White Sand: First 5 Hours

Molly frowned when she saw the three operation henchmen approach.

“Molly. Sorry, can we came in to talk more.” 669 asked. He saw a couple of young girls hiding behind a litter and flashed them a wink.

Molly took note of what he was seeing and sighed. “Erin, Cara, get in bed now!”

The two young girls dressed in long and baggy gowns with their hair held up in a bun and silver pin, coyly nodded, gave 669 and the other adults a quick look before hurrying into the soap house.

669 returned his sober expression and attention to the urgent matter at hand.

“Hurry up. We can talk in a private viewing room, which isn’t being used today.”

They followed her inside. 669 was soon surrounded by many worker admirers, who were lavishing him with coy requests for their services and compliments.

“Not today my pretties. I have to work.”

“Oh? You’re saving Sir, Risk! Please take these pills. They will restore a third of your stamina to keep your magic going.” One girl animatedly said and handed him a small jade bottle.

More of the workers approached them with gifts to help them with their tasks, and many heartfelt appreciate for what they were trying to do to save Maud.

“Did we say anything?” 789 blinked with surprised at the many boxes and bottles of rare plant and pill ingredients that were being shoved into her clutches.

“I didn’t know gossip travelled this fast.”

Molly laughed. “You’re here when business is closing and in battle gear, asking to talk to me. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots that you’re trying to save Maud.”

She sternly led the way up two flights of stairs until they reached the only door at the center of the landing. This was their best VIP room that was typically used for important meetings.

“What is your plan?” Molly asked when she ensured everyone was able to take a seat at the lavish polish pinewood and gold gilded dining table.

“We have 72 log glass hours to prove Maud’s innocence. Constable Rice is helping us.”

They all took turns in filling Molly in on their next steps and the consequences of failure.

“I always suspected it would come to this.” She rose and moved her arms in a graceful dance, stirring the dormant virya to her whim as she activated her phoenix fire based magic.

“Phoenix Sora: Time Dominance.” Her voice rebounded around their sense, shattering their physical view of the room and world to move them into a spacial domain.

The trio found themselves standing in a vibrant palace where everywhere were marble floors, orange-red walls and gold ornaments depicting various poses of a silver phoenix. The air moved: light and shadows looped and swirled into themselves.

“This is my spacial domain outside Tesha prohibition.”

“Wait, outside?” 789 asked with a mixture of disbelief and intrigue.

Molly nodded and explained that the Evil Phoenix existed before the Majestic Peace Order was established. Foreseeing the autocratic manipulation of removing teshakind’s the right to make their own fate, her ancestors established a temporal space with an old magic not constricted to the Peace Order’s bands. But the space could only be used for short periods to avoid potential corruption.

“Here. Stand still and don’t move.” She sternly said to the three of them.

“What are you going to do?” 669 timidly asked.

“Stand. Don’t talk.”

“Ma’am!” The three snapped to attention.

“Phoenix Sora: Time Rewound.” Her flowed through their ears like ticks of a clock and slowed with deep tones. The moving air and lights were slowing down with the sound of her voice. As her voice and the space surrounding them slowed to a crawl, they felt their own bodies and thoughts slow at the same pace.

But this slowness wasn’t restricted to Molly who danced around the space to draw a circular magic array of ancient and attribute sigils along the array’s edges and within the central space. Her fiery magic was drawing in miniature versions of planets and stars to her will, gathering them together with intense focus and movement until they filled every space with the array to make it burn in flames.

With a loud clap, bang and sucking sensation everyone’s vision went white. 669 gasped when he felt his breath refill his lungs with such velocity it felt like they would burst. He and the others fell to their knees, feeling suddenly weak.

“Sorry. This power drains a lot of your virya, but you’ll have it restored when you leave this space.”

Her hands wavered and shock when she stuck a piece of orange film over the bottom portion of the log glass. The sand glowed orange for a fleeting moment.

Molly huffed, looking more exhausted and weak than the others as she stepped back. “When the sand nears one hour, the film will melt into the sand and slow time for everywhere and everyone except the wearer.”

777 nodded. “Thank you.”

“It’s me that will thank you when you save Maud and our lives.”

She assumed a moment to meditate and reclaim her strength before returning everything to normal.

“There is also something else.” Molly said when they had resumed their place in the VIP room of the real world.

They listened uninterrupted as she mentioned on doing their own investigation. Her henchmen had been trained for scouting, so they could move around in stealth and learn things Royal Guards and typical warriors couldn’t.

“Simon Miller is a bastard. He had been lurking on the Holy Order side of the Border City for a month and all for an artifact his brother held.”

“Artifact?” 777 rubbed his chin.

She nodded and continued on what she found out. It was about three months ago when Simon and his uncle had returned from the Stone Giant town in the Dry Well Sands region. They had told their family of a big score they were bringing home. But Simon’s uncle stole all their goods and sold them to Lau Poirot under the table. Simon had been tasked to reclaim their commodities. So he approached Lau with an offer and was able to reclaim most of the artifacts. Five of them. He was supposed to take them back to the family for reselling, but instead skimped a couple of important ones for himself.

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“Then Tristan makes an unholy trade on our place of business with Fairy Blossom.”

“That was?”

Molly stared at 669 as she answered his question. “He bought Miki to cancel Alder Finch’s debts with him.”

“How did Fairy Blossom get involved?” 789 blurted not following the connection.

Molly explained on the facts her men had gathered. Alder Finch had been running up debts at the Lucky 4Chan gambling house, so much so that he had approached Tristan (who was his direct boss) for an advanced pay. Tristan gave the money to pay off the debt, but with caveat that he could take whatever he wanted from the man if he didn’t pay on time. He never stated what that was.

“Somehow, Alder was able to gather credits to pay off his debt to Tristan. He had been dating Fairy Blossom at the time, so he trusted her to mediate the debt cancellation with Tristan while they were in bed. Hoping the fee could be reduced or cancelled. But instead he laughed and asked for Miki. The money was never exchanged.”

“Then Maud finds the money in her room.”

“Alder pick pocketed the money from one of my protection patrol guards. People don’t know, but he wasn’t just a water seller before Miki came into his life. But no one could catch him doing it, so to this day he keeps walking around.”

So Tristan had given Alder a grace period to sort his affairs with Miki, before handing her over to him. It wasn’t apparent what reason Tristan needed Miki. There was silent contemplation before 777 answered with the most logical and sickening reason. “Necromancy.”

“He wasn’t!” 669 felt his blood boil.

Molly nodded. “My men seemed to confirm as much. There were a few hints of Simon and his uncle bringing back forbidden magic items. All of them demanding blood sacrifice at varied levels.”

“Shit!”

“But what has this got to do with the other deaths?” 777 asked.

“Probably nothing.” Molly shrugged her shoulders and explained further.

So Tristan had taken Miki back to their mansion. Presumably locked her in a ritual preparation room. And began to study Corpse Puppet magic.

“Here’s the confusing bit. Somehow Simon ended up with Miki.” Molly frowned.

“How do you know that?”

“Well a few of my men found children’s belongings in Simon’s drawers. Most were dirt stained and poor condition, but there were traces of his… Well, we can only assume they belonged to her and maybe some others.”

669 sat horrified and wanting to throw up. Instead, he whipped out his fan and started moving it back and forth at a fast speed to cool himself down.

“Despicable evil! If I ever get my hands on him, he’s toast.” 789 growled while crunching her knuckles.

Molly scoffed at their reactions. “We are demons. What do you expect?”

“I expect kids to grow up without having to fear some pervs gonna get the jump on them, that’s what I expect!” 789 was beginning to get passionate about the subject, but calmed down by 777’s sober reminder that time was ticking fast.

Molly continued. “So we can only assume that Tristan was the one making the corpse puppets, possibly from his own house staff. Simon was given Miki, but unclear why Tristan would surrender her if he still needed to perform his ritual.”

“Maybe Simon took her without Tristan being aware, and hid her away.” 789 gagged and made retching noises.

“A likely conclusion.”

“What about this artifact? Is it part of the one sold to Lau or did Simon keep it?” 669 asked

“Good question. My men did some detail observations of the Miller’s mansion and concluded that Simon kept a powerful artifact, which held cosmic power. The residue of active cosmic power had still lingered with a potency that was dangerous to organism mages. And there were many spacial and time disruptions across his rooms. The matter was far too risky for any of us to deal with, so I had sent world to our Administration contact who sent people to seal it.”

“You did?” 669 hoped the administration didn’t think to send someone their way.

“They shouldn’t bother you. I sent them an excuse that one of our girls went missing, and my men were smart to set up the right leads for Simon’s place without further questions.”

Unfortunately, Simon and the artifact he carried were still at large.

“I heard rumors that our Overlord is mustering up a taskforce to hunt this artifact down.”

“No doubt.”

“This is all I know.” Molly rose, calling closure on their discussion.

The three of them followed her out of the room and floor to the entrance.

“Good luck.”

They activated their wings and decided to head back to their headquarters to reassess their plans.

Molly ensured her men were on their guard shifts and all the workers were resting well, or entertaining what guests they could. She headed up to her bedroom on the second floor, keen to have some decent sleep.

“I had a feeling it was you who organized my home to be sealed,” Simon vehemently said as he stood next to her burnished red wood drawers. The top drawer was opened to reveal her underwear. “Ah the smell of fresh panties.”

“Phoenix Magia: Flame thrall!” She cast her spell to attack the man, but her magic was weak from the Sora spell she had used earlier. So it barely impacted him.

Simon looked surprised at surviving her attack then laughed with vicious glee. “Hah, and they said you were this Mad Blade. A scary, powerful woman.”

He approached her with a cocky smirk and swagger. “But no, you’re just a woman. Too old for my liking. But that’s not why I’m here. You have something I want.” He grabbed her by the hair and forced liquid down her thought, ignoring her cursing and struggles. When he saw the vial was taking effect, he let her go.

“Now you can tell me where it is in 10 minutes or fewer, or become my corpse puppet once you become a corpse.”

“I - I…” She was struggling to speak as she felt a pain like needles flowing down her throat.

“My brother took something that didn’t belong to him, instead of taking what he agreed to take. This artifact was supposed to set me up for life. But no, my uncle and now my brother stole it from me.” He spouted his woes with a mad embellishment. “ME! Who has done everything right! The good, quiet, soft-spoken boy who does everything right.”

Molly was feeling the pain pushing against her eyes, so tears were forming. Her body was growing hot, which she was using her magic to negate the poison’s impacts to her best ability.

“This artifact has the power of the deities. I must have it.” Simon’s eyes gazed out to space, clearly overwhelmed with an insanity.

“Did… ou… kill… Trist..an?” She managed to ask, reeling his mind and attention to back to her.

“Tristan? That loser little brother? Oh yes, well, to be technically correct I hired someone else to do it. But they did it brilliantly! It’s great when others who can do, do, and do so well.”

Simon paced the room with his mad ramble and heightened excitement. “He gave me Miki and took the ring. But the ring beloved to me. It was the banner he should’ve taken. The ring…is…” His eyes glossed over with a far away madness. “My treasure.”

While he was momentarily distracted. Molly, clumsily removed a gem from her belt and smashed it with what was left of her hand strength and magic. After a few minutes, a pair of guards entered the room.

“Ki–ll…”

The guards understood and shot Simon with magic laced crossbows that both stilled his heart, drained his virya and, most importantly, stopped his mouth from ever speaking or breathing again.

One of the guards fed a healing potion into Molly’s mouth and assisted her to her dresser chair where she took a moment to reclaim her breath and energy.

“Take this filth away and burn it so not a trace is left behind. Understood?”

The guards nodded and went to do as she ordered. One of them noticed some panties strewn about Simon’s body. They were going to ask what to do with them, but received their answer from her murderous glare.

“Got it.” One guard hastily gathered the panties and hid them from her view as he and the other guard carried Simon’s corpse away.

‘Cannon Fodder 4Hire better come good.” Molly huffed as she performed a minor flame spell to trash everything in her room.

Then stepped out to call her guards together and perform reprimand actions that would reinforce their fear in her and doing their duty right.