Chapter 71: Ch. 66: Girl Part I

While the sylvani invented their coveted telecry artifacts, in response the dwarves did what they did best with magitech and created the Arcansygni a wearable that any individual Mageborn or non-gifted could use to cast preloaded utility spells. The main function of the Sygnum as it is popularly known is however, communication. While it did not necessarily threaten the [Relay Mage] class as an occupation, it led to a new trade war in information. As a result, then more than ever, the clamor for a reliable means of communication for those with means but lacking the aptitude for communication magecraft rose. Currently, while the sylvani do keep their artifacts to themselves or to those who they deem worthy of them, the dwarves have commercialized theirs. However, they  were very shrewd, knowing that people would be willing to pay through the nose for long term gains. ”Excerpt from Valerith Quillworth’s, 'Alkerd: New World History.'

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When she next woke she felt as though she was straddling the realm between a waking moment and a dream. As her stomach did a flop, she had the distinct sensation that she had moved. There was a droning buzzing noise and a sound like an alarm ringing loudly in her head.

‘Otou-san, your alarm's ringing,' She thought, eyes slitted with torpor.  And she thought she saw the ground tilt away from her as her face left cold marble. She was moving as though she was a passenger in her own body. 

Light fell on her, in shafts of  white, pink and blue, greens and florid colours blurred around her; could one also smell colours?  A wooden  thocking sound and the bubbling of water teased her senses as she walked across the what? Garden?

 Her hand reached out in front of her, to grab at a distinctly exotic  door knobs where the whorls in the wood curled in spirals, like a swirl pop and pushed the door open. She realised as she stepped onto the stone that  She was barefoot. Was she wearing her PJs? It was slightly warmer anyway. She thought she was looking at slightly unfamiliar cherry trees.

‘Summer already?’ She thought, turning her gaze skywards. Something nudged the periphery of her awareness. Like a browser tab opening an ad video in the background, it slowly grew in volume until a pane popped into her face. She let out a squeak as she stumbled back, eyes wide in alarm as she banished it from the front of her conscious. Then she saw the three moons in the sky and took another step back, she whirled around, taking in the strange surroundings as breath came from her in gasps. Then it slowly sunk in.

‘ It was not a dream,’ She murmured, letting the strength go out from her legs.

“Otou-Saaaaaaaaan!” she yelled across the yard as tears trickled down her cheeks.

“ Otou―”  her cry was cut short as  a sound like thunder came from the sky. She screamed and covered her ears, hunching forward in her knees. The sound of  glass shattering was heard and then  the terrarium she’d left behind exploded into shrapnel of glass and wood. The blast sent her flying head over heels as debris peppered every part of her body.

Shuddering she slowly drew up from her ungainly sprawl and looked at the damage in horror. The incessant whine in her ears had barely faded when an anchor thunked down into flagstones showering her with soil, dirt and stones as she shielded herself. She hacked clodden soil as she wiped the detritus off her face and followed the harpoon's trailing cord—up, up to the silhouette of something  quickly growing in size—heading straight for her. Against the moonlight, it appeared as an outline of a ship, which of course it was.

 With a start, she flattened herself against the ground and just in time for the vessel to come swinging  a few metra above her. Gusts of wind roared as the aership did the equivalent of a drifting parallel parking as the anchor dug a furrow. A boarding net fell over the gunwale and as she looked up from her position, percussive thumps sounded out as seven people touched down on the backyard. 

“ Shadow, the manor, make sure there’s not a trap waiting to spring on us, Vinci, Cog and  Eugan, you remain behind on sighting duty, the rest of you with me,” an effeminate man who dressed flamboyantly said. They had a lute on their back and they were armed with a rapier like some swashbuckler. They seemed to be in charge as they hurriedly directed their uniformed underlings.

All of them were armed to the teeth, including the ones that had remained aboard the aersloop .  were in sailor uniform and bandanas and had crossbows and shortswords while the other  four had a varied arsenal of weapons. 

Of the ones who seemed to be an altogether different posse one had had the most unremarkable   face ever while another with a scarred face that made her flinch away. Those two were dressed in leather dust coats and were armed with throwing daggers and a club respectively. The last person, she missed, because he'd already disappeared into the shadows, she felt his presence reappear elsewhere behind her.

“ Well well, what do we have here?” the scarred man leered and they crouched in front of her. The girl jerked back in alarm as her lips trembled with a stutter. The grinning brute had a studded  club poised over their shoulder. The girl came to herself and felt her breath catch as she froze . She hoped it was a bad dream because she was utterly transfixed on the spot; she couldn't muster any strength from her legs.

“ What? Maulkin got yer tongue? Oi Whisper, I thought Shadow said the dragonling left the hoard. What in the Nethers is this?” the man said, calling over his shoulder. She did not understand a single word of what they said, only inferring that they had ill-intentions. Anyone who could bomb a terrarium doubtlessy had nothing good to them.

“ That was metaphorical yer daft hole,” the unremarkable man replied as the crunching of grass heralded their approach. He was spinning a stiletto throwing dagger through the notch on its grip. 

“ That changes nothing,” their other accomplice said as they passed by with their underlings in tow.  “ Grab the lass, we’re using her as leverage. See if you can get her to talk. That’ll save us the bother of going through the manor.”

“ Hmph, either way 'tis yer problem. Ain't it in me to sit some brat. Yer do it Whisper—” Scar-face grunted as they drew themselves to their full height and stepped aside. Their receding footsteps crunched away towards the manor.

The man called Whisper scoffed at being saddled with the task but he did it anyway. The girl watched the rest of the ragtag band  go around the wing of the house to get in through one of the side doors

“ Sorry lass, wrong time wrong place, yer ain't s’pposed to be here but we can't leave loose ends. Gon' be easier if yer tell us what we want ,” the man called Whisper said as his eyes narrowed. His voice sent chills down her spine.

Thoughts hurtled through her mind a thousand times a heartbeat, yet she could not for the life of her think of a surefire way to extricate herself from her predicament. Her throat had already gone dry; Wordless whimpers which came out as a rasp as she tried to claw herself away using her hands.

“ Now, are you ready to spill yer father’s secrets?” the man went on. He fished out a long stiletto about the length of her forearm. Her eyes went wide as she felt something cold touch her throat; she hadn’t even seen him move. An involuntary shudder rocked through her body but she doubled down on it. She hated it, her weakness, her helplessness and him looking down at her as nothing more than an object to be discarded. Her cheeks and eyes burned with indignance with a cold fury that had no outlet. She would not go quietly, not after finally awakening from her sleep, however long it had been.

“Otou-saaaan!” she railed, defiance in her voice as she picked up a clod of dirt. For all the good it would do against the monster of a man standing before her. She stared up at his cold gaze, memorising every single scar and pockmark of his face―

“Shush now, that is not what I asked,”the man snapped, grabbing the side of her cheeks with coarse large hands. He  pressed the stiletto dagger towards the space between her brows. She couldn’t help but scrunch her eyes closed on reflex. 

 But the pain did not come because there was a gust of air, then a ring of metal. She heard a manly grunt  and opened her eyes to stare at the back of someone. They stood over her, garbed in esoteric maid uniform , butterfly folds swirling in unseen wind as they stared across from  Whisper. Again, they had moved superhumanly fast, which all said, was par for the course.  After all, she was already reconciling that she was in over her head and with the irrefutable conclusion was that she was no longer on Earth.

“ Observation; Mana source reserves below functional threshold depleted, [Force Teleport] inactive, [Disintegrate Ray], Inactive, [Intrusion Ward], diagnosing, [Detection] limited.  [Aegis Ward] breached―”

The girl could only goggle, as she heard her rescuer spout the litany of words. It was all in Japanese― she felt a vague elation well up from her breast. Finally, something familiar!

Whisper didn’t need two bits of brain to recognise that their plan had gone belly up like a bauchraptor sunning itself in the marsh. His danger sense hadn’t triggered, only his years of instinct  honed living in the criminal underworld where every day could be one’s last had saved him from their entrance.

 Then he thought it made sense. It didn’t make sense for the waif of a lass with a mop of pink hair, and oddly coloured eyes to be without a minder. There had been no information provided that she even existed.  But then again, Whisper thought back on that strange exclamation. It was not any language he knew. Stranger still was that she was pale as a newborn babe, as though she had never seen a day in the sun.

 Was she crippled? And what was with the foreign looking skinsuit she was wearing? Was it some kind of hide from a monstrous eel? Whisper did not think he’d get an answer that easily. He revised his presumption as [Analyse] failed to inspect his new adversary―they were not human or humanoid adjacent. Not a monster either.

They had no aura to speak off and even through their slit-lidded eyes, Whisper had the distinct impression that every single twitch of his own muscles and expressions was being appraised. Suddenly he felt his skin crawl and knew that he had been inspected, and by a powerful skill no less. He found himself involuntary taking a step back.

 Whisper supposed that he had his stoic, bland face to thank for not showing his nervousness ;he hated weakness but especially more when they were his.  But he was not alone. The [Sighter] and the rest of the crew had finally caught on and were bringing dwarven repeating crossbows to bear from the ship. 

“....threat assessment; Fair. Conclusion; intigating counterpersonnel measures.” the strange maideservant’s voice trailed.

“ What yers waiting for? Fire!” he yelled to them. They seemed wary of having the strange maid servant's ward in their crosshairs but to their credit, they did not hesitate. And not a moment too soon― at that moment, the maidservant moved. His thoughts of an easy mark went up in smoke as the new entrant, now that he realised, finished their spiel and flicked a mop handle  they’d seemingly fished out from the folds of their sleeves. 

When the first strafe whistled towards the duo, he was gobsmacked as the mop flew , leaving an articulated three-section staff with hooked blades like a one handed scythe in their hands. Then they were a whirlwind as they parried a quiver full of bolts with unerring strokes. A rat-at-at of metallic rings ensued and Whisper had to move out of the way to avoid redirected friendly fire. Some of them ricocheted back the way they came, forcing his accomplices to dive down the gunwhale with curses.

Too late, he realised they’d underestimated their adversary, making the mistake of emptying their quivers at the same time. As they fumbled to reload, the maidservant struck. She literally flitted across the boarding net as though she were walking on air, each ephemeral step on the rungs of rope bounding them up  several paces.

 The men let out shouts of alarm as the maidservant landed between them. Their only consolation was that they did not need the bladed ends of their weapon to dispatch them but the broken bones and the grunts of pain made even Whisper flinch. Ten heartbeats were all they lasted. Then they turned towards him and glared down their nose from the aersloop’s gunwale. Their maid dress fluttered in the wind, stark black with red embroidery of a strange red flower. Whisper chanced a glance towards the manor and cursed as the party that had gone in seemed not to have heard the commotion.

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‘ What in the nether pits are you?’ was his unspoken question as he poised himself for a fight.  Now she, or they, looked no different from a Suliani assassin. Whisper jumped back with a swear as  the maidservant jumped several metra off the floating aersloop, bunching up their legs to absorb the shock of landing. Yet they evoked a deadly elegance as though they were doing a curtsey. 

 Licking his lips, long gone dry, he warily observed the maidservant as he palmed the steel threaded daggers from his coat.  Throwing daggers were not his only speciality. He could weave them through the air with ease to redirect his blades or retrieve them. But then again, their adversary  had no eye nor muscle movement that gave their intent away. 

His ruminations of salvaging the situation fared worse as the stranger moved, springing forth like a harvestman’s widow, the dreaded insectile monster that would decapitate a grown man using its scythe-like forelegs.

Were he not on the second step of his Path in the World, he would not have been able to interpose his daggers in the way of the blades in time. Even that jarred his bones as he disengaged from his adversary, flicking his wrists out to numb the pain.

‘Nether pits woman, what are you?!’ He cursed again. He was all alone out here and thought they had bitten more than they could chew. The new master of the manor had spared no quarter to even have an inhuman [Battlemaid] in his employ, an oversight he would give their benefactor grief for overlooking. Their mark was one mean dragonling, that was for sure. And as he and his crew would later find out, he was much worse than a whelp―

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“Are you ready to kill to defend yourself? To take another sapient life to preserve your own? Do you have the stomach to bloody your hands if you think someone is standing in the way of your goal? Will you wield your spell and blade for something you think is just? I will once again remind you that the world out there—, “ she pointed beyond the kitchen wall; light from the waxing off-white Oonaris and pink Ceralisa shone through a glass alcove window, “ are monsters worse than mindless beasts who wear the skin of men. So I ask again, Arthur Wade O’Reilly , are you ready to have the blood of another sapient being on your hands?”

It seemed like ages ago when those words had been told to him. He realised that he had never given the answer after the dragon had told him to sleep on it. Now, he was having a philosophical limbo of sorts. Lethal or non-lethal? Going easy on someone was just asking for a dagger in the back afterwards. Unlike monsters where  there was no question of their wanting to claw out your face or eat your guts, humanoids were more nuanced. 

Sure there were bad people and good, so were people who existed in the grey. Whatever had brought that on? Nora. Nora had told him as she disappeared that, under no certain circumstances were he to hesitate because it either meant his death or another's. No in between. People who could blow up houses were in no certain terms accorded mercy.

 He would have loved to leave it to the Guard and Adventurers but the former were too ill equipped and slow to respond in time the latter had their hands full. He was the Vanguard as it were. And there was more than just his morality at stake here;there was someone who could have been counting on him at that very moment.

For the umpteenth time, he checked his arcane pistol; if it came to it, unless they had some sort of spell jamming he would have to fall back on his unassisted spellcasting. It would raise a few eyebrows , going wandless that is—

“ Frag,” he chissed as he saw the ship looming in the distance. He’d been going in from the back, wanting to capitalise on the woods right outside the fence when he saw the ship’s crow nest. The intruders had also gone in from the same side. Nonetheless, no one was expecting the master of the manor to come in scaling a three metra tall wall barbed with lightning enchantments, for all they were inactive at the time. 

Nonetheless, Arthur wasted no time whipping out his nightstalker’s robe and going incognito, only hoping that no one had already spotted him using [Sighter] skills. Fortunately, he hadn’t been spotted even as he became shadow as the robe  cloaked him from view.   He slowed down as he approached the wall, noticing that the artifices housed within the heads of the grotesque lion-dog creatures had not reacted to his approach. 

Cloaked or not, they were supposed to have [Detection]  on at all times. That they hadn’t boded ill, and that was proved when he saw that the ward had completely collapsed. As he rose above the height of the wall on the hoverboard, he saw that the glass dome of the terrarium had also broken.

“ Arthur?’ Nora telecast.

‘ We have intruders and they have a ship. Don’t know how they broke the wards but they were supposed to withstand cannons,’

‘Wait for the Guild, they’re almost there―sorry I can’t be of any help, I have my hands full,’

‘ I can’t promise I’ll wait, the automata is already―” Arthur’s telecast trailed off as he heard the scream from the grove in the backyard. Arthur’s head whipped around as he remembered the voice of the girl from before.  Then he noticed the other man dragging a girl by her pink hair while backing away from the automata and his blood boiled.

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The girl should have been glad that she had escaped the worst. She had a saviour fighting for her. But the fighting was too visceral and too real, she was transfixed where she  sat.  Blood sprayed from all but one person, tainting the air with its metalling tang . Bile curdled in her stomach at the wanton display of bloodied violence. There wasn’t anything left to heave either way, only painful spasms wracked her ribs from stamping down a gorge.

 She wasn’t sure that the person she’d purported to be a woman was even human for she made no sound, not unlike the other party who grunted in pain or let out what she thought were expletives. Her saviour’s face did not change , not from exertion nor relief as they subdued their opponent. They were a cold impassive doll. 

She realised that they made her afraid as much as the next person. She did not know who they were. Would they turn on her too? Unfortunately she could not move, much as she tried to muster the strength in her legs.

 She could feel her legs all right,; she’d even even gone as far as to pinch her thighs to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming when she walked. But they were numb and the best she could do was twitch her toes. Maybe a bit of rehabilitation regime would do her good in the long run but she needed to sooner.

‘C’mon damn you,’ she thought, punching her feet.  A muted thump drew her attention to the fight. The man had been incapacitated and she dreaded what would come next as  her breath hitched. She saw the moonlight glint off the blade that was being pointed at the man’s throat as they heaved on the grass, blood weeping from numerable cuts. She opened her mouth to tell them to stop, nevertheless, that chance was snatched away by a reflexive scream as someone pulled her by her messy mop of pink hair.

“ None ‘a that,” a gruff voice  snapped, chilling her to the bone. Her scalp smarted something fierce as the man with a patchwork of scars for a face turned her around to face him. All she could do was grab at his hand to shift her body’s weight to her hands. Righteous fury and helplessness burned behind her scrunched eyes as her legs hang limp in the air.

“ Step away from him!” the man bellowed , his breath and spittle rank with unmentionables.

“ Otou-san,” the girl whimpered, fighting back tears. As her eyes were scrunched closed from the pain ravaging her scalp like angry fire ants, she did not see the automata step away from the man’s accomplice. Nor did she see the other man, suddenly appear as if from a mirage as he shed some sort of camouflage. 

“ Put her down! Zumi, standby!”  a new voice interrupted. Then a powerful aura entered her awareness. She could not help but open her teary eyes to see the new entrant. She recognised him from somewhere. 

The man pointing a strange looking flintlock in her captor’s direction had caramel brown skin she could have picked out from a biracial person. He had silver hair with a few strands sporting a brownish shade at the roots. He had an agreeable face borne of his mixed heritage, just like her but she could not place what ethnicity.  From where he was standing, he had to be pushing 6 foot 2 .

 He was garbed in an achromatic robe that seemed to blur around the edges over a dress uniform of some kind. What drew her eyes however were his irises, they were blue with motes of gold. Not central heterochromia as she would later find out about hers but something magical as they seemed to glow, like a feline’s. Or were they really feline irises? She could swear she’d seen his pupils go slit eyed for a heartbeat.

‘Arthur,’ she found herself mouthing his name.

“ Hey there kiddo, I’ll get you in a moment alright? Stay calm…” he said. “Zumi, [Status]!]”

“ Notice; All anti-intrusion measures are temporarily unavailable. Counter-personnel measures in effect,” the servant unanswered in their monotone drone.

“ And who in the Pits are you? Some kind of Mage-Knight?” his captor sneered, dousing her thoughts with dread once more. “ Tell yer wench servant to step away from my comrade and we'll be even.

The other man remained impassive, eyeballing  the downed accomplice. His expression didn’t so much as twitch when he saw the bloodied state of him and what she now guessed was his servant looming over their quarry.  His pistol  remained  dead centre of the man’s forehead. It didn’t look like her captor had realised what danger he was in. She could see the air waver around the barrel as a runic matrix calibrated like clockwork turning. 

“ I don’t remember sending an invite to a bunch of ruffians and sure as heck won’t be answering your questions,” he replied, narrowing his eyes. “ I shall ask the questions,” his eyes seemed to crackle with sparks, “ after you let the young lady go,” he growled, aura mounting like a storm that she felt the hair at the back of her neck stand. 

His captor fared the same as a look of realisation passed his scarred face. An audible gulp bobbed his Adam's apple as he swallowed. But then his look turned sinister. The girl followed his gaze to see what had amused him so―she saw the unseen shadow skulking from behind the man. She went to scream but the man suddenly grabbed her by the throat cutting off her cry with a choking gurgle.

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