--- QUEEN STERIS ---
It wasn’t the oddest thing ever to hear about a magical explosion in the city, they were far too common lately as those new strange crystal devices had a tendency to overload, but usually there weren’t any fatalities.
Steris bowed forlornly at the family of the deceased, muttering several hushed; “My condolences for your loss.” It wasn’t that she didn’t care, she did, but Steris felt her mind being drawn elsewhere.
She hadn’t heard from anyone investigating those kidnappings for weeks, and the artificer who’d invented these crystal devices had been the most recent one. Who was going to go missing next? Another historian? Another retired monster hunter? To say that the queen was tired of disappearances was an understatement.
She was almost livid.
No one was actually investigating them. She’d seen a few detectives sent out, and she’d even sent some soldiers, but nothing actually happened. From her long experience with ruling Vethemelnexintelali and the rest of Melor, Steris was positive that things like this only ever happened when the nobles were involved somehow.
Which meant her own nobles were against her. Again.
Sparks, she’d just gotten used to the idea of some kind of tenuous peace. Sure, the various leaders of Nakonua were still trying to get around tariffs, and sure, she was pretty sure the entire royal family of Sanaria was still possessed by something, but that wasn’t anything new. And sure, she still had no idea what to do about the mini hero’s own disappearing act—that Shelex kept badgering her to look into it.
But things had still been quiet, none of those problems had been time sensitive. But if her nobles were against her again, if they were going to start kicking up trouble by not doing what she asked, then that was very much a time sensitive issue. The disappearances themselves weren’t wholly remarkable if it was being dealt with, but the lack of a reaction was certainly something that Steris would take issue with.
And she’d just finished with getting rid of any legitimacy the Yanovel family had had… she’d assumed they would listen to her after that.
Steris sighed, the distortion of time around her fizzling out as she continued paying her respects to the dead. It was giving them great face for her to come to the funeral herself, but she wanted allies in this family, as they were becoming a power in Vethemelnexintelali.
It was tiring to say the least.
After two hours of observing the procession, Steris was wondering again if the ability to use crystals to activate magical effects would continue to spread across the world or if it was just a popular thing with the nobility that would burn out soon. She was pretty sure it wouldn’t burn out… but one could never be sure.
“Miss Talveni,” Steris approached the deceased man’s sister, whom he’d been very close to, “If I may ask, what was he doing with those crystals?” It was a somewhat rude question at a funeral, but Steris had noticed earlier that the young woman would rather talk about her brother's dreams than his death.
She had tears in her eyes, but a slight smile appeared at the mention of her brother’s work, “He was always such a kind person, just wanting to give regular people a good life… he was working on using force crystals to make a kind of… magical wagon.” She nodded, “It was going to save the common people so much work and he was so excited about it all the time… but… most of his notes were destroyed in the explosion.”
Steris thanked the young lady and sent her her condolences again, remembering how that artificer’s shop had been ransacked too, devoid of notes. There was something going on, and Steris didn’t like not being in the know.
--
Less than a day after that funeral, a massive explosion echoed through the palace halls, clearly originating from outside. Steris blinked from her meal, glancing at one of the guards and motioning for him to check the disturbance. He ran off immediately as the other guards and maids turned toward her, eyes wide, looking for direction.
She stood up without hesitation, turning toward a different guard, “Take a friend and check on the princes and my daughter in law please, they should be with my granddaughter.” To another she said, “Check on the treasury,” and to another, “Be sure that no one breaks into the armory.” She paused, examining the remaining group. “The rest of you with me, I’ll be seeing about that disturbance.”
She nodded at them curtly and strode from the room, dusting off her dress and frowning at the lack of guards stationed around the hallway to her personal quarters. Oh well, there were more important things for them to do.
Her six guards flanked her, one of them had insisted on walking ahead of the procession, but she wasn’t too worried. If this attack was meant to target herself, she would already have assassins or kidnappers after her.
They arrived at the main balcony closest to where the explosion had sounded from, and after letting her guards examine the area thoroughly, Steris peered through the glass before stepping outside, frowning at the smoke above the enormous magical supply store that had been about to begin their grand opening in just two weeks.
That wouldn’t be as concerning if it wasn’t so close to so many flammable merchant stalls, or the palace itself. It wasn’t on fire, but Steris wasn’t about to expect that to last.
“Sir Barined, would you please send a messenger to the water teams and make sure they’re readying their response? If you can, find out what the meaning of this is, but I’d like you to take charge of the situation down there and attempt to prevent damage.”
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The knight saluted and promptly shifted into a large bird, flying straight toward the chaos that was erupting from the area.
Steris examined the area for another moment, time rippling around her as she extended her thought process before turning toward another guard, “Go fetch my farsight mages, and afterward please make sure the servants and others in the palace aren’t panicking too much. If we have any elemental mages around, have them join the water teams.”
He saluted and went off.
Something was wrong though, Steris heard several following explosions, smaller though and less destructive. They were certainly flashy though.
Steris turned back to the problem at hand, examining the building for a long moment before she saw something… far… far too familiar. The queen sought confirmation first though, and after a few minutes when the two mages with farsight appeared, casting a full telesight together, Steris had it confirmed.
“Sparks.” She swore, turning toward another of her guards, “Someone inform Sir Barined that the mini hero is down there. Tell him I’d like to have a chat with her after this is over, and that he should attempt to inform her of that fact.”
--- FORA ---
I bounced through the air, trying to evade the various projectiles the Mis-born Dragon base was sending at me. I wasn’t sure why, but I hadn’t actually expected them to fight back, not after Wela had been killed the other day. Their command structure should be in shambles, their might in battle should also be ruined.
But no, they had far too much coordination and discipline for a little thing like losing their first in command and their most powerful battle mage to get after them.
I felt myself phase through a particularly persistent bolt of energy, which was impressive by my estimate since I still hadn’t figured out how to phase through things on command yet. I glanced from the station that was firing on me toward Netun and Taasen on the ground, who were successfully subverting the enemies' defenses, Taasen was single handedly holding back twelve battle mages while I saw Netun escape into a side door that would lead him toward where he remembered Aymi being kept so long ago. We’d looked into it over the last few hours, and as far as we could tell, she hadn’t even been moved in all this time.
Hopefully this wouldn’t take too long.
I made a force construct to stand on, letting one of the attacks sputter harmlessly against it, and almost immediately leapt off the thing to evade a beam that was too powerful for my hastily constructed island to resist. As predicted, it shattered and soon the rest of the mages were firing on me again.
I nearly hit a shifted bird out of the air as he tried to approach me, but when the annoying people below aimed for him too I figured he was probably on my side.
“What?!” I asked, constructing a stronger force island to stand on.
The shifter landed, and a voice came from it. “Queen Steris wants to talk to you once you’re finished.”
“What the sparks do you think I—” The force spell shattered again, the beam that had been aimed at me slicing across my leg with a painful amount of accuracy. “—gah! Tell her if she wants to chat with me she has to help us get my friend out of this place!” I caught myself in the air, bending the space in a curve to swing myself upward again. I was running out of energy though, I’d have to land soon and leave this to my Clone, who was somewhere below, acting as our escape, though… now that I thought about it maybe she’d gone with Netun?
We hadn’t planned this out nearly well enough.
The bird seemed to regard me for a moment before he dove for the ground. Apparently he could tell somehow that I was getting tired. Without hesitating I teleported to the ground, having achieved my goal of distracting the more long distance capable mages so Netun could get through that door.
I winced when I landed on my leg, but it was… well it was probably fine, I mean, it wasn’t bleeding or anything so my exoskeleton had held up. It still ended up hurting like heck though.
The bird landed beside me and shifted into an unfamiliar man wearing the uniform of the queen’s personal guard. Apparently she didn’t care about her own safety as much as resolving this situation. “Awesome, so you’re going to help us then?”
He tilted his head, “us?”
I pointed at Taasen, who was covered in blood and screaming like a madman. His scream seemed to be making him more powerful though so I wasn’t about to stop him. I could vaguely make out the word ‘deceivers’ from the yell, but mostly it was just pure volume. “He’s with me.”
The guard stared at Taasen for a moment too long before following after me as I rushed across the mini battlefield and toward that door. Those mages I’d kept preoccupied were now busy keeping Taasen from murdering them, which was plenty diverting.
“So you’re really the hero then?” he asked me once we were through the door. There was a conspicuous lack of defenders, which didn’t bode well for Netun.
I nodded, “I died and then came back, it’s not a big deal.” It was most certainly a big deal, but I was getting tired of treating it as such.
We rushed down a flight of stairs and peered through a cracked doorway, frowning at the various dead defenders that could be found through the entrance. “You have… another friend I assume who did this?” the shifter asked, frowning at the bloodless death around him.
I nodded, “I’d hold your breath if I were you, it should all be gone by now, but you never know with sandfrost.”
“And you’re certain that these people are enemies?”
I nodded, “They kidnapped a friend of mine, we have evidence of this.” Pushing open the door I followed my own advice, welllll mostly. I constructed a miniature gate inside each of my nostrils like a cool person, depositing the other half on the surface where fresh air could be easily found.
We followed the trail of corpses, which was as gross as it sounds. I’m not completely sure who I’d be more scared to have as an enemy, Taasen or Netun. Taasen at least was straightforward with his attacks, but Netun? I would never see him coming.
I took a step and felt my leg give out. It had been a bit of a struggle to get down those stairs, but I’d always considered myself to be a very suffering in silence kind of person. At least… I guess Eliax was, not Fari. But that didn’t matter, there simply hadn’t been a point in complaining about it earlier.
I warped space instinctively as I fell, softening my landing as I gasped lightly at the pain from my leg. The guard blinked at me, holding out a hand, but I ignored it, simply standing up again without a word. My mana was definitely getting too low at this point.
Alright, so maybe that wound was worse than I’d thought.
I kept walking, eventually coming to a new door that had been left ajar. The shifter peered through it, glancing back at me with worry, apparently well aware that I was going to be mostly useless if we got into another fight. I could definitely teleport us out of here, but I wasn’t sure how comfortable it would be with the low levels of mana I had left.
We plodded onward.
Had… had my clone gone down here with Netun after all? Teleported him out?
I WASN’T CERTAIN, WHICH WAS A REALLY, REALLY BAD THING.