Author: Tower Curator

007.002

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Real Monsters

Lovely Ladies

There were just under a dozen girls who worked at the Waters Street Waterhole. Alyssa might have said that a dozen was less than she had expected except she hadn’t really expected anything. Between Tenebrael, killing two people, and nearly getting sold into slavery, she hadn’t thought much about what the actual brothel operation might have been like. The girls were cleaner than expected as well, though the smoke haze still in the air might have disguised their filth a little. Not all of them. Those who had been acting more as waitresses than prostitutes were generally better off. Most wore bodices of some type or another. Of those who wore anything more than a blanket, that was. Presumably the latter group had been in the process of… entertaining customers. They tended to be the filthiest as well, covered in a thin layer of grime, sweat, and possibly things that Alyssa would rather not think about.

But even among the cleaner girls, Alyssa did not find the idea of touching them pleasing. Not before they had taken a few showers. And maybe more than that. There probably weren’t STD screenings in this world. Or treatment.

She really needed to investigate medical magic. Yet another thing to add to her ever growing list.

Apart from the girls were the guards. Only six of them. Even with the one that Alyssa had killed and Svotty, the girls outnumbered them. Had there never been a rebellion? Surely one of the girls could have hidden away a makeshift shank if not a proper knife and used it to escape. It made Alyssa question her initial assumption of the dynamics of this brothel. If the girls weren’t here against their will, it might complicate things.

As for the guards, they carried themselves differently. While even the cleanest of the girls had a downtrodden and world-weary look to them, the guards were uncertain. No doubt they had heard that Svotty was dead. No doubt that they knew who had killed him. The only one Alyssa recognized was the muscular man who had been guarding the front door. He glared at her with unrestrained anger. Maybe Svotty or the deceased guard had been a friend. Maybe he was angry with himself for allowing her through with her weapons. Maybe he just didn’t like her on principle. She was sort of threatening to kill every one of them if they disobeyed her. No doubt they had all heard about that and just what she could do; both of the injured guards were in the room. The one she had hit in the leg had shabby bandages wrapped completely around his thigh. He looked a bit woozy. Blood loss? The other, looking much better off, had some similar bandages covering his arm. Cid stood behind the entire group, trying hard to avoid Alyssa’s gaze.

Both the guards and the women stood apart from each other, two distinct groups. Alyssa couldn’t help but notice that the guards had placed themselves in just such a way as to block the main door from the girls. If they were the only two groups, she might have continued on, but a third group away from the other two had her standing momentarily frozen.

They were… girls? No. Definitely girls. There were fewer of them than the working girls. Only four. All but one of whom were even worse for wear than the worst of the women. They were covered in welts, bruises, marks, and scars. But what had frozen Alyssa in place wasn’t their health, but their very state of being.

They weren’t human.

Two blatantly obviously inhumans, two that weren’t quite so obvious. Bright red scales adorned one, starting just at the sides of her cheeks; they moved down her neck, covered her arms completely, continued down her sides and hips before coating her legs as well. Her torso and face were oddly human where the scales weren’t covering while her legs and arms were more… animalistic. Or reptilistic? She had long nails that might have been sharp claws at one point in time, but were blunt as a spoon at the moment. Her red eyes that matched her hair stared off into space, much like the whipped girl.

To her side was… a bee? Her whole body was covered in yellow and black stripes. Like the lizard, she had a surprisingly human form, except for her face and her abdomen. A thick bulb hung off her lower back, tipped with a single sharp spike that had been flattened like the reptile’s claws. She had two wings as well, thin and transparent and filled with holes. Unnatural holes. More of tears. Probably put there to keep her from flying, or maybe from simple violence. Her mouth lacked lips, being stiff, and had sharp ridges instead that molded into her skin. Or carapace? And her eyes… they were somewhat uncomfortable to look at. Alyssa honestly couldn’t tell what the bee-girl was looking at. They were black and faceted like an over-cut diamond. A single antennae drooped off the top of her head, sticking out through dark hair. Off-center. Were bees supposed to have two?

The other two could pass for humans. One had off-color skin, almost a bluish black. If not for that and the long ears poking back off her head, she probably would have stood with the other girls. An elf. Alyssa had seen several already, though never up close. As it turned out, she was the one who had been whipped in the main room earlier. In the darkness and smoke haze, Alyssa hadn’t noticed her skin color. Now it was plain and apparent to see that she wasn’t human.

Finally, standing in front of them all, was a woman so beautiful, she could have easily been a supermodel. Her skin lacked the injuries and blemishes that the other girls had—both human and monster—and her blond hair had a luscious gloss worthy of a shampoo commercial. She wore a dress as well, an evening gown that practically glowed even in the dim light. None of the monsters wore clothes at all, except for some chains around their wrists and ankles. This woman lacked those. Even comparing with the humans, not a single one wore a garment that could stand up to the dress’ radiance. Except… it all looked fake. Alyssa couldn’t pick out one thing in specific. The hair was just a hint too glossy, the skin too perfect, the dress too expensive. If any one of them were on their own, she might not look at it twice. As it was, it niggled at something in the back of her mind.

Pushing the thought aside—though if it was magic, she definitely wanted to speak with the beautiful woman later—Alyssa focused on the room as a whole.

“Svotty is dead.”

Alyssa glanced around the room, looking for reactions. Overall, everyone was far more subdued than she had expected. The guards weren’t surprised in the slightest, confirming her thought that they already knew. The girls, the human ones, managed to look even more uncertain than they had been before. They glanced between themselves, murmuring softly to one another too quiet for Alyssa to hear. As for the monsters, they barely reacted at all. The elf’s ears perked up ever so slightly. But the bee’s inhuman face was impossible to read and the lizard just continued staring.

“I took objection to being sold into his company. I expect you all share a similar sentiment, as such, you’re free to go.” She only needed one or two to stay behind to answer questions. Or rather, she could just follow the women out when they left and ask a few questions then. Or not. Not if she wanted to find whatever stash of cash was sure to be in this place. But she couldn’t tell them to stay behind now, not after telling them they were free. Turning her head to the group of guards, she narrowed her eyes and continued on. “If you try to stop them, I’ll be exceedingly displeased.” Alyssa waited for a moment. No one moved. Did they not understand—

“Go where?” one woman said. A taller one standing in the front, wearing proper if skimpy clothing.

“Home. To your family, friends, or…” Alyssa trailed off. A heavy air had settled about the group of prostitutes. It didn’t take much to read their expressions. “Do none of you have homes? Parents? Anything?”

The lack of response was more than enough in and of itself. If only it stayed that way.

A girl—a young girl, far too young for a place like this—started crying. She clutched at the hem of her frilly dress. “M-My father left me here.”

The taller one knelt, rubbing her hand on the younger girl’s back. “Sold her,” she said, bluntly. “Most of us are in the same situation. Whether we were kidnapped or sold, we don’t have anywhere to go.” There was a slight pause as she looked back over her shoulder, as if checking that no one would contradict her, before she turned back to Alyssa. “You might think you’ve done us a kindness, but Svotty gave us shelter and food.”

Alyssa stared, stunned. If it was just the one woman, she might have considered her an exception. But several of the others nodded along like they agreed. No one argued against it. She could hardly believe it. They wanted to go back to prostituting themselves out? That just didn’t… make sense. At all. How could they not have anywhere to go? What had they been doing before coming here? Apparently being sold by their parents. But that surely wasn’t the case for all of them. Hadn’t the city guards mentioned someone getting kidnapped?

Her plan was already falling apart. This wasn’t the grateful thanks she had expected. Just the opposite. She had taken away the guards’ employer and the working girls’ meal ticket. Not in a million years could Alyssa imagine wanting to whore herself out. Even if she lost everything she had on her, even if her house exploded, she would try hard to find real work long before working in a place like this. Especially because… did these girls even get paid? Were they allowed outside? Days off? Doubtful.

A movement in the corner of Alyssa’s vision had her turning to the other group in the room. The monsters. “And what of you lot? You haven’t said anything. What do you…” A thought occurred to her. “Do any of you speak? Can you understand me?”

They definitely understood her. The elf’s brow furrowed while the beautiful woman’s elegant smile turned to a fanciful frown. Though the lizard just continued her vacant stare and the bee-girl’s antennae twitched. All of them, Alyssa noted, had souls. Smaller than human souls with the possible exception of Cid’s rat, but souls nonetheless. The lizard girl had some kind of red and black salamander. It was the smallest of the lot. Bee-girl had a bee, large but insectoid instead of humanoid. The elf had a simple ball of light. There might have been a face in the ball, but it was the first soul she had seen that wasn’t an animal in some form or other. Well, hers and the beautiful woman, depending on the definition of animal. The woman had a human, nude but completely androgynous, hovering just over her left shoulder. It was the largest in the room, but still quite small.

Looking around, she couldn’t help but notice that everyone’s souls were small compared to many she had seen on the streets. The guards’ souls were larger than those of the prostitutes on average. The girl with welts on her legs and sides had the smallest soul. A little greyish black snake with an obsidian-black mouth. It was only slightly larger than the lizard girl’s soul. Was there some correlation between them both being reptilian? Or maybe size. What did that mean for Irulon, who had a reptilian dragon that was the size of an already large room?

“We most certainly can speak, thank you very much.”

Alyssa turned back to the beautiful woman. Her glance around the room had probably looked like she had been visually asking the others if the monsters could speak. Not exactly the most polite thing to do, she supposed. Not wanting to offend a potential magic user, Alyssa nodded her head. “I apologize. The only…” Was monster a derogatory term? “Nonhuman that I have spoken with didn’t speak so much as she trilled, chirped, and tweeted.”

That got a reaction from near everyone in the room. Though this time, the reactions weren’t split between three camps, but only two. Human and monster. Given that there were so many humans, their reactions did vary. Mostly between narrow-eyed suspicion, disgust, and deep scowling. The monsters, those whose expressions Alyssa could read, looked more thoughtful than angry. Eyebrows rose and eyes softened.

Pretending she hadn’t noticed, Alyssa ignored it all. “Judging by your companions’ chains, I assume they are not here because they want to be.”

“Not at all,” the woman said with a smile. “Some clientele had more exotic tastes. Svotty went to great effort to satiate those tastes.”

“Depraved tastes!” one of the prostitutes shouted, though Alyssa didn’t catch which.

But the woman nodded her head. “Ufu~ Indeed. So depraved that they didn’t bother having sex half the time. Instead, they would choose to indulge in the pleasure of violence.”

That explained their wounds. Probably the vacant gaze of the lizard as well. Harpies stealing sheep seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to be angry over. But monsters in general seemed universally despised. Was there some history behind that? Something that the monsters did to humans? Or was it simple racism? The Fortress of Pandora had to have something to do with it. Looking it up was a lower priority, but definitely something to add to her list.

“What are you?” Alyssa couldn’t help but ask. “You look human, but you aren’t. I can tell that much.”

Covering her mouth with the back of her hand, the woman giggled. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

“She’s a mimic.” The guard who had been shot but not in the leg stood up. A shorter, stockier fellow. He had a round face, but piercing eyes as he glared at the so-called mimic. “She turns into whatever she wants. Tries to kill people by becoming their pillows or teacups!” Ah. There must be some history there.

The mimic just giggled again, not even bothering to deny the accusations.

“Then why keep her around? Shouldn’t you punish such behavior at least?”

“W-Well, mimics are weak. None of her attempts succeeded. A-and… she’s the most popular girl by far.”

Blinking her eyes, Alyssa felt her face heat up as she realized the connotations behind the mimic’s ability. Being able to turn from a beautiful woman to a teacup and, presumably, anything in-between would garner much popularity at a brothel. “With such an ability, surely you could have escaped at any time.”

“And leave behind my sisters to the tender mercies of you humans?” Ah. Apparently the hate did go both ways. The way she said humans dripped with unbridled loathing. “We can’t just walk out either, even if you say we’re free to go.” Her fingers crawled along the bee-girl’s shoulders, drawing her into a one armed hug. “Can you imagine her trying to go outside? She’d be lynched not ten steps away from the door.”

This world was beyond screwed up. Bad things existed on Earth. Human trafficking and forced prostitution among those bad things, even if Alyssa had never known about any specific cases of either. But when people on Earth were saved from such situations, they weren’t left to rot in the streets—or lynched in the streets—they were given help. Probably.

Right?

It was doubtful that the same would be true here.

Alyssa rubbed at her forehead. She still had a headache and the haze in the air didn’t help matters. “So either none of you want to leave or none of you can leave.” Ugh. What a mess. “Fine. If anyone wants to leave, I won’t stop them and I won’t let anyone else stop them,” she said with a pointed look to the group of guards. “For everyone else, you are free to stay. Svotty may be dead but I’m sure you can figure out how to collect money in return for your… services on your own.” She had a sinking feeling that one of the guards would browbeat his way into Svotty’s position, but Alyssa wasn’t going to babysit them. She had given them an opportunity. Most of the prostitutes were adults. They could make their own decisions. If they thought life would be better here, who was she to convince them otherwise. For all Alyssa knew, this was a decent life—she still lacked so much knowledge about this world.

The younger girls, she felt a bit bad about. But it wasn’t like she had the capability to care for someone else. She was still trying to get herself situated.

Though Alyssa couldn’t just leave. Not yet. She was completely out of money. Her coming here had been supposed to be a business deal. Selling her cloak should have bought her a little more time with money. She couldn’t leave without finding at least a fistful of coins. There would almost certainly be some cash in Svotty’s office. “I’ll remain here for a few minutes while I tend to some matters of my own, so you may take that time to decide whether you truly want to stay or not. After then, I’ll leave. Everything will be up to you at that point.”

Turning on her heel, Alyssa flinched. She had forgotten that Bacco was standing so close. Thankfully for her pride, Bacco jumped, stumbled back, and made plenty of space for her to move. She sighed, but couldn’t help but feel that this was more her fault than anything else. Cid and Bacco had given her plenty of chances to run off on her own. Even knowing that they weren’t upstanding people, she had still followed them into such a hive of scum and villainy.

Finding an inn on the other side of the city might be a good idea. The east side of the city was far nicer than around here. And it had the Observatorium in close proximity. She needed a safe place to leave her pack and to find some clothing that matched the local attire. Something simple. For anything that needed something fancy, such as the Observatorium, she could probably wear one of the dresses she had brought from home. After that, blending in with the populace shouldn’t be too difficult.

Shaking her head, she started toward the stairs, but paused again. Looking over her shoulder, she couldn’t help but frown. The elf had perked up when she had mentioned Svotty’s demise. There was no way that a bunch of monsters, who had almost certainly been kidnapped from their homes, wherever those were, wanted to stick around as literal slaves forced to have sex with humans.

An idea popped into her head. Was it a good idea? Time would have to tell. But she would try one more time to help the people here. Some of them, at least. And, at the very least, she might get some information out of this mess after all.

“Mimic. Would you and the other three meet me downstairs? I have a few questions I would like to ask you before I leave.”

“Questions? Ufu~ I wonder what that could be about.”

“Follow me and find out. I’m not forcing you to answer anything. It’s your choice.”

The mimic giggled again, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “I haven’t had a choice in much of anything for a long while. Allow me to discuss with the others. Perhaps we’ll take you up on your proposition.”

“Good,” Alyssa said with a nod of her head. Without another word, she turned and headed back down to Svotty’s office. She had some looting to do.

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007.001

Posted on by Tower Curator

<– Back | Index | Next –>

Real Monsters

Waters Street Gang II

Svotty tipped backward in his chair. Having already been leaning backward on two legs with his feet up on the desk, the shotgun blast hitting his face and chest sent his body to the floor.

Alyssa took two steps forward, rounding her shotgun on Cid as she moved. “You were going to sell me to a brothel!” she snarled over the ringing in her ears. A pump of her shotgun sent an empty shell flying to the side of the room. He had a knife out. Having been standing just behind her up until now, it was surprising that he hadn’t used it. But then, he was probably too shocked from the noise and seeing his boss die right in front of him. Bacco, on the other hand, had his hands clasped to his ears as he backed up into the corner. “You just had to get greedy. You couldn’t make do with the cloak—”

Before she could pull the trigger, the door slammed open. Of course the guard would have heard the noise. To his credit, he didn’t stand around staring in shock. With a knife drawn, he charged at Alyssa.

She didn’t hesitate to aim her shotgun in his direction and fired again, filling the air with the sharp thunder crack and a bright flash of light. These weren’t good people. She hadn’t missed the name of the brothel. Waters Street Waterhole. As in, the same Waters Street gang that the city guard had mentioned. Given that they had planned on forcing her into prostitution, it was doubtful that any of the girls were here willingly. Every single person complicit in this establishment was the scum of scum.

Another pump of her shotgun sent another shell flying off into the corner of the room as the guard fell to the ground. Six cartridges left. She had more in her pack, but reloading wouldn’t be feasible if guards kept running in. How many had she passed on the way here? She hadn’t counted. A foolish mistake. She aimed back at Cid, wanting to pull the trigger.

But he dropped the knife. “No. Please! You misunderstand!”

“Oh, right, I suppose that’s your bartering knife,” she said through clenched teeth. The hazy air in here was giving her a headache. Her heart pounded in her temples. “Get on the floor,” she spat. “Face down. Don’t move. And you…” Alyssa flicked her glare to Bacco. “You were going to let him? To think I thought you weren’t so bad.”

“I-I told him it was a bad idea.” His knees shook when she pointed the shotgun in his direction. It didn’t take long for them to give out. He went straight to the floor, putting his face to the ground without her even ordering him to do so.

A good thing too. Someone else was running up the hall. A few someones. With her two thief friends on the ground, she could give the guards her full attention. “Stop!” she shouted, hoping she sounded more authoritative and less panicked. There were three of them coming up now. All three had their knives drawn. Only one of them slowed. The other two kept running.

She fired again. They were further away than the others she had killed, but shotguns worked fine at range despite Hollywood’s claims. It was her aim that was the problem. One of them screamed out, tumbling to the ground, clutching his leg. The other yelped, but didn’t fall. A few of the pellets must have torn through him while most hit the leg of the man who was on the floor.

“Your boss is dead,” she shouted again, pumping her shotgun. Five left. “And I…” Alyssa paused. She had been about to say that she was leaving. If anyone acted against her, they would die. But she had a different idea. Maybe a foolish one, brought on by the smoke-induced headache. Divine inspiration? Not likely. Tenebrael wasn’t around—surprisingly, maybe the bodies weren’t as dead as they looked. However, she needed to focus. Meeting Cid and Bacco had been a disaster. “If you try to attack me, you will die too,” she said as her mind worked overtime to try to absorb the full gravity of the situation.

What if the police came. Or whatever the local equivalent was. This could be an entirely legal brothel under the laws of this city.

Except it wasn’t. The police wouldn’t come. If the gang was notorious enough to warrant warning from the guards, the people here would sooner be arrested than her, even with her having killed someone. Even if they did arrest her, surely explaining that they had been about to sell her would buy her freedom. Or Irulon. Maybe knowing the princess would get her a way out.

So they wouldn’t come because none of the gang members would call them. And if they did, she would be fine. Taking a shallow breath, and coughing a little on the smoke, she calmed her frantic thoughts.

If she were smart, she could turn this into an opportunity. She could save the girls here. Alyssa couldn’t afford to be so altruistic in a world like this, but she would get something in return. Freeing the almost certainly unwilling girls would buy her their gratitude. Gratitude that she could spend on information about the city and anything else that came to mind. Unless she went through the place and killed absolutely everyone who wasn’t a prostitute, this place would almost assuredly be up and running before long. Someone else, like Cid or one of the guards, would take over Svotty’s position.

And frankly, staring between Svotty’s body and the guard in the doorway, she could already feel her stomach churning a bit. Not as bad as it had the morning after she awoke in this world, but the thought of just executing Cid and Bacco while they had their heads pressed to the floor didn’t sit right with her. No. Unless they continued to attack her…

Alyssa removed her finger from the trigger. She left the safety off, just in case.

If the women working here didn’t escape now, they would probably not have another opportunity.

Not only that, but this was a brothel. Brothels existed to make money. She wouldn’t need to get herself a job as a tavern wench if she found a safe filled with coins. There had to be something around. Even just Svotty’s gold rings would sell for something. Except, then she might wind up in another purple cloak situation if and when someone recognized the rings.

If possible, she wanted to leave here without anyone knowing what she had done. Just in case the city guard did launch some sort of investigation into Svotty’s death. No evidence left behind, except for witnesses—none of the spells she had copied could modify memories, unfortunately, if that was something that could even be done. They would have to stay.

Leave rings. Leave anything that might tie her to this place. Leave the cloak as well. Without it, she might not have even gotten into all this trouble. But loose coins, anything that looked like cash. She could take as much as she could carry.

The idea cemented itself in her mind. It might be risky, but she could pull it off. “You,” she shouted into the hall. “The uninjured one. Clear this place out. Tell the… patrons to go home. Tell the girls to gather in the large room upstairs. If any of the other guards have a problem with this, tell them to head to Svotty’s office. But let them know that they might not survive the encounter. Fail me, deliberately disobey, or run away, and I will kill you. Then I will kill everyone else here. Don’t think I can’t. No more playing around,” Alyssa added, more for Cid and Bacco’s sake. Hopefully they, and the guards, bought the bluff. Bacco still had to believe that she was a monster. Even if he didn’t, he at least would be terrified of what she had done and was capable of. She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. A mistake. The smoke almost sent her into a coughing fit. Hacking and wheezing, she knocked the incense burner to the floor and stomped on the glowing embers. “And open some damn windows!”

The man had already run off. She didn’t know if he would follow her orders, the latest one or the others. He might just escape despite her threat. Of course, she didn’t have a way to track him down if he did. None of the spells she had taken pictures of would do that either.

Alyssa leaned back against the desk, rubbing at her forehead. A twisted knot was forming in her stomach, slowly yet steadily. She felt sick, worse now that she was out of immediate danger. Two people. She had killed them, hadn’t she? Svotty, lying on the floor behind his desk, hadn’t moved. A quick glance tightened the knot in Alyssa’s stomach. Most of the pellets had hit him in the face. It looked like ground beef, though with more blood. The man by the door was much the same, except he had been hit in the chest. His fingers were twitching, but if he was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long.

Out in the hall, Alyssa could hear sharp, pain-filled gasps from at least one of the two men still out there. Aside from magical means, this world likely didn’t have much in the way of medical care. With only her one trip to the Observatorium, she hadn’t researched any medical magics. Unless this gang kept a healer around, the two in the hall, even the one she had only grazed, could easily die from any number of causes. Infection, blood loss, shrapnel complications… parasites. Some of which were more immediate concerns than others. Blood loss, for instance.

“Bacco,” Alyssa snapped. The large man made a high pitched noise at being addressed, but she ignored it. “There are two injured men in the hall. Go treat their wounds as best as you can and maybe you’ll come out of this alive.” She waited just a moment. When he didn’t move, she shouted again. “Get up! And get out of here.”

He did, but he didn’t look at her. He kept his head down and his eyes glued to the floor. Which ended up backfiring when he got to the fallen guard in the doorway. Bacco froze still, except for his shaking hands, and just opened and closed his mouth over and over again.

“Not him,” Alyssa said, wondering how the large man managed to be part of a gang. He was definitely not callous enough. “Further out in the hall.”

That got him moving. He practically tiptoed over the body. Once he was past, his timid movements turned to a lumbering dash until he reached the other two.

“As for you…” Alyssa trailed off. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with Cid. She had calmed down enough that she wasn’t about to shoot him. Not unless he went for his knife, but she somehow doubted that she would be that lucky. But she couldn’t think about it anymore.

A feather floated down from nowhere. Tenebrael had arrived. She hadn’t stopped time, this time. Alyssa could still hear Cid breathing and the occasional pained noises from out in the hall. Given that she couldn’t see Tenebrael, the angel had probably appeared behind her. Alyssa didn’t glance back. She kept her eyes on Cid.

“Just get out of my sight. Go make sure that all the patrons are gone and the girls gathered in the main room. If I see you before I’ve calmed down, you’re liable to wind up dead.”

“Shoot him now,” a sweet, harmonious voice whispered into Alyssa’s ear. “He’s terrified, even if he tries to hide it. He’ll be just delectable. If you need a reason to assuage some silly notion of guilt, rape and murder are the least of his crimes.”

Alyssa didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. She watched with clenched teeth as Cid picked himself off the floor, making sure to keep his hands far away from his knife. Unlike Bacco, he actually looked Alyssa in the eyes.

“Sure thing, boss,” he said, smiling with that foul mouth of his.

Her teeth ground together. The shotgun moved of its own accord, aiming the barrel directly at his chest. No, not of its own accord. A pair of arms were wrapped around her from behind like a gentle hug, guiding her hands. But no angelic fingers brushed near the trigger. The decision was left entirely up to Alyssa.

Cid’s eyes widened. He backed away slow and careful to avoid any sudden movements, almost tripping over the guard’s body in the process. As soon as he made it to the hallway, he turned and sprinted straight past Bacco without stopping.

The shotgun barrel dipped toward the floor in his wake. Alyssa let out a small sigh. Of relief or exasperation, she wasn’t sure. With that sigh, the strength in her legs gave way. She tried to lean back against the desk for support.

Only to find herself resting against something soft and warm. For a moment, she didn’t move. It was comforting in a way that Alyssa couldn’t describe. An unearthly comfort.

“What a waste.”

The tension came rushing back as Alyssa threw herself away from the heavenly demon, spinning to face her. Which put her back to the door. Despite the situation, Alyssa retained the presence of mind to know what an abysmally bad idea that was. Tenebrael hadn’t stopped time. It took a bit of nudging with her foot, but she got the body out of the way enough to slam the door shut.

“The fear of death is like a seasoning. Though comparing it to salt or pepper would be a disservice. It is the most exotic seasoning a soul can have. And it’s so rare here in my world. In Nod. My fault, I know. I wanted to be worshiped so I started that whole religion about me. Now no one is afraid—”

Alyssa let out a sharp hiss through her teeth. “I. Don’t. Care. If you ever touch me like that again, I swear that I will shoot you in the face. And I will find a way to make it hurt.”

A light, musical hum came from Tenebrael’s throat. She smiled a kind smile, fitting of an angel, but the smile didn’t reach her glowing white eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t enjoy it, even a little?” She cocked her head to one side, smiling a little wider when Alyssa didn’t respond. “Well, let’s see what offerings you’ve presented me, my little reaper.”

“Excuse me?”

Tenebrael ignored Alyssa, turning to the body behind the desk. Her wings stretched out, brushing over the body. The image of the pig, which had been floating above its master’s corpse up until now, vanished as the liquid mist flooded into the room. Tenebrael ate up every drop, more like she had with the pilgrims than either of the thieves that had broken into her house. She didn’t even smile.

“Nope. Not very good, Alyssa. He hadn’t even realized he was dying before he… well, died. His last thoughts were of a lascivious nature that probably shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. You’ll have to try harder next time. But I still appreciate the effort. He wasn’t in the books just yet, after all.”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. She almost said that there wouldn’t be a next time. But was that true? Even right now, she was in the basement of a gang-operated whorehouse. If the remaining guards got any funny ideas, she might be fighting her way out. Who knew what troubles tomorrow would bring.

“What about this one?” Tenebrael glided over to the other body in the room and repeated her wing motions. As the raccoon hovering above the guard faded and the mist filled the room again, Alyssa couldn’t help but note: Tenebrael had no soul. There were no animals hovering anywhere in the vicinity. Just the angel and her wings. “Ah, that’s a much better one. He didn’t die immediately. His brain was working long enough for him to start panicking. Damaging his spinal cord kept him from moving or reaching out. With his lungs filling with blood, he couldn’t even cry out for help, as he desperately wanted to.” Tenebrael ran her tongue over her black lips. “I approve.”

“I’m not looking for your approval.”

“You have it anyway.” She reached out and ran her hand over Alyssa’s head like a loving owner might stroke a cat. “But I’ve got to get back. No rest for the wicked, as they say. If you ever want to chat, just shoot someone!”

Alyssa clamped her hand over Tenebrael’s still outstretched arm. “Wait.” This was a chance she couldn’t let go. She had tried to ask earlier, but the angel had vanished too quickly. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Huh? You need me to do something for you?” She raised an eyebrow before letting out a musical laugh. “I see, I see. First you act all hostile to get me to like you more, then you act all lovey to reaffirm that desire? There’s a word for that, you know. But I’m not putting you back on Earth, so don’t even ask.”

“What? No…” She had no idea what the angel was talking about, but she hadn’t been about to ask for that. She needed a way to defend herself from angels before she even tried to go back. Alyssa pulled her phone from her pocket. “You did something that lets me connect to the internet. Earth’s internet.” An unnecessary clarification, maybe. “But it doesn’t work this far from my home. Can you make it so that it does? And also so that I don’t need to charge it and can use it forever? And maybe make it indestructible. And so that it can’t be lost or stolen. And—”

“While I do appreciate several of the things you have done, screwing up Earth’s books excepted, how long is this list? I do have things to do, souls to take, Iosefaels to talk to, you know… the usual. People are dying all the time. Got to keep up appearances.”

“Can’t you just stop time?”

“Well, yes… but I can’t consume souls while time is stopped because they’re stopped too.”

“Just leave them out of the time stop like you did to me earlier.”

The corners of Tenebrael’s lips tugged up into a small smile. “Who says that I did anything to you? The only magic that I have cast on you—that worked—was the miracle that brought you to Nod. Really, we shouldn’t even be talking like this unless you start dying. And you aren’t. Curious, curious, my little reaper.”

“Don’t call me that.” Alyssa closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. She still had a headache. Even with the incense extinguished, the room had far too much smell to it. Though, flicking her eyes toward the puddle of blood that she hadn’t caused, maybe it was good that the room smelled the way it did and not like anything worse. “Look. Can you do it or not?”

Tenebrael plucked the phone from Alyssa’s fingers and looked over it. “The question isn’t whether I can, but whether or not I will. If you’ve found some loophole in my protections and are contacting someone on Earth—”

“Nothing like that! Taking pictures is invaluable. Looking up modern science and concepts too! You want your prophecy book messed up? Let me introduce some modern technology. Even just how to make fire without magic.”

“When you put it like that, how can I resist? Very well. I’ll return your phone later on with all sorts of improvements.”

“Uh.” A chill ran down Alyssa’s spine. “Not to seem ungrateful, but how much later?” She still hadn’t copied those pictures she had taken at the Observatorium. If she wasn’t going to be able to return for a week when Irulon said to return, that was a long time to go without testing out the various magics she had noted down.

“Whenever I get around to it. I—” Tenebrael cut herself off with a glance at the door. A moment later, a timid knock tapped against the wood.

“Ah—Alyssa?” A far more timid version of Bacco’s voice made it through the wood. Barely. It was so soft she had to strain to hear it properly. “Cid said that there were some complaints, especially with people involved with girls at the time, but that the Waterhole is clear.”

“I’ll be out in a moment,” Alyssa said, looking back to Tenebrael.

Or where Tenebrael had been standing. There was nothing there now save for a handful of feathers drifting to the floor. No sign of the angel and no sign of her phone.

“Great. Just great,” she mumbled to herself. But maybe her talk with Tenebrael had done some good. She felt a lot looser. A lot calmer. She probably wasn’t going to immediately shoot the first person she saw. At least, not until they inevitably did something to piss her off. Tenebrael held most of her ire at the moment. The stupid angel just disappeared in the middle of their conversation. And took her phone.

That it might come back to her with an endless battery was the only bright side. For now, she had to go out and face the music.

<– Back | Index | Next –>

Author’s Note: Character list updated with Cid, Bacco, Svotty, Tess, Irulon, and Brakkt.

Also, Void Domain got a commissioned art piece! A late-stage Eva with a mysterious little spider sitting on her head! You can check it out over on Twitter.

Alyssa’s Notes: Updates in almost every category. Elves in the bestiary. Addendum #1 in the general magic notes. One Death spell and four Physical spells on the spell listing.

006.001

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Interlude

Tess

Tess sighed. She was getting looks again. Pitiful looks. This was one of those days.

Princess Irulon had returned from her day’s activities with a bright smile on her face. A few of the other servants even reported humming. Normal days saw the princess return from the academy with a blank expression at best. Maybe a vapid smile with no real joy behind it. Her actually smiling threw up red flags for Tess’ fellow workers.

Being a servant girl wasn’t easy. Being Irulon’s personal servant even less so. Her mornings consisted of waking up before everyone else in the palace—which wasn’t that hard, she barely slept most nights anyway. Bath water had to be heated. Chamber pots emptied. Meals retrieved from the cooks and set out. Clothes laid out. Then she had to wake up Irulon.

That was… never fun. Tess had to be respectful, but Irulon was… not a morning person. That was putting it lightly. Speaking to her wouldn’t get the slightest reaction. Even physically nudging her couldn’t get her moving. It was bad enough that most days, Tess had to scoop up the princess, carry her to the bathroom, and dump her into the water. Even that didn’t usually wake her up all the way, but at least it got her morning underway. If Tess didn’t do that, Irulon would probably be late even to her evening appointments. By the time Tess finished scrubbing Irulon clean, she was usually awake enough to stand still while Tess dressed her.

And that was just the mornings.

But she didn’t get pitiful looks because of having to wake Irulon. Well, not always. Sometimes. However, most of the pitiful looks were because of things that happened before Tess even started working at the palace. Allegedly, many of Irulon’s personal attendants tended to… disappear. They weren’t publicly released from their stations or punished in any way. They weren’t executed. None of the other servants ever found bodies. They just vanished.

Apparently. Tess had been here for almost a full year. The longest serving personal attendant according to the others. That didn’t stop the others from looking at her with sad eyes at times like this. Even when she stopped by the kitchens, the chef looked at her as if mentally saying, it was nice working with you as he handed her a plate of sauteed vegetables, thick slabs of roasted meat, and a loaf of freshly baked bread. It was irritating. Even worse, she would have to come back for more food and see him again. Irulon never ate her vegetables and always wanted more meat. Tess didn’t know why the chef bothered in the first place.

Carrying the plate with one hand, Tess picked up a large bottle of Tyrian wine and an emerald encrusted goblet with her other hand. Tyrian wine was Irulon’s favorite. Tess had tried a small glass once on a rare occasion when Irulon hadn’t finished off an entire bottle. It had a fairly unique flavor, similar to maple tree sap. Too sweet for her tastes. Also far too expensive. Even having been paid relatively well for working as the princess’ personal attendant over nearly a full year, her entire savings would only buy her a single bottle.

Tess stepped lively up the stone staircase that led to the princess’ floor. It was a tight spiral with no decorations, used solely by the servants to get between their kitchen on the tenth highest floor and the royal family’s personal living quarters above.

The top three floors of the palace tower were reserved for the Pharaoh and his wives, the top two of which only the most trusted of servants were allowed on—an exclusive number that Tess couldn’t count herself in. From there, the children of the Great House each had their own floors. Irulon had six older brothers. She was the eldest girl. There were several younger siblings, but as the tower floors widened and their social importance lessened, none had an entire floor to call their own. Irulon often said that she was the luckiest child, having not only an entire floor to herself, but the largest as well. In Tess’ opinion, the entire tower was topsy-turvy. Who would ever want to climb from the ground floor all the way to the top every single day? If Tess were queen, she would definitely relocate to a far lower level. Maybe not completely ground floor, but maybe around the fifth floor.

Of course, Irulon cheated with magic. As did her older brothers and the king. It was just the poor servants that had to clamber up and down thousands of stairs unless they were lucky enough to be walking alongside one of the royals.

Letting out a small sigh, Tess stepped off the spiral staircase onto Irulon’s floor and started heading toward the wide open doors at the end of the hallway. With the doors to the princess’ bedroom wide open, she didn’t need to figure out how to knock with her hands full. So she just paused at the threshold. “Your meal is ready. Would you care for it in your dining room—” Her voice caught in her throat as she actually spotted the princess.

The bedroom was a wide room. Far too large for one person, in Tess’ opinion. The bed alone could fit ten people without any of them having to touch one another. It was a heavenly bed. Tess would never tell anyone, but there had been occasions during cleaning while Irulon had been absent that she had opted to take a short rest on the bed. The soft cushioning molded to her body, cradling her as if it were made from clouds. But the princess wasn’t on her bed.

Neither was she at her polished wood desk. Nor the chair near the bookcase and fire pit. The wardrobe door was closed, but Tess had never once seen Irulon enter there—getting clothing was a servant’s job, after all.

No, the princess was beyond the wide glass doors that led outside. She stood on the balcony railing, standing with her arms outstretched and only her two bare feet anchoring her to the tower.

“Princess!” Tess shouted as she rushed across the room. There was a limit to how reckless the princess could be. Even with magic. She didn’t even have the spell tome attached to her hip. If she fell, she wouldn’t be able to catch herself with a spell. All she had was an untied robe that billowed in the high winds. “Princess! Come down from there!”

At her cry, Irulon spun around, picking up a foot to twist on a single toe. She stood there, still on the railing, staring down with her pale violet eyes. There was a hunger there. A hunger that shifted straight toward the plate in Tess’ hand. She slipped off the balcony, landing on the tips of her toes right in front of Tess. With her bare hands, she grabbed a slab of the roast and tore off a piece with her teeth as she leaned her back against the railing.

Ignoring the impropriety of it all, Tess just sighed in relief. She was just glad the princess was safe. If Irulon had fallen, she wouldn’t have only lost the one she served—something Tess definitely didn’t want—but likely her life as well. She would have been hard pressed to convince anyone that she hadn’t thrown the princess from the balcony, being the only witness. Her head would have rolled in the city center, kicked around by children like it were a ball.

Pushing the morbid thought from her mind, Tess knelt next to where the princess had leaned against the balcony railing to snack on her food.

“Excellent timing, Tess. I am absolutely famished. It has been an exhausting day. I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“Did something good happen today?” she asked as she pulled the cork stopper from the bottle of Tyrian wine.

“Something good? Hm. You could say that. She didn’t have a soul!”

Tess blinked. Out of all the possible things that Irulon could have found pleasing, that hadn’t even registered on the list. “No… soul? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I! Even monsters have souls. I would say that she was using concealment magic, but I don’t think she’s ever used magic before today! Not much anyway. And when she did, she used a Rank Three spell without even straining. Hm. What is she? An elder lich?” Irulon bit down and tore off another strip of the tender meat.

“A-A lich?” Tess shuddered. There were few things worse than monsters. A human who gave up their humanity to become a monster? Well, she had never met one, but it sounded ghastly. Who would even do that? A foolish question. The answer was simple. People who were afraid of the Divine Tenebrael’s embrace. Or people who didn’t believe in her at all. Still, didn’t they have a shred of decency? Betraying everyone like that to join humanity’s mortal enemies. It was worse than turning traitor to Lyria, fleeing northward across the desert to join the Juno Federation. “Should we contact the guards? Or bounty hunters? The guild maybe?”

Irulon had her hand out, reaching for the wine. As soon as Tess spoke, that outstretched hand snapped to her mouth, clamping it shut. “No. No. We don’t tell anyone.” Her grip loosened, letting her hand fall. She skipped the goblet entirely, going straight for the wine bottle. “I want her.”

“What.”

“If she is a lich, I want to take her apart. To pull off her skin and pry open her bones. Adventurers kill liches when they cause trouble, but what do we really know about them? They show up so infrequently. Do you think she has real meat in there? Or is she just wearing the skin over her bones like I wear a dress?”

“I don’t…” have any idea how to answer that. Tess could use magic. But she just used it for simple things. Lighting candles, filling the bath with water, cleaning, and other things useful for a servant girl. She certainly wasn’t obsessed with it, let alone with undead and monsters…

Smoke curling out from holes in the thatch roof. The coppery scent of blood, mixed with fire and screams. People running outside the home, leaving her stranded behind a fallen log. Midnight-black eyes with—

A firm hand clasped down on Tess’ shoulder. She gasped in a breath. Her heart beat in her chest, thumping hard enough to feel like it might explode. The hand gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze, just as it had back then.

“Don’t worry,” Irulon said. “You are mine. I won’t let anyone touch what is mine. Not my father. Not my siblings. Not some lich. Though if she is a lich, I wonder why she was reading such a beginner book of magic. Perhaps not a lich then. Or perhaps her true goal was to initiate contact with me. Ahhh, need more information to make an accurate assessment.”

Tess gave a shaky nod of her head. Falling into bad memories—in front of Irulon, no less. How embarrassing. Drawing in another breath shook her chest with slight tremors. Something wet was running down her cheeks. She quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of her uniform. Thankfully, Irulon didn’t notice. The princess was doing her best to drain the bottle of wine in one go. And succeeding.

“Ahhh.” Irulon let out her held breath in a sharp sigh. The empty bottle rolled across the open balcony, knocking against the small lip near the railing. She wolfed down the last of the meat but, as Tess had expected, didn’t touch the rest of the plate. However, it didn’t look like she would send for more food. Her eyes were already half-lidded and she wobbled slightly in place. It was still quite early for the princess to sleep, but then again, she had mentioned barely being able to stay awake. Maybe if she got to sleep now, she would wake at a reasonable time in the morning.

“Shall we get you to bed?” Tess asked once she was sure that her voice wouldn’t tremble too much. The princess didn’t respond, but Tess knew her well enough to know what that meant. Slipping her arms behind the princess’ back and under her knees, Tess hefted her up.

Then she paused, getting her first real look of the landscape beyond the balcony’s railing. Night had fallen some time ago, but there was a great deal of light down in the distance. Down in the fields near the northern desert. Fire? And up closer near the wall, there was something going on there too. Occasional flashes of light. Magic.

“Princess Irulon, what’s going on in the city tonight? The fields look like they’re on fire!”

“‘S nothing to worry over. Brakkt left the palace with Juno and his personal knights. He’ll take care of it.”

“You’re not going to run off and cause trouble for me?”

“No,” Irulon said with a long yawn. “Bed now. Too much thinking today. My head hurts too much.”

Too much thinking? Or too much drinking? Whatever the case, all the better if she wasn’t going to run off to try to collect corpses. Really. The clean-up was such a pain. “Alright,” Tess said softly as she carried the princess back inside.

Irulon had said not to worry about it, so Tess put it completely out of her mind. Even if it was something to worry about, the fact that the Black Prince himself had gone to deal with the situation meant that nothing bad would happen to the palace. So Tess focused on her duties of preparing the princess for sleep.

With her robe already open, it was a simple matter to slip her out of it and get her beneath the silk sheets of her bed. Irulon’s eyes were shut before she had even gotten fully tucked in. Tess was a bit envious of her ability to fall asleep like that, but at the same time, couldn’t help the smile on her face. She was the only person in the whole palace that got to see Irulon like this. Everyone else only saw Princess Irulon. Tess got to see the real her.

It was why Tess had never worried. Maybe the other servants were right. Maybe Irulon had gotten rid of her past attendants. Maybe violently, maybe not. But they must have done something to deserve it. Tess would never betray her princess. Her savior. She knew just how kind Irulon truly was.

Turning back to the balcony to clean up the remains of the meal, Tess froze as something clamped around her wrist. With a foot already in the air, a light tug was more than enough to send her off balance, falling into the cloud-like bed. Arms wrapped around her and pulled her close to the princess.

“Sleep with me,” Irulon mumbled without opening her eyes.

Tess smiled, but said nothing. Neither did she move. After counting to ten in her head, she carefully slipped out of Irulon’s arms and out of her bed. This time, when she made to move, nothing grabbed her hand. “Sorry, Princess.” She couldn’t sleep. There was work to do. The empty bottle. The plate. The goblet. After that, well, she had to find something else to do. She could clean the windows, sweep the floor, and polish up the handle on the big front door. After that, well, there was always work to do in the palace.

She couldn’t sleep.

Every time Tess closed her eyes, she saw those black eyes with the white rings, peering out of the smoke of her burning village.

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005.004

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Lyria, The Grand City

Waters Street Gang

Bacco was a dog. Literally. Or figuratively? Alyssa honestly wasn’t sure which. According to Irulon, what she saw was her interpretation of someone’s soul. So it must be figurative. His dog soul that that floated behind him like some dead pet wasn’t a particularly healthy dog. More of a mangy mutt with fairly ragged fur. But at least it looked well fed.

Cid, on the other hand, had a rat sitting on his shoulder. A rat with beady green eyes, a crooked tail, and teeth just as nasty as his real ones. It was so scrawny that its tiny ribs stuck out. His soul really didn’t paint a good picture of the man it belonged to.

Still, it was better than the worm she had passed on the way back to the inn.

Everyone had some kind of animal associated with them. Cats, dogs, snakes, birds… the innkeeper had a bear half stuck in the wall behind him. No one had anything quite so fantastical as Irulon’s dragon, but Alyssa at least had some reassurance that the princess wasn’t literally a dragon hiding in human skin. There was still something off about her with her eyes and the way she acted. Hopefully nothing that would come back to bite Alyssa. If she didn’t need magic to accomplish her goals, she probably would have disappeared into the city and avoided the princess at all costs.

“Ah, look who is back!” Cid said with his disgusting smile.

Alyssa didn’t bother responding. She slumped down into the seat opposite from the two thieves, shrugging off her pack onto the floor. The entire way back, she had had this feeling that she was being followed. It had to have just been paranoia. She hadn’t been able to spot anyone either with her normal eyes or with the soul vision. Of course, the soul vision hadn’t helped her paranoia. Irulon mentioning punishments for using it had made her worried that someone would notice that she had it on. Checking herself with her phone’s front-facing camera didn’t show off any sign that she was using the spell—her eyes looked perfectly normal—but her phone also didn’t show people’s souls, so it might just not be capable of capturing supernatural effects. No one had said anything to her or had even looked at her funny, as far as she could tell. Still, she was hoping that it would wear off soon.

“Something wrong?” Bacco asked with a small frown.

“Met with Irulon. She is… quite intense.”

“Irulon?” Cid said, leaning forward. “The Irulon? She always wanders around with such fanciful adornments and no guards! You didn’t happen to borrow any, did you?”

“I didn’t steal from the Pharaoh’s daughter, if that is what you’re asking.”

“Shame. A single gemstone from her collection would make that cloak you have look like a rotten rag in comparison. Speaking of…”

“Yes, yes. I have it,” Alyssa said with a sigh. She reached for her bag, only to have Cid lurch forward and grab her wrist.

“Not here,” he hissed, glancing around the room. “Unless you want to get lynched by every cutthroat and scoundrel who sees.”

This inn was on the shadier side. But to call the other patrons cutthroats seemed in poor taste. One of the burly men at the other table even had a bunny for his soul. Unless that was the Rabbit of Caerbannog. Alyssa frowned as she stared at him. Was that blood around the bunny’s mouth? Maybe she should be a little more careful of the people around the inn. They weren’t of the good sorts. She didn’t need soul vision to tell her that. That said, she hadn’t been about to pull out the cloak in public, she had been planning on heading back to her room first.

Outwardly, Alyssa narrowed her eyes at his hand. She had an image to maintain, especially in front of Bacco—Cid didn’t seem to buy into her scariness quite so much. “Not concerned about them,” she said. “But if you insist.”

“I do insist, thank you very much.” He pulled back his hand, giving Bacco a look. One of those ‘is this person serious?’ type of looks. “Anyway. I was going to say that we’re meeting with a potential buyer this afternoon.”

“You aren’t including me in this ‘we’ are you?”

“Arranging a buyer for such a… hot item wasn’t easy. Best if it changes as few hands as possible.”

“This was not our agreement.”

“We didn’t have an agreement other than you saying that you would give it to us. Besides, you have such a handy carrying case! Where would I put it to carry it across the city?”

He did have a point there. His clothing was well suited for the hot days, open and loose. The relatively bulky cloak wouldn’t fit in his pants and his shirt was still the same vest he had on before. Bacco, being the same, wouldn’t have an easy time concealing it either. Did no one change clothing on a day-to-day basis in medieval times?

Still, while she could see his point, how hard would it be to get a box to put it in or a blanket to wrap it in? Besides that, the way the little rat over his shoulder started rubbing its grubby little paws together activated the warning alarms in her head. None of the other souls moved all that much except to follow their owner. So the fact that his was acting like a greedy little miser didn’t sit well for her.

“I have half a mind to keep the cloak and cut ties with you.” Bacco had been useful, but she couldn’t afford to not be pragmatic with her acquaintances in this strange world. At the moment, the princess was looking far more valuable than the pair of thieves. Strange and maybe unnatural, yes. Useful? Definitely.

“Now, don’t be like that. We’ve been good to you, haven’t we? Got you a room here for cheap. Bacco showed you around town. You’re going to take all that without paying us back for our kindness?”

“It was no trouble at all,” Bacco said in a mumbling voice, ducking his head. “We could just—” He cut himself off with a wince as something heavy thumped under the table. “I mean, it isn’t very proper to run off without repaying us.” There wasn’t a shred of conviction in his voice. The more she interacted with him, the more she wondered if he would have even gotten into criminal activity if it wasn’t for Cid’s influence. Either that or his natural vicious personality was completely suppressed by his fear of her.

How troublesome. She should have just not come back at all. Surely someone in this city was looking for a new employee. It didn’t matter if she had to do manual labor or more academically inclined work. Just as long as she got away from the criminals. But too late now. At this point, backing out would likely result in a fight. As long as no one used magic, she didn’t intend to lose any fights. She had three distinct advantages. One at her hip, one under her arm, and one slung over her shoulder. Technically she had a fourth, but the revolver in her backpack would be cumbersome to get to on short notice. But avoiding a fight altogether would be for the best. She didn’t want to hurt anyone if possible. Not even a rat.

“Fine.” Alyssa immediately regretted saying anything that Cid found pleasing. It made him smile. Just looking at his teeth made her nauseous. “But if this buyer of yours doesn’t take it today, no one will. This is your one chance.”

“And this one chance is all we’ll need. I promise you that. I know Svotty. He won’t turn down such appealing merchandise.”

Alyssa grabbed her pack and slipped into its straps, making sure to free her shotgun beforehand. Ignoring Bacco tensing, she looked to Cid. “I have things I need to do today still. We go now.”

“Now? But—”

“This is nonnegotiable. I came to the city for my own purposes and have exceedingly little care for your desires.” And, if this was some sort of ambush, going early would likely ruin everyone’s plans. “If you cannot rearrange your meeting with this Svotty, we’ll find a place to hide the cloak nearby. Bacco can stay and guard it to ensure that no one takes it before your scheduled meeting time.”

Cid pressed his lips into a thin line. His rat ceased its hand motions to simply glare with its green eyes. “Alright. Svotty won’t like—”

“Don’t care.”

Bacco shook his head ever so slightly when Cid glanced in his direction. That shake turned to a slight slump as Cid stood up.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t care for something to eat first?”

“Not hungry,” Alyssa lied. She hadn’t had anything to eat but her unfinished porridge earlier in the morning. Since then, she had walked all over town and spent at least two hours in the library. It was closer to dinner time now than lunch, if barely, not that she had really had lunch as of late. Over the past two weeks, she had only eaten when she stopped walking. At most, she had nibbled on some of the stale bread while moving. Her modern granola bars were still being preserved for an actual emergency.

“Very well, follow us, I suppose.” He had to nudge Bacco before they both started moving. “It isn’t too far away from here.”

“No need to act so dejected, Cid. If what you told me is true, you’ll be rich by the end of the night.”

“That is what I’m hoping for.”

Together they walked. Well, not together together. Bacco led the way while Cid walked just a step ahead of Alyssa. For her part, Alyssa paid close attention to the streets and alleys they took, not wanting to get lost if she had to escape from the thieves on her own. She had her shotgun in hand with the safety off, though she kept her finger firmly on the trigger guard and off the trigger itself.

The roads of Lyria twisted and turned. There clearly wasn’t a city planner who had laid out all the streets in nice even rows. Even when she had been closer to the center of the city near the Observatorium, nothing was neatly organized. Which was probably because of the occasional oddly shaped building, like the Observatorium, that forced roads to bend around it. That one bulge spread out like a ripple, affecting streets for miles, combining with other buildings’ footprints to make a knotted mess. It got worse the further one got. All the way out here, the roads seemed to zig and zag before they finally crossed another street, making the occasional alleys between connected buildings almost necessary to get anywhere in a timely manner.

Thankfully, Cid wasn’t trying to waste her time, per se. She was sure that they weren’t using the fastest route to their destination, but they had yet to make four right turns. Their path, while it occasionally crossed back and forth, was steadily moving away from the central palace.

The crowds were fairly thin out here as well. The market place immediately inside the gates of Lyria had been the most crowded area she had seen here and even the Observatorium had several dozen people meandering about on their daily routines. Here, while there were people around, few were traveling. Lots of people just sat about. Were they homeless? There were a few people just huddled together in a small alcove. It wasn’t actually cold yet, but they sure looked like they were freezing. One older man with a raccoon for a soul was slathering mud onto a fairly thick crack in one of the buildings. Most buildings were poorly maintained or poorly patched up, but his was especially bad. As they passed, he gave them a little glare, but didn’t otherwise say anything.

“We’re here,” Cid said, pulling Alyssa’s attention to a nondescript building three stories tall. “Welcome to the Waters Street Waterhole.”

“That’s a terrible name,” not surprised at all to find out that this was the infamous Waters Street.

It was a fairly plain place, the same brownish color that matched most every building in the area. There weren’t any cracks in the walls, to the building’s credit, but had a great deal of patch jobs. He walked up to the wooden door and knocked out a series of taps. Two then three then two. Some kind of password. A slot around eye-level pulled open for just long enough for Cid to give a small wave before it slammed shut again. It took a moment longer before the whole door opened.

A thick waft of grey smoke poured out of the opening. It wasn’t quite tobacco smoke, though it definitely smelled similar. It was a hint fruity compared to what she was used to smelling on her coworkers. The smell still made her wrinkle her nose.

“You’re early, Cid.” A man stood in the doorway with his arms folded. He wasn’t as big as Bacco, but he still had four times the muscles that Cid had. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t have a sword at his hip like Bacco did. He had a small dagger. Maybe as big as a combat knife. His soul was a one-eyed hippo, though Alyssa honestly didn’t know why it had only one eye. His real self had two and neither were fake as far as she could tell. He was definitely using both of them to look her over.

“A few things came up and we had to push the schedule forward,” Cid said with a nervous timber to his voice that hadn’t been there at any other time. “Is Svotty available now?”

He managed to tear his eyes away from Alyssa long enough to sneer at Cid. “You’re in luck. He just finished with one of the girls. Maybe he’ll be in a good enough mood to see you.”

“I always did say that my luck is one of my strongest traits.”

The guard snorted as he stepped to one side, allowing passage. “She’s a pretty one. That will buy you a little more into his good graces.”

Nothing about this place or the guard’s insinuations or mannerisms reassured Alyssa in the slightest. She was starting to think that this wasn’t the murder and rob type of ambush, but one with a potentially far worse ending. Her only solace was that no one bothered to take her shotgun as Cid ushered her through the door and into the smoke-filled building.

Now that she thought about it, it was somewhat surprising that the inn didn’t reek of narcotics like this place. Maybe the innkeeper disliked it. Or maybe cigarette equivalents were more difficult to acquire in this day and age. Which made a whole lot more sense. The fact that only magic could start fires—allegedly—meant that not everyone would even have access to smoking wherever they wished. Availability had been one of the main reasons why opium dens had been a thing in her world. The same could be true here, except for fire being the scarce resource.

Though it couldn’t be that scarce in the city. The inn would surely have a fire constantly lit in a back room.

It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the relative darkness of the room. There were lanterns set about, but they really didn’t do much more than a candle for their local area. Blinking away a few spots in her eyes, her frown turned to a deep scowl. “This is a brothel.”

Half-naked, or in two cases, all-naked women wandered around a wide open room, carrying trays of… something between tables occupied by men. Occasional plates of food had been set out at the tables, but most every man had a long pipe, at least as long as her arm, as they leaned back in their booths. One man had a woman bent over on all fours, whipping her with a riding crop. Muffled noises came from that corner of the room every time he struck her. She must have had some kind of gag in her mouth.

Alyssa wasn’t sure if she should be glad that the room was so dim or if she should just start firing her shotgun around the room.

No. She might hit one of the working girls. And this establishment might be perfectly legal. Probably not. It had a knock-based password on the door and no signs or advertisements decorating the exterior. A legitimate business would try to attract customers. This place was clearly trying for an unassuming look.

For now, she just grit her teeth as Cid put a hand on her shoulder and led her through the main floor. He took her to a door opposite the main entrance where they entered a narrow hallway. A hallway thankfully lacking most of the smoke from the main room. She had been feeling a bit light headed just from the small pass-through. Here and now, she needed to keep a clear head above all else.

They continued on past several rooms, all with closed doors. Alyssa tried to ignore the sounds coming from inside. She walked robotically, mind still reeling from the sights and smells in the main room. Cid took her downstairs to another long hall, below ground level. The air was even clearer down here than in the upper hallway—again, thankfully—and the area was better lit as well, with brighter lamps burning around the hall and rooms. It seemed more of a place for employees than customers. Walking down the lower hall, she passed by a kitchen with some actually good smelling food over the fire, a waiting or break room for the girls, and several closed doors. There were more guards down here as well, one stationed at the break room and another at a lonesome door at the end of the hall.

A door that Cid and Bacco were heading straight toward.

“Heya, Bennie. Heard the boss might be available.” Cid rubbed his hands together, mimicking his rat-soul, though the way he moved looked far more nervous than miserly.

The guard, like the one up top, had a knife on his hip. Not a full sword, which Alyssa could understand now. Trying to fight with a sword like Bacco’s in a narrow hallway would just wind up with the blade clanging off the wall. A spear would work better than a knife. They could just aim the pointed end toward the hall and run down anyone trying to get in.

He glared. Most people glared at Cid, Alyssa couldn’t help but notice. Including herself, for that matter. He was just a very glarable person. “When he has me break your legs and toss you out back, don’t blame me.” The man’s voice was softer than she would have expected from someone whose face was covered in scars. Rapping his knuckles against the door, he called out. “Hey boss, Cid, Bacco, and some girl here.”

A muffled “What?” came from the other side of the door.

“Cid, Bacco, and some girl are here. She looks like some traveler.”

“I heard ya the first time, idiot. What do ‘em want?”

This time, Cid responded, taking a step closer as he shouted through the door. “Heya, Svotty. I’m here with that proposition we discussed earlier. You remember, right?”

This Svotty didn’t respond right away. He mumbled and grumbled a bit, but nothing that could be understood from this side of the door. Even Cid and the guard glanced at each other and shrugged. “Uh, boss?” the guard said.

“Let ‘em in, let ‘em in.”

So he did. The guard opened the door, letting a cloud of smoke out into the hallway. This smoke lacked the fruity taste of the smoke up above. Alyssa actually coughed a little as she waved a hand in front of her face. It didn’t help.

“Well don’t just stand there.”

Cid steered her into the room before she could say anything. Bacco followed a moment later, having to duck to get under the low doorway. “This is the girl I told you about, boss,” Cid said, stopping her right in front of a thick desk.

Alyssa got her first good look at the boss. Svotty.

He was a portly man. More wide than tall with a squat, pig-like face. His clothes were larger still, looking baggy on his bulky frame. Every single one of his fingers had thick golden rings reaching from his knuckles to the first joint. He wore his hair shaved to a fine stubble. Just behind him, an equally portly pig hovered in the air. His soul.

How fitting.

Despite all the smoke in the room, he didn’t have a cigarette, cigar, or pipe anywhere on him or on the wooden desk he sat behind. It took her a moment to notice the little black urn on the corner of the desk. Incense, though that wasn’t necessarily incense burning. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be healthy to breathe in this much smoke.

Before she could turn her gaze back to Svotty, she noticed a smear on the ground. A red smear. Two sets of footprints had stepped in it, one barefoot and the other with some flat-soled shoe. The bare feet left a trail that dragged off to the office’s door while the other set disappeared behind the desk.

“Don’t mind that now, got a bit overexcited earlier,” Svotty said with a hearty chuckle, rolling his stomach. He leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk. Cid mirrored the laugh, though didn’t sound quite so happy about it. Bacco just grimaced and looked away.

Alyssa found herself clenching her teeth together. She could put two and two together. When the guard up top had mentioned him finishing with one of the girls, she had assumed sex. After seeing the main brothel floor, that assumption had only been reinforced. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if the poor girl had even survived. It wasn’t a lot of blood, true, but it could have been stifled with a rag or she had simply left before it got everywhere. Even if it wasn’t lethal on its own, getting a bad infection in this day and age would almost certainly be a death sentence. If there were magic spells to cure infections, a working girl likely wouldn’t have access to them, either ability-wise or financially.

Something hot burned under her collar. Anger. Svotty’s eyes looked over her, appreciating everything they saw. Her fingers tightened around her shotgun as she tried to keep calm.

“You did good this time, Cid. She has a pretty face. A pretty face gets me a pretty price,” he said with another boisterous round of laughter.

With a slight haze in her mind, Alyssa moved mechanically. Almost automatically. She brought the butt of the shotgun to her shoulder, moved her finger off the trigger guard, and squeezed.

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005.003

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Lyria, The Grand City

The Observatorium

Lyria was not as filthy as Alyssa had imagined a medieval city to be. Maybe that was a bit rude or insensitive to the people who lived here, but just the fact that they lacked indoor plumbing had to mean they didn’t have decent sanitation. But Lyria had a river that ran right next to it. A river that apparently collected a great deal of waste. She could only hope that they took their drinking water from upstream. Far far upstream. According to Bacco, there were cisterns around that collected rainwater like gigantic man-made wells, but who knew how clean those were.

Once again, Alyssa felt the need to reorder her priorities. It would be awfully difficult to research counter-angel magic if she died of dysentery. Could magic purify water? Or create it from nothing? Either one would be a most welcome change and save her hundreds of matches boiling every scrap of water she came across. Hopefully she would find out soon enough.

“This is the magic academy?”

“The Royal Observatorium of Demonic, Divine, and Miraculous Phenomena. Though nobody calls it that.”

“Yes, it is quite the mouthful.”

The building was smaller than she had expected. Larger than the surrounding buildings, but didn’t even come up to half the height of the tall towers or the central pyramidal building—which was apparently the royal palace where the pharaoh lived. Interesting that their ruler was a pharaoh. Given the more European-medieval bent of everything else she had seen, she would have suspected a king or queen instead. Then again, a majority of the names she had come across weren’t exactly European either. Aziz, Yzhemal, Lazhar.

Were regional differences on Earth even relevant on this world? Probably not. Still, Alyssa thought of things in terms that were familiar to her.

And most of the buildings in Lyria looked like they had been copied right out of an Egyptian history book—now that she was actually looking, things like that were obvious. She hadn’t paid much attention to it before hearing about this pharaoh. Lots of flat roofs, all the exterior walls were made from stone of some sort. Sandstone or maybe adobe bricks. On the other hand, the magical academy had more of a Roman design to it. Lots of white marble pillars, a tall domed roof, and three blocky wings pulling away from the central domed area.

Three was a reoccurring pattern that Alyssa had noticed within Lyria. Three towers on the borders of the city. Three branches on the royal palace. Three wings on the academy. Even three items that the academy primarily observed, judging by its name. One of which had her somewhat concerned.

Miracles were almost synonymous with magic, from what she had read of Aziz’s book. There were a few nuances that made them different, mostly regarding who or what was doing the spell casting. Divine obviously referred to angels. Or Tenebrael, if other angels were unknown to these people. But demonic? If angels were evil soul-eating absurdly powerful creatures obsessed with maintaining some nonsensical order in the world, she did not want to find out what real demons were like.

“Can just anyone walk in?” There were people on the street passing back and forth on their way to whatever occupied their lives. None looked up to the building despite its out-of-place architecture. The majority of the people must be locals, entirely used to the magical academy. In the ten minutes she had spent observing the Observatorium, not a single person had entered. No one had left either, for whatever that was worth.

Next to her, Bacco shrugged. “This is the closest I’ve ever been.”

“Well, let us find out, shall we?” With one final adjustment of her backpack, Alyssa headed across the street.

Only to freeze.

Alyssa’s head whipped around, scanning the crowd. There weren’t any crosswalks, but then again, there wasn’t any traffic either. Every now and again, a horse drawn carriage—carrying either boxes or people—would pass through the streets, but they were both infrequent and slow. No forty-five mile an hour car that she had to worry about blowing through a red light.

But the horses and people didn’t make her stop. Just in the very corner of her eye, she had thought she saw something catch the light of day. Something white-gold. The same color of Iosefael’s wings.

No matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see any angels, either among the crowd or flying overhead. There were monsters. Elves it seemed. Tall, pointed ears, fairly lithe. Most had a bluish hue to their skin. Not a one walked by without chains. Sometimes around their wrists. Sometimes around their necks.

Slaves, apparently. She had asked Bacco upon first seeing one. They were stronger than they looked and masterful craftsmen. Highly desired by the nobility, according to Bacco. He had apparently encountered one up close in a whorehouse, the thought of which had Alyssa scowling. She didn’t mind so much the idea of a red light district, but an elf would almost certainly be there entirely unwillingly.

Pushing the thought out of her head, Alyssa continued on. There was no sign of Iosefael and Bacco’s constant fidgeting was getting irritating.

Just as she reached the bottom of the steps to the main entrance, someone else started climbing toward the Observatorium. A younger girl, maybe eighteen at the oldest, with dark hair and wearing an excess of gold. Gold earrings, gold bracelets, a single gold armband on her left arm that looked like a snake wrapped around her bicep.

Maybe this woman was who she had mistaken for Iosefael.

Behind Alyssa, Bacco drew in a short, clipped breath. “Someone you know?” she asked quietly.

“Irulon. The Pharaoh’s only daughter.”

“Really?” Alyssa focused on the girl, memorizing her features. It might not be important. She might never see her again, but it could be useful to know her face. The princess—was that the proper term for a pharaoh’s daughter?—had darker skin roughly on par with Alyssa’s with sharp and pointed features to her face. Her eyes were either tattooed or had makeup drawn on in a mirror image of the designs around Tenebrael’s eyes. The colorful dress she wore was definitely befitting of her royal status. The yellows, greens, and violets were absolutely unmarred by dirt and filth that clung to pretty much everything that existed in this world.

Looking around, Alyssa found herself confused. “Shouldn’t she be accompanied by guards of some sort?” True, this wasn’t exactly the shady section of the city. It was relatively close to the palace, past it and on the eastern section of the city, a long way from the inn Cid and Bacco had taken her to which was more in the north-west area. But with how the guard at the entrance to the city had accosted her, she would have thought that someone as presumably important as the princess would have a whole swarm of people protecting her.

Unless she didn’t need protection. Alyssa couldn’t help but notice a thick tome attached to the princess’ hip by shiny brass chains. It was probably filled with spells. A simple research notebook like Aziz’s wouldn’t need to be chained to her hip.

“I don’t know for certain, but rumor has it that she is something of an outcast among her family. This is the first time I’ve ever seen her this close. The only other times I have seen her are when someone in the royal family is making a proclamation to the people. She generally stands in the background looking bored.”

“So, a black sheep then.” Interesting. Ultimately irrelevant at the moment. She started up the steps herself, only to pause again as Bacco put a hand on her shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

Alyssa took a deep breath, closing her eyes to gather herself. Act. That was all she had to do. Act. Opening her eyes, she shot a dark glare at Bacco. “I came here for magical knowledge. The princess, or whatever she is, and her academics don’t matter to me.”

“But—”

“Is she going to have us arrested for entering the same building as her?”

“Maybe not you, but I’m not exactly an upstanding citizen, if you haven’t noticed.”

Alyssa looked him up and down. He still wore the same somewhat ragged clothing that he had on the night before. No shirt, just an undone vest. His hair was a ragged nest of black dreadlocks—not the modern, styled sort but free formed mats made from neglect. Comparing him to the people walking around, he definitely stood out. Not in a good way either. Even if a fraction of the other people had similar hair care techniques, they at least wore proper clothing. Being in the wealthier section of the city, there were few tears and snags in their far more expensive-looking outfits.

For Alyssa herself, she was wearing modern clothing. Not any of the fancy dresses that she had brought under the assumption that they could be sold, but at least it looked decent. Though she was in pants. The princess was in a dress, as were several of the women passing about. Would that be a problem?

If it wasn’t for her pack, she could probably walk in without worry. As it was now, she looked like some sort of servant, carrying the heavy load. She considered handing it off to Bacco and having him wait here. With how scared he was of her, he probably wouldn’t try anything. But if he did, she would be out so much. It wasn’t a chance she could take unless she wanted to end up destitute on the streets. Even returning to her home wouldn’t be easy without any supplies.

Maybe if he followed her up, she could claim that he was her servant? But that still had the same problem of him potentially running off. And it required him to play along.

Alyssa shook her head. “Just wait here.” She started up the steps again before pausing and reconsidering. “Or don’t. If you don’t like being here, I’m sure I can find my way back to that inn again. We can meet up there later on. Either way, I’m going to check this place out now.”

He fidgeted a bit but didn’t make a move to follow as Alyssa climbed the stairs. There weren’t a lot of them. Just enough to raise the entire building a few feet off the ground. However, each step, while they didn’t go upwards much, was wide. A few footsteps to cross a single one of the stair steps. It had the side effect of recessing the main entrance to directly below the dome, well away from the street. The ends of two of the wings stretched all the way out to the street front.

The stairs led up to a wide open doorway. There were doors, tall ones at least thrice the needed size for Bacco, but they had been propped open. Welcoming. A good sign, hopefully. An even better sign was the utter lack of guards. There wasn’t even a receptionist. The central room had several other doors leading off to the three wings and another pair of doors that looked to go to courtyards in the rear areas between the wings. A pair of spiral staircases went up into a floor above the high ceiling of the central room. The feet of the princess disappeared up one of the staircases just as Alyssa glanced up to see.

That wasn’t to say that the circular area was an empty space. Glass display cases held all manner of items. From mundane wooden poles that might have been walking sticks—or magic staffs?—to something that Alyssa could only identify as the severed head of Medusa.

Wondering if it was real, Alyssa couldn’t help but wander closer. The thing’s jaw was slack and open, displaying a full set of sharp teeth behind the scaly skin of its face. Its eyes were closed, thankfully. True to modern Earth depictions of Medusa, it lacked hair, with thick tentacles sticking out in all directions instead, each mounted to a point in its display case, suspending the head in the air. She couldn’t actually tell if the tentacles had been snakes as the ends had all been cut off, but it seemed likely.

Tearing herself away from the somewhat morbid display, Alyssa found herself scowling. Would it kill these people to label some of the doors? There were no signs for directions. No arrows saying that lecture rooms twelve through thirty seven occupied one wing. No marker for the library or archives. Hopefully they had a library. That was probably something that she should have found out about a long time ago.

With five choices, three wings and the two staircases, she could really only pick randomly. To start with, Alyssa headed up the same staircase that the princess had gone up. Libraries would be in the central location, right? That was how it worked at her university. If it wasn’t, then there was at least one person up there who might be willing to answer a few questions.

Alyssa slowed as she neared the second floor, stopping completely once she could peek over the top of the floor.

It looked like she had chosen correctly. Once again, the area was one big room. This time, the circular walls were covered in shelves. Shelves full of books. And scrolls! Like actual rolled up sheets of paper. There were even a few stone tablets here and there. Tall windows surrounding the entire room let enough light in to allow for easy reading. Instead of display cases, the main floor was filled with benches, chairs, tables, and desks.

And people were seated at most of them. Some people were up by the shelves, browsing the texts. Pretty much everyone was dressed well enough that even if Alyssa ditched the backpack, she would still stand out like a sore thumb. None were quite so opulent as the princess, but there was a great deal of gold, opals, rubies, sapphires, and so on adorning all the women. In comparison, the men were fairly plain looking. Well dressed, but not looking like they had just robbed a jewelry store.

Alyssa ducked back below, moving down a few steps and hoping that nobody had seen her. Just waltzing in looking like a vagrant was sure to get her… well, glared at if not thrown out. As far as she could tell, there still weren’t any guards. Then again, if any of these people were Rank Two arcanists, they might not need guards. She really needed someone she could trust to hold onto her backpack. Short of Lazhar or Yzhemal randomly showing up, she didn’t have anyone.

Right on the steps, Alyssa dug through her backpack. All the way at the very bottom was a small wooden box. Her mother’s jewelry box. Alyssa didn’t have much in the way of jewelry herself. It had never suited her. She didn’t even have her ears pierced. Tattoos, yes. She had a tribal pattern tattoo on her right shoulder and arm, covered at the moment by her long sleeves. But the most jewelry she owned was a ring or two and maybe a bracelet. Nothing gaudy and golden either.

Her mother, on the other hand, had a whole box filled with things that Alyssa wasn’t sure she had ever seen her wear. Maybe she just enjoyed collecting it. Whatever the case, the collection would come in handy here and now. Alyssa started slipping on bracelets, rings, and a fairly heavy golden necklace with a few jade stones hanging from its chain. It probably wasn’t real gold, but she wasn’t planning on letting an appraiser get too close to it anytime soon. She sprayed on just a hint of perfume. Just in case she smelled like sweat or worse. Alyssa didn’t think she did too much, but it was hard to tell. For just a moment, she considered tossing on the purple cloak but decided against it in the end. It was more of a traveler’s cloak than anything one would wear to school. Not only that, but she was still unsure of the exact connotations behind it being a noble’s cloak.

She wasn’t trying to look like a noble. Just rich. The princess would probably know every noble in the city by sight.

The backpack was still a problem, but aside from leaving it lying in the middle of the floor, she really didn’t have much choice. If questioned on it, she would have to come up with some excuse. Slipping it back on, Alyssa took a deep breath. The number one key to getting away with things was to act like said things were completely natural. Like she was supposed to be here. She put on a calm smile and, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, walked back up the steps without hesitation.

Alyssa tried to avoid looking at anyone in particular. She didn’t want anyone who chanced a glance in her direction to think she was staring. Instead, she headed straight toward an empty section of the shelves. Empty of people, that was. There were plenty of books. The books were labeled on their spines in English, thankfully. Their titles weren’t all that promising.

Aetherial Calculations in Relation to Divinity. Constructing Arrays: Concepts and Connections. Practical Methods of Physical Manipulation.

It was like browsing the textbooks at university. Couldn’t they just have a book on transportation magic? Or maybe Magic Spells to Kill Divine Beings. Even just Water Magic Basics. Maybe she was in the wrong section. Practical Methods of Physical Manipulation looked the best out of the dozen or so titles she had read. She pulled it off the shelf and turned around to find a place to sit.

Her breath caught in her throat. She almost lost her composure. A good quarter of the room had their eyes on her. Most people were bent over their own books, but not everyone. The ones who had been getting books, the ones who weren’t so focused on their studies, the ones who were softly speaking with one another, they had all noticed her. With another deep breath, getting herself under control, Alyssa ignored them. Unfortunately, there weren’t many empty seats that were also isolated from the students. She really didn’t want to sit near anyone and invite conversation. The only really available seats were near the princess. Irulon had a whole bubble around herself that nobody dared to pass, giving her a good five feet of empty space.

Should I try sitting nearby? Irulon looked busy. The table she sat at had a three books set out that she was looking between as she wrote something down on a fourth tome in the middle of all of them. The princess might not even notice Alyssa’s presence if she sat on the edge of the bubble.

Plan in mind, Alyssa carefully approached, moving briskly but trying to act unhurried. The moment she crossed the threshold of the bubble, she realized she had made a mistake. Everyone gasped. Not obvious gaping gasps, but when thirty or so people all drew in even a small breath at once, it made some noise.

Irulon blinked twice, looked up, glanced around, and quickly spotted Alyssa.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” Alyssa said as politely as she could, hoping her smile wasn’t too strained. “Is this seat taken?”

The princess looked around again, slowly this time. As she did so, everyone her gaze crossed immediately tried to look like they were doing something else. Reading, browsing books, or simply staring at the ceiling—which, now that Alyssa noticed, was fairly ornate with some Sistine Chapel-like mural covering most of it, though this mural depicted a certain terrible angel instead of anything she was familiar with. When Irulon finally looked back to Alyssa, she smiled. “Not at all. Feel free.”

There was something about that smile, about the way she spoke. It should have been a kindly gesture, but it sent a chill down Alyssa’s spine. She couldn’t put a finger on why, exactly. The smile didn’t look fake and her words were said in a jovial tone. Maybe it was too jovial. Too much genuineness to her smile. Her eyes lacked the curiosity that the other students had even as she stared at Alyssa.

“Thanks,” Alyssa said, trying to ignore it. She shrugged off her backpack, tucked it under the marble bench she had chosen to sit on, and started flipping through the book she had taken. All the while, she tried her best to not look up and stare at the princess.

The very first thing she noticed was the lettering in the book. English, thankfully. More interestingly, it was all hand-written. Each letter differed from their neighbors ever so slightly despite the scribe having taken great care to make everything as uniform as possible. In her head, Alyssa knew that books had been written by hand long before the printing press came into being. It was still somewhat of a novelty to see firsthand.

Once she got over the lettering, she started looking at the actual contents.

The book might actually be more useful than she had initially thought. First of all, it had spell diagrams that Aziz’s book lacked. Most were Rank One, but there were Rank Two and even a few Rank Three spells as well. Secondly, apparently physical manipulation meant anything that physically existed. That didn’t just mean boxes, wood, or dirt, though moving around such things was possible in a variety of ways. There was one spell simply titled Draw Water. According to the text, it could draw a stream of water from a larger source. And only water. Did that mean that it would leave behind fish? Dirt? What about bacteria and contaminants? It could very well be the spell she had been looking for—and on her first book no less—but without a microscope, she wasn’t sure how to actually test it out.

Aside from things that could be done with machinery, there was one Rank Three spell that actually shortened the distance between two points for someone to travel along. Just thinking about how that was supposed to work actually hurt Alyssa’s head. Yet there were several pages dedicated to explaining the subject.

Flipping through each of the spell diagrams, Alyssa couldn’t find any that manipulated time as Tenebrael had earlier in the day, but perhaps that was a higher ranked spell. Maybe time didn’t physically exist, so it wouldn’t be in this book. Still, manipulating distance could be invaluable. If she could make a shortcut all the way back to her house… well, she would have a relatively safe place to store things such as her pack. Though that might be a little problematic. The furthest distance anyone had ever shrank, according to the book, was no bigger than a room’s size. Even if that unspecified room had been as large as this library, that was still a far cry from the two week journey to Teneville.

Alyssa opened up her backpack and started to pull out Aziz’s satchel. In order to test these all later, she needed to write them down. But she thought better of it. As it was, she could still be kicked out at any moment. She didn’t dare look up, but she could still feel plenty of eyes watching her. Writing down all the spells one by one could take all day. Especially while ensuring that she didn’t make a mistake in replicating the spell designs and all the runic text associated with them. She was sure to be kicked out before then.

Taking a slight risk, Alyssa pulled out her phone and started snapping pictures of each spell diagram. She put a caption on each, just a short description of what the spell was supposed to do. Draw water, shrink distances, decrease weight, and even a Rank Three illusory class spell that was supposed to disguise an object without changing its function. How exactly that last one worked, she might have to experiment with. If she could disguise her backpack as a fancy cloak and combine it with the decreased weight spell, carrying it around all day might actually be feasible.

She had snapped up a good twenty spells before she felt something. Just a slight change in the air around her. A slight darkening of the book’s pages as a shadow came over them. Alyssa looked up and immediately let out a short squeak from the back of her throat. Irulon was standing over her, staring.

“That’s an interesting trinket. I am unable to identify the spells that make it work.”

“W-well,” Alyssa stuttered, wracking her mind to come up with some explanation. “Some folks back home took a rock and tricked it into thinking by flattening and firing lighting through it.” Thank you internet for the best description of computers to give to someone in a magical society.

“I would like to perform some analysis, if you please.” She phrased it like a request, but Alyssa couldn’t hear anything but an order in the princess’ voice. The way she was already reaching out to take it only cemented that feeling.

Alyssa drew back. “Sorry,” she said, “but it is keyed to me and won’t work properly for anyone else.”

Irulon’s eyes shifted. The sclera turned black. In fact, her entire eyes turned black save for two white rings on the inner and outer edge of her irises. It was over in an instant, only being a slight flicker that might have been nothing more than a trick of the light. Her eyes were back to normal human eyes with pale violet irises.

For a moment, she frowned. It didn’t last. “That’s a shame,” she said with a sudden smile more serene than any Alyssa had ever seen. The way she leaned in closer, towering as she stood, just lit Alyssa’s nerves on fire. “I must admit, I know most every Obsevatorium attendee, but I don’t believe I have seen you before. Your face and complexion indicate local parentage, but your attire…” Irulon trailed off as she looked over Alyssa’s clothing.

Alyssa ran a suddenly dry tongue over her lips, trying to get a little bit of moisture back in her mouth before choking on her own words. “America,” she spat out as soon as she felt able. “I’m from a town called America.” It was a vague, generic response, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t like anyone here would recognize any place she named.

“Haven’t heard of it,” Irulon said with a musical hum, confirming Alyssa’s thoughts. “I know the names of all villages between Lyria and the Fortress of Pandora. It must be far.”

“More than you could imagine.”

“Well—”

Whatever the princess had been about to say got cut off by a bell ringing. Not modern school bells or even church chimes, but a heavy bass ringing loud and deep enough to shake the walls. The princess remained where she was, leering over Alyssa, but whatever spell had enraptured the other students broke. Loud, relative to the near silence the library had been before, discussions cropped up everywhere around the room as they started replacing books on the shelves and folding up their notebooks.

“Princess?” A mousy girl with brown hair and far paler skin stepped closer, though she maintained her distance enough to preserve Irulon’s bubble. “Shall I tell Administrator Devo that you will be missing his lecture?”

Irulon finally took a step back, twisting her neck and shoulders enough to elicit noisy pops. “I will be there, Caressa, though I may be late. Inform him of that, if you please.”

“Of course,” Caressa said with a deep bow that had her long hair swooping down to nearly touch the floor. She backed away without properly righting herself and started running to the stairs.

Everyone else in the room seemed to take that as their cue to get out. Their efforts to pack up doubled and soon enough, the library was completely empty.

Except for Alyssa and Irulon. Alyssa couldn’t help but rest her hand on the grip of her pistol. Killing royalty would probably land her in some extraordinary trouble, but she couldn’t help it. There was something very very wrong with the princess.

Irulon looked back down at Alyssa, this time without any of the invasive posturing. She just smiled and spoke with the same happy tone she had used when Alyssa asked if she could have a seat. “You aren’t a student here.” At Alyssa’s shake of her head, she nodded. “I thought not. The administrators won’t be happy about that, you know. Most everyone here paid exorbitant prices to be given the honor of being lectured by said administrators in their great orations.” Her voice, though still toned to be pleasant, had a hint of snide sarcasm as she mentioned the administrators. “Dreadful.”

“The doors were wide open. I figured anyone was welcome.”

“The administrators like to show off their students’ prowess and accomplishments. But the artifacts on display should be protected against theft and the rooms protected from entry by those not inducted. You should have been unable to pass through.”

Alyssa didn’t say anything. She hadn’t known that there were any protections, presumably of the magical variety. There hadn’t been any signs or warnings. It made sense though. People didn’t just leave things unguarded. Especially not things valuable enough that they would be put under glass cases. As such, she didn’t have an answer for how she got past them. Of course, she had been doing all sorts of strange things. Even two separate angels had been confused about how she could see them. And according to Aziz’s book, no one got magic right on their first or second try. Not even Rank Zero spells.

“I see,” Irulon said. Alyssa had never answered her implied question. “You have no magical training. You have cast spells, but nothing impressive with what you were copying from the book.” Her fingers brushed over its pages, but her eyes didn’t leave Alyssa. “A tutor outside the Observatorium would not be out of the question.”

“None.”

“Hm.” Her eyes flicked to Aziz’s satchel. “Your tutor was a failed student. There is no shame in admitting that. You were able to cast the meager spells he had to offer and found yourself wanting more. Some of those you copied were Rank Three spells. Your desire to cast and your ability to cast might not be equal.”

Alyssa licked her lips. Bringing the bag of a student who had been kicked out not so long ago might have been yet another poor decision that she hadn’t fully thought through. But Irulon didn’t seem to care that much. Her focus was more on whether or not Alyssa could cast higher level spells. Licking her lips again, she said, “Won’t know until I try.”

“Ah hah, I like that attitude. So many people here can’t cast a Rank Two spell after a few tries then just never try another Rank Two again, calling themselves Rank One arcanists for the rest of their lives.” She hummed again, pulled up the book chained to her hip, and started flipping through pages. She stopped around halfway through and, with a light tug, pulled free a card just like those in Aziz’s collection. Alyssa tensed, expecting a spell to be cast on her, but Irulon had other plans. She held out the card for Alyssa to take.

It had a continuous spiral on it, along with plenty of angelic runes. Though the spiral wasn’t complete. It had been cut straight in half through the middle and both sides were offset, making the lines not match up. The spell wasn’t one that Alyssa recognized from her admittedly small reservoir of magical knowledge.

“What does it do?” she asked without taking the spell card.

“Spectral Sight. It is a Rank Three Death spell that allows the arcanist to view the state of souls. It is considered extremely invasive and can be punished harshly if you’re caught using it around unwilling people. However, it is also one of the few Rank Three spells I have that won’t have dire consequences for me if you fail to use it properly. Or succeed in using it, for that matter.”

Alyssa frowned, not taking it still. “You’re not going to have me arrested for using on you, are you?”

Irulon let out a light giggle. As with everything else she did, it just had too much happiness for it to be natural. “If you succeed, I’ll ensure you can come here without being bothered by students or staff. If you fail… we’ll go with your suggestion! Some time in the stocks will teach you to intrude on this noble place of learning.”

Alyssa couldn’t help but shudder. She honestly couldn’t tell if the princess was kind or cruel. But she had to take the chance. Plucking the spell card from the princess’ fingers, she looked over its offset spiral. “What do souls look like?” she asked, already having something of an idea. That liquid-like mist that Tenebrael pulled out of the deceased had to be souls.

“No one has any idea what actual souls look like. This spell views the state of souls, which not only is different for everyone who uses the spell, but is different for the viewed as well. And it can change over time. Some people see an aura of colors. Some see familiar objects that they liken to a variety of derangements or attributes. A cracked mirror might indicate a deep and ingrained hate for oneself, for example.”

Maybe more of a personality test than their actual souls then. With that in mind, Alyssa closed her eyes and concentrated, just as she had when trying out her other spells. This time, instead of thinking about fire or light, she thought about souls. A much more abstract concept. The mist sounded like it could show up, but now she was thinking about the hundreds of internet personality tests that existed back on Earth. Which fictional character are you? What is your spirit animal? Ten questions that will determine your favorite color! Vapid, silly quizzes that Alyssa had nonetheless taken more often than she would like to admit, mostly in her teenage years.

The card vanished. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel it there one moment then not the next. It had worked then? Slowly, Alyssa opened her eyes.

And stilled, barely wanting to risk a single breath.

The library room was large. About as big as basketball gymnasium, though squared and with the corners rounded off. Alyssa and the princess were not near one of the walls, but close enough that the majority of the room was behind Irulon’s back.

Most of that space was occupied by a dragon. A great winged dragon made of wispy black smoke, glaring down at Alyssa with all its sharp teeth on full display. Its eyes were black with two rings of light, just like Irulon’s eyes had been for that brief instant earlier. The princess herself stood just beneath the dragon’s head, standing with her arms crossed over her chest as she stared down at Alyssa with a serene expression. “It worked! Rank Three without even specializing,” she said with a sudden clap of her hands. “I’m so happy. It would have broken my heart to have had to fill the stockades.”

Alyssa drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out slow and steady. She didn’t believe the princess in the slightest. But the dragon was just an illusion. It wasn’t real. Looking closer to its legs and belly, it passed right through the desks and benches. The real question, what was Irulon? Was she a dragon? Or was it some personality quiz nonsense that Alyssa was seeing the answer to but not the questions? What did a dragon represent? Avarice? Power?

She wished she would have snapped a picture of the spell card before consuming it. Then she could have tested it later on Bacco and gotten some comparison. Though, depending on how long it lasted, maybe she could get out to the street and observe a passer-by for a few moments. If everyone showed up as monsters or animals, then there probably was significantly less to worry about.

“Your pupils are dilating. A fear response. Whatever you see cannot hurt you. It is merely an illusion.”

Alyssa forced her eyes down to the real Irulon. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just wasn’t expecting to see… a triangle. Glowing green and spinning rapidly above your head. It’s quite pretty.” If Irulon really was a dragon, masquerading as a human in a city that supposedly hated monsters, mentioning as such might be dangerous.

“Good. As per our agreement, I’ll speak with the administrators. I doubt they’ll be pleased if you try to show up for lectures, but you will have unrestricted access to this library. Though it might be a few days. Why not return next week… I just realized, I never got your name with all the excitement.”

“Alyssa.”

“Alyssa,” Irulon repeated. “What a lovely name. Well, Alyssa, if you’ll excuse me, I have lectures to attend, administrators to thre—talk to, and research to delve into. I expect to see you here this time in a week. Don’t disappoint me now.”

Choosing not to comment on the princess’ slip of the tongue, Alyssa just watched as Irulon walked past her to the nearest staircase. The dragon followed after her, though it didn’t walk or even fly. It just glided around, passing half through the walls and then the floors as Irulon descended. Alyssa waited until the tips of its wings were well below the floor.

Only then did she release a great sigh of relief. Maybe that was enough magic for the day. Her phone had a bunch of spells that she could look over. That should be enough to hold her for a week. As scary as Irulon had been just now, she couldn’t pass up that offer to use the library. One week. Nothing more today. While the room was empty and she could probably stick around, it might be trouble if one of those administrators spotted her. Deciding to leave, she removed her jewelry, piece by piece, and replaced them in the jewelry box.

Hoping that taking off her adornments bought enough time for the lower lobby to empty itself of princesses and anyone else, Alyssa hefted up her pack and quickly made her way out of the library, through the display cases, down the steps, and onto the streets.

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005.002

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Lyria, The Grand City

Poor Porridge

Alyssa shoveled spoonful after spoonful of warm porridge into her mouth. After two weeks of living off nothing but stale bread and the occasional soupy stew at villages, having something with a bit more sustenance than water was almost making her drool. She could understand Yzhemal’s complaints about her attitude toward good food much better now.

Once again, Alyssa had her back to a wall, seated in a corner of the inn’s dining area underneath the second floor balcony where she could watch both entrances to the room. As it turned out, Cid and Bacco had not been leading her to an ambush. Neither had she been murdered in her sleep—though said sleep had hardly been satisfying with how she had kept one eye open all night. It was a dingy little place with tiny rooms. She had thought Yzhemal’s inn had been a bit filthy, but compared to this place, his inn was fit for kings. At least it had individual rooms. None of the villages she had stayed in on the way to Lyria had offered her any privacy. There was a larger communal room here, but Alyssa had shilled out the extra coins in the name of isolation.

As a larger man ducked through the main entrance, Alyssa slowed her eating. Bacco stood up straight and glanced around the room until he spotted her. With a nervous lick of his lips, he walked over and carefully sat in the seat on the other side of the table. The wood creaked, but held firm despite his weight.

“I take it you’re here for the cloak?” Alyssa asked as she set down the wooden spoon. “I’ll not go back on my word, but I would prefer to finish my meal first.” Her backpack was actually on the floor right next to her. There was no way that she was going to leave it in her room where anyone could wander in and loot it. At the same time, she wasn’t about to pull the cloak out in such a public room.

“Actually, Cid has some people to speak with and some arrangements to make first. Moving such a sensitive article requires preparation and care. He would prefer if you keep it for now.”

Alyssa frowned at the larger man. It might all be a bluff, but the more she heard about it, the less she wanted it. Aziz really had dropped a bomb on her. There probably hadn’t been any ill intent behind the gift. Maybe he had thought that she wouldn’t leave Teneville much. After finding out—incorrectly—that she was an arcanist, he probably had figured that it wouldn’t be an issue for her to have. Obviously that wasn’t so. “That wasn’t the agreement.” Alyssa pressed her lips together. “You were to take it off my hands last night. If I am to keep it, I expect compensation.”

“That can be arranged.” His response came quick and snappy. Was that sweat beading on his forehead? Whatever he thought she was really worked as an advantage to her. Her funds were practically gone. She only had a few of the bronze bars left. Getting a few silver pieces for this cloak would make it not a complete waste, even if it was worth several gold.

Nodding, Alyssa picked up her spoon. But Bacco just sat there and stared. It was a bit awkward being the only one eating. Especially while being stared at. “Was there something else you needed?”

“What are you planning on doing in the city?”

Alyssa quirked her head and considered telling him to mind his own business. But was there really much harm in telling him? She might be able to get some information. “I require magical knowledge. I heard there was some sort of academy here.”

“M-Magic?”

“Surely you believe in it.” Alyssa started to reach for her pack. “If you need a demonstration…”

“No!” He rocked back in his seat. The wood couldn’t take it. Both of the back legs cracked and snapped, sending him to the floor in a pile of splinters.

“Bacco!” the innkeeper bellowed from behind the counter. “I’ve warned you! I’ve told you time and time again not to sit your lard-ass in my chairs!”

Bacco stood, frantically brushing wood off his clothes. “Sorry,” he called back, though his wide eyes never left Alyssa.

Who simply ate a spoonful of porridge, shrugging her shoulders. “If it calms you at all, I’m just looking for books on travel magic. Something to get me back home. You help me and I’ll be gone before you know it.”

That did seem to work. He let out a great sigh as he bent to tidy up the mess of a chair. But the moment Alyssa spoke, she started to reconsider. Her original reason for coming to Lyria was to find magic that would get her back to her world. Back to Earth. Back to her real home and her family. But Iosefael… There was an angel just waiting for her to return. One who, while not explicitly saying that she would try to kill Alyssa, had definitely not denied the notion.

Expanding her magical search to encompass defensive and offensive magic might be necessary. Would she even be able to use magic back on her Earth? Alyssa leaned back in her chair, idly stirring the remaining porridge. The library at the academy might not even have books on any angels. Tenebrael was more of a god to these people than what she commonly understood an angel to be. Researching angels might well be sacrilege.

But it sounded like something she needed to do before returning home.

Still, if she could acquire a way home, that didn’t mean that she had to use it right away. She had a whole list of things she needed to learn, apparently, but the order probably didn’t matter too much. At least so long as neither Tenebrael nor Iosefael came after her anytime soon. Alyssa hummed to herself for a moment. Maybe there was a priority order to her list. She needed to sit down and actually write out a list, but magic to defend herself against angels might be much higher on it for the time being.

Oh well. No need to tell Bacco that. He was worried enough as it was. About what, exactly, Alyssa still didn’t know. She couldn’t exactly ask without revealing her ignorance and possibly ruining everything. No. Best to keep him afraid for now. She wasn’t as sure that Cid was quite so afraid, but so long as she got help from one of them, it didn’t matter much. Hopefully the cloak, even with a few silver taken out for her, would keep him happy enough to leave her alone.

Alyssa picked up her spoon, but hesitated as a twisting knot formed in her stomach. A black feather rested just on top of her porridge. She dropped her spoon and grabbed her shotgun from where it leaned against her backpack, flicking the safety off as she scanned the room.

Bacco was still brushing himself off. The innkeeper stood behind the counter, glaring at him as someone else stepped up to make an order or request lodgings. A pair of shady types were seated in a different corner of the room, hunched over their table. A man with bandages wrapped around his head and covering one of his eyes ate from a similar bowl of porridge. A burly woman was half in the front door.

They all had one thing in common.

None of them were moving. They were frozen. Even splinters shaken from Bacco’s pants were floating in the air, still and ignoring gravity. The two at the table had their mouths open as if they were in the middle of conversation, but their lips and tongues were locked in place. The woman at the door had one of her feet up in the air. She should be toppling forward, or at least following through with her step, but she wasn’t.

Moving around the table, Alyssa paused in front of Bacco. She reached out and poked a finger right into his shoulder. It didn’t give at all. She might as well be poking a marble statue. He didn’t even give off any heat, though he wasn’t exactly cold to the touch either. Trying the same thing on one of the hovering splinters, Alyssa found that she could pluck one out of the air and move it around. Letting it go, it fell for a few inches before slowing to a standstill without hitting anything.

“Alyssa Meadows!”

Alyssa jumped at the sound of her own name. She whipped around, nestling the butt of her shotgun in her shoulder as she aimed up.

There she was. That monochrome angel sat on the narrow wooden railing of the balcony, one leg crossed over the other. She had her chin resting on her curled knuckles as she stared down at Alyssa with those luminescent white eyes. Her black wings were spread out behind her, looking far larger than they had back in her room as they filled up almost all the available space of the balcony.

“Tenebrael,” Alyssa said through grit teeth.

“Wha,” Tenebrael said, mock flinching back. “So hostile! You really should be thanking me, you know? You were supposed to have died that night. If it hadn’t been for me messing things up, you would have. Now look at you! You’re living and doing well. How are you liking my world?”

“Could use more toilets. Proper toilets. And plumbing. And food. Modern conveniences.” Alyssa let out a small sigh as she lowered her gun. She doubted it would help against an angel. Tenebrael had apparently stopped time just to have this little conversation. What could a shotgun do to that?

“Yes, yes.” Tenebrael waved a dismissive hand. “Spoiled city girl has to rough it out a bit. Of course, I ensured you would have all your modern amenities back at your house. Which you’re quite far from.”

“Here to drag me back?”

“No! Not at all. You’re out here, messing things up in my world just like I did to your life. Or your death, as the case was.” She reached behind her and pulled out a familiar little book, though this one had a black ribbon placeholder rather than the golden one Alyssa had seen before. “This holds a record of everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen in my world. But it is wrong. Two people are alive who should have died and one person has died when he shouldn’t have. And that’s just death-related matters. There are all kinds of minor nuances that are not flowing as they should. Do you know when the first discrepancy occurred?”

“Probably shortly after I… after you brought me here.” Alyssa pressed her lips together. Was she about to be whisked off somewhere without people? Where she couldn’t ‘mess’ things up? “Am I supposed to apologize? Because I won’t.”

The angel let out a melodic burst of laughter. “No. Not at all. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to make this book wrong? It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. No matter how hard I try to avert the ending, my actions or inactions always lead to it coming true. But you, in just a few short days, you have already sent it off the rails, so to speak. Unfortunately, it was not without cost. Earth is… Well, I think I’m getting things back in order. It definitely isn’t easy.”

Alyssa was fairly certain that she was missing some context, but… “If you want the book messed up, why are you trying to get things back in order?”

“This planet,” Tenebrael said, sweeping her arms around, “is mine. Earth is not. I can cloak most of my actions here. Earth? Not so much. I’d rather not bring the Concord of Angels down on me. This world would likely be destroyed, me along with it.”

For just a moment, Alyssa had felt a moment of hope. If she could bring Tenebrael to the attention of this concord, perhaps they could get her out of here. But that hope snuffed out as Tenebrael continued talking. Destroying the world was a high price to pay. ‘Messed up’ or not, people lived here. Lots of people. Besides that, Iosefael wanted her dead. Who was to say that the other angels would be any different.

Alyssa blinked. Was that a problem? Would it become a problem? “You, uh, don’t happen to know any angels by the name of Iosefael, do you?”

“Principality Iosefael?” Tenebrael tipped her ear to her shoulder. “How do you know her?”

“She showed up shortly after the festival, tried to take me home, failed several times, then started complaining about the state of this world.”

Tenebrael slipped off the balcony railing, gliding gracefully through the air until she reached the ground, landing lightly on her feet. Her wings folded up behind her, somehow forcing a full room’s wingspan into a person-sized space. “She appeared here?” the demon angel asked as she walked closer to Alyssa.

Alyssa couldn’t help but clutch her shotgun a little tighter even knowing that it wouldn’t help at all. The way Tenebrael’s glowing white eyes searched her over sent shivers all down her arms. “My home, actually.”

Humming a serious yet still somehow musical tune, Tenebrael rubbed at her chin. “Iose and I are old friends, but she panics easily. Maybe I should go talk to her before she does anything foolish.” She nodded to herself. “Yes. You keep doing what you’re doing. I need to find Iosefael and keep putting Earth back into its proper state. Don’t die now! You’re my new experiment. We’ll see how the book adapts to you, if it can recover at all!” Tenebrael spun on her heel.

“Wait!” Alyssa reached out to grab her shoulder, but ended up with a fistful of black feathers as Tenebrael exploded in a flurry.

Great. Just great. Truthfully, she hadn’t known what she wanted Tenebrael to wait for. More discussion? Maybe a little more information about her world or angels? Either way, it didn’t matter now. The angel was gone and Alyssa had no way of calling her back. She just stared at the empty space in front of her as hundreds more feathers fell around the room. They disappeared one by one as they touched something. The ones in her hand stayed behind, however. Would they be useful? She knew it was possible to create magical artifacts and that said artifacts needed parts of monsters or other magical entities, but Aziz’s book hadn’t gone too deep into the details. It was more focused on why he couldn’t cast a simple light spell.

A high pitched squeal interrupted her musings. Bacco stumbled backward, knocking over the table and her mostly eaten bowl of porridge with it. All the while, his wide eyes never left her.

“Bacco!” the innkeeper shouted again. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing, naturally this time rather than supernaturally, and stared.

This time, he didn’t even shout an apology back. He clutched at his chest, breathing in and out with great heaves. Alyssa hoped he wasn’t having a heart attack. From his position, it looked like she had teleported right behind him. It would technically be Tenebrael’s fault, but she would still feel a little guilty. Luckily, he seemed to be getting his breathing under control. He closed his eyes, breathed deep through his nose, held it a moment, then let it out through his mouth.

“Are you alright?”

He rapidly nodded his head without saying a word. Alyssa gave him another moment or two before holding out her hand.

Seeing that he was calming down, Alyssa actually felt like laughing a little. He was twice her size. At least! Probably more. And he had gotten so scared. Though, thinking about it a moment more, she probably would have been the same had their positions been reversed. And knowing what a gun was would only make the situation worse, though Bacco didn’t know.

Still, she couldn’t laugh. She still had an act to maintain in front of him.

“Do you see anything here?”

Opening his eyes, he looked over Alyssa’s face for a moment before flicking his gaze to her hand. “Bunch of feathers?” he said.

“Huh. Interesting.” So Tenebrael was invisible and her feathers vanished when they interacted with something, but the ones she had touched could be seen. If she touched Tenebrael and time wasn’t stopped, would people be able to see the angel? Maybe something to test.

For the time being, she walked around the toppled table, ignoring the spilled food, and carefully placed the feathers into one of the side pockets of her backpack. With a suppressed groan, she hefted up the pack and strapped herself in. Really, she needed to find a place where she could store her gear and not be worried about it being stolen. Maybe magic could turn it invisible or something. Or weightless, that would be nice. For now though, it was early morning and she had a full day to explore the city.

She paused to stare at the remnants of her porridge. She had eaten most of it and wasn’t too hungry anymore, but it was still a waste. “You’re going to pay me back for that meal, right?”

“Of course,” he said instantly.

“Good. But now, I might take you up on that tour.”

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005.001

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Lyria, The Grand City

The City

Alyssa stopped and gaped. She couldn’t help it. Two weeks of trudging through open plains and a forest, tripping over branches and brushes, being eaten alive by insects, and carrying several pounds of supplies on her back had all taken its toll. Frankly, she would be perfectly happy if she never had to camp again in her life. At least she hadn’t run into anything truly dangerous. No monsters since the harpy. Not even a regular bear. The main roads were kept generally safe thanks to the efforts of some guardsmen from Lyria. Had it all been worth it? That remained to be seen. One thing was certain, the city of Lyria was an impressive sight.

The villages that lined the path leading from the mountains to Lyria were barely deserving of the name. Alyssa wasn’t certain what the smallest unit of civilization was, but none of the so-called towns had more than a hundred people. None had inns like Teneville. They were all nearly identical communes filled with farmers for the most part. Each town tended to have a carpenter as well as a doctor and some type of priest. Nothing like what Lazhar had been. More like regular priests she was familiar with from Earth, except they preached Tenebrael’s name. She had stayed inside the homes of residents—typically the village priest—for a small fee. They had been cramped, often not more than single room buildings. The villagers that she stayed with usually included a small meal with the cost of staying the night, which was the one and only upside.

Given her experiences during the her travel, she had continued on, fully expecting Lyria to be barely bigger than Teneville.

It wasn’t.

Three great towers stood over the city at each corner of its triangular layout. A central building measured even taller. Unlike the towers, it had three wings coming off it, somewhat like a pyramid except the middle sections were absent. None of the other buildings in the city reached even a small fraction of the towers’ height, but the simple fact that there were buildings was a drastic improvement over the villages. Beyond the main city proper, villages hugged the walls and farm fields stretched clear to the edge of the forest, occasionally dotted with more homes or warehouses. In the opposite direction from the city, far from where Alyssa was, there was a distinct lack of forest. In fact, it turned into a desert as far as she could tell.

None of which really mattered to her. Once she shook off her initial shock at seeing some semblances of civilization, Alyssa made a straight beeline to the city gates.

A large road, obviously well traveled by both carts and foot, actually had lighting right up next to the city. Nothing electric. That was too much to ask for. But little glass jars set atop wooden posts had glowing lights in them much like the magic light spell she had cast way back in the mountains. The first real sign of magic that hadn’t come from an angel or herself.

As it turned out, most people didn’t actually believe in magic. Not in the way Alyssa understood it—lots of flashy effects doing impossible things such as turning something invisible or making something grow in size. While practically everyone was capable of Rank Zero magic, the effects were so small even to a primitive society that they were simply accepted as a natural part of the world. Only ten percent of people could use Rank One magic. Only ten percent of those could use Rank Two. And so on and so forth. Since everything truly magical—everything that modern technology couldn’t replicate—happened at the higher ranks, it wasn’t surprising that most people were a little wary of someone who claimed to be able to fly about. Or ward off harpies. Yzhemal and Lazhar might believe it, but they witnessed a supposed miracle yearly.

Another cause for the lack of even Rank Zero casters was the cost of materials. Fine paper and specialized ink were needed. Not supplies that were readily available in every tiny village.

For that reason, she had further delayed her investigation into the flight spell. How accepted would such a thing be around regular people? Would she be put to trial as a witch? Or would they realize that there was more to magic than a simple candle flame and a bit of light? Aziz’s book was distinctly lacking in the reactions to magic among common folk.

Hopefully she could find out more once she found the magic academy. It should be safer to experiment there as well.

Alyssa slowed her power walk upon reaching the city proper. A tall wall surrounded the entire place, built from a yellowy brown rock. Sandstone or granite perhaps. The road ran up to a wide gate, fully open, but with a pair of guards on either side of the entrance and more further still up on the walls. The ones up on the walls were armed with quivers filled with arrows and simple wooden bows. All the guards on the ground level were wearing beige-colored cloth over dark iron armor and had long pikes with violet banners emblazoned with a white eye—with black designs curling around almost exactly like the markings around Tenebrael’s eyes—hanging from the cross-spikes near the tip. The banners seemed like they would get in the way if they actually had to use their weapons, but maybe removing them wasn’t a big issue.

Not wanting to find out, Alyssa kept her pace sedate and her hands empty of weapons.

She had seen the banners and uniforms before. Roughly a week ago. There had been an outpost made of brick similar to what the wall was constructed from. No farms around it, just a small building that housed no more than a dozen soldiers. Apparently it was a part of some prince’s plan to keep the travel and trade routes safe from both monsters and bandits. The guards there had been friendly enough, even allowing her to stay the night inside some sort of barracks. But she hadn’t thought to ask whether the city guards would be as friendly.

It wasn’t like she had a passport or identification papers. What if they asked her for some sort of identification? Alyssa bit her lip, growing nervous.

One of the guards held up a gauntleted hand as she approached. Nothing hostile. Just a motion for her to speak with him. So she did.

“Uh, hello?”

The guard looked down at her with a frown. His helmet—or the face of his helmet—wasn’t solid. Quite the opposite. It was more of the cage-mask style similar to a hockey goalie. She couldn’t help but notice his eyes roaming over her gear, first at the shotgun slung over her shoulder, her backpack, and then to her clothes. She had decided to wear Aziz’s violet cloak as it would presumably be somewhat fashionable—or at least local—to the people in the city. But now, spotting the purple banners again, she was wondering if it had been a mistake. If purple was a color of royalty or something similar, she could easily be arrested, imprisoned, or even executed for impersonating or stealing or any number of trumped up charges.

Ugh, I should have thought of that earlier. Why didn’t the banners in the outpost tip her off? Had she just not been paying attention?

“What is a noble girl doing wandering alone outside the city?”

Ah. Great. Not only was she a ‘noble’ girl, but was that sexism she heard in his voice? Were females required to be escorted everywhere? Or was he just concerned for her safety? Nobles probably had a whole entourage of guards and attendants serving them when they left the city.

More importantly, what was the proper response? Correct him? That might lead to her aforementioned fears. Play it up? Claim she had lost her bodyguard?

“I am more than capable of defending myself, thank you very much.”

The guard chuckled with a glance to his companion. They were a bit far apart given the width of the gate. A subway train could fit through and have room to spare. Predictably, his partner didn’t make much of a response. They weren’t talking loudly enough and apparently he didn’t have any magic to enhance his hearing.

“That may be, but I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to find an escort for you. Now, which House are you from?”

Alyssa pressed her lips together and glared. “Huuuh?” She drew out the word, raising the pitch a bit at the end in an attempt to sound haughtier than normal. “That will not be necessary, thank you. Besides, my elder brother should be along shortly.” Glancing back, Alyssa turned her glare on the road before giving a sad shake of her head. “He stopped a distance back to speak with some farmer. I’m sure he won’t be long. If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back quickly, get cleaned up, get food, and get… civilized.”

Immediately and without waiting for a response—as she imagined a snobbish noble lady would do—Alyssa moved past the guard and through the gate.

“Miss!” the guard called out behind her. “The Waters Street gang has abducted at least one woman in these past few evenings! Please wait for your brother at least!”

“I don’t intend to be out after dark, our home isn’t far. Good day sir!” Alyssa ran off, doing her best to look like she wasn’t actually running. It was more like she was moving with purpose. The most important aspect about fooling people into thinking that she was supposed to be here was acting like she knew where she was going. Being her very first time in the city, which was already in a strange world, Alyssa hadn’t the slightest idea where she was going.

Compared to the road outside the city, the streets inside were crowded. Not necessarily to the point where Alyssa had to squeeze between people just to get to move ten steps, but this one street probably had more people than she had seen over the entire course of her stay in this world so far. And she couldn’t help but notice just how many glances turned to her direction. Whispers usually followed soon after.

She needed to get rid of this cloak. The bright purple stood out too much against the earthen tones of everyone else’s attire. Modern clothing would be far less conspicuous than a supposedly noble woman running around with a giant backpack and a face dirtier than a farmer’s after a long work day. There hadn’t been much opportunity for bathing or a shower while camping out. One village she passed had a natural hot springs that flowed into a proper river, which Alyssa had made liberal use of, losing almost a day of travel time in the process. Unfortunately, that had been several days back. She had avoided using her drinking water to wash her face for the most part. Unlike the mountain pass, there hadn’t been a river ten steps away from the road the entire way to the city. Not knowing exactly the distance between villages or sources of water, she hadn’t wanted to waste anything.

There wasn’t much in the way of shops. Shops being brick-and-mortar stores with a fixed location and focused wares. Instead, the road was wide enough to make room for several carts. Some were simple wooden affairs with the goods lined up on the bed of the cart while others were more fanciful, looking like street-corner hot dog stands. Almost every single one sold food of some sort or other. Mostly carrots, potatoes, flour, and corn. Almost like a little farmers’ market. Which actually made sense. The city was surrounded by farmland, but there probably weren’t many fields within the walls. So the farmers brought their crops just inside the city gates to sell them to the people.

At least, it made sense in Alyssa’s head. Unfortunately, none of it looked ready to eat. Nobody sold French fries or hamburgers. Maybe it was fortunate. The stares were getting to her and buying some food would just increase that ten times over.

Slipping past a market cart filled with apples—all of which lacked the waxy shine that usually adorned those in the grocery store—Alyssa ducked into a narrow passage between two buildings. One barely wide enough for her to fit with her backpack. It dead ended against another building, but Alyssa didn’t mind that. She just needed a modicum of privacy. As soon as she was out of view from most of the passersby on the street, she tore off the purple cloak, rolled it up, and shoved it into her backpack. Having consumed a good amount of her supplies, there was plenty of room without taking the time to properly fold it. She could do so later at an inn. A city like this had to have at least one inn. She just needed to find—

“What do we have here?” a slime filled voice asked from behind. Alyssa wasn’t quite sure how she knew that it was slimy. Just that bad news lined the cadence of his words. The general tone felt disgusting. Whoever spoke was not the friendly Lazhar type or the grumpy but ultimately helpful Yzhemal.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Alyssa mumbled as she spun around. It wasn’t even dark yet. Yes, she had gone into a tiny alley, but it was a stone’s throw away from the main street. And not even that far from the main gate. When those guards had mentioned a gang running around, she had… well, not paid it much thought. Ten minutes ago, she had been more concerned with getting away from the guards than whatever the guard had been saying. But acting this brazen in accosting people? They must either be foolish or exceedingly confident that no guards would block them into the alley the way they were blocking her in.

And they were blocking her in. Two people. One, a larger man, standing in the back. He wore baggy cloth pants, but no real shirt. Just a sleeveless vest. A curved sword hung from a sash around his waist. Thankfully his hands were empty, crossed over his chest. He alone would have been enough to block the entirety of the alley, but he had a friend standing in front of him, dressed and armed in a similar manner, though he was a much skinnier man, smiling at her with teeth looking like he had desperately needed to visit a dentist twenty years ago but had a deathly fear of drills.

Did they even have dentists here?

All together, they looked like they had just stepped out of the Forty Thieves’ cave. Somehow, Alyssa had a feeling that they wouldn’t be breaking into song and dance any time soon.

“Can I help you?” Alyssa asked as sweetly as she could, putting her hands on her hips. Her shotgun was lying on the ground with her backpack. A foolish mistake. She still had two pistols on her, one under her arm and another at her hip. But even if they didn’t recognize the guns as weapons, suddenly drawing it would surely be taken in a hostile light. Hence her hands on her hips. Close enough to reach for her gun if she needed.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be necessary.

“Help us?” Rotten-Mouth asked with mock sincerity. “Why, when we saw a young noble dash into this here alley all on her lonesome, we thought we could be the ones to help you. Isn’t that right, Bacco?”

“Right, Cid.”

Cid and Bacco then. Nice of them to tell her their names like that. Too nice. Either the names were not their real names or they were known criminals and didn’t bother hiding their identity. Or a primitive society just didn’t have the means to track down people like this regardless of the personal information they gave out.

“So we come to offer help only to find you shoving your noble’s cloak away like a used cleaning rag.”

“Suspicious,” the larger Bacco grumbled.

“Suspicious indeed. I wonder what the city guards would think of this.”

Alyssa couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. “Uh huh. I’m sure the guards would be far more interested in me than the pair of you,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. As she spoke, her eyes tried to search behind them, hoping that someone would notice and help.

But no. Bacco blocked off the entire alley. No one would know that a young woman was being accosted. She could scream, but they might just kill her first. Or try to. Alyssa’s eyes hardened as her fingers ran over the bumps on the pistol’s grip.

“Never know who or what might be trying to enter the city. Under false pretenses no less? Possessing a noble’s cloak when you are clearly not a noble? I dare say that we might even be given commendations for bringing you to the attention of the guards. Imagine that, us getting commendations!”

“Well deserved.”

“Very well deserved, Bacco.”

“How—” Alyssa cut herself off, pressing her lips together and shaking her head. There had been a lot in his words. The or what especially. Monsters? She couldn’t imagine the harpy trying to sneak into the city in human clothes, but there were probably tons of monsters that could pass as humans. She just didn’t know. It wasn’t like she had a bestiary compendium to check. Maybe that was something she needed to start. Overall, she wasn’t too worried about them going to the guards. If they really believed that they would get a commendation, they wouldn’t have bothered her first.

Then there was the whole cloak issue. Getting rid of it might be something of a priority. If it was as special as these two were implying, it would likely be worth a fortune, but it also wasn’t likely to be something she could peddle off at a market stall. She would need some less than legal fence. Or… Alyssa drew herself up to her full height, matching Cid but still failing to reach the height of his larger friend. “How about I hand over the cloak to you two and you pretend you never saw me. Then we don’t have to get messy. Having guards wander by, even if it is simply to clean the two of you off the ground, would be tedious for me.” Her fingers trembled, but her voice remained firm. The most important step in fooling someone—or intimidating someone—was to act. Act like their presence didn’t bother her. Act like she wasn’t nervous. Act like I can cause some harm.

Bacco shifted, actually taking a step back as Alyssa brushed her fingers over her pistol again. Did he know what it was? No. He couldn’t. “Even more suspicious,” he said with a definite tremble that hadn’t been there before. Maybe he just thought she was that or what they had mentioned earlier.

“Indeed.” Cid kept his feet where they were, not even changing his posture. “I wonder what she might have to hide by offer—”

“Can we just stop with all the round about way of speaking? I’m not naive. The cloak is a peace offering. It is troublesome to me and I’m sure you have a way to turn it into coins in some manner or other. I would recommend against being too greedy. If you want something else, simply state it and we’ll see who gets to carry on with their lives.”

Bacco leaned forward to whisper into Cid’s ear, not taking his eyes off Alyssa. “—one of them…” was all she caught from his hushed tones. Maybe something about her being more trouble than she looked. For just a split second, Alyssa started to get her hopes up. Unfortunately, Cid waved him off and stood his ground.

Alyssa took a deep, slightly shuddering breath. Thinly veiled threats weren’t really her thing. Internally, she had never been the nicest person. Like anybody else, there were people she liked and people she disliked. She just tended to avoid voicing her dislikes most of the time. Actually threatening to kill someone, even in such an obtuse way, felt awkward on her tongue.

But it was effective. They apparently already thought that she was some kind of monster. With Cid waving him off, Bacco took a step back again, hands dropping to his side and looking like entering the alley had been a mistake. Cid didn’t move, but his smile did drop off. In response, Alyssa put on her own smile, trying to keep it as steady as possible.

“Either leave and cease wasting my time or… tell me, where might I find an inn or similar lodging in this city?”

The two glanced at each other. Or rather, Cid looked over his shoulder. No words passed between them, but Cid’s shoulders lost a bit of tension that Alyssa hadn’t noticed until it was gone. When he turned back, he was smiling again. “We seem to have gotten off to a poor start,” he said. “But if it is a tour guide you need, then that is one of the many skills I can provide.”

“No thanks. Directions will suffice. I would rather not be spotted with the criminal elements of the city. There are several places I must go that will require me to be of a legally sound status.” At least, she assumed that the magic academy wouldn’t be too accepting of fugitives. Best to keep her nose as clean as possible anyway, metaphorically speaking. Medieval society was not a fun place to be, she couldn’t even imagine how horrible their jails and prisons must be.

If they didn’t just publicly execute felons.

“Criminal!” Cid clutched at his heart, swooning with a deep gasp. “No wonder we’re off to such a poor start. We aren’t criminals. Bacco wouldn’t hurt a slime!”

Slime? A monster? Well, if their belief that she was a monster caused the shift in their demeanor, who was she to argue otherwise. Deciding to cultivate that line of thinking, Alyssa said, “My mistake then. When two men back a woman into an alley, I naturally assumed the worst. I’m new to the city, so I wasn’t aware that this was common behavior for human tour guides.” Alyssa couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Regardless, a tour is too much. Take me to an inn, an inexpensive one that won’t ask too many questions, and the cloak is yours.”

“I think I know just the place you’re looking for. Shall we have Bacco carry your gear?”

“Absolutely not.” Alyssa half turned, keeping the two men in sight as she grabbed her shotgun. When neither made to move toward her, she slipped into the straps of her backpack. She didn’t bother with all the buckles in the name of expedience. With the shogun safely in her hands, Alyssa was feeling much more confident. A pistol might scare them off on noise alone, but she would have to hit their vitals to actually put them down. The shotgun had much more stopping power. “Lead the way. Though I hope you don’t mind if I follow from several paces behind.”

“Still don’t trust us?” Cid shook his head, letting out a clipped sigh. “Nothing to it, I suppose. Keep an eye on Bacco. Hard to lose him in a crowd.”

She could definitely agree with that. He was the largest person she had ever seen in real life, though there might have been a few basketball players or wrestlers that she had seen on television who were larger. Regardless, unless he was average for this world, Bacco should be easy to spot from just about anywhere so long as they were on the same street.

With a half bow, Cid turned. Bacco turned a moment later, looking far more wary about leaving his back open to Alyssa. Despite that, they both started walking out of the alley. Alyssa followed after until she reached the main street once again. There she paused. She had half a mind to run off. Maybe find a guard. Maybe not. But even assuming the two wouldn’t find her again and that she could avoid any uncomfortable questions from the guards, she would still have to find a place to stay on her own. As much as she hated to admit it, criminals would know of far better places to lie low than upstanding citizens.

Did she actually need to lie low? Who knew. Until she learned more about the city and politics that might affect her, it couldn’t hurt. Being caught with the cloak could be trouble. Anywhere that didn’t ask questions was far better than somewhere that did.

And if they were leading her into an ambush… well, she had her shotgun. She would not—could not afford to hesitate. Not if she didn’t want her soul eaten up by an angel. With a slight shudder, Alyssa maintained her distance a few paces behind Bacco. As she walked, she couldn’t help but notice how few people actually looked at the pair. Certainly no one panicked about wanted fugitives wandering the streets openly while carrying weapons. Looking around, about one in every twenty people had a weapon of some sort, so it wasn’t that unusual. She highly doubted that they had been telling the truth about not being criminals, but they might be less wanted than she had given them credit for.

Not stabbing her in the back in the alley and then looting her corpse was a credit to them, she supposed. They might be common thieves, but at least they weren’t wholesale murderers. Or maybe they were just taking her to a more secluded area. Somewhere that wouldn’t have people around to care about her screams.

Alyssa clutched her shotgun tighter, but kept following. If things looked too dangerous, she could always run away. Even with Cid glancing over his shoulder every dozen paces, it shouldn’t be hard. And if they found her again… repeat negotiations might not go so pleasantly.

For them.

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Alyssa’s Note: I’ve updated my notebook! Lots of big updates too. I’ve added an entry to the World Notes for Teneville and Lyria. The monster Bestiary has updated, though it is fairly small. Just an update to the Harpy entry. The main thing is Magic and Spells!

Author’s Note: I’ve added a table of contents to all the pages in her notebook. As an aside, I might avoid notes like the Harpy section where Alyssa writes them down before she has actually encountered the subject in question. Mostly because all that strike-through stuff, while more authentic I think, looks messy. Since the notes are written at an indeterminate point in time, it could easily be explained away as Alyssa being in too much trouble to write things down at the moment, too lazy, too busy, or any number of things. Thoughts?

I might alter the World Notes section as well. The Tenevill and Lyria entries are a bit rambling. I wonder if they shouldn’t be more like the spells and bestiary where there are clear Name: Description: etc:

Also also, Alyssa’s Notes and the character list will likely only update at the end of of an arc, or at the start of the next arc. So Cid and Bacco, introduced in this chapter, won’t be a part of the character list for several chapters. Similarly, if some crazy spell got used in this chapter, Alyssa wouldn’t note it down until the beginning of next arc. Any time there is an update, I’ll be sure to note it down in the author’s notes with what updated so, if you’re interested in those sorts of things, you won’t miss anything.

004.006

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Leaving Teneville

Harping On

Once again, Alyssa awoke feeling like she hadn’t slept for more than an hour. For some reason, she had a feeling that doing so would become a trend in this world. It wasn’t for fear that a harpy would sneak into her cave and murder her in her sleep this time. No need to sneak in when there was already a harpy sitting in the back of the cave. After removing the arrow, she had set to cleaning the harpy’s wound. Luckily, it came out clean and without damaging anything else. Using a scrap of a blanket she had received from Lazhar, she had wrapped her waist.

Surprisingly enough, the harpy had been fairly mellow once Alyssa had started cleaning the wound. That didn’t stop her from keeping as far from the sharp talons as possible while working. All-in-all, it effectively confirmed the notion that the harpies were intelligent. Even a wild bird would have panicked, failing to recognize a person trying to help it.

The truce, helped by Alyssa’s nursing or not, seemed to have succeeded. She woke up with her throat intact. No heart clawed out either. Alyssa was fully intact and her gear hadn’t been touched either.

Though looking around, she couldn’t spot the harpy anywhere. She had been there when Alyssa fell asleep the night before, but had apparently left since then. The cave was empty save for herself. Even the little magic light was gone. It must have disappeared when she had fallen asleep. That meant that it had lasted a good eighteen hours. Now the question was whether it had disappeared because Alyssa had fallen asleep or because it had run out of whatever powered it.

Waking up to find the harpy gone was something of a relief. Frankly, Alyssa wasn’t all that confident in her medical skills. All she really knew was basic first aid. Surgery to repair whatever damage the arrow had caused was well beyond her. Especially when applied to a monster. Hopefully she had fixed the harpy up enough for her to get back to her people and hopefully they would be able to take it from there. Since the harpy was gone, Alyssa could move on without the slightest guilt on her conscience.

Using some water from the night before—Alyssa had been careful to keep any blood far away from her drinking water and eating utensils—she soaked some of her traveling bread and had a little breakfast. A tasteless, bland, and somewhat disgusting breakfast, but it was food that would keep her walking. If Lyria didn’t have any decent food, she might have to investigate some culinary techniques that she could apply in a medieval world. Running a cafe that actually had edible food would probably make her extraordinarily rich.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave straight away. Most of her water bottles were empty. Needing to get and boil some more water, Alyssa started out getting some firewood ready. Each of the rest caves had designated campfire areas with a little smoke flume that led back outside. The night before, she had been too concerned about the harpy to mess around with magic. Now though, she was curious.

The flame spell cards had a different pattern on them. Instead of something similar to a wheel, they were circles with four equilateral triangles inside. One corner of each triangle touched the circle, one corner touched the triangle to the side, and one corner touched the opposite triangle, forming an oblong diamond in the center. Again, there were runes all along the whole thing that Alyssa couldn’t make heads or tails of. With a small amount of water nearby and anything flammable on the opposite side of the cave, she held out the card. This time, she kept her eyes open.

As soon as she thought about a burning flame, the design on the card pulsed a deep violet. The whole piece of paper vanished with a thin puff of smoke. In its place, a thin flame danced just above her fingertips. Like a lighter flame. Or perhaps more like a candle. Tiny. Not the ball of fire she had imagined. Unlike the ball of light, this was actually hot. The candle was high enough above her fingertips and small enough that she wasn’t being burned, but it was somewhat uncomfortable. Carefully, so as to not extinguish it with a sudden movement, Alyssa lowered the flame to the kindling she had prepared. It caught and soon enough, she had a fire going. With a flick of her wrist the way she would put out a match, the flame at the tips of her fingers vanished into nothingness.

Neat.

A small part of Alyssa felt that she should be more awed by the fact that she had just created flame from essentially her own thoughts, but it wasn’t easy considering a bit of flash paper could have done the same thing without much trouble. Maybe once she actually started flying, if she could manage that. Once certain that the fire wasn’t about to go out, Alyssa grabbed her pot and headed out of the cave.

The sky was a fair bit cloudy today. Not fully overcast, but not the crystal blue it had been for most of her stay in this world. Hopefully it wouldn’t rain. She had brought an umbrella, but an umbrella wouldn’t keep the ground from turning to a muddy slough.

Alyssa was just about to head down to the river when she noticed something. A dark movement against the clouds. A bird? No. It was too large and was getting larger. She felt a jolt in her stomach as she recognized those amber wings. It was the harpy.

In a full dive.

Stepping back, Alyssa just about slammed the cavern door shut. Only realizing that the harpy wasn’t aiming toward her stayed her hand. Instead, she watched as the harpy folded its wings straight back behind it, turning into a person-sized missile. It struck the river water in a dive that would put the best Olympians to shame. Alyssa just stood, blinking in shock. Suicide? Was she drowning? Could birds even swim? Ducks and things sat on water. But underwater? Was applying bird logic to a living creature even a good idea?

The water welled into a massive hill of unbroken water before Alyssa could do anything. The bulge broke into an upheaval of water like a geyser. Even as far back as she was, some of it sprayed on her in a fine mist. The harpy didn’t fly out of the column of water, she just floated on the water, lying on her back. A few powerful strokes of her wings brought her back to the river’s shore. She was a bit clumsy actually getting out of the water, but once she did, all it took was a quick shake to fling off the water and a few flaps of her wings to get herself airborne again. This time, she didn’t fly up high enough to mistake her for a bird. She just lazily drifted over to the cave entrance.

Alyssa put her hand on her pistol, but didn’t draw it from the holster. The harpy wasn’t diving toward her on an attack run. She was just casually lofting in the wind while chirping out a musical tune. At least until she spotted Alyssa standing just outside. While the harpy didn’t dive, she did move with a bit more haste, angling her wings to cut through the air rather than glide along.

She flew down until she was hovering right in front of Alyssa. Each flap of her wings sent gusts of wind swirling around the area, kicking up dirt and dust enough that Alyssa had to squint. It only stilled when her sharp talons dug into the mountain rocks. Though she kept one foot up in the air. Blinking away the dust in her eyes, Alyssa quickly found out why.

The harpy tossed two fish on the ground between them, trilling in a joyful tone. She nudged one a little closer to Alyssa.

“Oh. Uh… For me?” She had gone fishing before with her brother and her father, but she had never actually prepared a fish for consumption. Having watched her father, she knew the theory. A slice from the mouth to the tail, scrape out all the guts, cook and eat what was left. She might be able to try it. If she lived in this world long enough, she might have to try it. But here and now? Actually, a nice salmon sounded nice. It would be a bit of real food instead of the rock bread she had been eating.

The harpy flopped over on the ground, sitting down right in front of the cave. She grabbed one of the fish with her feet and, in a fairly impressive display of dexterity, brought it up to her mouth and chomped down on it. Though it looked humanlike, her mouth really wasn’t anything similar now that she was actually watching the harpy eat. It was stiff, opening on a hinge without the lips moving. She didn’t so much bite into the fish as she tore strips of flesh away and swallowed them whole. No chewing. Just bite, rip, tear, toss piece in the air, catch and swallow.

Watching her eat was actually enough that Alyssa was starting to lose her appetite for fish. Perhaps it was for the best. She didn’t recognize the type of fish—not that she was an expert in such matters. It was olive-green on the top half while silvery white on the bottom and big enough that she would have to use two hands to carry it around. Probably heavy as well. Even if the harpy meant well, some fish were not really fit for humans. Wasn’t mercury poisoning a valid concern in fish? She might have needed to do some research on fish before leaving.

But too late now. She wasn’t going to go back every time she found something she didn’t know. There would be locals she could question later on the subject.

“Well, thanks. But I just ate.” Hopefully the harpy wouldn’t be offended. Alyssa stepped around the fish, earning an incredibly human tilt of the harpy’s head. “How is your wound?” she said, patting at her stomach. The harpy’s bandages were still there, but far looser and barely hanging on. The wound had closed overnight, even without stitches or staples, but it was still a large blotch of purple on her stomach. “Should you really be flying about? You can’t be healed yet.”

The harpy just trilled in return. Alyssa had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but if she was feeling better, who was she to complain about the bird flying about.

Shaking her head, she continued with her quest for a pot of river water. It wasn’t much of a quest. Just a quick jaunt to the river, dip the pot in, and carry it back while trying to spill as little as possible. She walked past the still eating harpy and set the pot on her collapsible stand above the flames. It would take a few minutes to bring it to boil and then she was planning on leaving it boiling for a good ten to fifteen minutes, just to make sure anything bacterial or parasitic was dead. Then it needed to cool before she could pour it into her water bottles. She didn’t have much in the way of a physical filter, but drinking a little dirt probably wouldn’t hurt anything.

Which reminded her, she was glad her tetanus shots were up to date. But they were only supposed to last for about ten years before needing a booster. Could magic cure diseases and plagues? Could it cause diseases and plagues? Alyssa shuddered just thinking about it. There were a lot of modern conveniences that Alyssa thought she could get by without. She didn’t have any real friends, just a few acquaintances left over from high school or from work. No need for phones. Cars would be nice, but she liked exercising too. But modern medical technology?

Her musings were interrupted by a shrill shriek from outside the cave. It did not sound like the happy harpy noises she had heard so far.

Grabbing her shotgun from her pack, Alyssa practically sprinted to the cave exit. She didn’t leave, but paused at the open door and leaned out just enough to see.

The harpy was gone. She had left behind the fish carcasses, one partially eaten and the other untouched. But she could hear voices. Human voices speaking English. At least, it sounded like English. She couldn’t quite make the words out. There were definitely words though.

Alyssa waited by the door, keeping out of sight. So far, everyone she had met had been relatively pleasant. Everyone she had met had been celebrating a festival too, so she wasn’t sure that they were a good metric for the rest of the world. It hadn’t been so long ago when two people had broken into her home, at least one of which had been trying to kill her. Here, out in the wild all alone, she didn’t even have the possibility of police coming to help her.

There. Two people walked side-by-side up the small path from the riverside. They wore leather clothes, though not in the same sense that Alyssa was used to. Rather than look like they were headed to a biker’s bar, they looked like Robin Hood with their little tunic things and knee-high boots. Both had bows slung over their shoulders and swords drawn.

“—Hit it?”

“No. You missed. Otherwise it would be lying here screeching.”

“If you would have used the poisoned arrows last night, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Wasn’t right expecting a monster while hunting for food. Especially not in the forest. I’m surprised it came so far from the mountain.”

“It’s a scout. Looking for food. People. Trouble. Maybe it is just mad that people have been trespassing lately. Damn festival. If it gets away, we can expect several cows going missing in the next few days. At best.”

They were humans. Hunters of the harpy, if she was hearing them right. Now what should she do? They would probably enter the cave if only to inspect the area. At the moment, they were going over the remains of the fish. Should she greet them? Try not to surprise them? Both had bows, but their swords were out at the moment. So long as she kept her distance… well, the old adage of bringing a knife to a gun fight applied to her at the moment.

But would they be upset with her if they found out she had helped the harpy? By the sound of it, yes. Quite upset. Then there was how Aziz had reacted when she mentioned being less than hostile to monsters. Best to claim that she had been besieged by the harpy. She felt a bit bad, throwing the harpy under the bus like that right after she had tried to share her food, but the harpy wasn’t here now. Two potentially angry hunters were.

Taking a deep breath, Alyssa stepped around the doorway and into the open. “Hello,” she said, feeling lame. She should have said something more profound. Or more aggressive? She didn’t want to get taken advantage of because of her naivety of the world. Something more than a simple greeting. Too late now.

Both men turned away from the fish, tensing for a moment until they saw her. They didn’t put away their swords, but they did lower their guard. Which all but confirmed that they had no idea what a shotgun was, given that Alyssa still had it firmly in her grip. They stared as if expecting her to turn into some monstrosity. When she didn’t after a few seconds, they finally dropped their arms completely to their sides.

“Don’t scare me like that,” the one in the front said with a sigh. He looked slightly more like Robin Hood than the other, who might have been more of the Little John of the pair. Larger and more gruff. Less well-kempt hair.

“Sorry. Was a bit nervous at finding a few strangers out here.”

“You seen a harpy around?” Little John asked, waving his sword toward the fish. “Big, yellowy-red one?”

“It isn’t in here, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Of course not, it flew—” He waved his hand off toward the river before shaking his head. “Never you mind. What are you here for?”

“Just a traveler to Lyria. I thought I would make it to the town beyond the mountains by night, but apparently my pacing was off. Had to take shelter here or risk harpies.”

Robin Hood nodded as if all that made sense, but Little John crossed his arms with a scowl. He pointed his sword right at Alyssa, prompting her to tense with her shotgun. “The latch is broke. There’s feathers everywhere. What was it doing out here feeding?”

Alyssa pressed her lips together. Right. She had expected something like this. With a casual shrug of her shoulders, she said, “Magic. I warded it off. Guess it decided to camp out for me. I would have handled it if it became necessary.”

The two glanced at each other. “Magic?” Robin Hood said. The other just scoffed before glancing back to Alyssa.

“You expect us to believe that?”

Alyssa blinked. What had she done wrong? What about this situation made magic unbelievable? Magic definitely existed in this world and it could make someone fly. Couldn’t it lock a door? Scare away a monster? Or was it something else? Surely they believed in magic itself. Yzhemal had implied that he couldn’t even light a fire without magic. If these guys could and that technology hadn’t spread from one side of the mountains to the other, this world was in some serious trouble. She didn’t expect internet levels of information sharing, but a three day’s walk to tell people about one of the most important things in human history would be absurd in the extreme.

“What are you going to do? Light a candle at it?”

“Some monsters are afraid of fire. Not harpies. Especially not an arcanist’s tiny flame.”

“What you believe is none of my concern,” Alyssa said. “Facts are facts regardless of your belief.” That seemed decent enough excuse. Did they think that arcanists could only light small fires? According to the book, they were capable of much more than that. Being peasants who lived in what was probably a tiny village, perhaps they had never seen an arcanist do anything more.

“Leave her to her delusions,” Robin Hood said with a small shake of his head. “We need to find that bird.”

“It’ll be long gone by now.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean we can give up. Not yet. It was hanging around here for a reason. Perhaps it will come back.” He looked back to Alyssa and offered a small smile. “Our village is an hour’s walk from here, just at the edge of the mountain. I recommend leaving quickly before the bird comes back.”

“Thank you, I’ll take that under consideration.”

With a nod of his head, Robin Hood put his hand on Little John’s shoulder and started leading him away. “Take care,” he said over his shoulder before whispering something to his companion.

The larger of the two looked back. Instead of his pursed lips and furrowed brows, he just looked sad. With a little shake of his head, he allowed himself to be led off.

Alyssa had no idea what to make of them. She might have made some sort of mistake in her mentioning magic. If she saw them again, perhaps she would ask if her theory was right or not. Until then, avoiding the topic of magic might be for the best. At least until she learned more. For now, though, the water should be done boiling. Following their advice and getting to the next town wasn’t a bad suggestion. Getting there early would be for the best. She needed more supplies and a little time to read through Aziz’s notebook.

With one last look at the sky, she turned back inside to put the water in her bottles and to pack the few things she had out. There was no sign of the harpy. Hopefully, it would stay that way. While she appreciated the gesture of the fish, she didn’t need a monster following her around like a lost puppy. Not while the humans hated them so much.

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004.005

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Leaving Teneville

The Mountain

Never before had Alyssa wished so much for a cup of coffee. Or any caffeinated drink, really. She didn’t usually have coffee in her mornings, but today would have been an exception. As much as she wanted some stimulant, picking up anything local might not go over so well. Even had she been back at the inn, asking Yzhemal for something didn’t sound appealing. The punk rocker girl was still fresh in her mind. Who knew what sort of drugs they had in this time period. Alyssa had no intentions of accidentally addicting herself to something.

Besides that, she needed her money for food.

Still, waking up in a rocky cave with only a thin pad between herself and the hard ground for the second day in a row felt bad. Really bad. And that was after failing to get any sleep the first night. She had gotten so wound up about harpies swooping down on her that she hadn’t been able to sleep. Walking around with her eyes on the skies and half tripping over every pebble had not helped matters.

After two days of walking through the mountain pass, she had yet to see a single harpy. There were birds. She had spotted a raven or two, some hawks, and… other birds; Alyssa wasn’t all that knowledgeable about bird types. No human-sized avians on a crazed mission to murder travelers through the pass. If it weren’t for the fact that she had seen two literal angels, one of whom had explicitly mentioned that this world was in some sort of Age of Legends, Alyssa might have dismissed the brothers’ claims as superstition and myth. Just because she hadn’t seen them didn’t mean that there weren’t any around.

Still, it was hard to remain nervous about something she hadn’t seen. It wasn’t too dissimilar to hearing that there were bears about but deciding to go hiking anyway. Animals generally didn’t bother people so long as people didn’t seek out danger. Above all, Alyssa couldn’t cower forever, either in the caves or in Teneville, she had to keep moving.

Crystal clear water flowed through the river at a sedate yet steady pace. Despite its clarity, Alyssa still boiled it before drinking and washing her face. After a light meal of rock-hard bread courtesy of Yzhemal that required a soak in the water to be edible, she was awake enough to set off for the day. Today should be the last day she had to spend walking through the mountain pass. After that, it would be smooth sailing over open plains to Lyria.

Alyssa could only keep her eyes on the skies and high mountain ridges for so long. The first day, she had been too concerned with the possibility of harpies swooping down on her to really get bored. The second day, she had been too tired to do much other than focus on pressing forward. Today, after having a somewhat decent sleep, she found herself awake but growing bored. The sky was a bright blue with faint wispy clouds in the air. The planet’s rings were still an odd sight. Every time she looked up, seeing them just reinforced the fact that she was a long way from home. All in all, with the mountain and the skies, it was beautiful scenery. She just couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it.

“Ahh, I wish I had music.” Technically, she did. But playing music on her phone would drain the batteries in half a day. Maybe if she had some sort of solar charger, but she didn’t. Saving the batteries for pictures or, if it came down to it, selling the phone as some sort of hyper-magical item would be more important than momentary tunes. Selling it felt like a scam, given that it would be utterly useless after a day or two, but if it came down to her survival, Alyssa was ready to scam just about anyone. Especially because the only people likely to buy it would be those who had an excess of money anyway.

After an hour of walking, an idea popped into Alyssa’s head. She slung off her pack and started digging through until she found what she was looking for. Aziz’s satchel. She hadn’t touched it since he died, but she had brought it along. There had just been so many other things to worry about. Now, walking along with sore feet and mild boredom, it might be just the thing to distract her.

She pulled out one of the cards as she walked. It had a circle with some jagged wheel spokes drawn inside along with some of that angelic text she couldn’t read. The same one that Aziz had pulled out while trying to demonstrate his ability, or lack thereof. He had called it the simplest spell, but hadn’t actually said what it was supposed to do.

Mimicking Aziz’s movements, Alyssa held it between her forefinger and middle finger, pointing the symbol away from her. She took a deep breath and… felt exceedingly silly. Just how was this supposed to work? Was she supposed to think about it? Push something into it? If so, she wasn’t sure she had that something. With a scowl, she opened the satchel again and started going through the contents.

There were many more cards. Most with the same wheel symbol, but some with triangles, or more complex shapes. All of them had some angelic script somewhere on them. There was a small stack of blank cards, along with vials of ink and writing utensils similar to fountain pens. Buried beneath all of that was a small book. Notes. All hand written in proper English. The individual lettering was tidy, but practically every available spot on the pages was covered in words. They weren’t the scrawls of a madman that might be in a bad horror movie. It was more like Aziz had been desperately researching magic, trying to figure out why he couldn’t use it when everyone else could.

Alyssa felt a pang of sympathy. Aziz had died—had killed himself—thinking that she was some magical prodigy thanks to her phone. All of this notebook spoke of a dedicated student. Had he really been suicidal? He had seemed so eager and excited while talking to her. At least, right up until he had tried to demonstrate his abilities.

Shaking her head, Alyssa kept walking. There was no sense thinking about what-ifs. She hadn’t known what the festival had been about. All she could do was keep moving forward. And maybe, if she could, make use of his notebook so that he wouldn’t have put in all that effort for absolutely nothing.

She started flipping pages. An in-depth reading would be nice, but that could come while she wasn’t walking. It was hard enough to both move and read at the same time as it was, trying to mentally organize the wall of text would end up with her tripping and falling into the river. It didn’t take long to find what she needed. The latter half of the book was filled with the same diagrams as were on the cards, and plenty more besides. On one page, there would be the symbol and the angelic text, a perfect replication. On the other side, Aziz had written detailed notes about what each spell was. Notably, there weren’t any translations of the runes to English. That might be because everyone could read it, or it could just be that no one knew anything at all; neither of the brothers had known what the same symbols on the money said.

“Let there be light,” Alyssa read from the page. Of course that would be the simplest and first spell. She hadn’t ever read the bible, but even she recognized that quote. Did they have a bible here? Probably not, given their worship of Tenebrael. As for the spell, there weren’t any actual directions to casting it. She couldn’t imagine someone as dedicated as Aziz skipping over that, so there were probably directions elsewhere in the book. Since every spell was probably cast the same way with the cards being the differences between spells, repeating the explanation for every single spell would have been unnecessary. Unfortunately, there wasn’t exactly a table of contents. Alyssa would have to go digging through the bulk of the text to find directions.

For the moment, she slipped the book back into the satchel and pulled out the card again. It was a light spell, designed to illuminate the local area. Now that she knew what it was, maybe that would be enough to get something to happen.

Still walking forward, Alyssa held the card between her fingers. It was a light spell, so she started out imagining light. A bright sun. No. Maybe something more like a flashlight. Or a flaming torch. Fire was a much more familiar source of light to the local people than a light bulb. Taking a deep breath, Alyssa stopped walking, closed her eyes, and focused. Light. Light. Light.

Alyssa gasped. The card was gone. In its place, a ball of white light balanced on the tips of her upright fingers. It didn’t burn her fingers the way a light bulb might. There was no heat at all coming off it. Just a bright white light flooding over her that she could only tell was there thanks to being in the shadow of the mountains. “Huh,” she said, pulling her hand back.

The ball—roughly the size of a baseball—weighed nothing. It felt like nothing. Her other hand passed right through it as if it weren’t there. Yet she could move it around just by moving her hand. Testing, she tried tossing it up into the air. It left her fingertips and stopped around eye level. It just hung there. Reaching up, she managed to grab it, although she still couldn’t feel it. The light just clung to her fingers. Trying to grab it with her opposite hand worked as well so long as she was actually trying to grab it rather than just poke at it.

Looking around, she couldn’t find the card at all. Not even a trace of it. She hadn’t dropped it. No one had come to pluck it from her fingers. It was just gone. Being familiar with the idea of consumable and limited spells from some of her brother’s games, she didn’t try looking for long. That it had disappeared did explain why there were so many spare cards. Or rather, they weren’t spares at all. They were the spells themselves.

With a shake of her head, Alyssa resumed walking. Somehow, she just couldn’t bring herself to feel all that excited over performing magic. Aziz had effectively killed himself over not being able to work a spell. That wasn’t all there was to it, he had mentioned family problems including being disowned. There had probably been other pressures as well. But she had barely read more than the spell’s effect and had made something happen. Why her? Why should she, someone not even from this world, be capable of succeeding where Aziz, someone who had actually worked and dedicated his life to studying magic, had failed?

Her melancholy didn’t stop Alyssa from flipping through the book and looking over the other spells she had at hand. There were nine more light spells, four for creating burning flames, five that would cool a small area, and three that did the opposite to warm an area without fire or light. Nothing really special, as far as Alyssa could tell. In her backpack, she had things to replace three of the four spells. Her flashlight, a matchbook or lighter, and a few chemical warmers. The only thing she couldn’t do was cool things down. Her supply wouldn’t last forever, but neither would the spell cards.

Of course, spell cards were probably easier to replace than lighter fluid in this world.

Still, nothing that she couldn’t accomplish through entirely mundane technology. Reading further, these were apparently all Rank Zero magic. Magic that could be used by even someone with the tiniest modicum of ability. The book didn’t say how high the ranks went, but there were drawings of a few Rank One and Rank Two spells. Rank One didn’t look too special. Nothing that couldn’t be accomplished with technology, if technology that was a bit more advanced than a matchbook or a flashlight. The most stand-out example was sending a verbal message over a distance. A single, one-way communication. Presumably a second spell could be used to return the message and so on, but it would require a full stack of cards on either end to carry on a conversation. Phones were far superior in that respect.

Rank Two was where things became slightly more esoteric and, therefore, interesting. There were things that could be used for attack and defense, such as an explosive fireball or fire immunity. Alyssa honed in on one spell in particular. A magic simply called Levitate. Apparently it was on the higher end of Rank Two, often considered more of a Rank Three spell, but Alyssa didn’t care about that in the slightest. The spell allowed the arcanist—which she had discovered to be the general term for wizards or magic casters in this world—to effectively fly or lessen the weight of an object of their choice, though she was mostly concerned with the first application. There were apparently more specific spells for weight negation.

Alyssa had half a mind to sit down right where she was and draw out the rather complex diagram onto one of the cards. Flying around appealed to her. A lot. Who hadn’t been a little kid watching super hero shows and dreaming of being able to fly. Not only did it sound fun, but it might drop her two week journey to a few days depending on how fast the spell allowed her to fly. But she managed to restrain herself.

There were two big problems. First, even skimming through the book, she still knew next to nothing about magic. There were too many things that could pop out and surprise her, resulting in injury or even death. Second, she had no idea how much control she would have over it. If she wound up flying off uncontrollably high up, the spell could wear off resulting in her plummeting to messy stop. Even if she had perfect control, the spell failing could still end up with her killing herself on accident.

So she kept trudging on along the riverbank. Maybe when she arrived at the town on the other side of the mountain, she would try while indoors. Even if she couldn’t control it, the roof would keep her from going too high and falling too far.

Alyssa blinked, staring up at the sky. Night fell extremely quick on this world, but it did have a short period of dusk. Right now, that period of dusk was almost over. Between the orb of light that had been going strong since early in the morning and Alyssa having her nose in the book as she walked, she had hardly noticed. It would be fully dark before long.

And she was still in the mountain pass.

Gaping at the magic and read-walking must have slowed her down too much. Scowling, Alyssa started looking along the mountain ridge opposite from the river. It was unfortunate that she hadn’t made decent time, but she wasn’t too worried about finding shelter. The rest area caves were frequent. She had probably passed half a dozen today alone. Food wouldn’t be a concern either. The brothers had ensured that she had a surplus of traveling… bread. It was more like rock than actual food, but soaking it in water at least made it edible.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten all day. Not since she woke up. Perhaps she would try out one of those fire spells to light a campfire instead of her lighter. Just to see if she could.

It only took a few minutes after noticing the diminishing light to find another cave. Cave might imply that they were nothing more than holes in the mountain. That couldn’t be further than the truth. They were well maintained, clean and spacious with a full stock of firewood sitting outside. The two she had used even had doors and stables, though not all of them were quite that fancy. Someone had to go through and stock the firewood and maintain the buildings. Maybe it was just because it was festival season.

Walking up to the cave entrance, Alyssa couldn’t help but frown. The door was wide open. All the others had been closed. Likely to keep anything undesirable, such as harpies, out. But this one hadn’t just been opened. Splinters of wood littered the ground where the latch had broken off. A knot twisted in Alyssa’s stomach as she spotted a red smear along the frame. Stained feathers stuck to the mess.

A harpy? Was the blood from the harpy? From someone trying to hide? Or was the feather from some more mundane bird?

Whatever the case, Alyssa unslung her shotgun and put her finger to the safety, not quite ready to flick it off just yet. Almost of its own volition, the orb of light whisked off into the cavern to provide a decent illumination of the wide area beyond. Alyssa followed after slowly, taking care to check both corners around the door. With nothing around, she creeped forward, further into the cave. She kept as quiet as she could. The light might have given her away, but she didn’t need to shout her position to anyone or wake anyone up.

There! In the back. Just around a natural corner in the cave. Someone was lying on the hard rock floor, wrapped in a feathered cloak.

Or, not someone. Something. The cloak wasn’t a cloak at all. The thing didn’t have arms. It had wings. Huge wings covered in goldenrod feathers. Its legs were scaly, ending with large and sharp talons. Aside from the legs and the arms, it looked human. She had breasts, a smooth stomach—no belly button—and a human-like face with a head of reddish-brown hair. Her hair did have amber feathers interwoven, and her face was filled with sharp features between her eyes, mouth, and chin.

A harpy. A real actual living breathing harpy.

Well, almost living. It was breathing, but its breaths were shallow, hampered by the arrow jutting out of its stomach. The brass armor it wore over its chest and waist left an impractical gap of unprotected skin.

She had brass armor. The feathers and talons, Alyssa had expected. But armor? It fit her as well, which meant that it probably hadn’t been looted from someone else but made for her in particular. How had she put it on? Without hands, it must have been an ordeal. But the armor meant intelligence. More than just mindless birds operating on instinct and hunger.

Looking up from the chainmail skirt, Alyssa felt her breath hitch in her throat. The harpy was awake. Her yellow eyes gleamed as they caught the light from the magic orb. Alyssa just stared for a moment as the harpy stared at her.

A shrill squawk made Alyssa jump back, aiming her shotgun right at the bird. But she didn’t fire. The harpy hadn’t moved other than a small ruffling of its feathers. With the arrow sticking out of her side and the sizable pool of blood leaking from the wound, she might not have the strength to do more. She just stared, letting out a low trill.

Alyssa grit her teeth. What was she supposed to do? Lazhar had said that harpies were vicious monsters that would tear her apart without a shred of remorse. But this… this was just pitiful. An injured harpy, staring at her, almost more resigned than anything else. If harpies really were intelligent, she had to know that she was at Alyssa’s mercy. Even if she didn’t recognize the gun as a gun, she had to recognize it as a weapon and a danger just by how it was aimed at her.

Deciding what to do would have been easier if only she didn’t have a human face. Even then, it shouldn’t be this hard. Alyssa had killed two people. That had been in self defense. Different circumstances. But she should walk away. Just pretend she hadn’t seen anything. But harpies were real. They weren’t some myth or human construction to explain why their livestock went missing. Walking back outside to find another cave with night falling could see her eaten. Especially because any lights she used to see where she was going, magic or otherwise, would be like a beacon calling any hungry birds to a free buffet.

Alyssa slowly lowered her shotgun. She didn’t put it away, just aimed it away from the harpy.

She seemed to understand, tweeting out a short tune as she closed her eyes and rested her head against the rocks. Taking that as a truce, Alyssa let out a slight sigh and sat down a fair distance away. Now what? Could she even sleep like this? The harpy might claw out her throat in the middle of the night. Or the harpy might just die. How much blood had she lost? Was she just lying down for a peaceful death?

Alyssa didn’t want to wake up to find herself dead. Especially not with evil angels on the prowl to eat her… soul? At the same time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up to find herself sharing the cave with a harpy corpse.

Maybe there was a solution to both problems.

“I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’m going to try to fix you up. Let me just get some water boiling. Don’t move, not that you look very mobile at the moment.” The harpy looked up at Alyssa’s voice, but didn’t say anything. Not even her birdlike twittering. She did tense as Alyssa stood, but didn’t—or couldn’t—do anything else. Oh well, leaving the magic light in the cavern, Alyssa took the largest pot she had and headed out to the river.

Hopefully she would be able to convince the harpy that she was trying to help it.

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004.004

Posted on by Tower Curator

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Leaving Teneville

Lessons from the Future

Three burgers stood tall on Yzhemal’s nicest wooden plates. Buns, ketchup, meat, lettuce, and tomato. Alyssa had skipped over onions, cheese, pickles, and many other things that she might otherwise have. With the brothers so used to such bland food, she didn’t want to overwhelm them. Given the lack of tomatoes anywhere, she felt fairly certain that the ketchup and tomato slices alone would be exotic enough for them. To further enhance the tomatoes, each plate had roughly a third of a tomato sitting to the side. A way to eat it without getting it mixed with the rest of the flavors.

Lazhar, who Yzhemal had fetched while Alyssa was cooking, leaned to one side and then the other. His fingers curled through his beard nonstop. On the other side of the table, his brother merely stared with a frown.

“Oh just eat already,” Alyssa said as she picked up her own burger and bit right into it.

She almost started tearing up at the thought of never having a hamburger again. Instead, she just took a second bite and quaffed those feelings with a small drink of the strong ale. The burger wasn’t one hundred percent perfect. Yzhemal obviously lacked a modern propane grill. Or even a metal grate to cook over. He just had a metal—probably iron—stand that went above the fire that one could hang pots from. She had to cook in one of those iron pots. Figuring out how to flip the patties without a proper spatula had nearly wound up with them burned.

The open fire did lend a slightly different flavor to the meat. Something a bit more woody. It wasn’t bad. Unless that taste was previous meals that hadn’t been properly cleaned from the pans.

Alyssa was trying to not think so hard on that.

Seeing her eat, the brothers finally mimicked her actions and took moderately large bites. Between her own bites, Alyssa watched. Neither spat it back out. They both chewed for a moment before swallowing.

“It’s…”

“Not bad,” Lazhar said as he took a second bite.

“A bit much. I can hardly tell where one thing ends and another starts.”

“That’s probably the ketchup,” Alyssa said. “The red paste you saw me pouring on. It’s made from the fruit sitting on your plates, but it has so many herbs and spices added in it that its almost unrecognizable as a tomato.”

In an almost disappointing flash, Alyssa finished off her burger. Yzhemal and Lazhar took a bit longer, but they finally finished. They then ate their tomato slices which they seemed to enjoy a whole lot more.

“Interesting,” Yzhemal said, actually smiling at the red fruit in his fingers. “Sweet, yet somewhat bitter at the same time.”

“Glad you think so. That leads me to my second gift.” Leaning over to her backpack, she pulled out a glass canning jar filled with red goop and a few sheets of paper she had stapled together. A part of her really wanted to just spread as many things from her home around the world as possible. As Iosefael might say, it would mess everything up. Especially in the future—assuming this world turned into an Earth-like future within a thousand or so years. Archaeologists would go crazy upon discovering a staple, modern paper, and a canning jar in the ruins of this village. It would be her little prank.

Suddenly startled by a disturbing thought, Alyssa placed the papers down in the center of the table. “Can either of you read this?”

The two leaned forward to stare at it before Lazhar nodded his head. “I can. Whoever wrote this must have had a steady hand.”

“Mechanically steady,” Alyssa said with a sigh of relief. The printing press must not have been invented yet. Without it, there were no means for the masses to really learn to read. Nor any reason to. Everyone spoke English, so she had assumed that English text would be fine, but she never considered that nobody would be able to read it for the simple reason that they couldn’t read anything at all.

Though, considering again, she should definitely look into ways of magically copying items. Aziz had mentioned something along those lines. Maybe there were proper books proliferated throughout the world, just with magic instead of a machine.

“This,” she said, “is a guide—a treatise on how to turn these seeds into proper tomatoes.” She gently shook the jar of tomato guts. The jar, she had filled based on the directions from the internet. Internet. Ah, how am I supposed to get along without you. She would definitely be missing the convenience. “Honestly, I don’t know if these will grow.” They had been in her refrigerator for a while. “The land might not support them or maybe the climate will just be bad. I’ve never grown them myself. But these are all the seeds I can get and they’ll go to waste anyway, so go ahead and try. You can get more seeds by slicing grown tomatoes open and scooping out the innards, but they’re perfectly fine to eat. The green leafs that will grow might be slightly poisonous though, so don’t eat those. I know neither of you are farmers,” she said to the silent pair, “but maybe you can pass those instructions on to one of the other people around the town.”

“Doable,” Lazhar said, looking over the sheets of paper. He actually looked more interested in the paper itself rather than the text and images printed on them.

Oh well. As long as he could actually read the text, he could be fascinated with the paper all he wanted. Alyssa turned back to Yzhemal. “So, was that enough bartering for a room? Or do I have to go set up my tent?”

“Fine lass. You saved me from making a meal this evening, I suppose. Do what you want, you know your way around here.”

“Thanks! I appreciate it. Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your hair early in the morning. I’m planning on setting out for Lyria.”

That got Lazhar to look up from the papers. “Alone?” At Alyssa’s nod, he frowned. “I can’t stop you, but I should warn you, it will be dangerous. If you would have left with most of the other travelers, the mountain path would have been much safer. Every year, immediately after the festival ends, the harpies get riled up from all the travelers. It’s usually a good month before things fully calm down.”

Alyssa hummed. “Tell me a little about the harpies and the mountain pass.”

Leaning back, Lazhar scratched at his scraggly beard. “Most of the time, they mind themselves and we don’t bother them in return. Sometimes a sheep or cow will go missing, but that’s a small price to pay to avoid having a person carried off to the mountaintops. But the mountain pass is their territory. They might ignore the occasional traveler, but the festival carts, wagons, and people make a lot of noise and disturb them a great deal.”

“Are they intelligent?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you or me. Can they talk? Reason? Or are they like regular birds.”

“Well, I ain’t never seen one up close. Don’t think they talk though. Figured I would have heard stories from the travelers if that were the case. As for the mountain path itself, it’s fairly straightforward. The river cuts through and the path follows along the side. Fairly flat terrain. There are a few caves along the route that travelers use as shelter. It’s a three day journey from one end to the other by foot.”

“Three days?” That was longer than she had expected. A flat path sounded nice though, she had been expecting an uphill climb followed by a downward slope. “How far is it to Lyria?”

“Walking the whole way? You might be able to make it there in two weeks if you make good time, including the mountain pass.”

Two weeks. Alyssa slumped back in her seat. Even rationing her emergency food wouldn’t last her that long. And walking for two weeks straight? She was physically fit. Carrying around wood and boxes in her department store ensured that much, plus the regular trips to the gym. But walking-for-two-weeks fit? That might be a bit much. At the same time, maybe it was something of a relief. Hadn’t the Oregon Trail taken six months or so? And it had been filled with disease and famine.

Though, now that she thought about it, there was no guarantee that this two week journey would be free of plague. She did have modern medical knowledge. Boil water before drinking, how fleas enabled diseases to be transmitted between people and animals like rats, the importance of cooking meat, washing foods and hands. And so on and so forth. Of course, convincing others that she wasn’t crazy and that her ‘rituals’ worked might be another problem entirely. There were stories of doctors as recently as the late nineteenth century not washing their hands because they believed that if they couldn’t see anything, there was nothing there.

Once again, Alyssa found herself despising medieval existence.

“There are villages dotted along the way,” Yzhemal said. “Nothing as big as Teneville until you reach Lyria, but you shouldn’t have to pack more than three days worth of food at a time.”

“Well that’s a relief at least.” She had guns, but hunting with them? Even if she managed to kill something, turning a carcass into proper food wasn’t part of her skill set. It probably wouldn’t be hard to figure out. Animals were like… all food and bone, right? There would probably be a lot wasted though. Didn’t carcasses need to be drained of blood? She hadn’t looked up slaughterhouse techniques before setting off.

Foraging for fruits was almost certainly not an option. While she might recognize an apple hanging from a tree, there were so many toxic plants and berries on her Earth that could easily be confused with edible ones. Here on some strange planet, eating something that looked like a huckleberry could get her killed. Even things that looked familiar could be as alien as anything else around. Eating something she thought was an apple might just be a toxic fruit avoided by the locals.

“How expensive would that be?” Alyssa reached into her pocket and pulled out everything she had received from Yzhemal. “I really have no reference to how much this is worth, and it’s about all I have.” Aside from the things she wanted to sell after learning more about the local money.

“You really don’t know anything, do you?”

With a sad sigh and a shake of her head, Alyssa said, “Nope. I got here through magical accident.” There was no point in hiding it. They had to suspect. Aziz had figured out most of the truth after only a short discussion. Unless she learned some things, everyone she met would know. “Everything here is strange to me. I haven’t heard of any places around, none of the landscape looks familiar, and we don’t have anything like monsters and harpies back where I’m from.”

Lazhar leaned forward with a small smile. “But you speak our language. And you have heard of Tenebrael.”

“That’s… true.” She didn’t know why everyone spoke English. As for Tenebrael, the less said, the better.

But Lazhar’s small smile grew. “Then you can’t be that far away from home. I’m sure you’ll find your way.”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find in Lyria.”

“Well, we can’t let you go ignorant, can we brother?”

Yzhemal rolled his eyes, but nodded after a little prodding from Lazhar. “Fine. I suppose we can teach the lass a few things.”

“After all,” Lazhar said, resting his hand on the jar of tomato seeds. “She gave us such fine gifts. These tomatoes will be a profitable novelty for you. I’m sure they’ll more than make up for some minor inconvenience.”

“If they actually grow.” He sighed and reached forward, grabbing one of the squared bronze bars. “This is a prav. The silver ones are called medi and are worth six prav. Altus are flat golden squares, worth eighteen medi. A meal here costs anywhere from one prav to a full medi, depending on exactly what they want.”

“So long as you remain frugal,” Lazhar said, “you should be able to get to Lyria on no more than three medi. Most villages between here and there will be quite accommodating. They’re used to travelers. People will help out if you need it.”

“Good to know,” Alyssa said as she settled in to listen to the brothers talk.

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