Author: Tower Curator

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Outpost

Annihilator

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Alyssa crept through the town, moving slowly as she eyed her surroundings. No one should be able to see her. She had a shroud of glass shards surrounding her, making anyone who looked in her direction see nothing at all. Empty Mirror. Alyssa had snapped a picture of it the second Irulon had handed it over. It was one of the spells that Alyssa had been wanting a permanent copy of. With it being a lower rank relative to some of the other Fractal spells, it didn’t look overly complex to redraw either. As soon as she had a spare moment, she would be drawing up a dozen of them.

Now was not the time.

So far, she had passed no less than twelve people. None made any indication of noticing her presence, but they were definitely on alert, watching their surroundings almost as much as Alyssa was. Whether their agitated state came from the angel, the destruction of one of the rock pillars around their base, or the fact that three of their scouts hadn’t returned didn’t really matter to Alyssa. The point was that they were wary.

And the more she looked around at the people and buildings, the more her confidence grew that these were not random civilians. This was a military installation. There were no children around, first and foremost. Men and women, yes, but no children. If this were a regular village, Alyssa would have expected at least a handful of children. Secondly, while not everyone wore the garb, about half the people Alyssa had seen wore some form of a hooded cloak. She still wasn’t sure why they wore it. Something religious, presumably. Even just a half hour after nightfall, it was hot. A normal person wouldn’t wear a thick cloak in a desert.

Would they? Movies and other media often portrayed desert dwellers as having concealing clothing, but Alyssa had always figured that those would be light clothes, just enough to keep the sun off the skin. The cloaks the Society of the Burning Shadow wore looked more suited to a colder environment. Not quite icy tundra cold, but something with a far more manageable temperature than a desert.

In any case, Alyssa had far less compunctions about acting against these people than she had when she worried that this was just a poorly thought out settlement. Though, she was glad that her job did not involve the stables. People were one thing, but the poor horses had been dragged into this.

Of course, her job wasn’t exactly the most comforting of tasks either. It was one thing to be attacked and fight back. It was another thing entirely to sneak through their village to poison their food stores. If this were Earth, it would probably be a war crime.

If this were Earth, enslaving a million ants to use as shock troopers would probably be a war crime too. Did that make what she was doing right? No. Not at all. But at the same time, going up to them and asking politely if they would stop wouldn’t work. No matter what she did, it would take drastic measures. Poisoning them was definitely safer for Alyssa than fighting them directly.

Alyssa tossed a glance up to the church and its cross. She had expected the angel to show up when she had first crested the hilltop with Irulon and Kasita, but it hadn’t. So far, the church was silent. She wasn’t sure if she should be more worried about the lack of an angel or relieved that another one wouldn’t start talking to her. For now, she continued forward at her cautious pace, moving aside to ensure that she didn’t accidentally bump into a pair of hooded people walking in the opposite direction.

“The way you tell it, Liadri’s vision sounds most concerning,” one said as they passed, making Alyssa pause.

A vision? Like a prophecy? Or some kind of premonition? That sounded mildly more important than poisoning the food and water supply. Maybe it was just an excuse to procrastinate on potentially murdering a few dozen people, but Alyssa turned and started following the two, keeping a short distance behind them, while remaining close enough that she could hear.

“Yes. We should be on guard. Even more than we are now. The watchmen have seen nothing, but I feel an unnatural chill in the air.”

“There is precaution then there is paranoia. And Liadri’s visions breed paranoia. I wonder how accurate this vision will truly be. Her words have not come to pass as often as they used to, lately. The seventh experiment was supposed to have been a success, but only young Morgan returned. We should have received word about the ninth experiment by now, but our brethren are silent. Dead? Captured as well?”

“Have faith. We are a blessed people. Be wary of a wandering mind—”

“I know the tenets. But do you not worry that Liadri’s mind has wandered? Her visions were once as true as the sun rising every morning. Now, they are errant. Even the words you spoke to me are contradictory. Early on in this vision, she specifically mentioned that we are all united in our goal. Two lines later and, ‘The enemy walks among us. They wear familiar faces and pass unseen beside us, carrying about their subversive tasks.’ So which is it? Do we trust each other or do we have a traitor in our midst?”

Alyssa’s breath hitched. They were talking about her, Kasita, and Irulon. Surely. Those were two separate clauses. Kasita wore a familiar face of one of the watchmen they had taken out near the partially complete wall, attempting to infiltrate the church while armed with a dozen spells of Irulon’s creation in case she wound up discovered. Meanwhile, Alyssa and Irulon were supposed to be taking out their supplies and their stables respectively, both unseen under their shrouds.

Just who was this Liadri? Even vague as it was, that vision was accurate. That this guy interpreted it as referring to a traitor was luck. Someone else might not come to the same conclusion. And how old was that vision? It had to be recent. Alyssa hadn’t even known what she would be doing now just a few hours ago. Could a prophecy predict her movements farther in advance than that? Or was it predicting her at all? Not even Tenebrael’s little book could predict her, so the idea that a mundane human had managed to do what Tenebrael couldn’t was laughable. The vision could have been referring to nothing more than Kasita and Irulon, leaving Alyssa out of it.

Would this Liadri have a vision about the poisoned supplies? Or the dead horses? Both could be a problem, though Irulon didn’t seem to care much that they would be found out. Without supplies or transportation, it didn’t matter if they knew about the food. They would either eat and die or starve and die. Neither pleasant outcomes, but nothing that the people here could change.

Liadri sounded familiar. Alyssa was almost certain that she had heard that name before. There were really only a handful of possibilities. It had either come from one of the Society of the Burning Shadow, likely Morgan given that Morgan was the only one Alyssa had spoken with for any length of time. There was the possibility that Irulon or Tzheitza had mentioned a Liadri, but the more Alyssa thought about it, the more she thought it was Morgan.

It didn’t really matter, except that she couldn’t ask Irulon about it if she hadn’t been the one to tell her. Though she wasn’t sure how much she needed to ask. Just from context, it was clear that Liadri was a sort of seer. An accurate one at that, even if her vague words didn’t make perfect sense when taken at face value.

There was a possibility that this Liadri was the angel from the night before, but Alyssa doubted it. Given both Tenebrael and Iosefael’s surprise with Alyssa being able to see them, it clearly was not a common occurrence. If someone here was talking to an angel, it would be a single person, not many people. Perhaps Liadri was that person, disguising what the angel told her as prophecy.

But what to do about it? The two men were still talking. One berating the other for accusing Liadri of having a wandering mind, whatever that was supposed to mean. Alyssa waited, following them for another minute until they went into one of the smaller buildings around the church. No part of their conversation gave her a clue as to what they would be doing inside, but she didn’t want to risk entering. They took up too much space and closed the door behind them. Even though they couldn’t see her, they would be able to see the door opening and closing.

So Alyssa backed away, ducking between two buildings. Making sure that she was alone in the… it wasn’t really an alley, but it was close enough to one for her purposes. “Message. Irulon. I just overheard two people talking about a seer having a vision, warning her followers against an enemy walking unseen and wearing familiar faces. They seemed to think it referred to a traitor, but I thought you should be aware in any case.”

After sending a nearly identical Message to Kasita to warn the mimic that the people here might be on the lookout for her, Alyssa waited. It was really just more procrastination, using the excuse that Irulon might message her back to avoid heading to the food storage. Procrastination wasn’t like her. Alyssa preferred to do things as soon as possible, especially unpleasant things. Just get them out of the way and leave time to do something more fun.

But this, this was something drastically different from homework or getting her truck serviced. This…

She had killed people. There was no doubt about that. But she had justified every death through necessity or self defense. Could she do the same after indiscriminately poisoning everyone here? Honestly? Probably. This world was messed up. The longer Alyssa spent in it, the more she was confident that it was messing her up as well. It wasn’t that there was some magical corruption affecting her mind. Having to kill so many people would mess anyone up.

Two months ago, before she had even heard of this world… back when she woke up every morning, went to work, went to the gym, did the same things over and over again day in and day out, would she have ever considered poisoning even one known murderer? Probably not. Now here she was, easily able to come up with far more reasons to do it than not.

A flash of anger hit Alyssa, once again hating this stupid world and all its idiotic inhabitants. Setting her face in stone, Alyssa stalked through the streets, retracing the steps she had taken while following after those two men. She had memorized the layout of the town thanks to her pictures. Even if she had gotten lost, the church stood tall, acting as a compass. The buildings around it were tiny. Unless she were standing right up against one, she would be able to see the tall cross from anywhere in the town.

Alyssa glanced up. Still no angel. Just checking.

As she walked, a pressure weighed on Alyssa’s mind. A foreign feeling of unnatural thoughts. At first, she feared that the fairy wasn’t quite as dead as it should be in Musca’s stomach, then she worried that she had wandered too near a fairy that these people had captured. But it was a different sort of pressure. She didn’t feel giddy and happy. Once she started to relax, she heard it. A familiar voice.

~Understood. Beware trying to enter the building, I’ve found protections around the stables and am unsure of their intended effects. Complete your task using Plan B then meet near the church. Around the south side, there is a large desert sagebrush. I will be waiting nearby.~

Irulon. Alyssa sighed, glad it was just a Message spell. The first time she had actually heard it directed at her. Though heard wasn’t the right way to think of it. Like the fairy’s voice, it resounded within her mind. Not air hitting her eardrums, but not her own thoughts either. The voice was distinct and separate, clearly Irulon speaking.

Perhaps that was how Oxart had fallen. Oxart might have been expecting to receive a Message, but let in the fairy instead, giving it a foothold in her mind. That made a certain amount of sense, now having experienced both the Message and fairy control.

But again, Alyssa found herself procrastinating.

The storehouse was right in front of her. A smallish building, cobblestone up to the waist then wood from there up. The roof was a yellowed thatch. It only had one wooden door. There had been a few guards patrolling the borders of the village. Those guards hadn’t been there the night before, so something—the angel destroying a rock formation almost certainly—had spooked them. However, there was no guard here. If Alyssa were in charge here, she would definitely not leave such an important depot undefended. Liadri even said that ‘the enemy’ walks among them. Regardless of if that meant a traitor or an interloper, they had to realize that such an isolated, non-farming community lived and died by their supplies.

A magical defense then? That was probably what Irulon meant by protections. Alyssa hesitated in touching the door. Such a defense was possible. Kasita had mentioned that proper spell tomes were typically protected against being touched by monsters such as her. So it might be possible to key a door to opening only for specific people or to some with a special key. Then again, the Society of the Burning Shadow did not seem all that magically adept. They didn’t have a wide variety of spells. Everyone Alyssa had seen basically used nothing but low level Death spells and a few Fire spells.

Unless the angel had done the defenses.

With a little trepidation, Alyssa reached for the doorknob, just touching it.

Nothing happened.

Alyssa closed her hand around the handle with more confidence. Still nothing happened, so she gave it a little tug.

The door didn’t budge. Blinking in surprise, Alyssa quickly found the problem. A little keyhole just above the handle. A deadbolt, or whatever the local equivalent was. How foolish, she thought with a shake of her head. All that overthinking with magic, but it had just been locked. A regular, mundane lock.

Someone somewhere had to have a key. Probably many someones. Food and water was something needed regularly. High ranking people and whoever prepared the food were the most likely people to have keys, but she didn’t have a clue where to start looking. Kasita might be able to find one. However, Irulon had offered an alternative if Alyssa was unable to get into the building.

“Message. Irulon. Locked door on the storage house. Proceeding to Plan B in five minutes, unless you have objections.” Irulon had already said to go ahead with Plan B in her Message, so there really was no excuse for the delay. Maybe it was just another method of procrastination.

While waiting for a reply, Alyssa pulled out a spell card. A triangle with an eye in the center, similar to the eye of providence, set inside a circle with eight arrows pointing away from it. Each arrow pointed to a word directly underneath a symbol. The words were the angelic script, but the symbols were clear to see. A sun, a tree, a skull, flames, an ankh, a crescent moon, a pentagram, and some wavy circles that might have been representations of the wind or waves. There was more to it than that—it wasn’t as complex as Fractal spells, but still quite impressive.

The symbols raised a lot of questions. A skull obviously implied death, flames for fire, a tree for life—or maybe that was the ankh. But one spell incorporated elements of the various magical specializations. She knew the name of the spell and that it supposedly fit under the Fire branch of magic, but if it was only fire, why did it need a skull and an ankh?

Learning magic properly seemed like a daunting task anytime she looked at a higher ranked spell. And to think that Irulon could understand even small aspects of the angel’s spell. Maybe Alyssa needed to go find a dragon to shove inside her head for extra mental capacity, or whatever it was giving Irulon. Alyssa considered herself an intelligent woman, but magic was just a little too esoteric for her.

A pressure in her mind indicated a new Message. This time, she didn’t resist at all, listening to Irulon’s words. ~Acceptable. Wait for my signal. You’ll know it when you see it. Prepare a second Empty Mirror, just in case the spell fails poorly when you cast.~

Alyssa didn’t like the sound of that. She would have to ensure that no one was around her, just in case she became visible for a moment before she could recast Empty Mirror.

Waiting for Irulon’s signal, Alyssa couldn’t help but be glad that she didn’t have to poison the food. The food would still be destroyed and people would still die, but poison… She shook her head. Thinking about it too much wasn’t going to help matters.

A rumble ran through the ground several minutes after the message. Dust shook free from the thatch roof. Smoke started rising over the top of the nearby buildings in a thick black plume. It came from the direction of the stables. If that wasn’t Irulon’s sign, Alyssa didn’t know what would be it. The princess must have had a little trouble cursing the horses to kill their next rider. It was a shame that they had to die like that, but Alyssa had to focus.

She gripped the spell in her hand, aiming it at the door with a slight downward angle to destroy the supports of the building. After the building itself was a pile of rubble, several fire spells should incinerate anything inside. For whatever reason, she didn’t need to speak a word when casting magic. Still, the spell’s name came almost unbidden to Alyssa’s mind.

Annihilator.

The sudden light forced Alyssa to close her eyes and move an arm in front of her face. Even with her eyes closed, it felt like she was staring at a bright light. She could feel the heat far worse than when Lumen had cast it. Her face, even with an arm in the way, felt like she had been staring at the sun for hours upon hours. Alyssa didn’t sunburn easily, but a vacation to the California beaches in the dead of summer without any sunscreen had taught her what bad sunburns felt like.

This was worse.

Even through her dragon hide armor, she could feel the burning. It wasn’t burning her, but it was burning.

Alyssa lost all track of time. The spell seemed like it was lasting far longer than when Lumen had cast it, but telling with any certainty was impossible. All she could do was wait until the heat died down.

Which it slowly did. There still was some heat, but it was residual. Without even opening her eyes, Alyssa recast Empty Mirror. If Annihilator had been as bright as it had been when Lumen had cast it, everyone in this village would be rushing in her direction. As soon as she was sure that she was safe, she opened her eyes just a sliver.

Bewildered, her eyes widened, looking around.

There was nothing. Nothing at all.

The entire cobblestone and wood building was gone completely. As was the building behind it and the building behind that. There were no other buildings further back, thankfully, but part of the hill surrounding the little village was no more. It had a gouge carved through it. Looking down, Alyssa stumbled back, feeling that queasy sensation she got from heights well up again.

The gouge ran deep. That was an understatement. A diving pool was deep. The narrow swathe Annihilator had carved into the land might as well be a cross section of the Grand Canyon. The walls were glowing molten red all the way down.

On her hands and knees, Alyssa crawled away from the pit, not trusting her legs to keep her upright at the moment. A single gust of wind could send her careening to her death.

People were gathering, shouting and making noise. Alyssa paid no attention to them. The shifting shards of Empty Mirror surrounded her. They wouldn’t see. She just needed to get away. To get somewhere safe, where she could catch her breath. She had been expecting rubble, not to reshape the landscape to have an above-ground Mariana Trench.

What if there was a landslide to fill in the fresh hole? She could get caught in it. Or what if there had been a fault line? What if, what if, what if…

She pressed her back against a building, just glad that she hadn’t been aiming toward the stables or to the church. If she had accidentally killed Irulon or Kasita… Alyssa shuddered, wondering how many people had just had their existence wiped out. Though perhaps she had done them a favor, saving them from slow deaths by poison or starvation. She supposed that she could ask as soon as Tenebrael popped into being. Already, there were feathers floating through the air.

Except… not black feathers. Spotless white feathers flew through the air in a furious whirlwind. In the center of them all, an angel in a red dress hovered above the new canyon. She stared down, searching the ground, or what was left of the ground.

Alyssa tried to edge away behind the building. It probably wouldn’t help much against such a being, but the angel gave her as bad a feeling as being near the edge of that pit.

The second she moved a finger, burning red eyes locked on to her.

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Outpost

Cavernous Plots

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“Is it alright to let them go like that?” Alyssa said, lowering her binoculars as she lost sight of the guild knights. They were headed south, back the way they had come. Not because they were retreating back to the city, but because they wanted to give the little town an extensive berth as they made their way around it. Regardless of whether or not they truly had believed Alyssa, it was a fact that the angel had them spooked.

Which had probably been the angel’s intent all along. To scare away any threats to the village. As little as it was, it seemed like an awful lot of interaction with mortals for what Alyssa knew of angels. While Tenebrael wanted to interfere with mortals more than she was, it didn’t seem like she could. Iosefael hadn’t seemed to want to interact with anyone at all, aside from putting Alyssa back on Earth and killing her in the process. In fact, she had actively tried to get Alyssa to not go out and encounter anyone or anything else in this world.

This red-dressed angel clearly had different ideas.

“Their mission is important as well,” Irulon said. “And, above all else, they are mercenaries. Asking them to assist me out of the kindness of their hearts would be futile. I could offer to pay them, but it is highly frowned upon to accept requests that do not go through the guild’s headquarters. And if accepting my quest did anything to jeopardize their existing quest, there would be significant penalties enforced by the guild.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Indeed. Although, without you or me there, destroying the fairy commune may prove difficult for them. Dragonsfire potions or not. Still, I know my brother offered a significant amount merely to scout out the location.”

“Are they going to be alright going up against fairies? They won’t have any troubles being mind controlled, will they?”

“They were planning on leaving without us before we injected ourselves into their quest. This effectively has changed nothing at all except to give them company for a portion of their journey.”

“Unwanted company,” Alyssa mumbled, thinking back to Lumen.

“Hm. Possibly. One of the other reasons I did not attempt to bribe them. I doubt they would have done anything to me, but your pet mimic… Let’s just say that I’m surprised Kasita is still around. A spell like Annihilation would have destroyed her regardless of her illusory ability.”

“Ufu~ She would have needed to find me first. I was keeping a cautious eye on her the whole time. Her and the larger human. I didn’t like the idea of an unknown enchantment hitting me.”

“Lumen undoubtedly possesses several cards capable of detecting hidden monsters and objects. They are looking for a fairy commune, after all,” Irulon said without breaking stride at having the mimic literally pop out of nowhere.

Entirely unsurprised at Kasita’s sudden appearance as well, Alyssa just shook her head. “Poor Oz. He’d be depressed if he knew how little he is considered a threat.”

“He’s a threat. Just not to me.”

“I will refrain from contributing my opinion. Rather, I have a question that I did not wish to bring up in front of the others.” Irulon leaned back against the rock exterior of their cavernous shelter, illuminated by the sun high in the sky.

They had spent most of the day alternating between sleeping and discussing their plans. True to her mental promise, Alyssa had stayed awake for a full shift of watch, sitting just outside the cave with her eyes searching for any sign of movement on the horizon. It… had not been the most exciting thing she had done. More than once, she had reached for her phone with the thought of games or videos on her mind, but she had resisted the temptation. The others had trusted her to keep them safe, so she couldn’t betray that by getting distracted.

Kasita had helped keep her on task. The mimic had spent the entire time with her, mostly resting against the wall in silence. Once or twice, however, she had asked to see the images of the angel again. Alyssa had simply handed over her phone entirely, both thanks to renewed confidence in Tenebrael’s upgrades and because she trusted Kasita to be respectful. And just to get it out of her hands, letting her watch the horizon without distraction.

Irulon, on the other hand, had not taken a watch. Neither had she slept, which Alyssa had conflicted feelings about. She liked not having to go through the experience of waking the princess up again, but she worried that a lack of sleep might cause problems down the line. Yet the princess showed no sign of wishing to sleep at the moment.

Her eyes, violet right now, locked on to Alyssa.

Shifting slightly, feeling the sudden intensity, Alyssa waited for whatever Irulon was going to ask.

“You consider Tenebrael an angel, do you not?”

Alyssa opened her mouth without thinking. “Ye—” Partway through a very small word, she hesitated. Should she mention that? Too late now. Irulon nodded as if she had expected the answer.

“The physical similarities between the creature captured on your trinket and depictions of Tenebrael are difficult to ignore. Added to that, depictions of Tenebrael come from dying pilgrims whose words may or may not accurately reflect reality and should be taken with scrutiny.”

“That’s…” Alyssa sighed.

“You’ve seen her. She’s the one who brought you to this world. She’s the one who offered you a wish. A genie, you called Her?”

“She’s an angel.” There wasn’t much point in hiding it, was there? Irulon clearly put together enough of the puzzle to see the picture, even if it still had a few pieces missing. “She called herself as such, though the mythology of angels exists back on my world.”

“Plural.”

“Angels are considered… servants? Of a deity. Here, Tenebrael seems to have taken the place of that deity. But it’s all mythology back in my world. If anyone really has seen an angel, it would have been thousands of years before I was born. Everything left has been warped by time.” So she said, less because she believed the myths to be untrue and more because she really didn’t want to be accused of heresy. Framing everything as mythology was as good an excuse as any.

Irulon hummed, eyes flickering black and white for just a moment. “Why does she reveal herself to you? Talk with you? Approach you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I know why she talks to me. It’s because I can see her. But neither of us know why I can see her. She was surprised by it at first, but I doubt she’s thought about it all that much as of late.” It was the same as with Alyssa’s magic usage. When she had first stopped the fight between Tenebrael and Iosefael, Tenebrael had been surprised and spent all of five minutes poking and prodding to figure out why Spectral Chains had worked on angels. And then… she hadn’t done anything similar since. Tenebrael seemed far more concerned with Alyssa interacting with people than with the oddities that enabled that interaction.

“Hm. You really… aren’t lying. Are you?”

Raising an eyebrow, Alyssa shook her head. “No?”

“It’s just hard to believe. Hearing someone speak so candidly about Tenebrael is strange. I have an infinite amount of questions, yet I’m not sure I want to ask any. It feels… blasphemous.”

A chill ran down Alyssa’s spine. “I definitely do not intend to be blasphemous. I just… It’s—”

Irulon waved a hand across her chest. “I must show reverence. Yet if She chose to bring herself down to your level, you can hardly be blamed. Though I would recommend not advertising your conversations with too many who you don’t trust to share a similar mindset.” She shoved herself off the wall, pacing back and forth for a moment while looking at the ground. “Far more concerning is the idea that Tenebrael is a member of a species. Angels,” she said as if tasting the word. “Tenebrael has always just been Tenebrael. Nothing more, nothing less. Applying a species to her makes her sound like a common monster. Which would be blasphemous. I highly recommend against mentioning such a thing to anyone.”

“If it makes you feel better, from what I understand, Tenebrael is definitely the main overseer of this world. I don’t know if she was of my world, but it wouldn’t be wrong to consider her a deity here. The two non-Tenebrael angels I have seen are of a far lower rank than she is. I think the indicator is in their wings. Tenebrael has four. Iosefael and this red-dressed angel only have two.” Alyssa did not really want to mention that there were six-winged angels that Tenebrael had aspired to be at one point. Making her out to be the top angel felt less blasphemous. While Irulon had said that she shouldn’t worry about that, Alyssa still did.

Maybe some day, Irulon would learn the truth. For now, letting her believe that Tenebrael was the same deity that she always had been wasn’t going to hurt anything. It wasn’t like she could actually interact with Tenebrael regardless.

Irulon closed her eyes. Over the course of a full minute, she looked to Alyssa, opened her mouth, closed her mouth, and looked away at least five times. Eventually, she shook her head from side to side. “If Tenebrael presents Herself to me, I will consider it a sign that I may ask the questions I have on my mind. Until then, I will remain silent… except. One thing.” Her fingers, gloved in dragon hide, lightly brushed over her face. “Are the depictions of Her… accurate?”

Worried about her tattoos? It had to be. “The markings were instantly recognizable,” Alyssa said. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you. Not one hundred percent perfect, but considering that the only descriptions of Tenebrael came from people who were literally seconds away from dying, I’m surprised at how good they are.”

“Good. I don’t suppose, if She will allow it, that you capture Her on your trinket as you have done with this angel?”

“I’ll ask, I guess.” And if she saw Tenebrael casting any spells, Alyssa would definitely be snapping a picture as fast as she possibly could. Irulon had drawn out the entire pattern of the red-dressed angel’s spell and was in the process of trying to break it down into something she could understand. Alyssa couldn’t make heads of tails of any of it, but she also hadn’t been studying magic for most of her life. Angelic magic was almost certainly going to be the thing that got her back home and might also be the only thing that worked against angels. The more of it she could hand off to Irulon, the more likely her goals could be accomplished.

Learning the intricacies of magic herself might be a possibility. One that would require a significant investment of time. Back when she had heard about Lyria and the Observatorium, she had hoped to find a way home within a week. How foolish she had been back then. It was getting to the point where learning how to craft spells herself might actually be necessary. Especially with Irulon’s close call just the other night. She didn’t want anything to happen to the princess simply because Alyssa considered her a friend, but it warranted consideration with how dangerous this world could be. If something ended up happening to Irulon, Alyssa would be left… not alone. Kasita and Tzheitza, even Oz were still around. But magically, Alyssa would have nothing. No help. No knowledge.

When she got back to Lyria, maybe she would start learning magic. Though she wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. The Observatorium apparently required a bit of a tuition to get in and attend lectures. She had access to the library. The books she had found so far were more of indexes of existing spells rather than actual spell creation instructions. She might ask Irulon, but given how the princess hadn’t been all that excited about teaching her how to draw out a spell card, she probably wouldn’t be a great teacher.

It was something to look into.

For now, they had other goals. When Irulon didn’t say anything more on the subject of Tenebrael, Alyssa switched their topic to the current problem. “How are we going to raze this village? I don’t suppose you have a nice simple spell that will… I don’t know, take their village into some other world and leave it there permanently?”

Irulon still didn’t respond. Her eyes were vacantly staring, not quite seeing what was in front of her. It took Alyssa waving a hand in front of her face to get her blinking. She jerked her head, eyes meeting Alyssa’s. “Lost in thought,” she said with a slight shake. “You were saying…”

Alyssa pressed her lips together, in part wondering if she should even ask again. Destroying a village didn’t really sit well with her. Then again, she couldn’t imagine people willingly living out in the middle of a desert. She hadn’t even seen a source of water for them during her survey. It probably wasn’t actually a village, but rather, a military installation. A military installation that was planning to set an entire hive of ants on a city, undoubtedly decimating both. There might be a few civilians here, but they needed to be stopped.

Besides, even if she said nothing, Irulon wouldn’t forget about her plan for revenge forever. “Raze the village,” Alyssa said, putting it simply. “How?”

“Right. A tricky question not knowing the full capabilities or just how far this angel will go to protect the Juno Federation. I have several ideas… Bring up your captured maps of their village layout?”

Alyssa hesitated, thinking for a second. “They’re pictures. I took pictures of their village. I’ll show you the pictures. If the pictures move, they’re called videos. Pictures and videos.” Despite her complaints, Alyssa pulled out her phone and switched to the first few images. “This is a Juno Federation outpost, right? I just want to be sure that we’re not about to kill a bunch of people who are just living out here.”

“These banners?” Irulon said, finger hovering just above the glass. “The crossed swords and aegis? It is the emblem of Juno authority. This is a sanctioned outpost. Military. Not civilian.” She hummed, looking at the images, flipping through them occasionally. After examining each image once, she hit one of the ones of the angel. For a moment, she hesitated. That hesitation turned to a scowl. “I have our priority targets.”

She flipped the phone back to one of the smaller buildings that Alyssa had identified as a home. “This is a storehouse. Food and other such supplies.”

“How can you tell?”

“A lack of windows indicates that it wasn’t intended for habitation. A discoloration of dirt around the entrance likely comes from excavation, digging deep to help keep the food cool and away from the desert heat.”

Discoloration? The image quality was terrible. Looking through the binoculars really did a number on what otherwise would have been a great view. But Irulon was far more observant than she was, so she would trust her on this.

Irulon changed the picture to another one. This one obviously not a home. “The stables are our second target. Removing their ability to flee and their food stores will effectively neutralize the outpost in the short term. Obviously, reinforcements can fix both, but we should be able to eliminate the rest over the course of a week, well before any help will arrive. A week of no food will also weaken and starve the occupants.”

“Starvation?” Kasita said. “That seems a lot slower than I was expecting raze to imply.”

“Oh no, mimic. That’s merely for demoralization. These people nearly killed me. While I do not fear Tenebrael’s embrace, I am not quite ready to meet her just yet.” Her eyes flicked to Alyssa. “Well, not for that purpose. If she wishes to appear before me and discuss the intricacies of magic or bring me to another world, I will greet her with a smile.” Turning back to Kasita, she grinned. “No. These people will be made to fear. They will regret existence itself. I have tasks for both of you, if you are willing to assist me.”

“In killing humans who use monsters to carry out their dirty work? I can’t agree fast enough.”

Alyssa frowned, giving Kasita a mild glare. The mimic had mentioned not liking humans before, so she wasn’t too surprised at taking the opportunity to enact some violence. She was surprised at the hypocrisy. Wasn’t this just Irulon’s dirty work?

“The difference,” Kasita said knowingly, smiling with one finger in the air as if to make a point, “is that I am willingly agreeing to this. Capturing a fairy and forcing it to force others to suicide on human swords is perhaps more reprehensible than what had been going on in the basement of the Waterhole. At least those women had their wills, beaten down and broken though they were.”

“Alyssa, you will help as well, won’t you?”

“I came all the way out here,” she said with a sigh.

“You came with the sole intention of rescuing Oxart. That has been done. I know you are… averse to killing.”

“Just promise me this: If there are children, they will be spared. And anyone who surrenders.”

“Acceptable. Once night falls, we will begin. Until then, I have a few spells to create and a plan to go over with the two of you.” She turned back to the cave they had been staying in, waving a beckoning hand. “And something I wish to test involving Kasita’s capabilities.”

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Outpost

Solid Ground

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Solid ground! Oh how Alyssa loved solid, unmoving, nearby ground. Being down on the ground gave her a chance to actually concentrate without occasionally glancing down and losing all train of thought. And yet, she hadn’t a clue what to think.

An angel! Why was there an angel? Did Tenebrael know about this one? She had to, right? Except… Tenebrael had acted surprised when Alyssa had first mentioned that Iosefael had followed her around. Tenebrael was not omniscient. What was it she had mentioned? Astral Authority? Was this angel part of that? They were planning on destroying this world if they found out about Tenebrael… weren’t they?

At the very least, this angel’s association with the Society of the Burning Shadow meant that she wanted to destroy Tenebrael. As much as she didn’t like Tenebrael, Alyssa really wasn’t sold on other angels being better. Iosefael had all but admitted that they intended to get her killed, even if the angels couldn’t do it themselves. And that was the one good thing about all this. That angel couldn’t hurt her or any other human. Not directly, at least. Giving the Society of the Burning Shadow Divine Inspiration? That was almost certainly fair game.

She needed someone to die nearby. Or for Tenebrael to show up for her chat sooner rather than later.

“This is what attacked us?” Oz said, pointing down at the phone.

Although Irulon had a great many questions after Alyssa had miraculously managed to not fall during Izsha’s descent, she had elected to retrieve the guild before showing any of the pictures she had taken. And before they could run too far off. Partially to get her thoughts together and partially to avoid having to explain things multiple times, if she indeed had to explain anything. For now, she was keeping silent, letting them come to their own conclusions without her bias added in. From Kasita and Tzheitza, Alyssa knew that nobody here had heard of angels before. That didn’t necessarily mean that angels were an unknown species, only that they called them something different.

“How did she get up there?” Oz asked. He looked up and over as if the cross was still in view. It wasn’t. Nothing but a cave ceiling was. They had moved a fair distance away, not wanting anyone from the little town to come across them while they discussed what had happened.

Lumen rolled her eyes. “The wings, idiot. I’m sure they’re not for show.”

“I meant, how did she get up there without us noticing? She’s not exactly trying to hide but I didn’t see her at all. And what is she? Some kind of deformed harpy? Why arms?”

Apparently angels were unknown, both in name and in form.

Catal leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the image. Most of the pictures Alyssa had taken were a bit blurry, but this was one of the best. The angel had her arm outstretched with the magic circle fully formed. It was just before the spell had gone off. “A new species,” he said softly. “I’ve memorized the guild’s monster repository. There is passing resemblance to harpies, but harpies do not have arms and hands. There are no other winged creatures that look this human. We should prepare to make a report on it. Unless the royal family has information on them?”

Irulon’s head barely twitched in a negative shake. Her eyes were black and white, spinning as fast as ever. Since Alyssa first pulled up the images, the princess hadn’t once blinked. “Show the other portrait,” she said, voice soft. “The one just before this.”

Alyssa swiped her thumb across the screen, going back to the picture before. The spell wasn’t fully formed in this one, but the shot was a little wider, giving a better view of the partial magic circle.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“You mean the part where she’s drawing out a spell in the air?” Lumen said with a scoff. “Or that a monster is drawing what looks like human magic? The Juno Federation has a lot to answer for if they’ve been spreading magical secrets among monsters.”

Alyssa did not miss the way Lumen glanced in her direction while speaking. She tried to put it out of her mind, focusing on Irulon. It was the princess who Alyssa most wanted to hear speak and so far, she hadn’t heard much. Irulon was not doing the thing where she talked aloud while thinking, unfortunately. If she was going to start talking now, Alyssa wanted to listen.

“Aside from that,” Irulon said. “The spell itself. Look at it. Tell me that isn’t the most overly complex diagram you’ve ever seen. And it’s huge, encompassing a total space equivalent to twelve by twelve standard spell cards.” She shook her head, managing to keep her eyes on the phone at the same time. “If the objective was to destroy your hiding spot, I could have managed the same with a single Fractal spell, which are complex spells, true, but far more compact. No human could have cast this. Dragons are estimated to be magically equivalent to Rank Nine and I doubt even one of them could have done so. This might just be Rank Ten magic, all to destroy a bit of rock.”

“Rank Ten? You’re serious? Princess Irulon, if I may be so blunt, your Fractal magic research has clearly addled your mind. I’ve heard what has come of those who have researched such magic and you are definitely following in their footsteps.”

“Surely you aren’t so ignorant as to believe that nothing out there could surpass Rank Nine? It must be unimaginably sad to have such a shriveled imagination. I believe that all Monster Lords are on par with the mythical Rank Ten. A few might even surpass that.”

“Surpass Rank Ten? You truly are insane.”

“Enlightened, Lumen. Just enlightened. And I would like to be more enlightened,” she said, turning away from her fellow arcanist. “So tell me, what is this creature?”

“Well,” Catal started. “Anytime the guild runs into a new monster type, there are a number of elements to take note of. From physical description to abilities to sexual dimorphism if—”

“Thank you, Catal, but I was inquiring of Alyssa.”

Three heads turned to face her with a variety of expression, from Lumen’s scowl to the thoughtful furrowed brows of Catal. Kasita and Irulon had already been looking in her direction. Despite having expected the question, Alyssa still hesitated under their glances, not sure exactly what to tell them all.

“You know these creatures?” Catal said, giving her a bit of prompting. “Do they have a name?”

“A name. Lovely. That tells us so much,” Lumen said, sarcasm dripping from her words.

Despite Lumen’s dismissal, a name was something she could jump off. A starting point. “Angels. My people call them angels. They were thought to be mythological… still are, really. I might be the first person to have seen one in thousands of years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell anyone about it. The one I saw got a little mad at me for… uh, seeing her. She sent me here before I saw anyone else from my home.”

“Capabilities, Alyssa?” Irulon’s eyes were dancing, all lit up. She definitely found all this to be fascinating. How much was because she was finding out more about where Alyssa came from and how she got here? How much was about a new species? And how much of her excitement was because she realized that Tenebrael might just be one of these angels.

It almost surprised Alyssa that none of the others jumped to that conclusion upon seeing the picture. Tenebrael had black wings and four of them, true, but they were both humans with wings. Then again, she could also see how such a thought wouldn’t cross their minds. It was exactly the same situation Alyssa would be in if she found some old guy in a toga performing magic tricks. No matter how amazing those tricks were, she would never consider the possibility that he might be Zeus.

But their capabilities? “I don’t even know if there is a limit to what they can do,” Alyssa said after a moment. Lumen scoffed, but Alyssa ignored it. “I do know that they cannot normally be perceived or interacted with in any way by us mortals. They are invisible and intangible, which is why you didn’t notice her on top of that church. Strangely, they are not omnipotent. At least, they aren’t omniscient, which I believe is a requirement for omnipotence.”

“We’re supposed to believe this drivel?” Lumen shook her head. “What even is this trinket? How do we know this isn’t a ruse.”

“I have inspected the capabilities of the trinket and trust that it is accurate in its depictions. And I believe Alyssa to be telling the truth as far as she knows it, though I would ask that you stick to events and situations that you have directly observed. I gather that your feelings of omnipotence come from your mythology rather than your experience. Try to keep the two separate.”

Alyssa nodded at Irulon. Experiences. Right. Alyssa started telling them about everything she could remember of her experiences with Tenebrael, obviously leaving out the part of Tenebrael actually being one of these angels and the whole soul consumption aspect. She mentioned their teleportation abilities, the fight between Iosefael and Tenebrael and how they wound up destroying several buildings near the wall. “The one angel that has been interacting with me told me precisely when you would have died,” Alyssa said to Irulon. “The time she told me was fifteen minutes after your stasis would have run out naturally. She… asked if I would save your life.”

As soon as the words were out of Alyssa’s mouth, she regretted phrasing it like that. If Irulon suspected that Tenebrael was an angel, she would probably take that as her deity watching over her. If she didn’t suspect, she would take it as an impossibly powerful being watching out for her. Either way, a grin spread across her face at being explicitly mentioned.

Moving on as quickly as she could, Alyssa held out her phone. “Normally, these devices are relatively fragile and will only last continuously for a few hours. See how thin it is? It’s very flimsy. But I asked her if she would make this indestructible. She did.”

“Now that is something we can test,” Lumen said immediately, drawing a card from somewhere on her person with a smile.

Alyssa hesitated, pulling the phone closer protectively. It really wasn’t something she wanted to test. Though, she supposed that she had already done so to a degree. Just a half hour ago, she had dropped it from that pillar Izsha had climbed. Calling it to her hand had worked and it didn’t even have a single scratch on it. It was invulnerable. Right?

And it might shut Lumen up for a moment. She interrupted with a scoff at the very least every time Alyssa mentioned something Tenebrael had done.

“Alright.” Alyssa closed her eyes and took a breath. It would be fine. Tenebrael hadn’t lied about anything so far, even if Alyssa didn’t like what she had to say. Letting out her breath, she tossed the phone to the ground.

Lumen’s eyes practically glowed. “Stand back,” she said, making Alyssa wince. Once everyone was well clear of the poor phone, she threw the card into the air. It spun around, hovering directly above the phone with the magic circle aiming downward. “Annihilator,” she intoned.

Alyssa winced again, this time from the light. It wasn’t quite as bright as an angel’s halo, but she still had to shield her eyes. A heat crashed into her arms. Considering she was still wearing dragon scales, the fact that she could feel it on her arms made her extremely glad that she had put them in front of her face. Thankfully, it only lasted a moment. When Alyssa blinked the spots from her eyes enough to see, she found herself standing in front of a narrow crater at least five feet deep. The rock had turned from dusty brown to a glowing orange with a glossy sheen down to the very depths.

It was a good thing they had moved to a cave a fair distance from the town. If they had just been down on the other side of the hill, Lumen’s spell would have been as good as a mile-high neon advertisement. A beacon to everyone that wanted to hunt them. Alyssa glanced back for a moment, double checking that the cave entrance wasn’t anywhere in sight. It was a fairly deep hole in the side of a butte, so she doubted anyone would have seen anything.

Approaching the fresh pit, Alyssa leaned over the edge, pinching her nose. Molten rock did not smell the most pleasant, though she had smelled worse by far. It smelled far more… alive than Alyssa would have expected from rock. Hopefully it wasn’t anything toxic. The heat coming from the inside was intense. Still hot even after a few moments passed. How any of them had managed to avoid third degree burns from proximity was something likely only explainable through magic. But she could see her phone. Right on top of the slowly cooling rock, her phone sat, looking just as good as the day she had bought it. Better, even. Holding out a hand, it disappeared from the pit and reappeared at her fingertips. Turning it on, Alyssa quickly made sure that it did indeed still work. “Phew.”

Looking away from her phone, she found Lumen scowling. All Alyssa could do was shrug. Destroying five feet of rock sure was a good test for her phone’s tenacity. That was one load off her mind.

“These angels certainly sound impressive,” Lumen said, crossing her hands over her chest. “But if so, why let us go? Surely it could have destroyed us easily with that spell if their powers are so great.”

Alyssa nodded. “Yeah. The one that sent me here wanted to kill me at the time, I’m almost certain. But she mentioned something to me. Apparently angels cannot harm humans.”

“Cannot or will not?” Irulon asked.

“I… assume will not. I really don’t know. I do know that there is some sort of Astral Authority of angels that is supposed to keep them in line, but I also know that it doesn’t do a very good job of it. Something about leadership problems at the moment.”

“Then we should assume that they can hurt us, though may be reluctant to.”

“I suppose. But it is most likely why you three,” Alyssa paused, looking between Oz, Lumen, and Catal, “were merely sent running instead of worse.”

A brief moment of silence followed. Alyssa couldn’t help but notice Oz shiver slightly. Although somewhat panicked at the thought of facing a high number of trolls, he had faced the ones he had fought that night with a calm decorum that really made Alyssa believe that he was a veteran fighter. And she still believed that, even if Irulon was less than impressed with him. Still, it was probably somewhat unnerving to find out that he could have died without any way of fighting back first.

On the other hand, Lumen was shaking her head. Did she not believe anything that she was hearing? Her frequent scoffs and haughty attitude lent credence to that. Not to mention her obvious dislike of both Irulon and Alyssa. But surely she had to realize that something destroyed the terrain. Much more effectively than she had, at that. Maybe she was just hiding her insecurity over the situation using her attitude.

Catal, Alyssa knew the least of the three. She had met him at the exact same time as Lumen, but he didn’t talk much, and when he did, it was soft spoken. It gave her the impression that he was the thoughtful type. The way he was stroking his bushy mustache with furrowed brows only reinforced Alyssa’s opinion of him.

He was the one to break the moment of silence, first looking at Alyssa, then Irulon, then his two companions. “So what do we do about this angel? We aren’t even at the fairy commune and we’ve already run into this monster.”

“If it cannot hurt us, we simply ignore it as we go about our business. There were banners inside the town with the emblem of the Juno Federation. We’ll mark this on the map for our report and continue to the commune.”

“There are things worse than death, Lumen,” Irulon said. “It would not be wise to ignore this as a threat.”

“Of course we’re not going to ignore it. But we’re not going near that place again. We’re not equipped to fight off a whole army, which that town likely holds based on our brief reconnaissance.”

“Are we not?” Irulon said, smiling a smile that sent a small shiver down Alyssa’s spine.

“Besides that,” Alyssa said, trying to change the topic, “until now, I believed that I was the only one to know about angels in this world. But if the Society of the Burning Shadow is also aware of them, it is highly likely that this angel informed them of our presence here. Even if the angel does not interact with the Society, that light when the rock was destroyed will have alerted everyone, not to mention the rock being destroyed. I doubt we’ll be able to simply walk up to that town again.”

“Your trinket captured the state of the compound as it was before the angel made its presence known?”

Alyssa blinked, mind taking an extra second to process what Irulon had said. “I took pictures of the buildings and the town, if that’s what you mean.”

“Excellent. Morning isn’t far off. We will make camp here. This will give us time to plan as well as a chance for them to lower their undoubtedly heightened alert status.”

Oz held up a finger. “I don’t mind camping for the day, but Princess Irulon, Lumen is right. We are being paid to scout with a side objective of destroying a fairy commune. We have scouted a Juno Federation outpost. But entering it, and while it’s under the protection of a monster none has ever heard of before, definitely does not fall under our quest’s parameters. The five dragonsfire orbs I had to purchase from Tzheitza are only enough for the fairy commune. We don’t have spares to take out this place and we aren’t being paid to do so either.”

“If you wish to continue with your original mission, that is acceptable. However, the Society of the Burning Shadow clearly has an operation here and I will not be leaving until their operations are sufficiently disrupted.”

“How sufficient is sufficiently disrupted?”

Irulon grinned, flashing as many teeth as she could possibly manage. “The Society of the Burning Shadow nearly killed me. Worse, they’ve wounded my pride and made me look weak in front of someone whose opinion of me I did not wish to lower.” She did not look in Alyssa’s direction as she spoke, but who else could she have been talking about. Tess? “To repay their slight against me?

“I intend to raze this military compound to the ground along with every inhabitant.”

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Outpost

Height

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“Is she going to be alright getting back to the city on her own?” Alyssa asked, watching as the captain rode off in the rough direction of where they had come from not long before. After getting a bit of food into her, Oxart grew much more steady and far more focused on returning to the city. Even if she had wanted to, Alyssa doubted that she could have stopped her. Well, not really. Spectral Chains could leash angels and gaunts. The captain wouldn’t have stood a chance against that.

But Alyssa wasn’t about to chain someone up for no good reason.

“The high ranking city guardsmen are often chosen by nepotism or societal status. That isn’t to say that they are not capable of performing their duties. A captain is generally needed for organizational and administrative matters rather than front-line combat—that is what the soldiers are for. However, though I’ve only met her for the first time a short while ago, I have a high opinion of her personal combative skills. The way her eyes bounced from person to person, estimating the threat each posed while searching for anything she could use as a weapon was particularly telling. She didn’t panic upon waking up. Considering what happened to her, that is probably the most surprising thing.”

“Huh. I didn’t notice.”

“You are not the most observant person I’ve met,” Irulon said.

Alyssa frowned, but didn’t say anything until she noticed some movement in the corner of her eye. “Why are you nodding your head?”

Kasita shrugged. “Just something I’ve noticed as well. Like that time you left me behind in the Taker’s dungeons. I was sitting right there, you know.”

“I said I was sorry,” Alyssa sighed. She was about ninety percent sure that Kasita was joking around, but in the event that that wasn’t the case, she did feel a need to reassure the mimic. “And I grabbed you after using the same spell on Oxart, so at least I learn from my mistakes.”

“Hm.” Aside from that slight grunt, Irulon said nothing as she climbed on the back of Musca. “The guild knights are likely ahead of us by this point. We should catch up before they run across something troublesome.”

“I’m sure the gigantic mirrored bubble would have stopped them,” Alyssa said with only a mild note of sarcasm. Irulon had taken it down only minutes before. The mirrored wall shattered into small shards, as many Fractal spells did, before dissipating. The outside world hadn’t changed at all. If not for Irulon’s comment just now, she might have thought that time had stopped outside, but that seemed almost too much for a spell. At least a Rank Six spell. Tenebrael’s magic obviously could do it.

“From the outside, they would not have noticed anything. This section of the world had been shunted into an alternate, as far as I understand the spell, anyway.”

“We were in a different world?” Alyssa asked, raising an eyebrow. Earth? No. It couldn’t be. If Irulon had ever used that spell before, someone would surely have noticed the giant silver bubble. Even in an uninhabited area, satellites were constantly flying about, taking pictures.

How many worlds were there? Tenebrael was clearly in charge of this one. Who was in charge of Earth? Maybe she should have asked a few questions of Tenebrael when she showed up to collect the souls of the Society members. Even now, she still hadn’t decided on what she wanted to ask of the angel. It didn’t help that she didn’t know the exact limits of what Tenebrael could do and was willing to do. Going home was obviously out.

A question to ask or a task to accomplish. Those had been Tenebrael’s exact words. Questions probably wouldn’t be good to use on this particular offer. Tenebrael often answered questions. In fact, Alyssa was having a hard time coming up with something that she had asked that Tenebrael had not given an answer to. In terms of information, anyway. The only things she had denied were during her experiment with Irulon.

A task then? What did Alyssa want that Tenebrael could accomplish? She couldn’t wish the Taker dead because Tenebrael couldn’t kill people. Could she wish the Taker bound and chained in front of her? Possibly, but would that be a good use of a wish? Maybe she should wish for an endless supply of money or magical knowledge and ability that would make even Irulon envious.

Could Tenebrael do something else? Something more esoteric? Money and magic might be nice and the latter might even lead to a way back home, but neither would be any good if she wound up with a dagger in her back thanks to the Taker. Could Tenebrael offer invulnerability? Like super powers? Turning into Superman would solve a lot of problems.

Perhaps she was wrong in treating this like a genie’s wish entirely. A task that Tenebrael could complete did not necessarily equate to granting Alyssa some boon. But what could an angel possibly do that Alyssa would want done.

Maybe that was it. She should ask for a full dossier on what exactly angels were, their capabilities, numbers, and so on and so forth.

As she hooked a foot into the stirrup and swung her leg over Izsha’s back, Alyssa looked over at Irulon. “Have you thought more about that question I asked you?”

“The being of unimaginable power offering to grant a request?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Not particularly. Unless this being comes to offer me power and knowledge, I don’t have much to say about it. Now, if you want to ask for Her to show Herself to me, I would not object in the slightest.”

That made Alyssa smile. Maybe she should. Get Irulon to see the one she worshiped for what Tenebrael truly was. Then again, Tenebrael would probably stat putting on airs of being the god she pretended to be. Surely Irulon’s analytical abilities would reveal that to be a farce. Still, that might be an option. It would give Irulon more information even if she still viewed Tenebrael as a deity. That might help with getting home.

Something to keep in mind.

Holding out a hand to Kasita, Alyssa raised her eyebrows as the mimic took it without turning to a rock, or whatever form she wanted to ride along in. She nestled into the saddle just behind Alyssa, remaining fully human. The saddle was only designed for one person, so it should have been uncomfortable. Kasita’s nearly weightless body was hardly noticeable in reality. She wrapped her arms around Alyssa, feeling more like a winter coat than a person.

“You’re not going to go floating off as soon as we start moving, are you?”

“I have enough control over myself to stop that. But I know what I would wish for.”

“You were listening?”

“Ufu~ Of course! And I would ask for immortality. Indefinite longevity. Unending existence. Re—”

“Foolish,” Irulon said with a sad shake of her head. “Musca, Izsha, locate the guild knights’ scents, if possible. Otherwise continue heading in the direction the Society members had been.”

The two draken immediately started sniffing about. They walked around, but not with the same fervent rush that they had been running with while chasing after Oxart’s captors. It was a nice change of pace and removed the worry that Izsha might forget and let her fall right off her back again. Though really, both times Alyssa had fallen had not been the draken’s fault. The first had been Tenebrael, the second had been some attack knocking her off.

“Not all of us yearn for Tenebrael’s embrace,” Kasita called out. She wasn’t shouting—Irulon and Musca weren’t far enough away, though they had moved a bit to smell around—but she was definitely not happy. Irulon’s eyes darkened as she glanced in Kasita’s direction. They didn’t turn black and white, she merely glowered. But Kasita was undaunted. “Why is my wish foolish? Because I want some monster to ferry away whatever my soul is to wherever she wants? I don’t like the idea of another having that much control over me. I’d rather live forever.”

Irulon pressed her lips together, holding her glare for a moment longer. “I’ll ignore your blasphemy on account of you being a monster, being taught differently than proper humans. However, even assuming your fear of Tenebrael is justified, immortality is a foolish wish. You picture being young and healthy for eternity. But that won’t be the case. Death has the singular benefit of cutting short suffering. Even if you never fall ill, you will eventually become trapped.

“Perhaps a cave collapses on you, burying you under a mountain’s worth of rock. Perhaps you fall into a bog. Unable to escape from the sticky tar, you’ll slowly sink to the bottom where you’ll lie for eternity. Or worse, what if you are captured by some of your own kind, wanting to learn your secrets? Or fall into the Underworld? Suffering at the hands of demons with no possible escape. It may not happen in your first year of immortality. Perhaps not even in your hundredth. But when you live forever, you have an infinite amount of time to find yourself in a less than ideal situation. And it only takes once to ruin the rest of eternity.”

Without a single verbal command from Irulon, Musca turned and took off at a moderate jaunt, heading in the same direction that the Society of the Burning Shadow had been headed before the mirrored dome had interrupted them. Izsha was a little slow on the uptake, leaving a sizable gap between the two draken and making no effort to close that gap despite obviously having the ability to do so, effectively cutting off further communication.

Alyssa frowned at their actions, wondering if the distance had been intentional and, if so, on whose part? Irulon or the draken?

Probably for the best. Kasita slumped slightly, resting her chin on Alyssa’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but she did let out a deep sigh that said more than enough on its own.

“Sorry,” Alyssa said, feeling somewhat lame about her response, but also feeling like she should say something. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much to say that might make Kasita feel better. Irulon had a fairly convincing argument against immortality. Probably invulnerability and other derivatives as well.

“It’s fine,” Kasita said after a moment of silence. “Irulon is right. Not necessarily about immortality, but about the fact that this isn’t my wish.”

Alyssa winced at that. “Sorry,” she said, a little quieter. “If it makes it any better, I doubt immortality is a possibility. Even if Tenebrael can do something like that, she probably won’t. Death is kind of her thing, you know?”

“Frustrating.”

“Yep. That could be Tenebrael’s middle name.”

“So what are you going to ask for?”

Alyssa started to shrug, but stopped herself, not wanting to throw Kasita off or disturb her from her shoulder. “I don’t know at all. I’ve seen her since then, popping up to steal the souls of those people we killed, but… I didn’t have anything to say so I didn’t call her over. The things I want to ask for, I have a strong feeling that she will deny. Like going home. If I ask for something she decides she doesn’t want to give, I could easily see her deciding to give me nothing at all. As I’ve said before, Tenebrael is kind of a bitch.”

“Should you really be saying that about someone prepared to grant you a wish? Won’t she take offense and reject whatever you ask for regardless of what it is?”

“Doubt it. She thinks I’m special because I ignore whatever plan the angels have, which she wishes she could do. Not to mention, I’ve called her worse to her face.” Probably. A demon was worse than a bitch, right? To an angel, at least. “I get the impression that she is fairly unflappable, as expected of an ancient being of unrivaled power who has ‘seen it all’ already.” Though, maybe she could dial it back. While angels might not be able to harm humans, Tenebrael could sure be a lot more annoying than she was now. Or Tenebrael might decide to ignore Alyssa entirely, which might be worse overall.

“Just be careful. I’d be mildly upset if you disappeared.”

“Thanks for the sentiment, though your worries are probably unnecessary. Angels cannot harm people.”

“According to Tenebrael?”

“Well… yes. But I don’t think she was lying.”

Kasita let out a thoughtful hum, falling silent after.

It was a nice sort of silence. Despite being a monster, Kasita was one of the few people she had met that she felt comfortable around. Alyssa found herself intimidated to some degree by most everyone else. Especially Irulon and, to a far lesser extent, Tzheitza. Oz wasn’t so bad, but things were obviously a bit awkward as of late. Of course, she hadn’t really spent much time around him in the first place. He tended to find excuses to get away from Tzheitza or work that he wasn’t being paid for.

With the lull in conversation, Izsha started picking up the pace. If there was any doubt about the draken being intelligent, that right there removed it. Following orders was one thing. A dog could follow some simple orders with proper training. But taking conversational cues and understanding when a conversation had ended required heightened ability to comprehend and reason.

Though, now Alyssa wondered if she should have said anything at all. She and Kasita had both mentioned Tenebrael by name. The draken did not seem to be able to talk, but they could be obfuscating their abilities for whatever reason. As much as Irulon probably suspected at this point, Alyssa wasn’t sure that she wanted to outright confirm that she had frequent chats with the effective deity of this world. If Izsha could tell her… Who knew what might end up happening.

Probably a lot of questions. And Alyssa knew very little about Tenebrael despite their interactions.

A dossier on angels might actually be the best thing to ask for. The more she thought about it, the more that seemed to be the case.

Izsha slowed down as she neared Musca and Irulon. Not a whole lot. The princess had been traveling much faster than Izsha had before trying to catch up, though nowhere near the draken’s top speed. It was just enough to match their pace.

Irulon didn’t say anything or even turn toward Alyssa. Was she actually mad about Kasita? Hopefully not. Things were awkward enough with Oz and his companions. And with Oxart, though she wasn’t present. Having Irulon acting all cold would just be unpleasant.

“Any sign of the guild?” Alyssa asked, trying to break the ice.

“Musca caught a scent. They’re somewhere ahead of us. The draken will be able to catch up, though I do hope they have not gone too far.”

“You did tell them to ride as hard as they could to back us up… and then you locked them out of the fight with that dome.”

“Hm. I suppose I could have used a different spell. But I saw an opportunity to prevent any from escaping in the confusion and disable the lead rider at the same time. I stand by my decision in the end… Do you see anything through your trinket?”

That was a question that Alyssa could answer. She pulled out her binoculars, taking care to not elbow Kasita off her back with her movements, and started scanning the horizon once again. Starting at the left, she swept to the right before returning to her starting spot. Not seeing anything interesting, she started looking over the land closer to her. “Don’t see them. Should there be tracks or anything?”

“The ground up ahead is much harder than behind us. More rock than dirt.”

“Well, I hope Musca and Izsha have something then, because I—” Alyssa paused, frowning. Something was out there. A narrow pillar rising above a slope in the terrain. It wasn’t another ant hive column of rock. Those pillars had been lumpy and irregular. This was a straight rectangular pillar.

“What is it? What do you see?”

“Not sure. Might just be an odd tree.” Getting closer to the hill was making more of it drop below the horizon. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see any of it until they crested the hill. Getting a bad feeling about it, Alyssa pulled away from the binoculars and started looking around. “Izsha, do you think you could climb on top of that tower of rock without throwing me off?” Alyssa asked, pointing at another of the rock formations. That should give enough of a vantage to see without having to actually get closer.

Izsha turned its head, giving Alyssa the eye. Apparently taking that as a challenge, the draken charged off in the direction Alyssa had pointed. Gritting her teeth, she leaned forward and grabbed on to Izsha’s neck again, wondering why she ever said anything at all. Would it have been that much trouble just to wait for the hill? Probably not.

Claws dug into the stone as Izsha jumped and landed halfway up the suddenly narrow-looking tower of rock. Izsha’s muscles coiled and released, springing her straight upward. As the safety of the ground got further and further away, Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut.

Bad idea.

Very bad idea.

Her arms squeezed tighter, uncaring of the sharp scales pressing into her. If she cut her face, so be it, but if she fell… Alyssa peeked one eye open. Her stomach tightened. Just how tall is this stupid rock? she mentally screamed. It hadn’t looked quite so high from the ground.

Keeping her eyes firmly shut and her hands locked around Izsha, Alyssa held on for dear life until the ride stopped moving. Even then, she kept utterly still until she was certain that there would be no more jumps. Only then did she chance a look.

Immediately, Alyssa closed her eyes again. Sweat welled up in the palms of her hands. And on her back, and face, and armpits, and feet… Her head swam with a sudden lightheaded sensation. The only thing keeping her from toppling off Izsha’s back was her vice grip around the draken’s neck.

Izsha had two feet down on a narrow pillar of rock, barely large enough to hold one and a half of its feet. It was steady, even if Alyssa wasn’t, but that could all change with the slightest shift in weight. They would all topple a hundred miles to the rocky ground below.

“H-How do we get back down without killing ourselves?”

The draken looked back. Izsha’s slit pupils met Alyssa. Aside from a small huff, Izsha didn’t do a thing, yet Alyssa got the distinct sensation that she was being made fun of. And she didn’t care in the slightest. The draken could laugh all it wanted so long as it got them down to the ground.

“Didn’t you want to look through your binoculars?”

Alyssa jumped at the voice in her ear, making her stomach clench tighter as she crushed Izsha’s neck in her grip.

“N-No. Not really.”

“But it looks like there’s a building over there. Made of wood and stone with a big cross of wood set atop it. And several other smaller buildings arrayed around it.”

“Cross?”

Against her better judgment, Alyssa looked up. Strangely enough, looking out over the landscape wasn’t nearly as bad as looking straight down. She actually managed to breathe a little, calming herself down. And Kasita was right. There was a… church down there. Not like Tenebrael’s cathedral in Teneville, which was full of Gothic architecture and flying buttresses and sharp spires, but like a simple church made mostly from the same orange-brown stone that littered the desert. It had a longer building, single story, that might have been a congregation hall. On one end was a square tower. Not a very high one, maybe twice the height of the hall. Atop that, a simple wooden cross jutted high into the sky.

The cross was the strangest part. Since coming to this world, Alyssa hadn’t seen a single sign of Christian iconography. No crosses, no Virgin Marys, not even any halos despite Tenebrael wearing one on occasion. All images that referred to Tenebrael tended to do so with her facial tattoos or her wings.

To find what could easily have been a modest Catholic church out in the middle of nowhere in this world… it had to mean something. It almost certainly was the destination of the Society of the Burning Shadow’s recently deceased. Which meant that it would not be a friendly, welcoming place.

Feeling a little more steady—Izsha hadn’t moved a muscle since its little laugh—Alyssa pulled out both her phone and her binoculars. Pressing the camera lens right up to one of the binocular’s eyepieces, she adjusted the angle a bit until she was happy with the result. Then, she started taking pictures. Irulon hadn’t followed her up the rock pillar. She was down below—which Alyssa was both trying to not think about and was quite thankful for given how little space there was up here—so having something to show her might be advantageous. There were several other buildings near the little church, more like single-room homes than anything else. The place was like a little village. It even had a wall around it… partially. It looked like it was still under construction.

Maybe Irulon could use her analytical abilities to make something useful of the pictures. The images weren’t the best. The darkness didn’t help with that, but there was enough light down there to get something on screen. In front of the church, a few banners had been erected. Embroidered cloth containing images of swords and a shield. She snapped a few pictures of those too, thinking that the symbols would mean something to Irulon.

Alyssa was just about ready to put away her phone and go back to dreading the idea of descending the rock tower when a blinding light flooded the little town. Wincing and throwing up an arm to block the sudden light, she willed the night vision spell to end. Even that didn’t help much. It was still too bright.

“What’s wrong?”

Not daring to turn around to Kasita, Alyssa squinted, trying to see just what had happened. It was like the sun had risen, but only for the little valley the church occupied. Taking advantage of the increased light, Alyssa started snapping much better pictures. As she looked back to the cross through her binocular-enhanced camera, her heart caught in her throat.

Someone was standing on the very top point of the cross, looking down at the ground toward a much smaller rock formation right on the precipice of the town. Not just any regular person, either. The person had wings. One pair of feathered wings.

An angel.

Not a familiar one. Tenebrael had two pairs of obsidian black wings. Iosefael had a single pair of golden-white wings. This one had wings white as fresh snow.

Two of these things were bad enough. Three? And this one standing on top of a building almost certainly associated with a group that despised Tenebrael? Alyssa started snapping pictures as fast as her phone would allow, pleased to see that the angel showed up on the screen. A slight gasp from Kasita upon taking the first picture likely meant that Alyssa wasn’t the only one who could see the winged woman, even if she could only see through the phone.

She wore a red evening gown, further differentiating herself from the golden armor that Iosefael wore. A slim one with a fairly modern look. A slit ran from the side of her thigh to the center of her chest, wrapping around to the front at the stomach. She had no weapons, but neither did Tenebrael or Iosefael, at least not until they were needed in the latter’s case.

Raising a hand covered in an elbow glove, she pointed toward the rock formation she had been staring at. Her mouth started moving. A ruby hued mystic circle formed at her fingertip. A spell. Far more complex than any Alyssa had seen with the possible exception of Irulon’s Fractal spells or anything Tenebrael had done. Lines within lines weaved between layers of those angelic runes.

Alyssa kept taking pictures, focusing on the spell itself rather than the woman casting. She was excited to show it to Irulon to see what her analytical mind made of it, but terrified to find out what the spell did. Angels couldn’t harm humans. She had to hope that Tenebrael was being truthful in that regard.

The spell completed. A thin blip of light shot from the mystic circle like a bullet from a gun. A flash of light momentarily blinded Alyssa as the spell struck the rock formation.

Kasita made a noise at her back. Whether that was because she could see this light or because she could see what had happened, Alyssa didn’t know. Even Izsha jolted slightly, making Alyssa grab on tight once again. She was extremely glad that her binoculars were dangling from her neck and that her phone couldn’t be lost or destroyed, because she dropped both.

The spots in her eyes slowly lessened to the point where she could see once again. The pillar of rock near the hilltop had fallen flat on its side. A dust cloud welled up around it, flooding the area with powdered earth. The clouds billowed outward, sweeping across the land.

Alyssa stared, watching as dark shadows within the cloud burst forth.

Three horses running away as fast as they possibly could.

Taking her binoculars in a shaking hand, she confirmed what she already suspected. “Found Oz,” she mumbled to Kasita. The light flooding the land vanished as she was watching, making her blink twice as her eyes tried to refocus to the night lit by nothing but the moon.

Swinging her view over to the church, she frowned.

The angel was gone. Not a feather in sight.

“What was that?”

“I don’t know for sure. An angel. But… But… W-we should get back to Irulon,” Alyssa said, closing her eyes as she dropped the binoculars. Her arms locked Izsha’s neck into a tight hug once again. She did not know how they were supposed to get down without parachutes and, honestly, wasn’t sure she wanted to know. As soon as she was able, she was going to draw up a hundred of those Feather Fall spells just in case she ever had a lapse in judgment and found herself this high again.

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Outpost

Confessions

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Sometimes, in fiction, people who were on the receiving end of being mind controlled couldn’t remember a thing they had done once freed. A kind of amnesia for a block of time. Sometimes, they could remember but pretended that they couldn’t because whatever they had done or discovered was embarrassing, awkward, or otherwise inconvenient to let people know they knew about.

At the moment, Alyssa really wished that the fairy’s mind control would have wiped Oxart’s memory.

Waking Oxart had been one of the worst things Alyssa could remember. And she had been disemboweled. The moment Oxart’s eyes focused enough to be cognizant of what she was seeing, her expression changed. Alyssa knew then and there that whatever rapport she had built with the guard captain had been thrown into a sinkhole, lit on fire, and trampled on by a horde of dung beetles. In fact, Alyssa would probably have found herself with a brand new ventilation hole in her throat courtesy of Oxart’s dagger had the captain been in a better condition. As it was, the woman was too weak to move all that much. Being awake for far too long and being forced to walk through unforgiving terrain in unsuitable clothing for several hours apparently did funny things to someone’s stamina.

“And you’re going to shield her, aren’t you. Anyone else parading a fairy around the city would have seen them exiled to the First City.”

Exhausted body or not, Oxart could shout. Though, for the first time since she woke, that voice wasn’t directed at Alyssa.

“Quite,” Irulon said, looking bored. “One of the benefits of my station is the ability to ignore such consequences.”

“The Pharaoh will overrule you. He won’t let something like this stand. There are limits to what you can protect her from. Impersonating a princess? Treason. Giving magical secrets to monsters? Treason. Harboring a fairy? She’ll be lucky if she is only exiled.”

“All in the name of saving the city and the royal family. The unfortunate fact of the matter, Captain Oxart, is that you are the sole victim of her clumsy handling of the fairy. Dismantling the Society of the Burning Shadow’s actions saved far more than the harm caused. And she even rode all the way out here to rescue you, to set her mistakes right. You will recover with rest. There is little harm done and, in the process of finding you, we may have gained a clue indicating the Society’s next plan of attack.”

Oxart clenched her teeth together, tearing her eyes from Irulon to glare at Alyssa.

Alyssa winced, but didn’t look away. She felt she couldn’t. It was her fault that Oxart was out here in the first place and if being shouted at was part of her penance, then she should take it like a man. Not even Tenebrael popping into being to collect several souls had been enough to distract Alyssa.

“Does her obvious remorse not warrant clemency given the situation as a whole?”

Irulon’s words only made Oxart clench her teeth harder. Alyssa could almost feel her ire pressing against her. Something told her that no, Alyssa did not deserve anything in Oxart’s eyes. Those eyes flicked over to the side, looking just over Alyssa’s shoulder. Kasita stood with an amused expression on her face, currently appearing in her sisterly form.

“That’s just the fairy,” Oxart continued. “Offering human magic to a monster—”

“I gave the mimic Loophole. Or an aspect of myself did so, which I suppose I must take responsibility for. Would you see me exiled as well?” Irulon shook her head. “The fact of the matter is that the mimic, monster though it may be, contributed to saving my life. This wouldn’t be the first time that my family has consorted with the more agreeable monsters,” she said with a casual wave of her hand toward the two draken, who were currently enjoying a feast of diced horse with some human mixed in for spice.

Alyssa tried hard not to look in that direction.

“For what it is worth, I am sorry,” Alyssa said, speaking for perhaps the first time since Oxart started shouting at her. Thus far, she had been happy to leave Irulon speaking in her defense. As the saying went, one who defended themselves had a fool for a lawyer. This wasn’t really a legal proceeding, but Irulon definitely knew how this world operated far better than Alyssa did. And Irulon wasn’t even doing a bad job of it. At least she hadn’t threatened Oxart yet, something that Alyssa had to admit to being worried over.

Maybe because she was a guard captain or maybe because she was some kind of noble, Irulon was treating her with respect. Not a lot of respect, but far more than she had shown to Tzheitza and especially Oz when she had fixed up Kasita in the potion shop.

“I don’t like this. My job— My duty is to protect the city and its inhabitants from any threat.”

“I’m not a threat. I want to help the city.”

“By bringing a fairy—”

“I didn’t bring the fairy to the city. It was already there. And I stopped it from doing anything more. Yes, I had a lapse in judgment. I didn’t listen to people who are far more knowledgeable than me regarding monsters.”

“More knowledgeable? I thought… You lied to me.” Oxart’s eyes narrowed. “I should have known. Everything else as well? Lumber hauler? Medical expert? Are you even a potion seller?”

“First of all, I was delivering potions on behalf of Tzheitza, not selling them. Secondly, lumber hauler isn’t a lie, though it isn’t precisely accurate if you want to get pedantic. It’s just that my former profession doesn’t have an exact analogue here and lumber hauler is close enough. Lastly, I believe I explicitly told you that I was not a medical expert.”

“And a monster slaver?”

Irulon cut in before Alyssa could answer. “It is unlikely that Alyssa had ever heard of a monster prior to a… month ago, was it?”

“More or less,” Alyssa said with a sigh. Had it really only been a month? Well, a month and a week or so. A third of which had been spent rather uneventfully traveling between Teneville and Lyria. But still, a month of being in this world. It felt longer. A lot longer.

She leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows against the ground. Irulon stood, as did Kasita, but Alyssa found herself exhausted. Not just from the realization that she had been bumbling about this world for a full month. She felt sore, having taken a bit more of a ding than she had thought from her fall from Izsha’s back. Talking with Oxart wasn’t helping either. To make matters worse, Tzheitza probably wouldn’t be too pleased to see her when she got back. By carrying around that fairy, it had effectively been her fault that the potion shop’s front windows and doors wound up trashed.

And, despite having rescued Oxart, they couldn’t even go back yet. Not before scouting out the fairy commune. Though, technically, that was the guild’s job. Irulon had given no indication that the task would be left up to Oz and company. Just the opposite.

But aside from that, where was Oz? The draken were fast, true. Not so fast that he shouldn’t have caught up by now. Maybe it was the mirrored dome. It clearly stopped horses from charging out of it. The inverse probably held true. Could Irulon take it down or would it expire after a set amount of time? Alyssa opened her mouth to ask, but Oxart spoke first.

“You hadn’t heard of monsters? I can understand not having seen one. People living within the city likely never see one unless they venture outside the walls with any regularity. But even children are taught.”

“Like I said, I’m from far away, though Irulon isn’t quite correct. We did have legends of monsters. Harpies, for instance, are a well known creature where I’m from. A fictional creature, as far as my people are aware.”

Irulon actually looked interested at that. “You have legends of creatures that exist here? Which ones?”

“That’s a hard question to answer. Dragons are probably the big one, but I don’t really have a list of all the creatures here. My phone can look them up, so we can scan through a list of them sometime. Not now though, we should find Oz an—”

“What about mimics? Do you have us where you’re from?”

Alyssa looked up, meeting the smiling face of Kasita. “We don’t have any monsters, but I’m pretty sure mimics exist in some form or other. I don’t know about something exactly like what you are, but I’ve heard of mimics somewhere.” Probably in games rather than mythological legend, but Kasita didn’t need to know that. Just telling her that people had heard of mimics put some pride into her smile.

“A land with no monsters,” Oxart mumbled to herself. “Unbelievable.”

“Yes, finding that out does explain many of her more foolish actions, doesn’t it?”

Oxart looked over to Irulon. “You knew?”

“And a few other things. If you were considering such a thing, I can say with absolute certainty that Alyssa does not have ties to any organizations, such as the Society of the Burning Shadow, that are hostile toward Lyria. I have speculated on a few other things regarding oddities surrounding Alyssa as well, but I’ve yet to voice my speculations. I was wrong about several things in merely determining what Alyssa is. My pride can’t take many more voiced inaccuracies, so I am waiting for more information before actually speaking of my theories.”

“What do you mean, what she is? Is she— Are you not human?”

“Don’t— Ugh. What are you doing?” Alyssa asked with a scowl aimed toward Irulon. “I am just as human as anyone else here.”

“Ufu~”

Alyssa’s mouth clamped shut as she turned her glare on the mimic. “Don’t you even start. Look. What is done is done. I’m sorry for many of my actions and I’m trying to make up for it. Part of that is this little quest we’re on. But what about you?” Alyssa said, glancing to the princess. “She’s in no shape to go fight more of those people.”

“I’m tougher than this,” she said, pulling herself to her feet as if to prove that she could. Keeping her stance wide for extra stability, she did manage to stand with only a little queasy wobbling.

“You’re dehydrated and likely suffering from hunger pains,” Irulon said with that same air of unimportance. “The fairy made you grab a few provisions, but you didn’t consume any, did you? Not to mention your sleep deprivation and exhaustion from walking for several hours.”

Oxart ground her teeth together, a sound that Alyssa had grown used to over the past several minutes.

“Nothing a body as well trained as yours won’t recover from,” Irulon said, apparently taking no notice of Oxart’s ire. “You haven’t been without food for so long that you’re suffering from anything truly debilitating. But you are not fit to fight.”

“I don’t need to fight. I need to get back. Though it was against my will, I’ve left my post. I’ve been gone one full day and it will be another full day and part of the night before I can get back, if I had a horse. Which I don’t.”

“That issue can be rectified.” Irulon turned away from their small group, raising her voice to be heard a distance away. “Musca, Izsha!”

At being addressed, the two draken looked up. Alyssa failed to suppress a shudder at the red jelly running down their faces. Izsha in particular. Over the last day and a half, Alyssa felt like she had… maybe not gotten to know Izsha given that the draken couldn’t talk, but had grown to trust the draken. Watching it crunch down on a chunk of bone, happily use its long tongue to curl around a cube of muscle and fat, or run its snout through the pile of viscera that had once been a living person and an equally living horse… Just seeing a long drip of red swinging back and forth beneath Izsha’s chin but never quite dropping to the ground sent a chill through her body. It was a reminder that, as much as Izsha had been nice and considerate while she had been using it as mount, it was definitely a dangerous creature. One that cared little about whether it was eating a person or a horse.

Freaking out over fairies eating people was seeming somewhat silly in comparison. Perhaps it did go without saying that most monsters didn’t distinguish between foods. Though, at least the draken weren’t going to make people want to be eaten. A fairy could probably get someone to put a pot on the fire, toss in all the seasoning, and then happily climb in until boiling to death in the stew.

It really made Alyssa reflect back on the other monsters she had encountered. Obviously, gaunts and shadow assassins ate people, though the latter might have done so more out of a desire to hide the bodies than any hunger or sustenance need. She had watched a gaunt do so right in front of her and had seen evidence of an assassin eating someone else. But what about elves? Presumably, people weren’t feeding their monster slaves humans, so they didn’t need humans if they did eat them. Given their physical similarities to humans, Alyssa decided that it was unlikely that they also ate people.

Maybe that was a bad assumption to make given that there were and had been real people on real non-monster-infested Earth that ate humans. Enrique had mentioned a feast should she ever encounter Alyssa again, as thanks. Presumably that wouldn’t be a feast of people. Alyssa wouldn’t appreciate people served up as food at all and Enrique had to know that.

Pho? What did bees eat anyway? Flower nectar and pollen for Earth bees, but a human-sized bee? One would have to eat an entire field of flowers just to have the energy to move about its body. They surely were not meat-eaters, at the very least, being some kind of herbavore if they only ate flowers… but how could flowers possibly be sustainable for a colony of bees? Unless they had some magic way of eating. Kasita, for instance, hadn’t eaten anything as far as Alyssa knew.

Rizk’s lizard race probably ate people. It was doubtful that they—or any species, really—ate humans exclusively or even sought them out. Humans weren’t exactly designed for consumption. Not a lot of edible meat, nothing like a cow, anyway. But gaunts, draken, and whatever else ate people probably wouldn’t care on a moral level if they were hungry and the only thing around was a human.

That harpy she had encountered in the mountain pass north of Teneville. Meeting that harpy, coming across it while it was injured and clearly vulnerable, helping it, and befriending it in an odd sort of way had shaped the way Alyssa had perceived monsters ever since. After how much Lazhar and Yzhemal had warned her about the harpies attacking people, finding one that had been so grateful to her that it had brought her a fish had taught her more than anything else that monsters weren’t all that monstrous.

Which was something that she might need to reevaluate. Had that harpy not been injured, would she have been in trouble? Very possibly. Though wary at the time for anything swooping down on her, she had ignored the brothers’ warnings, taking pity on the injured bird. It had turned out well enough, but continuing to think that all monsters were just misunderstood and unfairly persecuted might not be the wisest option.

Keeping an open mind was important. If she had completely fallen to the prejudice of the humans in this world, she likely wouldn’t have helped the monsters of the Waterhole. None of whom she had yet regretted saving, she rather thought that the conditions in the Waterhole were abhorrent and no one deserved to be there. Her relationship with Kasita might be entirely different as well. While annoying at times, Kasita had proved to be quite the friend. Had she started out paranoid and prejudiced, she probably wouldn’t have mentioned Tenebrael to the mimic, among many other things. Getting a few complaints about that angel off her chest had been worth if even if nothing else had been.

Going forward, she needed to take care. Paranoia was bad, but so was completely trusting monsters to not be… monsters. There was a careful balance there and she needed to find it before something came back to bite her. Literally, in some cases.

Completely unaware of Alyssa’s thoughts, Irulon continued addressing the draken.

“There is a horse running around within this dome. Corral it and return to us… without hurting it, Musca. And without overly frightening it too much. Just get it near me and I’ll handle the rest.”

Musca ran off immediately, turning away from the carnage to carry out Irulon’s task. Despite Irulon singling Musca out, Alyssa was a little worried for the horse’s safety. Whatever concerns she had about monster morality, the horse was just a horse. A dumb animal. Two had already died plus that one they had left behind that may or may not be able to survive in the desert on its own. It was a shame that they had died, but Irulon clearly didn’t care about the collateral damage she had caused and Alyssa couldn’t really fault her for doing what was necessary to take out the Society members. Now that the fight was over, hurting the poor and lightly frightened horse would leave a bad taste.

“Make sure Musca isn’t too rough, Izsha,” Irulon said, apparently having similar thoughts.

The sole remaining draken bent, took one large mouthful of meat, and ran off to follow the other. Izsha didn’t charge away with quite the energy that Musca had. Still, it would probably follow Irulon’s orders far more faithfully than Musca would. Even now, Alyssa wasn’t sure why Irulon liked that particular draken. The Black Prince had more than just the two in his stables. There had been a dozen of them.

Maybe all the others were worse? Or maybe Irulon was just insane.

The latter option, surely.

“Consorting with such beasts,” Oxart said, disgust palpable in her voice.

“They have their uses,” Irulon said with a casual shrug. “And my brother cares for them. They served as quite the shock value a year ago when we last fought off the Juno Federation. A dozen draken charging against mere foot soldiers? Don’t tell me that you were displeased when we routed them faster than any year prior. Surely that saved a lot of lives.”

“But now we’ve faced at least two separate attacks carried out by monsters under their direction. Where do you think they got the idea from?”

Irulon shook her head. “No. The research and development needed to create the mist they’ve been using to control fairies would be a significant investment for a magically deprived people like the Juno Federation. This has been in preparation for a decade. Minimum. That they’ve begun using monsters is nothing more than a coincidence. Given how ineffectual their attacks have been, though the most recent less so than the first, I wonder if our stunt with the draken forced them to accelerate their plans for the monsters, causing them to make mistakes and show their hand early.”

“Is the royal family working on countermeasures? Because I haven’t heard anything.”

“I believe it is being looked in to. The second is heading defensive projects. This expedition may reveal some clues, though I am personally here solely for revenge.” Irulon’s voice dropped an octave as she narrowed her eyes, staring toward the remains of the battle. “They think they can draw my blood and not suffer? Hm. We’ll see. But,” she smiled, voice returning to normal. “I’d like to acquire a sample of that mist they were using. Unfortunately, the mist that filled the pouch with the fairy had all dissipated before I could approach and I didn’t see any more. The sole surviving spell deck had only Rank Two and lower spells, none of which would conjure more of the mist. I don’t suppose you can shed any light into where it came from? If it was a spell or some potion bottle that wound up destroyed? I’m leaning toward a potion, but again, I couldn’t find anything intact among their cadavers. Of course, I didn’t exactly go digging through the remains of the one…”

Oxart stared for a moment before slowly shaking her head. “I just remember wanting to rush forward as fast as I could and being extremely—unnaturally happy about doing so. I remember seeing them,” she said with a nod toward the deceased Society members. “The fairy panicked. They hit me with… something. Woke up in… less than welcome company.”

Alyssa winced as the captain turned her cold eyes down on her.

“More welcome than waking up in an interrogation chamber.”

There was a bit of hesitation before Oxart answered. “I suppose. Though, regardless of the… company you keep, I regret that I cannot be more useful against our enemies.”

“Put it out of your mind. I was not counting on you for information when we began this excursion. However, I do request one thing of you. When you return to the city, find my brother—the Second Prince, that is, none of the less useful ones—and inform him that we may need to prepare defenses capable of withstanding one million ants.”

“O-One million?” Oxart wobbled. Alyssa got to her feet, moving to catch the woman if she fell, but she didn’t. “What do you mean by that?”

“He’ll know what I mean. Namely, that a million strong army of ants might march on the city soon. I believe it would be best if my father were to return to the city as soon as possible. And if I do not return within… one week, do have him accelerate whatever plans he is making.”

“You’re serious.”

“Quite so. I don’t often fabricate events of this magnitude. Sometimes, but not in this case. When the draken return, we will send you on your way. Both Alyssa and I can spare a small portion of our provisions for your return trip if whatever you have on your person is lacking. And, when you return, do tell my brother that the draken are doing just fine. I’m sure he will be worried about them.”

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<– Back | Index | Next –>

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Outpost

Pursuit

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“I see them,” Alyssa said, trusting Izsha to keep her in her seat while she focused on the binoculars. Or rather, focused on what she saw through her binoculars. “Just as you said. Three people riding horseback. Looks like Oxart is draped over the one in the middle, unconscious, I think. Maybe dead, but I don’t know why they would carry around a dead body like this. I don’t see the fairy.”

“It is small enough to be easily tucked away in some container or pocket.”

“They don’t appear to have noticed us. All three are riding directly away at a quick pace, but looking somewhat lax. Unworried. Plan?”

“Kill them. Kill them all.”

Alyssa lowered her binoculars to glance to her side. Irulon sat on the back of Musca, eyes locked in the direction they were moving. Her eyes were not currently black and white, but she did stare with an intense focus. She didn’t even blink. As if that would help her see their quarry. Which it wouldn’t.

Without her binoculars, Alyssa could barely see a tiny dot on the edge of the horizon. While Irulon had confirmed that there were a handful of spells capable of offering sight at a distance, she hadn’t cast a single one since Retrograde Cognition. Alyssa couldn’t say why. Being able to see far away was clearly a boon. The princess’ tome might not have any. They probably wouldn’t come in all that handy on an average day in the city, though Alyssa had to wonder just when Fractal Mirror would come in useful, which was a spell Irulon did have in her tome.

Seeing the intensity on Irulon’s face, Alyssa doubted that there would be much room for argument. Alyssa… wasn’t sure what she thought about that. She didn’t want to kill anyone, if possible. Except, perhaps, for the Taker. Even the people she had killed, she wasn’t too happy about. While she definitely preferred her current status as opposed to that of a slave or a whore, had she really needed to kill Svotty and his guard? Even that thief who broke into her home. If she hadn’t been so vigorous in attacking him, everything since then might not have happened. The thief’s father wouldn’t have flown into a rage upon seeing his deceased son, she wouldn’t have had to defend herself, and…

And it all came back to Tenebrael, that little black book, and whatever the angels’ mysterious plan was. Just thinking about it made her a little uneasy, wondering if she had ever had a choice in the first place.

Here and now, however, Alyssa was wondering if she shouldn’t reconsider her thoughts on death. This was not America. It wasn’t even Earth. The laws, rules, and even morals in this place were only a distant cousin to what she was familiar with. When she had told Irulon about killing Svotty, the princess had shrugged it off completely, not even blinking as she was far more concerned with the Taker. Perhaps Irulon wasn’t exactly the best gauge of morality given her apparent hobby of collecting corpses to turn into… whatever those toys had been in her laboratory. But still… it said something about this world.

These people they were chasing were more dangerous than anyone else. Even the Taker. If their surveying of the ant hive had been what it looked like, they were certainly planning on sending a million-strong horde against the walls of Lyria using fairy mind control. The same Lyria that had mustered only a few hundred soldiers to defend against an army of trolls and goblins. Irulon hadn’t participated in that skirmish, and she didn’t think that Administrator Devo had either. The only other Rank Six arcanist in the city was Irulon’s father, and he wasn’t even in the city at the moment, being off inspecting the Fortress of Pandora.

Given their assassination attempts against the royal family, perhaps one or all of the Rank Six arcanists would be a credible threat to a million ants. Many, many people would likely still die, however. That was before considering the mesmered ants as people. The poor creatures wouldn’t even have a choice in the matter. Even if the arcanists didn’t wipe them all out and the ant army came away successful, they would just be sent against town after town, city after city, until the army was entirely depleted or until the Juno Federation were satisfied with their genocide. Upon which the ants would probably die anyway, killed by their controlling masters. Just because the Juno Federation used monsters didn’t mean that they were any less hostile to them. If anything, placing monsters under mind control then sending them to die was worse than what she had seen and heard from the people in Lyria.

No. In this case, at least, Irulon was right. These people had to be stopped. Going up to them and asking politely wasn’t going to work. If anything, it would just get her killed. However…

“Kill them all is not a plan. It’s a goal. A plan is a series of steps designed to accomplish a goal.”

Irulon finally took her eyes off the dot in the distance long enough to shoot a glare in Alyssa’s direction. “Do they have weapons? Or spell tomes?”

“It’s a bit difficult to tell from this distance,” Alyssa said. The desert was relatively flat, as it had been since leaving Lyria, so she had a good view of them. But her binoculars were not magical. They could only do so much. “One might have a sword? I don’t see anything on the others, but all the Society members I’ve come across have had their spells in much smaller decks than yours or Oxart’s tomes, held together by a single metal ring. None had more than thirty cards in their decks, most of which were basic utility spells such as Light and Flame. I got the impression that they were not the most magically adept of people around.”

“Unsurprising. The Observatorium is the largest repository of spells and knowledge of spell creation in the world. We guard our secrets with some modicum of jealousy. Just to grant you what little admittance you have received, I was forced to accept responsibility for you, including slaughtering you to safeguard our knowledge should you prove… more subversive than you appear. That is in addition to a few subtle threats toward several of our esteemed administrators.”

“Well, thanks for telling me. I guess. Actually, I think I would rather have not known.”

“All you have to do is not go give the Observatorium’s secrets to the Juno Federation. Simple.” Irulon spoke about casually killing Alyssa with a jovial note in her voice. Maybe this world really was too insane. “As for a plan… They have a base somewhere nearby. Perhaps just a little camp, perhaps more of a fortified outpost. Not enough information to determine which yet, nor do I know how far. It could be behind the next pillar of rock, it could be three days out. Whatever the case, we do not want them to reach their allies.”

She pulled up the tome chained to her hip and started flipping through it. “Ah. Perfect,” she said, pulling one card out. She then removed another two cards before letting the tome fall back to its hanging position. “Musca. Izsha. Close the gap. Quietly, if possible. We don’t want to alert them until it is too late.”

Given the warning, Alyssa leaned forward and grabbed on to Izsha’s neck once again. Knowing how smoothly Izsha could leap when it wanted to move quickly, she was unsurprised when the two draken took off. It felt like flying, hovering just above the ground. Although she was slowly growing to trust Izsha, she couldn’t enjoy the feeling while charging into battle. Worse, Irulon hadn’t said what she was going to do. She had pulled out those spells, but what were they?

When they next had a moment, Alyssa really needed to sit Irulon down and tell her just how badly poor communication could kill. Probably literally, in this situation. It was like she had never watched a movie in her life… Right. Of course she hadn’t. With her phone back, Alyssa could show her a few. But again, only when they got a chance. She couldn’t even ask what Irulon had planned while riding—Izsha and Musca were no longer directly side by side. Izsha was just a little faster than Irulon’s mount. These people needed radios. Or a better communication spell than Message.

For now, Alyssa had her eyes locked forward as their target slowly grew closer. One hand moved away from Izsha’s neck to find the grip of her pistol. Shooting from Izsha’s back would be a last resort. Even with as smooth a ride as it was, trying to hit a moving target while also moving would be next to impossible. Just a waste of bullets. But she wanted to be ready just in case. Maybe Irulon would kill them all with one big spell and she wouldn’t need to do anything.

Rather, that was what Alyssa hoped for.

But realistically, Irulon couldn’t do that. Not while Oxart was right in the middle of them all. Any large-area spell would catch her in the blast. Wasn’t Lumen supposed to specialize in precision? Alyssa wasn’t sure she trusted that given her experiences at Tzheitza’s shop, but her spells would probably be better than guns. She should have been the one riding Izsha.

Alyssa scowled at herself. Aside from guns, what did she have available?

Fireballs, a handful of them. Desecrate Spells. Probably best to let Kasita use that if necessary so that they wouldn’t have to spend the time to suppress the aftereffects on her. Spectral Axes. Honestly, she wasn’t sure what use that spell had. That burning hands spell. That might be useful if they grabbed for their weapons or spell cards. Spectral Chains, which was probably the most useful spell she had come across. It was a nice, non-lethal way of removing someone from a combat situation. Could she just chain them all up while they were riding their horses?

That was an idea. Definitely something to try before shooting them while riding Izsha. Though, did Spectral Chains need to be aimed? She had never tried it on moving targets. At least, nothing moving as fast as a horse. Still, at least if she missed with Spectral Chains, she wouldn’t run the risk of accidentally killing Oxart. Moving her hand away from her gun, she slipped it into her satchel and gripped the deck of cards.

Izsha and Musca had closed the gap. In barely a minute, Oxart’s captors went from being an ant on the horizon to an actual group of three horses and three riders.

Irulon held out a hand. The card whipped around in the wind, but she was entirely unconcerned. “Sever Reality.”

A mirrored wall sprouted from the ground just in front of the lead horse, growing high into the sky. The rider let out an undignified shout as the horse ran into the mirror at speed. They crashed into it, plowed into it as if it were a brick wall. The other two managed to stop in time, but they couldn’t escape. The wall hadn’t stopped growing, it was stretching high into the sky and wrapping around, forming a dome large enough to fit a football field.

Neither Izsha nor Musca slowed in the slightest, they slipped under the dome just before it slammed into the ground. Izsha leaped to one side, just about throwing Alyssa from the saddle in the process.

A beam of light passed by a foot away from Alyssa. She didn’t know what it would have done had it hit her, but she was extremely thankful to Izsha that she didn’t have to find out.

Black miasma spread out from the extended hand of one of the two horse riders, rolling along the ground in a cone shape. Again, Izsha turned to avoid entering it as much as possible while Musca turned in the opposite direction. Irulon had her second card in hand. She said something else and the card vanished with a shattering noise, but Alyssa couldn’t hear what the spell was.

The woman spreading the miasma stopped with a shocked look on her face. Something struck her in the chest, exploding out from the other side. She had just enough time to look down before her body started coming apart. She started with a split straight up and down from the impact site, splitting her in two. But it didn’t stop there. The two halves split again, and again. And again. Bits no larger than her thumb pulled apart from the rest of her body. It spread from the impact point outward until her entire body was subsumed by the shards of flesh. It fell around the horse, landing in two distinct piles on either side.

Her horse wasn’t spared. As if an invisible bubble of flaying knives spread outward to encompass the woman, it caught the horse as well. The poor thing split apart just as the woman did, starting at its back right where she had been riding.

Alyssa’s stomach tightened, but she did not turn away. She couldn’t. Not while there were still possible threats. The one who had crashed into the mirrored dome was getting back to his feet and the other one…

The other one grabbed hold of Oxart as he slid off his own panicking horse. She was limp and unmoving in his arms, but he managed to prop her up enough to be used as a shield so that what happened to his companion wouldn’t happen to him. At least, not without also killing Oxart. He held out a hand around Oxart with a card between his fingers.

Alyssa didn’t hesitate. She already had her cards in hand. One came to mind.

Immolating Gloves.

She focused on one hand only. The extended one. With the other wrapped around Oxart, lighting it aflame would end up burning her as well.

The man, mouth already open to shout whatever spell he had, turned from forming words to a startled cry of pain. His card turned to ash, but that seemed the least of his concerns. Swinging his arm didn’t help. If anything, it made it worse. The flames engulfing his hand spread upward, crawling along his arm. It spread faster and faster, as if his wool tunic had been doused in gasoline.

Oxart, being unconscious, dropped to the ground like a puppet with cut strings when the man stumbled away, patting his burning arm with his now free arm. That only served to spread the flames up his other arm. His screams were growing louder as he started running. Which, as with swinging around his hand, only made it worse. Fully engulfed in flames, he ran straight into the mirrored wall. The screams abruptly stopped. He fell into a twitching heap on the ground, still burning.

Izsha jerked to the side again, forcibly tearing Alyssa’s eyes away from the grisly sight of the burning man.

Alyssa grunted. Something clipped her arm. Before she could understand what was happening, she felt the familiar sensation of falling off Izsha’s back. Clouds of dirt rose up around her as she rolled along the ground with her momentum. It didn’t hurt. She had fallen off Izsha before. The dragon scale armor protected well enough against impacts. A stinging sensation welled up in one hand, but not enough to draw her attention.

The second she managed to stop herself, Alyssa looked up.

The last remaining person, the one who had first crashed against the wall, was up on his feet with a sword in one hand and a spell card in the other.

Alyssa winced at the sight of the blade, but her gaze was drawn to the man’s eyes. They were… watery. Sad. Anguished and angry all in one. She blinked and, for just a moment saw herself back within her parents’ bedroom, watching the elder thief cradle his son.

That sensation vanished the moment he opened his mouth. “Execu—”

His eyes flicked to the side.

A ball of twisted shards of glass hurtled toward him. He noticed just in time, throwing himself to one side. The ball struck the mirrored surface behind him… and kept going. It didn’t stop at the mirror as his horse had, but rather passed into it and slammed into his reflection.

He, the real him, flew a short distance through the air, landing face-first in the desert dirt. A chunk of him was missing completely. A half-sphere the size of a basketball was simply gone from his lower back. He was still moving his arms and his head. He was still alive.

That’s right. This was a battle. A fight. One-sided though it may have seemed given their ambush, these people were still dangerous. Spacing out… could cost her. Even now, lying on the ground with a hole in his back, he still gripped that spell card. Execu—what? Execution? For some spells, especially Fractal spells, it was hard to discern their effect from their name. Execution did not sound like one of those spells.

Alyssa fumbled her hands about. Her cards were gone. Somewhere behind her from when she had rolled. But her pistol was still secure in its holster.

She drew it, took a second both to calm herself and to aim, and fired.

Blood spurted up in a miniature geyser at the base of his neck. His movements stilled to tiny twitches before disappearing entirely.

Alyssa’s eyes turned over the scene, checking each of the people. One was in pieces, nothing more than a pile of meat. One was a charcoal husk in a vague shape of a person. One had a few holes in his body, clearly fatal ones. And Oxart, Oxart lay where she had fallen. Was she breathing? Alyssa couldn’t tell from where she sat on the dirt. But at least the captain wasn’t going to get any worse. The three Society members were undoubtedly dead. The horses had run off… or rather, one of them had. One was lying in pieces along with its rider and the one that rode into the mirror didn’t look like it would be getting up anytime soon.

Despite the gruesome scene in front of her, Alyssa felt oddly content. Maybe it was shock, but she felt like she had done a… good thing? These people were not good people and definitely needed to be stopped from using the fairies as weapons. She didn’t know how big this organization was or what it would take to stop them, but destroying their camp could only help. If they were able to delay the Society’s next attack, likely the one with the ants, and then report back to the city, they could send a more dedicated force to wipe out whatever needed to be wiped out. This was a small step on that path.

Best of all, Oxart was safe. She was definitely still alive. Alyssa could see her moving. Nothing major, no conscious movements. Confirming that she was alive was a weight off Alyssa’s mind. Ever since that fairy had… that fairy…

A spark of adrenaline ran through Alyssa. Where was the fairy? Her eyes flicked over everything one more time. Was it in pieces? Burned to a crisp? Running off with the horse that had escaped? Where would they have put it? A cage? In their pockets? She couldn’t see any fairy holder.

Irulon and Musca were slowly approaching the bodies and Oxart. They moved warily, searching just as Alyssa was. The princess had her hand on her open tome, ready to pull something out if necessary. To Alyssa’s side, Izsha was coming back. After Alyssa had fallen off, the draken had continued on for a short time. Opening her mouth to shout a warning ended abruptly when she noticed movement. The lead horse’s saddlebags were moving. White fog leaked from one of the pockets.

That was it. The fairy had to be in there.

Sure enough, a little head popped out, topped with a tuft of black hair. The fairy’s relatively large eyes were hazy and unfocused. A side effect of the fog, no doubt. But now that it was out in the open air and the fog flowing from the pouch was dissipating, it would probably gain cognizance quickly.

Alyssa stood, aiming her pistol directly at it, unsure whether she should take the shot or not. It would be difficult. The fairy was much smaller than a person. But her mother hadn’t dragged her down to the shooting range on occasion for nothing. But should she? Something, some small part of her still screamed that the fairy was a victim in all this, that it had kidnapped Oxart out of panic and twisted morals. The fairy was small enough that it could hide easily. All it needed to find was a foxhole to duck into until danger had passed. If it even needed to do that with its mind control ability. It would be dangerous if Oxart woke up while she was so close. The draken as well. Musca and Irulon were almost on top of them.

Ah. Irulon, of course. The dilemma was simple. Ask the princess what to do about the little monster.

“Fairy!” Alyssa called out, raising her voice to be heard over the slight distance. Although Izsha was nearby again, she started up in a light jog to get a little closer. “Fairy near the horse’s bags!”

Irulon apparently hadn’t heard her first call, but she did hear the second. Her head whipped around to find the fairy, not pausing on the diced horse or swiveling about to find the runaway. As if she had known exactly which horse Alyssa had been talking about. She smiled, leaned forward, and said something too quiet for Alyssa to hear to Musca.

The draken trotted on over, looked down at the clearly dazed fairy, opened its wide maw, and chomped.

Red dripped from Musca’s teeth, apparently chewing once before tipping its head back and swallowing.

Irulon smacked Musca on the side with an open palm. “I said toy with,” she said louder than before. “Not snack on.”

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Alyssa’s Note: Hello. Long trek through the desert. It was difficult, but I found some time to write about my brief experience north of the city. It’s been added to the World Notes. I even took a picture of the scenery!

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Interlude

Oz

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Being on watch was not the most interesting of jobs around. A necessary one without a doubt. Even if this small section of the desert wasn’t called home by any monsters—something the map agreed on, though things could have changed since it was last updated a year ago—it could still be hunting grounds or just in the way of some small group of monsters walking around. Not to mention possible threats from other humans that might be in the area. It was vital that someone be awake and alert enough to warn the others of anything coming.

That wasn’t just true for little expeditions like theirs. Technically, the city guard were on watch at all hours of the day. It was the exact same thing, if on a much larger scale. They had it a little different in that the city was right next to them, ready to supply them with all the backup they could need. And they had fortifications rather than dirt and rock. And a variety of food rather than travel provisions. And… pretty much anything they could possibly need or want. But in basic principles, it was exactly the same as what Oz was doing.

Well, not exactly.

Oz leaned forward and blew a harsh breath of air over a little lump of wood. Shavings flew off, disappearing almost entirely as they merged with the dirt. Inspecting his work so far, he frowned. The face that stared back at him just wasn’t quite horrifying enough. The fangs were too short. The ears were too long. The snarl… actually, he liked the snarl so far. Unfortunately, he couldn’t fix the fangs. That was the problem with carving. If too much got mistakenly chopped off, it would never come back. The ears could be fixed, however. As Oz brought his knife around to start shaving off long strips of wood, he idly wondered how the city guard could stand being on watch for half the day at a time. While some of them surely found other ways of occupying themselves, they were supposed to remain alert at all times.

A sharp cracking noise in the air made him drop both knife and carving. Oz sprung to his feet, eyes searching as he drew his sword. It didn’t take long to spot the source of the noise. A desert jackalope. The bunny-like creature gnawed at the same withered tree that he had stolen the hunk of wood from. Stupid animal, he thought with a shake of his head. Bending to pick up his knife and carving, his relief turned to mild resentment.

The whole ear was off! He must have chopped it right off when the stupid jackalope startled him. It could have been worse. He could have chopped a whole finger off. But… He sighed. It had problems, but he was getting much better at carving as of late. Maybe he could claim that it was intentional? Some sort of battle wound. Or maybe not. Glancing up at the sky, he did a quick estimation of the time. It would be nightfall soon. Not enough time to do much more work on it before it would be time to pack up and head out. And his hands were still a little shaky from the sudden excitement.

Groaning, he picked up the carving and chucked it at the jackalope. It didn’t hit, but it landed close enough to give it a little scare. He watched a moment, picking up and sheathing his knife as the bunny hopped away.

Sword already out and nerves a little jittery, Oz decided to work out a bit of his frustrations through a quick training session.

He started slow, just swinging the sword in regular, practiced movements. Sometimes, jumping into training without a bit of warming up gave him a bit of muscle pain. Wanting to avoid that, he limbered up first.

Then he saw it. His imaginary enemy! Its claw was already coming for him, but he was too fast. Jump to the side! Slash!

It was reeling! Pressing his advantage, Oz stepped forward, thrusting to try to pierce its tough hide. But it caught his sword! Oh no! Back up! Wrench the sword free and twist!

Just in time to avoid that strike. Why am I so good? he thought with a tight grin, eying the imaginary monster. It was sizing him up as well, looking for weaknesses it would never find. For a moment, neither moved.

A tense moment passed.

As if by some unspoken agreement, both moved at once.

Thrust! Slash! Roll back to avoid its foot! Dash to the side and strike!

The claws came at him. Too fast! Oz stumbled back, avoiding the sharp points that would surely have punctured even his legendary armor in favor of being hit by the flat of the beast’s paws. Of the two options, one would have been certain death, the other, merely a setback.

A setback that provided an opening! He dashed to the side, feinting a wide slash only to twist his wrist into a quick thrust. His blade sank into the beast’s flank, perfectly positioned to skewer its heart.

The thing tried to strike at him, but it was already losing too much strength. He didn’t even need to try to dodge, merely watch as the light in its vicious eyes faded. Pulling out his sword, he sighed in contentment.

That had been a fairly decent workout. It certainly had worked up quite the sweat. Feeling much better about himself, he sheathed his sword and headed over to the little waterhole to clean up a bit. Rolling around on the ground had gotten both him and his gear a bit dirty. He probably could have avoided that, but it wouldn’t have been as fun. Still, he was pleased with his imaginary duel.

A bit of noise from the tent just about had him reaching for his sword again, but it was only Lumen and Alyssa. Nothing to worry over. He felt a bit of tightening in his stomach at wondering how much they saw before deciding that it didn’t really matter. It had just been training. Nothing strange about that. Lumen stepped around Alyssa, headed toward him. The other girl stayed at the entrance for a moment before disappearing back inside the tent’s folds.

“Lumen, how are you this fine…” Oz glanced up at the sky before looking back to his lovely companion. “Evening? Have a nice sleep?”

“I hate being on middle watch. You get such precious little sleep, get woken up, then can’t get back to sleep.”

“We’ll rotate. I’ll take middle tonight. Catal can take tomorrow.” Though, if he were being honest, he would rather not take middle watch. As she had said, it was easily the worst shift.

“And what about the fairy woman and the princess? They going to pull their weight around here?”

That wasn’t a question Oz could answer. Maybe he had been a bit hasty in asking a complete unknown to travel with him on what was bound to be a dangerous mission—even if they only performed the reconnaissance aspects and not the commune destruction part. Of course, he had asked her long before he had known about that whole fairy business. Not the best judgment on Alyssa’s part, but at least she seemed remorseful. That was better than most people. In fact, the only reason she was here was likely to make amends for getting that guard captain mixed up in all this.

Still, that showed good character. If only Lumen could see that as well.

“I’ll talk to them,” he said after a moment of silence. Turning away from Lumen, he scooped up a pot of water and headed over to the campfire they had going. They wouldn’t always be able to have a fire. They were traveling light. That meant no wood aside from what they could scrounge up. That wasn’t to say that they would be without heat. Lumen was an accomplished arcanist and the princess was one of only three Rank Six arcanists in the city.

But there was just something soothing about having a real fire going. One that he could tend to himself, if necessary. Not to mention, it was rare that they have a fire at all. The light typically attracted everything in the vicinity. Enemies, monsters, and moths. He shuddered slightly at the thought. But, since they were making camp during the day and traveling at night, there was no need to hide the flames. That meant warm meals. Which, aside from middle watch, was one of the worst parts about traveling away from civilization.

While Lumen walked off to get some privacy, Oz started heating up some breakfast for himself, Catal, and Lumen. He wondered if he should also fix something up for Princess Irulon and Alyssa before deciding against it. The princess had said that they brought their own provisions with them. He wasn’t about to go near those draken to rummage through their packs.

Looking up, he double-checked that they were still sleeping right where they had been when he woke up for watch. They were, thankfully. He wasn’t sure what he would do if they started wandering about, but he definitely didn’t want to deal with them if at all possible. He had always tried to be somewhat neutral on the eccentricities of the second prince, but being this close to them? He could understand completely the outcries of the people.

“She was watching you, you know.”

Oz started at Lumen’s voice, nearly spilling boiling leaf juice all over himself. He glanced behind to find Lumen staring at… At Alyssa, who was currently sneaking around the sleeping draken, apparently just as worried about them as he was. The sight of her tiptoeing made him chuckle, feel bad for laughing, then chuckle again. “What do you mean, watching?”

“Your training.”

“You saw that, did you?”

“I saw enough,” Lumen said with an amused glint in her eye. “She saw more. And she was tense. Had a hand on one of those strange weapons of hers. I thought she was going to attack you.”

“That… is surely a misunderstanding. I don’t think she’s violent.” At the moment, Oz could hardly believe that she had encountered the Taker, let alone fought against him and survived. She was crouched near the packs, slowly and carefully opening them as she looked for whatever she was looking for. Her movements were cautious to the extreme. Her hands practically shook. She clearly did not want to wake the draken.

Which, she was not succeeding at. Behind her back, the draken that Alyssa had been riding had its eye open, watching her. Since it didn’t seem to be doing anything more than watch her, Oz didn’t say anything. If he startled her and she made a loud noise, it or its counterpart might just attack on reflex.

“I still don’t believe she’s human.”

“The princess trusts her well enough.”

“Irulon should know better,” Lumen said, taking a seat on the ground next to him. Her voice came out in whispers, probably not wanting to be overheard by the princess or Alyssa. “You don’t know. You’ve never been through the Observatorium. That woman cast three separate Spectral Chains at the same time without speaking a word. That’s impossible. Irulon knows that.” Leaning back slightly with a scowl on her face, Lumen shot a glare at the sleeping draken. “Bringing monsters along with her. The princess probably knows about that woman being a monster and just hasn’t said anything. And that thing. What does it think it’s doing?”

Oz turned to find out what Lumen was complaining about now. Alyssa sat at a flat rock, holding some small brick in her hands. Except it wasn’t Alyssa. The real one was still getting food from the pack near the draken. That was the mimic. Why it looked so much like Alyssa these days wasn’t a question Oz could answer. It was more than a little creepy, but he hadn’t said anything about it. Except for the occasional warnings to the real Alyssa, but he hadn’t pushed too hard. It was only a mimic, after all.

“Apparently, that mimic has saved Alyssa’s life a few times, Tzheitza’s life, and even Princess Irulon’s life. And the princess saved it as well. I don’t like it, but…” Oz trailed off, glancing around to ensure that nothing was close enough to hear him whispering. “I’d rather have a mimic hanging around than those draken.”

“I’d rather have neither. To be honest? I don’t even want the princess here. She was insufferable when I still regularly attended Observatorium lectures. No one likes her, not student nor administrator. But she’s the princess. So we have to be polite to her or we might wind up with our heads on a pike.”

“She’s also a Rank Six arcanist. So please, try not to offend her. At least not until we’ve destroyed the fairy commune. The bonus for that is half again as much as merely scouting it out. Which is already considerable.”

“Are we splitting it with them? If the princess single handedly destroys the commune, will we be entitled to any of that bonus?”

“Of course we will. Besides, it might be a lot of money to us, but I doubt the royal family is in desperate need for what is likely a paltry amount to them. Did you see that sack of gold Princess Irulon left at Tzheitza’s shop? Sure, it was to pay for the healing potion, but it would probably cover three such potions and the damage you did to the shop. It would pay for this expedition ten times over.”

Lumen didn’t respond. Was she thinking about it? Glancing up from his cooking, he found Lumen scowling again, looking off toward the mimic and Alyssa.

“What is she doing now?” Lumen grumbled under her breath. “Teaching the mimic how to create spells? That is highly illegal. I should have burned her legs off when I had the excuse of a fairy in her satchel. The only reason she got the drop on us is because I was trying to be careful to only injure her a little. You know that, right?”

“So you keep saying,” Oz mumbled as he returned to cooking. “This is almost done. Go wake Catal. You can wake the princess while you’re at it and ask if Alyssa should be dragged back to the city in chains.” He doubted it. From the few interactions he had had with the princess, something gave him the impression that she wouldn’t care or would actively encourage it. Maybe not the latter, at least not publicly. If it got out that the royal family was actively aiding monsters, there would be a great deal of trouble. Likely from the noble houses wanting more power.

Then again… Oz glanced over at the draken. If rumors were correct, the Black Prince had saved them from whatever threat they faced and brought them back to Lyria. He had faced no public repercussions. So maybe Irulon could get away with a mimic. At least the mimic wasn’t going to eat them all in their sleep.

Judging by her scoff, Lumen’s thoughts ran along a similar path. “Catal will wake when he smells this,” she said, completely ignoring the subject of the princess. “And speaking of, thank you, Oz. Your culinary talents are a far cry from the servants back home, but they are adequate enough given our situation and resources.”

That sounded a bit snide, but it was also about as close to a compliment as Lumen was going to give. So he smiled and nodded his head. “You’re welcome.”

It was… decent, he decided after pouring some into a smaller bowl and taking a few sips. Far from the worst food he had ever needed to eat, but still quite a distance from the best. He stared at Alyssa with just a little envy. She was eating some jerky she had pulled from one of her pack’s pockets. She hadn’t cooked it or anything, but meat prepared by the princess was surely loaded with all manner of spices. Not to mention the meat itself, it was surely of an extraordinarily high quality compared to what he had requisitioned from the guild’s storerooms.

Ah well, no sense worrying about it now. Maybe if he played his cards right, he could get himself invited to a meal at the palace! Maybe. The princess didn’t seem to like him all that much. Or rather, she hadn’t liked him while she had been fixing up the mimic. Since starting their expedition, he hadn’t heard a word of complaint levied in his direction. That’s right. She didn’t hate him! She had just been trying to concentrate on the mimic problem and he had foolishly been talking.

He just had to take care not to annoy her while on this expedition. That seemed easy enough. All he had to do was not distract her when she needed to think about something.

“You’ve got an awkward smile on your face again, friend.”

Oz glanced up to find one of the few people he trusted to have his back no matter the situation. “Thought you would never wake up.”

“And miss out on your soup? I hope you remembered to remove the stones this time.”

“That was one time. And I only use that trick in uncooperative villages.”

“Once was more than enough for my poor teeth,” Catal said. The larger man took a seat on the ground, accepting a bowl of the soup when offered. After taking a few sips while nodding and humming like he was enjoying it, he looked over to Oz. “Leaving soon?”

“As soon as we pull down the tent. So eat quick. I bet they’ll want to leave before nightfall. If we want to save Oxart, probably for the best that we get moving sooner rather than later. Looks like Alyssa just went in. To wake Princess Irulon?”

“Mhm.” Catal threw a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the tent’s entrance close behind the woman. He took another sip of his soup before chuckling softly to himself. “Never thought I’d get to say that I slept next to a princess.”

“Please,” Lumen said with a scoff. “You were on the opposite side of the tent.”

“Never thought I’d get to say that I slept in the same room as a princess either,” Catal said with an easygoing shrug. Lumen just scoffed.

For several minutes, none of the three said anything, choosing to enjoy their meal in a peaceful silence. Partially, anyway. It wasn’t completely peaceful nor was it entirely silent. Not long after Alyssa entered the tent, she started shouting. At first, Oz nearly jumped to his feet, ready to dash off and save the princess. But it quickly became apparent just what the shouting was about. He couldn’t help his light snickering.

Alyssa threw open the tent shortly thereafter, looking mixed between amused and upset. She marched away from the tent.

“Having troubles?” Lumen said, unable to keep a snide tone from entering the fringes of her voice.

“Just a princess who is missing her cushy life in the palace, I think.” Alyssa didn’t even look at them as she passed by to the waterhole. She had one of those clear containers that she had been drinking water from in hand, this one empty. It didn’t stay empty for long, however, as she dipped it right into the pool to fill it up. “If this doesn’t wake her, I’ll tie her ankles to Musca.”

“What are you going to do with that?” Oz asked after sharing a quick uncertain glance with his companions.

“Upend it over her head.” Alyssa marched right back to the tent, not even stopping for a chat.

Once again, Oz, Lumen, and Catal all shared a look.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Completely dead.”

“That solves one of our three problems,” Lumen said with a glare toward the mimic. “Now if only we could convince Irulon to return to the palace.”

“Hold on now. I still want the bonus. Unless your little magic lights can wipe out an entire commune, let’s not tell the princess to go home.”

Her eyes flashed with danger. Oz clamped his mouth shut as her hand drifted toward the pocket she kept her spells in. “Oh, I’ll show you just what I’ve been working on—”

Thankfully, a ruckus from the tent stole her attention. Lots of coughing, lots of sputtering, lots of shouting. This time, the shouts came in two voices. It was a bit difficult to hear what was being said, but the tent hadn’t caught fire so far, so it couldn’t be that bad.

Catal just chuckled, still sipping his soup with a content smile on his face. “If only all our mornings were this peaceful.”

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Author’s Note: Hello everyone. Just a quick request for people to vote on Top Web Fiction. Alyssa is in the middle of writing out some notes on the Northern Desert, so look forward to that sometime soon. Otherwise, hope you’re all enjoying!

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Into the Desert

Quiet Pillars

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Alyssa scanned the horizon, searching for any sign of Oxart. She looked through her binoculars, slowly dragging them from her left to her right. Deserts really were uninteresting. Maybe she was being unfair. Surely some people would like to go on a hike through a desert like this. Her brother or even her dad, for two examples. But not her. When hiking or camping, Alyssa definitely preferred a forest.

Of course, it didn’t help that she wasn’t here on vacation. Taking a leisurely stroll through the desert would change her outlook drastically. Without the pressure of mind controlling fairies, captains about to be eaten, and traveling companions who may or may not be too friendly, she might even find the desert relaxing in a very hot and somewhat uncomfortable sort of way. Though it wouldn’t be perfect.

Sighing, Alyssa lowered her binoculars just long enough to turn fully toward a larger… it wasn’t a mountain. It was a rock formation, but it was a huge one. One that did not look naturally formed in the slightest. So maybe not a rock formation but a rock structure built by alien hands. There were at least ten pillars jutting out of the otherwise relatively flat landscape. The tallest of which was right in the center. All of them joined into a larger mound made from the same not-rock material. Alyssa honestly couldn’t tell what it was, but guessed that it was more of compacted dirt than true stone. The entire structure, pillars and mound, was riddled with holes. Little windows, though if she got closer, she guessed that most of them would be larger than they looked. At least big enough to let her through without ducking. Maybe big enough to let her and Izsha through together.

In those little windows, Alyssa could see movement. Even with night vision making everything look like daytime, the distance made it difficult to tell what that movement was. But every now and again, something popped out of those holes enough to get at least a brief glimpse. Especially when she wasn’t looking. If she turned her binoculars fast enough, she could make out one of the things before it hid itself.

Pho had been somewhat of a strange thing. The bee girl from the Waterhole looked human so long as one didn’t look too hard. Rather, her silhouette looked human so long as that was all that could be seen. No one would mistake her for anything else once they noticed her joints being in just the wrong place, or her shiny black carapace, or her stiff face with compound eyes. Or those wings, torn and ruined though they had been.

These things she kept catching brief glimpses of had to be the ant people Oz had mentioned. Which meant that spire structure was their hive. They looked similar to Pho, though she hadn’t seen wings on any of them yet. Didn’t queen ants have wings? She felt like she had read something like that before. Those she spotted were almost solid black or brown, though the brown might have been dirt. It was hard to tell without getting closer. But they were person sized and shaped as far as Alyssa could tell—except for the second set of arms directly below their regular set.

Seeing them just made Alyssa shake her head. It really hammered home just how strange the whole concept of monsters was. They were just people that looked like animals and insects! Mostly. Kasita, obviously, was a bit different. Dragons probably were too. That medusa head inside the Observatorium’s display case indicated that there might be some other things out there. Medusa herself looked human with a bit of snake thrown on, but there were plenty of mythological creatures that were distinctly inhuman. If those were all real here, who knew what she might run across.

Turning to the giant lizard beside her, Alyssa sighed. “Smell any fairies or captains?”

Izsha let out a hefty snort, shaking its head at the same time. Alyssa took that as a negative. It was a shame that the draken couldn’t form human words. She probably wouldn’t have been quite so frightened of them at the start. Izsha had certainly grown on her after realizing just how much the draken was helping her with riding and mounting and dismounting. Musca… not so much. She was glad Irulon was the one in charge of that particular monster.

“Alright,” Alyssa said. “Let’s get back to the others. Shame we couldn’t find the captain, but they should probably be informed that the hive is watching us.”

Hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem. They were ants, not dragons, but that didn’t mean that Alyssa wanted to try fighting them. There were probably a lot of them, after all. A quick web search showed that ants killed around thirty people a year. And those were regular tiny Earth ants. People sized ones… She shuddered a little, hopping onto Izsha’s back.

The moment she was properly seated in the saddle, Izsha turned and jumped. It wasn’t quite as fast as during that momentary race, but it was fast enough that Alyssa once again leaned forward and grabbed Izsha’s neck. The draken didn’t seem to mind and she had discovered that the dragon hide armor was more than up to the task of protecting against the spiked scales. So long as she leaned slightly to the side to keep her face away from Izsha’s back, it was actually not that bad of position. Nothing she would want to maintain for any length of time, but for the short bursts of speed Izsha occasionally performed, it was better than trying to hold on to the lip of the saddle.

Even from her position a football field or two ahead of the others, it didn’t take long to get back to them on Izsha. When not running wild, Izsha could move incredibly smoothly. Like flying, almost. Or so Alyssa imagined, having never flown outside an airplane. It did, however, make her wish that she had a motorcycle helmet. Something to keep the bite of the wind out of her face. Unfortunately, even if she returned home, there wouldn’t be anything there to help her. No one in her family rode a motorcycle. Her sunglasses helped a little. She was quite glad that they were the kind that fit tightly to head, being sunglasses made for sports, rather than large aviators or something of similar design. Those would have probably flown off in the rush of wind.

Although she did feel like she belonged in an eighties music video. Luckily, wearing her sunglasses at night did almost nothing while she had Night Vision active.

It didn’t take long at all to get from the gentle hill she had been surveying the land from to the lower valley where the others were waiting. Oxart’s tracks faded into obscurity right in this valley. The ground became more firm for some geological reason that Alyssa didn’t have the experience to understand. A light wind had picked up in the last hour, helping to disturb what little impressions were on the ground.

Lumen and Irulon were off to one side, discussing with one another what magic they had between them that might help to further narrow down the search. Musca had its face to the ground, sniffing around like it was some kind of bloodhound. Oz and Catal were tending to the horses a short distance away from the rest.

Izsha stopped roughly between the two groups, letting Alyssa speak at a relatively normal volume. “No sign of the captain. That hive was watching me the entire time I was up there. I didn’t see any of the ants actually come out, but if they have tunnels around, we should probably be a little worried.”

“We won’t remain here for long,” Irulon said without looking up from the notebook she was scribbling in. “So long as we don’t get closer to the hive, they will likely not initiate hostilities.”

Oz crossed his arms as a frown worked its way across his face. “What if the fairy dragged her off to the hive?”

Irulon’s shoulders rose and lowered in a light shrug. “Well, you can’t save them all. I have quite an impressive opinion of myself, but I would still be wary of assaulting an entire hive. There could be a million of those things just beneath our feet.”

While Oz nodded as if the princess had just said something sensible, Alyssa glanced down at her feet. A million of them? She didn’t know how strong they were or whether they had any capacity for magic or weapons, but she could picture a tide of them rolling over this spot. They wouldn’t need weapons if they just trampled her to death.

“I do not believe that the fairy would have sought out refuge at the hive,” Irulon continued. “Fairies are tolerated but not well liked by most monsters for reasons that should be all too obvious. The fairy could mesmerize anything that came near it, true, but the ants have ranged weaponry. We should find out where Oxart is soon enough,” she said, pulling free the sheet of paper she had been writing on.

Alyssa eyed the slightly oversized card with a certain feeling of trepidation. The princess favored Fractal based spells. So far, only one Fractal spell seemed fine and that was the invisibility spell. Every other spell either had something go wrong or had fairly debilitating side effects. Luckily for her, there was absolutely no reason for anyone other than Irulon to be the one to cast it. “Is that Fractal Vision?”

“The spell my counterparts created?” Irulon shook her head. “I don’t have their memories and don’t know exactly how they created it. I could likely recreate it based on the exact effects you told me about, but it doesn’t seem as useful in this exact situation. Besides, you said it was faulty, was it not?”

She had a picture of the spell that she now realized she should probably show to Irulon, but for now, she just nodded her head. “You—or your clones—insisted that it would not teleport me anywhere yet it did.”

“That could just be you, but I’d rather not take the chance. Teleportation would be sub-optimal under these circumstances. Unlikely though it might be, if the fairy did enter the hive, whoever used the spell would likely be torn apart before relaying any useful information back to the rest of us. Which would probably be me. I came plenty close to dying already. I think that’s enough for one lifetime.”

Alyssa had no arguments against that. She felt much the same way. Except, she wasn’t certain that she had come all that close to dying. At least, she hadn’t wound up injured at all. If the gaunt or the shadow assassins had gotten their hands on her, that would have quickly changed, but she felt she had gotten off easy compared to her fight with the Taker.

“Protect me should anything happen. This should only take two to five minutes.” Before anyone could ask what was only going to take five minutes, Irulon raised the card. “Retrograde Cognition.”

Irulon wobbled and toppled the moment she spoke the words. Apparently having expected this, Lumen caught Irulon and slowly lowered her down to the ground where she lay breathing but unmoving. And her eyes were closed. Sleeping? Hopefully she would wake much easier than she had earlier. Alyssa couldn’t help but wonder: If she had known this was going to happen, why hadn’t Irulon just sat down in the first place. That went far beyond a simple trust fall—something Alyssa had never trusted in the first place.

Now that Irulon was on the ground and asleep, Alyssa felt a chill go down her spine. If her life were a movie, this would definitely be the part where one of their party was incapacitated and they had to fight off a horde of unrelenting monsters from over the horizon. Glancing back to where she had just come from, Alyssa frowned. The hill was placed just such that it obscured the tall peaks of the hive’s pillars. Which really didn’t reassure her in the slightest.

Fingers tight around the grip of her pistol, Alyssa kept her eyes glued on the hilltop. She wasn’t sure what she thought a dozen shots would do against a million ants. Even unloading every bit of ammo she had on her, there would still be a million ants left over. The deck of cards she had contained a few fire-based spells which might help, but help was an extremely relative word. Casting every spell she had along with emptying her guns, she still wouldn’t put a dent in one million ants.

It was easy to see why Irulon didn’t want to fight them.

If she saw the slightest movement from the top of the hill, she would grab Irulon using a combination of Spectral Chains and Levitate, and then run. Hopefully the others would jump on their horses. No one would like it, certainly, but better than being torn apart by ants.

“So.”

Alyssa jumped, yelping slightly. She was extremely glad her pistol had its safety on. Turning, she scowled at Oz while clutching her chest. Admittedly, it wasn’t really his fault. She was wound up tighter than she could remember. It was the anticipation of something horrible happening.

“What?” Oz said, frowning at her.

“What do you mean, what? That’s my question. What are you doing?” Alyssa paused, taking in a deep, calming breath of air. “Nearly gave me a heart attack…” she mumbled.

Oz didn’t respond for a moment, eying her less with anger and more with worry. “Are you alright?”

“Fine. Just fine. When you came up, I was imagining a million ants rolling down the hill, trampling us to death.”

“Ah. Shouldn’t need to worry too much about that. Most insect species are not typically aggressive unless they believe their hives are in danger. Bee monsters are almost friendly, believe it or not, though don’t tell Lumen I said that. She’s a little funny about insects.”

“Friendly? You say that after all the crap you’ve talked about Kasita?”

“Woah,” he said, holding up his hands and taking a step back. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to go pick one up and cart it around in my bag all day.” Alyssa did not miss the way his eyes flicked down to her satchel. “I’m just saying that, if I’m in a forest running from something scary, I’ll head to a bee hive over a minotaur warren and hope for the best any day of the week. Assuming those were the only two choices, of course. I would rather avoid monsters entirely if at all possible.”

Alyssa shook her head. She considered not saying anything, but decided there wasn’t much point given her obvious association with Kasita. “I don’t think monsters are as evil as everyone seems to think they are. Some of them, sure, they might be trouble more often than not. I’ve never encountered a shadow assassin that wasn’t under the control of a fairy, but I can’t imagine they earned a name like that by being cute fluffy bunnies. And gaunts might be too… alien to interact with properly, aside from the fact that they apparently go dormant for years at a time. And fairies… I’m not sure what to think. I was honestly going to help the stupid thing out of the city but then it stabbed me in the back!” Oz nodded at that, not disagreeing, though he didn’t look too happy. But Alyssa wasn’t done. “I met a harpy on the way to Lyria. It was friendly. It even tried to give me a fish for breakfast. And elves? What’s wrong with elves? They’re blue humans with pointed ears.”

He shook his head before brushing back a lock of red hair. Oz didn’t have long hair, but it did hang down to his eyebrows when it wasn’t pushed back over the top of his head. It actually looked a bit like he had styling gel keeping it in place, but knowing that there probably wasn’t gel in this world, it was certainly grease and sweat. A lot of grease. Alyssa tried not to think about that too much. She wasn’t much better given that they had just ridden through a desert. Even at night, it was fairly warm.

After staring at her for a minute more, he said, “You’re serious aren’t you. I know you’re not from around here, but Tenebrael’s tits, you can’t be that ignorant.” He paused for another moment before continuing. “Genocidal blue monsters,” he said. “You’ve seen the slaves around the city? Most of them were captured in the last war. That’s not some ancient history. It was only ten years ago.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together, thinking. Another war. First the Juno Federation then the elves? “On average, how many wars does Lyria have every decade or so?”

Oz shrugged, shaking his head again. This time, less in disbelief and more in uncertainty. Which, she thought, might be because of my question more than anything. If someone had asked her how many wars America got into every ten years, she wouldn’t be able to answer either. Technically zero. The last time the United States declared war had been back during World War Two. But there were soldiers in plenty of countries all around the world. Not to mention the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Gulf War, and so on.

Did something like the Fortress of Pandora count as being in war at all times? If it really was assaulted regularly by monsters, maybe. Or maybe she was just being overly pedantic about what exactly a war was.

A low groan from Irulon pulled her attention away from her thoughts. Alyssa let out a sigh of relief at seeing Irulon stir. Oz had been a somewhat welcome distraction from her clearly unwarranted worries. Not a single ant had poked its head over the horizon. Anticlimactic? Maybe. But her life had been far too climactic as of late.

Sometimes, she wished she would have just stayed in Teneville and learned how to be a proper carpenter. She would never get home had she done so, but she also wouldn’t have fireballs flying at her head on the regular. Or ants tearing her apart.

Holding her forehead, Irulon sat up with Lumen’s help. Her eyes were foggy, glassy, and highly dilated, though that mostly went away after blinking a few times. “That,” she said in a low tone, “was distinctly unpleasant.”

“Did it work?” Lumen asked, voice soft and quiet to the point where Alyssa had trouble hearing her from not far away.

Irulon winced. “Please don’t shout at me. I can hear you well enough.”

“Uh…” Lumen looked over, finding a shrugging Oz and Catal with his bushy eyebrows raised. She even chanced a glance at Alyssa, who could only offer a confused hum.

“But yes, it did work. There are good and bad elements in the information I’ve gained.” Irulon slowly got to her feet with Lumen assisting. The former used the latter’s arm as a crutch to keep from wobbling too much. That spell clearly had taken a little something out of the princess. Hopefully nothing permanent. “The good part is that our missing captain did not venture closer to the hive. We have no need to agitate the ants.”

That was a relief. As bad as Alyssa felt for being at least partially responsible for Oxart’s current circumstances, there was a definite line in the ground regarding what she could do about it. And that line came well before charging into a hive filled with one million angry ants. As Irulon had said earlier, sorry, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.

Still, there was bad news to go along with this good news. Irulon sure was taking her sweet time getting to it. Alyssa felt a little bad for Irulon’s current state, but at the same time, she wanted to get the information and get moving as soon as possible. Preferably in a direction that did not bring her closer to the hive.

“Unfortunately, both Oxart and the fairy with her made contact with a small group of humans. Both were captured with little difficulty—they used some sort of smoke to subdue the fairy. I believe that smoke is what confused the draken’s sense of smell as well.”

“A white and sort of misty smoke?” Alyssa asked.

Grimacing, Irulon nodded.

“The Society of the Burning Shadow used that both times I saw them controlling fairies. So those humans probably belong to them.”

“I presumed as much. They appeared to be surveying the hive prior to noticing the captain. Which is something that has me worried given the events of last night and the week prior.” She turned her eyes, which were looking much better than they had immediately after she woke up, to Alyssa. “They left by horseback approximately thirty minutes ago. You and I would be able to catch up in short order with the assistance of the draken. Are you ready to fight three individuals?”

Alyssa swallowed a bit of a dry lump in her throat. That was the whole reason she had come here. Not to fight Society members specifically, but to rescue Oxart. Leaving her in the hands of the Society would likely see her tortured and killed before too long. Especially once they realized that she was from the city they were attacking. They would probably not do so immediately, wanting to know why she had ended up here in the desert with a fairy that was supposed to be attacking the palace, but it would be soon almost certainly. But…

If Irulon couldn’t fight with her, she wasn’t sure what she could do. Three people wasn’t more than she had fought the night before, but the gaunt had attracted more than its fair share of attention from them. It also wasn’t more than she had encountered on the Brechen Overlook, and she had run off there without thinking about how dangerous it could have been. But Tzheitza had been with her at the time.

Kasita was with her now and had been at the Brechen Overlook. The mimic, if given a handful of cards, could be quite the force to be reckoned with in Alyssa’s opinion. She just wasn’t sure that she wanted to test her opinion in live combat. Even just thinking about it as combat was giving her cold feet.

“What about you?” Alyssa said. “Are you alright? You’re looking unsteady.”

Irulon pushed herself away from Lumen, standing on her own. She straightened her back and locked on to Alyssa’s eyes. “I will be fine. The rest of you follow as fast as you are able. Between two Rank Six arcanists, I do not foresee these three being a problem, but I would prefer there be no surprises. I’ve brushed with death far too close for my liking at their hands once. It would be remiss to be unprepared. They may have Recall available or reinforcements closer than I expect. Any questions?” She looked around, meeting the eyes of everyone for several seconds before moving on to the next person. When she looked over all three and none spoke, she nodded her head. “Good.”

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Into the Desert

Pushed to the Limits

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“‘Tess, my bath? Tess, please prepare my meal. Extra meat today, I think. My clothes, Tess. Oh Tess, dress me.’”

“Will you desist.”

To say that Irulon sounded a little annoyed would be an understatement, but Alyssa couldn’t help it. She chuckled. While awake, the princess acted stern and focused. That wasn’t to say that she couldn’t laugh, but they were often serious sorts of laughs. Or cruel sorts of laughs. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes. But half asleep…

First of all, Irulon slept heavier than anyone Alyssa had ever seen. Nothing she had tried elicited a reaction in the slightest, from nudging Irulon to shaking her to pinching her nose shut. Alyssa had considered slapping the princess, but it would probably have been her first time ever being slapped and Alyssa didn’t want to die. Assuming Irulon even noticed the slapping, that was. Something Alyssa was still unsure about.

It had taken dipping her fingers in water and flicking it on Irulon’s face before the princess reacted. And that was only just barely a reaction. Her eyes had stayed closed, but her mouth had started moving. Alyssa, in her mocking tone, might not have gotten everything the princess had said verbatim, but it had been close enough. Irulon hadn’t so much as opened her eyes until Alyssa upended a tin of water on the princess’ face. Even after that, it had looked like she might head back to sleep had she not noticed her surroundings, lurched forward, and just about slammed her forehead into Alyssa’s.

Now, Irulon wouldn’t even turn her head in Alyssa’s direction. She hid deep within the pages of another tome, barely glancing up as she read through the text. Which was actually an improvement over her glares immediately after waking. For a while there, Alyssa had felt as if her life was in danger. Had Alyssa not saved the princess’ life just the night before, it might actually have been in danger.

Shaking her head with a small smile—she never would have believed how dependent Irulon was on her personal attendant—Alyssa looked around the desert scenery. The sun had set, but she could see perfectly thanks to the Night Vision spell. She had been a little worried about traveling at night, but now was wondering why people even bothered with light producing spells and potions. Well, not actually wondering. Light was a Rank Zero spell, meaning that anyone with even the slightest ability in magic could use it. Night Vision was surprisingly highly ranked at Four. And potions could be used by anyone.

As for the desert itself… well, there wasn’t much around that she hadn’t seen yesterday. Lots of dirt, lots of rocks, lots of rock formations, and lots of sagebrush and other small deserty plants. Irulon rode Musca just a short distance away, pointedly ignoring Alyssa. Kasita was hiding somewhere. Oz and company were, again, keeping their distance a few dozen feet back. She couldn’t see the palace anymore, which was a minor indicator of how far they had traveled, but she had actually lost sight of it yesterday well before they had stopped.

Despite the surreal aspects of riding on the back of a dinosaur to rescue someone from being eaten by a fairy, it really was an incredibly mundane experience. A lot like a long road trip. As much as she could appreciate the natural beauty of the scenery, it really didn’t change much minute-to-minute or even by the hour. Worse, there were no gas stations or fast food restaurants. The jerky and bread hadn’t been inedible. Eating nothing but them for weeks… was not something she was looking forward to. Even on the way to Lyria, she had eaten with people in their homes, having what they would be having for dinner. Often it hadn’t been anything especially tasty compared to Earth foods, but the variety had been a welcome break from that stale travel bread.

There were no towns or villages in the desert. Not human ones, anyway. An ant colony lived not too far from where she was now. The fairies had their oasis commune another day or few to the north. Apparently there were lizard people somewhere in the desert, somewhat like Rizk by Irulon’s description, though hopefully not quite so hostile should they make an appearance.

In all honesty, Alyssa wasn’t really interested in meeting any monsters at the moment. She just couldn’t envision any way that a monster encounter would turn out well. The guild knights she was traveling with would almost certainly be immediately hostile with no time for negotiation or discussion. From the opposite side of things, it was doubtful that monsters would be too happy with a bunch of humans charging through their territory. Riding through claimed territory was still not nearly as bad as stopping in it would be. Oz—Or rather, the guild had a map of the desert with known territories sketched out, so they should be able to avoid such troubles. At least so long as nothing had changed since the maps were made. Alyssa wanted to snap a picture of it, but hadn’t really worked up the nerve to actually talk to Oz, Lumen, or Catal for any length of time since leaving Lyria.

She should talk to them. Things were just… awkward. None of them liked her, or Kasita, or the draken. She wasn’t even sure they were all that pleased with Irulon. And not just because of the princess’ mildly abrasive personality, but rather because of her association with monsters. Except for Oz, they probably wouldn’t have liked Alyssa much even had she not brought a fairy around them and fought back when they attacked her. Kasita alone would have ensured that, but bringing along the draken did nothing to help.

Musca jerked off to the side, nearly making Irulon lose her tome as she had to grab the lip of the saddle. Izsha followed, though she took the turn in a more gentle curve. That took them off at an angle from where they had been traveling before.

“What? What is it?” Alyssa looked around. They had been traveling in a straight line since leaving their camp. Or straight enough that she couldn’t tell if it hadn’t been laser straight or slightly curved. Behind her, Oz was looking just as confused as she felt. Neither he nor the others had turned to follow, still moving forward on their original path. “Irulon?”

The princess didn’t respond straight away. Having lost her position in her book thanks to the sudden movements of Musca, she slid the tome into the saddlebag before staring around. Her eyes started straight ahead of where they were now moving toward before turning to the side to observe their old path. Turning slightly, she looked down at Musca then back at Izsha. During the few seconds she was turned back, Alyssa caught a glimpse of her eyes—once again all black except for those thin white lines. “I think,” Irulon said, “they smelled something. And if it is food, I am going to be extremely displeased. I’m speaking to you, Musca.” Balling her fist, she tapped Musca on the back of its neck with enough force that it bordered on being a punch.

The draken didn’t like that. Musca kept moving forward, but it turned its head to the side, snapping at the air. It continued forward, increasing its speed. Izsha sped up to keep pace, feet hammering into the ground far harder than before. The formerly smooth ride turned to something a bit less comfortable as Alyssa found herself holding on to the edges of the saddle just like Irulon was. Once again, Alyssa couldn’t help but wish the designers had added some handlebars to the saddle.

Pulling out her binoculars, Alyssa tried to see for herself what they might be heading toward. Night vision combined with binoculars was really something special. She could see perfectly, even in places that she shouldn’t be able to. For example, one of the pillaring rock formations had a heavy overhang that, with normal lighting, would be cast in a heavy shadow. Alyssa could see every detail of the stone inside. She had already dismissed the reason why everyone didn’t use Night Vision, but it made her wonder why everyone with the ability didn’t always wander around with the spell active. Perhaps it had long-term detrimental effects on vision. Something to ask Irulon about before using it constantly.

As for where the draken were now headed, Alyssa couldn’t see much of anything but dirt and sagebrush. She couldn’t actually see all that far. The desert was relatively flat, save for the jutting rock formations, but it wasn’t flat enough. Even with the minor elevation from being on Izsha, it was nowhere near the distance she could see from the walls of Lyria. The city was almost on a hill of its own, giving it a great view of its surroundings.

She just about put her binoculars down, but stopped when she saw it. At first, she thought it was just a small mound of dirt out on the horizon. Except it had long strands at both ends. Dark, thin strings. It took her a minute, but as soon as her mind made the connection, it clicked. The strands were hair. A dark mane ran down the neck and a tail sprouted from the opposite end.

“A horse.”

Irulon glanced back momentarily, eyed the binoculars, then turned back forward. “Hm. Any sign of our wayward captain?”

“I don’t think so. The horse looks dead… or sleeping. It isn’t moving either way. I don’t see anyone else around it.”

“Is it breathing?”

“Too far to tell.”

“This is a lot closer than I would have expected to find a toppled horse. The fairy must have been pushing it as hard as it could go.”

“Are there no feral horse packs living in the desert that this might be from?”

“Too much of a coincidence to find one randomly in the same direction we were chasing the fairy and captain.” Irulon looked back much further than she had before, nearly turning fully in the saddle. “Inform the guild of what lies in this direction. If they do not wish to follow, that is fine. The draken will catch up to them after we have inspected the area.” Looking forward once again, she snapped out a simple command. “Musca!”

The draken underneath the princess jumped ahead, barely getting off the ground but managing to put all its energy into the horizontal movement. At the same time, Izsha started to slow and turn back toward Oz and the other horse mounted knights. Oz, noticing her approach first, angled his horse slightly in her direction while slowing down. The other two brought their horses to a dead stop.

“Where is Princess Irulon headed?” Oz called out as soon as they were close enough. “If she continues in that direction too long, she’s going to run into a hive.”

“The draken smelled a downed horse in this direction,” she said, thumbing over her shoulder. “It might be the one we’re looking for. If you want, you can continue toward the commune. The draken should be able to catch up after we’ve inspected the area. I or Irulon will send a Message if a trail leads off anywhere but the direction of the commune.”

“That’s the horse that was carrying your pet fairy and the guard captain?”

“Probably. I could barely see it even with my binoculars. Hence the inspection.”

“You let Princess Irulon go off alone to where we suspect a fairy might be?” He sounded upset now. Not angry, but agitated and worried.

And for a moment, Alyssa started. But… “If I can throw off a fairy’s control, I’m sure Irulon can.” Unless that was yet another weird quirk of magic that interacted with her. Except it couldn’t be. Irulon’s older brother had broken free from a fairy much faster than Alyssa had back on the Brechen Overlook. If he could do it, surely Irulon could. She had a whole dragon shoved in her head to help out.

“Even if you and she can,” he said, pointing a finger. “What about your… lovely scaled friends?” He pulled back his hand to pat his horse on the side of its neck halfway through speaking. Both of them looked rather nervous all of a sudden. The horse even reared back, forcing Oz to take hold of the reins and whisper into its ear.

Sitting behind Izsha’s head, Alyssa couldn’t see what the draken was doing, but it clearly had an effect. Regarding Oz’s question, she honestly didn’t know the answer. Irulon would have presumably considered such a thing. In fact, it might even be the reason they were using draken rather than horses. Alyssa couldn’t imagine a horse having more mental fortitude than the obviously intelligent monsters. Thinking about it now, she was actually more worried that Oz and the rest of the guild might fall prey to a fairy well before Alyssa or Irulon or even the draken. They had been the ones worried when Alyssa showed up with one in her pocket.

Then again, they knew they were going after a fairy commune. Surely the guild wouldn’t have selected people too susceptible to a fairy’s control. Perhaps Lumen had some magic that would keep their minds safe and they just hadn’t had the time to cast it when Alyssa popped in unexpectedly with one in tow. That made far more sense than the guild sending a bunch of rookies to get themselves eaten.

Alyssa started to ask, but Oz started talking first.

“We better make sure the princess doesn’t come to harm. It isn’t our job, but I doubt we’ll get much prestige if we let her run off into an ant hive on her own.”

“I’ll head back with Izsha and make sure she doesn’t do anything foolish.” Using the stirrups, Alyssa pushed herself just a little higher in the saddle to see around Oz. Both of his companions were stalled a fair distance back. It was possible that they could hear from their position, but also possible that they couldn’t. She wasn’t exactly shouting, after all. “If you want to inform your friends for me… I don’t think they like me too much.”

He glanced back himself with a bit of a grimace. “That stunt you pulled with the fairy did not impress them. And how you cast spells. And the company you keep,” he added, flicking his eyes downward to the draken. “Lumen is under the impression that you’re a monster trying to deceive the princess into… she actually hasn’t figured out the rest of your dastardly plan just yet.”

Alyssa just rolled her eyes. Really. A monster. What else is new. Part of her wondered exactly what kind of monster everyone kept thinking she was. Irulon had considered a lich and a demon at the very least, but she hadn’t a clue what anyone else thought. “Well I’m not. If anything, I’m the one being dragged around by the princess. I didn’t want to come on this stupid trip. No offense intended. But the only reason I’m here is because I feel a little responsible for what happened to Oxart.”

“You don’t need to complain to me. I believe you, though I also believe that you are incredibly foolish. Hopefully this fairy thing has given you a little wake up call. Not a big enough one, obviously, because you’ve still got that mimic. You do still have her somewhere, right?”

“Somewhere.” She couldn’t answer any more specifically than that as she didn’t know exactly where. But Kasita was somewhere on her person. “Kasita has saved my life at least four times. Maybe more? If she is planning to betray me at my weakest or something, she’s definitely doing a very poor job of it.”

“Just be careful. And don’t…” His eyes flicked down to Izsha again before he shook his head. “Catch up to the princess. We’ll be along as fast as our horses allow.”

“Right.” Glancing down at Izsha’s back, Alyssa said, “Irulon and Musca have a decent head start. Think you can get to the horse first?”

Izsha turned her head just enough for one of the draken’s eyes to meet hers.

“No. Wait. They’re too far. I wasn’t serious. It was a joke. Not—”

Never before had Alyssa regretted opening her big mouth more than now. Hoping that the dragon hide would protect her arms and chest from Izsha’s spikes, she grabbed hold of the smooth sides of the draken’s neck.

Just in time.

Its tail whipped around as muscles coiled in its legs. The dinosaur jumped, crossing a football field of desert in seconds.

Alyssa kept her mouth clamped shut, not wanting to bite off her tongue. The wind rushing past her face made her squeeze her eyes shut. Her hands were wrapped so tight around Izsha that some tiny rational portion of her mind worried over strangling the draken. A slightly larger portion of her mind calmly explained to the first that the draken would stop if it passed out, so hold on tighter.

The rest of her mind screamed.

Izsha was clearly taking the challenge as just that, a challenge.

It didn’t take long for the rush of wind to die down to normal levels. She hadn’t fallen off. She hadn’t died. Yet it still took a bit of courage to actually open her eyes.

Amazingly enough, despite feeling like she had been flying at the speed of sound, Alyssa found herself still in the desert. In fact, they hadn’t traveled that far at all. Further than where she had left Irulon by far, but not far enough. Alyssa could see Irulon and Musca up ahead, the former already sliding off the latter’s saddle.

Izsha made a small whining noise. Not the first sound Alyssa had heard it make, but possibly the most pronounced and obvious in meaning.

Pushing herself back from the sharp scales that ran down the back of Izsha’s head, and being very glad that she hadn’t slammed her face into them, Alyssa patted the draken. “I’m sorry. I spent too long talking. Maybe next time.”

With another disappointed groan, Izsha started trotting forward. It wasn’t moving as fast as it had been, but Alyssa wasn’t going to complain about being a minute or two behind Irulon. Glancing behind her, Alyssa just about dropped her jaw.

Oz and company were just tiny little dots on the horizon, looking about as big as the toppled horse had from when Alyssa first spotted it. Even riding full speed, they would probably not be here for another ten minutes. She could not believe how fast Izsha had moved in what felt like only a few seconds. Maybe it had been longer than that, she hadn’t exactly timed it, but they couldn’t have been running and jumping for more than a two minutes.

If she and Irulon weren’t intentionally going slowly to keep the guild nearby, just how much faster could they have gone? Could they have caught up with Oxart before stopping for the day?

Probably not, actually. Maintaining that speed for any distance was sure to wear the draken down. They weren’t bulky with fatty stores of energy. And, if they had caught up to Oxart, things might not have turned out so well as Alyssa had been practically falling asleep at the time.

Reaching the downed horse, Alyssa dismounted. She was getting fairly competent at getting on and off Izsha, no doubt thanks to Izsha helping out with minor shifts in its body position. Regardless, she managed to get to the ground without any trouble.

“Its description matches the one given by the gate guards,” Irulon said before Alyssa’s boots hit dirt. “It isn’t dead, but I imagine that fairy forced it to run at top speed the moment it left Lyria. No rests. No stops at any waterholes. I would estimate that it managed to run at top speed for only thirty minutes, slowed down over time past that, and eventually collapsed here between four and six hours ago.”

“You can tell that precisely, huh?”

“There is a certain amount of guessing involved, but yes.” Irulon walked around the horse, which Alyssa now noted was breathing at a rate that she might find worrying. If she knew more about horses, that worry might have increased or decreased, but she didn’t. The whole time Irulon moved, she kept her eyes locked on the ground. “Wind has disturbed the dirt here, but not enough that I cannot make out tracks. It looks as if a human limped off in that direction,” Irulon said, pointing roughly where they had been traveling before taking the detour to the horse. “The limp may be explained through the horse collapsing while the rider was still on its back. All saddlebags are gone and we know from the gate guards that there were some, so I would assume our missing captain has provisions.”

“A limp is good as long as she isn’t too injured. It should slow her down. How far is the fairy oasis?”

“At the rate we are traveling, we should reach it in roughly a day and a half of travel time, not including any rests, camps, and other breaks.”

“So on foot and with a limp at that, she can’t have gone too far. Relatively, at least.”

“No. If we wish to save Captain Oxart, now would be an optimal time to find her. The fairy won’t have support of its kind and the captain will be exhausted given that she likely hadn’t slept while riding.”

Glancing back to the horses, Alyssa said, “Let’s tell them what’s going on then split up to search? Have any plans for that?”

“Follow the tracks then use the draken’s sense of smell to narrow it down further. We should endeavor to keep the horses and possibly the others out of the fairy’s range or we risk losing it again.”

That made Alyssa raise an eyebrow, thinking about what she had considered just a few minutes ago. “Are they going to be a problem if we encounter fairies?”

“I imagine Lumen won’t have an issue, but I am unsure about the other two. Lumen should be able to apply Mental Fortitude to both, but it doesn’t last forever, so they won’t have it on permanently. If they are caught by surprise, things could go poorly for us.”

So they did have a spell. Still worrying. She would have to keep an eye out for any fairies. Kasita too, though Kasita had already proved that she might not be able to handle a fairy influencing her. Maybe it was a bad idea to give her desecrate spells while they needed other spells to protect from fairies. As long as it was just the one, Alyssa and Irulon could handle it. Once they got closer to the fairy commune, it might be best to have a talk with Kasita bout that. Though she really didn’t want to. The mimic had looked so happy while explaining her reasoning for picking the spell.

Ah well. Oxart first. Fairy second. Commune third.

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Into the Desert

Rest Stop

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Alyssa blinked her eyes open at the sound of shuffling feet, finding herself staring at the white walls of the hemp tent. It wasn’t her tent, Oz had assured her that several guests would be able to fit within the tent he was bringing, and he had been right. The draken could have fit in with little difficulty. Not that anyone wanted them inside. Even Izsha, who had been quite kind in how it treated her and her inexperience, still unnerved Alyssa just enough that sleeping with it would have resulted in exceedingly little sleep actually had. Not that the thin woven walls would stop much of anything that wanted to tear through them. Still, it was the degree of separation that mattered.

Though they wouldn’t have bothered with a tent at all had they not been concerned about rain, something that apparently happened in the desert on occasion much to Alyssa’s surprise. The clouds in the distance had Catal worried, hence the tent. It wasn’t a happy sort of moistening rain though, instead frequently causing flash floods and other hazards, which was the main reason they had picked out a bit of elevated terrain. Rain also explained the swimming-pool-sized-waterhole that sat in the shadow of the rock formation they had made camp under. Alyssa really hadn’t taken the time to look around her surroundings all that much. The second the tent was set up, she had unrolled her sleeping bag and decided to take just a quick rest. She was fairly certain that the others had made some sort of meal for themselves and likely had set up people to take watch while the others slept, but her quick rest…

Well, she was waking up now. She would apologize and offer to take first watch next time.

Sitting up, she wiped the gunk from her eyes as she blearily glanced around. Irulon slept a few paces off on her own, wrapped up in a blanket made of some kind of fur. Animal hide, probably. Maybe monster hide? It looked soft and far too warm for the desert heat that easily penetrated the tent’s walls.

Lumen and Catal slept a short distance to Alyssa’s side. Both were lying on some bit of hide, but neither had blankets as Irulon did. Oz was nowhere to be seen, but Alyssa heard it again. A sound of footsteps dashing back and forth outside the tent. He must be the one on watch, but what was with the sound? Maybe it was one of the draken or the horses. Or… could he be in trouble.

Alyssa grabbed her pistols from where they lay just to the side of her sleeping bag—as tired as she had been, she did have the presence of mind to remove them before sleeping; accidentally shooting herself in her sleep would be a tragic way to go after surviving something like the Taker. Both hands on her gun and finger on the safety, Alyssa carefully stepped over Lumen’s sleeping form and moved the tent’s flap aside.

Ten paces from the tent, Oz swung his sword left, then right, then thrust it forward. Droplets of sweat flew through the air as he threw himself to one side before sweeping his sword toward Alyssa’s direction—

A burning tore its way across her stomach, freeing her innards. Red jelly slopped to the floor.

Alyssa clamped her hand over her mouth, fighting back a sudden wave of nausea. She couldn’t throw up. Not here, not now. Oz was nowhere near her. Even after that dash to the side, he was still eight paces away. Far too far to actually hit her. She hadn’t been hit by a sword.

More importantly, Oz was clearly fighting something. He jumped back, falling into a quick roll before springing back to his feet. With a grunt, he thrust his sword forward. Whatever he was trying to hit wasn’t there anymore. What was it? A shadow assassin? Some other invisible monster? The horses were leashed up to a peg that had been hammered into the rock formation. None of them looked panicked, though they were watching Oz as they lay on their sides. The draken weren’t even awake. Both were sleeping practically on top of each other with their heads nuzzled together not far from the horses. Would they just let him die fighting for his life ten feet away?

Probably, actually.

Why was Kasita never around when she was needed?

Alyssa half turned, about to quietly—so as to not spook whatever monster was fighting Oz—wake up Lumen, Catal, and Irulon. But something made her pause.

Oz sighed, letting the tension in his muscles drop. After rolling his head from side to side, he slid his sword back into its sheath. What now? Had a fairy gotten to him? She couldn’t see one nearby and knew from the fairy that she had encountered that they had to be close, but magic could do all sorts of insane things. Invisibility the least among them. Tzheitza had said that even the fairy village would be invisible.

Staying where she was to watch him more, she frowned as he walked up to the waterhole. What was he going to do now, poison it? That wouldn’t work on her—she had plenty of water bottles and a canteen in her backpack, plus whatever the Black Prince had packed on Izsha for her. She would have to warn the others, though.

But he didn’t move to dump anything into it. He grabbed a rough metal pot by the handle that had been lying nearby, scooped up a small cup of water, and dumped it right over his head. He was… cooling himself off? But…

Something brushed up against Alyssa’s back, making her jump and practically fall out of the tent in her haste to put distance between it and her. Lumen stood in her recently vacated spot, looking down at Alyssa with amusement riddling her features.

“Got your eye on Oz, do you?” she asked with a soft, short laugh. “You’re out of luck. I don’t think you’re his type.”

“What? No. I—”

Lumen stepped around Alyssa with barely another glance, calling to Oz. “I hope you were keeping a watch for anything that wanted to kill us in our sleep and not swinging about your silly stick again, Oz.”

He jumped slightly, running his hand through his red hair to sweep the dripping strands back over his head. “‘Course I was. On watch, that is. Not the other thing. I mean, I was, but it was just a little training to keep my senses sharp.”

“Uh huh,” Lumen scoffed, shaking her head as she walked off. She said a few quiet words to Oz before disappearing around the side of the rock formation. Where exactly, Alyssa didn’t know, but imagined that Lumen needed a little privacy first thing in the morning.

But…

Training? That had been training? Ugh. She had been all worried about him fighting nothing but the air? Alyssa felt like slamming her face against the wall. It was a good thing she hadn’t called out to everyone in the tent. Lumen woke up, but if she had pulled everyone out of their much needed sleep for a fat lot of nothing… Ugh.

“Kasita,” Alyssa called out softly. “Kasita, are you around?”

“Always.”

Alyssa did not jump at the voice coming from her back. If anything, it had been expected. How many times had Kasita suddenly shown up behind her or to her sides? Enough that she was starting to get used to it. So she just calmly turned and spoke softly. “There aren’t any monsters around, are there?”

Kasita, wearing her sisterly visage, raised an eyebrow.

Which just had Alyssa rolling her eyes. “Aside from the obvious,” she said, gesturing between the mimic and the draken. “I mean like shadow assassins or invisible fairies.”

“I don’t see any… Ufu~ You didn’t think he was—”

“Not a word to anybody.”

Alyssa just shook her head as the stupid mimic had a giggle with herself. “I’m going to figure out what I can eat and then… depending on how much time we have before we start traveling again, would you like to make some spell cards with me?”

The giggling cut off abruptly. Her eyes flicked downward for a moment. “Your hands are fixed, you don’t need me.”

“That will just mean that you aren’t doing all the work. You can still take some of the spells. In fact, it will be reassuring to have you at my back able to do more than just scare or distract possible enemies. Just… I trust you. Believe it or not, I do.”

Kasita smiled a unique smile. Most of the time, she had an air of amusement about her which her frequent tittering laughter only served to emphasize. This was a genuine smile. Alyssa was having trouble remembering a smile like that on Kasita. Enrique the elf had showed off true happiness while being freed from her chains, but Kasita always looked as if she were expecting someone to stab her in the back, regardless of how much damage she would actually take from such an attack. The closest she had come had likely been when Alyssa first told her that she could have some spells if she helped draw them.

Which, thinking about it, might paint her sudden bad mood immediately after Tenebrael appeared in a slightly different light. Alyssa had thought that she was upset about being rushed away to save Irulon without being told anything about Tenebrael. But she could have easily been put off by Alyssa’s sudden healing and apparent lack of need for an assistant.

Still, she was smiling now. And that was the important thing. It was somewhat surprising how natural the smile looked, especially with Irulon’s apparent troubles doing the same thing. Then again, a mimic wouldn’t be a very good mimic if it couldn’t blend in with humans. Now that she was thinking about it, maybe it was too natural.

“You know,” Kasita said, “you’re not so bad. For a human. If that’s what you are.” She definitely had some teasing in her voice.

Alyssa rolled her eyes, putting thoughts of the smile out of her mind. She already knew Kasita was a mimic, whether or not the smile looked exactly right or just flawed enough didn’t matter. It was the feeling behind it. “Everyone I meet seems to think I’m some monster or other, so might as well get along with you guys.”

“If it makes you feel better, I believe that you’re human.”

“Gee. Thanks.” Pulling out her phone, Alyssa checked the time. An hour until nightfall. Most of their movement would likely be overnight. Copying spells once night hit would be difficult, but she had flashlights and night vision spells. While riding would be impossible. It would be good to find out exactly when the others were planning on moving again. Until then…

“You were watching me explain how to use the phone to Irulon, right?” At Kasita’s nod, Alyssa quickly tapped a few things. “While I eat, if you could take a picture of all these cards,” she said, pulling out the decks she had stolen from Morgan and the other Society of the Burning Shadow infiltrators. “I already have a few of them, you can see the gallery right here, but it’s fine if there are duplicates. If you know what the spell is, you can label it like this. Once done, grab my satchel and start copying whatever you think looks good to have copies you can cast.”

After making sure that Kasita’s quasi-illusory fingers could actually work the touch screen, Alyssa left her to it. She started toward Oz, but hesitated. They had their own food, right? The guild likely carried more food than they thought that they needed, but not enough for two unplanned people. Irulon’s brother had prepared food specifically for the two of them. And what about the draken? Did they need to eat? One of the horses was chomping down on some of the plant life that was growing around the miniature oasis, but the draken were surely obligate carnivores.

Maybe it would be best to wake Irulon. The princess probably wanted her beauty sleep, but Alyssa wasn’t feeling too confident in approaching the draken. Izsha maybe, but Musca had nearly taken Irulon’s hand off yesterday. Besides, Irulon would surely want to get up and get ready to go.

Right. Plan in mind, Alyssa headed back into the tent. She crept around the sleeping Catal—Oz or Lumen could be in charge of waking him—and paused next to Irulon… and hesitated again. Irulon didn’t have any sharp blades as far as Alyssa knew, but she had her spell card tome in her hands. Would she have a knee-jerk reaction to being woken? Heading back to the draken was looking a little more appealing now. Between dinosaurs and dragons, Alyssa would take her chances with the former. Except, Irulon’s mind worked fast enough that surely she wouldn’t curse the first person who touched her while she slept… Right?

“Irulon,” Alyssa said, voice barely above a whisper. “Princess? Princess Irulon.” Her voice was getting louder, but still the princess didn’t react. Except for her breathing, Irulon didn’t so much as twitch. Kneeling, Alyssa stretched out a hand. It felt like sticking her hand in a lion’s mouth, but her fingers brushed against Irulon’s bare shoulder—unlike Alyssa, Irulon had removed her dragon hide armor prior to sleeping, apparently. As soon as her fingers made contact, Alyssa pulled back, half expecting the princess’ hand to latch on to her extended wrist.

But Irulon still didn’t move.

With a little more confidence, Alyssa nudged Irulon to no effect. Growing frustrated, Alyssa started resorting to slightly more extreme measures. She started out with a light shake to Irulon’s shoulder, poked her cheek hard enough to turn her head to the side, flicked her ears, and ended with a heavier shake. All to no effect.

How could she possibly sleep this deeply?

Just this morning, Irulon had been freaking out about the possibility of her blood getting in someone’s hands, but who needed to try roundabout methods of acquiring blood when they could just walk up to her and slit her throat. She was one hundred percent defenseless. How much did Irulon trust those around her? Even with as tired as Alyssa had been, she still felt like she had slept with one eye open.

Maybe she was just that exhausted. Irulon, this real version of her anyway, had been in stasis for most of the night. That didn’t mean that it hadn’t been a harrowing night for her. She had been effectively stabbed several times thanks to the gaunt. True, she hadn’t run around the city picking fights with pretty much everyone short of the Taker as Alyssa had, but it had still not been the best of times to be the princess.

A small part of Alyssa wondered what had happened to the gaunt. In leaving the city, they went right past the Waterhole on Alyssa’s request—she had figured that the draken would be quick enough to escape from anything unpleasant and she had wanted to see what had happened; the entire building had been burned down. The gaunt had been nowhere to be seen. It was too slow to have gone with the fairy, so it had likely found a spot to hide out. Outside the fairy’s influence, it would likely remain dormant for some time so long as everything Kasita and Irulon had said about them was true. Alyssa had personally watched it eat one person and if that had been the only one, she would eat her hat.

As for Irulon, Alyssa stood and left the tent. The princess could sleep at least as long as Catal. And what did Alyssa need Irulon for anyway? She was an adult. She had been camping several times before with her family. She could get her own food. The draken saddles weren’t even on the draken at the moment—another thing Alyssa would need to apologize for, having left Irulon and the others to take care of practically everything.

With renewed determination to not become overly dependent on Irulon for absolutely every little thing, Alyssa set about her morning rituals. Except it was evening, but still… There weren’t any showers around, obviously, but she did grab a spare rag that she had used on her way to Lyria and wiped herself down a bit. Just enough to stay mildly hygienic while avoiding contaminating what was likely the drinking water as much as possible. For provisions, she managed to grab a small roll of thick bread and a slice of extremely salty jerky. The taste beneath the salt was almost sweet. She wasn’t sure what animal the jerky had come from and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know.

By the time she had finished her meal and wandered over to where Kasita knelt next to a flatish rock, the mimic had finished taking pictures of all the cards. There really weren’t that many unique cards despite the deck being about as thick as a normal card deck. Lots of fireballs, several Spectral Chains, a handful of more mundane utility spells such as Light and Flame. A few other Fire and Death spells, but nothing of a particularly high rank or unique effect. Neither of the decks she had stolen this time had Recall in them—a spell she couldn’t use anyway without drawing her own recall point and offering it a drop of blood.

Though she hadn’t looked through Irulon’s tome, Lumen’s deck of cards, or Oxart’s tome, all three looked far thicker than even the two decks she had retrieved from their owners. Given Irulon’s Fractal magic, those laser beams that Lumen had been using—and the floating card trick—and even Oxart’s Subjugation—although one of the Society members had used that last one—it really painted a poor picture of the Society of the Burning Shadow’s arcane prowess.

All spell cards had angelic runes on them. Considering their apparent hatred of Tenebrael, perhaps it was more surprising that they used magic at all. But then, they had to use magic unless the Juno Federation had learned how to light fires on their own. It had Alyssa wondering if there was some theological backstory regarding magic’s existence. She could imagine it all too easily: And then the great and wonderful Tenebrael descended to the people, granting them the gift of magic so they might light their nights and cook their meals.

With a sardonic shake of her head, she peered over Kasita’s shoulder, wondering which spell the mimic had chosen to copy. What she saw brought her up short. “Desecrate Spells? Is that a good idea for you to have? I mean, I don’t want to tell you what you can and can’t do, but you haven’t had the best of reactions to it in the past.”

“Ufu~ While looking through the spells you had in your phone, I thought long about which I wanted. Your first use of Desecrate Spells in my presence was an accident, I understand. The second time was out of desperation—which worked out quite well for us. It is a useful spell. I don’t like being taken out, however temporary that might be. But then I got to thinking: Irulon says that spells like this shouldn’t work on a monster’s natural abilities, which my illusory forms are. You say that magic acts odd around you. So maybe, should the need arise while I’m nearby again, I’ll cast Desecrate Spells. Though we should test to ensure I don’t hurt myself with it first.”

“That’s… actually a decent plan.” If anyone ever had that Projectile Reflection spell on them, Desecrate Spells was an amazing counter to it that would allow her full use of her guns again. But if Kasita was around, she couldn’t use it without hurting the mimic. As Kasita had mentioned, it wasn’t a permanent harming, but she still wanted to avoid it if possible. Especially because she still didn’t know how Suppress Magic worked when she cast it. It was a spell with temporary effects, so she probably could Suppress Magic long enough for Desecrate Spells to wear off, but she still would rather have Irulon cast it around Kasita if possible.

“I’m glad you think so. I also want to test my limits. You humans and your ranking system seems awfully arbitrary—”

“Not me humans. Those humans,” Alyssa said, waving a hand toward Lumen near the waterhole and the tent. “I had no part of this magic thing until a month ago.”

“Regardless, I want to find out where I stand on the scale. With my use of Contract, I know I can cast at least Rank Three. What rank was Loophole again? Four? Or was it five? So I should be able to cast this, but other spells might be interesting to try,” Kasita said, waving the fountain pen toward the phone and half-drawn card.

“I don’t know that I have many advanced spells. The ones I have from the Observatorium are all Rank Three or lower. Not particularly useful ones at that—I mean, relatively. Draw Water seems like a great ability to have on reserve, especially if it can be used for less obvious uses. But for higher rank spells… I kind of want to get access to Irulon’s spell tome. Maybe Lumen’s too, though I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“Ufufu~ Introducing yourself by burning her spells and tying her up probably isn’t the best way to make friends.”

“Ah. I had been wondering what I was doing wrong back home. But I just don’t know how to get people sticking around and listening to me without the rope.”

Kasita giggled just enough to let Alyssa know that her joke hadn’t fallen completely flat… or maybe it had. Kasita did giggle at an awful lot of things. Oh well. Kasita was good humored enough to not make a big deal about it.

Alyssa just about sat down to help out before realizing one minor problem with both of them working at the same time. “That’s my only pen.”

“No it isn’t. You forget I’ve been inside your bags. Literally. They might look a little strange, but I recognize the function of those tubes you carry with you.”

“Irulon said that the ink used for spell crafting has some added treatment compared to the ink used for general scribing. I can’t imagine pens from my world have had that same treatment. They all have their own internal ink too, so I can’t just dip them into the inkwell.” Even if she could, she would probably end up leaving large ink blots all over any card she tried to make. The fountain pen was weird enough to write with as it was, but at least it could be filled like a modern pen.

“If you want me to hand it over…” How Kasita knew how to use pens was anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was part of her innate disguise abilities. Perhaps she had disguised herself as a scribe for a time.

“No. No. Keep doing what you’re doing.” A movement from the tent caught Alyssa’s eye. Catal, with an enormous yawn on his face, lumbered out from the flaps. Before his yawn had subsided, he was looking around. First at the draken, which put a small scowl on his face, then to a whispering Oz and Lumen. He glared in Alyssa’s direction—or rather, in Kasita’s direction—before heading off toward his guild companions. “I should probably see if Irulon has woken up yet, or wake her up if she hasn’t. The draken can probably catch up to the horses without any problem if the others decide to leave ahead of us, but I would prefer if we all stick together.”

“I wouldn’t mind if they… disappeared. If you don’t think the arcanist likes you, you should have seen the looks she was giving me while you were tiptoeing around the draken to get your food.”

Alyssa looked over to find all three of the guild knights looking in her direction. Oz quickly glanced to one side. Catal did a moment after. Lumen kept up her glare long enough for Alyssa to feel uncomfortable. “Just,” she started, pausing to sigh. “Just try not to start anything. I’d really rather us not fight with each other. Don’t worry too much. The princess is on your side, after all. They… probably won’t go against Irulon.

“Speaking of, I’m going to go wake her. Call for help if anything happens.”

Leaving Kasita to continue her drawing, Alyssa headed to the tent. She walked in, calling out softly, entirely unaware of the monster she was trying to rouse.

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