The next day we made our way to the embassy. It was a big mansion guarded by a lot of inquisition soldiers. They looked nervous when we approached. One of them sprinted into the building, probably to inform someone of our arrival. Another soldier stepped into our path.

“HALT IN THE NAME OF THE INQUISITION!”

Ah, here we go again. I think I even recognized that soldier. “Should you not be in prison? You know, for illegally attacking the duke’s investigators in broad daylight. In front of the guard headquarters no less.”

The soldier's face turned red from fury. He did not seem pleased with the situation. “HOW DARE YOU! THIS BUILDING HERE IS EMPIRE PROPERTY! ONE MORE STEP AND I WILL THROW YOU IN PRISON!”, he screamed.

I laughed. After the last encounter it was clear he did not stand a chance. So he was either very brave or very stupid. Although legally he might have a point. I never inquired how it worked in this world but in my old one an embassy counted as foreign soil. While I thought about our next move the door opened and Elias emerged. He had his two guards in full plate armour with him again.

“What do you want?”, Elias asked.

“We are here to question Oliver, Frederick’s secretary.”, I answered.

“No. We have already determined that he knows nothing. Sir Meisler was working with a demonic cult. They have infiltrated this city. Go home elf. None of this concerns you.”

“Demonic cult? That is an interesting way of describing the inquisition. You should put that on your business cards.”, I said smiling.

He looked at me with fury in his eyes. “You think you are so clever, eh? YOU KNOW NOTHING! WE WILL SHOW THE PEOPLE THE GLORY OF THE EMPIRE!”

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“It’s called depravity, not glory. You got your words mixed up there.”, Lucy helpfully pointed out.

Elias had his hands balled into fists. It looked like he was seething with rage. I wondered if it would come to a fight here. I had an ominous feeling, something strange was happening. Suddenly the sky turned red. At first I suspected an attack from Elias but he seemed shocked. A giant black pillar appeared in the distance.

“Lucy, we should see if we can get a better look from above.”, I suggested. She nodded and we both cast a flight spell. Elias had the same idea and we all rose into the sky. It was now clear that the pillar originated inside the forest. In my estimation it was about a day’s travel on foot away from the city. The pillar did not last long. It faded away and the sky turned back to normal.

“What was that?”, Lucy asked.

I searched the magical knowledge in my brain. “I am not certain. But my best guess would be a major summoning, most likely fueled by a large sacrifice.”

Elias was whispering: “No no no… it can’t be. It’s not possible… that should not have happened.”

It was clear that he knew something. “What is it Elias? What do you know?”, I asked.

Clearly he underestimated my hearing. Now he was cursing under his breath. “None of your concern. The inquisition is leaving.” After that he landed and started barking orders.

I was confused. Whatever happened in that forest spooked Elias. A man capable of casting 9th ranked spells was running? Clearly he knew something. Was this a part of their plan? A part gone wrong?

“Amaya, you said a large sacrifice? How large are we talking about?”, Lucy asked.

“For the summoning to be felt right here you would need hundreds of people.”

“There are three villages in the forest but they are not very large. Do you think they took all those people?”

“Hm. It’s possible. But surely abducting three villages and marching them to a ritual site would take time. That risks someone finding those empty villages.”

“Why are you sure it’s a sacrifice? You can just summon demons with spells or normal rituals.”, Lucy wondered.

“In theory, yes. A normal ritual is fuelled by spell slots. But what we saw, what I felt, was so big it would have taken a lot of archmages combined. In some rituals you can use sacrifices to reduce the spell slots you need. It does not work for everything but it is very effective for a demon summoning.”, I explained.

“Should we question Elias? Demand some more information?”, Lucy asked.

“I doubt he will answer. And I would rather not fight him inside a populated city. Too much collateral damage. We could stop him after he leaves Iron Rock. But even if we forced him he could still lie. Maybe we should investigate the forest. Flying is pretty fast.”

Lucy looked at the forest again. “Let’s fly there. If there is a demon army coming this way we need to find it, so we can warn the city.”

We took off in the direction of the incident.