The group, upon receiving Poil’s signal, each take out special single-helix knives, wide at the base but thin at the tip. Each of these knives is about a quarter-meter in length and made of celestial iron.
These weapons aren’t for fighting, they’re ceremonial in nature. Along the length of the knives, there are engravings containing some verses of the red heretic bible. This bible is where the details of the sacrifice ritual originate from.
It is a “non-canonical” scripture, meaning that it is not recognized as the legitimate words of Osva, his popes or his prophets. Within the collection of these scriptures is contained the details of a sacrifice ritual that was performed by humans over seven thousand years ago.
The red heretic bible was once accepted as Osva’s word during that time.
However, it was later disavowed by one of Osva’s later popes as an effort to remove the image of Osva’s brutal nature during that time. Unlike the perfect, unchanging gods of Earth, Osva is very much seen as a changing entity with a transforming sense of morality, strength, even history.
There was even once a time when Osva was considered to be a mere forest spirit but such a time is no longer remembered, let alone recorded by the church.
The sacrifice ritual that Cariha and her family is about to perform is seen as a brutal ritual, even by many other twin moons members. But, it is, and was once widely known as, a way to absolve each member of what they believe to be unforgivable sins. Cariha and her group still stuck to these old ways and had banded together through their exploration of the red heretic bible.
They have been allowed to keep the nature of their sins secret even with each other, yet by performing the ritual, they are allowed to obtain forgiveness and everlasting life.
“Timor. Go.” Cariha softly whispers.
A young woman of Cariha’s family with short black hair takes out a bit of sand from her pocket. She weaves a magic spell and applies it to her coarse beige sand. Before her and Cariha’s eyes, the sand combines into a thin solid piece of opaque glass.
The woman continues to mold it through her earth magic into the shape of a compatible key and places it into the keyhole of the door to the apartment unit, as quietly as possible. With her spell still active, she conforms the shape to properly turn the lock in order to open the door. She has to be careful not to accidentally break the glass piece within the lock.
Right now, Poil can sense that the residents of the apartment have not noticed their presence in this hallway yet.
Timor takes about half a minute trying to get the correct key shape. Once she succeeds in opening the door, all eight members of Cariha’s team swiftly enter the apartment. There are yells of surprise from inside that are quickly muffled. A minute later, Cariha and another member, a woman named Utha, pull out two people from the apartment.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
One of them is a demihuman woman, about the same age as Cariha, and quite beautiful. Her child is also dragged out with her. One of his legs struggles against Cariha’s grips, yet the other leg does not move. The boy is disabled, his left leg having no feeling or movement from mid thigh to below.
***
Dzan and Sigvor have been following the group of eight unsettling humans from afar. They wait in the hallway quite far away, their vision being much better than the humans. They can see the humans quite clearly. Luckily for them, the humans have been so focused on their task that they haven’t been watching their rear too closely.
Even if they did, they would have simply stuck to the doors as each apartment door was slightly indented from the hallway, leaving a small crevice to hide in from those watching from a distance.
They had entered the apartment building closest to them, as Ajax had asked, rather, ordered. Dzan didn’t know what to think of the young man’s hurriedness. The human was more serious than he had ever seen. What he had said earlier about “human bombs” still doesn’t fully make sense to him.
Though it isn’t something that seems impossible to him.
Magic is capable of many things and, if there is one thing that this Federation has accomplished, it is to develop extremely advanced magical weaponry. While the rest of their society is far behind, their defensive and offensive technology has already reached the realm of divinity.
After all, a god leads their nation.
“Ajax should have explained further, you know? He can’t just say something like ‘human bombs’ and just leave us with that.” Sigvor complains, whispering to Dzan.
“You saw, Sig, he looked extremely pressed for time.” Dzan says. Sigvor pouts a bit but she can’t really complain at this moment. Wouldn’t she have done the same thing? Probably.
The young man did build up a lot of goodwill earlier as well, especially with his efforts to help go against other members of his race to save those two demihumans, the mother Pieroly and her daughter Willia.
Sigvor honestly didn’t even consider that Ajax would intervene back there considering how Pieroly had taken things “too far” by killing that human man for spitting on her daughter. There was already an excuse for him not to do anything to stop their mob violence. Still, he was far more understanding than she had initially assumed.
He does truly believe in racial equality. It’s probably why he trusted us with a task like this in the first place. Still… Dzan and I aren’t soldiers, Ajax! Couldn’t you have… What about… Maybe you could have… Fuck, really there was no one else to trust with this, was there…
Sigvor had followed Dzan into the building and up here to the second floor first and foremost because Dzan had to be prevented from dying. He left the bags of money that he and Dzan had stolen throughout the day within a storage closet on the first floor, though Dzan was nervous about that fact.
She was more nervous about Dzan’s money troubles in general. She was fearful and excited about Ajax’s urgency and commanding posture.
He wasn’t unattractive when he spoke like that, I’ll have to be honest with myself. Though, I feel less aroused when I consider that he could probably kill me, even if we fought one on one. Or do I feel more aroused…? Well, it’s not like I think he’s trying to get us to kill ourselves or something. He was really worried about something terrible happening, I can tell that much.
Dzan meanwhile, though afraid of Ajax’s intimidating presence while giving his orders, could not just stand by while people like Pieroly and Willia get hurt.
He could only be forced into action.