The dinner consisted of roasted lamb, with peas, potatoes and carrots. The spice smell filled the room, and Velvet made sure to enjoy the free food as much as she could, to the point where she also ate part of Skugol’s plate.
Hey now, the guy was basically dead, so it was fine.
Once they finished eating, Kartal brought four rings. Golden in color, with intricate details and a thin golden chain that wrapped around the wrist, ending in a golden triangle, coupled with a translucent jewel on top of the ring. One was different, with three translucent jewels instead of one.
“This is a blood locator. The starting point of each mage is random, so, to make sure you can group together as fast as possible, you’ll be using these.” Kartal picked the three rings that had one jewel. “Syon, your hand.”
Obediently, Syon took off his glove and raised his left hand. Kartal pressed the jewel against his palm.
Velvet saw Syon grimacing for an instant, the jewel now tainted red. Kartal repeated the same thing two times, before picking the ring with three jewels. “Your turn now.”
Blood was dangerous in the mage world. It was one of the fastest ways to curse or track someone, and mages were recommended to keep in check where the blood they lost went.
Of course, several spells existed to remove or burn blood traces, since a mage could use their own blood to track the lost blood, and ‘curse’ it before anyone else did.
Those rings were probably used to reassure Kartal that the removed blood could not be used for anything else, even if they ended in the wrong hands.
And she was second, dammit.
Pressing her finger against one of the jewels, a sharp, piercing pain stabbed it. She bit her tongue to not make any noise (Syon hadn’t complained after being pierced three times, and he was more delicate than Velvet, making her competitive), until the jewel had been completely tainted red.
When she was over, it was Drifa’s turn, on the middle one. As a frontline mage, she barely reacted to the pain, making two the number of red jewels.
Skogul was last. He also didn’t react much, but his jewel took the longest time to change color, becoming a dark red, almost black.
Once the principal ring was done, Kartal gave it to Syon, who started tinkering with it. He also started distributing the other three.
Click. One of the jewels came out. Well, actually, Syon plucked it out. Kartal glared at him, making clear he wasn’t supposed to do that.
Click. He pulled out another. And then swapped their positions, making Skugol’s black jewel the middle one.
“Syon…” Kartal sighed, but, upon receiving only a clueless look as answer from the Second Prince, he gave up.
And, slowly and stealthy, Velvet, Drifa and Skugol either lowered a weapon, stopped a blood burning spell or stopped trying to get into Syon’s blood gem.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Once his ring was symmetrical, he put it on, fixing the chain around his wrist. The others did the same, testing the artifact’s accuracy.
All three chain’s endings worked as a pendulum, pointing to Syon, signaling it worked perfectly.
“Don’t remove the ring, or the jewel will self-destruct. You can also detonate it with a single thought, in case you fall in a trap and get captured.” Fixing his clothes, Kartal ordered the staff to start cleaning the table. “Any more questions?”
Kartal’s staff consisted of figures dressed in white, long skirt maid clothes, with their faces covered by silk cloth. Every maid looked the same as the others, which made Velvet assume they were made with Kartal’s magic. She didn’t ask, anyway.
Part of her was considering Kartal to be of the Delusion Paradigm, obtaining the ability of making illusions real once opening the second Esca.
I wonder what a second Knowledge Esca would do. Maybe it will allow me to understand any spell I lay my eyes upon… but that sounds kinda basic. Stopping her daydreaming, Velvet gave a negative answer to Kartal, going to her room to purify herself and sleep.
Waiting for the bathtub to fill, she checked on her new pets.
The fluffy thing she had seen at first was a drowsy fox, sleeping peacefully. From the Dreamer Paradigm, its dreams could be used to power charms. Unfortunately, Velvet wasn’t a lucid dreamer, at least not outside the chained man’s place, so she was unable to harvest dreams.
It could be sold for 100 auris, so there was that. She could even resold it to Agorn, were he able to pay.
The next container had a bunch of multiplying rabbits. The fox’s food source. They had no other uses, apart from being cute, fluffy and popping kids like once a week. Next.
A nighthare. Looking like a possessed, elongated, traumatized rabbit, greenish grayish in color, with long hair, fed on dreams (Agorn was feeding it with the cloud rabbits dreams, but Velvet changed it to consume the fox’s dreams. One, for science, and two, she couldn’t harvest the fox's dreams herself anyway), the hare from the Lust Paradigm looked at her, standing on two legs, and she could feel that it was delighted for the food change.
She could harvest the moss and small mushrooms growing on its long hair, making some homemade ink for charms. Velvet still had the lust spells and seeds, after all.
And the best thing? The nighthare was worth 5000 auris. It was a very expensive, high quality pet.
Agorn had three foxes in total, two rabbit containers, one empty with the cursed mirror and the hare.
The three foxes will make feeding the hare with fox’s dreams very easy and safe. Velvet hummed, interested in her experiment.
The rabbit addition allowed her to buy carnivores in the future, no longer limited to insectivores.
Stopping recounting her spoils, Velvet went to take a bath, cleaned her body of miasma, and went to bed.
Tomorrow was going to be intense, so she wasn’t planning on testing anything.
…
When she didn’t find herself surrounded by darkness, Velvet cursed Lothrigern in silence.
Instead, she found herself in a temple. White marble pillars covered by ivy surrounded a god’s altar, the cold stone floor caressing her feet. There was no ceiling, letting the natural light fill the surroundings.
She was barefoot, with several thin, golden anklets as jewelry. A plain, simple dress, wasted white in color, from an epoch she couldn’t pinpoint, probably ancient was her only attire.
Velvet walked to the altar. Food, gold, exquisite clothes, wine… She didn’t touch any of it.
It wasn’t for her, after all.
A colossal statue was behind the offerings. Depicted was an old man, with a long beard and four closed eyes, sitting cross-legged, scepter in hand and crown in head.
Velvet looked at the scepter, trying to see if she could find the formation, but the sound of someone rushing to her position put her on alert.
“Grand Priestess! Divine Priestess!” A bald man entered the altar, instantly falling to his knees in front of Velvet, knocking his head against the stone floor, using enough force to start splashing the floor red. “There’s been a revelation! There’s been a revelation!”
Velvet was going to stop the idiot from killing himself, but he looked up towards her. Between the blood and broken nose, his face was filled with tears and despair.
“Solaros is dead. Nimargio is dead. Frouga is dead. Our god is dying too.”
A cracking noise behind Velvet caught her attention. The god’s statue was falling apart.
“Why?!” The man asked. “What sins did we commit?!” He slammed his head against the stone again and again, chanting why.
Velvet felt her mouth open against her will, as if the Priestess she was replacing wanted to say something. “We didn’t do anything. This is the gods’ sin, a sin that can only be paid with blood.”
She looked up to the red sky. The sky was falling.
The man’s skin started spurting ulcers, the charring smell of meat coming from his body. Just like Velvet’s.
She looked at her hands, the meat was falling down, like candle wax, showing the bone underneath.
Something slammed the ground far away. A colossal figure, bigger than the temple itself. An old bearded man, with four open eyes devoid of life. The lower half of his body was nowhere to be seen.