“The old man hasn’t woken up yet?”

A… person—Alyssa had trouble referring to anyone in this world as doctors—shook his head. “Not yet.”

She had been a bit nervous about bringing the bearded man to the so-called medical professionals of this world. Her memory of the field hospital after the Juno Federation attack was still far too fresh in her mind. Leeches, no sanitation to speak of, people lying in the dirt with open wounds, people throwing up on each other, filthy blankets and bandages… She had spent twenty minutes inside that tent and the list went on and on.

As a city that had to deal with infected on a fairly frequent basis, Illuna had to deal with injuries wrought by the stronger and faster demons on a regular basis. They actually had a building for recovering injured soldiers. Lyria apparently had a much larger building, but it had been full after that fight, thus requiring the tent. Still, Alyssa was mildly happy to see actual beds for the wounded.

That was about the extent of her happiness. The rest of the place wasn’t anything to write home about. The beds were not the clean white sheets of hospitals that she was used to. The attending staff wasn’t at all better than the doctors she had seen in Lyria. Patients were still grouped up all together in a large room—though it was mostly empty at the moment thanks to the lack of plague incidents and infected assaults. And, if all that wasn’t bad enough, she was fairly certain that she had seen a little family of rats living around the corner of the building. A corner with a small hole in the wood, just the perfect size for a rat to squeeze through to get inside.

Seeing that made Alyssa wonder just how poorly the Black Plague would go over here. Her initial thoughts were fairly dark, until she realized that while the actual medical practices and knowledge of this world were quite abysmal, magic and potions could make up for a lot of things. Alyssa wouldn’t find herself surprised to discover Tzheitza creating a cure for it before the end of the day. The potion master had been trying to concoct a way to fix demonic infection. Compared to that, a run-of-the-mill virus was probably child’s play.

Maybe.

Alyssa had to wonder if Tenebrael had done something to all the Earthlings. She was fairly sure that she had read something one time while trawling the internet before bed back on Earth. It said that going into the past or future more than about fifty years would be deadly simply because of how the immune system works. The time traveler would bring bacteria and viruses with them unknowingly and would be exposed to new or old diseases that their immune system wouldn’t be able to handle. Yet Alyssa hadn’t even sniffled since arriving in Nod, a whole completely different world with a vastly different ecology, and she doubted that her mother, Jason, or Chris had been sick either. And they certainly didn’t seem to be spreading any plagues among the local populace.

Angelic intervention was the only thing that she could think of that would have stopped such things.

Not that she really wanted to test her inability to get sick by sticking around in a run-down hospital.

“Have there been any complications with feeding him using the spells I provided?” Alyssa asked the doctor.

He had as scraggly a beard as the patient. Which just made Alyssa wince at how unsanitary it had to be, hanging over injured people all day. This man, the doctor, was the one who stitched up and bandaged the wounds on their patient. There wasn’t much to be done about the broken arm or twisted ankle without resorting to an expensive and rare potion.

According to the doctor, some of his ribs felt loose too.

If he woke up anytime soon, he was going to be in some serious pain. But at least he wasn’t wheezing anymore. Aside from being unconscious, he looked fairly good. Much better than he had the day before when Alyssa brought him in. His breathing was steady as was his heartbeat, so as long as he didn’t have brain damage, Alyssa had decent hopes in her own medically deficient opinion. Unless his wounds got infected, of course.

“We only have one arcanist on staff. He was having a bit of difficulty yesterday, but managed to work it out this morning. The man didn’t die from the liquefied bread, so I assume it went well.”

“Guess that’s as much as I can hope for. I know I said this before, but it bares repeating: I want your arcanist to Message me the second he wakes up or if his condition begins to decline.” Despite the dead bodies, Alyssa hadn’t seen an angel since Iosefael tossed Adrael into Tenebrael’s prison. She wasn’t about to kill this man just to talk to an angel, but if he did die, she wanted to be nearby.

“Sure. Sure.”

His response was not reassuring, but there wasn’t much Alyssa could do about it. Not unless she wanted to sit around and babysit the coma patient. As much as she wanted to find out what had happened, she had plenty of other things to be doing around the city. Bidding the doctor farewell, Alyssa headed back outside.

Only to find Izsha half sticking out of the alley behind the hospital. Clearing her throat got the draken to slowly back out, revealing a bloodied maw.

A few things ran through Alyssa’s head. First, was Izsha alright? It looked like it. The armored skin was unbroken and undamaged as far as Alyssa could tell. The blood wasn’t from Izsha. So if it wasn’t from Izsha, where…

Glancing down the alley, Alyssa spotted the tail of a rat. No body, just a tail lying out in the middle of the road.

Alyssa looked back to Izsha with a mild grimace on her face. “That has got to be filthy,” she said. “You’re going to get sick.” She might be immune to diseases thanks to Tenebrael, but she doubted the same applied to Izsha.

The draken, of course, didn’t seem to care. It just gave Alyssa a shrug. Not a literal shrug—it didn’t have shoulders that could shrug—but Alyssa was good enough at reading draken body language to translate that much. So far, the Astral Authority seemed to be well and truly gone. Perhaps that was just because there was nothing around to draw their attention. However, if they were gone for good, perhaps Alyssa could return to her idle thought about getting some real communication going between her and Izsha.

“Let’s get back to Brakkt, shall we?”

The previous day, while Alyssa had been bringing the old man into the hospital, Brakkt had gone out with Fela to investigate the site of the incident. They had managed to find tracks, but not tracks that made any sense to Alyssa. They were basically one long trail. Like someone had rolled a massive boulder around. Maybe even to cover their actual tracks. Given that some of the trail was bloodied, it had been assumed that whatever tore apart that group of people was not the Astral Authority or even demons, but rather monsters. Alyssa had asked him whether it could have been simple animals, but he dismissed the possibility.

Among the bodies they had found someone with some Rank Four spell cards. An arcanist of that level should have been able to deal with any regular animals. Rather, from his rudimentary reconstruction of the scene, it looked as if the arcanist had been targeted first. Something that indicated both intelligence—knowing that the arcanist was a large threat—and fear—worry that the arcanist would be able to stop the attack.

An actual reconstruction of the scene was, unfortunately, impossible. By the time Alyssa had returned to the city with the injured man and delivered him to the hospital, stopped by Irulon to grab a Retrograde Cognition spell card, and returned to the incident, it had been too late. Retrograde Cognition worked backwards, playing events in an accelerated manner. But the longer the spell was active—the longer Alyssa sat there watching what had happened—the more the spell degraded. Alyssa had seen a bunch of bodies lying motionless for a few hours before she could see nothing but a static-like fuzz. Perhaps if she had been able to use the spell the second she had arrived, things would have been different. But now, it was too late.

Retrograde Cognition, being both highly ranked and a Fractal spell, was not used by anyone aside from Irulon as far as Alyssa could tell. Unfortunately for this world, there really wasn’t much in the way of forensic spells to fall back on. Or mundane forensics, for that matter. Fingerprints were a foreign concept. DNA was obviously right out. The best they had was blood color—humans all had the usual red blood, but some types of monsters apparently had green or blue—or wound types. It was fairly easy to tell the difference between claws and a blade, after all. One sliced, one ripped and tore.

Based on that, Brakkt and Alyssa were almost positive that none of the monsters in the camp had done this. Despite that, Alyssa and Izsha found Brakkt on the edge of the camp, asking questions of the guards and most of the monsters.

“Been here every day since these things arrived,” the guard said as Alyssa arrived. He was a human, one that she had seen around on occasion but never actually spoke with. Most of the guards around the camp were like that, actually. “Have seen a few of ‘em leaving and coming every now and again, but none headed away from the city.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I see,” Brakkt said, checking off a hand-drawn box on a sheet of paper he had. Glancing over to Alyssa, he gave a small acknowledging nod of his head before looking back to the guard. “And your shifts last from morning until evening?”

“That they do.”

Nodding again, this time to the guard, Brakkt scribbled down a bit more. “Thank you for your time,” he said as he finished.

“Lots of trouble these things cause. But it’s an easy job, so I suppose I don’t mind. Better than being out on the other side o’the city.”

“I don’t think anyone from here caused trouble. At least not this time. Just asking to be thorough.”

“Nothing?” Alyssa asked.

“Not so far. Still have…” Brakkt trailed off, glancing down at the paper again. “Five more guards to ask. They won’t be showing up for their shifts until later, however. I did ask around a few of the monsters as well. No one mentioned seeing anything.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Alyssa said. “Do you suppose we should…” Trailing off, she threw a glance to the guard. He was still just standing around, watching their conversation. Alyssa fully admitted that this was probably a relatively boring assignment. Especially once the novelty of being around so many monsters wore off. But… didn’t he have to at least act busy?

Shaking her head, she hopped off Izsha and gave a small gesture for Brakkt to walk with her. Brakkt was a tall man, taller than she was, but it felt a little awkward to be so much higher on Izsha’s back. Although she considered him a pretty good friend, he was still a prince and looking down on him just seemed a little off.

Far enough away from the guard, who thankfully had taken the hint and not followed after them, Alyssa said, “I wonder if we shouldn’t talk to the Yora people. The steward or retainer or whatever he was might not know anything about the people out there, but I bet the intelligencer might.”

“You still think they’re from Yora?”

“I think it would make sense. We didn’t find any insignia or other evidence that they were from Yora, but if we’re operating under the assumption that the people chasing after and watching the monsters were from Yora, this group could easily have been them. There were no wagons, so they aren’t goods vendors. They might be travelers from somewhere else, I suppose. But people don’t really travel that much unless they’re merchants or important. Important people generally wear clothing or carry banners bearing their symbols,” Alyssa said with a pointed look at Brakkt’s chest. He was wearing his armor at the moment, sans helm and gauntlets, which had a prominent symbol of the Lyrian Royalty over the left breast. “Judging by the rough clothes, heavier gear, and weapons, I doubt they are simple travelers anyway. They are either a clandestine group from Yora or a party from the guild.”

The guild hadn’t reported anyone missing. It was possible that they were a group who had been heading here from Lyria or elsewhere, somewhat similarly to how Oz and his crew had been on their mission to escort Raugis. According to Oz, it was generally considered polite to inform via Message a far off branch of the guild of their impending arrival when setting out. There was a communications failure if the listed contact of one branch had died or otherwise was absent and other branches hadn’t updated their records to reflect that change in position, but it wasn’t a thing that happened often. If someone died, someone else from the branch would send out Messages all around to inform them of the name of whoever had taken over the position.

Sometimes smaller branches got left off the list.

Still, that would take a lot of different failures going on. Alyssa thought it was far more likely that they were from Yora.

In which case, it was also highly likely that this had not been an accident of any sort. The monsters from this camp might not have done anything. In fact, Alyssa highly doubted that anyone here would have risked their tentative friendship with Illuna even if presented with the opportunity for revenge. If they even could take revenge. The gremlins didn’t look too threatening on the best of days. Honey bees had fairly sharp looking stingers on their abdomens, but using them had to be awkward; if they were anything like normal honey bees, those stingers might be one time use only as well. Two lizardy people, Fezzik, and Rokien were really the only threatening ones. All four of whom had been accounted for over the past several days.

Speaking of Rokien… The minotaur was slowly approaching their group. Although Alyssa and Brakkt had moved out of the camp for their brief conversation, none of the guards tried to stop Rokien. One even gave him a respectable nod of his head. Most of the monsters were generally free to come and go. Aside from immediately following the incident with the Astral Authority, during which the monsters were to stay in the camp, they had been more or less free to leave whenever they wanted. Most didn’t. A few of the curious gremlins liked to explore the city and Fezzik worked as a guard around the western gate most days, along with one of the two lizard people and a few others who had barely higher than human-level abilities. But for most, their curiosity did not overpower their wariness of humans.

“I’ve asked around those who have their eye on our number. None have left except to the city. Whatever this was, it wasn’t us.”

“I didn’t think it was,” Brakkt said as diplomatically as possible. “I merely wanted to be sure.”

“Rokien,” Alyssa said before pausing for a moment. She was about to tread on possibly sensitive ground. While the minotaur was a fairly hardy man, she didn’t want to cause more strife than necessary. “Your community used to be much larger. Were there any members who got left behind? Perhaps they had been thought dead or were out hunting and foraging or just otherwise unaccounted for while your group marched here?”

The answer didn’t come immediately. It was hard to read Rokien’s face—he had the body of a man but the head of a bull, being a minotaur—and she really hadn’t spent much time around him relative to the likes of the draken—who she thought she was relatively good at reading. Still, she got a distinct impression of discomfort. A slight tightening of his fist, a movement in his jaw, the way his large brown eyes looked from Alyssa to Brakkt.

“We do need to know this, Rokien. We’re not against you or trying to trick or trap you. But there is a group of humans dead not far from a human settlement. If they were the ones chasing you, then I really don’t care. But if that survivor wakes up and claims to be a simple traveler who got ambushed by a monster, we need to do something. But we can’t figure out what that something is until we have a full grasp of the situation.”

It took another minute of somewhat awkward silence, but eventually, he spoke. “A third of what we once were are not here today.”

Alyssa had expected that much. They had spoken before about how their leader had lost their head and a few of their number went missing seemingly overnight.

“Yes. There were some left behind. There were some that couldn’t keep up while walking. There could be… thirty, perhaps. Thirty that I never saw a body for.”

“Were any capable of causing the kind of damage we described?”

“One, perhaps,” Rokien answered after another long pause. “You may have been correct in your assumption earlier,” he said with a bit more enthusiasm. “We did have two people out of the farm on the day of the first attack. Two hunters. My brother, a shorter ‘taur…” He held out his hand well over Alyssa’s head, but quite a bit lower than his own. “By minotaur standards, anyway. Clumsy sort, but he was strong. He could carry two fully grown bull elk. One over each shoulder. Though his hunting partner would occasionally consent to carrying the load.”

Alyssa grimaced as Rokien’s tone turned to a fond reminiscing. She hadn’t wanted to give possibly false hope that his brother was still alive, but… as Rokien mimed holding carcases over his shoulders, she couldn’t really bring herself to interrupt either.

“He wasn’t really a hunter,” Rokien added with… a smile? It was hard to tell on a bull’s face. “He would carry the bodies and load them up, but he wouldn’t hurt them while they were alive. Worrik didn’t do this.” Rokien’s tone turned serious once again and even shot a glare in Alyssa’s direction as if she had suggested such a thing. “He was a clumsy boy. Wouldn’t be able to even if he could.”

“You said there were two hunters? Who was the other?”

“An apophis by the name of Lueta. She was the real hunter.”

“Apophis?” Alyssa asked with a glance toward Brakkt. It wasn’t a species she recognized or heard of.

But Brakkt’s eyes lit up. That alone told her that it was probably something with scales.

“An apophis? Really?” He didn’t even answer her question. “North of Pandora? How did it—she? I wasn’t aware… I guess I’ve never even seen one, just heard tales from the guardsmen at the wall.”

“Always kept to herself,” Rokien said. “Don’t know why she stuck with us. Only seemed happy while out hunting or smoking from her pipe while lazing around in one of the larger huts. Bit testy too. She would snap at anyone who dared to bother her during her smoking sessions. But she provided food and didn’t bother anyone, so we didn’t raise too big of a fuss. Though her venom did do strange things to the animals blood.”

Venom, Alyssa thought, trying to remember if any of the bodies had bite marks on them. In their dismembered state, it had been difficult to tell. “What is an apophis?”

Brakkt looked to her with a half-smile on his face. “Imagine a snake that could reach from here to the city walls!”

Grimacing again, Alyssa looked toward the city. It was… far off. A good few minutes at a light jog. Probably not a mile, but she wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it was. “I really don’t want to.”

“She wasn’t that long,” Rokien said. “Never seen another. Maybe she was a runt. Or you just heard exaggerated tales.”

“Still, just imagine!”

“Still don’t want to.”

“We have to find it,” Brakkt said, looking from Rokien to Alyssa. Something seemed to come over him as he looked at her. Though the enthusiasm in his eyes didn’t dampen, his posture stiffened. Giving a light cough, he said, “For the good of the city and the monsters here, of course.”

“We still don’t know if this apophis thing actually caused the attack.”

“I…” He trailed off, stiffening further as a completely serious expression crossed his face. “I let myself get a little excited a moment ago, but it would be neglectful to ignore such a lead. If the stories I have heard of these beings are even remotely true, one running wild could be a danger to everyone. Not just the humans here.”

Alyssa sighed. “I still want to talk to Yora. And Volta.” If anyone had a way to contact a suspected monster, it would be Volta. Alyssa could use a simple Message spell—they had a name—but Message spells were inherently human magic. A monster wary of humans would absolutely not follow any directions given by such a spell. Assuming this giant snake really was their suspect. If not, she would be sending Messages out into the aether for no reason in particular.

Volta would be good to talk to again anyway. She had already paid the doppelganger a visit immediately after delivering the old man to the doctors—the cursed sword had actually been one of her first suspects, but more than one servant claimed to have seen it around the manor over the past several days and no guards reported any suspiciously cloaked individuals leaving the city. The sword could have hopped the wall or gone some through somewhere unwatched, but Alyssa liked to trust that Volta wasn’t lying when she said it wasn’t either of them.

So to Volta it was.