The Vampire & Her Witch

In a quiet business district of High Fen City, inside a shop bearing a sign that read ’Things Made, Curses Broken,’ an aging member of the Clan of painted masks hunched over his workbench, barely breathing as he used a small brass hammer to gently tap on a fine pointed engraver. His focus was so great that he’d placed a dark eyepatch over his left eye and wore a series of brass-rimmed lenses over his right eye, making the delicate silver butterfly wing under the tip of his engraver appear as though it were the size of his palm when in fact, it was only a quarter that size.

The sounds of bells ringing and the -CREAK- of rusty hinges complaining as his front door opened pulled his attention momentarily away from his work, though the only move he made was to step back from the delicate piece and let out a slow, shuddering breath before shouting at the door.

"If it’s about the Willow Whip’s blade, the answer is ’no’," Erkembalt shouted, not bothering to look up at the person who had entered his cluttered shop. By Heila’s third day in the arena, it seemed like one out of every five people walking through his doors were asking about the Snow Fang he’d crafted for her, and by the end of her fifth day, when she felled the Tuscan mercenaries, that number had become one in three.

Now, in the days since her triumph over the Cauldron of Flame, it seemed like the only people entering his shop were in search of the famed artificer who created the frosty weapon, each one more desperate to obtain one than the last.

"If you people keep asking, I’ll close up shop and move to Sapphire Depths on the coast," he said grumpily. "That way, at least you have to cross half a continent to hear me tell you ’no.’ I won’t touch Frost Walker horn again for five years or more, so save your breath asking."

At this point, more often than not, the bells on his door would ring again, announcing that the starry-eyed young gladiator or grizzled veteran mercenary knew better than to press their luck and left his shop empty-handed. This time, however, the sound of quiet footsteps filled the air, preceding a voice that Erkembalt hadn’t heard in more than thirty years.

"I see you’re keeping busy, old friend," his visitor said as they strolled casually among the cluttered shelves, pausing every few steps to examine one curiosity or the other. "Your recent work is quite impressive."

"Aspakos, weren’t you supposed to keep away from me?" Erkembalt asked, looking up for the first time since the person had entered his shop and pulling off both his magnifying eyepiece and the eyepatch that blocked his other eye before replacing them with more ordinary-appearing spectacles.

The man before him wore stately blue robes, trimmed in glittering gold and covered in glyphs of power that were older than most of the current Eldritch nations. The dark feathers of his plumage still looked as inky and black as the day it had when Erkembalt left the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth and the man’s cracked beak still bore the same vein of gold that welded the broken shard of his beak firmly back in place. In every way a person with ordinary vision could see, the old man of the Dark Feathered Clan hadn’t changed at all since the day they last saw each other.

To Erkembalt’s eyes, however, his former colleague had changed greatly. The aura of frequent use of sorcery that clung to the man had shifted from a brilliant, blazing halo of pale azure and soft green to one of dark purple with whorls of shadowy black that clustered around his heart and eyes. His taloned hands dripped with dark crimson energy and the smell of death clung to him in a way that Erkembalt had only seen from men who had so much blood on their hands that nothing could wash it away.

"Merciful Sovereign," Erkembalt whispered once he got a good look at his old friend. "What happened to you?" His hands trembled slightly as he pushed back from his workbench, the scrape of his chair against the wooden floor sounding unnaturally loud in the shop that felt like it had become two sizes too small to contain whatever had brought his dark visitor here.

Moving with deliberate care despite his racing heartbeat, Erkembalt crossed to the nearest window. Mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through the dusty windows and for a moment, he was struck by how ordinary everyone walking by outside looked, like they had no idea what kind of person had just walked into his workshop or what his presence in this city might mean for them.