Chapter 42 - The Nature of Luck

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I went back to where I had left the adventurers and Holiés after almost two hours since I left to talk with Raziel. It had taken much more than expected because she apparently went to ask a favor from a cardinal.

When I reached the others I saw that the symbol I asked them to draw on the ground was already finished, the eight-pointed star that laid in front of me was about ten meters from one point to the opposite one and the lines were a few centimeters deep, inside the circle there was already a pile of stuff from the old camp of the adventurers.

I spotted Holiés in the midst as he came towards me. “Took you a while,” he said once he was in front of me.

“Yes, it took a bit more than I expected, but I have good news,” I said, dismounting.

He raised an eyebrow, “we’re getting the fuck out of here?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath before saying, “figures. So, what’s the good news?”

“Reinforcements from the church are coming for us.”

He blinked a few times, “oh… nice.”

“They should be here in three days.”

“Less nice.”

I shrugged and walked towards Joel, when he saw I was coming towards him he got up from the wooden stakes he was planting in the ground.

“We’re almost finished here,” he said.

“Good. How much food do we have?”

“Enough for a couple of days, milady.”

“Perfect, we’ll hunt something tomorrow if it’s not enough. Finish setting up camp and get ready, it will be a long night,” I said, before walking back towards the perimeter of the circle without waiting for his response.

Once I reached the furrows that composed the circle I used earth magic to deepen the lines and harden the dirt around it, followed by fire magic to vitrify the walls of what was becoming a narrow ditch. Like that I walked along the lines, making sure that every single centimeter of the circle was treated.

Having finished reinforcing the circle I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and concentrated on myself. Focusing on my soul I decided to unlock a minuscule part of my power, barely enough to serve its purpose without being noticeable, unless one of the two gods who presided over the world I was in concentrated on me. The procedure in itself was like standing in front of a dam that restrained a whole ocean and trying to poke a hole in it that only let through a few droplets at a time.

The whole thing took me almost twenty minutes, but once ready I started writing on the outside of the circle using earth magic.

I had started by less than a minute when a petite girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old with a sack over her shoulders interrupted me asking, “what are those symbols?”

“They’re letters, I’m writing the spell for the barrier,” I said, resuming my task.

“Oh… I have never seen letters like those,” she said, dropping the sack before leaning towards the carvings I was making, “how do you read them?”

I smiled. “You don’t.”

“Oh…” she was again surprised, “but… they are letters, right?”

I finished the letter I was working on and started the next one before answering, “yes.”

“But you can’t read them?” she said, even more curious about what I was doing.

“Exactly.”

“What are they for then?”

“Look,” I said, finishing the last letter of the first section. As soon as the symbol was complete all the letters I had engraved in the ground and the circle started shining of a soft yellow light.

A soft “wow” left the mouth of the girl.

“I’m glad you like it,” I said, smiling at her.

“It is really…”she stopped in her tracks and stared at me in the eyes, “Lady Fortuna…”

“Yes?”

“Your eyes are… a bit red.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just a bit tired. Now,” I moved a bit to carve the next letter, “let me finish this before the sun goes down.”

It took me more than half an hour to finish writing all around the circle. The light coming from the drawing was now even stronger than before and if one was to focus enough they’d be able to notice a faint mist-like white, glowing layer making a dome over the magical formation.

Already feeling the drawbacks of having my powers unsealed in a human body, even though they were severely limited, I dragged myself towards the round hole that signed the center of the formation.

I deepened the hole like I had done with the outer parts of the circle and set cross-legged behind it, facing the castle.

“Resting already?” came Holiés voice from behind me.

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I turned to look at him saying, “ah ah, very fun-”

“Holy shit!” he interrupted me.

I frowned. “What?”

“You look terrible.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment. Have the others finished setting up everything?”

He nodded. “Yes, about ten minutes ago.”

“Good, go tell them that they won’t be able to exit the circle from now on unless I tell them to, then come back here.”

“Okay…” he said, before leaving to talk with the adventurers.

Left alone again, I faced the hole and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, concentrated on the formation all around me, and let my power flow towards it. In a few seconds the circle started drawing avidly from me, powering itself. Various sounds of stupor came from the people all around me but I ignored them, concentrating instead on the task at hand.

After a few long minutes the barrier was finally stable enough and I opened my eyes. The dome that was barely visible before was now a milky white semi-transparent veil that emitted enough light that inside the circle it looked as if it was still noon, despide the ever darkening evening outside.

I then noticed Holiés who was standing next to me.

“All set?” he asked when he saw that my eyes were again open.

“Kinda,” I let out, my breathing rough.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I have,” I swallowed, “I have to stay like this to keep the barrier going.”

“All night? Are you sure you’ll manage? You really look like shit right now.”

“Not all night, all three days.”

“Remind me why we just didn’t get away from here.”

I took a few deep breath before answering, “honestly? I have no fucking idea myself right now.”

“I see, I see,” he nodded to himself. “I think you might be a masochist.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then how do you explain... ” he gestured towards me with his hand, “that.”

“Devotion to my job as a hero, obviously.”

“Yes, and I’m a rabbit.”

“Don’t say it too loud.”

“What?!” he asked, taken aback by my answer.

I smiled. “You’ll see.”

The last rays of the sun finally disappeared from the sky and a loud scream of rage came from the castle. Only a few seconds passed before a group of shadows that moved at incredible speed rushed from the gates of the walls to the limits of the light ring cast by the barrier around it.

When they stopped the figures of more than twenty people appeared from the shadows, men and women who all looked attractive and shared the pale skin, red eyes and red lips that were common signs of vampires.

They were all dressed in fine, elegant clothes that seemed to signify a noble status, despite not in line with the trends of human fashion I saw at the palace, nor being as impractical to move in.

The one in the front, a tall and muscular man with long black hair tied in a ponytail stepped forward and spoke, “you! How dare you…”

“I’d definitely tap the third from the left,” I said, ignoring the man who was talking, looking at a tall woman who looked to be in her early thirties, her body was on the slim side, though it still retained the right curves, and her face, coupled with the long, loose hair, was a mix of maturity and youth that resulted in a fine, elegant beauty.

“What?! She’s a vampire!” he exclaimed next to me.

“So?”

“She wants to kill you!”

“As if that ever stopped me before.”

“What?” he said, his eyes wide.

“Maybe I’ll tell you another time. Which one do you like by the way?” I asked, grinning.

“What? None of them!”

“Oh, come on… don’t be shy.”

He sighed and said, “do I really have to?”

“Yep.”

“Fine, the rightmost one.”

“Oh,” I said, as I looked at the vampire who was at the edge of the group, a short girl who looked to be in her late teens and, was it not for her vampiric traits, would fit perfectly in the “pure village girl” trope.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He sighed again and shook his head. Before he could said anything though, I shouted, still ignoring the angry man in the front, “hey you, the woman to the left with the untied hair! What’s your name?”

All the vampires were taken aback from my random question and turned to look at their comrade who, not knowing what to do, just answered, “S-Seila.”

“Well, Seila, you’re really hot.”

She was even more baffled now and said, “thanks?”

The man in the front stared at me with ice cold eyes and said, “what are you doing?”

“Well…” I coughed, “we’re probably going to spend all night here, I thought some talking would have made it less boring. Also, you have to admit that she is pretty hot.”

“Are… are you crazy?” he asked.

“I have been wondering the same for a while, I still have to come to a conclusion,” Holiés said next to me.

“I’m not punching you only because I can’t move,” I said to him.

“That’s it,” the vampire said, producing a javelin out of his shadow, “say hi to your goddess for me.”

He ran a few meters forward, the light from the barrier lightly burning his skin, something he didn’t even seem to mind at that level, and threw his spear towards me.

I saw Joel try to run to intercept the spear but he was a few seconds too late. Not that it mattered, as when the spear hit the barrier, sending ripples through it, it stopped completely in its track and transformed in a bouquet of wildflowers.

The vampire was still under the light of the barrier, immobile and blinking. After he finally snapped out of his stupor, he snapped his fingers before walking back outside of the influence of the barrier.

After a few seconds a figure that easily reached six meters in height came out from the gates. As it ran down the hill the earth beneath us started shaking in tune to its steps. When it finally was near enough for the barrier to cast some light on it, we saw that it was a giant abomination made of a multitude of corpses stitched together, limbs, heads and torsos blending together to make the humanoid shape of the monstrosity.

It came crashing against the barrier, creating ripples that ran all the way to the other side, instead of the barrier collapsing though, what the vampire saw in front of his eyes was a pile of ducks as high as his monster raining tumbling to the ground before starting to run in all directions quacking.

The energy needed to manipulate luck to such levels worsened my condition and I started shivering as I felt a fever taking me.

“Fortuna…” Holiés said next to me.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to remind you that I am definitely not a rabbit.”

I tried to laugh but I started coughing instead as the vampire leader shouted, “what the fuck just happened?!”

“Loris! Go get more corpses!” he shouted at one of the vampires with him.

The vampire in question nodded and started running at incredible speed away from the barrier and towards the forest, only to be stopped when two small symbols in front of him started shining and all the rocks between them transformed into mini rockets and shot towards him knocking him back a few dozen meters. The rockets then continued upwards, exploding like fireworks when they were well over the height of the castle in colored words that spelled, “congratulations, you are our first visitor,” against the night sky.

Having finally stopped coughing I said, “so, Seila, do you have any hobbies?”