I snapped Talth around before me and faced the doorway, waiting for something to emerge but nothing came forth except for an unnatural darkness. I pressed the tip of Talth into the darkness but nothing happened. After waiting a moment longer I cautiously stepped inside, through the doorway.
Instantly my eyes were greeted with a searing burst of light and I snapped them shut, swinging Talth out in front of me to ward off attackers as I cursed myself for having not put my helmet back on. I stumbled for a moment; tripping over something and crashing to the floor, keeping care to keep Talth in my grip as I fell. I came back up to my feet and peeked my eyes open slowly, letting them adjust to the continuous flow of light until I could properly see. My surprise did not cease to end shortly however. The outside suggested an ancient and broken down home, damaged beyond repair, but now I began to appreciate just how much of an illusion that was.
I was standing on and for all intents and purposes soiling what looked like a priceless red rug with gold lining depicting an epic battle between a dragon and a winged lion. The woodwork along the walls showed angels in mid-flight, gilded chairs that would be seen in the richest dwelling and wouldn't go amiss at the court of a king were placed at intervals in the room. A fireplace had two chairs that were more akin to thrones facing it, each one carved with facades of beasts of varying kinds bursting from their woodwork. I continued to look around the room taking it all in when I saw the ceiling and stopped again.
A being seemingly made of light stood defiant before an onslaught of Dark Kyn, shielding a burning village. The vile visage of a drekt'kail led the Dark Kyn host, its hateful visage curling in contempt as it swung a brutal axe at the angel which held neither sword nor shield, holding its hands wide as if to embrace the blow of the drekt'kail. The entire imagery was stunning and left me in awe. I had never been one to care for what others called art, which oftentime was just a conglomeration of the most meaningless things that people just managed to find meaning in but this... the image was clear, the meaning pure and it left me in awe.
The sound of soft footsteps over a silken rug snapped me back to reality and I gazed towards the nearest doorway just as someone was emerging. I had expected a Vrokandin Varr, or some other vile creation to emerge but instead my eyes came to rest upon a woman who could be no older than twenty years, her eyes were crystalline blue with tinges of white on the inside of the irises almost as if they had iced over, she had a mane of gold tinged red hair and two intricate braids on either side her face. She wore green leather armor with gold inlays in runic symbols I did not recognize, each segment of the armor overlapping the one beneath going downwards with a black belt around her waist. As she turned her eyes met mine and for one moment I felt as if I knew her and to my surprise I saw a look of recognition on her face as well and for one moment we simply stared at one another.
Then that moment ended as she blinked and everything changed. Rage pulled her features into a snarl even as her legs began to pump her across the room faster than any person had a right to go. Realizing my error for not reacting more quickly I flipped Talth around but was to slow as she easily slipped inside my guard and placed a hand on my breastplate I felt myself jettisoned from my feet as a searing burst of energy spiked into my armor and even through it into me, icy cold it took my breath away right before I smashed into a wooden angel and obliterated it in my fall, spinning around and falling flat on the floor.
I sprang to my feet only to find her once again at my side, this time hands clawing at my face and where her nails raked searing pain followed, flowing deeper than mere physical wounds caused. I cursed myself for not wearing my helmet again as I swung out my left hand in a Perui style strike at her chest, my second knuckle joints pointed outwards to provide maximum damage as ethereal energy bled along my armor to provide a number shock on contact. She dodged so nimbly I barely saw her figure spin away. She allowed my momentum to carry past her and I spun to regain my footing. Flipping back around in a Jenzi defense stance with Talth low at my waist and my left arm high across my chest I just had time to have a spinning kick smash into my jaw and once again I was flying across the room. This time I smashed into a mural I hadn't bothered to examine earlier above the fireplace and fell face first to the floor below.
Hitting a rug, it easily absorbing most of my impact as I quickly looked up I saw the woman dashing across the room and for that one split second I thought she might be a vampire, but no, I had trained to fight vampires and there was even a rune on Talth designed to detect and kill them and it was no more active than any of the other runes.
I had maybe two seconds before she'd be on me again and thinking as fast as I was capable I reached a gauntlet into the fire behind me, grabbed a handful of embers and flung them with all speed at her.
In that one moment time seemed to stop. Her eyes widened slightly, irises dilating in fractions of a second to focus on the incoming projectiles, a form of recognition entered her eyes and she closed them just in time to stop several coals from burning them out. In that one moment she stumbled, that one moment the coals raked across her skin but failing to do any real damage, the one moment she was blind. I could have struck out with Talth, but I wasn't in a good position to and I was more likely to kill her rather than incapacitate and I most definitely didn't want to kill her, though some part of me screamed at me for it I went against all my training and voluntarily let go of Talth and flung myself bodily at her. She opened her eyes just in time to see me but without time to react I clamped both my arms around her, locking them together around her back and smashing my head into her face. My momentum carried us both up and into one of the throne chairs, I heard something priceless break as we rolled over it.
She came alive in my arms, struggling with surprising strength, but nonetheless it wasn't nearly enough to break my grip. As a mere man she could have bested me in strength which was disconcerting enough, but my armor had been built to enhance my strength several times over and I realized in seconds that she would have easily overpowered me had I not had it. She writhed and wriggled, but I only gripped tighter and tighter until I could barely detect her breath against the side of my head. I was purposely pushing my head against her, keeping her face and more importantly her teeth away from me.
Despite the fact that she could barely breathe she continued to struggle unrelenting. Even through my armor I could feel her heartbeat hammering. It occurred to me that any eshiri would either pass out from lack of oxygen by now, or their bones would have broken. Even a full grown mans rib cage would have been crushed underneath the exertion I was putting into this, yet still she struggled.
Two minutes passed, three, four. The only thing that changed was she started to hammer her jaw against my head, probably hoping to strike my temple but I kept my forehead directly ahead so all she managed to do was give me a few bruises. Five minutes passed, six, seven, eight. Finally I began to sense something, her body beginning to slow, her strength beginning to wane. For a moment I was almost deceived, but then a part of my training kicked in and I braced just in time. With a renewed burst of vigor she struggled in my grasp, desperately attempting to at least free an arm so she could tear my throat out with it but to no avail, I only clamped tighter.
Finally the telltale sign of her heartbeat beginning to fluctuate told me that oxygen deprivation was beginning to affect her. She struggled still, but not the coherent fight of someone trying to free themselves, but of someone losing strength and beginning to panic. Finally she gave one last heave, but her muscles bunched and disobeyed her, protesting the lack of oxygen they needed to sustain the energy output she was using and she collapsed back to the floor. She panted hard against me, her breath coming in short ragged gasps as her body fought to stay conscious. I didn't even dare look at her, even with such little energy she could still tear my throat out if I exposed it. As I continued to wait I found myself surprised to find that instead of passing out her breathing was actually beginning to normalize. Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing calmed. Once she fully regained her composure I expected her to begin to struggle again but this time she instead craned her head around. I couldn't tell what she was looking at, I couldn't even tell where we were in the room. Finally a sound broke the silence.
"Is that your sword?" I was surprised to hear her speak and it startled me. Her voice was soft, but one would expect that since she could hardly breathe.
"If you mean the sword with runes all over it that I assume is still next to the fireplace, then yes, that one's mine. If it's some other sword not under that description then I would have to assume it belongs to someone else."
I couldn't see but I got the vague sense she was smiling. "Well a sense of humor, didn't expect that from an assassin."
"Assassin? That what you think I am?"
"It's what I know you are." She retorted with a small amount of venom in her voice. "Luckily for us you are too late; our master has come and gone, and with him the artifact."
"Look lady, I don't know about any artifact and I couldn't care less. I'm here for a purpose so unless you are going to admit to a relation with dark kyn and heinous acts most foul then we've no reason to be enemies. I've come a very long way to end a potential threat to the Balance and for no other purpose have I come. When I sensed this place I assumed that the evil that hangs over this city must come from here so I decided to come in and kill anything I found. I just didn't expect to find you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She retorted.
"That means that my sword over there has been made with the purpose of fighting almost every enemy the Order has ever known but not one rune on my sword lit up when I came into contact with you. You were inches from it at one point and nothing on it reacted, so for all intents and purposes I know you're not a vampire, you're not dark kyn because I've been trained to sense them and even with a nullifier spell I would have sensed if you were one of them from the moment I entered the house. You're stronger than any eshiri, faster too and you have a keen ability with energy. Have I missed any details yet?"
She sighed. "I can't argue with you on any of that. I'm not anything you'd be familiar with."
"So what are you?" I asked.
"I can't say." She answered.
"Well we've got all night for when you change your mind." I said.
"No, I literally can't say. I have never known. I don't know of a single other person like me. For all I know I'm some sort of failed experiment or I might be the last living member of my people, whoever they are, I just don't know."
I sighed in exasperation. "Well, before anyone walks in on us I'm just going to let you go now, okay? Please do me the kindness of not trying to tear out my eyes again."
"I'll do my best but one question, how do you know I'm not completely lying?"
"In consideration of the fact that were so close and my head is practically on your chest I've been able to discern your heartbeat very well, I've been trained to detect lies and with the exception of vampires I've never come across anything that could successfully lie to me when I could feel their heartbeat and get away with it."
Preparing my body, I released my grip and sprang away as fast as I could, coming up in another Jenzi defense stance, left hand extended out defensively in front of me, right hand having drawn my combat knife from my boot and hanging low by my waist.
Likewise positioned with the exception that she had no weapon she peered back at me. Thus we stood, examining one another. I found little else that I hadn't seen earlier, besides the fact I now noticed she was barefoot. She was barefoot and she had kicked me across the room. This was an opponent I wasn't going to underestimate, not again.
"You know, you might know I wasn't lying, but besides your sword over there I've still got no idea whether or not you aren't an assassin, fact is you still match the description of one pretty well."
"What do you mean?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"The fact that I can't see most of you besides what appears to be a disembodied face and arms."
I looked down to find she was right, it was a startling thought that despite the fact I was very hard to see she still had been so accurate when fighting me, though she hadn't exactly had to aim very hard to land that kick of which I was starting to feel the pain from. When I had come down near the fireplace I'd landed on my shoulder and though my armor and the rug had taken most of it my body still wasn't reacting well and speaking was hurting quite a bit though I wasn't noticing till now.
"Hmm, indeed." I said, reaching one handed, carefully keeping an eye on the woman as I undid each clasp on the cloak and then pulled it off me, packed it into my gauntlet before stuffing it into its pouch on my belt.
"Well." She said, looking me up and down. "Never seen an assassin or for that matter anyone who looks like you."
"So you've seen many assassins?" I asked.
"Well, no." She said shrugging. "But I don't know, you kind of build this picture in your head..."
"So, have you been trained to pick out assassins?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No." She said, looking down. "I just read books sometimes and the stories in them depict assassins and whatnot, always dark and cloaked, but never wearing a whole suit of armor like you. How does that even work?" She asked, looking back up at me. "That armor looks heavy, how do you move around so nimbly in it?"
"Because it was built to aid me, strengthen me and even lend me speed rather then slow me, it is tuned to my energy and thus it is an extension of my body."
"Ah." Her brow furrowed. "Well, I kind of know what that means but...." She shrugged.
"You don't know much about energy?" I asked.
"Nope." She shook her head. "What little I know is what I could peek at when I snuck out from under my master's nose in their books, mostly things I didn't understand, runes I couldn't read and other languages I'd never been taught but here and there I'd understand something."
"Have they kept you imprisoned all your life?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"No!" She said somewhat defensively. "They've kept me safe! I'm the only one person like me and they want to make sure nothing ever happens to me!"
"What are you doing here then, might I ask?"
She hesitated, looking me up and down again before slowly nodding to herself. "I really don't know. The Vrokandin Varr brought me here about a month ago, said I'd be safe, that no one would find me and that someone would come for me to help me and bring me somewhere safer."
"Somewhere safer." I shook my head. "It sounds as though they've done their best to keep you shuttered in your whole life, forgive me for saying this, but you sound more like a prisoner than anything else, I've been out in the world and as dangerous as it is, the Vrokandin Varr are among the more dangerous out there, they covet power above all else and will stop at nothing to keep what they have and obtain more. The damage they have done is incalculable over the ages and I have no doubt in my mind that you are being 'protected,' not for your benefit but for theirs."
She stared into my eyes as I spoke and I could tell my words were hitting home, she looked down for a moment staring at the rug we were standing on before looking back up at me and speaking. Strangely her words sounded muddled, as though I was hearing them while under water.
"What?" I asked and to my surprise I found my own voice sounded similarly distorted. I saw her open her mouth again and speak and this time I could barely tell. I blinked and the effort to do so seemed phenomenal. I felt my balance slipping and I stumbled, falling to one knee. I saw a concerned look on her face and she uncertainly stepped toward me but then my vision of her began to blur as though an incredible heat haze had come into the room. I felt myself falling and it seemed to take an eternity before I hit the floor.
'What..... is..... this.....?' I felt the sluggish thought but it almost didn't feel like my own.
I felt my will scream from within as my mind clouded and thoughts became harder to discern. I heard more voices, muddled and distant, I slowly forced my head to turn and I found myself looking up at three figures, one of them the woman, the other two I did not know, but one of them my mind distantly recognized as a Vrokandin Varr, his dark figure looming over me malevolently, his hood drawn and only darkness within, it stared down at me. It was as though it was drawing all light from the world and soon all became darkness.
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