Phoenix Blade Chapter 10

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I didn't want to believe that Eione could have been affiliated with warlocks. She was a bit of a brat and a shameless flirt who sucked up to me and Saayuko because we were perceived as being in charge. But she was mostly sweet and seemed harmless. She was the last person I'd suspect of dabbling in dark magic.

...

Well, I had to talk to her before I could be sure. Bene had a bottle of something called Potion of Temporary Insanity that he swears came from her. Back then, I wouldn't have put it past him to lie to save his own skin, but when I talked to him, I saw something in his demeanor that I wasn't used to. I assumed, rightly, that what I saw was how he looked when he was being honest.

...

I see a lot more of that look these days but, yes, it was new for me back then.

...

So, Saayuko fetched her from her room and brought her to my workshop for a little talk. She was noticeably nervous from the moment I showed her the potion that I had taken from Bene. It seemed to be a very thin thread connecting her to the cult. But there was something else that bothered me about her. She knew about the "job" Venaticus tried to offer me before the warlocks cleared out the shop they were operating in. There were only three others who knew about it. Takaa is no fan of ANY magic. Oogura's druidic magic was a natural opposite to dark magic and everyone I talked to assures me that if she had ever tried to work with dark magic, she'd never be able to use her nature spells or shapeshifting abilities again. And you know, of course, that Saayuko is the only person alive I trust.

...

She denied having made the potion. Tried to tell me that she bought it from someone else. Without getting into why she'd want it, whether or not she knew what it was at the time, I asked her about the person she got it from. She spun a story about a druid from Sister that lived near Foldo. I wasn't sure whether to believe it, but those who join my family deserve the benefit of the doubt. I dismissed her, but worked out a plan to figure this out once and for all.

...

I wanted to find this druid of hers. I didn't know at the time that high enough concentrations of dark magic would negate druidic magic, so I didn't even recognize this story for the yarn it was. So, I had Saayuko come to get her once again roughly an hour before dawn and sent them on a mission to capture this druid. If she was telling the truth, we would be one step closer to finding out how our group was tied to dark magic. If she wasn't, she was bound to slip up eventually.

...

You're right. None of this would have explained who tipped off the warlocks that Venaticus was tracking, but he was the only one who made it a point to keep his plans secret. The most charitable theory for Eione is that she carelessly mentioned the operation to the druid, who acted on it without revealing his link to the coven. I wasn't foolish enough to actually believe this, but I wanted to be sure before I hung this girl by her toes. Her brother is a very important man, and if I acted too rashly, I could bring the wrath of an Avatar on my head. Nobody wants that.

...

When Saayuko and Eione left, I went around and woke up everyone else. If there was corruption in our family, I wanted everyone to see how I wanted it dealt with. So, we gathered in the lobby and Moruay used her magic to spy on Saayuko and Eione. The two of them found the druid playing around Flora Field, chasing a squirrel in the form of a lynx. I had a bad feeling as soon as I saw that goofball, so I had Oogura rush to the magic shop next door and call in a favor that the owner owed us. He created a portal that took us all to the hills outside of the valley.

...

Then, we just waited in hiding while Eione approached the druid to talk to him. What she did next was hidden from Saayuko's view, but we were able to see it with Moruay's magic.

...

She reached into her pack and whipped out another vial of potion and dosed the druid with it. He shipped back into his cat body and went berserk. Saayuko acted quickly to cut him with a knife that she had tipped with a knockout-poison. The girl thought she had been saved, but then we came out of hiding. Her guilt was confirmed.

...

I wanted to kill her on the spot, and so did half of the guild. There was no denying that she had caused the druid to go after her, and I had promised Venaticus that any dark mages I found in our midst would be dead long before they reached his custody. But I still wasn't completely sure that she was tied with the warlocks in the chimera farm.

...

Ordinarily, I wouldn't need much more proof than that to end her, but I had two things holding me back. The first was her Avatar kin. The second was Venaticus. He knew full well that I'd sooner kill her than turn her over to him, but if doing so didn't end his suspicion of me, he'd never leave us alone. So, I decided to give him a little present. Saayuko stuck Eione with the same poison that she used on the druid, Oogura went to fetch Venaticus and the rest of us carried our prisoners back to the compound.

... 

When Venaticus showed up, he shared my disbelief that Eione could be wrapped up in this. Apparently he knew her brother and had heard enough about her to be surprised. He had readily accepted what I told him about her nonetheless. As for the druid, he didn't seem to be interested at all. For all of the detective work he put in, [Scoff] he didn't know any better than I did whether he was a warlock or innocent bystander.

...

The druid was the first to wake up and, I must say, he wasn't very helpful. He confirmed that he and Eione were previously acquainted, but was bewildered by what happened. Like the rest of us, he had no idea that she had ever been anything but a nice girl. The man appeared to be mentally ill even after the potion that he was dosed with wore off, but he was harmless. He seemed to be more comfortable waiting out the rest of his time there in his lynx body and it became clear rather quickly that we were going to have to wait for Eione to wake up to make any sense of this.

...

At the very least, she seemed to feel guilty for fucking over the Midanian, who I learned was called Varuna. That's when she spilled some of her secrets. She claimed that she was no dark mage, but had recently become involved with a man who was. She spun her tale about the druid to protect this man without taking the fall herself. Varuna was simply a convenient scapegoat for her.

...

After all of the pressure we put on her, Venaticus and I managed to determine that the warlock met with Eione in Fides when he wasn't hiding out in that trinket shop in Resta City. Other than that, all we got was his first name: Iollan. At that point, I think she decided there wasn't much else she could tell us without deepening the hole she had dug herself into, so she refused to say any more. Venaticus agreed that we could turn her over to the Royal Inquisitor after letting her talk to her brother.

Phoenix Blade Chapter 9

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The work began to pile in after that Tomb of Maloran job. With that victory, and the beautiful posters Oogura made for marketing, we had eventually become well known throughout the capitol. With our success, it didn't seem inconceivable that knights would begin to take notice of us. But I was still surprised when a templar entered my compound for the first time.

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This man, who I only knew as Venaticus, had been looking to hire us to investigate a secret coven of warlocks operating right there in Resta City.

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It wasn't the same as Shaville, thankfully. This was a coven who seemed to specialize in chimeras. Which is to say they were taking animals and using dark magic to fuse them to other creatures. Warlocks did this to create exotic beasts to sell as pets and guard animals. It was a twisted business for sure, but nothing on the level of human corruption and slavery.

...

It would have been nice to pound some warlocks senseless, but we didn't take the job.

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I didn't like the man. He was cagey and bigoted to my immigrant friends. He gave us all the details one would need to find and take down this chimera farm, but we had some very obvious questions. Why the need for subtlety when he could have just waltzed in there and purged the place like what happened to Shaville? Why hire us instead of handling it themselves or actually working with the spellwarriors for a change? He wasn't exactly open to answering these questions, though, which made the whole thing feel like a setup. He seemed to take our implicit trust for granted by virtue of him being a templar, and we weren't afraid to call him on his arrogance. We rowed for a bit and, when I made it clear to him that we wouldn't accept the job without more information, he decided to take his business elsewhere. He left us with assurances that we would have screwed it up anyway.

...

I mention this because that wasn't the end of it. The next day, as I was putting the finishing touches on a jeweled ring, Venaticus returned and barged his way past our front office and into my workshop. He claimed to have been ordered to bring me in for questioning. He claimed to have a warrant signed by Matilda Maloran, which explained how he was able to get past Takaa. I was skeptical and, after the day before, nearly certain this whole thing was bullshit, so I gave him some push back. Told him that he was going to need to bring some of the local authorities to take me in. This demand didn't seem to bother him, so I decided to humor him by letting Oogura examine the warrant. When she told me that it was genuine, I informed them that they wouldn't be taking me unarmed regardless.

...

Perhaps I could have handled things better, but I was already on edge because this man had never given me any reason to trust him. The guild and I had plenty of time to reinforce the idea that his job had been an obvious trap. Assuming he could have forged this warrant to have another go at us, I threatened to cut down anyone who tried to touch me. He did warn me that wouldn't be wise, but I've never claimed to be known for my wisdom.

... 

He took me outside, where we met a contingent of Royal Army soldiers who escorted us to an office outside the Chaotic Temple in the Downtown District. I was ushered inside and taken to an interrogation room with the templar.

...

[Chuckle]

No, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. When we sat down, we finally cut through the bullshit and got to the meat of why I was there. As it turned out, the son of a bitch accused me of being connected to these animal-maiming dipshits!

...

It may seem crazy after what you heard, but my experiences in Shaville would have been news to him. As it was, there was no reason I couldn't tolerate working with warlocks. He had a few things on me which raised his suspicions. The first was Bene, who wasn't around when he told us about the job. Despite my sincere desire to watch over him, he had been unaccounted for since well before the templar darkened my doorstep. He said that some of the charms and hexes being dealt by Bene were steeped in dark magic.

...

He was actually innocent. Venaticus proved that when he showed up with that job of his, then told me a day later that he was testing me. He figured that I would jump to any job no matter how it looked if I had nothing to hide and the fact that we refused him did not look good to him at all. Fortunately for the old con, the warlocks went into hiding shortly after the templar met with us. He told me that we were the only people he told about the chimera farm, which seemed like compelling evidence for someone in my guild being a traitor. This cleared Bene in my eyes because, like I said, he wasn't around when Venaticus showed up or at any point since then.

...

Bene didn't come back until after I finally agreed to cooperate with that insufferable templar. I knew Bene hadn't been the one to tip off the warlocks, but I had to talk to him if I wanted to get to the bottom of this business with his wares being associated with evil.

...

He denied having anything to do with the warlocks, of course. That sort of thing is a capital crime for anyone, even to those who don't have a pulse. That is when he revealed the source of some of his latest wares: Eione.

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Phoenix Blade Chapter 8

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After that disastrous mission, we traded jokes about what happened for at least a week. None of us missed an opportunity to recount to strangers and each other of the day we were paid to fuck around with the Archknight and his Avatar friends. It was an embarrassing day, sure, but I think a lot of us were just happy to be alive. If it weren't for our newest recruits being so well acquainted with them, we might have just wandered into a fight we couldn't win.

...

Sure I am, and maybe Saayuko as well, but there was no way the others could have matched up to the people we would have had to get through. If we had gone through with that fight, we would have been humiliated even if we all survived. You know how strong I am, but I can't turn into a magic-wielding gorilla, fly, or summon fey spellcasters to do my bidding. I've only made it as long as I have by remaining aware of my limits and never taking any job that pushes me far beyond them.

...

Surpassing your own limits is a romanticized ideal of the living. Often what happens when you do is you'll injure yourself. Now, for you people who have yet to die, that's fine because you'll heal and grow stronger from the experience. For sai'mul, there is no healing or growing. If I had done more of that before I died, I'd blow away anyone who calls themselves a warrior with my enhanced strength, but the strength I've shown you before is the maximum you'll be seeing from me.

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Consider yourself lucky I didn't climb to their level before I died, or I'd definitely be able to do that. I can't say whether or not I'd have become the kind of asshole who throws my strength around in that way, but after meeting guys like Roman and Mordecai, I can't say the idea appeals to me now.

...

Well, once we stopped joking about our poor luck, we let the failure of it all sink into our morale. In our line of work, dropping a contract carries a heavy stigma. To the Restan people, one's word is their greatest treasure. Even if your client doesn't survive to execute a contract, a lot of our rivals contended that we should have carried it out anyway and report our success to the corpse. Bastards. If any of them had taken the same contract, they'd have taken their honor to their graves.

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Well, the one upside to it all was how they chose to go about it. How could a guild thrive in both combat and crafts? The only people who should do business with us are those who need a good pair of gloves, or an amulet, or weapons. What they didn't take into account was that there was plenty more demand in peacetime for gloves, jewelry, and signage. It was the best advertising we could ask for as craftsmen. We became the artisans who could defend our wares better than any of the other businesses that competed with us in the protection of material goods.

...

So we expanded. We ended up hiring another guy that Saayuko knew from Heron who called himself Flint Brokamac. Apparently he fancied himself a modern descendant of an extinct Pyrisian clan. I always hoped that wasn't true, considering what my people had to do to the Brokamac all those centuries ago.

...

No, you wouldn't have. You had your Piers men roving westward, but the Brokamac are the ones who decided that south was the way to go. Unlike you, however, when our ancestors wanted northlanders out of our territory, we killed them all. You could say Flint had a chip on his shoulder about that. To hear him talk, you'd think that Restans robbed him of his identity long before he--or Resta-- were ever thought of.

...

Well, he only came to Resta because he was a journeyman smith who was looking to expand his skills. But there's only so much you can learn in Heron, apparently. So why not come to the land that's rich in everything, including metals? I think he fancied himself as a defender of his clan's legacy. To him, Northern Resta was Brokamac territory, therefore our home was rightfully his.

...

Well everyone, including our Midanian immigrants, thought he was neat, but he had a tendency to annoy Eione and Bene, our other Restan-born members. Some old clan law tricked him into thinking he was better than us, but I didn't really care. For one thing, Saayuko--his fellow Heronite-- was skeptical of the whole thing.

...

They had both grown up in the same part of Heron, and she thought that the chances of a surviving Brokamac living to breed in any other province were virtually nonexistent. They were friendly with the Piers, but too far away from their territory and the Karns and Crowmonts considered them enemies. Not that it mattered to me either way. He wasn't about to stage a new Brokamac occupation of everything north of the Pledge on his own. Whatever his cultural quirks, he was just a dim man with some talent for working metal who could be a little rude. For the most part, he worked just fine with everyone and the few who disliked him stayed out of his way.

...

This acquisition wasn't enough to raise everyone's morale, especially since the only member of the guild less personable than Flint was me. That isn't to say I didn't care how my underlings were doing. As they toiled with their individual projects, I could tell that everyone was growing listless. Eione was the first to complain of being bored, but there was nothing I could tell her. Our most interesting jobs didn't come from nowhere. They were brought by clients who were lured in by word of our martial talents, but our reputation in that field was tarnished by our supposed lack of professionalism. We needed a win.

...

Saayuko and I set out to find a big contract on our own. We focused on the weaker companies who bit off more than they could chew. We found that a rival mercenary guild called Silverfoot had sent two separate excursions into the abandoned Tomb of Maloran to drive out some necromancers who were defiling the corpses there. Apparently you can be ostracized for abandoning a contract you know is designed to get you killed, but taking one that's beyond your abilities and failing so predictably at it is okay as long as you still have bodies to throw at the problem.

...

We went to the clients and offered to sell them our services instead. It was a hard sell with our reputation, especially considering the fact that Silverfoot had ten times our numbers, but I was comfortable vouching for the strength of my people. At least I've never hired a weakling. But Silverfoot didn't give up the contract with a fight. Literally. I had to beat up their guildmaster in front of the client to get the contract. My old Royal Army issue shield didn't make it through the fight, but Flint was waiting with something better when I mustered my team for the new mission.

...

Look at this beauty. The phoenix emblem is wicked enough, but look! It's made from violium!

...

Violium is a thick, heavy alloy made from locally-sourced, rare bluegold and fine red iron from Heron. Flint called it a blend of his Heronite pride and pure Restan decadence. Magic bounces right off of it and it's heavy enough to dent steel with a light jab. Most of you living folks would struggle to even pick it up, much less wield it effectively, but it's perfect for me! And it welcomes any paint you try to coat it with. You can tell its golden color is unnatural, but it's made from real gold after all!

...

This shield was a huge part of our victory in the Tomb. With everyone behind me and my magic-repelling shield, all they could do was throw reanimated corpses at us. With Moruay and Oogura around to stop them with their shamanic and druidic spells, they couldn't stop Saayuko from flanking their leader and holding him hostage until the rest stood down. The spellwarriors revered the place too much to risk going in and damaging inside, but they were able to take care of things when we chased the necromancers out.

...

When we cleared the Tomb, we were given a bonus for managing to take down the intruders without breaking anything. That was a huge point of pride for the guild. The forgotten contract was old news at that point. We had instead become known for efficiently cleaning up after the people who aren't good enough to get the job done.

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Phoenix Blade Chapter 7

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...

That's easy for you to say, but I tend not to trust anyone that I've just begun to work with anyway. It doesn't matter how many reasons anyone gives me not to, I just find trust to be a useless and potentially harmful quality. 

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Save it! You're not telling me anything I haven't heard before. The fact is that the pain of having your trust shattered is an avoidable experience. There isn't even a practical benefit to trust that I couldn't do without!

...

Well, trust is a funny thing. It's not an ironclad state between two people. You could conceivably trust someone who's never committed a crime in their life never to steal from you, but you wouldn't necessarily trust that same person to keep a secret or handle something extremely delicate. It's not exactly accurate to say that I never trust anyone, come to think of it, but I try to remain aware of what my people are up to at all times and stay out of their way. But I always kept everyone at arm's length, especially at first.

...

Well, I had gotten close, but with none more so than Saayuko. She had made for a faithful friend, not just because she was useful, but because she was sharp, consistent, and everyone else loved her. It was almost disappointing to see that she was actually good with people. And here I thought we'd had so much in common!

...

You'd think so, because for some reason, everyone always did. The guild's favorite joke has always been to call her their mother and me their father. It was always meant in an endearing way, but I never appreciated the comparison back then.

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What was even worse, even Bene had an easier time ingratiating himself with the rest of the guild that I had. I had to put a lot of pressure on him to keep him on the straight and narrow, but by the end of his first month, he was already just as much a member of the Phoenix Blade as anyone else on the compound. He managed to turn some of our excess supplies into potions that allowed us to turn a hefty profit and kept us well supplied on our missions. I was always on the lookout for any possible wrongdoing on his part, but if he was cutting any dangerous corners in his job at the time, he never let me catch him.

...

Well, around that point in time, we weren't up to much. We had just been focusing on building out our space. We managed to add an extra floor to the warehouse, which gave us all more room to spread out. Those renovations ate up a lot of our time, and when that was out of the way,  we began to focus once more recruitment. We were already pulling in a lot of customers whose needs were varied, but I wanted workshops that could meet the needs of any adventurer. We had just finished installing a forge and were in the process of looking for someone to work it when Saayuko brought in our two newest recruits, neither of who were smiths.

...

There was Zarabanda, another man from somewhere off in the isles. You know, one of the living parts of Midania. I'm not really sure which part, to be honest. He never seemed to say where specifically, but to be fair, I never thought to ask. He was a nice guy, though, and he was good with a bow, so I sent him out to hunt whenever he wasn't on a contract. That way, Saayuko could focus more on acquiring our plants and minerals. He got along well with everybody, especially Saayuko, Takaa, and the other recent recruit.

...

Eione Astersong, was a little different from Zara. Both were mysterious, yes, but where the latter seemed to have a big heart, Eione was an enigma of a more unsettling sort. She seemed nice, sure, but I could never work out what motivated her. She always seemed curious, but nothing ever seemed to satisfy her. I found out early on that I needed to keep her mind diverted with puzzling tasks, which suited her fine. She was particularly useful in collaborating with Oogura and Bene using her magical skills.

...

Yes, they are both Adjutants now. Coincidence seemed to bring me close to the Avatars and their inner circle plenty more times than you'd believe. It also turns out Takaa is acquainted with the Archknight--

...

You know, the one we have now. Not to mention I hear he's been dating that new Intalan Avatar these past couple of years. The first bit of business Takaa ever did with us was actually on Sir Maloran's behalf, although that was before he got that title. We managed to cross paths with them many times, which also included the very next mission we picked up after Zara and Eione joined up. What a hilarious mess that was!

...

Well, the Archknight has never had trouble making enemies and one of them actually paid me to go after him and his wife.

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If I had known, I would have told me people and the whole mess could have been avoided a lot sooner.

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Alright, here it is! This man came in, anonymously and hired us to break into his house and grab some black gemstone and rough up anyone who got in our way for good measure. Not exactly my most savory mission, but it had been a while and we could have used the payday.

...

Well, I took Saayuko, Zara, Eione, and Oogura with me and the mission basically ended once we saw who we were dealing with. They had Eione's brother with them and once they saw each other everything fell apart. Eione knew one avatar, Zara knew another, and I knew full well what could happen if we pissed them off. So, we talked things through only to find out that we had been thrown at them as cannon fodder. I wasn't pleased to have been used for something I wasn't expected to survive, so we threw the contract away.

...

There wasn't anything I could do about it. We tracked the man who'd offered me the contract, but he was dead before we got to him. We weren't the only ones being used, it turned out.

...

That was just another part in a lesson that I was too stubborn to learn. Trust can't come too easily, or you're going to get burned.

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Phoenix Blade Chapter 6

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Reclassifying my business as a trade guild was an immediate improvement for everyone involved. I had to give up the old storefront and move into a larger warehouse to accommodate the respective work spaces for each of the members. That was a pain at first. I tried to set things up evenly for everyone, but then I found out some people needed more space than others. Takaa was the worst! He needed twice as much space as I gave him at first because he wanted some room to work on his motorbikes. Then Oogura's stall was always a mess because she had too much room. We had to rebuild the boundaries a little bit, but by the time we were done, everyone was happy.

...

I would say I had a hands-off approach to leading the guild. Everyone knew their jobs better than I did and they didn't need me to tell them how to do it. I would collaborate with Moruay at times when customers commissioned jeweled leathers. This wasn't uncommon in Resta City, where athletes and military officers would wear them in ceremonial occasions. Other than that, though, I mostly kept to myself and made new jewelry whenever I wasn't busy managing our production and action contracts. Otherwise, I only demanded that they keep their respective businesses profitable so we could keep the bills paid and left them alone.

...

Well, let's see. There was Moruay with her leather work and Oogura with her pen work, as you know. Takaa signed on as a machinist and mechanic. He used to be one of Ravager's only gunsmiths before he came to the mainland to expand his mechanical expertise. He probably made out better than any of us with all of those Royal Army contracts, but he always spent nearly everything he made training at SMU. He--

...

That's the Seres Machinists Union. They are at the forefront of engineering research in Resta, and they happily share their knowledge with anyone who can afford the study materials. With the Royal Army rebuilding after the Archknight Rebellion, Takaa was making more money than anyone else by far, yet he always spent each month broke because he was working even harder to expand his mechanical knowledge. 

...

As for Saayuko, her role in the guild didn't make itself apparent immediately. She had always considered fighting and sneaking around her only skills, which you might imagine don't translate well to commerce. But when talking about how she could survive when the combat contracts went dry without any marketable skills, we discovered what she brought to the Phoenix Blade. She was a natural forager whose skill was in gathering what she needed. From that day on, I put her in charge of acquisitions and, every week she would come back to our compound with a wagon full of ores, herbs, and animal carcasses for us to skin and cook.

...

One problem that began to make itself apparent after everyone settled in was that we had not made much use of the herbs Saayuko collected and had to throw out too much of it. Oogura liked to crush them up to make her inks, but we started to consider finding someone else to turn our supply into medicines and balms. 

...

We put the word out, but since we were so new, we found quickly that recruitment wasn't that simple. I had all but given up until I received a new investigation contract. Saayuko wasn't around for me to delegate to at the time so, as the only one with the necessary experience, I took the job myself. And by the end of it, I was glad I did instead of sending anyone else.

...

The Apex District's governor had hired me to find a young daughter who had run away from home after being rejected by some boy she was sweet on. After questioning the father, the boy, and a few of her closest friends, I was able to determine that she was hiding at a friend's house in shame. As it turned out, she had desperately purchased a beauty cream that she was assured would make her irresistible to the object of her affection. But when she used it, her face changed in a... less flattering way.

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Oh no, the cream did exactly what the girl was promised, apparently. The boy told me that he had seen her after she took the cream and suddenly became more interested than her father had been in finding her. I get the sense that knowing this wouldn't have changed her mind about disappearing. As it was, I had no luck convincing her to return home in that state and I had been specifically forbidden from trying to force her into anything. In the case of her refusal to go home, I was only supposed to tell my client where I found the girl. But knowing the shame and terror of her dead-eyed and pale appearance, I could only imagine that choice making her situation worse. So, I instead began to question her about who sold her the cream.

...

Following this trail led me back to our old friend Bene. He was up to the same tricks he pulled in life, but with newfound magical components. His scams were starting to really hurt people and, even worse, I caught him in the act. I watched him sell the exact same crap to another woman then followed him all the way back home to the ramshackle apartment where he'd been making it. He immediately launched a desperate campaign to talk himself out of it; just hamming it up and trying to fool me into believing what happened to my client's daughter wasn't his fault. I knew him too well to buy his story at this point and, when I demanded that he reverse the damage he did to the poor girl, he immediately grew defensive. You'd think I was being oppressive for holding accountable. The tortured act grew old quickly, to the point where I unloaded into him.

...

I tried to appeal to whatever morals he might have had. I asked him if he ever felt any responsibility to  justify his decision to remaining among the living? Was he going to keep sticking around just to make everyone else's lives a little worse? But of course this didn't work. He never felt any sense of responsibility in life, and becoming an outcast didn't exactly help. So, I only had one recourse. I put the pressure on him by informing him of how important my client is and just who he had fucked with. He understood quickly enough that he had really stepped in it this time. I'm not proud of it, but I used what I knew as leverage to get the antidote I wanted out of him.

...

Of course I didn't trust him. He remained very reluctantly under Takaa and Oogura's supervision until the girl was back to normal and I was able to collect my pay. When I told Bene later how I covered for him, it was easy to convince him he owed me a favor for sparing him the consequences of his actions. So, I made a space for him in the compound and gave him a stern warning. He was going to start creating some actual value for people, or I would have the spellwarriors stick him on the next boat to Midania.

...

So we had acquired an alchemist who could work with the rest of Saayuko's supplies, albeit an untrustworthy one.

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Phoenix Blade Chapter 5

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After rescuing those prisoners from the Geosian Regime's templars, you'd have thought I'd come under a lot more scrutiny, but that wasn't so, oddly enough. It's possible that no one who had seen me on that prison ark ever made it back to the capitol before the end of the Archknight Rebellion. Whatever the case, no one challenged me as I began to expand my business. Moruay turned out to be extremely helpful, but she had shown me something important in her short time with me. I could get so much further if I added more skills to my business. Fortunately, Moruay had brought a friend of hers from Sister Isle named Oogura, who was incredible with a pen.

...

More than you would think. She dabbles a bit in magic, so she knew a lot about magical inscriptions. But she made the most of her money from drawing posters and signage. She was always incredibly talented and she had a warming heart, but gods did she have a mouth on her!

...

I was annoyed by how chatty she was at first, but you get used to her. I'll tell you one thing, though. That woman has been more of a daughter to me than my own flesh and blood.

...

I didn't hire them seeking to replace my old family or anything. I was sincerely thinking about my business at the time and, oh ma'am did we have a good thing going. With Moruay's help, I had managed to expand into a new market entirely and Oogura's improvements to the storefront seemed to bring in more customers.

...

Oh, I doubt they ever exploited. I gave them even shares of our income. By that time, I had been working for dozens of years and I didn't really need the money as much as I appreciated their companionship. I'd spent so long shunning the living that I had forgotten what it was to have friends. If you ever tell any of them I said this, I'll deny it, but I would have given up my share entirely to keep them around the shop. As it was, their individual successes were a victory for all of us.

...

That arrangement was a sort of precursor to the guild you'll have read about in my file, but that was yet to be formed in those days. I had been bouncing the idea around for a while, but what ultimately led me in that direction was a series of events beginning with the end of the Rebellion. A lot of people were flitting around the capitol at the time we entered a strange month of strange requests. One of the most recent was a request from a gearhead from Ravager named Takaa, who had commissioned Oogura to make some spell scrolls for a friend of his. I didn't think I'd look twice at the man until he returned the next day after he collected his papers. What was more, he had brought my old friend Saayuko with him.

...

As it turned out, Saayuko's struggle with Mordecai didn't end when I left them for dead in a burning building. Mordecai didn't quite finish the job, but she didn't have the strength to stop him from picking her up and dragging her away to some cabin by the Pledge River.

...

Well, no I didn't finish the job either. The problem is that I only did to him what the Purge did to me. As a sai'mul, he had retreated to some old family home from a time when he still had a family who could stand to be with him.

...

Don't compare me to him! The man was a shameless killer!

...

Well, the sick fuck had kept her locked in his cabin, torturing her for what we did to him. She only managed to escape when another sai'mul came to meet him. She forced herself free while the two men were distracted and rested up before going after him again. What had brought her to my store was her vexation with Mordecai's new undead mate who was somehow skilled with magic. This reminded me of an old friend from the other side of the city, so while Oogura set off to work on a scroll that could dispel barriers I set out in search of Bene, but I spent a whole day of it in vain.

...

When I got back, Saayuko was already gone with her scroll. She said nothing else of where she was going, so we could only try to get back to work. Takaa stuck around after proving himself useful. It wasn't easy finding a use for his fixation with machines, but he turned out to be a damned good shot with his rifle. I was thinking of offering him a job when Saayuko returned, just one day after she had left. She found Mordecai and his accomplice, but had apparently also found them with a small gang of sai'mul and needed backup to capture them

...

She didn't need to work to hard to convince me. I gathered everyone up and followed Saayuko to the sai'mul hideout. With Oogura's magic, we had knocked several of them out before they even knew we were there and the rest of the battle unfolded like a song. By the end of it, we had only just caught up to Mordecai and the leader of this gang, a man I would come to know only as Roman.

...

He seemed to sincerely wonder why I would bother to get in his way. He went on this rant about how we as sai'mul were the closest anyone gets to immortal. We had only to get over our rotting skin affliction and we would somehow be perfect beings. Now, perfection isn't something I've ever cared for, but this guy had chosen to side with somebody I had resolved to kill, so there really wan't anything for me to consider at the time. I raised my weapons to fight, but Roman and Mordecai had somehow managed to get away using a glass ball of piercing light as a distraction.

...

Their trail was cold by the time we were able to see well enough to track them, so we had no choice but to give up for the moment. We wound up returning to the shop for dinner after the search ended, by which I mean I watched the others eat takeout from some Galean place in the Apex District. While talking with Saayuko and the others, I finally decided to come out with my abstract idea to form a versatile guild of crafters with combat skills. Together, we would be a group that combines the skills to create value and destroy those who threaten the public.

...

It was only an idle thought before, and I never expected anyone to be interested in both aspects of what I wanted to do. But after what we had done to Roman's gang, it felt like the right time to bring it up. It didn't take much convincing for everyone to agree to become the founding members of The Phoenix Blade.

Next Chapter

Phoenix Blade Chapter 4

Start from the Beginning

Previous Chapter

Business was fantastic in the capitol, that's for sure. Whether I was milking the bourgeoisie of their riches with trinkets or inflated security consultations, every day felt like a successful one. I had made a name for myself in the next forty years to the point that I found myself inundated with requests on a daily basis. I often faced some difficult decisions among the people who competed for my time. But this didn't always mean I was financially secure. I had unfortunately acquired a bit of a dangerous gambling habit that left me broke between jobs. When my wallet was lean, I would be forced to ignore the people who really needed me in favor of the clients who paid better. This is how the first step to my defining achievement came to be.

...

I would have taken all of the jobs I was given if I could, but the fact that I couldn't never became more clear than during the Archknight Rebellion. Seth Ryan, one of the Mages of Destiny, came to me one night after the store closed and tried to hire me to rescue a group of refugees that Templars had plucked from Katrine, but he wasn't offering much. On the other hand, I was already making plans to complete a commission piece for a wealthy client. I was to embed some rubies into a leather collar for her pet.

...

Yes, I had figured what she meant, considering the size she requested. The problem was, I was no leatherworker, so I would have to commission someone else to make the collar, then attach the stones. Rents were due the next week and I couldn't dig up two chips to rub together. So, I'm sure you can imagine which job I chose to focus on.

...

Well, I can tell you I never heard the end of it. Some girl from Katrine who had grown sweet on one of the refugees stormed into my shop when she heard I would be making the collar instead of helping her friends. Her name was Moruay Rainwalker and she was the daughter of an ambassador of Katrine. I would have thrown her out of the shop, but in the course of her ranting to me about how many more people could have made the collar than helped with the refugees' plight, she revealed something useful. She herself was a leatherworker who was more than capable of taking the job. It was then that the solution to this dilemma clicked. Maybe if I had a little more help, there wouldn't be any reason I couldn't do both. Why take her abuse, I told her, when we could help each other?

...

So I gave her some money for supplies and lent her my shop to complete my commission while promising to look into the refugee crisis. As it turned out, templars under Royal Command, had raided the island following a tip that the Mages of Destiny had been seen there. There had been a minor skirmish with an offshoot group called the Holy Key Knights who were forerunners of the Goodwill Company. That caused the templars to lose their shit and arrest a shit ton of people. Locals, refugees, Key Knights and, unfortunately, the Second Archknight were rounded up and held in a prison ark anchored a mile off the coast of Karatal. This made the source of the Mage's desperation clear. I had previously told him that I couldn't be bothered to save his brother.

...

I know. If Moruay hadn't changed my mind, we'd be living in a different world by now to be sure. Not that I was particularly moved by his cause at the time. The Geosian Regime was terrible in plenty of ways to the truly living, but there was no better time to be a sai'mul in Resta. By the time the Second Archknight came along, we were making the decision to stay here in droves and the Geosians supported this notion because crying to Salica about how lonely we are without the gods wasn't necessarily part of their expectations for us.

...

I'm not defending them. I'm only saying that sai'mul benefited from their reign. Before they came along, we never had anything resembling a community in our own homeland. We were more connected to the people of Resta back then because the Geosians were more willing to tolerate our existence there.

...

Well, I took the job for the same reason I take most of my jobs. To me, it didn't matter that the Mages of Destiny weren't rich. I had a service that I particularly enjoyed providing and they had something to trade for it. I made their mentor, who is now our king, Kyle Baldus swear to preserve the progress that the sai'mul had made in Restan society under his enemies before signing the contract. With that, I gathered some people to steal a templar ship and sailed to this prison ark, The Sundial. 

...

Now, the people I'd gathered to help me weren't exceptional fighters by any measure, but they were good for sailing the ship and worked within our budget. I had the Mages of Destiny at my back, and they were some help, but I ended up doing a lot of the heavy lifting. While I held the attention of the prison guards, those kids did some sneaking around until they could free the Archknight. Fortunately, that fool boy decided that he wanted to spring everyone. So, we found ourselves fighting the Geosians for control of the ship. Once we had it, the Archknight pulled up its anchor and ran it aground somewhere on Resta's north shore while I returned the smaller vessel we had stolen.

...

After everything that had happened there, I had honestly forgotten about being paid. That job was one hell of an exhilarating experience. When I returned to my store, I was more interested in seeing if my other job was complete. Moruay had managed to put everything together according to my client's wishes far more quickly than I had ever pictured. She had even taken the liberty of attempting to set the stones for me. That bit was sloppily done, though. I had to fix that.

...

She was thrilled to hear that the man she was waiting to hear from was safe and considered the work she did for me to be a small price to pay for his return. They got together after the Archknight Rebellion was over and moved into the city to be with him. This left her in need of work and living close to someone who was already familiar with her skills. So, I hired my first employee in hopes of expanding my business and ensuring no one ever had to go without help again.

Next Chapter

Phoenix Blade Chapter 3

Start from the Beginning

Previous Chapter

After that mess with Saayuko and Mordecai, I decided to set up shop in the capitol. I had some skill with crafting jewelry that I wound up stuck with Sophie by bonding with her over. With her gone, I was free to enjoy it again. I had a shop in the Garden District that I had secured in exchange for a favor.

...

The new regime faced a strong early resistance. The gods had abandoned everyone by that point and fled for their lives and some of the stronger believers were in denial.

...

Then you don't say that. I can say whatever I like; they can't hear me anyway.

...

At any rate, the minor lord with whom the Geosians entrusted that corner of the city was desperate to put down some riots and I was one of the people who signed on to help regain control of the area. That was a hard night, to be sure. The templars had fled across the sea, the spellwarriors were shut up in that tower of theirs, and the Royal Army was in tatters. Most of the former soldiers were among the rioters, no less. The whole city was a mess for weeks.

...

To the best of my knowledge, I never had to kill anyone. You see, I went back to Mordecai's after the fire to try to find Saayuko's body. But despite the fact that the house was left alone in the city's lawless state, both of them were gone. What I did find was a trapdoor to secret basement where that bastard kept his supplies. Now, that man had some fantastic weapons, but he also had a store of sleep mist. He probably used it to knock out the people he needed to keep alive. I was able to save a few lives by using that instead of my blade, but I was the only one who could seem to be bothered sparing anyone.

...

Believe me. If I had hurt any of the rioters, I wouldn't have any reason to lie about it since my actions at the time were legally sanctioned. But I didn't see the point. These people were scared because their entire way of life was being forcibly changed. They had grown up with the Doctrines and wouldn't allow the Geosians to challenge their beliefs just because Geos had won his little war with the other gods. I wasn't going to spill anyone's blood just for fighting to protect their traditions.

...

Well, I would have saved a lot more if I could get any of the other mercs to use the sleep mist. No, they stepped out onto those streets looking for blood. That's what we were paid for, they would say. Technically true, but there's more than one way to quell a damn riot, right?

...

Sorry. I'm still angry about the whole thing. As if I need to be told how to do my job by a bunch of incompetent thugs who only know how to hit things.

...

Well, I did have the right of it in the end. Among the surviving contractors the lord hired, only three of us survived and I pulled a hell of a lot more weight than the other two.

...

It's not as if I was fighting for my conscience. Killing the rioters would have just been a waste. The lord agreed with me, as it turned out. He thought that sparing so many of them was good for optics. My mercy reflected on him and he was able to bring the whole damned thing to a gentle conclusion all the sooner for it. He had run out of other people to pay for our work anyway, so getting my new business started wasn't a lot to ask of him, considering.

...

It was all a front, anyway. When I opened my store, only a fraction of the space was devoted to selling jewelry. I continued to take odd jobs out of the back room. In a city as chaotic as Resta City was during the Geosian regime, there was always local work to be found. It was around that time that I ran into Bene.

...

Well, you'd be surprised at what he was up to. He never lived what you would call an honest life, and being sai'mul didn't change that. I like to think you can only trust him now thanks to my influence.

...

Benedicte Zeringue has always been something of a conman. In life, I ran into him a few times during my time with the Royal Inquisition. He had scraped out a living in the Apex District selling bunk potions and counterfeit charms. Losing his natural life didn't seem to change much for him, except he ironically began to deal in real magic.

...

That is a good question. It should be impossible for a sai'mul to practice magic. You're supposed to invoke magic by calling on the gods, right? Well, it turns out that not every form of magic requires prayer. He managed to find a way around this handicap and he was doing even more dangerous business than before. I was hired by one of his jilted customers to get her money back. She had apparently been sold a skin cream that was supposed to make her look twenty years younger, but it ended up stretching all of the skin on her face.

...

When I found him, he tried to explain that what had happened to my client was an honest mistake, of course. Given our history, I had a hard time buying what he was trying to sell me. I was about to run him out of town for good when I noticed his milky eyes and pale skin. When I realized that he had become sai'mul as well, I slowed down right away.

....

It's hard to explain why. He was a criminal, and I was being paid to punish him for that. But you don't know what it's like being a sai'mul who refuses to move to Midania. It's not a popular decision to make, and only someone else who's made that decision can understand it. We weren't exactly ready to become friendly at the time, but it was nice to have someone to talk to. That encounter ended amicably, even though I still made him give back my client's money.

...

From that point on, we mostly stayed out of each other's way. I knew I couldn't keep him from doing whatever he likes without bashing his head in and he couldn't stop anyone else from hiring me to do that. Whether the possibility of seeing me again caused him to rethink his business practices, I don't know. But I was never paid to deal with him again.

...

You're going to ask him about this, I'm sure. You should listen to his side of the story before you judge him.

...

At any rate, it was uplifting to find someone who understood why I liked telling the living to fuck off. And having a store to serve as a base of operations was a promising beginning to the fresh start I found in death.

Next Chapter

Phoenix Blade Chapter 2

Start from the Beginning

Previous Chapter

I woke up covered from head to toe in piles upon piles of ash. By the gods, if my lungs hadn't ceased to work by then, I would have woken up coughing. The fact that I didn't was the second thing I noticed. The first was the numbness.

...

Right. A sai'mul is supposed to have absolutely no functioning nerves. We can't feel pain, we can't feel heat or cold and we can't feel the touch of another person. When I sat up, I saw a sword laying on the ground with a gold-plated scabbard. It didn't belong to me, so I figured that it might have been lost by the templars during the purge. When I picked it up, I couldn't feel it in my hands. All I felt was a strong sense of relief and euphoria, as if I had been liberated from something. Everything I had ever known in life was gone and so was my attachment to it all.

...

That's a misconception that the living love to perpetuate. Sai'mul are not emotionless beings. Our brains may not produce any of the chemicals that are associated with emotions, but we also don't need food to stay on our feet. Our bodies don't make sense to anyone because no one has bothered to study us until recently. The only reason most of us appear to be so stoic is the fact that our existence is so depressing. When your entire life is a consciousness without half of what's actually good about being alive and you are surrounded by well-meaning mortals who only want you to sail off to a desolate island in the middle of the world so they don't have to think about you, you're left with more than a chip on your shoulder.

...

That's why they love Salica so much in Midania. Everyone who lives there has had to take so much shit before they even ship off to that lousy place that a lot of us feel more than any mortal ever could. Our emotions are literally the only feeling we have.

...

As soon as I started walking around again, everyone I passed by was quick to notice the change. When they did, they were always quick to talk to me with the assumption that I'd be leaving. They'd give me directions to Karatal so I could find a ship, ask if I needed money to help secure passage, or offer words of encouragement for my new life across the sea. They didn't ask me what I wanted, they just seemed to assume that was my fate. It got old quickly. It was beyond frustrating to have my plans made for me by strangers.

...

I told them I had no intention of going anywhere. When that didn't work, I began telling them to fuck off. When they began to mistake my frustration for violent hostility, I learned that it was best to simply avoid people altogether. What else was there to do? For the first few months, I kept to myself and stayed on the move. I went everywhere but back to Shaville. 

...

I ran around for over a year until I met a woman named Saayuko Dreadkiller outside of Ridge. She came from Heron, where she was known for slaying some bandit they used to call the Dread Arrow. 

...

So, your people have heard of him too? You'd be the first person that I know of that has, to be honest. However much of a threat he was to people, I can only assume he knew better than to trespass on the Desmond clan's territory.

...

I'm sorry to hear that. But I didn't mean to imply he wasn't dangerous. Saayuko told me that he was, and as I've come to know her, I know she can be believed. She is a strong woman who had a lot to teach me. Both of us were cast away from society, so we each had some useful tips for each other. For both of us, daily life was a struggle to maintain our freedom from the expectations of society. And we just happened to walk into each others' lives when we needed each other the most.

...

Absolutely not. What I had with Sophia was nothing I even cared to replace. Our entire relationship was like a prison I didn't even notice until the bars were torn away. What I had with Saayuko was a friendship founded on respect for each others' strength. I can see why you would think that, though. I can see the page you're looking at in my file. You want to know about what happened in the capitol that year.

...

Well, I can't tell you much about what was happening with the Champion of Geos. It didn't take me long to figure out she had won. But I wasn't there to stand for or against the other gods. I was far from caring about which god the mortals prayed to. None of them can hear my voice anyway.

...

What drew me to the Gilded Keep happened at around the same time, but was completely unrelated. Saayuko had run to the capitol with some retrieval expert named Mordecai and she had found a way to get a message about him to me. She was sure he was an evil brute and was looking for proof that the man had killed the wife of one of his clients while he was supposed to be rescuing their son from some gang in Karatal. Apparently he was more interested in bedding the mother than doing his job and she told him off for slacking with a fury that could have set his ears ablaze. That was apparently the last mistake she ever made.

...

Yes, he was quite the piece of work. He was smarter than he looked as well. Saayuko had worked with him for eight months without finding any hint of what he was up to when his contracts went abandoned. She hit a wall, though, so she pulled me in for some convoluted plan of hers to make him confess. Complex strategies were always her strength.

...

I posed as a potential client who was looking to find my family so I could reach out to them before I ship out to Midania. Saayuko kept the other details of the plan to herself, but it seemed to work. I suspect that she had me meet with him because she had him spooked and she needed me to draw him out of hiding so she could tail him in secret. The good news is that the plan worked. Saayuko learned what she was hired to learn at the point of a knife.

...

The bad news? Well, Mordecai was eager to give everything up because he had no intention of letting her off. The bastard captured her and was ready to kill her. If I hadn't decided to track her, he would have. As it was, though, he seemed to have pulled it off when I arrived. I didn't know until later that she was still alive. At the time, though. I lost it. I was tired of having everything taken from me. My home. My family. My very breath. It was all gone when I found my new friend and I was furious to have been left with nothing yet again. So, I killed the bastard. I picked up a shield and smashed every bone I could. 

...

No, I never looked for her body. We tore his house apart in the fight and I needed to get out before it collapsed. By the time I had calmed down, it became clear that I should not be around when the new regime's Royal Army soldiers came to look for me. So, I retreated to the opposite end of the city and waited for news of Saayuko's fate. But it never came.

Next Chapter

Phoenix Blade Chapter 1

Prologue

Yes, I'm sure you're eager to hear about Shaville. I knew it was about time to head home when that malcontent started gaining steam in the capitol before the Geosian uprising.

...

Yeah, that older daughter of the Chaotic champion who married the Stone Dragon. When people talk about the uprising, a lot of people only talk about the final year, when Midas finally got off his ass and started doing something about them. He didn't know this, but that woman had been attending rallies in the capitol for decades. While I was in the Inquisition, I went to one of the first rallies she ever led and I never saw any difference between the woman on that stage and the one who sat the throne. Her ideas were dangerous and I didn't want my daughters exposed to them. So, we packed up and moved back to my home village. It is about as far west as you can get without stepping into... well, your country. I did so because I was hoping to give my girls the peaceful, wholesome upbringing I had. I've never been afraid to walk into conflicts like the uprising, but I didn't want it in my yard, you know?

...

Well, Sophia didn't take the threat seriously, so she resented me uprooting everyone. The only reason I'm glad she's sai'mul like me is because she survived to see me vindicated. Karen Blackstone was nothing but trouble, and she has to know now that if I had chosen our new home better, we could have protected all three of them.

...

No. I'm not guilty about my choice. I regret it now in hindsight, but I had no way of knowing that it was infested with some of the most evil bastards to call themselves human. I wanted to believe it was the same as ever, and at first, that's the way it seemed. I'm just angry about being deceived. I'll probably take that out on every warlock I ever get my hands on for the rest of my life.

...

Well, what good does it do us to lie about that? I've never needed a reason to be honest, but if I'm not in this case, people could die, right?

...

I'm not worried. Either you'll decide I can be trusted and renegotiate our contract or you won't and I will go back to the work we agreed upon. You can make up your mind on your own, but it won't help to omit anything. If any of the people I'm to be hunting bring dark magic to the fight, they may never see the inside of a cell.

...

I stood shoulder to shoulder with spellwarriors in the Inquisition and I've been paid to track down some of Hem Academy's more troublesome dropouts since the Purge. I think I know enough about magic to tell the difference. I think we both know I can handle magic users or we wouldn't be talking right now.

...

Well, you got me there. These warlocks had been getting away with their shit under my nose for years and I don't have much excuse for that. But let's get this right. I knew something was going on nearly the whole time. The warlocks were good at covering their tracks, but they let just enough go with every crime for me to work it out slowly. It was my duty to keep the town safe, but it was difficult to find solid evidence of a crime more serious than public fornication.

...

Yes, that was one of the warlocks' tricks. Every lustful impulse in the village was magically amplified. They farmed their succubi by driving these feelings beyond their victims' control to the point that the ambient dark magic that they filled our town with would respond to their lust and transform them.

...

That's just how the spellwarriors and their templar hanger-on explained it. I'm not exactly an expert on lust or magic, so I'm afraid that's as specific as my description gets.

...

No, their operation for creating wrathar was, if possible, even harder to catch. The people fucking themselves stupid in the streets were a lot more visible than the meatheads who fought it out in the Fight Pit.

...

No, they're not legal in Resta. Anymore.

...

Anyone who fought in the pit was basically asking for the warlocks to warp their minds with mindless aggression. Their process for creating succubi couldn't have been so efficient because if you put a cage around most people, the last thing on their mind is sex. But put someone in a cage and a weapon in their hands, they have no problem with fighting. Everyone I've ever known who fought there disappeared. Guess where.

...

Sure. I've had to break up plenty more fights than I remember from childhood. The people involved weren't usually fighters, but spectators. But I could guarantee that if I didn't get them out of town quickly enough, they'd end up in the center of that pit eventually. Fortunately, those poor fools were the easiest to save because their fights were plenty of reason to banish them from village. I could grab two idiots fighting trying to rip out each other's throats, send them out of here on separate buses, and they'd be fine a few days later.

...

It was a slow process realizing something was wrong. All of the sex was the first sign. It took me longer to notice the fighting because I'd seen plenty of it in the city. But what ultimately tipped me off was how much everyone seemed to love being there. In those days, Shaville was a complete shithole compared to when I was growing up there, but nobody ever wanted to leave. The village was always crawling with tourists even though the fucking Pit and a small Theater were the most interesting places we had there. And without fail, I'd hear them talking about moving there permanently. You'd think such a popular place would have an explosive population, right?

...

Well, it didn't. People showed up in droves and nobody ever seemed to leave, but we never had to build any new houses. There was no shortage of space, but nobody on the outgoing buses. Some of those tourists did become part of the village, but they only seemed to replace the longtime locals who were disappearing too. I knew that my job had become harder than it had for the old constable and yet people were still going there never to be seen again. There had to be a reason, and I spent all of a decade trying to find it.

...

I did say this was about Sophia, didn't I? Well, we never had the strongest of marriages. We used to be the best of friends, but she had needs that I could never empathize with. But Shaville had plenty of outlets for her frustration that she frequently took advantage of. I tried to ignore that it was happening, thinking she could at least be happy with fucking tourists.

...

No, this isn't about my cheating wife. I didn't care what she did with her sexuality as long as she kept it out of my bed. But I think that by turning a blind eye, I encouraged her to get bolder. She eventually stopped respecting even that boundary. I'd already had it up to here with the surge in petty crime by that point, so I decided then that I wanted to move again. But for Sophia and my daughters, the trap was already sprung. My family had all reacted differently to moving to Shaville, but they were unanimous in their firm desire to stay. So, there was nothing I could do but watch as they became regular parts of a village that I was convinced was far from normal.

...

Well, I continued to work with the spellwarriors trying to get to the bottom of things, but it wasn't going well. They started to show signs of being seduced by Shaville's curse and I was at my wit's end. I found them arguing with their templar friend just before the Purge. They were arguing against some evil that the templar was considering at the time which I only realize in retrospect was her plan to muster the entire Blackstone Order and destroy the whole village and kill all of its inhabitants. At the time, I thought that the templar had been confronted by the Fight Pit, and I tried to put her out of my mind when she disappeared. I thought she was just another wrathar being shipped off to some warlord's army, but she actually left. Even I couldn't do that!

...

Well, Sophia destroyed whatever semblance of a bond we had just before the Purge. It started with finding out my middle child Sasha was whoring herself to tourists. I had never been so angry! She was out on her ass almost immediately, but Sophia took issue with that. She could have tried to remind me of my love for our daughter. Or that I was obligated to be a father to her no matter what she did. Instead, she called me a prude and criticized me for not being as sexually active as she was.

...

Look, don't get me wrong. It's not as if I care about others expressing their sexuality. But some people can't handle it, and that's why doing it in public is against the law. Any constable would be disappointed in their children for resisting the charter they had dedicated themselves to upholding. I'm not even against those who wish to sell their sexual skills for a time. I might have felt different about it back then, especially where my daughter was concerned, but I can only barely remember the days when my sword arm wasn't for sale. A bit hypocritical, right?

...

Yes, I'm ashamed of how I treated her. All I can say in my defense was that I was already paranoid at the time. I knew that dark magic was in play and I had long since ceased to trust anybody, even my family who insisted that we stay.

...

Maybe I was affected by the curse too. I managed to avoid the warlock's corruption, but I was stuck there as surely as everyone else. I wouldn't leave without my family, but I was powerless to get them to leave. I wonder a lot about whether they could have been saved if I'd taken the choice away from them. I could never have done so back then, though. Not just because I wouldn't have wanted to but because I know it would have been impossible. It was clear by the time I had started to figure out what was going on that nobody needed me at home.

...

Well, we argued about Sasha all night, but she was back the next day as if we had settled on what Sophia had wanted. Just like that, the entire household had turned against me. All four of them had become more brazen with their corrupted lifestyles for their last week while just berating the hell out of me for daring to question them.

...

It wasn't even the worst week I've had but it was definitely up there. My reputation around the village was for being a quack and they began wasting no opportunity to repeat it to me. I had six hellish days, seven infuriating hours, and twenty-three fucking minutes in which my family beat the notion that I had lost them into my head.

...

What changed? I found my youngest, Emily, beginning to turn. She thought she could hide that she was growing a tail, but you can't keep that a secret from someone who is both your father and a trained investigator on high alert. By the gods, when I saw that fucking tail, I stripped every single one of them and their mother to find more evidence of transformation.

...

Fangs in my wife's mouth. Fucking wing nubs on Penny. And Sasha? She was hiding several large splotches of unnaturally pink skin and a few strands of white hair behind her ears. That settled it for me. I began to see them as victims of the warlocks that I was desperate to save. I bound them all up, thinking I would turn them over to the templars so they could attempt to purify them. I only wanted to help them, but they really let me have it for restraining them. My entire family was turning into demons before my very eyes, but when they cried out to me, they were a little too good at making me feel like the asshole.

...

They were all destroying me. It's not easy to admit this, but I began to cry. It was too much to watch four people who used to love you change so much. I wanted to know where these monsters were keeping my real wife and children, but I didn't have an actual plan to get them back. But it wasn't long before I paid for that moment of weakness. While I wasn't looking, Emily had somehow used her tail to wriggle free and release her mother and sisters. They got the drop on me and just stomped me halfway to hell. They did it while LAUGHING. I don't know who I hated more in that moment: them or myself. And I never really got around to figuring that out.

...

That was when the Purge happened. Six templars came in at that moment and started killing everybody in the house one by one. They got Penny with an arrow, one of them pulled Emily to him by her tail and pummeled her to death with an iron club, then they seared Sasha in some sort of holy light that caused her entire body to disintegrate. I was still laying face up on the ground when Sophia was stabbed in the back with a sword.  While she was falling, I remember thinking how I was satisfied with this outcome just before the same man stabbed me in the chest.

...

Don't be. I've made my peace with what happened. It was naive for me to think I could have put a stop to this all by myself. Do I agree with what the templars did to the village? Absolutely not. But when the spellwarriors we trust to deal with magic fall victims to the same curse as everyone else and the templars we trust to deliver us from evil decide we're beyond saving, who can argue with their logic?

...

The point is, I died with a smile on my face. Yes, I failed to protect my family, but by bringing the templars' attention to Shaville, I may have saved countless others. I had thoughts of dying a hero and getting to see my Sophia, Penelope, Sasha, and Emily in Fadal. As I remembered them.

...

Yes, it was a nice thought. But then I woke up.

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