Downtown Druid

Argenta dodged the goldmask’s swing as she summoned a blade of black smoke into her hand. She swung the blade and the goldmask attempted to block it with his shield, but part of the sword she held turned to smoke, and it flew right through his shield, cutting a deep gorge across his chest. She dismissed that sword, and summoned a gauntlet into her hand that she slammed into the door in front of her, smashing it inward.

She hadn’t expected the Goldmasks, and that was foolish of her. She’d thought that the interior of the Rendhold would be safe once they eliminated Drake.

A bullet flew toward her, but hit only smoke as she moved toward the one who’d shot it, driving a misty blade through his throat once he reached him. She climbed the steps to her library. She should’ve stayed with the council to keep them safe, but she had other priorities she needed to attend to. She pushed open the door, and the smell of smoke and blood hit her like a carriage.

There were more than twenty corpses all around the library. That was an estimation of course, as most of them were in pieces. In the corner was a small billowing pile of black smoke, with only white scars across it that served as its eyes. She leaned down, and held out her hand, letting the smoke crawl into her palm.

“If you’re still here, I suppose they didn’t find the grimoire.”

“Unfortunately for me, they did not.”

“How did they beat you?”

“Godfrey himself came. The divinity that infuses him… I’m vulnerable to it, as you know.”

“Did they take her?”

Argenta began shimmering with tendrils of black smoke pouring from her. “Is she..?”

“No. He wanted her alive. He spared me to tell you to meet him at the front.”

The smokey aura that surrounded her ceased as she came into perfect clarity. “Let’s show him how foolish he was to leave you alive. “Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Gren slid across her, his smoke slowly covering her body until her eyes were looking through the white scars of his face.

…

Dantes smashed his wooden fist into an armored halfling's face, smashing in his skull. He wove another thread of life back together in his locus as he watched the man fall, and Jacopo repaired another at the same time. His strength had almost recovered, and he could finally see what everyone on the front was doing, though he still couldn’t extend his senses across the entire city as he could just little before. Still, he was grateful to see that everyone fighting had lived, though he’d lost many of his men.

His full strength would return soon though, he knew. He had the added benefit of the various bloodgardens that he and his allies had spread across the city during the fighting that were helping to buoy him. If he hadn’t taken the time to strengthen his locus and connect so much new life in the Pit, he would’ve been done for.

He extended a wand from his palm and blasted another three men with fire as they surged toward him, bullets bouncing off of his new enchantment.

Jacopo shifted from a bat into a man, and used the momentum to crush a gnome before leaping back into the air as a pigeon and doing it again. They moved in perfect unison toward the main barrier that Pacha was defending. It was where the fighting had been the hardest, and they needed the most support. Everyone was heading that way it seemed.

Dantes threw Jacopo at a column of men and he shifted in midair with his claws extended to slay them. Jacopo dodged backward just as a volley of gunshots was fired at him, and Dantes sent rats to swarm them. A dragonkin leapt at him from above, and he shifted into a roach leaving the dragonkin swiping his claws at air before Jacopo leapt onto his back and severed his spine with his claws, before leaping onto Dantes’s shoulder as he shifted back and aimed his pistol at a rifleman that had climbed onto a roof, dropping him with a clean shot. He could feel Jacopo’s love of the fight bleeding into him, and he couldn’t say he disliked it. It felt like as long as they were fighting together, they were unstoppable.

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They were only a few streets away from the main road that led toward Midtown when Dantes heard crying. He stopped in his tracks, his focus snapping toward the cry with such intensity that everything else, the smell of gunpowder, the screams of the dying, the feel of blood against his skin, it all faded away completely.

He started running, shifting into a dove even as he ran and using his momentum to launch himself into the air. Jacopo was right behind him, flying just as desperately as the cry that filled the air seemed to vibrate down to their core. They flew to the source, eventually finding it. Standing on the edge of the roof of an old slum building stood Godfrey and two dozen goldmasks. One of them held the bundled and squirming form of Jacque, and the other held Argenta’s daughter Alby with a knife to her throat.

Godfrey stood, leaning against his sword relaxedly as Dantes and Jacopo landed on the roof across from him. Argenta appeared in a cloud of black smoke shortly after, exchanging a brief glance and nod with him.

Godfrey stretched in his golden armor, looking over them. His eyes had changed, they were no longer gold and matching his face, but had instead become jet black. Dantes noticed that his golden armor was damaged in multiple places. There was a chunk of metal missing from his gorget, dozens of scratch marks across the breastplate, and a tear in the metal near his right armpit.

“Well hello! So nice of you both to show up, though I suppose the invitations were very hard to decline.”

Dantes was starting to gather rats and roaches, and working small vines up toward the goldmask at the edge holding Jacque.

Godfrey disappeared, and reappeared next to that goldmask, taking the baby and holding it roughly in his golden gauntlets making him whimper.

“Let’s not try anything foolish.”

Dantes clenched his jaw, feeling his small tusks dig into the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He stayed still though, turning the full weight of his focus onto Godfrey. At that moment he wasn’t looking through any other rats, roaches, or any other vermin’s eyes. He wasn’t feeling the plants across the locus or detecting movement using his enhanced senses. The full weight of his attention was placed completely on Godfrey and his goldmasks, one of whom actually buckled for a moment, though his golden smile remained in place.

“Good. Your dogs weren’t able to keep their cool when I came for your bastard, and it didn’t go well for them.” He reached behind himself and tossed Zak and Dantes’s black hound’s head into the space between them.

Everything went red for Dantes for a moment, but he stayed completely still.

“Vera? Alessa?”

“Don’t worry, I let the whores live knowing they could do nothing to stop me.”

Jacopo kept his cool, and continued mending their Locus.

“What is the point of all of this?” asked Argenta. “How does this serve Greed? How does this help you? Rendhold is going to win the fight at this rate. Why are you even still here? To hurt us one last time? Are you so impractical?”

“It serves Greed many ways. I have deals with dozens on both sides. As they burn each other out, their souls get sent to greed much faster than they would’ve otherwise, and the aftermath of a conflict is also oh so full of opportunity. That’s not the only reason I do it, of course.”

“Your other patron,” said Dantes.

Godfrey smiled patronizingly. “Very good little rat! I see you remember our last conversation. Greed was the first to grant me his blessing, but I have another to whom I am beloved. Despair.” He took a deep breath, a black and gold aura seeming to emanate from him as he did so. “She gains no matter who wins and loses. The conqueror’s whose hopes are dashed would feed her, as would the defenders as their resistance is crushed. You fed me very well when you slew the Frasheid soldiers. So many had hoped to change their lives in this campaign.”

“Which one gets your soul in the end?” asked Dantes, his face stone and his golden stare unblinking. “I don’t know much about Despair, but I’d bet she’d save you from being forged into a coin by Greed only to let you fall to him at the last moment anyway and savor the look on your face as you fell.”

Godfrey’s smirk held, but his black eyes flickered gold for a moment. “The quality of my service means I won’t see death for a very long time. Especially after today.”

“You think they’ll give a damn about killing two children in front of their parents? They feed off that kind of loss every day,” said Argenta.

Godfrey laughed. “This is just for me. A nice little personal touch for my own amusement. The true despair will come after Rendhold thinks that it’s driven off the invasion, thinks it’s safe, only for me to end it. I’ll feed on the loss of Viscent, Frasheid, and Rendhold all at once. I’ll become more than I am now, the blessing I receive for this will be greater than anything anyone else has ever come close to.”

He smiled wide and golden.

“Now. Taste despair.” He threw Jacque from the side of the building.