Part 3: A reckoning rides from the west

Katrin's eyes harden at the mention of Gesrik. "Yes, I'd like to know what he's planning. One of his goons said that he wanted us out of the way. Before he was pasted across the floor "

Thezra sighs, glancing to the door and then back to the man. If they planned to stay longer, she could use this as a good time to part ways, but there was a lingering curiosity over what that had all been about. It seemed rather clear the man they'd met - Gesrik - had a grudge already. Surely that was enough of a reason to send men after them. But he did it in the middle of the city. And from what she'd already gleaned, he may have had some connection to the other problems they'd been dealing with. "Prop him up and get him awake. Get him talking but do it quickly."

Katrin stands up, her cold eyes locked on the unconscious hobgoblin. She walks over, crouching down in front of where he was slumped against a wall. After a moment of looking him over, she smacks him with a swift backhand, bringing him back to consciousness. "So. You work for Gesrik I presume. How is he? Well, I hope." Her tone is hard as stone and as cold as ice. 

The hobgoblin grumbles softly at Katrin's strike, and glares up at her with baleful eyes. "Better than you lot," he says.

Thezra scoffs loudly from behind Katrin.  "For a man whose every ally is currently lying face down in a pool of their own blood — while we're all fine — that's cute."

Lilliana coughs a few times as her smoke burnt lungs still ached whenever she took a deep breath as she stares at the unconscious cultist from this strange lightning cult that sought her, rising to her feet and walking over to them. She checks his bonds to make sure that they were secure before placing one hand upon the cultist's shoulder and a golden glow flares to light upon her neck and forehead as the symbols appear before fading into a glowing energy that trickles down into her neck, through her shoulder, and finally out of her hand into the unconscious cultist. She quickly draws back, stumbling again from the prosthetic and her own exhaustion before standing fully upright over him, glaring down at him. "Wake up, you have much to answer for."

Katrin's expression doesn't change. "Last time, he said our debt was paid. I killed his brother, he killed Kou. We were even. Why is he so interested in our demise all of a sudden?"

Seeing Lilli work her magic and bring the other prisoner back to consciousness Akiran walks over and slings the cultist roughly over his shoulder. Gruffly adding "We gotta special room for ya".   Turning towards the door Akiran pauses for a moment before making his way to the hobgoblin. The Dragonborn leans forward his snout close enough to the mans face that the dragonborn's icy breath can be felt. Quietly Akiran says "Trying ya hardest, ya couldn't even put a scratch on my armor.  Keep up da smart shit an' ya won't wake up next time." A he walks at the room he calls out to Thezra "Wanna give us a hand with em?"

The hobgoblin spits at Akiran's feet as the dragonborn walks by. His attention moves to Thezra.  "We have people everywhere," he says. "My brother has an army of men at his command." His attention settles on Katrin.  "We've been watching you lot, dwarf," he says. "We know what you're doing. We know you met with the king. We know he offered a bounty. You lot are hot-blooded enough to act on it. Gesrik doesn't want that."

Katrin nods, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looks at the hobgoblin, her voice turning frigid. "Then Gesrik shouldn't have killed my friend. And if that's what he's afraid of....well." Katrin smiles, cold and mirthless.  "Then he's already a dead man."

"You'll never get to him," the hobgoblin says, sneering. "You don't even know where to look."

The hobgoblin spits at Akiran's feet as the dragonborn walks by. His attention moves to Thezra.  "We have people everywhere,"  he says.  "My brother has an army of men at his command." "Then he probably should've sent them." Thezra gives Akiran an uncommited shrug as she remains a short ways back from the hobgoblin and Katrin. "Your brother's Gesrik then? Does he have so many he likes throwing them to their deaths like this?"

My brother. So, Gesrik had another one. Another part of his family he was willing to sacrifice. Or maybe because he thought she would be kind. Or that they wouldve been victorious in their attack. But she was not kind. Not today. "You're right," she says, glancing at Thezra. "We don't know where to look. But you do. And that's something we can use."

Seeing the Orc's indifference Akiran hauls the man into the dragonborn's own room, stuffing one of the rags he uses to polish his armor into the man's mouth before closing him in the room. Looking to Lilli he asks quietly "This is ya show Lilli. I'll help ya get anything ya want to know. But first we gotta figure out what ya want to know?"

As Katrin questions the hobgoblin, Thrandimir flips a copper piece through the air, muttering a few words of arcane power as he catches it. The spell expands the wizard's psychic senses allowing him to 'hear' the prisoner's surface thoughts.  The hobgoblin is angry and also somewhat amused that Thezra thinks that Gesrik is his blood brother. "It's a figure of speech," Thrandimir murmurs quietly to Katrin. "They're not related."

Katrin smiles faintly, her head tilting slightly as Thrandimir mutters in her ear. "To be named a brother is just as strong as being born of blood. There's a bond between them. Words and names hold much power, as he told us, and to call one a brother is no insignificant thing."

"So you understand," the hobgoblin says. "He does not send us lightly, no, and for every man you kill, he mourns. But you present a problem that must be dealt with."

"Oh yes, I understand," Katrin's voice drops to a near-whisper, the smile fading from her lips. "I understand that if I kill you, Gesrik will send another. Until the problem is dealt with. Until we are dead. Because, if I were in his place, I'd do the same thing." Her jaw tightens. "But there's one thing I'd do different. I wouldn't keep sending the people I care about to their deaths. I'd do it myself." She leans in, her eyes a mere hairsbreadth from the hobgoblins. " Why does Gesrik hide behind the people he leads?"

Lilli nods at Akiran, she felt like smiling, but the dire circumstances they had found themselves jammed into did not feel conducive to smiling. "Thank you, Akiran."  She sighs angrily and gestures towards the door. "I want to know who they are, why they're after me, why they think I know something about something called 'the catalyst'! I want to know why I've been running from them for the last several years of my life! Why I've had to live in fear of what they wanted to do to me!"  The words spilled out of her much louder and faster than she intended them and immediately she regrets unloading on Akiran like that. She winces.  "I'm sorry, Akiran. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just been a lot in the last few days. Everything seems to be catching up to me at all once. I know he said that the one mainly after me is this 'Archon', but he claims to not know their name nor what this... catalyst is. So, I guess... maybe try to find out how they found me? Seems like no matter how good my fake identities were, nor how many times I changed my name and ran, they always seemed to find me. I'd like to know how. Maybe he even knows if they're after me because of my powers or maybe my aasimar blood? The rumors I always heard was about my angel blood. Maybe that's what I should start with? I've never done anything like this before. Is there something else you think I should ask him?"

Sympathy fills Akiran's eyes "It's good Lilli. E'erything 'bout today's been a shit storm, what's ah few extra words 'tween friends." His hand reaches for his flask before he sadly remembers once again that it's as dry as a bone. Fiddling with the flask he says "Ya questions make sense, but keep ya hope in check ya know? I've been a blade for hirer more time than I can count, an' they never told me shit cept what I had to know." Pointing to the room "An' that bastards a hired blade. He was just too stupid ta get his gold. Damn true believer's. Chumps like em are ta easy ta get do ya dirty work. An' worse ya don't even have ta pay em." Meeting her eyes again, his voice growing a bit more upbeat  "But he may know how da fuck they keep finding ya, an' even more important what da set up is at Lookout hill. How many swords they got, what type traps an' magic's protecting da place" Placing his hand on her shoulder "I'm thinkin we get what we can from em, an' then find the Archon. Figure out what da fuck they want ya for, an' then gut him. Maybe with em gone, no one else'll be coming after ya. But this is ya show kid, we'll play it how ya want."

Lilliana nods as she takes in Akiran's advice, taking mental notes from his expertise. "I never would have thought about that; I suppose I should start thinking like a soldier now instead of... whatever I am, was... I..."  She trails off, shaking her head as she looks at Akiran. "I think I'm ready to ask now."  She tries to force the shakiness of her voice away, steeling herself for what she was about to do. This was it; no more running. If these people would not stop hunting her, then she would start hunting them. Let them suffer constant fear and anxiety, never knowing when the next time would be. Always wondering if the person smiling at you on the streets was simply one of them trying to keep your off your guard. She takes a deep, steadying breath and holds it for several heartbeats, letting it out slowly before locking eyes with Akiran and striding back into the room purposefully. She walks up to the cultist and stands over him, staring down. "You are going to tell me what I want to know. Or we are going to hurt you. Horribly." As she speaks, her form begins to shimmer and change to an identical replica of the man sitting before her except for the extremities of his face; where there should have been two eyes were empty, bloody sockets, where his nose... a gaping, rotten hole, and scarred stumps where his ears should have protruded from his head.  "Now, speak. How did you find me?"

"Gesrik doesn't hide," the hobgoblin says, bitter anger cutting through his voice. "He has other things to deal with." The cultist recoils in horror at the display of his own mutilated features. Tears spring to his eyes and he scoots backward on the floor. "The archon told us where you were!"

Lilliana steps closer to him, not allowing him to scoot away. "If you know what I am, then you know what I will do to you. Now,  talk!"   She grabs him by the hair, forcing him to look up at her. "How did you find me?!"

"The archon always knows! He always knows! He always knows! I don't know how!"  The fear in his voice turns to pleading.

RisenZed said: "Gesrik doesn't hide," the hobgoblin says, bitter anger cutting through his voice. "He has other things to deal with." Katrin leans back, looking over the hobgoblin. "Gesrik sent you to take us out the equation, did he?"

Akiran struggles to keep his scales from betraying his own surprise at the horrific form that Lilli transformed too. With Lilli as the terrifying interrogator, Akiran's surprised to find himself playing the friendly face. Seeing the man overcome with fear and remembering his own words about this man being a grunt. Akiran changes tact and says in a soothing tone   "Ya gotta give us something." Pointing at Lilli and the disfigured mess of the man's face "Ya know she's da catalyst and wields powerful magic. Keep pissing her off and nothing "ill stop what's she's gonna ta do to ya." Meeting the man's eyes "Tell us about da Archon, his name. Where he is? What powers does he wield? Who's guarding em. Anything we need ta know." Leaning forward he places a hand on the man's shoulder  "Play it straight with me, an' I'll try to spare ya from da worse of what she can do...."

Katrin leans back, looking over the hobgoblin. "Gesrik sent you to take us out the equation, did he?" "He wants you dead so much yet he can't be bothered to show up. In Ore'agah we'd call that 'rude'," Thezra chuckles. " I have no stake in this but from what I've heard Katrin here had your 'brother' dead to rights last they met." Looking to Katrin for confirmation, she turns back and stares down her nose at the bound man. Of what she knew of him, Gesrik had run when his life was on the line and now sent men like this to fight in his stead.  Hard to say who's the more pathetic leader — this bandit or the King himself.   "He may not hide, but he does run away with his tail between his legs it seems."

Katrin nods a quick confirmation to Thezra's question, turning back to the hobgoblin with a raised eyebrow. 

Lilliana holds the man's gaze with a terrifying silence as she waits for his answers to Akiran's questioning as the latest answer ripples across her mind. 'He always knows.'  All these years she had been running and hiding, to no avail. It had all been pointless. She felt a sickening emptiness spreading throughout her body; a sense of futility that rapidly turned to a raging fury at the loss of her personal agency. They'd taken away all of it, her life, her free will, everything!  Her fingers tighten their grip on the man's hair, pulling painfully upon the roots and she shakes his head violently. "Answer him. Or you answer to me."

The hobgoblin spits on the floor at Thezra's feet. "You know nothing, orc ," he says.  "She's not the catalyst!" the cultist cries. "She's not! She knows where it is! I don't know his name. He's just the Archon. He has the power of God!" The cultist's words tumble out over each other. He's almost slurring them together, as if he were drunk -- drunk on fear.

Katrin clicks her tongue disapprovingly. "That was very rude. She makes a good point though," she sits back on her heels. "If you've nothing left to say, well. Time is short. Especially yours."

"Do what you must," he says, looking up at Katrin and Thezra with defiance in his eyes. 

For a long moment, Katrin doesn't move, her eyes still on the hobgoblin. She leans forward, ripping the front of his shirt open just enough to see the glistening mark carved into his skin. She looks back at the hobgoblin. "He knows where you are. Which means he knows where we are, if he can put two and two together." She gets to her feet, pacing away, looking at Thezra, Thrandimir, and Ash.  "We need to know where Gesrik is. If this man isn't going to tell us...there's no point in keeping him around."

"Kill him then."  Folding her arms over her chest, Thezra shrugs, "Or drag him with you when you leave. Maybe Gesrik will actually come in person to take him back."

Thrandimir watches Katrin carefully as she speaks, his grey eyes hard and uncompromising. "I saw it when I looked into his mind. A heavily wooded area with lots of rocky and hilly terrain. I think probably the foothills of some mountains. There's an old fortress there with walls and spires along the mountainside, but I don't recognise the place."

The mention of a mountain fortress rolls across Thezra's mind, prickling against familiar bumps she hadn't thought of in some time. "You don't mean around the old Wardens, do you?" She arcs a brow towards the wizard,  "As I recall there's at least half a dozen of those old ancient things scattered about the hills there. Gesrik could be in any one of them."  Glancing over Katrin's shoulder at the hobgoblin still tied up behind them, she starts weighing the options. "Unless your friend there wants to help narrow that down, you'll have to start going door to door."

Katrin hesitates. As much as she wanted to put Gesrik in the ground immediately, there was a more pressing matter. She looks at Ash. Save his brother from Vecna. Then we can kill Gesrik. "Finding Gesrik won't be a problem. I'm sure he'll find us if he gets too impatient. Right now, we need to get out of this city. Then save Casimir."

"Then kill this one and let's leave,"  Thezra straightens her back and pulls her sword tight against it, turning now towards the door. "I'm ready to put all of this behind me."

Lilli shares a look with Akiran. "Where can I find this Archon? How many of you are there?"

The cultist swallows hard. "Sometimes he visits us at our temple...on the road to the Harbor. There's a few dozen of us there, I think. Please, just let me go. I'll explain everything to them. Tell them that we were wrong, that you weren't here. Please!"

Lilliana glances at Akiran, she was trying to get a read on whether he was being honest, but... he was just so terrified, she felt that he would say anything to save himself from her. 'What have they been told about me?'  She leans down in, again, pushing that mangled face close to the man again. "Tell me the name of your god and I will consider not razing your temple to ashes."  

Vesh said: "Then kill this one and let's leave,"  Thezra straightens her back and pulls her sword tight against it, turning now towards the door. "I'm ready to put all of this behind me." Katrin gets to her feet, crossing to the table and the axe still lying on it. She picks it up, turning back to the hobgoblin, running a thumb along the edge as she walks back over. Same as before, with little preamble, she embeds the axe in his neck, watching with cold eyes as his lifeblood runs out. Pulling it out, she wipes the edge on her tunic, still soiled with blood and soot from the barn. Would Rose approve? Of all this killing? Even in the name of keeping your family safe?  "So we don't tell her," Katrin mutters, intending to be in her head, but the whispered words clearly heard by everyone else. 

With the hobgoblin dead, Thezra peaks into the other interrogation. "Are you finished with this one ye—"  She reflexively does a double take at the mutilated figure of what must be Lilliana standing over the trembling man at her feet. Her gaze darts to Akiran, however, and locking eyes with the dragonborn, she raises a brow to the whole scene. Doing her best to convey both her surprise and the need to leave soon, she doubles back into the main suite.  "Those two should be done soon, then we move."

"He is the lightning god! The lord of the sky. The thunderer. That's all I know!"

Lilliana shakes her head in disgust. "You don't seem to know much about anything, do you, foolish little cultist." She looks to Akiran and leads him away from the cultist, allowing the horrible illusion to fade away. "I don't know that we will get much more out of him. What do you think? Anything you can think we should try to learn from him?"

Akiran gives Thezra small nod as the Orc pops into the room, the scales around his face taut in a stern expression though worry is clear in his eyes. As Lilli leads him away he shakes his his snout and says "Ya that's da damn problem with fanatics, don't ask any questions just rush out ta die for da cause"  Pausing for a moment he adds "Got one last thing ta ask em, bastards with secrets like this usually gotta way to hide or lock their base down. I'll ask em if there's anything special we need ta do ta get in." Akiran thinks of the hell they've been through the last few days as he meets Lilli's eyes and once again seeing her true face looking back. "After we ask that, why don't ya meet up with da others an' see if ya can find us a drink. If Fortune's kind Na'rik brought some of da Fireblade Whiskey with em. I'll clean up here." Twisting his snout into a humanish smile and trying to force a bit of cheer into his voice. Ash's dead eyed stare on his mind as he meets Lilli's gaze and resolves to finish this, so she won't.

Lilli nods and steps aside, giving Akiran access to the terrified man. "I can do that, sure."  She leans in, placing a hand upon his shoulder and whispers as he passes. "What do we do with him?"  The practical side of her knew exactly  what Akiran would do with the man, but the altruistic part of her, the one she'd had to try and bury deep down inside of herself to survive these last few years alone, hoped that perhaps that might actually be redemption for him. The visceral terror he displayed towards her made her feel dichotomous; it was invigorating to be the source of fear for once, to be the one holding the powers, but that same feeling left her feeling sickened to a point. She could not rationalize to herself, but it felt like tasting bile on the back of your tongue and that acidic burn in your throat that seems to linger not matter how much you drink. That part, she did not like. 'I know what you are.'  She could see that awful face, smell the rancid rot of the demon... hear the rasp of it's voice in her head. Was she έκπτωτος άγγελος? She didn't know anymore.

The scales tighten around Akiran's face  "Ya don't gotta worry 'bout that." He turns back to the room, before abruptly stopping and looking back towards Lilli  "He's a God fanatic, ya can't buy em or reason with em." With a harsh shake of his snout he adds  "He may be scared now, but give em a few days. He'll be back worshipping with da cult an', trying to hunt ya." Speaking to himself as much as the young sorcerer. Stopping his hand as it once again reaches towards his empty flask "It may not sit right, but ya don't gotta worry bout it. I'll take care of em." 

Lilliana gazes at Akiran for a long minute, so much unspoken between the two of them in that moment as her eyes dampened with tears and without thinking she suddenly wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. "Thank you."  She whispers to him, enjoying the sense of security he provided, even if just for a brief moment. The Fireblades  were her family now, as dysfunctional as they were. This was what she had always wanted in a family; people who did things for each other, looked out for each other. She pushes back, looks Akiran in the eye with a nod, then walks out of the room to leave him in there alone with the cultist. She should have been the one to do the dirty work, this was her fault that this man was in there, but she found she did not have the fortitude to kill a terrified, unarmed man.  She exits the room and sees the pool of blood beneath the other captive as the others begin to gather around. "What's the plan? What do we do?"

Katrin glances up as the girl reenters the common room, her face blank, axe still in hand. "We put this city behind us. Dragonvale has resiq, so that's where we need to go."