Nathanriel's Fate- Chapter 6
#6 of Nathanriel's Fate
And an entry of "okay, that's a thing that just happened." Anyway, we get to meet our fourth member of the group: Kresta Laan. A true demon in every sense of the word. Well at least as far as what demon means on Esana. Now one thing to keep in mind is that originally the Esana Trilogy was supposed to be effectively an inversion of the standard RPG tropes of the heroic humans going out and slaying all those evil monsters where the monsters really were just decent people and the humans were far more often the jerks ruining things. The rewrite pretty much instead goes the route of "Everyone's a dick, it's just the humans has this mentality that because holy magic has no effect on them, that they are good and just and doing the right thing because their church says so."
The spell that hit Nathanriel wasn't an illusion, it's just that as he is good natured (as evidenced by having white fur), he is immune to the effects of that kind of spell. He is however, extremely vulnerable to the opposite alignment spell, sin. Alha, however, was hit with the Lightning Element spell Light Canon (would be the equivalent to Thundaga from the Final Fantasy series in regards to spell potency) which probably would have instantly killed any of them if it hit.
One final thing is that the humans are weird and have their own separate religion. Like, everyone knows for a fact that Fate, Death, Seraph and Nephilim all exist and they control their aspects completely (Fate controls his chosen. Anyone stronger than Death becomes immortal. Seraph is in charge of order, his Gifts and the Summons. Nephilim is in charge of chaos and the curses). And these have said that a lot of the metaphysical entities do exist beyond them. So, Life exists, Time exists. God exists. Granted these three are so powerful that they really can't interact on the world itself (from the original series: take the usual proportionate difference between someone level 1 at the start of an RPG and someone level 100 at the end of the game, and do that same proportionate increase six more times and that's how powerful Seraph and Nephilim are. Do the proportionate power between a normal level one person and Seraph six hundred times and that's how powerful Life is. Do it eight hundred times and that's how powerful Time is. Do it a thousand times and that's the power of God in the Esana universe. Another way to look at it since I'm a geek like that: If level 1 you had 100HP and at level 100 you had 10k (9,999)HP, then that's a factor of 100 per 100 levels. So Seraph and Nephilim would have over 100 Trillion HP. God then would have 10^(10^1000) HP). Anyway, distractions of geeking out on this aside, These beings exist. The celestials have said they exist. People have ascended to becoming celestials as well. And yet, the humans have their own human-centric religion that puts them at the top of everything else and just distort how everything else is to suit their needs.
Nathanriel decides not to press the issue of how someone can become a summon for if nothing else it must not be pleasant and is probably not something he ever wants to have happen to himself. So instead he devotes himself to focusing on his food, finding it a bit overcooked for his liking but it would suffice. He's just about to start feeling guilty over the fact they didn't think to grab Angylia to go with them to eat when he hears a scream in the distance.
"Go towards the scream," the Voice in his head instructs.
Oddly it ends up being beneficial for them that they paid beforehand since it means that Nathanriel can just get up and leave without breaking the law for theft. Bob follows but due to having had eaten slower than Nathanriel grabs the rest of his steak and holds it in his mouth as he leaves the building, chewing it as they run towards the sound.
The moment he gains the ability to speak he does a quick chant under his breath and the area around them suddenly darkens. Nathanriel looks up to see a large bird flying immediately above them, quickly gaining altitude.
"Take us to the person in trouble," Bob instructs as they continue running.
The bird takes off at a fairly high speed way up into the sky, seeming to shrink as it does so as well. After a moment it comes back, barely a quarter of its former size as it begins to guide them through the streets. Turns out they would have found it even without the bird's help, though, as many of the townsfolk have a similar idea to at least go and see what the commotion is all about and thus could have just followed one of them instead. Even still they find where she is by a crowd of humans forming a circle around one of the wider streets.
What he sees in the center of the ring surprises Nathanriel greatly. In the center of the ring of people is a female demon, one that looks almost like an anthropomorphic deer being assaulted by several humans bearing large chains made of what looks like iron. The men are trying to bind her in the chains while a man wearing robes and holding a book preaches to the audience from the book about how their god demands that all demons be sanctified and be purified with the seed of God and the seed of men so that they may walk with god. For her part she is fighting bravely, bolts of electricity shooting out from her hands with every swing but the men seem to have come prepared, as none of her strikes seem to have any real effect. On top of that the iron chains seem to be causing her a lot of pain just by being in contact with them. As such, it doesn't take them very long before they have her completely restrained and at the mercy of her captors.
It is at this point that Nathanriel understands what they meant by the seed of man as many of them begin to remove their pants while others go about tearing away at her clothes, ripping it into tiny little pieces, an act more to humiliate her further than to expose her delicate areas. A few even begin groping her forcefully, eliciting all the more struggle from her against them, futile as it is. Nathanriel is rather conflicted about what to do. Not knowing what all is legal or not, to intervene in an attempt to help may only end with himself in a dungeon again. In fact, if they were only going to humiliate her or beat her senseless he probably wouldn't have even batted an eye. Such things are simply an expected hazard when moving through a human settlement. Heck, if they were about to simply kill her on the spot he'd probably let them do that as well and just assume that she had committed a crime that justified a public death.
But to tie her down and rape her is inexcusable, regardless of what she had done. Knowing full well he'd have no chance fighting them all off without having any sort of weapon available he decides he must try anyway, hoping that his luck will hold out enough that he can free her and escape. If they assume that he has access to all of his magic like that guard did back in the pit they might have a chance. Not even waiting for permission from the Voice for him to go he rushes in at some of the people holding the chains. With everyone so distracted on what's going on around her they don't react to the fact he's entered the fray until he's knocked two of them away from their chains.
He gets an added bonus from the fact that half of them seem to also have the problem with the difficulty in trying to first pull their pants back on. Still, even though he is able to get most of the chains loose before they have time to mount a proper retaliation there is still the fact that he cannot get close enough to rescue her without endangering his own life considerably by running towards all of their weapons. The person holding the book seems to be shouting at him and someone else, one that he had assumed was simply a part of the crowd apparently finishes chanting and a large white ball, nearly half the size of his body, forms in front of him before shooting out at Nathanriel at incredible speeds. When he notices that the ball moves to adjust for his own attempt to get out of its way and knowing he has no way to nullify it he raises his arms and braces himself for the inevitable explosion.
Yet, oddly enough that explosion never comes. He can feel something hit him and he knows the ball of white light is gone from how bright the world seems through his closed eyes, but it didn't actually feel like anything more than as if a swift wind had passed right through him. Nathanriel opens his eyes in confusion and then realizes that it might have just been an illusion meant to slow him down enough so that they can properly surround him he curses to himself slightly. On top of that he realizes that his saving grace wouldn't work in this case as the others probably have figured out as well. Against the guard he stumbled upon him and didn't have enough time to cast a spell, even if he could. With here not only did he have a good few moments where he could have cast a spell without anyone being able to stop him but when he did fight, he fought only with his fists and kicks, rather than trying to cast a spell on them, however light it might have been.
Apparently, Nathanriel notices as he tries to retake stock of his current situation, hoping to find a way to get a sword he can use to defend himself, two of the men around the female deer demon have not stopped what they were doing. Whether they are so enthralled in their despicable act and haven't noticed he's there or are so confident they won't be needed Nathanriel can't tell. What he can tell is one of them is getting very close to begin violating her while the other continues to hold her down. On top of that, since she is the obvious reason for his interference the men create a wall between the two of them.
Just when all seems like it is lost and that he'll have failed in his task of trying to save her from this fate a large gust of wind comes at them from above and when Nathanriel turns to look he sees the large bird that Bob had summoned moving quickly towards the girl, Bob straddling the large bird's neck. The bird grabs each of the men still attempting to rape her in one talon and then chucks them at the wall of men, flapping its wings hard in the process. The end result is the wall has fallen down for a moment and that gives Nathanriel an opening to try and get back towards the center. Since leaving him on the other side would mean having to fight an opponent on each side the men let him through, content to have the three surrounded in one tighter circle than to surround two different groups.
Nathanriel's hope is that with the three of them together if the bird is capable enough they could potentially use the bird to fly them at least out of the circle and away from the combat if not well out of sight so that they would have escaped completely for the time being, at least for long enough that they could get their weapons back from that shop and maybe pick up Angylia as well, giving them much better odds against the human men than as they are. But before he can even ask if Bob can do this he hears a ringing sound, a violent tone that is the same as when the deer was attacking with the lightning. Looking to the source of the sound he notices a large yellow circle surrounding the hand of one of the people near the man with the book and a second later a bolt of light shoots out of his hand and goes right through the bird's chest. The beam actually continues past the bird with a sort of mist going with it but as it does so the bird is knocked off the ground and follows the mist as if being pulled by some strange force. Bob is knocked off the bird from this and lands a few feet away from them. The bird, however, doesn't fare very well and after slamming into a building begins to evaporate away, as if it was made of nothing but feathers and the thing binding these feathers has just disappeared. For a single moment there is an almost sea of feathers where the bird used to be and then even these disappear.
"Kill them," the man with the book states as several crossbows hidden in the crowd suddenly turn towards the three of them.
"That'll be enough," A man states in a rather quiet tone, so quiet in fact that Nathanriel isn't even quite sure the men would even hear him.
Oddly enough, though, they do actually stop. So much so, in fact, that all of the men they were facing as well as the entire crowd begin to walk away to go about their day as if absolutely nothing at all of importance had actually happened and they were just passing through this area the entire time. So aghast by this that neither Bob nor Nathanriel notice as the deer girl starts to stand up.
"Lord Byron, I must protest," the man with the book proclaims, being the only human to have not followed that man's quiet statement. "I was given an edict to purify every demon in this area. How can I follow through with my orders if you simply let them go? What sort of example will you give to the other demons? If you let them go the other demons will get the idea that if they put up enough of a resistance they can avoid being purified."
"Be that as it may, I have a better use for them now for these three and killing them would simply have interfered with my plans considerably. Besides, I'm not just letting them go. I'm more than confident that your superiors will agree with me on this and will have no problem with them being remanded into my care."
The man with the book is clearly not pleased with the situation, but makes no further resistance than to slap his book shut and half storm off back to some other part of the town. The other man turns towards the three of them "Okay then, off you three go. I'll be keeping an eye on you," he comments before turning as if to leave. But before even taking a single step he stops and speaks up again, "now do be sure to not split off and go your separate ways. It would be so disappointing to have to kill you. Oh and do tell your friend Angylia for me that I've taken the liberty of informing her father that she's escaped from the nearby pit and is alive and well and that he sends his regards."
"So who was that?" Bob asks.
"That was Lord Francis Byron," the deer girl responds without thought. "A human with more power than any of us could ever hope to overcome," she sighs. "Welp I guess I'm stuck with you two now since he's not known to bluff and he probably would kill us if I tried to go solo. I don't suppose either of you have any spare clothes I could borrow, do you?"
"Uh, yeah. Here," Bob comments before taking his shirt off and handing it to the deer.
"Thanks. And sorry about getting your bird killed."
"Don't worry about it. Alha will be fine. She'll probably refuse to let me summon her for a while and likely make me perform a sacrifice or two to appease her but that's about it. Anyway, I'm Bob and this is Nathanriel."
"Kresta," she comments, finishing the task of putting the shirt on.
"Well I don't know about you but after that display I really want to get back to the Merchant's Guild and get my sword back in case someone tries to do something like that again. I don't get the feeling that that one man is finished, even if he did listen to that Byron person."
"I'm up for that. No offense but I'd rather be wearing clothes that actually fit. Not to mention a pair of pants or a skirt or something so I can at least be somewhat decent. The Guild should have plenty of options for me to pick from."