Chapter 7

That day started normally, like any other day in the past two months. I got up with Irabeth, we had breakfast and put our armor on, then she left for field duty while I went to train our soldiers. Around noon, however, things got… surreal.

One of my soldiers made a mistake in the drill. I went up to her and had her do it again; this time she did it perfectly, but something was still off. I stared at her closely for a moment before I recognized her: Garnet Amisan, that shady “ex”-thief who insisted on traveling with us. Definitely my least favorite of the family. I sent the troops to lunch break, for which they were eternally grateful - but they shouldn’t get used to it - while I interrogated Garnet on what was going on.

She claimed to have been sent here by Irabeth and the Queen herself as an “Internal Affairs Investigator” to test our security. Apparently she pulled one of my soldiers out of line and took her place without me noticing! Naturally I was quite upset and sent Garnet off with a warning about poking her nose where she doesn’t belong.

At the end of training, Irabeth came up to me. Strangely, she was covered in some brown stains, but I didn’t ask about it, assuming at the time that it was just demon bile from field duty. It turned out that Garnet was telling the truth for once in her life. Irabeth was having concerns about security, and since she “didn’t want to hurt my ego”, rather than just talking to me about it, she decided to pull this convoluted plan to prove her point to me - as if that would be better for my “ego”. I was a bit upset, naturally - less that my drill had been interrupted, more that my partner apparently felt she couldn’t talk to me about something like this professionally. Still, I can’t stay mad at her. I made her promise to just talk to me in the future about this kind of thing. We made up at home later, and it seems everything with her is back to normal.

By the Inheritor, I caught myself about to write sentimentally about how I feel about her. But this isn’t a personal diary, it’s a professional journal to chronicle my part in the crusade. Get yourself together, Casimir.

Anyway, that night Irabeth and I were summoned to meet with the Queen about the upcoming Drezen siege. We (somewhat reluctantly) put our ceremonial armor on and made our way to the palace, where also summoned were Fay, Arueshalae, and - interestingly - Felix. I wasn’t too perturbed; people come back from the dead all the time, as I know all too well, but Fay was quite shocked. It turned out Felix had simply been living in the woods away from civilization for two months as he tried to get over the guilt he felt over Saggaroth’s death. I was glad to have him back; he needs to get more serious about the war effort, but he is a valued companion and brave warrior.

That evening was spent planning the siege. Fay and Felix are still new to this kind of thing, so they didn’t have much tactical input - except when Fay heard that there was a rumored “Haunted Vault” just outside the city, which she insisted we check out. Her excuse was that there might be a secret tunnel into Drezen, but I think she was really just excited about the concept of going through a creepy crypt.

After deciding how many troops and siege engines to bring, and planning our attack in which myself, Felix, Wynn, Fay, Arueshalae, and Garnet would sneak into the city at night, take out one of the watchtowers from within, then send a signal to the army to attack, we had two days to rest and get ready before the battle. I must admit I spent most of that time at home with Irabeth; you never know what’s going to happen in a war, and I’ve lost too many people close to me to take such a relationship for granted.

But that’s irrelevant. The day of the assault, we had a five-mile march to Drezen. Our army camped out out of sight in the nearby forest while my team took some invisibility potions and made our way over to the haunted vault. Unfortunately, there was an unholy ward on the vault preventing those of good heart from entering. Only Garnet and, a bit disconcertingly, Fay, were able to go inside. After a few minutes Fay figured out how to cancel the enchantment so the rest of us could join them.

At the bottom of the vault, after passing through halls of skeletons, was a chamber with an unholy altar. Once we were all inside, a ghostly force appeared. I prepared for such a foe by enchanting my weapon to harm the intangible, but what I wasn’t prepared for was that this creature was the wraith of our old lantern archon ally who died in Kenabres! Some foul magic perverted its holiness into this monstrosity, and it was our duty to destroy it, which we did without much trouble.

At that point, we heard a rumbling from up above, and we quickly returned to the surface. There in front of us, heading towards the army, was a monster the likes of which I had never seen - and I don’t say that often. It had green scales and pincers all over it, fused bizarrely with a doglike head. Around it was an aura of filth and disease. The battle was swift but brutal; I caught a few illnesses myself, but I trust that Fay will cure them before they become too life-threatening. Fay concerned me with her lack of effectiveness in the battle; she had quite a hard time breaching the creature’s magical resistances, but I suspect she was distracted by how “cute” the monster was. She was making cooing noises as if she were talking to a puppy the whole battle. I really must speak to her about taking this whole war more seriously.

Interlude 8: Origin, part 3

Alright, Iris, how are you going to get out of this one? she thought to herself. She tested the chains - solid and secure. She had no choice but to wait and see what happened. It seemed like hours passed, though she had no idea how much time it actually was. She made a specific effort not to fall asleep.

Eventually, a cultist came and opened the door to her cell. He was holding a small knife in his hand, glistening with some foul green liquid. “Time to go, honey,” he said with a sadistic grin. He bent down to make a small incision with the knife to poison her and presumably knock her out. Reacting instinctively, Iris kicked the cultist in the throat. The man clutched his neck with one hand. “You fucking bitch,” he wheezed, and threw the knife aside, taking out a heavy mace instead. He lifted it up with both hands and brought it down at Iris’s head.

Iris smiled as the mace came down and moved her head aside. Just as planned, the mace smashed into the chain holding her left hand to the wall, warping the links enough for her to wiggle her hand free. She grabbed the front of the cultist’s robe and pulled him down toward her, headbutting him hard and knocking him out. With her free hand, she went through the man’s robe pockets until she found a ring of keys. She tried each key until she found the one that set her free from the rest of her chains. She took the cultist’s knife and slashed his throat, then grabbed his mace and snuck out the cell door.

She found herself in a stone hallway, torches lining the walls. Up and down the hall were numerous other cages - some empty, some with corpses, but a few were occupied. She found her companions Sara and Alyssa, setting them free. There were also a few other women, scared and alone and apparently not much of fighters. She unlocked their chains but instructed them to remain in their cells until she returned for them.

The last cell on the left had a dead woman in it, and Iris almost walked right by it until she heard a sound. It sounded like… a baby crying? Iris examined the woman more closely. Held tightly in her arms was a newborn baby - the mother must have died shortly after childbirth. The baby had red skin, stubby horns on its forehead, and a small stump of a tail. When it saw Iris, it stopped crying and looked into her eyes. “Alyssa, stay here and watch over this baby,” Iris commanded. Alyssa obeyed, and Iris and Sara went to check out the rest of the compound.

Outside the door from the cage hallway were two cultist guards. They were chatting about something inconsequential and seemed to not notice Iris coming up behind them until it was too late. She bashed each of them in the head with her mace before they could shout a warning. One of them had a sword, which Iris tossed to Sara. “Now we make these cultists’ lives hell,” Sara said with a grin.

The two warrior women stealthily made their way around the cultists’ hideout, taking out guards wherever they found them. Eventually they found themselves at the front of a large room, at the end of which was none other than Alger. He had his back to them and was talking to someone. “Yes, Mother. The new women should be being utilized at this very moment.” However, he must have heard the door open, for he turned around. He was holding a black crystal in one hand, which pulsated with purple light - Iris’s religious studies helped her recognize this as a communication device.

Alger’s eyes went wide with shock when he saw Iris and Sara. “How did you-- not important. If you two won’t cooperate, I’ll have to put you down myself.” He put away the crystal and drew his sword, then he started striding forward.

Iris whispered to Sara, “Be careful. We don’t have any armor.” Iris went left and Sara went right, taking up a flanking position against Alger. Sara charged, forcing Alger to bring his shield up against her, granting Iris the opportunity to try to bash the fucker’s head in with her mace. Alger was more skilled than he let on, though, and deflected the blow with his sword.

“Good trick! It won’t work, but it was a good thought,” Alger sneered. He bashed Sara with his shield, and Sara fell backwards and prone. Alger twisted around in the same motion and brought his sword up at Iris’s face. Iris barely dodged the stab and tried to smash Alger’s guts with her mace, but he already had his shield back up in front of his torso. Behind Alger, Sara was getting up and preparing another assault, but Alger backed away from Iris, dodging her swing, and stabbed Sara through her shoulder. Sara cried out in agony and dropped her sword as Alger twisted his blade. “Now it’s just you and me, sweetie,” he said sadistically.

The two warriors faced off, circling each other. Iris realized her chances of getting past Alger’s defenses with her mace were slim, while one hit from him and she would be down for the count. Thinking quickly, she wound up and hurled her mace at Alger’s face, forcing him to bring his shield up in front of his head. While he couldn’t see, she charged forward and tackled him. She was on top of him now, holding his sword arm to the ground with her left hand and pounding away at his face with her right. She got a good two or three hits in, breaking his nose, before he brought his shield back up and forced her off of him.

Iris was prone on the ground as Alger stood up, so she swept her legs under him, tripping him back onto the ground. Miraculously, Alger dropped his sword when he hit the floor; the blade clattered away ten or fifteen feet. Iris and Alger looked at the sword, then at each other, then both scrambled towards it. They each placed a hand on the handle at the same time and began wrestling for it. Iris felt her grip weakening - Alger was stronger than she was. She had to come up with something or she would lose the sword and shortly thereafter lose her life.

She pulled on the sword, bringing her in close to Alger, and kneed him in the groin. Alger gasped with shock and let go of the sword. Iris took it and put the point up to Alger’s neck. Alger stopped moving and looked at her.

“Well done. I expected no less from my girl.”

“I’m not your ‘girl’, you monster.”

“Of course not. How silly of me. But listen, I’m sure we can make a deal. You can walk right out of here if you just--”

Wanting to hear no more of Alger’s lies and manipulation, Iris drove the point of the sword into his neck. His eyes went wide, then he fell to the ground. Iris immediately ran over to check on Sara; she could walk, but was in no condition to fight. After Iris patched her up, the two women made their way back to the prisons, where they collected the rest of the caged women.

Alyssa was holding the red baby at arms’ length as it cried. “Help me! I’m not a baby person!” Iris took the infant from Alyssa; when he saw her, he immediately quieted down. “Aww, he likes you!” said Sara.

“I’m keeping him,” decided Iris on the spur of the moment. She felt some kind of connection with this child.

“What’ll you name him?” asked Sara.

Iris thought for a moment. “I think I’ll name him after my father. Casimir.”