Ch. 2.39 | Ritual Sacrifice
PoV: the future Emissary of the Twilight Deity
Lania and Nadiyya entered the guild hall, the two suns having risen some hours ago. They had slept at home, instead of in the hall. The building was open to the usual crowd. So, the strange pale lady with silver hair and red eyes walked through the busy hall next to the strange olive lady with the wolf ears and the cat tail and eye and the bird talons—
Lania tried to ignore the hungry looks from some of the guys. Hey, even some of the girls stared at her with interest. Thankfully, no one approached her. They kept their thirst to looks . . . that was fine. At least she was wanted? No wait that was gross. Anyway, she was wanted by the only person that mattered for that—Nadiyya.
Of-Jinan was towards the back, talking with some random mage. Probably someone important, but Lania didn't know. Or maybe they were just some random person. Lania did not care to find out.
“Of-Jinan!” Lania called as she walked closer.
She held up a pointer finger, continuing to talk with the mage. It was a gesture for “one moment.”
Despite Sanya's and Esmat's changes, Of-Jinan still took first place for “most diseased-looking individual.”
Uh, sorry. That was probably really mean. Okay—not probably, it was.
While Sanya and Esmat had a smooth, ghostly elegance, Of-Jinan looked rotted and diseased. The purple splotches that looked like bruises didn't help either. She did not even have blood, so, like, why did she look bruised?
Apparently she had been slapped around by one of the eldritch entities yesterday, so that probably didn't help. Dang, the guildmaster, and yet, she got tossed around like a ragdoll. How could Lania hope to be useful if Of-Jinan wasn't? No offense to her.
More than one moment later—actually, was there a standardized measure for how long a single moment was?—Of-Jinan finally dismissed the mage. She turned towards Lania and Nadiyya.
“It's Aisha,” Aisha corrected. “What do you need?”
Lania had almost forgotten why Aisha had led with that—Lania had called her “Of-Jinan”.
“I-I was hoping to pick out a magic to study,” Lania said.
“Right. Do you know what you want?”
Lania shook her head. She had thought about it—like, a lot. Nothing stood out to her too much. There had to be something else. Something would call out to her and she would say “yes” in a heartbeat. Well, not her heartbeat, since she didn't have one.
Aisha sighed. “Well, any ideas at all?”
Lania looked towards Nadiyya. “Something . . . strong. Something to make an impact against the eldritch.”
“Don't we all?” Aisha gave her a grim smirk. “There isn't anything like that. No magic ‘make yourself useful against the eldritch’ button.”
“You're not hiding a scary dangerous grimoire somewhere that I could? . . .” Lania winced at her own words, she trailed off.
“If I had one, I would be hiding it away because it's scary and dangerous,” Aisha retorted. That sounded like something someone would say if she did have one. She could have just said “no”.
“Aha!” Lania shouted. “You have one!”
“Be quiet,” Aisha snapped. What? Did she not want everyone in the guild knowing she was hiding a very powerful grimoire?
“Ooooh, what is it?” Lania coaxed. “A Demon Queen? A Destroyer of Worlds? A Herald of the End? A—”
“Wow, do you want to destroy the world or something? Go join the eldritch entities,” Aisha rolled her eyes.
Lania snapped to attention. Aisha's response had been a joke, but it gave Lania an idea. “Can I do that—become an entity, I mean? Help like Sanya and Esmat?” That would be her best chance of helping to save the world and fight back against the entities—to become one as Sanya and Esmat had.
“I have no clue. I don't think so. Should I ask them if they know how to infect people with eldritch parasites?”
“Ooh, could you?” Hope danced in Lania's eyes.
“No.”
Lania's expression immediately fell. “Then why'd you—?”
“Sarcasm.”
“Oh.”
“Actually,” Fazl floated over from the office spaces. Lania jumped. “That wouldn't be a bad idea. Where are they, anyway?”
“On a date,” Aisha snorted, arms crossed. “Like it isn't the end of the world.”
“Ah . . . Youth,” Fazl said, glancing up towards the ceiling in what was certainly false reminiscence. Maybe he had gone on a date during the end of the world, before? Although the last time that had happened was a hundred and seventy years ago. Fazl wasn't that old, was he? Maybe he had a secret mage type or something to admit to everyone?
“You're, like, twenty-seven,” Aisha raised an eyebrow. Yeah, exactly.
“Be quiet, grandma.” Aisha was only two years older than Fazl. Hardly grandmother territory. She looked the part, though.
“Ouch. I didn't realize you were so disrespectful to your elders. And, really? You're in a platonic relationship with your grandmother?”
“You're not . . . you know?” Nadiyya made a crude gesture with her fingers. Lania took a step away from Nadiyya. They weren't associated. They weren't! She could be so shameless—and in doing so give Lania second-hand embarrassment!
Nadiyya was so pretty, though . . . Lania melted upon glancing at Nadiyya and suddenly all her embarrassment and doubt was gone.
I'm so down bad for this woman.
“Really? That's how you're going to contribute to this conversation? Are you thirteen?” Aisha gave her a death-glare.
A bat fluttered down into a pretty aristocrat. If it's one thing aristocrats were good at, it was having money to pretty themselves up. Did Calinichia even have money, anyway? Her dying realm was probably still cut off, and she didn't exactly have subjects or export or anything in a while? . . .
“You two should. I am most bewildered that you have yet to mingle beneath the sheets . . . Have you?” Calinichia asked, a book in her hand.
Aisha sighed, slamming her forehead with her palm.
“Here,” Calinicha held out the book for Lania.
She took it with both her hands, reluctantly, head tilted. “What is this?”
“You desired magic of a restricted nature? Well, here you go.”
“What . . .?” Lania had not expected this, least of all from Calinichia. Was this actually strong and scary magic? Huh. Lania had gone to Aisha expecting she would not get a grimoire like that, and she would have to settle for something . . . mundane. Not that magic was mundane.
“Absolutely not,” Aisha said. She reached forward to take the book from Lania's hands. Lania stepped back and pulled the book closer to her chest. Calinichia looked as if she was about to interfere on Lania's behalf.
Fazl was just chuckling.
“Where did you even get this?” Aisha asked, returning her posture to normal.
Calinichia examined her nails. “Oh. I simply pilfered it from a rival vampire house preceding your party entering my red domain. An easy task when they're reduced to depravity. I brought it with us when we left—reckoning that it would be advantageous.”
“And what is it?”
Calinichia put a finger to her lips and winked. “That is a matter between me and my beloveddaughter.”
Lania looked down at the book. It was purple. The cover was worn and plain, minus the shell embroidered in a faded gold color.
“Now,” Calinichia said, walking up to Lania and wrapping an arm around her.
Lania winced, but didn't fight it.
“If you do not mind. I am going to have a wonderful mother-daughter day,” Calinicha declared.
Lania shifted her weight.
“Let's toil through this grimoire together, yes? We shall determine if you would like to see it through,” Calinichia whispered to Lania.
She nodded. She did not know what to say—or do. Sure, she would look through the grimoire. She wasn't sure why Calinichia wanted just the two of them for it, though. How dangerous and forbidden was this grimoire, exactly? And Calinichia had just . . . entrusted it to Lania?
“Great! Let us proceed posthaste!”
Lania's hand extended outward. She brushed the fingers of a frowning Nadiyya as they left.
“I'll be back soon,” Lania reassured in a whisper.
Nadiyya frowned, obviously distraught, but nodded.
Calinichia paused, turned, and tilted her head. “Actually, can we borrow the puppy girl from you, as well?”
“‘Puppy girl’?” Lania echoed disapprovingly.
Aisha sighed, resigned. “Go ahead.”
Calinichia grinned back. “Delightful.”
“Awoof,” Nadiyya barked, deadpan.
Now, it was the three of them on a mysterious outing to overview the contents of the grimoire. Lania wanted to smile—Calinichia had seen Lania and Nadiyya’s reactions at separating and had decided to add Nadiyya.
Maybe Calinichia wasn't so bad? . . .
☆ ☆ ☆
“Calinichia, what in the world? . . .” Lania paused at the bottom of the stairs, squinting into the room. It was a basement in southeast Calderae. The staircase had been blocked off by rubble and the building it was once under flattened by the entity. Calinichia had cleared it out for them.
“You can call me ‘Mother’ or ‘Joia’,” Calinichia stepped forward, not looking towards Lania. “A completely atmospheric destination in which to read a grimoire, mmm?”
“Why is there a vampire chained to the wall?”
“That? Oh. It is nothing.”
A depraved form of a vampire was chained to the back wall in silver. Four legs, protruding from the top of its back and bending down to the ground. A very strange face that almost resembled a pig. And it was sleeping, or unconscious, at least. Probably some form of unable to wake up, considering the new smells, movement, nor noise had woken it up yet.
“‘Nothing’? ‘Nothing’?” Lania cried. “They're chained in a basement!”
Calinichia—Joia—turned towards Lania. “It's an impromptu prison. Shall we read the grimoire?”
“Why?”
“Because it demands sacrifice—here's one. You want to fight the entities? This is your chance.”
Lania opened her mouth but found no words to speak. S-sacrifice? . . . B-but, this was her key to fighting the eldritch . . .
“Okay . . . Maybe it would have been pertinent to read through it first, and then come here . . . I thought it would be beneficial to throw you right into the thick of it—to know what you're getting into.”
“Right . . . Well . . . Can we not do this here?”
“Sure. Yes. That's fine. We need to prepare the other materials anyway.”
“. . . For what?”
“The ritual, of course,” Joia scoffed. “Goddesses, did you even read the grimoire?”
“W-well no. We didn't get to that part.”
“I know. I know,” Joia grinned. “Let's go to this nice restaurant. We can come back to this place later.”
☆ ☆ ☆
Ah, yes, a restaurant—only the most casual of places in which to go over a dangerous grimoire or whatever. Maybe it didn't need to be so secret after all? Or maybe Joia knew that no one would be able to learn anything important from this session. Or maybe there would be spies everywhere no matter where they went? Lania didn't know which one, if any, was the answer.
Joia, Lania, and Nadiyya sat at a table outside. Calinichia sipped on tea with grace. Neither Lania nor Nadiyya had ordered anything.
Joia said she would pay—although who knew where she got the money? Aisha certainly didn't pay her a salary. Joia probably spend most of her time sleeping upside-down from the guild hall ceiling or something. Evidently, however, she had at some point tracked down another vampire and chained it to someone's basement.
Lania did not want to think about that building. Had anyone owned it? If so, who? What happened to them, if anything? And so on.
“I was going to do this for myself. I thought I'd give the opportunity to you, first, upon your interest in . . . more potent magic.”
Lania had the book on the table. Currently closed. Calinichia was going to do this for herself? She was offering to give it up . . . to Lania? Hmm. So whatever was in here, could there only be one?
She sucked in a breath and opened it.
There was a long, cryptic introduction about something called “Twiulrie.” It spanned multiple pages and mostly seemed irrelevant.
Kind of a weird name but whatever. Who was Lania to judge a centuries-old tome? She was just surprised it was in Tempest, or that she could at least read it. Shouldn't grimories be in some ancient, indecipherable text?
She guessed her language didn't really have the chance to evolve. Everyone was too busy trying not to die.
Huh. Where was the vampire realm? Like, were they geographically close? If they could share the same language?
Anyway, the words in the grimoire didn't even matter that much.
She flipped through to the first real section, ignoring all the warnings and writing about how dangerous it is and not to be undertaken lightly blah blah.
Joia raised an eyebrow. “You are skipping that?”
“I'll save warnings for when the world isn't about to end, thanks,” Lania responded back.
Joia shrugged.
Anyway—the ritual.
Apparently she needed to drain someone’s blood around a bunch of fancy stereotypical ritual items. The stronger the victim, the better off Lania would be in the beginning. She would continue to need ritual sacrifices to use her powers. Not always draining people.
She would become a devout to Twiulrie, giving them lots of offerings to power herself. She could, like, order shrines and stuff to be built for it, too. She could leave food and valuables at it to offer to Twiulrie. Others could do the same if she had built the shrine or converted the follower.
“Great,” Lania said flatly. “I get to kill eldritch entities as long as I become a cult leader.”
“A priest, of a sort.”
“The book calls it an Emissary. I don't think emissaries give offerings to their own source of allegiance.”
“How are you liking it so far? Ready to become an Emissary of the forgotten god of twilight, Twiulrie?”
“Oh,” Lania looked up. “Twilight. Twiulrie, they really weren't creative.”
“Lux in Heliux. Dusk on Diuskel. In fact, Heliux is helix and lux. Diuskel is dusk and shell. Twiulrie is twilight and cowrie. They all have an I-U for some reason.”
“What is a cowrie?” Nadiyya asked. “Is it—”
“Yes, it is edible.”
“Oh,” Nadiyya said. “Huh.”
“It is not even one of those things you can only eat once. Not that I would recommend it even a single time. It is better used as currency.”
“What?”
“Never you mind.”
“So, are these gods real, then? Why is there a magic type that thrives off of being associated with a forgotten god?” Lania asked.
Joia shrugged. “I have no idea. Do not ponder it too extensively. A magic type that thrives off of devotion makes it sound real to me. Or maybe it's a mana type deified, and the mana requires devotion. Like how vampires need blood, Fleshweavers need flesh . . . and so on. The backlash, if you will.”
Okay . . . so after the ritual are all the spells and things that an—eugh—Emissary of Twiulrie could cast. It made sense why the vampires had this book, and why Joia wanted it. The abilities synergized well with being a vampire.
Interesting.
Wait a minute . . .
“We share gods too—the vampires and those once beneath the tempest?”
“Yes.”
“How does that and the language thing work?”
Joia shrugged again. She avoided answering that question. Probably another one she did not know. She wasn't as extensively knowledgeable as Lania had originally believed. “Do you want to accept this mage type?”
“It's . . . a lot to take in.”
Joia nodded.
“Why not take it, then. You become the one to fight the eldritch? Did you not want to?”
“. . . I do . . . It's just . . . this class . . .”
“Either you get used to it or you do not touch the eldritch entities.”
Lania leaned forward against the table, chest against its rim, head on top of the table. She stretched her hands, reaching across the table for nothing. She groaned.
“I already had a hard time adjusting to being a vampire. I-I'm still not used to it. This . . . this might be worse than that.”
“There is a price for power,” Joia said. “It turns many into monsters.”
Lania looked towards Nadiyya. “What do you think?”
“Me? . . . Um . . . Whatever you want, nyan.”
“‘Nyan’? Is that a new nickname?”
“It is a meow,” Joia answered.
“Huh.”
“Are you fine with . . . human sacrifices?” Lania asked Nadiyya. “Or, uhhh, vampire sacrifices? In the first case?”
“That is . . . certainly a question. No. Grrrr, I do not think I am.”
“Then—”
“Would Sanya and Esmat have been hu—meow—n sacrifices, to save the world? Isn't this just that, except, choosing new people?”
“You can, like, select criminals. If it helps, the vampire in the basement is the worst kind of slime,” Joia suggested.
“That's . . . that's not even much better,” Nadiyya pushed herself from her seat. “Do it if you want. I don't want to—chirp—be here for this.”
“Nadiyya—” Lania sat up and stretched out a hand towards her.
She walked away without looking back.
A pit opened up in Lania's chest. Her stomach felt . . . queasy. “This is bad.”
“This is how you gain power. If you are not ready for it, then do not. There is no shame in avoiding this path.”
“Nadiyya . . .”
“I doubt this will make or break your courtship. Merely a factor. Continue to be the individual she likes, and she will continue to be at your side.”
“What if this makes her not like me anymore?”
Joia sipped her tea. “Power makes monsters of many of us. Or perhaps, monsters seek power? Perhaps power brings their malevolent personalities to light?”
Lania did not think she would abuse it. Living sacrifices were merely a piece of the magic type too. She could do other offerings as well, to various degrees of boons.
She wanted this power because she wanted to fight eldritch entities threatening their world—their lives. Not because she wants to subjugate her fellow people or fester abuse.
She did not want to do bad things with her power. She merely wanted to save the world from the things intruding on them, focused on their destruction.
Joia said Nadiyya would not leave her for this. Did Lania trust Joia? Maybe she should, at this point.
Let this class be a black mark against Lania, but she would not let it break her relationship with Nadiyya. She would make up for that in every possible area. She would just concede this one negative trait—a complicity in a vampire sacrifice, and the attainment of a forbidden magic.
Lania sighed. “Okay. I'll do it.”
Joia nodded, not a smile nor frowned on her face. “Meet at the basement in an hour. Let me gather the ritual materials.”
Lania nodded.
With that, Joia paid for her tea, and then morphed into a bat and flew away.
When would she teach Lania how to do that?
She shook her head. She went to find Nadiyya, to hang out with before the ritual.
☆ ☆ ☆
Lania sat there, shaking in the midst of the ritual. An eviscerated vampire in its depraved form dripped the remnants of its blood in front of her. The candles had flickered out, leaving the two of them plunged in darkness.
“It is done,” Calinichia said. “You can now channel Twiulrie's mana.”
Lania stood and nodded once. “Let's get out of here.”
“There's no ‘let's’ about it. If you leave then I am alone to partake in the cleanup. Tsk tsk.”
Lania glanced back from the stairwell. She cringed at the sight of the corpse. “Yeah, no. Have fun.”
She left.