by J E Mueller
Actually, I hadn’t. I didn’t think anything evil had a strong foothold in this realm.
Kegan saw my expression and continued, blood still boiling, “That whole area is a mess. Every couple of months someone gets sent there to try and clean up the outskirts. Some from all groups. It’s a waste of time. There’s nothing to be regained.”
“If we don’t try and push them back, then they’ll have the opportunity to expand,” Lydia argued.
“Then let the older ones fight it,” Kegan replied sharply. “You’ve plenty of experiences, but they have more time learning from their mistakes. Their tactics are laughable.”
Lydia was willing to argue about this with Kegan, but I was not. Both sides had their points, but I didn’t want to get involved in this debate. Instead, I focused on quickly eating my meal and made a hasty retreat. It wasn’t like anyone could stop me from leaving. I was much too quick even I used only a touch magic.
Thankfully, my early dinner was enough to ward off the ghosts that had been following me. They weren’t interested in hearing Lydia and Kegan’s argument either.
Chapter 5
As dinnertime approached, foot traffic increased dramatically. The normal buzz of conversation was easy enough to ignore while I made my way back towards the Black Violets’s main building. Just like normal, the closer I got, the fewer people and spirits I saw. It was always nice being able to enjoy that moment of peace.
It didn't last long.
The spirit I had noticed closer to the guild earlier was now near the main part of town. He had shifted his hood so I could see his face better. Before it looked as if he was just observing the area. Now, it was clear he was waiting for me.
I stopped walking and looked around. There was no one else close enough to hear me. “What is it that you want?” I asked tiredly. Normally when spirits realized I could speak with them, they had a long list of requests or demands that I could do nothing about.
“Word has gotten around you might be able to help us,” he replied as he walked towards me.
I tried to concentrate on his appearance to really see who I was talking with. He looked young. Maybe my age, maybe a bit younger. His hair was a light brown and his clothes were still stained with the blood from his death. Claw marks raked across his chest, and darkened marks of blood were spread across most of his left shoulder. I couldn’t see what had finished him off from the way his cloak covered him, but it was obvious it had been quite the fight.
“I can hear you, but I have no way to help you,” I replied. It was still true.
He clicked his tongue. “Kegan gave you something. I’ve no idea what. The rambling souls that travel around said it was from Mist. Her name is still known as someone who helped spirits cross. I don’t believe you.”
“You’ll have to,” I replied as I brushed past him. “I’ve just gotten things, yes. I’ve no idea what’s in them or what they say. So I am, in fact, of no help.”
He rushed to catch up with me. “At the moment. But we do need your help.”
I stopped again. “Why do you need my help? Shouldn’t you have crossed anyway? I know those symbols on your clothes are from the Black Violets.”
“You’re right. I should have.” He faced me, a mixture of anger and sadness flickered across his vision. “But things… Something’s gone wrong and we’re without answers. No one can cross right now. No one. Even the most innocent are trapped here.”
This surprised me. I didn’t understand the system, but I thought angels had some influence here. “Isn’t that part of your pact? A guarantee to reach the heavens?”
“It is.” He sighed and started to pace. “The angels know something's wrong but they can’t figure out what or why and they aren’t telling anyone.”
“What? That’s horrible. Something isn’t right there,” I replied, surprised. I glanced around again. No humans, angels, or demons were listening in.
“Again, yes, it is. Something is definitely not right.” He looked around as well. “I don’t want to pull you into that part. But you have an interesting insight into our world. Maybe you can help solve this.”
“I’ve no idea how, nameless spirit.” I realized I knew nothing about him or what I was getting into. “I have zero knowledge in this area. I don’t even know how we can be having this conversation.”
“It’s Lliam, and you probably don’t want the answers you’re looking for,” he replied honestly. “But I’m almost positive they’ve got to be in those books. Someone said they were training materials. They should hold more than enough answers.” He seemed distracted for a moment. “Oh Lydia’s almost here.” He pointed behind me and I glanced back.
“How do you know her name?” I asked curiously.
He pointed to himself. “This not crossing problem is fairly recent, within the last two years. She knows me too. I had vaguely heard of you, but we never met.” Lliam stopped his pacing and shrugged.
Lydia had finally made her way up to us. “So… I’m going to assume we’re not just standing in the middle of the road for no reason.”
“You know, just talking to myself again. Someone has to play the role of the guild crazy,” I replied nonchalantly.
“Okay.” Lydia eyed me skeptically. “What’s going on now?”
“Lliam was just telling me an interesting story. Was trying to make sense of it all,” I replied as simply as possible.
“Lliam?” She looked around curiously.
Lliam sighed. “Of course she can’t see me.” He grumbled for a moment. “Can you tell her it’s the Lliam that had lightening gifts? That should jog her memory. If I still had my gifts I’d do it myself.”
I chuckled at her glances. “The one with lightning gifts.”
“He’s been gone for about two years.” Her expression had the same what-the-heck look to it that I was feeling. “I know he’s dead. He would have crossed, though. Even you know that.”
“Yes, I do know that. My evening keeps getting more and more interesting.” I sighed.
“Why wouldn’t he cross?” Lydia said loudly. She seemed to be very close to freaking out. Her eyes shifted around to see if this was some joke.
Lliam, on the other hand, was overly amused. “Spoilers.” Was the only answer he gave.
“He’s not talking,” I replied instead. “Maybe he’ll explain eventually, but there’s more we should discuss.”
“Okay. That doesn’t sound good,” Lydia said after taking a deep breath. “Are you sure they said Lliam?”
“Well it’s not all bad, and yes.” I looped my arm through hers and started leading her back to the guild. “Kegan was full of surprises.” I nodded towards Lliam and was glad to see he wasn’t currently following. We had much to discuss later. Lydia needed to wrap her head around this idea, and I wasn’t doing much better with knowing a Blessed spirit was stuck here.
As we walked back I started to explain what had happened before she reached the inn, and as soon as we were safely in her room, I described in full details what Lliam had said. Her bed wasn’t really big enough for the two of us to spread out, but that didn’t stop us from sprawling out on it as we considered everything that had just gone on.
“That’s all sorts of messed up,” Lydia finally decided. “And the brat won’t give you answers?”
“I think he will,” I replied. “I just don’t know when.”
“Well, let’s see what this chest thing is all about!” Lydia said excitedly.
I shook my head. As much as I wanted to know what else was in there, I needed to know what was going on with other things. “First, what the heck is going on with your new mission? Kegan made it sound like a guts and glory mission while you didn’t argue against that part, I get why it could be necessary.”
Lydia sighed dramatically before throwing her pillow at me. “All right, so plain and simple, it’s to keep the area around Saltmire from being overrun by demons. Ashgrove is as good as dead. Every couple of months a bunch of Blessed from ever
ywhere get selected to cut down as many of those nasty demons in a week as possible. That’s it. That’s the entire mission. There’s nothing exciting about it, but without the extra efforts they’re just going to absorb the surrounding area into their hive of evil.”
“Hive of evil?” I threw the pillow back at her choice of words.
“They are a swarm! As annoying as wasps.” She mimicked flying creatures with her hands.
“Okay, fine. Swarm of evil,” I relented. “So, how did they gain this area in the first place?”
She sat up, surprised. “Oh wait, I guess you wouldn’t know.” Lydia considered her words for a moment. “So a very long time ago, before any towns or anything were established, the realms were much closer together. There were less definite differences among them. It’s said that accidentally changing realms was harder to notice. Only the increase or decrease in magic alerted people to what had happened.
“Back then, the strongest gods and demons from both sides roamed the realms. They clashed most heavily in the middle. At that time, the warring made it nearly impossible for the humans to keep up. They did their best to avoid the clashes, but both good and evil needed the humans. Their praise and belief in them was said to give the different sides extra powers.
“True or not, the realms were beaten to the point of breaking down. The strongest on both sides agreed to withdraw to the furthest realms. Their powers were too much for the weakened middle ground to handle. However, both sides kept their minions. Neither wanted to lose ground just because they couldn’t exist there. The generals set up bases, disguised in various ways. As the world slowly healed and evolved, the disguises had to change. Our side chose to stay as demon hunters, currently disguised as a simple bard.
“We have the ease and freedom of travel, but so do they. As we locked down and refused to give up locations, so did they. Expanding is difficult for either group, but we have the most freedom. We can live out in the world. The demons need to sneak in and out of realms to gain any ground.”
She paused for a moment and I considered the history lesson she had given me.
“They don’t have their own version of the Black Violets? I mean, of course we’ve met plenty of humans who have fallen into bargains or sold their soul, but do they have a location where such humans can meet?” I asked curiously.
“No. Those were all destroyed,” Lydia replied proudly, sitting up straight. “Ashgrove is just one of the weakest areas between the realms. Even the weakest of demons can spawn from there.”
“How did you destroy all their locations?” It seemed impossible that one side could gain so much ground, but it was exciting to hear it was the good side that was winning.
Lydia thought for a moment. “I don’t exactly know. I know it was during the time of the Great Hunt. A few centuries ago we hunted down and took out nearly all the generals of darkness, and the rest went into hiding.”
“How?” I sat up and leaned against the footboard. “I mean, sure, we’ve slain some demons, but I imagine these were much much stronger.”
“Oh, with the help of the Light Warriors,” she replied simply. Seeing my confusion, she sighed. “Blessed bedtime stories really need a farther reach. Geeze. Okay, the Light Warriors were basically the strongest of the angels. The top tier! They were the first, the creators of all the good the world has seen. Then it goes down the line until you get to normal angels.”
“Angels are the lowest?” I didn’t know why I was surprised. They seemed to have all the annoying rules to follow.
“Yeah.” Lydia shrugged. “Anyway, they may have been a little much for this realm, but they got a plan together. The angels, Light Warriors, and the humans got together and tracked down all the demonic lairs until they found the worst of the generals. With the locations found, the Light Warriors briefly entered the realm and brought down nearly all the darkness. The remaining generals went into hiding. None have resurfaced.”
“It is believed that they are still lurking nearby though. With every push from the lower scum, there could be an opportunity for them to rebuild their hold. With how swiftly we respond to every whisper we hear, hopefully we will never see that day come.”
Marella came to mind, but I didn’t bring her up. She was in hiding for some reason, that much seemed obvious, but until I knew why I wasn’t going to send her to the slaughter. Could I, even after I knew her story? While she endlessly annoyed me the older I got, she had been there for me through my family’s disaster more than any other being.
I pushed the thoughts out of my mind. “This sounds incredibly dangerous. What’s to protect the Blessed from this hell spawn point?”
“I won’t lie to you. It is crazy dangerous,” Lydia confirmed, expression serious. “There are different tricks we can do in large groups that will keep us safe, even when we need rest. It’s harder to explain, and since we’ve never been in a group big enough you’ve never seen it. It’s like…” she fumbled for the right words, “An extra strong barrier. Just trust me, it’ll be fine. No one has died there in at least a decade.”
“Yeah, but what about the way there and back?” Lliam asked, popping in.
I glared at him, standing by the door. “Rude.”
“What?” Lydia asked, confused. “Oh, ghost chat.” She nodded quickly, catching on.
“Yeah, and someone decided to jump in on a conversation they weren’t invited to.” I turned my attention away from him.
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good point,” Lliam butted in again. He casually leaned on the door and smirked at me.
“Fine.” I threw up my hands. “So, annoying ghost has a point that I now need to ask about.”
“This can’t be good.” Lydia sighed, leaning back against the bed.
“What about the journey there and back?” I questioned a little more harshly than I meant to. “Sorry, I’m not annoyed at you.”
Lydia eyed the door, as if she could see him. “Oh for heaven's sakes, Lliam!” She turned her attention back toward me. “All right, so here’s the process. When we are nearly there we meet up with several other teams. Far enough away from the trouble that it’s fine. These added teams make the journey safer. It just happened that Lliam’s team met a clash of demons much earlier than ever before. The extra help they were meeting arrived a little too late.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “The rest of the team made it.”
“So, anything can happen even with the extra precautions,” Lliam added smugly. “I didn’t die so that fact could be omitted. Yes, it was a terrible accident. No one saw it coming. They’re getting trickier. Something big is coming.”
I considered his words before speaking to Lydia. “He wants his story to be used as a tale of caution. Even with the best planning, bad things can happen.”
“It is,” Lydia grumbled. “He’s right, though. There’s no knowing what else is going to happen. Some of their larger scale plans have gotten too far before we could figure out who was running the show.”
She didn’t need to remind me about the whole fiasco back from our hometown five years ago. It was how I had found out about the Blessed, how Key defeated her curse, and where this journey began for me. In some ways, the end of Key’s main quest was the very beginning of mine.
“I guess this is the perfect time to see what’s in that chest. Maybe somehow this will give us the upper hand.” I shrugged, pulling the pocket-sized chest out. It looked like a children's toy, but I could feel the magic pulsing softly in my hand.
“Oh yes!” Lydia exclaimed excitedly.
“About time,” Lliam chimed in, coming around the other side of the bed to take a look.
“Or we can wait until Lliam’s gone. He’s taking all the fun out of everything,” I muttered.
“That also sounds fun,” Lydia agreed, grinning evilly. She glanced at the door again before glancing around. “Where is he, anyway?”
I nodded towards the opposite side of the room. “There, being a nosy nanny.”
“You know, when I was human I could zap you for that. A few bolts more than a static shock is a great way to get people back,” he said drily.
“Guess it’s good you’re not an annoying human then and are just a ghost.” I smirked, pocketing the chest.
He grumbled for a moment before glancing at Lydia. “Fine, I’ll leave you two be but I won’t be far away. There’s no way I’m not going to tag along on that nonsense journey. Even one warning will be great revenge on those jerks.”
I watched him vanish before shrugging. “I suppose we can finally look at things in peace. Well, I can finally. You’re lucky you can’t hear them. Spirits get so noisy.”
“Actually, let’s switch gears for a minute,” Lydia said carefully, her voice much softer than it was moments ago.
Her caution got my attention more than anything. “Okay, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Let’s have some real talk,” Lydia said while fiddling with the sheets on her bed. It was weird seeing her act so nervous when there were no demons involved.
I sat with my knees pulled in tight to my chest. “All ears.”
She looked at me then quickly looked toward the floor before mumbling, “I’ve got a confession to make.”
Chapter 6
I had no idea what she could mean. “Okay, what sort of confession? I don’t feel like you’ve wronged me at all recently. Though you did trip me pretty hard the other day.”
“That was totally an accident!” She rolled her eyes, quickly switching from defensive and joking back to nervous. “Actually, Lliam has a point. We’ve no idea what’s coming. The future is weird and crazy for most people, but in our lives, it’s even stranger with the added demons and angels and… and…” She stumbled over her words. “I like you, okay?”
My eyes went wide. “Oh, um, I had no idea.” What did I miss? How long was this going on? I felt my cheeks turning bright red as I mentally scrambled to put my thoughts back together.
Lydia blushed deeply. “I know you may not feel the same, and we’ve been just friends for so long, but yeah, better to not hold it back. Who knows what this week will bring?” So, I was hearing her correctly. She did like me more than as just a friend.