betrayer (intro teaser)

“See that woman in the corner there?  Yeah, I seen ‘er ‘ere a million times, ne’er seen ‘er drink, eat, nothin’.  She jus’…sits.  She ne’er takes ‘er ‘ood off either.  I tell ya, she’s a weird one.”
The Fox Tail bar was not a high-end tavern by any means, it played host to some of the most drunken men and women any would ever see, and a fair many bar brawls occurred every night, often ending with the death of one or more of the weaker patrons.  But, despite all this, this is where Alexia, the woman Cass spoke about, had decided to take up residence.  Perhaps woman is not the most apt term, but we shall tend to that matter later.
Tonight was harvest night, and a blue moon, so The Tail, as some of the regulars called it, was bustling, there hadn’t been a brawl, but that should soon change.  Alexia sits at her table in the farthest corner of the room from the door not really alive, she sits, her hood draped over her head, absently pushing a copper piece back and forth over the table.  It skips suddenly, and explodes, Alexia looks around nervously, making sure no one had seen.  In the brief moment she looks up, the door opens and three men and two elves walk through.  All of them are garbed in grey brown robes and are moving with a purpose towards her.  Alexia looks inside herself and uses her innate ability to see through any disguise.  She forces herself to stay calm at the sight of the change in the three men.  This needed to be real if she hoped to survive.  The men approached her table.
“Are you Alexia Velcor?” the “human” on the left asks.
“Yes, why?” she says, feigning surprise.
“Can we speak to you outside?” the one on the right asks.
“Do I have a choice?” she asks.
“No.” says the one in the middle in the deepest of the voices.
“Very well, may I grab my things first?” She asks, doubting that the answer would be the one she desired.
The humans looked to each other and then to the elves. “Accompany her.”  The elves nod and follow Alexia upstairs.  Several pairs of suspicious eyes followed the threesome, but most of the patrons were too distracted, or too drunk, to take notice.
The upstairs of the tavern is the inn portion, and Alexia had paid handsomely to have a nice room, now, it was lost.  She opens the door to her suite and walks in.  Her room seemed unremarkable, a nice bed in the corner, a desk table, oil lamp, wood stove, there were no traces of possessions.  Alexia approaches the back of her room and speaks a command word, she hears the elves draw arrows to their bows as she reaches into a swirling abyss of green where she keeps her things.  The Etheric plane was much safer than the material one.  She drew out a backpack.  And a caved-in backpack at that.  The elves relaxed, she couldn’t ft a weapon in there.  The green vortex dissipated in a small green cloud and Alexia turned towards the door.  The elves froze at her gaze; it was a gaze of doom.  “Bye guys.” She said and raised her hand.  The ensuing thunderclap deafened both elves and the flash of light blinded them.  Alexia didn’t bother to finish them, the loss of the two most prominent elven senses had knocked both of them unconscious, and they had done nothing to deserve her ire.  She opened her backpack and hunted for what she needed.
The three humans downstairs had grown steadily more worried.  They had missed the flash and clap of thunder from upstairs, but they couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.  How long did it take to retrieve possessions?  Suddenly, Alexia, or what once was Alexia appeared at the stairs.
She had discarded her robes and now donned nothing other than a cloth shirt and long cloth pants, feathered wings spread from her shoulder blades and her eyes glowed golden.  She held a longbow, wreathed in flame, and had a massive greatsword sheathed right-to left over her shoulder.  Suddenly she seemed imposing; suddenly the humans wanted nothing more than to run far, far away.  Alexia spoke in a voice akin to thunder, and the tavern went as silent as death: “Now, Kolyaruts, I have shown you my true self, reveal the truth to me, show me who you are!”
A small blue tinged aura radiated off the Kolyaruts as they reassumed their true guise.  There was no change in Alexia’s vision, but there was a few shrieks and general mayhem as the tenants, drunk or not, realized that they would all surely die if they remained here.  The Kolyaruts were approximately one foot taller than most men an made out of nothing but steel and iron.  Kolyaruts resided on the plane of Mechanus; they belonged to a subspecies known as Inevitables were dispatched to enforce the laws of the universe. Kolyaruts were the enforcers of those who renege on deals.  They each wore a great red cape, a golden breastplate and black bladed longswords.  One man ran past the left Kolyarut and his hand snaked out with a longsword, almost too fast for the eye to follow, the sword creased the back of the man’s head and a great flurry of black energy rolled out of the dead man and into the Kolyarut.  Alexia had had enough.
The Kolyaruts acted first, each casting a spell that was meant to paralyse any creature.  Alexia only smiled and pointed to an earring she wore.  The tenants were not so lucky; some of them froze in mid-stride, falling through the air and breaking their necks or arms, or bones in general on tables, walls or other people.  Alexia drew an arrow, nocked it and released, all in one fluid movement.  The arrow burst into flame and collided with the right Kolyarut’s sword arm.  The magic within the arrow caused it to explode on contact, destroying the construct’s arm and immolating a chunk of his torso, still, the being refused to die.  It staggered forward and raised an arm, releasing a ray of negative energy that would weaken her.  Alexia leapt off the stairs and broke her fall with a roll.  She came gracefully back to her feet and released two more arrows in rapid succession.  The first hit the same Kolyarut in the upper leg, destroying it and causing it to fall forward, the second arrow caught him in the top of the head, obliterating it.  That construct fell to the ground, quite dead.  “Do you fear me now, Inevitables, retreat, and I will spare you your lives.”  The Kolyarut’s mocking laughter came back at her.  She dropped her bow and waded in with her greatsword.  The first Kolyarut came at her with his sword, sweeping left.  She parried so forcefully that the construct’s sword sailed across the room, to come to a rest in the wooden wall.  But the Kolyarut wasn’t finished yet, it reached forward trying to touch her.  Knowing the vampiric properties of that touch, she wisely dodged out of the way, still, the Kolyarut glanced her and she felt some of her essence stolen away.  The construct laughed.  Alexia rose to her feet and spat at the metal thing before her “laugh this off.”  She snarled and muttered an incantation.  A great explosive wave of fire shot through the tavern burning all the paralysed patrons to death and melting the metal of the Kolyarut’s body.  When the roaring firestorm had stopped, not a table was damaged, nor was the tavern burning to the ground.  Charred bodies littered the tavern floor and another Kolyarut dropped to the floor, a lifeless, smoking black hunk of melted metal.  Still one remained.  The last Kolyarut stood across a table from Alexia and had its hands out wide, a symbol of peace.  It spoke slowly and deliberately, as though Alexia might not understand, it spoke in the celestial language, a language Alexia had not heard for a long time.
“I am Kynstene Bergandine, I reside…”
“I know where you live, why have you come for me?”
“We were told that you had been given a quest,” Alexia flinched, “a quest from a deity himself.  We were told that you had neglected this quest and Borrin wanted you…
“Borrin has nothing to do with this, I had not neglected my duties!  I… I was close to him, but his aura simply disappeared.  I know not where the child is now.”  Her last sentence was spoken with sincere regret.
“You fear him killed.” Alexia nodded.  “Do you have a clue as to who has had him for these past twenty-two years?”
“No, I have not found a trace of the child for the past sixteen years”
“Ah, but you lie, “ the Kolyarut shrieked, “ you know who has the child, perhaps you have the child!  But you know!  Betrayer!  You would hand this world to the prince of darkness!  Heathen, Betrayer! Prepare to die!”
The Kolyarut’s sword had appeared in his hand and another appeared in his other, he muttered a word and disappeared.  He reappeared not a second later, right beside Alexia.  The Angel that was Alexia brought her greatsword across in a desperate parry and knocked both swords aside.  She could not retract her own blade fast enough so she jumped forward, attempting to body check the superior construct off balance… except it wouldn’t move.  Kyn was not about to move for an Angel, he was a metal creature, and it would take a lot more than a tiny Angel body check to trip him up.  Luckily for Alexia, she had a spell prepared that would allow her to get away.  She muttered a quick incantation and thrust her hand forward.  When she touched the construct’s stomach, Kyn was hurtled backwards ten feet, where he crashed painfully into a stone chimney.  Alexia quickly drew her bow, but found the magical fire dispelled, she noticed an amulet on the Kolyarut’s chest piece and wondered why he hadn’t enacted its enchantments earlier.  She quickly drew two arrows from her quiver and placed one on the bowstring, she waited for Kyn to rise and then let loose an arrow at the locket openly displayed on his chest.  She didn’t wait to see if she had hit, instead she muttered an incantation and traced a rune over her unused arrow, it glowed golden and she wondered if the Kolyarut’s magic locket simply quenched all magic in an area once, rather than simply creating an anti-magic field, she hoped not, it had cost her an arm and a leg to enchant the bow and sword she now used. 
She loaded the newly enchanted arrow and let loose at the Kolyarut now on his feet again.  It left a golden streak as it sped through the air towards her target.  Amazingly, the Kolyarut deflected it with his left sword, and that sword, and a portion of his arm, disintegrated.  The arrow hit the wall of the tavern and exploded in brilliant white light, waves of intense heat rolled over Alexia, then the air was filled with the smell of ozone as lightning crackled off of the wall and into anything it could connect to.  There were pained screeches, like two pieces of metal grinding together.  Then it stopped, suddenly and without warning and Alexia was left with a maimed Kolyarut with fires in his golden eyes.  He stalked towards Alexia like there was nothing that could stop him.  Alexia rattled off two more incantations and the tables around him sprung to life, each stretching their stiff appendages and then pouncing atop the Inevitable.  There was a quick stream of words and a bead of red left Kyn’s fingertip.  Alexia dove behind the stairs and the bead exploded, the ensuing explosion immolating the animated tables and the staircase under which Alexia now hid.  There was a crack above her and she tied to scramble out from under the collapsing behemoth, she almost made it.  Almost.
Fire had spread to the walls and to the roof of the tavern by the time Kyn had extricated himself from the rubble of Alexia’s animated tables.  He knew immediately that the betrayer was dead, no one could have survived that much weight, and besides, she was visible beneath to stairs, her crushed form was mutilated beyond recognition, twisted wings, twisted and broken legs, if she was not dead now, she would be very soon, a job well done.
Kyn enacted his ability to change his shape and became a human with a massive gash up his left arm.  His arm would not heal, he could tell, Alexia had known how to defeat his ability to heal his own wounds, but he could certainly pay a cleric to grow it back again.  He summoned a demon of the lower planes and ordered it to stay in the tavern, killing any who came close, then he stumbled out of the Fox Tail, screaming for help, screaming about a demon.  The demon was simple, just an average demon.  It was a little over five feet tall with red-black skin, a triangular shaped head, no mouth and two arms that ended in scythe-like claws of bone.  Just an average demon…