This is a game of Finders Keepers set in the city of Marlinko. The dramatis personae are:
- Atiin Brigantia, a brilliant but lazy lunatic
- Edward "the Wild" Bleestocles, a leper disowned by his wealthy family
- Jacobin "Jackass" Valentin, a soulless bastard
- Tadzio Checker, an estranged son of a powerful mage
- Victory Alder, a young vampire
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All over Marlinko, late morning to late afternoon
Stopping by the Chicken Scratch shop, Victory collects all the supplies that Attin has ordered yesterday and loads them on a pair of donkeys that will surely come in handy on their venture, too. Then she takes the uncooperative animals all the way back to Atiin's apartment, leaving them tied to the well railing in the yard and giving a random urchin a silver coin to keep an eye on them.
"Hey, Tadz, do you think we could pass a message to your father?" she asks as she sees him through the open door to the apartment.
As she walks further in, though, she notices that he is acting awkward - although a different kind of awkward from the fidgety paranoid seen earlier. Restrained, but still on his toes. A couple of guys, both tall and rather rough around the edges, are standing just around a corner and talking to Tadz.
"Mm-kay. You have your paperwork to fill up if you're taking the job," says one of them. He looks bored. Or tired, maybe.
"If not, the boss needs to know as soon as possible," says the other, all no-nonsense-like. "That means tonight."
Tadz nods and they leave, barely acknowledging Vic's presence at all.
"What job?" she asks Tadz after waiting for their footsteps to disappear from the stairs.
"They say Atiin was at the League HQ just the other day asking that giant handler guy for more work. I do not know the details - I don't even think they know. The only more specific thing that they told me was that Tiny Tomáš says that the big boss says 'It has to be the girl.', whatever that means.
And they left a bunch of forms for us to fill out in case we take the job. Again, no details. Basically just them disclaiming responsibility for our actions regarding any nondescript shit not previously covered by other paperwork we already signed."
"Well, that sounds like something that Atiin didn't share. Where is everybody else, anyway? No, wait! I needed to ask you something... Yeah, would it be possible to talk to your dad, or give him a message? Not that I'm really looking forward to meeting him again, but there is something he should probably have a look at."
He frowns as Vic mentions his dad. "W-why would you want to talk to him? I mean, sure, I- If you succeed in scheduling an interview with the big shot wizard at his phallic seat of power, then yeah. Good luck with that, though. He simply loooooves to remind everyone how busy he is all the time. Rosalind would prolly have a slot for you as soon as six months from now."
"I don't want to make you do anything, but... There's a chance that one of the city gods has broken free from the Tomb. Remember that crazy pantsless barbarian we saw the other day? Apparently, he cracked one of the coffins in the Tomb. Anyway, it will be nice to leave the city for a few days. The Frog Demon Temple sounds quite tame by comparison."
As much trouble as Tadz may have when listening to anything that has to do with František, Victory has his undivided attention now. When she tells him everything she knows, sans the murder, that is, he begrudgingly admits that he may be able and willing to broker a meeting with his dad.
"I don't even know if your dad could or would do something about that, though," Vic hesitates, seeing him fighting with himself to help her.
"I don't know anyone else in the town who could give it a shot, much less anyone else that would give a crap. So yeah, I think you should tell him right away." He pauses for a long few seconds, then offers a little twitchy, a little uneasy smile: "If you wish, we can go together."
"Yeah, that would be great. If you don't have something else, we can go right now."
And they do.
"Why did you go into the Tomb, anyway?" Tadz asks Victory to fill out the silence as they walk past Fraža's Brokerhouse and get just across the street from the Checkered Mage's Onion Tower. He looks so strung up he would probably resonate if strummed.
There are all sorts of stalls in the streets, everywhere where it hadn't been cleared for the racing track. Vic stops at one stall to buy some freshly baked quark buchty and also to buy a second to think. Why did she do it? Was it only a stupid, senseless, spontaneous idea born of some suppressed fascination with the Tomb?
"Frankly, I was curious about the Tomb ever since that barbarian guy went inside," she ventures eventually. "And tombs always feel so... welcoming, I guess? The door were open and waiting and, ehm, tempting me? But I might have just been a bit drunk, too," she chuckles and looks up at the Tower.
It is an imposing structure that casts its onion-domed shadow over a long stretch of the city. One could gawk at its colourful intarsias and manifold fine architectonic features for quite some time.
However, they both know they are simply nervous and stalling, so after a brief moment of more awkward silence, they cross the street and walk into the arched entryway, guarded on both sides by half a dozen statuettes of bugs. It leads up several stairs to a double ogive-shaped door crafted out of walnut wood and brass. Tadz grabs the handle and knocks twice.
Five minutes later, the heavy door opens at a narrow angle, just enough that an older, short, bespectacled and red-haired lady can stick her head out to greet them.
"Master Tadzio, I am so happy to see you!" she says, still not letting them in. "And who is your stunning friend?"
"Hi, Roz. This is Victory. Ehm, Alder. Vic, this is Rosalind, the reason dad's still alive and in good health."
Rosalind chuckles and waives dismissively towards him, blushing.
"Look, Roz, uhm," Tadz continues, "I know we don't have an appointment nor anything like that, but we gotta see dad. Vic has crossed the Tomb's threshold and... uhm, one of the town gods' vaults has been breached. One of them's missing."
Rosalind's eyes widen and she goes even paler than her naturally tanless complexion. "Come on it," she says and locks the door behind them.
The entrance hall is massive and richly decorated with tapestry from a variety of places and periods. There are multiple pieces from the second Němetzian empire, some from Kezmarok's golden century, more than a few from the time of the Ancient Pahr horselords and others that Victory cannot place at all. At the back of the hall is a large desk, with piles of books and expensive-looking writing implements neatly arranged on top of it. A crystal orb sits there as well; it lights up when Rosalind touches it.
"Yes?" resonates from the artifact in the Mage's voice.
The secretary quickly explains the situation to him. Then there's a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering, but silent, and before Tadz and Vic have any chance to even process it, their surroundings flicker and change completely. They are now standing in a lofty, well-lit library.
Stepping down from a floating disk that had been hovering along a massive bookshelf that encircles the walls is an extremely well-groomed man in his fifties. He has perfectly trimmed, greying sideburns and wears layered capes and robes with overlapping plaid patterns that should be visually busy and distracting but somehow aren't. He seems to never waste a movement or a frown unless it is imperative to do so. He comes to them and firmly shakes Vic's hand, yet shows no intention of doing the same with Tadz, whom he greets with a cold nod instead.
"Dad," Tadzio replies sourly.
František, the Checkered Mage, addresses Victory instead: "Do you give me permission to touch your head? It would greatly expedite things."
"Okay," she says, caught off-guard a bit by the sound of her own voice. This up close, with the aura of easy, unwitting power, František suddenly reminds her of her Master.
She doesn't like that thought.
"Thank you. I promise you I will not abuse it," he says as he touches her forehead with only the tips of thumb and index finger. "But it is not uncommon for some unrelated memories or fleeting thoughts to conceal or even become entangled with the ones that are of interest to..."
His train of thought is cut off by something else. It originates in Vic's mind. The image of her creator, her sire and Master. That memory of him was clear in her mind, at the top of her head. František sees it too, and pauses. A little vexed, he mutters "Not you." though more to himself than to let anyone in on his thought process.
Digging a bit deeper, he looks at something more relevant. It seems to upset him. Victory's memories from last night's delve. He reaches through them in reverse order. Or rather in a reverse jumble. He bears witness to the murder of bro-dude, yet that doesn't seem to faze him. Maybe because he's already seen the cracked vault, the silvery orbs and the floating amoeba-thing.
He stays a little longer, just to make sure there's nothing else, and looks over Vic's shoulder as she sits in the Tomb's hallway and copies the runes onto that piece of paper. He emerges with her from the Tomb and watches as she deflects that peddler's curiosity by scaring him to death. He's still with her as she gets back to their flat earlier today and it feels so much like the times when her Master went to see the Sun and the daylit Marlinko through her eyes.
He is there in the flat with Vic and Tadz. He stands in a corner and listens to their conversation, or the parts of it that Vic's mind highlights, anyway. He sees her take on Tadzio's fears and vulnerability, and with that memory comes another and another, giving him every talk she had with Tadz and her every thought on him. They are both exposed and laid bare and so helpless, and that feeling of utter helplessness conflates the mental images of the Mage and the Master. There's a dry vanity at the corner of František's mind-eye as he recognizes his own power reflected in this mirror of sorts, but he does not dwell on it. Instead, he moves on to-
Instead, Victory's mind plunges deeper into that helplessness that hides beneath the stolen calm and confidence she shouldn't have and never had while she was still a human.
There is the young seamstress who took the wrong turn and got lost in the alleyways. Once sated, Vic took the package she was carrying, a beautiful black dress probably just about to be delivered to a client. The very dress that Victory now wears.
There is the alchemist's apprentice, all bashful yet boastful when Victory had drawn him into a conversation. She recovered the few potions she now has from his body.
There is the old lady whose cab driver had to take a leak. Victory used to be so proud of her stealth at that time, as the cab continued on its marry way with a bloodless corpse inside while Vic had kept the lady's onyx cigarette holder. At first, she used the smoke to mask the smell of blood, but she grew fond of the habit.
But it was all stolen. She made herself up of stolen things and lies stacked atop each other until they started to resemble a real person. But she is not a person, was not for quite some time. And she stacks more and more lies and stolen things on top of that ever-sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, in the vain hope that she can build herself up faster that she crumbles. In the foolish hope that there is a way how to fix-
František's grip over the inner motions of Vic's spirit is released and ceases abruptly.
She realizes that the Mage has pulled what appears to be the tail end of a lengthy string of... something from her mouth. The string is coated in this glowing slime.
"Don't worry. Nothing was subtracted from you. This is merely a copy. A document, if you will," he says but doesn't look at her. He is winding the string around a spindle.
"Wonderful. Yes. Ehm... Thank you for your time," Vic manages to say.
"The silver containers," the Mage continues, "the fact that you have them might be enough to put a target on your back."
"And why is that, dad?" Tadzio's question is basically bursting with spite. "Are you gonna rat her out to the city gods? How does that even work?"
"The orbs and the pulpit are not related to the city gods' vaults nor to the Tomb itself. The latter are the work of the most powerful arch-sorcerers among the old Pahr tribes. The former are Eld in nature. The Eld have somehow hijacked the Tomb without anyone noticing, and appear to have been hoarding whatever mystical energies they can steal from Marlinko."
He finishes winding Vic's string of memories and places it in a delicate, etched glass casket.
"We have met an Eld. Xoxx was his name. He was looking for some old artifacts, I believe," Vic hears herself say, giving a quick and concise report on the information she has and that her Master might find useful. She shudders.
"Yeah, we might want to find him," Tadz says.
"I believe the Tomb itself is now our best chance. Their tools are there, and the gate they have opened is still operative, according to your memories of earlier today. I will be taking care of that at once," the Mage says and performs a subtle gesture. There's the soundless breaking of glass again and with another flicker, all three of them are teleported to the Main Council's entrance hall, spooking the few bureaucrats hanging out in there.
"You seem to have understood how serious the situation is," František turns to Victory. "I ask you to bring me the orbs that are currently in Glamdalf's custody. If an Eld agent is scrying those, I have the means to identify and locate them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must inform the Council of my intention to enter the Tomb."
"Fuck the Council!" Tadzio's voice reverberates throughout the entrance hall. "If you abide by their rules, you'll be stuck, still filling out paperwork by the time the Eld decide to make their next move!"
František stares, mildly disturbed by Tadzio's conspicuousness. Then he sternly reminds his son that he, the Checkered Mage, is a prominent member of the Council. Victory quickly looses track of the spiel as he start alluding to a larger philosophical debate about the eternal struggle between Law and Chaos, and how the town's laws, however flawed they may be, are a significant instrument to fend off the chaos energies perennially seeping in from the Weird. Finally, he turns and heads upstairs through the large curled staircase.
When he is out of sight, Tadz mutters: "Fuck that. I'm going in. You coming with?"
"Yes," Vic says, sounding unsure.
She hates feeling like this. Ever since her father's house had burned down and she was rid of her Master, there was this veneer of confidence and drive carrying her through. Sure, it was also tinged with bloodlust, but it kept her acting and moving and smiling. Suddenly, there are cracks in that confidence and what she only sensed and suspected was hidden below can be clearly seen through them. She cannot look at the cracks. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
"Yes," she repeats, more firmly.
They turn around and head across the Plaza. More people have gathered to watch the race as six jockeys ride their horses at full speed going from Sevrnu to Vychodi streets, therefore passing right between the Council Hall and the Tomb. The jockeys jump over a contraption of spinning serrated blades, and Vic and Tadz wait for them to pass. The people cheer and try to follow in procession.
At long last, they can circumvent the guardrails and cross the racing lane to get to the Tomb. The drunken dancers from before are still there; some of them asleep on the ground, cuddled together in couples or threes. The girl with the belts around her head is well awake now, however. She sees them coming her way and yells: "There she is! I told you I had seen her come out alive! There she is!"
The other dancers slowly wake up. The commotion attracts more attention from the procession headed to follow the race. Soon enough, there's a whole audience.
Tadz pays no heed and walks right inside.
Victory stops in front of the door to the Tomb, her back to the gathered people. She forces the smile to return to her face and soon, it feels like it's coming back on its own. She turns around and waits until she has the full attention of the crowd.
"Good citizens of Marlinko, my friends! It is indeed I who went into the Tomb of the Gods, and I have returned to tell the truth of what I've seen. And I shall tell you the whole truth, the only truth, just as I have told the great Checkered Mage himself: Our gods, the true gods of Marlinko, are not dead!
They have never abandoned us, it was us who failed them! We were tempted and led astray by the foreign priests who came to our glorious city and preached their heresies, who poisoned our minds with their sweet lies and empty promises! But the gods of Marlinko are infinite in their wisdom and mercy. They were sleeping and dreaming of things yet to come, looking out for us even as we turned our backs on them. But now, a great storm is coming to Marlinko. The gods have foreseen it and they have told me and now I tell you: A great darkness shall sweep over the land and our gods shall emerge from their tomb in our hour of greatest need!
Prepare yourself for their glorious return! Prepare yourself for their righteous judgement! The faithful shall be rewarded, while the traitors shall burn!
Go, go now, good citizens of Marlinko! Spread the word, tell everybody! Tell your families and friends of the things to come! Tell them about the glorious return of our true gods!
And everywhere you go, watch out for the devils with blue skin who walk among us. They are the strombringers, the agents of darkness. They are the enemies of the gods. Remember: Thou shall not suffer a blue devil to live!
GO!"
Lies stacked upon lies, but enough lies can fill up the cracks until one feels whole again. Before any questions can be voiced, she slips into the Tomb after Tadz, hoping the fear of that place will dissuade any pursuit.
Tadz is examining the glowing amoeba, confirming what he has been told about its instincts to avoid a physical presence. He turns to Vic and says: "I've heard you. You're into this shit, aren't you? Sowing chaos."
"I guess so? There's a certain power in it, isn't it? When everything around is thrown into disarray and you're the only one who seems to know what they are doing. The same people that would normally sneer at you will suddenly listen when they are confused, lost and scared. They will do what you say as long as you can say it with confidence. I guess I really like having some power.
Anyway, the spheres and the pulpit are in the next room, behind the amoeba. You have any plan, or are we winging it?"
"Dad said something about a gate left open in this place. My guess is this is it. This ugly thing right here," he points at the amoeba. "We should at the very least try to shut it down or something. I can think of ways to trick it into not avoiding us, but I have no clue how to make it go away for good. Any ideas?"
"I might, actually. I spilled some blood on the pulpit and it enclosed it into one of the silvery spheres, plus your dad said that the spheres are hoarding energies of all kinds, right? Whatever the glowy thing is, it has some energy and it retreats when we approach it. There are two of us, we could try and manoeuvre it over the pulpit, maybe that will suck it into a sphere."
Tadz grins approvingly. It takes some time and effort, but between the two of them, they successfully herd the glowing pink formless thing towards the silver pulpit.
As that goes on, Tadz returns to the topic of chaos: "I get what you were saying, I guess. About the thrill of persuasion, of driving others to do your bidding. Maybe that is the one core experience where both law and chaos really overlap, don't you think?"
And again later, when they have the amoeba nearly to the pulpit: "Because, you see, that's what the great Checkered Mage, despite all his impressive erudition and sharp mind, gets wrong about this whole Eld situation, I think. There's this thing I've read some time ago; it had to do with morals and its relation to Law and Chaos. Well, according to the piece, there's this common misconception (among the few scholars who have heard of them, that is) that the Eld are a force of Chaos, which would mean that their ultimate nature would be aligned with the Weird. But in actuality, all their known actions point to the conclusion that they're rather-"
Tadzio's lecture is interrupted by a sudden loud humming emitted by all the spheres on the shelves at once, as well as by the pulpit itself. At this point the floating amoeba is pushed as far as a few inches away from the pulpit. Enthralled by his own words, Tadz did not really notice how close they are.
All of a sudden, the air feels electrified and staticky. The pulpit doesn't try to envelop the amoeba in silver and the amoeba doesn't flinch away from the pulpit. Instead, the whole pulpit is sucked into that strange body with a split second of flickering.
Then the humming stops and the amoeba remains there, hovering in place.
"Well, that was... unexpected? But it still probably thwarts the Eldish plans, I hope," Vic says. "Maybe we can clean all their equipment from here?"
She starts taking the spheres from the shelves and throwing them at the amoeba. Tadz quickly follows her example. The amoeba swallows the spheres without a hitch.
"And as you were saying, I have frankly never heard about the Eld until yesterday. Do you know who they are? What they are? Or what do they want here?"
"Not many people have. I know of them because they're a topic of interest of dad's and a few other scholars. As far as I can tell, certain artifacts have been found in the Weird a few generations ago. Mostly gear, but there's been talk of a wrecked ship. It was Kuuk the Vapid who named this unknown people 'the Eld'. Back in the day, dad says, the Nefarious Nine used to claim that they had fought beings wearing similar armour, wielding similar weapons. People with pointy ears and pointy heads. More recently, there's been talk of Eld activity in the Dunes to the west. And now this.
As to what they want, well, we can only speculate. The Sun Lord knows that's all those flat-arsed scholars have been doing for years. There's this energy theft theory; sounds half-baked to me. My own guess is that they abhor the Weird as much as we do. They probably think that we are part of it, same as us when we theorize about them. But as I say, it's all wild theories and nobody knows anything."
Victory smiles: "I think we should find one to have a talk, then. I wouldn't give it a high chance of them actually talking to us or telling us anything, but it's worth a shot at least. Maybe if some people bought my babbling from before, the Eld will have more trouble staying hidden now.
Which reminds me, I have talked with Steelpike about Xoxx before going to the Tomb. He basically told me he knows nothing and to stay as far away from the Eld as I can."
"Okay, I thought that came out of nowhere when you mentioned them to dad. Did Steelpike sound like he was lying about not knowing more? If so, we could press him. Probably not as urgent as destroying this thing, but... at least I'd have an idea how to go about it. Or we could try and jump into the pink blob ourselves. To test the theory that it is indeed a gate. If it is, we should be able to cross back. If it isn't, then we might end up dead. Yeah, now that I say it out loud, that's a really bad idea."
"Steelpike was really, really scared of the Eld. He might have been lying, but I think it's more likely he is doing his best not to know anything so that there's no target on his back. And I'd rather bring the others before jumping into a weird maybe-portal. Sometimes it's nice to have a backup. But what if we pushed it out of the Tomb? We can try to get it all the way into the Town Hall, then your dad or someone will have to deal with it post haste!"
"What a lovely idea," Tadz grins.
Soon, the door of the Tomb of the City Gods are opened wide and two figures can be seen herding a wobbly, semi-solid expression of pink high-dimensional energy all the way from the Tomb's entrance to the Main Council. Now the people on the Plaza are really intrigued. There is much shouting; all sorts of fears and hopes are aired around the pair, but the drunken dancers have formed a semi-circle around them, led by the belt-crowned girl, and keep the crowd at bay.
Then the guards inside the Council Hall threaten to stop Tadz and Vic, but the whole religious aura around this moment and the mass of people following seem to dissuade them from stepping in. Rather, they step back and try to regroup. The floating thing is pushed all the way upstairs.
Victory turns back to the crowd, standing above them on the stairs, and shouts: "Behold, a trial of faith! Shall the Council of Marlinko prove themselves worthy, dear citizens? Or shall they be exposed wallowing in corruption and sin?"
The dancers seem to have been waiting for just such a proclamation. They raise their own voices.
"Witness, Marlinkans!"
"The truth shall be unveiled!"
The meeting room's door are wide open. At the head of a long table stands František, and seated near him are the chief undercouncilmen of the Sullen Apiarian and the Yare Domesman districts. Jarek the Nagsman and Hurloj Kladivo are for some reason present as well.
"As you can see, gentlemen," the Mage says and motions toward the amoeba, "my reckless son has made a judgement call. I do not endorse it, but it certainly has the potential to speed things up. This is an extraordinary situation. As such, I would advise you that putting the red tape aside for a moment is the wisest course of action here."
"They have broken into the Tomb of the City Gods! This profanation has to be addressed," the Sullen Apiarian representative jumps in, also jumping up from his seat.
"The trespassers should be kept in custody for the time being, perhaps?" ventures the Yare Domesman representative, a meek red-faced man. As he speaks, his voice keeps dropping in volume and he slowly half-submerges behind the table, shaken by all the attention he got by speaking up.
Some guards have finally managed to force their way up the stairs and they stop the crowd from getting to the council room, though the entrance hall is clogged up and full of shouting.
Kladivo approaches the amoeba. He is known to be rather heavy-handed in everything he does. When he walks, he strides. When he shakes someone's hand, they better not respond with a limp handshake, or they won't be using that hand for some time. This is how he has thrived in this world. He owes it his own success, to an extent. Now, this same personal energy pushes - nay, throws the wobbly entity back. The pressure of multiple nearby people flicks the pink alien thing sideways. It rebounds from the table, then the wall, practically touching it. Then it looks like it will bounce off Jarek the Nagsman, the owner of the Tiger Pit, and continue ricocheting-
Instead of stopping short and bouncing back like before, it touches Jarek's body. It swallows him. Now you see him - flicker - now you don't.
The room falls silent.
The moment stretches on, but before the emotions have a chance to blow up, static fills the air. Victory tastes metal and the frustration of interrupted coitus. The colours in the room fade.
František shouts: "Everyone out of the building, NOW!"
The people don't move and the guards are as dumbfounded as everyone. Kladivo stares at the Mage as the latter mutters and gestures the same bit repeatedly, more and more irritated at every iteration. He suddenly nods and roars in a voice that knows no refusal: "The Mage is right, we gotta go!"
Kladivo sprints out of the room, ramming through the clogged hallway, then quickly turning to an empty side corridor.
"Dad! What's happening?"
František stops whatever he was doing and grabs Tadzio, dragging him along on his way out. The undercouncilmen follow, as does Victory.
Taking the same way as Kladivo did, they run down a secondary staircase that gets them out via the west wing. Some of the drunken dancers are still with the group. The air still feels electrified. The Mage keeps running. They get just past the Plaza when the world's colours vanish.
All sounds go away.
Victory somehow manages to hold onto a door handle as nearly everything and everyone around gets sucked into a stop-motion vortex. She sees the girl with the belt crown in mid-air, dragged back to the former Council Hall.
All sounds return and it's as if a storm has ravaged the Plaza. In the Council Hall's stead, a sore wound in reality is pulsing, a roughly vertical slit the size of two houses looming in the middle of ruins and rubble. There are people crumpled in the streets. The ones who managed to get ahold of something just in the nick of time. Many are hurt, bleeding.
Victory roams through the debris for a while. Eventually, she finds Tadz and his father. Both are shaken. Both.
"What in both Hells was that?" Vic snaps at the Mage.
"Whatever that was, it must have been triggered by something or someone on the other side. How else have you interacted with the gate?"
"We tried to get it contained by that pulpit in the Tomb. It didn't work and got sucked through."
"So master Jarek was not the first object to pass through the gate today. They have known that we know. It took you some time to get it from the Tomb to the Hall. Enough for someone on their end to take action." He pauses and rubs his temples. "But why retaliate instead of just closing it? Thus far they appeared to have had no intention to take direct violent action."
"They panicked?" Victory offers. "Feared retribution and wanted to eliminate all witnesses?"
"Where are the others? The councilmen? Kladivo?" Tadzio asks.
"Could have been accidental, could have been a move to eliminate the town's leadership," František says. "We know nothing. We're in the dark at this point. I'll go look for the representatives. You go bring Irenka to take care of the woun-"
A flicker and Tadz with Vic are standing at Irenka's porch. A simple sign by her door says 'Irenka, healer'. She needs no advertisement with the reputation she has.
"Did your dad do this to you all the time when you were living with him? Because it's seriously getting on my nerves already," Victory grumbles before knocking on the door.
"Not really. It's been a crazy day."
Irenka appears at the front door and is quickly brought up to speed. She grabs as much medicinal supplies as they can carry and then they all rush back to the Tomb Plaza. They spend the rest of the afternoon tending to the wounded.
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