The children were crying. One older kid was shaking, trying to defend the younger ones with a beat up old short sword. They were bandits in training, and she was usually not one to show mercy, even to kids. A bandit kid would just turn around and stab you in the back for killing their parents. This time, however, it hurt her gut to see them cry. She blamed her stupid motherly hormones.

“Damn it I’m getting soft,” she grumbled aloud, tapping her foot once on the stone floor with a purpose. A rumble followed, but the effect wasn't immediately obvious. In reality, she had thickened and hardened the walls, floor, and ceiling, as well as hardening and adding strong crossbars to the door with her ki. “Count yourselves lucky I’m feeling generous,” T’Kere said, leveling her gaze at the eldest of the group, probably a young teen, “You’re gonna sit here until I’m done. After all this, I'll deal with you… somehow. I won't hurt you or sell you off to slavers or anything, so don't worry about that. When did you last eat?”

A while ago, it turned out. The bandits had fallen on difficult times of late, as the last winter and the one before it had been a real doozy and made it difficult to find anything to steal to begin with. Naturally for their kind, the less productive members were the first to suffer the ill effects. Grumbling to herself and telling them to wait, T'Kere stomped out back to one of the prior buildings, where they were storing some amount of food. She returned a bit of it to them, enough to fill their bellies and leave them full, yet still leaving enough for the road. It was no small feat to hunt enough for six kids on a daily basis alone, nevermind while making decent travel time.

After the frustratingly lengthy act of altruism, she left the building and sealed the lock. Her pole jabbed into the ground in frustration a couple of times as she walked, cracking the stone platform. That was dumb. She’d lost her touch. They'd probably just try to stab her in the night to steal the food and run off into the woods to starve, be eaten, or die from some horrible disease. It's not like she'd stop them running off if they were stupid enough to try. They were bandits after all. T’Kere just wanted something to twist until it popped right about now…

More doors. No more kids. Good. That meant no more bandit survivors.

The bandits would have prisoners somewhere, possibly in a completely separate area of the dungeon. That’d be another thing to look for once she was done here. She had half a mind to let the prisoners kill some bandits themselves… but that’d be a mess. Emotions did stupid things to people and she didn’t want it getting out of hand. Especially with how the bandits were threatening her with being made into a public use sex toy more than once.

Reflecting after the fact brought up some memories even she found too unpalatable to keep in active memory. Some personal, some she stumbled upon during her career. Her grip tightened on her rod hard enough that even the powerful material it was made of creaked.

T'Kere was glad their leaders were immortal. She could take as long as she pleased.

She neared a section of the building that was cut partway into the wall of the cave. There was a Fae mark shaved into one of the pillars with a knife, barely perceptible and with a protective glamor on it to make it even harder to see. Bingo.

T’Kere stepped forward ready to bring some unholy retribution on the fuckers, but Fate had other ideas - if Fate’s name was Fae Lord Kalis.

Not two steps towards the building, the beast of a woman was brought to a knee.

She was incredibly powerful for the average person, but, as anyone old and strong enough would explain, there was always a bigger fish. Sure, she could make chum of these idiotic theives. She could create constructs of flesh. She made them truly fear her before their gruesome deaths.

But.

She was brought to a knee by a crushing force of energy that came out of nowhere. Adrenaline rushed through her as she tried to make sense of things. The dungeon was cut off from the outside world, so unless someone had the skills to break through that, no one should have been able to interfere. She doubted a couple of bandit leaders could feel like this, though. Realization of who it was dawned on her shortly before a neat little wooden box with a note on the top warped into existence a foot in front of her.

As far as Fae Lords went, Lord Kalis was more “personable” than most. Xe had had a long history with non-Fae races, and it showed. Xe knew how to work with people, knew how to temper their bizarre, alien fae mannerisms into something remotely understandable. The Fae Lord of the College, of Aura Tree, hell, of the whole damned country. The energy was crystal clear after her panic had a chance to fade into rage.

T’Kere snatched the note off the box once she could move, planting her bottom on the stone walkway with one tanned leg up, the other straight out. Her pole/spear was set on the ground to her side.

“Lend me not your anger but your eyes, T’Kere, Orderkeeper, Living Wall. I have a favor to ask of you, and a reward for it in turn that will no doubt sweeten your dour mood. Do not torture the therianthropes here. Make their deaths swift.”

It was a simple note, and one that she crumpled in her fist as soon as she had finished it. Angry wasn’t strong enough of a word for what she was feeling. Wrath, malice, fury, all fell short of what surged through her now. Her foot tapped the box, and with a mighty sigh, she deflated.

What was she supposed to do? Say no? She liked living, thanks. She really hoped the damned gift was worth this mess, though. And why’d the Fae Lord get involved, anyway?! She was high level, and had met xem before, but she was of little interest to xem. She was of even less interest now, she thought! There were no grand adventures, just village life with a young baby. Perhaps Vashnoruk would have some insight. T’Kere sighed once more and nodded to herself. She would ask the shaman when she got home.

Now then, this box…

She lifted it into her lap. The thing weighed as much as a taya, a boar! It had a heftier density than even lead or gold, it seemed, whatever it was. Okay… she had to admit… her curiosity was piqued.

The box itself was made of wood older than herself, filled with life energy, which was fairly typical of the fae. Most things they made were filled with that aspect. She used appraise on it.

“Well… damn,” she grumbled. The bastard had actually put some care into the box itself. She was a little nervous to think what could be inside if xe went through the trouble of making it out of aurawood. Heh. It humbled her a bit to think that xe would want to stay in her good graces like this.

“No use avoiding it… let’s see what’s in you,” she muttered towards the box, undoing a small metal latch that was shaped to look like a leaf, “Hell, just this box is nice enough I’m gonna want to keep it.”

She barely got the chance to see what it looked like. As soon as the lid came fully open, the material inside flew out like a bat disturbed. T’Kere could only recognize it as the ball it was because of reflexively activating , , and .

The item itself was an orb of material that looked like a strange kind of slime; its outer layer was partially see-through, but you didn’t see far into it due to its incredible density. She could only guess its texture or actual material. But it wasn’t left a question for long. In incredibly quick time, even with slowing down her vision and literally slowing it down, it flung itself onto the rod that sat nearby.

The rod went flying like a runaway arrow. It slammed into a nearby stone building; one that thankfully she had already searched. The impact punched it straight through the wall, and half-way through another. Long-ways. The thing pierced no less than fifteen feet of pretty tough stone. It didn’t have that kind of oomph before without some real effort on her part, and while it hit her rod quickly it wasn’t anywhere near that fast. Something must have changed.

Standing from her relaxed position, T’Kere walked into the building and tracked where it went. It wasn’t terribly hard to do, what with the long stretch of missing wall. Hesitantly grabbing it from where it rested in the wall, she noticed the difference immediately. Its surface had changed sheen and texture. Where once it was a solid metal rod, it now had the same surface look as the blob did. Almost more like heavy, thick glass than metal. The broken wall showed it was no weaker than before, but to be sure she sought out the nearest metal object, which was a thick metal shield that seemed to have been left behind by the rushed inhabitant. The rod certainly had more heft than before. Using a relatively small amount of force, a light swing, the results were disproportionately powerful. The shield nearly crumbled in half. Not only did that “present” not weaken the rod, it made it stronger. It became even more of a force amplifier! A little experimenting showed what else it could do.

It seemed like it was able to change the material properties of her weapon, she determined. And within a broad range, as well. She was able to soften a spot enough to snap it in half and make it two, harden it to the point she couldn’t flex it, and even give it things like fluid or adhesive qualities. It also gave it enough potential density that she could make a shield around her front. Moreover, it was supercharged with life energy. It seemed to store aspect energy quite well, and could be used later. A powerful upgrade, and a show of positive reasons she didn’t want to cross the Fae Lord… xe clearly knew more about the weapon than she initially believed.

Well then… onto the therianthropes.