014.001

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The Demon Angel Brings

Avoid The Bedehouse


Hospitals did not exist. At least not in the way that Alyssa thought of them. To her, a hospital was a big building with patients inside. Said patients generally received care for injuries and illnesses. When they couldn’t get treatment, they were made comfortable as long as possible. Dozens of doctors and nurses would run around trying to deduce and fix problems, each with their own specialties ranging from brain surgeries to general practices.

Nothing like that existed within Lyria or, as far as she could tell, the whole world. Tzheitza had looked almost confused when Alyssa had been describing modern hospitals. Sick or injured people here either had their own home remedies that had been passed down through their family, usually some herbal treatments or religious prayer, or they went to people like Tzheitza. While potions could have a wide variety of effects from freezing a room to a gas that would corrode anything it touched, the majority of a potioneer’s clientele bought medicinal products.

A fair amount of what Tzheitza made were just placebos; mashed earthworms applied to a bruise every morning for a week wasn’t going to do anything that time didn’t already have in hand, but it made people think they had control over their own healing. However, she had a number of actual cures as well, that blue potion that fixed her bones and flesh among them. Tzheitza, all on her own, had apparently invented a paste that numbed the mouth, making her an extremely popular person to go to when people needed rotten teeth pulled.

There were magical cures as well, though it seemed that healing spells tended to work more on sickness than injury. The spells were Rank Five and up as well, making them both rare and far more expensive than the potions Tzheitza could offer. So most people stuck with potion makers or home remedies no matter what.

Which was all well and good, except it meant that people who succumbed to their injuries and illnesses did so inside their homes, rather than a singular location somewhere in the city. Just wandering aimlessly wouldn’t get her any closer to finding Tenebrael. Maybe someone would die while she was out, but probably not. Even if they did, that angel could easily pop into being inside the home without any sign that she was there, leaving Alyssa to walk right past unknowingly.

There were a few… compounds outside the city that did have sick people. Bedehouses. Some kind of cross between a hospital and a church where the only cure was prayer. Few actually walked out. Apparently the ill were less patients and more inmates. The only care they got was after death. Heavily cloaked and masked workers went in periodically and dragged out the bodies to be burned.

It sounded like exactly what Alyssa needed. Except…

“Do not go to the bedehouse, Alyssa. Do you understand me? Am I speaking clear enough for you?”

“You don’t have to talk like that if you don’t want to, Tzheitza. I can understand you. Most of the time.”

Tzheitza reached out, clapping a hand down on Alyssa’s shoulder. Her thumb pressed hard into Alyssa’s clavicle. “I speak clearly because I worry you are considering something foolish. Entering the bedehouse is akin to putting your head in a dragon’s maw. Maybe it ain’t gonna bite down, but do you want to take that chance? It is a domain of despair. No one within has any hope. It ain’t a sight ye want to see. Trust me.”

Dead bodies disturbed Alyssa. They probably did the same to just about anyone. But she could stomach it. She had to. Watching someone die would probably be easier without her being the one to kill them. And sick people who were dying anyway and couldn’t have anything done for them might take some solace in knowing that their deaths would have worth to at least one person. Which was an extremely morbid way to think about it… but it wasn’t like Alyssa could help them. She didn’t know how to make potions. Trying to cast magic meant to cure them might just kill them with the strange way some magics acted around her. Maybe mundane penicillin or vaccines could help, but she didn’t know how to make those either. If she had her phone back and could find guides on the internet, she might be able to help. But it was a catch twenty-two. No phone without dead people. No cure for dying people without her phone.

Tzheitza increased the pressure on Alyssa’s shoulder, eliciting a wince. “I see you there, thinking about ignoring me. If you go to a bedehouse, you won’t be allowed in my shop again. I won’t allow it. Ye haberin fool will get my shop condemned as a plague house. Wind up with gettin me killed too.”

All thoughts of leaving for a bedehouse fell by the wayside as Tzheitza let go of Alyssa’s shoulder. She rubbed at it a little, but only idly. Her thoughts were solely on what the potioneer said. “Is it really that bad?”

“Oh, aye. It’s that bad. Ye walked around the city. Ye’ve seen the buildings with the metal shutters blocking off windows and doors. Like that fake house ye followed that ganger into.”

Having spent a week delivering potions for Tzheitza, Alyssa actually had a decent exploratory coverage over the city. There had been a few buildings like that. Most of them had been in the poorer northern and western sections of the city, but she distinctly remembered that one building down the market alley. That had been in the more affluent part of the eastern districts, though that alley hadn’t been the brightest place.

“Those are plague houses. When someone first gets sick, they might be able to hide it and avoid going to a bedehouse. But the later stages always turn… gruesome. Entire families have been sealed off from the outside world. Adults. Children. Doesn’t matter. If there is even a chance of late-stage infection, they’ll be locked up for months just to ensure that everything inside is dead. Either an arcanist or my potions will raze the building after, just to be doubly sure that the dead stay dead. Otherwise… ye heard of Owlcroft?”

“No?”

“Of course not.” Tzheitza spoke as if she had expected that answer. Which she should have since Alyssa had explicitly told her that she was from far away. “It used to be one of the largest farmsteads, just over west of Lyria. Used to. We don’t go there anymore. In the span of a week, the plague infected all two-hundred farmhands and spread to two neighboring villages after deliveries of food reached them. If an outbreak happened in the city, it would be a disaster.”

“Wait. Stop for one second. You said you have to make sure that the dead stay dead. Are you telling me… there are zombies wandering around a giant farm?”

Tzheitza shook her head. “Necromancers raise zombies all the time. No big deal. Not always enemies, but easy to deal with if they are. No. The plague doesn’t raise the dead. But it doesn’t kill everyone infected. It’s the ones that survive the initial infection that you have to worry about. They begin calling to Her.”

That was the part where she stopped talking. That part. Possibly the most important part. Alyssa mentally groaned. This was going to be another one of those things that everyone knew about but she had to ask. For a moment, she considered not asking. Irulon knew that she wasn’t from this world now. Asking her about common knowledge wouldn’t be strange in the slightest. But who knew when they would next meet. Alyssa wasn’t really planning on heading over to the Observatorium until she either had a phone or properly working hands. The bee oil, or whatever it was that Tzheitza had been treating her burns with, was working marvelously, but not fast enough for her tastes. The Taker could be after her right this moment and she still couldn’t effectively fight him off. Though she had reequipped her pistols, just in case.

So, not wanting the curiosity hanging over her until she could find Irulon, Alyssa looked up to Tzheitza and said, “Her?”

“Figures ye don’t know.” Tzheitza picked up a stone mortar that she had been using to grind a black feather into powder before grabbing Alyssa’s shoulder. Even though it looked like fine dust, she still picked up the pestle and started grinding more. “Her. The Demon of the Underworld. Just speaking Her name can be dangerous. Owlcroft is now a black pit leading directly to the Underworld thanks to the plague—Her plague. Arcanists are trying to close it, but I don’t think they’ve succeeded so far. Don’t help none that lesser demons keep climbing out to attack anything in sight.”

“So demons come from the Underworld.” Although Irulon had insisted that Alyssa had come from there, she had never actually asked what the place was. So it was basically Hell? Alyssa opened her mouth to ask if demons were always completely evil, only to realize that an answer from Tzheitza would undoubtedly be biased. Asking Kasita would probably give her a more accurate answer. “And this Her is their queen or god or something?”

“Or something,” Tzheitza grumbled. “One of the original Monster Lords. Escaped the First City’s destruction because she and her kind get along with other monsters about as well as they get along with humans.”

“Not at all, I take it.”

“An understatement. There was a war between Her and the Monster Lords that resulted in Her being banished to the Underworld. She’s been trying to escape ever since. The plague opening the pit was seen as a sign of the end times… but nothing has come of it so far. She hasn’t climbed out like her minions. No one knows why, but no one wants to risk another pit opening.”

“Hasn’t because she won’t or because she can’t?”

“A question for them arcanists, not me. All I know is that the guild was hired to send a team down. None of them returned… human. All exhibited signs of the plague, though not the deadly version.”

“Changed to demons. And they were killed?”

Tzheitza’s hands stilled. It only lasted a moment. If Alyssa hadn’t been paying attention, she might not have noticed the brief pause in the grinding noise. A deep breath followed that pause. “It was one of my last duties before I retired. That might have been where Tommik became the Taker… the look on his face as he ignored their begging…” She took in a sharp breath, scrunching up her lips like she had licked a particularly sour lemon. “Though none of us realized at the time.”

Alyssa kept carefully still. There were at least three different bombs in that one sentence and she wasn’t sure she wanted to comment on any of them. First, being told to kill what would undoubtedly be former comrades. The Taker had apparently enjoyed it a bit too much. And… they had begged? Had they been in the process of changing into something more monstrous? Or were they fully aware humans whose bodies had somehow been changed but were otherwise the same. That might be a question that Tzheitza asked herself. Alyssa kept her mouth shut. Not wanting to bring up bad memories, she changed the topic slightly.

“But wait, if survivors of this plague try to… summon this Her or whatever, why are they kept alive in the bedehouse? Similarly, why are they locked up inside their houses instead of being killed?”

“The plague, when it doesn’t kill them, changes them. Partially demonic. Hard to kill. Easier to starve. Worse, arcanists like to poke at them. Hence the bedehouse.” Her grinding stopped. “Haberin idiots.”

“How does the plague spread?” Alyssa asked, a bad feeling welling. “Is it airborne? Blood contact? Saliva or other mucus? Sexual? Fleas or parasites?”

Tzheitza shook her head.

“You don’t know.” Maybe it was none of the above. A magical plague could spread through magic. Through some esoteric whims of the creator. “Would it be bad if I had seen one of these metal shutters pried back, blood and meat leaking from the hole, and a dog eating said blood and meat?”

Whirling around, Tzheitza dropped the mortar, spilling a bit of the black powder as it hit the counter top. “Did—Did it touch ye. Did ye touch it?”

“No! No. The dog ran off down the alley.”

“Whereabouts?”

“The market in the eastern section of the city, down a back alley. Right next door to a place called Madame Webb’s Fine Threads… which was a nightmare to find, but it was right across the way from another tailor shop… uh. Clot’s Cloths? Or something like that. I saw it the day I brought Cid back here.” It felt like forever ago, but it had really only been two days.

Tzheitza grabbed a jar off the shelf and quickly dumped the feather powder into it. As soon as she sealed the top, she grabbed her potion bandoleer. “Wait here. I will be back soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“Need to alert the guard of a containment breach.”

“Shouldn’t I come show you where it was?”

“They’ll know. Ain’t so many plague houses that ye have to lead us around. Especially among the rich. Just stay away from any plague houses and the bedehouses. Ye should stick back and slather some ointment on yer burns.”

She left. Bandoleer over her shoulder, Tzheitza slipped into a pair of boots and trudged out of the potion shop at speed. Given that it was still right in the middle of the day, prime time for customers to meander in, this was probably something that Alyssa should have mentioned the other day.

But how could I have known.

Every time she found out something new about this world, whether it was the plague, the gang, the murderers involved with the gang, the slaves both state-sponsored and underground—the stupid angel getting worshiped, or any number of other things, every time something new popped up it just ticked her off more. Someone really needed to fix everything. Theoretically, Alyssa had at least some of Irulon’s ear… but the princess was a monster in human skin. Even if Alyssa went and drafted up some societal reforms, it was doubtful that Irulon would listen. At least, not so long as it didn’t benefit her in some way.

Irulon had older brothers and a father as well, all of whom seemed to have more of a direct handle on actually managing their people. But honestly, they didn’t seem all that great either. Brakkt dressed like an evil overlord and had threatened torture and death upon an otherwise innocent fairy. Maybe that was warranted, maybe not. Irulon’s other brothers, Alyssa didn’t know much about, but she did know that at least one younger sibling was absolutely insane and actually looked up to one of the more prolific murderers in the city. Their father had several wives. Possibly as many as one wife per child. And that was literally all Alyssa knew about the man who supposedly presided over all others. That might be a good thing. Or, at least, not a bad thing. Polygamy offended her sensibilities, but it was perfectly normal here for all she knew. However, the fact that she knew nothing else about the city’s ruler probably meant that he wasn’t all that invested in the people, content to sit atop the palace and play the fiddle as the city burned down around him.

That might be a bit melodramatic. Really, Alyssa was just irritated with it all. There were nobles, but she didn’t have any evidence that they would be any better. Rather the opposite. Aziz had been a noble before his death. One that had been kicked out of his house for being bad at magic. That didn’t exactly speak to a kind and compassionate family.

“You haven’t moved for nearly three minutes now. Something on your mind?”

Turning, Alyssa found Kasita leaning against the front counter. Or rather, she didn’t so much as lean as she draped herself over it. Her mannerisms were strange as always. Dragging her finger through some of the spilled powder, it disappeared as if she were a vacuum cleaner. Holding that same finger over the mortar and pestle, the black dust just fell from inside her skin, rejoining the rest.

Alyssa raised an eyebrow, but answered her question as well. “I am just frustrated. I have all these assumptions about how the world should work, but every little thing that crops up just throws my assumptions in my face.” Taking a deep breath through her nose, Alyssa let it out slowly. “Did you find anything?”

“Don’t want to talk about your problems? And, more importantly, what you are going to do to rectify them?”

“That’s just the thing. I don’t know what I can do. So no. I would rather focus on problems I can solve. Like reacquiring my cell phone. Asking Tzheitza about hospitals was pretty much a bust, though apparently there is a plague ridden hospice outside the city if I get desperate. So please tell me that you had a bit more luck.”

“Ufu~ I don’t know how much luck factors into it. I merely used logic and deduction to make my own luck, I suppose.”

Alyssa looked up, excited for the first time since Tzheitza said that she had no idea what a hospital was. “Well?”

“I’m not sure if you know this, but a week ago, there was a rather large battle. A battle in which several people were injured. Their injuries ranged from minor scrapes, knocks on the head, broken bones, all the way to deep gouges, amputated limbs, and heavy infection. The city is trying to treat the survivors at a large camp near the Northgate Barracks. A good number have already been released… or have already died. But it was a large battle and there were many injured. Two succumbed to their wounds while I was there earlier today and one other looked pretty close.”

“That’s great news!” Alyssa said before she could actually think about what she said. “I mean… for us. Not so much… You know what? Never mind.” Thinking about it a moment longer gave her a queasy feeling in her stomach, but she couldn’t let that stop her. “Shall we head over now?” Hopefully someone would die soon. Or… Alyssa couldn’t help but scowl at herself. She felt guilty for looking forward to someone’s death.

Kasita turned away from Alyssa, glancing around the shop. “Alone?”

“You are coming too, aren’t you?”

“If the Taker returns, I won’t be much of a defense for you. His blades will pass through my form with little resistance. Perhaps it would be best to recruit one of the humans? Where did that potion lady go? Or Oz?”

“Tzheitza ran off to deal with some plague thing. And I’d rather keep them out of the Tenebrael matters as much as possible. Heresy and all that.”

“The shop is probably being watched. They’ll know we left.”

“Northgate Barracks is a military instillation and isn’t far. There will be plenty of guards around. If Waters Street wants to attack there, tell them to be my guests. I’ll leave a note for Tzheitza telling her where we went.”

“If you’re sure…” Kasita hesitated a moment, giving time for Alyssa to say something. But the air remained silent. Nodding her head and shoving off from the counter, the mimic said, “Very well. I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to return. I was in the room with the second man when he died. Just like the other night, I could feel something. Some presence in the air. I couldn’t see it the way you see things, but it was there. Only spent a second in the room—I barely realized it was there before it was gone, though I did try to call out. Nothing answered.”

“Yeah, well, Tenebrael is a bitch.”


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Author’s Note: Octavia has been added to the Lyrian Royal Family section of the character page, though I wonder if she truly belongs there. Thanks for reading as usual! Hope you’ll enjoy this next arc!

Alyssa’s Notes: I like to think that I’m a modestly intelligent person, but sometimes I forget thing. Like a whole spell I used to burn my hand with. It should have been in my notes for a while now, but I completely forgot. Thankfully, my mental lapse has been corrected and Immolating Gloves has been added to my notes along with the first Arcane spell I’ve come across, Suppress Magic.

013.006

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A Little R&R

Apologies


“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said, hammering a nail into the wall for a shelf. Doing so wasn’t the easiest while injured. She used her shoulder to prop up the actual shelf while she used her burned hand to hold the hammer, having taken off most of the bandages. Every strike sent minor jolts of pain through her hand, but she stuck to it anyway. She owed it to Tzheitza to help out and not just sit around moaning about how injured she was. Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Maybe thanks to the potions Tzheitza had given her. Yet another thing to be thankful for.

The shelf itself looked surprisingly like a modern shelf, though with a bit thicker wood and a bit rougher as well. It hadn’t been sanded to a perfectly smooth level. The same couldn’t be said for the fastener she was hammering. It didn’t look anything like a modern nail. It had a wide flat head and almost a blocky spike, looking more like a scaled-down door stopper. Pausing once the shelf was secure, she stepped away with a mild sigh. “This is all my fault.”

Tzheitza, kneeling next to a broken jar of orange powder, ceased her salvage efforts to look up. “Oh? I didn’t know it was ye who knocked over all my reactants.”

“You know what I meant.” Alyssa tugged on the newly installed shelf. Even with a fair amount of force, the wood slab didn’t budge. Pushing down on it with a decent weight didn’t make it buckle, break, or fall from its new mount. “You gave me shelter, food, and help and all I’ve done is cause problems. If not for me, your supplies wouldn’t be in a mess all over the floor.”

The low hum Tzheitza made as she tried to scoop up as much of the powder into a fresh jar as she could did not reassure Alyssa. Though Octavia had broken or tipped over several shelves, a decent number of the containers hadn’t actually broken. The glass was a lot hardier than Alyssa gave it credit for. Even still, the room was a mess and plenty of reagents had wound up worthless thanks to spilling or breaking. A scorch mark marred the floor where Tzheitza had to use a lower ranked spell to obliterate a more dangerous spilling before it could potentially react with anything else in the room.

All in all, she had probably lost a great deal of money in the damaged or destroyed merchandise.

Since Irulon had left, dragging Octavia behind her, Alyssa and Tzheitza had been focused on cleaning up. Oz had started to help, but conveniently remembered something he had to take care of. His excuses hadn’t been very convincing and, judging by Tzheitza’s colorful language, hadn’t worked on anyone. Even if he wasn’t going to help out, he could have at least stuck around as a guard. Night wasn’t far off now and Alyssa would be lying if she said that she wasn’t at least a little nervous. Kasita said that the Taker was pretty heavily injured. But even if he didn’t come in person, Waters Street had more members than just him. It probably wouldn’t be out of the question for them to send a whole gang over to toss Molotov Cocktails at the potion shop.

“Say,” Alyssa said as a thought popped into her head. “Octavia escaped because Irulon suppressed magic, right? Are the magics you had protecting this place still active? Do we need to run around and cast new spells?” She honestly didn’t know if Tzheitza was actually capable of protecting her building on her own. None of the magic Alyssa had seen her use had been higher than Rank Three. Spells capable of protecting a building were probably higher ranked than that.

“Suppression not destruction,” Tzheitza said, pointing up to a corner of the room. “Lights came back on. Defenses did too.”

“Oh. Right.” The little light in the corner glowed just as much as it had before. At least, Alyssa didn’t notice any difference in the light levels. It wasn’t originally from the storage room—Octavia had destroyed all of those—but Tzheitza had a number of extras on hand in addition to all the ones in the other rooms.

They continued tidying up in silence. Alyssa started putting up another shelf, something she was quite at home doing after working in home improvement for a few years, even if the nails were far blockier than the ones she was used to, while Tzheitza moved on to mop up some brownish gunk that spilled from a broken carboy. It wasn’t a very comfortable sort of silence. Despite Tzheitza insinuating that Octavia was at fault, Alyssa couldn’t quite believe her. More, she couldn’t quite believe that Tzheitza didn’t blame her. That combined with knowing that Octavia was probably still going to die in spite of her efforts, the Taker was still after her, and that stupid angel still had not returned her phone didn’t exactly put Alyssa in the best of moods.

Worse, she didn’t know how to fix any of her current problems. Or rather, most of her problems. Getting an audience with Tenebrael wouldn’t be hard per se. Just distasteful. As the angel had said, if Alyssa ever wanted to talk, all she had to do was shoot someone.

Without knowing where the Taker was, she couldn’t exactly launch another assault. He probably wasn’t at the Waterhole’s tunnels anymore. Even if he was, her first attack hadn’t gone all that well. She would need more planning or more allies. Probably both. Just shooting him probably wouldn’t work either. Not unless he decided that projectile defenses weren’t worth the trouble. Not likely considering just the partially spoken phrase had saved his life.

Octavia… Alyssa had done all she could. Aside from petitioning Irulon to petition her father. She did have that commendation from the Black Prince, but honestly didn’t know what it meant or what value it held. Maybe she could buy Octavia’s freedom with it, maybe not. But even if she could, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to take responsibility for the girl. Alyssa couldn’t, in good faith, disagree with Irulon’s assessment on her sister’s idiocy.

As for Tzheitza… Alyssa had Svotty’s bag of money. Would that be enough to repay the damages here? If anything that went into that blue healing potion had been damaged, probably not. While it was a fair amount, money wouldn’t solve everything. In Alyssa’s opinion, anything that valuable should be kept in some kind of secure storage rather than the room that they shoved a known enemy into. But that might not be the case. Worse: Tzheitza had outstanding orders. If she couldn’t fulfill them because of damaged inventory, the customers might seek out another potion maker. Her customers might decide to stick with their new supplier even after Tzheitza replenished her stock. If so, Tzheitza would lose out on a whole lot more in the long term.

“Do you…” Alyssa hesitated. Would Tzheitza even accept money? She might get insulted that Alyssa offered in the first place. It was one of those things that she suspected because of the little things she had noticed about Tzheitza, but didn’t know for certain because she hadn’t taken the time to actually get to know the potioneer. Unfortunately, there was enough work as it was. Tzheitza didn’t seem in a good enough mood to talk at the moment.

“Do you know where Bacco went?” Alyssa asked instead of her original question. Before Tzheitza answered, she cringed, already regretting asking. Why bring up Bacco? She should have asked about Tzheitza herself. Do you have any kids? Love interests? What do you do for fun? What kind of music— No, wait, that last one wouldn’t work well. Not unless Tzheitza frequently attended concerts or whatever they had. Surely there were some music and theater groups around? But Alyssa couldn’t see the former-mercenary-turned-potioneer taking weekends off to go sit with people like Irulon or the Black Prince in concert halls.

Actually, Irulon and the Black Prince attending operas didn’t seem too far-fetched if she only considered their status as royalty. The rich-types were supposed to be the ones going to theaters in medieval times, right? But Alyssa couldn’t see either of them spending their free time at concerts knowing what she knew about them. Irulon wouldn’t stand to have her research interrupted while Brakkt seemed more of the action-oriented type. Though, admittedly, she knew very little about any of Irulon’s siblings.

“The one who tried to sell ye?” Tzheitza finally said, answering Alyssa’s question about Bacco.

“Yeah. I was just… curious, I guess.”

“Said he ain’t going to stick around here. Wanted to get out of the city before anyone came after him. I didn’t bother asking where to.”

“Ah. I see.” Alyssa fell silent as she finished hammering in the last nail for the last shelf. There was still broken glass all over the floor, but Tzheitza had finished gathering up most of the salvageable reagents. “So what’s the total damage? Anything irreplaceable?”

Tzheitza tipped her head back and forth, cracking her neck as she stood. “The bunyip fur is the biggest loss. After being shaved from a bunyip, it must be kept clean. Unfortunately, it fell into the mandragora extract. Which was also lost, but isn’t particularly rare.” She nodded toward the scorch mark. “Kejo hair shavings are extremely rare, but also not used for much of anything. At least, nothing I make. Dirt may have gotten into most of what I cleaned up, but it shouldn’t be a big deal. Harpy feathers are washed before use, the ground humor can be separated from anything they’re mixed with after a little work.”

Alyssa glanced around at all the jars on the shelves that hadn’t fallen as well as the few that Tzheitza had left on the floor after her salvaging. Bunyip fur? Mandragora extract? Kejo hair? Harpy feathers? “Do all potion reagents come from monsters?”

“Most. Not all.” Tzheitza opened a drawer in a smaller bureau. The drawer had several planks of wood separating the space into little compartments. Each one held a different powder, some of varying colors, but most a metallic silver. “Salt,” she said, pointing to a reddish bit of ground crystals before moving on to the next compartment of powder, “limestone, sapphire, calcium, silver, silicon, aluminium, cadmium, mithril, iridium, gold, and so on and so on. All mined from the earth rather than taken from monsters. Though these serve more as stabilizin’ agents. The monsters are where the magic comes from. If you want long, luscious hair, you mix up some kejo hair into a potion. If you want hair that is guaranteed to attract attention, you also use kejo hair, just in a different way. Monsters have natural magic that potions can take effects from.”

“Huh. Interesting. So can harpy feathers be used to make you fly?”

“Ye don’t want to do that. Use a spell. Potion effects wear down at unpredictable rates. If yer up high—” Alyssa jumped at Tzheitza clapping her hands together. “Splat. Harpy feathers are used primarily for featherlight and featherfall potions.”

“Oh. What do they do?”

“Lessen weight and fall slow. If I’d had my potions when I fell from Brechen, ye wouldn’t see a scrape on me.”

“Ah…” There were spells that did those same things. Alyssa almost told her that, but she had to know. It seemed like an awful lot of effort to get the effects that low rank spells could provide with just some scribblings—it took hunting for monster parts, plus whatever other metals or whatnot went into them, and the whole creation process as well—but she immediately realized her mistake. Potions could be used by anyone. A Rank Zero arcanist could save themselves from a fall with a featherfall potion but not a spell. Of course, most potions would be expensive. So there was that limiting factor.

“What does… or what is a buny—” Alyssa’s mouth screeched to a halt.

A thought popped into her head. Money would just be a bandage. A temporary patch in the hopes that she would be able to fully recover her business.

But Alyssa had something! Something she had completely forgotten about. With all the craziness that had gone on, it wasn’t surprising that she had forgotten. There were probably a hundred other things that slipped her mind. But she could hardly believe that, in the relatively relaxed days between the attack and meeting Cid in the alley, she had indeed forgotten.

“A bunyip,” Tzheitza said. “Not a bunny. It’s a sort of snake monster except—”

“Wait. Come with me. I have uh… uh… surprise. Or present. Or just something that might make up for how much trouble I’ve caused you.”

Taking care not to trip over any of the debris or potion reagents still on the floor, Alyssa stepped around Tzheitza and left the room. She took a sharp left and went right into the second storage room. Her room. Tzheitza followed along slowly, but stopped in the doorway and leaned against it. Alyssa didn’t mind. Her pack, while it had shrunk some since initially setting off because of a few minor damaged or consumed items, pulling out most of the clothes, and just having unpacked a handful of things—bullets mostly, it was still a gigantic pack filled with plenty of junk. Hopefully useful junk. Otherwise she would have carted it all around for nothing.

She dug through, pulling out wrinkled dresses, the jewelry box, a first aid kit, her camping pots and pans, a blanket, and an extra box of pistol ammo that she had somehow missed taking out earlier. There. Somehow having migrated to the very bottom of her pack, a dozen black feathers sat in perfectly pristine condition. Not a single one had broken despite all the stuff piled on top. Even the frills were completely intact. Then again, they were Tenebrael’s feathers. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised.

Still, just in case, Alyssa took care pulling them out of her pack.

Back when she had first acquired them from Tenebrael, she hadn’t taken the time to really look them over. She had shown them to Bacco, confirmed that he could see them, then shoved them into her pack. And had promptly forgot about them.

Now, Alyssa did not find Tenebrael worthy of any sort of respect or worship. However, these feathers possessed an unearthly beauty. And it wasn’t just because they had managed to survive her pack without being damaged. The black bristles gleamed in the light as she moved them. Almost like a mirror would, except without the actual reflections.

And looks weren’t all they had going for them. They were soft. So soft. The bristles sprung back into place the moment her fingers came away, but there was almost no resistance in pressing against them. Alyssa actually brushed one against her cheek just to feel it better than she could with her injured hand and broken arm. At this moment, she felt like she had another item to add to her list: Pluck Tenebrael clean and make a pillow and bed out of her feathers.

It would be the best sleep she ever had. Alyssa had no doubt about that.

Alyssa shook her head, lamenting the fact that these amazing feathers were stuck to such a terrible being. Unfortunately for her plans of the most comfortable bed ever, Tenebrael probably wouldn’t part with so many. Especially not for free. And Alyssa really wasn’t interested in carrying out any tasks that the angel might have for her. They were bound to be distasteful. So she sighed a little, forcing herself to put the feathers down.

She withdrew them one at a time, carefully setting them in a row on the bed. Exactly thirteen. Coincidence? It had to be. Alyssa didn’t believe in superstition like that. Not even after meeting literal angels. Besides, three had been the number she had noticed repeating in this world.

When she looked up, she couldn’t help but frown. Tzheitza didn’t look impressed in the slightest. “Ye givin’ me feathers? I have samples from most every monster and several mundane creatures. Ravens, owls, hawks…”

“These aren’t raven feathers. Or any feathers that you’ve ever seen. These are angel feathers.” From Kasita, Alyssa knew that angels weren’t a known concept. They simply didn’t have angels. Probably because Tenebrael was more of a deity than anything else on this world. “You know those invisible monsters I spoke with the other night? These are feathers from one of them. I don’t have any proof, but I assume that they are the most powerful beings on the planet. Oz once told me that the entire army that had gone to fight the trolls would have lost most of their number in a battle against a dragon and victory would not have been assured even then. The monster these feathers came from is so far above that level that she wouldn’t even notice a dragon trying to attack them.”

Tzheitza raised an eyebrow. Just one, on her good eye. Obvious disbelief riddled her features. But she didn’t verbally disagree. Having seen them—or at least, having seen the destruction they had caused, she had to believe that beings called angels actually existed. Her disbelief was probably regarding their power. As Tzheitza stared at the feathers, she started frowning. She stayed in the doorway for an extra moment before shoving off and approaching the bed. Without touching any of the feathers, she leaned down and started looking over them.

“I know most every monster type. Never heard of angels.”

“Ah. Well… yeah. They’re rare. I think the two you… didn’t see are the only two in the world.” And Iosefael might not even be around anymore if Tenebrael sent her back to Earth. And actually, Tenebrael might not be around either. Every time she showed up, she complained about having so much work to do because of those people who broke into Alyssa’s home. Though, she presumably popped back here every time someone died. “I don’t know why, but I can see them. Which generally just makes trouble for me when they get bored.” Though if she couldn’t see them, she would probably have died back on Earth. So she at least had to be thankful for that no matter how much she disliked angels in general.

“Ye only got these thirteen?”

“I might be able to get more. But that’s a pretty big might. I haven’t even seen either of them since that night. Don’t count on it anytime soon.”

“Can’t do much with so few of an unknown material. Lots of tests to run to figure out what they can do and what they ain’t capable of.”

“That’s slightly disappointing,” Alyssa said with a mild sigh.

Tzheitza reached out to one of the feathers. Which made Alyssa tense with a sudden thought she hadn’t had before. What if someone else touching Tenebrael’s feathers does something bad, like steals their soul?

But nothing happened. Tzheitza picked up the feather by the tip with a very light touch and turned it over. She angled it around in the light, staring at it with her one good eye. After a moment, she brought it up to her face and gave it a little sniff. Then she stuck out her tongue.

Alyssa grimaced. The feathers were probably perfectly clean. Tenebrael might have a disgusting personality, but she was an angel. Still, just knowing that she brushed her wings all over dead bodies while eating souls made Alyssa’s toes curl. And ugh… I brushed one against my cheek, she thought, rubbing her face self-consciously. The only consolation was where Alyssa had gotten them. Tenebrael touched corpses with the tips of her wings while Alyssa had grabbed the angel at around shoulder height.

“They’re yours,” Alyssa said after a few more minutes of Tzheitza inspecting the feather. “I don’t know how much use you’ll get out of them, but maybe it would be fun to see if they can do anything.”

“I’ll have to think of an efficient test to use as little material as possible.” Tzheitza stood, scooping up all the remaining feathers on her way. “For now, ye should get some sleep.”

“But the supply room—”

“I got it. Ye don’t know where to put things away. And yer still injured. If the Taker shows, yer gonna be dead weight. Sleep while you can.”

“You’re injured too.”

“Naw. It’s been a week for me. Just got little scars left. A bit of self-medicating and I’ll be fully fixed before yer arm. Especially if you ain’t gettin’ rest. So sleep. There ain’t much left to clean up anyway.”

Alyssa sighed, but nodded. She didn’t say anything as Tzheitza left the room with her bundle of feathers, closing the door behind her. Even with that advice, she couldn’t just lie down and sleep. She was far too awake at the moment. Maybe she could write for a while. She had a few notes to add to her notebooks, though she wasn’t sure if she should try writing with a broken arm or with a burned hand… Maybe it was best just to do as Tzheitza said and get some sleep.

Or not, Alyssa thought as she noticed a water bottle twitch. It shimmered just as she expected it to. In a second, she had someone else sitting on the opposite end of her bed.

“Hello, Kasita. I was wondering where you disappeared to.”

“Ufu~ I thought I would distract that girl by popping up behind her. But your friends took her down before I could,” she said with a mild pout. “Tenebrael’s feathers?” When Alyssa inclined her head, she nodded. “Thought so. I could tell that they were there, but something was off about them. Like, if I had tried to turn into them, I might have died.”

She could tell that just by looking at them? How would they even kill her? Alyssa shook her head. Magic. It explained everything. “I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you’re alive. And alright. I really am sorry about what happened in the Taker’s dungeons.”

Alyssa leaned back against the wall, staring at Kasita. As was usual for when things weren’t going wrong, she looked like an overly beautiful woman. Except her hair was a bit darker. But she looked real, rather than clay. And her form wasn’t changing like the channels on a television. So she was probably back to normal. “What do you like to do, Kasita?”

The mimic tilted her head to one side with an odd expression flickering onto her face. “Do?”

“For fun. You know… like… Do you ever play chess or anything? Does chess exist here?” There had been playing cards on the Brechen Overlook, so they must have some games. But Kasita’s eyes weren’t lighting up with recognition.

“What brought this on?”

“I don’t know. Just wanted to get to know people better. I’ve been basically living with you and Tzheitza for a week and hardly know anything about either of you.”

“Oh?”

“In fact, you probably know more about me than I know of you with how much you’ve followed me around without my knowing.”

“True enough. So you want to know things about me?” Kasita hummed to herself for a moment before nodding her head. “Why not? Never heard of chess. It might be a human thing. But for fun… hum. Ufu~ I once disguised as a farmer’s plow. He hooked me up to some mule and dragged me off to the middle of his field. He looked away for one moment and I was a blade of grass. The look on his face. He had to trudge all the way back to his shed to find his real plow.” She giggled again, but her laugh died off. “Not what you were talking about?”

Alyssa frowned… but shrugged. “Well, I can’t imagine doing that would be very repeatable. Wouldn’t people figure that a mimic is in the area after the first time?”

“Yeah, that’s accurate. Luckily, most farmers don’t have the ability to detect mimics. They would have to hire out some of the Knights Solaris or hope for a passing arcanist. Which aren’t exactly cheap enough for most farmers to hire. At least not over a mimic. Our weakness is well known.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re harmless. You shot Bercilak’s minion. It knocked you away, but you could probably use a smaller gun with some proper footwork.”

Kasita leaned forward, thrusting her face right next to Alyssa. “Really? Do you have one?”

Alyssa didn’t have anywhere to flee to with her back pressed flat against the wall. Using her burned hand, she gently pushed Kasita back to the other side of the bed. “I don’t have one with me. Both my pistols are identical so that they could use the same ammo. I do have a revolver, but I think it has more recoil than the pistols.”

“But there are smaller ones? How do… how do I get one?”

“Uh… I could get one if you have a way of teleporting, traveling extremely quickly, or… basically just those two things. On foot, it would take a full month to get one and get back.” Though getting a new shotgun might make the trip worth it. Alyssa was kind of hoping that a blacksmith could repair her damaged one. It didn’t need to be perfect so long as the parts that were supposed to come out came out and the parts that weren’t didn’t.

A month was not what Kasita wanted to hear. She slumped backward with a frown on her face. “Oh.”

“But you aren’t just dangerous because of that!” Alyssa said quickly, trying to cheer up the suddenly depressed mimic. “You can use magic, right? You used that contract spell. Surely you can use more dangerous magics too. That’s just paper, not a heavy gun.”

“Humans guard their secrets of magic jealously. Any arcanist that matters protects their spells against unwanted hands—which monsters always are. If I tried to touch that princess’ magic book, it would probably explode in my face.”

“Hmm… Maybe we can help each other out. I lost all my spells. I didn’t have many that were valuable, so it isn’t a big loss. But I would like to replace them anyway.” I just need to be absolutely sure what spells do before I use them. And if they do anything abnormal when I cast them. “But I can’t draw out spells with my injuries. You can lift a pen, right?” Pens were practically weightless. Kasita’s nod only encouraged Alyssa. “But you can’t get into the Observatorium. I can. So…”

“I get to keep some cards if I help draw some?”

Alyssa grinned and nodded her head. “Exactly. We help each other out.”

“You would trust me with deadly spells?”

“We’ve been living together for a week. Inside a potion lab. If you haven’t stashed away some poison, I’d be surprised. And you haven’t used it on me so far. You’ve helped me out a lot as well, saving my life from Bercilak and taking my place while following Cid especially. And maybe we can talk while drawing them. Get to know each other better.”

“To be honest, I assumed the potion lady would have protections against tampering with her stores. But… Ufu~ Real spells?” She smiled at herself. “I like this plan. How soon can we start?”

Alyssa opened her mouth, tomorrow on her lips. But she hesitated. While she could go to the Observatorium, taking books home was not among the short list of things she could do there. With a broken arm and a burned hand, she wouldn’t be able to copy spells herself. Maybe she could convince Irulon to scribble a few spells down for her. Except that was just using her. Something Irulon had already vehemently objected to. “I need my phone.”

“What?”

“My phone. It’s a tool I can use to… help with copying spells. But I gave it to Tenebrael.” Alyssa ground her teeth together. That stupid angel. She had to be deliberately avoiding Alyssa. It was the only explanation. Even the Message spell hadn’t worked. Or rather, the spell seemed to have worked, but Tenebrael never showed up. “I need a dead body. A fresh one. Like someone that’s dying as I’m staring at them.”

“There’s plenty of humans wandering around the city. I’m sure you could find one that won’t be missed.”

Shooting the mimic a glare just made Kasita shrug. “I’m not shooting some random person. I need a… hospital? Does this city have a hospital? Or maybe public executions.” Distasteful, but it would work. The people would die anyway whether or not she contacted Tenebrael because of them.

“The Waterhole—”

“Nope. Even if they take someone behind the building and slice their throat every hour on the hour, I don’t want to go anywhere near Waters Street’s territory. Not until I’m far better prepared.” And maybe not even then if I can help it. “I’ll ask Tzheitza in the morning. Being a medicine supplier, she’ll know where people are dying.”


<– Back | Index | Next –>


 

013.005

<– Back | Index | Next –>


A Little R&R

Sisters


Before the door even fully opened, Tzheitza’s frost orb was in the air. It slipped through the narrow gap to the darkened room. Oz caught the door by the handle and slammed it shut. A half second later, ice spread over the door with the sound of breaking glass.

“Lights are out in there,” Oz said, voice quick and clear. “She smashed them?”

“Bonechill,” Tzheitza replied as she tossed another orb. This one, Oz caught. “But ye gotta hurry.”

Oz nodded, pressing his thumb down on the little metallic top of the orb. Instead of tossing it into the room as well, he just shook it around. Light spread around his fingers. Like it was some sort of glow-stick. He used the same ring that hung it from Tzheitza’s bandoleer to clip it to his belt. Only then did he open the door again, slowly this time.

Icy air rushed out, making goosebumps form on everyone’s arms. Except Kasita’s. The fireplace couldn’t even stand up to the mist rolling along the ground. The flames struggled to continue burning the wood logs, but frost formed over the wood while it was still burning. It didn’t stay burning for long. The yellow flames darkened to a pale blue before going out entirely. Crystals of ice covered every surface of the fireplace and even the floor.

Oddly enough, aside from the goosebumps, Alyssa didn’t feel all that cold. Certainly not as cold as she would have expected given that it literally froze the fire in place. Hopefully her nerves hadn’t been destroyed and frostbite wasn’t setting in. Neither Oz nor Tzheitza looked too concerned. Irulon just frowned at the mist before looking back to the slowly opening doorway.

Oz moved inside slowly and carefully. The light at his hip wasn’t as good as the stationary lights around the room. Not seeing Octavia standing in the middle of the area, he took the time to check the corners, both behind the door and the other door-side corner. Since he didn’t react, the assassin must not be there.

Alyssa just watched with a nervous feeling in her stomach. How was he supposed to breach a room with a stupid sword? The room was too cramped. If Octavia had been in the corners, what would he have done? He couldn’t swing the sword. Even if she was standing right in the center, swinging his sword would probably have hit the walls or shelves long before it hit anyone else. He would have to thrust and that probably wouldn’t work all that well. Even if she was abysmally skilled, Octavia had a lithe build. She could probably move like a gymnast.

Then again, neither Tzheitza nor Oz wanted to kill children, as Oz had mentioned. Alyssa charging in with guns blazing would just be another dead body on her conscience. A kid at that. She could at least partially justify killing home invaders, slave traders, and war mongers. Even if Octavia was an assassin-in-training… well, maybe she shouldn’t get so hung up about her being a child—a teenager. Had she killed people? If so, it probably hadn’t been in self defense. And given Cid and Bacco’s injuries, she could easily have tortured people as well. Maybe Cid and Bacco’s injuries had been her doing rather than the Taker’s.

Alyssa pressed her lips together, honestly feeling some sick relief that she wasn’t able to use her weapons at the moment. It meant that she didn’t have to make the hard decisions.

Tzheitza and Oz, on the other hand, did have to do so. Oz carefully crept over a toppled over shelf. Tzheitza gripped a pale green orb in one hand and an obsidian black one in the other. While both of them had a certain tension in their movements, Irulon only looked bored. The princess moved a step back so that she could lean against the wall, idly flipping through her tome as if it were a restaurant menu and she couldn’t quite decide what she wanted to eat. Kasita…

Kasita…

Where did that mimic get off to now?

There were only three people left in the main room. Oz was in the storage room and Kasita was probably doing something foolish. Right after she got fixed up too.

Alyssa didn’t even bother trying to look for the mimic. If she didn’t want to be found, nobody would be able to. Except maybe Irulon. Kasita did keep mentioning that arcanists had methods of locating disguised mimics.

Heavy wood thudded against the floor in the storage room. Oz jumped back just in time to avoid a larger bookcase-like shelf falling on him. The leather of his boot slipped on the icy floor as he moved. He didn’t fall, but the stagger was enough. Octavia leaped out from the shadows in the far back of the room.

Oz raised his sword. Not to strike, but trying to block a jab of her fist.

Metal clanged against metal.

Octavia pulled back, but Oz pressed forward. He thrust out his empty fist, throwing a hard punch. It connected with an audible thwack. Oz moved forward again, throwing out another punch, though this time with his sword hand.

Either the sword made him clumsy or Octavia was better than he thought. She rammed her elbow into his wrist and his sword fell with a thump against one of the toppled shelves. Moving into his guard, Octavia slammed a foot down on his and tried to strike him with something. A thin bit of metal gleamed between her fingers. But Oz caught her wrist and tightened his grip. When she tried to elbow his wrist with her free arm, he caught that one as well.

“Now, why don’t we all sit down and—”

Octavia reared back and slammed her head down onto his.

Both of them fell away from each other. Oz released her to clutch at his head, but she didn’t make use of her freedom except to grab at her own forehead. They both moaned and groaned. Alyssa would have laughed if she wasn’t so tense.

Tzheitza didn’t laugh. She charged forward, barreling into the room. For being still a little injured from her fall off the Brechen Overlook, she moved quick, slipping right around Oz to tackle Octavia before the wannabe assassin could recover. They both fell to the ground hard, Octavia underneath the significantly larger Tzheitza. Getting an arm underneath one of Octavia’s armpits, Tzheitza flipped the girl onto her stomach and slammed her face onto the icy floor. While one hand kept her head pinned down, the other managed to get both of Octavia’s arms by the wrists.

In the span of only a few seconds, Octavia couldn’t do much besides impotently kick her legs into the ground. Even that was taken away from her when Tzheitza shifted to move her own feet to trap Octavia’s.

All the while, Oz just stood to the side, rubbing his head.

“Ya mind helpin’ ye haberin fool?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said after a mild groan. “I’ll get a rope.” His words descended into mumbled rambles. “Stupid kid doesn’t even know how to do a proper headbutt.”

“Spectral Chains.”

Alyssa’s head snapped to her side where Irulon held a card between her fingers. The princess had a deep scowl on her face. Possibly the most upset Alyssa had ever seen her. Translucent shackles latched tight around Octavia’s form, before Oz could take a step away. Once the other end of the chains formed in Irulon’s hands, she gave a sharp tug. Octavia didn’t move—Tzheitza was still on top of her—but she did shout.

“Well, well. What have we here?” Irulon took a single step forward with each word. Between, she tugged on the chains, keeping them taut as well as eliciting pained noises from Octavia. She slowly started to smile. It was not her mask, that delightfully pleasant smile that she wore in front of others. It wasn’t even that true-smile that she had on while Alyssa had been explaining where she had come from.

Her lips curled back, more like a wolf baring its teeth in a display of threat and prowess.

Irulon stopped one pace away from Octavia’s face. “Get off her,” she ordered.

Tzheitza hesitated, but all it took was one flick of Irulon’s eyes away from Octavia for her to release the smaller girl and move off to the side. Of course, the chains kept Octavia from moving even with Tzheitza off her back. It was all she could do to crane her neck far enough back to see who was standing over her, holding her chains.

“Seventh,” Octavia spat. A small trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth, freezing as soon as it hit the ice. “Nice to see you again.”

“Sister. Dear sister. Your goals are a bit too high. Father always said you were a disappointment. You should keep that in mind when taking action far beyond your station.” She scoffed, throwing a glance toward Oz. “Even though he grossly exaggerates his abilities, a Miserable. Failure. Would never have a chance at defeating him.”

Alyssa looked between the two, wide-eyed. Sister? Had she heard correctly? Taking a few steps closer to get a better look, she… really couldn’t see much resemblance at all. They had the same violet eyes, but Irulon had sharp features and a darker skin tone, Octavia’s face was more rounded and pale. Their hair didn’t match either, with the former having brown and the latter a dusty-blond.

Somehow, and perhaps foolishly, Octavia managed to muster up enough willpower to force a smile. It, more than anything else, cemented in Alyssa’s mind the fact that they were sisters. The two wore nearly the same sneer on their face.

“At least my mother wasn’t a—”

Irulon jerked the chain forward, lashing out with her foot at the same time. She kicked Octavia hard enough to flip her onto her back.

“There you go again, being a failure.” Irulon stepped forward before Octavia fully landed, pressing a foot down on her chest. “When you cannot stand on your own merits, you feel the need to bring our mothers into it. Just like when you were a child. You obviously haven’t grown at all since then, have you?”

Mothers. Plural. That explained their drastically different appearance. How many wives or concubines did their father have? While he could have remarried, Alyssa doubted it. Pharaohs probably weren’t limited to one. In fact, was monogamy even a real thing in this world? She couldn’t even think of a single person she had met that had been married. Now that she was thinking about it, not a single person had introduced themselves with a family name.

“Now,” Irulon said, not taking her violet eyes off her sister, “I believe I only have half the story, but I can add context together better than anyone. You, dear sister, are a traitor to father and the city, siding with deviant criminal elements.”

Octavia snorted a sarcastic laugh, spitting out another glob of blood. “You don’t know the half of it. Go ahead, Seventh. Throw me in your oubliette. I won’t be in there for long. Waters Street has big plans. Bigger than you could possibly know. I’ll be the one sitting at the top of the tower. Not you!”

“A coup then? Ahahaha.” Octavia’s mouth snapped shut with a click as Irulon went down on one knee. In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Whoever told you anything was an even larger fool than you are. Hm. Unless they intended for you to be captured and to deliver misleading information. That is something I might do.” Frowning in thought, Irulon’s head drifted off to the side. “What advantage would there be in implicating Waters Street as more than just criminals? A coup. Distraction? Rivals? Foreign meddling?” As Irulon mumbled, her eyes twitched back and forth, occasionally flicking to their black and white mode. With her head tilted to the side, neither Tzheitza nor Oz could see. Only Alyssa could.

Alyssa and Octavia.

“You freak.”

Irulon, eyes normal once again, snapped her head back to Octavia. “A puzzle to put together later. For now, dealing with my traitorous sister.” Wrapping the chain around her wrist, Irulon let go. The translucent links didn’t vanish as they had with Bercilak’s minion. They remained tightly wrapped around Octavia, leaving Irulon free to page through her tome again. Selecting one of her cards, she pulled it free from the rest of the book.

From her angle, Alyssa couldn’t see what was on the card. The same was not true for Octavia. Her eyes widened when she saw what was on the front. “Wh-What do you think you’re doing with that?”

“You know very well what happens to traitors. Oubliette? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m a princess. Father won’t let—”

“You are a traitor. A title that suppresses all else. And a traitor must be dealt with as a traitor deserves.” She raised the card, fully angling the design toward Octavia. Opening her mouth to speak, she—

“Wait!” Alyssa blurted out, unable to stop herself. She stepped forward, only to take a step back as Irulon slowly turned. Excepting that one step, she held her ground, gritting her teeth. “You can’t just kill her.”

“Why?”

“Why? What do you mean why? Doesn’t she get a trial? Or something.” Alyssa didn’t even know why she was speaking up. Possibly because this was all her fault. If not for her trusting Cid and Bacco, if not for her rescuing the monsters, if not for her abusing Tzheitza’s trust for a place to stay, if not for her casting Desecrate Spells around Kasita, if not for her running to the only person she could think of for help… It weighed on her conscience. Oz’s plan was much better. Let Octavia get rehabilitated through community service with the guild. Or something. Not killed. Alyssa had already killed enough people. And those that she had had at least been grown adults who had made their beds. She had just been helping the people lie in them. “She’s only a teenager. Teenagers are idiots! I know. I was one!”

Octavia snarled. “I am not—”

“Shut up!” Alyssa shouted at the stupid girl before she could make things worse. Sometimes it felt like everyone else in this entire world was lacking something vital to functioning normally. All the way from Tenebrael down to the random village people who celebrated the deaths of the suicidally depressed.

“She has already attacked your friends with the intent to kill.” Irulon bent and picked up a little narrow bit of metal. Maybe a piece from Octavia’s outfit or a small bracket from one of the toppled shelves. She brought it up to her nose and gave it a little sniff. “Medusa venom extract.” Her gaze turned, searching the room. She took one step away from Octavia to kneel in front of a little shattered jar. “From here. Possession of the substance is illegal, resulting in a fine and time in the stocks,” she said, looking over to Tzheitza.

“I have a permit,” Tzheitza said, slow and clear.

“Hm. If this had gotten into someone’s bloodstream, they would have been turned to stone. Maybe only partially in the case of a limb, but she was clearly trying to strike him in the face.” Irulon nodded toward Oz. “In addition, she has already admitted to plotting a coup. The only meaning a trial could serve would be delaying the inevitable.”

“No. You said that they were planning a coup. That’s nothing but conjecture. All she said was that she would be out of jail soon enough. Maybe she thought that Waters Street was going to break her out. Or the pharaoh. You even said, immediately after suspecting a coup, that it wasn’t a coup because nobody would be stupid enough to tell that idiot something actually important…” Alyssa took a breath, having run out of air while speaking. That breath made her think for a moment. “No one would have told her something important,” she said slowly. “But what if she found out something else of import? Something Waters Street didn’t want anyone to know about. Knowing that she is a liability, they told her something even bigger, like a coup, so that she would blab about that instead. If treason is punished by immediate execution, she would be dead before she could talk about anything else…”

Irulon smiled. Not a gleeful smile. Not a vicious smile. Her eyes went innocently wide as her lips pressed into that vapid blank smile that she wore in public. “Hm. Sounds like conjecture to me. But—” Her smile widened as her eyes narrowed. “—I’m glad my faith in your mental alacrity was not wholly misplaced. I agree.”

“You can’t—” Alyssa blinked. “You do?”

“Perhaps not with your outlined scenario. It is far too convoluted. Too prone to failure. However, there is something that anyone who has met her can attest to: The Eighth is an imbecile beyond measure.”

Octavia started grinding her teeth together loud enough for the whole room to hear. “You are always like this. Always so smug. Always so… This is why everyone hates you. Our older brothers… Our younger siblings… Our fath— Ah! Ah-Ah!”

Alyssa had stepped forward and pressed her foot down on Octavia’s fingers. “I am trying to keep you alive,” she hissed, leaning down. Her words grew quieter and quieter the closer she got to Octavia’s ear. “Do you want to die? Do you know what happens when you die?” She didn’t give the would-be assassin a chance to answer. “It isn’t what you’ve been taught. You won’t be whisked off to peace and happiness. Your soul will be torn from your body and consumed like a cheap chunk of bread.” By the end, she wasn’t even sure if Octavia could hear her voice with how quiet it was. Her lips were practically brushing against her ear. “Tenebrael is a monster worse than any other.”

To get so close to Octavia, she had needed to kneel down on the ground. With a broken arm and a still injured hand, it took a bit of effort to get back standing again, but she managed. Everyone in the room was staring at her. Oz, Tzheitza, and, of course, Irulon. Alyssa didn’t meet any of their eyes. Would Oz and Tzheitza thank her for trying to save the girl’s life? She had tried to kill them and had destroyed probably a decent amount of money’s worth of potion reagents. But they had said that they didn’t like killing kids. Irulon… Honestly, Alyssa hadn’t a clue what the princess was thinking. One moment, she had been about ready to slaughter her sister right in front of everyone. The next, she had been… praising Alyssa for stopping her?

“Open your mouth again and I won’t lift a finger to help you. I need to talk to her anyway.” As soon as Alyssa spoke, Irulon’s eyes twinkled. Not literally. They didn’t have any magic going on in them. But there was a certain curious thought behind them that made Alyssa snap her mouth shut, wishing she hadn’t added that last bit. Irulon was too good at putting small clues together to see the larger picture. Even if she had painted the entirely wrong picture of Alyssa at first, she hadn’t been completely off the track. The only reason she had the wrong idea had been because Alyssa being from an entirely different world had been so far out of the context she could think in that it might as well have been impossible.

Now that she knew that little tidbit, her guesses were probably going to get closer and closer to the mark the more they interacted.

Thankfully, Irulon didn’t start throwing theories out. After that little twinkle of her eyes, she turned back to Octavia.

“Regardless of what Alyssa says, you, dear sister, are a traitor. But, in light of you possibly knowing—even unwittingly—more than you are saying, I imagine that Father will wish to speak with you before any punitive measures are taken. So you have achieved a stay of execution until he returns from surveying Pandora.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together, not sure at all what she could possibly say. If Octavia was involved in some sort of coup, then the pharaoh did need to know. Unless Alyssa wanted the coup to succeed, which she didn’t—even if she disagreed with the slavery and a few other things supported by the government, the idea that a gang would run it any better was laughable at best. If the pharaoh chose to kill his own daughter, there was nothing she could do about it. All she had done was save Octavia from dying at her sister’s hands right away. Maybe if she told what she knew, she would be granted some clemency, but that was a far-fetched notion with her personality. As Irulon had said, her sister was an idiot.

“Besides,” Irulon said, smile turning nasty once again, “public executions not only serve as a deterrent to other traitors, but they are always more fun.”


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Author’s Note: Hi. Just a reminder for voting at Top Web Fiction. Thanks for reading!

013.004

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A Little R&R

Praying for a Cure


“So she just comes down the stairs and guess who is right there with her! The Tenebrael-damned princess! I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. By the time I decided to throw myself to the floor in front of her, she was already walking past without a glance in my direction. And Alyssa was just staring at me like I was some kind of idiot.”

“She ain’t wrong. Yer an idiot, Ozheim.”

“Both of your voices grate on the ears like a rusty knife,” Irulon said as she walked around a chair in the middle of the room with her hands clasped behind her back.

“Sorry,” Oz mumbled. He leaned in close to Tzheitza and started whispering, though not quiet enough that Alyssa couldn’t hear from her spot just to their side. “Shouldn’t the princess be killing monsters, not trying to help them?”

Tzheitza didn’t respond save for a slight grunt, but Irulon whirled around to glare. “I am familiar with the concept of mercenaries requiring payment for their services. Does that include remaining silent? Please, tell me so that I may divert a portion of the royal treasury to the task of keeping your mouth shut.”

Oz actually took a step back. Though he had broad shoulders, he managed to shrink down to the point where he looked like an awkward teenager. “Uh, no… that’s alright. I’ll be quiet.”

“Good.”

As soon as Irulon’s back had turned, Oz turned to Tzheitza and mouthed, ‘Yikes.’ The potioneer didn’t respond in the slightest. Her face didn’t so much as twitch.

Alyssa, on the other hand, couldn’t help but rub at a burgeoning headache. She might have just discovered why the princess, who had always been kind and cordial with her, maintained that bubble of space around her at the Observatorium. If everyone who spoke to her or even in her presence wound up snapped at… well, the probability that she really had no friends just went up drastically.

That girl, Caressa, had simply asked for a better excuse for their teacher—or administrator—and wound up getting a fairly snide insult in return for her efforts. And it had definitely been an insult despite Irulon’s pleasant tone of voice. Of course, there might have been some history between the two. But even the first time Alyssa had visited the Observatorium, Caressa had been the one to offer to pass messages on to the lecturers. None of which warranted the insults.

The princess just had a naturally abrasive personality. Which might explain why Bacco had said that she was an outcast. Her tone of voice and her smile clashed drastically with her inner feelings. Alyssa got the impression that the princess really didn’t care one way or the other for the wellbeing of those around her. Not unless they had something to offer her.

Which would explain the cordiality toward Alyssa. Before, Alyssa had been a curiosity that Irulon had thought to be a monster of some sort. Now, she was an alien. An alien without a soul.

She was trying hard not to think about that. Especially not before she got a verification from a second source. A source that didn’t rely on magic that might go wrong. Such as Iosefael or Tenebrael. And even they weren’t wholly immune given Iosefael’s failures to send her back home.

Shaking her head, Alyssa focused on Irulon.

Just as Irulon sat down on the chair in the middle of the room.

Oz tensed the moment she did, hand moving to his sword. Which just made Alyssa roll her eyes. What did he think he was going to do? Jump in to save the princess from the spooky seat when it grew teeth and claws? Even Tzheitza only shifted her weight from one side to the other. She had potions hanging off her little bandoleer, but that was because the Taker was still alive.

“Interesting,” Irulon said, standing up a after a moment. “Turn into a cat.”

The chair shimmered, shrinking down. The back of the chair merged into a single pole, which soon slumped like a wet noodle as a head formed at the front. The wood sprouted fur and soon enough, a cat sat in the middle of the room.

It didn’t stay that way for long. The cat sneezed, shaking its head in that tornado of fur that cats tended to do. When the shaking ceased, the head looked more like that of a chicken with fur instead of feathers. Plasticy fur. The furry chicken head ballooned up, grey fur taking on a brownish hue as it shrank into the face. Lips formed, the beak shrunk in, the eyes bulged, turning violet. A tattoo formed around one of the eyes as the facial features turned more human.

“Hm.” Irulon stared at herself. Or rather, at her head still attached to the body of a cat. “I take it you didn’t intend to do that.”

“Disgusting,” Oz said, actually earning a nod from Tzheitza. Not even Irulon complained about the sentiment.

Alyssa wasn’t sure she disagreed either. It was one thing to see someone’s head on a human body that didn’t match. It was another thing entirely to see Irulon’s head on the body of a cat. Especially when the cat failed to hold up the weight of its head and it just sank down to the floor.

“This is humiliating,” Kasita said in Irulon’s voice. The entire cat and head combo shimmered again, stretching and growing. In the span of thirty seconds, it formed into a human. Or a humanoid. It looked more like a wooden doll than a living person. But it still managed to sigh.

“That’s a no then.” Irulon nodded her head and glanced at Alyssa. “Very well. I see nothing wrong with my theory. Desecrate Spells is still active and is corroding her magic when she tries to take shape. She can hold on to an inanimate form for the same reason that she can hold my weight. Her magic locks her form into place. If it didn’t, a mimic would never be able to disguise themselves as a load-bearing object given their inherent physical weakness. However, once locked in place, there is no need to make changes. Unlike a living form which is constantly in motion, requiring constant magical updates to maintain self-consistency. As a mimic is still a magical being regardless of the form it takes, it is still emitting enough magic to keep the spell active, just not enough to disrupt the illusion.”

Alyssa blinked twice, going over what Irulon said in her head. “Right,” she said slowly. “That makes sense I guess.” And it did. She wasn’t stupid. There were surely some underlying mechanics that she wouldn’t understand without years of research—judging by some of the words Iosefael and Tenebrael said when casting their spells, magic had some heavy basis in mathematics. Math that probably wasn’t simple algebra. But Irulon’s explanation didn’t involve math at all. She was probably talking down to her, but Alyssa didn’t mind much so long as she didn’t need a doctorate in mathemagics to understand what was going on. “So how do we stop it?”

“Quite easily. As I was attempting to say before you interrupted with your insistence that I personally verify what I already know, a simple magical suppression will starve the Desecrate Spells spell.”

“And that won’t hurt Kasita?”

“No,” Irulon said without a glance toward anyone in the room. She turned to one of her open notebooks and started scribbling out a pattern. “Though, in light of your oddities, Alyssa, it probably is for the best that someone else cast the spell on anything you do not wish harmed. I’ll admit that flaw in my plan.”

Alyssa let out a small sigh of relief. What would she have done without Irulon? All the more reason to at least try to be real friends with her rather than use her for her knowledge and abilities. Kasita had to be happy as well, though she didn’t look it. At the moment, her body had turned to a gelatinous blob somewhere between a cat’s body and that of a human. If said human had drowned and their body had bloated to an unreasonable extent.

“Disgusting,” Oz mumbled again. “Have I ever mentioned how much I hate mimics? I don’t think I hated them so much a week ago. Not more than other monsters… but now?” He shuddered. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“I was under the impression that you were a senior mercenary,” Irulon said, not looking up from her drawing. “Yet a simple illusion sends your stomach churning? You shouldn’t over-exaggerate your experience. You’ll convince others that you are capable of more than you are, winding up with you and them killed in a situation beyond your abilities.”

“You can’t tell me that you can look at that thing and not feel at least a little unnerved.”

Irulon turned her head to look directly at Kasita. Her expression, slightly annoyed but with a small smile, didn’t change in the slightest. “Fascinated would be the more accurate sensation I’m feeling. Did you know that mimics are actually larger than most objects they mimic? Heavier as well. Yet one could disguise itself as a feather and you wouldn’t be able to feel the difference in weight. Even if they rearranged their body, compressing themselves down to the size of a coin, it would still weigh too heavy to be normal. Illusion magic can only go so far in convincing someone that a mimic is actually the object. In actuality, most of their body exists outside of this world while transformed, pulling the object of their choosing from a separate fractal. Or so goes my theory, in any case,” she said with a grin plastered on her face as she pulled the piece of paper from her notebook. “To that end, Kasita, I request that you return to your natural state. I doubt Alyssa would be too pleased to find you dead because the magic suppression destroyed whatever portal you have that keeps your consciousness and the rest of your body connected to this world.”

“My natural state?” Once again, Kasita looked like Play-Doh, though if she was trying to appear as anyone in specific, Alyssa couldn’t tell who.

“Yes, yes. You can be self-conscious about it later. If you’re worried about vulnerability, just imagine how upset Alyssa would be at the others should they actually harm her pet mimic.”

“She’s not my pet.”

Irulon just dismissively waved her hand. “I am casting the spell on the count of three regardless of your current status.”

“Alright, alright. Give me a second.”

To Alyssa’s surprise, Irulon did not immediately start counting down. She nodded her head and waited. Which Alyssa didn’t mind in the slightest. Just the threat was giving her flashbacks to the Taker. Was that a common thing in this world?

Kasita’s form, roughly the size of an overweight human, didn’t shrink down. Neither did it grow. It just faded out. The flesh started out by turning transparent. It continued fading until there was nothing left. Of the flesh.

Where the mass used to be, a… thing stood on the ground. It came up roughly to Alyssa’s waist, though four legs suspended its main mass a few feet off the ground. It had no head. In fact, Alyssa couldn’t tell which direction it was facing. Each of the four legs came off the central… blob in different directions, long and spindly like a spider, though without joints. Except it wasn’t a spider. Its legs were far more snake-like, though black and flowing, like oil given form. Its core was the same.

Which was what Irulon had been waiting for. She lifted the card. “Suppression Field.”

The spider-like form of Kasita didn’t change much at all save for some minor twitching at the ends of its tentacles.

The same could not be said for the rest of the room. Alyssa’s stomach clenched as the lights flickered. The glass didn’t explode, thankfully, but the lights turned from a warm orange-yellow down to a dim brown. They struggled at the dark brown for a moment before winking out entirely. The only light in the room came from the fireplace. A cold sweat formed on her skin despite knowing that nothing around her would harm her. There was no Taker in the room. Just four people who she trusted to not kill her.

Alyssa remained silent. She didn’t trust her voice not to tremble. It was stupid, but the whole thing reminded her too much of dying over and over to the Taker. Oz didn’t say anything either, though she could see how tense he was in the light of the fire. Tzheitza, on the other hand, burst out into a slurry of profane comments as she moved about the room. While in full potionspeak mode, Alyssa couldn’t catch much. From what little she could understand, Tzheitza was worried that the spell had ruined her potion reagents. She pulled jars off the shelves and started inspecting the contents, sniffing them and even sticking her finger in and licking a bit of the contents.

Irulon didn’t seem to care about the people around her. Her eyes were locked on Kasita’s oily form. Her violet eyes. So far, Irulon hadn’t done the thing with the black sclera and white rings. “Hm.” As soon as the princess made the noise in the back of her throat, the lights returned. Dim at first, barely more than faint embers glowing in the jars. But over the course of another minute, they grew in strength until the liquid-filled jars were putting out just as much light as they had before the spell went active.

“Suppression Field deactivated. Assume a form, mimic. Something more animate than a chair.”

The spindly limbs of the oily blob shrank in on themselves, vanishing from view as Kasita shimmered into view. Kasita. Her proper form. The overly voluptuous and inhumanly beautiful woman wearing her elegant gown that showed off far too much cleavage. She looked down at herself, waiting for a moment as if she expected to uncontrollably morph into a doughy facsimile of herself. But nothing happened. She looked up with a smile. “Ufu~ That’s better.”

“Curious, curious.” Irulon clasped her hands behind her back as she stalked around Kasita. Her eyes flickered to those black pits of doom, but only for an instant. If Alyssa hadn’t been watching—and, more importantly, known what to look for—she would have missed it entirely. Oz didn’t even move. “Your body—Your true body is ninety-seven percent outside this world. But you aren’t even aware of this fact. Your consciousness is entirely here. Hm. Disappointing.”

“I really don’t know what you are talking about.”

“No. Of course not. It is a natural ability. You don’t have to think about what you are doing or where you are in the slightest. Unfortunate. I had hoped to question you on anything you might experience while transformed. But you don’t know anything. I suspect that there may be a way to force the rest of you through the portal you are maintaining, but I also suspect that retrieving you for questions would be exceedingly difficult. Perhaps if we had a second mimic. I don’t suppose you know of any others within the city.”

“Ah, no. While I don’t doubt that other mimics have traveled this far from the ruins of the First City, we’re not exactly a social bunch. I haven’t encountered another mimic since I left the hive.”

“Oh! Question!” Oz held up a finger before pointing it off to the side of the room. “If that table were another mimic, would you know instinctively? Or would you have to wave at each other or something?”

“I would know. Illusions mean less to me than they do you.”

“Mimics don’t see the world the way you or I do,” Irulon said, actually answering Oz’s question. “It would be more accurate to say that they feel the world. Another mimic would feel wrong.”

“You know a lot about my kind,” Kasita said, cocking her head to one side. “Most humans see us as a nuisance and try to kill us without much thought.”

“Hm. I suppose there is no harm in telling. All of my research is dedicated toward proving the existence of many different worlds,” she said with a quick glance toward Alyssa. “Fractal magic offers glimpses, but my theory is that the worlds tied to Fractal magic are created when a spell is cast and destroyed afterward. Mimics were brought to my attention because of questions regarding your abilities. I believe that you and your kind—”

Shattering glass interrupted Irulon. It was muffled slightly, but still loud enough that everyone turned their heads toward the source.

The store room. The one next to Alyssa’s makeshift bedroom. Something heavy crashed down within. Wood crashed against wood with the telltale creaking and snapping of boards.

“Tenebrael’s tits,” Oz swore under his breath. “She got loose.”

Irulon pressed her lips together until they were nothing more than a thin line. “Let’s not blaspheme against Her Holiness’ body, shall we?”

“Right.” Oz didn’t sound convincing at all. He didn’t even glance toward Irulon as he drew his sword. “Stay back. I’m not being paid for this, but I can’t imagine my reputation would remain intact if I let the princess come to harm.”

Tzheitza moved up next to him, frosty blue orb in hand.

“Think she’s just making a mess? Or do you have dangerous stuff in there.”

The potioneer just grunted.

Alyssa’s hands drifted to her holsters, only to remember that even if she had them, she was too injured to use them. She couldn’t even hold a gun in her left hand with how many bandages were wrapped around her fingers. “Damn,” she swore, moving back toward Irulon and Kasita. “Damn it.” This was a nightmare. Well, not nearly so bad as her encounter with the Taker. At least here, she had allies. From that Fractal Mirror experiment, she knew that Irulon could defend herself. Kasita couldn’t be hurt by conventional weaponry. Tzheitza and Oz were experienced fighters.

It was only she who was the worthless one.

“Damn,” she swore again.

“Escaped, prisoner? Poorly secured. Unworried yet mildly tense, not a significant threat but still dangerous. Mimic calm, not a magical danger. Alyssa sweating, frightened. Hm.” Irulon lifted the tome chained to her hip and flipped it open, though she didn’t actually retrieve a spell. “Perhaps you should warn me that you’re keeping an assassin magically secured in the back room before I suppress all magic in the area.”

“Yeah, yeah. We captured her once, we can capture her again. Besides, all her weapons are out here.”

“Pots. Haberin fool.”

“Right. Need to hurry then.” Oz gripped his sword, moving closer to the door. It wasn’t the best weapon for indoor combat, but it would have to do. “I open, you toss?”

“Mhm.”

“Ready? Now!”

Oz kicked open the storage room door.


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013.003

<– Back | Index | Next –>


A Little R&R

A Friend with Needs


Irulon glanced up from her notebooks the second Alyssa popped her head into the Observatorium’s library. Her violet eyes flicked from Alyssa’s face to her shoulder then down to her hand. Each jump served to deepen the princess’ frown. It was the first time since meeting the princess that she hadn’t put on her smiling mask.

But Alyssa continued toward her anyway. She owed it to Kasita to at least ask for help.

“Alternate Visage,” Irulon mumbled as soon as Alyssa entered into the gap between her and the rest of the students. As soon as the shimmering bubble of a spell encircled them, she continued on without even giving Alyssa a chance to speak. “I see my efforts have gone to waste. I gave you all the tools you needed to succeed and yet the Taker still lives and you have come crawling back to beg me for more help. Giving charity is not a habit of mine, Alyssa.”

The conversation was already heading in a bad direction and Alyssa hadn’t even said a word yet. She still wasn’t speaking, not sure how to react. While she had expected complaints on how she had handled the situation similar to what she got from Oz and Tzheitza, this… What was Irulon even mad about? She hadn’t been the one getting torn apart over and over again before being torn apart in real life. All she had done was scrawl out a few lines on some papers.

Of course, Alyssa didn’t say that out loud. It would be a surefire way to ensure that she never received help again.

Instead, Alyssa had to ask. “How can you know all that? Have you been having me followed?”

“Your face is riddled with worry. Not the triumphant confidence one returning from victory would have. More, you failed to dress up. Even the first time you came here when you were practically shaking from being nervous, you tried to make yourself look wealthier than you actually are. In your haste, you forgot completely. You didn’t even stop to look around the room, failing to notice the two administrators present today, both of whom are watching us closely.” Irulon waved a vague gesture over her shoulder, making Alyssa look up.

She just about jumped back as she noticed two older gentlemen staring right at her. Most people in the library were her age. Give or take five years. These two were clearly much older, having white hair and beards as well as extensive wrinkles lining their faces. Alyssa shuddered at their gazes. She didn’t like being watched, especially not so intensely. Only remembering that the spell Irulon had used kept them from seeing the real her let her calm slightly. She almost asked how Irulon had known they were staring without looking back only to realize that it probably wasn’t that hard to guess. Irulon had apparently threatened the administrators to allow her access to the library. It was only natural they would be curious about her.

“On top of all that,” Irulon continued, “you are injured. While I do commend you for surviving a physical encounter with the Taker, given his reputation, you should never have gotten close enough to him to be hurt in the first place. You clearly squandered my spells.”

“Yes, well, if the spells acted as I thought they should, everything would have been fine. How was I supposed to know that Infinite Regress and Desecrate Spells interacted poorly with each other.”

Irulon looked up to where Alyssa stood, actually meeting her eyes as she tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

Alyssa didn’t respond right away, somewhat shocked that Irulon didn’t know something. In fact, that might just be the first real question she had ever asked in all their meetings. “I don’t know,” she said eventually, slumping down into the seat opposite from Irulon. “I was under the effects of Empty Mirror, I used Infinite Regress outside the room the Taker was in.”

It only took a few minutes to explain everything that went down during her confrontation with the Taker. For most of the talk, Irulon sat there nodding her head as if she had expected every word of it. It wasn’t until she got to the Desecrate Spells part that Irulon started frowning again. This time, her frown wasn’t directed at Alyssa. She was doing more of the furrowing her brows in thought sort of thing rather than getting angry over something. At one point, she pulled over one of her notebooks and started scribbling in it, all without breaking eye contact.

“And then we left. The Taker couldn’t move, but Kasita accidentally freed him before more than his arms could break. He did lose an eye in the process, apparently. So that’s nice, I guess.”

Irulon didn’t say anything right away, continuing to write in her notebook. As soon as she finished, she nodded her head. “First, I can think of at least twenty ways you could have killed the Taker even after burning yourself. And that’s just off the top of my head. Second, none of that should have happened. Fractal magic toys with the world. And other worlds. Infinite Regress effectively copies reality, allowing you to play with anything you wish as you would a doll, affecting the true world as much as a doll might. Nothing you could do should have done anything to the outside world.”

“Yeah. But it did.” The more she played with it, the less she thought she liked magic. It was too unreliable. When she pulled the trigger on her gun, it sent a slug of metal hurtling away from her at twice the speed of sound. When she cast a spell, she couldn’t quite be sure what she would get. Maybe that was the fault of her own ignorance, but then there was the fact that magic didn’t seem to work right around her either. Tenebrael had been shocked that Spectral Chains had been able to touch the pair of angels. Nothing Iosefael had tried to do to her had worked. Even Tenebrael had said that a large number of spells simply failed on her.

Maybe it wasn’t magic that was the problem. Maybe it was just her.

“Anyway, I didn’t come here because of the Taker. Though if you have a concrete plan for killing him, I’m all ears. But I came here because of that mimic I mentioned.”

“The one you rescued from the whorehouse.”

“Yes, I…” Alyssa blinked, searching her memories. “Did I tell you that?”

Irulon shrugged and waved her hand. “You were saying?”

“She was in the area when I used Desecrate Spells. And now she’s… unable to maintain her form. Her body keeps twisting into amalgamations of… whatever. My face with Tzheitza’s hair and giant boobs or worse, my face with a man’s body. And the faces are all messed up too. Like I can tell when it’s supposed to be me, but it looks like she built it out of Play—er, wet clay.”

“Ah ha. Truly?”

“It’s not funny,” Alyssa said with a frown. Seeing Irulon smile and laugh at the situation gave her a little hope that she might at least take a look. This was the first thing she had smiled at. With a real smile, anyway. Her usual fake smile didn’t count. “It’s eerie enough looking at her when she’s normal, but now it’s like a horror movie come to life.”

“A what?”

“It’s like a play. Theater. Never mind.”

With another shrug, Irulon slid one of her notebooks to the side and pulled over another one. She started flipping to an already written page, eyes flicking across the words. After a moment of reading, she pushed it away and pulled over another book. “Interesting. I hadn’t thought that Desecrate Spells would work on non-active magical effects. Then again, I suppose a mimic would have their magic constantly active. Still, spells like that don’t normally work on monsters’ natural abilities.”

“Yeah, well, magic doesn’t seem to work normally around me, so that’s par for the course. My real question: Can it be fixed?”

“Desecrate Spells should strip magic in the area. Once there is no more magic for it to feed on, it dies off and spells can be cast normally once again. Without further analysis, I can only guess that the mimic, being a magical creature, is constantly feeding the spell, keeping it active. Killing it would stop magic generation. I assume you wish to rectify the issue without destroying your efforts to save it in the first place.”

“If you mean that I don’t want to kill her, then yes.”

Irulon flipped her drawing notebook to a blank page and picked up her pen. “Try this…”

“Wait. Is this another spell that you want me to cast? Right after I said that magic tends to go strange around me? On someone who I don’t want to kill?” Alyssa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know you’re probably extremely busy, but I would feel much safer if you would cast it. Or someone you trust. Maybe after examining Kasita just to make sure your theory is correct…” She trailed off, shrinking in on herself. Taking the spell before complaining would have been a much wiser course of action. Now…

Now Irulon’s eyes had changed again. They were black as the night, the only whites being the two concentric rings where the edges of her irises used to be.

Just like last time, her eyes turned back to the normal violet before Alyssa could so much as blink. But all amusement on her face had vanished.

“No,” she said, simple as that. “I’ve humored you so far because you are something of a quandary. A curiosity that might potentially be useful. I can’t figure out what you are. You’re obviously not human, but I believe that you believe that you aren’t from the Underworld either. However, the intrigue you bring is not infinite. These problems you bring me are despairingly mundane, even if they have interesting backstories. Perhaps you could be of use to me one day, but the more I interact with you, the further off that day seems to be. You are correct in assuming that I am busy. Human lifespans are not so extensive that I can waste my time away from my research.”

This again, Alyssa thought. It took a force of will to keep from rolling her eyes. She didn’t know why Irulon thought she wasn’t a human, but apparently her protests last time hadn’t been thorough enough. And all that research? Why? For what? Did she never leave this library? That couldn’t be healthy. Aside from that, however, she could see what Irulon was talking about.

So far, every time Alyssa had shown up at the Observatorium and met with Irulon, she had a problem. And every single time, she had expected Irulon to have a solution handy. While convenient, that wasn’t any way to treat another person. What did she actually know about Irulon? She was a princess. She was good at magic. Her eyes turned scary every once in a while. That… was it. Alyssa had known more about her old coworkers on the first day of the job than she knew about Irulon.

In fact, what did she know about anyone on this world? Oz was a mercenary, but surely there was more to him than money. He had some kind of history with Tzheitza, having left her behind in a tomb. Tzheitza used to be a top tier mercenary, but something bad had happened to her team involving the Taker. That was literally everything she knew about the two of them. Kasita… did she know anything at all about Kasita?

Alyssa had wound up encountering extremely useful people since entering the city, but had been so focused on their usefulness that she barely saw them as people.

Then again, what did any of them know about her? She had hardly told anyone a single thing about herself. What she had told were half-lies or things people wouldn’t understand. Such as her being from America. Her being cagey had been for reasons that always seemed good at the time. She still didn’t think telling people about Tenebrael would be a good idea. Or that she came from another world. But Irulon at least clearly suspected something along those lines already.

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa said, tone solemn. “I’ve been treating you like a tool rather than a person. I don’t suppose…” A part of her just wanted to close her eyes and take a breath. It was the best way she had found to recenter herself. But she wanted to come off as sincere. She wanted to be sincere. Rather than close her eyes, she looked straight at Irulon’s, holding the eye contact. “I still need to fix Kasita. It’s my fault she wound up like she is. I would appreciate any assistance you could offer. However, I would like to… not use you. Let’s be friends?”

“Friends.”

“Yeah.” Alyssa rubbed the back of her head. The way Irulon said the word wasn’t encouraging. Did she have any friends? Any at all? Given her status as a princess, most people in her life were probably a station below her. The only ones above would be her brothers and parents. “Friends help each other out. I won’t lie and say that my motivations are wholly selfless. I need help. But don’t think it will be a one-way street. As soon as I get my phone back, I’m sure there will be plenty of things I can offer you. But friendship is more than just a mutually useful relationship. Friends have fun together, hang out, share—”

“Are you deliberately trying to be insulting? Or does it come naturally?”

Crossing her arms, Alyssa scowled. More at herself than at Irulon. She was already messing this up. “I don’t have many friends. I mean, I don’t have any here, but even back home, I mostly made acquaintances and never went beyond that stage.”

Irulon’s eyes lit up. Not literally. They were the same violet that they normally were. But she leaned forward with a smile. “Friends also tell each other information about themselves. Information such as where you are from.”

“That’s… I’m from America.”

“A word without meaning to those who don’t know it. Try again.”

“I don’t know…” It figured that Irulon would be far less accepting of the answer than anyone else she had given it to. Being a princess, she was probably far more learned about the nations and geography of the world. But Alyssa was still not willing to bring Tenebrael into the conversation. Still, she wanted to give Irulon something. An olive branch, even if it was a small one. “Let me put it this way: When I looked up at night, the stars overhead were different than they are here. Different patterns. Different arrangements. Maybe entirely different stars altogether. The moon glowed a brilliant white with dark craters rather than the uniform pasty grey that’s over this place. I’ve never seen rings in the sky before a few weeks ago.”

Irulon stared, keeping her expression blank. She didn’t move. Her eyes stayed locked on Alyssa. Her fingers didn’t twitch. As far as Alyssa could tell, she wasn’t even breathing. But, before Alyssa could look around to see if Tenebrael had shown up and stopped time, the spell broke. Irulon turned to her notebooks. She snapped one closed. Then another. Then a third.

“Anything else I could tell you would just be more out of context names,” Alyssa said, growing desperate. “America is a country that borders Canada and Mexico. They—”

“Enough.” A card appeared in Irulon’s hand. It hadn’t come from her tome and she didn’t wear sleeves, but Alyssa hadn’t been paying much attention. She mumbled something. The books stacked up on the table vanished with the sound of shattering glass. “You cannot tell me where you are from because you don’t know where you are from in relation to here. I understand.”

Alyssa flinched as Irulon turned her head to stare—her black eyes with white rings weren’t just still this time, the white rings were… spinning. The inner rings ran clockwise and the outer rings moved in the opposite direction. “The pieces have all fallen into place. You aren’t from Nod at all. That explains the occasional blank looks, the questions, the lack of basic knowledge. But you aren’t stupid. Ignorance and imbecility are on opposite sides of a vast ocean.

“Your world lacked magic, but you managed to use mundane substitutes to make up for it.” Irulon paused for a moment, watching Alyssa’s face before continuing. “Mundane substitutes which you believe are vastly superior to magic. Interesting. They’ve given you a soft life, a safe life, and plentiful food judging by your ample muscles despite being practically destitute on your first visit with all that false jewelry. Your clothes are evidence to this. The weaves are too tight, too precise to have been done with human hands.”

She said it as if she had just discovered that fact. Or had just come to that conclusion. Alyssa hadn’t said a word. She was too busy trying to not shirk too much under Irulon’s pressure. It was like she was looking at her dragon soul again, the massive beast occupying the entire room. Except it was all compressed and contained in those obsidian eyes, focused to a tight point as they bored into Alyssa. She wasn’t even sure that Irulon was right. Though she definitely believed that modern society outstripped Lyria, she wasn’t sure that magic was the cause. It was definitely a difference. Whether or not it was true, she wasn’t about to correct the princess right now.

Instead, Alyssa remained silent as Irulon continued dissecting the situation.

“Your world has no magic, but you arrived here through magic. Hm. An apparent paradox, but easily resolved. I’ve long theorized the possibility of other worlds existing. Real worlds. Fractal magic is proof of that, though convincing others is irritating. If someone else discovered your world, it would not be out of thought that they were able to go there. Or that they simply pulled you here without transporting themselves at all. I’d ask what spell brought you here, but your lack of magical knowledge might give me false information.”

At that, Alyssa had to nod. She couldn’t even clearly remember the design for Tenebrael’s spell. It had been big. Maybe a triangle or dozen. Some crosses? Yeah. It was better that Irulon not ask. And besides that, Alyssa might start talking about Tenebrael. Even if she didn’t mention the angel by name, Irulon might pick it out. Her guesses were almost perfectly accurate, if relatively general.

The rotating of Irulon’s eyes slowed down, stopping after a moment. Blinking her eyes, they returned to their usual violet. As soon as everything was back to normal, she smiled. “Fascinating. I knew you were interesting, but this is far more enticing than merely being an unknown denizen from the Underworld. Anyone can come and go from there.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Hm. I still need to prove that your world exists. No one would believe that you aren’t from this world, even with your lack of or hidden soul. The administrators humor my theories because I am the princess, but I know they laugh behind my—”

“Wait. Stop.” Alyssa held up a hand. “You just glossed over something that sounded really important.”

“Your soul?” Irulon tilted her head. “I wasn’t going to let you catch a glimpse of my soul’s state without checking your character first. Spectral Sight showed nothing at all, which is what garnered my interest in the first place.”

Alyssa let out a slow breath. A spell had failed on her. That was all. Nothing strange, given that magic didn’t work right around her anyway. Besides, surely Tenebrael would have noticed something as big as her whole soul missing. On her first time meeting that angel, she had threatened to throw Alyssa’s soul into the corpse of the man she had killed.

That’s right. Nothing was wrong. Besides, even if she didn’t have a soul, what difference would it make? Alyssa was Alyssa. She had her own thoughts and they were hers. Maybe it would even be a positive. Tenebrael couldn’t eat her soul if she didn’t have one. Yeah. It was a good thing.

“You’re hyperventilating.”

Alyssa hiccuped, trying to stop herself from breathing so heavily. This time, she actually closed her eyes. In through the nose, out through the mouth, she thought as she started trying to control herself. What did the soul matter anyway? Before Tenebrael had shown up, she hadn’t even believed in a soul. Not really. It would have been nice if there was something after death, but it hadn’t been something that she was counting on.

“Try not to pass out,” Irulon said, tone turning terse. “Dragging you out of here wouldn’t be pleasant. It would be difficult to inspect your mimic if you cannot lead me to it.”

Alyssa’s breathing stopped abruptly. “You’ll take a look at her?” she said, opening her eyes. That’s right. Focus on something else. Nothing had changed between now and five minutes ago. She was still Alyssa and Kasita still needed help.

There would be plenty of time for existential crises later.

“Of course.” Irulon’s smile returned in full, though it was once again her false mask of a smile. “Friends help each other out. Tess is always telling me to associate with others more. I’ve never found anyone worthy of my time. I’m still not sure that I have, but your world is enticing enough for now.”

“T-Thanks.” That really wasn’t what friendship was about, but Alyssa wasn’t going to comment on it until after Kasita got fixed. Maybe she was still being manipulative, but so was Irulon. There would be plenty of time to become actual friends with Irulon, Kasita, Tzheitza, and even Oz once things had calmed down.

And maybe once she had a chance to think about what a missing soul might actually mean in the long scheme of things.

For now, Alyssa smiled and stood with Irulon. “Oz is waiting down in the museum-type-area. He walked me here, just in case the Taker does show up again, but he couldn’t get up the stairs.”

“Of course not. Lead the way.” As soon as she spoke, the shimmering field of glass around them shattered. No one looked twice at it, as if they hadn’t noticed anything in the first place. Irulon turned to the two older men in the room with her perfect smile in place. “Administrators, I apologize. Business has come up and I will be unable to attend this afternoon’s lectures.” Her back remained ramrod straight without a hint of deferring power to them. As soon as one of them nodded, she turned on her heel to face the little mousy girl that had spoken to her on Alyssa’s first visit to the Observatorium. “Caressa, if you would be so kind as to inform Administrator Devo. If he asks for a reason, tell him that it is related to my research. An opportunity to discover something limited in time.”

Her brown hair swung around her shoulders as she bowed. “Of course. Though I doubt he will be satisfied without more details.”

“Fishing for information?” Irulon’s smile remained, but her tone sounded as sharp as the Black Prince’s sword. The girl must have sensed it as well, for she deepened her bow until her long hair brushed against the floor. “No matter,” Irulon continued with a half-laugh. “Unless you’ve managed to comprehend just the basics of Fractal magic, all the information in any world would be useless to you. Come, Alyssa.”


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Author’s Note: Just the usual Top Web Fiction vote reminder today. Thanks everyone for voting and everyone else for reading!

013.002

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A Little R&R

Assassin’s Greed


When she had been told that the assassin was nothing more than a kid, Alyssa had thought it was some kind of exaggeration. A euphemism for the assassin being inexperienced or something similar. But this…

“How old is she? Twelve?”

The assassin, tied and bound to a chair, refused another spoonful of stew. Her face was round, looking just like most children, but her height and build might as well have been stolen from a tantrum-throwing pre-teen. Her mannerisms as well. The way she turned her head to avoid the spoon, she looked just like a petulant child who wanted ice cream instead of vegetables. Except for her eyes. As soon as Alyssa spoke, the assassin glared.

Never before had Alyssa physically stumbled back at nothing but a glance from a child.

“I’m six—”

Sixteen, Alyssa assumed. She had to assume. The assassin didn’t get a chance to finish speaking before Tzheitza used the opportunity to shove the spoon into her mouth.

“Eat,” Tzheitza said.

“Better do what she says.” Oz stood against the door, the very picture of relaxed… on the first glance. Actually looking at him for an extra moment told a different story. His hand rested on the grip of a smaller dagger. The smile he had on wasn’t nearly as natural as it was supposed to be either, barely reaching above his lips. His eyes were almost as cold and hard as the assassin’s. “You can’t try escaping if you’re weak from a lack of food.”

The assassin didn’t listen, spitting out the food, getting the black scales of her bodysuit dirty in the process. “How dare you. Do you know who I am?”

“Haberin kids don’t know nothing,” Tzheitza mumbled to herself. She dropped the spoon back into the bowl, stood fast enough to tip over the chair, practically shoved Oz out of the way, and slammed the door behind her as she left the small storage room.

“Aw, now you’ve made her mad.” Oz shook his head as he walked closer. With that same smile, he righted the chair and spun it around so that its back faced the tied up assassin. He plopped down, letting his arms dangle over the back. “But now you’ve only got me to watch you.”

The assassin leaned forward, as much as she could given the translucent magical bindings, with a vicious grin that didn’t suit her face in the slightest. “I am Octavia! Apprentice to the most feared killer in Lyria. Do your worst.”

Is that really something to be proud of? Alyssa thought, raising an eyebrow. She could understand being apprenticed to some skilled monster hunter given that they had a profession needed for the humans of this world. It might be prestigious to be learning under a knight of the kingdom or even a well renowned mercenary. But how could someone say that they were proud of being a subordinate to a killer with a straight face.

“The most feared killer?” Oz said, voice carefully neutral. “Remind me again who that would be?”

Octavia’s smile slipped. “What? What do you mean?”

“The most feared killer. You’re talking about the Crusher? Or maybe the Writer? Or just the Black Prince?”

Those couldn’t all be real people. Could they? Alyssa frowned as she watched Oz… do whatever he was doing. She wasn’t quite sure why he was taunting the assassin. But still, did everyone in this world have some kind of title that they went by?

“Stop screwing with me. I know you were after the Taker. He told me so himself.”

Oz burst out with a blast of laughter. “The Taker?” he said, stifling another outburst. It sounded forced to Alyssa, but Octavia leaned back in her chair with wide eyes. “You think the Taker is the scariest guy in Lyria?” He shook his head with a half-chuckle and shoved his thumb in Alyssa’s direction. “You recognize her, right?”

Alyssa met Octavia’s violet eyes for just an instant before the latter flicked her gaze back to Oz as he continued talking.

“Yeah. I know you know her. Because you didn’t attack us until she went into that house. Surely you don’t think the Taker just let her leave? Yet here she is with just a few minor injuries that will be healed by morning,” Oz said, to which Alyssa could only think, If only that were true. “The same cannot be said for your beloved Taker.”

“You’re lying.” She snarled, jerking her chair forward as she fought against the restraints.

But Oz just shook his head. “Not at all. How else can you explain her presence? She didn’t even run away from the Taker. She let him live. Look at her.” He turned in his seat to stare along with the assassin. “Lax stance. Soft eyes. No weapons. No armor. No other equipment. All the wrong muscles trained… I doubt she’s been in more than one serious fight in her entire life.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together, shifting under their scrutiny. Oz was clearly trying to do something, so she didn’t open her mouth. But she didn’t like the way they looked her over. When they were away from the assassin, she just might give him a punch to show which muscles she had trained. Though maybe not with all the bandages still on. They were the big reason why she hadn’t reequipped her pistols.

Octavia turned, huffing. If her arms weren’t bound, she probably would have crossed them. “She’s an arcanist. They don’t need muscles. Just cards.”

“Oh? Are you saying the Taker would lose to arcanists?”

“What!”

“Pretty big weakness for the most feared killer in all of Lyria.”

“No! The Taker is the strongest! He crushes arcanists like the rats they are.”

“You sound like you’re confusing him with the Crusher.”

Letting out guttural growling from the back of her throat, Octavia ground her teeth together.

“So let’s go over what we’ve learned. The Taker is a weak coward who needed mercy from untrained idiots even when he had the upper hand. And he is a terrible teacher.” Oz chuckled again. “I mean, even a baby would have accidentally put a scratch on me or Tzheitza while waving around as many knives as you had. Were you trying to avoid hurting us?”

Octavia thrashed back and forth, but the bindings holding her down were too strong to release her. “Let me go and I’ll show you hurting!”

“Oh! Scary,” Oz said, glancing over his shoulder to glance at Alyssa before turning back to Octavia. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I am famished. Good thing there is a nice big bowl of stew in the other room.” He stood, stretched just enough to make it look like he was taunting her inability to move. “We’ll check up on you later.”

Alyssa stayed where she was, expecting him to go grab food and eat it in front of her. That seemed like it would fit in with his other tauntings. But he nodded his head toward the door while looking at Alyssa. Just a slight tilt of his head. Enough for her to catch his meaning. With one last look at the glaring Octavia, Alyssa followed him out.

As soon as the door shut behind them, she slammed her elbow into his stomach. He let out a slight oof, grunting as he bent forward.

“Untrained idiot?”

He coughed, but righted himself with a smile. It wasn’t much of a surprise that he got up. Between his armor providing padding, what were probably fairly impressive abs underneath, and Alyssa not really intending to break his ribs, the initial oof might have been more humoring her than from any actual pain. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“As long as you—”

“I’ve insulted idiots everywhere. Not even the greatest fool in the city would have walked into the Taker’s arms willingly. Sorry idiots.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. She wanted to refute that, but… she couldn’t. Of all the foolish things she had done in her life, following the Taker down to those cells had definitely been the biggest mistake. Her confidence in her weapons and in the spells that Irulon had provided, going up against a regular human of this world had clearly been overstated. Her experience with Svotty and the whorehouse guards had colored her perception of this world too much.

Really, she should be thanking her lucky stars that she managed to escape with such relatively minor injuries.

Instead of commenting on the mistakes that she already acknowledged, she shifted the topic back to their captive assassin. “What were you even trying to do there? I thought you were interrogating her, but you didn’t even ask a question.”

“I said I don’t like killing children, but I will if I have to. You saw how she was. It would be best if her… strong personality could be tempered a bit. Mostly, I just wanted to get her thinking about you and the Taker. Based on our short conversation, you surviving the Taker doesn’t fit within her view of the world, yet you obviously did. I hope that knocks him off the pedestal she has put him on. At least a little.” Oz shrugged and smiled. “But who knows. Might be best to kill her before she becomes a real problem.”

“That’s…” If Octavia grew up to be even a fraction of what the Taker was, she wasn’t sure that she could honestly disagree with the notion. She was a kid now, but that short conversation had felt so warped. So disconnected with reality. Or maybe that was just the reality of this world. Monsters attacked regularly, there was apparently a periodic war with a neighboring nation, and a half-dozen humans killed themselves annually just to prove that Tenebrael existed. It led the people to violence, making things like Octavia a less noteworthy occasion.

Back on Earth, a child being that psychotically deranged, just callously talking about hurting and killing people as well as idolizing a known murderer would have seen them sent to therapy right away. Somehow, Alyssa doubted that there were many therapists here.

Oz started walking further into the main room. Tzheitza sat just in front of the fireplace, staring into it without acknowledging their presence. Whatever occupied her thoughts was far more important than her guests milling about. Bacco still slept on the floor as he had been in the two hours since Alyssa awoke. Just seeing him again made her click her tongue in annoyance. He could finish his nap as thanks for helping walk her out of the basement, but that was it. As soon as he woke up, she wanted him gone.

Putting a hand on Oz’s elbow made him pause before he got fully within the fire’s light. “Should she even be kept here?”

“Tzhei does have magical protections set up around the shop. Even if she escapes her bindings, she won’t be able to break out of the room. Don’t worry about her coming after you.”

“No, not that. Isn’t this like false imprisonment?”

Oz looked to her with a puzzled expression. “Not sure what you mean. She’s actually imprisoned in that room unless Tzheitza’s spells have worn off. Let’s ask her to double check them all.”

He reached out to tap the still potioneer on the shoulder, but paused when Alyssa groaned. “No. I mean, shouldn’t we hand her over to the state? The city guard or whatever? Don’t they have proper facilities for handling violent criminals? What I’m asking, is it really our job to keep some assassin locked up? Even a bad one? What are you even going to do with her in the long-term?”

“Ah. I see what you’re thinking.” He turned to fully angle his body toward Alyssa, but looked toward the closed door of Octavia’s makeshift cell. “We could turn her over. Maybe it would be for the best. But one of two things would happen. Neither ideal. The best option would be that she continues to spout her nonsense about being the Taker’s apprentice. Even if the city is truly as corrupt as Princess Irulon implied to you, they couldn’t just release her without officially condoning the Taker’s actions. She would most likely be exiled to the lands south of Pandora. An effective death sentence for someone almost as foolish as you.”

Again, Alyssa pressed her lips together, but she still didn’t interrupt, waiting for Oz to continue with the other option.

“If she was smart, which I doubt, she would keep her mouth shut. The city guard would probably release her because, let’s be honest, she’s a kid. Then she goes back to the Taker and maybe tries to kill us again. Maybe the Taker just kills her then and there. It’s clear to me that he didn’t want her around anymore, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent someone so unskilled after Tzhei. Her lack of skill is probably why he was getting rid of her in the first place. Whatever the case, it isn’t a desirable option.”

“So what is then? Just keep her here forever?”

“Obviously not. We’ll take her to the guild. As bounty hunting falls under our purview, we have long-term… residences. If she changes her tune, someone might pick her up as a proper apprentice. Assuming she can display the slightest modicum of talent.”

“She won’t,” Tzheitza said, still staring at the flames. “Tommik wouldn’t have gotten rid of her so easily if the lass had any capability.”

“Tommik?”

Oz chuckled. “You didn’t think his mama named him ‘The Taker’ now, did you?”

“Well, no… but how—” Right. She had forgotten. Or perhaps it had just slipped her mind. Tzheitza knew the Taker. He had been in the guild before… “What happened—” Alyssa cut herself off before she could ask how he turned into what he was now. Oz waved his hand behind Tzheitza’s back, shaking his head as he pressed a finger to his lips.

“Ozheim, yer efforts at sparing my feelings are far from subtle.” Tzheitza stood, turning to him just enough to glare with her one eye. “It’s funny how ye think I’m bothered. Ye know I’m nothing like the others. I don’t need yer pity.”

“It’s not pity…” Oz shifted, glancing around the room at anything but Tzheitza. Even when she had been about to toss a potion orb at them, he hadn’t looked the slightest bit nervous. But now, he actually looked like he was sweating.

All Tzheitza was doing was staring. Not even a hard stare; she blinked at a regular rate. Alyssa would classify her speech as normal too, rather than the unintelligible nonsense she spouted when agitated. Though maybe that was more her fault and less that she was completely calm. It hadn’t been long since she had made the quip about Alyssa failing to understand her.

There was a distinct difference between failing to understand the potionspeak and disregarding the advice Tzheitza had given. That particular incident had definitely been on the latter side, which Alyssa fully admitted; however, she wouldn’t say it out loud. Not if it meant that Tzheitza would go back to her usual speech patterns.

“I just know what happened to your old team. It isn’t really the most… pleasant of tales.”

Tzheitza turned away, clenching her fists. “It isn’t a tale. And ye don’t have a haberin clue what happened, Ozheim. You weren’t there.” She looked back, opened her mouth as if to say something else, but snapped her jaw shut as she thought better of it. Without another word, she stalked off toward her room.

The slammed door made enough noise that Bacco jerked and snorted. He woke with a clipped cry of… pain? Whatever the noise had been, it stopped as soon as he rolled back away from the fire. He blinked in confusion a few times, looking around with bleary eyes, first at the fire then Oz before he finally settled on Alyssa. After two more blinks, he flinched back. “I’m sorry.”

Alyssa groaned, narrowing her eyes. “What did you do now?”

“N-Nothing. I swear.”

“Then don’t apologize. Just…” She ground her teeth together, thinking back to the Waterhole. “Leave. You’ve had your nap. Tzheitza has wasted some bandages on you. You don’t need to be here anymore. Looking at you infuriates me.”

“Oh?” Oz said. “The way you two came out of that house holding onto each other made me think you were closer than you are. Or is this the Tzhei thing where she acts all mean but actually loves me deep down. Really deep down. Deep deep—”

“Love him?” Alyssa laughed. An obviously forced laugh, but it got the point across. She hadn’t really been in a state of mind to properly explain things the night before—she couldn’t actually remember going to bed or even whether she met Tzheitza and Oz on the streets or all the way back at the potion shop—so there might have been some wrong impressions. Impressions she would be correcting with prejudice. “Allow me to introduce you to Bacco of the Waters Street gang. Scum. Generally loathsome person. And, oh yes, one of those idiots who tried to sell me to the Waterhole in the first place, starting this whole mess.”

“Ah. So not a Tzheitza situation.”

“Not. At. All.” She looked back to the overly large man on the floor of the potion shop’s back room. “Do not think we’re friends. I let you out solely because the Taker is more monstrous than any actual monster I’ve encountered.”

“B-But the Taker… He is still alive?”

With a half nod, Alyssa opened her mouth to respond.

Her own voice spoke first from behind her back. “I tried to finish him off. I failed.”

Alyssa spun around. “Kasita?” she said before she had finished, though what she saw made her pause. She stared at herself standing in the open doorway between the main shop floor and the back rooms. There weren’t any bandages around her mirror’s arms, but something was wrong with it. More than just the natural unnatural feeling that came with looking at Kasita when she was appearing as Alyssa.

It was the face. Kasita normally looked just like a human. Her normal form was far too beautiful to be real, but one would only notice on a lengthy inspection. When she had appeared as Alyssa, there had been the strange effect of looking into a mirror, but it was otherwise nearly flawless. Right now, her face looked as if it were made of Play-Doh. It was a blob that someone had used their fingers to draw Alyssa’s face with. They were a good sculptor, but there was a drastic difference between using fingers and using actual sculpting tools.

Looking below her neck sent prickles of fear down Alyssa’s back. Kasita had her own body. Voluptuous breasts, petite waist, and her scandalous dress barely covering her alabaster skin. But it wasn’t perfect. The tan of Alyssa’s fairly dark skin merged messily with the lighter skin exposed above her breasts. Continuing the Play-Doh analogy, a child had taken two colors and started mixing them together only to give up halfway, leaving it only partially merged. One arm was clearly a man’s arm. Maybe even Oz’s arm.

“Kasita, are you—” Alyssa flinched back as she stared into the Taker’s dark eyes. Purely on instinct, she tried to grab at her pistol with her broken arm. Which didn’t work for several reasons, the least of which was the lack of her holsters at her sides. But before she could properly freak out at the Taker’s face, it shifted again. Brown hair turned red as the jaw squared off.

Oz stood in front of her. With breasts.

To her side, the real Oz had his sword drawn, though he wasn’t attacking. She hadn’t even noticed when he had moved.

“I seem to be having difficulty maintaining my form. I didn’t even notice myself until I ran into someone on the street. He started screaming and ran off, ufu~. Sadly, I couldn’t enjoy the situation as I had decided to hide instead.”

“Are you… alright?”

“I’m not in physical pain, if that is what you are asking.” As she spoke, both her face and her body shifted into some kind of monster. One Alyssa had never seen before. It had a single eye occupying most of its face and razor sharp teeth split into a wide grin. Black oil dripped down from where her hair should have been, coating her face in streaks while maintaining volume as hair in the back. “Though I do believe I felt some earlier,” she continued without pause despite the changes. “Mentally, I admit some distress. The thought that I can’t hide if I need to—” Her head turned into a Play-Doh version of her usual appearance, but her body didn’t stay normal, turning into a translucent version of a man’s body. This time, she noticed, scowling as she looked down at herself. “I can’t even go outside.”

“I’m sorry. This… This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to go in my place. And then that spell. It didn’t do what I thought it did… I’ll fix this. How, I’m not sure yet.” Maybe Tenebrael… but that could be forever away. It probably said something about Religions on Earth that, despite knowing angels existed, she couldn’t get a single one to come answer her prayers. Or demands, as the case was. Apart from Tenebrael, there was only one person that Alyssa knew of that might understand what had happened enough to fix things. “You can’t leave. Which means she has to come here.”


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Author’s Note: Small note to make today. I’ve started posting Vacant Throne over at Royal Road. So you can read it there if you prefer. It does not have Alyssa’s Notes nor most of these Author’s Notes, so keep that in mind. Also, if you’re reading this, I assume you just read the above chapter. If you are waiting for the next chapter over on Royal Road, you’re going to be waiting a while. Posts over there are going to be quite slow because it takes a bit of effort to fiddle with the formatting with every chapter.

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A Little R&R

Fear and Self-Loathing


Alyssa blinked her eyes open, not quite understanding how she had wound up in bed. Bed was nice, but not so at the same time. As if she had just awoken from a great nightmare. Clouds covered her vision, making it blurry. It wasn’t anything to be alarmed about. Every morning started like this. As soon as she took a shower, she would be fine. Alyssa rolled onto her right shoulder, trying to reach the phone on her end table to check the time.

As soon as she moved, fire burned through her arm. She bit down on a shout as she tried to grab whatever stabbed into her arm only to find her entire hand covered in a thick gauze. Wiggling the fingers of her left hand didn’t work. The gauze was either too bulky or too stiff. Alyssa lurched forward, using her left elbow to help get her sitting.

This wasn’t her room. Her eyes cleared enough to see the handcrafted wood walls and floors, the large brass door handle, and the scratchy blankets made from actual fur. This was the potion shop. Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut, groaning as she recalled everything that happened. That’s right. The Taker. This wasn’t her bed. This was that stupid world with that stupid angel.

Alyssa hissed as she inspected her shoulder and arm. More gauze and wrappings bound her shoulder tight. Two stiff rods, maybe wood or maybe metal, braced her arm from the shoulder to her elbow, right where the break had been. It didn’t actually hurt much, so long as she didn’t put weight on it anyway. Which was probably a good sign.

The aid had to be from Tzheitza and Oz. This was her potion shop after all. But… were they alright? The assassin!

Swinging her legs out of bed and standing, Alyssa wobbled. Her head swam with a sudden bout of nausea. Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself against the wall. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if she passed out again.

As soon as the wave of dizziness passed, she pulled open the door. It was a bit awkward with all the bandages, but the handles were handles, not knobs, making them much easier to use. Alyssa froze one step outside her room.

Bacco sat on the floor, curled up in front of the smoldering fire. Asleep. Much like Alyssa, he had several bandages wrapped around his hands and face. He wasn’t alone in the shop’s back room. Oz leaned against the wall near the door, looking as if he had nodded off while standing. A light bump might send him toppling to the floor.

Alyssa scowled at Bacco. Leaving him to that maniac would have been a monstrous decision. That didn’t mean she wanted him hanging around her. He made his choices. Turning him over to the city guard would be more than he deserved. Though, she supposed that didn’t need to be done at this exact moment. He probably wouldn’t receive proper medical care in a medieval prison; Alyssa didn’t want to see him dead.

Cid on the other hand… Her thoughts turned to a far more sinister tone as she thought about that despicable waste of space. Ugh. Just thinking about him boiled her brain. He was as bad as the Taker. Even leaving poor Bacco in the underground cells. Weren’t they supposed to be friends? One thing was for sure, the next time she saw him… She didn’t know what. Maybe she would even shoot him. If he knew what was good for himself, he would stay far away.

Pushing the thoughts of Cid and Bacco out of her mind, she quietly approached the dozing Oz.

She didn’t make it halfway across the room before Oz’s eyes snapped open. His fingers tensed, reached for his sword, then relaxed all in the span of a second. “You’re a whole lot more trouble than you’re worth,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “I can’t believe I let Tzhei talk me into shadowing you for old time’s sake. Not really supposed to take jobs without the guild’s approval. Don’t make it a habit.”

Alyssa just sighed. “You look alright. I can’t believe I worried for nothing.”

“You worried? About what?”

“Nothing, apparently.” Alyssa winced as she leaned up against the wall next to him. “I thought an assassin was after you.”

“An assassin? No, just… Oh. Ahah! Is that what the kid is supposed to be?”

“Kid?”

“We thought she was just distracting us. Which she did, tossing enchanted daggers from the shadows, but an assassin? Ahahah… Oh, that’s a good joke.”

“It isn’t supposed to be,” Alyssa said with a frown. “The Taker said he sent someone after Tzheitza. An assassin.”

“Feels to me like he had an annoying and untalented protégé that he wanted to get rid of and thought that Tzhei might kill her.”

“But you didn’t?”

“Tzhei… doesn’t like killing kids.” A moment of uncomfortable silence passed before he realized what he had said. “Don’t get me wrong! I don’t like killing kids either. But if one is coming at me with a poisoned blade, I’m not going to feel too bad if I have to run them through.”

The door to the storage room creaked open on its hinges. “Ozheim yer weakarm blithering ninny,” Tzheitza stepped out from the darkened room, slamming the door behind her. She passed right by Bacco, ignoring him completely as he snorted and jerked on the floor at the noise. He didn’t actually wake up. “If yer were stronger, ye could afford some mercy.”

“Yes, well, not all of us can be like your old team. Some of us are just regular humans.”

Grabbing the neck lip of Oz’s scaled vest, Tzheitza pulled him off the wall and right up into her face. “I’m as human as you. Train harder.” She held him there, glaring before releasing him with a light shove. Oz just smiled and brushed himself off, taking the manhandling in stride. Tzheitza didn’t seem to care, already turning her attentions to Alyssa. “What happened?”

Alyssa swallowed under Tzheitza’s glare. She was far too good at it for having only one working eye. Or maybe the milky white of her scarred over eye just added to the effect. Knowing that Tzheitza wouldn’t be happy with what went down only made it worse. “The Taker is… probably still alive.”

The potioneer snorted. “Not surprised. I warned you. I told you not to approach him on your own. Was I not speaking clear enough for you to understand.”

“He said an assassin was after you. I didn’t want to be a distraction. I didn’t know it was some kid. Besides, he had Kasita. I couldn’t just leave her there.”

“It’s a Tenebrael-damned mimic! Who cares?”

I care!” Alyssa shouted back. “She has feelings, thoughts, and desires just like anyone else. I don’t know why you people can’t see that. Maybe there are some truly monstrous monsters out there. I won’t deny that. But so many more probably just want to live in peace.” Her experience with the monsters of the Waterhole proved that well enough. Enrique and Pho had been more than happy just to leave. Rizk had been more violent, but Alyssa had a hard time blaming her for that considering what she had to have gone through as a slave to the people at the whorehouse.

Tzheitza leaned away from Alyssa as soon as she stopped speaking. The potioneer stared for a moment before flicking her eyes toward Oz. They shared a brief look. One that Alyssa had trouble discerning the meaning of…

It probably wasn’t good. Alyssa clamped her mouth shut, remembering how Aziz had reacted when she mentioned the possibility of befriending or taming monsters. Forbidden. By whom? Not Tenebrael, surely. Alyssa couldn’t imagine a reason why the angel would seek to prevent humans and monsters from interacting. The pharaoh then. Or perhaps not even him but his predecessors. It could easily be a policy that hadn’t been changed in hundreds if not thousands of years.

She wanted to ask if Kasita had returned, given that the mimic truly had been one of her main reasons for not rushing off to find Tzheitza. That and a worry that the Taker would vanish into the night if she had let him get out of sight for long. However, the air didn’t seem right for asking. Besides that, Kasita didn’t like Tzheitza much. The former probably would have avoided the latter rather than announce her presence. If Kasita was around, she would undoubtedly show herself the moment it was inconvenient for Alyssa.

“I almost had him,” Alyssa said through grit teeth, changing the subject away from monsters. “I’m so stupid. All I needed to do was to shoot him before fixing my shoulder. He was trapped, unable to move. But I panicked and rendered both my hands useless before finishing him off.”

Tzheitza snapped her eyes back to Alyssa. Or… to Alyssa’s shoulder. “Ye call that rottymix fixed?”

“Blood was gushing from the wound. I had to do something.” She winced just remembering how soaked her shirt had been. Really, it was a surprise that she hadn’t passed out and died then and there. Now that she thought about it, her shirt was gone. Tzheitza must have dressed her, given that she was wearing one of the tunics from this world rather than her modern clothes. Thinking about it gave her a bout of depression. Her supply of modern clothes was limited in number and that shirt was almost certainly ruined beyond use. Sewing up the holes might be possible, but blood didn’t come out of things that easily. Alyssa winced as she remembered what she had done to stop the bleeding. The cloth on the shoulder would be scorched beyond any sewing kit’s ability to repair.

“How bad is it?” Alyssa asked, looking down at her right arm. Flexing her fingers didn’t cause any pain and there wasn’t any discoloration in her skin. Burning major arteries and veins in her shoulder could have stopped blood flow to the point where she would have needed an amputation even in the modern world. “I didn’t even consider the damage I could do when I burned my shoulder.”

Oz jerked. “You burned it?”

“Of course! I was bleeding uncontrollably and couldn’t think of a better way to stop it than cauterization.”

“Cauter… What?”

Alyssa blinked, glancing between a confused Oz and an equally confused Tzheitza. “Right. Of course. You people can’t even light fires without magic. I shouldn’t expect you people to know medical techniques that came about during the middle ages.” She shook her head. Some things in this world seemed so advanced thanks to magic, but then things like this would pop up. “How do you stop bleeding if you get cut?”

“Bandages.”

“Potions.”

“What if it is too deep, too large for bandages or you don’t have any? And what if you have no potions? It’s bleeding too much for you to run and get help, but there’s a big fire nearby. Fire burns closed the wound and stops the bleeding.”

“You… what, grabbed a burning log and put it against your shoulder?”

Alyssa shifted, frowning. “Well, no. I lit my hand on fire and pressed it into the wound.”

“Of all the haberin whooperups…”

Tzheitza continued on, spouting several other words that Alyssa didn’t even bother trying to comprehend. Her exasperation came off clear enough in her body language and tone that words were unnecessary. Still, Alyssa didn’t think that she had done anything wrong. She had been bleeding out and hadn’t been able to think up a better way of stopping it. Even now, not panicked and not stressed out, she couldn’t come up with a better solution given the resources she had at hand back then.

Barring the whole plan to let Tzheitza and Oz into the tunnel so they all could deal with the Taker part. In retrospect, Kasita might have been better off had Alyssa not gone down to deal with it herself. But that hadn’t been her fault. Irulon’s instructions had specifically said that nothing that happened during Infinite Regress would affect the real world. But they had. Desecrate Spells clearly had a bad interaction. Had Irulon known that? The latter spell wasn’t one that she had written down, it had been part of Bercilak’s deck of cards, but Irulon had been the one to help her go through and figure out what some of those spells had been, surely she had seen it.

Had been. They were gone now. There probably hadn’t been too many useful ones left in that deck, but it still rankled that she had left them behind.

“So the Taker is still alive.” Oz went back to leaning against the wall. “I can’t imagine he’ll be happy with how you managed to escape.”

Alyssa couldn’t help but scoff. “I think he’ll be more angry about his hands. Rigor Mortis broke all his fingers before I left. And his jaw, for that matter. Hopefully more than that.” With his hands out of commission, Alyssa was hoping that he wouldn’t be able to act anytime soon. Maybe he would even think that she wasn’t worth the effort anymore… though that might be a bit much to hope for. Unless… Alyssa turned to Tzheitza. “How likely is he to have access to that healing potion you used?”

Hesitating, Tzheitza furrowed her brow in thought. “The reagents required to make it can only be found south of the Fortress of Pandora. However, Waters Street almost certainly has a potioneer capable of making the potion. I don’t doubt that they have fingers lifting supplies from merchants or other cargo shipments. That is if they don’t have a way of sourcing the needed materials on their own.”

“The answer sounds like a definite maybe then,” Alyssa grumbled. Back on Earth, if someone got even half as injured as the Taker, they would have been sitting around with both their hands in casts for months. And that wasn’t even accounting for the lacerations that Desecrate Spells had inflicted on him. Was it too much to ask that he die of an infection?

Really, shouldn’t her body be a walking pestilence? When Europeans had first visited the Americas, hadn’t they brought with them a bunch of diseases? It hadn’t been on purpose, at least not initially, there were just diseases that the Europeans had built up resistances to that the natives hadn’t ever been exposed to beforehand. Even if Alyssa wasn’t sick, she should still be carrying diseases from a whole different world.

But that was for the best. As much as she wanted the Taker to die of the common cold, being the cause for a planet-wide genocide seemed like something that would weigh on her conscience.

“You know what you need?” Oz said. When Alyssa didn’t respond save for a glance in his direction, he smiled. “A sabbatical!”

“What.”

“A sabbatical!”

“I heard you the first time,” Alyssa said. He opened his mouth, but Alyssa cut him off. “And before you define the word, I know what a sabbatical is.”

His smile slid off and he looked at her in a far more serious manner. “You need to get out of the city. I can’t believe you walked up to the Taker and survived, but it was mostly luck, wasn’t it?”

Yeah, bad luck. But she didn’t say anything out loud, merely nodding her head. The Infinite Regress attempts were plenty clear that she could have died at any moment.

“What you need is to get away from the city for a while, let the Taker get distracted with something else. While gone, you could train up a bit. Learn from some more experienced mercenaries just what to expect from fighting. And wow, what a coincidence! There just happens to be an excursion through the northern desert that has room for one more!”

“I’m not going to help you kill fairies. Even if I wanted to, all my spells are gone. And my guns…” Alyssa reached back only to hesitate. “Where are my guns?”

“Yer weapons are back in yer room.”

Alyssa didn’t wait, moving right back to the room she had come from. Throwing open the door, it didn’t take long to find the guns. Both her pistols were still in their holsters, which had been unbuckled and set down at the base of the bed. She reached out her bandaged hand to her shotgun, right in between the two pistols.

A gash the size of her finger bit into the barrel, nearly taking off a half foot of the end. As it was, what was still attached was bent off to one side. The pump underneath seemed untouched, but the grip extended past the gash. Even if she broke it off and tried to use it as a sawed-off shotgun, the shot could still damage the pump.

She stared, wobbling as a wave of nausea hit her. It broke. Her best defense, her best weapon broke. She had three pistols still, but they wouldn’t stop a troll.

“Can it be repaired?”

Alyssa jumped at Oz’s voice, but shook her head without turning. “Not by me. Not by anyone else I know of either.” Perhaps it wasn’t wholly lost. Firing it as it was would only damage it further, but a shotgun was fairly simple. It didn’t need a rifled barrel. Just a metal tube that could withstand the forces of firing the gun. The real question was how good the blacksmiths were here.

And how much it would cost to commission a tube.

Regardless, it was worthless right now.

“It probably saved my life,” she said, moving her hand up to her shoulder. If the Taker’s sword hadn’t caught on the shotgun, her head could have come off. Or the sword would have just gone deeper into her chest. Glancing over at Oz, she wondered how much his leather scaled armor would protect from a sword. Perhaps getting some proper gear wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Though how much would that cost?

“Regardless, Oz, I can’t draw spells with my hands as they are. Nor can I shoot anything. I’d be dead weight.”

“Yer gonna mend fastlike,” Tzheitza said from behind her. “Scar a little. Serket venom can be used for burns such as yers. Plenty o’ serket up in the northern desert.”

“Burns? But what about the gaping hole in my shoulder?” It was covered in thick wrappings. Alyssa couldn’t see it at all. The lack of pain was suspect however.

Tzheitza just scoffed. “Our guests need feeding,” she said, turning and leaving the room.

Oz stayed behind, offering a small smile. “She used three drops of her healing potion. I think she’s a bit embarrassed about it.” He flashed a grin, but frowned a moment after. “Don’t tell her I told you. She’d probably kill me.” Shaking his head, he stepped toward the door. “Think about coming with us. You survived an encounter with the Taker, alone, and it sounds like you did more damage than he did. The others will be impressed with that. We’ll give you time to make some spells and you’ll be with a proper group this time. We’ll make sure you don’t get too hurt.”

With a hardy wave, Oz slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him, leaving Alyssa standing frozen where she was.

Tzheitza had been in so much pain the other night yet only used her healing potion on her broken bones to ensure that she could walk. She had been cut up and in pain after, but just bore with it. Yet she used some of that potion on Alyssa?

Alyssa slumped down on the bed. Terrible feelings welled up within her. If only she would have gone back to grab even one of them, the Taker would be dead, her shotgun would be whole, and she would have been uninjured.

What a piece of garbage.


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Author’s Note: The Taker has been added to the character list. Don’t forget to vote at Top Web Fiction! I appreciate it.

In addition, here’s a little surprise! Who needs art when you’ve got Soul Calibur 6? (I don’t actually own the game. I stole a friend’s Steam account to make these. Fighting games are just… not my thing.)

Iosefael really should have Hilde’s move set from SC4 and SC5 given her usage of a spear and sword during her interlude, but Hilde isn’t in 6, so she can’t. She gets Sophitia instead. Please note: In story, her armor doesn’t have faces on its knees.

For Tenebrael, I’ve got no idea who Azwel is (haven’t actually played any of the single player yet), but he is the only one to use magic and magic is more Tenebrael’s thing, even if she doesn’t summon weapons as Azwel apparently does. You might notice that her tattoos are quite different than the avatar image I’ve got. That’s okay, I almost like these ones better. I haven’t sat down and dedicated paragraphs to describing exactly what her tattoos look like, so they’re open to interpretation anyway! Also, also: Technically, Tenebrael shouldn’t have any color on her at all as she is described as monochromatic, but the game wouldn’t let me change that gold trim on her outfit and I really wasn’t too fond of any other outfit for her. Oh well.

Nobody in the game uses guns for poor Alyssa, so I gave her Zasalamel’s weapon. Not quite sure why though. I was still able to include the guns thanks to the extra additions you can add to characters. Technically she should be wearing a long sleeved shirt, but eh. Can’t get everything perfect. Ignore her little portrait thingy. I spent too long trying to get a good one only to get that abomination instead, which I didn’t even realize until just now as I’m looking at the image and typing up this little blurb.

Alyssa’s Notes: Oh boy. Lots of spells to write down. Fractal and Death have both been updated with a handful of spells, along with Projectile Reflection being added to the Physical spells. There were a lot of different spells used, so I might have forgotten one or two.

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Interlude

Kasita


The strangeness of the world boggled Kasita’s mind. For as long as she could remember, she had always been puzzled by the idea that people—human or monster—existed. Herself included. Nothing around her ever seemed all that real. A part of that could have just been her nature—she had no defined form and could take any shape she wanted. It gave her a certain disconnect to the world around her. One that she was well aware of. However, anytime she entered that line of thinking, she realized that it was all in her head. Which, if she didn’t exist, wouldn’t be thinking such things.

But that didn’t dissuade her from considering the nature of herself and the world around her.

Sometimes, given time alone with her thoughts, she entertained the idea that no one else was real save for herself. Intellectually, she knew that she existed as did others. It was just too easy to forget sometimes that as much as she had things she liked and disliked, others did as well. Especially when their likes were her dislikes. Comprehending the very idea that someone could enjoy something that she hated took a lot more effort than she was willing to put into most situations.

Most people out there, both human and monster, frequently did nothing at all. Or nothing constructive, in any case. Relaxing, they called it. Once in a while might be one thing, but so many grew addicted to it. They had goals to accomplish, things they wanted to see or do in their meager lives, but yet they would still decide to spend night after night in a chair, smoking a pipe while staring off into the stars. Or worse, go to their neighbors and just talk away entire evenings about nothing at all. They wouldn’t even remember the details of the conversation the next morning—not because they were too drunk, though that often played a part, but because the conversations were just that unimportant.

She could not grasp the notion that people wasted their lives on such things. The only ones who should were the ones who didn’t have to worry about their lifespans running out. Perhaps she was biased. Mimics didn’t live long lives. She didn’t have as long as a human to experience the world. She had lived ten years and would be lucky to see another twenty.

Which was why it took effort to remember that other people were real and not just the equivalent of rocks, things for her to interact with.

But she did try. Empathizing with the other monsters at the Waterhole had been one of her greatest successes. They had been utterly miserable at the fact that their lives were essentially going to waste. A notion that she could personally identify with. Of course, she hadn’t exactly spent all of her time in the whorehouse. Being curious and eager to learn everything she could, she had often slipped out. Once, she had even visited the human palace. That had taken a bit of sneaking.

A novelty place. Its view from the top was worth it, but only because the ground around it was so flat. The elvish constructs in the mountains were far higher even if the buildings were shorter, giving a better look of the world.

While at the Waterhole, she had decided that she needed to do more than just provide comfort for the other girls. And she had been so close. Just the week before, she had finally gotten her hands on enough poison to kill every non-monster. Being a mimic, she could never hope to fight the humans. Lifting a sword was nearly impossible. Even a dagger took far too much effort. While she might be able to use a dagger to inflict some damage on a person, maybe enough to kill one, as soon as the rest of the whorehouse became aware of her intentions, she would find herself dealt with.

So poison it was. She had just been waiting for an opportunity. A celebration, perhaps. Svotty had been well known for his vices and he frequently roped the guards into joining in. A way to kill them would have presented itself eventually.

And then Alyssa had shown up.

Kasita had honestly hated the human immediately after she had announced that Svotty was dead and that everyone was free to leave. Months of work had gone to waste. She might as well have spent her time staring at the stars. It was the worst sort of feeling. But a combination of Enrique’s utter rapture, Rizk snapping out of her daze, and the sheer ignorance Alyssa displayed had piqued Kasita’s interest.

And the weapon she had used to fight off goblins and trolls later that evening even more so. Kasita had really been hoping that she could use one without much trouble. But they were weighty and, the one time she had used one, had thrown her backward off a cliff.

Still, in following Alyssa around, Kasita had seen something of herself in the human. Except when she slept, Alyssa constantly moved forward. She created goals for herself then set out to accomplish them. More relevant, when she decided that her current actions weren’t leading her to her goals, she eliminated them. Working as a delivery agent for the human potioneer gave Alyssa some sense of direction in the unfamiliar city, but the second it ceased being valuable, she told Tzheitza that she was going to quit.

Kasita found it admirable. An attitude to strive toward.

Though now, entirely unaware of the strange world around her, Kasita couldn’t help but wonder if she had found herself impeding one of Alyssa’s goals.

There was nothing that Kasita could do by reflecting on the past weeks. She didn’t even know what had happened. Alyssa had appeared in the prison room, all the lights had darkened, and then she had felt a sharp pain. Her form being stabbed with a sword didn’t hurt. Her forms felt no sensations. They were illusions and little more. But this… she had never felt anything like it. So it had to have been pain.

Her sense of the world around her went inert after that.

Kasita honestly hadn’t a clue what was going on. She couldn’t sense anything else, object or person. Her existence was nothing but a void. Even trying to change shape didn’t work. Or, if it did, she was unaware of the outcome.

This could be death. Though it was a bit different than she had imagined. The humans told tales of Tenebrael and how she would ferry them to a paradise upon their deaths so long as they strove to praise her and fight for her. According to human priests, those who led unworthy lives would be destroyed for eternity, fed to demons. Oddly enough, many larger monster communities had their own doctors of divinity… who preached roughly the same theories, though they claimed that Tenebrael was some sort of monster and put significantly less emphasis on actually worshiping her, believing her to be just another being that exists, if a powerful one. Perhaps even a precursor to the Monster Lords.

Alyssa certainly had different opinions on the matter. She hadn’t said anything specific, but her tone when mentioning these angels was anything but pleasant.

For Kasita, she wasn’t sure what death brought. Her line of thinking, naturally, leaned toward the idea that Tenebrael was just a powerful monster. If that was true, then it was likely that nothing lay beyond life. A very literal sort of nothing. No thought nor experience. It wasn’t a very comfortable thought, but there wasn’t anything Kasita could do about it. She hoped she was wrong; having everything she had learned and done nullified permanently was a depressing notion.

Still, this didn’t seem to be any of those deaths. She could think—she existed, therefore her theory was wrong. And this certainly wasn’t a paradise and she didn’t feel like demons eating her would be so unimpressive.

While certainly preferable to oblivion, the lack of all outside influence would probably make her go insane with time. As it was, she had no idea, no frame of reference as to how long she had been in her current state.

Just as she was about to try to meditate on nothing, she felt it. The world.

Earthen floor entered into her consciousness. Just a small pinprick, but it was expanding outward. Her awareness increased to encompass more stone floor, walls, bars. Mimics didn’t see like most other races, but she felt the world around her in a way that was fairly analogous to sight. From her surroundings, she managed to put a few things together. First, she was still in the underground prison. The cell wasn’t closed anymore, the bars had slid into the floor.

As her awareness continued to grow, she saw him. That human who had Alyssa all worked up, the Taker, stood roughly in the center of the circular room, mostly still. He wasn’t looking in her direction, but she was currently appearing as nothing more than a small stone—a defense mechanism ingrained instinctively in mimics. Rather, he was looking at the floor. At his sword? Kasita couldn’t quite understand what he was doing. Several of his fingers were twisted in wrong directions and his forearm had clearly snapped clean in two with how his wrist and hand dangled at an angle. His other hand was tucked into his pocket, but that arm had broken as well.

Deciding to wait to see the rest of the room before trying to do anything, Kasita remained where she was.

It took an agonizing amount of time, but she eventually had a full view of the room. Alyssa was nowhere to be found. Neither was the half-giant in the cell opposite hers. The room showed signs of a battle, walls being scorched or pockmarked with Alyssa’s strange guns. Glass littered the floor. The chair that had been in the middle of the room wasn’t there anymore. Some charcoal in a rough chair shape wasn’t far away though.

Someone had a party while she had been… had that been what unconsciousness was like? Not very appealing in her opinion, yet humans did it every day. Most monsters did too. Kasita much preferred not being trapped within her own mind.

Deciding nothing would get done as long as she stayed hidden, Kasita tried to assume her usual human form.

Tried.

The moment she felt her body shift, something… stabbed? Was that the proper word? It was altogether an unpleasant sensation that made her stop trying to change. It wasn’t something she had felt before and it wasn’t a good feeling. Humans, after physically exerting themselves, frequently took heavy panting breaths of air. For the first time, she understood the need to do that.

It was the air. Something hung in the air around her that ate at her when she tried to work her magic. Possibly what had gotten her into this situation in the first place. When Alyssa had appeared in the room, she had brought with her that stabbing feeling.

But it was possible to change. Just painful. And wasn’t that a weird thought. A sword could slice right through her head while in human form and she wouldn’t feel a thing. Forcing herself into a human form felt like she was being torn to pieces. An impossibility given her physiology.

Straining for a few moments, she finally managed. Her form wasn’t perfect. She looked more like a fleshy blob with arms and legs than a proper person, but it was enough to return her mobility. Which she promptly used to exit her cell. There were a few odd things she had noticed, apart from the obvious human in the room. A few of Alyssa’s weapon parts were scattered around the floor. Given how dutifully she had collected them earlier in Svotty’s office, Alyssa was probably in trouble. That thought only compounded as she noted the blood on the floor. Although the Taker had a bone or two jutting out of his skin, he was far away and not injured enough to have produced this much blood.

Kasita moved a foot over one of the little red and brass gun parts, pulling it into her body. Even that prickled, but the sensations were lessening. It was to a level where she didn’t have to try to ignore it anymore. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder about the little cylinders. They flew out of the guns every time they fired. Their insides clearly had gone through an explosion, but bodies hit by the weapons wound up shredded, not burned. The whys and hows were beyond her. If she could get a few samples to an elf, maybe she could learn more.

She found it odd that Alyssa had left them behind as well. The human meticulously kept her things to herself. To Kasita’s knowledge, the only ones she hadn’t kept had been those used on the trolls and goblins. Were they important or were they not? The inconsistency irritated her. Yes, Alyssa had been fleeing from monsters at the time, but she could have gone back to the streets the next day as Kasita had. But she hadn’t even tried. With a scowl, Kasita collected the other gun parts. They could go with the parts she had collected from the streets.

A crack followed by a throaty grunt pulled her attention to the Taker.

His shoulder had broken. Between his arm and his neck, it looked like someone had grabbed him with two hands and pulled.

Kasita ignored the tingling as she forced her form further toward her usual. Most importantly, she gave herself lips and a mouth, allowing vocal interactions with the world. “It seems as if things did not go according to plan. But this is a good look on you. Ufu~ If I sit here long enough, will the rest of you break to pieces?”

The Taker didn’t respond aside from swiveling his eyes to look at Kasita. There was no way he could see. It was abyssally dark in the room. But he still looked toward her voice. All his earlier gloating from when she had first dropped into the pit was nowhere to be seen.

“In the original plan, you died. What happened? What happened?” His sword. On the floor in front of his broken arms. Bright red blood lined the tip. Alyssa’s, most likely. If she had been wounded, that could explain the Taker’s continued survival. And with the half-giant missing, perhaps he had carried her away.

But none of that explained why the room was dark, why the Taker had several lacerations over his body in addition to the broken limbs, and why Kasita had found herself unconscious.

Perhaps Alyssa hadn’t done anything to her after all. The room could have had some magical defenses that activated because of Alyssa. That would be a nice thought. Kasita didn’t like the idea that the human who apparently didn’t mind the company of monsters had been duplicitous since they had met. That’s my job. Smiling at that thought, Kasita nodded. That had to be it. When Alyssa had appeared, she had been kneeling, confused, and seemingly in pain. She had been in no position to attack.

The smile on Kasita’s image froze. Why was she happy about that? What was one more human trying to kill her? Humans couldn’t be trusted. Lexar had been the same way. As soon as she told him what she was, he had run off to the Waters Street gang, intent on selling her.

Kasita clicked her tongue in annoyance at having remembered unpleasant thoughts. Alyssa might be interesting, but she had to remember that, no matter how friendly she appeared to be, Kasita would be thrown under the wagon wheels well in advance of any human should push come to shove.

Or, she thought, looking over the Taker’s broken form, any human who hadn’t tried to kill her.

The corner of her lip ticked upward into a smile, though a smile fueled by far less elated feelings. Walking near the door of the room, she moved her foot over a black dagger. Weighty, being solid metal, but small enough that she could pull it into herself without much difficulty.

“Sometimes,” she said aloud, facing away from the Taker. “Sometimes, I wish I had been born differently. Perhaps as a race with sharp claws or powerful muscles. Being a mimic, being weak, it leaves me frequently unsatisfied.” The Taker didn’t react to her words. Even when she started walking back to him, resurfacing the dagger in the palm of her hand, he remained still. Mostly. His arms were trembling ever so slightly. But that had been going on since she awoke. He just sat there. Helpless.

A tingling welled up within Kasita. Not the painful prickles, though those were still present if she concentrated hard on feeling them. These tingles were of a far more sadistic sort. Using two fingers, she dangled the blade of the black dagger right in front of his eyes. It was dark, but maybe he had some way to see.

“I just want to rip your face. Slice it to shreds. Tear out your throat. Pull your heart from your chest.” His eyes followed the tip of the knife as it swung from side to side. “But,” she said, sighing and pulling back. “I can’t. Even if I were to use all my strength, this dagger would only give you a shallow cut. No matter how much I want to… no matter how much you deserve it…” She trailed off, thinking back to her time at the whorehouse. “You remember Selpa? Black fur, fire burning in her eyes? I… find it difficult to connect with others. But she and I, we had a plan to kill everyone there. To remove her chains and set her free to feast on the fat pigs running the place. Until you came along. And then you threaten my new… interest?”

Kasita gripped the knife with both hands and thrust.

The tip sank into the soft flesh of his eye.

He opened his mouth, screaming. His jaw, already broken in two, swung to the side and came unhinged. Though that did nothing to stop the sweet sound coming from his throat.

Kasita ignored him, continuing to push as hard as she could. Her goal wasn’t the eye, though she wasn’t complaining. She wanted his mind.

Her arms stopped with a jerk, hitting the thin bone behind his eye that protected his brain.

Even with the full force of her body behind the knife, it didn’t make it through.

The Taker jerked back the moment she felt resistance, taking the dagger out of her fingers as he fell backward to the ground and writhed in pain.

Kasita jumped back, surprised at his movement. She had thought he was trapped in some spell. Watching him roll back and forth, arms flopping about with their broken bones as he shouted about his eye, all her sadism dropped to nothing. Fear and worry replaced it. He had definitely been under a spell.

She had broken that spell.

Whatever it had been, whatever its intentions were, they weren’t working anymore.

What to do? She had ruined it. There wasn’t anything she could to do fix it. She couldn’t kill him. Even trying to stab him in his opposite eye wouldn’t work. Not with him flailing back and forth. A mimic couldn’t wrestle with a human.

Kasita backed away. While she had only seen the Taker on occasion at the Waterhole, she knew his reputation. He wouldn’t stay down for long. Even with a broken body, he could still be a threat to her. All it would take would be to activate whatever defenses had caused her to black out in the first place. That could buy him plenty of time to deal with her in a more permanent manner.

Slamming her weight into the door, she pushed it open a narrow crack. Not enough to fit through had she been a real human, but she was a mimic. So long as the gun parts she was carrying could fit through, so could she.

She sprinted through the empty hallway and made it to the stairs. An obvious lever opened up a wall to the passage Cid had led her through. She didn’t bother trying to close the wall again. Familiar with elven engineering though she was, she might not have the time to puzzle out which of the light holders activated it.

Only when she reached the open skies of the city streets did Kasita finally stop. She hadn’t encountered Alyssa. Either the human had gone the wrong way and needed a rescue from the Waterhole or she had made it out…

Without taking Kasita with her. A small part of her mind flashed with anger at the thought of being forgotten, but she quickly dismissed the notion. If there was one thing that Kasita had learned about Alyssa, it was that Alyssa… did not pay attention to her environment. Her awareness of small things that changed around her was almost depressingly low. Since Kasita had wrapped herself in the safety of a small pebble, there was no way for the human to have found her.

Especially not given that the room had been utterly dark. A being without Kasita’s natural sense for the world around her would have been blind.

Kasita turned, angling herself toward the potion shop. Alyssa would be there.

After her first step, she hesitated. Why? Why did she need to go back to Alyssa? Or rather, why was returning to Alyssa her first thought? For over a week, Kasita had been following the human around everywhere. That wasn’t her normal behavior. Following a human? Again, her thoughts turned to Lexar. It had been a long time since she had been genuinely friendly with a human.

Kasita turned in the opposite direction and started walking. She had no aim or goal. She walked more to prove to herself that she could.

Only to stop again after a few paces. Kasita sat on the dirt road and stared up at the stars. What am I even doing? The stars twinkled in the black of night, bright white lights. Some people, both humans and monsters, used them to help navigate. Same with the rings and the pale moon. Others relied on them for less literal guidance, believing that there were connections between the points of light that held spiritual advice or perhaps even that they could be used to foretell the future. Kasita just stared. She found no meaning in their patterns.

They had been there since before the Monster Lords. They would be there long after Kasita perished. It was enough to make her scoff in disgust. What right did they have to live so long? They couldn’t watch the passage of time. They couldn’t make decisions or interact with anything else.

Even a rock was worth more than a star.

Kasita shook her head. At times like this, she found herself hating everything. The very thought of bothering with doing anything when it would all be nullified in a few years time just made her hate the fact that she had been born in the first place. Why did anyone do anything?

False belief in Tenebrael. Humans and monsters had the same mental flaw and it had a name. Tenebrael. Not even a deity if what Alyssa had said was true. An angel. A monster and nothing more.

Kasita stood again. Her thoughts had come back around to Alyssa, though this time they had a reason. Alyssa continued forward. The human strove toward her goals. But she knew that Tenebrael wasn’t what the doctors of divinity advertised.

What drove her?


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011.007

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Freedom of Choice

Rigor Mortis


Every jar of light in the room exploded.

The room was plunged into darkness. Being underground with no windows, the only light came from the thin cracks in the wood of the closed door that led back into the hall. Which wasn’t enough light for anything but a reference point in the pitch black.

Alyssa’s heart jolted. She remembered! Every time she had entered the room during Infinite Regress, the Taker had done the same thing! Throwing herself to the side to avoid the dagger that was surely already flying through the air, she rolled once before managing to get off her knees and back to standing. But she didn’t hear the telltale clatter of a metal knife hitting the stone floor.

She heard screams.

Kasita cried out, though her voice cut off after a second. The Taker shouted in his nasally tone, in pain but not quite screaming as Kasita had.

Desecrate Spells. It had to be. Alyssa hadn’t a clue what was going on, but it was that spell’s fault. She should have receded back into the hall, right where she had left her clone. Was this still in Infinite Regress? Recede.

Nothing. Still darkness. The Taker made another grunt of pain from somewhere in the room—his enchantments being torn apart by Desecrate Spells. It had to be. And this had to be real. Even if it wasn’t, even if this was still in the Infinite Regress spell and Desecrate Spells had simply disrupted her ability to recede, she couldn’t afford to treat it as anything but real.

Alyssa unslung the shotgun from over her shoulder. The jars of magical potion lights had exploded. Kasita had screamed. The Taker was still making occasional pained noises. Regardless of whatever had gone wrong with Infinite Regress, Desecrate Spells was still working. So long as it worked as advertised, the Taker’s projectile reflection wasn’t.

She just had to find him.

Even with a few seconds in the darkness, her eyes hadn’t adjusted. They probably wouldn’t ever adjust enough to see with how little light seeped in through the door. Since her back was to the door, Kasita’s cell would be to her right. But the last noise had been straight ahead.

That had been a second or two ago. There hadn’t been any noise since.

Alyssa grit her teeth. Sweat poured down her neck. She could almost feel something crawling up her spine—her imagination, surely. It still got her thinking. Could the Taker see in the dark?

No. All spells should have been destroyed, including anything that might have granted night vision. But something was wrong. She was missing something.

What was it?

Alyssa turned her head, straining her ears for anything that might tip her off as to his location.

A noise! Mumbling to her left? Alyssa didn’t hesitate in the slightest. She swung her shotgun around and fired. A bright flash at the muzzle lit up the room for a fraction of a second—too bright to see, it burned a white light into her eyes.

The pellets hit something. A man screeched.

But it wasn’t in the Taker’s nasally tone. Bacco? She had completely forgotten about him!

Alyssa threw herself to the side without thinking.

Too slow.

Icy metal sliced through her upper arm, grazing her.

Ignoring the burning sear on her skin left in its wake, Alyssa pumped the shotgun, sending a shell across the room, and fired again. This time, she aimed where she thought the dagger had come from.

She didn’t stand around wondering if she had hit anyone. Alyssa moved immediately, running along the wall of cages toward where Kasita had been.

Bacco kept moaning. He wasn’t dead, but he didn’t sound like he was having a good time. She could picture the larger man rocking back and forth as he put pressure on wherever she had hit. If they both survived, she might just apologize. Until then, the Taker was still around.

The Taker wasn’t moaning and groaning. Her second shot hadn’t connected. She counted herself lucky that his second dagger pinged off the stone wall harmlessly behind her as she moved around the room. There was some rustling of clothes, but it was difficult to hear over Bacco. From what she could tell, the Taker had moved to that side of the room, keeping opposite of Alyssa.

“Kasita,” Alyssa hissed out into the darkness, hoping that the noise Bacco was making would cover up her voice. “Please tell me you’re alive.”

The mimic gave her no response. Not a pained groan, not a snarky giggle.

With a frown, Alyssa moved on without waiting long, keeping her elbow along the wall so that she didn’t run into it. Her voice could have given her away to the Taker. She had a flashlight she could use to look for the mimic once the Taker was dealt with. Of course, like the Bacco situation, that relied on her surviving. Shining around the light now would just get her a dozen daggers thrown in her direction.

As she moved, she pulled out her deck of cards. Shooting blindly into the dark room wasn’t working. True, she had only tried twice, but the Taker had already mentioned being passably familiar with the gun. He wouldn’t let her find him easily. It was far more likely that the longer this went on, the more likely she would find herself impaled on his sword again.

She had to be quick and careful in retrieving the deck, just in case the Taker did end up showing himself. The darkness kept her from seeing the cards—even her own hands might as well still be invisible with how little she could see. But she hadn’t needed to know which cards were which back when she had blown away Bercilak’s goon with a few dozen fireballs. The faint feel of indents in one side let her orient the cards with the spell designs facing out.

Fingers trembling, Alyssa stopped directly opposite from the door. Facing it, she slung her shotgun back over her shoulder and fanned the cards out in front of her.

There was one small advantage she had. Every other person she had encountered who had cast spells had said the name of the spell out loud. It was a definite weakness, even if it only gave their opponents a split second to make a decision.

She had one shot at making something good of this. The Taker was too smart to not catch on if she failed.

The fan of cards lit up with a quarter of them vanishing. Fireballs formed at the tips of her fingers, lingering there momentarily before flying away from her in all directions. One slammed into the chair in the middle of the room, sending it toppling aflame. Most splashed harmlessly against the stone or metal bars in the room.

One welled up, swelling bright as it struck something only a few paces from Alyssa.

Without a sound, the Taker spun, throwing his flaming coat to the floor. Bloody streaks ran down his arms and it looked like a tiger had taken exception to his face. But he raised his sword in the same smooth motion that got rid of his coat, not even caring about the blood running down his face. He didn’t make any expression at all as he stepped forward to strike.

But Alyssa wasn’t done yet. Pivoting to orient the spells directly at him, she—

Intestines slipped from their fleshy prison, landing on the floor with a loud slop along with a pool of bright red blood.

Alyssa stumbled backward, recoiling at the sight of the sword swinging toward her.

Its black metal tip whisked past her face close enough that she could feel the air rushing past.

And it was coming back!

She tried to duck and slip out of the way.

But didn’t quite make it.

“Argh!” The sword bit into her shoulder. Not much. It dug in half a finger’s length before connecting with metal.

Her shotgun caught it, keeping the sword from taking off her arm.

Arm screaming in pain and not knowing what else to do, Alyssa shoved that same shoulder into the Taker’s chest. He stumbled back. It wasn’t enough to knock him down, but it let Alyssa put some distance between them by using him as a springboard.

Alyssa’s head snapped back. Something caught her hair. Her half-tumble away from the Taker turned to a full tumble as she lost her balance. Hitting the ground shoulder first, Alyssa let out another cry at feeling a snap in her arm. Grinding her teeth together and blinking back tears, she rolled over onto her back.

The Taker closed the distance between them almost casually, letting a fistful of brown hair drift to the floor. Tilting his head side to side let out loud cracks. “You have been an irritating opponent,” he said like he was discussing nothing more important than the weather. “But I have taken the lives of many far worse than you. I wish I could ram my sword through your skull. Unfortunately, my boss wishes for a decisive example to be made of you.”

That hadn’t stopped him from killing her in any of those Infinite Regress attempts. What changed? She couldn’t think about it now. This couldn’t be the end. If she gave up, Tenebrael would eat her. And that was not going to happen!

Spell cards still clenched in the fist of her broken arm, she twisted herself, aiming the faces at him. He raised his sword high above his head. The first spell that came to mind vanished from the deck, unleashing its power on him as the sword came down. She squeezed her eyes closed and turned to the side with a wince, fully expecting that to be her last conscious thought.

But nothing hit her. Peeking one eye open, the sword stopped inches from her ear. It froze no differently than if it had hit a stone pillar slightly larger than her body.

His dark eyes widened ever so slightly, catching in the flickering light of the burning chair. But he didn’t move. The Taker stood with his arms outstretched, both hands on the hilt of his sword.

As fast as she could, Alyssa slid out from under the blade. The way it didn’t even waver actually had her laughing, though she didn’t laugh for long—a spike of pain in her arm cut that off quick. But still! It worked. “You know what that spell was, don’t you?” she said with a forced smile. “I’m surprised you managed to react that fast. How long do you think you can hold that position?”

The Taker didn’t respond. He couldn’t! Not without potentially killing himself.

Alyssa burst out laughing despite the pain in her shoulder and back. It wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t help it. All the tension and stress just evaporated all at once. She had won! The Taker couldn’t move. Not unless the spell wore off.

Her laughter died off with that sobering thought. As she had decided beforehand, she couldn’t leave him alive. Reaching for the pistol at her hip, Alyssa stopped with a jerk at the pain in her right arm. For the first time, she looked down.

Blood drenched her shirt, soaking into the fabric. The gash in her shoulder—more of her collar bone—was deeper than she had thought. Red meat and… bone? Alyssa wobbled as a sudden lightheaded sensation unfocused her eyes. The shoulder was the Hollywood go-to location for injuring a character without killing them, but was that true? She was almost positive that she had read somewhere about a major vein or artery that ran through the shoulder, making all those seeming flesh wounds into actual death sentences.

The lightheadedness went away as panic set in. She needed to fix this. Bandage it or something. Quick. Before she passed out, bled out, and died. Trying to move her arm again just brought up another problem. Her arm, between her elbow and her shoulder, had a curve to it that definitely hadn’t been there before.

Broken. She had broken her arm in that fall.

Aware of her injuries, the hurt ramped up. Like getting a paper-cut and not feeling it until noticing the wound. Except worse. Ten thousand times worse. She could see her angel-damned bones! Each throb of her heart turned the sting to a fiery heat.

Shock! Alyssa realized. I’m in shock! Just realizing that fact didn’t help. Her mind remained blank. What to do? What to do! She needed to stop the bleeding. But how? She could tear her shirt into strips, but would that be enough to stop a gash this big? Her shirt was already full of blood. With the angle of the cut right above her shoulder, she couldn’t tie a tourniquet.

Frustration mounting along with a woozy feeling in her head. It took all her willpower to force herself to remain conscious. If she passed out, the Taker would get free, most likely. But what could she do? Kasita, gone. Dead? Maybe just unconscious. Either way, if she hadn’t shown herself yet, she wasn’t going to be able to help. The Taker would kill her the instant she released him. Maybe if she had saved the Contract spell. Bacco? Alyssa turned to his cell. He was still alive. She could hear him. But she winced as she looked in.

He was broken and bloodied. Her shotgun hadn’t done that. In fact, in the dim light from the flames, she could see where her shot had hit—nowhere near him. The Taker must have tortured him.

No. Not like this. She wouldn’t accept it. So long as Tenebrael was out there waiting for her soul, Alyssa wouldn’t—couldn’t die. There had to be something. She just wasn’t thinking right. Her thoughts came too quick in her panic, focusing on one thing was hard. But she had to try.

Alyssa looked down at the spell cards in her hand, thinking through the possibilities. Nothing came to mind that could heal her. Most everything was flame magic, death magic, or basic utility spells. Nothing that would mend her arm. Alyssa couldn’t do anything but clench her fist. All this magic and nothing that could save her.

A thought slammed into her like a freight train. Fire magic! Using just one hand, she started going through cards, tossing useless ones to the floor rather than try to keep hold of them all.

There! Flame. One of the simplest spells. Alyssa wasted no time in casting it. As soon as the small candle-sized fire appeared at the tip of her finger, she moved her hand to her shoulder.

She barely felt the burn before the candle was snuffed out among the viscera. It wasn’t enough. The flame was too weak. Not hot enough. Even if she used up all the flame spells in her deck, it probably wouldn’t be enough to even partially cauterize the wound. There had to be something bigger. She started going through the remaining cards. All the fireballs were gone, but they probably would have been too much in the wrong direction.

The solution stared up at her from the floor. A pentagram with five triangles intersecting the sides, connected at a single point in the center. There was more to it, but Alyssa focused more on what it could do rather than the actual shapes. Immolating Gloves. It should light her hands on fire with enough heat that it would make her drop any weapons. Enough heat to burn closed her wound? Hopefully enough to get to Tzheitza and get some help.

Out of options, Alyssa knelt to pick up the card. She didn’t even bother standing again. Slipping the card between the fingers of her right arm, she aimed the face at her left and cast the spell.

Heat flared up immediately, searing the skin of her hand as orange flames enveloped her hand. Alyssa hissed in pain, but she didn’t let that stop her from slamming her hand onto her shoulder.

A high-pitched scream echoed off the walls of the circular stone chamber.

The spell didn’t last long. It wasn’t meant to. But it did its job. Alyssa grimaced as she looked at her shoulder. Every throb of her heart sent needles of pain through her, but the blackened skin wasn’t bleeding anymore.

One crisis averted for the moment, hopefully. Now she just had a million more things to worry over. Infection, disease, cancer. More immediately, would she ever be able to use her arm again? Or her hand, for that matter. It hadn’t survived unscathed. Her fingers and palm were just as charred as her shoulder. She didn’t even want to try clenching her hand into a fist.

For a few minutes, Alyssa just sat there on the floor, trying to keep from crying more than she already had. What a nightmare. What an actual nightmare. And it wasn’t over yet.

She glanced up at the Taker, still standing exactly where she had left him. Except the tip of his sword was trembling as he held it in his outstretched arms. She flashed him a grin. An actual honest grin despite everything.

I survived.

Killing him wasn’t in the cards at the moment, so to speak. Neither of her hands were in any shape to hold a gun, let alone fire one, and the spells were all scattered across the floor. Maybe she could pick one up. But it probably wouldn’t matter.

The Taker was trapped in Rigor Mortis. A Rank Five Death spell. Its target became unable to move. To be clear, it wasn’t some Petrificus Totalus spell that literally prevented movement. It froze his movements for only an instant, after that, it released him. The Taker could move if he wanted to. But any part of him that significantly moved from its frozen position would have its bones broken. If he tried to let go of his sword, every bone in his fingers would snap. If he tried to shift his weight, his hips would break. If he tried to speak, his jaw would be crushed. Even worse, it wouldn’t stop at the first bones broken. So if his fingers broke and he tried to shout in pain, his jaw would split in two. If he recoiled from the pain…

He might as well be as good as dead. Especially with how his sword wasn’t steady anymore. It had to be heavy. Holding it straight out in front of him pulled at his muscles.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t just slam into him again to trigger the effects. External influence broke the spell. It was the deadliest game of freeze-tag.

Alyssa forced herself to her feet. She couldn’t sit around. If Cid or anyone else walked into the room, she had no way of defending herself. She needed to get outside and hope that Tzheitza and Oz had dealt with whatever assassin they had encountered.

“Kasita,” she called out, throat sore and voice hoarse from shouting. “Kasita, I need you to come out. Or just make some noise so I can carry you out.” Alyssa looked to the trap-door cell, expecting the mimic to pop up with a giggle. Nothing happened. No voices. No shimmering beautiful women appearing out of nowhere. “Anything,” she tried one more time. Tenebrael hadn’t shown herself, so Kasita shouldn’t be dead. Unless the demonic angel didn’t bother with monster souls. But it looked like Alyssa would have to trust the mimic to find her own escape once she recovered. If she ever did.

“Please…”

Alyssa turned her head to the opposite side of the room, wincing as the motion pulled at her burned shoulder.

It wasn’t Kasita. Bacco pressed himself up against the bars of his cell. He stretched his hand out to Alyssa, though his fingers were all bent and twisted in the wrong ways. “Please,” he said again, voice almost as bad as Alyssa’s. “You can’t leave me here.”

Alyssa frowned, closing her eyes. Without the adrenaline running through her body, she felt about ready to fall asleep. The Taker made examples of people, according to Irulon. And Bacco definitely looked like he was in the process of being made an example of. But… “I don’t have a key.” Even if she wanted to help, she couldn’t. The Taker probably had the key on him, but touching him would free him.

Rather than choking up and falling to despair, Bacco actually straightened his back. “No key needed! The cells are opened with that panel near the door.”

Turning and barely able to see in the rapidly dwindling light of the burning chair, Alyssa found a series of toggle switches right where Bacco said they would be. Not electrical switches, but more like the lever that closed the hidden staircase. Despite what he had done to her, she couldn’t leave Bacco here in good conscience. If the Taker did manage to escape the Rigor Mortis, through help or simply because passing out would make the spell fizzle, he would surely start by dealing with the large man. So, with a preemptive grit of her teeth to ready herself for the pain, Alyssa lifted her left hand and carefully pulled down on the levers. She didn’t grip it with her burned skin so much as she used her whole arm.

The third switch dropped Bacco’s bars into the floor. He lumbered out.

Alyssa tensed as the large man turned his head to the Taker. All it would take was a light shove to free him, which would probably earn Bacco some redemption points from the torturer. As well as inadvertently kill her. But she managed to breathe out a sigh of relief as he turned away.

“What did you do to him?”

As soon as Bacco spoke, the sword fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

Alyssa jumped, fearing that the Taker would rush at her. But he didn’t. Three of his fingers twisted in on themselves even worse than Bacco’s fractured fingers, one joint bending such that his skin broke, spilling a small amount of blood to the floor.

Surprisingly enough, he didn’t move more than that. He didn’t jerk back his arms in pain or make the slightest sound. The man definitely had self-control. Hopefully not enough to last.

“Bacco,” Alyssa said, throat hoarse from shouting. “Can you move your fingers?”

“A little.” He notably did not demonstrate, even paling slightly at the question.

“Good… Good enough.” Did she trust him? Did she have a choice? The Taker had too much self control and she felt too weak. If she passed out, the spell would likely stop. And the Taker would be freed. Alyssa couldn’t take that risk. He had proved himself far too dangerous during the infinite regress sessions. “My side,” she said, turning slightly to make sure he could see the pistol at her hip. The button holding the gun in the holster was already undone so that she could have grabbed it easily if needed. “Take it out.”

Bacco hesitated. It took a “Now!” from Alyssa to get his hands moving. His fingers truly were broken and injured, but he forced through the pain, grabbing the grip of her gun.

“Put it in my hand,” she said. Her arm and shoulder were broken. She could barely move them now. But her fingers still worked. When Bacco placed the gun in her hand, she quickly flicked off the safety. “Now help me point it at him. Just lift up my arm a bit.”

The Taker’s eyes widened. They didn’t have bones in them, just muscle, so he was free to look around. She could see the sudden onset of fear in his eyes as the gun slowly raised to his face.

For her part, Alyssa was just trying not to scream as her ruined muscles and bones protested the movement. Sweat covered her face. Her vision wasn’t clear. Was the pistol even properly aimed at the Taker? It was hard to tell. But Bacco had stopped moving her arm. Did she trust him? No. But she trusted that he, at least, was not about to backstab her the way Cid had tried. So she started to squeeze the trigger.

The Taker moved before she could. He thrust one hand to a pocket. His arm broke clean in two on the way, but his twisted fingers made it inside. “Projectile Reflec—” His jaw snapped to the side before his nasally voice could finish.

But it was enough for Alyssa to hesitate. He hadn’t finished, but was what he had said enough? He hadn’t pulled any cards out of his pockets either, so she couldn’t tell if one had disappeared. Nothing shimmered around his form that looked like a shield, but he hadn’t had one on earlier either. Heart plummeting to the depths of her stomach, she released the pressure on the trigger. Maybe it hadn’t worked. But if it had, she would wind up shooting herself in the face.

It was enough to make her want to cry. More than she already did, anyway.

She couldn’t kill him.

The spells scattered across the floor, she had already dismissed them during Infinite Regress. Until she learned exactly what Projectile Reflection would and wouldn’t reflect, she couldn’t use most of them. The rest, she hadn’t had the time to identify them. A few daggers were lying about. And the sword. But between her burned hand and her broken, gashed arm, she couldn’t use them.

Bacco? Could he chop off the Taker’s head? If he failed, if he freed the Taker from Rigor Mortis and didn’t do enough damage, the Taker still had one good arm. Alyssa didn’t doubt for a moment that he could kill both of them with that one arm. And Cid had once said that Bacco wouldn’t hurt a slime. Of all the things Cid had lied about, that might be the most believable.

“W-What now?” Bacco asked, realizing that she wasn’t going to shoot. He helped her lower the pistol back to her holster. It hurt like a bitch, but Alyssa’s mind was racing to find any possibilities that might lead to the Taker’s death.

And she was coming up blank.

“Let’s go,” she said, not bothering to answer his question as she wedged the door open with her ruined hand. Rigor Mortis was still active. No one, not even the Taker, could maintain a perfect stillness forever. Especially while in an awkward pose with one arm out and their body leaning forward. She would just have to stay awake as long as possible.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stick around. Her wounds were great. And if anyone from the brothel, or any other secret room, came down here… Things would likely end up poorly.

She needed to get to Tzheitza and hope that the woman had something that could help her. Then she needed to prepare. Just in case the Taker did survive.


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Author’s Note: Hello. No big news today, just a reminder to vote at Top Web Fiction!

011.006

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Freedom of Choice

Infinite Regress


Alyssa stumbled back, slamming into the wall behind her. Her breaths came hard and fast, filling her lungs with air her body didn’t need. Closing her eyes, she tried to get herself under control.

She was still alive.

Her stomach ached, as did her arm. But it was a phantom sort of ache. No dagger stuck out of her arm. Same with her belly. She even pulled up her shirt to check. There was no hole, no blood, no knife. Just the lightly ridged skin of her abs. She could still feel that cold inside her. Not to the same degree, and it was fading fast, but the sensation lingered in her thoughts.

Heart still hammering in her chest, she shuddered.

The spell had worked as advertised.

Alyssa was back in the hall, staring at two clones of herself with the transparent shards of Empty Mirror lazily drifting around her. The door was shut. No one was chasing after her, at least as far as she could tell.

In fact, she had never opened the door. She hadn’t approached it. Because she hadn’t opened the door, she hadn’t alerted the Taker. Because she hadn’t alerted the Taker, he had never drawn his weapons. Because he hadn’t drawn them, he hadn’t thrown them and Alyssa had never been skewered. Infinite Regress.

Well, not infinite as far as Alyssa understood the term. It had an end right where her clones were standing. But she wasn’t in charge of naming spells.

Alyssa remained right where she had landed against the wall. That had been too close. She had never been stabbed before and really wasn’t looking forward to putting herself in that situation again. It had almost killed her! She could almost hear the light wafts of Tenebrael’s wings as they moved about in the air. Her imagination, surely. Looking around, there was no sign of the black-hearted angel. Just an empty hall, a closed door, and two frozen clones of Alyssa.

Of course, that should be expected. Irulon’s instructions had specifically noted that the spell, Infinite Regress, did not actually do anything. It wasn’t time travel. It was more like she had put on virtual reality goggles and was acting out the future. That didn’t give nearly as much relief as it should. She had seen The Matrix. If she died in this mirror-world, would she die in real life? The instructions hadn’t said.

It wasn’t something she planned on testing anytime soon.

Alyssa shoved off the wall, gritting her teeth and focusing. She couldn’t sit around. As much as she wanted to just curl up in her bed and never deal with this world again… that just wasn’t her. The Taker wouldn’t leave her alone. Even if she ran away now, she wouldn’t be safe unless she ran all the way back to her home in Teneville. Maybe not even then, not if the Taker wanted to keep his reputation. Besides that, she couldn’t just leave Kasita in his claws. He would find out what she was sooner rather than later. If the mimic had already made her escape, there might not be anything to worry about. But she hadn’t. The Taker would kill her.

There wasn’t a doubt in Alyssa’s mind that he was capable of killing the mimic. Even Tzheitza could likely kill Kasita if she actually got serious about it.

Taking a breath, Alyssa pushed the previous events out of her mind. This spell only gave her three chances to perfect her plan and one was already down the drain.

Alyssa pushed open the door just as she had last time. Rather than stand in the middle of the opening like some kind of idiot, she moved her back right up to the frame.

Just in time for a black blade to fly past. It landed with a clatter somewhere down the hall, but Alyssa only had eyes for the Taker.

“Well, well. Bringing a friend? Looks like you aren’t the fool I took you for.” The Taker stepped away from Kasita’s cell, keeping his distance. He didn’t draw any spare knives this time, choosing instead to unsheathe his sword. It was a simple silver blade with no excess adornments. Given that his daggers did something to freeze her body, it was probably anything but simple. “Is that you under that shroud, Tzheitza? No. She’s far too aggressive for the cloak and dagger routine.”

Alyssa slipped into the room, moving away from the door while watching his eyes. They swept right over her as he scanned his surroundings, failing to see through the invisibility spell.

She had done it. She was in the room, he didn’t know where, and she didn’t even have a dagger sticking out of her chest. Gripping her shotgun tight, she moved just a few steps closer, ensuring that there wouldn’t be any missing. Unless his sword could stretch ten feet, she was well out of range of that as well.

“Drop the shroud, interloper.” The Taker put his back up against the stone column between Kasita’s cell and the next one over. He continued looking back and forth, sweeping his head around the room. “You have until the count of five. One.”

Alyssa hesitated. Last time, he had thrown a dagger that almost certainly would have killed her. She wasn’t sure if he had seen through the Empty Mirror spell at the end or if he was just that good at knowing where she would be. Either way, she was slightly curious about what it would be this time. A bluff? Or something worse than an icy dagger.

“Two.”

Hearing that word again, she grit her teeth. He wasn’t going to go at five. He would go at three like last time. Alyssa put the shotgun to her shoulder. Finding out what he had planned, coming as close to death as she already had, none of it mattered if he was dead.

“Thre—”

A sharp crack of her shotgun echoed off the stone walls of the prison.

Hot fire tore through her. She felt a hundred stings across her front, from her neck down to her thighs. Little burning rivets in her skin. The shotgun slipped from her grip. Her fingers simply lacked the strength to hold it. Looking down, blood leaked from holes in her shirt.

“Ah yes, Cid and Bacco were kind enough to inform me about those weapons. After inspecting the bodies left behind, I determined that a simple Projectile Reflection spell would suffice for defense. It’s always such a rush of satisfaction knowing that one’s preparations worked perfectly.”

Alyssa staggered, letting out a grunt as a narrow sword punctured straight through her stomach. She hadn’t seen him cross the distance, but there he stood just a step in front of her.

Re—

It took a force of will to stop herself from thinking the command word. Alyssa grit her teeth through the pain, blinking back tears. She only had one more chance to come up with a serviceable plan. This attempt had to go further. Even if it only gave her a little more information.

Alyssa clenched her fingers around her pistol, putting all her strength into pulling it up. “Reflect this!” she shouted in an attempt to distract herself from the pain of thrusting herself even further onto the blade until she was close enough to put the gun to his head.

The Taker’s heavy boot connected square with her chest. Alyssa spat up blood as he flung her back, slamming her into the wall.

Kasita shouted something, but Alyssa couldn’t understand the words. Her eyes were locked on the floor.

The contents of her stomach spilled out, landing on the floor with a loud slop. But they hadn’t come from her mouth. Her whole side was torn open.

It hurt.

Her vision blanked out, tunneling from the red mess on the floor to darkness. Death? Is this dying?

No. It wasn’t real. She held on to that thought, remembering the word.

Recede.

The world around her vanished without fanfare and Alyssa found herself staring at herself. Her hands gripped her stomach as she bit down on her cheek to stop the scream from escaping her lips. That maniac had disemboweled her! Her intestines had been lying on the ground next to her! Alyssa crushed her stomach in a hug with her arms, just trying to get the sensation out of her head.

She could still feel it. That sudden emptiness as her insides slipped out. A knife or sword stabbing through her was something she could understand—while far deeper at his hand, she had accidentally cut herself on occasion. But having her intestines fall out… she couldn’t even think of anything similar.

Frankly, she didn’t want to think much on it. Alyssa focused on her body as it was, whole and properly put together. It hadn’t been real.

To get her mind off the topic of herself, Alyssa forced her thoughts onto the situation as a whole. Shooting him would not work. Not from afar at least. She had barely understood what had been happening at the time, but between his words and her pockmarked body before being stabbed, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. Some spell was protecting him from projectiles, which guns most certainly were. It had probably been designed for arrows, but clearly worked well on more modern tools as well. There was a chance that he would be vulnerable up close. He had kicked her away rather than weather the shot when she had put the pistol to his head. That would require getting close to that sword however.

It was also possible that his spell had failed after deflecting her shotgun and that was why he had knocked her away. If she could shoot him at an angle that didn’t reflect the shot back at her… but that relied on both the assumption that the spell failed being true as well as the notion that magic had to make sense. The spell could literally reflect everything back at its source no matter how tricky she tried to be with the shot.

No. Too many unknowns with that plan. Maybe she could have tested it if she had more clones in Infinite Regress.

But she didn’t. She didn’t even have another copy of the spell. And not for lack of trying. The patterns for Fractal spells were nightmarish to copy. They had so many details to them. Her attempts at Infinite Regress had all wound up crunched up and tossed to the side. Irulon had made it look so easy. It hadn’t even taken the princess two tries.

This was her last chance to find something that worked to either incapacitate or kill the Taker. As soon as she returned again, she would be back in her ‘original’ body.

Alyssa pulled out all the spell cards she had. Her hands shook as she held the cards. Just a tremble that took focus and effort to clamp down on. She clenched her teeth, hoping that the shake wasn’t a long-term consequence of nearly getting killed in two discarded futures. Her breath had a slight ragged timber to it as well, she had noticed.

But it had to all be psychological. The Infinite Regress spell didn’t alter reality. Mind over matter. Closing her eyes, Alyssa cleared her mind and focused on the cards in her hand, using them as a distraction.

The final of Irulon’s gifts as well as Bercilak’s deck stared up at her. The latter’s spells weren’t all that highly ranked. From it, Alyssa got the impression that neither Bercilak nor his minions had been counted among top tier casters. That didn’t mean that they were useless. Probably. Projectiles were right out, of which there were a few—one that threw molten stones and another that conjured some sort of ghostly axe that flung toward a target. Did fireballs count as projectiles? They were just balls of plasma. For that matter, Spectral Axe wasn’t a solid either, as far as she understood it. It was probably best to discard them right out. Even Spectral Chains might trigger the Taker’s projectile reflection to stop said chains from wrapping around his body.

Many more were mere utility spells. Lots of Rank Zero through Two spells that seemed suited for someone traveling. Flames, lights, and one that seemingly warded off insects. After sorting through the deck, Alyssa pulled out only three that she thought might be useful.

Immolating Gloves, a fire-based spell that conjured flames around a target’s hands—which might be useful to get him to drop his sword—Desecrate Spells, a spell that corrupted other spells which she thought could have use against the Taker’s reflection, and Conjure Flames, a spell that supposedly caused burning on whatever the weapon it was applied upon hit. After thinking about it a bit more, she slid Conjure Flames into the discard pile. While she had a military combat knife, the Taker would surely have far more martial capability than she would, even if she managed to get close to him while completely invisible. Using it on her guns might work, but it might also cause her ammo to explode. That combined with the projectile reflector ruined its usefulness.

Lastly, she set Irulon’s card down and stared at it.

It had a simple design compared to the Fractal spells and other Rank Four spells. Five distinct lines merged together at one end, at the center of a circle. None of the lines were straight. They had bends in them, making it look almost like a clawed hand with a bit of imagination.

Rigor Mortis.

Another death spell. One that she hadn’t been sure that she wanted to use. It sounded nasty. An exceedingly unpleasant way to… not even die. The spell wouldn’t actually kill its target. They might die from the effects, but that wasn’t the spell’s defined purpose. Just reading over the description again made Alyssa shudder.

But, after having had the distinct displeasure of nearly dying to the Taker twice, her empathy was rapidly dwindling. It was one thing to shoot someone. Another thing entirely to effectively torture them before walking up and shooting them. Or… would she be able to shoot him? Even if he were incapacitated, shooting him while his projectile shield was up would just hit her instead.

Glancing down, Alyssa unsheathed her knife. It had one straight edge that angled off toward the tip. The backside was serrated. Cutting the Taker’s throat would undoubtedly kill him. And it wasn’t a projectile. But… Alyssa shuddered again. Would she actually be able to go through with it? If Rigor Mortis gave her the opportunity, could she slice someone’s throat while they were utterly helpless to fight back? She honestly wasn’t sure. Even shooting him… I’m not a killer. Yes, she had killed people. But it was one thing to be acting in self defense in a high-stress situation. Not that this is a low-stress situation, she thought, rubbing at her stomach again. But it was different when someone was down and out. Maybe, after using Rigor Mortis, the Spectral Chains spell…

No. The Taker was too dangerous. He had managed to kill her while she was invisible twice now. If he got even a moment of opportunity, she could easily die for real. Hardening her resolve, Alyssa sheathed the knife. The Taker wouldn’t leave this room alive. The best way to follow through with a decision was to make it immediately. Whether it be stabbing him or shooting him, she had to take action.

Alyssa pocketed the spells she wouldn’t be using, keeping handy Rigor Mortis, Immolating Gloves, and Desecrate Spells. The latter of which she was most excited over as it would allow her to use her guns. A quick clean kill via bullet to the head was more than the Taker deserved, but she would offer it if possible.

Plan in mind, she took a deep breath. Her hands weren’t shaking anymore. All the lingering pain from being stabbed and disemboweled had dampened. Although her stomach lurched as she reached for the ring handle, she fought down the queasy sensation. She had already run through all the reasons she had to take out the Taker now. Several times over, in fact. If she didn’t, she might as well never leave Tzheitza’s potion shop again for fear that he would pop up in the streets.

Throwing open the door, Alyssa stepped to the side. The dagger flew past a second later, just as expected. There wouldn’t be a second dagger, so she moved inside with haste.

“Well, well. Bring—”

The Taker started talking. Alyssa ignored it. She had heard it before. She had a precious few seconds before he started counting, and from there only up to the count of three before he would do something. Because she had attacked early last time around, she hadn’t a clue what, so her advantage only extended to that point. She had to act before then.

While the Taker backed away from Kasita’s cell, Alyssa pulled out the Desecrate Spells card. If she used either of the others first, there was a chance they would be destroyed along with his projectile defense. Like every other spell she had cast, she focused on the effect. This time, she kept her eyes open—she couldn’t afford to close her eyes in concentration.

Destroy magic!

“One.”

Alyssa blinked. The spell card was still in her hand, uncast. What had gone wrong? Irulon’s instructions specifically mentioned that spells could be cast within Infinite Regress, so that wasn’t the problem. The only other times she had failed to cast… had been when she hadn’t understood the intended outcome of the spells.

“Two.”

Desecrate Spells. What would the effect actually be? Obviously no spell should work after casting it. But it wasn’t called Cancel Magic. Desecrate held more violent meaning. Adding to that the fact that it was a Death spell, it had to do more than simply nullify magic. Instead of the invisible bubble protecting the Taker simply vanishing, Alyssa pictured it turning on him, harming him.

“Thr—”

The card vanished.

At first, nothing seemed to happen. The Taker stopped counting to look around the room, so he must have noticed something. Maybe the lights in the room had darkened slightly. Maybe that was just her imagination.

The jar above the door cracked audibly. Alyssa looked up just in time to watch the glass explode outward. Hot pins of glass pierced her arms as she moved them to protect her face. A searing rake of claws ran down her back, making her cry out.

“Desecration?” the Taker said as a second jar exploded, sounding far more amused than worried. “While under the effects of a shroud?”

Alyssa shouted again as bloody red streaks carved themselves into her forearm.

Another jar of light shattered, raining the glass down on the floor and darkening the room.

“More than just an illusory shroud. You have a lot of high rank magic on yourself, don’t you? Foolish, foolish. I believe Cid and Bacco spoke far too highly of your abilities.”

“What did you do, Alyssa?” Kasita shouted out just as the jar of light outside her cell bulged up and burst. “You—” A scream cut off her words. The form of Alyssa warped, flickering to nonsensical abominations of flesh before her entire being winked out of existence.

“Kas—” Invisible claws flayed a chunk of skin off Alyssa’s stomach. Just a flesh wound, but she still screamed.

The glass jar nearest the Taker went the way of the rest. Finally, he shouted out in pain. A red streak tore from his face, carving a line starting at the corner of his eye and disappearing beneath the collar of his coat. “I have to say—Ah!” He winced back. Alyssa couldn’t see any wound on him, but he jerked his back with a grunt. “Your plan might have been more effec—” A loud hurk cut him off, but either he was good at not showing pain or his wounds weren’t half as severe as Alyssa’s. “Effective if you had dropped your shroud as I had ordered.”

Alyssa let out a loud cry as something tore through her leg. The Taker’s head snapped toward her, eyes widening. He pulled a dagger from his coat.

Before he could throw it, his hand turned bloody red. The blade fell point first from his limp fingertips, turning the ground to ice where it landed. Undeterred, he pulled out a second with his other hand.

Another of the lights went dark with a bang. Only a few remained. Those that had yet to break barely lit up enough to see to the other side.

This had not gone according to plan. Desecrate Spells affected everything. Herself included. Kasita…

And the Taker had another dagger in his hands.

“R-Recede!” Alyssa shouted out loud before he could throw it.

The world lurched. Shuddered. Alyssa, barely maintaining her stability as it was, fell to her knees as the dagger shaved and froze the ends of a few hairs. Her spell destroyed the last lights in the room, thrusting her into pitch black.

She was still in the prison room, not back in the hall as her clone! A cold sweat beaded up everywhere, stinging as it made its way into her wounds. It had failed. She was going to die here.

The pain vanished completely just as Alyssa’s sharp breathing passed into hyperventilation. She was still on her knees, still inside the prison room. But instead of looking at a floor too dark to see, it was brightly lit. Her sleeve, where there should have been holes from shattered glass and blood from the carving rakes of the desecration spell, was whole once again.

Glancing up, she nearly threw up. The Taker stood next to Kasita’s cell, standing right where she had seen him stand three times so far. But both of them were staring at her, clearly able to see her.

“Well,” the Taker started, just as he had every time she had opened the door.

He didn’t get to finish.

Every jar of light in the room exploded.


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