The Parasite

Chapter 21: Tyranny and Mutation

Henry and Jack arrived at the attic entrance shortly after leaving Myers to fight Marshal. Before entering, Jack looked to Henry and asked. "So, you think that guilder's gonna be ok?" Henry looked back to the hallway they had come from before refocusing himself on the attic door. "We don't have time to worry about that, besides he's basically immortal, he'll be fine I'm sure."

Henry and Jack both readied themselves for whatever was on the other side of the door. Bursting through to the other side, the two of them found Solomon standing over several corpses, reciting some sort of incantation. The corpses at his feet appeared emaciated as they lay on the ground. Strangely, despite being covered in wounds the corpses didn't bleed, instead, they just gathered dust as they succumbed to rigor mortis.

Solomon ceased his chanting and looked over at Henry and Jack as they stood in the room. "Ah, how nice of you to both show up." Solomon said, stepping past the corpses. "Alright let's get this over with, get on your knees and I'll make it quick!" Jack shouted, pointing at Solomon with the sword.

Solomon chuckled and raised his hand into the air. "Oh to be blissful in ignorance. Both of you have come here with great purpose, to rid the world of tyranny, to get revenge for a horrible slight, and yet you know not what you fight. You go out into the streets and you see what you believe to be the guild's crimes, never giving a thought as to why, and then you start to wonder about what's right and what's wrong, IGNORANCE! You fundamentally misunderstand what the guild is for, the guild does not fight for petty justice, nor does it participate in meaningless oppression, What the guild fights for is order.

All my life I have seen chaos brought on by ordinary people, they waste their gifts of power by using them to further their own interests. In history every time people are given the ability to wield power over one another, magical or not, has ended in bloodshed and the desecration of civilization. Under those circumstances the answer becomes clear, create something that can institute and maintain order, and thus the mages guild was born. The guild, an organization free of self interest, free of morals, and free of emotion, a true entity of order."

Henry thought for a moment before speaking up. "We're not here to listen to some pointless speech, old man." Solomon chuckled quietly before snapping his fingers, and as the sound rang out, the corpses behind him burst into flames, drenching the space behind him in a harsh orange light. "So be it, it doesn't matter one iota to me if you want to understand this at all, I was just being courteous while I stalled for time." Henry, fed up with Solomon's rambling, began to charge forward, but before he got far he heard someone call out from behind him.

"Henry!"

Suddenly Henry's left shoulder was sliced clean through, sending his arm tumbling to the floor as a hand grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off his feet. Henry looked in horror at Marshal's mutilated visage, his face covered in blood as loose flaps of skin hung where his scars used to be and his nose, or what was left of it, sat flat against his face as a small stream of blood constantly poured from it. Needless to say, Marshal's eyes were completely bloodshot as he refused to blink, deciding instead to stare down Henry with enough hate to burn through the entire mansion.

Marshal's grip was like that of a vice, crushing Henry's throat as he held him aloft. Jack moved in to slash at Marshal's side, but as he swung and whiffed he found himself at a distance from Marshal. Confused, Jack turned to face Solomon who stared him down with a look of superiority. Jack charged Solomon, intending to fight him in his seemingly defenseless state only for a sword to drop out of nowhere into his hands and block Jack's strike at the last second. With a slight motion from Solomon the two swords clashed against each other, producing a force that knocked Jack back across the room, landing on his back.

Soon after, Solomon looked over to Marshal and Henry, and as a door appeared beside them, he said. "Officer Marshal, would you be so kind as to deal with him elsewhere please." Marshal turned to the door and forcefully threw Henry through it to the other side, following after him before the door disappeared into thin air.