The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

"WHAT?" Hunter leaped to her feet. Her cry was suddenly shrill and crazed. "SHADOW FALL PROTECT THE KING." She held a steak knife in her hand as though it were a sword, her blonde hair dangerously whipping from side to side as she threw her murderous glare around the room.

What followed next was a brief scramble. No one had been prepared for sudden battle but it was the Transients who reacted first. Weapons appeared and a ring of steel appeared around the two princesses and King Johanis. The Half guard was immediately excluded and they began to protest loudly as chairs were scattered and tables overturned.

"To the King!" Their lame cry sounded half-hearted considering there wasn't much they could do to muscle in toward the middle at this point other than start hacking at each other.

"No, no… everyone stop!" King Johanis had moved to the table-top and stood as he commanded. The Halves who moments before were eating and then scrambling stopped their mad advance to his table. "Forsythe. Are you quite alright lad?" He asked gently.

"No. I am finding it difficult to see." Forsythe admitted. Aidan sprang up and immediately moved Forsythe to his bench spot.

"Are you dying?" Aidan wanted to know, frowning at his own question. He sounded like that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard, let alone spoken. There was actual panic in his voice as if for a brief moment he had forgotten that this wasn't Last Sojourn.

"I don't feel like I'm going to die. My health bar is hopping up and down. Natural out of combat regeneration versus poison. The poison seems to be fractionally stronger." Forsythe reported nonchalantly. "The vision is the problem. I am now totally blind. I'm also cold like I'm in the ocean. Oh, my feet are very warm. I want this poison."

"Elisha! Tempest!" Hunter called frantically. The priests immediately pushed past the Halves, ignoring the weapons that only barely moved out of their way as they approached.

"Can't cure." Tempest immediately decided, and Elisha bobbed her small head after they both examined him.

"Is it because he ate it?" Elisha asked the other healer.

"I don't know. Poison is something you cure when you get hit with an ability or a spell." Tempest allowed slowly. "[Rapid Regeneration]." He cast the spell on Forsythe. "Well he won't die, but we'll have to keep that up until it goes away…"

"If it goes away." Elisha pondered. She didn't sound worried. "He might have to die." She speculated.

"He must not die!" Victoria immediately protested, worming her way over her spot on the bench. Quite the feat and only possible because neither the Half nor Shadow Fall viewed her with any culpability. "It should have been I!"

"No way." Raven, who was often culpable, had also somehow snuck up to Forsythe and was waving her hand in front of his face. Everyone startled visibly, as no one was sure how she had managed to insert herself without drawing attention. "Forsythe is the best one. Hey, Forsythe, you really can't see?"

"No. Blindness was incredibly swift." He replied. "I also feel hot now instead of cold. Now my feet are cold."

"Like Lava Worm hot or near a grill hot?" Raven asked as if it made any difference at all to her.

"Grill." He grunted. "I'm still hungry. I should have eaten first." He started to reach toward the table, fingers searching. "Dinner roll plate is here somewhere…"

"But they're not poisoned." Amelia waved her hand to encompass the room and then nodded to Victoria.

"Assassin," Hunter concluded. "What do we do? If need be we must kill everyone."

Her announcement startled the room, Shadow Fall included, and the Halves were now looking very uncomfortable. Princess Adalia stood, shock on her face. "You would not dare."

"Oh if Void's the enemy, it may be unavoidable," Hunter said. Her eyes were wild. Amelia thought maybe that it had something to do with the fact that it had been Forsythe that was poisoned and not someone else. Aidan had a strange expression with a mixture of horror and amus.e.m.e.nt that seemed to be warring on his face.

"Calm down." Aidan finally spoke. "Let us first eliminate the potentials before we go murdering the room. It is not Victoria." He pointed at Victoria, surprising everyone by simply dismissing her as a suspect.

"But… if father died…" Adalia said softly.

"No. Our information is irrefutable. We are here to destroy Void and Victoria is with certainty our ally. Also, she would have let the king eat and been done with it without interrupting." Aidan concluded.

Ridley and Rat had blade and knife positioned outward from the king, and Rat muttered. "Our lives before the Half and the Half Princess Victoria. I thought it was neat but this is day 2 you know? I thought we'd spend our lives over a broader timeframe."

"Oh shut up," Ridley whispered. He sounded amused despite the contents of his whisper.

"Next we shall determine if this is King Johanis." Aidan declared.

"Wait! What if Victoria was trying to sow dissent between the Half and Shadow Fall!" Raven interrupted, grinning ear to ear.

Everyone gave her odd looks and then ignored her.

"Right. So the king…" Aidan continued.

"Poison myself?" The King sputtered.

"It would be a good time to eliminate us. It still is. You could declare, here and now, that we are potential agents of Void and it would serve you well. Now is a good time. Tell them to strike us down. It is prudent if you believe, or want them to believe, that we are your enemy." Aidan turned to him and waited to see his reaction.

"You are a most unpleasant young man." King Johanis finally decided after he gave it some thought and his face had wrinkled in disgust as he got the gist of what Aidan was implying.

"Right, so not you." Aidan turned to the rest of the room and sighed.

"Call your army," Amelia advised him, earning a quick look from him and everyone around.

"You have an army?" Victoria wanted to know. "I thought there was only your group?"

"No," Amelia replied. "It is only us, but he has a special army."

"Hoo… good idea." Raven said. "Yeah ask them, Aidan." She was poking Forsythe's face and amusedly dodging his half-hearted blind swats. After each swat, his fingers returned to searching the table for bread or food. In between poking his face, she moved the plates further away from him.

"Are we still holding weapons?" Forsythe wanted to know as soon as he realized the food was out of reach, sounding out of place because he couldn't see what was going on.

"Aidan has an army?" Hunter hissed in a whisper at Amelia. Amelia simply nodded, there was no real way to explain it at length.

"Alright. I'm going to think for a minute, everyone don't kill each other!" Aidan paused then and his gaze looked far away.

Raven was grinning up at him. "Wow, this is exciting. I thought for sure we were gonna be bored for a week. Can you see them, Amelia?"

"See who?" Victoria said, looking around frantically.

Amelia could absolutely imagine them now. They were fictional. Imagination. They were invisible wraiths of life in a room filled with the threat of death. Amelia gasped, startling people around her and herself. With nothing but imagining them, she could almost see each and every one of them as Aidan turned back and forth gently, listening to their advice. It was unnerving.

"Look at that man Victoria," Amelia whispered, deciding a bit of theatricality was actually not a bad idea. "Do not speak loudly. Do not breathe. Do not move. If you focus really hard you can see that they have arrived. The images of everyone he has ever known and fought with he carries with him. Even now they speak to him and offer him their counsel."

Victoria gazed in amazement at Aidan, squinting hard. Aidan himself had stepped from the table and stood silently alone, his gaze looking upward in tremendous concentration. There was a sliver of doubt in her eyes, but it was gradually lessening with the intensity that Aidan was displaying.

"Is this a trick?" Gilduirn asked over the guild channel.

"No," Raven said. "Shut up."

"God don't let him laugh. They'll kill us before he finishes." Forsythe prayed.

"The laugh is the worst." Amelia agreed.

"What laugh?" Hunter asked.

"You know when we were about to get eaten by Syrxis?" Amelia asked.

"Yes…" Hunter said, wondering where she was going. She had seen the video.

"He came up with an idea to kill it. It saved the entire raid. He does that, and when he gets the idea he laughs." Amelia explained. "He's a pretty good wizard but he's terrifying when it comes to analysis."

So a room full of people holding weapons on each other simply waited. Victoria could barely hold herself still and several times Amelia caught her leaning, trying to peer around Aidan to see if these ghosts really did exist.

"Ah," Aidan spoke at last and focused back on the group.

"No laugh?" Forsythe seemed shocked.

"No. That means unpleasant." Raven guessed. "Super unpleasant."

"Was Princess Adalia with you?" Aidan asked Forsythe. "Forsythe I mean, sorry I realize you can't see me nodding to you."

"No." He answered.

"She never left the king?" He persisted, turning to Hunter.

"She has been by my side since the castle." King Johanis said. "Look here, you cannot incriminate roya-."

"The judgment of Fred!" Aidan called, opening his arms wide and calling out. "Shadow Fall, will you submit?"

"Uhhh…" The Transients were looking among themselves. After a moment of sly glances, they all realized that none of them had any idea what he was talking about.

"Yes." Amelia prodded them in the guild channel.

"Yes!" They answered, though less than enthusiastically. They all thought it was probably going to be something stupid. It was funny though, that their lack of motivation actually made the Half in the room turn even grimmer. What could it be that even the people who were going to use it looked like they'd rather eat hot coals?

"King Johanis. I will cast, with your permission, special magic that will home on the guilty party." Aidan turned to King Johanis.

"You may…" He said slowly.

"What are you doing?" Amelia asked over the guild channel.

"Playing a game," Gilduirn answered instead of Aidan over guild chat. "That's actually a pretty good idea. The Halves aren't very good at lying."

"Halves! I will now cast a spell that our number is familiar with. It is a spell that detects evil intention. I can, with my great skill, narrow down that specificity to such an extent that I can determine who poisoned your King. Will you submit?" Aidan called.

"Yes!" The majority of Halves looked doubtful but their King had already given his permission.

"Good. I shall cast it and this magic will move around the room! It will test your will, though you will feel nothing. It is not what you feel that is important, but what the magic senses." Aidan held up a finger. "First is guilt. It may hover for a time. DO NOT TURN ON YOURSELVES. Guilt is a many colored animal. One feels guilt for surviving, for loving someone who loves another, and many other things!"

The Halves were nodding grudgingly. Guilt was understood to them.

"Secondly this is a greater spell! I warn you that eventually, this seeker magic will stop, and this is the important part. You must confess!" Aidan cried again. "I must ask before I proceed, for King Johanis to offer your pardon."

"What?" The King had been unamused before but now just look furious. "Royal assassination is punishable only by execution."

"I am sorry, my King." Aidan bowed his head. "Allow me to explain further. Will you in your infinite wisdom and grace pardon those who would have killed you? You see I ask because if they confess they will be spared my magic." Aidan paused and looked slowly around the room with a deadly threat. "If… they do not. The magic will burn them alive in their very place. We will learn nothing of their motivations or their goals."

"You can cast such sorcery?" Adalia sputtered. "How would we know that you do not just slay those you choose? Perhaps you are here to invade us and would slay those that offered resistance to your politics!"

Looking pretty suspicious there, Princess. Amelia and she wasn't the only one from Shadow Fall, was looking pretty curiously at Princess Adalia. Hunter looked like death itself as she burned holes in the back of the small head.

"These people have just saved my life." King Johanis said, looking deliberately around the room. His face looked pained. "Very well. Information and intelligence are important but so is expediency. Cast your magic, and you guilty traitors know that I will exile you from the Half, but your lives will be spared." His face was then a terrible pronouncement of doom. "IF, this wizard's magic does not burn you into these pristine floors."

"Father," Adalia began.

"Silence! Let us be done with this. Someone has betrayed us! Someone betrays the Half!" King Johanis finally thundered. "Let us see the result of wickedness and treachery!"

"Very well." Aidan held out a hand. It was more theater and drama really. He need make no motion to do what he was going to do. The words that came next also seemed overly dramatic to Amelia. "Light. Magic from the many worlds. Shine briefly and show us who has etched murder into their heart. Illuminate the room and show those who cast a shadow."

"That's pretty good." Gilduirn snickered over the guild channel.

"Shut up!" Idolia insisted. She sounded terribly excited and swept up in the suspense.

Aidan smiled briefly at Amelia and then cast the actual spell. "[Fred]."

Immediately the orange globe appeared. The dragonfly inside beat its wings furiously fast as it adjusted to the correct speed. It sat in his palm for a moment and then began rotating around as if it were surveying the room. A collective gasp rent the air. A lot of those going around, Amelia thought. Everyone from Shadow Fall, with varying speeds, gasped in fake astonishment in addition to the Half.

Without further delay it began with the people closest to Aidan, inspecting Victoria first. It was immediately disinterested. A nice touch, Amelia thought. Aidan was, of course, telling Fred where to fly. It didn't even pause as it passed over Forsythe's head, though it did dip briefly to fly around Raven. It lifted in the air and circled King Johanis twice. The King simply followed its progress with his eyes, amazement etched into his face. Fred then flitted over to the Princess Adalia and floated close, very close. It stopped in front of her face and people began to speak.

"Quiet!" Aidan said. "Remember what I said!" Conversation stopped immediately and with a collective breath of relief, Fred moved away from the Princess. Amelia wondered what Aidan was up to at this point. The Princess Adalia looked like she had been ready to cut her own throat when Fred had continued to hover. Instead, Fred briefly visited the members of Shadow Fall, stopping once and zipping through Elisha's sleeves. She laughed, kind of inappropriate for the mood really but spelling out to the Halves that they had nothing to fear if they weren't guilty.

It moved down the line of guards, pausing in front of a few grim-faced men and women, moving easily passed the relaxed ones full of awe. Then slowly it raised higher off the floor and zipped immediately to the center table, hovering once again over King Johanis. It lowered toward him, stared into his face as it beat its wings, and once more returned to Princess Adalia. Very gently it continued to hover in front of her before resting on her sleeve. It's wings beat slightly, since the animation was never intended to stop. Damning really.

"Adalia?" King Johanis voice was full of sorrow.

"What?! This is a mistake! A trick! I demand you get this THING away from me." She shrieked.

"Why?" Victoria wondered. Her eyes, too, were full of hurt. Her voice was strangled and wounded.

"Because you live forever," Aidan said, guessing gently. "She would never be queen."

"No, that's not true!" Victoria protested. "We are called immortal but we only live for 3,000 years or so. The crown would have been hers in a 1,000 years or less! I am not even next in line!"

"That's a long time." Forsythe stoically replied, staring in the wrong direction. Raven, never taking her eyes off Fred, reached over, and placing her finger under his chin, turned him to face the event.

"She does not have long," Aidan said carefully, making a show of backing away from Fred.

"Oh, please, confess!" King Johanis jumped down from the table and knelt before her, trying to keep clear of Fred. "I will pardon you. We will do something! Do not let this magic destroy you!"

Adalia's right eye was twitching. Her father held her hands in front of him as he began to weep. She suddenly sprang to her feet and revealed a knife that had been tucked, well, somewhere. Amelia hadn't thought that dresses like that could conceal knives. Adalia yanked her father's hair and pulled back his head, putting her knife to his throat. "Get. That. Thing. Away from me." She demanded in a harsh whisper in a vocal range that seemed alien. The name above her head slowly bled it's blue color and fell directly into red. The game had officially labeled her as an enemy.

She wasn't the only one. There were ten others in the room who suddenly lost their serenity names as they were consumed by red, murderous color. For whatever reason, the Halves seemed capable of perceiving the difference. With shock and alarm they rearranged themselves so they were facing each other.

Aidan cancelled Fred and the orange globe disappeared. For the moment the room was silent as everyone oriented themselves to this new situation. Adalia, former Princess of the Halves, held the knife at her father's throat and looked frantically around. It was clear that all she saw were enemies, and she was in the middle of the room. Shadow Fall had not moved from their position. Adalia could not have known, but they really weren't here to make sure King Johanis survived. Therefore, most of them were looking at Hunter and Amelia and waiting for the go-ahead to just overwhelm the now enemy Princess.

"Sister…" Victoria said softly. She had read the mood of the room perfectly and knew, for whatever reason, that Shadow Fall had only really been initially interested in her own well-being. "You must put the knife down. If you do not you will be slain. The King, in his mercy, has already decreed that you be exiled or perhaps not even punished. You are his favored daughter. These people, however, only see you as enemy. You will never make it to the door."

"Door? Three steps." Rat muttered her correction. She was already moving her blade to point toward Adalia in an incredibly slow turn. Rat didn't think the door was even an option for the now enemy Half.

"Three steps? Two." Ridley countered. He was a swordsman by class and he looked like he was guessing he could wing Adalia pretty good with his knife before everyone pounced.

"Do you see?" Victoria pleaded, she had seen through their movements and knew that they were all considering the greater good instead of the survival of the king.

Adalia licked her lips. "I'm going to take dear father to the door. If you should try and stop me, Void will descend upon you."

"No." Aidan said. "He will not. If he was here he wouldn't resort to this."

"I will kill him." Adalia repeated, casting an irritated glance at Aidan.

"That's not what's going to happen," Raven said sounding serious for the first time. "You're gonna die and then we're gonna eat."

"Then he shall die firs-" Adalia started to hiss.

"No." Hunter replied with dark wrath.

Amelia, nor anyone else really as they would tell her later, ever saw Hunter move. Amelia did know that Hunter had been kind of behind Adalia because she had been covering the room. "That is enough." Hunter's hand descended on the blade and her fingers wrapped around it's edge. With her other hand she grabbed Adalia's hair and yanked hard, pulling her away from King Johanis in much the same fashion the traitor Half had done to her father. "Do you know what it is like to be an Archer?" Hunter asked, fury in her voice. "You must immediately discern between foes you must stay away from and foes that just talk a good game. Go ahead and try and take the hand. My daughter is a genius priest."

Adalia turned and tried to yank the blade away but Hunter didn't let go. Damage appeared on her health bar but it was inconsequential. Tempest was already healing her and the blade did almost nothing as the Half struggled against the Silf.

Everything happened at once after that. Moments later Shadow Fall swept across the room and killed every Half with a red name. They were no longer Residents, no longer friends or allies. The red names were simply monsters that would be cut down for experience and for the event. It was over in seconds.

"Unhand me, you Grendel woman!" Adalia was still struggling with Hunter when a large fist struck out, knocking her stunned to the floor.

"Ah. My vision returned." Forsythe flexed his hand, staring down at the Princess as he slowly got to his feet.

"Wow! I almost got punched!" Raven had apparently rocked out of the way just in time when Forsythe had decided to clock royalty.

"You're okay?" Hunter threw the knife away, moving eagerly forward. Gone was the evil aura that had seemed to envelop her. It was almost disgusting the way she was light and airy and lovey-dovey all of a sudden. Ridley actually made a face.

"Well yeah. It's a game?" Forsythe responded. Hunter didn't seem to care and wrapped her arms around him. Forsythe for his part didn't look displeased by this development in the least.