It was a little past noon when her guest woke up.
In that time, Wisteria had finished her impromptu self-surgery, swept her house clean again, finished preparing and burying new fertilizer (also known as corpses) around her favorite tree, and procured more firewood, finally managing to set up a proper fire in her firepit. She was in the middle of some cooking when Taliene exited the house, looking much better now that she had some rest.
The young lady looked around timidly before zeroing in on Wisteria, tensing up the moment she spotted her. For a moment, Taliene just stood there, staring, and Wisteria was content to let her do so in favor of watching over her meat skewers.
Then Taliene took a deep breath and walked over cautiously. Once she was close enough, she bowed to Wisteria. “Lady- uh, milady, t-thank you for, um, saving me. A-And treating my wounds.”
Wisteria grimaced. “Ugh, no. I ditched being a lady a long time ago, don’t call me that. Just call me Wisteria.”
“Y-Yes, um, Miss Wisteria.”
Wisteria rolled her eyes. “Good enough, I guess. Here.” Reaching down, Wisteria grabbed ahold of the dead squirrel she had found in one of her traps and tossed it at Taliene, smirking when the young lady fumbled her catch, juggling the squirrel for a bit before she managed to get a proper grip. “You’re welcome to cook that by the fire.”
There — food, shelter, and treatment, the bare minimum Wisteria had to provide as demanded by etiquette. Coincidentally, that was also the maximum Wisteria was willing to give, and no, she didn’t care that the squirrel wasn’t cooked. Or even prepared for cooking, for that matter, since she hadn’t bothered with skinning or gutting it.
Then she realized that instead of taking a seat by the fire to get started on her lunch, Taliene was rooted to the spot and staring at her. “What now?” Wisteria grumbled. “Gonna call me a vam-whatsit again?”
“Y-Your arm…”
“What, this?” Wisteria raised her left arm. Starting from her shoulder, the entire arm was coloured bright red, the same color as the demons that had attacked them the previous night. It was obviously much more muscled than the rest of her body as well, being half again as thick as her right arm, and was long enough to reach down to her knees.
“It’s none of your business.” Wisteria stated bluntly before she picked up one of her skewers. After blowing on it a few times, she took a large, rather unladylike bite out of it, smearing her lips with grease before wiping it off with the back of her hand. “Now either cook your lunch, or scram.”
“Y-Yes, La- ow!” Taliene snapped a salute, forgetting that she was still holding a squirrel carcass in the hand she was using to perform said salute. After accidentally smacking herself in the face with it and the subsequent panicked fumbling, Taliene sat down across Wisteria, her face burning red.
For her part, Wisteria kept her mirth to a few snickers. There was silence after that, Taliene carefully but quickly preparing her lunch while Wisteria calmly ate her own, just as Wisteria preferred. She steadfastly ignored how Taliene kept sneaking glances at her. If Taliene wanted to ask something, she could damn well open her mouth and ask.
When Taliene took her lunch off the fire, though, she didn’t start eating. Instead, she just stared at the roasted squirrel, seemingly lost in thought. “Lady- um, Miss Wisteria!” She suddenly said, straightening and looking Wisteria in the eye, her meal seemingly forgotten.
Wisteria sighed. “What.”
“I know we just met yesterday! I know that I already owe you a lot for saving me! A-And I promise, I’ll do my best to pay you back! But I still have to ask! Please! Help me to save my comrades!” As she said this, she stood up and bowed a perfect ninety degree bow.
“No.” Wisteria replied immediately, punctuating her statement with another bite from a skewer.
“T-That's too fast!” Taliene straightened up out of her bow so quickly she actually lost her balance, stumbling back a step. “But, why not?!”
“Why should I?” Wisteria shrugged. “I’ll put myself at risk and waste my time for people I neither know nor care about. There’s literally no benefit for me.”
“Then, what do you want? If I can give it to you, I will!”
Wisteria sighed. “I don’t need food or money or sex or whatever.” She listed off, then paused as something came up. “The one thing I would want is the location of my friend Azalei, so unless you can produce that there’s nothing you can give me.”
“Then, I’ll help you look for him! Maps, information, anything I can do to help!”
“Hoh?” Wisteria raised an eyebrow, a little interested despite herself. “You’re quite persistent. Still, you must be quite well off if you can offer maps so easily. Just go and hire some mercenaries or adventurers or something if you want a rescue operation so much.”
Taliene gave her a strange look. “Huh? But, maps aren’t that expensive…”
“Really? Mapping must have gotten easier or something.” Wisteria commented. “Maybe those idiots at the Tower finally discovered something actually useful. Is there a cartography spell now or something?”
“Um, no?” Taliene said timidly. “What do you mean by the Tower?”
Wisteria frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Tower of Magic Research. That place is famous, stuffed full of idiots who think that screaming at each other will miraculously lead them to discovering better magic.”
“Uh, well, I have heard of a College of Magic Research, I think…” Taliene hesitantly volunteered. “They were the top researchers of mana and magic in the Ereveil Empire…”
“They expanded?” Wisteria rolled her eyes. “Great, it must be an absolute circus now. Can’t believe they were actually successful enough to be renamed a college, of all things.” Then Wisteria paused. “Wait, they were the top researchers? What, is there a new magic research organization now?”
“No, there… isn’t any organization dedicated to magic anymore, not after the Ereveil Empire’s destruction.”
There was dead silence for a moment, Wisteria frozen in the act of picking up a new skewer in favor of staring blankly at Taliene. Taliene, for her part, was fidgeting nervously as the silence stretched on.
Then-
“Ereveil was WHAT?!”
Taliene jumped, a hand – thankfully empty this time – snapping up into a salute. “Destroyed, milady!” She squeaked.
“Don’t call me a lady!” Wisteria barked reflexively.
“Yes, Miss Wisteria!”
“Good! Wait, no, that’s not important! What do you mean-” Wisteria finally caught herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Then another. Then she opened her eyes, her voice calmer if still agitated. “How was Ereveil destroyed? Say whatever you want about them, but Ereveil’s military was nothing to scoff at. Their battlemage battalions can and have wiped out entire armies. What did them in?”
“… How do you not know when you’re living in the Mist?” Taliene asked, bewildered.
“What, did you people give the fog a name or something?” Wisteria asked. “It’s just Azalei’s way of telling people to stop bothering him, he probably carved a magic circle to sustain it somewhere in the forest. What’s this got to do with Ereveil?”
Taliene stared at her. “Miss Wisteria… did you just say that the source of the Scarlet Mists is in this forest?”
“Probably. You didn’t think a bright red, lung melting fog that never moves away from the forest is natural, did you?” Wisteria rolled her eyes.
“… I… think there has been a misunderstanding.” Taliene said hesitantly. “Miss Wisteria, the Scarlet Mists covers the entirety of the old Ereveil Empire and is estimated to have a diameter of a thousand kilometers. It is the phenomenon responsible for the destruction of the Empire.”
Wisteria felt her heart sink. One thousand kilometers? If she assumed the center of this… Scarlet Mists to be the capital, then the Mists would cover the entirety of Ereveil and then some, pushing past its borders and into its subjugated kingdoms.
She had known the fog was different. The shade of red was brighter than she remembered, and it had also changed from a paralytic powerful enough to induce muscle failure into a form of flesh melting toxin, but she thought that was just Azalei getting creative!
And spreading it to all of Ereveil? No, Azalei wasn’t like that. He didn’t like people, but that was more because people kept being sent after his head than anything else. He was content with not bothering anyone as long as they didn’t bother him. Destroying a kingdom meant nothing to him, which meant that what she had taken as a friend’s lingering protection might not even belong to him.
The reassurance she usually felt at the sight of red colored mists suddenly didn’t feel so reassuring anymore. What the hell had happened when she was sleeping?!
“Alright.” Wisteria kept her voice steady. “This fog isn’t the same as the one I’m used to. Fine. Where did this Scarlet Mist come from, then?”
“No one knows.” Taliene said. “It just appeared one day, spreading quickly enough that no one in Ereveil that day managed to escape. Um, Lospring has been sending expeditions into the Mists to try and uncover its source, but we haven't been successful yet.”
“So you’re from Lospring, then.” Wisteria noted. “That’s one of the three kingdoms around Ereveil. What about Ironrift and Pearltide Bay?”
“The other two kingdoms? I don’t know much about them, sorry. I-I know Ironrift is the center of magitek creation, though! And, uh, Pearltide Bay supplies everyone with seafood. And pearls, of course.”
Wisteria frowned. While she was curious about whatever magitek was, that could wait. More importantly… “Not what I meant. Did neither Ironrift nor Pearltide try to find out what’s causing this?” Wisteria waved a hand at the Scarlet Mist still visible above their heads.
“Ironrift is still trying, I think, but they haven’t had any more success than us. Um, Lospring, that is. Pearltide Bay stopped trying early on since they still have access to the sea and aren’t as impacted by the Mists.” Taliene explained.
Wisteria rolled her eyes. “Typical. Two hundred years and still no progress at all. What the hell are you people doing? Seriously, no agreements to help each other? Band together to research the Mists? Any collaboration at all?”
“Um, no.” Taliene shook her head, a frown growing on her own face. “Based on what I learned from Bishop Valos… He said that Pearltide Bay was uninterested in the Mists, and Ironrift doesn’t trust us enough to work with us. And, um, the Scarlet Mists have been around for three hundred and forty years, Miss Wisteria.”
Wisteria froze, staring unblinkingly at Taliene. Slowly, she put down the skewer she was just about to bite into. “Taliene. What year is it.”
“Eh? It’s 340 A.C. The new calendar started when the Scarlet Mists appeared.”
“What’s the calendar before A.C? Was it G.E?”
“Um, yes.”
“And how long did the Golden Era last?”
“Uh…” Taliene furrowed her brows as she thought. “I… I think, 114 G.E was the last year?”
Wisteria stared blankly as she did the math. How was that possible? She couldn’t have screwed the calculations that badly, could she? Unless Taliene was lying, of course, but that wouldn’t make sense either. Why would the girl even lie about something as common as the current year? She would find out the moment she talked to anybody else.
“Three hundred and ninety eight years.” Wisteria muttered. “I’d been asleep for nearly four hundred years?”
That changed everything. Not only was Ereveil well and truly gone, with no one left within its borders, but the surrounding kingdoms would be completely different now. Even without Ereveil’s magical knowledge, they would obviously have grown, branching out in unpredictable ways. The language had thankfully stayed the same, seeing as she could still communicate with Taliene, but everything else might be different.
The Lospring of her memories was a small kingdom, one that capitulated to her the moment she marched Ereveil’s army to their gates. Not only did the Lospring of that time need Ereveil’s resources to survive, their army was also no match for Ereveil’s. Obviously, this was no longer true, if Taliene’s story of constant expeditions was any indication.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Ironrift wasn’t that big of a kingdom, either. It had a near endless supply of weapons and armor, due to the kingdom being built near a massive ravine filled with veins of various metals, but it was ultimately filled with more master blacksmiths than master swordsmen. Now, they were powerful enough to contend with the current Lospring, and even had some new form of technology.
Pearltide Bay barely qualified to be called a kingdom in the past. It was simply a massive port town, and their “king” was more a mayor than an actual king, living in a house no bigger than anyone else’s. They barely even had an army, with said army being comprised of sailors and fishermen. Now… alright, Wisteria still didn’t have any solid information about the place, but it was looking likely that they were not to be trifled with either, otherwise Lospring or Ironrift would have invaded and taken over Pearltide already.
Not only had all three kingdoms survived more than three centuries after Ereveil had fallen, they had also thrived. How had they advanced? Did they have different customs now? Different laws? A different common sense?
Her flimsy plan of finding the nearest town and winging it from there had been wrecked before it could even begin. Not only had Ereveil been utterly destroyed, meaning that she had no idea where the nearest town even was, she would draw far too much attention to herself, now that she was no different from a country bumpkin. Doing something that went against common sense would mark her as an easy target to swindle, and they would be right, since she had no idea what was fair.
Hell, she might be worse than that. She might break new laws she never knew even existed and get soldiers and bounty hunters chasing her down. Being three separate kingdoms, do they have border tolls and checkpoints now?
With her words, Taliene had unknowingly saved her months of pointless wandering, at a minimum, and now she was indebted to her. And her father and uncle didn’t raise an ungrateful woman.
“Miss Wisteria? Are you alright?”
Bother.
“Oh damn it all.” Wisteria sighed. “Alright. Taliene, let’s make a deal. In exchange for the information you’ve just given me, as well as an escort to Lospring, I’m willing to help you rescue your soldiers. That sound good to you?”
“Huh?” Taliene seemed taken aback, but she quickly rallied herself. “I-I mean, yes!”
“Good.” Wisteria tossed her used skewers into the fire and stood up. “I’m going to prepare my equipment, don’t touch my meal. Unless you don’t mind demon meat.”
“I won’t… wait, what did you say?!”
Wisteria snorted as she strode back to her house. “It’s demon meat. You don’t mind some semi-cannibalism, go ahead and take a skewer.” As Taliene audibly started gagging in disgust, Wisteria allowed herself a playful smirk. Maybe Azalei had a point about messing with people, it is quite amusing.
-
An hour later found the two women seated around what was left of the cook fire, a lazy trail of smoke still wafting from the ashes.
Using the equipment that had so generously been donated by the demons from last night, Wisteria had managed to quickly fashion a few leather belts. One was immediately slung over her back to be used as a holster for one of the demons’ steel tipped spears. Two more were tied together around her old adamantium spear, which she still couldn’t lift reliably, in order to drag it around.
She had completely forgone armor. Not only were the ones the demons were wearing of absurdly low quality, they weren’t fitted for her in the first place, and making proper leather armor was far more difficult than just stitching pieces of leather together. Besides, she didn’t really need armor, anyway.
Taliene hadn’t touched any of the armor herself, but she had taken a new sword and its scabbard. Her old, blunted to near useless blade was strapped to her back by one of Wisteria’s belts, her new sword taking its place at her waist.
“So, can you lead us back to your camp?” Wisteria asked.
“I, uh, I was running blindly.” Taliene grimaced. “So no.”
“Great, we’ll have to track down your camp before we even try to track down the enemy.” Wisteria grumbled. “Whatever, I’ll see what I can do. What do the enemy forces look like? Skills, numbers, equipment.”
“I- Shouldn’t we go first?” Taliene restlessly asked. “We can talk while we walk, my men could be in danger!”
“They’re already in danger.” Wisteria shrugged. “They’ve been captured since last night, they’re probably not going to miss an hour or so. What if we run into the enemy sooner than we expected? Or if we accidentally trip their alarms? What, you want to scream some warcry and lead a suicide charge two women strong? Because I’m telling you right now, if that’s what you want to do I’ll pick a random direction to walk in and take my chances.”
Taliene jerked, her body leaning forward in alarm. “No, I’m sorry! Please don’t do that!”
“Calm down.” Wisteria flicked her new spear, landing a (moderately) light tap on the girl’s head, sending her flinching back. “I already said I’m helping, so as long as you don’t do something blindly stupid, I’ll help. At the very least, we need to pool our information together before we set off. So, what can you tell me about the demons?”
“Um, let me think…” Taliene frowned, chewing on her lip as she thought. “Well… The first thing is that every demon I’ve fought had been, well, not very skillful. They seem to favor brute force over any sort of technique, but they make it work because they’re really just that strong.” She grimaced. “I’m one of the best
“Nothing I didn’t suspect so far, apart from that last bit.” Wisteria sighed. “You’re the best
“Um, well…” Taliene shifted uncomfortably. “My men would be, uh, unlikely to be able to help, at all, because, well…”
“Spit it out already.”
“Only Heroes are taught how to use magic.”
Wisteria blinked slowly. She just stared at Taliene, unmoving, until Taliene started shrinking into herself.
“Right.” Wisteria stated evenly. “How many people do you expect to be rescuing?”
“Um, l-less than a hundred, Miss Wisteria. Maybe eighty?”
“How many amongst them can use magic?”
“F-four- no, three. T-Three at best, ma’am.”
“And tell me… how many demons are there?”
“M-my b-b-best g-guess is t-t-two h-hundred, ma’am!”
“So you want the two of us to rescue three probably incapacitated soldiers and about eighty other people that are effectively civilians, from an army of two hundred?!” Before she knew it, Wisteria was on her feet, eyebrow twitching and vein pulsing angrily in her temples.
“I’m sorry!” Taliene had likewise left her seat, though she was instead curled into a ball and cowering from Wisteria’s indignant rage.
“This- This- What the hell were you idiots doing?!” Wisteria cradled her head in frustration. “How the hell do your own soldiers not even know something as basic as
“I-I’m sorry! I don’t know! T-That’s how it has always been, the soldiers don’t learn magic because they don’t have to fight anything too powerful usually and if there’s anything too strong one or two Heroes are usually enough to defeat it and magic is too hard to learn without dedicated teachers and talent!”
Taking a deep breath, Wisteria calmed herself down. Why had she been eager to dispel the silence, again? In a single conversation with Taliene, she had already lost her composure twice. Even for the rather short fuse on her temper, that was noteworthy.
“Not important right now.” She decided. “Three defeated and likely incapacitated soldiers, and eighty effective civilians that can at least run. They can run, right?” Wisteria turned a gimlet eye on Taliene, to which the young woman nodded frantically. “Good. Can I also assume that the demons were all armed and armored similarly to the ones that attacked us last night?”
“Yes. Uh, the ones I’ve faced were all like that, I mean.”
“Good enough. Now we’ll need some way to deal with two hundred demons between the two of us, but before that, what can you do?”
“Huh?”
“Give me a summary of your combat skills, woman.” Wisteria sighed. How green is this girl, and why was she even sent on such a seemingly important mission? “Can’t plan if we don’t know what each of us can do.”
“Oh.” Taliene nodded. “Um, I know a bit of healing magic.” Taliene raised her hand, a soft white glow covering it for a moment. “Only a little, though, enough for cuts and bruises. And I’m alright with fire magic, though I’m not as good as a specialized mage. I’m more of a swordswoman.”
“Spellblade, then.” Wisteria nodded. “I use a spear myself, though I can use any weapon in a pinch. I can also take a hell of a beating and regenerate myself, as you’ve seen yesterday. My magic is pretty shit, only thing I’m good at is blood and reinforcement magic.”
“You really are a vampire…” Wisteria heard Taliene murmur.
Wisteria raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term. “You called me that yesterday.” She pointed out. “The hell is a vampire?”
Taliene flinched slightly. “Y-You heard that? Um, I mean, a vampire is a kind of monster, I think? None of the books I read could agree if they were real or not, but vampires are said to drink human blood to survive and have eternal youth. They can also make more vampires with some sort of dark ritual and will catch fire if they’re exposed to sunlight. Um, that’s all just stuff I pieced together from books, though! I might be wrong!”
Wisteria blinked, then shrugged. “Eh, that’s a somewhat accurate description of me, I guess. I haven’t gotten older since I was seventeen, and I drink blood sometimes, but that’s for mana. I can do without blood easily. I was also given my regeneration by a ritual involving sacrifice, so that’s another check. That sunlight thing is just ridiculous, though, who would even catch fire from something like that?”
Taliene stared blankly. “Y-You’re really a vampire? You’re immortal?”
Wisteria smirked. “I’ve been living in this forest since 13 G.E, so yes.”
“That’s… over four hundred years ago. You might actually predate the earliest vampire legends…”
“And that’s also not important right now.” Wisteria reminded the girl. “So! We now have a rough idea of each others’ combat strength. Got any plans for the two of us to take on two hundred demons while saving a hundred civilians?”
“Couldn’t you fight them all, Miss Wisteria?” Taliene asked hopefully.
“And what makes you think I can fight two hundred people at once and not end up as a smear on the ground?” Wisteria deadpanned.
“Oh…” Taliene looked crestfallen. “S-sorry, I thought… Well, I don’t know what I thought. Sorry…”
Wisteria sighed. “It was yesterday’s fight, wasn’t it? No, stupid question, of course it was. Taliene, the only reason I came out on top in that fight was shock, intimidation, and the demons being stupid enough to face me one on one, two on one at best. If a dozen demons dogpiled me, there isn’t much I can do about it.”
“Sorry.” Taliene said abashedly. “It was a stupid idea.”
“It’s fine. Can you think of anything else?”
Taliene furrowed her brows as she stared intently at nothing. After a minute, she finally spoke up. “Um, we could try poisoning them somehow?”
“Also not possible.” Wisteria instantly replied. “Not as our main plan, anyway. Those demons didn’t have masks, even with the fog, so they likely have a high amount of resistance to poison, at least to the Mists. I don’t have the time, resources, nor test subjects to create something that I can guarantee would work on them.”
Taliene slumped, dejected. “Then I… I’m sorry, I don’t have anything else.”
“It’s fine. Hmm…” Wisteria thought about it, her mind quickly running through the details and reproducing a rough idea of what she would be facing. Two hundred demons. Approximately one hundred captives. Probable campsite, though no idea of what the layout would look like.
Demons. Humanoid, likely immune to poison, relies on brute strength without much in the way of skill or strategy. If this was back in her prime she would have carved a bloody path through the meatheads without issue, but longing for the bad old days did nothing for anyone.
Terrain. Unknown, but most likely still in the forest. Definitely a campsite, but without more details there’s nothing she could plan for. Moving on.
Civilians, one hundred. Could be kept in the center of the camp, or could be chained to one side. In either case, given the disposition of demons, guards should be minimal. Can’t plan for something she doesn’t know, but if she gave them weapons, can they help fight back the demons? Probably not. With no
Reinforcements, none from their side. Whether the enemy had any was unknown as well, but best to not dally either way.
With the demons’ immunity to poison, she couldn’t poison the food. Nor could she stop them from getting more. Not food then. If she had a squad of mages she could just firebomb the place…
“Taliene, do you know how to make a bomb?” Wisteria asked idly.
“Huh? No, of course not.”
“Eh, just a thought. Alright, best plan I can think of is to disrupt the demons as much as we can, get the civilians out of the warzone, and kill the demons one by one in the confusion. Chances are we would fail miserably and get squashed by the hundred to one odds, but considering that we’re outnumbered, out of resources, and out of time, that’s the best I’ve got.”
Taliene grimaced. “There’s nothing else?”
“Unless you’re willing to do the sensible thing and prepare for two weeks before we track them down and attack.” Wisteria offered. “Though by that point the demons would be long gone and likely to have reached a far more fortified position.”
“Oh.” Taliene looked crestfallen, but she shook herself and straightened. “Then alright, we’ll go with the first plan. What do you need me to do?”
“You sure you don’t want to do the other sensible thing?” Wisteria asked instead, eyebrow raised. “By which I mean ditching this suicidal rescue mission and leaving.”
“No.” Taliene answered without hesitation, firm and resolute.
“What, you have a lover there or something? Close friends?”
“No. Truthfully, I’m not as close to my soldiers as I would like.” Taliene raised her hand, forming a fist over her heart. “But rescuing them is the right thing to do. That’s all.”
A girl with hair like spun gold and lively hazel eyes bursting with youthful enthusiasm pumped her fists as she posed in front of a mirror. “I’ll help people, because it’s the right thing to do!”
Wisteria shook her head, dispelling the sudden wave of nostalgia. “I see.” Her lips curled up in a faint, mocking smile. “So you’re just a fool, then.” She got up, chuckling at how Taliene sputtered indignantly. “Come on, that’s enough for now. We’ll continue planning while we move.”
Wisteria took one last look around her house. The old stone walls and floor were swept clean. The garden was hidden by the house, but the withered tops of the trees peeked over the top of the roof. Somewhere in the back, under the cherry tree, were the shrines she had carefully cleaned earlier in the morning.
It had been her home for over forty years, and had housed her comatose body for four hundred more. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel anything about finally leaving it.
But Azalei wasn’t there, and without her best friend the little cottage was just too empty, too silent. It no longer felt like home, not really. Not until she could find Azalei and drag him back, by his neck if need be.
“Miss Wisteria?” She heard Taliene question uncertainly, the younger girl standing up beside her. She ignored the girl, closing her eyes as she thought back to her fondest memory.
Of lying under the shade of a massive wisteria tree beside her best friend, both of them content in the relaxing silence as they proudly looked upon their garden. It was that day that she confided in Azalei, how she wanted to leave behind everything in her past. The moment Azalei named her after their first and greatest success.
“I’ll be back.” She murmured, then turned around and started walking.
“M-Miss Wisteria? Wait for me!”
She felt her lips curl up slightly as the awkward and naive young girl hurried to catch up with her. She had planned to leave alone, to start and end her journey without ever interacting deeply with anyone else, but perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad.