Episode 5 - Chapter 30

Secrets buried in shadow, and a kiss that might be goodbye

Previously: Ianc continue the investigation and meet the Huntress, a secret agent in Lys Royeaux who has a link to Abby and his next quest to find Mirari.

Ianc was led out, the cozy warmth of the tavern replaced by the city’s chill. He stood under the failing day light, his mind a jagged mess of half-remembered faces and growing dread. The city seemed oblivious to the darkness brewing beneath its surface. People were already collecting their belongings, preparing to end their day. He glanced at the patrons that wedged him in the middle, Inquisitors or Templars? “You can leave me here,” he said.

“We only follow the Huntress’ order,” the one on the left answered. He was the only one with a beard. He wore thick, rough fabric, the one they used to make burlap sacks.

“I’ve to investigate this immediately.” Ianc yanked his arms, trying to free from their grip. He felt a cold, binding pressure cinch around his Solfire core, a specialized Inquisitor technique Cley had told him about. They could join their Solfire to make searing chains or the likes of suppressing other’s Solfire.

“Ten Aeigions is impressive, Herald,” the one behind him said. He tied up Ianc’s wrists so fast that he didn’t even have a chance to wriggle. “Try again and we’ll break it.”

“We are wasting time here.”

They didn’t answer and kept walking past a few blocks of communal houses. “You can’t be seen dying in our care, Herald. Only four days left until Magus Aleksander made his departure on the Crusade.”

“Three,” Ianc said, noticing the darkening sky. He almost forgot that he was assassinated because of not choosing a side just yesterday. As they almost got back to his mansion, Campa appeared from the corner, looking pissed. “There they are,” Ianc said. He shouted at the oaf templar. “Campa!”

Campa approached, his eyes scanning Ianc’s surroundings. “Making new friends, aren’t you, Herald?” His hand was close enough to his sword’s hilt.

“Friends, we are,” the bearded one said. “Your friend here just got a killer up his arse last night and still wandering the city slum today.”

“I’ll take care of him now,” Campa said. And without a single farewell, the six escorts departed. Each went a different route.

Ianc stared at Campa now and held a finger aloft. He then pulled Campa to the shade of his mansion’s porch. “The boy assassin was one of Cley’s. She did that so anyone who seriously wanted to kill me would halt their hands.”

Campa quirked a brow. “You should act accordingly at least. You wasted her effort.”

“Not wasted. I got a lead worth looking into.”

“The missing squad?”

“How did you know?”

Campa didn’t answer. He signaled the servant to ready their horses.

Ianc glanced around, confused. “Are we not waiting for the rest?”

“Not tonight. Abby and Rahorh are close to discovering something in the ancient texts. Clementine has to… dine with her father.”

“You and me then,” Ianc said. Then, he hopped on Chad. The destrier snorted irritably as he urged it toward the lower city of Lys Royeaux.

Through a sprawling labyrinth of communal houses and crowded streets, Campa took the lead as he was briefed of what Ianc had found from the visit with the Huntress. They came to a Templar garrison. They arrived at the shift exchange time and the feast hall was full of armored templars and servants bustling their arses around with trays of roasted chicken, ham, cheese and large bread slices.

Ianc watched the Templars tearing into roasted chicken, their laughter echoing off the stone. Just months ago, he would have been the one in the corner, worrying about the price of bread and avoiding the gaze of men with swords. Now, he walked among them with an eyepatch and a death warrant, a Herald who knew too much. The ham smelled delicious, but his appetite was a ghost; you don’t stay hungry when you’re waiting for a blade in the dark.

A few recognized Campa, no one asked for the pair’s intrusion. One particular templar noticed Ianc’s eyepatch and nudged his friend. They made a hand signal to Ianc as he passed by and Ianc nodded back at them.

The pair came into a briefing room of the garrison. Desks and chairs were in disarray. The oaf shrugged and strode to a board where they have the vellum map of the district already spread. “They were last seen here.” He pointed at a red dot near where the river winding around the higher ground of a warehouse. “Read and remember the directions around the area.”

Ianc did as he was bidded. Campa strode away and searched for some papers. After a while, he came back with a folder of the missing party’s description—their faces, ranks, where they were dispatched, what their mission was, and where they were last seen. He also scanned through the other groups. Sol Templars were operated in groups of four on patrols and most of the city houses were built in the block style with the only exception where the river flowed around.

Most designs were very symmetric and systemized. He shook his head at awe of how people could live in such a monotonous style. You saw the same thing, did the same routine everyday, even the Templars. “Why did no one search for them before when all the traces are here?” he asked.

“We’re in a trouble time,” Campa reminded Ianc. “These are the urban templars conscripted from the Magister houses. No one cares for them because their allegiance is unclear.”

“Well, at least the Huntress hinted at it. It’s worth a try,” Ianc muttered.

Their first stop was a dyeing warehouse. The report said the area was clear after the rhys and templars scooped the diarrhea away successfully without mortality, but eight never returned.

Dusk had claimed the light when they reached it. The air was thick with the acidic smell of chemicals and the sweet, cloying odor of dyes. They stuck to his throat with sting and itch, like he just got early symptoms from a flu. Beneath the acid was something worse—a thick, floral sweetness of dyes that felt like inhaling wet velvet. It made his stomach churn, a reminder of how easily a man could be dissolved in these vats. Only a few workers remained in the site to dump the last tainted water into the canals. Campa, showing his experience, kept the lead. They found a man wearing brighter clothes on the others, and less soaked with colors. He was also fat and oily, and his hair was very curly.

“You , there. What’s your name?” Campa shouted.

The fat man shuddered at the sight of the oaf templar. He quickly bowed. “Dev, my lord templar.”

“I’m here to investigate the disappearance of a group led by sergeant Hershel II.”

Dev shook his head. “I.. I don’t know, my lord. They were here and seemed to be in a hurry when they left.”

“Where to?”

“The textiles and… and garment warehouse, where master Khraziz produced satin and velvet, expensive fabrics.”

“Why?”

“A templar lord came and talked to them, then they left.”

All in the while, Ianc watched the exchange. The fat man was like him just months ago, stuttering at the sight of authority. He even tilted his head to peek at the man’s eyes when he lowered it before Campa. They were pure terrified, and Ianc could see sweat formed droplets on the man’s forehead. “Let’s go then.” He tapped Campa’s arm.

The garment warehouse where they weave delicate threads of satin and velvet were completely empty when the pair arrived. “Do we proceed?” Campa asked. “I don’t like the darkness of this one. One single drop of our flame and this entire place will torch.”

Ianc sighed. “I got some Ishchoir, we could use them as light sources.”

“Right,” Campa muttered. “Should have brought mine.” He took out two and used his Solfire to light them into balls of brilliance.

The pair proceeded forward, passing through looms and tables and benches. They pressed deeper to the second area where workers raw treated the fabric. Ianc felt a strange cold here, a cold that only abandoned houses got after months, not days. “This place is deserted,” he breathed out the alarm. The sound of Campa unsheathed his sword was ear twitching against the dead silence of this place. Ianc let his infravision flared as he pulled his eyepatch down.

“What the fuck?” Campa asked as he saw it the first time.

Ianc held a finger on his lips. “I… could see the magic in the air.” He took the lead and guided Campa towards a door at the end of the hallway.

“Bloody sewer again,” Campa complained.

The canals below—a waste management system that was never meant for human traffic—smelled of rot and damp earth. Their boots sloshing through stagnant water of the city’s underbelly, passing through bars gate after bar gate represent the drains of the communal houses above. The smell got stronger and Ianc unsheathed his sword as well.

They proceed slowly. As Campa kicked the lightsphere again, it skittered across the muck; its golden glow bouncing off the damp stone walls before it hit something soft and stopped dead. Ianc’s breath hitched. In the flickering light, a hand, leathery and desiccated as ancient bark, clawed up from the muck, fingers curled in a final, futile grasp.

He lowered his eyepatch, letting the cold blue of his infravision flood the tunnel. The mess wasn’t just bodies; it was a tableau. Eight men, frozen in a silent scream, their life force not just taken, but harvested. Their skin was pulled taut over their bones, their faces twisted in silence agony. “Any chance to identify these… mummified corpses?” Ianc asked.

“They wore the insignia of house Lux,” Campa replied. “We should get back to the barrack and report this mess first.”

Ianc nodded. A dread ran through his mind. Lux meant light and they died in the dark.

---

The next day, Ianc led the full party to Magus Damien Lux’s mansion. The opulent facade, usually bustling with servants and guards, was eerily silent. Their calls went unanswered, a cold premonition settling in their bones. They ventured in and found the entire family, all of them dead, their faces pale and lifeless, drained of all blood from their wounds. The scene was an echo of the sewers, but without the touch of necromancy art.

“We should report,” Clementine said, her voice shaking with a rare tremor of fear. “This is evil work, beyond the coup within Lys Royeaux.”

Rahorh knelt, his hands hovering over one of the bodies. He checked for any traces of magic, his brow furrowed in concentration. The rest of the party spread out, their weapons drawn, to secure and investigate the mansion.

Amidst the carnage, they found a single survivor. She hid in a forgotten pantry, shivering with terror, a girl no older than sixteen. Cle interrogated her on scene and found out she was Dia Lux. She had run away from home the previous night, mad at her father for bringing in a girl of her own age as a concubine to the house. Her story, a simple tale of teenage rebellion, was a jarring contrast to the horror that had unfolded in her absence. It was a cruel stroke of fate that had saved her, a chance occurrence that had kept her from the same grisly end as her family. The plotting of this wretched city, once tangled in conspiracies masked by holy magic, now had a human face, a survivor to tell a very different tragic story.

Ianc signaled Cle to let him take the lead. “I’m the Herald of the Sacred Light. You must have heard of me.” He offered the girl his tea and biltong.

She ate them hungrily. Her eyes occasionally shifted from Ianc to the rest of the group. “My father was with you during the Inquisition,” she spoke after swallowing. “And he returned with that girl, sparkling blue eyes even behind the veil.”

Could be Mirari, Ianc thought. The mark on his chest throbbed, a cold wall against the frantic beat of his heart. He deliberately changed the subject, trying to hide his true intention. “Who had a feud with your family?”

She shook her head. “Could be everyone. But this girl is the culprit. She killed everyone.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“She was talking to herself mostly,” Dia said, her voice a memory of horror. “I helped her clean once. She had those… tattoos glowing under the water. I assume she was an Umbrite, and that’s why my family got murdered. Can you understand it? Of all the women in this world, my father had to bring an Umbrite home.”

Ianc helped her up and handed her over to Campa. “She stayed with me.”

As the oaf escorted Dia away, Abby approached. “Stay with you?”

“This is the work of the Church’s pruning, isn’t it?” Ianc asked but already knew the answer. “The girl needs shelter.”

“He’s right,” Cle interrupted. “Before we know who executed this purge, his mansion is the safest place.”

A templar approached with fear in his eyes. “We found Magus Damien. He died differently than the rest.”

Ianc grabbed firmly on the templar’s shoulder. “Mummified?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Go on about your business,” Ianc said.

Cley stepped closer to him. “Your sister’s work?” she asked, then held a finger before Ianc could answer. “She could already be an apprentice to the lich. You… are not fit to lead this chase anymore, Ianc.”

He nodded, understanding the complications. “We know how Damien died now. We check the records for similar deaths, both Suledins and Scrosanct alike. I’ll reside in my residence, but you must inform me of progress.”

“We will,” Abby said blandly.

Before she could walk away with her sister, Ianc pulled her back. “Are you mad at me?”

“No.” She tilted her head.

Ianc looked into her gorgeous round eyes. “This whole thing is weird. First, the new Huntress hinted at the missing templars. But how could an important person like herself work an entire day in a tavern?”

Abby raised a brow. “Do you remember her face?”

Ianc straightened his back and frowned. He tried to conjure the Huntress’s image. He remembered the weight of the tray she held, the way the tavern floor creaked under her boots, but her face was a blur of static. Every time he reached for a feature—the shape of a nose, the color of an eye—his mind slid off it like grease on silk. It wasn’t just a disguise; it was a deletion. “No.”

“She wasn’t even there until the time of her appointment,” Abby said. She stared at him.

“How?” Ianc asked. His mind worked on the scenario. “She switched with the keeper, but why can’t I tell the difference, nor can I remember their faces?

“That I can’t answer,” Abby bit her lips. “I was a sister of the order so I can’t spill our secrets in daylight.”

Ianc sighed, “I guess it was for her safety.” He accepted that the real Huntress had put a kind of forgetfulness spell on him without him knowing. She even completed the tavern’s chores at the end, playing the role perfectly until he was out of sight. What if the archlich was even better at that. A full deletion of his memory. “Is there a way to remember?”

“Not that I know of,” Abby said, “The spell clouds your nerves before the encounter.”

Ianc bit his lips. “Food poisoning?”

Abby nodded. “Not necessarily, your case just needs a pinch of blue mushroom powder.” She winked at him. “I’ll come tonight, it might be our last night together.”

Ianc pulled her close. “Don’t say that.” Then he kissed her.

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