The one with the Doctor part 2
Yanika smiled up at Emine before closing her eyes again and returning to the comfortable position, her hair being stroked and played with. The couple half sitting, half laying on Emine’s bed. Yanika had first shared the story of what had happened with Lord Stovras and his sons, before turning to the matters that had happened after, matters pertaining to their arch nemesis Nathan.
“The next morning we got woken up way too early when Majid cried alarm over Opal suddenly showing up in the middle of our sleeping quarters. He had heard of a new group of assassins being sent to Himmin to deal with us, but they were still weeks out. The new assassins are supposed to be two elves, legendary for making their killings look like accidents. They used to have three human associates, who all retired , but one of them, a spellcaster, is supposed to live in Himmin.”
The captain of the Skyrifles made a disgruntled sound at hearing more assassins had been sent after the group.
“At least I know to have my guards look out for elves coming into town the coming weeks. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything, but you need to be careful my love!”
The redhead let out a soft chuckle and leaned up to kiss Emine on the lips.
Of course I will be careful! I don’t want you to worry too much, but I’d also rather know what is going on.”
She said with a soft smile, her fingers gently stroking Emine’s face, tracing along her jawline, and down her neck, before pulling her close for another kiss. Yanika then settled back with her head in Emine’s lap.
“Anyway, as this news reached us at an ungodly hour, I went back to sleep, and missed the entire part where Selke showed up. You know, the girl we rescued from the bandits? Well she’s now working for Ace and Spade, mostly to do cleaning and cooking and such at the detective agency. This of course also led to a discussion that we should add a story to the detective agency, as the sleeping quarters are getting a bit crammed.”
Yanika laughed softly, as part of the reason for that had been her insistence to have Helix and Zaela move into the detective agency with her, to keep them safe from possible assassinations. It was causing a shortage of beds though, even with Helix’s pillow fortress and him, the orc and the redhead basically sharing one bed.
“Now while discussing the renovations and expansion of the place, a third visitor showed up, namely the Doctor. He wanted to hire us because someone had been trying to kill him since the evening before. The first attack had failed but in the second attack that very morning, he had been hit in the shoulder with a crossbow bolt. The weird thing about that was that there was no blood on the bolt. Majid and Zebulor went to check out the Doctor’s place, but didn’t notice anything nearby. The only strange thing being that the bed hadn’t been slept in for weeks and there was no food or drinks in the entire place. When they told us about this, my thoughts immediately went to undead, given the recent developments, so I decided to confront the Doctor with this straight on.”
She opened her eyes and looked up at her love again. The last days sure had been weird, first in dealing with the undead nobles and now with a possibly undead Doctor, who was an ally. Though of course by now she knew he hadn’t been undead at all, and that they had possibly lost him forever as an ally, having failed to protect him.
“He told us that he’s not undead, rather a construct, and more than that, a sentient construct! I didn’t even know this was possible! I asked him if I could check him out but he didn’t want it, so I respected that choice, even though I’m really curious about how it works. He told us that he had been made by an artificer named Teros, and that his maker had released him when he had realized that the Doctor was sentient.” We realized that if the Doctor had been attacked, his maker was also a possible target, so Kayne and Yanika had rushed off to his house to see if he had been ok. The exchange with Teros had been an awkward one, and had handed with him passing on a note to Yanika, who had almost botched receiving it without being noticed. The note had only one word on it. Help. So Kayne had rushed back immediately while Yanika had informed the others.
“As Taros didn’t want to let us inside, I persuaded him to come with us, so he could talk openly. We noticed we were being watched by some mechanical birds, one of which was destroyed by Majid, and the other captured by Kayne. He gave it to me and I was a little surprised to find out that I recognized the handiwork of Nathan. While we headed back to the detective agency, Teros told us that his wife had been kidnapped, to pressure him to make another sentient construct, but he doesn’t know how to do it.”
Yanika didn’t think anyone knew how to build a sentient construct. It probably had been a fluke in the system, or divine intervention, or maybe just evolution. I mean, sentience had come to humans and other races at some point too right? So why not to constructs?
“When we arrived back at the detective agency, we got attacked by three stone defenders, but we took them out easily enough. Sadly while we had been gone, they had completed their task of finding and killing the doctor, as we found his beheaded corpse in the alchemy lab. We went down into the tunnels to retrieve it, most likely from Nathan, and we did find him in the dancehall, together with a massive golem. Nathan wanted to dissuade us from doing anything but Kayne didn’t waste any breath in talking and just attacked. While Majid took a pounding from the golem, Kayne managed to knock out Nathan and I retrieved the head. We then finished off the golem before tying up and waking up Nathan to interrogate him.”
All in all it had been a horrible situation, which had put all of their moralities to the test, but Yanika believed they had come out on top in this. She certainly had the personal moral victory over Nathan, as they were both artificers and both interested in how the sentient construct had come to pass. But she hadn’t killed the Doctor to know, while Nathan had.
“Nathan confirmed that he had kidnapped Teros’ wife to force the artificer to recreate the sentience, and that he has kidnapped many others for all kinds of purposes, and as contingencies. In the end, that is why we had to let him go, so they could all live. It was a very hard pill to swallow. I mean, we had stopped him, and he’s guilty of so many crimes, but if we didn’t let him go, innocent people would die, and that is something we couldn’t let happen.”
Yanika sighed deeply, closing her eyes. She had hated the situation, but she had also no doubt that they had made the right decisions. Emine smiled down at her and brushed her hair.
“You did well and right my love. It’s a difficult choice to make, but I think you made the right one. I’m not sure if I could have in that moment, having to uphold the law, but you did, and I’m proud of you.”
In Memoriam
