Chapter 85: 73: Investigations

Cryptweavers had cleaned up much of the unused webbing before the townsfolk started their morning life. Any leftovers were instead disposed of by the smaller hex weavers who could still work in the broad daylight. Though few, out of the way bridge lines were spared as they were deemed harmless, setting the precedent of a walkway that linked buildings and establishing a convenient path the Araneae could use to move around unseen and unhindered by the traffic. Few of Alicia’s Araneae were getting quite comfortable in the urban setting, primarily feeding on rodents that plagued the streets and buildings. Unfortunately, the pigeon population now had a new predator besides stray cats to worry about…

Rosalia had woken up quite later than usual, as Alicia had injected a rather high dose of somniferous venom in lieu of risking her waking up at any point before the issue was resolved. Thankfully it appeared that she had no idea what happened during her sleep or that she was dragged around like luggage against the pavement by Alice the night prior. It didn’t take long for Rosalia to perk right back up. With all of the recent chaos finally done and over with, Alicia decided it was finally the time to sit back and relax. She enjoyed her laid back life for about 20 minutes until two men were found dead in their room. With the last person who was with them missing inexplicably, it was easy to determine who was the perpetrator, unfortunately they had fled without much of a trace. Many of the guests including Rosalia and Alicia were questioned rigorously by the guards arriving at the scene, but without any evidence to go off of they had let it go shortly thereafter. It goes without saying that the inn’s reputation was tarnished not unrecoverably so, still it was a stain that wouldn’t fade away any time soon. Understandably Rosalia was disturbed by the event and was finally willing to change lodging, but due to the arrangement she set up in her letter, she couldn’t leave.

By early noon a telepathic message from one of her familiars with the content:

‘Upright swine has arrived…’

Setting up a secure means of communication with members of an underground criminal syndicate was by no means straightforward. However, as they were bound under the influence of Domination, combined with the fact that they all knew the true identity of Alicia offered her a wider range of methods she could employ. Almost every one of her Devil’s crown recruits carried with them a hex crawler, some knowingly others obliviously. As the crawlers were her kindred, Alicia could approximately track their positions and acted as a two-way radio, of course they were also monitoring their actions, ready to inject lethal dose of venom at the instant they overstep their boundaries, just as a second safety net should somehow Domination fail.

‘I really should teach them the difference between humans and swine…’

>Current iteration of Araneae incapable of high level facial recognition. Development level of Araneomorphae recommended.

‘Speaking of which… I didn’t have enough last time, any updates so far?’

>Sufficient points accrued. Action may take several minutes to conclude. Induce development?  Y/N.

‘Not here, not now. Remind me after we return home.’

Rosalia was tense with the recent transpirations while Alicia, knowing that she was at her safest right now as opposed to the past few nights, was mostly unconcerned. However, since she couldn’t come up with a proper justification of her confidence without revealing too much information, in order to keep Rosalia relatively calm she had no choice but to stay near her. Or she could trick her into thinking that she was with her. Slipping away for a moment, Alicia created a mirror image of herself that returned to Rosalia, whilst she herself went to attend a ‘meeting’. It wasn't long until she came across a group of shady-looking individuals gathered in a side lane of one of the main streets, huddled together doing… something away from prying eyes. Occasionally one of them would nervously look around. They were completely unaware of Alicia’s approach, despite their vigil.

Messy hair, dirty clothes, foul scent of sweat masked by something herbaceous, eyes jumping everywhere except directly at her, combined with his tired appearance perfectly sold their appearances as lowly serfs. Most farmers, however, would not have as deep an understanding of poisons and human anatomy as they did.

Not expecting to be addressed, they were all taken completely off guard, jumping up in surprise before turning to her. One closest to Alicia noticeably fidgeting, stammered out a response through a series of nervous chuckles.

Through Cold reader she could piece together what he was attempting to say. ‘They found something interesting, needed to let me know and tried to communicate with my Araneae… This is going to take too long.’

Closing her eyes and mentally sighing Alicia decided that it was better to give them a little encouragement.

The men who heard her voice were compelled by some arcane, preternatural will not too unlike from Domination, both mind and body complied. After a small break of breathing exercise they were ready to continue.

Volume of Alicia’s voice increased with each question, putting more pressure on them. Alicia herself was only worried that some uninvolved bystander could have been dragged into the situation.

‘This is going to be troublesome, I have to go see what mess these guys prepared for me.’

‘Seems like we’re in the industrial part of town, the warehouse must be a storage depot not currently in use. Not my first choice but, with how much of a short notice they had to prepare a place like this, not too bad.’

Within the spacious interior empty crates of varying sizes and shapes along with hay left over. Few men were standing watch in one of the corners, from among them, Hein was selected by Alicia to conduct the questioning instead of her. He had an aura of a seasoned leader about him, a quality Alicia thought would be useful for the upcoming questions. If by chance someone unrelated was mistakenly brought in, it would be difficult to let them go after they had seen her in league with possibly the largest crime organization of the town.

‘Can we have some sort of amnestic venom…?’

>Insufficient compound database. Acquire more samples.

‘Right… of course… why didn’t I think of that… Well we’re going to do this the roundabout way.’

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Though Hein was clearly uncomfortable with the use of Telepathy he had no choice but to heed. As Hein Walked up to an old man with his hands bound behind him, Alicia examined the captive. The man wore fairly refined clothing, his head had graying streaks in it and most notably held an air of arrogance. As soon as he noticed Hein approaching him, his eyes narrowed to a slit in disgust.

With a heavy backhand slap, Hein smacked the monologuing elder to the ground, interrupting his threats.

Fuming with anger, he propped himself up and started muttering something under his breath.

Without his hands to guide the flames the fires haphazardly spread out. Hay surrounding the aged man caught fire, yet in spite of the abundance of dry flammable materials it struggled to grow or spread, only billowing a white hazy smoke around him.

‘Seems that he needs his hands to use his magic effectively, I guess he was trying to burn through his bindings…? Then what…? it’s not like he's gonna be able to fight everyone in here…’

In actuality he was attempting to intimidate the former assassins into letting him go by setting the entire building ablaze. His strategy was also not a terrible one; much of the peasant class and ordinary folk viewed acts of magic either with reverence, wonder, or terror. After all, humanity has always been afraid of the unknown. And, because of the limitation imposed upon them by the caste system or lacking financial competence, the common serf did not have the opportunity to educate oneself on magic. Only a select few commoners had the miraculous chance to be held in favor of their superiors and learned some paltry pieces of the arts of magic.

Though not long after his menacing declaration the flames died out.

A small puff of flames shot out behind him before immediately dying out. The surroundings smoked as if it wanted to catch fire; they only smouldered without igniting. The old man started wheezing as he struggled to breathe, taking in quick shallow series of breaths.

Hein could have just remained silent and let everything happen, but he was just as interested, possibly hoping to gain whatever little information he could from Alicia that might reveal any flaw or fault in her control over him. His inquisitiveness was not lost on Alicia so she answered his question.

In her life before this one, she often taught her younger sister on  various topics and when she couldn’t answer the question, she would go through books, magazines and sometimes even strangers to find a satisfying answer for her. While Alicia was lost to a brief hit of nostalgia, Hein understood very little of what she had conveyed to him but he knew that she had done something with the air around him that was both preventing his Fire affinity magic from materializing and had adverse effects on his weakening body. He lamented his lack of knowledge of Alchemy and Natural philosophy, but… would even the academy's best scholars really comprehend her? Was there even a deviant witch in the world who could recognize what she was saying? Again he could only think of supernatural devils, evil spirits with vast power and arcane enlightenment beyond human attainment.

Unsure how to proceed, a tense few moments of silence went by.

Grunting and pouring all of his power into it, the elderly man unleashed all of his magical energy as his sweat poured out of his graying head to create a blaze within the oppressively low oxygen environment. Counterproductively, the flames devoured the precious little oxygen within his bubble before snuffing out, as Alicia drew away more oxygen from it as a precaution. The man had choked himself out in a bout of wrath that was only destructive to himself.

From the start to finish of the interrogation process Alicia had been monitoring his thoughts. Knowing that he will return to normal after some time in fresh air she was not a bit worried about his health.

Hein’s men dragged the knocked cold man out of the warehouse as Hein himself went over to the other person that was most likely mistakenly captured. Alicia got what she wanted so she was fine with just leaving now but decided to at least take a look at the person, hopefully to make it up to them later.

Past a few boxes sitting on a cushion of rough hay sat another man past his prime. He was neatly dressed and groomed, just like the person before him, but his face had a more lived-in appearance. Uncertainty clearly reflected on his eyes.

Leaving unscathed, Stefanos walked through the streets once more, holding his back. Deep within the pockets of his well worn driver’s coat he carried only a letter addressed to a certain noble heir of house Valtima. Unbeknownst to him, several Hex crawlers moved about on top of the bridge lines above his head, and Huntresses leapt over gaps between buildings; they were all following his movements. Not as a prey, but a V.I.P, for he was a retiring coachman on his last service.

Auratic

I've noticed that people are, concerned with what I'll do with Noxine's cadaver floating about in the chasms of the void. For now I can not say anything without going into spoilers territory. By the time this will get relevant again you'll probably will have forgotten about her. For now, all I can say is that "Dude, trust me." Also you'll get a different type of poll which will affect how she'll come out.

If you're wondering about her Title that I mentioned last time the correct answer was "Noxious Love" /u/MarkofWisdom gets half a point for getting it half right. If you get another one half right, you get a full point of clout.

First part of her name 'nox' is referring to the word Noxium - which is related to the terms, to injure, harm and hurt, it is also etymologically the root of the word Noxious. The second hint was for the second part of her title. Her second alias was 'Filia' meaning daughter. I've included this to throw off people because daughter is obviously not the answer though it is still believeable enough to be one. Filia is a Homophone to the word Philia, one of the four terms for love, specifically brotherly love. And there you have it. Noxine, The Noxious Love. Oh and uh if you didn't know both Rufus and Ramiel have their titles as well. It's just not as obvious, you can try figure them out but have fun because I'm not dropping the hints for them again.

Also if you're wondering why I was so late... Uhhh I got caught up in the End-user License agreement scheme.

Anyway I still haven't started on Noxine's sketch and i'll get to that. And things will wind down for a bit, in terms of the story progression. I think we all need it.

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