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Made in Hell Chapter 3
🕑 Added 2021-03-05 14:00:00 +0000 UTCShit.
Damn.
Fuck.
If the Church was here, then my issues didn’t stop with the Lord Captain.
Whenever the Church reigned over a city on the surface world, it was in the name of both the Holy King and the mortal ones. They ruled with an iron fist, rooted out evil, and sought to destroy or enslave all of the undesirable creatures that roamed this world.
A demon was definitely at the top of the “undesirable list,” and if I thought I was in trouble before, then the sight of the church was a major wake-up call.
I was royally fucked.
The Church was here, and I needed to prepare myself.
I was already more vulnerable due to the human form I was in, but for all I knew, I could be weaker without the Dark King’s shackle on my arm, too. The hell power I held previously may no longer be at hand, and even if it was, I couldn’t rely on this to defend myself.
There were beings of the Church who had incredible powers of their own, and showing my cards would only seal my fate. If they saw my hell power in action, it would give them a clear idea of how to counter me and wipe me from existence once and for all.
Truly.
No Hellscape, no surface world, and for damn sure no Heavenly Glade. The Church had the angels behind them, and their kind alone could banish my soul for eternity.
I had to find a way to fight, defend, and battle, but I’d be doing it like a mortal.
I turned on my foot and ran from the dwelling of the Church with the hope that other people hadn’t seen me in the short amount of time I stood there. Like with the Lord Captain, I had to give myself as much time as possible, whether that was to prepare or escape.
I ran through the maze of streets for longer than I paid attention to, and I didn’t stop until I was deep in the city and surrounded by taller, ancient-looking buildings and several clattering carts. Humans flooded the cobblestone roads, and I dropped my violet gaze toward the ground while I disappeared into the throng.
The area of my arm where the shackle had been was throbbing underneath the makeshift bandage. I was so used to forgetting about injuries because demons recovered from their flesh wounds almost instantly, so I hadn’t even thought about it, but I probably needed to check on its progress.
I broke off from the crowd and slipped into a side alley, and then I took my jacket off to reveal the wrappings around my left arm.
What used to be a bright, crisp white in color was now entirely soaked in demon blood, but at least none of it had trickled further down my arm. I unraveled the sodden fabric and took in the mess underneath. Dried up flakes of blood gathered in clumps, and I could make out the eight identical holes where the shackle prongs had been implanted in my tissue. They were black inside, just like my sinew, and they oozed slightly, but the wrappings had worked wonders, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before a scar would form to close them up.
A scar to reveal the story of my escape, and the life I once lived.
I glared at the deep, raw gouges on my arm, but I didn’t mind the sight too much. It was better than looking at that fucking shackle ever again.
I spent a minute or two cleaning up the wound with some rain water from the ground, and then I ripped off my other sleeve to take the place of the soiled one.
Then I heard the snarls and snorts of a creature not far away. It was coming from the street beyond the other end of this alley, and it was accompanied by the clanging of metal and a potent smell in the air.
Whoever was over there was as evil as sin, and the prospect excited me more than I could put into words.
A harsh voice broke through the snarls.
“Get these loaded before your heads end up on spikes,” the voice demanded. “Quick, before some bastard comes along and catches us!”
My curiosity piqued at what exactly it was they were loading, and where they were loading it. I didn’t know what surface beings they were, or how many of them were down there, but that didn’t bother me. They smelled ripe with bad intentions, and I guessed the items they possessed were valuable to them.
So, they could be just as valuable to me.
I silently stood from the puddle I stooped over, donned my jacket, and crept along the alleyway until I had a better view of the beings on the next street over. I stayed in the shadows so I wouldn’t be seen, and I crouched down behind a stack of discarded barrels and crates as I peered over the top.
There were six of them in total. Trolls.
Their skin was a putrid green, their heads appeared bulbous, and two large tusks curled out from their bottom jaws and over their enormous top lips. Their round stomachs strained against the slip of leather tied around their waists, and they walked with a hunched posture, almost like their legs were about to snap from the sheer weight of them.
I had encountered a hundred trolls in my time, and I knew their strengths and weaknesses, but I also knew they were robbing bastards who cared for the weapons and money they stole like the loot was their children. They didn’t allow anything to come in between them and a pot of money, which was exactly the reason they just became my next prey.
I scanned the area to work out whether they were armed or not. One troll held a battleaxe in their hand that they dragged across the ground as they walked, but that was about it for now. There was a chance they had more axes, but if I was quick enough, I could ambush them before they managed to get to them.
Three of the trolls collected large cases by the handles at the side and heaved them into a wooden shack at the edge of the street. The structure didn’t look safe or sturdy enough to hide their belongings well, so there had to be something else to it.
I narrowed my eyes, and the troll with the battleaxe stood around and watched the others work, like he commanded the group. This must have been the one I’d heard speaking before. He stood several feet back from the others, and if I managed to get him to the ground, the axe would be mine, and the others would be putty in my hands.
I waited in the shadows until the perfect moment arrived.
The leader took a few steps backward in my direction with his back to me, and his eyes focused solely on the others as they completed their tasks. I edged closer and closer to the end of the alley, and when all of the trolls had their eyes focused on their cases, I pounced.
I let my animal drive take over as I leaped from my hiding spot like a beast after its prey. Then I landed on the lead troll’s back with my legs wrapped around his bulging stomach and my arms squeezing his broad neck.
It took a second for the beast to realize what had happened, but this was enough time for me to take the lead. He let out a loud roar, snarled through his tusks, and began to twist his body from side to side to try and make me lose my grip.
I slammed one leg against his arm to stop the swinging of his axe, and I gripped his neck with my hands, but the other trolls were after me now.
They stormed over with their fists flying, and one managed to get his hands on another axe.
A hellish energy bubbled through my body, along my arm, and through my hands. An electrical charge surged from my hands, and I squeezed the troll’s neck as hard as I could before a sharp snap filled my ears.
The troll’s head slumped forward without the strength from his broken neck, and his dead body flopped to the ground beneath me.
My hell power was still working at full force.
I managed to jump to my feet and grabbed the dead troll’s axe before the rest reached me. Then I swung the axe above my head and sliced it through the air.
The curved blade connected with a large arm and cut through the skin and bone in one swipe.
Deep blue blood oozed from the troll’s missing limb as he roared in pain, but before he could fight me off, I swung the axe again and disconnected his head from the rest of his bulbous body.
Two down, four to go.
I sliced the axe through the air toward another ugly beast to drive him back, and I threw a solid punch into the stomach of a second one. The punch crackled like thunder and forced the troll to fly backward at least ten feet. The thunderbolt would leave him winded long enough for me to kill the others.
I may not have been in my demon form, but this meant nothing during a battle as long as I had a sharp weapon and my magic.
I jumped back and dodged the hand that reached for my jacket. With one quick move, my axe removed the hand from the troll’s arm, and then I sliced it through his gut for a killing blow. Blood, innards, and all other types of crap spilled onto the cobblestone street, and the rest of his body followed quickly after.
I still squashed one foot down into the troll’s face for good measure, and I sent the last three of my opponents a greedy grin. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of defeating them all. I could just make out the sweet, sweet taste of victory as the stench of blood and fury permeated the air.
“Who’s next?” I growled.
In response to the mockery, the troll with an axe stormed over with his weapon held high in the air.
I swung my own axe, and the wooden handle of both weapons collided together with a smack. I could feel the force that surged through the monster, but as I pushed against the troll, another ugly fucker came at me from the side.
My left hand kept the axe steady while the right gripped around the incoming troll’s neck. The same electric sensation pulsed through my arm, and I watched in delight as the monster’s eyes bulged from their sockets. I squeezed tighter and tighter, and his head began to spasm from the lack of oxygen. I pierced the tip of my finger right into the center of his jugular, and he was dead within seconds.
I let the beast drop among the other bodies in the street and returned to my axe fight.
The troll moved his axe away and attempted to catch my head, but I ducked just in time for the blade to graze across my hair. Then I threw my own axe at his bony ankles, and his vomit-green skin oozed with deep blue blood.
Then the troll’s knees buckled, his body fell forward, and his axe clanged to the cobblestone, and I wasted no time in forcing my axeblade through his neck. His head rolled toward my feet like a tusked ball, and as it came to a halt, his lifeless eyes caught my own.
I sent him a smirk, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.
Then I sauntered over to the last, winded troll I’d punched earlier, and he was struggling as much as I expected. He flailed on the ground and clutched his aching torso, and his ugly eyes bulged up in terror as sheer panic wafted from his bulbous body.
I decided to give him a helping hand and perhaps take the hellish pressure off his chest. I looked him dead in the eye as I dropped my axe into his stomach, and then I left him laying there while he twitched through his final moments.
The entire fight had taken no longer than five minutes, and an intense feeling of excitement ran through my veins at the sight of the mutated beings around me.
It hadn’t gone unnoticed that my hell power was still available to me, either. With or without my shackle, my Infernal Tempest still pulsed through my being, and this only made the chance of survival that much better from this moment onward.
As long as the Church never found out.
I swung open the doors to the wooden shack, and when I found it lined with pure silver inside, I chuckled to myself. I knew the trolls wouldn’t leave their full supply of stolen goods in a rickety wooden shack, but I had to admit, the silver was a cunning move. I had seen the lasting effect this type of metal left on some surface beings, and it wasn’t something to be messed with.
The grand cases the trolls stashed in here were made of oak, and brass seams ran vertically down the sides and horizontally across the curved lids. I flipped one of the cases open to reveal a pile of gold pieces, and they sparkled in the beam of sunlight glistening through the doors of the shack.
“Goooodddd…” I stared at the money with greedy eyes. These pieces were my ticket out of here.
I shoved a handful of pieces in each of my pockets, collected a small cloth bag that had been abandoned on the floor, and filled it as well. These could be the only pieces I came across easily, though, so I made sure to warp the latch that locked the shack when I closed it up behind me. As long as no other fucking trolls came this way, I could return later to collect the rest.
I let out a little chuckle to myself as I walked away with the pieces jangling in my pocket and the bag in my hand.
Then I headed off down the street and left the dead trolls behind me.
I noticed this part of the city was dirtier than the busier street I’d been on before. The shops were mostly abandoned or closed at this time of day, and no beings were in sight. It was eerily quiet here, but the air slowly became denser with the smells of all different strains of evil.
I sensed everything from common thieves and manipulators to coldblooded murderers up ahead, but there was some innocence, too. Not nearly as much as I’d smelled when I first entered the Port of Regfri, but the farther I travelled, the more complex the smells became.
I could hear conversation and up ahead now, along with all manner of city sounds, and a few minutes later, I turned a corner to see a large, rusted iron sign arching over the cobblestone street from one side to the other.
It said “Shadow Quarters” in intricately wrought letters, but some of the rusted sign had broken off, so a few letters were hardly there. Beneath the sign, a whole different section of the city opened up before me, along with a whole different set of beings.
The majority of them weren’t human.
The streets over here had gnarled and withered trees growing all over between the dilapidated shops, and the old boughs twisted anywhere they could and draped over every roof. The overgrown trees left shadows casted everywhere, and in these shadows, I saw halflings of all different breeds crossing between the shops. There were also all manner of winged entities, both large and small. The few human-looking residents were either in beggar clothes or had a scheming glint in their eyes, and they were gaunt and pale in an unnatural way.
Then I realized some of them had the pointed ears of elves, and I could have sworn I caught a whiff of a vampire out there somewhere. This smell mingled with all the deliciously sinful scents I’d followed to get here, and even though I couldn’t tell how far away I was from the dwelling of the Church, I knew this would be the perfect spot for me to temporarily lay low.
The evil that roamed this quarter made this perfectly clear. No enemy of the Church would make a home for themselves within miles of that blessed place.
I crossed beneath the rusted sign and into the Shadow Quarters, and the cobblestone became broken and sparsely set almost immediately. Mud squelched underneath my boots as I strolled around and took in my surroundings. A whole smattering of stone and wooden buildings lined the muddy street, and a few open-air stands were set up wherever there was space. They sold elixirs, strange smelling satchels, and dead animals strung up on racks, but they were still passing pieces between them in exchange for the stranger goods.
None of the beings I passed seemed to give a shit who or what was roaming among them, and the few who bothered to look at my face didn’t shriek. They did a double take, but generally walked on like I wasn’t the most terrifying sight they’d seen in their lives.
After walking deeping into this quarter, I noticed one building with a sign on the front with two swords interlocked together in an ‘X’ shape. That was where I needed to go.
I tightened my fist around the bag of pieces as I walked into the building with the sword sign. Glass cabinets lined the walls inside and were filled with swords, daggers, axes, and an assortment of other mortal weapons. Some were nothing more than perilously spiked chunks of metal while others seemed to be prodding devices, and I could only imagine the fun I’d have with all of these weapons in my possession.
Not as much as I had with hell weapons, but still… good fun.
A door at the back of the shop opened before my dreams could continue. The man in front of me appeared human when I first looked at him, but then I noticed the pointed ends to his ears and his upwardly slanted eyes.
He was a half-elf.
“What are you after?” the half-elf asked in a casual tone.
I surveyed the glass cases some more and then turned back to the half-elf shopkeeper. I tried to look him in the eye, but he peered down at the cabinet underneath his hands instead. He didn’t shrink away from me, though, and I took this to mean my estimation about this part of town was correct.
Evil or not, these beings were used to dealing with one another, and I may just get by alright among them.
“I need weapons,” I said as I placed the bag of pieces on the cabinet.
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” he replied.
“How much for that?” I asked as I pointed toward a flail.
The handle was made of iron, and the chain at the end attached to a striking head coated with spikes of various sizes.
“Forty pieces,” the half-elf answered.
“And those?” I nodded in the direction of a collection of glaives.
They all looked the same size, apart from the blades at the end that had been carved differently. I had my eyes set on the diamond head design.
“Fifteen each,” the half-elf said.
I thought over my options for a second before I made my decision. I would need more than only the two weapons, but I needed to make sure I could carry them all until I found a place to sleep and slum it for a while.
“I’ll take the flail and the glaive,” I said finally.
The half-elf nodded and unlocked each case to retrieve the weapons as I counted out the fifty-five pieces from the cloth bag.
I picked up the handle of the flail once it was in front of me, and I was satisfied with the weight of it. I had visions of the spikes breaking through a skull, and my lips curled into an evil smile as I imagined the brain matter that would drip from the ends. Any blessed bastard who messed with me wouldn’t know what hit them.
The half-elf collected my gold pieces from the cabinet and silently counted them out as they slipped into his hand.
“Thank you,” I muttered as I held my collection of weapons under one arm.
“Thank you,” he repeated.
I headed for the door, but then I came to a halt and glanced over my shoulder.
“Do you know a place around here where I can hole up for a bit?” I asked.
The half-elf shrugged one shoulder and thought for a second. “There’s an inn a couple streets over to the right, but some pretty dark entities reside there.”
I snorted at the thought. “Darkness doesn’t scare me.”
“Then you should be quite comfortable there,” he replied without meeting my gaze, and he held his hand out in the direction of the inn.
I left the shop and entered the dark and overgrown streets of the Shadow Quarters once more, and like the half-elf had said, the inn was only a short walk away. It was made of white wood with black beams like the outside of the tavern in the city. The roof was made with straw all bundled together in neat lines, and the sign on the front had a picture of a white dragon sitting on a small body of water.
I could just make out the words “The White Dragon,” but the sign was so old, with half of it fallen from the beam it was attached to, that it could have said something else.
The inside of the inn stank of rotten wood mixed with the intense scent of sweat and a distinct kind of uncleanliness, and I knew who I’d encounter before I made it to the desk. Only half-orcs had this particularly rank odor.
The half-orc was much shorter than its pure-bred ancestors, but he still stood a head taller than I did. He had long straggly brown hair that had been shaved at the sides and tied together at the back of his head. His skin was a light gray color, his thick ears were pointed at the tips, and tusks curled over his top lip like the trolls I’d killed earlier. A thin piece of brown material covered his chest and left his arms exposed, and there was some soft green detailing around the edges of the shirt. His trousers were made from the same material, but they were a much darker brown and had rips across the knees and further down the legs.
The half-orc crossed his arms over the front of the desk, and his piercing dark eyes were locked on mine as I closed the distance between us.
“What do you need?” the half-orc asked with a slight snarl.
“A place to stay for a while,” I replied.
“How long?” he queried.
“A week.” I shrugged.
The half-orc cleared his throat and spluttered and coughed all over the desk.
“Fifty pieces,” he responded.
I figured a week should be enough time to get everything sorted and find a way to disappear. Even if I didn’t get out of the Port of Rengfri in that time, I still had the troll stash I could raid later on.
“I’ll take a week,” I agreed and scooped the last few handfuls of pieces from the cloth bag.
The half-orc rummaged through the coins as I counted them out, and then he scooped them up and dropped them in a can. He snorted back a cough as he opened a drawer and pulled out the first key he laid his hands on. Clearly, the places to stay weren’t in high demand in the Shadow Quarters.
The key was large and made out of solid brass. A paper tag was tied around the end with the number seven written on both sides. The paper was ripped in some places and worn away like everything else in this place.
The half-orc shoved the key across the desk, and he grunted as he gestured to the stairwell on the left.
I dragged my new weapons behind me as I worked my way up the stairs, into the upstairs hall, and through the inn, and I counted the rooms as I walked by them. The musty smell cleared up here at least, and it no longer smelled like something had been left to rot.
I ran my fingers along the wall and felt the rough wood beneath my fingertips. It was worn out enough that I probably could have crumbled it to pieces with a gentle shove, and I guessed the building had been around for a long time.
When I reached my given room and unlocked the door, I pushed it open with my foot and entered. The first thing I saw was the bed in the center that overlooked a rectangular window. The glass had dirt smeared all over it, and I could barely make out the muddy street below when I looked through. To the left of the window was a small table with a lit lantern placed in the middle, and to the right was a pot that sat underneath a singular metal tap. Apart from the dirty window, the flame encaged in the lantern was the only light source in the room.
I threw my weapons and the empty cloth bag onto the table and emptied the pieces from both my pockets before I collapsed back onto the bed. Like with the hunger, I wasn’t used to how quickly a human body could tire out. I didn’t know how long it had been since I defeated those guards in armor, either, but it was long enough that I was exhausted by now.
I kicked off my boots, and then I pulled my arms out from the sleeves of my jacket and rolled it up to rest my head on.
The bed itself was clean, and the deep red covering on it was softer than anything we had in the Hellscape. My body felt like it was going to shut down in seconds as I sank into the soft bed, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts running through my head.
I’d accomplished a lot so far, from when I discovered the Church reigned over the Port of Rengfri, to killing the trolls, and gaining weapons and a place to lie low for a week.
But it was the idea of the Church that really made my mind churn.
Squadron Commanders like me were often unleashed from the Hellscape to complete solo missions, and my Lord Captain told me I was the best minion for this particular job, but I couldn’t help but wonder why I had been sent alone to a city with a fucking huge church in the center of it.
Even if I was the best demon for the job, and even if my Lord Captain wanted me to climb the proverbial ladder of ranks, a mission like that was practically suicide for a demon. It was as good as throwing me to the blessed wolves.
Which made me wonder if my Lord Captain had some hidden agenda I didn’t know about.
I stared up at the beams on the ceiling as I thought through every possibility, but I must have finally passed out, because I was suddenly jolted out of a tense sleep by the sound of shouts outside. I jumped up from the bed and headed to the window, and a small patch of glass at the bottom corner had just enough clarity for me to see the dusky street and the havoc below.
Six knights, all dressed in the same armor as the ones I killed yesterday, stood in front of two wooden carriages that were pulled by a pair of horses. They could only be members of the same king’s guard, and they split up into two groups of three before each group started forcing four beings into the carriages.
The beings were lanky and tall, and two of them had long, white hair. The other two had black hair that stopped below their shoulders, and they all wore black pants with velvet jackets. The grand colors of the velvet contrasted with their ashen skin, and at first, I thought they were sickly humans, but then I noticed the point of their ears.
They were dark elves.
The dark elves appeared to be doing whatever they could to fight off the king’s guard, but they were outnumbered. The window was too murky for me to get a good look at what exactly was happening, but one dark elf flung his arms around from side to side and did whatever he could to get the guards to let go. Others dug the heels of their boots into the ground, but the guards continued to drag them over to the carriage.
Then each dark elf was roughly patted down, and their velvet pockets were emptied of several strange orbs and weaponry I didn’t recognize. The items were collected and stored separately from the imprisoned elves, who were now shackled and thrust into the carriages.
What I couldn’t understand was what these guards wanted with the dark elves to begin with. All of this went down in the middle of the crowded street, and no one else was stepping in. So many beings in this area, including the dark elves, had strong enough powers to destroy these human knights, yet they didn’t do anything to stop them. They actually looked scared, and several were discreetly sneaking away into the alleys as fast as they could.
Something bigger was going on here, and I was determined to find out.
I grabbed my jacket from my bed, locked my room behind me, and ran down the corridor to the lower level.
Then I peered through the window by the main door of the inn and saw that the armored men had climbed onto the back of the carriages and prepared to go. I slipped from the building the second the horses began to gallop away, and then I ran through the crowded Shadow Quarters and back to the cleaner area of town.
I kept my eyes on the carriage as it raced under the rusted iron archway and through the streets of the port city, and I kept their scent locked in my memory for when they took a sudden turn. I ran behind the backs of buildings, through the dark alleyways, and through every shortcut I could find.
The carriages both continued through the streets for several minutes, and they didn’t begin to slow down until they reached the center of the city.
This was an area I already knew too well.
The building of the Church was directly ahead.
I ducked back into some trees near the pristine parkway, but I kept an eye on the carriages as they pulled up to the stained-glass dwelling. From here, I finally had the opportunity to check out the carriages more carefully, and I noticed they were far grander than the ones I had witnessed anywhere else in town.
These carriages were decked out in gold with the back wheels at least double the size of the front wheels, and the doors had a symbol painted on the side. The symbol consisted of two lions standing on their hind legs, a flag in the middle, and some sort of gold headpiece on the top. It wasn’t a symbol of the Church, so it could only be a symbol of the knights’ mortal king.
Still, it was pretty fucking clear from where I stood now that these members of the king’s guard were delivering the angry elves straight to the worshippers inside.
I watched as all eight of them were pulled from the inside of the carriages.
Their hands were bound behind their backs, and the guards walked behind them at a close distance to keep the dark elves in line. In the middle of the lantern-lit pathway, where anyone could have seen, they walked the dark elves straight through the main doors of the church.
I could just make out the clang of metal as the doors were bolted behind them. I had a feeling that was the last I’d see of them, and it made me realize how easy it was to end up in their situation in the Port of Rengfri. Those carriages of knights rolled up, raided the elves of their possessions, and carted them off.
Just like that.
Then I noticed a strong, intense smell wafting over to me as the doors were closed. The smell was ripe with evil, and not something I expected to smell so potently near the blessed dwelling.
My demon senses began to salivate at the stench, and my urge to punish the evil within the walls of the stained-glass dwelling began to surge.
They deserved to die, and even if I wasn’t working for the Dark King anymore, I was more than happy to take on this mission myself.
My demon side demanded it.
The armored guards returned to their gilded carriages a few moments later, but the captured elves were no longer with them. I was about to follow them to see where they ended up, but then some more shouting caught my attention. At first, I thought it was more of the same being dragged in, or perhaps they had gone after other beings this time, but then I noticed someone was actually saying something through the chants and cheers.
I ducked under the branches of the parkway and weaved around the trees as I followed the noise. Humans were nearby, but it took a minute before I found them, and I instantly knew who they worked for when I spotted the small crowd.
One lady stood in the center of the crowd, but she was higher up than the others because she was perched on a rickety platform. She talked with her hands as she shouted out her words, and a small selection of men and women cheered along to everything this lady said. A few of them held some wooden boards in their hands which bobbed in the air as the people cheered. The boards all had different drawings on them, and most of them appeared to be beings I’d seen in the Shadow Quarters, but some were strange objects I didn’t recognize.
“We want our city back!” the leading lady shouted. “We need to rid Rengfri of the evil that lurks in every corner!”
The tiny crowd cheered again.
“He would not want us to live in fear of these undesirables!” she continued. “He would want us to live in peace, but where is the peace with these monsters around? Where is our safety?”
I had a feeling that ‘He’ was their Holy King, and the demon in me felt like interrupting her speech. I would have loved to point out that if ‘He’ hadn’t rid the surface world of evil yet, then maybe ‘He’ wasn’t the proper king to seek out. After all, that sort of work was the Dark King’s job.
Or more specifically, my job.
I chuckled as I imagined what the crowd’s faces would look like if I said just that, but I stayed in the shadows while the tree trunks glowed a dim violet from my eyes.
A few passersby stopped to look at the chanting woman in the twilight, but then they walked away and didn’t look back. It surprised me that all others hadn’t joined in with the shouting, especially since the dwelling of the Church took up such a large part of the city.
Maybe it was only a small portion of this population who were so determined to get myself and creatures alike out of the Port of Rengfri.
The screaming lady from this morning, and then this crowd of chanters now, all appeared to be wholly devout worshippers of the Church. In their mind, that building could do no wrong, and it’s where they could go for healing and guidance, but could they really be so unaware of what lurked behind the scenes?
It was as if they never stopped to ask themselves what exactly the Church did to the beings they hauled in there like cattle.
It certainly wasn’t something I’d consider “holy.”
None of it made sense, but I decided to ignore and forget about the chants and cheers. I focussed on returning to the Shadow Quarters, instead.
I felt pretty good about how my first official day on the surface world had gone, and apart from the screaming lady and the guards just then, nothing too bad had happened. I’d managed to murder a group of trolls, found some food, shelter, and weapons, and I’d even caught onto the darker secrets around the city. I roughly knew the map of some portion of Rengfri, too, and I knew where to go to get certain things, and this pleased me enough.
I still had to find a way out of this city and make sure I could increase the distance between myself and the Lord Captain, but that could wait until another time. For now, I was locked in here by the seemingly endless forest and mountain peaks around the port city, and I’d have to tackle the risky details of my great escape another day.
I made it back to the Shadow Quarters without encountering anyone, and I could see the inn appearing in the distance. The magical beings who’d been crossing between shops were completely cleared out of the streets by now, and all the stands were boarded up. I wondered if this was to do with the night falling or the carriages that had arrived earlier, but judging by the eerie silence near the scene of the raid, I guessed the latter.
Then my thoughts cut off as my hackles suddenly rose. My senses tingled, and a scent that was far too familiar to me, and completely unlike the smell of mortal evil, drifted on the breeze.
It was the scent of the Hellscape.
Someone was here for me.
I worked out the distance between myself and the inn, as well as the distance between myself and the scent I smelled, and I wondered whether I’d have the time to retrieve my weapons before they attacked.
But before I had the calculations completed, an Infernal Huntress stalked out from the shadows on my right.
The red eyes of her Hellhounds cut through the darkness, and they landed on me.
