“Stick together!” Bridget shouted over her shoulder as she raced down the hallway.
“I’m fucking trying!” Sorcha yelled before letting out a yelp. “Shite! Thank you!”
Bridget wasn’t sure of the details of the interaction. She didn’t have a couple of extra sets of eyes like her bloody idiot lover did, but she could guess well enough that either Sabina or Thea had picked the short goblin woman up as they ran together in a messy formation. The Dryad, Meli, had already run ahead of them thanks to her stupidly high Agility, but Bridget wasn’t going to let anyone else separate from the pack. Things had already fallen apart so quickly, and she would rot in the Abyss before she let anything else happen to her weird-ass family that night.
Jadis had flown off after the dragon that had taken Alex. Bridget hadn’t even seen whatever the thing was thanks to the blinding spell and all the confusion, but Thea had. Maybe if the human had performed whatever ritual she needed to do with Jadis to get her defenses up, she wouldn’t have been affected, but she hadn’t done so yet, so she had been hit just like everyone else. Not that the fact had stopped the sharp-eyed watchwoman from catching the tail end of the creature retreating into the dark the moment the spell ended.
So, it was a dragon. Probably. Maybe a possessed dragon, maybe a Greater Demon that looked like a dragon, maybe just another fucking illusion. Whatever it had been, it had stolen Alex and fled. Jadis had chased after, shouting only two barely comprehensible orders as she left, and Severina had gone and chased right after Jadis, leaving the rest of them behind.
Bridget couldn’t blame Jadis for rushing after Alex without even pausing to come up with a plan. She loved the blue-eyed Demon with all her heart, and Jadis always acted with absolute force when it came to protecting her lovers. It was part of why Bridget loved the giant. She would still like to punch the pale beauty on the side of the head for rushing off with no weapons, or armor, or allies, or a plan, but things were the way they were. Bridget couldn’t change what was, just what she was going to do.
The Playwright was still alive. Somehow. And he had been able to cast spells remotely. Had to be the staff, though Bridget didn’t get how that worked when the bloody thing had been in pieces. She’d have to ask Sabina later. Enchantments were her expertise. All Bridget was good for was hitting things with her flail. Not that she was trying to be hard on herself, just that she knew her capabilities, generally speaking. Enchantments and illusions and all of that shite wasn’t within her domain, but bashing in the skull of someone who was trying to kill her and the people she loved? She could do that. She just had to find the mud-fucking, shit-eating, worm-sucking cultist. Which was why instead of trying to figure out how she could chase after Alex and Jadis, she was heading for the supposed “corpse” in the cellar.
Fuck, she hoped Alex was okay.
The orc shook her head as she reached the stairs that led down to the cellar. She needed to focus, not let her thoughts wander. There was too much at stake already. Who knew what other tricks the thrice damned Playwright might have yet to spring on them?
Two guards were posted at the top of the cellar stairs and both men looked to be on high alert and ready to fight. Understandable, since they had to have heard the bloody dragon slamming into the side of the building on the floor above. Neither had moved from their post, though, which was a good sign.
Unless they were both illusions or tricks created by the Playwright?
“Toss your weapons!” Bridget snarled at the two as she neared them with her lantern already flaring into light. “Back off from the door!”
The two men looked confused, and one started to protest, but then they seemed to reconsider as they realized that they weren’t in any position to argue. The guards that Aelius employed were no slouches, but they weren’t any match for Bridget alone, much less with Thea and Sorcha there to support her. And they knew it, too.
As the two tossed their weapons and backed off from the door, Thea moved to the top of the stairs while Bridget ordered the two men to lie down prone on the ground a few yards away. She didn’t think it was likely that they were body doubles created by the insane cultist who had arranged the kidnapping, but she couldn’t be sure.
“Thea!” Bridget called out without looking at the shorter woman. “What’s it look like?”
“Clear,” the shieldmaiden stated with confidence, her tone so different from how she usually spoke.
“The body of the dead cultist is still here,” Meli’s voice came up from the basement below. “As are the two guards.”
Bridget wasn’t at all surprised that the Dryad had run ahead to check out the situation in the cellar. She needed to drill some discipline into the skinny woman if she was planning on sticking around in a combat capacity, though. She was fast, sure, but she had shite-all for defenses and an enclosed space like a hallway or a crowded basement offered no room to maneuver. If there had been an ambush waiting down there, she’d have likely taken wounds, or worse. Those criticisms were for later, though. There could still very well be some kind of delayed attack at work.
“Move down,” Bridget commanded.
Thea obeyed, leading the way down while Bridget followed behind, walking backwards down the steps so she could guard against a surprise attack coming from their rear. She trusted Thea to let her know if there was anything in the way to trip up her footing. Otherwise, walking backwards down the steps was no issue for her, since she had practiced it many times in combat training. As her Grand Da always liked to say, a merc could never be certain about where a fight would come at them. Best to train in all environments, just in case.
Then he’d usually tell a story about some fight he had participated in when he was young, but Bridget didn’t have time for those memories at that moment.
“Should I be—?” Sabina started to say as she walked next to Bridget, still carrying Sorcha over her shoulder.
“Just stay beside me,” Bridget ordered, and the smith cut her question off short.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, Bridget did a quick scan of the room, confirming that everything looked about the same as when she had been down there not an hour earlier with Jadis. The two guards were still standing by the body, and the body was still wrapped up in a stained cloth.
“No movements or strange activity,” the guardsman on the right said.
“What was that noise?” the guardswoman on the left asked.
“Back away, spears on the ground. Go!”
There was no time for explanations or politeness. Bridget needed to secure the area, and no one could be trusted other than those who had been with her from the start. Not until Aelius got back and could check status sheets with his Valtar-blessed eyes.
Then again, would his skills help? Because she was pretty damn sure that the old Seraphim had told them that the Playwright was dead when he had looked at the body earlier. Obviously, he had been bloody wrong about that particular assessment. Hadn’t Maeve said that there were ways to get around the detect stones? She hadn’t ever explained what those methods were, but if she hadn’t been pulling lies out of her ass, then maybe there were ways to fool Aelius’ eyes, too. A powerful illusionist like the Playwright might possess a trick like that.
“The body is still here,” Meli repeated herself as she knelt next to the shrouded corpse. “And they are not illusions. I checked.”
“They could be doubles,” Bridget snapped as she made sure the two guards followed her orders.
“If they were, then one or both of them are about to say some taunting bullshit,” Sorcha said as she slipped down from Sabina’s shoulder. “Then they explode, along with the body there, and we all die because we put our whole group in a small room where a big explosion will probably kill us. Except for Thea.”
There was a tense silence as Bridget mentally screamed at herself for idiotically leading everyone into what could absolutely be a deathtrap, just as Sorcha predicted.
After a few seconds of nothing happening, the male guard on the floor stuck his head up and tentatively asked a question.
“How long until the explosion?”
“I’m going to guess never,” Sorcha answered dryly from behind Thea. The shieldmaiden had put herself in a protective position in front of Sabina and the goblin. “Who wants to check that corpse for real?”
“We already did,” Bridget let out a held breath. “Before we brought him here. He didn’t have anything on him but that damned staff and a few coins.”
“I will check again,” Meli stated as she pulled the bloodstained cloth away from the crushed body of the Playwright.
The corpse of the supposed cult leader looked rough. He’d only been dead an hour, so he wasn’t stinking too bad just yet, but he had a huge hole in his chest, and his whole torso had been crushed under Jadis’ boot which had resulted in some of his organs being squeezed out like a smushed goldenberry. His head was still intact, though, and he still looked like the soldier Jadis had called Fabio.
That part was confusing, now that Bridget thought about it. She assumed this had to be the Playwright’s real body because it hadn’t burst into a spray of acid like the others had. Plus, all the other illusions had stopped the moment this guy had been killed. But wasn’t Fabio a real person? Someone who had worked with other soldiers here in Glanum? Bridget assumed the man had been killed and replaced by the cultist, since that made the most sense for a long-term infiltration. If the Playwright had used an illusion to look like the poor sod, though, why did he still look like Fabio after death?
The possibility of the madman being a Fetch came to mind, but Bridget dismissed the idea as quickly as it came. Fetch turned into puddles of slime or something like that when they died, and this guy wasn’t a puddle. Kind of a flattened mess, but definitely not a puddle. But as he had just proven a minute ago, the Playwright wasn’t actually dead, so he could still be a Fetch. But if he was a Fetch playing dead, he was caught, because he was lying right there on the ground. Unless that body wasn’t the man at all and never had been.
Then who the fuck was he?
That question passed through Bridget’s head right as Meli started peeling the corpse’s face off.
“Gods, what in the bloody shite are you doing?” Bridget held back a gag as she watched the Dryad stick her claws into the man’s flesh and peel him like a fruit. “Stop that!”
“No,” Meli retorted as she scowled down at the body. “This isn’t his skin.”
Before Bridget could demand Meli explain what in the abyss she was talking about, the Dryad tore a chunk of skin straight off the corpse’s face. Only, instead of red flesh, there was more skin underneath.
Bridget and the others watched in disgusted horror as Meli stripped a layer of skin away from the body’s face and head like it was no more than an extra layer of clothing. Even the hair and scalp came off to reveal more hair beneath. In seconds, they were all looking at a completely different man, though at least he was still very much dead. Bridget had to thank The Nine for that small mercy.
The newly revealed dead man was a gaunt and sallow human with graying hair and a crooked nose. He looked nothing like the young and tan Fabio, that was for sure. His head also looked too small for his body now that the layer of skin was gone, which Bridget guessed meant that the whole of his body was covered in that same layer of… Fabio.
“I’m going to be sick,” the female guard said as her face turned that peculiar shade that humans always did before they started tossing chunks everywhere.
“Oh! Look! Meli, is that a necklace?” Sabina called out as she pointed with a finger. Bridget had no doubt that the dotty half-elf would have rushed forward, but Thea, bless her heart, was keeping her back. “Let me see that! It’s there! Under that skin flap—no, the other, yes! That’s it!”
From between two layers of the corpse’ skin, Meli extracted a fine gold chain that had a flat, yet intricately carved amulet attached. Bridget wasn’t sure if Sabina should handle the unknown, undoubtedly enchanted, piece of jewelry, but if it hadn’t exploded or done some other horrible thing to the Dryad, she figured it probably wasn’t going to do anything to Sabina, either. At least the smith knew what she was doing when it came to things like enchantments, which was more than Bridget could say.
Besides which, she had other concerns to focus on, judging by the sound of the commotion coming from the stairs above.
It didn’t take more than a minute before Aelius had joined them in the basement, along with a dozen more soldiers. The old Seraphim didn’t look panicked, exactly, but it was clear that his feathers were ruffled, and he was out of breath.
“Any other attacks on the city?” Bridget asked first, just to be certain there wasn’t a bigger problem ongoing.
“None,” Aelius said as he approached Meli and the corpse. “General Voss is ordering all companies on full alert anyway. What happened here?”
Bridget gave the man a quick summary of the attack, doing her best to keep her report detached. Talking about the situation without being able to do anything about it was tying her heart up in knots. She was so scared she wanted to cry, yet so angry she wanted to burn the whole damn city to the ground. If anything happened to Jadis or Alex or, the Gods forbid, their child…
“This body is not the same as before,” Aelius muttered as he examined the corpse that Meli was still stripping.
“Obviously,” Bridget snarled, though she tried to reign that tone in. “He’s been wearing some kind of… fucking skin suit.”
“Yes, but I am referring to his status sheet,” Aelius replied without taking his eyes off the grisly scene. “He was Fabio, son of Fabius, when I examined him previously. Now he is Chauncy of Gallow. I cannot see his skills now that he is dead, but his attributes are completely different now, as well.”
“Check my status sheet!” Sabina called out before anyone could respond to the Seraphim’s explanation.
At her words, Bridget glanced over at the half-elf and did a doubletake. The crazy smith had done exactly what she would have thought was an obviously bad idea and put the necklace on.
“Ah, I see…” Aelius breathed out as he took a few steps towards the half-elf. “I did not think such things were possible…”
“What happened?” Socha asked a moment before Bridget could demand answers.
“It changed my status sheet,” Sabina said as she took the necklace off. “I figured this amulet had something to do with status sheets because this part of the enchantment that was carved into it has similarities to the enchantments on our mercenary licenses and there are also some pieces that are similar to the detect stones I’ve studied but there are a lot more pieces that I don’t recognize at all, so I couldn’t know for sure unless I tested it and I did and it worked! I can see a different layer of status sheet that isn’t mine when I wear it.”
“I could see the status sheet of Fabio as well,” Aelius said as he held the golden chain in front of his eyes. “What insidious craftsmanship, to be able to fool my eyes. I have never seen the like.”
“So, who the fuck is this guy?” Bridget motioned towards the corpse that Meli had just about finished skinning completely.
“Aelius said his name is Chauncy—”
“I know that!” Bridget cut Sabina off. “I mean, is he the Playwright?”
“Unlikely,” Aelius shook his head as he turned back to the body. “This man is CLR seventy-two. His first class is Silvertongue Smuggler, his second class is Cultist of Samleos, and his third class is Misbegotten Spy. He does not have the attributes I would expect as necessary for a powerful illusionist. I would guess he is an underling who had filled in for the Playwright while the true fiend remained hidden.”
“Here,” Meli said as she tossed a ring she had pulled from the second toe of the man’s right foot, after pulling the top layer of false skin off. “This is enchanted, too. I found nothing else.”
“What does that do?” Sorcha pulled the smith’s hand down so she could study the silver ring as well. “That rune there looks like—”
The two women murmured together as they examined the small piece of jewelry, but Bridget tuned their words out. Whatever shite had been used to disguise the walking piece of scum didn’t matter. He wasn’t the Playwright, and it didn’t look like the cult leader was going to reveal himself. He could be anywhere in the city by that point, depending on whatever bullshit skills he had used to project his voice and spells onto the spy wearing Fabio’s skin. Trying to chase after the madman at that point would be like a dog chasing its tail.
They needed to act. She needed to act. Bridget wasn’t going to just stand there with her flail in hand, doing nothing, while the person she loved most in the world was throwing herself into mortal danger to save another person that she had come to love.
“Where’s the Behemoth?” Bridget demanded to know, cutting through the discussion that the half-elf and goblin were having.
“Uh, I think it was parked back in the open area outside of the tower,” Sorcha said after a second. “What do—”
“I’m going after Jadis,” she said, her feet already stomping towards the stairs. “I can’t wait around here, praying for their return. They need our help.”
“Wait, wait,” Sorcha jumped out in front of Bridget, physically stopping her with hands pushed against her torso. “Hold on! Do you even know how to fly the Behemoth? Or where they went? And did you see how fast they were going? The Behemoth can’t go anywhere close to that speed! You’ll arrive hours late!”
“I don’t know, but I’ve watched, so I can figure it out,” Bridget growled. “They went northwest. And I don’t care how fast they were going. For all we know Jadis was hit by an ambush twenty miles from here. I’m going now, and either you can argue with the walls, or you can come too. But I’m going.”
“I’ll go!” Sabina rushed over to join her. “I can fly the Behemoth! Or maybe you can, and I’ll work on the engine runes while we fly, because I have some ideas that I might be able to use to boost the power and speed though I don’t know if that’ll cause some damage or not, but I want to go help Alex too because I’m kind of freaking out right now and I’m rambling and I’ll shut up now.”
“We should stay.”
Meli walked up to them, her exotic features set into a frown. She crossed her arms over her chest as she met Bridget’s glare without flinching.
“Jadis told us to check the body, and to stay together. She didn’t say to follow after her. I believe her intent was for all of you to stay safe. Chasing after her in your smaller airship does not sound safe.”
“I didn’t fucking ask, now did I?” Bridget snarled in the Dryad’s face as her temper flared. “I’m going after them! It’s not like you have a fucking stake in it anyway, so just keep your leaves out of it!”
“If Jadis dies, my tertiary class will become utterly useless, so I very much have a stake in it,” Meli countered with heat in her voice. “Don’t tell me what I can care about!”
“I didn’t tell you what to care about, I told you—what the fuck did you say?”
Bridget’s temper cooled almost as quickly as it had flared as her brain caught up with what Meli had said. As realization struck, she glanced around, seeing that there were a whole lot of soldiers still in the basement who were overhearing things that they probably shouldn’t be privy to.
“Come here,” Bridget whisper shouted as she took hold of the Dryad and dragged her over to one side. After putting a little distance between them and the others, she continued. “Did you take a Nephilim class? Like, a sex one?”
“Yes,” Meli admitted with only the slightest hint of hesitation.
“Why would you do that?” Bridget did her best to reign in the volume of her exclamation.
“Because the class seems powerful and I want to have sex with Jadis anyway, so I thought it would work out.”
Bridget stared blankly into the Dryad’s earnest, orange eyes. She really didn’t have the time or mental energy to go into how utterly bizarre that decision was to her, so she just wasn’t going to do it. This was something they needed Aila around for, because sorting out any more additions to Jadis’ harem of women was not Bridget’s duty. Fucking abyss, they were going to need to work in a rotation system if the number of partners got much bigger.
Maybe she was being a little bit hypocritical with that assessment, but she wasn’t in the mood for self-reflection.
“Okay, whatever,” Bridget dismissed the whole situation. “We’re still going. I’m still going. If you want to stay, that’s on you, but you can’t stop us.”
“Are you going?” Meli asked as she turned away from Bridget and addressed Sorcha.
“Yeah, well, obviously. I can’t let these two go alone, they’ll do something stupid like fly in the wrong direction if I do,” the goblin replied instantly. “If I stay behind, this bad idea will just be worse.”
“Are you going as well?” the Dryad questioned Thea.
“Yes,” the quiet human answered with a small nod. “We have to.”
“Then I will go too,” Meli stepped back from Bridget. “There is no one else here to protect, otherwise.”
“Alright, then let’s go,” Bridget said as she headed for the stairs again.
“I will join you as well,” Aelius said as he fell into step beside her. “I would like to send for Thais, as well. Her healing will likely be needed.”
“That’s fine,” Bridget nodded, not willing to argue anymore since they had already wasted so much time. “The Behemoth is big enough to fit us and all three of Jadis’ bodies. We have the space.”
The veracity of that claim was tested minutes later as their group reached the airship, only to find that it was already occupied.
“Going somewhere?” Cora asked from her seat inside the wagon.
“It really looks like they are,” Villum said from the seat next to her.
“Come on, get out,” Bridget motioned at the two. “We don’t have time to waste! We’re going after—”
“Going after Jadis, yes,” Terrance said as he threw another crate out of the wagon to make more room. “We heard. We saw. We’re coming.”
“No use arguing!” Nevan called from where he sat on the bench in the cockpit. “We’d just win in the end anyway!”
“Unless we fly away without you,” Orla stated as she began the process of powering the airship’s control runes. “I don’t believe any of us are in the mood to dawdle, are we, my love?”
“No, certainly not, my heart,” Nevan said as he kissed his wife’s cheek.
“Fuck. Whatever,” Bridget cursed before helping Sabina, then Sorcha, climb up into the wagon. “This is such a bloody mess.”
“I’ll be flying right after you,” Aelius was telling his own wife as he gave the Valbjorn woman a kiss. “I just need to inform Voss of what’s happening.”
“I would be more excited if I wasn’t so worried about that sweet little Alex,” Thais murmured as she lumbered inside of the now somewhat crowded cabin. “Flying in an airship seems like it should be quite an adventure.”
“Hold tight,” Humbert rumbled as he helped the big woman sit down while also giving her a rope to hang onto attached to the wall.
“Alright, everyone’s in,” Bridget called out as she was the last to climb inside the converted wagon. “Nevan! Orla! Take us into the sky!”
“Oh, I do hope I remember all the steps Aila was telling me about,” she heard the gnome woman say as the craft began to float up off the ground.
“Never fear, my dear,” Nevan assured Orla. “There has not been anything I’ve seen you set your mind to that you have not accomplished with outstanding success! And if you need a tip, we always have fair Sabina to ask for advice! Where is the brilliant inventor, anyway?”
“Push the middle lever to the furthest point!” the half-elf shouted from the back of the wagon, where Bridget could just barely see the woman had her head and shoulders inside the engine compartment or whatever she called that sectioned off space. “I think it should go just a little bit faster like this!”
“All the way to the—ah!”
The cabin was filled with shouts and exclamations as the airship lurched forward. Bridget had no idea what Sabina had done, but they were already moving faster than the Behemoth normally flew. There was also a vaguely concerning rumbling noise coming from the engine thing that wasn’t ordinarily there, but if the smith wasn’t worried, Bridget wasn’t going to waste time thinking about it.
“We’re coming, Jadis,” Bridget mumbled under her breath as she stood in the doorway leading to the pilot’s seat. “Gods, please, just let us get there in time.”
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