Runelords 26.1 - Disappointing News

The evening was becoming late as Shadliss came unconcernedly home to Aldern’s house. Romeo was perched comfortably on her shoulder, hiding under her parasol to avoid the spitting, endless seasonal rain. Pulling a key out of her handbag, she slid it into the lock and twisted it about. A subtle change caught her notice, and she frowned: the door had already been unlocked. She certainly hadn’t left it that way. Her stomach sank as she considered the worst, but she hoped for the best as she twisted the knob and let herself in, silently praying that it just meant that the house’s master had returned. Romeo shifted about uncomfortably, agitated by her concern.
Lights were indeed lit indoors and the girl took it as a good sign, hoping that thieves wouldn’t have left lamps on. Cautiously, she put down her wet parasol and walked slowly down the hall, leaving her shoes on when normally she would have respectfully removed them by the door. “Hello?” she asked, not loudly and getting no reply in response. There was no one in the foyer, no one in the dining room or kitchen. Carefully, she peeked into the ground floor sitting room; Romeo puffed up his feathers, and Shadliss could intuitively understand him signal, Someone’s here. On the couch. She could see a foot hanging off the edge, and let some of her anxiety leave: a burglar certainly wouldn’t have fallen asleep on a couch. Taking a few confident steps into the room, she leaned over the top of the couch, expecting to see one of the familiar faces who had left a few weeks ago. What she saw, however, wasn’t what she expected. The shock of seeing a large, man-like cat, draped in luxuriant, loose-fitting clothes and sprawled sleeping across the furniture, caused her to scream as she jumped backwards. Eyeing the fireplace to her right, she lunged over and grabbed a fire poker, as her yells startled the aelurian awake, yelling himself. 
His caterwaul resolved itself into a grin and bright greeting as he himself realized what was going on, “Aaaaaaughhh-ello!” His whiskers twitched with good humour as he commented, “We were wondering when you’d get home! How have you been?” He grinned and asked in his sing-song voice, “Did’ja miiiiiss us~?”
“Get out!” she yelled, taking a swing at him with the iron rod, sending Romeo flapping up into the air. Khyrralien dodged backwards lithely onto his feet, avoiding the strike. “Get out get out get out!!” she yelled frantically, swinging with each repetition of the command.
“Nooo!” Khyr moaned, still grinning, avoiding each swing of the poker. “Please don’t skewer me, Shady! We’re supposed to be friends, remember?” She neither paused nor relented, pointedly steering him towards the door with her flailing. A serious note entered his voice, if not his expression, as he scolded lightly, “You know, Foxy is not going to appreciate it if he comes down to find you’ve gotten blood all over his rug, Girly.” He took a hop backwards to avoid her attack, continuing with an exaggerated pout, “And this is really no way to welcome us home. I’m gonna have to tell Virgy how rude you’ve been.”
Suddenly two figures dashed into the room: Luna, followed shortly after by Aldern. Both had looks of shock and confusion on their faces, but it took neither of them any time to realize what was going on. “Shadliss stop!!” Luna shouted, holding out her hands and trying to restore order. “Shadliss!” The girl checked her swing and paused, looking at the two recognizable newcomers. Luna continued, “Shadliss it’s ok! It’s ok, it’s us!”
“What?!” she exclaimed loudly with disbelief.
“It’s us! That’s Khyrralien!” Luna explained quickly. “We got back today! We teleported in! Please...please put the poker down.” Shadliss looked between the three of them with some suspicion, but eventually lowered the implement. Luna exhaled with relief, “Yes. Thank you. Good. I’m sorry. We...should have left a note or something.”
“Yeah, maybe!!” Shadliss exclaimed. Aldern, deciding that things were under control, turned and excused himself silently, shaking his head slightly and returning to his business. 
Luna gestured out of the room, “Let’s...let’s go somewhere else and talk. Calm down a bit.” She gave a look towards Khyr before adding, “Girl talk.” The aelurian gave a mocking pout as Luna led Shadliss out and up to the room they had been sharing. 
Walking in, both girls perched on their beds opposite each other. Shadliss closed her eyes, folded her hands primly and exhaled a measured breath, before throwing her hands up and groaning loudly, “Auugh!! Was he always a cat?!”
“No,” Luna said snidely, rolling her eyes. “He was a deer.”
“He’s such a creep!! What is this, even more stupid magic?!” she exclaimed. “How’d this happen?”
Luna rubbed her eyes and sighed before saying, “Well...it is a long and stupid story, and...and it’s bad.” She seemed to deflate as she added, “It’s...it’s just bad.” 
The sombre response gave Shadliss pause. “...What? It’s a hard spell to undo?”
“It’s not a spell, it’s something else entirely,” Luna said, shaking her head. “It’s not just what he looks like either. He’s an actual aelurian now. Not a fey at all, just a mortal aelurian.” 
Shadliss raised an eyebrow, then shook her head dismissively, “I don’t get it.”
“It’s...ugh. How was your stay? Everything go well?”
Off-guard by the sudden topic switch, Shadliss looked taken aback, “Uhh...yeah?”
“No one tried to break in or anything? No murders?”
“...No?”
“That’s good. I’m glad. Good.” Shadliss looked at her strangely, goading her to explain herself. With a sigh, Luna relented, “I’ll start at the beginning.” With that, Luna began to recount the adventures that they had experienced since leaving Medinipur: going to Turtleback, learning about the lamia and her ogre army, saving the Black Arrows, stopping the flood and taking back the fort. She muttered mostly to herself about there being a swamp too, but it was stupid and unrelated and she blamed Khyr for that. Shadliss listened to this with the grain of cynical salt she added to all of the stories she heard from adventurers, and when Luna finished, asserted that this had nothing to do with Khyrralien being a cat. Luna nodded and explained, “Well, when we went to the reservoir, and stopped the ogres and chased Koume away...we found what she had been experimenting on. A...capsule, I guess. A canister big enough to hold a horse, sitting on the lakebed, filled with an extremely volatile magical reagent. Really old, probably hidden and forgotten there ages ago. But whatever was inside it...it’s extremely powerful. Probably priceless too. Koume tried to break the canister and when it leaked out, it turned into some sort of...creature, almost? An elemental. A massive elemental of pure abjurant arcana. It would have spread, and probably killed the town. Certainly would have broke the dam, at least. We stopped it, put it back in the jar, but…” Luna shook her head, obviously not even believing herself as she said, “But it made a god mad, that the others were meddling with it; it was that powerful. So a god manifested. And it turned them into mortals, because he was upset that they weren’t where they were supposed to be.”
Shadliss blinked slowly before asking dryly, “...Aaaand, this god, wasn’t mad at you?”
“Well, I’m not an extraplanar, like they...were,” she said. “He changed them, and gave them permission to meddle all they wanted.”
“A god turned them into cats,” Shadliss said bluntly, underscoring the ludicrous nature of the situation.
“Only Khyr is an aelurian,” Luna said with a conceding expression. “The other two are humans. Eamon basically looks the same, just younger. About your age, I guess. Without the wings. And Virgil…” Luna shook her head as she said, “He’s a fifty-year-old Cafeyetan man now. For whatever reason.” 
“...You’ve been taking story lessons from Virgil,” the girl said with an eyeroll.
Luna pursed her lips, hidden behind a scarf, “I know it sounds stupid. I wouldn’t believe it either. I was!...well, maybe not aethist, but agnostic, certainly! And I saw Tessirade! Now I have to live with that.” Under her breath, she added, “Completely redefine my thoughts on religion…”
“And, this isn’t just some elaborate prank?” Shadliss pressed, still unbelieving. “They’re just fooling with you?”
Luna considered that, but shook her head with a hint of almost sadness, “Tessirade wasn’t an illusion. That’s...not something that could be faked. And the others...It’s not a joke. I watched them all lose...everything, I guess. They lost their immortality, and lives, and got left on a lakeside in the wilderness. They’re not joking.” She shook her head once more, “They’re dealing with it, I guess, but it’s not like we’ve got time to stop and do anything about it.”
“What do you mean?”
Sighing, aware of the magnitude of what she was about to say, Luna explained, “...The lamia who was marshalling the ogres got away. We didn’t stop her. She told us that her sister in Medinipur, the one who had been orchestrating the murders, had also gotten away. We didn’t stop her at all. And she has another sister: a third sister. Who is leading an army. Towards Sandpoint.”
At the final declaration, Shadliss’ eyes widened. “...What…?”
“We don’t know why,” Luna said, wringing her hands and looking down. “We don’t know why, but if she wasn’t lying, they’ll be there in eleven days.”
The impact of the statement shocked her, and it took her a minute to compose her thoughts. Romeo sat beside her, looking up with concern as she held her hand to her mouth. Eventually she whispered, “...What about everyone in the town…?”
“We’ll...get everyone out. Or stop the lamia. Or...something,” Luna said, obviously unsure of herself. “We have to. We’re going to. We will do something.” She clenched her hands, trying to convince herself more than the other woman.
“...Is...this normal?” Shadliss asked, voice faint, expression far away. "Does this much danger happen everywhere?" 
Clenching harder, Luna said, “No. I can’t...can’t believe that it is. This can't be normal. All of this, all of the death in Sandpoint, Medinipur, Turtleback...it’s one man. One man is commanding the lamias. One man is doing all of this.”
A bark of laughter from Shadliss interrupted her, exclaiming with a pained joke, “Isn’t it always?!” 
Luna gave her a sad grin, continuing, “Yeah. Just him. When he's stopped, everything will be normal again." Luna said with a firm voice, "We’ll protect Sandpoint.” Again, it seemed that she was trying to convince herself more than Shadliss. 
Shadliss hugged her arms tightly, overwhelmed to the edge of tears. Luna sat with her a while longer, but hung her head; she had little else to say. 
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Virgil and Eamon returned a while later, both looking much better from their excursion to the barber. Shaved, trimmed and, in Virgil’s case, dyed, they went back to Aldern’s house; Virgil’s quiet behaviour on the way back matched the awkward avoidance he had shown before leaving. Upon entering the house and drying the rain from their clothes and hair, he wordlessly began to slowly pick his way through the home, looking in rooms with obviously no rush. 
Eventually, he made his way to the second floor room used by Luna and Shadliss. The door was closed, and he sighed heavily as he stared at it. Long minutes ticked by before he managed to lift his hand and knock on the door. Shadliss’ voice, hoarse from tears, replied, “Yes.”
Virgil hesitated for a second, “...Hey…” Silence filled the hallway as neither person said anything. Steeling himself again, he asked the closed door, “...I...guess Luna told you...about what happened…”
“...Yeah…” was her eventual reply.
Awkward and uncertain, Virgil fiddled with his fingers before asking, “...Can I come in?”
“...Yeah…” With her bare reply, he moved his hand onto the doorknob, taking one last slow breath before opening the door. Inside, Luna was nowhere to be seen, but Shadliss was sitting huddled on her bed. Blankets had been pulled up and over her knees and head, and her eyes peeked out over the top of a pillow that she hugged tightly. Pressed up on the side of her leg was Romeo, who nested in the pile formed by the edges of the blankets; he looked between his master and the newcomer, making small noises and fluffing his feathers. The other two paid no mind to the iron raven, however; Virgil looked towards Shadliss, who watched him enter the doorway before turning away and burying her face in the pillow. The man seemed to buckle slightly in his resolve and he slouched back to lean on the doorframe, centered half in and half out of the room, crossing his arms about his chest and looking at the floor. There was a heavy silence, broken only by the soft croaks of the raven. Eventually, it was Shadliss who spoke, voice thick and quiet, “How can Sandpoint be under attack again…?”
Virgil replied with a hint of steel in his voice, “We didn’t know who was in charge of the monsters. Now we do. They’re probably going to Sandpoint for something in the ruins under the town. It doesn't matter. We’re going to protect Sandpoint, stop all the lamias, and stop the man in charge. We didn’t let them destroy Turtleback. We won’t let them take Sandpoint either.”
“This just follows you everywhere, doesn’t it?” she asked, never looking up. “All this...death, this danger. It’s just constant for you. It never goes away.”
The man froze for a short second before replying, “...It does, in any one place. There’s always a root to a problem, and when you pull it out, the problems stop. When we stop the lamias’ master, it will end.” His grip on his arms tightened almost imperceptibly, “...But, yeah. Yeah, there are always problems somewhere. Someone’s always in danger. We’ll save Sandpoint, but there will be something new somewhere else. So...yeah. I keep moving.”
“All the people of Sandpoint…” she said quietly, voice full of pain.
“We’ll do something,” he promised. “We’ll stop the army, or take what they want away, or get everyone out of town. There’s time. We don’t even know if the problem is that big, or if there’s an army at all; it’s just what the lamia said. We’ll stop it.” He looked up towards her, adding, “We will.” She kept herself buried in the bedding. Eventually, his gaze dropped again. When she said nothing further, he muttered, “We will protect Sandpoint…” With a final glance towards her, he bowed his head apologetically, and stepped out into the hallway, absently closing the door behind him but leaving it ajar. Turning about, he pressed his back into the wall beside her door and brought his hand to his face, placing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. He stood there like that for what felt like an age, before a crowing sound drew his attention towards the floor. Romeo stood, head sticking out through the crack in the door, staring up at the man judgementally. He crowed again, and Virgil gave him a grin that could only be described as sorrowful. “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you anymore.” Romeo cawed and fluffed his feathers, but Virgil shook his head, “I really don’t know what you’re saying. Heh,” he gave a sad, single chuckle, “they took my wings and my hearing, I guess, didn’t they? I’m sorry.” He motioned his head back towards the room, “You watch over her, ok? She needs you.” Romeo puffed himself up, glaring, and Virgil still grinned, “I’m not saying you weren’t! Just...ya. I’m sorry.” He shook his head, pushing himself away from the wall. “I’m sorry.” With that, he walked away down the hall, eyes downcast. Romeo watched him go, gave another soft croak, and retreated into the room again.
As Virgil made his way down the stairs and through the main hallway, he paused as his eyes caught sight of his reflection in a decorative mirror. He flinched at his own gaze, stalling his pace. He shook his head and kept walking, though he changed his direction. As he reached the front door, he stopped; with quick, methodical precision, he pulled off his ring, his amulet, his belt and weaponry, everything on him that held magic within it or might otherwise hold value, and left them in a pile on the decorative shelf that sat nearby. Without a word, he grabbed the jacket he had left by the door and left, stepping out into the rain which fell in a consistent, endless downpour. He walked.
Aimlessly and thoughtlessly, he walked up and down roads with his head down, milling his way through the mostly-quiet night-time streets emptied by the rain, moving inexorably towards the Underbridge and the darker, less savoury part of town. As he went, he began to subtly increase his speed, moving from a stroll to a jog to a run. He dashed at full tilt, drawing looks and the odd shout of concern from the people he passed by in a blur. Pushing other thoughts from his head, he focused on the pounding of his heart, the breath in his lungs, and the slowly mounting ache in his legs and body, losing himself in the experience of running. Even as the pain mounted and he struggled for breath, he pushed himself further, struggling to see how fast he could go, and for how far, before his legs buckled. At first, he stumbled slightly, staggering for a few meters before pushing himself to run again, but the longer he went, the shorter the time passed between each of his forced rests. He was certainly in good shape, especially considering the age he looked to be, but even he couldn’t keep up his harsh pace forever. The dark of night had long fallen over Medinipur when Virgil finally collapsed to his knees on the wet cobblestone. Struggling to breathe and shaking from the exertion, he pushed himself further still, dragging himself to his feet again and staggering forwards, though he only made it to a nearby alley, abandoned save for some rats that scurried away at the intrusion, before he couldn’t move any further. Trying to stabilize himself with a wall, he slipped as he sank to the ground once more. Slouching over, he shivered and panted from his effort. Drenched from the still-pouring rain, he lay heavily against the building. He chuckled humourlessly to himself through his irregular breathing as he drifted into unconsciousness. 
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When Virgil’s eyes fluttered open, he took a moment to come to as his surroundings resolved themselves into a dirty, wet alleyway. Rats scattered as he stirred and he shuddered as he picked himself up, soaked and chilled through. He chided himself wearily as he shakily and stiffly got up: the last thing he needed was to get a cold right now, but that’s probably what he deserved after what he’d done. Steadying himself with the wall, he walked back out towards the road. It didn’t seem to be raining anymore, but it was more likely that the wind had settled somewhat, leaving this place sheltered by the looming ruinous structure that covered much of the city’s slums. As he walked out onto the road, he looked about blankly, wondering how he had gotten to wherever he was now. The broken bridge blotted out the sky, making it difficult to even tell what time it was. Shaking his head and walking unevenly down the street, making his way back towards Aldern's house, he carried on unnoticed by anyone: just another addled homeless man wandering the undercity.
 
Category:Rise of the Runelords