Wizardly Dude
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[TEA] (143) 3.42. Guilty as Charged
🕑 Added 2025-10-22 16:00:18 +0000 UTCAsher and Samantha both froze, and he cursed as the realization of what Audrey’s origin element truly meant hit him. Guilt was such a strange concept for an element, he’d never stopped to consider just what her skills might be like. Of course the two of them felt guilty. This entire attack was almost certainly because The Council of Death was after him.
“Chill out, Audrey, he probably feels guilty because he’s a demon hunter and wasn’t here to help out,” Sefta snapped, glaring at the truthseeker. It seemed the two of them truly didn’t get along, because based on Sefta’s stance, at the moment it looked as if she’d fight on Asher’s side if things suddenly came to blows between him and the truthseeker.
“He’s a demon hunter?” Audrey asked, clearly taken aback. “Where did you find one on such short notice?”
“Believe it or not, I was eating dinner with him when you called,” Sefta said, pointing around them with her harpoon. “Audrey, enough about him. Tell me what the hell happened.”
“That seems like quite the coincidence…” Audrey said, the temperature dropping another few degrees as her eyes narrowed even further.
“For crying out loud, Audrey, the two of us spent the whole day beating each other up!” Sefta argued, already fed up with the truthseeker after barely a few words had been exchanged. “Do you want our help or not?”
The more Asher watched of their interaction, the worse he felt. Even if they didn’t cause this to happen directly, it was their fault that Sefta and Audrey were snapping at one another like this. Samantha must have felt the same, because she cleared her throat and stepped forward, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry, this is probably all our fault… You see, we-”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Sefta said, cutting her off and earning a frustrated snarl from Audrey. “That guilt you’re feeling? It’s not real. Or at least, not all of it is. It’s one of her skills. When she lays it on thick like this, you’ll pretty much spill your guts out without even realizing it. It’s why nobody actually likes her all that much.”
Asher recoiled at the realization that the nagging, heavy guilt he was feeling wasn’t all genuine, and based on Samantha’s shocked and pained face, she had to be feeling it even worse. After all, Complete Resilience had to be nullifying Audrey’s skill at least partially for him, but Samantha didn’t have that bulwark to hide behind, which would explain why she just attempted to spill everything to the truthseeker.
“Sefta!” Audrey shouted, turning her blade so that the point was aimed at her instead. “You do realize interfering with an ongoing truthseeker investigation is a crime, don’t you?”
“These two volunteered to help, not to be interrogated!” Sefta shouted back, not backing down in the slightest. “I already told you, he spent all afternoon fighting with me, and she spent it learning how to swim with my own god damned mother. You don’t get any better alibis than that!”
“They could have summoned the demons ahead of time and given them orders to strike whenever they wanted, you imbecile!” Audrey said, the blue gilding of her armor slowly growing thicker and beginning to spread. Only then did Asher realize what he’d thought was gilding was actually ice coating the outside of her armor. Though unlike the ice conjured by Frostcut, the senior assassin he’d dealt with back in Whikoga, Audrey’s ice was almost a dark, crystalline blue like the depths of the ocean.
Asher looked around at the tense scene surrounding them as Audrey and Sefta squared off, each looking like they were preparing to attack one another any second. Samantha was literally biting her tongue from the looks of things, desperately trying to fight against the guilt-inducing skill and prevent herself from spilling everything she knew to the truthseeker. All around them lacerated bodies lay scattered across the ground, and large, mogrant corpses burned, letting out acrid smoke.
“Enough!” Asher roared at the top of his lungs, startling everyone as his voice echoed across the wreckage. Just to be safe, he used Complete Resilience’s second tier to temporarily dispel Audrey’s guilt-inducing skill and ensure it wasn’t clouding his decision making, taking a relieved breath when his guilt at the situation returned to more reasonable levels. He still felt awful about what had happened, but no longer to the point that he wanted to confess everything.
As soon as Audrey and Sefta’s gazes were focused on him, he continued. “The only reason I even have demon hunter as a class in the first place is because we were attacked by demons once before! We’re from Horntho village, one of the villages bordering the Lavash Forest that were all destroyed in a wave of demon raids! Surely you heard of it, right?”
“Yes, I’m well aware of the recent attacks,” Audrey said, looking ever so slightly less hostile as she took in his words. “The response team of slayers sent out by the capital tracked down and slaughtered dozens of demons and hundreds of imps, but they weren’t able to find the greater demon.”
“As soon as we heard another tragedy like the one that struck our village had occurred with this caravan, we asked Sefta if we could join her,” he explained, actually feeling the chilly air let up a few degrees. “We just want to help, that’s all.”
“Why did she say this was probably all your fault?” Audrey asked, pointing her blade at Samantha.
“By the realms, Audrey, have you ever heard of survivor’s guilt?!” Sefta snapped, stepping between the truthseeker’s blade and Samantha. “These two lived through a traumatic event, of course she’s going to feel like it’s her fault others died in a similar attack when she lived. Now, if you want my help, you’ll drop your freaky skill right now, or I’m out of here!”
“I could have you arrested for refusing to assist me,” Audrey said, frowning at the seething noble. But after a few seconds, Asher felt the guilt that had already started bubbling back up inside his core vanish as quickly as it had come over him. Samantha let out a literal gasp, shuddering as she turned and spat a mouthful of blood on the ground.
“Samantha!” he exclaimed, worriedly grabbing her arm.
Holding up a finger, she conjured some water directly into her mouth like she was drinking from a fountain before swishing it around and spitting the bloody water back out.
“I’m fine,” she said, sounding like her mouth was full of cotton. “Had to bite my tongue pretty hard to keep myself from talking, but my skill will heal it up soon enough.”
Asher turned to glare at the truthseeker, wondering if they wouldn’t be better off just leaving her and Sefta to their hunt rather than risk spilling anything important. Samantha must have picked up on his thoughts by the look on his face, because she laid a hand on his own, squeezing his fingers.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile. “If there’s any chance of finding the demons and taking them down, I want to stay. Sefta wasn’t exactly wrong about that ‘survivor’s guilt’ thing.”
“Alright… but if she tries using that skill again, I think you should let me get us out of here,” he whispered, not wanting to mention his Personal Rift or Recall within such close proximity to a truthseeker. Thankfully, Samantha clearly understood what he meant, as she nodded.
“Well, now that we’re all done threatening to stab one another,” Sefta drawled, looking around the wreckage. “Mind if I get to work?”
“Please,” Audrey said, gesturing for her to get started. While she no longer looked as though she was debating gutting them the moment they made one wrong move, Audrey had yet to actually put her sword away. She was clearly still suspicious of the two of them, and for good reason, but she seemed willing to put that on hold for the moment.
“Alright, this is going to look a little weird on dry land,” Sefta warned them, jabbing her harpoon into the ground and cracking her neck. “...You guys might want to take a few steps back.”
Once they were out of her way, Sefta took a deep breath, and began changing. Asher had witnessed other beast element holders partially alter their forms before, like the rabid dog-man in Loratta’s employ that Francis the druid had killed, or Leonard and his wolf element. But other than Fin’s shark body, which he hadn’t really seen much of through the green water of the bath house, he’d never witnessed a full transformation.
As they watched, Sefta’s body elongated and grew, like a massive snake that was being inflated right before their eyes. Her limbs grew spindly and narrow, and scales burst out across her flesh as her skin-tight clothing was absorbed into her body. The entire transformation only took a handful of seconds, and by the time she was done, the two of them stared up at her in shock.
Where Sefta had stood moments ago, there was now a living, breathing sea serpent coiled up between the wreckage.
“Wait, I thought serpents were monsters!” Asher exclaimed, shocked by the turn of events. “They can manifest as elements?!”
“It’s pretty rare, but yeah,” Sefta said, her voice deep enough to vibrate through their chests like a heavy bass as she turned her monstrous head to gaze at them. “We have to take out nests of them every couple of years, and we find the occasional Serpent element when we do. Now hold your questions and let me get to work, talking is hard in this form.”
Nodding, Asher let her do her thing, and the three of them watched as the giant serpent slithered around the wreckage, her nose close to the ground as if she were the world’s largest and weirdest looking hunting dog. It was clear that slithering around on land rather than in the water was a bit awkward for her, but she managed to do what she had to. Her massive bulk was more than enough to nudge aside shattered carriages and roll mogrants over, and it was only a few minutes before she returned and shifted back into her human form.
“I’ve got their scent.” She grinned, yanking her harpoon out of the ground and pointing off into the distance. “Few things in this world can smell blood from farther away than a sea serpent can, in or out of the water. It would seem either the warriors or the caravan leader managed to harm some of the demons without fully killing them, because I can smell their trail leading off into the distance.”
“Then we have no time to waste,” Audrey said, earning a scoff from Samantha after everything she’d put them through just a few minutes ago. Sticking two fingers into her mouth, Audrey let out a shrill whistle, and a mass of fur and feathers slammed into the ground beside her before the sound had even fully dissipated.
A powerful, regal-looking griffin stood beside Audrey, screeching a greeting and fluffing out its feathers as its wings flapped once in preparation for its journey. It seemed to toss the waiting pegasi an almost hungry gaze before nodding its head toward Audrey.
“Take the lead on your pegasi and show us where they went,” Audrey commanded, jumping onto the griffin as easily as if she were sitting down. “Slipstream and I will follow directly behind you. The moment we see them, we attack.”
Not waiting for a response, Audrey and Slipstream took off into the sky with a powerful flap of the griffin’s wings. From what Asher could tell, the griffin looked just a bit slower than the pegasi, at the cost of far more combat potential. The claws on Slipstream looked sharp enough to easily slice their way through flesh, and the griffin’s hooked beak looked like it could punch through solid metal.
“Sorry again about Audrey,” Sefta said as they returned to their own mounts. “Like I said, she’s a huge piece of work and not very well liked. But even I’ll admit she’s one of the strongest fighters I’ve ever seen. I’ve never managed to win a bout against her personally. If we’re about to throw ourselves head first into a bunch of demons, she’s about the best person you’d want at your side other than a slayer that specializes in hunting them.”
“Let’s hope,” Asher said, grimacing as he got back into the saddle. “Seeing as the slayers never found it, there’s a good chance we might end up running into that greater demon again. If we do, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
