In The Meantime (2)

----------------------------------------

“Phew! They’re gone now!” Yelled Jytte as she glanced at the bloody trail leading down the road.

“You went easy on them, didn’t you Jytte?”

“Sort of. I wasn’t aiming for any of their vitals so they should survive, but they definitely won’t be looking to steal anything else for a while. Anyway Myra, what about -”

“The geezer’s fine.” Myra said lazily. “Look, he’s already getting back on his feet.”

“And Liam?” Jytte pressed.

“I’m right here, Jytte. That was amazing, I’ve never seen anyone fight like that before.”

Her eyes started sparkling for some reason and she leaned in to hug me, or at least she wanted it to seem that way. Apparently, my scent was still some kind of a reward for her.

“Oi, you two, enough fooling around. We still need to find that inn you know....” Myra said, shooting us a stern glare, it was just enough to snap Jytte out of it and get her to dawn her previous aura of professionalism.

“R-right” She muttered before sheepishly springing to her feet.

“And what about you, old man? Do you need any help?” Myra asked in a rhetorical tone.

“Thank you for the offer.” He replied, wiping away the bead of blood trailing down the right side of his face. “I go by Dale, thank you all for saving me. It’s Myra, Liam and Jytte right?”

“How do you know our names?” I asked spontaneously

“Why, you all just said them a while ago didn’t you?” Dale replied with a grin.

“Hmph! Looks like that beating just now didn’t quite knock all the spunk out of you.” Myra muttered, narrowing her eyes at him.

Dale guffawed as he stumbled forth, only to be caught by Jytte who just barely managed to stop him from tumbling onto his face.

“Thank you...” He said through a heavy breath. “It looks like I’ll need a lot more help than I thought.”

“Well, there’s no harm in giving you a ride but first, can you tell us what that is?” Myra asked as she pointed toward the thing that must have led us here in the first place.

“M-Myra, is this what you saw earlier?”

“Yeah, no matter how you look at it this just doesn’t belong here....” She answered my question rather morbidly, and for good reason too.

Just up ahead, there was a water basin.

It was the ornamental kind and was much larger than the fountain in Zale at around forty feet wide. And surprisingly, it was one of the few things here that had suffered no real form of damage whatsoever. Not just the basin either, this entire area was virtually untouched by the chaos that had consumed the city.

Why?

It wasn’t surprising to see destruction here; it was actually more surprising to see something that wasn’t already in the process of falling apart.

Thanks to the night’s veil and all the dying Aether crystals in the area, we were able to see it clearly. This water basin....it appeared to be glowing.

It wasn’t particularly bright per se, in fact, if not for the current circumstances it would have been hard to even notice the light being emitted by it.

Perplexed by the sight, Jytte and Myra drifted over to its circular perimeter to steal a glance. I followed behind them, only to see a large, cryptic looking red circle illuminating the water’s surface.

There were a few fishes leisurely swimming around in there, seemingly unbothered by its radiance–the exact opposite of what my companions were feeling.

“What....is this? I’ve never seen this kind of magic circle before....” Myra muttered in disbelief

“M-Me either...it’s giving me a bad vibe.” Jytte stumbled backwards

I could understand her distress, after all, this thing, it was gathering the souls of all the people who died here. Now that I was this close to it, I could finally hear the wails of the damned, this magic circle was acting as a conduit to seal and store the vengeful souls in the vicinity.

This magic circle, it was – Linked to Limbo.

“Believe it or not, this was once the town square.” Dale said, strolling around beside us. “The basin here was quite the attraction you know, people used to gather around it all the time before things became like this.”

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“Dale! Who did this!? Who put this thing here!?” Myra demanded; her voice sharp with urgency as she flared up to grab Dale by the collar.

Dale grimaced and let out a sigh

“How about we discuss this somewhere else? My house isn’t too far from here.”

----------------------------------------

Taking Dale up on his offer actually gave us the chance to kill two birds with one stone.

As it happened, he was the owner of the inn we’d been so desperately searching for, it really was just one right turn off from our repetitive route.

He led us into the rectangular shaped wooden building that was surprisingly well maintained. There were actually people in here, a collection of men, women and children who all seemed to be taking refuge. They were doing much better than the half dead civilians we’d grown used to seeing around here.

We climbed up the stairs behind him and turned down the hallway where he eventually led us into a room on the far right. The room was modest in size, featuring only a flickering lamp perched on a dresser in the corner and a large bed positioned against the back wall, just beneath the window sill.

Jytte took her seat in a chair positioned by the bedside and I sat atop the creaking bed with Myra still on my shoulder. Dale closed the door behind him and sat on the floor without much enthusiasm.

“So? Start talking.” Myra urged

“.....Why did you destroy it?” He asked with a hanging head

The Faerie heaved a sigh.

“Look, that magic circle was bound to cause problems later down the line. I’m not sure exactly what it was supposed to do, but that thing was channeling mana from a rune. That much I’m sure of and if you know anything about runes, then you should also know that spells that try to draw power from them almost never end well for anyone.”

“........Alright, I’ll tell you what I know.”

An audible gulp came from the girl resting on my shoulder, as much as she was trying to hide it, she was clearly feeling uneasy about all of this.

“Those magic circles were placed here after the first time an irregular attacked this city. It was done by the cult that's on the old fort over by the Brimwell, they claimed that it was a ‘ward’ that was actually meant to keep the creature away should it ever appear again. And for a while, I genuinely believe their words, heh, at one point I even considered joining the cult but...”

His fist pressed against the creaking floor, causing him to actually pace himself before he continued speaking.

“That was a lie.” He said, uttering the words we were all expecting to hear.

“That thing isn’t a ward, it’s far from it. They actually use it for some strange ceremonies where they....kill each other.”

I heard gasps from all throughout the room, Jytte in particular seemed to quake at Dale’s words.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually the last remaining Baron in this city. When all hell broke loose, I tried my best to shelter as many civilians as I could. That’s what got me into a bit of trouble just now and it’s also how I discovered their little secret. I think they’re the ones responsible for summoning the irregulars.”

“.... Are you...sure about that Dale?” Myra inquired; her voice dangerously calm.

“I am." He replied flatly

“I only saw them do it once but, there were about three more of those magic circles scattered throughout the city and when the low-ranking members of the cult gather near one, they offer up one of their members as a sacrifice, on their leaders' orders apparently. After they summon it, the other remaining members just stand around and....allow it to kill them, they didn’t even try to run away.”

“I see. And exactly how many of these low-ranking members does this cult currently have?” asked the Faerie with a frighteningly cold gaze.

“I-I’m not sure they have any left. By the looks of things, they have to take their own lives every time the irregular gets summone- Gah!”

“Why you! Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before!?” Jytte lashed out carelessly, knocking over the small wooden chair in the process.

“Calm down Jytte. You made a deal with them, didn’t you?” Myra mused as she stared at the man’s sinking gaze.

“My guess is he got caught and had to compromise in order to keep sheltering the civilian's downstairs. As long as he didn’t talk then they would leave this place alone. Probably something along those lines. There wasn’t much of an incentive for him to do anything either, it's not like he’s a mage. Besides, the majority of the raiders here are low-level scum to begin with so he didn’t exactly have a lot of options.”

There was a fine line between bravery and stupidity, had this man made the wrong choice then it could have easily ended up in a massacre taking place here.

“Forgive me!” Dale begged, slamming his forehead onto the floor.

“It’s fine, not like you could have done very much on your own anyway. At least you helped keep these people alive so that’s definitely worth something.” Myra said with a thin smile, she didn’t seem to be distressed or alarmed but there was a hint of hesitancy in her words.

Shamefully, the man raised his teary face.

“Oh, by the way, if you were worried about those fish then don’t. I just disrupted the circle’s formation, they’re fine. We’ll have this all settled by tomorrow so you can rest easy now, leave this to us.”

Slowly his eyes went wide as he began heading towards the door, he stopped just short of it before leaving us with his final reply.

“Thank you. You can stay here for the night, free of charge of course, I’ll be downstairs.” He muttered before disappearing behind the oak door.

“At least now we have something to work with...” Myra mumbled

“Things are a lot more complicated than last time.” Jytte said, once again taking a seat by the bedside.

“Well, in any case, we need to let Oliver and the others know about what’s going on but for now, let’s get some rest. Liam, it’s time to turn it in for the night kid. We’ll keep watch.”

“Okay, goodnight, Myra, Jytte.” I replied to their warm smiles cheerfully as I stuffed myself under the covers.

They were mumbling about something for a while but I had little time to eavesdrop. The pressing issue gnawing at my mind right now was the true purpose of those magic circles.

Based on what Dale said, the irregular killed those cult members, not consumed, which means that it wasn’t after their flesh. It wanted something else – Most likely, their souls.

If that’s the case then this thing is probably some kind of evil spirit, and whoever is summoning it is tampering with the realm of the dead.