The Endless Solvent

Nilda had never seen a Gate demon before that day. Such was the privilege of a street urchin who grew up on the many streets of the Heart. Most children she grew up with were convinced they were stupid stories made up to scare them.

Even with scholars at the women’s college holding lectures about them, at the back of her mind, Nilda was convinced the demons or the Unseeing were just part of an exaggerated story. But after seeing one of the monsters with her own eyes, Nilda sarcastically thought of how the joke was on her. The Unseeing was real.

Nobody tried to stop her or Rask as they made their way back towards the Leton residence. At one point they saw several Imperial guardsmen with royal runists hard at work drawing some sort of protective ward. Twice they saw the remnants of a fight, each with a too-pale body of a monster lying in the middle of it.

Nilda tried not to think.

Vartu once told her that the gravest mistake one could make before a fight was to make assumptions about the opponent. Underestimating or overestimating could all be mistakes during a fight - one must empty all expectations and fall back on training, instinct and reflexes. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Nilda thought on his words as she mechanically walked back to the residence.

Don’t think.

Rask froze when they heard an unnatural trill. It was high pitched and watery, not unlike the bubbling of water down a drain but obviously produced from a throat. Just a block from the Leton residence, Nilda saw it.

Don’t feel.

The Unseeing was formed slightly differently than the one at the college - this one had a bulbous torso unnaturally long and curved to force the hands down on the ground. When it crawled it reminded Nilda uncomfortably of a spider. It opened its horrible red mouth and long sharp teeth unfurled out from inside its mouth, folding out and shivering as it made its loud trill. The sound sent creeps down to her bones and she could feel the Solvent itself rippling from the noise.

Rask made some sort of gesture beside her and his metal tipped stick appeared in his hands.

“Anything I should know about fighting these things?” Nilda asked, flexing her fingers.

“They could be fast. Some of them are reported to use sound as a weapon,” Rask immediately responded, falling into a stance with this weapon aimed at the Unseeing. “They all have varying shapes. Some of them have bonier exteriors that provide a defense for them. That’s about all I know from reports I’ve heard from my men.”

Nilda took a deep breath. “We need to get closer.”

Two, three steps towards the demon and it snapped to attention right at Nilda. It made another terrible trilling sound and bounded towards her. Nilda snapped her fingers shut into a fist and spikes formed from the cobblestone floor below the horribly white, slimy creature and it screamed in an alien voice. Red blood spilled out and painted its too-white flesh. Then it fell still, speared upon thirteen sharp stone spikes.

“It’s dead?” Nilda whispered incredulously. Thinking back on it, the one the Solaris took down had died just as easily.

Don’t think.

They made it past the block and stepped through the unguarded gate. More trilling sounds rolled over the sound of ocean waves.

“We have to get inside,” Nilda said quietly right before the threshold past the gate. “Into the house.”

“This is crazy,” Rask muttered mostly to himself.

“You can leave if you want.”

Don’t feel. “No,” he simply said and went back into his stance.

Nilda pushed past the gate and saw two Unseeing in the garden. They were slightly different, one taller, the other with a more bulbous head. She managed to surprise one and speared one with rock from the large boulder in the garden. The other lurched towards them with inhuman speed and Rask swung his metal tipped staff, striking it. The staff flipped expertly in his hands and one end was suddenly at the creature’s collar and he knocked it back.

The Unseeing scrambled towards Rask again but the staff had flipped again, gathered momentum and the metal tip formed a sharp pointed dagger and plunged into the creature’s skull. The Unseeing made a horrible gurgle as Rask kept his stance until he was sure it was dead.

“You’re not the only one who could form spikes,” he said as he freed his spiked staff from the creature.

“It’s a very nice spike,” Nilda said in a mockingly coddling tone. He glared at her and the metal tip of the staff smoothed out and returned to its shape as a cap at the end of the wooden stick. Nilda snorted. “Oh, we’re done so soon? No worries, I won’t think less of you.”

“Funny.”

They rounded the corner of the house and found many more unseeing. The creatures there seemed to be looking for something and snapped their heads up at them as they approached. Three of them were devastatingly fast. One screamed an unearthly screech and a too-wide snapped at Rask. Nilda’s stone covered arm swung at the creature, catching it right in the mouth. The Unseeing clamped onto Nilda’s stone-arm and a deformed hand clawed at her face. Rask swung to fend off the other two creatures, then a dagger tip formed again to stab at the one on Nilda’s arm. It let go of her arm and Nilda immediately sent spikes from the house’s walls to kill it.

She spent more spikes out to the other Unseeing but the two fast ones dodged them, one of them scaling the wall almost to the second floor before dropping down to Rask. Nilda ripped up a sheet of rock from the house and deflected the creature’s teeth and claws as Rask rammed his weapon into the other creature.

“Get in the house,” he hollered, whipping his staff around, threw another creature off balance again and smashed the metal end against its skull. Nilda ran as Rask cleared the way for her and pushed the heavy front door open. There was trilling and screeching as Rask barely made it inside with her.

He helped her barricade the door shut, but they exchanged horrified looks as the creatures outside started throwing themselves at the door and the door splintered at the edges.

“Sun’s mercy,” Rask said breathlessly.

The door gave a loud crack and then exploded open with a terrifying screech of blinding white, slimy flesh and gnashing red mouths. Nilda and Rask scrambled back, his hand firmly holding her behind him so he stood between her and the wall of Unseeing demons bursting through the doorway. Nilda’s heart pounded almost painfully in her chest as she reached out and gripped the back of Rask’s tunic, ready to pull him back and defend him.

But the attack never came. Nilda looked around Rask’s wide shoulders and saw that the creatures almost looked like they were deflating into boneless puddles of flesh. One of them gave a waning trill and then they all fell silent into sickening white pools on the floor. Then a soft hiss filled the room and the remains of their flesh disintegrated into dust-like material that crumbled into the ground and disappeared in an unnatural way. It was as if an invisible sieve was set on the ground and the dust remains slipped through it and out of existence.

“No,” a distant voice shouted. Nilda swiveled her head and found the voice coming from inside the house on the second floor. “No, no, nonononono!”

Rask exchanged a glance with her and they both headed up the manor’s stairs. The shouting continued, angry and frustrated. At the top of the stairs, Nilda could tell it was coming from Lord Leton’s office. His door was left open and Nilda could see -

Blood. It stained the walls, the floors. Nilda stood at the doorway and got a better look; what looked like random splatters all over the office turned out to be runes drawn in blood. The chaise that Taurin usually sits on, the big fancy desk Lord Leton would sit at, the chairs and plants and decoration all strewn into a corner to clear space at the center of the room. The exception was the handful of books placed neatly in a circle around a plain wooden chair, runes drawn all over them, continuing from the floor around them. The runes grew denser and denser until it was simply a puddle of blood around the chair

A figure sat slumped in the chair. Lord Leton sat slumped there and Nilda would have called out for him if he didn’t have two long polearms speared into him. The long weapons formed a triangle, the ends of which stretched out of the circle. Directly above the chair, the ceiling was blackened in a rough circular shape as if scorched by fire, but no heat nor smoke came from it.

Standing in front of Lord Leton’s corpse was Vartu.