Alyssa skipped through the city toward the exit. Not quite literally, but she was in a pretty good mood. There, so far, had not been any major issues with the monsters. Whoever was pursuing them had not taken any further actions against them. There were guards, both monster and human, set up around their camp to keep watch for any further assassins or general malcontents. From what Alyssa had gathered so far, there wasn’t much reason to be concerned. It was a fairly boring job for both parties.
Just the way it should be.
That wasn’t to say that absolutely everything was perfect. There was a certain level of discontent among the monsters that had them all a bit upset. It wasn’t that they were unhappy with the treatment they were receiving, but there was just uncertainty permeating the camp. They didn’t know what their place was supposed to be or what they should be doing. Martin, Volta, and some advisers were all trying to come up with good solutions—Illuna wasn’t near a famine state but it was still difficult to justify feeding almost a hundred freeloaders. Some were going to be asked to work as guards, but as Fezzik and Rokien had mentioned, not every monster was suitable to such a job.
Alyssa had suggested that they be brought into the city and allowed to live like regular people, even having whatever jobs of a more mundane nature that needed to be done. That was apparently a bit much for them. Having monsters in their own little camp was a bit of a bite to swallow for some, apparently. Martin didn’t have a problem with it, but there was some discontent inside the city. Not as much as Alyssa imagined Lyria might face, but still some.
Still, Alyssa was fairly optimistic about the situation as a whole. She could rest easy knowing that there hadn’t been any major or minor conflicts between humans and monsters.
But that wasn’t all that Alyssa was happy about.
Today was the day.
Irulon had a whole ritual prepared and ready, something that she was positive would jump-start Izsha’s soul resonance. Or synchronization. Whatever it was, Izsha should be back on her feet by nightfall. That was the real reason Alyssa was skipping out to the stables. There were still some things to get ready. Apparently, this ritual required more than just the requisite cardstock and pattern drawn on top.
Hence why she wasn’t literally skipping. Piloting a medieval wheelbarrow filled with various reagents, from bits of monsters to some kind of specialized paint that they were to adorn Izsha’s body with, wasn’t exactly as easy as their modern equivalent. It wasn’t that she was inexperienced in the art of wheelbarrow pushing. Having worked in a home improvement store for a few years, she had pushed around her fair share of carts, barrows, and lifts. It was just… awkward. For one, the wheel was made from wood instead of air-filled rubber. She wouldn’t have thought there would be much difference, but after nearly tipping over and dumping everything all over the ground more times than she could count, Alyssa was taking it carefully. There just wasn’t any bounce to it. Every pebble she ran over could be felt from the tip of the barrow all the way up to her shoulders.
And on unpaved streets, pebbles were the least of her worries.
“Miss Draken Rider?”
“Alyssa,” Alyssa said immediately as she glanced to her side. One of the monsters had sneaked up to her. Or maybe the monster had just walked up and Alyssa had been too distracted to notice. Either way, there was a monster standing before her now.
She wasn’t quite sure what kind of monster it was. Although Alyssa had spent a decent amount of time down in the camp, she hadn’t gone around to meet every single one of them. And some were painfully shy. Especially the children. This wasn’t a child, but it was rather short with a bushy tangly neon blue hair styled up in a failed ponytail.
“Something you need?”
“A few of us have been needing more water than has been supplied.”
“There’s a river that runs almost straight through the city. Can’t you fetch your own? Or…” Alyssa’s eyes narrowed. “Are the guards not letting you leave? They’re supposed to be protect—”
“No, no, nothing like that. I haven’t actually asked. But leaving the camp…”
“Oh. You’re worried about those people who were chasing you? I’m sure a few of the guards would be willing to go with you. And if you go in a large enough group with people like Fezzik, I’m sure you would be fine. Or you could ask a guard to see if they would be willing to deliver more water.”
Although she started to smile, the little monster quickly shirked in on herself, looking nervous and a little scared.
Slightly nervous, Alyssa glanced around, hoping she wasn’t going to be ambushed by anything. She didn’t think there was a need to worry about it, all the monsters seemed pretty nice considering their circumstances and who had driven them out of their old home, but if their pursuers had kidnapped some of them and were putting them up to finding out who was sheltering them, there was a possibility. Without her soul sight, Alyssa could only use her regular eyes. But there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. The camp itself was a fair bit beyond the stables where Izsha was residing and wasn’t exactly visible with it in the way, but she doubted that sixty-odd monsters would be utterly silent, along with whatever guards they had, if something was up.
So Alyssa glanced back to the blue-haired monster. “Was there something else wrong?”
“I… uh… don’t suppose we could get our water from the city?”
“They get their water from the river too, but, I mean, possibly? That would be up to the guards, not me. I really don’t have much authority around here. Though, can I ask why?”
“It’s just… There’s… Some of the younger ones have been going missing.”
Alyssa froze. That was massive news and definitely something that the monster should have led with. “Missing?”
“Every day,” the monster said, refusing to meet Alyssa’s eyes.
“Children have been going missing every day?”
“Three or four of them every day.”
“Three or four children have been going missing every day?” Alyssa felt faint. Why hadn’t someone said something? Were the monsters so afraid of humans that they wouldn’t go to them for help? “For how long?”
“I first noticed them going missing six or seven days ago.”
Three children a day for six days was eighteen children. And that was the low end. From the monster’s tone, she felt like they had been going missing for a lot longer than that. Were there even twenty children among the monsters? Alyssa wouldn’t have thought so, but…
“No one has seen where they’ve gone? Or tried to follow?”
“They sneak off and can keep hidden a lot better than the rest of us can. And we didn’t want to draw more attention to us or them by bringing it up with the guards. There are no walls or proper buildings in the camp, so it’s easy for them to slip out and run off—”
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. They’ve been leaving on their own?”
“I’ve tried asking where they disappear to during the days, but they claim they’re just in different parts of the camp. I think they’re actually sneaking into the city.”
“So you wanted to go get water as an excuse to look for them…” Alyssa shook her head, pinching her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “They aren’t being kidnapped, are they?”
“Not if I understand the term correctly… they aren’t kids though.”
Alyssa just shook her head again. She should have felt relief. Maybe she did, but it was marred by an undercurrent of irritation in the way the monster had gone about explaining the problem. She had been so worried just a moment ago. Connecting with Tenebrael and risking the Astral Authority just to use some soul-sight to locate a few kids had crossed her mind.
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But now…
It was probably still a problem. Judging by how most of the city had reacted to Fela’s presence, Alyssa didn’t think that a few monsters would be in much danger. Especially not if they had been doing whatever they were doing several times over several days. There were still going to be some bad actors in the city that might have ill will toward them so it was important to find out what they were doing and possibly stop them, but…
Alyssa sighed. “They’ve been coming back to the camp every night? And it’s the same few who go missing the next day?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“I’ll stop by this evening. We’ll see if we can’t get to the bottom of this. But for now, I’m a little busy.” Alyssa looked down to the wheelbarrow that was not making any progress toward the stables. “Try not to worry too much. If they’ve done this before and have gotten back, I’m sure they can do it tonight too.”
Picking up the handles of the barrow, Alyssa started toward the stables once again. The monster followed along, timidly tapping the tips of her fingers together. “Is that really alright? What if they’re causing trouble.”
“I’ve kept my ear to the ground recently, listening for how the general population feels about your camp being on their doorstep. I’m sure I would have heard about a bunch of monster children running around causing trouble.”
The monster looked down in confusion for a moment before looking back up with some amount of awe in her eyes. “I didn’t know humans could do that.”
“What?”
“What does the ground’s voice sound like?”
“Uhh… I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time concentrating at the moment. Could you get the door?” Alyssa said, trying to dodge the conversation and move ahead with her task.
“Sure!” the monster said, hopping right up to the stable’s main door. It was barely holding onto its hinges, so it took her a surprising amount of effort to heave it open. One of the draken could have simply nudged into it had Alyssa called out a little louder, but… Well, it gave the monster something to do.
She should probably find out the monster’s name. Or at least figure out what kind of monster she was. Mentally calling her ‘the monster’ all the time felt… a bit bad?
But Alyssa didn’t get a chance. Musca stuck its head out the open door almost immediately. With a slight squeak, the little monster fell straight to the ground in fright.
“Musca…” Alyssa said, warning in her tone. “Let’s not frighten visitors who are helping me out.”
The draken brandished its teeth in her direction, but Alyssa kept up her glare. She had gotten a bit used to Musca over the past long while. And, after talking a bit with Brakkt, had discovered the Musca acted a lot tougher than it actually was. A good enough show of strength would cow it, at least temporarily. It probably helped that Musca was one of the few who had seen Alyssa in action before. It well knew that, even without her eyes glowing, Alyssa could use Spectral Chains to tie it down in a snap of her fingers.
“Sorry about that,” Alyssa said, looking toward the monster, holding out a hand to help her back up. She kept watch on Musca from the corner of her eye as she lifted the surprisingly light little monster back to her feet. “One of the draken got injured recently and Musca has been a bit overprotective while Izsha recovers.”
Musca let out a loud snort, making the poor monster jump.
“O-Oh. Of course. I’m sorry for startling you,” she said, bowing fully at the waist. The large ears on her head were pressed firmly against her skull as if to shrink her overall profile down even more than it already was. A tactic to make her look less threatening? “I’ll just… run back to camp then. Sorry for disturbing you!”
“I’ll be along this evening to talk to those kids of yours,” Alyssa shouted after her, but the monster didn’t pause or look back at all. So Alyssa shot another glare at Musca.
“Was that a gremlin I heard,” Brakkt said, stepping up to the door and peeking out.
“Is that what she was?”
“The slight rasp in their throat gives them away. What did it want?”
“Apparently some of the younger monsters have been sneaking out of their camp and into the city to… play? Possibly? Not sure, but I guess it has been going on for a few days now so not too worried about trouble. I’ll worry about it later. For now…” Alyssa carefully wheeled the barrow over the threshold and into the barn. “Irulon will be along shortly. While we wait for her to arrive, she gave me some directions on how to begin preparing for this ritual. Some of it is pretty complex,” Alyssa said, pulling a notebook from the wheelbarrow, “but she assured me that you would know what some of it means.”
“If it is like the ritual with the dragon, then I have some experience. I’m not exactly a Rank Six arcanist, however. I’m sure she took that into account.”
Getting started wasn’t that big of an ordeal. The first task was to clean both Izsha and the general area where they were going to perform the ritual. Alyssa had been keeping Izsha extremely clean over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, Irulon wanted to do the ritual just outside the stables, open to the air. Using a variety of spells, the other draken, and Brakkt, they set to work clearing away underbrush, weeds, large rocks, and other plants. A bit of earth-churning had the dirt smooth and relatively compact after only an hour or so.
On the now clean earth, some lines needed to go down. Essentially a spell card blown up to the size of a small swimming pool. When she had first been told about it, Alyssa had expected to be out with a stick, dragging it through the dirt to create the lines. But that wouldn’t work. The ritual needed to be drawn with the small vat of specially-prepared paint that Volta had provided. Trying to use a paint brush would create a mess, mixing it too much with the dirt.
Luckily, there was a spell for that. A derivative of Draw Water. Brakkt used it instead of Alyssa, just in case she wound up overpowering it and ruining all the paint. It was quite interesting to watch. Much like an angel’s spell, it formed the circle completely in the air. Apparently, a second spell had helped to create the pattern of this spell. Spells to create spells to create spells.
After forming in the air, it all slowly lowered to the ground, soaking in and staining the ground a deep red color in a matching pattern.
Izsha needed to be prepared as well. Aside from just being cleaned, she had to get a paint job. A few stripes to her otherwise uniform onyx scales. There was not a spell for that, however. Izsha’s body was too irregular of a shape to do something automatically. That probably wasn’t impossible. Much like a modeling program could apply a texture to something, a spell could work in roughly the same way. However, it would have to be calculated by hand and would be unique to Izsha. Maybe some day, magical technology would be on par with modern computer programs. Or maybe there would be computer programs to develop spells like that quickly. But for now…
Alyssa drew a horse-hair brush across Izsha’s body, following the pattern Irulon had drawn up as perfectly as she could. Thankfully, the ink was a shade of ruby red almost identical to the paint that was all over the ground outside the stables. If it had been black, it would have blended in with her scales and made it far too easy to miss smaller details. Levitating Izsha helped out too. Alyssa could rotate the body around, flip it upside down, and turn it however she needed to paint where she needed to paint.
“You’ve missed a spot around the left haunch.”
Carefully, Alyssa pulled the brush off Izsha’s thigh, looked over her shoulder, and glared. “Were you trying to startle me into making a mistake? Because I heard you coming.”
Irulon shrugged as she pulled back from being directly behind Alyssa. “I’ve inspected the circle outside. It meets my needs. As soon as you’re finished with Izsha, I believe we will be ready to begin.”
“I think I’ll be ready in a few minutes more. You’ll be double-checking, I hope?”
“Of course. Can’t have anything going wrong. I’m already planning on applying much of what I have learned here to myself. If some goes wrong, I’ll… be in a lot of trouble, I think.”
“We’ll figure out what to do about your situation. Don’t worry. As soon as Tenebrael gives the all clear regarding the Astral Authority, I’m going to try making a new body. We can try shoving the dragon into it.”
“That is certainly a solution, but I haven’t fully decided that that is the course I will take.”
“Well, keep me updated.”
“Of course.” Clasping her hands behind her back, Irulon turned. “I’ll be outside. Alert me when you finish.”
Looking back to Izsha, Alyssa carefully placed the brush back to the line she had started drawing out before being interrupted. Once in place, she continued with a long, smooth stroke of the brush over Izsha’s scales.
Thirty minutes after, Alyssa finished.
Irulon found nothing missing, not even the trickier parts on Izsha’s haunches that Alyssa had been saving for the end.
After that, it was only another twenty minutes to get Izsha’s body all set up inside the drawn circle.
Irulon took over from there. Alyssa stepped back alongside Brakkt, Kasita, Fela, and the draken to watch. And there was something to watch. Irulon started chanting. Not just a single word or short phrase like all other spells seemed to be, but an actual extended chant. It was in English, but the words almost seemed like they had been picked at random from a dictionary.
“Unknown. Master. Stand. Faster. Lean. Training. Time. Feigning.”
There did seem to be something of a rhythm to the words, but Alyssa couldn’t decipher any real meaning from them. But perhaps the rhythm was all that was needed. Irulon called it the soul’s resonance, so maybe the words were helping with that.
Besides Irulon’s chants, there was a bit of a light show. The paint, both on Izsha and on the ground, glowed with her words. Each syllable caused a small pulse of light that then faded. But it didn’t quite fade completely before she spoke again. The circle got brighter and brighter to the point where it almost felt like the rest of the world, including the burning sky and even the sun, dimmed.
And most of all, Alyssa could feel something. Just like when she had handled Izsha’s soul or when she came into contact with something divine, a warmth filled the air. It was a bit muted, only really noticeable because of how much she had been exposed to such sensations. That was possibly because the burning sky was still infusing the world with a similar feeling.
It actually made Alyssa a little nervous. The Astral Authority seemed to be able to tell the difference between Tenebrael’s magic and that of other angels, but Alyssa couldn’t. It all felt the same. And if she could feel it, the Astral Authority would surely notice.
Just as she started looking around, the golden light from the Astral Authority’s portals bathed the ritual circle, drowning out the red light from the paint.
Alyssa grit her teeth, drawing her pistol and spell cards in a flash. The first Kindness out of the portal wound up riddled with bullets.
She might not be connected to Tenebrael at the moment, but the Astral Authority could be killed through more mundane means. If the Astral Authority thought they were going to interrupt Izsha’s ritual…
They were dead wrong.