7.12
“Two-hundred and eighty-six. Believe in luck, I would not be alive without it.” - Excerpt from Edwin’s Enchiridion of Encounters.
Johnny Joymoon woke up well and rested. He had not fallen asleep in the warm cot, instead he had dozed off in front of the impromptu snack table. For a moment that feeling stayed with him. A bit of magic only a child could experience, falling asleep one place, and waking up in bed. Something lost as a person grew bigger and heavier, and expected to manage their own care. For a moment, he knew to appreciate that feeling.
It was still late into the night, and Melinda snored loudly on her own operating table, having left her cot for Johnny. The mortuary was admittedly a very messy place. Yet there was an organized chaos of a professional who knew her workplace and tools better than her own hands.
It was in this environment that Johnny contemplated their problem. Banished for a moment of his expectations to be the hero, to obtain results at any personal cost. A child of loss and death wrapped in blankets that smelled faintly of embalming concoctions.
‘How would they solve this?’
They would do what he and Melinda had been doing. They would keep reviewing all existing evidence, trying to find the one unifying clue. Dustin would help at first, but when no results showed he would’ve asked Mr Hauerdian and been done with it. It was a simple calculation, the pain of the dead did not match risking the living.
It was a coldness that Dustin was easily capable of inflicting onto others and himself.
And Johnny realized he did not want to be cold.
So this late into the night, he crept to their work table covered in notes and read them for eleventh time, and for the first time came to the slow realization of a pattern. It was not some sudden epiphany, merely the natural end result of a well rested mind and many repetitions. Johnny Joymoon, not knowing fully well what it meant, found a map of the city, and began marking it with the location of every death, every restless dead with a corpse too broken to investigate. They were scattered all over the city, yet every time he marked a new place, he could see that they were slithering out of a specific place like the heads of a hydra.
For he knew, that monsters still followed convenience.
At the center of hundreds of dots, was the Hearth Church.
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The halls of the Hearth Church were lit by warm orange fire. Despite magical sources of lighting like the more convenient and cheaper glow crystals, small candles, wicks, and lanterns were dominant here. To Tai, it spoke of an almost fetish with flame, combined with the well worn wooden floor boards, it created the obstinate image of conserving a traditional ‘homely’ vibe.
“So each frame is a still picture, the eye can only see around twenty-four frames per second, and if you change these pictures fast enough in a sequence it gives the illusion of movement…” Noam’s voice, transmitted through Celine’s magic, whispered irritatingly close to her ear.
Said woman replied, “Like a flip book?”
“Yes! Like a flip book.”
“Celine, do you really have enough mana to be keeping this conversation up?” Tai whispered with no small amount of annoyance.
“Sorry!” Celine yelped before cutting the connection with Noam. Tai tapped her ear a few times, as if trying to get the sound out, after confirming silence on her doll’s end. She took a few steps forward, confidently, and without skulking. In the end that was what decided which of them would be going. Celine could hide surprisingly well, but her anxious demeanor and gait could give something away should she be caught. Strange suspicions aside, they were supposed to be here. Soon they reached their goal.
She turned slightly to her shoulder, and whispered, “This is the pantry?”
Yellow squeaked an affirmative.
The Hearth Church was a surprisingly large building with the main dinning hall in its left wing, attached to it were the kitchen and pantry, along with the private tea room they had been greeted in. She tried the pantry door, locked. Yellow hopped off her shoulder, and squeezed through the gap underneath the door, she went down, eyes peeking through after it. Her view was restricted, but Yellow’s glow helped her make out the little she could see.
Tai confirmed what the wisp had previously stated, a filled pantry but lean stock, more for filling bellies than anything luxurious. Surprisingly high quality pots though, one of her exes was a potter and she picked up a few things, they kept in touch even after he aged out of her, being a human and all. The pots were colorfully glazed in a way that reflected well off Yellow’s light, some were unglazed and more amateurish, by the small fingerprints it seemed some of the kids partook in arts and crafts.
“What are you doing?” A childish voice asked from behind her.
Tai turned around. Casting a shadow by candle light was a little human girl, brown twin tails and so pale she almost glowed in the dark with porcelain white. Her eyes were gaping wide, with large dark pupils that almost obscured the white of her eyes.
Sill on the floor, Tai awkwardly scratched the back of her head. “I uhh… dropped a copper and it rolled under the door, I was trying to look for it.” Tai couldn’t hear Yellow hide, which thankfully meant neither could the girl.
“Sister Glascoin has the keys, we can get her to help,” the girl said.
“It’s late, we can get the coin in the morning, little girl,” Tai replied as she got up and dusted herself off.
“It’s Prea, and sister is awake right now,” Prea pressed as she took a step forward, getting unnervingly close, till Tai could feel the warmth of her breath.
Mustering the same instructive voice of her grandmother, Tai spoke, “But you should be sleeping right now young lady.”
She took the girl’s hand, and started walking to the right wing where the sleeping quarters were, dragging her along. “But I don’t feel sleepy!”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Then should I tell you a bedtime story?” Tai seemed to muse, but she kept a close eye to the girl. ‘Was I just being paranoid?’
Either way, it gave her a good excuse to look at their living situation. They passed through the dinning hall, neared the sound of whispers of children not quite tired enough to sleep. “Which is your room?”
Prea pointed towards an open door towards their left, bright candle light shone cast long shadows through the doorway. Their rooms were nothing special, a bunk bed with blankets still faintly spelling of laundry and sunshine, sat on the bottom bunk was another girl reading a book by candle light. A twin. “Both of you ought to sleep,” Tai said with a voice that had been passed down from parent to child since the dawn of time.
Both of course grumbled and quibbled over their curfew, but Tai saw them off to their beds. When she closed the door she came face to face with Sister Glascoin.
The sister smiled, and it was sweet velvety thing that made any suspicions seem trivial. “Those kids love you.”
Tai shrugged, “They certainly didn’t look that way.”
“I know!” she leapt and clasped Tai’s hands in hers, “They’re a delight aren’t they?”
Tai looked down, slowly peeled the priestess’s hands off her own. “I don’t really have a lot of experience with kids.”
“Couldn’t have fooled me,” she replied. “Would you join me for tea? We may be safe within the church, but I would still like to keep a watch.”
Without a good reason to refuse, Tai simply nodded, and found herself waiting in the tea room once again. Sister Glascoin brought over a tray and poured her a cup, before nestling into her own seat. Tai watched her take a sip of her tear, before she picked up her own tea cup.
“Do you believe in luck, Tai?” Sister Glascoin asked.
Tai sipped her tea, it tasted sweet. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Good begets good,” Sister Glascoin began, “do onto others what you want done to you, and it will happen. There are many ways to describe it, but perhaps that is the easiest. Be generous and kind, and the world will treat you kindly in return.”
Her chair felt especially plush that moment, as if Tai were sinking into it. “It sounds nice yeah. I assume you don’t mean the platitude but something the Elder Pantheon enforces?”
Sister Glascoin smiled, “This is older than Lorn and Gwaina and their Hearthfire. It was something I learned as a young child, generosity provably improves your own luck. I think that is why you’re here. You and the Toy Dragons came here in my moment of need, because I have done good all my life.”
Tai blinked, and found her eyelids heavy and hard to open. The teacup fell out of her loosening hand and was caught in midair by Sister Glascoin. She tried to speak, but her muscles refused to answer to her.
The Hearth exploded with fire, crackling and screaming with an enraged howl, before it solidified into a face. One so ancient he was old when men were still figuring out agriculture. Lorn’s voice was calm, the calm certainty of a cold death in winter, for that was all that awaited those who abandoned Hearth and Home. “What are you doing?”
Glascoin simply took the kettle and put out the fire with its contents. “It’s a shame though, I really did enjoy being a priestess. But Lorn and Gwaina have grown old and senile, they can sense hospitality being broken but can’t do anything about it.” Without looking, she threw the ceramic tea kettle, which melted in midair and hit the hidden Yellow like a glob of goo before shaping itself into a sealed jar around the wisp, trapping them. On the table, the ceramic tea set melted like ice under the summer sun, turning into its base clay. Glascoin stretched out her arm and the clay flowed like streams around it, before she pointed a finger to Tai. The clay followed her direction, locking the elf’s paralyzed limbs to the chair before hardening as if fired.
“Mold,” Glascoin whispered. “The Path I chose. A mere cantrip compared to what you and seasoned warriors like your party could do, but it has served me well.” She turned to the door, “And now, your friend.”
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There was a knock on Celine’s door.
“Tai?” she called out. Celine out of habit first turned to the doll rather than the door, her introversion gave her her only warning. Tai’s doll was limp.
“May I come in?” Glascoin’s voice asked. When no voice answered her, she cracked open the door, peeking through to a room empty and still. Glascoin put down a tray of tea and biscuits on a cabinet by the door, stepped into the room, “Hello?” she called out again. The beds were empty, but messy and warm in one spot as if someone had recently sat in them. The clay wash basin was filled with water but still. She glanced around, pushed open the curtains and found the window was solidly locked from the inside.
Behind her, Celine’s cloaked figure rose up from under the bed frame. She moved without hurry and with deafened foot steps, a silent ghost that passed the table, and the cabinet by the door. Where the tea set Glascoin had left leapt at her like a snake.
The witch yelped as the liquid clay slithered up her neck, onto her mouth and nose and solidified. Celine fell to the ground, clawing at the mask as it blocked her breath and words. “You’re not the first mage I’ve killed,” Glascoin said. “Nor the first sneak either.”
The clay molded itself around Celine’s hands, trapping them as well. Her living cloak, Nappy, exploded into motion, wrapping around her limbs and pulling her to stand and run like a puppet. Ragged black threads wrapped around the clay, trying to wrench the mask off as Celine ran out the door.
To a hallway filled with ceramic plates, bowls, and cups.
Celine could only watch as Ni Kakoph’s gift pulled her limbs to dodge the incoming globs of clay, Nappy was fast, but one lucky shot of clay clipped the hem of the cloak, clung to it and weighed it down. Slowing her enough for a second ball of clay to hit her, each further weighing her down until eventually she collapsed onto the floor, barely a few steps away from the door, behind her, Glascoin’s footsteps rung out like an executioner’s bell. Her lungs screamed desperately for air but only received clay dust. The mask was molded perfectly around her, so she shifted. Her skin and hair turned albino white as she condensed herself, shrinking just a feet of height, and the mask loosened enough for her to breathe through the new gaps and free her hands.
However, Celine remained on the ground, covered under hardening clay and formless cloak, until Glascoin stepped close enough for Celine to lob a green alchemy vial at her. At that same moment, Glascoin tripped on a piece of upturned floorboard, falling onto the ground as the vial sailed over her head.
The former priestess easily caught herself with her clay, and from her new perspective caught Celine’s freed form. “A changeling, huh?”
Celine reached for her alchemy bandoleer but a fast stream of clay severed the belt and it fell harmlessly to the ground. Silver threads flashed into existence as Celine Stitched the clay tendrils to the wall, but the amorphous clay simply moved around the thread.
“Do you believe in luck, Celine?” Glascoin asked as the tidal wave of clay slammed into Celine and wrapped tightly around her, so that not even her desperate shapeshifting could free her. Yet a single doll fell onto the floor, the plush scaled effigy of Utoqa.
Glascoin picked up the doll, “I tripped and avoided your flask, Tai had tea with me, because I could not defeat her in a straight fight. This doll fell on the floor because it is the best hostage I could take. That is luck.”
The clay filled her mouth and trapped her tongue, holding her helpless as Glascoin’s clay tendrils ripped the other dolls of her friends from underneath her cloak. “That the party that helped me had a sympathetic mage with all of her friends cursed, is also luck. All this happened, because I have cared, genuinely, for many orphans over my life, these outcomes go from chance to inevitability.”
“I should ask you where the myconid’s other familiars are, but a mage is too dangerous to keep with a working tongue,” Glascoin whispered into her ear.
The clay around Celine’s tongue tightened like a vice.
The woman suddenly frowned as she saw a shadow behind Celine, with a casual flick, she threw Celine and all the clay into a closet.
“Sister Glascoin?” Celine heard a girl, Prea call out. “Lea wants a candle to read her books.”
Glascoin replied, and Celine could almost hear her smile, “It’s late, but we’ll make an exception tonight.”
Footsteps as Glascoin stepped towards the kid.
“Where are the nice ladies?” Prea asked.
“They’re keeping us safe,” Glascoin replied, leaving Celine trapped in a cocoon of clay.