Martyr Roslyn POV

This was, is nice. It had been a long time since Roslyn Tess had a chance to dive a dungeon, at least eight hundred by her own count, back when she was the leader of the guild during her wandering years when Lyrox had to focus on fixing issues that some of the other gods had. Still the way her life was going so far she wouldn’t change a thing.

Why Roslyn, why did you betray your people, your family?

A frown appeared on her face but disappeared just as quickly. “Stupid voices, always intruding on my thoughts when I feel at peace, tell me then why do you only choose to speak up when I enter a dungeon? Do you fear the outside world?

You do not deserve peace, murderer! You stole everything from us, all in order to please the usurper.

Roslyn grunted, “I did what was necessary Lord Lyrox and the others saved our world from the rotten rule of Deanbeak. You were all so drunk on power that you became blind to what was going on around you.”

The voices recoiled slightly at Roslyn’s word but returned them in kind.

Did Amanda deserve to die as well?

There was no comeback this time, no snappy retort, only a deep silence as Roslyn rose from her seat at the edge of the swamp and started walking into it.

“Owen and Ferros had better hurry up, I’m not in a caring mood any longer.”

Owen and Ferros POV

Deep in the dungeon's frozen forest Confessor Owen’s muscles strained from the effort required to hold back the massive wolf bearing down on him and Ferros, who was still stunned from having his sword shattered a moment before, sat with a vacant look on his face.

“Paladin now is not the time to get distracted and emotional over a sword. It can be replaced, and so can you, but I don’t want to be the one to explain to the Martyr how you died. SO GET YOUR ASS UP AND HELP ME KILL THIS THING NOW!!!!”

The Confessor’s word managed to shake Ferros from his stupor, and with grim determination he stood, grasped the hilt of his broken sword and rushed the wolf. It had the same outcome as before. The wolf reared back and swung the Confessor into Ferros’s path knocking them both over.

Confessor Owen rolled with the fall and came up in a three point stance. Paladin Ferros however ended in a tangle on the frozen ground. “Confessor, are you fine?” Ferros called slowly, getting himself up off the ground once again.

“I’m good, Paladin but I think it's about time I stopped playing around with the mangy fleabag.” Owen said as he began casting holy magic. “Langston the Arbiter, I call for your judgment to measure the scales [Equalize]!”

At Owen's word a burst of golden light consumed the wolf rooting it in place and a translucent scale appeared floating above its head. Unable to move with the light binding it the wolf let out a deep resounding growl that caused ice spears to burst from the frozen ground moving directly towards Owen.

Ferros didn’t let it reach the Confessor and had jumped in front of him taking the brunt of the attack with his shattered sword. As the ice receded from the attack the scale above the wolf’s head solidified and started to shine with bright silver color. “Good, Paladin, now step forward and this battle is ours.”

Ferros grit his teeth and steadied his shaky legs. Shattered sword in his hand and blood staining his face he turned fully toward the wolf, who was still restrained in golden light. Ferros took a few steps forward when then scale solidified completely and a silver light spread out from it. On the pans of the scale the figure of a wolf appeared on one side and a human on the other, then they slowly tilted back and forth until the wolf figure dipped and stayed low. Then a low voice echoed through the woods “All are made Equal.”

Then the golden light constricted the wolf and a single gold tether shot out and latched itself onto Ferros. Next Ferros felt a surge of new strength flow into his body as well as a deep throbbing pain as he watched the wolf collapse to the ground bleeding from wounds that hadn’t been there a moment before. Stupefied he looked to Owen for answers.

Owen saw the look on the younger inquisitor's face and spoke quickly “I’ll explain what it does later for now, finish the mini-boss so we can catch up with the Martyr!”

Ferros didn’t question the Confessor further; instead he leapt at the wolf, now that he had been slightly reinvigorated. The resulting clash of broken metal and claw was horrendous, but Ferros managed to nearly cut off the wolf’s entire right forepaw with that attack. Both the wolf and Ferros circled each other, Ferros breathing hard and the wolf favoring his three remaining legs. Ferros tightened his grip on the remains of his sword as the wolf bared its teeth, one way or another this would be the final clash they had today, and then they charged each other. The sound of twisting metal and flesh tearing could be heard in the frozen forest.

Ferros and the wolf mini-boss now stood at opposite ends of the little clearing after the latest clash neither one moving, only breathing hard. Then Ferros fell to one knee and coughed up a slightly concerning amount of blood, the wolf on the other hand raised its head to the sky and let loose a mournful cry then toppled over dead.

Confessor Owen rushed over to Ferros, with a look of genuine surprise, for he didn’t expect the kid to win. He knew he wouldn’t have let him die, not as long as the Martyr favored the young paladin, but he really didn’t expect that last attack the kid used to actually bring the mini-boss down. He had some new found respect for the kid, maybe the kid had what it took to be an inquisitor after all.

So after some quick emergency healing they turned to the corpse of the wolf. “So what are you waiting for Paladin, you killed it so you get to loot it.” Confessor Owen stated matter-of-factly.

“Are you sure Confessor, I didn’t do much that fight other than get tossed around and have my sword shattered.”

“True, but you decided to keep fighting despite the odds that were stacked against you, so I believe you deserve the loot. Now since this is your first time in a dungeon, looting works differently for monsters that are deemed mini-boss and above. For them you simply approach them and touch them to receive your loot rather than actually skin, chop, or pick other monsters. Now stop standing there with that dumb look on your face and get to looting or are you not ready to face the Martyr again yet?”

At the mention of Martyr Roslyn, Ferros straightened his back and walked over to the downed mini-boss reached out and touched him as instructed. When he did a quick flash of light temporarily blinded him and when he looked down in his hand was a new sword complete with a scabbard. The pommel was a silver wolf's head with blue crystal eyes, and when he drew it out he could see that the sword was engraved with four wolves running on each side of the blade. Unlike his old sword this one was one handed, so he took a few practice swings to get used to the lighter weight, and when he was done he sheathed it and attached it to his waist.

“I’m ready to go catch up with Martyr Roslyn now Confessor.”

Confessor Owen grunted, “Yeah I’d say you are. Let's move and don’t worry I didn’t forget that I owe you an explanation on how that spell worked. Come on, we talk while we walk.”

“Sir.”

“Alright to begin, [Equalize] is divine magic, specifically it can only be used by chosen worshipers of Langston the Arbiter, much like the Martyr’s [Flesh Hooks] can only be wielded by a chosen of Lyrox Lord of the Lash. This particular spell designates a singular enemy as the target and the closest ally to the target as the receiver. It then measures the strength and injuries of each and takes some of the stronger ones strength to add to the weaker one and some of the weaker ones injuries gives them to the stronger one. It will keep doing this measurement until it has deemed them equal to each other. It’s a pretty good trump card if used correctly, since it targets the closest ally that can include the caster. Which can end in disaster especially in cases like ours where the caster, me, is significantly stronger than the targeted enemy. So we are really lucky you decided to block his attack and end up in front of me.”

Ferros froze as what Confessor Owen said sunk in. “I could have died if it had targeted you.”

Owen nodded and kept walking. “Don’t worry even if that had happened I would still have been able to kill it. Then I would have simply used a resurrection spell to bring you back.” Ferros still hadn’t moved, but now he did glare daggers at Owens' back. “Oh please don’t give me that look if you knew you wouldn’t actually die you would have either been reckless in your attacks and gotten hurt quicker or you would have cowered behind me until a stray attack got you. Really I did you a favor by lying. You gained confidence plus I don’t have to explain why I needed to resurrect you. So win win.”

After that explanation and the reveal of the Confessors' lies, the rest of the walk to their meeting point went in relative silence, only really broken up by the random savage goblin attack or by stumbling into the path of one of those giant hogs. They finally could see Martyr Roslyn ahead of them pacing back and forth mumbling something to herself while under the shade of a mangrove tree. It took another couple of minutes before they could actually hear her.

“Owen and Ferros had better hurry up, I’m not in a caring mood any longer.”

Ferros picked up speed in an attempt to apologize to his master for taking so long only to stop as a cold burning pain erupted in his side. When he looked down he found a dagger had punched through his armor and an angry goblin was already in the process of pulling it out. He could only let out a strained cry as the goblin jumped away as a fist smashed into the ground where it had been.

“DIE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO HAIL!!!” The goblin screamed as it quickly disappeared into the swamp narrowly dodging a crystalline shard of blood fired off by Martyr Roslyn.