When Heroes Die

“Praesi experiments have long since proven the efficacy of the power of friendship through blood magic. It is up to the individual to determine whether their allies achieve more good by their side or within the confines of a ritual circle.”

— Dread Emperor Benevolent the First

Roland did not like being forced to dig so deep into his reserves. The sensation it brought on was always unpleasant, it felt as if his very soul was being eaten by insects under the effect of Use.

He cursed and ducked behind the broken remains of a castle wall as one of the creature's seven heads narrowly avoided gouging him. He pointed the dragon oak wand upwards and fired. A narrow, powerful ray of flame erupted from the artefact’s tip, scorching the gargantuan scaled head. He had acquired the rod during the time he spent in Mercantis, shortly after making his departure from Refuge.

This would be so much easier if Taylor was still alive and with me.

Taylor had been spirited away into Arcadia during their flight from Liesse. Roland had gone to a great deal of trouble to learn more about her fate, even so much as inquiring at Refuge after narrowly avoiding death at the hands of the Warlock. Fate had not seen fit to bless him with fair news. He had mourned then, and proceeded on under the assumption that she had fallen after their forced separation.

The creature shrieked. Roland scrambled backwards without hesitation as it slammed its head from side to side, sending more pieces of shattered masonry flying through the air. Roland did not bother to look behind him as he climbed to his feet and began scaling a ruined stairwell. The rumbling of the thirty-foot long body tearing up the castle remains could be heard from behind him as the beast continued to follow.

Roland swallowed a scream as one of the Hydra’s heads slammed through the walls of the stairwell in front of him. He fired another scorching ray at this head, only it pulled out before Roland scored a blow. Beloved Gods, he prayed as light started to spill through the now vacant opening, for the fear of flames you laid upon these creatures, I give many thanks.

His hand was already digging through the pouch on his belt, he fished out a small silver ring set with three moonstones and shoved it onto his finger. It was one of his few remaining artefacts from the time spent in Daoine and while the Callowan wizards of old did not have any formal school of sorcery, they were capable sorcerers as a rule. They had to be, to fight back the Praesi monsters of their time.

His form rippled and started to blend in with his environment. It was not true invisibility, but according to legends, Hydras were half blind and relied primarily on their heightened sense of smell. That was easily countered. He reached into his pouch once more and pulled out a fragile glass vial, removed the cork, then downed the contents without a second thought. The acrid taste on his tongue was vile, but Roland was in a great deal of trouble and if the scentless concoction he had purchased in Refuge saved his hide, then he wasn’t one to complain.

The sound of the Hydra from outside the tower abruptly cut off. He remained still as it let out a stream of sibilant hisses, then began to descend the staircase once more. He had caught wind of a tale about lost artefacts that had once belonged to the Fey Enchantress, hidden away within this ruin on the outskirts of the Brocelian forest. What he had not expected was for them to be guarded by a territorial female Hydra.

He peeked around the corner of the stairwell and watched as seven tongues darted in and out of the giant creature’s mouths. The monster looked confused. Its heads swung from side to side as it tried to determine where he had gone.

Time to search the ruins and claim my spoils.

A roguish grin adorned Roland’s face as he started to sneak from shadow to shadow deeper into the fallen fortress.

“Ask Taylor about her origins,” Laurence pressed. “It’s not the time for hesitation or idleness. Blindness cuts just as sharply as the truth does.”

Six days in this abominable wasteland and the chase was coming to a close. She could feel the weight of the attention watching over them. Not Taylor — she felt like a cool breeze on a hot summer day — but that of the Tumult. It knew that Laurence was aware of its presence and was not cowed by that knowledge. It did not concern Laurence. This was not the first time she was tasked with killing something with a sharper ear than her own. They’d gotten the measure of the beast with the first fight, so there would be no caution in how they began the second.

“Grumpy grandma is asking about where you came from again I think she’s still being judgemental do you want me to tell her off I don’t mind I think she’s being unfair about this.” The kid pouted. Lines of exhaustion marred her face, the journey had not been kind to one without a choosing.

Laurence almost slapped the kid across the face for that, although she once again pushed down the impulse. Taylor would be offended by such a gesture. It was proving challenging enough for the peace between them to be kept without the kid muddying the waters. Laurence conceded that the kind of lessons Yvette would learn at Taylor’s knee wouldn’t see her treading a dark path. Laurence’s first impression of the kid had been an uncharitable one. The kid idolized the other Chosen, and truth be told, Taylor was one of the better Chosen Laurence had met. Taylor understood that there was always an after once the battle was over, in spite of her young age. Not that this didn’t preclude conflict between the two of them, if they faced a different enemy then they would likely be going at it like two angry wet cats in a bag.

“She said that she comes from a land so far away that it might as well be another world and that it’s hard to properly explain without being here to talk herself can we drop this my voice really hurts?”

The hatchet had been taken to communications ever since Taylor’s demise. Yvette made for an unreliable intermediary and refused to repeat what was said back word for word. Laurence having suggested that Taylor’s soul was being controlled by the Tumult, and it would be a kindness to free her, had unfortunately riled Yvette up more than a little. Villains using necromancy upon fallen enemies could be counted as more likely than the odds of a hero achieving apotheosis.

“I don’t need to know the sum of her life,” Laurence replied bluntly. “It’s rare for a hero to achieve godhood. Doesn’t mean it never happens.”

The crunch of salt underfoot was the only sound to break the silence between spoken words.

Laurence did not have as long a view as Tariq did, but she was still canny in her own way. One could not live to her age without learning to have an eye for detail. They might have lost the first encounter badly, but now it was time for them to claw their way back up. Evil always wins at the start, but Good owned the ending.

“Then I don’t understand what you want to know you act like Taylor has some dark secret that must be explained but why do we need to know about her life when we are going to be fighting a Horned Lord it’s not like it helps us kill Ratlings.”

“Taylor comes from a land with different stories. We’re facing a Horned Lord. Fighting it without knowing the lay of the stories is a sure way to die.”

The creature may have bested them in their last battle, but now Laurence knew what to expect. The story was set up for Taylor to rise and offer salvation at the darkest hour. The fire had burned out, the time was ripe for her to rise from the ashes. Laurence knew better than most that now was the time that they should make haste towards where the Tumult laired in order to capitalize on the tale. What was not clear was whether Taylor’s origins clouded the shape of the story. Laurence would have liked to have discussed the plan with Taylor, unfortunately, telling her would weaken the weight of it.

There would be plenty of spirited argument once the Ratling died. That was expected. The three of them could then go on to kill another foe as a means to resolve the tension afterwards.

“The Saint wants to know about what kind of heroes and villains you had in your old homeland because she wants to understand how prepared you are for fighting against a Horned Lord I think it's obvious that you know enough but it seems her opinion is different oh no it seems more Ratlings are coming.”

“That wasn’t what I said, kid.”

Laurence resisted the urge to slap the kid once more. Raising her palm against a hero of compassion’s charge was a sure way to cause a break in their group. Regardless, if this discussion concluded before the sun set, then Laurence’s sword would start speaking.

Roland skulked from shadow to shadow as he made his way through the abandoned castle. He carefully poked the floor ahead of him with a rotting length of wood he had broken off from a table in one of the abandoned dining halls. The tiles below him were crumbling. It would not do for him to injure himself and fall into one of the rooms below.

He put his foot forward after satisfying himself that his next step would not be his last, and slowly made his way across the narrow passage to the stairwell leading to the next floor up. He had come into possession of a map of the fortress before his arrival. It didn’t detail the full lay of the place, but anything of value would be hidden away in the dusty corners that hadn’t been put to ink.

Halfway up the stairs and he found his progress stalled. He made a hasty retreat as green growths of wood began to sprout between the cracks in the walls. It seemed as if someone had left traps behind for anyone curious enough to investigate these ruins. Still, it wasn’t outside his expectations. He reached towards his dragon oak rod once more and fired off two beams at the encroaching wood.

To Roland’s disappointment, it was no use. The flames sputtered against the wood, only to peter out. Going to have to be another concoction.

He reached into his coat and pressed his thumb onto the correct rune for the pocket dimension to present him with his collection of alchemical sundries. The coat had been a recent acquisition, taken from the possession of a corrupt Proceran magistrate. The man used it to hide the bribes he accepted for the unfair application of justice. Roland withdrew a clay ball labelled with many warnings, carefully aimed, and then tossed it at the approaching growth.

Acidic yellow fumes billowed forth as the clay ball broke against the wood. Roland took several steps backwards, then reluctantly reached for the small orb within himself that was the sorcery that’d once belonged to the Warlock. With hardly any effort at all, he shaped a barrier between himself and the mist that cordoned off half of the lower half of the stairwell. A mere sliver had been confiscated from the Warlock, only that which had been used to contain Taylor at the time. Would that he had been able to take more.

It was another half hour before the noxious fumes had faded. The stone stairs above had been scoured clean, the detritus of ages gone in the briefest of spans. Roland finished filling his belly and made his way onto the top floor. It was not long until he found a cache of long abandoned artefacts stowed away behind a sealed door.

He finished divesting the vault of its contents — multiple enchanted rings, three rods and a veritable trove of miscellaneous artefacts — before beginning his descent once more. Unfortunately, all but one of the many tomes contained within the vault had long since crumbled to dust. That one book looked to contain a first-hand magical treatise written by Madeline de Jolicoeur, and Roland would examine it further once he had sought a place to safely shelter.

Finally making his exit from the fortress, Roland was greeted by a long, menacing, hiss.

Sweat trickled Roland’s brow as he dodged behind a pillar, narrowly avoiding an acidic projectile spat at him by the Hydra. In retrospect, looting the beast’s lair before he ensured that it was dead hadn’t been one of his brightest ideas. Fortunately, he had not been entirely bereft of his wits. It was time to close the jaws of his trap. His fingers began inching towards another artefact from his trove. The polished rod of ivory he’d picked up in Helike, imbued with one of their war spells, found its way firmly into his palm.

He leaned around the pillar and let loose the sorcery contained within the wand. A long streak of snow-white frost lashed out forward, smashing against one of the beast’s heads. It reared back to strike at him once more, and he beat a hasty retreat further into the fortress.

The beast trailed behind him, barely fitting its girth inside the ruined building. Now was the moment he took advantage of this building’s state of disrepair. He reached into his pockets once more and pulled out a rod — while divesting himself of the current one — and a pair of golden rimmed spectacles. The spectacles were a niche artefact that he had come into possession of while in Mercantis. They were of Praesi make and highlighted points of structural weakness at a glance for any would-be architect. Their previous owner was an architect who had put them to nefarious ends. He would have made use of them sooner were it not for how the enchantment on them was fading and could not be easily replaced.

Roland continued to sprint further away from the Hydra as he balanced the spectacles precariously on his nose, pressed his thumb against the activation rune, then ducked abruptly as another head hurtled towards him at speed. It collided with the wall behind him. He let out a hacking cough as clouds of dust were thrown loose. Two more gobs of acid were spat towards him. His toes clenched involuntarily in pain as the burning substance splashed loosely on his right leg.

Roland’s eyes darted over the large entrance hall. Significant portions of the structure were illuminated in red under the auspices of the artefact. His wrist flicked out and the end of the fluted wand pointed at the first target. A wreath of blinding light exploded from the end of it, before the support pillar he had aimed at crumbled. The floor above them groaned ominously. His arm extended twice more before. The groan had risen to a roar.

Roland did not bother to look behind him, instead he limped only a few steps further, before vaulting out of a shattered window. He winced as glass remains dug into his skin. He turned to review the fruits of his labour, only to be met with the gaze of fourteen furious eyes glaring down at him from above. To his misfortune, it appeared the weight of a falling fortress was not enough to subdue his foe. His fingers twitched nervously. Hands already digging in his pockets, the dark-haired man searched for an appropriate counter when a voice rang out.

“Shine.”

This creature, Laurence de Montfort mused, was as swift as that woman and twice as canny.

There was no purpose to trading words with the beast. It reached over with a claw and knocked against one of the many petrified trees littering the wasteland five times. It heralded the beginnings of a new song. To its misfortune, Laurence had blocked her own ears with cloth. Laurence sprinted towards the beast, her entire withered frame coiling to put the full weight behind the blow at the end.

Its claws swung towards her ponderously. She did not try to Listen this time, instead she relied solely on her own skill with the blade. She ducked the blow, then made to strike at the knuckles passing on the other side. Another thunderous step as the beast tried to squash her underfoot. She was already in the air, leaping forward, and aiming to place a blow against its leg.

The beast took two steps backwards, avoiding the blow. The rhythm of its movements seemed dissonant compared to when she had first taken this beast’s measure. Its single red eye was clouded over, the other nothing more than a wounded hole. The beast’s mind was consumed by hunger. Laurence angled her descent to land within its blind spot. She fully intended on taking advantage of its weakness.

Smaller Ratlings approached the battlefield, but Laurence paid them no heed. The kid could handle them just fine. A flash of light and a score of them were gone.

Landing, Laurence moved with purpose towards the beast. The creature was fast, its tail came hurtling towards her. Laurence lashed out with her blade.

The beast let out a shriek as its tail split in two. There was a thunderous crash somewhere in the distance as the end of the tail slammed into parts of a petrified tree. It took two enormous steps back, but Laurence refused to be baited. If she moved too far from Yvette, then she would be unable to defend her charge. Laurence would ensure that she would be the one to pay the price for victory if a toll was to be paid. The kid had a fair chance of inheriting her mother’s Name in the years to come, and it was better to pass the torch to future generations than holding on to dying flames.

Blade pointed down, Laurence waited for the beast to make its next move. It darted forwards with its claws at the ready, but the cadence of its movements was even more unbalanced with the loss of its tail. Laurence leaped up, taking a swipe towards its throat.

This was her chance to end the beast, she felt the word forming on her shrivelled lips.

Only for the monster to rear back, then take her from behind with the swoop of a claw. She was sent crashing into a fossilized tree.

The beast’s sole red eye had cleared.

“Laurence, no!”

She let out a strangled wheeze and tried to rise, but found that her legs would not answer her.

Then Taylor coalesced, seemingly out of naught but the wind.

The return towards Aequitan would be short and pleasant, in contrast to the unpleasantness that had come before. The encounter with the Peregrine had come at the most opportune moment, saving him from an untimely demise. The kindly old man had spared him a few words of advice, before departing along the road towards the Red Snake Wall. Roland wished him fair tidings, wherever his feet ended up taking him.

Lit torches beckoned to him in the distance, marking the village where he planned to spend the night. The road was mostly empty this late in the afternoon, and his legs protested the unfair treatment he had put them under.

A rustle to his east caught his attention. His head turned to the right as his pace slowed to a crawl, and he saw a red haired woman in a dishevelled looking jacket sprinting towards him along the fork in the road.

“Run, there’s a bloody bear after me!” she exclaimed.

Pulling his dragon oak rod out of his pickets, Roland’s eyebrows rose as a haggard looking brown bear followed the woman only a few heartbeats later. Three scorching beams smashed into its frame. The beast let out an angry roar as its fur caught light. It appeared that the animal would be a bit more trouble than he anticipated. He divested himself of his current rod while reaching into his pockets once more, then cautiously aimed the spiralled ash wand that he pulled forth. A long streak of chittering lightning lashed out forward, slamming into the bear.

Staggering back, the bear let out a pained growl. Two more blasts from the fragile artefact and the creature crumpled to the ground.

“Oh hero,” she panted from his left, “thank you for your rescue from that foul monster.”

This roadside encounter looked to be shaping itself into something Taylor would have referred to as complete bullshit. The words would have been muttered under her breath in a manner that suggested she was not aware of what she was doing, but the implication remained.

“I do not believe we are acquainted.”

“Destiny brought us together,” she raised a palm to her forehead and gasped. “For your lover sent me to deliver a letter into your waiting palms.”

“You are mistaken. I presume you have me confused with someone else.”

“It is most certainly you and not I that is mistaken,” she grinned at him, “am I correct in assuming that your name is Roland?”

He nodded and was about to respond when she continued to talk.

“The priestess, your one true love, is most wroth with you for having forgotten about her.” the girl moved in closer and slapped him across the face. “She implored upon me both to deliver this correspondence to you and to see you safeguarded back to Beaumarais.”

Roland blinked in surprise from the slap. His sense of trepidation grew with every word that she uttered.

“I trust that you will handle this matter with the degree of delicateness that it truly deserves.”

The woman reached into her coat and withdrew a letter in a red sheaf.