He found the adept sitting in the master bedroom. He sat on a massive bed amidst a display of opulence that made it unlikely the room had any other use. The man looked ragged and old, even from behind, his robes frayed, long hair white and thinned by age. The traps Marroo had leapt to get here must have been intended to funnel Marroo to a specific door because when he stepped into the open doorframe and looked in he found the adept staring at a door on the opposite side, spinning something in his hand while the corrupted aura twisted and knotted itself around it.

Marroo watched the old man for a long moment, his hand on his sword.

“I don’t want to kill you.”

The adept whipped around as Marroo’s voice cut through the silence and he scrambled to a couch nearby large enough to serve as a bed to snatch his captive from it’s cushions before lifting him, and a pistol between him and Marroo.

The old man’s finger tensed on the trigger, then hesitated as bloodshot silver eyes found Marroo standing behind him.

“You’re that boy.” The adept wheezed after a moment. “That, reliquary. The courier.”

Marroo’s lips twitched in something like a smile and he toed the carpet in front of him. “Marroo.” He said when he looked back up at the adept. “My name is Marroo.”

Dhruv shifted in the adept’s arms and the adept’s arm tightened around his captive’s throat while Dhruv clutched at it and his eyes bulged. The adept’s hand shifted on the grip of his pistol while the four barrels stared at Marroo.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” The adept wheezed. He coughed and tightened his grip on the pistol. “You’re the son.”

The lights in the room flickered as corruption warped and twisted around the adept and Marroo stared up at him, ruby red familiars still dancing their slow orbit around his shoulders while he left his hand on his sword. “You never told me you’re name.” Marroo replied.

The adept coughed weakly, and Marroo heard something rattle deep in his chest. “Does it matter?” He asked hoarsely. He raised the pistol until the barrels pointed at Marroo’s eyes, then shifted and let the barrels drop towards his neck. “I killed your Da.”

Neither moved, eyes still locked over the four barrels of the pistol arquebus.

Thakur coughed, hard and deep in his chest, then turned his head and spat bloody phlegm into the carpet before he turned to wipe his lips on his shoulder. “Name’s Thakur.” He finally said. He blinked blood from his eyes as he met Marroo’s.

Dhruv jerked against Thakur’s emaciated arm then made a strangled noise as Thakur yanked him tighter against his chest. The exec mouthed something to Marroo as he fought the adept’s strength, but Marroo ignored him in favor of the adept still staring at him over the barrel of a gun.

“You could have killed me.” Thakur wheezed. “During the wedding.” His grip tightened on the pistol as his eyes hardened and he blinked more blood from their corners. “That’s why you were there. Don’t try to deny it.”

Marroo glanced through the window next to the bed, frosted now by corruption while lamps flickered to either side. He chewed his lip, despite himself, until A familiar drifted between him and the glass, a serene smile on her small face, and he turned back to Thakur. “It wouldn’t solve, anything.” He said at last. “I don’t want to kill you.”

Thakur coughed, the rattle in his chest making it hoarse and harsh in the otherwise silent room. “I’m already dying.” He said, and lifted his pistol.

Marroo’s hand tightened around his sword. “We don’t have to do this.” He said quickly.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The adept snapped. “I killed your Da. It was always going to come to this.”

The memories in the sword stirred, showing Marroo the corrupted adept through two sets of eyes, viewpoints separated by nearly a year of time and the death of one of the perspectives. He shook his head and pushed away the memories.

“I don’t care about vengeance.” Marroo told Thakur. “I’m here for him.” He scowled and nodded at the executive pinned to Thakur’s chest. “For his daughter.” He met Dhruv’s eye and remembered meeting her in the reception room in front of his office.

“I loved her.” He said, and looked away while small red women spun around him. “Once, anyways.” He looked up at the Adept’s bleeding eyes while his hand tightened further around his sword. “You’re a good father, better, probably, than he is, but he’s still her father. She doesn’t deserve, to be alone.”

“And my daughters?” The adept demanded. He coughed and spat blood. “My daughters?” He rasped again.

“I don’t want to kill you.” Marroo said again. “Just leave! Go spend your last days with them. I don’t care about you. I won’t come after you.”

Crimson tears ran freely from the adept’s eyes when he blinked and he glared at Marroo across pistol barrels that fumed with the venomous breath infused into the lead balls they’d been loaded with. He shook his head. “I made a deal.” He said. “For my daughters.”

“I could have killed you.” Marroo replied. “I didn’t. I spared you.”

“I’m sorry.” The adept’s pistol steadied as it centered on Marroo’s forehead. “I don’t have a choice.”

Marroo snarled as the adept’s finger tensed. He flicked one hand and one of the ruby colored familiars halfway through its orbit around his chest transformed into a scarlet ribbon as it shot forward.

The adept had time to open his mouth in a shout before the familiar exploded in a flare of spiritual weight. The room shook as it detonated and threw Thakur through the wall directly behind him. Dhruv screamed as he was ripped from the adept’s arms and sent sprawling across the floor with a meaty thump. Marroo leapt forward as bits of the wall crumbled and clattered to the floor around the hole left by the adept’s passage. He grabbed Dhruv and yanked him to his feet to glare into the older man’s face.

“Take care of her!” He shouted at the dazed exec. “You’d better take care of her after this!”

He felt the adept stir behind the hole in the wall and he hurled Dhruv bodily through the open door he’d been supposed to enter through, just in time to spot the adept crawling from the rubble on the opposite side of the wall to raise his pistol towards Marroo.

His father’s sword gleamed as it swept from it’s sheath and the air shook from the discharge of powder. Light and smoke billowed from one of the arqubus’s barrels and Marroo ripped his spirit in half to fill the external meridians of his aura while maintaining the veil that saved him when he touched the venom in the hallway.

Razor’s manifested in a storm around Marroo, but the breath he’d kept in his bones resonated with the icon he pushed into his aura and he felt shooting pains where it partially manifested in his own flesh. The lead ball shattered as it struck the blades of his aura, but it did nothing to stop the plume of concentrated breath blasted from the shrapnel. That breath seeped into his channels like fire while the bits of lead shot past Marroo’s face and tinked from the blade of his father’s sword, then Marroo hurled himself towards the adept, trailing ruby familiars like sparks.

Thakur roared as Marroo hurtled towards him. He threw himself aside just in time for Marroo to impact the wall next to him and sweep his sword in a glittering arch. The wall exploded as Marroo slammed into it and tiling plastered to every surface of the little cubby they found themselves in filled the air as Marroo’s sword cut through the wall as if it wasn’t there.

Thakur dropped under the sword with a snarl and kicked out at him with one foot, impacting Marroo’s hip and driving him back. Marroo felt his veil quake as the corrupted breath seared through his channels at the point of impact and he fought to hold it in place while he twisted the breath in his aura to gather around the sword. He flicked it forward and more tiles blew into fragments as the projection slashed through the air towards the adept.

Poison bloomed from the adept as he scuttled backwards along the floor. Tiling fused and blackened, a ceramic water basin turned to dust, and bits of the ceiling rained down in blackened bits as the breath ballooned from his aura. Marroo’s cut swept through it, losing it’s edge to the corruption but battering the venom aside to hammer the adept into the floor and smash a line straight through to the structural supports of the mansion.

Marroo had time to raise his sword and suck the rest of his aura back into his veil before the tide of poison washed over him, engulfing him in agony so powerful his vision narrowed and his voice got locked in his throat as he stumbled in his attempt to leap forward and impale the adept where he lay injured on the floor.

He caught himself on a knee and watched Thakur raise his pistol to point it at Marroo’s eyes. Then the familiars caught up.

They burst as they struck the tide of venom. There had been half a dozen of them trailing after Marroo as he flew at the adept and they hit like the hammers they’d been touched with. Weight shook the whole manor as they went off, one after another. The force of them drove Marroo backwards through the wall while the mansions support struts groaned. A pipe burst spraying the two adepts with water before another familiar detonated and blew the spray away. Another impact shook Marroo’s brain in his skull as it threw him, somewhere, and for a moment he knew nothing except the excurciating pain of corruption clawing at him from the inside while his veil sought to fight it off.

He landed on his back and slid until something caught him. Lay there for a moment while the venom bled out of his channels and the building groaned around him until the wreckage settled and his vision returned.

He scrambled to his hands and knees when he realized he’d lost his father’s sword, then felt it, whispering through his Icon from the rubble nearby and yanked it out to look around.

A hole occupied the place in the floor where they’d just fought. Broken pipes in what were once walls geysered water into the room while the roof sagged above the crater.

Block spots swam in Marroo’s eyes as he walked to the hole in the floor and leapt down into the dining room below. One leg tried to buckle as he landed so the cut Marroo aimed at the Adept kneeling in the wreckage whipped slashed through the wall behind him instead.

The mansion groaned as Marroo staggered and caught himself against one wall. The adept’s pistol jumped towards him and let loose with a bang. The bullet ploughed through the wall inches from Marroo’s head leaving a streak of spreading corruption where it discharged its load of breath.

Marroo’s sword swept up again but the Adept threw himself out of the way as the new projection cut a line through the rubble strewn across the floor towards him. The ragged adept lifted a hand and blasted Marroo with a projection of his own that caught Marroo directly in the chest and Marroo staggered and grit his teeth as the venom once more clawed at his veil through his meridians.

He lunged and drove his sword point towards the adept only to have the point deflected into the wall where it sank to it’s hilt above Thakur’s shoulder. Marroo’s knee moved for the adept’s face, but he blocked it with a forearm, crying out when the knee cracked into his arm with the force of Marroo’s long cultivation. The man sprawled backwards across the floor, but rolled as Marroo came after him then brought the pistol towards Marroo’s chest again.

Marroo couldn’t spare the breath to block the bullet from the fight he waged on an internal level with the venom still clawing at his flesh. He aborted his charge and danced sidways as the gun came up then tipped his sword down between himself and one set of the pistol’s four barrels. It roared, and the bullet panged from the blade, knocking it wide with enough force to spin Marroo halfway around. Rather than stop the momentum Marroo turned it into a full spin that brought his blade whistling towards the adept still on the ground. He let the barest touch of his breath infuse the blade and hurled a projection across the few feet that still separated him from his enemy.

The house shook as more venom burst from the adept in a wave and the cut that should have severed the man in half simply drove him across the room to thud against the opposite wall.

Marroo’s spirit shook as the new dose of poison washed through his meridians. His knees gave way as he tried to throw himself after the adept and he collapsed on his face as the block spots expanded across his vision to fill them entirely.

Agony wracked him as the sword Icon fought to manifest itself in his flesh and the venom fought to turn his own blood to poison. He dropped his sword and put his hands to his head as the venom in his mentalis meridians lit his mind on fire and the breath he’d secreted there in his veil drove spikes into his brain.

Someone screamed, long and loud, and his vision cleared just enough to see the adept raise his pistol to point his last shot at Marroo’s eyes.