Chambers of Detachment

District of Guidance, Fifth Ring

The scent of herbs and perfumes lay heavy in the air. Tharia took a deep breath and tried to suppress the resulting cough. What an odd place this was. Annabelle stood outside the building. She had been quiet and withdrawn ever since the attack. The entrance to the building consisted of a massive room that had been filled to the brim with plants, milks, and soaps. Tharia recognized some of them, the Drudenfuss was meant to wash away evil spirits and the Hyssop protected against the spirits of winter. This was a so-called chamber of detachment, after liberating a lot of one’s money, you’d pick the choice of herbs and then wash your guilt away in the ritual baths in the back. She took another look around and chuckled. No way could she pay for all of them. She wasn’t alone. The young knight stood in front of her, along with a group of people.

“We’re survivors of various communities. Some here even survived the false star”, she heard the young man say. The thick Talaron Dialect was quite noticeable and marked him as a country boy.

“My name Is Ravid Liektensein”, the boy introduced himself and then pointed towards the others, giving names and purpose in turn. It was a sorry lot, mostly consisting of former stable hands, maids and servants. They looked starved and broken and most of them had barely reached adulthood. Even Ravid still had fluff for a beard. Tharia took another look at the neck of the boy. She felt bad for what had happened. Annabelle was her responsibility. The thought gave her pause, she had no idea when that had happened – but it had.

“I’m sorry”, she said and let her glance linger on a young boy that hid beneath a table with eyes wide from fear.

“It’s alright. We’ve all seen what happens to the blessed sooner or later”, Ravid said. There wasn’t that big of an age difference between them, less than three years by her estimate, but the boy in armor seemed dreadfully naive. He led strangers into his home and one of which had tried to kill him too. Or perhaps it was something different from naive – Desperation, perchance?

“What are the blessed? I’ve never heard it used that way”, Tharia said while brushing a hand through her short hair.

Ravid looked at her as if she had just declared that carriages were holy messenger pigeons. He blinked and then suddenly puffed himself up to appear bigger than he was. It was ridiculous how much pride he took out of knowing something she didn’t.

“Those blessed by the Dreamreaper. Sometimes people who die come back in his employ. The price for their second chance at life is a slow descent into a murderous rampage”, Ravid said with a solemn expression that couldn’t hide the pride underneath, “Tell you what, you should probably part ways. You’ll never know when she loses it completely. Come to us. We can always use more hands that can fight”

Tharia raised her eyebrows and looked towards Annabelle standing outside. The silver-haired woman showed her expressionless face as rain once more poured down. She’d been drenched by now and still did not come in. Tharia rubbed her nose. Standing for this long hurt a lot. After the intense healing earlier, her spark had weakened considerably. Still, she didn’t trust the facade this boy put up. No one this naive survived until now.

“Dreamreaper, eh? Guess we got one more target on our list. Alright, we’ve brought you safely home to your folks. It’s about time we gain some distance”

Tharia nodded towards Ravid and his people and then headed out. She had barely reached the door when a hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder. Now it was her turn to shoot an angry glare of her shoulder that had Ravid very quickly and abruptly pull back his hand.

“W-wait. We n-need help”, Ravid stuttered, then motioned towards the back of the room and said “Open it. Show them”

A small boy ran towards a door to the side. He had to jump to reach the doorknob but finally pulled it open. There were no bathing implements there but rather tools of war. Line by line there stood armors in various sizes, weapons, military-issue black powder pouches and so much more. The Crest of the Rose Order was on all of these.

“We’re willing to trade with you. Everything inside our Zeughaus is yours. We just ask that you free some friends of ours or at least confirm... their... deaths”, Ravid said with his voice trailing off in the end.

Tharia let her eyes wander once more. Desperation it was. It would be dreadfully easy to kill this boy right here and take everything anyway. None of the others were armed. Gods be cursed, half of them had wet themselves on their approach. She returned her gaze towards the rookie knight, a quiet music rang in her ears that she couldn’t quite locate where it came from. She shook it off, then focussed on the knight.

“Ask your friends of the order. Unless you just stole that armor”, she remarked and pointed towards the stylized Rose on the chestpiece.

“It’s not stolen”, the Boy suddenly said with intensity in his voice and a flame in his eyes.

“I’m a knight of the order. The last one, really. Everyone else was killed or turned by Lord Farian”

Tharia listened quietly and then turned around again, not bothering to answer. Sure, they both needed armor and she needed new black powder, but this was none of their business and she didn’t care at all how many folks the boy had lost. She left the building and stepped out into the rain. Yet Annabelle signaled her with her left hand.

“Take it”, she whispered.

Tharia raised her eyebrows in reply.

“Farian”, is all that Annabelle said after that. Tharia felt anger flare up inside of her. Sometimes her friend could be curt to the point of absurdity. Yet she had somehow gotten the gist of it. Farian, it was upon that name that Annabelle suddenly asked her to agree. So it stood to reason that her Annie had business with this man.

“One of those days I’ll buy you a book with lots of words in it. You don’t have to read it, but maybe you can gaze upon complete sentences and bask in their glory”, Tharia said with exasperation, then turned around yet again, “Alright boy. We’ll bite under one condition: We armor up before we head out”

Ravid quickly nodded, “That seems fair”

Tharia couldn’t believe how quickly he agreed and brought her hand to her face, “You Talaron Country-Boys really are a guild of your own. What guarantee do you have that we won’t just take your things and never show up again?”

The boy in armor opened up his mouth, closed it again and then gave his best impression of a fish out of water by doing it a few more times.

“T-then... please give us a guarantee”, he said with a sudden shiver. This really was too much. Tharia sighed and then reached for her hand. She felt the cold metal of the Sigil Ring and pulled it off her finger. Almost immediately she felt strangely naked. Still, she wrapped her hands around the ring and handed it to Ravid.

“This will suffice. If you see what it is, you’ll know I will come back for it”

The blonde man quickly grabbed the ring and then held it up against the light. His face suddenly paled and he started to make various gestures to ward off evil spirits. Tharia leaned in with the most innocent of smiles, pursed her lips and then puffed a bit of air against his cheek.

“You’ve got a deal with a Verholden”, she said and the young man suddenly collapsed onto a chair with sweat on his face and a look of pure terror. Tharia heard a cough behind her.

“That was uncalled for, Fairy”

Tharia shrugged her shoulders and then headed for the Armory, Zeughaus, the boy had called it. Probably more of that Talaron rural dialect.

“It was too much fun, sorry. Besides, we do this and I’ll have proven that my family isn’t all demons”

“Yeah, no”, Annabelle said with a flat tone. A look towards the thoroughly shocked amateur knight confirmed the goddess’ conjecture. Tharia shrugged her shoulders yet again with an apathetic ‘Eh’. The armory waited and with it more of her beloved black powder. The thunder would roar again.

Path to cooperation

District of Guidance, Fifth Ring

Annabelle couldn’t help but frown at the irony of the road they were on. After their short encounter in the Chamber of Detachment, they were back on the temple bridge and soon reached the path to cooperation. It was once meant to symbolize how humans and the divine could work together. Now it was a monument to failure.

Her short-haired friend had been talking for a while. She didn’t need to hear all the details but simply having her near and hearing her voice wasn’t too bad a feeling. Annabelle glanced over her friend. They had both opted for leather armor. Tharia’s was a bit lighter while hers was more sturdy but also more cumbersome. Her limited stamina quickly reached its limits as a result but each break they took was shorter than the one before. She was getting there, even though her divine body shouldered most of that burden. Tharia still had the long axe but had also picked up a rapier. While lost in thought, she suddenly heard Tharia’s voice, it was shrill and full of panic.

“Help me!”

She took a quick look around and saw Tharia standing right next to her with a rather annoyed expression.

“I beg you, I love you”, the voice shouted, yet it didn’t come from her friend. Not far off, a human body hung from a lantern. The rope of the lynch mob disappeared underneath a white shawl in the form of an executioners mask. Without much thought, Annabelle summoned one of the war fans, gave it a bit of rope and began rotating her wrist. Once she had gained enough speed, she twisted her torso to the side and then took aim. Like before, she simply let go of the weapon. The blunt end punched right through the shawl. It quickly burst into flames after, revealing a dried up corpse underneath.

“These things can fuck right off”, Tharia groaned as they both watched it burn down the body as well. Tharia then looked in her direction and planted a finger against her sternum.

“But it got your attention. Look, you don’t have to talk to me. That’s alright, I do enough of that for both of us. But we’d be stupid to not clear these things up. So, two questions here. Who is this Farian and did you really die at some point?”

Annabelle turned around. She didn’t want those memories. Yet Tharia was right. Letting this simmer was about as stupid as can be.

“Escerchau Farian was one of the King’s confidants. It’s probably the essence I feel. And the Dreamreaper... exists. It’s a locked away fragment of the old god Abyss, supposedly”

“So if this Dreamreaper exists, that means you actually died at some point?”

The goddess shook her head, “No one returns. It’s more last second prevention”

Tharia suddenly accelerated with her eyebrows raised, “You opened the gates. It probably broke free and somehow brought you back from the edge of death – as it did to others”

Annabelle nodded. The thought was dreadful. Not just the part about being made a puppet, but even more she feared the emotions that came over her during those sudden outbursts. Especially how much they centered around the one thing that still held meaning for her. Part of her wondered if this was the reason the Muse hadn’t been able to manipulate her as easily as he did with Tharia.

Her friend suddenly accelerated and then stopped in front of her and held her arms aside. Standing like this, she waited until the goddess came into range and simply gave her a hug. The smile on her face was radiant and infectious her as well. She felt her own lips curl into a subtle smile. Tharia nodded.

“This is good, Annie. What’s a little Dreamreaper in a city of monsters going to do? We stomp down this Farian, get you back into power. Then we make a small detour to this Dreamreaper and will have a discussion that ends with a dead monster”

Annabelle's mind wandered towards Lord Farian. Back before it had all gone bad, the man was a pompous schemer. She remembered a short and overly stout man that could barely move. Even before all of this, the man had been creepy but he had never been a fighter. She thought back to Tharia’s words. It’d be nice if things were that simple. Dismember, shatter and flail indeed. Sensing the surge of another outburst, she quickly pushed Tharia away from her.

“It’s starting”

Her friend gave her a confused look before realization dawned. She then nodded and took another step back. This time around, Annabelle concentrated on the feelings themselves. They felt like black tendrils reaching into her mind from a place deep within her subconscious. The Dreamreaper made sense to her. The detached memories had been caused by her mind already unraveling so close to death. It was only natural that they didn’t feel like her own.

She imagined herself tearing those tendrils apart, yet the thought of violence only resulted in a spike of adrenaline. Her body was roaring to go, drunken for battle. Annabelle focussed on Tharia, thought back to the good times they had – some of which weren’t more than a few days old. The concerned look brought her back down. In the end, she took a deep breath and Tharia immediately started talking without end.

“So why do you hate dresses? They look great and probably even better on you. I can imagine you in them and... probably shouldn’t be doing that out here. So we’re about to meet one of the betrayers? This time I’m ready for him. Hm, know what I’d love? Potato. Salad. Period. No, listen, this is the perfect meal right now. A hint of pepper to spice it up and...”

So in the end, she had made her friend uncomfortable after all. Neither Tharia’s expression nor posture gave it away. Her friend smiled at her with an intensity that made her weak – but her babbling betrayed how she really felt inside: Nervous, scared.

They continued along the full length of the temple bridge. The sun had set by the time the other temple bridges became visible. They came out of various other districts in the fifth ring and all winded up towards a platform up ahead. Several massive Templefronts were built into the fortification wall of the fourth district and marked one of two entrances to the fourth ring. The path below was usually reserved for the dregs and the workers. Anyone with enough coin to be considered enlightened could use the Temple Bridges instead.

By now, she felt Lord Farian’s flicker nearby. A few hundred steps or more and she’d find another one of her torturers. Contrary to Eleanor, this one hadn’t burned out his spark yet. She could feel the raw power but also that its wielder had no idea about how to properly wield it.

“Annie?” Tharia called out, “Tell me that isn’t moving”

It took Annabelle a while to notice what she was talking about. The clouds had opened up to reveal a sphere of pure white light descending. It looked small at first, but that was because there was nothing to compare it to. Soon the air cooled down around them as the star blocked out the sun. With an unnatural scream, it suddenly unfolded like a flower in bloom. Each of the petals sported massive eyes, that darted back and forth. The middle section consisted of a strange egg-like shape with a giant humanoid inside. Annabelle had never seen anything like it. Just the sheer terror of something that big had frozen her in place. Sudden fluttering sounds distracted her long enough to see sheets of white cloth float up from the capital. They ascended in a cacophony of voices screaming for help.

While most were as thin as a finger, others had fattened considerably into white balls that could barely stay afloat. All of them ascended towards the humongous thing in the sky above. There were enough of them to cover the egg in white. A gurgling scream shook from within the egg, a single hand punched through the shell, yet something from within pulled it back inside. The scream seemed desperate.

With but a quick flash of light, the clothmonsters suddenly grew transparent and peeled off like dead skin. Their constant fake wailing for help ended that instant. They turned into dusty rain that quickly covered the capital in a layer of white. With another flash the thing was gone, leaving nothing but the dust as proof it had been here.

“Yeah, I really hate those things now”, Tharia said and scratched her head. She didn’t look nearly as shaken as Annabelle had expected. Maybe the weeks alone out in the street had changed her more than she realized. As for Annabelle herself, she struggled a lot more with it than she let on. It just wasn’t reasonable. The sphere had been brimming with divine essence. Her essence. At some point, she would need to deal with that. Her mind went blank and it took a while before she realized Tharia talked to her.

“I’ve had weirder pets. Let’s go, we’ve got folks to free and foes to smack”

Annabelle couldn’t. She was frozen in place.

“Come on, love. Let’s move on. Alright? Alright! Now stand proud, puff your chest and walk with pride. It’s what you do. You’re the strong one out of us”

Tharia brushed some dust off Annabelle’s armor, gave her a glance over and then smirked. Yet as Annabelle still couldn’t find the will to move, Tharia walked around her and put both hands on her back.

“Come on, slowpoke. Let’s go. No time to waste. Do I have to slap you? Necessity compels! And it might be fun, depending on ahem... where was I? Yes, there we go!”

She felt Tharia lean into her from behind and couldn’t help but stumble forwards. One step after another.

“You’re a goddess, gods be cursed. Move. Snap out of it. Get to the walking part. You know when I met you, I thought I was the mess. Bottle it up. We got killing to do”

Tharia suddenly stumbled and her face was a grimace of pain. She clung to Annabelle’s waist, grit her teeth and got back up again. Then, as if nothing happened, she resumed pushing with the widest of smiles. Annabelle shook her head.

“I’m alright”, she said with a weak voice, “Can you stop cursing the gods, please? You’re an insensitive ass.”

Tharia suddenly grinned, “Never claimed anything to the contrary. But you know, we both need to grow more resilient. It’s only going to get worse from here on out. So I beg of you. Be yourself again. Take the lead. It’s a heavy burden we’re shouldering and we can’t do it when the cripple has to do the lifting”

The goddess couldn’t help but smile. Yet Tharia seemed to misunderstand the gesture. Her friend lifted a finger and pointed at her with accusatory ‘A ha!’

“Being amused about cripples, who’s insensitive now?” she said.

Annabelle suddenly opened her eyes wide. That’s not what she had meant. She was just happy to see how much her friend cared for her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

“Relax. I’m just pulling your leg. Wait, is that a pout? Annie, you can pout? Hoh, this changes everything! Keep that expression while I... uh maybe take a bit of distance. No matter how little emotion you show, that glare can kill and I feel deathly wounded”

Annabelle sighed and left Tharia to her own devices. The smaller girl circled around her like a pet that had far too much energy. She imagined her with a fluffy tail and gifted Tharia another premiere: She blushed. It was made so much worse by the human girl suddenly placing hands on both of her own cheeks and going ‘aww’ at the sight. One way or another, her cheerfulness was infectious. Even at the end of all days, Life wasn’t so bad. She held her head up high and stuck out her chest. Lord Farian was in for a meeting with old acquaintances.

End: Tales of the Dreamreaper | Coming up: Bring all your bones