Chapter Twenty-Five, Blood

Enelat was surprisingly skilled with the blade for a mechanic. Admittedly he wasn't a mere mechanic, if she was lucky he would only be a very talented and possibly insane necromancer if not..He could easily be a warlock as powerful as Kron.

He fought with a knife. The blade was broken, and if the structure was any indication it was originally a sword. It had been masterfully enchanted too; she couldn't have hoped to weave these sorts of spells into anything. Whatever, or whoever, had broken it must have had ungodly power. On top of it all, it seemed to be made of what Nond had once refered to as 'Bloodstone'. It was physically indestructable, magically absorbent, and impossible for all but the best smiths to work with. For that matter, few outside of the Imperial Guards knew of it.

She kicked him back across the room and narrowly avoided his magical retaliation. She should have considered it before hand, few things were more unwise than confronting a mage on his home turf. This was his inner sanctum, he'd plastered enchantments upon it. Every stone and bar in the room gave him strength, and the air hindered her spells. Had she taken the time..

Alicea felt the moon reach past the horizon. She was to late, but at least when she awoke this unholy monster would be a bloody pulp.

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Ishylde awoke in a small cage in a large room. The first indication something was wrong was the flickering lights. Rarely a good sign in and of itself, the fact that several had been shorn in half and she could only determine that another had been there at all by its spark spitting fastenings. She stepped throught the bars of her cell, one of which appeared to have been torn in half and all of which had been severely bent. She heard a voice to her left, a man's voice and a vaguely familiar one.
"Tania," he sputtered. "Please come down to the cellar, I haven't much time."

The man toppled to the floor. She rushed over to help him, stopping in shock as she recognized who the man was. Enelat, her captor, had less skin showing than bones. One of his eyes had been gouged and the other was swollen shut, and the damage to his face was so horrific it was a miracle that he had enough throat and mouth left to speak. She could see several wounds had been cauterized, likely by his own hand and spells. And he'd clearly stopped bleeding. But the damage done was too great for survival to be possible.

"Ishylde. I know how you must feel about me. I wish I could make it up to you somehow, take the trucks and anything else your commander needs. She may be the only one with the strength to defeat them, just be careful under the moonlight."
"You think you can just apologize and pay me off? I hope you.."
"Dad?"

Tania, the thing from the door had a name apparently, was standing in the entrance of the passage. Enelat looked up to the girl. He placed one gore-laden hand to the top of his desk and the Alchemic glow spread from it across the hall. The pattern he'd created gave off a pale red light, Tania shrank back subconsciously at the sight.
"Sweetheart, stand in the center; this is my command."
That phrase seemed to resonate in Tania. She walked to the center of the room without question and stood there, still questioning what had hapened to her elder.
"Ishylde, please grant a dying guard's request. Take care of her. And if you would just activate this, anywhere would be," he coughed up a clear bile, there wasn't any blood left to lose. "Fine. Please, she's all I've ever really cared for."

Ishylde didn't even think twice about it. The last request was the most holy of all traditions; denying it was worse than murder. No matter how wicked a man might be, he deserved to have a reasonable request granted as he died.
"Goodbye Tania, my little angel. I wish I'd had time to explain everything. Please, listen to Ishylde. She's quite capable, and she'll keep you safe until you can master my power. I know you know where the spellbooks are, take them with you."
Ishylde activated the pattern. Enelat fell apart as the magic he'd used to hold himself together was transfered to his daughter. A grey mist rose as his body disolved, concealing Tania from sight. It faded to reveal her as an ordinary Nielda, indistinguishable from anyone she'd have met in town.

"Dad said I should go with you."
Without her fur, or any of her other canine features, she was actually a very sweet and attractive girl.
"That's fine with me. Let's get started with those trucs then."

She never figured out how she just kept going. Maybe Marelle had acustomed her to violence, maybe some fogotten Nieldic instinct had kicked in, but Ishylde slept as well that night as on any other.