Chapter 18: Moral Consequences

A heavy fog settled into the valley as Nienna trudged toward the Priory camp with the dolyak in tow. Salara remained unconscious the entire trip back, her slender frame slumped over the beast’s bulky shoulders. Nienna checked on her periodically throughout the trip to make sure she was still alive. How the sylvari survived the crash puzzled her. The severity of the wreckage was enough to make anyone assume there would be no survivors, so Salara’s presence amongst the metal and flame came as quite a fortunate surprise.

As they neared the gates, Nienna paused and urged the dolyak to do the same with a gentle tug on his harness. The sounds of battle had ceased, but in who’s favor was unknown. The anticipation of discovery felt overwhelming, but Nienna forced herself to keep going one step at a time with her hand resting on her axe, just in case. Through the thick curtain of fog, the outline of the ice jotun’s hulking corpse eventually came into view. Its crumpled form lay upon the frozen ground, now simply a lifeless shell. Nienna let out a relieved breath and quickened her steps, eager to find her friends. She tugged gently on the dolyak’s harness, and the beast uttered a grunt as he matched her pace.

“There you are,” Dee called out from across the courtyard as Nienna emerged from around the jotun’s body. The norn sat on a crate, running a piece of cloth along her greatsword’s blade. She looked up at Nienna, hazel eyes narrowed sharply in displeasure. Her stern visage morphed into curiosity as she spied the dolyak. “You had time to stop and rescue a pet?”

“Or found dinner,” Clarkus suggested. The charr winced and clutched his side as he shifted where he sat on the ground near Dee. Next to him, something made a noise and moved under a blanket. He gave the bundle a kick, and it stopped.

Nienna pushed on the dolyak’s side to turn him until Salara’s body came into view. Murmurs erupted from the group. “I found her in the wreckage-”

“Wreckage?” Tuborg interrupted as he emerged from one of the last standing tents. He set down a small box of root vegetables he found inside and rushed over. “Was there a crash? Was that the sound we heard?”

“The Byrnes’ airship crashed against the cliffs on the other side of the valley,” Nienna replied simply, as she struggled to conceal her despair. She had managed to bring back Salara, and that still counted as a win in her book, but Seren was still unaccounted for. “We should get her somewhere safe and warm.”

After sheathing her greatsword in its holster on her back, Dee strode toward Nienna and the dolyak with Tuborg following quickly at her side. Between the three of them, they lowered Salara off of the dolyak’s back and into Dee’s burly arms. The norn carried the unconscious sylvari with ease into the tent Tuborg had been rummaging around in for supplies. They pieced together a base with broken planks, piled furs, and canvas for a makeshift mattress. Dee lowered her down, and Nienna tucked the canvas which had covered her during the journey around Salara’s petite frame to keep her warm.

“Is she going to be all right?” Dee asked as they all stepped outside of the tent. She looked over at Turborg. “I don’t know that much about sylvari anatomy.”

He nodded. “She will be okay, I believe, but she should see a healer as soon as we can get her back to the Priory Headquarters in case there is any internal damage.” He turned to Nienna. “Forgive me, but I have to ask. Are you sure she was in the crash? Her injuries don’t appear to be consistent with someone in an airship crash.”

Nienna nodded.

Clarkus’ ears twitched. “How in the crash are we talking?” With a grunt, he got himself to his hindfeet and snatched up the bundle at his side. It shook and made noise again. The charr bared his teeth at it and growled until it stopped moving.

“About as in the crash as you can get,” Nienna replied. Her brow furrowed as she recalled her discovery. “It was strange. I found her in this metal pod there in the wreckage. It was almost as if it were bent or molded to fit around her. There was no door that I could see. I had to pry a section open just to get inside.”

“That’s strange.” Dee glanced over her shoulder back at the tent. “What of Seren? Any sign of her?”

Nienna frowned and quietly replied, “no.”

Silence blanketed the courtyard as glances of concern were exchanged throughout the group.

“This might be a good time to tell the commander about our little prisoner,” Clarkus piped up.

“Prisoner?” Nienna raised an eyebrow.

“After we slayed the ice beast—on our own,” Dee explained, eying Nienna conspicuously, “we searched the camp for survivors. We found one. One of their asura brains.”

Clarkus held up the bundle, and the contents squirmed again. “Let me go!” a slightly muffled voice declared.

“Who is it?” Nienna asked. She looked at each of her companions, but no one answered. Instead, Clarkus opened up the bundle and emptied the contents out onto the frozen floor. A bald, pale asura landed with a grunt. He stared up at them with bright green eyes narrowed sharply at his captors standing over him.

“How dare you treat me like an old piece of fruit!” Torx shrieked. He tried to sit up, but fell back over onto his side. His small limbs had been bound to each other, and his prosthetic hand had been crushed, making it difficult for him to move.

Dee placed her hands firmly on her hips as she looked down at Torx, looming over him menacingly. “Shut it. You’re a prisoner. After what you and your people have done, it wouldn’t be hard to argue that you deserve worse.”

He glared at the norn woman with severe indignation.

“What are Lord and Lady Byrne planning?” Nienna demanded, her tone sharp. Something in her shuddered with delight at the role reversal. With him in their grasp, the power dynamic had shifted, putting some favor back in their court finally. “What’s their plan?”

Torx craned his head to look up at her, his little mouth twisted into a scowl. “I will not divulge any plans, ideas, or memos. Any attempts to try to pry information from me will be futile. You’re out of luck.”

“Tell us what you know, rat!” Clarkus roared. “Maybe it’ll strike a merciful chord, and we’ll let you live.”

The stubborn asura merely frowned and shook his head.

His refusal to cooperate infuriated Nienna. She wasn’t necessarily expecting him to give them everything, but his obvious rejection of doing the right thing struck such a nerve in her. Her eyes narrowed upon Torx: the individual instrumental in the death of her friends as well as the Byrnes’ plans for the blade. She glared down upon him as a wave of uneasiness broke out amongst the group. They had immediately reached a roadblock. Even with his current predicament, it was clear he wasn’t going to talk.

Nienna suddenly reached down, grabbed Torx by his coat collar, and dragged him through the snow toward the camp gates. He thrashed and spewed a string of curses. Shadow crept into the perimeter of Nienna’s vision as something primal took over. They weren’t going to get anywhere with words.

“Let go of-“ Torx cried out, but Nienna tugged hard on his collar, choking off his words.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Dee asked as she broke away from the group and rushed after her. “Where are you taking him?”

“He’s not going to talk.” Nienna spun around and thrust her hand out. “If he’s not going to talk on his own, I’ll just have to try to make him. Don’t follow me. None of you need to see this.”

Frowning, Dee paused, but refused to listen and then followed anyway. Her concern for her friend had grown since she saw the effects of the blade take hold of her body, and now as she watched Nienna drag the struggling asura through the snow, she truly worried about her state of mind.

“What are you going to do with him?” she asked. Hearing movement behind her, she turned back to the rest of the group and motioned for them to stay put.

“This crazy witch is going to kill me! You have to stop this madness!” Torx nervously interrupted before Nienna pulled on his collar again to silence him. He squeaked before erupting into a bought of coughing.

“Don’t concern yourself with this.” Nienna replied, curtly. She turned back around and headed for the gate, dragging a terrified Torx behind her.

Taken back by the coldness of her response, Dee stopped in her tracks, not knowing exactly how to respond. She wasn’t used to hearing Nienna address her so harshly. The norn debated whether or not she would be overstepping her place if she did follow. Was it even worth it? With a heavy sigh, she turned around and rejoined the rest of the group. If the worst was to happen, what was one less Inquest in the world anyway? she thought to herself.

Outside the camp, the fog had grown denser, and it dampened the sound of her boots moving through the snow as well as Torx’s pitiful cries. She didn’t have to go far before the way behind her was completely obscured. Ignoring Torx’s pleas to be free, she stopped for a moment, listening to the hush of falling snow. What she wouldn’t have given to have that peace soothe the rage in her soul.

“What do Lord and Lady Byrne want with the blade?” she asked, her voice low and tight. She threw the asura at the ground in front of her, and he landed in the snow, kicking up white everywhere.

“Why do you care what they want to do with it?” he answered angrily as he shook snowflakes from his soured face. He glared at her with his large, green eyes. “You weren’t going to do anything with it! You—you were sitting on a gold mine of research and alchemic advancement!”

“Is that all you care about? Your research?” In a fit of rage, Nienna bent down and grabbed him by the neck, squeezing just enough to make it hard for the asura to breathe. She stared at him square in the eye. “Have you even once considered the moral consequences?”

The asura let out a wheezy laugh. “There are—always consequences— in our quest—to further our—understanding,” he managed to say through ragged breaths.

“My friends were not just consequences! They were people who were loved and cared about!” She thrust him down into the snow, letting him go as she reached for her axe. She pressed the sharp tip against his chest and slowly pushed until it broke through Torx’ Inquest robes and started to sink into his soft flesh. He cried out in pain, but she ignored his screams. “They were not expendable in the name of science.”

Torx’s cries turned to laughter as he looked up at Nienna. He gulped in a large breath of air and struggled to keep it while under the weight of her weapon. Seeing his struggle, she let up a bit, but only enough for him to talk.

“What’s so funny?”

“Most of this pathetic back and forth doesn’t matter anymore. They have a piece of the blade you tried to hide in the back of a shield.”

Nienna could feel the color draining from her face. “They? The Byrnes?”

“One piece is enough—for now,” he managed to get out between labored breaths.

He kept speaking but his words fell on deaf ears. The black shadow edging into Nienna’s vision slowly closed in, eventually obscuring her view of the gloating asura. She tightened her grip on her axe. Torx’s eyes grew wide as Nienna pulled her weapon away from him and raised it over her head.

Shaking, the asura’s long ears drooped. “No, p-please no,” he plead as he held up his bound hands.

His begging meant nothing to her. They were empty words simply meant to dissuade her from going through with her intentions. He had been responsible for killing her friends—he had to pay the price for his actions. She raised her arm over her head, and her grip tightened on the handle until her joints ached. She could barely see Torx wiggling away from her through the shadow covering her sight, but it didn’t matter. She could feel him. His pounding heartbeat echoed in her ears. Taking two long steps forward, Nienna brought her axe down hard. Torx’s shriek’s ceased, his pounding heartbeat stopped, and all she could hear was the soft hush of snow falling all around her.

Tilting her head back to the sky, she exhaled with relief, but something caught in her throat. Suddenly thrown into coughing convulsions, Nienna bent over and spat out the liquid building in her mouth. Black ichor splattered upon the white snow and dripped down her lower lip. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand and examined the dark smear. Her heart broke into a sprint, and a cold sweat took over her entire body at the sight of the strange liquid she coughed up. Not wanting anyone to see, she wiped the black on the inside of her coat and kicked snow over the ichor on the ground. She couldn’t acknowledge something was wrong with her, not now. Not with so much left to do.