Chapter Text
Not for the first time, the Blade was deafened by the whispers of reproach at what his heroic enterprise had come to. Father, of course, was the loudest in his silence.
For a cruel instant, his hope in the tenets of goodness flaked. But only for an instant, before his never-ending, starving faith clashed with the high-pitched menace of the new resident behind his eye.
Wyll clutched at his skull, yet willed the parasite and his body to a hush, pressing his back to the flesh-wrought wall. He could not dwell on the ruckling moans and the disembodied threats singing beyond his cover —not if he wanted to live.
He needed to live. For Mizora’s orders, and the safety of all wronged by the Devil’s Advocate. And for those elsewhere in need of him. The Triad themselves knew there were many who still needed the Blade.
He pressed his lips together, inhaling deeply, and tentatively sought for the sparkle that were Mizora’s boons… only to find them weakened. He frowned, but brought still a hand to his chest, and mumbled a quick abjuration for the Armor of Agathys. Fortunately, this proved successful, and soon he was embraced by the cold touch of magic.
The parasite within him wrinkled in anxiety, and something in Wyll tried to appease him —to have compassion, to spare his like, resting beyond cover.
That, he could not do.
In swift movements, he strode inside the gore-splattered room, hands unsure at the lack of his favoured rapier long lost in his abduction, and he met eyes with the creature, trying to forget what it once was.
The mind flayer defied him with a poor pretence of betrayal, and lashed with a booming mind blast at the same time Wyll shot a single eldritch blast at it.
Securing his footing, he frowned, growing more and more concerned with his reduced powers, but a wayward tentacle lashing at him reminded him of the more pressing matter. That was, surviving the nightmare of a nautiloid he was trapped in.
Pathetically, all he could muster were eldritch blast after eldritch blast, and a frantic dance around the creature to avoid its strikes, but none of it seemed enough, and soon he was forced to palm around his thighs for that belted silver knife he always hoped he wouldn’t need.
All at once, the room shifted, and both he and the mind flayer were scattered to the ground, as the outlandish sound of warcries, dragon roars and the crumbling of walls clouded Wyll’s ears. When his back met the floor, something rough pierced Wyll’s shoulder, spreading something wet and warm that clung Wyll’s gambeson to his skin rather awfully.
The creature was quick to reincorporate itself, and this time it did lash against Wyll with its tentacles, blasting Wyll’s flimsy protection in exchange for a touch of chill.
It started at him, and the psionic strength of the mind flayer overcame Wyll, trapped between a fleshy, cold ground and a misshapen body, covered in remnants of cloth that had no right to cling to the creature’s skin.
He hadn’t meant to be its cause, he bemoaned once and again inside his head. The litany echoed with the distant laughter of his patron, along with the derision she ought to feel staring from his faux eye.
The Blade needed to make this right.
Lips shivering and eyelids heavy, he yanked what tentacles he could gather to the side, the momentum bringing the mind flayer closer to him. His other hand secured at last his silver blade, and he faultlessly brought it from his leg to the creature’s jugulars. Wyll slashed it as hard as he could, and a storm of oozing, inhumane blood splattered all over him, over his chest, over his hair and his eyes and his teeth, the taste nauseating and triumphant at the same time.
When the mind flayer stopped spasming, he took the knife out of its neck, a last splutter of blood inundating his face before the body was pushed off him by the nautiloid’s shakes and merciful gravity.
At last, Wyll let his head rest against the ground of the ship, the almost comfortable roaring of battle healing his ringing ears.
He inadvertently swallowed, his throat aching against the corrupted liquid, and it brought him to a coughing spur. When it stopped, Wyll set the blade in front of his eyes, the effort reminding him of the sodden work the fall had made on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he quietly cried to the mind flayer at his side, his eyes never leaving the blood-stained silver in front of him.
He wiped part of the blade with his thumb, its edge dancing dangerously close to his skin. What awaited him, when strength left him eventually? The solemn, deep-set eyes of duty and love long lost, or the soul-devouring, demonic black-and-red that awaited him like a master to a dog each time he closed his eyes?
Or, perhaps, it’d be a set of frightful, hazel eyes, staring at him from behind that half-broken pod, begging at him as he frantically stared at the runned contraception in front of him, as they widened and clouded in eerie transformation, at Wyll’s careless touch of the foreign control panel, and the complete lack of recognition that gazed back at him once the hazel-eyed human before him was no more.
He had not even their name, and he knew not whether that was a mercy or a punishment.
One last shake of the nautiloid sent Wyll flying across the room, and his body violently hit the walls in a loud thud.
Wyll didn’t have time to pray at anyone. It wouldn’t have changed anything —not when all a god had given him was the cold shoulder.
Somehow, he opens his eyes to life, not death.
It wouldn't have done to retire so easily from duty at such a young age, he supposed, and he waggered Mizora wouldn't have taken kindly to Wyll forgoing one of the few targets she'd forced upon him, rather than the opposite.
Well, then. As they said, no rest for the wicked. No time for contemplation at the shell shock of the nautiloid ordeal either: the Blade needed to put down the so-called Karlach, Advocatus Diaboli.
He made to incorporate himself, and physically relieved each bruise and sharp cut suffered in the tumbling of the nautiloid, and his shoulder would need healing soon, if he wished to be any help to wayfaring innocents at the threat of any given monster. It'd be nice to rely on a weapon other than her magic, too, though Wyll knew to take one thing at a time.
Slowly, he stood up, staring at the open sky and the fluttering of leaves from trees interrupted by the destruction of the nautiloid, and scrapes of the room he had been at last, before the impact that presumably brought the nautiloid to crash.
Warily, he lowered his gaze, stumbling not too far from him with the sight of the mind flayer whose neck he'd ripped open. One step followed the other, and then he was kneeling in front of the body, where he checked for any minimal sign of survival.
None.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips, and his fingers moved to the creature's otherworldly eyes.
"I really am sorry, Hazel." He closed the creature's eyes, and stared at the rips of cloth that had managed to endure the ordeal. Wyll ripped a piece of it, remains of a well-worn linen shirt stitched in green-like patterns against white, and he tied the strip of fabric to his arm. "I shall give justice to what has been done to you. On this, I swear.”
Wyll imagined it brought no comfort to 'Hazel', not when their soul nor their body were to be returned to the dead ever again. But it was something.
It was unfortunate that the two residents behind his eyes —and wasn't that a joke in itself— were none too happy about his dallying and his soft heart mourning for humanity, so he was quick to gather his bearings, socket the bloody knife, and be on his way. Wherever he was.
Stumbling out of the fractured room, he was glad to see that the sky had not been a fiction of his mind, but rather a true speck of light that shone upon the Sword Coast. The specifics, however, were a bit lost on him. All his eyes could gather was a long, deserted beach interwoven by large stretches of hills, forests and distant ruins, but if he was lucky, perhaps he'd stumble upon a river.
Wyll treaded the remains of the nautiloid, which was inconsiderably more enormous than he'd calculated at first, and he couldn't help but wonder if anyone else survived.
For some reason, his hopes were slim on the matter.
Wyll had thought he was on his last steps of the collapsed nautiloid when trouble caught him again. First, he heard the badly hushed whispers, spoken in Common. Hiding behind a broken half-wall of darkened flesh, he spied three tieflings wading around in between hiding and fleeing, and then he heard the monsters.
Or, rather, they screeched with a deafening echo through his ears and inside his mind.
The evil was rather small, but no less ghastly: four —no, five aberrations of brain matter and flaying extremities scurried through the area surrounding the tieflings, of whom only one woman bore any weapon to defend themselves.
His shoulder still ached, and the dread of having a tadpole etched onto one eye and Mizora judging him from the other battled to make him leave.
The Blade would not fold, for this was his calling. This was what he'd given his soul for.
In quick springs, he dashed to the intellectual devourers, and gave neither them nor the tieflings a moment before he cast his cherished eldritch blasts around. Not all of them found their target, but the affront was enough to garner all attention on him.
Good.
"Did it not come to mind, to fight someone your own size?!" he half-joked as his spells knocked out two of the brains at last. He was half-absorbed in a manic chuckle when one of the critters mind blasted him, and it was only years of careless heroics that allowed him to stay on his feet.
“Need any help?" Wyll heard from the half-platform of the crumbled room, where he assumed the tieflings had found refuge.
He turned toward them, delight and spirit carving their way to his face easily. The woman grasped gingerly at her rapier, as if unsure of whether to wield it. "Not at all! Just get to safety!"
And with a quick smile, and back partially turned to the remaining creatures, he conjured the Arms of Hadar, and prepared himself for the foul taste it often left on his lips.
More and more, he felt more in tune with Mizora's powers, even if slowly, and the sight of two more felled intellect devourers only incremented his deranged bliss.
Of course, even minor scuffles came with their detriments, and the remaining intellect devourers relished at flaying and pushing against his legs, making use of its size and speed against the drained Blade of Frontiers.
He began to panic as his eldritch blast failed, the creature far too close, but then something sharp clashed against his head —fortunately without slashing him—, and he stumbled with the intent of catching the woman's rapier before the brain-creature at his feet actually cut deep with its attacks.
Wyll had many things to thank his father for, in spite of it all. The harmony of his dextrous arm with the blade, the one that had bestowed him his epithet, had given him purpose.
And, with that purpose, he ended the last of the vermin.
Wyll was out of breath, and possibly of blood, yet he remained on his feet.
He gave one wayward, easygoing smile at the tieflings. “Perhaps going for the head wasn't the best strategy back there —but the aim was impeccable!" He bowed, holding in the pain of the movement. “You have my thanks."
One of the tieflings, draped in robes and the airs of his long-missed home, scoffed at Wyll, and the remaining two stared at Wyll with a mixture of fear, vulnerability and only the slightest tinge of gratitude.
They were safe and alive, and, by Balduran's Bones, that was all that mattered.
Though warily, they had brought him to a hidden druidic grove, and then sent him to 'Auntie Ethel' for his injuries.
She'd been a tad too nosy for his liking, and her good spirits were oddly matched with the desperation that roamed the tieflings of the grove, but her healing potions saved Wyll from further physical inconvenience.
"Used to be a nicer druid would tend to us, too, along with the rest of them," Lia, the tiefling that had thrown him the rapier, sighed, serving herself a hearty portion of grovel an elder tiefling had been distributing around, "but he left some days ago with some human scouts, and now the rest of 'em are giving us the stinky eye."
"Reason enough for us to leave," huffed Rolan, the tiefling with a tunic, "my apprenticeship with—"
"Your apprenticeship can wait until we see all of us are safe," Lia retorted.
"Us does not need to be them too. Zevlor will take care of the refugees."
The third tiefling, Cal, whined, clutching his bowl of grovel without care. "We could also spend a day without fighting. For a change."
Wyll considered them, considered the rest of the tieflings trapped in a haven turned hostile after suffering their city being literally dragged to the Hells and back. There was only so much a single blade could do, but he wished he could offer them his aid in some way.
After he'd finished Mizora's target.
As detached as Wyll had been from current events by his exile, he had always harboured a predilection for heroes of legend.
They did, however, mention that meeting one's heroes may change one's opinions about them.
Wyll had not expected that change to come with pity.
Zevlor, once a Paladin of Helm and veteran of many a war, protector of the few refugees that had survived the goblins on their way to the grove, had taken well to the Blade of Frontiers grazing their presence, hopeful about the effect it may cause on the children to meet him.
And the children had been delightful. They'd cluttered at him seeking stories and fighting moves with an innocence the horrors of the road had not managed to quell. One of them had even tried to rob Wyll blind in a moment of thoughtlessness, but they had looked so apprehensive afterwards, and their sibling so bold and uncouth, Wyll could not help but find humour at it all.
Still, the sight of Zevlor disheartened him. The refugees of Elturel regarded him as their guide and protector, all Wyll wished he could one day become, yet the man's heart seemed battered and disillusioned with their hopes. With life.
Wyll, for all he'd lived, was only twenty-four. Would he, too, grow up to feel his call insufficient, and be rid of the very thing that gave him purpose?
He smiled at Zevlor, gave a quick glance at the children now training under Asharak, and told himself he would not let it come to that.
Come the night, free of the dashing and exposing sun, Wyll always wished on selfish matters.
That night, it wasn’t any different.
It was always for nought.
He'd taken to sleep in a concavity elevated from the rest of the grove, but still protected by the rocky formations giving them cover from the sky. A rogue soul named Lakrissa had shown him the spot in a strange bet of survival, and he'd hoped that nobody else would join him in his vigilance.
"Cease that sad quivering of yours, pet," her voice cut through him like radiant heat on ice. "Leashed you may be," and the ghost of a clawed hand fanned through the hells-be-damned scars on his jaw, "but it never did you any good to lose that dashing smile of yours."
Wyll reigned his emotions in, and settled to a kneeling position, hands clutching his knees. "You need not pretend, Mizora. You never quite liked my smile. I can hear the sneer in your voice."
"So assuming," she fawned, and then he felt her breath at her ear, infernally warm, "so assertive, so naïve, so ridiculous.”
She laid no finger on him, yet his scars seethed in the memory of their creation. Wyll shivered, just barely so, and the breath against his ear drew away, now enraptured in laughter.
At last, Mizora stood tall in front of him, staring him down with that curve of her lips that Wyll would be able to draw with his eyes closed by now.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” she drawled, chin up. “One moment, our hero valiantly battles the very Avernus in search for the beast, the next he’s playing brainmates with a worm.” Mizora sneered. “And here I thought I’d sated you enough.”
“It needn’t be a permanent conundrum, I only need first to—”
“To find Karlach and bring me her heart, yes. Oh! Or rather, her head. Seeing as she lacks the former.”
Wyll’s nails dug deeper into the cloth of his pants. “This amuses you so.”
“What do you think, pet?”
Wyll stared down, breaking Mizora’s glance, and he knew immediately he’d made a mistake. In an instant, her hand seized Wyll’s chin, and she pressed the edge of one nail to Wyll’s lower lip, just enough to draw blood.
“Be well-behaved, and get back on your hunt. This one’s reckoning has been long due.” She pressed her nail deeper, and Wyll had to restrain a wince. “Think about that. A hells-spawned contraption with hands coated in blood, running amok and lit on fire among this so-downtrodden corner of the Sword Coast. So close to these tieflings you’re warming your heart to.”
“She’s— she’s near? She was abducted by the nautiloid as well?”
Mizora retreated her hand, then stared at her reddening nail with disgust. “Lucky you.” She sighed, then stretched her wings, adopting once again the very smile with which she’d sealed their pact. “Do not disappoint me. You know what will happen if you do. Ta-ta.” And then, with the flourish of an arm, the air all around him turned to taste like sulphur, and she vanished into an impression of dark flames.
Wyll stared at the nothingness where she’d been, hands still itching at his knees. He pressed his lips together, ignoring the copperish sensation and its familiarity, then took a deep breath. And another. Until his litany of breath became a battle against the whispers of the night.
“She’s right.”
He’d been absorbed into a second, early sparring session with the refugee children when they heard the shouts from the gates. Zevlor sprinted towards the exit of the grove, followed closely by a pair of tiefling scouts Wyll had not had the chance to meet yet.
The moment they passed by him, Wyll gave a wink to the kids, and rushed behind their elders, towards a gate that only heralded trouble.
Zevlor expected the druid and his followers, but the arrows flying to the scout turning the wheel of the gates were well-known to the Blade of Frontiers.
Goblins.
The tales of old, favoured by children and romantic heroes and dreamers alike, rarely detained themselves at the anger that fueled their battles. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It was a deafening loss of control. It yearned for violence and revenge.
Unable to hear the voices around him, Wyll jumped from ledge to stone, and blasted an eldritch blast on the first foe that saw him.
He sprang once more, his feet landing on a large rock right above the grass where a goblin archer stood, eyes wide and manic.
Wyll hoped he reigned his sneer in, and simply drew his rapier.
“Provoke the blade,” he plunged the blade through his enemy, then set them around in the folly of a dance of two, “and suffer its sting.”
Nailed it. Literally.
The opening to the grove soon became a battlefield of zealotry and desperation, goblins, bugbears and frenzied mounts against a small group of human scouts and other very colourful characters, Zevlor shooting from the top of the wall, and Wyll blasting his powers and brandishing his sword left and right.
Many won concerning wounds, but on their side, somehow, no one else was felled, but the poor boy controlling the gates.
Wyll’s chest heaved, and he gave a quick, cursory look at his reddened blade, angled just-so that the sun nearly dazzled him.
You’re wasting your time.
He pressed his lips firmly together, reopening last eve’s cut, so he rudimentarily ran the flat of the blade through the skirt of his gambeson, freeing it from the thick blood pouring from it.
Battle-allies turned strangers were now striding past him, into the grove, and he had half a mind, half the last tidbit of grace he’d yet to lose, to follow them at last.