Roderick Asylum’s on-site hospital was one of the institution’s five main buildings. It was a three-story stone-brick structure that seemed more like an inn than a medical facility. It also looked positively ancient, with several kinds of veins and moss crawling over the walls or dangling from the A-shaped roof. It was home to eight staff members and had room for up to twelve long-term patients. By all accounts it was far too small to be considered a full-on hospital, but its services were deemed adequate for the asylum’s needs. Emergencies were rare so the place barely saw any use beyond treating the occasional sunburn or cold. As such its surgeons and apothecaries were often left idle and free to pursue some… less-than-sanctioned personal projects. Nothing nefarious, though the jury-rigged fruit brandy distillery in the hospital’s basement would certainly cause them some trouble if the government found out about it.
Given the usual lack of actual patients, it was no surprise that the rescue team found the building practically deserted. There were only two afflicted mages inside, both of whom were roaming around the main ward. The guards were able to pacify them easily with a pair of flame-enchanted swords courtesy of Fifteen. The sorceress could’ve handled them herself, but Tacitus deemed her direct involvement an unnecessary risk. Mages and tight corners didn’t mix well, not to mention there was a chance another intruder could be lurking around. Besides, the kingdom’s guards were trained as urban law enforcers rather than army footmen, so sweeping through buildings suited them a lot better than fighting in the open. For better or worse, they didn’t find anyone besides the two afflicted after searching the building top-to-bottom.
“What about the staff?”
“No trace of them, ma’am.”
“Odd.”
“I’m with you there.”
Fifteen wanted to check a few things in the de-facto clinic, so she had Barett show her around. Apparently, he was good friends with one of the people here – a young nun who worked as a nurse – so he dropped by often and was familiar with both the layout and the staff. Honestly, he dreaded what he’d find when the Lady Sage said she wanted to hit this place after the chapel, and was both relieved and confused that there were no bodies. Now that he thought about it, it seemed quite strange that they hadn’t found any casualties whatsoever since the operation started. Many of the asylum’s staff members were evacuated when the outbreak happened, but just as many had to be left behind. Surely at least some of them would’ve been found dead outdoors, yet despite running across blood stains and traces of magical damage, they had found a grand total of zero corpses.
A horrible thought then entered his mind.
“You don’t, uh, you don’t think… the afflicted… ate them, right?”
“… I cannot confirm or deny.”
There was no mention of cannibalism in Fifteen’s knowledge of Logoth’s curse, but she didn’t have all the facts and couldn’t rule out the possibility. Especially not when she recalled being overcome by a mysterious hunger during her blissfully brief exposure to the affliction. Regardless, there was little that could be done for the victims at this point, so she tried her best to move past the disturbing idea.
“Focus on the medical records.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Dr. Abber’s place is this way.”
Some of the other men were already searching the head physician’s room when Fifteen and Barett entered, and they weren’t being delicate about it. Papers, folders, and books were strewn all over the floor, and the sorceress couldn’t help but sigh at the barbaric disregard for the written word. Even if they were in a rush, there was surely no need to trash the place so thoroughly. It wasn’t just Dr. Abber’s office, either. Everywhere the guards searched ended up looking like it had been ransacked, which felt like a horrible waste since they already knew where to find the necessary information.
The interred patients’ personal records were kept locked up tight in a safe under the head physician’s desk, as regulations demanded. It would seem that Dr. Abber was rather diligent when it came to paperwork. A bit too diligent, sadly, as despite their best efforts the men were unable to locate the combination to the safe. Dr. Abber most likely had it memorized and avoided the classic blunder of writing it down somewhere in secret. There was a chance his colleagues or assistants might have done so, hence why Fifteen had the men search the entire building, but luck had not been on their side.
“Can’t you just blow it open, ma’am?”
As expected of a veteran guardsman, Barett was quick to jump to the brute force approach. Though, truth be told, it was her first thought as well.
“The contents would not survive.”
She felt confident she could breach it if she got serious, but paper tended to be far more flammable than steel.
“What about Brother Tacitus?”
“You rang?!”
“Motherfu–!”
Barett nearly had a heart attack when that bucket-head poked his head through the window.
“This is the third floor!”
“Your powers of observation serve you well,” the witch hunter nodded sagely. “So, what’re you two lovebirds up to in here?”
“I want to access this safe,” the sorceress graciously ignored that comment. “Can you force it open?”
“Oh, that’s child’s play! Well, so long as the child is two meters tall and jacked up on fifteen kinds of steroids!”
“… So can you?”
“Probably,” he shrugged as he climbed in. “Let me see what we’re dealing with. Ah, a classic design. Easy as shepherd’s pie!”
Fifteen honestly expected he’d just rip the safe open with his bare hands, so she was genuinely surprised that he instead melted the lock with some kind of acid from his bag of witch-hunting tricks. She shuddered to think what kind of heretic action necessitated a corrosive substance potent enough to turn steel into sludge, and dearly hoped she wouldn’t find herself on the receiving end of it. For the moment, she was thankful for the assistance and started cross-referencing the hospital’s records with her notes. She had copied a list of the asylum’s missing staff, patients, and visitors before launching the rescue mission, and Mr. Evans had already confirmed the identities of all the afflicted they’d cured so far. The middle-aged fellow turned out to be a huge busybody and knew the faces and names of practically everyone around here. Thanks to him, Fifteen was able to confirm an odd trend she’d noticed.
“Brother Tacitus, I have news.”
“Oh, oh, let me guess! The head doctor was secretly a vampire!”
“…”
She honestly didn’t know how to respond to that one, mostly because the odds of it weren’t zero. It would seem one of the patients from last year had inexplicably come down with Sanguinare Fameris, commonly referred to as ‘red eye.’ It was a magical disease that was widely considered to be the initial stage of the chronic condition called vampirism. Records claimed the patient was cured, but the infection’s origin was never discovered. Perhaps… was it related to this moon fever outbreak? No, she couldn’t allow herself to be sidetracked by what-ifs.
“The three abnormal afflicted we encountered were rockbloods, and they were the only ones we’ve run into so far.”
“Okay? And?” he shrugged.
“And… there should have been a lot more. 29 of the 63 missing mages on site are rockbloods, yet we’ve found only 3 after rescuing 28.”
“Okay? And?” he did it again.
“… Forget it.”
She honestly regretted getting her hopes up. Tacitus was an insufferable meathead, but he was still a veteran witch hunter. There was a chance his training or experience might offer some insight as to the cause of this statistical anomaly. It now became apparent she really was giving him too much credit. There was little hope of her unraveling this mystery by herself, and at this stage she could only hope whoever read her report afterward would make the most of her findings and observations.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Barett butted in. “What’s a rockblood?”
“It’s an informal term for mages with dwarven ancestry.”
“Wait, really? There’s people like that?”
It wasn’t surprising he didn’t know. The general public was largely ignorant of magic’s underlying principles and mechanisms.
“Yes. That bloodline is the source of their magic.”
“Ah, I see. Wait, ‘their?’ Aren’t you one of them?”
“No. I have elvish ancestry, so I’m a feyblood. There are also wyrmbloods and skybloods for dragons and giants, but those are less common.”
“Wow. I had no idea. And you say there’s something weird going on with our… rockbloods?”
“As far as I can tell.”
She had a hunch something was up when she noticed all the abnormal afflicted chanted their spells in Dwarvish. She didn’t speak it herself – there was little reason for a feyblood to learn any of the ancient tongues besides Elvish – but she had heard enough of it to recognize its harsh, guttural sounds. That suicidal suspect’s last words were in Dwarvish as well.
“Huh. Hey, Patrick.”
Barett poked his head out into the corridor and called out to a group of guards who were taking a break while Fifteen studied the records.
“Hm? What?” one of them responded.
“Didn’t Professor Stansfield mention something about dwarves at last month’s staff party?”
“Dunno. Maybe? We were all pretty plastered.”
“Who is this Professor Stansfield?” Fifteen asked.
“Some big shot from the royal academy,” Barett was quick to answer. “They brought him in earlier this year. Not sure why, though. He’s an archeologist or something.”
“Why would an asylum need an archeologist?”
“Beats me, ma’am. I’m just a glorified doorman. My best guess is he wanted to study the main building, I heard it’s pretty old.”
“Oh, I remember now!” Patrick spoke up again. “He was bitching about his tools breaking since dwarven stonework was way too tough.”
“… Mr. Evans, gather the others. We’re raiding that main building next.”
Barett’s first instinct was to question this sudden shift in plans. Originally the Lady Sage said she wanted to clear out the old chapel, the dormitories, the recreation center, and the hospital in no particular order, then tackle the asylum’s central structure last. The idea was to secure the grounds’ outer rim so the afflicted wouldn’t congregate on the core location and pincer the rescue team. It seemed like a reasonable precaution to take, so this seemingly reckless decision caught him by surprise. However, he trusted she had good reason for the course-correction – probably something too brilliant and complicated for an old grunt like him to understand – so he didn’t even bother asking.
“You heard the Lady Sage!” he roared at the others in the office. “Go spread the word! And is Hubert still not back with our crossbows?!”
What happened at the abandoned chapel made it clear there were unafflicted outsiders involved in this mess, so the guards sent a runner to retrieve their ranged weapons from the gate while they cleared out the hospital. The saber-tooth was sent along as an escort since they could run into a roamer.
“Bahm says they are on their way back. We will meet them part-way, then commence the assault. Any objections, Brother Tacitus?”
“Can I take a dump first?”
“… I don’t know. Can you?”
“Ha. Hahahaha! Ahh. Classic.”
“Do what you need to prepare, just make sure you don’t slow us down.”
The witch hunter gave her a quick two-finger salute as he leapt through the window while Fifteen could only shake her head. Though she hesitated to admit it, she was rather grateful for the crude comment. She was a naturally negative person with a strong imagination so it was easy for her to get lost in what-ifs and worst-cases. That dwarf connection she just learned about nearly made her slip into that bad habit until that moment of levity, whether intentional or not, dragged her back into reality. Having calmed down, she took a moment to clear her mind. Making a bad call because of rushed assumptions had been the downfall of many adventurers, and she’d rather not join that embarrassing statistic.
That said, staying objective got harder once she actually got a good look at the asylum itself. She’d seen its spires from across the courtyard and poking over the trees so she didn’t think of it much before, but up close there was something about that castle-like structure that didn’t feel right. Its steep stone walls and foundations cut harshly into the rocky hill underneath while the pointy towers above seemed to be trying to stab the sky despite how pathetically short they were. Then there were the murals and designs carved into nearly every surface, none of which looked faded despite their obvious age. Some might call the structure a grand estate or maybe even a work of art, but all the sorceress saw was an ugly eyesore that didn’t belong. It was almost as if someone was trying to pick a fight with nature.
There was no mistaking it – this place was once a dwarven stronghold. Those legendary midgets built their selfish monuments to last, so a bunch of them still stood even 350 years after their whole civilization was wiped out. No wonder why there were so many rockbloods around. They probably felt comfortable and reassured around here. Conversely, no matter how thinly diluted it was, the fey lineage in Fifteen’s veins was quite repulsed by the mere sight of it. She couldn’t help but think that her initial idea to just crater this place and be done with it had been the correct call.
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That urge was quickly squashed underneath a mountain of logic. There was no way she’d do something so wasteful, no matter how much some magical bloodline complained. Elven legacy? Dwarven pride? Ancestral grudges? None of it mattered to a human like her. Mankind has never hesitated to steal whatever knowledge and power they could from the other races, including the miracle of magic. They did what they had to in order to survive in a world where no god would lend them their favor. It was no surprise the so-called ‘chosen ones’ all treated humanity like rats and cockroaches, but so what? Those ‘vermin’ were still here while were was nothing left of the ‘higher beings’ except for ruins and wastelands. Humanity hadn’t even the tiniest reason to pay the ancients any kind of consideration or respect. The only reason that massive eyesore was still intact was because mankind deemed it more useful that way and would not hesitate to pull it apart brick by brick the instant that changed. Fifteen would gladly volunteer to throw the first fireball if and when that time came, but it was not her choice to make. The church had decreed that Roderick Asylum had to be preserved and protected, and the Sage of the Sands would gladly see it so regardless of her ancestors’ complaints.
Indeed, if that Professor the guys mentioned had taken an interest in the ancient building then it surely held untapped potential. From what the sorceress knew, dwarves loved to erect outposts and temples atop places of power in order to harvest the ambient magic that naturally flowed up from the ground. Exactly how, why, and to what end were secrets lost to time, though it was widely believed the structures themselves functioned as enormous arcane devices. Something to do with the peculiar geometry of the architecture, apparently. Though this structure’s original function was unknown, it must have had some positive effect on the mental state of human mages for them to turn it into an asylum about fifty years ago. Even before that it used to be a wizardry college, according to Barett, and would have likely remained one if it was easier to access. Fifteen imagined things were very different a century or two ago, but these days there was no demand for such a remote place of learning since there were far fewer mages to go around. The ambient energy’s benefits must not have been worth the isolation.
That said, the Professor likely wasn’t here to measure loose mana or analyze geometric patterns. The dwarves were known to be an infuriatingly crafty and secretive bunch, even by their past era’s standards. It was often said that if you hadn’t found a hidden door or switch in one of their chambers, then you hadn’t looked hard enough. Even ruins that had been studied thirty times over would still get regular visits from scholars eager to do another sweep. There was no telling if some newly developed tool, elixir, or spell might reveal something new. Humanity might not have had magic of their own, but they had always been at the forefront when it came to alchemy and innovation, even before the War of the Ancients. Some cutting edge discovery was what likely brought the Professor here in the first place, which was surely no coincidence.
A dwarven archeologist visited a dwarven temple shortly before it got hit by a dwarven god’s curse that abnormally affected mages of dwarven descent while an unknown party with knowledge of dwarven speech was lurking around. Even a blind man could see all those dots drew a line, and though Fifteen could not tell where it was headed, she knew she had to stop it before it reached its destination. This wasn’t the nagging influence of her fey ancestry. It was intuition born from her experiences as a mage and adventurer. Some might call her foolhardy to trust something so unscientific and illogical, but magic was a power that defied such things by its very existence. There was no way a sorceress as adept as Acolyte Two-Fifteen would ignore that nagging feeling that something terrible would happen if she didn’t act now.
Brother Tacitus had reached a similar conclusion, albeit from a different angle. He’d dealt with his fair share of witches and heretics in the past, so he knew first-hand just how ugly things could get once those people felt cornered. By this point it was clear a coven or cult of some kind had a hand in the moon fever outbreak, and if they were still around, then they must have felt the noose tightening around them by now. Honestly, he wanted to hit the central asylum immediately after what happened at the chapel, but he hesitated to say anything since this wasn’t his show. Witch hunters were made to be hunting dogs. It was their lot to follow orders, not make decisions. Tacitus might have failed to make it clear, but the church had entrusted control of this entire operation to Acolyte Two-Fifteen from the start. The knight was therefore quite thrilled when she made the same choice he would have if he were able.
As they both suspected, the main building turned out to be heavily occupied. All the windows on the ground floor were locked and barred from the inside and it was safe to assume the same of the doors, none of which was the work of a bunch of zombified wizards. Things seemed quiet and would preferably stay that way. The interior was likely to house the bulk of the remaining afflicted, a great deal of which would be the dangerous spell-slinging variants, plus an unknown number of malicious outsiders. The rescue team would rapidly find themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed if they weren’t careful. Rather than a raid, this called for an infiltration, which meant they had to enter with more subtlety than just just blowing a hole through the front door.
Surprisingly, it was Bahm who provided that way in. The ridiculously talented mountain lion showed off his climbing skills as he effortlessly scaled the outer wall’s exterior. Though it looked far too smooth and sheer for that kind of thing at a glance, the stonework was old and weathered. There were plenty of gaps and cracks for the resourceful saber-tooth’s claws to latch on to, and he easily made it to a balcony on the four-story building’s top floor with a sturdy silk rope in his powerful jaws. He dangled the other end of the line over the edge so Tacitus and Fifteen could quietly join him. The invaders hadn’t neglected to lock the balcony’s door despite its elevated position, but there was nothing to stop the witch hunter from just melting the lock like he did with the safe.
After quietly gaining entry to the building, the trio did a quick sweep of the fourth floor. It was a bit touch and go since Bahm was a bit too big for these small corridors, but like all cats he had a gift for squeezing through tight spaces. Between him and Brother Tacitus, the trio was able to easily locate a couple of masked individuals. They were in a room facing the old chapel, no doubt on the lookout after noticing Fifteen’s flashy reawakening. Unfortunately for them, the rescue team ended up taking a quick detour to the hospital and approached their position from a different direction, so they failed to see them coming. Brother Tacitus was able to creep up on them and knocked them out with a bit of blunt force trauma to the back of each skull. He had them inhale some sleeping gas to make sure they stayed unconscious, though he left their weird masks on at Fifteen’s behest. It wasn’t clear what kind of spell they were imbued with, but if knocking them out wasn’t enough to make their heads go pop, then it was best to leave those be.
With the top floor secured, the best four fighters from the guard unit ascended to the balcony to join the infiltration team while Barett rallied the rest and had them take up positions near the main entrance. The blocked windows actually worked to their advantage since it made it easier to skulk around unnoticed by anyone inside. Fifteen’s group started their top-down suppression operation without delay. Much as the sorceress originally anticipated, the central building had thick walls and floors of solid stone, so they could get away with making a certain amount of noise without getting found out. Also, she could get a bit serious with her fire magic since there was no chance of burning the place down. In the end there was no need for her to step in since the advance team didn’t encounter any afflicted on the third and second floors and the boys were skilled enough to handle a few stray cultists on their own.
That said, things got a bit dicey when they had to clear the staff’s common room. It was a fairly large chamber that took up half of the second floor. Filled with desks and file cabinets, it was where most of the asylum’s administration was handled. One corner of the space was also sectioned off and converted into a modest shrine to the Prophet of the New Dawn whenever the old chapel had to be closed down. It was intended as a temporary measure until the proper place of worship was rebuilt, yet ended up as a permanent fixture. The cultists had vandalized it thoroughly to nobody’s surprise, but that was far from the most offensive thing they’d done in the common room.
They had hostages. Four of them, each one chained and bound to a heavy desk like a sacrificial lamb upon an altar. A simple glance was enough to tell they’d been abused, tortured, and experimented on. It was honestly hard to tell if them being alive was a miracle or a tragedy. The two cultists who were ‘attending’ to them were promptly dealt with via crossbow volley. One died instantly with a bolt through the neck, and the other took a hit to the chest and thigh. He self-destructed shortly after. Neither the guards nor the witch hunter felt sorry about the fatalities, nor was there any hesitation in their motions. It was common for lethal force to be authorized in such situations. No matter how much the Church of Dawn preached that every human life was sacred, some were more sacred than others. Between the suffering hostages and the scumbags who tortured them, it was obvious which ones were more deserving of salvation.
Fifteen understood all that, but no matter how just or deserved their ends were, the sight of dead people still bothered her immensely. She tried to distract herself by focusing on those who yet lived. The hostages were in a dire state, both physically and mentally. A closer look at the heretics’ belongings strewn around the room made it clear they were force-fed a white, powdery substance that resembled poorly ground flour that sparkled enticingly in the sealed chamber’s dim light. There were dozens of satchels filled with the stuff, and traces of it were all over the place. Fifteen carefully took a small spoonful and sprinkled it over the open flame of a candle, causing it to instantly combust and evaporate in a flash of pure white. No visible smoke or lingering scent. With this, there was no doubt.
“Echo dust.”
“What’s that, ma’am?” one of the guards asked.
“It’s also known as moon sugar.”
“No way. Seriously?”
“Told you that Jenkins was sneaking it in somehow,” one of the others called out.
“Shit. What do we do with it?”
That was a very good question. It was Fifteen’s first time seeing the illegal narcotic in person and she didn’t know much about it beyond its appearance, effects, and how to identify it. She was better informed on the subject than most since she went out of her way to educate herself so that she could better avoid it. A single teaspoon of the stuff could ruin her life in more ways than one, even if she happened to ingest it by accident or if some malicious party slipped it into her luggage or food. It wasn’t something she constantly worried about, but she had taken some precautions to avoid getting sabotaged in such an underhanded manner. One of those was to decline food and drink from people she didn’t trust unless it was boiled or piping hot since it didn’t take much heat for echo dust to lose all its potency.
None of that explained what the cultists hoped to achieve by drugging a bunch of clerks and cleaners without a magical bone in their body. The most it would do was make them addicted to the euphoric high, but why combine it with torture? The only explanation Fifteen could think of on the spot was that this was a form of brainwashing. The heretics had to increase their numbers somehow, after all, and it was safe to assume the extreme ‘carrot and stick’ method made for an effective means of control. Either that or there was a direct link between echo dust and the curse of Logoth after all. Indeed, the way Fifteen contracted the affliction suggested that even the ungifted could be carriers for the cursed disease, and that was what these barbaric experiments hoped to achieve.
Ultimately, this discovery raised more questions than it answered, and all of those were better left for people far more qualified than a mildly paranoid wizard from the boonies, a schizophrenic donkey pretending to be a knight, and a bunch of thugs with badges.
“Gather it up and mark it as evidence,” she instructed the guards. “Careful to not touch the echo dust directly, even with gloves. If you do, briefly run your hands over an open flame to burn any residue.”
The safest option was to incinerate all of it here and now, but letting the authorities analyze the compound seemed like a better idea in the long term.
“What about the hostages, ma’am?”
That was a much tougher decision. They couldn’t just leave the poor souls as they were. Their faces were twisted in creepy grins even though their bodies were covered in bruises, cuts, and… whip marks? Honestly, it was hard to look at them, and Fifteen could only imagine their minds snapping if they came down from their euphoric high to such agonizing injuries. This was definitely a brainwashing technique. Sadly, there was nothing her magic could do for them except put them out of their misery, and she’d really rather not resort to that. Another option was to feed them one of the recovery potions she carried around for first aid purposes, but there was no telling how those would react with the echo dust already in their systems. She had a vial of detoxification solution that was likely to help, but it was only enough for two doses and she might need it herself later on. If she knew she’d run into this kind of situation, then Fifteen would’ve bought more of those while the church was footing the bill.
Then again, if the sorceress knew what she was getting into, she probably wouldn’t have come at all. Then again, it wasn’t as if she had a choice. As far as the sorceress was concerned she was strong-armed into this mess by that witch hunter, in which case none of this was actually her responsibility.
“Tacitus. Do something about it.”
She only said that because she felt mentally cornered and didn’t actually expect anything, so she was genuinely surprised that the witch hunter did in fact do something about it. He put all the grinning and drooling hostages to sleep with the same secret formula he used to make sure the knocked-out cultists stayed that way. It was a stop-gap solution, but better than simply leaving them as they were. The sedative would hopefully prevent any further mental damage until they received proper treatment.
“Good. Let’s hit the main floor while we still have surprise on our side.”
“Hold up, Miss Name-too-long,” the witch hunter stopped her. “I almost forgot to give you your present.”
He held out a badge or medal of some kind. The sorceress was puzzled for a second since she’d never seen anything like it. It was a silver circle a little smaller than her palm with an engraving in the middle that resembled a blazing sun pierced by a sword. The weapon’s shape was identical to the enormous blades that witch hunters were famous for, though she probably wouldn’t have made that connection if Tacitus wasn’t there. The words ‘Prophet guide thy hand’ were engraved on either side of the sword, though they could also be read as ‘Prophet thy guide hand’ if one were being intentionally obtuse. The witch hunter made it sound like it was no big deal, but that obviously couldn’t be the case with religious symbolism this obvious.
Plus, there was one other thing that Fifteen didn’t like about this ‘present,’ but she’d get to that in a bit.
“What’s this?”
“Would you believe me if I said it was a good luck charm?”
“Not when you say it like that.”
“Heh. You got me there. Still, I’d appreciate it if you put it on while you have the chance.”
“I refuse until you tell me what it is.”
The knight sighed while scratching the top of his hooded helmet. He hoped she’d take it without asking questions, but knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Acolyte Two-Fifteen was honest to a fault when it came to anything involving the laws of the kingdom, the tenets of the church, or the guild’s regulations. She wanted a straight answer and he really wasn’t good at being direct. However, this was something she had to accept to ensure her own safety, so for once he did his best to suck up his giggles and speak with all the sincerity he could muster. It wasn’t easy, given his condition, but he wouldn’t need long to get his point across.
“It has become clear that our true enemy is not the afflicted. We face heretics who have turned their back on the Dawn and actively work to undermine humanity’s future. Whether they carry the gift or not, none of us can afford to hesitate.”
So far none of the masked criminals showed any signs of wielding magic themselves, but there was no doubt they had witches among their number. The suicide spells bound to their masks had to come from somewhere and it was safe to assume they had some method of controlling those under the curse’s influence. How else could they have possibly occupied the building that was sure to house the bulk of the afflicted? And if this room was any indication, then even greater depravities and horrors awaited the rescue team in the asylum’s basement levels. Nobody was walking out of this with a clear conscience. The sorceress likely realized all of this herself – she was quite clever, after all – and had mentally prepared herself for it, but Brother Tacitus refused to accept it. He sorely did not wish for a soul as pure as hers to be stained with the blood of another, but at the same time could not hold her back when dozens of other lives were in the balance.
It wasn’t much, but if fate conspired to see Acolyte Two-Fifteen’s hands dirtied, then the least he could do was give her some gloves.
“Henceforth, you are deputized under my direct authority as templar of the Ordo Heretica. Your words shall be my words. Your actions shall be my actions. Your sins shall be my sins. Do you understand?”
Whether legally or spiritually, Brother Tacitus would bear all of the responsibility for what happened next. Put bluntly, it was a literal license to kill, and he hoped this would help alleviate her worries and hesitations. There was more to it than simple sentiment, of course.
“… So, I take it the spell bound to it is a type of geas?”
“Ha! I’m amazed you could tell,” his tone turned casual once more. “Guess your guild’s receptionist is scarier than she looks.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
Fifteen had gotten a lot of practice sensing water magic thanks to Daisy and was able to instantly tell that such a spell was woven into that medallion. It was likely made with the same binding ritual that the cultists used to make their brain-popping masks. It was a simple if expensive ceremony that every apprentice wizard learned to perform since it was so flexible. The trigger to release the sealed magic could be any number of things, but the standard was a code phrase spoken by the item’s holder. It was the most practical method. As for what effect the medallion’s one-time enchantment would have, Fifteen could tell without asking. After all, there was only one reason to give a license to kill to someone who’d never taken a life before.
“So, are you going to take it or not? My arm’s getting tired, y’know.”
His outstretched hand was indeed shaking quite a bit, though the sorceress suspected that the twitching had nothing to do with his muscles. Still, he had a point. There was no sense dawdling any further, so she accepted it with a sigh and a question.
“Do I just need to speak the words engraved here?”
“Sure, if you feel like it.”
“Understood.”
She slid the silver badge under her robes so she could fasten it to the chainmail underneath – wouldn’t want it to get knocked off in a scuffle – and nodded at Tacitus.
“Shall we go?”
“Aye. Let’s get this party started!”