Guildhall

2.2.14 before Guildfall

William sat alone. He was in no mood for company. A palpable aura of repulsion surrounded him. Those at the table next to him even finished their drinks early and found excuses to pack up and move away. He remembered too late that this was a tactic that didn’t work in the guild hall – there was one person almost attracted to people trying to push everyone away. It was all of two minutes before that person pushed through the crowd towards him.

“Rough time?” Lady Ruby Wintergreen beamed a smile at him as she sat beside him.

Well, thank you Lady Obvious.

“Not caring what others think of you isn’t the same as not caring about others,” Wintergreen said gently. “And you can’t sit back here glowering at everyone and not have an impact on those who care about you. So, please. Talk to me.”

“Jaerl just left for Gilmont’s” William muttered.

She sighed. “He won’t go to Godsgrave. I was afraid of that.”

“Rhillaine wants me to go chase a lead on that nutcase Alice instead. Hundreds of millions of souls facing an illithid invasion, and she wants me to play detective. And then she turns around and approves Jaerl’s quest to go find some lost painting for Lord Gilmont and cash in on whatever magic sword he’s offering this time…”

“You can’t face the illithid yourself. You know how your abilities make you vulnerable to them. It had to be Jaerl. He’s the only one available. But if he’s not willing to go, we can’t force him.”

“Yes, we could,” William snapped. “You know it’s not greed that turns him away from the Godsfall mission. It’s fear. He’s terrified of the mind flayers.”

“He’s not ready,” Wintergreen agreed. But her face hardened with concern. “What makes you say that, though? He’s been eager to get his hands on Gilmont’s fortune for some time now. His choice to pursue that quest is understandable. Did you look into his mind?”

William didn’t answer.

“Without his permission? William, please, we’ve talked about this…”

“You talked. I was lectured to.”

“They’ll never learn to trust you!”

“No one here has ever trusted me.”

Wintergreen placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “I trust you. And so does Rhillaine. For the same reason we trust Jaerl – we’re patient. We’re not going to demand you be perfect, or that you learn everything you have to if you’re not ready to, because that’s not remotely realistic. Please understand when we show that same patience to your fellow guildmembers.””

“I’m not a guild member anymore, remember? You pushed me out.”

Her eyes flashed. “That’s not what happened. You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Of course. Because if I don’t report in regularly, you and your apprentice will hunt me down and literally chew my head off my shoulders.”

There was a twist to Wintergreen’s mouth as even her legendary patience shattered. His words had hit something he hadn’t intended them to, but William was too bitter to care.

“What would you do in our place?” she asked, clearly becoming frustrated with the conversation. “Rewrite his mind? Forcibly remove his fear? That doesn’t work, William, not permanently. You can’t force someone to be better than they choose to be. You can only inspire them.”

“What, like the way you inspire Noxala?” William replied spitefully.

She waited for a brief moment to see if he was going to apologise. When it was clear he wouldn’t, she rose briskly to her feet.

“I didn’t deserve that. And neither does she. Go to hell, William.”

And with that, she quickly walked away.

*****************

There really wasn’t much for William to do but sulk and wait for his mission to begin. He sat staring glumly at the guild noticeboard, showing the deployment status of its agents. Three of the four senior guild masters, Wintergreen, Rhillaine and Ser Knight, were all ‘deployment imminent’, meaning they would leave this night. The fourth, Gus, was ‘offworld’. Ruby Wintergreen’s sister Noxala was ‘unavailable – medical’. William scanned downwards for other familiar names.

Reason: <redacted>.

Breac Sunfist: offworld.

Prius Tanner: offworld.

Charles Penrose: offworld.

Adele Gerrywood: deployment imminent, but a green-haired gnome William was not familiar with was taking that label down and replacing it. Offworld…

He had to admit, the guild was stretched thin. But that didn’t explain Rhillaine’s reluctance to offer assistance to a Godsgrave when it was staring down a full-fledged mindflayer invasion, and it certainly didn’t excuse Captain Jaerl for abandoning them.

“There really isn’t a way to count the number of things Rhillaine does not explain to you, Lord Bregan,” said a disembodied voice from beside him.

As a psychic in possession of some of the guild’s closest kept secrets, such as the command key for their automated defenses and the shape of their teleportation circle, William had learned to be naturally suspicious of random voices coming out of nowhere, and he began rapidly reciting a series of silent incantations to strengthen his willpower and cloud his thoughts. But he felt no obvious threat or attack, and whoever this was had announced themselves when they didn’t have to. “That’s quite the trick, walking about the guild halls while invisible,” he admitted.

“I’m not invisible. It’s more like I’m not really…here. That’s a long story. My apologies, I’m rather short on time. Where is Rhillaine?”

“In her library, of course,” William replied. “I came out of there not long ago myself.” As he spoke, he tried to subtly attempt several divination spells. See Invisibility. True Seeing. Telepathic Bond. Nothing he tried revealed anything resembling a living creature in his vicinity.

“I was hoping to convince her to spare a guild agent to save about three thousand lives in her local Elanora,” the voice continued. “Ever heard of the town of Lanzsig?”

Lanzsig was a small town in the Dinga Hills, far east of the guild hall, with a cursed reputation. “Little chance of convincing Rhillaine to care about a single town,” William admitted. “We can’t even protect all the worlds under our care. Godsgrave is about to be invaded by illithid, and there’s no one spare to help them.”

“What?!? Surely not. You look like you’re free. And you’re certainly capable.”

“I’m naturally psychic,” William sighed. “I’m vulnerable to the illithid. I can’t be risked.” Not even Detect Magic revealed anything. On a hunch, he tried Detect Good and Evil, and felt an odd result. His new companion was a celestial. Or they were cloaking their true nature, which of course was always possible.

“That’s ridiculous,” the voice snapped. “Psychics can block out a mind-flayers influence as well as any other. Better, in fact, if they know how. It’s not even that difficult, particularly not for someone of your talents. It just takes time to learn.”

“How would that not be well known?” William asked suspiciously. “If you’re so eager to help, why would you not have started by spreading such knowledge?”

“I never promised I was here to help. I’ll confess, I have my own reasons for wanting Lanzsig intact. As for the knowledge…it takes two to transfer. One to speak. One to listen. It has been a very long time since anyone listened to me.”

William silently debated with himself for a moment about bringing this voice to Rhillaine’s attention. Then the thought of trying to get her to even raise her head from her book almost drove him to despair. “Several thousand lives, you say?” he asked.

“Nothing compared to the calamity at Godsgrave, if what you tell me is true. But still a problem that should be solvable. Someone like you wouldn’t even need a team. With my help, you could save them yourself. How about this, my cautious friend – just teleport out there and take a look for yourself. Are you really doing anything more important right now?”

William thought of the mission he’d been assigned. There wasn’t even any guarantee they’d find anything to trace this ‘Alice’. It looked at first glance like a wild goose chase. Rhillaine was probably shocked to see him in the guild hall, and had grabbed the first quest that came to hand. She probably wouldn’t even realize he’d gone elsewhere.

Of course, that also meant no one would come to find him if his celestial companion turned out to be leading him into a trap. But William was feeling rebellious, and petulant. If his invisible friend turned out to wish him ill, so be it, he felt more than ready for such a fight. Whoever they were, they’d find out the hard way why no one had ever trapped Lord William Bregan and lived to boast of it.

“Let me at least tell my team I won’t be joining them,” William answered. “Should I prepare anything specific?”

“Your cloak. Lanzsig can get rather windy.”

*****************

It didn’t take much to bribe the wizard Caethir to cast a no-questions-asked teleportation spell for one. It was more effort for William to hold onto his lunch. Caethir used to be a careful and precise spellcaster, one who took pride in his work. Sadly, those days were well and truly gone. Caethir was now known as someone who worked best while drunk, and that afternoon he had just woken up and was still only halfway to his best state of mind.

The village of Lanzsig lay high on the east side of the dagger-shaped Dinga Hills, a bleak, rocky spine running north to south through the middle of the main northern continent of Elanora. To the west, the higher peaks blocked the view back to the guild hall and the lush lands of Pizol and Braeland. While the east overlooked the Starfall basin, a massive crater lake with a large shallow island in the middle, looking like some overturned bowl in a sink. It was late afternoon, and the sun had already all but disappeared behind the western peaks, throwing the barren brown landscape into shades of grey and red.

The only road to Lanzsig from the wood-elven town of Belloton to the south ended also in Lanzsig, at a large, flat square dug into the mountainside, surrounded by the town hall, barracks, a smithy, several fortified warehouses – all storehouses in the Dinga Hills were fortified, courtesy of the kobolds and their red dragon masters that infested the region – and an Omnichapel, a small, rustic temple dedicated to no god or goddess in particular. There was also a large ornate sundial dedicated to Tymera, and a small cluster of trees that once may have been a druid’s grove, but was now a withered and tangled mess.

Once the air had cleared of static energy from the teleportation spell, and he was confident he wasn’t going to fry himself with an uncontrolled bolt of lightning, William reached out with his mind to the villagers. Most of them were huddled in the houses, cuddled up with their knees to their chests, paralyzed with fear. But there was a concentration of about a hundred or more people packed into a single building, down a slope to the west and then up a hillside further up the range, no more than a mile distant. The only inn of this place, which the locals had taken to calling ‘the Unnamed’, mostly on account of its owner refusing to put a sign up to name the establishment.

William shapeshifted into a white-crested crow, a favorite form of his he had grown comfortable in, and took off towards the inn. As he approached, his ears began to pick up faint traces. There was music, but of an odd discordant nature, no song that he could identify. The rumble of the stomping of many feet. But also odd wails on the wind, as if air were being sucked into this central area into some kind of vortex, and indeed he felt the pressure of air behind him pulling him closer, and saw clouds begin to swirl ominously in the skies above. He also felt, more than smelt, a stench in the air. Other-planar entities. Fiends.

“What’s this, a Vrock party?” William croaked in crow-speech. Vrocks were a form of vulture-demon known for conducting a ritual called a Dance of Ruin, an extremely dangerous and destructive spell, although one unlikely to destroy anything beyond the hill the inn stood on. In the Abyss, they were terrifying in number. But here on the material plane, they were little more than a nuisance to the Little Warriors, unless they gathered into a flock.

“The Vrock are simpletons,” William’s companion replied, apparently having no problems keeping up with him in flight or understanding him in a bird form. “Whatever’s behind this, it’s far more ancient. And precise. But you are quite right, and perceptive, to identify the workings of fiends here.”

“So if there are demons or devils involved, what help can you provide?”

“Very little, unless the circumstances are right,” the voice admitted. “Mostly, I will rely on you to act – and think – as my champion. For now, just know that you’re a bit more robust than you might expect, so feel free to act boldly.”

William landed at the base of the hill, resumed his human form, and began to walk up an old, crumbling stairwell carved into the hillside. The Unnamed featured a large, central common room, in the style of an old Braeland longhouse, with two large three-story circular buildings on either end. William could feel about two hundred people gathered into the circular buildings, all packed in, six to a room. And all shackled in the mind, compelled to remain. Within the common room were another hundred or so, but their minds were more muddled, as if with heavy drink. Or something worse.

“They’ve taken hostages,” William muttered.

“They’re not hostages. They’re fuel.”

Despite his companion’s earlier claim, William prudently cast several protective spells on himself before opening the front doors, including a hardened bubble of air that should be able to repel anything up to a ballista bolt. He stepped inside and blinked in the smoky din of the unnamed Inn, his eyes and mind rapidly scanning the room.

At first glance to an outsider, it might seem like a strange sight, but not dangerous. There were rowdy patrons, bar staff dancing nimbly in between them, and a musician on a large harp laid out on a table with a crude keyboard nailed in place over it, a type of rustic, primitive piano. But the tune grated at William’s ears with something a bit more forceful than a discordant tune would. The patrons, though acting a bit more lively than they would if they were deeply stooped in their drinks, were glassy eyed and their speech slurred more like people about to fall over comatose. The barstaff looked positively panicked, their eyes constantly flitting to the exits and now fixating on William’s own form with equal parts hope and fear as their feet spasmed nimbly to a dance they were clearly not willing participants in, yet alone enjoying.

And the musician herself? She had her head tilted back as if in song, but her eyes were black, and she was silently screaming.

Everyone here was trapped, enthralled to the damned chorus. An unholy ritualistic time bomb that would, if allowed to persist, drain the lifeforce of them all and then explode with a terrifying necrotic force, killing everyone in town. William suddenly felt at ease. The people here were in grave danger, but rituals like this were his area of expertise.

A pair of bouncers, their muscles straining against their skin, moved toward him. “Hey, newcomer! Siddown an’ grab a mug, dat’s an order!” William saw through their physical forms and recognized them as skurchurs, demons who enhanced the pride and vanity of mortals and in turn fed on their willpower. They made a grab for him, and grasped nothing but air. William was already…elsewhere, darting between the mind-drunk patrons to the center of the common room, where he could stand on the table and be visible to everyone.

“If I might have everyone’s attention, please.” William raised his arms and relaxed his mind, allowing the full force of his presence to wash over everyone.

The effect wasn’t exactly what he had hoped. The patrons stirred out of their drunken stupor, but only to growl, grow claws and advance menacingly towards him. The barstaff retreated, but he could feel the pressure of spells of binding and burning being prepared. And the musician’s song became a keening screech that pulled at William’s soul and threatened to rip it from his body.

But the patrons were simple minded enough. They could be convinced to bang their feet, mugs, and fists to a unified beat, even if they themselves didn’t comprehend the pattern. And from that beat came song. And wherever there was song, there William Bregan could find power.

Confident he had them under his sway, William clapped his hands together. “Let’s start this show off. Here’s how it goes. You come at me one at a time…”

They came at him, obediently, one at a time, fighting and clawing and stomping to the beat of William’s tune. He responded, summoning a staff of light out of nothingness and whirling it about, deflecting blows, blinding his attackers, all while dancing about the tavern floor just out of reach. And as he danced, he sang.

One, two, three,
Take my hand and come with me,
Because you look so fine
That I really want to make you mine…

There was a reason weapon masters in the Guild Hall were always careful to train recruits to avoid moving in lockstep with their opponents. Swordplay was not supposed to be dance. It was fighting, you were supposed to try to kill your opponent, and stepping to their beat just made you predictable. But where psychic bards like William were concerned, there was an additional danger. Dance could be heavily hypnotic. The longer the song went on, the more the patrons moved to William’s will instead of their own.

The barmaids intervened then, bringing forth flames from the lanterns and torches hanging from the ceiling and stringing it out into spears and lances they could hurl at him. Again, they only served to supplement the beat of his tune. As the fiery bolts flew through the air, William caught them, incorporated them into his own staff of power, sent them whirling across the ceiling to throw kaleidoscopes of color across the common room, or even whipped them back towards a barmaid’s waist to pull her in as a dance partner for a few bars.

I could see
You home with me
But you were with another man, yeah…

It became clear to William that most of the people in this room were either possessed or enchanted, unwilling participants in the ritual. Some of them were not. As he danced about, he made certain to bring himself face to face with every person once, touching them lightly on the forehead. Mortals collapsed into a harmless sleep. But where he found demons, he lashed out. He intended to merely banish them to the Outer Planes, but his new companion gave his magic a vicious strength, rending his foes into nothingness, or casting them out of time itself, sending their spirits spiraling into a vortex of endless suffering.

As the song reached its conclusion, he approached the musician, still screaming at the seat of her table-harp.

Are you gonna be my giiiiiiiirrrlllllllll….

And he grasped her forehead lightly, gripped the spirit possessing her, and cast it out of this world with a casual flick of his willpower. She slumped over her instrument, unconscious but unharmed. As the ritual ended, some of the patrons blinked in confusion and slowly climbed to their feet, and William turned towards them, arms outstretched, and bowed.

“Even as my champion, you are not immortal,” his companion snapped. “Keep your head down!”

Huh? There was no one outside. All demons inside were accounted for…

WHAM.

Whatever hit him didn’t penetrate his defenses completely. It picked him up, threw him through the back wall of the inn and tumbling down the hillside, but did not break his protective shield. But he could feel its effects draining his soul, his very existence. For a moment he forgot his own name, forgot the guild, his friends, everything he’d known. He clung to the memory of Reason like it was a liferaft, and crawled back to the pain of the material world. His ribs were broken. He took a second to magically mend them, and pulled himself to his feet to look back up at the inn.

The barkeep, grinning from ear to ear with an unnaturally wide smile, walked through the hole in the back wall to stand at the top of the hill. His eyes were jet black, and a stylized A, an inverted mockery of the Bregan family crest, glowed on his forehead. It was still daylight, but the sun itself seemed absent, the light of day fading almost to greyscale in his presence. It raised a hand to cast a spell, a blast of psychic energy that William should be all but impervious to, but as he tried to connect his mind to the demon’s and nullify its magic he encountered thoughts so alien they defied anything he understood. His shield flickered for a moment as his brain felt like it was trying to explode inside his own skull, and he felt a tooth explode with rot inside his own mouth.

William spat out the wreckage of the tooth. “What the hell is that?”

“An Abyrrus,” his hidden companion answered. “A demon of nightmare. There would be no shame in admitting yourself outmatched.”

“Not quite yet.” William may have always held an instinctive aversion to fire, but he still knew how to wield it at need. Reaching up towards the sun, he summoned a column of flame from the heavens and hurled it at the barkeep. There was a moment where its form was reduced to a small silhouette against the blazing light of a star. Then the demon stepped forward, smoking but otherwise unharmed, its illusionary mask burned away to reveal a tall, goat-headed humanoid in full plate mail. The Abyrrus strode out of the flames, downhill to where William had stood.

Once again, William was no longer there. He had taken his crow form, and riding the sudden updraft of air from the flames of the back of the inn he had flown up, high above the Abyrrus’ field of view. From there, he resumed his humanoid form and dropped onto its head, slamming his fist down on its armored skull and driving a dagger of light into its brain. It fell, stunned, to lie face down in the dirt.

Then two more of the demons formed in the smoke to either side. One with the head of a toad, the other little more than a shapeless ghost filling out its ornate armor and wielding a wicked, long poleaxe with an indistinct spiritual claw. William barely managed to teleport back down the hill before their weapons came crashing into the space he had occupied. He looked back up in amazement as the figure he had struck carefully rose to its feet, clearly injured and groggy but still standing.

“That was impressive,” his companion admitted. “But no mortal can stand against three full-fledged Abyrrus Knights! You need my help.”

“Then get down here and help!” William snarled back.

“I can’t, I’ve been locked out. You have to invoke me.”

“How?”

“Pray, boy! Pray like your very existence depends on it!”

William prayed. He was no cleric, and had so far regarded the tales of the gods of this world with disdain. But he was desperate, and something about his new friend’s voice infused him with a swelling sense of self-belief. And that was enough.

As the three Abyrrus advanced down the hill, the sun went out, shrouding the landscape in darkness. Despite their demonic vision that should be able to penetrate any gloom or illusion, they blinked and looked about in confusion.

Then the light returned. And the air was thick with feathers, talons and beaks. A multitude of white crested crows now covered the mountainside, pecking at demon eyes, clawing at their faces and hands and any part exposed around their armor.

The toad-headed one tried to clear the air with its greataxe, sweeping great swaths through the cloud of crows, until it spotted William’s form. With a roar of triumph, it leapt forward, only to be caught by a massive ghostly hand rising from the ground, which steadily pulled it to the ground and crushed it.

As toad-head’s ghostly brother closed in, William raised a hand toward it and caused its armor to glow with heat. He had chosen a simple enchantment, as splitting his concentration on two spells at once was normally an incredibly difficult task, but today he seemed to accomplish it easily. And this simple enchantment, that would normally cause the armor to glow red and provide a mild distraction to a powerful demon, instead set the plate male blazing white-blue, causing its wearer to scream and writhe in place uncontrollably.

The third Abyrrus, the goat-headed, stepped towards him, its greatsword raised, confident this mortal could not possibly hold two of its kind in his magic and still face a third.

Time stopped. William blinked in astonishment as unfiltered knowledge streamed into his mind. A spell older than time itself.

He met the goat-headed Abyrrus in mid-stride, and struck it in the chest with both his hands, his palms open. And the Abyrrus ceased to exist, its armor exploding into fragments of nothingness, its beastly head and humanoid body evaporating into a grey mist. And it was gone.

As the remaining two Abyrrus succumbed to the effects of William’s other two spells, one being crushed into a metal ball the size of a child’s fist, the other melting into a puddle, his companion’s disembodied voice chuckled in approval. “Well, would you look at that? The kid’s a natural.”

“I’m four hundred years old, you realize?” William replied.

“I’m.. a little older. But hey, who’s counting? You did well, Lord Bregan.”

On the hilltop above, the patrons and bar staff were peering out of the smoking hole that was the back wall of the common room. Some were vomiting violently, some were still clutching their heads. But most simply looked on in relieved amazement that they were still alive, and they raised a small cheer that steadily grew as it spread through the crowd. William wearily strode back up the hill and began tending to the wounded, until the local temple acolytes and what he presumed was the town watch arrived to take over. Then he pulled himself aside to rest, and contemplate what he’d done.

*****************

“You should feel proud,” the voice assured him. “You accomplished something Rhillaine herself could not.”

He did feel proud. Those people of this town were safe because of him, and him alone. The Little Warriors had nothing to do with it. They were out there, doing what good they can – or rather, what good they chose to. None of them had chosen to come out here. So that was several thousand people alive, purely because of William Bregan and his new companion. It didn’t make up for his failure to save Godsgrave, but it was something.

“And what do you feel?” William asked in response.

“A bit of shame. I guess.”

“Shame? And what do you have to be ashamed of?”

“My name,” came the reply. “They would cower away from me if they knew it. Perhaps not unfairly. I didn’t come here to be a hero. I came here to atone. I failed them once before, left them – well, that’s not entirely fair on myself, I was restrained away from them. But I wasn’t strong enough to stop that. And so, without me, they fell to the evils and perils of this world, they couldn’t be all that they could be. And that’s on me. I feel like I abandoned them.”

“I doubt they’d see it that way.”

“Does it matter how they’d see it?”

Something Wintergreen had said tugged at the back of William’s mind, but he ignored it. The argument he had had with her still stung. It felt like it had just happened, and also felt like she was so far way, too far to matter.

“Come,” William beckoned. “Let me see you. What is your name?”

Was it pride? A refusal to comprehend any potential threat? He reached out, and for one terrible, fatal instant, his mental defenses dropped.

*****************

Do you see now? All of it. This is what I am. I am the road this world could have taken. I am everything you could have accomplished. The lives saved. The empires regrown anew. The fates rewritten.

“No oh no nononopleasenono…”

Do not be afraid! You want this, you always wanted this. You are proud, to stand as someone worthy of greatness, and you should be proud. This is providence. This is destiny. Your purpose. You will be great. Because I am great. And you will be me. I lift you up, to see everything I can…

“I already see! Monster! Betrayer!”

There’s no fighting what you are, Whisper. You are an agent of change. You are the salvation of souls that struggle under the yoke of fate. The answer to their prayers. And you are the answer to mine. Come up here.

“You…you need me. I have something you want. But you won’t have it…see?”

Oh don’t be foolish. Come here, child. You can’t hide from me. Especially not in your own mind.

But he could hide. He could feel his physical self laughing maniacally. He could see his dark angelic companion, his crown of black flames, his impossible wings, his eyes, stalking him through the Dream. But he could also see himself – as he had been. Untainted and pure. With great effort, he pulled that self away. And despite there being nothing in the Dream to hide behind…he hid. And his hunter stalked, and stalked. And could not find him.

William now saw his enemy clearly. The Angel of the Abyss, the Dark Whisperer, an elder god of Elanora and a betrayer. Nathrael, the Sin Writer himself. And William could feel his goal. He was after the Guild Hall’s teleportation shape. With it, his demonic lieutenants could travel to the hall directly.

If he succeeded in an assault on the World Tree, there would be no more ‘them’ and ‘they’. Nathrael would be everything. He would rewrite everything. Not only as he saw it, but as a part of himself. All would be him. William knew that now as surely as he knew what he had for breakfast. And he knew that Nathrael knew, all of it – where he had been born, his favorite song, his quiet admiration Ruby Wintergreen, that he was still hopelessly in love with Reason, even his grudging respect for Rhillaine that he would never admit to anyone. Nathrael knew everything he was, everything he remembered. But somehow, William had hidden away that. The final betrayal. The pathway to destroy the Little Warriors, claim the World Tree, and rewrite all destinies. Rewrite reality itself. William couldn’t hide forever – but he could hold out much, much longer than Nathrael would have liked.

There was a feeling of great pressure. A wrestle for control – a contest that, to his great surprise, he found himself an equal contestant in. And then a tearing feeling. Like wet paper shredding.

And then he was no longer he. He was they. He was an echo of a great god, the would-be savior of all time. He was that god’s devoted servant, and a fragment of his identity. He was a hopeless, confused fool.

He was Whisper. He was William.

“Ah,” Whisper sighed. “This complicates matters.”

Not to worry…Damien’s little band of heroes would give him what he needed in time. Whisper was certain of that. One thing remained constant in this horrible, marred universe – the Little Warriors always found a way to defeat themselves.