After I handed over the coin and took care of the enchantments for the treasury room, the three of us decided to explore the city for the evening. Everyone seems to be in a good mood; the giant step pyramid of solid iron that's taken over one of the fields the merchant trains use might have something to do with that.
We're walking over to the market district when I hear a scream from a couple streets over. Stretching my senses out, I spot a horde of men chasing after a twelve year old girl. Every man she runs past stops whatever they were doing and joins in on the chase.
"What the fuck?" I lock everyone on the street in place and levitate us over to the mob. "What in the hells is going on here?" I demand an explanation from the crowd while I repair the girl's torn clothing.
I'm answered by several variations of "Fuck off", "I saw her first", and "She's mine" while the men struggle against their invisible bonds.
"Sorrel, 'look' at her." Apricot stresses the word, so I turn my Magical Sight on to the girl.
"What the fuck?" I repeat myself. "What are you? Sorry, that was rude, it's clear you don't have any control over this." There's waves of what basically amounts to magical lust pouring off of her.
"No! Stay back." She cries and tries to run away when I take a step towards her. "Please just stay back." She curls up into a ball when it's clear that she can't get away.
"It's alright." I raise my hands up and back away. "I won't come any closer, but you don't have to worry, I've got your magic locked down now." She looks up at me with a mix of fear and hope. "Can my wife Apricot come over? She's a pixie, and wouldn't be affected either way." I hand Apricot a glass of Healing Sap when the girl nods, she's covered in scrapes and scratches, and her feet have been run raw.
"What's going on Sorrel?" Amelia asks when the mob starts fainting and float off to the side of the road.
"I'm knocking them out until her magic works its way out of their systems." It's affecting their brains directly by stimulating the limbic area, and suppressing the cortex. "Now that I've isolated her, the effect she had on them is fading. But, it's slow and I'd rather not listen to them anymore."
"Is she an Awakened?" Amelia looks over as Apricot coaxes the girl into drinking the Healing Sap.
"No, I think it's her species." I shake my head and start examining her more closely once she finally drinks the Sap. "She looks human, inside and out, but her race came up as question marks when I tried to evaluate her Hmm? Some of her glands are putting out magical sex pheromones, for lack of a better term."
"Well, since I don't know what that one means, you're going to have to break it down a bit more for me." She smiles at the girl's astonished cries when she watches her wounds fade before her eyes.
"It's like how when a girl cat is in heat, all the boy cats will know and follow after her." I chuckle when mittens tilts his head in confusion from inside her blouse. "You're a bit young for that buddy." I say and scratch him on the head.
"Can you help her?" The her in question starts walking over to us.
"Can you?" She asks in a pleading tone after stopping a couple paces away from me.
"I can." She looks like a doe that's about to bolt away any second, so I tell her what she wants to hear. "This is a Nature magic problem, and while I'm more skilled with the plant side of things, this shouldn't be an issue."
A guard comes running up at this point, causing the girl to hide behind Apricot. "Marquis, is everything alright here?" He looks at all the unconscious men, including several fellow guards.
"Yes, young miss..."
"Clara. Clara Hudner." She provides.
"Young miss Clara had a bit of a magical accident. They're all fine, and will wake in about half an hour. But, they're going to be a little confused, and likely more than a little embarrassed. I've got it blocked now, but her power affects mens’ minds, basically turning off their reasoning." I try to sugar coat it as much as possible.
"Uh, I should probably call this in." He takes a few steps away and pulls a phone from his jacket.
"I should call the Baron too, and see if any of the Mages have a higher evaluate than mine." I tap my watch to bring out my phone, but say a bit more before I put the call through. "I've never read about any species that can do this, but there are some 'old' myths about something similar." The girls understand what I'm saying, but Clara gets upset.
"But, I'm human. Both my parents are human too." She defends herself, but a look that I can't quite puzzle out flashes across her face when she mentions her parents.
"They may very well." I say a soothing tone. "But Evaluate doesn't seem to think that you are. You may be some kind magical mutation, the first of a new species." I don't say what is much more likely, but the look on her face shows that she heard it all the same. Either way, I'll be able to find out for sure once I meet them.
I let Pepi know first, he said his men would handle it. I then called Liza to ask if any of them have evaluate. Luckily, one of them, a Water Mage named Walter, used to be a scout for the levelling trips and has evaluate at level three.
"Sir." He hops of his dirt bike a few minute later. "Heard you needed someone evaluated."
"Yes, I've only got it at level one, and miss Clara isn't showing up properly." I nod to the girl who's sitting on a couch I made at the side of the road for her and Apricot.
"Evaluate!" He casts the System integrated spell. "Hmm? That's odd, it says she's a proto-Siren, but I've never heard of a proto-species before. No idea what a Siren is either. Sorry sir."
"Well, it looks like my guess about you being the first of a new species was correct. I also recognize the name from those old myths." She's not half bird, and her voice isn't very enchanting, but the name fits. "I'll still need to examine your family to be sure, but I think it likely that your parents are just that, yours."
"I almost wish he wasn't." She says so quietly that, even with my magically enhanced senses, I almost miss it.
"..." I pause for a moment, I hadn't even thought about what might have happened if her powers activated around her father. "Apricot, could you escort her back to the Baron's manor while Amelia and I deal with things here." Apricot quickly hides the look of horror on her face and nods to me before turning to Clara.
"Come on Clara, let's go. It's not far from here, we can play some Rune games and watch movies, and I can introduce you to the wonder that is chocolate on the way." She materializes a bar of milk-chocolate from her inventory and hands it to the girl.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"...okay." She says in a small voice and takes a bite. The candy seems to help a bit, but she's still a deeply troubled girl. "It's good." She lets Apricot pull her off to the manor while nibbling on the candy.
"Do I even need to ask what she said?" Amelia spits out a string of curses when I answer her with a shake of my head.
"This is all kinds of fucked up, but at least there were no signs of assault." It's not much of a silver lining, but it's something.
"May, I ask what happened?" Walter speaks up hesitantly.
Instead of answering him directly, I read a few lines from Homer's The Odyssey "'So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay attention to what I am about to tell you--heaven itself, indeed, will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song.'"
"Is that from your old myth?" He asks. The look of disgust on his face says that he figured out what happened.
"The most popular story that mentions them, yes." I sigh. "It's a really old myth though and, like most old stories, they're all mixed up. Their descriptions range anywhere from birds with human heads to harpy-like to birdkin, or just plain human women that were cursed after they failed their goddess. And then, there's a bunch of stories that describe them as water spirits or merrow-like, but with the ability to disguise themselves as beautiful women. Clara appears fully human, and her power doesn't come from her voice, but the similarity is still there, and likely why Temmie chose the name." A *Ding* confirms my suspicions.
"Is there any upside to the stories?" Amelia asks.
"One, though I'm not sure it's an actual upside. They are said to have the ability to divine the past and future." I answer. "Though, I have no idea if Clara will have the same."
"Why wouldn't that be an upside?" Walter says, a bit shocked that I would claim otherwise.
"Hard to live for the present when you can see the future, or are obsessed with going over the past." I don't like Time Magics, and aside from Haste and Slow have avoided that brach of Magic entirely.
"I suppose." He mutters, not entirely convinced.
"Well, either way, it looks like her powers have run their course." I walk over to the three guards that were chasing her, and wake them first. "Hello gentlemen. Do any of you remember what happened?"
"Huh?" - "What?" - "The Marquis?" They talk over each other.
"One at a time, please tell me the last thing you remember. Starting with you." I point to the oldest.
"Uh... We were on patrol when the Hurden girl came running up with some men chasing her." They all flush when they recall what happened next.
"It's not your fault." I tell them before he says anything else. "Miss Clara came into some very strange magic today. She's unhurt, and I've neutralized her power for now."
"Yes sir." The speaker bows to me. "Things got a bit fuzzy then, but we started chasing her too."
"Do you happen to know where her family lives?" They give me the directions. "Thank you. Now, if you could help explain what happened to everyone when they wake?" They agree and I start waking the poor sods up.
No one seems very happy, least of all their wives and girlfriends. But, this is a world of magic, and everyone tends to accept that sometimes weird shit just happens.
Afterwards Amelia and I head over to Clara's house with Walter in tow, just in case she has any siblings that need to be evaluated. I peer inside with my magic to find the father has drunk himself unconscious and the mother is weeping openly while taking care of a toddler as two other children play quietly in the back.
"What a fucking mess." I sigh and knock on the door. Clara's mom startles at the sound, but quickly wipes her tears away and comes to answer the door. "Hello Ma'am, I am Marquis Rumex, this is my wife Amelia, and Mage Walter Beaton. May we come inside please?" I speak before she has a chance to.
"L-l-lord?" She tries to curtsey, but the child on her hip throws her balance off. "O-of course, Lord. Is everything alright?" She guides us into the living room, all the while shooting fearful looks towards the bedroom where her husband is passed out.
"I think you already know that's not the case, but hopefully we can make things a little better." I take a steadying breath. "Your daughter came into some very troublesome Magic today, Magic that muddles mens’ minds. Whatever your husband may have done was not entirely his fault." I'm not willing to absolve him completely, because magic roofies or no, she's still his daughter.
"I woke up to her crying as the bastard was pawing at her." She hisses. "I had to hit him over the head just to get him off of her. And then, lock him in the room so she could run away." The tears flow freely down her cheeks. "And now, you come in here and want to blame her for it." She looks like she wants to hit me.
"It is not Clara's fault, and that is not what we are saying at all." Amelia speaks up for me. "When we found her she was being chased down the street by over a hundred men, including several guards. She has no control over her power, and needs help. Just like you and the rest of your family are going to need help to deal with what happened today. Help we are trying to provide."
The woman closes her eyes and takes a deep breath trying to get her anger under control. "Say, I believe you. Then is she some kind of Awakened? I know she would never cast any spell like that."
"No, Ma'am." Her nostrils flare when I open my mouth, but she doesn't stop me from speaking. "Your daughter appears to be the first of a new species; The Book of Knowledge evaluated her as a Proto-Siren."
"Are you saying my baby isn't human?" She clenches the hand not holding her child into a fist.
"No, she isn't." I say flatly. "And, neither is the girl in your arms. Walter, could you please evaluate her?"
"She's not a Siren." He says after casting the spell. "This one reads as a Proto-Moura."
I nod, a little surprised that they're not the same, even if they are very similar. "The Enchanted Moura. As with the myths about the Siren, there's a connection to water and seductiveness." I recount what I know about them. "I'm not very familiar with these stories, but they're said to be powerful shape shifters, and guardians of thresholds and boundaries. Bridges, rivers, the edge of a forest or plain." I name several defining characteristics of Riverton. "There's also mention of a fugue state induced by a curse of some sorts, but the specifics change."
"Myths?" The woman scoffs once I finish speaking. "What nonsense are you on about. I've been polite because you're the Marquis, but you're trying to tell me that my girls are creatures out of stories."
"It's more that The Book named their species after those myths because they share some similarities." I try to explain. "The Siren for example is said to draw men in with its otherworldly singing, but Clara does so by emitting powerful Nature Magic."
"But, how can they not be human?" She clutches the child to her chest and starts rocking back and forth. "I'm human, and that bastard passed out in there is human. What about the boys?" She looks over to where they're peeking around the corner to watch us.
"You, he, and they all Evaluate as human. I'm unsure as to just how your daughters became another species, but you and your husband likely have something special in your bloodlines that when combined into girls brought about their change." Considering the connection to water, I'm betting that one or more of their ancestors was a naiad, or something similar.
"Then is the same thing that happened to Clara going to happen to Cici?" The toddler squirms to get out of her mother's over-tight grasp.
"That, I don't know." What little I know about plant genetics doesn't exactly transfer over to Magically derivative humanoids. "I may be able to find out after running some tests, but those can wait for later. I think that Clara is missing her mother right now. So, how about we all head over to the Baron's?"
"Yes, my baby needs me." The look she sends down the hall makes me think that her husband is lucky that she hasn't killed him yet. "And the bastard?"
"I think it best that he be kept under watch for now." Something horrible happened today, but he is still their father. "You don't need to speak with, or even see him if you don't want to."
"You know what? I don't care what you do with him, it's over." She spits in the man's direction. "Before you and the gods, I renounce our marriage. I don't care if we have to live on the streets, or walk through the dead of winter back to live with my parents in Beechhollow. I will not stay under the same roof as that man."
"Nor will you have to." Amelia states with fire in her voice. "And, neither do you have to worry about providing for your children. We will take care of all of you, and set you up with a new home wherever you want."
She had the kids grab their favorite toys and they all piled into a carriage I made for them on the spot. I thanked Walter, who was glad to leave the mess in my hands, and then hopped up into the driver's seat beside Amelia.
"You're going to have to translate some of those myths for me." She said before pulling me into a side hug and resting her head on my shoulder.
"I don't know any stories about the Moura, or really much more than I've already shared, but Sirens and Greek mythology in general I can do." I answer and drive our horseless carriage down the street. "I've got to warn you that most of it is pretty fucked up though."
"Like today hasn't been?" She heaves out a deep sigh.
***