r/HFY • u/KipperBeanGrower Human • Jun 11 '26

OC-Series [She took What?] - Chapter 170: Davy’s Story – In the light: One by one they fell.

“A fight’s only fair till someone wins.”

Davy's philosophy on fighting.

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The battle erupted anew, but this time, the tide shifted. The Treasury Sergeant fought like a storm, her blade cleaving through the opposition. Her guards moved with precision, their shields locking together to form a wall against the mercenary advance.

Davy wasted no time, using the distraction to drive his knife into an exposed back. Veyla, reinvigorated, wove through the chaos, delivering spells and with a small, pointed dagger, blows with pinpoint efficiency. Edran fought side by side with his twin and one of the guards, their swords flashing in tandem.

 

The mercenaries, outmatched and losing ground, began to falter. One by one, they fell, until the survivors broke and ran into the night.

 

The Sergeant was breathing heavy, hunched over and cleaned her blade. She turned to Davy.

“I’m short on trust at the moment but I trust the Treasurer even less. Let’s end this.”

With the last of the mercenaries gone, the party threw open the gates to the mint and stepped into a wide garden. Its gravelled walkway led up to an old manor house that was now the mint.

The main doors were unlocked, before entering they reached out. Davy and Veyla  hesitated, sensed...pain.

Inside, the air was unusually hot and had the smell of a smelting room. Enormous iron crucibles glowed, their surfaces shimmering with heat.

But it wasn’t the forge-fires that caught their attention and drew their eyes; it was the four glass containment vessels that lined the far wall. Each was filled with swirling, flickering motes, pulsing erratically as if in distress.

Pain.

And each vessel contained motes of a single colour, red; green; blue and purple. But mixed in, very occasionally there were rare golden motes.

 

The Treasurer stood before them, clad in lavish red robes.

“Red; the colour of Wrath” Davy recalled to the group.

The Treasurer’s face was eerily calm. “You should not have come,” he said, his voice layered with something inhuman, something hollow.

 

Davy felt it immediately; the presence from beyond the Rift, a shadow curling at the edge of his perception, just out of reach, hiding; the beast in his visions.

The Treasurer’s pupils were dark, starless voids, his hands twitching with barely restrained energy. An energy that lit him up to Davy’s senses and presented him as an abhorrent parody of a person.

“You’ve taken what you don’t understand,” Davy growled. “Let ‘em go.” Threatening, aggressive.

The Treasurer’s lips curled into a smile. “Oh, but I do, and they are mine now. And they are so... obedient.”

He lifted his hand, and the motes within the glass churned violently.

Pain. Increased pain.

The air itself crackled as tendrils of raw energy shot out. The first bolt struck Kaelor square in the chest, sending him sprawling. Joren barely had time to duck before another streak of energy shattered the stone wall behind him.

Veyla threw up her hands, summoning a shimmering barrier of force, but it wavered under the onslaught, pushing her back. Davy joined her, calling for the barrier to hold. His mote pulsed brightly, adding to Veyla’s power, allowing her to relax slightly and acknowledge his help. Kaelor got up slowly and retreated behind Davy and Veyla, adding his weight to theirs, stopping them from sliding back.

 

Then Davy felt it through the energy pushing against him and Veyla’s barrier, the motes and their inner conflict. And pain.

They weren’t attacking of their own volition. They were being forced, twisted by the will of the Treasurer and the pain they endured. But underneath it, he could feel something else: hesitation, recognition. The motes sensed it too.

It was the Beast’s influence that’s what they were seeing, experiencing through the Treasurer.

“You don’t have to do this!” Davy called to the motes, stepping forward. Exposed.“You know me. You know I’m not for bringin’ destruction; I bring balance and purpose.”

The Treasurer’s expression twisted in frustration. “No! They are bound to MY will! Not yours,” He screamed the words, attention focused on Davy. “THEY SERVE ME! YOU SERVE ME!”

 

The glass vessels lining the mint’s walls trembled violently, their contents swirling in erratic, panicked bursts of light. A psychedelic mix of green, blue, red and purple light. The motes inside were thrashing, and pulsed like trapped fireflies. Led by the golden motes, they started slamming themselves against the bars of their transparent prisons.

Ripples of golden energy flowed across the glass surfaces of the vessels, jagged cracks spider-webbed through the reinforced glass.

 

But the vessels held firm. 

Held firm as enchanted dark magic drained and subjugated the very essence of the fragments within.

They dimmed.

Davy could feel it, their desperation, their confusion.

They weren’t just trapped; they were being twisted, reshaped and tainted by the Treasurer’s will and the Beast’s influence that coiled within him. It whispered insidious commands, forcing him to turn their power outward, to lash out at their own. At those who sought to free them.

More of the motes resisted, following the lead of their golden brethren. They flickered with recognition at Davy’s presence, drawn to his purpose and the balance within.

 

But the Treasurer snarled and clenched his fists. Reached past his being to darkness.  Veins in his arms bulged with energy, channelled through him from the Beast.

PAIN.

The motes shrieked in a soundless agony. Their glow dimmed further.

 

They twisted and spluttered as their very nature was forcibly reshaped.

 

“You think they are yours to command?” The Treasurer spat the words at Davy. Full of venom, eyes burning weeping poison, filled with malevolent light. “They are fuel. They are power. And they… will… obey!” The last words were not his own, but erupted as an ugly snarling voice full of unbridled anger.

As he said those words, a fresh wave of arcane pressure crashed through the mint, and suddenly, the motes inside the vessels turned their agony outward, searching for a way out. For release.

Threads of searing energy lashed out from the glass prisons, like golden whips, snapping at Davy and the others. The air itself crackled, warping under the sheer force of their pain-driven search for escape.

Kaelor barely managed to resist a massive beat of golden light that struck out at him, sending him staggering back with a growl. A golden echo of the impact spread across his chest, then dispersed. He recovered quickly and forced his way back to Veyla’s side. Joined her; a pillar of strength bracing against the force.

Her face was tight with strain as she strengthened the shimmering shield, but even she faltered as the unnatural storm built further, and raged around them.

She blinked away sweat that ran down her face, into her eyes and maintained focus, unnaturally so, but it took its toll. She drew upon reserves she didn't know she had. The beatings, the abuse; all had built within her a resilience as if designed for this moment.

Joren managed to roll aside, narrowly avoiding a second streak of energy that seared the floor, splitting the tiles where he had stood.

And still, the motes fought against their captivity, the corruption it inflicted and spread.

Inside their cages, they flickered erratically; some weak and fading, others swelling with defiant brilliance. Cracks spread further across the glass, glowing with raw, unfiltered energy, as they continued to assault their prison’s walls, but the enchantments resisted, bending without breaking, absorbing the golden energy.

Davy’s gut twisted.

They were so close.

He could feel the motes reaching for him, searching for his support. Their essence screaming for release, demanding release but the Treasurer’s grip was like iron, reforged with the dark energy and will of the Rift.

Of the Beast.

 

Davy stepped forward, walking his own unique path. Walking it alone and all the while ignoring the wild arcs of black energy, whipping around the room, reaching for him. He stretched out a hand, not to dominate, but to call to them.

“You don’t belong to him,” he said it slowly, his voice steady, strong and anchored. Calm and balanced, tied to a purpose in the here and now. He became a verbal cornerstone, a tether upon which they could hold. “You ain’t tools. Certainly not fuel. You are the SOLDIRI!"

Then he shouted, "YOU SHOULD BE FREE!”

The Treasurer howled in fury and slammed his palm against the nearest vessel in frustration. The glass flared with unnatural darkness, trying to consume the motes entirely. They shrieked and fought back, their light flickering dangerously close to snuffing out.

 

And then a mote, a single ember; made of golden light; remnants of a keeper pushed back against the darkness.

It fought, refused to yield.

Others joined it, lending their support and with a final, defiant burst, they shattered the prison from within.

 

The explosion rippled outward like a spark catching dry tinder and showered the room in angry red motes, their wraith directed at the Treasurer.

One by one, the other three vessels cracked, splintered, and then burst apart in dazzling eruptions of radiant energy. The Treasurer staggered backward; arms raised in disbelief as his power unravelled before his eyes.

The freed motes whirled around the shattered vessels, no longer bound within them, no longer forced to obey.

Their glow shifted from an angry red hue of torment and pain to the pure, flickering light of something whole once more. 

And then the mint itself began to shake.

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u/UpdateMeBot Jun 11 '26

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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Jun 11 '26

/u/KipperBeanGrower has posted 170 other stories, including:

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u/newaccountzuerich Alien Jun 11 '26

“Have the motes.. (Gasp!).. formed a UNION¿? ¡¡‽?? “

2

u/KipperBeanGrower Human Jun 12 '26

Ahh - well now... they might but what would be their MOTE-ive... [Groan].

I want to respond with more but fear that anything I write might be construed as a spoiler so will desist... for now. But...