Cosimo had the Aleppo book over the top half of his face in the whiteless void. He was lying down.
He had read the identification crystal book a few times over. Luckily it was in english, he was worried about how you would depict some of the explanation in images. Then he slept.
Then he image trained just to get the whole thing in his memory better. He had a lot of things he wanted to try after all.
Remembering that his crystal actually went purple when was in a full rage, he wondered what that meant about the power of ‘Average’. Purple itself wasn’t even mentioned in the book. The crystal just got a crimson to show that you were in negative health and were going to die if you didn’t get some sort of healing.
Unfortunately, it would be easy to get a description for ‘Average’, his full list of abilities, a description of ‘Mediocre’, his status, level, if he had something called ‘Arts’ or not, find out how to better use ‘Mediocre Force’. ‘Mediocre Force’ was his second ability he found out about. At this point,
“I’ve got three abilities.”
He thought that. He was wrong. Cosimo will learn that later.
Aleppo’s history was interesting.
More interesting than Maria’s kitchen knife which was still stuck point down into the whiteless void.
He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about that embarrassing fight either.
“Is Timothy okay? I can’t believe I did that. What the hell happened there?”
Cosimo was not aware he could level a city either.
The truth was that it was just an unfortunate combination of events.
========
A flutter of red passed through the air. Aeschyli was delivering Arge to the main camp, with Timothy in his ‘Form of Sloth’ on her shoulders.
“He comes with a carry size. I didn’t think he’d be this great. Surprising. Need to get him to a healer. Excited to hear what they say. A Sloth? Why should I heal that Sloth, Sir!”
She said having mindless fun as usual as she flew.
Timothy wasn’t heavily damaged. Shapeshifting was like putting a massive defensive shell over the body using the soul. Since Timothy had already heavy mental damage anyways, the only thing left would be destroying the soul which wasn’t possible even for a God. Souls themselves were just parts of the universe after all, the base collection of existence that was contained to a living body and mind.
Aeschyli wasn’t worried much because she had seen that before. Cosimo got the worst of it though.
That reminded her of Cosimo. She was already hovering over the nearest camp but decided to turn around.
“Wait, I have to finish the scene.”
The story of Arge’s rescue was like this.
Act 1)Our heroine entered beautifully and saves a random boy falling from the sky, who is heavily injured and will drown.
She was reminded that although the flood water would stop his fall softly enough, that he would have drowned. She didn’t think of that. Aeschyli can miss details easily.
Act 2)The boy is carried princess style. It’s interesting because usually it’s supposed to be a girl that’s getting carried. The heroine runs through the action, attempting to get the boy to safety. Will she protect her charge?
Needless to say act 3 was the homecoming. She floated down and some girl with a black robe ran up to her waving a staff with a bat on the top.
“Arge! Oh no, it’s always like this. You come home bruised and beaten and bloody without any explanation. Thank you. What’s your name?”
This was Chel, Arge’s personal healer. She was blushing for some reason staring at his wounds while she invoked bright yellow magic.
“‘Medico’,” she mumbled under her breath.
A new character? Aeschyli saw the flow of the story changing. It wasn’t act 3 yet? Time to introduce herself. Incidentally, it was this kind of thinking that led to her revealing her location, if it wasn’t her appearance. This led to her naturally thinking ‘I’ll just stay outside of towns then’ and sleep in the open. It was fitting for her role in the story to suffer a bit.
“I am Aeschyli Grun. Where do you want this Arge?”
She said in hero mode. She hadn’t put her bangle back on yet.
“Wow, such nice acting. This really isn’t the time for that though? I’m Chel, follow me please.”
Aeschyli made a move to hand Arge over but Chel had already turned around. Chel had caught
Aeschyli up in her flow instantly. Aeschyli would get her to heal her sloth, she thought, and deactivated stage magic. She didn’t want to hit anyone with the boxes after all, that would disrupt the flow of the story.
Chel lead her to the cot making area. Aeschyli frowned as she saw a group of people using magic to pull vines out of the alabaster from the etchings in the stone. Don’t think about it, she purposely turned her head away.
“Here. Right next to this slim type girl, her name is Slo.”
“Ah, she tried to kill me earlier.”
While Aeschyli couldn’t recall Arge at all from that fight, she got a really good look at Slo when she cast ‘Hoarfrost Bubbler’ at her. She was familiar with all sorts of magic, but there was something strange about that spell. It looked like original magic. The fact that Slo almost killed her and she got pelted by a shower of tiny icicles didn’t bother her at all. After all, that was normal for her. But original magic…
“What? Are you joking? I almost believed you because of your tone.”
Chel didn’t take her seriously at all due to how they met.
Aeschyli laid Arge down and made sure to complete that story with a fake loving look as well. She had to do the cheek thing too, where the hero or heroine would look lovingly into their romantic partner’s closed eyes and stroke the cheek. However, the original magic was her primary focus.
“I got attacked by three people including someone who looked like that girl when I was sleeping in a sewer on my pilosa. It is a magical beast,” she pointed to the sloth on her back, “it can take the form of this sloth here. Could you heal it first before we go any further? I’m worried about him.”
Chel wasn’t the type who would turn down people easily. However, there was a clear problem here.
“Slo and Arge went after a pilosa at the urging of some strange homeless man, it was stolen by some red girl, now that I think about it. Was that you? I can’t imagine them attacking anyone but a thief.”
Aeschyli played thief characters before, but being directly called a thief when she wasn’t acting a role felt wrong to her.
“It was me. Heal my pilosa?”
“Um…”
Chel was weighing her options here. Arge was usually the one who would handle the tough stuff. Her mind was pretty much one track anyways, and she knew it. Cast healing on whatever she could really. She felt the gears clanking in her head, wasn’t this person an enemy? She wasn’t attacking. If she took out Arge, Slo, and that homeless man then why would she bring Arge to her?
She was a good person and a thief. The answer clicked into her head. She defended her life but had mercy on Arge and Slo, being a superior being she then felt the need to save their unconscious bodies from the flood. She thought that this was definitely correct.
“Okay. Thank you for taking pity on Arge and Slo. They could have died without you from the flood after all. I’ll heal the pilosa.”
Aeschyli was interested in her word choice but the phrase ‘I’ll heal the pilosa’ was her main concern at this point. It seemed like she could find out about the original magic too if she let the misunderstanding stay.
She laid the sloth down on an open cot.
“Wait, we need those for people, put the sloth on Arge’s cot.”
Aeschyli put the sloth on Slo’s cot.
“Why there?”
Chel started crouching and casting ‘Medico’ on the sloth. She had a hard time finding damage but her immediate sense was ‘something's wrong’ so she continued casting. This was often a sign of mental trauma or damage. She wasn’t specialized in healing that.
Chel was wondering what happened to the sloth. First of all, she thought sloth’s were much bigger.
Aeschyli waited a bit perched on the end of the cot. It was her thinking that she needed it to be an off handed remark about the original magic. Cosimo could wait, after all he had three weeks at the least for recovery. In addition, someone might save her the trouble and pick him up anyways.
She started a soliloquy in her mind trying to work it out.
“Wait a second, he’s useful though. For once it’s the completely defenseless type who just gets pulled around by others, and that strange power. More importantly, he might come after me again to steal the pilosa from me.
In fact, you could say that although the pilosa would be good protection, I was too afraid to get a mount before. It’s only because this one is smart that I figured it’d be easy to control. After all, I can’t rely on ‘Carpe Scaenam’ ‘Act 3 Curtain Calling~!’ too much.
It made me really sick the last time I did it. I’m just like Father if I pull that again. I won’t take a chance. He’s out for three weeks too. He can’t do anything. Even if he was awake he wouldn’t do anything. Completely safe. Even though he blew up a city? Hehe, I like it. It’s good. it’s good, it’s good.
I never got to play a loyal act before either, maybe this is a chance? I’m excited. This time a knight? I just played hero, that was a good one. This time a lover? No, that’s not an act for me. Maybe I’ll let the situation flow according to someone else this time? That’s good, that’s good.
Cosimo, let’s spend some quality time together. Chel, she’ll be useful too. What about when Arge and Slo wake up? Huh, that’s tough. Seems like they are close the way she looked at the boy. Which one was Arge and which one was Slo? Ahh, who cares, maybe they won’t be mad when they wake up after all. Isn’t it their fault? Isn’t it? Original magic, ask Chel about it. Big threat.”
Aeschyli twirled the golden bangle with sigils emblazoned on it on her finger as she thought.
“I want to put it on already…”
“Hey, Chel. How’s my pilosa look?”
“Heavy mental damage, there was light physical damage but that’s healed. I can’t do much for him, you’ll need a mental magic specialist who also can handle healing magic. Even if I were to use my own energy I can barely grasp mental magic as is, I’d hit magic overload right away.”
Chel was chatty, this will be an easy one.
“That reminds me, Slo cast some really cool looking magic at me. It almost got me. Good thing she cast it out loud, ‘Hoarfrost Bubbler’? It was pretty amazing, never seen anything like that.”
“Sorry about that. Even though she used that spell right away, you were fine? She get’s carried away when it has to do with beasts or animals.”
“Yeah, I was wondering what unique magic it was. I’d like to try it myself.”
“Oh, she made it up herself though. She’s really smart. I don’t know how you beat her.”
“I’ve got a spell that confuses in an area, I didn’t want to hurt anyone too much. After it hit her, It probably convinced her that going to sleep was a good idea.”
“Wow, thats amazing. Isn’t it too easy on the target?”
“I try not to kill people if I can.”
Chel figured that maybe Aeschyli had such overwhelming power that she could choose to kill or not. She wouldn’t do the same in her position. Aeschyli noticed Chel went quiet and decided to finish this quickly.
“I’m worried about Slo then. I have experience with original magic. It’s quite dangerous.”
“Huh, that’s strange, Slo never seems to have trouble with it at all.”
Aeschyli frowned in her heart and her face. The anger was building. That wasn’t possible. She’d need to intervene directly at this point with Slo, or run away. This was getting too delicate for her. What about the pilosa and Cosimo? Ditch them both? Ditch Chel and carry the pilosa and Cosimo out of the city? That was the usual option.
“Are you okay? Why do you look angry all of a sudden?”
“Slo’s playing with fire. I’m worried she might try to kill me again, and end up killing herself in the process. Original magic isn’t something you toy around with. Too much trouble to deal with. I have to take care of the pilosa and Cosimo now.”
Aeschyli inadvertently voiced her real thoughts.
Chel was used to people telling her their worries though.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a problem to me. You saved her and Arge’s life after all. I’m sure you could just let her agree to leave you alone if you give back the pilosa to the homeless man. Who’s Cosimo?”
Aeschyli was twirling the bangle faster. Chel had no idea that Aeschyli was weighing whether or not to skip town this instant. She came to a decision. She gathered her hair and snapped the bangle on. Light drained out of her eyes.
Chel who was watching this was confused. I guess Cosimo is her lover or something, she looks like she’s sad now.
“You’re right. I’ll follow your lead. Thanks, Chel.”
Chel figured that she didn’t want to talk about her lover, Cosimo, and let it drop.
=====
A half a month went by as Aleppo rebuilt. Baqashot the city mayor declared publicly that Aleppo was surrendering to Dunkirk’s rule. He had discovered that his secretary Cherise had drowned, and was drinking himself into a stupor. While there was resistance because the remnants of the Dunkirk army were merely hiding in the embassy, the residents were simply overwhelmed by three mysteries at once and the work of the reconstruction. There was a rumor of a hero who repelled the remaining Dunkirk troops whose name became popular and the story was told again and again. She was hailed as the champion of Marscione, but her last name was Grun. Many told various interpretations of this tale, some were hitting the mark. This was because of Aeschyli’s discreet involvement.
The second and third mysteries were the reason for the flood and the massive explosion. The magic sigil engineers couldn’t figure it out at all. It was just like every sigil had exploded. Were Aeschyli, the only one familiar with this kind of thing due to her past able to check it out she would still be entirely lost.
The explosion was just a mystery. The amount of energy needed just left experienced magicians opening and closing their mouths.
In the end, everyone decided that a dragon was involved. There just wasn’t any question, from expert to layman they were the only ones who could pull something like that off. However, the only dragon there looked like a pilosa, although it called itself a dragon there were few who could say that it wasn’t putting forth heroic efforts during the flood.
So the second dragon theory was made.
Marscione sent word that they would be preparing an army to repel Dunkirk. All of the border towns expected this and it forced them to remain neutral as they waited for Dunkirk’s reinforcements to Aleppo. Marscione was going to be late. It was going to be an uphill war against Dunkirk, who was smelling victory at the chink in Marscione’s shield.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
=====
Arge was running down an alley with Aeschyli. Aeschyli had made herself a full black costume to match Arge which even covered her face, as she was famous. Her massive amount of hair was braided and stuffed into the costume.
“Take my pilosa. I’ll show you.”
“Have you got his scent yet? I swear you’re better at detection than Slo’s magic.”
She sniffed again under the facemask.
“Nothing. Never lost a trail. Use Slo.”
“She’ll want to come with. Let’s just keep searching.”
He didn’t want a repeat of before.
Chel was busy working like usual supporting the party with money. Doru was salvaging stone with stone magic particular to the dwarven race. Slo was sleeping.
Someone had snuck into the inn they were staying at where Cosimo, Slo, and Timothy were sleeping. He was still in ‘Form of Sloth’ so it was an easy steal. Arge and Aeschyli
“Okay. What contacts can you use?”
“None?”
“Should I do something?”
Arge knew it was ‘Carpe Scaenam’, he hid that he had gained ‘Haggling Arts’ from everyone as a matter of course.
“Er…”
He was conflicted. There was only one guy who was into this sort of thing. A buck at any cost type of stealing. That guy was a jack of all trades, but he was definitely someone that he didn’t want to piss off. What would he want with a sloth? How did he even know they had one? What bothered him the most was that Slo could have easily been killed.
“Let’s do it. Maybe you’ll pick up the scent on the way there.”
They raced off toward the center of the city.
=====
Villanos the sinister guard who saw the strangely behaving pilosa with some dumb farmer at the city gate was always looking for his cut of the deal. He had went to Felix, the local thief lord who dwelled in the center of the city that night to do his usual duties as a thief. At that time he told Felix of the pilosa.
Felix ran a operation bribing guards specifically to get a handle on incoming trade goods. It was one of his many scam projects, like short charging farmers who weren’t familiar with the city for their crops, brothels, intimidation, and supporting Baqashot from the shadows. There was a lot of distrust amongst the monster hunters due to a difficult shortage of game right now, so when Villanos had told him before the flood that there was a ‘intelligent pilosa’ he kept that in mind. A small amount in the grand scheme of things, but then the flood happened. He lost most of his men, businesses could easily skip out on paying him due to the immense costs and stress they were already under. The weirdest thing was that there was flying pilosa. He had unique magic that let him ‘mark’ a living being or place, so it was easy to find the sloth hanging out there.
“Some kind of changing your body magic? Never heard of that. Unless you're really a dragon in the first place, in which case I’m out of luck when you wake up.”
He was drinking lightly with his feet up on his desk. He was talking to the sloth which was curled up on the desk.
“Still, I’m glad I’m the meticulous type. Details are the most important thing if you want to do it right. How many men have a got left? Feels like I’m starting all over again. The good old days are here again.”
“Hiding my tracks with ‘Thief Arts’, it used to take so much more effort. I feel like I’m cheating these days. I remember telling that shadow dipping kid that he’ll go far if he just joined up with me. Don’t know why he’s sticking around with those group of louts. He’s black hearted. But he’s young. No doubt there’s a soft spot in there just waiting to be crushed the moment he gets dumped. That, or age will get to him and he’ll realize it's just money that matters in the end. Everything else comes from that. So many hits he turned down, so many failures. If he didn’t have that useful magic, if I couldn’t control him, I’d have to take him out myself. When I showed him my ‘Arts’, he didn’t even blink. I really wonder sometimes what he’s really thinking. Now, look at this city, sloth. The whole place working together in harmony and I just have sit back and wait or I’ll seriously get the people after me this time. They are all desperate. Just like thieves, just like me.”
He took a drink and Aeschyli burst in through the window after waiting politely for him to finish.
Years of experience being ambushed let him fend her dagger off with his bottle. The moment the bottle hit he felt a strange energy, and the bottle burst showering him in glass as he threw himself to the floor from his chair in surprise. He spun around and stood up, pulling out a shining white dagger that was knit under the desk.
“No introduction? That’s so like girls like you.”
Within an instant Felix had appraised her with his mind from years of picking girls off the street for brothels. Even if she was entirely clothed and had bound her already small chest, his perception was supernatural.
Aeschyli was glad that someone finally saw through her disguise and hefted the summoned Rosa Lingua dagger at him.
“Give sloth back,” she said.
“How about you put away the dagger first? I’ll lower mine if you lower yours. It's not much to ask for a little payment in return for giving your creature back right?”
He had no intention of doing that. This sloth could be enough to get him out of town. Despite what he said, he didn’t feel like sticking around after the flood and his cash reserves were low.
“I’m really strong. Like, really strong. I have a mind control ability. I have a bully with a heart of gold heading in through the door. I’m unattackable if I’m holding anything as a weapon. I could end this right now, but I’d rather stall for time so he doesn’t get mad at me again.”
“Mind control? Mental magic isn’t that great, you must be bluffing. Here, let me show you something.”
Her dagger disappeared. She went to cast ‘Carpe Scaenam’ but a huge chest appeared right above her head. She looked up out of curiosity and the chest planted into her face.
“‘Thief Arts’ is great isn’t it. Everyone thinks you can just play around when you're fighting, once you get a little experience it's no big deal to just go for the kidney with a double edged blade. It’s all a matter of surprise, got to stay on your toes and look for the right opening. It's usually the first and last chance you get.”
He walked over to her and drove the dagger into her back.
“Felix!”
Arge burst through the door as Felix was crouched over Aeschyli.
Seeing the dagger in Aeschyli, he noted the chest. Felix never did tell him exactly how ‘Thief Arts’ worked, but if Aeschyli was down he wasn’t sure he had much of a chance.
Felix stood up and faced him. The chest was still covering Aeschyli’s head. Rosa Lingua was in a corner for some reason. Felix didn’t notice that there wasn’t any blood coming out of Aeschyli as he withdrew his dagger thanks to Arge showing up.
“Nice to see you. Your girlfriend here doesn’t look well,” said Felix.
Arge wasn’t about to correct that right now, he was goading him anyways. He decided that he needed to use ‘Haggle Arts’ immediately to get Aeschyli to a healer as soon as possible.
“Can I buy that girl? I won’t go higher than one rukh,” he used Part 3rd, Proposal. The sloth would have to wait.
“Oh, no no, you’ve got to pay a bit more for that. It comes with a chest after all,” said Felix. He was entirely caught in the ‘Arts’. Just what was the limit here?
“Any more than one is too high. I just want the girl. Here,” he flicked him a rukh and used Part 4th , Close.
“Thanks for your business. Now, how about you tell me what this is about?”
Seems like he had the girl, but he couldn’t distract him he could leave. Time to kill two birds with one stone, Arge thought he was a genius.
“I left my sloth here. I really do have to be going. Thanks for the girl,” he said as he activated the 2nd Part, Distract.
“Oh, okay. Sorry about keeping you for so long,” Felix made a business smile.
Arge figured he could leave the Rosa Lingua sitting in the corner but went for it anyways. Aeschyli was nothing but trouble sometimes. He stuck it in his waist and didn’t see Felix charge him from behind.
A huge crack thundered out and a tongue shot through Felix’s body. It seemed to freeze him for a second before whipping him straight upwards through the roof.
Timothy was in pilosa form standing on the remains of a broken desk and shattered floor. The light from the hole in the roof showed his coat gleaming.
Arge whipped around with Rosa Lingua in his hands in a start.
He dropped it immediately, calculating that he might be grumpy again and beat him up like last time.
“Just what the blazes happened,” that was all Timothy said to Arge.
Arge needed to confirm.
“Where’d Felix go? I didn’t see anything.”
“Threw him into the sky. What happened to me? I can’t believe I acted like that,” Timothy whined in Arge’s head.
“Later, unless you have a healing spell. Aeschyli got stabbed.”
“Who’s that?”
“This girl? She robbed you from Cosimo.”
“I don’t remember pledging myself to be his property in the first place. I’ll get us out of here.”
He used ‘Tongnado’ one of the Ancient Ancestral Arts and cut off the entire roof and wall in one go by extending his tongue like a whip and twisting it in a perfect circle. Timothy collected the both of them jumping off into the air while activating ‘Form of Dragon’.
“Hey Timothy, I left her dagger there can you grab it with your tongue? It's the silver one.”
“Little late,” Timothy was already at full speed by the time he heard it, “The girl’s more important, where’s a hospital?”
“Damn it, I can’t figure it out from this high up, can you get lower?”
Timothy went skimming over the ground and cheers broke out from people who remembered him from the flood.
“There’s Chel’s hospital, guess we’ll head there.”
Arge quickly went to check Aeschyli wound by lifting up her clothing. He did that even though he saw no blood.
He wasn’t about to tell Timothy that though.
======
Aeschyli was sleeping. The chest had knocked her out, so after he got Chel to check her out to skip paying the hospital fee he breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry about hitting you into that water cylinder thing. I wasn’t myself. Thats happens sometimes. How long was I out?”
“Two weeks. Aeschyli said there was a magic resonance or reaction thing that happened between you and Cosimo. She said it happens all the time back home. And don’t do that tongue thing to me again,” cautioned Arge.
“Magic reaction? Maybe that’s why the flood happened too, extremely unfortunate. I’ve never heard of it. Even though I travel a lot, recently I’m getting unusual surprises. I assume Dunkirk owns the city now thanks to the army.”
“The mayor caved anyways even though the army got taken out with a quarter of the city.”
“There was that huge chunk of destroyed buildings when I was flying, is that his fault?”
“Yep,” said Arge.
“Seems I’ll have to wait for Aeschyli to wake up to question her.”
“Well… actually could we head back to get that dagger we left?”
“It's just a dagger, you can’t be that stingy.”
“It’s not mine. Although I do want to raid Felix’s place for loot since I chased off all his guards, I can do that later. I don’t want Aeschyli to wake up without her dagger.”
Timothy gave him a gimlet look. This was not the Arge he knew.
“I’m not using ‘Soul Communication’ to read you again, but I don’t need that to know it’s not like you.”
“Haha, you got me. She’s extremely jumpy. Seems to act out if she doesn’t have her things, if you don’t stay at least one meter away, if you ask her about her bangle, if you ask for a Glande, if you walk in while she’s bathing, if y if you try to stop her from producing a play featuring her with the money she got by a week in a quarry, or ask her too many questions.”
Arge looked tired all of a sudden. Timothy put his tongue on Arge’s shoulder.
“Sounds tough. Shouldn’t you see someone else?”
“She’s not my girlfriend. Everyone else likes her, but they don’t have to spend the day with her. Also, she was the one who hit you with that mind control spell and rode off on you.”
“Isn’t she really dangerous? To think she knows about magic reactions too…and why was she wearing all black?”
“She’s a wanted fugitive,” said Arge, “so can we go?”
Timothy was adamant about standing up for yourself. Arge was being bullied. That much was clear.
“No, I won’t help you get the dagger back. This sounds like a relationship that needs to end to me, I want no part of that.”
“Oh come on, you almost killed me that one time. Probably started a chain reaction somehow that flooded the city too,” said Arge.
“That’s just ridiculous,” Even though he thought of the possibility himself, “I’ll help you this once, but you have to promise me you’ll stop hanging out with her.”
“Okay,” lied Arge.
======
Cosimo was staring at Maria’s knife. He had eaten the acorn and finished the books. After running around and sleeping for a few days he realized he would need to have to use it to get out of there.
It can’t hurt can it? Just because it was Maria’s? He grasped the handle. He felt a surge of energy, like his heart was being cleansed. He felt a deep peace. Is this what Maria felt holding it? He tried to push the knife deeper into the whiteless void and it cut through it easily. Susanoo said ‘use it to cut grass’ but he had no idea what he meant. Cosimo cut a perfect circle into the ground and a little white sheet fell revealing a black void. Since there wasn’t any white in the whiteless void, he guessed there wasn’t any black in the blackless void but he was wrong. Should he go in?
He was bored. It’s worth a shot.
He carved open a hole big enough to fit through and slid into the darkness.
====
He woke up. His whole body was sore. He tried to move but it was like pulling on a cinder block. Slo was in his bed. It was natural for Adventurer’s, who trusted each other with their lives, to be able to share a bed. He didn’t know her like that though.
Cosimo decided to accept it for now.