Chapter 74: Dazzling Mage / Desperate Shade

Subject: Knight Eris Location: Arlcada Territories - Count Kylant's Settlement It wasn't long before the Chaos Knightmares came face-to-face with the source of the larger-than-usual invasion. The knights couldn't have led this many spinners here with those lures. A dangerous amount of them, yes. A Hexknight was infallible, at least as far as those beneath their station were concerned. No, the culprit could be heard from the other side of the wall. The culprit could be felt, from the point beyond which all light succumbed to hungering darkness. You didn't need to be a mage to sense this power, but Fragma, as a mage, had by far the clearest picture of what was coming. Another might have felt compelled to run. Even someone as strong as a Hexknight should be wary. Rather, Her eyes had widened, staring longingly off into the night. Fragma's skin bristled, and her spine tingled with pleasurable chills. Frightful cackling echoed through the woodland air, spilling into the settlement. It was all the more present now that the knights had fallen silent. The voice sounded human, but a single human alone in the wilderness, amidst a brood of spinners, was too difficult to believe. It must be a creature mimicking the voice of a human. And what a cheerful voice to choose. As it grew closer, the knights could make out a horrific tune. "One little spinner, scurrying away. Caught by me, and in pieces you'll stay.~" A spectrum of cool hues of light danced across the tops of the wall. "Two little spinners, attacked without a clue. I caught them both, and then my magic grew.~" The light died down to whine of wind being sucked through a tight opening. "Three little spinners... What's this wall doing here? Silly spinners, you don't belong inside a wall. Silly spinners, I'm coming to eat you all!" Manic giggling ensued, and a figure cloaked in dense violet light vaulted over the high wall, landing on the back of a gigantic Wounded. Tendrils of aqua-violet magic reached out and choked the life from the spinner, shriveling it up. "Bearer..." Klyto whispered. "...of Blue" Noa finished. The stranger pushed further from the base of the wall and made a clean cut through three Crawlers in quick succession. A knight could admire the way each motion was quick and efficient. Whether the same could be said for her choice of spell, Eris didn't know. "Give her some space," yelled Fragma. The stranger looked up, tilted her head at the party of knights, and made to speak. "Survivors?" But she was interrupted by a small clutch of Weavers, dropping down from the webbing above. They grasped her with thin legs, attempting to envenom her. She panicked, and self-immolated in a hasty spell, burning off portions of her cloak. But her inner layer of black bands did not appear to be flammable. The fear faded from her stance, and she sucked in a deep breath. The stranger, a human by the looks of her, was shambling about, gripping spinners around her with that strange magic, and draining them, just as before. She'd lost herself in violent ecstasy. "We are survivors, yes," Fragma replied, but the stranger wasn't listening. She carried no weapons, but her uniform was surprisingly drab for one so gifted in slaughter. The black cloak, which she'd cast off, was now in cinders. It bore no emblems or other signs of affiliation, nor did her underlayer. An assassin, perhaps. Contract killers wouldn't want to wear identifiable attire. She began chasing more Crawlers. No more came over the wall, but there were more than enough targets already inside the settlement. The knights continued their own efforts, but it was hard to fight knowing the Weavers above could drop down any second. "No," Fragma voiced. "That woman's acting more like a Bearer of Red than a Bearer of Blue. Look at her speed, and her hair would become blue mid-episode. Look, it's... blonde." Dozens of spinners died in an instant. The stranger surged forward and targeted new prey, while the knights withdrew, falling back to the building containing the survivors. They did in response to their lord's slow steps. Fragma looked curious, as if she wanted to see what this human would do if left alone. "The tips, though," Noa pointed out while catching her breath. The tips of the stranger's hair were not blonde. This was apparent in the light flickering off her skin. The light was now changing colors, shifting to purple. The human's eyes were scarred by magic, the pale flesh across her whole face marked by continuous magic use. This might even be permanent vira scarring. Just how did a person cast through the pain like that? "The tips are black, not blue. I see no red, so that makes it unlikely shes a Bearer at all. I don't know what she is. Besides 'interesting', that is..." Fragma liked her savage oddities... The spinners had stopped coming over the walls in droves, but dozens still skittered in from the baron's compound. They weren't exactly fleeing the stranger, as Fragma had suggested, but their migration had been somewhat influenced by the powerful mage nonetheless. Before the number of spinners inside the walls thinned too much, a group of Weavers made their move. They dropped a spun web onto the human, five of them dropping with the web to pin her to the ground. Time seemed to slow. Fragma hard-pivoted her stance, but before she could move, the stranger staggered oddly. Her head hung low, while objects lifted from her pockets, no doubt by magic. The webbing, slick with sticky coating, hadn't touched down yet, but it was unavoidable. At least, Fragma and her knights had thought the attack to be unavoidable. "Blightseeds? Are those Blightseeds?" If Fragma recognized them, Eris would trust her lord. She watched randomly selected seeds rise higher, while the rest hit the dirt like the soft patter of heavy rain. With an impossible-to-trace speed, shadows burst from the hovering seeds, and these shadows grew into tall stalks of black, plant-like manifestations of energy. The roots of these "plants" soaked in the matter of the seeds that had fallen to the ground. The stranger didn't watch her strange magic, but by the time Eris and the other knights really knew what had had even happened so quickly, the falling weavers hung suspended on this wispy barbs of darkness. The falling web never touched down. The stranger didn't even remark or give any other sign that she even knew she had been successful. She looked detached, trapped in a violent dream as she took on the remaining Spinners. After she had finally starting moving again, that is. Her tactics were different from before. Lost was the admirable precision and clean efficiency. It had been replaced by a drunken fervor. Could a spell, either temporarily or permanently, deprive a mage of their consciousness? Eris looked at the sight and felt revolted. Today, she was happy to fight with a blade, instead of relying internally on perilous magic. Her equipment was enchanted, however. It was hard to escape that necessity. The human was grunting, now, like a deranged animal. Firing off cruder spells. Eris recognized these as those the majority of mages used. Seeing this individual's old spells and these familiar ones back-to-back, Eris would not be able to look at the talents of the practiced mages of Shroud in the same way again. The stranger came to a stop, chest heaving, staring down at her magic-scarred arms. Feral eyes glowed in the night. Not the many-eyed spinners, but a more dangerous predator. The Hexknight couldn't contain her delight. It was inevitable that the stranger would set her sights on the others. However, Eris had hoped for a less intimidating spectacle. "What is your name. Who do you work for?" the Hexknight demanded confidently. "..." The stranger looked around, baffled by the buildings. She didn't answer, taking a step closer. Fragmata held out one hand in a "halt" gesture, whispering a defensive spell with the other. Swallowing saliva and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, the stranger took another step in their direction. Something about her expression gave Eris chills. Fragma saw it too, so she motioned discretely for Eris and the others to flank the human. "Food?" the stranger whispered, before becoming startled. Eris looked at her lord, and her lord looked back. It was as if they were both asking "why is she making that face?" The knights slowly crept to more advantageous positions. Eris agreed with the caution. Better to be prepared than prey. "We have food, if that's what you need, but we need answers." The stranger's ears twitched. Up above, the dozens of remaining Weavers refused to attack. Over in the direction of Count Kylant's mansion, the reinforcements stopped their approach. Are spinners really smart enough to gauge allegiances with so brief an exchange? "Poisonous creatures. Can't heal. Why won't this body heal?" the stranger murmured. "Bad diet?" Hexknight Fragma looked to her knights and then burst out laughing. She quickly stifled her laughter, somewhat embarrassed. The laugh surprised the stranger. She looked around at the knights, warily. "Who are these ones?" Fragma answered politely. "My name is Fragmata, Hexaline Knight of Judgement. Pleased to make your acquaintance. What's your name?" "Familiar name, knight. Hexe- Hexelline...?" The stranger's eyes went wide. Her feet wavered, and her body began to shake. Eyes swept her surroundings frantically, seeing nothing but the corpses of spinners and a ravaged landscape. She looked at her hands, where the discolored taint of the magic she'd been casting had stretched its horrifying web-like patterning. "That is the worst case of magic poisoning I have ever seen," Luc mumbled. "How is this girl not dead?" "This one's name is Inistra..." she started, as she was about to fall over. On the way down, Luc caught her. "What's happening?" Inis asked in a void devoid of emotion. "You have, by far, the most life-threatening case of vira starvation that I've ever seen," Fragma answered. Luc faltered under the stranger's weight. He was not the sturdiest knight, and more fatigued than a knight should ever be. The things we do for her lord. "No, we can't have... she was draining the spinners as she fought. And I've only been fighting for-" Why's she referring to herself in the third person? "You've... been fighting for half a day, at least," Luc assessed, his leg muscles giving out. Come to think of it, his whole body was shaking. "Human bodies need more than the vira concentrations a Nexwarren body contains," Luc explained, entirely out of breath. "That at least explains why you're still conscious, but where did you study magic?" Completely unexpectedly, Fragma dropped her blade and fumbled for a custom vigor shard. "Save the questions, Luc," she ordered, dragging him to his feet and forcing the shard against Inistra's chest. "Tell me what else she needs to live." "Human body, probably..." he mumbled and then fainted. The knights looked at Inistra, who was staring off into space. Her eyes were glowing deep blue. "This wretch drained him!" Inistra didn't react to the accusation, but she was leaking lazy tendrils of blue light, which reached out for the closest knights. "I'll kill her," Nox decided, but Fragmata stepped in the way. Nox stood down, but desperately called out when the tendrils took hold of their lord's body, just like with the spinners. Fragma crushed another vigor shard against the stranger. A flicker of realization shone in Inistra's eyes, but the sudden impact against her chest triggered something else in her to rise up once again and seize control of her body. She grasped at the air, trying to grab hold of the Hexknight. "Release her!" Eris yelled, drawing her blade. As expected, Fragma wrested control herself from the stranger's grasp. "Don't kill her, and protect yourselves," Fragma commanded, using a short-range transportation spell to vanish from sight. Where she was going, it was was beyond anyone's capacity to guess.