“I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“Yes.”
“Why did I do that?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” Aila reminded her gently.
“But why?” Jay said in exasperation, flinging one hand towards the ceiling. “I know what I did was stupid. I knew as I was doing it that I was making a mistake. Why in the name of D’s delicious cookies did I chase after that asshole anyway?”
Aila’s response wasn’t immediate as she met Eir’s curious gaze. She mouthed the words “delicious cookies” at the priestess who could only shrug in response. Shaking her head, Aila turned her face back down towards Jay and resumed running her fingers through her hair.
“Well, that’s a good question. Some self-reflection could help. Stand apart from yourself. Why do you think you, as you see yourself, would dash off after a dangerous enemy into unknown territory when you know they have traps in the area, possible backup, and without any support of your own since you left all of us behind?”
The answer to that question did not take much soul searching. Jadis had enough self-awareness to recognize her flaws, even if she didn’t always have the will to overcome them.
“Because I’m reckless,” Syd said from where she lay on her stomach nearby, voice muffled by her face being buried in a pillow.
“Because I act before I think,” Dys sighed from the opposite side of the room where she sat cross-legged, her chin on her fists.
“Because I’m an idiot,” Jay reiterated before rubbing her face vigorously with her hands.
“So, with those facts established,” Aila said as she combed Jay’s hair with her fingers, “we can work on doing better next time. Please. No one, least of all me, wants to see you hurt like that again.”
As bad as Jadis felt about how she’d fared against her first truly human opponents, the disappointment in Aila’s eyes felt worse. Running off alone like that had been a major fuck up on her part and she was lucky to have lived. If it wasn’t for her insanely high Vitality for her level, she wouldn’t have. If anything positive could have been said concerning the days events, it was that at least no one on her side of the battle had died. The same could not be said for the ambushers.
When Jadis had returned to the fort, aching all over and in a terrible mood since the party of bastards she’d been chasing had gotten away, her attitude had sobered up immediately upon seeing the results of the skirmish she’d left behind. The man she’d whacked with her hammer hadn’t survived. It wasn’t only his arms she’d broken, but his chest, back, and neck as well. He also wasn’t the only person she’d killed.
Early on, when the ambushers had first attacked and Jadis had swung wildly, Dys had felt her axe connect with something. As it turned out, she’d cleaved some poor fool in half, cutting straight through his chest. The mess of gore had not been pretty and if Jadis hadn’t gotten used to such sights by then from previous battles, she probably would have lost her lunch on seeing it without the dust cloud to obscure the bloody scene. Even then, thinking about it made her stomach twist. Killing a person was definitely not the same feeling as killing a demon…
No one else had seemed to have as much of a problem with it as her, though. Captain Willa and her two orc soldiers had also killed one of the assailants that had attacked them. A man with a pair of curved swords. Willa had lopped his head off while he’d tried to do the same to Jaxton, saving the orc’s life. Neither seemed too broken up about the fact that they’d had to defend themselves against the attacker, killing him in the process. Why should she?
Did she really feel that upset about it? Forcing herself to examine her reaction to the knowledge in more detail, Jadis found the answer was no. Not upset. Uncomfortable was a better word. A little regretful, maybe? Not that she’d defended herself, no regrets there. The idiots had attacked first and she’d done the right thing by fighting back, she was firm in her convictions as far as that went. She just felt somewhat morose at the necessity. She wished things had gone differently and the bastards hadn’t ambushed them or tried to kill them. She wished the fat fuck and his skinny accomplice and that weird mage bitch with the wand had tried talking to them first. Maybe they could have come to a peaceful solution?
Fuck. That was probably wishful thinking. Naïve, really. Clearly the kind of people who would try to drop a building on her unprovoked weren’t the kind to talk things out. Still, she couldn’t help wishing the day had gone differently. At the very least, she wished she’d taken the opportunity when she’d had it to break that toothy asshole’s arms. Maybe his knees, too, for good measure. Legs, was it? She wouldn’t be forgetting him any time soon.
Legs, Jockel, and Stavros. Those were the names she’d gleaned from her horrendously painful interaction with the ambushers. Other than Legs, Jadis wasn’t sure who was who, or if those names even belonged to any of the people she’d seen and fought, like the fat man with the chain whip. When she’d relayed the info to her companions and Captain Willa, the only name that had sparked a response was Stavros.
“I don’t know if it’s the same person,” Kerr had said, “but there was a mercenary named Stavros back in Tennfjord, the port town, with that name. He was trying to start a mercenary company to head to Weigrun, as I recall. No idea what ever came of him, never saw him after I left for Weigrun myself.”
Since Kerr had been in Weigrun for almost two years, that info was dated, to say the least. Still, it was something that Willa said she could use when they got back to Far Felsen in their investigation, presuming there were no further encounters with the ambushers. Whether they would see them again or not was up in the air, in her estimation, since it was just as likely that the criminals would do everything in their power to avoid their group now that they’d made a disastrous first contact. Or they’d be out for revenge, looking to take them out at the next opportunity. Either way, they’d need to be on high alert going forward.
That heightened level of alertness had of course extended to their sleeping arrangements for the night. Willa had ordered the fort thoroughly searched for any more traps or secret entrances. Every building had been checked twice over to be certain no nasty surprises waited for them. Quite a few more traps had been discovered and disabled, along with a second escape tunnel that had been filled in.
Jadis and her team had taken the largest remaining building in the fort, now that the inn and tower had been destroyed, as their accommodations. The building had been a barracks before the fort was abandoned so there was plenty of room for them once they tossed the old and broken bunk beds out of the way. With a fireplace going strong and a real roof overhead, Jadis had to say that the quarters were decent enough. Better than camping, as nice as the wagon was, though still not as good as their room back in the city. Not that she was longing to return. A life of adventure was what she’d signed up for when she’d reincarnated on Oros and travelling to distant places and sleeping in less than comfortable locales was part of that package. As were fights with assholes and near-death experiences with snaggle-toothed assassins, apparently.
“Did you see anything on the blade that looked like this?” Sabina asked, holding up a plank of wood in front of Dys’ face, drawing her attention away from her bitter thoughts. “It might have been along the tang or on just one side.”
The smith had drawn on the wood with a piece of charcoal, outlining a strange runic symbol with many sharp points surrounding a central symbol that looked a lot like an eye.
“I’m sorry,” Dys shook her head. “I can’t be sure. The partial invisibility spell cast on the blade made it difficult to make out details.”
“Hmm,” Sabina hummed as she withdrew the plank and stared at it herself. “I bet it had this on it. Probably. Maybe. The orange glow you described could mean a few different things but what you said about the blade passing through your armor without damaging it combined with the orange-ness and what Eir said about your health means it’s probably this enchantment or something very close to it.”
“W—what kind of enchantment is it?” Thea asked curiously from where she was cleaning her armor in a corner of the room.
“Soul Reaver,” Sabina told her, holding up the drawing towards Thea so she could see. “I’ve never seen it in action but it’s one of the extremely rare ones that my father taught me about. It’s based off of a malediction spell that attacks the soul directly so it damages your health without actually cutting your flesh. It bypasses armor since its not a physical attack anymore and is purely divine in nature.”
“That’s abhorrent,” Eir gasped, looking up from where she was rubbing and kneading Syd’s back to soothe her aches and pains. “Who would make something so terrible?”
“Uh,” the smith shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know where this one came from, but the one my father told me about was made by Sestolino the Gold Hand. He was a world-renowned smith who died six hundred and twenty-nine years ago who would make just about any weapon with any enchantment you can imagine so I guess a cultist commissioned this malediction? He wasn’t the type of smith to care who used the weapon or why, he just liked the challenge of making things.”
“And that Legs guy got one of his daggers somehow?” Dys asked incredulously.
“Oh, no!” Sabina shook her head vehemently. “His work is far too sought after for some random bandit in Weigrun to have one, his later weapons sell for hundreds of gold pieces, some are even treasured by the imperial family! It’s probably a replica, since his enchantments are rather famous and a good enchanter who has studied Sestolino’s work could potentially replicate the enchantment, if they were themselves high enough in level and had the right materials.”
Whether the knife had been some grand artifact crafted by a long dead master enchanter or a cheap knockoff changed nothing about how much it had hurt to be stabbed by the incorporeal blade. The knife hadn’t left any physical scars, but even after being healed by Eir, Jadis still felt phantom pains itching at the different spots where she’d been stabbed. Eir’s gentle ministrations were helping, but Jadis felt like she needed a distraction to get her mind off of dwelling on the horrible blunder she’d made and the ordeal she’d gone through earlier in the day. Such a distraction presented itself as Sabina continued to talk about the master enchanter animatedly, though it wasn’t necessarily a welcome one.
“I’ll be right back,” Kerr mumbled, stepping around the edge of the room. “Forgot something in the wagon.”
Jadis watched Kerr go, a different kind of worry tugging at her. Kerr had been quiet ever since they’d gotten back to the fort. Far from her usual casual attitude, she’d been withdrawn and pensive. Jadis wasn’t sure what had prompted the change in demeanor, but she couldn’t help but worry that it had something to do with the unexpected shout Kerr had issued earlier in the day.
“Get the fuck off my girlfriend!”
Those had been Kerr’s exact words after she’d shot the murderous bastard off of Jay’s back. At the time, Jadis hadn’t had the wherewithal to focus on that rather significant half-dozen set of words. Now, though, she had the time and space to think about the moment. And while a lot of different things came to mind when she thought of Kerr, girlfriend wasn’t on the list.
“Give me a second,” Jay said as she sat up from where she lay with her head in Aila’s lap. “I need to go get something from the wagon, too.”
“Okay, hurry back,” Aila said with a nod and a half smile.
Before she quite got up, Jay quickly turned back and gave Aila a loving kiss.
“I will,” Jay assured her.
A few seconds later Jay was outside in the cold of the winter night. The wagon had been parked across from their building, forming a kind of barrier with the soldier’s wagon. The soldiers had commandeered one of the other nearby buildings that was still in good condition for their own sleeping quarters, but four of them were out on guard duty, two on the wall and two in the courtyard. Jadis didn’t pay any mind to them, though. Her sights were set on one woman.
Kerr had already reached the wagon and was rummaging around inside. Jay could see her through the open front door. Striding up to join her, Jay leapt up on the front seat and leaned in, looking at the therion who had her head buried in a wooden crate.
“Hey,” Jay called out, not entirely certain where to start. “Want to talk?”
A curse drifted out of the wagon interior, followed a moment later by Kerr herself carrying a corked glass bottle.
“Not really,” Kerr said, wiggling the bottle in one hand. “Kind of just wanted to see how fast I could down this shit.”
“Well I do want to talk,” Jay insisted, swiping the alcohol out of Kerr’s hand. “You can drink later.”
“Fuck,” Kerr moaned while looking down. She leaned her head against where her hand rested on the wagon’s doorframe. “You heard me, didn’t you.”
“I heard you,” Jay nodded somberly.
“Yeah, okay,” Kerr sighed. "Let’s talk.”
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