It was late afternoon in the small city of North Nolan when the slender figure in the travelling cloak walked into town through the western gate, strolling through the gap in the city wall, which seemed curiously large for a settlement the size of this one. The townspeople hustled about in the streets, trying to get their last errands of the day complete before the stores closed and the sun went down, but many still paused, if only briefly, to take in the sight of the stranger who walked down the main street with a calm lethargy, as if she had all the time in the world. She'd left her hood up, obscuring most of her features, though the cloak, unfastened as it was, did little to hide her feminine curves. But it wasn't her clothing that drew the eye, it was the large, somewhat grumpy-looking raven perched on her shoulder, looking back and forth, scanning the street with that unnervingly steely gaze the blackbirds were known for, almost seeming like it was moving with purpose, like the simple bird was looking for threats. But then, this was clearly no ordinary bird, as it was wearing a miniature necklace, a simple medallion hanging from the gold chain around his slender neck, with the centrepiece of a somewhat large crystal that glimmered very strangely given the lighting conditions on the street. Just as odd as her bird was the woman's weapon; there was an object strapped to her back, and though it was wrapped in cloth, no doubt to avoid causing a scene, given its size and shape, it could really only be a spear, a poleaxe - or perhaps the staff of a sorceress. Whatever it was, whoever she was, they gave her a wide berth. There were more important things to think about, of course. The sun was going down...
Ari Shieldfall peered around the street, feeling somewhat paranoid. As if reading her thoughts, the raven on her shoulder leaned in close to her ear and whispered to her, which would have been extraordinarily odd had this particular raven not been the familiar to an absent wizard. "Would you calm down, already?" murmured the bird, softening his usually grumpy tone just slightly so that his words wouldn't just make things worse, "If you walk around acting jumpy, the guards might think you have something to hide." He paused for a moment, clearly unused to speaking supportively - at least when he couldn't hide his words beneath a thick layer of sarcasm. "Uhh... Just - just relax, Ariella," he started, "Really, you look so nervous, it's like you expect the Black God himself to jump out of every alley we pass." Given that the Betrayer, as he was also called, had once murdered one of his fellow gods and tried to wipe out all life in Rilodell, most mortals had a healthy fear of the Black God, but given that the remaining Seven Gods had imprisoned him for all eternity, it wasn't terribly likely that he'd suddenly show up in North Nolan and start causing trouble. Ari sighed and shook her head, her long red hair shaking underneath that hood. "I know, I know," she replied, quietly, "I don't know what it is, but something about this town just puts me on edge. Perhaps it was the rioting back in Calastor... I apologize, Crow." The bird made an annoyed noise, but Ari knew it wasn't because of her, it was because he didn't like being reminded that the wizard he was bonded to had found it amusing to name the raven 'Mister Crow'. Before he could say anything, Crow cocked his head to one side as if listening intently. After a few moments, he leaned back in again. "Ariella," he whispered, "hold your hand up in front of my chest, like you're - ugh - like I'm a pet you're offering some feed." She did so, as casually as possible, just in time for her hand to block the sight of the crystal in the middle of Crow's necklace lighting up with an inner glow. It flared brightly for just a moment, and a small earring popped into existence just above her palm. To sell their little diversion, Crow pecked down at her hand as if eating some tasty seeds, though he did sigh a little louder than was really necessary while doing so. Ariella looked closely at the earring, and could discern no real difference from the last time she'd seen it, nothing that distinguished it from the mirrored earring which currently hung from her right ear. Smirking slightly, she pulled her hood back on the left side and put the earring in place.
She wasn't sure how to start, but that problem was quickly solved for her. Even knowing what the jewellery was for, she still jumped slightly when she heard a voice, clear as day, catching herself instinctively looking to the left, as she could only hear it on that side. "Hello? Ari?" asked the voice, "Can you hear me?" She smiled slightly, feeling a little self-conscious as she whispered to no one. "Yes, I can," she replied, "It's like you're right next to me, Thaniel." She could practically hear the smile on the young wizard's face as he chuckled in triumph. "Excellent," he said, "I, uh, sorry again about the delay. I wish I'd thought of the earring before I cast the spell the first time." Unlike Crow and Ari, Thaniel was speaking at his normal volume, and Ari blushed as she passed right beside a pair of badger-men in the midst of what seemed like a very boring conversation about the price of bread. Neither of them reacted at all, which helped Ari's confidence that the spell truly was doing what Thaniel had promised; she could hear him perfectly, but she was the only one. This really would allow for easy communication with the agoraphobic wizard while he remained in the psychological safety of his tower. He'd actually presented her with a small, round pebble, instructing her to stick it directly into her ear. Ari smiled as she remembered the look on his face when she'd asked him if the spell would work on something less ridiculous, like an earring perhaps, and he'd sheepishly agreed. He'd needed a little time to remove the spell from the pebble so he could put it into the earring, but it was getting late, so he'd sent her into town; he could see and hear her anyway since he could share Crow's senses when he so desired.
"This is really cool," Ari said to Crow, pointing at her left ear somewhat unnecessarily, "Can you hear Thaniel when he speaks to me?" The bird spoiled her fun just a little bit with his usual beleaguered expression. "Of course I can," sighed the raven, "I've got a mental link to Thaniel, unless he's consciously blocking me out, I can always hear what he says." "Which means," came Thaniel's voice on Ari's other side, "that he can't hear this part, which is a good thing, because I'm about to tell you that he really, really likes being scratched between the wings. Practically melts in your hands." Ari giggled, and Crow immediately looked at her suspiciously. "That wasn't a suggestion, Master Thaniel," he said, but whatever he planned to follow it up with was lost in a surprised squawk as Ari carefully reached around behind him and worked a finger along his spine. As Ari rubbed and scratched, Crow squirmed and spread his wings in agitation. "Betrayal!" he gasped, "How c-could you t-tell her about this, Thaniel? You know how I... ooooooooh, that's niiiiice..." As the bird flopped down onto her shoulder, twitching and chirping to himself, Ari tried not to giggle. "So now that we're all here... so to speak..." she said, "Where exactly should I be going, Thaniel? We know that the Midnight Glove was taken to a place called Biggson about fifty years ago by the thieves who stole it from the museum, but it's not like we were given directions or anything... we aren't even certain if Biggson was one of the villages they combined to create North Nolan!" Thaniel didn't sound discouraged as he replied, which Ari appreciated. "Well, even if it's not," he said, "since the people here don't seem to be tearing their town apart, maybe we can find someone who knows the region to talk to and find out where Biggson is."
As much as his optimism helped, a thought occurred to Ariella, and since the normally grumpy Crow was too busy staring off into nothing and cooing softly (for a raven, anyway) to voice it, she reluctantly spoke up. "That's all well and good, and I like the plan," she said, "But I'm still not sure where to start looking. I don't think there's a college or any sort of institution of higher learning here, and I doubt very much we'll stumble across a 'historian's stand' in the marketplace..." There was a soft rustling noise, and Ari realized Thaniel was stroking his lightly bearded chin, something he did when lost in thought. As Ari had mercy on Crow and stopped scratching his weak spot, the wizard finally spoke up again. "Well, I guess when you don't know where you're going, you should start with the tavern," he said, "You know, listening in on tongues loosened by liquor, ask around for anything that could help us... that's standard operating procedure, right?" Standing up again and brushing himself off, clearly embarrassed by his lapse in control, Crow huffed. "Standard operating procedure?" he asked, "You got the idea from those books about Xander Shieldfall, didn't you?" There was another pause, and Ari tried to stifle a grin, picturing Thaniel blushing self-consciously the way he tended to when teased about his childlike adulation of Ari's great-grandfather, a legendary adventurer. "...Maybe," the wizard finally admitted, "But then, uh, Xander usually found what he was looking for!" Remembering that it was her grandfather who'd gotten the whole family cursed in the first place, Ari sighed, her smile gone. "Yes," she muttered, "and look where that got him..."
She walked on in silence for a few minutes, lost in her thoughts, and just as she looked up and spied a tavern in the distance, Thaniel spoke up again, this time softer than before. "What? What do you want?" he asked, "Why do you keep staring at me like that?" Ari frowned as she realized that with Crow on her shoulder, there wasn't anyone else in the tower with Thaniel. But before she could ask who he was talking to, she heard, faintly, a familiar nicker, and stopped in the street. "Thaniel?" she asked, "Is that Roland?" She'd been riding that horse for long enough to recognize him by ear alone. "Yes?" answered the spellcaster, "You told me to keep him company while you were out of the tower." She snickered in surprise. "I meant checking on him every once in a while to make sure he was well, maybe feeding him a few apples," she said, "Did you bring him into the observatory with you?" Crow groaned quietly and shook his head. "Oh, not in the observatory," he muttered, "his hooves will scuff everything up, and you know how hard it is cleaning those floors..." "Apples!" cried Thaniel, as if it was a vital missing piece to a magical formula he'd been working on, "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" There was a strange sound and Ari pictured an apple popping into existence above the wizard's hand. "There, is that what you wanted?" he asked. Ari grinned again. "Ah, Thaniel," she said, gently, "You are aware that he doesn't talk, right?" "Of course I know," he replied, "it's making it very difficult to work out why he won't stop staring at me... Though he seems to like this apple well enough. ...Would you like him to talk? I think I can manage that." Ari laughed, then remembered who she was talking to, and how she sometimes found it difficult to tell whether the eccentric wizard was kidding or not. "Er, no thank you, Thaniel, I can make do without having conversations with my horse."
As she approached the front door of the tavern, which seemed to be built into an inn, Thaniel spoke up again, somewhat more insistently. "Ari, could you wait a moment?" Trying not to look too conspicuous standing there in the street talking to herself, Ari whispered her reply. "What is it? Is something wrong?" "I'm not sure... have either of you noticed it yet?" Crow interjected here, sounding more curious than grumpy this time. "Noticed what, Thaniel?" "Just look around," the wizard replied, and as Ari did so, he continued, saying "This looks like a market street, but there are no carts here at all. All the doors you've passed looks like they're reinforced with metal bars, every last one. There aren't even any windows on the ground floor of any of these buildings, not even on the stores like the bakery or the butcher's." As Ari looked around and realized he was right, she heard the sound of Thaniel stroking his beard again. "And this one is just me, but I feel like the closer it gets to sunset, the more nervous these people act." "But what does it mean, Thaniel?" Ari asked. The wizard sighed before he continued. "I admit I'm no adventurer, I don't have much experience with these things..." he said, "But I think the people in this town lock up when the sun goes down as if they're expecting to be besieged, giant oversized town wall or not - and that's another point, did you see how big it was?" There was a pause, and then Thaniel finished his thought. "I can't say what exactly has them so spooked, but I believe the people here live in fear, Ari, and I think they've lived that way for a very long time."
Ari opened the door to the tavern, pausing a moment and trying not to feel threatened as everyone in the room reflexively looked up at the newcomer. Trying to act casual, she pushed back her hood, silently worrying that revealing herself as a young, smooth-skinned woman might attract more unwanted attention than a mysterious hooded figure. Sitting down at a table in the corner, resting her covered spear against the wall next to her, she sighed and tried to act as inconspicuous as possible under the circumstances. Crow didn't help matters much by hopping down to the table and examining an old, faded list of local liquors. After looking around to make sure no one was looking in her direction, at least for the moment, Ari turned towards the wall, as if she was examining the painting of the dragon on it, and whispered to herself. "Alright, Thaniel, this was your idea," she muttered, "What precisely should I do now?" As she looked down at the table, trying to seem lost in thought, the wizard responded, sounding embarrassed again. "Uhhh, I'm not entirely sure," he admitted, "In the books, you usually just order a drink and wait a few minutes, and somebody nearby will start talking about something useful... or you could ask the bartender if there are any rumours going around the town..." Ari scowled for a moment, blushing slightly, then remembered that with Crow looking elsewhere, Thaniel couldn't see her - though the patrons of the bar could, so she relaxed her face with some effort so as not to draw attention. "I am not going to go up to the barkeep and ask him about local rumours!" she said, trying and failing not to sound whiny, "I would feel ridiculous!" Crow glanced up at her, and despite the hard, unchanging nature of his beak, Ari swore that he was smirking slightly. "Thaniel, this town is much smaller than the wall led me to believe," he whispered, "To be honest, this doesn't seem like the kind of place where the rumours would be terribly useful. Unless you'd like us to find out what the baker's daughter has been up to, of course..."
A shapely cat-kin barmaid walked up to the table, a leopardess with a very well-groomed pelt and a deep tiredness in her eyes that made Ari instinctively hope she was nearing the end of her shift. Putting on an impressively genuine smile, she nodded to the human, her tail flicking back and forth behind her. "'Ello, miss, what can I getcha tonight?" she asked, "The wine 'asn't been good this month, but the shepahd's pie is to die for tonight!" Ari smiled back. "Ah, nothing for now, thank you," she said, suddenly being struck with inspiration, "...But I don't suppose you've got some free time coming up? I would really appreciate it if you would join me for a bit. I'm not from around here, you see, and I don't know North Nolan very well, so I was hoping the two of us could just chat for a while, talk about life here. I would be more than happy to pay for a drink of whatever ale you'd prefer while we talked. What do you say?" To Ari's confusion, the leopard's eyes widened and she stepped back, blushing, her whiskers twitching with agitation. "Oh, uh, with all d-due respect, miss," she stammered, avoiding eye contact, "You're, yanno, very p-pretty and all, but, ah... I'm afraid I'm not into othah girls!" Ari's eyes became as wide as dinner plates, and she turned beet red as she tried to correct the other woman, but found herself unable to string two words together from her sheer embarrassment. It didn't help that Thaniel had burst out in surprised laughter back in his tower before stifling it with his mouth, loud enough that Roland neighed, startled, and Crow buried his beak under his wing, pretending to be preening himself to hide a case of the giggles, no doubt more to avoid drawing attention than to spare Ari's feelings.
After muttering an apology and insisting that 'it wasn't like that, really!', Ari sighed and stood up, picking up her spear and walking away from the corner table. As Crow fluttered the short distance from the table to her shoulder, Thaniel spoke in her ear. "Hey, don't give up, Ari!" he said, "Okay, that seemed super embarrassing, and I'm sorry I laughed, but that was your very first attempt!" Ari sighed and whispered as quietly as she could. "As tempted as I am to make that my last attempt," she replied, "I had something else in mind..." Walking up to the bar, which was otherwise deserted at the moment, save one man who was slumped on the wooden surface, snoring loudly, Ariella sat down on a stool and leaned her wrapped spear against it as casually as she could. When the bartender walked up to her, polishing a pint glass, she smiled thinly at him. "Hello there," she opened, somewhat awkwardly, "ah... I'll have a pint of - of the best local ale you've got on tap, please." The bartender, a rather burly human with a shaved head and a bushy, somewhat unkempt beard, smirked, putting away the cloth and filling the glass from a keg behind him. Once the golden liquid began to pour, he confidently reached up with a free hand, scratching idly at his beard with the sort of casualness that only comes from experience, knowing precisely how long you have before you need to close the tap. "You know," he said, grinning tiredly, "you'd be amazed how many people forget to say please. Here you go, miss." Ari swallowed at the sight of the glass the man set before her; growing up in a noble family, she didn't exactly have much experience in public taverns, and had actually been under the impression that a pint was somewhat smaller. Still, she smiled and slipped him a few coins. "Thank you, sir," she said, and he chuckled to himself, nodding politely as he swept the coins off the countertop into a meaty hand. "Says 'thank you', too," he said, to no one, clearly deeply amused, "Even calls me 'sir' in my own bar, heh heh... I like you, girl. Cheers." Raising her glass and nodding back, Ari tried to look casual as she took a drink from her beer. It didn't actually go that badly, all things considered, though she still winced slightly as the somewhat bitter booze first touched her tongue. As she carefully set the drink back down, Thaniel opined in her ear, and the sound of beard-stroking could be heard again. "Flattery will get you everywhere, apparently..." he murmured, "I suppose it makes sense, this place is kind of a dive, I expect he would neither receive nor expect much in the way of etiquette from his, ah, patrons."
Ari nursed her beer for a few moments, trying to think of a way to eloquently segue into subtly asking the bartender for information, or, failing that, at least find a way to do it without making him think she was trying to get into his rather sizable pants. Before she could find the words, however, the man reached under the bar and turned back to her, reaching out towards her shoulder with something that looked like - oh, no... "Heya, pretty birdy," said the bartender, grinning with amusement as he wiggled the biscuit near Mister Crow's face, "You wanna cracker?" Ari froze from head to toe, knowing without looking that the familiar would be rendered livid by this treatment. Almost as soon as the words were out of the bartender's mouth, though, Thaniel practically shouted in Ari's ear. "Crow, do not say one word!" he demanded, much more forcefully than the generally laid-back wizard usually spoke, "This man could be a source of important information, so you remain silent and take the stupid cracker! That's a direct order!" Ariella felt Crow's grip on her shoulder tighten until it practically hurt her. Peering to the side with just her eyes, almost afraid to turn her head, she saw the raven reluctantly reach forward with his beak and take the cracker from the jolly man's outstretched hand. The barkeep either didn't notice or wasn't fazed by the expression, but the look Crow was giving him the entire time suggested the bird was trying to hate him to death. As Crow (very) begrudgingly ate the cracker, Ari cleared her throat and tried to act casual. "Excuse me, barkeep, I was wondering," she said, "I just came into town, and, ah, perhaps it's just me, but I couldn't help but notice that North Nolan seems so... I don't know, guarded, as if you've had some kind of trouble lately. I haven't seen even a single window on the ground floor of any of the buildings I've passed since I arrived." The bartender had been cleaning off the countertop, but stopped as she spoke, regarding her flatly. Feeling rather self-conscious, Ari continued to drink her ale, not wanting to seem out of the ordinary by leaving it. "Noticed that, didja?" said the bartender quietly, sighing, "Clever of you, girl, most outsiders don't even see it." Thaniel grumbled to himself, and Ari could picture him pouting. "Sure, give her all the credit..." he muttered. Ari suppressed a smile. The wizard was oddly cute when he was like that. Catching up with her thoughts, she blushed, banishing them from her mind, but the bartender hadn't noticed, staring at a discoloured square on the wall where, Ari realized, there had once been a windowframe before it was bricked up.
"Look, girlie," sighed the man, gently, not condescendingly, which helped ease the sting of that 'girlie' comment, "North Nolan is a dangerous place once the sun goes down. The woods outside of town? They're not safe, people say they've seen all kinds of creepy shit out there." He shook his head, grimacing like he had a sour taste in his mouth. "But lately... I don't know, maybe it's just talk, but I've heard people say that whatever it is that lives out there, beyond the walls... is coming in here." "Ha!" cried Thaniel, triumphantly, "What did I tell you? Rumours at the bar!" The bartender shook his head, oblivious to the delighted wizard or the sighs of his beleaguered familiar. "Look, I'm not just trying to scare you for fun's sake," the man continued, "I don't know if it's ghouls or creatures like some people say, or if it's just bandits or thieves or somethin', but whatever it is... I suggest you finish your business in town soon and move on. Probably for the best." Ari realized she'd almost finished her drink while listening to the man, and now felt rather warm. Downing the remainder, she nodded her thanks again and left some extra coins on the counter. "Well, thank you, sir," she said, "I will try to keep that in mind." As she picked up her spear, the man looked at her, a hint of genuine concern in his eyes. "Uhh, miss, I know it's none of my business, but I hope you're not planning on going back out there tonight," he said, "When I said you should move on, I didn't mean right now." Ari smiled and patted his hand in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. "Thank you for your concern, sir, but I'll be fine," she said, "I've got a place to sleep tonight." As she turned to leave, he spoke up again, sounding totally serious. "I hope you're right, girl," he said, "Nobody around here goes anywhere after dark without more than a little confidence that they've got the Seven on their side." As Ari walked away, mulling over these words, the bartender looked up at the sound of unusually heavy footsteps moving around on the floor above. Shaking his head, he picked up Ari's glass and began to clean it. "Speaking of which..."
"The nerve of that oaf!" hissed Crow, as soon as Ari was away from the bar, "Offering me a saltine like I was a common pet!" Ari shook her head, rubbing her forehead with the back of one hand and wondering when she'd started sweating so much. "He was supposed to think you were a pet," she muttered, "I don't want to go around just telling people I'm travelling with a wizard, it would draw too much attention!" After a moment, Crow spoke up again, but his words caught her off-guard. "Ariella, are you feeling alright?" he asked, "You're very... red, and you look tired." Thaniel chuckled quietly. "It's alright, Crow, it's just the ale. I take it you don't imbibe regularly, Ari?" She giggled, then caught herself, her noble's instincts making her feel self-conscious. "I only had one!" she protested, heading towards the door to the tavern, which doubled as the door to the inn; a set of stairs opposite it lead up to the sleeping quarters above the bar, and a bored-looking dog-man sat behind a desk just next to the door, seeming convinced he wasn't going to be greeting any more visitors that night. Ari remembered, vaguely, something she'd learned about hoteliers studying local businesses to give newcomers directions, and thought to ask the man if North Nolan had anything like a historians' society she could consult in the morning. However, while she was trying to focus her slightly-addled mind and find the words to ask, she failed to notice the heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, and the first time she realized the large man was there at all was when he stopped, mid-stride, right beside her. At the sound of his voice, Ari's eyes widened, and her heart started beating faster. Suddenly, she felt very sober indeed. "I sense... darkness."
"Tell me, stranger, from whence have you come to this humble community?" the man intoned, solemnly, yet ominously, "And what business brings you here?" His voice was deep and strong, managing to sound imposing yet civil, dangerous but somehow not aggressive. Every syllable was very carefully enunciated, as though he wanted to make absolutely certain his words were not misunderstood. Turning around, Ari swallowed. He wore a travelling cloak, not entirely unlike her own, but made out of coarser, cheaper materials. His was buttoned closed, almost entirely hiding his form from view, and with his hood up, he looked every bit as mysterious and intimidating as his voice suggested. Ari stood up straighter and crossed her arms, trying to come across as unimpressed, to look the part of a proud member of the noble Shieldfall family, though she still had to gather every ounce of her courage (and maybe just a little she'd borrowed from that surprisingly potent ale) before she could speak without stammering nervously. "I hail from New Parsonus, as it happens," she said, somewhat snippily, "but I fail to see how it's any business of yours what I'm doing in North Nolan, or why I should tell a man who just walks up and demands answers of a stranger." Ari felt pretty good about that, though the feeling was somewhat undermined when the man took a half-step towards her and she flinched. He still hadn't made a single aggressive move towards her, hadn't so much as crossed his arms or scowled at her - hell, with his hood worn like that, she couldn't even make out his eyes - but there was something incredibly unnerving about this man, like he was looking straight through her, and would know the instant she tried to lie to him. "My business, as you put it, involves the stories coming from this region, reports of violence, unsolved deaths and disappearances, and... other unpleasant phenomena," the man said, again sounding like every word was painstakingly chosen, "I have come seeking an explanation to this, this evil, and to put an end to the tales that leave the good people of this city cowering indoors after dark. I have only been in town two days, and lo, what do I behold, before I even leave the inn for the night's investigations, but an outsider carrying the taint of darkness, hiding an enchanted spear on her person, accompanied by a magician's familiar... and a charmed bauble."
Apparently, Thaniel had been taking a drink, because as she stared at the hooded man in shock, she heard the wizard spit something out and start coughing, barely managing to speak five words as Roland nickered in the background. "Wh-what did he j-just say?!" Swallowing, suddenly genuinely frightened by the prospect of this man, whoever he was, getting the wrong idea, Ari wrung her hands together. "I... I... please, sir, I've only just arrived, I don't mean harm to anybody," she said, as earnestly as she could manage. Looking around, she swallowed, not keen to discuss her quest in any kind of detail while standing next to the common room of a tavern. She realized that the man behind the inn's counter had long since made himself scarce, but that didn't help much. "Ah, c-could we talk about this somewhere else?" she asked, "Somewhere more private, maybe?" "Certainly," the man said, curtly, and walked to the door, pushing it open with one hand without ever turning away from her, "The streets will be completely deserted at this time of night, is that private enough?" She smiled weakly and unconvincingly, and stepped out into the night with him. As soon as the door closed, he let out a deep breath and tilted his head to the side again. "I must admit, stranger, yours is a situation I have never encountered before," he said, calmly, "You travel with a familiar, yet the bond forged within him is not tied to you, and you are not a witch of any description... yet you wear magical items, and there is an unmistakeable shadow on your soul. If you are in league with dark forces..." Ari shook her head vigorously and raised her hands. "N-no, you've got it all wrong! I... I have a dark curse laid on me, my whole family has," she admitted, averting her eyes in that old familiar shame, "I sought out the assistance of a wizard to help me lift the curse so that my family won't have to suffer anymore! He, ah, sent me on ahead with his raven here because we're, what's the phrase, following a lead." Apparently deciding that it was okay because this strange man had seen right through them to begin with, Crow spoke up, surprisingly calmly given the circumstances. "Unless you meant the term 'dark' literally," he added, "in which case, I believe you'll find I'm quite black." Turning her head to regard the bird incredulously, Ari stared daggers at him. "That is not helpful, Crow!" she snapped, at precisely the same moment Thaniel said the same thing, word for word, back in the tower. Crow shrugged his wings, completely unconcerned. "Well, hey, if this fellow decides to murder you, I can just fly away, and Thaniel and I can go back to -" he was interrupted as the crystal in the necklace flared again, and a steaming-warm muffin popped into existence in mid-air in front of him. All present seemed surprised, even the cloaked man, but Crow's reflexes were fast enough to retrieve it before it hit the ground. As he settled back onto Ari's shoulder, he sighed exaggeratedly. "I realize full well that you only did that so I'd stop talking, master..." he muttered, "...But a blueberry muffin is still a blueberry muffin." It was quiet, but Ari could still make out Thaniel murmuring to himself, sounding quite amused. "Crafting this ring was worth every last one of those reagents." Since Crow made no reaction, Ari assumed he'd hidden that particular comment from his familiar. She didn't even have to try not to smile, though, for the cloaked man spoke up again. "Are you truly suffering from a curse, miss?" Ariella noted that it was no longer 'stranger', but didn't know what that meant. "Y-yes, I'm afraid so..." she whispered, practically praying to the Seven Gods that he wouldn't demand details. After a moment, a hand emerged from beneath the cloak, and Ari was somewhat taken aback to see that it was clad in a metal gauntlet so well-polished that it shone, even in the dim lamplight that fell upon the street. The man reached up and slowly pulled the hood back as he spoke. "Then I apologize if my demeanour was upsetting," he said, in exactly the same tone of voice he'd been using before, "For it would seem we three stand on the same side of this conflict." Looking back on these events after the fact, Ariella would later find it somewhat embarrassing that her first reaction as his face came into view was to gasp.
It wasn't that he was some deformed monstrosity under that hood, far from it, he was just as human as Ari was, though where her skin was smooth and pale and unblemished, his was tough and dark, with small scars marring the surface here and there. His hair was cropped very close to his head, not entirely unlike the style she'd seen worn by career soldiers, and he had a day or two's worth of stubble. But the thing that had caught her so off-guard was his eyes; they were white. Completely, utterly white, without any features whatsoever, from pupils to irises or even the tiny red veins that ringed the eyes of normal people. It was as if he'd had no eyes whatsoever and had stuck white marbles in their place. And yet, despite this, as he looked at her and smiled thinly, Ari shivered, absolutely certain he was looking at her, and getting that feeling like he was looking through her again. As she stared, he nodded to her, reaching up and unfastening the lower buttons on his cloak, allowing it to fall open - and revealing that he was clad from neck to toes in a suit of armour as well-maintained as his gauntlet. "I must admit, I am gladdened that you mean this place no harm," he said, casually, "I did not come here to make enemies, but to put an end to fear. Allow me to introduce myself..." He pulled aside the cloak over his chest, revealing a crest, a coat of arms, engraved on his breastplate. The shield-shaped design featured an orb of pure white with spikes jutting out of it in seven different colours, each leading to a smaller orb in a matching colour. "My name is Jerroth," he said," humble servant of mortalkind, and paladin of the Order of the Light of Unity. I know it might be difficult to believe, but I am pleased to meet you." His words were encouraging, almost friendly, but Ari was still put off by those featureless eyes, contrasted all the more by his chocolate-brown skin. Swallowing, wondering how she'd ended up in this surreal situation, Ari reached out and accepted his metal-clad hand, shaking it and nodding back at him. "I - I'm Ariella Shieldfall," she said, "And I think I'm even more gladdened that you mean me no harm. Uh, this is Mister Crow, familiar to the wizard Thaniel, who - who couldn't accompany us on this trip, as he was taking care of important personal business." Thaniel spoke up, very quietly, sounding rather self-conscious. "Thank you, Ari, for not telling him about my phobia," he whispered, "It's quite a source of embarrassment..." Even as Crow pulled his beak away from the muffin, Thaniel continued, in exactly the same tone of voice. "And Crow, I know how you think, if you decide to volunteer that information, I swear I'll turn you magenta for a month." After the mildest pause, the bird went back to his muffin.
Jerroth closed his eyes for a few seconds, and when he opened them again, Ari was somewhat surprised to see that they had suddenly become normal brown human eyes. "My Order originates from an era when there were small militias dedicated to the will of each of the Seven Gods of Rilodell," he said, with the precise tone of voice that Ariella's tutors had once taught her history lessons, "Though the practice has mostly fallen by the wayside, we remain. The Light of Unity represents the combined worship of all seven of the Divine Sentinels." He reached up and pointed to his eyes. "One of the gifts they grant their most faithful allows us to see the world through their holy Light, unimpeded by the efforts of men or monsters to lie and deceive. That is how I was able to identify the enchantments you wear, and that the item on your back is a spear, how I knew that you told the truth when you told me your story... and how I was able to see the darkness you carry within you. I... I am truly sorry for that, for what it is worth. A curse that mighty is a burden none deserve to bear." Swallowing, Ari whispered her thanks and looked at her strange new companion carefully. It was fairly obvious that he was thoroughly invested in his religious faith, to understate matters, so she felt the need to tread lightly. "So... what exactly brings a knight like you all the way out here?" she asked, curious. Jerroth made a face like he'd bitten into a lemon and raised a hand. "Please, Miss Shieldfall, it is paladin, not knight," he said, earnestly, "Ours is a sacred mission." While Ari was thinking that this nicely illustrated her worries about his zeal, Jerroth caught her (and Crow, if the squawk was anything to go by) off-guard by chuckling softly and shrugging. "...Well, that," he admitted, "and the founders thought 'Knights of the Light' sounded too silly for anyone to take seriously." With that, Jerroth turned and started down the dark street. "Come, walk with me," he called, gesturing for them to follow him. Ari and Crow exchanged a glance, and then the noble hurried to catch up to him.
"There are stories of monsters in the woods from every part of the world," Jerroth said, calmly, "It is a natural part of being alive, people are afraid of the dark - unless they carry the Light within, of course - and telling tales helps them put a face to what they are afraid of. That is not to say that there are no forests out there with dark creatures dwelling within them, of course. There is a forest far from here where the night breeds Darklings, creatures made out of shadows, every year on a certain date. But while this region was thought to be safe, it has always been just a little bit more prone to such tales. That is why the wall around North Nolan is so big, to help the townsfolk feel safe. But to answer your question, Miss Shieldfall..." The paladin sighed before continuing. "Something has happened here. In the last six months, the reports of people claiming to have seen unnatural creatures in the night have doubled... then tripled. And the reports of unexplained deaths and disappearances have started to rise as well. There are only so many dead hunters you can write off to wolves or bears before people go from the natural, irrational mortal fear of the dark to being terrified after the sun goes down." He paused for a moment in front of a children's toy store whose front display window was boarded up. "I have gone on patrol outside the wall the last few nights, and I am afraid I can confirm," he said, quietly, as if worried some civilians might be listening in, "There are creatures stalking the land surrounding this city. I thought they were darklings at first, the way they're covered in shadows... but there seems to be a solid body beneath them, a body with fangs and claws... but a body that looks... human." The paladin's frown increased slightly, and Ari could swear it was discomfort, not anger, that drove him. "I do not know if they merely mock the human form, or if they were once mortals who walked in the sun," he whispered, "But whatever those things are, there is nothing good left within them. By the Unified Light, I will never forget those hideous yellow eyes, watching me from the dark..." As he shook his head, sighing, Ari tensed up from head to toe, suddenly overcome by a feeling of impending doom... and remembering the last time she'd seen her Uncle Roderick.
"Wait... did - did you say yellow eyes?" she replied, trembling under her clothes, "As in, glowing yellow eyes?" "Oh, no..." whispered Thaniel, putting the pieces together. Ari had almost forgotten he was listening in, the way he'd been listening to Jerroth in silence. "Ari..." he said, but trailed off, unable to find the words. The paladin looked up at her, but there was no surprise in his eyes at her recognition. "Yes," he said, flatly, "Glowing yellow eyes, claws, teeth, and a quadrupedal stance. Er, that means they walk on all fours, like a feral dog, not on two legs, like you or I. I take it you are... familiar with the beasts." Ari knew what 'quadrupedal' meant, but where her noble pride would normally be offended by his assumption that she didn't, she was far too distracted with the whirlwind of feelings within her to care. She turned away so that the holy warrior wouldn't see the fear in her face, the way she shook with the terror of a sheltered girl witnessing something no living being should ever be forced to see. "Blue Goddess, not revenants, anything but revenants..." she whimpered, naming the deity associated with feelings of grief, "I - the c-curse on my family... oh, gods above... we're doomed to - to transform into those things when we reach a certain age!" She dared to look at him, half-worried he'd want to smite her now, before she turned, and even in her sorrow, Ari was genuinely shocked to see the strength of the pain in his eyes. He didn't communicate his emotions well at all, and he used conversation like a blunt instrument, but it seemed Jerroth at least had the gift of empathy. "Gods above, so they were mortals..." he whispered, "The darkness that taints you is very similar to the evil that permeates those monsters. When I first saw you, sensed the darkness within you, I used my Holy Sight to confirm my suspicions, and I - I actually hoped that you were some kind of sorceress or witch, that you had been controlling them and I could just dispatch you and not lose any sleep... because I suspected right then that if you were good-hearted, then something like this was the most likely explanation for your... contamination."
He sighed and reached out somewhat hesitantly, putting a gauntleted hand on her shoulder. "I am so sorry, Ariella Shieldfall. If it were within my power, I would fill you with the Light of Unity, that the shade would be banished forever..." he whispered, "But while I can see the curse on you, I cannot do anything about it, any more than I can understand the magic behind a mage taking a familiar... or that, ah, strange necklace the bird wears that seems to summon baked goods." Thaniel said nothing, but for once, Crow acted on his behalf without being prompted. "Master Thaniel prefers the term 'wizard'," the raven whispered, half-heartedly, as if out of habit, "And he called this a 'remote focus', lets him channel his magic through me so he can lend a little aid even though he's not here physically." It wasn't really the time or the place for such explanations, but Jerroth just nodded politely to the bird. "Useful magic indeed," he whispered, continuing after a moment, "But I am afraid none of this changes my mission. You see, I know where the monsters make their lair, but I am just one soldier, and I dared not go in by myself without knowing the strength of their numbers. I made a call for reinforcements, but feared the beasts might make some kind of major attack on the city while I waited for my brethren to arrive. Friends, if you will stand beside me, with the strength of a skilled spearwoman and the power of a wizard, even one who is not physically present, I think we can finally help this town wake up from its nightmare."
Ari stepped back, raising a clenched hand up to her heart. "You're asking me to f-fight revenants?" she asked, "I - I can't, I just can't, the idea of facing those things again..." While Jerroth regarded her with his damnably unreadable face, Thaniel spoke up again. "Ari, I have a thought," he said, gently, "We came to this region seeking the gauntlet that cursed your family to turn into revenants, right? Well, now we're here, and it turns out the area is infested with revenants. What does that suggest to you?" Ari was too upset to care what the answer to that was, but Crow spoke up, sounding surprised. "Of course!" he gasped, turning towards Jerroth and looking about as apologetic as he ever looked, saying "Master Thaniel has just pointed something out to me. Ariella, the gauntlet we're looking for, the one that cursed your family, what if it's why there are revenants around here?" That did actually help, to Ari's surprise, as she could focus on that train of thought and not her uncle's agonizing transformation into a creature of the night. "So it's not just some cruel coincidence that there are revenants here," she muttered, working through the idea, "It's that the Midnight Hand cursed people here too? But look at this town, it's not even half the size of New Parsonus. No offence intended, but my family are very wealthy, we can go to great lengths to hide the curse from the world, surely someone would have noticed in a settlement this size if one of the families here kept turning into monsters?" "The most likely people to have been cursed are the thieves who were hired to steal the gauntlet from the museum in Calastor," said Thaniel, whose words were wearily repeated by Crow so that Jerroth could keep up, "If they were a gang of scoundrels and bandits, it's entirely possible that they just didn't have families to inherit the curse." Ari was getting upset now. She really, really wanted their mission to be entirely unrelated to a nest full of revenants, but the wizard, the paladin, and the bird were making damnably reasonable deductions. "But that was fifty years ago!" she protested, "Are you saying it's the same gang of thieves?" "If I may?" interjected Jerroth, "I remember reading of these 'revenants' in my studies at the monastery, years and years ago. They are not entirely unlike certain other vile creatures of the night my order has had dealings with. They are not living things, Miss Shieldfall, they do not need to eat or sleep, and they do not age or get sick. A revenant could be a thousand years past its evil transformation and still be extremely dangerous, so it is entirely possible that the monsters plaguing this city are, in fact, the same brigands you spoke of." Before Ari could even think of a response to that, there came a cry of fear and panic in the distance. Jerroth spun on the spot, falling easily into a defensive posture as he did so, arms raised before him. "That came from the city gates!" he said, his voice thick with tension. Without another word, the paladin took off in that direction, moving faster than Ariella would have believed a man in full plate armour could move. Despite wanting so, so very badly to turn around and run as far from this place and its problems as she could, Ari found herself hurrying to keep up.
In the dark, in the night, Ari found herself afraid, run through with a fear she hadn't felt since the night her uncle had died... and then killed two men on his way out of town. Maybe the curse inside her had let her sense the presence of the revenants somehow, maybe that's why she'd been so unnerved since she arrived here. Crow had described it as if she'd been expecting the Black God to suddenly show himself and resume his campaign of obliteration, but now she felt the somewhat more justified fear of revenants, half-expecting one of the creatures to come pouncing out of every dark alleyway they passed. Suddenly, the street opened up wide and they were there. Facing a less commonly-used road that weaved through the wilderness, the rear gate to the city was much smaller, though no less heavily fortified, than the front gate. Ari's attention wasn't on the architecture, however, it was on the guardsman on the ground, screaming in blind panic... and the thing that had him pinned to the cobblestone. It was about six feet tall - or was that long? It did indeed carry itself the way a predatory animal did, not a person, but it didn't seem to have any problem gripping the halberd the terrified soldier was holding between their bodies, trying to pull it out of his hands so it could tear him to shreds. As Jerroth had said, revenants don't need to eat to sustain themselves, but Ari knew only too well that that didn't stop them from hunting down and slaughtering anything unlucky enough to find itself in their presence. It was as if they enjoyed the act of murder, or relished the taste of blood even though it did nothing for them. But Ari was thinking none of this at the moment, no, her thoughts had fled her mind entirely, and all she could do was stare. Far more notable than its stance or its habits was the way it looked. Roughly humanoid, rippling with muscles, and covered in shadows; at first, Ari thought it was just sitting in the dark, until she realized that the shadows obscuring its form were moving, sliding around its body. It wore the darkness about itself like a fine cloak, like a piece of the night had come to life and woken up angry. As Ari stared, petrified, Jerroth stepped forward and threw his travelling cloak aside, revealing a long mace strapped to his upper leg, the head a solid piece of metal covered in spikes, the shaft polished to the same sheen as his armour. There was also a large shield with the crest of the Order he belonged to on his upper back, and he reached back and grabbed it with his left arm without looking, bringing it in front of himself in one smooth, practiced motion. "Begone, foul beast!" the paladin spat, "Your darkness is not welcome here!" At the sound of his voice, the monster's head whirled around to face him, and Ari actually cried out in pain and terror as its glowing yellow eyes, burning from within with hate, fell upon the new arrivals. Its face was more or less human, aside from the ash-black complexion, but when it opened its mouth to snarl at the holy warrior, Ari saw that all of its teeth were razor sharp, the jaws of a carnivore - or a bear trap. Suddenly terrified that it would turn its attention on her, Ari reached around behind her and yanked her spear off her back with such force it's a wonder that she didn't snap the leather straps that had been holding it in place. She broke the twine that had held on the blanket she'd wrapped the spear in, and then threw the blanket to the ground without even looking, struggling to get her hands in position and point the sharp end of her weapon at the monster. It wasn't her Uncle Roderick; there was no facial hair whatsoever, much less his trademark bushy moustache, and there was an ugly scar running across the nose, but when she looked at it, she still saw the face that had haunted her dreams for the last few months, the monster she'd woken up screaming in the night trying to escape.
The revenant noticed Ari standing there - or perhaps it smelled her fear - and directed its attention her way. She almost whimpered out loud. The weapon in her hands was the enchanted spear once used by her ancestor, Xander Shieldfall. The blade was enchanted to never dull, and the haft, despite being wood, was enchanted to never break, along with a spell cast over the entire spear that would keep it in prime combat condition forever, without deterioration. And yet, as she stood there, under the revenant's hateful gaze, she felt like she was confronting the Black God with a random tree branch. "Ari, calm down, try to breathe, focus on my voice," whispered Thaniel. He seemed alarmed by exactly how paralyzed she was by being in the beast's presence. Off to the side, Jerroth looked back at her, no doubt realizing she wasn't going to be much help in this particular fight. Whether he was judging her negatively or not was impossible to tell, as no emotions showed through on his face except the same righteous anger he'd directed towards the monster. "Here, you malformed scum!" he bellowed, slamming his mace against his shield, getting its attention again, "Come face a real challenge!" Apparently unwilling to wait, he raised his shield ahead of him and charged towards the creature, screaming at the top of his lungs. Finally, the revenant let go of the halberd, twisting atop the guardsman and shrieking at Jerroth, cutting the hapless guard's leg pretty badly with a talon as it moved. "J-Jerroth!" Ari cried, terrified that the monster would kill the paladin and then turn on her. The creature pushed off with powerful legs, making the guardsman cry out with pain again, and hurled itself through the air towards the warrior, wicked claws extended, mouth wide open, jaws gleaming in the dark. Without even slowing down, Jerroth adjusted the angle of his shield and pushed forward just before impact, so that the revenant collided with it as hard as if it had hurled itself into the thick stone walls of the gate. It hit the ground, rolled, and came to its feet immediately, though, looking if anything even angrier than it had before. "Ari - Ari, I'm sorry," said Thaniel, sounding afraid, "You were going into the city, I - I didn't think I'd need to prepare any offensive spells! I'll need time to get you some attack magic, even with Crow wearing that necklace!" She silently thought to herself that there was no way the fight was going to last long enough for that. Ari forced herself to take a step forward, towards the battle, but the Revenant, on all fours again, slashed at the ground hard enough to put clawmarks in the cobblestone and roared at Jerroth, a sound she'd heard before, the night her uncle had become one of them, and Ari found herself frozen in place again, tears running down her cheeks.
If the paladin was afraid, he didn't show any signs of it. In fact, he responded by leaning down and bellowing at the top of his lungs at the monster. It wasn't nearly as intimidating as the creature's scream, but his utter fearlessness was impressive. Jerroth stepped forward and swung his mace out, wide and low, but the revenant leaped straight over the charging paladin and landed behind him, digging its claws into the ground and kicking backwards with its back legs as though it were a horse. Although his armour held, the blow to the back of his legs staggered him, making him fall to the ground, and he just barely managed to roll aside by the time it whirled on him, slashing at him with those wicked claws. The revenant leaped atop him, no doubt trying to do the same thing it had been doing to that guardsman, but the warrior unexpectedly brought his shield arm in as hard as he could, smashing the creature between his plate armour and the shield, which threw it off just enough that he could smack it in the face with a somewhat clumsy close-up swing from his mace, knocking it off him. Before Jerroth could even get to his feet, the beast ran away, bouncing up a lamppost and then leaping from the pole so fast the wind following it blew out the flame. Jerroth moved to meet its charge, running at it head on and trying to meet it with a swing of his mace, but as they closed in on each other, the monster grabbed the weapon with one clawed hand before it made contact. Without losing his stride, Jerroth responded by ramming his shield forward again, whacking the beast in the face and making it let go. While it was stunned, he swung his weapon as hard as he could - into its kneecap. It fell to the ground and screeched in pain as a sickening crunch sounded out. Distantly, Ari realized that Jerroth had just disabled the monster's impressive mobility, keeping it close at hand so he could finish it off. Enraged, it swung out at him, but where the claws had parted the stone, they just scraped across his shield, sending sparks flying. "Foolish wretch!" yelled Jerroth, "You think you have an advantage here in the night, that the shadow will protect you?" As he said this, he swung his weapon down against its chest - only for his attack to also bounce harmlessly off, as he struck a spot where the shadows had focused, as if unintentionally confirming his words. Undeterred, he stepped back and raised his mace over his head. Though the revenant bit and clawed fruitlessly at his armoured lower legs, he ignored it and focused on the task at hand. "I fight for the Sentinels!" he cried, "The Light of Unity gives me purpose! It gives me hope! It gives me strength against the night!" As he spoke, the head of his club began to glow from within, a white light that grew brighter and brighter until it almost hurt to look at - and then Jerroth brought it down on the monster below him.
An incandescent burst spread out as Jerroth slammed the mace into the revenant's head, so bright that for a moment the streets were lit as if by the noonday sun. When the light faded, when all present could see again, the creature lay crumpled at the paladin's feet, twitching and bleeding black ooze onto the ground. Jerroth lifted one foot and pressed it against the monster's lower abdomen, holding it against the ground. "It is done," he intoned, solemnly, "The beast lies dying." Even from this distance, Ari could hear the revolting creature's breath hissing in and out as it struggled to hold onto its wretched existence - and then suddenly she was running forward, so abruptly that Crow fell off her shoulder with a startled squawk and barely caught the air under his wings before he hit the ground. Jerroth looked up as she approached, but Ari's eyes were only on the revenant, which regarded her dully through yellow eyes that no longer glowed quite as brightly. Acting purely on impulse, not a single coherent thought in her mind, Ariella Shieldfall raised her ancestor's spear, and with a scream of pain and grief, drove it into the dying monster's chest as hard as she could. The revenant snarled as it tensed up all over, and then let out a low groan as it slumped back to the ground and its eyes dimmed out completely. Ari watched, trembling with emotion, tears dripping from her face, as the wound she'd inflicted on the monster suddenly began to melt away, as if its very flesh tried to escape the blade impaled through it. It didn't take long before she realized that the flesh wasn't peeling, it was evaporating. Before her very eyes, the beast's carcass silently dissolved into a black smoke that was carried away on an evening breeze, not leaving so much as a pile of ashes behind. In seconds, other than the black blood that still stained the cobblestone - and the injured guardsman who still watched in fear not ten feet away - there was no sign that the revenant had ever been there at all.
As the smoke cleared away into nothing, Ari continued to stare at the spot where the monster had been. Her enchanted spear had stabbed straight through the revenant's chest, and the blade was now half-buried in the street. She didn't know she had the strength. Actually, right now, it didn't feel like she had any strength... Falling to her knees, Ari leaned against the handle of her spear and began to cry, shoulders heaving silently, wishing that there was no such thing as revenants, wishing that there was some way to help turn them back into people, wishing that her parents had decided to be merciful and adopt children instead of passing on the curse, wishing that Xander Shieldfall had left that fucking gauntlet alone! As she cried, she was oblivious to the people slowly peeking out of the nearby alleys and around the edges of buildings, or spying through windows. The rather impressive volume of Jerroth's fight with the revenant, not to mention that burst of holy light at the end, had awakened rather a lot of people in the immediate vicinity, but they'd had the good sense to stay out of sight until the good guys won. Ari felt feathers brushing against her face, and realized that Crow had alighted on her shoulder and was now 'hugging' her head with his wings. "C-Crow?" she whispered. The bird looked at her, somewhat self-consciously. "Th-this is what you humans do when somebody's upset, right?" he asked, "Uhh- are you alright, Ariella?" She smiled, weakly, and sniffled, but she wasn't sure how to answer that question. On her other side, Jerroth knelt down and offered her a hand. When she looked at him, she was afraid he'd be angry she hadn't backed him up in the fight, but while his face was as taut as ever, his eyes were soft and understanding - for him, anyway - and his voice was calm. "It will be alright, Miss Shieldfall," he whispered, "Thanks to your magnificent finishing blow, that abomination will never harm anyone ever again." She took his hand and he helped her to her feet. As she pulled the spear out of the ground with a few strong tugs, Thaniel finally spoke up again. "I... Ari, I'm sorry," he whispered, sounding rather subdued, "If I'd known how strongly you would react to the sight of one of those things, I never would have suggested that you join Jerroth in his fight. Uhhh... maybe you can bring him back to the tower, and I can empower his weapon and armour... even more?" He was clearly thinking out loud, and Ari felt a touch of shame, believing that the wizard was trying to downplay the problem presented by her not being able to join the warrior on his holy quest.
Slinging the spear on her back, distantly wondering what had happened to the blanket, as she'd quite forgotten what she'd done with it, Ari followed Jerroth as he put his mace and shield away, and headed over to the guardsman, who still lay there, trembling and staring blankly off into the night. He was clutching his halberd with white-knuckled hands, and to Ari's eyes, he looked like he was in shock, traumatized by his experience. She didn't much blame him. "Sir," said Jerroth, forcefully, getting the man's attention, "Are you injured? What happened, where did the foul creature come from?" The guard looked up at the walkway about ten feet up the city wall. "I - I was up there, doing my p-patrol," mumbled the man, who finally lowered his halberd, "I saw the eyes in a tree and thought it were an owl, b-but it jumped to the ground and ran across... Raver's Blades, I've never seen anything fight like that! It climbed right up the side of the wall, real fast, like it were a spider, jumped me before I even knew what it was doing, knocked me all the way down here and tried to m-make a meal of me... Was that thing the demon of the woods, the one they tell stories of? Is it finally dead? P-please tell me it's not going to come back t-tomorrow, that's what they say about it, that it gets born every night when the sun goes down." Before he could receive an answer, he grimaced and grabbed at his thigh, where his uniform pants were quite bloody. As he moved, Ari realized there were dents and gouges in his metal chestplate, clawmarks left by the revenant, which was both very distressing and made Jerroth's armour look all the more impressive. "Nnngh! Bastard got my leg pretty bad..." he groaned, "Uh, it's that, and my side hurts from the fall, but th-that's about it... Oh, Gods above, it cut me, am I - am I going to turn into one of those things? Am I the next d-demon of the woods?!" Jerroth took a knee and slipped his gauntlets off as he shook his head. "This is not that kind of evil," he said, matter-of-factly, "You should be fine once I am done here." He closed his eyes and began murmuring in a tongue unfamiliar to Ari, but even though it was in a different language, she could tell from the cadence that it was a prayer of some kind. Jerroth braced his hands against the man's injured leg just as his palms began to glow, and as the guardsman trembled, the light passed from Jerroth's hands to the other man's wounded thigh, closing and sealing up the gash the Revenant had left behind. When he pulled his hand away, the guard tried to get up, only to groan and clutch at his side. Jerroth put a hand on the man's shoulder and shook his head. "I used up a lot of energy smiting the beast," he said, "Your leg is healed, but there is not much I can do right now for the bruising... or the broken ribs I suspect you suffered in the fall." He looked over his shoulder, and beckoned some of the gawking on-lookers closer. "I must go! You there!" he called, "Make sure this man gets to a doctor or a healer!" Several people walked closer, looking as if they weren't sure if they wanted to, like they were compelled by his words. Ari had no doubt that the guard would get the help he needed.
With that, Jerroth stood, striding across the cobblestones to where he'd flung his travelling cloak. As he walked, the townspeople watched him warily, clearly wanting answers as to what in the nine hells had just happened, but apparently too intimidated by the paladin to ask him directly. The guardsman, though, was only too happy to weave the tale of the monster that came out of the night and the holy warrior who'd defeated it with Light. Ari was somewhat taken aback when Jerroth did an about-face immediately after slipping his cloak back into place, marching towards the back gate to the town. She ran to intercept him, putting a hand on his shoulder just as he reached the gate. "Jerroth, wait! You can't go out there now, who knows how many more of them will be lurking around?" she asked, mildly surprised to find herself genuinely worried about the man despite barely knowing him. His grim expression tightened slightly as he regarded her. "At least a dozen, probably more," he said, his voice utterly calm, "I spent the first two days scouting out the landscape, following the sense of evil towards its source. There is an abandoned iron mine a fair ways outside of town. They use it as their refuge when the sun comes up. But I did not engage because there were many more of them than there are of me. I did not realize they could scale the walls at will." He frowned, looking towards the door as if he could stare right through it. "I cannot wait for reinforcements. Until every last one of those monsters is dead, these people are not safe," he growled, "Though it may cost me my life, I have to take the fight to them, try and take some of them with me, perhaps discourage them from leaving the mine until my brothers arrive. When they do, tell them what I have told you. Light be with you, Ariella Shieldfall."
As he turned to go, Ari tugged on his shoulder again. After seeing him fight, she didn't harbour many illusions that she could stop him if he really wanted to go, but she couldn't just let him march off to his death... "I said wait, damn you! Look, Thaniel can, er, move his tower from place to place," she said, "I know that sounds silly, and I haven't the foggiest idea how it works, but he's a wizard, so I just sort of... go with it. What if he moved the tower closer to town, so that you could at least, I don't know, rest up from that last fight, it looked like it took a lot out of you." This last bit was made up on the spot, as Ari actually found it quite difficult to judge anything about Jerroth's stamina from just looking at him; it was one of many things his impassive face hid very well. He sighed, shaking his head. "Well, I did use a lot more energy on that one revenant than I needed to..." he admitted, quietly, "I have never fought them before, did not know how much power I would need to hurt them, so I gave it my all." Swallowing, Ari turned her head to the side. "Uhh, Thaniel, that won't be a problem, will it?" she asked, belatedly, "Is the - what was it called, the translocation stone still charging from last time? And, uh, would you be agreeable with Jerroth resting up a bit at the tower? I probably should have lead with that one..." Thaniel, to his credit, didn't sound grumpy about it in the slightest. "The man saved your life, Ari," he replied, earnestly, "Of course he can rest in my home. Just, uh, come to the front gate of the city, okay? I don't like the idea of putting the tower next to that forest and having revenants crawling all over my home any more than you do..." She swallowed, relieved, and nodded slightly. "Right. Okay, good. S-so, how about it, then?" she asked the paladin, "You come to the tower, recuperate from that fight, and maybe Thaniel can find some magical, uh, something that can give you an edge over those monsters." Jerroth smiled that thin smirk of his and nodded back. "Alright, you make a compelling offer, and I think I would like to meet this Thaniel of yours," he said, which made Ari blush, though she didn't quite know why, "Lead the way, Miss Shieldfall."
Shortly thereafter, Ari lead the way out the front gate of the city; it wasn't terribly difficult, given that all the commotion was focused at the rear of North Nolan. Jerroth, for once, did actually seem a little surprised, or perhaps he was merely impressed, to see Thaniel's tower sticking out of the ground where it had clearly not been before. He walked around the base once, poking at the stones with an outstretched hand, before returning to the front (where the front door had been placed, for a change), and following a slightly amused Ari inside. He didn't exactly have the same confused look of awe-struck wonder that she'd had when she first encountered the tower, but then Jerroth was Jerroth, he didn't exactly wear his emotions on his armoured sleeve, and when she first arrived at the tower, she hadn't even known whether or not there was anyone inside. She was however, a bit put off when he didn't react in the slightest bit to the revelation that the interior of the tower took up significantly more space than the exterior. She tried to resist, and held out for a whole five seconds before she caved. "Aren't you a little bit curious about...?" He glanced at her, and the faintest trace of a smirk crossed his lips. "The inside being bigger?" he asked, "The librarium at the monastery was maintained by a Seer who used her magic to do something similar. The Order has gathered quite the collection of scripture over the years, there are hundreds of tomes in there." Remembering the way Thaniel had insisted that he was a 'wizard', not a 'mage', despite not being able to explain the difference, Ari suddenly wondered what precisely made someone a 'Seer', but chose not to ask, as the wizard in question came down the stairs to greet them. "Ah, hello there!" Thaniel said, cheerily, clapping his hands together as he saw them and rubbing vigorously, "It's good to see you're alright, Ari. Uh, greetings, Sir Jerroth, little bit odd to meet you in the flesh after seeing you through Crow's eyes. I'm Thaniel, the, uh, well I guess you could call me the master of this tower, but that sounds awfully formal to my ears..." Jerroth made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a chuckle, but Ari wasn't sure he was physically capable of it, so she wasn't sure. The paladin raised his hand and waved dismissively. "I have been addressed as many things, but 'Sir' is not one of them," he said, sounding genuinely, if mildly, amused, "Yes, it is true that the paladins have a military structure, each of us has a rank and a place in the hierarchy, but we hold no titles of lordship in our Order. Our duty is to serve by rooting out the darkness of the world in the name of the Seven Sentinels. Noble a cause as it might be, we do not use it to claim stake or power." As he spoke, he raised a hand to touch the crest on his armour, as if subconsciously, before he nodded to the wizard and resumed the usual, somewhat grim look on his face. "We are brothers in arms, not masters of war, Pater Thaniel."
Thaniel took off his hat, which today was rather large and floppy, something like a sock, and scratched at his hair self-consciously. "Ah, that kinda goes with the 'awfully formal' comment I made earlier, S- Jerroth," he said, "Though I have to admit, no one's ever called me that before." If she was surprised when he'd chuckled, Ari was positively floored when Jerroth's eyes momentarily widened and a look of pure, relatable, dismayed embarrassment came over his face. As he blushed, he averted his eyes, looking down to the floor and standing up somewhat straighter, as if he were being chewed out for an infraction by a superior officer. "I - I apologize, Thaniel, I m-meant no offence," he stammered, obviously very thrown off by his misstep, "You are the first spellcaster I have ever met who was not, er, affiliated with the Order... recruits were required to refer to them as 'Pater', as a sign of respect, for they dedicate their minds to the will of the gods as we dedicate our bodies. I... it has not been very long since I graduated as a full brother in the Order's holy paladins, I admit I am relatively new at this." His face remained exactly the same, but somehow, he suddenly seemed frustrated to Ari, who had been busying herself wrapping her spear back up in the blanket she'd retrieved, now that she had a few moments to herself. "That is why I called for reinforcements," Jerroth admitted, "The strongest paladins who lead our Order could have vanquished that vile beast without even touching it, on the strength of their faith alone. They could singlehandedly walk into the revenant lair and come out, their glory unharmed." After a moment, he looked up, seeming a little subdued, and regarded Thaniel again. "I was told you might have a space for me to rest and recover from the fight?" he asked, changing the subject just as Crow flew down from the observatory, where he'd entered, as was his custom, probably to confer with Thaniel about... whatever it was wizards and their familiars talked about, Ari wasn't sure - and Thaniel had turned off the earring when the bird arrived. "Indeed," said Thaniel, gently, allowing the matter of the paladin's lapse (which really only bothered Jerroth himself, truth be told) to drop, "Crow here will show you the way. And he'll take the most direct route this time, won't you, Crow?" Ari wondered if there was a story there, and thought, just for a second, that the raven's feathers flickered a dark purple, but decided it must have been her imagination. "Right this way, honourable soldier," said Crow, his uncharacteristic politeness nicely offset by his perfectly characteristic lack of enthusiasm, "it's just down this hall."
Once they were gone, Ari trudged up the stairs and sighed, allowing her muscles to relax. Her mind was still on the incident at the city's rear gate, but being back in the tower, seeing Thaniel, who had grown to become a friend, here with her, it helped her feel a bit better, like she could finally let her guard down. As she approached, Thaniel looked at her, concerned, and slipped his hat back on. "Ari? Are you okay?" he asked, quietly, "You haven't said a word since you got back. I -" He was interrupted here by Ariella unexpectedly stepping close and throwing her arms around him. "I need a hug," she whispered, holding him tight. The wizard had tensed up at their first contact, but now he relaxed - a little - and brought his arms up to return her embrace, brushing a bit of her long red hair out of his face so he could speak. "That bad, eh?" Ari swallowed and nodded. "Oh, Thaniel, it was horrible..." A moment passed, and then Thaniel swallowed too. Perhaps drymouth was going around. "Hold that thought for just a second..." he whispered, then muttered a few syllables in one of the dead languages he seemed to be fluent in, and with a sudden flash of blue light, and a noise that sounded unusually similar to a belch, they found themselves in the privacy of Thaniel's observatory, on top of the tower. He then snapped his fingers, and suddenly Ari's travelling cloak and the spear of Xander Shieldfall were across the room, leaning against the wizard's desk... which had suddenly appeared for that purpose. "Er, just wanted to make you comfortable, is all..." he muttered, blushing, "And it was kinda hard to h-hug you with the spear there..." She smirked at exactly how nervous he seemed, wondering how long it had been since he'd had contact with anyone other than his familiar before he met her. The smile didn't last long. "Seeing that thing, it just... it was like I was watching my uncle die all over again," she said, closing her eyes and shuddering at the memory, "I know I should have been helping Jerroth fight it, or trying to help that guardsman get away from it, b-but all I could do was stand there, l-like a scared little g-girl..." She swallowed a whimper, and felt a deep shame. "D-damn it!" she said, trembling, "I am not going to c-cry!" She tensed up and groaned with frustration. "How am I g-going to save my f-family if I c-can't even deal with one m-monster?!" she whispered, "What if the g-gauntlet is down in that mine, where there are a d-dozen of them? Oh, gods above, Thaniel, what am I going to do?" There was silence for a moment as she shivered and sniffled, and then Thaniel's arms squeezed her just a bit tighter. "I think that you're going to remember that face you saw tonight, and how if you do nothing, then everyone of Xander's line will share it," he whispered, catching her off-guard, "I think that no matter how difficult it is, you're going to do whatever it takes to keep the curse from hurting any more members of your family. Because that's who you are, Ari. Selfless, brave, and strong." He cleared his throat, sounding self-conscious again, "And hey, uh, I'm here too, s-so if we can't get around it, I'll find a way to help clear out that mine." Leaning back, Ari sniffled, then reached up to brush the tears out of her eyes. She hadn't heard Thaniel sound so certain of something since the day she'd explained her problem to him, and he'd assured her that he would break the curse on her family, no matter what. She managed a small smile, glad she had a friend she could count on in this dangerous mission. "Thank you," she replied, simply. She didn't need to say anything else.
When Ari left the observatory, she was a bit heartened by Thaniel's optimism, but in truth, she still had her worries. He was right, she would try to do whatever was necessary to save her family, but how could she help if she was paralyzed with fear at the sight of the revenants? She felt she should be resting, trying to get some energy back, but she didn't think she'd be able to sleep after seeing the revenant up close like that... and she didn't want to think about the dreams she might see if she did. She walked along the hallways at random, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. She might as well have been, the way she felt when she thought about that thing that had attacked the guardsman. As she continued on, lost in thought, she suddenly blinked, realizing that a door that was normally closed was now wide open, which seemed odd, given that there was nothing especially 'wizardy' inside, the alcove reminding her more than anything else of a living room. Walking up, she peeked inside and was somewhat taken aback by what she found. Jerroth stood near the entrance, headless. It took her an embarrassing few seconds to realize that what she was looking at was just the paladin's armour, without the holy warrior inside it. She wondered for a moment how he'd gotten out of it by himself, and where exactly he'd found the armour stand that was now supporting it, deciding it likely came from Thaniel's habit of just throwing every item he came across into the 'pockets' where he stored his possessions, just in case. It also occurred to her, for the first time, to wonder why the paladin didn't have a helmet. A tiny movement across the room caught her attention, and Ari did a double take. There, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was Jerroth, facing away from the door. Now that she realized he was there, Ari also realized that he was murmuring to himself, though she couldn't make out any of the words. He wore clothing made of simple fabrics, a pair of pants, some brown socks that looked somewhat itchy to the noble's eyes, and a white shirt that clung tightly to the paladin's body and left his arms entirely exposed. If she was honest, Ari would admit to herself (and no one else) that the first thing her eyes were drawn to was how muscular those arms were, extremely well-formed, though not bulky, no doubt thanks to years of training in the physical arts. But as she continued to gawk at him, she realized that Jerroth's arms were practically covered in tattoos, line after line of pitch black text that she hadn't noticed at first glance against his dark skin. "You can come in, Miss Shieldfall," said Jerroth, without turning around. Ari was not proud of the fact that she actually gasped in surprise, nor that she then blushed in embarrassment, realizing that she'd been so caught up in ogling the holy warrior's arms that she hadn't noticed when his mumbling had trailed off. Feeling that fleeing would be beneath her dignity as a noble of New Parsonus, Ari walked into the room, edging around Jerroth, somewhat surprised by the sight that greeted her. Jerroth wore a golden ring on one hand, which had been rotated so that the jewel set into it pointed down, not up, and he'd laid his hand atop the other, palm-up, in his lap. It was hard to tell what kind of stone the jewel was, for it was glowing, and the magical effect was pretty plain to see; floating in the air just in front of Jerroth's face were words, glowing letters in the common tongue. "The foul creatures only come out at night," he said, quickly expanding on his odd statement, saying "So I have been sleeping during the day since I arrived, that I may be fully alert and on my guard when I hunt the beasts. I had only just woken up when I ran into you at the inn, so I am several hours off from being able to sleep. I thought I would use the time to meditate, recite the holy scripture of our Order. It... calms me. Tell me, what can this humble servant of the Light do for you, Ariella Shieldfall?"
Ari blushed again, trying to think of the most dignified way to say she'd stumbled across him while fretting about her problems and had come in because she was nosy. It didn't help that his eyes were once again completely white, and she had that uncomfortable feeling like he was examining her soul for past transgressions. Shaking it off, she looked down at her feet. "My apologies, Jerroth, I didn't mean to intrude... um, what exactly is that?" she gestured to the ring on his hand, hoping to change the subject. Jerroth looked down at it, his face remaining impassive. "In the old days, each paladin was issued an armoured tome, a complete printing of the most sacred text of our Order," he replied, "But this was bulky, and the books were prone to getting dirty and damaged, despite the reinforcement on the covers. This ring allows me to go over every word of the same text without needing to have a copy physically with me." As he spoke, his fingers fidgeted, and the words floating in the air changed, first pulling back to show the entire paragraph containing the sentence he'd been looking at, and then the words floated up and faded into nothingness as a new paragraph came into existence below it and took its previous position. "So when I came in, you were reading along?" she asked, working through the ritual in her mind. Jerroth nodded. "It is not required of us, you cannot just demand someone demonstrate his devotion to his faith," he said, "But there is an old belief among the brothers and sisters of the Order that reading it out loud shows the gods your dedication to their cause. I cannot say whether or not they are actually listening, but it makes me feel better." Ari swallowed as she nodded, then gestured to his hand. "You don't, ah, wear that under your gauntlet, do you? My -" she flinched, as if struck, as a bad memory threatened to re-surface for the second time that day, before she ignored it with all of her strength. "...My uncle once told me that punching someone with a ring on is asking to either break your ring or your finger." Jerroth looked back to the door, and then nodded to his armour. "The crystal in the center of the crest," he said, "there is a compartment hidden behind it where I keep the ring when I am fulfilling my duties. I believe the idea is to keep the words of our Order close to our hearts, or some such." Ari looked over and was surprised to see she hadn't noticed that the white circle in the center of the Order's symbol was indeed rotated into the chest, revealing a tiny cavity with a prong set to support the ring. Nodding, she cleared her throat and asked the question that had been bugging her since she walked in.
"And, the, ah, the tattoos you wear?" The paladin raised an arm, gazing at it as though he'd never noticed the words there before. There was a long silence, and Ari was beginning to wonder if he really hadn't seen them before, when he finally answered. "These are the central tenets of the Order," he whispered, reverently, "The book contains everything about how we live our way of life, but these tenets focus on the most important part; the why. When I graduated into full brotherhood, I had them inscribed on my very flesh, so that I might never forget the importance of our mission, that I might always bear the responsibility of the Order to protect the innocents of this world from the darkness." Sitting down in a chair, Ari nodded. "Is that... usually done?" she asked, gently, restraining herself from simply saying 'normal'. Jerroth smiled and shook his head. "No, I do believe they thought I was either joking or had taken leave of my senses when I told the artist what I wished to be done," he said, "the mission is just of utmost importance to me. This is why I cannot let my brothers and sisters down, this is why I must try and clear that mine of evil, to my very dying breath if need be." Ari swallowed, somewhat taken aback by the conviction in his voice; she had very little doubt that Jerroth would literally sacrifice his life if it meant completing his mission. A long moment passed in silence, as if they were respecting such a weighty statement. Ari bitterly wondered why she didn't have that kind of courageous nature, and then it occurred to her to just ask. "Jerroth..." she said, finally, "You're talking about marching into a den of revenants by yourself. There really is a good chance that you won't be coming out. Aren't you, you know, afraid? Even a little bit?"
Another long moment passed, and then Jerroth closed his hand, the projection vanishing with a quiet popping sound. The paladin stood up, and then settled himself in a chair opposite Ariella. "I know it is difficult for outsiders to understand," he said, gently, "So I suppose to explain, I will have to tell you about myself." He seemed mildly uncomfortable, and Ari raised her hands. "No, that's okay, you don't have to do that," she said, "I didn't mean to pry." Jerroth, who'd switched his eyes back to their normal appearance, much to Ari's relief, just looked at her and smirked ever-so-slightly. "It is alright, Miss Shieldfall. Even the other paladins used to tell me I needed to get better at... socializing." He said the word like he wasn't entirely familiar with it, like it was uncomfortable on his tongue. "Do you know what I was, before I came to the Order?" he asked, rhetorically, "I was the son of a nobleman in the city of Hasdun, in the west. The bastard son of a nobleman and one of his chambermaids. My mother died in childbirth, leaving me with my father... and his wife. Now, I was no threat to her, he already had proper children with her, ready to inherit his estate. But my stepmother - I suppose that is a close enough term - saw me as nothing more than a living, breathing reminder of her husband's infidelity. Hate is a strong word, but to say that she liked me would be an exaggeration." Jerroth sighed. "My father loved me, I know he did, because he kept me around long enough that I remember him, he did not just drop me off at an orphanage to spare himself the embarrassment... I remember he told me once I was the spitting image of him at that age... but his wife was constantly trying to get him to give me away, and when she was not, she was belittling me, or encouraging her children to bully me. That is what I remember of her; she used to tell me I was an accident, a mistake, that I was worse than nothing since my birth had ended the life of a 'perfectly good servant'. Finally, she managed to convince him that 'a man in his position' couldn't be seen as capable of lechery or infidelity, and..." The paladin shook his head. "I was sent to live at an orphanage that was run by the Order of the Light of Unity."
Ari looked down at her feet, feeling like she'd opened a wound by being nosy, distantly wondering what this had to do with her question. "I'm... sorry, Jerroth. I didn't realize..." she left it unspoken that she'd kind of assumed everyone who took up arms on behalf of such Orders had originally been a bored farmboy looking for a more exciting life, an assumption that now made her feel strangely guilty. "It is alright, Miss Shieldfall," Jerroth replied, softly, "Ancient history. In any event, it was new and scary, and I was just a child, suddenly all alone. My family may not have made my time at home an overly pleasant one, but it was still my family and my home. I wished on more than one occasion that my stepmother would just drop dead, in the hope that that would make my father change his mind and bring me home... The orphanage saw to our needs, got us food and clothes and a place to sleep, there was basic schooling, and clerics came in every once in a while to teach us of the Light of Unity - though, ah, we were not indoctrinated, before you ask, they held nothing against children who did not wish to learn of Unity, or who already followed another path." For a moment, a blank look came over his already hard-to-read face. "What was I saying? Oh yes, the orphanage took care of our needs, but it still was not the same thing as having a family or real friends... and having been told all my life I was a worthless waste of space, I felt like my misery was all my fault, afraid that at any moment, the Order would decide they did not want me, the way my family had, and I would be thrown somewhere even less pleasant." Without looking, he removed the ring from his finger and began to toy with it, slipping it from hand to hand idly, though he seemed careful not to toss it around or do anything that might risk it falling to the ground. "To be honest, it all became a bit overwhelming, and eventually I ran away," Jerroth continued, "I do not even know where I was planning to go, maybe try and get back to Hasdun... But it did not really matter, because I was still a small child, and I immediately managed to get myself lost in the woods outside the village." "Oh dear," said Ari. The paladin smirked. "Well, I was not scared of the dark," he replied, "No, 'oh dear' came when I ran into the wraith."
As Ari leaned forward, curiosity well and truly hooked, Jerroth nodded to himself and continued. "So it came towards me -" "Wait a second!" she protested, "You can't just say there was a wraith and then not tell me what that was!" Surprise flickered across his face for a moment, and then his face became expressionless again, though Ari swore he sounded a little sheepish. "Oh, uh, my apologies, part of the training to become a paladin involves studying creatures of darkness, the enemies of the Light, and I sometimes forget that most people do not go through the same, ah, curriculum, I believe the word is. Ah... a wraith is a mostly incorporeal being of darkness, looks like a floating hooded figure with glowing red eyes and no face under the hood. Utterly evil, they hate living things and the Light that sustains them." Ari believed she'd seen such creatures written of in stories. From the sounds of things, she guessed the Order weren't big fans. "So yes, as a helpless child, I was terrified to have stumbled across a wraith in the woods," he continued, "I am not even sure what it was doing there, perhaps it was sealed in a cave or something and some half-wit let it out by mistake." "Did you run?" asked Ari, riveted to the story. "Too scared," Jerroth admitted, "Not that it would have made a difference. Wraiths are pure darkness, so they are not alive, they do not get tired. And they float, so I couldn't even have lost it in the woods." "So what did you...?" "I fell to my knees and screamed in terror," he said, flatly, though more quietly, "It was a monster, a real monster, and I was not yet even ten years old. I sat there on the forest floor, watching the most horrible thing I had ever seen creeping closer and closer. It pulled an emaciated arm out from under that shroud, reached for me... and then I heard a voice bellow into the night. 'By the Light united, as long as blood runs in my veins, you will. Not. Touch. That. Child!'"
Jerroth actually smiled, his eyes half-closed, as if reliving the event. "It was one of the sisters of the Order, a recently full-blooded paladin, not too different from where I am now, actually," he said, "Her name was Reena, a cheetah-kin woman from a kingdom across the sea. Her shield lit up with holy light, and the wraith recoiled from her. The most terrifying monster I had ever laid eyes on, and it was afraid of her. In that moment, as she stepped between the creature and I, in her full battle armour, sword in hand, she looked... she looked like an avatar of one of the goddesses themselves. She looked back at me, told me to hide... and she was smiling. I asked her about it later, and do you know what she told me? She was smiling because she had found the lost boy she was looking for, and he was alright. She was not even the tiniest bit afraid of the wraith. Her faith in the Light, and in her own strength, was so powerful, that she carried no fear with her whatsoever. Watching her fight that thing, it was... it was life-changing. She made it look easy. And as it was destroyed, once and for all, as it disappeared into nothingness, the very instant it was slain, the morning sun rose, throwing the Yellow Goddess' light over the forest, as if Reena had called it there herself." Ariella had gotten used to the occasional sudden show of emotion from her strange new friend, but she was still stunned to realize there were tears of happiness sparkling in the corners of his eyes. "My whole life, I had been told I was nothing, worse than nothing, that I was an accident, a mistake, that I brought death to my mother and shame to my father. But when the paladin had finished with the wraith, when this magnificent woman was satisfied we were safe, she turned to me, peeking out from behind a tree, smiled again, and said 'Well, my lad. The Seven Gods must have a very special plan in store for you, for me to find you in the nick of time like that. Shall we go home?'"
Jerroth opened his eyes again, wiping the tears out as he smiled thinly at Ari. "From that day forward, I knew I wanted to become a paladin. To carry such a strong faith that all doubt, all regret, all fear is removed from my life. To... to live up to the destiny the Seven Gods had spared me from the wraith to pursue. Reena ended up being my personal instructor, as it happens... I suppose you could call her my mentor. She taught me the holy scriptures, the sacred battle techniques of the Order, she even personally presided over my initiation ceremony when I earned full brotherhood. But more than that, when I... when I came of age, with her blessing, I had my name changed to the word in her native language for 'sunrise', in the hope that I could bring Light to others the way she had for me." Ari nodded at that, smiling herself, as she finally saw how this related to her original question. "So you really aren't afraid of the danger in that cave," she said, "I... I wish I had that kind of courage, Jerroth, that's really quite inspiring." Jerroth sighed quietly. "Well, I would be lying if I said I was as utterly free of fear as Reena was on that day. Not for lack of faith, mind you, there is simply a very real and very important difference between facing a single wraith and delving into a dark cave filled with revenants," the paladin pointed out, "Perhaps it is not right to say there is no need to fear, for it is easy to see there is no small risk to life and limb in this endeavor, to myself and to the people of this town. But while fear may keep us aware of the danger around us, we must never let it overcome our will to press on into the darkness... or else we might never find the means to bring forth the Light." He looked up from the ring in his hands, directly meeting Ari's gaze, and the noblewoman found this particular look almost as intimidating as his Holy Sight. "Having met you now, and heard your tale and your circumstances here with Thaniel, I get a sense of something," he said, smiling just a little wider, "Perhaps the same something my mentor sensed once, upon a dawn-lit hill. I think the Seven have a purpose for you, Miss Shieldfall." Ari swallowed, mulling over those words. She didn't believe that she would survive the revenants just because the Sentinels had high hopes for her, but to learn that the paladin wasn't actually as fearless as he seemed, but still managed to fight like he was... The more she pondered the idea, the more her inner fear of the monsters seemed to ease. Maybe she'd be able to get a couple of hours of sleep after all. Standing up, she nodded politely to the paladin. "Thank you, Jerroth, that was a fascinating story," she said, "I think I understand you a bit better. I'll leave you to your meditation, then, thank you for talking with me. And, ah, perhaps it isn't my place to say, I don't know who your family was or what they've done since, but I look at you, the man you've become, and I think that your father at least would be proud of you." "Stuckord," he responded, quietly, "My name was once Angelo Stuckord. And I cannot say what my father would think of me, since I have not heard from him since the day he sent me away, and I stopped keeping up with the state of his family years ago. But I can tell you that I suspect that Reena thinks of me as the son she never had, the same way I think of her as the mother I never knew... and she has toldme, in as many words, that she is tremendously proud of the man I have become." He paused a moment, and then put the ring back on. "Thank you, Ariella Shieldfall," he said, going back to his studies, "It felt... good to tell that story to someone. I hope we both live to see the sunrise." Ari smiled as she left the room. It wasn't exactly the cheeriest farewell, but coming from Jerroth, those words felt like a glowing offer of friendship.
When Ari left the paladin behind, her brow was still furrowed with stress and worry, but somehow the knot in her stomach didn't feel quite as painfully tight. She had much to ponder, and the tower was a very strange place, so she didn't quite notice when she took a wrong turn on the way back to her bedroom. She only realized what had happened when the passage she was in came to an abrupt dead end, where she found a large, shallow basin filled with water, in which Mister Crow was splashing around, grooming himself. "Oh!" she cried, "I'm sorry, Crow, I didn't realize where I was... actually, I don't think I've ever been in this part of the tower before, do you happen to know where the living quarters are from here?" The bird turned around and regarded her flatly, looking ever so slightly annoyed, though that was hardly unusual. Sighing exaggeratedly, he rolled his beady little eyes. "Sure, Ariella, let's talk," he said, sarcastically, "And maybe I'll come start a conversation with you the next time you're bathing!" As he flicked a wing, sending errant droplets of water flying off in random directions, Ari crossed her arms and frowned, blushing. "Oh, don't give me that look," he muttered, "Aside from how ridiculously huge you are compared to me, I don't even have the same genital structure as your species, you're about as potentially attractive to me as the door you walked through to get here, and that I really need to learn how to lock." After a moment, he blinked. "Oh, right. Getting rid of you. Uh, just go back the way you came and take the first right," he said, "should take you back to the central staircase, I trust you can find your way back from there?" Ari nodded gratefully. "Thank you, Crow," she said, turning to leave. She paused, however, as she noted his usual mild flinch at the name. "Ummm, may I ask you a personal question?" she asked, her words carefully chosen and delicately spoken. The raven looked at her curiously. "A personal - what, you mean about Thaniel?" "No, I mean about you," she replied, "The first time we met, when Thaniel introduced you, you said something like 'I've got a real name, you know!'. Well, I apologize for not asking before, but... what is it?" The grumpy frown that seemed permanently etched into Crow's features melted away for the second time that night, replaced this time with pure surprise, not worry. "You... you want to know my name?" he asked, quietly, incredulously, "N-no one's ever asked me that before... Well, except Thaniel, of course, he needed to know my real name in order to make me his familiar... but no one else has ever thought to ask." As Ari nodded, the bird cleared his throat, looking somewhat self-conscious. "...Siaro," he finally said, "My name is Siaro. At least, that's the closest I can get in English, as I'm assuming you're not fluent in birdsong." Ari grinned widely and genuinely. "Oh, that's a lovely name!" she said, meaning it, "I'm sorry that Thaniel called you the, uh, the other one as a joke." The raven moved his wings up and down without spreading them, and it took Ari a moment to realize that the bird had just shrugged. "You and me both," he muttered, "You and me both. You get used to it after a while. More or less." As the human nodded and turned to leave, the familiar called out to her. "Ah, Ariella? About what I said earlier..." he said, studying the basin beneath his feet, "For what it's worth, you are one of the... least ugly humanoids I've met while serving Thaniel. And you have a much nicer personality than the door." Ari laughed at that, and she swore that he smiled just for a moment - at least as much as he was capable of smiling, having a hard, inflexible beak for a mouth - as she finally did leave. "Why thank you, Siaro," she said, "It's not every day a girl receives a compliment like that!"
A few hours later, Jerroth stood by the door to the tower, making sure all the buckles and fasteners on his armour were secure, while Thaniel showed him a number of mystical doodads he'd prepared for the journey. The paladin had seemed somewhat unimpressed with the paper map that would automatically draw itself as he searched the caves, so that he couldn't lose his way, but his eyes had lit up at the sound of the gemstone that contained a magical force field that would protect him from the claws of angry revenants for a few seconds at a time. "And these are really simple, pure alchemy, really," the wizard was saying, holding out a small pouch full of objects the shape and size of marbles, "You throw them to the ground as hard as you can, and they burst with an intense light! Ah, it's not a holy light, like your power creates, but if these things are made out of darkness, I suspect it will still hurt like hell, or at the very least throw them off for a few seconds. Oh!" This last exclamation wasn't directed at the paladin, but at the young woman descending the spiral staircase. Ariella Shieldfall stood tall and proud, buckling up her travelling cloak, her spear already strapped into position on her back. As she glanced at the men looking up at her, she smiled slightly and nodded. "Gentlemen." Thaniel swallowed, handed the bag of light bombs to Jerroth, and walked up to his friend and client. "Ari, what are you doing?" he whispered, nervously. She took a deep breath before she answered. "I'm - I'm getting ready to accompany Jerroth on his mission to the mine," she replied, "I've been thinking it over, and I want to help. It'll be easier with two of us, right? Worst comes to worst, I'll get afraid the first time we encounter a revenant, and I'll run away after Jerroth kills it." Thaniel averted his eyes for just a moment. "That's not the worst outcome I can think of..." he whispered. Ari wasn't sure she was meant to hear that. "Well, I'll tell you what," he said, looking up into her eyes again, "If you're going, I want to help." He snapped his fingers, and with a sound not entirely unlike a sudden cough, Ari felt something cold and hard pressing against her skin. "Aahh!" she gasped, taken by surprise, "Thaniel, what is this?!" The wizard put his hands on his hips, looking quite pleased with himself. "Chainmail!" he said, happily, "I knew I had a set of the stuff sized for a woman in storage! I... don't actually remember where it came from, I think I won it in a game of cards or something..." "I did not know wizards played cards," Jerroth observed. Thaniel looked back to him and shrugged. "No card game you've ever played," Thaniel said, "Even card and board games tend to have magic involved when they're invented by spellcasters. You should see us play chess." His face went blank as something occurred to him, and he turned back to Ari, blushing. "Oh - oh dear, I hope you don't think it, um, too forward of me to put the chainmail under your clothes! I promise I didn't see or feel anything!" Ari found herself blushing too, at the mere thought of the wizard seeing her naked. Eager to put the idea out of her mind, she just shook her head. "N-no, it's fine, it's quite alright," she insisted, "I'm glad you had this, I felt a little underdressed next to Jerroth there." At that moment, a much-desired change of topic arrived in the form of the wizard's familiar, who flapped down from above and gracefully alighted on Ari's shoulder. "Glad you'll be accompanying us, Ariella," he said, surprisingly politely, "I'd be sliding all over the place trying to grip the shoulder on the paladin's armour." As Thaniel stared at him suspiciously, Ari grinned. "Nice to see you too, Siaro," she replied. "Oh so that's how it is..." murmured the wizard. Thaniel sighed exaggeratedly as he put the remote focus charm in place around Crow's neck, and Ari almost laughed at how much the sound reminded her of the raven.
"Alright, I've already moved the tower to just outside the mine," Thaniel said, addressing the group, "So I'm going to head upstairs and finish up the offensive spells I've prepared. Ah, Crow, try not to put your beak right in front of the crystal, I'll be sending fireballs and lightning bolts this time, not muffins. And one last thing..." He leaned over and touched a hand to Ari's free shoulder, then whispered a word in a language she didn't understand; an orb of soft light emerged from the spot he touched, rose up a short distance, and then began lazily orbiting the air above Ari's head. "I remember this spell from the museum," she said, "Thank you, Thaniel, that's very thoughtful of you, much better than torches." As the wizard turned to Jerroth, the warrior shook his head slightly. "That is alright, my Holy Sight allows me to see in the dark," he said, closing his eyes, "I am told it works similarly to Dwarven infravision, but then I do not understand how infravision works." Thaniel perked right up, grinning. "Oh, it's quite fascinating," he said, eagerly, "You see, Dwarves have an innate magical ability that allows them to adjust the nature of their eyes and... Right. Mission of dire importance. Sorry." Without acknowledging that, Jerroth put a hand on the door and nodded to Ari and Thaniel. "I will scout out the area immediately outside the entrance to the mine," he said, "Finish any preparations you need to, but do it quickly and quietly. Light be with us all." As he stepped outside, already reaching for his mace, Thaniel turned back to Ari. "Are you sure about this?" he asked, "Jerroth doesn't seem like the type to judge you if you get cold feet." Ari paused for a moment and then nodded, quietly wishing she were a little more sure about it. "Yes," she finally said, "This is very important for the town, it will help Jerroth get out in one piece, and it might even bring us closer to breaking my family curse once and for all."
She sighed after a moment, shrugging at the wizard, which made Crow caw in surprise, flapping his wings to keep from falling off her shoulder. "...I just wish I was as confident in Xander's spear as Jerroth is with his mace," she admitted. Thaniel looked to the door, as if he could still see the paladin. "Oh, that's not a mace," he commented, "A mace is just a blunt club. Did you see the spikes on the end? That weapon's called a morning star." Ari was slightly taken aback by that, and smiled, remembering Jerroth's story. Thaniel didn't seem to notice, though. "And I've been meaning to tell you, by the way, I've been going through more of Xander's journal, and I found something interesting, something not even the stories or history books seem to be aware of. The name of his spear." "Oh?" Ariella asked, perking up, "Wait, it's not something embarrassing is it? Is that why he didn't tell anyone?" Thaniel grinned, tugging on his beard. "No, no, nothing like that. I can't say why he didn't share it with anyone, but the spear is called 'Zahk-tumm the Unyielding.'" He raised his hands dramatically as he said it, and then frowned slightly. "Sure sounds nice, but it's a little bit redundant, 'zahk-tumm' is just the Dwarven term for 'something that does not break', so it actually means unyielding." "Sock tomb?" repeated Ari, frowning. Thaniel shook his head slightly. "No, Zah- you know what?" He snapped his fingers, and the word appeared in glowing letters, floating in front of them. "Oh, I see," laughed Ari, as the letters faded, before she tilted her head to the side and grinned at the wizard. "Perhaps there's a comma," she said, "You know, 'Zahk-tumm, the Unyielding'. So it's not repetition, it's translation." Thaniel smiled just slightly, but Ari could see the worry in his eyes. "I hadn't thought of that," he said, "Very clever, Ari. Anyway, the reason I brought it up was that I wanted to say that this isn't just 'Xander Shieldfall's spear', it's Zahk-tumm, and Xander just happens to be the person who carried it before you. It's your spear now, it's not like you're going to have to give it back to your dead great-grandfather when you're done using it. I was thinking, maybe if you think of it that way, you'll become more confident." As Ari thought that one over, the wizard rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously for a moment and then continued. "Uh, there was one other thing... Listen, the remote focus is handy, but I won't be able to channel my full power through it, it won't quite be like having me there with you. Just keep that in mind. And, uh... I've prepared a group teleportation spell, so if things look, you know, bad, you just give me the word and I'll pull the three of you out of there, no matter how pissed at me Jerroth gets about interrupting his martyrdom, okay?" Smiling, Ari surprised the wizard for the second time that night by stepping forward and hugging him. "Thank you, Thaniel," she said, quietly, before releasing him and leaning back. Her friend swallowed and forced a smile. "...Good luck, Ari," he whispered, "Go out there and show the revenants what you're made of, okay?" With a nod and one last lingering glance, Ari turned and stepped out the door, following Jerroth into the night, and Thaniel once again found himself alone in the tower, which suddenly seemed bigger than ever.
Jerroth stood by a tree outside, his morning star and shield held firmly, his attention on the woods around them. He glanced down at the ground as Ari approached, looking at the growing illumination as the light orb floating above her came nearby. "Miss Shieldfall," he said, acknowledging her presence with barely a glance. "You can call me Ari, you know," she said, "since we're going to be, uh, marching into battle together." It still sounded ridiculous in her ears. Jerroth cleared his throat, and she could almost swear he seemed uncomfortable. "...Would 'Ariella' be an acceptable compromise?" he asked, very stiffly. She couldn't help but grin. "Oh yes," she replied, deadpan, "Very acceptable." Once they'd started walking down the path Jerroth indicated, Ari watched the shadows dancing around them as the orb circled her head, and glanced up at it. "Ummm, should I try to, I don't know, cover this thing up?" she asked, "As convenient as it is for those of us without magical vision, I'm worried the revenants will know we're coming." Jerroth's answer was immediate, and not terribly reassuring. "Oh, they are going to know we are coming one way or the other," he said, "I suspect they will be able to smell us as soon as we set foot in that mine. If anything, having a bright light with us might make them hesitate to attack us for a few seconds, might even give them trouble seeing when they try to kill us." Ari swallowed, wishing he hadn't used the word 'when' just there. They were only walking along for a couple more minutes when the trees parted and a large hill loomed out of the darkness. Ari unstrapped and uncovered Xander's spear - no, her spear, she reminded herself, Zahk-tumm, the Unyielding - and held it at the ready, wishing her hands weren't trembling quite as much as they were. As they approached the entrance to the mine, which had been abandoned for so long it wasn't even marked with a sign, just a big black hole in the side of the hill like an open wound in the world, Crow spoke up as Jerroth sighed. "Listen," the bird whispered, "Do you hear that?" Before Ari could answer, the paladin raised his weapon and shield. "Well, Ariella," Jerroth said, his voice tight and strained, his white, featureless eyes narrowing at the entrance to the cave. "It seems I was wrong. They smelled us before we even got inside." Ari's own eyes widened in fear, and she turned her attention back to the cave. She didn't have Jerroth's Holy Sight, so she couldn't see any further than the edge of the light provided by Thaniel's glowing orb, but it didn't take her long to hear the hissing and growling coming from within the cave... or spot the three pairs of glowing yellow eyes glaring at them from within the darkness...
Our heroes have come to the city of North Nolan searching for information on the Midnight Glove, the gauntlet that placed a curse on Ari's entire family. But there's something off about this city, and it seems Ari, Thaniel, and Crow have wandered right into the middle of a big, big problem... and Ariella's worst fear.
It seems it's my destiny not to post these stories until ages after they're finished, because I just realized today that although I finished this story in December, as a Christmas present for my mother, I still haven't posted it online, five long months later. My bad!
This one fairly drove me crazy, but then I had a hard deadline of Christmas Eve, and I wanted it to be perfect, given its intended purpose. In the end, I'm quite satisfied with it, and I hope you guys enjoy it too. n_n
Thanks for reading! I'm gonna be honest, I didn't originally intend to leave this story off on a cliffhanger, but I kinda like that it worked out like that. I'll try not to let this story languish for too long, I've got big plans for it after all. ;-)
Thanks for reading! I'm gonna be honest, I didn't originally intend to leave this story off on a cli
When i started fallowing you a few months ago when my watchlist went from 15 to over 100 So i never really had a chance to go through your works other than a few ILY,T and games we play And i really enjoyed those(for more than what your thinking)
But this I LOVED THIS everything about it so far is amazing The characters are engaging The storytelling is emotional The world and history is intriguing
I'm not a literary person so i don't really know the words to describe just how amazing i think this is
I guarantee you If you ever decide to publish this story Even if it's with one of those online self publishing sites I WILL buy a copy Thank you for sharing this with us
When i started fallowing you a few months ago when my watchlist went from 15 to over 100 So i never
This brings me great joy, I must say. Thank you for that, friend, it's a wonderful feeling to know your work is appreciated. n_n
You know, the reason I didn't originally post the chapters online was that I was thinking of selling them once I finished the story, it just took a lot longer than I was expecting to actually write the chapters, so I thought I might as well share them while I still liked them. :B
Maybe when I eventually get the whole story finished I'll sell the whole thing, that's not a bad idea. Until then, it's nice to know I've got people eagerly awaiting more chapters. n_n
This brings me great joy, I must say. Thank you for that, friend, it's a wonderful feeling to know y
