Requiem 25

“Apexus is alive, just show yourself, we won’t harm you!” the blonde Priestess shouted, as she passed by Reysha’s hiding place. Having forced herself into a narrow space between two bookshelves and a chair, like a cat into a glass bowl, the Rogue was watching the feet of Mehily enter her field of view on one side and soon exit the other.

If anybody had crawled over the floor, they would have spotted Reysha quite easily. Adventurers of a higher calibre and guards used to more skilled invaders than the infrequent overzealous thief would have known not to take the common idea off ‘nobody could fit in there’ and just run with it.

Reysha remained still for a long while, the ears atop her head slowly turning, listening to all steps in the numerous hallways around her. When it sounded like her opportunity had arisen, she carefully manoeuvred herself out of her crammed state.

“Aclysia told us you would be here, please!” it echoed in the distance.

The lies that Mehily were spouting entered her ears but were immediately rejected by her mind. Obviously, it was just a series of lies to bait her out. Like something that convenient was true. If Reysha had been her usual self, she would have at least stopped to wonder how else the Priestess could know that she was there. The mixture of magical concoctions pumping through her veins made these things simple, streamlined.

Mehily was an enemy. She had wronged Reysha in the past. That she now decided to present lies to catch the tiger girl was just another low point. Because Mehily was the enemy, everything she said had to be wrong. If the opportunity arose to kill her without endangering the mission, Reysha would take it. Sombrely and without any crazy glee.

Just like the emotions were streamlined, the pain from snapping her joints back into their proper positions was nothing. The magic that allowed her this control flared for one moment, then there were sounds more felt than heard and a moment of pain. Finally, she resumed movement.

She was already down in the tunnels underneath the priesthood area. Patrols here were less frequent. Normal guards weren’t allowed to descend here and even this situation didn’t lift that restriction. Only the Cardinal would have the authority to allow people to enter the inner sanctum of the temple and he wasn’t around to give any such order.

It made her job somewhat easier. As did the esoteric, rather than practical design of this place. In the windowless, magical illumination of the temple’s underground system, there were many shadows to hide in and many corridors to take if the original one was blocked by a Paladin or higher-ranking Priest.

That nobody knew what she was after or where she was didn’t help. The guards had spread themselves through the entire building, trying to at least spot her. If they could narrow it down to one certain area, they would have been able to surround her slowly. As it was, their net was full of giant holes and she slipped through unseen again and again until she could simply walk in the middle of the corridor.

Reysha was now so deep in the temple that nobody dared to enter. Her silent thoughts were still tensed, waiting for anything, as she pried open a lock. It was old, luxurious and hadn’t been exchanged in a long time. The kind that had a key that was quite heavy and large, but also incredibly simplistic. The mechanism inside was more of a strength test than of lockpicking.

Behind was a completely dark room. It was impressive in its featurelessness. Just grey stone in a large rectangle, a flight of stairs at the far back. The last hall before her target, if Apotho’s directions were to be trusted.

She stepped through the doorframe and barely managed to rip her arm up to block a strike directed at her head. The blunt object cracked the bone in her arm on impact, but the pain was only registered, not really felt. Reysha reacted immediately, grabbing the baton of the ambusher with her other hand before it could be pulled back for another strike.

Evmeria clicked her tongue. The Inquisitor had followed a deduction, this innermost was where the Cardinal would go first following his return from the festival. As unlikely as it was that the assassin would know of this, the blind woman decided that she alone could wait here and make sure no trap was prepared.

“By Jersoja, you have tread on enough sacred ground today,” the Inquisitor spat out as the two of them engaged in a raw power struggle. That she didn’t receive an answer was odd, but the glassy focus in Reysha’s eyes told her quickly enough that she wasn’t dealing with the crazed woman she had experienced before. “Surrender. Your angelic friend has pleaded for your life, so I won’t take it.”

Reysha didn’t flinch at the suggestion or the implications. Words flowed around her mind as she twisted sideways and let go. The metal baton they wrestled for suddenly went down, missing the tiger girl by a narrow margin. Although Evmeria stopped the motion before it brought her off balance, she was now too close to avoid the consequent knee to the stomach. Only after letting out a pained grunt, did she manage to put some distance between herself and the Rogue.

Reysha closed the door, so carefully that it didn’t even whisper. She would rather deal with fighting the Inquisitor with her divine blindsight in the near absolute dark than the potential of someone seeing them, as slim as the chance was. Evmeria had deactivated the lights in this room to better hide her ambush, now it would serve in her battle.

What little light there was, came from whatever was down those stairs, flowing out in magical tendrils of a bright green past the outline of another door. It was an orientation point in this otherwise pitch-black environment.

‘I can play this on time,’ Evmeria thought, carefully walking backwards. The distance between herself and the only other life she could feel in this space increased. ‘All I require is to assure is that she doesn’t get to surprise the Cardinal. If he comes in here and sees her, there is no way she can overwhelm his holiness.’

It was her best interest to avoid confrontation, just evade and use the cover of the darkness to her advantage. Reysha also realized this. Eventually, she would run out of time. Every second counted, every little delay that prevented the Cardinal from returning, running there himself and stopping her with his superior power.

Reysha also knew that she had a way to force the conflict and sprinted towards the light source. Although Evmeria was unaware that the Rogue’s true goal lay down there, at least until she was left ignored, there was no way the Inquisitor could let the thief enter the one room in the church she herself had no access too.

Hearing the sound of moving leather, Reysha turned in her path and threw herself to the ground moments before a bolt of pale, blue light illuminated the hall. The magical attack missed her, she rolled herself off, caught herself on her broken arm. If the potions hadn’t made her ignore the pain at this point, adrenaline would have done just fine. Evmeria started running, wanting to relocate to get another easy shot at the tiger girl.

If it hadn’t been for Reysha’s keen ears, sharpened by her biology, the Noir condition, and the potions, this may have been a good idea. As it was, every running step was like a scream of “HERE I AM, COME GET ME!” in an open field. Once more, the tiger girl sprinted, now towards the last roadblock between herself and the goal.

Evmeria realized her mistake, took a fighting stance, and swung the baton with both hands. The dull weapon hit Reysha’s torso on the left side, broke two ribs. It was an attack the tiger girl had willingly taken. The worshippers of Jersoja may have been arrogant and strict, but they didn’t lie. The baton was not a weapon designed to kill and Reysha used that to her advantage.

The rod of the weapon was soon stuck under her armpit, her left hand grabbing the hilt. If Evmeria wanted to pull out, she had to give up the weapon. Until then, Reysha was all too happy to use the natural advantage she had. The claws of her right hand extended and drew flash blood, as she wildly swung and achieved some sort of hit.

Bleeding from shallow cuts on her forehead, the black-haired zealot tried to yank the weapon free, but found much more resistance the she had anticipated. Taking one hand off the baton, she conjured a second Palelight Bolt. It grazed Reysha’s right shoulder. While her spells were less effective against someone who wasn’t a target of an Inquisition, it should still have hurt. All the tiger girl reacted with was another slash.

This time Evmeria felt the claws rip open her throat. Just shallow cuts, nothing life-threatening, but enough to make her stumble back. ‘I’ve made a mistake,’ she realized, not just referencing the fact that she had just lost her melee weapon to the tiger girl. ‘Had I known she would be under an influence that makes her immune to pain…’ Evmeria scolded herself, when she got out of this, she would spend a number of days in isolated prayer and disciplining.

Although her situation was bad now, she still had the advantage of time. She just had to keep dodging, best towards the exit. As much as she hated it, she would have to call for help. The only alternative now was to let the Rogue have her way and that was the worse of the two sins.

She saw the movement of the tiger girl. Her entire body was visible clear as day, an outline of her features illuminated by her divine spark. As naked and pure as every being was on creation. Too late did she realize what the motion itself meant, only able to see her, not the things she was holding in all their details.

That she tossed the weapon she had just gotten herself hit Evmeria unprepared. The baton flew into her shoulder. A painful, but not damning hit in itself, it made her groan ever so slightly. That was all Reysha needed to fly right after the weapon, tackle the Inquisitor and wrestle her to the ground. Through sheer luck, Evmeria managed to throw out another magical attack before the tiger girl’s fangs could sink into her throat. The smell of ice filled her nose, then the taste of blood her mouth as fist crashed into her head.

Even her sight was shaken by the impact. Trying to throw another attack at Reysha, Evmeria raised her hand. The Bolt went flying, but it was so clearly telegraphed that the redhead simply bent her upper body out of the way, then delivered another punch to the Inquisitors face. The next instinctual counterattacked was derived a tad smarter, trying to aim at Reysha’s lower torso, but the Regressian just took the Bolt and continued punching.

The Inquisitor didn’t get a chance for another attack. The raw savagery of the punches left her dizzy. She could feel her face swelled, how Reysha’s knuckles turned bloody, and how the life was slowly ripped out of her. It wasn’t a quick death, it certainly wasn’t painless and it left her more than enough time to feel the weight of her failure.

The emotionless Rogue rose from a corpse that was hardly identifiable, were it not for the charred looking leather. She paid the state of her own body no mind, not the numerous broken bones, nor the frostbite and burns she had suffered. All she did was turn and walk towards her goal.