Gorg the minotaur walked with supreme confidence in his strength and abilities. Castrated at birth and sold as a slave by his own race, he had been groomed as a soldier from childhood. Even among minotaur he was an exalted fighter, and had earned his place as one of Thumb’s elite forces with unwavering loyalty and countless victories in battle.
Along with his equally powerful brother Gon, he didn’t think too much of this current mission of guarding the moody and arrogant human weakling known as Pinky. She was such a tiny, ugly thing. Yet he was forced to obey her orders as though they came from Thumb himself. His other mission was to keep an eye on her for anything suspicious. He was pretty sure the trip to a different tavern than the one she usually frequented would warrant a report.
Such were his thoughts as the trio turned down the narrow alley leading to Merissa’s home near the southeast corner of the Merchant Belt. A small woman in a robe blocked their path, she moved feebly to the side in apparent panic.
“Please excuse me, dear!” She croaked as they walked past.
Gorg paid her no more mind until an explosion of pain and heat erupted just above his hips. His shoulders and the back of his head hit the ground hard. He looked around, noticing with strange detachment that his legs and hips were still standing upright but slowly falling to the side. Magic? That old woman is a magic user? Gorg’s musings were cut short as Agitha’s sword reversed its stroke and slashed across his throat. His last vision was of Pinky falling beside him, blood streaming from her forehead, and his brother Gon above them facing the out of sight woman. As blackness closed in, he heard Gon roar in outrage, and he heard the wicked woman laugh.
Gon watched helplessly as his brother’s upper half hit the ground, and the robed woman’s sword slashed his throat. Before he could react, she slashed Pinky in the face whom then fell beside Gorg’s lifeless body.
Gon bellowed in outrage, but before he could draw the giant axe on his back the woman was upon him. Two swords biting and slashing with speed too fast to follow. After one pass he was bleeding from a dozen or more deep wounds on his arms and legs.
She waded back in before he could recover. His blood pooled around his feet, mixing with his dead brother’s. The sight pushed him into a state no minotaur steer had ever entered. Gon went berserk.
“Oops.” Agitha said as the castrated minotaur made a terrible sound that made her feel a mix of dread and nostalgia.
Waves of heat rolled off the now convulsing beast. His armor broke at the seams as his muscles swelled in size. Steam flared from his nostrils, and yellowish light glowed in his eyes. Within a second, a new beast faced her. All signs of intelligence had been replaced by pure bestial fury. He put his fists on the bloody ground, and bunched his mighty legs beneath him. Agitha reacted to the charge too late.
“You can’t do that without testicles!” Agitha protested with a grunt as the bull’s forehead struck her full in the chest.
She flew back several feet and cracked into the brick wall behind her. Before she could even drop to the ground, Gon smashed into her again. Her swords flew from her hands as they broke through the warehouse wall and crashed into a shelf holding empty clay pots.
Agitha was pinned to the ground and rubble, Gon repeatedly smashing his head over and over into her torso. He was grunting and snorting, steam and blood billowed from his flaring nostrils with every jarring impact.
Agitha stilled her mind away from the sensation in her mid section. Two broken ribs and alot of bruises so far. Nothing a potion wouldn’t clean up. Still, many more hits and she might have a pierced lung. She timed the next hit. As Gon crashed in, she seized one horn in each hand yanking the head up as she planted a knee in the beast’s massive chest. Over he went, his own momentum aiding the move. He crashed into another nearby shelving unit, thrashing and scrambling back to all fours.
Before he could launch himself again, a green chestplate clattered to the floor along with the woman’s blood and mud soaked cloak. The bruised and scuffed elf stood facing him squarely, matching the ferocity in his eyes. She mirrored his pose, placing her own hands on the ground in front of her. Then in a moment that absolutely broke every conceivable law of nature and sanity, the elf woman charged the minotaur roaring head first.
They met in the middle. Their heads collided with the sound of a thunderclap. Agitha’s vision went white for just a moment and she staggered down to one knee. Gon on the other hand was flat on his back. She stood up slowly. He was alive, but just barely.
Agitha reached to the pouch on the back of her belt. Three of the four healing potions she brought were broken in the fight. She drank half of the remaining one, and poured the rest a drop at a time into Gon’s mouth.
He stirred soon after but she was already gone.
Agitha arrived back at Kel’s just after dark. She tread lightly through the common room, avoiding the notice of the festive small crowd that still lingered after dinner to share drinks and gossip.
She paused outside the door to their room. There was an unexpected voice coming from inside the room: a singsong female voice she recognized as belonging to one of Kel’s daughters. The girl was laughing and making some other noises that Agitha couldn’t immediately recognize. Realization dawned on her quickly though. Two pubescent humans in the same room making suspicious sounds could only mean one thing!
Agitha contemplated what to do. She didn’t object to Zell having romantic interests, in fact a large part of her felt a great deal of pride for him at this moment. But then again just how many opportunities to burst in on him in a compromising situation would there be? The choice was clear, and she flung open the door in feigned ignorance.
The girl named Nin was indeed in the room with Zell, though to Agitha’s great disappointment she was paying Zell no attention. She was currently holding one end of an old knotted towel while Merc tugged on the other end in a spirited game of tug of war.
“Welcome back, Teacher.” Zell remarked
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“Rough night.” Agitha replied as she unfastened her armor and sat at the foot of her bed. “Looks like you made a new friend!” She said, aiming the comment directly at Merc.
The girl gave one final and mighty tug before surrendering the old towel to the dire wolf who paraded around the room thrashing it from side to side happily.
“Sorry to intrude lady Agitha. I asked if I could play with him since I’m off for the rest of the night.” Nin said to Agitha, speaking with utmost respect to her as she always did.
“It’s just Agitha. Honorifics are a waste of air. Besides I’m glad you’re here. Would you mind doing me a favor?” Agitha asked as she pulled off her boots.
“Of course I’d love to and thank you... Agitha.” Nin replied beaming.
“I heard from your father that you and Rin are both star fighters at the club you’re in. Is that true or just a fatherly boast?” Agitha asked honestly.
“I don’t know if we’re stars but we’ve won first and second place in the past five tournaments we entered, including the Open Arena where adults can enter.” Nin replied obviously uncomfortable with the compliment from such a famous swordswoman.
“I want to hire you to grill Bait here in the basics. If you learned from your father then you essentially learned from me. I’ll pay you obviously, and as an additional bonus Bait will take on half of your shifts in the inn. I already cleared it with your parents but in the end it’s up to you.” Agitha finished her offer, noting that Zell was beet red and Nin was fumbling for an answer.
“That sounds amazing, are you sure?” Nin asked genuinely struck by the notion that her idol had acknowledged her in such a meaningful way.
“Of course, you’re perfect for the job.” Agitha shot back immediately. She felt a little bad seeing the girl’s excitement. After all, she had merely dumped the most tedious part of training a new pupil in her lap.
“He can join our team once he gets the basics down. That made Rin and I both improve much faster than just training with dad and eachother.” Nin looked so happy as she spoke.
She either really likes fighting or really likes the kid. Thought Agitha. Either way it was time to reel in the excitement a little.
“Just the basics from you and your sister if she wants to help. Once winter ends and he’s not totally worthless, we’re relocating to a different training ground. Perhaps when we return from that he can join a club when he enrolls at the MHA.” Agitha clarified.
“Understood lad- err Agitha.” Nin caught herself. “But that means we have all winter to play! I mean train.” Nin blushed under her long bangs as she corrected herself again.
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Desperation gripped the creature. Too long had passed since it had fed on the boy and replaced the mana pearl in his chest. By now even a slight blow could rupture the overly engorged pearl. A ruptured pearl with that much mana would almost certainly destroy him, and if not contained a fair chunk of the landscape around him as well.
The creature had visited the boy’s home nightly, and had also visited the elf woman’s cabin to find her missing. That coincidence did not sit well. It would have to do the one thing it hated above all else in its desperation to find the boy: deal with humans. There was one such human, a boss in the criminal world of the city above its lair that it turned to in times such as this. A mighty magic user that rivaled even its own innate talents. She had a small army of undead and constructed servants as well as the backing of the Little Hand. If anyone could find the boy or the elf, it was her.
Urgency drove it to ignore the usual protocols for visiting the dangerous woman. As soon as the sun disappeared, it quickly ascended through the sewers and onto the dark streets of Vinia City; a shadow drifting among shadows. It entered the nondescript building without alerting the many sentries or tripping any of the magical alarms. The inside of the complex was vastly different from the plain wrapping outside. Room after room dedicated to carrying out research in the darkest areas of magic flitted past as it homed in on the strongest mana source in the building: Vira, the Living Lich and Middle Finger of the Little Hand.
“Welcome, my lovely lamprey.” The voice echoed through his thoughts telepathically as he drifted into the large lab.
She was facing away from him. Vira was a human (or once had been) of average height and build. Her black and red leather lab coat was tailored to hold dozens of scalpels, twine, scrolls, and a seemingly endless number of other odd and grotesque implements. She was busily operating on the corpse of a mutilated minotaur. Her hands were a blur as she stitched its lower half back to its upper half.
“My latest project, isn’t he gorgeous?” Vira continued to speak in his mind as she flashed through the motions of several complicated spells in rapid succession. The stitching on the minotaur’s throat and waist glowed green and the body twitched.
“Your talents are wasted in this human city.” The mana lamprey observed dryly with its own thoughts. “In my realm you would be crafting dracoliches and frost giant deathlords rather than minotaur scrap zombies.”
“Oh you’re too cruel! He’s no scrap zombie. I’ve fortified him with over a dozen strength and speed enhancing spells. Once I get him armored and replace his hands with weapons he’ll be thrice as formidable as when he had the disease of living. I’d like to see that hag try to chop him in half now! I bet she’ll be sent flying with one hit. She’ll probably cry too! One hit!” Vira’s enthusiastic mental ranting was accentuated with several jabs thrown at the air with her skeletal hand.
“Well then, aside from complimenting and insulting my work why have you come?” She finally turned as the monstrosity behind her sat up fluidly and put its hooves on the stone floor. It showed none of the stiffness or clumsiness normally associated with the undead, and its eyes glowed the same ghastly green as the stitches had. “Finally going to let me dissect you? I promise to be gentle!”
Between the towering undead monster and the woman, the latter was more imposing by far. Vira was known as the Living Lich, the only being ever known to transcend mortality and gain the powers of the legendary undead magic users while her heart yet beat. Her face was surely attractive by the standards of her own species, at least the half that wasn’t exposed and polished bone. In fact the entire right half of her body was skeletal. The arrested transformation that was constantly trying to consume her mortal form was the secret behind her unearthly power.
The mana lamprey wiggled a tentacle in discomfort, squinting its milky eyes as it sent images of the boy and Agitha into her mind.
“I seek this boy, and desire to know if he is with the elf woman. The boy is valuable prey, and has a twelve day old pearl growing more volatile by the second. The amount of mana in it would destroy him and anything near him should it break. I must search the entire kingdom and beyond if necessary.” The lamprey added urgently.
“I have information for you then, and it’s the juiciest!” The human half of her face was grinning smugly. “But its not free you know!”
The lamprey could easily surmise where this was going. “I wont let you dissect my body.”
“Aww but don’t you want to find the mana bomb kid and the elf that may or may not be with him?” She retorted playfully. “Perhaps we can compromise. How about just one tentacle? It’ll grow back!”
“I feel everything that happens to even a severed body part.” The lamprey groaned mentally. “You’d better numb it before you go chopping it up and setting it on fire.”
“Victory!” Vira crowed in its mind as a twirling scalpel appeared in her skeletal hand.
It winced as Vira sliced off a finger sized piece of the sensitive appendage. A tiny amount of inky blood oozed out for just a moment before the lamprey’s rapid regeneration sealed the wound and grew back to its original shape.
“Now, my answers if you please.” The lamprey pressed, battling the urge to flay the woman.
“Oh yes. They’re both here in the city. Agitha is the one that cut this fella in half.” She caressed the undead minotaur’s massive leg lovingly as she spoke. “I’m surprised you didn’t sense her when she broke her mana seal yesterday. She also killed a few of Index’s lads when she arrived in town. She failed to finish off Pinky, but after she does I bet I’m next.” Vira’s thoughts had a tone of superiority, as if she was surprised the lamprey hadn’t heard. Agitha’s rampage was all anyone in the underworld was talking about.
“She’s staying at an inn called Kel’s Place with her pet human and a dire wolf. Now unless you are going to offer up any more interesting bits of flesh I think we’re finished here.” Vira waved dismissively with her human hand as she turned to regard the minotaur zombie.
The lamprey did leave then. The information was vital, but the implications were daunting. Getting past the elf’s senses was going to be nearly impossible, not to mention the dire wolf.
It wrung its tentacles as it searched its mind for a solution. The risk was great, but the prize could be a meal that catapulted it back into the power it had been stripped of so long ago.
Even without the added complications, removing a pearl so overloaded with mana would be a risky process. One wrong move and it would be caught up in the lethal blast as well.
Such were the lamprey’s thoughts as it drifted in mist form back down through the sewers and deeper into its dank lair. One way or another it must move within the next few days or make plans to leave the city before the catastrophe inevitably struck. It knew the answer, for it was at its core a being whose great greed overcame its pragmatism. Luckily there were many allies it could call upon. One in particular, the creature’s trump card that should even prove a match for the damnable elf though it came with incredible risk of its own.
A plan took shape in the creature’s wicked mind. Gathering the ingredients and performing the ritual would take a few days. As long as the boy didn’t do anything reckless the pearl would hopefully hold.