Chapter Text
A pounding headache from the back of his skull is what drew Riz back to consciousness.
The world reformed before him, all swathes of color and blurry shapes. He blinked his eyes, groggy from being asleep for so long, but the fuzz at the edges of his vision refused to dissipate.
His hand moved to the side, instinctively reaching to his bedside table to put on his glasses.
The headache may have brought Riz back to consciousness, but the rattle of chains as he moved his wrist is what sharpened his mind to full awareness.
He looked up, seeing his hands cuffed together, the chain supported by a hook just above his head. His arms dangled above him, his shoes just barely scraping the floor.
The second thing he noticed was that his Arcadian watch was gone, and he couldn’t feel the familiar weights of his arquebus or the Sword of Shadows. His glasses were missing, along with the Gregori Necktie and his vest. It seems like whoever captured him (which was unfortunately the most logical conclusion in his hectic life) specifically snagged all of his magical gear along with the rest of his items.
The third thing he took stock of were his injuries. His head pounded, sharp and acute — worse than any stress-induced headache — , his ankle throbbed, there were various stinging cuts and bruises, and a sharp pain in his side — likely a cracked rib.
The assessment brought back memories, once momentarily put aside from the confusion of waking up in this room, now ready to be unpacked.
He was hot on the trail of Bobby Dawn after the whole Dawn family had fled Elmville. Riz had investigated all summer. He cased the man’s house, which brought up more questions than it answered. He found hastily hidden, yet-to-be-retrieved bank statements, letters, and spell components. It took until the end of August, right before classes began, but using those papers (as well as some hacking into the man’s crystal network and old text messages, courtesy of some Gorgug-made gadgets) he managed to track down an address Bobby Dawn had been frequenting within the past months, a warehouse on the outskirts of town.
He texted the rest of the Bad Kids about it, planning to do a cursory glance around the place before they met up and performed a thorough search together. Then…he got caught.
A trap, undetectable without the use of Detect Magic — a spell he knew, yet neglected to cast — caught him. The building was swarmed within moments, far too quickly for them to have not been on guard, Riz had tripped right into an ambush.
He let his head fall back against the stone wall with a thunk. He’s a better rogue than that. He knows he’s a better rogue than that, and yet he got caught with a simple slip-up.
The fourth thing he investigated were his surroundings. The room was dim, small, and entirely made of stone. A rusted metal door was inset to the wall, with a small, barred rectangular panel near the top where the iron could slide open for someone to look through.
The only light came from the top left corner of the room. It was the recognizable faint blue glow of arcanotech, where a crystal camera was fastened to the wall, watching him.
He eyed the camera, and decided that he wouldn’t resort to flipping it off just yet.
Riz moved his attention to the chains hung over the hook, tilting his head to the side to get a better look and squinting his eyes to make them focus. He dug his heels into the grooves of the stone brick behind him, trying to gain enough slack so he could at least unhook himself from the wall.
The chains rattled as they slipped forward on the hook, and with a push off the wall, he tumbled to the floor, barely sticking the landing.
“Sweet,” Riz muttered. “Now just to get these off…” He inspected the cuffs. They weren’t standard handcuffs, not at all like the ones the Elmville police department used, but rather reminiscent of shackles commonly used outside of Solace. They were tight around his wrists, biting into his skin; the chain between the manacles was minimal, allowing for his hands to rest just a few inches apart from each other.
Most notably, there wasn’t a visible lock on them. Instead, a seam on each cuff, with runes inscribed over them.
He tried to think back to his study sessions with Adaine, about what spells these runes could be indicative of. The answer came to him quickly enough, and he cursed his luck as he recognized the inscriptions of Arcane Lock.
He might’ve been able to pick a regular lock without his watch or lockpicks — he’s practiced using his claws in a pinch, and he’s sure he has some spare bobby pins stashed in the soles of his shoes — but Arcane Lock would require tools he doesn’t have.
Riz swore under his breath, his tail lashing indignantly, before resigning himself to get a better look of the room. He did a lap around the cell, investigating each square brick for an entrance to a secret passageway or for weak points of stone he could exploit to dig an exit.
Unfortunately, he circled his way back to the place he started with nothing to show for it aside from a bucket that had been turned over like a chair.
His focus then turned to the camera in the corner. An idea, one Fig had done before while recording a video, popped into his head. He chanted beneath his breath, the cuffs clinking together as he moved his hands to Prestidigitate a small, exact diorama of the room — excluding himself — in front of the crystal camera lens.
Quickly, he crouched next to the door, ears perked. He waited, listening for footsteps in the hallway, cloaked in shadow, and as still as a statue. Riz held the chain of the cuffs close to his chest, hoping to minimize the amount of noise it made while still maintaining his mobility.
His ear twitched as the faint tap of bootsteps reached them. They were far away, but drawing nearer and nearer. Riz tensed, until the boots were right outside the door.
A pause.
With a screech, the small viewing window slid open, and Riz pressed himself up against the wall, holding his breath and keeping his tail still, careful to not make any sounds.
“Shit,” an unfamiliar gravelly voice swore. There was a jingle of keys accompanied by a comfortingly familiar click-click of pins in a lock turning. The door opened with a loud, rusted creaking, and an armored silhouette stepped through just as Riz slipped out behind them.
The armored person didn’t pay him any mind, seeming rather focused on inspecting the now-empty room. “Elijah! Get some more guards, the little brat got out!”
The yelling grew quieter as Riz continued down the hallway.
The corridor looked as much like a dungeon as the room he had been kept in, the walls and floor made of cold stone and lined by sconces holding lit torches. The air was musty and damp, moss growing freely through the cracks of mortar. His footsteps were quiet on the bricks as he crept from shadow to shadow, ducking behind miscellaneous crates and barrels whenever the clatter of boots and armor passed by.
He found his way to a staircase, and spent a few valuable seconds casting Invisibility on himself before he went up. The risk paid off, as the sounds of footsteps approached, walking down the spiral stairs.
Riz pressed himself up against the wall, freezing in place and hoping that he was small enough to not be bumped into. Right as he had done so, Bobby Dawn — former Aguefort cleric teacher and current evangelical prick — passed by him, followed by a woman with short, curly white hair and gleaming armor.
Riz’s heart thumped in his chest, loud enough that he almost thought they would turn to look right at him. Except the two merely continued to walk down the stairs, the click of their shoes growing quieter. Riz sighed in relief.
The door at the top of the stairs had been left ajar, and he slipped through it, exiting out into a new area.
He was met with yet another hallway, but crumbling stone bricks and rusted iron had been replaced with gleaming white marble. Columns lined the hall, leaving enough space between the pillars and the wall for Riz to hide in their shadows.
Tapestries hung between the columns, woven gold, orange, and green, depicting fields of corn, of the sun’s rays on the earth, of a man haloed by divine light, arms spread wide to a group of small, bowing people. An undercurrent of magic — divine magic — thrummed through the walls like static electricity. He’d been taken to a temple of Sol.
He tried to recall which temples of Sol — or even of Helio — were in Solace. He knew of a few churches near Elmville, his mom had investigated them while she was tracking down the Harvestmen, but he hadn’t heard about any nearby temples that were this large.
He held out hope that he was near Elmville, but the prospect that he was even in Solace anymore was beginning to look bleak.
Riz had to find his things and get out of here.
He took a breath, pushing down the panic that had begun to rise in his throat. Agent Gukgak, he told himself, you are deep in enemy territory, without any getaway vehicle, any backup, or any forms of communication with you. He began to stalk between the shadows of the candlelit corridor, stopping whenever he heard footsteps nearby. His invisibility had dropped at some point while he wandered, but he remained hidden despite the prickling on the back of his neck that made him feel like he was being watched. The most important item to get is your watch, you can try to contact Agent Gukgak Senior with it, and he might be able to send a message to your party if your crystal doesn’t work.
The hall opened up into a grander room. It was still lined with columns, but there was a fountain with a statue of Sol in the center. It was also much more alive, with flowers and shrubbery growing, divided by marble paths. The ceiling was dome-like and made of glass, with the familiar half-light of the midafternoon streaming down. Clerics and acolytes passed through, unaware of Riz skulking around the perimeter, obscured by the strong shadows cast by the foliage and pillars.
He moved deeper into the temple, passing prayer rooms, libraries, and choir rooms. Eventually though, he found a door decorated with a golden plaque. Embossed in a cursive text, it read ‘Father Bobby Dawn’.
Riz grinned, checking around the hall to ensure nobody was nearby before he stepped from his hiding place to inspect the door. He found no sign of arcane tampering or of any traps. He scoffed, it was amateurish, his office was trapped to Avernus and back. The lock on the door was simple enough for Riz’s claws to take care of, even with his hands still bound. The simplicity of it was to be expected from Bobby Dawn, but it still set Riz on edge. He kept himself alert, searching for traps.
He entered the office, quietly closing the door behind him.
Riz blinked to adjust his eyes to the new lighting of the dark room. It was quaint, with a desk and two chairs, one chair on either side. Papers littered the desk along with some miscellaneous candles and a jar full of pens. A large bookshelf stood on the back side of the room, and tapestries — incredibly similar to the ones in the hallways — hung on either side of the walls. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, made up of unlit globes of stained glass.
He crept around until he was closest to the bookshelf. There, hidden behind the desk, was a large chest. Riz padded towards it, keeping his ears perked for any noises outside. When he didn’t hear anything, he turned his attention towards the chest. It was locked, and he could tell it was a more complicated one than the lock that kept the office door shut. He rifled through the drawers of the desk, past letters and paperclips, until he found both a key ring and — were his glasses just sitting in this guy’s desk drawer?
Riz — finally, finally — was granted clear vision now that he had his glasses back on. All his arcanotech additions were still there, too! Investigating this place was going to be a lot easier now that he had a better conduit for Detect Magic. His tail swished back and forth slightly as he celebrated the minor victory.
With sharp eyes, he looked over the key ring, luckily only having to try one or two before finding the perfect key and clicking the lock open. He lifted the lid and began digging through the contents.
There was a lot of contraband in here, and he ended up sifting through a bunch of tarot decks, world religion books, and rock t-shirts (he even spotted a Cig Figs one). He only got his Gregori Necktie back around his neck before his ear twitched at the creak of a floorboard.
Riz dived beneath the desk, hiding behind the still-open chest and trying to meld into the shadows as much as possible. He mentally swore as his hand instinctively curled around empty air at his side, he really wished to have his arquebus or the Sword of Shadows at his side.
Now that he wasn’t distracted with the chest, he could easily pick up the sound of two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other.
“Now now, kid.” The familiar southern drawl of Bobby Dawn echoed through the room. “There’s no use hiding, we know where you are. Come out willingly and we’ll make it easier for you.” At the fringes of his blindsense, Riz could hear the man standing on the other side of the desk, leaning against it, nonchalantly, as if this was yet another Sunday morning and he was talking to some kid that got too nervous to go to confession.
What was worse was the sinking feeling in Riz’s gut that he wasn’t lying. At least, Bobby Dawn wasn’t lying about knowing where he was. Some instinctive part of Riz’s brain told him that — whether he walked into the open willing or if he was dragged out kicking, screaming, and clawing — this was not going to be easy for him. Riz took a much needed deep breath and tugged the back part of the Gregori Necktie, turning the dial to add a Detect Magic effect.
He stepped out from behind the desk, hands still bound by those too-tight manacles. In front of him, Bobby Dawn leaned against his mahogany desk. Further behind him, the person Riz now could recognize as Pamela Dawn stood, adorned in the same gleaming full plate armor, arms crossed, and a deadly looking glaive strapped to her back. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Riz’s face and he hoped to Cassandra that the Dawns wouldn’t notice the newly retrieved accessory he wore around his neck.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dawn! What a surprise to see you here. Really sorry for intruding like this,” he sidestepped towards the door, out of reach of both Bobby and Pamela. “But I seem to have gotten turned around while looking for the bathroom! Silly, silly me!”
He jumped back just in time for Pamela’s glaive to only clip off some strands of his hair as she swung the weapon down in front of him, blocking his path to the exit.
The hair on his neck stood on end, and the fur on his tail puffing up as he was boxed in. He bit back the instinct to hiss at them, deciding that it would be counterintuitive towards his goal of staying alive.
“Riz…Gukgak, is it?” Bobby Dawn asked, not waiting for a response before continuing. “I know we’ve never met before, not officially, anyway. I must say, your friend Kristen was…a good student. On paper, at least. Of course, she strayed from Sol’s light — which is a downright shame, she had the makings to be a fantastic Chosen One. If I was really in charge of what Cleric classes had to offer, she and the other students of similar heresy would’ve had to take a year of revision.” The man shook his head, a faint smile on his lips, as if he were sharing some kind of inside joke instead of suggesting he wanted to fail a whole group of students for not worshipping his god.
Bobby Dawn continued his speech, seemingly not noticing Riz’s face scrunched up in scorn. “That’s not what you’re here for, though. This isn’t some petty revenge against that… witch girl, no. You’re a real snoop of a kid, aren’t ‘ya? I can’t have you looking through my business like you did with all those other people that stood in your way. No, no, I’m not going to repeat the same mistake of underestimating you, kiddo.”
With each word, pieces began to click together into Riz’s mind. His eyes darted back and forth from clue to red string to clue. “You…planted a false lead just so you could…kidnap me, so I wouldn’t be a threat to whatever evil plan you’re working on.”
“It isn’t evil if Sol decrees it to be true justice, Mr. Gukgak. The deliverance of His Word is what’s best for the whole world, even if most are blind to its truth. No one wants to break the eggs, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’ve got a damn good omelette in the end.”
Sure, yeah, whatever, it’s not like that’s what every villain tells themself so they can sleep better at night. ‘Greater good’ his ass. Riz rolled his eyes, and focused back on the bigger picture beginning to form in front of him. “You haven’t killed me yet, and you’ve had a lot of time to do so. You want something from me.”
Bobby’s eyebrows raised, and Riz took that as an opportunity to keep talking. “You already took all my gear — and nothing I have would be of any use to you, anyway. Which means…I’m either a hostage, or you want information.”
“I’m real sorry we have to meet this way, Mr. Gukgak.”
“No, you’re not.”
Bobby Dawn stared, unimpressed with the defiance. Riz met his eyes with a glare.
The man sighed, “It’s a shame you feel that way. Are you going to bolt the first chance you get? Or are you going to be a good kid and behave for once?”
Riz answered with a question of his own, “How could you tell where I was?”
At that question, Bobby Dawn smiled, holding out his arms as if he were basking in a sunbeam. “Sol lit the path for me, as he always does.”
Riz rolled his eyes again, shaking his head. It must be some kind of spell, then. It’s not like a god would call down his divine power unbidden to find where some goblin kid was hiding. Locate Creature, maybe? Or possibly Locate Object, or Detect Magic, if Bobby Dawn had locked onto searching for the handcuffs shackling him, and not Riz himself.
“I’ll walk.” Riz responded. The swish of air behind his back told him that Pamela had pulled the glaive away.
“Good choice, kid.” Pamela Dawn’s voice was exactly what Riz expected it to be. She had the same southern Highcourt accent as Bobby, but almost a little — warmer was not the word, her voice didn’t have real warmth to it, not like how Kristen, Fig, Fabian, any of his friends spoke with genuine warmth — more condescending. That was the word. It was like Pamela was talking to someone half Riz’s age, and not Riz.
Patronization aside, Riz allowed himself to be walked — with Bobby Dawn in the lead and Pamela Dawn behind him, glaive still held in her hands — back down to the damp dungeons. Instead of being brought back to his cell, though, Riz was led in a different direction, off branching paths that he tried to keep track of in his mind in case he’d have to find his way out of here.
Bobby Dawn opened the door in front of him, grabbing Riz’s arm and dragging him into a room with a table, two chairs, and an overhead light.
Riz didn’t stop himself from hissing this time, making his irritation known as he was forcefully sat down in one of the wooden chairs. The chain holding the shackles together was looped around by another chain that had been fastened to the metal table in front of him. His tail lashed back and forth as he glared at Bobby and Pamela, his jaw tight as he ground his teeth together.
“Now, kid, look.” Bobby Dawn began speaking, flicking on the lightbulb overhead and placing Riz under a spotlight. “We don’t want you hurt—“
“Bullshit. I know this good cop bad cop technique like the back of my hand, and let me tell you — in the real world there’s no such thing as a good cop.” Riz interrupted, relishing in the annoyance that came across Bobby Dawn’s face.
“You don’t want to do this, Riz Gukgak.” Pamela Dawn says, slamming a hand down on the table. “It’s going to be a lot worse if you don’t give us the information we need.”
Riz sneered. “What do you even want to know?”
Bobby Dawn walked around to Riz’s left side, closer to being behind him than in front. Riz didn’t give him the satisfaction of craning his head around to look at him as he spoke, rather just staring at Pamela as she stood in front of the table.
It was Bobby Dawn who said it. “How did Cassandra turn herself into the Nightmare King?”
Riz’s blood ran cold in his veins. It took all his willpower to keep looking straight at the table, to keep his expression schooled, to not look down at the tattoos across his arms. Clues, forever scrawled on his skin, about the Nightmare King investigation.
“Why do you want to know that?”
A hand gripped his shoulder, a hand so unnaturally hot that Riz could feel it scalding his skin even through his shirt. “That, Mr. Gukgak, is something that will stay between me and Sol.” He could hear the grin on Bobby Dawn’s face. “You know how it happened, what exactly caused her to change. You’re going to tell me how she did it.”
Nails dug into his shoulder, and the uncomfortable heat increased until sharp pain seared through his side, like a burning knife through butter. Divine — no, necrotic — energy crackling, sapping at his very life force, clawing at his soul, setting his nerves aflame and forcing him to bite back a cry of pain.
“It’s— she—“ a lie formed on his tongue, before it fizzled out, vocal cords making nothing but empty air.
“What was that? Were you trying to lie to me, boy?” Bobby Dawn asked, already knowing the answer. He rescinded his hand from Riz’s shoulder and the jolt of cold air against the burning handprint of a wound stung sharper than any wasp.
The man moved the chair aside, kneeling down to look Riz in the eye as he spoke. “There’s a Zone of Truth ‘round this whole room, kid, so don’t even try it. If there’s one thing Sol hates, it’s liars.” Bobby Dawn tapped his chin, thoughtfully, before looking over at Pamela. “Pammy, darling, do me a favor and show Mr. Gukgak the wrath he incurs by trying to lie in a holy place.” Bobby Dawn stepped aside, and Riz met Pamela’s eyes.
“Gladly, my dear.” She replied, lifting her glaive. The weapon began to glow with the radiance of the day, filling the room with blinding light, before she buried it in Riz’s sternum.
Riz screamed. His vision went black as the glaive tore through flesh and cracked bone apart into hundreds of pieces. Divine light coursed through his veins, traveling through his capillaries, his arteries, his heart, burning him from the inside out.
He tries to take a small breath and ends up whining in pain. Every movement, every tremor, sending searing agony through his abdomen. Warm blood gushed from the wound, past the blade, staining Riz’s white shirt. He took another shallow breath, trying to minimize the movement of the polearm skewered through his chest, like a bug pinned to a board, before he looked down.
His vision blurred, turning black at the edges as his head tilted too quickly. His eyes cleared enough for him to see the divine eye of his Gregori Necktie, splattered red, torn in half, but still in a knot around his neck. He sighed in relief at that fact, while bile simultaneously rose in his throat, burning that too. The blade shifted in his chest, digging deeper and pulling another cry of pain from his scorched lungs.
He swore, and swore and swore under his breath. His ears rang, and every sound in the room sounded like it was coming from miles away.
From underwater, he heard a southern voice drawl, “Now those are some expletives you should never say in a place of God. You’re fine, kid. The blade’s still in there. You won’t bleed out.”
Riz pulled his strength together so he could spit blood on Bobby Dawn’s face. Pamela’s hands tightened her grip on the weapon, knuckle-white, and she twisted it into Riz’s chest.
His vision blurred together completely, a mix of tears, of pain, of color, and of phosphenes, as fuzzy darkness overtook his eyesight completely.
The pain in his chest slipped away as blood gurgled out of his mouth, choking on it, red dripping down his chin. He slumped over, falling forwards as the glaive pulled from a sheath made of flesh and blood. His head hit the table. He did not feel it.
He was nowhere.
He was everywhere.
He was nothing, nonexistent, no face and no name.
He was everything, everyone in the universe, millions of features, of faces, of languages.
He was lying on something.
Grass tickled Riz’s face, he opened his eyes to a soft blue sky, clouds lazily floating overhead like they had nothing better to do, nowhere better to be.
He sat up and looked down at a crisp, white, unwrinkled button up shirt and Gregori Necktie. There was no stain, no blood, no viscera, and no hole in his chest despite the hollow feeling lingering. He felt scraped clean from the inside out, like if he dug and dug he would find no organs, no heartbeat, no lungs, no stomach.
That didn’t seem to bother him. No, he was…calm, actually. Calmer than he thought he should be.
“Kid! Kid, oh my—“ a person at the edges of his blindsight closed the distance between the two of them. Someone kneeled at his side, two hands cupped Riz’s shocked face and tilted it to look at his.
“Dad?”
“Yeah kiddo,” Pok Gukgak said. “It’s me. What— what are you doing here? You’re not— what happened?” His dad looked him over, worriedly checking him for injuries despite knowing all of them would be gone, as if skin had never been broken in the first place.
“There’s—“ Riz tried to blink himself out of his stupor, but the feeling of floating, of not having a physical form, still lingered in his brain. He looked down at the grass, lush and green, he ran his hand through it. “I got captured. By Bobby Dawn and— I was being interrogated.” He looked back up, seeing the pinched expression on his dad’s face.
For as great of agent Pok was, Riz had inherited his face, and he could read the barely concealed horror on his dad’s face as well as he could read it on his own. Riz opened his mouth again, “I didn’t…I didn’t give him anything to work with.”
His dad engulfed him in a hug, arms and wings wrapping around him in a warm comfort. “Oh, Riz…” he murmured.
Riz let himself sit in the hug, grasping at his dad’s shirt, no doubt wrinkling it as he let tears flow freely. He felt like he was five again, waking up from a nightmare and going to his parents’ room to sleep in their bed. Mom would kiss his forehead, assuring him the dream wasn’t real. Dad would wrap him in a blanket and tell him that he’d protect Riz from monsters. They’d sandwich him between them and hold him until he was able to go to sleep again.
Except this time his mom wasn’t here. There was no nightmare, there was no blanket, and there was no way to protect him. It was over already.
His lungs hurt.
His lungs hurt.
His lungs should not hurt.
He pulled back from the hug, and looked down. Ripples of sunlight — searing, burning sunlight, not the gradual warmth of the dawn or the comforting chill of twilight stars he had grown so used to, but heat waves that would burn you alive when given the chance — emanated from his chest.
“Dad— Dad.” Riz stumbled over his words, feeling both more grounded and more terrified than he had for the first time in minutes.
“You’re being revived…were your friends there, Riz?”
“No— no, none of them were.” The sunlight grew stronger, the glow spreading across his collarbone. He grasped at his dad’s hands, suddenly frantic, the urgency of the situation fully dawning.
“You need to tell them, please. I know it’s against protocol but you need to tell them that Bobby Dawn has me. I’m in—“ the light spread to his arms, and down his legs. Sharp pain sparked again, a stabbing through his chest, and he grit his teeth against it. “I’m in a temple of Sol, a big one, Bobby Dawn has an office there. It doesn’t have much arcanotech and it looks pretty old-fashioned. I know it’s against the rules but you need to tell them.”
“Okay— okay kiddo.” His dad replied, letting go of Riz’s hands so he could grab his shoulders and pull him into a hug, despite the sunlight searing even his angelic skin. “You’re right, I can't tell them directly, but I know a ton of people who can. I can pass your message down the right channels.”
Riz buried his face into his dad’s shoulder as he felt the burning sensation of light creep up his neck.
“You’re going to be alright, son, we’re gonna get you out alright, okay?” Pok let go of the hug, pressing a kiss to Riz’s forehead.
“Okay…okay, I love you, Dad.” Riz’s voice was faint, a whisper on the breeze that flowed through this section of the Lower Planes.
“I love you too.” As his vision was engulfed in blinding light, the last thing he saw was his father’s tear stained face, a determined smile hiding the worry in his eyes.
He sat in a white void, floating through nothingness, through everything.
From far away, through the gauze of an ethereal lens, through an ocean of noise and silence, when Riz wasn’t quite in his body, but wasn’t quite out of it, he thought he heard the tail end of a conversation.
A familiar voice, calm, collected, close to smug in its tone. “…get the —“ the waves of the ethereal crashed over him, filling his ears with ringing static “—better than you can. I’ll handle it.” Then silence once more.
He gasped for air, shooting up in the chair from where he was slumped over on the table. Everything hit him at once. He hacked and coughed, blood spitting up from his throat as his lungs heaved and burned in agony. He felt dizzy, lightheaded, like the room was spinning and he couldn’t get enough air into his body.
“You’re back with us?” Riz coughed louder in response. “Good. That was a real expensive diamond you used up, Mr. Gukgak.”
The room had shifted, changed slightly when he wasn’t there to see it. Bobby Dawn now sat in the other chair across the table, which had been wiped down of all blood. Riz glanced around the room even as black dots danced around his vision. He perked his ringing ears in an attempt to hear footsteps or shifting of armor, trying to pinpoint what other voice he heard. There was nothing. They were the only two there.
“But that’s alright, we’ve got enough to spare.” The man continued, brushing diamond dust off of the bloodstained table.
“So what?” Riz’s voice was hoarse, his words slurred slightly, like he wasn’t all there yet. He probably wasn’t. “You kill me, n’ then revive me to…what? Prove a point? Show y’ve got some….power here? ‘Don’t think that’s very saintly of you.” His head lulled as he struggled to keep it upright. His entire body ached, like he had been struck by lightning. The burn on his shoulder, still fresh, stung sharply against the chill of the open air. The deep gash in his chest sluggishly bled out and sent pains wracking through his body whenever he moved. At least it wasn’t killing him anymore. Small victories.
Bobby Dawn sighed. “I see that we’re not going to make much progress today. I’ll have someone escort you back to your room.” He stood up and left, closing the door behind him with a quiet click. Riz sunk into the chair, letting himself relax momentarily now that he was alone. He let his eyes close, just for a brief moment.
He slipped in and out of consciousness as he was unchained from the desk and hauled over someone’s shoulder, only fully jolting back to the waking world when he was thrown onto the floor of his cell, and the door closed with a slam.
He lied on the floor, breathing through the pain as spots danced across his vision, threatening to knock him unconscious for good.
Riz doesn’t know how long he lied there, keeping his breathing steady before he managed to sit up again, groaning as he leaned against the wall for support. He’s survived far more difficult things than this, so how in the Nine Hells were Bobby and Pamela Dawn of all people able to take him out that easily? Though, most of his combat experience includes hiding in the shadows, and he can’t exactly dodge out of the way when he’s stuck, chained to a table.
Or maybe he was just weak without his friends there to help him. Rogues — as much as they pride themselves on being lone wolves who strike out against their parties — rely on people to fight with them. It’s why thieves guilds, assassin guilds, rogue guilds are so common. They’re good strikers, but they can’t soak up damage like barbarians can, or support to the same caliber as clerics, or throw spells with the aptitude of wizards. Most importantly, parties draw attention. They shine in the spotlight so the rogue can sneak around the shadows and pinpoint weak points to eventually get a lucky shot.
There was only so much he could do on his own, without anyone to catch him when he inevitably falls
Riz leaned against the wall, slowly breathing in and out with techniques he had once helped Adaine through when she had a panic attack.
The pain didn’t dull, still sharp and stabbing at his ribcage and shoulder and lungs, but he was able to stop black dots from fogging up his vision.
The feeling of movement at the edge of his blindsense sent him jolting back into the corner of the room, hissing from pain and as a warning. He may be on death’s door, but he would not go down again without getting some swings in.
There was no attacker, nobody in the room but himself, despite the prickling at his neck and the overwhelming feeling of being watched. No, but there was a small container a few inches away from where he had just been sitting.
Riz forced himself to relax, but his tail still swished back and forth. He inched towards the box, flipping a lens over his glasses as he casted Detect Magic. Inspecting it, he found nothing magical emanating from the box, but the room itself radiated with Abjurative wards and incantations, burning with such a bright light that he had to dispel it as soon as it was cast.
He opened the box, finding it to be unlocked. Inside were rolls of bandages, gauze, some disinfectant, antiseptic, and an incredibly small, pocket sized suture kit.
Riz blinked. He looked up, and around the room again. This was not here before. He swears this was not here before.
Was this some kind of trap? Would these supplies do more harm than good?
But…there wasn’t anything magical about it, and he wasn’t in a position to be ungrateful or look too closely at what’s been given to him. Not when he had no idea how long this moment of respite would last before he was dragged back to that interrogation room. Not when the wound on his chest could worsen at any moment. Not when the threat of infection loomed over him in such a decrepit, damp place.
Riz picked up the first aid kit and got to work. He didn’t have magic to aid him, like how Kristen, Fabian, or Fig could heal, but he knew how to clean and dress a wound. He knew how to sew up stitches.
The bandages ended up lopsided. They weren’t as tight as he wished they would be, either, but his range of movement was still limited by the handcuffs, and he couldn’t fully take his shirt off to assess the damage. For a moment, he thought about wrapping up his arms to hide the tattoos, hide his knowledge of the Nightmare King. He eventually decided against it, not wanting to make it obvious he was hiding something or risk running out of the supply later, especially since he couldn’t rely on another kit appearing out of the blue. He was merely lucky this time.
Still, getting most of his injuries cleaned and covered put him at ease, even slightly. Now, more than ever, he was incredibly thankful for taking first aid classes at Augefort.
His shirt was ruined, the front bloodstained and torn for there to be a gaping hole in the center, revealing bandages beneath. He tugged twice on the back part of his Gregori Necktie, pausing the recording. He wasn’t sure how long it had been running, but he wanted to save what available room for footage he might have left.
He grimaced seeing the state of his tie. The mechanics near the knot were blessedly untouched — if he kept it intact until he got back home, then the information he gathered could surely be used for a conviction. Kidnapping, torture, murder, Bobby and Pamela Dawn would really be in for it — but the blade of the tie had been torn off completely.
“Wow, Riz. They really did a number on you.” He startled at the Message in his head, frantically looking around for the source of it. The swish of a tail, padding of paws against stone, green gleaming eyes. A figure of shadows, leaning against the wall, as casual as can be.
“Kalina? What— how are you here?” Riz shifted the first aid kit behind him, obscuring it from her view. He squared his shoulders, trying to seem stronger than he currently was. He hadn’t seen Kalina since the attack in the mall, but here she was, no shatter-star to be seen.
“Chill out bud, I was the one who told him to take it easy on you. It’s not like he listened, though.” Kalina unsheathed her claws, inspecting them. “I’m not here to kill you, I wouldn’t have made myself so obvious if I was.” Riz narrowed her eyes at her.
“That’s…very reassuring.” It was not. “Again, what are you doing here? What do you mean ‘you told him’?”
She shrugged, tail flicking. “I’ve turned over a new leaf, checked out the prospects with other gods. You’d be surprised about the places they let you go when you ‘repent’ and ‘admit your wrongdoings.’ But you kids would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re…working for clerics of Sol? For Bobby Dawn?”
She tilted her head at him, teeth gleaming even in the lack of light, her pupils narrowed to slits. “I’m doing what’s necessary to survive, kiddo. Though it really doesn’t look like you’ve been doing great at that kind of thing.”
Riz huffed, regretting the action as soon as he took it when it sent a stab of pain through his ribcage. He wanted to turn away from her, but he knew better than to do so. “I was doing much better before you showed up.”
Kalina stepped backwards into the shadows, reappearing right in front of him with one fluid movement. Riz jolted backwards, trying to keep his eyes on her at all times, as if she would pounce the moment he looked away.
“You’re really sure about that?” She dangled the first aid kit in front of him, Riz fumbled for where he had pushed the supplies behind him, feeling nothing but open air. “Cause I’m pretty sure you would’ve been floundering around and bleeding out if you didn’t have this thing. I can take it back though, if you think you don’t need it.”
“No—“ He lunged towards it, but he was injured and Kalina was quicker, she always was. She held it higher in the air, out of his reach.
“Woah! Geez, settle down there. You’re going to tear your stitches.” She placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder, gently — and that was a surprise. She didn’t shove him, it was placid, her claws were sheathed — pushing him to sit back down on the floor. She let go of his shoulder and threw the first aid kit back to him, Riz easily caught it.
He looked up at her with narrowed eyes. Kalina had never been easy to read. Riz tried to pick her apart, tried to find her aim, her goal, her motive. But she was a spy, she had always been elusive, hiding behind half truths and false assumptions. Kalina had never lied to him — not actively at least — but she never confirmed anything to him, either.
That’s to say: he didn’t know what to think of her being here. Riz wasn’t even sure he had the energy to start trying to think about it. His brain trudged on in spite of it, sluggish and halfhearted, trying to match clues together. The dots weren’t connecting, the red string wasn’t lining up. This didn’t make sense. None of it did.
“Why’re you here?” He asked again, continuing the use of Message. “If…you’re working with them, they should know how Cass became the…the Nightmare King.” The adrenaline drop had left him woozy, unsteady. His vision swam for the millionth time that day, and now more than ever he wished he could have a cup of coffee to fight off the exhaustion that tugged at his eyelids.
Kalina shook her head. “You’re delirious. You lost a lot of blood, kid. You should really take a nap, we don’t want that big brain of yours to short circuit, now do we?” She waved her paw in a smooth motion. Riz squinted, recognizing the movement of a somatic component to a spell.
“Don’t make me waste more slots here kid, it’s just a sleep spell, should get you fixed up in no time.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Why would I want you to die?”
Riz thought about that. About how many chances Kalina had to kill him, and about why she would even want to. It made his head swim.
She waved her hand again, and he let his eyes close, curled up in the corner of the room.
When he was ten, when going to his parent’s room (singular now) was no longer an option (he didn’t want his mom to lose any more sleep than she already had), Riz stared at the ceiling whenever he had a nightmare.
He would stare, with scared, wide eyes, covers up to his chin, and try to count sheep, just as he had read in books and seen on TV.
Sometimes, he would listen. He would listen to the buzzing of lights in the apartment building’s hallway, the chirping of crickets outside, the hum of the AC out in the living room.
Sometimes, he thought he could hear a voice humming along with it, slow and melodic.
He always thought it was a snippet of a dream, taking root in his ears as he slipped back into slumber.
As Riz lets out a soft sigh, letting the chirp of crickets, rustle of leaves, and the smell of a forest at midnight tuck him in, he swears he can hear that same humming.
Back in Elmville, far away from bloodstained shirts, cold cells, and the scorch of divine magic, a message goes out.
In a hollowed out ship turned into a hollow home, a radio to hell crackles online, words forming from the static.
There is no moon in the sky, but the stars do their due diligence in whispering a missive into the dreams of the Saint of Mystery and Night.
In a tree spiraling up to the sky, a handheld crystal communes with a dancing satellite. A pulse of magic washes across the planet, and the crystal lights up with a map of arcanotech frequencies across the globe, zeroing in on the six crystals that were connected directly to the satellite through strings of magic.
As the dawn breaks, the sunlight washes over the Archdevil of Rebellion, telling her of a wrong that needs to be righted, an injustice that must be corrected. There is someone in need of her aid.
The Oracle of All reaches out her senses, searching — not for the first time and certainly not for the last — for her missing friend. Her past attempts at divination failed, but she never gave up. He’s never given up on a mystery before, and she wouldn’t give up on him.
This time, her Sight is guided by another’s hand. A celestial that was used to sidling into places unseen. Used to listening in on conversations he shouldn’t. Used to picking locks once thought unbreakable.
It’s simple, once you know how to do it. Apply tension to the keyhole. Test the pins. Twist the wrist…and the abjuration magic is suppressed for a glimmer of a moment. Just long enough for the Oracle’s Scry to find its target.