Seersucker
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Penitent Ch 56: Delivery
🕑 Added 2025-03-23 12:00:12 +0000 UTCDavi was the first one to wake up to see Michael staring deadeyed at the door frame markings. He pushed himself up, realizing the scout wasn’t there.
“You okay?”
Michael didn’t look at him, though he did finally blink. “I had to kill a man last night.”
Davi pushed himself up quickly, reaching for his sword. “Did someone slip into camp?”
“They were beating a Tusinian deserter in the barn. They asked me to heal him so they could have another go at beating him to death. I killed him instead.”
Davi nodded, his usual frown deepening. “Did the scouts do anything to you?”
Michael shook his head. “No, but I think we’ll need to do something about the other Penitents. They’re going to come after us.”
“You want to kill them?”
“I don’t want to. I think we should be ready to though.”
Davi nodded. “I’m with you.”
“Me too,” said Ollie without opening his eyes. “Even though you woke me up from an incredible dream about a bag of Maccas and a blowjob.”
Marcus, who was awake and munching on some nuts he’d packed leaned against the hallway wall with a curious look on his face. “Did the bag have a mouth, or was there someone else there?” He held up a hand. “Don’t answer that. I’ll just assume the most fucked up option for the fun of it.” He looked at Michael. “I’m good to kill them by the way. In case I have to say it out loud.”
“I am as well,” said Pytor, sitting up slowly and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Were the rest of you up for a long time?” asked Davi.
“Yes, but I didn’t want to be the one to interrogate Michael’s creepy stare,” said Marcus, flicking another nut into his mouth.
“You're a real pal,” said Michael dryly.
“I try,” replied Marcus.
There was a knock on the wall outside the house.
“Get geared up and ready. We need to get moving in ten,” yelled Thom.
…
They all sat hiding in the woods to the side of the main road. Michael and Davi had dragged a large rotted tree trunk into the middle of the road at the scouts’ orders, and they were hidden with their weapons at the ready. Bran had already scouted up the road and confirmed that the wagon was incoming, that meant that their information was good. There were ten guards, and four civilians. One of the guards was their equivalent of a sergeant, the orders were to attempt to take him prisoner. The only other concern was one of the guards that appeared to be a mage. The rest were to be killed and the civilians tied up and left on the road. Michael had the distinct impression that only he and the other takers gave a damn about if the civilians were killed or not.
The wagon came into view after about a half-hour. The guards were all armored like Stent knights, but they moved a little clumsily, as if they weren’t quite used to the weight of it. The sergeant was obvious, as he was the only one on a horse, and all the civilians were riding in the wagon. The Tusinians wore tan uniforms under their armor that poked through, and their pauldrons all had hand-painted patterns on them, mostly of alternating colored diamonds..
The sergeant moved ahead a bit to inspect the trunk in the road. He raised the visor for his helmet to get a better look, and his eyes widened.
A bullet flew through the head of the sergeant's horse and it fell, landing on the man’s leg. He screamed as the weight shattered it.
The wagon came to a halt, and all of the guards moved forward toward their sergeant, drawing their swords and looking around for what had made the noise. One of them was dropped as two arrows pierced his armor.
The Penitents all charged at that moment and Michael quickly lost track of the others as they collided with the guards. Michael charged to ensure his Run Conqueror deed was active and slammed his shield into the nearest of the guards. The guard stumbled, unused to the weight of his armor and fell onto his back. Michael moved to drive his sword into his throat, but was pushed back as a spear was thrust toward him. He dodged the first strike and batted away the second before cracking the spear with a sword strike on its shaft. Michael kicked him back, and at that moment the one he’d knocked down with his shield stood and struck out at him with his own blade. Michael caught the blow with his shield and slammed his gauntleted fist into the side of the man’s face. Once the guard was disoriented, Michael slashed at his gorget, managing to cut through it with sheer force. The man clutched at his throat as he fell, blood spilling down the silver front of his armor.
Michael turned to face the other one, but realized he was dead too, a bullet hole clear in his faceplate. He saw Pyotr fighting a different guard and ran to help, kicking the back of the man’s knee and forcing him to the ground so Pyotr could drive his own sword through the man’s faceplate. They looked to see Davi finishing off his opponent of his own, and he saw one of the other Penitents being run through by a spear, and collapsing onto the ground.
The guard looked at them, and started to run back along the road, leaving his spear in the dying Penitent as he ran. Michael chased after him, still feeling light on his feet. He saw as he moved that the scouts were both moving to secure the sergeant, and there was at least one other dead Penitent on the ground, a spear wound in his neck. Ollie was muttering under his breath and lightning was arcing from his staff and smashing into a bubble-like shield that the other mage had summoned. As he pushed closer, Davi and Pyotr were circling around to the enemy’s rear.
Michael reached the fleeing guard and leapt onto him. They struggled on the ground, but Michael managed to get his sword to the man’s neck, but he hesitated. The man had been running away anyway. He didn’t have to do this. He leaned close to try and whisper to him to play dead, but the guard twisted around, drawing a thin pointy dagger and aiming it for Michael’s ribs. He struck true, but it seemed to glance off of something, stabbing into his side, but not deeply. Michael’s vision went red and he smashed a fist imbued with magicka into the man’s faceplate. He had cast the spell without a focus, but it held, and with his enemy stunned he stabbed him through the throat and killed him.
He pushed himself to his feet, and drew the needle-like dagger from his side, healing himself as he moved back toward the wagon where he could see even from a distance that Ollie was still struggling fighting with the enemy mage. As he healed himself, his senses focused from his new deed and he realized that Arl, and another Penitent were securing the civilians. They were sobbing, and Arl appeared to have tackled one of them, a woman, to the ground.
Michael started running toward them, hearing the woman’s screams as Arl pushed himself onto her. He tackled Arl off the woman, and jammed the needle-like dagger into his throat, four times.
The other Penitent that had been holding his spear to keep the other civilians from interfering turned toward him and started to yell, but he went suddenly quiet as a bullet struck him in his chest. Michael quickly drove the dagger he'd taken through the bullet hole to hid the type of wound and nodded to the smoking barrel poking just out of the brush.
He looked at the woman and raised his hand, healing her. She flinched and moved toward the other civilians, terrified looks on their faces and Michael grimaced, but continued the healing until all of them were restored. He imagined how he looked, his hands and armor splashed in blood, a man who had just slaughtered the men that were protecting them.
Bran appeared from the other side of the wagon and looked at him. He turned around. “Four dead total, all guards taken care of. Civilians secured.” He patted Michael on the back, making him jump a bit.
“Good job running that last one down. I’ll tie these four up, you go and heal the sergeant, we’ll need his leg working to get him where we need to go.” He didn’t question the deaths of the other Penitents. They were expendable to begin with and anything could happen in the heat of battle.
Michael nodded, and made his way back around, healing the others as he passed. Ollie had a burn on his shoulder, Davi and Pyotr some small cuts, and the remaining non taker Penitent a broken shoulder. Marcus emerged from the woods, his rifle slung back over his shoulder, and exchanged a look and a nod with Michael.
Comments
NameGame
That's a lot of extra money for decades as the blacksmiths responded to an uptick in business and brought in apprentices to train for years, then those apprentices going out on their own or signing on to work long term in larger smithys, so I'm not sure I'd call it extra money. I'm waiting with bated breath for sure, I'm completely puzzled at the sheer wastefulness of the armor being coupled with not spending the time and money to get the soldiers trained for another month or three. I'm totally stumped, but like Michael has faith in the divine, I have faith in you the author.
tibbish
Equiping everyone with plate would be ruinously expensive though. We're talking nobles' income level of wealth per person here. Also terribly time consuming (weeks at a minimum per plate set) to make even if they had enough blacksmiths sitting around to do the work. If you retconned it to maybe all the current mercs had plate but the newer ones have more typical brigandine or aketons or whatever that would make lots more sense.
tibbish
For short (I'm assuming less than 100yd) distances the noise difference between a smokeless rifle and subsonic musket* won't matter. He'd need a suppressor on the musket to keep it quiet even if it was subsonic BTW and there is no mention of it, or the musket being subsonic, on his gun in story. Its entirely possible the shot was heard by everyone but they just assumed it missed or he was shooting down a different guard behind a cart or something. *Any musket that punches holes in armor at those distances is probably going to have to be fairly powerful. Especially if its shooting soft lead ball projectiles. From what I've read IRL they had to get near point blank with something on par with a .357mag** "pistol" in terms of power to get penetration with .50-60-ish lead projectiles weighing around 150-200-ish grains against typical steel plate in the early black powder days. Pistol is in scare quotes because by our standards they'd be considered as more of a stockless carbine barrel length (14-16-ish inch) musket. **modern jacketed pistol or high velocity spitzer projectiles would penetrate that sort've armor with much lighter projectiles but you'd need smokeless powder to make them viable
Seersucker
Thanks, fixed it.
Hailhound
@Grish99 There is a reason not to do it: if they die their armor can be looted from their body and used by the enemy. If the armor hinders them, or even is barely useful it’s actually a net negative because it can then be used to equip the elites of the enemy who can make much better use of it
Jake
Muskets aren't extremely loud and are quite possibly shooting subsonic musket balls so there won't be the loud supersonic crack as it breaks the sound barrier. I may be wrong, and he isn't using a musket, it's been awhile since he was given his gear and I may have forgotten the specifics. The others have zero reason to question a shot during that fight though.
Seersucker
You're picking up on the fact that the Tusinian's seem to have a lot of extra money for some reason and are spending it lavishly... Perhaps it will be important later.
Grish99
or the country is rich af and can equip every tom and jerry with plate. realistically theres no reason not to do it if you have money for it.
Austin
If I'm remembering correctly in a previous chapter it was said all of the soldiers theyre fighting have steel breastplates at minimum. So I think he was trying to be consistent with that.
PatronTurtle
Do bullets not make a lot of noise here? I thought they couldn't use magic to reduce the sound since it impacts the mechanisms, and the firing sound would draw attention to the area
Austin
Good chapter! Thanks! One continuity thing. One paragraph has the guard driving his spear into a penitent and running and the next paragraph says he left his sword in the penitent. Just need to decide which weapon it was.
SkyGold
Man Marcus is really showing the value of a good sniper. Makes me wonder if this world's governments don't have breeding programs to produce more non-magic users for dragoon platoons.
Silver Chariot Requiem
I mean stent ‘knights’ were the other recruits in the academy they went to, everyone but the penitents got the knight title. They didn’t have full plate or anything, just what our squad has but newer and better made iirc. So breastplate, chain, helmet + accessories.
NameGame
Man, the wisecracks and shit talking among the group is excellent as always. Idk how you keep coming up with this stuff, but it's super funny. I have questions about this, however: "The guards were all armored like Stent knights, but they moved a little clumsily, as if they weren’t quite used to the weight of it.". A knight's armor is expensive to make, in terms of both the material and the labor. I struggle to understand why anybody would be in the field in expensive armor that they aren't used to, especially during wartime, since it's a significant waste of money and time invested. If it's armor for random conscripts, something cheaper like padded armor (which was surprisingly effective) is an option, or perhaps a jack of plate or even padded with a breastplate and a cap of some sort. But a suit of armor, that's a lot of metal to equip on the fodder. So what am I not understanding about this? I'm sure it's a situation of me not understanding what you were getting at with them not being used to it. Is it a set up? Trap? Something to be exposed in the next chapter? I'm a bit confused. Thanks for the chapter.
J S
Dang!
