The Apprentice of Ouroboros [Monster Evo LitRPG Adventure]

After Hadley and Jurik finished recounting their tale, Neska gave the nondescript bag sitting on a table in the back a contemptible look. Her tail tapped agitatedly against the floor, scraping thumps that preceded her conclusions. None of them was ideal.

“So, this guy has friends in high places, or people he’s able to put pressure on to comply. Am I understanding that correctly?”

“That would be the long and short of it,” Jurik summarized. “I briefed Gorovich about this. The garrison will send people to surveil him. Currently, we could present evidence to bring Marisano in, but…we don’t have the man we’re truly after. And bringing in a major contributor to the war effort has…other concerns, in terms of optics."

“You mean, how their magitech items suddenly stop shipping? A major point of inconvenience and safety.” Resalio’s comment came as her fingers creased into the table, and she clenched her teeth tightly. "That would be a big problem. We need that tech, because it's helpful in the frontlines--from alchemical healing to weaponry."

“And there’s another aspect. I was wondering why he was saying it, but I think his son is at risk,” Hadley said bluntly. “I gotta ask, are the students truly safe here? Awakened and humanoid alike?”

“Their safety is always my concern, considering what we ask of them,” Resalio snapped, with Harvine nodding firmly, along with the other professors. “Kalloway, I think you should perform this diagnostic, see if we can find any other leads on the griffin. The aerie is going ot have a fit.”

“I volunteer,” Neska said bodly. “It’s a good learning opportunity. If a bit macabre.”

Brent looked squeamishly at the bag. “Dare I ask, but can a witch divine any kind of information from a severed head? I feel like an uncomfortable precedent is being set if that answer is 'yes'.”

Kalloway grunted. “The answer is yes. The longer answer is, it's complicated. I don't think I will involve anyone other than Cassia on this one. You’re sure you want to perform this ghoulish task?”

“I have a reputation to maintain, and a stake in the outcome, too. Yes, of course I'm going to do this.” However, I may want to wear gloves when wearing this. Ugh. Risha, I hope you didn’t have to do worse than this during your efforts. She hoped she could find gloves to cover her claws, though they were rather short.

Juni slammed her hands on the table, looking incensed. “No, this is absurd! You can't expect her to get anything from a severed head! And why is this ghoulish task not falling to the professor? He's the expert! Isn’t there a whole damn coven of witches here that could help?”

“You will find that we deal with things more disturbing than slowly decomposing heads,” Kalloway said, as if giving a lecture. “Plus, this presents a learning opportunity. I know Cassia's ritual work has been good so far, but I'd like to witness it in person again.”

“Hold up,” Syra interjected. "So, we’re doing nothing about our lead? Because it sounds like Marisano is aiding this assassin. That's what it looks like to me. We’d be foolish to let them continue.”

Resalio motioned for calm. “We do not believe we have enough evidence here, and I will confer with Gorovich to begin surveillance with the military. If there are multiple conspirators, then we need to proceed cautiously, especially if they’re embedded in the student body. We need to get all of them in one go. A wounded circle of conspirators can still inflict damage."

"By the sound of it, this may not directly involve the Varadur. Until we have something directly linking the assassin to them or a way to pin them down, I don't believe an arrest will turn up more information, or worse, drive them underground.”

“Yeah, and I'd like to rule out Trevor as a contributor to a conspiracy, thanks,” Brent said, his lips curling on his muzzle. “I don’t think he’s a part of it–he’s far too shy and outspoken against his father, the little he’s said of him. So what do we do here?”

“Keep him close to us,” Neska proposed. It might not be a bad idea to keep the young wizard under a closer eye. “Brent, you know him best. Maybe he knows something useful. Something he might confide in people he trusts.”

“Well…maybe. If anything, I want to see who’s following him. You said that Marisano named the Stoltz family as persons of interest?” Brent glanced at Jurik for an affirmation.

“I think we should take that with a grain of salt. Especially if Marisano is being coerced.”

“Nah, Kasfew knows something,” Syra countered. “That sleazy bird would have been better off being reborn as a magpie or a crow, given his personality.”

“Enough,” Resalio interjected. “Jurik, Hadley, thank you for doing this. We at least have more information to go on. Gorovich and I will have to lay out our next moves and keep the Marisano enterprises surveilled. Cassia, thank you for your volunteer efforts. Let’s see if we can get dead men–or birds, in this case- to tell tales.

“Brent, keep an eye on Trevor. I am specifically not surrounding the boy with security to avoid the appearance that he’s marked. Especially if I were to assume Marisano's son could become collateral, and our conspirator is likely not working alone."

“The monsters were so much easier to deal with when they were out in the open,” Juni muttered.

“Seconded on that account,” Brent said, running his fingers through his mane and sighing softly. “Don’t be irresponsible, Headmistress. If my danger sense goes off, you pull whatever strings you have to keep him protected. Clear?”

“You need not even ask, Mister Brent,” Resalio said, as everyone got up to leave.

But Juni would not relax. “I'm sorry, when did the staff at this campus become so useless? We should also be following up on our beloved associate, Mr Stoltz, too. He clearly has something going on. He claims to know of underground passages. We didn’t have to look too terribly hard to find passages honeycombing under the plateau. There’s gotta be more down there.”

“Are you volunteering?” Harvine asked, sounding shocked. She’d stayed mostly silent for the meeting. “Not that we haven’t explored before, but…these tunnels are not new.”

“Not true. I think there was a recent excavation by monsters,” Kalloway interjected. “We assume these passages are static, when this entire plateau is steeped in old magic from deep below. But I’m not as well-rehearsed as others in subterranean dangers. Monsters can and do dig new tunnels."

“I can protect the mouse. Provided, of course, we could get some extra credit for some monster biology and dungeoneering experience,” Syra suggested slyly.

Jurik cleared his throat. “I’m probably one of the more senior personnel and have seen many monsters and Varadur variants. Any efforts we make down there for explorations, we should do so in force with experts.”

“Divide and conquer?” Hadley asked, though she remained quite calm. “It’s the majors' call, and the headmistress.”

The elven headmistress steepled her fingers, contemplating all the inputs. “I don’t like it. But we live in extraordinary times, and at some point, all our students will face danger, given that many other resources are pulled to the frontlines.

“I will make this clear: any voluntary efforts by you as students that help us against the Varadur and their agent, or our understanding of them, are appreciated. However, do not attempt these things solo.”

She pointed to Jurik, who wore his stoic calm well. “Lieutenant, I’ve gathered you’re quite the resourceful warrior. I know we have field tasks coming up, but for now, this takes priority. You and Hadley coordinate with Gorovich for any efforts to explore under the plateau, and rope in Gurigea and Corvin. I’m sure other professors would enjoy a field trip for training, and some of it is mapped.”

“We still get experience for neutralizing dangerous monsters. Not all threats are from the Varadur,” Jurik reminded her. “I’ll need a roster of abilities, and maybe a few volunteers.”

“Done. We’re adjourned then,” Resalio concluded.

After they departed and headed back to the dorms, Jurik motioned for Neska and the others at the periphery of the entry hall. “Whatever you do, be careful,” he cautioned. “Hadley, tell them what you saw.”

“Someone was definitely shadowing us, so be careful. And definitely be careful with Kasfew. The elite families all have resources beyond even the academy, and I wouldn’t put it past them to pull shit like this to settle grudges, even in the middle of a war.”

Neska raised her body slightly higher. “Noted. Anything else?”

Hadley shook her head, but Jurik had something to say as he stepped forward, head bowed as if deep in thought. Then he gazed at her, worry in his eyes. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I know enough about rituals. That power can be addictive. It can be dangerous. And gruesome.”

“Rituals are tools–they can be good or bad. But I am fully aware, more than you can know, of what they can cost a person, if they go too far,” Neska said adamantly. [Ritual Infusion] was never too far removed from the back of her mind. “A ritual cost my witch her life in exchange for mine.”

Jurik winced. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to remind you of that.”

“I know. But you speak from a different context. Something from your field experience?”

He rubbed the waxen skin of his scarred hand. “You could say that. Just keep us in the loop, okay? Don’t take unnecessary risks.”

“I won’t have to. The assassin will have to, though, if he wants to stay hidden from me. And by the time I’m done, he won’t have another hiding hole to slither into,” she affirmed.

“Mouse hole, you mean?” Juni jested.

“Not funny,” Neska said with a trailing hiss. “Besides, we’ve got a plan.”

She tilted her head at him, then pointed a thumb at Hadley. “How’d she get the bruise on her face? You guys were vague about it.”

“There were local drunkards who took offense at our presence,” Jurik said flatly.

“That’s a deflect. What really happened?”

“Hadley…dissuaded their advances. Forcefully."

Neska glanced at the scout, arms folded, trying her best to look comfortable as Brent talked to her with that cocksure grin of his on his muzzle. The scout's tensed musculature and angling her body away from the wolfling said very much, ‘I want my space, please.’ Except without the please part, and possibly with a hail of arrows or daggers.

“Tell me later. I’ve got a dead griffin to interrogate before it rots further. Let me tell you, I remember this part: dealing with decomposing animals sucks.”

---

There was one thing Neska learned during their preparation in Kalloway’s office that mildly amused her: He was not good with corpses.

The first time he attempted to ‘sanitize’ the skull by boiling and rendering the slowly necrotizing flesh, he’d barely managed to get to the sink before being sick. Neska had to take over and strung up the head with metal wire on a simple hook mounted over the pot, so that it didn’t rest on the bottom of the cauldron.

Boiling dead griffin wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever smelled, but it was up in the top ten.

After making an urgent trip to the restroom, Kalloway returned to the room looking pale. “Divines, Cassia, how can you stand that stench?” She’d just finished etching the two-point ritual out with salt, per the instructions he’d communicated.

“It’s not that bad,” she assured him. He took a small vial, opened it, and brought it to his nostrils and inhaled sharply. “How have you not gotten used to that? Risha kept the more…pungent things masked with neutralizing scents and spices.”

Several seconds of a hacking cough ensued. “I tell you, one of the things I don’t like as a witch is working with dead things."

“Isn't that how they get the uncomfortable distinction as low-rate necromancers?” she asked cautiously.

He shook his head, now that he was able to stand the smell, though his eyes still watered–possibly from the ammonia and other decomposition. “No. I believe there are still legitimate arcane discoveries from the dead. Creating undead, however…is a slippery slope.”

He examined the pot and then her ritual work. “Your work is very clean.”

“Same diagnostic. I swapped out the runes for animal type origin, so it should make more sense of what we see.” She showed him a page she’d bookmarked. “You agree it looks correct?”

“Yes. I would use mana salts rather than standard ones. Cleaner imagery on any visions, and sharper sounds for audio.”

Since they had a moment, Kalloway sat on a bench, body hunched, and he reached down to his toes, as if to stretch. A discomforting crackling sound ensued. Judging by the way he rubbed his back, the move was ill-advised. “Damn, I hate getting old,” he muttered. After that, there was silence from him.

Syrona nibbled on Neska's hair feathers, letting out a trilling sound. “Oh no, none of that, dear,” she protested. “Mommy's working.” She did, however, give the familiar a piece of jerky she'd prepared when regular meals were not available.

She trilled in protest, then took off with a puff of feathers, springing over to Kalloway’s desk and landing with the lightest of landings. The familiar then coiled on the open book sitting on top, making small grumbling noises before closing her eyes.

Kalloway rose, looking annoyed. “Pas! Not on my books, you little booger–”

He came to a dead stop at his desk, rubbing his hand over his mouth, before turning to Neska. “Sorry. That was pure reflex.”

The familiar raised her head, giving him a lazy hiss before coiling back up, as if to rest. Kalloway stared at the creature, letting out a small sound of confusion. "That is...uncanny."

“Who's Pas?” Neska asked, confused. It was a name that she was sure she’d heard many times, like a flash of a dream. Maybe, from before.

Kalloway tapped his foot and let out a huff of resignation as the familiar pretended to nap. “Pas was Risha's familiar. He had green and blue scales, bright eyes, and was mischievous–a bit like you, I guess. That booger would play with various items with his tail, hide them, and also give me enough jump scares to turn my hair grey. Risha would laugh and say I didn't appreciate that Pas wanted to play hide and go snake–I mean, sneak,” he corrected hastily.

It still wasn't fast enough to keep Neska from laughing softly, and he pouted. “Oh, laugh it up, will you?”

“For once, it’s not me making the puns,” she chuckled. She continued with the runic applications, checking the schematics. Fortunately, she was able to change out the salts for the mana salt mixture, and hopefully get better results.

But Kalloway's comment got her thinking. “I never met Pas. Or I don't remember him. It was just…well, us.”

“Pas is gone?” He truly sounded perplexed. “That witch would never separate from that clever serpent. Not for anything. That is truly odd. What’s even odder is that Pas used to do that; he would coil on my books, like he knew it annoyed me. And now er…uh…”

“Syrona.”

“Right, and Syrona does that…on the day she’s born?” He made a small figure eight gesture over his chest. “Divines bless that lovable booger if he's no longer with us.”

The memory sagged at Kalloway physically, and he grabbed one of the chairs, hunching down. “You know, Risha loved snakes. She had motifs of them. Pas was her loyal familiar, and she cast some rather peculiar spells. They were unusually snake-oriented. But only when things went to utter shit, and the Varadur threatened to annihilate us.”

“I see.” She didn’t know how to process that bit of information. “She fought well?”

“She did. Saved my life twice, at least. There is scarcely a member of the academy who had as much tenure as her who wasn't saved by some of her efforts. She’d cast hexes that would drain the goddamn life out of those monsters, debuffs that created echo attacks so each hit a foe suffered, two more would open up. She barely came back alive three years ago, after she killed a Tier five monster with a handful of others. Serkin, too. I don't know if it was worth the tradeoff.

“And her protective wards…” He rubbed at his neck uneasily, his hand covering a ragged scar she hadn’t noticed before. “She was out in the field a lot. She killed a lot of other high-ranking Varadur, in addition to her studies and research here. She’d take our enemies' corpses and find miracle alchemical components in them. She put us on the map with the Awakened. She always had an answer…except for one thing that has always bothered me.”

“Which is?”

“How Arivol fell.”

The tone in his voice changed to a muted regret. “She was there, two years before the Sundering. She was in Lachmir’s court, working on research with Serkin as part of an exchange program, something to do with researching the Ceruli crystals and the umbral shoal.” He rubbed at the scar again. “ I watched a cloud of miasmatic destruction erupt from the world. An entire city died that night."

“You were there?!” she gasped. The implication that she was working for Lachmir felt like an alchemical explosive with a lit fuse, burning in slow-motion.

“Oh, I was there. I took one glance at her face when it all went to hell. That look of devastation in her eyes…I knew she had something to do with it, likely unwittingly. And for twenty years, she threw her body and soul into correcting that imbalance, putting her life constantly in danger.”

She didn’t think Kalloway could visibly age, but there the sunkenness around his eyes deepened, and the wrinkles in his face seemed more pronounced. He was tired, in body and soul.

"She couldn't have caused...that. That can't be right."

"You know someone long enough, you see their tells. Risha was horrified. Serkin also said that she once confided in him that she had doomed the world. I, of course, thought he was exaggerating. Like you, I don't think Risha would break the world on purpose, if such a thing were possible for one witch to pull off."

It brought little comfort to her. What if this was the terrible thing Risha did, out of love? Neska shook the thought aside; the evidence wasn't there. This was hearsay, not enough to make it the absolute truth. “You were there. You, her, and Serkin?” All her attention shifted from the ritual to him.

“Arivol was my home for twenty years. We survived that and fled the devastation the day Lachmir tried his hand at becoming a Divine. I don’t know what’s worse: whether he failed spectacularly…or if he succeeded, in some twisted fashion."

He wiped the table next to him clean, then blew a smattering of mana salt off his hand. The particles drifted lazily to the floor. “I watched a city torn asunder, and almost no one made it out–we were lucky we were on the outskirts. I think Risha knew something was horribly wrong as the day progressed, before the incident."

He paused for a brief moment. "The house I was born in was rendered to rubble before my eyes. Neighbors I knew for years were torn to pieces by things with too many limbs and far too many goddamn eyes. A great empire was brought to a cataclysmic end in a single night. All this, by the will of a single man, obsessed with reversing death.”

“Why haven’t you said anything before this?” Her breath was shallow, her voice barely over a whisper.

“Because whatever twisted things that came out of those rifts in the first days were hot on our heels, and I saw things that night, I will never utter aloud again. We didn’t stop running until we were clear into Valos and reported back to the academy.” Kalloway rubbed the bridge of his nose gently. “You think you’ve seen terrifying? You haven’t. Not yet. And Risha stood bravely against it all, no matter what was thrown at her.”

He paused for a moment, looking at her wearily. “With that said, I do have one question. How did the greatest witch alive die, Neska?”

---