The eye of the storm

JP with Lorem, Lucian, Omni, Winteroak and Bandorchu
As the last stragglers reached the mine, harried by riders, you notice that they actually start to pull back.

What they are after is in the settlement below not in the mines. A dozen of so riders positions themselves just out of range from your arrows keeping an eye out to ensure that you were not regrouping to try a counter charge.

The sounds of slaughter still fill the air and the plunders cut down any surviving miners and workers that did not make it to the safety of the mine.

“Tarmen first then.”

Alexis answered absentmindedly to Gonyaul’s proposition, while she continued to stare outside with an expression of grief and guilt.

She had no intentions to leave her post. She had no right to. After all she needed to pay witness to what her being so easily swayed from what she knew to be right had wrought. She should have insisted to stand with the Odonine, call Gonyaul’s bluff. Maybe the outcome would have been the same. Maybe even worse. But at least they would have tried.

But she did not insist. And now dozens of innocent men were dead. Markus too, most likely. She might as well have put them to the blade herself.

Gonyaul nodded and moved closer to Tarmen. He was not so foolish as to force help on the man. Tarmen could probably snap him in half like a twig and would put him in a stew.

“Tar man need come me? Make better.”

He held open his arms and really hoped the Kru’ll man was in his right mind and not having a mould relapse on top of everything else, or else instead of Gonyaul gesturing to help him back to Nicolaus, Tarmen might think a beautiful young woman was becoming wantonly for him.

~…You are weak… you would hide from the heathens rather than face them head on… you call yourself an Arbiter…~

She fumed at the voice inside, the voices of her past self. It nearly pushed her back out of the mine but she knew better.

If they had stayed and blindly fought the horde, they would have been overwhelmed just as easily as the Odonine. They had chosen their fate and it was their own belief that destroyed them. Voah had little pity for them to begin with and she was learning that faith and belief has its limits.

She would protect her own people. The people of Helias and her newly found group of friends.

Lost in his tune and mold madness, Tarmen hardly noticed Alexis helping him. He felt the cool air and someone supporting him, Alexis’s voice, then heard Barrel Boy in front of him.
His head and arm still pounded and he was using his legs more like stilts than limbs, but it seemed the voices had ebbed for now.
Instead he had to look twice at Barrel Boy, his concerned smile twisting into a mocking sneer and looking far more feminine than Tarmen remembered. He couldn’t decide if this was a trick of the mold or his sight having some godly clarity, either way it didn’t help his addled thoughts.
Were the hallucinations that bad now? Was this some vision from Hoi, changing Barrel Boy into one of her chosen to jest at something he didn’t even know?
On a darker note, was the boy laughing at his weakness? Arms wide as if to welcome a hero to mock his failure as a leader?
Tarmen had to stifle down the impulse to strike her.. him, he knew THAT was the mold at least. He had seen nothing but idiotic optimism and unwavering kindness from them.
He could argue against it, but he always appreciated that kind of loyalty. Shuffling towards Barrel… Girl…, he grumbled something that indicated a willingness for aid.

Nicolaus was kept busy. Almost everyone was wounded and in need of his care. He quickly prioritised the most serious cases. He applied a tourniquet to a man's leg that was definitely going to need amputation.

The Apotechary was in a foul mood. He was tired and dirty and there was nothing else he hates more than being dirty. He swapped his gloves and scrubbed his hands in a bucket of cold water. So much so that his skin felt raw. But clean. He looked at the dirt under his fingernails focusing on it for many a heartbeat before he returned is attention to the wounded

Nicolaus was starting to regret his decision to come to Aquilo. He had not learn much of interest yet. Except for the story about this mould which he wanted to get his hands on if they survived this.