Vigil's Valor: 36 - An Appropriate Level of Vengeance

After we got done, I used Pascow’s private altar to pay a quick visit to my Soul Vault. I dropped off my new weapon skin and spent a handful of minutes re-specing once again. I’d given Kerra her week of concentrated training and now that I was done paying off my debt to Pascow, it was time to get back on the job and figure out how to stop the Chaos Aberration that was tearing up Wildespell. I sure as shit couldn’t do that with a bunch of utility crafting skills so I opted for a more generalist build with a good mix of combat and investigation abilities.

Master Mentalist, Combat Sense, Honeyed Words, Sidhe Pact, Fae Tether, Rend, Blunt Weapons Mastery, Totem Transformation, and Armor Evocation were all givens. I also tacked on Festering Wound, to round out my build with some solid DPS, then added in Warded Shield and Kinetic Blast since both were cheap and had tons of practical value even inside the city walls. That ate through 70 of my available Ward Points. I used the rest on two new and somewhat unconventional abilities.

The first was a high-level skill from the Ward of Truth called Grave Communion. At 24 Ward Points, it was one of the priciest spells I could unlock but it had one hell of an upside: it let me talk to the dead. I mean, it wasn’t like picking up a cell phone and connecting a call to the underworld, but it was the next best thing.

Grave Communion

Not even death can stop a Vigil from finding the answers they seek. Grave Communion allows a Vigil to leave their physical body behind and travel in spirit to seek out souls who have passed beyond the veil and into the Etheric Realm. For Grave Communion to succeed, the Vigil must have a physical Focus Object from the deceased, preferably a piece of their earthly body— though occasionally items with strong sentimental value will also work.

Once inside the Etheric Realm, the Vigil can use the Focus Object to create a visible tether to the deceased soul which can be followed. But be warned, the Etheric Realm offers untold dangers for the bodiless spirit, and if a Vigil lingers too long from their flesh, they run the risk of losing their way back and being stranded as an incorporeal entity. Additionally, when Astral Projecting, a Vigil’s body is rendered unconscious and is vulnerable to attacks.

Recommended Attribute Minimums: Verve, 22; Insight, 20; Arcana, 28

Recommended Skill Selections: Mind Vault

The idea of Astral Projecting into the land of the dead definitely seemed like a big gamble, but even if it was dangerous, I figured the ability to interview victims directly could be an added benefit.

Lastly, I snagged Mind Vault from the Ward of Wrath, which was a passive utility skill that had a couple of big perks. One, it would insulate my mind and prevent me from going bat-shit insane when I tried to reach between the veil of the living and the dead to talk with the deceased. Two, it would likewise prevent me from having a mental breakdown when I read my new Legacy Scrolls. And three, it would keep people from messing around inside my noggin. It granted an almost total immunity to mind-based magics, so spells like Honeyed Words, Greater Suggestion, and Dream Thief wouldn’t work on me anymore.

I’d already been mentally probed once by the Custodians, and it hadn’t been a pleasurable experience. I’d love to avoid going through that again and I also had the gnawing suspicion that maybe someone had been checking up on me via Dream Thief. I couldn’t be sure about that, but I had been sleeping like absolute dogshit ever since I got to Wildespell. But during my week away from the city, I hadn’t had a single nightmare. Not one. I wasn’t prone to nightmares in the first place and the timing was certainly suspicious.

Maybe I was just being paranoid. Or maybe not. It’s like that old adage goes, it’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you.

I was bummed that I couldn’t afford Cunning Glamor, but there were only so many points to spend.

Business done, I headed back toward the dormitory wing, ready to pop the seal on the Scroll of Twin Shadows—just a little light bedtime reading—then pass out for a few hours. Now that I’d completed Kerra’s training assignment, I was off the hook and free to do whatever I wanted. Tomorrow I’d have a full day to start busting in doors and turning over rocks to see what wriggled out. The plan was to hit the streets early, maybe head over to the Baker’s district and see if I couldn’t turn anything up about the dead kid.

When I got back to my room, all thoughts of the investigation fled my mind. There was a trail of iridescent blood splattered across the floor and Renholm was caterwauling at the top of his lungs like an angry racoon.

I slammed the door and took off at a sprint for the bedroom.

“Don’t overact,” Cal said, looking up at me from beside the bed as I slid around the corner. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

It looked really bad.

The pixie was sprawled out on my sheets. Half his body was a charred mess and he was missing his left leg below the knee. Sir Jacob-Francis was crouched beside Renholm, his fuzzy orange face pressed against the pixie’s shoulder, his tail flicking back and forth in agitation. The cat’s back was covered in more of the pixie’s iridescent blood, probably from hauling him from the field of battle.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I growled. “It looks like someone shoved him into a miniature woodchipper.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty accurate actually,” Cal said with a nod. “Hidden magical ward, custom built to stop Fae, but definitely inside the same ballpark.”

I rushed over and knelt down beside the bed.

“Renholm,” I said, leaning close, “what can I do to help?”

Every Marine knew basic field combat medicine. I could stop a sucking chest wound, knew how to apply a tourniquet, and could patch up a bullet wound with Quikclot and a field dressing, but none of that helped me right now. Aside from superficial similarities, pixie anatomy was wildly different than human anatomy, plus he was the size of a barbie doll. Even if I wanted to apply a tourniquet to his leg, I’d need tweezers and dental floss.

The pixie blinked open his eyes and waved for me to draw closer.

He coughed and sputtered, taking deep labored breathes. “I know I’ve never been especially nice to you but,” he croaked in a hoarse whisper, “and I just wanted you to know…” he paused and hacked again, frothy blood dribbling from his thin lips. “I just want you to know that’s because I don’t respect you and I find it deeply amusing.”

“Not where I expected that to go, but okay,” I muttered.

“There’s one other thing,” he said. “Swear that you’ll avenge me,” he hissed, before shutting his eyes dramatically, his chest going still.

“Renholm!” I yelled, shaking his chest with my index finger, “don’t you dare die on me.”

He blinked one eye open, “There’s no need to scream, I’m not dying.”

“What do you mean, you just said avenge me?”

“Yeah, he’s been asking me to avenge him for like two hours,” Cal said.

“Just because I’m not in immediate threat of death, doesn’t mean I don’t need to be avenged!” Renholm said, propping himself up on his elbows. “That ass-headed, coxcomb of an Arbitrator set me on fire! Count Boyd, your liege has been beset and I demand satisfaction! Bloody and terrible vengeance! I don’t think that’s too much to ask do you?” He flopped back onto the bed.

Now that I knew he wasn’t actually dying some of the tension drained out of my shoulders.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, Cal and I will exact an appropriate level of vengeance, assuming you didn’t do something to bring this down on yourself.”

“That was an extremely political and noncommittal answer,” Renholm replied, regarding me thoughtfully. “I approve. You’re getting better at lying and conniving all the time.”

“Uh, thank you, I guess?” I said, not sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult. “But I feel like we’re getting off track. The important part is that you’re going to live right?”

He grimaced. “Yes, I’ll live, but the damage is severe. I’ll need to evolve if I have any hope of repairing the damage, and I’m not certain even that will bring my leg back. Usually, losing a limb is a minor inconvenience at most to one of my kind, but the damnable priest employed a type of Chaos magic that is antithetical to Etheric beings. It leaves behind a taint that stunts our regenerative properties.”

Chaos magic? Ding, ding, ding. I wanted to know more, but first I needed to take care of Renholm.

“What do you mean you need to evolve?” I asked.

“Much like insects, my kind go through a metamorphosis as we age. Young sprites are essentially the pupil form of my species. They eventually reach adolescence and evolve into Pixies, such as myself.”

“Wait, you’re a goddamned teenager?” I asked. Oh my god, that explained so much. Maybe all Fae weren’t raging, petty, narcissistic, thieves after all. Maybe that was just teenagers being teenagers.

“I’m one hundred and seventeen,” he shot back, “now please don’t interrupt your elders or your betters. As I was saying, pixies evolve not merely through time, but through circumstance. Once we lay claim to a qualified territory and amass enough Affinity, we evolve again. It is a much less linear transformation, since it largely depends on what type of Affinity we have cultivated. The process should take a day or perhaps two and during that time, my body will undergo a rapid series of changes, which in theory will heal the damage done by that cursed priest.”

“Great,” I said, “so what are you waiting for? Evolve already and stop bleeding all over my bed.”

“Yes, about that.” He looked up at me and gave me a wide smile. “I haven’t quite amassed enough Affinity yet. I need a Sage Class Affinity Scale.”

I grunted. Why was I not surprised?

I had two Sage Class Scales—both bounty rewards from taking out the Hexblight—and according to Pascow, they were worth a legitimate fortune.

Still, none of that mattered to me. No one would argue that Renholm wasn’t insane. Or that he wasn’t an asshole. Or that he wouldn’t kill and skin me in my sleep if it benefited him in even the slightest way. But he was also my friend. Part of my crew. And he’d been hurt in the line of duty, doing something I’d asked him to do. A Sage Class Affinity Scale was a small price to pay if it meant he’d be able to walk again. I quickly swapped out to my Mule Build, which is where I kept all my good shit, and pulled both Sage Scales from a pouch inside my pack.

I held a luminous pearl scale in one hand and a dull obsidian scale in the other. Seraphic and Chaos. Order and disorder. Light and Darkness.

“Take your pick,” I said.

Renholm’s eyes bulged and he let out a strangled choke. “Truly?” he asked, sounding utterly shocked. “You would freely give one of these most precious tokens to me?”

“We’ve fought together. Bled together. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count. As far as I’m concerned, that makes us brothers and I’ll do anything for my family.”

For a long beat, the look of disbelief lingered on Renholm’s face, as if I were playing some especially cruel joke on him.

“I taste the power of chaos in the air,” he said slowly. “Oblivion magic is one of the rarest of all affinities. I’ll take that one.” He thrust a bony finger at the jet-black scale. Once again, why wasn’t I surprised? I leaned over and pressed it into his outthrust hand, then stowed the Seraphic Scale back into my pack.

“You’re not jesting,” Renholm said, gaze flicking back and forth between me and the scale.

“Nope.” I shook my head. “It’s all yours.”

“You truly are the queerest of men, Boyd Knight—”

“Still shouldn’t say that,” I muttered.

“—but you are also admirable,” he finished without missing a beat. “I have stayed by your side until now in order to take advantage of you and siphon as much Essence and Affinity from you as possible, like a dashing and handsome leech. No longer. As your idiot spirit friend says so often, we are ride or die now. My kind have long memories and you shan’t regret this, Boyd Knight.”

He slammed the Chaos Scale into his mouth and bit down. Purple light strobed in his mouth and spider black veins raced through his frail body like lightning strikes.

A second later he exploded, splattering iridescent gore all over my bed.

Goddamn it.

NEXT