0 comments/ 4434 views/ 0 favorites The Red Scourge Ch. 03 By: krojar 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." The Red Scourge Ch. 04 Rinessa stared at the woman in stunned silence. The Woman gave her a gorgeous half-smile and walked around her, eying every inch of Rinessa from head to heels. Normally Rinessa might have lashed out but this place seemed to moving at a disconcertingly slow speed. Instead she merely said, "Where are we?" The Woman paused in front of Rinessa. "That's a good question." Her voice was unlike any she had ever heard, falling somewhere in between a songbird and the sharp sound of a cracking whip. A mix of beauty and pain. "Your mind? My world? A limbo? Who knows? It does not matter." The Woman got closer, gently putting her hand on Rinessa's shoulder. The odd fragrance of burning roses and filled Rinessa nostrils. "What does matter is that you're here at long last." She pressed her body against Rinessa's own. Her hands rested on Rinessa's hips. Rinessa felt her heart beat faster, whether due to fear or lust she didn't know. The scourge. It had to be. "Who are you? What's your name?" she snarled. "Whoever you are, you've possessed the scourge I can guess that much." The Woman looked at Rinessa lustfully as her hands traveled down past the rukuvu and began to gently caress Rinessa's bare legs. "Why I am the scourge, my love. As to my name? Well, I've had many over the years but you can call me the Crimson Lady. That's a good name for any century wouldn't you say? " she said. "I'm an instrument of fate, just like you, my love." She moved her face to Rinessa's until their lips were inches apart. "We were meant to find each other! Meant to cut a swath of destruction so grand that the gods themselves will marvel at the sight!" Before Rinessa could respond the Crimson Lady grabbed her in an iron grip and kissed her deeply. At first Rinessa was filled with revulsion as the taste of coal, ash, and burning flesh consumed her mouth. A river of molten fire flowed through her body until she felt she would burst. Then the foul taste turned to cinnamon and sugar, baked bread, and warm cream. The fire turned to a snug warmth that enveloped her in its safe embrace. Only then was she aware that the Crimson Lady's tongue was pushed deeply into her mouth and that her hands gripped Rinessa's ass tightly. Rinessa felt herself pushing her own tongue back at the Crimson Lady, clutching at the perfect bosom barely contained by the vermillion velvet. Finally the Crimson Lady broke their embrace and threw her head back and laughed. It was like the sound of an inferno's angry crackling through the inky darkness of a moonlesss night. The instant her laughter faded, the Crimson Lady took Rinessa's hand and began to dance with her in the light. Their dance together was a dervish of pandemonium and madness. Rinessa saw the faces of so many people she had known as she was spun around. The face of her nanny, of the handsome merchant's son who had been her first, of her master-at-arms, the only person at her father's castle that ever showed her kindness, of slaves she had tormented, of slaves she had been merciful to, of Umbroze, of Seva, of her mother with her delicate and sad beauty, and of her father. Her father most of all. They danced for what seemed like forever, with the Crimson Lady pausing three times to kiss her deeply before continuing their chaotic promenade. In years to come, Rinessa would remember that dance like an addict remembering the first time they lost themselves in the high of their favorite drug. When they ceased, Rinessa wasn't sure whether to strike the Crimson Lady to be free of this feeling or throw herself at the Crimson Lady's feet and beg to be hers forever, so she would never have to be free of this feeling. She pushed the Crimson Lady away from her as she felt tears come to her eyes. "What have you done to me? I..." The strange red world began to spin unpleasantly. All of a sudden, the very real feelings of dizziness and nausea threatened to overtake her previous whimsy. She held her stomach and swayed side to side as she struggled to stay on her feet. The Crimson Lady gave Rinessa a wicked smile. "I've connected us Rinessa. Just like She meant for us to be." Rinessa groaned and went to her knees, struggling not to vomit. She felt the Crimson Lady's hand scratch the back of her head almost tenderly. "As I said, you cannot seize your destiny without me and I cannot fulfill my purpose without a wielder." Rinessa collapsed onto her back staring at the light. Fear, hate, lust, and sickness swirled in her as she struggled to stay conscious. But one emotion overwhelmed the others: a desire for more. More fire, more chaos, more of that insane dance, and more of the Crimson Lady's embrace. "Addiction," she finally said as her mind began to put together this bizarre event. "You have given me an addiction." Rinessa would have laughed but she didn't want the Crimson Lady to know she understood the joke. As she towered over her, the Crimson Lady laughed anyway. "Yes but fear not, my love. You're hardly the first to be addicted to power. And make no mistake about it," she bent over Rinessa, filling her entire vision with that radiant and terrible beauty. "I will give you power. The power to destroy your father, avenge your mother, to take this world and make it your own. All you need to do is to love me Rinessa. Love me like I love you." Rinessa struggled to come up with a response but then she saw the Crimson Lady's hand come into her vision. It covered Rinessa's eyes and her world turned to blackness once more. * * * Rinessa's eyes flew open. Her hand and arms were drenched with a wet and somewhat sticky substance. She looked around. The storage room looked clear as day but it did not seem to be lit by any source she could see. Before Rinessa could even conceive of how that could be she noticed that she was standing over the body of an unterdöt. She noticed that his torso had been torn apart as if attacked by some monster's enormous claws. She glanced up and noticed the bodies of three unterdötten, similarly eviscerated beyond recognition, their bowels spilled upon the floor. The salty metal taste of blood, sweat, and bile assaulted Rinessa's senses. Rinessa saw Seva looking back at her with her jaw open, looking at her in complete terror. Unsure of what else to say, she shook the blood off of her limbs and asked, "Seva...what did I do?" Seva looked back at Rinessa as if she were mad. "Mistress...you killed them. All of them. I...This one has never seen anyone move like that. And..." She seemed reluctant to continue but she squeaked out, "You were laughing. The whole time you were laughing in a way I...This one...does not..." She seemed at a loss of words as she looked in wide eyed horror at the ghastly scene before them. "How do you not remember Mistress?" Rinessa turned the scourge over and examined it, now being able to see it perfectly well. It was finely made, with supple red leather. Its long leather thongs were studded with tiny razor sharp bits of metal made to cut through armor, skin, and bone. But it was the symbol at the bottom of the handle that got Rinessa's attention. The outline of a woman holding a pair of shackles and a cat-o-nines. It was the symbol of Tehasha, the Goddess of domination, oppression, and slavery and the unofficial patron goddess of the Free Kingdoms. The dance. The kisses. The Crimson Lady's references to a mysterious "She." The dream with the shackles, that she had since she was a child. Was this Crimson Lady, Tehasha herself? Some sort of demoness? Had She really been manipulating Rinessa for this long? "The scourge," she said simply, pushing aside the questions for later. She hooked the thing to her belt. "It is...powerful." She left it at that as she stepped over one of the bodies towards Seva. The slave girl looked as frightened of Rinessa as she had been of Umbroze or even the malformed unterdötten while she cringed in a corner. Despite the nagging sensation that she needed to sort out her relationship, such as it was, with the slave girl, she knew this was not the time. "We have to go now Seva. Do you want to fight more of these things?" she asked, pointedly. Seva shook her head dumbly. She said nothing as the two left the academy or during the next several hours through the Underground. It was only until they finally found the exit that Rinessa finally told the girl to make sure she did not call Rinessa by name. The Ironwood had told her they would not be very far from the city when they emerged and it was doubtless that the authorities were still looking for them. When they finally arrived back to the surface they discovered they were near a half mile outside the city, a short distance from the Lion's Road that went east from the city. It happened to be dawn when they emerged. The red light from the morning sun had turned the entire sky into a soft and gentle crimson. Although she had spent the last many hours pondering what the Crimson Lady had told her in that dream, Rinessa could only think of one thing the woman had said as she looked down the empty road leading away from the city. "The power to destroy your father, avenge your mother, to take this world and make it your own." "Mistress?" Seva's voice made Rinessa realize that she had been lovingly stroking the Red Scourge without realizing it. She stopped, almost disturbed by her own actions, as Seva asked, "What...What do we do now?" Rinessa turned to the girl and smiled a little, "Whatever we like Seva. The world is ours now."