace with the group but not making any other moves.

“I’m gonna catch one,” Crystal declared, “for research.”

Nebamon looked up with concern, momentarily ignoring Rikja’s continuing complaints. “Crystal, I would–”

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a loud thump. Crystal had drawn one of her wands, charged it up, and fired off what looked like a twirling knot of bright metal. She hadn’t taken a moment to aim her shot, but given the number of avian observers Bel didn’t see how the woman could miss.

And Bel was right; a moment later there was a puff of feathers and a dark object plummeted to the ground. Crystal gleefully ran to her catch, as eager as a duck to bread.

She immediately began poking at it with a stick, making all sorts of strange noises as she mumbled to herself.

Nebamon made his own strange noises before grabbing Bel by the elbow and dragging her after the scaled menace. “Crystal,” he began, but then continued his scolding in another tongue.

Bel took the opportunity to examine the bird. It was even stranger than she had expected, looking like the bodies of two separate creatures cut apart and joined together. The wings were dark, but she could see other colors where their surface had been scratched by Crystal’s attack. It looked like the feathers had started life as pure white and then been dyed black. The beak was long and sharp and coated in metal. Bel couldn’t imagine the razor sharp edge was biological. There were metal threads holding it onto the body as well.

“Oh,” she gasped, “I know what these are.”

Crystal, Nebamon, and Rikja looked at her and Bel realized that she’d spoken out loud.

Oops.

“Well?” Nebamon prompted.

“Technis’ priests make things like this. They take different materials and animate them. They’re good at that – well, this and making barriers.”

The group of four looked up into the trees. The not-birds looked back. An unnatural quiet had fallen over the forest after Crystal’s attack.

“Maybe we should–”

As if Bel’s words were a trigger, all of the creatures dove, like rain of a thousand daggers. Bel immediately dove to the ground between the other three, happy to protect herself while they were in harm’s way.

A moment later she saw Crystal hitting the ground as well, curled into a ball and protecting her head by tucking it under her tail. Nebamon and Rikja cursed at her but were forced to go back to back to fend off their endless attackers.

Soon they were too busy to yell at Crystal or Bel – the birds weren’t very big, and individually they weren’t very dangerous, but they were moving so quickly and they were so numerous that Nebamon and Rikja had to keep all of their concentration on the next attack lest one of the unnatural terrors stab them with their artificial beaks.

The grounds was quickly littered with malformed corpses. The air was filled with shouts and curses in the stranger’s foreign tongue: music to Bel’s ears. She saw an opportunity and immediately took it, quickly reaching out to the corpses to drain them of their essence while a whirling blade of death and concussive gouts of flame filled the air above her.

The essence from the manufactured creatures felt thick and sickly, but she couldn’t afford to be squeamish. Her efforts payed off in just a terror-filled minute as she broke through two more thresholds. That placed her at the peak of her current core. She had no idea what would happen when she chose a patron, but she could only pray to her mother that it would be good.

Nebamon grabbed her arm and jerked her upright and Bel feared that he noticed what she’d been doing. Bel hunched her back, preparing for punishment, but nothing came. She looked around in confusion before realizing that the harrowing encounter was already over; the entire flock of not-birds littered the ground around them.

“Where did these come from, girl?” Nebamon demanded.

“I-I didn’t call them,” Bel protested, “I just recognize them. Technis’ priests make stuff like this, not me.”

Rikja kicked one of the small corpses, splitting it into two where it was stitched together. “Don’t give us any shit, girl, Technis’ priests can’t make life. Only the primordial gods can do that.”

Bel shook her head, “I’m not lying. They’re really good at keeping parts of people and animals alive while they do stuff to them. They’re not making life, they’re just using the pieces of it as material.”

Nebamon dropped her arm. “How disgusting.”

Crystal dragged herself up from the ground. “They’re kind of fascinating though, right? Can I study–”

“No,” Nebamon interjected. “Rikja, keep an eye on the trees.”

He glared at Bel and her snakes shrank back in fear. “No more dawdling, girl.”

“But my ankle–”

“Lean on Crystal if you must, but we’re rejoining our forces and leaving Satrap. If you refuse to put your limbs to use then I’ll be forced to start removing them. It will make you a lighter burden to carry.”

Bel flinched at the animosity in his eyes. She was absolutely going to die. She could only hope that her brother found a way to escape on his own.

James stumbled slightly as Ken prodded him into a wooden paddock filled with other humans. The figures were a sorry group – most sitting on logs or just lying in the dirt. They sullenly lifted their gazes when he entered, but after a few heartbeats, as if the effort was just too much for them, their heads drooped back down. Most of them were younger than him, but there were a few older people thrown into the mix. Many sported bruises and hollow, sunken eyes, and none of them look thrilled to be there.

So apparently kidnapping is just what these guys do. Good to know.

Not that learning about this group would do him any good. There wasn’t anyone he could go to about it; no proper police, no guild of adventurers, no king granting people quests to rid the land of evil. In fact, Satrap wasn’t anything like his expectations of another world. Instead, the entire continent within the Barrier was just crap.

He had kept his spirits up when he’d been locked in prison with Bel by making up stories about how one day they would escape and go on adventures. Even if Beth was clearly holding on to Bel for some ulterior purpose, it had almost felt as though they had gotten past the worst of things after the revenge-obsessed woman had rescued them.

And now the real-world kicks me in the nuts. Again.

James stumped over to a free spot on a log and sat down, weariness pulling him to the dirt even as the sky called him to the heavens. The planet itself was alien and amazing, even if the people were a letdown. From horizon to horizon – or from one side of the Barrier to the other side of the Barrier – a narrow arc of light filled the sky. It wasn’t a cloud, but rings, a full set of fat, Saturn-like rings just sitting there above him.

Of course the people here just called it the Blade of Heaven, shrugged their shoulders, and went on with their miserable existences. They did the same thing when the multiple moons swung overhead as well, bathing the night in lights of red or yellow or blue. The people could all go die in a ditch for all he cared. The rings were cool, the moons were cool, and magic was cool. If there was just some way to make all of the assholes go away, even Satrap would be cool.

Maybe.

Or maybe it was time for him to just grow up? He was probably going to be imprisoned here for–

“Pst, kid, let me tell you about the joys of this wonderful cult,” whispered a familiar voice.

“B-Beth!” he spluttered.

Her sudden arrival jolted him of his inner monologue. She wore a ragged cloak, but underneath the hood he could see a familiar grin, the pearly whites of her teeth contrasting with her dark skin.

He nearly shouted, but dialed down his volume at the last moment. “Beth,” he hissed, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m the meet and greet crew.”

He stared at her, his emotions so crowded that they’d formed a traffic jam in his head.

“Yeah, I give everyone a drink, tell them all about the amenities, give ’em a quick low down on the fancy new god these guys worship. Some doodle called the”Dark Ravager“, a real laid back sort of fellow who’s down for kidnapping and exploitation.”

James felt one of his eyes twitching.

Beth punched him in the shoulder and laughed. “Just kidding.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Just spying,” she casually replied. “Been hanging out for a few weeks, pretending to be a simpering waif, just checking the place out. I’ve managed to steal back most of my stuff and stash it in the woods when they weren’t looking. These guys are no joke though, just really gullible.”

She looked him up and down quickly. “How about you? It feels like you somehow got your core working. And where’s your sister?”

James stared at Beth for a moment. She was obviously using Bel for something, yes, but she had never mistreated them. And she was certainly better than this cult. “These guys took her somewhere else – a forward camp in the mountains, or something like that.”

Beth nodded like she’d expected that.

“Before we ran into these guys things were going well,” James continued. “We met up with a priest of Lempo in a little village. He healed my core as a favor to Bel, and – oh, yeah! – it turns out that she’s Lempo’s daughter.” He fixed her with a heavy glare. “You happen to know anything about that?”

Beth shrugged and tried to look innocent.

James snorted. “Anyway, we heard that all of Lempo’s priests were upset about it. They started working with the Points once she was freed. How about that.”

“The world’s full of different types,” Beth replied.

“That’s not even a good misdirection, Beth. You’d better get a good story going before we find Bel.” James ran his hand through his overgrown red locks, and then scratched at his incoming beard with frustration.

“Anyway, things were going well until Technis’ people attacked. Everything immediately went ass up.”

James looked at the guards who were standing by the gates to the enclosure. “Some of these guys showed up right afterwards and nabbed us. They seemed to be looking for Bel. Something tells me that you know why.”

“Huh. Actually, I don’t. Never heard of these guys before I ran into them.”

James rubbed at his beard again, making his jaw red and irritated. “So how about you? How did you end up here rather than looking for us?”

The dark-eyed woman cracked her neck. “Ran into them when I left the Labyrinthos. They seemed to be kidnapping people. Knowing you and Bel, I thought that you would wander into their clutches eventually.”

Beth gestured around at the people held like livestock. “So I stayed here to see if you two would show up. And here you are! Like I’ve always said, my plans are excellent.”