Jon limped up the steps of the Theater. The moment he opened and closed the lobby doors was the moment Alyssa came out with a beaming smile, holding a bread pan full of the good stuff. At least the day wasn’t ending all bad.
Her smile, however, disappeared as she saw Jon’s limp. Very few people — or a lot of them, if they went at him all at once — would have been able to do such a thing to him. Well, if Jon was here, then they were clearly the loser in the fight, right?
“Why, you look worse for wear, Jon,” she said. “Here, on your request.”
Jon stopped in front of her and pinched a slice of toast, greedily biting off more than he could chew. It didn’t matter. It was just that good.
The two of them waited until Jon finished the whole slice. It was a peaceful and comfy wait for Alyssa, and on some level, she wouldn’t have minded if Jon took another slice and chomped on it on the spot, extending the quiet for another solid minute.
He didn’t take another one, though. There was a job to do. “I met Wiz.”
The words took a while to parse for Alyssa. “Is … is he dead?” she could only ask. Well, clearly —
“No,” Jon said. “He wants me as his apprentice.”
“Jon” — Alyssa stopped herself from asking the obvious. Jon was the most serious man in the history of men, very much incapable of cracking a single joke, so if he said he met Wiz and the man … wanted him as an apprentice … “How in both the Sisters’ lore and names did that even happen?” She really just couldn’t get it.
Jon ended up recounting everything in sensible chronological order. Alyssa’s ever-increasing shock as he went along was also, itself, surprising to him; he’d expected something closer to a ‘flattered’ or ‘whimsical’ pretend-shock, whichever word approximated however it was she usually acted. This event must just be that much of a random variable. Could Ravena have expected it, he wondered.
[It was like watching a crash from a mile away. I knew what would happen, and yet, it was just so thrilling to watch everything fall into place.]
Figures.
“What,” Alyssa said, still very much shaking her head, “so, is this even true?”
“He could’ve killed me,” Jon said, “but he didn’t.”
Alyssa winced. She’d nearly fumed at the thought of Wiz killing Jon, already beginning to imagine how she’d turn the man into red mist under the weight of many pounds of bullets slugged at him per second.
She doubted she could actually do that, however. It wasn’t a secret that Wiz was powerful, but based on Jon’s descriptions, the reality was that Wiz could most likely kill both her and Jon in a two-on-one fight, and rather easily, at that.
They were lucky that Wiz — apparently — was playing friends with them in the meantime, even if for reasons they didn’t entirely understand. Still, they refused to trust him in the slightest.
They needed countermeasures — both against Bowyer and Wiz.
“I need to test some new Skills,” Jon said.
Alyssa correctly interpreted this as a request, and not just a simple declaration; the man rarely worded his asks in a direct manner. “Of course. Shall we head downstairs, then?”
They headed down to the catacombs, setting up in the sparring chamber, which had also been meant for these sorts of tests — oh, but explosives and siege Skills were forbidden.
“So, what do you have in mind?” Alyssa asked. She leaned on a crate full of guns. Several canisters were stacked beside her feet, containing special training rounds that were … likely to be non-lethal … 99% of the time.
Jon stood beside a steel target plate. “Shoot just past me.”
Alyssa raised an eyebrow. Pointing a gun in Jon’s general direction felt off-putting, somehow. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll try something.”
Well, it was just past him, and as long as he didn’t move, it should be fine.
A pistol levitated out of the gun crate, finding its way to Alyssa’s hand. Her aim with Guntalker was godlike, but she had even better aim if the gun were actually in her hands. All that Guntalker offered her, after all, was “kinetic control over guns.” It did nothing to help her align iron sights nor reload — much less some insane notion of giving guns limited golem-like autonomy to receive and execute complex instructions.
She was normally a deadshot even with a gun out of her hands, but in her hands, the combined stabilization from Guntalker, together with her second sense of the barrel’s alignment and the natural alignment of her body, and the simple ability to magically impart spin on her projectiles, put everything in her line of sight within effective range … no matter if she were just holding a pocket pistol.
Really, she didn’t need all that accuracy just to hit a steel plate twenty feet away. She just absolutely didn’t want to hit Jon.
She fired, and the round hit the target right in the center. Had it been a real bullet, the explosion would’ve sent hot fragments at Jon, but it was just a wax training round. It harmlessly broke apart against the steel plate.
“Another one,” Jon said. This time, however, he bent his knees and readied himself in a fighting stance.
“You’re not going to fight me, are you?” Alyssa asked. Somehow, it felt as if Jon was mysteriously angry at her, even if she knew that wasn’t the case at all.
“No,” Jon said. “Another one. Right in the center.”
Alyssa regarded his request with some exasperation. “Alright” — and another pistol flew out of the crate, into her hands.
She fired a shot, and Jon seemed to flick his foremost hand. She didn’t know what that did, but the bullet hit the target in the middle, anyway —
No, wait, it’s a bit off. She set the pistol down on a nearby table before facing Jon. “Can’t I actually be a little sloppy today? Is it just me?”
“It’s Force,” Jon replied. The bullet had landed an inch from the center. He’d made a motion like a light parry, putting some Force out through the back of his hand. With Hastened Sight, he could see the ignition in the gun barrel and predict when the bullet would fly past him; the bullets themselves were still too fast for him to see at such a low tier for the Skill, so this was the best he could manage. The timing would be different between pistols and rifles, so he’d have to experiment with that, as well.
“Another one,” Jon said again. Alyssa could see where he was going at, here, so she complied and fired another shot at the target.
This time, Jon made a larger motion with his whole arm, and the bullet slammed into a force wave so thick, it veered off course and hit the wall of the sparring chamber.
“Color me impressed,” Alyssa remarked. Jon had gotten the idea from Wiz; if the old man could block bullets, why couldn’t some low-leveled guy like Jon lazily parry them, instead?
“Now shoot me,” Jon said with the straightest face.
“No,” Alyssa replied with a face even straighter.
Jon narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“You’re the only person I wouldn’t shoot if you’d turned into a zombie, Jon.”
Jon frowned at what she’d said. Attachment and vulnerability were weaknesses ... and also profound strength, he’d learned once upon a time. Alyssa had always just been a reliable ally to him, even if she was unserious most of the time, no matter the circumstance; not even being at death’s doorstep would stop her from being so odd.
... But there she was, saying such a thing with a straight face. Why would she even care about him? He didn’t understand, and he didn’t want to ask. He told himself it was to put the mission first, but a part of him also acknowledged that ... he dreaded the answer.
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It was true, though, that now wasn’t the time for these sorts of things. “If I can’t do this for bullets,” he said, “then I can’t do it for magic” — and I’ll die. That part wasn’t said, but they both understood it. If Alyssa valued him as much as she said she did, then this was in her interest, too.
In truth, Alyssa regretted her spontaneous outburst. Her words were out of line, while they still had a job to do — and Jon had a solid point. Bowyer was in every way an insurmountable monster whom they somehow had to kill, and if Wiz turned out to be luring them into a trap, then they’d have to kill him, too. Jon’s survivability rested on being able to deflect and evade most things shot at him. She didn’t have to worry about herself, on the other hand, thanks to the Lady’s blessing, Death’s Doorstop.
It took a few seconds for Alyssa to reply, “Fine.”
She aimed. She fired. He missed. His timing was off, and the wax slug hit him in the chest. His suit was armor of its own class, but it still stung, and he stumbled backwards. When he met Alyssa’s eyes, it was with an air of “I told you so.” He wasn’t the sort to be petty and pretend to be sloppy just to prove a point; he’d genuinely misjudged the bullet’s travel this time, and he didn’t understand why.
That was why he insisted on more tests. He needed to understand these things before the real fight began. A part of Amani’s life was literally in his pocket, and he didn’t want to risk it.
“Let me out!” Lumina cried. “Let me ooouuut!”
She rattled her chains, hoping her sister would be sufficiently annoyed so as to let her out of heaven’s inverse fortress, called … the Reflection Room.
Her forehead bled from headbutting the doors. Surely, her sister would finally open the doors and keep her from hurting herself any further! It worked before, so it should work again!
But it was not to be, for Ravena had reinforced the sound barriers ten-fold. If she’d heard her sister in distress, she would’ve been wracked by guilt and opened all one hundred doors to let her out. It was for the best, however, that her cute little sister should find it in herself to realize what it was she’d done wrong this time.
“I just wanted to see what would happen!” Lumina cried. “I just pushed a little bitty button, was all! Let me ooouuut!”
Said button resulted in the annihilation of a square mile of zombie mercenaries. W-well, the priestess’s call had just so happened to come at a convenient boring time. Well, y’know, it was a target-rich environment — plenty of red blips — and the new spell she’d made made a nice and big circle that covered all the red blips — it wasn’t a spell that would hurt anyone (alive), too! You understand, don’t you?
Ravena was just shaking her head outside. She’ll give her sister credit for not screwing up too bad this time. Oh, sure, smiting a few zombies with a tiny spell may have given the Order justification to start a crusade — again — messing up two continents’ worth of intricately laid plans, but such things were still quite trivial in her eyes.
“Simple to adjust” did not mean “no trouble at all.” Ah, well, it was just spilled milk, really.
She waited for a few minutes, and then finally unlocked the doors; opening the first door led to a second, and the second to a third, until she was at the hundredth. By now, Lumina should have spent 1000 years in the Reflection Room, even if only five minutes had really passed.
The moment Ravena opened the last door, however, and Lumina flew out crying, wrapping her arms around Ravena like the child she was.
Although Ravena kept a stern face, she was slowly getting whittled down by Lumina’s sobbing. “I won’t do it again, I promise!” she said.
“Do you know what it was you did?” Ravena asked.
Lumina looked up at her. “I caused you trouble,” she said with a sniffle.
“And how, exactly, did you cause me trouble?”
“Well — I — uh — destroyed something?” Lumina didn’t quite get it. All the complicated troubleshooting and error tracing were all always something in her sister’s purview, and not hers.
“That’s right.” Ravena placed a hand on her head. “You messed up my plans for two continents with a single, tiny spell.”
Just something like that?! “O-oh — I mean, of course! — I mean, I’m sorry I did!”
As Lumina braced herself for a sterner scolding, Ravena softly chuckled and caressed her head, surprising her — then making her happy. “I promise I won’t trouble you again!”
“As long as you understand,” Ravena replied. Lumina broke away and dashed straight to her room — off to make more new and exciting things, Ravena thought to herself. Until now, she could never understand Lumina’s insatiable urge for creation and invention, but if she was happy, then she was happy, too.
This sort of routine had been going on for a long time, you see, but the outcome was also slightly different each time. Lumina had been reeling herself in at Ravena’s direction, and so the scale of disaster had kept on shrinking and shrinking — a fact that Ravena took great comfort in.
Unfortunately for her, this wasn’t because Lumina was slowly learning what it meant to interfere with her plans, but rather, it was only because Lumina’s interpretation of her scoldings was to “use weaker magic.” Naturally, if there were less magic involved, then the possible scale of disaster would also shrink, so all Lumina had to do was to figure out what sort of stuff she could do with weaker magic.
For a creative genius like her, increasing the number of restrictions only served to make her even more creative. Now that she wasn’t allowed to annihilate grid squares, she had to figure out how to squeeze out more fun from simpler stuff.
Oh! There was that time when they used to talk to mortals a lot, right? Well, Ravena was still doing that, but they used to do it a lot more. Why did they stop, again? Well, if it’s just herself, she probably just got bored of it after a short while. They always just kept on singing praises — but she didn’t need praises! She needed new ideas! Now, who could she go to for that sort of talk…
Instantly, she was reminded of the priestess in Stave. She had a rather cute reaction back when she’d replied to her, so why not talk to her again? Talking to her in a dream ought to be fine, right? It’s super lowkey magic, so big sis shouldn’t get angry at her for it, right?
— The afternoon of the attack, at around the same time when Jon and Alyssa were strategizing.
The priestess slept like a rock in her room in the abbey. She hadn’t been sleeping much in the past few days, and she’d need this strength for the battle to come.
Well, she’d just be spiritual guidance and rear support during the battle itself. There weren’t any undead — her only strong suit — and she was no good with fighting against people. Her battlefield would be the field hospitals where wounded soldiers would constantly be seconds away from death.
She had expected to sleep soundly, and yet, what was this she was experiencing with closed eyes? Visions of the future? The outline of a child? It was blurred, but it eventually came into clarity. It was certainly a child, wearing pure white robes and sitting upon a flat rock in the middle of a grassy plain — and the priestess realized she was standing within speaking distance of her.
“Hello, child of man,” the child said. Wait, can’t it be…
“Goddess Lumina?” she asked. In her deep sleep state, she couldn’t feel the compulsion to recognize rational things like the superiority of gods over mortals. What she did feel, however, was deep awe, as if she were looking at the naked truth of things bathed in the golden glow of sunlight.
“I’m Lumina,” the child replied. The priestess ought to shed tears of joy at this moment, and she was about to, but … “I need ideas,” the child continued.
This only puzzled the priestess. “ ‘Ideas’ ?”
“That’s right,” Lumina continued. “Um, I just don’t want to trouble my big sister, so…”
The priestess eyed this child up and down. Everything about Lumina was just … she was a child. Every depiction she’d ever seen of her had been of statues of caring mothers, or portraits of ladies of liberty. Never in her dreams — at least, until this one — could she have imagined her goddess to be a mere child.
“I just get bored a lot, you see,” Lumina continued, touching her fingers together, “but I like making things and experimenting with things!”
Well, yes, of course, she was a creator goddess. Everyone knew that.
“But my big sister got mad at me recently for doing something out of nowhere…”
The priestess couldn’t imagine what this could possibly have been — then she remembered. “Goddess, is it possibly that time when you smote the land and the sky turned bright?”
“Oh, is that how it looked? I wasn’t there, so I — oh, actually, I’m never actually there when I play, aren’t I? Maybe I should try being there…”
The priestess, in her dreamy state, just thought to herself, Oh, is she descending? How amazing, with no enthusiasm at all. Still, she had some mind. “Goddess, wouldn’t that cause issues?”
“Hm? Oh, it doesn’t take a lot of magic, don’t worry!” Not making big sis upset was Lumina’s First Commandment, after all.
“Oh, no, I meant that maybe no one will recognize you.” Worshiping the ground where their goddess walked on was the Order’s reason for existence, after all.
“Oh.” Lumina clapped her hands in dismay. “I didn’t think about that.” She needs people to talk to about her ideas, after all, and no one would be willing to talk to a random child about Genesis of Creation -level ideas.
On the other hand, she really didn’t like the idea of talking to the Order for that sort of stuff. They didn’t seem … creative enough for it. They were the sort of people who never really changed, after all.
It was right then that Lumina had the best idea. She’d always loved making stuff, and she’d just recently been thinking of dabbling in making secret organizations. Big sis loved that stuff, but she didn’t do it that often. It looked easy enough — but appearances were deceiving, and Lumina was getting riled up! It was finally time for her to learn something new!
Secret organizations were tiny, right? And she barely needed to use any magic to make one at all! She just needed to implant the right idea in the right person’s mind…
This priestess — she quickly decided — had just the right background. It didn’t take much for Lumina to take a little peek into her mind and find out all about her.
Originally coming from the Theater before drifting into the Order’s arms, this was a person who had once experienced being lost. She didn’t cling as tightly to doctrine as the others, but she did cling tightly to the idea that “things always happen for a reason.” It was with such a belief that she weathered the storms of her life, holding onto the hope that Lumina had predestined her for better fates.
Well, she was about to predestine her really hard.
She clapped her hands together, showing her smile to the priestess for the first time. “How about I have you make the ‘New Order,’ then?”
The priestess, as deep in sleep she was, listlessly replied, “Oh, that sounds exciting.”
Cooperation secured. “Great! I really just need a few people to talk to about my ideas. Can you bring together all the open-minded people?”
“Mmm.”
“Great!” Lumina got up from the rock, stretching like a cat who hadn’t moved in a while. “Well, it’s almost time for you to wake up. It was really fun talking to you!”
She ran towards a tunnel of light — but before she disappeared beyond it, she turned around and waved to the priestess. “Think of some cool names for the secret club, Cecilia!”
A smile crept up the priestess’s face as she waved back, and Lumina disappeared beyond the light.
Cecilia woke up just as the sun was setting. She felt rejuvenated, as if she’d been instilled with purpose beyond her greatest imaginings. What that purpose was, however, she couldn’t really quite pinpoint.
Well, at least she got her energy back — plenty more than she thought she would. The battle was going to start in a few hours, and she still had to see to the organization of the medical corps … and give the soldiers what could be their final blessings.