The creature was silent, Bondrewd wasn't sure if it could see him, he scrutinised the strange creature, species affiliation, gender, and how the thing lived without a head were all questions that plagued Lord of Dawn.
"Lord Bondrewd, are you alright?" A female voice was heard, it came from behind, Mira cautiously approached the lord and stared at the strange creature in surprise.
"Mira maybe you have an answer, what is this even?" Mira was slightly taken aback, the lord's question seemed extremely blunt, but what upset her more was the lack of even a hint of gratitude. Mira hummed unhappily, but when Bondrewd turned his intimidating helmet in her direction, his aura instantly swelled and made her feel threatened, the girl's jerkins somehow spontaneously shook and she hurried to answer.
"I think it's a demon shifter," she asked, "And how did Bondrewd manage to defeat it." Overcoming a strange feeling of embarrassment and fear, she asked.
"Lord Bondrewd, with all due respect, how did you manage to defeat this one," the girl pointed her finger at the shifter and a cold sweat ran down her face. Demon shifters themselves were not particularly strong, but this one was different, stronger, much stronger than its brethren, and in addition to the fact that to the full throat pumped with the mana of the gods of madness, the remnants of which still hovered in the air, and in combination with the aura Bondrewd gave such an effect on the outside observer that Mira - the head of the guild of mages, a unicum and a genius in his work wanted to run away from this damned place, but she held on.
"I was just using a recently found artefact," he said and pointed at the shifter's finger, which was indeed wearing a ring with a black stone. Mira had a sudden urge to take it off, to study it, to find out how it worked, but Bondrewd's next question brought her out of her reverie and dropped her into the dark aura-ridden room.
"Could you elaborate, I've never encountered anything like this before." Mira didn't wait for Bondrewd to turn to her again.
"Demon shifters can take the form of various creatures, each one works differently, but it usually requires physical contact, or a drop of blood, but this is the first time I've seen one of them take the form of a divine avatar."
"If you're so interested, why don't you ask me?" The shifter suddenly appeared in the middle of the conversation, his voice was both squeaky and bassy, as if he had several mouths working in sync.
"It can also speak, I wonder where it came from?" Bondrewd began to fumble with his free hand on the empty hood, under the literally discouraged from such boldness of Mira and to the displeasure of the shifter himself.
"Ow, bitch, that hurts, ahhh, where are you sticking your hands." The shifter screamed, and Bondrewd could not understand where the sound was coming from, he was a man of science in such obvious inconsistencies always looking for a trick, seeing the suffering of the demon, Mira decided to help him a little.
"Demons are only partially part of our material world, the other part of them remain in the immaterial world, perhaps the head remained there." Mira knew perfectly well that this was not how it worked, but there was no time to give a detailed lecture. Bondrewd calmed down and backed away from the shifter.
"Uh-huh. Thank you young lady," The demon turned in her direction and continued. "In gratitude, I will answer one question."
"Where is Minor, how long have you been in his place?" Mira asked without a second thought, her gaze flicking to Bondrewd, who gave her a silent nod.
"Dead, and for a long time about 10 years, it must have been 10 years, we have been preparing for a long time, but you." He pointed a finger at Bondrewd. "You've started to muddy the waters and set the rusty machinery of this kingdom in motion, confusing our plans." There was silence in the hall, and Bondrewd and Mira tried to digest the information they had received. Lord Bondrewd was clearly easier, he only roughly understood how the world worked, and the death of a god seemed to him significant, but not fatal. But the world of Mira turned upside down, since ancient times the position of the gods was immutable, and the death of one of them will definitely turn the "game" and possibly start a new era.
"And now let me take my leave." Said the shapeshifter, and taking advantage of the confusion of the heroes took out a knife from the inner pocket of his cloak and pierced his chest with it. Bondrewd too late to realise, the demon disintegrated into a violet light, which soon disappeared.
"That's too bad, now I have no one to beat answers out of." Mira was struck by Bondrewd's calmness, he didn't seem bothered at all by the information about the death of an entire god.
"Lord Bondrewd I think this information should stay between us, if it leaks out into the light, there will be panic." She was already uneasy because of the pressure of auras, but this news finally knocked her out of her rut. Bondrewed again honoured her with a nod.
"Come on, I think it's time for us to go," said the Lord of Dawn and headed towards the newly appeared door, the girl followed him.
Bondrewd opened the massive doors. The temple was ruined and covered in blood and corpses and Dick sitting in the corner.
"Sorry we took so long. I see you've had a lot of fun." The caustic remark was a good one, for Dick looked a mess, his chain mail was torn to shreds, and so were his clothes, and so was his face, and his body was covered with lacerations and burns, and his right leg looked more like a roasted piece of meat than a human leg.
"I had a bit of a mess, five minutes after you came in, and the locals were off their heads, and those lunatics would have come at me if it hadn't been for your gift." Dick looked down at the bloodstained blade and continued. "You should have seen how I kicked their mages, this magic blade is a great thing, it shoots magical shit, so it can also repel other magical shit, it's great." With each word Mira's eyes grew more and more out of orbits.
"We'll talk later, we've got to go," said Bondrewd and looked at Dick's torn leg. He felt his gaze and said cheerfully. "I'm not going to be much of a walker for the next week, so I expect a carriage and a fancy maid from my suzerain to take care of me."
"You'll be ruined," said the Lord of Dawn, grabbing Dick and throwing him on his shoulder. "Hey, take it easy, you're not carrying firewood."
"Yeah, wood don't fuck up that much." The two men laughed like horses at Mira's puzzled look.
"Bondrewd, wait, you can't do it, I'm displaying the information on the interface." The concerned voice of the assistant sounded in his head again.
"Attention user, body nutrient levels are critically low, replenish nutrients immediately!"
"Attention user, health condition critical: broken arm, 4 ribs, concussion and contusion, extensive damage to internal organs, seek medical attention immediately!"
"Attention user, accumulated curse level 93.2%, refrain from using cursed artefacts to avoid death!"
The man's legs shook and his field of vision narrowed to a small dot, a body with another body on it fell to the stone floor.
"Lord Bondrewd!"
"Fucking bitch it hurts actually!" Hearing the echoes of voices, Lord of Dawn fell smoothly into darkness.
...
"My King, the rebels have been defeated, suddenly the Minor fanatics dropped dead, we have lost a lot of people, the healers are failing, there are fires in several parts of the city, we are trying to stabilise the situation at the moment." The king gestured to the guardsman and as soon as he was out the door Avitus went to the window, the city was burning and drowning in blood at the same time.
No one understood why, but some of the townspeople, soldiers and even guardsmen had rebelled, the rebels had no goal or at least no demands, they were just out to kill. And what bothered Avitus the most, the rebels were using Minor's name as a cover, and the high priest was the hell where the hell he was.
"There's something wrong here, and somehow I think somewhere in this madness Lord Bondrewd is involved."
...
It ended as suddenly as it had begun, a mob of fanatics tried to break into Aivina's house, but she was no fool and had a good security detail.
"To think that these lunatics had gathered and attacked me, the wretches, well they got what they deserved, it was a pity, of course, the guards - faithful people in this city can't be found by day and night."
There were only a couple of dozen of the hundred men left, and they were wounded and could not be counted on in the near future.
"Where is that jerk Osti, he should have sent me a message a long time ago! - The woman said irritably and sank into a chair."
"I'm already here." An irritated voice came from behind, and Aivina almost shrieked in surprise, but managed to restrain herself and turned to the man.
"Osti, head of the secret police, at your service, Mistress Aivnia" the man walked round the chair, got down on one knee, and took her hand and kissed it. Aivina did not appreciate the gesture and immediately pulled her back.
"I'm not paying you to be a sycophant, but to know what's going on in the city?" Aivina was not happy, there was a lot of money spent on this scoundrel, and he dares to be late.
"Chaos and disorder in short, but more specifically, the Rebels had dropped dead, all of them."
"I already know that, you're the head of the secret police or I am, so tell me why."
"I don't know, but it happened shortly after Lord Bondrewd and his squire Dick entered the Temple of Minor, and now the temple is completely destroyed."
"Lord Bondrewd you say," Aivina stood up and walked over to the window, casting the ruined city a squeamish glance.
"Bondrewd what have you gotten yourself into this time?"