Seth
So much pain. Where the hell did it come from?
Seth had been in pain more times than he cared to count, but something was different about the sensation he was experiencing now. He felt now as if his pain was a permanent thing, regardless of his magic or the intervention of any healer. He was powerless, but he did not know why.
He struggled to remember where he was and how he had gotten there, but all he could remember was the disaster of his mission. He and his partner, Luna, had been beseeched by his own village to investigate a strange curse that caused the heraldic instruments of the local temples to lose their sound. They had started at the temple of Ragos… no… Serenity. Ragos? No, definitely Serenity. Nonetheless, the pair had deduced that the source of the curse was a series of fake charms that some of the temple goers had been wearing.
He stopped a pretty-looking girl who had traveled all the way from Karatal City because they lacked a Serene temple there and asked her about it. She had seemed taken aback when he questioned her. He had been warned that would happen. Enforcing the people’s laws came without the divine authority enjoyed by templars, but otherwise came with many of the same social pitfalls. As a result, spellwarriors weren’t very popular in peacetime.
Still, the young worshipper was kind enough to answer, “This? It’s just a prayer charm I bought from a merchant on the way here. Why, is something wrong with it?”
The answer wasn’t clear to Seth and Luna even after they had stared at it for a long time. Finally, as the civilian had gotten impatient with standing for their inspection, she offered to sell it to them. With no reason to believe that the charm was dangerous, Luna accepted without hesitation. She slipped the charm around her wrist and continued to stare at it.
“What do you notice about it?” Luna said; her way of testing the rookie, Seth was sure.
“Nothing. It’s just a piece of colorful junk,” Seth said sourly. “I can’t believe you actually bought it.”
Luna smiled as she continued to ponder her purchase. “Ah, but ‘nothing’ can be just as important as any clue. Do you remember how the girl described it?”
Seth racked his brain for this insignificant detail. “Umm… I think it was supposed to be some sort of prayer charm?”
Luna nodded. “Precisely. A genuine prayer charm, however, doesn’t work if it doesn’t help you link with the Gods in any way, which would require… what?”
Seth rolled his eyes, wondering when he’d stop being treated like a student. “Of course, it would require… oh.”
He looked down at the charm once more. A colorful piece of junk indeed. This supposed prayer charm did not have an ounce of magic in it. He had sensed this without any difficulty, but he was still too slow in making the connection.
“If people are bringing these useless trinkets into a temple and praying onto them, that would be considered an act of blasphemy,” Luna explained with a shrug. “I’m willing to bet that enough of these things could build up to a nasty curse.”
Seth sighed as he glanced toward the temple doors. “Blasphemy, huh? Sounds like the Templars’ department.”
Luna shook her head furiously. “There is no way in hell we’re letting the Templars in on this. Do you know any templars, Midas?”
Seth shook his head.
“Well, templars are fucking awful. I know you’ve heard about our… professional rivalry back in the Academy.”
This time, the young spellwarrior nodded. “For as long as our order has existed, we’ve been at odds. But still, it’s their job to crack down on acts of blasphemy, isn’t it? We’re just peacekeepers.”
Luna sighed and pressed her palm to her forehead. “Good grief. Listen, kid. We keep the peace by enforcing the queen’s laws, right? Well, it’s illegal to sell fake divine relics. And since someone has chosen to disregard that law, the peace of Palon’s temples has been disturbed. One thing you’re going to have to learn sooner rather than later is that we have to use any means possible to justify our role in a case. If we let the Templars get ahold of this, they’re just going to make a bloody mess and call it a day.”
Seth listened to his superior’s lecture thoughtfully before replying. “If they’re so bad, why do people respect them so much?”
Luna struggled to avoid rolling her eyes. “They’re not exactly bad. It’s just that their methods are different from ours. They think that respecting the Gods is a given and anyone who doesn’t can go fuck themselves. If they find whoever is doing this, they’re just going to beat whatever suspects they find senseless and throw them into a dungeon. If they even survive. But what if the suspect is innocent? Or if they’ve been collaborating with someone else? It’s our job to really get into the minds of people in order to get to the truth. In my opinion, Templars should just stick to protecting pilgrims and temples and leave crap like this to us. We‘re clearly better at it.”
Seth supposed that made sense, but if he were being honest, he would have done exactly what the templars would. Maybe that’s why I’m still being treated like a kid. It was clear to him that he still had a lot to learn. He had thought that life would be smooth sailing after his graduation into the ranks of the elite, but he was still very much ignorant of the ways of the Hem Order. But Luna would soon learn that Seth was a quick study.
“So, we should probably case the roads between here and Karatal to find this merchant, right? If we can at least figure out where they’ve been, they should be simple enough to track.”
Luna smiled appreciatively. “They should, huh? I suppose you had high marks in tracking?”
Seth nodded a little awkwardly. “I did okay. I’m trained mostly in the close combat school, but I never had an absolutely terrible subject.”
This was stretching the truth of his middling performance in school. Still, Luna appeared to have bought it, because she then reached into her pocket and drew her summoning horn. “Well, I hope okay is good enough, because I’ve always been damned miserable at tracking. After you.”
Seth fumbled for his own horn and, together, both spellwarriors blew an echoing tone. As a result, two oversized wolves leaped out as though an unseen door had opened in the space between them. Luna’s horn had summoned a shaggy copper beast, who stooped forward without hesitation so that she could mount him. This left Seth to mount the sleek, black wolf with an air of uncertainty. He still hadn’t gotten used to his lupine companion.
“What a beautiful creature!” Luna remarked. “What’s her name?”
Inkfang. No one seemed to like the name Seth had given his wolf, but as he had spent so long coming up with it, he defiantly insisted on calling her that. But when he told Luna the name, she smiled.
“Clever. Better than ‘Brute,’ anyway. Let’s hope she rides as well as she looks.”
Seth doubted that she would. Inkfang was quick, but far more willful than he could manage most of the time. As they set off on the northeasterly trail to the coastal town of Karatal, he found that his wolf had been perfectly content to match Brute’s pace, thus he only needed to avoid falling.
It was nearing sunset as Inkfang suddenly came to a stop along the road. She stared searchingly across the verdant plains, forcing Luna to stop Brute with a loud whistle. The two of them doubled back to where the black wolf had been standing and the elder spellwarrior was visibly upset.
“What are you stopping for? We’re never going to find these guys in the dark! We need to move!”
Seth had been trying the whole time to coax Inkfang to move, but she stubbornly remained still. “I think she senses something.”
The wolf companions of the spellwarriors had long been known for their ability to see what their masters could not. But why had only Inkfang stopped?
Luna slid off of Brute’s back with a sigh. “Well, it couldn’t hurt to take a look around. We’re nearly to Karatal, so if we don’t find them on the road, we’ll have to wait until morning to search the city anyway.”
Luna began to do just that while Seth dismounted. Something felt off about this, but he couldn’t be sure what was making him so uneasy. He leaned into Inkfang’s neck as he was wont to do when he struggled to understand her. But the wolf remained still and Seth could hear her abnormally rapid heartbeat. Something had spooked her. He stroked the wolf’s head reassuringly, coaxing her to return his attention for the first time since they set out.
“What’s wrong, girl? Is something out there?”
Inkfang’s muscles tensed and she began to growl. Just then, Luna called out, “Midas! I just found some blood!”
Seth turned toward Luna and dropped from Inkfang’s back. Upon rushing over to his partner, he found that the ground had indeed been sprayed with blood, which seemed to mingle with a thin, caustic amber fluid that had already begun eating into the grass that bordered the road.
“What is this stuff?” Seth asked of the mysterious liquid.
“I wouldn’t touch it, but that’s about all I can tell you. It seems to be some sort of… acid.”
“What happened here?” Seth asked, but before Luna could answer, Brute let out a wailing howl.
The spellwarriors rushed to find Brute and found him poking his nose through an overturned cart whose wheels had been reduced to splinters. Piled throughout the ground immediately surrounding it were the unassuming trinkets they had been searching for and more of the disturbing combination of blood and acid.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Luna growled, clearly struggling to maintain her composure. “Someone or something got to these guys before we did and… well, now I wish the templars had found them.”
“What could have done something like this?” Seth asked, nearly whispering now.
“I don’t know, but I’m not in any hurry to find out,” the veteran replied, and as she did so, Seth could tell that she was afraid as well.
“Well, we can’t just leave this be!” Seth exclaimed as if Luna had said something scandalous. “What if whoever did this is still out there, preying on other travelers?”
Luna turned to glare at Seth. “Listen, you stripling brat! There are procedures for unknown threats like this. We need to wrap up our case and report this to the Elders. They’ll decide how to handle it.”
Seth could hardly imagine caring any less about these trinkets than he did at that moment. “We can just let the templars dispose of this crap. If we don’t do something, more people are going to die!”
“If we rush after whoever did this and we end up in way over our heads, we’ll die.”
“We’re supposed to put our lives on the line for the safety of others!” Seth barked. “If you’re seriously telling me that we’re supposed to just run away, then maybe I made a mistake in joining the Order!”
Seth could tell that had landed. If there was just one way to hurt a spellwarrior, it would be to insult the pride of the Hem Order. Luna continued to glare at Seth for a moment longer before letting out a sigh. She stared pensively into the pools of gore and pressed her hand to the cleanest bit of ground within her reach. Seth could see the magic flowing into her hand as a glowing red orb formed underneath her palm. She lifted her hand and the orb floated with it. When she released it from her grip, it continued to float two feet above the ground, pulsating urgently. This emergency beacon, Seth recalled, would get the attention of any nearby members of the Order as well as the scryers back at the academy.
“You make a good point, but if we follow these guys, you are to follow my orders exactly,” Luna said, her severe voice somehow sounding more serious than usual. “We are only going to scout the target for now. Just stay close to me and don’t even speak unless I tell you to.”
Seth nodded his agreement and with that, the two climbed back onto their wolves.
“Well, Midas. Let’s see you put those tracking skills to use,” Luna said with her usual patronizing smirk.
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