Risen Chapter 32: Chaos And The Stone

It hadn’t occurred to me that she would be so brazen; from what I had seen, she had been trying to keep at least some level of separation between herself and her operations, preferring to work through intermediaries beyond the occasional meeting with the troops.

Instead, she had chosen to throw the entire city into chaos, sparking a city on the edge of an explosion. Tonight would have wide-reaching consequences, I was certain. The city already suffered from a lack of housing and an overabundance of refugees.

That would only become worse, as the infernos spread through Dihaim’s buildings. With far too many to stop, I could only hope that they would put themselves out before the entire city was consumed in flames.

It had been my mistake. I had assumed that the Stone would be safe in the hands of the Spectral Guard, that they would recognize it and deal with things accordingly - or at least, failing that, prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

The Stone must have been a far more tempting object than I realized, for her to resort to such extreme measures.

I reached into the bag that I carried at my side, pulling at its clasps. I couldn’t let her succeed; if she was willing to go so far, I could only imagine what the Stone was capable of. More than that, I couldn’t let her win. Not like this. Not by sacrificing countless lives and torching a city. I reached into the pack, pulling free a mask.

There were too many of them to deal with, and the earlier fight had already shown that I wasn’t equipped to fight off that many. Not as Markus. Not as a normal Marked - or the rather unconvincing facade of one, at least.

No, I would need more.

Fortunately, my agitated nerves throughout the day had borne fruit.

I did have more, pulled away from Reaper’s Grave as the day passed by. I had to be selective; large Risen had been left behind, as they were too easy to track back to Reaper’s Grave. That, I could not have allowed.

The smaller members of my horde, however, had been a different story.

The slowest among them had been ferried back and forth, clinging to the various birds, bats, and more that I had raised. The fliers, those fast enough to make the distance in the time that I required, had traveled on their own.

They weren’t far away now, only a few hundred yards away from the city’s high walls. They crawled through the grasses and leaves. They hid in the trees and bushes. They waited.

They waited for my command.

I secured the mask to my face and shifted, my perspective of the world around me changing in an instant through the use of [Swap].

I appeared in the Spectral Guard HQ, replacing a Risen that I had placed beside Gil earlier in the day. The man was alone in a tiny room off to the side, likely kept for the use of witnesses and other people that the Guard wished to temporarily protect. Fortunately, he was alone. He started at the sight of my mask, standing from his chair before relaxing slightly and retaking his seat.

“Is..Is that you, Markus?”

I nodded, putting a finger to where my lips would be in a silencing gesture. He got the message, returning a nod of his own. It was unfortunate, but I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he wouldn’t recognize his own handiwork. It would have taken only a second for him to realize who stood behind it. Better to confirm now and ensure that he keeps quiet than to have him accidentally let something slip to somebody I did not know or trust.

“Call me Carrion,” I said, the bone mask distorting my voice slightly as I spoke.

“O-Okay, Carrion.”

“We need to move. It’s not safe here, not for long. Do you know what the Guard did with the Stone?”

He stood up, giving me a regretful shake of his head. I could see that he was uncomfortable with the situation; there was a measure of fear in his eyes, a hint of hesitation. Still, he didn’t let that make him freeze.

That was better than many, in the end.

“Alright, I’ll have to figure that out then.” I knew that I had a few ways that everything could play out. The Gray Woman would be heading for the Stone. If she didn’t know where it was, she would have to raze the entire compound, searching it up and down until she found it. I found that unlikely. It was just too risky.

Regardless of her current actions, I still believed that the Gray Woman was not driven entirely by impulse. If she had committed to such an aggressive action, she would have been sure of her goal. No, she knew what and where she was looking for.

Thus, rather than raze the compound myself, it was better to deal with her myself.

Yet, before that, I needed to make sure that Gil was safe. I still felt more than a small measure of responsibility for him; I expected that there might be some sort of retribution in store for his possession of the Stone, and I was unwilling to allow it. Once he was safe, I could return and deal with the Gray Woman and her people.

Not for the first time, I wished that [Swap] wasn’t quite so limited in scope. Though I only had one use left for the day, it would have been nice to be able to simply teleport Gil away from danger. It was the same reason why Nomad had been such a well-respected hero, back in the days before. When full-fledged teleportation was on the table, innocents could be easily taken away from the line of fire. He had used it for more than that, of course, teleporting villains directly into waiting jail cells prepared especially for them, but it was the ability to reliably let the innocents of the world escape that I so dearly wished for at the moment.

I was extremely envious of the Gray Woman’s partner for his Mark. I didn’t know exactly what it did, but it seemed close enough to teleporting others to my eyes.

Instead, I was forced to pull Gil through the empty halls of the Guard HQ, occasionally interspersed by clusters of non-Guardsmen workers - clerks and the like -, who cowered at the sight of my mask before realizing that I was leaving them be.

I would have wished to have them follow me as well, but they were not likely targets. Gil was. I moved on.

The hallways of the HQ were winding and maze-like, probably in order to confuse anyone that attempted to do precisely what the Gray Woman was currently doing. Turns felt counterintuitive, forcing me to retrace my steps again and again. Yet, with the aid of my ties to the mass of Risen outside, I finally reached my destination.

The Barracks District pressed against the central, southern section of Dihaim’s wall. More importantly however, and a fact that I had already noticed the last time that I had visited, the Spectral Guard HQ directly connected to the southern gate of Dihaim. It wasn’t open to the public; I had been forced to take another entrance when I first entered the city.

Now, with the Guard gone and the city in disarray, I suspected it wouldn’t be difficult to force it open.

The gate rose before me, a monolithic structure of bone that only stood out through the slight gaps and hinges where it connected to the high-topped wall. The gatehouse beside it stood empty, divested of the guardsmen that would have waited within.

They had already moved on, responding to the threat that the Gray Woman and her people posed. I could see them even now, from my vantage point in the skies, fighting within the courtyard just past the front entrance. Taken by surprise, they hadn’t been able to close the front gates of the HQ in time.

Regardless, the HQ was built as a fortress - though that didn’t mean much, with the gate left open and most of the defenders away. Still, it slowed them somewhat, and that was all that I could ask.

A scream filtered through my ears - I heard it from multiple perspectives, with the agony that imbued it.

I quickened my movements, pulling Gil in front of the gate and entering the gatehouse.

The mechanism was simple enough, causing me to loose a breath of relief - a breath that I didn’t need, maybe, but heavy emotions came with heavy habits.

I cranked the heavy flywheel, listening to the ratcheting of gears and pulleys as the gate began to open. It was a slow process, despite the urgency with which I moved.

When it was opened enough, I dashed back outside, gesturing to Gil.

“Get out here! I don’t know if they’re here for you or just the Stone. Either way, at least wait for the fires to die down before you come back to the city.”

For a moment, it looked as if he was going to say something in reply, his mouth left open and his hand slightly raised. In the end, though, he silently nodded. He ran through the gate.

Soon after, I moved through the gate as well - but inwards, rather than outwards. My gathered horde filtered through the grasses, crawling into the city. They flitted across the sky, blackening my vision. They moved.

I turned, dashing towards the fight at a breakneck pace, hurrying to reinforce the dwindling guardsmen.

I only hoped I wasn’t too late.

Yet, for some of them, I knew that I already was.