Unbound

Ilia watched the Inquisition.

While the insipid heiress had gone sneaking off with the courier, the Sworn had wanted to cast her net wide. Where was she headed? Who, exactly, was she going to meet? She had no way of knowing, and to race ahead might mean losing track of the little twist. So she followed, never straying closer than half a block to muddle the girl's fairly sharp senses. It was going well until they hit the Wall Quarter.

Somehow she lost them in the crowd.

One minute she had eyes on them, and in the next the packed streets had swallowed them entirely. Her Perception was useless, her various sight Skills unable to penetrate the dense mire of Untempered flesh. Even Unmoored Spirit showed only strange, confusing glimpses of sight and sound.

It was clear that someone was contesting her claim with a Skill. And it was strong enough to befuddle an Epic ranked ability; admittedly, her Unmoored Spirit was only in the Apprentice Tier, but even so. The Sworn was relatively sure it was the courier doing it, but that hunch didn't matter until she found them again. So she did what she couldn't do before.

She cast her net.

Moving quickly and methodically, Ilia scoured the streets of the Wall Quarter. Strangely enough, while she found no trace of her quarry, Ilia did notice that the once busy streets emptied out as dusk descended on Haarwatch. It was an eerie sight, one she had not often experienced in the city, and never in the Wall Quarter. The area was considered the beating heart of Haarwatch, with taverns open all night and many specialized shops available as well, all to service the ceaseless vigil upon the Wall itself. Yet now it was silent as the grave.

Or rather, the normal sounds of the quarter were silenced, but the creak and jangle of armor and harness was much louder. Taking the briefest of dips away from her hunt, Ilia sated her curiosity and found a massive gathering of Inquisition forces. At least five hundred redcloaks had marshaled in the Wall Quarter, and from what she overheard the Initiates whispering, they were going on a hunt.

For heretics.

Ilia had been a member of the Sworn nearly all her life, and she had grown a nose for coincidences. This was not one of them. So, still unable to find hide nor hair of her quarry, she shadowed the strike force as it honed in on a section of the Crafters Quarter. They consulted no artifacts nor arcane tools, instead making directly for three separate areas. The force split up with militaristic precision, each group moving as quietly as they could without sacrificing speed. Before long, the splinter Ilia followed came upon an old, dilapidated building on the boundary between the Crafters and the Wall Quarter.

After encircling the old, clearly abandoned residence, the Inquisition settled in to wait. As did the Sworn. Neither had to wait long.

When the smoke began pouring out of the structure, Ilia knew what would happen. She had studied such tactics herself, once upon a time. Bursts of thicker smoke and licks of controlled fire sent people fleeing out of the building's two exits. They were all dressed in the simple clothing of Untempered crafters and laborers, and many of them were either wounded or hacking from the smoke. It was child's play to corner them and drive them into the armored wagons that had followed at a discreet distance.

God-touched idiots, Ilia shook her head. Her heart is ice, but she can't shake a tiny touch of sympathy for the poor families that would lose mothers and fathers to this. Hope they said their goodbyes.

Few came back from Heirocratic justice.

Above her, a low hum drifted past the chaos below. Ice or not, Ilia's heart had lurched to see a Manaship descend from the limited cloud cover and circle above the site. They have a Manaship? Heretics were present in most places of the Heirocracy. A Manaship had cannons that could level a building in a few blinks, and ate up more Mana in an hour than most folks could generate in a week. Its presence was utter overkill for the level of conflict she'd experienced in Haarwatch.

Unless the Inquisition played a different game.

Two other plumes of dark grey smoke pushed up into the night, straight and untouched by wind. Like a prowling shark, the Manaship began a slow circuit around each ambush point. Something else was going on here, Ilia was certain of that.

The Inquisition had set guards along the edge of their operation. Men and women in white-enameled armor that turned away those few foolish souls that tried to peek further in. From among them, words drifted to the Sworn's sharpened senses. The guards in question were a half a block away, too far for her Analyze to tag. She focused on the sound, letting her Perception enhance them until it was as if they were only feet away.

"Do you think he's really up there, Nel?" said a larger figure, gesturing above. He wore the sword of an Initiate and were easily three span tall and wide as a tree trunk. The red cloak that hung from his back was more like a bedsheet. "The Master Inquisitor?"

"Of course not. Probably an Inquisitor at the helm. You think Khorun Katan has the time to watch over a rat flush?" The big one grunted, conceding the point. The second Initiate, Nel, was shorter and slighter than the first and seemed...agitated.

"Think the Fiend will be here?" The big one asked, thumbing the pommel at his waist. "Think we'll see some claws and teeth tonight?"

"You still on that? He's not real," Nel said.

Lies. Ilia recognized. He's afraid.

"The Master Inquisitor thinks so," the other argued. "Why put out orders to keep an eye out, then?"

Nel scoffed. "Orders to look for someone with blue eyes and lightning based Skills, yeah. Not for some monster out of tavern tales."

"Still," Treetrunk said. "Shame we're hunting him down. Dusters talk about him like's he's a hero."

"He attacked two Acolytes to enter this city illegally, Marv," Nel explained with a trace of heat. "Then he killed monsters far above most people in town, and maybe even did in some citizens. There are more than a few mysterious disappearances. Bodies carved up and left in alleyways..."

Nel didn't shiver, not exactly, but a tremor passed through his aura after his last sentence.

"You saying the Fiend and the Butcher are the same?" Marv the Treetrunk tilted his head in confusion. "That report said he'd attacked the gate guards only a couple weeks ago. The Butcher has been leaving bodies for a month, at least."

"Who says he didn't leave and come back?" The Initiate shrugged, but his agitated Spirit was easy to read. "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe--"

The rest of what he said was lost in another popping burst of fire Mana. The abandoned house spat out licks of hungry flame from its windows and doors as even more smoke fed out into the dark night.

Ilia could sense a number of people behind locked doors and shuttered windows, watching the redcloaks grab people off the street and burn down buildings. She knew they were too scared to venture out here, too weak. They feared they too would be taken away.

Then she felt a resonance in her Spirit.

Her Skill had found the heiress again.

Remarkably, the girl wasn't at any of the three sites, and for a moment Ilia doubted her intuition. Then she noticed that the resonance was coming from behind her. In a flash, Ilia Cloud Stepped to the roof and looked back. Flaring her Journeyman Tier eyes, she fixated on a small, barely perceptible flash of silver in the dark night.

Found you.

Beside the heiress was another a strange, gangly man with a sharp, rat like face, as well as a familiar figure wearing a spiked chain. Evie Aren. Just what are you doing here?

She had known the two were friends, but from what she could tell, Dayne hadn't tried to see her in months. Why now? The Sworn's eyes panned over the roof, nearly skipping over a blocky chimney beside her before it...it was no longer a chimney, but a boy with bright blue eyes and shaggy black hair.

Ilia jolted in surprise.

What? She felt like she was seeing things. He's still alive?

"Where are they taking them?"

Vess made a face, her eyes unfocused as she tried to look toward Felix. She took several blinks and frowned as if through a headache. "Could you stop doing...whatever it is you are doing? I cannot talk to you like this."

Abyssal Skein is level 15!

"Oh, sorry," Felix dropped his Skill, and all three of his companions nearly sighed in relief. Vess flicked her eyes to him, having been looking about two feet to his left.

"Gods, what is that Skill? Knowing you're there but not seein' you is like worryin' at a toothache I can't find," Evie grumbled from the other side of Vess, and Felix shrugged without answering.

"That wasn't Stealth. You were almost invisible," Mettias gasped. "That is...that-teach me!"

Felix ignored him too, turning instead to Vess. He repeated his question.

"Where is the Inquisition taking them? Do you know?"

"To the Eyrie. It is the only place with enough facilities to hold so many," Vess said while she looked back out at the mass of red cloaks and smoke-stained prisoners. She settled a little lower on the roof, trying to present as little a silhouette as possible.

Felix looked out as well. He had wanted to rush in and save the people, but...with the amount of opposition, there wasn't much he could do. His Eye picked out many Acolytes and Initiates, but also four full-fledged Inquisitors. He'd asked before and the ranks in the order were relatively analogous to Guild Ranks. Acolytes were Tin or Iron Rank and Initiates were Bronze, generally speaking. Inquisitors, however, broke that pattern. Most were closer to Gold than standard Silver Ranks. Many, he'd been told, had Skills that were in the Adept Tier; one whole rank above Journeyman.

He'd been told all of that, but his Eye confirmed that many were stronger than such rankings assumed. None were below Apprentice Tier, while many were above Journeyman. Those four Inquisitors were, in fact, Adepts.

Felix was strong; he knew that and appreciated that he could manage odds that many others couldn't. But even he couldn't fight four above-Harn-level combatants and their two hundred strong army.

Felix ground his teeth in annoyance. All of that still said nothing of the Manaship that cruised the sky above them. Felix vividly recalled the Hippocamp's Fury and the sheer amount of firepower it had brought to bear. Surely an Inquisition ship would be equipped with far more munitions than a pirate vessel stuck in the Void. At the very least, Felix had to worry about possible reinforcements from above, as the ship was clearly large enough to carry hundreds.

"So that's how they got here so fast," Evie murmured. She caught Felix's questioning eye and explained. "To Haarwatch. The Inquisition must have flown from the capital, which is much faster than the trade route."

"Yes, they have this ship docked at the Eyrie, though they have not deigned to bring it out before now," Vess said with some contempt. "Why they feel the need to use it on Untempered commoners trying to worship is reprehensible."

"They're Inquisitors," Mettias said, his voice tired. "This is what they do."

"Look," Evie pointed out two other plumes of smoke that pushed straight up into the sky. "You think that's where the other tunnels let out?"

"Definitely," Mettias grunted. "Which means this area is crawlin' with redcloaks. I dunno about you, but I'm gettin' outta here. Zara asked that I bring you to her, but I ain't forcin' you to come."

"Wait," Felix put out a hand to halt the man. "What's going to happen to them?"

"The prisoners?" Mettias grimaced. "Probably gonna get killed."

"What?" Felix felt alarm spike in his chest, Pit echoing his emotions.

"There will be a trial first. Heirocratic law demands it," Vess assured him, but Mettias snorted.

"A farce."

Vess' face reddened slightly, but she didn't disagree. "Once they are found guilty, they will either be banished, executed, or..."

"Fed to the Domain," the courier finished.

"What?" Felix repeated. He wasn't sure he heard that right. "They could be fed to a dungeon? How does--why? Why would that be a thing?"

"Domains use up a lotta Mana to keep functioning properly," Evie said, her own face pale. Whether it was anger or fear, Felix couldn't tell. "Guild uses em as trainin' resources, and to keep doin' that they need to be topped off nearly all the time."

"Right," agreed Vess, her voice quiet. "It is an important thing any controlling force knows, for if the Domain dies, there too goes the easy strengthening of your warriors."

"Yeah, but people? You feed it people?!" Felix felt himself grow angrier the longer he thought about it.

"Criminals mostly, those convicted of terrible deeds typically," Vess affirmed, her jaw tightly clenched. "But more often it's fed monsters that are captured from the wilderness, at least that is what is done in Pax'Vrell. Here.... I do not know what is normal here."

"Monsters are what's normal. So many chimeras have been fed into the Domain here that it's mostly filled with em," Evie said. She winced and gave an apologetic shrug toward Felix. "Sorry."

"Ain't nothin' we can do to change it, not here," Mettias said, crawling to the edge of the roof again. "Perhaps Zara has answers, though. If your willin' to follow me."

Vess and Evie shared a look. Evie shrugged, but her face was hard. The chain wielder nudged Felix, who still stared at the gathered Inquisitors.

"C'mon Felix. Let's see what this wizard has to say."

Despite himself, Felix smiled. "Hey, you used it right."

The youths climbed down off the roof, heading back toward this Zara.

Zara. Sounds like a Naiad. Ilia couldn't place the name for a few moments, but then it came to her. The Guild Archivist. Former, I think. She recalled hearing about a Naiad that got ousted for causing a ruckus in the Eyrie. Why would they be going to see her?

Intrigued, she followed. Had she not be contracted to do this, Ilia would have followed them anyway. Her nose was telling her that something big was happening; this was just the edge of it.

Knowing that Felix was there had her more careful than ever. He had spotted her Shroud in the Foglands when it should have been impossible; she took no chances of that happening again.

They blazed a path, cutting through the city's backstreets and alleys in the most efficient way possible. The man leading them, skinny and strange as he may have looked, knew more shortcuts through Haarwatch than even she did. Felix kept disappearing from her senses, his Stealth able to evade her Unmoored Spirit, but not for a terribly long time. He'd reappear eventually, visibly tired, yet they stopped only twice. Each time Felix would disappear from her senses for another handful of minutes before reappearing. When the boy had first vanished Ilia had felt a thrill of panic that he had spotted her; but no, he seemed to just need a break. He was clearly using some sort of Skill in addition to his Stealth, as he always came back appearing more tired than before. It was strange enough that even their gangly guide remarked on it.

"How many piss breaks d'ya need?"

Felix didn't even bother to answer though, just gestured for the man to lead on. So on they went.

Before an hour was out, the four of them had made it into the Sunrise Quarter, of all places. Ilia spent a goodly amount of time in the Sunrise Quarter and it was an expensive place to live, even at the outskirts. The minor Houses all lived there, while the heavyweights were toward the elevated center of town. The guide brought them to the eastern-most stretch of the Quarter, only blocks from the Sunrise Gate itself.

The street they headed down was quaint, filled with trees and perfectly maintained streets. Enchanted lanterns hung every thirty feet, and a small park was across the avenue, filled with night-dark grasses and the hoots of owls. Ilia settled on the roof of a nearby house, content to follow them with her Unmoored Spirit alone. Her disembodied sense of sight and sound hovered invisibly above the heiress, and she regarded them as they spoke in bare whispers.

"--do you think?"

Felix shrugged, and not for the first time, the Sworn noticed how he'd grown bigger. He looked strong and nimble, and his eyes never stopped moving as he tried to pay attention in all directions at once. He advanced. Exceptionally too.

"I don't wanna guess," he said. "Let's just get to her and ask. I have a lot of questions myself."

Evie Aren chuckled and Felix raised his eyebrow at her, which just made her laugh more. The heiress watched it all, and there was a curious and familiar look in her eye.

Jealousy? Interesting. Ilia snickered to herself. That may prove useful.

"Alright, we're almost there," said the thin man. "Just brace yourselves because it'll feel...strange."

"Strange how--"

"AH!"

Ilia felt her Spirit sent reeling back. It slammed into her physical form like a runaway cart, nearly knocking her off the ceramic roofing tiles. Her sight filled with buzzing shapes that twisted and burned too bright to look at. They barely faded with her eyes closed. Meanwhile a textured ringing vibrated across her ears, as if she had stood too close to a bell as it began to ring. For a moment, she clung to the surface of the roof, putting her senses back in order. When she had gathered herself, only ten seconds later, the Sworn found the street completely and utterly empty.

Her quarry had gone, and with a light flexing of her Will, she found her Epic Skill unresponsive.

"Blighted night," she cursed.

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