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Chapter 184 - Creatures of the Vale
🕑 Added 2024-05-22 17:00:06 +0000 UTCEach and every one of the accompanying classers from the Order of Solstice’s Flame looked like they could take me. These didn’t look like the run-of-the-mill warriors that had to fill the ranks of the opposing Martial Order. No, if I had to take a guess, this was an entire platoon of elites, hand-picked and sculpted by their leadership in order to kick ass and take names. From their highly personalized, intimidatingly powerful feeling weapons and armor, to the simple way they held each other, I doubted my chances against any of these guys.
And there were at least thirty of the damn people, all of them at the beck and call of Rhiannon.
What…
What the hell was going on here? How did the woman have the pull to command such a force?
Rhiannon herself looked almost exactly the same as she had back at the shop, in a slightly off putting way. Still wearing the same pitch black gown and furs, her burgundy eyes sought out mine from across the dead silent plaza. Nobody that had been previously fighting had moved an inch since Rhiannon had shown herself.
She smiled thinly at me.
“My my,” Rhiannon said casually, sauntering farther into the plaza. As she did, the classers moved forward and started to spread out. Gradually, the platoon began to encircle both us and the SED agents, sticking to the very edges of the circular plaza.
I tensed at the motion, nearly springing away from the trap. I was stopped, though, when Dusk clamped down hard onto my shoulder, nearly enough to grind my bones together. She wasn’t even looking when she stopped me, just watching Rhiannon instead.
As if she was the real threat, and not the deadly-looking classers from a rival Order.
Almost mockingly, Rhiannon trailed her eyes over Dusk for a moment, before letting them meet mine once again. She continued speaking. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you here, Nathan,” She nearly purred. I mentally winced at how she had just blown whatever cover I still had, but it wasn’t a huge loss. The SED agents, and particularly their leader whose head had just turned slightly to look at me had already seen my face. I was going to have to burn the identity of Hans Schefel no matter what.
Sorry, Jason.
“After all, this little trap wasn’t even for you,” Rhiannon said casually, trailing a hand over the bench the SED leader had been sitting on earlier. For some reason, a screeching sounded out from the point of contact between her nails and the iron fittings, echoing around the plaza. “I was just trying to bait out some little rats that have been troubling me. The Guard Captain didn’t mention you were the ones acting as…enticement. Tsk tsk. I’ll have to punish him later.”
…What?
“As expected of you, creature,” The SED leader unexpectedly said, contempt dripping from their synthesized voice. “You care so little for collateral damage that you won’t care that even your latest little interests step in the way.”
Rhiannon rolled her eyes at them as the Solstice’s Flame classers finished encircling the plaza. Not a one of them, including the absolutely massive man carrying a warhammer in full plate at Rhiannon’s side, had spoken once since they’d stepped foot in the clearing. They seemed content to let Rhiannon do it, while they watched Crook, Dusk, Sylvia and I hungrily.
“Oh, do drop the self-pity, Number Thirty-Two,” Rhiannon said derisively. “It ill suits you. Besides, you should speak when spoken to. Be quiet now, and let the adults do the speaking,” She flicked a dismissive finger at ‘Number Thirty-Two’.
From it, a thin line of a dark, indistinguishable liquid sliced from its tip to crash into the SED leader’s shoulder. It split both the cloth of their cloak and the chain of the armor I could now see underneath, exposing their pale flesh in an instant.
A massive, nearly bone-deep gash opened up on their shoulder, bleeding heavily. Thirty-Two barely flinched at the attack, even though it had to be absolutely agonizing. They must have an incredibly capable mental control Skill like my own in order to endure that.
Even though their leader had barely reacted to the attack, the other two SED members tensed up and moved as if to attack. They were stopped by the raised hand of Thirty-Two. They shook their head, causing the two operatives to step back.
Rhiannon visibly dismissed the group of SED agents, instead shifting her eyes to look over our group. In particular, they lingered on both Dusk and Sylvia, even though she had previously been speaking to me. “Hmm…” She trailed off, tapping one darkly painted fingernail against her lips. “But perhaps this will work out better.”
I decided to finally speak up. “Rhiannon, what is this about?” I asked her in a low, tense voice.
The woman broke out of her spell, blinking rapidly at me. It was as if she had forgotten I was even here. She dismissed me after a moment, though. “Oh, just considering which of your two little girls there I’m going to take with me,” She said casually, eyes still lingering on Dusk and Sylvia. She was speaking as if she had just debated which café she was going to choose, and not which person she was going to kidnap. Either my friend and comrade.
Or my girlfriend.
I tensed up at the same time Sylvia did. Dusk didn’t react, though. She just kept watching Rhiannon with steady eyes.
Said noblewoman kept speaking. “On one hand, we have the daughter of the mighty Greycton, Archmage of the Violet Circle, Headmaster of the Academy, and Grand Marshall of the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn,” She said casually, outing Sylvia without a second thought. The eyes of every Solstice’s Flame member in the plaza immediately shifted to home in on her eagerly, palpable bloodlust in their gazes. Meanwhile, Rhiannon had locked her eyes on Dusk, as if she could see straight through her mask. For all I knew, she could, with the way she seemed to be able to see through Sylvia’s illusioned façade. “On the other, we have little Liora Valen, so far from home.”
Dusk visibly twitched at the name Rhiannon had just thrown out.
I’m…guessing that was Dusk’s real name. She had never shared it with me, so it was my first time hearing it.
“Orphaned at a young age and taken in by that sad old failure Baldric-excuse me, I hear he goes by Hook these days,” Rhiannon said mockingly, lightly covering her mouth with one hand. That name only caused Dusk to tense further. “He taught you all the worthless, tired old skills that he could. And when you came of age, you insisted that you join up with his little band of spies and cutthroats. Tsk tsk, whatever would your poor old parents think of you now?”
How…
How did Rhiannon know all of this? How could she possibly know Hook’s real identity, when I don’t think anyone in the Nocturne Division did. In all of my time both around Hook, and in the Division in general, I had never heard even the hint of a whisper as to his real name. The dwarf's history was a blank slate, and seemingly purposefully so. And here was this random noblewoman dropping secret, well-hidden knowledge like it didn’t even matter.
It gave me an ominous feeling.
That was only enhanced when the look Rhiannon was giving her turned calculating. “Yes…thinking about it. Why choose?” She said with a smirk. “I only need one, but both wouldn’t hurt. Boys, take them.” At Rhiannon’s dismissive gesture towards us, the surrounding Solstice’s Flame members all finally drew their weapons. Slowly, they started to advance on our combined group of SED and Nocturne Agents. As the circle closed in on us, I bizarrely found myself back to back with the SED Agent Sylvia had been locked in life and death battle with only moments ago. We exchanged brief looks of mutual antipathy, but didn’t say anything about it.
After all, it looked like these guys were more than willing to take all of us at once.
Strangely, both Dusk and Thirty-Two didn’t move from their original positions. They exchanged a long, slow glance before the SED Agent inclined their head at her. Dusk nodded, and then turned to face the smugly onlooking Rhiannon. The Gnoll woman struck out sharply with one hand. “Stop. Or I promise you, you’ll regret it.”
Idly, Rhiannon raised one hand, causing the advancing Solstice’s Flame members to halt in place. “Oh, is that so?” She said with an amused smile. “What could you possibly do now that could make me regret anything?”
Slowly, Dusk reached up to grab her mask. Undoing the clasp, she lowered it, allowing me to see her white-furred face unobscured and undisguised for the first time since I’d known her. I wasn’t exactly the best judge of Gnollish beauty, but I would certainly say that she was a striking example of her kind. Her face was particularly memorable considering the nearly crescent moon shaped markings of black fur she had underneath her strangely violet eyes.
Right now, her snout was arranged in something I never would have expected on the usually taciturn gnoll woman’s face.
A small, sharp smile.
“Because I know what you are, ‘Rhiannon’,” Dusk, or rather Liora Valen, said semi-mockingly.
Rhiannon finally lost the ever-present smile that had been on her face this whole time. Now she was just looking at the Gnoll with a frighteningly blank look.
Meanwhile, most everyone else in the clearing was looking confused. I was considering the wording of what Liora had said.
‘What’ you are, and not ‘who’ you are.
I say most everyone was looking confused, but not Thirty-Two. They hadn’t reacted to Liora’s words at all, while even their SED underlings had perplexed posture.
“You, are bluffing,” Rhiannon said bluntly. “This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to throw me off guard.”
“You were careful, I will admit that,” Liora said grimly, outright ignoring the other woman. “But there are certain traces that your kind leave that cannot be concealed. Your kind thrive off of being unknown and unseen, operating in the shadows to twist things to your liking. But if even the barest hint of suspicion is cast, then those traces can be found. And then you. Are. Doomed.”
Rhiannon was looking at the Gnoll now with wary, narrowed eyes. She didn’t speak, as it seemed like she was starting to believe that Liora actually knew what she was speaking about.
And my comrade noticed that. She smiled at who I was suspecting might not actually be Bleddyn’s cousin. “I found it on the Portal St-”
Rhiannon moved.
In the blink of an eye, faster than I had seen anything and anyone move ever since I’d come to Vereden, Rhiannon appeared in front of the unmasked Nocturne Agent. Liora had been cut off because the woman had her by the throat, and was dangling her in midair.
Right next to me.
I startled and skipped back, along with the rest of the other Agents around me, Nocturne or otherwise.
Fast.
Faster than even Honoka was, I thought. I had seen the old woman move quickly in the past, but never to the degree that I had just seen Rhiannon do.
Liora wasn’t struggling in Rhiannon’s grip, even though the other woman was holding her above the ground. Instead, she just met the ‘noble’s’ eyes and smiled slightly.
Said noble was standing utterly, impossible still when she finally spoke. “What do you want.” She said in a flat, unemotional tone of voice. I didn’t get the impression that was so much a question, as it was a statement.
Liora didn’t waste any time. “Let my comrades go, and I’ll come with you willingly. If not, then my deadman’s switch will deliver the truth of your identity to Grand Marshall Greycton.”
Deadman’s switch? That was a thing here? I…guess it had to be an enchantment of some kind.
“Not good enough,” Rhiannon rebutted, her painted lips curling. “I can’t be certain just you will be enough for my needs.”
Before things could degenerate any further, Thirty-Two stepped forward. “Then I shall assist,” They said flatly. “I offer myself as well, in order to buy my own comrades freedom.”
“Commander!” I heard one of the other SED operatives say, taking a protesting step forward.
“Silence, Seventeen,” Thirty-Two said calmly, without even looking at his subordinate. ‘Seventeen’ reeled back as if they’d been struck, but quieted down. “I, too, know what you are. Creature. The Nocturnes are not the only ones capable of deduction. Why else do you think our faction was hounding you so, these past few months?”
Rhiannon cut her eyes over at Thirty-Two, narrowing them. “I see I’ve been a bit careless, if a couple of striplings like yourself can discover this,” She mused almost casually. Still, she nodded sharply. “The deal is struck, then. Your lives now belong to me. Go,” Rhiannon said to the rest of us, almost dismissively. “My toys shall not bother you anymore, this night.”
None of us moved, unwilling to leave any of comrades behind.
Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed. “Do not scorn my generosity, curs.”
Dusk, or rather Liora, turned around to meet my eyes.
And nodded, almost peacefully.
‘Go’, she mouthed.
I lay my hands on Sylvia and Crook’s arms, drawing their attention. When they looked at me, I jerked my head in the direction out of the plaza. Crook studied me for a moment before abruptly nodding, while Sylvia said nothing. She did reach out to squeeze my hand, though. Slowly, the three of us started to back away in the direction of the building we’d been observing from. The SED agents were slower to comply with their leader's orders, but eventually complied. They grabbed the still unconscious form of the agent I had been fighting as well as the corpse of the one Wisp had killed. Afterward, they joined us as we stepped through the wall of Solstice’s Flame members, and out of the plaza.
My last glimpse of the captive Liora was the strangely peaceful look on her white-furred face.
As if she had accepted her fate.
My lips thinned.
I promise, Dusk. We’d be back for you.
Count on it.
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Comments
Reid Thompson
Changeling?
Nomad
I get the feeling 'Rhiannon' is a vampire or something like that. Maybe some kind of demon?
