Sang-Froid

Somewhere deep below the Brighton Manor...

A false wall of mold-blackened, roughly hewn stones waited in the longest hall of the dungeons beneath the Brighton Estate. That torch-lit walk, some hundred feet long, separated the special holding cells for the Brighton’s more exclusively-managed guests from the rest of the underground structure; the moans and screams, when Lord Brighton chose to host such company, were weak gasps by the time they reached the execution chamber at the other end of the hall. To those guarding the staircase leading down into that room of final peace, those gasps were mere whispers that did nothing to move them.

A knowing hand pressed upon the stones, one, two, three, in a memorized combination. The stones did not sink, but vibrated in acknowledgement; on the fourth touch, they peeled away in massive fingers of rock and revealed the innermost vault of the Brighton’s treasures. Small and immortal beasts rattled in their cages, harmlessly as they had done for centuries; swords and axes and enchanted firearms from the Renaissance gleamed in the light of the huge fire elemental who rose from a platinum brazier at the center of the chamber. Its golden eyes surged open as it uncrossed its arms. The visitor met its baleful gaze; the elemental bowed in submission before resuming its slumber. The man swept past the artifacts of magic, some suppressed where they could not be destroyed, others lying in wait for a tremendous need. One such device was the focus of his attention: a thin, head-sized disc of tiny, humanoid arms sculpted from gold and ivory suspended upright and within the loop of two crossed elephant tusks, giving the illusion of a massive, horrifying eye. For its hundreds of arms, the disc of limbs had no apparent torso, or even structure from which the arms sprang; attempting to understand its construction was madmen’s work. Though nearly imperceptibly, the arms fidgeted and cycled onto one another; they were ever at work on a low setting, here in the heart of Brighton secrecy. The man opened his butler’s jacket and pulled out a purple finger of soulstone, a potent piece shaped explicitly to power this machine. Almost carelessly, he tossed it at the floating, bodiless collection of tiny grasping arms and hands. The sculpture of maligned flesh animated and swelt inward, like a ball of hungry hairs, to trap and then vanish the soul gem. The man had no need to press or cajole the hideous device; it knew his intent as it did that of any man so generous.

Reality visibly echoed; it was done. Space and time both were now fortified in the bottommost levels of the Brighton Estate for the next month's time. The man produced another such crystal, one that glowed red with its greater potency. The arms eagerly quivered now, but the man turned away; it was not necessary, yet.

The loyal servant stretched his arms as he reported his chore by mental link to Lord Brighton. The man received his orders in turn and fingered the links of the chain weapon wrapped around his torso as he listened.

“As you command, Lord Brighton,” Reginald replied.

A few stories above the secret vault...

I can't believe... Galley tugged on the one-piece robe that preserved her dignity... and then on a bobbing strand of hellfire-purified hair from her head. ...I need to spend an hour like this...

The party of four had been guided from Lord Brighton’s meeting (throne?) room and into the center hall, where Krieg revealed the wide, polished stone steps leading into the first basement level. Kim, with only a minor protest, was taken to be cleaned and clothed by the maids of the manor; only Moira’s assurances put John’s mind at ease as she was vanished into Brighton care.

“You can go no further than the barracks,” Krieg tersely instructed with a voice full of gravel, “and you will not harass any of the knights with excess or meaningless questions.”

“Sir knight,” Moira sighed, “I don’t think John would waste the time he has.”

Krieg nearly flinched at the Warden's admonishing tone. "Of course, Warden."

They now marched down to the first of two floors of the basement reserved for those knights who were on active call at the time. John Iowa, albeit on-call and on-site, was currently in the basement per Krieg. Such was the state of some number of knights here: whenever a knight wasn't on patrol or on leave to his civilian home, he was to be found downstairs either sleeping, training, or resting up for war in the bowels of the mansion. Much of a knight’s time, then, was spent without sunlight or any contact with the outside world beyond the stray phone call.

In total, a knight like Krieg seemed to enjoy a solemn, brutal existence. The title of “knight” sure has taken a beating... these guys are just overworked minions! But Krieg’s disposition didn’t warrant John speaking his mind after the man had described these arrangements. “That’s fine. I don’t need to talk to anyone for too long-”

“No magic, of course.”

“What? How am I supposed to-” John stopped just short of admitting he could read minds. “Your Lord is in danger. Do you really want me to handle traitors with kid gloves?”

“Of course not,” Krieg smugly replied as he pushed open the double doors at the bottom of the staircase, “but these are the Lady’s faithful, and we are our Lord’s knights. You will find no traitors here.”

Their procession was swallowed by the silence of the first floor. Despite John’s expectations, the basement was oddly... modern. White paint on plain, household walls were washed bright by pale fluorescent lighting, and aside from the occasional dents, every surface was clean and pedestrian. The wide mouth of the stairs gave way to a cross hallway, with all four paths spaced wide for rapid deployment or heavy equipment. Straight ahead, through the quadruple doors leading into what looked like a massive chamber, John saw glimpses of two knights sparring in full gear, their match overseen by a young, worried-looking boy in white robes. The wall glittered with battered gear where white sands of the arena did not stain them.

As Krieg led them forward to the center of the hallways, John found himself flanked by two iron-barred doors very near the staircase: rough and unpainted, they allowed John to catch sight of the armories they protected: racks of medieval weaponry of smooth, minimalist, and contemporary makes sat right along with the threatening stocks and lengths of **** rifles and sidearms. Krieg urged them forward, perhaps moreso when he saw John ogling a rocket launcher mounted behind the iron bars, and pressed them towards the center of the halls.

John gauged the remaining two hallways: each was lined with single, white wooden doors that alternated between sides. Each door bore a list of names framed and mounted at their center, though John could hardly read their tiny, cursive script until they were marching past. At the end of the eastern hall, a clearly marked restroom; at the end of the western hall, a stairwell without a door.

Krieg had briskly guided their knot of intruders towards the latter stairwell down when John caught sight of a certain name. “Wait, this one,” he declared, pointing at the seventh door on his right. Among the names marked, John Iowa was the fifth.

"He won't be there, I can almost promise you."

"Why not check?"

“Sir Iowa is an avid ping-pong player.”

"..." The group slowly turned and stared blankly at Krieg.

The middle-aged knight cleared his throat into a leather-gloved fist. “That is, he would not miss his opportunity to play in the recreation room. We shall get him and have him conduct-”

Without another word, John tried the door handle and, finding it open, swung the door outward. “No harm in checking his digs first, then-”

Four twin-sized beds and eight steel chests greeted John in an otherwise barren room... and kneeling before one chest, massaging oil into her modest breasts, was a complete stranger who was almost surely not John Iowa. A short crop of black and coiled hair was raw and untreated, as was a beautiful but strict face. She might've been androgynous in plainclothes, but here, where her fingers had just given particular attention to the hard, brown nipple between her thumb and forefinger, she was fiercely the glistening, fit woman John ended up ogling. Her left arm slid over her oiled tits... and in the same breath, she lifted a massive flamberge to point it at John. Despite being near the second bed from the door, the monstrous sword’s tip was dangerously close.

“Insolent little- e-excuse our guest, Sir Jackson,” Krieg angrily stammered as he yanked John back into the hall and slammed the door closed in the same motion.

“I-I didn’t mean to... I mean, I meant to, but I didn’t think you had any women in your-”

“You will follow my instructions to the letter, mage,” Krieg angrily spat, the label a curse on his tongue, “or no amount of service shall put you in the Lady’s good graces!”

Moira took slow, deep breaths as she strangled her reaction... less to John's behavior, and more to John leering at yet another naked woman.

Galley didn't bother to hide her smirk as they walked. Who knew a Warden could be this insecure...

A minute of half-hearted apologies later, they went down the staircase and into the massive common area of polished, marble floors and benches. Young to middle-aged, the quasi-off-duty knights occupied the lounge, kitchen, recreation rooms, gym, pool, and both shrines to the Lady in what seemed more like some kind of youth center or fitness club than a military base. All of these facilities opened wide and without doors to the common area; running along the common area's center, from the stairwell on one end to a single hallway at the other, was a shallow, decorative fountain sunken into the floor. John had scanned the knights as he went, and each knight in turn saluted the Warden with the shine of pride in their eyes. John hadn’t gotten a good read on the female knight he had interrupted, but she had no sudden collection of statuses that he expected of a Cabal spy hiding in plain sight; nor did any of those knights here.

Across the long pool and through the simple arcs of water streams, the Gamer’s minimap painted the only path out of here besides the stairwell they had just used: a short hallway that ended with a solid steel door brushed to a silver sheen. Flanking it were two of the knights in full, gold-painted armor. Krieg was quick to identify the door as being forbidden to John; if he hadn't, John might've still taken the hint from the stern stares of the men who, unlike their brothers in Brighton's hall, handled fully automatic rifles instead of ceremonial swords. Wait... eighteen doors upstairs, and each listed eight people... but there's four beds in the one I've seen, so... that's 78 "knights" that can sleep here at any given time, at most, out of... 156? But there's just like nine of them here, and there can't be more than a dozen or two guarding the house... so where’s the rest of them?

John's thoughts were interrupted by realizing who else had probably seen the door: Talon, the man he had inadvertently sentenced to ****. Was this little health club the last pleasant sight Talon got to see? It seemed absurd. “Wait... that can’t be the only entrance to the dungeon, right?”

“Excuse me?” Krieg scoffed, already beyond his patience for the Gamer.

“I mean... doesn’t that mean every prisoner has to come through this... club of yours?"

"... Club," Krieg repeated with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm just saying: you’d have to march every crazy evil mage through here.”

“As it is.”

John raised his eyebrow at the blunt knight. “But if you’ve got an escapee, that also means they run amok in what’s basically one big rec-room down here...”

“There are no escapees, but otherwise... you have the right of it.”

Galley scanned the men, and the single woman, who were visibly making use of treadmills, televisions, and shrines. “No one here is armed beyond those two guards..."

"We wield arms in service to our Lord; to carry them at times of leisure would be an insult to that duty."

Galley's nose wrinkled. "... So it's better to have them be sitting ducks when someone does get through those two?” Her eyes were locked onto the lonely pair of plated warriors.

“We are the Knights of the Order, Hound,” Krieg grumbled. “Woe be to the heretic who must fight us all to see the light he has not earned.”

Galley eyed the kitchen. “Fight? With what, the microwave?”

Krieg opened his mouth to harshly counter-

“There he is,” John interrupted. He had started to scan the Knights when he heard the tell-tale clacking of a ping-pong game. There, a tiny paddle in his meaty grip, was a deeply-tanned, auburn-haired man merrily slapping a white ball between himself and the raised wall of the other half of the table. He struck and swung his paddle like a sword, and sweat stains marked his collar and pits. But his name was John Iowa... and his data card ran a spike of ice through the Gamer.

John Iowa
Level 6 Knight
<Order of the Golden Rose>
HP: 210/210
MP: 30/30
Stats: Str 14 Agi 18 End 15 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 11 Lib 12
Relationship: 0
Status Effects: Lady's Blessing
Qualities: None
A man-at-arms for the Order, raised by a knight to become a knight like his mother. John Iowa passed by just the skin of his teeth, but his faith and devotion are matched by few. He has survived ten sorties in real combat, a conservative record for a knight of thirty-five years.

The man had nothing in his history, appearance to suggest a Cabal spy; the temperance in his form and expression, aside from what was a clear enjoyment of a niche sport, was no different from the rest of the knights. "There's... nothing Cabal about him," John mouthed too quietly for anyone to catch.