Skill Up

The Body Reconfigurement Skill has advanced to Rank C

Reward: 50xp

Skill Up

The Internal Mana Control Skill has advanced to Rank C

Reward: 50xp

Through muscular development Strength has grown.

Reward: 1 bonus point to Strength.

Through muscular development Strength has grown.

Reward: 1 bonus point to Strength.

Through muscular development Strength has grown.

Reward: 1 bonus point to Strength.

Lightning flashed, blinding, twice as bright as brightest daylight. Rain poured hard and fast, a million thick droplets of cool water that threatened to drown the world. Aiding the rain in its endeavor was the wind, which threatened to tear the land apart with roaring gusts that sent Alden’s wooden prison shuddering and creaking pitifully as the walls struggled to stay together.

Water bled through the walls, creeping in through the gaps large and small. What little the walls did to keep the interior dry, the roof did less. Sections of the thatch roof had collapsed from the weight of the rain, or else had been blown away by the wind, allowing in a torrent of cold rain.

Even had they both been solid, it wouldn’t have mattered.

The village itself had begun to flood from the rain, and water had long since begun to leak from beneath the makeshift door. What had once been a hard, rocky floor slowly shifted to soft mud. Then, once the earth was saturated with all the water it could bear to drink, the water rose into an ever present pool of cold, ankle deep water.

Alden shivered as another gust of wind passed by. Long hours of rain had soaked him to the bone: his clothes clung to him and wore him down, his fingers had begun to wrinkle, and water dripped down every inch of his body.

Tossing him into a lake would have left him more dry than he was now.

He had thought of escape a dozen times since the storm’s start. No guards remained to keep him inside, having stolen away into the homes of the villagers. Amice, for her part, had not made herself known to him since their last discussion days ago, save to warn him to cease his cultivation. He was close to the first Tribulation, she said, and continuing any further would endanger him.

That had been what kept him there, at first. Cultivation. Yet, each time the thought crossed his mind a dozen alternatives arose, each as tempting as the last. He could use magic to enhance his Strength, as he had been doing. Or he could travel to the southern mountains, to learn from the people there directly. Or even figure out how to surpass the Tribulation by himself.

They all pulled him to the same answer. Escape.

It would have to be now, then, or never. As much as it pained him, staying would eventually mean his death.

Struggling against his binds, the thick rope grew taut, its fibers snapping one by one. With a quick tug it snapped completely, freeing his hand. Tossing the rope aside, he approached the door and peered through its cracks.

Even with his enhanced vision he could barely see the outside world, the torrent of rain dyeing the world gray as it fell. Faintly, though, he could make out some shapes. The village tree, the other houses. And something else, moving carefully at the edge of the village. People.

Eleven dark silhouettes creeped through the village, the faint shimmer of steel revealing the shape of their blades. Lightning struck, and in the momentary light Alden saw their faces. Faces he recognized.

With a push of the door, Alden left his hovel and approached the men. His men. Rain doused him immediately, more akin to a waterfall than any rain he’d felt before, and the wind pushed and pulled at every inch of his body. The men spotted him, crouched low, blades at the ready. Two stood tall with drawn bows, ready to fire.

“Uhtric,” he called out. The sound was almost inaudible even to his own ears, drowned out by the plague of rain and wind. “Uhtric!”

They heard, that time. The bows fell away, as did the swords. Uhtric moved to the front, eyes squinting.

“Alden, sir? How’d you see us?” he asked.

“I’ve better eyes than most,” Alden replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Ain’t it obvious?”

It was, Alden supposed, though the question of ‘why’ still stuck in his mind. Uhtric and the rest were soaked, near drowned by rain and melancholy and fear. They didn’t need to come.

“You have my thanks. Where are the others?” he asked.

Uhtric scratched at his chin, turned to the men with him, then turned back. “Deserted,” he said simply.

Alden had expected as much, but the answer still tore at him, his guts twisting.

“We have to kill them, then,” he said.

Uhtric nodded sadly. “Aye, sir. We do. For now, though, we need to leave. With the storm, the fields have flooded bad, and from what we've seen the only way out is west.”

“Flooded?”

“Aye, sir. Worst thing you’ve ever seen. Would need a boat to make it through, and that’s if it don’t capsize.”

“West, then. Lead on.”

Leaving proved an easy task. With the rain and darkness as cover, neither villager nor Hilvan so much as peeked outside as the group slogged their ways through the wet, sticky muck.

With each step Alden’s boots sunk deep into the wet soil. With a hard pull, his boots would pop up from the mud with a quiet squelch. It was slow going, but steady.

In minutes they crossed over the first hill, losing sight of the village.

Uhtric was right. Squinting through the rain, Alden could just barely make out the shifting mass on the horizon. What was once an array of empty fields was now a flowing lake of water as far as the eye could see, its surface rampaging with floating trees that crashed against one another.

A violent crack of lightning struck the flowing lake, its thunderous roar washing over them a half second later. One of the floating trees was annihilated by the strike, transforming into flaming shrapnel that rose a hundred feet or more into the air before falling back into the watery depths. None said a word.

They didn’t need to. Alden felt what they felt. An uneasy feeling that tingled the senses, sharpened them in the worst possible ways. Every drop of rain, every gust of wind sent his nerves into overdrive as they expected the worst. All it would take would be a single bolt of lightning to kill them all.

The next hill was taller than the last, and for a moment the faint shadow of the village came into view as Alden looked back. From this distance he couldn’t make out the shapes of any people, and the only movement he saw was the village tree billowing wildly. Good, assuming his eyes could see people in the dark from this distance. With the rain he wasn’t certain.

The village disappeared as they descended the hill, and the rain eased for a blissful moment, only to double its assault soon after. Every step seemed to weigh him down more than the last, and every breath came with a mouthful of water. A funny thing, he thought, to drown in the rain.

At the bottom of the hill Alden held up a hand. “Stop,” he said. His men obeyed.

“What’s wrong?” Uhtric asked.

The world lit up as lightning struck in the far distance, revealing the image of shining plate armor and a red feathered galea helmet.

“Gods have mercy,” Uhtric muttered as darkness fell again. Alden wasn’t certain they would have any to spare.

“Wait here,” Alden said. He approached Amice as confidently as he could. His fingers twitched, his spine shivered, and his eyes refused to meet her red gaze. Clenching his hand, Alden closed his eyes, breathed deep, then opened them.

Cold terror washed over him as he met her gaze, though this time he did not look away. The storm raged violently around him, yet before him was a storm in human form, and more fearsome besides. Red, furious eyes sat atop a stern scowl, a look no different than the hundreds of others he’d seen throughout his life. And yet he’d never been more afraid.

“You are escaping?” she asked, her voice cutting through the downpour.

“I am.”

“With our time together, I had assumed you’d wanted to live. You said as much, yourself. But now it seems that that was a lie.”

“No lie. I chose to live when you captured me, and I’m choosing to live now. I can’t stay, Amice.”

“You die if you try to leave,” she said. “I will make certain of it.”

“And I die if I stay.”

She moved close, her face an inch from his own. Even with the helmet her face and hair was soaked, with tiny droplets of water leaking down the sides of her face.

“You are safe with me,” she said. “I promise you.”

Alden furrowed his brow, turned away. She still didn’t get it.

“Your men hate me,” he said. “They despise me as much as any person can despise a stranger. We’re at war, Amice. They want me dead. You… your presence delays them, certainly. But that’s fear holding them back, not respect. Soon enough they’ll stop being afraid. And then they’ll kill me.”

“I can stop them.”

“You can’t. You’d have to be with me at all times, every hour of the day, every hour of the night. Prepare all my meals yourself, to ensure I’m not poisoned. And even if you could do all of that, could stop them, then it’ll be someone else. Another noble, another knight. If I stay a prisoner, I’ll die, and you’ll be considered a traitor, regardless.”

The fierce look died in her. She stared at him, searching, finding nothing. “What, then?” she asked. “Damnit, what am I supposed to do, Alden?”

“That feeling,” he said. “The one you told me about, that nagging feeling? What is it telling you?”

“It’s…” she began, but did not finish.

“It’s telling you to listen to me, isn’t it?”

There was no denial, no outcry. Only a forlorn look as the internal battle that had been raging had finally ceased. Alden only hoped it had ended in his favor.

“Follow that feeling, Amice. Join me.”

“It would be a betrayal of my country,” she said, putting up one final display of resistance. But it was too late.

“Betray them, then. Just as your cousins betrayed you. You owe them nothing. You owe only yourself, and you owe yourself the ability to choose. I only ask that you choose me.”

It was a subtle thing, easily missed. With the rain it was almost impossible to tell. But he was certain. Certain that what he saw was not rainwater trickling down her face, but instead a tear.

“I choose you,” Amice said.

She disappeared in a silver blur, too fast to see, but a second later Alden could hear something coming from the village, just beneath the roaring sound of the storm. Screams.

His men gave odd glances as he approached them again, and even odder ones after he spoke. “We’re going back to the village.”

“What?”

“Nonsense.”

“Have you gone mad?”

Ignoring the murmurs, Alden waited for Uhtric to speak. If they would not listen to Alden, they would at least listen to him.

Shifting his weight, Uhtric observed the men, the gears in his mind turning. “We go back,” he eventually said. There were no more complaints.

The village was as they’d left it, excepting the tangible air of dread that hung over it. There was not a villager to be seen, though a faint sobbing and their cries of terror could be heard.

Bodies littered the ground in a gruesome mess: puncture wounds, missing limbs, caved in skulls. The blood, however, had been washed away into the mud, leaving the corpses seemingly sanitized, as one would expect of bodies in a morgue.

At the center of the village was Amice.

She remained still, at first, like a pillar of marble. Blood dripped from the tip of her blade, the final vestiges of what she had done disappearing into the muck. She sheathed it without any care for cleaning it.

“It is done,” she said, her voice hoarse and low. “I am yours.”

Quest Completed

Kill (or Capture) the Target Amice Witchester

The Target, Amice Witchester, has been recruited as a companion!

Reward: 10,000xp, 20 bonus points to Charisma, 10 bonus points to Strength, ability to own land, Companion (Amice Witchester)