Combat Artificer

'Demons,' some call them. That would be a… vast oversimplification. What the common folk refer to as 'demons' encompasses a panoply of creatures, some natural to our world, and other being brought into it through the use of summoning skills, rituals, or even rare natural phenomena. If it's violent, looks frightening, or is poorly understood, someone has likely called it a demon. True demons are vastly more frightful than most of the other creatures that erroneously share their label. Summoned from other realms by powerful skills or particularly intensive rituals, a demon, bound by a skill or not, is an intensely violent creature, possessed of a devious cunning. They are as intelligent, if not more so, than any man, and often test the bounds of their bindings. One should refrain from open ended instructions to a demon. "Clear out this room," could very easily be interpreted maliciously by one as "Kill every living soul in this room." What is most dangerous, however, are the rare breaches into our realm from other realms. Through their own sorcery, a powerful demon, or group of them, may find entry into our realm. This is typically followed by the wholesale slaughter of any nearby population centers until the demonic incursion can be quelled either by military or mercenary might. What could be arguably more sinister are the demons who manage to slip into our realm who are possessed of more guile. They lurk in the dark corners of the world, making ventures forth to commit violence against others before retreating back into the unknown, plaguing regions for years or even decades before they are discovered and rooted out.

-Marcus Vink, on demons.

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"Where do you think we ought to go first?" Gabrelle asked, as they walked away from the inn.

"Mm, I think the guild hall should be the first visit," Graffus suggested. "They mayor might be able to give us the specific details of the kidnapping, but the guild can tell us why no one took the contract in the first place."

"I agree with Graffus," Atrax spoke up as they continued to walk. "The contract has been waiting for a while as is, it can wait another half hour while we find out if something is suspicious about it."

"That's fair," Xander offered.

"Sounds like the guild hall it is," Frazay said.

The guild hall was a small affair, a side branch of a side branch nestled between a tannery and a cooper. Inside, the building was mostly empty. A few solitary mercs looking over the sparse contracts that populated the contract walls and a single counter with a clerk behind it. The arrival of six mercenaries and two large animals at once brought all eyes to the party for a short time before interest waned and the eyes went back to scanning contracts and other paperwork. The six of them made their way to the small counter to the clerk, who was eyeing them up and down.

"Welcome, to the Breks branch of the mercenary guild. You're all new faces here, are you here to take a contract or update your status?" The clerk asked.

"Actually, we're here about a contract that we got from Rock's Bay," Gabrelle spoke up, stepping forward slightly.

The clerk's face fell. "Oh… that. I'd feared that's what you were here for when I saw all the new faces… Have you spoken to the mayor yet?"

"Not yet, why?" Gabrelle asked.

"Ah, well, perhaps that's for the best. That you'll be going to see him with all the information first, I mean. So… the short of it, is that Antellina wasn't kidnapped, she ran away. Rumor has it that she found herself a man in the werewolf village down by the forest a few years back. Rumor also has it that Antre disapproved. Vehemently. Now she's run off to that village and Antre won't see reason. He's convinced that they've kidnapped his daughter, and he's terrified they're going to turn her. That's why no one here has taken the contract. No one's interested in dragging a woman who doesn't want to leave her lover back to her father, even if he is the mayor. But we do need the situation resolved… I'm afraid that Antre might try and do something drastic soon. It's been months since he's seen Antellina at this point. If you can make him see reason somehow, I'd happily mark the contract complete. He's already paid us the commission for the contract, so there's nothing he can do to stop payment."

Outside the guild hall, the group paused to get their bearings.

"Well… at least we don't have to fight any werewolves?" Atrax asked, trying to sound upbeat.

Xander let out a synthetic sigh. He'd honestly have rather had to fight something. The idea of convincing a father that his sweet, perfect daughter had run off with a werewolf sounded harder than fighting said werewolf. Xander assumed there had to be some kind of bias against werewolves thrown in there, too, considering the implied vehemence of Antre's disagreement with Antellina's choice of lover.

"So," Xander said, pausing to think. "We have to convince a probably racist old man that his daughter hasn't been kidnapped, and, in fact, chose to run away from her assumedly cozy life as the mayor's daughter to live in a village that goes by the 'old ways,' whatever those are." He sighed again. "That doesn't sound hard at all," he huffed sarcastically.

"It can be… difficult for parents to let go of their children," Gabrelle offered. Given her experience with her own parents, the situation might be closer to home for her than for anyone else.

"Well, I suppose there's not much else we can do," Atrax groaned, stretching his arms above his head and working out the kinks of travel. "And if he won't see reason, maybe we can convince his daughter to at least talk with him. Pay some kind of visit."

"Aye." Graffus added with a nod.

Frazay huffed. "I thought this was going to be exciting, not small town romance politics," she complained.

"Small town politics are the ones that most frequently explode," Valteria offered.

"Ugh," Xander groaned disgustedly, raising his face to the sky as if to ask, 'why us?' "Well, we might as well get going. Let's try and be… quiet about our disbelief of Antellina's being kidnapped, okay? No sense getting the man riled up."

A round of nods was had by all and off they moved to the mayor's house. It was the largest domicile in the town, at least that Xander had noticed, by a good margin. Columns out front rising to the second level and supporting a roof for the large porch at the front of the building reminded Xander of the old antebellum houses he used to see on occasion in the South. He sighed quietly, just to himself, wistfully remembering humid summers back home, driving through the countryside to get to the beach.

Shaking the nostalgia off, Xander followed the rest of the team up to the door. Atrax was the first to reach the door. There was a large, cast-iron knocker bolted to the door in the shape of a lion's head, holding the loop of the knocker in its mouth. Atrax took the knocker in hand and banged it against the door. A few moments later, the door was opened by a young man wearing simple, but crisp white clothes.

"May I help you?" The man asked politely, holding the door ajar.

"Ah, we're here to see the mayor. About his daughter," Atrax explained.

The man, who had yet to introduce himself, but Xander assumed was in the employ of the mayor as some kind of servant or attendant, perked up at the mention of the mayor's daughter. "Oh yes! He'll want to see you right away. He specifically instructed that any mercenaries inquiring about his contract should be led to see him right away. Please, step inside and wait in the foyer while I inform him of the situation and set the sitting room for you."

The foyer was well adorned, large windows letting in the natural light of the sun. Chairs and couches were tastefully arranged around the area to allow multiple parties of different sizes a place to wait and converse without forcing them to mingle as they waited on the mayor to see them. Currently, however, the room was empty besides Xander and the rest of the group, the man who had greeted them already having disappeared around a corner.

Only a few moments later, the same servant came walking purposefully back around the bend. "The mayor will see you now in the sitting room. This way, please," he said, gesturing them to follow.

The group rose and followed the beckoning servant, following him back around the bend and then up a flight of stairs. They were led to a large, but cozy room. In it were two couches, facing each other, with a table in between. The table held several plates of various kinds of pastries and biscuits. Empty tea cups were also available on the table, and in the back of the room a small fireplace lay barren, with a tea kettle hung above it, bereft of water. The walls were lined with bookshelves, displaying knickknacks, small sculptures, and of course, books. The most prominent feature of the room, however, was the haggard looking man sitting on one of the couches.

He looked like he hadn't slept properly in weeks, if not months, and a brush of grey, unkempt stubble covered his face. He turned to look at the group of mercenaries entering the sitting room with the kind of look on gives to the person holding a life raft as they're drowning. Hope, mixed with fear, mixed with the undeniability that life is not as it should be at this moment. He unconsciously worried at his already ragged fingernails as he stood. He was tall, but the predicament he found himself in had introduced a slump to his shoulders. This must be Antre, Xander concluded.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Antre cleared his throat slightly, and greeted them. "Welcome. Welcome to Breks, welcome to the Veiled Forest, and, of course, welcome to my home. Please, sit. Make yourselves comfortable. I'm glad that the mercenary's guild has finally expanded the range of my contract. The rabble about town have been… unwilling to take it up, for reasons that escape me." The annoyance of his final statement was clear in his tone. He shook his head, as if to clear the dissatisfaction from himself, and continued in a more pleasant tone. "But now you're here! A team of expert mercenaries to finally bring my daughter home," Antre enthused.

The team exchanged glances, no one quite willing for sure how to make the first move in this conversation. Xander finally spoke up, tentatively saying, "Ahm, yes. That is why we're here. And, how long exactly has it been since Antellina… disappeared?"

"Gods," Antre said, massaging his forehead. "It's been nigh on four months now."

Xander nodded. "Mmhm. And, has there been any… communication? With her captors? Or from Antellina herself? A ransom, maybe?"

"Very little," Antre said sadly. "I received a letter that purported itself to be from Antellina, though I don't know if she was under duress writing it or if she even penned it herself. Claiming that she was running away, and if I couldn't respect her choices then she wouldn't be coming back." He puffed air out of his lips in the way someone does when something is completely preposterous. "It's completely out of character for her. She's hardly ever even spent a few days from home before, and suddenly she's 'running away?'"

Xander nodded again. "And how do you know she's with the, ah, werewolves?"

"Oh, Antellina was quite… clear on who she'd be spending her time with from now on in her letter," he said, tone becoming disgusted. "I tried to send a few of the town's guards and mercenaries to at least verify that she was indeed there, but those damned wolves aren't letting anyone into their village anymore. Alas, the group I sent either couldn't or wouldn't force their way into the village, and I have as yet been… unwilling to cause a scene nor to petition the local lord for additional troops. We've always had good trade relations with the wolf village, and frankly, I fear that Antellina would be harmed should it come to a conflict. But, how long will she be in that village before they decide to turn her?" The fear in his voice at the prospect of his daughter being 'turned' was evident. "For all I know, they already have! Please, you have to bring her back to me," he implored the mercenaries arranged throughout his sitting room.

There were timid nods all around, everyone wanting to keep the mayor from going on some kind of tirade.

"Of course," Xander offered. "We'll do what we can. At the least we'll ensure that one, she is actually there, and two, she is unharmed. But, ah, and I know you said this was out of character for her, but on the slight chance that this is on some kind of whimsy of hers, would a visit suffice, perhaps? Of course, if she is there against her will, we'll bring her back safe and sound, you have my word," Xander appended quickly, mollifying the mayor. "But should this be a choice of her own making, I'm, well, rather averse to forcing people to do things they don't want to do," he said.

Antre sighed. "I know how it looks. A man who's spoiled his daughter too much and can't manage her himself. If you can get her home, she can tell me in her own words how she feels. I'm her father, and I love her, and I can't accept that she would just… leave. I know she and I have had… disagreements in the past. About her choice in men, mostly, if I am to be completely honest with you. But to leave in the night without a word? It's completely unlike her, and I worry. Please," he begged. "Please, just bring her home to see me. If… if she truly is there of her own will…" Antre took a deep breath, pausing. "I will forgive her. I'd rather have her in my life, even if I do… disapprove of some of her choices, than not have her at all."

Xander nodded, slowly. Antre was being more reasonable than Xander had expected him to be. "Of course. We'll do what we can, of that I can promise."

Antre nodded, gratefully. "Is there anything else I can offer you? Any information about Antellina?" He gestured to a portrait on the wall near the small fireplace. "That's my daughter there, you see. So you know who you're looking for."

The mercenaries looked towards the painting that Antre had pointed to. Antellina had much of her father's face to her, though it was somehow softer than the hardness that Antre's face contained. She was quite pretty, Xander thought. Striking, even, though perhaps the painter had simply been ensuring that they were well paid.

"She looks quite like you," Gabrelle commented, as the others nodded in agreement.

Antre seemed proud of the comment. "Yes, I suppose she does."

"I think that's all the information we need to start," Xander said. "If it's not rude to leave so quickly after concluding our discussion, I'd like to perhaps visit the guild or, if there is one, a cartographer, and get a lay of the land and the location of the, ah, wolf village."

Antre politely dismissed the mercenaries, and they made their way out of the mayor's home. The town did not have a cartographer, at least not that the one person they stopped to ask knew of, so they resolved to head back to the guild. There, they had a brief conversation with the clerk about Antre's insistence that they at least check on his daughter. The clerk understood, of course. Antre had been in several times about his contract, apparently. They happily marked the rough location of the village – about a day's walk from the village and even closer to the edge of the forest – on Frazay's map. There was apparently a small trail they could follow that lead to the village.

"So should we show up in the APC, or do you think showing up in something like that might set the villagers on edge," Xander asked as they stood outside the guild, pondering their next course of action.

"Mmm, I'm thinking no," Graffus suggested. "It's a beast of a… whatever it is, that's for sure. Having six armed and armored mercenaries and their beasts will be intimidating enough, I think, to set the whole place on edge."

"I agree," Atrax offered. "They're probably not going to want to let us in in the first place, and bringing the, uh, APC, might just make things worse."

"It's not that far of a walk, anyways," Frazay said. "I could use a good stretch of the legs after riding for so long, and so could Trion."

"I'm sure Freyja would appreciate the exercise, too," Xander relented. He shrugged slightly, mostly to himself. No skin off his back, it's not like he could get tired from walking, and his inventory kept him from having to carry much. A nice day hike might be just the thing to unwind.

"Well it's midday now," Valteria stated. "If it's most of a day's walk, I suppose we should prepare for the encounter tomorrow and settle in for the night. Maybe find something to eat, too?" She queried hopefully.

"You did mention you could silver our weapons, Xander," Atrax reminded.

"Oh. Right. Yeah, I can do that I suppose. Maybe do a little bit of touchup on your weapons, too. I know they're already magical, but I could at least make them tougher, sharper. That kind of thing."

"No complaints from me," Graffus replied. "Let's have lunch at the inn and then we can hand our weapons over to Xander to tinker with."

Xander followed along, thinking about how he was going to improve his teammate's weapons as they walked back towards the inn they'd reserved rooms at and stabling Freyja and Trion. Lunch was simple, but hearty, a stew full of vegetables. Xander wished he could have had some. Sometimes he missed food, even though he'd never been much of a foodie previously. They moved upstairs after their meal, retiring to their rooms to make any individual preparations needed for the excursion tomorrow and leaving Xander with a pile of weapons to tinker with. He had Graffus's hammer, the mace he'd made for Gabrelle, and a Frazay's quiver of arrows as well as a long dagger she often wore. Xander has also been sent to fetch Valteria's warhammer from the APC after lunch, as it was a bit unwieldy for her when she was not in her suit. Atrax had provided his staff, even though it was unlikely that he'd be using it in a melee as he tended to use his firey whip provided by his skills up close.

Xander looked at the sprawl of weapons laid out in front of him, pondering where to start. He decided that Frazay's arrows would be the simplest. They simply needed to be silvered and strengthened. He'd seen how her arrows tended to obliterate themselves, and still vividly remembered Thripus's shot exploding against the griffon in his first few days in Tillania. He removed one and began prototyping. A thin layer of silver over the steel of the head was simple enough, and once he began to rune it, he wouldn't have to worry about the silver dissipating away into dust. He then added mana gathering arrays to power, appreciating his [Miniaturization] skill. It allowed him to fit many more runes on what would normally be a relatively small working space. Hardness runes followed, with a few sharpness runes evenly distributed along the edge. He held the arrow up, looking it over, scrutinizing the densely runed head of the arrow. It probably wouldn't explode now, at least as long as Frazay didn't layer too many skills on top of each other. Running his fingers over the wood of the shaft, he realized something. Even though the head of the arrow would survive, thus increasing its damage and penetration, the shaft would likely still break, making the arrow unable to be reused. So he decided he'd rune the shaft as well. He took a mental inventory over the runes available to him. It was always a little overwhelming using his [Rune Library] skill, with so many available runes swirling to the surface of his mind. A little bit of narrowing down, mentally discarding runes that wouldn't serve the purpose he needed at this time, though, and he had a solution. Instead of just hardening the wood, he would instead increase its natural flexibility. It would be a good test of the flexibility runes, as he thought of them. He supposed it would also be quite useful for spring steel as well, really anything that needed to flexed in it's usage. A line of runes down the shaft followed the runed steel head of the arrow, now, completing his design. Xander double checked his [Schematic] ability, noting that the design for the newly improved arrow was stored within it. That would be handy, and probably save Frazay a bit of money, too. He imagined she probably spent a decent amount of coin on arrows that could handle even being shot out of her bow. At least she didn't need them for every shot – her magical bow allowed her to fire phantom arrows, but those arrows were not capable of conveying the power of a skill, hence the need for physical arrows. For Frazay's dagger, Xander simply silvered it and added harness runes to the steel.

Atrax's staff was up next on the list, as its intended design was also relatively simple. Xander simply intended to clad each end of the staff in silver, in the event that Atrax needed to use it as a bludgeon, and to increase the durability of the staff itself. Its main purpose was to serve as a passive increase to Atrax's fire skills. Silver soon studded each end of the staff, and runes increasing the hardness and flexibility of the staff circled around the length of the staff.

For Gabrelle's, Graffus's, and Valteria's blunt weapons, he silvered heads of weapons, and strengthened the underlying steel with more hardness runes. Nothing fancy, but they already served their intended purposes quite well. For his own mace, he simply silvered the flanges of it. It still served sufficiently in its usage as well, though with his [Miniaturization] skill, he wagered he could probably fit quite a few effects onto the mace in addition to the runes that already adorned its every facet.