"Get down!" I pulled Malcyr down just in time to avoid a massive fireball. The fire spell smashed into the building behind us with force igniting the entire structure with a fwoosh. The enemey who had thrown it was now joined by two others, also magically inclined from their conjurations (they all were fire throwers, at the time it was a suspicion because we were running away). Our pursuers followed with balls of fire chasing after us.
"What did you you say?" I was confused, I had just unsaddled my horse and went to grab a drink from an empty bar (the greatest tragedy of all, not actually getting that drink), when I came back out to Malcyr almost getting roasted.
"I said hello how are you, I didn't think that prompts fireballs!" He was dressed more casually then the royal purple leathers he wore into battle (I convinced him to not wear purple at all as its out of fashion, so he was in an off white tunic and light tan slacks, his weapons concealed in rear hilts, not that we really had much of a chance to be concealed).
"Thats just the kind of thing that prompts fireballs, how are you? Thats like stepping on a mans foot and spitting in his eye!" We ran around the rear side of a building that wasn't on fire (the town was a fairly small port side hamlet, one line of hard ceramic housing which helped against the fire attacks its a bit harder to catch ceramic buildings on fire, not impossible, but harder), sadly there was no other place to go, and we'd run out of buildings to run away too.
"You magic people are weird." He pulled out his weapons, a sword and dagger, I drew my own sword, we silently called out which side of the building to watch for (I took the left where we'd come from, he took the right in anticipation of them trying to flank us). We waited and heard nothing, I didn't see shadows or sense anyone coming.
"Can they turn invisible?" It was in a half whisper half shout from where he was on his side.
"How would I know? I didn't even know there were magic users in this stupid town other than Valrya's child!" I didn't honestly, again I got fragments of her memory some were stronger than others, I just knew this town had one of the children and that she was planning something. I didn't know who these three jerks were or why they were trying to fry us.
"Well you're the one who said to come here!"
"Look mistakes were made, this is all your fault Malcyr." When in doubt blame the other guy, always. He was about to make some insulting comment about my good looks when the wall between us exploded. We were both thrown backwards in the explosion, smoke and ceramics marred my view, my vision swam a bit. I could hear Malcyr saying something, but my ears were ringing. Something moved in the darkness and I thrust my sword into it. The blade drove home and I twisted it opening the wound further, I could see my attacker thankfully was not Malcyr (that would have been awkward), one of the fire users who had just tried to kill me and Malcyr (pro tip to any idiots attempting the old blow them up to catch them off guard, these kind of attacks tend to leave you just as clueless as to whats going on, thus allowing your enemy to surprise you in the ensuing aftermath). The smoke cleared and I could see that Malcyr had already killed another one of the fire users and had the last from behind with his dagger.
"Well I'm glad to see you weren't completely useless." He has always treated me so nicely.
"Look one of us is a trained assassin the other someone who just spent some time in prison, bite me." The fire user struggled against the dagger, I could see from his face he wanted to attack me, but not enough to sacrifice his life. His robes were fairly plain and brown, obviously meant to hide out in plain sight or something, nothing as flashy or amazing like mine.
"Where's Shira?" It was to the point, I needed to know where his master was. He spit on my face, not a very polite thing to do to someone, also not a smart thing to do to a necromancer. I took the spit and used it to do a simple sigil on his bare chest, Malcyr gave me a weird look. "I'm going to ask you one more time where is shira?"
"Do your worst!" Never ever ask someone to do their worst, because frankly for some people thats an invitation to get creative. I made a fist and used a bit of my power, the sigil burned in his chest, his screams escalated and he started to fight against Malcyr's hold (enough to partially cut his throat against the dagger blade).
"That was my bare mininum of effort, talk."
"Go screw yourself!" The pain flared again and I waved malcyr off, the assassin stood back as the man hit the ground in a pile of writhing agony. I could see he was trying to gather his power to burn me down or Malcry, or either of us. But in his agony and with my sapping of his power he didn't even have enough to light a candle let alone burn down two men. I could sense he was trying to talk, to give me something, but I was already taking what I needed from him, stripping his memories (I didn't need the ritutal I'd learned from Valrya back in the day, I now knew her method of necromancy, a lot more efficient if not less showy) was difficult, a mind fighting you while its dying is hard to get a good read on, but in his struggles he kept returning to a certain place up the coast. A church actually and Shira would be there. I closed my fist, his eyes went wide his breathing picked up tempo, and then his heart exploded out of his chest.
"Subtle Trezlan." Malcyr had that look you get when you just saw something you didn't ever want to see.
"I got what I needed, she's in a church up the way, guarded by a pack of rabid followers like these, converted townsfolk really." When you've got the time, stealing memories from the living is actually really easy, its just kind of taxing to anyone watching and mostly fatal, but hey I wasn't the one dying!
"What are they worshipping?"
"Death, what else?" Malcyr gave me another stare and then we saddled up for the ride to the church, we were about to give the greatest sermon on death these cultists had ever seen.
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