Near Miss

[wrecking_yard]

I was just wrapping up the most recent job, leaning on the merchants wagon while he's handling some business right on arriving in town. It's a bright, peaceful day and I'm half drowsing until part of the conversation catches my attention.

"I don't suppose Dr. Ripley's in town today."

"No, she just left for the Umbral Hills this morning. She's usually there for a week or two."

"Ah, shame. Well, she said to leave this with you if I missed her, so here it is." The merchant's handing a box over to the innkeep - whatever's in it is well padded.

"Ripley? Dr. Anna Ripley?" I lean around the side of the wagon, the shadow in the back of my mind stirring.

"Yes, do you know her?" The Innkeeper is - well, having a perfectly normal amiable conversation, with no reason to suspect anything awful about anyone involved.

"She's an old friend of my family. I haven't seen her in some time, and I would dearly love a chance to catch up." Orthax's attention is up, but it's just listening - and I'm focusing on being pleasant about the whole thing.

"Oh! Well, if you head that way, even on foot you could easily catch her before she moves on."

The merchant's a little disappointed I won't be signing on to the next town he's headed to, but pays me and goes on his way. It's over a day's walk out to the smaller village, calm and clear; normal wildlife and not much else.

The town itself seems peaceful enough; a little rural place, just barely big enough to merit a constable. I'm wandering the street and getting my bearings when I catch a familiar voice around the corner, and duck in between buildings, flat against the wall to avoid being seen.

There's some small family she's talking to - a couple small kids; she's being downright saccharine and was apparently treating an illness.

She's in the middle of an open street with traffic, engaged with people who are innocent bystanders.

Orthax is looming, ready to take over, but I'm staying flattened against the wall. I am not shooting her in the middle of a busy street in front of small children, I can tail her until there's a better opening, and it's seething over that.

The town doesn't have a lot of cover compared to a bigger city, but I manage to shadow her from side streets and between buildings out of her line of sight, until she goes into the small inn for the evening. The common room's small, she'd see me immediately, so I end up finding a perch on the roof where I'm not very visible from the ground. I can wait until after dark, slip in through a back door, find her, and be gone before there's any real investigation of the noise.

As the sun sets, Orthax is champing at the bit and being downright petulant that I'm waiting, but it's keeping quiet. Eventually it's been dark for a bit, enough to pull on the ragged old hooded cloak I've kept for avoiding attention, getting closer to the back entrance on the roof, and pulling on the mask.

Before we can get down to the door, it opens, and someone in a hood and obscuring robe is hurrying out.

It's her.

She's slipping through the town fast enough that I can't catch up for a shot without being spotted before I'm close enough; I'm going to have to catch her at her destination - which might be a clue to what the Briarwoods are up to, anyway.

She doesn't stop until she's outside of town, up in the rocky part of the hills with some trees, in a secluded clear space. There's several other hooded robes, and a circle burned into the ground - definitely some kind of diagram for ritual magic, but I can't get a clear look at it from where I am. They're quick to get sorted around the circle for whatever they're doing as soon as she arrives, and Orthax flattens, suddenly not wanting anything to do with this.

"And you call me useless," I mutter under my breath.

She's on the far side of it from my hiding place, making it harder to line up a shot around the others. I'm not exactly worried about harming them - they're working with her on some kind of summoning - but I don't want to risk her getting away in the chaos, and she'd be more than happy to let the pawns keep an attacker busy while she escapes if I can’t at least injure her first.

There's flickers of unnatural flames rising in the circle, and for a split second, there's an open shot at her.

She moves at the last moment, shifting, just enough for the bullet to only manage to go through her hood, and then the gun jams; Orthax is still staying flat. It's disrupted things enough that the flames are banking down, and all of the hooded figures are turning towards me while she, predictably, yells for them to deal with 'the problem' and darts off the other direction through the rocks.

At least a couple of them are definitely bigger and probably stronger than I am - it'd be rough if the pepperbox were working, I don't stand a chance unarmed. I bolt toward some of the thicker trees and rocks, which might be my only chance to lose them, and the little cult is hot on my heels. I don't get far before one of them steps on the back of the ratty cloak, pinning it and yanking me off my feet; the cheap catch gives, dragging the whole thing and the mask off.

I manage to squirm away before the man can grab me, snatching the mask and reflexively aiming - with nothing but the grinding clack of the jam.

His flinch at having an unknown weapon aimed at him still buys me enough time to get to my feet and run; it turns into a very dicey night of dodging cultists using rocks and trees that aren't big enough to climb for cover, but eventually they give up and head back, leaving me wadded up in a small open space mostly-under one of the rocks.

I end up fitfully dozing off waiting for them to completely give up, and get woken up by the rising sun angling under the rock. There's no sound of anything other than wildlife nearby, and there's enough birds that would be disturbed by angry robed people trampling around that it's probably clear.

It takes a few minutes to shake insects out of my coat and try to get most of the dirt, rocks, pine needles, and other assorted debris off of me, and then I start trudging toward town.

It's still bright, sunny, and clear, and there's no sign of Ripley; probably skipped town.

I push open the door to the Constable's office.

"I believe I have information regarding your cult prob-"

There is a moment where the Constable seems to be as surprised to see me as I am to see the man who'd tripped me and knocked my mask off the night before.

"...Fuck."

He shifts to move. I turn to run out the door, and make it down the steps before I get tackled by the Constable, who's easily twice my weight. I manage to get a hand on my gun, which he knocks out of my hand and out into the street before I can get a good grip; a knee in his diaphragm gets me enough room to get loose and scramble away -

Right into one of the deputies who's run over, looking like they don't have a clue what's going on.

"That's the cult leader!", the Constable shouts, pointing at me.

There's about fifty things wrong with that, including that I'd just arrived in town the day before and never been there in my life before that, but I am not in a position to argue; I manage to get to my feet, and then one of the deputies has an arm around my neck. I've barely gotten a hand up to stop him from trying to choke me out, but he's not letting go and has already grabbed my other arm with his free hand; kicking backward doesn't do anything, so I bite down as hard as I can on the arm around my neck.

He does let go with a confused yell, staggering back, and I'm staggering forward trying not to throw up at the taste of blood before the other one and the constable are dogpiling me, and for a few brief seconds, it's a chaotic mess of both of them trying to grab me while I'm fighting to get loose like a cornered feral cat, not paying much attention to the state of anything.

The constable gets my arms behind my back and the deputy's managed to grab both my legs so that I can't do much more than hiss through my teeth at them; there's a spectacular expression of confused alarm and horror on the deputy's face, and I realize my shirt's torn half open in front.

Which means a mess of scars, including where a certain necromancer bitch carved something in abyssal.

"Oh for fuck's sake." It's probably more productive than trying to explain that no, I did not carve Demonic Speech into myself, nor did I willingly allow such, since it's clear that the deputy's just decided that's proof of the Constable's accusation. "Do you really think your cult leader would be THIS easy to subdue?!"
The only answer I get is getting carted into the constabulary building.

By the time they're done, they've taken my coat and basically everything except my shirt, glasses, and pants, my ankles are bound, there's metal shackles and several layers of rope knots around my wrists, and I'm in the prison cell in the back of the constabulary. I can see the box on the desk where he's keeping my gun, and my coat and other effects on a bench to the side. The deputy I bit is off seeing a healer and was being mildly dramatic, as if he half expected it to be poisoned or cursed or something. The other deputy ends up off seeing to some inquiry from one of the townsfolk and is far too happy to be out of there; there's not much I can do besides try to shift things around so that the wrecked (and bloody) shirt is at least covering my scars.

Someone comes to the door and the Constable steps outside, leaving no other human in the building.

My shadow's twisting around like a grumpy cat on the floor, and I glare at it. "I don't suppose you have any brilliant ideas?"

One glowing red eye opens. "I did. You refused."

"Shooting her in a busy public street was a horrible idea."

It huffs. "You're just squeamish."

"No, I have three brain cells for tactics and didn't want to be in the middle of a bunch of panicking bystanders with anyone who can hold a weapon mobbing together to hunt me down."

The other eye opens, and despite them both being blank flat red, Orthax still visibly rolls its eyes at me. "And now what, oh Genius who let our prey escape?"

"Now I work on getting out of here and figuring out what they were doing here - I may have lost the trail but a clue to their agenda might help find it again."

Orthax gives me an unimpressed stare, disheveled and bloody with all the overkill ropes.

"I escaped Whitestone Keep and the Briarwoods, I'm sure I can get out of some backwater constabulary's cell."

It snorts.

"And anyway, where were you when that all went pear-shaped?"

It grumble-growls, sulking; it's not going to answer.

"Okay fine. Do you have any clue what they were doing out there?" It's not like I've had any chance to read up on demon rituals, and Orthax happens to be a literal demon. Sure, it seems to find giving actual answers an anathema, but it's also bound to help me hunt down the people who betrayed my family.

"A summoning ritual."

Ass. "That much was obvious." I'm glaring at it expectantly, waiting for it to elaborate, and it hisses in annoyance.

"They're weak. They can't call much by themselves. They're trying to do multiple rituals to wear open a path for something bigger." There's a shift in the shadow something like a shrug; Orthax sounds mostly unimpressed, but it genuinely doesn’t seem sure if that would work or not.

Experimenting. They're guinea pigs, testing some theory, far away from Whitestone where any mishaps won't impact the Briarwoods.

"They're also stupid - going to need a sacrifice." It gives me a pointed look.

The constable who just imprisoned me is in on it, and doesn't know about Orthax.

"Can't you tell your cousin to bugger off?"

The eyes close for a minute with a grating, rough high pitched noise. "Doesn't work that way - but it can't take you."

And demons who don't get their payment in a summoning like that rampage - if it's an experiment to see if this works, the demon destroying the little cult would be doing their clean-up for them.

The door opens, and my shadow abruptly goes back to normal, Orthax returning to hiding in the back of my mind.

Eventually, the constable dozes off, snoring audibly, and I take the opportunity to work on that idea of escape.

My fingers are free, but my wrists are so ridiculously bound that I don't have much range of motion - I manage to work the ropes around my ankles loose with some work, but it's slow going. The rope's rough, and they were relying on overly tight and overdone knots; all brute force, and there's pins and needles as the feeling starts returning to my feet.

The mess on my wrists is more of a problem. I can barely see the metal shackles under the mess of rope the panicked deputies rigged up, and I can't move my hands enough to do more than lightly touch parts of the knots with a fingertip. The best I have is trying to pull at bits of the knots with my teeth to find a point where there's some give -

But that doesn't get too far before I hear the Constable's chair scrape on the stone floor.

"You'll cut that out if you know what's god for you."

I drop my wrists, shifting my jaw uncomfortably. "What, not afraid of the terrifying cult leader?"

He walks up to the bars, unimpressed with my angry sarcasm. "I don't know who the hell you are, and I don't care. You're not going to be around long enough to be any more of a problem."

"I take it you're planning a showy execution so people think they don't need to keep investigating?"

He laughs, walking away from the bars. "Something like that. You're a pain in the ass, but you made part of my job here easier."

So maybe they do have three brain cells - enough for him to recognize that they need a sacrifice, and that some stranger he's gotten people afraid of is an easier target to 'disappear' than one of the townsfolk.

I can't do anything with him watching, so I shift back against the wall, occasionally trying to get the wrist mess loose enough to keep feeling in my fingers; he has to sleep or move sometime. The shackles are attached to the wall, but the chain'd be easy enough to break if I can get some leverage against the bars somewhere to twist it; I don't necessarily need my hands free to get away, and I can work out snatching my things and the gun with the bindings. Get away first, then get my hands free.

Getting the cell door open is more of a problem - there's a window, but it's just above my head standing, and anything to make an opening there would take longer than I have, which means working on finding a way to either get the key or pick the lock.

I can almost hear Orthax quietly making odds to itself, and it's not betting on me here.

At some point I must've dozed off, because there's blood and smoke, the great hall of Whitestone filled with dismembered corpses and fire, a creature of solid smoke curled in the middle of it in front of me.

Dramatic asshole bastard when it wants to talk without worrying about anyone overhearing, as always. "Did you have some revelation about the rituals or something?" I've folded my arms, focusing on it in front of me; I'm not making the mistake of looking away from it at any of the corpses.

"I could get us out of here."

Here we go again. "And add some other price onto the existing bargain, I'm sure."

"I can't help you get your revenge if you die like an idiot." It's curled in on itself to be a little less above my eye level than usual. A little. "I can give you some of my power - enough to destroy that door and the constable. I have already given my word to get rid of anyone and anything standing in your way."

"And how hard is it going to be to move around, exactly, with word getting around about some 'cult leader' with demonic powers?"

It snorts with a laugh, smoke rising from its face. "As if these peasants could afford to hire someone to hunt you down once you leave."

"Peasants make petitions, and nobles who don't want demons rampaging their territory can."

"Does it matter as long as you get your revenge?" The smoke twists, as its beak comes closer to me. "It's not like you plan on being here afterwards for them to hunt."

Not like it would care if I did survive to deal with the consequences; there's a pang of second thoughts about the agreement, but damned if I have anything else to do with myself - or any idea of a way to get out of it. "It'd still make getting there much harder than it already is. It's not worth it, not when I can get out of this without throwing your power around frivolously."

"You are stubborn and stupid."

"And if I truly need it, I'll call on you - but until then, I am not going to wave giant 'come kill me' flags when I don't need to."

It growls with a huff, and everything drops back into my normal nightmares.