The Ring Thief - Chapter 4 - Tower in the Plains

Chapter 4 - Tower in the Plains

Taenith sat awake through the night, watching for any threats that might have appeared. He was unwilling to wake Grizzel and risk him watching over all night. Exhaustion was certainly a favorable alternative to sudden death. Needless to say, it was a long and quiet night; its only interruption was the sound of grass blowing in the wind. Once the dawn finally rose, he nudged Han, who mumbled incomprehensibly before slowly opening his eyes to a squint.

“Damn I fell asleep again didn’t I?” Han asked, brows knitting while he adjusted to the light. 

“Yes. You did,” Taenith said, blinking. His yellow irises were blood-shot. 

Rubbing the back of his head, Han also noticed Grizzel was still sleeping. “Wait, did you stay up all night?” he questioned. 

Standing up, Taenith walked over to his bedroll. Stuffing it and his pillow into his bag, Taenith yawned, outstretching his sore wings and tail. “Someone had to stay up.” He said, eyeing Grizzel. The real reason he stayed up was more selfish than he was willing to admit.

Han scratched his head. “You gonna be alright walking all day?”   

“Probably not,” the draconian replied.

Han couldn’t help but laugh. “At least you’re honest.” He grabbed the small pot from inside his leather bag. Hefting it by its wooden handle, he smirked before tossing it over to Grizzel. It slammed into his stomach with a metallic thud, quickly followed by a surprised yelp. 

“What...What the hells?” Grizzel groaned, rubbing his gut while pointing his mace in the direction of his assailant before realizing it was Han.

“Get to it Griz. We got a long day ahead and I’m not eating rations for breakfast.” Han said while performing a few morning stretches.

Grumbling, the apostle grabbed the pot and shuffled over to Han to grab the cooking materials he needed. “Asshole. That hurt.”

“Oh, you’re fine,” Han said as Grizzel set up the pot and began pouring water from his waterskin into it.

Grizzel grumbled as he took a piece of flint and steel from his pocket and began lighting the collection of grass, sticks, and leaves beneath the pot. He hated mornings, and he especially hated bandit pots besieging his epic dreams of fighting monsters. 

Han curled his lips. “Not so cheery in the morning are we?” 

Grizzel glared at the hunter. Once he set up the kindling for the fire, he began a boil before pouring various spices and noodles into the pot. Soon a thick and rich aroma smelling of spice and salt hung over the campsite. Even a few rabbits and other smaller woodland animals peered over their holes to sniff at the intriguing smell.

Taenith didn’t want to admit it, but it smelt great. His stomach grumbled as the rush of flavor overloaded his sensitive nostrils. 

Han noticed Taenith’s slightly agape and watering maw. “Yeah. Griz may be an idiot sometimes but -”

“I can hear you, Han,” Grizzel narrowed his eyes at the bowman. An angry red rash budded at the base of his neck. The words ‘idiot,’ ‘fool,’ and ‘failure’ echoed in his mind, whispered by his father.

Han raised a brow. The two were used to teasing each other. Then again, Grizzel wasn’t a morning person. That and Han already ragged him a few minutes ago so he probably wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Well basically he’s a good cook,” he said. 

Taenith smirked as he finished packing his bags. “I can cook rabbit and stew. But that’s about it.” 

Grizzel shook his head, “Wait, really? You can cook rabbit?” he asked. His crawling agitation retreated down his throat and back into his heart.

Taenith looked at Grizzel, not quite sure if he was joking or being genuine. He still didn’t really understand the dichotomy of the two. In his home culture, draconians rarely made ‘fun,’ unless of course they were telling war stories or mocking rivals. “If you’re trying to be funny-” Taenith began before Grizzel moved forward and pointed to Han. 

“No, seriously. Han can’t cook at all but he’s a really good hunter. And I’m not much of a meat cooker. It always comes out burnt or dripping wet and gross,” he said. “And I don’t know about Han but I’m getting sick of vegetarian-style. My muscles are starting to flatten.” Grizzel flexed one of his arms and frowned. From what Taenith could tell, he was still pretty well fit for a human, but he didn’t care to argue.

Taenith’s mouth dropped a bit when Grizzel began to pinch the fat on his arm to prove his point. 

“Well we wouldn’t want that,” Taenith said in a vain attempt at humor. It must not have come off like that, however, as Grizzel just nodded in agreement. He sighed. “Sure. I can help.” 

Grizzel’s eyes sparkled like fine gems while his mouth watered at the thought of tasting Fresh meat for once in several weeks. “Han, could you go try and catch some?” he asked.

The bowman sighed as he grabbed his bow and quiver. “Yeah. Just don’t attack each other while I’m gone,” he said, eyeing a few bushes off in the near distance. “This won’t take long.”

With that, he knocked his bow and ventured out of the torch-ringed campsite.

“Thanks!” Grizzel waved after Han. Not after long, he was outside of earshot, leaving Grizzel and Taenith alone to each other.

Taenith nearly gagged when Grizzel waved him over, patting the dirt next to him as an invitation to sit.  

“Wanna talk?” he asked, a wide smile stretched over his pasty white face as he gathered the pot and spoon and started to fill it with some water from his waterskin.

“Not with you,” Taenith said.

“Pfff, come on,” he replied, splashing water out of the pot as he set it over the coals and started to heat the water. “Where’s the trust? I promise I won't bite.”

Taenith pointed to Grizzel’s armor. “You don’t wear an emblem, but you’re still one of them. I can’t trust you.”

Grizzel rolled his eyes and patted his chest, “But it's pretty cool though. I mean you have to admit that!” he said, looking down on the smooth pearly metal that covered him. 

Taenith’s tongue soured.

“And I’m more than my armor ya know,” he added as he started to add various salts and seasonings, prepping the soup to boil whatever meat Han managed to bring back.. 

“No,” Taenith began, “I don’t know anything about you or where you came from.”

 Grizzel laughed, “Well let me explain then!”

Taenith huffed, rolling his eyes. “Fine.” 

Grizzel continued to stir the water for a bit before crossing his legs and facing Taenith, finally leaving the boiling liquid alone for a few moments. “Well it all started about a year ago really,” he said, his voice deepening like he was some sort of play director.

“You’re not really going to-” Taenith began before Grizzel held his hand up, shushing the draconian as he set the scene with his words. 

“I was in the middle of a forest, lost and alone...and there was rain too,” he said, wiping a fake tear from his face. 

Taenith sighed.

Grizzel cleared his throat, “And after three days of tearing through giant spiders, cutting through vines and webs, I came across a tower in the center of an open field. Actually,” he said, looking at the construct in the near distance. “It was a lot like that one,” he pointed out. 

“Anyways, I ran with all the strength I had until I reached the iron door barring my entrance. Since I’m not a locksmith, and iron is well, heavy, I knocked politely,” he said, taking a breath.

“Is this going anywhere?” Taenith asked impatiently. He was already regretting giving him the opportunity.

Grizzel smiled, “It’s all for effect my friend!” he laughed as he continued stirring. “I just needed some directions, and I knocked about a dozen times before the guy finally answered. But guess what?” he asked.

Taenith, resting his palm against his chin, shrugged, “What?”

“He was a bandit!” A wide smile spread over the apostle’s face as he raised his hands in the air for dramatic effect. Taenith gave no reactions, looking instead with a deadpan gaze.

“When the guy drew his weapon, this mace,”Grizzel tapped the mace before putting his hands together, like he was holding a blade, “I slashed through him, ending his life in an instant,” he said, swiping at the air with his hands. “After that, I heard a strange voice…” he paused for dramatic effect. “A goddess spoke to me!” he paused, taking a breath. “She thanked me for my services and left the mace for me,” he said, picking up his ornate weapon. “So that’s how I got this beauty!” 

Grizzel raised his marbled trophy into the air, the light beaming through its glass orb like a handheld lighthouse.

“So, a goddess gave you a divine weapon… for killing a man… who was defending his property. Is that right?” Taenith asked.

“Well no,” Grizzel stammered. His heart raced at the accusation, but before he could retort, Han’s whistling could be heard coming from behind Taenith. Turning around, the draconian noticed the bowman was carrying two dead rabbits strung together by a bloody rope tied around their feet. Several streams of blood trickled down from the arrow wounds in their chests, across their skulls and long ears, and into the chapped soil below that quickly swallowed it up.

  “That’s gross,” Grizzel said, nearly gagging as he looked away from Han, who simply shrugged and threw them next to the draconian.

“You’re the one who wanted rabbit, Griz,” Han said, turning to Taenith, “Here you go.”

Taenith took the bundle, allowing their blood to run down his wrists where it blended in with his crimson scales. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said before sitting down. He grabbed one of Han’s metal plates and set the rabbits down before grabbing a small sharpened knife from his side and jamming it into the hide of the largest one. Skinning a fresh kill was a task he’d become accustomed to over the years, so much so that he found disturbing joy in it at times, but Grizzel’s wide eyes of horror and gagging noises throughout the process made it all the more uncomfortable.  

Each time he moved to decapitate and disembowel the creatures, the apostle couldn’t help but spew a writhing and guttural gag that twisted even Taenith’s stomach. However, after half an hour of the apostle making inhuman noises out of disgust, each creature was cleaned, cut, quartered before being tossed into the stew. All that remained was a pile of guts and writhing nerves on the blood-drowned grass and dirt. 

“I’m never doing that with you watching ever again,” Taenith said, wiping his hands into a nearby patch of clean grass, not wanting to dirty any of their limited cloth.

Han laughed as he sat next to the fire analyzing the string of his bow. “I don’t know, it was pretty entertaining to me.”

Wheezing, the apostle stood from the ground and inched towards the congelement of death and began mixing it together with the watery soup. 

“I guess meat’s not so great when you see it alive… or uh dead,” he gagged again. After a while he was sure the mixture was finished, he tossed dirt into the fire. Grizzel then took a few wooden bowls out of his torch-stuffed bag and began ladeling the pot’s contents, making sure to add extra for Taenith. 

Taenith noticed the gesture, and happily accepted the bowl with a nod as Grizzel handed them out with some wooden spoons. Maybe he was different after all. 

Or maybe it was a trick… Taenith glanced suspiciously into the contents.

“I promise it’s not poisoned,” Grizzel chortled before taking a sip from his own bowl. “See?”

Taenith cracked his jaw and gazed into the broth once more. He then hesitantly grabbed a spoon and tasted the salty mixture of spices, and rabbit. It quickly overrode his senses, as his watery maw all but absorbed the soup with each quick spoonful. His draconic stomach begged for more as he quickly slurped up the overflowing bowl. 

“So, what’d you guys talk about while I was gone?” Han asked, chewing onto a stubborn piece of tendon. 

Taenith, gnawing on a fatty piece of meat, eyed Grizzel as he swirled his spoon like a child fussing about not getting what they wanted at the dinner table. 

“Your friend here was telling me how he got his mace,” he said, downing the rest of his bowl’s contents.

“Oh?” Han said, turning to Grizzel, “How’d that go?” he asked.

For a moment, Grizzel stared into his bowl with a blank stare, ignoring the question. Taenith assumed it was because of what he had accused him of before. For an apostle, he sure was soft. The sight almost made him feel guilty. Almost.

Taenith set down his bowl. “He was telling me about hearing voices and killing a man.”

Grizzel’s eyebrows scrunched. In the apostle’s eyes, Taenith caught a glimpse of a familiar emptiness. He fought the urge to focus on it. Something about the look… It didn’t sit right with him.

“Well. That’s one way to put it,” Han snickered and took a sip.”

“It was… an interesting story at least,” Taenith said. That was perhaps the limit of his generosity to the stranger. Grizzel looked up from the bowl with a half smile before taking another sip. 

After the morning breakfast when everyone had taken their fair share of second and third helpings Grizzel began to feel a surge of urgency to move forward. The sun was rising higher into the sky and approaching midday now.  

Han was halfway through slurping down the rest of his soup when Grizzel suddenly bolted up from his seated position, startling the bowman and causing him to spatter food on his chest. 

“Dammit, don’t do that!” Han said, wiping off his shirt to no avail as the meaty broth soaked into the absorbent cloth. “Gods. This is never coming out,” he groaned. 

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Grizzel scratched his head apologetically.

Taenith couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at how easily Han startled. 

Looking away to the tower in the near distance, Grizzel raised his hands and stretched his back. “Anyways,” he said as Han took a damp rag and dabbed at the stain. “I’ll buy you a new shirt later. Right now we have treasure to find!” he said, shooting his arms into the air.

Without waiting for a response, Grizzel began emptying the contents of the soup pot. Then, he hastily wiped it and his utensils down before shoving them into the torch bag, smearing excess broth and meat chunks over the leather in the process.

“Hey, Griz. Ever heard of cleaning?” Han said. His comments were to no effect, however, as the apostle had already thrown the bag over his shoulders and began walking out of the campsite. 

“There’s no time to be a clean freak, Han. Adventure awaits!” he said.

“Yeah but now every monster for miles will smell us…and me,” Han grumbled. Grizzel continued his energetic march towards the ruins.

“Never mind then," Han sighed heavily, throwing down his wet rag. 

“Most of the local predators are nocturnal, so it shouldn’t be a problem for now. Even if it is… unsanitary,” Taenith suggested. The way Grizzel packed away dirty dishes made him cringe.  

“I guess,” Han mumbled as he grabbed his bag and waited for Taenith to finish gathering his things. Once they were done rolling up their bedrolls, they followed after Grizzel, who was already a fair distance away. It wasn’t before they caught up though. The apostle’s pace was significantly slowed by his exaggerated marching. 

Once the three were back together, they walked in relative silence, save the occasional remark made between Han and Grizzel. It wasn’t long before they came to the lonely tower. A single gold flag, bearing the silhouetted image of a dragon’s head, flapped in the wind at its pointed tip. Looking over the construct, Taenith noticed the building itself looked expensively new, as there were no signs of wear. Not even the stones, which braced against heavy northern winds, bore any of the scars that came with weathering and age. They were all shiny and pristine, almost as if someone regularly polished them. 

“This looks like it was just built,” Taenith said, lowering his hand to the hilt of his scimitar. If anyone inhabited the place, they would be sure to meet them at any moment, most likely with deadly force.

Han scratched his head and nodded, “Yeah, ruins are supposed to be...well, ruined.” 

“If it’s not abandoned, then why isn’t anyone here?” Grizzel asked, approaching the iron door at the entrance. 

“Wait, there could be an-” Han began, outstretching his hand. Before he could finish or pull the apostle back, however, Grizzel clutched the door’s handle and tugged at it. In response, the iron vibrated with a blue aura and screeched, as if in pain. Its metallic cry echoed throughout the building and into the plains, scaring off a few ravens that had taken shelter in one of the tower’s window frames. 

“An alarm...” Han groaned. “Did you really just do that?”

“Oh come on Han. It’s not a big deal. If someone’s home they’ll know we’re here. If they’re not, well, it’ll be too late and we’ll be half home by the time they get here!” Grizzel said as the door opened, revealing a dark hallway. A gust of stail wind screamed over the group, nearly toppling Grizzel over with its force as it escaped into the air.   

“Yeah. I’m out,” Han raised his hands and turned around to leave before Grizzel grabbed him by the collar. 

“Han, come on! You said you needed gold to get back to Kanda right?” Grizzel asked, waiting for the bowman’s response. 

Han glared at the apostle. “Not like this. There’s no way you’re convincing me to go in there,” he said, pointing out the dark and eerie interior. As he did, he swore he could see a large spider scuttle across the floor, which only sunk his stomach further. 

While Han and Grizzel babbled to each other, Taenith looked up to the window where the ravens had nested. Strangely, even with the sun’s reflection, he could see nothing behind the glass. It was merely pitch black. He closed his eyes and listened for any signs of bootsteps or clattering weapons, but heard none. It was all eerily quiet.  

“I’m not dying for a gold piece dammit!” Han screamed at the apostle, who had his hands on his hips like a scolding mother.

“Guys,” Taenith began, peering into the tower and down the hallway. A few torches rested in the sconces on the walls, but he could see dozens of webs cluttering the various books and chairs in the dim light. 

“Be brave! Where’s your honor?” Grizzel retorted to Han.

Han took a deep breath. “Honor, who the hells do you think you are?” he snapped back.

“Hey!” Taenith hissed sharply, spitting a few sparks of flame from his razor maw. His wings shifted in frustration. 

“What?” both of them asked as they turned towards him.

“Nobody is here,” he said, gesturing to the still empty hall. No guards or anyone else was there, or showed any signs of approaching from the interior.

Looking into the darkness, Grizzel smirked. “See! You were afraid of nothing,” he said, sticking his tongue out to Han, who seethed. 

“I swear to the gods, you-” Han began. 

“You’re being a big baby. Come on,” Grizzel said, grabbing Han’s arm and dragging him into the hallway with him. Han complained, but to no avail as the far more muscular soldier dragged him like a stick.

Taenith felt the beginnings of a smile creep at the corners of his maw as the two bickered their way into the strange fort. He’d never really gotten to know people enough to consider them friends, but maybe this was how it was supposed to feel. If it was, he didn’t hate it, even if one of them was an apostle. He was still weary of Grizzel, but he didn’t seem like the others. And judging by his sensitivity, he at least showed some emotions. Shaking his head, he ditched his thoughts for what was happening before him. 

“You coming, Taenith?” Grizzel called back at the draconian as Taenith had fallen behind a little, still standing at the entrance, lost in his own thoughts.

 Taenith blinked and nodded. “Yes,” he replied. Before entering the dark hallway, however, his eyes briefly connected with the dark window. It unsettled him, but he had no reason to believe it was some sort of imminent threat to them. Maybe whoever lived there simply let the blinds down. 

When the three ventured into the hall, another gust of wind blew over them, this time coating them in a thick musty dust. 

“Gods,” Han said, his teeth chattering as though the wind was icy cold. His stomach lurched, causing him to instinctively turn around once more. Before he could though, Grizzel grabbed Han by the hood of his coat and dragged him further in, shouting like a mad man and waving his mace against the darkness. 

“Die ghosts! Die!” he screamed while Han cursed at him, nearly tripping over various misplaced and overturned books and furniture items that littered the hallway.

“Stop stop stop!” Han shouted, but the apostle refused to slow his pace.   

Palming his face, Taenith followed after. He could see the occasional torch but all were either unlit or burnt to the hilt. Beneath them were several chairs, ornaments and other objects strewn about the ground as if the place had been raided by thieves. Once he caught up to Grizzel and Han, who had smacked the apostle across the head and was fuming like a volcano, they became increasingly aware of the dust and cobwebs that covered the discarded items and even the bottoms of the torch holders. 

Gathering his composure and taking several deep breaths, Han looked down two diverging hallways that split from the main lobby on either side. Each was dimly lit by an infrequent torch and led to upwards-spiraling staircases.

Han unslung his bow and knocked an arrow carefully between his shaking fingers. “Guys, come on. There’s no way someone hasn’t been here yet,” he said, pointing to the torches. 

“Well,” Grizzel said, looking down each empty hallway, “it doesn't hurt to check. Maybe they missed something or just left for lunch.” he shrugged, not seeming to care that, despite the tower’s dusty and spider web filled interior, there were, in fact, burning torches there.

Grizzle’s mace glowed suddenly when he aimed its tip down the left-most hallway. “We didn’t come here for nothing so let’s at least have a look around.” 

He began to move forward, before Taenith interrupted. “Wait.”

Grizzel looked back at the draconian, giving an impatient sigh. “What now?”

“There are two halls,” he said plainly.

Grizzel’s eyes squeezed, confused. “Yeah… we know.”

“Gods,” Taenith huffed. “Think, apostle. How can a single tower have two hallways? Going to separate towers?”

Grizzel’s brain thrummed. “Oh…Well,” he lowered his mace, looking between the two hallways once more. 

“Huh,” Han added. He had been too busy being dragged by Grizzel to notice. The tower they entered was certainly large, but not that large. The draconian had a point. It made no sense. 

“Only magic could have done this,” Taenith said, thinking. The way the interior was designed, it seemed to be more of a box fort, with a central gathering hall, and, likely, four defensive towers at each corner. Though, it was hard to tell from inside with limited visibility.

 “So,” Grizzel limply raised his mace again, as if waiting for Taenith’s say-so.

“So, we should be careful.” Taenith wasn’t familiar with magic himself, but he fought apostles with mage souls before. They were troublesome to say the least. Best to be on high alert.

Brandishing his scimitar, the draconian moved around a splintered chair and continued down the left-most hallway, taking the lead with Grizzel and Han behind him. As they passed a few dying torch lights and various parchments littering the ground, a faint and stagnant human stench filled Taenith’s nostrils. Unlike Han’s, which was almost sweet, or Grizzel’s, which was extremely salty, this new miasma was an abrasive rotting one. Once Taenith realized it was neither of the two, he halted, nearly causing Grizzel to slam face forward into his clawed wings.

“What the hell-” Grizzel began before Taenith raised a hand, signaling for silence.

“Someone is here,” Taenith said, eyeing the shadowed staircase ahead where the scent pooled in a swelling cloud of filth.
Han raised a brow. “What?” he asked, gulping as he held his knocked arrow in place, despite his shaking hands.

“I smell their stench,” he said, taking another sniff before spitting at the ground, nostrils flaring in disgust. “Human.” 

“How the heck can you smell that?” Grizzel asked.

Taenith raised a brow, “I’m part dragon, if you couldn’t already tell.” 

Grizzel stared in awe. “Oh, yeah, right.” He let out a quick chortle. 

Han shook his head. “Can we pay attention?” he nearly snapped, his teeth vibrating together while he tried not to imagine just what lay ahead of them. It could be a zombie, a vampire, or worse...a zombie vampire? Shaking his head, Han tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths and straddling the handle of his bow.

Grizzel noticed Han’s usual wide-eyed panic, and he knew he had to be brave. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, gathering whatever heroic strength he could muster. The fear in his heart rang like a church bell at first, but as he imagined the stoic pauldrons of the armor his father wore, he felt reinvigorated with courage. 

“You could have been the light in the dark…” his father’s words echoed..

“I’ll make you proud, father,” Grizzel thought as he clenched his jaw and tightly gripped the hilt of his mace. The light in its spherical tip glowed brighter, and he charged towards the stairwell.

“Grizzel, wait-” Taenith began before the sporadic apostle pushed past the large draconian, screaming through the hallway, shouting “Die!” with his mace raised outward like some sort of war general. 

“We’re dead. We’re so, so dead,” Han closed his eyes and bit his vibrating lips. 

Taking Han by his wrist, Taenith dragged him along as he followed after Grizzel. Though he was an apostle, some part of Taenith hesitated to simply let him die. 

“He’s just going to get himself killed. I’m not about to do that too,” Han said, pulling back against the draconian’s grip.

Taenith replied, “I won’t let anyone else die under my watch. Not again.” His gaze turned into a stern scowl, as if challenging Han to dare continue his rebellion. "Not even...him."

Han took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He and Grizzel had only been friends for a few weeks, but he was the only one to really take him in. Loyalty was the least he could offer to the man. 

“Fine. You’re right. Let’s go,” Han said, his trembling expression hardening into determination. He could do this. What was the worst that could happen? 

Letting Han go, Taenith nodded in approval before leading him towards the stairwell Grizzel disappeared up into. They nearly tripped over fallen chairs and other broken pieces of furniture that littered the building as they rushed the stairs to catch up to Grizzel. 

“Give me your blood heretic!” the apostle said, his battlecries echoed along with his footsteps as he clambered up the stone stairs. His mace glowed and charged in response to his fervent readiness to fight.

When Han and Taenith climbed their way to the top of the stairs, a bright purple light screamed over them with an overwhelming power that stiffened both their bodies, freezing them to the point that breathing became a labored task. However, the sensation lasted only a few moments, lingering on only as prickly numbness while they did their best to push forward. When they moved into the new open space, unintelligible whispers permeated their senses and clouded their sight in thin fogs of darkness. 

The room itself was rather spacious. Its floor, clothed by a maroon rug decorated with delicate runic engravings, was riddled in piles of strewn about papers, and its naked stone walls were lined with now-empty bookcases. In the middle of the study was Grizzel, standing with his mace raised against a taller and darker figure at the far end of the room, where a desk sat illuminated by the daylight bleeding in from the window in front of it. A whirlpool stench - not just the foreign scent of humanity - but of rot and decay, surrounded the hooded figure. It was as if the man had bathed every day in the bodies of the dead.   

“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” the man said, slamming the book in his hands shut, causing several wisps of dark smoke to emit from the pages and fling towards Grizzel where they jammed into his chest plate like small daggers. Letting out a quick scream, the apostle crumbled to the ground with a loud bang before going completely silent. When he collapsed, he dropped his mace, which, glowing ever vibrantly, seemed unaffected by the dark magic as it clattered against the ground. 

“Griz!” Han shouted, rubbing his eyes frantically before raising his bow to release a crude arrow into the dark figure, who simply laughed and waved a hand at the hunter, causing the bow and arrow to disintegrate into ash instantly. 

“Don’t be rash. He’s not dead. At least, not yet,” the figure said, turning his attention back towards a desk sitting by the window. There was some small object on it that glowed so brightly it nearly overwhelmed the magical fog clouding both Taenith’s and Han’s eyes.

Shoving out an arm against Han to stop him from scrambling for another weapon, Taenith watched the figure unveil the cloak that was hiding a majority of his face. He seemed to be human, though the magical fog clouding Taenith’s sight made it hard to tell for sure. 

“Who are you?” Taenith asked gruffly.

 The mage smirked as he leaned over the shining object. “Shouldn’t I be asking you?” he asked, “You’re the ones who attacked me in my home.” 

As the mage leaned his face closer to whatever object he was studying, the fog covering both Han and Taenith’s eyes subsided. After blinking a few times, Taenith gained a full view of his rich black robes, which were covered in faint red runes spelt in ancient draconic. He recognized some of the words, such as "shell" and "bone," but the rest of the wording was chaotic and jargoned.

"Your home?" Taenith asked, looking over the thick layers of dust that caked the stone floor as well as the several books and bookcases throughout the room. Either they had terrible cleaning skills like Grizzel, or, more obviously, he was lying through his teeth.

Instead of responding, the mage grabbed the glowing object and held it up and away from him in his hands. 

Looking back to Han, Taenith could see he was barely holding himself together. His temporary courage was replaced by his whole body shaking. The only agency he had with his bow before, had been literally disintegrated before him. 

“When I give the signal, I need you to grab Grizzel, okay?” Taenith whispered. 

Han, shivering, looked at the draconian with quivering eyes. 

“Han?” he said again quietly, shaking his shoulder gently. 

“Yeah. Okay, okay,” he said, grabbing a knife at his side. He took another deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. “Screw this guy."

Taenith turned away from his friend and towards the mage, who was still busy with whatever was on the table.

“What do you want?” Taenith asked, taking a few steps forward, giving Han enough space to move beside him. Once he was in full view of the stranger, he twitched his tail, signaling for Han to sneak over to Grizzel.

The cloaked figure ignored Taenith’s question, instead muttering incomprehensible words under his breath as he donned the shining ring from the table onto one of his fingers. Once the item bound itself to him, the sigils sewn into his robes glowed momentarily along with those scarred into his pale flesh. Following the overwhelming powerful sensation, the mage let out a deep sigh and smiled, still facing away from the three, unconcerned with their presence.

Clenching the hilt of his scimitar, Taenith felt his chest squeeze. He didn’t know what the man was capable of, but if he was able to take out an apostle with ease, even one like Grizzel, he wouldn’t be surprised if he could do the same to someone equipped with only a rusty sword.

“We’re sorry for intruding. We don’t mean any trouble,” Taenith said while maintaining his gaze on the figure’s dark back. “We’ll be leaving now.”

Once the figure’s attention focused elsewhere, Han finally managed to make it to Grizzel’s body, which was coated in a thick layer of dark magic, and had holes cut deep into his armor. Even his veins seemed corrupt with the chaos magic as black liquid filled his neck, giving off a rotting stench that was akin to that of a dead animal.

“No,” the mage said, smacking his cracked lips together. “I don’t think you will,” he said, turning to face Taenith and extending his finger to gain a better view of the ring. “You’ve seen far too much.”

 

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The Ring Thief - Chapter 0 - Prologue