After a hurried walk through more crowded streets and twisted back alley turns, they seemed to arrive at the edge of the city. The wall could clearly be seen in the distance and the buildings became less residential and more storage/industrial. Many of these seemed to have already been emptied, if not completely ransacked and it was one such warehouse that Tilly found himself standing in front of as Shuji let out a cheerful huff of satisfaction.
“Good! Good. They left it exactly as I asked them.” He said, shoving through a large, clearly broken wood gate. At one point it had probably been designed to allow wagons to move in and out of the ancient commercial-sized building. Now it sat wedged into the opening as if someone had jammed it back in place after illicitly gaining entry to the building.
“You asked them to leave it like this?” Tilly murmured moving through the doorway into a sea of smashed crates, clay pots, and canvas. Hiro was scanning the room in a business-like manner while Shuji seemed to be fussing with something in a nearby crate and mumbling to himself.
“...I know I sent them the correct scroll… Ah. Here we are!” He said pulling a scroll from the rubble and throwing it open to reveal a surface covered in glowing script.
“Librarian arts, firefly swarm!” He stated in a strong ringing voice. The scroll hovered in the air for a few moments glowing brighter and brighter before the indecipherable words started to detach from the scroll and float all around the huge room. They danced in the air and lit the room, banishing the shadowy gloom of the unlit warehouse and giving it the feel of mystery and potential.
Tilly’s notification icon began blinking again and he opened it on reflex given that they had finally stopped moving.
You have entered a Librarian's Domain. All reading is 20% more effective and you may benefit from any prepared seals the librarian has set over his domain.
Huh, Shuji wasn’t kidding, they did have something prepared. Although Tilly wasn't sure how effective a library would be at keeping them alive… Then Tilly’s blood ran cold at the sight of the notification just above the most recent one.
You have given into Corruption's influence and have gained 2% Strength and lost 3% Wisdom. Corruption Seed influence now: 7%
“Shit.” Tilly sighed, the heady sensation before his almost fight with the uppity Satyr coming to his mind in sharp relief. Something had been affecting his mind, but he had been so caught up in the moment that he had barely noticed and then immediately forgotten the whole thing afterward.
'Is it just going to keep running in the background, pushing every time I'm not paying attention?' Tilly wondered, goosebumps running up his arms as he thought about something playing tricks with his perception. He was so caught up in the thought that he didn't even notice Shuji calling him.
“-Tillman, excuse my interruption, Mr. Tillman! If you would be so kind, we need you to follow us to the center.” Shuji said, looking back at Tilly with a mild but cheerful concern. He had already called Tilly several times, but he had missed it.
“Oh. Uh, Sorry about that, it's been a long couple of days.” He said, doing his best to shake off the crawling sensation that covered his body.
Shuji took his slip in stride and quickly covered over the concern with a token cheerful grin, “Oh, of course! With the threat we face, it is no wonder you feel out of sorts. Well not to worry, it will all be sorted out one way or another.” He said with a well-meaning pat on Tilly’s shoulder before moving deeper into the rubble, carefully following some path that only Hiro and he knew about.
Tilly quickly stepped after them, being careful to place his feet in the same places that Shuji did. As they navigated deeper into the large open building, Shuji started to explain, “This was once the hidden storehouse for all of our people's collective wealth and knowledge. When we got approval for our venture into the frontier, we slowly transferred all of it to the village before we were cut off from imperial support. Yet as a Librarian, I am only allowed one domain, and we thought it best to keep mine here where we had long prepared for discovery. This was to be our last line of defense in the capital and we thought it wouldn't be needed... Now it will have an opportunity to serve that purpose after all.”
“So what, you have this place magically boobie-trapped?” Tilly asked, looking around at the warehouse with new hope.
“What a fascinating turn of phrase… ‘Boobie-trapped '. Due to the shared nature of our language on this plane, I can understand the basic meaning… Nonetheless, I digress, over the years I have painstakingly set up many wards and seals to do my best to protect the treasures of my people. Alas, Librarian is not a militant class and I am afraid my preparations are more creative than deadly.”
Then Hiro broke into the conversation from the front,
“They will be adequate Shuji. We simply need to force their ace to show themselves before I enter the fight, or they will try and exhaust me with chaff. Normally, not even that would worry me, as it has been tried before, but I fear they have grown desperate at this late hour. I have no idea what the Marcellus family is willing to do now that the empire is on its knees. I will stay in reserve until I must intervene, you two must hold and distract them for as long as possible.” As he finished laying out the plan, they arrived in a cleared center space about twenty meters in diameter.
“Shuji, how much time do we have left?” Hiro inquired, his deep calm voice imparting a sense of control to his two companions, not that Tilly could see any sign of worry in Shuji’s manner. The lapin had nerves of steel. This contrasted nicely with Tilly’s noticeably shaking hands, which he stilled by gripping the handles of his hatchets. His thumbs ran along the hard ridged texture of the Forest Spirit's antlers, and he remembered its stand against Corruption, and its warning not to wait until it was too late to do something.
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Here he was, way in over his head, but doing his best to help the people in front of him. Just like he had done for years in the fire department before the grinding decades of the job had hardened him into what he had become in the end. He thought back to what it was like those first few years in the department when it all felt like it mattered, and he still had a family...
Tilly took a few deep breaths, finding the place in his mind that would turn on while he listened to radio traffic screaming down the road to a fire. Whatever happened, he had always done whatever he had to, so that everyone went home at the end of shift. If that wasn’t possible, if someone had to lay it all on the line, it would be him. It wasn't something he hoped was true about himself, he knew it from experience. Over and over this resolve had been tried and tested and he had never left one of his team behind.
This was something that had always made sense to him in the fire service. The SOPs were clear, and the brotherhood was comfortable... At home? In the hospital? There was no playbook there, and he had often felt sure he was making mistake after mistake as he stumbled through life as a husband, and then a father.
But this? This made sense. He was just in another kind of building, knowing that he might not be the one to come out. He was with a small team, facing long odds against an unknown danger. He wasn’t afraid of dying, in fact, with this thing inside him trying to turn him into one of those monsters, that might not be too bad of an outcome.
This was just another day.
And for better or worse, in his past life, he had come to live for these moments. His hands stopped shaking and he relaxed his arms and shoulders, taking in as much information from his surroundings as possible.
Shuji had pulled out a large piece of papyrus and had begun folding it while muttering to himself at Hiro’s question. Tilly realized with fascination that he was creating another magical origami shape. Fold after fold resolved itself into a large open eye that floated up from Shuji's hands and glowed with a malevolent dark red light.
“We are currently under divination, blood magic if I'm not mistaken,” Shuji stated in a droning voice as his eyes looked off into the distance.
The eye started to glow brighter before it suddenly crumbled to ash. Shuji recoiled back as if struck and his head whipped towards the entrance. The sun had almost set, and long shadows reached into the building from the street.
“The magic is much stronger than I expected… And with this level of blood rite, there can only be one explanation.”
“Say something I can understand Shuji! I don't know what any of that means.” Tilly said, reacting to Shuji’s sudden movement by pulling his hatchets from his belt loops and easing into a ready stance.
Hiro quietly drew his black-as-night sword and settled down on his knees with the blade resting upon his lap, “It is worse than we thought, someone has let shadow hunters past the city wards. We face the Cult of the Serpent tonight, and they have a special hatred for our kind.”
“How close are we talking?” Tilly muttered, his voice growing quiet under the weight of anticipation for the coming fight.
“They know where we are, and they know that we have discovered their divination. They will move with all due haste under the cover of darkness.” Shuji said, breaking from his reverie and pulling loose different scrolls he had cleverly strapped around his person under his voluminous clothing.
“Ok, well you guys think I took out that corruption single-handedly, but I only have two moves. I can throw these hatchets and catch the things on fire.” Tilly rattled off, suddenly afraid they were depending on some hidden martial talent from the human that had defeated the Corrupted tree.
Hiro simply snorted in response, “Yes, that will be perfect for sowing chaos. Do not worry. This plan depends on our preparation and my blade. You will simply be a distraction.”
Tilly sighed in relief, “Perfect. I can be a distraction.” Then almost unbidden, the heat in his chest built up and flowed down his arms igniting the heads of his hatchets simultaneously. The sensation was new, and Tilly did his best not to flinch at the sudden conflagration.
“Yes! Good!” Shuji nodded in approval, looking over at the sudden appearance of flames.
“We have laced explosives throughout this perimeter and amongst the debris. Your fire will save me from having to ignite them.” He said, cheerfully as he laid out the final scrolls before him.
Tilly watched his Mana bar critically as the cost of igniting his weapons slowly recharged. Right now using the ability twice had knocked his mana bar down 6% and he would doubtlessly be recalling his weapons every time he threw them. How much did that cost again? He dropped his ignited hatchet and recalled it back to his hand immediately. It reappeared in his hand, still ignited. He saw his mana tick down another 2%.
Ok, so if the weapons did not hit anything then they would stay imbued, and to ignite and recall his weapon would cost him about 5% in total. That gave him approximately 20 throws before he was out, not factoring in his dismal wisdom stat. Which was dropping further due to the freakin Seed of Corruption trying to burrow into his soul...
“Well, 20 isn’t bad, more than a typical quiver of arrows.” He muttered to himself, watching the small but intense blue flame burn on the stone head of the hatchets. He had to admit, it was pretty awesome that he could create these blue flames now. His mind wandered back to the temple in the mountains and the blue flame that still burned on the altar.
A paper bird zipped in through the open doorway from the dark street and up to Shuji, fluttering erratically. Shuji waved it away, and it unfolded and slipped into his sleeve. His cheerful smile flattened into something more focused and he whispered, “They are out there, surveying the building.”
Hiro continued to kneel with his eyes closed, not reacting to the news while Shuji whispered something else under his breath, and a muted hush fell over the building, canceling out all the noises that had fallen into the background. The creak of the thick timbers of the old building stopped, and the breeze playing through the door also quieted.
“Shuji, what was that?” Tilly whispered and then gasped as even his voice had greatly reduced in volume.
“We can talk in a normal voice, Jonathan Tillman. This will keep most of what is happening inside a mystery to those remaining without.” He said in a confident if significantly muted voice. Then his eye sharpened and Tilly whipped his head back to the entrance, where the already long shadows started to thicken.
“Wait to attack until I have one of them immobilized.” Shuji followed up, reaching for one of the scrolls before him slowly as if trying not to startle whatever figures were forming in the deepening shadows of the entrance.
The shapes resolved into four distinct figures. They were humanoid from the waist up with a long serpent's tail instead of legs. Two were male, with pairs of thin straight swords in their hands. The other two were female with long flat-bladed spears tipped with cruel-looking hooks. All four of their torsos were bare and absolutely covered with black tattoos that seemed to be bleeding ink and each of their heads were wrapped in dark cloth that drank in the light.
They raised up higher on their snake bottoms and looked over the room again, seeming to confirm that there were no other occupants in the building. Then, as one, they focused in on the group in the center, nicely lit up by the paper fireflies. It was then as their eyes caught the light that Tilly saw they were pools of oozing blackness, just like the infected creatures of the forest.
Whatever the Cult of the Serpent was, they clearly had embraced another source of Corruption wholeheartedly. Tilly’s side throbbed at the realization and the fire in his chest roared in response. Looks like his new mantle was going to come in handy a lot sooner than he thought.
As one, the four figures rushed forward through the debris, showing a startling speed as they wove through the first rows of abandoned containers.