Chapter Thirty-Two: Maybe we can form a new A-Team.

Nobody was happy. Faedan was understandably pissed and Heather was a wreck after killing a guy (can’t blame her there). As for me, anxiety and I are kind of like childhood friends who never grew apart. And right now, my brain felt like a ball of yarn at a kitten convention. Only Leoleth seemed okay, but she was still a pain in the ass.

Despite that, we were soldiering on with Faedan leading the way.

We hustled back to the Grand Bazaar, practically sprinting through the crowded streets. I’d taken the manacles off Faedan; she seemed okay, and honestly, I doubted she’d run. Plus, I was too exhausted to chase anyone. Heather had probably convinced her we were her best shot at getting out of this mess.

“How did you find me?” She asked once she’d caught her breath.

“You’re sloppy with your rituals,” Leoleth said, sounding like a disappointed mom who just found out you didn’t do the dishes.

“What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t cleanse your space. We could track your cloak.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Leoleth snapped. “You did some good enchanting, but you must be more mindful of ritual space.”

“Well, crap,” Faedan muttered, shaking her head. “I had the thing in storage until tonight. I just popped out to grab some food. Gods damn it. Do you know what happened to it?”

“No,” Leoleth said flatly. I couldn’t help but smirk at the lie. “You’re lucky it was us who found you,” I chimed in, trying to keep up as Faedan picked up the pace.

“You have no idea what that thing is or what they were planning to do with it,” she said, weaving through the market like a deer in the woods. We dodged past dwarves pulling handcarts, earning ourselves a few colorful curses.

“Evil stuff. That’s my best guess,” I replied, trying not to trip over my own feet. Honestly, evil stuff was about as precise as my knowledge got in this world.

We kept up the breakneck pace until we reached a stall about halfway through the western end of the market. A tall, gaunt elf with golden hair was selling dusty old rugs and tapestries. He looked like a teenager with the eyes of one of those ancient tortoises from the Galápagos Islands. You know, the ones that live to be like a million years old. Faedan gave him a nod. He winked and pulled one of the rugs off the floor, revealing a trapdoor. She flipped it open and slipped down in one swift motion. We each followed her in turn.

We descended a rickety ladder that looked like toddlers had assembled it with a questionable grasp of structural integrity. About fifteen feet down, instead of the sewer I was expecting, we found ourselves in something stranger.

It was a cavernous old chapel, or maybe a forgotten community space, carved from the bedrock beneath the city. The ceiling soared above us, adorned with ornate arches rising from the corners where columns held the weight of ages. Shadows danced around carved friezes of humans, elves, and dwarves in a series of historical scenes. Everything was illuminated by swinging mage lights clanking on rusty chains overhead.

While the Art History major in me was geeking out over the cool ancient art, the place wasn’t exactly the Ritz. A lumpy mattress lay on the floor next to a solitary chair and a small table, while a bucket for, uh, unpleasant business sat nearby. Piles of clothes and other forgotten junk cluttered the space, and about a thousand years’ worth of grime coated everything.

Faedan flung herself into the chair, leaving the rest of us standing around awkwardly. We were all pretty much afraid to touch anything since I was pretty sure fantasy-world hepatitis was still a thing and probably came with extra curses.

“Your place sucks,” Leoleth wrinkled nose.

Faedan glared up at her, reaching under the table with her right hand, fumbling for something.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” I said, summoning Sick Stick into my right hand, which I held discreetly behind my back.

She pulled her hand out from underneath. “Relax, pinky,” she said, raising her middle finger at me and slipping a storage ring on while maintaining eye contact. “You asked for it.”

She plopped the Ruby Necklace on the table with a clunk. I had to admit, the thing was beautiful. The main jewel was an oval-cut ruby about the size of a chicken egg. The chain was adorned with at least eighteen brilliant-cut diamonds, each about four or five carats. It looked like it must weigh a ton.

I cast my appraisal spell:

Item: Ruby Necklace.

Magical Necklace. Ruby gem with eighteen diamonds on a gnome-forged gold chain, crafted in the Kingdom of Brikru by the Church of Granvul. Ownership: None, currently stolen. Will become the property of the next person who picks it up. Previous ownership: Sovell Empire. Value: ??? Magical Properties: ???

“Do you know what that is?” Faedan said grimly as we all stared at the thing on the table.

“Expensive,” Leoleth whispered.

Faedan sighed, exasperated. “No, you idiot.”

“It’s a control stone,” Leoleth hissed at her. “Of course, I know what it is.”

“It’s not a control stone.” Faedan gazed at the ruby, her face draining of color. “There shouldn’t be anything like this in the world.”

“It’s a big fat control stone,” Leoleth insisted. “Plenty of those things.”

“Then what is it?” I asked, my patients running thin.

“When I retired from the Legion,” Faedan started, “I had a bunch of extra time on my hands and started to learn enchanting.” She leaned back in her chair. “I was guarding the Imperial Treasury here in Ironstone, surrounded by enchanted objects. I started examining them to see what I could learn.”

I sighed internally. I wanted desperately to shout, “Get the show on the road.” Still, I figured this was one of those coin-in-the-jukebox scenarios where I had to listen to half the discography of Neil Diamond before finally getting to AC/DC. No diss to Mr. Diamond; I love Sweet Caroline.

“The Ruby Necklace was a bit of a mystery. I didn’t have the skills to assess it. It had magical properties, and I saw that the Church of Granvul forged it, but other than that, I didn’t know much about it, and the treasurer didn’t seem to know or care. It was seized in a campaign to the north in Brikru and made its way down here. The gems are worth quite a bit, but not enough to get moved to the capital. So, it got shuffled into the treasury here.”

“A couple of months ago, Magistrate Eumenia started taking an interest in the Ruby Necklace. She would come in and examine the thing. She was also bringing clerics from somewhere to assess it. She started acting strange and repeatedly came in and locked herself away with it.”

“Nothing creepy there,” I muttered, trying to see if I could find a clean surface to sit on since this was turning into a Moby Dick kind of story.

“She had it moved to the secured vault and limited access. That’s when I decided to start doing my own research. First, I started looking into the sects of Granvul in the Kingdom of

Brikru.”

“Granvul is very big there,” Heather mused, shifting uneasily on her feet. “There are gangs of slavers abducting Imperial citizens and shipping them north.” Memories of our abduction came flooding back; what they had planned for Heather was particularly insidious.

“The Kingdom of Brikru is the first country to have adopted the Church of Granvul as its official religion. They’re pushed up against the Empire to their south, so they can’t really expand in our direction. They’ve started their expansions to the north and east, employing the tenets of Granvul as their justification for conquest.”

“So, are we looking at a potential rival empire?” I asked, trying to keep up with the geopolitical intrigue. Back on Earth, I could barely keep track of which celebrities were dating.

“I don’t know,” Faedan said. “Only that they have taken the religion very seriously and have been creating rituals to appease

Granvul and draw strength from his domain.”

“This thing isn’t a control stone for one of those rituals, then?”

Faedan picked up the necklace and flipped it over. “Here, look at this.” She held it up, and we gathered around. She traced her finger over the back of the ruby, and a shimmering symbol appeared: a three-linked chain. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I’d seen it before.

“This is a symbol for one of their basic rituals, but it’s etched on this stone.”

“What ritual?” Leoleth asked, looking closely at the ruby.

“Servitus Hostiae Animi,” Faedan answered. “Do you have a storage device from that guy you killed?”

I pulled Orixalim’s ring out and tossed it to Leoleth. She pulled a tiny, needle-thin control rod from her storage and started working on it. After we settled in Ironstone, Leoleth got sick and tired of paying for rings to get cracked and learned to do it herself, saving us hundreds in gold over the last few weeks. After a couple of moments, she cracked it with a satisfying pop and a puff of ozone.

I slipped it back into my inventory and nodded at Faedan. She gestured at the necklace. “If he’s a follower of the church, he should have a control rod in there that has a wide end on it with the same symbol.”

I sorted out the ring’s contents without looking too deeply

at what he had and sorted through the half dozen or so control rods, and sure enough, there was one.

I pulled it out and examined it closely. As she said, it was a control rod about the width of a pencil, ending in a flat edge roughly three inches wide. An intricate and unsettling pattern of interlocked chain links was Etched into its surface. A faint scent of scorched flesh clung to it, barely perceptible yet profoundly disturbing. A sudden heat flared on the back of my thigh as the odor reached me. It was a searing pain that vanished as quickly as it came. The brief sting left me breathless, my stomach twisting inexplicably. I didn’t know why, but a deep unease settled within me.

“What is Servitus Hostiae Animi?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Servitude of the Sacrificial Soul,” Heather answered grimly, her eyes reflecting deep-seated dread. “It serves multiple purposes. Granvul is a god. Like all gods, he gains strength by acquiring souls.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Faedan continued, her tone heavy with concern. “It rips out a fragment of the victim’s soul and sends it directly to him. From that moment, the soul is essentially forfeited. Granvul can claim the rest when the person dies. No resistance. No escape.”

A cold knot tightened in my stomach, threatening to split me in two. “Why would anyone do that?”

“Granvul gets a taste of what’s to come and rewards the one who sends the soul his way with a boon,” Faedan explained. “The greater the soul, the greater the reward.”

Heather sighed, a mix of frustration and sorrow. “The more souls you ensnare, the stronger your chosen dominance skills become. Whatever tools they use will be more effective.”

“What tools?” I asked

“Some wield magic,” Faedan added. “Others manipulate through politics, intelligence, charisma...” She trailed off, looking at the necklace.

“Oh,” I murmured, the harsh reality sinking in like a weight on my chest. “Raw strength as well, I suppose.” My thoughts raced to Titus. He had admitted to following Granvul. Was he enslaving people’s souls? Oh man, oh crap.

“Any tool used to influence and control,” Heather said softly. “Granvul amplifies it as a reward.”

“And the other part,” she continued, her voice barely audible. “The souls you’ve captured are forced to serve you in his realm.” “Kind of miss the world with subtle gods,” I mumbled. “Never thought I’d be nostalgic for Earth and its lack of soul-stealing deities.”

“So, what kind of ritual are they using the big rock for?”

“It’s two parts, a summoning rite called the Ritual of Sylriad,” Faedan said. “I smuggled the necklace out of the treasury two weeks ago and got it assessed by a man I know in the market. I couldn’t exactly bring it back once I knew what it was used for.”

“Tell us about it.”

“Sylriad is a minion of Granvul. The ritual is like Servitus Hostiae Animi, but if it’s done right, he will appear and do a massive harvest for his god. He’ll pretty much capture souls from everyone within the range of the ritual. The rewards will be shared with all the followers in the area.”

Heather tilted her head to the side. “How big an area?”

“Maybe fifty yards or so,” Faedan answered. “It has to be close.”

“Like a massive soul-sucking bubble of death, then?” I asked. “Gods, the levels they’d gain from that, but fuck me, that’s some brutal shit.”

“Yup, the bigger the crowd, the better.”

“They’ll be all up and evil, taking people’s souls, and then Granvul rewards them,” I said, getting with the program. “What do they need to do the ritual?”

“It needs to be done in a seat of power on the last night of Renewal,” Faedan looked into space like she was reading an invisible list. “You need five priests with power crystals and a cleric overseeing the ritual. The vessel must be an untainted or valuable soul.”

“Untainted?” I asked.

“A virgin or someone spiritually pure,” Heather said. She shifted uneasily. “A rifter’s soul is rare and would also be valuable.”

“Well, we’d be popular, wouldn’t we?” I said, trying to inject some humor but failing miserably.

“Yeah.”

“What else?” I asked Faedan.

“That’s pretty much it. It takes about thirty minutes or so to complete. But then there’s the necklace…” Her gaze drifted back to it, her voice trailing off.

“What is it?” I asked, resisting the urge to slap some sense into her.

“It’s a soul crystal.”

“Bullshit!” Leoleth barked. “Those don’t exist.”

“They do,” she insisted, her tone grim. “And that’s the first one I’ve ever seen.”

“Hold on,” I said, frowning. “I thought it wasn’t possible to capture a soul.”

“There wasn’t a way,” she admitted. “But it seems the artificers in Brikru have been making progress in that area.” “What’s the point of capturing a soul in a crystal?”

Heather paled, her knees nearly buckling as she sank to the floor. “By the Goddess... They could use it to trap a Empress’ soul.”

“But why?”

“The energy locked inside it could power a permanent summoning,” Faedan explained. “At least, that’s the theory.”

“Some people are really into dragons…” I muttered, glancing at Leoleth.

“A minion of Granvul unleashed on earth, bound to serve whoever summoned it, wouldn’t exactly be ideal,” Faedan said, her voice dry but heavy with meaning.

Heather’s eyes widened as realization dawned. “The Festival Gala,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “With the Empress, her entourage, the entire Rawen royal family would all be harvested. And the Empress herself trapped to be used to power the next apocalypse.”

“Exactly,” Faedan said. “If Eumenia gets the Empress to wear that necklace at the Gala… well, that’s just the beginning. Members of the Church of Granvul could ascend to near god-like levels.”

“Most un-triumphant,” I muttered. Everyone just looked at me. I glared at each of them in turn. Seriously? Has anyone here seen Bill & Ted? Of course not.

“She could be the next Empress if she wanted,” Heather said. “Or she could simply use it to plunge the world into chaos.”

“We need to book it to the Temple of Purity.” I paused for a moment. “Oh, and...” I was dreading this, but I kind of had to at this point. “Titus may be a follower of Granvul.”

“By the Goddess,” Heather said, the color draining from her face.

Leoleth just shook her head. “That’s messed up.”

“He told me openly about it, and he left it behind years ago,” I said, though even to my own ears, it sounded weak.

“You are in a relationship with someone who has admitted to doing stuff like that?” Heather glared at me. “What the hells were you thinking?”

“I didn’t understand what it meant when he told me about it. I didn’t know it was a bunch of soul-stealing crap,” I protested. “Back on Earth, people change religions all the time.”

“I suppose the fact that I was going to be sold to the Church of Granvul as a sacrifice just slipped your mind, then?”

“It was in his past.”

“I know that you didn’t believe in gods and magic where you came from,” Heather was shaking with anger, “but you should have figured out by now that you don’t walk away from a fucking god in this world. You can’t just wake up one morning and decide to switch. Gods get angry; they are vengeful. You can’t sign on one day and quit the next!”

“He’s still a follower,” Leoleth said.

“What about you?” I asked Leoleth. “You walked away.”

“My religion was bullshit. There wasn’t a god; they worship a stupid dragon.”

“Who’s Titus?” Faedan asked the group.

Heather was too angry to say anything, and I was too busy trying to wrestle my brain back into a functional state. “The big, pretty pirate man,” Leoleth answered.

I didn’t want to believe the worst of Titus. He helped me find the Ruby Necklace and kill Orixalim. I felt so safe with him. He made me feel strong and confident when we met and was generous and good to me. The dangerous parts of him were exciting, but they didn’t scare me. I was ready to ignore his past because I liked what I saw in front of me. But now, I just wasn’t sure either way.

“Oh,” Faedan said. “Crap. Do you mean the big guy who gutted three people in less than two seconds? Great.”

“The Magistrate gave me this quest because she knew I would fail. She put her lackey on it to ensure he could swoop in if I succeeded. Titus helped me beat him.”

“How many neighborhoods did you search looking for Faedan?” Heather asked.

“I only looked in the Commercial District. It’s where she was from and the most likely place she would be hiding out.” “She is right here,” Faedan said, annoyed.

“Right,” Heather glared at Faedan. “You are the one that found her. We would have succeeded without his help at all.”

Leoleth snorted. “Maybe he helped, maybe he didn’t. But we need to do the rest of this without him. Too bad; he does have that hot cat-kin that works for him.”

“Well, crap.” I grabbed the necklace and slipped it into my storage space. We couldn’t trust him. “Back to plan B.” I looked over at Leoleth, eyebrows raised.

“Plan B is good.”

“What’s plan B?” Heather asked.

“Jump the wall,” Leoleth said.

“What?”

“Grab and go,” I said. “We head to the river, grab a boat, and head south. We put the city behind us and make a run for it. We could start a new life somewhere without the Mistress Magistrate and all her evil minions. Maybe we can form a new A-Team. “What’s the A-Team?” Faedan asked.

“Never mind.”

“What about our quests?” Heather jumped in.

“My quest was a freaking trap. I was set up to fail.”

“My quest came from my Goddess, from her own lips,” Heather protested.

“You were ordered to help me finish mine, but it’s pretty much tits up at this point. I don’t think Amania will mind if we bail on the whole thing as long as we keep the ritual from taking place.”

“She had a reason for us to bring it to her. She also tasked me with making sure you finished.”

“Well, crap.” I wanted to sit down, crisscross applesauce, in defeat, but the place was too nasty.

“Look,” Faedan said. “The only reason I’m here talking to you right now…” She pointed at Heather. “Is because she said that you guys had a plan.”

“I mean, we had the concept of a plan.”

“We had a plan!” Heather barked at me. “Now that half our group is compromised, that’s pretty much out the window.” “So now we need plan C,” Leoleth said.

“I mean, plan A wasn’t all that sophisticated,” I said, shaking my head. “We were just counting on having help getting to the temple.”

“But if we can’t trust that help, we’re stuck.”

I looked over at Faedan. “Is that the only way in or out?” I pointed at the hatch over our heads.

“The sewer.” She exited the chair and pushed me aside, pulling a dusty old rug off the floor where I stood. It covered what looked like an old manhole cover.

“Will it get us all the way there?”

“No,” she said. “The system doesn’t link with the rest of the city, but it will get us to the edge of the Commercial District.”

“I mean, I’m a thousand percent sure someone is watching us,” I said. “If Titus is an asshole, then he would make sure there was someone on us to make sure we don’t make a break for it, and if we stay down here too much longer, they may come looking for us. He’d still be watching us if he’s not a bad guy, probably to ensure we’re safe.”

“We can split,” Heather suggested. “Two of us can go up the ladder and head towards the temple to draw the tail. Two can go through the sewer and head towards the district via a different path.”

“Any private entrances to the temple?”

“There’s a service entrance at the back; it’s not really private, though.”

I pulled off my cleric robes, tossing them to Faedan. I equipped a set of black leather armor. “Put these on.”

I looked at Heather. “Do you have another set of robes that

Leoleth can wear?”

“Please, no,” Leoleth said. “The color is all wrong.”

Heather pulled her robes off and tossed them to Leoleth, who grabbed them and held them out like she was holding a dead fish. “There’s blood on them.”

I was treated to a nice view of Heather in her underwear, but I quickly turned away, feeling my face heat up. Focus, Regan, focus.

“Don’t forget to take your shoes off.” I pulled out a tunic and pants for Heather to wear.

“Guard lady’s too tall to be you,” Leoleth pointed out.

“Guard lady has a name,” Faedan said.

“We just have to gamble on the possibility that the knuckleheads who may or may not be following us don’t have an eye for detail. It only has to work long enough for us to get out of here and seal up the lid before they come here looking.” “It’s a dumb plan,” Leoleth said.

“Second that,” Faedan agreed. I looked at Heather. She smiled weakly at me and shrugged.

“Of course, it’s dumb,” I growled. “This whole thing is dumb.

My life is dumb, and this whole fucking world is dumb.” “And we’re all dumb for listening to you,” Heather said.

“Fine,” I nodded at Leoleth. “We fall back to our temple if things go south. Copy that?”

Leoleth looked at me with total confusion. “Copy south what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Get with the Earth lingo, girlfriend. Head to the Temple of the Unnamed God if things get bad. Got it?” Faedan looked at Leoleth and me with more than a concerned look.

“Got it.”

“All right, team...” I just kind of petered out at that point with my hands outstretched like I was going to say something grand and inspiring. I was trying to come up with something catchy. “Let’s go be dumb.” The three women groaning at me was all I needed to hear.