The Red Scourge Ch. 03

Decades ago, before the Great Rebellion, Stulak had been a merchant's paradise as it was at the trading crossroads of the north. It contained so much wealth that when the forces of Danaash were forced to retreat they burned the city to the ground and most of the wealth with it. House Osten never bothered clearing most of the destroyed city afterwards. They merely paved over it leaving a massive and poorly mapped catacombs and sewer underneath the city, unimaginatively referred to as The Underground. Soon enough, the Underground became a haven for criminals, runaway slaves, and spies. Most disturbingly of all, it soon became home to what were known as the unterdöten, formerly beggars and homeless people who lived in the Underground, they had mutated thanks to the excessive dumping of toxic concoctions from the arcane university and sorcerer academy once they had been rebuilt.

The local Ironwood Syndicate, the massive criminal organization that stretched throughout the Free Kingdoms, Daanash, and even beyond, was the closest thing the Underground had to a ruler, though in fact they only mapped out part of it and actually controlled a smaller part of it. Most of Rinessa's money paid for a map to the closest exit outside the city as well as supplies. Rinessa wanted to keep some for after their escape so she passed on paying for an armed escort, even though their path took them through unterdöten territory. That and the look their would-be escort gave the two of them reminded her too much of Umbroze.

Seva said little after they had fled the inn keeping except to ask for permission to make water now and then. She stayed close to Rinessa as they traveled the dank and dark Underground. The hours pressed on until she guessed that it was well past nightfall. Unfortunately, there was still more than a few hours' worth of walking before they could finally exit the city so she called for Seva to stop so the two could rest.

They took shelter in what she could only guess was what had once been a leatherworker's shop. They ate their rations, dried salt beef, in silence until Seva spoke up. "M...M...Mistress?" She looked up at the girl, surprised. Seva flinched. "W...why did..." She looked down at her beef, as if it held some answers.

"Save you?" Rinessa finished for her. It was a good question, one that she had pondered during their entire flight from the inn. "I don't really know why to be true Seva," she said. "All I can do is tell you the story that I think of whenever I think about that question.

In western Otrek lies the lands of House Hargrave, a minor house sworn to my father, Grand Duke Osten. Twenty three years ago or so, Count Hargrave had three daughters but his youngest was a fantastic beauty even at ten and three. This girl not only had just had her Gift of sorcery emerge but she had a spelltouched look that some sorcerers get. Silver hair and golden eyes, in fact. Her father was thrilled for her to come of age so he could craft a beneficial marriage for his House. " Rinessa paused to take another bite of the salty meat.

"But word got to my father that House Hargrave had been shorting the taxes due to him. So he ended up seizing most of the House's fortune and took this beautiful daughter of Count Hargrave back to his palace as a 'ward.'" She spat out the last word. "A ward. In fact, she was a slave in all but name. A girl of ten and three years when he carried her off. When His Highness took the girl he not only did so from behind, like a slave, but he did it whenever and wherever he liked. During the day, the dead of night, in the bedchamber, the baths, or in the middle of a party, it didn't matter. And instead of nurturing her Gift, the girl was forced to use her sorcerous talents to add 'spice' to her daily 'lovemaking' with His Highness."

"Two years of that continued until the girl gave birth to a child, a daughter. By that time the novelty of had worn off for the Grand Duke, so he sent the sorceress back home but kept his bastard daughter and raised her in his palace. Perhaps because he cared for the daughter but more likely out of continued spite.

"Three and ten years of melancholy passed for this girl. Yes, His Highness allowed her to see her own daughter once a moon but that seemed to drive the girl deeper into misery. She ate less as time wore went on and rarely used her Gift at all, let alone developed it. She went from being a prize plum to a girl her father couldn't even force on anyone.

"The only ray of hope for the girl was that her daughter would have the Gift herself since she, too, was spelltouched. Alas, the daughter's thirteenth birthday came and went and, as it turned out, she was one of those very rare spelltouched that did not manifest the Gift. Upon hearing the news the girl went to her room and hung herself with her own clothes. And that was the end of her." Rinessa finished her jerky and wiped her hands on the wax paper it had been wrapped in.

Seva wasn't sure what to say but did manage to mumble, "I...This one, rather. This one is sorry Mistress." She paused. "This one thinks she understands why Mistress saved this one."

Rinessa let her hair down and pulled two blankets and two bedrolls from her backpack. "Do you? Well you'll have to explain it to me someday."

She unhooked her sword and whip and laid them by the bags. "We can only rest six hours at most, do you understand? We won't truly be safe until we leave the city." Seva nodded as Rinessa laid down on her bedroll and put out the torch. She pulled the blanket over herself and turned away from Seva, falling asleep almost instantly.

But it wasn't a pleasant sleep. Rinessa dreamed again.

She saw the black shackles again but this time there was no one in them. Rinessa looked around, as if she was aware of her surroundings for the first time. She was staring at a decrepit building. The sign hung over the entrance by a thread, making a loud creak as it swayed in the wind. Rinessa looked up. "In..."

Rinessa walked up a flight of stairs. Books everywhere. She looked around. A glimpse of something silver disappearing into a room. She followed. She was being blinded. Black and red. Bright and dark.

Then, the world flew back and forth as if it being tossed around by a baby. A voice shattered her ears. She threw her hands to cover them but the sound slammed into her like a physical force.

"Mistress! Mistress! Mistress!"

Rinessa's eyes flew open. Seva was shaking her almost violently. "Mistress! Voices! W...I think...this one thinks..."

"Seva," Rinessa growled as she groped for her sword. "We don't all have elf sight. Get the map and supplies now!" She added the last part in a commanding tone as she ignored the lingering effects of the disturbing dream as well as the fatigue of her body. Rinessa heard faint sounds that did sound like talking...and the sounds were getting closer.

She grabbed her weapons as Seva gathered the two's meager possessions. It was dark enough that Rinessa's sight was limited to a few feet but Rinessa's elven eyes could see through the darkness far further than her own. As Rinessa drew her sword and whip, she heard footsteps coming closer and the voices more clear though the language they were speaking was nearly indecipherable.

Rinessa grabbed Seva by the wrist and they began to dash through what had looked to once have been busy thoroughfare. "Mistress!" shrieked Seva before Rinessa saw a body fly at her from the side. She stepped aside enough to avoid being knocked down from the tackle but it still sent her tumbling backwards.

She raised her sword and attempted to thrust it into the figure but it was cat quick as it avoided the blade. It swung its forearm and smashed Rinessa across the face but was off balance enough that she managed a decent stab at its torso.

"Twotee two dornkas with a bit of bagat in 'em eh?" the figure said in a barely comprehensible Otreki dialect. It gripped its wounded side as the two circled one another. "It don't matter me if ye got some bagat, little gizzergoy! I...Ahh!"

Rinessa was shocked to see her blade glow a bright yellow, bright enough to blind the figure. She glanced to see Seva pointing at the blade and her eyes glowing softly. Despite everything, Rinessa was impressed. If nothing else, Seva could time her sorcery well.

She looked back at the figure and sucked in her breath at her first sight of an unterdöt. Its skin was a pasty dull green with hundreds of tiny bumps and boils over every inch making it look like lumpy oatmeal. Its blue-green hair fell down its shoulders in thin strands. Most disturbing of all was where a normal human's eyes would be white, the unterdöt's were black as night.

Rinessa capitalized on its blindness by sending her whip out and wrapping it around the unterdöt's ankle. Rinessa leveraged her weight to send the thing falling to the ground but it managed to pull the whip from her hands. Still, Rinessa pressed her advantage immediately and thrust her sword deep into its chest. It writhed violently and shrieked loudly before she removed the sword from its gullet and silenced it for good.

Breathing heavily and wiping blood from her nose, she heard the voices of what could only be the other unterdötten getting closer. She looked around desperately for Seva who stood at the entrance of what had once been a large building. Rinessa abandoned her whip as she ran next to her but froze when she saw that a sign, barely hanging above the entrance, still had a few readable letters: "...rcane Academy." The dream.

"Should we hide Mistress?" Seva said, snapping Rinessa out of her brief daze. She knew with the pace the unterdötten had that Seva was right, hiding was their only hope. She grabbed Seva's hand and dashed into the cavernous building. As could be expected of an arcane academy, books were sprawled everywhere though most of the ones Rinessa saw were charred beyond salvage.

"Up the stairs," Rinessa ordered Seva who quickly obeyed. Rinessa had never been inside any academy before but the dream made this place seem vaguely familiar, as if it were somewhere she had visited many times as a child. The door below them flew open and she heard the strange dialect again as a group of four unterdötten stormed in.

Rinessa looked around wildly at the winding halls of the upper floor. Then she saw a familiar room. The dream again. She dashed into the room with Seva staying close. She saw that the room seemed to have once been a storage area of some kind. The sound of angry growling approached them.

The two ducked behind a set of large ruined boxes. Rinessa prayed to whatever god that would listen to please allow her combat skills and Seva's rudimentary magic to be good enough to defeat the savages. Seva made a few gestures to extinguish the magical light but they both knew it was only a matter of time until they were found.

Then she saw it just as the light faded, a glimpse of silver. Almost by instinct she went through the pile of burnt boxes to find a shattered glass display case containing a red scourge with a black handle and silver inlays. Just as she heard the unterdötten storm into the room she gripped the scourge, prepared to use it to replace her lost whip.

As soon as her grip tightened over the handle, a dark red light from an indeterminate location blinded her horribly. She tried to scream and lash out but she found herself paralyzed as the world faded away. Then, almost as suddenly, Rinessa saw the world appear again but far different than when she closed her eyes.

She was in an unadorned room with walls and floor the color of a bloody crimson. A light shown above her from a ceiling she couldn't even see. Rinessa looked down and saw that she was back in her fine black leather rukuvu but that now it seemed to accentuate every curve of her hip and breasts. Her silver hair, no longer a tangled and dirty mess, seemed to shimmer in the light as it traveled down her back and torso to her hip.

Then a woman stepped from the shadow and the sight of her took Rinessa's breath away. Her long and ruffled skirt seemed to be made of the finest crushed velvet blossomed from her waist and billowed about her in a canopy of elegance. The bustier of the dress encompassed a large and perfectly shaped bosom. Her skin was a soft creamy brown, a color Rinessa had never seen, not even amongst swarthy foreigners. Her hair flowed to her feet in a perfect jet-black waterfall. She locked her dark eyes, flecked with ruby fire, on Rinessa and gave her a seductive smile as she strode towards her with the grace of a world class dancer.

"Rinessa TothOsten. We meet at last."