Vigil's Valor: 48 – Sales Pitch

At midnight, I stood in the in the center of the Nexus Simulator, buried deep beneath the bowels of the Citadel. The air felt thick and muggy with raw essence. Above me was the vaulted patchwork dome, built from interlocking opal tiles. The spidery golden arms with their huge crystalline lenses sat still and lifeless, just like the rest of the chamber. I glanced left and right. The room was empty, or at least it appeared empty at first glance. I knew better.

I could feel the unseen eyes on my back.

I shifted my weight and leaned against the oversized Mortka Forged Poleaxe that Pascow had helped me craft during my brief apprenticeship. Its heft and blade glimmered with powerful runic sigils, which held one charge apiece of Unbound Blaze, Electro Arc, and Kinetic Blast. I’d opted for the larger weapon over my typical Raven Peak Axe because I thought it would throw my enemies off balance. Those extra charges were likely to come in handy as well.

I’d gone with my medium Basilisk Armor while the Fell Bear Gauntlets adorned my wrists. A stout cloak trailed down my back and reinforced leggings, covered by Basilisk Greeves, met my plain, but serviceable leather boots. I’d also decided to use a unique item that I rarely took out of the Vault because it was so… unsettling. It was a wooden mask with curling ram horns, marked with the unseelie sigil for Vengeance. The item was called Annelli’s Visage and it granted me a host of benefits, including added resistance against Normal Weapons and a +1% chance of invoking the ability Horrific Vision.

The mask made everyone who saw it extremely uncomfortable, but in this case that wasn’t a bad thing.

I’d also equipped my current gear set with Illiud’s Faith and my Fabricated Token of Deceptive Presence. Together, they gave me a potent cocktail of extra benefits including an +6% resistance against disease and famine and a +5% resistance against psionic attacks, glamor spells, and mental magics. I’d fitted my Elemental Spark token to my poleax—adding extra fire damage to every melee attack—and the Eldritch Wither Heart Seed to my firearm, which would significantly boost the effects of Life Siphon.

Riding along my hip were several leather pouches, each clearly labeled and filled with the corresponding Affinity Scales. As for my Transformation Tokens, every single one of them was currently with Marina and Cal. Without Totem Transformation, I wasn’t going to need them. I was as prepared as I was ever gonna be.

Dead ahead the door to the Simulator swished open, casting a spear of light from the training hall onto the floor. A lone figure stood silhouetted by the yellow beam. Even in the gloom, I could see it was the man I’d been waiting for.

Telent stepped into view, outfitted in his customary leathers. He was alone, just as my note had requested, and he was currently unarmed—though I knew that could change in an instant. He waited for a heartbeat, staring thoughtfully at me from across the Simulator, then turned and shut the door, locking it behind him with a soft click of finality.

“When I got your note,” he said, turning back to me, “I didn’t really think you’d be stupid enough to be here.”

“I could say the same about you.” My voice sounded oddly hallow and menacing from behind the mask.

This time he laughed. “That’s what I like about you,” he said, edging a few steps closer. He wasn’t moving fast, but I could tell he was trying to maneuver into potential striking position. “Not afraid to put everything on the line if that’s what the mission calls for. I wish things hadn’t gone this way,” he said after a pause. “I don’t know how you figured out it was us—we were so careful—but you did. I guess there really is a reason Raguel summoned you. Do you mind if I ask you a question? What gave us away?”

“It was a lot of little things,” I replied offhandedly. “The nightmares and the headaches were a big part of it. From the first night I was with you guys, I started sleeping like absolutely dogshit. Eventually I put together that someone was using Dream Thief to track my movement and that narrowed the list down considerably. But the biggest clue was what I found in A Treatise on the Fell Creatures of Oblivion. Couldn’t have solved the puzzle without it.”

Telent sighed and shook his head. “I told the old fool to just get rid of that book.” He took a few more steps. “But no. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy it, no matter how incriminating.”

“That’s far enough,” I said, thrusting the poleax out. “I know exactly how good you are with a blade in your hand.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a thin smile, raising his hands as though in surrender. I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“Since we’re being cordial,” I pushed, “I think you owe me the curtesy of an answer. Why do all this? Was it really just for a little extra political leverage? Would it have killed the Citadel to pay some extra taxes?”

“Come now, its not as simple or straightforward as that and we both know it. The Heir didn’t just want us to pay taxes. Andreas always did have big ambitions—certainly bigger than his father before him—and to accomplish them he needed the Citadel to come to heel. But we aren’t dogs for some rich brat to put a collar on.

“We serve a god. We hunt monsters. We end injustice. Save lives regardless of creed, race, religion, or nationality. For our Order to work, it needs to be elevated above the petty squabbles of nations. Besides, politicians make for shite military leaders and men like us shouldn’t have to kowtow to their fragile egos.”

I hated myself a little, but I couldunderstand where he was coming from. I knew from experience what it was like to have clueless bureaucrats make terrible decisions. Decisions that would never affect them personally. Decisions that me and my friends lived and died by. They were the ones that pushed for hearts and minds, while we got picked off by snipers and blown up by bombs buried in the road or carried by innocent children who were only doing what they were told.

“And you’re fixing the problem by terrorizing a city?” I asked, pushing away my own doubts. “By killing innocent people and kidnapping kids? You expect me to believe the solution to rising above all that bullshit is to murder one of your own brothers in cold blood?”

Telent’s smile slipped and his mouth formed into a jagged grimace. “I’ll make no bones about it. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” he replied softly. “But no one person is more important than our shared mission. Dogan… He was like Kerra. Immovable. Inflexible. He refused to see the bigger picture. His death will haunt me all the days of my life and so will the shade of every guardsman we had to kill, but I’ll console myself in the knowledge that we’ll save a thousand times as many souls because of their sacrifice.

“But you’re not like Kerra or Dogan,” he said in a pleading tone, “and we both know it. Their idealism is a beautiful thing, but the Citadel also needs pragmatists. It needs people like us, Boyd. People who are willing to bend the rules and do the dirty jobs that make the world go round. The people out there”—he waved a hand vaguely through the air—“they want to pretend we Vigils are gallant knights, ripped straight from a bard’s tale. But we aren’t. We’re soldiers, plain and simple. And make no mistake, we’re fighting a war.

“I don’t need to tell you that sometimes there are casualties in war. It comes with the territory. The Order of Immolation are the only ones who see the truth for what it is. There’s a place in our ranks for someone like you. You’re talented, smart, stubborn as a mule. You have a promising career ahead of you so long as you’re not toostubborn to see the writing on the wall. With Dogan gone, the Custodians are going to ask Jori to assume the mantle of Justiciar of Seekers. That means we have an opening and I think you would make an excellent addition. Let’s end this, eh? Let me get you that beer I owe you.”

He was right.

War was messy and ugly and never as clear cut as those calling the shots wanted you to believe. As a Marine, I’d done things I wasn’t proud of. That came with the job too. There was a real part of me that wanted to say yes to his offer, because in some ways I waslike him. I was the guy who did the hard things. The guy that pulled the trigger because that was the mission.

He was also wrong.

You couldn’t kill indiscriminately in war. In its way, war was as much about restraint as it was about violence. It required you to have the moral courage and the unflinching discipline to know when to pull the trigger and when not to. Civilian casualties were unavoidable, but knowingly targeting innocent civilians wasn’t the same thing no matter how Telent tried to paint it. He claimed this was about the greater good, but it was just as much about fulfilling his personal ambitious.

Plus, he kidnapped a kid.

That was a line in the sand. Hurting dogs, cats, and children was the quickest way to wind up on the business end of an enchanted shotgun barrel. No exceptions.

“I like you Telent.” I reached into a small satchel, pulled out a pair of Arcana Suppression Manacles, and tossed them onto the ground in front of his boots. “Which is why I’m going to give you a chance to unfuck yourself right here and right now. This doesn’t need to get ugly,” I said, echoing the words he’d spoke to me the first time we’d met. “Put those on, come with me, confess to your crimes, give the name of every single one of your coconspirators, and I won’t kill you.”

The grimace slipped and his lips turned down at the corner into a disappointed frown.

“As if you could,” he said. “You should’ve learned I’ll accomplish the mission by whatever means necessary, and that I always hedge my bets.”

He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. A wave of silvery light rippled out in a circle, dispelling the glamor he’d cast before entering the room. Spaced out around me in a semi-circle were the other three members of his team. Jori, Vigil of Justice. Kol, Vigil of Balance. And Amherst, Vigil of Wrath. There was also a fifth member, lurking behind Amherst like an enormous, monstrous shadow. A creature nine feet tall with dark pebbled skin, a golden lionesque mane, and huge wings that looked like jagged tears ripped in the fabric of space and time.

“As you can see,” Telent said, “I didn’t come alone.”

“I didn’t either. Do it now!” I bellowed at the top of my voice.

***

Everything happened all at once.

The brass control box near the front of the room whirled to life as the golden arms overhead swung and dispelled the current illusion. Unlike Telent, I didn’t have a Vigil of Truth on my team who was strong enough to conceal our team with Cunning Glamor. So instead, we’d used the Nexus Simulator itself to… well to simulatethe Nexus Simulator in every, minute detail. We’d just made the room a fifth of its normal size, then used the extra dead space to hide everyone beyond the edges of the illusion.

As the golden apparatus overhead swung and rotated, the cavern disappeared. The walls evaporated and ceiling gave way to an endless purple sky. Suddenly we were in a huge grassy clearing, surrounded by towering, otherworldly tress with ghostly white bark and broad, bloodred leaves. Pale silver light shined down from an alien moon, giving the whole scene a surreal, almost dream-like quality.

“I don’t know what in the hell you think you’re doing,” Telent growled, summoning his mystic rapier, “but you can’t stop us.”

“Maybe not,” I replied with a shrug, “but I can stall you. Don’t suppose Arbitrator Nazer Maux rings a bell, does it?” I watched the shock register on his face. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Turns out I know who he is too. Unless I’m mistaken, he’s the guy you left to watch the kid you kidnapped while you and your buddies came here to curb stomp my ass. I also happen to know whereNazer is and by the time you get out of here, my psychotic fae familiar will be delivering your hostage to the King for safe keeping.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Telent said, sounding genuinely angry for the first time.

“Come on Telent, you’re smarter than that. We both know I would.”

Cold hatred roiled just beneath the surface of his face. “Kol, Jori, get to the headquarters and secure the boy. Amherst and I will deal with him.”

“Naw,” I said, shaking my head. “I think you should all stay. The party’s just getting started.”

Kerra stepped out from behind a hulking tree and posted up with her shield, directly in front of the only exit. “If you insist on leaving prematurely,” she said coldly, “you’re welcome to try and get past me…”

“Kill them all,” Telent cursed through clenched teeth. “Leave no survivors.”

All hell broke loose as the words left his mouth.

Kol and Jori both turned and charged Kerra. The corrupted Vigil of Balance seemed to explode outward as he ran. Kol’s torso lengthened and bulged. His arms and legs stretched and swelled. Pale skin gave way to putrid green flesh. His beard and hair transformed into curling tentacles and his lips sloughed away revealing a ragged mouth with cutting mandibles jutting out from each side.

Kol—in all his deformed, hideous glory—never made it to Kerra.

Two lumbering monsters emerged from the thick tree cover, loping along the uneven ground at a dead sprint. Cal had assumed the lupine form of a Hollow Maw, while Berk wore the shape of a Craighound; a werewolf made of stone and earth instead of muscle and fur. They hit Kol like a wrecking ball, Cal going low, while Berk went high. All three shapeshifters went down in a tangle of limbs, flashing claws, and biting fangs.

Jori closed on Kerra, his Soul-Bound spear flashing in the moonlight, but suddenly Kerra wasn’t alone either. Bramin stepped from the treeline and planted himself beside the Vigil of Valor. He wore a close-fitting vest of ring mail, which left his meat slab arms bare. He didn’t carry any obvious weapon, but I knew the hulking stone gauntlets covering his fists would serve him just fine. He dropped his shoulders and smiled at Jori.

“Oy, where do you bloody think you’re going then?” He rumbled. “Not sure if you’ve realized this or not yet, but we’re not trapped in here with you, buddy boy. You’re trapped in here with us, now aren’t you?”

I didn’t have time to watch the action for long, because I had my own problems to deal with.

Amherst thrust one hand out, a silent snarl on his face. The Chaos Aberration bounded forward, its unearthly talons leaving deep furrows in its wake. It closed the distance between us at an impossible speed, but I was ready. It charged into range with a ground rattling roar as I thrust the poleaxe forward and triggered all three of the embedded runic spell effects at once. A column of terrible heat, sizzling blue-white lighting, and raw force exploded out from the end of the weapon.

The triple attack of Kinetic Blast, Unbound Blaze, and Electro Arc hit the creature in the chest and splashed over its left wing. It lurched backward and flipped ass over teakettle through the air, landing in a sprawl. There was a circular scorch mark on its night-dark skin and one wing had been mangled by my assault, but as I knew already, it took a lot to put down a Chaos Aberration. The creature shook its head and clumsily gained its feet, the damage already healing.

Shit, shit, shit.

I turned and took off for the treeline, arms and legs pumping frantically as I ran. The ground rumbled behind me as the Aberration pursued me like a junkyard dog with the scent of blood in its nose.

I’d never felt more vulnerable. More exposed. Turning your back and running away from a predator was always a terrible idea, sure to end in disaster and bloodshed.

Except when it didn’t.

The terrible rumble of its footfalls carried through the earth, and I could feel it getting closer and closer by the second.

So close, I could’ve sworn I felt its hot breath on the nape of my neck…