The vast, open plaza was a choking sea of bodies, the roar of the crowd drowning out individual voices. In the center, rising above the chaos like an altar to death, stood a wooden platform. The executioner waited there with statue-like patience, his face hidden beneath a hood, his gloved hands resting heavily on the pommel of a massive greatsword. The blade's edge was cracked and tainted with red.
“Hope the wretch bleeds dry for what he did,” a man hissed, shielding his eyes against the dying rays of the sun, which were bleeding from gold into ominous crimson.
“Aye! Word is he weren't alone in it. Had another Unbowed scum watchin' his back,” a man in a rough linen tunic replied, leaning in close.
“Unbowed... ain't enough they sold their souls. Now they’re huntin' honest men.”
“Shush. Look,” the man in linen hissed sharply. He nodded discreetly toward a tall woman with caramel skin and long dreadlocks swaying against her back as she cut a path through the crowd, following a cloaked figure. “She hears ye, she’ll flay ye where ye stand.”
“Heard Prince Charles is tossin' gold at 'em. Wants 'em for the war.”
“Aye? Can't blame him. Need monsters to fight monsters.”
“The sorcerers? Nay, fool. He needs ‘em for Her. For Charlotte…”
“Bahenna’s blaze, are ye mad?” The man in linen widened his eyes in panic, looking around. He then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Don't spit that name! Ye want to curdle the blood in yer veins? Rot on yer own time, don't drag me to the grave with ye!”
The two men scanned the crowd, checking if anyone had overheard their whisperings, but the people around them were too distracted. Their attention was fixed on the prisoner being dragged toward the platform.
The man was a ruin. He was completely hairless, his entire body was a canvas of bruises and deep cuts. His eyes rolled loosely in his head, unfocused, and his limbs hung limp, offering no resistance.
Two burly soldiers dragged him by the arms, his bare feet scraping over the rough cobblestones, leaving a red trail of blood behind him.
“MONSTER!”
“WRETCH!”
“MAKE HIM SUFFER!”
The crowd screamed, spitting their hatred at the man as he was hauled toward his end. Some threw eggs and rotten vegetables, but the barrage quickly ceased when a stray cabbage struck one of the guards, earning the thrower a glare that promised a place next to the prisoner.
By the time Lucas pushed his way to the front, the prisoner was already secured to the tall platform, his neck stretched across the block, unmoving.
Lucas quickly spotted Qalda in the crowd. Her head rose above the sea of people like a stone tower, impossible to miss. He made his way toward her.
He found three Unbowed - Edir was missing, and Felix wasn’t with them either.
“Do you know him?” Lucas asked, his eyes fixed on the condemned man.
“No. Necromancers rarely stick to groups. They prefer hunting alone,” Qalda responded, her arms crossed. “Felix is with us because his unique class forces him to seek protection. Otherwise, he’d likely be a loner too…”
“I don’t think so, Qalda. That leech is with us mostly because we pay him far more than anyone else would,” Gio chuckled.
“Could be,” Qalda responded seriously.
Lucas had more questions to ask but the ominous quiet stopped him. The executioner lifted his massive blade. The edge reflected the bleeding red of the setting sun, holding the light for a split second.
Then, it flashed downward.
The air distorted violently. A deafening boom shattered the silence, and a geyser of purple mana erupted from the prisoner's body, instantly swallowing the platform and obstructing all sight.
The crowd shifted like a single, terrified organism. Screams tore through the air. The mob gave in to primal fear, turning on their heels and scrambling for their lives.
Those at the rear were the first to fall, trampled under heavy boots as the mob surged away from the platform. The purple vapor expanded - heavier than air, rolling over the cobblestones, licking at the ankles of those too slow to flee. They froze mid-stride. Their dilated, frozen eyes fixed on the purple death rolling toward them.
A low, guttural laughing rattled from the mist.
On the platform, the prisoner straightened. He was no longer limp. He stood hunched, his spine twisted, as thick, dark veins bulged and pulsed beneath his skin. At his feet, the executioner and the two soldiers lay on the ground. Their bodies convulsed violently, white foam bubbling from mouth.
The Necromancer smiled, gums bleeding. He scanned the crowd and muttered something, but the words didn’t reach Lucas’s ears.
“They are going to be slaughtered if we…” Gio started, his hand reaching for his daggers.
A loud explosive sound cut him off.
Qalda was gone.
Her figure blurred into a streak of gold, punching a tunnel through the wall of purple fog, followed instantly by the heavy impact of boots on timber. The platform groaned.
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Lucas drew his bow, nocking an arrow in a heartbeat. He aimed at the shadowy figure standing amidst the swirling vapor.
“Stand down, you will hit the people,” Evelyn’s voice echoed in his mind. “She does not require assistance.”
Lucas gritted his teeth and lowered the bow, pulling his gaze away from the chaos toward the sorceress. Evelyn was standing perfectly still, silver runes burned above her fingers. A translucent barrier materialized around the platform, sealing the deadly purple mist inside a magical cage.
Lucas’s eyes drifted back to the platform.
On the platform, the golden aura solidified. It formed a mane, then a mantle. Fingers lengthened into hardened claws.
“The Lion of Rond,” the Necromancer said calmly. “Triad sent you?”
“No,” Qalda responded. She scanned him, from toes to head. “Is it true? Did you use human subjects?”
The man rolled his shoulders. The dark veins settled, fading into a bruise-like gray. "Step aside. There is no profit in this fight."
"There is for me."
Qalda dropped her center of gravity.
She exploded from the standstill. A blur of gold closing the ten meters in a heartbeat. She thrust her hand forward, the golden claws aimed straight for the man’s heart.
The Necromancer didn’t flinch. He unhinged his jaw, his diaphragm expanding unnaturally. A jet of pressurized purple gas erupted from his throat, slamming into Qalda.
Her skin hissed violently, smoke rising as purple cracks began to spread across her body.
But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even slow down.
She punched through the stream, her momentum carrying the full weight of the charge into a single point of impact.
The sound was wet and crunching.
Qalda’s fist pulverized the ribcage, driving through the lungs and exiting the back in a shower of dark, arterial spray.
The mist vanished.
Blood pooled at Qalda’s elbow, dripping steadily onto the warped wood. The purple progressed, climbing her bicep like ivy.
"I take... you..." The Necromancer tried to articulate, but his lungs were full of fluid. He gagged, vomiting a clot of black blood. His eyes rolled back, the gray iris swallowed by the milky white.
Qalda didn’t wait. She yanked her hand back.
The Necromancer’s body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, falling into the pool of his own blood. The golden hue around Qalda dimmed and flickered out as she turned around, taking a glance at her corrupted skin.
Evelyn’s barrier dissolved into drifting sparks of fading light.
A blond man burst from the crowd and charged toward the platform, his steps nervous.
“Couldn’t you let Gio handle him?!” he scolded. A haze of purple mana began to form around him, spilling onto his skin and shaping into markings that pulsed with a sickening light.
“Oh my, Felix, why do you wish me harm?” Gio said with exaggerated drama as he, Evelyn and Lucas stepped on the cracked platform.
“You can’t be poisoned; you are a Vampire,” Felix snapped. He grabbed Gio’s hand roughly and yanked him closer. “Come here.”
“I am a Sang… hey! Use those three, they are going to die soon anyway!” Gio protested, pointing at the convulsing soldiers.
“I will save them.” Felix gripped Gio’s wrist tight. Both of his hands began to glow with a deep purple.
The corroded cracks on Qalda’s body shimmered and moved. The purple sheen of the poison uncoiled from her skin like living smoke, flowing rapidly toward the point where Felix held her, then channeling directly into Gio.
“It hurts!” Gio complained, his pale face grimacing.
“No, it doesn’t. You only get a tad hungrier,” Felix replied mercilessly, not slowing the transfer for a second.
“And it hurts!”
Lucas stared at them with wide eyes. Felix was using the Sanguine as a living filter, siphoning the deadly toxins from Qalda and dumping them into Gio, whose undead physiology was apparently immune to the poison. Once Qalda was clear, Felix moved to the executioner and the two soldiers, repeating the process while still clinging to Gio’s wrist.
“What about them? Can’t you save them?” Lucas asked, pointing toward the few civilians who had collapsed during the chaos and were now lying motionless on the cobblestones.
Felix paused. He studied Lucas, his cyan eyes slowly losing their purple sheen as the magic faded.
“I don’t work for free,” he said coldly. He turned back to the executioner and the panting soldiers. “You three. You owe me one hundred silver. Each.”
“The military will save the civilians,” Qalda said, placing a heavy hand on Lucas’s shoulder. He was still staring at Felix in disbelief. “Besides, if we touch them, the guards will drill our brains with questions about what happened. It’s better to leave it to the city healers.”
As if summoned by her words, the plaza was flooded with uniforms in seconds. Soldiers in heavy plate armor immediately formed a perimeter, blocking the exits with a wall of shields and spears to ensure no one, including the Unbowed, could leave. Behind them, white-robed healers rushed toward the fallen civilians, their hands glowing with soft, green light.
In the midst of the organized chaos, Evelyn remained crouched on the platform, indifferent to the soldiers surrounding them. She poked at the gaping wound in the dead Necromancer’s chest with a long splinter of wood she had found on the platform.
Lucas felt bile push up from his stomach and looked away. He thought he had gotten used to the gore, but the sight of a fist-sized hole through a human chest was more than he could handle.
“Qalda, I want the body,” she said suddenly, her voice low.
“We can’t claim the corpse without a conflict with the city and our Order,” Qalda said and nodded in gratitude to the blond man. “How much do I owe you, Felix?”
“200 silver. Who is he?” Felix asked, nodding toward Lucas. He had finished extracting verbal promises of payment from the three men he saved and was back to scrutinizing the newcomer.
“He is the new blood. You owe him a welcome gift,” Gio grinned, rubbing his wrist.
“Not now,” Qalda silenced them. She stepped forward, positioning herself between her group and the approaching soldiers.
A warrior clad in gleaming, polished armor was marching toward them, surrounded by a dozen guards.
“Unbowed… Why is it trouble follow your kind wherever you go?” the captain asked, eyeing Qalda warily. His hand rested on the pommel of his sword.
“On the contrary, we are the ones chasing and solving the trouble,” Qalda replied.
“You’re to come with us. To the Lord’s mansion. Let him be the judge of…” the man started sternly, but with every word, Qalda’s gaze sharpened. The pressure radiating from her was heavier than the man was ready to handle.
The captain stopped mid-sentence, cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. He realized, too late, that he was trying to give orders to a woman who had just punched a hole through a Necromancer.
Luckily for him, an older man wearing an azure robe embroidered with a snowflake symbol intervened.
“My deepest apologies!!” he called out with a polite, disarming smile.
He closed the distance to Qalda far too swiftly for someone of his age.
“Henry is new to his task and clings too tightly to protocol. He has yet to learn the proper courtesy when speaking to your Order.”
The old man bowed.
“I am Roland. Roland of Frozfield. My Lord extends an invitation to his residence. For a pleasant conversation, naturally.”
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