5 - Father

When Emilia killed the priest the townsfolk began to surround her. They had made a complete encirclement around her but still didn't dare to come too close. They stared at her with eyes filled with different emotions.

Then a man came forward. He looked advanced in his years.

"Are you really? Not like him?" He asked while gesturing at the body of the priest.

Emilia had transformed back into her human form but the crowd was still unwilling to approach. Another look at the faces of the crowd showed her that fear was almost unnoticeable among them, so she began to explain.


"NO NO NO, I'm nothing like him. I'm The Diviner, I'm only passing here. I don't mean trouble."
The man smiled at her flustered expression.


"Don't worry, personally I've never had a good impression about that priest. I might even argue that you've done something good for us. Oh, I'm the head of this Town."

From there Emilia, Avaram, Annika, Clove and Brynner were invited to the house of the town head. He explained that they'd only recently started practicing the Teut Orthodox and more importantly, he'd discovered that there were Teuts who would go into towns in Friestros to steal hearts in order to trade. Or eat.


"Our hearts hold our covenants with God, they are containers for our Fate. That's why the seiteme eat them; to suffice for their broken Fates. What I don't get is why those things are allowed to run a whole country."


"We're hoping to get to Streifzug, the capital city of Friestros. Maybe there we can do something, especially when they find out I'm The Diviner."


No one interrupted the conversation between Emilia and the town head who had eventually decided to help Emilia and her group on their journey.


When they departed from the town the aging man had privately given Emilia a warning about Brynner, insisting that Lonthorians are no good and that they practically own Streifzug.

Baden and his wife Greta were especially helpful to the group. It was their way of showing gratitude, but they were still in mourning.

In the kings castle in Teutoberg, a meeting was being held by the the high ranking nobility.


The king himself, Viktor Von Waltraud, a solidly built young man with short black messy hair and large eyebags. He paced back and forth behind the chair he should have been seated on, running his fingers along the intricate details on the crown in his hands.


The table next to him had positions for fourteen to sit but only nine were occupied. Seated in order of rank, the king shared the room with Ansgar Rehn, a short man with a thick moustache and an aristocratic air to him, Falla Ermentrude, a mature looking blond woman with a cold gaze, Stefan Arlo, an effeminate looking man with long dark hair and a look of seriousness, Edda Alaric, an especially alluring woman with a faceless mask over the top half of her face, Medwin Brunonia, a large, well dressed bald man, Harmon Minze, the only other blond in the room and the youngest looking man, Wilhelm Duer, a simple looking brown haired man, Zelda Emera, a wild woman also shaved bald and Ralf Varese, a large muscular man with a stern expression over his face.


"There's been more and more of those Lonthorians gathering around our borders lately, they're getting bolder to confront us like this."

"Falla? At a time like this when we're having issues of our own... Do you think the second prince may have a hand in this?" "Isn't that already obvious, Wilhelm? Since first Pr–, first Prince Viktor took the throne second Prince Fredrik has not left that capital of Friestros, and for we all know he's in strong opposition to the rule of our kind."

"Even his supporters have been making trouble for us, my territory isn't at the borders so I found out what I know from the trade war we've been having." "Yes, but the both of you also need to acknowledge that not only have the nobles under his faction been uncooperative, even the Order of the Knights Templar is split between our side and the second Prince's."

"So far I'd say things are worse than we are making it out to be, and sitting around considering whether the second prince would really side with the Lonthorians isn't enough. I believe we should watch the Friestros border with more caution; that place is no longer no-mans land."


"Medwin has a point, Lonthor has hands all over Friestros now. We are cornered and disorganized, the Knight Siege and the Knight of Anarchia will march here soon and even members of the Knight Templar will march alongside them."


"Are you saying we are already losing the war, Zelda?"

"No, Edda, we are not losing. We have already lost."


"No, we can defend some territory. Although that would mean losing almost half of the kingdom"


"Tsk, you talk about half when you're already losing territory, Varese."
 The blond young man snapped.

"Harmon wha... actually, I heard an interesting story recently. They say in the territory of the Varese's a Diviner girl awakened."

"I heard about that too. It's just talk amongst commoners."

"I don't think so. Ralf, surely you can testify for us seeing as you lost one of your closest knights. Heffner Varese. That was his name, wasn't it?"

"That knight served at my territory closest to the border with Friestros, yet we found him and his brother Hilderic, one of those who was to be turned, just outside the territory, dead. Now Hilderic I can understand–he isn't one of us yet, but nothing short of arcane magic could have killed Heffner. Considering that they are a border territory, I wager the culprit is a Lonthorian Knight. One capable of arcane magic. I've already put out a bounty."


"What is the name of this knight?"
 The king enquired.

"Your majesty, I believe it was Emilia Virago. Likely a fake identity.

Somewhere in the slums surrounding Streifzug, two suspicious figures draped in heavy cloaks moved through an alleyway. On a normal day they would have been attacked by thugs looking to rob them for any money they had, but the locals knew better from past experiences. No one paid them mind, even though they stood out like sore thumbs.

By now it was midday and the sun was at its highest.

Walking around with a hood was enough to attract attention but the bodies under the cloak were another matter. Among the two men the taller, more muscular one stood at about eight feet tall (259 cm), the other had nothing too outstanding that could be seen from just looking at his cloaked figure. Unless you noticed the distortions in the air around him and the distinct mechanical sounds that came from his footfalls.


The two of them casually walked into an abandoned building, which was furbished on the inside with good lighting from the windows and more full seats than one would expect, there were even mats where people of all kinds, mostly young men, lay on, sleeping or laughing at nothing or talking to themselves.

Among the few people who seemed to be more self aware, a particular man in the crowd began to head into a more secluded part of the building after signalling the two cloaked figures to follow him.


They got to an even better kept part of the place set up like an office, and the man leading them in announced to a person sitting in the only chair in the room.


"Boss, you have guests." He announced.

"I'm in the middle of something", came the reply. Tell them to wait a while."

"Boss, it's them."


Upon hearing that the boss quickly hurried to the door to let the cloaked figures in, offering apologies for suggesting that his visitors would have to wait.

"Oh, dear sirs...I...I wasn't expecting you to be here today; you hadn't made an appointment. Please forgive my insolence." The taller of the cloaked figures chuckled and took off his hood, revealing the youthful face of an ebony-skinned man in his early twenties. This face did resemble Brynner's but had eyes with green irises slit like a cat's, his hair was cut short, almost a clean shave but just enough that you could tell his hair was a silvery grey. One did not need to look at the ears, one look at those eyes and hair was enough proof that he was either an Elf or a half Elf.

"No need for all that courtesy, just sell us the usual". Said the dark skinned man. "Information or Krokodile?"

"Both".

The Boss nodded at the confirmation and opened a safe-like suitcase hidden just under his chair. He brought out a suitcase filled with small bottles holding a brown liquid.


The other cloaked figure took off his hood to reveal a red metal helmet with five eye sized gem stones embedded in it, like Amaram's. The lower half of his face was a metal mouthpiece and he looked more machine than person.


He did not speak, only extending a black mechanical arm from under his cloak to pick and inspect one of the bottles. After looking at the bottle awhile he nodded, as if to confirm it's quality, then placed it back.

The Boss brought out a palm sized rectangular stone tablet that began to glow when he placed a finger over the side.

"There is a lot but here's what I think you might be most interested in. Stories have been floating around of a Lonthorian spy escaping Teutoberg, apparently she's headed towards Streifzug. Not much information is available on her but her location is being updated very frequently. There's a decent bounty over her head issued out by the court of the Teut king, Viktor Von Waltraud. She's–"

"What is her name?"

"Emilia Virago".

"Boss, How much is this info worth?" The visitor asked.

"It's actually cheap, four thousand geld and I'll give you the entry code to the hunt."

"I've already made the transfer."

"A pleasure doing business with you, have a great day." The visitors put their hoods back on and left the room with the suitcase.

On their way out the taller figure stopped, he had been looking into a glowing stone tablet.

"Captain? there's been an update on that Emilia girl. She's not very far from here, why don't we make a quick detour?"

A few days after the incident with the priest, Emilia, Clove, Avaram, Annika and Brynner were finally getting close to their destination. Streifzug, the capital city of Friestros. The journey had been mostly uneventful, starting off with Baden and his wife Greta seeing them off to their first stop to them just passing by the many boom towns that made up their route to Streifzug. Only after traveling for a while did they begin to encounter bounty hunters which Brynner, Avaram and Annika took care of with mild difficulty.

However, things took a different turn when they reached Streifzug. They could see the high walls of the city but had to get through a marketplace before reaching the gates. The marketplace was, of course, located right in the bowels of a slum. It was a hub of activity and business, legal or not, where the good, the bad and the ugly mingled. The ugly was out for them.


The main path through the marketplace was blocked, forcing the party of four to head through narrower paths with stalls surrounding them. They burst into short sprints as from time to time gunshots would be sent in their direction. It was pointless trying to fight the whole market to reveal their assailants, so the best they could do was defend themselves while trying to get through, but eventually they were surrounded. They had been driven to a more open area deeper in the market and were now openly surrounded.

Two cloaked figures with a strange feel to them suddenly appeared. One standing a head and shoulders taller than anyone in the vicinity, and the other with distortions in the air around him.

The shorter cloaked figure wielded two handguns with a practiced calmness, carefully making perfect shots that always made fist sized holes in the bodies of his targets. He turned the tides of the whole situation quickly, causing most of the bounty hunters pursuing Brynner's group to focus on newer arrivals–ones that wouldn't make them waste as much energy and resources–, and the more cowardly of them ran away.

But the taller cloaked figure would stretch out an index finger and release powerful bolts of blue lightening that struck down any attempting to escape. After very quickly slaughtering the bounty hunters, the taller cloaked figure looked in Emilia's direction, then made a confused face when he saw Brynner.

Brynner quickly got down on his knee. "Dau, Emene bolade." He said. (Elvish for "Father, I have returned.")