James Wyatt: Oath of Vigilance

It stung his pride, fleeing the Vale like that. It felt like running from a battle, which Bahamut taught him was a sin to be shunned. But once Nu Alin had left Tempest’s flesh, it had ceased to be a battle he knew how to fight.

So instead, he and Tempest had thrown themselves into fights they did understand, confronting extortionists, bandits, and a crazed necromancer in the streets of the fallen capital. In the hundred years since the emperor’s palace sank into the earth and the empire crumbled, Nera had gone from a bustling city with tens of thousands of residents to little more than a frontier town, leaving the manors and estates of the city’s vanished nobility to crumble into ruin around the crater that marked where the palace once stood. For its size, though, it had more than its share of crime and evil, from madmen working dark magic in ancient laboratories to bands of gnolls picking through the ruins and occasionally attacking families that lived too close to the decaying manors.

Their work of the day seemed like something in the latter category. They had arranged to meet Travic, a cleric of Erathis, in a tavern near the ruins, and agreed to help him investigate some disappearances. Roghar had every expectation that they’d be fighting gnolls before the day’s end, and that suited him fine. Fighting gnolls was a bit like fighting demons by proxy, since the foul, hyena-headed humanoids revered demons and worshiped a demon lord as their god.

He squeezed Tempest’s shoulder as they approached the tavern, and she seemed to shake herself out of a reverie. She glanced at Roghar’s hand on her shoulder as if noticing it for the first time, and she smiled up at him.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

“I know.” She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What do you suppose Travic has for us today?”

“Gnolls, I expect.”

“Filthy beasts.”

“Indeed.”

Roghar spotted the tavern by its sign, a crudely painted basilisk’s head with glowing green eyes. At that hour of the morning, no boisterous crowd marked it as a tavern at all, let alone one of the busier gathering places in the city. “The Stony Gaze,” he announced. “Are you ready?”

“Of course.”

Roghar pulled the tavern door open and scanned the room inside, his senses alert for danger. Travic was there, a warm smile spreading across his weathered face as he recognized the dragonborn. A young woman with a mop glanced up at the doorway, looked back at Travic, and returned to her work. Otherwise, the place seemed deserted.

“Roghar, thank you so much for coming.” Travic stood up and bobbed his head in greeting. A lock of salt-and-pepper hair fell into his eyes, and he brushed it aside.

“Good morning, Travic.” Roghar stepped to the side and let Tempest enter before him, then followed her to Travic’s table.

“Tempest, lovely to see you,” the priest said. “Thank you, as well.”

Tempest took his outstretched hand and started to sit.

“I have to apologize,” Travic said. “I planned to meet you here, buy you breakfast, and discuss the situation while we ate. I did not plan on this establishment’s excellent cook being abed at this hour.”

Roghar laughed. “Fortunately, we have eaten already.”

“I’m glad. And I believe it’s to our advantage to get an early start. I’ve heard a report of another couple gone missing, so perhaps we can look into that while it’s still fresh.”

“Very well,” Roghar said. “Shall we leave right away?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on as we walk. Or at least as much of it as I understand.” He patted the mopping woman on the shoulder as he walked to the door. “Thank you, Jesi.” She returned his smile.

Outside, Travic started walking in the direction of the ruins. “The cases I’ve looked into so far have had much in common, things that set them apart from the troubles we normally see near the ruined part of the city.”

“Gnoll attacks and such?” Roghar asked.

“Exactly. When gnolls raid the city, they leave an unholy mess behind them. Blood everywhere, bodies half eaten and mutilated, stores of food plundered, that sort of thing. It’s obvious there’s been an attack, and quite clear that gnolls were responsible-few other creatures are both so savage and so cunning.”

“How common are gnoll raids like that?”

“Actually rare. The watch patrols those neighborhoods pretty heavily, and when gnolls do attack, the watch strikes back fast and hard. Otherwise, no one would live in those areas.”

“But you said these cases are different?”

“Yes. No blood, no bodies, nothing missing or plundered. It’s like these people just disappeared-just got up and left, taking nothing with them.”

“Maybe the gnolls have new leadership,” Roghar said. “Maybe they’ve started carrying victims back to their lair, making offerings or sacrifices or something.”

“Anything’s possible, I suppose. But I’ve never heard of gnolls behaving like that.”

“What does your god tell you?”

Travic stopped walking and sighed. “Nothing clear. But the whole thing feels wrong to me. Dangerous and important.”

Roghar closed his eyes for a moment, letting his thoughts settle and fall still. His spine prickled at once, and a sense of urgency rose in his chest. At the same time, a gnawing dread took root in his gut. He opened his eyes and nodded. “Lead on,” he said to Travic. “Dangerous and important is about right.”

Travic led them around a corner, and the ruins emerged into full view. The street, a broad thoroughfare that once must have carried carts and wagons to the city’s finest homes and markets, sloped gently upward and then suddenly dropped off into the crater that marked the site of the fallen palace. Majestic stone buildings lined the sides of the street, but the ones nearest the crater were only crumbling facades over ruined husks, the gutted interiors visible through gaping windows and empty doorways.

“I dream about this street sometimes,” Travic said. “I see it as it once was, flowers and banners in a riot of color, the wealthy and powerful of the empire walking along its smooth cobblestones, the palace rising in majesty at the crest of the hill. Except instead of the emperor in his palace, I see Erathis, bathed in glory, the sword of her justice in hand and flames of inspiration around her head. Her eyes pierce me, and she commands me to rebuild.”

“That’s not a calling you could easily ignore,” Roghar said.

Travic sighed. “It makes me so tired. I’m just one man.”

“Today we are three. And we’ll shine the light of the Bright City into this desolate street.” Erathis, the god of civilization and law, was said to live in a celestial realm called the Bright City of Hestavar.

“Thank you, my friend. Bahamut’s work will be done as well.”

Roghar noticed the cleric’s gaze wander, a little uneasily, to Tempest. Travic understood why Roghar was helping him-as a paladin of Bahamut, Roghar had a divine calling, just as Travic did, and the goals of their gods were aligned in many cases. But Travic didn’t know what to make of Tempest and had no idea why a warlock whose power ultimately came from the powers of the Nine Hells would participate in this work.

Tempest wasn’t like them, it was true. Her power didn’t come with a divine mandate-it wasn’t granted on condition of service. In fact, as far as Roghar understood it, Tempest had stolen the power she wielded and used it without permission from the powers of Hell. And he had made it his mission to make sure she used it in ways that would infuriate the devils it came from, which brought him a perverse sort of pleasure.

“It’s just up here,” Travic said, starting toward one of the more intact buildings. “This street’s not entirely desolate. Many of the poorer people of the city find homes here, living in buildings whose owners are long dead. It’s dangerous-between the gnolls and other creatures that haunt the ruins and the risk of collapsing floors or ceilings, there’s a lot that can kill you. But it’s better than a lot of the other options the city offers to the poor.”