In the next instant, her full attention turned to ascertaining the state of her comrades. Zefaris was already halfway down the stairs when Zel passed them, but she stopped dead when she saw the cathedral’s door slowly closing.

“Go back to the top. Keep the doors open, just to be sure,” Zel said, based purely on a gut feeling. The blonde glanced back and in a flicker of her form she was gone, scaling the great stairs as she hurled herself forward in time by split-second increments again and again.

She rushed over to Jorfr as quickly as her legs would carry her, the bundles of her cut-apart braids coming loose as she ran. On her way to him she retrieved two bottles of DDLV, drinking most of the first one for herself before she even reached the northman.

A relieved laugh came out of her when she saw him sitting at the base of a tree, quietly brewing the Witch’s Vitae Elixir and covered in runic body paint made of his own blood. The top half of his hammer was by his side; he’d clearly intended to fight even in this state, had it come down to it. He was utterly haggard, with a gaping hole in the right side of his chest, plugged by translucent ice… But he was alive. More than alive, he was probably in a better state than Victor in terms of capability, though his recovery would doubtlessly take longer than the redhead’s.

“I would’ve grabbed Victor first, had I known you were fine,” she grinned, squatting down next to him.

Jorfr chuckled, only for the chuckle to turn into a bloody coughing fit that had him hacking up ice crystals. The fit subsided after a solid minute, eliciting a relieved sigh from the northman.

“Eh, I’ve had worse. Got… Got blood eagle’d once, hanged there for a couple hours before my clan came ‘round and wiped out the whoresons that did it. Another time a hunt went wrong and I got disemboweled. A good half-meter of my intestines is from the same bear that cut me open,” he recounted with a strange fondness to his voice, lifting his arm and gingerly turning off the burner. When the bubbling liquid settled down, it became clear that he had purposely prepared more than enough for all of them. Such a small gesture, one which he had likely not even thought about, and it somehow made a lump form in Zel’s throat and tears try to push into her eyes. She controlled herself, but she couldn’t figure out why this, of all things, would spark such a feeling.

They shared in the elixir using the same brass cup and afterwards Zel poured the remainder of it into a glyph-glass flask, not bothering with seals since it would be all drank within half an hour. After storing everything away she hefted Jorfr to his feet, despite the northman’s insistence that it looked like he had an easier time moving than she did. Perhaps it was true, but she didn’t care. Vic had not just gotten up on his own by the time they reached him, he had scaled one-fifth of the great stairway by leaning against its walls and using his staff for support. She hefted the young man up on her shoulder wholesale, carrying him atop her left arm while she and Jorfr walked up the stairs shoulder-on-shoulder.

Once they reached the top Zefaris joined in supporting Jorfr from the other side. They slowly walked through the cathedral as such, approaching the Blackwall Gate. It came to life upon their approach, though it didn’t open just yet.

“Must still have a couple minutes left…” Zel uttered, looking to her comrades. “Just enough for refreshments, I wager.”

And so they finished off the rest of the Vitae Elixir which Jorfr had prepared, with Zefaris only imbibing a half-portion while Victor downed a full cup. Zel and Jorfr then finished out the rest of it. Zefaris insisted on stowing away their small campsite, burner and all, and so the three others were left sitting upon one of the pews that had landed before the gate, waiting. Zel couldn’t stay still, so she quickly got back up and spent most of the wait stretching and constantly moving in place in order to quicken the dissipation of leftover Metallum, the constant creaking of her joints echoing all around and green chips of bronze oxide collecting at her feet.

The matter of what had just transpired inevitably came up.

“I should’ve just pulled his head off when I had the chance…” Zel sighed.

Zef’s voice sounded in response as she finished packing up the camp: “You couldn’t have known that he would come back as… Whatever he has become. He’s alive and something other than human, there’s no point in lamenting it now. I just wonder how he tracked us down to here.”

“I felt him coming from what, at least ten KMs given how quickly he moved. There was this… Tension even in our fight, I could always tell where he was even when I didn’t see him. Could’ve been something to do with how he found us, considering how he spoke of my death being his new purpose in life.”

“Red talks like that as well, but I don’t recall there being some sort of arcane connection between you two.”

“It was the armor,” Zel said, “I… Don’t know why. But I’m certain it was something about that armor. It felt weirdly familiar, like that time at the museum, or in the sect when I first saw the door seal. If it’s one of Tian Feng’s works, I am willing to believe that he could turn Von Wickten’s desire for vengeance into a tracking link. That man’s hate, his killing intent… It was the purest aura I’ve ever felt, without any variation or uncertainty. Red wasn’t like that any of the times we fought, none of the assassins were like that, not the Willowdale Locust Queen and certainly not Ubul. It was inhuman. Adalbert is now a vengeance machine, not a person. I honestly do not believe that he will do anything to target the sect - he will wait and prepare for my return, then make a direct attempt on my life.”