“Yes, ma’am.” Garret brought himself to attention, looking, for the first time all night, as if it were actually well after midnight. That last spell must have been difficult.
<3 spells, technically. Even Garret isn’t powerful enough to make Restoration do more than 1 level at a time.>
“I was merely performing a Resurrection for this young lady here,” Garret nodded at me, “who was regrettably short most of a body. So I used a Summoning scroll to create her one.” No mention was made of the shadow creatures. Either they weren’t to be talked about, or, more disturbingly, were too commonplace to be worth mentioning.
“A Summoning scroll! A? As if it’s just any old Summon Monster….” The third man, this one completely bald (if you didn’t count the eyebrows, which had nearly more hair than most people) sputtered. “You used our only Ordenian’s Custom Conjuration on a simple Resurrection for some common adventurer!”
“Hey!” I didn’t like the man’s tone, acting like I was some old copper piece in the street that wasn’t worth picking up. “I wouldn’t have been able to come back if he hadn’t summoned me a new body, and I am not some monster!”
“We’ll see about that.” said the lady. “Did you even think to do a basic Detection on her before or after you brought her back?”
“Of course I did.” His tone was just a tiny bit too casual. “She’s clean. See for yourself.”
The priests glared at me, but did not mutter or wave their hands, by which I guessed they had already done their detecting earlier. Probably before putting down their holy symbols and opting not to blast us all into some demon infested pocket dimension.
I took a deep breath to argue Garret’s innocence one more time, but he interrupted me. “As you can see, the lady is fine, and as per her policy, she is now free to go.” He gave them all a significant look, and eventually the elf waved his hands negligently.
“I will escort them out.” the old priest announced in a calm, somewhat distracted voice; the kind of voice that never shouts, because it doesn’t need to.
Ignoring the trio, I turned back to Garret and lowered my own voice. “Are you going to be in trouble?”
“Yeah, probably.” His tone matched mine, though he didn’t sound worried. “But I’m one of five Resurrection capable clerics in all of the Great Temple.” He smiled down at me. “It’s called ‘job security’. See you later, Sam. Ramsey.”
With that we and the elf took our leave, while the other two priests stayed to grill Garret over his recklessness.
We walked in silence for some time, until, halfway down the winding spiral staircase, I burst out: “Was what he did really so dangerous?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, I suppose it was. Ordenian’s Conjurations are usually used for summoning demons.”
“Demons?”
“Yes, of course. They cannot exist outside of Hell without a body to sustain them, and so we must create one. If we want demons, that is. I usually don’t. More trouble than they’re worth.”
“I am not a demon! I swear!”
“No, no, of course not. If those wards had cracked, I would have felt it. Still, to summon a vessel and pattern it after a real person is very creative of the boy. I would have expected Norden’s Law of Exclusivity to prevent it. But perhaps the, ahh, marriage between spirit and vessel will prevent an untimely degeneration of the flesh.”
“Wait, a what?” I was worried now.
“Oh, we don’t give demons very long lasting bodies. They’d run off with them, you know. Aha, here we are!” He swept his hand out at the exit, the Temple doors open wide.
“Hold on, wait, what is this about some untimely degeneration thingy? Am I safe?”
The elf shrugged. “In the end, none of us are safe.” He smiled kindly at us as we exited the temple, into the rain. “Welcome back to the living. And do let me know if you begin to dissolve.”
Chapter Six
Once out of the Temple, Ramsey, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally unhunched and let out a sigh.
“Whew! I was really hoping they weren’t going to recognize me. His Holy Eyebrows back there was the one whose office I broke into when I was trying to convince them of your leyline fiasco.”
It wasn’t my leyline fiasco, but I let it go. Stupid goblins.
Ramsey looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn’t seem to get it out, so we walked in silence for a bit, hopping over puddles and dodging the spouting gargoyles above. Temple Hill was well lit with street lights, and wealthy businesses and citizens spilled generous lantern glow from private windows and covered gardens.
“You know, you’re the first person I’ve known who….” Ramsey swallowed, and tried again. “I mean, I’ve never… I mean...” He took a breath. “What was it like, being dead?” He sounded more than casually interested.
I didn’t answer at first, marshalling my thoughts. “It was…” Scary. Boring. Numb. Helpless. Dark. “…I dunno. Not what I was expecting. Whatever that was. It was... lonely. Maybe it would have been different, if I had followed the light at the beginning, but then it went away.”
“So it’s true, what they say. About an afterlife.” He sounded less hopeful than I would have expected. More kind of resigned.
“I dunno, maybe. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you only get one shot at.”
“Yeah.” He was grim, now, staring at the dark horizon, or some more distant memory. “You’re probably right.”
The streetlights ended at Demimonde Street, the official boundary of Lower Temple Hill, marked by one of the old marble fixtures they called a wishing well. Some of the houses still spilled warm puddles of light from their windows, but in between, the road was dark and thick with night.
“Hmm.” Ramsey stopped at the edge of the shadows. Absentmindedly, he pulled out a copper coin and flicked it down the well.
“What was that for?”
“Oh, the wishing well? For good luck. I mean, they don’t really grant wishes, hah, that would be chaos. They’re just holes, and no one knows how deep they even go. Old legends say people used to drop coins down in the dry season when they wished for rain.”
I felt around inside the pockets of the green coat, searching for an easily carryable object, and removed a tightly wrapped roll of waxed leather. I grinned in the darkness. “Here,” I said, “watch this.”
I held the leather at arm’s length, summoned the light inside of me, and said, “Shaziri!”
[Daily Mana Cast: 2/3]
The little leather roll winked on, as bright as a torch, but steadier. It shone with a bright, even luminescence; the color of sunlight.
“Cor!” Ramsey’s eyes were wide despite the dazzle. “That’s fantastic! How’d you learn to do that?”
I shrugged and handed him the light. “Magic.”
“And you can just… light up whatever you want?”
“Not anything... it comes through as kind of a burst. And I can only do it about three times before I feel sort of wrung out, and then there’s no more until after I sleep.”
Illuminated, his eyes were wide with a kind of wonder, but then his brows drew together as he got a better look at my face.
“Hold on, what’s that?”
“What’s what?” I put my hands up to my cheeks, and stopped cold as I felt a smooth, taught, seam on the left side, running from my temple down to my jaw.
“That scar.” Ramsey said, softly. “All the divine healing should have erased it.” He reached up and carefully laid his hand on the side of my face. “What happened?”
His fingers brushed the numb flesh and—
—cold, clawed fingers, slicing into my flesh, the pain of it going deeper than my bones, my soul bleeding out onto a forgotten floor, the helpless panic, “I OWN you, you little imp—”
—I jerked away before I could stop myself, and Ramsey instantly put his hands up, not pressing, not threatening.
“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“No, it’s fine.”
I told him, wanting to erase the hurt look on his face. “I just…” I shook my head, raindrops cascading from my hair. “I just don’t really want to be touched, ok?”
We found our way back to La Baleine, which no longer had guards at the doors. Ramsey informed me they left about three days ago when Ishàmae was deemed “not a flight risk”, and had been replaced with a guardian angel.
“A what?”
Ramsey sighed. “They’re a kind of fairy. Only they watch everything you do and report it back to their summoner, and they’re excruciatingly honest and completely unbribable. Also, they never sleep.”
“That sounds kind of awkward.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t comment on the angel to Isha, unless you really want to see him irate. Angels are also kind of a political issue at the moment, with some people saying they’re a total violation of privacy, and other people saying that it’s fine to violate someone’s privacy so long as they can be made to agree to it. Currently it takes a court order to assign one to someone.”
“I don’t see Isha agreeing to something like that.” My tall, lanky elf of a landlord was pretty particular about how he ran his restaurant, and surprisingly guarded about his personal life.
“He wouldn’t, but what choice did he have? It was that or never go anywhere, ever again. Or until they get him a court date, anyway, which might be just as long.”
Unexpectedly, the restaurant’s kitchen was still awake. As we ducked under the overhang, Sarah’s excited voice drifted through the back door.
“…and then the exams were delayed again, so I didn’t even get in until this afternoon. One of the students told me that’s actually so normal some students don’t even show up for a couple of hours after their scheduled slot, so of course some of them miss the exams entirely, which I cannot imagine. But in the end all my studying paid off. Even as out of sorts as I was after all the waiting, I knew almost every question right away!”
“Oh honey! Oh, I’m so proud of you!” Marissa, a short, plump human and La Baleine’s foremost employee was sitting on her favorite stool, fussing with an official looking letter that she couldn’t seem to put down, nor read for the tears that were misting up her eyes. “I always knew you could do it. You just wait, they’ve never seen a wizard like you!”
“Well, I’m not a wizard yet! I—” Sarah’s eyes went wide as she caught sight of us. “Three gods, Sam? Where have you been?”
Sarah looked like a younger, taller version of her mother, and for the first time ever, she actually sounded pleased to see me, which was officially the strangest part of being dead-then-resurrected. We hadn’t always gotten along. Initial explanations were lost in the confusion of exclamations and welcomes and excitement and amazing smells, all initiated, apparently, by Sarah’s excellent performance on her entrance exams into the University and subsequent on-the-spot admittance. This surprised exactly no one but her, although it provided Isha an excuse for a celebratory meal.
Judging by the size of said celebratory meal, still in half eaten stages around the kitchen, Isha was bored with his restaurant being closed. There was indeed a small, white fairy sitting on his right shoulder, which he very pointedly ignored. I took the hint and did too.
“But wherever did you find her?” Sarah demanded of Ramsey, who was busy filling a plate of leftovers. “There’s been rumors that Keenfang put out a reward for Sam, dead or alive! Some piece-of-trash bounty hunter even came by here, asking after her.”
Ramsey looked at the piles of delicious leftovers, then met my eyes. “Uhh,” he decided after a shrewd glance at Marissa, “you really don’t want to know.”
Ishàmae’s eyes narrowed, going a stormy sea-blue, and I felt briefly sorry for the hapless bounty hunter. “We were worried for you, Samiel, when you did not return. Sarah and Marissa told me a disturbing tale that you were abducted by this vampire?”
It seemed I was going to have to tell my story after all, so I did, paying more attention to the goblin shaman and the leycrystal, and skipping over Keen’s dungeon and the part about being dead as much as possible. Even this edited version of events earned me the wide-eyed and rapt attention of my small audience, until I couldn’t take the stares anymore and went to fill my own plate of food.
“No wonder he’s angry at you.” Ramsey sounded more impressed than accusatory. “You had how many sirenstones in your pocket? Whoowee, I could turn those suckers into some cash pretty quick!”
“The important thing is that you are home now, and safe.” Marissa declared, and then yawned. “Just as my brilliant daughter and I should be getting home, as well.”
“But, Sam!” Sarah was clearly not yet tired, despite the hour. “You can’t stay here!”
This earned her some sharp looks from her mother and Isha, but she didn’t back down. “What if that bounty hunter comes back? It’s one thing to tell them we haven’t seen you when we really haven’t, but with you jumping all over the yard like you do, or chasing giant bugs around, what are we supposed to say?”
Marissa opened her mouth to suggest exactly what she would say, and I suspected it involved some words that would make a demon blush, but I preempted her.
“No, Sarah’s right.” Now everyone was looking at me again. “With La Baleine closed, there’s no way I could hide my comings and goings. Keenfang is meaner than you think, and I don’t want him sniffing around here. I need some place to lay low for a while.”
“You can stay with me!” Ramsey offered instantly, his smile as hopeful as if he’d just been given the first of three wishes.
I shook my head sadly and stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Same problem, really. I need some place he has no reason to go, and a crowd to hide in.”
“Like where?”
“Like…” I shrugged, and something crinkled in my pocket. I pulled my hand out, and with it the much rumpled advertisement for Uncle Brandon’s Black Belt Factory. An idea bloomed in my head, brilliant as a Light spell. “…like, a dojo.”
----- Update 8, Rise of the Ninjas! -----
Come discover the Way of the Elements at Uncle Brandon’s Black Belt Factory! Work your way through 10 BELT LEVELS (each with a different color!), turn your limbs into LETHAL WEAPONS, and learn to channel the MYSTICAL FORCE called Ki into SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES!
The ANCIENT and SECRET arts of the 5 4 Element Pathway are now available to the good citizens of Triport*!
Seek Inner Peace and Enlightenment by Blasting Your Enemies with Powerful Ki attacks!
COME BE A MONK!
(UBBBF will be located at the old Fish Factory warehouse on the corner of Ash Road and Waterfall Way)
(*Criminal background check required, no Unlawful Types permitted)
----- COMING SOON -----
“Coming Soon” was now “here”, judging by the Grand Opening sign over the old factory door. I stood nervously in the street outside, holding the much abused advert and getting soaked by the rain, and wondered if this was really a good idea.
Inside, rows of people of all races were dressed in identical white uniforms, punching and kicking at the air in perfect formation, punctuated by occasional “Hi-ya!”s and “Kyah!”s.
“I dunno. This really looks like one of those things with a bunch of rules and stuff. Rules I don’t know.”
“You never shared any ‘plan’ with me.” I grumbled, stalling. “What ‘plan’?” Voice no longer sounded
stuffy and sick, and was back to the more usual tones of impatient and imperious.
“I am not!” I looked around for such a poster, but there was nothing but old paint and new graffiti on the industrial walls around me.
“Fine.” I grumbled some more. “I just don’t know if this is me.” I walked through the big double doors.
Inside a young man detached himself from a training dummy he was sparring with, and by the looks of his bruises, losing to. Four or five carefully groomed chin hairs competed with the acne and proudly declared that A) he was old enough to shave, and B) he didn’t, so that everyone would know this.
“Hi-my-name’s-Dwade.” he greeted me, mopping up the sweat on his forehead with a quad colored handkerchief. “Welcome-to-Uncle-Brandon’s-Black-Belt-Factory-home-of-the-New-Ninja-would-you-like-to-start-your-Journey-of-the-Four-Element-Pathway-today?”
“Uhm.” I blinked, slightly taken aback at this spiel. “Sure?”
“Yes!” His pretense dropped away as his fist punched the air. “That’s so cool, I never get to sign up new students!”
He excitedly led me to a standing counter top where he pulled out a thick book. “Your name?” he asked.
“Do I have to?” I asked, suspiciously. I was in hiding, after all.
“It’s how we keep track of the students, so we know if they’ve paid and what belt color they are.”
I looked back over at the synchronized block of ‘hi-yah’ing students on the other side of the room. It didn’t seem like there was much to keep track of, everyone was wearing either a white or a yellow belt. “Surely you can tell what belt color they have just by looking at them?”
For A Few Minutes More Page 8