Unintended Consequences
12
MAR/21
Oblation: Noun – a person or thing of value presented or offered to a god.
Oblator: Noun – the person who presents a gift or person up as an offering.
Yetto: Proper Noun – a charming, wily bastard who makes habit of offering people up as oblation in return for a handsome reward.
The three brothers moved in perfect accord, scouring the faces in the cheering throngs for their targets as the macabre parade wormed its way down the cobbled streets. There was a palpable energy to the spectacle, and the crowds of revelers were caught up in its wake, cheering in jubilation as the mad and infirm were borne beneath the wheels of the giant wagons. It was a spectacle of blood and a hopeful signifier that the end of the time of madness which had plagued the Dark City since the Day of Two Dawns was finally coming to an end. To someone less trained, spotting quarry in the midst of such chaos would be an impossible task, but the Brotherhood of the Veil had trained them well, and Cotton located one of their marks standing out in the gathering with ease.
“That is him, I am sure of it,” Cotton said, speaking directly into the minds of his brothers; sharing his sight with the two of them as well. “Yetto. The Oblator.” Ocho linked his sight with his brother, and beheld the tall, striking man in the upper left corner of his field of vision. He was standing next to another equally tall figure, his face obscured by a deep, hooded cloak, and the two of them stayed well apart from the jubilant crowds that cheered delightedly as the parade winded its way through the densely packed streets.
“It certainly looks like him,” Pepper agreed silently. “Shall we take him now?”
“Not yet, he does not travel alone,” Ocho warned. The scouts they had sent down into the sewers after Yetto had all been killed to a man. In their analysis of the scene of the battle, it was clear that there were four or five assailants involved in the scuffle; was this Yetto making a cult of his own? Cotton had had the foresight to equip the scouts himself, and had psionically marked a few of their weapons so that the brothers could track their movements throughout the City. Most of these marked weapons had remained inside the sewers after the scouts were slain, being used seemingly to arm some rabble that were amassing down there. One of the weapons however, had made some interesting excursions into the Cliffster and Gardiward households. Is there some connection here? Ocho wondered, making a mental note to look into the matter more when they were finished here.
Pepper linked his vision with his brothers, showing a well-dressed young man darting through the crowds towards the groups of Mul gladiators that had been conscripted to pull some of the large wagons in the absence of other beasts of burden. Ocho did not remove his focus from Yetto – that one was worth a small fortune – and could see that the Oblator was also watching this man’s actions. They had located a third member of his group. What in the Hells are they up to?
“Should we stop this?” Pepper inquired, moving on an intercept path towards the chained Muls.
“Negative. Yetto is the primary target. Protection of the parade is ancillary now,” Ocho reminded his brother. The Veiled Lord had trained them well, but even their strict taskmaster could not dull Pepper’s impulsive edge. “Try to locate the others. We will need to engage away from the crowd, and we don’t want any surprises.”
To the untrained, locating people inside a rowdy, cheering crowd would be difficult as there were too many figures which competed to capture your focus. But the brothers were not untrained, and they looked at the crowd in a different vein. To them, the crowd was a flowing river after a heavy rain. There was movement and energy to it; a palpable sense of purpose and inevitability as everyone in its vicinity was carried along for the ride. So the brothers ignored the masses, and focused upon those who were not carried by the current and instead waded against the stream and resisted its pull. This was a much smaller group and by narrowing their focus upon them, it allowed Cotton to locate the two women – well, one was barely a woman, still quite a girl – in Yetto’s entourage. The older of the two had a soldier’s bearing; her ill-fitting armor and weapons were barely concealed under her plain cloak. The other was wearing fine clothes under a homespun wrap, and this one was watching the wagon with the Augustbow’s prized owlbear with fixed interest. What in the Hells are they up to?
A peal of thunder ahead of the parade startled the crowd and threatened to scatter some of the pack animals. The rumbling grew in intensity and persistence and many in the crowd stopped cheering, and looked around in fear and confusion. But not the brothers; they knew a distraction when they heard one. Cotton maintained focus on the two women; the smaller one used the disturbance to dart off underneath the owlbear wagon when she thought no one was watching. Pepper maintained his visual on the young lordling as he made his way into the back of one of the carts and was working on the chains that held the Muls captive. Ocho never took his eyes off of Yetto, who was calling out encouragement and distracting guards and members in the crowd. The brothers shared their vision with one another, creating a complete panopticon of the entire, chaotic scene.
“Move now, we must take him,” Ocho ordered his brothers as he began to move in on the Oblator, before freezing in his tracks. In his haste, he had shown his hand he realized, as he made direct eye contact with the cowled figure standing beside Yetto. A black dragonborn? This Oblator has some interesting companions. The creature’s reptilian eyes narrowed as he noted Ocho, who promptly tried to look as nondescript as possible. “Hold, I’ve been made.”
Then all chaos broke out in the street.
A thick gout of smoke filled the area, obstructing their view and sending people screaming in confusion and terror. The giant ox that was pulling the owlbear cage panicked, and bleated in pain as it tore through the crowd, trampling lunatics and any other unfortunate who happened to get in the creature’s path. “We must refocus, forget the others. Go for the Oblator!”
Ocho darted through the smoke, running through a mental map of the City as he did so. Yetto had been standing on the northwest side of the street; he couldn’t easily go through this panicked crowd. There was an entrance to the sewers down the alley to the west – that had to be where he was going. “Sewer entrance,” he called mentally to his brothers and they took chase.
When the trio turned the corner to enter the alley, they could see Yetto nearing the T intersection at the end of the passage, walking with feigned nonchalance, and none of his companions were visible. “Watch for ambush,” Cotton warned, as he extended his Will out into the dark alleyway, searching for opposition with his third eye. “Five hostiles,” he warned them confidently. Ocho felt them as well, though they didn’t seem necessarily hostile; rather more concerned and careful. They were up ahead, but the brother’s powers could not give them an exact location, just a head count.
Pepper leapt up on the roofline of one of the buildings to provide cover, while Cotton stepped into the shadows to hide. “I’m on the Oblator,” Ocho informed his brothers, then adding as an afterthought, “cover me.” He had confidence in their abilities, but this group possesed a number of unknowns. He unstrapped his crossbow from the sling under his cloak and sprinted after the tall Heretic-maker.
Yetto moved quickly down the alley to the right, ducking out of sight for a moment. This was where they would strike. “Do you have eyes on them?” Ocho asked Pepper, from his vantage point on the roof as he neared the end of the alley.
“He turned another corner. Lots of shadows don’t match up down there, one hiding in the doorway another behind the cart. I’ll provide aerial support.” A loud twang from his crossbow accentuated his promise, as a bolt buried itself in the wooden façade of one of the buildings.
Ocho sprinted past, and noted the shadows that dislocated themselves from the walls on either side of him as Yetto’s companions moved in to intercept him. “Two left, one right. No visual on the girl,” he informed his brothers as he continued after their primary target. There was a grunt of surprise as Cotton rounded the corner and engaged with the young lordling before that one could close in on Ocho, and the sounds of combat echoed behind Ocho in the alleyway. Three on two was not ideal, but Ocho knew his brothers and liked these odds.
He sprinted around the corner and pulled up short as he found himself standing face to face with his quarry, who stretched his hands wide in a nonthreatening gesture and flashed him a disarming smile. Ocho hoisted his crossbow to fire – Yetto was worth more alive than dead, but even his corpse would earn them five times their normal bounty.
“Hey friend, don’t you recognize me? I am Yetto,” the tall man said in response to the crossbow pointed at his chest.
A sensation of warmth and joy washed over Ocho at the sight of his old friend. Wait, this doesn’t feel right. Does it? Ocho tried to focus. Of course this was Yetto, I was looking for him, wasn’t I? “Of course I recognize you, Yetto. I was sent to find you.” Wasn’t there a reason I was sent after him. Was I sent to kill my old friend?
“Well now, now you have found me,” Yetto responded, as his smile broadened. “Who was it that sent you to find me?” He asked, reaching forward and gingerly taking the crossbow from Ocho’s hands.
“It was the Augustbows. You had two of their sons crucified for being false Messiahs.” Yetto moved in beside his dear friend and removed the sword and dagger from his hip. This is normal right? This is what friends do? Ocho unbuckled his belt so Yetto could more easily get the sword and dagger free.
“Well, there must be some misunderstanding. Those two were definitely false Messiahs, I knew all along that you were the true Messiah. Tell me, friend. How can I make this up to the Augustbows and clear up this mistake? Clearly I cannot go in the front entrance, as his guards will be similarly misguided and likely slay me on the spot over this silly misunderstanding. Is there a secret entrance to their manor house and a password I should know?”
This seems very reasonable, I cannot let anything bad happen to my friend Yetto, can I? “Well, yes, there is an entrance from the store across the street, a trap door in the floor under the rug leads to a heavily guarded tunnel. And the password is ‘Death to Yetto’, it changes every month.” His friend Yetto smiled whimsically at extent of the misunderstanding.
“Ocho, what in the Hells are you doing – we need help!”
Yetto reached around to remove Ocho’s cloak from his shoulders, and Ocho undid the clasp at his neck to aid in the effort. “My dearest friend,” Yetto replied with his warmest smile, a delighted twinkle in his dark eyes, as he moved to remove Ocho’s boots from his feet. “I will clear up this misunderstanding as quickly as possible. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.”
Ocho smiled, glad that he had been able to help his old friend.
“Cotton! Cotton! I’m coming to help! Hold strong.”
Yetto continued, “Well, now we must get to the larger issue at hand, for you are the true Messiah, and you must hurry to gather your flock. Those others were false prophets, but you are Truth embodied. You are Hope and Light in the flesh, and your word must be heard.”
“Ocho! I need h…”
As Yetto spoke, a warm sensation washed over Ocho as the seeds of his divine mission in life began to take root within him. His skin, bared to the frosty nighttime air, did not notice the biting chill, but instead burned with celestial purpose. “Yes, yes. I must bring word to the people. Thank you for showing me the light, my dear friend Yetto.”
Yetto smiled warmly, “Of course my friend. What name shall you go by, for I must listen for your holy words upon the wind and know whose lips birthed such sweet sounds?”
Ocho smiled brightly at Yetto’s kind wisdom. “I currently go by the name Ocho, but this is not the name I wore at birth.” This was true; the brothers each adopted a simple name for each mission they were hired to perform; names which were promptly discarded once the assignment was complete, as well as all memories of their contract. Pure, anonymous death was what they excelled in. “My birth name is Valdar Tenawrath.”
Yetto clasped him on the shoulder lovingly. “Now, that is the name of a true Messiah. Go forth and spread your light to the dark corners of the world, Valdar Tenawrath.”
Valdar turned and walked back through the alley, his head held high despite the weight of the divine burden he now carried. As he walked, he was dimly aware of how much of his field of vision was obscured by darkness, and it took him a moment to realize that he was still seeing through the forever closed eyes of his brothers, as they beheld the nothingess of life forgotten. He wondered briefly why he did not mourn, but soon realized that it was because his brothers would be the first to behold new joyous purpose in the afterlife. Even as he thought this, he could see the green serpent gliding across each of their unseeing eyes, and Valdar marveled at the message inscribed in luminescent clarity upon the snake’s underbelly, reading the intricate scaled patterns as the very words of God.
He exited the alley and walked out into the blood-soaked streets, beholding the chaos therein with unrestrained joy. He held his hands high and proclaimed loudly, “Behold people of Raam, I bring you joyous and terrible news. I speak to you of the time of Ascension, of the birth of a new and terrible and true God. The Dark Lady descends while our Master assumes his rightful position upon the throne of the heavens!”
A pair of black-cloaked militia heard his words and sneered at him derisively while they drew their swords and began walking his way, while a hurled stone cast by a young boy bounced off of his temple, leaving a bloody rivulet in its wake. Most of the nearby crowd stopped and jeered at him, and began picking stones and rubble from the street with which to erase this blasphemy from the living world. But there were others, fueled by madness and loss, for whom his words provided the very spark they needed to burn away the corruption and despair and normalcy that ruled their lives. In his words they heard a message of change; of redemption; of vengeance. The downtrodden, the infirm, the stark-raving mad all soaked up his words, like oil saturating into a cloth rag. And when they saw Valdar smiling uncaringly in the face of the murderous mob, his serene countenance provided them the very spark they needed to take action. Like a fire taking to oil, the mobs of lunatics and the lost and the depraved all descended upon the guards and townsfolk with unbridled fury; a rage now fueled and strengthened by a righteous fervor.
Valdar the Messiah stood in the midst of the tumult and madness with an ecstatic smile upon his face. By all appearances, he was overjoyed by the spectacle of blood and chaos his words had ignited. But, it was not what he saw with his own eyes that filled him with such joy; rather, it was the figure staring back at him through the dead eyes of his brothers that brought tears of joy to his eyes.
He sank to his knees as he stared into the large yellow, serpentine eyes that regarded him approvingly through the sightless stare of his brothers, and he prostrated himself upon the ground amidst the unrestrained carnage that raged around him. “Master,” he whispered in a voice choked in reverence and awe, kissing the bloodstained cobbles with his pious lips, “what is your bidding?”
Valdar saw the Message:
Valdar saw the message, and understood. Everything was so clear now.
He stood to his feet and looked at his surroundings. Bodies laid about, downed by his righteous hand and those followers who saw the truth.
He looked down at his naked body and smiled. He felt the power grow within him. The cuts and bruises healed before his eyes, his strength returned better than ever before, and most amazing was the scales forming around his skin giving him warmth and protection.
“To the stables my friends, he feels he is about to get away, but we know better.”
And with that, Valdar took his first step, feeling lighter in knowing his purpose, and knowing that his brothers were with him, still connected.
The people of the streets who were hiding under carts, behind windows looked out and saw a site never to be forgotten. The insane: fighting, cutting, and even burning with just chaos to guide them, fell in line, and with divine purpose glinting in their eyes as the Savior of Raam passed them by.