Just A Pawn - Chapter 2 The Past..

Pawn walked alone through the flaming village, lending her support wherever it was needed, healing for the wounded, water for the thirsty, food for the hungry.

…Not for the village’s residents, but to the ones who had slain them, her friends and her allies.

Everyone on ‘her’ side was smiling and joking about how the recent mission had gone, ‘the tactical subjugation of a camp of hostile demons’ as the higher-ups called it.

Only because it sounded a lot better than ‘a surprise attack on an unarmed village populated mostly by women and children.’

“Oi, supporter!” A man’s voice suddenly emerged from behind Pawn, she turned to see young ‘looking’ man in silver armour, he had blue eyes, blonde hair, and two large angle-like wings protruding from his back.

And though he looked young he was actually thousands of years old.

“Sir?” Pawn questioned, showing the minimum amount of respect she was required to give.

“I need you to search the area for survivors with your detection magic, it’s really more of a formality as we’ve already done so, look for theirs, not ours, though if you find anyone just let the nearest soldier know, dismissed!” he ordered before promptly walking off, likely to give more people orders, his name was Franklin, the man in charge of this particular mission.

Pawn held in her snarky reply and did as she was told, she would just somehow ‘slip up’ a bit if ever he needed a healing spell from her, just enough to leave a scar.

She began by drawing a large portion of her Mana energy into a ball within herself, and once enough was gathered she poured all of said Mana into a large scale detection spell, it a single moment it pulsed out and away from herself, spreading in every direction at once.

After a second or two the pulse then retracted from her surroundings and was reabsorbed, bringing with it the information on her surrounding.

A crude map of sorts formed in her mind, detailing both the position and race of every person within a two kilometre radius, Pawn looked it over and saw only light blue, and green dots in the displayed area, blue being spirits, green being plants or weak fauna, however there were no red dots, the colour that represented those demons.

“Looks like we got them all, eh, go team justice,” Pawn said sarcastically, but just as she was about to close the map she noticed something odd.

The thinnest trace of red she had ever seen, as if a single drop red paint had been diluted with water in a ratio of 50 to 1.

Pawn turned, and then immediately began walking in the direction of the anomaly, she had never seen such a good detection block before, and just had to learn of its source.

If there was any one thing Pawn found interesting, it was magic.

After a moment Pawn arrived at small burning building, a sign laying next to its door.

It was tan wood with black paint, the sign’s diameter being bordered by a thin strip of iron, what it displayed was a hammer and a shoe side by side, clearly indicating that the place had originally been home to both a blacksmith and a cobbler.

Pawn quickly stored the sign using her storage magic, she thought it looked rather cool.

Pawn repeated her previous detection spell once again, this time focusing only on the 9 by 9 metre building rather than a 2 kilometre area…

The magic pulsed through the building and then immediately returned, all happening in less than a tenth of a second.

This time her map displayed 3 bright red dots, clear as day, two of which were much smaller that the third, they were located in the building’s basement according to the displayed altitude.

Pawn hesitated a moment before proceeding into the burning building.

She couldn’t take three demons in a ‘fair’ fight, but with her storage magic she could summon any number of ‘pay-to-win’ style items, thus she was unafraid.

And she really wanted to know who it was that had such beautiful magic.

Pawn quickly found a hidden staircase leading to the basement, she knew where to look after all… she then proceeded to climb them downwards into a large room that had been left untouched by the fire.

She kept an item known as ‘the bronze feather of fleeing’ griped tightly in her left hand within her pocket, just in case things went south.

Sitting at the opposite end of the room were three figures, a woman with grey eyes, black hair and grey skin, she held two knives, one in each hand, one with a black wooden handle and silver blade, the other with a black blade and silver handle, both of which were pointed at Pawn.

Behind the woman were two small girls, each looked to be 6 or 7 years of age, each havinng rather horrible burns covering the area around one of their eyes, the left girl over her left eye, the right over her right, while the woman had similar ones covering her entire arms. they all wore matching bracelets as well.

Pawn assumed the burns on the woman’s arms were from shielding the girls from the flames.

“Just a formality is it, eh, Mr know-it-all… damn useless muscle head” Pawn cursed Franklin as she stood across from the three demons, not knowing what to do.

The woman gave her a confused look, probably meaning she understood the words she had been speaking.

“I-” began Pawn, about to ask about the magic which had previously hid them, but soon noticed what was sitting on the table behind the woman, and fell silent.

On the table was a ‘bronze feather of fleeing’ similar to her own, it would allow whoever held it safe passage to a variety of places that met certain criteria, and so long as the user had been there before.

So why didn’t they use them?

“I’ll be debriefed using truth magic after this mission, so I’ll have to report your existence to the others… but I can wait for you to use the feathers if you like, ‘not arriving quick enough to stop you,’ it makes no difference to ‘me’ at all,” Pawn said so, she wasn’t as fanatical about demons as the others were, and didn’t really care if they escaped.

But Pawn would still need to report their location either way, and half truths could only get her so far in that regard.

Her comment and uncaring attitude, earned a weird look from the apparent mother of the two.

She gave a long glare before she began to speak.

“…I only have the one feather… can’t choose one over the other,” The woman said in a solemn tone, apparently deciding she had nothing to lose by doing so, she glanced back at the two children as she mentioned them.

“You could leave them behind and save yourself,” Suggested Pawn wanting to see the demons reaction to the words, she had rarely gotten to speak with demons, and could use this chance to understand them, even if only a little bit.

“Perhaps a ‘spirit’ could do such a thing to their own children…” said the demon, forming a scowl on her face.

(Not very ‘demon-y’… So it really was just propaganda,) Pawn though to herself under the watchful gaze of the mother, she then withdrew something from her pocket.

“I barely manged to noticed your magic as I was searching the area, it was rather beautiful me who prides myself on my search magic, perhaps you would like to tell me about it” Pawn said as she offered her own feather to the cornered demon.

“And I can give them healing and food, to some extent, as well,” added Pawn… in an act of obvious betrayal towards her own kind.

The first and last time she would ever betray the spirit realm in such a direct manner…

…

Many years later…

-Bang!

-Bang!

-Bang!

A female demon who had a large scar covering her left eye, used a large hammer to pound violently away at a white hot piece iron, she was forming it into the shape of a sickle.

when her sister suddenly burst into the room, she had flawless skin, no sign of the scar that shoul have been present.

Ember, the smithing demon, had wished for all the healing magic Pawn had access to, to be used on her sister rather than heself.

“Ember, the bracelet, look at the bracelet!” Ember’s sister, Lace, yelled such before stopping to catch her breath, confusing Ember greatly.

*Gasp *Gasp.

“…Elaborate,” ordered Ember with an impatient tone, eager to get back to her work.

“I told you bracelet!” Lace repeated the word once more, this time holding up her wrist, on it she wore a familiar bracelet.

it was silver and simple, if not for the three large yellow topaz stones embedded into its surface that is, the middle stones had a black glow in its centre, while the other two were white in the middle.

Ember glanced at it briefly and then back to Lace before immediately doing a double take, this time examining it carefully.

Noticing the condition of the third topaz, until recently, it had appeared to be just a regular stone, as it would only glow while in the same realm as it’s corresponding bracelet.

Its glowing could only mean one thing.

“She finally returned…” said Ember, her face staying rather stoic, but interest was clearly visible in her eyes.

It had been many years since the odd support spirit had saved them both from their destroyed village.

“Well then… let’s go get her, shall we,” said Ember as she discarded her project and left the room with Lace.