Sacrifice Mage

The smell of smoke wormed into my nose. I didn’t turn away, didn’t try breathing any less of the fumes from the faded fire and ash that was the remains of our little shop. I couldn’t. Not if I needed to keep it as a burning reminder branded onto my skull.

It had been worse yesterday when the fire had broken out. A terrible little inferno had reduced our little business to burning rubble and crumbling ash. Thankfully, Linak had been away from the premises. He was naturally pretty devastated, especially since some of our stock inside the shop had perished too.

Over a day later, he was admirably holding himself together, which I appreciated.

“We made sure to look around,” Revayne said. “We tried to find any clues or links, made sure to interrogate everyone in the neighbourhood. Nothing.”

I didn’t believe it for a second, of course. Just because the perpetrators had been careful enough to leave no trace didn’t mean there were no perpetrators. I refused to think this could be something arising naturally, or through some fault of construction or something Linak might have left lying around.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll… try to see if I can find out more on my own.”

“You know I’m here to help,” Revayne said.

“I know. I appreciate it.” I turned to my partner, placing a hand on his broad back in between his feathery wings. “I’m sorry we’re having to go through yet another hurdle. I know you just want to make and sell those cool Starlamps and I… well, I feel like I’ve been making things much harder.”

Well, I wasn’t doing it on purpose. My enemies were making my life difficult. Something that Linak apparently saw too.

“It’s not your fault.” His voice was harder than I had ever heard it before. “These people… it seems I underestimated just how vile certain entities in Zairgon could be.”

“I’m glad you’re convinced it’s not natural either.”

“Of course it’s not. It hasn’t been since the day we started our business. Almost every drawback we’ve suffered has been at the hands of these miscreants who have it out for us. It’s time we did something about it.”

Alright, I hadn’t expected that. I already had a response cooking in the back of my head, but I hadn’t counted on Linak being ready to go to war too. It just made me smile.

“You have an idea?” I asked.

“I’m the de-facto leader of the Artificer’s Guild, Ross, right behind the Guildmaster,” Linak said with a haughty squawk. “I have my ways. Just you wait. We will find the exact ones who did this, and we will make them pay.”

Yeesh, he was starting to make me feel glad I hadn’t pissed him off. “Just don’t go overboard, okay?” I gave Revayne a sidelong glance. “We don’t want to be doing anything illegal.”

Linak let loose a slightly disgusted squawk. “Did you have your own ideas too? Well, of course you did. You’re Ross Moreland.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” When Linak continued to look at me expectantly, I sighed. “It’s in the name. If you think about it, they attacked us despite bearing the name of Uralivanth, a Great House of Zairgon.”

“Devious,” Revayne said. “But remember to heed your own advice.”

“Right, right.”

We did our best to salvage everything we could, setting a plan of action for the business going forward. Despite Linak’s intention to take the fight to our enemies, he wouldn’t lose sight of his main focus of working on the Starlamps, of which he’d be making several more. He would just need to return to the Artificer’s Guild for the time being.

I also talked with Gutran a bit before leaving, and he unfortunately had seen nothing too, just as he had stated to Captain Revayne. He promised he would keep an eye out, though. It was terrible. Barbaric. No business should ever be in that sort of physical danger in a lawful city.

At least it was nice that no one was fooled into thinking this was a perfectly natural fire, or a terrible stroke of bad luck that had hit us at the worst time.

Unfortunately, my inquiries didn’t reveal much. A quick little brainstorm with Revayne suggested that the arson would likely have been carried out from a nearby location. One of the guards had an Aspect that could verify whether other Aspects had been used or not, within a given timeframe, and that had made one thing pretty clear—the fire hadn’t been natural.

The shop wasn’t the kind of structure where setting alight one corner would make the whole thing crash and burn. Not before other people would have spotted the smoke or seen some flickers of the flame, even if it had occurred after nightfall.

In a world where wood was a luxury, mundane structures like shops constructed from brick and stone weren’t that susceptible to fire.

This was further corroborated by our discovery of traces of fuel that hadn’t burned up yet. Tiny bits of flammable, oil-soaked kindling that absolutely wasn’t part of the shop’s architecture littered the burn site. If that wasn’t undeniable proof of tampering, that this was a targeted arson and not any kind of accident, then I had no idea what was.

Revayne’s team had already collected some samples and were going to investigate them. The easiest method would be to get Thefris to help, but I learned later that she wasn’t going to be available for a day or two. Ah well, I could be patient.

Especially since my anger at the perpetrators didn’t fade one bit. Instead, it crystallized, driving me to work harder on my Aspects, Attributes, and all else.

My new Illumination Affix was coming along. Now, I could create tiny motes of light from absorbed energy. It wasn’t quite a beam yet, but I’d get there. I also focused on and created more of the strands of my Icon, which was slowly but surely coming along. The individual helixes wrapped around each other in a spherical manner, a slight globe of light surrounding them all.

I was slowly starting to manifest another component. This one felt like spears emerging from me. Hardened rays of power that shot out in every direction, each one focused on a singular direction that I had put my efforts in.

Where I had put my desires in.

There was the Kalnislaw lands I was trying to set up with my own powers to create natural plants instead of the ones that drank blood. There was my new Starlamp business with Linak that had gotten off to a terribly rocky start. There were the ways I looked out for and helped everyone I cared about, from Gutran and Aurier in their smithy to Sreketh with her academy, to even Se-Vigilance and her Nether Vein expeditions.

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Directions. I wasn’t someone to be limited by the little I could see in front of me. No, I had power. And that meant exploring all sides of it, reaching out towards everything I could influence and do something meaningful with.

“You’re really bright, Cultist,” Vandre said later that day. “But that’s good. We can blind the bastards who burned down the store!”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Let me turn it down.”

I was literally walking around with those silvery spikes emerging from my body like I was a glowing pincushion. Best not to do that in case I hurt anyone like the Scarthralls. They were rather allergic to the kind of light I tended to pull up.

“No, no, don’t worry,” Vandre said quickly. “It’s not… the same as your other light.”

Lujean nodded in agreement, though he did squint a bit when he tried to look at me. “He’s right, Cultist. This light feels a lot different from your Illumination. As you can see, we’re not really getting hurt or anything.”

He was right. Maybe it was the silveriness rather than the gold I usually exhibited, but my current light wasn’t harming the Scarthralls. Huh.

It was weird that Enrico and the other sprites were bobbing and weaving nearby a lot more excitedly than normal. Now it made sense why they were doing so. Something about my Icon manifestation had hooked their interest.

“We are making them pay, right cultist?” Vandre clapped a closed fist into his palm.

I nodded fiercely. “We are. But we have to do so legally. All this training is great and all, but we need to fight them on their front, beat them at their own game.”

“Great,” Lujean said. “What are we setting fire to?”

I looked at him oddly for a moment, noting his perfect sincerity, then I just smiled. “We might need to set some fires, but not just yet. I’ve got a few other things coming up. Just hold your horses and be ready, alright?”

“Hold our what?”

“Uh…

A couple of days of training pushed some Aspects and Attributes further up the ladder. I was getting closer and closer to Opal, which was pretty exciting.

[ Rank Up!

Your Agility, Power, and Fervour Attributes have risen by one Rank.

Your Sacrifice, Illumination, and Leadership Aspects have risen by one Rank.

Agility: Gold VIII

Power: Gold IX

Fervour: Gold X

Sacrifice: Gold IX

Illumination: Gold III

Leadership: Iron X ]

Honestly, I’d never have predicted that Fervour was the Attribute that would be closest to hitting Opal. Spirit was neck-and-neck, so there was that. Still. If ever there was a time to break through to Opal, then now had to be it, when I needed all the power I could use to take the fight to my enemies

Later on, Thefris finally came down and worked her magic.

“Oh, wow,” she said, observing the line of green mana that led off into the distance. A very near distance at that. “Looks like Captain Revayne was spot on the money. At least one of the perpetrators came from very close by…”

We walked over, casually passing by the front of a—I needed to hold myself back from reacting. A furniture company. Revayne had mentioned one back at her wedding, the one with close ties to House Uralivanth. The one who had apparently supplied the paper to the rumour mongers about my Starlamp business. The ones who were in the thick of all this crap.

The urge to tear through their premises right that instant was almost overpowering. I had the power to wreck them, to demolish their front and everyone inside. Thefris gave me an odd look, though, and I controlled myself.

We had plans, and it would be best if we saw those through. I needed to beat these evil pricks if not exactly at their own game, then on the same playing field at the very least.

“Admirable restraint,” Thefris said. “I know at least one person who would have failed to hold himself back like you did.”

That lightened the mood somewhat. “Yes, I know. Said person was about to threaten a Councillor the last time something this dire happened.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.” She laughed. “We actually had an argument about it too!”

I shook my head. Maybe it was for the best that Hamsik was more or less distant from my current debacle.

“Still going to go through with your plan?” Thefris asked.

I shook my head. “This just confirmed my suspicions, is all. Thanks, Thefris.”

“Anytime.” Her eyes glimmered like rubies. “And be careful, Ross. This is a Great House you’re taking on.”

I loved my friends. I really did. When Gutran learned that the perpetrator was from the same neighbourhood as his smithy, he almost went out to give them a piece of his mind. Aurier and I barely restrained him.

“I’ve got this,” I said. “Trust me, Gutran.”

“You do what you’ll be doing,” he said. “But I’m not about to let crooks like that just walk away after all is said and done.”

“Well, mind waiting until after I’m done?”

Gutran grunted but relented. I felt the same way he did, so it wasn’t like I could blame him for his anger. But I wasn’t lying. I was working on multiple avenues. It was just a matter of time before I saw one of them bear fruit.

“Riptide’s on the job, mageling,” Khagnio said later that day. He had come down to the temple after I had sent him a letter the very hour I had discovered my shop had burned down. “The reverse rumour mill is in motion. You’re one crazy bastard, you know that, mageling? That’s the only reason the old hound decided to take up your little request.”

I grinned. “Thanks for coming down to tell me personally, Khagnio.”

“Don’t get a big head, mageling. You need to keep your cool against the foes you’re messing with.”

“You know me. When have I ever not kept my cool?”

He squinted at me in suspicion but didn’t answer.

The other thing I was waiting for, which came the day after, was Revayne’s little dossier of information. Alright, it didn’t come to me so much as I had to go to the guardhouse on Ring Three to meet her and acquire it. She was understandably busy, which was a very odd thing to be for someone who had recently gotten married, but I wasn’t one to disparage foreign customs.

“This has a list of all the business ventures of House Uralivanth,” Revayne said, indicating the paper she had given me. “At least, the ones I’ve been able to scrounge up so far. I won’t be surprised if I discover they own several undercity gangs a month from now.”

“Thanks.” I scanned the list with practiced eyes. My PA years had taught me how to locate the most vital pieces from a barrage of information. “Oh, so their biggest venture is apparel.”

“That’s right. They supply quite a lot of tailors and merchant houses and the like.”

I looked up at her questioningly. “You sure you won’t get into trouble for giving me this?”

“Why?” She briefly looked up from her book too, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “Are you about to be so callous that anyone even slightly associated with you will get caught in the crossfire?”

I stared at her with a deadpan look. “You really need to work on your jokes, Revayne.”

She shook her head, slightly offended I wasn’t amused. “It’s nothing criminal. Most of that is public information that’s available if one knows where to look. You, sadly, don’t. Thus, I came to your rescue.”

A part of me was tempted to ask where exactly I could have found out that information on my own, but did it really matter? I had it from a trusted source already, and that was what counted in the end.

“Are you done with the demonstrations for the day?” I asked as I led Linak along. “If you’re busy, you don’t have to come along. I didn’t mean to drag you away.”

“It’s fine, Ross.” Linak had been performing some more live demonstrations since we no longer had a shop that people could visit. He had made it into a little showing where he invited a bunch of people and then gave some of them free samples. Poor guy was working so hard on the actual business side of things. “I have time. This is important, after all.”

I nodded. Linak had made his decision. Arguing further would be foolish.

We arrived at our destination before long. I took one last look at my attire to make sure I looked as presentable as a cultist from Ring Four could. Acquiring an invitation to Ring One of all places had needed a lot of finagling, even if I did know more than one Councillor pretty well by now.

Bureaucratic tradition was hard to buck, even with insider connections. But thankfully, even if it had taken a couple of days, we were finally where I wanted us to be.

The door to the house the Claderov delegation was staying at on Ring One was already open. Swallowing down my recalcitrance, I entered the antechamber with Linak following just behind, the lone officer outside ushering us in. Right, of course. This visit wasn’t unexpected.

“Welcome, Ross Moreland,” said the lord I had fought against at the magic festival.