131 – Catch Up
Vivi was in the middle of a lesson with Saffra when the magical flare exploded across the city. She broke off halfway through her sentence, head jerking toward the Thaumaturgical Institute where the burst of mana had originated. Saffra also turned. Even lesser mages could sense the emergency alarm—the idea wasn’t to be subtle.
“What was that?” Saffra asked, startled.
“I’ll be right back.”
Vivi [Blinked] away without explaining. The spell spat her out in the center of a wide chamber located on one of the higher floors in the Institute. The scrying room.
A handful of Institute mages were posted inside, though only one stood next to the scrying pool, presumably the senior staff member. Vivi hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of the safety system Rafael had organized, and she briefly wondered whether these people had known who they were calling for help. Regardless, the man’s eyes widened upon seeing Vivi materialize next to him.
“Where?” she asked.
To his credit, despite looking dumbfounded, he responded without delay. “Prisma—”
She started pulling the [Greater Warp] together before the first syllable finished leaving the man’s mouth. Prismarche. Of course it is, she thought sardonically. For all that she had tried to reassure the Guard Captain of the city’s safety, if the next void invasion hadn’t appeared directly above her, then where else besides the other city where the boundary had been shattered once before?
Vivi disappeared into the black ether of space and hurtled across the continent for an infinitely stretching millisecond. She appeared in the town square with a pop of displaced air.
With time slowed down to a crawl, she took in a number of important details in less than a heartbeat.
More than hearing or seeing anything first, she felt. The residue left behind from the enormous quantities of energy channeled overhead slapped her in the face like the rancid stench of a sewer. Nausea clutched at her stomach. Unclean. Unnatural. Magic of the worst origins imaginable had taken place here, and she was equal parts disgusted and outraged.
A darkened, half-obscured sun cast the city in too much shade for the time of day, and seven massive bone pillars floated high above, each of them inscribed with… utterly fascinating High Arcana, actually. She tore her eyes away. Not the time to get distracted, Vivi. She forced her gaze higher up, and her eyes landed on what mattered more: the breach into the Void. Which she had expected, given the alarm that had gone off, but not such a small breach. And one so symmetrical. A perfect circle.
[Lesser Voidbeasts] and [Greater Voidlings] were struggling their way through that gap between worlds, though an invisible figure was cutting them down as fast as they could come out. The beasts needed to claw and wiggle against each other to escape, the aperture too small to allow a proper flow—or even anything stronger than a Lesser Voidbeast.
Corpses littered the town square. The unknown figure had been fighting for a while, she surmised. The alarm had gone off late. Why?
Details later. First, clean up and secure the area.
“[Tempest Vortex].”
A mass of rotating mana erupted at the mouth of the breach, the air inside accelerating as the spell expanded outward. Within moments, the conflicting currents of air were tearing through the monsters caught inside as easily as if they were made of brittle ice.
The invisible figure jerked back in surprise. Vivi squinted as she tried to see through the concealment spell without using a skill. The [Invisibility] was well-constructed, but not good enough to fool her. She identified the shimmer of two large wings spreading out from either side of an armored woman.
Vivi was briefly taken aback. Wings? Princess Embralyne? Dragonkind’s non-interference policies were abundantly clear, and applied universally. That fact was actually Vivi’s largest problem with the Dragon King, whom she otherwise thought well of. She couldn’t endorse how little he involved himself with the outside world.
It seemed his daughter didn’t agree with his policies. Or had otherwise felt compelled to intervene. Vivi couldn’t say she would have expected that given what she’d seen of the eccentric young woman. Embralyne hadn’t made a bad impression, but she had seemed… disconnected from reality. In the way any spoiled young princess might be, much less a dragon, who were less human in nature and behavior than the mortal races.
That also doesn’t matter right now, though, she reminded herself.
She wrapped herself in her own [Invisibility] as the dragon turned to look down at her, sharp draconic senses identifying the source of the twentieth-tier spell that was even now acting as a blender to any monster idiotic enough to slither into their world. Though Vivi couldn’t see through the dragon’s [Invisibility] that clearly, she imagined the woman’s eyes searching the town square for the mage responsible.
But Embralyne found nothing. Vivi’s control of mana wasn’t sloppy enough to be detected by someone of roughly Aeris’s strength. Perhaps her father might have seen something, but not the daughter.
The shimmer in the air appeared to hesitate for a moment before facing the portal again. Seeing the city’s defense well in hand, Embralyne thus turned and flew away.
Vivi watched her go. A second passed as she debated internally, and finally she grimaced and pointed her staff. She wove together a tracking beacon and placed it on the injured dragon. Vivi would no doubt have questions that needed answering, and Embralyne herself might need help. The seven bone pillars floating in the air, the reek of profane magic, and the unsteadiness in the young woman’s flight warned Vivi of nothing good.
She [Blinked] up closer to the breach and dispelled [Tempest Vortex]. The spell had been overkill. The puncture in the world was simply too small to allow in anything besides Lesser Voidbeasts. Even before she’d learned how to bypass void resistances, she could have created a defensive shield that none of the creatures could batter through.
Except, I suppose, a voidgod. Those had broken the trend of stronger voidbeasts being larger. She’d honestly expected to teleport into a fight against one when the kingdom-wide alarm had gone off.
She summoned up a fully reinforced [Void Barrier] to replace the offensive spell. The shield had been capable of holding back even [Greater Voidbeasts] without flinching, and she’d been improving the design over the past several days. It should buy time even if a voidgod arrived, though she had no idea how powerful those could get.
She looked around and made sure there weren’t any other ongoing disasters. When she saw nothing, she allowed herself to turn and study the magical phenomenon itself.
Who did this? she thought with begrudging admiration. How is the cut so clean?
She hadn’t known it was possible to do anything more elegant than hammer one’s way through the barrier between worlds. Which wasn’t the same thing as saying she had thought it was impossible, but it still suggested that whoever’d been responsible knew more than even her in this field of magic. Which was always rare, but especially so for an esoteric branch that she’d been making an effort to study.
More importantly, she thought, I’m not sure it’s going to heal naturally like the others did. She didn’t know where that deep magical intuition came from, but magic rarely had logical explanations.
Her eyes drifted to the remnants of the ritual. Seven gigantic bone shards floated in the air, all of them covered from top to bottom with red runes. A conspicuous gap marked where an eighth pillar should have completed the symmetry. She doubted he or she had designed it that way. Embralyne’s involvement? Something else?
She floated down to study some of the High Arcana decorating the arrangement, but once again shook herself and refocused before she got distracted. That might take all day to decipher. She glanced at the [Void Barrier], saw it holding back the flow of monsters without difficulty, then [Blinked] to the scrying table in the guard headquarters.
Guard Captain Soren was the only person present, and he was stuffed up against the westward window, clearly having been watching the portal—and her dealing with it. Even as composed as the man tended to be, he jumped when Vivi said from behind him, “Guard Captain?”
He turned to her, more of a spin than a controlled movement, though he wiped his surprise off his face. “Lady Vivisari.”
“You don’t look well,” she said, striding up and squinting at him. The source of the issue revealed itself without much scrutiny—something soul-related. Not even she could seedeeper than that without a proper inspection, so she silently incanted ‘[Soul Sight].’
She didn’t like what she found.
“Merely recovering,” the Captain said dismissively. “Your concern is appreciated.”
Vivi didn’t correct him, though she was internally frowning up a storm that could match the [Tempest Vortex] overhead. Soul damage? Really? How could the Guard Captain have possibly suffered soul damage since the last time she saw him?
She obviously had a suspicion.
“But pay no mind to me.” He glanced out of the window. “Is the situation… handled?”
“The immediate danger, yes. Please explain what happened.”
“I’m afraid I have little to report. I was dealing with an”—he paused—“irrelevant, routine matter when I saw the sky begin to darken. I walked over to the window and lost consciousness seconds afterward. As did the rest of the city, or so I’ve put together. When I woke, the sky was already lightening. Someone… defended us in the meantime?” His voice inflected up in clear confusion. “Though they’ve kept an [Invisibility] spell active. I inferred that it wasn’t you for obvious reasons, and followed the protocols provided to me earlier. I hope that you’re not displeased, my lady, considering the size of the breach.”
“It doesn’t matter how small it is. Call me for any breach.”
He dipped his head. “That is what I presumed.”
“The ritual. You said it affected the entire city?”
“That’s correct.”
Vivi mentally grimaced as she put together several obvious pieces of evidence. The soul damage she’d seen in the Guard Captain had surely come from that ritual, and thus, the injury wouldn’t be isolated to him.
Troubling, but nobody would keel over and die in the next twenty-four hours from soul damage. That particular problem needed to be shelved. “Is anybody seriously injured?”
“I can only imagine, yes,” the Guard Captain said. “But not from the attack itself. An entire city fell unconscious at the same instant—I’m surprised we didn’t wake to fires in every district. Indeed, from what I can tell, the effect only lasted fifteen minutes.”
Conflict between powerful individuals did tend to conclude fast. “And you don’t know anything else? Who’s responsible?”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Lady Vivisari.”
She nodded. “Not a problem. I know where to go next. Thank you, Captain; the city should be safe from here.”
The Guard Captain wasn’t the sort of man to snort and sarcastically reply to someone of Vivi’s social standing, but she imagined he wanted to. She had already assured the man that Prismarche should be safe from further danger, yet not a week had passed before another disaster had arrived. At least all the catastrophes were being prevented in the same brushstroke—no lingering, wide-spanning consequences.
Besides the soul damage, this time. That would be a bit… annoying… to solve, but even then, she would have it in hand.
And actually, she supposed she had an obligation to inform the Guard Captain about that. She lowered her staff and mentally canceled her [Blink].
“Also,” she said, “you won’t just recover from what you’re feeling right now. I’m still putting the pieces together, but you’ve suffered mild soul damage.” Maybe closer to moderate, but she chose the more optimistic phrasing. “I’m assuming the rest of the city has too. It’s serious, but not incurable. You’ll continue feeling unwell until it’s resolved. It’s not exhaustion, rest won’t fix it. Don’t overexert yourself going forward. In particular, put out an announcement for adventurers to avoid pushing themselves. They’ll be weaker than normal. Don’t let them get themselves killed in the wilderness thinking they’re stronger than they are.”
The Guard Captain took the news remarkably in stride, though that wasn’t to say he didn’t react at all. His face was conspicuously blank as he digested the city’s fate. “I… see. Soul damage. Everyone?”
“I’ll sort it out, don’t worry.” Following through on that promise wouldn’t be the simplest task, and she didn’t like having another plate to spin, but she obviously wouldn’t shrug her shoulders and ignore the issue.
“We continue to fall further into your debt,” the Guard Captain replied slowly. Vivi mentally scrunched her nose; as always, she didn’t like being thanked. The man went on after a short hesitation, “As for the other individual we owe our lives to… I believe I have a theory on who it was?”
Ah, yes. The dragon in the room. The Guard Captain knew of Princess Embralyne’s presence in the city, though not her name. Vivi debated how to answer the unasked question, and decided she shouldn’t. “I’ll be investigating. The [Invisibility] spell, however, suggests they wish to remain anonymous.”
She hadn’t meant it as a rebuke, but the Guard Captain took it as such. His eyes widened, and he dipped his head with a clearly abashed expression. “Of course. My apologies, Lady Sorceress.”
She wasn’t sure how to reassure him further, and didn’t have time to anyway. “If there’s anything you need…?” When she received a negative, she nodded. “I’ll be back when I know more.”
She raised her staff and [Blinked] into the sky. Scanning the surroundings revealed that Embralyne had returned to the Adventurer’s Guild—likely, she’d collapsed in bed to recover. She was hurt, but not critically, from what Vivi could tell.
She furrowed her brow as she sorted through the next dilemma. How was she supposed to go about speaking to the woman? She didn’t want to reveal herself for the same reasons as during their first meeting. She wasn’t on great terms with dragonkind, and Embralyne seemed hotheaded, proud, and impulsive. Even more so than most dragons.
But this situation was far too important to not investigate, and of anyone in the city, Embralyne would know more of what had happened, seeing as she’d been up in the sky fighting voidlings. Then again, she might only have responded to the aftermath.
Regardless, Embralyne wouldn’t be pleased if the Sorceress showed up to interrogate her.
An obvious solution struck her after a minute of mulling the issue over. Nothing says it’s me that needs to go and talk to her, does it? I can just listen in.
So. Time to borrow Rafael. If anyone in the world could navigate a conversation smoothly with the Dragon King’s daughter—on behalf of the Sorceress—surely it would be him.