Development

Development


	Axio looked down at the ground, feeling a bit ashamed.  “I’m sorry we weren’t honest with you, Linus,” he said contritely.  “Please do let me know how I can make it up to you.”

	Linus slowly shook his head.  His magic sword and bow were already repairing themselves from his use, and his armor was barely damaged.  Of all eight of them, he had suffered the fewest hits.  Then, landing behind their lines had been designed to break up the enemy formation, and he was the best equipped to fight alone.  “Well, I suppose I can’t be too upset,” he said.  “Cavria is trustworthy, clearly.  She’s a Succubus, but she’s had the chance to enter our dreams for over a week now, and she hasn’t done it once.  More than that, I saw her take a hit for Suivi twice in that fight.”

	“Your ability to keep track of details in mid-battle is remarkable,” Axio complimented him.  “And your divine magic pool is vast, compared to mine.”

	Linus looked at the Godly wings his friend had grown.  “I disagree.”

	Axio shrugged helplessly.  “I didn’t know this would happen!”

	Luanea held Kyria’s hand as she poured healing magic into the petite wizard.  Kyria had been by far the worst hurt in the fight, to be expected in a melee battle.  “We need to get you some magic armor, sister,” Luanea said.  “You’ll heal from this, though.”

	Kyria sighed in relief as feeling returned to her numb leg.  “Oof.  Yeah, that’s… oh, that’s much better.”  She looked over at where Doshellas, Suivi, and Cavria were tending to the terrified animals.  “Did we lose anything?  Or anybody?”

	“The cargo wagon is a loss, but there’s two wagon sellers in Red Larch,” Linus said.  “They probably left the coach intact to loot it.”

	“Who were they?” Kyria asked.

	“Survivors of the fall of the Cult of the Crushing Wave,” Linus said.  “Elemental cultists, they worship an evil arch-elemental of water.”

	“How were there so many?” Kyria demanded.  She winced as a dislocated elbow popped back into place.

	“No clue.  They had some guys who looked like Black Earth mixed in with them, and some normal bandits, too,” Linus remembered.  He followed Kyria’s line of sight to where Cavria was now re-summoning Fathom.  “So, uh… that seems ironic,” he said.  “Axio says you all knew?”

	“Yep.  We all felt the same way you did,” Kyria said.  She climbed to her feet and brushed herself down, good as new.  “Ahhh… thanks, Luanea.”

	“Of course, sister.”  Luanea began tending to her own wounds as Axio joined the other Paladin in re-summoning his own mount.  “Did the attackers hit the mounts on purpose?” she asked.

	“Sure looked that way,” Verashn confirmed.  “We’re down to three horses, plus the summons.”

	“Bastards,” Linus grunted.  “I can go ahead and get a wagon from Red Larch on Noble… oh, but he can’t bring it back by himself,” he realized.  “Shit.”

	Axio looked over.  “I can fly there,” he said.  “I… don’t ask me how I know, but I can do it.”

	Doshellas looked up from the pile of mutilated horse with an unreadable expression.  He stalked over to where the others were gathering around Axio and Cavria as they re-summoned their slain mounts.  “They killed the damn horses,” he ground out.  It was the angriest Cavria and Suivi had ever heard him.  “Shot them like old swine.”

	“I’m sorry, Doshellas,” Luanea said softly.  “We avenged them.”

	“Wanna bet?  I don’t.”  Doshellas stamped the ground.  The other drow could sense the building rage in his heart.  “I say they didn’t learn shit from this.  I say, ex-cultists don’t learn shit.  I say they forget this with the sunrise.”  He bared his teeth for a moment before getting his emotions under control.  “I say I hunt them down and make them wish they were dead.”

	“I say get under control,” Axio said firmly.  “Even if you caught up to them before sunrise took away your depth perception, you’d be outnumbered thirty to one.”

	“We got at least half,” Cavria noted.  “I’m amazed we didn’t lose any people.”

	“They were thugs and castaways,” Linus said dismissively.  Noble walked up behind him and rested his huge head on Linus’s shoulder, and his master gently patted him.  “Not warriors like us.”

	Cavria stepped back as Fathom slowly swam into being before her.  She leaned in and kissed the stag playfully on the nose.  “Here’s my good boy,” she said fondly.  “Sorry they got to you, buddy.”

	Axio rubbed Anholme’s flank as he reappeared.  The divine horse spotted Axio’s wings and bowed its head for a moment, and Axio stroked him affectionately.  “Seems to be used to these already,” he remarked.

	Doshellas forced down his anger.  The others weren’t being cavalier, he told himself, they just had different priorities.  “Fine.  The wagon?”

	“Destroyed,” Linus said.  “I’m going to fly to Red Larch and buy another.”

	“I’m going too,” Axio said.  “I can summon Anholme there to help pull the wagon.”

	“Something tells me a glowing, golden god flying into town with a Pegasus-riding war hero in his wake will be somewhat difficult to conceal,” Linus said drily.

	“True, but what choice do we have?  We have weeks’ worth of supplies over here,” Axio said.

	“And thirty bodies to loot,” Cavria pointed out.

	Axio frowned, but said nothing.  The Church of Ryaire didn’t condone looting war dead, but didn’t outlaw it either.  To Eilistraeeans, it was a grim necessity: theirs was not a wealthy faith.

	“That, too,” Linus said.  “We earned that much.  Alright, fine.  We’ll both go.  You do need to put a shirt on, though, Axio,” he said.  “This is a bit much.”

	“I disagree completely,” Kyria said with a mostly-feigned attitude of barely-restrained lust.  The others chuckled, save Cavria.

	“Fine,” Axio said with a good-natured laugh.  “Fine, I’ll rig something out of my armor.”

	“Wait, wasn’t the armor magic?  I think if you re-attune to it, it will fit your back,” Luanea said.  “That’s how it works with rings.”

	“I’ll try,” Axio said.  Cavria put her amulet back on and turned to the others.

	“Is this visible?” she asked, gesturing at her new, night-black ram horns.  The others nodded.  “Fuck.  Well, time for another extended layover,” she said disgustedly.

	“Wait, what?  Why?” Axio asked.

	She poked a horn and grimced.  “These have to go.  They break the disguise.”

	“Do they?  People will just think you’re a Tiefling,” Axio pointed out.  “Lots of Tieflings have horns.”

	“I guess,” Cavria said unhappily.  They weren’t so big that they were throwing off her balance.  As with most magic transformations, she had the new neck strength to compensate for her new body parts.  It was the only way Axio could lift his massive new body clean off the ground, straight up.  Magic fueled him now, like it did her, thanks to her now-missing wings.

	Axio gave her a sympathetic look.  He was hiding it well, he thought, but his new wings had nearly driven him to panic.  True, Linus had predicted their arrival, but that didn’t make it any easier.  They were not bird wings, nor angel wings.  They were wings like those of an ancient Exarch, whom he had met in the Arbor once.  Some mortals were so perfect in their adherence to the ideals of Law and Good, that they actually became angels in death; they were barely less than Solars in their power, and eventually became expressions of Gods’ desires.  Axio wasn’t just becoming more like his great greandfather, he was becoming more like an exalted Petitioner, which he thought meant he was technically dying.

	He wasn’t sure, though, and that was the frightening part.  He suspected he would have to contact Ryaire directly, once he had calmed himself down.

	“It’s not even midnight,” Linus said.  “Do we sleep first?”

	“I absolutely need rest,” Kyria said.  “What do we do with all this?” she asked, gesturing at the piles of bodies.

	“Strip and burn them,” Verashon said.  “Standard procedure for fighting in the Underdark, it’ll work on the surface.”

	“And the horses,” Doshellas said forcefully.  “Least they deserve.”


	The pyre licked up into the sky as the party burned their attackers.  The worthwhile plunder – what little there was – lay stacked up neatly thirty feet away.  Doshellas and Luanea sorted the stack as Kyria stoked the fire with her cantrips.  The rest of the party stood watch outside the light as they waited.  Nobody expected the raiders to make another attempt that night, but they could always come back with greater numbers.

	The firelight played beautifully off Axio’s wings as he leaned against a tree with his arms crossed.  Cavria was watching, mesmerized, as the light spilled from his golden feathers off onto the grass.  She caught herself staring and forced herself to look away into the darkness.  She didn’t see a soul moving.  The battle had scared away what little wildlife the Dessarin Valley normally had.

	Luanea hefted a small leather bag.  “This was all they had.  A total of eighty gold, two platinum, seven silver, forty-eight copper.”

	“They were broke,” Doshellas grunted.  “Probably didn’t realize who we are.”

	“They know now.  Do you think they’re going to return?”

	The lanky ranger shook his head.  “No.  They’ll only come back if they can gather more people, and it’ll be an ambush, not a confrontation.”

	“I suspect you’re right.”  She rose to her feet and wiped off her hands.  “That seems to be it.”

	“Hmph.”  Doshellas grabbed a ration of food and started wolfing it down.  “I’m eating before I turn in.  I’ll take watch.”

	“As you wish.  I’ll go second.”

	Cavria nearly fell as she nodded off at her post.  She rubbed her eyes and groaned.  “Ffffuck, I’m tired,” she mumbled.  Her healing power had drained her, heavily.  “I think I need to go lie down.  I can’t keep my eyes open.”

	“I’ve got it,” Suivi said.  “Go rest.”

	“Thanks, Suivi,” Cavria said.  She sat down in the lee of a large tree and pulled off her chest armor, and was asleep nearly the moment her head touched the bark.