Chapter 11
“And then… get this… the sack of horse-droppings has the audacity to tell me: ‘I used to be a Daemon-hunter like you… but then I took an arrow in the knee’!” Gawain lets out a booming laugh that causes a dozen brief glances in his direction, and slaps a beefy hand against his thigh. “Can you believe that?! What a half-wit!”
Samuel offers an absent nod as he continues to pan his gaze over the crowds of lower-and-middle-class peoples scattered about the street in one of Downsview’s numerous shopping-districts. They’d been strolling along now for well over an hour, with the older male boasting of past exploits and, what he considered to be hilarious anecdotes of his life and times as a Knight of Aegis… but they really weren’t. “That’s… certainly interesting, Mister Thurstrom. But tell me… what are we looking for when it comes to corrupted individuals?”
“Eh?” The bearded warrior takes a glance back to the young lad between his shoulder and the handle of his claymore. “What’s that? Hasn’t Angie told you?”
“Not… as such. The Mistress merely bids me to investigate certain matters, and I report back with my findings.” Treating a snake-oil merchant to a glare that causes the greedy-eyed man to shuffle a step back as they pass by, the long-haired confidant then frowns and turns his scrutinous view to the opposite side of the roadway. “I’ve been told what I needed to know at the time… such as how to kill a Daemon should one appear… but other than that…”
Coming to a stop beside a brick-faced storefront, the stocky Knight bids lithe male a little closer. “Son… what exactly did Angie tell you about how to deal with a Daemon?”
The wiry driver lifts his shoulders for a moment as he continues to keep watch over the shuffling citizens. “To sever the spinal-cord above the fifth vertebrate, then to carve its heart out of its chest.”
Gawain brings a meaty palm up to smack against his forehead. “By the Goddess… did she not explain about what you should expect from one of those grotesque bastards? Such as their capabilities?”
Samuel pulls his brows together as he turns his attention to his ally. “The Mistress explained that Daemons are both far more powerful and agile than the average human.”
“Aw, geeze… that’s it?” The bearded male shakes his head as he displays a frown off to their sides. “Well… I suppose that makes sense… not like that bloody Order would let her within a hundred leagues of a Daemon without a Bond…” he snorts out a breath of annoyance, then treats the slightly-taller boy to a serious look. “Alright, son… Daemon are, effectively, the singular most deadly beings on the face of the Goddesses’ green earth. They’re far stronger than you, far faster than you, and relentless when it comes to pressing the attack. The only advantage you hold over them is this.” He reaches over, and taps a sausage-like finger against the young whelp’s noggin. “They’re savage beasts, and act as such. Only by using what wits you were graced with will allow you to lead a long, and hopefully happy existence.”
The long-haired confidant offers a slow nod as he commits those words to his memory. “I see… so tactics are what prevails over savagery, then?”
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Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
